Adrienne

Should you really read to your baby? Can teaching a baby sign language boost IQ? Should you pipe classical music into the nursery? Dr. Stamm translates the latest neuroscience findings into clear explanations and practical suggestions, demonstrating the importance of the simple ways you interact with your child every day. It isn

This was such a great read. Heart-wrenching, hysterical, compassionate, and transcendent. A great book for anyone who has ever experienced a loss, which I believe all of us have. Beaver, an actor, playwright and film historian, collects a series of riveting, heartfelt e-mails chronicling the courageous cancer battle of his beloved wife, Cecily, from her diagnosis of lung cancer to her death in little over a year. Unafraid to examine their life together and his acting career as a performer on two popular TV dramas, the role of Ellsworth on Deadwood and Bobby Singer on Supernatural, he kept family and friends informed with his nightly online messages of Cecily's deteriorating status and the bittersweet childhood of their autistic daughter, Maddie. The revealing e-mails depict the somber travail of Beaver on the horrific death watch of his wife, and detail the roller-coaster ride of emotion from hoping for a speedy halt to the disease's onslaught to experiencing the dark abyss of loss. After the death of his father during this time, he writes: This year of writing has freed me from the shackles I don't know I could have borne otherwise. While this cancer memoir often chills the reader to the core with pain and frustration, it offers countless reasons to cheer Beaver as a remarkable man, a loving husband and a responsible single parent.

I am pretty good about having a bookmark that travels from book to book but since I sometime read multiple books at a time a library receipt will suffice. The current bookmark I am using was a surprise left in a library book by a previous reader, it's from the Manuscript and Rare Book Museum:mrgreen:. Also have curious george, smokey the bear, and a few random ones from the library. I would however, like to invest in a really nice one that will stay put. With a toddler and cats on hand they tend to get yanked out of the book!

Just started "The Book of Lost Things" but am cheating on it a bit with a book on child development called "Bright From the Start", in fact I think I should log off and go read now while the baby is sleeping!

I still enjoy children books, and thank God I do, considering I am reading them all the time! Having a toddler, first, and fourth grader in the house I read a wide variety of children books. My favorite youngster books are any of the SkippyJon Jones variety, any of the Junie B. books, and the "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" series, those are all fun to read. I also recently read for my own enjoyment "The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas", which was quite thought provoking. I also revisited "The Diary of Anne Frank" which I appreciated much more as an adult. "The Devils Arithmetic" was decent as well. Also "Fever 1793" was a decent read. I am adding "My Side of the Mountain" to my library list as well. I LOVED this book as a child and my son just read it in school so I would like to read it so we can discuss the book.

Just wrapped up "The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, by John M. Barry. Amazon Review from Publishers Weekly: In 1918, a plague swept across the world virtually without warning, killing healthy young adults as well as vulnerable infants and the elderly. Hospitals and morgues were quickly overwhelmed; in Philadelphia, 4,597 people died in one week alone and bodies piled up on the streets to be carted off to mass graves. But this was not the dreaded Black Death-it was "only influenza." In this sweeping history, Barry (Rising Tide) explores how the deadly confluence of biology (a swiftly mutating flu virus that can pass between animals and humans) and politics (President Wilson's all-out war effort in WWI) created conditions in which the virus thrived, killing more than 50 million worldwide and perhaps as many as 100 million in just a year. Overcrowded military camps and wide-ranging troop deployments allowed the highly contagious flu to spread quickly; transport ships became "floating caskets." Yet the U.S. government refused to shift priorities away from the war and, in effect, ignored the crisis. Shortages of doctors and nurses hurt military and civilian populations alike, and the ineptitude of public health officials exacerbated the death toll. In Philadelphia, the hardest-hit municipality in the U.S., "the entire city government had done nothing" to either contain the disease or assist afflicted families. Instead, official lies and misinformation, Barry argues, created a climate of "fear... [that] threatened to break the society apart." Barry captures the sense of panic and despair that overwhelmed stricken communities and hits hard at those who failed to use their power to protect the public good. He also describes the work of the dedicated researchers who rushed to find the cause of the disease and create vaccines. Flu shots are widely available today because of their heroic efforts, yet we remain vulnerable to a virus that can mutate to a deadly strain without warning. Society's ability to survive another devastating flu pandemic, Barry argues, is as much a political question as a medical one. This was a hard read for me. I don't read a lot of non-fiction but after reading "The Last Town on Earth" I wanted to learn more about the 1918 flu and this seemed a good place to start. I learned a lot from this book. The beginning sets the stage for how America's medical system was being 'born' as we rushed to catch up with other countries in our technological advances in medicine. Back then we still used practices from the middle ages and most physicians never had more than a few months lectures, with no hands on experience with patients at all! It gave a detailed background of the 'forefathers' to medicine and the founding of the Hopkins. This part was a bit dry. Next was a great amount of information on influenza itself and talked a lot about DNA, RNA, chemical reactions, and how the immune system works. Finally we reach the part of the story that speaks of the actual outbreak and its affect on the nation and world as a whole. I was not really aware of President Wilson's role in the propagation that the flu was 'harmless grippe'. There are a lot of statistics given during these chapters and it jumps around a lot from person to person. Hard to read. Last section talks about the laboratory advances made after the pandemic wrapped up. It explains a bit what the world impact would be if we experienced another pandemic like this one, even with medical advancements it would be horrific. This book definitely served it's purpose on educating someone on the 1918 flu and influenza's behavior as a whole. I was a bit disappointed because I thought it would be more 'story like' but overall was a decent read.

