Tripping over the Lunch Lady and other School Stories edited by Nancy Mercado

As I was reading this fun collection of short stories for an elementary aged audience it occurred to me that these were great choices for parent guest readers at their children's schools. The stories, written by well known childrens' authors take on life in school and finish with a "school report" on the author including a picture of them as children plus answers to questions such as worst smell at school, favorite cafeteria meal, least favorite class, (why did no one like math?), etc. School kids will certainly recognize themselves in these humorous stories.

Birgit Gruenberg

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

On the fictional island of Nollop (named after Nevin Nollop, author of the pangram* "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"), all is right with the world...well, at least until the tiles bearing the letters of Nollop's creation start to fall from a memorial statue.

When the letter Z falls, the island's government decrees that this is a sign from the spirit of Nollop, a sign that the letter Z may no longer be used in writing or in speech. Those who violate the decree, whether accidentally or purposefully, will be banished from the island. This wouldn't be so bad, only more letters begin to fall...

Ella Minnow Pea is told through correspondence from various characters to each other as they try to communicate with fewer and fewer letters. The novel is more than just a clever exercise in writing. There's also humor, romance, mystery, espionage, totalitarian governments and more. Anyone who loves wordplay will have a great time with Ella Minnow Pea. (Thanks to Mindy at Linthicum for recommending this one!)

*Any sentence that uses all 26 letters of the alphabet

The Gathering by Anne Enright

Dublin writer Anne Enright's grimly pointed examination of an entangled and haunted family won the 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Established in 1969, the Man Booker is a prestigious award given each year to the best full-length novel written in English by a citizen of either the British Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. In winning the Booker, Ms. Enright joins the ranks of prior notables such as Iris Murdoch (The Sea, The Sea), Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient), Ian McEwan (Amsterdam), Yann Martel (Life of Pi), and Kiran Desai (The Inheritance of Loss).
I found this novel to be a difficult yet ultimately rewarding reading experience. Ms. Enright populates her novel with a grittily human and frequently unlikable cast of characters. The narrator, thrity-nine-year-old housewife Veronica Hegarty, is gathering with her nine remaining siblings and their mother for the funeral of her brother Liam, who has taken his own life by walking into the sea, his pockets weighted with stones. Veronica and Liam were close, with only eleven months between their births. As Veronica tells us early on, "We came out of her (their mother) on each other's tails; one after the other, as fast as a gang-bang, as fast as an infidelity. Sometimes I think we overlapped in there, he just left early, to wait outside."
Veronica and Liam shared a secret. For Liam, the truth of this secret may have been all too real; for Veronica, it has existed throughout her life as a question mark, and it is only and finally at the conclusion of Liam's too short and painfully endured life that Veronica begins to unearth "the seeds of my brother's death."

Home: A Memoir of My Early Years by Julie Andrews

For as long as I can remember, I've had nothing in my heart but love for Julie Andrews. Seriously, no exaggeration. I've seen The Sound of Music more times than I can count. Mary Poppins is my very favorite Disney movie (Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, British accents and sidewalk chalk drawings? I mean COME ON!). I could go on and on about my love for her, despite the fact that Audrey Hepburn (a far second place) got to play Eliza in My Fair Lady. And now I know the story behind the My Fair Lady story and so many others.

Home, begins with Julia's birth and includes brief character sketches on the grandparents (great and otherwise) that she can recall. She tells the story so beautifully of her journey from a lower class household in rural England all the way to starring on Broadway. Julia experienced so many situations that made her doubt her talent and even her worth as a person, but she was able to persevere through those times and prove herself to everyone. She was also the primary support (emotionally, financially and otherwise) for her brothers and sisters and eventually her parents and step-parents from the time she was the age of 10.

This book was compelling and for the most part, well written. She made me care about her story and that of her family. I was disappointed when I came to the end that, as the title suggests, the story only extends into her late 20's. The stage is set for a second volume and I look forward to learning more about this talented woman.

Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA by Tim Weiner

According to Tim Weiner's history of the Central Intelligence Agency, the problem with American intelligence is two-fold:

#1 We don't know what we're doing.

#2 If you can't understand a situation, then change it.

