While I loved Alice in Wonderland as a kid, I still identify with her story as an adult. I took Miss 11 and her friend to see the ACMI Alice in Wonderland exhibition yesterday.

The exhibition is timed, so I booked online for 11am – a perfectly civilised school holidays time to be in the city. But we were slightly late. I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date. Oh, the irony in being late white rabbit style! But it didn’t matter at all, and we were ushered down the rabbit hole for a wonderful display of the various different ways Alice has been depicted from the publication of Lewis Carroll’s book in 1865 to the 21st century.

Our favourite section was the Mad Hatter’s tea party. The ten minute wait was worth it – we sat on white wooden chairs around a cluster of white tables with white crockery. We watched a four minute film which was shown on the surrounding walls of the room, as well as the table and crockery. There were quotes from the book, scenes of dreamlike images and the crockery kept changing patterns.

I flicked through my copy of Alice at home and found some of my favourite quotes –

“Who are YOU?” said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I–I hardly know, sir, just at present– at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

Sometimes it seems that when I wake up in the morning I know exactly who I am and what I need to do but by the end of the day, I may have turned into several different people! One moment I am a writer merging two chapters into one, the next minute I am a mother organising playdates, then I have morphed into an uber driver, a chef, a workshop presenter …

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

It’s not the believing that’s tricky – it’s the achieving! Dreaming up six impossible things before a breakfast green smoothie is fine – it’s getting them done that’s the challenge.

The ACMI exhibition is on until October 7th – it’s definitely worth a visit, both for children and adults. Miss 11 and her friend enjoyed following the Wonderland map for the curious and finding all the links, and I enjoyed all the displays of the art, costumes and history.

Curioser and curioser!

 

I’m not alone in having a ‘busy life’. Anyone with work commitments, family responsibilities, life admin, a cat to feed, a garden to weed, meals to cook, groceries to buy, a car service to book has a ‘busy life.’ So sometimes the idea of putting myself in a small room without anything on that list sounds like a dream come true.

For Sarah of Hartham, the protagonist in Robyn Cadwallader’s book, The anchoress, this is exactly what she did. Sarah is seventeen, living in a small village in England in 1255. After the death of her beloved sister, Sarah willingly commits to becoming an anchoress, a holy woman who encloses herself in a small room built off the side of a Catholic church for the rest of her life. Once she enters, the door is nailed shut behind her forever.

Her cell is nine paces by seven paces, with a squint (a small niche into the church so she can receive communion) a window leading to her maids’ room and a window leading to the tiny parlour where her confessor and the women of the village may meet with her for counsel. Sister Sarah, according to the Rule, a book to guide her, is not allowed to have any contact with men apart from her confessor, Father Ranaulf.

While Sarah’s physical surroundings block her in to keep her focused on prayer, village life creeps into her room. The lives of her maids and the women who come to talk with her bring in the outside world which Sarah is trying to shut out.

Sarah relies on her senses – the touch of the stones in her cell, the scent of the herbs her maid uses in her food, the smell of the women who visit her, fresh from the fields, the colours of her embroidery threads. There’s also the lack of sight outside, so Sarah’s sight is contained to inside of her cell.

I found the story absolutely captivating, and loved the world Sarah inhabited, with monks who were responsible for the beautiful illuminated manuscripts, painstakingly copied and the lives of the villagers revolving around the seasons and harvests.

The idea of blocking the outside world out in order not to be distracted is something you have to learn to do as a writer or a creative in order to bring forth your art. I often wish I could empty my head of the dentist appointments and the dinner menu and the basketball schedules so there would be more space for creativity.

The Me too movement is relevant here, although this book, published in 2015, is set in England, 1255. There’s a strong message that women can do the right thing and still be overpowered by men. Sister Sarah eventually faces up to her past, as she confronts the demands of her new patron, sir Thomas Maunsell.

I loved the focus on quiet – the gentle silence at a poignant moment between Sarah and Father Ranaulf.

