Spring readingI just finished this Danielle Steel. Back in the 80s, I devoured each and every one of her novels. Many many hours I've spent with Danielle's books. I hadn't read anything by her in a long time, probably years, spotted this one, and it was good. Set in the late 1950s.
THIS book below was so very good! I stayed up very very late many nights last week reading this one. It was excellent.
I had seen two movies about the Tennessee Children's home, but hadn't read this book.
One of the movies was 1993's Stolen Babies. Set in the 1940s, It's about the Tennessee adoption agency who was actually stealing babies from poor families and then selling babies to wealthy couples, as well as movie stars such as Lana Turner and Joan Crawford.
Children were stolen from hospitals, and even right off the street.
Georgia Tann, who runs the place, is excellently played by Mary Tyler Moore. She did a great job and won an Emmy for her performance in this movie.
 |
| mubi.com |
 |
| unearthed Memphis |
 |
another movie loosely based on the Tennessee Children's Home from 1982. This was a really good movie too! It starred Mare Winningham, one of my favorite actresses. It also stars Polly Holliday and Jane Wyatt.
***************************************** |
About Lisa Wingate's book:
"The little-known story caught the attention of fiction author Lisa Wingate when she saw a late-night episode of "Deadly Women" on the Discovery Channel about the children's home matriarch, Georgia Tann.
"I wondered if it was all true or was sensationalized for TV," Wingate told Insider. "So I started digging. I had to know more." The result was "Before We Were Yours," a fictional account of the orphanage told through the eyes of 12-year-old Rill Foss. Released in 2017, the book stayed on top of best-seller lists for over a year.
"People would write or email and say, 'This book is about my mother' or 'I think I might be one of the stolen babies,'" Wingate said.
For more than 20 years, Tann ran the Tennessee Children's Home Society, where she and an elaborate network of coconspirators kidnapped and abused children to sell them off to wealthy adoptive parents at a steep profit.
Her favorite scheme was to drive through impoverished neighborhoods, picking out the prettiest children, then offer them rides in her shiny black luxury car. Once the children were in, they usually never saw their families again."...Business Insider
********************************************************
Before that, I read War Brides. It was pretty good. I liked the 1940s era it was set in.
T
This one is in my stack of "to read" books:
And also in my stack is Land Girls. This one caught my eye because we so enjoyed a series on Netflix, I think it was, also called Land Girls.It was on 2009-2011, and was set in the second World War. Its about the young women working in the Women's Land Army on the Hoxley Estate. I think it was originally a BBC drama.
Glad you stopped in and looked at books and movies with me today!
Happy Reading!
T
I read the "Before We Were Yours" book, and it really opened my eyes to see just how far people will go for greed and power...so sad that there is now a similar problem with human trafficking...and the powerful people who are behind that. Looks like you found a lot of good books. I tend to look for books that are in the Christian Fiction section so I don't get too embarrassed by what I read. LOL. I mostly get my books from the library, as they are free to read, and I prefer real books. I love Lisa Wingate as an author, and I am trying to read everything I can find written by here. They have all been excellent thus far! Have a wonderful Sunday!
ReplyDeleteJust lost my comment. anyway-jotted down a couple of books you read. I don't like to read online either and like the feel of a real book or magazine in my hands. Have a wonderful Sunday- xo Diana
ReplyDeleteWhat a great brainful of Library Visit this sunny morning! I immediately meant to mention that I was absolutely absorbed in "A Woman of Substance" back in the 70s, (though the direct sequels about the grandchildren were insipid amalgams of spoiled brats who haggled and fought at breakfast in my imagined electric-eighties-blue poly-clothes and Erica Kane lip-slickum. Then I kite-tailed onto several more can't-put-down of that genre, with them all eclipsed by the rise and perpetual zenith of Stephen King, Koontz, Irving, Clancy, Ludlum, running over into James Lee Burke and Patterson, with every letter--of-Grafton, bless her persevering heart that took her past Z.
ReplyDeleteThe past few years of NOW have been punctuated with series eagerly awaited each year or so---Longmire and Reacher and anything else slowly turned out by any of the above.
But I DID live the years of that unspeakable harridan---Georgia Tann, whose regular escapades were blatted on the Commercial Appeal front page almost every morning at breakfast and whose dreaded name uttered to us North Delta children could shudder you with cold and make you straighten up and fly right for quite a spell. She was unbelievable---what cogs in the Memphis Machine turned HER out and set her upon hapless parents of that era? Several of the au courant court-and-prison cases right now reflect the glossing over of Powers-that-Be on the side of some stunningly cruel and incomprehensibly powerful folks who seem to have the ear and permission of whatever board or authority governs in some places. Unbelievable.
And I unwillingly confess kinship to one of those tiny-bit-of-authority-gone-berserk: A cousin of my Mother, whose position in the Child Welfare office in her Mississippi county was the ruin of many families, for her word was seemingly law in all the cases, and on Sunday visits home to her Mama, she'd regale the dinnertable with how she just couldn't decide, and maybe would flip a coin RIGHT NOW to see if they lost their children to The System. And woe to the ones who reported her to any authority---she also relished retelling those woebegone souls' pleading and threats, as she'd cut herself "just a little more of that pie."
And in some crazy amalgam of Life and Literature, I've never forgotten a moment in that TANN movie when Georgia says to the young woman who is stunned by learning just how inhuman their System is, and has protested to her of the injustice over lunch after a court date: "We're gonna have some coffee, and a little bite 'a sumpn' sweeet, and I'm gonna drive you HOAM. And you Think about this."
Boy, did you get me thinking today!! Love and a wonderful April from the Heartland.
I'm not one to flash unpleasant moments or events or people onto the screen---never have been, but some things like this should make us all take notice and speak up. TOWANDA!!
I have read some of Lisa Wingate's books and loved them. I also read The Memory Keeper and will checking out the Land Girls series! Love your reading lists!!!
ReplyDeleteI just finished Still Alice and am now in The Rescue by Nicolas Sparks....
I love how you read!!
I love to read, but I find its best if I read before bedtime. It helps me to whine down. If I pick up a book during the day, I feel like I waste a lot of time that I could be doing something that I need to do, or something I rather do. I stopped putting a lot of money into my books though, I pick up a few at Dollar Tree. Just read, the Right Sort of Man by Allison Montclair. It was good. Not the best but I finished it. haha....If I start a book and the first couple of chapters don't grab me, I put it down. I try to not hold onto books anymore, so I have a small stack that I need to offer up in the hood for FREE. A couple that you mentioned I might have to see if the library has. Sounds good. I feel like the kids today don't do any reading, or enough. My grands of the age of video games. My grands don't even watch tv.
ReplyDeleteI am trying to leave a comment too, but I will try again. I love all the books. What a nice variety. I like books too - and I love to read. The first subject of the kids being taken from families - I had never heard of. But I do remember Joan Crawford's daughter writing Mommy Dearest. The daughter was not too happy if I remember.
ReplyDelete