TTT: What I Was Reading (Freebie)

Top Ten Tuesday: 

What I Reading the Past Ten Years on April 15th:

As I look back on the books I was reading in April the past ten years, the realization hit me how these books will give you a fairly good snapshot of my reading practices (and you'll get to know me a little better.) If I reviewed the book a hyperlink and a quote from that review are provided. 

 2026

Theo the Golden by Allen Levi
I just finished this book a few days ago and haven't reviewed it yet. Apparently people either love or hate this book. I'm in the love camp. I read this book for an upcoming book club.

 2025

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Another book club selection and a polarizing book which I loved. My favorite books fall into the genre of "literary fiction" and here is a fine example.

"From the summary one would think, possibly rightly, that Martyr! is too dark of a book to tackle during these dark times. But what the summary doesn't say is how surprisingly funny the book is at times and ultimately how we all want the same thing -- for our life to matter."

2024

Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia to Zion Journey Through America's National Parks by Conor Knighton
I was reading this book while we were visiting Zion NP with our family. We had so much fun and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. 
"The book is organized on themes, not alphabetically by park. I thought I'd tell you about our trip using the themes Knighton used in his book. That way I can knock off a book review at the same time as updating you on my life and our trip."

2023

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, audiobook
I participate in the Classic Club Spins four times a year. Romeo and Juliet was my spin book in the Spring of 2023. Somehow I escaped high school without reading it, though, of course, I knew the story.
"I listened to the audiobook of Romeo and Juliet by ArkAngel: AudioGO. It was a full cast dramatization. I worried that this would be more like watching the play than reading it, and then would it count? Never mind that, it was an excellent choice of a way to consume Shakespeare's most famous play. I noticed many aspects of the play I'd never noticed before watching it in a theater or on the big screen."

2022

Ten Poems for Difficult Times by Roger Housden
In March of 2022 a family member was killed. Clearly this event sent all of us into a tailspin of grief and I was looking for some reprieve from that grief when I found this book. The title alone called out to me.
""The Thing Is" by Ellen Bass is a poem which not only describes grief but embodies it so much so that "your throat filled with the silt of it." Here Housden compares Bass's ability to look inward and this gives the poem credibility. It spoke strongly to me, so embroiled in my own grief right now. Thank goodness for poets and their poetry that can speak to us where we are, not just where we want to be."

2021

 Whale Day and Other Poems by Billy Collins
April is National Poetry Month and I always try to read several volumes of poetry this month. Billy Collins is one of my favorite poets. So funny.
"Billy Collins has a great sense of humor and I often find myself laughing at some point while reading his poems. Last night I was reading them while my husband was in the bathroom getting ready for bed. I kept calling out to him to hurry because I wanted to read aloud some funny poem I just found."

2020

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Remember 2020? That awful pandemic year? What did I read that year? One of my now favorite books of all time: Lonesome Dove. All 850 pages of it. It's a Pulitzer Prize winner. It took me a long time to read but I had nothing else to do and nowhere to go.
"I would read thirty of so pages a day before setting the book aside. At that rate it took me almost as long to read the book as it did to herd the cattle all the way from Texas to Montana. For me Lonesome Dove will forever be branded in my memory as the book I read during the great pandemic of 2020 which will add greater poignancy and depth to my memory of it."

2019

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
I have a few personal reading challenges I try to complete every year. One of them is to read two of the National Book Award winners or finalists for that year. The Buddha in the Attic was a finalist for that award.
"This small book, really a novella at 129 pages, made a big impression on me. When the chorus of women speak up it is easy to see the travails of a people just trying to make something of their lives. It is horrifying to think how immigrants to the US are treated, not just in those days but also today. The country vowed to never do something as horrifying as internment of a people again after WWII. Yet here we are in 2019, creating camps and detention centers for people attempting to seek refuge in our land."

