The Chosen by Chaim Potok

This was a great re-read! Potok is such a good writer! I enjoyed the book all over again and learned new stuff about Jews and the history.
The novel takes place in Brooklyn. Too boys of different Jewish sects meet while playing baseball. World War II has just begun. The boys should have been enemies but they become BEST friends. They are almost opposite when it comes to home life. Their dads both love them but raise them so differently it is hard to imagine. They both love to read but one does it in secret and one does it without a second thought. The story takes you through the tough times in each of their lives and brings them together through their education and the study of the Torah. I highly recommend this book for a new perspective on Jewish life in America.

Whole Book

My 2009 completed books!

My goal is to read 50 books each year. Here are all the books I read in 2009. I wanted to make sure I didn't just read children books but a few hefty classics and politics/history/biographies... Well, I got a few of those in but still read a lot of great children books! I also really enjoy the book groups I belong to. They help me to get some variety into my reading too.
Last years list.2008

This Years...
2009 Reading list

1.A Town Called Charity by Blaine and Brenton Yorgason
2.Forest Born by Shannon Hale
3.Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom
4.Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien
5.Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
6.We The Living by Ayn Rand
7.Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by June Chang
8.The Quiet Little Woman: A Christmas Story by Louisa May Alcott
9.Lessons from the Varsity of Life by Robert Baden-Powell
10.re-read: Pride and Prejudice by Austen
11.re-read: An Assembly such as this by Aidan
12.Bullies in the Headlights by Mathew Buckley
13.Chickens in the Headlights by Matthew Buckley
14.The Blue Sword by Robin Mckinley
15.HOST by Stephanie Meyer
16.Julie of The Wolves by Jean Craighead George
17.The Walking Drum by Louis L'Amour
18.5,000 year leap by Skousen
19.re-read: Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
20.Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis
21.Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
22.The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
23.Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke
24.I Don't Have to Make Everything All Better by Gary Lundberg and Joy Lundberg
25.The Law by Frederick Bastiat
26.A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland Indiana by Haven Kimmel
27.The Case Against the Fed by Murray N. Rothbard
28.Empire by Orson Scott Card
29.History of Hyde Park in Utah's Cache Valley, 1860-1990 by Dale Z Kirby
30.These Three Remain: A novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman by Pamela Aidan
31.Duty and Desire: A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman by Pamela Aidan
32.Sarah by Orsen Scott Card
33.The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread DiCamillo, Kate
34.Daddy Long Legs Webster, Jean
35.The Hero and the Crown McKinley, Robin
36.For One More Day Albom, Mitch
37.Hush Woodson, Jacqueline
38.The Littlest Angel Tazewell, Charles
39.The Walking Drum L'Amour, Louis
40.Jonathan Livingston Seagull Bach, Richard
41.The Redheaded Princess: A Novel Rinaldi, Ann
42.Princess Academy Hale, Shannon
43.The Omnivore's Dilemma Pollan, Michael
44.The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis
45.The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
46.Christmas Oranges retold by Linda Bethers
47.One Special Star by Anita Mcfadzean
48.The Littlest Christmas Elf by Nancy Buss
49.One Snowy Night by Nick Butterworth
I am still reading the last book but should have it finished before the New Year!
50.The Chosen by Chaim Potok

A Town Called Charity by Blaine and Brenton Yorgason

This was an interesting book of short stories about making decisions. I found a few of them to be very profound and thought provoking. I picked up this book at the DI for my son but read it before I passed it to him.
The last story in the book was about a Town Called Charity. You would have thought a town with a name like that would be very charitable but when a "tramp" comes to town we learn what is really in everyone's hearts and minds. The town learns a lesson and in the end Charity is found again.
I like books with moral lessons and things that make you take a look at your own life. Even thought these were simple and very LDS they all were unique and interesting.

Whole Book

Forest Born by Shannon Hale

This is the fourth book in the Goose Girl Series. I liked it a lot! It wasn't as dark as the one before. It also had all the characters from the books before but this one was written from the perspective of a new character, Rinna. It was also pretty humorous in some parts. It was also very unpredictable.


