Terri Wiltshire

Bella is having a “dreadful dinosaur sized awful day”, and she is continuously finding herself in frustrating situations. Bella handles the anger by stomping her feet and throwing tantrums. Bella begins searching for the culprit and when she finds her something unexpected happens. She develops a friendship with this little dinosaur, and they become the best of friends. Her bad day turns into the best day. This book is filled will colorful and bright illustrations that capture the emotions of Bella. It is also has a neat feature, the covers fold out. This is a sweet book that shows us how to take frustrations and turn them around. This is a great book to add the classroom library.… (mehr)

On the one hand, I would say this is a very moving story with a cast of flawed yet believable characters. On the other, a very depressing literary illustration of how misery loves company, those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it, and how the apple doesn't fall far from the tree (plus a host of other aphorisms).

In 1904, Luke Stewart is born the unwanted - and unfortunate - son of Emma, a teenage girl who cries rape and is hustled into marriage with a much older man to save face. In modern day Alabama, abused wife Canaan Phillips returns home to her grandmother's house to revisit the broken promises of her past. Luke and Canaan's narratives eventually unite to confront the heartbreak of the present with the secrets of the past, with the hope that Canaan might just be able to start afresh in the future.

I was, at different points in the story, sympathetic, angry, and moved to tears, but never disappointed and always engrossed with the dysfunctional lives of these characters. Luke's sad life, and how he is treated by his own family, is devastating, and Canaan at once invites sympathy while simultaneously antagonising the reader, with her cruel reactions to those who try to love and care for her. And I even managed to feel sorry for the odious Emma, until her lies were exposed. Every character - bar Zeke, the escapee from a chick lit romance - felt so real to me, that their words made me flinch and the wrongs done to them were taken personally.

Far, far from To Kill A Mockingbird, which is the Alabama connection I was going for, but just as captivating.… (mehr)