Gene Stratton-Porter, A Girl of the Limberlost

Stratton-Porter, Gene. A Girl of the Limberlost. Illustrated by David Hendrickson. Triangle Books, 1909.

Gene Statton-Porter was a woman who lived in the woods and loved moths, birds, and trees. I read a bit about her biography since I read this book for my inquiry project. It turns out that she was a non-fiction writer who wrote fiction books to pay the bills and make her publishers happy. I think it’s interesting that she is so well known for her fictional books, yet her true passion was ecology and non-fiction writing. Her personal passion is very evident in her writing as a reader learns as much about moths from a story like this as they would reading a non-fiction moth book – maybe even more since moths are a central part of the plot in this story.

The story is about a country girl, Elnora Comstock, who decides to go to school. Her mother is very harsh, cold, neglectful, and unloving. Elnora struggles as she goes to school and is teased for her poor clothes and she almost has to quit when she finds out that people outside of town have to pay tuition and book costs in order to attend school. However, she finds a woman (the Bird Lady) who will pay money for moth specimens and she becomes self-sufficient as she puts herself through school collecting natural items to sell. In the climax of the book Elnora’s mother, who has never helped her with anything, destroys a rare moth specimen that Elnora needed to complete a set which would sell for $300. At this, Elnora finally confronts her mother and the relationship is broken and then restored as her mother realizes what a fool she has been to treat her daughter so poorly. There is also a romance in the book, Elnora falls in love with a naturalist she meets in the woods on one of her nature walks.

            A Girl of the Limberlost is a very old-fashioned story, written in 1909. I think the style is very modernistic and may not appeal to a current-day audience, but for others it will remain a timeless classic. Re-reading this story for the first time as an adult was a wonderfully nostalgic experience for me, and I was glad to find that I still really enjoyed it. It reminds me of other book series such as the Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell and the All Creatures Great and Small series by James Herriot. They are books which a nature lover would love, but others might find boring.

"Mom's Everything Book for Daughters" by: Becky Freeman

Ok, so I never finished writing a review for the "Boundaries" book and started reading another book. It's the sanguine in me. But, I will eventually write the part 2 review for the "Boundaries" book.

This new book I'm reading is for a very specific audience - moms with daughters. It's a REALLY good book so far - the sort of book I find to be very helpful. Full of genuine, frank, diverse advice for moms. It's not preachy or full of fluff. The things she writes about are right-on and she gives lots of inspiring ideas too. Sure, she's more traditional than your typical Xenos mom, but that's true of any Christian parenting book. You can take some of the Christian-culture things with a grain of salt. The thing I really love so far is that one page will have facts about eating disorders and then the next page will have a box filled with classic mom-daughter movie choices. It is exactly that sort of thing that will inspire a mom to have good quality interactions with her daughter.

"You will probably be surprised one day when you ask your daughter what she remembers most about your times together. Most often it isn't the grand, planned, mother-daughter occasions - but the small kindnesses, the little notes on her pillow or in her lunch box, the "folding laundry and watching a video" times of coziness and warmth and fun." - p.20

If you are a mother of a daughter aged 5-15, you should probably buy this book and look at it occasionally. I rented this copy from the library - but, I plan on buying a copy to keep. I'll write a longer review when I finish it - it's possible that the book will go downhill from here and if that's the case, I'll let y'all know.

"All You Need to Know About Raising Girls"

A book by Melissa Trevathan and Sissy Goff, this book is the one Amazon recommended to me as a complimentary book to "Wild Things: the Art of Nurturing Boys". Here is the Amazon page for it: http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Girls-Melissa-Trevathan/dp/0310272890/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b
When I started reading this book, I was surprised and glad to see what a Christian focus it took - there was no trying to be sly about Christianity in this book. But, I was dismayed when I read that book authors were older women who were counselors and yet had never been married and never had children. I wondered how I could take their advice seriously, when I would be able to write off everything they said with the old, "Well, they've never lived this out. and they don't know what it's really like outside of the clinical environment." However, I came to repent of that attitude as I realised that they actually had an objective voice (or voices) that I did respect. Moms can tend to view, or skew things in a way that is biased by their own experiences; but these women didn't have that at all.
That being said, I think overall it was a helpful book - but a lot lighter fare than "Wild Things: the Art of Nurturing Boys". Although the authors spoke more about being a Christian parent; they also tended to tell a lot of stories and spend time on what I might call "fluff".
It does go into all the relationships in a girls life: her and her mother, her and her father, her and her siblings, her and her grandparents, etc.. And I think the descriptions of the different developmental stages were pretty accurate. So, the book does get my recommendation - just be aware that there is some "fluff" and that the authors are not parents.
-j-