The Nature of Things

Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems and Drawings of Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein My rating: 5 of 5 stars When my kids were little, among our favorite books to read together was Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. Indeed, one of the best excuses for having kids was reading Silverstein's poetry! Where the Sidewalk Ends was his first collection of poems. He had had a successful career as a songwriter, playwright, and cartoonist before someone suggested to him that he should write poetry for children. He subsequently became most well-known for such work. He wrote The Giving Tree , a favorite of ours, and A Light in the Attic , another collection of poems which my kids and I enjoyed, but we returned often to the nonsense poetry of Where the Sidewalk Ends . I think my kids' favorite poem was Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out . The obstinate little girl ultimately "met an awful fate" because of her refusal to do her assigned chore. ...

I read The Bean Trees in August, 2009. Here is the review that I did at that time for the book. ~~~~~ The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver My rating: 4 of 5 stars Members of the legume family can grow well in very poor soil.  That is because they are sustained by microorganisms called rhizobia that provide nitrogen to the plants through their roots.  The plants and the rhizobia prosper together in a symbiotic relationship - sort of like a family.  And that is the story of Taylor Greer. She grew up in the unpromising soil of hardscrabble Kentucky, but she was sustained and grew strong on the love of her mother.  She grew up with a determination to avoid the teenage pregnancy that sidetracked so many girls that she knew and with an equal determination to get out of Kentucky. When I started reading this book, I immediately recognized Taylor - or Missy, as she was called then.  My own childhood and adolescence and my experience of family was not that different fro...