Saturday Review of Books: July 18, 2015

Jul18

“I’m late, I’m late for a very important date! No time to say hello/goodbye! I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!” ~Disneyfied version of Lewis Carroll’s Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Hereâ€™s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesnâ€™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 youâ€™ve written your book review. Donâ€™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 youâ€™ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book youâ€™re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews theyâ€™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.

You can go to this post for over 100 links to book lists for the end of 2014/beginning of 2015. Feel free to add a link to your own list.

If you enjoy the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon, please invite your friends to stop by and check out the review links here each Saturday.

Take Wing by Jean Little

Jul14

I’ve been talking to several families who are trying to teach their children, mostly girls, about friendship—how to make friends, how to deal with “mean girls”, how to forgive, how to take the initiative to make and heal friendships. It’s hard stuff for adults sometimes, much harder for six to fourteen year olds who are apt to misinterpret nonverbal communication, take offense easily, become shy and inhibited, or on the opposite end, be inconsiderate and even rude to one another.

Take Wing is an older book, published in 1968, for middle grade readers by Canadian author Jean Little. It’s primarily about ten year old Laurel Ross and her eight year old brother James. Laurel realizes, even though no one else in the family agrees, that James is different, slow to learn and immature for his age. Then when Mrs. Ross breaks her hip and has to stay in the hospital for months, everyone in the family, including Aunt Jessica and cousin Elspeth, must come to terms with James’s problems and try to find out what to do to help him. So James and his “mental retardation” (the term used in the book which would need to be discussed and reinterpreted in today’s terminology) are the main issues in the story.

However, the book is also about friendship and how to make friends and how to resolve differences and misunderstandings. Laurel and her cousin Elspeth start to become friends when Aunt Jessica and Elspeth move into the Ross’s house to help out while Mom is in the hospital. But it’s a false start, marred by a series of missteps and crossed wires. Finally, Elspeth and Laurel learn to communicate with one another and restart their friendship. The same kind of misunderstanding and hurt feelings has been holding Laurel back from being friends with the girl down the street. The road to mending this friendship also takes communication and some courage on the part of both girls.

I would really like to hand this book to a couple of eight to twelve year olds I know. It’s a quiet, gentle story, but I think it might be good bibliotherapy for some sensitive, insecure, and easily discouraged young ladies who need an extra push to “take wing.”

This poem by Jean Little, who “has been partially blind since birth as a result of scars on her cornea and is frequently accompanied by a guide dog,” is featured in the book. From the poem and the book and Mrs. Little’s other novels, I would guess that Jean Little knew what it was like to be different and a bit diffident when she was growing up. And perhaps she can teach some of us, adult, teen or chlid, to “endure through the (friendship) journey’s stress.”

A friendship is a fragile thing
Like the dust of the moon on a butterfly’s wing
Presuming on it is like trying
To keep a butterfly from flying
You cup your hands, try not to clutch
But it is crippled by your touch
By all the self-involved demands
Implicit in your closing hands
Yet, deep in love, there also lies,
The bravery of butterflies.
Butterflies go through nights of storm
Migrating to a land that’s warm.
They drift in brilliant frailty,
Testaments to mortality,
And all the while, they own the strength
To mount the wind and come at length
Home again, their loveliness
Enduring through the journey’s stress.
A treasured friendship also can
Survive the blundering of man.
Although it is a fragile thing,
It has the courage to take wing,
Dare to ride the dark, and come
Bravely home.

K-Drama Update, Summer 2015

Jul13

So, here are the Korean drama series (K-dramas)that I’ve watched so far. Links are to full reviews.

Full House. Romantic comedy with an implausible premise but irresistible characters and romantic scenes.

Queen Inhyunâ€™s Man, aka The Queen and I. This one is an historical/time travel romance. A modern actress falls for a medieval (late 1600â€²s) hero who has a magic scroll that transports him back and forth in time.

