Alison Reads

Mary’s beloved only child dies of meningitis at the age of five. A year later, Mary is still traumatized and can barely function. Her mother convinces her to learn to knit, and she relunctantly joins a knitting circle and begins to heal. My problem with this book was that every single member of the knitting circle had suffered a terrible trauma. While the emotional part of the book was accurate and well done (the author lost a child herself, so she understands her character), the knitting part was not as accurate. One newbie knitter knits her first sock during the course of a single conversation (an hour?) which is just not realistic. Recommended with reservations.

The author, her husband, and their daughters left Tucson for a farm in southern Appalachia, where they pledged to spend a year eating only locally-grown food, most of which they would grow themselves. They did it and survived quite handily. The book is a month-by-month chronicle of their year. I especially liked reading about the ups and downs of eight-year-old Lily’s egg business. A good companion to The Omnivore’s Dilemma and an inspiration.

Book-loving David’s mother dies when he is 12, his father remarries and they go to live in an old house in the country belonging to his stepmother. David soon has a little half-brother and has understandable feelings of anger, resentment and betrayal. He spends most of his time in his room reading old storybooks. One day he steps through a gap in the garden wall and is in another place, which he discovers is populated by fairy-tale characters from his own world, especially the evil ones. Masterfully told, quite dark and not for children, the book details David’s journey to meet the king and a way back to his own world (shades of Oz) while battling wolf-human hybrids and many other dangers. Highly recommended.

Ginny’s eccentric artist aunt dies and leaves her 13 sealed envelopes. The first one tells her to fly to London alone with only a backpack and some cash. She is not to communicate with anyone in the US and is to open each envelope in turn and follow its instructions. She meets people her aunt knew in London and Paris and travels to several other European cities over the course of the summer, following her aunt’s tracks and learning important things about herself in the process. A good summer read and vicarious travel narrative. Ginny is 17, so this book would be of most interest to high schoolers. Recommended.

In Blue Highways, Heat Moon chronicled his journey around the United States on back roads. This time he traveled from New York to Astoria by water over a four-month period carefully calculated to take advantage of the western snowmelt. He was able to travel almost all the way across the country in his flat-bottom dory or a canoe, but there were many portages around dams. He spoke his mind about dams and overgrazing along the way. I listened to the book and it was well read but marred by mispronunciations of “Willamette” and “Yaquina” and perhaps other words I’m not familiar with. A good virtual travel book.

This is a wonderful retelling of the Grimm fairy tale about a princess who becomes a goose girl and eventually regains her crown. At the age of 17, Princess Anidori-Kiladra (Ani for short) is betrothed to the crown prince of the neighboring kingdom. She and her servants set off on a four-month journey through the mountains to the kingdom of Bayern. As they approach Bayern, her lady-in-waiting stages a coup and takes her place. Ani flees for her life and is given a job tending the royal flock of geese. Beautifully written and delightful, though it doesn’t soft-pedal hardships and violence (nor did the Brothers Grimm). By the author of Princess Academy, this book is recommended for middle and high school readers.

I chose this book because it’s about knitting, but I abandoned it half-way through because the writing is pedestrian and wooden. The author may be a competent knitter, but she’s not a very good writer. It’s about three 20-something women with little in common except knitting. I read it only a couple of weeks ago and already I’ve forgotten any of the plot. Enough said.

This was recommended on a summer reading for adults list, but I didn’t much like it. It takes place in a small town in Portugal one summer. The action cuts back and forth among locals and tourists. While it was well written, I didn’t come to care about any of the characters.