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It’s Your Kid, Not a Gerbil #Giveaway

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I don’t often point out great giveaways here on brainfood, unless they are my great giveaways. But I am making an exception here because I love this author. So I wanted to share him with my readers. Especially if they have yet to hear of Dr. Kevin Leman. Dr. Leman writes smart parenting books. He has also written at least one children’s book about adoption of which I am a big fan. The author, and Tyndale Books, have a super giveaway contest on right now. You can even win an IPOD. Tyndale and the author are giving away he new book, It’s Your Kid, Not A Gerbil. You can visit the Tyndale Blog to enter where we’re giving away an iPod Touch, three Kevin Leman book prize packs, and 5 copies of It’s Your Kid, Not A Gerbil. Subtitle is Creating a Happier and Less Stressed Home. I think we can all benefit from that philosophy. Click on links below to enter. Don’t forget to say that thriftymommasbrainfood sent you. Good luck!

To enter, visit the contest page and fill out the entry form after completing at least one of the following actions (each action completed counts as an entry into the giveaway).

Untold Story – An Unusual Look at How Princess Diana’s Life Might Have Gone

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Untold Story is quite unlike anything I have ever reviewed here. It takes a real character, Princess Di, who tragically died in a Paris tunnel car crash many years ago and manufactures a fictional future for her, had she lived. The main character in Untold Story is Lydia, a single woman living in a small town somewhat called Kensington anonymously and working at a shelter for animals. She is in a relationship with a man and seems reluctant to get too close to him. She has several girlfriends. As the story begins, her friends are all waiting for her to show up to a party and she is late for an unknown reason. The foreshadowing wasn’t something I really picked up on with the first read of this book, but on a second pass through the manuscript it is evident. Chapter Two jumps back to a month before the party when life was normal for Lydia. She enjoys a quiet life with her dog and her friends. Occasionally she tortures herself with a peek at the gossip magazines seeking glimpses of her children, or her former life. In a side plot there is a photographer writing a book on occasion of the tenth anniversary of Princess Diana’s death. He is travelling and pulling the book together much too slow for his publisher’s desire and here the two plots will collide. Lydia is very skilled at lying to friends and giving them tiny snippets of truth to keep them from questioning her background or to keep them at a distance. Eventually she begins to have the feeling she might be being followed. It is a not unfamiliar feeling for her. When, after many years succeeding in having faked her death, she is found by a photographer, she must make a difficult choice: confront the man or run. Monica Ali is a truly creative author and this is a fantastic and compelling read. Ali takes as the premise the idea that Princess Di was “a gorgeous bundle of trouble” and she supports this with a character who exists in the book as the accomplice who helped Diana to stage her death. Through him we see how trapped she felt towards the last years of her marriage to Prince Charles. He is painted as cruel and controlling. We see also that this fictional Diana’s children were being pulled from her already as she headed towards the inevitability of a divorce. So, Ali, seems to hint it might not have been such a leap for a woman like Diana to have faked her death. It would have been the only way to gain freedom. Ali is the author of two other novels, In the Kitchen and Brick Lane. She lives in the other London with her husband and two children. She was named one of Granta’s twenty best young British novelists.

Untold Story by Monica Ali, is to be released in hardcover June 28, 2011, by Scribner Hardcover (Simon and Schuster Canada) Fiction, 272 pages, $25.00

This one is a $$$$ out of $$$$$. Fun and unconventional twist on a topic many of us thought we already knew.

I received a copy of this book to review for free and a chat will be occurring on line about the book through Wanda @YMCBookalicious and YummyMummyClub

My Foolish Heart by Susan May Warren

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I expected Susan May Warren’s My Foolish Heart to read like a romance novel. And it does. But to dismiss this book as simple pulp would be doing it a grave injustice. There is real substance here with a main character who suffers paralyzing anxiety attacks and, we learn, was sole survivor in a terrible car crash. Isadora, Issie, is a radio host of a talk show about love called The Foolish Heart. She dispenses advice and listens to romantic issues and yet she is so deeply scarred by her post-traumatic stress disorder she is barely able to venture from her home and therefore also unable to fall in love. She lives in Deep Haven and is the daughter of the town’s well loved former football coach. Football is almost as much a character here as are the grown high school students who never left town or left briefly and came back. Caleb is an ex-vet who was injured on duty in Iraq and has returned to town to audition for football coach. His nemesis Seb Brewster is also auditioning for coach. Caleb has been physically scarred over part of his face and yet, when he moves in next door to Issie she can’t help but noticing how attractive he is. Lucy is the town’s donut shop owner. She is Issie’s friend and as the plot reveals also has a history with Seb. My Foolish Heart is about a town healing after the death of their beloved coach. It is the first book I have read by Susan May Warren. She has three others in the Deep Haven series. Warren has clearly done her research on anxiety and PTSD. She delves really graphically into the psychological and emotional issues that are coupled with these disorders. For this reason her characters are unique and deep and multi-faceted. Caleb calls into the radio show one night and falls for a voice without knowing the woman behind the voice is also his neighbour. He is both physically and psychologically scarred by the past. Can they both get over their many obstacles in order to find each other? The author Warren has written more than 30 novels and was once a missionary in Russia. She is married with four children and now lives in Minnesota.

This one is a $$$$ out of $$$$$. I received a free copy of this book for review. That in no way impacts my opinion.

My Foolish Heart by Susan May Warren, published by Tyndale Fiction, US, $13.99, 358 pages paperback.

A Global Quest to Eradicate the Horrific Use of Child Soldiers: A Review

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 In areas of Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East it is common practice to lure children into the horrific business of war by using rape, murder, fear, drugs and kidnapping as tools to keep the machine well oiled. They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children is an unflinching look at the harshness of the inhumane practice of turning children into killing machines. It is one of the hardest books you will ever read because it is so devastating and truthful. This book casts light on atrocities committed to girls and boys as young as six and seven, raped and drugged, tricked into murdering. The author, Romeo Dallaire, is a retired Lieutenant General of Canada. Now a senator, he served 37 years with the armed forces. He led an ill fated United Nations peace-keeping mission in Rwanda and as such came face to face with the reality of child soldiers. He is an officer of the Order of Canada and an Officer of the Legion of Merit of The United States. This story begins in Africa. There is a moving introduction by Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone, himself a child soldier for many years. The book moves into a slightly cumbersome stretch in which Dallaire outlines his purpose with the book and what is to be expected. Dallaire’s youth was spent in Quebec. He is the son of a retired Canadian staff sergeant serving in the Canadian Army. His father, he says, suffered what would now be called post-traumatic stress disorder. There is interesting background here and a chapter dubbed Warrior Boy illustrates how he grew into the young man that would eventually be perhaps Canada’s best known peacekeeper. This Canadian idyllic life of the young Dallaire, while not perfect, appears to be almost absurd in its privilege when juxtaposed against the chapter that follows, Kidom. Kidom is almost a children’s bedtime story when it begins. It is a brother and sister in Africa playing and imagining with a child-like sense of wonder at watching the world and nature unfold around them quietly and happily. The characters in this section are composites as is pointed out clearly early on, but they are rooted in reality. This portion of the book is the most powerful and devastating and heart-wrenching bit. It is told, at first, with something that leans heavily into the territory of magic realism as would be seen in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. But by the end of the arc that is Kidom your heart will be ripped out. Kidom is the hardest part of the book to read, but it is also the most compelling. While I understand why this book was written in this way, I think this portion might have stood alone. In fact as hard as it was to read I think it would have been literary genius if the author had sustained that fictional composite story throughout. “I lay down on my belly in the soft dust, and with my chin cupped in my palms and watched a little sandfly struggle over the uneven ground. Why was he walking? If I had wings I’d always fly.” But Kidom ends on the saddest of notes and on with more historical fact. The book delves deeply into some of the humanitarian work and research being done around the world to understand and solve the problem of child soldiers. Chapter Eight winds back around to the story that was started in the section Kidom. In this chapter though, a fictional peacekeeper reacts to threat of death by killing a child soldier and Dallaire fictionalizes how that is experienced by a soldier. The book ends with a call to advocacy for all readers. There are simple suggestions on how to get involved by contacting media and more complex ideas on how to get involved fully with the Child Soldiers Initiative. This is Romeo Dallaire’s second book. Shake Hands With The Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda  is the retired Lieutenant General’s first book, which also won the Governor General’s Literary Award in Canada. Shake Hands was acclaimed around the world and was also turned into an Emmy award-winning documentary and a feature film. 

