So Many Books; So little Time

Warren G. Harding

Warren G. Harding

by Linda R. Wade

c. 1989

This Encyclopedia of Presidents’ offering is much better than the last one. This still presents a positive perspective of the president but as he is shown positively, the scandal that rocks his memory, The Teapot Dome, is at least mentioned and while it is acknowledged that it involved his friends, the author does state that there is no evidence that the president himself knew what was going on.

Born Warren Gamaliel Bancroft Winnipeg Harding, he was primarily a newpaperman before becoming a politician. He was a teacher briefly and always interested in politics but only entered the political arena at the behest of friends like many of the presidents. As president, Harding had an incredibly diverse cabinet though most of the decisions that were made in his administration seem to have been made around the poker table involving his friends, some on the cabinet and others not, and out of his knowing.

Harding came to the presidency after World War I, during a time when the United States needed to close out that part of its history. His inauguration was the first to have the president ride in an automobile, the first to be held on a specially built portico at the Capitol, and possibly the only one to not have an inaugural ball. Harding was the president to ask for and preside at the burial of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetary. Incredible photos of the event are included in the book.

Harding is one of our presidents who died in office and one of the few who died of natural causes–in his case, probably pneumonia and exhaustion. No doubt he saw the coming arrests and convictions of his friends but he didn’t live to see it or to be a part of it. Wade does a nice job of covering a lifetime complete with scandal but without spending undue time on it.

Kate Shelley and the Midnight Express

Kate Shelley and the MIdnight Express

by Margaret K. Wetterer

c. 1990

Here’s another true story for kids to read. This one has adventure, prayer, and suspense along with truth in it.

A young Irish immigrant, Kate Shelley’s mother suffered from extreme fear. On this particular night a horrible rainstorm took out a bridge and a train engine, trapping two railroad men in the roaring water, clinging to trees. Their only hope is 11 year old Kate Shelley who leaves her mother and siblings to cross another bridge in the dark that she is scared to cross in the daytime. She must do this by crawling as she has lost the light in her lantern and she knows there are missing boards.

Kate is racing against time as the Midnight Express is rushing toward the bridge that is out and Kate must reach the station in time to send the word by telegraph to stop. Does Kate make it in time?

Well, of course she does. Well researched and very well told by Margaret K. Wetterer. All Reading Rainbow books should be this good. Probably not a good book to read on a stormy night at bedtime, however.

Fearless

Fearless: Building a Faith That Overcomes Your Fear

by Cheri Fuller

c. 2003

I originally bought this book for the cover. I was intrigued by the thought of being fearless to the point of sitting on top of a cliff. Then I started reading the book and one of my best friends, Snail, wanted to know what I was reading it for since I was one of the most fearless people she knew.

Everyone has fears. We don’t want to admit we have fears because we are human and the society in which we live tells us that we need to have no fear but to be in charge. This book tells us how to have no fear because we have put God in charge and taken ourselves out of the way. Cheri Fuller uses her own life, the lives of friends and family and the lives of those in terrorist situations to show us how to completely let go of every ounce of fear we have.

The book is written in 14 chapters and an epilogue that no one should miss. She starts by asking us to face our fear, showing the high cost of fear, the greatness of God, and how we need to focus on the truth and move from panic to peace–that’s five chapters! She doesn’t give outlines but baby steps of moving along from fear to freedom. Chapter 6 is Acceptance: The Door to Peace. Then she moves into the meat of the matter with how to overcome fears about our children, finances, relationships, flying, fears from our childhood, fear of failure, fears about our health, and the ones we face in the midst of disasters.

Nothing is left out and nothing is white-washed. We live in fear and here is a way to move beyond fear to Freedom in Christ. Includes a scripture referenced study guide and ideas of journaling and making a peace packet to carry along as we travel with the fears we seek to leave behind. This book needs to be read by everyone and by some of us more than once. This was the second time through for me and I’m not ready to part with it yet.

This book is hard to find which is a real shame as it really should be on the bestseller list.

Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe

Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe

by Vera B. Williams

c. 1981

This is a fun and informative book. Our narrator is a child who finds a red canoe for sale on the way to school and tells her? mother. The mother and the aunt have gone on canoe trips before and so they take their children on a three-day canoe adventure. We follow them as they pack food, drive for an entire day, set up tents, almost get blown away, fish, cook, and get wet. Includes recipes and information about canoeing that you don’t find in other books.

