The Aftermath of BEA

I'm a little overwhelmed at the thought of talking about BEA. To give you an idea why, let me show you the exhibit hall map. Each of those little squares is a publisher's booth, each filled with multiple employees of the publishers, with boxes and boxes of books:

So yes, the whole thing is kind of insane. And I'm guessing you're still coming out of the Memorial Day haze, so I won't bog you down with a trazillion details.

Instead, a few highlights:

• Staying with Erica and Spencer. It's a littler nerve-wracking to stay with someone you don't know. Especially when you aren't even actual blog friends (Kayla is a blog friend of Erica's and arranged for me to stay with them). Especially when you are staying with them for four days. In a studio apartment. Happily, they were the most lovely hosts you could imagine. Erica walked me all around New York and stayed up late to talk to me nearly every night, and they both introduced me to perhaps the best pizza I have ever eaten. And invited me along to a birthday party on Friday night. Also, there were cherry-dipped cones. Truly, staying with them was the very best part of the trip. I thanked them by folding up the blankets I slept with each night - I am likely the best houseguest there ever was. 
• Spending time with Kelly and Kimberly, two friends from grad school. It was so nice to have people to stand in line, discuss books, and joke around with. Kimberly's boyfriend Matthew was there too, and he was delightful. 
• Meeting a number of very nice authors.
• And, of course, picking up a lot of great books, which I'll share when my box arrives, hopefully later this week. 
• Also, did I mention the pizza?

A few downsides:

• Up until last Monday, Kayla was planning on coming along. And then her baby was kind of sick. And then her baby had pneumonia. So, she didn't come. I desperately wish she could have come - we would have had a blast.
• That Bart didn't get to meet Erica and Spencer. Because he would have loved them.
• Mailing my books back (I planned to bring them back on Southwest with my two free bags, but . . . I couldn't quite figure out a way to haul 44 lbs of books around the city on foot). Paying the $72 of shipping nearly made me ill, but my back will be thanking me for years to come. 
• Missing Doughnut Plant again, this time because I was just toooooo full from the many treats over the course of four days. Tragic.

Anyway, it was a lovely trip. Many thanks to Lenore for the funding, Erica and Spencer for their couch, Ralphie for watching my baby, and my parents for the plane ticket. And Bart for being so insistent that we could make my going work.

And Ella for remembering me when I got back (the bag of raisins I fed her may have had something to do with the angelic smiles I got all the way home from the airport). 

A Magical Intersection: Guest Post by Uma Krishnaswami

I'm always curious about what books people remember vividly from their childhood. For me, the books that were most strongly part of my growing up were the Little House books. I loved those books and still do. 

Uma Krishnaswami, author of The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, 
wrote this beautiful post about one of the books that was instrumental in her early life, growing up in India.

When I was about eight, my mother's sister sent me a gift. It was a picture book version of The Little Mermaid with a translation of the Hans Christian Andersen text that began, "Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower..."  I still remember those words. I had no idea what a cornflower was. We did have them in India, but I didn't know that's what those blue flowers by the road were called. I did know that those words stirred me in some profound and new way. That's what happens when a book shows up in your life at the moment that you're ready for it. It's a magical intersection. It leaves its mark on you forever. 

I'd only ever owned one other picture book before, a 1960 edition of The Three Little Kittens. The Little Mermaid was different. It was in full color, for one thing, and the paper was glossy. Both those elements were completely new to me. I pored over it, read it from cover to cover many times over. If I think about it I can still conjure up the blue-green tones of its illustrations.

But the real reason I remember The Little Mermaid so vividly was that it made me cry. I had no idea that books could do that to a person. I never understood the ending, so mostly I'd stop reading before the last page, which was all about little boys and girls being bad or good, and thus adding or taking away years from the little mermaid's human life. I know now that Andersen rewrote the ending several times, so that the story changed from tragic love to a morality tale. He should have left it the way it was. Even my eight-year-old self knew which way that story arc was pointing. I ended up reading it often enough that the dust-jacket frayed and then the spine gave out, and finally the pages began to fall apart, by which time I was moving on to series titles and ready to leave this book on the shelf. 

I don't think I ever really left it behind, though. Even today, when I get stuck while writing a draft, or the words turn flat, I think about how The Little Mermaid got me squarely in the emotional solar plexus. And even if the story I'm writing may be out to amuse rather than sadden (The Grand Plan to Fix Everything certainly was that way) that memory makes me more aware of my audience. It makes me work harder to get to the emotional space I need to find.

Gone Away

Ralphie is watching my baby while I'm in New York.

You don't ask just anyone to watch your precious only child. But Ralphie? You would let her watch your baby.

And what's more, Ralphie will make you feel like you're doing her a favor by letting you leave your child with her for three days straight.

