Joseph has lost his staff. The moss on the manger roof is splotchy. The donkey has no ears and the cow only one of her horns. Since the nativity scene came from Sears and was inexpensive in the first place, why don’t we just replace it?
The answer is, “Too many memories.” Our children were small when we got it. They stood and gazed at the Baby Jesus, often rearranging the animals or the Magi. As they grew older, they found a prominent place to display it each Christmas. They loved setting it up and remembering in Texas, Germany, Louisiana – wherever the Army designated as home.
One memorable Christmas we lived in Germany atop a hill overlooking a snow-covered village centered by the church steeple. Right after Thanksgiving, we decorated our Christmas tree. The children chose the wide ledge in front of the picture window for the nativity. Since our German neighbors waited to trim their trees until Christmas Eve, we invited the community kindergarten children to come up to see our tree and have cookies and punch.
Their faces lit as they “Oohed,” in wonder at the Christmas tree. They examined each ornament, but soon they moved to the window and our Sears manger scene – a poor match in my mind for the beautifully hand-carved nativity scenes found in their Christkindlmarkts. They drew us into their awe as they sat quietly on the floor around the crèche watching as though they waited for the baby to cry.
We have new crèches, nicer and in better shape including one from Bethlehem. Still, this defective one always takes the place of honor. Maybe it is appropriate after all. For didn’t the Christ Child come into humble surroundings for that which was imperfect - to heal the brokenhearted, to bind the wounds of the injured, to bring sight to the blind, and to set at liberty those who are captive?
You may notice something familiar here if you have followed my blog for a while. You might label this a rerun or a repost, but I think I am going to call it a ritual in keeping with other things we do at Christmas. It may not rank up there with A Christmas Carol or It’s a Wonderful Life, but every year as I put up our manger scene, I am reminded. I plan to make this my traditional pre-Christmas Day post with hope that you will also enjoy the reminder.
O Christmas Tree!
Beautiful Christmas trees proliferate this time of year, and I tend to love them all. My admiration abounds for everything from the beautiful tall trees decorated with ribbons and themes to the tiny tabletop varieties with colored gumdrops. But when it comes to my own, I hang onto tradition. The only difference in our tree in yearly Christmas pictures is to look at the surroundings to see where its placed. The tradition holds so strongly that our daughter lamented in her first year of marriage that she didn’t know where the ornaments went on her tree in her new home.
I could tell you stories about:
• The red stockings with the white bands that I crocheted and labeled with our names when we were only five, now grown to seventeen
• Handmade school days kid ornaments like Murray’s thread-cone angel from 4th grade – on the back as a compromise to assuage adult embarrassment of childish effort
• Teacher ornaments with names of children I taught printed in an unobtrusive place so I remember who gave them
• Postage stamp, mailbox, and mailman in honor of retired postal carrier Al
• 12 wooden ornaments from the 1980 ladies Sunday school class that I taught in Germany with pertinent comments saved on the slips of paper inside their egg carton container: Accordion – She can seldom “squeeze” a word in among us talkers; Rocking horse – She always complains how “colt” it is in here; Drummer – She always “drums” up a smile; Conductor – She directs our thinking and conducts a wonderful study every week; etc.
• Ornaments picked up as we finished our visiting the 50 states “bucket list” including: a cable car from San Francisco; an Oregon beaver; a Santa Claus house from Alaska; and Route 66 from Arizona
• A Lenox cross from daughter-in-law Steph
• A peace dove from my niece’s Christmastime wedding for which I made 200 reception sandwich rolls
• The skate and Kristi Yamaguchi skater given by Anna one year as a clue to the real gift – a trip to see Holiday on Ice with her in Shreveport
• The new handmade sequined ornament from my 95-year-old aunt.
• Logo ornaments of my favorite college football teams – Baylor and Ole Miss
In our tradition, the oldest child at home put the Nuremberg angel on the top for the finale. Now, I get to put it up. We got its story along with the angel at the Chriskindlemart in Germany. The legend says it was created by a doll-maker who’d heard angels wings as his daughter lay dying.
