Stuff As Dreams Are Made On…

This is one that I never would’ve known about had it not been for Debi, and I’m so glad that she told me about it. It’s made it’s way around the Steven’s household and I got to read it too during my stay with them. The story centers around a young boy and his toys during World War II. While his father is off to war, a young boy is left to his imagination with his toys, playing with his army men, saving his pennies in his piggy bank, and sleeping with the safety of his teddy bear, Max. But one night he is kidnapped by the boogeyman from his bed and sucked into a world where forgotten and abandoned toys take on a life of their own. In an effort to save the boy, his toys leave the safety of his room to save the young boy from the boogeyman traveling to the boogeyman’s world where they take on a life that they never had before….but it is a life of danger.

Sounds juvenile? It’s not at all. This is one of the best graphic novels that I’ve read. Really. It reminded me in some ways of Fables just in it’s fantastic elements and the contrast of childlike innocence often contrasted with horrendous, violent things like war and bloodshed. The characterization of the toys was top notch with each being fully developed quickly. And the art was just to die for. This is some of the best art that I’ve ever seen in a graphic novel. Take a look:

Beautiful, isn’t it? And it’s one that I think can be enjoyed by everyone. In fact, it was Debi’s 7 year old son, Max that really convinced me that I had to read it when he was talking about it at family book club night. He had just read it. I think each age group would really get something different out of this one. I really can’t wait for volume two in this series to come out now!

My first Hoffman. And what a special book this was. I don’t know what I expected really from this book, but it wasn’t this. I went into this book fairly blind, not knowing very much about the plot. But it spoke to me so much from the opening line:

“I once believed that life was a gift”

How can you not just want to continue reading from there? Hoffman takes us on a journey with a young girl named Green, named so because of her ability to grow anything as is witnessed by her beautiful vegetable gardens. The gardens that she grows are what sustains her family. And it is during a trip to town to sell their vegetables that an explosion occurs destroying the town and everyone in it, leaving Green, who stayed home and orphan. An orphan who is angry at the world, scared and alone. But she quickly transforms herself from a vulnerable, withdrawn little girl into an unapproachable being tattooed with crows and thorns. She doesn’t want to be hurt by the world again. But can she ever learn to embrace what beauty is left in the world?

This book just roused up every emotion in me that I love in just 128 pages. It was literally a perfect book. There were, without a doubt, moments of complete sadness, but Hoffman replaced them with beauty. Even dark images of beauty as Green reinvents herself by chopping off her hair and inking her body. Building an armor out of the thorns of the earth. There’s so little I can talk about with this story with it being so short as far as the plot goes, but this is the sort of book that if it were read with a book club it could be discussed for ages despite it’s short length.

And perhaps what thrilled me more than anything is learning that there is a sequel to this book available now called Green Witch which was just released this year. I can’t wait to read that one. I just can’t wait to read more Hoffman. I think my next may be The Ice Queen while I wait for Green Witch to come in stock somewhere. Regardless of what I read, I think I’m a Hoffman fan after this one. I can’t imagine being too disappointed by her other stuff if it’s even half as good as this one.

After my trip to New York last week, I was expecting to come back to some kind of vegetable utopia. Well not quite, but I did have a few little surprises that made my day. Like these black eyed peas!! They’ve just grown like crazy in the last week and they have such a beautiful flower. When I left, I didn’t have any bean pods on the plants yet. Now they’re all over! So we’ll be eating fresh black eyes soon.

I also had a nice sized little gretel eggplant waiting for me to pick when I got home. I just love these things so much. But I’m definitely going to have to wait until I have more than one before I cook them. They only get to be about 4 inches long.

I think my precious little okra plant is about done I might chop him down today. The okra that it’s producing now are really tough. And it’s also producing these little tiny baby okra that are sprouting from the bottom of the plant now!! My mom forgot to harvest them while I was gone so I came back to okra that were literally over a foot tall!! I’ve never seen anything like it!!! But yeah, you can see how gangly it’s looking now.

In other news, the pepper plants are really looking fantastic. They’re a beautiful green color with tons of flowers, but I’m afraid it’s still just too hot for them to produces. But our agriculturist says to leave them in the ground and they’ll produce well in the fall months. The sunflowers are all about to bloom and they are just going to be quite a sight!! The smaller sunflowers that I planted are forming several heads per plant. I just can’t wait to see these.

