A Few Good Books: April edition

On the fifteenth of the month I link up with Modern Mrs. Darcy and share the books I read the previous month.  I’ve made a concerted effort to read more this year, and I’m finding that keeping track of what I’ve read and sharing my favorites has helped make that possible.  (More thoughts on how I read more here.)  Plus, I love a good book talk. April was lost to disease in our house-everyone was sick more than once, including me.  The only plus to this kind of sick that keeps you horizontal is that you’ve got plenty of time to read, and read I did.  I made my way through some good ones this month.

The list:

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

I Let You Go by Claire Mackintosh

The Magic of Motherhood by Ashlee Gadd and the Coffee + Crumbs team

A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny

A Movable Feast by Earnest Hemingway

The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon is a delightful YA novel about two teens in New York City.  Natasha is an illegal immigrant, brought to the states at age nine by her parents, who is about to be deported back to Jamaica.  She meets Daniel, a Korean-American teen on the morning she is frantically trying every last ditch effort to stop her impending deportment.  The book follows the two throughout the day as they fall in love (as only two teens can in a few hours), fall apart and come back together.  The book also injects chapters from the point of view of the many people they encounter throughout the day.  It was a charming book with surprising depth about family, home, young love, and that universal truth that there is always more to people that what you see on the surface.  I really loved this book and would recommend it to teens and adults alike. 

R.J. Palacio’s Wonder is an upper grades children’s novel.  I picked it up because I’d heard great things about it, but also because I’d wanted something new to read with Liam.  Its main character, Auggie, is a young boy with severe facial deformities due to a genetic condition he was born with.  Auggie has been homeschooled his whole life but as the book begins we find that he’s about the start the fifth grade, middle school for this New York City school.  Auggie’s facial deformities are such that people react instinctually and poorly upon seeing him.  The book follows his fifth grade year as he makes friends, deals with bullies and adjusts to life in school, all told through the perspectives of Auggie and the people who surround him.  I loved this book and I loved reading it with Liam.  I’d intended to read it to him each night, but he was quickly hooked and went ahead without me.  This left us fighting for possession of the book regularly.  It was on the high end of Liam’s reading level and I’m glad I read it along side him because we were able to check in on comprehension stuff.  Plus, my book nerdery loves chatting books with my kid.  A super sweet book that gives kids a chance to practice empathy and understanding.  I loved it.

Before I’d even picked up I Let You Go by Claire Mackintosh I knew it was a fast paced story with a twist “you never see coming.”  This meant, naturally, I was on high alert, my mind forming theory after theory as I read as to what this twist must be.  And even though I’d been warned, even though I’d been looking for it, there was indeed a twist that smacked me right in the face, so unprepared was I for it.  This is the story of a boy who dies in a hit and run, the detectives following the case, and how it all can change in a moment.  Mackintosh does a really good job with multiple perspectives.  It was well written, engaging and with a killer twist.

Coffee + Crumbs is a collaborative website with stories from motherhood.  This book, The Magic of Motherhood, is a collection of essays from the women who run the blog.  I caught wind of it because one of the writers, Anna Jordan, is the daughter of Ryann’s beloved pre-school teacher.  It is a beautiful book, both the writing and the images sprinkled throughout.  The essays are a great mix of voices and topics and I love that it covers all aspects of motherhood: from pregnancy through birth, joys and loss, biological, foster care and adoption.  You can find traces of your unique story in all aspects of this book.  It would make a great gift for a new mom, or an experienced one.  

A Rule Against Murder is the fourth in Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series.  I’d heard that she hits her stride by the fourth book, each becoming better and I did find this one to be my favorite so far.  A Moveable Feast by Hemingway was our book club pick.  I probably wouldn’t have picked it up otherwise, but I was glad I read it and terribly disappointed when the plague that was April kept me from book club that month to discuss it.  It was an interesting look at Hemingway’s life as an unknown writer in Paris.  The English major nerd in me loved seeing his encounters with other well known writers from that time.  It also made me want to pick up and move to Paris, but only if I could also go back in time to the 1920's.  The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Schumer’s first memoir, was interesting, insightful and funny.  I fell in love with Schumer when I saw her randomly on Ellen once, and I’ve long loved her stuff, relating to it in so many ways while also feeling like she is often on a different planet than me.  The book felt the same.  She is funny and smart and I inherently “got” her but also felt completely foreign from her.  Which, for me, makes it a great voice.

