Dear America: I Walk in Dread, The Diary of Deliverance Trembley Witness to the Salem Witch Trials by Lisa Rowe Fraustino

Dear America:  I Walk in Dread, The Diary of Deliverance Trembley Witness to the Salem Witch Trials, Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1691 by Lisa Rowe Fraustino

The story unfolds through the eyes and voice of twelve year old Deliverance Trembley, an orphan in Salem Village, Massachusetts in 1691.  Deliverance, or Liv as we come to know her, lives with her seventeen year old sister, Mem, in the house of her uncle who has left them to go on a whaling expedition with instructions that they are not to tell anyone in the village that he is away.  

During his absence, Mem becomes ill and Liv must care for her as well as do all of the chores.  The girls try to attend church when they can.  One Sunday they learn that four girls from their church have become possessed and claim that some of the good ladies of Salem Village are witches and have cursed them and damned them to the devil.  Liv is friends with one of the accused but doesn't believe the good Christian woman she knows could possibly be a witch nor does she believe in witches.  

Soon, the town becomes privy to the fact the uncle has been away and threaten to take action for the orphans.  Fortunately, their brother Benjamin, who has been in the militia returns and saves the girls from an uncertain future.  

Meanwhile, the accused witches are tried and eventually convicted.

While Liv and her sister are fictional characters, most of the other characters are real and the events portrayed in the story are real and given to the best of the writers research and knowledge.

While, I hardly ever read children's books or young adult fiction, I loved this book!  I read the whole thing in one night. Ms. Fraustino really did her homework and gave us an historical ride through the times and lives of the people during the Salem Witch Trials.  I can't wait to read more of the books in her Dear America series!  

Published in 2011 by Scholastic Books.

For One More Day by Mitch Albom

For One More Day by Mitch Albom is the story of a mother and son and the relationship that covers a lifetime and beyond.  

Charley "Chick" Benetto was told by his father that he could either be a mommy's boy or a daddy's boy and of course he chooses to be a daddy's boy playing baseball and spending most his time with his father until one day his father leaves home unexpectedly.  Chick grows up with just his mom and sister but has irrefutable damage to his psyche due to the divorce and becomes a bad husband, a bad father and an all around broken man who is even shunned by his own family.

He begins drinking heavily and one day decides to just end it all and commit suicide by driving his car off an embankment and into a billboard sign but his plan goes awry and he is thrown from the car and knocked unconscious.  While unconscious, he gets a visit from the spirit of his dead mother where he learns of things about her life and the sacrifices she has made for him.

What would we all give for just One More Day with a loved one?  I have personally wished for it many times.

Published in 2006 by Hyperion, For One More Day, despite mixed reviews from critics, made it to the top of the New York Times Bestseller list. 

Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray

Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray is a novel about Clover, a mom in her early fifties whose family never looks at her face.  They speak to her and have meals with her but they never actually see her.  This predicament becomes evident when she wakes up one day and she is gone.  She literally disappears.   And if that's not bad enough, weeks go by before her family members, particularly her husband, even notice.  Luckily, her neighbor  and best friend Marjorie, notices right away dismissing her feelings of insanity.   Clover goes about her days as usual, unnoticed by the general public until one day she finds an ad in the paper for an "Invisible Women's Club" which she attends and learns that her invisibility is caused by certain medications she has been taking.  

The Invisible women then form a plan to force the pharmaceutical company to take the meds off the market and research a cure for their newfound disease.  

This book is insanely humorous and reflects the feeling of being invisible by most middle aged women who feel overlooked or faded into the background.  I liked it very much. 

Published in 2012 by Crown Publishing.  Go read it!

The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom

The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom is a story about the meaning of time and the first man who tries to measure it.  

It's the beginning of the history of man, when Dor, a young boy, discovers time and invents the world's first clock.  But such a discovery comes with a price and not only is he banished from his town for a time but he is also punished by God and sent to live in a cave for centuries where he must hear the voices of all who desire more years, more days, more minutes....

Eventually he is offered a chance to redeem himself by saving the souls of two earthly people, one who wants to end her life and the other who wants to live forever.  And so he appears in modern times with an hourglass that when turned upside down, can stop time and attempts to save these lives and in turn end his eternal curse. 