The silence slipped through the gaps under the curtain and into the cell beyond. A velvet thing, it seemed. It swellled and settled, gathering every space into itself. He did not stir; he lost all sense of time. all he knew was the woman but an arm’s length away in the dark, breathing. That was enough.

The ending was lovely – for a while I wondered which way this book would end, which choice Sarah would make. The ending seemed perfectly fitting.

I’m looking forward to reading Robyn Cadwallader’s second book, Book of colours.

While a retreat from the outside world sounds beautiful and quiet, I can’t quite imagine how I would manage it. However, we are taking a family holiday next week so I hope there will be lots of time for spacious thinking and maybe some quiet, too. I’ll post again in two weeks.

Wishing you some quiet in your busy lives, too!

 

Would you like to read a story about a gorilla who’d like to wear glasses because she thinks it will make her look wise and smart? How about a guinea pig who wants to be a wrestler but her parents won’t let her? Or would you like a story about a slug who wants to beat Usain Bolt in a race? Maybe you’d like to hear about a hippo who wants to be the next prime minister?

These story ideas and more were generated in a series of three workshops I presented to a grade three class. We focused on funny animal stories, so the kids created their main character as an animal.

I read quite a few picture books about animals to begin each session. While the kids laughed at the story, they were also fabulously serious and curious about analysing the characters and the language.

I find that kids are great at creating a character but often they become stuck when it comes to putting that character in a story. Once the kids had their character, we talked about what that character wanted more than anything else in the whole world. Once we have that wish sorted, then we focus on who or what is going to stop that character from getting what they want. After all, it’d be a pretty boring story if the character found what they wanted within the first three sentences.

We also discussed repetition – how writers can use it to build up suspense and help the readers to guess what is coming next. The repetition in Doreen Cronin’s Click, clack, moo – cows that type was particularly popular!

Click, clack, moo.
Click, clack, moo.
Clickety, clack, moo.

The grade three classes were so receptive and open to learning a new way of writing, and their story ideas were absolutely amazing. Watch out bookshops and libraries, there may be some fabulous animal books coming your way!

If you would like me to run a writing workshop for your school, please email me at karen@karencomer.com.au. I teach a range of workshops on different themes to suit different year levels.

This could be my shortest blog post – read this book! But as you may want to know why you should read The lost flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland, I’ll make this post a little longer for you.

From an aesthetic viewpoint, the cover and chapter illustrations by Edith Rewa Barrett are beautiful. I adore botanical illustrations, and Ringland’s book has a gorgeous cover of Australian native flowers and each chapter begins with a pen and ink botanical illustration and a brief description of a specific flower, complete with botanical name, common name and meaning for the chapter title. Really, why should illustrations stop for adult books?

As you may have guessed from the title and cover, Australian native flowers feature heavily in Ringland’s book. Alice Hart loses both her parents in a fire at the age of nine. She deeply misses her fragile mother who loves gardening and has nightmares about both the fire and her abusive father.

She’s taken to Thornfield, her grandmother’s flower farm, a long drive away and doesn’t talk for a couple of months. There’s a strong matriarchal history of her family at the farm, and she slowly understands her family and her place in it, surrounded by the care of the twelve women who are also working and healing at the farm, under the care of June, Alice’s paternal grandmother. June teaches Alice to use the language of flowers as a way to communicate the words that are too hard to share. There are many secrets and many unspoken words at Thornfield.

The second half of the book focuses on adult Alice, as she falls in love, has her heart broken and leaves Thornfield.

Ringland explains the editing process by Harper Collins, Fourth Estate, in this short video clip, where she states that she needed to go a little deeper into some of the more difficult chapters to write which she had been avoiding. Her editor helped her to look at these chapters more clearly.

This book rings with authenticity and authority. It’s one of my favourite reads for 2018 – maybe it will be one of your favourites, too!

If you are a Stars Wars fan, you live for the next movie. If you love watching Test cricket, you hang out for the first match in Australia. And if, like me, one of your favourite authors is Rebecca Stead, you buy her latest book as soon as it’s published and read it cover to cover in a day!

Rebecca Stead is the author of award-winning books like When you reach me, Goodnight stranger, Liar and spy and First light. I have reviewed her books here.

