Wednesday Reading Meme
Oct. 20th, 2021 08:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
As Linda Sue Park explains in the afterword, she wrote Prairie Lotus to write herself into the Little House books that she loved as a child. Our heroine, Hanna, is a mixed race (half-white, half-Asian) girl who has just moved to a town based on De Smet, where the last four Little House books take place.
It’s a lively, fast-moving book; I picked it up twice with the intention of reading a chapter or two, and then suddenly the book was over, oops. Particular highlights include Hanna’s passion for dress-making, particularly when the book delves into her creative process for designing new dresses and her aesthetic theory of dressmaking (there’s an AMAZING button box sequence), and her relationship with her mother, who died a few years ago but remains very much a presence in Hanna’s emotional landscape and her sometimes fraught relationship with her father.
I did think the book could have emulated the Little House books more closely in one respect. Laura Ingalls Wilder presents Laura the character warts and all: she’s brave and plucky and playful, yes, but also sometimes spiteful, shortsighted, and even occasionally downright stupid. (There’s a scene where she climbs into a flood-swollen creek just to see what will happen and what happens is she almost drowns.) Hanna in contrast has no visible warts, which makes her less memorable. I read the book less than a week ago and actually had to look up her name for this review.
What I’m Reading Now
Bruce Catton’s Mr. Lincoln’s Army, the first book in his Army of the Potomac trilogy, which I picked up because I figured Bruce Catton was THE Civil War historian that Andrew would turn to after a super hot freshly awakened Civil War soldier landed in his lap in 1965. (Actually, he probably ought to read The Life of Billy Yank, but I’m leaning on that book so heavily that I’m not sure I dare let Andrew touch it.)
I’m quite enjoying it! Catton has a gift for making historical figures come alive and for making military tactics comprehensible for military dunderheads like myself. And he can be quite lyrical, as in this passage in the preface, where he muses on why he wrote the Army of the Potomac trilogy:
What I Plan to Read Next
My vacation is almost over! Tomorrow I’ll be back at work at the library. I’ve got Daisy Jones & The Six on hold to pick up.
As Linda Sue Park explains in the afterword, she wrote Prairie Lotus to write herself into the Little House books that she loved as a child. Our heroine, Hanna, is a mixed race (half-white, half-Asian) girl who has just moved to a town based on De Smet, where the last four Little House books take place.
It’s a lively, fast-moving book; I picked it up twice with the intention of reading a chapter or two, and then suddenly the book was over, oops. Particular highlights include Hanna’s passion for dress-making, particularly when the book delves into her creative process for designing new dresses and her aesthetic theory of dressmaking (there’s an AMAZING button box sequence), and her relationship with her mother, who died a few years ago but remains very much a presence in Hanna’s emotional landscape and her sometimes fraught relationship with her father.
I did think the book could have emulated the Little House books more closely in one respect. Laura Ingalls Wilder presents Laura the character warts and all: she’s brave and plucky and playful, yes, but also sometimes spiteful, shortsighted, and even occasionally downright stupid. (There’s a scene where she climbs into a flood-swollen creek just to see what will happen and what happens is she almost drowns.) Hanna in contrast has no visible warts, which makes her less memorable. I read the book less than a week ago and actually had to look up her name for this review.
What I’m Reading Now
Bruce Catton’s Mr. Lincoln’s Army, the first book in his Army of the Potomac trilogy, which I picked up because I figured Bruce Catton was THE Civil War historian that Andrew would turn to after a super hot freshly awakened Civil War soldier landed in his lap in 1965. (Actually, he probably ought to read The Life of Billy Yank, but I’m leaning on that book so heavily that I’m not sure I dare let Andrew touch it.)
I’m quite enjoying it! Catton has a gift for making historical figures come alive and for making military tactics comprehensible for military dunderheads like myself. And he can be quite lyrical, as in this passage in the preface, where he muses on why he wrote the Army of the Potomac trilogy:
The books which make up this trilogy began, very simply, as an attempt to understand the men who fought in the Army of the Potomac. As a small boy I had known a number of these men in their old age; they were grave, dignified, and thoughtful, with long white beards and a general air of being pillars of the community. They lived in rural Michigan in the pre-automobile age, and for the most part they had never been fifty miles away from the farm or the dusty village streets; yet once, ages ago, they had been everywhere and had seen everything, and nothing that happened to them thereafter meant anything much.
What I Plan to Read Next
My vacation is almost over! Tomorrow I’ll be back at work at the library. I’ve got Daisy Jones & The Six on hold to pick up.
