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Sima’s Undergarments For Women

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As luck would have it the novels I have lately been given all tend to have some infertility, loss or adoption theme. Happenstance, or some greater design, I am not so sure. Perhaps more people are exploring these themes through fiction. Sima’s Undergarments for Women is a really moving story of a childless woman who runs a bra and panty store in the basement of her home in Brooklyn. Sima is an expert on lingerie. Nobody else can merely look at the customer coming through her door and tell immediately, almost always without fail, exactly what size and style, cup and width is needed for support. Sima’s store is a mirror of the community she lives in, a female hangout and place of bonding. She is an entrepreneur in her 60s seemingly content with her life and business until a young beautiful Isreali named Timna comes to her store looking for a bra and leaves with a job as seamstress. The closer they work together the greater the promise she sees in the young, carefree version of herself and soon Sima is casting herself in the role of surrogate mother to the young displaced woman. This eventually becomes the source of conflict as Timna grows to resent Sima who has trouble accepting boundaries. Ilana Stanger-Ross is an interesting author and a practicing midwife now living in British Columbia. She has received several prizes for her work including the Timothy Findley Fellowship. She writes authentic and heart-wrenching scenes that revolve around infertility. Sima carries most of the burden of this alone, seeking treatment and consulting doctors earlier on in their marriage, her husband a distant observor of her pain and stoicism. Stanger-Ross pushes the envelope here when she is exploring the ways in which a married couple can lapse into moments of over familiarity, and even emotional cruelty. Lev is the cuckholded husband who seems to take everything Sima can dish out and more until he is finally forced to stand up and call her out when she crosses the line in a brutally harsh scene where wife tries to make husband into her dressmaker’s dummy for lingerie. This is a book that is filled with rich metaphors and I love a good metaphor. She has built a career selling something very intimate and yet her life is completely devoid of intimacy. Sima’s store is in the basement of her home, for instance, the foundation upon which her world sits. She sells foundation garments. Just as a good bra gives support physically to a woman’s breasts, Sima’s shop is a central community hub for women seeking support.
Sima’s Undergarments for Women, by Ilana Stanger-Ross, Penguin Canada, 2009, paperback 2010. $15.00 U.S and $18.50 Canada. This novel gets $$$$ out of $$$$$.

I was not compensated for this review, but received a copy of the book from the publisher, as is common practice in media.

Friday Blog Hop and What Would You Read to Your Daughter?

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This is a fun Friday bloghop for book lovers started by parajunkee.com. I thought I’d pop on by there today and find some new books. Also featured blogger Julie at My Five Monkeys asks If you have a daughter what do you want to read to her? I have a list that I have already started reading both of my girls and I have to say this is one of the best parts of parenting. The reading and sharing the love of the written word. On my list is Anne of Green Gables and Alice in Wonderland (future as they aren’t old enough yet) and so far we have worked through: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Delta, Charlotte’s Web, the Life of Pi, The Velveteen Rabbit, Ramona and Beezus. When I was a kid I also loved Heidi, so I suspect I will get to that one soon too. Meanwhile, we are eagerly awaiting the new Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe movie. No, we are not Harry Potter fans here. We enjoy classics and we discover some new amazing authors together too. This week I found Lunch With Lenin, by Deborah Ellis and am now committed to working through her entire collection of books so that I can steer Payton in that direction soon. Ellis writes novels that are socially aware and that tackle global issues like Aids and poverty and drugs. I even found a reference to FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder) in the recent Lunch With Lenin.

