Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Friday, October 23, 2015

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

"I think that ADD is probably a necessary neurological adjustment to the all-at-once environment that we have. This was Marshall McLuhan's prophetic awareness - to understand this. ADD is a necessary adjustment."

- B.W. Powe

Book List [What I've been reading lately...]

You are what your mind eats ...

Friday, May 30, 2014

10 More from RC Jr - Non-Fiction for Teens

What are ten books your teenagers read as part of their homeschool education?

Ask RC: What are 10 books your teenagers read as part of their homeschool education?

One of the weaknesses of the school model of education is that it squeezes out great books that don’t fit neatly into one or another of those artificial divisions of learning we call “subjects.” We don’t start with, “What books have had a deep impact in shaping what I am?” But with “What subjects am I supposed to be teaching, and which books will help me teach them?” I don’t teach my children subjects—I seek to instill in them wisdom. Which means I have them read the books that gave me wisdom.

All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: The Christian and Pop Culture by Ken Myers. This book was a genuine wake up call to me, alerting me to the more subtle ways the broader culture has influenced not just what I think, but how I think. It was for me the beginning of seeking to live a more deliberate life.

The Abolition of Man by CS Lewis. A thoughtful yet accessible prophetic exposition of the then coming post-modernism.

The Holiness of God. We often, as parents, struggle with fear that our children are more eager to please us than their heavenly Father, that they see their faith as a familial thing, but that they don’t quite own it personally. This classic exploration of the character of God is deeply helpful. It reminds my children that God is for real, and that they must deal with Him, one at a time.

Monsters from the Id by E. Michael Jones. Jones, editor of Culture Warsmagazine, traces the history of horror fiction from Mary Shelley’sFrankenstein to Aliens. Why would I want my teens to read that? Because Jones, as is his habit, masterfully weaves the private lives of the creators of these stories with their ideologies and the stories themselves. Reading Jones is like reading Romans 1 unfold before your very eyes as you watch minds given over to depravity bear bitter fruit.

10 from RC Jr - the Fiction List for Teens

What are ten fiction books you recommend for homeschool teenagers?

What are 10 fiction books you recommend for homeschool teenagers?

A while back you published a . They were all non-fiction. What fiction do you have your children read?

I was honestly surprised when this was pointed out to me. I would guess over the course of my life I’ve read two works of fiction for every work of non-fiction. I hadn’t planned at all to make the list all non-fiction, and so am happy to add here fiction. As with before I am not here arguing that these are the ten best fiction works ever, only that they are the ten that I genuinely want my children to read. Here they are, in no particular order:

The Scarlet Letter — Hawthorne is no friend of the Bible or the Christian faith, but like so many great authors he is haunted by it. He has no grasp of the Puritans, but, ironically, a decent grasp of our sinfulness. While the townspeople are merely clownishly wicked, his exploration especially of Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are both chilling and worthy.

A Clockwork Orange — Anthony Burgess is among my favorite writers of the 20^th century. While Kubrick’s adaptation of the novel is not at all for the faint at heart, the book shows us Burgess’ genius without showing things best left unseen. A fascinating exploration of the folly of behaviorism, a philological romp, and a genuinely intriguing exploration of the rise and fall of civilizations, well, that’s quite a lot for a slim volume.

A Tale of Two Cities — Dickens starts slow, reminding us what happens when we are paid by the word. But the final third of this close-up in the midst of cultural devastation reminds us of the One Great Hero.

The Great Santini — Not one you expected, right? Pat Conroy is likely not in anyone’s canon, save perhaps the Sproul family canon. Conroy, like his thinly veiled father, manages to stir together charm and pathos, evil, and family unity. The result is somehow both disturbing and moving.

Marriage Gospel

"Half of our marriages end in divorce." No they do not. The real numbers are in and it seems that little more than half of half end in divorce.

As a homeschool dad, I often refer to the “smell test” when reviewing math assignments with my sons. ‘Okay, if you multiply a big number by another big number, the answer is not going to be a small number, right?’

Well, perhaps we can do the same here. How many married people do you know? Okay, now how many divorced? This is a difficult thing to get our minds around, but try. Think about the sheer staggering number of married adults you know. It is far easier to list the unmarried adults than the married. Now think about the divorces. Do they even begin to approach half?

Jeff and Shaunti Feldhahn are Christian marriage counselors, popular conference speakers, and family enrichment authors. This month Shaunti released The Good News About Marriage reporting the findings of an 8-year research project reviewing the statistical data on marriage and divorce in America. Her conclusions are shattering many of our most common conjugal clichés.

Among her more noteworthy findings were:

- The divorce rate in America has never even been close to half. While the actual divorce rate is impossible to establish, [the Census Bureau stopped trying in 1996] realistic estimates put the societal divorce rate as low as 27% with almost every source reporting a decline in divorces for the last 30 years!

Book List [what I've been reading lately] ... 4 biographies

Since It's been ages since I've posted one of these ... I did recently just finish this latest set of 4.
You are what your mind eats ...

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

True Grit

The past few days I've been reading True Grit to my sons before bed. Not a single time have I been able to get through it without bursting into loud laughter at least once.

Just last month, The Big Read released an audio episode devoted to this great American novel and it is well worth a listen, here.

I was surprised and tickled last night to read this paragraph:

The Indian woman spoke good English and I learned to my surprise that she too was a Presbyterian. She had been schooled by a missionary. What preachers we had in those days! Truly they took the word into “the highways and hedges.” Mrs. Bagby was not a Cumberland Presbyterian but a member of the U. S. or Southern Presbyterian Church. I too am now a member of the Southern Church. I say nothing against the Cumberlands. They broke with the Presbyterian Church because they did not believe a preacher needed a lot of formal education. That is all right but they are not sound on Election. They do not fully accept it. I confess it is a hard doctrine, running contrary to our earthly ideas of fair play, but I can see no way around it. Read I Corinthians 6:13 and II Timothy 1:9, 10. Also I Peter 1:2, 19, 20 and Romans 11:7. There you have it. It was good for Paul and Silas and it is good enough for me. It is good enough for you too.

Somehow that part didn't make it into the film.
There is a tremendous amount of Biblical imagery present in the book. The theme teeters back and forth on the line between vengeance and justice. I don't think it is an accident that with the Lex Talionis at its core, the Marshal is a one-eyed man.
The book is emphatic that these events took place in winter. Arkansas becomes Narnia. Additionally, the woman falls into a pit with serpents, but her deliverer descends into the earth to bring her up out of captivity, shooting the serpents [at least several of them] and then using her humble pony "little Blackie" to pull their rope and lift them up to salvation.
Upon seeing that it was "Little Blackie", Maddie references the Messianic Psalm lyric - "the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief Cornerstone."
Finally, the wicked Tom Chaney ends up being cast down into that serpent's pit and destroyed [different than the Coen brothers movie ending].
Don't ask me where LaBeouf figures into things. I have no clue on that one.
Have you noticed any of these themes from the book or films? I talked further about some of them a while ago in my review of the film here. I'd love to hear your thoughts and invite your comments below.

Friday, March 8, 2013

Book List [what I've been reading/listening to lately]...

You are what your mind eats ...

Monday, February 25, 2013

Hard work, Character, and ... Fun?

After reading Jerry Apps' interesting and touching memoir of growing up on a Wisconsin dairy farm during the WW2 years, I propose that we make this the new cliche for kids' pee-wee soccer teams everywhere:

"Listen, what matters most is not whether we win, but whether we all have ... a chance to work very hard at a very difficult task for a very long time."