This book is fantastic and the characters are likable and relatable as well.  It's a fast paced page turner and I liked it very much.  Another great story from Mitch Albom.

Some of my favorite quotes from the book:

“It is never too late or too soon. It is when it is supposed to be.” 

“There is a reason God limits man's days.” 

“When you are measuring life, you are not living it.” 

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

A Long Way Gone:  Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is a true story of the life of a 12 year old boy, Ishmael Beah, during the Civil  war in Sierra Leone in the 1990's.  Ishmael comes home from a journey to find that his village is under attack by the RUF (Revolutionary Unit Front) or rebels and flees to find safety with his older brother and other children his age.  After a year or so of traveling around, scrounging for food and water, and looking for a place to go, he finds out that his whole family has been slaughtered by the RUF.  Ishmael and his friends are soon after recruited by the Sierra Leone Army and forced to become soldiers.  The boys are brainwashed and forced to become brutal killers in the name of the government even carrying out scouting expeditions and capital executions of rebel prisoners.  After a few years in the army, some of the boys, including Ishmael are rescued by UNICEF and taken to a rehabilitation center to try and learn to be boys again.  Eventually, Ishmael is rehabilitated and travels to America to give interviews and speeches on his experiences during the war.

This book intrigued me and infuriated me all the same time.  It's hard to imagine the life of child in such a way  as Ishmael had lived his.  The hardships even before the war much less after his family was killed and he became a boy soldier.  Also astounding is the fact that he went on to live a successful life after such atrocities and to work for the cause of the betterment of children everywhere.  It just proves that people can change even in the face of adversity.  When he first became a soldier, he was the same age as my son is now.  I read this book really quickly and highly recommend it.

A Long Way Gone was nominated for a Quill Award in the Best Debut Author category for 2006 and was published by Sarah Crichton books in 2007.  

Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

I read a review about this book online somewhere that said it was pretty good so I put it on hold at the library and I have to admit that for the first few chapters I was slightly bored but I'm glad I kept at it because I ended up enjoying this book very much and falling in love with the characters.  It became a quick read, a page turner for me. 

June Elbus is 13 years old when her uncle Finn, her best friend and her godfather, dies of Aids in 1982.  She is hurt and angry and feels left behind until she finds an unlikely friend in Finn's "other half", Toby whom she had not known during Finn's life.  It was a family secret kept from her because her mother felt like Toby gave the Aids to Finn and refused to have any relationship with him or let her family know him.  But we know that love always prevails and the family does come together full circle in the end. 

I felt like I could relate to both loner June and her outgoing sister Greta and having a sister myself, the tension and love between them. The characters in Tell the Wolves I'm Home come off as real and honest and I liked that.  

Published in June 2012 by the Random House Publishing Group.

Heaven is For Real by Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent

Heaven is For Real:  A Little Boy's Astounding Story of his Trip to Heaven and Back.

I have to admit that when I first picked out this book at the library, which I put on hold and had to wait quite a long time for, I was skeptical.  I opened it right to the middle and starting reading which is totally out of character for me because I wanted to skip the technical stuff and get right to the little boy's comments about Heaven.  I was immediately charmed by his simple way of describing what it was like in Heaven.  So I started back at the beginning.

Todd and Sonja Burpo are on a family vacation when their 3-year old son Colton becomes violently ill.  They rush him to the hospital and soon after find out that he has an erupted appendix which requires emergency surgery.   After much prayer by Todd, a pastor, and his congregation, Colton recovers from surgery and all is well.

Shortly after they are home from the hospital Colton tells his parents that during the surgery he had actually died and that his soul astrally traveled to Heaven.  He tells his parents of things he learned that he couldn't possibly have known about such as relatives he met who had passed before he was born and a sister who had been miscarried.  He said that he had wings and that he sat on Jesus' lap.  He saw the throne of God and the gates of Heaven.  

This book is a fast read and I enjoyed it very much.  I do feel like I have a sense of renewed faith after reading it because I don't think it is possible for little kids to make up stuff like that.  It is possible that the parents read more into his visions than he proposed but all in all I believe his story.

