Sugar in a Shoebox

Sugar in a Shoebox by Joyce McFarland

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have known Joyce McFarland since our sons were good friends in middle school. She was always a person who could light up a room with her smiles and laughter.

In her book Sugar in a Shoebox she tells stories of growing up poor in rural North Carolina in the 1950's. She was born three months prematurely to teenaged parents, then raised by her Grandmother who became Mama. She was so tiny the doctor sent her home to die. Mama had other plans for the tiny baby. She fashioned a home-made incubator out of a shoebox with a mason jar filled with hot water which she changed every hour.

That baby in a shoebox grew up in a house full of family, full of love. Even in hard times she could remember a humorous episode. At the end of each story she has a list of humorous adages.

* * *
If you get a whipping for something you didn't do, take it in stride. You more than likely deserve it for something you had already done.

What is a freak? What is a human oddity? SOMEBODY'S CHILD.

When the "saints go marching in," some of them will have switch marks on them.

And my favorite:

And on the sixth day God created bacon; let us rejoice and be glad in it.



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My Soul to Take

My Soul to Take by Tananarive Due

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The fourth book in Tananarive Due's African Immortals series takes us to the next generation of The Blood. Fana is the first child born to the blood of the Lalibela Colony of Immortals and must deal with the prophecy that she must join with another Blood Born of the Sanctus Cruor sect. The Sanctus Cruor sect had claimed the Blood was theirs alone.

I have read the other books in the series, and see in this one the development and maturing of Fana's parents, Jessica and Dawit, their love for her and desire to protect her from losing herself to Sanctus Cruor, forgetting her mission to heal the world with a serum made from the blood.

I was surprised to see Phoenix Smalls, a character from Joplin's Ghost in this story. But she is a perfect fit with her past of a telepathic relationship with a ghost. Fana is a fan of Phoenix's music, and it is through the music that Fana stays grounded to who she is.

The telepathic joining and mingling of the courses of Fana and Michel her intended, invaded my own night dreams, combining with visions of telepathic X-men. (I shouldn't read before bed)

Is there more for Fana to accomplish? Will Jessica and Dawit have another child? How long must we wait for the next in the series?

But I'm thinking of the child's prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

That was the point when my babies did their God Bless-ing everybody. Did Fana do that already?




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