Archive by Author | Sherry

12 Projects for 2014

Jan26

I love projects. Even if I don’t finish them, even if the list itself reproaches me and makes me feel guilty for my broken promises to myself, I still love projects. So, here are my projects for 2014. May this be the year of finishing, or at least starting, all of my projects to the glory of God.

1. West Africa Reading Project. I intended to read a great many books last year that were set in West Africa (Benin, Biafra, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo). I did read some. The stand-outs were Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and I Do Not Come to You by Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani. I’m feeling as if I only scratched the surface of the literature set in this part of Africa, however. So I’m planing to devote another year to the books of West Africa. Any suggestions for can’t-miss books set in the countries of this region?

2. I have a Restore the House Project that has been forced upon me by the fire we had at our house. I’m choosing to think that it will be fun to see my forty year old house made new again and to participate in the planning and the restoring and the remodeling. In particular, we will be remodeling the kitchen. Any advice?

3. Homeschool Library Project. My plans for a private lending library for homeschoolers in my area have been put on hold by the fire, but I’m hoping to resume work on that project as soon as #2 is completed.

4. Bible Study Project. I am hoping to do some intensive Bible study this year, first on the Bible study I’m writing for my churches’ women’s retreat in April, a study of Jesus’s I AM statements in the book of John (I AM The Light of the World, I AM The Bread of Life, etc.). Then, I’m not sure what will be next, but I am open to suggestions.

5. Prayer Project. I’d like to deepen and enrich my prayer life, maybe spend a set amount of time each day in prayer. I’m curious: do you pray at a set time(s) every day, or just “on the fly”? How do you organize your prayer life? How do you stay motivated to pray consistently?

6. Picture Book Around-the-World Project. I’ve been working on a follow-up to my Picture Book Preschool curriculum (for several years I’ve been working, ruefully), called Picture Book Around the World. I’d like to really bear down and finish this year. If I do get to work on this project, expect to see lots of picture book reviews for books set in countries all over the globe. Again, recommendations?

7. Cybils Challenge. I’ve decided I’m going to at least TRY to read all of the Cybils nominees, although there are a few (mostly YA) that I’m fairly sure I won’t like well enough to finish.

8. Homeschool Co-op Project. I am one of two head coordinators for a homeschool co-op that ministers to over 100 families in this area. We offer parent-taught classes one morning a week, and we provide fellowship opportunities for homeschooling moms. It’s a time-consuming project, but I love serving there where God has called me to help parents follow their calling to homeschool.

9. U.S. Presidents Reading Project. I may only read one or two books for this project, but slowly, surely, I should manage to read a book about each president before my reading days are over.

10. Century of Books Project. I read about A Century of Books here at the blog Stuck in a Book (and here is Stuck in a Book’s 2012 Century of Books completed project). I couldn’t resist. The idea is to read one book from each year of a century, whatever century you choose, to total 100 books. Simon at Stuck in a Book chose the century from 1914-2013. I’m going to choose the century from 1851-1950. I’m using my subscription to Forgotten Books digital library to get copies of many of the books on my list.

11. Poetry Friday Project. I’d like to participate in Poetry Friday this year, at least most Fridays.

12. Bible Note-Taking Project. I continue to take notes in my Bible during Bible study, sermons, and other Biblical endeavors. I’m planning to transfer many of the notes in my current Bible to a new one that I got last year and start using the new one for future note-taking. I just jot down whatever the Holy Spirit brings to mind with the intention of giving each of my Bibles to one of my children someday.

Too many projects, especially reading projects? Probably, but I go to this list whenever I tire of what I’m working on at the time, and I can always find something else worthwhile to replace the project (or housework) from which I need a break. So in that way my project list is a blessing. I just don’t get too stressed about finishing the reading projects in particular.

Poetry Friday: The Country Clergy by R.S. Thomas

Jan24

I stole this poem fragment by poet R.S. Thomas from Glynn because I loved it and wanted to share it/preserve it here.

I see them working in old rectories
By the Sun’s light, by candlelight,
Venerable men, their black cloth
A little dusty, a little green
With holy mildew. And yet their skulls,
Ripening over so many prayers,
Toppled into the same grave
With oafs and yokels. They left no books,
Memorial to their lonely thought
In grey parishes; rather they wrote
On men’s hearts and in the minds
Of young children sublime words
Too soon forgotten. God in his time
Or out of time will correct this.

