Let's Chat: It Takes a Mother to Raise a Village

I'll start off the chatting about this one even though I wrote a little about it on my own blog. I guess we should be discussing it here, too, though! :) Feel free to add your own posts after reading mine! I'd love to see how everyone else feels. Especially if you are older/younger than me or have more/less children. It would be interesting to see how those things affects your perspective on this topic. Do you feel as strongly as she does?? Do you agree with the things she says? etc...

I LOVED this book and felt like it should be required reading for all stay at home moms. You know we are all just trying to make the world a better place by raising good kids who will turn into good adults. I felt like Colleen Down understands how important the role of a mother is without being "preachy" and making us feel guilty because we are not perfect at it. Sometime we get caught up in being perfect that we forget that it's not about that...I felt like she put raising kids into perspective--you need to not lose yourself completely, you need to have fun, let things roll off your back, and you need to dig in your heels on the things that matter. I laughed a lot, I cried some, and I recommended this book to LOTS and LOTS of the women in my life. I have also thought about this book lots when thinking about things as they are happening in my life. I am personally going to try and read this book once a year so that I can remind myself why I chose the hardest job in the world.

I rated this book a 5 out of 5

Emily: 33yr old mom of 2 boys and 2 girls

May: The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Annette is right! I chose C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. I'm hoping I'm not the only one who hasn't read it. Like I said before, I had a hard time finding a book, but figured since Pres. Monson quotes C.S. Lewis all the time in his talks that he must be worth reading. So there you have it! Happy reading to all!

Here is a little snipit from Amazon.com to tell you what it is about:

Who among us has never wondered if there might not really be a tempter sitting on our shoulders or dogging our steps? C.S. Lewis dispels all doubts. In The Screwtape Letters, one of his bestselling works, we are made privy to the instructional correspondence between a senior demon, Screwtape, and his wannabe diabolical nephew Wormwood. As mentor, Screwtape coaches Wormwood in the finer points, tempting his "patient" away from God.
Each letter is a masterpiece of reverse theology, giving the reader an inside look at the thinking and means of temptation. Tempters, according to Lewis, have two motives: the first is fear of punishment, the second a hunger to consume or dominate other beings. On the other hand, the goal of the Creator is to woo us unto himself or to transform us through his love from "tools into servants and servants into sons." It is the dichotomy between being consumed and subsumed completely into another's identity or being liberated to be utterly ourselves that Lewis explores with his razor-sharp insight and wit.

The most brilliant feature of The Screwtape Letters may be likening hell to a bureaucracy in which "everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment." We all understand bureaucracies, be it the Department of Motor Vehicles, the IRS, or one of our own making. So we each understand the temptations that slowly lure us into hell. If you've never read Lewis, The Screwtape Letters is a great place to start. And if you know Lewis, but haven't read this, you've missed one of his core writings. --Patricia Klein

It's available used from Amazon starting around $2.00! Bargain!!

Picking a Book is Hard to Do!

Okay, so I just have to put up my disclaimer before I reveal by book choice for May. It has been quite a chore for me to pick a book as I'm really not a big time reader (thus my reason for joining the book club). I went thru a lot of choices--ones I had heard about, bestsellers, amazon recommendations, etc. I thought I had a book picked out, but I just kept 'wondering' about it. I'm always leery of most of the world's "choices" as they are filled with garbage that I don't care to read. If only books came with ratings, like movies, I could judge them with a little more insight. But, not so... So, I read thru LOTS of book descriptions and readers reviews and still was having a hard time. I told a few people of my dilemma and got some great book ideas from them (Finally some opinions I can trust.) So, in my next post I will reveal my May selection... Hint: Its from a well known author, who also wrote a very well know children's book.

By the way--How far are you with April's book--"A girl named Zippy?" I'm ready to talk!!

A Few Legistics

Hey ladies! To clear up some confusion and make things easier for everyone, Annette in her wisdom suggested that we add a list of who is choosing the book for which month. I have added a list to the side column titled "Who's Choosing When". It has a list through the end of this year of who is choosing the book for each month. If you don't want to choose a book, can't do it that month, or know of people who are joining the book club, just let me know and we'll change things accordingly. If you are the one choosing the book for the following month, please post which book you've chosen by the middle of the preceding month so everyone has time to pick it up. There is also a list of what we've already read in the right column to help everyone know which books have already been chosen. If for some reason you go to post and are not able to, please let me know. It may be that I just need to change to your rights. If I have not sent you an email with an invite as an author to the blog, please email me and we'll get it all squared away so you can post. (Also, please let me know if I have misspelled your name anywhere!) If anyone has any other suggestions on how to make things work better in our book club, we would love to hear them. We're a work in progress! Thanks for bearing with us as we work out all of the kinks! Happy reading everyone!

