.SOMETIMES RAW.

*and yes, I own all of them.

These days I enjoy quality summer time in my garden, swimming, lounging, reading, and just relaxing. I rearranged all my bookshelves and feel so happy to be surrounded by all those sweet relics collected over the years. I found myself picking through my bookshelves, and realized that the most powerful childhood memories rested between the pages of books I hadn’t thought about in nearly a decade. Suddenly, I was hurtled back to elementary -school summers, eight-hour road trips to the North of Germany to spent the summer at the ocean, which flew by as I escaped on strange literary adventures through under-worlds and magical rhubarb farms. Now, I marvel at the clarity with which I can recall both the stories and my delight in them.

I found practically all of my reading material when I was 10, 11, and 12 by scouring the children’s section of the our local library. While I loved finding refuge from the summer heat in the silence of the stacks, I had to suffer through a lot of bad, corny kids’ books to find the gems that line my shelves today. Here is a list of the books that made the searching worth it. Whether you have a bored kid in the house who’s exhausted the classics (Pseudonymous Bosch, Roald Dahl, Lemony Snicket) or you’re lucky enough to have some summer evenings ahead, there’s a sweet escape for you in each one.

JUNIPER BERRY BY M. P. KOZLOWSKY

In a nutshell: Juniper’s parents are beloved movie stars. But something’s not quite right—they’re not their usual selves. Juniper and her next door neighbor Giles discover their parents have been slowly selling their souls, bit by bit, to a demon under the tree in the backyard. Juniper and Giles explore the underground world to save her parents, encountering temptations and oddities along the way.

For people who like: Coraline or Narnia, stories about secret portals, tunnels, and bravery. Also for fans of Pseudonymous Bosch’s Secret Series.

MY NAME IS MINA BY DAVID ALMOND

Age range: 9-15

In a nutshell: The prequel to Almond’s book Skellig (see next pick; I recommend reading Mina before Skellig). The book is written in the form of a diary, from the mind of a young girl named Mina. She is the OG manic pixie dream girl: Mina is homeschooled and ruminates in the handwritten pages about poetry, myths, and math, dreaming of her dead father and wondering about birds. 

I felt such a deep connection to this book that I wrote a letter to David Almond when I was nine. “I LOVED My Name Is Mina.  Mina thinks just like me! I love to write, and My Name Is Mina made me want to write even more.” (And guess what? He wrote me the nicest email back – “It’s great that the book made you want to write – that’s exactly what I want to happen when people read it.”)

For people who like: Harriet the Spy, poetic and quirky books that aren’t plot based—sort of a character study. Excellent personality-inspiration for misunderstood tween girls who like to dream, write, and escape.

SKELLIG BY DAVID ALMOND

Age Range: 10-20

In a nutshell: Another mysterious and poetic book by Almond. Michael, a 10-year-old boy, is looking forward to moving into a new house when his baby sister becomes deeply ill. One day he steps into his crumbling garage and discovers a strange creature coated with spider webs, eating dead flies and Chinese take-out, and growing wings. With the help of next door neighbor Mina, Micheal brings Skellig out of the garage and into the light. Creepy but beautiful, entertaining, captivating— I couldn’t put it down.

For people who like: Neil Gaiman fairy-tales such as The Ocean at the End of the Lane, mysterious and eerie but moving.

DRIZZLE BY KATHLEEN VAN CLEVE

Age Range: 9-12

In a nutshell: Eleven year-old Polly Peabody lives on a magical, world-famous rhubarb farm. The plants taste like chocolate, jewels appear in the soil, bugs talk to her, and her best friend is a rhubarb plant named Harry. But one day, the miraculously-timed Monday rainstorms suddenly stop and the plants start to suffer. Could it have anything to do with her aunt’s sudden desire to sell the farm, and her brother’s mysterious illness? Polly has to restore the rain and save the farm and her family, before it’s too late.

For people who like: The charm and creativity of Roald Dahl books, specifically Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or James and the Giant Peach. Magic and childlike wonder combined with a family-centered plot.

BESWITCHED BY KATE SAUNDERS

Age Range: 10-15

In a nutshell: Flora is on the train, headed to her new private school in England, dressed in her bright red converse. But when Flora gets off the train, she finds herself in 1935, forced to live as an old-fashioned schoolgirl. In order to return to the 21^st century, she has to figure out why she time-travelled in the first place. Her new friendship with a Jewish girl, about to head home to Vienna, just might hold the answer.

For people who like: The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler, Harry Potter – think dark academia and history with all the juicy tween-girl drama.