Whole Book

Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom

I thought I already blogged this book but I guess I didn't. It was a good one for Christmas month. I liked the fact that Mitch wrote about his thoughts on being a Jew and his ideas about Christian faiths from the point of view different then mine. I also liked that he wrote about a man that changed his life around, completely around and became a priest helping others that were just like him before he changed. It was also interesting to find out more about the Jewish faith.

Whole book.

The Christmas Spirit

The Christmas Spirit

Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien

Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien



This one is a page turner! It was so scary! The end of the world and you don't get to pick who you are stuck with, or do you? I don't want to give anything else away. If you like reading about the end of the world -- well this one is a good. It is written from the prospective of a teenage girl. She is very innocent and naive.

I think there is a movie out too...anyone seen it?

Healing Book

View all my reviews >>

Midwives by Chris Bohjalian

This book had a lot of flaws when it came to planned home birth with a midwife in this century but it certainly had a page turner story to tell.

The events are laid out by Connnie, an OB/GYN Doctor and daughter of Sibyl Danforth, the midwife who is on trial. She is remembering what happened when seh was 13. The event was to be a normal home birth of Charlotte Bedford's second child. A few things in the birth process changed for the worst, and Sibyl, unable to get to the hospital due to a snow storm did an emergency cesarean section to save Charlotte's baby. Charlotte's husband, and Anne, the inexperienced assistant were present during the unfortunate incident but had different opinions to what happened. The jury must now decide if Sibyl Danforth performed the cesarean section while Charlotte was alive, thus killing her because of a massive hemorrhage or if she was already dead before she saved the babies life. Hero or manslaughter?

I think the author did a good job trying to tell what it was like to give birth and from a girls perspective too, but he failed to knock out some stereo types. Midwives and their clients are not all hippies wearing long dresses and hugging everyone. In fact most now days aren't at all like that. Not all teenagers smoke weed behind their parents backs and they don't all drink, smoke and think about sex all the time! I guess he just doesn't think very highly of that age group or women that don't follow the crowd to the hospital.

The trial was interesting because it kind of helped me get a sense of the different strategies lawyers use to stack the jury and time things just right for psychological dramatic effect in the courtroom. So many small details go into each trial. The lives of the people on trial are changed or destroyed by what seems like powerful people...the lawyers. They are either defending or prosecuting and if they make a mistake lives are changed forever. The lawyer in this book seemed really on top of things but so did his opponent. I really didn't know who would win until the very very end of the book. Suspenseful!

For fictional light reading I think the book was okay but to learn about midwives and home birth, I think I would stick to the real thing. The truth about birth goes much deeper then a murder trial or a teenagers perspective on the world. I have used midwives with three of my babies births and have found the whole experience to be enlightening, peaceful, and educational. I was very thankful for the wonderful midwives that have passed through my life and helped me find joy in the process of getting my little ones here. I wouldn't have done it any other way despite the pros and cons that can sometimes seem scary. I think the risks would have been greater for me to have my babies in a hospital. Thank goodness we live in a time where Medical professionals and midwives have so much technology at their fingertips. Birth is a natural thing!

Healing Book, Broken Book

We The Living by Ayn Rand

Another communism book but one worth thinking about. I think the whole love triangle thing was a bit much but I found her political views to be very enlightening. She not only goes after the Communist but all dictatorships, socialist schemes and fascists in the world. It is a book about Man against the State. I am always so surprised how much was hidden from the rest of the world, especially Americans, when the communist parties came into power. They sure got away with a lot of evil things in the name of something supposedly grand and better. I think through books like these we can remember the past and be prepared not to fall into the same traps in the future.