This poem reminded me of my father-in-law, a Baptist preacher in tiny West Texas Baptist churches. He didn’t usually work full time as a pastor, but rather he was what we now call a bi-vocational pastor. His churches were in places that don’t stand out on the map: Buda, Prairie Lea, Robert Lee and Maverick—all in rural Texas. He left no books, only journals written in spiral-bound notebooks, talking about things like the weather, the comings and goings of family members, and the many things he was thankful for.

My father-in-law, John Early, has gone to his reward, and his words and ideas often read as somewhat quaint and outmoded, but always faithful. God in his time or out of time will correct this.

Tara is hosting today’s Poetry Friday Roundup at A Teaching Life.

For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund

Jan21

Futuristic, post-apocalyptic science fiction that’s very loosely based on or inspired by Jane Austen’s novel of manners and thwarted love, Persuasion. Eliot North, the main character, is a girl who, like Ann Eliott in Persuasion has chosen duty over love and passion. As she is unavoidably throw together with the man she rejected over four years previously to the opening of our story, Elliot must decide how to guard her heart and remain true to her principles of loving and caring for the innocent and helpless.

There is, as I said, a science fiction apocalypse aspect to this story: the world is living in the aftermath of genetic experimentation gone awry, and the Luddites, who rejected the genetic experiments, are the only ones who are holding things together and providing for the Reduced, the mentally challenged victims of the experimentation. Elliot is a Luddite. Some characters, called Posts, have transcended the Reduction of their ancestors, but the Luddites still treat the Posts like Reduced slaves.

What I liked best about this novel was the Jane Austen tie-in. It made me want to go back and re-read Persuasion. I also liked Elliot as a character, although she could be remarkably obtuse at times. In fact, all of the characters in the novel had their moments when they should have seen what I as the reader could see clearly, but they didn’t. And sometimes, in a way I can’t exactly put my finger on, the characters jumped to slightly erroneous conclusions or unusual interpretations of events that didn’t seem to be warranted by the information given in the book. It made the novel skew very juvenile, maybe middle grade even, definitely YA rather than adult.

Maybe the problem was that Elliot North and her rejected suitor Malakai Wentforth just aren’t adult in the same way that Ann Elliot and her erstwhile love Frederick Wentworth are grown-up and mature in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Elliot and Malakai are only eighteen, and they act emotionally like sixteen year olds or younger. None of these issues spoiled what was essentially a good story, but they were there nagging at the back of my mind as I read.

The Absolute Value of Mike by Kathryn Erskine

Jan20

Kathryn Erskine’s middle grade novel Mockingbird, about a girl who has Asperger’s Syndrome, won the National Book Award in 2010. The Absolute Value of Mike is about a boy with a math learning disability whose father is a math and engineering genius and wants him to be one, too. Mike’s father is a little bit annoying, and he seems to be dealing with (undiagnosed) Asperger’s himself. Mike is a talented kid, just not at math and science.

I enjoyed this story about a boy who spends the summer with his extremely eccentric great-aunt and uncle, Moo and Poppy. Mike becomes involved in a town project to raise the money for Moo’s friend Karen’s overseas adoption of a boy named Mischa. Then, somehow through a series of improbable events, Mike ends up in charge of the money-raising project. He also manages to nag and yell at Great Uncle Poppy enough to pull him out of his depression brought on by the recent death of Poppy’s and Moo’s adult son. And fourteen year old Mike drives Moo’s car, gets Gladys to sing on video, and organizes a town-wide Do Over Day (the town is called Do Over).

Mike’s relatives and friends take quirkiness to whole new level as Mike spends the summer ostensibly helping get Mischa home, but really figuring out how to deal with his dad’s expectations and his own growing self-knowledge about his real talents. It’s a good story, and Ms. Erskine is an author to continue to watch for good, engaging stories about out of the ordinary middle school/teen characters. She has a new book out (September, 2013) called Seeing Red. I think I’ll look for a copy at the library.

The Circle by Dave Eggers

Jan16

Are you afraid of the continued encroachment of Big Government and Big Business and Big Internet on the privacy of individuals? Are you worried about the implications of surveillance drones, cashless business models, data-mining, and internet search engines that seem to be more and more ubiquitous and indispensable to more and more people? Have you opted out of Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+ and all other social media sites because you want to keep your self to yourself?

