Summer Yard Sale, Part 1: Prep

One of my summer goals was to coordinate our neighborhood garage sale and have one myself.  In coordinating the neighborhood sale, I contacted neighbors interested in the sale, advertised on Topekagarasales.com (my favorite site for finding garage sales) and Craigslist.org, and, the focus of this post:
MADE SIGNS

I am of the firm belief that signs are key to a successful yard sale.  And there are right and wrong ways to do signs.  They should be bright with big letters that are easy to read from the road.  I decided on this cheap, easy method of sign-making that I picked up from a friend in Lawrence:

Step 1: Gather materials

• brown paper bags
• brightly colored signs with info printed on them
• packing tape
• weights for bottom
• newspaper

Step 2: Tape the signs together
Trim up the signs and use the tape to affix them to both the front and back of the brown paper bag.  (My niece helped me with this part.  She very proudly told me she was learning to use scissors! :)
**NOTE** I chose to draw the arrow in myself once the bags were made.  I'm sure you could mathematically figure out how many you needed pointing this way and that way, but this seemed easier to me!

Step 3: Place some sort of weight in the bottom.  We used landscaping rocks from our back yard.

 Step 4: Stuff the top with newspaper.  We used some from my dad's voluminous stash.

Step 5: Staple the top together!

A few other notes about signs -

1. Be sure to place them in prime locations.  I made nine signs for all intersections around our neighborhood.
2. You don't want to place your signs until the morning of.  If you are against early birds don't place your signs until you are ready to receive customers.  (Seriously, there is nothing more irritating than following a sign to a garage sale only to hear the people say, "We don't open for another half an hour." Then don't put your signs up so early!)
3. Take your signs down immediately upon closing your sale.  It's courteous to remove your signs when you're done so people aren't driving around looking for a sale that no longer exists!

Summer Cooking Experiment #1: Pot Roast

 Yesterday was my first day of my summer cooking experiment for my parents.  I made Pot Roast and Brown Gravy using Everydayhomecook.com's recipe for both.  I went over to the house in the morning, put on the pot roast, and returned in the evening just before dinner to make the gravy.  The only change I made to the original recipe was to cut an onion in half and shove the halves down in the broth as the roast cooked.  (Good call, Mom!)  We also leave the skin on the potatoes at our house.  I read somewhere that the skin of potatoes is good for you, and being someone who used to eat potatoes raw as a kid, I kind of like the skin.  All four of us sat down to this (sorry - I know the picture quality is low!):

I figured we would have leftovers.  My plan was to take the advice of a good friend and seasoned cook and turn the leftovers into quesadillas.  (She says to shred what is left and heat in a saucepan with rotel before putting the quesadillas together.  I had these at her house and they were DELICIOUS!)  As it turned out, the entire roast was devoured, and I didn't even eat an entire piece!  Everyone thought it was good - including my dad, who can be hard to please when it comes to this type of thing.  The gravy also got rave reviews.  However, it was expensive:

Price:

• Roast -  from Dillons, bottom round, 3.25 lbs, $14
• Potatoes - from the farmer's market, $2 (and these golden potatoes were PERFECT for this!)
• Carrots - free! My classroom at school is across the hall from the foods teacher and she was emptying her fridge at the end of the year and gave me these, along with about $25 worth of other groceries!
• Beef Broth - from Aldi, 32 oz, $2 (I think...)

Total Price = $18

Take aways:

• Next time, I need to make double the amount of gravy the recipe calls for.  Everyone was very politely taking only a bit because they didn't want to take the last of it (except me - not a gravy fan).  I will make sure to double the recipe so no one has to do this next time!
• I cooked from 9:00 AM to about 5:30 PM and added the potatoes at about 2:30.  The potatoes were cooked, but I like them just a little more done than they were.  Next time I'll add them a little earlier.
• This meal is much too pricy for us to have on any type of regular basis.  However, if it is a special occasion, if we have company, or if someone else is paying ;), this is definitely one we will use again!

Summer Cooking Menu: June

This summer, my mother has asked me to cook one meal a week at her house.  The parameters:
I can cook whatever I want and spend whatever I want.  Seriously???

So I am going to start a series of my summer cooking experiences.  So far, this is what I have to try in the month of June (and all of these come from my favorite cooking site, Everydayhomecook.com!):

• Kabobs - repeat recipe from a few weeks ago that I think my dad will really like
• German Pizza - my dad is going to Germany in a few weeks and this new recipe looks delicious!
• Pot Roast and Brown Gravy - I am intimidated by the very idea of making a roast, but this looks like anyone could do it!
• Slow-Cooker Chicken Tostadas - these look so yummy!

