The Wednesday Wars

By Gary D. Schmidt

LOVED this book.  The main character is 13 year old Holling.  I'm linking to a review HERE.

One of the problems that I often have with literature geared towards middle- and high-schoolers is  the amount of inappropriate content.  Not EVERY middle-schooler is obsessed with sex and using bad language.

The Wednesday Wars does not have any of that!  Go Mr. Schmidt!

Donbas: A True Story of an Escape Across Russia

This book was recommended to me by a friend.  I knocked it out in about 5 hours of reading.  I couldn't put it down.  It is an autobiographical story of a young man who was forced into a Russian slave labor shortly after the end of WWII.  He was 17 when he was picked up off the street on his way to school.  In an odd twist of fate, his father saw him locked in his train car.  Their eyes met for just a moment before the train pulled away.  Although he later was able to communicate with his parents after his escape, he never saw his father again.  After 2 1/2 years in a mining slave labor camp he makes a miraculous escape to freedom.  It is an incredible story and would be worthwhile for teenagers to read just to come to understand the great blessings of freedom that we enjoy and that those things are worth fighting for to maintain.

Aristotle's Children

Aristotle's Children is a history of Western civilization from about 600 BC to 1300 AD. Why that range? Because the focus of the book is how Aristotle's ideas were lost, then rediscovered at different times by Jews, Muslims, and finally Christians, and how his ideas caused big changes in those societies.

I don't know about you, but I sometimes have a hard time reading "general" histories---ones that wander through the timeline trying to highlight any event that might be important to someone. I enjoy histories that pick one or two themes and focus on them over several centuries. That's why I enjoyed this one. You got to see how Aristotle's ideas influenced Greek science, were imposed on Jews, were adopted by Muslims and then rejected because of some ways they conflicted with religion, and then were (literally) rediscovered in the form of some unearthed scrolls in Spain in the 1100s. Whereas Muslim civilization ultimately decided they weren't worth the threat to certain doctrines, Christian civilization hung onto them---for better or worse. They led to huge advancements in science (in fact, his ideas pretty much define the scientific method now) but they've also led to atheism and anti-religious sentiment.

The author often pointed out which Greek ideas agreed with traditional Christianity, and which ones didn't. One fun task was to keep a similar mental chart of which ones agreed with the Restored Gospel and which one didn't it ended up being a three-way Venn diagram. For example, I learned about the Cathars (a heretical group in France in the 1100s), the Cathar heretics reasoned their way into a different interpretation of the Fall of Adam, and some of their criticisms of the Catholic interpretation are spot on. They ended up a little closer to Restoration doctrines in some ways, but then they'd go awry in their reasoning---for example, deciding that all sex and birth are bad. It was fascinating to watch group after group correctly reject some false ideas, but then never quite get all the right ideas in one set of beliefs. It was a terrific study in the limits of reason and the need for revelation.

I do wish the book had spent more time talking about Jewish and Muslim history---it really only touches it lightly in one of the early chapter. However, this is a great survey of about 1500 years of human history, especially for understanding some of the roots of modern Western civilization. I was introduced to several personalities I'd never heard of before (like Peter Abelard) and some I previously knew very little about (like Thomas Aquinas). I found Boethius in particular to be a really admirable person, worth mentioning as a role model when teaching history.

Elantris

I read Elantris by Brandon Sanderson on the recommendation of Nathan and Jelaire. It was Jelaire's first fantasy novel and she really liked it. I completely agree with her. It's a very well-written story with a couple of great storylines interwoven. It's basically the story of a fallen city called Elantris that was populated by people who had, at random, been taken by the shaod. This would just happen to people of all sorts and then they would move to Elantris where they would learn to manipulate different symbols in mid-air to accomplish different acts of magic. About 10 years before the story takes place, Elantris is completely transformed overnight and now enemy kingdoms are seeking to fill the void left by the lack of protection that Elantris used to guarantee. Great book and I was able to read it in a few days.

The Fablehaven Series

I found this to be a fun series overall. It's the story of Seth and Kendra Sorensen, siblings who find out that their grandparents are actually caretakers of a reserve for magical creatures. Through the course of the series they deal with an escalating conspiracy to unravel the treaties that keep the magical world in order. They are faced with tough decisions, consequences for bad choices, the aftermath of betrayals, the loss of loved ones and other compelling plot twists. I liked the series. Kelly got kind of tired of Seth's bravado and so she stopped reading around book 3. These would make great read-aloud books. The books in order are:
Fablehaven
Rise of the Evening Star
Grip of the Shadow Plague
Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary
Keys to the Demon Prison

The Sign of the Beaver

Kelly recommended The Sign of the Beaver to me and I just finished reading it. It's the story of a young boy who is left to care for his family's house in the deep woods of Maine in the early days of this country. It is a tale of his developing relationship with local Indians. The description of the relationships rings true without getting sentimental. It's a great coming-of-age story for kids, particularly boys, to read.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Because of Kelly's recommendation I recently read The Invention of Hugo Cabret and I really enjoyed it. It is part illustration and part prose. There are frequently many pages in a row that are just pictures and no dialogue. It's a little like a movie inside a book. It's a quick read. I think it took about 2 or 3 hours. It's a story about a boy, Hugo Cabret who attempts to take up his dead father's project of restoring an automaton that Hugo comes to believe will provide him some form of guidance from his father. After reading the book, or even before it, you need to see the video of a functioning automaton. I was amazed to find out that people had constructed what is essentially a robot that performs the complicated task of drawing several different complex drawings. Reading this book was an enjoyable way to spend my Saturday afternoon.