2018

The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian's Art Changed Science by Joyce Sidman
For several years around this time I was a Cybils Book Award judge reading for the Junior/High School Nonfiction Category. I was always on the hunt for good books in those categories.
"I loved this book. It was written by an artist, not a writer. That fact makes me smile. I love it that it was a woman who helped the world see the beauty and importance of insects. All those old, classically trained men couldn't figure it out, but Maria, with keen skills at observation figured out what should have been obvious. And her art. It is so lovely. It was written for a middle grade audience."

2017

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
I was a high school library for the last twelve years of my teaching career. I retired in 2017. This was the last year of my long time in education. At this point I read mostly YA novels, trying to find books I thought teenagers would enjoy reading. This is one of the best.

"Angie Thomas, the author of The Hate U Give, started her book when she was in college, in response to the news about an unarmed black boy being killed in Oakland. This book, about a black girl who witnesses the killing of her unarmed friend at the hands of a cop, is discouragingly all too familiar to us today. And it is about time that the literary world publish a fiction book which explores what it is like to live in fear of the police in a country which espouses but doesn't practice the motto "with liberty and justice for all."


So there you have it. Now you know I'm a book club, literary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, classics, Cybils, award winning, YA book reader. How about you?

-Anne

Short Poetry Book Reviews: WOMAN WITHOUT SHAME: LITTLE ALLELUIAS: and GOLDENROD

Our yard, a year ago this week. Spring has sprung!

April and National Poetry Month are rapidly coming to a close. This month I read six poetry books in celebration of this literary art form. I've reviewed three of the books earlier in the month and will wrap up with short reviews of the other three. If you would like to look back on the first three reviews, click on the hyperlinks:

The Trees Witness Everything by Victoria Chang
Poems & Prayers by Matthew McConaughey
Why Fathers Cry at Night by Kwame Alexander

Woman Without Shame: Poems by Sandra Cisneros (2022)

Years ago I read A House on Mango Street which was Cisneros' her first novel and her most famous book. She has since then published many other novels, essays, and short story collections. This is her first poetry collection published in the last twenty-five years. Since I was familiar with her first novel, widely published and read by young teens, I thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong. I was expecting a G rating and got PG-17! 

Cisneros is 71-years-old, unmarried, and lives in Mexico right now, though she has spent much of her life living in the USA. In fact, her childhood was destabilized by how often she and her family moved back and forth between the two countries, making her feel like she never fit in in either culture. When she was an undergraduate in college she had an affair with one of her professors and that relationship was abusive. She describes it as “very damaging to me” and is “why my writing is always dealing with sexuality and wickedness” (Wikipedia). I caught the sexuality and wickedness vibes from many of the poems. Several of those poems I just skipped over figuring I didn't need to know the details.

The collection is divided into five parts with headings in Spanish. Usually, in my experience, when poetry books are divided up into parts, the sections relate to the title of the collection where those poems were originally published. I don't think that it is case here, since this book has more the 50 original poems in it. Translated her sections are: Shameless Woman; A Hatless Sky; Songs and Cries; Cisneros is Uncensored; A Little Something Extra. I liked some poems in all the sections but my least favorites were all in the uncensored part. Oh well, I know I'm a prude. Here is a little highlight from the collection:

Back Then and Even Now

A Song for Guitar

I liked being young

with you once.

A moment or two, 

here and there

with you once.

When you 

were a poet,

and I was a poet.

Wordsmiths afraid

of the words

shimmering

right before us.

One thing I could feel in every poem was Cisneros' passion, a little bit of her angst, and her loneliness.

I probably would have liked the poems better if I could read Spanish since many of the poems contained untranslated words. My rating: 4 stars.

 

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Little Alleluias: Collected Poetry and Prose by Mary Oliver (2025)

Mary Oliver died in 2019. Call me surprised when I saw a new collection of Oliver's poems and prose for sale in a bookstore in 2025, Little Alleluias. The poor gal at the checkout counter who tried to look interested while she rang up my purchase as I babbled about my excitement at something new by a beloved, but dead poet. Well, I was half right. The poems and prose were by Mary Oliver, but they were not new (obviously) but just a new organization of some her poems, essays, and literary criticism.  