Leonard Peikoff gives an excellent introduction to the book. Here are a few ideas that were interesting. The three forms of destruction that Ayn Rand gives to the characters in her book are: The higher and stronger individual is broken, but not conquered. The one with less resistance is broken and untouched. Those who believed in the ideal are broken by the realization of what that ideal really means.
One character gave his life to a lie and commits suicide. One lives for his values but in the end his life is so unendurable and he can't find the balance between mind and force. He ends up drowning in his mind and doesn't care or know what is being done to him. That is like a living death, a drawn out suicide. The third is to flee. This is what the main character eventually is able to do just as the author did in her own real life. (she imigrated to America from Russia in 1926.)

I also loved the way the plot was twisted, usually the virtuous girl sells herself to the villain in order to save the hero. Ayn Rand thought: Wouldn't it be interesting if the man to whom the girl sells herself is not a villain but a hero and the man for whom she makes her sacrifice is a villain in the end? hmmm, very unpredictable when reading along then wham that isn't how you think it will be. BUT I would like to add that Ayn Rand's standards are not the highest nor does she have a reputation for Christian morals or anything like them so what I find even more ironic is the fact that the virtuous girl isn't even virtuous but in Rand's world maybe she was. In my real world she is way below the virtuous mark and I wouldn't have put her in that category or even used that word to describe her. I certainly wouldn't want my girls to aspire to be like her. So my point...the book is a bit on the BENT & BROKEN side. Bad is good and good is bad.

Ayn Rand said that she wrote the book so that it "might do it's share in helping to prevent a socialist America".

Broken - Bent-- Healing

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by June Chang

I can not stop thinking about this book. It was very well written and it was organized in such a way that you can get a bigger, more complete picture of the History of China back three generations. There is this really powerful awful leader called Mao Zedong that is worse then Hitler! Why doesn't the world know this? He is responsible for over 70 million deaths during peacetime in China. He did some really horrendous things in China and was a master of brainwashing an entire Nation! I didn't know this until I read this book. What is even more surprising is that I was alive while this was happening in China or at least my parents were.

I never really understood Communism and how people could fall for such a bad plan but from the insight in this book, it helped me understand that there can be something worse then communism and that would make it seem better then whatever there was to choose from at the time. Communism was better then what they had! What a weird thought! Oh, and if you didn't know of anything better then communism then you could completely embrace it and feel no guilt. That is what her father and mother did but in the end it turned completely around and bit them on the tail, so to speak. This is awful! I can't comprehend so much evil and hope I never experience it in my lifetime.

I have never starved. I have never worn the same outfit because I didn't have anything else to wear. I have never lived in fear of all my neighbors. I have never been tortured or even had a gun pointed at me. I have never been denied medial attention. I have never been married to a stranger. I have never been hated by others or spit on because of the class my family is labeled in. I have never been afraid to speak my mind or write a story or even read any book I want. I have never had to walk really far and I have never planted rice. I have never seen someone tortured or killed. I have always had clean water and clean food. It was never rationed. I take so much for granted!

This book gives a very good and honest portrayal of China in the 20th Century. I thought it was worth reading. It is long but worth it to understand History a little bit more and the world around us.

Whole Book

The Quiet Little Woman: A Christmas Story by Louisa May Alcott

This was actually three short stories about Christmas by Louisa May Alcott! They were just right to get me thinking about Christmas...it snowed today even thought we haven't had Halloween yet.

I like her stories because they always treat children as real people. Children have hopes desires and sorrow too. In these three stories even thought he main character is always poor in a bad place they rise above what could have brought them down and make the best of things. They are honest and hard working. They demonstrate charity for others despite not being treated the same way. Anything can be overcome by following Jesus example and trusting in His love.

I thought the stories were sweet and educational. Makes me want to give something more for Christmas then a toy from Walmart...I hope our family can do something really nice for someone that really needs it this year...and everyone does need love.
Whole Book

Lessons from the Varsity fo Life by Robert Baden-Powell

This was a great book! I was surprised. The autobiography of Robert Baden-Powell the founder of the worldwide organization Boy Scouts. (22 February 1857 – 8 January 1941) He is British and some of his words are unfamiliar but if you imagine Monty Python it kind of makes it come together for me. 316 pages of his sketches, a few photos and his take on his childhood through military service, to being an old man touring the world organizing Boy and Girl Scout clubs! Surprisingly only 90% of the book is about Boy Scouts and the rest is what he calls, "life number one", all about his time in the military or before that just growing up. Scouting was "life number two" and he was getting on in years by then yet he fit so much into this part of his life. (He also wrote a bunch of other books about the scouting part of his life so I think he didn't want to repeat all of them here.)

