75. A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner

listened on Libby

370 pgs.

2014
Adult Historical Fiction
Finished 10/9/2024
Goodreads rating: 4.09
My rating: 2.5
Setting: NYC 1911 & 9/11

My comments: Not a huge fan of this book, for a couple of reasons.  Told in two voices, one of a nurse, Clara, who survived the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 to "hide" on Ellis Island and a quilt shop fabric-lover, Taryn, who lost her husband on 9/11.  The majority of the story is told by nurse Clara ... whom I didn't like.  At all.  Her inconsistent personality (she flip-flops between a mamby-pamby-scared-everything watcher-of-the-world to a brazen in-your-face do-gooder) drove me nuts. A minority of the story was told by Taryn, ten years after 9/11, still bruised and barely living, which was more powerful and believable.  But not enough!  And the connection of this scarf was feeble, to say the least.  I didn't rate it lower because I enjoyed the history it shared and the 9/11 portion, but the 1911 lengthy section didn't work for me at all.

Goodreads synopsis:  A beautiful scarf, passed down through the generations, connects two women who learn that the weight of the world is made bearable by the love we give away....

September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries …and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she’s made. Will what she learns devastate her or free her? 

September 2011. On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, widow Taryn Michaels has convinced herself that she is living fully, working in a charming specialty fabric store and raising her daughter alone. Then a long-lost photograph appears in a national magazine, and she is forced to relive the terrible day her husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Towers …the same day a stranger reached out and saved her. Will a chance reconnection and a century-old scarf open Taryn’s eyes to the larger forces at work in her life?

110. Hope and Other Punchlines by Julie Buxbaum

listened to Audio borrowed from Bosler Library
narrated  by Jorjeana Marie and Robbie Daymond
Unabridged audio (8:18)
2019 Delacourt
304 pgs.
YA Romance
Finished 11/9/2019
Goodreads rating: 3.97 - 3529 ratings
My rating: 3.5

First line/s: "Even back in my fairy-tale days, I never liked those inevitable opening words - once upon a time."

My comments:  I had mixed feelings about this book.  Perhaps it's because it's about 9/11 and that in itself is a difficult thing.  Some parts dragged, some parts were funny, and it was loaded with all sorts of philosophical thinking, which is definitely not my things at all.  But as we travel farther and farther from the fateful, horrible day, I'm also glad that books like this are being written.

Goodreads synopsis:  Sometimes looking to the past helps you find your future.
          Abbi Hope Goldstein is like every other teenager, with a few smallish exceptions: her famous alter ego, Baby Hope, is the subject of internet memes, she has asthma, and sometimes people spontaneously burst into tears when they recognize her. Abbi has lived almost her entire life in the shadow of the terrorist attacks of September 11. On that fateful day, she was captured in what became an iconic photograph: in the picture, Abbi (aka "Baby Hope") wears a birthday crown and grasps a red balloon; just behind her, the South Tower of the World Trade Center is collapsing.
          Now, fifteen years later, Abbi is desperate for anonymity and decides to spend the summer before her seventeenth birthday incognito as a counselor at Knights Day Camp two towns away. She's psyched for eight weeks in the company of four-year-olds, none of whom have ever heard of Baby Hope.
          Too bad Noah Stern, whose own world was irrevocably shattered on that terrible day, has a similar summer plan. Noah believes his meeting Baby Hope is fate. Abbi is sure it's a disaster. Soon, though, the two team up to ask difficult questions about the history behind the Baby Hope photo. But is either of them ready to hear the answers?

PICTURE BOOK - The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein

Illustrated by the author

2003 Roaring Brook Press

36 pgs, two of which are pullout two pages wide

Goodreads rating: 4.05 - 13, 830 ratings

My rating:  4

Endpapers:  Solid cream

1^st line/s:  "Once there were two towers side by side.  They were each a quarter of a mile high; one thousand three hundred and forty feet.  The tallest buildings in New York City."

