3. 5 stars Lily Owens grows up isolated, neglected by her father and lonely on a peach farm in Georgia in the 1960s. Her only friend is the woman who acts as her nanny, Rosaleen, a former field hand who’s taken care of her since Lily’s mother died in a tragic accident when Lily was little more than a toddler. When Rosaleen is forced to flee town after accidentally insulting some white men while on her way to registering to vote, Lily insists on coming […]
Trains or Foster Homes?
The Orphan Train Movement was a supervised welfare program that transported orphaned and homeless children from crowded Eastern cities of the United States to foster homes located largely in rural areas of the Midwest. The orphan trains operated between 1853 and 1929, relocating about 250,000 orphaned, abandoned, or homeless children. Two charitable institutions, the Children’s Aid Society and later, the Catholic New York Foundling Hospital, endeavored to help these children. The two institutions developed a program that placed homeless, orphaned, and abandoned city children, who […]
The Disappointing Disappointment
I’ve loved Barbara Vine for like ever. I know she doesn’t exist and is in fact Ruth Rendell, but still. It’s an irony that I have not now nor have I ever had any desire to read a Rendell novel. Vine first showed up on my radar when A Fatal Inversion was televised for the BBC way back in time before the hula hoop. Okay, it was like 1992 or something but still, I’m old, alright? Anyway, I read the book of that, then burned my way […]
Good Night, Mr. Tom – Review #12 for AamilTheCamel
A poignant tale of the discovery of love.
“We’re not meant for happiness, you and I.”
Goodreads overview: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” So the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter remembered the chilling events that led her down the turning drive past the beeched, white and naked, to the isolated gray stone manse on the windswept Cornish coast. With a husband she barely knew, the young bride arrived at this immense estate, only to be inexorably drawn into the life of the first Mrs. de Winter, the beautiful Rebecca, dead but never forgotten… her suite of rooms never touched, […]
“War has many unexpected casualties”
I almost hate to make this statement, but I like Holocaust literature. Now, I’m not talking Mein Kampf or anything that glorifies the atrocities of Hitler and his Nazi goons. I’m talking stories of heroism and survival like Night by Elie Wiesel, Ashes by Kathryn Lasky, Number the Stars by Lois Lowery, and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Now add to that list The Klipfish Code by Mary Casonova. I’m not a big history person, so it often amazes me just how many places […]
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