My Personal Statement on Donald Trump and the Republican Primary

Feb28

I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. I Timothy 2:1-4

Then Jesus called the crowd and his disciples to him. “If any of you want to come with me,” he told them, “you must forget yourself, carry your cross, and follow me. For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it; but if you lose your life for me and for the gospel, you will save it. Do you gain anything if you win the whole world but lose your life? Of course not! There is nothing you can give to regain your life. If you are ashamed of me and of my teaching in this godless and wicked day, then the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

I live in Texas, and I voted in the Republican primary for this state on Friday (early voting). I did NOT vote for Donald Trump. In fact, I will never vote for Donald Trump, come h— or high water. I am not a fan of Hillary Clinton or of the Democrat party. In fact, I disagree with most of their ideas and positions, especially in regards to their support for abortion and their disregard for the Constitution. Nevertheless, Donald Trump is more dangerous, more despicable, and more incompetent than even Hillary Clinton. I believe that he is a dangerous demagogue and a spoiled con man. He couldn’t make Atlantic City great with his grandiose schemes that went bankrupt, and he won’t make America great either. He will make our country a laughing stock around the world, if not something worse.

This man uses language that is crude and profane at every opportunity, and then has the effrontery to demand an apology when the president of Mexico uses one crude word to describe Trump’s wall—the wall that he hopes to have Mexico pay for. Donald Trump mocks the disabled, disrespects women, and refuses to disavow the support of neo-Nazis and the KKK. He wants to bar an entire religious group from even being considered for immigration to the United States, and he says he will deport an estimated 11 million people who are here illegally, the biggest mass deportation in the history of the world. Actually, Trump says there are probably more than 30 million people who are here illegally, but whatever the number he’s going to deport them all–then let the “good ones” come back in. (Hitler only deported and killed about 6 million Jews.) Donald Trump would have to find a way to do this mass deportation peacefully and without a massive disruption of our economy and culture. I’m sure Mexico would be happy to pay for the police/immigration agents and the infrastructure that would be required to make such a thing happen. (/sarcasm)

Mr. Trump is admitted adulterer and a misogynist. He has no plans to do anything, including no plan to build a wall along the US/Mexican border, no plan to create jobs or improve the economy, no plan to replace Obamacare, no plan for foreign policy, and no real tax plan. He is a fake, and he is vulgarly entertaining his way into the presidency.

I voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and in 1984. I voted for George (HW) Bush in 1988. And again in 1992. I voted for Bob Dole in 1996, even though I preferred Phil Gramm or Alan Keyes. I voted for George W. Bush in 2000, even though I was skeptical about his conservative leanings. I was wrong. I happily voted for W in 2004, and I believe he was the best president we’ve had since Ronald Reagan. In 2008, I voted for John McCain in spite of his disdain for evangelical, conservative Christians because I thought he would at least, if elected, appoint conservative judges and govern somewhat conservatively. In 2012 I held my nose and voted for Mitt Romney for much the same reason. I have a history of Republican loyalty and of being able to compromise for the greater good. However, with Trump, all that loyalty is thrown out the window. If Donald Trump is the nominee of the Republican party, then the Republicans are no longer a conservative party. Nor will they be a force for good in this country. I will not have left the Republican party, they will be leaving me, as Ronald Reagan said under somewhat similar circumstances.

In addition, I am disappointed in the political and religious leaders who have jumped onto the Trump bandwagon in hopes of either gaining influence and power or ingratiating themselves with the new political class. Or perhaps they are as deluded and foolish as the other followers of Donald Trump. Either way, I will not be following the words or actions or suggestions of anyone who is now following Donald Trump.

And I will not forget the people, formerly respected voices in the national debate and some in the evangelical community, who decided to sell their souls for a mess of pottage and a boatload of bluster:

Sarah Palin: I thought she was unfairly maligned and ridiculed, and perhaps she was, but now I see that she is blind and without discernment. I never plan to listen to another word she says or writes.

