Coretta Scott King (1927-2006)

Coretta Scott King has been one of my role models since age nine or ten. That's essentially when I decided I was going to be an activist for equal rights and justice. Like her husband, she championed civil rights for all and nonviolent resistance as a way to achieve them. Furthermore, she advocated nonviolence as a way of life. She exhibited compassion, passion, and love in her private and public lives. She helped us to see the meaning of the words of Pirkei Avot: It is not up to you to finish the work, neither are you free to abstain from it.

Let us all remember Coretta Scott King and the lessons she has taught us.

Edit: It strikes me as profoundly interesting and appropriate that she passed away during Parashat Bo.

I wonder...

Usually, in romantic movies (boring hetero love) the lead actor and lead actress would each (if worthy) get nominated for Best Actor/Actress in a leading role.

So why is Heath Ledger nominated for Best Actor and Jake Gyllenhall for Best Supporting Actor? Would it be the same for another movie where the leads are of different genders and cannot build a life together for some reason?

#4 - Across Five Aprils

This book, by Irene Hunt, who wrote the Newberry Award winning Up a Road Slowly, tells the story of Jethro Creighton, a boy living in southern Illinois at the time of the American Civil War. In addition to capturing the horrors and triumphs of the war, the book examines how families can be torn apart and strengthened by divisive issues and geographic circumstance. The book is extremely well-written. However, the best part of the book is that it contains no prejudice against the South or secession - only prejudice against slavery.

I highly recommend this book to any reader, even though you might find it in the children's section.

#3 - We are Witnesses: Five Diaries of Teenagers who Died in the Holocaust

In this book, Jacob Boas guides you through excerpts of five young Jewish diarists from all over Europe, each of whom suffered death at the hands of the Nazis. These diarists, including Anne Frank, write on the mundane and the philosophical. My complaint about this book is that Boas' narrations dumb down and detract from the diaries. If you can, get your hands on the full diaries, and read them instead.

#2 - Politcally Correct Bedtime Stories: Modern Tales for our Life and Times

This book presents politically correct versions of well-known fairy tales. The accounts are quite humorous, and the author (James Finn Garner) knows how to make the stories politically correct and poke fun at political correctness at the same time. A good, quick read.

#1 - The Black Stallion

My paperback edition of Water Farley's first novel -well, my brother's paperback edition- of The Black Stallion bills it as the best horse novel of the twentieth century. I believe Black Beauty was written in the nineteenth century, so I am inclined to agree.

The Black, the most beautiful and wild stallion in the world, it seems, saves a little boy from a shipwreck. Unfortunately, they end up stranded on an uninhabited island, on which the boy gradually is able to ride the horse. They get rescued, of course, (the boy will not leave without the horse) but that is not the end. They go to New York City, the boy's home, and find a way to keep the Black. The boy, and his neighbor in whose barn the Black is staying, decide they should race the Black. At the end, the Black enters a match race with the best horse of the east and the best horse of the west.

While on the surface, the book is about a racehorse, in reality it is about the bond between friends, even if one of them is an animal. The book is full of suspense, and could be finished in less than a day if you have the time. While reading, at several points I noticed the book was written for a child audience. Other than that, it is a seamless good read.

50 book challenge

Inspired by my friend Jose (www.mayornot.com), I have decided to take on the 50 book challenge - that is, to read 50 books (outside of require ones) in one year. I made this decision after finishing 4 books so far in 2006.

I will be presenting my 2006 Fifty Book Challenge book/progress reports in this blog.

A further word of explanation:
Part of my initial goal in reading books this year was to clear some space on my bookshelf to make room for the ones I inherited, so some of the books are childrens' novels which are of high quality and thus must be read before donating. I am restricting counting these books to counting ones which are over 100 pages long.