TJ Hirst

Try-It With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

Last August I returned to the library, my bookshelves and the bookstore after years of having little time to read for pleasure. Even though I’m plowing through books and reviewing them here, my GoodReads bookshelf stayed bare after my sister encouraged me to join. I surprised myself today when I began adding up the books I’ve read—18 of the ones I can remember—since last August.

Are you on GoodReads? How do you like? How do you use it?

August is the perfect time to not stretch myself in the last few weeks before my children return to school and the routine begins again. Instead, I’m going to stretch in the hammock with a few more summer reads like these:

And of course I will be reading the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the Bodacious Bloggity Book Club. Holly at Marathon Bird picks great selections. We read them, write our own reviews in a post on our own websites and link up on August 25 for an on-line discussion. New readers can jump in any time and add their thoughts.

Hmmm. Doesn’t seem like such a slow month after all?

What are you reading in August before saying goodbye to summer days? Do you want to try any of these books with me?

My son stood in the library searching for a “boy book” to read. I spied The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, which I wanted to start for the Bodacious Bloggity Book Club. I encouraged him to read it with me.

Years ago, my children and I watched the movie version of Tom Sawyer together. At the end of the movie, Becky Thatcher and Tom become lost in a dark cave and discouraged. Then Tom sees a way out. He goes forward toward that light, keeps climbing and finds an exit.

At the time, we stopped the movie and talked about this ending. I taught my children about symbols in literature and symbols in the scriptures. I told them that light is a symbol that is often connected with Jesus Christ. My son, NH, wasn’t more than five or six years old. And he said, “When we are in the darkness we can pray and we will be able to see the light so we can get out.”

The discussion left an impression on my son and on me. With that memory, I expected to read the book and experience those same feelings and have that discussion again. However, I was honestly a little disappointed that the book’s ending was more focused on the treasure the boys found in the cave than on Becky and Tom’s disappearance and rescue. Oh the problems of expectations!

Once I recognized that my disappointment was only from my memories, I could enjoy Mark Twain’s original story for what it is. It is very boyish, as I had told my son. And the author was true to his words from the preface:

Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.

My sisters and I used to talk about never forgetting what it is like to be a kid. I promised myself that, but how hard it is to remember that perspective when another one comes to replace it. As an adult woman I couldn’t relate to the rambunctious activities of Tom and Joe Harper and Huck, but it was fun to think that these same desires to be free and creative are the same ones that drive my son to build forts with the neighbors all summer long.

Tom’s manipulative enterprising tactics to get the other boys to paint the fence for him also amused me. How true it is that if you ask someone to pay for the privilege of work, that work becomes more valued. Doesn’t this relate to so many of our modern pleasures that only become valuable when we see the price that people are willing to pay? Then we are all prepared to be duped into lining up for our share.

I am often discouraged at adults in children’s books because they look so stupid from a child’s perspective and truly seem to be diminished in authority. As a parent I don’t ever think the author is doing other adults any service by painting them in such a silly way. I know, I need to not take myself or these portrayals too seriously. Knowing that about my self, this time I had fun looking toward Aunt Polly’s foibles and her qualities with delight. For instance, when Aunt Polly is questioning Tom, Twain as narrator gives this commentary,

Like many simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe she was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy, and she loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low cunning.

This made me laugh at myself a little bit and wonder at my own pet vanities, which more often than not include the same pride that Aunt Polly shows in her discipline methods. When she scolds Tom for breaking the sugar dish that Sid actually broke,

her conscious reproached her, and she yearned to say something kind and loving; but she judged that this would be construed into confession that she had been wrong, and discipline forbade it.

Despite these weaknesses that she had, I loved the tenderheartedness of Aunt Polly when she truly believes that Tom is in danger.

Over and again the book showed how we all battle with our conscious and our own desires and wills. That happened for Aunt Polly, it happened for Tom and Becky, and to some extent, in the conclusion, it even happened for Huck.

Try-It With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

My goal and purpose in offering monthly reading challenges is to stretch my brain to read and think beyond the usual. That has included reading more or reading with someone else. Thus far, I have not recommended a specific book to read but left the challenge open to personal interpretation. For the last three months I have participated in the Bodacious Bloggity Book Club at Marathon Bird, where we discussed one book each month.

Reading brings me to a place of understanding and when I get there I want to share that same place with someone else. So this month I propose a specific reading challenge that can accomplish this goal with thought-provoking content but still fit into the lazy days of summer:

Read The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom in July.

Alboum, the author of Tuesdays With Morrie, writes this clever story of a man’s death and discovery in heaven of how lives intersect with each other. I’m enjoying it already.

Do you want to Try It With Me? I will write my thoughts and review on July 29th and invite you to join the discussion with your own comments on that post or by writing a post of your own and linking to mine. Come back on Tuesdays between now and then for related challenges.

Join in by trying the challenges with me, commenting, linking, or suggesting a challenge. If you want to write a post on your blog about what happened when you took the challenge, I will publish your link. Just link to my website in your post and send me your link. Feel free to use the TIWMT image in your post.

My daughter and I just finished reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, which is the June Book Selection for the Bodacious Bloggity Book Club at Marathon Bird. Today EH and I each share our impressions for the discussion.

Every step in life opens into a future of uncertainty. Some of the experiences brighten us with pleasure, others hurl horrific happenings toward us and some seem to have no consequence beyond that day. The future of Corrie ten Boom’s world, like all of ours, was unknown. Yet, in her youth and early adulthood the daily faith of her family prepared her to meet the destructive forces of World War II when they reached her country and her own family with compassion and courage.

One of my favorite examples is of her wise father’s response to Corrie’s questions about sex. They were riding the train. He set his heavy bag in front of her and asked her to carry it off the train. When she said she couldn’t, he taught her this parallel truth. He said,

It would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It’s the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.

