Harriet M. Welsch is such a gem. I’ve read both of these books, particularly Harriet the Spy, many, many times in my life because I so enjoy spending a little time with her. They both focus on Harriet (11 in Harriet the Spy, 12 in The Long Secret), a sixth-grader at an exclusive private school in New York City. She wants to be a writer someday, and has an insatiable curiosity that she feeds by writing down everything she observes in her notebook. She has […]
Why are we born, if not to help each other?
Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if […]
Nothing more than a conjuror of cheap tricks
How would you live your life if you knew when you were going to die? That’s the high-concept idea behind Chloe Benjamin’s The Immortalists, which opens in 1969 Brooklyn with the four Gold children, aged 7 to 13, visiting a fortune teller who gives each the exact date of his or her death. Three of the four are upset by their predictions, and each reacts differently in the following years. Simon leaves home at 16 and follows his sister to San Francisco where he can […]
“I was brought up to believe that everyone brave is forgiven, but in wartime courage is cheap and clemency out of season.”
I wonder if my lack of December reading progress has more to do with being busy with the holidays, my having already reached me 2018 reading goal or if it is because I have spent the last two weeks either depressed by or disappointed in my book choice. Perhaps it is a combination of the three. Everyone Brave is Forgiven focuses on three main characters who live in England at the onset of World War II. The novel opens with society girl Mary North who volunteers […]