My comments:  I've never felt particularly drawn to this book, and have perhaps skimmed it a couple of times, but I've read it today giving it plenty of attention, and I'm glad I did.  A TRUE STORY!  There's a bittersweet feeling at the end of the book, where it mentions that the towers are no longer there. Bittersweet because Philippe Petit's joy while traversing the 7/8-inch wire between the towers was palpable, and the picture of those two towers standing proudly in the New York City skyline will forever be etched in our brains.  The book ends: "But in memory, as if imprinted on the sky, the towers are still there.  And part of that memory is the joyful morning, August 7, 1974, when Philippe Petit walked between them in the air."  This was a very satisfying story, the pictures were wonderful, and the marriage of story and pictures certainly deserve the Caldecott Medal far more than others I've seen.

Goodreads:  From a highly-respected picture book author/illustrator comes a lyrical evocation of Philippe Petit's 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers.

3. Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes

read the actual book from Bosler Library
20016,, Little Brown & Co.
223 pgs.
Middle Grade CRF
Finished 1/5/2019
Goodreads rating:  4.08 - 5679 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting:  Contemporary Brooklyn, NY

First line/s:  "Pop groans.  He's having bad dreams again.  I hear Ma trying to comfort him.  My little sister, Leda, squirms.  I whisper, 'Hush.  Sleep,' and tuck the sheet beneath her chin.  We share a bed.  She turns over on her side, her feet kick my knees."

My comments:  I was teaching fifth grade in 2001 when 9/11 happened and fourth grade fifteen years later.  It's such a difficult thing to discuss with kids.  For the first few years it was easier to talk about, because students were around during the horror and, even if only peripherally and protectively, heard about it.  But as years passed, some parents didn't want to scare their kids and were reluctant for it to be taught in school.  I read this in anticipation of having an "Examining 9/11 through Literature" session at the library for tweens, but I'm still unsure if I'd use this title.  As an adult, I loved the way it was written and the way all the information about that atrocious time period evolved throughout the book.  I loved that Rhodes put Deja and her family in a homeless shelter, and I love that she also used a wonderful, safe school for her to go to - yes, they exist!  The ending was a little to sugary, but the entire concept was excellent, powerful, and very, very really.

Goodreads synopsis:  From award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes, a powerful novel set fifteen years after the 9/11 attacks.
          When her fifth-grade teacher hints that a series of lessons about home and community will culminate with one big answer about two tall towers once visible outside their classroom window, Deja can't help but feel confused. She sets off on a journey of discovery, with new friends Ben and Sabeen by her side. But just as she gets closer to answering big questions about who she is, what America means, and how communities can grow (and heal), she uncovers new questions, too. Like, why does Pop get so angry when she brings up anything about the towers?
          Award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes tells a powerful story about young people who weren't alive to witness this defining moment in history, but begin to realize how much it colors their every day.

PICTURE BOOK - The Little Chapel That Stoody by A. B. Curtiss

Illustrated by Mirto Golino

2003, Old Castle Publilshing, Escondido, CA

out-of-print but still available used
available at Bosler Library

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.56 - 121 ratings

My rating:  4

  

1^st line/s:  
"Around the Chapel
     of Old St. Paul
Blow the dancing leaves
     of the coming Fall.
In the morning breeze
     they leap and fly
Beneath the towers
     that scrape the sky."

My comments:  So perfect for middle grades, this summarizing of the events of 9/11, in rhyming poetic form, is a nice addition to 3rd - 5th grade classrooms.The rhyming is quite clever and hardly ever seems forced, the illustrations are beautiful, and the pre-history as well as the events that accompany this hard-to-discuss-with-kids day are all very good.

Goodreads:  Beautifully illustrated book tells of the historic chapel less than 100 yards from the Twin Towers that miraculously survived on 9-11. Firemen hung their shoes on the fence and raced to help the people in the towers: Oh what gallant men did we lose/Who never came back to get their shoes. The story of terror overcome by courage and bravery that teaches us no one is too small to make a difference.

1. Grounded - Heather Ordover

Supposedly #1 in a series (called The Seven) ....

Read on my iPhone

2013, Crafting a Life Books

482 (endless) pgs.

YA fantasy-ish

Finished 1/1/2014

Goodreads rating: 4.19 (this is very hard for me to believe)

My rating:  (1) Yuck

1st sixth - Tucson, AZ, the rest in Brooklyn NY and Stockbridge, MA

1st sentence/s: "This all started because I lit my boyfriend on fire."

