YA Book Review: Little Blog on the Prairie by Cathleen Davitt Bell

In the interest of acting librarianly (and in an effort to try and remember details about children's and teen books that I read) I've decided to sprinkle a few book reviews into this blog.  Here is one I read while in Louisiana.

Little Blog on the Prairie by Cathleen Davitt Bell


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book was a sweet, cute, fun read!


Synopsis: Thirteen year old Genevieve (Gen for short) is forced to attend a pioneer camp with her parents and little brother where the family must dress, act, and labor like an 1890s farm family ALL summer long. Gen's mother promises her that if she attends the camp she will get her own, new, shiny FIRST cell phone. Gen agrees, only to smuggle the cell phone into camp so she can send her friends at home snarky text messages about her experiences. Gen's friends end up turning her messages into a blog which attracts a large fanbase and eventually the media!


I loved this book. I understand where Gen's mom was coming from. I lust after a house, garden, chickens, getting rid of TV, cooking from scratch, making soap, making butter, making jelly. I am learning to play the banjo for when these things come to pass. I knit, spin wool and sew for fun. I truly enjoyed reading about the experiences of an adolescent who has absolutely no interest in learning pioneer arts, and who is only keeping her sanity by committing acts of minor anarchy by sending funny texts to her friends.


The book had an interesting, unique premise.  A great Wyoming forest setting, complete with details about the family's 1890s style shack cabin, complete with the outhouse that Gen has so much trouble navigating amid her 1890s ruffles, buttons, and pantaloons. The book included details about how Gen was feeling about the work she was doing, about the other families in the camp, and even about her own family whom she comes to greatly appreciate and respect. The conversations with the other children (especially Ka) who were forced to attend were hilarious. Throughout the book there is a tame animosity between Gen and Nora, the daughter of the camp owners of the camp. Gen's behavior is believable and seemed to genuinely portray the feelings and attitudes of a thirteen year old girl, she is not wholly good or wholly bad. There is a very tame romance in the novel, which is appropriate for Gen's age.

Another plus to this book was that it can straddle between a children's audience and a young adult audience.

View all my reviews

New Orleans, LA

Oliver and I have been in New Orleans for the last few days so I could attend a library conference. I know this is bad, but.......I really wanted to visit New Orleans due to my former Anne Rice passion, and not so much for the conference. So here is my review of NOLA.  Interesting. Would be better if you have a big budget and can afford to go on lots of tours and eat at the restaurants in the French Quarter. I would avoid Bourbon Street at all costs (a hive of scum and villainy (well, maybe vulgarity, stench, crudeness) if I ever saw one).  The streetcars were fun to ride, and not expensive.  There are lots of beautiful town homes.  Our favorite part of the whole trip was leaving New Orleans on the Great River Road and visiting a couple of plantations.  Sooo interesting! We didn't take many pictures until plantation day.

In the St. Charles streetcar

Oak Alley Plantation

Oak Alley Front

Nottoway Plantation

Nottoway- White Ballroom

Blessed are the Peacemakers

I took the opportunity today to make a little peace with summer, and indeed found myself blessed.  When I stepped out on my porch this midday I noticed that the day seemed promising and happy with its warm breeze to break up the otherwise oppressive 100* heat.  I got it into my head to walk to Subway with the Finches, Cold Mountain, and my sunhat.

The first step to this adventure was to prettify my sunhat.  Vain?  Possibly.  But any inducement to make someone agreeable to walking around in the Texas sun is a solution worth trying.  So I took some of my fabric yo-yos from last summer and let them perch on the side of my hat.

I donned my shortest jean skirt (knee length) and packed away my Simplicity 2206 jersey knit cardigan in preparation for the air conditioning to come, and set out before I could come to my senses.

You can't help but have a cheerful walk while listening to the Finches Human Like a House album, especially while migrating from shade patch to shade patch along the sidewalk and admiring magnificent residential shrubberies.  A number of times I wished I'd brought my camera, but also remembered that my eyes are kinder to the sights than the lens of my cheap-o camera.  I saw a vine with pink flowers full of honeybees, a tree with half-ripe pomegranates, tidy front porches fit to make a renting girl slightly jealous, fields which still housed some fighting sunflowers and some vines with cottony tufts, mourning doves sitting in the branches of a bleached white dead tree.  I passed an area beneath a mesquite tree that was strewn with dried beans and thought of the mesquite bean preserves I sampled at the Texas Folklife Festival last Saturday.

It's only too easy to get caught up feeling hopeless and distraught when things aren't quite going your way.  I suppose the remedy is to step back and survey the things and experiences that you can truly be thankful for.  I wouldn't have been able to enjoy such a wonderful day if I would have been working at the job I have been coveting.  Plus, Ollie and I are still able to pay our bills, hug-n-squeeze our pets, eat at restaurants, enjoy sweet air conditioning, practice all kinds of hobbies.  Things could definitely get worse.  And that thought is quite consoling!

Half square triangles progress

I have 149 squares stitched together, and still need about 100 more.  While I don't like cutting fabric, I adore the sewing parts and the ironing.  The best part for me has been admiring the fabric colors.  All my faves are accounted for.  No purple in sight, just how I like it!

