I'm not one of those parents to go around boasting about my technique and how wonderful my daughter is. Like all kids, she's only wonderful some of the time and the jury is definitely still out on how much my parenting technique contributes to this. I do have opinions though based on what's worked for me but I"m not going to share those here either. You need to make up your own mind as a parent. With this little disclaimer in place, please don't take my review of this book as a full-fledged endorsement of any one parenting style or a condemnation of any other. Whew.
I really like Bringing Up Bebe for the simple reason that, no matter the specific parenting topic being discussed the book reminded me I don't have to be a neurotic mother to raise a happy, well-adjusted child. French parenting is all about finding the calmer route to parenting, maintaining a sense of self from within that mommy role, and really striving toward building a child's confidence and sense of self. It was refreshing to read about simple ways to get to these goals which mostly made a lot of sense to me.
As a mom with a 3 1/2 year-old and another baby on the way in a few months, the first part of this book was a great refresher into the new baby parenting challenges which I think I've blocked from memory. I especially liked the French attitude of getting to know your child even in infancy - talking to them from day 1, pausing to really listen and understand their needs, etc. Of course, my mind was continually blown away by the fact that French children sleep through the night very quickly (on average) and don't snack continually throughout the day. And, France's state programs to support child care and provide reasonable insurance to pregnant women is staggeringly better than anything dreamed up in the U.S. But, I definitely could never go all French when parenting if I suddenly needed to.
What's great about Bebe is that it isn't a parenting manual. You're not being told to do anything. It's more of an anthropological review of French parenting with one women reacting and implementing aspects of the style then sharing her own impressions. It's very passive so there's no pressure to alter your parenting style but rather just an opportunity to enjoy reading a parenting book (for once.) The highlights for me where the focus on strengthening and encouraging autonomy in children - a value I rank highly in general - as well as the calmer approach to parenting which I'm always reminding myself to attempt.
So, recommending this read is a little difficult. It's really interesting and well-written for any mom (or dad) looking to gain some insight into parenting techniques outside of our own little bubble, but it's not an instruction manual and you won't agree with everything that's presented in here. It's best read as a memoir consisting of a well-researched recollection of a woman's entry into motherhood while living abroad. I do think it's a more enjoyable read once you've already had a child so you can reflect on the parenting you've done so far and connect more with the story in general. I really like that it has helped me starting thinking ahead as well to when I'll be parenting a newborn once again.
Needing a break from all my 2013 rereads, I decided to revisit the world of Percy Jackson and start Riordan's second series about the demigods that live among us. This series, set in the same world, introduces us to a whole other set of demigods - those sired from the gods while in their Roman incarnation. Therefore we meet Jason who is the son of Jupiter rather than Zeus. Riordan does a good job of explaining how the gods are all the same but were given different names to suit different aspects of themselves and how the gods can exist in multiple forms at once.
Jason has no memory of his childhood and becomes conscious on a bus heading toward the Grand Canyon. He's a teenager. His two close friends, Piper and Leo, know who he is and have memories of him, but Jason is clueless. He's given about an hour to ponder all he's forgotten before the whole busload of children are attacked by monsters. It's a rough introduction for Jason, Leo, and Piper, who all turn out to be demigods, into the world of mythology. They end up at Camp Halfblood and meet Annabeth. She's pretty absent from this book since she's on her own mission to find Percy who's strangely gone missing.
A new prophecy is revealed foretelling the end of world and how seven demigods will be chosen to work together to prevent it. With three assembled already, Jason, Leo, and Piper set off on a quest to rescue Hera, who has been kidnapped by giants. The whole plot of the series unfolds as they quest to find Hera who of course is in California, the seat of all evil for Riordan (not really sure why,) things are looking pretty interesting for the rest of the books. What's different about this series already is the human connection. In Percy's series, you felt that everyone was connected through a common cause automatically, but for Jason's story line, it's not that easy. Not only are the demigods and gods going to have to work together (and the gods hate that,) but two groups of kids who didn't even know each other existed will have to figure out how to team up successfully, overcoming centuries of inherent animosity. It sounds like it's going to be interesting.
Conflicting with the interesting plot though are the new characters. I'm not sure I like them all. There's almost too much insecurity between them which I assume will improve, but for now. Jason is insecure because of his lack of memory, Piper just a teenage girl who second-guesses a little too much, and Leo has issues in his past keeping him doubt of his abilities. I know they'll grow because that's what Riordan characters do, but it's almost like they started at more of a deficit than I expected.