Secret Daughter

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One of the loveliest expressions of the multi-faceted nature of adoption, Secret Daughter, blew me away with its authenticity and its incredible, strong, three-dimensional female characters. Secret Daughter is an emotionally resonating fictional story of three women who will stay with you long after you finish the book. Kavita, the Indian birth mother, tragically suffers through the birth of two daughters she is never allowed to keep in a poor country that values only boy children for what they can contribute to the family and economy. Somer is a married American doctor who will seek to adopt her child from her husband’s home of India, a girl child from an orphanage where her mother-in-law is well known as a volunteer and patron. Asha is that child. Indian born, raised in America, living a life of privilege, and yet she is never really able to discuss or truly access information or feelings about her adoption until she is nearly an adult. The story begins with Kavita giving birth in Dahanu, India 1984. She has a daughter and recalls in flashback the first daughter she gave birth to: “Kavita spent the next two days curled up on the woven straw mat on the floor of the hut. She did not dare ask what had happened to her baby. Whether she was drowned, suffocated or simply left to starve, Kavita hoped only that death came quickly, mercifully. …Like so many baby girls her first born would be returned to the earth long before her time.” When she realizes she has given birth to a second daughter about to face the same fate, she summons an amazing resource of courage and strength and walks miles with her sister to an orphanage where baby girls are left. She risks being beaten by her drunken husband, or worse by strangers to deliver this girl child to safety. Somer is an American doctor married to Krishnan, an Indian student who emigrated to the U.S to study at medical school and remained as a citizen in California. Krishnan maintains strong ties to family in India. Secret Daughter is told in the third person omniscent narrative style, but it is the alternating tale of the two women, adoptive mother and birth mother that makes this novel one of the best I have read in years. A brilliant juxtaposition of birth mother suffering a loss, quickly moves to another mother seeking to become one, Somer, suffering a devastating miscarriage – again. As Somer lies in hospital she thinks of her losses: “They don’t understand it’s not just the baby she lost. It’s everything. The names she runs through as she lies in bed at night. The paint samples for the nursery she’s collected in her desk drawer.” It seems logical when Somer and Krishnan turn to his home of India with the idea of adopting internationally. Somer, a strong independent American woman, is infuriated and quickly made to feel the outsider when she, a Caucasian female stands with her husband united in their desire and intent to create a family. It is at the orphanage and through the various hoops that a male bureaucracy sets up for foreign adoption that Somer feels the first pangs of something akin to culture shock. It is she, an adoptive mother whose skin differs from her child, who will oddly be made to feel time and again throughout her life as if she does not fit, or is less than a biological parent. Many times over the coming years Somer will be mistaken for the nanny. Her physical and personality differences make her an outsider. Similarly Asha feels herself an oddity, an only child raised in a family of doctors, for whom it is an assumed career path. Never really knowing details of her biological parent’s story, Asha imagines all kinds of stories and makes them her own, until it is no longer enough to fantasize her adoption story. Secret Daughter is such a real and raw story of adoption, it will make you laugh and cry and you won’t be able to put it down and it will also help you, no matter where you are or who you are understand adoption better. As an adoptive parent I was truly amazed every time one of the characters spoke such a true feeling or phrase that I have heard repeatedly, either in my own home, or from the many wonderful friends of ours who also have formed their families through adoption. There comes a point in this story where the mother and daughter discussions are so heated that it literally gives the reader great pause and takes your breath away. Asha, in her teens blurts how Somer and Krishnan are not “her real parents. Everyone else knows where they come from, but I have no idea. I don’t know why I have these eyes that everybody always notices. I don’t know how to deal with this damn hair of mine.” Asha, raised without details of her adoption and made to feel that it was not a topic she might discuss in her home for fear of hurt feelings, eventually explodes. Things are said by everyone, adoptive mother included that sever relationships and do almost irreparable damage. Also not knowing the truth of the relinquishment story and the sacrifices made by Kavita, Somer herself makes horrible assumptions and in the process hurts her daughter and her marriage. “Her mother’s voice drops to a hoarse whisper. ‘At least I wanted you.'” Secret Daughter is simply one of the best books I’ve read in years. I did not receive this one from a publisher for review, I bought it myself and had to share it with my readers because it is so magnificent and there are so many lessons to be learned here throughout this adoption story. Shilpi Somaya Gowda was raised in Toronto and has lived many places. Her parents emigrated from Mumbai. She has an MBA and now lives in California with her children and husband. Perhaps most telling of why this story is so authentic, is the fact that she spent a summer volunteering at an Indian orphnage. I look forward to more from this author. This book would make a fantastic Christmas gift for the readers on your list. To purchase Secret Daughter click on my Amazon.ca carousel widget at side of page. Affiliate links and ads help fund this blog.

Thriftymommastips $$$$$ out of $$$$$. (5 out of 5: my highest rating)
Secret Daughter, first edition paperback, William Morrow, a division of Harper Collins, 2010, $17.99 U.S. 340 pages plus helpful glossary at end of Indian words

So Many Days: Tales From The Treehouse Part 2

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This is our latest read: So Many Days, a lovely children’s book about feelings and exploring and potential. The book is So Many Days by Alison McGhee, illustrations Taeeun Yoo, New York Simon and Schuster, Athenuem, 2010, $18.99, US, $15.99 Canada. It gets a four out of five ($$$$ out of $$$$$.)  McGhee is the New York Times best-selling author of SomeDay.

