Three Books I'm Excited About Right Now...

 I haven't finished reading any of the following books yet, but felt ready to start talking about them anyway.


Born for Love: Why Empathy is Essential - and Endangered, is written by the same team as The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog.
It follows the brain science, interwoven with many personal stories, about how people learn and develop the essential trait of empathy.  Empathy is woven into the very fabric of our being, but basically, we learn empathy by being loved by our parents (and other caregivers) from the time we are tiny infants. This tends to happen naturally, as our responses as parents are also practically automatic. The consequences of not receiving this normal loving care (such as those raised in orphanages in Russia and Romania) are serious, but can be addressed to some extent. (Not only empathy, but also things like IQ, immunity to disease and physical balance are related to the nurturing most babies receive at a very young age.)

One part of the book I particularly enjoyed was about a woman who founded an organization that helps schoolchildren learn empathy. Just hearing about how this woman grew up was fascinating.

If we are all born for love, Roots of Empathy founder Mary Gordon was delivered into some of the most fertile ground imaginable. She grew up in Newfoundland, in a multigenerational  household that included her three brothers and one sister, both of her grandmothers, and an uncle who was intellectually disabled. Her parents also often took in "strays." Unmarried women who'd gotten pregnant would live with them during their pregnancies, men leaving prison would visit nightly for a free meal. Gordon's father eventually served as the Canadian minister of labor,a dn her mother was an artist. The Catholic family was deeply committed to social justice. AT the dinner table, the rule was that the conversation must focus on ideas - literature, policy, religion, philosophy - not gossip or mundane events. But the table rang out with laughter and spirited debate: this didn't produce sullen resentment.

How to Raise an Adult:  Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success by Julie Lythcott Haims has been a wonderful read so far. The author is a former Stanford dean who has also experienced the challenges of today's parenting norms from raising her own children. This has led to a easy-to-read (with lots of laugh-out-loud and ah-ha moments) practical guide to what's wrong with parenting (and related issues such as the "College Admissions Arms Race"), how it's affecting our children and what we can do about it.

Her suggestions seem much more manageable than overwhelming. To give you a sense of it, here is a list of "How to Let Your Kid Play" (though, in the book, each item is detailed with information and suggestions):

• Value free play. 
• Know your kid. 
• Create agreements with other parents. 
• Offer materials and equipment that foster imaginative play. 
• Let your kid decide how and what to play. 
• Work on creating space between you and your kid.
• Develop a capacity to wince but not to pounce.
• Create a culture of free outdoor play. 
• Get inspired. 
• Encourage change in your community. 
• Model play. 

I figured that even reading some of the crazy helicopter-parenting stories aloud to my kids would help ensure that I wouldn't imitate such behavior. ;)

I am also looking forward to reading her suggestions in upcoming chapters (I'm about half-way through) on teaching life skills, teaching them to think, preparing them for hard work, letting them chart their own path and listening to them. Good stuff!


Dear Professor Einstein: Albert Einstein's Letters to and from Children just arrived in the mail yesterday.  Looking forward to having a little downtime for savoring it. (A girl can dream, right?)

Conversion Stories I've Read in the Last Year

 I really think that we cradle Catholics would do well to listen carefully to what our converts have to teach us about how God works (through their story of how God worked in their lives - which is amazing, profound, mysterious, crazy, etc.!!!) and how we can learn to better interact with our culture and bring God to the world. These are all wonderful books, and good reading for high schoolers too!

Something Other Than God by Jennifer Fulwiler 

Wonderful atheist-to-Catholic conversion story with a good dose of humor. God works in mysterious and sometimes hilarious ways! An autobiographical story about how God came into her life at various times and places and led her to a place she would have never imagined as a feminist, pro-choice atheist: the Catholic Church. I especially enjoyed the humorous stories about her antics as a stubborn kid, such as moving all the Bibles in the library to the "Fiction" section. Yes, God really doesn't give up on anyone! ;)

Not God's Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms by Holly Ordway

Fascinating atheist-to-Catholic conversion story by a literary-academic type who converted partly thanks to her competitive saber sword-fighting. No really! I love the way she skillfully and accessibly weaves through the series of ideas and arguments she worked her way through in the process of conversion.I am also completely fascinated by the fact that she is a Catholic holding the chair of apologetics at Houston Baptist University. So naturally there's a lot of good apologetics content here.

Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line by Abby Johnson

A must read, especially for anyone involved in the pro-Life movement. This is a great story anyway, but especially highlights how various ideas about how to fight abortion helped or didn't help in really making progress in this most important struggle. 

