This story is told through the eyes of four Dakhóta women, Rosalie Iron Wing, her school friend Gaby Makespeace, her great 4.5 blue stars, rounded up.
This story is told through the eyes of four Dakhóta women, Rosalie Iron Wing, her school friend Gaby Makespeace, her great grandmother Marie Blackbird, and her aunt Darlene Kills Deer. Although it jumps around in time a bit, the main narrator is Rosalie. I liked the framing of the story of the cache of seeds, and the importance of these seeds to the survival of the native people. The history is complicated. Several generations were torn apart by the removal of children to boarding schools. Rosalie, herself, marries a white man, and they have a mixed-race son. While the focus on the women was powerful, I would have liked to have gotten more insight into the minds of her husband John, and her son Tommy. Especially Tommy, who spends his early life trying to earn the love and respect of his father. He grows up not really understanding his native roots or what motivated Rosalie to leave after the death of John, in search of her roots and her family.
Description: Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of the origins of the Dakhóta people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn’t return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato—where the reserved, bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they’ve inherited. On a winter’s day many years later, Rosalie returns to her childhood home. A widow and mother, she has spent the previous two decades on her white husband’s farm, finding solace in her garden even as the farm is threatened first by drought and then by a predatory chemical company. Now, grieving, Rosalie begins to confront the past, on a search for family, identity, and a community where she can finally belong. In the process, she learns what it means to be descended from women with souls of iron—women who have protected their families, their traditions, and a precious cache of seeds through generations of hardship and loss, through war and the insidious trauma of boarding schools....more
Without a doubt, this will be in my top ten this year. I adored Lenni and Margot both, and wish they were real people that I could hang out with. MargWithout a doubt, this will be in my top ten this year. I adored Lenni and Margot both, and wish they were real people that I could hang out with. Margot, especially, had such an interesting life - I could listen to her stories all day. It's sad, and sometimes a bit heavy, but there is humor too, and philosophical ponderings about life. Their friendship is special. Margot and "Father" Arthur serve as surrogate parents for Lenni. Ultimately it is about finding love and being loved. I had a special older friend in my life, too, but I would be hard pressed to turn it into a book. Still, we all have stories to tell. The last line will stick with me for a long time.
Description: Seventeen-year-old Lenni Pettersson lives on the Terminal Ward at the Glasgow Princess Royal Hospital. Though the teenager has been told she’s dying, she still has plenty of living to do. Joining the hospital’s arts and crafts class, she meets the magnificent Margot, an 83-year-old, purple-pajama-wearing, fruitcake-eating rebel, who transforms Lenni in ways she never imagined. As their friendship blooms, a world of stories opens for these unlikely companions who, between them, have been alive for one hundred years. Though their days are dwindling, both are determined to leave their mark on the world. With the help of Lenni’s doting palliative care nurse and Father Arthur, the hospital’s patient chaplain, Lenni and Margot devise a plan to create one hundred paintings showcasing the stories of the century they have lived—stories of love and loss, of courage and kindness, of unexpected tenderness and pure joy.
This one is hard to review. I liked it very much, obviously. But why? It's a hilarious satire, but it's also heartbreakingly real at ti5 purple stars.
This one is hard to review. I liked it very much, obviously. But why? It's a hilarious satire, but it's also heartbreakingly real at times. I grew up in the 60s, and I can definitely relate to all the ways that women were (and still are) treated unfairly and aren't taken seriously - ESPECIALLY smart women. I could tell some stories of my own. So it hits home. It's also about life, about faith, and about family. There's a bit of a mystery, although that was somewhat predictable. And if none of that entices you - the dog steals the show!
Description: Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results. But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride�) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo....more
A fun, romp, especially if you are from Minnesota. These people are completely dysfunctional, yet somehow they manage to com3.5 pink stars rounded up.
A fun, romp, especially if you are from Minnesota. These people are completely dysfunctional, yet somehow they manage to come around in the end. Violet is not only a perfectionist, she is also a control freak. This leads to hilarious consequences when she learns that her lesbian daughter is having a baby. She becomes absolutely fixated on trying to uncover how the baby was conceived and more importantly who is the father. Things go from bad to worse. She suffers a concussion at her husband's retirement party, and her subsequent dependence on others doesn't help with her feelings of getting old and irrelevant. Daughter Cerise is slowly learning how to stand on her own feet and not allow her mother to dictate her life. Meanwhile, neighbor Richard (and husband of Violet's best friend) is unemployed but somehow bringing home lots of money. Then the FBI gets involved... And if you think Violet is bad, wait until you meet Cerise's partner Barb's parents. It all comes to a head at the pre-baptismal dinner and the baptism, which leaves the pastor with a broken nose. Could we have a sequel to this book, please?
Description: "Dearest loved ones, far and near - evergreen tidings from the Baumgartners!" Violet Baumgartner has opened her annual holiday letter the same way for the past three decades. And this year she's going to throw her husband, Ed, a truly perfect retirement party, one worthy of memorializing in her upcoming letter. But the event becomes a disaster when, in front of two hundred guests, Violet learns her daughter Cerise has been keeping a shocking secret from her, shattering Violet's carefully constructed world. In an epic battle of wills, Violet goes to increasing lengths to wrest back control of her family, infuriating Cerise and snaring their family and friends in a very un-Midwestern, un-Baumgartner gyre of dramatics. And there will be no explaining away the consequences in this year's Baumgartner holiday letter�....more
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