You might understand why I consider Al’s remark on our first empty-nest Christmas rather pointless, “We don’t need to put up a tree since no one is coming this year.” This tree is for me.
Nature Sings Christmas
Those who stand on correct details would point out that December most likely is not the month of Jesus’ birth, nor did the Magi appear at the stable with the shepherds. Their technicality would miss a beautiful poem by Christina Rossetti set to some of the most beautifully haunting music of Christmas, beginning with:
In the bleak mid-winter,
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.
The last verse is commonly anthologized in children’s poem collections:
What can I give Him,
Poor as I am;
If I were a shepherd,
I would give a lamb,
If I were a wise man,
I would do my part.
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart.
They would also miss the spectacle of nature’s Christmas colors against the backdrop of barren gray trees sometimes in front of stark overcast skies. In the bleakness of December, nature sometimes shows its brightest colors almost as if it, too, was celebrating Christmas or one of the observances from many
cultures that celebrate festivals of light this time of year. Perhaps people from long ago knew our spirits needed a lift in the dark and drab of winter when they picked the dates for these celebrations.
I’ll not quarrel with the choice. While we might more accurately celebrate Christmas in the summer, it seems fitting to go out and see my yard singing Christmas in the red and green of magnolia, nandina, and holly. My heart joins in its song, “In the bleak mid-winter . . .”
I wrote this for today’s post before the tragedy in Connecticut, little knowing the shadow that would be cast on all our hearts. I post it in honor of the principal, teachers, first responders, and 
especially the children who put specks of red and green into our darkness.
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain
Two years in a row probably doesn’t make a tradition, but I’m hoping it’s a start. Last year our library’s Classics Book Club read Charles Dickens’s Christmas novella Cricket on the Hearth for our December selection and followed this year with The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain. Dickens has other Christmas novellas, which gives me hope that a pattern is emerging.
Breaking the modern rule for writers to start with the action, Dickens spends four pages setting the scene before there is a knock at the door. His setting, reminiscent of A Christmas Carol, is intriguing and becomes almost another character in the story. Included in this scene setting is a light-hearted bit of fun-poking at the reliability of what “everybody says.” After he’s had his fun, he moves to his theme of memory. Another similarity to A Christmas Carol is his use of a ghost to make his point. Dickens did love his specters.
Old Mr. Williams, to distinguish him from his son the younger Mr. Williams, sets one side of the theme as he reminds his listeners frequently that he is eighty-seven and remembers every Christmas. He shares his delight that each was merry and that he has kept his memory green.
Mr. Redlaw wrestles with different memories characterized by “sorrow, wrong, and trouble” until he is offered a bargain by the phantom that looks like a shadow of himself. The ensuing plot is fun if a bit predictable. One of our book club members said it reminded her of Midas and how the granting of his wish turned on him.
I recommend the book to those who love Christmas and Dickens. While it is basically a light easy read, one of the quotes has lingered in my mind. “But for some trouble and sorrow, we should never know half the good that there is about us.” I haven’t quite figured out how this works, but I find it intriguing to consider how much our joy comes from the passing of our sorrow.
In another takeaway, I think I’ll adopt the prayer with which he closes the book, “Lord, keep my memory green.”
New in the Nineties
A curious outcome of significant aging is that one seems to pass from hiding one’s age behind Jack Benny’s perpetual 39 to becoming pleased with oneself for achieving such a great number. This phenomenon seems to occur at different ages for different people, but I’m fairly sure that my Aunt Dee is an achiever as she turns 95 tomorrow. Of even greater significance is that she’s still trying new things and contributing as she has made the mid-mark of her nineties.
Her fine needlework has long been part of our family legend. My own favorite was the bride doll she made for me when I was about ten, using the scraps she had left from her wedding dress and Aunt Ruth’s, both created by her talented hands. Both the doll and the dress required fine stitching – and an old-fashioned bobby pin inside to make the delicate nose. My daughter has inherited the doll, and I expect her to pass it on to her daughter.
