Book of the Week

The Brightest Sun by Adrienne Benson

This book is about two girls.

Adia was born in Kenya of a white American archeologist mother and a white Kenyan absent father. She spent her early childhood in a Masai village raised by a barren African Masai woman. From there she went to school in Nairobi where her mother was going through the motions of educating her child but not really paying much attention to her. Adia was that girl who stayed in one place and all her classmates came and went. She was odd. After her grandmother appeared on the scene, Adia ended up in boarding school in her passport country. Her grandparents always wanted her to “come home” but their home was never hers. Boarding school had its own challenges of fitting in with a culture she knew nothing about.

Grace was also born in Kenya, but her parents moved around. Her father worked for the State Department. Her mother had been an aid worker in Kenya but had a traumatic experience and found consolation from an Embassy man. Her future husband. Grace and her parents bounced from the USA to several other African countries before returning to Nairobi where she met Adia. Grace was fed up with moving around and Adia was like nobody she had met before. Grace was tired of the in-between life of the expats. She loved that Adia was so comfortable in her environment.

I love the way this book weaves in the different aspects of Third Culture Kids. It touches on having strong ties to one culture when the parents and grandparents are not part of that culture. The pull of family. The possibility of a different kind of family. Immersing in culture. And living on the edges of culture. It also goes into how people adapt to pain and grief and, of course, change. 

I really appreciated and enjoyed this book. I could really relate to it.

Postcards from Germany

Cologne Cathedral, Cologne

Atypisches Museum Berlin. Erected in 1851 opposite Charlottenburg Palace to house King Friedrich Wilhelm IV’s Imperial Guard, this building and its mirror image twin across the avenue have served the Staatlichen Museen PreuBishcher Kulturbesitz as museums since 1967 and 1960 respectively.

Designed by Friedrich August Stuhler, the buildings with small round temples sat on their flat roofs are important examples of 19th century city architecture despite extensive damage suffered during the last war. In our case, a Marshall built to enable the horses of the Imperial Guard adjoins the main building. The long hall with vaulted ceiling is divided into three halves by iron columns that were cast in a Berlin foundry around 1858.

Stuttgart, Germany

The New Castle, Stuttgart

Oberammergau, Germany

Frankfurt Airport

Summer is Coming

It’s only 47 degrees F at the moment but I am hopeful. Warmth is on its way.

My TCK/Expat Films and Books page lists Memoirs by TCK and Expats, Films by and about TCKs, Resources for TCKs, and Fiction by or about TCKs. I recently updated and re-organized it.

I started reading TCK/Expat memoirs about 15 years. ago. As I read them, I put them on my website. Some I reviewed, some I didn’t. A lot of it was research for my book but also it was interesting. I learned a lot about Third Culture Kids (people who grew up outside their passport country because of their parent’s work). I recently came across a Ted Talk presented by a woman who is trying her best to educate people about TCK’s. It was such an important moment when she discovered her “tribe”, she wants spread the word. She founded TCK.Global where you can read TCK stories or share your own.

Other books I have read recently are The Rarest Fruit by Gaelle Belem and The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.

The Rarest Fruit is about a young slave boy who lives on the island of La Reunion near Madagascar. At twelve years old this boy figures out how to manually cross pollinate the orchid that produces the vanilla bean. This changed the whole industry and the economy of the island and in turn many other places as well. The story is kind of bitter sweet. It is a true story and reflects the times. I learned a lot.

The Correspondent is about an older woman who has written letters her whole life. She writes to authors she likes, to her children, to her friends, her ex-husband, her lover, her neighbor. We learn about her long life and her daily life through her letters. It is an easy read and very enjoyable.

I also read Murder on Lake Garda. A murder mystery that was kind of wordy and not really my favorite. I’m currently reading a Bridgerton novel by Julia Quinn. I’m trying to write a spy/romance novel so need to start researching. Not that Bridgerton has anything to do with spies, but she does a good job with the romance. Next up are Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd, Magical Disinformation by Lachlan Page, and Black Ice by Anne Stuart. Wish me luck.

San Antonio, Texas

The theme of the 1968 World’s Fair HemisFair is “the Confluence of Civilization in the Americas” – a flowing together of the combined civilization of six continents. This is an over-all view of the fair in downtown San Antonio.

The General Electric Pavilion. In a futuristic building, General Electric presents the story of electrical living in the Southwest from the time the first lights blazed in the San Antonio Opera House to the present.

Eastman KodakPavilion. Visitors to the Eastman Kodak Pavilion are introduced to the complexities and delights of film and filmcraft in all its many forms.


San Antonio River, 1951

The Alamo
Erected in 1718, as a church and fortress, it became the symbol of Texas independence. During the Texas-Mexican Independence War in 1836, it was defended and lost to the last Texan. Soon “Remember the Alamo” became synonymous with Texas independence.

New York World’s Fair 1939

Railroad Exhibit Building, New York World’s Fair 1939

The entrance to the railroad exhibit at the New York World’s Fair 1939 appears very much like a glorified and modernistic roundhouse for locomotives.The Rotunda above contains 25,000 square feet of floor space leading to a circular theme hall 180 feet in diameter surmounted by a dome approximately eight stories in height. Sponsored by the Eastern Presidents Conference of the railroads, the exhibit includes a building nearly a quarter of a mile long, an outdoor exposition including nearly a mile of track, a colorful pageant telling the history of American railroads and the largest working miniature railroad ever constructed. The building contains 110,000 square feet of floor space and is the largest at the Fair.


The Electrical Products Building, New York World’s Fair 1939

The Electrical Products Building, New York World’s Fair is a rainbow of colors glowing across the World of Tomorrow. The Electrical Building is in the “Blue Sector” with a mural hint of ‘Wonders’ displayed behind its portals. The oddly shaped pylon at the left is an outstanding feature of the building. Architects: Walker and Gillette.


Hall of Pharmacy, New York World’s Fair 1939

The Hall of Pharmacy at the New York World’s Fair 1939 shown in the center of this photograph, which has been taken over by contract by The Show Globe, Inc., presents the entire story of research, development, manufacture and distribution of drugs and pharmaceutical products. The building, built by the Fair Corporation, occupies one of the most prominent sites in the Exposition grounds, being close to the Theme Center, the 200 foot Perisphere and 700 foot Trylon, partly shown at the extreme left of the photograph. Architects: Pleasants Pennington, G. Lyman Paine, Jr. and I. Woodner-Silverman.

The 1939 New York World’s Fair took place in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, New York. Many countries participated and over 44 million people attended over two seasons. It was based on the future with an emphasis on the ‘world of tomorrow’.

Postcards from Argentina

Selknam Hunters
Indigenous people of Patagonia (Chile and Argentina).

Mural Escenografico – La Boca
Martin Correa Urquiza, photographer

This is a Panagra, Jet Sky Postcard from the 1960’s.

Selk’nam family with guanaco pelts
Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

Juaquin Torres García
Universalismo Constructivo, 1944

Uruguayan-Spanish artist, theorist, and author, renowned for his international impact in the modern art world. Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, his family moved to Catalonia, Spain, where his artistic journey began.

Colleccion MALBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina