Story Lover

by Ned Vizzini

I didn’t know that this was the first book that he wrote. I loved the quirky stories of his teen years and seeing perhaps the nostalgic look back on high school. I think we always kind of look back on who we were in the most positive light. Vizzini sees himself as staying true to himself and the friends he had. I kind of wonder if we all do that and we just choose to forget the times we faltered or betrayed ourselves.

But I’m glad that there are people like Vizzini out there writing about a more realistic portrayal of life and teen life. There are times when we all get down and need some help and sometimes the best lesson you can learn is that everyone at one point or another needs help.

by Annie Leonard

I liked the book in the sense that it explained a lot of back story about what happens with all the stuff we have today and how it’s all made. It’s pretty fascinating when you think of how outside your control most everything is. You can control whether or not you buy something, but in the end, you may or may not even know the truth about what’s in the product, who made it or how it was made. I think the level of toxins in our products is scary, but more so is the fact that most everything we have in our lives sooner or later will be trashed and that not too many people see anything wrong with it.

I just recently called to have our satellite TV service canceled and I was asking the guy on the other end of the phone when someone would be coming by to take down the satellite. His reply? Oh, that’s yours, we don’t want it back. What? They don’t want it back, it’s trash to them. It does me absolutely no good and I can’t even give it back. What a waste. Our society and culture sucks. First off, what am I to do with it and secondly, why can’t they just use it on the next guy who signs up with Bell?

So, in this whole Bell satellite TV thing, I really get what Leonard is talking about. What I couldn’t really stand or enjoy was her tone. I’m not sure why most environmentalists and activists have to take on this condescending tone, but I find it really quite a turn off. She was telling stories of her daughter (never mentioned the father) and how even she could recognize PVC. She told stories of her little community and her bike riding and her solar panels. Sure, I totally believe in leading by example, but bragging by example is annoying. I’m glad she’s out there in the world, but I have no interests in ever befriending or meeting the lady.

by Leonard Sax

I really don’t like this author much. I find the insights he’s having pretty common sense and he’s not really eroding a lot of insight into why girls act the way they do and what society and parents can REALLY do to change any of it. I find that he has a pretty nostalgic look on society and is completely biased. I guess as a doctor he must see a lot of f*ed up cases, but I don’t find the book positive or engaging. More like a bitter lecture.

The 2 things I thought were cool and will try to keep in mind if I have a girl is that she should drink milk and do a lot of jumping. Apparently there’s something in specifically milk that help build strong bones. And jumping repeatedly helps to strengthen bones and make them denser than if you don’t jump a lot. Interesting. But that was really the only 2 things I walked away with that I really appreciated. Most of the other information was I felt shallowly researched and more of his personal opinion than fact. Would not recommend.

by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman

I first saw this book at Indigo when I was shelving other titles and what got me was Po Bronson’s name. I’ve read 2 of his previous books and really fell in love with not only what he had to say, but the fact that he didn’t say it all. Most of his first 2 books were accounts from other people’s lives. They were simply answering a question that he proposed to them. This book was a bit different, but I still really enjoyed the way the information was presented. Here are little summaries of each of the chapters. Definitely should reread some of these chapters as the Bunny grows up. Especially Chapter 8, 9 and 10.

1. The Inverse Power of Praise: Sure, he’s special. But new research suggests if you tell him that, you’ll ruin him. It’s a neurobiological fact. I had heard something along these lines before. I think Jess was telling me about it. And I think this one, above all else, really resonated with me. I think effort and its adult counterpart, work ethic, are much more important than base smarts or intelligence. True character is drawn from working for something, not having it already. They noted that it’s important to give focused and specific praise based on effort, not smarts.

2. The Lost Hour: Around the world, children get an hour less sleep than they did thirty years ago. The cost: IQ points, emotional well-being, ADHD, and obesity. I thought this chapter was pretty fascinating as well. They reported kids as young as 10 years old having emotional breakdowns because their lack of sleep wouldn’t allow them to process their emotions or cope with stress. Apparently this is especially important for high school aged adolescents and that some schools throughout the US have adopted later starting times to allow kids to sleep longer. They claim that a lot of the stereotypical teen behavior are also characteristics of chronic fatigue. Interesting. The most interesting thing was that during sleep, negative memories are processed by the amygdala (which remains unaffected during sleep deprivation), while positive and neutral memories are processed by the hippocampus (which is hit hard by sleep deprivation), so people who don’t get enough sleep have no problem recalling negative memories and struggle with pleasant ones. I wonder if that’s why I have so many argh moments.