A Little of What We've Been Reading and Watching Lately...

Books:

I just started reading Hallie Lord's Style, Sex and Substance: 10 Catholic Women Consider the Things that Really Matter and am really enjoying it (lots of laugh-out-loud stuff as well as some most excellent substance). Avoided the sold-out-on-first-day-on-Amazon problem by getting it on Kindle. ;)

I'm also enjoying Fr. James Martin's Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life. It is quite good and true and VERY FUNNY, but I knew I'd like it as I heard him give a talk on the same subject in Milwaukee last year.

I did finish the aforementioned Seek First the Kingdom: Challenging the Culture by Living Our Faith by Cardinal Wuerl. It's an excellent book.

And it seems like I'm always, slowly, re-reading Caryll Houselander's beautiful classic The Reed of God.



Movies:

Downton Abbey - John and I watched the entire first two seasons (all that's available so far) in about 10 days last month. Quite enjoyable in many ways, though there were a few spots early on where I began to wonder if it was going to turn out to be a soap opera. Really quite the contrary - excellent character development, historical perspective (how many World War I era dramas set in England have you watched or read?), etc. etc. For those not in the know, it's not a story for the whole family, though we are now watching and discussing our way through it with some of our teens.

The Way - I very much enjoyed this movie. I love stories about the intersection of modern secular culture with the faith - especially when they don't take their ideas too seriously. I also found all of the on-location stuff along El Camino de Santiago to be very fascinating and beautiful. Makes me want to make trek myself one day.

Midnight in Paris - This was a fun, quirky movie with some rather lovely ideas and dialogue scattered throughout. I don't want to spoil the plot, so I will say very little, but I do rather enjoy movies that seem to embrace a healthy melding of idealism with the beauty of reality.

Moneyball - Great story, especially for those who love baseball. It's funny, though, how off-putting the name is. For a quite a long time I suffered from the misconception that it was some sort of documentary on how baseball is financed (ugh!). I also have to admit, as a life-long San Francisco Giants fan, that it was a really odd sensation to find myself rooting for the Oakland A's. ;

A Few Quick Book Notes

A Man Named Dave by Dave Pelzer - This the third book in an autobiographical trilogy by a child abuse survivor (It follows "A Child Called It" and "The Lost Boy".). The abuse was horrible, but the meat of it is understanding how he survived psychologically and how others unraveled the lies and eventually rescued him from his abusive mother. This third book focuses on his adult life and how his past affected him and his loved ones. I also found his attempts to understand his mother and the culture she grew up in to be quite fascinating. A harrowing and engaging book, though you can feel the uncomfortableness of the author sharing his own story. Definitely worth a read, but best read in the context of the series, I think.

 

 

Patriotic Grace: What it is and Why We Need It Now by Peggy Noonan - This was an interesting, thoughtful, quick read. I'm not so sure about her predictions of a large-scale catastrophe in the U.S. (in terms of an attack on the electric grid, or something like that), nor all of her solutions, but I really liked her points about the need to change the tenor of our political discourse, including: we have to be careful that politics doesn't become our religion! Amen to that!

 

7 Quick Takes, 5/27/11

1.

Wow - it's been a busy week around here (!), beginning with Ria's 18th birthday last weekend! I was recovering from Strep, so I couldn't do much of anything. Ria and friends and siblings did most of the planning and I did some quickly grocery shopping (we had hot dogs, ice cream, watermelon and misc. potluck items). We also had a lovely may procession and crowning around the yard and under the beautifully blossoming trees before having the crowning in the house.

2.

Monday morning we learned that good friends of ours in Joplin lost their home in the Tornado. Fortunately they are all well, though they had some worries at first as their older son was at the movies with friends when the Tornado hit. We are praying for all those who have died and for all those who are suffering in this terrible tragedy. Seems to hit a little closer to home as we just drove through Joplin at the end of our big road trip earlier this month.

3.

Last night was our homeschool group's high school graduation. We had a whopping SIXTEEN graduates! I was in shock that they were old enough to graduate. SO many of them are ones we've known for years and shared classes and performances with over the years. Had a nephew in the crowd who is following his older brother to Christendom in the fall. Very exciting!

4.

Yesterday morning we had big news in Milwaukee! The beloved rector of our local seminary, Fr. Don Hying, was named auxiliary bishop of Milwaukee. It seems like everyone is bouncing off the walls with joy. We have many friends who are close to him and our pastor was one of his teachers in the seminary. Happy day!