Mike Huckabee: He hasn’t endorsed Trump, but his daughter is working for Trump. And Mike Huckabee has praised and all-but-endorsed Trump. I will not listen to him or support him in the future either.

Jerry Falwell, Jr.: Mr. Falwell is not a man who speaks for me or for my fellow evangelicals. Even some people I know who are graduates of Liberty University are ashamed of his endorsement of Donald Trump.

Pastor Robert Jeffress: He has disgraced the church of Jesus Christ by partnering with a man, Donald Trump, who ridicules the disabled, mocks the name of our Lord, and can’t even disavow the support of the Ku Klux Klan.

Chris Christie (not an evangelical, but supposedly a conservative): I didn’t like Chris Christie very much before he endorsed Trump, but had Christie been the nominee of the Republican party, I would have voted for him in order to stop Hillary Clinton from becoming president of the United States. However, now I will never vote for Chris Christie for anything just as I will never vote for Donald Trump.

Jeff Sessions, Alabama senator. Also Rep. Chris Collins, Rep. Duncan Hunter, Gov. Jan Brewer, and Gov. Paul LePage. All of these formerly conservative politicians should be shunned, and I will certainly never support any of them ever for any national office.

Ann Coulter: I used to think she was kind of funny, but not anymore. She’s just another attention-seeking celebrity.

Willie Robertson (Duck Dynasty): Why Trump? Because, says Mr. Robertson, he has two attributes we need in a leader, “success and strength.” ISIS exhibits success and strength. So do all “successful” dictators and tyrants. I would only note the absence of moral character and good (any) ideas.

Phyllis Schlaffly: She says Trump is “is the only hope to defeat the Kingmakers.” So I suppose she wants to be The Donald’s Kingmaker.

Rudy Giuliani: He’s “informally advising Donald Trump.” I wish he would advise Trump right out of the race, but I see no signs of that happening.

Newt Gingrich hasn’t endorsed either, but he says that we had better “see Trump as the future”, in other words, fall in line behind Mr. Trump. Well, I won’t do it—not ever.

Pat Robertson said of Donald Trump when the candidate visited Regent University, “You inspire us all!” I am not inspired and not impressed with Mr. Robertson’s idea of inspiration.

Herman Cain, former Republican presidential candidate, is campaigning for Trump and tells fellow Republicans to “get over it” and fall in line to support Trump because Trump is going to win.

Steve Forbes

Sean Hannity.

I have also lost respect for:

Ben Carson, who is staying in the presidential race for the sake of vanity and a platform. I doubt that God told him to run for president as a spoiler so that he could come to the debates and complain about face time. Update: Mr. Carson has dropped out of the presidential race, and I can now hear what he is saying about integrity. Before, his actions spoke too loudly for me to hear his humility. I have still lost respect for his common sense and intuition.

John Kasich, who is staying in the race for the same reason and maybe to prove that he can pull enough votes in the Midwest to deserve a vice-presidential offer from Trump?

I probably won’t post about this election cycle again here at Semicolon; however, this blog is my own little corner of the web, and I felt the need to express my opinion. Thanks for listening/reading.

And please, whomever you voted for or plan to vote for, pray for our country and for God to determine the outcome of this election in accordance with His will and for His glory.

Saturday Review of Books: February 27, 2016

Feb26

“Humanity can be roughly divided into three sorts of people – those who find comfort in literature, those who find comfort in personal adornment, and those who find comfort in food.” ~Elizabeth Goudge

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.

Orbiting Jupiter by Gary Schmidt

Feb25

Wow! I was warned that this 2015 novel by one of my favorite authors, Gary Schmidt, packs an emotional punch, but I still wasn’t prepared for the almost overwhelming sadness and poignancy of Schmidt’s characters and his prose. The narrator of the story is a twelve year old boy, Jackson, and his voice is one of innocence and yet a growing wisdom, all at the same time.