She has co-written a  book with Wendy Mass called Bob, with gorgeous illustrations scattered through the chapters by Nicholas Gannon. (I’m looking forward to reading Mass’s many, many books now!) It sits at the lower end of middle-grade fiction – I know both Miss 11 and Mr 8 will read it once I pass it on.

Livy (ten and a half) has come back with her mother and baby sister from Massachusetts to visit Gran in Australia. Livy knows she’s forgotten things since her last visit five years ago. She can’t remember her old elephant toy Rufus or why she loved holding on to the black pawn piece from the chess set.

And she certainly can’t remember the name of the green zombie (who’s not really a zombie) who’s wearing a chicken suit, lives in a closet and has been waiting for her to come back for the last five years.

Bob reminds Livy of the best parts of her ‘old’ self, is excellent at reading her face and is pretty much invisible to adults in his homemade chicken suit. Livy tries to help Bob find a way back home by remembering how he saved her, and then how she saved him. The story is fresh and original – it is a quest book and there is magic but there’s nothing predictable about it. There are themes of friendship and memory, and a small thread of rain and droughts.

Stead writes the chapters from Livy’s point of view and Mass writes the ones from Bob’s perspective. It has been a labour of love for both of them for about seven years, sending the chapters back and forth, responding to each other’s work.

“Since so much time would pass between when I would work on it, I would always start by reading the book from the beginning,” Mass said in an interview with Publishers Weekly. “It definitely got to the point where I couldn’t remember who wrote what.”

Teachers can find notes and classroom activities here.

Please buy this beautiful, beautiful book for your kids, your grandkids or your library. Be warned – if you are one of my lovely nieces or nephews or if you invite Mr 8 or Miss 11 to a party, you may well receive this book during the next few months! Everyone needs a Bob!

Dear friends, you might remember that my husband and I declared that we would buy a family dog if Mr 14 received 95% for a specific maths test.

Goodness me – our minimalist-homework son scored 100% on his pythagoras test!

Hello, Griffin!

We are currently researching dog breeds – there are requests for labradors, kavoodles and golden retrieviers. Any advice would be gratefully received.

In the meantime, I have researched the best literary dogs in picture books on our bookshelves.

Here are my favourites.

Harry the dirty dog written by Gene Zion, illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham – this is such a classic, published in 1956. There are also two other books about Harry.

Harry was a white dog with black spots who liked everything, except …having a bath.

I would use this book to teach students – here in the first sentence, we have the main character, a little about him, and then the problem to be resolved.

Because Harry doesn’t like baths, he runs away when he hears the water running in the tub. On his adventures, he becomes dirtier and dirtier until he becomes a black dog with white spots. Then when he returns home, he has to convince his family that he really is Harry, their dog.

Fancy Nancy and the posh puppy, written by Jane O’Connor, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser – Miss 11 loved all the Fancy Nancy books when she was at kinder. In this book, Nancy (who likes to be fancy) is super excited because her family is going to get a puppy. She wants a papillon, like her neighbour’s dog, because its name means butterfly in French (very fancy). But her family aren’t too keen. Eventually, Nancy and her family find Frenchy.

My dad says Frenchy is a La Salle spaniel. That is a very unique breed. (Unique is fancy for one of a kind.)

Seven more sleeps, written by Margaret Wild and illustrated by Donna Rawlins – Babs the Baby and Fog the Dog, along with Mum, star in this book. It’s a build-up to someone’s birthday and Babs and Fog are very excited as they count down the seven days. Every day, they do something to get ready for the birthday party. The repetition is perfect for toddlers and kinder kids – I used to read this a week out from my kids’ birthdays for years!

On Wednesday, Mum says, ‘It’s just four more sleeps until the birthday party.’

‘Four more sleeps!’ says Babs the Baby.

‘Woof, woof, woof!’ says Fog the Dog.

While they wait, they play musical chairs.

The excitement builds and builds, until on the last page readers find out that the party is for Fog the Dog and all his dog friends!

