Author - Melissa Nathan

I've read 3 of her books:

Pride, Prejudice, & Jasmin Field

Persuading Annie

and

The Nanny.

The first two are modern re-writes of Jane Austen's books Pride & Prejudice and Persuasion. I found the PP&JF at a used bookstore years ago, and I still like to read it once in a while. It is a light and easy read, stays true to Austen's story (will Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy end up together???), but also has an original take on the story that makes it fresh and modern.

I just read PA for the first time, and found the first 3/4ths of it a little boring and a little complicated. I couldn't exactly tell how Nathan's characters were supposed to match up with Austen's and how the story was supposed to match up (which was probably my fault for trying to match them up in my mind, but that's how my brain works), but then the ending made the story more interesting, and made it enjoyable overall.

I hesitated over The Nanny for a while. I had horrible visions of the Scarelt Johanson movie and knew I wouldn't be able to stomach that kind of squirmy, embarassing blather. I know the Nanny Diairies is a different book entirely, but I figured there is enough related subject matter to give me concern. Anyways, this book reminded me of PP&JF, with the light, fast moving story. Actually, the plot reminded me of Austen's Northanger Abbey, but I don't know if Nathan intended this one to be an retelling of Austen's novel. I might just read the Nanny Diaries now so I can compare them.

I'm going to be on the look out for Nathan's other books: The Waitress and The Learning Curve.

Aaach. While reading about The Learning Curve at amazon I learned that Melissa Nathan died of breast cancer shortly after finishing it, her 5th novel. It makes me sad for all sorts of reasons.

Confusion & Poetry

An email newsletter I subscribe to said today, October 15th, is World Poetry Day, which had me all excited, until I did a search online and my hopes were dashed. Today is NOT World Poetry Day (March 21st was - so not even close to today) and National Poetry Day was October 8th. This same newsletter said to write a poem in honor of National Poetry Day (Oct 15th) and then listed World Poetry Day under October 15th. And then I googled "poetry day oct 15" and found that the National Library and Information System Authority, somehow linked to Trinidad & Tobago, 2 countries who share an island, will be celebrating National Poetry Day today.

Well, whatever!! Any excuse to share some of my favorite poetry!!

Emily Dickinson

Tell all the truth but tell it slant --
There's a certain Slant of light
Much Madness is divinest Sense

And lots more Dickens!!! (I heard a Fly buzz -- when I died --)

Robert Frost - Nothing Gold can Stay & Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Robert Browning - My Last Duchess (I love how evil the Duke is!)

Shakespeare's Sonnets - Too many to list individually, but one is Sonnet 116, which I had to memorize in high school, but I obviously still remember it because of the Sense and Sensibility movie with Hugh Grant.

A poet/poem I have recently been learning about is Sappho's Hymn to Aphrodite (her only complete poem recovered).

Favorite poetry I've read with my kids:

AA Milne's When we were very young & Now we are six
Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verse
Margaret Wise Brown's poetry (We have a book called Nibble Nibble, as well as others like Goodnight Moon and A Child's Good Night Book)

Nyah's favorite poetry right now is from Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein-- she recently memorized Melinda Mae.

Austin's favorite is Bone Poems by Jeff Moss-- he recently memorized Bones:
Bones are important,
They do a big job.
Without them, you'd be just
A big squooshy blob

We have also been listening to William Blake the last couple months (The Tiger) -- Librivox is a great place to download poetry and make your own CD!!

One of my manyy favorite books is The Oxford Book of Story Poems, which includes classics such as The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson (thank you Anne of Avonlea!) to more modern favorites like Jabberwocky by Lewis Carrol. It also has one of my favorites from when I was a kid- The Owl and the Pussycat.

My favorite book about poetry is The Art of Poetry - How to Read a Poem by Shira Wolosky.

And since I've moved from actual poems to books about poetry, I must be starting to get carried away! I could list LOTS more, but I will control myself and stop now.

Do YOU have any favorites? Please share by leaving a comment!!