Now all that stuff needs to be relocated, because Malcolm has moved into the room formerly known as the guest room.  He’s not a guest, and his stuff needs to be at home there too.  But first, purging must occur.

I’m starting with the two shelves of children’s books that are too precious to send to Goodwill.  Space must be made for Malcolm’s Skateboard magazines, yearbooks, and Guinness Books of World Records.

Hmmm, maybe I can thin the herd a bit more.  Definitely getting rid of the Series of Unfortunate Events books.  Let me just go out on a limb here and say this:  I hated those books. 

These are definitely in the pantheon of keepers.

I love the words, the colors, the graphics, the memory of  little voices chiming in, the calming effect of this sweet and simple book at the end of many a day.  Good Night Moon is beloved.

From my own childhood, we have a first edition of this obscure classic, which I’ll never get rid of.  Through photographed vignettes, it tells the story of a little blonde doll named Edith who befriends a teddy bear and his father.  When Edith and Little Bear do something naughty, Mr. Bear spanks her.  In later books, Edith’s adventures include getting tied up.  Chris always thought these books were disturbing and creepy and I always thought he was reading way too much into sweet and simple little stories, but it turns out Chris was right.  I read Jean Nathan’s biography of author/photographer Dare Wright, and her life story is incredibly twisted and gothic.  Can’t part with The Lonely Doll, or the bio.

I adore Dr. Seuss, and the Sneetches above all.  A brilliant piece of social commentary, with the good doctor’s hilarious words and pictures forever burned into my mind.  Although the star tattoos that the Sneetches get on their bellies are just an allegory, in reality, Dr. Seuss was the first to foresee the tattooing craze.  Also in this great collection:  The Pale Green Pants, The Zax, and Too Many Daves.  If there can be only one Dr. Seuss in my house, let it be The Sneetches.

Who doesn’t love the collected works of Beatrix Potter?  Our friends Penny and Glenn gave baby Ian a set of the entire Peter Rabbit-Jemima Puddleduck-Johnny Town Mouse canon.  Each book was miniature and fit into a glossy little white box with a handle.  The box fell apart long ago but we will always have the books.  There’s just something so English and enchanting about little anthropomorphic creatures drinking tea in their cozy burrows, visiting gardens, and fishing on lily pads.  Even I can enjoy mice if they are wearing little frock coats and yellow pants.

Rounding out the top five, we will hang onto our vintage edition of Winnie-The-Pooh.  According to family lore, my mother-in-law read this book while pregnant, and that is how my husband came to be named Christopher. 

So there I was, stuck inside the house.  A blizzard fell around us.  The world outside was a magical, mystical scene, the snow transforming our usually dull state, with a flick of two letters in the final syllable,  into the sparkling land of Pennsylnavia.   A fire crackled in the grate.  A batch of sugar cookies awaited frosting and sprinkles. The Scrabble board was set.

We couldn’t go anywhere, nobody could come here, and all was covered  in a blanket of beautiful, pristine snow.

Sounds like a dream, right?  Wrong.  Because I was stuck with a book I was hating during the epic time the kids are calling The Six Day Weekend.   And the bookstores and libraries were 1) inaccessible and 2) closed.  All avid readers can sympathize with me.  I was in bibliophile hell.

This is the book I detested.  But I felt compelled to finish it, because I had nothing in my on-deck circle.  My side of the bed was bare.  That was my own irresponsible fault.  It’s like letting your car run out of gas.  Always keep your bedside reading stack topped up!  How could this have happened?

This Mennonite memoir has gotten a lot of buzz, and most reviews on amazon are, to my amazement, positive.  People actually compare the author to David Sedaris, favorably.  Are you kidding me?  Sedaris is a neurosurgeon of nuance, brilliant and precise.  Janzen is, at best, a chiropractor of comedy, searching fruitlessly for the funnybone.  She ham-handedly cracks a few lame jokes, makes endless mean observations about her loved ones, and repeats herself endlessly. 

