Mother-Daughter Dim Sum Book Club Tackles Dickens

Or, it might be more accurate to say, Dickens tackled the Mother-Daughter Dim Sum Book Club. Despite Great Expectations being one of his shorter works, my 11YO gave up, my 15YO only made it through 92% by meeting day, and Other Mom confessed to skimming as she drew near the end, reading only if she saw the names of main characters.

However, Dickens did garner an all-time, best-of-3 score of 9 out of 10 from Other Mom's 15YO! I consider that an absolute triumph. And her 13YO's literary analysis skills (the reason we were even doing this book club in the first place) struck me as entirely up to par. When we were talking setting, and I asked about all the fog in the opening scene, she responded that it symbolized how everything was unsure and confusing at the outset. Yup. Exactly. Pip doesn't know who is who and what is what, and if that doesn't symbolize the main theme of the book, I don't know what does!

To top everything off, Other Mom said her girls would like to continue the book club in some fashion. As a person who loves books and wants to create voracious readers, this kind of comment makes me feel like my work on earth is done.

But the summer club is ended--hope you tried one of these books for yourself (I got my book club to add The Hiding Place)--so it's time for awards.

FUNNIEST LITERARY COMPARISON DRAWN: "Miss Havisham isn't like Emily (of Deep Valley). She doesn't bounce back." Very, very good point. When Miss Havisham suffered her romantic blow, she knuckled completely under, abandoning sense, joy, proper parenting practices, and hygiene. In comparison, our valiant Emily put her hair up in a Psyche knot, fried up some frog legs, and got on with living. Well done, Emily!

What doesn't kill you makes you stranger

FUNNIEST BOOK READ: that would be Great Expectations. When we went around the table, almost everyone could point to a scene that made them laugh, even laugh aloud. And when we went to watch a movie version, there was disappointment that some of the opening jokes had been cut.

B+-EST MOVIE ADAPTATION: the 2012 version. We were annoyed by Estella's light hair (why is it movie producers can't do something so simple as to make an actor look like s/he is described in the book?? It so annoyed me that Daniel Radcliffe's hair didn't stand up as Harry Potter, and that he didn't wear green contacts.), and by how conflicted Estella was about Pip. Where was the heartlessness? Plus they cut the whole Orlick character and severely reduced Mrs. Joe Gargery's screen time, and Sally Hawkins was such a scene-stealer. Also, this interpretation of Joe made him weirdly aggressive. On the other hand, Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter were fine, and we liked Herbert Pocket. Weird to see Hagrid as Jaggers, though.

Why this version? Because it was streaming on Netflix.

BEST CHAR SIU BAO: the award goes to King's.

NOT King's, but you get the idea [dianacookswithlove.wordpress.com]

Altogether, the summer was a success, and I definitely would consider doing this again. Maybe next year can be a boy-book summer, to involve my son and other mother-son combos.

In other news:

• I'm on chapter 4 of the next book in my Hapgoods of Bramleigh series. I didn't do much writing over the summer and saw the discouraging statistic that ONE BOOK IS PUBLISHED ON AMAZON EVERY HOUR, so this might take a while...
  
• Austenprose.com gave A Very Plain Young Man a 5-star review, which was a thrill!
  
• You are what you read? An MSU study finds that readers of Fifty Shades of Grey are more likely to have abusive boyfriends and eating disorders..? 

Wishing everyone a happy back-to-school and more free time for reading!

Corrie Goes Boom!

Keeping this update on the Mother-Daughter Dim Sum Book Club short and sweet, I boil down for you a few bullet points:

• BOOM! The Hiding Place received an average rating of 8.5 of 10, compared to poor Emily of Deep Valley's showing. Why so high, you ask? "More happened." Which answers the question of whether this small sample size of modern-day teenagers reads for character development or plots that go boom! Poor Emily's Psyche knot and frog-leg parties just could not compare with Nazis. As I've noted before, everyone loves a good Nazi.
  
• Awesome discussion of the symbolism of Mr. ten Boom's watch-repair profession and the quirky "Beje" the family lived in in Haarlem.
  
• Equally awesome discussion of the importance of point of view in the book. How would it have changed our response to the story, if it had been told from Betsie's POV?
  
