What Happened To You? (Oprah Winfrey and

 

 I listened to the audio book. It's mostly Bruce Perry but now and then Oprah interjects and asks questions as if she is interviewing him. Bruce Perry apparently has done a lot of work for her and with her with different people. One significant group was girls at the school Oprah started in Africa. He has also worked with children who survived cults as well as many other extremely traumatized individuals. It's clear he knows what he's talking about.

The gist of the book seems to be that we shouldn't be asking what is wrong with you, but instead, what happened to you. This brings about more understanding and compassion and leads to healing. 

My favorite part was the last chapter where Oprah shared her story and talked about how what happened to you can lead to your super power. Earlier in the book they had talked about how all super hero stories begin with a crisis. They become super heroes through an accidental tragedy. It's good to think of our trauma as something that can create greatness in us.

Goodreads says:

"Through this lens we can build a renewed sense of personal self-worth and ultimately recalibrate our responses to circumstances, situations, and relationships. It is, in other words, the key to reshaping our very lives.”
―Oprah Winfrey

This book is going to change the way you see your life.

Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can't I just control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What's wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question.

Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, and What Happened to You? provides powerful scientific and emotional insights into the behavioral patterns so many of us struggle to understand.

Here, Winfrey shares stories from her own past, understanding through experience the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age. Joining forces with Dr. Perry, one of the world’s leading experts on childhood and brain development, Winfrey and Dr. Perry marry the power of storytelling with science to better understand and overcome the effects of our pasts.

In conversation throughout the book, the two focus on understanding people, behavior, and ourselves. It’s a subtle but profound shift in our approach to trauma, and it’s one that allows us to understand our pasts in order to clear a path to our future―opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.

There, There (Tim Beiser)

I love the illustrations in this story! The rabbit is hilarious and the bear really tries hard to help the rabbit look on the bright side. But just like anyone, he gets tired of things too. Then along comes an innocent worm who's just living his life and thinks things are fine and it gets pointed out that his life really sucks - but he doesn't agree! Funny and a great book on looking on the bright side of things.

This story reminded me of Alexander and his No Good Terrible Very Bad Day


Goodreads says:

For fans of Penguin Problems and A Birthday for Bear, the story of a whiny rabbit pushing a patient bear to the end of his tether and learning a lesson in looking on the bright side.

Do you ever feel like everything is terrible? Like nothing is ever right and you just want to hide under your pillow? Well Rabbit does, and he's not shy about sharing it. He whines, he complains, he moans, he grumps... until Bear has had enough and decides it's time for Rabbit to learn to appreciate what he has. Using nothing but the lowly common earthworm as an example, he teaches Rabbit a lesson about taking things for granted. Something the worm knows all about...

Written in charming verse and featuring a delightfully domestic bear and a very surly rabbit, There, There is a fantastic tongue-in-cheek riff on the idea that "it could be worse..."

Gone Without a Trace (Mary Torjussen)

Every week I have my students write down the name of the book they're reading this week (an attempt at getting them in the habit of IMWAYR). I often tell them about the book I'm reading. I had just started this one on the weekend so on Monday I told them a little about it: A husband (he was actually a boyfriend...but I told them he was a husband...) disappears. I told them how everything about him was gone: her number in his phone, his email address in her contacts. Everything that was his was gone and all that was hers was put back where it was before he moved in. She tried calling him at work - but he no longer worked there. She called his mother - but she had moved. I was definitely hooked by the story line. My class was definitely hooked. They asked me if they could read it too.

SPOILER ALERT:

As the story wears on, you wonder if it was the MIL. You wonder about the people she works with. There are a few people I had my eyes on as the guilty ones. Boy was I wrong. In the end, as the story unfolds, it turns out SHE is abusive and he left to protect himself. I can't tell my students about how it ends. It was so surprising - and so dysfunctional! I'm going to have to make something up to tell my students.

This book was picked for the community book club that I joined a few months ago. It definitely made for a good discussion!

Goodreads says:

GONE WITHOUT A TRACE by Mary Torjussen is a chilling, twisty, compulsive thriller about a woman whose boyfriend has vanished. Fans of I LET YOU GO and THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN will be gripped.

No one ever disappears completely...

You leave for work one morning.

Another day in your normal life.

