The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

by John Boyne

2006

What an amazing and heartbreaking book.

This 216 page “fable” is about a nine year old boy in Nazi Germany, named Bruno.

Originally from Berlin, Bruno moves to just outside a concentration camp where his father serves as Commandant.
That is, he’s in charge.

Here, at his new home, Bruno lives his life on the outside looking in.

Bruno gazes out his bedroom window, across the fence, across the forest and into the countryside beyond.

He wonders why there are so many people over there.

Is there a village?

He wonders why the children have so many playmates.

Can he join them?

He wonders why everyone wears the same striped “pajamas”.

Don’t they have other clothes?

Bruno eventually makes friends with a boy named Shmuel, a resident of the camp.

Through the fence.

Every afternoon the boys meet and every afternoon Bruno complains about his dull life, his small home, his annoying older sister.
Shmuel just listens.

Bruno sometimes brings a snack for his new friend, but gets hungry along the way and eats it.
Shmuel just nods. 

Despite months and months of looking out the window and months and months of meeting with Shmuel, Bruno remains completely unaware about life on the other side of the fence.

Until the end.

 

For all its heartbreak, I truly loved this book.

Written in the first person, the author's voice is perfectly nine year old. How Bruno speaks, how Bruno thinks, how Bruno sees, how Bruno understands his surroundings.

Great writing.

For the sake of discussion,

I have often wondered why local German people didn't stand up to the concentration camps, the extermination camps, the endless transports.

When I asked this question the answer I was given was, “Nobody knew.”

Personally, I think the answer is more involved. Naivete, as demonstrated by Bruno, was only part of it.

But, people have been debating this answer for over 60 years so I won't pretend to answer it in the lines of this blog.

On another note, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was made into a movie in 2009. Staying true to the book, the movie was just as amazing and just as heartbreaking.

I would recommend both.

Reading on...   

Kisses from Katie

by Katie Davis

2011

My attention gravitates to books whose main character has the same name as one of my children. I’ve actually started collecting them with the intent of passing them along at the appropriate time.

That drew me to Kisses from Katie.

Simply put, the author, Katie Davis, is a young, twenty-something girl whose heart attached itself to Uganda and its people after a short high school mission trip. This led Katie to give up her American life and move to Uganda, where she currently serves as a nurse, teacher, cook, and caregiver, among other things. If I can actually sum up her life with those few words.

And, did I mention, she adopted thirteen Ugandan children? 


And I think four are loud at the dinner table.

Katie is an amazing example of a young woman taking up her cross daily and following Jesus completely. One hundred percent.

Kisses from Katie was a compelling read start to finish. I don’t even know where to begin. The stories and experiences Katie shares in her book are so different than what I experience in my everyday life....

So, what impacted me?

Comfort is bad for my soul. Why? With all my creature comforts in place, I am not mindful of my need for a Saviour.

People who believe in God are supposed to share with the poor.

God uses inadequate people and sometimes He stretches them beyond what they ever thought possible, but He always provides the means.

“Do not forget in the darkness what you have been promised in the light” (pg 204).

How can a child, or anyone, accept the Saviour’s love if they don’t know what love is?

In the last twenty-four hours, more than sixteen thousand children died of hunger-related causes.

Hot water in my home is a gift, not a right. (Recently, I was ever so grumpy to go forty-eight hours without it.)

I do not want to forget what I’ve learned through Katie Davis, so I have added her blog to my own homepage, check it out.

Reading on...  

Defender of Faith

The Mike Fisher Story

by Kim Washburn

2011

Always on the lookout for good, wholesome “boy books”, I came across this Mike Fisher biography at our local Christian bookstore. Being that Son #1 is a big hockey guy, I snatched it up.

 

And, out of interest, I read it first.  

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing and by the quality of the guy. (A reader never knows these days.)

Cracking open the book, all I knew about Mike Fisher was that he currently plays with the National Hockey League (NHL), he’s supposedly a Christian, and that he recently married singer-songwriter, Carrie Underwood.

After reading Defender of Faith, I now know Mike Fisher plays for the Nashville Predators, he is a man who lives out his Christian faith on a daily basis, and he writes the reference Romans 12:12 on his stick before every game.

