China's Past and Future in 2 Book Reviews

There is so much to love about this book! It's appealing to young and old alike. It was lent to me by sisters, ages 14 and 12. They were effusive in their praise. As a work of historical fiction, it gave them context for our class reading of Red Scarf Girl, which is memoir, China's own version of Diary of Anne Frank. Letters in the Jade Dragon Box is how I washed down Red Scarf Girl, which has an overall oppressive feeling because of the weight of oppression Jiang Ji-li truly felt. Reading this one next helped me to feel more hope for China. It is an LDS author who weaves a story of conversion and re-conversion throughout, using actual missionary history in Hong Kong to give it life. At first, the historical footnotes caught me off guard, but I came to appreciate the depth these post-chapter explanations provided. They make this book an excellent study tool for those interested in China's past and present, particularly from a religious freedom perspective. I feel this book gave me more of a connection to China, celebrating its beauty, art, and culture, while telling the very sad story of the 1960's Cultural Revolution which tore so many families apart. I highly recommend this to both adults and young people. Reading it in the same semester with Red Scarf Girl is even better.

I was moved to tears by Ji-li Jiang's story many times. I came away from this book feeling strongly that if everyone read it, the world would be a less oppressive, less ignorant, more sympathetic place. This book is a plea for compassion and law. In her epilogue Jiang says, "This is the most frightening lesson of the Cultural Revolution: Without a sound legal system, a small group or even a single person can take control of an entire country. This is as true now as it was then."
I now have a deeper respect for the United States Constitution and the rule of law, as well as the importance of kindness and generosity in building and maintaining community life. Good books entertain you. Great books make you ask yourself questions about things that matter. The best books change you in the reading. You come out a better person. Red Scarf Girl is one of these.

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Operation Awesome: O.U.R. Mission to Fight Child Sex Trafficking

Operation Awesome: O.U.R. Mission to Fight Child Sex Trafficking: Join the fight to free children from sex trafficking, the worst form of slavery in our modern world!

I'm an abolitionist because INNOCENCE IS PRECIOUS! What's your reason?

 

WHITE SAILS

On Human Sacrifice and Slavery (which are one and the same)

 

by Katrina Lenay Lantz

4/10/15

 

 

KING MINOS DEMANDS A TRIBUTE:

Girls seven; of boys, the same,

to feed the insatiable appetite

of a monster of treacherous fame.

 

Eyes red like the fire that razes,

horns sharp like the bull that destroys,

it looks like a man but it isn't.

Half beast, but all brute in its ploys.

 

A hero discovers the horror

while walking his kingdom's bright shore

and balks at the terrible whisper

that his father could ever ignore--

 

And placidly send off our daughters,

our sons, to their torturous demise.

What falsehood could sanction this outrage?

What marvelous, gilded, proud lies?

 

For surely as good men do nothing

the evil that simmers will boil!

And no one can cool it or hinder

once over the cliff side it spoils--

 

When villages, houses, and people

are swept in its current of fire,

and mankind has turned the cup over

and earned all the wrath and the ire--

 

Of the TRUE KING of all HIS CREATION

who sits not idle but sure,

and sends out His heroes to rescue

each fair son and daughter so pure.

 

WHITE SAILS IF YOU COME BACK TRIUMPHANT!

Black sack cloth if King Minos wins

and the brute with his hunger unending

has sated himself on our sins.

 

Will you become one of these heroes

who conquers the beast in his lair?

Or sanction the unholy tribute,

condemning the slave to despair?

 

WHITE SAILS IF YOU COME BACK TRIUMPHANT!

Black sack cloth if King Minos wins

and the brute with his hunger unending

has sated himself on our sins.

 

What I Read When I'm Not Reading Fiction

If my blog looks like a ghost town, it's because LIFE!

Neighborhood kids singing You're a Grand Old Flag, Fourth of July 2014

I'm not really making an excuse because I firmly believe my time has been well spent. As a homeschool mom who dabbles in politics and takes every spare moment to read, whether it's current events or a really tasty bit of speculative fiction, it isn't that I don't have time to blog/write/read/review/whatever. When we're honest with ourselves, we know our "I just don't have time" excuses really just mean "I'm doing other things that I deem more important." That's true even if we don't want to admit to ourselves that obsessing over our sock drawer or 'everything' drawer or that highly addictive new facebook game is a value choice of one activity over the others we also claim to value. Luckily, I haven't been tempted by a facebook game since about 2007. :)

As a recovering perfectionist, I have to be careful how I spend my time or I end up writing until 3am or "sorting papers" (read: reminiscing over high school essays) for an entire day. This natural obsessive tendency, which is very much genetic, is what allows me to crank out first drafts in pretty good time when my heart and soul is in it. It's also what leads me down other paths that are equally riveting. 

So here's some insight into my Soul Stretching Out (hint: that's my blog title these days):

I read NDE's (near-death experiences) like they're going out of style. My most recent read in that category was this:

Goodreads

These books are a great supplement to the backdrop of intense scripture study I find myself doing, especially when it has to do with the beginning of life, the purpose of life, the end of life, and the end of days. While I don't believe everything I read from those who claim near-death experiences and visions, I do find these types of books about visions of the afterlife or future to be soul-stretching. They give me an opportunity to ponder and pray for my own answers, and those periods of quiet meditation are necessary reprieves for a mom of tiny tots. 

That brings me to something else I study somewhat obsessively:

Goodreads

I read about pregnancy and childbirth. You'd think after four pregnancies and births I'd give up my study, but I ALWAYS, always, always find new bits I didn't know before, or am touched by reading somebody else's completely different birth story, or find healing in a birth story a lot like one of mine. Every pregnancy, birth, baby, and child is different. I can't imagine abandoning my study or thinking that I've finally learned it all. 

Of course, since I do homeschool, another topic I obsessively study is education. 

Goodreads

This book, between twenty and thirty years old, has some of the greatest insights on education I've read yet. It's a bit of a thick read and heavy on the technical language in parts, but it also includes scriptural and apostolic guidance about the way human beings learn. Since I believe learning never stops until you die, I also like to read a bit of history and classic literature.

Right now I'm reading this:

Goodreads

So now you know what I read when I'm not reading fiction. For an example of the awesomeness I read when I'm craving fiction, check out the moving book carousel in the right sidebar. I'm lucky enough to know those authors, and every one of their books is an adventure.

What do you read when you're not reading fiction?