But the game of getting by is not always on the up-and-up. And the London bombings do happen and the war IS a major player in their lives. And to say more of the story from here on would spoil the fun of reading the book. So just get it and read it. And hopefully you’ll find it as fresh a take on WWII as I did.

Bible Gateway Proverbs 11:20 - Bible Gateway

GC: I think there are many ways to love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart. Loving your crooked neighbor doesn’t always mean sitting and talking to them. Sometimes loving your neighbor just means, “I am not going to demonize this person.” We can’t sit down and have a drink together, unfortunately, but I’m not going to try to obliterate this person, I’m not going to try to deny this person’s humanity. I will treat this person as part of the people whose beliefs and ideas I oppose, but I will not let my disagreement devolve into dehumanization. Now, how can I disagree in a way that is civil, even if I need to be firm and vigilant? John Freeman will present the Family issue of Freeman’s Journal with Garnette Cadogan and Naomi Williams tonight at Sacramento’s Time Tested Books.Together, they cook up a scheme. Crisscrossing the bombed suburbs of London, Vee starts to make a profit and Noel begins to regain his interest in life. But there are plenty of other people making money out of the war—and some of them are dangerous. Noel may have been moved to safety, but he isn’t actually safe at all. The day after that, all the children disappeared, as if London had shrugged and the small people had fallen off the edge.’ Noel's mourning his godmother, Mattie, a former suffragette. Brought up to share her disdain for authority and eclectic approach to education, he has little in common with other children and even less with Vee, who hurtles impulsively from one self-made crisis to the next. The war's thrown up new opportunities for making money but what Vee needs (and what she's never had) is a cool head and the ability to make a plan. Noel, a ten year old boy, has been raised by his eccentric, ex-suffragette godmother Mattie. In addition to his normal schooling, Mattie always took the time to give what she referred to as “proper schooling” which included discussions on the obscure and essay topics that gave you more reasons to think such as “What Is Freedom?” and “All Things are Difficult Before They Are Easy”. Mattie imbued in him her particular understanding of the world causing him to develop the most intriguing personality making him an immediate addition to my favorite quirky children in literature shelf. In addition to the impending war causing the residents of London and its outskirts to be constantly on their toes, Noel is attempting to handle the seriousness of Mattie’s decline into senile dementia. Instead of evacuating London with the rest of the children, he opts to stay with Mattie to take care of her knowing that soon she’s not going to be able to take care of him much longer let alone herself. The introduction of Noel and Mattie is fantastically succinct and encompasses the Prologue alone. It set an amazing tone and heightened expectations for the rest of the story. I’m so very pleased to say that it never disappointed and only continued to impress me.

Crooked Heart TO LOVE TO LEAVE TO LIVE | Her Crooked Heart

At the very least, some conversations need to happen in your immediate circle where there is the opportunity for sharing and trust. But it’s important, too, not to have a conversation, and instead listen and say, “So this is what this person believes; I’m going to go and fight.”It’s just as important not to say,“Oh we need to sit down and talk so I can try to get this other person over to my side.” That’s fool-hearted. Foremost, we need to say, “Let me try to understand what this person believes about me, about the world, and then I can decide.” At around this time I began to write the poems which formed my first poetry collection, The Apple Fall, and to publish these in magazines. I also completed two novels; fortunately neither survives, and it was more than ten years before I wrote another novel.During this time I published several collections of poems, and wrote some of the short stories which were later collected in Love of Fat Men. I began to travel a great deal within the UK and around the world, for poetry tours and writing residences. This experience of working in many different countries and cultures has been very important to my work. I reviewed poetry for Stand and Poetry Review and later for The Observer, and subsequently reviewed fiction for The Observer, The Times and The Guardian. My critical work includes introductions to the poems of Emily Brontë, the short stories of D H Lawrence and F Scott Fitzgerald, a study of Virginia Woolf’s relationships with women and Introductions to the Folio Society's edition of Anna Karenina and to the new Penguin Classics edition of Tolstoy's My Confession. Garnette Cadogan: We haven’t all agreed on what is pre-political. Some of us think that there are things that are beyond the pale to even discuss. To raise certain questions about what is right and not—questions about basic human rights—is, for some, beyond the bounds of basic human decency. But,tough as it might be, conversation will always be necessary, even with issues we think are pre-political, because of the diverse… not merely opinions, but also frameworks out of which we operate from. For some people, religious commitments—whether Jewish or Christian or Muslim or Hindu—anchor them and the way they see the world,and it influences their ways of seeing the world and shapes their questions and issues: anything from sexuality to the sanctity of a child to when they see life beginning. These huge issues which we’ve been debating for quite some time, I think we’ll continue to debate. So, I think if we decided that some questions are pre-political, they would need to be at least laid out in conversation. A debate doesn’t always have to happen but a conversation, I think, always should. People always have to say, “Here’s where I draw the line about rights or issues that are within the realm of the debatable for me. This is so established for me that it is not something that I’m going to debate. We will have to figure out a way, given how I see the world, how we can co-exist. There is no changing my mind on this, and I don’t think I will change your mind on this—so where do we go from here?” When I finished reading Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans, my first thought was that it reminded me of a cross between Cold Comfort Farm, I Capture The Castle and Goodnight Mr Tom. Those aren't comparisons I would ever make lightly - in fact, it's about as strong an endorsement you could get from me. The problem for me lies in the characters. Noel initially refuses to talk, Vee's mother can't talk, and her son is never around to talk. The characters carry on in their own orbits, sometimes not even circling the same planet. Other books that employ multiple perspectives and parallel narratives draw you in with well-developed characters, each with his/her own internal struggles and moral dilemmas. Not so in this case. We know so little about Vee's mother and son that we can neither empathize with nor understand their erratic behavior. They show no concern others, and I really felt no concern for them. They each had their own story arc, but honestly, the book would have been just as good (or bad) without them.

Crooked Heart | Lissa Evans

I had read his essay, “On Strength and Fighting, and Finding Strength in Poetry,” and had found solace through his grace, humor, and thoughtful use of the W. H. Auden quote, “Love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart.” He wrote that it was, “The real fight, that.” I had spent days wondering how I was going to fight “the real fight, that,” struggling with how to even relate to those I knew had voted differently than I had much less love them, and was bolstered by Mr. Cadogan’s almost stubborn optimism. Noel is mourning his godmother Mattie, a former suffragette. Brought up to share her disdain for authority and eclectic approach to education, he has little in common with other children and even less with Vee, who hurtles from one self-made crisis to the next. The war has thrown up new opportunities for making money but what Vee needs (and what she’s never had) is a cool head and the ability to make a plan.The novel becomes increasingly depressing and I'm sad to say the novel doesn't improve as you read on. I really love Helen Dunmore's writing, but this novel simply isn't a very good story. The ending is abrupt and is cloudy-- for some reason Dunmore's description of Johnnie's violent demise just isn't clearly detailed, and I KNOW I've got a hell of an imagination on my shoulders, so I don't get why I still don't understand what happens to him. If anyone reads this book and can figure it out, please let me know.