Tuesday Tales

A weekly peek at what we're reading. 
Post your peek in the comments and share your favorite books!


Anne is reading
My Korean Deli by Ben Ryder Howe

I still have four and a half hours until I can go home and fall asleep.

And when I wake up, it will only be Tuesday.

"This kind of a store is a death tomb," one of the characters says in Bernard Malamud's The Assistant, a novel set in a Brooklyn deli grocery during the 1950s.  "If you stay six months, you'll stay forever."

Which would be worse? I wonder.  Closing tomorrow and having this travesty over our heads for the rest of our lives, or being here forever?  I can't decide, in part because I don't want to make choices, so instead of thinking about it I go back to opening boxes, grateful for something to do with my hands.



Holly is still reading
Mandy by Julie Andrews Edwards

Mandy drifted into sleep and wasn't sure if it was minutes or hours later that she felt the familiar, cool hand on her brow.  The woman's soft voice whispered, "Good night, Mandy.  Sleep well.  I'll be here if you need me."








Lily is reading
The Squirrel Wife by Philippa Pearce

Time passed and time passed, and the time came for squirrels to build their nests in the forest.

As he had been told, Jack climbed tree after tree.

He searched for a squirrel to which he might give his ring.  At last he found one -- a female, newborn, tiny as a rat, hairless, and blind as yet.  He slipped the gold ring over her left forepaw, so that it rested just above it like a bracelet.  Then he climbed down the tree and came away.

Friday Night at the Movies

What we're watching this week.

The Brady Bunch (Season Four)

~ Room at the Top ~

It's a sibling skirmish to end all skirmishes when both Greg and Marcia decide that the newly cleaned-out attic would make an ideal -- and private -- new bedroom.  Who will win the battle for the boudoir?

Tuesday Tales

A weekly peek at what we're reading. 
Post your peek in the comments and share your favorite books!


Anne is still reading
Masquerade by Nancy Moser

A priest came in behind a young boy, both clad in white, their hands held before them in supplication.  Words were said, prayers were prayed, but it took Lottie a few moments to realize the service wasn't being said in English, or even Italian, but Latin.

She glanced at Lucia.  Did she understand Latin?  Did all these people -- most of whom were not educated -- know Latin?

Yet the look of peace upon many of the faces . . . peace and awe.  Perhaps their faith wasn't dependent upon words heard or words said but stemmed from an inner need fulfilled.

She closed her eyes, letting the cadence of the Latin wrap around her as she attempted to open a place in her heart and mind where her faith lived.  God?  Are you here with me?

The priest began to pray.  "Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum: adveniat regnum tuum . . . "

Although Lottie didn't understand the words, she had an odd notion that she did.  The cadence of the prayer seemed familiar.  Was it the Lord's Prayer?  The prayer prayed in her own church, in every church?  No matter what their differences might be in ceremony or language, they had this in common.


Holly is reading
Mandy by Julie Andrews Edwards

She went indoors to the shell room and gazed at it for a long time.  It was such a beautiful room.  A peaceful room.  Mandy felt calm and untroubled as she lovingly fingered the pretty shells.  They were very dusty.  She decided she would begin cleaning her house that very afternoon after lunch.









Lily is still reading
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

James's large frightened eyes traveled slowly around the room.

The creatures, some sitting on chairs, others reclining on a sofa, were all watching him intently.

Creatures?

Or were they insects?

An insect is usually something rather small, is it not?  A grasshopper, for example, is an insect.

So what would you call it if you saw a grasshopper as large as a dog?  As large as a large dog.  You could hardly call that an insect, could you?

Friday Night at the Movies

What we're watching this week.

Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus

Princess Annika discovers adventure when she is befriended by Brietta -- a magnificent winged horse -- that flies her to the beautiful Cloud Kingdom.  Annika has only three days to break the spell of Wenlock, an evil wizard who has turned her family to stone.  On her quest to defeat Wenlock, Annika meets new friends and together they travel to forbidden forests, skate through icy caverns and fly above the clouds as they attempt to build a magical wand of light.

Tuesday Tales

A weekly peek at what we're reading. 
Post your peek in the comments and share your favorite books!


Anne is reading
Masquerade by Nancy Moser

Lottie preferred experiencing life through novels where the characters were always enjoying a lovely ball or romp through the countryside that would lead them to their one true love.  Her copies of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Little Women were threadbare. 







Holly is reading
Between: A Girl's Guide to Life by Vicki Courtney

What causes the "I wish" trap?  Sometimes we compare ourselves to other people.  The crazy thing is that those "other people" are probably also comparing themselves to other people!  Or maybe you compare yourself to girls you see on television or in magazines who look perfect.  You know the ones I'm talking about.  They have perfect hair that is never messed up.  They have perfect skin and perfect legs and perfect everything.  Well, let me tell you a little secret about that.  They are really not as perfect as they look. 