For any child who is thinking about a canoe trip, this is a good start. This isn’t all rosy and happy but real. They meet a waterfall, hurricane force winds, mist, just about everything except wild animals. They even take an outdoor shower. This book deserves to be a Reading Rainbow selection because it’s just good.

Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson

by Alice Osinski

c. 1989

This is the most favorable biography of this president I have ever read. There has been much controversy over this man’s second marriage and second term of his presidency and this book skips it all with the exception of one line indicating that Edith Wison and an advisor handled his affairs after his stroke. In all honesty, I’m not sure that to skip over such controversy in a biography of a man in such an important time as he and the reader live, is a good thing. It may lead readers to believe that there is no recourse for a time when the president is unable to function, when, in fact, that is one of the things the founding fathers made perfectly clear in the Constitution. I also believe that to virtually deny any constroversy over the man when, in fact, much controversy still exists in academic quarters is unfair to both sides of the issue.

This is, therefore a very positive book. It shares the life of Woodrow Wilson in a very positive way and leaves the reader feeling good about him. And, like most if not all human beings, there is much good to be said about Woodrow Wilson. He was a highly intelligent man and was driven to reach goals and make a difference in America and the world. He set his sights high and with the help of his family, he reached his goals.

This just feels like a white wash job somehow. I don’t want it to be. I honestly like the fact that much of the negative about Wilson isn’t spread like mud in a modern-day political campaign but this almost comes over the other way–as a campaign ad for the man. This is honestly, the first book in this series that I have had negative feelings about and that upsets me. I have read one other biography of Wison and it was one in which he was basically hung out to dry as a horrible president and as a not much better human being. There has to be a place in history where the “real” Wilson is portrayed as he was–loved and respected by enough people to be President of Princeton and elected to two terms as President of the United States but not so whitewashed that he comes out as being able to walk on water.

Sorry, this one isn’t one I would recommend for a presidential study for teens.

If Nature Calls…Hang Up!

If Nature Calls…Hang Up! A Classic Collection of Outdoor Humor

Articles Previously Published in Outdoor Life

c. 1999

This is a funny and thought-provoking book. If you look closely at the cover, you will see hunters taking aim at a steel barrel tied to a sawhorse with a mounted deer had attached to it. And so go many of the stories in this work.

This is as much a study in Culture as it is a study of hunting and fishing humor. In the story “Lightning Rod Dog,” you meet the typical snake oil salesman from yesteryear and the men who were his match. In “Terror of the Pack Train,” you meet a horse with a mind of his own. “Mekong Madness” takes you to Asia, “The Argentine Way” to South America, and “Rabbit Hunt, Indian Style” to the southeast US.

Between stories are cartoons and “Tall But Short” tall tales from the modern era. This can be a fun read or it could be used to teach about the differences of then and now and here and there along with how to write a modern tall tale.

Some language but very little. All in all this is just a decent book with which to remind yourself why you aren’t out there in the woods–or to make you wish you were.

Lost in Tibet

Lost in Tibet: The Untold Story of Five American Airmen, a Doomed Plane, and the Will to Survive

by Richard Starks and Miriam Murcutt

c. 2004

This is a must read for anyone interested in either World War II, aviation history or the conflict between Tibet and China. It’s quite timely given the tension between China and Tibet just prior to the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.

Richard Starks and Miriam and Murcutt traveled the area in which the pilots found themselves in 1943-44 bringing a true dimension to the story they tell. This is a well-written, well-researched book documenting one of the least known events in WWII.

Few people realize that America was supplying China from India during WWII. After the fall of the Burma Road, American Airmen were flying supplies of munitions and food “over the hump” into China. One late November, a weather system, coupled with what was probably false radar readings and faulty directions on the part of air traffic contollers, resulted in five American Airmen crash-landing in Tibet. At that time in history, the Dalai Lama was a boy still living in his palace in Lhasa, Tibet, China claimed Tibet as a part of China, Tibet claimed to be independent but in need of recognition which the rest of the world wasn’t willing to give due to the World War.

The Airmen found themselves, seperated then reunited, feared then welcomed then billed, on their way home by way of going the wrong way again, welcomed, stoned, restrained, expelled and then paid to leave. They had to fight what was probably High Altitude Sickness and rush against the weather in order to get back to India before being trapped in a Tibet that alternately wanted to “wine and dine” them and attack them–frequently at the same time.

