Xenocide, by Orson Scott Card

Card includes more swearing in this novel than in the first two, which I think is an unfortunate and misguided reflection of the age of the audience he's targeting. The moral, pholosophical, and ethical dilemmas Card discusses (sentient life, martyrdom, personal dichotomy, the human soul, genetic makeup vs. destiny, family, etc, etc) are passionately written and thought-provoking to follow.

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A man's wife lay dying. There is a beautiful and long philosophical discussion, of which this is my favorite part: "If I had any part of you in me," said [he], "I would not have needed to marry you to become a complete person... The husband longs for his whole self, which was made of the husband and wife together. Thus he never believes any of hiss own thoughts, because there is always a question in his mind to which his wife's thoughts were the only possible answer."

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...it was much easier for the godspoken to follow the Path, because to them the price for straying from it was so terrible. The common people were free; they could leave the Path and not feel the pain of it for years. The godspoken couldn't leave the Path for an hour.

I am taking this quote out of context and applying it to myself: If God has spoken to us, is it then easier to follow His path? Do we know the price of straying from it? Those who have not heard His voice are free after a fashion, but their freedom is so limited. The Light of Christ in every man helps him feel the pain of leaving God's path, even if one chooses to ignore it until they are no longer sensitive enough to feel it. Those who are coming to know God - then stray from Him - either come back or do not. So the challenge faced in this book is that the godspoken are forced to come back, forced within moments. They are not free.

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"I'm sorry," he said.
"You're welcome," she said. She believed in answering what people meant, not what they said.

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[She] had long ago observed that in a society that expected charity and fidelity, like Lusitania, the adolescents who controlled and channeled their youthful passions were the ones who grew up to be both strong and civilized. Adolescents in such a community who were either too weak to control themselves or too contemptuous of society's norms to try usually ended up being either sheep or wolves--either mindless members of the herd or predators who took what they could and gave nothing back.
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[They] would now make the great effort to pretend that they were simply two people doing their jobs--that all was normal between them. Inner strength and outward respect. These are the people who hold a community together, who lead. Unlike the sheep and the wolves, they perform a better role than the script given them by their inner fears and desires. They act out the script of decency, of self-sacrifice, of public honor--of civilization. And in the pretense, it become reality. There really is civilization in human history, [she] thought, but only because of people like these. The shepherds.

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"I saw what Andrew did in our family. I saw that he came in and listened and watched and understood who we were, each individual one of us. He tried to discover our need and then supply it. He took responsibility for other people and it didn't seem to matter to him how much it cost him. And in the end, while he could never make the Ribeira family normal, he gave us peace and pride and identity. Stability. He married Mother and was kind to her. He loved us all. He was always there when we wanted him, and seemed unhurt by it when we didn't. He was firm with us about expecting civilized behavior, but never indulged his whims at our expense. And I thought: This is so much more important than science. Or politics, either. Or any particular profession or accomplishment or thing you can make. I thought: If I could just make a good family, if I could just learn to be to other children, their whole lives, what Andrew was, coming so late into ours, then that would mean more in the long run, it would be a finer accomplishment than anything I could ever do with my mind or my hands."
"So you're a career father," said Valentine.
"Who works at a brick factory to feed and clothe the family. Not a brickmaker who also has kids. [My wife] also feels the same way. ... She followed her own road to the same place. We do what we must to earn our place in the community, but we live for the hours at home. For each other, for the children. It will never get written up in the history books. ... It's a boring life, to read about," said Olhado. "Not to live, thought."

This is a beautiful family perspective, though I also believe that it is worth proactively strengthening the community for future generations. He learned a powerful lesson from another man's kindness.

The Extra-Ordinary Princess, by Carolyn Q. Ebbitt

Engaging but juvenile. Little girls would surely enjoy having this read to them. There is a great theme of choosing to be oneself despite what siblings, friends, enemies, and grownups think of you. The king and queen are great role models, as are the aunts.

"...the deep anger of the ravens can only poison those who are willing to take such poison into their heart."
I nodded, considering this. It seemed true--if any heart could withstand poisoning, it was Henry's. However, I couldn't help but wonder if I would have been able to withstand it--for although I try to be good, I know I'm not as good as Henry. I don't have the same gentleness and I don't have the same patience.

