Introverted Reader Features

I apologize for not posting last week. I got busy with a lot of things. I will make a point in the future to at least have Mr. Linky scheduled to post every week. Now. Calpurnia Virginia Tate. Calpurnia, or Callie Vee, is a girl ahead of her time. It is 1899 in The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly, and Callie is 11 years old. She is living at the turn of a new century, new inventions are making lives easier, but she is still a girl living in a man's world, and she's not too happy about it. At first, she doesn't really seem to be too aware of it. She is still a child and she gets to run around and play and mostly do what she wants to do. Eventually though, she feels her mother starting to rein her in. She is forced to do more knitting, sewing, and cooking, and she hates it. She is not built for such pursuits, because she is a naturalist at heart. She first ventures in this direction when she tries to figure out why some grasshoppers are green and some are a brownish yellow. She asks everyone, but few have time for her questions and none know the answer. Out of desperation, she ventures into her eccentric grandfather's laboratory, and a deep friendship is born. With a few hints, Granddaddy points her in the direction of natural selection, and it's like a light bulb goes on in Calpurnia's head. This, she understands. This fascinates her. But she still has to face her mother and learning how to run a household. Because what else are girls good for? Calpurnia knows that she is meant for more than a husband, children, and endless rounds of housework. She chafes constantly against…

Anne of Green Gables was my favorite book as a child. The first time I read it, I hate to say, I thought it was boring and gave up. I tried again later and fell in love. I've read all the books in the series (and all of L. M. Montgomery's books) countless times since then.  I haven't written about many of her characters, and that's because I just love them all too much. They're like family and friends. I wouldn't do them justice. But I watched Anne of Green Gables for the first time in umpteen years over the weekend, and I fell in love all over again. So here's my attempt to sing Matthew's praises. Matthew is a silent farmer. He avoids women when he can and blushes and stammers around them when he can't. But some woman missed a good thing in Matthew. He is the first person to love Anne. Oh, I just know that her parents loved her when she was an infant, but he's the first to love her within her memory. I do believe she charmed him on their first ride together on the way to Green Gables.  He, along with Marilla, gave Anne what she needed to grow into the well-rounded character that so many people love. He agrees early on to stay out of Marilla's way when it comes to "raising" Anne. But he is a wise man who knows when to choose his battles. He lies low most of the time, silently watching and absorbing everything going on around him, but when he speaks his mind, Marilla listens. And he ultimately gets his way. The confirmed, painfully shy old bachelor somehow knows that a child needs laughter and light as well as discipline. Marilla provides for everything that Anne needs,…

Aibileen Clark, from The Help by Kathrynn Stockett, is a patient woman. She has raised white women's children in Mississippi in the 50's and 60's. She has loved them when they were small and then been hurt as they grew up, learned the values of the culture around them, and shunned her. That's the way it's always been. But Aibileen is out of patience. She is now working for an absolute horror of a woman. Miss Hilly is launching a campaign to get all the black "help" in the city their own bathrooms. Not because they might like their own space, but "because of disease, you know. You don't want to catch whatever they have. And who knows what kind of disease they might have." (I'm paraphrasing, but this is very true to the idea) Yeah. How do you work for that kind of woman? By telling the truth. Aibileen starts a project with Skeeter Phelan, a white society girl who wants a career, of all things. Aibileen helps Skeeter write a household hints column for the local paper. She also tells her the truth about what life as "the help" in Mississippi is like. She holds nothing back, good or bad. She recruits other women into the project to tell their stories. And they all have stories. Oh, boy, do they have stories. I loved Minny (see my Character Connection post about her), but I related more to Aibileen. I wouldn't say that I'm as patient as she is, but my temper is a loooooooooong slow burn. Once it goes, that is it. I am done with you. I figure if you have pushed me that far, you are asking for whatever I dish out. Aibileen has that loooooooong slow burn, but she burns through to righteous anger. She…

Mrs. Murphy is a tiger cat who co-habits with "Harry" Harristeen (a woman) and Tee Tucker, a Welsh corgi. They live in the tiny town of Crozet, Virginia. For such a tiny place, Crozet has an awful lot of murders. Luckily for everyone, Mrs. Murphy is on the case in this series of books written by Rita Mae Brown and her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown. Mrs. Murphy is the feline equivalent of the sensible matron. She has her playful moods, as all cats do, but she is very practical as well. She understands that anyone could have a clue, and so tries to maintain peaceable relations with the other animal inhabitants of the farm and town. She and Tee Tucker have a great relationship. They both love Harry and use that as a place to start. Mrs. Murphy appreciates Tee's loyalty and they investigate many crimes together. Pewter is a neighboring cat. Mrs. Murphy has less patience for Pewter. Pewter is an, um, over-indulged Persian who whines a bit and likes her treats a little too much. They eventually make their peace as well. Mrs. Murphy also has the unenviable job of cluing the humans in to what is going on while keeping Harry safe at the same time. These are tough jobs, but Mrs. Murphy is up to the task. The series begins with Wish You Were Here. Who did you connect with this week? Link your post on Mr. Linky, then be sure to go check out the other Character Connections! Don’t you just love larger-than-life characters? The ones who jump off the page and grab you? Whether you love them or hate them, you can’t be indifferent to them. I would love to know about the characters who just won’t leave you! Most of you will probably…