Sad the dog, written by Sandy Fussell and illustrated by Tull Suwannakit – this is a beautiful story about a lonely dog who isn’t loved. It takes a new family with a little boy to make him feel special.

The little dog felt happy and in his heart he whispered his new name. Lucky. He was never Sad again.

Dog in, cat out written by Gillian Rubinstein and illustrated by Ann James – 

The illustrations tell the story here, with a clock pictured on every page to let young readers know the different times of the day. All day, from early in the morning to late at night, the cat and dog are in and out the house as the family go about their day. The animals cause havoc as the family have breakfast, the bigger kids go to school, the toddler helps a pregnant mum hang the washing out, the kids kick the footy after school, then Dad is home to help with dinner. This is perfect for little ones who prefer pictures to words at this stage.

Let me know who your favourite literary canine creature is or offer some dog advice in the comments!

 

While advertisements for Mother’s Day gifts would imply that all mothers like pink pyjamas and electrical appliances, the reality is that there is more of the ‘other’ in ‘mother’.

There are as many different types of mothers as there are mothers. When I think of all the mothers I know – all different ages and stages – there is a lovely mix of women.

The quotes chosen below illustrate the many different aspects to mothering – losing a child, parenting a child not your own, feeling ambivalent about motherhood. There’s also the perspective from children, of a splendid mother, an absent mother and a mother with superhero powers.

In the quiet by Eliza Henry Jones, 2015. The story is narrated by Cate, a dead mother who watches over her family. She’s remembering a conversation she and her husband had with their fourteen-year-old twin boys about dating girls.

Being a mother is a fullness. Pregnancy gives way to exhaustion, love, anger, weeping, frustration, wonder. The emotions, they fill you up till you think you don’t have room left for anything else.

On the verandah, no longer laughing. It was the first time being a mother had made me feel hollow. For the first time, that tug of emptiness, as my children started to pull away from me.

The eye of the sheep by Sofie Laguna, 2014. Jimmy Flick sees the world a little differently, and his mum, Paula, protects him from that world. Jimmy, the narrator, describes his mother at his specialist appointment.

I watched as the redness moved up over Mum, washing her chin and her cheeks pink. It was a mother’s fury coming up from her core. She had tried to cover it up with chocolate cake and tea from the hospital cafeteria, but it was linked to a vat of mother’s fury that could power the world and she couldn’t hold it down. She bit back her lips and held her own hands tight and swallowed.

Little women by Louisa M. Alcott, 1868. Such a classic! I love this description of Marmee, the four girls’ mother.

She was not elegantly dressed, but a noble-looking woman, and the girls thought the grey cloak and unfashionable bonnet covered the most splendid mother in the world.

The paper house by Anna Spargo-Ryan, 2016. Heather gives birth to her stillborn daughter, and spends the next six months grieving for her. This quote comes from the end of the book, where Heather and her husband Dave celebrate their daughter.

I had read in a book that an unborn baby could recognise its mother’s voice in the fifth month, and from that time on I had spoken to her, sung to her. I’d told her about the world, about the people banging around downstairs, about Mrs Carson in the next apartment, who was seventy-four but still brought home a different man every week. I’d told her about the Indian place around the corner, and how I would take her there for chicken korma, and I’d told her about the dumpling house at the end of the street, and how I would take her there for xiao long bao. I’d told her about the pancakes at Mart180, and how I had decided that was the first place we would go together. I’d told her I would buy her a pretty new dress for the occasion.

The other side of the world by Stephanie Bishop, 2015. Charlotte, with her husband Henry and two small daughters, has moved from England to Australia, and she is struggling to find her place.

If she can just delay for long enough Lucie will find something else to do and forget about the watering can. I don’t mind filling it up once, Charlotte thinks, but it is never once – it is five, ten, twelve times, bending over and standing up and bending over. It should not be so difficult. It should be a joy. I should know how to make it a joy. Today, though, the repulsion overwhelms – this need to be alone, away from the children. She is so tired, and it is so hot, so terribly hot now.

