Chu Ju’s House by Gloria Whelan. This author also wrote an award-winning young adult novel, Homeless Bird, about a young girl forced into an arranged marriage in India. Chu Ju’s House is the story of a Chinese girl whose parents are expecting another child. Unfortunately, the new baby is another girl, and since rural families in Communist China are only allowed two children, Chu Ju’s parents must decide how to solve their problem: no son to help the father and carry on the family name. The solution is to give the baby to an orphanage, but Chu Ju cannot bear to see her new sister suffer such a fate. So the teenager Chu Ju leaves home so that her sister may grow up with her own family. Most of the novel tells of Chu Ju’s adventures as travels and attempts to find her own place in the world.
A Song I Knew By Heart by Bret Lott. This novel is based on the book of Ruth, and the characters even share (or come close to) the Biblical names: Naomi, Ruth, Mahlon, Eli, and Beau. However, this book is the story of an elderly Southern woman who has been living in the Northeast. After the deaths of both her husband and her only son, Naomi decides to return to her childhood home in South Carolina. Some of the scenes and descriptions in this novel are memorable: the handprint turkeys, the “girls” quilting and playing board games together, caroling at the nursing home. The plot isn’t much, fairly predictable, especially if you know the Bible story, but the characters and scenes have stayed with me. The depiction of Southern family life and kinship rang true, and the friendships between Naomi and the members of her quilting circle were true and endearing, too. Read it when you’re in the mood for something slow, emotional, descriptive, and thoughtful.
I’ve also been reading Wodehouse again–comic relief. This one is called Thank You, Jeeves, and my American ears are rather shocked at the way Wodehouse keeps using the n— word (a group of n— minstrels plays a minor part in the action). I’ve seen the same word in Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, and it’s always a bit jarring to twenty first century ears (or eyes). Otherwise, the book is perfectly Wodehousian, hilarious predicaments for good old Bertie and Jeeves on the spot to extract his dim but good hearted employer out of the soup.