5.

In bummer news, one of our family's favorite athletes, Buster Posey of the San Francisco Giants, had a season-ending injury in a dramatic home-plate collision on Wednesday night. Buster is the reigning Rookie of the Year and a significant part of the heart and soul of his team, playing a big role in their World Series win last fall. A little extra bummer because we have tickets for a Brewers-Giants game this weekend here in Milwaukee and were hoping to see him play.

6.

Now that Ria has been accepted to the college of her choice (although there is a short waiting list) it seemed a reasonable time to start getting rid of school paperwork that she didn't need to save for sentimental reasons. So often, on a day to day basis, I don't feel like we've accomplished that much in the way of education. So I was a little surprised to see how much evidence there was of education going on around here. She picked out a smallish pile of things she'd like to keep (including many delightfully funny drawings and a page with two or three paragraphs on it labeled "A Novel".

7.

I'm really behind on writing notes about movies I've watched and books I've read. Here are a few quick lists I hope to spend more time with in the near future:

Movies I've seen lately:

127 Hours (I think my expectations were too high - didn't like it very much).

Finding Fatima: An interesting documentary which uses some footage from the movie The 13th Day (which I haven't seen).

The Shroud of Turin: 3 Movie Collector's Edition - Three interesting documentaries on one DVD. Silent Witness, produced in 1978, is one that made a big impression on me as a child. It's a little spooky for the younger set, but quite interesting (though sadly faded - doesn't look like they digitally remastered this one). The second film was produced by the BBC in 2008 and focuses on beginning to address the carbon dating process that seemed to prove the Shroud a Medieval fake. The third movie is the official movie for the exposition of the Shroud in Turin in 2010 and is quite lovely.

Books I've read lately:

How to Eat a Small Country - (Slightly rough around the edges, but loved it on the whole. The story of a Food Network chef who quits her job and moves with her family to France in order to try to save her marriage)

The World is Bigger Now - (a journal/memoir about two female American journalists who were captured by the North Koreans and held hostage for 5 months back in 2009). The book is a very personal account of the ordeal written by Euna Lee, one of the two journalists. It was a quite a good read, and very moving at times - especially in recounting her relationship with her husband and young daughter. An unexpected spiritual theme runs through the book, including the journalist's decision to admit her belief in Christianity, even though she knew it was a dangerous thing to say.

The King's Speech - A rather thorough double-biography of Lionel Logue and King George VI. Fascinating and a great follow-up to the movie. We listened to this on audio during our road trip.

Schooled - I've been curious about this title for quite a while and finally picked up a copy at a rummage sale. A light young-adult novel. A homeschooled and socially isolated teenage boy (homeschooled by his hippie grandmother, with lots of hippie values, minus the drugs and free love) is sent to a public school he definitely doesn't fit in, but has some interesting and humorous adventures anyway. An interesting theme to play with, and the author uses it largely to shed some light on social problems common in today's schools.

As I Am - by Patricia Neal - A harrowing but very spiritual autobiography of the famous movie actress who converted to Catholicism on her deathbed a few years ago.

Books I've Started Reading Recently:

Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather

The Penderwicks at Point Mouet by Jeanne Birdsall

It's All Too Much by Peter Walsh

The Happiness Project by Gretchin Rubin

Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two: Holy Week

I am so thrilled to be in the process of reading the Holy Father's new second volume on Jesus of Nazareth. The book is published by Ignatius Press and will be released on Thursday, March 10th.

I loved the first book, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, which I reviewed on Love2learn.net. I led a discussion group on the book with some homeschooled teens that proceeded slowly through the book over the course of many months. I wrote a number of blog posts about the book and the discussion on my old blog. We also own the first book on audio, purchased especially for my teenage son, who plugs through complex material rather well when it's in audio format. I like to keep this audio on my iPod and re-listen to chapters here and there. It's that good.

I want to make very clear that the teens in my group and I as their leader all got a lot out of the book, but didn't pretend, or even really attempt, to understand everything in the book. We studied one chapter per week and tended to focus on the additional significance and meaning that Pope Benedict brought out of each of the Gospel stories. There were some tough vocabulary words here and there, but the process of understanding became easier as we encountered the words multiple times and were also aided by a very handy glossary in back (this second book also includes a glossary).