They FightLike Soldiers, They Die Like Children: The Quest To Eradicate The Use of Child Soldiers, by Romeo Dallaire with Jessica Dee Humphreys, Hardcover: 320 pages, Walker & Company (May 24, 2011) New York, $26.00 US

This one gets a $$$$ out of $$$$$. It is worth reading and a tragic topic on a global issue. I received an ARC (advanced review) copy of this book in order to write this review. This in no way impacts my opinion.

Please Look After Mom: A Review

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Please Look After Mom is a beautiful, sad and lyrical tale for anyone who has ever had a Mom or been a Mom. This one came to me as part of the national book club influencer program for http://www.EverythingMom.com and I found myself reading it with difficulty. This is not an easy story. The plot begins when the mother of a successful family in Korea goes missing at a train station in Seoul. It is an amazing rapid start to the plot that cannot help but hook you instantly. The mother, it is revealed, has been suffering stunning headaches and previously battled breast cancer. Through each one of the grown children, the mother’s story is revealed slowly as that of a young girl who grew up in poverty in the Korean countryside and could not be educated or kept safe beyond a certain age. So instead she was presented to a man, a stranger, for an arranged marriage. Together they build a home and have four children. The young mother excels at feeding and nourishing things. Her gardening ability is unparalleled. Everything she touches blooms and her young family grows strong and successful. But they move on and for the most part still see their mother as she is defined within the context of home. The mother is a martyr and she goes to great extremes to nourish family and farm. This is a book with a unique narrative style utlizing the second person throughout. That is a quite uncommon technique as most novelists employ first person or third person. Often second person is tricky and not well done. But here the effect is one of drawing the reader fully into the story almost as their own character, a family member themselves participating in the retelling of the mother’s life and the search. It is a remarkable accomplishment. Some chapters are told from the viewpoints of the different children and the husband as well. As we meet each one of the adult children we discover them realizing how little they know of their mother’s inner life. It is a sad statement of fact that the daughter, a writer, when preparing a poster seeking help to find the mising mother, doesn’t know her mother’s true birthdate. A further sad statement on the marriage is revealed in the chapter when the hard as nails father of the family returns to their marital home and lays in bed overcome with grief that astonishes even him. He reflects on his habit of always walking too far ahead of the mother as a habit that may have led to her disappearance. And he understands too late how uncaring this one daily ritual must have seemed to his spouse. He understands too late also that he should have fought harder for better health care for his talented and undemanding wife. He feels guilt and shame and suprising amounts of love. Similarly each of the children realize the many sacrifices their mother made daily and they wonder if she was ever happy. They are all healthy and very successful in their fields. “After Mom went missing, I realized there’s an answer to everything. I could have done everything she wanted me to. It wasn’t important. I don’t know why I got under her skin over things like that.” Please Look Ater Mom is sad and beautiful and not for the faint of heart. It is a great story of sacrifice and, despite its fictional basis, speaks volumes about family relationships. It speaks to of the heart’s many facets and the grief that comes with losing your strongest anchor in the world. “Even though Mom’s missing, summer will come and fall will come again and winter will come, like this. And I’ll be living in a world without Mom.” The daughter has always had such a complicated relationship with her mother, but she alos realizes her mother’s impact too late. She wrestles as an unmarried female with whether her mother succeeded in life, or was ever happy or content. She grapples too with how good a daughter she was or was not. Her desparate search is weighted with all of the events in her past and her unexpressed sentiments. It is pure tragedy. It is a rare book that causes a reader to reflect on their own life with an eye to change. This one has that ability.

