Posts

Character Connections by Robert A. Baggett, Ed.S.

School counseling based on character education with a Christian flavor Published in 2008 . It has become the flavor of the month in many schools to teach character education. As a teacher in a school corporation that purports to teach character but does not go beyond banners and slogans in the official school letterhead in our effort I found this book to be enlightening. Baggett is quite open with his religious beliefs throughout the book, which is appropriate - his character is greatly shaped by it. He stresses that it cannot be overtly expressed in his role as counselor at school, but it is present. Baggett sells the concept of the role of character education in schools quite well. He demonstrates the lack of character in schools and the larger society, identifies several areas that need to be addressed and lays out some general ways to address them along with references to how to address more specific needs. Throughout the book he includes literally hundreds of inspirati

The List by Steve Martini

Image
Good vacation book Written in the wake of the Milli Vanilli music scandal , Steve Martini's The List features an unsuccessful female author (Abby Chandlis) who has written a book that under a male pen name (Gable Cooper) in order to make the book more marketable. So far, no big deal. Lots of authors use pen names. Several female romance authors have used pen names to write detective books and thrillers. In this case, the author actually hires a person to portray himself as the real Gable Cooper - not just in public appearances, but also in all negotiations with the agents, the publishers and Hollywood studios interested in turning the book into a movie. The reason she goes through such elaborate steps is her belief that male authors, especially handsome, charming ones, are marketed much more aggressively. Steve Martini The problem comes in the man chosen to portray Gable Cooper. He is a loose cannon, a frustrated author and, even worse, the real author comes to believ

The Roar by Emma Clayton

Image
There's a lot of meat to this "tween" novel. Quite enjoyable and discussion-provoking Emma Clayton The Roar is a more "kiddie" book than I normally read. This one is aimed at the tween crowd (the book says down to grade 3 but I can't really imagine anyone under the age of 10 getting into it) and I found it to be quite compelling despite being aimed at the younger set and the occasional clunky simile and/or phrase. The Roar has a sequel called The Whisper , which is soon to be published. The book is set in a dismal future in which religion is gone (not really mentioned but people say, "My odd!" rather than "My God!") and the environment has been destroyed by mankind to kill of the animals. 45 years before the story an animal "plague" caused all of the animals to attack people in a crazed frenzy. So, people retreated to just a few countries (UK, Canada and a few others), became part of a highly stratified socie

Hitler Youth: Growing Up In Hitler's Shadow by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Image
"What can happen to a people whose youth sacrifices everything in order to serve its great ideals?" - Adolph Hitler, October 1932 4 CDs 4 hours, 27 minutes Read by Kathrin Kana Susan Campbell  Bartoletti's Hitler Youth demonstrates how the Nazis separated children from the parents, their churches and their senses in an effort to make them loyal to the German state and Adolph Hitler. Starting with the story of a member of the Hitler Youth who was killed in a bloody street fight with Communist youths, Bartoletti shows the chaos in the streets that enabled Hitler to take over Germany. She also details every step that the Hitler Youth took to monopolize the lives and the attention of its young people in order to completely dominate their lives and their loyalties. The reader is introduced to a number of former members of the Hitler Youth and we are told generalities of how the Hitler Youth operated and the specifics of how these actions affected these young peopl

A Painted House by John Grisham

Image
The unabridged audiobook is excellent Published by Bantam Doubleday Audio in 2001 Duration: 12 hours, 7 minutes Read by David Lansbury Unabridged I am not a giant fan of Grisham's latest legal thrillers but I am becoming a fan of his non-lawyer books, such as Bleachers and A Painted House . Grisham's non-legal novels are wonderful "slice of life" views of rural/small town America. "A Painted House" is a rite of passage novel about a 7 year old boy (Luke Chandler) growing up on an Arkansas cotton farm in 1952 with his parents and grandparents. His uncle is off fighting the war in Korea. It is the beginning of the two month long picking season and his family hires some hired hands to help pick the cotton. They hire a combination of "hill people" (poor whites from up in the Arkansas hills) and Mexicans who are literally trucked into Arkansas in the trailer of a semi as if they were cattle. John Grisham Luke learns a lot du

1942: A Novel by Robert Conroy

Image
Some really good parts but... Published in 2009 by Ballantine Books   1942: A Novel follows up on a simple "What if?" from history. What if the Japanese actually invaded and conquered Hawaii rather than simply attacked it on December 7, 1941? Conroy's book is very strong up until the point where the Japanese invade. The premise of the book is historically strong, the strategies seem logical, the personalities of the real historical figures are consistent with what we know of them nowadays. But.. Once the invasion happens, Conroy indulges in exploring the depravities of the Japanese secret police with too much vigor. Yes, I know that the Japanese were brutal, cruel, heartless conquerors that literally raped cities like Nanking, China. He shows a similar brutality in the invasion of Hawaii, which is fine and appropriate - there is no reason to assume the Japanese would have acted any better in Hawaii than they did in China, Korea and the Ph