I just received my soft-review-copy of this new book yesterday, so I've just made it to the first segment that I'm permitted to talk about before the release of the book: Chapter 3, Section 4 on "the Mystery of the Betrayer" (in the midst of a chapter on the Last Supper). There are two things that caught my eye in this segment that I thought I'd share here. The first is that the pope interprets Jesus' words regarding his betrayer as something that also applies to some in the Church in the future.

So the psalm verse casts a prophetic shadow over the Church of the evangelist's own day, in which the Eucharist was celebrated, and indeed over the Church of all times: Judas' betrayal was not the last breach of fidelity that Jesus would suffer. "Even my bosom friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me' (Ps 41:9). The breach of friendship extends into the sacramental community of the Church, where people continue to take 'his bread' and to betray him.

Jesus' agony, his struggle against death, continues until the end of the world, as Blaise Paschal said on the basis of similar considerations. We could also put it the other way around: at this hour, Jesus took upon himself the betrayal of all ages, the pain caused by betrayal in every era, and he endured the anguish of history to the bitter end.

I'm always amazed at how reading Pope Benedict's writings (both before and after he became pope) challenge me - not only in forcing me to put in the effort to understanding, but also, in a more philosophical way, to expand the way I look at my faith and at the world through the lens of my faith.

The second piece that struck me is the concept of Judas' second tragedy and the idea of a wrong kind of remorse:

His second tragedy - after the betrayal - is that he can no longer believe in forgiveness. His remorse turns into despair. Now he sees only himself and his darkness; he no longer sees the light of Jesus, which can illumine and overcome the darkness. He shows us the wrong type of remorse: the type that is unable to hope, that sees only its own darkness, the type that is destructive and in no way authentic. Genuine remorse is marked by the certainty of hope born of faith in the superior power of the light that was made flesh in Jesus.

Powerful stuff! I think both of these passages help illustrate how much we should look on the Gospels, and an illuminative study of the Gospels, as something comprehensively relevant to our lives today.

Heavy Reading

I'm almost done with my second child psychology/parenting type book of the summer. They're both informational books designed for the masses, so they're relatively quick reads, but heavy nonetheless. Also scary in places, though helpful in many ways. I found them both to be quite worthwhile reads on the whole and hope to write up thorough reviews on Love2learn in the near future.

Incidentally, neither mentions homeschooling a bit, though they may end up providing a morale boost to homeschool parents both because they provide pretty broad coverage of some of the things schools struggle with and because they highlight some things children need (like time spent experiencing the world outside and plenty of time out-of-the-desk for younger children) that are easy and natural to accomplish at home. Both come from completely secular viewpoints.

Here are the titles:

Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men by Leonard Sax

This book focuses on the problems - particularly in motivation - prevalent among teenage boys and young men today (especially as contrasted with 30 or 40 years ago). The author, a medical doctor AND psychologist, highlights five likely causes of the problem (changes within the school system, video games, ADHD medications, environmental factors and cultural problems (especially the lack of role models). To be fair, this list over-simplifies factors that he treats in a pretty balanced way. For example, he doesn't insist that video games should be entirely avoided, but advocates reasonable time limits parental screening of individual games to avoid dangerously violent and inappropriate ones.

I did find the book alarming in a number of places, partly because his tone is a bit sensational in places (although there are probably many people who could use such a wake-up call). Keeping the skeptometer in tune while reading the book is a good idea, but there's really a lot of helpful stuff to dig through here.

and

NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

This book focuses on a number of issues relating to parenting and education in which science shows us a different view from current cultural assumptions. As someone who's a convention breaker both by circumstances and personality, I found this book, for the most part, quite delightful. While the previous book is based on one doctor's experiences and interactions, but with a lot of scientific data for back-up, this book is a denser conglomeration of scientific studies on different topics which the authors have gotten heavily involved in. I loved how often they had actually sat down and observed studies conducted by experts in various micro-fields of child behavior while still sharing interesting stories about how their new-found knowledge had impacted their own families. Lots of cool stuff!

Like the previous book, however, there were certainly a few things here and there that bothered me or set off my skeptometer (not so much regarding the scientific data as the commentary surrounding it). Also, younger moms who tend towards the paranoid might want to discuss the details with friends and family enough to help them avoid over-analyzing their own methods. The book isn't about some sort of perfectionist parenting technique, but more about eliminating (or at least casting some doubt upon) ideas that tend to be counterproductive.