3. Why White Parents Don’t Talk About Race: Does teaching children about race and skin color make them better off or worse? I thought this chapter was the most uncomfortable by far. I can understand why parents have such a hard time talking to their children about race, you just never really know what’s right or wrong to say. I think that by being a visible minority, I get a bit of leeway, but not much. One study was pretty fascinating though. They took a preschool class and arbitrarily divided it and gave one half red t-shirts and the other half blue t-shirts. Over time, when asked, the children would reply that all the kids from their own colored shirt team were nice or smart, but that only some of the kids from the other colored shirt team were nice or smart. They instinctively divided the kids into us and them. Researchers claim that they same is happening with race and that by not talking about it, we’re leaving kids to make up their own minds and assumptions, leading to the us and them mentality. Also, that the more diverse and large a population is, the more likely you’ll get kids to cling or cliche with kids of their own race, rather than making friends with kids of other races.

4. Why Kids Lie: We may treasure honesty, but the research is clear. Most classic strategies to promote truthfulness just encourage kids to be better liars. Honesty was always a huge thing in my house growing up. My dad would literally go berserk if he thought we were lying to him. And what the researchers find interesting is how parents teach their kids to lie in some situations (to be polite or not hurt another’s feelings), yet continuously tell their kids that it’s not right to lie. They say that this sends mixed messages, especially if kids see their parents engaged in little white lies themselves. most of the time kids lie to avoid punishment or to please their parents. So apparently the best scenario is to enforce the worth and value of honesty by telling your kids it will make you happy if they told the truth and to try and remove the fear of punishment. They use George Washington and the story of the cherry tree as a prime example.

5. The Search for Intelligent Life in Kindergarten: Millions of kids are competing for seats in gifted programs and private schools. Admissions officers say it’s an art: new science says they’re wrong, 73% of the time. I didn’t think this one was as interesting. It seemed completely fascinated by the idea that rooting out a gifted child was super important and the right thing to do. I do think it’s crazy to think that you can find a gifted child at age 5 and they’ll stay gifted all their lives. It’s also crazy to think that children don’t evolve into their gifts at later ages. I think effort has a lot more to do with being gifted than base smarts and that children who work hard can absorb and progress just as well as children who are gifted.

6. The Sibling Effect: Freud was wrong. Shakespeare was right. Why siblings really fight. I got a little confused on this one. But it was really interesting to learn that siblings don’t fight because they’re jealous of their parents attention of one another. Looking back on my childhood, I don’t really remember that many fights. There were moments of jealousy, but not anything that dug in deep and festered. My brother was a major stink, but I think it was more because he was bored and I was just too easy of a victim. The lessons I’ve come away with are that siblings fight because they know that their brother or sister will be there the next day and the day after (while friends can come and go as they wish), they fight over things and that things aren’t always fair and they fight over previous fights. It’s important to teach siblings how to get along and care for one another.

7. The Science of Teen Rebellion: Why, for adolescents, arguing with adults is a sing of respect, not disrespect – and arguing is constructive to the relationship, not destructive. One researcher (Linda Caldwell) found that if you can teach teenagers how to NOT be bored, they are less likely to turn to drugs, sex and mischief for entertainment. And that it’s not the parent’s job to over schedule their children to try and prevent boredom, that usually just makes them more likely to get bored. I also thought it was really fascinating that if a teenager argues with their parents, it’s more a form of respect than disrespect. And that makes a lot of sense to me. It’s only with very close friends that I’d bother confronting them about something that bothered me or hurt me. I wouldn’t bother with a stranger or someone I didn’t care about to begin with. The same is true with kids and confronting their parents. If they didn’t have some respect and comfort with them in the first place, they wouldn’t even bother. They’d just go right ahead and do what they wanted in the first place. It’s important though for the parent to compromise when their teen makes a valid argument though, because if parents stay too firm on things because their stubborn, it will erode their teen’s respect and willingness to confront them.

8. Can Self-Control Be Taught? Developers of a new kind of preschool keep losing their grant money – the students are so successful they’re no longer “at-risk enough” to warrant further study. What’s their secret? I wonder if they have Tools of the Mind programs in Toronto. I want the Bunny to go to one. I wonder if the all-day kindergarten classes that have started in Toronto incorporate some of these tactics. Things to keep in mind for the Bunny: individual ‘play plans’ (outlines for what they’re going to do or play over the upcoming hour or day), letting kids choose their role in upcoming activities (because motivated kids will focus and sustain play and activity longer than unmotivated or forced kids), ‘clean-up song’ (specific song that when played kids immediately know they should start cleaning up and they also know how much longer they have because they’re familiar with the song), ‘buddy reading’ (read to the Bunny and afterward give the book to the Bunny and have them tell the story back to me), ‘private speech’ (where they talk to themselves on what to do, eventually they’ll internalize the dialogue, example: Start at the top and go around…) and play Simon Says (helps kids learn restraint).