If you answered yes to all three questions, you don’t need to read The Circle, but you’ll probably want to read it because you’ll find your own opinions about privacy, the internet, and our own Brave New World, validated and extended in this fictional dsytopia where “The Circle” of everyone knowing everything about everyone is almost complete. If Eldest Daughter wanted to win her friends over to her way of thinking about what the internet is doing to humans and to their social abilities and to their privacy rights, she would give a copy of The Circle to each of them with an admonition to read at their own risk.

Scary stuff. It’s somewhat unbelievable that the main character, a young college graduate named Mae, is so gullible as to never really question, even once, the vast internet conspiracy (or benevolent business model) that is called The Circle in this story. In fact, Mae is a frustrating character, so blind to the consequences of her actions and to the implications of a society built on the concept of complete and total transparency, as to be rather mindless. However, this book isn’t about either plot or characters: it’s about propaganda. It’s about what living a virtual life in a virtual world with social media as our most vital connection could do to us. Have we become, or are we in danger of becoming, rather mindless ourselves? Are we willing to give up all of our freedom for the sake of safety and security? Could our private lives and our independent judgment be taken away, or could we be induced to give them away, piece by piece, for a mess of pottage?

SECRETS ARE LIES, SHARING IS CARING, PRIVACY IS THEFT!

If you believe these central organizing “truths” of The Circle, read The Circle and think about the real implications of a world that is totally and mandatorily transparent. If you believe that Google and Facebook and Twitter are the opiates of the masses, and that 1984 is closer than we think, read The Circle and be vindicated. If you’re philosophically opposed to agitprop and think you already know all about the message Mr. Eggers has to preach, skip it.

Bottom line: flat characters, unbelievable plot and characterizations, thought-provoking message.

Note: I do not usually give “stars” or numerical ratings to books, and after reading The Circle, I doubt if I ever will again. I can’t believe all of the people on Goodreads who say they have read the book and are still giving it a numerical rating. The sheer farce of assigning everyone and everything a numerical value and “liking” or “not liking” it is well-parodied in The Circle. So, just don’t do it, folks. Books are not numbers. (Although I kind of like “like” buttons . . .)

And, yes, I know that the gadget I’m using to allow you to share this review on social media sites, says “sharing is caring” just below this post. Irony or the beginning of the approach to Armageddon?

House-Dreams by Hugh Howard

Jan15

House-Dreams: The story of an amateur builder and two novice apprentices and how they turned an overgrown blackberry patch, ten truckloads of lumber, a keg of cut nails, and an antique staircase into a real home by Hugh Howard.

I’m not a home builder or a designer, so I’ll admit I skimmed through a lot of the more technical passages in this story of a man and his quest to design and build his own house. I’m also not an architectural elitist, so I sniffed and rolled my eyes at some of the author’s more pretentious statements about building a house designed to fit into a milieu of nineteenth century American architecture. However, since I’m in the beginning stages of own home remodeling project, a lot of the commentary and advice here was quite pertinent to my own situation.

Because we had a house fire in December, we’re going to have to replace the roof, the attic, and the kitchen in our house. We’ll also be getting new flooring throughout the house, and we may remodel one of the bathrooms while we’re at it. Any advice?

Mr. Howard’s house with its solid maple wood floors, antique staircase, Rumford fireplace, grubka stove, and marble countertops is way out of my league, but I did pick up a few tips:

1. Watch, learn and ask questions. Mr. Howard is a self-taught builder and designer. He asked a lot of questions at hardware stores.

2. Expect the job to take longer than you expected and to cost more than you budgeted. I sort of already knew this bit of house-building/remodeling wisdom.

3. Enjoy your home. I am totally overwhelmed with the thought of even as small a home-rebuilding project as we will be doing. However, I am determined to enjoy re-making our forty year old house to suit our current and anticipated needs. I’ll try to update you on our progress here on the blog.

In the meantime, I’ll take any advice you have on kitchen flooring, countertops, cabinets, bathroom flooring and other fixtures, roofing, and living room walls and ceilings. I might as well cast a wide net.

Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal by Ben Macintyre

Jan14

“Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced.”

I like spy stories, especially true spy stories. Author Ben MacIntyre’s story of Eddie Chapman and his activities as the consummate double agent for Britain during World War II is particularly fascinating because it’s well-researched and full of details that were gleaned from recently declassified MI5 files.

