Another short listed month! June, Literacy 6

In true form of catching up, I had to do a little cramming to get this blog done.  In fact, I had to go to my pocket calendar to sort out which books I had read in May and which I had read in June. (Whenever I finish a book, I write the title in the side margins of the month in the calender I keep in my purse, so that I don't leave any books out when I finally write the corresponding blog.  According to my calendar, I read Roald Dahl's Danny, The Champion of the World at the beginning of the month, and Falling Leaves (by Adeline Yen Mah) at the end of the month (in fact, I finished it in Hawaii).


Danny, The Champion of the World by Roald Dahl is one of my mom's favorite books.  I honestly can remember how many times she read it out loud to us when we were younger, but I can tell you that it is one of the few chapter books that got read more than once.  Reading it last month was enjoyable for me, because while I vaguely remembered it had something to do with partridges, a boy, his father, and raisins, I really could not remember the full storyline, so as I read it, it was like it was new, and then seconds later my memory would catch up and whisper, "You knew that." but it had been so long since reading this book, that my memory only ruined the surprises for me a few times, and none of them were the big surprises.  Danny lives with his father in a gypsy wagon behind his father's gas station and mechanic's shop, and Danny's father truly loves Danny.  It is wonderful to bask in his father's devotion with Danny.  Danny's father also has a secret pleasure, which Danny discovers one night, and soon joins in the family tradition.  The story is a good one, just realistic enough to make you want to believe it is real, and fantastic enough to keep you from finding it too close to your own life to be interesting.  If you haven't read it, you should. Pick it up sometime when you just want a book to tell you a good story that takes you on a short vacation adventure, and leave you with a satisfied skip in the step.  As this book was read aloud to me, I can vouch for it, it was a great read aloud book. It even kept my brother interested, who was 7 at the oldest possible age I can guess him to have been.  (This is also the book where the BFG makes his first, brief appearance.)  Read worthy? Yes.


Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah was another Costco find.  There is something so very irresistible about the book table there!  This is an autobiography of a daughter growing up in a large, wealthy Chinese family spanning through many of China's great political changes.  The turmoil caused by politics, however, is very rarely the cause of the main drama in this book, however, because the family drama is often so very mind blowing.  Adeline is the 5th child born to her mother and father, and the last child born to her mother.  Her mother died shortly after Adeline's birth.  Because of this, Adeline is occasionally regarded as bad luck by her own family.  The situation gets much worse, however, when her father takes a vindictive 19 year old bride.  The title of the book is take from a Chinese saying, "Falling leaves always return to their roots"  which is portrayed to mean, in the end, we all return to our ancestry, to what out family is.  What it seemed to mean to me was that our past, upbringing, our family's past, will ultimately define who we are.  The book spans from a brief history of the author's grandparents all the way up to her middle aged adulthood.  I will admit that my favorite part of the story was told during the author's childhood.  The child Adeline was so passionate, and so instantly affected by the happenings in her life it was difficult not to feel with her.  The things that each family member is willing to do, especially her siblings, who grew up under similar abuses, are stunning, and also worth pondering.  The story is not always riveting. There are times where it gets very slow, but it still managed to keep me turning pages.  It is subtly told, in almost a casual way, where it starts off that you are reading about somebody else's family, and somewhere along the way, you feel you have been observing for so long, and are so well informed, that you somehow mysteriously became apart of this tragic family.  I was never really sure which family member I might have slipped in as, but I definitely felt I had been allowed into the intimacy of the family.  There are things in this book that will make you gasp, things that you will have to find someone to tell, and it feels like gossip, after being drawn into it.  Really, in the entirety of this story, it is about Adeline's life long desire to find unity and acceptance in a family of shambles, and the amazing people who guided her through life.  Like I said earlier, it is not a "devouring" book. I didn't feel riveted, but it made me think. In the end, I was glad to have read it, and I really appreciated the small scraps of Chinese perspective on world history, too.  If you have time, Yes, it would be worth a read, but you don't have to rush out and buy it, and put it at the top of your list. It will wait calmly for you.


And that is all for June!  I have officially made it half way through the year keeping up with my personal challenge.

I can give you a brief preview of July, Literacy 7, as we are already midway through it.  You can look forward to a report on Madness by Jossy Chacko, and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, and probably Loser by Jerry Spinelli (I am halfway through it...but I accidentally left it at a friend's house. We'll see if I can track it down in time for this month).


I hope you have enjoyed my hopefully-just-detailed-enough-to-give-insight-on-a-book-but-vague-enough-not-to-blow-the-story reports!  Coming soon (I hope)  July's installment of reports!