The editor of Little Alleluia said this in the acknowledgment section:

Little Alleluias is a midlife masterpiece -- so to end as we begin: thank you Mary Oliver for your insight and grace, for teaching us how to belong to a land that belongs to itself, and for guiding us through the light and dark, and rainbowed clothes of the world. -Niyata

I love the title, Little Alleluias, don't you? In the forward to the section called " Long Life" Mary Oliver, herself, wrote about the difference between writing poetry and writing prose. She prefers poetry but I think her prose is pretty darn good, too. It is in her conclusion where we find out about the book's title:

One thing I want to mention before the pages actually begin. Writing poems, for me but not necessarily for others, is a way of offering praise to the world. In this book, you will find, set among prose pieces, a few poems. Think of them that way, as little alleluias. They're not trying to explain anything as the prose does. They just sit there on the page and breathe. A few lilies, or wrens, or trout among the mysterious shadows, the cold water, and the somber oaks.

I'm fairly sure I've read all the poems and most of the prose before, but it was so comforting to visit them again with new eyes and in different circumstances. There are none of my personal favorites included therein but there are many wonderful poems which encourage us to be aware of nature. In "Sand Dabs, Nine" Mary Oliver shares little thoughts, really, but more than that. One reviewer referred to her Sand Dabs as “just a few lines, largehearted and limber, each saturated with meaning and illustrating the principle it espouses in a clever meta-manifestation of that principle embedded in the language itself." Here are a few of her "Sand Dabs, Nine" thoughts:

All the eighth notes Mozart didn't have time to use before he entered the cloudburst, he gave to the wren.

Behind the glimmering cheerfulness of Bach there hangs a black thread.

You too can be carved by the details of your devotion.

If you are a Mary Oliver fan or haven't discovered her yet, I recommend this collection. It will make you fall in love with her writing, all over again or for the first time. My rating: 5 stars.

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Goldenrod: Poems by Maggie Smith (2021)

Several years ago I read the poem "Good Bones" by Maggie Smith. I think I discovered it long after most people did when it came out in 2016. The poem, or the fame that came with the poem, led to big changes in Maggie Smith's life, including a divorce from her husband. In subsequent books  she writes about those experiences. In this small collection, Goldenrod, I caught glimpses of trauma of the divorce in a few poems but generally I'd say the poetry speaks to the moments she is living now with her children and her new life. Oddly, I often find myself worrying about poets as I try to read between the lines to figure out what is going on. I'd guess, based on these poems, Maggie Smith has landed on her feet. 

Maggie Smith's poems are easy to read and very straight forward. One doesn't have to guess what she is referring to, at least not on the surface. In her poem, "December 18, 2008", she expresses a thought I've never even considered before. Clearly, in this poem she is referring to the birth of a child (one of her children?)

For just a fraction of a moment

that afternoon, if we think of time

as being a while, you were the newest

person in the world. You were

the emptiest vessel on earth, 

knowing nothing of this place

or of yourself ---

This poem danced out for my eyes since one of my children was also born on Dec. 18th. In another poem "Not Everything Is a Poem" Smith muses about what she finds in her son's pocket.

Not everything is a poem

or has a poem inside it, but god help me

if I can't find one when I empty

my son's pockets before I do

the wash: one acorn, two rocks

(one smooth and gray, one rough

and glittering, flecked pink), 

a chunk of mulch, a wilted

dandelion. The poem is there...

This collection makes me smile. My rating: 4 stars.

-Anne

Review: FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS (+Friday56 LinkUp)

Title: For Such a Time As This: An Emergency Devotional by Hanna Reichel

Summary: 

In an era of political polarization, eroding democratic norms, and rising authoritarianism, many Christians find themselves disoriented, wondering how their faith should inform myriad daily decisions. Drawing upon both scholarship and pastoral wisdom, theologian Hanna Reichel offers a timely resource for believers seeking spiritual grounding amid societal upheaval.

For Such a Time as This provides a thoughtful framework for discernment rooted in scripture, historical wisdom, and the core commitments of Christian faith. Through meditations on scripture, reflections on historical precedents including the Confessing Church’s resistance to Nazi Germany, and portraits of inspiring figures who maintained their integrity in the face of oppression, Reichel guides readers toward their own Christian response to the present moment. (Publisher)

Notes: I am the librarian for my church's small library. I have a miniscule budget, $100, to spend on it each year. We've limped along with an aging library for so many years hardly anyone uses it. This year I decided to make a change and weed out all the old dusty books and get members to donate new books to add some life to the place. I created an Amazon wishlist, asked several people in the congregation to join me in adding books to that wishlist that they'd like to see in the library and then publicize how people can purchase a book off the list. So far I've gotten twenty new books and still counting. (See list here: Library Amazon Wishlist.) For Such a Time As This is one of those new books which the pastor or the social justice committee recommended for the list. When it arrived I knew I wanted to read it, but I also wanted to get it into the hands of other people in congregation. Many of the people in my church are very concerned about Christian Nationalism and how the message of the gospel is being warped by their rhetoric. I quickly scanned the book and found it instantly helpful. As I read, I wanted to remember highlights from several of the chapters so I could refer back to them when I get a second chance at the book in the future.

These highlights, below, are those truncated notes to myself to remind me what chapters spoke about what topics. I doubt they will be very meaningful to anyone else. But sprinkled throughout are a few quotes, which I have highlighted in yellow and will use as my quotes for Friday56 today, though doubtless the quotes actually came from page 56.

Hanna Reichel is a theology scholar. Her first book was about Karl Barth, a Swiss Theologian whose writings influenced Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others and helped develop the Confessing Church during the Third Reich in Germany, to stand up against the other churches that went along with Hitler and his hijacking of the faith. In this book Reichel offers insights from Barth and philosophies which came out of the Confessing Church as part of her devotionals. I especially liked how she highlighted some of their declarations, like the Barmen Declaration, or parts of various creeds, confessions, and catechisms, which have guided the churches through the ages. In a way, it comforted me to know that we can lean back into church history and find strength and help from old documents, many I knew nothing about before speed-reading through this little book.

Here are some highlights and thoughts for several of the chapters:

1. "He then rebuked the wind" or find calm:

• It is not easy to stay calm in a storm, but necessary that we do so. Physical flooding will sweep you away. Emotional flooding will immobilize you. Don't let the storm control your emotions or your response
• Karl Barth, and the Confessing Church before and during the Nazi reign. 

2. "Jesus wept" or feel your feelings:

• "The only thing I ask God is that I may never become indifferent to injustice -- to pain, to suffering, to war, to betrayal, to the future." -Léon Gieco
• Empathy is a muscle. Strengthen it.

3. "Derive them of their pathos" or test your feelings:

• "Feelings of anxiety and worry can easily be channeled into resentment and envy, scapegoating immigrants, political dissidents, or supposed enemies of the state. Fear narrows love and moral responsibility."

7. "Two are better than one" or build with what is there:

• Looking at the Barmen Declarations and the Heidelberg Catechisms, the Confessing Churches used what had been worked out in the past to inform the present. This didn't allow for the church to be led by the special leader (the Fuhrer) but by Christ and Christ only.

9. "Stand where God stands" or protect the weak:

• Part of the Belhar confession says "the church as possession of God must stand where the Lord stands, namely against injustice and with the wronged."

10. "Stand firm" or do not give up space:

• The Episcopal priest, Mariann Budde, addressed the President from the pulpit "Mr. President please have mercy..." What was special about this sermon was that Budde ceded neither physical or spiritual space to the power that controlled the room.