So, first, I had to get straight the difference between MI5 and MI6:

“The Security Service (MI5) is the UK’s security intelligence agency. It is responsible for protecting the UK, its citizens and interests, against the major threats to national security. The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, or MI6) operates world-wide and is responsible for gathering secret intelligence outside the UK in support of the government’s security, defence and foreign and economic policies.”

Well, that’s clear, but I can see how during a war like WW II when the outside threats (of German infiltration and even invasion) were quickly becoming inside threats, the lines would get a little blurred. Anyway, Eddie Chapman worked for MI5 because he came to England as a Nazi spy and saboteur. When he reached Britain, parachuted in by his German employers, he immediately reported to MI5 about what the Germans had taught him and what they wanted him to do while he was “in the field.” (The Nazi wanted him to sabotage and blow up a factory where British warplanes called Mosquitos were being manufactured.)

Mr. Chapman is an interesting character, a very flawed hero. He was “a man who kept every option open, who seemed congenitally incapable of taking a bet without hedging it.” Terence young, the filmmaker, who had known Chapman before the war, wrote to MI5 officials about Chapman,”One could give him the most difficult of missions knowing that he would carry it out and that he would never betray the official who sent him, but that it was highly probable that he would, incidentally, rob the official who sent him out. . . . He would then carry out his [mission] and return to the official whom he had robbed to report.” Chapman had a girl in every port, or country, and he seduced each of them into thinking that she was the only one. But when none of his long-term partners was available, he found it necessary to visit prostitutes or find a new paramour. He performed some incredibly valuable missions of misinformation and spying for the British, but he was paid mostly by the Germans who believed that he had done great things for their side.

If you’re interested in World War II, British intelligence services, James Bond and the like, espionage, or just morally ambivalent characters, Agent Zigzag is a good read. MacIntyre does tell what happened to the major players in this episode of double and even triple cross after the war was over, and the index is useful for finding specific incidents and information if you’re studying the era and the subject.

12 Books I Want to Read in 2014

Jan9

Hunting Shadows by Charles Todd. (January) From Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past: “Scotland Yard detective Ian Rutledge . . . is sent in 1920 to investigate two inexplicable murders in and around Ely in Cambridgeshire. Can the answers be found by delving into wartime secrets?”

Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby by Sarah Churchwell. (January) The author uses F. Scot Fitzgerald’s notes about the events and news stories that inspired his famous novel to write about the world of the rich and careless in the 1920’s.

My Name Is Resolute by Nancy E. Turner. (February) From Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past: “Turner’s new historical epic steps further back in time to the year 1729, when Resolute Talbot is stolen away from her Jamaican family and sold into slavery in Massachusetts. As a talented weaver in the town of Lexington, she is ideally placed to play a major role in the coming revolutionary tumult.”

The Shadow Throne (The Ascendance Trilogy #3) by Jennifer A. Nielsen. (February)

The Shepherd’s Song: A Story of Second Chances by Betsy Duffey. (March)

Wild Things! The True, Untold Stories Behind the Most Beloved Children’s Books and Their Creators by Julie Danielson, Elizabeth Bird, and Peter D. Sieruta. (April)

The Hero’s Guide to Being an Outlaw (The League of Princes #3) by Christopher Healy. (April) The League of Princes returns in the hilariously epic conclusion to the hit series that began with Christopher Healy’s The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom.

The Lie by Helen Dunmore. (April) From Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past: “In 1920, a man from Cornwall left alone and bereft after his wartime experiences finds that a lie told in his past has unavoidable and devastating repercussions. A story of love, loss, and the life-changing relationship between two young soldiers, only one of whom lives to return home.”

United We Spy (final Gallagher Girls novel) by Ally Carter. (June)

Landline by Rainbow Rowell. (July) This new novel by the prolific Ms. Rowell is an adult title. “Georgie discovers a way to communicate with her husband Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts . . . Is that what she’s supposed to do? Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?” In spite of my upcoming rant on the lawless world of Ms. Rowell’s YA novels, I’m willing to give her upcoming book a chance, because she really does create compelling characters.

The Actual & Truthful Adventures of Becky Thatcher by Jessica Lawson. I found this one embedded in this article about upcoming middle grade fiction by author Anne Ursu.