We've been friends with Ralphie's little family for nearly five years now. We've celebrated Thanksgivings, birthdays, Easters, Mother's and Father's Days, and scores of average days together. It is probably impossible to calculate the enormous number of calories we've consumed together. We run together a couple of nights a week. She tells me what movies I need to watch.

Last year, when we were expecting Ella, I wanted to tell some friends personally before they read it on my blog. But I procrastinated and then Ralphie had her baby. So I instant messaged her while she was still in the hospital and she was as excited for us as I could have hoped.

And then, ten minutes later, my phone rang. She was so happy about our news that, despite having her own less-than-24-hour-old baby, she called and talked to me for nearly an hour, wanting to hear all about our not-yet-born baby. If that's not a friend, I don't know what is.

Oh, how I love Ralphie. I am lucky to have a friend like her.

Ten Months

Dear Little Girl,

Ten months!

At your nine month appointment, one of the items on the checklist was "saying mama/dada" which you weren't doing. You really weren't even babbling that much. Now? You are. There is screeching and yelping and giggling all day long. And the other day when you decided you did NOT want to take a nap, you stood against the side of your crib and between cries, you called out "dadadadadadada." I'm sure you don't know what it means, but your dad stood outside your door and just about died from the sadness and the cuteness.

A week or so ago, I came in to get you out of bed in the morning and you had discovered your tongue. You kept touching it with your fingers and popping it in and out. Now you'll stick it out on demand and if we stick our tongues back out at you, you are delighted.

We've started dropping by the little playroom at our apartment complex most days when we go to get the mail and you are entranced by the little ride-on zebra and the wooden puzzles. It's a nice little change of scenery, and I read for a bit while you enjoy some different toys.

When you started getting more active, you lost your previous interest in books. Now, though, you are back to being enthralled. If I tell you to pick a book off your shelf, you carefully pull one off and then drag it over so I can read it to you. We have read Quack, Quack approximately forty thousand times this month.

Also, those glorious Matthew Van Fleet books? They are a constant source of happiness to you. Except that you desperately want to pull apart all the moving parts - on Sunday while we were getting ready for church, the poor Hippo lost his head. And the Elephant lost both ears in a tragic accident. You are not to be trusted.

And when I put the books up high after reading them so you can't pull them down yourself, your face falls and you burst into hysterical tears as if you've just lost your best friend.

Constant talking? Love of books? Continued obsession with food? Check, check, check. You are clearly my daughter.

Tonight, I'm leaving you for four days to go to New York. I am looking forward to this trip immensely, but I also cannot even stand to think about leaving you.

Who will tell your dad about the way I gave you a wipe to keep you occupied for a moment and how you carried it around, clamped in your mouth, for the next thirty minutes? Who will toss you in a pile of pillows and make you laugh like a loon? Who will read you books with no plot ten or fifteen times a day?

I don't want to miss a minute of your life. Remember me when I come back on Saturday, okay?

Love,
Mama

I Spy with My Little Eye by Edward Gibbs

There are, approximately, ten bazillion I Spy type books (the I Spy books that I grew up with became the bane of my existence as a librarian because the kids would pull all of them off the shelf (and there were probably 30 of them), causing the rest of the books on the shelf to collapse in an enormous heap and forcing me to pull my hair out).

So, even with high praise from Amanda at A Patchwork of Books, I was a little dubious about I Spy with My Little Eye.

But, surprise! I loved it. In our house, the sign of a good book is that I make Bart read it to Ella so that he can see how wonderful and fabulous it is.

Each page shows the eye of an animal on the left page and then, on the right page, there is a hole that shows a piece of the animal's body along with a clue about it ("I have a very long trunk"). Then you flip the page and the hole fits perfectly over the eye from the previous page to display the entire animal.

The clue pages are really clean and white, while the animal pages are richly colored and take up the entire space. It's such an nice juxtaposition and it's surprisingly pleasing every time I read it.

It's not a very long book and it's clearly aimed at fairly young children - perfect for my target audience of one. The cover feels like a board book, although the pages are not board (I will say, though, that they are quite a bit sturdier pages than most paper pages, which is necessary to hold up to kids sticking their fingers in the peep holes).

Delightfully, there is a spy hole cut-out on the back cover so you can look for your own things to spy. (Or, you know, your child. I don't know how much time you personally have to be going around looking at things through a spy hole. Maybe lots. . . ).

Also, I'm sure most people who read a lot of picture books can relate to the fact that I have seen so many pictures and photographs of animals that I could correctly identify the animals based on one little circle.

And yet, these illustrations of popular animals (whale, elephant, polar bear,etc) were so gorgeous and different, I couldn't help but love them.

Copy checked out from my local library

So, You Want to be a Librarian (Part 1)

I get a fair amount of emails from people who want to know more about being a librarian. I think many people consider it an ideal job and wonder 1) how you get there and 2) what it's really like.

