They eat sand and gravel for breakfast and a stew of sticks and stones for dinner. No one says “please” or “thank you.” Instead, they kick and yell and punch and shove. Then one day everything changes, when Baby Brute happens upon “a little wandering lost good feeling in a field of daisies.” When he brings it home in his pocket, nothing is ever the same for the little Brute family.
The luminous garden scenes and playful language in this tale of late-blooming self-discovery tell the story of Holly Bloom, a girl who wants nothing more than to be a great gardener, but simply doesn’t seem to have the knack. Despite suggestions and support from her green-thumbed mom and siblings, Holly just can't get her garden to bloom. She waters and fertilizes and uses all the right gardening tools, but her daffodils don't grow and her daisies keep drooping. Armed with a positive attitude and unwavering perseverance, Holly finally realizes that she does not need to grow flowers with soil and seeds to be a success.
The White War - Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915 - 1919
So why should you read this book? Well it gives you a clear account of one part of the wider First World War front that is only now becoming clear and even possible to study. (Attempts to clear the names of those summarily executed is still politically sensitive in Italy.) But a more important reason is that it offers insights into the conduct of events now. If History has anything to teach, its that we the ordinary people wont get a true picture what our masters have been doing in our name until we are pushing up the daisies.. In knowing what was going on behind closed doors then, we can question what the media, cultural elites, military strategists, politicians are doing now.
Added by: Cheramie | Karma: 275.78 | Fiction literature | 19 January 2010
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The Lord God Made Them All by James Herriot
"This is Herriot at his best...able to make us laugh, cry or nod in agreement with some snippet of universal truth." --The Washington Post
"A triumph in the art of storytelling, as delightful and refreshing to the mind's eye and heart as a field of bright-eyed daisies." --Fort Worth Star-Telegram -- Review