Ribsy

 Ribsy
by: Beverly Cleary
1964
paperback 192 pages, larger kid-print

One evening after a great pizza at new restaurant in the Heights, we took a walk with the couple we ate with.  On the walk there was a red box that caught our attention and it turned out to be a local book box... like a very mini library.  Kristina and i browsed the books and as there were not any she had read to recommend to me, i chose one that i know i had read years ago when i was a kid.  Ribsy was written one year before i was born and it was interesting to me to think back to how life used to be lived... like new station wagons, phone numbers that began with two letters, the Pledge of Allegiance at school, show and tell in the class room, and so on.  I liked how Ribsy was a dog of great patience and as i am presently seeking to be more patient he was a good teacher.  The book is "a boy and his dog" kind of story, but in chapter one they get separated and in the 6 chapters to follow the story tells of Ribsy's adventures before the inevitable ending to wrap things up nicely.  It was fun to read things from the dog's point of view and i think most pet-lovers would enjoy this step back in time look at a month in the life of a dog and how he is joyfully reunited with his boy.

Elvis & Olive

Elvis and Olive
by: Stephanie Watson
2008
Hardback, 230 pg, kids print size

I've noticed that we have some after-school home-work doers pop into Menchie's so yesterday I asked one of the young boys (the one with glasses) what was a book he read recently that he liked.  He thought and said, Elvis and Olive.  I asked him if it made him laugh and he said yes.  So he wrote it down for me and today i went to check it out from the library and it just happened to be on display!  I rode home pretty excited and read chapters in between doing Saturday chores while icing my neck.
Oh, what a disappointment.  I was not disappointed in the author's attempt to communicate cleverly and effectively a story told from the viewpoint of two 10-year-olds.  What made me sad was the story line.  Summer vacation for kids should be fun but what i read was disturbing to me as a 47 year old reader and i thought i would never want my soon to be 10 year old niece reading this.  These kiddos experienced abandonment, deceit, infidelity, betrayal, hate, sadness, theft, confusion, destruction of property, invasion of privacy... and then a few pages of somewhat reconciliation at the end.  Looks like i need to become more familiar with books at this age-level so i can recommend a good one. 

Left to Tell

 Left to Tell
Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
by: Immaculee Ilibagiza
2006
210 pages, paperback (with a few photos too)

There are gaps in what I know about history, the world, and the people who live in it.  How did i not know of this awfully tragedy that took place in my own lifetime?  In 1994, over 1 million people were brutally murdered in about 100 days in Rwanda, many died at the hand of what had been a friend or neighbor.  Tragic indeed.  Thankfully Immaculee's retelling of her own survival story has a redemptive tone.  Yes, it was very hard for me to read, yet i read through it quickly and will think about it maybe for the rest of my life.  Stories like these change one's perspective on so many things.  
One Tuesday in my ladies prayer time we were discussing various aspects of Col. 3:12 (putting on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience) and one of the gals used this book to to further explain elements of compassion.  She loaned Left to Tell to me, and as I wanted to learn more about Africa while Sophie was living there, I began to read it.  Then I put the book down for these images were too much for me,  then i thought i can not simply stick my head in the sand.  I read on.  It is a very sober, straightforward firsthand account giving just enough background to make some sense of two tribes Hutus and and the Tutsis that have for years lived with a form of unity including intermarrying within  Rwanda.  Hope springs from the pages; hope in God, hope of forgiveness, hope of healing. 
It is a book worth reading. 

No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency The Limpo Academy of Private Detection

The New No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency 
The Limpo Academy of Private Detection

by: Alexander McCall Smith
hardback 257 pages
2012

I just now realize that i have skipped a few mysteries in the detective series written by Alexander McCall, for i was at the library and thought i reading a book about Africa would be nice as i seek to picture Sofi living there.  I found the No.1 Ladies Detective Series but because I was without my glasses a could not tell which one was next for me to read.  The Green book looked good so i chose this one and right away i was transported back to an Africa that i have never been but one that i had read of in Thailand when i first was introduced to these delightful books.
Life goes at a slow pace and it is easy to get into step with Mma Romostwe and those in her life in Botswana.  The biggest news is that Mma Makutsi is now married (that may have happened in the book called The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party) and she and her husband are building a home.  The matron of the orphanage, Mma Potokwane has been forced out of her role...there is a need for a detective here and how wonderful for the author of the "bible" of private detection, Clovis Andersen, to have arrived in Botswana and to be involved with the progress. 
i always learn a new word or two when i read the detection stories as Alexander McCall does a wonderful job in creating Africa in his descriptions and in using a few local words to add to the flavor of all the bush tea that gets consumed through the pages of the mysteries as they are solved.  "Pula, pula,pula!" is what i learned this time and as page 187 tells, it "is the cry of triumph, of joy, that was universal in Botswana.  It mean rain, rain, rain,--just the right cry for a dry country that lived for the day that the first life-giving rains arrived-- that day of ominous purple skies, and heat, and the wind that precedes the first drops of water spattering on dancing on the baked ground."
Another great read, not too ambitious, but with good insight to human character as seen through the eyes of a traditionally built woman who has a heart as big as the country.
in my opinion, the books do not need to be read in order, for each story gives enough detail for you to enjoy it on its own and each has a satisfactory conclusion.  For a closing remark i will quote Mma Romostwe's thoughts on friendship, "New friendships can be every bit as strong as old friendships, and of course became old friendships in due course." 
These books are like spending time with a good friend.