I'm very excited about the possibilities! Since price is not an obstacle, I'm going to try to buy as "healthy" as I can.  I'm also going to get as many ingredients from the farmer's market as possible.  I'm excited!

Farmer's Market!

Last year, I discovered the Farmer's Market.  I'm not sure why it took so long.  When I lived in Lawrence I never went because it was always SO crowded that I never wanted to try it.  But last year, a miracle happened. I recall driving around downtown (which I generally try to avoid at all costs) looking for a garage sale and I spotted it.  Parts two and three of my miracle were that my son and his stroller both happened to be in the car.  It was early - like, 8 or 8:30, so we stopped.

Several things happened all at once.  My son became enamored with the sights and sounds all around.  I began walking down the aisles and looking at the price of this fresh, locally-grown produce - prices highly comparable, and in some cases, cheaper than those at the grocery store.  I saw the most beautiful onions (seriously - I had dreams about these onions afterward), fresh green beans, delicious-smelling herbs - I was hooked.

Saturday, after my brief trip to a few yard sales, my son and I headed out.  I again spent more than I would have normally, but my mother does such a huge service for us during the year that I like to get her some special eats once and a while.  This is what we bought:

1. Honey - $4.50 from bee-keepers in Meridan.  I got this for my mom.
2. Fresh Honey Wheat Bread - $3.75 I got this from the Mennonite women who run the booth in the middle of the South aisle.  I ate a few slices for breakfast and it was DELICIOUS!
3. Sugar-free Hawaiian Bread - $2.50, also for my mom.
4. New Potatoes - $2.00 I plan to make Pot Roast this week with these!

Total = $12.75

Yard Sales: Week 4

Confession: I went a little overboard today.  I went retail shopping this week (with gift cards, of course) and could not believe the prices I saw as compared to what I can usually find at yard sales.  So today when I was out, I found myself saying, "Well if I were to buy this at the store..." As a result, I spent more than I would have otherwise.  I wasn't planning to go out this morning, but when my son was still asleep at 7:30, I decided to run to one in my neighborhood.  I was out for half an hour and ended up going to three sales total, resulting in the following items.

Boys Clothes = $4.00

1. Fleece lined swooshy pants - $1.00, size 2T, these will be good for winter!

2. Green cargo shorts - $1.00, size 2T, so for this summer

3. Striped green T-shirt - $1.00, size 24 months, but it looks plenty long, which is the problem we usually have...

4. Navy dress shorts - $1.00, size 2T, so also for this summer!

Misc Items = $9.75

5. Maternity Denim Shorts - $4.00 These retail at RIDICULOUS prices, so even though they were pretty expensive and much too large, I went ahead and bought them.  My mom can take them in and I'm expecting to get a lot of wear out of them this summer.

6. Crocs - $5.00, size 8 This was my splurge.  I don't normally spend more than $2.00 for used shoes, but these were super cute and in good shape. When I got home, Charlie immediately asked to wear them!

7. 2 Bags Used Crayons - $.75 I am hoping to use these for this project at some point this summer.

Total for Day = $13.75

Summer Goals:

For the first time since my freshman year of high school, I am not working during the summer.  I am a busybody, so until my son was born, I never really minded working in the summer.  However, the last two years of summer school have been torture.  I have wanted nothing more than to be home with him!

So here are a few goals for the wide-open summer! (In no particular order)

• Practice being a stay-at-home mom and see how I like it
• Go to Tulsa to visit my brother and sister-in-law at least once
• Go on a family mini-vaycay
• Organize our neighborhoood garage sale and have one myself (June 2nd - come by!)
• Nap!
• Come up with a daily chore schedule and stick to it (instead of doing everything on the weekends)
• Yard sale on Thursdays and Fridays
• Take my son on play-dates a few times a week (even if it means I have to spend a little money)
• Go to our 10 year HS reunion
• Cook and bake much more often!
• Write my maternity lesson plans...ugh 
• Help prepare for VBS and head up Rec (new thing...I've always either taught or done music!)
• Read constantly
• Go to Wichita to visit friends
• Get away for at least one night to celebrate our 8th anniversary
• Find out whether we're having a boy or girl and, if it's a girl, start stocking up for girl stuff at yard sales
• Potty-train my son*
• Throw a killer baby shower for my sister-in-law!
• Get family pictures taken!
• Host a 4th of July party for the parade!
• Go to the pool every day, or almost every day
• Try something new with my son each week
• Be outside more (even though I hate the heat and taste like straight sugar to mosquitoes)
• Build up a maternity wardrobe from yard saling and gift cards I saved from my birthday

*Could not be more terrified at this utterly overwhelming prospect

I'm sure I'll be adding to this list as the summer goes on.  I am starting with garage-sale-prep, come Tuesday of next week!  We are going through each room in the house with a box and pricing stickers.  Then we're going to attack the basement.  I also need to make signs to place all around the neighborhood.  Maybe I won't have as much time this summer as I was thinking!

