Review of Happiness Now! by Robert Holden, PhD

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Starred Review 0

happiness_nowHappiness Now!

Timeless Wisdom for Feeling Good FAST

by Robert Holden, PhD

Hay House, Carlsbad, California, revised 2007. 255 pages.
Starred Review

I truly believe that happiness is a choice, and I like reading books that help me remember to make that choice.

You can tell that this book struck a chord with me by how many times I quoted it in Sonderquotes.

To be honest, many of his illustrations were ones I had heard a zillion times in one sermon or another. But I very much liked his overall concepts.

I was especially struck by his discussions about healing the Work Ethic, the Suffering Ethic, and the Martyr Ethic. The Work Ethic says happiness has to be deserved, worked for, earned, or paid for. The Suffering Ethic says that you have to know suffering in order to be happy. The Martyr Ethic teaches that happiness is selfish.

In contrast with those, Robert Holden says:

“One of the greatest single steps you can take to happiness now is to let go of the belief that happiness has to be deserved. You do not deserve happiness, you choose happiness. Happiness is natural. It is freely available to all. It is unconditional. And when you’re unconditional about happiness, then happiness merely happens! Happiness happens, if you let it.”

“Suffering does happen, and it’s regrettable that it does. All of us have suffered disappointment, loss, pain, failure, rejection, bereavement, and so on. In no way am I trying to belittle this suffering, but what I’m saying is that no amount of suffering adds to your greatness. Your Self-worth was established in the heavens the moment you were created. Your worth comes, therefore, from who you are, not what you’ve suffered.”

“The fear that happiness is selfish is not only untrue, it actually couldn’t be further from the truth. Psychology researchers find time and time again that it is the depressed people, and not the happy ones, who are intensely self-focused and self-absorbed. Happy people, by contrast, tend to be outgoing, sociable, generous, loving, and kind. They’re also more tolerant, forgiving, and less judgmental than people who are depressed.”

I found this book to be full of reasons to give up excuses not to be happy. Inspiring and delightful. I’ll conclude the same way the author does:

“The ‘real key’ to happiness, then, is that there is no key! This might seem like bad news, but fear not! The good news is that there is no prison, no door, and no lock. Happiness is open all hours, and if you’re willing to be open to happiness, then you can enjoy happiness now!”

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Review of A Kiss in Time, by Alex Flinn

Contemporary, Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

kiss_in_timeA Kiss in Time

by Alex Flinn

HarperTeen, 2009. 371 pages.
Starred Review

On my second day of vacation, I committed the wonderful luxury of staying in bed until noon and reading a novel. A Kiss in Time is the novel I chose.

I loved Alex Flinn’s Beastly, where she sets the fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” in modern-day New York. When I heard she was doing a version of “Sleeping Beauty,” where Sleeping Beauty is woken up by a modern day American teen, I simply had to snap it up.

Now, I’ve got a special interest in Sleeping Beauty tales, because several years ago I attempted to write my own version where Sleeping Beauty was sleeping in a castle in Germany, and is woken by an American military kid whose last name is Prince. Unfortunately, I got bogged down with details. How does she get an ID card? A passport? I couldn’t decide whether she’d get media attention and be a celebrity princess or just adapt to modern life as some sort of refugee. What’s more, in my version, all of her family and her life before were dead, so it got rather depressing.

My own attempt to write the story gives me that much more admiration for Alex Flinn pulling it off so beautifully. Mind you, Orson Scott Card has already done a magnificent job in his book for adults, Enchantment. But with A Kiss in Time, Alex Flinn has written the light-hearted teen fantasy I was shooting for. I was delighted with the way she had the entire kingdom sleeping, as in the original fairy tale, and figured out a way to deal with them waking up in the 21st Century.

Jack is something of a screw-up, and he’s had enough of museums, so he decides to ditch the tour group his parents sent him on and spend a day at the beach. He brings along his friend Travis, but they have some trouble with the directions they’re given and somehow wind up struggling through a thick hedge of thorns. On the other side, there’s a medieval kingdom, where everyone’s asleep. Travis thinks they might as well help themselves to some jewels, but then Jack discovers a gorgeous girl asleep in a room by herself. Something compels him to give her a kiss….