Heaven is for Real was published in November 2010 by Thomas Nelson and was on the New York Times Bestseller list.

Star Girl by Jerry Spinelli

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli is about a eccentric young girl named Stargirl Caraway who comes to Mica High School after being homeschooled all her life.  She is carefree, funny, and free spirited and immediately loved and liked by all. That is until the student body figures out how "different" she is and as we all know, different in high school is not always a good thing.  In Stargirl's case, it becomes a very bad thing as she is soon shunned and anyone who associates with her becomes shunned as well such as  a young man named Leo who finds himself in love with her.  Leo is torn between loving her the way she is and wanting her to be normal so that the two of them can fit in with everyone else.  He convinces her to act normal, which she does try to do, but it doesn't work.  The other students continue to treat her as invisible until .....

Well, you'll have to read the book to find out what happens in the end but I have to say, not being a huge fan of young adult or juvenile fiction, which I did not know this was until I was deep into the first chapter, this book is captivating and very well written.  I found myself unable to put it down and finished it within a day or so.  Fantastic for adults and children alike.  Read it then give it to your child to read.  I think we will all learn a thing or two from this novel.

Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen is interesting to me in that it falls into so many different book genres such as historical fiction, suspense, romance, and even perhaps a little on the dark side.

Jacob Jankowski is a veterinarian major in college when his parents are killed in an accident.  Left penniless, with only a few weeks left to finish school, he runs off and joins the circus, The Benzini Brothers Greatest Show on Earth.   He is hired on as head veterinarian (despite his failure to obtain his degree) and soon falls in love with Marlena, the beautiful equestrienne star who happens to be married to the boss.  When the show, which is set in the 1930's Depression era, begins to falter financially the boss buys an elephant named Rosie who brings the characters together in an unexpected way.

The characters are believable, whimsical, sometimes dark and you either love them or hate them.  I think my favorite character was Rosie the elephant who at first refuses to do anything the trainers tell her to do until Jacob discovers her secret.  The case of the animals as a whole is not unlike the feeling of how circus animals are portrayed today and I feel like that is a major influence in the book.

The book as a whole, toggles between the present and the past, not unlike Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook where the main character, in this case Jacob Jankowski who is either 90 or 93, is a nursing home resident remembering his past in one chapter then revealing the hardships of his present state in the next.

I found the book to be a fast paced, suspenseful novel that was well researched and written.  I enjoyed it very much and now I must see the movie.  The Redbox didn't have it though and it's no wonder since the movie came out in 2011.  I'm way behind in the times on this one.

Published in 2006 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, Water for Elephants remained on the New York Times Bestseller list for six weeks, and was nominated for numerous awards including the illustrious Quill Award, the Entertainment Weekly Best Novel award, and won the BookBrowse award in 2007 for most popular book.

The Holy Ghost Girl: A Memoir by Donna Johnson

The Holy Ghost Girl; A Memoir  by Donna Johnson

Donna Johnson's father left the family when she was very young.  Donna, her mother Carolyn, and her little brother Gary join up with a tent revivalist, David Terrell, where Carolyn plays organ.  

The children are placed in the care of Brother Terrell's wife, Betty Ann who has two children by Brother Terrell during the revivals and are rowdy and full of mischief.  The story tells of growing up poor in the tents even sleeping on the chairs until wee hours of the night and traveling from town to town living in rented houses and eating scraps of food, sometimes fasting as well.

The revivals are full of exorcisms, healings, and speaking in tongues and at times, Brother Terrell has to fight off the KKK as the story is set during the civil rights movement mostly in Mississippi and Alabama.  

As the evangelist grows larger and traveling is more intense Donna and Gary are sent off to live with whoever  her momma can dump them on, sometimes abusive  people.  Eventually, the scandal of the affair breaks and Brother Terrell moves them into their own house where he makes regular visits and they even have more kids together but later on Carolyn finds out that Brother Terrell is having other affairs and has other "families". 

In my opinion, the book was a little slow, but I kept at it as it is interesting and there is a surprise in the end but I'll leave that to you dear readers to find out for yourselves.  I find it fascinating how Brother Terrell can heal people through the power of faith in the Lord and he does.  He makes the blind to see and the crippled to walk right in front of thousands of people and people would come from near and far and line up to be healed.  I don't know if it's true or not, but what Donna makes very clear is that the Lord speaks through him even though he is a sinner and cheater and a liar. 