My mum has x-ray vision by Angela McAllister and Alex T. Smith, 2010. This is a gorgeous picture book, which shows Milo trying to work out whether his mum has x-ray vision. She seems so ordinary, yet she always knows what he’s up to. This is a superhero quality I suspect many mothers possess!

Milo’s mum was like all the other mums. She had ordinary hair, ordinary clothes and a nice smile. Milo’s mum was just like all the other mums … Except she could see through things. Milo was pretty sure she had x-ray vision.

The light between oceans by M. L. Stedman, 2012. A lighthouse keeper and his wife, living on a remote Australian island, bury three babies of their own and choose to keep an unknown baby who washes up on a small rowboat on their island. I chose this quote written in a letter from Isabel, the lighthouse keeper’s wife, to Lucy because it reflects how many women who don’t have biological children feel strong ties of love and belonging to other children.

You are a grown woman now. I hope life has been kind to you. I hope that you can forgive me for keeping you. And for letting you go. Know that you have always been beloved.

Anchor Point, Alice Robinson, 2015. The absent mother, Kath, in this book disappears, and only Laura, her daughter, knows the reason why. Laura is a young girl at the beginning of the novel, where this quote is taken from.

Laura loved her mother best like this: scrubbed clean, a raw version of herself. She took the edge of Kath’s silk kimono gingerly, rolling onto her back. Though the room was dark, a wedge of light made a halo of Kath’s hair.

‘Are you asleep?’ said Kath unnecessarily. Laura shook her head. Her mother sighed, touching Laura’s face, stroking her hair. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘I love you very much. I shouldn’t have, you know, hit you.’

Finding Serendipity by Angelica Banks, 2013. This is one of my favourite middle-grade novels because it is about a wonderful mother who is also a writer. (Ok, I may be a little biased here!) Tuesday McGillyCuddy has an ordinary mother called Sarah who does tuckshop duty, but her mother is also the famous writer, Serendipity Smith, who has flaming red hair and wears long velvet coats and purple boots. But only Tuesday, her father and her mother’s assistant know that Sarah is also Serendipity. This is a lovely quote about parents checking their children in bed at night.

Perhaps you don’t actually know that long after you have drifted off to sleep, your mother or father or someone else who loves you will invariably tiptoe into your room. They will pull your covers up over your shoulders if it’s cold, or fold them at the bottom of your bed if it’s hot. They will turn your light down, or off, and pick up that pair of shoes you’ve left lying in the middle of the floor. And do you know what they do next? For the briefest moment, they will watch you sleeping. They might stroke your cheek, or kiss your head, or whisper a good dream into your ear. Or perhaps they just stand there and think how lovely you are, and blow you a kiss, and leave you to your sleep.

The secret life of bees by Sue Monk Kidd, 2001. The narrator is fourteen-year-old Lily, whose mother died when she was four, in an accident that was apparently Lily’s fault.

That night I lay in bed and thought about dying and going to be with my mother in paradise. I would meet her saying, ‘Mother, forgive. Please forgive,’ and she would kiss my skin till it grew chapped and tell me I was not to blame. She would tell me this for the first ten thousand years.

The next ten thousand years she would fix my hair. She would brush it into such a tower of beauty, people all over heaven would drop their harps just to admire it. You can tell which girls lack mothers by the look of their hair. My hair was constantly going off in eleven wrong directions ….

Here’s to all the women who are nurturing, kind, funny, strong, courageous – and are doing the best they can to raise their children.

And thank you to everyone who commented on my post last week about raising funds and awareness for ovarian cancer. I’m so grateful to everyone who bought a Witchery white shirt!

 

We all have them. Maybe it’s more of a cream shade than a pure white. Maybe yours is a lacy number for special dinners, maybe yours is a soft draping one with beautiful buttons or maybe your one is a crisp white with darts. Perhaps you have a favourite one with a slight stain from your food-stained toddler giving you a cuddle but you wear it under a jumper for the collar only. Perhaps your shirt can be worn with faded jeans as well as your best black work skirt. But does your white shirt save lives?

