books for 2008, more fluff

(You've all probably guessed that I'm not recording these in the order I read them, but when I get a chance to review them. Sorry!)

9.Teresa Bloomingdale, Sense and Momsense: The Wisdom Possessed by a Seasoned Mother and the Ability to Laugh at Marriage and Family Foibles-- After learning to survive it all, 1986

Bloomingdale was/is a sort of Omaha, Catholic, mother-of-ten answer to Erma Bombeck. While I'm sure Erma wrote better, I'm compelled to admit that I remember the stories from Teresa's I should have seen it coming when the rabbit died much longer than I remember the ones from Erma's work. Admittedly, Shirley Jackson is the queen of all Life among the Savages genre, but you can't get a Shirley every day.

That said, Sense and Momsense is a little light reading, in the late Erma style. There's the chapter of 'what 3rd graders say they want to be when they grow up' and the question and answer sections, and about a 3rd of the book is an admiring pastiche of the Archy and Mehitabel books which I too admired in school. And yet... it's slight, but amusing. The best part is that while she's being funny, these are real life, not, well, Phyllis Diller, which is the direction Erma tended to go.

Q. At what age should a toddler stop taking a nap.
A. When his mother no longer needs one.

Here, too, she admits that she's not anti-feminist, and explains why it would be better to have a woman vice president of the United States ("Ms. Vice President (or better yet, Mrs.)"):

Yes, America would be wise to elect a woman Vice President, assuming she is a woman who thinks like a woman, and not like a man. But this is unlikely to happen, because a woman who thinks like a woman would have better sense than to let herself get talked into a job like that.

10, 11, and 12. Natalie Prior:
Lily Quench and the Dragon of Asby
Lily Quench and the Treasure of Mote Ely
Lily Quench and the Lighthouse of Skellig Mor

These, of course, I bought for Miss B, at Ollie's (99 cents!). They are books 1,3, and 4 of a series. The covers, illustrations and blurbs promised something on the Eva Ibbotson/Joan Aiken line, with at least one large female dragon. They did, in fact, deliver, though the books are less out-right humorous than either Ibbotson or Aiken, but that's all right. There are some interesting and intriguing ideas, especially in Lighthouse of Skellig Mor, there's adventure, there's suspense, and the good guys survive (mostly) and the bad guys get comeuppances. There is a bit of James Thurber here too. Unfortunately, there are at least vols. 2, 5, 6, and 7 yet to be found. Miss B. doesn't see these as urgent to get, but she did like the books. (Yes, they can be read while skipping the 2nd book, even though further books give clues as to what happened in vol. 2)

13. Louise Erdich, Books & Islands in Ojibwe Country.
Erdich, who is a very talented writer, writes generally in Native American territory. I fell in love with her children's book The Birchbark House but I've never been brave enough to tackle her adult fiction, which is widely praised by modern literary fiction critics. (I can't stand modern literary fiction.) This book is an account of a trip she took with her 18-month-old fourth daughter (and, some of the time, with her daughter's father, an Ojibwe "traditional healer, as well as a tribal politician, teacher and negotiator"). But it's about history, about books, about writing-- both white and Ojibwe--, and about spirit. (Erdich is also part Ojibwe.) It's lyrical. You know when you go away on a trip to a special place, a place that is a sort of spiritual retreat for you, and you lie awake, listening to the night noises and revelling in the peace? It's like that. I was going to give this book away, but now I can't.