A quick trip through my house turned up her handiwork in the picture at the beginning of this blog – a crocheted afghan, a needlepoint pillow in fall colors, and a satin stitched neutral colored pillow. All of my mother’s granddaughters have a cathedral window quilt she stitched entirely by hand. I think it would be hard to find a kind of needlework that she could not do. However, macular degeneration has set in, and the small stitches along with the tiny print in the books she’s always liked to read have become hard to see. One who thought she would just give up would only be someone who didn’t know Aunt Dee very well.
Aunt Dee just shifted her gears a little. She bragged a couple of years ago about how much she was enjoying her Nook that a niece gave her for Christmas. The words can be enlarged as much as she wants. The niece helps her keep it filled with good reading. As for the needlework, she switched to a new hobby. She’s designing Christmas ornaments using Styrofoam forms from the crafts store completely covered from her assortment of a gazillion colored sequins. Rumor has it that a great niece’s wedding attendants will benefit from this new handwork in February. I chose this snowman from her assortment for my tree.
With no children of her own, Aunt Dee has spent a lifetime doing her best to spoil her nieces and nephews. I’m glad to count myself as one. Happy birthday, Aunt Dee!
Vindicated at Last
Mrs. Blanche stood aghast leaning over my picture. I caught the alarm in her voice as she said, “Virginia Ann, don’t you know that Christmas colors are red and green?” I heard the chorus of alarm echoed from my classmates who obviously knew this important fact.
The object of concern was a picture of a bell mimeographed for each of the fourth grade students to color, the closest we ever came to having “art” in my elementary school. All of us knew the bell should be silver – or maybe light black if we didn’t have the big box of crayons. Everybody else, it seemed, knew that the bow should be either green or red. I chose my favorite color at the time – blue. No note was taken of how carefully I had stayed in the lines or even that my strokes were neatly all in the same direction.
My mistake reigned for the rest of the season as our room was decorated with the identical bells posted around the room, all but one colored with red or green ribbons. My shame at my blue ribbon faced me every day. Mrs. Blanche was actually a good teacher, and my classmates were good friends most of the time. All the same, the episode took root in my mind.
I thought about my blue ribbon picture as I entered the sanctuary of our church this week. Our church follows the 
liturgical seasons and colors. Banners, ribbons, and even the pastors’ stoles featured the same beautiful blue that I had used on my bell – the color symbolizing Hope. A little part of me wanted to recall Mrs. Blanche and my fellow students, and say, “See. I was right all along.”
Just in case you missed them, I’m going to be like Aesop and give you some morals to this story:
• Multiple copies of the same picture for children to color following a prescribed pattern does not constitute an art lesson.
• If children need correction, it is not necessary to embarrass them publicly.
• It’s okay – and maybe even better – to be blue in a red and green world.
• Children have long memories. Be careful what you say to them.
Peanut Butter - Creamy or Crunchy?
Evidence of peanuts goes back 3880 years to Peru – just one of the intriguing facts I learned from Jon Krampner’s book, Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food (Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History). Seriously, who would have thought lowly peanut butter would need such a distinguished title?
This entertaining history covers a multitude of facets of peanuts and the peanut butter industry including the brand wars for top ranking, music honoring peanuts and peanut butter, the lack of international interest in this American product, and congressional fights that went on for years over the minimum amount of peanuts that must be in the product to be called peanut butter. [The final verdict: 90% – otherwise, it must be called peanut spread. )
More than a dozen peanut butter recipes lace through the book ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. Peanut butter and pickle sandwiches, Elvis spread, and peanut butter meatballs seemed too weird to try. Several recipes appealed to my sweet tooth – Jimmy Carter’s Peanut Butter Pie, the standard peanut butter cookies with the criss-cross top, and peanut butter cheesecake.
This book, well-researched from outside sources and the author’s personal experience, is often flavored with his opinions. My favorite was his observation, with which I concur, “Boiled peanuts are an acquired taste at best.”
I recommend the book to all peanut butter lovers. You may have noticed that I changed the “and” in his book title to an “or” in my blog title. The issue is dear to the heart and elicits a firm opinion. It is one on which Al and I agree. We aren’t picky about brands, but since the onset of the empty nest, only crunchy resides in our cabinet.