I am absolutely not an expert and I only spent a single year as a practicing librarian, but I'll tell you what I do know (or, perhaps, far more than you could ever want to know).

I got an undergraduate degree in history from BYU, took off a year to work full-time (in a completely unrelated field) and then went back to get a graduate degree at the iSchool at the University of Texas at Austin. The official name of my degree is Master of Science in Information Studies (fancy fancy, no?).

The American Library Association (ALA) accredits library school programs and most library jobs require an accredited degree (which is to say, if the program you are looking at isn't accredited, it's probably not worth doing if your end goal is a job). There aren't a tremendous amount of programs anymore (you can see the list of accredited programs here), and many of them are online.

Now, here's where we detour from facts, facts, facts into the murky land of Janssen's personal opinions. Venture forward with caution.

Many of these programs are online. And. . . I have zero interest in an online program. I finished my last three undergraduate courses online because we moved to Texas, and I found it horrendously painful. Sitting alone at my computer, writing papers for a professor I'd never seen, and taking tests alone in a local testing center was not my idea of fun. I have always liked school, but I couldn't stand this kind of education.

I wanted a professor who knew my name and my face, I wanted classmates, I wanted discussions, and projects, and a real-life education. I wanted a network. I wanted to be part of something bigger than a browser window.

All of which is to say that if you are asking for my opinion, I'd say that an in-person program is worth it if it is at all a possibility. The iSchool at UT happens to be strongly against going into the distance education business and that was an excellent fit for me.

Most library programs are about two years long, if you're going full-time, but I took a reasonably heavy load (12 credits) and finished in 16 months. I will say that I did not find the program particularly difficult. It was busy, but it was interesting and, frankly, the course work was less demanding than my undergraduate classes. And I had classmates who said similar things.

The University of Texas' program had five core classes and after that you could pretty much choose your own classes, depending on the track you were taking. I planned on going into services for children and young adults, so most of my optional classes were things like Materials for Young Adults, Electronic Resources for Children, Visual Resources for Children, Children's Literature, Public Libraries, and School Library Management.

I worked with Dr. Barbara Immroth when she was on the committee that selects the "Notable Books for Children" list and I helped sort, organize, and suggest books for that list. There have been few things I've loved as much as spending hours opening boxes of new books and looking through them.

I did an internship at an Austin elementary school which was invaluable. Plus, Kay, the librarian, has become one of my dear friends. A program where you don't do an internship seems like a major missed opportunity.

So. . .that was school. In Part 2 (which I make no promises about when it might appear), I'll talk about finding a job.

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell

A collection of thoughtful, brilliant essays by Malcolm Gladwell, What the Dog Saw is just my kind of non-fiction. It should come as no surprise that I loved this book.

This was the first book I read for my bookclub upon returning to Texas and I'd read the essay about ketchup v. mustard just before my family arrived for Ella's baby blessing.

I found it so fascinating that I read them several pages aloud. Then, concerned that my fourteen-year-old brother might be wondering what kind of vacation this was, exactly, where he sits listening to his older sister read essays about condiments, I started to put the book away.

"No, no," he protested. "Finish it!"

And then after I'd read them the whole section, he borrowed the book and read quite a lot of it over the course of the weekend.

It's a really interesting book, is what I'm saying.

I love Malcolm Gladwell, of course (I've now read all four of his books). So this book was not a hard sell for me. Unlike his other books, though, that more or less follow a single theory, this is a collection of some of his essays written for The New Yorker. They are on all sorts of topics, some very broad, some extremely specific.

His style is pretty identifiable - often he compares things that, at first glance, don't have a whole lot in common (recruiting quarterbacks to the NFL and hiring school teachers), and you get used to reading a couple of pages about one topic before he switches gears entirely and then brings them both together later on. Or he launches the piece with the story of a person before backing up to give the history of a company or the traditional method of dealing with an issue. I rather feel like, after reading this book, that I could pick out a Gladwell essay from a mile away.

One of the things I love about his writing is that he can make practically anything interesting. Who knew I could so deeply enjoy fifteen pages of small text about hair coloring? And I love that reading his writing gives me an enormous fodder of things to talk about with Bart, with my friends and family, and, um, do I talk to anyone besides those people? Perhaps not. . .

As you can imagine, the discussion at book club was excellent. I think I bored Bart with the details for three days after.

This is the only one of his books that I've read in print, rather than listened to, and I enjoyed it every bit as much, which amazed me since I find his narration to be top-notch

I read them out of order (look at me, living on the edge, like the rebel I am). You can read most (if not all) of the articles that make up What the Dog Saw on his website, if you're so inclined, in any order you like. Give the ketchup one a whirl.

Copy checked out from my local library

Indulgence

Back in March, some of our friends went on a little camping trip. We weren't brave enough to spend the night (also, we sold or gave away all our camping gear in Boston, so that was a problem too).

