Why have I never read this wonderful picture book? I read it now because I had learned that it was first published in the year of my birth.
It is big Why have I never read this wonderful picture book? I read it now because I had learned that it was first published in the year of my birth.
It is big on pictures, as a picture book should be. The text mostly names objects that appear in the pictures of a bedroom where a young rabbit is being put to bed. (I wonder why a rabbit instead of a child?) It was enjoyable to find all the objects named. The colors are distinct and strong. Illustrator Clement Hurd has a style!
Due to the coincidence of its publishing date with my birth, I wonder if my mother read this to me when I was little. I can almost hear an echo of her voice saying, Goodnight moon. Then having me say goodnight to all the objects in my room.
I also recalled taking care of my mother after she got back home from the hospital following a series of strokes. In the mornings, as I was helping her learn to “drive” her wheelchair, I would have her say hello to all the objects in her home. Reading Good Night Moon revived the love we had for each other. ...more
I read Ann Petry's first novel, The Street, in 1991. It was the first book by a Black woman to sell more than a million copies. That happened in 1946!I read Ann Petry's first novel, The Street, in 1991. It was the first book by a Black woman to sell more than a million copies. That happened in 1946!
Country Place was her next novel, published a year later, but by then she had fled Harlem, the inspiration for The Street, and returned to the small Connecticut town where she was born and raised. Her father owned the pharmacy in that town. She was also fleeing the invasive publicity she had attained after The Street was published.
Country Place is is set in a small New England town populated mostly by white people. A young man returns from fighting in WWII to find his wife changed and no longer interested in him. She sets off a series of incidents that result in a murder and revelations of many secrets the town has held.
The only Black character is Neola, maid to the town's richest woman. The narrator of the story is a pharmacy owner though his race is not revealed. The rich woman's gardener is Portuguese, the town lawyer is Jewish, the rest are white people of various social levels.
This is an extremely well-plotted story of conflicts and secrets and personal proclivities. Everyone knows a little about everyone else, as is common in small communities. Having looked up and learned Ann Petry's personal story, I understand how she could have written a novel that feels so real as well as so sensitive to human nature.
Thanks to Mariner Classics for reissuing this novel as well as The Street and Ann Petry's 1953 novel The Narrows, which I will be reading soon....more
One of the best novels I have read about a female painter. I first learned about it from a book blogger and have had it on my TBR lists for many yearsOne of the best novels I have read about a female painter. I first learned about it from a book blogger and have had it on my TBR lists for many years. After reading I, Mona Lisa by Natasha Solomons, it was time. I found a copy at the Los Angeles Public Library!
Any woman painter today knows about Artemisia Gentileschi (1590-1642), one of the first female Renaissance painters to gain fame. She was inspired by Caravaggio's style and was initially taught by her father, also a painter.
When Artemisia was in her teens, she was raped by a man in her neighborhood. To save her reputation, her father married her off to another neighbor, then sent her away to art school.
She was as devoted to art as Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci. Despite the turmoil of her private life, she painted obsessively, becoming famous and rich. She had one daughter by that husband but she loved him more than the daughter. In many senses her life was tragic.
The novel is biographical fiction. Anna Banti pulled off a sometimes puzzling but also very metafictional feat. The narrator/author is living in postwar Italy and has actual conversations with Artemisia as she reconstructs her novel from memory after it was destroyed in the war.
It worked for me. The heart, mind and soul of creative women, battling society, war, and mores of their times, was exciting and inspiring, heartbreaking yet joyous.
I seem to always love fiction translated from the Italian. I will look for more of it....more
Somewhere on the interwebs I heard about this book and that it had been made into a movie to be released in July. I watched a trailer and was complete Somewhere on the interwebs I heard about this book and that it had been made into a movie to be released in July. I watched a trailer and was completely seduced. It stars Audrey Tatou, whom I adore.
Boris Vian was a multi-talented French fellow. He wrote novels, poetry, and plays. He played jazz, acted, and invented stuff. He was friends with Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean Paul Sartre. He translated two of Raymond Chandler's novels into French.
He published Mood Indigo in 1947, the year I was born. Its title in French was L'Ecume des Jours which literally translated means The Foam of Days, but its first translator called it Froth on the Daydream. As with any deeply imaginative work, all three titles fit. When Michel Gondry made his film adaptation in 2013 (there have been a French movie in 1968 and a Japanese film in 2001) the title was changed to "Mood Indigo" after a song by Duke Ellington featured in the movie.
Of course, being French, it is a love story and is full of quirky characters, feverish creativity, puns, and melancholy. A mash up of sci fi and magical realism permeates the book and is fully captured in the film.
I started the book, got about 100 pages in, and then saw the movie. I don't usually do that but it worked well in this case. The end of the story is so different from the beginning and I totally did not see it coming. Somehow watching this transformation on a big screen with the colors, the music, the actors, made the rest of the book even more amazing to me.
If you enjoy the French romantic comedy/tragedy mode, I recommend both the book and the movie and assure you it doesn't matter which you consume first....more
I missed this one back when I was reading the list for 1947. It is the fourth volume in Lois Lenski's American Regional Series and I read it many tim I missed this one back when I was reading the list for 1947. It is the fourth volume in Lois Lenski's American Regional Series and I read it many times as a child. Being published in the year of my birth and having my name in the title made it special to me.
But this book also had a large effect on my life. Judy is the oldest child of a migrant worker family. They follow the crops, live in a tent and are often hungry. Judy longs to go to school and live in a real house. Near the end of the book, the family picks crops in New Jersey, the state where I grew up.
During high school, I had a summer job two years in a row as a teacher's assistant at a facility for migrant worker's children. Our goal was to help them catch up on missed schooling. It was a defining experience for me in terms of life choices and beliefs, but I hadn't realized until I re-read the book this time how it had steered me to take that job. Reading is so amazing!
I learned at the job how things really were for these kids. Of course, it was 15 years later and most of the children were Black, while Judy's family was white; sharecroppers trying to better themselves. In Judy's Journey, her wishes come true but I am quite certain the kids I met were not so lucky. ...more