These sweet little poems were on the headstones to three little baby graves, all belonging to the same couple.
Sometimes things just come together in the oddest way, and it's so beautiful, the way God makes a little patchwork of coincidences for us.
It was, I think, either one or two days after Daddy died, and I was running next door to tell Sarah something I've now forgotten. Leaves had fallen everywhere, and Yoshi ran a little ways ahead of me, energetic because of the cold air. I saw an animal cracker box lying on the driveway. As Yoshi ran past it, he picked it up in his mouth, shook it, and two folded pieces of paper fell out; one construction paper and one notebook paper. I picked up the piece of notebook paper, unfolded it, and saw it was a letter I had written to James a few years before, and realized that the animal cracker box was what we used to use as a pretend mailbox in his tree house. I thought it was funny, and kept going. I went to Sarah's, told her whatever it was, and started back towards home. The green construction paper was still there, and I picked it up that time, unfolding it. And there it was. A letter I didn't remember existing. A letter that had been in that tree house, untouched, for a year or so. Addressed to James. It was a letter from Daddy. In his true style, he told James that Mama and I were weird because I ate Beefaroni and she read strange books, and then he proceeded to tell James how to be cool like him. I remember running home, not wanting to waste anytime before I showed it to Mama and James, amazed at how weird and lucky it was that I found it that day. I've never tried writing book reviews of any kind, so bear with me through this one, even though these aren't as much reviews as they are just me rambling on about them.
This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl I'll admit, I only started reading Esther's book because she was a friend of John Green, but once I started reading, I was hooked. Esther Earl was a young girl with cancer, and in 2010 she died at the age of sixteen. The book consists of her journal entries, letters, and works of fiction she wrote herself. Oh, boy. There are few things I like better than reading published journals. The interesting thing was reading one that was written recently, rather than fifty+ years ago, like usual. The journal and letters tell the journey of Esther's life, mixing tales about wanting her first kiss and watching Doctor Who with stories about Doctor's appointments and the fear of cancer and dying constantly looming around. Esther left an impression on me by her mentions of how she wanted to make a difference in the world and her insightful thoughts about life and death and living. It was a wonderfully refreshing book. One that made and laugh, smile, sigh, and cry (as cliche as that sounds) and I loved it and Esther both. The Giver The movie's trailer was pretty cool, right? But the book wasn't quite what I was expecting from seeing that trailer. It was even better. In a world where there's no war or pain or fear, there are also no choices, and everyone is given their assigned role in the community at age twelve. Jonas is chosen as the new Giver, the person assigned to hold the memories of the pain and pleasures of life (In order to offer advice to the community). The current Giver must transfer the memories to Jonas, and I must say, those were my favorite parts of the book, because they felt so magical when Jonas was learning how exciting and happy and sometimes hurtful the world could be when there are choices and feelings. But I'll admit, this book wasn't a true page turner for me until it got to the last few chapters, and then I was absolutely hooked, reading as fast as I could to get to the end and see how things would turn out. Every Day The first word that comes to mind to describe this book is just mesmerizing, and anytime I try to write a summary, it ends up being more confusing than it actually is (and it's already a little confusing). The book jacket says Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl. so basically, even though A's in a different body everyday, he has his own memories, and some of the memories belonging to that person, too, and the next day the person tends to remember the day A was there maybe a little hazy, but they don't remember A. His rules are not to interfere and not to get attached, but suddenly, in the body of a boy named Justin, he takes off with Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon, to the beach for an afternoon, making himself break both rules. Suddenly, A's falling in love with Rhiannon, and then he's interfering left and right, causing trouble for himself along the way. Some scenes made me kinda uncomfortable, and it's certainly a very different book than I'm used to. I teared up once, and it made me put myself in his shoes a whole lot, which is usually a good sign that a book is pretty thought-provoking. A Christmas Carol I'd feel a bit silly describing this story, since most people have already heard, read, or seen it. Before reading it, I knew the story because of a Flintstones episode where they put on a play production of A Christmas Carol (Fred was Scrooge, of course) and since then, I've loved the story. After reading David Copperfield earlier this year, and falling so in love with the story and writing style of Dickens, I knew this one was a must read, and it didn't disappoint. Finally reading the story in Dickens own words excited me, and rather than being bored by the lack of surprise because I had already heard the story a million times, I was excited anytime something happened because I knew what was coming next and I couldn't wait for it to happen. Sometimes I get ideas in my head, goals to set, and sometimes they are less achievable than I originally thought.
I got the brilliant idea from Kelli at Blimey Cow (Awesome YouTube channel, by the way) to read one hundred books this year, after hearing that she read one hundred books last year. Really, sounds achievable, right? That's only around two books a week. Except I didn't finish reading anything in January. And February didn't look much better than that. I don't really have a good excuse for why, either, except that I can start twenty different books in a week and never finish one. So now it's August 22nd, and I've read twenty-two books this year. Goodreads informs me that I'm a whopping forty-two books behind schedule. After a quick Google search I learned that if I wanted to be done in time, I'd have to read a book every forty hours. I've actually managed to do that so far, needing to finish my next book by midnight tonight. There's something so exhilarating about reading so many books at one time. I've been trying to read books about as many different things (Like mixing John Green with Charles Dickens and Bill O'Reilly). Right now I'm reading seven books.. Albeit*, I haven't been reading some of them for quite a while and one of them got sent back to the library to make room for other books. So with that, I should probably be off, to do more reading. Although we took a trip to the library today and I got four books, so should be fun picking which one to read next. *Albeit being a word I picked up from reading David Copperfield ;) I've been doing a lot of reading this afternoon, and sometimes reading just makes me want to write. Okay, so anytime I read anything I want to write. Also anytime I go to the movies, or anytime I watch a good television show (*Cough* Doctor Who, Under the Dome, etc. *Cough*) or see a pretty picture or hear one of those songs that just makes you say whoa. James and I were sitting in the library today, while Mama was looking for all the books she needed, and I was fighting the urge to go find more books to add to my already heavy stack. I took one glance around, at the tons of books everywhere (I was going to say hundreds, then thousands, then reminded myself how bad I am at estimations and math and didn't want to embarrass myself. So tons is a nice, safe-ish word), and thought, if they can do that, so can I. Too often I go into a pity party of just how impossible it is to write something worth reading, (insert a statement from Ethan and/or James about how I'm not a very good judge of my own work :P) but then I have to remind myself every author I look up to is at least twice my age, which means I have a good 16+ years to write something worth showing. Then I wonder why young adult books (in my opinion) tend to be better by people in their upper twenties+ than actual young adults, (There are, of course, exceptions to this statement). Maybe it's just easier to write about adolescence in hindsight rather than in the moment. I wonder . . . oh well. This wasn't at all what I intended to write when I first started, but it turned out nicely, I think. I'm off to do some more reading. I took this picture accidentally and then got excited because I thought it looked like the ocean, the sand, and then a forest. It's nothing special, but it's one of my favorites right now.
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Hi, I'm Hannah :) Thanks for stopping by.
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