Book Tag: Asia Picture Books

Jun18

It’s time for Book Tag again. The rules are:

“In this game, readers suggest a good book in the category given, then let somebody else be “it” before they offer another suggestion. There is no limit to the number of books a person may suggest, but they need to politely wait their turn with only one book suggestion per comment.”

I’ve been working on a follow-up to my Picture Book Preschool curriculum (for several years I’ve been working, ruefully), called Picture Book Around the World. How about you all help me out by suggesting picture books set in Asia today?

I’ll start us off with one of my favorite authors of picture books set in Japan, Allen Say. Mr. Say’s Bicycle Man tells the story of two American soldiers, immediately after World War II, who entertain Japanese children in a schoolyard by doing tricks on a bicycle.

Allen Say was born in Yokohama, Japan, in 1937. He now lives in the United States, and he both writes and illustrates children’s picture books. Most of his stories are either set in Japan or feature Japanese American characters.

What picture books set in Asia can you suggest for this edition of book tag?

What I Learned from My Daddy

Jun15

My daddy died in 2009. He lost his leg a few years before that, to diabetes, and then he “lost” his home because he was no longer able to live there in a wheelchair and with only one leg. He and my mom moved into a senior living apartment complex near my home, and they started again. My dad was stubborn, and he made himself work hard and come back from the losses he had sustained with grit and determination.

When I was growing up in West Texas, my dad displayed the same obstinate spirit and tenacity that enabled him to start over in a new city with only one leg at the age of 70+. Here are a few of the things he taught me:

1. Work hard. I don’t think I’ve ever worked as hard as my daddy did most of the days of his life, but I know what’s right. I saw him do it for all the years I knew him.

2. Take care of your stuff. My daddy took care of the cars, changed the oil, got things fixed, bought new tires, watched for problems. He took care of our yard, or later when he was older, he hired someone and supervised them while they did it. If something broke, he fixed it, or hired someone to do it.

3. Know the right people. In my hometown of San Angelo, my daddy knew the best person for almost any job or purchase you wanted to make. He knew who to buy a car from. He knew where to take your car to get it fixed. He knew where to get your taxes done and which doctor was good for which ailment.If you needed something, from coffee to home repairs, my daddy knew the best place and the best person to ask.

4. Listen to country music and sing anyway. Daddy couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but when Charley Pride or Ray Price was singing on the radio, my daddy sang along, in his pick-up truck, with a smile.

5. Pay your bills. My daddy always, always paid his bills, on time, and he insisted that I and my sister do the same.

6. Shut the front door when you come in the house. He’d say, “I don’t have the money to air-condition the entire neighborhood.”

7. Respect whoever is in authority over you. This lesson was usually expressed in two ways: first, I was never allowed to sass my mama or my daddy. Second, my daddy never disparaged his boss or the other authorities in his life in front of me.

8. Balance your checkbook. This one kind of goes with #5, but when I got my first bank account, Daddy sat down and showed me exactly how to keep a record of the checks I wrote and keep a running balance in my check register. I think he’d be appalled at the way I now just check my balance online and don’t write down and subtract every single expenditure.

9. Credit cards are only good for people who don’t need them. Pay as you go. The only store account my mama and daddy ever had was at Myers Drugstore, where they figured they might need to buy medicine on credit in an emergency. They didn’t use credit cards. Period.

10. Let out the clutch slowly. Daddy taught me how to drive a standard transmission, stick-shift VW bug. I never liked driving, and I still don’t, but thanks to my daddy I can do it—in just about any car.

11. If you don’t like the meal Mama served, supper’s over. I was a picky eater, but my mom and dad didn’t cater to that pickiness. I skipped a few meals, but I came to the next one hungry.

12. Measure twice, cut once. I’m not sure he actually taught me this one because I tend to be impatient, but I get the concept.

13. Read the directions. When we got something new or tried something new, Daddy read the directions and then put it together or set it up. Then, he put the owners manual in a file in case he needed to refer to it later.

14. Take care of your parents. Daddy went over to his mother’s house almost every day as she got older, to check on her, get whatever she needed, just take care of her. When she had to move to a nursing home just before her death, he went to visit and took care of her until she went to be with the Lord.

