Spark (Chris Baron)

 

Wow. This book was an experience. The author did a fantastic job of really helping you feel the fear that is a part of events like devastating fires. I had serious feeling stirred up about how important it is to look after the environment...and being a girl who'd rather stay inside and read - that is something. The whole idea of survival - how the forest realizes that burning is a part of the natural process...and the humans have to learn to understand that as well as they live amongst the forest in areas developed where they weren't in the past.....powerful symbolism.

I'm not sure what age I'd recommend Spark for. Colby Sharp read it to his grade five students (I think anyway....or maybe he just read it himself...not sure). I'm not so sure I'd do that. If I read it aloud, there's definitely be tears and big emotions on my part. It says it's a middle-grade book - but it's one that you'd have to approach carefully because there are a lot of big and difficult issues of trauma. The scenes where they escape the fire are so well written! 

Rabbit figuring out the origin of the fire reminded me of Willowdeen arguing for science and saving the trees. I loved the connection to ancestors. Early on, Finn learns that the portrait of his great-grandfather, Phineas Katz, is important to his family—and that if the fire ever comes they should save it. Finn, the main character, is named after his grandfather. He has traits like his grandfather - liked to keep a journal and write down lists of things.

There is a black-and-white photograph above the fireplace of my great-grandfather, Phineas Katz. Everyone says I look like him: brown hair, green eyes, medium height.  Average, like someone who fits right in. His story is how our family got here. He uprooted everyone, because their home wasn't safe. On the ship, a sailor warned him he should shorten their names, so when he got to the States they could have a "normal life". But is normal, anyway, once everything in your life has changed? He disagreed, but he shortened it from Phineas. I know him as Great-Grandpa Finn. That's me, too. Phineas Katz, but everyone calls me Finn. Mom says that my great-grandfather kept a field journal. He loved to write it all down just like I do, inking everything he could about his journey. Mom says the field journal and the photograph remind us of whah=t is important, where we've come from, and what we've been through. Mom says that if the fire does ever come, we can't forget to take his portrait.

His great grandfather went in search of a "normal life"....which is what they try to get back to after the fire. 

The author is Jewish and the main character in the book is also Jewish. I read this with my Children's Lit book club and one of the other teachers told me about PJ Library...and organization that sends children (ages 0 to 5) a book every month that has Jewish characters or teaches about Jewism.  

Goodreads says:

Finn and his friend, nicknamed Rabbit, live in a rural area that's been hit hard by wildfires. Families were displaced and school was interrupted. Moreover, their beloved forest is suffering -- animals and plants haven't been able to come back, and the two friends wonder if there's anything they can do to help. Rabbit's uncle, a science teacher, is part of a study that may help bring the forest back to life, but Finn and Rabbit wonder if the forest can wait. And what if another fire comes in the meantime? They believe a small part of the forest -- the forest heart -- that survived the wildfire may hold the key to regrowth, but first, they have to find it and then convince the adults around them to listen.

For any young person who's ever felt powerless against the world, here is a story about two kids doing all they can to understand their natural world and preserve it.

The Coddling of the American Mind (Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt)

 

This book started from an article published in The Atlantic.  It makes for a great audio book. I quite enjoyed it. They have a website: www.thecoddling.com 

They talk a lot about cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is great. Cognitive distortions are something we should all review, often, I think! 

I've often looked for something to read about how to discuss tricky topics like politics and religion. In this book, I realized that actually, there aren't any tricks. It just needs to be happen. We need to be able to hear and discuss things we disagree about.

This book discusses and emphases three important quotes:

• Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child. (unknown) 
• ....in other words, helicopter parenting is not healthy. 
• Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded. But once mastered, no one can help you as much, not even your father or your mother (Budda)
• The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
• ...in other words, no one is simply evil, everyone has good ideas

Goodreads says:

Something is going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and afraid to speak honestly. How did this happen?

First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths are incompatible with basic psychological principles, as well as ancient wisdom from many cultures. They interfere with healthy development. Anyone who embraces these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—is less likely to become an autonomous adult able to navigate the bumpy road of life.

Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to produce these untruths. They situate the conflicts on campus in the context of America’s rapidly rising political polarization, including a rise in hate crimes and off-campus provocation. They explore changes in childhood including the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade.


This is a book for anyone who is confused by what is happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines.

https://youtu.be/IUePfXsuHLE?si=aBrJ8rSd7vhhhtEA 

Conviction (Denise Mina)

 

Well, after reading The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, this book was a nice change. I read it in a weekend....and I don't regret all the time at all. I quite enjoyed it. It was nice to have some candyesque to read. The premise of the story was entertaining. I don't think I've ever read a book where a podcast tells part of the story.

Both main characters, Anna and Fin, who are the ones whose spouses are cheating, have things they do to avoid life. I can see the negativity with anorexia, but reading? Hmmm...

• p. 132 I told him that I read to self-medicate. That I find the world a bit much sometimes. Podcasts are like reading when you need to use your eyes and hands, and he said, yeah, yeah, that's kind of what his eating was lie. Self-medicating. But then it took over and he couldn't stop. "It's a chemical spiral. It gets so that it feels like the only thing that matters. Controlling it. Eating isn't like a book though, you can't just put it down'. I didn't say so, but I've read books I couldn't put down, not always because they were good either, I just couldn't stop reading. Once I was reading a book and finished it by mistake (I hadn't noticed the last 140 pages were an index) and then had nothing to read. In a blind panic, I went back to the start and read it again.

