Right Reads…

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If you have a son and are trying to gain a better understanding of what the average young man thinks or worries about, you HAVE to read this book.

If you work with young people, whether as a teacher, a coach, a tutor or simply trying to understand young people, you HAVE to read this book.

If you care about young people with disabilities, whether they are physical, learning, mental or sexual, you HAVE to read this collection of short stories.

If you are a young adult, you shoud read “Down to a Sunless Sea“, if only to see that SOMEONE ELSE out there feels exactly as you feel…even though that person may be a physically handicapped boy or not.

Although the book cover is as depressing as its title, I simply could not put it down after I started reading it. Why? Another author, Rolf Gompertz, sums up the essence of Mr. Freese’s collection of stories:

“Mathias Freese is an inspired, talented writer, a sharp-eyed, honest observer; and a caring, compassionate human being. These qualities inform his dark, offbeat stories about life, making these tales a poignant, precious pleasure to read.”

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Tags: boys, young adult

Are you a housewife with a boring husband? Dream of a better life elsewhere? Think that your life should be so, so much better than you deserve?

If yes, you are not alone - even way back in 1856 in France, another woman felt exactly like how you do.

That woman is Emma Rouault, a beautiful young farmer’s daughter who married a country doctor, Charles Bovary and became known as Madame Bovary. Although everyone (including herself) thinks that their marriage is made in heaven…soon Emma realizes that her husband is nothing but a simple man.

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Tags: English literature

Boy, was I horrified (again!) when Lucas and I went through this set of picture cum colouring books!

Before our move to China and because I can’t read/write Chinese, I’ve never visited the Chinese book section. My first encounter with Chinese picture books was a “stunning” one as a gun and a rifle are used to introduce the concepts of “long” and “short”.

Now that he’s starting preschool soon, I bought a bunch of bilingual preschool books to familiarize him with the Chinese medium of instruction.

Check out this seemingly innocent cover with an excavator:

This 62 page book introduces the Chinese name for invidiual items, with the Chinese character, hanyu pinyin and English word all next to each other. What’s also fun about it is that kids can colour in each item, with suggested colours next to them.

What horrifies me though are these pictures:

BULLET AND MAUSER

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Tags: musings

I hardly read self-help books because I’m a self-motivated person (seriously!). Stephen Covey’s “7 Highly Effective Habits for Highly Effective People” was my last motivational book, simply because it was a “required reading” for a Management course I took.

Unlike other motivational books, “Awake at the Wheel” begins with the fable of Og, the caveman who invented the wheel. Og is portrayed as an average Joe or Jamal or Jee Yee with a job, a wife, a house (or a cave) and a son. One day, he stumbled upon his Big Idea and he:

“…found it hard to sleep at night. Hard to sleep and hard to hunt and hard to do just about anything but think about his Big Idea.

He thought, of course, about telling someone - his best friend, Ugh, perhaps, or Aargh, his beloved wife - but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it, not quite sure they would actually understand.”

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Tags: motivational