Reading Grown-Up Books

What a Novel Idea.

Bespectacled, wrinkled,
sleepy, prone to grumpiness
and drooling, reading
- meet my doppelganger.

I kid you not: today, I read Green Eggs and Ham aloud 9¼ consecutive times. To break the Sam-I-am monotony, round number 5 started with a faux British accent, but both kids chastised me for “reading different” and demanded we start all over again (hence the ¼ round). By round 9¼, my eyes were threatening to cross permanently, and so I begged off the book.

Of course, the kids took pity... by choosing another book. I lost count of how many times we read The Cat in the Hat with nary a fake accent. And then Horton Hatches the Egg. (I’ve now got a love-hate thing for Dr. Seuss.)

Yes, my kids and I got in some quality bonding time. Yes, children learn through repetition. Yes, cultivating pre-literacy is vital during those early childhood years.

And YES, mommies of repetition-addicted toddlers and preschoolers need to cleanse our reading palates occasionally... even if our only chance to read non-kiddie stuff during the day is while standing over the stove, waiting for the pasta water to boil.

May I share some book suggestions for your next grown-up reading session? Think of the following paragraphs as a virtual book club: reading recommendations and discussion, without snooty literati or bad hors d’oeuvres! (I’d offer more titles, but we only eat pasta once per week.)

Back to Top

HISTORICAL (HYSTERICAL) ROMANCE

Even if your mate is Prince Charming, you need an occasional bodice-ripper because fantasy is fun. Think of it as a mental staycation. Save the Stephen Hawking book for another time; instead, pick up a Regency or Victorian historical romance and indulge that Anglophile itch that 9¼ readings of Jemima Puddle-Duck simply cannot scratch.

Celeste Bradley’s Duke Most Wanted fits the bill. Here, gawky, flat-chested, and feisty Sophie leverages the free services of a London haute couture designer to transform herself into the elegant but still feisty Sofia. (“Free” and “haute couture” in the same sentence: how’s that for fantasy?) Sofia then attempts to woo her best male friend: a self-confessed reprobate who suddenly becomes a duke when his drunken father and brothers perish at the feet of a rampaging elephant.

See why I call it a hysterical romance?

Back to Top

ROMANCE SANS RAMPAGING ELEPHANT

Sad, but true: in my sophomore world literature class, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice wowed the girls and rendered the boys comatose. Who wanted to be as witty and feisty as Elizabeth Bennet? Party with a haughty yet handsome Mr. Darcy? Live in a crib as righteously gnarly as Pemberley? Who had a sibling as unbearable as Lydia Bennet? And a frenemy as obnoxious as Caroline Bingley? We girls, that’s who.

Read (or reread) Pride and Prejudice to appreciate the real standout of the story: Elizabeth’s mom. Deliciously ridiculous, Mrs. Bennet gossips, frets, and schemes in her quest to marry her daughters off to single men in possession of a good fortune. No matter how much our real mothers embarrassed us in public - and at age fifteen, it doesn’t take much - we took comfort in knowing Mrs. Bennet’s escapades trumped them all.

Back to Top

LOVE AMIDST ULTRAVIOLENT ZOMBIE MAYHEM

As feisty as we find Elizabeth Bennet in the original Pride and Prejudice, now imagine her with a samurai sword and throwing stars! Seth Grahame-Smith mixes Jane Austen’s text with random attacks from “unmentionables” (i.e., zombies, not ladies’ underwear), and seasons it liberally with wacky Mystery Science Theatre 3000-style humor to produce Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

England is overrun by a scourge of the undead. The Bennet sisters have mastered the art of deadly combat. Longbourn sports a dojo. Lady Catherine de Bourgh commands a ninja army. And Mr. Darcy is haughty yet handsome - and an expert zombie slayer. Will true love rise above the carnage?

Your husband may lose consciousness when you try discussing Pride and Prejudice, but when you start laughing aloud during your Pride and Prejudice and Zombies reading, he’ll put down the TV remote and scuttle over to check out what’s so bleeping funny. Guaranteed.

Back to Top

CAN UNDERWEAR BE UNCOMFORTABLE? OF CORSET CAN.

Remember your nine-year-old self? Did you inhale Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books? Were you and your friends united in your admiration for feisty, petticoated Laura? Did you wish you could run barefoot on the prairie and eat griddle cakes around a campfire? Did you think Nellie Oleson a blight on the face of this green earth?

Reconnect with your inner nine-year-old: borrow a fourth grader’s copy of Little House on the Prairie and transport yourself to a time when life seemed simpler - stewed jack rabbit with white-flour dumplings was “an especially good supper,” while good little girls found a tin cup and a shiny new penny - how thrilling! - in their stockings on Christmas morning.

And now that you’re a mom, you’ll also be extra thankful that you live in the age of the iPhone and mocha frappuccino, instead of what Laura’s mom Caroline endured: whalebone corsets, starched (!!) nightgowns, shock absorber-less covered wagon travel, and prairie fire battles while armed with nothing but a wet gunny sack. Indomitable? You betcha. Gimme 9¼ rounds of Green Eggs and Ham over frontier malaria any day.

Back to Top

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT POTTERING WITH POISONS THAT CLARIFIES THE MIND

There’s not a corset or petticoat to be had in Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.

Meet eleven year old Flavia de Luce: precocious, incorrigible, clever, feisty, and passionate about chemistry - especially poisons. If she had had the misfortune of Nellie Oleson’s acquaintance, you can be sure she’d spike Nellie’s lipstick with pentadecyclcatechol (poison ivy to us mortals), instead of luring her into a pond of leeches like Miss Ingalls.