The book was published in 2011 by Gotham books. 

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Miss Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan lives a mundane life in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960's playing bridge with the girls she grew up with and writing the newsletter for the Children's Benefit.  Skeeter dreams of a bigger and better life as an editor for a publishing company or for a magazine.  She writes to many places but the only job she can get is writing the domestic column for the local newspaper.  Skeeter doesn't know anything about domestic housekeeping as she has been raised in the south with a housekeeper who does all the house cleaning and all the cooking.

Since she doesn't know anything about housekeeping, Skeeter takes her column questions to her friend Elizabeth's housekeeper Aibileen.  Aibileen, reluctantly at first, answers all her questions and helps her with the column.  Soon they become friends and Aibileen tells her about her son who passed away and how he had dreams of writing a book about how blacks are treated by their white counterparts which gives Skeeter the idea for the book "The Help".  She hires Aibileen and twelve of her maid friends to tell stories for the book of working for whites in the South.  The stories tell of mistreatment, abuse and heartbreak but also of love and attachment for the children they help to raise.  And the telling of the stories itself is dangerous as it is set in the time of the civil rights movement and there are laws against whites and blacks conspiring together for any reason.   They have to very careful and meet in secrecy or someone could get hurt or worse.

I loved the dialogue of the book because you get the true nature and character of each of the maids through their voices.  Particularly Aibileen because she tries so hard to teach the white children she cares for to not be racist.

“Once upon a time they was two girls," I say. "one girl had black skin, one girl had white."
Mae Mobley look up at me. She listening.
"Little colored girl say to little white girl, 'How come your skin be so pale?' White girl say, 'I don't know. How come your skin be so black? What you think that mean?'
"But neither one a them little girls knew. So little white girl say, 'Well, let's see. You got hair, I got hair.'"I gives Mae Mobley a little tousle on her head.
"Little colored girl say 'I got a nose, you got a nose.'"I gives her little snout a tweak. She got to reach up and do the same to me.
"Little white girl say, 'I got toes, you got toes.' And I do the little thing with her toes, but she can't get to mine cause I got my white work shoes on.
"'So we's the same. Just a different color', say that little colored girl. The little white girl she agreed and they was friends. The End."
Baby Girl just look at me. Law, that was a sorry story if I ever heard one. Wasn't even no plot to it. But Mae Mobley, she smile and say, "Tell it again.” 

I think this is an important book, even in modern times, because it shows not only how far we have come towards racial improvement but how far we still have to go.  I laughed and I cried and I gobbled the whole thing up in less than a week. 

Published by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam (February 10, 2009).

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

After reading Stephen King's colossal 11/22/63, The Notebook was like a decadent, rich, and smooth midnight snack.  I read the whole thing in about three hours.

The setting is coastal North Carolina, 1940's and Noah Calhoun is haunted by the ghost of a girl he once loved.  Everywhere he looks and everywhere he goes he is reminded of the love they once shared.  But she has been out of his life for more than a decade.

Allie Nelson is also haunted by the past and passions lost.  She is engaged to be married to another but she cannot go through with it until she is sure that is what she really wants.  So makes a trip back to New Bern, North Carolina to flirt with the past and see where her heart takes her.

She finds Noah sitting on the porch of his family home, alone and over the next few days, the two try to rekindle the flame that never went out. Will Allie follow her heart and stay with the man she never stopped loving or will she return to the socialite lifestyle she is expected to live?

"I would love to tell you that everything will work out for us, and I promise to do all I can to make sure it does.  But if we never meet again and this is truly good-bye, I know we will see each other again in another life.  We will find each other again, and maybe the stars will have changed, and we will not only love each other in that time, but for all the times we've had before."

I usually don't go in for romance novels but I knew that this book was a bestseller for over a year, all over the world and that it had been made into a movie and I found it at a thrift shop so I thought, why not?  I'm glad I did.  Every girl wishes for such a passionate romance and soul partner that Allie has found in Noah.  This is one of the greatest love stories ever told.