Three Little Things
Book Review: Three Little Things
by Author Patti Stockdale
Click on the photo above to view the author’s website in a separate window.
Book Review written by Patricia Tiffany Morris
Three Little Things author, Patti Stockdale, ushered me into Arnie and Hattie’s world. The world of her grandparents and mine. A place where words like, fiddlesticks and dawdling mingle with handwritten love letters and lovely clichés abound.
Phrases and words my grandparents—and probably yours—spoke as common as cow pies and land in early America.
The author’s ingenuity to transport a reader to the days of her characters is brilliant. That’s the effect of well-written historical fiction. Almost like time travel for modern day readers. And Stockdale did just that.
I cherished the authenticity and genuine relationships of Hattie and Arno’s time, and I celebrated my grandparents during the walk through the pages of Three Little Things.
No, my family never wrote love letters, but they did go to war, and they spoke and felt deeply in a culture quite different from our technology-bound society. The way war affected so many young people and pressed through their family tree, a soldiers’ trauma affects us today sometimes in ways we can’t verbalize.
Yet, Patti Stockdale found a way to celebrate life and love in spite of tragedy. What a fabulous journey these two characters traveled! I shed more than a few tears, longing for one more chance to hear my grandfather’s voice and talk with him. He would have loved this story as much as young people in our technical age.
“Not once in eighteen years had Hattie Waltz considered praying for a plague. But if a swarm of locusts intervened, she’d not complain...”
Historical fiction fascinates us. Stories carry messages and memories from our childhood which often resonate with longings of a simpler time.
Photo From Patti Stockdale
When I pulled out my mom’s letters to me while in college, her signature and distinctive handwriting swirled in my mind. I reeled and I dusted and brushed off old recipe cards dated and signed by my mom, grandma, or dozens of family and friends’ favorites discovered only by a small note in the margins of the tattered cards.
Some had stains from a splash of ingredients while they had cooked.
I could almost taste the lard from the butter cookie recipe. Yes, I stole a taste while she cooked, and the oil stain and her hand lettering brought back that poignant memory.
Could that be the analogy we all yearn to connect us to our past? How do our lives spill over onto out children? How do we learn and identify with those who have passed on? I wondered.
I retrieved a satchel of my mom’s old Avon hand cream called Bird of Paradise. Indeed. I breathed her scent and felt as if she might come around the corner after all these years and tell me everything would be okay.
I started a new legacy memory project years and years ago. That’s not unusual for me.
But Three Little Things reminds us to get to know one another and cherish our lives. Scrapbooks and boxes of recipes and stories of my grandparents and my mom honored their memory. I could share with my children and grandchildren a glimpse of their legacy. In the very least, Grandma Kate’s cookies and Swedish coffee cake should find their place in their homes across the world.
My mom’s letters to me from college days, Grandma Kate’s recipes stained and tattered, and my dad’s letters to his mother and father during the war, complete with original envelopes stamped to France, should live longer than I.
Even in light of dark tragedies in my family tree, there is sweetness in gathering hope through memories of our family–hope that Hattie and Arnie would find love in the pages of a book based loosely on real life grandparents of the author of Three Little Things.
And, so it goes. Generations of insights and wonder would be lost if not for bright, clever writers like Patti Stockdale, Jane Kirkpatrick, and so many more.
Read Three Little Things and let history come alive in your family.
About Patti
(From her personal website)
Patti loves hope, history, and a good happily ever after. She can’t remember numbers, so she married a statistician. Thanks to him, she’s lived all sorts of places and worked all sorts of jobs. While employed by an NFL team, she once answered the phone by the wrong team name. She doesn’t work there anymore. For 11 years, she directed the programming at a nonprofit senior center and hosted an annual talent show, rocking a Dolly Parton wig, Annie Oakley boots, and a sweet–although snug–Batman costume. She no longer works there either. These days, Patti writes books and occasionally educational assessments and magazine articles.
Book Review written by Patricia Tiffany Morris