Monthly Archives: May 2014

Summer Reading 2014–Motherhood and Dreams

The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton (recommended by Sheila Portillo, branch president). wedsisters

When 5 young mothers first meet in a neighborhood park in the late 1960s, their conversations center on marriage, raising children, and a shared love of books. Then one evening, as they gather to watch the Miss America Pageant, Linda admits that she aspires to write a novel and the Wednesday Sisters Writing Society is born. In the process of filling journals, they explore the changing world around them: the Vietnam War, the race to the moon, the women’s movement, and AAUW. The friends also support each other through life changes—infidelity, longing, illness, failure, and success. The Wednesday Sisters show us the power of dreaming big.

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda Somer’s life is everything she imagined it would be—she’s newly married and has started her career as a physician in San Francisco—until she makes the devastating discovery she never will be able to have children. secretdaughter

The same year in India, a poor mother makes the heartbreaking choice to save her newborn daughter’s life by giving her away. It is a decision that will haunt Kavita for the rest of her life, and cause a ripple effect that travels across the world and back again.

Asha, adopted out of a Mumbai orphanage, is the child that binds the destinies of these two women. We follow both families, invisibly connected until Asha’s journey of self-discovery leads her back to India.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist with a Minnesota pharmaceutical company, is sent to the Amazon to find her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared while working on a new drug. No one knows where Dr. Swenson is, and the last person sent to find her died before completing his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey in hopes of finding answers. statewonder

Now in her seventies, the uncompromising Dr. Swenson dominates her research team and the natives with the force of an imperial ruler. But while she is as threatening as anything the jungle has to offer, the greatest sacrifices are those Dr. Swenson asks of herself, and will ultimately ask of Marina, who finds she is still unable to live up to her teacher’s expectations.

UNSUNG HEROES The Story of America’s Female Patriots

iranafghanistanWatch Unsung Heroes: The Story of America’s Female Patriots on PBS stations Thursday May 29 at 7-9 p.m. Mountain time.

More women serve in the armed forces than at any other time in our nation’s history. This courageous heritage can be traced back to the Revolution where women like Molly Pitcher and Sarah Shattuck donned men’s clothes and took up arms against the British. And though none had the right to vote, hundreds of women participated in the Civil War as nurses, spies, and soldiers.

At the heart of this two-part, two-hour documentary are 19 firsthand accounts of the women who lived the story. Meet Ann Dunwoody, General, U.S. Army (ret), the first woman to serve as a four-star general, and Michelle Howard, Admiral U.S. Navy, the first female Navy four-star admiral.

This documentary honors these women whose service has been heroic; their sacrifices profound and their enormous accomplishments largely ignored.

All Children Have a Right to a Public School Education

On Tuesday the Departments of Education and Justice issued guidance to schools reminding them that all children have the right to a public school education. The guidance told schools to relax their scrutiny of students’ citizenship and immigration status, which can deter students from enrolling or attending schools. The departments told schools these practices “contravene” federal law.