• Equally equally awesome discussion of the place of moral ambiguity in the face of evil.

This time we ate at King's Chinese Restaurant on NE 20th, where I tried subtle and delicious Fish Congee for the first time.

On we go with the book club! Our final book of the summer will be Dickens' Great Expectations. Absolutely cannot wait to re-read this old favorite, and I did my best to sell its wonderfulness to the girls and bias them in its favor...

In the meantime, I finally got through Doris Kearns Goodwin's predictably wonderful and fascinating The Bully Pulpit.

I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads and mention it here, though solely to connect it to Betsy-Tacy.

Did you know that President Taft's wife Nellie advocated for women going to college in 1908-9, when Betsy and her generation were nearing high school graduation? They were the first generation of women to go in any numbers. No wonder poor Emily of Deep Valley felt so left-behind and out of touch with her generation when she graduated!

Did you know that, when Roosevelt broke off from the Republican Party to form the "Bull Moose" Party in 1912, one of his supporters was Jane Addams? As Addams was a hero in Emily of Deep Valley's eyes, no wonder Lovelace speaks of Emily's support for Roosevelt in the election!

That's all for now. If any of you out there happen to be church librarians, I hope to see you at this weekend's conference. I'll be speaking on "Raising Readers" this Friday at 4, plugging Betsy-Tacy, and signing my own books...

The Mother-Daughter Dim Sum Book Club Rides on with THE HIDING PLACE

The inaugural Mother-Daughter Dim Sum Book Club meeting hit a bump right away: we had settled on the new Dim Sum Factory in Factoria, only to arrive and find it was not yet open. I suppose that's what the giant "Coming Soon" in the upper right-hand corner of the homepage meant--but how was I supposed to see that when I was distracted by pictures of food?

Pic from the website, not our table

 All was not lost. We made our way over to nearby Top Gun Seafood Restaurant, where, instead of Tom-Cruise-like fish and crabs in Ray-Bans and aviator jackets and Muzaked "Highway to the Danger Zone" playing in the background, we found a shaded room with dim sum carts making the rounds. The food was fine, the ice water minimal, the requested forks MIA.

And I'm afraid poor Emily of Deep Valley received similar marks. Here's the breakdown, on a score of 1-10 overall:

Me: 7.5
Other Mother (OM): 7.5-8
My 14YO: 7
OM's 15YO: 5 (!!!)
OM's 13YO: 5.5
My 11YO: 8

For an average overall score of 6.75. O di immortales! as Betsy or Carney would say. Why the ho-hum response from Other Mother's girls? The girls were too polite to say so specifically, but OM reported that they found it "boring" because "nothing happened." Which means the scores of 5-5.5 might actually have been inflated, so as not to hurt my feelings. Waaaaaah!!! I suppose this is what a fictional diet of Divergent and The Fault in our Stars will do to you. Crap, as Betsy or Carney would not say.

The tepid response, however, did not prevent us from having a decent discussion of our prep questions. Other Mother won for most thoughtful answers, and my 11YO won for raising her hand and interjecting the most, even when urged to hold back, but a good time was had by all. Some "hot" topics: how much did Don actually care for Emily? How good were Emily's friends? What did Emily actually have in common with the people from Little Syria?
 

Anyway, onward and upward. If Emily lacked action, surely The Hiding Place will make up for that. When things get a little slow, you can always turn to WWII and the Holocaust. The same questions apply, even for nonfiction, because all stories must be constructed and framed deliberately.

They HAVE redone the cover!

Title. What are the various meanings of "the hiding place" over the course of the book?

Setting. When and where is the book set? What time period does it cover? What sort of place is Holland before the War, and how does it and its people change?

Characters. How would you describe Corrie's life, up to the War? How was her family typical of the people around them, and how was it different? How would you characterize her father, sisters, brother, and aunts? What role does Karel play?

Character Development. How does Corrie change and grow, over the course of the story? How does her faith change and grow?

Conflict. What are the conflicts, large and small, which drive the story? What is at stake for Holland, the ten Booms, and Corrie herself, as the story goes on?

