My Grandma

My Grandma Gilliland passed away this week.  I could never hope to find the words to express how much she meant to me and influenced me in my life.  Below is her obituary.  She was loved and I will miss being called "dolly" and "tweetie."

Grandma Gilliland's Life

(Ina) Lucille Gilliland, beloved mother and grandmother, passed away on February 25, 2010, full of years at 92, a woman who devoted her entire life to her family.  She was born Lucille Parker in Alta Vista, Kansas on October 26, 1917, one of seven children. The Parkers later moved to Lyndon, Kansas where she graduated  from Lyndon High School in 1934 and married Donald Gilliland on August 1, 1936. Donald and Lucille moved to Overbrook, Kansas, where they raised their three girls and four boys on the family farm.

She was preceded in death by her husband Donald, grandson Ryan Gilliland, brothers Earl Parker, George Parker and Ted Parker and sister Ruby Sherwin. After the death of her husband, Lucille took a position as a cook at Santa Fe Trail High School, and finished raising their children on the farm. She retired in 1983 and moved back to Lyndon in 1985. Throughout her life Lucille enjoyed reading, baking, quilting, Scrabble and crossword puzzles, and most especially spending time with her family.

Lucille is survived by her children and their spouses, Darrel (Susan) of Topeka, Delton (Janet) of Lyndon, Frank (Betsy) of Holton, Ina Beth (Jim) Jordan of Littleton, Colorado, Amy (Tom) Feitel of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Susan (Mike) King of Republic, Missouri, and Milton (Becky) of Topeka; 15 grandchildren who all know how blessed they were to have her as a grandmother; 20 great grandchildren; and her sisters, Irene Johnson of Mesa, Arizona and Lorene Michel of Grenada, California.

Katie's Blog

My darlin' cousin Katie has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, which is what her mom died of about 15 years ago.  She is going to be blogging about her experience as she undergoes treatment, including chemotherapy, which starts this coming Tuesday.  She is one of my favorite people on the planet, and if you know her you will know exactly why I say that.  She is welcoming anyone to read her blog as she talks about her experience.  If you want to visit her site, go to www.caringbridge.org.  On the home page in the box where it says to enter the website name, enter "kateelasy."  Or, if you prefer, you can click on the link over on the left of my page under the "Blogs I Follow" section.  Katie would love to hear from family and friends.  The support and kind words she has already received have meant a lot.  The picture is of Katie's three boys.

Scholar's Bowl

My son Ian participated in the Central Plains League Scholar's Bowl Tournament yesterday.  Suffice it to say I am one proud mom!  His strongest suit is Math, but I took particular pride in the fact that he answered many literature questions correctly yesterday.  I can't remember everything he got right (they played 16 rounds), but some of the answers he gave in which I feel I can a little credit included "Tuck Everlasting," "Madeleine L'Engle," "foreshadowing," and "alliteration."  Go, Ian!  See, it does pay to read.

Two Awesome Lists

Wow!  If you are looking for something to read, check out these two lists.  The first one is the Top 100 Children's Novels, a list put together by a woman named Betsy Bird.  I think she polled people who follow her blog at School Library Journal.  Even if you are not interested in reading children's books, you have to check out this list to see and appreciate all the work she has gone to to compile this list.  Not only does she have a short summary of each book, but also includes quotes from readers who particularly love each book, videos relating to the books, and (my favorite part of the list) as many images of covers of different editions of each book that she could find.  She is releasing her list a few books at a time, and for the last week or so, I have been eagerly checking out this blog each day to find the new posts.  For the books I have already read on this list, I am feeling nostalgic to re-read them and as for the books I have not read, almost every entry makes me feel like I have missed out on a great treasure, a situation that I must rectify (soon).

If you are a lover of dystopian fiction, especially in the YA category, the other list you must see is Half a Century of English-Language Young Adult Dystopias at a blog called Redecorating Middle-Earth in Early Lovecraft.  The blogger (Amy H. Sturgis) breaks down by decade an extremely comprehensive list of dystopian novels.  I am slowly learning, but I must admit that I was ignorant at the number of books that exist in this genre.  In fact, even though I have always liked books with a creepy/futuristic feel, I didn't realize until recently that this really was considered a genre unto itself.

Thanks to Jen Robinson whose blog led me to both these lists.  I now have so many books in my mental "to-read" pile that I think I will never get through them all.

Which is bliss.

Hunger Games #3 Title and Cover Revealed

Hurrah!  The third in the trilogy is coming.  Here is the first trickle of information that Scholastic is letting out.  Go to their site here to see the cover and the title of the new book.

Georgette Heyer

I am alway so excited when I discover a new (to me) author, especially if she has written a lot of books.  Right now I am happily in the midst of a Georgette Heyer craze.  I had actually heard about her several years ago from two friends in my bunco group who knew that I was a Jane Austen fanatic and kept encouraging me that if I liked her, I would also enjoy Georgette Heyer.

For whatever reason (probably that I was in my Jane Austen fever and nothing could compare at that point in my life), I tried one of her books and it just did not hold my interest. Thankfully, now that the aforesaid fever has cooled, I decided to try Georgette Heyer again, and I am so glad I did.  She is not the genius that Jane Austen was (obviously), but it was unfair to hold her to that standard, even though she mostly wrote in the same genre.  Georgette Heyer's Regency romances are charming and delightful.  If you are looking for a fun, clean read, pick up one of these books.  When I first heard of Georgette Heyer from my friends, most of her book were out of print.  Thankfully, they are now being re-issued in nice (trade??) paperback editions.  The ones I have read so far are the following:

1. The Black Moth, These Old Shades, Devil's Cub  These are a sort of trilogy.  The Black Moth was the first novel Georgette Heyer wrote, when she was a teenager.  Later she wrote these next two, although she changed the names of some of the characters.  When I figured out who was who, I made a list so that when I was reading #2 and #3, I could remember what certain characters where called in #1.  I even wrote the list in the front of book #2 so that when I lent the books out, future readers could just look at the code and not have to figure it out for themselves.

2. The Reluctant Widow

3. Cotillion

4. The Convenient Marriage (I didn't like this heroine at first, but she grew up and grew on me).

5. The Quiet Gentleman (My favorite so far...loved this one).

6. Powder and Patch (Again, not my favorite heroine).

I read somewhere that Georgette Heyer usually has one of two different types of heroines:  the very young, inexperienced girl, or the mature woman who is almost "on the shelf"...nearly an old maid.  I admit that I much prefer the older heroine who has come into herself.  Maybe this preference is because Persuasion is one of my two all-time favorites (who does not love Anne Elliot?), but I tend to find some of the younger heroines to be immature and selfish.  This being said, I want to emphasize that I like all the stories, even if a particular heroine annoys me a little.

I will update this list as I read more Georgette Heyer.

7. The Foundling (I did something that I hardly ever do with this book...I skipped ahead to the end.  At first I thought there were two possible heroines and I wanted to make sure she turned out to be the one I liked better).

8. Arabella (I am just now finishing this one...have about 2-3 pages left.  Such a tender, sweet story.  Actually had a young, naive heroine that I really enjoyed).

Interview With Jen Robinson

As I've talked about, one of my favorite bloggers is Jen Robinson.  Her love of books and desire to share that love with children and young adults is inspiring.  If you would like to get to know her better, check out the interview, here, at another book blog called Texas Sweethearts.  To those of you who are teachers, you will not find a better literature resource than Jen's site.  I wish I had discovered her before my mom retired from teaching 5th Grade.