Magnificent Magnolias
Mississippi, the Magnolia State, is more than nice alliteration with the magnolia being both the state tree and the state flower. You will also find its picture on our commemorative quarter. I learned during Katrina that pines snapped off and oak trees came up by the roots in hurricanes. For the most part, magnolias stood their ground. Unfortunately, mine was not one of those. Tall and magnificent in the front yard, it swayed toward the carport on the first half of the storm and back toward the neighbors on the second half. When the storm had passed, it remained barely standing with a huge mound surrounding it from the soil it loosened as it rocked.
The danger of the magnolia was its sheer size and strength poised to fall right into the front bedroom. There was nothing to do but call the tree people to cut it down. Al supervised their work while I remained inside, busy and preoccupied. I should have stayed where I was. I walked outside just as the tree fell. The tree-cutter took one look at my face and said, “You didn’t need to see that, did you?” He was right. Silly me – mourning a tree.
Fortunately, my neighbor who knew how I loved that tree on 
the corner of my yard found a tiny magnolia growing among her flowers. She donated it, and Al planted it a little farther from the bedroom window. It has grown quickly with no requirements for care and tending. This year it bloomed profusely. Barring another hurricane, I’m thinking it will be a source of joy for years to come.
Desert Thanksgiving
No “over the river and through the woods” for us as Thanksgiving approached. Instead, we left for the desert on a jet plane.
Differences didn’t end there. Instead of grandmother’s house, we headed to Chandler, AZ to visit a son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. Our son Murray deep fried the turkey wearing his shorts and sandals in their back yard against a backdrop of palms and a grapefruit tree. Twelve-year-old grandson Jack showed us his website building project on his computer, and granddaughter Lauren shared her dreams of becoming a world traveling photographer after her college graduation in the spring. All were far removed from “the horse knows the way to follow the sleigh.”
Thankfully, some things never change. Daughter-in-law Steph used her grandmother’s recipes for green beans, cornbread dressing, and sweet potatoes crowned with marshmallows. Steph’s mother joined us, and family gathered around the loaded table – lured by aromas from the stove and the backyard turkey 
fryer. Jests about who was hogging the rolls mingled with appreciation for the cooks and remembrances of other Thanksgivings with other family members no longer with us.
It may not have been through the woods to grandmother’s house, but delicious food, good fun, and thoughts of family both past and present and both absent and around the table made for a true Thanksgiving in the desert. The day ended, as good Thanksgivings do, with moans of, “I’m so stuffed I can’t eat another bite,” and a retreat to the couch for football games.
[The traditional Thanksgiving lie was also put to rest before long as those too stuffed to eat another bite made the sacrifice and found a place for pecan or pumpkin pie.]
Interesting Indies
One might think that an independent bookstore held the same level of excitement as the ubiquitous cat sunning itself in the window. One would be wrong. I have two books to prove it. The first, which I read some time ago is Shelf Life by Suzanne Strempek Shea. The second, recently loaned by my friend Jane, is The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap by Wendy Welch.
Shelf Life's cover advertises, "romance, mystery, drama, and other page-turning adventures from a year in a bookstore." It is the story of a year in the life of the author who begins her own recovery from a bout with breast cancer by volunteering in her local bookstore. The Little Book Store of Big Stone Gap calls itself "a memoir of friendship, community, and the uncommon pleasures of a good book." It is Wendy Welch's account of following a dream with her husband of owning a bookstore in a most uncommon place. Pay attention to both advertisements. They do not lie.
Shelf Life, set in Massachusetts and The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap set in Appalachia, tell stories of love, loss, humor, and frustration brought into their respective doors. Both books are good reads for those who find human beings fascinating. You can't make this stuff up, nor can you find it in the big box stores. (Pardon my cynicism, but in my experience, the harried employees of the big box stores can only answers questions with information found on the big computers in the front.)
I'm sure the stories in both books are true as well as entertaining. We have our own independent bookstore (Main Street Books) right here in Hattiesburg, complete with the cat. The owners either have or can find anything you want in a book. In my recent request for all the books both written and illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats, they found every one at less than collector prices including one signed by the author and one printed in Japan where he was popular with the young set. I did have to reassure Jerry that it was not supposed to have words in it!