Please Look After Mom, by Kyung-Sook Shin, is by Random House Canada. $29.95 hardcover and 237 pages (translated from the Korean)

This is a $$$$ 1/2 out of $$$$$.

I received a copy of this book for free in order to review it.

Giveaway: Secrets To Parenting Your Adult Child Book

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While many of us are still knee-deep in diapers, or sorting through the ups and downs of the turbulent tweens, I don’t have to tell you how fast children grow. The blink of an eye, a weekend at the grandparents and it seems some mornings that you could almost swear your child looks an inch taller. From the time they are tweens, perhaps even from the time they start walking they begin the journey away from you. And while I know there are countless resources and parenting books for parents of toddlers and newborns, I’ve yet to see a tome dubbed the Teen Whisperer or the Young Adult Whisperer. In its place is this: Secrets to Parenting Your Adult Child, by Nancy Williams. Is this a book that is needed in the marketplace of parenting books? Oh yes, I would argue there is a great need and I wish frankly that it had existed a decade ago so my mother could have read it. Years ago we might have laughed at this notion: the adult child. We might have even shrugged it off as a thing that didn’t exist. But the economy took a dive and grown children began leaving home a lot later. Marriage began happening a lot later than in previous generations and married career couples began waiting often until their 40s before they had their own children. Emptynesters often waited longer to become emptynesters, parenting adult children still living at home. It was most unexpected. So what are the ground rules, or guidelines for this new phase of your relationship? How do you respectfully live under the same roof as two grownups? How do you guide this adult without overstepping your boundaries? How do you continue to nurture in a supportive way the emotional health of this person who is still struggling to become independent? Luckily Nancy Williams, a licenced counselor and life coach, has some advice. Williams, also a parent of two, offers some ideas such as: active listening means not interjecting into their conversations comments like “I know just how you feel.” In fact Williams points out, you probably don’t really know how they feel because this social phenomenon is quite new. “We must be careful to withhold comments that may appear judgemental and avoid comparisons with other children _ their siblings, their friends, our friend’s children.” This is so vital to maintaining a supportive relationship. We all know how awful it feels to be compared in a negative way to someone else’s accomplishments. It undermines our confidence and also makes us question how conditional the love of a parent is. Williams challenges parents to be listeners, to use their hearts while listening and to respect that each person is unique and know that your goal for that person, your adult child, might be entirely different than their goal. Respect their vision, she says. Good advice for any stage of parenting. Become a positive coach. Use phrases like: “Tell me more,” “How can I help you with that?” Also don’t forget simple communication tools like using I statements. Secrets To Parenting Your Adult Child is a great communication tool to have on hand in general for any person with a a child in their teens and beyond. Williams can help you get to that next level with your child. While she won’t be able to help your adult child find a job or move out on their own in an economy where jobs seem scarce, she provides some good solid practical advice.

Secrets to Parenting Your Adult Child is a $$$$ out of $$$$$. The price is right for this book which fills a niche that doesn’t really get much attention. Good communication skills are vital for all relationships and with your children you certainly want to be there throughout their lives, not just until they turn 21. It should be given to all parents when their children are 18 and up.

Secrets to Parenting Your Adult Child by Nancy Williams, Bethany House, US, $12.99 Christian Life and Parenting, 216 pages.

