March 2010

Fiction

Katie Loves the Kittens by Jon Himmelman
Oh, how that chubby little dog loves those kittens! A lesson in delight and self-restraint. So many giggles from the lads here when we read it that they were blowing big boogies out their noses, so you know that's a good book!

Non-Fiction
Expecting Adam: A True Stroy of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic by Martha Beck
When a memoir is truth-filled, moving and funny all at the same time, it's a good book. Beck describes how she and her husband, who've lived their whole adult lives in the predictable, structured world of reason and academic endeavor are changed in beautiful ways with the birth of their most unusual child. yes, even hardass academic elitists can come to understand what is important in life, believe in angels, and start to have beautiful, human hearts!

There is no me without you by Melissa Fay Greene
If you have ever sorrowed over how you could possibly gather together all the hurting homeless children in the world, love them and save them, this book will really mean something to you. It's the story of an average middle class Ethiopian woman, Haregewoin Teferra, who turned her little home into a sanctuary of hope and healing for literally hundreds of African AIDS orpahns. Mrs. Teferra died last year, but her life inspired many others to take seriously and honor the commandment of caring for orphans with renewed zeal. Amazing book.

Guerilla Lovers: Changing the World Through Revolutionary Compassion by Vince Antonucci
Okay, first, this author is a courageous, bizarrely gifted pastor whose flock is the unchurched of the Vegas strip (and now, the world). Second, this is more than a book--it is an instructional call to arms and Witnessing movement to use unabahsed love as a "weapon" to touch lives and turn the world around for God's purposes. Beautifully written, funny, and certainly appeals to my inner guerilla. Click on the link and check out his great website too.

February 2010

Fiction
My Lord Bag of Rice by Carol Bly
Short stories by a giant of a local writer and an amazing teacher. Her stories are funny and soulful and always make you think about day to day bravery in morality and ethics. If you like them, try the collection of powerful essays she edited and taught, Changing the Bully Who Rules the World.

A Desert in Bohemia by Jill Paton Walsh
Historical novel about a fictional country (near Czechoslovakia) and what the post WWII/Cold War?post USSR generations of characters live through under Russian rule. Cold and beautiful.

There Are Cats In This Book by Viviane Schwartz
Though not a cat person myself, I will withhold from my children nothing of joy to them (within reason) where books are concerned. How can I not recommend a book that leaves 2 roughhousing pre-K boys squealing on the floor with laughter every time we read it? Plot: talky, hiding, cheeky cats.

Non-Fiction
The Moral Underground: How Ordianry Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy by Lisa Dodson
I can tell you that I read it through the night and it haunts me and haunts me. The most majestic thing I have read all year. It's a book of stories and social research that is pretty much the first ever written on civil economic disobedience. Bend your mind and read it!

The Water Giver by Joan Ryan
This author (who normally writes about the impact of sports on kids), tells the story of her experiences caring for her son after a freak skateboard accident left him with a traumatic brain injury. I thought I knew what brave looked like until I read this book. She is one amazing woman.

December 2009/January 2010

Fiction
Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann
This is one of those classic kid's books that is so good we have it perpetually checked out from the library for weeks. Toe adores this story of the klutzy cop who teaches safety and his canine buddy who upstages him. Peggy Rathmann books tend to be universally great (like Goodnight Gorilla), but this one has an extra dose of the funny. Toe cracks up just looking at the cover, and cries when we have to return it so "other boys and girls can read it." Yes, it is on his birthday list.

Non-Fiction
Lady from Savannah: the Life of Juliette Low by Gladys Schultz
This lady was one zany southern belle. Actually, she was the founder of the Girl Scouts, and therefore a pretty heavy-duty goddy-goody, but she was also brilliant, funny, adventurous, complex and a bit of a risk-taker. A few years ago Hubby and I visited her historic home in one of the lovely squares of old Savannah, one of the few historic sites nationally that commemorate women of American history (dudes get all the glory, all the statues and museums, etc...). This book is a Girl Scout publication, so beg a copy off whomever you buy your cookies from, or get it at the Goodwill for like 50 cents. Most libraries have it too. Two months till cookies!