"Patience," Lucien said, and smiled. "Every journey has its share of stops and each one serves some purpose."

This second quote is one I believe unequivocally to be true - the Lord knows what we need and allows us to grow through experiences we may or may not understand. The result is that if we have faith in Him, we can endure the "stops" or trials along our paths and come away from them more like Him, and ready to face the next challenge.

Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card

Gripping and powerful, Card's new world brings the dilemma Ender faced in Ender's Game back to the scene, but from an adult perspective. Also introduced are the complexities of family, religious, government, and community relationships. I love this quote from Card's introduction:

"But I hope that in the lives of Ender Wiggin, Novinha, Miro, Ela, Human, Jane, the hive queen, and so many others in this book, you will find stories worth holding in your memory, perhaps even in your heart. That's the transaction that counts more than bestseller lists, royalty statements, awards, or reviews. Because in the pages of this book, you and I will meet one-on-one, my mind and yours, and you will enter a world of my making and dwell there, not as a character that I control, but as a person with a mind of your own. you will make of my story what you need it to be, if you can. I hope my tale is true enough and flexible enough that you can make it into a world worth living in."

The biology and study of the alien species on this planet are fascinating. The studies of inter-personal relationships and the power that grief and truth have on the lives of the people is wonderfully played out. There is definitely closeness and desire for others but no erotic descriptions and the adultery is cast as properly devastating. The conflict created when government tries to control science is both repulsive and hilarious. Demosthenes, as always, is vibrantly clear in her analysis of situations. And then there's Jane. Oh, I'm excited to read the last two books in this series and learn more about Jane. She is a somebody who came from nobody and can influence everybody, but has a wonderful sense of conscience and is a great judge of character. She knows almost everything and can use that information! I guess I admire her a bit.

The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey

A poignant tale of a childless couple who moved to Alaska to escape children, but ended up finding one. There is a little bit of heat, plenty of times when it says people went to bed together, one description of finding second base.

My favorite quote:

"Mable realized she had never really studied the stove before, just as she knew that Esther had yet to notice the carefully set table or the few photographs hanging on the walls. It was as if she were seeing a different cabin altogether."

Lots of good content about friendships, parenting, neighbors, and nature.

Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale

This is the empowering story of Dashti, mucker-turned-ladies' maid, who agrees to be locked in a tower with her mistress for seven years. She is mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, and morally strong, and is a great example for youth readers.

"I held her and sang to her and let our dinner burn on the fire..." I'm too practical for that, because my mother was. But there are a lot of women in this world whom I admire who would let dinner burn before leaving a grieving daughter to tend to the dinner.

Dashti has a cat for awhile, and one night is writing with him on her lap. She says "His purring shakes my lap but steadies my hand."

This is not a spoiler because it says on the title page that the book includes the tale of their adventure after the tower. She has been locked up with no windows for so long - Dashti gets out on a clear night and says "I was under the stars, like a fish is under water." Surrounded and swimming in the beauty of the sky.

"I can't say which is more terrible, to be locked away from everyone or to be free in a world where all are dead. Both are different shades of darkness."

"I didn't know when Shria would appear, so I stayed startled and alert all day. It reminded me of summers as a child before my brothers left, when your family set up our gher [house] in the summer pastures and there were loads of children around. The Hunt, we'd play, some of us being animals hiding in the tall grass, the others searching us out with small bows and blunt arrows. How my heart would pound! I waited, crouched, prayed to Carthen, goddess of strength, and wanted to cry for the thrill oand the terror. That's how I felt today."

"Windows are the eyes of the Ancestors. Windows are better than food!"

"These past days, it seems I could scarcely draw breath for feeling so gray, and then today . . . well, the change makes me think about the sky over the steppes, cloudy one moment and Eternal Blu Sky the next. There's never a day that we don't see some blue sky. That's the way with a mucker's emotions, too. My mama used to say, "Are you sad? Then just wait a minute.""

"There's nothing more aggravating in the world than the midnight sniffling of the person you've decided to hate."

(Spoiler alert:) "Giving [the cat] to Saren was the hardest thing I've ever done. And I felt emptied, a well dug out of my chest, and as pathetic as a three-legged cricket. But, strangely, as I rolled over to find sleep again, I realized that I didn't hate her anymore."

