Fifteen Year Old Boy Reads Books!

Feb15

Almost-15 year old Karate Kid, who quit reading, except for school assignments, when he was about twelve, speed-read his way through the series of books he got for Christmas: Andrew Klavan’s Homelanders series. Then, he read The Client by John Grisham, a book I strategically placed near his bed for him to discover.

Today, he asked me to recommend an Agatha Christie mystery! I think he’s going to read either Ordeal by Innocence or Murder on the Orient Express. So, assuming he doesn’t spend the rest of the spring reading through the novels of Dame Agatha, what do I suggest, or give as a birthday gift, or leave lying around, next?

1964: Events and Inventions

Feb14

February 5, 1964. The government of India declares the province of Kashmir in northern India to be a part of india without holding a vote for the people of Kashmir to declare their wishes in the matter. Pakistan protests Indian control of Kashmir.

March 31, 1964. The military overthrows Brazilian President João Goulart in a coup, starting 21 years of military dictatorship in Brazil.

April 26, 1964. The nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form Tanzania.

'Nelson Mandela - The Struggle is My Life' photo (c) 2010, Seth Anderson - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/June, 1964. South African lawyer Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage and plotting to overthrow the government. Mandela is the leader of the banned political group, the African National Congress (ANC), a group fighting against the apartheid laws in South Africa.

July 6, 1964. Malawi declares its independence from the United Kingdom.

July 31, 1964. U.S. satellite Ranger 7 sends back to earth the first close-up photographs of the moon.

August 5, 1964. Aircraft from carriers USS Ticonderoga and USS Constellation bomb North Vietnam in retaliation for strikes against U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.

October 1, 1964. The new Shinkansen high-speed passenger rail service opens in Japan, between the cities of Tokyo and Osaka.

October 14-15, 1964. Nikita Khrushchev is deposed as leader of the Soviet Union; Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin assume power.

November 3, 1964. The Bolivian government of President Víctor Paz Estenssoro is overthrown by a military rebellion led by General Alfredo Ovando Candía, commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

1961: Books and Literature

Feb13

The National Book Award goes to The Waters of Kronos by Conrad Richter.
Some other nominees were:
John Knowles for A Separate Peace
Harper Lee for To Kill a Mockingbird
Wright Morris for Ceremony in Lone Tree
Flannery O’Connor for The Violent Bear It Away
John Updike for Rabbit, Run
Interesting choice with that sort of line-up.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Ivo Andric wins the Nobel Prize for Literature. (Who’s he?)

Published in 1961:
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. I’m not a Dahl fan, but this one and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are still quite popular.
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. I read some Heinlein when I was a teenager, including this one, I think, but I don’t remember much about it. I do know that Heinlein’s book is the origin of the term “grok” that became somewhat popular in the 60’s and 70’s, In Stranger in a Strange Land, “grok” literally means “to drink” and figuratively means “to comprehend”, “to love”, and “to be one with”. “I grok you” means “I get it” or “I’m with you.”
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Set during World II, the title also introduced a new term to popular parlance: “catch-22”. The catch-22 is explained to be how any pilot requesting a psych evaluation hoping to be found not sane enough to fly, and thereby escape dangerous missions, would thereby demonstrate his sanity. If you’re sane enough not to want to fly combat missions, the army air corps says you’re sane enough to fly them.
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. We read Phantom Tollbooth aloud last year in school. I highly recommend it.
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. Eldest Daughter really appreciates Walker Percy. I’m not there yet. I just don’t grok him.
The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone. On the other hand, I think Irving Stone is underestimated as a writer. I remember liking this one, a biographical novel of Michaelangelo, and Lust for Life, about da Vinci. Stone also wrote one of my favorite nonfiction history books, Men To Match My Mountains, about the opening and settlement of the far western United States.
Mila 18 by Leon Uris. Wonderfully compelling novel about the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II.

1963: Events and Inventions

Feb13

January 14, 1963. George C. Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. In his inaugural speech, he defiantly proclaims “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!”

April 7, 1963. Yugoslavia is proclaimed to be a socialist republic, and Josip Broz Tito is named President for Life.

'Project Mercury Capsule' photo (c) 1995, Ed Uthman - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/May 15, 1963. NASA launches astronaut Gordon Cooper on Mercury 9, the last mission for the Mercury program. Cooper lands in the Pacific after 22 orbits of the earth in his Mercury capsule.

