Book Review: The Blue Stone by Jimmy Liao

Mighty Mom has become a guest reviewer at The Well-Read Child, the terrific children's literature blog created by Jill Tullo. The following is an excerpt from my debut review. If you wish to read it in full, click here.

An enormous blue stone lies peacefully in the forest until the day it is discovered by people. The people split the stone in two, leaving one half undisturbed while taking the other to a sculptor's workshop to be carved. There, the artist turns the stone into a massive grey elephant. The people delight in sculptor's creation, but the stone is not happy. It mourns for its forest home and crumbles. The largest remaining piece is delivered to a new artist. This time it is shaped into bird for an old lady's garden. The lady is quite happy with her bird, but the stone is not. Again, it falls to pieces. And so the pattern continues: the stone, transformed repeatedly by humans, crumbles each time it remembers its true home. Only when it finally turns to dust can a breath of wind bring it back to where it belongs. There, in the forest, the stone finds peace.
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Windows, Doors and Ironing

It's been just over three months since I didn't get the job, the one that would have thrust me back into the land of pay stubs, dry cleaning and cafeteria lunches this past August.

"There's a time for everything," a good friend reminded me. I shrugged and smiled, doing my best to swallow past my disappointment and relief. In an instant, life just got whole lot simpler. No job meant no Wednesday child care to arrange, a task I was dreading worse than a trip to the gynecologist. My kids have been everything to me for so long, the thought of delegating their care to someone else hurt more than I was ready to admit.

In the weeks that followed, I decided to put my name on the replacement teaching assitant rota and leave fate in the hands of the benign seasonal viruses of Geneva. As luck would have it, child birth got the upper hand. I'm working all this week, save Wednesday, replacing a woman who's just become a granny. And what will I be doing Wednesday, you ask? Taking care of my kids, of course. Yippee! I couldn't have arranged it better if I tried.

That said, I've got some ironing to do.

Hungry?

Here are a few tasty images from this year's Fete de la Courge in Corsier:

Chicken Wings

Paella

Gateau Bordelais

You can appreciate why I'm beginning to regret my saucisse and bread...

Le Meteo

There be snow in them thar hills! Yippee!

Why

I'm tucking Emma the Brave into bed when she asks, "Why do you have a writers' group, Mommy?"

The Birkenstocks, my every other Friday night writers' group are expected to arrive at any moment.

I sit down on the edge of her bed. "Because it's hard work to write something down the way you feel it inside. It takes lots of practice. It's a bit like school, I guess. I check that their writing makes sense and they check mine."

Emma pulls the covers up to her chin and nods. She understands completely.