Boy in the Striped Pajamas...Mother's view

I am still thinking non-stop about this movie.... since I teach The Diary of Anne Frank to my students ... I feel that they should all see it, too...but I'm not allowed to show anything but a PG movie...and this is PG13...but why would it be rated so? It has no sex, no foul language, and no violence (except implied) .... just a very intense story told about the Holocaust through the eyes of two 8 year-old boys.... I keep thinking about the mother. I see myself in her---wanting to protect her children, to educate them well, give them a good German upbringing, and is very proud of her husband who is advancing rapidly in his career. Even the other mother (the grandmother) reacts the same way she does when she realized what's REALLY going on. I think it's a woman-thing to be truly devastated and want to take action when evil is revealed. She is a wonderful actress. The scene at the barbed-wire fence has not left me yet............

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Here are some haunting pictures... What a movie! … This movie has really touched me..Everyone must go rent it NOW…

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a story that offers a unique perspective on how prejudice, hatred and violence affect children during wartime. Through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy largely shielded from the reality of World War II, we witness a forbidden friendship that forms between Bruno, the son of Nazi commandant, and Schmuel, a Jewish boy held captive in a concentration camp. Though the two are separated physically by a barbed wire fence, their lives become terrifically intertwined. The story of the two 8-year olds tell of the consequences of war from an unusual point of view. Their tragic experience tell the horror of the Holocaust.

Book Club Report -- March

Dear Shadow Mountain Bookclub Ladies,
We met last Thursday at Karen Noel's beautiful new home..cozy around the fireplace and had a great time. Not sure, but I think Karen locked her husband in the office... but not counting him, we had the largest turnout so far. The book The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck brought out many issues... the turbulent history and poverty of China from 1880-1930...the culture of marriage and concubines.... man's relationship to the land... and the treatment of women in general, including footbinding of young girls. Lots of springboards for lively opinions... especially around the incident of O-Lan stealing the jewels... was it right or wrong? was is justified? Did it bring her more land or did it bring her own downfall? ---both sides supported their argument well.
In general I think we came away with gratitude for 1) living in America, 2) having rights as women and being valued in our society, and 3) having the gospel---which was not available to them. Also, a major theme in the book is the cycle of humility/love for the Lord --- then gaining wealth /becoming decadent and the rejection of the commandments--thus poverty and misery again. Humm.... Nephites and Lamanites....
Wang Lung and his wife O-Lan were most satisfied when they were working directly with the land. When Wang Lung became idle his troubles began....
Next book... The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

25 top books

Since I teach English Lit, and my mother was a high school literature teacher, there’s no escape…. I love the classics. My students often ask me for my list….and several of the Shadow Mountain Book Club members have asked, too…..want to share yours or add to mine?

My Top 25 classic novels:

1. Tale of Two Cities
2. East of Eden
3. To Kill a Mockingbird
4. Wuthering Heights
5. Diary of Anne Frank
6. Les Miserables
7. Moby Dick
8. The Scarlet Letter
9. The Good Earth
10. The Thorn Birds
11. Gone with the Wind
12. Abraham Lincoln 1,2,3 (Sandburg)
13. Huckleberry Finn
14. The Little Prince
15. Exodus
16. The Grapes of Wrath
17. The Pearl
18. The Screwtape Letters
19. Tess of the D'Urbervilles
20. Far From the Madding Crowd
21. Of Mice and Men
22. Jane Eyre
23. My Antonia
24. Silas Marner
25. Macbeth


* I know, #10 isn't 'classic' but I love it, and as you can see, I lean toward the romantics...
anything by Hemingway, Steinbeck, or Twain are winners.

Kindness

I've been thinking about kindness lately, as I'm teaching the Relief Society lesson #29 next Sunday (subject: kindness) How many insecurities could be solved by just being kind...how many teens' angst could be soothed by just kind words. I practice this is my classroom daily..... you can literally see the students MELT when they have a good word said to them, a compliment, or an acknowledgement. Jr. High is such a scary time for some of these kids..... but they need to hear it more from their peers.
Tomorrow I am going to pass out this paper in my classroom and have a discussion, and we'll add these to the other great quotes from our literature.... I search several sites and whittled it down to 24....my top favorites are #10 and #23......What are yours?

KINDNESS QUOTES
24 of my favorites --Anne House 2009

1 If you haven't any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble. ~Bob Hope

2 It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.

3 Treat everyone with kindness, even those who are rude to you - not because they are nice, but because you are.

4 What this world needs is a new kind of army - the army of the kind. ~Cleveland Amory

5 If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. Dalai Lama

6 I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble. Rudyard Kipling

7 Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. ~Mark Twain

8 Don't wait for people to be friendly, show them how.

9 When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. Abraham Heschel

10 Be kind, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. ~Plato

11 By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.
Winston Churchill

12 Kindness is doing something nice for someone who will never find out.

13. We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. ~Epictetus

14. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn alife around. ~Leo Buscagli

15 A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives roses. ~Chinese Proverb

16. The best way to knock the chip off your neighbor's shoulder is to pat him on the back.

17. Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight.

18. A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. Dave Barry

19. Love someone who doesn't deserve it.

20. The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

21. I soothe my conscience now with the thought that it is better for hard words to be on paper than that Mummy should carry them in her heart. ~Anne Frank

22. If you step on people in this life, you'll come back as a cockroach.

23. You just can’t beat kindness--- Lorene Donaldson (my mother)

24. During my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. "Absolutely," the professor said. "In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello." I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy. ~Joann C. Jones.

My grandson Cash

Because I am somewhat lazy and my daughter's blog is much more clever, I have snagged a few of her pics:

Is this little doll my Macy or my Cash?

This is Macy when she was a baby

And this is Cash now (11 mos.) It's amazing how similar they look.

And this cutest little girl ever is my baby daughter Melissa... She was born in 1978 on the Ides of March, the 15th....need to know your Shakespeare for the meaning of that! She'd be pleased that I refrained from putting her bathtub pics in, but she also looked a lot like her spawns at that age.