Until you come home to discover that your boyfriend has gone.
His belongings have disappeared.
He hasn't been at work for weeks.
It's as if he never existed.

But that's not possible, is it?

And there is worse still to come.

Because just as you are searching for him
someone is also watching you. 

Daring Greatly (Brené Brown)

Reread March 27, 2018

I listened to the audio tape while driving back from Kelowna. Often when I read, I like to make connections to my studies of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I kept thinking, as I was listening, that this all relates to many lessons I have heard and studied about hope. Then, at the end, she talked about the connections to hope. 

This is a great book: well worth re-reading again.

Originally read June 29, 2016

My sister-in-law has talked a lot about this author and then I started noticing her name pop up in all sorts of different places.  The admiration is well deserved. She definitely has some good stuff in this book. It is the kind of book I should read and re-read. I bought this one because I found a book study group that was discussing it over three months. We went to the discussions. It really held me to think a little deeper about the concepts. 

Great quotes:

P. 8 Connection is why we're here. We are hardwired to connect with others, it's what gives purpose an meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering."

"P. 25 Lynne Twist (The Soul of Money): For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is "I didn't get enough sleep." The next one us "I don't have enough time." Whether true or not...We spend most of our days.....worrying we don't have enough....this internal scarcity...lives at the very heart of our jealousies, or greed, our greed, our prejudices, and our arguments with life."

P. 53 Trust is a product of vulnerability that grows over time an requires work, attention, and full engagement. Trust isn't a grand gesture-it's a a marble collection.

P. 113 Masks make us feel safer even when they become suffocating. Armour makes us feel stronger even when we grow weary from dragging the weight around. The irony is that when we're standing across from someone who is hidden or shielded by masks and armour, we feel frustrated and disconnected. That's the paradox here: vulnerability is the last thing I want you to see in me, but the first thing I look for in you. 

P. 133 Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good (Cribbed from Voltaire). A twenty minute wake that I do us better than the four-mike run that I don't do. The imperfect book that gets published us better than the perfect book that never leaves my computer. The dinner party of take-out Chinese food is better than the elegant dinner that I never host.

P. 137 There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. - Leonard Cohen

P. 231 ....fitting in and belonging are not the same thing. In fact, fitting in is one of the greatest barriers to belonging. Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be in order to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand doesn't require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are. 

P. 243 Sometimes the bravest and most important thing you can do us just show up.

Goodreads Summary:

Researcher and thought leader Dr. Brené Brown offers a powerful new vision that encourages us to dare greatly: to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly, and to courageously engage in our lives.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.” —Theodore Roosevelt

Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable, or to dare greatly. Whether the arena is a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation, we must find the courage to walk into vulnerability and engage with our whole hearts.

In Daring Greatly, Dr. Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability. Based on twelve years of research, she argues that vulnerability is not weakness, but rather our clearest path to courage, engagement, and meaningful connection. The book that Dr. Brown’s many fans have been waiting for, Daring Greatly will spark a new spirit of truth—and trust—in our organizations, families, schools, and communities. 

Small Great Things (Jodi Picoult)

I haven't done a great job of reading this summer. One reason is I seemed to have this sub-conscious need to stay focused on my husband, which meant I couldn't really get lost in a book. I tried, but I was reading a book that I couldn't quite get into and I was dragging myself through it. I finally put it aside and decided to read Small Great Things. It was a great break!

Goodreads says:

Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years' experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she's been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don't want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene?

Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy's counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other's trust, and come to see that what they've been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.

With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn't offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game.

My thoughts:

Right now there is some awful racial issue stuff going on in the states that totally parallel this story. It was surreal to be reading it at the same time.

It was crazy to see inside the mind of a white supremacist. Crazy.


I had to stop and take a break after this bit:


p. 377: Ruth talks about helping a mother who has just had a stillborn baby: Then I handed her a damp cloth I pressed it into her palm water shocked her into awareness, or if it was the baby. But with my hand guiding her she washed every fold and curve of her baby.She wrapped him in the blanket. She held him to her breast. Finally, with a Saab that sounded like she was tearing a piece of herself away, she offered the body of her child back to me.

.....speaking of the room in the hospital for grieving parents of newborns: I think I know now why it is called the kangaroo suite It's because even when you no longer have a child, you carry him forever

The Snurtch (Sean Ferrell)

When we read this book, everyone listened very intently. It seemed to touch all the kids.