14. "Do something brave" or make a start:

• Silence does not protect you. Not from harm nor moral complicity. Not speaking out does not make you neutral, it makes you a bystander.
• Think for yourself. Be as brave as you can. Expect to feel uncomfortable. If you find yourself unsure who to behave at least speak out loudly saying, "This seems wrong."

15. "Rejoice always" or lean into joy: (Can I quote the whole chapter and somehow make it seem like a summary?)

• The beautiful story of how Etty Hilversum's life was so filled with joy even in the face of the horrors of the Holocaust, she said of the state of of her soul, "Somewhere inside me the jasmine still blossoms..." This turning inward was her way of quelling hatred and destruction. Our main responsibility, we found, was to "guard little pieces of God inside of self" and the moral duty is to reclaim large areas of peace inside ourselves and reflect it toward others.
• Make space for that joy. Let it grow. Let it roar through your life and expand to others.

I doubt this post is very helpful to anyone. I wish I had the book with me still and I could round out this post with a better review. If you struggle with the state of politics and religion today and find yourself at odds with the Christian Nationalistic rhetoric, I recommend you look around for this book and see if you also find it helpful, like I did.

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Sign up for The Friday56 on the Inlinkz below. 

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader (If you want to improvise, go ahead!)

*Find a snippet, but no spoilers!

*Post it to your blog and add your url to the Linky below. If you do not add the specific url for your post, we may miss it! 

*Visit other blogs and leave comments about their snippets. Expand the community. Please leave a comment for me, too!  

Also visit Book Beginnings on Friday hosted by Rose City Reader and First Line Friday hosted by Reading is My Super Power to share the beginning quote from your book.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

TTT: Books that Made Me Cry

Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Made Me Cry

I am a cryer so it isn't uncommon for me to cry when I'm reading. These books got a mention of tears in my reviews. The quotes about crying below each title are from those reviews.

This is the second time I've made a TTT post about books I cried over with included quotes, proving it. The last time was in June 2024. Check it out here.

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Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
"Oh man. I am so dehydrated. I cried for the last two hours of this book and I am still clutching my chest for the beauty of its message."

Wreck by Catherine Newman
"I confess to crying during a good deal of this book. I was very touched by it, clearly."

All My Knotted-Up Life: a Memoir by Beth Moore
"I cried as she shared hard stories for her to tell..."

Heart the Lover by Lily King
"This one just about broke my heart and I cried a bucket full of tears throughout the book."

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
Spoiler alert: "I cried at the end because at the heart of the story is a dead child, deep grief, and crippling guilt."

What Does It Feel Like by Sophie Kinsella
"Though I cried my way through it, I also felt the relief of hope."

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
" And the story was completely heartbreaking. I am pretty sure I cried through the last half of it nonstop."

There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib
"With only seconds left in the book I start sobbing. Don, who is driving, isn't sure why and looks over at me with a question in his eyes. It was this: all the sudden I knew everything the author was saying about life, memories, and dreaming was true. I think the reason I got so choked up at this point related to Don and I both celebrating this summer with our high school classmates the 50 years since our graduations. We took big, long walks down memory lanes.  I think I was crying as much for Don's memories as I was for mine. I love thinking about that little boy biking around town in an endless, happy summer. It's a rare book that makes you reflect so deeply on your own childhood and feel so connected to a story so different than your own."

Sandwich by Catherine Newman
"Ann Patchett, a favorite author, describes Sandwich as 'joy in book form. I laughed continuously, except for the parts that made me cry.' I am pretty sure that was my experience with the book, too. I laughed and cried in equal measure."

Grief is For People by Sloane Crosley
Spoiler alert: "I admit I spent the whole last half of the book crying -- not for the death of Russell, I didn't know him. But for the death of D, who I did, and for all those people, like Sloane Crosley, who are forced to traverse alone in an unknown world known as 'Grief World.'"