Just saying . . . if you have an independent bookstore nearby, go visit. If not, at least read about what fun they have.
Thankful Tears
Who would have thought the Today Show would have inspired a couple of items for my Thanksgiving list? Friday’s show carried the ceremony for a group of people who took the oath of allegiance to the United States, their final step toward citizenship. They came from North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. Several took the oath in American military dress, already serving our country as soldiers. One had a row of his buddies sitting on the side in attendance, looking sharp in their uniforms, supporting him on his big day.
I was struck by the multiplicity of ages and ethnic groups represented – a beautiful variety that will add to the mosaic 
that is America.
One young woman caught and held my attention with a wide smile she wore throughout the festivities right up to the moment when Lee Greenwood began to sing, “I’m proud to be an American . . .” Then her tears flowed right down through her smile. To be honest, I shed a couple myself.
These new citizens have reminded me to add gratitude for my own citizenship to my thankful list. I sometimes take for granted the privileges and freedom that are part of my life every day. I have little knowledge of my many-generations-removed Scotch, English, and Scotch Irish ancestors and the difficulties they must have faced in their journey to America or in their early days making a life in their new country.
Now that my attention has been gained, I will add to my list (1) thankfulness for my American citizenship and (2) gratitude for the beautiful reminder by these new United States citizens.
5 Random Words = 2 Remarkable Books
Morning people have an aversion to creative energy occurring after 10:30 PM, and Kimberly Willis Holt is no exception. Kathi Appelt infringed on Kimberly’s bedtime, and maybe her friendship, with a cheerful challenge at that hour to the five members of their writing retreat group, “Say a word.”
“Peaches”
“Little Sorrowful”
“Cicadas”
“Windmill”
– and a sleepy “Possum” from Kimberly
Following Kathi’s instructions to write for ten minutes using those words, Kimberly scratched out a couple of pages before heading for the bed that called to her.
The next morning, she discovered she’d written the beginning of a book, and so had Kathi. This exercise produced two of my favorite books – The Underneath and Part of Me. If you look carefully as you read, you will find many of the words in the books. Kimberly gets four on the first page.
Though I love all of Kimberly’s work, Part of Me is my personal favorite – even above National Book Award winner When Zachary Beaver Came to Town. Analyzing this preference, I’ve come to the conclusion that I become Rose as I read the book. After all, she was a McGee! I know Kimberly’s southern and central Louisiana and Texas settings, which she gets right – a biggie with me. More than that, I share Rose’s call to write things down and her love of family from generations-before to generations-after.
Our adult book club that reads children’s books chose Part of Me as our selection for this month after The Underneath last month because of the common five word connection. I’ve read both more than once. I put my paper clip on the family tree page before I read to make it easy to flip back and see how all this family was related. Once again I enjoyed the journey through the years as generations blended one into another and brought Rose a delightful surprise in the end. [I confess that I have not yet read the last chapter without crying, prone as I am to shedding more tears over a good book than any movie I have ever seen – or even the things life throws at me from time to time.]
This makes the writer in me wonder. If I open a dictionary on a random page five times, close my eyes and point at a word, could I come up with five words that would lead to a remarkable book? Or maybe five friends could shoot a word apiece at me.
Eli, the Good
Eli the Good by Silas House, recommended to me by my friend Ellen Ruffin, turned out to be a good read for Veteran’s Day weekend. Eli, the adult protagonist, tells a story remembering his ten-year-old view of the conflict between his father, a Vietnam veteran suffering from post traumatic stress disorder; his mother closed within herself; his aunt who participated in the war’s protest movements; and his sister who adds her learning of a family secret to normal teenage angst. Marketed for young adults, the book has much for any reader who wants understanding of families who love their military members but have issues with their wars.
The protagonist sets out his purpose with, “. . . most all of the extraordinary things happen with no more loudness than a whisper,” and “whole scenes of your life can slip away forever if you don’t put them down in ink.”
