The 21st Carnival of Homeschooling cordially invites you to a Progressive Dinner Party hosted at Principled Discovery. Dress is casual. Invite a friend and enjoy the food, travel and conversation as we get to know each other a little better.

Then, there’s the monthly Carnival of Children’s Literature, Broken Toe Edition, posted at Here in the Bonny Glen. My favorite link from the kid’s lit carnival: A Fuse #8 Production’s Top 21 Children’s Books Turned into Films.

Someone wrote in a comment that she used this book as “comfort food”, not too challenging, but comfortable and easy reading. I hate to disagree with any of my esteemed readers, but I found it not comforting, but disturbing.

The Shell Seekers is set in about the time it was published, 1987, with flashbacks to WW2 and its aftermath. The story takes place in England. The central character is Penelope Keeling, an elderly widow who has just been released from the hospital after a near-heart attack. Her two daughters and her son are worried to varying degrees about how she will take care of herself and whether she will continue to be able to live alone. Actually, the oldest daughter, Nancy, and the son, Noel, are more concerned about how Penelope will be able to take care of her financial assets, which include a painting by her famous artist father called The Shell Seekers.

The plot of the novel, such as it is, wanders about, changing its point of view, always coming back to Penelope. The characters are meant to be sympathetic, especially daughter Olivia and Penelope herself, and they would be, I suppose, if I could believe in them. However, they are both really selfish people interested mostly in their own comfort and their own independence, and they both engage in extra-marital affairs without any emotional or physical consequences. The bohemian, selfish life is presented as the ideal, no lasting commitments, and no guilt or regrets. Maybe I’ve led a sheltered life, but I just find it difficult to believe that people actually live this way. For example, Olivia meets a man while she is on vacation, moves in with him, and plans to stay for just one year, a sort of sabbatical from her high-pressure career in magazine publishing. At the end of the year, she returns to her career and never looks back. Can real people, not paper dolls in books, have such an uncomplicated, yet, of course, deeply loving, relationship?

The moral of the story, if it can be called that, is: grab life while you can, be generous, and follow your feelings. Happiness consists of listening to your own desires and keeping yourself independent. Oh, and you can have it all: independence and true love, especially if your lover is accommodating enough to die young before your husband returns from the war and finds out about the affair.

Oscar Wilde once wrote: “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.” In this book the bad end, as they began, unhappily, and the not-so-moral-either end happily, and the whole book just doesn’t ring True. It’s a good story, irreparably flawed by its moral outlook, and that is not what I’m looking for in fiction.

This book is a new historical fiction novel by Judith Pella, who has written other such novels in collaboration with authors Michael Phillips and Tracie Peterson. This one is Mrs. Pella’s alone, and it’s a solid piece of light fiction set in the latter half of the thirteenth century in England, France and the Holy Land.

The author had several historical events and persons to work with in creating this story of Philip de Tolland, the illegitimate son of and English lord, who is eventually exiled from his home, disinherited, and forced into outlawry. The story begins in the spring of 1263. Henry III, father of Edward I (Longshanks), is king of England, but he faces a simmering revolt on the part of his barons under the leadership of Simon de Montfort. The king is taken prisoner, but his son Edward leads the king’s allies against the rebellious barons and is eventually successful in defeating them, freeing his father, and restoring Henry to the throne. All of this civil war and turmoil moves the plot along in the book, and then as the main characters converge upon Palestine in the seventh Crusade, the romantic leads, Philip and his friend and neighbor Beatrice, reunite and come to terms with the decisions they have each made alone while Philip was in exile.

Father issues, bastardy, repentance, consequences of bad decisions, and undeserved persecution are some of the themes that the book explores, but not too deeply. The evil characters are purely evil, not too complex and not at all sympathetic. The “good” characters are sinful, but eventually repentant, and everyone lives happily ever after as the author struggles to tie up all the loose plot ends very quickly in the last chapter and in a two-page “epilogue.”

In Mark of the Cross Judith Pella tells a good story in competent, if not terribly exciting, prose. Her protagonists are likeable and engaging, but not always believable. Philip, in particular, is on the one hand too good to be true, and other other, too full of revenge to be believed. Philip’s lady love is the stereotypical spoiled only child of an indulgent father, a bit wild and rebellious, but good enough grow up into a wise and beautiful lady. The book is a Christian version of the historical romance, an easy read, useful for vacation reading or a lazy summer afternoon’s entertainment. Don’t ask for more than that, and you won’t be disappointed.