A Long Way From Chicago - Richard Peck

You know you've got a winner when you chuckle throughout the length of a book, sometimes even laugh out loud, but tears prick your eyes as you finish the final paragraph.

Each summer over the nine years of the depression Grandma Dowdel's Chicago-bred grandchildren spend one week visiting Grandma in her sleepy Illinois town. They discover a Grandma they didn't know existed - and experience a few other things along the way including seeing their first dead body!

I don't want to give too much away, because this book is definitely better if you don't know what to expect. Just trust me, it's one you'll want to read

Interworld

I just finished another Neil Gaiman book called Interworld. Actually, he wrote this one with Michael Reaves. This is a fun book and a pretty quick read. It's about a kid who discovers the ability to walk between different dimensions. All the worlds have similarities but vary a bit due to the different decisions people make. The worlds exist on an arc that ranges from worlds ruled by scientific rules to the other end where the worlds are ruled by magical rules. He has to hurry up and figure out how to use his talents before he's captured by people who wants to pull those powers from him. Fun read.

Someone Named Eva - Joan M. Wolf

Wow! This was an intense novel based on actual events that occurred during WWII. It is the story of a Czech girl who is taken to her family to be "repurposed" to become a "good German girl" and adopted by a German family. It is not light reading and if you want someone under the age of 12 to read it, I would pre-read it just to be sure they can handle the idea of concentration camps and other horrors of Nazi Germany.

But like other books such as Diary of Anne Frank, it is important to remember the difficult events in world history so we can prevent them from ever happening again.

The Graveyard Book

I first read Neil Gaiman's work in high school when he had a comic called Sandman so I was already predisposed to liking him. However, I believe I would have really liked The Graveyard Book anyway. It's really a modern telling of Kipling's The Jungle Book and he readily admits it in his acknowledgments. It's a story of a boy whose family gets murdered in the first pages of the book and as a toddler he escapes to the nearby graveyard by chance. He is taken in by the local ghosts and the mysterious caretaker of the graveyard. The rest of the story is his growing up and learning about his family's murder. The ghosts want to keep him safe in the graveyard; he wants to explore the outside world and avenge his family.

I really enjoyed the book. The beginning is a little tense. The murders aren't described but it is obvious what happened. It's a great coming-of-age story and a fun read. There is no foul language that I can recall. It's one the tweens and older would enjoy.

The Hunger Games

Kelly told me about The Hunger Games a few months ago because she read it and couldn't put it down. I have since heard about it from about dozen people and without exception they all liked it. So, of course, I thought I'd better read this book. I finished it in a day and a half and I have to agree, this book is compelling. I have a weak spot for dystopian-future novels so I may not be the most objective judge.

The main character, Katniss, is forced to be a participant in the annual Hunger Games. The Hunger Games are a fight to the death forced on the 12 districts by the Capitol to keep the people in line and remind them that any revolution will be quickly and brutally put down. The story exposes how different people either maintain or give up their humanity in the quest to win the Games and a life of riches. It also portrays the lack of human empathy that can come from the quest for entertainment.

All-in-all I found it a great story. Due to the subject matter you may want to save this for your older teenagers. The story does involve the deaths of 12-18 year old kids at the hands of other kids. It's not a shiny, happy story but it does have valuable lessons to teach.

John Adams

The first time I read David McCullough's John Adams it was a borrowed book and the impulse to underline and annotate was so strong I had to return the book after only about 70 pages. I eventually came into a copy of my own and this has become one of my favorite biographies. John Adams has emerged as one of my favorite Founding Fathers. He was a temperamental, opinionated man who felt the fear of being a nobody. Of all the Founding Fathers he has felt the most near my own thoughts and desires to make a difference as well as a keen awareness of personal faults. He feels like a real person to me. I would love to meet him someday. I would strongly recommend this book for your high-schooler. The relationship between John and Abigail should go down in history as one of the most intimate of friendships.

Kelly and I also watched the HBO adaptation of the book. While we liked it (3 stars), be aware that there are several scenes that are inappropriate for kids including: a tarring and feathering of a naked man, a leg amputation, a highly amorous, clothed love scene when John and Abigail see each other for the first time after a long separation. We fast-forwarded the love scene because it was uncomfortable but I don't believe there was any nudity. I didn't think the HBO series was anywhere near as good as just reading the book. That sounds familiar, doesn't it?

The Candy Shop War

I read The Candy Shop War after reading the first book of Brandon Mull's Fablehaven series. Brandon is LDS and the stories are clean and good choices for the kids. This story follows 4 young kids and their new friendship with a candy shop owner who keeps a different class of candy in the back of the store. The owner gives the kids some candy that will endow them with different abilities in exchange for helping her with some tasks. They learn lessons about discernment, withstanding pressure from your friends and the consequences of bad decisions. The story and the characters are great fun!

