Great childrens books

We come across a lot of books during our day, but very rarely do I find one that makes me think "wow, I want to buy that one to make sure we have it on hand to read again.".

This week I found two!

Michael is doing a unit on Dinosaurs so we have been reading a ton of those. Most of them are a lot alike and a lot of them are just down right boring or aimed at older kids. This one is the exception. Written by Kathleen V. Kudlinski, it takes ideas that we used to have about dinosaurs and shows how those ideas have changed over time with new information. Far from a dry book, it eludes to the scientific process, hypothesis, and the fact that it is OK to sometimes not get things right the first time. Both Michael and I agree, this is a terrific book! By far the best dinosaur book we have read yet!

We have read another of David Lunbars books, "Hidden Talents". It was a great book although it was definetly aimed at the "tween" group. But we liked his style of writing so much we checked out some of his other books. Among those was a treasure by the title of "Punished". It tells of a boy that gets caught running a library. As part of his "pun"ishment he is given the annoying habit of only being able to speak in puns. To break the habit he must accomplish three tasks involving finding oxymorons, anagrams and palindromes in his daily life without help from others. An incredibly cute and humorous book, it had all of us paying attention to what would happen next. Each night story time ended with a groan as the children always thought we ended at a good part. It is a fairly short chapter book and will have you thinking of and finding some of these literary tools yourself!

The Twentieth Wife and The Feast Of Roses

By Indu Sundaresan

Completely captivating from start to finish. The first book introduces you to Mehrunissa a young girl in Mughal India whoes father ran from his country and sought refuge here. Set in the late 1500 to early 1600 it is the story of this girls dream to marry Prince Salim and how she eventually does and captivates him in every way. With tons of twists and turns, it is guaranteed to keep you interested.

Both books are Historical Fiction, depicting actual people and events while padding it with fiction to make it more relatable and interesting.

The Feast Of Roses continues her story as well as the story of the empire. It also introduces the Empress for whom the Taj Mahal was built.

Through it all it is the story of Mehrunissa and the power she held behind the veil.

I can not recommend these books highly enough.

The author is so incredible in her choice of words and descriptions. Hard to believe she is such a young author.

If you can't tell, I truly enjoyed these books and would even possibly read them again, which for me is really saying a lot!

Left for dead : a young man's search for justice for the USS Indianapolis

Peter Nelson ; with a preface by Hunter Scott.
It has been awhile since I have focused on this one area that I am passionate about learning about. The library reminded me that I had this book by sending me an e-mail notifying me that it would be over-due soon. So once again I delved into the topic.
Funny how the interest and intrigue so quickly resume. I have studied a lot about the USS Indianapolis and the events that surrounded and resulted from her sinking, however I never tire of it. I still shiver when they describe in detail what these men went through in the water. I rage when I read about the Navy bringing over the Japanese Commander who sunk the ship to testify against McVay. My heart breaks when I think about what this man endured, the loss of his ship that he was responsible for, the loss of men that he felt responsible for, the five days he survived in the water, the shame of being court-martialed and the devastation at recieving hate mail from the families of the men that were lost. How did he manage? Any one of those things alone would take a great hit on a man, but he endured them all. I find it amazing that he did not commit suicide earlier than he did. How can someone live with that much on their soul? He knew logically that none of it was his fault, but what does logic have to do with emotion?
This book is a great intro to the topic, with a great balance of stories and facts. It focuses quite a bit on Hunter Scott, the sixth grader who eventually ended up being a key player in getting the Government to acknowledge that McVays courtmartial was ludicrous.
It also spends a great deal of time on the court-martial and the efforts of the survivors to exonerate their captain.
As any book on this subject, it was great.

Nickel and dimed : on (not) getting by in America

This book by Barbara Ehrenreich was suggested by a friend. I had also heard a good review by a member of our church.

The friend is part of a group of friends that I see on a regular basis. We are an eclectic group, we all belong to different religions or no religion, I think there is an atheist in the mix, we all have our different stories.

Over the past few months during conversation comments would be made about me being a "spoiled, rich girl". They were made teasingly and not out of spite but they still really bothered me. I mean Really bothered me. I pray that I am not coming off as that type of individual and if I am then there are some things I need to change. I would discuss it with Matt and he (as always) would ground me by explaining that it is not that we are flamboyant or wasteful but that we have a generous lifestyle.

The friend I mention does part time work from her home and her husband has worked at Kinko's for the past ten years in a non-managerial position. He refuses to become a manager because of various reasons. They do live on a very limited income. It was during one of these discussions that she mentioned I should read this book and then maybe I would understand.

The book was very interesting and the author has a way of writing that is very face-valued, what you see is what you get.

Basically she is a well paid writer and for an article she decided to show up in a new town pretending to have no qualifications and find a low wage job, then try to live on that wage and pay for housing, food, neccesities, etc.....

She holds variuos jobs such as being a waitress, a dietary aid at a nursing home, a maid for one of the popular maid companies, and a Walmart employee. It is no surprise that she is not able to make ends meet in any of the situations. It is interesting however hearing her talk about her coworkers and the things they do to try to survive day-to-day.

She makes many a good point, but I couldnt help thinking throughout the book that these jobs were not designed to be career positions, or to deliver wages you can live on. They are meant for highschool and college students, retiree's trying to supplement their retirement pay or just get out of the house a bit, housewifes who's children are all in school now and have nothing better to do.

She tries convincing one that wages should be higher, but why on earth would someone pay you more than eight dollars to hang and sort clothing in the womans section of Wallmart? I understand waitressing is hard, although I have never been a waitress. But if you want to make the money, it seems it is all in the tips. Treat your customers well, make your service personal and they will generally thank you by leaving you a gracious tip. Even if the wages are increased it will not make one bit of difference because the price of goods and services would also likely increase, so what is the point?

Now I am not professing to have seriousely studied any of these issues, these are just opinions and in the future they may change.

But the book got me thinking and I like that. I have requested some of her other books from the Library as well as "In Sam We Trust" the story of Walmart. I'll let you know how it goes.