THE UNDROWNED CHILD SERIES BY MICHELLE LOVRIC

Age Range: 11-17

In a nutshell: Adopted girl Teodora is visiting Venice, the floating city of her dreams, and discovers that things are not as they seem. The sinking city also holds an entire secret world, visible only to her, including an underground printing press run by mermaids, speaking statues, strange translucent ghosts, and librarians which transform into cats. Teodora soon realizes the power rests in her hands to save Venice from the sinister forces that threaten it.

For people who like: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, the Percy Jackson series, or Harry Potter – heavily inspired by mythology and magic, and impossible to put down.

Sommer holidays are around the corner. Schools will be closed for nine weeks! NINE weeks. As I am generally quite fond of children, I am raising an eight-year-old, I reach my limits on certain days. We are approaching another long weekend but before he has a maths quiz which we studied for. After a while, he told me how much he doesn’t like me being his teacher. Likewise, I have to admit. It is not the amount of schoolwork, or that it is too difficult (he is in Grade 2) but that I simply do not have the nerves for it all sometimes.

Women around me have two or three kids or plan to get pregnant and I wonder why. I love my son but to get pregnant again and do it all over, no thanks. It is a lot of work. A LOT. And it is expensive. And this is a weird, crazy time to have babies. It is a weird time when it is not even certain if your child can go to school or if there will be another lockdown in fall.

Of course, until now prospective parents have not had the opportunity to see the facts spelt out in black and white and therefore cannot reasonably be held accountable for their actions. To this end, I have carefully set down all pertinent information in the fervent hope that it will result in a future populated by a more attractive array of children than I have thus far encountered.

My Pro & Con Kids List

Pro

You can use your kid as an excuse if you want to leave a party that sucks. Or any event, actually.

Life is never boring again. You are constantly bombarded with something new and different. Wait, this should actually be on the Con-list. Or shouldn’t it?

You can purchase toys that you want to play with pretending they are for your kids. LEGO!!! Kids books! T

Children are usually small in stature, which makes them quite useful for getting to those hard-to-reach places (to clean).

Children do not sit next to one in restaurants and discuss their preposterous hopes of a sad future in loud tones of voice. Well, they actually do, too.

Children ask better questions than adults. “May I have a cookie?” “Why is the sky blue?” and “What does a cow say?” are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than “Where is your manuscript?” “Why haven’t you called?” and “Who is your lawyer?”

Children give life to the concept of immaturity.

Children make the most desirable opponents in Monopoly as they are both easy to beat and fun to cheat.

It is still quite possible to stand in a throng of children without once detecting even the faintest whiff of an exciting, rugged after-shave or cologne.

Children sleep either alone or with small toy animals.

They are funny. Sometimes.

No need to pack too much for a camping trip for one week. They will brush their teeth once and wear the same pants, t-shirt and underwear for one week straight.

Con:

Children are usually filthy and sticky. Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections. There will be trash everywhere. Your house will be a mess. Tiny humans surrounded by a cloud of dust.

Costs! Costs! Costs! for clothes, food, toys, school supply, you name it.

Picky eaters! This will make you cry at one point.

Tantrums! This, too! You will cry.

The endless questions and non-stop talking. Thousands of questions every day that you have to find answers to.

Children respond inadequately to sardonic humorous and veiled threats. Sometimes!

Notoriously insensitive to subtle shifts in mood, children will persist in discussing the colour of a recently slighted cement mixer long after one’s own interest in the topic has waned.

Children are rarely in the position to lend one a truly interesting sum of money. There are, however, exceptions, and such children are an excellent addition to any party.

Children arise at an unseemly hour and are oftentimes in the habit of putting food on an empty stomach.

The whining and talking back at you. Enough said.

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Do you still want to get pregnant? Long story short, if I would have read a list like this before having had my son, I would have still gotten pregnant. You know why? In my head, I would have done things differently than all the other parents anyway. My son would never be allowed to watch Peppa Pig at age two. My son would never get plastic toys, just wooden handcrafted Montessori stuff. My son would never eat candy. I would prepare all the organic food for him and not buy these squishy fruit things from the store. Yeah, right.

I look at my son now. He sits next to me, plays Zelda on his Nintendo Switch, has straight A’s in school, is smart and loves to read and write. I tell myself that I haven’t done such a bad job and pat myself on the back. He is a good kid who eats chocolate and wipes his sticky hands on his pants and says, “I love you, mom!” Be still my heart. Everything is the way it is supposed to be. Time flies and he will be grown up in no time. This time is precious even though it is tough and hard sometimes. But we cannot turn back time and we should just enjoy it while it lasts. Nevertheless, he will remain a single child because this works for me.

