Really! Reading Does Increase Intelligence

Are you weary of teaching your five year old to sound out words? Have you given up on the dream of your less-than-stellar-student getting into college?  Is it easier to grab the remote than to grab the keys to drive to the library?  Read this:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/23/can-reading-make-you-smarter

The First Mile

After over a year of neglecting this blog, I'm making an effort in 2014 to give it some attention.  It's selfish, really.  I read oodles of great stuff on the Interwebs and I'm going to try to use this blog as a central storage place for my favorite items of motivation.  Because there are so many different aspects to my life (wife, mother, housekeeper, engineer, educator, reader, runner), I will be compiling the most motivating articles that relate to those topics.

Life is hard, right?  And messy.  Yes, messy.  Very.  And hard.  Did I mention that?  There's a life analogy that has been sticking with me for the last few months that applies here.  As a runner, I hit the pavement for training runs several times a week.  I began to notice that every single time I start to run, the first mile is extremely hard.  My legs feel heavy, my lungs seem tight, and my brain screams, "Quit!"  It doesn't matter if I've had a day of rest prior or if I ran 18 miles prior; the first mile is always excruciating.  But after that first mile, my legs feel less heavy and my lungs seem wide open. By the time my watch says mile two, I feel as if I could run for hours.

This analogy holds true for every aspect of my life.  The beginning is so hard.  Getting started is excruciating.  Whether it's trudging through a hard-but-good-for-my-brain book or diving into a new computer program, that first mile is hard.  So, I turn to others who are so eloquent at motivating me through that first mile.  It's on this blog that I'd like to start compiling that very motivation.  Here's hoping you garner some motivation and get through that first mile, too.

Wish You Were Here by Stewart O'Nan

When things get tough, Stewart O'Nan is my go-to guy.  He is always on the shelves at the library.  He's not difficult to read.  I don't have to turn on my brain to analyze him and yet the depth of his perception into  people - especially women - jumps off of the pages.  Always depressing and never uplifting, O'Nan's realistic portrayal of life is comforting because he doesn't pretend.  There's no hope for a happily-ever-after ending, no certainty of a literary climax that elevates the power of the human spirit.  Reading his novels always reminds me that no human can fix the brokenness in my life.

Wish You Were Here is the story of the Maxwell's, a family who is spending a week at their lake cottage for the very last time.  Emily Maxwell, the matriarch of the family, has decided to sell the cottage because in the wake of her husband's death, she can't care for it any more.  She arranges for her son and his family, her daughter and her children, and her sister-in-law to join her in remembering the past while cleaning it out for the future.

Nothing exciting happens in this book.  The narrative explores what a family does on vacation, from eating hamburgers to put-put golf to squashing a fly that escapes the outdoor hear.  But every single page has astonishing insight into the thoughts of kids, teenagers, middle-age parents, and retirees.  As the narrator of Wish You Were Here can read the minds of all the characters, the readers gets a glimpse into thoughts that, well, stunned this reader.    Ken, the 40-something year old son of Emily, had some thoughts about his wife's behavior that made me pause more than a few times.  I was familiar with the mind of Lisa, a 40-something year old wife of Ken:  "Sometimes she was dissatisfied, and when she said anything, Ken made her feel like she expected too much.  She felt caught in an opera, wanted daily to be ravaged by passion, and then, doing the dishes, picking up after the kids, thought it was just her age. She wasn't the only woman bored at forty, wondering what had gone wrong."  I wondered if my teenager thinks any of the thoughts that 13-year old Sarah had.  When her father asks how she is doing, she responds with what her dad wants to hear, but this is what she was thinking:   "Terrible, she wanted to say, but he didn't really want to know about her and Mark, or how long this summer had been, and she didn't really want to tell him.  'Good,' she said, and waited for him to say something else. It was easier this way."  How many times have my kids told me what I wanted to hear because it was easier that way?

So actually, something exciting DOES happen in this book.  Because of the piercing narrative unhindered by pretense, the reader is able to hear the voices in her life that are often masked by figurative ear pods vibrating the sounds that she wants to hear.  Because the characters are developed in such detail, the reader is not likely to easily forget what the 11-year old is thinking when the mom responds to him in sarcasm about his screen time, or what the words are that the husband withholds to avoid a confrontation.

Is it futile to read 516 pages of hopelessness in the human spirit?  No way.  It's a realistic portrayal of this life on this earth and a reminder that there's nothing I can do to give myself a happy ending.

Adoption Resource #2 - Toddler Adoption - The Weaver's Craft by Mary Hopkins Best

Over the last decade and a half, I've come to the conclusion that the most challenging adoption situation for both the child and the adoptive parent is that of a toddler. During the toddler years, children start to express themselves and use a variety of different methods to do so. Children over the age of five or six have a much easier time expressing themselves, even if they are speaking in their native language to a translator. When a child is adopted as a toddler, they need to express their feelings and fears about new surroundings, new people, new smells, new food, new everything. And this need to express is hindered by the fact that they are still learning to communicate. Children born to and raised by their biological parents have difficulty communicating and expressing their emotions (biting, anyone?). Throw an adoption into the mix of this crucial developmental stage, and you've got yourself one terrified and confused kid that is not apt to attach to his or her new parents with ease.

Toddler Adoption - The Weaver's Craft, by Mary Hopkins Best, is my second favorite adoption resource out there. Thorough, clear, and - best of all - frank, this book spends a large portion of the book asking parents the hard questions, summarized by the chapter title: "Is Toddler Adoption for You?" The book then explains the development of a toddler, how a toddler grieves having to leave familiar surroundings, and how adoptive parents can attach to a grieving two- or three-year old. Dr. Hopkins-Best gives examples of specific toddler adoptions and clear guidance as to how to best parent these children in desperate need of attachment to their parents.

Ten years ago, I hesitated to recommend this book to potential adoptive parents because I was afraid that it would scare them away from adoption. I had seen my share of orphanages around the world, and I wanted (still do) every single child languishing in an orphanage to have a loving family. What I understand now is that, while every child needs a loving family, not every family is capable of providing the environment that these children need. So in order to advocate responsible adoption, the best thing I can possibly do is recommend Toddler Adoption - The Weaver's Craft when I meet parents who are considering adoption. Note that this book has portions that are applicable to the adoption of a child at any age. Knowing what they will face when that grieving child enters their home is the very best thing that parents could do. Realizing that parenting an adoptive child takes many additional measures of patience, perseverance, and kindness toward these hurting children is what adopted toddlers need most during the transition into their new families. Adoptive parents need to know. Reading this book will do just that.