Book: The Other Boleyn Girl

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

Length: 672 pages

Format: Paperback Book
Price: I bought mine used a long time ago, but it looks like Amazon has used paperbacks starting at around $7
Author Website: http://www.philippagregory.com/ (photo credit)

Basic Premise: This novel follows Mary Boleyn, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Katherine of Aragon, the first (of six, mind you) wife of Henry VIII.  Mary catches the king's eye and is forced by her family to leave her husband and become the king's mistress. That is, until the king chooses her sister, Anne.

My Take: 7.5 out of 10 (scale here)
I read this book a few years ago during my first wave of interest in this time period.  I also read The Constant Princess by the same author and a number of YAL books about the women surrounding Henry VIII.  I decided to reread this one after completing The Redheaded Princess a few weeks ago.  Philippa Gregory is an excellent author.  Her words flow easily and effortlessly and her attention to detail, especially when it comes to aspects of this royal culture, is flawless.  The book is a page turner.  It's filled with mystery, intrigue, and a fair amount of...well...yuckiness.  Anne Boleyn was ultimately executed for alleged witchcraft and incest.  Who knows what really happened, but this author takes the incest track.  It does not go into detail, thank God (though it does become graphic in other areas), but it was a bit disturbing nonetheless.  It's an interesting and entertaining read.  It's also interesting to note that this was all going on right around the time that people were traveling to the Americas.  I don't wonder why they wanted to be rid of England!

New Dining Experience: The Row House

It's not often that you get to have a new dining experience in a place like Topeka.  Oh sure, there are new restaurants popping up all the time, but to have an experience, you need to visit a place like The Row House.

(photo credit)

The Row House can be found tucked away in a corner of Topeka's downtown.  I don't know how long it's been around, but I hadn't heard of it until a friend mentioned it at work.  She invited us to join her and some friends for dinner at the Row House for her birthday.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  I knew that it wasn't an ordinary sort of restaurant, where you order off a menu.  I looked online and read things like "Halibut, citrus and cilantro salsa, black rice" and thought that this really wasn't going to be my thing.  But I am not kidding when I say that everything was delicious.  We had a yummy salad with greens from the restaurant's own garden with goat cheese and a champagne vinegrette, creamy vegetable soup (which was maybe my favorite dish of the evening), and then a taste of all the entrees: the halibut mentioned above, corn cakes with black beans and verde, and beef sirloin with lima beans and whipped potatoes.  I ate everything on my plate, including the lima beans.  Dessert was champagne sorbet, coconut creme brulee, and a delicious lime macaroon with habenero pepper.  Of everything, the desserts were probably my least favorite, only because I don't like coconut and I had to eat around the habenero. (I'm not a spicy food person.)  The food was amazing. Amazing.

The ONLY downside was the price.  We are not big spenders when it comes to this sort of thing, but my friend had warned me that this was expensive, so I saved a good portion of my birthday money for this outing.  There is a set price per person for the meal (see their website), and then you are responsible for tax, tip, and any drinks.  It was a pricy night, but we relaxed, had fun, and decided for once not to worry about the money!

Yard Sales: Week 3

I made a good haul this week in town with my friend Jen.  Our favorite part of the day (not) was getting yelled at by a crotchety old lady for blocking her driveway.  Seriously - I parked halfway in front of her driveway for two minutes at the very most while Jen ran to the sale next door.  I did not get out of my car.  This woman opened her garage door to come out and tell us not to block her driveway.  I told her we were leaving, and then she went back into her house and closed the garage door.  Seriously?  Was it really worth a trip out of your house, opening the garage door, yelling, and then going back into your house and shutting the garage door?  I can understand being irritated if you were trying to back out and your driveway was blocked, but let's get real!

