Grandma Bailey's Reflections

When Clyde and I go on car trips - we always check out audio CD's from the library so we can listen to a book as we go. We went to Pennsylvania last week to see Pam, Chris and Dutch. On our way there we listened to "Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick. I had read this book a year ago last November and really enjoyed it. I wanted Clyde to have the opportunity of being able to hear the history of New England so I checked it out for us. It was even more fascinating to me the second time through. I was a little ashamed to be related to these Puritans and Pilgrims because of how they treated the Native Americans but then the tables flipped and you wonder if you even want to like the Native Americans. I thought it was interesting to hear about the city names and how they have been those names since the mid-1600's. Some names makes sense because they were named after the original settler or after the Indians. The British tended to name some towns after their homes in the British Isles and that made sense too. But the names like Seekonk, Swansea, and others - you just wonder how they every came up with the name and the cities were settled not too long after the Pilgrims got here. The book is a great history but does not read like a textbook. I recommended it a year ago and still recommend it today.

The other book we listened to was "Standing in the Rainbow" by Fannie Flagg. This was a sweet story and by someone that I have been curious to read but have never gotten around to it. Fannie Flagg read the book. She has a very southern accent and could mellow it or accentuate it as the characters needed. It is also a book that I highly recommend. It takes you from the late 1930's to the 1990's with a family and their friends. It was beautifully done.

A book I read while at Pam's was "The Tale of Hill Top Farm: The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter" by Susan Wittig Albert. This was a really fun book. She kept true to the biographical facts (as far as I know them) of Beatrix Potters life but told a fictitious tale. I love the Rita Mae Brown books and Susan Wittig Albert wrote much the same way. They both give animals voices but they cannot be heard by humans - just among themselves. Usually the animals in both authors books solve the mystery long before the humans. This book was a light fun read.

I also read "Dawn" by Eleanor Porter. This book was so boring and so full of description of mundane things (that only turn of the 20th century seem to do) it was a hard book to get through. I see why her 'Pollyanna' books were the only books she is really known by. I suggest you don't waste your time on this one.