After the Dancing Days

Phew!  This is the last catch up post and then we are all up to date!

Last night we had a great meeting discussing After the Dancing Days by Margaret I. Rostkowski.  This is the story of 13 year old Annie Metcalf whose father is coming back from his assignment treating wounded soldiers as a doctor during World War I.  Annie begins visiting him at the new hospital where he is now working to continue to treat and help WWI vets who have been severely injured.  Annie overcomes her initial revulsion to a young man (Andrew) whose face has been completely destroyed by exposure to mustard gas and a deep friendship blooms.

A couple of our readers had read this YA novel years ago and loved it and found it very interesting to revisit it now as adults.  They noted that through adult eyes it was much easier to understand Annie's mother's desire to protect her young daughter from the ugliness of war.  We discussed the desire to forget the ugly things that happened during the war and pretend like they didn't happen.  This brought us to a discussion of people who look different today and how we react to them.  Whether the people we come in contact with have mental challenges or physical challenges, we discussed how every person wants and needs to be acknowledged no matter what their appearance is like.  Another insightful point of our discussion for me was in considering Andrew's choice and strength of character in moving on with his life.  He found a job that he could do and a way to help and serve others despite his obvious challenges.  It was instructive for me to consider that no matter what challenges I may have it is important to find a way to keep going, moving forward and finding ways to help others and find self-worth in what I can do, rather than wallowing in self-pity for what I can't accomplish.


We all know book club wouldn't be book club without food! Here are Lindsey's recipes for the delicious treats we enjoyed!

Although it doesn't have to be be 7 layers, here are suggestions for the layers of the bean dip:
Bottom layer: 2 cans refried beans mixed with 1 package of taco seasoning
Next layer: Guacamole (either homemade or canned, but if you use homemade, make sure you put lemon juice in it. Otherwise, it will not keep a nice green color.)
3rd layer: sour cream
4th layer: shredded cheese (any kind works)
(these 4 layers are the main ones. All layers following can be whatever you personally like)
5th layer: chopped tomoates
6th layer: chopped green onions
7th layer: olives

Fruit pizza (makes one pizza crust):
1 can 16-18 oz refrigerated sugar cookie dough
(Or homemade recipe. This is the one I used:
Cream together 1/2 c softened butter and 3/4 c white sugar. Mix in 1 egg. Add 1 1/4 c flour, 1/2 t baking soda, and 1/4 t salt.)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Press cookie dough into a well-greased pizza pan.
3. Bake 10 minutes (could be shorter or longer depending on the thickness of the crust. It will continue baking after it's pulled out of the oven, so take it out just when it's starting to turn a golden brown color.)
4. Cool completely.

Cream cheese topping (makes enough for 2 pizzas):
1 8 oz package of cream cheese (straight from the fridge)
5 T room temperature butter
1 t vanilla
Cream these together.
Add 2 c powdered sugar

Add whatever fruit toppings you want after frosting the pizzas (I used mandarin oranges, kiwis, strawberries, grapes, and bananas).
Chill for at least 1 hour.

Fire in the Bones

For our January meeting we "discussed" the book,  Fire in the Bones: William Tyndale, Martyr, Father of the English Bible by S. Michael Wilcox.  This book proved, I think, a little too intellectual and not reader friendly for our readers (I can say that without making somebody feel bad because I chose the book!).  I was really the only person who attended who had read the book, but I still say it is an amazing book and for me it read like a novel.  I loved learning about William Tyndale and found that knowing more about him and other reformers deepened my gratitude for their lives and sacrifices.  Further, it led me to feel a deep and profound gratitude for the Bible.  (As a side note I have an ancestor who is discussed at the very end of the book, John Rogers who continued Tyndale's work and who was also burned at the stake for him participation in moving that work forward). 

The book is written by an LDS author whose purpose in writing is to help an LDS audience appreciate the significance of the work of William Tyndale.  He points out, quite rightly, that Tyndale fought battles that made it possible for Joseph Smith to perform his work.  One of my favorite links from the Reformation to the Restoration is that Tyndale said that he wanted for the plow-boy to know more of the scriptures than the priest (because the priests knew little of the actual contents of the Bible and the plow-boy would be able to read the translated work).  That was certainly fulfilled in the person of Joseph Smith who was a plow-boy who read, loved, and applied the holy words of the Bible to his own situation which lead to coming to know his own mission on earth.

As I told our readers this is on my list of life-changing books.  We had a great discussion about our own purposes and how we must have the same sense of conviction to accomplish what we need to on earth, most notably raising our children.  It was a fun discussion!  Thanks Ladies!!!

Children's Book Review

Ok, ok, so I'm way behind on updating our book club blog.  I'll try to get us all up to date today! :)

In January we had a Children's book review.  We did this because we knew that nobody would have a chance to read a big long novel in December.  We had a great time talking about some of our favorite children's and adolescent books.  I don't think I could possibly capture what was said about all the books, and yes, there were many(!), but I will just say that we loved talking about children's books and I can definitely say I added a lot of books to my to-read list at our January meeting! :)

Feel free to comment with other favorite children's books that we should all know about! :)

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

We enjoyed a lovely December evening discussing Charles Dickens' Classic, A Christmas Carol.  Becky prepared excellent questions about the book including:  Which ghost was the most effective? and Why is this book such an enduring classic?  We talked about each of the ghosts and how they worked on Scrooge.  His transformation wouldn't have been complete without the visits from all three of them.  We felt that everyone can relate with some facet of Scrooge's character.  We wondered about his father and what the novel really told us about him.  We also spent some time talking about film adaptations:  how faithful they are to the book, where they have taken license, etc.

