Titel ... Gut

The Totally Made-up Civil War Diary of Amanda MacLeish by Claudia Mills

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Keeping in mind that this is a children's book, this is a fairly sophisticated story.  Amanda's parents are splitting up (in a way that makes the mother at first look blameworthy) and her distress is paralleled by the class project: keeping a Civil War diary for Polly, a fictional girl her age who has one brother who supports the Union cause and another who supports Secession.  This is a careful distinction.  The younger brother does not necessarily support slavery, but does support the right of slave-owning states to determine their own regulations in this matter.  The older brother, not Polly's favorite which adds to the complexity, is against slavery.  And they all live on one of those border states that couldn't make up its mind either: Maryland.


The story lightly touches on attitudes about race and Amanda shows the typical attitude of someone who wants to be right-thinking, but still struggles a bit with her preconceptions while deploring prejudice.  She also parallels the conflict with her own behavior when her pain over her parents' separation causes her to avoid her friend, yet want her friend to pursue her, and then blame her when she doesn't. 
The message: I'm rubber and you're glue, if we go back far enough we'll find the problem was you.  In her fictional diary, the brothers reconcile, as she does with her friend.  Unless her parents can agree on an open relationship, that marriage is doomed and it looks like serial monogamy for Dad.  And I don't believe for five seconds that her dad didn't start that relationship with Caroline until after the split and I bet Amanda's sister Steffi doesn't either, cynical little slut.

This book covers so much in so few pages.  Amanda is confronted with the gamut of button-pushing situations: parental conflict, separation, adultery, pubescent sibling with attitude, shame, math homework, leaden political correctness, bad weather, racism, and a lost cat!  I cried and cried.  All of this is deftly written so that it doesn't seem like a ham-handed pulling out of all the stops, but just like normal life.  Good job, Claudia Mills.



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No Reality Here

Dating is Murder: A Novel by Harley Jane Kozak
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Contains serious spoilers - you have been warned.  This story was going okay. The previous book was better, but the author made the time-honored mistake there of relenting the sexual tension and letting the main characters hook up.  She had to undo it to free up Wollie in this next situation of date fodder for a reality show.  That's understandable.  And we were going along just fine until the earlobe business.  Yes, it was gruesome and I can tolerate a certain amount of that if we don't have to actually see it (it's just hinted at with the sausage-making imagery etc.), but no Martha-Stewartesque type person would be so inept as to let an earlobe, much less one with an identifying earring (!!!!!) get away from her.  First of all, she'd probably know better than to try to kill someone by cutting their throat.  That is way too messy.  You'd never clean that up, no matter how Martha-Stewarty you were.  If the M-S type were going to kill someone and dispose of the body, she would be much, much more organized.  Kill first and then cut up.  Much less messy.  And she just wouldn't let an earlobe get away.  An experienced cook wouldn't hack away like that.  I don't have an alternative, but this did make me set the book aside and put my head in my hands.
Also, the victim went to Pepperdine and I just don't see that type with that kind of earring, especially the son of a senator.
The characters other than that are nicely realized and likable.  The detecting stuff was delightfully screwball, but I didn't think much of the reality show stuff.  Then again, I haven't watched tv in a couple of decades now and the author is in the bidness, so I shouldn't judge that.


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Fun with Alzheimer's

Lunch at the Piccadilly by Clyde Edgerton

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book was read by my book group a number of years ago when I was still caring for a parent (or maybe two - I've forgotten how long ago it was) with dementia so I opted to not read it.  I have my own painful and/or cute stories about elderly people and I didn't need more.  Then the library read Walking Across Egypt by Edgerton and that was so good that when I saw this book on display I decided to read it as well. 
Carl visits his aunt in a reasonably nice nursing home. She wants to go home, but he can see that she needs someone to keep an eye on her - and that she needs to stop driving, but he hasn't the gumption to bring it up. He also has his eye on Anna, the manager and is drawn into the orbit of a preacher who thinks churches/synagogues/mosques should merge with nursing homes so that old people get visited at least once a week.  Carl's life is enriched by these people, although caring for his aunt is tiring and writing songs with the preacher comes with the price of having to listen to the sermons.  Carl's aunt and the little old ladies get up to all kinds of mischief because of their memory problems and willfulness, which comes off as cute and charming.  The aunt's health declines rather quickly and her memory problems become more problematic and it was more depressing for me.  Of course, I cried.  I always cry all over books, but at least I didn't get angry like I do when I feel like I'm being manipulated.
I think maybe I like Walking Across Egypt better, although that book would easily turn into a tragedy if it went any further.  This book was good, though. 



