Some books

We certainly aren’t.  We spend our lives trying to make ourselves into us but as we go along we get entangled in the lives of people we come to love, marry, parent, befriend, and along the way we become something.  But what?  We have dreams we think will shape our lives but we find ourselves bending to accommodate.

We Are Not Ourselves is the story of Eileen Tumulty, born in 1941 to Irish immigrant parents with problems of their own.  Her father, a strong personality is almost idolized by the community around him.  Her mother, not so much.  Moods swing, her homelife is dependent on those moods.  She longs for more.

Eileen’s dreams are sure to be answered when she meets Ed Leary,  even though she promised herself she wouldn’t marry an Irishman, she decides he is different enough from her parents she gives her life to him, hoping he will redeem her American dream. 

Ed has other dreams and they don’t include climbing the ladder of success.  Eileen changes again.  She has one child, Connell, and she changes again.  Now, resigned to her life, she does make the most of it and the three Learys forge a life together until again, they are all forced to come to terms with the worst life can give them. 

This truly sounds depressing, I know, but it isn’t.  I found myself anxious to get back to this story and thought about it when I wasn’t reading it.  That’s the sign of a good one.

by John Hutton

I remember the pair of red MaryJane shoes I bought for Elizabeth when she was about two years old.  I couldn't stop looking at her when she wore them, how cute she looked in them, her little white anklets and those red shoes.  All the things a two year old did during a day, the places she explored.  So, when offered a copy of this book, Your Red Shoes, I was immediately on memory lane.

This is a sweet book,  a book that talks to the child like a bedtime story in its quietness and simplicity, asking what adventures your red shoes will take you on.  But it was really a book for the mommy or daddy or gandma.  It's like looking at a photo album of your own little one and remembering....

If you're at all nostalgic,  this is a sweet book to share with your little one.