April: A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel

So I'm not sure if the person I had asked to choose the book for April ever saw the message so I went ahead and chose one. I've heard nothing but good things about this book and was in the mood for a light, easy and funny read and from what I've heard, this book fits the bill. Hope you enjoy! Here's a little snip-it of what the book is about:

From Publishers Weekly

It's a clich‚ to say that a good memoir reads like a well-crafted work of fiction, but Kimmel's smooth, impeccably humorous prose evokes her childhood as vividly as any novel. Born in 1965, she grew up in Mooreland, Ind., a place that by some "mysterious and powerful mathematical principle" perpetually retains a population of 300, a place where there's no point learning the street names because it's just as easy to say, "We live at the four-way stop sign." Hers is less a formal autobiography than a collection of vignettes comprising the things a small child would remember: sick birds, a new bike, reading comics at the drugstore, the mean old lady down the street. The truths of childhood are rendered in lush yet simple prose; here's Zippy describing a friend who hates wearing girls' clothes: "Julie in a dress was like the rest of us in quicksand." Over and over, we encounter pearls of third-grade wisdom revealed in a child's assured voice: "There are a finite number of times one can safely climb the same tree in a single day"; or, regarding Jesus, "Everyone around me was flat-out in love with him, and who wouldn't be? He was good with animals, he loved his mother, and he wasn't afraid of blind people." (Mar.)Forecast: Dreamy and comforting, spiced with flashes of wit, this book seems a natural for readers of the Oprah school of women's fiction (e.g., Elizabeth Berg, Janet Fitch). The startling baby photograph on the cover should catch browsers' eyes. (Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.)

It's available for $11.16 at Amazon.com.

Let's Chat

Okay ladies, hopefully you've finished the book since it's March now and I want to hear what you thought so here are a questions to get the chat going:

-What was your favorite part?

-What did you think about Vida Winter's real identity? Did you see that coming?

-Who was your favorite character?

-Do you see yourself in any of the characters in this book?

-Do any of you have the desire to read Jane Eyre again after all the references to it?

-What did you think of the Governess' and the Doctor's "experiment" with Emmeline and Adeline?

Post comments for these questions or anything else you want to bring up!

March: It Takes a Mother to Raise a Village by Colleen Down

Tricia informed me that I am in charge of picking a book for March. I picked the book for February (not having read it before) and while I am enjoying The Thirteenth Tale (I'm only halfway through) I realized that I probably broke Rule #2 because there are a couple not-so-clean parts in that book. So, I have chosen It Takes a Mother for March because I think it will conform to Rules #2 and #3 and be uplifting for all! I've heard great things about it! Here's a little description from Good Reads:

"While the old African proverb of 'it takes a village to raise a child' sounds appealing, perhaps the realities of life are more accurately conveyed in the story of The Little Red Hen. 'Who will help me potty train my child?' asks the mother, 'Not I,' says the village. 'Who will help me clean up this third glass of spilt milk?' asks the mother. 'Not I,' says the village. 'Who will help put braces on my child's teeth?' asks the mother. 'Not I,' says the village. 'Who wants to use my child to further their own political agendas?' asks the mother. 'WE DO,' says the village.
The irony of motherhood is that there has not been a spokesperson for mothers because those who feel most passionately are simply too busy. They're too busy running the car pools, doing the laundry, shopping for the groceries and the 1,001 other things, which are required to sustain life. Some have tried, but really, when was the last time Oprah plopped down her last ten dollar bill for a bag of Huggies and a gallon of milk?
Full time Mom, Colleen Down, has decided to ignore her buzzing dryer and ringing phone long enough to stand up and defend those whose profession it is to rock the cradle, and to remind them once again that they truly do have the power to change the world.
It Takes a Mother to Raise a Village is a humorous look at the joys and frustrations of being a mother of seven, ranging from preschool to college. It Takes a Mother to Raise a Village also takes a serious look at how important the role of a mother is in dealing with the problems that face us in the new millennium. If it takes a mother to raise the village it is also going to take all of the mothers to save the village."

It's available for $12.95 new on Amazon as low as $2.35 used.