Library Mama

People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau. Read by Wendy Dillon. This is the sequel to The City of Ember, which you might recall I enjoyed. It was a nice little post-apocalyptic kind of story, ending happily when our characters escaped from the dying City of Ember. The tension and interest level went way up with this book, though, as the people of Ember try to make new lives for themselves in the outside world. DuPrau refuses to settle for easy answers. The people of Ember manage to find a village called Sparks – one of the largest villages established since the Disaster. It has 350 or so inhabitants, about 100 fewer than the Ember survivors. The leaders of Sparks decide to help the Emberites, but it’s rough going for a barely-past subsistence village to double in population overnight. And while the Emberites work hard for their keep, they haven’t been used to hard labor, sunlight, or life without electricity. Resentment springs up quickly on both sides, and only Lina and Doon seem to be looking for a way to keep the petty conflicts from escalating into all-out war. It takes awhile for them to get around to the search, though. Doon is taken with Tick, a charismatic Emberite calling for justice. Lina takes a trip with some Roamers, who comb pre-Disaster settlements for usable artifacts, on her own search for the sparkling white city of her imagination. The inevitable violent conflict was a little slow in coming, but was still an interesting and fairly realistic look at conflict and how to work around it.

…and finally did. You know, those books you keep hearing about, or reading about, and you say to yourself, “I really ought to read that book.” Here’s two I can now cross off my must-read list.

The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley If you have a baby and are having or want to forestall sleep problems, this is The Book being read in my circles. So, I had to read it to find out what the fuss was all about. The author of the book, a mother of four, was looking for a way to help her wakeful fourth child sleep through the night. She found two answers: either let the child cry until he falls asleep, or live with it. She wrote this book as a third option, a way to help a baby fall and stay asleep without the pain of cry-it-out methods. The book starts with the basics of safety and how sleep works in infants. Then, she starts the program: First, catalogue how your baby sleeps now – for naps and nighttime, where, how long, and how the baby fell asleep. Next, read through her suggestions and formulate a plan that you think will work. Try it for ten days, do the cataloguing thing again, and adjust any elements that you think need changing. She’s big on routines and teaching a child to fall asleep without a nipple in the mouth, and includes advice for crib-sleeping and co-sleeping babies, as well as tips for weaning a baby from co-sleeping to the crib. So, does it work? Well, happily my Mr. FP has never had the sleep problems she describes – waking every hour and not wanting to go back to sleep. On the plus side, she tested her methods with I think 70 or 80 mothers and had about a 95% success rate (I say about as I already returned the book.) She states is that this kind of method will take longer to work than cry-it-out methods, but that the once accomplished, the sleep patterns will be more firmly established than with cry-it-out methods. Using the full method requires a whole lot more record keeping and commitment than I’m willing to put into it at this point, particularly since we’re not having huge problems. This seems to be the case with most of the mothers I’ve talked about it with, as well. If you’re really desperate, they probably will work. If you’re looking for only minor improvements, there’s a smorgasbord of ideas to choose from, as well as suggestions for establishing good sleep habits before problems develop.

Ida B: - and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster and (Possibly) Save the World by Katherine Hannigan This is a beautiful, wonderful book. I left it out where my Mommy could read it while she was watching Mr. Froggy Pants, and she read it in one sitting. (OK, part of that was Mr. Froggy Pants wanting to cuddle with his grandma, but still.) Eleven-year-old Ida B, after a traumatizing experience with public school in kindergarten, has been home-schooled ever since. Life with her parents on the farm, talking with the apple trees, is “just about righter than right.” Then her mother gets sick, and her parents decide that she must go to the public school. Her heart shrivels up into a hard black rock that will hurt anyone that tries to get in. Ida B, even with a shriveled-up heart, is full of life and eloquent, memorable phrases. I say, reluctantly, being aimed at children, this book probably isn’t for everyone. But if you like children’s books at all, or if you have a child in the 8-12 range in your life, do read this book.

Another cross-section of (mostly) vacation reading – one for the car, one from a friend, and a couple to read to your favorite child. And, ok, every one involving children or childbirth. I'm working on a different kind of book, promise!

Birthing from Within by Pam England A little older than most of the childbirth books I’ve been reading, but still well worth it. This book is about childbirth, specifically from the mother’s point of view, with some attention to the partner. She’s not so much interested in natural vs. assisted birth, as in the parents getting connected with their feelings and fears about childbirth and impending parenthood. You can’t control what will happen, she seems to say, and your experience will not be the medical event your doctor will tell you about. Prepare for what you can, address your fears – and there’s also a lot on natural pain relief techniques. Birth is an important rite of passage, and learning only about the three stages of labor won’t prepare you for this side of things.

Everything on a Waffle by Polly Horvath Trust Polly Horvath to write a funny and yet touching book about a seemingly depressing subject. Primrose lives in a small fishing village in British Columbia with her parents, until they are lost at sea. Everyone else is convinced that they are dead, but Primrose, narrating, is so convinced that they will come back that the book is saved from being the mournful reflections of a new orphan. Instead, she explores life inside the village as she is passed around from one person to the next. From the old maid she was first left with, to her happy-go-lucky uncle, the stuck-up school counselor and the owner of the town’s one restaurant, the characters are full of vivid and amusing life. I especially enjoyed listening to the young, scrappy-sounding voice of the narrator on the audio version.

Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It by Andrea Buchanan Thanks to garrity for loaning me this one. So, you’re about to become a mother for the first time, talking to mothers you know, reading books on the subject, hanging out with the children of friends. Are you prepared? No, says Buchanan. Motherland is an entirely different country, and you’re reading guidebooks and talking to natives. The shock of adjusting to new parenthood has stages very similar to culture shock, from euphoria to hatred of the new culture to final adjustment. Buchanan shares her own experiences in a series of essays grouped around each of these stages. More important than the stages, though, is her firm conviction that not every part of being a mother is fun. Acknowledging this often taboo fact does not mean that you don’t love your child or are a bad parent. Life is always complex, and we shouldn’t expect parenting to be different. Though the premise may sound academic, the book isn’t, with Buchanan’s essays sharing the nitty-gritty tears, laughter, and exhaustion of the new mother.

Not One Damsel in Distress: World Folktales for Strong Girls by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Susan Guevara
Fairy Tales by Berlie Doherty, illustrated by Jane Ray
These are two lovely collections of fairy tales that I recently shared with the 5-year-old Wild Woman, and which we both greatly enjoyed. Not One Damsel in Distress, as the title indicates, features only stories with strong heroines – not modern-day fantasies, but real, strong folk heroes who have made it through the centuries. I keep a sharp eye out for collections of this nature, and this is one of the best. It’s a few stories common to collections of this nature (though mostly not so well known otherwise), and many that even I had never seen before – crack to the fairy tale collector. More important to the Wild Woman, Yolen is an amazing storyteller, able to tell a compelling story in a multitude of different styles. The illustrations didn’t do much for me, but WW didn’t seem to mind, and you can’t have everything.

The Doherty collection is mostly fairy tale standards – “Snow White”, “Rapunzel” – with a few less common stories like the Russian tale “The Firebird” thrown in. It’s not the addiction of new stories that Yolen had for me, but these are stories that every child should grow up with. Doherty is an award-winning British author and tells the stories lyrically, attentive to their original sources. However, what really makes this book shine are the illustrations. Every page is illustrated in full color with gold accents, with each tale having its own frame. The characters, while much more simply dressed than typical in fairy tales, look beautiful. They are multiethnic without making a big deal about it – just people of fairly indeterminate race but different skin tones interacting in a magical fairy tale world. If you know a child who needs a basic collection of fairy tales to love, this would be my top pick.