The book starts out with an apology. He didn't want to write about himself but someone convinced him saying, it might be helpful to young fellows (including girls) in aiming their lives. So he didn't make it a formal biography starting from baby to whatever but he rather wanted the book to be a "sort of hotch-potch or plum-pudding". Then he says something like good luck finding the plums but they are somewhere in the stodge! So right from the beginning you are put at ease and you start to chuckle. He has a good sense of humor and never really gets full of himself. He just tells stories about the things he remembers, the places he has been and how he got there.

His education was traditional only he didn't fit the traditional mold. He gives his mother a lot of credit. He said, "It was her influence that guided me through life more than any precepts or discipline that I may have learned at school." He didn't get very good marks from his teachers and he wasn't very good with mathematics. He hated learning Greek and Latin and still thinks it is a waste of time for young people. He has some pretty strong opinions about the public school system too. He said that his biggest education came from a variety of things, home, school, sports (like big game hunting)and traveling... He said, "The secret of sound education is to get each pupil to learn for himself, instead of instructing him by driving knowledge into him on a stereotyped system."

BP loved theatricals. A teacher encouraged the boys his age to do "play-acting". and they learned public speaking and self-expression. All this helped later in his career as a spy. Also he would sometimes hide from his teachers out in the woods and trap rabbits and climb trees. He would learn to be really quite and creep around to get close up to a bird or squirrel. All of this without knowing it was an invaluable education for later in life.

BP loves the sea. His brothers did too. They were always having some adventure cruising round the coast of Scotland and England at all seasons of the year. They were always getting in to trouble but this helped them gain useful experiences for life. He learned discipline, endurance of hardships and faced dangers while at sea.

BP was very talented. He performed in quite a few plays and he liked to draw. He even tried a bit of sculpture but said he just didn't have enough time to pursue this pleasure. He played the flugel horn and violin. He could also sing. He also like to make others laugh, or what he called, "giving amusement to others".

He liked to fish and shoot. He tells some really good stories about some of the adventures he goes through chasing after Pigs and killing them with a stick. Very dangerous! He always said this about Pig Sticking, "Don't knock it till you try it." I think I will pass. My favorite stories are the ones about the elephants and the Hippos. He has a great respect for Elephants and is always in awe at their abilities and intelligence. One time he was hunting a hippo in Africa. The Natives were very hungry, in fact near starvation. When hunting hippos you need to be very patient. They always come up in the same place for a breath of air. He was lying on his back to get a steadier aim and so the natives gave him the nickname "M'hlalapanzi", which means - the man who lies down to shoot. Anyway he got it right in the eye and the bullet went straight to the brain. The hippo sinks down to the bottom but eventually bobs to the surface dead. First the natives "cut a square hole in his side, just big enough to admit a man, and one man accordingly went in with a knife and fetched out all sorts of tit-bits in the way of chunks of liver, hear, etc., which he handed to his friend." He was covered with blood from head to foot. They then chopped out large chunks of raw meat and hundreds of natives came to get their piece. Many were to hungry to wait and cook it so they ate it raw. Blah!

Hunting isn't as popular now as it was back then, luckily later in life BP enjoyed Big Game Kodak-ing, for taking a picture of the animal was a very recognizable form of sport too. I like this also. Now the big game hunter can be a naturalist and can still learn invaluable lessons in the jungle. You need to be just as sneaky and quiet and patient to get the best shot on film.