Word Watch: the Stories Behind the Words of Our Lives by Anne H. Soukhanov
I love lexicographer and editor Anne Soukhanov's monthly Word Watch column in The Atlantic Monthly and this book was like a big fat bonus of word-fiend fun. Check out the column online at the AM link for a quick fix of neologistic joy!

The Lost Jewish Community of the West Side Flats 1882-1962 by Gene H. Rosenblum
St. Paul community history is one of my favorite subjects, and this book has a personal connection too. When my oldest siblings were little, my family lived on the West Side Flats, then a German-Jewish neighborhood that has since completley disappeared. This is an amaing book about cultural change connected with place and community.

October/November 2009

Fiction
Under the Dome by Stephen King
A new, non-crummy 5 pounder by SK. Usually I don't like creepy, but reading a good book of his takes me back to summers in middleschool when I read all his other thick, creepy good books. The dust jacket has absolutely no description on the flap--not a word, so resist the urge to research the plot. You will wait a very long time on the library request list to get it, or you can wait about 6 months and buy it for $3 like all the other Stephen King books.

Skeeter and the Computer by Frank Modell
Yes, a book about a dog named Skeeter! This book is so long out of print there isn;t even a picture of it on the web, but you can get it at some libraries or you can borrow mine (Arc Value Village, $1.40!). For 1988 the book is way ahead of its time in predicting the friendships between us and our electronics. Mostly it's just cute--also the boys laugh when Skeeter pricks up his radar ear when we read it and keep saying his name.  Modell did a lot of work for The New Yorker, as well as animation for Sesame Street and The Electric Company, so the drawings are awesome too.

Non-Fiction
The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival by Sara Tuvel Bernstein
As a German literature scholar, one of my longtime areas of interest has been Holocaust surivivor memoir. With the surivivor population aging, a lot of new stories are surfacing, and this is one that will open your eyes.

Scroogenomics by Joel Waldfogel
When you hear a Princeton Economics professor wrote a book about Christmas consumerism you probably think Yawn! or maybe Jerk! It's so good, though! And kind of funny and amazing, and you will still want to buy your presents (maybe you will want to buy the book as a present). Not at all what I thought, and now I am so much smarter.

Africa Trek: In the Footsteps of Mankind, From Kilimanjaro to the Sea of Galilee
by Alexandre and Sonja Poussin
BlueCollar Hubby likes to make fun that all the books I read have a title, colon, subtitle. This is a long one, but it has actually been a runaway bestseller in Europe for years (just never got the same fame here). It's a great story about a couple of big hippies who trek on foot over 3 years across 14,000 kilometers of Africa "retracing the passage of early man." They meet folks and take mesmerizing photos. If you are lazy, it is also a Travel Channel series, I think, and likely to be rerun in the wee hours of the morning on a regular basis.

September 2009

Fiction
With the Light (Voumes 1-4) by Keiko Tobe
Although fictional, these graphic novels are written by a Japanese mother raising a son with autism, and are very revealing both about the parenting experience and abou the different ways cultures view and deal with children with ASDs. I am very anxious to read Voume 5 coming out this month!

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Award-winning novel by Australian writer of The Messenger. If I told you only that this was about a little girl who loved books in Nazi germany you would get the wrong idea. It's narrated by Death. The girl steals bookks from Nazi book-burnings and grave diggers. Her foster family hides a Jew in the basement. The prose is so beautiful I find myself holding my breath when I am reading.

Last Light , Night Light, True Light and Dawn's Light by Terri Blackstock
These are actually a series of 4 novels called "The Restoration Novels."   I am not a huge fan of futuristic fiction, nor much of a reader of books that feel the need to call themselves "Christian" fiction, but I borke both my rules to read these. They are good, and they have lots about family and global crisis--they are also suspenseful so a fun sort of pulpy read.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Booklist called this haunting and relentlessy dark. Oh, it is. Bleak future, selfishness, sorrow. The potential for the end. Why read it? It's so good. It won the Pulitzer. It had to be read, and it is about our humanity. If you can't face crying through it for days, wait for the movie out soon, I guess.

Non-Fiction
Amazing Places to Take Your Kid by Laura Sutherland
This is a very nice book with tons of great ideas for adventures--not just the the run-of-the-mill ones, either. It has big glossy photos too so the little guys can get excited about adventurous possibilities.

