Book Review: Gumbo Tales by Sara Roahen

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Gumbo Tales imageI’ve been reading a book by Sara Roahen called Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table by Sara Roahen. It’s full of stories of food from New Orleans—things like gumbo, sno-balls, muffalettas, and so much more.

I love the way Roahen weaves the history of New Orleans into the culinary tales, and also how she updates readers on what happened to some of the city’s favorite restaurants and their owners in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Even as a native Louisianian (from Baton Rouge) I’ve learned a lot reading Gumbo Tales. And it really makes my mouth water for some good old New Orleans food. Since I’m not going to get it any time soon, I guess I’ll have to break out the cookbook and get to work. This is a great book for anyone interested in New Orleans and its culinary delights.

Who Says Reading’s On the Decline? Not in Mother-Daughter Book Clubs

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Last week my mother-daughter book club celebrated its fourth year together with a Cinco de Mayo party followed by a discussion of our book, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King. Our hostess brought out her Partridge Family album and played it for the moms, many of whom had teenage crushes on David Cassidy (yes, me too!). We got crazy singing along and talking about our 13-year-old selves back in the day, which was quite embarrassing for our daughters.

But then we settled down to talk about the book. We talked about the fun of reading mysteries and discussed the main characters—Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell—and we talked about things we liked and didn’t like about the plot.

As I looked around at the girls and moms sitting in the circle talking, I was reminded of a study released last year by the National Endowment of the Arts, which says reading is on the decline. I thought, “thank goodness my family isn’t a part of that.” Yes, my girls love to read and maybe they would be avid readers anyway. Their dad and I always have a stack of books we’re working our way through and as parents, we have always encouraged them to read books.

Even so, I believe being in a mother-daughter book club has helped us keep reading cool, even when Madeleine and Catherine might have been tempted to let it fall by the wayside as their other time commitments ramped up. And the friendships they’ve developed there have become some of the most important ones in their lives. I can say the same is true for me.

I’m happy to be a trend-reverser, and I look forward to the day a study finds I’m right in the middle of the upswing in readers everywhere.

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Book Review: Girlwood by Claire Dean

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With one foot in the modern world and one foot in a world of fantasy, Girlwood takes us into the life of Polly Greene, who can see the colors that surround people, revealing their true selves. Polly’s older sister, Bree, disappears into the woods one night, and Polly is the only one who believes she has not run far, that she’s hiding nearby to heal her out-of-control life.

When Polly finds a magical clearing hidden among the trees, she’s certain that her sister is close. She determines to leave her food and clothing and healing plants in a magical spot she and her friends dub Girlwood to help Bree survive until she’s ready to return.

Girlwood explores many themes as Polly enlists the help of friends and family in her mission:

  • What’s the value of nature compared to development?
  • Why do girls sometimes subvert their own personalities when they start to date?
  • How does divorce affect family dynamics?
  • How can parents teach and protect their children while also allowing them to have independent thoughts?

The themes are woven into a story that is as enchanting as the magical clearing, Girlwood, itself. And by the end, you may even find yourself searching for your own Girlwood.

Recommended for mother-daughter book clubs with girls in aged 12 and up.

Spotlight on a Mother-Daughter Book Club in Brookfield, Wisconsin

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Featured mother-daughter book club
Eight moms and daughters from Brookfield, Wisconsin

The members of this mother-daughter book club in Brookfield generously took time during their last meeting to answer some questions about their group. Read on to find out how the group started on some of their favorite books.

How did your group get started, and what grade were your daughters in when you first formed?

Our group started at the beginning of the girls’ seventh grade. Several mothers had done similar clubs with older daughters and suggested we form a club for this group of girls. The girls have a relatively small class so we invited all of the girls in their class to join and decided we would form one or two groups depending on level of interest. Our original group was 7 mother daughter pairs so we elected to do a single book club. We will meet through the summer after 8th grade – we decided high school activities would preclude meeting in high school.

How many mother/daughter pairs are in your book club?

We are now up to 8 pairs – one mother/daughter joined us after a few months. They had originally declined due to other commitments but heard our discussions at other school events and decided they were missing out.

How often do you meet?

This varies depending on other school activities and holidays but is generally every 6 weeks.

Do you tend to read certain genre books?

Everyone brings suggestions of books they would like to read and we have had quite a variety. We generally get consensus on which book we will read next.

Tell us about the three books you’ve read that have been favorites with the group and what you liked about them.

  • The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd—a wonderful story of women and their diverse friendships. Teaches perseverance and acceptance of others. We have already talked about doing a book club reunion when the movie comes out next year.
  • Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick—Funny and sad story with a great boy lead character.
  • The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom—thought-provoking book that led to a great discussion and made us all think about the impact we have on others.

Do you have activities outside of book club?

We plan to go to a movie of one of the books we have read and then out for dinner where we can compare the movie and the book.

Can you offer any tips or advice to other mother/daughter book clubs?

Make it a fun, quality time for mothers and daughters – not one more chore for the girls, another assignment to finish, an attempt to improve reading skills, etc. To make it fun, each meeting was hosted by one mother-daughter pair and the discussion led by another pair. We always started with a game—often based on a TV game show – that “quizzed” us on some details of the book. We had inexpensive prizes which were theme based – for example Burt’s Bees Lip Balm for Secret Life of Bees. The hosts often served theme-based food—for example, Chinese food for the meeting to discuss Chinese Cinderella. The game and food made the meetings fun and helped lead to great discussions. We had prepared questions to prompt discussion—each one started by of the girls. Eight mother/daughter pairs was a good size—I don’t think you can go much bigger and have a discussion that includes everyone. Teach the girls to listen—at first everyone tried to talk at once but we eventually got to the point where one girl started the discussion and everyone contributed.