BP was a scout (spy). While in the Army he would go out ahead of the main body and gain information about the enemy. To be a scout you need to be plucky, hardy, resourceful and rely on your own ability to make your way without help from others. You also need to be be courageous, energetic, cheery, hopeful, trusted and never really seeking applause for your work or service. It was very dangerous for BP to do this. Most of his scouting career was in Africa and India. He loved disguise, and learned about this in his short acting career.

One time the American press put out a story, "BADEN POWELL SHOT AS A SPY". 1916 - shot to death by English soldiers on his return to England as a German Spy. He got a big kick out of reading his epitaph. He had such a great sense of humor even about this!

Spy's need to notice the small things and reading a meaning from them: Observation and Deduction. He had a lot of fun as a soldier working as a spy. He proved to be so good at this that it helped in his career in the Army. He learned valuable lessons that he later was able to teach to others and also to young boys in the Boy Scouts program. Observation and deduction can come into use in all sorts of times in ones life.

BP records in this book all kinds of great stories about the natives and fighting or working with the people in Africa and India. He talks about the wonderful leaders he served under and how he learned something important from each one of them. He is considered a national Hero for his actions during the Siege of Mafeking in Britain. He later becomes a Inspector General of Calvary. This was a great honor and only those that work really hard and are well rounded get this position. He was in a position to make changes and help soldiers have better skills and even living conditions. He made a huge difference in many lives. After his retirement he starts the Boy Scouts and with the blessing of the King Edward VII, who thinks he can accomplish a lot more serving the young people of the world when staying in the military, he makes an even bigger impact on the world.




So in his Life Number Two the Boy Scouts are organized. There was a need, like there is today, for the youth in our nation to have Character Training. He said, "He had young men and women that could read and write and were well-behaved and smart looking in a parade but without individuality or strength of character, utterly without resourcefulness, initiative or the guts for adventure." These typed of youth would not be ready to really be good citizens of any nation. Too wimpy. "Civilization is driving Nature farther and farther out of reach of the majority, until realization of its beauties and wonders and our own affinity with God's creations, is becoming lost in the materialistic life of the crowd, with is depressing conditi9ons of work and hectic search for pleasure among man-make squalid surroundings of bricks and mortar...our sons will grow brains instead of brawn." This realization inspired BP to write the book, Aids to Scouting and then Scouting for Boys.

The Aim of the Boys Scouts is: to improve the standard of our future citizen hood, especially in Character and Health. The Attraction: Plan it around principles of being an educational Game. An education in which the boy would be insensibly led to educate himself. The Code: The Scout Law- Honor, trusted, loyal, useful, friend to all, courteous, friend to animals, obey orders, smiles and whistles under all difficulties, thrifty, and clean in thought, word and deed. The Promise:Do his duty to God and King, Do a good turn daily, Obey the Scout Law. Organization: Troops the Patrols and Packs for Cubs. I find all of this very inspiring and hopeful for our boys today too! He talks about the uniform and the Garters and the scout Badges. The Motto "Be Prepared" and the significance of the fleur-de-lys, all very facinating.

The Scouting movement just took off and Scout Troops were forming on their own all over the world by 1920's. Also BP got married and his wife was a great help in the Scouting movement. I learned that an organization was also started for girls called Girl Guides, which later becomes what we know today as the Girl Scouts.

Baden-Powell said and I paraphrase it here...that he was so lucky to live in the most interesting evolutionary epoch in the world's history, with its rapid development of motor-cars, aeroplanes, wireless, Tutenhamen, the Great War and the World convulsion and so on...and he has met with a remarkable amount of kindness everywhere, not only from friend but strangers as well. Also to have the luck to live two distinct lives, one as a soldier and bachelor and the second as a pacifist and a paterfamilias both having the common attribute of Scouting, and both intensely happy. That doesn't mean that he didn't have difficulties and trials to face, but those have been like the sprinkles on top of the icing on the cake.