A Nice Explanation about Avoiding Extremes

I'm almost done reading Archbishop Dolan's new book To Whom Shall We Go? Lessons from the Apostle Peter. It's a lovely and very readable book which draws simple, manageable spiritual lessons from the life of St. Peter. It seems like a lovely parting gift to our archdiocese, especially given the dedication:

To my brother bishops, priests, and deacons, the consecrated religious men and women, and the wonderfully faithful people of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

There are lots of wonderful tidbits and stories in the book, but I just wanted to share his explanation of one important concept that's on my mind a lot (and applies to many things):

Despair will never be ours if we believe in the power of the sacrament of Penance and tap into it very often. This sacrament helps us avoid both extremes - the presumption of the Pharisees and the despair of Judas - and it keeps us, with St. Peter, in the healthy center. Contrite? Yes, but confident in the Lord's mercy. Aware of the sin? You bet, but equally aware of Christ's desire to forgive. Repentant? You bet, but renewed as well. And for us, this moment of honesty and healing takes place, concretely and personally, in the sacrament of Penance.

The concept of hope being in the happy middle between presumption and despair is actually my favorite example when I try to explain to others the important theological (and practical!) concept of means and extremes. It's a very useful way of keeping us in balance in every aspect of our lives.

A Lovely Story with some unexpected Catholic Background

When I was doing my research for this year's library tree project, I spent a bunch of time at a local bookstore, checking out great new children's titles. Easily my favorite (which it turns out the library had already purchased) was Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Nivola.

It's a lovely true story about a lady from Kenya who won the Nobel Peace prize for helping her country recover its economic security by starting a movement to replant the trees and small farms and gardens that had helped the country prosper in the past, but that had been cut down to make way for larger commercial farming (which had devastated the economy).

The thing that had struck me about the book on this first read-through was the beautiful sense of order and dignity - the importance of stewardship of nature, the use of the people themselves as important resources in solving problems, the simplicity of remembering that one person can really make a substantial change, the need for perseverance even when things aren't easy right away. Basically: we change ourselves to change the world. It also has lovely small-is-beautiful and principle-of-subsidiarity sort of themes in it.

The thing I had forgotten was a detail about the years that Wangari had spent in America - where she went to college and majored in biology. I had completely forgotten that she went to a Catholic college (even though the campus picture is portrayed with nuns in habits walking around!). There is a lovely indication in the story that their philosophical influence had a significant impact on her story (and is of course an essential part of the story that her background in biology helped prepare her for her good work):

Her heart was filled with the beauty of her native Kenya when she left to attend a college run by Benedictine nuns in America, far, far from her home. There she studied biology, the science of living things. It was an inspiring time for Wangari. The students in America in those years dreamed of making the world better. The nuns, too, taught Wangari to think not just of herself but of the world beyond herself.

How eagerly she returned to Kenya! How full of hope and of all that she had learned!

The story (and the book) is SO right and so beautiful in so many ways. It's a book anyone could love.

The unexpected discovery I made when I read the "Author's Note" in the back of the book was that the college Wangari attended in the United States was Benedictine College in Atchinson, Kansas, which is familiar to me for many reasons - most particularly because the husband of a good friend of mine is a professor of philosophy there.

Good Lenten Reading

I just finished Our Sunday Visitor's new title Saints of Asia and is it ever interesting! Even with some occasionally disorganized writing, it's a quick and engaging read filled with inspiring stories of saints and martyrs and lots of interesting tidbits regarding the Church in Asia (which I knew next to nothing about).

Turns out to be a timely read too as I just watched the Xavier movie on Sunday. Actually, that's what inspired me to pick up this book which I plugged through in just a few days. We're still pretty much snow-bound and sick-bound which allows for a bit more reading time than usual.

Now perhaps this will help me dive into that Christians in China book from Ignatius Press that both intrigues and intimidates me. :)

Classical Archaeology of Ancient Greece and Rome

My children (Gus, 12 and Ria, 14) are really enjoying this series from the Teaching Company - I've been keeping one ear on it while doing computer work, but haven't had a chance to sit down and watch very much of it myself yet. We had trouble watching the first few lectures with a larger group as there was too much giggling over facial expressions and such. As a family, we've been loving it - he's engaging, passionate about his material and quite the story teller. There is a little bit of mature content (generally pretty delicately handled), but Gus and Ria skipped over a lecture (for now) that was tagged with a warning that it should previewed for children. I really appreciate (and respect) that the company had the forethought to consider that children might watch it and to give parents a heads-up.

For the Love of Literature by Maureen Wittmann

I'm so excited about my friend Maureen's new book that is now available for pre-order from Ecce Homo Press. Maureen is a kindred spirit in the "living books" department and I already know that this book will be a favorite on my shelf and have even recommended it to friends who are interested in the way our family homeschools.