And yesterday I planted a new fruit tree that will be named Max I don’t even know what kind of tree it will be, but I’m really excited about it. I’m thinking either a peach, an apricot or an angelcot. It’s going to be named Max because Debi’s little son Max had a collection of fruit seeds that he had dried out to plant and he gave me one to plant down in New Orleans. He even picked out which seed he wanted me to plant. So I told him I’d name the tree after him. This is assuming that it sprouts :p I’ll send him some picture updates too!!

Saturday Farmer’s Market is a wonderful weekly meme all about gardening and living sustainably that’s hosted weekly by Heather at Capricious Reader.

This past week, I went to visit one of the most amazing families in the world

I went up to visit my dear friend, Debi in New York and hung out with her and her wonderful husband Rich and her beautiful children Annie, Gray and Max. I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun we had!! We visited the gorgeous Lake Ontario

Little boys played in the water

While brother and sister danced along with the rolling waves

I collected river rocks along the shore

Later that night, we hit up the first of MANY bookstores. I bought so many books while I was there that I had to mail them home to me. So no bad bloggers post until they arrive. On day two, we traveled up to Canada to see Niagara Falls. It was breathtaking.

After spending the day in the town of Niagara, we stumbled upon this gorgeous garden on the walk back to the car.

And I was graced with this beautiful sight before leaving Niagara

We also rode this incredible cable car that went over this giant whirlpool! It looks much scarier than it actually was. It was really quite peaceful on there.

On day three, we went to this beautiful little nature park right by Debi’s house and fed birds out of our hands. We also saw deer there which just took my breath away.

One of the things that I loved so much about New York is all of the gorgeous trees and plants and flowers. You can just pick apples off trees and eat them anywhere! Even in Debi’s backyard

I can’t thank these guys enough for having me. This right here is the picture of love.

And this is one of the best friends I’ll ever have.

Oh Michael Perry, how you make me want to live on a farm and have chillins’. That about sums Coop up for me, really and I could just leave it at that, but I won’t. What a wonderful book this was, and what a surprise it was at that.

Here’s what I was expecting: Guy writing about living sustainably, growing his own food, living off the land, raising chickens, plowing the land, maybe repairing a tractor or two…you know, farm stuff. Sort of like an Animal, Vegetable, Miracle but written by Michael Perry instead of Barbara Kingsolver. And I would’ve been perfectly happy with that to be honest.

Here’s what I got instead: Guy writing about his experiences of living in his father’s shadow. Being a father and a husband and what those relationships mean to him. What he cherishes in each of those relationships. His relationship with the land around him and the beauty that surrounds him. His relationship with the animals that sustain him and the knowledge he gains in raising them. His relationship with the food he plants and harvests. The tools and the trade and the sweat and the labor and the experience- the love, the joy, the trials, the tribulations of living on a farm. His own farm with his own family and his own community, shadowed by his cumulative life experiences.

It really turned out to be quite a beautiful book. There were moments that were simply meditative. That made me just sit back and almost join him as the sun set on his farm and be thankful for what I too have in my life. And there were moments that made me laugh aloud. Moments that made me share his sorrow too.

What Coop is, is more of a memoir than a book of essays. And I think I went into it expecting more of an essay type book. But I’m glad with what I got. It’s a slow moving book, but it’s a nice type of slow. This is the first selection for Andi’s new Bookclub Sandwich. Can’t wait to see what the next selection is

Hey everyone! Just a quick note to let you all know that I’m off to see my dear friend Debi and her family for a week in New York!!! I’ll be returning on Friday and until then, this blog will be pretty quite. I’m leaving my computer at home and going unplugged for the week! Well, of course I’ll still have my iphone with twitter access, google reader access, email access and tumblr posting access…but hey, it’s semi unplugged :p In the meantime, I have a post scheduled to go up on Monday for my review of Coop by Michael Perry. And if you want some more reading in the meantime, you can always check out my gardening post from yesterday or my review of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake which I absolutely adored!!! See you in a week!!!

I’m getting my Saturday Farmer’s Market post up early this week because I plan on spending most of tomorrow packing and getting ready for my trip up to New York to see Debi!!!! And her beautiful garden I’ll be up there all week. Well until Friday at least. Hopefully, I’ll come back to my garden full of all kind of surprises for me! We’ll see! Saturday Farmer’s Market is hosted by Heather. Here’s how my garden is looking at the moment (click on any picture to make it bigger to see the full photo):

1. I have another little eggplant growing! These little eggplant are so freaking delicious. I found out that they’re called “Gretel Eggplant. They only grow to be about 3-4 inches long and grow in bunches. Last weekend I sliced about three of them in half, drizzled some olive oil on them and baked them with just some salt, pepper and parmesan cheese on them. DELICIOUS!! OMG I could’ve eaten thirty of them! Three were totally just an appetizer.