My friend Leane was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in April last year, was operated on in May and spent six months going through chemotherapy. She received excellent results in January this year, but then found out the cancer had come back last month. Now she is waiting for more tests before her next treatment will be determined.

Leane is an Ambassador for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation (OCRF), and featured as a model in the Witchery white shirt campaign. Isn’t she gorgeous? Witchery have designed several white shirts to raise funds for ovarian cancer – 100% of proceeds go towards ovarian cancer research.

Leane is passionate about sharing her story with other women, as early detection plays a key part in saving lives.

In Leane’s words …

Did you realise that currently there is no way of detecting ovarian cancer? A lot of women mistakenly believe that a PAP smear will detect ovarian cancer but this is not the case; it is only useful for cervical cancer. Most ovarian cancers are not found until they are very advanced because there are no obvious symptoms and by the time any symptoms are felt it is usually too late. One woman dies from ovarian cancer every ten hours. The symptoms can be confused with small concerns like bloating, frequent urination, change in appetite or pelvic pain.

This disease can strike any woman at any time. It is not restricted to menopausal women, or women who are elderly. It is not restricted to women who are overweight or unhealthy. It is not restricted to women with a history of gynaecological cancers. It strikes indiscriminately and without warning.

I have always been conscious of my health and had all my usual health check ups each year. I exercise regularly and try to eat healthily. When I was diagnosed I had no idea that I was carrying 3 large tumours in my abdomen and was in an advanced stage of cancer. As women we are designed to accommodate growth and my feelings of being bloated and the need to urinate more frequently were attributed to menopause. Most of the women I have met since being diagnosed have very similar stories to mine.

By sharing my story and raising awareness in a small way, I am making a difference and hopefully saving other women from having to go through the anguish of being diagnosed with a cancer that is incurable. Selfishly, sharing my story is also helping me to come to terms with my uncertain future and gives me some meaning to what I have been through.

If you experience any unusual symptoms consistently for more than two weeks, go and see your doctor. The worst thing that can happen is that they confirm nothing is wrong with you!

The research is now focused on early detection because if found in the early pre-symptom stages ovarian cancer has a 90% full recovery rate. It is also focused on treatment for women like me with the hope that one day ovarian cancer will be a chronic disease that can be managed and may not result in a shortened life.

Funds raised go towards ongoing research because there is still so much they don’t know about ovarian cancer. The recurrence rate is extremely high and the survival rate is extremely low – one in every 4 women diagnosed will survive 5 years. With statistics like these we need as much research as possible. There is currently no government funding.

Thank you, Leane.

I love the lace shirt with the pointy sleeves, Fran bought the same shirt with the pleated overlay that Leane wears in the above photo. Caroline was given the soft white dotted shirt for her birthday. Lissa wears the basic white shirt in a variety of ways.

Behind these white shirts are many, many women like Leane, who are continuing to work, care for their families, speak up about their experience with ovarian cancer and rearrange their lives around their many appointments and treatments.

Leane’s husband went to school with my husband. We have been friends for over twenty years. Leane gave me a lot of confidence as a new mother as her third daughter is the same age as Mr 14. We have celebrated new jobs, houses, blogs and babies. We have swapped books and clothes and recipes. Our men cycle together; we walk together. When we walk together, our tongues move faster than our legs! Leane has been that empowering friend – who makes me feel I can do anything, and believes in the importance of both the small and big moments.

You can follow Leane in her professional role with Fashionista Sistas at www.fashionistasistas.com.au  or follow her as an OCRF Ambassador at www.ocrf.com.au.

Please buy a Witchery white shirt – 100% of proceeds go directly to the Ovarian Cancer Foundation. Tuesday 8th May is the official Witchery white shirt day – look out for women wearing their white shirts with pride, grace and compassion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bookshop of the broken hearted by Robert Hillman – I devoured this book over two days.

It’s 1969. Tom Hope is a Victorian farmer in his early thirties – quiet and stoic. He’s the sort of man who has to practise smiling because he doesn’t do it very often. Hannah Babel is a Jewish woman in her mid-forties from Budapest who lost her husband and small son at Auschwitz in World War II. She’s vivid and eccentric and she wants to open a bookshop in the small town of Hometown.

