Books, Books and More Books!

I love to read, no doubt about it. I love to learn new things and be challenged. For this reason I have always loved school...but I find myself in a season of life where there is little opportunity for me to participate in formal educational settings. It's not that I don't have opportunities in my life, it's just that these opportunities usually involve wiping bottoms, reminding little humans we use kind words and gentle hands, playing a guessing game of what these little humans might be willing to eat at a given meal, laundering stained clothes, sweeping up endless crumbs, reading the same board book 10x a day, etc. So I made it my goal in 2016 to read whenever I got the chance. To read entertaining fiction (my favorite) AND interesting non-fiction. To use reading as self-care. To read to learn. To read to see different perspectives. 

So below I have shared where my goal of reading took me. It's a long post, and not one I really expect y'all to read in its entirety, but I wanted to put it out there in case anyone is looking for some new books to read. I would recommend all of these, but for entirely different reasons. They have made me laugh and cry; they have empowered me and stifled me; they have taught me there is much love to be given in this broken and beautiful life, and that no matter a person's situation, their story is real, powerful, and needs to be heard. So without further ado...

Non-Fiction:

Interrupted

Jen Hatmaker

   This book started me on a journey. A journey of reflecting on my faith and how I believe God has actually called Christians to live out their faith. A journey of questions like: How am I helping the least of these? How can I fight for those who are oppressed? What areas of my life do I need to be intentional about getting out of my comfort zone for the benefit of others? So many eye-opening truths in this book, yet Jen writes in a fashion that is so easy to read. I have actually re-read this book already to make sure that more of it sticks and I truly wrestle with the difficult ideas it presents.

Radical

David Platt

    This is a more logically written Interrupted (see above). It challenges the comfortable Christianity many Americans live out, encouraging its readers to go out and do radical things for the Gospel, such as fighting for the oppressed and loving the marginalized.

Rising Strong

Brene Brown

   Game Changer. Brene only knows how to write hard truths, but she does it in a way that is well-researched/academically written, and yet, also incredibly easy to read/relate to. One of my biggest take-aways from this book was that if I don’t allow myself to feel the dark, difficult emotions in life, I squelch my ability to feel the beautiful and joyous emotions. Without the dark, there is no light.

Just Mercy

Bryan Stevenson

   Wow. Bryan Stevenson is the man. As an African American lawyer he chose to begin his career practicing law in the deep south and has fought for numerous African American men who were on death row on false allegations. He also fought the Supreme Court (and WON) so that no juvenile can be sentenced to life without parole. This book shares much of his personal story, along with heart-wrenching cases he has worked on. My view of our legal system was thrashed by reading this book and I’m still trying to pick up the pieces…

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

   Coates is writing a book to his son to try to explain the injustices that our everyday society presents for African Americans. He grew up on the streets of Baltimore and shares from that perspective as well as from his current place as a prominent writer, journalist, and educator in NYC. This book was difficult to read, but so eye-opening to some of the deeper struggles of African Americans today.

The Fire Next Time

James Baldwin

   This book was written in the 60’s, and I picked it up because it was the book that inspired Coates to write Between You and Me. It is a letter Baldwin writes to his nephew about the current reality for African Americans and how everyone (both blacks and whites) should be fighting to end the terrible results of racism in America.

Torn

Justin Lee

   A good friend recommended this and I am so thankful. Lee writes of his personal coming out experience and the following shift in his theology in regards to homosexuality.  He has created an international network (GCN: Gay Christian Network) for LGBTQ people who are seeking support and understanding as they live out their Christian faith. I finished this book with way more questions than answers, and for that I am thankful.

Space at the Table

Brad & Drew Harper

   This book was fascinating to me. It is a dad and a son telling their journey.  The dad is an evangelical theology professor and the son is a gay agnostic. Their story was often painful to read, but simultaneously full of beauty as they both were willing to fight for love to win in their relationship. I love this line from the back of the book: “Brad and Drew offer an invitation to join them in a place where love is stronger than the beliefs that divide us.”

The Book of Forgiving

Desmond Tutu

   If there was ever a man who could be called an expert on forgiving (besides Jesus), I’m thinking Desmond Tutu could claim that title. The stories he shares, and the advice he offers are mind blowing. Reading and engaging with this book was like going to counseling. Such practical advice partnered with deep, difficult stories makes this a book that will stay on my shelf forever as a reference for myself and others in those difficult times of seeking to forgive those who have hurt you.

