A Must-Read

Maid:  Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother's Will to Survive is a must-read for everyone.  Especially for those who don't really understand Luke 6:17-49.  This book has nothing to do with God, faith or religion on the surface.  I don't think it even mentions God's name even a curse word!  BUT if one has ever sneered at someone who has purchased "extra" things with an EBT card, or turned away when one saw someone asking for change on the street, it is a must-read and is trying to follow a life that follows Jesus, one should REALLY read this book.  I finished reading it just after I had finished writing my sermon and so I mention it a little in my sermon. 
When my father lost his job when my brother and I were little my mom put an ad in the paper to clean houses.  Even though he found a new job in a few weeks, my mom kept cleaning for twenty years.  And it is HARD HARD work.  I remember going with her on some jobs in the summer.  I remember my mom being able to beat my brother's athletic friends in arm-wrestling because she had built such strength during hours of house work.  I remember her knees and how she had to give up her favorite hobby of gardening because they wore out after years of scrubbing floors.  I remember some of her clients who would hide change to make sure she was honest.  She would always put the found money on the kitchen table, and add some her own when that happened.  And I remember, fortunately, more kind clients who treated her with the dignity that everyone deserves.
This woman's story is not unusual, as there are so many who are working hard for hardly any pay.  She tells an incredible story here and one that we all need to take to heart. 

Nightmare

As I have said, I would rather have a nightmare and wake up and realize it was just a dream than have a good dream and wake up and realize it was all imaginary.  That is especially the case with Dream Land:  The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic.  Don't we all wish that this was just a nightmare. Last year I officiated at the Homecoming service of a young man who was my brother's friend growing up.  He had a long battle with heroin.  

What frustrates me a great deal about this whole horrible nightmare of the proliferation of heroin use and deaths is that now it is happening to white, middle class people, there is media attention.  That is truly upsetting.  All lives matter, they do.  

The other thing that really frustrates me is the fact that it really is all about money.  Big pharmaceutical companies and their greed.  This book is excellent and a must-read.  

Screams

My dear friend texted me about Scream:  Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear and I bought it right away on audible.com.  It really is a topic right up my alley.  I am big fan of haunted attractions and have spent seasons visiting more than 30 of them in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.  I have written about fear a lot on here, and wondered why we like to be scared.  I had hoped that this book would have some answers and it did.  This was a good book, by a local gal, Margee Kerr who has had article published in the New York Times, and The Atlantic, among many other places about her studies of fear.
She has worked with a local haunt here in the North Hills, The Scarehouse in Etna, which I have been to, but not in a few years.  This book made me vow to go back this year.  And to be very brave and try the infamous Basement.  I have to admit that I never found The Scarehouse to be the scariest attraction, that does to Rich's Fright Farm, hands down.  But again, I have yet to try the Basement and I haven't been to Scarehouse in at least two years.  This fall I hope to visit RFF and Scarehouse and see how they compare.

Must Be Hard

It has to be hard for Gustavo Arellano to read some of the letters written to his syndicated column Ask a Mexican.  The book of the same name was painful to listen to for a lot of reasons- NONE of them related to Arellano. Wait.  I can't figure out if Ask a Mexican is still going on.  I mean, it is still going on, but I guess Arellano isn't do it?  I am so confused!
Anyway--people ask the dumbest, rudest questions.  And I know that it is great to see these stupid idiots ask these questions and then see Arellano really make fun of them and point out how stupid they are, even though they are probably too stupid to realize that he is making fun of them, because this guy is really funny and smart.  But still, I mean, should people this stupid be allowed to ask the stupid things that they ask?  Yes, of course.  We all have the right to be wrong.  But really.  Blah!

Get Me Some Kellerman

I have read a lot of Kellermans and written about them a lot, too.  Savage Spawn:  Reflections on Violent Children is an old nonfiction book.  Written in 1999, there are so many more horror stories that it would include today.  This was published just before the Columbine shooting, for example, I assume.  Although folks on goodreads remarked their surprise at it not being included, the book was published in 1999 and the massacre took place in 1999, and it takes a long process to write and publish a book, regardless of the exact date, this one was done before April 20.
In addition to being an author, Kellerman is has a PhD in Psychology and has done a great deal of work with children.  He is very informed on the topic.  This work seems like a very balanced read.  The pros and cons of nature vs. nurture, an examination of what begets violence, is it the media?  Maybe, maybe not.  Is it oppression?  Poverty?  Education?  Maybe, maybe not.  There is discussion of psychopathology as well.  A lot to think about and Kellerman doesn't claim that he or anyone has the answers. But one thing he definitely takes a stand on is children's access to guns.  He admits he has gotten a lot of criticism about this but it makes sense.  I know I always repeat the story that there was a knife attack in China in a school on the same day that the Sandy Hook nightmare occurred.  No fatalities.  Dude to strict gun laws.  Could anyone have stopped the nut who stabbed the Chinese children?  Could anyone have stopped the nut who shot the children of Sandy Hook?  Who knows?  But if the Sandy Hook nut had not had a gun....

