My Books-as-Therapy Regime This Week

Ironically, considering the festive atmosphere of the holiday season, it’s been a rough couple of weeks for me and my family: just a pile-up of illnesses, crabbinesses, bad news from extended family, car troubles, frustrations, and small disappointments. One of those times when the job doesn’t come through, the kid is cranky, spouses quarrel, the pictures won’t hang right, the car won’t start, you slip on the ice, and the toast burns. One of those times that seem like a series of terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad days. One of those times when you could really use a visit to the bunny planet.

There have been some bright spots: the snow, though it is a pain to shovel and makes our hilly street treacherous, is beautiful. Arguments aside, our family has generally managed to enjoy each other. An old friend is coming up to visit next week. We still have our jobs, which is something in these tough times.

And, not surprisingly for me, I’ve found books to be a comfort, different books in different ways.

After waiting for years until she was old enough to appreciate it, I took my childhood copy of E. Nesbit’s The Story of The Treasure Seekers off the shelf and started reading it aloud to my daughter.  Soon the three of us were gathering in her room most nights at bedtime, laughing together at the misadventures of the six Bastable children in their quest to restore their family’s lost fortunes. My daughter gets a huge kick out of the realistic bickering of the kids, the silliness of their schemes, and the way that the narrator makes a big deal out making the reader guess his identity—he’s one of the kids, but won’t say which one he is—when all along he’s leaving the most transparent clues.

My spouse and I have been smiling quietly at some of the grownup jokes that Nesbit scatters through the book, and also marveling at how a novel written over a century ago can feel so fresh and contemporary. Maybe it’s not such a surprise; after all, The Treasure Seekers is the story of a middle-class suburban family fallen upon hard times: the father has lost all his money in investments, and the flawed but well-meaning, funny, imaginative and enterprising children are worried, confused, and anxious to help. That the city is London in the 1890’s and not New York or Seattle in 2008 makes less difference than you’d think.

On my own, and on the recommendation of several bloggers, I’ve been reading the young adult novel The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart, a tale of pranks, banter, wit, devilry, and adolescent high spirits. Everything about this book is just delicious, from the wry, deadpan narrative voice, to Frankie’s habit of creating what she calls “inpeas,” or “neglected positives”, like “maculate,” to mean messed up (the opposite of “immaculate”) or “mayed” meaning pleased and delighted (i.e. the reverse of “dismayed”). It’s nonplussing and off-kilter and yet eminently logical, just like most things Frankie does. This novel is leaving me absolutely gruntled.

And in the car, I’m about a third of the way through the CD version of a book I’ve been wanting to read for over a decade, Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind, by Suzanne Fisher Staples. So while I’m schlepping up and down the highway through the snow, to mail packages or get to work or hunt down ginger ale for my sick kid, I’m also far away in the Cholistan Desert with Shabanu, grieving with her at the sale of her beloved camel to pay for her sister’s dowry, and rejoicing with her at being reunited with her family after weeks away at the market. Even at this early point in the story, it’s evident that Shabanu is not a happy feel-good book. But even so, it’s oddly soothing to become so absorbed and utterly taken up by the tale and voice of someone whose life is utterly different from mine. The book is also helping me to appreciate what I have, from refrigeration to literacy to self-determination as a woman.

So, that’s how it’s going for me these days. What books help you get through the rough spots?