June 3, 1963. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam pours chemicals on the heads of Buddhist protestors. The United States threatens to cut off aid to Ngo Dinh Diem’s government in South Vietnam. Dinh Diem’s forces continue to persecute Buddhists, vandalizing Buddhist pagodas and arresting Buddhist priests.

June 16, 1963. Vostok 6 carries Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.

August 8, 1963. The Great Train Robbery of 1963 takes place in Buckinghamshire, England. 2.6 million pounds in used banknotes is stolen from the Glasgow-to-London mail train. Although several of the thieves are eventually caught, the bulk of the money is never recovered.

August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his I Have A Dream speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to an audience of at least 250,000 protestors.

'President John F. Kennedy' photo (c) 2011, U.S. Embassy New Delhi - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/November 2-6, 1963. South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem is assassinated following a military coup. Coup leader General Duong Van Minh takes over as leader of South Vietnam.

November 14, 1963. A volcanic eruption on the ocean floor near Iceland creates a new island, Surtsey.

November 22, 1963. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas by lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald. Also on this day, author and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis dies at his home, the Kilns in England, and the author of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley. dies in hospital, also in England. This coincidence was the inspiration for Peter Kreeft’s book Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, & Aldous Huxley.

December 12, 1963. Kenya becomes independent from British rule, with Jomo Kenyatta as prime minister.

Children’s nonfiction for 1963: We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March by Cynthia Levinson. Reviewed at Ms. Yingling Reads.

Twelve Portions of the Bible to Study in 2012

Feb13

1. I’m involved in a Beth Moore Bible study at church: David, a Man After God’s Own Heart. So, we’re studying in First and Second Samuel. We’re going to be discussing the rather distressing story of Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom at Bible study on Wednesday, and I’m hoping to gain some insight into the parenting and letting go of adult children, although I can assure you that if I had a son like Amnon, I would be completely devastated and paralyzed for life. The story, if you want to read it, is in II Samuel 13-15.

2. Also at church, my pastor is preaching through the book of Revelation. So, I’m studying that, even though it’s my least favorite part of the Bible.

3. At our Women’s Retreat in April we’ll be doing a topical study on loving and living the law of the Lord, the Word of God. I’m looking forward to that study.

4. I’ll be reading through the New Testament during Lent, perhaps using this plan. I plan to read from the new paraphrase/translation, The Voice, from Thomas Nelson Publishers, to see what I think of it as I read.

5. After Easter, I want to do a study of the books of Judges and of Acts, to compare and see what I might need to be doing to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in times like these. I think we’re living in Judges and in Acts, both at the same time, but I need to do some study to flesh that analogy out.

6. I hope to spend the summer in one of the major prophets, probably either Isaiah or Jeremiah.

7. Beginning in August, I will probably listen to Beth Moore’s study of the gospels, Jesus, the One and Only.

8. Z-baby and I are doing this 2012 Bible Reading Challenge, courtesy of Redeemed Reader. At least, we’re trying. We’re still only on Week 1.

9. On August 5, 2012 my pastor will begin a fall series in 1st Peter. So, that would be a good place to be concentrating.

10. I would like to memorize a psalm this year, but I haven’t decided which one.

11. I’d also be interested in memorizing some portion of the Sermon on the Mount, maybe in the fall along with my study of the life of Christ.

12. Finally, I want to go over the Old Testament prophecies that speak to the coming of Jesus as Messiah and Lord during Advent with my urchins.

Too ambitious? Not enough? I may not do all of the above, but I know enough about myself to know that if I don’t have some sort of plans and a variety of ideas, I will do nothing at all.

Africa Is Not a Country by Margy Burns Knight and Mark Melnicove

Feb13

“Africa is not a country—it is a vast continent made up of 53 nations. . . From the tiny island nations of Comoros, Syechelles, and Sao Tome and Principe, to its largest country (Sudan), Africa is the only continent with land in all four hemispheres.”

Z-baby (age 10) read this book, and commented as she read:

“You mean Africa is bigger than the United States?”

“It says Africa is almost as wide as it is tall. No way!”