But we hate to miss out on fun, so we went up to the campgrounds and joined everyone for dinner and some evening activities.

Ella had her first go in a swing and happily, my friend Meleah had her camera out and took some delightful pictures. At least, they are delightful when it's your own baby.

Maybe less delightful when it's the baby of some random Internet stranger. But whatever. 

Also, seeing her wearing a little onesie at six in the evening in the middle of March reminds me why we live in Texas.

Sometimes the Grass on This Side Looks Just Fine

Look, I read those big city mommy blogs, and I feel all amazed by how cool their lives are, what with the popping in to nifty cafes every afternoon for lunch or maybe for a weekend brunch (you know what I'm really thinking is "where is all this money for eating out COMING FROM? Must get 10,000 new readers this afternoon so I can make some real money on this blog. . .").

They look adorable, always, they have fantastic style, they go amazing places. Their lives look pretty great.

Except, then, sometimes, I see a picture of their baby's crib next to their bed because they only have a single bedroom and, huh, I'm not that sad not to be living a glamorous New York City or DC or San Francisco life.

I feel absurd amounts of love for the second bedroom in our apartment. The apartment we pay $100 less per month than we did for our one-bedroom, old, no-dishwasher/washer/dryer/two-shower-curtain-to-cover-the-window-in-the-shower apartment in Boston.

If my baby wasn't at this moment snoozing in that second bedroom, I would go kiss the carpet in that room.

I know, I know, you can make do with one bedroom. We completely planned on doing just that, since the idea of DOUBLING our rent in order to have a second bedroom did not actually appeal to me. We had a tiny bassinet pressed up against the wall in our bedroom and la, la, la, it was going to be fine.

I'm sure it would have been. But I'm not sad to not know.

Take your afternoon at the art museum. I'll be reveling in my second bedroom.

Bitter End by Jennifer Brown

Oh, there is nothing like the disappointment of looking forward to a book for months and then having it not quite live up to your expectations, is there? (Wait, there is disappointment worse than that? Do not tell me of such things). And there is nothing to do after the fact but write way too much about my thoughts.

I read Hate List, almost by accident, a couple of years ago and was absolutely astounded by it. It's a seriously well-done book. I couldn't wait for a second book by her.

And when I heard this one was going to be about abusive relationships, I was intrigued because I was so drawn in by Split, which was also about abuse (although Split is about an abusive father, rather than an abusive boyfriend). Five months later, I still find myself thinking about Split on a regular basis.

But Bitter End fell flat for me.

Alex is the middle daughter in her family of three girls. Her mom left, going to Colorado (for reasons Alex doesn't know), when Alex was fairly young, and died in a car crash. Since then her father has been extremely withdrawn, leaving the girls to mainly fend for themselves,  especially emotionally. He refuses to talk about their mother.

Alex does have two terrific best friends, but it's not until Cole transfers to their school and she begins tutoring him so he can keep his grades up enough to play basketball, that she really feels like she's met her soulmate. His looks, his smarts, and mainly how much he seems to admire her, draw her in immediately and all is good for a month or two until he starts getting abusive.

Of course, I knew from the beginning that Cole was going to turn abusive. And so it was hard for me to ever see too much of the "sweet" boyfriend that Alex was so desperate to hold onto. He was just always horrendous in my eyes (which surprised me because in Hate List, I felt like it so masterfully portrayed Nick as both the school shooter and a real, likeable person).

And the whole set-up seemed a little contrived - the dead mother, the absentee father, the road trip with friends that she starts to blow off - it all seemed to be there only to set up the perfect scenario for the abuse story line, rather than fleshing out Alex and her life and world. And I recognize that people who get trapped in abusive relationships often do have other things going on in their lives that make them perhaps more susceptible to an abusive relationship. But I don't want those things to feel like they were planted in the story only for the purpose of building up to the abusive boyfriend.

Mainly, though, my problem with this book was how paint-by-numbers it felt. It seemed almost like someone had looked up the main indicators and progression of an abusive relationship and then built the story around that. Fabulous relationship? Check. Initial abusive incident? Check. Hiding it and convincing yourself it's a one-time occurrence? Check. Isolating yourself from family and friends? Check. And so on.

Sad? Yes, of course. Gripping? Not for me.

It just felt like an issue book. When I read The Things a Brother Knows earlier this year, I told Kelly how much I'd enjoyed it and how impressed I was that it wasn't preachy one way or another about the way. She agreed, saying, "It was a story about Boaz." And Bitter End was just the opposite. It didn't feel like a story about Alex. It felt like a story about abusive relationships.

Perhaps I'm too hard on this book or have over thought the whole thing (surprise! this would be the first time ever that I have overthought something). And, hey, I read it in two days. In fact, one night, I was having a hard time going to sleep, so I went and read it for over an hour. So it's not like I was slogging through it. It wasn't terrible. I just had such high hopes for it that were not met.