Corrie’s father is not only giving an appropriate answer to his child but teaching her a pattern of faith. He is saying, “trust me with your unknown questions and fears,” just as she later applies that pattern to faith in God during her loneliest and most disheartening moments.

Now that my own daughter is “older and stronger” to bear some of the weight of these historical events, I invited her to share this book club discussion with me. She said:

The Hiding Place, the story of Corrie ten Boom, is a remarkable one. Through her many struggles of hiding Jews in her family home, she learns from her sister how to have faith in God. After being sent to Ravensbruck and being shown where they were to sleep, a smelly, straw-covered platform covered in fleas, occupied by seven other women, almost the first thing they did was pray. Not in sorrow, asking to get out of their situation, but thanks. Thanks for everything, including the fleas.

As Corrie remarked to her sister, “Betsie, there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.”

Her reply was profound. “‘Give thanks in all circumstances,’” she quoted. “It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.” When, during their daily Bible studies with the other women in the barracks, they realize that their area is rarely patrolled, Betsie finds out that it is because of all the fleas that the guards avoid the place.

Other miracles abound as Corrie’s faith grows. The vitamin oil that she snuck in for her sister continued to produce oil, even after Betsie had passed it around to so many others. When they received vitamins from a friend who worked in the hospital in the camp, the oil stopped coming out.

I read the story of Anne Frank in school, and even though I knew it had actually happened, it didn’t seem as real to me. Then I read this book, and it seemed real. It took me a little while to figure out why. Her faith, so similar to my own, allowed me to compare my life to Corrie’s.

I learned from Corrie’s story, like my daughter, by comparing it to my own life. Despite the crimes committed against her, her sister and many others, she continued to identify and strive to correct her personal weaknesses like selfishness. Ironically, her tragic circumstances of the concentration camp magnified her understanding of the biblical account of the apostle Paul’s own “thorn in the flesh.” Through that comparison she learned this truth:

The real sin I had been committing was not that of inching toward the center of the platoon because I was cold. The real sin lay in thinking that any power to help and transform came from me. Of course it was not my wholeness, but Christ’s that made the difference.

Corrie’s faith prepared her. Her adversity transformed her. That purifying process took place not in an idyllic setting but one of the most cruel. Most of our lives are not idyllic nor horrid but the reality of them presses upon us the same opportunities to meet them with faith to live and love.

The discussion of the May Selection for the Bodacious Bloggity Book Club is starting. I’m a day early with my post, but I’ve already planned my Sunday post on another topic. After you’ve read my review of Watership Down by Richard Adams and you want to follow the discussion, visit Marathon Bird on May 25 and check out the other links.

First of all, I know there is a word for animals that are given human characteristics—yes, I am right, anthropomorphism. I typically detest that sort of book or movie and feel it is the bane of parenthood to be subjected to them. But, I took a chance by remaining open to suggestion, and It was worth it.

I am not sure if this is a true example of anthropomorphism or just a creative interpretation of how a warren of rabbits may actually live. Adams was not overtly saying, “Here is a human disguised as a rabbit.” And that is why I think this book was not only tolerable but struck me with great curiosity.

Whatever the author’s intended approach or form, I recognized numerous examples that showed similarities between the personalities of the rabbit characters and human personalities.

Identifying each rabbit’s personality and then observing how it fit into the group showed a theme of governance and individual agency. Leadership that allows for individual ownership and participation by making choices and acting upon responsibility increases the growth and survival of the whole group. On the other hand, dependence upon others takes away the opportunity and the capacity to make decisions and stifles growth.

The leader of the main group of rabbits in this story follows the first philosophy of leadership as they encounter the other types of leaders and groups. As such a leader, he even extends freedom to other animals, recognizing and using their traits in exchange for protection or service. Hazel, who becomes the Chief Rabbit of stragglers escaping a doomed warren, said, “If anyone finds an animal or bird that isn’t an enemy, in need of help, for goodness sake, don’t miss the opportunity. That would be like leaving carrots to rot in the ground.”

When they come across some hutch rabbits on a farm, they learn quickly that captivity destroys not only the use of agency to make choices but diminishes the ability to develop the reasoning to do so. Describing some hutch rabbits that the wild rabbits turned loose, “They did not know how to make up their minds. It was not within their capacity to take a decision and act on it. These rabbits had never had to act to save their lives or even find a meal.” Self-reliance encourages long-term survival.

Of all the characters, my two favorite personalities are Fiver and Big Wig.

As a sensitive soul myself, I adore Fiver, the small rabbit who can sense danger or wrong choices. He is the one who insisted on leaving the doomed warren in the first place. At first, the others doubt his ability to see and listen to the signs around them, but he has a gift that through several experiences is proved invaluable.

Big Wig is a tough but smart fighter who does not shirk from a difficult task. About him Hazel predicted in the beginning, “He was certainly no coward, but he was likely to remain steady as long as he could see his way clear and be sure what to do. To him, perplexity was worse than danger.” These were true statements, but Big Wig learned to not only face danger but to also make decisions in the midst of it.

These characters and all of the others are leaders in one way or another as they use and develop their particular gifts to benefit all. Their struggles to create a warren of their own, protect it against their enemies and help it flourish with buck, does and kittens is an apt analogy for our own life experience as families, communities and nations.

I am surprised that I liked it and admitted that to my daughter’s 3rd grade teacher who saw me carrying it at a classroom performance. She said, “I used it as a read-aloud with my kids—my own kids at home, not my classroom students.”

Intrigued, she gave me an idea of how to extend my May Reading Challenge in a summer read-aloud of Watership Down with my children.