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Happy New Year Everyone!!


Here are my answers to the four questions I ask on the first of each month:
first, what are you reading?
what do you like best about it?
what do you like least?
what’s next on your list/pile to read?

I hope you’ll consider sharing yours on your blog and/or sharing yours here in the comments or on Facebook.  Happy reading!

First, what are you reading?

I am reading and re-reading some great classic books on the Kindle App on my iPhone.  Fantastic was Rilla of Ingleside, by Lucy Maud Montgomery, one of the “Anne of Green Gables” books, a coming-of-age story about Anne’s youngest daughter. 

I’m also reading Dear Enemy by Jean Webster, sequel to the absolutely perfect Daddy Long-Legs.  Jean Webster wrote only these two novels (in the early 1900s) before her death at a young age.

What do you like best about them?

Rilla of Ingleside is a coming-of-age story of Anne’s youngest daughter.  Rilla is a passionate, beautiful teenager ready to take on the world–one of my favorite lines is, “Taste life?  I want to eat it up!”  When World War I intrudes, Rilla and all those around her are changed forever.  

Dear Enemy, like it precursor Daddy Long-Legs, is a novel in letters (officially called an epistolary novel, but I’m trying not to be too “English major here!”).  These are all letters from the spoiled and headstrong Sallie McBride as she takes on the challenge of running an orphanage and remaking it in love and .


I love, love, love novels in the form of letters.  I read once that Jane Austen once considered writing my favorite novel of all time, Pride & Prejudice, as a series of letters only.   That I would love to read.

What do you like least about them?


The only thing I don’t like about Lucy Maud Montgomery novels is when they end, so I’m glad she was fairly prolific.  I’ve still got lots of other novels I haven’t read in years and can rely on those when I need relaxation


A bit shocking about Dear Enemy is several positive mentions of (not named as such but described) eugenics–trying to prevent “feeble-minded” orphans from joining full society.  At the time Dear Enemy was written (1915), eugenics was fairly progressive and not so understood as terrible as it is now.  This was of course before the Nazis used the theory of eugenics to kill millions. 


This is a small problem, in my mind, and actually allows for a discussion with young people who have read Dear Enemy about the progression of thoughts, and how ideas do matter, whether they are good or bad.

What are you reading next?

I ordered from the library, 168 Hours:  You Have More Time than You Think by Laura Vanderkam.  I’ve seen it referenced in a few blog posts and elsewhere, and it looks interesting. 


My 7-year-old son and I are reading together the popular series, “Guardians of Ga’hoole” about owls.  Not usually my thing, but we are alternating pages in the first in the series The Capture, and enjoying it so far.  We wanted to read the series and see if we were interested in seeing the recent movie when it comes out on DVD.


I’m also previewing a lot of books for February and March columns.  Lots of books about marriage and love (for February) and  Lent and Lenten themes.  Any suggestions from you?  What are you reading?

I’m working on my print column for this month’s book page of the Catholic Post, and since my theme for January is “New Year” and books on things people might have resolutions about, I was searching around for information about the most common New Year’s Resolutions.  Wikipedia has a moderately interesting article here, but what I loved was the image from the page (above), of a postcard from the early 1900s.

Now, liturgically speaking, I know that the “New Year” starts on the first Sunday of Advent, so talking about a “New Year’s Resolution” from a Catholic perspective, we are actually a few weeks late.  But since culturally here most people do make resolutions starting the calendar year (you know, a new calendar, a fresh start), I thought it would be fun to talk about our new year’s resolutions.

With all my writing about New Year’s resolutions and books related to it, I actually have not made any official resolutions.  A number of bloggers write about how they choose a word for the year.  You can read an example from last January of how Elizabeth Foss writes about the trend and her word.  I have long been completely terrified of doing this, primarily because of how dramatically different the past five or six years have been in our family’s life than my expectation of each year, both for good and for ill.  So I think I will stick with the basic personal New Year’s resolutions for now.  I’m pretty goal-oriented, so having specific things in mind (clean out a room, sign up and train for a race), is more appealing to me.

So inspire me.  What is your New Year’s Resolution?   What’s your word for the new year?  (Note I’m not against other people choosing a word of the year, just “me!”)  Do you avoid making resolutions?  Share away!

Just a quick reminder that there are still a few days for the early registration discount to the 2nd annual Behold Conference:  A Conference on the Dignity and Vocation of Women being held here in the Peoria Diocese.

I just want to say how terrific last year’s conference was, and how excited I am personally to attend and get to benefit from the fellowship of other women, the speakers, the opportunity for Mass and adoration–I could go on and on but know that it is a worthwhile event, almost like a mini-retreat.

I am particular excited to get to hear the excellent blogger Jen Fulwiler, who has an amazing story of journeying from atheism to Catholicism, essentially through blogging.  If you haven’t visited her blog, Conversion Diary, please take a moment to do so; there’s always lots of food for thought there.

You can register for the conference by visiting the Behold webiste here.  I hope to see local friends and new friends there!