I’m not sure the book is going to be very popular. It’s a middle grade novel, but the subject matter, a thirteen year old foster child who wants to see his baby daughter, is mature and emotionally devastating (no explicit sexual content, and hardly any language, but mature). Older teens don’t want to read about a thirteen year old and his twelve year old foster brother. Adults will see it as a children’s book, or as a book about subjects they don’t want their own children to have to deal with. Nevertheless, I would recommend it for mature teens and for adults. It’s sad, yes, and frustrating and emotional and . . . excellent.

Jack Hurd is included in the meeting his parents have with the social worker who wants to send a foster child to the Hurds’ dairy farm in central Maine. The foster child is Joseph, a boy with a history. Joseph is said to have tried to kill a teacher. He has been to juvenile detention. And he has a daughter, a baby girl named Jupiter whom he has never seen. Jack and his parents are sure that they can provide a home for Joseph, and Joseph and Jack immediately bond, with Jack becoming Joseph’s follower and his defender and caretaker all at the same time.

Suffice it to say that Joseph’s life and history and future are complicated, and tragedy ensues. Jack is caught up in Joseph’s drama, and he becomes the “Guy Who Has Jupiter’s Father’s Back.” But Joseph also has Jack’s back, and that’s partly where the tragedy comes in.

I would almost recommend anything written by Gary Schmidt, sight unseen. But I’ve read this book, and I recommend it even more highly than I would if I hadn’t. If you don’t think your middle grader or YA read is ready for the book, you should read it because stories like Joseph’s and Jupiter’s exist. And we’re better off for exploring them, in a book, before we encounter them in real life. I think I’ll loan this one to my friend who works at a crisis pregnancy center. She might very well find it even more relevant and relatable than I did.

Silence Over Dunkerque by John Tunis

Feb24

Mr. Tunis was known as “the inventor of the modern sports story.” He wrote numerous sports novels featuring young baseball players and young football players, but her did not consider himself a “children’s writer”, even though his publishers insisted on marketing his books to young people. Since there was no separate “young adult” publishing sector at the time that Tunis wrote his books, they were sold to children and teens and adults. The books mostly feature high school and college age, sometimes even older, protagonists.

In fact, Silence Over Dunkerque, is not a sports story and is mostly about Sergeant George Williams, member of the British Expeditionary Force and his escape from occupied France during the evacuation of Dunkirk. Since he has fourteen year old twin sons back home in England, Sergeant Williams is obviously older than the average Tunis protagonist, and though the story also features a fourteen year old French girl, Giselle, and also the twins to some extent, Sergeant Williams is the main character and the anchor for the story.

Silence Over Dunkerque was published in 1962, and it’s not quite as fast-paced as a more contemporary YA novel might be. Sergeant Williams is caught in the maelstrom of the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk, and he has adventures—escape from the Germans, a failed attempt to evacuate from the beach, encountering Nazi patrols, the capture of a German parachuter—but these adventures are interspersed between times of waiting in long lines on the beach, hiding out in a French farmhouse, hiking across enemy territory, rowing tediously across the Channel.

And there’s a dog. Sergeant Williams befriends an abandoned dog in a small French village on his way to Dunkirk. The dog tenaciously follows Sergeant Williams through all his journey across France and even across the Channel, and Williams comes to appreciate the dog’s loyalty and protective instincts. The dog, the twins, Sergeant Williams’ wife searching for him on the beach at Dover day after day, Sergeant Williams’ companion in his adventures, Three Fingers Brown, all add to the human interest of a story that is essentially a humanization of an episode in World War II history: Operation Dynamo, the Dunkirk evacuation.

World War II history buffs and general history buffs (like me) will enjoy the novel and appreciate the ebbs and flows of plot and action and the sturdy prose of a sportswriter turned novelist. Recommended.

If you’re interested in a list of other books and movies about Operation Dynamo, the evacuation at Dunkirk, check out this post about Paul Gallico’s The Snow Goose.

The Boy Who Became Buffalo Bill by Andrea Warren

Feb23

The Boy Who Became Buffalo Bill: Growing Up Billy Cody in Bleeding Kansas by Andrea Warren.