So Many Days is a sweet little story with a cute androgenous character and simple verse showing the many ways children can explore and interact with the greater environment. I loved that the main character could be a boy or a girl and that he or she is described as brave and wild and loved, and all things that children need to hear to grow strong and healthy and safe in their own skin. Books that encourage children to explore and understand feelings are always worthwhile reads. Also this one encourages children to feel powerful. It is a simple verse that older kids can read confidently.

The King’s Christmas List

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The King’s Christmas List should be at the top of many Christmas lists for parents interested in promoting a generation of socially aware young people. This book is a very sweet story about a little girl named Emma and her dog Shu -Shu, who set out to make their way to a birthday party, but encounter obstacles, in the form of people in need all along the way. Emma and her dog are invited to the King’s birthday party. But they cannot go empty-handed, so together they craft and bake presents to take with them. Emma and her dog are to travel in a beautiful horse-drawn carriage with her new Christmas cape, a cake they have baked, and her favourite bear, Cherry Bear. First they meet a grandmother and her grandson who are cold and hungry. Emma gives them both the cake and she wraps the boy in her Christmas cape. A little further down the road she and Shu-Shu meet a little girl crying because her bear has fallen into a river. Emma selflessly leaves her with Cherry Bear. Finally they arrive at the castle and are slightly embarrassed to have no present to give them King. Emma begins to tell him of her presents and the story of their trip, but he tells her he knows what she has done and that her gifts to others on his behalf have been the greatest present he could ever receive.
The King’s Christmas list is a really lovely story with opulent drawings and a great message about materialism that is not harsh or heavy-handed. Bonnie Leick’s illustrations are gorgeous and rich and magical. Author Eldon Johnson has taken a simple message and a grown up message and pared it down to a child’s level, pulling it together with very realistic examples of a child’s natural inclination to give from the heart. This is a gorgeous book that, in the end, also relates real life examples from World Vision of how we can all give to others to carry out the true spirit of the season.
The King’s Christmas List is by Eldon Johsnon, illustrated by Bonnie Leick, published by Tommy Nelson, or Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nasheville, 2010, $14.99 US. 30 pages.
Thriftymommastips rating is $$$$$ out of $$$$$. Loved this cute book with heart.

Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography

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One of the most powerful actresses of our generation, Oscar-winner Angelina Jolie is an adoptive parent, UN ambassador and partner to one of Hollywood’s biggest heartthrobs. She is a celebrated and intense actress, famous daughter of Oscar winner Jon Voight and one-time model Marcheline Bertrand. Named the most powerful celebrity in the world, Angelina unseated Oprah Winfrey on the Forbes 2009 Celebrity 100 list. Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography is a page-turner, at once titillating, scandalous and informative. The biography dives right into Angelina’s famous father’s early career. Jon Voight’s early experience in theatre, his friendship with Dustin Hoffman and golden boy status are well detailed. The Voight portion of the book is quite compelling. Readers could be forgiven if at first they began to feel that the biography read as a tale of the father, not the daughter. However there is meat here. Jolie herself cannot be understood without reflecting on the reasons for the volatile relationship with her father and the strange parenting style of her mother. Morton clearly notes, in the beginning of the biography, how Bertrand was initially unable to bond with the infant daughter she gave birth to right at the same time her famous husband began an affair with Stacey Pickren. There is much speculation and comment on the psychological impact this early abandonment may have had on Jolie. The musings and comments from various doctors and psychologists, within the biography, make sense and seem supported by the behaviour of Jolie throughout life. However, the comments are somewhat diminished by the simple fact that none of these doctors or psychologists ever treated Jolie in person. Their comments are made as assumed insights and are speculative then at best. Both Angelina and her brother James Haven sadly were both made to suffer in the protracted angry divorce between her mother and father. That much is fact. Not exactly an overnight success, Angelina started as a model _ at one time thought to be the next Cindy Crawford _ and slowly gained notoriety. Jolie did time dancing in music videos and was often passed over for roles partly because of her strong looks and personality. She didn’t fit the girl next door or girlfriend roles being offered. Eventually she landed roles in movies like Foxfire and Hackers, not really notable works, but on Hackers she met and later married her first husband British actor Jonny Lee Miller. A turning point came when she accepted the role of a doomed supermodel in Gia. Then a Golden Globe nomination came for George Wallace and the star was in demand. As Jolie’s acting reputation grew, so did her political motivation. She is now a highly respected UN ambassador. Much of this has been written about before, however, as has the highly publicized breakup between Brad Pitt and his former wife Jennifer Aniston. When they met on set, Pitt and Angelina Jolie, cast as husband and wife in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, had immediate chemistry. Jolie had already adopted one child Maddox from Cambodia, a spot she was introduced to through filming Lara Croft. She would soon adopt more. Now parents to six children, some biological and others from various international adoptions, the Jolie-Pitts are as well known for their “rainbow family” as they are for their acting roles. What I found to be even more interesting here than the details of drug use and odd sexual behaviour of Jolie’s younger years, were the questionable details of these various international adoptions. While on one hand celebrity adoptions are celebrated for raising the profile of adoption as a viable and beautiful way to make a family, there are numerous details here in this biography of criminal behaviour, missing information, biological parents turning up alive when once thought to be dead, that really cast a harsh light on international adoption. This is the part of the book that is frankly scandalous. On more than one occasion it is revealed that parents of the children adopted by Jolie turned out to be alive, whereas they were assumed dead. In the case of Jolie’s first adoption, when still married to Billy Bob Thornton, the adoption agent Lauryn Galindo herself fell under suspicion of trafficking. During a two year probe it was alleged that she bought children for American families. She was later convicted and served two years in a federal penitentiary for money laundering and conspiracy to commit visa fraud. After Jolie met like-minded actor Brad Pitt, they searched the world for her next child. In Ethiopia they would find a little girl Zahara, whose mother was reported to have died from Aids. In 2005 they adopted her, although Angelina was on paper the adoptive parent, because the country wouldn’t allow adoptions by unmarried couples. A short time after the child was settled in her new home the biological mother surfaced alive. Andrew Morton is one of the world’s most well known celebrity biographers. He has previously written Diana: Her True Story, revealing the inner world of Princess Diana. Morton lives in London and has also written Monica’s Story and Tom Cruise.