Not sure the page number of this one...but it's interesting to think about/discuss:

• It's primal, the need to tell. It's not about the listener but the storyteller. In some cultures, not telling your story is regarded as a sign of mental illness.

Goodreads says:
It’s just a normal morning when Anna's husband announces that he's leaving her for her best friend and taking their two daughters with him.

With her safe, comfortable world shattered, Anna distracts herself with someone else's story: a true-crime podcast. That is until she recognises the name of one of the victims and becomes convinced that only she knows what really happened.

With nothing left to lose, she throws herself into investigating the case. But little does she know, Anna's past and present lives are about to collide, sending everything she has worked so hard to achieve into freefall.

Conviction is the compelling and unique new thriller from multiple award-winner, Denise Mina.

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy (Rachel Joyce)

 

This is a book that follows The Unlikely Pilgrimmage of Harold Fry. You can't really read Queenie's story without having first read Harold's story, I think. I found Harold's book pretty slow, but I was taken by his journey and his reflection on his life. This is Queenie's side of the story - a woman that he worked with, that it seems, was in love with him. I'm uncomfortable with stories of infidelity - but in this one there is no relationship and no physical intimacy - just love from a distance. It's kind of odd. Harold's son is also friends with Queenie, and, actually, a total jerk. Queenie is dying. In many spots it felt like maybe morpheme was speaking. It was very slow moving as well but I felt like I couldn't quit on her as she lay dying. It's a strange story. I'm sure someone smarter than me can find some great symbolism and meaning in it. 

Goodreads says:

https://ihaveabookyoushouldread.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-unlikely-pilgrimage-of-harold-fry.html

Mind Over Grind (Guy Winch)

 

This was good. After watching a couple of his TED talks, I liked him even more. He has some good tips in this book. I think he should do teachers next. So much of teacher's work, to me, is much more complicated than he got into here. Or maybe I'm just too self-absorbed. I don't know. A couple of his tips that I could really implement right away are changing my clothes when I get home to get a real sense of 'work is finished' and leaving work sooner.

Goodreads says:

Clinical psychologist, TED Speaker, and author of Emotional First Aid offers a guide to combating the many stresses modern work imposes, based on recent research and the stories of patients Winch has helped to thrive after burnout.

Whether we like it or not, work is central to our lives. Most of us define ourselves by our work; it gives us a purpose, it enables us to maintain our lives, our homes, our nourishment, our recreational pursuits, and it puts us often among like-minded people who share and appreciate our skills and achievements. No wonder we feel it is so important. But the dark side is that it intrudes on our lives and unconsciously takes over our thoughts, our priorities, and even our coping mechanisms. Especially in recent years, the separation between work and home is blurrier than ever, and we struggle to maintain healthy boundaries, to restore ourselves and recover our attention and energy, to give due focus to our loved ones, and to nourish other essential aspects of our self.

In Mind Over Grind, Guy Winch explains how our enmeshment with work reinforces these unconscious tendencies and reveals to the damage they do to our careers and personal lives, as well as to our emotional health. He argues that attaining a work-life balance involves changing not just what you do in your free time but how you think. And he offers clear, cogent strategies we can use to regain control, change the way we think, bring intentionality back to our lives, and restore the balance we crave.

The Library of Unruly Treasures (Jeanne Birdsall)

 

I loved the idea of this book. I sometimes had a hard time keeping all the fantasy characters straight, especially their language.  Because of that, I  don't think this would be a good read-aloud, unfortunately.

Goodreads says:

The Borrowers meets Matilida in this funny, winning story of a girl who finds herself an unlikely hero when she stumbles upon a big secret about little creatures. The latest book from the National Book Award winning author of the Penderwicks series.

Gwen MacKinnon's parents are dreadful. Truly, deeply, almost impressively dreadful. So Gwen's not upset at all when she's foisted onto her never-before-seen Uncle Matthew for two weeks. Especially when it turns out he has a very opinionated dog named Pumpkin.

Things take a turn for the weird when Gwen makes a discovery in the local library. A discovery that involves tiny creatures with wings.  And no, they're not birds. They're called Lanukan. But why can only Gwen and the youngest children, gathered for storytime, see them?

The Ladhukan insist that Gwen is destined to help them find a new home. But how can a girl as unwanted, uncourageous, and generally unheroic as Gwen possibly come to the rescue? Pumpkin has a few ideas...

Ubuntu! (Stephen Lundin, Bob Nelson)

 

This reminds me of Steven R Covey....understanding how situations affect how people act....changing paradigms. This book teaches a concept through story and does so very powerfully.

Goodreads says:

A powerful story about the African philosophy of teamwork and collaboration that has the power to reshape our workplaces, our relationships with our coworkers, and our personal lives, written by the bestselling coauthor of Fish! and the bestselling author of 1001 Ways to Reward Employees.

John Peterson, a new manager in the credit department at a major big-box retailer, is struggling in his job. The people under him are not working as well or effectively as they need to, and his department is falling behind in meeting its goals. His only solution is to take on more work himself, burning the midnight oil and coming in most weekends to pick up the slack and keep his department above water.

When one of the employees stays behind to help him—a young man who came to America from a small village in Africa—he learns of the ancient wisdom and hidden power of the African philosophy of Ubuntu. Before long, it begins to change the way he thinks about the people he works with, about himself, and about how he runs his department and his life.

In an engaging and completely fresh narrative that holds a unique message for today’s business world, Ubuntu! shows us a way to overcome our fears, insecurities, and the “me-ism” that so often permeates our workplaces, and replace it with a culture of genuine respect and collaboration. It promises to take its place alongside Fish! and other business parables as the next bestselling classic in the business category.