This afternoon after sewing and ironing a huge stack I had fun arranging them in different ways to see how I may want to arrange things in the final quilt.  I think my original idea still wins.  Here were the options:

Original Idea

Zig-zaggy

Diamonds

I think the finished quilt will have a higher percentage of pure white halves, but I got some cuttin' to do.  I think the zig-zag would work better with more white pieces, but I'm not sure it looks that great with the few reds I want to incorporate.  I will do this again when I have all the squares.  I am limiting my colors to just blues and greens, with a little splash of red thrown in here and there.  I am soooo tempted to tear through my stash and incorporate some of my other pinks, greens and browns....but I must use self control.  I think it will look better with my color scheme.

I have to admit, sewing has been damn good to me this year!

I've even been reading fiction books with sewing themes.  A couple of months ago I finished the Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas.  Now I'm listening to Oh My Stars by Lorna Landvik.  Both books take place in the 1930s.  Persian Pickle is from the point of view of Queenie, a young member of a small town depression era sewing club.  Talk of the club and its members frames a quaint murder mystery which plays out.  Oh My Stars is a little more complicated, and I'm not yet halfway through, so I will have to report back later on it.  So far, so good, though!

Reformed Toga Becomes Skirt

Disclaimer:  my husband is quite possibly the worst photographer of all time.

I bought 5 yards of fabric in 2006 for the purpose of becoming a sweet toga:

I really, really wanted the fabric to become a dress.  I bought a pattern, opened it up, said "oh, fuck" and put both the pattern and the fabric away.  It's resurfaced a few times.  Made an appearance as a pillowcase, then took a detour into skirt territory:

Simplicity 2906

Summer skirts

I've made a few wardrobe changes since the last time I blogged about dress--I stopped feeling the need to stay completely plain and simple.  I've moseyed on over to the solidly feminine category, though I would still say my clothes are mostly modest besides the fact that some of my shirts are still a little tight around the chestal region.  I wear a skirt almost every day (what legendary comfort!).  I still wear the long skirts I made before, but I sometimes add fancier shirts or earrings.  Lately it's been very hot outside (in the 90s) and I got to thinking that it would be nice to have some more summer skirts.  Simplicity patterns were on sale at Hobby Lobby this week for $1.99, so I bought a few to try out.  I also went to Hancock Fabric for the fabric, and found that Butterick patterns were on sale for $0.99 there, so I snagged one of those as well.  Hancock Fabric has some pretty fantastic sales, including discount fabric areas.

The first pattern I tried during this spate of renewed interest was Simplicity 2184.  I found the red fabric in the discount area.  I decided on that particular fabric because there is a small amount of it in the quilt-in-the-works and I thought it would be nice to have extra if I needed it.  It would also make a nice apron, I think.  I'm completely in love with that lace trim.  This was the first time I used elastic in a sewing project.  It was ridiculously easy, and the skirt only took a few hours to finish.

I also finished the skirt that I mentioned in this post.  That is to say, I finished in in January but haven't blogged about it yet.  I wasn't all that wild about it at first because it's pretty much the only item in my wardrobe that is pink, so I don't exactly have shirts to match. BUT last weekend I went on a tour of a brewery (complete with all-you-can-drink free samples of their brew) where I snagged a green shirt that says "Real Ale Brewing Company" that I think looks nice with the skirt. 

Sewing is good for the soul.  Every time I enter the fabric store it's like entering a wonderland of colorful delight.  I talked to a lady at the library yesterday who said that she gets fabric off of Freecycle for free, but she doesn't have much time any more to sew.  And would I want her to bring me some fabric she doesn't want?  Heck yes!  We'll see if this conversation bears fruit.
 

Another Bread FAIL

Wheat bread just does not cooperate with me.  I blame it on the electric mixer.  My mother in law gave us a 1970s electric stand mixer that she bought at a garage sale.  It was not adequate.  The sticky wheat dough traveled up the mixing utensils and tried to escape from the bowl a number of times before Ollie and I gave up that idea.  Of course, using man-logic, Oliver had to push this new power tool to the max and tried mixing the dough full force until he would admit defeat.

I will trust in my own two trusty hands in the future.  My hands do so many great things for me.  They make me beautiful shawls and hats, nifty yarns, delicious edibles, keyboarding letters, and most recently beautiful mountain folk music.  I've started practicing a song called "In the Willow Gardens" which is played in waltz time.  It sounds so delicate and lovely despite the lyrics being about a young man who poisons his lover.  I think it's my favorite that I've learned yet.

I finished my Holden shawl just in time for Easter last weekend.  I keep reading articles about women aspiring to Biblical womanhood.  Some may take this as old fashioned, sexist or degrading.  I think the Proverbs 31 woman has great strength, responsibility and joy.  The proverb speaks in depth about such a woman's capable arms and hands:

"She selects wool and flax

and works with eager hands"13

"She considers a field and buys it;

out of her earnings she plants a vineyard" 16

"In her hand she holds the distaff

and grasps the spindle with her fingers" 19

"She opens her arms to the poor

and extends her hands to the needy" 20

Perhaps the best line of all:

"She is clothed with strength and dignity;

she can laugh at the days to come." 25

All too often these days the tasks of feeding and providing for one's family seem to be regarded as trivial and basically unimportant.  I think there has to be something special about a person using their capable hands to create homemade, homegrown, hearty foods and specially created handmade clothing and other items.  It seems so much more special to do things this way rather than merely earning money to buy generic store bought made-in-a-sweatshop things or waxy buckets of greasy chicken.

So many people work and work and work so they can buy things and things and things.   I swear I will try to do things differently.  Living an "old-fashioned", compassionate, simple way in which people are the greatest treasures in life.  Where the simple, loving actions made by dexterous hands can be esteemed and respected.