The Fitting Room

The Fitting Room

Putting on the Character of Christ
by Kelly Minter
2011
paperback 206 pages (which includes notes and useful study questions at the back)

As people chosen by God and dearly loved just how are we to dress?  Good question, and Kelly Minter does a good job of answering it chapter by chapter as she describes and gives insight (both scriptural and personal) into the virtues put forth in Colossians 3, mainly honing in on verses 12-15.  I am thankful to our ladies mission prayer group that meets on Tuesdays at noon and to the wonderful teaching that comes as each of us expounds further into a character trait we are to joyfully grow in. (i got to teach on forgiveness, and like always, God teaches you a lot as you prepare to teach).

This all would be totally overwhelming, the idea that we NEED to be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patient, forgiving, not to mention filled with peace and joy.  But the truth is, due to the reality that as God's children we are so loved by Him, that it is not a "i have to wear that and i don't want to" but it is replace with "i get to wear this and it looks great on me!" kind of mind-set change.  Changing what we "put on and live out" makes all the difference. Just like our physical clothing we are intentional with what we wear, it takes being intentional to choose patience over hotheadedness, or compassion over selfishness, etc.  You don't go to a wedding with your old sweat suit under your formal gown, and so it is you need to take off (and throw away) old useless ways of going about living...and you can because God loves you and has a better, more satisfying way for His children to live.

I highlighted the bits of Kelly's book in pink in the spots where she brought other helpful scripture into the concepts of putting on the character of Christ, and i'm happy to say there is quite a bit of pink in the book.  This to me makes the message more reliable.  It is an easy to read kind of book, not weighing you down with     guilt, but lifting up with hope and i think it will be one i will keep on the shelf, to refer to and recommend.

One Thousand Gifts

One Thousand Gifts
One Thousand Gifts
a dare to live fully right where you are
by: Ann Voskamp
2010
hardback, 237 page if you count the notes

In keeping with reading only books that have come to me recommended, i knew for a while that i wanted to read this one with the blue eggs in the nest on its cover.  I bought a copy (before i read it) for Melanie's 50th birthday thinking that 50 gifts would be cool, a thousand gifts would be way cool. Then our church (HFBC) had a ladies retreat and Kelly Matte, our pastor's wife did a session about it, but as i was not there, i do not know what she taught.  i checked it out of the church library but then got too busy with writing to read it.  I did read the first few pages and put it down quick as the raw description of birth and then the death of a child was too much for me.  Then i got sick, i thought instead of laying around, i will lay around with a book and because so many thought i would like this one, i picked it up again.  That is saying a lot before i say anything, i know. 
So, the book.  It is poetically written, yet touches on points like a good spiritual disciplines book should, so if it were mine it would have underlines in it.  It is a story, but one that is not in any hurry of getting anywhere and in the end, other than a trip to Paris (that may have been better off left as personal journal rather than included in the book) you really do not have a sense of arriving as far as story resolution goes.  But there is big resolution in the process that one homeschooling mom of six living on a pig farm in Canada goes through in her way to God, in her journey to fully trust Him.  She comes upon a word  eucharisteo meaning to give thanks and uses it page after page in her growth process in how this really unfolds. All boiled down one might say living a life of gratitude leads to living a full life of joy.  I would certainly agree.   The part that goes along with the title and with the journey is that she counts gifts... the little things that make up life, and she writes them down.  And she does so poetically.  On page 83 she reaches gift number 1000. Resurrection bloom, an amaryllis, a gift a year in the coming in reference to her mother-in-law's gift of a plant before she died of cancer.  There are lots of pages left for further discovery and the author uses her life as the class room of this growth into the goodness and blessings of God. At the end there are five pages of footnotes to give credit to authors and reference to books she has quoted in each chapter, so one has good resources if they would like to go deeper in an area. 
i liked the book and think it would be one that i would really have enjoyed reading in a book club where more could be expounded person to person after each chapter read.  At the end the reader is invited to join an on-line club to get even more information on how to live fully, complete with photos.  Many praise her book, and for good reason.  

Sluggers #1

Sluggers #1
Magic in the Outfield
by: Loren Long and Phil Bildner
Paperback 136 pages

Thank you Noah for suggesting Sluggers #1 for me to read!  It was a joy to meet Griffith, Ruby and Graham, the Payne children and their mom, "Guy" who plays as catcher for a traveling baseball team back in 1899.  The book Sluggers #1 is the first in a series of 6 that were originally called "Barnstormers" which is the name of their baseball team.  There is a mystery to be solved and at the end of the 136 page paperback we get just enough clues to draw is in and want to read more to figure it all out.  I love the creative and expressive illustrations throughout the story.  But what really captured me was the mini dictionary of baseball terms used back-in-the-day that add such authenticity to the story.  For an example, at the beginning of chapter 4 in the margin we can read that a Striker's Box is the area in which the striker (now known as the batter) stood when it was his turn to hit.  Also known as the "sticker's line."  Dish: home plate.  Lumber: baseball bat. also called "timber" and a Hurler is a pitcher.  The recommended age for the series is from 8-12, but at 47 (and as a gal who played softball back when I was kid) I found the book to be a lot of fun.  Noah, can't wait to borrow the rest of the series, thanks again for sharing some of your favorites with me.  Oh, and if you would like more information about it all, there is a cool website to get the behind the scene scoop! http://www.lorenlong.com