Better Dead than Red

Remember that phrase?  It was popular during the McCarthy Era, during which The Paper Cowboy takes place.  I didn't know what TPC was about when I bought the audiobook, I only knew that Kristin Levine who wrote the incredible and the 1954'd Lions of Little Rock had written it and so I was anxious to read it.  I was not disappointed.
There is a lot going on here.  This is an incredible piece of period fiction.  Or was McCarthyism an event, making it historical fiction?  I don't know!  But it was an incredible piece of fiction!  Levine writes that
TPC made Anderson's Mock 2015 Newbery List and it sure is worthy.  It just seems that there are so many fantastic books out this year!  I loved this 5-stars worth, for sure.  But I did love LOLR a wee bit more just because Tommy is so unlikable. But that was Levine's intent, so I really can't fault the book for that!   I really did like that the book is from the POV of a kid who bullies though, because as Levine said in her interview at the end of the audio, so much of the focus on bullying is on the victim, as it should be, but we need to pay attention to the kids who are doing the bullying, too.
My buddy Karen and I do this anti-bullying puppet show.  We focus on the characters who are engaging in bully behavior and we talk to the kids about that saying, "This is why you need to tell someone when there is bullying going on, because when you ask for help you are helping not only the person being picked on, but yourself and your whole community and you are also helping the one who is doing the bullying because often times they have a hurt in their heart that is so big, they don't know how to feel better and that is why they are being mean to others, just like Simone and Dwayne."
There are also some very beautiful words and scenes about sibling relationships in here.  I loved, loved the relationship between Mary Lou and Tommy and then the kind of brother that Tommy became to his younger sister.
Tommy has a lot of hurts in his heart, his mom is having some major mental health problems and his home life is a wreck because of it.
This book is just exceptional, truly.

Just not sure...

why a book like Blizzard isn't as popular as the I Survived series.  This was the first book I've ever read by Jim Murphy and the first I ever heard of the Great Blizzard of 1888.  Which was a REALLY bad storm!  This book is super well done.  I am not a history fan.  I am especially not a history fan of any time in history before WW2 and so for a book to get and keep my attention, the way that this one did, that is saying something.  It made me want to read more about this blizzard, and more by Murphy. 
The other thing that was really interesting here was the whole history of the National Weather Service.  A lot of folks, like me remember when you had to read a newspaper or watch tv or listen to the radio to find out the weather forecast.  Now it is available on your phone at any time.  Before that it was available on the computer at any time.  But back in these days?  Just crazy, crazy how it all went down!  A great read. 

Another Recommendation...

A friend in Sewickley recommended The Smartest Kids in the World:  and how they got that way and I am glad they did.  This was a super interesting book, and it really gets you thinking.  The author, Amanda Ripley is a really great writer.  She is an investigative journalist and the book is really accessible and interesting.  Super well done.  I had never heard of the PISA test, so it was interesting to learn about PISA and how it started this whole project of Ripley's.  When I went to the PISA website I took the sample question and got it wrong.  Very sad.  But not surprising.  It was math related and I have always had a fear of math. 
I can see now that my fear of math has hurt me.  It is odd that now I teach a preschool math class and it is my most favorite class in the world. 
The book takes a look at exchange students from the US who travel to Finland, Poland and South Korea.  These countries both scored very highly on the PISA tests.  Poland's scores were particularly interesting because their changes came in such a short period of time.
I wasn't sure what I was expecting the book to say.  I figured that the United States wouldn't come in super high compared to some other countries, but when it appeared as low as it did, I was surprised.  Here is a nice summary of the results.  Here is some criticism of the PISA test.  And here is my man, Jonathan Kozol on this book, referred to in the criticism of the PISA test link.  Reign of Error is on my to-read list.
Ripley then sets out to figure out some kind of explanation for these results and I was surprised by some of her findings. One of the things that she said that really made sense to me was that in Finland, teachers are held in high regard.  They are the cream of the crop and they are treated as such.  It makes me super mad when I hear so much criticism about teachers.  I am not a teacher, nor do I have the gifts and skills necessary to be one.
Just this week one of our local news channels offered the teaser that our students might have to go to school on Saturdays because of the bad weather and teachers' strike that happened last fall.  It was unreal, the hateful backlash that filled Facebook and Twitter after people heard just this teaser.  This was the headline:  Shaler Considering Saturday Classes to Make Up Snow, Strike Days.
Well, actual truth, as revealed in the story, is that "Saturday Classes" would be a graduation practice just for seniors.
A graduation practice.
Just for seniors.
Now I am not going to vent about this TV station's ridiculous reporting.  Everyone knows that TV stations are known for this kind of garbage.  It isn't even worth the typing exercise.  It's like this, but warning, there is strong language in the video.  This one, too.  But the hateful comments that were posted on Facebook were unreal.  Before knowing the story, and there wasn't even a real story here, people were ripping the teachers apart.
I wonder how many of those hateful comments came from people who really know what a teacher's life is like.  There is no way that those critics have seen the teachers that I have seen.  Our teachers are committed and caring professionals.  Teaching is their life.  Anyway...don't get me started!  Why don't we treat our teachers like the folks in Finland do!  Blah! 
Okay, rant over. 
Anyway, very thought-provoking book.