Everyone is Beautiful; School of Essential Ingredients; Little Beauties; etc.

71. Everyone is Beautiful by Katherine Center

 

Not every book we read has to be a big literary novel, clever, thoughtful, dense. At times, we just want to read a book that reassures us about the troubles that hit us as humans and about the hidden strengths we have to overcome. And we might just want a laugh or two at the foibles of little boys. Everyone is Beautiful is such a book, a book when we are seeking a gentle, funny read.

 

I like this book. It’s not Tolstoy, but it’s a perfect read for spring break. It reminded me of the tiring days of young motherhood and the sweetness and pain of raising children. It’s funny here and there and always true.

 

72. The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister

 

My second read of spring break. An excellent choice for spring break. The plot is simple: A woman runs a cooking school where people come to learn to cook, yes, but also to be healed. Little magical elements in the story, but it never felt forced or excessive.

 

73. PostSecret compiled by Frank Warren

 

Frank Warren began this book as a project. He handed out postcards to strangers and asked them to write down a secret and send the secret to him.

 

As I read the book, I began to feel like I was sitting in the confessional, listening to terse whispers of big misdeeds and little rebellions.

 

Irresistible.

 

74. Little Beauties: A Novel by Kim Addonizio

 

Our main characters in this novel are a young OCD-driven former child beauty contestant (got that?) and a teenage pregnant husband-less girl. They comes together and help each other, as we might hope all people could.

 

75. The Loner by Ester Wier

 

Now and then, I continue on my quest to read all the Newbery Honor books. The Loner is the story of an orphan who unexpectedly winds up on a sheep farm run by a big yet shy woman who has lost her son to a bear. Lots of action. Do kids even know about lives like this boy’s?

 

76. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

 

The life of a horse told from a horse’s point of view. The horse seemed to accept that his life was to be controlled by humans (he never longed for days of roaming the wild prairie, for example) but he always wished that his masters be kind. Some were. Some were not. Sewell saw lots of cruelty toward horses and part of her reason for writing the book (as it says in the forward to this book) was to show the torment that many horses faced.

 

I especially liked this version of the book, filled with illustrations of horse terms and places in London and depictions of complicated events in the story.

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