Open Heart, Open Mind by Clara Hughes

from goodreads

4 stars

Well yesterday there was a minor Christmas miracle. I actually started feeling a tiny bit Christmassy and got out some of our decorations. So we finally have a nativity scene out (it is a Veggie Tales one, I feel sort of sacrilegious) and our stockings.

The kids kept wanting to put more and more out but I squashed those ambitions. Usually we have decorations in our bay window. But our tree is in front of the window and is so big that you really can't get to the shelf part or see it. We'll save those for next year, when hopefully, we will get a smaller tree!

Synopsis

One of Canada's best known athletes, most decorated olympian in both summer and winter olympics, opens up about the demons of her past, the demons she still faces, how sport helped her but also hindered her as well.

My Thoughts

This was a great, fast read about a Canadian celebrity.

It is amazing, the success she has found, considering she didn't find sport until late, by most standards. As well, it is amazing the early success she had considering the booze and drugged filled life she had as a teenager.

I think she did a great job of balancing her life stories and her sport stories. The balance helped maintain interest. For me nothing is worse than a book purely about just sports things, the games they played and training they did. While an important element, I like learning about the actual person, how they think, and feel. I felt that I actually got to know Clara the person, instead of learning about all her stats and awards.

I like how she doesn't always try to show herself in a positive light. She shows us times when she didn't act well, when things didn't go the way she planned. It was interesting how she had her on stigma against mental illness (she refused to believe she had depression when first asked about it) and now she is the spokeswoman for mental illness awareness and is working hard to remove the stigma.

I appreciated how she showed her relationship with her husband in a real light. She shows their highs and their lows. They seem really cool and suit each other and that is awesome. By the way, their wedding, totally awesome. It should be an inspiration to all those getting married.

While not a deep memoir, it still shed light on her life, dark times, good times, self-discovery and how sport literally saved her life. This memoir definitely helped make Clara a whole person and not just a memorable smile.

Girl Runner by Carrie Snyder

from goodreads

3 stars

I have a girl runner. My little two year old, Miss P, runs and runs and runs. I always wait for her to trip and fall and come to her rescue but some how her little feet and legs move in such an awkward precision that she manages to keep upright. (Thank goodness). She rarely walks. She usually only walks if we are late for school! She runs to pick flowers. She runs to the dinner table she runs to get into the car. She runs to get away from mommy. (I must say that I am getting pretty good at sprinting because of her, but, I would prefer she not like running away from me so much.) For such a little thing, she is like in the 3rd percentile for weight, she sure can move with a locomotive type intensity. I wonder where this running will take her. Will she be an olympic champion or the next Forrest Gump? Who knows?! It will be fun to see.

Synopsis

This is a story about Aganetha Smart a former olympian now a centurian. Her story is told through a series of flashbacks as she is taken to her family's farm one last time. We see her as a farm girl in rural Ontario, a working girl in the Toronto of the '20s and as an Olympic gold medalist from the 1928 games.

My Thoughts

Despite what any of my other thoughts may be on this book, the history that made up this story was interesting. There are not many books about women athletes from this period and it was interesting to see how women's sport was back then and how these women helped evolve the idea of women as athletes. It was this history and the "want" to like it that made me keep reading.

That being said, I found the book to be rather predictable and, in a way, rather Canadian. While there are many great Canadian authors writing very dynamic things, this book seemed quintessentially Canadian. The main character was a farm girl whose mother was a midwife who knew how to deal with unwanted pregnancies, there was the aloof father and the rather creepy step-brother. It almost seemed a marriage of The Cure for Death by Lightning and The Birth House with some running thrown in. (I read The Birth House years ago and really enjoyed it.) I know not all Canadian literature is set in rural communities, but so many are.

The characters weren't the most likable. I felt that with some we were only getting mere shadows of who they were. We got glimpses but were left to our own devices to really understand who they were and what was going on with them. I was left with the feeling of wasted lives. Aganetha and some of the other characters just didn't live and that is sad.

This was one of those stories that will not going to stick with me. It will not shape me or define me or cause me to reflect on anything. Perhaps if I was a runner or more of an athlete I would have appreciated it a bit more. But I'm not. So, there you go.