The Help

I've read Kathryn Stockett's novel The Help a couple times, most recently aloud to my thirteen year old son. He had wanted to see the movie and I had suggested we try to read the book first. I told him if he didn't like it we'd just watch the movie but by the end of the first chapter he was hooked. It's been a long time since I read a book to him, mostly because he hasn't seemed to enjoy it. But with The Help, he was asking if we could read. It was nice to see him so excited about a book.

Most people have at least heard of The Help if not read it. It's immense popularity only intensified when the movie came out. The novel is narrated by three women in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s-- a white woman and two black maids. The three women eventually come together in an attempt to change the ill treatment of blacks. There is good reason for the book's popularity, the novel is readable and tells a great heartwarming/ wrenching story. Yet it's also received some (deserved) criticism. One of the complaints I had heard against the book was the horrible dialect that it's written in. As I read the book aloud I found myself cringing at the way that Stockett wrote the black women's chapters and juxtaposed next to (white) Skeeter's chapters it is a wonder that an editor didn't pick that up. I couldn't read the dialect because it was so uncomfortable to me, the way it seemed stereotypical, even a little racist. I changed words to make it sound more like Skeeter's chapters were written. All and all though it is a good story and I'm glad I thought to read it to Isaac since he is now saying that it's his favorite book.

Women Who Run With the Wolves

Years ago I joined a book club that met monthly to discuss Clarissa Pinkola Estes book Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype one chapter at a time. I think we met three times before the group fell apart and I pushed the book aside. I recently noticed it on my shelf and decided to finish it.

Pinkola Estes looks at different legends and stories about women throughout different cultures and dissects their meaning, explaining what can be learned from each tale. Though the back of the book labels it psychology, it is almost like a literary self-help book. It doesn't read that way, but Pinkola Estes points out not only problems for women that are perpetuated by our culture but solutions, or rather suggestions for how women can unleash the wildness inside them. I enjoyed the book, but almost wish I would have read a chapter per month as I had with the book club to let each section sink in before moving to the next. It's an enjoyable, interesting book that would particularly appeal to women who feel restless or unsatisfied with their life, as well as anyone interested in old myths and their meanings.

Telegraph Avenue

I have a bit of a love/hate thing going with Michael Chabon's work. He is a talented writer, no doubt, and tells great stories. He also strikes me pretentious as hell the way he throws around big words, some that aren't even in the dictionary. (And the two novels I've read of his could use a strong dose of editing.) Still I was interested in checking out his latest novel Telegraph Avenue when I read what it was about--there are two couples (one black, one white) and both the women and both the men work together, the men running a record shop, the themes of the novel being marriage, race, and friendship... it sounded like my kind of book. I picked it up after it came out but only got a couple pages in before putting it down. I was not in the mood for his writing.

Then after finished The Ocean at the End of the Lane for some reason I felt like giving the novel another try. At first I was freakishly captivated by the novel--the characters, setting, the tone, the prose (which I annoyingly read aloud sentences that struck me as especially great).  I loved how vivid the characters became, particularly the women.  I loved that the two female characters were midwives and the description of births. But the book grew slightly tedious after a while, the prose's strength seemed to fade as the book went on and there were times that I felt uncomfortable with things that seemed to perpetuate stereotypes. I didn't care so much for the climax, but the ending satisfied me nonetheless. Overall I liked the novel. (But probably won't pick up another Chabon book for a while.)

James and the Giant Peach

I came across a list of best children's novels and decided I'd use the list to help pick the next book I read to Noah and Adam. Despite it being a hailed classic, I had never read Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach and decided to start there.

The novel begins tragically with the young boy protagonist, James Henry Trotter, losing his parents and having to go live with his dreadful aunts. A peach in their backyard grows bigger and bigger and eventually rolls over the aunts. James is in the peach with a delightful cast of friendly insects and the group of them set off on an adventure. My kids enjoyed it (especially when the word "ass" is used). At several points in the novel there are poems (or songs) that the characters sing, which makes it fun to read aloud. I'm glad I read the novel as I found it quite enjoyable and loved Dahl's sense of humor.