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Book Review: West with the Night by Beryl Markham

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West with the Night, a memoir by Beryl Markham, is one of my all time favorite books to read. Both for the glimpse it gives into life in Africa during the early decades of the 20th century, and for the descriptions of life for a bush pilot.

As a child growing up with her father in Africa, Markham faced down lions and wild boar. As an adult she trained race horses before learning to fly airplanes and becoming a bush pilot. Eventually she became the first pilot, female or male, to fly west with the night and cross the Atlantic ocean solo from Europe to North America. Marham bring the African bush to life with stories of boar hunts and elephant hunts. Of horse races and airplane flights over desert terrain. And she tells her story beautifully. There are other famous characters here as well. If you’re familiar with Bror Blixen and Denys Finch-Hatton, who appeared in Out of Africa, you’ll find more about both of them in this book.

Markham lived a courageous life in a time when girls were only supposed to wear dresses and play with dolls and flying airplanes was a man’s job. Her account of the early part of her life is fascinating and provides a good example for older girls. I recommend West with the Night for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 14 and older.

Book Review: Sold by Patricia McCormick

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I just finished reading Sold by Patricia McCormick. The story is about a Nepalese girl—13-year-old Lakshmi—who leaves home thinking she will be working to support her desperately poor family. In reality she has been sold into the sexual slave trade and is taken far away from anything that is relevant to her. A fictional tale of a very real event, Sold is an important book that sheds light on how easily girls can be lured away from their families and into situations from which it is difficult for them to escape.

To research her story, McCormick traveled to the countries of India and Nepal, and she interviewed the women living in Calcutta’s red-light district, as well as girls who had been rescued from sexual slavery. As the mother of two daughters, I think it’s important for them to know that cases like these are not isolated, and sexual slavery occurs all over the world, even in the U.S.

Sold has recently been released in paperback, and I believe it would make for a very interesting discussion with a mother-daughter book club. The scenes of Lakshmi’s life before she leaves home are bittersweet as well as enlightening about what life is like for the people who live in the villages of Nepal. And Lakshmi is as innocent as you might expect any girl her age to be. Her voice rings true throughout the book; she’s a very real character.

A non-fiction book I recently read on this topic called Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade and How We Can Fight It by David Batstone makes a great companion to Sold. Batstone tells of organizations in many different countries that are fighting this horrific practice, and gives ideas for what each of us can do to help support them.

Peanut Butter Pie Recipe

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My daughter Catherine can’t get enough of this super simple pie that’s easy to prepare for a mother-daughter book club meeting. Catherine loves just about everything with peanut butter, but she’s not alone. Every time I make this recipe the pie disappears so fast I think I should have made two.

Peanut Butter Pie

  • 1 8 oz. package of cream cheese at room temperature
  • 3 to 4 tblsp. milk
  • 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
  • about 1/2 cup (or slightly more) peanut butter
  • 1 tub (8 oz.)  Cool Whip, thawed

Blend all ingredients together and spoon into a graham cracker crust. Refrigerate. You can purchase a pre-prepared graham cracker crust, but making one is easy too. I make a chocolate graham cracker crust.

Chocolate Graham Cracker Crust

  • 1-1/2 cups chocolate graham cracker crumbs
  • 1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar
  • 6 tblsp. melted butter

Mix all ingredients together and press into a pie tin. It will be loose and crumbly, so refrigerate until cold before spooning the pie filling in. You can bake it at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes, but my family prefers it unbaked.

It’s that simple. I got the recipe from my mom, and she also finds that the pie is gobbled up quickly every time she makes it. Enjoy!

Book Review: A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly

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A Northern LightLast night my daughter Catherine and I met with our mother-daughter daughter book club. We had read A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly. The girls are in eighth grade, and this book addresses more mature subject matters than we’ve addressed before. The girls were ready for it.

Most of us thought A Northern Light was a beautifully written book with well-developed, complicated characters who made difficult choices. It was a great entrée to discuss the limitations put on women by society in the early 1900s, and to talk about how the girls’ choices in life are so different now from when the characters were living or even from when the moms were growing up.

Set in upstate New York, A Northern Light weaves the real-life story of Grace Brown into the fictional story of Mattie Gokey (Mathilda Gauthier). Mattie’s mother has died, exacting a promise from Mattie to take care of her younger sisters and her father and brother. But Mattie’s father is isolated from his family emotionally, as he works non-stop to eke out a living on his farm. Mattie’s brother has left, after a blow-up with his father, and no one expects to see him again. Mattie’s sisters need parenting, but not from an older sister.

And Mattie has dreams of her own. She’s a talented writer who’s been accepted with a scholarship to attend Barnard College in New York. But how will she ever get the money to live while in school or permission from her father to leave? Told in flashbacks between a time when Mattie’s story intersects with Grace Brown’s, a young girl who drowned on a lake at a summer camp in the Adirondacks, and Mattie’s life leading up to that point, the story moves along at a comfortable pace until we ultimately reach the point of Mattie’s biggest decision. Donnelly flawlessly weaves in vivid details of life in the Adirondacks – lumbering camps for logging, isolated farms, summer camps for wealthy tourists, supply boats, and one-room schoolhouses – that transports the reader back to that time in history.

It also deals frankly with several sexual situations. While the passages dealing with these situations were a little awkward to read out loud, they were appropriate for readers eighth grade and older, and they also gave us a chance to discuss some issues that are tough to talk about if you’re not discussing a character in a book. Highly recommended for older mother-daughter book clubs.

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