Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill by Maud Hart Lovelace

I was sick yesterday, so I spent all of Sunday afternoon lying in bed trying not to throw up (thank goodness for Tommy!), and I read two Betsy-Tacy books while laying there. I accidentally read them out of order, so I read this one after Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, and I think that made me like this one a little bit less than I would have. Because Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown is possibly one of my favorites of the whole series (although I have to read the other six to decide that for sure!). Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill is charming and cute and I love the story of them meeting the Syrian refugees (and I definitely love and support the overall message of being welcoming and kind to these new Americans). I also loved the chapter about them falling in love with the King of Spain and how they pinned his picture to their undergarments, hahaha. It just is so perfect. And the chapters about the fight they had with Katie and Julia over who would be queen just is so real--I can completely imagine that exact thing happening between me and my siblings as well. But it doesn't have the thrill of Downtown and the just slightly older writing style, which makes it feel more like a book for an older kid. I still love this one though.

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

I'd never read this book before, and I still haven't seen the movie (although I am definitely planning on doing so after reading this book). My only real introduction to this movie was a poster of the famous picture of the greasers from the movie hanging in a friend's apartment at BYU. But when I listened to Rob Lowe's memoir Stories I Only Tell My Friends, he talked for at least a chapter about his experience on The Outsiders, since it was his first real big break into the movie business, and that got me interested in the movie and the book. And now I'm just finally getting around to it.

It was definitely worth the listen. I loved how Hinton created this lovable cast of delinquent characters--it was hard not to love them all and root for them even as they did pretty dumb or terrible things. I especially loved Ponyboy Curtis's character and his relationships with his brothers, and how he kind of grew and learned how much they cared for him over the course of the book. I loved the overall message of the book about Ponyboy's discovery in his search for his identity and that people aren't all that different on the inside no matter what they look like on the outside. There was a lot of violence in the book (since it's basically about different gangs fighting with each other), but it wasn't vividly described and I didn't mind it. This was definitely a great book and I can imagine thinking it was super amazing if I had read it as a teenager myself. I would definitely re-read this and I really enjoyed it.

Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie

I think this may be the last of my Agatha Christie's for the next little while. I really enjoyed listening to all of her Miss Marple mysteries, and this was another highly rated one on Goodreads, so I thought I would check it out. I apparently read it before in 2013, but I had no recollection of it (haha), so it was totally new to me. (It's amazing how little I can recall from these Agatha Christie mysteries later on. I guess I will always remember Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None but other than that I forget them so quickly. That's good because I can always revisit and still enjoy them later.)

I didn't love this one this time, possibly because Poirot was digging up an old crime that had been committed sixteen years before, so it was lacking in any sort of action. Basically the only thing that happened in this book was Poirot visits the five people staying at the home at the time of the murder, and then asks them each to write a narrative saying the same thing of what they told him. So you basically get a lot of repetition of each person going over what they did and saw and it got a little bit old after a while. I was very interested in how Poirot solved the mystery and figured it out, and was engaged in the ending. Overall, maybe not my favorite Christie mystery, but it was a fun, short read.

Betsy-Tacy and Tib by Maud Hart Lovelace

These books are just so fun to re-read. I love the simple language and stories that make these books great for young kids, and I can just tell that Dane will love these when we get around to reading them. Betsy Tacy and Tib are girls, but the things they do and the shenanigans they get up to would be so enthralling to him, I just know he would love it. I read these books and just wish I could give him this life of freedom and fun and imagination.

My favorite stories in this book were when the girls cut their hair, and the mirror palace (I remember being impressed by that when I read it as a kid), and the Everything Pudding. I love how Maud Hart Lovelace tells the stories of these girls, and it's interesting to read at the back of the book about how she got all of the stories from her own life and her childhood friends.

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

I don't necessarily know what I thought about this book. Much of it felt very real, particularly the first 3/4 of it which focused on the relationship between Lucy and her mother when her mother came to visit her while Lucy was in the hospital with an unnamed illness. I really liked how Strout portrayed the way these two women talked to each other, and how Lucy felt about her mother, and how they showed love to each other even though it didn't look like it. I didn't love the last bit where Lucy talked more about her marriage failing, etc., which just didn't feel like it was all that connected to the narrative that I really enjoyed about her mom. I wanted one cohesive story about Lucy and her mom, and I was surprised that there was more to Lucy's story that didn't go with it, because that was what the rest of the book seemed like it was about. There were several parts that were painful to listen to, like Lucy talking about her childhood, but it was inspirational how she overcame those rough beginnings without making a huge deal out of it. I thought Lucy was like, yeah, my childhood was hard, but no big deal, I'll just go to college and be awesome but still be myself and not ashamed of where I came from. She didn't seem to celebrate or run away from her impoverished background or her somewhat abusive home (it doesn't seem actually abusive, but definitely dysfunctional and neglectful in a lot of ways), and just accepted it for what it was and herself for what she was and grew to love her new life. I wouldn't say I loved this, but it was an interesting book to listen to. Plus, it was super short (only four segments on Overdrive), so that was a bonus. I don't imagine I will remember this book for very long, though.

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

I loved reading this out loud with Dane. He loved the first one, and we quickly made it through this one together too. The first book is so cute because of the stories that Pa tells Laura about her grandpa as a child or about panthers, and there aren't really stories like that in here. But this book is so interesting about how they start from absolutely nothing, just pull up their wagon to a random spot of prairie and make a life there. You read about how Pa hauled the logs, built the house, built the barn, put on the roof, built the fireplace, dug the well, started the farm. I love how Laura (I can't just call her Wilder, she is Laura to me!) gives so much detail and tells you how Pa goes about doing everything, because although sometimes it's a little hard to envision (and I'm sure Dane didn't understand most of her detailed descriptions about how Pa build the fireplace), it's so interesting to read. Dane just loved this book and I loved reading it with him.

Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace

This is another one of my childhood favorites that I am revisiting in my old age. I utterly adored these books when I was a kid, and I wanted to see how they stood up. I loved remembering all of these sweet stories about Betsy and Tacy, these two best friends who never fought. I especially remembered the story about them dressing up in their mother's clothes and going calling on other women, and dyeing the sand different colors to sell. I think that their childhood just sounds so perfect and idyllic, and I wish I could give Dane the same complete and utter freedom that Betsy and Tacy had as five-year-olds. They wandered around all day and played together, and I wish Dane had a friend living next door that we could let him just run around with all day. I think he would really love this book and these stories about Betsy and Tacy, and I'd love to tackle these books soon with him. (There are so many books I want to read with him!)