Ms. Warren says in her author’s note at the end of the book that she set out to write a book about Kansas history, “Bleeding Kansas”, during the time prior to and during the Civil War. She needed a “hook”, a young person who lived in Kansas during the time period and who experienced the difficulties and vicissitudes of war-torn Kansas. She chose Buffalo Bill Cody who moved to Kansas with his family at the age of eight in 1854 and who grew up at the center of a conflict that shattered his family, tore apart the entire region, and made Billy Cody both a responsible man and a participant in the violence and fighting at a very young age.

What was fun for me in reading this new book, just published in November of last year, was how it serendipitously impinged upon and overlapped with several things we have already been reading and discussing in our homeschool this semester. We’re studying the Civil War right now—and its aftermath. So, a biography of Buffalo Bill, especially one that concentrates on his childhood in Bleeding Kansas before and during the war, is just parallel to what we are reading and studying. Then too, we have been reading the Newbery award winner Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith as our morning read aloud book. The protagonist in that book is a young Union soldier, Jeff Bussey, from Linn County, Kansas. I was fascinated to read, in conjunction with the fictional Jeff Bussey’s adventures, about Billy Cody’s adventures as the son of an abolitionist father and later, as a Jayhawker himself. Bill Cody, at age seventeen, went on raids across the Kansas-Missouri border with a group called the Red-Legs, “one of the most infamous Jayhawker bands of them all.” Jeff Bussey encounters Southern-sympathizer Bushwhackers who come to his home on a raid and give him good reason to join the Union army.

Another intersection between this biography and our other studies came as I marveled at the age at which young Billy shouldered responsibility for tasks and decisions that we in this day would never allow or even conceive of at his age. With my adult children I have been discussing the tension between over-protection of children in our culture and the need to protect them from the over-sexualization and violence that our culture promotes. Billy’s parents didn’t seem to be interested in protecting him from hard work, hard living men, or adult decision-making. Two examples:

“Billy drove the supply wagon back and forth to Uncle Elijah’s store in Weston (MO) to get supplies—a big job for and eight year old since it meant crossing on the ferry with the wagon and horses, loading all the goods into the wagon, and then recrossing the river, driving the wagon to the store, and unloading everything. But Billy liked the challenge and was proud that he could already do the work of a man.”

“Billy (age nine) worked alongside several other herders as they moved the cattle from one grazing site to another to fatten them for market. At night the herders ate by firelight and slept under the stars. Billy missed his family and worried about his father’s health and safety. But otherwise it was the perfect life.”

At age fifteen Bill Cody was a rider for the Pony Express. At seventeen, he joined the Union Army. These freedoms and responsibilities were allowed and even expected for young Billy Cody in a Kansas that was a much more dangerous place than 21st century Houston, TX. There were Jayhawkers, Bushwhackers, horse thieves, Native Americans who were still at war with the United States, knives, guns, and all of the other possible dangers that were part of living on the frontier in a state that was near to anarchy. And we are afraid to allow our children to walk to school by themselves?

Another book that my daughter and I are reading together is Jim Murphy’s The Boys’ War: Confederate and Union Soldiers Talk About the Civil War. In that book boys as young as ten or eleven join the Union or the Confederate armies. Some of them ran way from home to join up and lied about their ages, but others were allowed or even encouraged by their parents to sign up. Boys in that era were expected to be men at age twelve or thirteen, to do a man’s work and to shoulder a man’s responsibilities. (And girls often got married at thirteen, fourteen and fifteen and saw themselves as adults, too.)

I don’t say we should go back to those times and those mores in all respects, but perhaps we should quit infantilizing our young men and women and start asking and allowing them to meet challenges and gain the pride and maturity that comes from feeling that they can do the work of a man—or a woman. (Do hard things.)