Dear Women’s Magazines, and Fashion Show Photographers,

Congratulations on an excellent job promoting body confidence to women everywhere with your consistent covers featuring naked celebrities who are comfortable enough with their bodies to put their dumpy, veiny, stretch-mark-covered selves on full display. Of course, their cottage cheese thighs, waddle necks, and dangly, bat-wing arm fat are not at all visible in the flawless photos you publish, but regular women like me know they are there because of helpful headlines like “Love Your Body As It Is!” and “How I, as a Hollywood Actress with a 24/7 personal trainer finally made peace with my body!” and “The Fifty-Six-Year-Old Supermodel who Dared to Look her Age!” You don’t have to spoon-feed us with messaging that aligns with the accompanying photos. We are smart. We get it.

My first reaction to such images used to be, “Wow, these flawless, perfectly toned celebrities are nothing like me, a mom of a almost nine year-old son whose body exhibits many of the normal signs of aging that accompany a love of food and the privilege of not being dead.” But then I’d read about their struggles to cope with Hollywood’s punishing beauty standards and its practice of relegating into obscurity women who had the audacity to look human; I’d learn of how they’d empowered themselves to shun those unsustainable standards by deciding to live on their own terms. Terms that were more or less the same as the old Hollywood ones, only theirs. Terms that they establish by simply going on the record as saying, “I am now living on my own terms.”

If these celebrities can accept—no, LOVE—their bodies that have been ravaged by motherhood, time, and carbs, then so can I! In a recent interview, a beloved actress and mother of three proudly announced that in her house they ate butter, sugar, sodium, and oil because food played a big role in their joy. She has a bunch of kids and a personal trainer and a stylist and eats real food! Celebrities: They’re Just Like Us!

Being a woman edging towards forty-one, I felt especially seen by the cover story featuring an internationally renowned supermodel I’d been obsessed with throughout my early twenties. The headline, which heralded her as the rare woman who, at fifty-six, dared to look her age, was the perfect accompaniment to a photo of a lithe, naked (obvs), “makeup-free” beauty whose skin shimmered gold and a shiny, luscious, mermaid bra cascaded over her breasts. Just like other women her age! Talk about daring!

What I love most about your confessional, “keepin’ it real” content, however, is when celebrities admit their bodies—the ones they fully accept despite the effects of aging, having kids, and mainlining sodium-laden potato chips—don’t really look like the borderline-porn images we regular women have been zooming in on in search of a wrinkle, scar, or sign of humanity. They want us to know that it takes makeup artists and stylists to achieve their glow and the most flattering positions, the implication being that without a team of professionals, they would look like Jabba the Hut.

Women’s Magazines, these are exactly the kind of transparent celebrity profiles we need right now. They’re an antidote to the story about Kim Kardashian refusing carbs and anything other than tomatoes for a month before the Met Gala so she could fit into Marylin Monroe’s iconic dress. How unrelatable is that, starving yourself for an event that lasts only a few hours? I’d rather be like the actress who chomps on sticks of butter and eats her way out of a cotton candy machine, enjoying life while ALSO proudly flaunting the body she has, which resembles identically the satiny, bronzed, and edited life photos on your glossy pages.

And what better way to communicate to the masses that you’re proud of your saggy knees, pendulous breasts, and ripply hips than on major national magazine covers and photoshops —er, I mean photo shoots. So moved am I by your endless messages of body positivity, I’ve decided to live more of my life in the nude (weather permitting, of course). Neighbors will see how proud I am of my middle-aged body as I walk, naked, to put the garbage bins out for collection and my son will be inspired to be comfortable with who they are, which will now be “that family with the naked mom.”

I would be remiss, Women’s Magazines, if I didn’t acknowledge your dedication to promoting the importance of good mental health. No CBD oil, or meditation app has had as profound an effect on reducing my anxiety as seeing famous, successful mothers my age exposing their decimated bodies to the world. To paraphrase the words of a celebrity mom who recently posed in her birthday suit, the most important thing is to work on our insides. Upon seeing her smooth body in pose after flattering pose I thought, “Now, there’s a woman who really works on her insides!” Way to stick it to Hollywood with that shimmering body that sort of resembles an Oscar statue (or do I need to say “statuette”; not so sure these days)

Thank you, Women’s Magazines, for using your substantial reach to remind women that when it comes to loving ourselves, we are limited only by our own insecurities, not the image-obsessed culture that media engenders.

Warmest Regards, 
D. Henry