66. Priscilla, Princess of the Park by Pat LaMarche

#1 Priscilla series
read on Kindle (not available on Audio)
111 pgs.

2020
Middle Grades Realistic Fiction
Finished 7/27/2024
Goodreads rating: 4.88
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Carlisle, PA

My comments: Illustrated by Bonnie Tweedy Shaw!

Goodreads synopsis:  An endearing novel about five young children, a charismatic compassionate woman, and the perils of homelessness. As the children fall madly in love with Priscilla, they begin to wonder about the story of their mentor. The children's homes are filled with everyday drama and excitement. Priscilla teaches life lessons that help them cope and find joy - as well as a sense of community.

32. Home Fire by Kamala Shamsie

listened on Chirp
276 pgs.

2017
Adult realistic fiction
Finished 4/10/24
Goodreads rating: 4.03
My rating: 4
Setting: contemporary Massachusetts, London, Syria

My comments: I started this once, ages ago, but restarted from the beginning in one of my trying-to-fall-asleep sessions.  And it didn't go in any sort of direction that I thought it would.  This is a story that makes you think.  And tremble.  Terrorism.  Families.  Religious beliefs, and religious fanatics.  Patriotism.  Governments.  This is a tragic story, but what I'm sure is very, very real to thousands of people in our world.  I keep going back to thoughts about religious beliefs.  I look at what's going on in America right now, the huge differences between conservatism and liberalism.  Just like the hug differences between Hasidic Jews, reformed, and cultural Jews, and the vast differences between ultra religious Muslims and more liberal Muslims..... Political beliefs and religious beliefs all lumped together.  REALLY tough story, hard to rate.  I usually like stories that flip-flop between points-of-view and though I did not particularly care for it in this case, but to see all the different sides is definitely the best way for this story to be told.  

Goodreads synopsis:  Isma is free. After years of watching out for her younger siblings in the wake of their mother’s death, she’s accepted an invitation from a mentor in America that allows her to resume a dream long deferred. But she can’t stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong sister back in London, or their brother, Parvaiz, who’s disappeared in pursuit of his own dream, to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew. When he resurfaces half a globe away, Isma’s worst fears are confirmed.

Then Eamonn enters the sisters’ lives. Son of a powerful political figure, he has his own birthright to live up to—or defy. Is he to be a chance at love? The means of Parvaiz’s salvation? Suddenly, two families’ fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined, in this searing novel that asks: What sacrifices will we make in the name of love?

The suspenseful and heartbreaking story of an immigrant family driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences.

8. Under the Persimmon Tree - Suzanne Fisher Staples

for: Middle Grades
Frances Foster Bks, Farrar Strauss & Giroux, 2005
HC, $17.00
275 pgs.
My rating: 4

This was a very interesting book, detailing, so sadly, some of the atrocities that have (and possible still are?) taking place under the Taliban in Afghanistan. This story has TWO interesting perspectives. We flip-flop, chapter by chapter, between an American woman living in Peshiwar and an Afghani girls fleeing from her destroyed home in the mountains. Both stories are heartbreaking.

It looks like Najmah has lost her whole family to the Taliban or American bombs. The 12-year old is rescued by fleeing neighbors, disguised as a boy, and set out on a difficult journey to the refugee camps on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. There is no food, little warmth or shelter, and a deep, deep sadness. Najmah stops talking, but uses her wits and determination to continue.

Nusrat has accompanied her doctor-husband from New York City to Pakistan so that he can help. She has converted to Islam, loves Faiz' family (who love and accept her) and has opened a school for refugee kids while she waits for him to return to her from the war zone, where he is working in clinics.

Najmah and Nusrat's stories progress until they come together. Incredibly sad, but an honest look at what's been going on for the last ten years in Afghanistan, to the population and particularly to the women.

There hasn't been a whole lot written (yet) for kids about what's been going on over there. I am so thankful for books like this. However, I'm such a Breadwinner (Deborah Ellis) fan that I must admit as much as I like Staples' work, I prefer Breadwinner over Under the Persimmon Tree and would recommend it first.

Such unbelievable despair. A whole country of people who have lost entire families, traditions, history, and freedom.