I'm not dying to get into the second book in this series the way I was with Percy's books, but I will eventually read it These books are a fun break from heavier reads and I really do like the world Riordan has created for them. It's fun YA fiction that features an ensemble cast rather than a single strong female battling her way through dystopia, and that's a nice change too.
2013 Reread #9
This book really epitomizes the word, "timeless." It's always going to feel relevant somehow regardless of the time period it actually takes place in, regardless of all the news media surrounding the Catholic clergy into today's media. These characters will always just blow me away. Their lives will never stop being interesting. I still welled up with tears at the very end.
If you haven't read this book at some point in your life then you're truly missing out. It belongs on that Must Read list you keep in the back of your mind. I initially read this book in high school, I believe, and this is the first time I've picked it back up. I actually remembered a lot of the story whether from the book making an impression or the movie, I'm not sure. I even knew a girl in college who was named after Meggie. It's a family saga, following characters through three generations. Ultimately, it's the few female characters who help us witness the world and learn about the family - their characters are the most developed - although you really do feel like you know this whole family inside and out as the generations go by. The family starts off in New Zealand and eventually moves to Australia. They essentially live in various stages of wealth and work coming to place a high emotional value on the land they maintain - it's really what they build a relationship with more so than people. Lots of things happen although the tragic moments always feel more intense than the happy ones as if the real passion lies in coming out of adversity or just staying strong through it. It's a book about life although I wouldn't call it typical.
Stories that fully develop a reality by focusing on a small amount of people in a very specific location draw a reader into the world and make you as much a character as the characters themselves. Their lives wouldn't go on if you weren't reading them. All of their passions and fears, hardships and love wouldn't be felt if you weren't feeling them alongside them. It gives a book presence and makes it really sink in as you read. I know The Thorn Birds is just such a book. I was reading it in my doctor's office recently and both one of the doctors and another patient saw the book and had that excited, "that is such a great book," type of reaction to it. We all shared a knowing smile and went about our way, but it was a connection made from a story and that's powerful stuff.
I don't typically get into books about food. Being told by someone else what I should or should not eat has always been somewhat of a sore point for me. I know how to be healthy and I know what indulgences I'm not interested in living without and that works for me. Thankfully, this book doesn't come close to this approach to food; it goes in a completely different direction and it totally blew my mind.
Cooked doesn't talk about what to eat or really how to eat, but rather how eating and preparing food has contributed to our evolution, how things have changes over the time inside and outside the kitchen, and what consequences we face in how we process food. Divided into four parts, Pollan uses the four elements to break all this down.
We start with fire and the art of BBQ but not just BBQ as a cuisine, whole hog BBQ. Pollan talks about the art of cooking the entire animal and how the discovery of fire complete changed the human diet. He talks about how sacred fire has been historically - initially seen as an actual gift from the gods.
Water is next and with it the art of cooking in the kitchen. Pollan primarily focuses on the one-pot meal learning how to cook and mix flavors from an actual chef. He uses this section to talk about the domestication of cooking - the shift from "man's" fire pit outside to the "woman's" indoor stove. Traditional roles in the home as they relate to preparing food are discussed along with corporations' desire to make kitchen life easier for women by selling partially (or fully) prepared foods to, "save time." He makes the point, which I found very interesting, that home cooking today isn't actually cooking from scratch, which is what the term means in our heads. It's like saying a bowl of pasta using a jarred marina is a homemade meal when actually half of it was prepared in a factory.
Baking bread encompasses the element of air in the third section. Pollan talks about yeast here and nurturing the culture for break almost like a pet. Changes in how we view the nutritional value of bread, how we've begun putting stripped-out nutrients back into white bread to make it more marketable to today's health-conscious consume is a big focus. I found it most interesting that baking sourdough bread - which has the least nutritional value as far as ingredients go - is described most seriously as an art form.
Last, but not least, is earth. This ends up being a broad topic as far as food goes with the common factor in all being bacteria. Pollan uses pickling cheese-making, and beer-brewing to talk about fermentation and how good bacteria contributes to food preparation. He also uses this section to talk about how pasteurization and over-processing has robbed us of access to this good bacterial. Humanity's fear of the bad bacteria has led to us removing it all from our food and now our guts aren't as healthy as they used to be.
No point Pollan makes throughout the book is heavy-handed which I appreciate and they all really made sense. He never calls for any radical changes to the world of food, but rather takes the time to incorporate technique and history into how common items are prepared. I really liked everything he had to say and learned a lot through Pollan's accessible narrative style. I've already been telling all my friends about this book, so I definitely recommend it across the board.
