NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL by Justina Chen Headley and other stuff

I know you can't hear me singing, but pretend you can. "Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning to you!" (The Little Goose Nest preschool good morning song) "The day is beginning there's so much to do." Okay, folks, time to rise and shine.

I want to tell you about a fabulous YA book that I just finished--really great. It's called NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL by Justina Chen Headley. The protagonist,Terra, is a seventeen-year-old girl with a large port wine stain on her face. An oppressive,emotionally-abusive father keeps her right under his thumb (and her cowering mother, too) even as she petitions to go away to college and display her art. The characters are so well-drawn and believeable, you almost have to look away when you're reading sometimes. The father is a failed cartographer and everything the protag does is influenced by maps. (Headley does a masterful job of weaving in all the cartography information without weighing the story down.) Yet they all manage to rise above really tough situations, especially once Terra and her mom are in a car accident and befriend the people they hit. If you're a YA reader, this one is a MUST READ. The message is an excellent one--examining TRUE beauty, not surface beauty. Can't wait for my girls to read it.

SO my ED is away at Camp Seafarer, and we received this very scary-sounding letter about the flu virus hitting Camp Seagull, the boy camp (who come over for dances, etc.). So I'm a little on edge about THAT. My other daughter is in Asheville with our dear friends. She enjoyed an irish dance performance in their garden last night, which I'm sure will make her want to learn. Glad she's having fun.

I helped my friend move a tiny bit last night (and I mean, a tiny bit in light of the big job it is!!!). They just built a house, and I was struck by just how clean and perfect a new house is. I had forgotten. Living in a 100 year old house, you just forget how, I don't know, CLEAN , still the best word I can come up with. It inspired me to come home last night and clean out my pantry. So I'm going back over to help her this morning. Hopefully, I'll be inspired again because I'm back to the cottage today which could certainly use some purging!

REDNECK TIP FOR TRAVELING WITH KIDs
1. Drive through McDonald's

That's all I've got today, folks.

Have a great day.