King 2 Hearts. In an alternate history Korea, South Korea has a king with an irresponsible little brother, Prince Jae Ha. North Korea is still communist, but the two countries are trying to make peace by means of participating in a military contest together with a joint Korean team. Hang Ah is the star of the North Korean military contingent, and she and Jae Ha spar and eventually come together in an attempt to bridge the cultural gap between North and South. This drama is still my favorite K-drama ever.
Headmistress at The Common Room on King2Hearts.

City Hunter is a superhero drama, an Asian take-off on Batman with complications. Actor Lee Min-Ho is Yoon-sung, a young man who has been trained from birth to take revenge on the men who killed his father. Kim Nana is a complication who threatens to sidetrack Yoon-sung in his program of revenge, but he maintains his secret identity as City Hunter to protect Kim Nana from his sad, dangerous, and lonely mission.

Iris (Season 1) Unusual for K-dramas, this series has at least two seasons. I’ve only watched the first one. A spy thriller, lots of violence, fascinating, conflicted characters. My Semicolon review here. I think I’ll try the second season soon, which I’ve heard is even better than the first one.

The Greatest Love is a much lighter romantic comedy, a mash-up of Pride and Prejudice, A Star Is Born, and several soap opera plots. It was rather disconcerting to see actress Yoo In-na, who was the cute and perky leading lady in Queen Inhyunâ€™s Man, playing the bad girl in this romcom. Doko Jin, the Darcy character, is way too proud for his own good, but he does eventually come down to earth, and the eventual resolution of the conflict is rewarding and fun to watch.
Reviewed by The Headmistress at The Common Room.

Flower Boy Next Door. Enrique Geum (Yoon Si Yoon) is a popular video game star from Spain, and Go Dok Mi is a reclusive writer who guards her heart because she has been hurt deeply in the past. When Enrique catches Dok Mi spying on him —with binoculars–the fun begins as he pursues her. The boy next door, Jin Rak, is also interested in Dok Mi, but she just wants to be left alone–or does she? Dok Mi has one mood throughout: sullen and pouty and depressed. Nevertheless, the story was fun, and Enrique/Yoon is cute.

I Miss You Terribly sad melodrama dealing with sensitive themes such as child and spousal abuse, desertion, bullying, kidnapping and rape. It’s also about identity. Who am I? Am I who I decide to be? Is my family the people to whom I was born or the people I decide to make my family? And what about redemption and forgiveness? The ending, which is what I’ve learned you have to watch for in K-dramas, is heart-rending, but satisfying.

That Winter, the Wind Blows is a melodrama about a poor little rich blind girl who has no one to trust. Her father has just died (in mysterious circumstances). Her “step-mother” is really her father’s mistress and may be after her money. Her fiancÃ© also may have ulterior motives. So she goes looking for her long lost brother from whom she was parted at the age of five, before she went blind. Unfortunately for her, the brother she finds isn’t her real brother. Complications ensue. The cinematography is beautiful in this one, and the acting is excellent, except when they linger too long on the hopeless, longing looks. But the ending is (warning!) really, really ambiguous and unsatisfying.

Dream High is a rom-com set in a performing arts high school. The Headmistress compares it to the American TV series Fame. Lots of competition, winning and losing, who’s the best singer/dancer/composer/performer. And there’s some cute romance among the (older) teachers and parents and among the students.

King of Dramas is a drama about making K-dramas. The leading characters are all K-drama writers or actors and actresses or producers. The Headmistress says it’s filled with inside jokes, which obviously went over my head, but I enjoyed the sort-of inside look at the industry anyway. The ending is rather unbelievably sappy, but I didn’t mind. It was much better than a more realistic ending would have been.

Heirs is a fairly new K-drama (fall 2013) starring Lee Min-ho, an incredibly cute and popular actor who also starred in City Hunter and a popular one I couldn’t get into, Boys Over Flowers. Lee Min-ho was good in this drama about high school puppy love among the rich and famous, actually rich boy and poor girl. The girl was a little bit annoying with all the pouting and enduring sadness. The girl’s mom was mute, and I enjoyed her character. The actress who played the mom was excellent. The rich dads in this drama are all horrible, and the rich moms aren’t much better. And yet the children try really hard to respect and obey their villainous parents. It’s a Korean thing, and I’m not sure it’s a bad Korean thing since most parents aren’t nearly as autocratic and manipulative and unreasonable as the parents in Heirs. At least, parents in the USA aren’t that bad, and I hope they aren’t in Korea either. I liked Heirs, and I agree with what The Headmistress says about the relationship between the brothers. However, the American in me really wanted both brothers to walk away from their dictator daddy and start their own company. They nearly did, but all is forgiven in the end.