Themes. What are the recurring ideas of the book? I would say they are pretty big ones: good vs. evil. Faith vs. despair. Love vs. hate. Hope vs. despair. Trust vs. fear. Order vs. disorder. Revenge vs. forgiveness. Bitterness vs. healing. Look for places where you see these themes raised.

Symbolism/Foreshadowing. Even in nonfiction you can find these devices. Why is Mr. ten Boom's profession an appropriate one? What does it symbolize, in terms of his outlook on the world? What happens to the watch shop as time goes on? Can you find other examples of symbolism or foreshadowing as you read?

And finally, the paragraph-writing question (pick one):

1. What is the significance and symbolism of the ten Boom house "the Beje"? Why does the book go back into the history of the house and the family who lives there?

2. "We have a woman's watch here that needs repairing. But I can't find a mainspring." In Chapter 7, the book describes this "code" the family and network use to discuss Jews being hidden. How is this code both appropriate and symbolic? What do watches represent to the family? How might this reflect how God views people?

Have fun reading! I sure did at my recent bookstore event, from which I leave you a couple pictures:

Emily of Deep Valley Prep Questions (Mother-Daughter Book Club)

School is out, and it's time to kick off reading for the Mother-Daughter Dim Sum Book Club! If you're participating virtually, here's the info I sent out to our little circle of participants. It's a pretty sweet, simple read, so I hope they all enjoy it! My 14YO is hip-deep in Gone with the Wind right now, so Emily will probably seem pretty retiring after Scarlett O'Hara, but Emily picks herself up and dusts herself off as much as Scarlett does, and with a heckuva lot less collateral damage!

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EMILY OF DEEP VALLEY is a pretty short book, written in 1950, but set back in 1912. The author, Maud Hart Lovelace, wrote several books inspired by her own life and the lives of friends she grew up with.  So although the book was technically historical fiction by the time Lovelace wrote it, she was writing about a time she lived through herself.

When we read, here are some things to consider:

Title. Why did the author call it what she called it? What significance is it where Emily is from? How would Emily feel about being called "Emily of Deep Valley" at the beginning of the book? How would she feel about it by the end?

Setting. When and where is the book set? Why does that matter? Do the time and place have any impact on the options available to Emily? Look at the micro-settings, too. How does Emily feel about her home? Her cousin's home? The slough? Where, in Deep Valley, does she belong or not belong?

Characters. Who are the main characters in the book? How do they see Emily, and how does she see them?

Character Development. How does Emily grow and change, over the course of the story? What triggers these developments? How does her view of herself and of Deep Valley change?

Conflict. The conflict is what drives the story. What's at stake. If there's no conflict, there's no real plot. The conflict in Frozen, for example, is, can Anna save Elsa and their country from the destructiveness of Elsa's own powers, and can she restore their lost relationship? What is the conflict in EMILY? What might happen to Emily, if she cannot overcome/resolve the conflict?

Themes. Look at some of the recurring ideas in the book. Old-fashioned versus modern. Growth versus stagnation. Insider versus outsider. Defining yourself versus letting others define you. Do you notice any others, as you read?

Symbolism/Foreshadowing. These are standard literary devices, where an author uses one thing to represent or hint at something else. Look, for example, at "Decoration Day." Why have it twice in the book, near the beginning and at the end? What is the same, and what is different? How is Emily's attitude the same or different? Also look at when Emily is at Roxey's drugstore and sees "an attractive-looking girl" in the mirror, who turns out to be herself! How does this moment represent what is going on with Emily?

Allusion. An allusion is a reference to another book or work of art. Lovelace alludes to the Slough of Despond from John Bunyan's PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. How does that add to our understanding of the story?

And finally, a paragraph question, for some writing exercise! Pick one:

1. Emily picks a Shakespeare quote as a self-motivator: "Muster your wits; stand in your own defense." Why is this appropriate for her? If she has to defend herself, who are her accusers? What would they accuse her of?

2. What is the significance of Emily's slough, geographically and symbolically? How does it compare and contrast with Bunyan's Slough of Despond?

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And a last little reminder: hope to see some of you at University Book Store Bellevue this Saturday (6/28) at 5:00 p.m. for some Regency readings and ramblings!

