from Bertrand

"Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness."

~ Bertrand Russell ~

Happy International Literacy Day!

September 8 is International Literacy Day. If you visit the International Reading Association's web site, you'll see that more than 780 million adults worldwide do not know how to read and write. Two-thirds of that number are women. And somewhere between 94 and 115 million children lack access to education.

I learned to read at a young age, and I had three younger brothers (and sometimes the neighborhood dog) to read myriads of books to. In my family, reading has always been an important and valued pastime. Today, I'm grateful to have been raised and educated in a literate family and country. I just can't imagine life without books and the written word.

In honor of International Literacy Day, here are some of my favorite books throughout childhood, books that made me the reader and writer I am today!

A Bear Called Paddington

 

Stone Soup

The Hungry Thing 

 

The Giving Tree

Are You My Mother?

The Berenstein Bears and Too Much Junk Food

Green Eggs and Ham

 

Amelia Bedelia 

Mr. Popper's Penguins

  

Sarah, Plain and Tall

 

Little House on the Prairie

 

A Little Princess 

The Betsy-Tacey Treasury

Island of the Blue Dolphins

And, more recently....

The Harry Potter series--even though I read them as an adult!

What were some of YOUR favorite books growing up?

word of the day :: smithereens

smithereens:

[smith-uh-reenz]

–plural noun

small pieces; bits: broken into smithereens.

  

Origin:

1820-30;  dial. smithers  (< ?) + Hiberno-E -een  dim. suffix (< Ir-ín )

"With him love of country means blowing it all to smithereens and having it all made over new."

:: Robert Frost ::

* Definition from www.dictionary.com

from E. B.

"If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

~ E. B. White ~

review :: The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner

Khalid Hosseini

The Kite Runner had been on my to-read list for a while, so when I joined my facecbook book club I was more than happy with the book of choice for the month of August.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It was a compelling view of a world I know nothing of--Afghanistan, class issues, and immigration. I did, however, find that the story itself carried this book heavily, as the writing was not spectacular. At times, it was almost soap opera-esque with some of the dramatic surprises and progression of ill-fated events. I also found Amir's adult character in the second half of the book somewhat unsatisfying; it was difficult to connect the adult Amir with the child Amir. His character seemed to change. 

Relationship of varying kinds is explored--father/son, friend/friend, mentor/mentee, enemy/enemy, man/woman--and the various nuances and challenges of loving, longing, and scorning. Hosseini employs contrast to create interest and add layers to this story, most noticeably in the portrayal of Amir and Baba's journey and adjustment to life in America.

Both eye-opening and heartbreaking, Hosseini has crafted a thought-provoking and enlightening contemporary novel. 

word of the day :: prodigious

prodigious:

[pruh-dij-uh s]

–adjective

1.  extraordinary in size, amount, extent, degree, force, etc.: aprodigious research grant. 

2. wonderful or marvelous: a prodigious feat.

3. abnormal; monstrous.

4. Obsolete . ominous.

  

Origin:

1545–55;  < L prōdigiōsus  marvelous. See prodigy, -ous

"It is one of the prodigious privileges of art that the horrific, artistically expressed, becomes beauty, and that sorrow, given rhythm and cadence, fills the spirit with a calm joy."

:: Charles Baudelaire ::

* Definition from www.dictionary.com