Topics we discussed:

• Everyone feels a little snurtchy sometimes
• Sometimes people act snurtchy towards you but it isn't about you. Something might have happened previously in the day to make them react in a snutchy way
• Ways we can help people that are feeling snurtchy
• Ways we can control our own snurtch

Goodreads summary:

Some days are Snurtch days. Ruthie is having one of those.

Ruthie has a problem at school.

It is not the students. It is not the classroom. It is not the reading or the writing or the math. It is something scribbly, scrunchy, grabby, burpy, and rude. It is the Snurtch.

From the team behind I Don’t Like Koala, this clever picture book takes a discerning look at the challenges of behaving and controlling your emotions—especially when your own personal monster keeps getting in the way.

Happy People Read and Drink Coffee (Agnes Martin Lugand)

I was very excited to received an advance reading copy of this book from Harper Collins through The Reading Society at The National Post.

Now that I have read it, I am less enamoured. At least I didn't pay for this book!

Don't be fooled by the title. This isn't about reading. It isn't about drinking coffee. It isn't about happy people. There is a bookstore called Happy People that the main character leaves and comes back to...but that is about it. It kind of reminded me of a bad mix of Wild by Cheryl Strayed and Labor Day by Joyce Menard....but with terrible writing. The idea of escaping to somewhere beautiful to find oneself is lovely....but she came off as stupidly hooking up with a jerk, like in Labor Day. 

The first chapter was great. I gasped at the narrative about easy going fun banter between a husband and wife and their child suddenly ending with death:

"They left, laughing and feeling around as they went downstairs.

"I found out they were still fooling around in the car when the truck crashed into them. I told myself they were still laughing when they died. I told myself that I should've been with them."

It is all downhill from there. The story is flat and poorly developed and terribly predictable. I kept saying, "Are you kidding me?!" with chapter. 

Run away. Move into a place next to this inexplicably seriously grumpy and rude neighbor. He does one nice deed and the next thing you know (like....that day) he invites her to join him on his business trip and she strangely, accepts. Of course, they call in love. In walks in the old girlfriend with catty skills straight out of high school. Of course, he chooses the nicer girl after seeing through the manipulation a of the old girlfriend.....only to have her get a hold of herself and return to her bookstore and clean the place up.

Phew....that was a waste of a Friday night.

Glad it was a quick read.

Goodreads summary:

She fled Paris to lose herself. The love she found would change everything.

Diane seems to have the perfect life. She is a wife, a mother, and the owner of Happy People Read and Drink Coffee, a cozy literary cafe in Paris. But when she suddenly loses her husband and daughter in a car accident, her life is overturned and the world as she knows it instantly disappears. Trapped and haunted by her memories, Diane closes her shop and retreats from her friends and family, unable and unwilling to move forward.

But one year later, Diane shocks her loved ones and makes the surprising decision to move to a small town on the Irish coast, finally determined to heal by rebuilding her life alone-until she meets Edward, a handsome and moody Irish photographer who lives next door. At first abrasive and unwelcoming, Edward initially resents Diane’s intrusion into his life of solitude . . . until he can no longer keep her at arm’s length. Along windy shores and cobbled streets, Diane falls into a surprising and tumultuous romance. As she works to overcome her painful memories and truly heal, Diane and Edward’s once-in-a-lifetime connection inspires her to love herself and the world around her with newfound inner strength and happiness. But will it last when Diane leaves Ireland, and Edward, for good?

At once heartbreaking and uplifting, Diane’s story is deeply felt, reminding us that love remembered is love enduring. (less)

Alexander and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (Judith Viorst)

We loved the humor in this book. A number of kids had already read the book and even more have seen the movie. Some days are just not great...and it's good to have a sense of humor about it! I looked up Judith Viorst and it seems there are a lot more books by her! I  feel an author focus coming on! I put a swack on hold at the public library.

Goodreads summary:

The perennially popular tale of Alexander's worst day is a storybook that belongs on every child's bookshelf.

Alexander knew it was going to be a terrible day when he woke up with gum in this hair.

And it got worse...

His best friend deserted him. There was no dessert in his lunch bag. And, on top of all that, there were lima beans for dinner and kissing on TV!

This handsome new edition of Judith Viorst's classic picture book is sure to charm readers of all ages. 

Jacob Have I Loved (Katherine Paterson)

I got this book out after reading Bridge to Terabithia (again) for my grade three book club. Katherine Paterson is quite a renound author, but I haven't really read anything else of hers. I decided I should. I was interested in seeing what she did with the Jacob and Esau reference. 

Is the Jacob and Esau story a foundation for a meta narrative? I had no idea. Seemed intriguing though. She certainly does weave plenty of biblical reference through this entire story. 

As I read, I wondered if this would be a good story to do for grade three book club. There were enough odd moments (huge crush on someone who could be her grandpa? Her senile grandmother accusing her mother endlessly of being a harlot?!) that made me realize it wouldn't be appropriate. As a matter of fact, as I read I started to hate the main character. I wondered how in the world the book became a Caldecott winner. However, as I kept on, I realized there really is beauty in the story. She touches on some themes in an amazing way.

Main themes seem to be finding yourself and sibling rivalry. Sara Louise hates her twin sister. She seems justified. Her sister smart quite unaware of the rivalry. She just goes about doing what she does...totally irritating Sarah Louise, who never resolves the problems with her sister. It makes it so that their sisterhood isn't at all one of those wonderful friendships. Not at all. Actually, Sarah Louise's negativity and loathing really began to wear on me. At the part where she is complaining to her mother about her mother's choices in life, I realized that she  really needed to quit projecting her unhappiness on to everyone else! Happily, she does seem to figure this out for herself. She finally realizes that she needs to do what makes her happy and goes away to school. She's wants to become a doctor, but it is a time when women are really only expected to be nurses. She ends up in a small mountainous community, being the only medical professional, and ends up marrying. In her new life, she leaves her family behind, even unable to return fo funerals. Frankly, I knew if she did go back, she would go straight back to her miserableness.....so I understood her not going.

The story comes full circle when she delivers twins, spending her energy saving the life of one while the other waits in a basket.....just like when she was born. I feel like she would have made the connection and perhaps had some healing as a result of the experience.

There is magic and wisdom in this story. It would be great to read it with middle school students or even with adults....especially my church friends.

Goodreads summary:

Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated . . . With her grandmother's taunt, Louise knew that she, like the biblical Esau, was the despised elder twin. Caroline, her selfish younger sister, was the one everyone loved.Growing up on a tiny Chesapeake Bay island in the early 1940s, angry Louise reveals how Caroline robbed her of everything: her hopes for schooling, her friends, her mother, even her name. While everyone pampered Caroline, Wheeze (her sister's name for her) began to learn the ways of the watermen and the secrets of the island, especially of old Captain Wallace, who had mysteriously returned after fifty years. The war unexpectedly gave this independent girl a chance to fulfill her childish dream to work as a watermen alongside her father. But the dream did not satisfy the woman she was becoming. Alone and unsure, Louise began to fight her way to a place where Caroline could not reach.Renowned author Katherine Paterson here chooses a little-known area off the Maryland shore as her setting for a fresh telling of the ancient story of an elder twin's lost birthright.

Controlling People (Patricia Evans)

Interesting perspective on why some people feel the need to be controllers. Would have liked more insight on how to deal with people who treat you poorly and are controlling. This book was a good one to start on this topic. 

I listened to the audio book.

Goodreads summary:

Learn how to 'break the spell' of control with Patricia Evans' new bestseller. Already hailed by Oprah Winfrey, "Controlling People" deals with issues big and small - revealing the thought processes of those who seek to control in order to provide a 'spell-breaking' mind-set for those who suffer this insidious manipulation. Invaluable insight and advice for those who seek support. (less)

Emily's Tiger (Miriam Latimer)

One of my student's bought this book for me as a gift at our school's book fair. What a great surprise!

We enjoyed the pictures. The children noticed that when Emily gets angry and roars she starts to get a tiger tail and paws. In the story her Grandma teaches her to control her anger. We talked about how it's okay to have feelings of anger, but we need to learn how to use those feelings appropriately.

Goodreads summary:

Whenever Emily doesn't get her way, she growls and roars like a tiger. She roars when her mother tries to cut her hair, she roars when she doesn't get picked to be the assistant to the clown at a birthday party???????????? what are her mom and dad going to do with their tiger-daughter? Then Grandma comes to stay ???????????? and she knows a thing or two about tigers and tempers!