Giveaway: (Open to Canada and US. Ends June 15th)
Mandatory:
1.You must follow thriftymommasbrainfood on GFC (see side bar)
2. Leave me your email address so I can contact you if you win.
Extra ENTRY:
1.Tweet about the giveaway – once per day. One extra entry. The tweet can be like this: “I entered to win the Secrets to Parenting Your Adult Child on http://www.thriftymommasbrainfood.blogspot.com/”

Whole Foods To Thrive: A Runners Must Have Plus Free Recipes and a #Giveaway

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Brendan Brazier, a North Vancouver athlete and the best-selling author of the Thrive Diet, wasn’t actually on my radar until recently when Penguin sent me this book to review. Initially I was intrigued by the fact that he is a Canadian, and then I spotted the amazing endorsements on this book from world-renowned athletes and celebrities like Hugh Jackman. You don’t have to be a trend-watcher or buzz agent to know that the Whole Foods movement is hot right now. So the book had buzz, endorsements and a Canadian cool quotient that hooked me. But let’s face it these things are really more like icing on a cake or eye candy. So how about the book itself, or the cake if you want a food metaphor to follow? Is it every bit as yummy as the intial suggestions? The answer, in short, is yes. Whole Foods to Thrive is an amazing resource that I will keep in my kitchen for years to come. It is a self help book, crossed with a cookbook and lifestyle/diet guide. It is chock full of common sense science that supports the idea that people’s bodies get sick, physically and psychologically, because of the way we eat. Remove the processed foods, ditch the sugar and other stimulants and pay attention to how your body responds. Now I can’t actually say that I have hopped on this bandwagon yet. I aspire to get there eventually. Brazier’s recipes will help. The latter half of the book has the most remarkable whole food recipes like Zucchini Hummus, a recipe that is provided by Gorilla Food in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Pumpkin Gnocci from the Millennium Restaurant in San Francisco. There are over 200 recipes here and I can’t wait to get started making several. All of the recipes included are plant-based, allergen free and contain no wheat, yeast, gluten, soy, dairy or corn. Even if you had no interest in the rest of this book – which is highly unlikely if you pick it up and spend a couple of hours with it – the recipes alone are well worth the price. I love the natural approach and the science at the start of this book that explains how things like caffeine work on our bodies. This is a great educational tool for those remotely interested in nutrition and self change.
I learned from this book that despite my initial misgivings coconut oil is one of the healthiest and most easily digestible ways to fry food. It is the best and only way to fry according to Brazier, who notes that because it is so easily digestible it converts quickly to energy. This is smart eating and cooking and I can easily use much of this and pass the information down through my family.
The author Brendan Brazier
Some tips from the book:
“The consumption of chlorophyll-rich leafy green vegetables combined with moderate exercise is the best way to create a biologically younger body.”
“Squash – combined with the correct workout – will contribute to the process of muscle building.”
“Less energy spent on digestion equates to more available energy.”
      Two Free Recipes (Excerpts From the Book!!)
Ginger Pear Smoothie

                                             with Sunflower Seed Hemp Milk

                The riper the pear, the sweeter the smoothie. If you’d like it even sweeter, add one


                                or two fresh or soaked dried dates. Since ginger is a natural anti-inflammatory,
this is an ideal choice for a post-workout snack. (2 minutes, makes 3 cups)

                 1 banana


                                                                                                ½ pear, cored
                                                                                                    1 cup water
                                                                        1 cup Sunflower Hemp Seed Milk (see p. 126)
                                                                                         1 tbsp ground flaxseed
                                                                                        1 tbsp hemp protein powder
                                                                                        1 tbsp peeled, grated ginger
                                                       • In a blender, combine all ingredients and blend until smooth.

          Chocolate Almond Smoothie

                                                           with Sacha Inchi Milk

                                         Rich in protein and omega-3, this smoothie will keep you going for hours with


                                                sustainable, non-stimulating energy. (5 minutes) Makes 2 lg servings.

                                                                                       1 banana


                                                                     2 fresh or presoaked dried dates
                                                                                       1 cup water
                                                        1 cup Sacha Inchi Milk (or chocolate variation) (see p. 126)
                                                                 ¼ cup almonds (or 2 tbsp raw almond butter)
                                                                                 1 tbsp ground flaxseed
                                                                             1 tbsp hemp protein powder
                                                                             1 tbsp roasted carob powder

                                                   • In a blender, combine all ingredients and blend until smooth.