Adoption Resource #1 - Helping Your Adopted Child

This is the first of several posts intended to highlight quality adoption resources. I will be recommending books that provide helpful and effective advice in matters of parenting adoptive children as an alternative to parenting books than have proven harmful to adopted children. Helping Your Adopted Child - Understanding Your Child's Unique Identity, by Paul David Tripp is the first of these recommendations.

Helping Your Adopted Child is a 22-page booklet that is provided by the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation. While it is clearly Christian in nature, I would encourage non-Christians considering adoption to read it, as Tripp's practical strategies are applicable to parents of all religions.

Paul Tripp (not to be confused with Tedd Tripp, author of Shepherding a Child's Heart) has been counseling for over 25 years, but he is also an adoptive parent. That combination is extremely appealing to me, as he has both professional and personal experience with adoption. He starts out summarizing his experience with the adoption of his daughter, who is now well into adulthood. He then discusses God's view of adoption and progresses to struggles that an adopted child faces throughout life. His insight is frank and firm, yet he provides hope for parents in their efforts to help these unique children through their struggles. With this important foundation, Helping Your Adopted Child also provides practical strategies for helping adopted children through transition and struggles.

I appreciate the fact that Tripp points out that often times, parenting strategies for adoptive children sometimes require different techniques that parents would use with their biological children. He's clear that formulas do not work in the parenting realm and encourages parents to point their children to their identity as God sees them. The best part of this booklet is the fact that Tripp points parents to look to God, and not to quick-fix solutions.

I recommend this pamphlet to adoptive parents at the beginning of the process, to adoptive parents struggling with parenting their children, and to adoptive parents who don't like to read long books . So check it out. Buy one, a pack of five, or a case, and pass them out to anyone you know considering adoption.

Adoption Education for Life

To say that I'm sad about this story is an enormous understatement. The death of any child under any circumstance is horrific. The death of a child at the hands of adoptive parents somehow seems more than horrific. That it's happened twice in the past three years with the same book as the guiding parental advice light is abominable.

Here at Civil Thoughts we adore adoption. Someone's pain became our joy four times over. For us, adoption has been the greatest joy of our lives. For some parents, this joy is not felt. Adoption is complicated, at best, for everyone involved. Over the past 13 years, we've completed four adoptions and assisted with countless others. During these years, one of the constants I've experienced is the fact that, once the excitement subsides, the first days at home can be extremely challenging for the child and parents. This is especially true for children adopted older than the infant stage. The cry of the new parents during this time is always this: "Why didn't I know it was going to be this difficult?"

Most people would assume that adoption agencies help with post-adoption counseling. Typically, they do not. I vacillate on whether or not it is their responsibility to do so. The bottom line is that processing adoption paperwork is expensive, and adoptive families balk at adoption costs as it is. If agencies were to spend time providing post-adoption counseling, they couldn't cover the basic costs of running the agency. So, families who bring home children at older ages are usually left with little help as they navigate how to live life together.

While adoption of children at any age is challenging for the child, the most difficult adoption situation - by far - is when an older child is adopted from a foreign country. In most situations, these children have lived in orphanages for some time, and while logic would dictate that their new surroundings would evoke gratefulness from them, the surroundings seem strange and overwhelming to the child. These kids can't speak the language, they can't recognize the food they are eating, and they can't wrap their brains around why everyone looks so different. Many parents of these children muddle through these challenges, and some parents actually help the children settle into the their new life in a way that is effective. Some parents, however, become so overwhelmed that they hang on to every last ounce of control that they think they have and they use that control in an attempt to "fix" these children who are clamoring to survive in their new environments. By all accounts, this is what happened to poor little Hannah Williams. It's also what happened to Lydia Schatz.

Trying to fix adopted children to the point of death is simply not acceptable.

Someday, I'd love to start a non-profit organization solely dedicated to providing post-adoption counseling to families. Until then, I'm going to have to just try to continue to educate people about how to help these precious children settle in to their new lives.

Over the next few weeks, I'm hoping to highlight resources that will help adoptive families with transitioning their newly adopted children with love, grace, and patience. These resources that I will summarize are not a substitute for competent professional counseling, which is often times what these children and families need once they are home. I'm not a professional counselor, but I am experienced with adoption, and I feel as if I have to do something in light of this latest tragedy. The books and pamphlets that I'm going to discuss are a first step in the right direction for families thinking about adoption, for families in the midst of an adoption, and for families who are wringing their hands over how to survive a completed adoption. More often than not, I talk to parents who are embarking on the adoption journey and they have no education about how they are going to help their children once the adoption is complete. Starting an adoption without reading about the challenges is nothing short of foolish. Prospective adoptive parents must educate themselves. It can be a matter of life and death.

Please send the adoptive families here to read about books that can help. Encourage them to throw away books like To Train Up A Child and pick up books like the ones I'm going to discuss in the coming days. Together, we can take this little step to help end the senseless deaths of children who want and need loving families.

I Don't Know How She Does It, by Allison Pearson

As you can tell by looking at this year's reading list, I've had a bit of an identity crisis. As usual, I tried to solve it by reading a bunch of non-fiction. And, consistent with the solutions to my mini-crises of the past, a fiction title made everything right again.

I Don't Know How She Does It, by Allison Pearson, is a novel about Kate, an executive with a financial firm. She is married with two kids, and her work provides the primary source of income for her family. Kate's nanny cares for the children while she works and travels all over the world and while her husband tries - half-heartedly - to give his own career some momentum. Pearson's insights into the world of women trying to do it all are incredibly well-written, not to mention eerily accurate. One of my favorite examples follows:

"I reckon this must be how it was for centuries: women doing the doing and exchanging conspiratorial glances and indulgent sighs about the men. But I never joined the Muffia; I don't know the code, the passwords, the special handshakes. I expect a man - my man - to do women's work, because if he doesn't I can't do a man's work. And up here in Yorkshire, the pride I feel in managing, the fact that I can and do make our lives stay on track, if only just, curdles into unease. Suddenly I realize that a family needs a lot of care, a lubricant to keep it running smoothly, whereas my little family is just about bumping along and the brakes are starting to squeal."

I laughed more while reading this book than I did when I read The Corrections, and that's saying something. Here is a sample of that humor with which every mother can identify:

"Leaning over the empty tub, I clear out the Pingu toys and the wrecked galleon, unstick the alphabet letters which, ever since the vowels got flushed down the loo, have formed angry Croat injunctions around the rim (scrtzchk!). I peel off the crusty half-dry Barbie flannel that has started to smell of something I vaguely remember as tadpole; and then, starting at one corner, I lift up the nonslip mat, whose suction cups cling for a second before yielding with an indignant burp."