The Woodvilles: The Wars of the Roses and England’s Most Infamous Family by Susan Higginbotham. (October) Nonfiction.

Armada by Ernest Cline. (October) The author of Ready Player One provides a new book about game-playing and inter-galactic warfare.

Rainbow Rowell and the World with No Rules

Jan8

I plead guilty. I am a prude, a moralist, a prig. And I am so tired of living in world without rules. I am so tired of reading about a world without rules, watching movies and TV shows in which there is nothing that is off limits (except rules themselves). Yes, I know we need grace; I need grace the way I need air, food, and water. I survive and live by the grace of God. But we also need Law. Boundaries. Some sort of framework to live by, to measure by, something besides my own emotions and my own weakness. Something to which to apply the grace that God so freely offers.

And what has this rant to do with the latest, greatest, most popular YA fiction author of 2013 (if I am to judge by all the 2013 best-of lists that include one or both of the books she published this past year)? Rainbow Rowell is the author of Eleanor and Park, a high school love story, and Fangirl, a freshman year in college love story. I read Eleanor and Park first, and I’ll admit I liked it. The lady knows how to tell a story and especially how to create characters that shine. Eleanor is a fat girl with a dysfunctional family. Park is a Korean American boy with a fully functional family, but he lives life at the mercy of school bullies and of his own insecurities about being short and small and sort of geeky (or nerdy, I can never remember the difference). The slow build-up to romance between the two outsiders was fun to read and well-written. Then, wham! The two sixteen year olds did whatever it was they did in the backseat of a car (I skimmed). Oh, why did we have to have that part? Why couldn’t Park just say that he thought Eleanor was beautiful but he respected her and didn’t want to take advantage of her vulnerability, or something? I got a little tired, but as I said, I skimmed.

Then, I read Fangirl, different plot, different age group, similar characters. There’s a girl, Cath, with a dysfunctional family who’s closed off and vulnerable at the same time. There’s a guy, Levi, from a Baptist family, who’s sweet and caring and giving to the point of saccharinity. But Ms. Rowell reins in the sweet so that Levi is just that, adorable and no more. Fangirl feels for a while as if it could be about the consequences of living without any moral framework. In fact, Cath’s twin sister, Wren, messes up big time because no one has ever told her what the rules are or expected her to live by any rules at all (absent mother, mentally ill father). But Levi and Cath get along just fine without any reference to religion or morality or . . . anything. All that stuff is so . . . old-fashioned. Levi mentions that his mom is involved in church and attends a “prayer circle”, but that whole world is dismissed lightly and quickly as parental quirkiness. Cath’s and Wren’s dad tries to make some rules for Wren, the out of control daughter, but the whole stern parent thing comes out of nowhere. I can’t imagine any eighteen year old who has been as neglected as Wren and Cath have been listening to the lecture Wren’s dad gives or adhering to his sudden burst of regulations and injunctions.

So we come back to a world without authority. Without a moral framework. Why is it wrong for one of the characters in the novel to plagiarize? Because Cath doesn’t like it? Why is OK for Cath and her roommate to badmouth and make fun of all the freshmen in the cafeteria? Because it makes them feel better about themselves and because they’re witty when they do it? Why is it wrong for Wren to get drunk every weekend and drink herself into oblivion? Because it feels bad? Why is it right for Cath and Levi to make out in his bedroom? Because it feels good? Why do I want to read details of these make-out sessions? Because . . . I can’t really think of any good reasons. (I skimmed . . . again.)

I agree with this essay by Shannon Hale, in which she argues that YA novels should be written for teen readers, not adults who just want the teenagers in the books to hurry up and grow up. I’m not advocating for the teens in this book to grow up already and have their worldview and ethics all figured out. I just want them to have something, preferably Christianity, but something, to push against, to wrestle with, and possibly to grow into. All they have in these books is empty air and secularist posing. It’s sad and it makes me tired, no matter how good the writing may be. And I fear for our kids who are going to be even more jaded and exhausted with the shadow boxing and with the vacuum of virtue and moral standards before they ever get to be adults.

This post is not so much a review of the books as it is a reflection on the world we live in. Read the books and see what you think. I will admit that I will be thinking about Eleanor and Park and Cath and Levi and Wren for a long time. I would be praying for them if they were real people. I’m saddened to think that they probably are real people.