Anyway, aside from that, I had a great day!  Instead of breaking them into sales, I broke them into categories:

Boys Summer Clothes = $1.00

1-2. Button-up short-sleeved shirts - $.25/per, size 3T, so for next summer!
3. Old Navy t-shirt - $.25, size 2T
4. Good, heavy jean shorts - $.25, size 2T

Boy's Bottoms = $5.00

5. Dark Jeans - $1.00, size 4T.  These are super cool with holes in them.  My husband is a fan.
6. Cool fleece-lined jeans - $2.00 These were rather expensive, but the fleece lining is so nice for playing outside in the cold, so I went with it.
7. Light Jeans - $1.00, size 4T.  These are also super stylish!
8. Khaki shorts - $1.00, size 2T, so shorts we can wear these now!

Maternity Clothes = $4.50

 9-10. Maternity Dresses - $.50/per I got these at the sale of my friend Caroline (who blogs here) and she was slashing prices after two days.  I was so excited about these, since I will be getting big over the summer.  These will be soooo nice!
11. Floral Dress - $1.00 This is not a maternity dress, but the skirt is so full I think I can wear it for quite awhile.

12. Long-sleeved maternity shirt - $1.00 I may regret this...it's too big but I was hoping my mom cantake it in a little.  I borrowed nearly everything for my first pregnancy and all of those friends are pregnant now, so there's no borrowing again :(  I really need clothes I can wear to work, and if we can adjust this one, I think it will work.  If not, it was a waste of $1.00.
13. Short-sleeved maternity top - $.50 I also got this one from Caroline and it will be a great one for summer.

14-15. Maternity swimming suits - $.50/per My last purchases from Caroline's sales.  I was just looking at some online last night (we plan to spend a lot of time at the pool this summer) and they are SOOOOO expensive!  The ones I was looking at at OldNavy.com were $25 for the top and $19 for the bottoms.  If I went with those prices, I saved myself $88!  I am excited to try these out this summer!

I also picked up a few things for my nieces, but I dropped them off before I came home.  I think I spent $2.50 on a night gown and two shirts, so:

Total for Day = $13.00!

Over and Over Again...

It's amazing the qualities of yourself that you see manifested in your child, even at the tender age of two.  I am a repetition person.  It's part of my learning style.  If I find a new song I like, I listen to it over and over.  If I see a movie I like, I watch it multiple times.  Favorite books?  Same thing.  When I was a child, I watched the Disney version of Robin Hood so many times that my father resorted to hiding it because he was just that sick of it.  No problem!  I had the entire script memorized at the age of two so I just ran around the house reciting it.  My uncle bought us The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when I was about four, and I watched it over and over and over.

(photo credit)

Fast-forward twenty-three years.  It's Christmas and, because my parents remembered (fondly, I'm sure) how very much I enjoyed it as a child, they give me the DVD version of that movie.  I'm stoked - I love to watch movies from my childhood, so after my son went to bed one night I popped it in.  Almost like he knew we were having fun without him, he began to fuss.  My husband got him and brought him out to me and he was mesmerized.  Since then, he always wants to "Watch Lucy, Mommy! Watch Lucy and Edmund and Aslan!"  Now he runs around saying lines from the movie: "And there's a fawn, and there's a witch, and it's called Narnia! Come and see!"  The other day we were all in the car driving and he said "Look, look quick! There it is!" We started looking out the window, trying to figure out what he was talking about. "It's a beaver! I saw the tail." We looked at each other and started cracking up.

This story has some serious sentimental ties to my childhood.  Not only did I grow up watching this movie, it is the first book I remember my father reading to me.  It's why lions are my favorite animal.  It's one of the reasons I love C.S. Lewis so much.  And it's one of the first ways I really understood who Jesus was and what His sacrifice meant.  We probably let Charlie watch it too much.  There is probably some specialist somewhere who would shake his finger and lecture me if he could, but I've decided that I don't care.  I am making a parenting call, and if this story has even a fraction of the influence on my son that it has had on me, it is time well-spent.

Graduation: Part 4

Graduation: Part 1
Graduation: Part 2
Graduation: Part 3

Last weekend was graduation.  KU does two ceremonies - one on Saturday for the school, which in our case was the School of Engineering, and one on Sunday for the whole university.  We went to both.  The one on Saturday was at 8:00 AM, but it was the one where they called his name and he walked across the stage.

I can't really explain how it felt to watch my husband finish five years of investment in our future.  When he came in in his cap and gown, I immediately started bawling.  This has been such a long and trying road, but it all seemed worth it at that moment.