Whole Foods To Thrive: Nutrient-Dense, Plant-Based Recipes for Peak Health, is by Brendan Brazier, published by Penguin Canada, 288 pages, May 2011, Adult, Nutrition, $28.00

This one gets a $$$$$ out of $$$$$ because it is the whole package, no pun intended. The recipes and the healthy cooking and eating tips all combine for a great resource and healthy eating guide.
Luckily I have a prize to giveaway too thanks to Penguin, Vega and the author. Open to Canada only. This is ideal for runners.
The prize pack contains six Vega smoothie mixes (either Shake & Go Smoothie mixes or Complete Whole Food Health Optimizer mixes) in an assortment of flavours like Vanilla Chai, Bodacious Berry, and Choc-a-Lot.)
GIVEAWAY:
1.To win you must follow me on Google Friend Connect -( see side bar of my blog).
2. Leave me your email and tell me which package you would choose – Shake and Go or Whole Food Optimizer).
I will contact the winner and forward their email or address onto Bronwyn at Penguin. Winner will be chosen here by me on June 10th, with help of random.org.
Shake and Go Smoothie Mixes (Prize package)
Whole Food Optimizer Smoothie Mixes (Prize Pack) You can win one or the other

Skinny – A Fun and Frightening Look at Kid’s Camps

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Skinny, by Diana Spechler is as divine as a gourmet dessert. I suspect this is one novel that will be found on many beaches, and in the hands of many at the cottage, this summer. Skinny is delicious, smart and funny. Skinny is a unique story inspired by the author’s summer stint at a children’s weight loss camp. It is a work of creative non fiction. It takes a serious jumping off point and an austere subject – health issues, both physical and mental, relating to childhood obesity, and it spins that off into a tongue in cheek almost satirical look at an industry that is perhaps out of control. It is a savvy title that can at once refer to the weight loss industry itself and the ‘skinny’ or truth at the heart of the relationships people have with food. There were moments when Skinny reminded me of a Michael Moore documentary on food. There were other moments when the main character Gray also harkened back to the main character at the heart of the Margaret Atwood novel, The Edible Woman. As the novel begins Gray, the main character, 26, is dealing with deep grief and guilt. Her very obese father has recently died. “After I killed my father, he taught me that honesty is optional,” she states. In the wake of his death she finds that she is unable to stop eating. One day, as Gray hunts through her father’s financial papers and emails, she finds evidence she has a half sister, Eden. Eden’s private life is quite exposed through social media and so Gray already thinks she knows a lot about her half sister when she signs on as a camp counsellor at the weight loss camp Eden is attending. The characters in Skinny are composites, which shouldn’t be surprising as these characters are much too funny, ironic and colourful to be entirely real. Take Lewis, for instance. Lewis is the camp founder who, without spoiling the ending of the book is slightly hypocritical and completely full of himself. He is a full blown narcissist who takes $11,000 per child for a summer that promises to transform children from overweight, bullied, victims to svelte, healthy members of society. Sheena is the very comical former foster child from the wrong side of the tracks who ascends to activities coordinator and wins the love of all the campers. She is also slightly deranged. Mikey is Gray’s moody boyfriend back home and Bennett is the well sculpted summer fling, an assistant at the camp. Spechler is a talented writer effortlessly moving between flashback type scenes and present day. She writes with skill and expertise, and the flow of the narrative is never strained, despite the jumps back and forth in time. Her flashbacks are so organic that the reader hardly knows they are happening and isn’t ever jolted. Spechler is also the author of Who By Fire.  She lives in New York City and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, Details, Never and Glimmer. Skinny is contemporary in its topic matter and cultural references and somewhat horrifying in its harsh look at the obesity industry. If even a portion of this story is true as the author says it is, Skinny will be slightly horrifying for a whole group of parents that spend money sending their children to overnight camps. 