2. Here’s a whole little cluster of the gretel eggplant flowers that I’m hoping will turn into eggplant. They’re starting to do really well and producing well. I think they like this heat. I just wish they got bigger! The taste of these little guys is the best eggplant I’ve ever tasted.

3. My mint is doing so so so well. As mint always does. I just love the smell of it and I’ve had the best sweet iced tea with mint and lemon all summer long. I constantly have a gallon pitcher of it in the fridge! It’s been my favorite drink this summer. I found a recipe online for a mint syrup that I really want to make with this as well.

4. My okra has been by far the best producer in the garden. I think it’s getting to be the end of it’s time. We have SO SO much of it. We made a huge casserole dish of baked okra last weekend and it looks like we didn’t even touch what we’ve frozen so far. And it just keeps producing like crazy. But they’re starting to get more tough now. Might be time to cut this beautiful plant down soon I’ll miss my lovely okra plant I’ll have a new one next year though!!

5. On the other hand, my black eyed peas are just starting! I’m just starting to see flowers all over my plants. Here’s a blossom about to open. I have blossoms all over the place, so I think we’ll be eating black eyed peas in our near future…yum!! I’ve never had them fresh out of the garden. I’m excited!! I’ve always eaten them dehydrated and then boiled.

6. My bell pepper is starting to do fantastic! All kinds of flowers on my plants and I have high hopes for these. Unlike the usual flowers that appear and then just fall off, these flowers have thick stems attached to them…which usually means that the pepper will hang on and not fall off of the plant. Maybe I’ll FINALLY get a couple of bell peppers!!!

7. Oh my lovely coneflower. I’ve just fallen in love with this little plant. I’m so glad that I bought it. But look at it’s poor leaves That shows you how hot it’s been here!! It’s getting burned by the sun!!! The sun is just burning it to death. At least it’s still putting out these gorgeous flowers with the really cool cones in the middle

8. My duranta sapphire showers tree that I bought a few weeks ago is still doing fantastic. I just love this tree so much. It’s so beautiful with it’s purple blossoms that smell of rich, warm vanilla and the bright yellow balls that it produces. Just such a pretty ornamental tree. I love it! I can’t wait until next spring to see all of the bees buzzing around it.

9. This cracked me up. A neighboring strawberry plant stretched out and planted itself in my parsley!!! So I’m letting it. Eventually I’ll dig it up and transplant it and have a brand new strawberry plant which is pretty cool. Love how they do that. But sure enough, it planted itself, roots and all!!

10. This is a sunflower flower head in formation. This is one of the mammoth plants, so I’m guessing it’s at about half of it’s adult height right now, but I think it’s so cool to watch the flower head form. The smaller sunflowers have almost fully formed flower heads now and I can see the full flower ready to start opening up soon.

11. Here’s a picture of the sunflower garden! Isn’t it awesome??? I just can’t wait to see this with all of the flowers open! It’s really going to be quite a breathtaking sight I think. Oh I just can’t wait!!!

12. And finally, here’s my first fall tomato plant I planted some celebrity tomato seeds and just when I was about to give up on them coming up, one of the four that I planted sprouted!!! It’ll go in the ground in about three weeks. And hopefully in October I’ll have a fall round of tomatoes! We can grow tomatoes down in Louisiana all the way through December. Pretty cool, huh?

I want to start this review by saying that I think this is one of the worst covers for a book ever. Not that it’s a particularly horrid cover, but it doesn’t represent the book itself in the least bit. DON’T judge this book by it’s cover. Unless you see the cover and think to yourself “wow, that book looks incredible”…then yes, you can judge it by it’s cover, because this book is incredible. When I look at the cover, I picture a light, happy go lucky book with maybe a touch of romance. Yes, there is maybe a touch of romance in this book, but it is far from light and happy go lucky. The only thing that I can maybe see that they were trying to do with this cover is to juxtapose the outside from the inside. What’s shown to the world versus what’s actually there. The sadness of lemon cake…two things that don’t normally go together. But I still think this cover targets wrong.

Rose is a young girl, just nine years old, when she tastes her mother’s sadness for the first time. Her mother bakes her a lemon cake for her birthday and when she takes a bite of it, she is overwhelmed with all of the sadness and longing that her mother, who plays the part of a happy woman with no cares, feels. This is the beginning of a life of voyeurism into the lives of others’ feelings through the food that they prepare. She tastes the thoughts of chefs, the farmers, the factory workers, the family members who create her food all while living with a family that is far from without it’s own problems.