One thing I like about Brandon Mull is that he puts a study guide at the back of his books and asks questions that make the family think about what they've learned from the story they read. This is a good book to read aloud together as a family.

My Grandfather's Son

I read My Grandfather's Son, a memoir written by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and was so impressed by his life and the lessons that he pulled from his experiences that I ended up buying a copy. His grandfather had a powerful influence on Justice Thomas since he never knew his father. Justice Thomas' account is not a gauzy, trifle of a memoir. It is a clear-eyed account of his world growing up and I was really touched by his respect for a grandfather with whom he didn't always see eye-to-eye.

He does something that I greatly admire in biographies by discussing some of the unwise decisions he made in life. I love reading good biographies that I feel comfortable being able to share with my kids. I want to be able to pull stories from a biography that can provide my family with examples of good decisions that were difficult or showed wisdom, or bad decisions that were recognized and either corrected or repented of. This book provided both.

Because it deals with the Anita Hill incident there are historical accounts of some of the accusations that were leveled at Justice Thomas that would probably be inappropriate for younger kids. (Regarding that incident, it may go down as one of the most poisonous slanderings of an individual by cynical politicians in US history. It is shameful how it played out.)

Mrs. Tim books and others by D.E. Stevenson

Dorothy Emily Stevenson wrote about 40 books in the 1930s and 40s. Her first books were novels based on her own diaries as a military wife. They are sweet, funny little vignettes set in Scotland and England. There isn't so much a plot or a story to tell, as it is a little glimpse into life during that time period just prior to, during, and following WWII.

These books will take you to a world of small-town life and basically good people. You get people who are really happily married, have morals that they adhere to, and children that they love. The books are simple, one-day reads.
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment is the first of four Mrs. Tim books (the main character is Mrs. Hester Christie - her husband is Captain Tim Christie and she is always referred to as Mrs. Tim). Other books are set in the same locales and are usually about neighbors, or refer to people that are mentioned in other books. Thus, they are all sort of interconnected without actually being about the same people over and over again.

The Graveyard Book

Talk about a ghost story! I was a little concerned about the beginning. It starts off pretty creepy and intense. I put 8+, but I would preview it if your child is younger than 10.

This has a similar general plot to "The Jungle Book", about boy growing up in a Graveyard. A humorous cast of characters from different historical periods are Bod's (short for Nobody, his name) adopted family. I pretty much gobbled this book up in one sitting (shush, Mommy's reading). I don't want to give too much away, but I highly recommend this growing-up story!

The Myth of the Robber Barons

This is another example of me finding one of Josh's book laying around and absconding with it.
It's a short book. I liked it. Some people might find it a bit dry. If you are at all interested in capitalism, American success stories, government intervention, or accurate history (as opposed to glossed-over history from school), you might want to give this book a try. You can probably read it in one sitting, although I spread it's few chapters out over the course of a week.

The Myth of the Robber Barons describes the role of key entrepreneurs in the economic growth of the United States from 1850 to 1910. The author, Burton Folsom, divides the entrepreneurs into two groups market entrepreneurs and political entrepreneurs. The market entrepreneurs, such as Hill, Vanderbilt, and Rockefeller, succeeded by producing a quality product at a competitive price. The political entrepreneurs such as Edward Collins in steamships and in railroads the leaders of the Union Pacific Railroad were men who used the power of government to succeed. They tried to gain subsidies, or in some way use government to stop competitors. The author also has a conclusion, in which he looks at the textbook bias on the subject of Robber Barons and the rise of the U. S. in the late 1800s. This chapter explores three leading college texts in U. S. history and shows how they misread American history and disparage market entrepreneurs instead of the political entrepreneurs.

Interesting stuff!

How Capitalism Saved America

I found this book sitting on our bookshelves and picked it up just to see what it was.

I was pleasantly surprised! The author writes in a nice, flowing style. The information is not too intellectual to make reading difficult to understand. What interested me was the clarifying of all sorts of historical "myths" I had learned in school about the economic history of our country.

I've always loved history. This book gave me a better understanding of our country's economic past. I will probably re-read this book again in the future sometime to help me develop the vocabulary and understanding to be able to converse knowledgeably about economic policy in the modern political world.
I read it not too long after reading "The Myth of the Robber Barons" and while there was some overlap, the "Myth of the Robber Barons" really is a good book to read around the same time as it deals with a similar subject matter.

Against Leviathan

Against Leviathan is a collection of essays written by Robert Higgs, an economist and lecturer. Mr. Higgs is one of my favorite writers. He is an advocate for individual liberty and constitutional government. Because this is a collection of essays it is the kind of book where you can read a chapter rather quickly and then go back to what you were doing. Some of my favorite essays include: 19 Neglected Consequences of Income Distribution, The Mythology of Roosevelt and the New Deal, Great Presidents?, and Beware the Pork Hawk.

Many of the essays would require some background in political philosophy and economics so it's probably best for high school kids or older.