I tried to watch You Who Came from the Stars—three different times—on the strength of recommendations from lots of K-drama fans, but I just couldn’t get interested in the same way that I fell into most of the above. I must have missed something that everyone else loved, but I don’t know what it was. I watched several, actually many, episodes, but the magic just wasn’t there for me.

Th K-dramas I’m going to try next: IRIS 2, God’s Quiz, It’s Okay That’s Love, Marriage Not Dating, Scent of a Woman, What’s Up?, Shut Up Flower Boy Band, When a Man Loves, and Pasta. Most of these suggestions I got from this post at The Common Room.

Saturday Review of Books: July 11, 2015

Jul10

“My television fed me visions, but I never created my own until I became a reader.” ~Barry Lane

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.

You can go to this post for over 100 links to book lists for the end of 2014/beginning of 2015. Feel free to add a link to your own list.

If you enjoy the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon, please invite your friends to stop by and check out the review links here each Saturday.

Arcady’s Goal by Eugene Yelchin

Jul7

Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote the essay “Live Not By Lies” in 1974, just before he was arrested by the Soviet police and exiled from his country. My Saturday Review friend Glynn led me to the essay in a review he wrote.

Arcady’s Goal is the story of a boy in Stalinist Russia who has been raised on lies. Arcady lives in an orphanage. The director of the orphanage lies about how the boys are treated and skims the provisions from the government, meant for the orphans, to feather his own nest. The inspectors of orphanages go along with the lies. Everyone is complicit, even the boys themselves, who show off their soccer skills to earn a bit of favored treatment. When Ivan Ivanych comes to the orphanage, disguised as an inspector, but really a bereft father looking for an orphan to adopt, Arcady makes an impression. But can Arcady and Ivan break through all the lies, the ones they have been told by the government, the ones they have told to survive, and even the lies they have told themselves, to make a real family built on trust?

Born and educated in Russia, author Eugene Yeltsin left the former Soviet Union when he was twenty-seven years old. His other children’s novel set in Communist Soviet Union, Breaking Stalin’s Nose, won a Newbery Honor. His writing style in this book is stark and unadorned, like the subject. The descriptions, like the illustrations, are gray and without much hope, although Arcady’s courage and tenacity shine through even in the soccer games he plays so well. And yet the book has an almost implausible happy ending as Arcady and his adoptive father do manage to form a connection.

Perhaps I am a pessimist, but I don’t know if I can believe that it so easy to change from believing and participating in The Lie to confronting lies with the truth. Easy or not, I do believe that I and especially my children are going to find out very soon what it is like to live in a culture permeated and ultimately ruled by lies and half-truths. In fact, we are already faced with the choice of whether to participate in the lies our society is telling or to stand up and declare the truth. There will be a cost for the latter decision, and there may not be a happy ending in this life.

“And the simplest and most accessible key to our self-neglected liberation lies right here: Personal non-participation in lies. Though lies conceal everything, though lies embrace everything, but not with any help from me. . . . So in our timidity, let each of us make a choice: Whether consciously, to remain a servant of falsehood (of course, it is not out of inclination, but to feed one’s family, that one raises his children in the spirit of lies) or to shrug off the lies and become an honest man worthy of respect both by one’s children and contemporaries.”

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Captivated by His Beauty

Jul5

The sermon at my church this morning was a Biblical exposition of this hymn, Hast Thou Heard Him, Seen Him, Known Him?

