Rainy Day Reading.

For the 4th of July weekend, we usually go to the Adirondack Mountains, where we have a camp south of Old Forge. Unfortunately, this weekend was very cold and rainy for all of Friday and Saturday. There's not much to do if you can't go outdoors in the mountains. But every cloud has a silver lining, and so I read the rest of "Little Heathens," the memoir I had chosen from the summer reading list.

I chose this book, partly because I had read this book review and it sounded interesting. I thought it would be interesting to read about children's roles in the Great Depression, especially from someone who had lived through it herself.

I was prepared to really like this book, and there were a lot of things I did like about it. For example, did you know that spiderwebs were used as a remedy for cuts? Just find a decent sized one (hopefully without bugs in it) and wrap it around the cut. The author, Mildred Kalish, also remembers things like the best way to remove a splinter, how to make wax, and the best way to kill a chicken and pluck it for dinner. The book is full of recipes and traditions of farm life that come from a time that was much simpler than what we are used to in modern life. I am going to try to make the applesauce cake that is mentioned in the book, because it sounds delicious and easy to make.

It's interesting to note some of the practices in her book, as trendsetters predict that Americans are going to become much more thrifty as our economy continues to sputter in our Great Recession. There was a lot of recycling, reusuing, and very little waste in Kalish's world.

However, the down side is that there isn't much of an actual story here. Most of the time, Kalish's memories are a lot like listening to your grandma talk about the olden days; the tone of the book is conversational, and sometimes it rambles a bit.

The book is organized by thematic chapters, such as "Chores" or "Home Remedies." While I found many of the descriptions to be quite charming, I often wished that there was some sort of over-arching plot line that was being followed through the book. We hear about Big Kids and Little Kids, but time doesn't really move forward. There are only snippets of Kalish's adult life here; for example when she realizes she doesn't want to be a housemaid for the rest of her life. But I suppose that is the point of the memoir: it's about that specific time in her life, and how much she enjoyed her childhood.

The next part of the summer reading assignment I'm tackling is the Lincoln book. I glanced at it briefly, but didn't really get to it over the weekend. I'm also reading a book for a book club I belong to, The Year Of Living Biblically.

Here's hoping for a few more sunny days. Hope your summer is going well!

Ms Byrne