Overall I have found this book surprisingly fascinating. I haven't thought about the era he lived in and the wars he fought in. I didn't realize there was so much done by British Soldiers in Africa and India so far away with such different cultures and traditions. Baden-Powell had such a rich life because he was happy. He made the best out of every situation and found the humor in situations that others would just be overcome with. He had a vision to help the young people in the world and he was in a position to make a difference so he did, despite being very old, slightly crippled and retired. He could have just sat down and drank tea but he got up and went!

This book also helped me realize that even though this is 2009 we also have a need for Scouting in our Nation. Boys are surrounded by technology and things that make life easy. They can read and write but what do they do when something is hard or challenging? Are they prepared to lead and make a difference? Are they brave and creative enough to use skills to figure hard things out in times of emergency? Scouting helps them with the things they aren't learning in a public School, it gets them out in nature and it provides opportunities to stretch a little through camping, leading their patrol or organizing service projects and carrying them out they are learning what it will take to be be a good citizen and the leaders of tomorrow. They are our future and Scouting helps them prepare!


Whole Book and I recommend it to everyone that is raising children especially if you have boy that will be a Cub Scout soon!

Two re-reads: Pride and Prejudice by Austen and An Assembly such as this by Aidan

Oh I had fun re-reading these two books together at the same time. First I would read An Assembly such as This, it was from Darcy's perspective then I would read up to the same point in Pride and Prejudice mostly from Elizabeth's perspective. Back and forth. It was so fun! It was only the first book in the three part series by Aidan so after I finished that one I just read Austen's book to the end.
I even made a vocabulary list for Aidan's book. Do you know all the definitions for these words?
3
Malingerer
Askance
Dubious
Alacrity
Portentous
Divan
Chagrin
Elicited
Procure
Visage
Castigating
Bereft
Gambit
Inanities
Simper
Inveigling
Drollery
Indignation
Desultory
Tete-a-tete
Vituperation
Acquisition
Cockloft
Assiduously
Surfeit
Insouciance
4
obdurately
accolades
exuberance
judiciously
pricking
forbore
palavering
consternation
prevarication
nuances
veritable
caricature
chatelaine
in vogue
5
Gauche
Ameliorate
Riposte
Antithesis
Innocuous
Reticence
Timbre
6
Vituperation
Perfidy
Mercurial
Discomfiture
Remonstrated
perambulations

Lulled Into False Security

I was reading an article: Meridian Magazine It talks about how economists have said we are out of the recession. Which makes me laugh and the article continues telling us how stupid a statement like that is. The Nation is so far into debt and businesses are having a hard time, employment is bad and mortgages are on homes worth less than the amount of their loans. . .
It is quite a depressing sad realistic overview of where we really are despite the Pres. and the media telling us all is well in Zion.

At the end of the article it says this:
The Only Solution

The only real solution to this seemingly never-ending and suicidal disaster is for an honest and rigorous national recognition that we simply cannot afford an ever bigger and more costly government at every level. Until that happens, which won't be anytime soon, plan on higher taxes for your future. Plan on a shrinking economy. As the CBO points out, deficits penalize income, investments, and savings — so plan on that too.

In seeming desperation, our national government is selling record amounts of debt with a plan to borrow our way out of this economic crisis. Long term it can't work; it won't work. Prophets have warned us.

Several times in scripture is recorded the Lord's divine injunction to "Establish a house of order." While federal and state governments are unlikely to put their houses in order any time soon, we can put our own personal houses in order. We can protect our families from the intensifying economic storm clouds roiling all about us.

We can, we must, make our homes safe from the storms while we still have time. (End of Article)

WOW! How many times do we need to hear it and none the less from a Prophet! NOW is the time for us to get ready, even yesterday was a good time. We need to stop wasting time, money and resources and put it all in order.

What am I doing today? Well, just the usual. What could I be doing instead?

