Beneath the Wraps

          The skies cleared up this last weekend.  The smoke had cleared from the south and the skies were blue.  For two nights and mornings I had my windows   Now we have smoke coming in from the east. The windows remain closed.  I think it's wrong for the skies to appear overcast as though promising cooler weather and learn that it is 80 - 90 degrees outside.             Roland has taken off for a week.  Monday felt like a Saturday to me.  Yesterday felt like a Wednesday.  I don’t know what today will bring (as it really hasn’t started yet) Not a normal day for me.  Roland and I will be going to the theatre in Roseburg this morning.  Jenna will stay in town with a friend who stayed the night.            They have their dress rehearsal tonight.  I have invited my small gro...

       I am still considered to be a board member of the library and evidently have my own out box at the library.   Our board president LOVES to read and has committed to keeping the library open - even if she has to use her own personal books.   We've received a great deal of donations, and she has gone through various books to see which ones will be sold and which could be shelved.   Whenever she finds the word "Mormon" she automatically sets it aside and asks me if it is something I might be interested in.             I finished a book just over two weeks ago.   She had left it in my box.   It took just two weeks for me to read "Rumors of War" from the Children of Promise series by Dean Hughes.   Though the initial publication of the books are over 20 years, I had never read any of them before, and after reading the first in the five book collection, I had to have more. ...

        I really enjoyed "Everything on a Waffle" by Polly Horvath.   I had read it and posted about it a few years back ( here ).   Last week I started reading "The Vacation" by same author.   It is hilarious.        Henry lives with his free-spirited mom and his dad who works for Fuller's Brushes and is away from home a lot as he is making sales.        His mother gets the notion that she wants to go to Africa and serve as a missionary - which her dad finds odd as they are not even religious.  She looks into Mormonism to see if she can be sent to Africa that way, but when it doesn't work out, she ends up going to Africa anyway to help build a school house and just tells everybody that she is a Mormon missionary.         Henry's dad reluctantly heads to Africa with her, but they leave Henry at home with his two middle-aged aunts who don't s...

          Jenna and I have read together since she was a baby.  After we had moved to West Valley, she researched a program for a Mother/Daughter book club (which I've mentioned in a few past posts) but I think Wonderstruck is the last thing that we read together.     http://beneaththewraps.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-last-two-books.html           I have tried to get her to read with me - but she's either too busy, not interested, or just seems to have outgrown us reading anymore.  Too bad.  I've recently read a couple that I think she would like.            The characters in both books are the same age as Jenna.           Rebel McKenzie (Candace F. Ransom) wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up (one who works with ice age mammals an...

            After finishing "The Rent Collector" by Cameron Wright, I started "Letters for Emily", by the same author.      While I did not care for the story itself, I did enjoy the message of the letters and the profound metaphors, and even some of the poems that a character in the story leaves as clues for his granddaughter. There is a lot of wisdom given in his advice.  I even found interest in the entire "puzzles" concept - that is a bunch of poems that each contain a password.       The characters names are Harry, Laura, Emily, Cara, Bob, Michelle and Greg.  I've formed an opinion on just about each of them which may have damaged my relationship with them.  For much of my attitude (toward the characters themselves) was somewhat cynical.      The first chapter is written in first person.  We are introduced to Harry - who has been...

          First of all I would really like to thank Ellen and Sunny for their recommendation of the book "The Rent Collector" by Camron Wright.  I have enjoyed it and actually wouldn't mind having the book in my personal collection.           I'm intrigued by so much of the story and the situation and dreams and literature.  Though the story itself is fictitious, Stung Meanchey was a real place.  A filthy dump in Cambodia. Three sided huts provided housing to those who worked at the dump.  The documentary "River of Victory" says that there are over 600 of this type housing.  Or at least there were.  The author's notes (Camron Wright on the Rent Collector) indicate that Stung Meanchey was shut down in 2009 and there is no housing at the new location of dumping grounds.            When I look at pictures t...

          I really enjoyed Robert Sharenow’s “The Girl in the Torch”.   The story is about a girl named Sarah who has traveled to North America i(the United States) n early 1900’s.              The crime activity is high in the country where they are from.   A relative sends a postcard with the statue of liberty and Sarah's father starts setting money aside hoping that one day they will make the voyage to the promised land.           When Sarah’s father is killed, she and her mom get on a boat by themselves and leave their country behind – hopefully never to return.             The Statue of Liberty is a sign of hope, and they are happy to see it.     When they arrive in New York, Sarah is forced to part company with her mother who had gotten si...

My latest reading is a book written by Kathryn Fitzmaurice.   One funny thing about the book itself is that the book jacket is on upside down.   Onlookers may think I am truly weird when I laugh out loud and yet I appear to have the book upside down – but really, just the jacket is.   The library taped it down that way.   I don’t know whether mistakenly or as a symbolic gesture. Destiny, Rewritten takes us on a journey through the eyes of a  sixth grader named Emily Elizabeth Davis.   She was named after Emily Dickinson because her free spirited, English-teaching mom wants the destiny of her daughter to become a poet much like Emily Dickinson.   Only the Emily telling the story doesn’t particularly care for poetry. She does like romance novels though and will often write letters to Danielle Steel. Her mother had given her a book that she had purchased on the day before her daughter, Emily was born. It is The Complete Works of ...

      The week before we left for Oregon, I had gone to the school to pick up Jenna. I was reading a book from my own collection and not the library as the parking lot started to empty. I wondered if she was dawdling again before I realized it was Thursday and she has an after school program. So my choices were to go home and return or continue reading.  Or hey, I could just go to the library that was near her school.  I chose the latter.        I looked through a few titles before picking up: “Girl’s Best Friend” from the Maggie Brooklyn Mystery series by Leslie Margolis.  It was interesting enough, but thought it might be fun for Jenna and I to read together.  And so I continued to look for another book before I settled on “A Million Ways Home” by Diana Dorisi Winget.  I ended up reading both at the same time and proceeded to mix up the characters and plots – at least in the beginning. ...

Winslow Press started the creation of a series called “Dear Mr. President” – I think a wonderful introduction.   I love the five books that were made.   I wish there was more.   I don’t know why it was discontinued – or so it seems.   Winslow Press doesn’t seem to offer publication later than 2002 (that I could see) and it doesn’t appear the site has been updated since May 2009.     Perhaps Winslow Press is one of many businesses that has had to file bankruptcy in the last decade and a half.   The three books I will focus on most are: Theodore Roosevelt: letters from a young coal miner by Jennifer Armstrong, Abraham Lincoln: letters from a slave girl by Andrea Davis Pinkney , and Franklin D. Roosevelt: letters from a mill town girl by Winthrop, Elizabeth. Though the Letters are fictionalized, information provided in the correspondence is based upon meticulous research.   I like how Winslow press refers ...