15. Even grown-ups need the Lord. I asked Jesus to save me and was baptized when I was seven years old. My daddy was baptized in our Southern Baptist church the same week. We never talked much about spiritual things, but after he was baptized Daddy attended church with our family every Sunday. He served Jesus and depended on Him with a stubborn, determined faith that wouldn’t let go—even when the discouragements of old age and poor heath made him question what the Lord was doing in his life.

Thanks, Daddy. I hope it’s a happy Father’s Day in heaven, and I hope you know how much I love you and appreciate all the things you taught me.

To Whisper Her Name by Tamera Alexander

Jun15

Romance novels are not usually my thing. Historical fiction is. To Whisper Her Name is an historical romance, set just after the Civil War in Nashville, published by Zondervan, which makes it a Christian historical romance, doubly suspect in some circles.

I must say, however, I found the novel absorbing, if somewhat difficult to swallow whole in some aspects. The romance was fine, although Olivia, the female half of this romantic pairing, overcomes her novel-long inhibitions about marrying the male lead rather abruptly in the last few pages of the book. The part I couldn’t believe was the deep friendship that develops between Ridley Cooper, a white Union army veteran, and Bob Green, a black former slave and expert horse whisperer, on the plantation, Belle Meade. Ridley actually lives with “Uncle Bob” in a cabin on the plantation grounds. I would like to believe that such a friendship would have been possible, would have been tolerated, in those times in the South, but I find it difficult to envision.

The former slaves who are now working at Belle Meade also invite Ridley, and later Olivia, to their church meetings, to eat meals in their homes, and even to their parties. I just can’t picture the class and race differences being overcome so easily and openly. Maybe someone knows of examples of post-Civil War interracial friendships that would disprove my skepticism?

Anyway, it’s obvious from the beginning of the book that Olivia and Ridley are meant to get together by the end. However, there are, of course, impediments to the match. Olivia is a widow, loyal to the Southern cause, betrayed and made wary of marriage by her late husband’s cruelty. Ridley is a Southerner who fought for the Union, a traitor in the eyes of most other Southerners, and keeping that aspect of his life a secret from everyone is the only thing that allows him to live at Belle Meade long enough to learn about the care and husbandry of thoroughbred racing horses from Uncle Bob. Ridley’s plan is to learn all he can and then leave the South to build a ranch in the Wild Western state of Colorado. How can he and Olivia, a proper Southern lady who, moreover, is afraid of horses, ever come together?

Never fear. They can and will. It’s a Christian historical romance, after all.

To Whisper Her Name is on the shortlist of books nominated for the 2013 INSPY Awards in the Romance category.

Saturday Review of Books: June 15, 2013

Jun14

“The author who benefits you is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been struggling for utterance in you.” ~Oswald Chambers

SatReviewbutton

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

1. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Kisses from Katie)
2. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (That Is NOT a Good Idea! By Mo Willems)
3. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Hidden Art of Homemaking ch. 8)
4. Barbara H. (The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling
5. Barbara H. (The Merchant’s Daughter)
6. Glynn (Grieving Grace)
7. Beth@Weavings (Johnny Tremain)
8. Joseph R. @ Zombie Parents Guide (Night of the Living Trekkies)
9. Janet (The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors)
10. Jama’s Alphabet Soup (Laughing Tomatoes)
11. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Velma Still Cooks in Leeway)
12. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Stealing The Preacher)
13. Beckie @ ByTheBook (The Winnowing Season)		 14. Colleen @Books in the City (Lucia, Lucia)
15. Girl Detective (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies)
16. Lazygal (Burial Rites)
17. Lazygal (Breathless)
18. Lazygal (Human Remains)
19. Lazygal (Visitation Street)
20. Lazygal (Heads in Beds)
21. Reading World (The Berlin Boxing Club)
22. Reading World (Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted)
23. Reading World (How to Create the Perfect Wife)
24. dawn (No Fond Return of Love by Pym)
25. Annie Kate (Pennsylvania Patchwork)
26. Becky (The Testing)		 27. Becky (In A Glass Grimmly)
28. Becky (Five Red Herrings)
29. Becky (Strong Poison)
30. Becky (Phineas Finn)
31. Becky (Only You Can Save Mankind)
32. Becky (Emily’s Quest)
33. Becky (Book of Revelation; graphic novel)
34. Becky (Creature of the Word)
35. Becky (In the Steps of the Master)
36. Becky (The Holy Spirit: Who He Is and What He Does)
37. Becky (Love’s Unfolding Dream)
38. Susanne~LivingToTell (Jesus, the One & Only
39. Thoughts of Joy (A Killing in the Hills)

Powered by… Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets.

