Review: Practical Magic
There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.
Alice Hoffman is one of my favorite authors of all time. If her name is on the cover of a book, I will read it, and I have yet to find a book of hers that I don’t love. Practical Magic
Some fates are guaranteed, no matter who tries to intervene.
Gillian and Sally are members of the Owens family, a Massachusetts family known for being surrounded by odd happenings. The sisters grew up being surrounded by rumors, fear from other kids, and a bit of fear from themselves over their own untrained powers. But while the entire town seems to be afraid of the Owens family, women still show up in the middle of the night to request magical help from Gillian and Sally’s aunts, and the sisters want no part of it. But even as they try to run away from their family (both literally and figuratively), they discover that their connection to magic and each other cannot be outrun.
Alice Hoffman is such a talented writer, and she knows how to bend the rules of the real world in just the right way. Sally and Gillian are relatable, even though they’re witches, and their world seems very real, even though magic reigns. And I don’t mean pointing a wand and yelling spells magic. The magic in this book (strange concoctions, incantations, herbs) is really a way to show that these women are special, and intuitive. Hoffman uses it as a way to show how women bond together in ways not everyone understands. This is a grownup fairy tale, but more along the lines of Grimm than Disney.
While some might consider this an escapist read, I really don’t. Yes, magic is woven into the story, but there is a real theme of survival as well. The sisters and their aunts have struggled with abuse, bullying, and never really being able to fit into society, yet they continue on. They keep finding ways to get around all that and to keep living, something I think most people can relate to. And Hoffman’s writing is so beautiful that you almost forget you’re reading about tragic situations.
If you like magical realism, you will love Practical Magic
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Read Banned Books!
It is Banned Books Week 2017! Every year in September, the American Library Association celebrates the freedom to read and freedom of information by highlighting classically-banned books as well as the most frequently challenged books each year. A lot of the books I’m aware of, but some of them surprised me. (James and the Giant Peach? Really?) Every year, people officially request (challenge) to have certain books removed from libraries, and the fact that this still happens kind of shocks me. A lot of the books are children’s books and YA books, in an attempt to block certain subjects (generally race, gender issues, basically anything considered diverse content) from kids. And like a kid, if you tell me not to read a book, I’m definitely going to read it. In my opinion, censorship has no place in libraries, bookstores, or anywhere else that books are available for the general public. Are certain books geared toward older kids or adults? Yes, of course. Waiting until someone is a certain age to read specific books is completely different from wanting books banned from EVERYONE.
It’s important to bring attention to this issue and to read banned books! Why? To promote freedom of choice and the freedom to read anything we want. I’m sure some people have the best intentions when they challenge books, but others are simply trying to push their own agendas onto everyone else. Harry Potter has been challenged so many times because some people (a pretty small group, I’d say, given Potter’s continued popularity) think it promotes witchcraft and corrupt ideas. Those people seem to ignore the fact that Harry’s true power comes from his mother’s love, not magic, and that the entire series advocates for family, friendship, love, being inclusive, and knowledge. Not so scandalous after all!
I’ve listed a few of my favorite banned books below, as well as some of the most popular and regularly-challenged books. Many of them have been challenged because they include diverse content, something we should all be reading MORE of, not less.
Have you read any of these? Which banned books are on your reading list this week and this year? Do any of these titles surprise you?
You can find a complete list of challenged and banned books at the ALA website HERE.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Beloved
Drama
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials
The Kite Runner
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
James and the Giant Peach
Hop on Pop
The Giver
The Adventures of Captain Underpants
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
The Handmaid’s Tale
The Great Gatsby
The Sun Also Rises
The Glass Castle: A Memoir
What My Kids Are Reading: September 22, 2017
Since we have been reading longer books together lately, my kids are still working on The Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire this week. Instead of posting what my kids checked out at the school library, I thought I would write a quick post about a genre that’s really been working for us the past year, and why I think it works particularly well for a lot of kids.
Fantasy.
