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Dear Book Lovers, Welcome! I am delighted that you have found The Through the Looking Glass blog. For over twenty years I reviewed children's literature titles for my online journal, which came out six times a year. Every book review written for that publication can be found on the Through the Looking Glass website (the link is below). I am now moving in a different direction, though the columns that I write are still book-centric. Instead of writing reviews, I'm offering you columns on topics that have been inspired by wonderful books that I have read. I tell you about the books in question, and describe how they have have impacted me. This may sound peculiar to some of you, but the books that I tend to choose are ones that resonate with me on some level. Therefore, when I read the last page and close the covers, I am not quite the same person that I was when first I started reading the book. The shift in my perspective might be miniscule, but it is still there. The books I am looking are both about adult and children's titles. Some of the children's titles will appeal to adults, while others will not. Some of the adult titles will appeal to younger readers, particularly those who are eager to expand their horizons.
Showing posts with label powerful story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label powerful story. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 5, 2022

Times of hardship with a review of Ida B... and her plans to Maximize fun, avoid disaster and (Possibly) save the world

There is no doubt that all of us have been touched by this wretched pandemic. Some of us have been sick, some have lost loved ones, and we have all lived with this appalling cloud of fear, worry, and even anger hanging over us. How on earth do we cope with something like this? How do our children cope with all these changes, and losses, and uncertainty?
   Today I bring you a book in which you will meet a girl whose perfect, happy life very suddenly becomes miserably imperfect. The story is touching and inspiring. It will make you laugh and cry. Though this is a book for children, I think that adults will enjoy it as well. Read it to a child, read it for yourself. Just read it. 

Ida B... and her plans to Maximize fun, avoid disaster and (Possibly) save the world 
Katherine Hannigan
Fiction
For ages 9 and up
HarperCollins, 2011, 978-0060730260
Ida B is an extremely happy nine-year-old. Her parents have the good sense not to send her to a school which she hates. Instead, she is homeschooled and she loves it. She loves living on the farm with her Mama and her Daddy, and she loves her conversations with the apple trees in the orchard, and her talks with the burbling stream. She loves the games that she plays with herself, and the walks that she takes with Daddy in the evenings. Everything is "righter than right."
   Then one day the apple trees warn her that hard times are coming. Ida does not want to believe them. What could possibly go wrong with her perfect life? What happens is that Mama gets cancer and everything changes. First of all Mama is sick all the time and so she cannot give Ida B the attention she is used to having. Then Daddy has to sell some of their land to pay for Mama's medical bills. Ida B is appalled. How can Daddy sell some of their beloved orchard and let strangers cut down some of her trees? Then, to top it off, Daddy tells her that she has to go to school, neither he nor Mama are in a position to homeschool her. Ida B feels completely betrayed and  she decides there and then that she is never going to allow herself to trust or to love anyone again.
   So Ida B goes to school and she goes through the motions of living, but she doesn't let anyone, not even her parents, get close to her. She also begins a campaign against the family who bought the land her father sold. Perhaps if she is as unwelcoming as possible they will go away and give the land back.
   This book has a decidedly magical quality that is hard to resist. Ida B's struggles with her own feelings are so true to life that readers will start to feel that they know her, that perhaps that they have always known her. They will recognize her anger and then later, they will recognize her struggles as she tries to stay angry even when her heart wants to give in.
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