a b Laufer, Geraldine Adamich (1993). Tussie-Mussies: The Victorian Art of Expressing Yourself in the Language of Flowers. Workman Publishing. pp.4–25, 40–53. ISBN 9781563051067. Moss doesn't have any roots, but it grows anyway, without any roots. That's what this book is about the roots that we have in our lives, or don't have. Who was your mother, what were her traits, where do you fit in, where did you come from, who are you connected to, your roots. The bumblebee is the cutest bumblebee I've ever seen! We follow along and learn an excellent lesson in kindness from the bumblebee.

The storyline weaves skillfully between the heavy burden of Victoria’s childhood—her time with Elizabeth, the foster mother who taught her the language of flowers and also wounded her more deeply than Victoria can bear to remember—and the gauntlet of her present relationship with Grant, a flower vendor who’s irrevocably linked to the darkest secret of her past. At its core, The Language of Flowers is a meditation on redemption, and on how even the most profoundly damaged might learn to forgive and be forgiven. By opening up Victoria’s very difficult inner world to us, Vanessa Diff- enbaugh shows us a corner of experience hidden to most, with an astonishing degree of insight and compassion. So hold on, and keep the tissue box nearby. This is a book you won’t soon forget. A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact. This was a very readable book, and I read it all in a day when I was lounging around a resort in Orlando while my husband went to some conference sessions. It made for a very enjoyable vacation read! Kate: Do you have any particular hopes about what readers might take away from the book, or how reader perspectives, actions, and attitudes might change as a result of experiencing Victoria’s journey? That readers will turn to flowers to communicate their feelings? Or have more empathy and understanding of individuals in the foster care system?

The rest of the book didn't make a lot of sense to me. This broken young woman is saved and loved by many people as she embarks into her new life as an emancipated adult. Why? She's dirty and slow to communicate. She disappears without explanation. She isn't at all loveable. Along with a beautiful visual depiction, each entry provides the flower’s scientific and common names, characteristics, and historic meanings and powers from mythology, medieval legends, folklore, and flower poetry. FYI: My other two favourite flowers (Orchids and lilies) mean refined beauty and majesty respectively, so that's better :)] Kate: There are so many heart-wrenching chapters in Victoria’s life: when she sets the fields on fire after having made so much progress with Elizabeth; when she gives up her baby because she feels un- worthy of her love. Were these heart-wrenching to write, or do you separate yourself from your characters?

I don't really know what to write about this book. It was well-written, but I'm not sure I liked it. I didn't hate it, though. For me, it's one of those books that left me going, "Umm...OK...". I like the flower communication and all, but the whole story just sort of took some weird turns and ended up feeling like it wasn't going anywhere. And then it didn't. It just kind of ended. Vanessa Diffenbaugh: I started with the idea of writing a novel about the foster-care system. I’d been a foster parent for many years, and I felt it was an experience that had not been described well or often. The same sensationalized stories appear in the media over and over again: violent kids, greedy parents, the occasional hor- rific child death or romanticized adoption—but the true story of life inside the system is much more complicated and emotional. Foster children and foster parents, like children and adults everywhere, are trying to love and be loved, and to do the best they can with the emo- tional and material resources they have. With Victoria, I wanted to create a character that people could connect with on an emotional level—at her best and at her worst—which I hoped would give readers a deeper understanding of the challenges of growing up in foster care. Cleverly combining tender and tough, Diffenbaugh’s highly anticipated debut creates a place in the world for a social misfit with floral insight. The New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin praised the descriptive language, saying "There is sensuality to Ms. Diffenbaugh’s descriptions of flowers and food." [2] The novel interlaces the main plot of an 18 year old Victoria, with snippets of her past in the foster system. [5] Reception [ edit ] I need to stress that I actually have thought maybe it's me, maybe I have just not enough stomach lining and empathy for the broken mind of someone with a devastating childhood. The author information at the end of the book mentions that Vanessa Diffenbaugh has personal first-hand experience with raising foster kids. Apparently she gave home to one or more. After reading the book I do not question that at all. But when I compare my reading experience of The Language of Flowers to that of other stories featuring difficult or hard-to-like main characters, I am sure that a truely skillful author can make me feel and ache and root for any protagonist, no matter how strange or evil. I have just finished reading Froi of the Exiles (yes, it is Fantasy, I know). Fact is, when I was reading the volume preceeding it, I would have never guessed Melina Marchetta would get me to like him. Now I love him fiercely. Maybe his personal growth is fantastical, unrealistic, but maybe it is simply magic. The kind of magic only the best authors can evoke in a reader's mind.And, nearly done, here is some raspberry. Not to make a fruit salad with the pineapple but to represent remorse that it took me so long to read this book.... but you can eat it if you want. The Language of Flowers". Folger Shakespeare Library. Archived from the original on 2014-09-19 . Retrieved 2013-05-31. I present you with a trilliam to represent modest beauty. I was prepared for this book to lose me completely because of high-brow, literaryness, and get too tangled up in a vine-like metaphor. But it didn't. It's a very subtle and quiet book and it's wonderful. Not only does Dena Seiferling deliver a message about the importance of bees to the ecosystem in her beautiful authorial debut, she also teaches readers of the various meanings of the flowers we encounter every spring and summer. The messages remind me of a YA novel I read earlier this spring, Tahira in Bloom by Farah Heron, in which one of the characters is well acquainted with the meanings of different flowers. Many people have shown her that they care about her, that they’re willing to help her, but she can’t accept it. I get that we’re supposed to believe that she’s so broken(she was an abandoned baby who never found a real forever home) that she sees herself as unworthy of anyone’s concern, but how it came off to this reader is that she’s too selfish and stubborn to do what’s right. This is when my connection to her broke down completely.