131. The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline

listened on Libby, borrowed from the library
narrated by Caroline Lee 
Unabridged audio (10:17)
2020
370 pgs.
Adult Historical Fiction
Finished 9/29/20
Goodreads rating: 4.23 - 3284 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: 1840s Britain, on ship from Britain to Tasmania, and Tasmania

First line/s: "By the time the rains came, Mathinna had been hiding in the bush for nearly two days."

What I posted on Goodreads:  4.5 A wonderful, though bleak, historical fiction about three women in the 1840s British penal colony which is now Tasmania in Australia. 

(I felt that the nondisclosure of ending for one of the major characters was a bit disconcerting, thus the erasure of half a point from a full-fledged five.)

Goodreads synopsis:  The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel that captures the hardship, oppression, opportunity and hope of a trio of women’s lives in nineteenth-century Australia.
          Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.
          During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel -- a skilled midwife and herbalist – is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.
          Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.
          In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom.           Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.

MOVIE - On the Basis of Sex

PG-13 (2:00)

Wide release 1/11/19

Viewed 1/10/19 with Sandy at Carlisle 8
IMBd: 6.2/10

RT Critic: 71   Audience:  71
Critic's Consensus:  On the Basis of Sex is nowhere near as groundbreaking as its real-life subject, but her extraordinary life makes a solid case for itself as an inspirational, well-acted biopic.

Cag:  5/Loved it

Directed by Mimi Leder

Focus Features

Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer

My comments:  I've got a feeling that even if this was a crappy movie I would rate it well.  However, it wasn't a crappy movie.  If the two wonderful actors who portrayed Ruth and Marty Ginsberg are anything at all like the real Ruth and Marty Ginsberg, I am sold, sold, sold.  There was just enough law, just enough Ginsberg family scenes, just enough touch of the 50s, 60s, and 70s to make this movie real, relevant, and right.

RT/ IMDb Summary  The film tells an inspiring and spirited true story that follows young lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she teams with her husband Marty to bring a groundbreaking case before the U.S. Court of Appeals and overturn a century of gender discrimination. The feature will premiere in 2018 in line with Justice Ginsburg's 25th anniversary on the Supreme Court.

PICTURE BOOK - The Pink Hat by Andrew Joyner

Illustrated by the author

2018, Random House

HC $17.99

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.56 - 151 ratings

My rating: 5

Endpapers: Bright Pink

Illustrations: Black & white except for the pink hat

1^st line/s:  "First, there wasn't a hat....
                     Then there was."

My comments:  Why do people's expectations divert their liking for a book?  This is a subtle story, not the in-you-race-story with lots of political information that many reviewers wanted.  The message is there, it's quiet, and it's perfect for today's kids as well as today's young women.  It was fun to see where the story was going.  Let it BE what it IS, sit back and enjoy.  This is a fantastic book.  Another will be written to satisfy those who want more political references!

Goodreads:  Celebrate the 2017 Women's March with this charming and empowering picture book about a pink hat and the budding feminist who finds it.
          Here is a clever story that follows the journey of a pink hat that is swiped out of a knitting basket by a pesky kitten, blown into a tree by a strong wind, and used as a cozy blanket for a new baby, then finally makes its way onto the head of a young girl marching for women's equality. 
          Inspired by the 5 million people (many of them children) in 82 countries who participated in the 2017 Women's March, Andrew Joyner has given us a book that celebrates girls and women and equal rights for all! 
          With themes of empathy, equality, and solidarity, The Pink Hat is a timeless and timely story that will empower readers and promote strength in the diverse and active feminist community.

MOVIE- Hidden Figures

PG (2:07)

Wide release 1/6/17

Viewed Sunday, 1/15/17 at Carlisle 8 with Ella
IMBd:  

RT Critic: 93   Audience:  94
Critic's Consensus:  In heartwarming, crowd-pleasing fashion, Hidden Figures celebrates overlooked -- and crucial -- contributions from a pivotal moment in American history.

Cag:  6/Awesome  

Directed by Ted Melfi

20th Century Fox

Based on a real story

Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Kevin Costner, Jim Parsons, Kirsten Dunst

My comments: I love these "based on a true story" movies, but this one was particularly poignant, well told, and well acted.  Powerful story!  It's also good to be reminded that as recently as the 1960's, people with a skin color other than white couldn't use the same bathrooms, drink from the same fountains or percolators, find any sort of comparable job, and were treated with such incredible disrespect. Brilliant women who, if this story is truthful, truly helped make the space program of the 1960s literally get off the ground.  A fantastic movie.

