Thanksgiving

This is our last day of school before the Thanksgiving break. It seems like with the pressures of Christmas, Thanksgiving is a holiday that gets skipped over. We go from buying candy for Halloween to buying Christmas gifts. In fact, I was in a store the other day looking for Thanksgiving napkins and all they had were Christmas ones. The lady at the store said that they didn’t get any Thanksgiving stuff this year because it is not a big commercial holiday. I guess that it another reason to really like Thanksgiving. And without paper napkins, I guess that I will have to be more environmentally conscience and use cloth ones. It is really nice to take a little time and think of all the things that we have to be thankful for: family, friends, a home to live in, food to eat and football to watch on TV.

A Swift Pure Cry by Soibhan Dowd really made me think of how easy my life is and how lucky I am. Everything’s been wrong in 15 year old Shell’s life since her mother’s death. Her father’s drinking keeps him out of work and the family rooted in poverty. Shell must care for herself and her younger brother and sister. Shell becomes an easy target for Declan, a boy in her school, who gets her pregnant and then runs away to America. Shell has no one to ask for help and the events that fallow are heart-breaking. However, when the police in town find a dead baby’s body suspicion falls on Shell and she has no family and no skills to deal with the investigation. The mystery surrounding the baby and its parentage make for a good read.

Because this book is based on true events that took place in Ireland in the 1980s, it is even more horrific and really rips your heart out in some places. However, the way Shell and her family survive is both a tragic and hopeful story.