KidsBBookin: When God Made You

When God Made You
by Matthew Paul Turner
Illustrated by David Catrow
48 pp. Waterbrook
(Picture book; ages 3-8)
978-1-60142-918-6
Penguin Random House

You, you...God thinks about you. If these aren't words of affirmation enough for an adult, imagine what they can do for a child. Explore the world of artistry and faith as Matthew Paul Turner and David Catrow take you on a journey through a little girl's bike ride to learning how important she is in God's eyes.

This book of rhyme is an amazing example of lyrical artistry and illustration. A nameless little African American girl examines her beauty with the backdrop of a poetic declaration of her uniqueness as God's one of a kind creation. Energetic with with vibrant watercolors that run like syrup sweet and rich, this exuberant little girl rides her bike with her happy dog out into the streets and creates life as she paints nature. She even inspires a young artist who goes on a celestial trip with her as her street art bird comes to life and takes flight. The nameless little girl lands at home reading a book to her younger sibling, passing along what she's learned about the beauty of being God's creation.

This picture book is truly a celebration of the spirit of childlike faith and fascination and a call to nurture creativity in our young ones.

Come back next month for another review of the latest children's fiction!

Review: Petals Falling on Complicated Ground

Petals in the Wind

Virginia Andrews

HarperCollins

2012 Edition

978-000-792785-2

The memory of it would not allow them to lead ordinary lives.

These words blaze on the back of my copy of Petals on the Wind. Okay, well, maybe they don’t actually blaze (the lettering is in stark white), but the theme of how memory scars us is poignant in this sequel to Flowers in the Attic. The three remaining Dollanganger children remain and grow into adulthood, but how will they survive it?

Cathy Dollanganger continues to narrate the saga of family secrets and the power of memory. She, Christopher, and Carrie have escaped Foxworth Hall and have found solace with Paul Sheffield, a lonely doctor, and his African American maid Henny. Christopher is determined to become a doctor, Carrie is still physically stunted from malnutrition, and Cathy studies to become a ballerina while remaining hellbent on destroying their mother Corrine. But between juggling her lingering feelings for her brother, continuing to mother Carrie, developing her sexuality with Paul and her dance partner Julian, Cathy is still haunted by memories of the attic and all that was lost, including her younger brother Cory. Carrying around the weight of the past takes a toll on Cathy is she becomes the proverbial villain in her own story, seducing her mother’s husband in order to destroy her.

While this narrative whimsically swirled and definitely offered this saga’s trademark drama, the writing was oftentimes redundant and a bit inaccessible. The melodrama was overblown and sometimes hindered the quieter moments within the story, like when Cathy decides to harness the power of her sexuality based on her mother’s past behavior. It was a quite intimate moment, one line really, that spoke volumes about Cathy’s evolving personal and sexual identity. (Please see the previous rumination!) Also, the “love square” between Cathy, Christopher, Paul, and Julian was overdraw and tiresome, leaving me to wonder if having a relationship with Cathy is worth really worth the pursuit. Then then there’s the casting of the lone African American character in a stereotypical role. By today’s polarization of racial politics, this doesn’t help the narrative either. Henrietta “Henny” Beech literally has no voice (she is mute) and is the traditional mammy figure, a character who was lovingly flat with no dimension. Given the book was originally published in the 1980s and set in the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, this characterization is not surprising, but it’s still no less annoying (especially as her space in the book was so minor I wasn’t even sure I could mention her in the review!)

Petals on the Wind continues with the over-the-top family drama. It is the trainwreck you can’t stop watching. Traditional lore is that this series is based on true events. True or not, the writing is simultaneously overshot and stunted, not really evolving from the first book. If you to wash in the over bloated shock of reality TV emotional hijinx, keep reading. If you’re looking to be inspired by the Aristotelian unities of drama, mmm...maybe you can miss this one.

Join me August 4th for my ruminations on the next book in the Dollanganger series, If There Be Thorns.  We’ll see what this third installment will offer. MWAHHH! (God, that sounds ominous...)

Ruminations: Petals Falling on Complicated Ground

“I was like Momma, sweet and cool and able to handle men--at least, I was learning.”

Sexuality. What do you think when you hear or read the word? What do you think determines it? Our experiences? An intrinsic spiritual and physical element? I thought about all this while delving into Petals on the Wind, the sequel to Flowers in the Attic. As eldest siblings Cathy and Christopher grow into young adulthood, they also grow into adult sexuality. Cathy’s journey in particular is an interesting case as she not only continues as narrator but is discovering her sexual self. What kind of sexual being will she be?