My pastor spoke of the worth of knowing Jesus, of the worthlessness of idols, and of our joy and responsibility to “crown Him (our) unrivaled King.” I was reminded of this poem, Barter by Sara Teasdale:

Image from page 844 of "A comprehensive dictionary of the Bible" (1871) from Flickr via Wylio

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children’s faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit’s still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

Of course, it’s not for the creation that I am willing to give all that I “have been or could be.” Those intimations of joy found in the appreciation of the Creator’s handiwork are only shadows of the Creator Himself. It’s Jesus himself who is worth all that I am.

“But what, in conclusion, of Joy? To tell you the truth, the subject has lost nearly all interest for me since I became a Christian….It was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer. While that other was in doubt, the point naturally loomed large in my thoughts. When we are lost in the woods, the sight of a signpost is a great matter….But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not stop and stare. They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the authority that set them up. But we shall not stop and stare, or not much; not on this road, though their pillars are of silver and their lettering of gold. ‘We would be at Jerusalem.'” ~C.S. Lewis

I am also reminded of Jesus’ parables: “â€œAgain, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” Matthew 13:44-46 (NKJV)

It will be worth it all when we see Jesus,
Life’s trials will seem so small when we see Christ;
One gliimpse of His dear face all sorrow will erase,
So bravely run the race till we see Christ.
~Esther Kerr Rusthoi

Saturday Review of Books: July 4, 2015

Jul4

“What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses?” ~John Ruskin

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.

You can go to this post for over 100 links to book lists for the end of 2014/beginning of 2015. Feel free to add a link to your own list.

If you enjoy the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon, please invite your friends to stop by and check out the review links here each Saturday.

Biographies for the Fourth of July

Jul3

I have always enjoyed the Childhood of Famous Americans series of biographies of great Americans. These stories are somewhat fictionalized and usually focus on the childhood and young adult years of the well known person who is being written about. I found a few of these (ex-library copies) at a recent book sale:

Tom Jefferson, Boy in Colonial Days by Helen Albee Monsell. Tom’s father tells him, “Just to be strong is not enough. You must also have a trained mind in your strong body.”
Stephen Foster, Boy Minstrel by Helen Boyd Higgins. Did you know that Stephen Foster was born on the Fourth of July?
Walter Reed, Boy Who Wanted to Know by Helen Boyd Higgins. Walter Reed is inspired by the long illness and slow recovery of a friend to become a doctor and help others who have yellow fever and other diseases.
Woodrow Wilson, Boy President by Helen Albee Monsell. There’s an encouraging story in this book about young Tommy Wilson, age nine, struggling to learn to read.
Noah Webster, Boy of Words by Helen Boyd Higgins. “The day Noah was accepted at Yale College, the Websters were the proudest family in the whole of Connecticut.”
Nathan Hale, Puritan Boy by Augusta Stevenson. Nathan Hale was one of seven boys in the Hale family with only one sister, Elizabeth.

Interesting facts and stories like these are embedded in a narrative that engages young readers and inspires them to emulate the heroes’ good qualities while also reading about the youthful mischief and mistakes that even heroes can make.

I already had several of these biographies in my home library:
Lucretia Mott, Girl of Old Nantucket By Constance Burnett.
Thomas Edison: Young Inventor by Sue Gutheridge
Robert Fulton: Boy Craftsman by Marguerite Henry.
Oliver Hazard Perry, Boy of the Sea by Laura Long.
Jim Thorpe, Olympic Champion by Guernsey Van Riper.
Davy Crockett, Young Rifleman by Aileen Wells Parks.
Benjamin Franklin, Young Printer by Augusta Stevenson.
George Washington, Young Leader by Augusta Stevenson.
Molly Pitcher, Young Patriot by Augusta Stevenson.
Myles Standish, Adventurous Boy by Augusta Stevenson.
Will Rogers, Young Cowboy by Guernsey Van Riper.
Martha Washington, America’s First Lady by Jean Brown Wagoner.
Betsy Ross, Designer of our Flag by Ann Weil.
Annie Oakley, Little Sure Shot by Ellen Wilson.

I’ve read most of these, and I find them delightful. The reading level and the content are appropriate for ages seven through eleven. If a child prefers books about “real people”, these stories would be great beginning chapter books to steer them towards.

