Grandpa Mudcake wants a haircut, but Grandma Mudcake says she is too old to give him one, so he has to go out and get a haircut. Grandpa refuses and his hair grows and grows. Finally, he cannot take it anymore, so he goes to find a barber. He tells Bazil the Barber want he wants but Bazil does not speak English very well and Grandpa falls asleep. What a haircut he gets! But is it what he wanted? What happens when Grandpa wakes up?

I enjoyed this story. It makes me want to read more of the series. Grandpa is a grump and Grandma does not seem to be any different. I loved his haircut. I also liked that Grandpa wanted the lollipop at the end of the haircut. This is a perfect book for your early readers. They can laugh over Grandpa's haircut and style.

Frauen, die ihre Wut rauslassen, gelten schnell als zickig und hysterisch. Von Mädchen wird oftmals Zurückhaltung und Eleganz erwartet. Doch weibliche Wut kann vieles bewirken und eine hilfreiche Waffe sein, wenn sie richtig eingesetzt wird…

„Wut und Böse“ ist ein Sachbuch von Ciani-Sophia Hoeder.

MeIne Meinung:
Das Buch besteht aus fünf Teilen. Sie werden umschlossen von einem Vor- und einem Nachwort. Die einzelnen Kapitel sind kurz. Der Aufbau erscheint schlüssig.

Der Schreibstil ist unspektakulär. Eine einfache Syntax und größtenteils umgangssprachliches Vokabular machen ihn aus. Dabei achtet die Autorin auf politische Korrektheit und den aktuellen Sprachgebrauch mit Begriffen wie „cis-männlich“.

Inhaltlich ist das Buch sehr feministisch, denn der Fokus liegt auf weiblicher Wut. Zunächst geht es jedoch darum zu definieren, was diese Art der Emotion überhaupt ist. Dann analysiert die Autorin, wie Frauen mit Wut umgehen. Im dritten Teil wird die Diskriminierung dieses Gefühls beschrieben. Darüber hinaus erklärt die Autorin, wie Wut für Veränderung sorgen kann und was nach dieser Emotion kommt.

Im Buch werden mehrere Thesen aufgestellt. Nicht in allen Punkten stimme ich mit der Autorin überein. Bei manchen Aspekten sind mir die Aussagen zu pauschal. So stützt sich die gesamte Argumentation fast ausschließlich darauf, dass weibliche Wut aufgrund des Patriarchats unterdrückt wird. Eine differenziertere, tiefergehende Perspektive hätte dem Buch gut zu Gesicht gestanden. Viel Neues habe ich beim Lesen daher nicht erfahren. Aber das Buch liefert durchaus eine Menge interessanter Denkimpulse.

Einige Aussagen belegt die Autorin mit Studien, Umfragen und anderen Quellen, die sie weiter hinten im Buch auflistet. Die einzelnen Bezüge werden leider nicht immer sofort klar. Allerdings wird deutlich, dass sich Ciani-Sophia Hoeder intensiv mit der Forschungslage zum Thema befasst und umfassend recherchiert hat. Gut gefallen hat mir, dass die Autorin auch ihre eigenen Erfahrungen schildert.

Das Cover ist motivisch durchaus gelungen, farblich für mich aber unpassend. An der Wahl des Titels mit dem Wortspiel habe ich nichts auszusetzen.

Mein Fazit:
„Wut und Böse“ von Ciani-Sophia Hoeder ist ein Sachbuch zu einem wichtigen Thema, das Denkanstöße bietet. Insgesamt hätte ich mir allerdings etwas mehr Tiefe gewünscht.

Sophia Knightly is my happy place. Her stories are like food for the soul. At first glance, The Holiday Sweet Spot reads like a Hallmark movie. Jake is the adorably, frustrating Scrooge with an agenda. Pilar is the clueless, optimist determined to make her dreams come true. However, peer a little closer and there are lessons to be learned about life, love and living in the moment. Add in a wily, irresistible matchmaker and the stage has been set to steal away with your heart.

Updated: December 2019: So, I am a dumb ass. I thought I liked this book when I first read it. Since I was in a reading slump I grabbed this and a few other books to re-read during Christmas Day. Ugh. This is still goofy and irritating for all of the reasons I said below. However, having wine and cheese while reading this made the book much more palatable. 

I have always been fascinated by the 20s. You had the so-called Jazz Age, women fighting for the right to vote in the U.S., etc. and all of it ending when the U.S. enters the Great Depression in the 1930s. I never much thought of what the 1920s was like in England, and now I still would want a book about that since "Twenties Girl" did not hit the mark for me.

The big reason why I didn't rate this above 2 stars though is that I hated the main character Lara. She was awful. She honestly only gets a bit better a couple of chapters before the book ends which is just way too long for me to be reading about an insufferable character. I guess you can say the other main character in this one is Lara's Great Aunt Sadie. Sadie is a spirit that is tied to Lara for whatever reason and is now following Lara around to find her necklace so that Sadie can move on. 

Lara's life is a mess. She is trying to hold onto her dwindling recruiting business after her best friend goes off with some random guy. Her parents are concerned about her since she has grown obsessed with her ex boyfriend who dumped her via email. Okay that last bit is a jerk move, but her texting and also stalking the guy didn't win me over to her side. When Lara attends her great aunt's funeral and realize her spirit is back from the dead and "haunting" her, Lara initially hopes she's just imagining things. But when she realizes Sadie is here to stay, she does whatever she needs in order to get her life back.

I don't know. This could have been a funny book, or a book version of Ghost (without the weeping and wailing at the end). But it just didn't work. Lara is insufferable. She uses Sadie in order to make herself more popular. She also uses her to manipulate others around her (to hire her as a recruiter) and uses her to force her ex to get back together with her. 

Sadie is no prize either since she uses Lara right back to get her to do what she wants too.

There are additional characters in this book, and a side plot dealing with Lara's jerk of an uncle, but honestly I don't even want to go down that road.

The writing was okay, the flow was too. I think if I had liked the central premise and characters more this would have been a 4 or 5 star read.

Book: Skip

Task #1: Dreidel

I went with having all biographies or memoirs. My choices were:

Nun - Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revoluntionary by Anita Anand

Shin - Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper

Hei - Living and Dying in Brick City by Dr. Sampson Davis

Gimel - This Will Be My Undoing by Morgan Jenkins

On December 15, you spun the Dreidel and got a....

Gimel!

I will be reading This Will Be My Undoing come January 1st!

Task #2: Recipe for Latkes - uh we just fry up a Rosti latke packet, with applesauce on the side. 

Task #3: Skip

Task #4: As a family, we have donated 10 cans to the school food drive in November and four more cans and four toys to the local food bank via the town's Tree Lighting ceremony on December 12th.