Room on Our Rock (Kate and Jol Temple)

 

This is an amazing story! Brilliance in writing!

Goodreads says:

Two seals are perched on a rock. When others need shelter, do they share it? Room on Our Rock celebrates the truth that there are two sides to every story. This clever picture book has one story that can be read two different ways.

When read from front to back, the seals believe there is definitely no room on their rock for others. But when the book is read from back to front, the seals welcome others to shelter on their rock. A heartwarming story about sharing and compassion.

Dare to Lead (Brené Brown)

There is a lot to think about and to go back and re-read in this book. I am going to put it on my books to re-read annually.

Goodreads says:

In her #1 NYT bestsellers, Brené Brown taught us what it means to dare greatly, rise strong and brave the wilderness. Now, based on new research conducted with leaders, change makers and culture shifters, she’s showing us how to put those ideas into practice so we can step up and lead.

Leadership is not about titles, status and power over people. Leaders are people who hold themselves accountable for recognising the potential in people and ideas, and developing that potential. This is a book for everyone who is ready to choose courage over comfort, make a difference and lead.

When we dare to lead, we don't pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don't see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it and work to align authority and accountability. We don't avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into the vulnerability that’s necessary to do good work.

But daring leadership in a culture that's defined by scarcity, fear and uncertainty requires building courage skills, which are uniquely human. The irony is that we're choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the same time we're scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines can't do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection and courage to start.

Brené Brown spent the past two decades researching the emotions that give meaning to our lives. Over the past seven years, she found that leaders in organisations ranging from small entrepreneurial start-ups and family-owned businesses to non-profits, civic organisations and Fortune 50 companies, are asking the same questions:

How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders? And, how do you embed the value of courage in your culture?

Dare to Lead answers these questions and gives us actionable strategies and real examples from her new research-based, courage-building programme.

Brené writes, ‘One of the most important findings of my career is that courage can be taught, developed and measured. Courage is a collection of four skill sets supported by twenty-eight behaviours. All it requires is a commitment to doing bold work, having tough conversations and showing up with our whole hearts. Easy? No. Choosing courage over comfort is not easy. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and work. It's why we're here.’

The Invention of Wings (Sue Monk Kidd)

There is nothing I like better than a story of truly inspiring women. This is definitely one. The story is told from Sara Grimke's and Handful's point of view. Sarah, from early on, knew slavery was wrong, despite her family's practice of owning slaves. Handful is well named. She is a slave who suffers but doesn't lie down. Handful was not a real person. She is mostly made up by the author. Sarah Grimke, on the other hand, was a real person.

I loved this book and read it slowly so as to carefully soak up all the story into my heart. I hope I can be someone who stands up for those who need someone to speak up, rather than just accepting that that is the way things are.

"History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another's pain in the heart our own." - Professor Julius Lester

One of the most striking moments in the story is when the slave owner comes across the quilt that Handful's mother has made. It tells the story of her life:

p. 336 - 337
"We looked back and forth to each other while little missus squinted from one square to the next like she was reading a book. Everything done to mauma - there it was. the one-legged punishment, the whippings, the branding, the hammering. mama's body laid on the quilt frame in pieces...."Who made this?"
"Mauma did. Charlotte."
"Well, it's gruesome!"
I never had wanted to scream as bad as I did right then. I said, "Those gruesome things happened to her."
A dark pink color poured into her cheeks. "For heaven's sakes then, you would think her whole life was nothing but violence and cruelty. I mean, it doesn't show what she did to warrant her punishments."
She looked at the quilt again, her eyes darting over the appliques. "We treated her well here, no one can dispute that. I can't speak for what happened to her when she ran away, she was out of our care then." Little missus was rubbing her hands now like she was cleaning them at the wash bowl.
The quilt had shamed hr. She walked to the door and took one look back at it, and I knew she'd never let it stay in the world. She'd send Hector to gt it the minute we were out of the room. He'd burn mauma's story to ash.
Standing there, waiting for little missus' steps to fade, I looked down at the quilt, at the slaves flying in the sky, and I hated being a slave worse than being dead. The hate I felt for it glittered so full of beauty I sank down on the floor before it.


That's the moment when Handful is ready to run away....and she does.



This is the second Sue Monk Kidd book I've read. I am thinking this summer might need to be a Sue Monk Kidd summer.


Goodreads says:

Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world—and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection.

Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.

Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love.

As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements.

Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better.

This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.

The Clever Boy and the Terrible, Dangerous Animal (Idries Shah)

Don't be afraid of new things! Great lesson. Also, we noticed after, that the outside is the colors of a melon, up close. In the words, it looks like there are watermelon seeds. The inside cover of the book is the inside of the watermelon. So clever!


Goodreads says:

A Sufi teaching tale of a boy who visits another village and helps the townspeople deal with their fear of something that they have mistaken for a terrible, dangerous animal.