I welcome comments to include significant parts of our discussion I missed, my time is short this season!  :)


For January's meeting...

We realize that everybody is super-duper busy in December so we are not going to be reading a specific book.  Instead we will be sharing books with each other.  This will help us to keep meeting, and still have something fun to do at our meeting in January without having to feel guilty about not having time to read our book club selection for the month!  Mijken will be hosting and leading our next discussion.  See below for details!

Book Club-Children's Book Review

Please select a picture, children's, or young adult book to review.  

Come prepared to share the following information:

Title:
Author:
Pages: (Number)
Type: (ie. picture book, children's, etc.)
Genre:  (i.e. fantasy, sci fi, fiction, non-fiction)
Description: (doesn't have to be long)
Recommended by:
Rating: (from 1 - 5 stars)

It would be super helpful if you could bring all of this info written out.  I have extra forms at my house for anyone who wants to have it already printed out.

***Also - we will be moving our meeting time in January to accommodate schedule changes for several of our readers.  We will now be meeting on the first Wednesday of each month.***

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

We had another great discussion last night!  This one was about our latest book, The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis.  Our first surprize was that this book wasn't about a marriage!  It was, in fact, C.S. Lewis' argument that Heaven and Hell do not coexist.  There is no part of Hell in Heaven - that is the great divorce.  The book details a bus journey from Hell to the the "edge" of Heaven.  There, the ghosts who have come on the journey are given the opportunity to choose to go on to embrace all that Heaven offers or return to Hell.  Interestingly, most choose to return to the bus and return to Hell, not having the desire nor the faith to go on and make the choice to embrace joy, happiness and Heaven.

Most of us could see something of ourselves in some of the caricatures of the ghosts who were depicted.  We discussed making the choice to be happy now and the get comfortable with the things of heaven now so we will feel comfortable when we do "arrive" there.

Thanks to Dacia for hosting us!

And...if you want to recreate the deliciousness she served us last night...follow this link to her Cooking Momma blog for directions and pictures. Yum-Oh!

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Our next book has been chosen by Becky and is perfect for the beginning of the holiday season!  We will be reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (seriously, how perfect is that?) and plan to meet the first Tuesday in December.

Prologue: The Brothers by Chris Stewart

We had a great discussion last night about Chris Stewart's The Great and Terrible Vol. 1 - Prologue: The Brothers.  We all felt that it was a book we enjoyed.  Some readers took issue with a few points of doctrine, but that didn't make anyone feel that it was not a book worth reading.  Most of all we enjoyed how this book made us think.  For many of our readers this book caused us to reflect on what promises we may have made in our life before earth and how we are living up to our promises now.  We thought of how meaningful it is that we have been given the responsibility of raising our own children and what their missions might be.

Most of our readers expressed a desire to read on in the series, in fact some have already read multiple books in the series.  We were interested to know what the prologue really has to do with the characters we came to know in this book.  We enjoyed getting to know the characters introduced in this book and to know their pre-earth stories.

Along with a great discussion we were treated to a delicious Apple Crisp served with whipped cream.  Thanks to everyone for coming!  Dacia's choice for our next read is: The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis - get ready for a fun meeting in November!

Here's Carrie's recipe for Apple Crisp - It's from her mom and is written in mom fashion!

Apple crisp....I peel the apples and put them in the baking dish (editor's note:  I noticed Carrie used a 9 x 13 glass baking dish)  so I know I have enough.  Then I put them in a bowl big enough to mix in.  Zest one lemon....if it is big only use half.  Add about 1/3 cup sugar and cinn and nutmeg to taste.  Dash of salt.  Put back into baking dish.  I used 2/3 cup flour, brown sugar and oats.  1/2 c soften butter.  Mix together and spread on top of apples with fingers.  Bake 350 until the apples are the softness you want.  I left mine a bit crisp...about 35 minutes.  Test with a tooth pick.  Serve with nothing, ice cream, whipping cream, milk or use your imagination!

 

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

At our September meeting, we discussed The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Our meeting was very well attended (thanks to all our new readers for coming too!) and everyone had something to say about this book! There was a lot of discussion about the plot of the book.  We agreed that the whole idea of the Hunger Games was revolting and that you had to find something else (the love triangle, friendships, the family relationships, etc.) to focus on to get past the horrifying elements of the book.  Some of our readers loved the book and others hated it.  We had an interesting discussion about the new movie they are making of this book (and subsequent books in the series).  We wondered if our culture and country were acting like "The Capital" by wanting so much to see this book dramatized in a motion picture.  We discussed how much harder this book would be to see in a movie than even to read.  Our thoughts were that the images would be hard to erase from your mind, while when you read you can gloss over them without fully forming them into images. 

Several our our readers had read all three books by the time we met and others were not sure that they would read more than this first book.  All in all it was an excellent discussion filled with differing opinions and viewpoints.  Thanks to all the Rexburg Readers for a great discussion!

At our meeting Kate treated us all to "Peeta" (pita) chips with Tiffany's excellent artichoke dip.  Also featured was mini cheesecakes with "poison" berries. 

For those of you waiting for the recipe for Tiffany's artichoke dip...here it is!

8oz. cream cheese-softened
1 C mayo
1- 14oz. can or jar of artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
2 green onions, sliced thin
1/2 C grated parm
1 C grated Motz.
Dash of hot sauce
Dash of worchestershire sauce
salt and pepper
*beat all ingredients together. Transfer to pie plate and bake at 350 for 30-40 min.

Carrie selected our next book:  The Great and Terrible, Vol. 1: Prologue, the Brothers by Chris Stewart.  See you all in October! :)