A lot of these old biographical stories have been weeded out of the public libraries, but you can still find some of them in paperback reprint editions at the bookstore or in the old hardcover editions at library book sales. I think they stand the test of time for a young reader’s introduction to historical heroes. Even as an adult, I can read them with enjoyment, and they make me curious to read more about the subject of the biography. What more can one ask from a junior biography?

Happy Canada Day!

Jul1

July 1 is Canada Day. Here are some suggestions, mostly fiction, if you’re ready to celebrate with a good book:

Picture Books:

Bannatyne-Cugnet, Jo. A Prairie Alphabet. Illustrated by Yvette Moore.
Carney, Margaret. At Grandpa’s Sugar Bush. Illustrated by Janet Wilson.
Carrier, Roch. The Hockey Sweater. Illustrated by Sheldon Cohen.
Gay, Marie-Louise. Stella, Queen of the Snow. Illus. Groundwood, 2000.
Ellis, Sarah. Next Stop! Illus. by Ruth Ohi. Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2000.
Harrison, Ted. A Northern Alphabet.
Kurelek, William. A Prairie Boyâ€™s Winter.
Kurelek, William. A Prairie Boyâ€™s Summer.
McFarlane, Sheryl. Jessieâ€™s Island. Illustrated by Sheena Lott. Orca Book Publishers, 2005.
Service, Robert. The Cremation of Sam McGee. Illustrated by Ted Harrison.

Children’s Fiction:

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, of course and all its sequels. Essential Canadiana.
Our Canadian Girl and Dear Canada series.
Burnford, Sheila. The Incredible Journey.
Curtis, Christopher Paul. Elijah of Buxton. Semicolon review here.
Hobbs, Will. Far North.
Mowat, Farley. Lost in the Barrens.
Mowat, Farley. Owls in the Family.
Stanbridge, Joanne. The Leftover Kid. Northern Lights, 1997.

YA and Adult Fiction:

Craven, Margaret. I Heard the Owl Call My Name.
Freedman, Benedict and Nancy. Mrs. Mike.
Mitchell, W.O. Who Has Seen the Wind?
Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet.

Nonfiction:
Evangeline and the Acadians by Robert Tallant.
Canadian history series by Thomas Costain. Although I haven’t read this series of books, Costain is one of my favorite authors of narrative nonfiction. There are six books in the series, and the first is called The White and the Gold.

I haven’t read all of the books on this list, but I plan to, whenever I can manage to find time for a Canada Project. Titles in bold print are available from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

More Canadian books, mostly for kids by Becky at Farm School.

Celebrating Literary Canada at Chasing Ray in 2008.

Any more Canadian book suggestions?

Question of the Week and Reading Slump

Jun29

I posted this question on Facebook, but I thought I’d try it here on the blog as well. What is your favorite Bible verse or your “life verse(s)”? Has God given you a verse or passage that is especially meaningful to you? If you comment and tell me, I will mark your verse in my Bible as a reminder to pray for you.

I’ve already enjoyed marking several verses for friends who commented on Facebook. I shaded the verses and wrote the person’s name beside the verse. That way whenever I read that particular verse, I will pray for that person. So far the verses that people have shared are: Jeremiah 29:11, John 1:4-5, Psalm 1, Isaiah 41:10, Proverbs 3:5-6, Matthew 11:28-30, Psalm 91:4, I Peter 4:10, Philippians 4:8, Philippians 4:13, Psalm 121:1-2, Colossians 3:23-24, Job 13:15 (mine) and John 6:68 (mine, too).

As for reading and blogging, I’m in something of a slump. I’ve pushed my way through several books in the last couple of weeks, but nothing has really grabbed me. I have been reading a lot in my Bible: Philippians, Nehemiah, and Numbers. Now that’s an interesting combination.

I have stacks and lists of books that I want to read or plan to read or need to read, but everything feels disconnected and a bit dull. Any suggestions? Have you ever dealt with a reading slump? What did you read or what did you do to reignite your interest in books and reading?

I have been watching the K-drama Heirs. It’s rather soap opera-ish, and I’m not sure it’s doing my reading blahs any good.