Anyway, I read this entire book avidly and found it to be a fascinating account of a boy growing up on the frontier. There’s a little bit of information in the final chapters about Buffalo Bill’s show business career, but that wasn’t the focus of the book. And that wasn’t what made it so appealing to me. Bill Cody made some bad decisions (becoming a lawless Jayhawker) as well as good ones (becoming the sole financial support for his mother and sisters after his father’s death) as he became an adult during his teenage years. But he lived a rich and mostly honorable life, full of adventure and yes, responsibility. Young men (or women) who spend their lives playing video games and watching youtube would, I think, be incomprehensible to a time-transported Buffalo Bill.

The Lark in the Morn by Elfrida Vipont

Feb22

Jane Kitson Haverard, “Kit”, is the youngest child in a Quaker family in England in the late 1940’s, perhaps. Her mother has died before the opening of the novel, and her older cousin Laura Haverard is the mother-figure in her family, helping Jane’s professor father to raise and care for his family. The Lark in the Morn is a coming of age novel, a school story, and a book about finding your own identity and using your own talents.

This book reminded me of Madeleine L’Engle’s Austin family novels or or other good family/boarding school novels published in the fifties or sixties. Kit doesn’t attend a boarding school, but her school life, family relationships, and vacation life are central to the novel and are chronicled in a lively and engaging manner. Kit is a likable protagonist, although confused about her own identity and giftedness. She struggles with peer pressure and with her guardian’s misunderstanding of Kit’s personality and gifts. She doesn’t know for most of the novel what she really wants to do with her life, nor does she realize her own interests and abilities until she is helped along the way by a number of mentors and adult friends. The real theme of the novel is this journey of self-discovery that Kit travels and her becoming her own person as she grows up and understands herself and her relation to the world and its many choices and possibilities.

So, it’s not a new theme for a middle grade novel, and it wasn’t fresh or novel even in 1948 when Vipont’s story was first published. Nevertheless, Kit is a fresh and vibrant young lady with a healthy outlook upon the world she lives in and a desire to be independent and self-actualizing without giving offense or hurting those who have raised her and given her nurture and a foundation, if not always understanding or encouragement in developing her talents. Kit finds the encouragement and the musical education she needs with other extended family members and from teachers at school.

Elfrida Vipont was a British author, schoolteacher, and member of the Society of Friends (Quakers). She began writing children’s books in the late 1930’s, specifically books with Quaker characters and some published for boys under the pseudonym of Charles Vipont. She won the Carnegie Medal in 1950 for Lark on the Wing, a sequel to Lark in the Morn. I hope to borrow or purchase a copy of the further adventures of Kit Haverard soon. There are supposed to be five books in the Lark series, but I can’t find a definitive list of the exact titles that make up the series. Goodreads lists the following books:

The Lark in the Morn (The Haverard Family, #1)
The Lark on the Wing (The Haverard Family, #2)
The Spring of the Year (The Haverard Family, #3)
Flowering Spring (The Haverard Family, #4)
The Pavilion (The Haverard Family, #5)

Ms. Vipont was a prolific author, publishing historical books about Quakerism, adventure stories for boys, the series of Lark books, other novel for girls, a well-known picture book called The Elephant and the Bad Baby, and biographies of several women authors such as Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot. I look forward to enjoying more of her books, although they are somewhat difficult to find in the U.S.

Saturday Review of Books: February 20, 2016

Feb19

“It was still in good condition, probably because most people checked out the electronic versions of books. I preferred the real thing. I liked the way I could fold over the oversized cover flap on this one to mark a place. I liked the way I could fan through the pages and create a small breeze that smelled of paper and ink and old brick building with tall streaked windows and polished dark wood floors and warm oval rugs.” ~Epitaph Road by David Patenaude

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.

Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too by Stanley Young

Feb17

If you have any young readers in your family who are planning on a military career, this biography of William Henry Harrison, one of the Landmark history series, would be a good book to share. If any of them have political ambitions, it might be of interest for them to to read at least the last few chapters of the book in which Harrison runs a political campaign and is elected president. And those of us who are fascinated by language and the history of words and phrases can find in this story of a frontiersman turned statesman, the origin of such American colloquialisms as “keep the ball rolling” and “Long Knives” (for white men) and “OK” and of course, the titular campaign slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too”.