Bullies in the Headlights by Mathew Buckley

This is the sequel to the Chickens in the Headlights book! I think they should be together in the same book but then what would be the point of the "sequel"...and I guess the first book would be too long. The book pretty much starts off right when the last book ended.
This book was just as funny as the first one! I loved it! Little boys are always getting into so much mischief. This book was full of adventures, schemes and friendships. The character seems a little more mature then the last book...he is about a year older but he still is naive and curious like little boys are.
The egg drop is pretty funny! Who would have known what corn starch would do if it is was dropped out of an airplane, unless you tried it!!!
I love the teachable moments with the old guy Sunday School teacher. It was sad to find out that his friends family's home environment was so different from his own loving home.
I loved the Christmas Doorbell Ditching section. (one financially hard year our ward got us for the 12 days of Christmas too.)
I loved the bully's in spite of them being so mean in the beginning. I'm glad that everything came together in the end. (I'm a sucker for happy endings).

I highly recommend this book and the book before it by Mathew Buckley! My son read it 4 times and I lost track of how many times he read the first book but he still quotes from both of them when we do funny things in our family that remind him of the stuff the boys did in the book in their crazy family.

Whole Book

Where are the Seagulls?

The corn is being attacked by GRASSHOPPERS!!!!
They might look small but they are as big as my finger and there are millions of them.

As you can see they are hungry.

Caramel-corn ?

My brother in law makes the best caramel corn in the whole wide world. I thought I had the same recipe and I thought I could make it just like he does. I WAS WRONG! He must have a secret ingredient or a step that I am missing. My husband says his secret is not getting even one unpopped kernel in there but I think it goes beyond that. Don't you think?
I burned half the batch! Believe me it does not taste good burnt. In fact it tastes like medicine. Our popcorn popper, I got at a second hand store a few years back, died on us. Luckily I know how to make popcorn on the stove in a frying pan. (Just another useful thing I picked up while serving abroad.)
Well, maybe I will have to not multitask next time I am attempting to make Caramel Corn. I cleaned the kitchen gave one kid a bath, fed the baby and made dinner while having two or three kids help me. Maybe this is why none of my recipes have been turning out lately. Maybe this is the secret...make it alone in an empty kitchen and clean up afterward! Naaa that couldn't be it.

Chickens in the Headlights by Matthew Buckley

I haven't read a book where I laughed out loud in a long time! This one had me uncontrollably laughing so hard the baby, which was usually quietly eating next to me, would look at me like I had gone crazy. I really needed a good childrens book to start out summer. This book is written by one our our home school family's dad, he uses a pen name. They live here in Cache Valley. We got to meet him a few times and he is pretty quiet around strangers so I was surprised his book was so good and funny.

It is about a family of boys, they are LDS, they have a wild summer full of adventures and the one little boy telling the story learns a profound lesson for life. Yes there are actual chickens in the story. If you have ever seen the movie The Sandlot, this book has that kind of humor and uses that kind of voice...a little boy's perspective on life. I loved it and recommend it to anyone that wants to laugh while remembering their childhood lazy summers packed with Family vacations, chores, picnics, siblings and good old fashioned memories.

There is a sequel too...Bullies in the Headlights. I can't wait to read that one!


Whole BOOK

The Blue Sword by Robin Mckinley

This book was recommended for RS book group when we had to bump a rotten book off our list. I am glad we added it! I loved it! Lots of adventure and descriptions plus a new world not quite like ours. It is a Fantasy/fiction book but didn't have any aliens or dragons (only mentioned one, but that really doesn't count).
The main heroine is a girl! She starts out just being an orphan and was shipped to an uncles house in the desert. She was kind of restless and bored for a while. THEN she was kidnapped but wasn't afraid...just kind of went with it because the life she was leaving behind was boring and she wanted to see what would happen next. (that was the weird part). Well, there is magic and a war...there is also a lot about these special hunting cats and some pretty amazing large war horses. It was a good read and I especially like a book that doesn't end when you think it is the end but tells a little bit more just to cover all the bases, loose ends and stuff like that. Example: you get to the end of the chapter and think it is the end of the book and all those emotions and maybe a sigh happen but then you turn the page and hooray another chapter!
I think there is a sequel...but I haven't found it yet. Anyone know?

Whole Book, healing book