The Mother-Daughter Dim Sum Book Club

So a friend asked if I would help her just-graduated-eighth-grade daughter with "Literary Analysis." It seems the girl garnered low marks in that category on a recent assignment, and I was to be the possible solution. Could you think of anything more unpleasant than getting together with your mom's friend to be grilled on "Literary Analysis"? I can--being the mom's friend who has to do the grilling!

Since we both have daughters around the same ages, I suggested instead that we just get together casually and talk about a book. Better yet, we pair my favorite thing--reading--with my very-close-second-favorite thing: eating.

Presenting the Mother-Daughter Dim Sum Book Club! Why dim sum? Because it's awesome and also because, a couple years ago when I asked my teenager if she wanted to do a mother-daughter book club, she said unhesitatingly, "No way." I haven't been her mother for 14.75 years, however, without knowing that she, like me, will do just about anything for food.

That's what I'm talking about

The picture above is from our most favoritest dim sum place in the whole world: the Great Mall Mayflower Seafood Restaurant in Milpitas, California. If you go there, may I recommend the seaweed salad, the turnip cakes, the pork dumplings, the char siu bao, the stir-fried broccoli rabe with oyster sauce, and the little custard tarts. My mouth waters as I type...

There's no Mayflower up here, sadly, so it is my friend's duty to locate the nearest wannabe Mayflower. Then, and only then, will I impart my vast and inspiring knowledge of Literary Analysis and How to Go About It. Everyone has their price.

The fun thing today was picking the books and giving them a quick re-read/skim. They had to be appealing to teenagers. They had to have some of the goodies Literary Analysts look for: setting, character development, conflict, a little symbolism/foreshadowing, and something to discuss and debate. They had to be, for my personal sanity, NOT dystopian YA fiction where the girl spends her time kicking a**, being ordinary yet somehow unspeakably amazing, and fighting off whichever element of the love triangle she was not currently into.

That left three books.*

*Kidding. But it did narrow the field considerably.

The victors?

Dreadful cover, I admit. Would you want to read such a book, if you were a teenage girl with any aspirations to hipness? But don't judge a book etc. etc.

If you've read my blog at all, you know Maud Hart Lovelace is one of my absolute most beloved authors of all time, so much so that I dragged my kids on a Literary Dream Tour last year to her old stomping grounds of Minneapolis and Mankato, Minnesota. The Betsy books are my favorite, but Emily's tale lends itself to more Literary Analysis. Emily is a high school grad for whom college is not an option, despite her hunger for knowledge. Instead, she has to watch her friends and cousin head off to the Next Stop in Their Exciting Lives, while she stays home to keep house for her grandfather. Depression ensues. But not for long. Soon Emily finds she can continue to grow and learn and blossom. So we have a conflict. We have character development (big time). We have symbolic setting. We have even a significant allusion to another literary work. Hooray!


Then comes another cover in profound need of an update. Ha! I'd better tell the daughters to get these books on Kindle, or I don't know if even the dim sum will hold them.

Teenagers have to read lots of WWII nonfiction in high school, for good reason, but they'll never be assigned Corrie ten Boom's awesome memoir because it's too Christian. However I think her voice is as valid as any other survivor's, and she has moving, powerful, thoughtful things to say that are still applicable in our world and time. Interestingly, she is a contemporary of Emily of Deep Valley, only she lives in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and this story takes place in her fifties.






Finally we will tackle

Yes, it's long, but I first read an abridged, textbook version my freshman year of high school, and even an abridgement holds up remarkably well. We lose a few--okay, a lot--of symbolically heavy descriptions of things, but there's enough left that there's still PLENTY to discuss. That is, I'll let the girls choose to read either the full tome or a decent abridgement (i.e., not a graphic novel or an I Can Read version). And we can celebrate finishing by watching a movie version (after our requisite dim sum)! Win-win-win.

Anywho, if you'd like to follow along yourself or with your own daughters/cousins/nieces/neighbors/friends, I'll post questions and points here as we go along. I figure we'll get through the first two books in July and the biggie in August.

One last, unrelated tidbit: University Book Store Bellevue has posted the details on my upcoming event here. But if you don't feel like clicking on the link, I'll be reading from The Naturalist and signing both it and A Very Plain Young Man on Saturday, June 28, at 5:00p.m. Hope to see you there!