And then this:

"When I wasn't at work, I had to be a mother; when I wasn't being a mother, I owed it to work to be at work. Time off for myself felt like stealing. The fact that no man I knew ever felt that way didn't help. This was just another area in which we were unequal: mothers got the lioness's share of the guilt."

And simply because I have a terrible time with returning library materials, here's another quote:

"...and please return Snow White video to the library. The fine now exceeds production costs on the original Walt Disney movie."

Ultimately, it was the way she captured the inner conflict of "to work or not to work" that made me adore this novel. The movie will be released sometime this fall, but I guarantee that the movie will not come close to capturing the dynamic of the working mother like the book does. The sentence construction that Pearson uses to describe women who want it all caused me to pause and ponder repeatedly. She starts off with this description of the "two kinds of mother":

"There is an uneasy standoff between the two kinds of mother which sometimes makes it hard for us to talk to each other. I suspect that the nonworking mother looks at the working mother with envy and fear because she thinks that the working mum has got away with it, and the working mum looks back with fear and envy because she knows that she has not. In order to keep going in either role, you have to convince yourself that the alternative is bad. The working mother says, Because I am more fulfilled as a person I can be a better mother to my children. And sometimes she may even believe it. The mother who stays home knows that she is giving her kids an advantage, which is something to cling to when your toddler has emptied his beaker of juice over your last clean T-shirt."

I found the following little quip hilarious, once I was finished feeling offended:

"Taking her eyes off the Career Path for a few months, she had found herself on what they call the Mummy Track. (The Mummy Track has the appearance of a through road; you can travel for many hundreds of miles along it before you notice you're going nowhere.)"

As the book progresses, Kate struggles more with how to do everything she is expected to do. She starts to make observations like this one:

"You needed a license to drive a car, but with a baby you were expected to pick it up as you went along. Becoming a parent was like trying to build a boat while you were at sea."

At the end of the book, Kate's life has spun so out of control that she makes a lists of reasons to give up work and keep working. Reason 5 on the list to give up working was especially poignant: "5. Because becoming a man is the waste of a woman."

So where does that leave us? With easy answers in this world where the opportunities for women seem endless? Hardly. I'll tell you where the pausing and pondering from this book left me. My parents gave me the gift of a college education which allowed me to have a full-time, working woman career for seven years. I loved the feel of my black leather brief case and I can't remember tiring of wearing suits and high heels. I adored giving presentations and sitting across from clients so that I could explain how their wastewater treatment plant could run more efficiently or how I could design a developer's parking lot so that it wouldn't flood anymore. Twelve years later, I found myself sitting across from a different client. This time, I was teaching my "client" how to read. And let me tell you, teaching my children to read has been one of the greatest joys of my life, and it pales in comparison to the fleeting satisfaction of those presentations I made in conference rooms. Why then, do I drool over my husband's career? Does my desire to work outside the home mean I should leave the work inside my home to someone else? I know lots of women who think the answer to that question is yes. And I know other women who think that my place in eternity would be compromised if I left the rearing of my children to someone else.

What I realized after finishing I Don't Know How She Does It is that the answer comes down to stewardship. I need to ask myself this two-part question: "What have I been given and how can I best take care of what I've been given?" I came pretty close to not having any children at all. Had that happened, I think putting my all into a career would have been a fine choice. But that didn't happen. I ended up with four kids and a husband who's career keeps him traveling constantly. There are no guarantees in life; for a plethora of reasons, it's possible that I may have to work full time during a different season in my life. The point is this: I have to take care of the people and circumstances I've been given at each stage in my life. I know many women who don't have a choice in this matter. With their circumstances, the way that they can best care for what they've been given is to work outside the home.

Much has been written about this topic. I'm drawn to every article and book I see that addresses it. The answers are not black and white in our culture. But they may become a bit easier for women as individuals, not as an entire gender, when we look at what we've been given and determine just how well we are "stewarding".

I know this isn't a book, but....

Over the past three months, daily implementation of this particular article has transformed my reading of The Book. This is just too good not to share. Of course, just reading the article won't be transforming; it's the implementation that is just. so. good. Check it out soon.

An Approach

A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted, by Will Bowen

There is a significant amount of complaining that occurs in our house. Ellis, our turtle, wins the prize for most complaining. In fact, he has complained so much about being in our classroom aquarium that I recently set him free. Mosley, our dog, gets the silver prize. He's old and restless and his complaints are in the form of incessant whining, regardless of the fact that all of his needs have been more than adequately met. Then there are the children. Their complaints range from not enough food to too much food, not enough compliments to too many compliments, and too much together time to not enough together time. And then, there is me. I complain all of the time. My subjects are vast, but I tend to complain about my children's complaints, my dog's complaints, and my turtle's complaints.

When I stumbled across A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted, by Will Bowen, I bought it without even reading the premise of the book. This was clearly a case of judging a book by its title.

Mr. Bowen is a minister who decided to start a movement in his church to stop complaining. He attacked his own complaint-filled life by wearing a bracelet on his left wrist. As soon as he complained, the bracelet had to go to the right wrist. The next day, he would put the bracelet back on the left wrist, where it would stay until he uttered a complaint. His goal for himself, his congregation, and the world, is to keep that bracelet on the left wrist for 21 days straight - WITHOUT complaining. Bowen went so far as to design a specific bracelet for purchase. His premise is that, if one can keep from complaining for 21 days straight, complaining in that individual's life will stop for good.

Along with specific tips on how to stop complaining, the book includes a compilation of stories touting the benefits of complaint-free living and the struggles to go even one day without complaining. Bowen more than adequately captures the struggle to change behavior in this book. Bowen writes, "In his play Fiction, one of Steven Dietz's characters remarks, 'Writers don't like to write; they like to have written.' Similarly, people don't like to change, but they like to have changed." He dispels the myth that self-will is enough; he provides a gimmick, in the form of a bracelet, as a tangible reminder that a vice needs to be addressed.

As is usual, I was pretty convicted by this book. However, I kept returning to this question: Do I need the bracelet? After all, I have the power of God available to me. Shouldn't that be enough to stop complaining? Am I not really a Christian because my complaining behavior has not changed? Have I just not prayed enough? Confessed enough? Why can't I stop complaining? Maybe - just maybe - I've not spent enough time thinking about how much I really do complain. Perhaps I need to be more horrified by my complaint-filled life.

