of books and wasps and polka dot dresses!

I won! I'm participating in Maggie Reads' Summer Reading challenge and my name was the winner this week. I am VERY excited since I never win anything:)

I just finished reading "The Bean Tree" by Barbara Kingsolver. It was a fun, quick read. I read "The Poisonwood Bible" a few years ago and really liked it. This one was very different. It was about a girl from Kentucky who is tired of her small town life and leaves. Along the way she acquires a baby(not the way you think), a bunch of unlikely friends, a job fixing tires and a world view that she had previously not considered. I really enjoyed seeing her goodness and her optimism.

She gets involved with an underground railroad helping Guatemalan refuges. I really liked that Taylor tried to do the right thing even if it was hard. You could see her character grow and evolve, she went from a young woman running away from something to a confident, hard working , young mother that will stop at nothing in her quest to make the world a better place.


Now I am half way through "Can't Wait To Get To Heaven" by Fannie Flagg. I chose it because have you ever heard a more southern sounding name than Fannie Flagg? And it has been a delight, it's laugh out loud funny. It's about an old lady who is stung by wasps and dies. She goes to heaven and people in her small town miss her so much. Doesn't sound funny but it really is. She was a do-gooder and touched so many people, which I love to read. Her enthusiasm for life jumps off the page and in typical southern story telling style is best read out loud so you can fully appreciate the flavor and color of the narrative. I have been really enjoying it...but something just happened in the last chapter that I read which just shocked me and throws the whole story for a 180. I am not sure how it will go now but I am curious to see.

On a non-literary note H is growing so much. This cute dress has seen it's last Sunday as she's outgrown it. She'll be 8 this summer and is turning into a young lady instead of a little, little girl. She's still a little girl, just not as little!