Saturdays at Noon by Rachel Marks is an adorable story about Jake, dad to 6 year old, Alfie, and a young woman, Emily. When Alfie takes a liking to Emily and she starts taking care of him while Jake goes back to work, Emily learns to love a child like she never loved anyone before while Jake learns to appreciate all parts of his son – the exciting, the obsessed, the loving, the creative – all of it. This story offered an amazing glimpse into being a parent, how one feels that they doing the worst job ever and yet inspite of everything, a child is the best thing that can happen to a person.
Take a look at the synopsis below.
Emily just wants to keep the world away.
She doesn’t want anyone to know all the ways her life is messed up.
Going to anger management every Saturday, talking to strangers, was not part of the plan.
Jake just wants to keep his family together.
He’s also messed everything up.
Going to anger management is now his best hope for bonding with his six-year-old Alfie.
Emily can’t understand why Jake – who seems to have it all – is even there.
Jake can’t understand why Alfie – who never likes strangers – lights up around spikey Emily.
Everything they think about each other is about to change.
But can they change how they feel about themselves?
Why I chose to read Saturdays At Noon
This is one of the books that I did not choose to read – Saturdays at Noon arrived in the book mail from Penguin Random House publishers when I joined their book blogger program last year. I just absolutely cherish the surprise of getting a book that I find interesting and might have missed out on. Thank you to the lovely folks at Penguin Random House for sharing this book with me. 🙂
Themes for Thought
When Emily and Jake first met at the Anger management class, little did they know that they would see each other outside of these classes too. Alfie takes an instant liking to Emily because, unlike his parents, she shows interest in the things he likes to do and she doesn’t try to manage his behavior and correct him all the time. But knowing a child sporadically is different from becoming that child’s nanny and making sure he gets to school on time, eats properly, doesn’t make a mess of the house and much more.
Emily loves Alfie and in some ways, she wants to give him the life she never had. Her relationship with Alfie seems effortless to Jake, who has spent the past 6 years as a stay-at-home dad dealing with Alfie. He isn’t on the autistic spectrum but he might as well be and Jake has found it hard to connect with him at times.
Throughout the book, as Emily gets to know Alfie and Jake, she comes to terms with her own childhood and issues. Anger management offers some help but it is Alfie who gives her the strength to heal her wounds.
Three main thoughts that crossed my mind as I read this book.
On Rules
Did you have rules growing up? I did not have any screen time problems because when I was growing up, screens were limited to Gameboy and those only started emerging during my teens. Parents and kids both need structure in their time and that is how rules come up. Just a quick search on the Internet led me to 5 types of household rules that kids need.
I really like how Emily questioned the rules in place. She wondered if it was really fair to say no cookies after school to Alfie when she herself would be more than happy to get a treat after a long day at work. I like this way of thinking of the rules that we enforce on kids because we can and would easily break for ourselves.
Being a nanny, Emily’s struggle to enforce rules she did not believe in herself was another pointer to how rules and rituals have personal meaning and unless they are well-defined and there is a ‘why?’ behind them, other people would not be able to abide by them. Growing up, I loved going to my paternal grandparents. Around them, I could read to my heart’s content and no one was telling me to put the book down and do something better. To them, books were important and they helped me grow my love for reading. It is important to remember with rules that they can lead us to hate things that we would normally have loved.
On Making New Connections
Encouraging creative outlet in kids is an amazing way to bond with them. Emily loves photography and when she shares this passion with Alfie, she gives him a way to express his creativity and have fun with it. I have thought about making stop-motion films before and as I read Emily’s adventures with Alfie and how much fun they were having, midst all the hard work that was going into it, it made me realize I could do something like this with my brother.
If there is a special child in your life, whether it is a nephew or a younger brother, what is something you can do with them that their parents might not be able to find time to? What are some of your passions that you would love to share with this little person?
There are so many opportunities to get to know kids and have fun with them.
On Children becoming Parents
There is a really cool scene in the book when Emily drops off Alfie at the school in the morning and notices the groups of parents there. Just like there are nerds, geeks, the artsy kids, the sporty ones in school, as people get older they continue conform to one or more of these groups. I really liked this observation about the career paths that people in these groups take and how this affects their roles as parents.
The ones who would’ve been geeks now have multiple degrees, successful businesses in children on the ‘gifted and talented’ registry. The artsy ones are no longer relegated to the corner of the common room – they’re right in the middle of the playground, happy and self-righteous in their charity-shop clothing with their free-range toddlers running around bashing their scooters into people’s legs and munching on organic carrot sticks. The sporty ones still gather together confidently dressed in Lycra or running shorts but no one seems intimidated by them any more. As long as you’re in a group, it doesn’t appear to matter which one you’re in.
Saturdays at Noon
Personally, I floated between these groups during high school but I can see myself blending more easily with the geek crowd. I don’t have kids yet and this observation, and book, really hit home the fact that parenting is a huge responsibility, and community matters so much. We don’t just give birth to kids but for the next 15ish years at minimum, we continue to be an active part of their life, shaping their personalities, school experiences and much more through our influence.
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Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot. With hints of romance, this story is primarily about learning to love all parts of a child and realizing that childhood only comes once – as parents and family, we have to learn to enjoy it with the kids. Yes, there will be ups and downs, but ultimately, there were will lots of amazing memories to look back at. 🙂
** Saturdays At Noon is now out in stores in UK and available for preorder in other countries so get a copy and let me know what you think! **
Amazon Print
Amazon Kindle
Cover image: Photo by Rick Mason on Unsplash
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