The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

In this town, the local protestant church is the glue of the community. A lady leads the Christmas pageant every year and it always is done the same way. One year, she is hospitalized and unable to lead it, so the narrator's mom takes leadership of it instead. However, this just happens to be the time that the narrator's brother had told the Herdmans that there is food at church. The Herdmans are a group of poor unsupervised ruckus bullies. They decide they want to be in the pageant and take all the major roles. (They threatened the other kids to prevent them from trying out.) The pageant has a totally new twist with more relatable things such as a ham for a wise man gift. At first people cringe at the changes, but then realize there is true passion and belief in this and it is the best pageant ever. It makes for a nice tear-jerker.

The Upstairs Room

The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss

This has a number of similarities to the "Diary of Anne Frank". Both were written by Jewish girls in the Netherlands who went into hiding during the Holocaust. Upstairs Room is a retrospective story, written by the author much later in life. This it can expected to be much more influenced by later events. The author also survived the experience, She was able to live with caring families outside of the city. It remains scary that modern culture can carry off such atrocities towards certain groups.

Nate the Great Collected Stories: Volume 1

Nate the Great Collected Stories: Volume 1 by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat

We have the paper copy of the first book. We checked out the audiobook version of the collection from Libby. Interestingly, the description listed more stories, but the contents (and the image) only included four. 

Nate the Great is a kid that loves pancakes and solves simple mysteries. These stories are very short and will appeal to very early readers. Nate behaves like a young kid, but has some literal and detective characteristics.

"Nate the Great"

Nate helps find a missing picture by identifying color mixes.

"Nate the Great Goes Undercover"

Nate helps find the thief that is raiding somebody's garbage, and gets sprayed by a skunk in the process.

"Nate the Great and the Halloween Hunt"

Nate helps hunt down a missing cat during Halloween, only to find the owner has been carrying the cat all along.

"Nate the Great and the Monster Mess"

Mom lost her recipe for monster cookies. Nate helps find where she transcribed it.

Roadside Picnic

Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky, translated by Olena Bormashenko

"Stalkers" go exploring the waste zone after an alien invasion. They can get into trouble, but there is some value in those. The people keep going back, even though government officials offer them a chance to live elsewhere. At first I thought the book was talking about a nuclear disaster area, but I realized this was just something assume by those exploring the Chernobyl region. At the end, there is an afterward discussing the publication process during Soviet Russia. He does brush much of it off as not relevant anymore, but it is an interesting look into the history.

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl

The sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory takes the story on a science fiction trip. The glass elevator goes a bit too far and ends up in orbit. There it runs into the space hotel. At first they are seen as enemies to the US. After they scare off bad aliens, they are ready to be awarded a medal. There is also experience of specials substances that let people take years off their age or add years on. Alas, people take too many and find themselves babies - or multiple centuries old. The book seems a mishmash of interesting concepts, but other than the characters does not relate much to the previous book.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst (Author), Ray Cruz (Illustrator)

Nothing is going right for Alexander today. Many of the problems are at least partially of his own doing. (He gets gum in his hair because he chewed it late. The dentist finds a cavity, etc.) He wants to go away to australia, but realizes that bad things happen there too. It has fun sketches of the boy having a bad day, and is easily relatable as everyone seems to have a bad day at some time or another.

Play Ball, Amelia Bedelia

Play Ball, Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish (Author), Wallace Tripp (Illustrator)

The kids need Amelia Bedelia to complete their team. She makes her many literal mistakes. (She ran to her house when they told her to run home.) Her uniform was a classic military uniform. Luckily, despite her many foibles, she was able to hit a grand slam home run at the end of the game to give her team a victory - and then give them all cookies. This is a mid-tier Amelia Bedelia book.

In a People House

In a People House by Theo LeSieg (Dr. Seuss), illustrated by Roy McKie

This is one of the shorter Dr. Seuss books. There is not much of a story, just an inventory of everything that would be found in a people house. This could be a great one for learning various words.

The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance

"Self 1" and "Self 2" battle for dominance in carrying out tasks. One is the conscious self. The other is the subconscious. Instruction usually focuses on the conscious. However, it is the subconscious that must complete the task. 

The book is a mix of tennis-specific advice within a general framework. In tennis, the racquet is an extension of the body. If we try to focus our mind too much on the mechanics, we will fail. Instead, we should picture the general goal. Visualize the result in our mind and then let our body flow through the motions to achieve. Repeat the desired actions rather than think of the detail. This can be applied to specific areas of tennis as well as other aspects of life.

The Gods Themselves

Asimov can get annoying. He spends too much time describing the science and the "people" and not enough time developing characters and story. However, he usually has an interesting premise and writes just well enough to keep things interesting.

Alas, in "The Gods Themselves" he managed to show us everything that can go wrong with science fiction. There are a few "deep thoughts" held together with a horribly executed story. The premise is a cross-universe energy exchange device that can seemingly produce endless amounts of free energy, with only one minor catch. Alas, the catch is that the sun in one universe gets hotter, while that of the other gets colder, eventually wiping out life in both universes.

The story structure seemed to serve the ego of the author. "I am so good, I can rearrange things just because." Long sections of the parallel universe and their "triad" relationships are just plain tedious. They may be computers or they may be slaves to the "hard ones". However, it didn't seem to matter much for the story. The section in our universe didn't matter much either. The people on the moon had some sci-fi utopia and helped "provide" for the earth. Most of the people in both universe enjoyed the cheap power and didn't want to change. (Asimov did add a quip about people trying to make "safer" cigarettes and more fuel efficient cars rather than smoking and driving less. It was a nice soundbite, but it didn't fit in with the story.)

Some beings in both universes decide to rebel and... the book ends.

Asimov thought this was one of his favorite books. This enjoyment must have been based on the writing process, for reading this book is pure tedium.

And some more books (Nickel and Dimed, The Great Bridge, Lord of the Flies, Crucial Conversations)

Barbara Ehrenreich - Nickel and Dimed: (2001) A well-off, highly educated writer attempts to 'live with the lower classes' to see how things really are. However, her effort comes across as somewhat half-hearted. Her insights seem to show more of the middle-class snobbery than anything else. While attempting to live the life of a lower-class service worker she looks down at the "wealthy" people she is working for, while also looking down at the "poor" people she is working with. One interesting is the disparity in drug policy. In her 'upper middle class' life, her Marijuana usage is no big deal, and doesn't impact her ability to work. However, in her 'lower class' life, the fear of marijuana detection cause her to turn down 'good' jobs.

David McCullough - The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge (1972) : I listened to an abridged audiobook that, rather unfortunately, turned this book in to a biography of the Roeblings. The audiobook was 'nice enough' to provide brief summaries of the missing chapters, so I knew I was missing what sounded like good discussion of the actual building of the bridge.

Golding - Lord of the Flies (1954): When boys are alone, things start out alright, but then gradually drift in to savagery. Would somebody be tried for murder when they returned to civilization? Or would there be a big civil law suit? There would probably be plenty of rationale for just acting out in the harsh conditions. However, how would you rationalize other people not being "as bad"? What would have happened if they were not "rescued" at just the right time?

Patterson, et. al. - Crucial Conversations (2001): Turn brain on at the precise moments when brain wants to go off to "fight". Remember the big goals, not short term "win" in a conversation.

(More details of these below at updated post due to tag limit)

Russell Shorto - Descartes' Bones: The odd history of Descartes' bones show some of the prejudices of the "religion" of rational thought. This is filled with irony. Descartes was religious, yet is treated as the father of a (primarily atheist) rationalism. His bones become a "relic" for those against the church. He sought to find the means to overcome death, yet died in middle age. This book contains plenty of interesting tidbits on the philosopher and his followers and philosophy. However, the main point is the trail of his bones and how they relate to societal sentiments.

Stephen Mitchell - Gilgamesh, a new English version: This is really graphic. It does have similarities to the "Joseph" and "Noah" stories from the Bible. Are they both referring to the same previous event?

Barbara Kingsolver - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: local eating. Properly raised domestic animals do have a place in the food chain. (They can convert non-human-edible plants in to human food. They have also been adapted to live with humans, and wouldn't do very well in the wild.) This provides a very balanced approach to environmentally sustainable food habits, with an emphasis on local and organic to decrease energy consumption, and even eat with a lower cost. The narrative provides an example of "mostly" local eating for a year. It does require hard work in the yard. However, good food plus hard work is exactly what the doctor ordered...

Thomas Aquinas: Interesting rational religious philosophy