7. The Third Angel - Alice Hoffman

Audio read by Nancy Travis (magnificent!)
for: adults
Published 2008
7 unabridged cd's
8 hrs.
288 pages
HC $25, paper coming in March, 2010
My rating: 5

Nancy Travis reads this so beautifully. I love the story, but I wonder if it's also the way that Ms. Travis reads it that hypnotized me. Wonderful storytelling. How do people create stories with such depth with so much weaving of lives? For that is precisely what this book is, the weaving of many lives, how one can touch another that touches another....

Set, for the most part, in London. Told in three parts, first in the mid-1990's, from the point-of-view of Maddy Heller, a young woman who is not entirely likable, who falls in love with her sister's fiance, Paul. Unfortunately, just before they are to be married, Paul succumbs to cancer, which has wasted him away. We get to know the two sisters, the parents of the bride and groom, and the fourth major player in the story - the hotel which is the setting of all three parts.

Then we travel to the Mid 1960's and get to know Frieda Lewis, a doctor's daughter who has run away to London and taken a job as a maid at the hotel. Frieda Lewis falls in love with a drug-addicted musician who marries another, but who has taken Frieda as his "muse." She marries and has Paul, who she loves fiercely. She is a wonderful woman, strong and smart.

Lastly, we meet Lucy Green, 12 years old at the end of WWII. She has traveled from NYC to attend the wedding of her stepmother's sister, Bryn. She is a reader, and lends her copy of Anne Frank to a handsome young man who is also staying at the hotel. This is Bryn's former husband, someone her parents considered a hooligan - enough to annul the marriage and send Bryn to Paris where she met and became engaged to Teddy Healy. But tragedy strikes, a tragedy that will follow Lucy Green through her life. We've already met her -- she is Maddy's mother.

There are so many people that come in and out of all three lives. There are constants, there are peripherals, and they are wonderfully woven in. This is a terrific story...of love, of loss, of pain, and of accepting things that we don't want to accept. It's a story of addictions, of heartache...and of happiness, too. It was really wonderful. And not one, despite what I've said, that is a tear-jerker. Thank goodness....

55. If I Stay - Gayle Forman

for: YA
Dutton Books/Penguin, April 2009
$16.99
200 pgs.
Rating: 5 (or maybe 4.5 because it made me cry)

Right from the beginning you know that there will be a catastrophe and what that catastrophe is. And, yuh, I did cry, but not 'til the end....whew....I just couldn't help it.

This story is layer after layer of character development woven beautifully together. Love. Family. Quirkiness. And music. Lots and lots of music- punk and classical and many more of those aforementioned layers in between. It's clever and heart-warming and tells the story of a 17 year-old cellist bound for Juilliard, from her point-of-view.....her point-of-view as an out-of-body protagonist that is watching her family and friends as she hovers in a coma after a dreadful car accident.

I don't want to give any more spoilers. The story is so beautifully written and pulls you in so quickly that you very badly want to know these people. And don't decide not to read it because you don't like sad stories. It's too good to do that.

In the afterword, Forman says that she listened to Glen Hasard and Marketa Irglova sing Falling Slowly 200 times while she wrote this book. I SO love that song - it's on my FAVORITES playlist on my IPod. And if you saw the movie Once, you've heard it, too. That REALLY endeared me to the author.

What a great piece of storytelling.

18. Leap - Jane Breskin Zalben

for: Tweens
Published: 2007
272 pgs.
Rating: 4
AUDIO 6 cd's (7.5 hours)
Recorded Books
Female reader: Jennifer Ikeda
Male reader: Jonathan Todd Ross

A story in two voices, Krista and Daniel, have been best friends until about a year ago. They're in middle school now, 6th graders. Daniel, a star swimmer, during a routine anesthesia for a tooth removal, has a reaction that leaves him partially paralyzed. Krista, who has a major crush on Daniel's best friend, Bobby, volunteers to help him practice swim. He can only shuffle around using a walker, needs to take a special bus to school, has a full-time aid. But, as we watch the year unfold, not only does he begin to recover, but they both grow up. A lot.

Krista's "journey" includes the friendships of her three closest friends, all very different (of course). Three stereotypical personalities - the gorgeous girl who all the girls envy and roll their eyes at and about, the sweet one, the jock who doesn't like anything frilly, and the protagonist. Nothing wrong with this, I guess, the story has its merits, its problems, its many things for readers to think about. What do you do with a 12-year old friend who has a fake driver's license and gets a tattoo? First kisses, first boy/girl parties, lots to think about.