The Sound of Sunshine -- Michael Franti & Spearhead

 Here I am, just waiting for the storm to pass me by.

Book Beginnings and Friday 56 -- Mudshark by Gary Paulsen

Hosted by Katy.

How to participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you're reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence.



This is the principal.  Would the custodian please report to the faculty restroom with a plunger. . . no, wait . . . a shovel and a plunger?  And has anybody seen the gerbil from room two oh six?






Hosted by Freda.
Rules:
*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Link it here

Yeah, the faculty restroom and that weird parrot in the library.


This was a fun (and short) book my almost-seven-year-old and I just finished.  It actually reminded me of the television show Psych, but for grade-schoolers.  Mudshark is the name of the main character (okay, nickname) who has a real eye for detail and thus is often asked to solve certain school mysteries.   Good stuff.

Oh, and the opening is a perfect way to draw in the target audience.  :)

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

My daughter and I just finished reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles together.

From the back cover:

When an aging heiress is found fatally poisoned, the amazing Hercule Poirot, a brilliant Belgian criminal investigator, is brought out of retirement to solve the case.


In this classic tale of murder, jealousy and greed, Agatha Christie introduced the famed sleuth, who is immediately confronted by mysteries within a mystery: a door bolted from the inside of the victim's room; the disappearance of a coffee cup believed to have held the poison; the charred remains of a will, a strange fragment of fabric and a curious rug stain found near the body.  


The Mysterious Affair at Styles falls firmly in the middle ground between my least and most favorite Agatha Christies -- I neither love nor hate it -- though I'm not sure that there is an Agatha Christie that I do hate, but certainly some that I feel less enamored of.  It's really fun and interested to read these with my daughter -- whenever I start to think that she isn't really following along, she proves me wrong with an astute comment or two.  :)

Whatcha Reading Wednesdays

Rules:

1. Grab your current read, go to the page you are on and post the next sentence yo are about to read.

2. Link back to Busy Moms Who Love to Read.

 

"In syrup," Miss Laburnum said, as if it were ambrosia, and insisted on serving it separately in Mrs. Rickett's sherry glasses.  

~page 222, All Clear by Connie Willis

Teaser Tuesdays -- Empires of the Word by Nicholas Oster

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

They bring to mind visions of oriental absolutism, breathtaking ruthlessness and gaudy magnificence.  Despite their many pretensions, their cultural fertility and sometimes truly universal power, they have left no heirs.

 

~page 30, Empires of the Word by Nicholas Ostler

Seven Facts Award

I received this award from Freda at Freda's Voice.  Thanks, Freda.  =)

Rules:
1. Post 7 Random facts about yourself.
2. Award other bloggers.

So here we go:

1. I don't have a driver's license.
2. I will be 35 on April 19 (and I had to actually count, because I thought it was 34).
3. I adore care packages.
4. My favorite colors are black, blue, purple, and grey.
5. I love wind.
6. Our 10 year wedding anniversary is in July -- our divorce will probably be final before then.  I'm still so very sad about this.
7.If my shirt goes on inside out, it often stays that way.


I'm giving this award to:

Taryn over at Super Librarian
Sarah over at Puss Reboots
Katy over at A Few More Pages
Chelle over at The Prairie Library

Life choices vs. moral choices

Image via Wikipedia

Since reading Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane, I have continued to ponder what the main character said at one point:

I just notice people sometimes mistake their life choices for their moral ones.
~p.133, Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane 

His words keep bouncing around in my head but I haven't been sure how to articulate my thoughts about why this sentence struck me in such a significant way.

I think that maybe I'm not the only one who (whether occasionally, sometimes, or often) struggles to make that distinction - where *is* the dividing line between something that is a moral issue and something that is simply a choice an individual has made about one part of her life?

Part of the difficulty, perhaps,arises when one thinks carefully about the decisions one makes. Most people have areas of their life within which they make more deliberate decisions.  I believe that it is those very decisions, the ones you take more time with, the ones that, perhaps, differ from those around you, that are the hardest to feel flexible about. 

Should our end goal be to acknowledge that even if we've carefully made life choices that are based on ethical or moral reasoning doesn't mean that someone who takes a different path is wrong?