August 2009

Fiction
Ten Terrible Dinosaurs by Paul Strickland
Paul Strickland's dinosaurs are always a wee bit naughty, and we really like that. His illustrations
always make Roo giggle, and we really like that. Visit Strickland's site and see many of his 32 awesome books!

Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp by Carol Diggery Shields and Illustrator Scott Nash
Yes, a theme is emerging. Even more than naughty dinosaurs, we like dinosaurs having fun. Toe and Roo both love this book, which is basically a prehistoric jam session at a Jurassic juke joint: "The party went on--it was so outrageous, they stayed up well past the late Cretaceous." And the banjo-strumming
Velociraptor reminds us an awful lot of Grandpa Pankake...

T is for Terrible by Peter McCarty
All you poor terrible carivores, you will feel empathy for this big cuddly T-Rex who just can't help himself. Another Roo fave!

Non-Fiction

Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range by Aaron Brown
I love modern memoir, I love Minnesota culture and people writing about place, and I love a book with both depth and humor. Aaron Brown (aka: Minnesota Brown) has it all in his book about growing up and living on today's range. It's so good you'll want to go there--you may even want to book your next event at Tower Sudan. Oh, and his blog rocks, too.

The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns
This is really a different kind of book than what the title might suggest to you. Richard Stearns was a bigtime corporate CEO when he was struck by God's expectations of him to actively live out his faith in the world, hands on. He now is President of World Vision (U.S.), a non-profit dedicated to fighting the causes of poverty worldwide. If you want to read a truly amazing story read this--and if you want to speak with an amazing person, email him or follow his blog. he is very involved in his readership. When I grow up, I want to be a lot like him.

The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne
"This book will challenge you to sell all you have and follow Jesus to the margins."
– Rob Moll, editor, Christianity Today
No book has come closer to capturing the essence of my faith than this one.  Shane Claiborne's "Simple Way" has been described as "evangelical zeal mixed with grassroots activism," and it may make you uncomfortable or lead you to feel convicted, but the book bleeds Christian truth and repect for community. This is the story of an amazing Christian walk I truly admire.

July 2009

Fiction
So Brave, Young and Handsome by Leif Enger
As hard as it is to name one single book as your favorite, mine and BCHubby's favorite of all time is Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. If you haven't read it, do--it will change you. Then go out to the library and request this lyrical next book of Enger's with all the same wit, warmth and poetry of his first. Enger is a Minnesota native and MPR commentator with a deep Christian faith and breath-takingly beautiful mind.

A Wild Ride up the Cupboard by Ann Bauer
Intimate and accurate look into the world of parenting an autistic child, and the intellectual and emotional issues of parenting any child. One of those rare laugh-outloud and three-hankie books!

A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burden to Their Parents, Or the Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to the Public (read it free online at this link) by Jonathan Swift
our monthly selection from The Canon of Old White Men, this indignant satire of 18th Century Ireland's approach to poverty is a must read.  Not to give away the whole story, but the proposal involves stewing, roasting, baking or broiling...

Mercy Watson Thinks Like A Pig by Kate Di Camillo
Oh, the porcine wonder! The Whole BlueCollar Haus loves Mercy-the-pig stories, we love how much she adores hot buttered toast, and we love MN author Kate DiCamillo. Read this one and you will want to read them all!

Non-Fiction
Tea:The Drink That Changed the World by John Griffiths
Don't mistake this book for another of the same name by Laura C. Martin. This is a dense, horribly anglo-centric and verbose book that is a fascinating history not only of tea, but of British Imperialism. To Linnaeans it is virtually a bible, but read it with a grain of salt (and a cup of tea).

The Shock Doctine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein
A contoversial book that enraged corporate America and conservative politicans during the reign of White House fearmongers, this great read is really about how we react to global crises of all kinds, and how to react for the good. It came out a year ago, but it took about that long for me to get to the top of the queue at the library and recieve it--it's that good.

Africa On Six Wheels by Betty Levitov
A cool professor takes her class for a semester into the heart of Africa. Maybe it's because I have loved everything about Africa since I was tiny, or maybe it's because I have a thing for rickety busses...this is a really fresh approach to a travelogue,and it will make you think differently about Africa.