I read this book on February 11th. Since then, I've been wondering if I really need the bracelet.

Yesterday, February 27th, I opened my beloved newspaper to Randy Cohen's final article. Randy Cohen has been "The Ethicist" for 12 years. He wrote 614 columns on ethics. In his final column yesterday, he writes this:

"I say with some shame, there has been no such gradual change in my own behavior. Writing the column has not made me even slightly more virtuous. And I didn't have to be; it was in my contract. O.K., it wasn't. But it should have been. I wasn't hired to personify virtue, to be a role model for the kids, but to write about virtue in a way readers might find engaging...What spending my workday thinking about ethics did do was make me acutely conscious of my own transgressions, of the times I fell short. It is deeply demoralizing."

Here is a man who wrote about the need to change behavior for twelve years. He immersed himself in thinking about turning vices into virtues and it did not work, by his own admission. Maybe he just needed a bracelet during those 12 years.

But as I thought about Mr. Cohen and his sad admission in light of my own admission that I am a complainer, the answer struck me. This side of heaven, we will never get it completely right. I will never stop complaining, whether I buy the bracelet or not. Mr. Cohen will never become completely virtuous, whether his contract pays him to be ethical or not. This goes beyond the common adage that "Nobody is perfect." It points us to the fact that we live in a fallen world. And the response to that fact should not be a plastic bracelet. It should not be to feel demoralized. It should cause us to turn to the One who forgives and loves and provides new starts gazillions of times each day. And gratitude for that is what will help us change our behavior.

Reasons I Have Not Read the Twilight Series

Several of you have asked why I've not read the Twilight books, the popular Young Adult series by Stephanie Meyer. Generally marketed by mainstream America as a morally upright love story for teens, I've received many shocked reactions from people when I explain that I have not read them and that I do not have any plans to read them. Here are my reasons:

• Vampires do not interest me. Hobbits, yes. Vampires, no.

• I despise romance novels. A novel with a well-written romantic scene is fine, but books that are 100% about romance are, in short, completely unrealistic. While countless numbers of novels are also unrealistic, romance novels tend to encourage the women reading them to put those same expectations on their own relationships. Add to this reason that in the Twilight series the romance is between two teenagers, and I bristle. Teenage girls in our culture struggle enough with finding their identity in having a boyfriend; why do we need to perpetuate the struggle through encouraging their reading of these novels or the watching of the movies?

• I will not buy, borrow, or browse books that encourage young women to enter into relationships that are dangerous. The two main characters refrain from pre-marital sex prior to their wedding night. As a result, this series is marketed as triology that is "safe" for teenage girls to read. From what I know of these books, they are anything but "safe". Edward and Bella's entire relationship is centered on danger, as Edward constantly struggles with the need to suck Bella's blood. While obviously an unrealistic situation, the message that this sends to young women is that a relationship lived dangerously is exciting. I have a profound problem with this kind of thinking and I hate to see it glorified in our culture. Not reading Twilight is my feeble attempt to take a stand on this issue.

• There are countless numbers of brilliant novels that are more exciting, more engaging, and more edifying. It is with those novels that I will spend my time. I encourage you and the young women you talk with to do the same.

This book will provide some additional reasons that your teenager should not be reading the Twilight series.

The Best Books of 2010, Valentine's Day Edition

In honor of my love for books, I give you my Best Books of the Year 2010. Happy Valentine's Day!

Tenth Best of the Year: Room, by Emma Donoghue - This is a disturbing book and it won't make you feel good. You will have a difficult time putting it down. This story is told from the viewpoint of a five-year old boy who has never left his room. The insights that unfold about the history and future of the boy's room accurately portray the state of our society. This is an easy read that is unusual, smart, and though-provoking.

Ninth Best of the Year: The Unnamed, by Josh Harris - I adored Harris' first book, which was absolutely hilarious in its satirical look at the corporate office culture. His second, The Unnamed, is a stark contrast to his first. An in-depth look at suffering and marriage, it is dark, depressing, and yet it is chock full of insight on sticking with your betrothed through thick and thin. You can read my full review here. While the experts didn't generally give this one favorable reviews, I thought it was an extremely worth-while read, and especially important for couples.

Eighth Best of the Year: Little Bee, by Chris Cleave - Little Bee escapes her native Nigeria for the hope of salvation in England. A couple in England tries to help her in the midst of their marital turmoil. Again, this isn't one that will make you feel good, but it sheds an important light on immigration issues facing the West.

Seventh Best of the Year: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy - Here's another that stuck with me. My husband read this one and we talked about it extensively; maybe that's the reason I can't shake it. The Road chronicles a father and son as they try to survive in a post "apocalypic" (the reader never really knows why the entire world has been decimated) world where the few survivors are driven to the most horrific of responses to being the few living beings of any kind remaining on the earth. Beautifully written, this one was very tough to read, but I still highly recommend it. During my early morning runs when there is no one else on the road, I am quick to remember this book and I think I appreciate the present a bit more because of it.

Sixth Best of the Year: Blame, by Michelle Huneven - Patsy, a college professor, is accused of killing a mother and daughter while drunk driving. This novel is the story of how she survives her prison sentence and how she copes with life after her time is served. Huneven grapples with the question of how much punishment is really enough. The twist at the end of this one surprised me, though my dad saw it coming. The writing is lovely and thought-provoking.

Fifth Best of the Year: Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen - The Franzen frenzy? Yep. The guy deserves it. He must be a genius, and, boy, would I love to sit down and talk to him. Although I liked the way The Corrections was written much better, Freedom is no less brilliantly authored. In fact, it was intriguing to read his two novels back to back and be able to observe just how different they are. Freedom is satirical as it looks at American culture post 9/11, and yet there is beautiful compassion mixed with the satire. The intermingling of the two tones causes the reader to wonder whether or not America looks like Franzen's picture.

Fourth Best of the Year: Lit, by Mary Karr - Many readers are complimentary of Agassi's Open as an honest memoir of a well known athlete. Mary Karr isn't a well known athlete, but she is a poet laureate and her memoir is full of raw vulnerability like nothing I've ever read. My mom and I will often quote lines from this book to one another. The Glass Castle has gotten so much attention and praise; Lit is the same type of memoir, but it is so, so much better. She struggles with relationships, substance abuse, and the possibility of a brilliant career. This one is outstanding.