Well, Talia’s father wakes up awfully angry with Talia for having touched a spindle despite all his warnings. He throws Jack in the dungeon, since, after all, a commoner shouldn’t be kissing the princess. Talia’s willing to help Jack escape to Florida, but he seems strangely reluctant to marry her. In Florida, Talia has a lot to learn about the modern world, but it turns out there are things she can teach Jack about dealing with people.

And both teens have a lot to learn about true love.

This is a light-hearted and fun approach to the age-old story, and the question of how have people changed across the centuries. My hat goes off to Alex Flinn for doing such a wonderful job telling this tale.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/kiss_in_time.html

Review of The Story Sisters, by Alice Hoffman

Fiction Review, General, Starred Review 0

story_sistersThe Story Sisters

by Alice Hoffman

Shay Areheart Books (Crown), New York, 2009. 325 pages.
Starred review.

Sisters Elv, Meg, and Claire Story have their own language, Arnish, created by Elv, along with stories of the fairyland Arnelle. But Elv’s fantasies begin to take a dark path. On top of that, threesomes are always difficult, and Elv and Meg begin an unspoken rivalry for Claire’s devotion. But Elv’s path becomes dangerous; Claire, once rescued by Elv, cannot continue to follow her.

The story of the Story Sisters is dark and sad, but somehow it is also uplifting and beautiful. Some terrible things happen to them; they let each other down in tragic ways. But in the end family (blood family and chosen family) pulls them through.

This book did get me crying. I found myself forgetting it was fiction and wanting to ask God why He let some of these events happen to these girls! Yes, the author created a believable world. And in her cruelty to her characters, she made a wonderfully compelling story. Some terrible things happen, but the characters eventually rise above their difficulties.

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Review of The Marriage Benefit, by Mark O’Connell, PhD

Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Relationships, Starred Review 0

marriage_benefitThe Marriage Benefit

The Surprising Rewards of Staying Together

by Mark O’Connell, PhD

Springboard Press, New York, 2008. 214 pages.
Starred review.

Recently, a friend said, “Don’t you love it when science catches up with the Bible?” I was rather amused by the word “Surprising” in the title of this book, just as I was with the word “Unexpected” in the title of the book, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, by Judith Wallerstein, which presented a study that showed — surprise, surprise — that divorce isn’t good for kids.

Our culture floods us with the message that divorce is a happy solution to marital difficulties. This book attempts to present answers to the question, “Why stay married?” using research and the author’s own counseling experience. He finds that, in fact, long-term marriage can have many benefits for those willing to invest themselves into it.

Why should I, a woman going through divorce, read this book? Well, I do think that God is asking me to wait and pray for restoration, and I definitely have moments when I think that’s insane. This book helped remind me of why a healed marriage could, in fact, be a good thing, and is still something worth praying for. It was an encouraging reminder of how marriage can be. I especially liked his words about the power of forgiveness and how good and transformative it is for the person doing the forgiving.

I do highly recommend this book for married couples, especially those approaching midlife. The author has plenty of wise insights as to how to stay married, as well as pointing out why it’s worth it.

The author’s own words tell you what to expect:

“This is a book about marriage, but it’s not the kind of ‘how to make your marriage better’ book that we have come to expect. This is a book about how stretching the boundaries of what we imagine to be possible can turn our intimate relationships into remarkable oppportunities for growth and change. This is a book about how our relationships can make us better.

“And this is also a book that offers a radical and contemporary answer to an age-old question. Why stay married? Because our long-term relationships can, at their best, help us to navigate the maddeningly relentless passage of time. They can teach us how to find purpose and meaning even in the face of life’s most immovable limits, making growing older an expanding, rather than a diminishing, experience. . . .

“In the pages that follow, I will argue that our long-term intimate relationships can help us to grow up, or, to put it another way, they can help us to live fully and creatively even as our private hopes and expectations meet the immutable realities that come with our advancing years. Even better, they can help us with core midlife challenges while bringing us joy, allowing us moments of unexpected laughter and lightness, and helping us to become our best selves.”

