Rachel Kovaciny's Blog, page 81

Another LOTR Read-Along: The Window on the West (TTT 4, 5)

This is more like it! Finally, we're talking about Boromir again!

Okay, honestly, even if Boromir wasn't mentioned, I would be so happy with this chapter. A brief reprieve from wandering around in the grey dismality of Almost-Mordor. Food and rest for poor Sam and Frodo. Whew.



And hello, Faramir! It's weird, but for many years, I never paid a whole lot of attention to Faramir. I tended to just think of him as Boromir's little brother, and isn't it nice how much he loved his brother, etc. But du...

Another LOTR Read-Along: Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit (TTT 4, 4)

I quite like this chapter. Why? Because Frodo and Sam get to eat their herbs and stewed rabbit! That makes me so happy. (In the movie, they get interrupted, and that saddens me deeply.) Also, we finally get to walk through some more pleasant countryside. And more happens than just trudging and being weary.

And here we meet a new character: Faramir, Captain of Gondor. You'll learn a lot about him in the next chapter. For now, we have learned that since Boromir left, Faramir "leads now in all pe...

"The Family Under the Bridge" by Natalie Savage Carlson

My friend Jennifer sent my son this book last year.  He read it, and I wanted to read it, but I was busy with other books and just kept putting it off.  Well, the whole reason that I joined the OldSchool KidLit Reading Challenge was to motivate me to read the classic kids' books like this that I keep pushing aside, so yay!  That plan worked!  I have now read this.

It's a sweet, mellow story of an old homeless man in Paris who is aggressively happy with being homeless and al...

Another LOTR Read-Along: The Black Gate (TTT 4, 3)

Frodo waxes rather philosophical in this chapter. As they face the Black Gate, he says, "I am commanded to go to the land of Mordor, and therefore I shall go... If there is only one way, then I must take it. What comes after must come" (p. 624). It quite reminds me of the point toward the end of Hamlet where Hamlet discusses death with Horatio. He says:

"If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Since no man...

In Which I Join Instagram and #MiddleEarthMarch

I keep hearing good things about #bookstagram, and this post from Musings of Jamie prompted me to just take a flying leap into the world of Instagram.  (Well, that plus I just got a new phone with a decent camera on it, which will make posting to Instagram a lot easier.)  I joined, I started posting pictures, the whole shebang.  And I promptly joined an Instagram challenge called #MiddleEarthMarch, which basically is just posting Tolkien-related pictures all through March based...

Another LOTR Read-Along: The Passage of the Marshes (TTT 4, 2)

Drearily we stumble along, stumble along, stumble along...

As Tolkien himself says here, "The next stage of their journey was much the same as the last" (p. 611). Sam continues to suspect Gollum/Smeagol of ulterior motives, and to help Frodo by "supporting him if he stumbled, and trying to encourage him with clumsy words" (p. 617). Everything is ugly and horrible and ghastly.

And then we get to the Dead Marshes and discover that they're not just called that because nothing much grows there, but...

"The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling" by Maryrose Wood

This is an enchantingly silly and endearingly sweet book. I read it aloud to my kids over the past month or so, and we all enjoyed it so much, we got the next book out of the library as soon as we returned this one.

In it, a fifteen-year-old governess undertakes to humanize three children who were literally raised by wolves in the forest outside a rich person's house.  The rich people have taken the children in, more or less grudgingly as the case may be, and they've hired this governness...

Another LOTR Read-Along: The Taming of Smeagol (TTT 4, 1)

The first time I read The Two Towers, I barely made it through, to be honest. The second time, I'd read somewhere that if you pay attention to Sam and his character growth and arc, all this is a lot more interesting, and I tried that. It does help, and keeps me from bashing my head against a wall, at least.

By which I mean, if this next section makes you weary, or you wonder if it's ever going to end, or whatever -- don't feel like you're a bad person. Or a bad reader. Or even a bad Tolkien fa...

"Speak Easy, Speak Love" by McKelle George

Oh my stars.  This book!  It caused me such a serious book hangover, I've been finished reading it for DAYS and haven't yet quite figured out how to talk about it.  But I'll do my best.

First off, thank you SO MUCH to Kara from Flowers of Quiet Happiness!  She insisted I read this book because she thought I would loooooooooooooove it.  How right she was!  You can read her review here.

So basically, this is a YA retelling of Much Ado About Nothing by William Sh...

Another LOTR Read-Along: The Palantir (TTT 3, 11)

This chapter is another beautiful representation of the cycle of temptation, sin, repentance, confession, and forgiveness. Pippin knows he shouldn't touch that glass ball, and even as he gives in to the temptation and tries to take it while Gandalf is asleep, his conscience is warning him not to. Gandalf later reprimands him for not listening to his conscience, saying, "You knew you were behaving wrongly and foolishly; and you told yourself so, though you did not listen" (p. 584). Pippin pick...