Tom’s wife, Trudy, left him – twice. But she only came back once. Hannah is a widow two times over. Can they make their relationship work?

The first quarter of this book is all about Tom, and while it may seem a little slow to some readers, the pace really conveys the daily turns of Tom’s life with chores on the farm and the quiet after his wife leaves him. At least he has Peter, Trudy’s son with her lover – for a little while.

Then once Hannah has moved into town, the book intersperses chapters from Hannah’s past experiences in the war with her current life with Tom.

Hannah is determined to make her bookshop a success.

‘Her target was twenty-five thousand, the number of books burnt in Berlin on May 10th, 1933. At the moment she was selling around 110 books each week with the help of the CWA.’

The premise seems simple – can a farmer with a failed marriage and a holocaust survivor from Budapest be happy together? But Tom faces the unthinkable choice – to look after Peter or lose Hannah, who cannot allow herself to become close to another child lest she lose him, too?

This book by Robert Hillman would be fabulous for bookclubs (see bookclub notes from the publisher Text here), for World War II aficionados and for anyone who loves a book set around books. You could even win six copies of The bookshop of the broken hearted and six bottles of wine from Text here! It’s a recent one, only published in the last month. Hillman is speaking at Readings bookshop in Carlton on Monday May 7th at 6.30. There is no fee but you need to book! I hope to see you there!

 

 

 

I don’t watch a lot of television. I don’t like reality tv shows, I only watch footy when my team, Essendon, is playing and I’m not watching a Netflix series at the moment, although I have enjoyed House of Cards (American version) in the past.

I know there are lots of great shows out there. Every now and again I watch half an episode of something with my husband and we do have regular family movie nights so I watch a lot of kid-friendly movies. I usually need to do something creative while I watch tv, like quilting.

But I have watched every single episode of This is us, an American series filmed in a few different cities, because I find the characters and their stories compelling.

There are five main characters from a family, shown with a present timeline and a few timelines in the past. Rebecca and Jack Pearson married and Rebecca became pregnant with triplets. She gave birth to all three babies in 1980, but while Kevin and Kate survived, Kyle didn’t. Rebecca and Jack were devastated – they had everything ready for three babies. On the night the triplets were born, a drug-addicted poet watched his girlfriend die giving birth and dropped his hours-old son at a fire station. The baby was brought to the same hospital where Rebecca and her babies were patients. Jack and Rebecca, a white couple with their two white babies, decided to adopt this unwanted black baby whom they called Randall.

Each episode flits back and forth between different timeframes – Rebecca and Jack when they dated and were first married, Kevin, Kate and Randall as babies, as eight-year-olds, as teenagers and then the present day, where Kevin, Kate and Randall are in their late thirties.

Good novels focus on character arcs – what each character is like at the beginning of the book with their flaws and ‘glimpse of greatness’ and how the character changes through the course of the novel by reacting and responding to the different events that unfold. This is us shows that unfolding of character with hints of those traits at an early age and then showing us how those traits develop over time into adulthood.

There are many different themes. Randall has to make sense of his world, a black boy adopted by a white family. It’s not only about how he looks but how he feels and how he’s perceived. Kate has been overweight since childhood and still struggles with it as an adult. Kate also struggles to follow her beautiful and talented mother as a singer. Kevin was a star footballer in school, then an injury forced him to stop and he took up acting. His success on tv as ‘The Manny’ hasn’t done anything to make him feel secure. And then there are relationships and children and careers.

Maybe your family is not like the Pearsons at all. But we all have that moment of truth, when we are connected with either our family or friends or colleagues and feel, ‘this is us’ – this is how we roll, this is how we play or create or lead or work or love.

Maybe you didn’t expect to find a television show review on this bookish blog of mine, but I’m passionate about stories. While the show is definitely heart-warming, the stories are told with intelligence and perception which means there’s no sentimental rubbish at all. The characters are have both flaws and glimpses of greatnesses – which makes them pretty relatable. This is all of us, really.