RT/ IMDb Summary:  The incredible untold story of Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson - brilliant African-American women working at NASA, who served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit, a stunning achievement that restored the nation's confidence, turned around the Space Race, and galvanized the world. The visionary trio crossed all gender and race lines to inspire generations to dream big.

MOVIE - Sufragette

PG-13 (1:46)

Limited release 10/23/15

Viewed at ElCon with Sheila

RT Critic:  72  Audience:  74

Cag:  4.5 Liked it a lot - learned a lot about the Women's movement in Great Britain

Directed by Sarah Gavron

Focus Features

Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Meryl Streep (for just a small portion).

My comments:  This was a heart-wrenching, eye-opening film.  The story of  the British women's rights' movement was quite unfamiliar to me previously, this was entertaining as well as educational.  A great movie experience.

RT Summary:  Academy Award nominees Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter, and three-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep, lead the cast of a powerful drama about the women who were willing to lose everything in their fight for equality in early-20th-century Britain. The stirring story centers on Maud (played by Carey Mulligan), a working wife and mother whose life is forever changed when she is secretly recruited to join the U.K.'s growing suffragette movement. Galvanized by the outlaw fugitive Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep), Maud becomes an activist for the cause alongside women from all walks of life. When increasingly aggressive police action forces Maud and her dedicated fellow suffragettes underground, they engage in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with the authorities, who are shocked as the women's civil disobedience escalates and sparks debate across the nation. Inspired by true events, SUFFRAGETTE is a moving drama exploring the passion and heartbreak of those who risked all they had for women's right to vote - their jobs, their homes, their children, and even their lives. 

45. The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards

2011, Viking

377 pgs.

Finished September 30, 2013 (much of it read on Southwest, traveling back and forth between PA and AZ)

Adult CRF

Goodreads Rating: 3.18

My Rating:  Liked it a lot (4) 

Acquired: TPPL

Setting: Contemporary upstate New York, with forays into 1911-1930ish  history of the same area

My comments:  The Lake of Dreams is the name of the (fake) town in upstate New York where this book takes place, somewhere in the area that contains Rochester and Seneca Falls.  I've been up there a number of times, it's beautiful country (in the summer) and I could picture this all in my mind, as the setting is a huge part of the story. Family history, family mysteries, unwinding stories, long-lost love and the growing-up-together kind of love, reminiscing about the past and making life-changing discoveries and decisions -- all are a part of this very interesting story.

Goodreads Review:  Lucy Jarrett is at a crossroads in her life, still haunted by her father's unresolved death a decade earlier. She returns to her hometown in Upstate New York, The Lake of Dreams, and, late one night, she cracks the lock of a window seat and discovers a collection of objects. They appear to be idle curiosities, but soon Lucy realizes that she has stumbled across a dark secret from her family's past, one that will radically change her—and the future of her family—forever.

Hillary Rodham Clinton - Kathleen Krull

Dreams Taking Flight
Illustrated by Amy June Bates
Simon & Schuster, 2008
For: ages 5-10
36 pgs.
Endpapers have copyright info & title page

In this picture book biography for kids we learn a great deal about Hilary Clinton - and because we know so much about her from the media, none is surprising - but it's really interesting. (She wanted to be an astronaut -- and a doctor!)

At the end of the book are more detailed facts and information for each two-page spread. I read every word- it was really interesting.

Whether you agree with Hilary's politics or not, you've got to agree that she has championed and pioneered women's rights like very few others. A groundbreaker.

Amy June Bates' illustrations cover the entire page. It was interesting to see she lives in Carlisle, PA, where I visit at least three times a year (that's where Laura lives).

On each two-page spread is a great quote. For example:
"Take a deep breath, look ahead, and keep trying to fly."
"Stank up for yourself, and keep your balance."
"Even if you jake a mistake, never be afraid to show your intelligence."
"Find heroes to lift you up."
"When borders surround you, try to break through.
"You don't have time for fear."
"Try harder - you can do better."
"Dare to compete."
"Think of the world as bigger than yourself, and carry on."
"Be who you are, get through it, and wait for times to change."
"When something makes you fall, rise up again."
"Take the lead role in your own life."
"Take a risk and dare to change the world."

The author's website: www.Kathleen Krull.com