My husband is the most amazing man I know, and I know lots of them.  He worked his tail off for five years straight and hardly ever complained.  He would always take time for our son, and when I would start to crack because I hadn't seen him in a few days, he would drop everything - even if it meant staying up later and getting that much less sleep - and spend time with me.  He gave his all at work and he did his best at school.  Where does he get that type of energy?  I come home from one day of teaching and I'm beat.  I am awed and inspired by his devotion, and thankful for the nine zillionth time that he's mine.

So what comes next?  Well, technically he's not done.  He's staying one more year for his Master's Degree, but he'll be a graduate teaching assistant, so technically he'll have a job, so I'm really thinking of it more as a job than another year of school.  After that, he will be highly specialized in energy management, which will qualify him for any number of jobs in the swiftly growing area of energy conservation.

It's tempting to ask questions about the future - where will he get a job? Will we have to move? Where to?  But if I've learned anything in the past few years, it's that things rarely turn out the way I plan.  I just have to take one day at a time and trust that God is going to take care of us, and He hasn't failed us yet.

Graduation: Part 3

To read Graduation: Part 1 click here and Graduation: Part 2 click here.

In May of 2009, at the end of my husband's second full year of school, we found out we were having a baby.  Our plan had been to wait until we were all done with school - a good three more years, but clearly, God had other plans, and not just regarding our son.  About three weeks after we found out our news, the new pastor at our former church in Topeka offered my husband a part-time position as worship leader.  We said, no, thank you, but that wasn't something we were interested in.  If you know this pastor, you know how persistent he is about things, and since he kept bugging us, we started praying about it.  The hours were going to work out perfectly with school and the pay was going to help offset some of those bills we knew were going to go up when our baby got here.  After much prayer and consideration, we took the job.

Our son was born in December, which was a HUGE blessing, because it was over KU's Christmas break, which meant we were both home for four weeks together with our new son.  But when he went back to school and I went back to work, things got difficult.  He had intentionally (and very wisely) taken a lighter load of classes in the semester that followed the birth, but I had to return to work, which was something I had always loved and was now something I dreaded.  The commute to Topeka for work was really starting to wear on me with a baby, and we depended on our moms, who lived in Topeka, to take care of him while we were both at school.  This meant we were constantly in Topeka and rarely at home.  Even on the weekends, we had church in Topeka on Sundays and usually some family thing on Saturday.  I was really starting to resent the family for making me come to Topeka on my one day home with my family.  Something was going to have to change.

That April, we made the decision to leave Lawrence after four years and return to Topeka.  This was a difficult decision for a multitude of reasons, but neither of us were comfortable with me and the baby going back and forth from Topeka in the car every day.  Due to the dramatic decrease in the cost of living in Topeka, we were able to buy a house, and I was able to drive just 15 minutes to work instead of 40.  The church was close, our families were close, and it seemed everything was getting easier.  For me.

My husband was still driving back and forth to Lawrence every day and now that we didn't live there, it meant all nighters were literally all nighters and there was no coming home.  I had a baby home by myself most evenings, though my parents were a huge help to me during this time.  The first semester of this last year was particularly challenging, as my husband was gone to class or rehearsal at church for three of the nights of the week, and usually the one he had off was spent in Lawrence studying or working on projects.  This semester was much easier (on me, at least!) and as we moved toward graduation, we began to get very, very excited.

To be continued...

Menu Plan: Week 5

So I skipped menu planning last week - it was finals week for the hubs and just too crazy to try to plan.  I'm back on the horse this week though, and with the nice weather and busting our grill out over graduation weekend, we are planning for some outdoor fun this week!

• Kabobs - from Everyday Home Cook
• Taco salad - I will try to remember to take pictures of this uber simple recipe
• Grilled chicken...or whatever grilling meat we find on sale!

Only one more week with kids after this week and I'm going to have to start planning out lunches too!

Graduation: Part 2

To read Graduation Part 1, click here

 The prospect of my husband quitting his job was terrifying.  My car had bit the dust (or is it bitten the dust? I'm unsure...) so for the first time in our marriage we had a car payment.  We had moved to a larger apartment because our 650 square feet one was suffocating us (or so we thought), so we had more rent to pay than before.  While his job didn't make a ton of money with the bank, we had come to depend on what he did make.  It was going to be an adjustment, but just about everything that had happened over the past year (and everything that would happen in the next four) had been adjustments, so we did the best we could to adjust.

I started researching ways to save money.  The most life-changing discovery during this period was garage sales.  Everything from clothes, furniture, books, games, decor, even gifts, I found for change at garage sales.  I also started grocery shopping smarter.  I quit going to SuperTarget and buying whatever I wanted whenever I wanted (a very difficult transition, mind you) and started shopping at Checkers and Walmart and trying to stick to a budget.  We also started picking up little side gigs with music.  We did music for weddings anytime we could.  We also had a friend in Lawrence who lead worship occasionally there and in Kansas City, and he would ask me to come and share his payment with me,  usually anywhere from $100-$300 per gig.  These were by no means a replacement for a part-time job, but it did help cushion the blow.

It sure was a good thing that my husband quit his job because he next several semesters of studio were a nightmare.  He was constantly at school - oftentimes overnight.  When I think back on how hard I thought this was - you know, back before we had a child - I smile to myself.  I really thought it was rough not seeing my husband every day.  The hard part was really yet to come.

To be continued...

Graduation: Part 1

It's May 12th, and I woke up at 4 AM. I couldn't go back to sleep because my mind was so full of the past eight years of our marriage - specifically, the last five.

 We got married young. I was barely 20 and we were both only two years into our four-year degree programs.  My husband was a music major, but about three quarters of the way through he came to realize what all music majors eventually must - that the only realistic and dependable career in music is teaching.  And unlike me, he did not want to teach.

So he went to technical school.  It was an eighteen month program which certified him in all things electronic - wiring, building, welding, soldering, circuits, computers, and a whole host of other things.  He went through the program quickly and easily - too easily.  The work did not challenge him.

As I finished student teaching, he started to think about other options.  We had just moved to Lawrence so he started looking into programs at KU and found architecture.  I remember sitting in our living room in our first Lawrence apartment listening to him tell me how much he loved humanities in high school and how his favorite part of his job (a custom home-theater installer) was designing and building rooms for sound.  We decided he needed to make an appointment with the architecture department at KU.  He ended up speaking with the dean, but before they talked, he received an application form for the school of architecture.  The last line of the application said, "Use the back of this paper and draw your shoe."  He started to get nervous, as he wasn't an artist.  He did his best and, after viewing the work, the dean suggested architectural engineering.  It was a five-year program, but seemed like it was more in line with his passions and goals.  It sounded good to us.

He enrolled in the spring of 2007.  True to music-major fashion, only 15 of the credit hours he had taken were worth anything outside the realm of music, so he was essentially starting from scratch.  He quit his installation job and began working at a bank in Lawrence.  With me teaching full-time, no debt, and no kids, we were living quite comfortably.  But when year two hit (aka studio), he realized swiftly that if he was going to do this and do it right, he needed to quit his job.

To be continued...

MealTrain.com

(image from mealtrain.com homepage)

I always end up being the coordinator of meals for friends who have babies.  I like this job because 1) I get to organize, 2) it's an opportunity to serve, and 3) this was such a huge help to us when my son was born.  What I don't like - sending and receiving a bajillion emails getting it all coordinated.

Enter MealTrain.com.

I have a good friend who had her second child on Thursday, May 10th.  I entered her name, email, and drop off address.  It allowed me to enter information about preferred drop off times, family members, allergies, favorite/least favorite meals - it looks amazing.  I am going to give it a shot.  I will write a reflection post when all is said and done!

Book: The Redheaded Princess

The Readheaded Princess by Ann Rinaldi

Length: 208 pages

Format: Hardback Book
Price: Checked out from the school library
Author Website: http://www.annrinaldi.net/ (photo credit)

Basic Premise: The second (legitimate) daughter of King Henry VIII of England lives a life of duty, intrigue, and fear.  When her father dies and her hateful half-sister Mary becomes Queen, Elizabeth's claim to the throne - and her own life - is thrown into chaos.

My Take: 7 out of 10 (scale here)
Set in one of the most fascinating (in my opinion, anyway) times in British history, this novel is highly interesting and entertaining.  Rinaldi is a prolific and experienced historical fiction writer, and it is clear she has done her research.  I also enjoyed her smooth, sophisticated writing style.  This is the second YAL book I've read about Elizabeth (the first was Beware, Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer) and I have read several books by Philipa Gregory about the queens immediately before Elizabeth.  Though the stories don't completely match up, I imagine it would be nearly impossible to find entirely accurate accounts one hundred percent of the time.  No matter how truthful you wish to remain to history, the facts are that as a historical fiction writer, you must invent a fair amount to keep the story interesting.  I felt that Rinaldi did a nice job with it.  It took me about three days to read and I'm planning to give it to one of my students who also loves this time period.