Weiner's history of the Agency begins with its inception on the heels of Pearl Harbor, focusing on a livid President Harry Truman, vowing that such a surprise attack on U.S. soil would never happen again. Truman wanted intelligence from well-trained men and he wanted it quickly. What he got, says Weiner, wasn't quite what he wanted.

With the threat of Communism growing after the end of World War II, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and the CIA all became major players in the Cold War. The problem for the agency became one of intelligence. Far too often, field agents literally didn't know what they were doing. They didn't understand the languages and cultures they were in, a problem that only got worse in Korea, Vietnam, Central America and now, Iraq. (See #1) Rather than fixing the problem, the Agency spent billions on mostly failed covert operations, pumped money into foreign governments, and financed regimes that would champion U.S. interests. (See #2) Few lessons were learned from Vietnam and apparently no one in the CIA expected to see the Cold War end for economic (not military) reasons. Yet for all its failures, the Agency frequently enjoyed a stellar public reputation.

Weiner's documentation of the early days of the CIA and it's operations seems stronger and more credible than in later years, possibly due to the large amounts of declassified documents from that time. In comparison, sections on Agency activity from the Reagan administration to the present are quite thin. And the author spends almost no time examining how the Agency interacted (or failed to interact) with other government agencies.

As you might expect, Weiner has faced an enormous amount of criticism as a result of Legacy of Ashes, including claims that he has misinterpreted much of the information from the 50,000 documents he examined (many of them recently declassified for the first time), dwelling on negatives and distorting agency achievements. Even so, this was both a fascinating and discouraging book to read. I've encountered very few people who have read it, but I hope they do, whether they agree or disagree with Weiner's findings.

702 pages, 154 of which are notes

The Ungarnished Truth: A Cooking Contest Memoir by Ellie Mathews

I saw this on the new books cart and was drawn in by the line "A Woman, A Chicken Dinner, A Million Dollars" on the cover. Having never realized cooking contests carried such large cash prizes, I was intrigued. Did someone really win a cool mill just by cooking some chicken? I had to find out.

Mathews starts her memoir by recounting her experiences with some minor cooking contests in her home state of Washington. Talking to some of her fellow contestants, she learns about the Pillsbury Bake-Off, a biennial competition where the contestants are treated "like queens" and a winning recipe can seriously pad your bank account. Mathews describes the process of experimenting in the kitchen, trying to come up with unique and tasty ways to showcase items from a list of various Pillsbury products. It's not long until one of Mathews' back-up recipes, submitted after others she felt more confident about, is selected for the Bake-Off, and Mathews is on her way to Orlando to compete. The last thing she expected was that her Salsa Couscous Chicken would take the top prize.

Knowing that she ultimately wins the contest does not detract from the enjoyment of reading her story. The author comes across as a very sensible, frugal woman, and her honesty about the kind of person she is (i.e., not the type to jump up and down and squeal in excitement, perhaps to the dismay of the Pillsbury P.R. folks) was refreshing. The sneak peek behind the scenes of this big-time cooking contest (imagine 100 ranges/countertops arrayed in a giant hotel ballroom, the smells of chocolate, sausage, tomato sauce, and all manner of vegetables competing for olfactory attention, Alex Trebek wandering around interviewing participants) was really fun to read, and was perhaps better served by Mathews' calm re-telling rather than a gushing, emotional style.

There are touching moments too, as Mathews' granddaughter was born at the same time that she was winning the contest; her descriptions of meeting the infant for the first time are quite sweet. Her account of her appearances on the Rosie O'Donnell show and Oprah provide more behind-the-scenes information and more of her honest reactions to the whole whirlwind of instant fame. This is a quick, fun read, perfect for fans of the Food Network, cooking, or memoirs in general.

Porcupine by Meg Tilly

Jack Cooper, nearly 13, with a ten year old sister and 8 year old brother, finds a hard new life on the Canadian prairie when their mother dumps them with a great grandmother they have never met, in a part of Canada they have never seen, shortly after their father is killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire. Jack (short for Jacqueline) is worried that this new Gran will leave them alone when she answers the brochures on Assisted Living. Meanwhile, there are new schools to ride the bus to, chickens to feed and coops to clean, cows to milk and thinking of a way to make friends when none seem to jump out in front of her. Oh yes, life is different with Gran! Rich