If you are looking for books on this topic (and really, isn't everyone looking for a book about a girl that is abused by her boyfriend?) I thought Dreamland by Sarah Dessen was far superior.

Copy provided by publisher

Best in Show

Have I mentioned before that I like to cook?

Oh, I haven't? I like to cook. And bake.

I've also probably mentioned (a thousand times) that I like to try new recipes. I'd say that I try, on average, three or four new recipes per week.

But I also want to be the person who has a good arsenal of stand-by recipes. Things I can whip up at a moment's notice and be confident that they will be terrific.

I think of Bart's grandma who makes, without question, the best dinner rolls I have ever had. I myself have a pitiful track record when it comes to dinner rolls. But as a special Mother's Day gift, the rolls I made on Sunday actually turned out phenomenally, and I am now, possibly, brave enough to attempt Bart's grandmother's recipe. And if they turn out, I will probably never try another roll recipe for Sunday dinner as long as live (lies! all of that last sentence is lies!).

Here are a few of the things I have made many many times and always feel happy about:

• Chicken Pot Pie (I turn up my nose at pot pies with cream of anything in them. My mom ruined me for life)
• Brownies (Bart, who had, just weeks earlier told me how he wasn't really a brownie fan, now mentions these brownies on a weekly basis)
• Baking Powder Biscuits 
• Banana Pancakes (no need to go crazy with teh chocolate chips, although it's certainly not a terrible thing if you include them)
• Whole Wheat Pancakes
• Oatmeal Pancakes (yes, I make a lot of pancakes. You want to say something about that?)
• Waffles (the non-yeast kind. I have been disappointed in the yeasted waffles I have made thus far, not to mention that most of the recipes I see for them are swimming in butter, and I generally try to keep my breakfast items somewhat nutritious)
• French Bread (worth the effort of all the mixing and rising)
• Pepperoni Pizza
• Carrot Puree
• Croutons
• Ranch Dressing
• Wheat Bread (the first recipe)
• Blueberry Coffee Cake
• Skillet Chicken Orzo
• Artichoke Dip
• Chocolate Ice Cream

You all should come over for dinner and I'll show you how awesome they are (or more likely breakfast - we'll have a pancake buffet. Also, my secret to cooking perfect pancakes is to make the batter and then make Bart actually cook them).  (My other secret is to stop using dumb substitutes for buttermilk; man up and buy the real thing. It's like the difference between margarine and butter, people. You're fooling yourself if you think they are the same. And I clearly feel far too strongly about this and also maybe should take some medication).

I am working on perfecting a beef stew recipe (Bart told me a year or so ago that he's been searching for years for the best beef stew. I laughed outloud and asked him how many beef stews he's made (you can guess the answer was "none.")).

And I am really on the warpath for a completely trustworthy chocolate chip cookie recipe (I made a version someone swore by a few weeks ago and they were, once again, a disappointment. WHY am I such a failure at this basic cookie?). And while I am certain the NY Times one will blow my mind, I also need one that I can whip up at a moment's notice. This one from Annie's Eats is my next trial.

It's all so subjective, of course. Someone raved up and down about their pizza dough recipe and then I tried it and Bart was all, "Um, what IS this dough?" and I replied "Something I'm never making again. Yuck." Which is all to say, you might hate my pancakes (you would be wrong, but we could possibly still be friends).

Anything you make that you are certain is the best ever of its kind?

Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsey Leavitt

Sean Griswold's Head reminded me of some of Janette Rallison's books (part light-hearted, part serious, a sweet romance, and some parts that made me laugh outloud). Definitely one of the more fun YA books I've read in a while.


Payton is devastated when she finds out that her dad (a lifelong basketball player and fan, dentist, and all-around fantastic father) has been diagnosed with MS. But when she finds out that the rest of her family, including her two older brothers, have known for months about her father's disease, she is furious.

So angry, in fact, that she can't bring herself to even speak to her parents.

In an attempt to help her deal, her parents set up sessions for her with the school's counselor who suggests that she pick a Focus Object, something she can think and write about in-depth until she's ready to deal with her dad's illness.

The counselor suggests an inanimate object, like a pencil sharpener, but Payton decides instead to write about the enormous white-blond head that she's stared at for years (thanks to alphabetical seating since the fourth grade): Sean Griswold. As she starts to write about his head, though, she realizes she knows almost nothing about Sean. She's lent him a million pencils and he's passed back papers and tests for years, but other than that they have really hardly spoken.

As she starts writing about him, though, she (surprise!) starts to develop some romantic interest in him. This crush is helped along with the encouragement of Payton's best friend, Jac, who is always interested in boys. Of course, Payton, who is new to the world of liking boys, isn't as ready to fling her heart in Sean's path as Jac wants her to be (not that that is going to stop Jac).