Yes, Rhoda, we remember.  Your husband ran off with Bob from gay.com.  How many times do you have to remind us?  Your mom is a charming, no-nonsense nurse who is comfortable with body topics.  She sings gross songs and says crude things and does base things in public, and you completely out her for this.  Good thing moms love their children unconditionally. 

That doesn’t mean I have to love Rhoda, or her memoir.  But I’m stuck with her, on account of snow.

It’s enough to drive me to get a Kindle.  Then, at the touch of a button, I would have an entire world of brand new books at my fingertips.  All my problems would be solved!  Right?

Finally, please take a peek at the incredibly stylish bunkbeds offered by our newest advertiser.  Just click at top left.  I’m tempted to get one of these babies, and my babies are all teenagers.

Please weigh in.  How do you like your Kindle?  Is it a reader’s dream?  Would it solve my dilemma?  Or is it heresy to even consider such a thing?

That’s my beautiful niece Logan, age 13, who grabbed every spare minute during the family reunion to read Memoirs of a Geisha.  She even sat in the car while everyone else went on a quick shopping trip so she could finish it.  Logan highly recommends this book, as does my dad.

And speaking of being 13, I’m reading a much lighter book at the moment, called Certain Girls, which I got out of the library.  It’s the latest by Jennifer Weiner (author of Good in Bed and In Her Shoes) and EMILY, you TOTALLY HAVE to read this.  It’s about a Jewish mom in Philadelphia planning her daughter’s bat mitzvah.  It’s set in this day and age, and there’s a big fight over what dress the girl will wear and where the event will be, and it’s very clever and full of witty social commentary, like all of this author’s stuff.

I am also loving this article about the hideous Crocs fad – I’m sorry everyone, but our whole family hates them and has since we saw tons of Canadians wearing them in 2006.  Disclaimer: many people we love wear these clown shoes and we still love them.  The people.

Finally, some of my mid-century vintage linens now on sale on etsy have turned up on a beautiful French blog: kickcanandconkers.blogspot.com.  Not to worry, it’s written in English by Deborah, an ex-pat Yorkshire lass.  Just scroll down to EVENING EYE CANDY and COLOUR IN THE KITCHEN.

We clapped loudly and often for high achievement in rocking-chair-woodcrafting, costume-crafting and decorating skills, yearbook creation, photography, painting, music, drama, visual arts, and robotics. Here Ian receives the award from his excellent art teacher, Mrs. Rogers.  Since it’s his 3rd award, he got a little gold bar to put on the actual chenille letter.  While you don’t see the arts kids swaggering through the halls with their leather-sleeved letter jackets, menacing the jocks with their ultra cool hipsterhood, the point is, you COULD. 

This is one of my favorite school ceremonies.  You see kids you’ve known since babyhood developing huge talent and achieving great success, and being nurtured and supported by the school district – which refuses to cut funding for the arts, no matter how tight things get. 

And Ian had an extra fan in the crowd – his 8th grade confirmation mentor.  She’s kept in touch with him over the years and made a point of joining us for dinner and the ceremony last night.  Which makes us grateful for the support networks created by our church. 

I was pleasantly surprised to see  this blogger at the award, because her kids are very little.  Turns out she, her husband and her children were there to support her nephew.  That’s the kind of night it was.

Speaking of arts and letters, here’s the list of books recommended by you all, organized in no particular order.  I think I got them all but apologize for there are any sins of omission.

Night Navigation, Ginnah Howard

 The Twilight Books

 A Death in the Family, James Agee

 The Memory of Old Jack

A Wrestling Season

The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood

Mystic River, Dennis Lehane

A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving

Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden

The Red Tent, Anita Diamant

Joy in the Morning/A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger

Like Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen 

Rebecca, Daphne DuMaurier

Peony in Love/Snow Flower & The Secret Fan, Lisa See

Out Stealing Horses, Per Petterson

Saving Fish From Drowning, Amy Tan

Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

Pope Joan, Donna Cross

A Thousand White Women, Jim Fergus

Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson

 Escape, Carolyn Jessup

American Gods, Neil Gaiman

Apparently, finding material is not a problem for this guy.  