William Henry Harrison isn’t a well-known president. He only served in office for one month before he died of pneumonia and passed the presidency on to his vice-president, John Tyler. However, he lived quite a colorful and adventurous life, both in the military, fighting the Indians in the Northwest territories, and as a public servant, serving in the Ohio legislature, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and finally, the presidency.

The funniest part of Harrison’s story was his nomination as Whig candidate for president. Harrison was nominated instead of Henry Clay, the most famous Whig, because the party convention thought Clay might be too controversial to win over the incumbent Democrat Martin Van Buren. (Clay was furious when he didn’t get the nomination, saying, “My friends are not worth the powder and shot it would take to kill them!”) The Whigs also thought Harrison would be more discreet and more popular in the West, where he was a hero for fighting and defeating Tecumseh and his Indian confederation. One of the Whig leaders, Nicholas Biddle, warned Harrison to not say anything that could possibly be construed as taking a position on anything: “Let no Committee, no convention, no town meeting, ever extract from him a single word about what he thinks now or what he will do hereafter.” Sound political advice? Or somewhat cynical and impracticable?

I enjoyed reading about this little known president and military hero, and it made me want to read more about Tecumseh and Henry Clay and John Tyler and . . . lots of others. Oh, the serendipitous rabbit trails of a reading life! I also found out that Harrison trained and became friends with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark at Fort Pitt. And Harrison served as ambassador to Colombia for a year, where he met and supported Simon Bolivar, the great South American liberator. What a varied and fascinating life!

The pen and ink illustrations in the book, by prolific illustrator Warren Chappell, are particularly detailed and would be excellent for study or for copying by budding artists. Author Stanley Young, was, as best I can figure out, a playwright and partner in the publishing house of Farrar, Straus and Young, later Farrar Straus Giroux.

To learn more about the Landmark series of biographies and history books for young people, check out this podcast episode, Parts 1 and 2, of Plumfield Moms, What Are Landmark Books? Why Do They Matter?

The Way Home Looks Now by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

Feb16

Set in 1972, this novel for middle grade readers tells the story of Peter Lee, a Chinese-American boy who loves baseball, and his very traditional Taiwanese father, Chen Lee. These two are the characters around whom the narrative revolves as Peter and his “Ba” (what Peter calls his dad) come to understand and even appreciate one another through the medium and backdrop of baseball.

At the beginning of the story, Peter describes his dad as a “man of science and great believer in cleanliness and order.” Peter’s dad doesn’t seem to be very interested in baseball, nor does he take much interest in Peter’s ideas or feelings. Peter’s school work is the only thing that Ba notices about his son, and mostly he notices when Peter is not doing well in school. Peter’s mother, who has been the emotional glue that held this family together in the past, has reacted to a tragedy in the family by retreating into a world of watching television and sleeping. Whereas she and Peter used to share an interest in baseball, particularly the Pittsburgh Pirates, now “Mom” is cold and unresponsive. And Ba simply allows her to continue to sit and do nothing.

The book is a fascinating account of a family dealing with the depressive illness of one of its members, even though the words “clinical depression” are never used. Perhaps in this traditional Chinese family, in the early 1970’s, there is no concept of depression as a treatable mental illness. Nevertheless, at the end of the book Ba says something very wise and insightful about dealing with an ongoing family crisis or illness, any such calamity:

“I don’t know what to do next,” I say (Peter).

Ba lowers his head and clears his throat. “What you do is keep moving. Some days you will only do small things all day. You get up in the morning and you get dressed and you wash your face. You go to school. I go to work. We have baseball.”

So wise. There are other issues and conflicts and wise (and foolish) decisions in the book: girls playing Little League baseball, bullying, fathers and sons and over-zealous coaches, the meaning of playing baseball. But the growing relationship between Peter and Ba was what made the book come alive for me. The Way Home Looks Now is a good story, full of baseball metaphors (and I really like me some baseball metaphors), and it paints a fine picture of a boy coming to understand and appreciate his father’s love and concern that is expressed in a way that doesn’t look exactly the way an eleven or twelve year old boy might recognize or want it to look.