Angelina: by Andrew Morton. An Unauthorized Biography,
St. Martin’s Press, New York, August 2010, $26.99 $31.99 Canadian, 328 pages
thriftymommastips rating $$$1/2 out of $$$$$

Switch

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Switch asks readers to envision one of their worst nightmares come true – that your family is being held captive by a demented psychopath. Then the author asks you to travel down that road for awhile imagining what depths of depravity you might contemplate, what horrible lines you might cross to get them back safe. Switch by Grant McKenzie is a fast-paced page-turner. Switch is one of the quickest reads I have undertaken in awhile. I completed much of it in one weekend. Not because it was simplistic, but because it was so fast-paced and urgent I really needed to get to the end and find out if the hero rescued his family. The story is compelling and creepy and a bit in the tradition of James Patterson and Harlan Coben.
Sam is a somewhat down on his luck actor. He earns a pay cheque as a mall cop and bides his time between roles. He is best known for his high school drama roles and had one big break on Magnum P.I. So he is a bit of a celebrity, targeted partly because of that and partly for other reasons. When we meet him he is living in Portland doing commercials to keep his hand in the game having moved with his family from L.A. The prologue of the book begins with a murder, but a somewhat strange one, in that the murderer, a surgeon named Zack, seems conflicted. The conflict is complicated when it is revealed that Zack is being watched. The start of Switch asks the reader to be patient and to switch gears numerous times before coming to the true plot. It is the only confusing piece, a speed bump in the path of a really good but twisted story. I found this part of the book to be a bit awkward and off-putting. The prologue might have been moved or eliminated altogether to lend a better flow to this piece of the book. Jump then from the prologue to a family getting ready for bed, going through the rituals. There is someone watching this ritual remotely. The Watcher. He presses a remote control switch and punches a hole in the gas line inside the house and soon the house is engulfed in flames. Zack is mysteriously a voyeur to the crime. Sam is working the night shift as usual, a job he compares to glorified babysitting and he stumbles onto some kids robbing a candy store. The middle-aged actor believes himself shot, but it turns out the kids held up the store with paint guns. In the wee hours of the morning he leaves his job and heads home, only to be stopped by a police cruiser as he approaches the home he finds, engulfed in flames, body bags being carried out. His house is gone, family assumed dead. He is plunged into a physical state of shock that is very well captured here and then while immobilized with fear and grief, he is labelled the only suspect, grilled by police. Then he gets a strange phone call telling him his family is not dead, the unwitting news that forces him to become a puppet executing acts of violence and torture on command in order to get his family back. Is his family alive or dead? Who is Zack and why is he suddenly working with Sam? Is he on Sam’s side, or working with someone else? Can he trust this new partner? How will he get out of this unending cycle of violence? McKenzie, born in Scotland, lives in British Columbia and was a former crime reporter for the Calgary Sun. The kind of guy I used to work with toiling away with other ink-stained wretches while penning a novel at night. I love the opportunity to review Canadian authors and have been a big fan of all Canadian literature since high school. I am incredibly lucky to have been given a couple of really different, but intriguing new Canadian novels lately. This one Switch, is shocking, fast, and plot-driven, and it reminded me a lot of the James Patterson books. Imaginative in its depravity and psychologically thrilling. Switch is most fun when dropping clever cultural references to the 70s and 80s. Switch is a good read and a worthy edition to a growing body of crime fiction in Canada.

