Is anyone else having trouble concentrating on books right now? I have been on the same physical book for months now, and I can't seem to do more than two or three pages before I get distracted with something else. Maybe if I can get to the point that I feel like the family is safe and secure, I can stop researching how to emigrate if the election goes sideways. I've been getting my literary fix by listening to books via Hoopla online, mostly, though I've also been reading chapters out loud for Kiddo. Here are this week's recommendations:
The Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series, by Betty MacDonald. We finished the Harry Potter series this summer, despite my carefully dragging my feet at every turn in an attempt to get Kiddo to wait for the later books until she was a bit more mature. It was a lot of emotion toward the end, and we had tears on the way to bed many times. We have discussed the things we have learned about J.K. Rowling's attitudes about people we care about, and she has decided to keep the HP things she has, and to continue enjoying the stories, but to stop buying any new things that would enrich the author. I think it is a very mature decision, and I am supporting it by using up the materials we have and exploring crafty options.
After we finished The Deathly Hallows, though, Kiddo desperately needed something less fraught, and I had just read an article praising the tongue-in-cheek humor of Betty MacDonald, who wrote several memoirs and children's books in the 1940s and 50s before dying relatively young of cancer in 1958. Her most famous book is The Egg and I, which is at times achingly dated in attitudes, especially to Native Americans, but is a funny, insightful look at living in a very rural area in the later 1920s/early 30s. It was turned into a movie that in turn spawned the Ma and Pa Kettle genre. At the same time, she created children's books about Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, a very nice magical widow of a pirate who loves children. Throughout the books, Mrs. P-W helps various fed-up parents to solve oddities in their children, such as avoiding tooth brushing, truancy, and sibling fighting. Most of the stories are gently funny, and the children's behavioral issues are outlandishly bad, allowing the kids reading to feel slightly superior, even if they have the same challenges in a smaller scale.
For me, it's been fun to look in on what was considered typical in the middle of the twentieth century. Mother was in charge of the entire house, every meal, and all the logistics. Father was in charge of making the money, telling Mother there were problems with the children, and reading the newspaper. As the books continue, Father does get more involved with the children, but just about every mother seems to be doing everything, especially for the male members of the family. One mother despairs of how messy her son's room is every time she goes in to straighten it up. Am I doing something wrong? Am I supposed to be cleaning my school-age child's room? Oh, wait. My kid's a girl, so according to Mrs. P-W's world, she is in charge of keeping her room clean in addition to learning how to run a household from me. The mind reels. I guess it might be more plausible once Tiny goes to school as well. Here's the other nostalgic moment: the children walk themselves home from school. Mother drives them if she's also dropping Father at the train station, but they often walk themselves to school as well. When Kiddo goes back to in-person school, this Mother is looking at an hour on the road per day to drop her off and pick her up from school, since she goes to the GATE magnet across town. And the children! Go to their friends' houses! Without Mother having to arrange play dates weeks in advance! This is so fancy that I might faint. Honestly. I guess that there was less pressure back then to utilize every available minute of free time, and less expectation that the parents know precisely where the kids are at every moment. Maybe that's how Mother always has cake or cookies freshly baked for the children's return from school.
Kiddo prefers that I do the reading, as I apparently do better voices. This has been observed with Fuzzy in earshot, and he refuses to feel bad about it, as he enjoys not being in charge of the reading. It's been a challenge to come up with different-sounding voices for all the children and parents, and I often catch myself wondering if I've been consistent for Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and her magical pets. It's been fun, though, and we're now on the sequel books that were created by Ann M. Martin, of The Babysitters Club fame.
We also have been barreling through the Upside Down Magic series, by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins, in between Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle stories. I'm surprised by how much I like them, and Kiddo is just obsessed. It looks like the newest one just dropped on Hoopla, so once we're done with her current grounding (Mom expects that you are doing school stuff when you're on the internet during school hours. Deeply unreasonable, I know.), we'll be listening to that. Yet another magical world, with magical schools, but this time, the book follows the kids who are magically different. The parallels to special education in our world are carefully handled, and the whole affair is well crafted. The movie that came out this year doesn't follow the books very closely, but Kiddo's also a big fan of it.
Meanwhile, I've been listening to audiobooks in the sewing room while crafting quilts and Halloween costumes and masks. This week, I finished My Lady Jane, by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows, which takes the story of Lady Jane Grey, the nine-day Queen who reigned between Edward and Mary Tudor in a power-grabbing plot created by her father-in-law, and explores an alternate story that offers a better chance for most of the people involved. It's a fantasy novel, and the authors apologize to the English people for their treatment of their history at the very beginning. At the start of the second part, they warn their readers not to expect any recognizable history for the rest of the story. It's a total romp, and I loved it.
Continuing on the lightweight vein, I just finished The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! from the League of Pensioners series by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg. It's the second book in the series, again following the group of friends who happen to be senior citizens, as well as high-level thieves. I am so sad there's only one more book in this series, because they are ridiculously fun, and the best kind of heist stories, with lots of near misses and scrapes. They're so much fun, and they will make you crave cloudberry liquor with chocolate wafers and pray that you will never land in a nursing home. Highly recommended.
I'm starting to look for new audiobook options, so share your recommendations below. I'll listen to just about anything except for horror.
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