Recommended for lovers of baseball and for boys and girls with fathers, which should include most everyone.

U.S. Presidents Reading Project–2016 Update

Feb15

Presidents’ Day seems like a good day for updating my U.S. Presidents Reading Project. I’ve been slowly working on this reading project for a few years now. I had a goal of reading one biography of a president per month, but that was a little ambitious. I think I’ve averaged more like one biography every six months, or two per year.

Here’s a list of some of the biographies I either have read or plan to read for this project. If you have any suggestions for the presidents whose names have no biography listed, or if you think I should choose another book other than the one I have listed, please leave any and all suggestions in the comments.

1. George Washington, 1789-97. Washington: The Indispensable Man by James Thomas Flexner, READ: Semicolon review here.

2. John Adams, 1797-1801 (Federalist) John Adams by David McCullough. READ: Semicolon review here. I also watched the mini-series based on this book.

3. Thomas Jefferson, 1801-9 (Democratic-Republican) I’ve taken a dislike to Jefferson after the Washington biography and the John Adams one. So I’m not sure which Jefferson bio to choose, one that’s flattering to restore my faith in this rather contradictory and enigmatic president, or one that’s iconoclastic to reinforce my antipathy.
Beth Fish reviews Twilight at Monticello by Alan Pell Crawford.

4. James Madison, 1809-17 (Democratic-Republican) The Great Little Madison by Jean Fritz. (Read, but not reviewed.) Yes, this one is a children’s book. I plan to read children’s books for some of these presidents because sometimes they’re better than the adult tomes. And I may use the children’s biographies in future school years. And reading a children’s biography may tell me whether or not I want to read more about a particular president.
I also read and wrote about A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation by Catherine Allgor.

5. James Monroe, 1817-25 (Democratic-Republican) James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity by Harry Ammon.

6. John Quincy Adams, 1825-29 (Democratic-Republican) The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams by Leonard L. Richards.
Or maybe, Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon by Michael O’Brien.
I read Cannibals of the Heart: A Personal Biography of Louisa Catherine and John Quincy Adams by Jim Shepherd.

7. Andrew Jackson, 1829-37 (Democrat) American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham. I have a copy of this one, and I started it, but never got very far.

8. Martin Van Buren, 1837-41 (Democrat)

9. William Henry Harrison, 1841 (Whig) Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer: William Henry Harrison and the Origins of American Indian Policy by Robert M. Owens.
READ: Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too by Stanley Young. (Landmark history book for middle grade readers)

10. John Tyler, 1841-45 (Whig) John Tyler, the Accidental President by Edward P. Crapol.

11. James Knox Polk, 1845-49 (Democrat) Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America by Walter R. Borneman.

12. Zachary Taylor, 1849-50 (Whig)

13. Millard Fillmore, 1850-53 (Whig)

14. Franklin Pierce, 1853-57 (Democrat)

15. James Buchanan, 1857-61 (Democrat)

16. Abraham Lincoln, 1861-65 (Republican) Whereas with several of preceding presidents there is a dearth of good biographies to choose from, for Abraham Lincoln, it’s more like an embarrassment of riches. Which biography of Lincoln should I read?
Maybe, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Lincoln and Douglas: The Years of Decision by Regina Z. Kelly. (Landmark history book for middle grade readers)
Abe Lincoln Grows Up by Carl Sandburg.
I did read Lincoln’s Grave Robbers by Steve Sheinkin, not a biography but rather an entertaining glimpse of the times about 10 or 12 years after the death of Lincoln.

17. Andrew Johnson, 1865-69 (Democrat/National Union) The Avenger Takes His Place: Andrew Johnson and the 45 Days That Changed the Nation by Howard Means.

