This is another installment of Sandman Jazz’s 30-Day Book Challenge, which I am doing three days at a time.

Day 13: A book with a color in the title: The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, which happens to be one of my favorite books. It was made into a movie, which I liked, but the book was much better (which is what so often happens)!

Day 14: A Fairy Tale Retelling: The only ones I remember are children’s books, which I read to my students. One that I thought was really cute was Las tres javelinas (The Three Little Javelinas in English), by Susan Lowell. Because my students were learning in both English and Spanish, sometimes I read the book in Spanish, sometimes in English. Either way, the kids really loved it and I’ve always had a strange affection for javelinas (which are basically an American version of warthogs, quite ugly in reality!) because of the book. The story takes place in the Southwest, with two of the javelinas having built houses out of tumbleweeds and cactus ribs (from a dead saguaro cactus). When the hungry coyote comes to capture them (he fantasizes barbecuing them and eating them with red chile sauce), they run to the house of their wise sister, who has built her house out of adobe bricks. The wolf tries to come down her chimney – with burning results!

Day 15: A book that makes you cry sad tears: One of them was The Color Purple, although it has a happy ending. Much of the story concerns Celie, who is abused and impregnated (twice) by her father, in rural Georgia. Her life is so horrible that she escapes by writing letters to God. There’s a line in the book, “God gets really pissed off when you walk past the color purple and don’t notice it.” (I don’t remember the exact words.) I found that line to be so profound because purple represents the person who goes unnoticed even though if you get to know her, she’s really beautiful – sort of like the color.  Anyway, after a lot of other things happen, Celie eventually gets away from an abusive husband through her pretty sister Nettie, who befriends a missionary couple who take the girls to Africa where they are doing missionary work. 

I tear up easily but not usually while reading books, more often when I watch sad movies.