My comments:  Holy catfish, this book was NOT for me.  It was endless, but I had no other book on my phone so this was it. I so badly wanted to like it, particularly for the parts that described Tucson so beautifully, but this was a definite DRONE....on and on and on and on with very little meat. Sketchy, too.  There are so few books that I flat out don't like, and my apologies to the author, but....

Goodreads book summary:  Hannah Rose was able to convince herself that she was a normal teenager, even though she usually knew exactly what was about to happen next. Until one day when she set her jerk of an ex-boyfriend on fire-from 15 feet away-propelling herself into a world of weirdness.       
          Rosie is sent to live with her aunt in Brooklyn. There, Rosie discovers a family legacy of strange abilities and dangerous talents. Her training tests her gifts-and her patience-but over the summer she does begin to learn to control her unique skills and meets a boy with equally dangerous strengths. Together, they find a sort of peace that neither has ever experienced, and it looks like it will last-until disaster breaks them apart in a way neither saw coming.

September Roses - Jeanette Winter

Illustrated by the author

2004 Farrar, Strauss, Giroux

HC/ $14.00

32 pages )book is small: perhaps 5" x 6")

Goodreads rating: 3.87

My rating: 4/I like it more with each reading

Endpapers:The rose motif she's used throughout the book, in black on white

Title Page: a 2 x 2 inch square painted with the motif roses in color

Prologue:  "At 8:50 am September 11, 2001, I looked up from my drawing table and saw in the distance an enormous plume of smoke rising high above and beyond the Empire State Building.  I soon learned that the smoke covering the city came from the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
          After a few days, I went to Union Square - to be closer to the communal outpouring of anguish in the city.  I saw the roses, and learned how thy came to be there.  Relying on memory and imagination, I wrote and illustrated September Roses the following spring."

1^st line:  "Far away in South Africa, he said, across the ocean, over mountains, beyond the desert, two sisters lived together and grew roses." (Spread over three pages with four illustrations)

My comments:  This is a lovely book that memorializes this terrible occurrence with a connected story.  I now use it in my classroom each year, but fourth graders now, 13 years later, don't yet know much about this day.  So I have to talk to them about what happened before I share the book  I keep it simple.  After reading the book we talk about gratitude.  Nine year olds have enough time in the future to talk about the nitty gritties of the day as well as the repurcussions, but I've found this gentle, simple book is a really nice way to talk about this day with my kids.
I wrote a review last year, BEFORE sharing the book with my class.  It's a bit different.....Read it here.

(I wrote this last year):  This is a simple book, based on a true story that took place on 9/11. I'm going to share it in school with the kids today - kids that were born three years after that fateful day. It's been 12 years. It was a day that not only affected American greatly, but changed the way that we live and think each and every day. That said, the book itself doesn't flow smoothly enough for me. The words and illustrations are wonderful, but seem somewhat disjointed..... I'll see what my fourth graders think.

Goodreads: A tribute to the memory of September 11
          On September 11, 2001, two sisters from South Africa are flying to New York City with 2,400 roses to be displayed at a flower show. As their plane approaches the airport, a cloud of black smoke billows over the Manhattan skyline. When they land, they learn of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. All flights are canceled; the sisters cannot go home, and they are stranded with boxes and boxes of roses.
          In the days that followed September 11, Jeanette Winter was drawn to Union Square and saw, among the hundreds of memorial offerings, twin towers made of roses. In the pages of this small and vibrant book, she tells a moving story.

September Roses - Jeanette Winter

Illustrated by the author
Frances Foster Books, Farrar Straus Giroux, 2004
32 pages - compact size
Hardcover $14.00
I own this one - she's one of my favorite illustrators
Goodreads 3.88
cag
endpapers: white background with 1/2-inch simple black "roses"
title page: a simple box (reminds me of a zentangle box) with simple roses in two colors - these are the roses that are drawn throughout the book

I just realized how much Jeanette Winter's illustrations remind me of Zentangling.  She's been one of my favorite illustrators for years, and I have found myself so drawn to Zentangling  - it all makes sense to me now.  This is a simple book, based on a true story that took place on 9/11.  I'm going to share it in school with the kids today - kids that were born three years after that fateful day.  It's been 12 years. It was a day that not only affected American greatly, but changed the way that we live and think each and every day.  That said, the book itself doesn't flow smoothly enough for me. The words and illustrations are wonderful, but seem somewhat disjointed..... I'll see what my fourth graders think.