A few people I’ve talked to about books automatically say, “Oh, I don’t read fantasy. I just can’t get into it.” But when I mention books like Harry Potter, they make an exception. Fantasy definitely includes books that are heavy with dragons, fairies, different realms, and a good dose of magic, and I can understand why people might not care for that specific category of fantasy. But when comes to a more realistic approach to fantasy, I think there are a few books that appeal to a pretty large group of people, and can help children understand and work through some big issues. These books feature regular humans who have special qualities, or animals who function as humans. They use regular characters and put them in extraordinary situations that just happen to include magic, but they are more easily relatable than characters in more hardcore fantasy novels.
As an adult, I enjoy reading books that are based in real life and deal with real issues. I like to see how different types of people react in tough situations. I love reading fantasy, but it’s more of a fun escape for me. For kids, however, while they may also like reading books about “real” people (The Baby-Sitter’s Club will always have my heart.), fantasy is a way to read about tough subjects while still keeping themselves a bit emotionally separated.
I’ll use Harry Potter as an example, since we’re all probably familiar with that story. The series covers some BIG topics, including the loss of parents, bullying, feeling weird or not like everyone else, being good (or not so good) in school, and the fact that there are evil people out there who seem to have no reason for it, and who don’t learn a lesson and reform themselves. Readers, those are major topics that could upset the toughest of adults. But in a fantasy setting, kids can identify with those characters, and see how they handle those difficult situations, but there is a bit of protection in place. Magic, other-worldly creatures, and invisibility cloaks all provide a bit of separation, and that allows kids to process those big ideas without becoming emotionally overwhelmed.
My 8-year-old and I have talked about how it isn’t magic that protects Harry from Voldemort, but his mother’s love, and how his mom is always providing whatever protection she can, even though she’s not there. That is a big, impactful subject, not necessarily easy to understand. But in the world of Harry Potter, it becomes a more manageable topic. My son couldn’t really be in Harry’s situation, because we aren’t wizards, but now he understands how a parent tries to protect a child, no matter what.
My 6-year-old has been loving The Wizard of Oz more than I thought, and he has made several insightful comments about Dorothy wanting to go home and why the scarecrow, tin woodman, and lion might want what they want from the wizard. It also illustrates the idea of good versus evil, and how terrible accidents can happen, even when you didn’t mean for them to. (Dorothy really didn’t mean to kill either witch!)
If you think your kids won’t like reading fantasy, or you’ve always viewed it as a fluffy genre, give some of these books a try! Especially if you have a highly sensitive, or more sensitive, child, it might be a nice way to read a fun book and have some great conversations at the same time. These books all feature characters who must overcome some kind of adversity and deal with big, important issues in a fantastical way that is way easier for kids to understand than a more straightforward book might be.
The Harry Potter series
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Matilda
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
James and the Giant Peach
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
The Land of Stories series
The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread
Review: The Marsh King’s Daughter
Thanks to Netgalley and Putnam for providing me with a digital galley of this book – all opinions are my own!
Memories can be tricky, especially those from childhood.
Ripped from the headlines stories can be tricky. Too much detail, and it seems indulgent and grotesque. Too little and it can be, frankly, boring. Karen Dionne’s The Marsh King’s Daughter
Helena Pelletier has an idyllic life in the UP (Michigan’s Upper Peninsula). A loving, supportive husband, two daughters, and a jam-making business that is flourishing. What no one, including her family, knows, is that her mother was a famously-abducted teenager, and her father, the abductor, has been in prison for 20 years. Helena’s childhood was spent in a cabin deep in the woods of the UP, unaware that a society existed outside of her small world. When she and her mother escape, she acclimates to the “new” world and sheds her past as soon as she is old enough to change her name and leave it all behind. Now her father has escaped, and Helena has to face both her fear and childhood love of him, all while trying to find him before he finds her family.
This is one the best, most well-written books I’ve read this year. I absolutely loved it, and Dionne’s storytelling abilities are out of this world. There is definitely suspense and mystery in this book, but I also found a lot of fairy tale elements woven in. A young girl kept captive, unaware of the outside world. An evil male figure and his cowed counterpart. There are some mystical aspects of Native American culture woven in, rather than real magic, but they serve as the magical element of this suspenseful fairy tale. What I really enjoyed most was the dichotomy between Helena’s hatred and love for her father (and her mother). As a child, she revered him. She knew he could be mean and harsh, but he was still her father, and he taught her how to hunt and fish, and she loved him fiercely. Once she discovered the truth about her mother’s kidnapping, she hated him for it, but that familial love never really goes away. Even after 20 years, she knew her father well enough to know exactly where he would go after escaping prison, and even though she is hunting him down like prey, it also feels like a game of hide and seek between father and daughter.
The book also mixes in excerpts from Hans Christian Andersen’s short story The Marsh King’s Daughter
If you like suspense, mystery, or fairy tales, this is a truly compelling story that combines all three into an amazing book. I cannot recommend The Marsh King’s Daughter
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
EXTRA!
I haven’t read or watched Room
EXTRA! EXTRA!
Although I was provided with a review copy of this book, I ended up listening to a lot of it on audio and the narration was extremely good! I listened every chance I got, and at one point hid in my room away from my family so that I could finish it. So whether you use your eyes or your ears for this one, you can’t lose!
What My Kids Are Reading: September 15, 2017
The 39-Story Treehouse
Well, the school year has started, and while our school is awesome about not assigning too much homework (none yet, really), our days have still been busy with school, sports, Scouts, and being exhausted. We’ve still managed to fit in reading almost every day, but sometimes it really is only 10 minutes. The result of that is that the kids are reading a lot of different books right now-they each have their own series that they read on their own or that I read to them, and we have a couple of books that I’ve been reading to both of them. (Even though they each listen to the other one’s book as well.) I’m passing on the habit of reading multiple books at once, and I think I’m ok with it! Let me know what you’ve been reading with your kids this week!
The 6-Year-Old
The 39-Story Treehouse
The Cat on the Mat Is Flat
My 6-year-old still loves the Treehouse books, and we are on the third in the series. There are now 39 stories, and Terry and Andy have to deal with an out of control once-upon-a-time machine, an un-inventor, and re-creating their treehouse (and the entire world) from scratch. These books are ridiculous in the best way possible, and this one is no exception. My 6-year-old can’t wait to read about what happens to Andy and Terry next every night (my 8-year-old loves them too), and this is definitely “his” series. Not surprisingly, The Cat on the Mat is Flat is also a big hit with him. It just so happens to be written and illustrated by the same author and illustrator of the Treehouse books. Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton make a great pair, and if I didn’t know that they met as adults, I would assume they’ve been friends since childhood. Their books are dreams come true for kids who love being silly and wild, and they are wonderful examples of how it’s ok to be creative to the point of absurdity. The Cat on the Mat is Flat is excellent for beginning and emerging readers-the text is simple enough to read, but there are some challenging words and it is, of course, a wacky good time.
The 8-Year-Old
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets
Y’all, we are up to our eyeballs in Harry Potter over here, and I’m ok with that! My 8-year-old is reading the fourth book at home (usually with me), but he checked out the second book at school (even though we own 2 copies) so that he can re-read it in his free time. We are also listening to the second book in the car (Jim Dale is an incredible narrator), and you can guess what I’ll be ordering for his Halloween costume. The one caveat I have here is that we might take a break after the fourth book, depending on my son handles it. This one is really where the books take a darker turn, and I’m not sure how well he would comprehend the last 3 in the series. However, it’s taking us quite awhile to get through The Goblet of Fire, so it might not be an issue at all.
What We’re Reading Together
Benji and the 24 Pound Banana Squash
The Wizard of Oz
I won a copy of the Benji book from a PR company through Shelf Awareness, and it is such a cute book! It’s about a little boy named Benji who plants a squash seed and waits . . . and waits . . . and waits for it to grow. The illustrations are beautiful, and the story is very sweet, and shows how good it feels to grow something yourself. I would recommend this for younger kids.
This version of The Wizard of Oz is not my ideal. I grabbed it off of one of our bookcases one night because it was too late to read all of their regular books, but they were begging for something, anything, before they went to sleep. I can’t say no to books! The illustrations are nice, but this is a condensed version of the book. I think it’s actually going to work out well for us, because we’ll be able to finish it fairly quickly, but if they like this version (and so far they do) you can bet I’ll be reading the REAL version to them soon after. If you want a sort of entry-level version of Oz, or you have a younger reader who is interested in the story but not ready for a long book, this would be a perfect start.
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