Centenary photographs from Auckland Libraries Heritage Images

Women of the J D Richardson family. Sir George Grey Special Collections,  Auckland Libraries, 4-2419

Mr Cooper and family. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 7-A17229

Mr and Mrs Shaw with grandchildren. Sir George Grey Special Collections,  Auckland Libraries, 4-8903

Recommended read

Backwater by Joan Bauer (1999)

I have to say I am completely loving reading these YA (young adult) novels as part of our Summer Reads series. These are seriously smart books, great for kids and for adults and like the previous Greyhound of a Girl and Holes, Backwater is a true delight of a story. It’s funny, smart, emotional, with a great protagonist in Ivy Breedlove. In fact, I loved it so much, I ended up reading it all over again.

Told in first person, sixteen-year-old Ivy Breedlove is the youngest in a family of lawyers and of course is expected to study the law, even though she doesn’t want to. History is her love – and her Breedlove family history is what her brilliant legal father calls an obsession she is “totally enslaved” by.

She tells him:

“I could be on drugs, Dad. I could be smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. I could be-“
“Getting ready to study the law.” I could almost mouth the words. “When I was sixteen, Ivy, I had read every piece of literature there was to read concerning America’s great law institutions where fine men and women learned to love the law, learned to defend it to the death, learned to not take no for an answer.”
“Learned to bill by the hour,” I added, and Dad said that as God was his witness, a law education was the cornerstone of a successful, fulfilled life.
“You know, Dad, there are important people in this family other than lawyers.”
He coughed.
“What about Mercy Breedlove who lived in the time of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement and believed so strongly that women should have the right to vote that at seventeen she embroidered the front and back of a dress with Susan B. Anthony’s words of freedom: Men, their rights, and nothing more. Women their rights and nothing less. And she wore that dress day in and day out with everyone pointing at her, screaming at her to stop. That was long before anti-perspirant, too.”
“Embroidery,” Dad sputtered, “is not a proper Breedlove career.”

Ivy is writing a family history she hopes to have completed for her Great Aunt Tib’s birthday, yet the more she researches, the more she becomes fascinated by her family, from her late mother whom is barely talked about, to her mysterious Aunt Jo who has disappeared off the face of the planet. The story is about Ivy’s search for her missing relative, who like herself, eschewed the law to follow her own “unacceptable” passion. Yet it is also about learning more of her late mother.

Here Ivy asks her aunt if she remembers her own mother’s funeral:

“Do you remember your mother’s funeral?”
“Some parts.”
“I don’t remember anything,” I said. “I had this dream right after she died that I was on a mountain and birds were flying over me and I was standing in the tall grass that was wafting in the breeze.”
“You remember that?”
“I dreamt it.”
“No, you didn’t.”

And of course like any good teen novel, we have romance, and naturally all good boyfriends are called Jack. Says Ivy of her Jack, a hopeless mountain ranger (it’s set in New York’s Adirondack mountains), “Jack Louden might not be major ranger material, but in the boyfriend department, he redefined the genus.” Goes without saying, this book has a most wonderful ending.

Go here if you are interested in borrowing Auckland Libraries' copy.

Joanne

Recommended read

A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle (2011)

I’m on a bit of a mission at the moment reading kids’ books, courtesy of one of our leaflets here at Auckland Libraries recommending children’s fiction with a family history theme. What better way to share the reading love, after all, than to read the story for yourself. Even better, it’s a kid’s book so you can finish in an hour or so.

First up on my mish is this wonderful Roddy Doyle story, A Greyhound of a Girl. It’s a lovely story, pretty much about death.  Four generations of Irish women – 12-year-old Mary, her mother Scarlett, her dying grandmother Emer, and the ghost of her great-grandmother Tansey come together as Tansey (who died in her 20s) wants to see her dying daughter, Emer (now elderly.) It’s funny, emotional, witty, plenty of flashbacks chronicling the girls, and absolutely suitable for all ages so don’t just get it for your kids to read. Read and enjoy it for yourself -  especially if you love things Irish and great dialogue such as this:

“Well,” said Tansey. “I’m a ghost. It sounds a bit daft, but I’m the ghost of your great-granny.” She looked at Mary. “Are you surprised?” she asked.
“Not  really,” said Mary. “If you are my great granny then you have to be a ghost or something, like. Because she – you’ve been dead for ages.”

“Clever girl,” said Tansey.

“Prove it,” said Mary.

“Prove that you’re a clever girl?”

“No,” said Mary. “Prove you’re a ghost.”

And later on, the young ghost Tansey meets her ailing eighty-something daughter, Emer. Emer speaks first:

“I think I know you,” she said

“Good girl.”

“You’re my mother.”

“Yes,” said Tansey.

“Have you come to collect me?”

“Not yet,” said Tansey. “There’s no hurry.”

“But you’re dead.”

“I am.”

And even better…. If you’re travelling over the holidays, we also have an audiobook you can click here to borrow. Not a bad way to pass the time on the “Are we there, yet” trek!er the summer holidays and have fun reading, completing challenges, 

For summer reading fun, get the kids or grand-kids involved with Dare to Explore - Out of this world, Auckland Libraries summer reading adventure. Visit the Dare to Explore homepage for more information or join up at your local library.

Joanne Graves
Central Auckland Research Centre

While we’re all quite obsessed with the past, it’s worth remembering that one day we will be the past, and while our lives may not seem terribly fascinating to us, the great grand kids may find it quite interesting one day. A family newsletter could be a terrific way to get some of that information preserved in a fun way, both digitally and in print; the beauty of it is that it could involve different family members in its production – from the research, to designing the newsletter, to using software to play around with images.

On the shelves in the Central Auckland Research Centre is Creating Family Newsletters -  123 ideas for sharing memorable moments with family and friends by Elaine Floyd (1 GEN DOC - reference only) – “.” It is packed with ideas for starting your own family newsletter including creative ways to use photographs, how to put together a hand made newsletter (fab for the crafty types), and ideas on themes, such as weddings, school news and birthdays. Some aspects of the book are dated in terms of software and websites (the blog hadn’t even been invented) but ideas will translate both digitally and in to the written word. It even has an “Idea Tools” chapter which even includes an A to Z of dozens of possible ideas to name the newsletter.


Another book that could be useful is To Our Children’s Children: Preserving family histories for generations to come, by Bob Green (1 GEN DOC on our shelves). A very useful tool when it comes to interviewing the rellies, as it includes hundreds of questions to ask when putting together a family history – some terrific ways to jog the memory.

There is also a borrowable copy in the Auckland Library system but a browse through will get the ideas flowing.



Happy newsletter planning!

Joanne Graves