“Here’s what I don’t understand: why is it when they talk about Africa on the radio they always talk about the children? Something’s always happening to the children?”

“Pula is the name of the money in Botswana and it also means rain.”

“It told about this girl who sold milk, and she carried it on her head.”

I thought this book, consisting of several brief stories of children in various African countries and colorful illustrations depicting the children’s lives, was a good introduction to the continent of Africa and the idea that it is a vast place with many different nations and cultures. Z-baby learned some things, but she was not terribly impressed with the book or its content.

Unit study and curriculum uses for Africa Is Not a Country: Africa, world geography, Black History Month, cultural geography.

Nonfiction Monday is being celebrated today at the blog Wrapped in Foil.

1962: Events and Inventions

Feb12

January 9, 1962. Cuba and the Soviet Union sign a trade pact.

January 13, 1962. Albania allies itself with the People’s Republic of China.

February, 1962. President imposes an embargo on the importation of Cuban goods into the United States.

February 20, 1962. Astronaut John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth. Either the movie, The Right Stuff, or Tom Wolfe’s 1979 novel from which the movie was adapted would be a good introduction to the early years of the U.S. space program.

March 1, 1962. The S. S. Kresge Company opens its first K-mart discount store in Garden City, Michigan.

'Venus naked' photo (c) 2006, Forsetius - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/July 1, 1962. Rwanda and Burundi in south central Africa separate into two countries and gain independence from Belgium. In Rwanda, Rwandan Hutu attack the Tutsi and massacre them by the thousands. Many Rwandan Tutsi escape to Burundi and Uganda.

July 3, 1962. The French president Charles de Gaulle “solemnly recognizes” the independence of Algeria. After 132 years of French rule, Algeria is an independent nation.

October, 1962. Amnesty International, an organization set up to investigate human rights abuses around the world, is formed.

October 15-28, 1962. Cuban Missile Crisis. President John F. Kennedy receives information that the Soviet is constructing missile sites in Cuba to house missiles aimed at the United States. Kennedy imposes a naval quaratine around Cuba to prevent the delivery and deployment of Soviet missiles. Khrushchev demands the removal of U.S. missiles in Turkey in exchange for Soviet missiles in Cuba. THe U.S. agrees to guarantee no invasion of Cuba if the Soviets will remove the missiles. Crisis averted.

December, 1962. The U.S. space probe Mariner II sends back the first close-up pictures of the planet Venus.

Saturday Review of Books: February 11, 2012

Feb10

“There are those who say that life is like a book, with chapters for each event in your life and a limited number of pages on which you can spend your time. But I prefer to think that a book is like a life, particularly a good one, which is well worth staying up all night to finish.” ~Lemony Snicket