Skinny, by Diana Spechler, Harper Perennial, 368 pages, April 19, 2011, New York, Paperback $14.99.
Thriftymommastips gives this one a $$$$ out of $$$$$.
I received a copy of the book free for review.

Smart Female Characters and Adoption History Lessons: A Review of the Novel, Angel Sister

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Angel Sister is a sweet, moving, tale that has all the elements of a good story. It is a story of family and forgiveness and survival, but Angel Sister is also an unlikely adoption story of sorts set against a backdrop of depression era America. Kate Meritt is the middle daughter in a big family struggling to find their way and stay strong during a terrible economic time that has tested many and left others destitute. Kate is a spirited girl who speaks her mind. With a tangle of dark hair that is often unkempt, a penchant for saying what she thinks, and a stronger interest in playing outside than in, she is not like her quiet girly sisters. “Brothers are alright, but a sister, she can understand things about you without ever saying a word. It’s like your heart divided and made another person.” Kate’s mother reminds her she is fortunate to have sisters, but Kate sometimes seems so much more mature than the rest of her siblings, that she is not so sure any of her existing biological brothers or sisters are a blessing. Kate’s father Victor is an alcoholic with what would be known today as post-traumatic stress disorder from fighting in the war. The mother Nadine is the daughter of the town’s preacher, a man who has always inspired more fear than respect and who clearly objected to his daughter’s choice of husband. He is a slightly foreboding presence and an influence on their entire community, a rural spot ironically named Rosey Corners. Kate is out running a jar of jam to her grandfather, Father Reece, the preacher, one day when she finds a small girl Lorena Birdsong, abandoned on the church steps by a family that apparently had little choice but to flee town with no money, no jobs and a very sick young son. What is interesting about this book is the historical insights into a time when this is really what life would have looked like for so many in America. As well, the author gives us a unique look at the early phenomenon of adoption before it was really even regarded as such. Adoption here is a very sad and unfortunate result of the economy. It is not legally binding in any way, but more so a kinship arrangement in which a town got together and decided what would be best for the child and the community in general. It is common sense in a lot of ways. But Kate is the one who has found the little girl Lorena, dirty and waiting on the church steps for someone to be her “angel.” She takes one look at Kate and quickly decides Kate must be her angel. The elder girl and her family really are in no position to add another child to their stressed full, but loving home, and yet her heart and conscience tell her the girl belongs with them. Kate cleans little Lorena up and takes her home with her. Conflict arises when Kate and the family fall for the child, but the church and community agree she must go live with a childless and somewhat unfriendly couple. At the point it is announced by Grandfather Reece in the church that Lorena shall go live with the Baxters, a couple of people stand up to protest, but it is Kate’s voice that rings out loud and clear. Unfortunately at that precise moment she chooses to speak out, the preacher has a stroke in front of the congregation. Poor Lorena Birdsong goes to dwell with the Baxters and Kate keeps an eye from afar as the plot gets more complicated. I won’t spoil the end of the story for my readers, but there are multiple levels of plot complications towards the end of the book that make this novel a really interesting book despite a rather slow start. Gabhart is a lovely writer and her characters in Angel Sister are really dynamic, especially the females. Kate is a charming and really three dimensional youth you will enjoy spending time with. I picked this book to review because of the title and the hint of an adoption plot. I enjoyed it because of the great female characters and the historical insights into a period of time that seems to echo, in more ways than one, the current socio-economic climate of southern Ontario.
Ann Gabhardt is the best-selling author of several novels. She has written The Outsider, The Believer and The Seeker.
Angel Sister, by Ann Gabhart, 2011, Revell Publishing, 407 pages, $14.99
This one gets $$$$ out of $$$$$
I received this novel for free to review, and this in no way impacts my original review.

The Weird Sisters

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The Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown is a clever indulgence of a book, a bittersweet treat that will appeal to those who love literary fiction, or a passion for Shakespeare. The Weird Sisters is the story of three sisters, Rose, Bean and Cordy, or, when read as a contemporary and smart adaptation of King Lear, Rosalind, Bianca and Cordelia. Lear, in this telling of the story, is a professor at the University of Barnwell, a big fish inside a rather small bowl. He lives his life entirely in plays and books and recites bits of dialogue where conversation should be, and that makes life with this patriarch challenging and awkward. In current vernacular he might have been diagnosed with something akin to Asperger’s disorder or giftedness. He possesses brilliance and he is a remarkably loyal husband to an equally brilliant and scatter-brained wife, but he also is socially inept. Imagine being raised as the child of two parents such as these. Minds on fire all the time and yet often unable to stop thinking long enough to perform the most basic of domestic tasks required to raise a house full of girls. And so naturally the eldest of the girls, Rose has become the motherly figure, organizing everyone’s lives. As her fiancee has accepted a teaching position abroad for a time in England, Rose is adrift, back home again, not really by choice, but mostly due to the fact she cannot make up her mind if she truly wants to get married. As the story begins, there are three sisters, each returning home austensibly to help their mother battle breast cancer. But as the plot unfolds, it is revealed that each sister has their own reason for returning home. Each has failed in their attempts to live outside this tiny community on their own. Bianca, Bean, is home because she has lost a job, having stolen funds to keep herself living in the New York fashion she is accustomed to. Her clothing, material goods and lifestyle of flirting and disposing of men has caught up with her legally, and her age has also begun to interfere. In a particularly poignant scene Bean, desparate to prove her worth by seducing a man, heads to the Barnwell poolhall and finds a sad group of men on the prowl. Despite her self and her reservations, she pulls out all the stops trying to seduce them, men she wouldn’t even begint o look at twice in New York, and yet here she must settle. As she is honing in for the kill, a group of young women enter the bar and the lovely Bianca is tossed aside, like last night’s leftovers. “What did this mean for her? What do you do when you are no longer the one worth watching? When there are women less beautiful, less intelligent, less versed in the art of the game who nonetheless can beat you at it simply because of their birth date?” Rosalind, Rose, is the homebody, the eldest daughter, faithful and loyal to her family, but a brilliant mind in her own right, unable to realize her full potential, unable too to move on to England where her fiancee has accepted a job as a professor. She is the martyr of the trio. Will she be able to rise above that stereotypical role in time to save herself? Cordelia, Cordy is the baby of the group, an overgrown Hippy roady, allowing the winds to blow her about, never finding anchor until she is forced to re-examine her lifestyle due to an unexpected pregnancy. 
Each of the three sisters has a complicated relationship within the family. As the narrator puts it in the start of the book. “See we love each other, we just don’t happen to love each other very much.” They are each a great deal more like their parents than they think they are, and therefore everyone exists slightly socially awkward in the world and much too reliant on the plots and words that they have read and internalized. As their mother prepares for a mastectomy, the narrator says: “Another family might have made preparations. Another mother might have cooked casseroles in Corningware and frozen them, labeled with instructions.” Instead to the hospital each of the sisters brings with her, a book in which they will escape and avoid having to confront real life. “Instead, we would do what we always did, the only thing we’d ever been depebndably stellar at: we’d read.”
In some ways this book is also a charming look at a marriage that is quite remarkable. There are glimpses here that illustrate how interconnected husband and wife are, growing even more intertwined as they are challenged by cancer. There is a comical aside here by the sisters, noting the irony of the fact that so much literature is written on the impact of divorce and none written about the equally onerous impact of a marriage that is epic in strength and duration. How, states one of the sisters, could we ever be expected to find for ourselves a love that is so great? The Weird Sisters is a charming literary coming of age story and a savvy retelling of Shakespeare. It is a dark look at the relationships within a family and the many ways in which family can often simultaneously support, nurture and hurt each other the most.

The Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown, Feb. 2011, Putnam Books, Penguin Group Canada, 336 pages, $24.95 US or $31.00 Canadian.

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I received a copy of this book in order to facilitate the review. This in no way impacts or alters  my opinion.