Third Best of the Year: Tinkers, by Paul Harding - There is a reason books win Pulitzer Prizes. Tinkers, the winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in fiction, is well deserving of this year's honor. It is the rapid accumulation of a man's thoughts as he lies on his death bed. While maudlin and sad, the account is a stunning reminder to me that the "little" moments in life aren't necessarily "little". This is not easy reading, but I thought it was well worth the effort.

Second Best of the Year: Home, by Marilynne Robinson - A follow up to Gilead, Home does not disappoint. It is the story of a prodigal son, though it will make every other take off on the Biblical story pale in comparison. I saw myself all over the judgmental characters in the novel and was convicted to the core. Not a day goes by when my sinful self reminds me of those poignant characters. Its impact on me was enormous, more so than any Christian living book I read this year.

Best Book of the Year: The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen - As my regular readers know, I was only reading the genre of parenting books in 2001, which happens to be the year The Corrections was published. My parenting would have been fared better from reading this book than from reading those books. It is a novel about a family living in the 90's. As the father faces Alzheimer's disease, his wife and three children seek to grapple with their identities in an American culture that promises much and delivers little. The introspective reader will see himself or herself all over the pages of Franzen's superb writing. Highly convicting, this one got to me at the core, probably because the writing holds a mirror in front of my face and says, "Is this what you want your life to look like?" But not only is his writing powerful enough to kick the reader in the gut, it is beyond gorgeous. It is, by far, one of the most incredible books I've ever read and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Honorable Mention - My Reading Life, by Pat Conroy - While Pat Conroy's writing is just TOO much for me, I adored this memoir. I could completely grasp his excitement for reading, and the way he described his love of books, well, in that case, his writing is spot on. If you need some motivation to read more, check out this one.

Award for Most Gut-Wrenching Book of the Year - The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell - Heh, heh, heh. I couldn't resist.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua

You've been awfully busy if you haven't heard about Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. I have no less than 20 emails in my inbox asking me if I've read it. The book has caused so much of a stir that several men have sent me emails about Amy Chua's description of Chinese parenting. One such father told me that he was going to "step up" his parenting after reading the excerpt from Chua's book. Many mothers I know have quickly scanned the pages of this book, worried to the point of frazzled that they aren't parenting the correct way.

Well. Here at Civil Thoughts, we established long ago that I'm certainly not a perfect parent. I didn't need to read this book to convince me of that. Before I give my opinion on the book, I need to mention a few things. First of all, as the author herself and many journalists have mentioned, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is not meant to be a parenting how-to. It is a memoir of her parenting journey with her children. Second, there is sarcasm scattered everywhere throughout it. There is some debate about this, but I saw her tongue-in-cheek statements frequently. Third, before you enter into a heavy dialogue about this book, read it. Don't just read the excerpts. The excerpts floating around will give a bit of a false understanding of what Chua is portraying. Finally, I happen to spend an hour a week with a Chinese mother, who has been parenting her children in the United States for ten years. Prior to coming here, they were living in China. I've witnessed a real, live Chinese mommy. In fact, every Wednesday she tries to get me to parent the Chinese way, especially toward my daughter from China.

In Chua's easy-to-read memior on raising her two daughters the Chinese way while living in America, she consistently compares the Chinese way of parenting with the "Western" way of parenting. She specifically shows how she parented the Chinese way with regard to her children's piano and violin playing. Chua is married to a Jewish American and together they have two daughters named Sophia and Lulu. For the most part, Sophia complies with her mother's plan for her life. Lulu is a different story. The memoir is scattered with funny - or what I perceived to be funny - excerpts of her conversation with Lulu, the child that bucks Chua's way of parenting. On page 66, Lulu tells her mother that she is like Lord Voldemort. And then, there was this conversation during a violin practice session that made me laugh out loud:
"Your brain is annoying me," Lulu said. "I know what you're thinking."
"I'm not thinking anything," I said indignantly. Actually, I'd been thinking that Lulu's right elbow was too high and her dynamics were all wrong, and that she needed to shape her phrases better.
"Just turn off your brain!" Lulu ordered. "I'm not going to play anymore unless you turn off your brain."

Humor aside, Chua takes parenting very seriously. She compares Chinese and Western parenting throughout the book. Here is one of her summaries that best describes what she sees as the difference:
"Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturning environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits, and inner confidence that no one can ever take away."

The self-proclaimed Tiger Mother is singularly focused in her methods of parenting. She sacrifices money and time (though not a career as a professor at Yale) to help her children become musical prodigies. Why? Because it is the Chinsese way. She says:
"All these Western parents with the same party line about what's good for children and what's not - I'm not sure they're making choices at all. They just do what everyone else does. They're not questioning anything either, which is what Westerners are supposed to be so good at doing. They just keep repeating things like, "You have to give your children the freedom to pursue their passion" when it's obvious that the "passion" is just going to turn out to be Facbook for ten hours which is a total waste of time and eating all that disgusting junk food - I'm telling you this country is going to go straight down hill! No wonder Western parents get thrown into nursing homes when they're old!"

Chua concludes that Western parents are just as singularly focused on praising and giving children freedom to pursue their passion. I tend to agree with her conclusion, in general. Most Western parents are not apt to force their children to practice instruments or a foreign language for countless hours a day after they've spent much of the day in school. Many Western parents tend to remain uninvolved in the education of their children, believing that is the job of the school system. But Western parents tend to believe their way is correct just as much as Chua believes her way is correct. While I'm not saying that Western parents needs to adopt Chinese methods of parenting, we can learn something from her. It is evident that she is regularly evaluating how she can parent in a better way to achieve the goals she has for her children. She admits that each way she chooses is not the right way. Shs is constantly evaluating and re-evaluating. This, in my opinion, is a profitable thing to do as a parent.

What we also learn from Chua is that one method of parenting does not work for all children. Lulu does not respond to her ways as Sophia did. There simply is no formula for parenting. We Westerners keep looking for it. Heck, a Chinese woman tried a formula. She learns that there is no formula after much turmoil in her house, but she still learned it.

So. Does that leave my opinion between a rock and a hard place?

We have the Chinese parents who parent the way they do because it is the Chinese way. We have Western parents who parent they way they do because it is the Western way. Are those our only choices? Rigidity versus freedom? Criticism versus praise? Discipline versus play? Do we have to choose? Well, if you've read the Western criticism of Chua, you'll read that we don't have to choose. You'll read that we may have balance with our children. We Western parents may give time limits on electronic devices, but we may still allow them. We may suggest a different way of doing someting but we may couch it with praise. We may let them play instruments, but they only need to practice for 20 minutes a day. I don't know about you, but it is hard for me to find balance. The admonition to "find the balance" is much more difficult than choosing one way or the other. So what is this Western mommy to do?