SatReviewbuttonWelcome 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. Semicolon (Twelve Miles Long)
2. Semicolon (Girl of Fire and Thorns)
3. Semicolon (The Devil in Pew Number Seven)
4. Jessica Snell (Stashbuster Knits)
5. JoAnne @ The Fairytale Nerd ( The Fault in Our Stars)
6. Becky (The Great Migration)
7. Becky (All Good Children)
8. Becky (The Friendship Doll)
9. Becky (Sylvia & Aki)
10. Becky (Earth Abides)
11. Becky (We)
12. Becky (The Demolished Man)
13. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Valentine’s Day books)
14. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Shadow of Ghadames)
15. Hope (The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne by Kathleen Norris)
16. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (“The Gift of the Magi”)
17. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (This Week in Books)
18. Reach the Stars (Each Little Bird That Sings)
19. Reach the Stars (The Young Man and the Sea)
20. Reach the Stars (The Mysterious Benedict Society)
21. Reach the Stars (A Living Nightmare)
22. Becky (The Way We Fall)
23. Staci (The Borrower)
24. Bonnie (Facing East)
25. Alice@Supratentorial(Still by Lauren Winner)
26. Collateral Bloggage (Shadows in Flight)
27. Beth@Weavings (Throught the Looking Glass)
28. Beth@Weavings (The Blythes are Quoted, The Organized Heart & More)
29. SuziQoregon@ Whimpulsive (Missing Persons)
30. SuziQoregon@ Whimpulsive (The Treasure of Khan)
31. SmallWorld Reads (A Secret Kept)
32. SmallWorld Reads (Sex Lives of Cannibals)
33. Donovan @ Where Pen Meets Paper (Abraham Kuyper)
34. Andrew @ Where Pen Meets Paper (Blueprints of the Afterlife)		 35. Barbara H. (I Remember Laura [Ingalls Wilder])
36. Joseph R. @ Zombie Parents Guide (The Black Cauldron)
37. Janet ( Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking))
38. Ajoop @ on books! (The Academie by Amy Joy)
39. Glynn (Letters to heaven)
40. Glynn (Unexpected Elegies)
41. Sarah Reads Too Much (Spin)
42. Mental multivitamin (On the nightstand)
43. Becky (Cleopatra Confesses)
44. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Night Road)
45. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Honored Redeemed)
46. Beckie @ ByTheBook (The Accidental Bride)
47. Lazygal (The Innocent)
48. Lazygal (The Bedlam Detective)
49. Lazygal (Accidents of Providence)
50. Lazygal (Restoration)
51. Lazygal (Far From Here)
52. Lazygal (The Fallback Plan)
53. Lazygal (The Age of Miracles)
54. Lazygal (The Red Book)
55. Lazygal (The Leopard)
56. Jules Book Reviews (Offshore)
57. Jules Book Reviews (The Sense of Ending)
58. Jules Book Reviews (The Boxcar Children)
59. Girl Detective (Swamplandia)
60. Amy’s Assorted Adventures (30 Lessons for Living)
61. The Story Factory Reading Zone (Pyramids)
62. Thoughts of Joy (Saving June)
63. S. Krishna’s Books (Fragile Eternity)
64. S. Krishna’s Books (Tina’s Mouth)
65. S. Krishna’s Books (One Moment One Morning)
66. S. Krishna’s Books (Outside the Lines)
67. S. Krishna’s Books (The Rebel Wife)
68. S. Krishna’s Books (The Crown)		 69. S. Krishna’s Books (The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook)
70. Debbie @ Exurbanis (Blizzard of Glass)
71. Debbie @ Exurbanis (The Carpet People)
72. Carol in Oregon (Barbara Tuchman’s Practicing History)
73. Debbie @ Exurbanis (These Happy Golden Years)
74. Debbie @ Exurbanis (The Griffin & Sabine Trilogy)
75. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis)
76. bekahcubed (Cybils Easy Reading)
77. bekahcubed (Cybils Fiction Picture Books)
78. Cindy@OrdoAmoris (Wordsmithy)
79. Cindy@OrdoAmoris( The Roots of American Order Book Club Announcement)
80. Emily C. (AfterWords)
81. Nicola (How Do We Stay on Earth? A Gravity Mystery)
82. Nicola (How Do We Know About Dinosaurs? A Fossil Mystery)
83. Nicola (Women of the Titanic Disaster)
84. Nicola (Titanic 2012 by Bill Walker)
85. Nicola (The Flint Heart by Katherine Paterson)
86. Nicola (Fluffy, Fluffy Cinnamoroll, Vol. 1)
87. Nicola (Giveaway: The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott)
88. Nicola (The Midnight Zoo by Sonya Hartnett)
89. Becky (The Toddler’s Bible)
90. Becky (The Gospel-Driven Life)
91. Becky (The Worthing Saga)
92. Becky (The Stars My Destination)
93. Becky (Crow)
94. Amy@book musings (Der Vorleser)
95. Amy@book musings (Quiet: The Power of Introverts…)
96. utter randomonium (All Her Father’s Guns)
97. Gina @ Bookscount (Cherished)
98. Quieted Waters (Mr Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater)
99. The Girl @ Diary of an Eccentric (The Invention of Hugo Cabret)
100. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (The Golden Hour)
101. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (The Baker’s Daughter)

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100 Valentine Celebration Ideas at Semicolon.

The Devil in Pew Number Seven by Rebecca Nichols Alonzo

Feb10

I am in a quandary. I don’t want to discourage anyone form reading this memoir, a true story that carries a wonderful message about the necessity of forgiveness, even in the direst of circumstances.

