A charming book. Linked stories about a teacher. Stories move back and forth in time. Themes are complicated in lovely ways. I think it would be a wonderful book to use with highschool students. Having just finished Robert Boswell's Tumbledown, I felt it wasn't nearly so thick with characters or meaning. Still, enjoyed it and want to copy the story about "anecdotals" for colleagues to read. Very funny. I did not care for this book *at all*, despite the glowing reviews. Maybe it’s because, despite the touted beautiful prose, there was no real plot and it was not a good idea to listen to this on audio. In that format it dot not seem like the eight stories were "seamlessly interconnected", it seemed like a random back and forth. I also did not feel that any impressionable student’s lives were “fleshed out;” the book was not long enough (for which I am thankful) to flesh anything out. It was only five disks long, so I listened to the whole thing, getting more and more annoyed as I went along. If I enjoy a book, I look forward to listening; this one seemed like a chore.
What do You think about Ms. Hempel Chronicles (2008)?
I found some of these short stories charming, but I think I will easily forget this book.
—Biancakz
This was an enjoyable book, and well written, but it didn't really grab me.
—justice_crew_love
It's much easier to enjoy this as a collection of linked short stories.
—Ray