I meander around quite a bit as far as subject matter on this blog –books, homeschooling, mommy-stuff, even some politics–but I have never cat-blogged before. I don’t even like animals very much, a fact which I have confessed and for which I have received absolution. I told all eight of my urchins that they could have pets when they had their own homes; I have enough to do cleaning up after myself, Engineer Husband, and eight children.

However, despite my protests, we now have a kitten. A kindly relative discovered the abandoned kitten in the tall grass beside our house, and the four children that make up my younger set are beside themselves with joy. The older set are pleased, too. I’m resigned.

All that to say, we have a kitten. And we need your help. Have you ever had seven children (Eldest Daughter is still in France) try to agree on a name for a kitten? It’s not a pretty sight. After a day and a half, we’re still arguing. The vote is tied at two votes per name; Z-baby’s vote doesn’t count because she keeps switching. So I’m soliciting your votes. Which of these names should we give to our new kitten? By the way, he’s a boy.

1. Super Ultimate Laser Cat Extreme, Sulky for short. Computer Guru Son thought of this one and managed to get his brother Karate Kid committed to that name as the ultimate in Cool.

2. Smike. Dancer Daughter and Organizer Daughter are performing in a play of Nicholas Nickleby next weekend. Smike is one of the characters in Nicholas Nickleby.

3. Taiwan. I don’t know where this one came from. Maybe he looks vaguely Chinese?

So vote. Vote early and often. Vote for one of these three names. Don’t give us any other suggestions. There’s enough cat confusion around here as it is.

Oh, and this is your last cat blog post for 2006. Regular blogging will resume soon.

I hate mind games; this book was one big mind game.
I’m not too fond of war movies or novels or violence; Ender’s Game is all about war and violence.
I’m more of a fantasy fan than a science fiction fan; Ender’s Game is science fiction with a vengeance.
And to top it all off, this violent science fiction novel that tries to play games with the reader’s mind is definitely a boys’ book. It wasn’t written for girls, and it probably won’t appeal to many of them.

However, I thought Ender’s Game was one of the best books I’ve read in a long time; maybe the best science fiction novel I’ve ever read. Blest With Sons says Ender’s Game is on the required reading list for Marine Corps officer candidates. I can see why; did I mention that this book is very military, very male?

Ender Wiggin is an illegal Third (third child), but like his brother, Peter, and his sister, Valentine, he is a genius. The powers that be hope he is also the one kid who can save the world from the Buggers who have already invaded Earth twice and are expected back anytime. Or maybe we’re planning to get them before they invade for a third time. Either way Ender, still a child, must learn enough very quickly to lead Earth’s army in what may turn out to be Armageddon, the final battle for domination of Earth and its colonies.

The themes in this book make it intriguing even as the plot twists and surprises keep the reader turning the pages to see what will happen next. Ender’s Game asks questions about power and violence and sin and forgiveness. Is it morally acceptable to use overwhelming force against an enemy when you know that enemy is willing and able to destroy you? What if you begin to enjoy the exercise of violence and power over others for its own sake? Can members of very different cultures communicate and make peace, or are they doomed to destroy one another? Is it acceptable to strike first to destroy an enemy who has already attacked you once? Can people change? Does a truly evil child, a torturer, become civilized? How? How are leaders formed? What makes a group, an army unit, for instance, a cohesive force? How does a leader go about creating that cohesiveness?

Lots of questions. Some of these questions are questions that we’re still pondering and muddling through as a country in the aftermath of 9/11. Orson Scott Card certainly doesn’t have all the answers, and I thought the ending of the book was its weakest part. However, he definitely asks the right questions, questions that we will be forced to answer as we deal with our own crises in this post 9/11 world.

Highly recommended with one caveat: the language is army language, rough and crude. If that bothers you, skip this book. (To tell the truth, crude language annoys me. However, it wasn’t gratuitous; I would imagine that men whose profession is violent use just the kind of language that is in this book, only worse.) I think it’s worth skimming over some words in order to read this story and think about its implications.