Lily is reading
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

Aunt Sponge was enormously fat and very short.  She had small piggy eyes, a sunken mouth, and one of those white flabby faces that looked exactly as though it had been boiled.  She was like a great white soggy overboiled cabbage.  Aunt Spiker, on the other hand, was lean and tall and bony, and she wore steel-rimmed spectacles that fixed onto the end of her nose with a clip.

The Reference Shelf: Companion to the Calendar

Companion to the Calendar: A Guide to the Saints and Mysteries of the Christian Calendar
by Mary Ellen Hynes


The Catholic Rural Life Conference requested that St. Isidore's Day be celebrated in mid-May in the United States, during the seedtime of the year and during Eastertime, too.  Perhaps a blessing over our own gardens and vegetable plots would be appropriate today in memory of Maria and Isidore.

Friday Night at the Movies

What we're watching this week.

Ponyo

A young boy named Sosuke rescues a goldfish named Ponyo, and they embark on a fantastic journey of friendship and discovery before Ponyo's father, a powerful sorcerer, forces her to return to her home in the sea.  In her quest to become human and reunite with Sosuke, Ponyo stumbles upon and releases her father's magical Water of Life and triggers a gigantic storm.  Now balance must be restored to the world they all cherish.



Tuesday Tales

A weekly peek at what we're reading. 
Post your peek in the comments and share your favorite books!


Anne is still reading
I Think I Love You by Allison Pearson

Petra put the letter in her pocket and went downstairs.  Passing the hall table, she noticed a jug of sweet peas.  The scent was so strong, intoxicating.  On a Post-it note stuck to the wall, she spied Molly's girly, looped handwriting: "I picked them.  Told you!!!"

Petra smiled.  The daughter, unlike her mother, was going to lead a three-exclamation marks kind of life.  She thought of Molly, obeying the request to pick the sweet peas while Petra was in Vegas, to keep the flowers coming, an instruction Molly's mamgu had issued more than thirty years ago to Petra herself, and, who knows, maybe Greta heard it from her own mother in Germany.  Things being passed on; habits, scents, beloved melodies, a heart-shaped chin: motherhood and memory forging a slender handrail to cling on to down the generations.


Holly is still reading
Dragonsdale by Salamanda Drake

When Cara could go no farther, she led Skydancer into a hollow, which gave some shelter from the wind.  Sky lay down, breathing quickly from the unaccustomed exertion, his breath making little clouds of steam in the damp, chilly air.  Cara sat down with her back against his shoulder and wondered what to do next.






Lily is reading
Miss Jaster's Garden by N. M. Bodecker

Down by the toolshed, where Miss Jaster filled her watering can, was a small puddle of clear water, for the tap was worn and kept dripping.  Hedgie used it as his mirror, and down to this mirror he went to have a look at himself.  But when he leaned over the puddle, he stood quite still, curling and uncurling his toes in disbelief: What he saw in the water was not his ordinary, gray-brown, prickly self, but something quite different. 

Peeping out from among his quills were little spikes and shoots of green, ready to climb and bloom and fill with bees and honey.

"Well," he said to himself, "now I'm either a flower bed or a vegetable garden.  I wonder which?"

Friday Night at the Movies

What we're watching this week.

Strega Nona . . .

and more stories about magic

Storybook Treasures:

• Strega Nona
• Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
• The Stonecutter
• The Amazing Bone
• Teeny-Tiny and the Witch-Woman

Tuesday Tales

A weekly peek at what we're reading. 
Post your peek in the comments and share your favorite books!


Anne is reading
I Think I Love You by Allison Pearson

"Rose-red city, is it?"

"What?"

"Petra.  Rose-red city, half as old as time."  He spoke the words clearly as if he were an actor reciting a poem.

"Dunno," I said.

Why?  Please God, why?  I'd never said "dunno" in my life before.  Dunno was common.  Dunno was the vocabulary of morons.  My mother could drop down dead in the street if she knew she had a daughter who said "dunno."  The woman who devoured Reader's Digest's "It Pays to Increase Your Word Power" could not have produced a child who said "dunno."

"Remember your manners, Petra, for Gott's sake," my mother would chide.



Holly is reading
Dragonsdale by Salamanda Drake

"But, Da," protested Cara.  "Sky's a Goldenbrow -- that's a very rare breed ..."

"He could be as rare as a mermaid's toenails and he'd still be of no value to me if he won't allow himself to be trained.  We can't afford to keep on stuffing food into useless mouths, that's all."

A cold hand seemed to clutch at Cara's heart.  "Da!"  She had asked the question many times before and knew it was hopeless, but she plowed on.  "Why won't you let me ride Sky?  I know I can do it!  I know I can train him!  Please...."



Lily is reading
Happy Birthday from Carolyn Haywood by Carolyn Haywood

When Betsy's birthday arrived, nothing had come from her grandfather.  Her mother gave her a book written by Betsy's favorite author, and her father gave her a new game that looked like fun.  When she opened the little parcel that had come in the mail, Betsy found a gold bracelet, with small gold letters dangling from it.  The letters spelled "Betsy."  It was from her grandmother, with a loving message.  Betsy thought it was beautiful.