Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski

I'm so familiar with Lois Lenski's drawings from the Betsy-Tacy books that I love oh so much. And we've checked out a good number of her children's picture books from the library over the years as well. But I didn't really know that she'd written chapter books of her own, and did it pretty darn well! This book was a Newbery winner from 1946, and is the story of a family living in northern Florida in the early 1900s at a time when it was still pretty much a frontier. It follows Birdie Boyer and her family who move into a new home, and their struggles to get their new farm planted and their fights with their neighbors over whether they can fence in their own land to keep the neighbors' pigs out of their crops. It reminded me of all the frontier type books (aka Little House and Caddie Woodlawn) although it has a distinctive Florida flavoring with talking about raising and selling strawberries, and it was definitely a cute story. I would be happy if my kids read all of these books--they are so wholesome and show kids working hard for their families and show what life was like for people not all that long ago. My only complaint is that the ending was really forced and sudden (the ongoing fight between the two neighbors is finished in one page when the truculent father of the neighboring family is suddenly converted by a traveling preacher), but that's okay. These books aren't really about the overarching story; they're more about each individual chapter and the smaller stories throughout each chapter.

River Secrets by Shannon Hale

This is the third in the series following The Goose Girl, and I actually really enjoyed it. This book follows Razo, another one of the animal workers that Isi knew while she was working as a goose girl, and his experience as a member of Bayern's force protecting the new ambassador to the country of Tira, soon after the war between these two countries ended. Razo and the rest of the soldiers sent there are charged with trying to keep the peace and make friends with the Tiran, and Razo is also trying to prove that he's not worthless, even though he's short and not a good fighter and young. He finds out that he's been brought there to be a spy, because he's very observant and good at finding out things, and he helps to stop some people who are trying to guide the Tiran into another war against Bayern.

I liked the coming of age story about Razo, and his new confidence and his belief in himself as he begins to recognize his skills. I also liked the general plot of the book: it moved quickly, wasn't too long, and incorporated more of the magic of speaking with other things in an interesting way. The only real complaint I had with this book was that I felt like it turned Isi and Geric, and Finn and Enna, into caricatures of the former characters that I read about in the earlier books. Isi and Geric are the perfect, doting parents in a perfect, funny relationship; Enna is strident and demanding and Finn is quiet and stoic and always perfect. They all seemed way less interesting and well-rounded than they did in their own books. I don't know if that's just because we're seeing them simply from Razo's perspective in his own book, but it made me not like them as much. And I felt like the resolution of the romance at the end of this book seemed highly unbelievable, but that's fine. Whatever.

Enna Burning by Shannon Hale

This is the sequel to The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale, and it has many of the same characters but follows the story of Enna, one of Isi's friends from the first book. In the first book, Isi learns how to speak to the wind and control the wind, and in this book, Enna learns about fire-speaking and how to control and send fire. It's obviously much more dangerous than wind-speaking and much of the book is about how Enna has to learn to control it or be burned up by her new talent. I like how Hale gave more shape to this magic of speaking with inanimate objects; the inner workings of the different types of speaking were really interesting and I thought worked well. I did not love it as much as I did The Goose Girl--it seemed much more violent and Enna was a much more headstrong, flashy character than Isi, which sometimes made her annoying. I hate when characters operate under false assumptions or give themselves false either/or situations, like "I HAVE to use my fire powers or else Bayern will fall." I don't believe that. But otherwise, this was a good book with a satisfying ending.

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

I have thought about reading this book for forever, and I'm glad that I finally got around to it. Because it was so well-done. After reading Princess Academy a few months ago I thought that I had to get around to more of Shannon Hale's works--I've always been pleased with her books. I got so sucked in that on the days when I didn't get a chance to listen to the book I kept finding myself thinking about the storyline or the world--it was a true book hangover. I couldn't stop getting excited about it. I loved how this book was based very closely on the original Brothers Grimm fairytale, but how Hale created a very believable and relatable world within the book. There was a very simple magic system, with different types of speaking, and Hale did a great job of giving a new background to the princess and the story, which explained why she would have let herself be overthrown. I felt like there were a few places that were oversimplified and a little annoying (like the whole romance with the prince--I don't believe for a second that the prince would have done that with a goose girl) but it was definitely a great book. I am planning to listen to the sequels if I can before our library stops using hoopla at the end of the month.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

I re-read this book in just a few blazing hours for book club yesterday and I remembered how much I loved it. It was THE BEST. I can't believe how funny it is and how touching at the same time. It was kind of funny talking about it at book club last night because some of them didn't love it as much, and I just can't believe how anyone couldn't appreciate the humor and the sweetness of this book. I cried like 5 times while reading it even this second time around. So amazing.

