Indian Corn

So this is what is used on the Mitchell South Dakota Corn Palace.  The Indian Corn is grown in several places around the area in case of drought or tornado in order to have enough colors for the final product. I happened to be in Mitchell to view the Corn Palace in June of this year (2015). This particular corn was grown in Northwood , Iowa.  It is a beautiful color and really speaks of autumn.

Review: The Buried Giant

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The book progressed slowly, like the quest that the journey was based on. The story was beautiful in its prose, it's characters, and it's dreamy landscape. It read as a fairytale with an underlying sadness brought on by lack of memory due to the mist. Powerful use of the English language to set a mood and tell a tale.

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Review: A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is tough. I read this book for our bookclub. I did not read it as a child. Something about the science fiction of it held me back when I was younger even though my older daughter read the entire series and loved the books 5th grader. I guess I was more prone to Nancy Drew and mysteries at that age. So, as I read this book as an adult, I thought of other books that I have read including "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell and the Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. These two books also had religious slants to them.
I liked the idea of a strong girl as a main character in the "Wrinkle in Time" book. I like the fact that she was not a mainstream kid, wore glasses, liked math and had a mind of her own. But the story's description left me somewhat cold and blank. The story concluded abruptly and that was that. I think if I had read it as a child it would of held more of a magical essence. Having read the book for the first time as an adult, it did not hold the magic that I think many readers found in this novel.
I do think that when Madeleine L'Engle wrote this book in the 1960s and the fact that she had a difficult time getting a publisher to take it seriousely does account for the fact that she pushed the boundaries of children literature at the time and opened new genres of book selections for young readers.

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