Celebrating the bicentennial in 1976 brings the family conflict to a head. His description of the parade honoring veterans has some of the most poignant lines in the book. “But there were no veterans of the Vietnam War in the parade. I started to comment on this to my father, but when I turned to him, I could see his own recognition of this in his eyes and I knew it was something I shouldn’t mention.”
I remembered those days and the protests that often seemed aimed at the military members rather than those who had made the decision to go to war. I confess that like Eli, while my husband was in Vietnam, I sometimes took the protests personally. Military men and women don’t have the luxury of deciding whether a war is just, nor do they get to choose to go when it is convenient. A standing not-so-funny joke was often repeated when husbands shipped out before the baby came or the senior graduated from high school. “If the Army had wanted men to have a wife and children, it would have issued them.”
Today in remembering both Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving, I’ve been grateful for the current prevalent attitude of appreciation for those who have chosen military careers even by people who have serious questions about the wars in which we have been engaged. I’m grateful for the men and women who serve in dangerous and inconvenient places and often miss important family events because of this service. I’m also grateful for the good life of being a military family [except for the times when we were separated] that took us to faraway places and introduced us to a multitude of wonderful people.
In celebration, I’m going to put down some scenes from my life in ink and find some more books by Silas House!
Friends - Gold, Silver, or Something Else?
Friends, they say, are gold when old.
New ones come in silver.
Not that easy, seems to me –
Mine come with more variety.
They appear as:
• Pearls – calm, classy, soothing
• Emeralds – bringing richness and growth
• Diamonds – priceless, lasting forever
• Rubies – brilliant, dramatic
• Jade – mysterious, deep
• Topaz – sunny, joy-filled
• Turquoise – from a culture not mine, adding variety and shades of color
• Sapphire – cool, steady
• Opals – quiet with a sparkle underneath
• A string of dried Chinaberries – homespun and comfortable
In this Thanksgiving season, I name these priceless treasures in my gratitude list.
Lost Art of Listening
I’m pretty sure I can predict the future at least until tomorrow. Al and I will ride together in his new red pickup to the Lamar County election site. After identifying ourselves, we’ll proceed to the machines and cancel each other’s vote. Afterwards we will come home. One or both of us will cook dinner, which we will enjoy eating together. We’ll watch the returns in separate rooms on separate TVs so we don’t get on each other’s nerves. One of us will be happier than the other when the results come in but will try not to gloat. We’ve done this for a number of elections. The variation comes only in who refrains from gloating.
Getting to my point, the thing that worries me most about our country currently is that we’ve forgotten how to listen to those who disagree with us and have abandoned the thought of being civil. We could use my mother’s admonition, “Be nice.”
Following closely behind that worry, I’m concerned that once we decide which party is right, we can’t entertain any idea that we could be wrong, that our preferred candidate could have missed the mark on a point or two, or that the other candidate is anything other than a demon. I find myself tempted to recall the “good old days” when people from both parties could come to a consensus on things important to all of us, but it seems that memory is clouded. Evidently, we’ve needed counsel on this subject for quite a while and there are counselors:
• My nephew Jonathan Page quoted John Wesley from about 250 years ago on his Facebook page: "I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them, 1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy: 2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against: And, 3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side."
• Copyright first in 1951, Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451 said, “If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.”
More recent good advice comes from the comics and an etiquette expert:
• Hi of Hi and Lois on October 16, 2012, [reading the newspaper in his office] “The level of discourse in this country has reached a new nadir. We can’t entertain a reasonable difference of opinion.” His coworker laid back in his chair with his feet on his desk, says, “Oh, stop it with your elitism.”
• Peggy Post, in October 2012 Good Housekeeping magazine, gives political discussion advice. “Respect different opinions, don’t raise your voice, and agree to disagree if necessary.”
I think I’m just taking Mama’s simple route and will try to be nice. Maybe it will mean I can keep riding in the new red pickup.
Tough Times Two
The tough outer shell of two girls in the foster care system covers an inner core worth finding in two middle grade novels.
The Great Gilly Hopkins (real name Galadriel), after several miserable foster home experiences and one near-miss on a forever home, travels with her case worker to her third home in her third year. She knows for sure she will never make the mistake of loving – or even liking – a family again even as Miss Ellis pleads for her to try to get along.
Katherine Paterson weaves a story of a foster parent, her blind friend, and a teacher who lavish Gilly with unconditional but sometimes tough love. The teacher’s introduces her to J. R. R. Tolkien’s middle earth legends where she discovers her namesake Galadriel, “the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth" and the "greatest of elven women."
In Pictures of Hollis Woods, Patricia Reilly Giff crafts a finely told story of a girl named as a baby for the place where she was abandoned. Chapter readings, labeled “pictures,” denote her artistic ability. “Picture One” has a teacher marking a big red X over the family she has drawn to illustrate the letter “W” before Hollis can explain it stands for “wish” or “want.” Like Gilly, she has bad foster care experiences and becomes a chronic runaway before a near-miss with a forever home. The “pictures” shift between her present placement with a former art teacher and flashbacks to that home.
Change begins for both girls when they become the helper instead of the helped and leads both to unexpected endings. I’ll not tell you how I liked the books – just that I’ve read both twice!
A bit of commentary on the foster care theme:
As this theme has thrust itself upon me this summer, I’ve been thankful for my daughter’s friend [and mine] who was in her wedding and works daily to advocate for children who are in unthinkable situations. When asked by her small son James what she did at work, she said she helped kids be safe because sometimes adults hurt kids. He asked if she would help his friends, and she assured him she would if they needed her. He said, “That’s cool, mommy.” I give my small shout-out to her and to others who serve as foster parents, adoptive parents, teachers, and advocates for these children. Even when it’s tough and discouraging to fight the roadblocks and the children seem unresponsive, I agree with James. I think these people are cool.
Emancipation?
At eighteen, Victoria achieves what is called “emancipation” from the foster care system. This is the beginning of Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s novel The Language of Flowers. Reading this book became the second part of the foster care theme that invaded my summer.
Victoria’s “emancipation” leaves her homeless, sleeping in a public park, and stealing flowers to plant her own garden. Hope comes in her own ability to choose flowers to convey a message in beautiful arrangements and in the form of a florist who sees beyond her outward appearance and hires her.
The story moves back and forth between her nine-year-old self and the young woman trying to establish herself as an adult, with her antisocial (thistle) behavior ongoing as a prominent thread of her life. She has difficulty seeing and accepting real love (red rose) at both ages, and doubts her own ability to give maternal love (moss) to her baby.
The reader needs patience (aster) 
with Victoria as both the child and the adult seem determined to thwart the efforts of those who want to get close to her and help her. I will not spoil the ending except to say it leaves hope for strength and health (purple coneflower) and new beginnings (daffodil).
The book is a good read if one is looking for nothing more than a story. I enjoyed it for that but also because it raised my awareness of foster children’s needs as they move out of the system. The leap into adulthood is hard enough for young people who live in a forever family with a backup if life goes hawywire.
The author, herself a foster parent, has written a good story with an honest look at the best and the worst in foster care. In an author interview she says, “Foster children and foster parents, like children and adults everywhere, are trying to love and be loved, and to do the best they can with the emotional and material resources they have.” She has established the Camellia Network for help in transitions like Victoria’s from foster care to adulthood. The website is www.camellianetwork.com.
I didn’t find her didactic, but I will be. My suggestions: read the book, open your heart, and become friends with (or a parent to) a foster child.
In my next blog, I will recommend two very good middle grade novels with foster children as protagonists.
Foster Sister
The first time a foster child touched my life, the concept wasn’t in my vocabulary. On a wet dreary fall afternoon, parents of a friend brought me home from what would be called a play date today to find that I had a new high school sister. I was five years old. As I remember the story of the original plan, the arrangement was to last until the end of the school year. By May, a pox would have fallen on anyone who had tried to take her away. While no formal adoption occurred, we all knew she was family. I was startled as an adult when she introduced me to a friend as her “foster sister.” The “foster” part had long since faded into the background for me.