While Chua's guiding parenting principle is "the Chinese way" and Westerners' guiding parenting principle of parenting is "the Western way", I have another driving force. As a Christian, it's pretty important that I exit the Chinese versus Western conversation and enter the Bible's conversation about how to parent. Does the Bible give direction on how rigid or how free I should be with my children? Does God tell me how much to praise and how much to criticize? Can I find Scripture about how much to push and how much to back off with my kids?

In fact, it does. This direction can be summarized in one word: grace. Above all, we need to give our children grace. Sometimes that grace comes to our children in the form of more structure for a child struggling with too much freedom. Sometimes that grace will come to our children in the form of a word of needed praise, and sometimes grace will mean withholding praise toward the child so that praise of his Creator is given. And how do I know what grace to give a particular child at a particular moment? I seek the grace as I parent, daily, hourly, minute by minute, with each and every individual child. And some moments I'm going to forget to seek grace in God's parenting wisdom. When I forget, I'll seek the Chinese way or the Western way. And grace will then be given to me. But when I do, by His grace, seek His parenting wisdom, He will gladly give it and I, in turn, will give grace to my children. And it will be the grace that they need at that moment in time. Each child is different, each day is different. There are no perfect parenting formulas. There is only grace, in parenting and in all things.

One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp

Does blog fright exist? You know, like stage fright? If so, I have it. The more I read, the more I realize that I can't write. And this realization has produced umpteen blog drafts that remain in the draft category instead of the published category of my blog. Maybe I could write if I had been educated to do so, but I was educated to design the proper size storm drain so that a parking lot doesn't have standing water after a heavy rain. Hey, someone's got to do it.

My problem is that I am deluged by friends who need book recommendations. There simply isn't time amongst the crust cut-offing and storm drain designing that I do to tell my friends about each book I think they should read. Blogging is a necessity of efficiency.

I have another problem. One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp, was released today and it is possibly the best women's book about Christianity every written. I've now read it three times on my phone. There is much hype about it. As I've read the hype, the blogs and the reviews, it all seems trite. None of the hype does this book justice. I'm not going to do it justice here, either.

Ann Voskamp has written a gem of a book in One Thousand Gifts. This is not your typical how-to book on serving with a smile or submitting with a sigh. Ms. Voskamp is a homeschooling mother of six who lives on a farm with her farmer husband. She doesn't tell you that you must homeschool or grind wheat or have 17 children. She doesn't tell you that you must grow your own vegetables or only wear dresses. She doesn't tell you how to raise your kids or how to be a good wife.

What she does do is pour her heart out onto the pages of this book as a broken woman who realizes how to live fully, abundantly, and gloriously in God's grace as she keeps track of one thousand gifts. Her writing is poetic and beautiful. Most importantly, this book is different. It is unlike any other Christian women's book I've read.

It is simple and remarkable. Profound and brilliant. Stunning and accessible. Living in a perpetual state of thankfulness changed her. It could change you, too.

Tinkers, by Paul Harding

There's a reason books win awards. With the exception of one Pulitzer Prize winning book*, I think they are far superior to your average best selling novel. Tinkers, by Paul Harding, is no exception. This winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize is an under 200-page, $5.99 paperback gem that will make any careful reader slow down and ponder life.

George is dying. Tinkers compiles his thoughts and memories during the eight days before his death. The language is lyrical and, therefore, quite the opposite kind of book that won the same prize in 2009. The reader must think to read this; it is a short but challenging exercise for the mind and the soul. The writing grabbed me so fiercely that often I lingered on one page for a many minutes before feeling I could turn the page.

As George wrestles with the last of his life, he has some sentimental moments:

"When his grandchildren had been little, they had asked if they could hide inside the clock. Now he wanted to gather them and open himself up and hide them among his ribs and faintly ticking heart. When he realized that the silence by which he had been confused was that of all of his clocks having been allowed to wind down, he understood that he was going to die in the bed where he lay."

And as death looms, George has some very honest moments:

"...I will remain a set of impressions porous and open to combination with all of the other vitreous squares floating about in whoever else's frames, because there is always the space left in reserve for the rest of their own time, and to my great-grandchildren, with more space than tiles, I will be no more than the smoky arrangement of a set of rumors, and to their great-grandcildren I will be no more than a tint of some obscure color, and to their great grandchildren nothing they every know about, and so what army of strangers and ghosts has shaped and colored me until back to Adam, until back to when ribs were blown from molten sand into the glass bits that took up the light of this world because they were made from this world..."

It was interesting to read interviews with Harding, who studied under Marilynne Robinson at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her fingerprints are all over his writing. He also wrote portions the novel (his first, by the way), in an unusual manner. This kind of writing talent astonishes me, and I'm grateful that I get to reap the benefits of such a gift. For $5.99, you should, too.

*Disclosure: I am embarrassed to say that I have an exception to my Pulitzer-Prize-books-are-some-of-the-best rule. This summer I read this book, which won the coveted award in 2008. I hated it. I tried hard to make myself like it, but I just couldn't. You won't see a review on it here because I have nothing good to say about it. If you read it and have something nice to say, please let me know what was good about it so that I can figure out what is wrong with me.

Summer Reading Highlights

I hope the lazy days of summer found you surrounded by books. Here are summaries of some great ones I read during those hot months.

Home, by Marilynne Robinson - This one gets five, no make it ten, stars. A gorgeously constructed companion to Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead, Home is the story of a wayward son who cautiously attempts reconciliation with the family he left decades earlier. The writing is just breathtakingly beautiful, and the plot is one that is easily grasped. Home addresses forgiveness, judgement, prejudice, history, and religion, but the overarching theme is that of grace withheld. My God-phobic friends will enjoy this, despite the repeated religious references. Read it, and search your soul for the person from whom you are withholding grace. This one had a profound impact on me.

The Power of One, by Bruce Courtenay- My family has been raving about this movie for over ten years, so when I saw it in the Classics section of my used bookstore, I grabbed it. The Power of One is set in South Africa in the 1940's. It attacks prejudice head-on and shows how just one person can make an enormous difference in the midst of cultural practices that seems insurmountable. The book was significantly better than the movie, but the music in the movie was so good that it is worth seeing the movie as well.

Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay- This has spent some time on the New York Times' Bestseller List, and after reading it, I know why. The writing is, well, marginal. However, the story is one that needs to be read. Sarah's Key tells the story of the persecution of Jews in Paris, focusing on the raid in which Paris police ripped Jewish families from their homes, separated parents from their children, and sent them all off to concentration camps. This historical event is one that is not well known, but should be.

Lit, A Memoir, by Mary Karr - This one knocked my reading glasses off. Mary Karr's retelling of her journey into alcoholism, divorce, and motherhood is in astonishing account of self-reflection. Her writing is superb, and it should be; she is an award winning poet. I loved Glass Castle, but this was so much better. It is not a pretty or clean story. It is a look into someone who assess her life with brutal honesty, something that we don't see very much in our culture. The story becomes even more beautiful as she describes how her life is turned around. I highly recommend this one.

The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell - It's a long story as to how I ended up reading nutrition books this summer. Suffice it to say that this one was the best of the stack. The China Study is the compilation of one man's work over an entire career that shows how a vegan diet is the very best way for humans to eat. It had such an impact on me that I am now eating and cooking only plants. Many of my extended family members read it and have followed in my vegetable-loving footsteps. I'm not here to try to convince you to walk over to the dark side of vegan, but if you are worried about any kind of health issues, this is the book to read.

More reviews coming soon, I promise.

Civil Thoughts is Guest Posting...

...here. The topic? Gender bias in STEM fields.

A Slew of Short and Simple Summaries

I'm behind on sharing my book thoughts. Very behind. Because I don't want to hold back on the good reads I've recently found, I'm going to share my recent book thoughts simply and, as always, civilly.

Push, by Sapphire- This tragic story is about Precious, a young girl born into an unimaginably horrific family. She realizes that the only hope of escaping the horror of that family lies in a single goal: to learn to read. This is an unbelievably sad story, but one that so accurately portrays the essential role that literacy plays in every human being's life. Even though I liked the movie better than the book, the movie spent more time on the horror of the family; the book emphasized the importance of reading. For that reason, read the book first if this plot interests you.

Blame, by Michelle Huneven - Oh, how I adore this one. A recent winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Blame is the story of a brilliant and accomplished woman who is convicted of killing a mother and daughter while driving drunk. The novel chronicles her time in prison and how she copes with living life as a killer of two innocent people. I thought this book had to have the longest denouement ever, until I realized that I hadn't reached it's climax yet. The high point of the novel is stunning. This is, by far, my favorite so far in 2010.

Lark and Termite, by Jayne Anne Phillips - Another National Book Critics Circle Award winner, this one is also outstanding. It is the story of a girl, Lark, and her mentally disabled brother, Termite. Lark and Termite are sent to live in West Virginia with their aunt, who raises them. The best part of this novel is that several of the chapters are written from the perspective of Termite. The author wrote those chapters in such a way that the reader gets a glimpse into the mind of a mentally disabled individual. These chapters were remarkable. A very worthwhile read.

Little Bee, by Chris Cleave - Breathtaking. The setting is England, and the author writes like the Brit that he is. This voice gave a refreshing tone to the novel, one that I haven't found in a while. The story is about Little Bee, a young woman who escapes her war-torn Nigeria for England. When she arrives, she is immediately imprisoned in a detention center for two years. She is then accidentally released without papers and flees to the only people in England she knows. Those people happen to be the husband and wife who inadvertently met her while vacationing in her war torn land. This one is powerful and will get the wheels of your brain turning on the currently hot topic of immigration reform.

Davita's Harp, by Chaim Potok - Potok is one of my favorites. He writes about the Jewish community in Brooklyn with such intensity. Davita's Harp is no exception. This is a coming of age story in which Davita grows up in the midst of the 1930's and 1940's with a Christian father and a Jewish mother, both of whom have renounced their faith. Davita finds great comfort in the study of the Jewish religion and yet grapples with what she sees as its inconsistencies. This book is remarkable in that the voice of Davita changes throughout the book because Potok constructed it so that the writing parallels her maturation process. Brilliantly done. I love this one. If you are unfamiliar with Potok, familiarize yourself, pronto. Everything he writes is wonderful. Davita's Harp was written in the mid 1980's; I found it at the used bookstore for $2.99. Or, get yourself to the library and read Potok for free.

Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls - Oh, mercy. This is QUITE a story. It is a true story of the author's life with parents who decided to raise their children in a most unconventional way. You will constantly be wondering whether or not these parents were creative, smart, neglectful, narcissistic, or all of the above. The shock of the book is in the story itself. It is an easy read, and I guarantee that you will not be able to put it down. I liked it better than Half Broke Horses, which I read at the beginning of the year and is Walls' prequel, if you will, to Glass Castle.

Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, by Elif Batuman - I seem to have accidentally fallen into an intense love with Russian novels and, for the life of me, I can't tell you why. Elif Batuman would tell me that my love is rooted in the fact that Russian authors articulate life better than any other ethnicity of authors on the planet. Possessed is a hilarious account of Batuman's experiences with studying Russian literature. If you are drawn to the likes of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, this is a must read for you. However, save it for a quiet, rainy day. This one is not for easy, summer beach reading.

There you have it. Feel free to ask me plot questions if you need more information about whether or not to read one of these. I'm off to do some reading on the beach. Hopefully some longer summaries will return with me.

Happy reading!

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, by Michael Chabon

I first heard about Michael Chabon's writing from his wife while I was on the treadmill at the gym. She was narrating her book, Bad Mother, through my ear pods. Ayelet Waldman's description of her husband's involvement in helping her parent their four children as he churned out novel after novel seemed endearing, if not inspiring. So, off I went to hunt down some Michael Chabon. He won the Pulitzer in 2001 for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. That title was not to be found at the used bookstore, but The Mysteries of Pittsburgh was. It was $2.99. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh was Chabon's first book, written at the age of 21.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is about Arthur Bechstein as he toys with becoming an adult during a summer break from college. The novel profiles his difficult relationship with his father, who is in the Mafia, and it describes the love he feels for Phlox, who is his girlfriend. As he drenches himself in Phlox's affections, he finds himself questioning his sexuality. The focus of that identity question centers around his friend, who also happens to be named Arthur.