When the constabulary arrests Flavia’s widowed father for murder, Flavia leaps into action to hunt down the real murderer. She’s packing a fierce mixture of intelligence and determination, plus enough dryly humorous observations of the world to make you laugh aloud.

Move over Nancy Drew, Ingrid Levin-Hill, and Lulu Dark: Flavia’s in da house. Flavia may be a kid, but The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie most assuredly ain’t a kid’s book. (If you have a preadolescent kid and said, “Ingrid-Lulu-who?” then get thee and thy ’tween to a library pronto: why wouldst thou be a breeder of kid lit cluelessness?)

Back to Top

MY DOG ATE IT (AND THEN SPEWED ALL OVER THE RUG)

By now, you’ve undoubtedly noticed a preponderance of feisty female protagonists in these book recommendations. Lest I get too predictable, let’s close with a final title.

Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain is told from the point of view of a dog. (Yes, you heard right.) Said dog is named Enzo, male... and, well, feisty. (Sue me. I couldn’t resist.)

Enzo recounts the story of a widower dad’s custody battle with his in-laws over his little girl Zoe. The Art of Racing in the Rain is rife with car racing analogies (Enzo, after all, is named after Enzo Ferrari), and chock full of what makes an excellent five-Kleenex read: love, despair, humility, redemption, joy, loyalty, and hope.

Despite being a dog - or perhaps because he is a dog - Enzo breathes humor and humanity. Reading this book will also prevent you from drop-kicking your own Fido out the back door after he’s barfed on the living room rug for the second time this week. Fido - and your kids, who love him despite the lingering odor - will thank you, even if the rug doesn’t.

Happy reading!

(All book cover images herein constitute brazen copyright infringement. Please keep me out of jail by buying a book or two; then my lawyer can argue that I gave the authors and their publishers free advertising.)

*** Stay tuned for the October 15 blog: "Top 10 Clues You’re Pregnant Before Receipt of Official Medical Confirmation: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Blood Test." ***

Back to Top

Quiz: Too Pooped to Peep

Is It Possible to Get Tired of Sleeping?

What mom bloggers look like
at day's end (also the
quality of our vision).

Here’s a simple quiz to rate your level of parenthood-related exhaustion. Are you too pooped to peep?

1. When do you write and mail your Christmas greetings?

A. By Thanksgiving, because aside from weekends in Vegas, you’ve got plenty of quiet, spare time.
B. By Christmas, because you like to be punctual.
C. By Memorial Day the following year... if you’re lucky.

2. How does your kitchen floor look?

A. Like the gleaming, spotless, unscathed area of flooring it should be.
B. Like the “ten-second rule” would truly work if you didn’t squint too much.
C. Like an acceptable spot for a nap, because it’s a horizontal surface and you’ll still be in the middle of it all.

3. How do you react to the sight of your partner in a swimsuit?

A. Hubba hubba!
B. Hubba hubba... but you’ll take a rain check till after you finish mopping the floor and writing the Christmas cards.
C. You almost call the police because there’s a stranger in the - oh, wait. Never mind.

4. What is your opinion of sleep?

A. It’s an activity you take for granted because you get at least nine blissful hours of it every night.
B. It’s an activity to be savored to the fullest, like sipping your way through an uncommon bottle of 2006 Hanzell Pinot Noir.
C. It’s an activity you daydream about the way other people daydream about Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lopez, chocolate, power, money, and pinot noir - combined.

Back to Top

5. The idea of having six children in almost as many years sounds...

A. Like an adventure of a lifetime! You can’t wait to try it!
B. Intriguing in an abstract way.
C. Terrifying any way you look at it.

6. How go your conversational gambits?

A. Swimmingly; full of polysyllabic words, innuendo, logic, poetry, and wit.
B. Rationally, if between the hours of 9:00 am and 3:00 pm.
C. In incomplete, monosyllabic sentences no matter the time: e.g., “No!” “Stop!” “What?” and “Huh?”

A test of tiredness: how
heavy is the remote control?

7. Channel surfing is...

A. A home entertainment right.
B. Something the kids do while you frantically throw dinner together.
C. A mighty physical effort.

8. You wear...

A. The latest designer fashions because you have the time, money, and energy to devote to haute couture (or a reasonable facsimile thereof).
B. The comfortable basics: mix-and-match, elastic-waisted, stain resistant, and machine washable.
C. Your clothes inside out. And backwards. And by 10:00 a.m., adorned with spit-up, glue, or mustard - or some conglomeration thereof.

Back to Top

9. You know you’re alive because...

A. You feel like bursting spontaneously into song.
B. You feel like bursting spontaneously into applause, especially when your kid puts his plate in the sink - without your asking!

C. You feel like bursting into spontaneous combustion, before you realize that it’s probably a perimenopausal hot flash.

10. Counting to ten is...

A. Something you do without thought in five different languages (one language for each country you’ve vacationed in during the last five years).
B. Something you do on a daily basis to avoid losing your temper.
C. Something that you vaguely recall doing once upon a time with ease, but can’t seem to manage now without the aid of coffee and a counting picture book.

SCORING

How’d you do? If you answered...

Mostly As - You have no children. Or you have children and a live-in nanny (or two), a maid, and a personal assistant, and your name is Angelina Jolie. Or you have children all over age 35 and off the payroll.

Mostly Bs - You are in admirable control of your life. Most of us moms aspire to your level, and many of us will reach it once our children graduate from college.

Mostly Cs - Congratulations! You ARE officially too pooped to peep. Welcome to the Exhausted Moms’ Club, where coffee is required and pinot noir is wishful thinking. You’re already paying your dues in more ways than one. No secret handshake is required; we can spare neither the energy nor the hands.

*** Stay tuned for the September 30 blog: "Reading Grown-Up Books: What a Novel Idea." ***

Back to Top