I have a pre-publication copy in my hands and it is fantastic. I had a chance to read through it this summer.

For the Love of Literature is a project Maureen has been working on for years and it's designed especially for Catholic homeschool parents. It's a well-organized guide to using real books - biographies, historical fiction, beautiful picture books, etc. to study any subject area of interest. The book lists are extensive and up-to-date (meaning that she only included books that are currently in print) which means, among other things, that this could be an extremely useful resource for using your library well. As a matter of fact, since we're slated to pick the books for our local library's "Holiday Tree" again this year (and the emphasis is, once again, on Popular Non-Fiction and Junior Non-Fiction), I will definitely be using Maureen's book to sift through for ideas.

In addition to the book lists are numerous possible ways to make a living-books curriculum work for your family.

Some Out-of-Print Goodies

We had our annual library book sale today and found lots of wonderful goodies. Here are a few out-of-print ones that look particularly good, most of which can be found in abundance on Amazon.com (used) for a real bargain. Please note that I haven't had a chance to read through every word yet...

Explore America: Historic Places (Reader's Digest)

The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors: Recipes You Should Have Gotten from Your Grandmother

Journeys into Medieval England by Michael Jenner (gorgeous photos of medieval architecture , both intact and in ruins, text looks surprising balanced, though the assassination of King Edward II is rather gruesome)

Amazing Buildings by Philip Wilkinson (DK)

Love in the Little Things: Tales of Family Life by Mike Aquilina

I just started this little gem (written by a Catholic homeschool dad and blogger) - and I'm already 3/4 of the way through. It's a very modest and yet in a way astounding collection of random stories about family life that are connected to or speak to our Faith in some way. It's inspiring, encouraging and, in a number of places, laugh-out-loud funny.

Here's a little sampling from a chapter contrasting his severe allergy to cats with an aversion to sin...

If only I had a suffocating feeling whenever I approached a sinful thought, word, deed or omission. If only my neck swelled upon each occasion of impatience with t he kids, insensitivity toward my wife or anger toward those I perceive as enemies. If only my urges to criticize others could be automatically overwhelmed by the desire to see a shopping mall or for some other severe mortification. If only I could see that, while it's irrational to believe in a feline conspiracy to make me sneeze, it's the height of sanity to believe in a vast demonic conspiracy to make me sin.

More when I finish the book.

I think I'll be pairing it up with Danielle Bean's new book for review in Heart and Mind.

Read a sample chapter at the publisher's website.

Danielle Bean's new book

I just finished Mom to Mom, Day to Day: Advice and Support for Catholic Living by Danielle Bean. Fans of Danielle's blog will undoubtedly be eager to absorb more of her wisdom and good humor. This book is aimed especially at younger moms who are overwhelmed and still trying to figure out how to work out a lot of the details of smoothly running their homes (and lives). I found it "light", but inspiring; helpful, but not preachy. Sure there are things I do differently in my home than she does. But that's not a problem - that's exactly the point!

In the end, I've rejected all the expert parenting philosophies. This isn't because there's anything particularly bad about any of them. Experience has simply led me to employ a different parenting philosophy in their place: my own. I call mine Do What Works Best for your Family.

Something about the book reminds me of one of my favorite quotes - practically my motto for homeschooling "Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible." (St. Francis of Assisi). Danielle lays out a lot of simple ideas for handling the necessary (like prioritizing housekeeping needs and avoiding mom-guilt) and the possible (like suggestions for simple monthly celebrations relating to the liturgical year - a nice simple starting point, including recipes) that end up adding up to more than we ever dreamed - and are part of - particularly from the outside - what looks impossible to moms who are overwhelmed with their two or three young children.

I'm working on a more detailed review for Heart and Mind Magazine, but wanted to jot some notes down here first.

Just finished...

I hope to get more thorough reviews written up for love2learn in the near future on these two books...

Animal Farm by George Orwell - I finished reading this for our teen discussion last night - but the discussion was canceled at the last moment due to poor road conditions. It's an interesting little book, a very accessible classic for upper grade school or early high school. Lots of fodder for discussion; don't expect to agree with the author entirely.

The Story of Benedict XVI for Young People by Claire Jordan Mohan - a nice story that overviews his childhood and gives you a good sense of his personality and his upbringing. Worthwhile and lots of good content, but I tend to find the author's writing style distracting.