The Little Way of Ruthie Leming by Rod Dreher

Jun14

The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life by Rod Dreher.

I’ve heard excellent things about Rod Dreher’s memoir of his sister Ruthie’s journey with cancer and its effect on his life decisions. And it was a really good book. However, this book is one that should come with a warning: keep reading. Keep reading to the very end, and don’t assume that you understand what Mr. Dreher is trying to say in his story unless you’ve read it all. Even then, you’ll most likely shut the book with a thoughtful look on your face and in a contemplative mood—my favorite take-aways from any story.

On the surface, The Little Way is a book about a courageous and spirited woman who lived a life of service and good works and died at too young an age. Dreher repeatedly calls her a “saint”, and this from a man who was Catholic and converted to Orthodoxy and who believes in “saints” who are singular people especially endowed with God’s grace, not as I believe that we are all saints if we trust in Jesus. Ruthie Leming seems at first to be an uncomplicated, straightforward, country girl who loved teaching school, drinking beer and celebrating life with her friends, and caring for her family. The cancer that eventually ended her life was for Ruthie something to treat according to the doctors’ advice and then ignore as much as she could. As we get to know Ruthie more and more through the pages of Mr. Dreher’s book, however, she is revealed to have depths of character and even faults that go unnoticed and unsuspected in the beginning of the book. Maybe it’s the cancer itself, and its influence in Ruthie’s circle of friends and family, that reveal Ruthie’s essential spirit and her long-lasting influence over her family and her hometown of St. Francisville, Louisiana.

Mr. Dreher’s relationship with his sister, and indeed with his entire family and hometown, turns out to be complicated, too. Suffice it to say that Mr. Dreher and his wife and children try an experiment with the old conundrum of whether or not “you can’t go home again”, and the results are, well, mixed and complex. The Drehers move back to St. Francisville after Ruthie’s death because of something attractive about the way the town supported and loved Ruthie and her family through Ruthie’s illness and death. However, the family tensions and small town prejudices that drove Rod Dreher to leave home in the first place before he even finished high school are still evident. The question isn’t really whether or not you can go home again, but rather what will happen to you as an adult, who has been formed by all of the many settings in which you’ve lived, once you get there? Can an adult who’s lived in Washington, D.C. and New York City and seen Paris ever be content with what Mr. Dreher calls “the little way”?

I want to suggest this book to my Eldest Daughter who will be moving back to Houston soon after several years in graduate school in Nashville, but I don’t want her to get the wrong message from my recommendation. Again, although Mr. Dreher certainly buys into Wendell Berry’s localism and idealistic valuing of community, the book indicates, if you read it all the way through, that creating community among loving but flawed people isn’t easy. And of course, he’s right: those of us who love the Lord and live in the light of His grace are all saints, but we’re broken saints, physically, mentally and spiritually. We get cancer; we make harsh judgments, we hurt each other; and we love one another. All mixed up together. And it’s worth working through the messiness in one place with a specific group of people to call our own community–unless you have to escape that particular place and group in order to find your own “saintliness” and way to Grace.

Wherever you are in your journey away from or towards home and hometown values and community, you’ll find food for thought and discussion in Rod Dreher’s book. It’s much more than just a cancer memoir.

Doc by Mary Doria Russell

Jun13

He could not accept that Fortuna might smile on him for half of his short life, only to watch pitilessly while his lungs gave out, leaving him to suffocate slowly. He refused to bow before a Providence determined to deliver him to an unmarked pauper’s grave in Colorado, fifteen hundred miles from the home he would never see again.
John Henry Holliday believed in science, in rationality and in free will. He believed in study, in the methodical acquisition and accumulation of useful skills. He believed that he could homestead his future with planning and preparation; sending scouts ahead and settling it with pioneering effort. Above all, he believed in practice, which increased predictability and reduced the element of chance in any situation.
The very word made him feel calm. Piano practice. Dental practice. Pistol practice, poker practice. Practice was power. Practice was authority over his own destiny.
Luck? That was what fools called ignorance and laziness and despair when they gave themselves up to the turn of a card, and lost, and lost, and lost . . .

