Finished: There There (Orange) Eye-opening and heart-breaking book about a group of current day Native Americans, some related, some not, who all end up converging at the Big Oakland Powwow, after we spend the book reading about their lives, their back stories, their heartbreak, and their hopes for the future. Most of them live in Oakland, have had very tough lives, and are still barely hanging on, which causes some of them to do desperate things. Others of them find out they are actually related to one another in one form or another. Hearing the modern characters telling the stories of their ancestors, usually when relating the horror and oppression to a younger generation, was deeply moving. Great book! Thank you to my son for picking it out for me for Christmas. :-)

Finished: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (Mackesy) I read this book in early December, when I saw it advertised and thought I might want to get it for my daughter, Jenny Cate, seeing as how she's a horse person, and had lost her beloved horse, Sara, recently. I loved the book, so got one for me too. The illustrations are as powerful as the prose. The message...friendship, family, being yourself, loving others. I was pretty much hooked from the beginning, when I read this exchange between the boy and the mole:

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked the mole.

“Kind,” said the boy."

Just a lovely, lovely book full of lessons we could all learn from, especially in this crazy world today.

Finished: The Dutch House (Patchett) The story of the bond between two siblings, Danny and Maeve, who grow up in a huge, ornate house called The Dutch House...that is until their father remarries and the brother and sister are asked to move out of the house after their father dies, when Danny has just started college. Deserted by their mother when they are very young, Maeve and Danny are raised by their rather distant father and their nurturing housekeeper and cook until the remarriage. They are very supportive of, and protective of each other. Their step-mother marries the father more so because she's in love with the house rather than their father. She's got two young daughters of her own and they are shown favoritism as Danny and Maeve get older. As the years go by, Maeve and Danny will get together in her car, parked across the street from the house and wonder what their step-mother is up to, and if the house still looks the same inside. When their father dies, he leaves the entire house and all it's contents to his wife...but he does set up an educational fund for all the children to go however far they want in college and beyond. The book is very compelling and develops each character so deeply that you really come to care for Danny and Maeve. It's one of those books that stays with you even after you finish reading it. As they go on with their lives, Danny and Maeve always put each other first, much to the dismay of Danny's wife and children. And, when Maeve is in her early 50's and is debilitated by a heart attack due to her lifelong battle with diabetes, their mother comes back into the picture to spend time with Maeve, who was eight years older than Danny when she left, and longs to have the relationship back. Danny can't forgive his mother for leaving them and going off to help less fortunate people. She'd always hated the ostentatious house, was uncomfortable living in it, and just wanted to help the poor. Sadly, she did that at the expense of her own children. Maeve and Danny are finally able to put the Dutch House in the past when they go with their own mother to visit their step-mother and find her deteriorating from Alzheimer's. As is typical of their mother, she decides to move into the house and care for their step-mother. Maeve succumbs to her heart condition, and her namesake, May, Danny's daughter, eventually become a successful actress and buys the Dutch House after both her step-grandmother and grandmother have passed away. I really like this book and all the relationships that were developed in the telling of the story! Last book read of 2019!