Lucía Álvarez is the main character from The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez. Through Lucía's eyes, we experience the terror of the Cuban Revolution and the uncertainty of making a new home in a new country away from your parents. Lucía is the perfect protagonist for this story because there is something in her that most of us can relate to. She's not anyone particularly special. She's a teenage girl who is looking forward to her first dance, loves to watch movies and hang out with her friends, and I believe she tries to sneak makeup and nail polish past her mom. She loves looking at teen magazines and she has a crush on the cutest guy on the class. Her younger brother can be a huge pest. How many teen girls does that describe? So when she is confronted with the Revolution and the changes in her friends, her reactions feel very real because we've connected with her. She's worried about her parents, who disagree with Castro. That's not a safe stance to take. She sees things start to go horribly wrong in her community and she sees neighbor turn against neighbor. When she's alone with her brother in Nebraska later, she feels like such an outsider. She doesn't speak much English and she's worried about fitting in. She feels set apart by her accent. She also feels a little like her problems are bigger than her classmates. She's worried about whether her parents are still alive and they're still in the state of innocence where their biggest worry is who's going to ask them to the dance. I just loved Lucía. She has such a story to tell and she's the perfect person to tell it. Go meet her for yourself and see if you don't relate…

Christopher Boone is the main character in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. I'm going to cheat a little this week and throw a big chunk of my review at you because I said everything I wanted to say in it. "Fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone is something of an autistic savant. He can work out amazingly complex math problems, yet if his own family touches him, it sets him into a screaming frenzy.... He knows that he's different, he just doesn't know how to be any other way. He can't read people's faces or body language. He says "I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them." He has certain triggers that severely hamper his ability to live what we would call a "normal" life. There's the touching thing. And the body language thing. He loathes the colors yellow and brown. He can disappear inside himself for hours at a time. He loathes strangers. But throughout the book, we watch Christopher make progress and grow, and even see his own perceptions of himself, his abilities, and his goals change. These changes would seem small in another character, but we see inside Christopher's head so well that we're right there with him, cheering him on as he makes another gigantic step in his personal development." Who did you connect with this week? Link your post on Mr. Linky, then be sure to go check out the other Character Connections! Don’t you just love larger-than-life characters? The ones who jump off the page and grab you? Whether you love them or hate them, you can’t be indifferent to them. I would love to know about the characters…

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett takes place in the 12th century. Times were tough. One bad summer could wipe out a crop, causing many people to starve. Medicine was for all practical purposes non-existent. Anyone different or new was greeted with deep suspicion. England was on the brink of a civil war. Yet in all this, we meet Tom Builder. He's a dreamer. He's also quietly brilliant. In the first few pages of his story, he loses his job, gets attacked by bandits, and loses his wife as she gives birth to their son. Yet he dreams on. He accepts people for what they are. When he meets Ellen, a woman whom others see as a witch, he eventually accepts her help. When her bastard son shows a genius for architecture, Tom teaches him. The cathedral of his dreams is a thing of beauty. He feels that when you are worshiping the Creator of all Heaven and Earth, you should do so in an airy place filled with light and beauty. Convention holds that cathedrals can't be built that way because they'll fall down. Tom knows they can. As other people tell him that he can't build the cathedral that he dreams of, he goes about showing them that he can. Other men might stand back and watch as others do all the manual labor. Tom is out there working harder than anyone. I can't remember if he actually helps quarry the stone, but he definitely helps dig foundations and lay block and whatever other dirty work goes into building. He also supervises the men, who are mostly untrained, and I remember him as being fair and patient. He does have a blind side when it comes to his oldest jerk of a son, but nobody's perfect.…

Don’t you just love larger-than-life characters? The ones who jump off the page and grab you? Whether you love them or hate them, you can’t be indifferent to them. I would love to know about the characters who just won’t leave you! Most of you will probably post about how much you love (or loathe) each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Write a love poem in elvish for Aragorn. Draw a picture of Harry obliterating Voldemort. The possibilities are endless. Be sure to post the book's title and author, and be very careful not to give away spoilers while talking about how much you love your characters. Mr. Linky will be posted here on The Introverted Reader every Thursday.Miss Alexia Tarabotti is the main character in Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series, beginning with Soulless. Miss Alexia (it feels disrespectful to leave off the Miss) is, to quote from my review, "a fantastic character. At twenty-six, she's firmly on the shelf in Victorian society, but she's okay with that. Better to be on the shelf than married to some half-wit who can't keep up with her own intellect and curiosity. She gets enough of that from her family. They don't know she's soulless and put all of her quirks down to the fact that her father was Italian. But they've left her just a little insecure about her appearance and desirability. Just enough to make her feel real." She meets her match in sexy Lord Maccon, who just happens to be an Alpha werewolf. You would think that a non-werewolf female would be cowed by a true Alpha personality, but not Miss Alexia. She is more than…