Ah, yes, Invictus. “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.” I don’t believe it, and it doesn’t really seem to have worked too well for Doc Holliday, the central character in Mary Doria Russell’s novel, Doc, either. Doc Holliday, as portrayed in Ms. Russell’s story, was more than a bloodthirsty dentist, gambler, and gunfighter who “shot’em up” at the OK Corral and died at the tender age of 36. In this book, Doc is a philosopher and a pianist and a lover of beauty and a homesick soul. Holliday’s tragedy was that he struggled with tuberculosis, the same disease that killed his mother when John Henry Holliday was only 15 years old. At the time many people who were diagnosed with TB moved to drier climate of the American Southwest because it was believed that the dry air was curative or at least palliative for those suffering from the deadly disease. Holiday left his home and family in Atlanta, Georgia and moved first to Dallas, Texas, then to Dodge City, Kansas, and then to Tombstone, Arizona where the famous gunfight took place—with many stops and detours in between.

The events of this book take place mostly during Holliday’s time in Dodge, and Russell’s Doc seems to be the same man that Wyatt Earp, his friend, once described in a newspaper article, “Doc was a dentist, not a lawman or an assassin, whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a frontier vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long lean, ash-blond fellow nearly dead with consumption, and at the same time the most skillful gambler and the nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun that I ever knew.” (Wikipedia, Doc Holliday)

Wikipedia, by the way, lists nine other novels based on the life and times of Doc Holliday. He’s a popular subject, I guess. I found this particular take on this infamous historical character to be fascinating. Warning: the dialog does include some, not much but some, profanity and crude language–which I thought was unnecessary and distracting.

As for the philosophical question that Doc debates with himself in the quotation above, I would argue that neither self-determination nor luck is the key to one’s destiny or future. God is in control, and we have choices within His created order. We can certainly “refuse to bow” or give ourselves up to despair—or we can trust His love and His grace and work within His providence to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Thank God it’s not all up to me and my practice and self-control, and thank God His grace is abundant and free, even when I don’t understand His plan.

Book Tag: Books for a Senior Citizen

Jun11

How would you like to play book tag this summer? The idea for this game originally came from Carmon at her blog Buried Treasure, but since she no longer seems to be keeping a blog, I thought we’d play here.

“In this game, readers suggest a good book in the category given, then let somebody else be ‘it’ before they offer another suggestion. There is no limit to the number of books a person may suggest, but they need to politely wait their turn with only one book suggestion per comment.”

Last week we played book tag by suggesting books for my Dancer Daughter’s summer reading list. (You can still go to that post and suggest books for Dancer Daughter, age 23.) Now it’s time to go older, much older. My mom is almost 80 years old, and she likes to read on her Kindle so that she can adjust the size of the print. What books do you suggest for a “seasoned citizen” who likes to read classics and new books both?

There Is No Me Without You by Melissa Fay Greene

Jun9

In case you hadn’t noticed ther is a LOT of controversy going on these days about international adoption, especially adoptions by U.S. parent of Ethiopian, Liberian, and other African children. Lots of agencies and groups involved in these adoptions are being accused of child-trafficking, stealing children from their parents and extended families to feed an American “obsession” with adoption. In fact, journalist Kathryn Joyce has recently published a book called The Child Catchers which seems to imply, or maybe state outright, that all international adoptions are suspect and akin to child abuse and kidnapping, especially those where the children are adopted into evangelical Christian families.

Melissa Fay Greene’s book, published in 2006, tells the story of one Ethiopian woman, Haregewoin Teferra, and the ups and downs of her “odyssey to rescue Africa’s children.” Ms. Greene also writes about the AIDs crisis in Ethiopia and in Africa, the political situation in Ethiopia, the ethics and difficulties and joys of Ethiopian adoption, and the difficulties of running an impromptu, under-funded, and unregulated orphanage. The book feels balanced and honest.