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This is harder to do than one would think. I am not consistent in adding notes about crying in my reviews. Some books which I thought surely I would mention my tears, I did not, like Memorial Days, about the death of the author's husband, or Between Two Kingdoms, about serious, life-threatening cancer. Did I cry? Probably. Did I mention tears? No. 

I also noticed that reviews I wrote right after finishing books were the ones where I mentioned my tears. If I delayed my reviews, I was less likely to note them.

What books have brought tears to your eyes recently?

-Anne

Sunday Salon -- Updates on Hawaii and Readathon

Our last night on Hawaii, just minutes before we headed to the airport, we dropped by a beach to experience the only pretty sunset we had the whole week. It was the beautiful ending to a wonderful week.

Weather: Beautiful. It snowed this week so I was not expecting so much beauty this weekend.

Hawaii: My whole immediate family vacationed together for a week on the big island of Hawaii and returned last Sunday morning after a red-eye flight across the Pacific in the middle of the night. That day I thought I would have time to put together an update of highlights of our week but instead I went to bed and slept for five hours. Here are those highlights now:

Our time on the island of Hawaii (The Big Island)  was divided in two. We started on the wet side, landing in Hilo and visiting the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. Then we moved to the dry side and stayed in Kona and explored beaches and historic sites every day.

That is Kilauea smoldering in the background. She erupted in March and was giving off signs of another blast to come. 

This is what she looked like at night. She erupted again two days after we left the area. We were glad to have missed all the tephra (volcanic glass) which spews out and falls everywhere like hail.

While in the National Park we visited the Holei Sea Arch, walked through a lava tube tunnel, went on a botanical hike through a tropical rainforest, and the boys hung out on wind-shaped palm trees.

Before we left Hilo we caught a free hula exhibition, part of the Merrie Monarch, a week-long hula competition. Later in the week we watched snippets of the competition on TV at night.

This is a view from our condo in Kona. The weather looks ominous and, in fact, it was raining torrentially on the other islands (Kauai got 15 inches one day we were in Hawaii) but it generally missed the big island where we were. There was no sand on the beach off our condo, just lava and then ocean but we watched surfers who came by every day.

Carly and I especially like to do bird-watching when we travel to new places. This trip we identified 11 birds to us: Saffron Finch (pictured above); Zebra Dove; Kalij Pheasant; Yellow-billed Cardinal; Northern Cardinal (a transplant); Gray Francolin; Common Myna (everywhere and very noisy); Red Junglefowl (aka - chicken); Pacific Golden-Plover; and the Ruddy Turnstone.

Our days were filled in with lots of adventures: swimming in the sea pool (or the regular swimming pool), visiting National Historic sites, horsing around at the beaches, trying to stay 20 feet away from tired turtles, playing old and new games, enjoying our time together. Don and I felt so blessed to be with ohana, our family.

Don and I on our only "date night". What a lovely setting at Huggo's Restaurant. Yes, I had shrimp.

Readathon: This is my first time participating in the Dewey 24-hour readathon. I have never officially participated in one before. Below, in black, is what I set out to accomplish. In red, is what I actually did. And no, I know I won't make it all 24-hours. I'm dashing off this post on Saturday, mid-event, but I still know I will go to bed so will at best read for 16 hours, likely less.

