I feel a little inept at commenting on poet Cairns’ book (The End of Suffering: Finding Purpose in Pain by Scott Cairns), simply because I’ve already dealt with the universal problem of suffering in Eve (for myself). That statement sounds more grandiose than I intended. “Dealt with suffering” is never as final as a door […]
The Magician’s Elephant
I just read Kate DiCamillo’s The Magician’s Elephant last night. It’s a quick read–not a flippant, insignificant read, by the way–but a gorgeously written fable or fairy tale, complete with both ugly truth and unbelievable hope and redemption. It’s about believing in the impossible, making the impossible possible. Doesn’t that sound like something every human […]
Dance In Your Car & Bust the Toast Rule
There’s a whole lot of yummy goodness in Patti Digh’s Life is a Verb. Digh jumps right in: “At some point in your life, you’ll only have thirty-seven days to live. Maybe that day is today. Maybe not.” Her comments refer to the subtitle of the book, “37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and […]
How To Be An Explorer
There is a warning on the back cover of this book–How To Be An Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum by Keri Smith. “Warning: To whoever has just picked up this book: if you find that you are unable to use your imagination, you should put this book back immediately. It is not for […]
Pretty Amazing
Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me is being touted as a YA (young adult) novel, and I’m not sure why. I think it would be appropriate for precocious fourth and fifth graders, too. In fact, Monica Edinger at Educating Alice read it to her fourth grade class (an early edition of it, because it just […]