Never Say No

Mark & Jan Foreman

   I loved the premise of this book: engage with your kids. Play with them. Get to know them. When they ask to spend time with you/invite you into their world: Never Say No. Such a great reminder on those days when raising kids feels like a chore and all you want is a week alone, with no responsibilities…which are often the days my patience is at a minimum and therefore everyone at home is on edge. Choosing to engage and connect with my kids not only helps everyone have more fun, it reminds me of the beauty and privilege of loving and growing these sweet souls I have been entrusted with.

Give Your Child the World

Jamie Martin

   This book was given to me by my best friend Michelle. It is basically an annotated bibliography of children’s books that assist you in introducing different places and cultures to your children. The books are listed in four different age ranges (4-6, 6-8, 8-10, and 10-12), and we found almost every book through our local library. This was a fun summer reading project to do with the kids as I saw their curiosity blossom in regards to how people all over the world do things so differently.

The Out-of-Sync Child

Carol Stock Kranowitz, M.A.

   This book has been recommended at numerous of our foster care trainings, so I picked it up to try to better understand sensory issues and sensory processing disorder. It was kind of like reading a textbook, and I feel I would have gotten much more out of it if I was currently caring for a child with sensory issues because I could have immediately put some things into practice. However, I did gain a lot of knowledge surrounding this topic and know this is a resource I could turn to in the future should a child in our care have sensory issues.

Memoirs:

Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy who Discovered He was Black

Gregory Howard Williams

     I randomly picked this book up at a coffeeshop/used book store on Josh and I’s anniversary. It wasn’t the best written book I’ve ever read, but the story is fascinating. A (light skinned) half-African American guy marries a white woman and their kids are very light-skinned. So they live in Virginia for awhile and are all able to pass as white. When the family falls apart, dad moves back to his childhood African American neighborhood in his hometown of Muncie, IN with the older two boys. All of a sudden the boys are treated like black members of society, yet they don’t even believe they have black blood in them when their dad tells them. The tension (both personally and societally) the boys (the author and his brother) grew up in was incredibly eye-opening.

Born Bright

C. Nicole Mason

   Mason retells her story so vividly. Sharing from when she was a little girl, on up through leaving for college, she was raised by an unstable mom who was often living with a drug dealer.  She recounts many stories that broke my heart and motivated me to seek ways to make a difference for those in similar situations to her. Mason shares that she didn’t even realize she was poor until college because the majority of the people around her lived just like she did so she never realized there was any other way to live. Mason now has her PhD in public policy and has made a career out of seeking change through public policy on pressing social issues for communities of color and low-income families.

Brown Girl Dreaming

Jacqueline Woodson

   This is a memoir of Woodson’s childhood written in verse. The poems were easy to read, yet chockfull of emotion and insight of how she was striving to find her place in the world as an African American little girl in the 60s and 70s.

The Glass Castle

Jeannette Walls

    Walls does an amazing job of writing about her parents, where you want to love their good intentions even when you despise their daily, life choices.  Her father is an alcoholic and her mother wants to focus on her art rather than raise her children, which creates a nomadic, dysfunctional lifestyle for the family and leaves the kids to fend for themselves most of their childhood. I was completely engrossed by their erratic life, yet captivated by the broken love the family had for each other.

Fiction:

Americanah

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

            I already want to reread this book.  It is a novel that felt more like a memoir. I had to keep reminding myself that it was fictional because the characters and their struggles seemed so real. The main character, Ifemelu, grew up in Nigeria and comes to America for college. She ends up staying in America for over a decade before deciding to return to Nigeria. While in America, she begins a blog about race, and her blog posts are on point. In fact, I want to make copies of them to continually reread and be challenged by them. There are complicated romantic, familial, and friend relationships throughout the story that almost always made me choose to read “just one more” chapter instead of going and doing whatever responsibility was calling my name.

