Annotation #4 - Wildflower by Drew Barrymore

WILDFLOWER

By Drew Barrymore

Genre: Non-Fiction Autobiography

Publication Date: 2015

Number of Pages: 288

Summary

Drew Barrymore takes the autobiography in a slightly different direction. Wildflower is made up of many short stories about different events in her life. These short stories stand alone within the book and are only connected by the fact that they include the author. There are stories about her children, her friends and her famous family. The stories reminisce about her childhood, her pets, the crazy things she’s done in her life like ramming through a fence to get her truck out of a locked parking lot and her volunteer work overseas. This book shows many different sides of Drew and how she has grown in different ways over the course of her life. One may be let down that this book doesn’t include much of the juicier details of her life such as drug abuse and her relationship with her mother but you realize Drew has risen above those things. As you read, it is obvious she has decided to tell more down to earth, sweet stories that are dear to her heart.

Subject Headings:
Drew Barrymore

Biographies

United States

Actors

Three terms that describe this book: 

Factual information about a real person
This book relates stories that have really happened to an actor that most of us have grown up with. She puts forth elements of her life that have touched her in some way and, through them, the reader gets a better picture of the real Drew Barrymore.

Pace is quick
This is a quick read. Once you are done with one story, you just want more and continue on to the next one, even though it gives you a perfect excuse to break like the stories do.

Writing style is familiar and narrative
Even though Wildflower is a biography, it is written in a narrative style. This collection of stories could be just that if they were fiction. The writing style reflects Barrymore’s speech style and those who like her will definitely appeal to her writing style as well.

Read-A-likes

Little Girl Lost by Drew Barrymore

Troublemaker by Leah Remini

Pretty Happy by Kate Hudson

Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham

Reader’s Advisory Matrix for Edgewise: A Picture of Cookie Mueller by Chloe Griffin

1.       Where is the book on the narrative continuum?

Highly fact based (has few or no narrative moments)

2.       What is the subject of the book?

The life of actress/writer/artist Cookie Mueller.

3.       What type of book is it?

A biography told in interview form by the people who knew her.

4.       Articulate appeal

What is the pacing of the book?

The book has a medium pace. Presented in a laid back way but also in a way you want to keep reading.

Describe the characters of the book.

There is Cookie Mueller who was a wild child and those who speak about her who were her friends and family. Many of the players (Dreamlanders) from John Waters films were interviewed for this book. And even though it is non-fiction, they are all characters!

How does the story feel?

Cookie’s story ranges from being exciting to exasperating to sad.

What is the intent of the author?

The intent of the author is to convey an interesting life through those who knew her and also who the public knows. I think the author wants to convey the friendship between all these friends who are also in the spotlight.

What is the focus of the story?

Cookie’s life.

Does the language matter?

The language matters a bit because this is, mainly, a group of friends who all grew up together and used the language of their 1960’s Baltimore neighborhoods. Not to mention all of the places and terms referenced were places special to only these people.

Is the setting important and well described?

Many settings were described throughout the book by different people. Yes, they were important to the story being told at that moment. The description was more in-depth when needed and just touched on when needed; it varied.

Are there details and, if so, of what?

Many details of how she wrote, put on makeup, took care (or lack thereof) her son and her living conditions.

Are there sufficient charts and other graphic materials? Are they useful and clear?

There are interesting photos and drawings scattered throughout the book. They are not necessarily clear but since there is much talk of drug use in the 60’s, they shouldn’t make sense.

Does the book stress moments of learning, understanding or experience?

I think there are many areas in Cookie’s life that are learning experiences and a lot of understanding of this person that many didn’t know much about before reading the book.

5.       Why would a reader enjoy this book (rank appeal)?

Learning              2. Subject           3. Tone

Prompt: Ebooks and Audiobooks

Ebooks are an interesting entity for me. I love technology and am a geek with any tech device but I’m not into ebooks. I love the fact that I can take books with me on trips with just a small device but,  normally, I don’t read ebooks. That being said, I love that ebooks exist and I am all for people loving them – just not enough to make my physical books obsolete!

As I made reference to before, using ebooks doesn’t let you see or feel the weight of the print book. If you are looking for a certain size of book, you won’t be able to gauge the length or the size. If someone is looking for a small, light read that won’t take long and they choose a Wally Lamb ebook, they will be in for a shock! You can see how many pages are in an ebook so that does help if you can visualize what that number of pages translates into size. As far as genre, many sci-fi novels, for example, are quite large and, as a result, are able to go into much detail in storyline and description. This, I believe, is an unofficial characteristic of sci-fi novels and that is something that is lost when reading an ebook. Another detail about sci-fi novels that may be lost when reading an ebook is the font used in the title and headers of chapters. These are not always used and some ebooks may, in fact, incorporate them but fonts for certain genres give a feeling about the book and its contents. This may be lost when reading ebooks.

Changing fonts, line spacing and color in an ebook is nice; people who need large type don’t have to look for the large type edition, they simply enlarge their text. However, this also affects the size of the book. Line spacing will affect this as well. I think being able to change the color of text is a good thing, as well as the dimming and brightening of your device’s screen. For people who have a hard time reading black on white, or white on black, or have color blindness, changing the color is a great way to allow the reader to enjoy reading that much more. Some people also just like to have cool colors when they read!

However, color does affect the tone of the story. Think about reading a horror novel in a bright yellow font. First of all, yellow is associated with the sun and happiness and could make the tone of your horror novel not as scary – not to mention hard to see with the yellow text. But then imagine reading that same novel in red type. All of the bloody parts might be scarier and more tactile. Or black text which has a dark feel to it. It really is amazing what color can do for a book.

Along these same lines, narrator and music on audiobooks can bring forth or take away from the story. If the narrator is pleasant to listen to and hasn’t recorded the book in their noisy home, chances are you’ll enjoy it. If it’s someone who you can’t stand the sound of their voice because of an accent or they have a nasal voice, you won’t enjoy the book or even not want to finish it. Maybe you don’t like the actor who is reading the book and you just can’t get past that get into the book. Music is important if you are going to have it in an audiobook because the music must fit the genre and be included in the correct parts of the book. It also must be produced well. Tinny music does not bode well for an audiobook, and I can attest to that!

I think one appeal that both ebooks and audiobooks share is the lightness or absence of a physical book. Both of these are good to take on trips so you don’t have to pack a ton of weight. Also both can be adjusted for the reader’s enjoyment; ebooks with font, color and line spacing and audiobooks with volume.

As I stated at the beginning, I love technology and am wholeheartedly supportive of ebooks and audiobooks. I use more audiobooks as I have a commute but I am all for ebooks, too. I just love the feel of a physical book, I love going to the store and lifting them and holding the weight of them and turning them over and over to see which one I would like to buy the most – that is the appeal of physical books for me and ebooks just don’t have that. But it is a book and I do read them every so often just to stay abreast of the changing technology.

Book Club Experience

I attended our library’s book club on February 23. This book club is made up of all women who seem to have been coming to this club for quite a while as they often referred to other books and talked with each other as if they have been friends for a long time. It is interesting to note that our library has hired someone to facilitate the book club. I wonder how many other libraries have to look elsewhere for their facilitators? It just seems odd to me with an entire building of librarians and no one can run a book club once a month. This was new information to me. I have had some contact with the facilitator who brings back the books from the book club to the Reference desk every month but I didn’t know until this project that she was paid to run the club. I assumed it was a patron who offered to run it.

When I first walked in, some of the members knew who I was from seeing me around the library but others welcomed me as a new attendee. I informed them that I hadn’t read the book and that I was observing for library school. They were very interested and thought it was pretty cool that I was studying to be a librarian. Even though I hadn’t read the book and was only observing, they treated me very kindly and kept trying to pull me into their conversation; it was a nice experience. I thought I would very much like to attend this group if I actually had time to read for pleasure! Maybe some day.

Due to the library renovating the basement, the book club met in a temporary meeting space which will eventually be a full-fledged meeting room once renovation is complete. So it wasn’t the greatest meeting space with its temporary walls put up by the renovation workers. But the ladies were game for it and actually thought it was a nice change of pace. They asked me about the renovation and how things would work for them once it’s all done. Anyway, our custodial staff brought in tables and chairs for them and there was a little snack cart when I got there. I am assuming the library provided the snacks as the facilitator was not there that day and had appointed a fill-in leader for that night. She actually realized she was the leader after I had gotten there and waiting for the club to start (she received an email from the facilitator) so the snacks must have come from the person in Circulation that arranges the book club and oversees it each month. The snacks included coffee, Chex Mix and cookies. I assume it is always there because everyone just naturally went to the cart, got their snacks and sat down.

The book they were discussing was Surviving the Angel of Death: the true story of a Mengele twin in Auschwitz by Eva Mozes Kor and Lisa Rojany Buccieri. It seemed as though all members had read the book. All of the women shared pretty equally except for one member who barely spoke at all; maybe she didn’t read the book that month. The ladies were all of the same generation and most had grown up in the same city of Elkhart so they all related information they had about the area during WWII, the setting of the book. It was interesting to hear how they were, or in most cases were not, affected by what was happening in Europe here in Elkhart. The book also lead to the members talking about civil rights and what they experienced locally. They relayed that there was a right and a wrong side of the tracks and how some places blacks felt they needed to hurry through or completely avoid after sundown. I had lead a book club many years ago at Barnes & Noble and I have to say, this book club I attended was so much more interesting and informative, mostly because of the members who attended. It was meaty and juicy and I learned things from these ladies. The books they usually read are non-fiction but they have also read fiction that deals with historic events. It seems like they read books that touch them personally.

The main person asking the questions was the leader but it didn’t really feel like she was asking, it felt more like a discussion between women. The leader was also one of the ones who spoke a lot, sometimes talking over another member. Also, one of the members brought her college-aged daughter, who tried very hard to contribute but it seemed a bit like she was trying to scholarize the happenings at Auschwitz and the history that these women were sharing. I wished she would have just listened and learned first-hand about how it was from the 40s to the 60s but it seemed she had an agenda. The questions that were asked were all open-ended and not all pertained to the book as the discussion branched out, which was ok because this book opened up many sub-discussions.

This book group did a really good job relating to each other and supporting each other’s opinions even when there was a disagreement. It was enjoyable for me to meet these ladies and they actively asked me back whenever I could.