Happy spring, readers! It is Tessaly, back with another reading roundup for the mamas, the papas, the grandfolk, and anyone else trying to raise decent children in a world that does not always make it easy.

As always, I rate every book on three criteria: Wholesome Content (is it appropriate for the whole family?), Spiritual Nourishment (does it align with the values of gratitude, patience, and acceptance that the Evernal teaches?), and Re-Readability (will you want to come back to it, or will it just sit on the shelf making you feel vaguely guilty?).

Let us get into it!

The Fenwater Table: Recipes from the River Country

By Margoldt Hasse

Oh, this one is LOVELY. A beautiful cookbook full of traditional Rolling Downs recipes, organized by occasion rather than course, which I just think is so smart. There is a whole chapter on “Welcoming Meals” for when new neighbors move in, and another on “Comfort Plates” for when someone is going through a hard time. The photography is warm and inviting and every recipe I have tried has turned out perfectly. My only small note is that the chapter on “Celebration Feasts” references seasonal holidays that, well, we do not really observe anymore for obvious reasons, but the recipes still work.

Wholesome Content: 5/5 Spiritual Nourishment: 4/5 Re-Readability: 5/5 Verdict: Buy it. Gift it. Cook from it every week.

Twenty Years in Bloom: A Meditation on Permanence

By Sister Ivara Clent (Evernal Press)

I will admit I was nervous about this one because meditation books can sometimes be a little, well, much? But Sister Ivara writes with such a gentle hand. The central idea is that the Silence was not a catastrophe but an invitation to stop chasing the next thing and to sit in the beauty of what is already here. She frames it as a gift. I found myself underlining almost every page. Chapter four, “The Mercy of Repetition,” made me weep in the good way. If you have been struggling with the sameness, and I know many of us have, this book will help.

Wholesome Content: 5/5 Spiritual Nourishment: 5/5 Re-Readability: 5/5 Verdict: Essential. I bought three copies and gave two away.

Before the Quiet: An Oral History of the Pre-Silence Downs

By Calder Wick

This is an interesting one and I want to be fair to it. Mr. Wick has collected interviews with older residents of the Rolling Downs who remember life before the Silence, including descriptions of autumn, winter, and the “real” spring (his word, not mine, and I do think that phrasing is a little disrespectful to what we have now). The stories are vivid and some of them are quite moving. But there is an undercurrent to this book that I find troubling. Several of the interviewees express a desire for the Silence to end. One woman says she “misses the cold.” Another says the sameness has made her feel like she is “living the same day forever.”

I understand that these are real feelings and I do not dismiss them. But I worry about a book that gives so much space to longing for something other than what we have been given without ever once asking whether what we have been given might be enough. The Evernal teaches acceptance. This book teaches aching. I do not think aching is useful, especially not for young readers who might pick this up.

Wholesome Content: 3/5 Spiritual Nourishment: 2/5 Re-Readability: 2/5 Verdict: Read it if you must, but maybe not where the children can see it.

The Steeple and the Storm: New Evidence on the Lightning Theory

By Dr. Aldric Fenmore (Vaelthir University Press)

I almost did not include this one because it is an academic text and not really “reading” in the way most of us think about it. But enough people have asked me about it that I feel I should address it.

Dr. Fenmore argues that the lightning strike on the university clock tower was NOT the cause of the Silence and that the Evernal’s account of the event is, in his words, “theologically motivated rather than empirically supported.” He then spends two hundred pages offering no alternative explanation. He just takes the one explanation we have and tries to dismantle it without offering anything to stand in its place.

I find this deeply irresponsible.

Whether or not the lightning strike is “proven” by whatever standard Dr. Fenmore requires, it is the story that has given this community meaning ever since the Silence. It is the story that helped people grieve. It is the story that helped people go on. To tear that down without building anything in its place is not scholarship. It is cruelty in a dust jacket.

I did not finish this book. I composted it. The tomatoes can have it. (The tomatoes, of course, will never ripen, but that is neither here nor there.)

Wholesome Content: 1/5 Spiritual Nourishment: 0/5 Re-Readability: 0/5 Verdict: No.

Poddlekin’s Perfect Day

By Annelise Wren, illustrated by Fern Oakbarrow

Ending on a sweet note! This is a children’s picture book about a little hedgehog named Poddlekin who wakes up and has the same perfect spring day over and over and learns to find something new to love about it each time. The illustrations are GORGEOUS. Watercolor, soft edges, lots of greens and golds. My youngest, Brindleberry (she is four), asks for it every single night. The message is simple and beautiful: every day is a gift, even if it looks the same as yesterday.

Wholesome Content: 5/5 Spiritual Nourishment: 5/5 Re-Readability: 5/5 (we have read it approximately one hundred times) Verdict: Perfect. Buy it for every child you know.

That is all for this roundup! If you have a book you would like me to review, send it by post to the usual address. I read everything (well, almost everything; see above).

Stay wholesome, stay grateful, and happy spring!

Tessaly Plum is a mother of three, Evernal congregant, and the author of the Rolling Downs reading column. Her views are her own, though she suspects the Almighty agrees with most of them.