A fascinating story of survival and politics that even the players weren’t aware of at the time. Quite readable and worth the time in order to more fully understand the various fronts of World War II.

The Mystery of God’s Will

The Mystery of God’s Will: What Does He Want For Me?

by Charles R. Swindoll

c. 1999

Another offering from my library. I’m not sure that I agree with everything Swindoll says in this book but that may be a lack of faith on my part. I do agree totally with his conclusion and that is that we must just accept what happens in our lives no matter whether it is good or bad. He does underscore that we can never know what the purpose of events in our lives are. And that’s true. Some of the most horrible things that happen to us are the things that make us grow in the Lord the most.

The one thing I would disagree with him on is the feeling I got from the book that he thinks anything we do is part of the Will of God almost as if at that point he is teaching predestination which I don’t believe in. At one point he tells of someone who feels led to take a different job and is excited about the job, then finds out that this is not the move he or she should have made. I really think that that could be leaving the will of God for the will of the flesh but Swindoll still points out that spriitual growth happens there. I will agree that spiritual growth happens in those times but I would question whether the move was in or out of the will of God. Another thing is he poo-poos the notion that God speaks to us in any way other than the Bible. Having heard God speak to me and having a pastor’s wife who has heard God speak to her, I believe that God does speak in ways other than by verses of the Bible standing out to us. He never speaks contrary to His word, but He does speak.

Now, as for the book itself–this contains 12 chapters with no study guide but then, mostly the book itself is the study guide and our lives are what we are studying. It’s easy to read and fairly easy to understand. As he usually does, Swindoll uses people and his own life scenarios to bring his points home.

All-in-all, this is a descent work though not the best that I have read by any means. I would recommend it for mature Christians but I feel that weaker and younger Christians could be led astray by some of the ideas presented in the book.

The Rescue Season

The Rescue Season: The Heroic Story of Parajumpers on the Edge of the World

by Bob Drury

c. 2001

Language Warning for this book

If you are ever lost in the mountains or anywhere in the wilderness or even on the sea, these are the men (all of them are men) you want coming after you. You’ve heard of the Navy Seals and the Green Berets but these are the elite of the elite. Parajumpers are a special breed. They are not only soldiers of the toughest kind but also swimmers of the toughest kind, mountain climbers, paratroupers, and medics, some training to be nurses.

Bob Drury spent several months living with the parajumpers in what they consider the best assignment–Alaska where Denali stands and lives up to its name–Weathermaker. High mountain rescue doesn’t get any tougher than on Denali where veterans of Mt Everest get caught and die. In Drury’s book you will meet the helicopter pilots and the men and their families who go out into the most improbable situations and rescue people who otherwise would be statistics on the side of the mountain.

I first heard of parajumpers in The Perfect Storm when they went out into the center of a hurricane and rescued three people off a private boat that was sinking in rain so heavy, it was impossible to tell when you left the air and reached the ocean and with waves trying to grab them off the ropes and straight out of the helicopter. These men know fear and do their job because it’s what they want to do. This book gives you an up close and personal look at their lives, their training and what it is they do. Men don’t come any tougher, any braver, any kinder than these.

William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft

by Jane Clark Casey

c. 1989

Another book from the Encyclopedia of Presidents series. This one is different from the others in many respects. For one thing, it has many more chapters. While the others have from 6-9 chapters, this one has 13. For another, most of them have one chapter per time period of the President’s life such as one chapter for his childhood and one for the Presidency. This one is cut up into small chapters of about 5 pages each. Another difference is that this book doesn’t present the President in a consistantly positive light. It acknowledges his weaknesses and explains them in the historical contexts.

President Taft followed Theodore Roosevelt into office. He admired Roosevelt and wished he could be like him but his personality was very different from Roosevelt’s. Taft was a natural born Supreme Court Justice and, in fact, that was what he felt led to do. His family, primarily his wife, pushed him into political office even though it meant his salary was subsidized by his brother in order for him to survive. In the end, after losing a second term bid, Taft was appointed to the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court where he made some changes in how the Court was run. We are left with the feeling that Taft should have taken the first opportunity to be on the Court instead of the last.

An interesting book. Because of the short chapters, it is highly readable for a wider audience than the previous Presidents books. Lots of pictures add to the story. A wonderful first biography of Taft for any age.