18. Ulysses Simpson Grant, 1869-77 (Republican) Grant: A Biography by William McFeely.
The Story of Ulysses S. Grant by Jeanette Covert Nolan. Another juvenile biography.

19. Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 1877-81 (Republican) Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876 by Roy Morris Jr. READ, but not reviewed. I have some notes from this book, and I could write a review, even though I read it about a year ago. It was good, but not great.

20. James Abram Garfield, 1881 (Republican) Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield by Kenneth D. Ackerman.
I actually read Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard.

21. Chester Alan Arthur, 1881-85 (Republican) Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester Alan Arthur by Thomas C. Reeves.

22. Grover Cleveland, 1885-89 (Democrat) To the Loss of the Presidency (Grover Cleveland a Study in Courage, Vol. 1) by Allan Nevins.

23. Benjamin Harrison, 1889-93 (Republican)

24. Grover Cleveland, 1893-97 (Democrat) Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage by Allan Nevin. (2 volumes)

25. William McKinley, 1897-1901 (Republican) In the Days of McKinley by Margaret Leech.

26. Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-9 (Republican) I read Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt by David McCullough, River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard, and Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris.

27. William Howard Taft, 1909-13 (Republican) 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs–The Election That Changed the Country by James Chase.

28. Woodrow Wilson, 1913-21 (Democrat) Woodrow Wilson: Princeton to the Presidency by W. Barksdale Maynard.

29. Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1921-23 (Republican) Florence Harding: The First Lady, The Jazz Age, And The Death Of America’s Most Scandalous President by Carl Sferrazza Anthony. I read most of this one last January/February (2015), but didn’t quite finish it. It’s a really long and discouraging biography of First Lady Florence Harding. The book itself and the writing are fine; it’s the people and events that the book chronicles that are discouraging and sad. I can’t believe that anyone could be as sexually promiscuous and dishonorable as President Harding and still live with himself, much less become president of the United States. No wonder the twenties were roaring.
The Strange Death of President Harding by Gaston B. Means and May Dixon Thacker.
1920: The Year of Six Presidents by David Pietrusza.

30. Calvin Coolidge, 1923-29 (Republican) A Puritan in Babylon: The Story of Calvin Coolidge by William Allen White OR The Autobiography Of Calvin Coolidge by Calvin Coolidge. (After Harding, they needed a “Puritan”—or atlas a gentleman.)

31. Herbert Clark Hoover, 1929-33 (Republican)

32. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-45 (Democrat) Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship by Jon Meacham. I rather like Churchill, FDR not so much, so this one sounds like something I could enjoy and learn from.
I read FDR and the American Crisis by Albert Marrin and enjoyed it very much, since it was neither hagiographic nor a a disparaging of FDR and his presidency.

33. Harry S. Truman, 1945-53 (Democrat) Truman by David McCullough. 1993 Pulitzer Prize winner.

34. Dwight David Eisenhower, 1953-61 (Republican) Ike: An American Hero by Michael Korda.
My Three Years with Eisenhower by Captain Harry Butcher.
Crusade in Europe by Dwight Eisenhower.

35. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961-63 (Democrat) I might just re-read Profiles in Courage in lieu of a biography of this overrated (IMHO) president.
I read and wrote about “The President Has Been Shot!” The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by James L. Swanson, a YA nonfiction account of Kennedy’s assassination.

36. Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-69 (Democrat) The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate, Volume 3 (2003 Pulitzer Prize for biography) by Robert Caro.

37. Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-74 (Republican)

38. Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr , 1974-77 (Republican)

39. James Earl Carter, 1977-81 (Democrat) An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood by Jimmy Carter

40. Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1981-89 (Republican) Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader by Dinesh D’Souza.
I am reading Reagan: The Life by HW Brands—slowly. It’s good, but exhaustive.

41. George Herbert Walker Bush, 1989-1993 (Republican)

42. William Jefferson Clinton, 1993-2001 (Democrat)

43. George W. Bush, 2001-2009 (Republican) Decision Points by George W. Bush.

44. Barack Hussein Obama, 2009- (Democrat) Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama.