Bookwi.se

Reposting this review because Red Pyramid is free on Kindle. I was not a huge fan, but I have heard from several who thought that I was too hard on the book and have finished the trilogy. Free is worth picking up, and kindle format is probably better than the audiobook.

Summary: A brother and sister must figure out a way to save their parents and the world from a vengeful Egyptian god.

I found this free on audiobook from my local library. I am listening with two purposes. One, I need some lighter fiction. I have been over-doing the theology and heavy stuff and if I am going to keep blogging I need to maintain an intellectual balance of books. Too much intellectual challenge is draining. There has to be time to process and relax. But I also have several friends who have children that are reading faster than they can keep up. They are good parents that want to read what their kids read and try to have conversations and discussions with their kids about books, but there is a point when kids and parents reading speeds start converging and kids often have more time to read than their parents. So I am trying to keep an eye out for good middle grade, early young adult books that I can recommend.

I really enjoyed the Percy Jackson series and was interested in a new take on mythology from Riordan. This is definitely a different take.  Instead of the gods of Greek mythology, these are the gods of Egyptian mythology.  Instead of being focused on children that are half human/half Greek god, these are more like possession by the Gods.  The subject matter is just more problematic and the books feel a bit darker, although not much.

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Reposting this review because Room is the Kindle Daily Deal on Jan 5 and on sale for $2.99 for kindle. (Only on sale on Jan 5).

Rating: 4 Stars

Imagine your mother was kidnapped before you were born and was forced to live as a prisoner in an 11 x 11 ft shed (the “Room”). Imagine that you were born in the Room and had never seen the world beyond its four walls. Finally, imagine at the age of 5 you are asked to explain what life is like living in the Room. That is what this book is about.

It is written from the perspective of a 5 year old, which makes the storytelling so compelling. Kids already have a difficult time understanding certain nuances and details in life that we adults take for granted. But even more so for Jack, who only knows the outside world from what he sees on TV and what Old Nick, his mother’s captor, brings to them for “Sundaytreat.” Here’s the first line from the book:

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Summary: Parenting is a full time job, but the goal is not entertainment, but preparing children for their future life.

We don’t do it often, but occasionally my wife and I read a book together.  Or in this case, we listened to this on audiobook together while driving back and forth to her family’s cabin.  It took us about six weeks to finished the book, but it led to a lot of good conversation about parenting and family.  Because I was a nanny to my two nieces for 5 years (now 6 and 4.5) and I am still very involved with them, and my wife has been a teacher for 17 years, we had a lot of current context to think about beyond our current 8 week old daughter.

I first came across this book in a series of posts from Rhett Smith, a family counselor.  The focus of the book is 12 different parenting strategies (which can be adapted for teachers or family members or others that work with children) to help children learn to integrate their emotional, intellectual and creative brain functions to be a more integrated person.

What I think is most important about this book is that while it believes parenting is very important, it is low pressure in its approach.  This is a quote from close to the end of the book:

“The goal of parenting is not to be perfect by an stretch of the imagination. But a goal of every parent should be to be intentionally and consistently engaged in the lives of our kids in a meaningful way “” not just there “” but really present.”

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I have been blogging regularly at Bookwi.se (and before that MrShields.com) since Sept 2009.  As of this post, Bookwi.se has 3288 blog posts including 875 Book Reviews.  In may ways I am surprised that I am still blogging after more than 4 years.

This ended up being an entirely too long post.  So here is the summary version: this next year I will be experimenting, I want to keep working on good content.  I will be posting a few less book reviews in order to keep the reviews good (and reposting some old book reviews to round out the content.)

And now the longer version: Why I started blogging book reviews was that I love to connect people to books that they love.  I also enjoy processing books out loud.  That is of less interest to others, but continues to be important to me.   In 2013, I read just under 200 books.  As a new parent, this is unsustainable and I know that.  I am going to intentionally try to read fewer books, but read them more deeply. (Although this is not my traditional reading style.)

In years’ past I have written posts about upcoming reading goals.  This year my reading goals are not subject areas (such as the trinity, or a single book of the bible, etc.)  Instead my 2014 focus will be on putting into practice (wisdom) rather than just acquiring knowledge.  So for the next six months I will buy no more than one new book a month (can’t stop cold turkey) and instead focus on books that I already have, and on re-reading books that I have read and valued previously.  I may choose to extend this focus an additional six months, but right now this is an experiment.  (As a side benefit my book budget can go to toward diapers.)

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