BEST BOOKS READ IN 2018

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

By Bryan Stevenson                                                   

Just Mercy is a sobering account of a multitude of injustices done against many blacks and poor people by the criminal justice system in the United States. Caution: This book will make you cry and will make you very sad. Yet we need to know about this and do what we can to help correct the many problems. Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer, has built a non-profit organization to represent people wrongfully imprisoned. He has worked tirelessly for decades and has managed to save hundreds from life in prison. The most unbelievable injustice includes children as young as thirteen being put in solitary confinement for life! Stevenson’s writes with warmth, kindness and intense emotion. This is a powerful book.

God and the Transgender Debate: What Does the Bible Actually Say About Gender Identity?

By Andrew T. Walker

God and the Transgender Debate is a ground breaking book! Andrew Walker lovingly and thoughtfully describes the issues, problems and caring solutions for helping people struggling with gender identity. He spells out the fact that we must love every person as Jesus did. We must listen to them to understand their struggle. We must accept them and learn from them. We must also help them understand that we are all sinners, we are all created in the image of God, and we are all created as either male or female.

Should feelings about who I am trump what my body says about who I am? Walker tells about a white man in his thirties who interviews college students and asks them what they would say if he said he is woman? What if he said he was Chinese? What if he said he was seven years old and wanted to enroll in first grade? What would they say if he said he was 6 ft 5” tall? (10 inches taller than his actual height.) None of the students would say he was wrong. They said it was OK for him to view himself as very tall, or Chinese, or a woman.

Walker gives a wealth of information. A chapter on how to talk with children about this issue is excellent, loving and helpful. He also has a chapter in which he answers questions and a chapter on how the church must lovingly deal with this issue. I hope many will read this book and learn from it. I hope parents with children facing this culture in their schools will read this book. Walker offers valuable information and insights along with loving kindness, grace and truth. Here’s the link for You Tube “College Kids Say the Darndest Things.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4S0gHlKiho

Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve

By Lenora Chu                                                                                

Little Soldiers is an excellent, detailed book about the educational system in China. Lenora Chu, an American journalist and her husband move to Shanghai to live. Chu’s parents had emigrated from China and she was an American citizen born and raised in Texas. Her husband was a blond American with Norwegian roots. He worked in China with the Peace Corp for some years as a young man and was eager to return there. They settled in Shanghai both with jobs there. When their son, Rainey, was three they enrolled him in a Chinese school. Rainey was a rambunctious toddler. The school was very authoritarian. Toddlers were held captive in small chairs and punished or even banished if they didn’t obey every order.

Chu writes in depth about their experiences with Rainey and how he adapted. Chu had many misgivings and uncertainties about continuing Rainey in the system. Over a period of several years she details their journey and she goes on a quest to understand the effects of a Chinese education on children. She befriends Chinese students in their teens and in college who share their ideas about education. She visits Chinese schools out in the country where poverty and poor teaching prevail.

She describes the extreme pressure on the children and on their parents regarding home work and testing. This becomes more extreme as they approach the higher grades. She ultimately decides that the early years of Chinese education with memorization, high expectations and very hard work produces more intelligent children who then can reason effectively and still be creative in what they do.

This is an excellent and thorough exploration of the Chinese educational system. Parents, grandparents, educators and all who value learning should read this and be informed. Hopefully the information here will influence the American schools to expect more from young children.          

          

Educated: A Memoir

By Tara Westover

Educated is an amazing memoir of the author’s life growing up with an abusive, disturbed, fanatic father and a disturbed brother. She is the youngest of seven children, five of them boys. She grew up in the mountains of Idaho and received no formal schooling.The family avoided all medical treatment, using natural remedies even for serious injuries. The book is disturbing, going from one accident or injury to another. The family dynamics are shocking and unbelievable. 

Tara, tough and strong, worked with the men and boys through her childhood as well as with her mother concocting various health remedies or learning to be a midwife. When seventeen she left the family against her father’s will and enrolled at Brigham Young University. This transition was not easy. Nor was it easy for her to come to terms with her past. She has a list of degrees including a PhD in history from Cambridge. As an adult she struggled with how to stay connected to her family without being sucked back into the morass.

I couldn’t put this book down. I read it in two days. This book is disturbing. It is also a New York Times best seller.

Blessings, Dottie