9. Plays Well with Others: Why modern involved parenting has failed to produce a generation of angels. Interesting observation that childrens’ educational videos are actually teaching them bad social interaction. Most educational videos start with a negative interaction, like one character teasing or hurting another character; and end with the two characters reconciling. However, because children don’t remember something that happened half an hour ago, all they were really absorbing were more and more ways to be hurtful to each other. Researchers found this to be almost more detrimental to kids than watching violent shows. It’s important for kids to see their parents resolve conflict. So, if you start an argument in front of your kids, finish it in front of them as well, otherwise they never understand that people who love each other can work things out. Kids who are empathetic and understand the feelings of their peers can manipulate them just as well as they can console them. Jails are full of people who have empathetic sympathies than the general population. Try to integrate kids with other age groups, because otherwise it’s just the 12 year olds leading other 12 year olds.

10. Why Hannah Talks and Alyssa Doesn’t: Despite scientists’ admonitions, parents still spend billions every year on gimmicks and videos, hoping to jump-start infants’ language skills. What’s the right way to accomplish this goal? Baby Einstein videos don’t work. It’s important for parents to respond immediately to a child’s sounds. Touch or verbal response are both important to progress vocalization and later verbalization. Pay attention to your child and follow their lead (respond to what they’re looking at), rather than lead them (by telling them what to look at). When teaching them a new word by object, move the object around and say the word in a sing song manner. Have different people say the same words, kids learn what’s the same by weeding out the differences (such as voice, tone, intonation). Don’t crisscross words by assuming you know what the child is saying. If it says bah bah, it probably doesn’t mean bottle, especially when it’s holding and looking at a spoon. They’re just sounds. Respond to the spoon. Otherwise, the kid will think the spoon is called bottle. Kids remember and learn the last word best. So change the sentence structure around a bit so that the subject is sometimes the object and the object is sometimes the subject.

by Rick Smith & Bruce Lourie

Fascinating book. For something pretty technical and, let’s face it, scary, this book was quite an easy read. I kind of just flew through it. It’s pretty disturbing how many uninvited chemicals have become a permanent fixture in our lives. The amount of chemicals that are active hormone disruptors is shocking and they’re everywhere. One of the things that I found pretty fascinating was that all we can do is decrease the level of these chemicals in our lives. We cannot completely eliminate them.

This might not have been the best book to read while pregnant, because it could I guess freak me out. But I feel like it’s better now, than later, when everything has been said and done. I can take precautions now to try and decrease my exposure to some of these hormone disrupting chemicals that can cause anything from birth defects to cancer. What better way to look out for the Bunny? But I do wish I had read this before I stocked up on a bunch of shampoos, soaps and dishwashing detergents. Now I’m not sure if I can return them or if I should just give it all away and start over.

by Franz Wisner

I found the book pretty interesting and it was fun to see him gradually, almost by accident fall in love with Tracy. There never seemed to be a secret ingredient or even a tipping point, where Franz all of a sudden is in love. You almost wonder, how DO people know they’re in love? I liked how he and Tracy really got to know each other through emails over the course of 6-8 weeks. And perhaps, he’s right, they were only able to fall in love by not being overwhelmed or distracted by the physical or easy aspects of a young relationship. Only through communication, was he able to fall in love with her. That’s kind of the way G and I were, we met, hung out for 2 weeks and then did 1 year of long distance. It was tough, but I think I really knew him at the end of that first year.

My favorite aspect of the book though was learning about all the dating and courting experiences around the world. My only criticism is, can anyone EVER really know and understand a people enough to say that THIS is how they are? I’ve lived in places for years and never really feel confident in knowing a place, a culture, a people. And it was very obvious that these were not objective accounts. But it was all fascinating. I even got a bit of research for our project: New Zealand has the 4th highest chlamydia rates in the world.

“For me, love is if I am happy and you are happy, we can share. But if you are not happy, you can share nothing.”

by Michael J Fox

I thought this book was a little bit too much of an open ramble by Fox. I thought he went on a bit too long about how great he was for having gotten an education at the “School of Hard Knocks” rather than a formal high school. And his little chapter lessons, such as Geography and Physics, just felt like random things that somewhat related to these topics.

But I liked some of the quotes that were in the book and it was interesting to learn a little about his life.

“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” – John Wooden

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.” – John Wooden

“Is what anyone else thinks of me really any of my business?”

by Dave Eggers

It’s hard to imagine events like those described in Zeitoun to occur in the US. But the amount of fear and over-reaction that I believe has become ingrained in our national character, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised at any of it. It’s also hard to balance fact from propaganda and even those with the best intentions can lean toward characterizing things as inadvertently good or bad. But, because I trust Dave Eggers, I trust that this story is more fact than propaganda and depicts to the best of any person’s ability, to describe something as objectively as any personal story can.

I can’t stop thinking of the amount of loss there was in New Orleans. Nasser losing his life savings, all those dogs starving to death and perhaps most detrimental, the loss of faith people had in their country and the overall good of others. The craziest thing was that our government and leaders are much more able to ensure that prisoners don’t escape and are controlled than they are at saving lives and empowering their citizens. That fear is more likely to drive action than compassion or empathy. Huh. Sad right?