And for a while, things seem to be moving along, albeit slowly, with Sean. Plus, it gives her something to think about besides her Dad.

But of course, she can't ignore her dad's illness forever, not when so much of her family life has been disrupted because of it, and not when she still can't bring herself to hardly even talk to him. Not when she can't help seeing him struggling to button his own shirts and trying desperately to be close to her again.


This kind of storyline walks a tight rope, I think. The balance between the romance and the family troubles has to be right on, and in order to make you care about both issues, you have to really like the main character (make that a main character who doesn't want to deal, and ignores her dad because of an illness he certainly didn't ask for, and you're asking even more). If the romance is too much the focus, the illness makes it seem like it was thrown in to make a fluffy romance have more weight (haven't I read plenty of those), but if the illness is the majority of the story, then the romance feels like a ploy. Like I said, tight rope.

But what do you know? Lindsey Leavitt pulls it off! It works! I enjoyed every page of it - some parts made me want to sob, others made me laugh outloud. I just wholeheartedly loved this book. In fact, I already have the first book in her other series, Princess for Hire, on my bedside table.


Copy checked out from my local library

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

This story of a female private investigator, Maisie Dobbs, putting her life back together after her experiences in France as a nurse during WWI was a fun and quick read, with a main character I really came to love.

How have I completely missed this series? They been enormous best sellers and the eighth book just came out last month. The author was one of the keynote speakers at TLA this year. And yet. . . I'd never heard of them until Alison suggested it for Tell Me What to Read.

There are two story lines going on here - one is set in the present (which, in the context of this book is actually not the present, but in 1929 England), and one in the past, beginning with Maisie as a 14 year old and working its way up to her time as a nurse during WWI.

In the present, Maisie has just begun her own business as a private investigator. One of her first clients is a man who believes his wife might be having an affair, but as Maisie follows the wife, she realizes that the wife is dealing with the death of a solider, something that Maisie can relate to all too well, after having seen so many people killed on the battlefield during her stint as a field nurse. But it quickly becomes evident to Maisie that something about this soldier's death is not quite right and she is determined to get to the bottom of it.

In the past, Maisie's mother has recently died and after years of paying for treatment and doctors, Maisie's father is forced to find a place for Maisie to work in order to cover the bills. Soon after going to work as a maid for a rich family, however, Maisie's new employers discover how bright she is and set her up with a private tutor, who helps her get accepted to Cambridge. All of this education is a little bit tricky when she is from the working class and higher education is, at this time, fairly uncommon for people who aren't of the elite class. But after only a year at Cambridge, she signs up as a nurse in order to help the war effort (WWI has just recently begun). Before leaving to France, she meets and falls in love with a doctor who is also going over to assist in the war efforts.

I won't lie, the "mystery" part of it isn't actually alllllll that much of a mystery. I mean, she didn't even start trying to solve it until the eighth disc (of eight discs) and then it was over and done in about a chapter and a half. The substance of the book is in the characters and watching everything play out.

Maisie herself is so delightful - smart, kind, and sensitive. She's clearly had a difficult life, but she's also optimistic about the future, and eager to help other people out. Any series really depends on the main character and Maisie is easily capable of supporting this long series.

And the sense of place in this book is strong - it's so perfectly British and most definitely a Great War book. 

Part of what delighted me about this book was listening to it being read by a great British narrator. I mean, really, what book isn't improved by a British accent? (Answer: no such book exists).

Audiobook checked out from my local library

The Birthday Bart

Yesterday was Bart's birthday.

He kicked off the day by having a cold. We do know how to celebrate in style around here. Also, I ironed his shirt for him. I am pretty much the best birthday gift giver ever.

When he got home from work, dinner was (mostly) ready and after putting Ella to bed, we enjoyed a nice meal and some gift opening.

I made the Happy Birthday banner by cutting out the colorful pages of an advance unbound copy of a picture book I'd picked up at TLA.  

I got him a tripod and a remote for his camera, an enormous bottle of Downy with a dispenser (our washer doesn't have a dispenser and Bart has talked about how gooooooood his aunt's laundry always smells for the past five years, so I promise, this wasn't as pathetic a gift as it sounds). Also, a box of Junior Mints to be saved until Friday; I arranged for a babysitter so we can go see Thor. Bart is a remarkably good gift guesser, so I was pleased that he didn't immediately guess what they all were (except the Junior Mints, which he immediately guessed when he picked up the box  - some year I'll have to get him a box of Milk Duds, just to throw him off).

Bart's office had sent him home with about eight cupcakes, so we had a few friends over to help us eat them. They were delicious.

The highlight of his day, though, might have been this little card from Merrick (you may have to click it to see the captions):

All in all, an excellent day, for an excellent guy.

So, You Went to California

At Christmas, Bart's parents announced that part of their gift this year was to take the whole family to Disneyland.

We'd planned on flying in on Tuesday morning, but then at the last minute we found out that the Disneyland portion of the trip was scheduled to begin on Tuesday morning and so someone would have to leave in order to get us from the airport. So, after some quick rearranging of our Southwest tickets, we opted to fly in on Monday evening instead.

Except when we got to the airport, we discovered that there was some wicked weather in Dallas and everything was getting delayed like mad. Our flight had been delayed three hours, which meant we wouldn't even leave Austin until ten p.m. Not to mention there would be a connecting flight that we would almost surely miss. ALSO Ella usually goes to bed around seven p.m. and now it was looking like we might not get in until 3 a.m. our time. Which sounds fun, no? (Yes, we haven't even gotten to the vacation part because I'm so busy telling you about the travvvveling part).

The lovely Southwest desk agent found us an alternative flight that put us in only around 30 minutes later (after the unpleasant desk agent told us we were in the wrong line and that we'd have to go all the way back to the end of the other looooong line. . . ).

To make this already long story at least a little bit shorter: two brief delays later, and two flights just barely not full enough to let us snag an extra seat for Ella's carseat so she could sleep on both flights, we arrived at LAX, Bart's parents picked us up and we drove down to Anaheim. When we pulled up the carseat cover, we discovered Ella wide-eyed and quiet in her seat (probably wondering WHY we were in a strange place at one a.m.). We tossed her in the crib and prayed like mad that she'd go to sleep. After a little rolling around, she slept until six a.m. (which was eight her time).

His parents had found a large house to rent about half a mile from Disneyland (we walked it a few times, but mostly Bart's dad was nice enough to shuttle everyone back and forth by car). The backyard was quite large with a big pool, which made for some fun times, especially Ella who had never been swimming before.

Anyway, three days of Disneyland. The weather was excellent. It was far busier than when we have gone with my family in the end of January, but we managed to make it on a number of rides and I was happy that there were so many things Ella could come on with us (Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, the heinous Ferris Wheel in California Adventure, Dumbo, the Carousel, Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters, Finding Nemo, Pinocchio, etc).

On King Arthur's Carousel

On the Ferris Wheel. I am not a wimp about rides, but this ride scares me to death. And makes me feel ill. Avoid at all costs.

Lunch in the park

We made quite a bit of effort to keep Ella's nap schedule intact. She usually took a nap in the morning before we went to Disneyland and then a quick nap in the stroller while we were at the parks and then one of us would come back to the house with her for an afternoon nap. I was delighted by how well she slept on this trip, especially since we were in the same room with her during the night.

Bart's immediate family now numbers 27 people, which made this Disneyland trip drastically different than when my immediate family went in 2007 and 2008, since we had only eight people and the youngest person was 11. We ended up breaking into groups for much of the time, with people going back and forth between the house for naps. And it was nice that Bart and I have been to Disneyland twice together and so we didn't feel short-changed if we didn't get to ride every single ride a dozen times. My main sadness was that we missed the new Toy Story ride in California Adventure.

The major disaster on the trip was when Ella chucked her beloved Texas Longhorn pacifier over the edge of her stroller and we didn't notice it for a few minutes and then could not locate it on Paradise Pier. Also, do you have any idea how hard it is to buy a pacifier in Disneyland? And do you know how sad I felt when I looked through our pictures and saw the last recorded instance of her with it in (I am such a pathetic sap)?

The last day before we went home, everyone went to the beach, but Bart and Ella and I went to a different beach than everyone else because Ella was napping when they left. We headed out to Huntington Beach (snagging some In-n-Out burgers on the way), enjoyed walking through the market that was set up there, and finished up with a delicious Sea Salt Caramel cupcake from Lil Red's.

Ella sported a hat in honor of the royal wedding (with the side benefit of keeping her head from getting burned). She also approved of In-n-Out (we felt judged by people walking by watching us feed a hamburger to our child. I wanted a small sign that said, "At home we feed her organic bok choy!").

We were in charge of dinner the last evening, so I made six chicken pot pies (four of them curry and two of them plain), plus some watermelon and a salad. It is. . .very different to cook for 27 people than for three. I shall reevaluate my plans to have twenty five children.

Also, my goal on this trip was to avoid any sunburns and I think we did remarkably well (thanks to Bart's sister for giving us a bottle of sunscreen). 

Our flight home was nonstop, which was delightful, although it was so full that we couldn't bring the carseat on and Ella had to nap on my shoulder, which meant it was a brief nap. And then we were home.

As my mom says every time we go on vacation, "It's nice to go away; it's nice to come home."

What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen

Not my very favorite of her books, which means What Happened to Goodbye is still better than 95% of realistic teen fiction. Sarah Dessen never gets old for me.

Look, I love Sarah Dessen. If you've read more than handful of my blog posts, this won't come as any surprise to you.