The best thing about this book is that Ms. Greene, although she obviously admires Haregewoin Teferra, does not idolize her. This journalistic trek through the back alleys of Addis Ababa and the orphanages and adoption agencies of Ethiopia is no hagiographic tribute to Haregewoin, even though she is the central character. It is instead a realistic picture of one woman who tries to help the orphans who are brought to her door, who sometimes makes mistakes, and who ends up helping some and being unable to help others.

“I would watch Haregewoin’s reputation rise and fall like sunrise and sunset. As she blended her life with the lives of people ruined by the pandemic, she became a nobody, like them. Then, she began to be seen as a saint. Then some cried, ‘hey! This is no saint!’ and accused her of corruption. Or maybe she started out as a saint, became a tyrant, then became a saint again. Or was it the reverse? THe story line hanged. But in ever account, no middle ground was allotted to Haregewoin: either she was all good, or she had gone bad. Those who watched, judged her.
Zewedu, her old friend, saw who Haregewoin was: an average person, muddling through a bad time, with a little more heart than most for the people around her who were suffering and half an eye cocked toward her own preservation. But most observers failed to reach this matter-of-fact point of view, and Ato Zewedu probably would not live much longer.
But then I heard, to my delight, that some people say even Mother Teresa herself was no Mother Teresa.”

This. Yes. We are all complicated, sinful, sometimes grace-filled, selfish, well-meaning, compassionate, but also unobservant, people. Some of us manage, by God’s grace, to do something kind and loving for someone else, even for many others, like the orphans Haregewoin helped. Somehow we muddle through and maybe do more good than harm. And God uses our poorest efforts and our mixed motives to serve Him and to serve others and to bring about His will.

If you are considering an international adoption, if you know someone who has adopted children from another country, if you just want to understand the complexities of adoption from the point of view of an adoptive mother and a journalist, read this book. Then read the articles I’ve linked to below for all kind of opinions and stories about international adoption. Some are horror stories; others are stories that inspire hope and sympathy. It’s complicated, but the complications shouldn’t paralyze us.

If God brings an orphan to your door, what can you do but open your home and your heart and let him in somehow?

Orphan Fever: The Evangelical Movement’s Adoption Obsession in Mother Jones magazine.

Evangelicals and Foreign Adoption by Maralee Bradley at Mere Orthodoxy.

Ethiopian Adoption: An Informal Guide by Melissa Fay Greene.

The Common Room and Adoption Advice.

International Adoptions Struggle for Hollywood Endings

Child Sponsorship instead of Adoption.

Sunday Salon: Links and Thinks: June 9, 2013

Jun8

Albert Mohler’s Books for a Summer Season: Some Recommended Reading

'sunset on George R. Brown' photo (c) 2012, Steve - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

I didn’t know until I saw Mr. Mohler’s tweet that the Southern Baptist Convention is meeting in Houston this week. Welcome, Baptists!

“Praying for the city of Houston tonight. 4th largest in nation. May the #SBC13 be a Gospel blessing to this city.”

Adult/Teen Summer Reading at Redeemed Reader. This read-along looks like fun!

A Handmade Hobbit Hole, Bag End from The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. Take a look at this dollhouse/hobbit home; it’s quite impressive.

Peggy Noonan on government surveillance and data gathering “There is no way a government in the age of metadata, with the growing capacity to listen, trace, tap, track and read, will not eventually, and even in time systematically, use that power wrongly, maliciously, illegally and in areas for which the intelligence gathering was never intended. People are right to fear that the government’s surveillance power will be abused. It will be.”

All I can say is have they read Orwell’s 1984? No, I mean really, have they read it, or have they read these books by Cory Doctorow? Or any of the dozens, nay, hundreds of dystopian novels that have been all the rage in YA fiction for the past several years? Don’t they know that the systematic invasion of everyone’s privacy by the government will come back to bite them in the you-know-what?

How to Discourage Artists in the Church by Phillip Ryken. The church needs artists and needs to affirm artists. If some of the items in Mr. Ryken’s list of “ways to discourage artistic giftedness” make you think of something that your church is doing wrong, maybe you can help to create change in this very important area.