BOOKS:  Casting back to this earlier post, I have read  Out Stealing Horses (almost dreamlike, brutal but beautiful), and am just finishing Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan (wonderful premise, great narrator, packed with funny and serious observations).  It was a treat to go from the ice and snow of Norway to the heat and jungles of Burma.  OSH was written in spare, stark prose - and then there’s Amy Tan, a wizard of wordiness.  I loved both of these, suggested by Melanie.  However, I could not get into her pick Ella Minnow Pea, even though the premise is clever and it’s all about words and language. Will try again.

Again, I’m so grateful for all the reading suggestions from you MOBsters.  It makes me feel snug and secure, knowing there’s a long list of good books in the pipeline.  On Thursday I’ll put up the entire list of recommendations.

COLLEGE:  This is crunch week - schools need to know on May 1 which kids have accepted their offers, and which kids are going elsewhere.  As a recent newspaper article said, ”A lot of families will be sitting around the table on Thursday night with a whiteboard.”  Memo to self:  get a whiteboard with magical decision-making abilities. 

 STINKBUGS:  And going back many months, I must re-visit the topic of hideous stinkbugs.  These god-awful things are everywhere, and they are driving me mad.  I can’t just shrug and co-exist with them, I must wage war upon each and every one.  As you can imagine, this doesn’t help my daily productivity quotient.  I describe my favorite waterboarding technique in the old post, and I continue to stand by this method.

But I’ve found an effective new technique of stinkbug torture as well.  This involves scooting said vermin onto a sheet of paper, then slapping a huge piece of strong tape down on top of them.  Don’t let any antennae or skinny arms and legs stick out – I’ve seen them escape through tiny gaps.  In a pinch, several criss-crossing bits of regular Scotch tape will do.  It’s kind of like home-made flypaper.

These scourges are the size of jellybeans.  When they make contact with solid objects, a small thud results.  They buzz, they swarm to lights by night and to windows by day.  No pesticide has been found to work against them.  Last night, Malcolm noticed the hall light was full of charred and dessicated stinkbug husks.  Today, I cleaned out the globes, chuckling grimly at the carnage – and the evidence that – haha – they can’t escape every danger, can they?

Please tell me Stinkbug Season will be over soon.

There is no good book by my bedside.  Normally I have one at bat, one in the on-deck circle, more in the dugout, extras in the bullpen, and others coming up through the minor league.  But my pipeline has run dry, and I need your help.

It all began in childhood, when my mom read to my big brothers and me every night.  The Blueberry Pie Elf.  The Borrowers.  Charlotte’s Web.  The Lonely Doll (a future blog post all by itself).  These night-time sessions are among my most cherished memories.

Elementary school teachers read aloud to us after lunch recess.  In sixth grade, we girls loved A Wrinkle in Time, but the boys rebelled and demanded a “boy book,”  so then Mrs. Vaught read 2001:  A Space Odyssey.  That was the book during which all the girls took up crocheting.

From the moment I learned to read, a good book has been my constant companion.  First I read the sweet innocent classics of my mom’s youth:  Anne of Green Gables.  The Boxcar Children.  Little House on the Big Prairie.  Hitty.

Comic books were a huge obsession.  Then I branched out and started reading more frightening or salacious fare from our local library and paperbacks handed over by friends.  Confessions of a Prom Queen.  Helter Skelter.  In Cold Blood.  The Boston Strangler.  The Diary of Anne Frank.

In recent weeks I’ve re-discovered A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and its touching, hilarious accounts of a Brooklyn girlhood.  On the heels of that, I read The Book Thief, which was dark but beautifully compelling.

Since then, I’ve been like Goldilocks in the Three Bears’ library.  Saints and Liars didn’t have enough detail.  The Executioner’s Song has too much detail.  A Mercy has just enough detail, and it’s beautiful, but it’s shrouded in fog.  I’m having to grope my way through.

And so I turn to you, MOB readers.  Please, I beg of you, send me your suggestions for a good book.   I don’t care if I’ve read it before, re-reading can be an excellent diversion.  Just tell me what you’ve loved.  Fiction, nonfiction, any genre goes. 

I look forward to compiling a list of your excellent adventures in reading.  And while we’re at it, let’s suggest that Emily pick up a new edition of What To Expect When You’re Expecting. 