So it is likely also not a shock that when this arrived in my mailbox (thanks to Kelly who picked it up for me at Midwinter in San Diego last week), I finished it within 36 hours of its arrival.

Because I am one of those people with a strong need to categorize, I think of Sarah Dessen's books as having three categories. There are the first four books which, um, I guess I'd categorize as "Misc" (my librarian self HATES this categorization but I can't think of anything better; they're all so different, but don't fit as well into the other categories). The second group are the really romantic books (The Truth About Forever, Just Listen, and This Lullaby), which probably explains why those three are my very favorites, and then her most recent three books which I think of as the self-discovery books. They have the romance element in them, but it's less the driving force of the book. I noticed this in Along for the Ride and it was even more obvious to me in this one.

Mclean's parents had a messy divorce and since her mom is the one who walked out on their marriage, Mclean chooses to live with her dad (even now, two years later, she still is incredibly angry with her mom). Her dad, though, is a restaurant consultant, meaning that he is assigned to a restaurant for a few months until it's been turned around and then he's off to the next location.

Which means that here in Lakeview, Mclean is on her fifth high school. She doesn't really mind. After having the same friends and the same location her entire life, she is eager to leave her old self behind and reinvent herself at each new stop, then walking away when her dad needs to move again.

In Lakeview, though, she accidentally ends up with her real name and some of her old life starts slipping into her new life. Her next door neighbor, Dave, is working to juggle his new and old lives too - he is a ridiculously smart guy, but after attending a private school for years, he transferred to the local high school (not known for its amazing academics) so he could have some real teenager experiences, but he got into some minor trouble and his parents have come down hard on him, wanting him back at his old school, and back to the Ph.D. track they want for him (they're both professors).

But while Davis is very open about his life, his struggles to be a normal kid and maintain family calm, Mclean is hesitant to share the details of her life with him or anyone else. She might be using her real name in this town, but she's not sure she's ready to share her real self.

Over the last couple of years, I have read one book after another that swears to be perfect for fans of Sarah Dessen and almost without exception, they are major disappointments. Part of that, I'm realizing now, is that that label seems to get slapped on to every realistic fiction book that has a romantic angle. And the romance is never the entire reason for a Sarah Dessen book. Her books are so thoughtful, with so much time spent with the main girl. These are character-driven books, not romance-driven ones.

I have a special place in my heart for authors that give their fans little shout-outs by sticking in characters from other books. This one has several - a quick non-named glimpse of Owen and Annabel from Just Listen, the stepmom from Along for the Ride, and Jason, the nerd boyfriend from The Truth About Forever (he actually has a fairly large part in this book). And I may have missed some other ones - it's been a while since I read some of the older ones.

I think sometimes Sarah Dessen gets a little bit of a bad rap for her books being very similar, and, yes, her books do have a distinct flavor to them, but there's nothing formulaic to me about them - each one has such rich characters (I feel like each book has entire town of varied people, none that are caricatures), such varied life circumstances, and such real emotion.

Please let her never stop writing.

Advance copy sent to me by Kelly of Stacked

While You Wait

We spent nearly all of last week in southern California with Bart's family, swimming, visiting the beach, eating at In-n-Out, and going to Disneyland. It was a delightful week.

I will not deny you the pleasure of many pictures of Ella, but while I get my life together enough to share those pictures, might you do me a favor?

I spent some time last night responding to comments and noticed how many many people do not have their email address attached to their profile. This is troublesome, when there are so many of you that I want to respond to and say, "Yes! You can be in my very (non) exclusive friend club. We will eat cookies and marvel at Kayla's abilities to dress herself."

If you don't have this set, when I get your comment via email and go to respond, it looks like this. I'm guessing your email is not "noreply-comment@blogger.com." Unless somehow dozens of you signed up for the same email address.


And because I care so deeply, here's how to do it. It is incredibly easy (we're talking two minutes, tops) and then I will be able to respond when you ask things like, "What book should I read?" (Answer: Okay for Now).

Also, even if you DON'T have a Blogger blog, many of you still have Blogger profiles so that you can comment, so it'd be very very lovely if you could do this to your profile too.

Anyway, without further ado:

Step 1: Go to Blogger.com, sign in, and ta-da, there is your dashboard. Click "Edit Profile" (for your convenience, I've drawn a very impressive red arrow pointing to it with Paint. Because I am a high-tech blogger).



The "Edit Profile" Page will open. Two things to do on this page. First, check the box that says "Show my email address." And then, if you scroll down a bit more, you'll see a box labeled "email address." Enter the email address you'd like people to respond to in that box. Please.



Then, scroll to the very bottom of that page and click the big orange "SAVE PROFILE" button.


That's it! So easy!

And I will love you forever because I'll be able to respond when you ask a question or if I want to ask YOU a question or just say "Hey, how about we be friends?" And believe me, if you have your email address set to display, we will be friends.