Rose’s father is deathly afraid of hospitals, unable to enter them even during the birth of his own children. As we learn throughout family dinners, her mother plays the role of a happily married woman who must wear a smile while the feelings within her bring Rose to ultimate breakdowns at times. Rose’s brother, Joseph is perhaps the most troubled of them all, a boy that is near genius, but becoming more of a recluse. His only friend George has become somewhat of an idol to Rose, but once he goes off to college, Joseph begins to disappear more and more….both metaphorically and physically.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is written so beautifully and it’s magical realism is SO real at times that it’s fantastical elements seem effortless. Bender’s words are truly haunting at certain moments, causing my heart to speed up. Never scary…never thrilling…just haunting. And then there are scenes that are just filled with beauty. A tragic beauty, a touching beauty, a nostalgic beauty. She’s just able to capture moments so well. Able to capture the human psyche so well.

You know, I’ve never actually read Jeffery Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides, but the movie that Sofia Coppola directed is one of my all time favorites. And I was reminded more than once of the feel of that movie while reading this book. It felt like that. That sort of haunting, narrative, foreboding, melancholic feel. And that’s something that I love in any art medium.

The other thing that I cherished in this book was the relationships. None of them were perfect in the least bit, but there was so much love there. Love that wasn’t perfect. And what love is? So many books try to create perfect love and that’s not real. Rose is able to see that her mother has favoritism towards her brother Joseph, but that doesn’t lessen her love for Rose. She also sees how her love for Rose is real, though it’s not always perfect. Rose’s parents’ marriage has major faults, but it’s steeped in ultimate love. I remember one quote where Rose’s mother tells her “I do love him”. And I thought that was one of the most raw quotes in it’s context. The relationship between Rose and her brother! Oh god, I could talk about her and Joseph forever but there’s too much to give away. Let me just say that there are scenes towards the end that made me cry cry cry. It’s not the best of relationships, that sibling relationship because Joseph has a hard time finding his place in our world. But there is love there. An odd love. And the relationship between Rose and Joseph’s friend, George was one that took me by surprise but truly touched me.

Bottom line, this will be one of my favorite books of the year and one that I will not soon forget. Aimee Bender will also be going on my “must read” list for now on. I’m so happy that I picked this one up despite knowing nearly nothing about it. And I think that’s a fantastic way to go into this book really. Not knowing much about it. And despite what I’ve told you in this review, trust me…you don’t know much about it. Pick it up and discover it for yourself.

Yep…it’s bad this week. The shelves are starting to overflow again, so I thought it was just about time that I went ahead and got the books listed. The next bad bloggers post will likely be pretty bad too because it will be after a week long trip to visit with Debi in New York!!! I have a feeling that I may have to end up mailing a box of books home with all of the book shopping we’ll probably be doing :p But we’ll save that for next time. Let’s just deal with the 14 books at hand:

1. Me and the Pumpkin Queen by Marlane Kennedy – I asked Becky, the queen of book recommendations AND middle grade lit for some recommendations of middle grade books featuring gardening after reading Seed Folks. This was one of the books that she recommended! I’m so excited about reading all of them. Point to Becky! (Paperback Swap)

2. Bleak House by Charles Dickens – I finally have my very own copy of Bleak House! And oh it is so very very gorgeous!! Yeah, when it comes to classics, I like to have really nice editions. I don’t like the cheap, mass market paperbacks. So I bought this fancy Nonesuch Dickens edition. It’s a facsimile copy of the original, cloth bound with a leather spine. It has all of the original illustrations and everything. And a ribbon bookmark. Just GORGEOUS! Oh, and Darla D. made me really want to read this one back in the day, so she gets a point for this (Bought it)

3. When Nietzsche Wept by Irvin Yalom – After reading Love’s Executioner, I wanted to get my hands on as much Yalom as possible. This is a novel that he wrote in which a protege of Freud’s conducts therapy with Nietzsche. Interesting, no? (Paperback Swap)

4. Love by Toni Morrison - I’m in love with this cover! I think it’s just so gorgeous. I’m still quite intimidated by Ms. Morrison, but Ana (Nymeth) just keeps convincing me that I simply must read her. And she’s done the same thing once again with Love. Point to Ana. (Paperback Swap)

5. Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl - This is one of the classic texts of psychology, but from everything I’ve heard, it’s also quite a moving and wonderful little book. I’ve been meaning to read it for years, but after Trish’s recent review, I just had to have it now. So a point goes to Trish! (Paperback Swap)

6. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender – Ok…so I’m actually almost finished reading this one right now and guys, this book is incredible!!! I’ll tell you all about it in the review. Unless the ending is complete crap, I’m really going to love this one. And Heather is totally getting a huge point (and a huge thank you for bringing it to my attention) for this one even though she can’t make up her mind on whether or not she hates it or loves it :p (Bought it)

7. Foiled by Jane Yolen – My first ever Jane Yolen book!! Every time I go to a bookstore, the first section I go to is the graphic novel section. And I saw this purely by chance! It looked really interesting and knowing that Debi’s son was taking fencing lessons (the main character in this book fences) I decided to pick it up. I loved it! My review of it is here. (Bought it)

8. Market Day by James Sturm – This was another impulse buy from the graphic novel section! It looks completely incredible!! I don’t really know anything about it yet, so this is all you get for now :p (Bought it)

9. White Teeth by Zadie Smith – Another point for Ana. I’ve pondered reading this one for awhile now, but it wasn’t until her recent review of it that I actually went ahead and ordered it. (Paperback Swap)

10. Squashed by Joan Bauer – This is the second garden book that Becky recommended to me! I have a feeling that I’m going to want to grow pumpkins next year after reading this one AND The Pumpkin Queen :p Another point for Becky. (Paperback Swap)

11. Shadow Man by Cody McFadyen – Every now and then I like to read a good thriller. And I haven’t read one in ages. Well Debi recently read this one and she made it sound so damn good that I just felt like I had to read it too! So I sent for it on Paperback Swap! Point for Debi. (Paperback Swap)

12. Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher – Hmmm….I don’t even remember what this one is about or who to blame for it :/ Is it an LGBT book? I really don’t remember. I just know it’s been on my wishlist for a long time and my turn finally came up on PBS. Sad when you start getting books in the mail and you don’t even remember anything about them :/ (Paperback Swap)

13. Mandy by Julie Edwards – And this is the final book that I ordered that Becky recommended to me! This was her favorite of the bunch and for that reason, I can’t wait to read it!! This is actually written by Julie Andrews. Point to Becky. (Paperback Swap)

14. A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You by Amy Tan – Just because you can never have enough Amy Tan short stories. (Paperback Swap)

Believe it or not, this is my FIRST experience with Jane Yolen! You know, I’ve probably read some of her short stories here and there, but I’ve never read a longer work of hers. Foiled is a graphic novel and it’s one that I found rather odd at first. Really, I found it odd right up to the end where it really gets odd, but in a weird way, perfectly makes sense. But don’t let MY nonsense here deter you from this one :p It’s quite good.

Foiled is the story of a young girl named Aliera who has grown up with fencing as her hobby. Unable to fit in anywhere and with anyone, fencing has become her identity, her strength and her support along with her cousin who she plays role playing games with. Her eccentric mother who can’t pass up a bargain sale has bought her a new foil at a garage sale and though Aliera likes the way she fights with it, she hates the jewel that’s on it’s handle. But she’s become accustomed to hand me downs that aren’t perfect.

Another thing that isn’t perfect in her life is her social existence. Aliera doesn’t have any friends aside from her cousin and to say she has social anxiety is an understatement. When a new boy arrives at school unexpectedly with looks to kill Aliera’s hormones seem to kick into high gear. And lucky her gets assigned as his lab partner. Everything is up in the air here as a fantastical mystery unfolds taking us to places where things are not quite what they seem.

I see now why people enjoy Jane Yolen so much. She writes relateable stories that fully entertain and she puts fantastic spins on age old stories. Aliera was such a wonderful character and was developed so well in just these short 160 pages. My one complaint about the book would maybe be that I wish the other characters would’ve been developed a bit more too. But there really aren’t that many secondary characters. The ending just felt quite rushed. I would’ve liked to see things fleshed out more.

But overall I really enjoyed this one. It’s hard to talk about it too much without giving the whole book away. I learned a lot about fencing in this one too which is really neat!! Aliera herself is a fantastic fencer, and really just an awesome person despite what she thinks of herself. She’s colorblind and Yolen with the help of illustrator Mike Cavallaro portrays most of the book in black and white to show this until the later chapters.

I’d recommend this one for young and old! Its one of those books that you could buy for the whole family and just pass it around to everyone. Gladly putting this one on the keeper shelves.