Enjoyable and fast-paced, if you can negotiate the rocky beginning.

Thriftymommastips rating is $$$1/2 out of $$$$$
Switch by Grant McKenzie is in paperback. 432 pages. It is listed for $25.00 and published by Penguin Group Canada, a division of Pearson Canada Inc. First published in Great Britain by Transworld. The Penguin edition is 2010.

Disclosure: I am not paid for my reviews, but as is common in media, a copy of this book was provided to me for free in order to complete this review.

Dork Diaries: Tales From The TreeHouse and a giveaway

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Tales From The TreeHouse series with my daughter Payton. This is our own mother-daughter book club vlog. Expect to see more. These are timely pre-teen girly books with snappy drawings about girls in middle school. Think Diary of a Wimpy Kid for girls.

thriftymommastips rating is $$$$ out of $$$$$. I received copies of these books to review, but I am not paid for my opinion. My opinion is all my own.

I have one copy of Dork Diaries: Tales From a Not So Popular Party Girl to give away to a lucky reader.
To enter:
1. Follow me on twitter @inkscrblr
2. Leave me a comment here with contact info and one good tip for keeping older children 9 + engaged in reading.
3. Follow brainfood on GFC. See side of blog.
I will draw for this on Sept. 30. Open to Canada and US.

Embracing Your Second Calling: A review and giveaway

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Embracing Your Second Calling by Dale Hanson Bourke asks middle-aged women to examine the second half of life and find meaning or purpose. This is a self help book with a highly religious tone, but what caught my eye about this one was the fact that it is geared entirely towards women. Not only that, but this book  also targets a demographic that has traditionally been discarded, having metaphorically peaked and been seen as headed downhill slowly towards sunset. Hanson Bourke has written an engaging, light-hearted workbook of sorts for women whose children may have left home and moved on to college. It will also appeal to women who may simply wish to reinvent themselves after a divorce or those who desire career change. Whether that looks like a 50ish Mom leaving full-time office work to suddenly become a fashion model, or a woman sandwiched between caregiving roles as daughter, mother and wife suddenly emancipated as the home becomes an empty nest, this book is a simple therapeutic way to work through the idea of what might be next. Embracing Your Second Calling: Finding Passion and Purpose for the Rest of Your Life is a great gift book for women over 50, even more useful for those past 60, a demographic often discarded. Sprinkled throughout the book are suggestions of ways you may Reflect on your life’s purpose or Act with a group of peers. This type of format lends itself nicely to book clubs and bible study groups. There are numerous talking points for those who choose this as a book club selection. For instance: “Reflect: How are you better today than you were in your twenties or thirties?” Often I have heard it said that the twenties are about striving and the thirties about growing career and family and the forties then in terms of a woman’s lifespan can be viewed as a more comfortable point of enjoying some of that work done during the earlier decades. Yet most are still working or perhaps even now re-entering the workforce after a period of time away raising children. So what of the 50s, 60s and 70s? Well, I guess that is the point of the book to help more women think, to inspire confidence and action. This book will also be helpful to those looking to start a mentoring group for younger women. Hanson Bourke is president of the CIDRZ Foundation, a wife and mother of two grown boys. She was previously a marketing and publishing director and now supports charitable Christian works that raise money for African health issues like Aids, malaria and cervical cancer research. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Embracing Your Second Calling, by Dale Hanson Bourke is published by Thomas Nelson and is $16.99 US. The softcover is 223 pages. May 4, 2010.
thriftymommastips review is $$$$ out of $$$$$. A great gift book or book club selection.

Thriftymommastips is not paid to review books; instead a free copy of the book is provided by the publisher, as is common practice in media. The opinions in this review are all mine.

For a chance to win a copy of this book, draw on Sept. 23rd, open to US and Canada all you need to do is:
1. Leave a comment here with your contact information. Tell me one interesting life goal you look forward to in the second half of your life.
2. Follow me on twitter @inkscrblr.
3. Follow brainfood on GFC. see side of blog.

Good luck!