However, to be honest, the book could have been edited down to about half or three-fourths of its almost 300 pages and not have lost a thing. If you’re a good skimmer, you’ll really appreciate this story of a pastor and his family terrorized and very nearly destroyed by a man who acts like the devil incarnate. In 1969, Robert Nichols moved with his family to Sellerstown, North Carolina to serve as pastor of the Free Welcome Holiness Church. As the name of the church indicated, the Nichols family was welcomed by the community, except for one man, Mr. Horry James Watts, who lived across the street from the parsonage and occupied pew number seven in the Free Welcome Church every Sunday morning. The violence and harrassment began with threatening phone calls and escalated until . . . No spoilers here.

The amazing thing about the story is the ending. Could you forgive a man who threatened to make you family leave the community where you lived “crawling or walking, dead or alive?” The sction near the end of the book on forgiveness is worth the price of the book because the author speaks from hard-earned experience.

“If I allow myself to go down the pathway of rage and retaliation, several things happen, and none of them are good. Here are my top four:
My sins will not be forgiven by God if I refuse to forgive those who have sinned against me.
I miss an opportunity to show God’s love to an unforgiving world.
I’m the one who remains in jail when I withhold God’s grace by failing to forgive.
If I have trouble forgiving, it might be because I’m actually angry at God, not at the person who wronged me.”

So, I’m recommending this book with the caveat that you’re not to expect deathless prose, just a riveting and inspiring story of nitty-gritty forgiveness and even joy in very difficult circumstances.

Once Upon a Time . . . We All Believed in Marriage

Feb9

The urchins and I have been watching the new TV series Once Upon a Time, and it’s been a good experience. It’s not LOST, but it does remind me of some of the best parts of that now-classic TV series. (Sometimes the reminders are intentional on the part of the writers, Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, who also wrote for LOST. Lots of Lost Apollo candy bars turn up in Storybrooke, Maine, the setting for Once Upon a Time.)

'FairyTales' photo (c) 2005, Barbara Olson - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/So, as I said, it’s a good show. The premise is that a bunch of fairytale characters have been transported by the Evil Queen to Storybrooke in our world and have lost the memory of who they really are. Only the Evil Queen, who is the mayor of Storybrooke, knows who the people really are and that they’re under her evil curse. Sort of. Mayor Regina (Evil Queen) has an adopted son, Henry, and he spends his time trying to figure out who the people of Storybrooke really are in Fairyland and persuading his birth mother, Emma Swan, to “bring back the happy endings.”

The show alternates scenes between fairyland and the real world in Storybrooke (which isn’t really the Real World because it’s under a curse, if you see what I mean), and that’s where the fly in the ointment comes in. Without getting into too much detail or spoiler territory, there’s this one character, call him P.C., who has amnesia, even in Storybrooke world, and he has a wife he can’t remember at first. And it turns out he “has feelings” for M.M., who is his real wife and love from fairyland. But he doesn’t remember fairyland either, and neither does M.M. (Get it? If not, you’re not alone. It’s complicated.) Anyway, my kids and I are sitting here in front of the TV rooting for this amnesiac to leave his wife, who isn’t a very likable character, and get together with his “true love”, M.M. And I don’t like the way we’re being manipulated.

'jane eyre' photo (c) 2005, CHRIS DRUMM - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/In its most recent issue, WORLD Magazine references a 2008 University of Chicago General Social Survey: “In it 81 percent of Americans responded that it is ‘always wrong’ for a married person to have sex with someone other than his or her spouse.” (P.C. and M.M. haven’t had sex, just kisses . . yet . . . except in fairyland . . . where they’re married to each other.) You see, we know what’s right and wrong, except when it comes down to cases. What if “his or her spouse” isn’t a very nice person? What if he’s found his True Love and he can’t control his feelings for her? What if she married young and made a mistake? What if husband and wife both want a new life, both want to find a new love or return to an old flame? What if the “married person” in question isn’t “someone out there”; it’s me, and I’m tired of being married to this person. My situation is different, doesn’t fit the normal rules. I should be allowed to find my own happy ending.

I don’t know where the writers of Once Upon a Time are going with this storyline. There’s a possibility that amnesiac P.C. isn’t really married to the annoying blonde he’s supposed to be married to, and then he would be free to pursue M.M. Nevertheless, I’m old-fashioned enough to agree with another fictional character, Jane Eyre, who had her own “hard case” of love and marriage to sort out: “Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigor; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be.”

100 Valentine Celebration Ideas at Semicolon.