I Know why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou

I went into this book knowing that there was childhood rape. This is a hard story of a difficult childhood, but it is a true story and the awful events are portrayed matter-of-factly and not dramatized or made sensational in their re-telling.

"Whatever was given by Black people to other Blacks was most probably needed as desperately by the donor as by the receiver. A fact which made the giving or receiving a rich exchange."

"I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a commensurate speed."

"The real festivities would begin after the fight. Then eve the old Christian ladies who taught their children and tried themselves to practice turning the other cheek would buy soft drinks, and if the Brown Bomber's victory was a particularly bloody one they would order peanut patties and Baby Ruths also."

"The intensity with which young people live demands that the "lank out" as often as possible. I didn't actually thing about facing Mother until the last day of our journey. I was "going to California." To oranges and sunshine and movie stars and earthquakes and (finally I realized) to Mother."

"Especially in view of the fact that they (the Blacks) had themselves undergone concentration-camnp living for centuries in slavery's plantations and later in sharecroppers' cabins."

"The special person that I was, the intelligent mind that God and I had created together..."

"The house was smudged with unspoken thoughts and it was necessary to go to my room to breathe."

(Spoiler alert:) "Not a bit of it. Within weeks, I realized that my schoolmates and I were on paths moving diametrically away from each other. They were concerned and excited over the approaching football games, but I had in my immediate past raced a car down a dark and foreign Mexican mountain. They concentrated great interest on who was worthy of being student body president, and when the metal bands would be removed from their teeth, while I remembered sleeping for a month in a wrecked automobile and conducting a streetcar in the uneven hours of the morning... Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of my awareness was that I didn't know what I was aware of. I knew I knew very little, but I was certain that the things I had yet to learn wouldn't be taught to me at George Washington High School."

""Mother, I've got to talk to you . . ." It was going to kill me to have to ask her, for in the asking wouldn't it be possible that the suspicion would fall on my own normality? I knew her well enough to know that if I committed almost any crime and told her the truth about it she not only wouldn't disown me but would give me her protection."

"I had to give a small laugh too, although I wasn't tickled at all. But it's mean to watch someone enjoy something and not show your understanding of their enjoyment."

(Spoiler alert:) "In order to be profoundly dishonest, a person must have one of two qualities: either he is unscrupulously ambitious, or he is unswervingly egocentric. He must believe that for his ends to be served all things and people can justifiably be shifted about, or that he is the center not only of his own world but of the worlds which other inhabit. I had neither element in my personality, so I hefted the burden of pregnancy at sixteen onto my own shoulders where it belonged. Admittedly, I staggered under the weight."

I suppose the story of anyone's childhood is all about their relationship (or lack of relationship) with their caregivers. It is fitting that this chapter of her life ends with Maya becoming a caregiver for someone else. That's not always where a childhood ends; it's not where my childhood ended. But it is a poetic ending.

Reached, by Ally Condie

As always, Condie focuses on the power of art and the written word:

"This poem is between the two of us, but also for others… It strikes me that this is how writing anything is, really, A collaboration between you who give the words and they who take them and find meaning in them, or put music behind them, or turn them aside because they were not what was needed."

This was a good continuation of the other novels in the series and wrapped the story up well. I appreciated the plot twists. I loved the power that her grandfather had, even through death, to reach her and help her come into her own. What a blessing our ancestors can be to us.

Prelude to Foundation, by Issac Asimov

Fun and creative, but I had picked it up with the hope that it would be profound, and it didn't affect me that much. Two quotes of interest:

They are down in a control room for sewage treatment: "The light was dim and Seldon wondered why the Trantorians didn't keep it dark altogether. But then it occurred to him that he had never encountered true darkness in any public area. It was probably a habit in an energy-rich society. Strange that a world of forty billion should be energy-rich, but with the internal heat of the planet to draw upon, to say nothing of solar energy and nuclear fusion plants in space, it was. In fact, come to think of it, there was no energy-poor planet in the Empire. Was there a time when technology had been so primitive that energy poverty was possible?"

"You're naive, Hari. Or not a historian, which is the same thing."