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Mrs. Nelson’s Toy & Book Shop – LaVerne, CA

March 17, 2010 in book review, bookstore, childrens, classics, food, young adult by Kim | No comments

These are the Books I Give for Every Baby Shower or Birth

I first heard of Mrs. Nelson’s Toy & Book Shop when it won the Parnell Award last year.  The Parnell Award is given to bookstores that excel in promoting books to young people.  After stopping by last month, it’s clear why they won.  The store is stocked with great books and toys for newborns to YA readers.  I enjoyed walking through the picture book section, it brought back memories of wonderful hours spent reading to my kids. I noticed that since my kids have passed this stage, I tend to gravitate toward the books that were our favorites rather than explore any new books.  So I’ll use this platform to pitch my two favorite children’s books, the ones I give at every baby shower:  Time for Bed by Mem Fox, illustrated by Jane Dyer and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr., John Archambault and Louis Ehlert.

Time for Bed is a story of parent animals lulling their babies to sleep.  The singsong rhyme was perfect for calming down my sleepy, but squirrelly, toddlers.  Although primarily a bedtime book, we read it all through the day.  Each page gave me the opportunity to weave in animal noises for more rousing readings.  Between the stunning illustrations (I bought every book illustrated by Jane Dyer after this one) and the fun rhymes, neither my kids or their incredibly wonderful parents (somebody needs to say it) tired of reading it.

I can still recite most of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Oddly enough, what I tend to forget is the title.  Several times I have asked a bookseller, do you have “A told B and B told C, I’ll Read the rest of this entry »

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The Lacuna Wins Round 1 of the Tournament of Books!

March 13, 2010 in Challenge, art, book review, history by Kim | No comments

Politics, history and Art, This Book was Written for Me

I meant to write this the day The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver won the first round of the Tournament of Books, but it’s been a crazy week.  I liked the book better than the judge or the commentators, and, I have to say that their reading and review of the book was too superficial for me.  I have a feeling that The Lacuna may make it one more round at the very most, so here’s my opportunity to say I enjoyed it.  In part because I was a Soviet Studies major in college, so I find Trotsky an interesting character (if you agree, try In the Casa Azul by Meaghan Delahut), also because I love history and last, but not least, I enjoy art.

Politics

Kingsolver has a lot to say out the press and public acceptance of whatever appears in black and white.  Repeatedly through the discussions of the press in Mexico and later in the United States with Harrison, the main character, Kingsolver portrays the press as the howler monkeys introduced on the first page:

In the beginning were the howlers.  They always commenced their bellowing in the first hour of dawn, just as the hem of the sky began to whiten.  It would start with just one:  his forced, rhythmic groaning, like a saw blade.  That aroused others near him, nudging them to bawl along with his monstrous tune.

Sadly, little has changed, where was the press during the run up to the Iraqi War?  Chasing Michael Jackson or the latest starlet sinking into a life of excess, picking up the latest howl of scandal, rather than asking the hard questions.  Personally, as much of a fan as I am of the New York Times (it’s the paper I read daily), it has a lot to be ashamed of during this first decade of the 21st century.  Kingsolver gives two options for coping with the howling press:  hide in plain sight as flamboyant Frida did, all those wonderful dresses and hairstyles covered her physical deformities and emotional pain, or hide altogether.

The Lacuna concludes with an incredible dialogue during a Committee on Un-American Activities hearing (I’ve always thought the title of those hearings really referred to the activity of the hearings more than the investigation purported to be the focus of the hearings).  A week ago, I would have said those hearings were an embarrassing part of our history, but Lynn Cheyney’s attacks on lawyers who respect our country and Constitution so much that they represent despicable people reminded me that political persecution is alive and well.

History

Kingsolver uses the book to present a view that history is made up of individuals.  Most obviously, she brings Tolstoy, Rivera and Kahlo to life as breathing, jealous, caring, contradictory people.  The affairs, the meetings, the food, the egos are all mixed together with creating great art and political thought.  We are left with political theory and art that influenced the course of history, but the reader sees the people who created the works.  A conversation between Kahlo and Harrison Read the rest of this entry »

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NEVER Would Have Read This Book if a Bookseller Hadn’t Recommended It

February 7, 2010 in book review, bookstore, memoir by Kim | 2 comments

A few weeks ago, Leslie and I and our respective husbands went to hear a friend sing Vitello’s in Studio City.  Knowing Portrait of a Bookstore was right across the street, we left the club with 30 minutes to spare before the store closed (love the late night hours at the store!).  How much damage could we do in 30 minutes?  Well, a lot.  Keith bought most of my birthday present, plus books for himself.  After a very convincing pitch from the bookseller, Leslie bought Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by Susan Jane Gilman, a book that generally would not have attracted either of us.  So much for what we know, here are Leslie’s thoughts on the book:

One of the things I like most about independent bookstores is that the employees (many of whom are owners or invested in the business) are truly big readers. Since I’m assuming none of them are getting rich working there, they must really love books.

When I walk into an independent bookstore, I typically ask “What can you recommend?” This may either be for me or for my two pre-teen daughters. In many cases, my question has been rewarded with wonderful surprises.

Recently, Kim and I, along with our husbands, went to Portrait of a Bookstore, one of my favorite independents, is just across the street from a jazz club we visited. Needless to say, we walked out with books in our arms. Well, actually, the guys carried them.

As usual, the woman that was working that evening was just chock full of recommendations. One of the books that she mentioned was Hypocrite in a Pouffy Dress, a memoir, by Susan Jane Gilman. This is a book, had I simply seen on a shelf, I would never have picked up. I’m really fussy about the non-fiction I Read the rest of this entry »

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Night by Elie Wiesel – Social Justice Challenge

January 31, 2010 in Challenge, book review, community service, memoir by Kim | 5 comments

Sometimes I am asked if I know “the response to Auschwitz’: I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don’t even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response.  What I do know is that there is “response” in responsibility.  When we speak of this era of evil and darkness, so close and yet so distant, “responsibility” is the key word.  – Elie Wiesel

When I read Holocaust literature as a teenager, I was always the strong determined character who beat the odds and survived.  Tragedy provided a background for my heroic actions as Miep or Corrie Ten Boom.  Motherhood changed all that.  Now I’m the mother who can’t stop the Nazis from forcing her child to dig his own grave.  The mother who trods with so many others in peaceful lines to the gas chambers holding my child’s hand.  Or the very worst, I’m Sophie and I have to choose.  Claire won’t read Holocaust literature anymore, it’s too painful.  I completely support her choice.  If a book comes up that deals with the Holocaust, I quietly warn her to skip it.  But as painful as it is for me to read these stories, there is a part of me that believes if millions of people had to live and die this horror, then the least I can do is witness it in some small way.

My greatest honor as an attorney was the opportunity to work with Bet Tzedek to assist Holocaust survivors in obtaining the “Ghetto Pension” [an aside, if you know if a survivor who has not applied for the 2,000 euro Ghetto Pension/ZRBG pension, please contact Bet Tzedek to determine eligibility, today].  From my limited exposure, it appeared that the survivors who were alive today were swept into the Nazi system late in the war when they were teenagers.  Not too young or too old to fall victim to the selections, strong enough to survive until the war ended within the next 12 to 18 months.  And they barely survived.  My teenage visions of bravery were more illusory than I thought.  Elie Wiesel’s Night supports my very unscientific theory.

The Nazis arrived in Wiesel’s village in Transylvania when he was fifteen.  His experience Read the rest of this entry »

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Franny and Zooey and Me

January 28, 2010 in RIP, book review, classics, short story by Claire | No comments

Why I Love JD Salinger

Kim gets news before I do.  So she shot me an email a few minutes ago, to tell me that JD Salinger had just died.  I’ve said to her in the past that his Nine Stories is probably my favorite book in the whole world, so she asked me if I wanted to write something about him, and maybe include my reasons for loving that book so much, since she didn’t have the same passion for it.  Salinger isn’t about Catcher in the Rye for me, I should be clear on that.  I read it once, didn’t like it, haven’t reread it.  But Nine Stories . . .

Best. Book. Ever.

How do you tell someone why a book gets to you on some deep emotional level?  It’s something both Kim and I have struggled with, I think, as we’ve written this blog and also tried to persuade each other to read certain books.  She loves Atonement; I couldn’t finish it (not because I didn’t like it, but because it was clearly going to be about someone making a false accusation and ruining someone’s life and I can’t bear that kind of a story.  The writing was beautiful).  Anyway, she tried to convince me to finish that and I never did.  So how can I convey to her how Nine Stories is more than just a collection of words to me?

It’s one of the books that made me want to be a writer, I know that much.  And I know that every time I write a patch of dialogue that feels real to me (not as often as I’d like), I think about JD Salinger and how no one has ever written more realistic dialogue, dialogue which sounds like what people might actually say–but resonates in ways that stay with you for a long time.

And then there’s the Glass family.  Or should I say, first and foremost, there’s the Glass family, who are more real to me than most of the people I know.  Seymour and Buddy and the twins and Franny and Zooey and Boo Boo.  Did I leave anyone out?  Probably.  They weave in and out of Nine Stories, sometimes front and center (“A Perfect Day for Bananafish”) sometimes off to the side but still influential (“Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut”).

Oh, god.   “Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut.”  What woman can read that story and not weep for what she thought her life was going to be as opposed to what it is?  In that story, Eloise remember being in love with Walt Glass (who died during the war) and then looks at her life now, married to a guy who’s nowhere near as sensitive or smart as Walt was.  Miserable, drunk, disgusted with what she’s become, she is suddenly, savagely cruel to her own daughter.  And then she says to her friend, desperately, tragically, “I was a nice girl . . .  wasn’t I?”

Well, now I’m crying.  Salinger has that affect on me.  Seven words, that’s all it took.  Seven words–something someone might actually say–and an entire tragic life is summed up, right there. Read the rest of this entry »

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