April's Title Swap

Bringing Up Bebe' - Pamela Druckerman
50 Veteran Homeschoolers Share ..."Things We Wish We'd Known."  - Diana Waring
Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands - Dr. Laura
Proper Card and Feeding of Marriage - Dr. Laura
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter Sweet - Jamie Ford
Dancing Under the Red Star - Margaret Werner

The Hunger Games of the 1860's on Americian Soil

If you wanted to watch a movie in the theaters right now, "The Hunger Games" would be consider THE MOVIE to go to!  Although I have not seen it yet, I do plan to go next week with my husband.  I was sucked into Suzanne Collins' trilogy that the movie is based on, and read it in less than a week.  These books have crossed all generational boundaries with it's plot and underlying themes.

As "The Hunger Games" hit the theaters this last night month, the theology behind the story as become very controversial, with many speaking out against it's violence and oppressive tactics.  But using hunger and depriving a people of their basic needs to suppress them is not a new tactic.  This became startling clear to me has I read "Gone With the Wind" by Margret Mitchell. 

During the American Civil War in the 1860's, the main reason the North was able to beat the South was the blockading, burning and pillaging that the Union troops did to the common citizens of the Confederate families.  The North basically played a huge "Hunger Game" with the South.  The Union left the Confederates so starved, depleted, and without any resources to met their basic needs that they had no strength left to fight.  This war almost wiped out a complete generation of Southern men. 

Yet when we talk about the American Civil War in our history classes and books, we do not feel that starving the Confederates into submission was inappropriate at all.  We had to do whatever it took to bring the South down on it's knees to free the black slaves.  We as Americans, give our stamp of approval to the "Hunger Games" that were played on the Confederate Southern citizens. 

Reading "Gone With the Wind" also brought to light how difficult the reconstruction of the South was.  The North striped all Confederates citizens of their rights - to vote, to protect their families, to hold professional jobs and the right to have a fair trial in a court of law.  The actual "Hunger Games" continued well into the following decades after the war was officially over.  The North wanted to make sure that the South stayed down on its knees for years to come - and it work, they did.

If we do not learn from of our nation's past mistakes, history has a way of repeating itself.  Why does this modern fiction of "The Hunger Games" cross all generational boundaries today?  Because our current society in America is on a collision course to a major crisis.  We all feel it at some level.  What are we going to do when it hits?  Will our freedoms prevail?  Or are we destined to relive the horror that the South experienced in the 1860's.  What will our own "Hunger Games" look like?  Are you ready....

March's Title Swap

Between Parent and Child - Dr. Haim G. GinottHow to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk - Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
How to Talk so Kids can Learn at Home and School - Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
The Courage of Sarah Noble - Alice Dalgliesh
The Bears on Hemlock Mountain - Alice Dalgliesh
Sounder - William H. Armstrong
DIY Projects for the Self- Sufficient Homeowner
Lost Laysen - Margaret Mitchell
Becoming George Washington - Glenn Beck
The Foundation Trilogy - Isaac Asimov

Outliers: The Story of Success

"Superstar lawyers and math whizzes and software entrepreneurs appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don't.  They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy.  Their success is not execptional or mysterious.  It is grounded in a web of advatages and inhertiances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky - but all criticial to making them who they are.  The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all."

pg. 285

Salt Lake City 2012 Thomas Jefferson Education Family Forum

Come to the Salt Lake City 2012 Thomas Jefferson Education Family Forum.  Click here for more information.

I am putting together a group who are attending the conference.  If you are interested in carpooling down and/or sharing a hotel, let me know.

January's Title Swap

The Fourth Turning - William Strauss and Neil Howe
Financial Peace - Dave Ramsey
Royal Path of Life - T. L. Haines and L. W. Yaggy
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot
The 5 Love Languages of Children - Gary D. Chapman,Ross Campbell
Democracy in America, part 2 - Alexis de Tocqueville
Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life - Timothy Ryback
The Read -Aloud Handbook - Jim Trelease
Carnival of the Animals (music) - Saint Saens
The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (music) - Britten
The Christmas Card (dvd)
http://www.criticalthinking.com/index.jsp

Why Educate Mothers

"...the education of the common girl ...should be as varied and perfect as possible.  If for no other reason to enable her properly to educate and rear her own children.  Whatever grand truths are planted in the mother's mind take root in the next generation, and there grow, blossom, and shed their perfume on the world.

"The child receives the mother's very thought by intuition.  If the mother's mind is weak and narrow in range, the child is affected by this fact long before it finds any meaning in the mother's words.  But if the mother's mind is cultured and refined by study until  her thoughts are grand and far-reaching, the child's soul will grow and expand under the mesmeric influence of these thoughts, as the plant grows under the influence of the sun."

pg. 112 - 113
Volume 1

Comfortably in Debt

"Everybody in Vanity Fair must have remarked how well those live who are comfortably and thoroughly in debt: how they deny themselves nothing; how jolly and easy they are in their minds."

Was this written about the Englishmen of 1848, or Americans in 2012? Oh Vanity Fair!

Title Swap for October

Miss Peregrines' Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
The Anatomy of Peace - Arbinger Institute
Education of a Wandering Man - Louis L'Amour
Eve and the Choice Made in Eden - Beverly Campbell
Tales From Shakespeare - Mary and Charles Lamb
To the Rescue: President Monson

Genevieve's Thoughts on Macbeth

I must say that reading it as an adult after joining the church was a much different experience from reading it as a non-member teen! While I remember a lot from performing in it then, I also remember being more into scary movies and more "desensitized" than I am now that I can create my own little bubble. I didn't remember Lady M being quite so creepy and evil, just crazy. Here are a few things that I remember coming to my mind:

1.The whole "fair is foul and foul is fair" theme that frequently pops up reminds me of (paraphrased) in the last days men shall call evil good and good evil.

2.The idea that even a good man, which Macbeth started out as, can become corrupt. No one is immune to temptation.

3.The question is that "would Macbeth have become king/ tyrant/ assassinated had he not known of the prophecy? (I know this is a common question, but it still intrigues me.) If he had let events run their course without the deceptions, would he have become king and perhaps been a better ruler and for a longer period of time?

4.It is amazing the fallacies that Macbeth has throughout. While he is willing to believe and realize the prophecy of him becoming king, he continues to try and undo the other things that have been prophecied... to no avail. It's like those people who spend their lives tearing down others only to find themselves alone and unhappy, which we see a lot of in the world today. Also, that while he bids the martyrs to heaven, he rarely contemplates his own eternal fate or consequence.

Thanks! Even though I wasn't able to come, it was nice having an excuse to read Shakespeare again.