Our grownup paths have diverged, not only to different states but to different countries, and visits have come far too seldom. But when they come, as one did this summer, how exciting it is to pick up where we left off and to remember. She became an amateur stylist and had time that my mother didn't have to put my below waist hair into French braids and ultimately to give me that all-important major haircut when I was in seventh grade. I remembered that she had spent her first year teaching money to buy Mama a Bulova watch for Christmas that was still in her treasures when she gave up housekeeping, though it had stopped running long before. And it was her daughter that gave Daddy the fitting grandfather name of “Pops” used by all the subsequent grandchildren.
It has seemed ironic that the theme of foster children has recurred the rest of the summer. Our local paper has been running a series on foster care including the story of a man who has built a nice foster facility called Homes of Hope for Children born of appreciation for a similar facility in which he grew up. With understanding of the children’s needs and memories of his own less than adequate foster care, he plans to make a difference in their lives. The newspaper series focused on several stories showing renewed efforts to have good placements for foster children that will give happy childhoods that lead into productive adulthood.
The other part of the theme occurred in the books I’ve read – not intentionally to the theme. It just turned out that way. My next blogs will be good books that feature foster children as protagonists, first an adult book and then two children’s books. All three are very good reads.
One Hundred Years Ago
In 1912, women needed corsets to maintain the slim silhouettes of their dresses and found their walking speeds impeded by hobble skirts. Big hats covered hair piled atop their heads, and shoes sported buttons and bows.
New Mexico became a state in January followed by Arizona in February. In March, Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Guides [Girl Scouts] and the first cherry blossom trees were planted in Washington, DC. The Titanic hit an iceberg on April 14 and sank the next day as the band played on. The Boston Red Sox defeated the New York Giants four games to three to win the World Series in October, and Woodrow Wilson was elected the 28th President of the United States in November.
You can learn all these useful items by googling “1912.” You won’t find something that occurred on October 21. A little girl was born that day to Erskine and Ada Hannah on a dairy farm in Sturgis, Mississippi. She lived her entire life in the state, never more than 150 miles from her place of birth. Her limited travels took her to a small percentage of the fifty states, Argentina, and Germany.
She took her position as oldest child and role model for her five brothers and sisters sometimes more seriously than they liked. She taught four daughters born to her and a foster daughter to love God, people, and books – pretty much in that order. She loved the title of “Grandma” and made sure her grandchildren knew the magic words – “thank you” and “please.” She touched innumerable lives as she served as both driver and partner for her visually challenged husband, a North Mississippi country preacher.
You won’t find Virginia Hannah McGee’s name on any of the datelines of “What Happened in 1912,” yet Mama’s influence continues to be passed along – even to great-grandchildren she never knew.
Becoming a Double Library Friend
Once upon a time, we could only be friends with people. In this new age with the help of Facebook, we can be friends with organizations, products, celebrities – the list is unending.
Let me recommend an enjoyable friendship for you. October 21-27 is National Friends of Libraries Week. One of the nice things about library friendships is their lack of jealousy. I am friends with two – giving equal time as I recently volunteered at their respective books sales about two weeks apart.
The first is in my neighborhood, Oak Grove Public Library. My excitement knew no bounds when it was completed about two years after we moved to Hattiesburg. Eight minutes from my door to theirs! I signed up on their initial offer of friendship, and our relationship has grown ever since. They find books I’m looking for on the shelves or in other libraries, provide a wonderful Classics Book Club that I enjoy, let me make suggestions for book purchases, extend my book loan time to a month, and never bat an eye when I check out a stack that includes everything from picture books to War and Peace. To borrow from the Cheers theme, “It’s a place where everybody knows my name.” 
My other friendship is with the University of Southern Mississippi Libraries. This is a much bigger library system with different advantages. With the only school of library science in Mississippi, its extensive collection of young adult and children’s books makes me a regular visitor. It offers four floors of books and information in Cook Library; the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection in McCain; a monthly de Grummond Book Group; and special events featuring writers, artists, and experts from various fields.
I’m not close enough to be friends, but I also “like” Marshall Public Library in Texas on their Facebook site. My daughter is the director, and you know the old cliché – “Any friend of Anna’s is . . . “
So - if you’re not friends with a library or two, you’re missing out. If I were you, I’d go find one.