Goodreads Summary: On September 11, 2001, two sisters from South Africa are flying to New York City wiIt jroses to be displayed at a flower show. As their plane approaches the airport, a cloud of black smoke billows over the Manhattan skyline. When they land, they learn of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. All flights are canceled; the sisters cannot go home, and they are stranded with boxes and boxes of roses.

In the days that followed September 11, Jeanette Winter was drawn to Union Square and saw, among the hundreds of memorial offerings, twin towers made of roses. In the pages of this small and vibrant book, she tells a moving story.

MOVIE - Zero Dark Thirty

R (2:37)

Wide Release 1-11-13

at El Con Monday, Jan. 28, 2103 (alone)

RT Critic:  93 Audience:  85

Cag: 4.5/Liked it a whole lot

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Columbia Pictures

Jessica Chastain plays the lead, is up for an academy award for her performance......

From Fandango:  Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden becomes one of the most-wanted men on the planet. The worldwide manhunt for the terrorist leader occupies the resources and attention of two U.S. presidential administrations. Ultimately, it is the work of a dedicated female operative (Jessica Chastain) that proves instrumental in finally locating bin Laden. In May 2011, elite Navy SEALs launch a nighttime strike against bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, killing him.

2. Lake Shore Limited - Sue Miller

Audio read by the author
2010
8 disks
288 pages
written for adults
Didn't like it (1)
Lovely writing; boring, tedious story; unlikable characters for the most part - it was a pretty endless, repetitive story.

Setting:  Post-9/11 Boston and rural Vermont.
OSS:  Four people connected to a young man who died on 9/11 tell the story of their lives and regrets a few years later.
The title:  The Lake Shore Limited is the title of the play that Billy writes, the catalyst for Billy meeting Sam, and the way that she is able to deal with the death of Gus and her feelings surrounding her own secret guilty feelings about Gus's death on 9/11.

The story weaves in, about, and around the lives of five people from the points-ov-view of four of them.  Gus, raised by his 15-years-older sister, is killed on 9/11.  So even though he is no longer alaive, he's definitely a huge part of the story.

Now, years later, Gus's girlfriend Billy, a playwright, has written a play abouit a husband whose wife might or might not have been killed in a train wreck.  The husband is not filled with grief, he's been having an affair and is not sure how he feels. This is actually a mirror of how Billy feels, she'd been about to break up with Gus, although no one else knows this., Leslie, Gus's sister, has invited her friend Sam to the opening of the play to meet Billy, to perhaps fix them up. Sam had once been in love with Leslie.  His first wife had died of cancer leaving him with three youngish sons, he had remarried and divorced after that. He's tall and good looking, Billy is extremely tiny and good looking.  The fourth voice is of Rafe, the actor who played the husband in the play, who is going though his own heartache - his wife is dying of Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Billy and her dog are particularly unlikable, Sam has incredible snobbish tendencies raise their ugly heads, and Rafe almost seems an unneeded character, I'm not sure why he was included.

I almost stopped listening to this a dozen times, but each time I convinced myself that I'd already spent enough time with it to complete it.  Yuck.  Endless.

MOVIE - Fair Game

Excellent - Entertaining AND educating
Limited Release 11-5-10
PG-13 (1:48)
12/9/10 at El Con with Sheila & Ronnie
RT: 80% Flixter: 72% cag: 93%
Director: Doug Liman
Naomi Watts, Sean Pen

This was the real-life story of Valeri Plame, the CIA agent whose covert CIA cover was blown by the WHITE HOUSE and her husband, Joe Wilson.

My friend Sheila, a wonderful writer, tells about this much more eloquently than I ever could. She's begun a great blog of her thoughts, and you can read her review here. Please do! It's great.