I'm wearing this shirt today in honor of the readathon

• Finish Theo of Golden, an audiobook.Yes, I finished this, the last 2 1/2 hours of it and I think I cried the whole time. I loved this one!!!!
• Finish Little Alleluias: Poetry and Prose by Mary Oliver. I started this book in Hawaii and managed to finish it today. The last section or two were mainly prose and essays, even literary criticism. It took me longer to read than I expected but I still loved it. Oliver can write prose like she writes poetry, no matter what she says.
• Why Fathers Cry at Night by Kwame Alexander. I actually finished this memoir full of poems, recipes, letters, and remembrances on Thursday. 
• Start the audiobook Things in Nature Merely Grow. No. I didn't start this audiobook. I picked another one instead. See below.
• Other possible books from the library currently sitting in a pile:
• Goldenrod: Poems by Smith. Yes. Completed.
• Women Without Shame by Cisneros. Started. Shocking, sort of. Currently at 35%.
• Pilgrim Bell by Akbar. No. I put this on the bottom of my pile.
• This is Not About Us by Goodman. I haven't started this book yet, but will at least start it before the end of my reading readathon. 
• Read at least 30 pages of Moby Dick -- My One Big Book Challenge of 2026. Yes, I am proud to say I got a good start of over 100 pages. It isn't anything like I imagined so far.
• Also read/started these books, not on my initial list:
• For Such Times As This: An Emergency Devotional by Hanna Reichel. I thought I'd just skim it and I ended up reading the whole thing minus the study questions. Very helpful for times such as these.
• God's Very Good Idea: A True Story of God's Delightfully Different Family by Trillia Newbell. A children's book just purchased for our church library. What a gem. Such a powerful message to love everyone, no matter if they look different than you.
• Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale by Frederick Buechner. A friend asked me to read this because he is a fan of this author who writes for Christian audiences. The book published in 1977 is and feels dated. I think my friend will disagree but that's okay.
• Heartwood by Amity Grange. An audiobook and a book that supplies two different categories for the Goodreads challenges this spring. 39% complete.
• Totalling up everything I've read so far: 6 books complete; 4 additional books in progress; one book finished before the readathon. Feeling good about my progress.

-Anne

Review: WHY FATHERS CRY AT NIGHT (+Friday56 LinkUp)

Title: Why Fathers Cry at Night by Kwame Alexander

Book Beginning/First Line Friday Quote:

I was two. It was my birthday. She gave me wooden blocks in all shapes.

Friday56 quote:

"Portrait of a New Lover: Genesis"

five minutes after

she reads his note

her smile explodes.

She wonders if he is the one

Summary: Kwame Alexander is a poet and children's author. This book is his memoir. In telling his story Alexander uses love poems, letters, recipes, and remembrances. 

Review: I guess you could call me a Kwame Alexander fan. I've read ten of his books, starting with his Newbery Medal prize winning book, The Crossover. Of that book I wrote: "Best YA book I've read all year and, added benefit, it only took a little over an hour to read. The concrete poems were my favorites." The book, a novel in verse, introduced me to this fine poet and I've been firmly in his camp ever since.

Why Fathers Cry at Night is not a typical memoir. For one thing it is stuffed full of love poems written for girl friends who became his wives. (He's divorced.) Reading these poems felt a little voyeuristic for some reason. If I was reading the same information in prose, would I feel the same way? Hmm, not sure. In the book Alexander grapples with how to relate to his daughters now that he is estranged from their mothers and is still dealing with his grief over the death of his mother, six year after she passed.

Initially I wasn't very impressed by the format perhaps because he was sharing poems he'd written early on in his career and they weren't as good as his later stuff, or maybe it  just took me a while to accept the amount of information he was willing to share and settle for that. Later I was fully invested in the author's story and the format of the memoir. I am even tempted to try his mother's fried chicken recipe. I enjoyed reading how food and music were all tangled up in his memories. Aren't they tangled up in all of our lives?

My rating: 4.5 stars.

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Sign up for The Friday56 on the Inlinkz below. 

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader (If you want to improvise, go ahead!)

*Find a snippet, but no spoilers!

*Post it to your blog and add your url to the Linky below. If you do not add the specific url for your post, we may miss it! 

*Visit other blogs and leave comments about their snippets. Expand the community. Please leave a comment for me, too!  

Also visit Book Beginnings on Friday hosted by Rose City Reader and First Line Friday hosted by Reading is My Super Power to share the beginning quote from your book.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne