Book Recommendations

I have been reading a lot of interesting books recently and thought I would pass them along.

Lies My Teacher Told Me: As a former history teacher (albeit in world, not American, history) I found this book fascinating- and wished I could go back and re-teach history. There are so many discussion points in this book: Christopher Columbus supporting a sex slave trade with 9 year old Indian girls, Thomas Jefferson refusing to free his slaves, while at the same time writing "all men are created equal," the FBI spying on MLK. He doesn't present all of these issues to vilify, but rather to present these men as humans who faced real moral issues and struggled with how to deal with them. Very thought provoking, a must read for any student of history. I am excited for when the girls are old enough to read this book so we can have deep, meaningful discussions about real issues that have plagued our country and yet have been glossed over by publishers seeking to avoid controversy.

Salt, Sugar, Fat: A scathing indictment of the food industry and why we all need to make better choices at the grocery store by avoiding processed food, cooking from scratch, and cutting salt, sugar, and fat from our diets. I feel like I do a pretty good job of cooking from scratch, but this book has me wanting to try harder.

The Explosive Child: This book has changed our household! It describes Claire to an absolute "T", and the tips it gives for dealing with this particular temperament have greatly helped us. Although, admittedly, one other thing has also helped. I have felt inspired that I really need to work on speaking kindly to others. I have really been trying to not lose my temper or raise my voice. That, along with this book, has changed everything in our home. Claire definitely still begins to have her massive tantrums, but 99% of the time we can stop them before they explode into full on fits. In fact, she hasn't had a full tantrum in weeks. That doesn't mean it's easy, but it does mean we are FINALLY starting to make head way in how to deal with our "explosive child."

For a much lighter read, Wildflower has been quite interesting. I am not quite finished, and I wouldn't exactly call Drew a literary master, but her life is definitely intriguing. How she came out pretty normal with a stable family she created is incredible. It goes to show that even if you have totally screwed up parents, you can turn out OK (which gives my kids hope).

So, there you go- some fun book options to help in your 2016 reading resolutions!