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Growing Pains

We have a brand new library which is just fantastic and I thank people who come into the Children's Room to look everything over for the taxes they pay that helped build the new library and keep it going.  I'd say 99.999% of people are impressed and thrilled by the new library.
The Children's Room is the farthest point on the first floor from the entrance but it seems to be the first place people go.  For the first two months, the only copier available to the public on the main floor was in the Children's Room and it was around the corner from the desk.  We want to discourage adults from wandering in the Children's Room, but we couldn't help it for a while.  At last, the copier was moved closer to the entrance to the Children's Room so it could be networked with the children's computers.  Adults would walk right past it, though, if they had used it when it was around the corner.  That wasn't so bad, because it wasn't that much of an intrusion into the CR.  Now, however, there is a copier for public use next to the Circulation Desk.  It's not quite obvious - it's on the far side and against the wall.  Unfortunately, the people at the Info Desk who greet people as they walk in, don't seem to know about it. 
I help adults who want to make copies, but I let them know that for next time there is a copier next to the Circulation Desk so they "don't have to walk so far."  I'd consider making them walk all the way back without copies to be Bad Service and I hate giving Bad Service.
We seem to need something to update, not just the volunteers that staff the Info Desk, but all of us about changes.  We have the Intranet, but I don't recall seeing a message that there was now an operational copier machine for public use at the Circulation Desk.  This is something that everyone needs to know.  Volunteers don't have access to the intranet bulletins, so they need something on paper, perhaps in the form of a newsletter.  Our Volunteer Coordinator is good about keeping them updated, but she wasn't here today and two different volunteers directed patrons the length of the whole building into the Children's Room to make copies. 
We must do better.  Doing better, however, will not mean signage.  It seems the more signage you put up, the less they read it.  They still aren't reading the one that asks them to turn their cells phones off in the library.  [Patrons who were in the middle of asking me for help still answer their ringing phones and expect me to wait until they are done with their call.]  I think we need to update staff on the intranet about each change and find a way to alert volunteers as well. 

"Paradoxides" Bwhah-ha-ha-ha-haaa!

Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution by Richard Fortey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't want to give away who dunnit.
This book made me want to get a little hammer and go out looking for fossils. Okay, I've always sort of wanted to do that, but this intensified that feeling! Fortey might try just a bit too hard to be humorous which might go over well in a class but just made me groan.  It is plain that he has had a balanced education he's not letting go to waste, despite the childhood obsession that became his life's work.  Fortey weaves literature, personalities, and scandal into the trilobite story.  It was hardly necessary; trilobites and all the minutiae involved fascinate me.  Oh, and the eyes, their eyes!  I have two more Forteys in the stack to read.  They take such a gosh-awful long time to digest, but are worth it in the end.
I am also delighted that I too now know that Paradoxides is the "genus of the trilobite of the Middle Cambrian" just like Tim Brooke-Taylor.  You have to follow ISIRTA to find that funny.


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Bride of Frankencozy

Dating Dead Men by Harley Jane Kozak

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I counted 60 characters, all requiring their own names. Well, except the Vons bag lady. The main characters' names are a bit contrived (mostly the Shelleys), but this was a good read.  I will definitely continue with the series.
There is a certain amount of amusement with the rush to date 50 men, but mostly this is a Cozy Thriller - if there is such a thing.  Wollie is pursued by the mob, assassins, all in the week where her greeting card shop is being evaluated by secret shoppers to see if it's upgrade material, giving Wollie the chance to buy the franchise ... with the down payment money from the dating study.  Can she keep up appearances at the shop while her schizophrenic brother, the mob, an attractive ex-con, her funkily dressed assistant, and all her dates conspire to undo all she's worked for?  Oh, and let's not forget the ferret.
Good fun and romance. Can't imagine what is left for a sequel.



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