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

I can't believe I never read this as a child. I would have loved it, since it's a very similar story and timeline as Little House on the Prairie, one of my very favorite series. I even dressed up as Laura for Halloween one year when I was about seven... so Caddie Woodlawn is right up my alley. It's a similar story about a pioneer family living in Wisconsin and their adventures and things that happen to them. So many of the individual stories are similar to what happens in Little House--encounters with the Native Americans, prairie fires, waiting for the mail from their families back east. But a lot of this is different as well. The Woodlawn's relationship with the native Americans is much more friendly and trusting than that of the Wilders; Caddie especially is friends with them and at one point risks her own life to warn them of danger from the white settlers. And Caddie has a much more adventurous life than Laura ever did, because she is sandwiched by two brothers who she constantly runs around with and explores with. I also felt like the American pride and the whole American storyline was much stronger in this book, especially with the climax and the comparison between England and America at the end, whereas Laura and her family were much less linked to America, since they were outside of the country.

I just loved the feel of the Woodlawn family and their relationship with each other, and their love for Caddie and allowing her to grow up how she needed to. And I loved Caddie's feistiness and her refusal to let anyone get her down.

I read a review on Goodreads about how this book (and others of this time period) propagate negative and untrue views of the Native Americans. I totally noticed a few places where they said things about the Indians that made me wince. But I think it's hard to read these books written in the 1930s and hold them to today's standard of political correctness. I guess it's just important to correct those mis-impressions by talking about what really happened with your kids.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

I read this book years ago, and I've been wanting to re-read the Jhumpa Lahiri books that I remembered thinking were so good. After reading this, I can't wait to revisit Interpreter of Maladies, which were her short stories, because I have heard they were even better. This book is basically the story of one Indian family who moves to America and how they change and grow over three decades of living in America. Their two children are born in America and are torn between their Indian ancestry and their American upbringing, and the story mainly follows Gogol, their son, who struggles with his name and its meaning and what he knows about himself. It also follows the mother, Ashima, at the beginning and at the end. I felt like this book gave such an eye-opening look at what it is like to be an immigrant from another country, the feeling of separation from home that you must always feel and the disconnect between what you know and what your children know, and the struggle that the children feel in trying to be a part of what their parents are forcing them to care about. I feel like I have much more I could say about this book, many more half-formed semi-coherent thoughts I could write if I had more time, but it's time for bed and I will have to save them for another day.

An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal

I don't think I've ever read anything like this before (or listened to it, since this was an audiobook). But oh my goodness, I am so, so glad that I did. This was one of the most eye-opening non-fiction books that I have ever read. I feel like I should buy a hard copy of it to keep on our shelves just in case we ever have medical issues or any sort of hospital or doctor's bills that we need to pay, because this gave so many reasons and ways that our current American healthcare system is broken, and some ways to try and mitigate those problems for ourselves. I feel so jaded about the whole broken system now, and disgusted by the people at the top of the pharmaceutical companies and hospital CEOs and doctors who are just trying to eke every last dollar from the people who end up at their door. It all just seems so unfair, from the fact that there's no pricing ever listed or explained anywhere, to the fact that we naturally place so much trust in doctors and hospitals and expect them to keep us and our children healthy and alive, without us understanding how they do it, so they can take advantage of us by making us pay thousands of dollars for something that costs $60 in other countries. It is kind of heart-breaking and scary to imagine all the consequences of this system and why it doesn't work any more.

I am grateful to have read this book, to help me become a more aware and conscious consumer. I do think well of our doctors (most of them--my endocrinologist's practice stinks) but I feel like these things are so good to know for any time we have unexpected expenses, like when Dane was in the hospital two years ago. I was so unquestioning and accepting of everything the doctors said; they kept him in the hospital for two extra days just for "observation" when he was fine and all they did for those two days was to offer overpriced Tylenol to keep his temperature down. I feel like all of the things she suggested in this book would be such commonsense changes and I wish there was a way they could be implemented without the whole healthcare lobbying industry stopping it.