It’s great to be back in Narnia.

You can see it in the faces of Lucy and Edmund as they enter Narnia in the latest movie version of the “Chronicles of Narnia” series,  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and our family joined that sentiment when we saw the movie on opening day.  

I didn’t discover C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia until I was my 20s, but I’ve been hooked ever since.  And I have always been determined that our children grow up as kings and queens of Narnia.  I want them to have the ability to return to Narnia whenever they like, and to have the Narnia stories inform their life and their imagination.

I started reading the Chronicles of Narnia to my oldest  (now a teenager!) when she was not quite four years old.  I thought she might be a little young for it, but when I read that they were making the movie (the Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, eventually released in 2005), I wanted to be sure that her Narnian imagination was first her own.  Even though we are all readers in our house, we still read the Narnia books aloud from time to time.  I finished just a week ago reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to my youngest, with the rest listening in when they wanted.

So you are probably not surprised to hear that the release of “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” Friday was marked on our family calendar for many, many months.   And after seeing it once,  I’m plotting how we can get back to it at least once or twice over the Christmas break–this from a family that rarely sees films in the theater.  It’s that great.

As a mom, I had good reason to be nervous ahead of time.  The last in the series, “Prince Caspian,” deviated so much from the novel, that I can’t even begin to critique it (here’s a beginning: dark & violent).    But I had high hopes for “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:” 

*First, Michael Apted was picked to be the director of this–I admire his work highly, from his well-done Amazing Grace, to the amazing Up series, which follows a group of English children from 7 years on up, easily one of the finest documentary film series ever.   My sense is he tends to be respectful of his subject, and would respect the Narnia setting and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.    He did, and more.

*Second, I expected it to be not too violent, because the book itself is just a great sea story, with adventure after adventure.  Check here as well–no extra violence or gore here, though the sea-serpent scene went on far too long.

*Third, I expected the great themes of Dawn Treader to be here: transformation of the characters, especially Eustance; Reepicheep’s single-minded yearning for Aslan and his country; all the characters seeking adventure and the fate of the seven lords.  They were, and even more.   Aslan tells Lucy and Edmund when he confirms they will not be returning to Narnia, “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”  The fact that that line made it into the movie unchanged is itself amazing and beautiful.

Still, the film not perfect, partially because of some of the changes, but primarily because of its (lack of) length–it’s only 1 hour and 52 minutes.   After thinking it over for a day or so, I realize the shortness of the film is the chief problem.  It’s just not enough time to cover even some of the great moments in this classic novel.

For comparison, I’m thinking of how much less satisfying the 2005 film version of Pride & Prejudice was than the British miniseries version from 1995 (you know, the one with Colin Firth, not that he’s why I watch it–it’s purely my literary devotion to Jane Austen, wink).   And yet, by itself, the 2005 version is a good movie and very enjoyable to watch, just not enough.   When you go back and read the Pride & Prejudice, or see the 1995 miniseries, you see the bigger picture and so many great moments that the shorter version leaves out.

It’s the same with “Dawn Treader.”  How could they leave  out Ramandu and his daughter singing the sunrise? or Lord Bern and Caspian taking back the Lone Islands from Gumpas? or Lucy seeing, in the magic book, her friends talk about her?  And so on.   If there were only a five or six-hour version of Dawn Treader, that would make us Narnia superfans happy.

Some random thoughts:
*Per the reviews, and our own family preference, we saw it in 2D.  3D is vastly overrated–we saw the tremendous Toy Story 3 last summer in 3D and it was just annoying to have to wear glasses on top of our glasses.

*Thank you, whoever made that movie decision, for getting rid of the fakey-Spanish accent of Prince Caspian.

*Am I the only one who thinks Georgie Henley, the actress who plays Lucy, is much more beautiful than the actress who plays Susan?   Still, the scenes of Lucy’s temptation to be as beautiful as Susan were powerful, and an interesting way to handle that element.

*The addition of the evil green mist and the Dark Island being the point of the quest were not at all in the novel, but work so well they could have easily been in the novel.  A good Narnian touch.

*Will Poulter, the actor who plays Eustace, is PERFECT.  I cannot wait to see him in “The Silver Chair,” and hope the casting for Jill Pole is just as wonderful.

*Reepicheep, thank GOODNESS, is much less “cheeky” than in the movie “Prince Caspian.”  His nobility and purity of spirit is much more evident here, from how he takes Eustace under his wing, to how he boldly travels to Aslan’s country.  It’s hard to pick favorite moments from the novel, but probably one of the best is when Reep leaves the Narnians to ride in his little coracle to Aslan’s country:  “Then he took off his sword, (‘I shall need it no more,’ he said) and flung it away across the lilied sea. …Then he bade them good-bye, trying to be sad for their sakes; but he was quivering with happiness.”     The movie scene is not quite as powerful, but still well done.

Did you see “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”?  If you haven’t, I highly recommend it.  If you did, what do you think of it?