That’s what I had in April.  What are you reading?

On being open and grounded in parenting

It happened at Chick-fil-et this time.  As I scrambled to grab utensils and ketchup packages before our food made it’s way to the table I saw a man talking to my friend who was listening and also scanning for me.  I approached the table, taking stock of the man’s hearing aids and use of sign while he spoke.  He was deaf and he’d spotted my son’s implant.  

I love when we see adults or kids who wear hearing aids or cochlear implants.  I usually make a point to show Liam and sometimes we’ll say hello.  It doesn’t bother me and I want Liam to see other people who are also deaf.  As I suspected this man had seen Liam.  He asked about his implant and then mentioned when he talked to Liam he’d signed and Liam hadn’t really responded.  Did he know sign language?

“No, not really.  He knows a few signs, we did a little when he was first learning to listen and speak, but pretty soon he didn’t need it as much.” 

“Oh.  You know it might be helpful to have him learn sign.  You never know what might happen that would have him need to be able to communicate with sign.”

I gave a bit of a non-committal answer and commented that yes, we do hope to get him interested in sign someday.  This very kind man and I chatted for a bit longer, he made a point to say he’d be working there through the summer and he’d be happy to help Liam learn sign, adding that he knows how important it is for deaf kids to have role models in deaf adults.  I thanked him and made a point to mention that Liam does have some adults and peers in his life who also wear cochlear implants.  Later he came back to our table to ask if we liked to watch movies.  He recommended one with Marlee Matlin, a famous Deaf actress, about parents with a deaf son who were trying to decide if their son should get a cochlear implant.  I hadn’t heard of the movie and told him I’d check it out.  I’m willing to bet there was at least a little of an anti-cochlear implant sentiment throughout the film.

On the surface it was a pretty benign conversation with a deaf man about my deaf son.  And yet, because I am aware of the intricacies of Deaf culture, the complicated feelings about cochlear implants, and the judgements some make about the decisions hearing parents make for deaf children, I knew there was a lot going on underneath this polite conversations.  I knew what he wasn’t necessarily saying and he likely knew the same for me.

Interactions like this stir in me a strange combination of both defensiveness and openness.  The conversation is loaded and I wonder what assumptions this person has made about our family and our decisions and my ability to parent my son.  I often replay these conversations, defensive about our choices, anxiously crafting imaginary arguments and point by point rebuttals of his unspoken judgments.  And yet he knows something about the world my son exists in that I will never fully know.  And I can’t discredit that.  I want to listen when he speaks because he has something to teach me.  

I am learning the truth that white parents of black and brown children have come to understand for decades, they need to look outside themselves to help their children navigate the world.  There are identity issues and challenges that require parents to reach out to others who can understand these things in a different way.  Even though I carried this child in my body, we will experience the world differently and I need to be open to understanding that.

And so I try to stay open.  When I feel defensiveness creep up, when I want to shout, “I’m not a bad mother!  I’m making thoughtful, intentional decisions for him!” in the face of a man who is genuinely trying to offer help and perspective that only he can, I need to stop and listen.  I need to receive the information and let it shape my parenting.

But before it informs how I parent, I need to sift through it, to hold it up against decisions that I know deep in my bones were the right ones.  I must first ground myself confidently in what I know is true.  I am confident in our decisions.  I know we did the right thing for Liam.  And I know we are doing our very best to surround him with other deaf adults and peers.  

I don’t have to let every opinion and perspective of every well meaning stranger inform my decisions with Liam.  I only have to stay open.  Open and grounded.  Both/and.

I suspect this may be a parenting truth for us all.  To stay grounded in the decisions we have made with careful intention while staying open to the understanding that there is always a different perspective that may be helpful.  If we insecurely let everyone else’s opinions on parenting sway our every decision we will be inconsistent and unmoored, our poor children constantly having to adjust to whatever new idea we’ve decided we must chase down.  But if we stubbornly dig into “our way” without allowing for outside wisdom we risk missing the deeply individual needs of our children, for even those for whom the apple does not fall far from the tree  still are not exact replicas of their parents.

And so maybe we’ll head back to Chick-fil-et this summer for sign language lessons.  I know this second language would be good for Liam and we have always said it’s a skill he needs.  But I won’t regret or second guess our decision to focus first on listening and spoken language.  It was the right choice for us and I'm glad we made it.