Defender of Faith is really only a short, 115 page middle-grade account of Mike Fisher’s life, but it is full of purpose. Throughout the book, Mike Fisher is quoted as saying things like,

“I wanted to experience this God that we all hear about. That’s where it became real for me. I knew I had to have a relationship with God to fulfill that inner peace of knowing I’m living my purpose, doing what God created me to do (pg 37)”.

“My parents always stressed faith as a central part of my life, and I grew to understand the importance of having a balance in life and finding a purpose through our Creator. I believe we are all gifted in certain areas and it’s our responsibility to use these gifts that God has given us for his glory (pg 17)”.

“...I try to use all of my abilities for God’s glory. That is my focus (pg 80).”

Things we are trying to instil in all our children, but especially our hockey-loving Son #1.

What better way to reinforce such important truths, than to hear (or read) them out of the mouth of a hero.

Great book.

Reading on...

A Father's Love

One Man’s Unrelenting Battle to Bring His Abducted Son Home

by David Goldman

2011 

Not necessarily a book I would have picked up on my own initiative, A Father’s Love was so captivating and utterly horrifying, that I couldn’t put it down.

Passed along with high recommendations from a dear friend, this book recounts the events surrounding the abduction of Sean Goldman in June 2004 and the excruciating battle his father, David Goldman, undertook to bring him home.

Alarmingly, the perpetrators were Sean’s mother and maternal grandparents.

As a quick recap, four year old Sean left his father and home in New Jersey to travel with his mother and grandparents back to their native country, Brazil. The trip was labelled “family vacation”, but in reality, it was anything but.

Just days after his son and wife left, David Goldman received a phone call from his wife stating their marriage was over and their son would not be returning to the United States.

Thus began David’s five year separation from his son and a fight against unbelievable legal and governmental corruption.

I won’t write what happened, but let’s just say, the Hague Abduction Convention didn’t work.

What is the Hague Abduction Convention?  
As quoted from the previous link, “The Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is a multilateral treaty, which seeks to protect children from the harmful effects of abduction and retention across international boundaries by providing a procedure to bring about their prompt return”. 

Not all countries participate in this treaty. A list of the countries who do can be accessed here.

First of all, I must say, it’s a sad day that something like the Hague Abduction Convention even exists. However, as David Goldman stated in his book, at the time of Sean’s abduction there were at least sixty-five other American children who had been abducted to Brazil and, at the time of writing the book, nearly three thousand had been abducted internationally.

Most of these children have been abducted by a parent or legal-guardian.

The Hague Abduction Convention is obviously necessary.  

Please note: Brazil had signed the treaty at the time of Sean’s abduction, but the courts chose not to cooperate with it.

To learn more about this type of child abduction, visit David Goldman’s website at www.bringseanhome.org.

On a final note, I was surfing the web the other day and came across a recent interview and news report about David and Sean Goldman. Apparently, their ordeal is not over as Sean's grandparents continue to pursue legal action against David.

Reading on...

    

Just a Minute

by Wess Stafford, President and CEO, Compassion International

2012

I had read Mr. Stafford’s first book, Too Small to Ignore, way back in spring 2010 and found it to be incredibly powerful.

So powerful that I picked up copies for the Kid’s Ministry servants at church and encouraged them very strongly to read it. (You can do that when you coordinate the ministry!) 

In Too Small to Ignore, Mr. Stafford tells his story of abuse at the hands of boarding school missionaries and how God used that experience for His purpose in the development of the child advocacy organization, Compassion International.

Though I was moved by all 264 pages, the following hit me hard, 

“Watch carefully the children around you. In precious moments you will catch a glimpse of your Saviour’s face. Listen intently and you will hear His voice. Walk gently among them; His footprints are all around you. Embrace them, for you are embracing Him. Respect them, because they are sometimes God’s agents – exactly the kind of instruments He needs. At such times, only a child will do,” (pg 228).

As I had been impacted so deeply by Too Small to Ignore, when I saw an advertisement for Mr. Stafford’s new book, I quickly placed my order.

Just a Minute did not disappoint.

If you are looking for a book that pours out beauty with ugliness, restoration with abandonment, time with neglect, smiles with tears, this is it.

Filled with stories of passing moments between children and adults, Mr. Stafford’s premise is that how an adult chooses to respond to a child will, in many cases, have a lasting effect on that child's life.  

For the good and for the bad.

For instance, did you know that notorious German leader, Adolf Hitler, was one of five children in an abusive household? As the story goes, a young Adolf decided he would run away from home like his older brother, but not before his father found out and locked him in a room to prevent it....

Adolf tried to escape by squeezing through a barred window, but couldn't quite fit. To make himself smaller, Adolf removed all his clothes and made another attempt. As he tried to wriggle his way out, he heard his father’s approach and quickly moved back from the window, covering his nakedness with a nearby tablecloth.

“This time ... [his father] did not punish with a whipping. Instead he burst into laughter and shouted to [his mother] to come up and look at the “toga boy”. The ridicule hurt Adolf more than any switch...” (John Toland, Adolf Hitler, New York: Doubleday, 1976)

And, as the common phrase goes, the rest is history. Adolf Hitler would never let himself be ridiculed again.

On the more positive side, Mr. Stafford also included an account of the leading animator for many beloved Disney characters such as Ariel from The Little Mermaid, the beast in Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel in Tangled, among others.

This animator’s name is Glen Keane, son of “The Family Circus” creator, Bil Keane. 


When Glen was young, he aspired to draw just like his dad. On one particular day, Glen could not get his sketch of a horse right. Instead of looking like a horse, it looked more like a dog! Glen sought his father’s help.

Despite having his work interrupted for an inconsequential sketch of a horse, Bil Keane stopped what he was doing and helped his son draw the horse correctly. 


In that moment, as Wess Stafford reports in his book, “Glen felt loved and respected,” (page 165-166). Glen obviously went on to be a very talented "sketcher". 

Just a Minute is full of stories like these. 


Stories that made my head swell with shame and stories that made me nod quietly with approval.

This book reminded me that the moments I spend with my children count. 


My words, my expression, my actions. 


They all matter.  


For good and for bad.

As both my sons learned in kindergarten, everyone has a bucket. Am I emptying their buckets or filling them?


When I act with compassion and grace, I am filling.
When I act with anger and impatience, I am emptying.

Sometimes it is only by the grace of God that I don’t dump their buckets right out onto the floor.


And that is the point.

Taking a moment out of the busyness of my life to ask the child next to me about their day, or to laugh at a “non-joke”, or to compliment the use of colour in a scribbled picture isn't always accomplished through my own strength.


Sometimes it is only accomplished through the grace of God given to me.

And I need to remember, I am also a child. A child of God. 


And God takes every moment for me.




Reading on...

Beowulf The Warrior

Author unknown

Retold by Serraillier

1954

My children need more culture in their lives.

Something beyond hockey.

Something beyond Star Wars.

An introduction to other interesting things in life.

The first step toward a more cultured life included a night out at the ballet for Son #1, The Nutcracker at Christmas.

His take on it? Not bad.

My take on it? A good sign.

  

As part of my quest for culture, and propelled by my own desire to read to the kids more, I picked up a retelling of the ancient book, Beowulf, for our night time fiction.

Apparently, Beowulf is the oldest epic in the English language and was written sometime during the eleventh century, though it’s also been dated as far back as the eighth century. No one really knows for sure. 

And talk about culture, Beowulf is a 3182 line alliterative poem, though our retold version only had about 800 lines. 

The lines were beautiful to read aloud.

Anyway, it was a great read, even if a little hard for the kids to understand at times.

Battles, monsters, treasure, a noble and valiant hero... they all add up to make a terrific boy story! And the boys loved it.

Even more, Beowulf portrayed values we want to instil in our kids such as courage, honour and, the very unpopular, humility.

Reading on...

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” Philippians 2:3-4

   

Slumdog Millionaire

by Vikas Swarup
2005

My husband and I borrowed Slumdog Millionaire, the movie, from our local library about a month ago - only four years late!

Meaning the movie won eight Academy Awards in 2008...  

I loved it. To me, Slumdog Millionaire was a movie about redemption, right and wrong choices, and intense happiness smack in the middle of depressing sadness.

Often when I love a movie based on a book, I look long and hard to find the book then eagerly sit and read.

Well, I looked long and hard and ended up borrowing the book from the local library.

Thank goodness I didn't buy it.

Originally published as Q & A, the book Slumdog Millionaire, was somewhat of a shock for me.

And not a good one.

Basically, I read about 70 pages then, completely unlike me, decided I'd had enough.


Enough of the details I didn't want lodging in my brain.


So,


Slumdog Millionaire, the book, was promptly returned to the library.

Reading on...