Necessary Lies

Diane Chamberlain

            This novel is meant to bring awareness to the era of state-mandated sterilizations, which was usually implemented amongst the poor. The story line follows a young, big-hearted social worker who becomes too emotionally invested in some of her clients’ lives. Jane gets herself in numerous sticky situations living out her best intentions. I do not ever remember learning about state-mandated sterilizations before, and so this storyline fascinated me both because of the characters, but also because of all the terrible stories I have heard through our journey as foster parents.

To Kill A Mockingbird

Harper Lee

            This was a reread for me, seeing as I was required to read this classic my sophomore year of high school. This summer, I was going to read Go Set A Watchman with a few friends, and I wanted to be reminded of the characters and storyline. I enjoyed ‘re-meeting’ the characters and like to believe that I picked up on some of the deeper themes this time around (now that I’m so much older and more mature… J). However, I am still not a natural when it comes to thoroughly understanding literature, and for this reason I would love to reread it again with an  educated English major that I could discuss it with. 

Go Set A Watchman

Harper Lee

     This is the sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird. Scout is a grown woman, and Atticus an old man…yet the racial issues in the small town Scout grew up in are still very present. I could not put this book down. Scout is a daddy’s girl, pretty much to a fault and I identified with her so much in that way. And her pure heart in wanting to see everyone in her childhood community as equal was equally beautiful and horrifying because it had such a pure motive, but no willingness to look at the realities of oppression that were present.

Room

Emma Donoghue

     Having read Jaycee Dugard’s memoir with difficulty, I wasn’t sure if I would make it through this novel (a story of a girl abducted and locked away for years to be used as a sex slave)…but it is written from the vantage point of the abductee’s 5 year old son. Therefore, it deals with a terrible scenario but with the naiveté of a young child. It is heart-breaking, intense and redemptive. A quick, beautiful read.

All the Light We Cannot See

Anthony Doerr

    I loved this book for a couple reasons. One, when I picked it up I hadn’t read a fiction book in awhile, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting lost in the storylines and just flying through the entire thing in a few days. Second, it is a story about Nazi Germany (which always fascinates me), but some of the main characters were from Paris. I loved learning more about how Nazi Germany affected more than their own country. I have a natural tendency to take history at face value and am not good at digging deep and asking complex questions to better understand all the different vantage points, and therefore was captivated by the far-reaching effects of Nazi Germany beyond the German and American viewpoints that I have previously learned/read about.

The Storyteller

Jodi Piccoult

    I got to read this book while I was away on a girls’ weekend! Piccoult always writes in a way that makes me rethink how I view certain situations and people, and throughout her books I often shift between many different emotions toward each of the characters. This book was about a young loner woman (Sage) who befriends an elderly gentleman who is adored in their small community. As their friendship grows, Sage learns he served with the Nazi regime and he asks for her help in killing himself because he is done living with all the guilt. However, Sage’s grandmother is a Holocaust survivor so the conflict of interest gets personal and extremely complex very quickly.

Unfinished books that I plan to finish:

Lies My Teacher Told Me

James W. Loewen

            This book is tough to read because it feels a bit like reading a textbook (thick, full pages, small font), but it is utterly fascinating. I only got through a few chapters before it was due back at the library, but it is one I will absolutely check out again. And I won’t plan to finish it the next check out period either, because I want to read it slowly to actually process all that it says. It opened my eyes to how euro-centrically American history books are written, resulting in a mass production of an education that is only telling very small parts of multi-faceted, complex stories. I honestly felt such disgust, awe and frustration as I struggled with feeling as though I had been brain-washed by much of my formal history education.

Citizen: An American Lyric

Claudia Rankine

            Rankine is a poet who uses her words to creatively write about microagressions, race, self-identity, and tragedy. Using few words, she goes deep and really made me think through the subtleties I see, hear, and use every day that actually perpetuate the racial climate of America. It is one I hope to reread with a friend to help my process and become more aware of my own subconscious biases.

The Broken Way

Ann Voskamp

            While at times Voskamp’s writing style can be too flowery for me, I so appreciate the message of this book: Christ is more beautiful and his love becomes deeper when we embrace our own brokenness. I look forward to finishing this.

And yes, I have decided this was a great goal, so I am planning to read my way through 2017 as well. I cannot wait for what I will learn from the pile I've already gathered on my shelf and all the others I find and y'all recommend to me ;-)