Summer Reading Celebration

The fascinating Hildegard was a composer, seer, nun, and spiritual leader in the 1100s, in Germany. In this historical fiction account of her life the “illuminations” referred to are less about her mystical visions and more about her personal enlightenment and growth. It is about her growth in understanding people, connections, relationships. She grows to understand that some can help and enrich the world and others hinder and harm. Hildegard’s naivety evolves through experience to wisdom. Though her life was nothing like ours, her wants, needs, and desires are as real as yours or mine. Read this book to learn what it is to be a woman ahead of her time.

Fiction based on an actual historical event. A young black nurse discoverers that 2 of her clients were sterilized without the knowing consent of their legal guardians. That is the true event. Many of the things she encounters in post-seregation Alabama give an accurate portrayal of what life was like for poor black families, and even well off families during that time. Her emotional struggles and character are completely fictionalized. Well written and very enlightening.

Isla loves how this book is full of photographs that match up to each different section, so she can learn simple ballet while going through the book.

This was a somewhat disturbing book. Disturbing in that if you don't happen to be a person if color, you learn what it is like to live in their world. That it would be so bad you would want to "cross over" is telling of the world I do not know. The fictitious story is set in a small town of very light skinned blacks. They pride themselves on their lightness. Some even have red hair and could be mistaken as being white. But as the author notes, even the boy who looks white is not allowed the same privileges that an actual white person would have. The story follows 2twin sisters born in this town. Their daddy dies young and their mothers struggles to support the family. The girls have to chip in and life is very hard for all of them. One of the twins "crosses over" in order to get a job that pays better so she and her sister can afford to live in the city they have run away to. Eventually her white boss falls in love with her. Will she tell him? What happens to the other sister? There are some rough parts in this book, but I appreciated the over all message it told.

This book echoes a prominent theme in current parenting: get kids outside interacting with nature. I appreciate the practical suggestions on gardening, but the chapters on hunting and fishing were unrelatable.

“We all need to do things that take us out of ourselves.” (p. 364) whether it is embroidery, fly fishing, or bell ringing, the activities we do offer purpose and focus, especially in difficult times. This novel is set in England in the 1930s and the thread that binds characters is sometimes physical, such as yarn to embroider with or ropes in a bell tower, and sometimes spiritual as between friends and lovers. The losses of The Great War are keenly felt by the parents, sisters, and girlfriends of boys who died. How they build new lives through service, activities, employment, and especially relationships create the threads that embroider a new life and society.

I liked it in general but Olivia wasn't my favorite protagonist so I was just a bit more out of the book than normal

That was really good and quite digestible for a fantasy

I really liked the CLSC lecture and I really liked this. Very Temperance Brennan and the 300s.

This was a amazing book. I enjoyed reading about the "sea women" and went further to find videos about these amazing women. This is a way of life that I never knew existed!! I have read other books by Lisa See and this is definitely my favorite.