I totally forgot about this thread. That was my whole purpose behind reading the book and then I just forget 1) How did you find the style Toews used? I found it a bit lacking. She seemed to go off on tangents that seemed irrelevant to the story as a whole, like the waitress in Arizona. I also thought the majority of the characters were unbelievable as a whole. I mean, how many people can go find their dad in the desert and it's one big happy reunion? She also just kind of left Min hanging in the hospital when to me the premises of the book was her developing relationship with Min. 2) How did you find Hatty? Was she a credible, authentic character? Anything in particular struck out to you? How was she in the beginning? And in the end? Hatty seemed quite naive for an adult, even one who had little experience with children. While I understood her way of connecting with the kids there still should have been some normalcy in the relationship. Allowing a teenager to deface your van and allowing a preteen to not bathe or change clothes is just a bit to unrealistic to me. This killed a bit of her credibility for me. I am also confused that Hatty felt it was acceptable to leave Logan, in the dessert, with a father that he hadn't seen in years. All without conferring with the boys mom. That seemed extremely selfish to me. Hatty obviously didn't want the conflict from Logan if she didn't let him stay but if she is so concerned with Min's welfare shouldn't she have at least checked with Min to see if this was an ok arrangement? Who knows where Logan will end up and how Min will react to him being gone. After all, she did throw their father out and refuse contact with him for a reason. 3) How did the beginning (Hatty returning to her sisters family, everything there) make you feel? What thoughts did it bring up? Well, at first it made sense, things were falling apart for Hatty a bit in Paris and it seemed like she was enjoying the idea of stepping in to 'save her sister again'. She probably needed the esteem boost after things went south with Marc. However, the fact that she didn't appear to 'grow' from her experience at all made me a bit doubtful of her. After spending so long with the kids in such close proximity you would have thought she would have smartened up a bit. 4) Anything else you'd like to bring up? All in all I liked most of the book but I didn't veiw it as a growing experience for Hatty or the kiddos which is what I thought would happen. I loved the characters Logan and Thebes and found both of them delightful for the most part, they sure where eccentric and damaged which I can relate to.

Thanks, I will have to check that one out too. We have a used bookstore right down the block as well, I will put in a call to them and see if they carry any of his books.

Well, disappointed for sure! My library doesn't have any of his other books. Bummer. Guess I will have to ask for a copy for Christmas of "Little Man, What Now".

SueK, thanks for clearing that up for me. Sometimes I fail to remember that the Web is the World Wide Web, lol:mrgreen: I will have to reserve the others from the library!

I had to cheat on "The Great Influenza" since Every Man Dies Alone was only a two week library checkout. I really enjoyed this book. Since I don't have enough posts I can't add a link to the Amazon review but I am sure you are all fantastic at working search engines:lol: Basically this book is about the Gestapo files on the Otto and Elise Hampel case where they were charged with high treason for spreading postcards with anti-Nazi propaganda in various buildings during the war. This book at times can be both uplifting and horrifying. It gives detailed descriptions of the interrogation techniques of the SS and Gestapo. It also gives a glimpse into the goodness that still existed during this horrific period of time. I loved the ending, it was a great way to wrap up the book. For being written in 24 days it is highly coherent and enjoyable even with several subplots. I look forward to reading more from this author and would highly recommend this book to others.

This was on my Christmas list. My grandma has always bought me hard-back King books. I was so tempted to grab it from Barnes and Nobles but double checked and Grandma already ordered it for me for Christmas. I am super excited to start it, especially seeing others say it is more in the 'old King' style!

The Last Town on Earth~by Thomas Mullen I did a quick search and didn't see a review for this. Just finished it last night. Blurb~It is the autumn of 1918 and a world war and an influenza epidemic rage outside the isolated utopian logging community of Commonwealth, Wash. In an eerily familiar climate of fear, rumor and patriotic hysteria, the town enacts a strict quarantine, posting guards at the only road into town. A weary soldier approaches the gate on foot and refuses to stop. Shots ring out, setting into motion a sequence of events that will bring the town face-to-face with some of the 20th-century's worst horrors. Mullen's ambitious debut is set against a plausibly sketched background, including events such the Everett Massacre (between vigilantes and the IWW), the political repression that accompanied the U.S. entry into WWI and the rise of the Wobblies. But what Mullen supplies in terms of historical context, he lacks in storytelling; though the novel is set in 1918, it was written in a post 9/11 world where fear of bird flu regularly makes headlines, and the allegory is heavy-handed (the protagonist townie, after all, is named Philip Worthy). The grim fascination of the narrative, however, will keep readers turning the pages. Review: I really enjoyed this book. It was a little slow in the beginning but picked up quickly. It was a perfect read for me because of the whole swine flu hysteria. I would definitely recommend this book, I found the story engaging, exciting, and well written. It had multiple sub-plots to it as well, love, loyalty, family, etc. Great read. 9/10 on my scale. Sorry if I did my review incorrectly, first time posting a review on here!

Thank you for all the warm welcomes! Frankie, yes, that is Katya, our Caucasian Ovcharka. She is technically my mom's dog and lives with my mom now but in the past she stayed with us for many months when my mom was too sick to care for her. She still comes for visits and overnights when my mom is out of town.