The part of me that is enamored by the talent of the novelist is simply floored at the achievement of this novel written at such a young age. The human part of me wasn't all that enamored. The writing is excellent. The plot is a little eccentric, and because of that, it reminded me of a Quentin Tarantino movie. The story is a fairly accurate portrayal of my generation. The picture was not pretty for me, all laid out there in black and white. Oblivious to the enormity of their self-centeredness, Arthur and his friends live in the present without regard for the past or the future. At the beginning of the novel, Arthur says this:

"I smoked and looked down at the bottom of Pittsburgh for a little while, watching the kids playing tiny baseball, the distant figures of dogs snatching at a little passing car, a miniature housewife on her back porch shaking out a snippet of red rug, and I made a sudden, frightened vow never to become that small, and to devote myself to getting bigger and bigger and bigger."

That vow is made at the beginning of the novel. The vow is not rooted in anything except being momentarily inspired. The inspiration does not propel Arthur to do anything "big". It's that kind of thing that seems to be a repeating theme with my generation; get inspired and then do nothing with the inspiration. Of course, I'm not saying that everyone in my generation fulfills this stereotype, but it's out there. Is this stereotype typical of 22 year olds in all generations? I think not. My grandfather was commanding a World War II Navy ship at that same age. His daughter was financially supporting her husband while he attended college at that same age. His granddaughter (me) was, at 22, not doing anything nearly as magnanimous as commanding a Navy ship or putting someone through college. I might be on to something here. And Michael Chabon might agree with me.

While this wasn't a life-changing, keep-me-up-all-night novel, it fulfilled its purpose. Any time a book causes me to stop and think, it is a good thing. You can be sure that I'll be watching the used bookstore for some more Michael Chabon.

An Open Letter to My Former High School English Teachers Regarding Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Dear Mr. Sharpe, Mr. Mohan, and Mrs. Balaban,

How are you doing? Remember me? Maybe not. Nevertheless, I loved having you as my high school English teachers, but I need to bring a matter to your attention. Once I do this, I will feel as if I've made a small, but important, contribution to society.

The matter is regarding the assignment - actually lack thereof - of Crime and Punishment. None of you assigned the reading of this novel in any of the English classes I attended. My question is this: What were you thinking?

Full of intrigue, mystery, murder, prostitution, gender bias, history, and romance, this novel is chock full of the stuff teenagers love. Dostoyevsky is clean in the way he unfolds these dramatic themes. Imagine that! Much cleaner than, say, Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, which we read and analyzed in detail. As you well know from your many years of teaching literature, the Tolstoy-esque details are absent from Crime and Punishment. The novel is extremely accessible to even the high school level reader.

What is also shocking about the fact that you didn't have us read Crime and Punishment is the sheer volume of moral lessons present in the book. We could have had some really heated debates about whether or not Raskolnikov was forced to commit his crime or not. My classmates would have relished such a discussion!

Truly, though, the most disturbing part of not reading this novel until my 39th year of life is that my brain (and heart) missed the quality of his writing, and specifically, on his masterful use of dialogue to develop plot. Consider, for example, the following:

"Principles! You're always standing on your principles as if they were stilts. You won't move on your own feet."

And then later:

"I didn't kill a human being! I killed a principle!"

What high school student wouldn't love to ponder this statement as he or she is contemplating the future:

"You see, Rodia, it's my considered opinion that all you have to do to make your way in the world is the right thing at the right time."

I'll give you all the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps one of you assumed that the other was going to cover the novel in a later class. Hopefully in the past 25 years you have worked out those kinks and you are not withholding the gift of this novel from your beloved students.

I know you are holding your breath, worried that I'm holding this against you. Really, I'm not. I'm just glad that I can read Crime and Punishment now. It's unfortunate, because I like the book so much that I'd really enjoy writing a paper on it at 39 years of age. However, you can bet your bottom grammar text that I'm going to make sure that all of my friends' English teachers made them read this book, because I wouldn't want them to miss out on what is, by far, one of the greatest novels in existence.

Respectfully yours,

Staci

The History of the Medieval World, by Susan Wise Bauer

This book is nothing short of a masterpiece.

I have been following Susan Wise Bauer and her writing for many years. The Well-Trained Mind is the foundation of the academic pursuits of my four children. The Well-Educated Mind saved my sanity as I coped with leaving my career for motherhood. The four volumes of The Story of the World series have made history one of the most exciting topics in our household.

About seven years ago, I heard Bauer give a lecture and I remember her saying, “History isn’t a subject. It is THE subject.” That sentiment may have led her to embark on the mammoth task of writing the history of the entire world in narrative form. The first volume, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome, made me a better teacher of ancient history. I recently finished the second volume of the series, The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade. I’ve been working on it since November, as I was allowed access to an online copy in exchange for a review on my blog.

Bauer begins her story of medieval times with Constantine’s Christianity and she ends with the Crusades of Christianity. The middle includes the stories of the Romans, the Ostrogoths, and the Vikings, among others. Throughout the 746-page narrative the reader is provided beautifully constructed maps that clearly show the boundaries of the various empires and therefore aid in the understanding of the historical events. The end of each chapter has a vertical timeline that summarizes the major events in the current chapter compared to the events in the previous chapter. This is a gift to the reader, as the timelines show what was occurring in one empire as compared to what was occurring in another empire. Illustrations included also enhance the reading and understanding of the history. The notes at the bottom of many of the pages provide explanatory notes that are delightfully different from the normal history text explanatory notes.

As well done as the technical details are, it is the masterful telling of history as a story that makes the book so remarkable. Bauer explains why the accounts of a certain event may not be as accurate as they should be by listing a historian’s possible bias and how that would affect the accounting of that event. As I read, I felt as if I was sitting in a history class with a most exciting professor. The writing is interesting, informative, and conversational. In the chapter on Japan between 884 and 940 Bauer explains, “Yozei was never imprisoned; his psychopathy took an occasional downward turn (he was reputedly responsible for at least two murders), but he seems to have been allowed to roam through the mountains on horseback, hunting and sleeping out and sometimes appearing without warning at the gates of one or another great landowner, demanding to be let in.” Bauer does not just give textbook-like facts; she provides reasons for why events occurred or men ruled: “This was exactly why he had appointed a pope who was both German and a blood relation.” And whether the medieval times were really funny or Bauer just chose to include all of the humorous events, the book has some downright hilarious parts, in a dark sort of way. Did you know that Maximinus Daia drank poison to kill himself, but it took four agonizingly painful days to die because he ate an enormous last meal right before he swallowed the poison?

I simply cannot fathom how Bauer possibly summarized the events of an entire historical period in a manner that is easy to understand and interesting at the same time. I had a sorry excuse for a history education in public school, and because of my college major, I did not have one single history class during my university studies. This history series has made the facts of my own history less regrettable because I am learning THE subject, and it is THE subject that helps me to understand not just the past, but also the present.