The included Amazon links are affiliate links; many of these titles I check out from the library or already own, but should you be inclined to purchase one, these links only mean Amazon will give me a small percentage of the cost, at no additional expense to you.
34) 7/3: The Penderwicks in Spring by Jeanne Birdsall
This title spends time dwelling with Batty, who is nearly eleven and is adjusting to life without her beloved dog Hound. She discovers a gift for singing, and in hopes of nurturing that talent while not stressing her growing family's stretched finances, she devises a plan to earn money.
Each title has a more serious topic alongside lighthearted antics, and this is no different. However, the issue in this book floors Batty - she overhears a conversation that makes her question everything, and her family struggles with their transformed Batty as she doesn't reveal the secret, believing it to be true and herself at fault. I admit I ached for Batty and I could too easily picture this being real. I can readily recall the spectrum of emotions I faced as a preteen, and the author accurately conveys those in Batty. But all is not lost - as one can expect given the books leading up to this one, there will be a tidy, welcome resolution.
35) 7/25: The Little Way of Ruthie Leming by Rod Dreher
I really should jump on Eric's recommendations sooner - another book I put off for the longest time was The Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans. It sat on my bedside table undisturbed for months until I grabbed it for airplane reading on our NYC anniversary trip. Again, my only hesitation was that it wasn't an e-book, and I wasn't interested in starting a book right before bed when I was already going to bed too late. But I devoured it on that trip, even having to restrain myself from weeping while I sat next to a stranger on a plane when reading a poignant passage detailing the significance of Jesus' healing of the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. I can still get emotional when I discuss that part in particular with friends; the entire book greatly impacted me and made the rounds of friends as I regularly pushed it on them. Naturally, I bought the Kindle version, in case I wanted to revisit it while our copy was loaned out.
So back to The Little Way of Ruthie Leming. This book is thoughtfully written. Dreher is a journalist who writes this beautiful account of his sister's life. She is diagnosed with cancer, and through watching her face it, and her consequent death, Dreher is wrestling with the value of family and place. He left his small town at a young age and never intended to return, whereas Ruthie never left and the community came together spectacularly to support the family. Dreher wonders what he has sacrificed by leaving behind people who know him and where he came from in order to pursue his career.
Here in Wisconsin, we love much about finding ourselves here. Eric enjoys his students and colleagues, we found a home perfect for us that allows us to be welcoming, and we have found a community of good friends. However, we do regret our distance from family (we live around 5 and 7 hours away from family, respectively), especially with our young daughters not getting to interact with cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents on a more regular basis. We even admit we feel a loss when we compare ourselves to those friends fortunate enough to have family in the area, and we've had this conversation with others in a similar boat. However, this is where we find ourselves, as we have deemed the sacrifice meaningful. So we work to establish ties here.
I can understand Dreher's point, though. When Jon committed suicide, although I had gotten involved with the church in my college town, there was no doubt that I would seek comfort in my home church ten miles away. Indeed, when walking up to the church, I was met at the door with loving arms and shared tears. These people loved and knew us and loved and knew Jon. My college church would have been sympathetic, had they known, but my home church was shaken and grieved alongside us.
We lived in Indiana, over 7 hours from family, when we lost our daughter Katherine. And yet, even with the distance, and even though we had only been in Indiana two years at that point, we felt completely surrounded and cared for. In fact, I remember some faculty members from my department confessing to me, as they looked around at all the people that had filled our church for the memorial service, they had no idea if they had that kind of support structure should they face tragedy, and they had been around much longer.
Dreher shares an account from his mother that resonated with me:
"We were surrounded by so much love," Mam recalls. "[When Ruthie was diagnosed with a malignant tumor] It was the most horrible day of our lives, but we could feel the love of all these good people. There was nothing we could have wanted or needed that wasn't done before we asked. And they were there. Do you know what that means? People were there."This struck me as similar to what we experienced after Katherine's death, especially. We were volunteering with the high school ministry, and they coordinated all the details of the memorial service when we were in shock, knowing we wanted to mark her short life but having no concept of where to begin. One student left directly from the service to mow our lawn. My knitting friends remembered my original due date and took us to dinner then. And on the anniversary of Katherine's death, they pooled together money to treat us to a nice meal, knowing we would be fragile and would want to be alone. It was a brutiful time, but we were surrounded with people who were supporting us, as I expounded on in even more detail here.
Having community is so important, and Dreher felt that he and his wife lacked that, given that they never stayed in one place long enough to establish such connections. For us, when we lost Katherine, while I'd never considered cremation before then, it was no question what we were going to proceed with for our daughter - we couldn't handle burying her in a place where we wouldn't be long term.
This might be reading as a censure of those of us who are away from home and family. Dreher does say this, though:
There has to be balance. Not everyone is meant to stay -- or to stay away -- forever. There are seasons in the lives of persons and of families. Our responsibility, both to ourselves and to each other, is to seek harmony within the limits of what we are given -- and to give each other grace.He did have some tension with family, particularly with his father and sister, issues that they all ignored and tiptoed around when he made trips home. However, Ruthie's diagnosis made him realize they needed to try to regain peace and he worked to reestablish wholeness with his family and anyone he could think of where there was brokenness.
While I could continue to expound on the book and share more quotations, I'll leave it at that. This book struck me, and I did find myself brought to tears at times. Some of that might be me being overly sensitive, as I finished the book on the eve of the anniversary of my brother's death, and it brought up so many memories of loss and generosity that I will forever hold close. But I don't believe I'd be alone in appreciating this story of his beloved sister's impact on those around her and lessons we can learn.
36) 7/27: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
This book is an account of choices he made leading to his vocation and how he faced the reality of death derailing his plans and suddenly re-prioritizing his goals and his relationships.
I had begun this book alongside Dreher's, but it was set aside until I finished The Little Way of Ruthie Leming. It is a solid book, and I wonder if my impression would have been more passionate if I had finished it before Dreher's; this is the problem with reading well-written books on similar topics too close together, much as I experienced with reading Code Name Verity on the coattails of The Nightingale.
37) 7/30: Eggs by Jerry Spinelli
This is a decent story (that sounds like such an underwhelming response; I think compared to other YA lit, it's strong, but I don't feel that it's Spinelli's strongest work).
In Eggs, we read of the unlikely friendship of 9-year-old David and 13-year-old Primrose. They are both faced with loss and longing and they develop what is essentially a sibling relationship that vacillates from friendly to antagonistic as they struggle to come to terms with what life has handed them. Refrigerator John fills a parental role when the children are unwilling to open up to the family they do have in their lives.