“Mom, my ENTIRE bookcase just fell off the dresser.”

I hadn’t heard a thing. So I do what a lot of Moms do in these situations.  I asked a series of incredulous questions all at once.

“Just now? How did that happen?  It just fell?  DID YOU GET HURT??? Is it a big mess? Where is Daddy?”

“Yes.  I don’t know. Yes. No. Yes. He is in my room looking at the mess.”

Indeed.

We are still not sure what happened as according to Noah he was just opening a dresser drawer when the bookcase tipped.  No one was hurt, except for the little league trophy guy who was decapitated in the fall.  We all snickered at this.

But the accident supplied the impetus to do a little Spring cleaning.  Beginner chapter books from Noah could go up to Chase’s room.  But first I would need to make some room on Chase’s book shelves, which is where Dave found me last night sitting forlornly among the board books and stories that had lived there and had been virtually ignored for the last 5 years, until now.  He knew immediately.

“You okay?” he asked with that empathetic half smile that a husband gives his wife when he knows she’s on the verge.

Not so much.

Like tombstones in a crowded forgotten graveyard, the books were spread out around me unmoving … but, oh so moving as I remembered how we used to read.  Could Dave still recite The Big Red Barn from memory?  Did I remember the funny intonation I used for that page in Zin Zin Zin?  How we loved when the sky turned pink in Ant and Bee and the Rainbow! Each story was told a certain way, and once told, so it would be told the same exact way, again and again.  Chase sidled up next to me on the floor and began to help me sort.

“Hey, I remember this one!” 

And so we sat and read these books together for the first time in years.   And maybe the last time, as we packed them up to make room for the chapter books.

It all came crashing down for a second time last night.  But this time on me.  And this time, it hurt.

The following is my recollection of a recent discussion over Sunday dinner with certain members of my family.  Names have remained the same to incriminate and embarrass the innocent.  I may have completely inventedtaken some poetic license as to the exact dialogue but the general sentiment is there.  Since I can’t remember how this conversation began I am going to start in the middle and let the highly intelligent MoB readers figure it out:

My Little Brother Justin:  I can’t read that book to my kids.  I cry after the first three pages.  Every time.

Me:  Which book?

Little Bro:  The Giving Tree.

Me:  Really? You actually shed tears?

Little Bro:  Yup

Little Bro’s lovely wife, Venessa:  Me, too.

My mother (to me):  You mean you don’t cry when you read The Giving Tree aloud to the boys?

Me:  Uh….no.

My mother:  Don’t you know what it’s about??

Me:  (offended)  Of course I know what it’s about .

Little Bro: (as if I said I didn’t know what it’s about):  It’s about children growing up and moving away and not needing their parents anymore.  Doesn’t that make you sad?? Are you some sort of sociopath?  Do you cry at ANYTHING?

Me:  I cry every time I watch Steel Magnolias, Terms of Endearment and Beaches…and, um…. whenever I listen to Sarah MacLachlan.  I am perfectly normal.

Venessa runs to fetch the book so my family can watch me read it aloud without crying, which I refuse to do.  I watched the O.J. Simpson trial and I know what happens when you try to prove a point through re-enactments.  (If the glove doesn’t fit…)  So the family proceeded to analyze why I don’t cry when I read The Giving Tree.  I suggested that it might have something to do with the huge, creepy picture of Shel Silverstein on the back of the book – which gave me bad dreams as a little girl.

But truthfully I never gave this a lot of thought.  I didn’t realize that crying was required.  Now that I did, I pondered my obvious insensitivity and came to the conclusion that I have always embraced The Giving Tree as a happy book about unconditional love and friendship.  I never actually felt sorry for the tree because it wanted to give all these things away – and the boy comes back in the end so that’s all good.  As an adult,  I have gifted this book to many grown friends who were important to me…many who didn’t even have children at the time.  These were friends who I wanted to know how happy they made me, how much I enjoyed giving pieces of myself to them, and that I would always be there for them in life.  That’s not sad.  It’s wonderful, right?

Sniff.