Still reeling from family tragedy, secrets, and her intense love for her brother, Cathy tries to navigate what it means to be a woman and a sexual being. Her journey  reminds me of Jane Villanueva in the CW hit Jane the Virgin. If you’ve ever watched the show, you know that Jane is saving sex for marriage while still maintain sex positivity. Her journey to that decision started with a lecture her Abuela gave her as Jane approached her teenage years. Abuela’s admonition to maintain “purity” until marriage was marked by a metaphorical tampering with a woman’s sexuality before marriage: the crumpling of a white flower. Jane’s virginity is not just a physical state or decision;  it’s a performance of her commitment to sexual purity. Even through all that, Jane still finds a way to cope with and manage her physical desires, sometimes going off the rails. (Spoiler alert: she does eventually get married!) Of course we know the human experience (sexual or not) is far more complicated than a lecture about a bruised flower…. Or do we? This raises questions of how complex human sexuality is and also the nature of performance particularly in female sexuality. In Petals, Cathy goes from lovesick puppy, to temptress, to uninterested prey with the three men in her life, all the while juggling what kind of sexual woman she wants to be. With that in mind, it seems the author frames Cathy’s sexuality as something transitory and constantly evolving in relationship to her male counterparts. Her sexuality is responsive, a reaction to the prospective suitor’s personality. So is her sexual nature a product of her genetic and physiological make up or is it in response to those she desires? Is this true for all of us? I’m definitely not a sex educator, but taking a look at our own journeys to our sexualities is an exercise worth doing.

Come back for the review of Petals in the Wind on July 28. Let me know what  you think!

Review: That Hand Rocks the Cradle

Flowers in the Attic
Virginia Andrews
HarperCollins
2012 Edition
978-000-792787-6

Shall they clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou?- Isaiah 45:9

In referencing this Bible scripture, you'd think Flowers in the Attic would be a wholesome tale of spiritual maturity. But if you've read the book or seen the film adaptations, you know that isn't true. Or is it? While the story is anything but wholesome, it follows the trials and maturation of the four Dollangager children reeling from a family bombshell that they will never recover from, a truth that will ultimately determine who they become.

In 1957 Pennsylvania, the Dollangangers are the typical well-to-do white family living in suburban bliss. Cathy, the story's narrator, is in love with her parents and three siblings. But all that changes when her father dies in a car accident. Now Corrine, the mother, and four children are left in a financial bind. She reveals to her children a shameful family secret: she and her late husband were actually uncle and niece. She moves her children back to her childhood home, Foxworth Hall,in Virginia. There she hopes to regain her father's love and be written back into his will after he banished her for committing incest with his younger brother. There, Corrine and the children live under the extremist conservative Christianity the Foxworth family prides themselves on, especially Corrine's mother, Olivia. She is the ultimate villain in gray. That is until Corrine herself begins to lose sight of her children with her return to riches and luxury. The two women seem to unknowingly work together to bring about the demise of the four Dollaganger children, faciliting the forbidden. The Foxworth family drama continues to unravels as the four children are locked in the attic for nearly three years, suffering loss and dignity while grappling with the emotions that come with evolving as a person and a sexual being.

Definitely melodramatic, this tale spins with ardent abandon at moments covering the minutia of a given day with what could be akin to a Southern drawl. But even with an outrageous storyline and sometimes unrealistic dialogue for pre-teens, the personal evolution of the characters is relatable. Questions of identity, gender politics, and one's own relationship to his or her maturing sexuality read true. The structure was succinct and the characterization strong. Flowers in the Attic will take you on a wild ride of emotions and probably leave you somewhat disturbed. But if you're looking for a family drama like no other, pick up this Virginia Andrews classic. Continue with the Dollanganger saga if you'd like. I will....

Join me on July 8th for the next installment, Petals in the Wind. I can't wait to share with you!

Ruminations: That Hand Rocks the Cradle

No, this is not a commentary on Rebecca De Mornay's turn as a psychopathic nanny in the 90s classic The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. (That would make a good book though.) But her turn in a patently female role as well as watching the film Wonder Woman got me to thinking about the beginnings of gender roles in society. From whence do they come?

In reading Flowers in the Attic, I automatically assumed I would want to discuss sibling relationships, particularly (spoiler alert!) incest. But as I continued reading, I kept wondering about the origins of gender role expectations. The two eldest siblings Christopher (14) and Cathy (12) have to manage their younger siblings' and their own lives as they live in their grandparents' attic. That's a heavy weight to bear at a stage when their gendered identity development is even more encumbered by their biological evolution. They can't just be kid siblings anymore; they have to be mother and father. That grated at me as these two had slipped into traditional parental roles. Although they did share the responsibilities of rearing their twin siblings, Cathy represents the softness of a burgeoning motherhood and limited agency in development, while Christopher is the protector and keeper of knowledge, forever "manslaining" everything as if Cathy can't possibly know what she is talking about. It could be sibling tension, or it could spell out the future for the both of them: Christopher can enjoy his white male privilege while Cathy will have to juggle becoming a top ballerina and rocking the cradle.

But then I had this thought: without their parents' consistent presence, did Cathy and Christopher learn enough to fulfill the socially prescribed expectations of man and woman? Or could their inherent biological traits dictate what roles they would effortlessly fall into? While gender as a social construction has become an accepted idea, I have yet to hear commentary on how our biological makeup works for or against us in a society of pre-subscribed identities. Am I supposed to be a mother just because I have a uterus? Is a man not supposed to be a stay-at-home-dad because of his physical strength? Is a woman not supposed to lead a tech company because she's nurturing?  Are men supposed to cheat just because they higher sex drives? So, how much have we not only let nature dictate nurture, but how much have we let this relationship determine what roles we take and the roles we expect others to fulfill?

I think a larger question is what is our relationship to our biological sex and gender identities? Do we know what they are? More importantly, where does our humanity lie outside of our gender and sexuality?

While I don't advocate smoking, I think you should let this one sit in your proverbial pipe.

Come back on June 25th for the review of this twisted Dollanganger family drama!

Review: Is Time Ever Enough?

There Will Be Time
Poul Anderson
176 pp.
Signet 1973
ISBN 0-451-15412-6

"What was the good of time travel, ever?

These are the words of Jack Havig, the main character of Poul Anderson's sci-fi classic There Will Time.  It's a sweeping adventure packed with thought provoking commentary on the value of time and the complexity of the human experience.

The story begins with Havig's recounting his life as told by his longtime confident and physician, Dr. Robert Anderson. As the story unfolds from Havig's first disappearing act as a baby ("He vanished. In midair..." his mother exclaims) to his travels to the future and witnessing his father's untimely death, Havig travels up and down time building a mass of experiences, skills, wealth, and even fallling in love. Then one experience changes his life forever: a chance meeting with fellow time travelers. Havig becomes engulfed in the society of the Maurai, a group of intergenerational and international travelers working to build a new civilization under the leadership of Caleb Wallis, a racist classist who justifies his thievery and subjugation of non-time travelers (whom he calls "commoners"). When a mission is set in motion that Havig does not agree with, his disappearance through time costs him greatly. Searching through time for Wallis and all involved, Havig plots his vengeance with the help of his friend and lover, Leonce.

There Will Be Time is a great story about the value of learning from our pasts and preparing for our futures. Although the pacing was uneven, the intrigue of time travel is consistently powerful, oftentimes reading like a scene from a popular sci-fi film like Star Wars. Light on adventure and heavy on ruminations that were sometimes unnecessary, the narrative is still a fun summer reader that will keep you reeling.

Join me June 11 for my ruminations on the next selection: Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews. Can't wait to hear what you think.

Ruminations: Is Time Ever Enough?

Imagine that we had time at our disposal. We could do whatever we want with it. Travel forwards or backwards. We could glimpse our respective futures and prepare for the best and/or worst. Sounds convenient, right?

But what if time was a curse, something we could never prepare for? I contemplated this while reading Poul Anderson's There Will be Time. Having so much access to history and the future is almost charming. Intriguing. We can simultaneously know the past and the future. The only question is, does this truly make us wiser? Can we really learn from a time past or an upper future if we can never change what happened or what will? While it would add to our knowledge base, what would it really add to us as people?

It makes me consider the plight of the vampire: destined to live forever with no real power to change the world. Living long enough to see the earth die and replenish itself, witnessing the rise and fall of revolutions, or watching human loved ones expire. The idea of living forever inherently seduces us with invinciblity. But how invincible could we truly be with a back track and up track of time that will never change in the way that we want it to, need it to. Do we learn from it? Are we bound by it?

Time is open opportunity for experiences of whatever kind. The only thing we can do is make the best of it. But with a world that isn't begging for our comfort, perspective, or our approval, can time ever really be enough for us or will we always want more?

You tell me.

Come back on Saturday, May 27 for the review. I look forward to hearing from you!