A major theme of this book is personal growth and that a long-term relationship can be a wonderful help toward that goal.

“This book is organized around two simple principles:

“First, if we are to get better as we grow older we will need to find growth and meaning through the very hardships and limitations that we often seek to avoid and deny.

“Second, more than any other means available to us, our long-term intimate relationships can help us with this critical life task. By opening ourselves to intimately knowing, and intimately being known by, someone different and separate from ourselves, we can uncover the world of untapped possibility that lies unexplored within our own selves.

“By now it is probably obvious that we’re not talking about a quick fix. If our relationships are to be all that they can be, if they are to become opportunities for meaningful change and growth, we will need to give them time. And in this age of fast and easy gratification giving things time is becoming a lost art.

“This is particularly true when it comes to love.”

Mark O’Connell gives the central take-home message of this book to be:

“We have the power to change ourselves, often in surprising and important ways. And we change best when we allow ourselves to be changed by someone to whom we are very close.”

I found this to be an uplifting and encouraging message, and one I’m excited to tell other people about.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/marriage_benefit.html

Review of Wise Guy, by M. D. Usher

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review 0

wise_guyWise Guy

The Life and Philosophy of Socrates

by M. D. Usher

Pictures by William Bramhall

Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2005. 36 pages.

I find it rather amazing that M. D. Usher was able to write an accessible picture book biography of Socrates, based entirely on ancient sources (as the endnote declares).

The book tells an entertaining, vividly illustrated story, with sidenotes on scrolls that simply and clearly explain details of Socrates’ life and philosophy. I especially like the pictures of Socrates dancing. We’re told he loved to party.

Here’s an example of one of the sidenotes:

“What is an idea? Is it a thing you can smell, taste, or touch? If not, is it any less real than a bed or table? What is the difference between the idea of a bed and the bed itself? Socrates argued that the carpenter must have an idea or image of a bed in his mind before he can go about building one. But where does this idea come from in the first place? Socrates seems to have believed that objects in our world have an invisible, eternal blueprint to which they correspond. The eternal blueprint of a bed may not seem so very interesting, but Socrates applied the idea to larger concepts, like right and wrong and good and bad. Just as a carpenter with vast knowledge and experience can make a good bed, and in turn be a good carpenter, a person who has studied the blueprint of right and wrong can be a good person.”

This isn’t a book that students will seek out for reports, but it’s an entertaining picture book biography with surprisingly intriguing ideas. Reading this book gave me the idea of making a display at the library of picture book biographies — as a group they are underappreciated and hidden away in the more “serious” biographies. But they make intriguing reading, are highly educational, and give you an inspirational look at the lives of some truly great people.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/wise_guy.html

Review of Emotional Freedom, by Judith Orloff

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Starred Review 0

emotional_freedomEmotional Freedom

Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life

by Judith Orloff, MD

Harmony Books, New York, 2009. 401 pages.
Starred Review

Judith Orloff defines emotional freedom by saying,

“It means increasing your ability to love by cultivating positive emotions and being able to compassionately witness and transform negative ones, whether they’re yours or another’s. . . . With true emotional freedom, you can choose to react constructively rather than relinquishing your command of the situation whenever your buttons get pushed, as most people do. This lets you communicate more successfully and gain more confidence in yourself and empathy for others. Then you own the moment no matter whom or what you’re facing.”

This book doesn’t present a simplistic approach. I like that about it.

Recently, a friend asked me when I’m going to forgive my husband. I was taken aback. I thought I already have forgiven him! But on thinking about it, forgiveness from a deep wound is complicated. You still have pain from the wound. New things happen that bring up new anger. If lies were involved, there’s a certain need to discover truth. Then there’s fear of being hurt again, especially if the person who hurt you is unrepentant.

Judith Orloff acknowledges the complicated nature of emotions, and presents tools for helping you face the negative ones and begin transforming them into positive ones.

The word transformation sums up her approach. She’s not trying to make you give up or suppress your negative emotions. She’s simply giving you tools to begin transforming them.

She specifically looks at seven important transformations in the seven last chapters:

Facing Fear, Building Courage

Facing Frustration and Disappointment, Building Patience

Facing Loneliness, Building Connection

Facing Anxiety and Worry, Building Inner Calm

Facing Depression, Building Hope

Facing Jealousy and Envy, Building Self-Esteem

Facing Anger, Building Compassion

Another nice thing about the book is that, while reading it through gives you good reminders of helpful ways to lift your emotions, when you actually find yourself in the negative emotion, you can use the book as a cookbook of ideas to help you transform it.

As a physician, she has some ideas of how your body and biology can help you. For example, if you’re lonely, boost your oxytocin. If you have trouble with fear, lower your intake of caffeine.

As an empath, she also gives you ideas for letting your intuition help you. As well as some ideas about spirituality, energy flow, and psychology as they relate to these emotions.

Altogether, this book has many wise ideas about dealing with negative emotions, and I imagine at least one of these ways of looking at them is one you’ve never considered before.

I also like that she doesn’t say that negative emotions are bad and positive ones are good. The use of “negative” and “positive” have more to do with how they feel. She acknowledges that everyone has negative emotions aplenty. But she helps us use the energy they bring with them to transform into a more powerful and more pleasant emotional state.

I’m not sure how much of this book I really grasped on the first reading. As I said, I think I’d like to pick it up the next time I’m feeling depressed, for example, and think about her ideas for using that energy to move into hope.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/emotional_freedom.html

Review of The Frogs and Toads All Sang, by Arnold Lobel

Animal Characters, Picture Book Review, Poetry 0

frogs_and_toads_all_sangThe Frogs and Toads All Sang

by Arnold Lobel

color by Adrianne Lobel

HarperCollins, 2009. 29 pages.

This book is based on a discovered treasure — a little handmade book that Arnold Lobel had given to Crosby Bonsall as a Christmas gift long ago. The book was black and white, so for this delightful picture book version, his own daughter filled in the drawings with color.

The frogs and toads in this book were created before The famous and beloved Frog and Toad. The book consists of ten short, sweet, and silly poems, each including frogs, toads, or polliwogs.

There’s nothing profound or tremendously significant here. But somehow, the poems beg to be read aloud. And when you finish reading the book, I am quite sure you will be smiling.

Very nice. And a lovely discovered legacy from a much-beloved author.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/frogs_and_toads_all_sang.html

Review of Dreamdark: Silksinger, by Laini Taylor

Adventure, Fantasy, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

silksingerDreamdark

Silksinger

by Laini Taylor

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Penguin Young Readers Group, September 2009. 441 pages.
Starred review.
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #6 Fantasy Teen Fiction

I thought that the first Dreamdark book, Blackbringer, was excellent. Laini Taylor built an intricate world of feisty fairies and told a tale of a young fairy becoming a champion and saving the world.

Silksinger is simply awesome.

In this book, Laini Taylor weaves together six or seven different plotlines in a beautiful tapestry rivaling the carpets of the Silksingers. The world is already built (Yes, I think you should read Blackbringer first.), so now she can get down to the business of weaving a glorious tale.

Not that she doesn’t show us more surprising and imaginative details of that world. We meet new fairies with wonderful new magical abilities, whose clans have long and storied histories, all wound and interwoven together.

Magpie is back, the feisty champion from the first book, with her friend Talon. (And the romance between them is so gently done!) The book opens with Magpie taking on a challenge.

“‘The Tapestry of Creation is failing,’ hissed the Djinn King.

“Looking up at him, Magpie Windwitch could see why the few humans who had ever glimpsed fire elementals had mistaken them for devils. With his flaming horns and his immense bat wings of hammered gold, he was magnificent and terrifying. Sparks leapt from the eye slits of his golden mask as he said, ‘My brethren must be found, little bird. Do you understand?’

“‘Aye, Lord Magruwen,’ Magpie said. ‘I understand.'”

Then, by contrast, we meet Whisper Silksinger, helpless in a desperate flight from a horde of devils. After her grandparents sacrifice themselves to save her, she’s alone on the ground, a “scamperer” whose wings don’t work.

“Tears glistened in Whisper’s lashes but didn’t fall, and ashes caught there and clumped. She was too stunned even to grieve. The teakettle had rolled onto its side in the sand and she stared at it, unblinking.

“Inside it burned an ember. It didn’t look like much, a small seed of fire, but devils would kill for it, her grandparents had died for it, and the world depended on it. And now it fell to her to keep it safe.

“What would she do? She couldn’t go home — the devils had found them there. Where could she go? She knew nothing of the world beyond her island. She couldn’t fly, and she was no warrior — she had no weapon, and she wasn’t even brave.”

We find ourselves wanting sweet and vulnerable Whisper, with the amazing gift, to be able to find the strength to save the world. To somehow survive long enough to complete her task.

Meanwhile, someone else with secrets shows up along her path. He wants to be a champion. Why do visions keep leading him to quiet little Whisper?

And who set the devils on Whisper and her grandparents? Will they find her again? What power has even dragons under its control?

I got to read an advance review copy of this book, but it is already available for pre-order on Amazon. The September publication date will give you time to read the delightful first book. Then you will be set to be blown away by Silksinger.

Although this book comes to a satisfying conclusion, the saga is not over yet, and I’m so glad! I hope the audience for these wonderful books will build as the series continues, because if Laini Taylor continues with books like Silksinger, the series will be truly magnificent!

One of the author’s strengths is to come up with imaginative details. I don’t want to give anything away, so let me just say that the abilities of the new clans and fairies who are introduced are surprising and delightful. It’s also great fun to hear stories of adventures that could be happening right under our noses, and we are just not perceptive enough to see it.

One thing’s for sure: If you ever find an abandoned bottle that appears to have a genie inside, whatever you do, don’t open it!

Dreamdark gives you fairy tales unlike any that have gone before.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/silksinger.html

Review of Summers at Castle Auburn, by Sharon Shinn

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Romance, Starred Review 0

castle_auburnSummers at Castle Auburn

by Sharon Shinn

Ace Books, New York, 2001. 355 pages.
Starred Review

“The summer I was fourteen, my uncle Jaxon took me with him on an expedition to hunt for aliora. I had only seen the fey, delicate creatures in captivity, and then only when I was visiting Castle Auburn. I was as excited about the trip to the Faelyn River as I had been about anything in my life.”

Corie is the illegitimate daughter of a lord. She has been apprenticed to her grandmother, a village witch. She never met her father, but after his death, her uncle found her and persuaded her grandmother to let her spend summers at Castle Auburn.

“When I learned who my traveling companions were to be, I stopped complaining and began dreaming. Bryan of Auburn was everything a young prince should be: handsome, fiery, reckless, and barely sixteen. Not destined to take the crown for another four years, he still had the charisma, panache, and arrogance of royalty, and not a girl within a hundred miles of the castle did not love him with all her heart. I did, even though I knew he was not for me: He was betrothed to my sister, Elisandra, whom he would wed the year he turned twenty.

“But I would be with him for three whole days, and say clever things, and laugh fetchingly. I expected this trip to be the grandest memory of my life.”

This is the opening of the book Summers at Castle Auburn, and the trip does become an important memory for Corie, but partly because of how much her opinions change over the years.

As she reaches adulthood and Bryan approaches his coronation, Corie begins to think differently about the custom of taking the aliora into captivity, and about her Uncle Jaxon who is so skilled at capturing them.

She begins to think differently about Bryan. We as readers can see from the beginning his petulance and selfishness and pride, but Corie’s eyes get opened more gradually. After that, she begins to see more clearly her sister’s feelings about the upcoming wedding. Or does anyone really know what her sister is thinking?

As for Corie, what place does she have in the castle? Can she do anything about the injustices against the kind aliora? Which of her two lives — in the castle or in the village — will determine her life path?

Our library has this classified in the adult section, but it’s a coming-of-age tale, and completely appropriate for teens, too. I found the story compelling enough for it to keep me going without stopping until the early hours of the morning, much to my annoyance! But it was a good tale, and though I fervently wished at work that day that I had read it in at least two sittings, I was still glad I read it.

There isn’t a lot of magic in the story — the main touch of fantasy is the fairy-people, the aliora and the imaginary herblore. A fine tale of romance and power in a medieval setting.

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Review of The Parents We Mean to Be, by Richard Weissbound

Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Parenting 0

parents_we_mean_to_beThe Parents We Mean To Be

How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children’s Moral and Emotional Development

by Richard Weissbourd

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2009. 241 pages.

Here is an interesting look at how we can help our children to grow up to be morally and emotionally strong. I recommend the book more for people who work with children or teens and are interested in cultural trends, but individual parents will find it interesting, too.

One significant point from the the book that struck me was reminding the reader that we are never done developing as a moral and emotional person — and our children are watching us. He reminds us not to hide our struggles and our growth from our children, because they are definitely watching.

In the introduction, the author says,

“We are the primary influence on children’s moral lives. The parent-child relationship is at the center of the development of all the most important moral qualities, including honesty, kindness, loyalty, generosity, a commitment to justice, the capacity to think through moral dilemmas, and the ability to sacrifice for important principles. . . .

“What I am acutely aware matters most as a parent is not whether my wife and I are ‘perfect’ role models or how much we talk about values, but the hundreds of ways — as living, breathing, imperfect human beings — we influence our children in the complex, messy relationships we have with them day to day.”

The book was based on research, including surveys, interviews, and focus groups. It presents some very interesting conclusions that don’t necessarily match what we think about kids learning “values.”

Richard Weissbourd says about the research,

“Much of what we found was heartening. Many parents care deeply about their children’s moral qualities, and we uncovered a wide variety of effective parenting practices across race, ethnicity, and class. This book takes up key, illuminating variations in these practices.

“Yet we also found much that is troubling. Some adults hold misguided beliefs about raising moral children, and some parents have little investment in their children’s character. And the bigger problem is more subtle: a wide array of parents and other adults are unintentionally — in largely unconscious ways — undermining the development of critical moral qualities in children.

“This book reveals this largely hidden psychological landscape — the unexamined ways that parents, teachers, sports coaches, and other mentors truly shape moral and emotional development. It explores, for example, the subtle ways that adults can put their own happiness first or put their children’s happiness above all else, imperiling both children’s ability to care about others and, ironically, their happiness. It shows not only how achievement-obsessed parents can damage children, but also how many of us as parents have unacknowledged fears about our children’s achievements that can erode our influence as moral mentors and diminish children’s capacity to invest in others. It explores why a positive parent instinct that is suddenly widespread — the desire to be closer to children — can have great moral benefits to children in certain circumstances but can cause parents to confuse their needs with children’s jeopardizing children’s moral growth. It reveals how the most intense, invested parents can end up subtly shaming their children and eroding their moral qualities, and it shows the hidden ways that parents and college mentors can undermine young people’s idealism.

“At the same time, this book describes inspiring parents, teachers, and coaches who avoid these pitfalls, as well as concrete strategies for raising moral and happy children. And it makes the case that parents and other adults have great potential for moral growth. Moral development is a lifelong project. Parenting can either cause us to regress or cultivate in us new, powerful capacities for caring, fairness, and idealism, with large consequences for our children. What is often exciting about parenting is not only the unveiling of our children’s moral and emotional capacities, but the unveiling of our own.”

Definitely interesting reading!

I also found it significant that one of the author’s conclusions is that we need community. This is exactly what my church stresses as one of the most important parts of the Christian life. Doesn’t this paragraph support the importance of community?

“Reducing parental isolation — giving parents more opportunities to support one another — and creating a sense of communal responsibility for children is a second critical challenge. When parents have trusting, respectful connections with one another, they are more likely both to be effective with their own children and to monitor and guide one another’s children.”

Now, the author recommends building up community family support programs, but the way this talked about the benefits of community resonated for me with what I was hearing at church. We’re better parents if we don’t try to parent in isolation.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/parents_we_mean_to_be.html