"A Child Called 'It'" by Dave Pelzer

I had heard about this book a long time ago, maybe in college. It is the first of 3 short books (I'm not sure how long, but only 153 pages on the eBook I had) about a man's childhood, and how he survived it.

His childhood had the most horrific abuse. For whatever reason (maybe it will be discussed further in the next 2 books), his mother decided that he was not worthy of human affection. From the age of 4 on he was abused and degraded. He had brothers and they were treated well, but he took the brunt of her abuse. She would make him wash the dishes every night, usually without dinner, gave him horrible punishments like being locked in a non ventilated bathroom with ammonia and Clorox mixed in a bucket, made him vomit anything he ate at school and then eat it, etc etc etc. It was hard to read. At school, teachers and the other kids thought he was just a "bad kid" because he would steal food, smelled terrible, wore old clothes, and didn't do well in school. At one point his mom didn't feed him for 10 days straight. Finally, someone spoke up. They KNEW things were not as they appeared, and called the police. (This was in the first part of the book, before it went back to his earlier years. You don't see him get taken out of his home during this book.) He was 12 at this point, which means he endured all of this during such a tender age.

It seems mind boggling that someone wouldn't have called the police earlier. Someone DID call Child Services, but the mom caught a whiff of it and treated him well for the 3 days before they came, so when the social worker asked if he was treated well he would answer yes. When he said she punished him when he was bad she beat him when the woman left.

As a mother, I don't understand how you can turn your back on a child like that. Child abuse is the most abhorrent thing I can imagine. Even his own brothers started to see him as a "bad kid", and would rat him out. And the DAD. The dad is almost as infuriating as the mom because he just stood by and didn't do anything! How can you watch your kid get beaten, starved, even stabbed at one point, and do... nothing? Wouldn't it be better to call CPS on your own wife than let him endure anything else?

I am intrigued to finish the books, just to see how he survives this. It ends with him saying the Lord's Prayer, and when he said "Deliver us from evil" I got actual goosebumps. This man has a spirit like nothing else I can imagine. 

"The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama

I have been alternating between serious and light books. This was a book I wanted to listen to, to understand Obama more. Even though he's out of office, he's still an interesting person to follow.
I liked reading about the man behind the office. He came from a difficult situation, and worked hard to become who he was. While I disagreed with most of his policies, reading about his life made me understand him more. One of the things I liked the most was reading about how he met Michelle. He was going to law school and got an internship for the summer. He only had 3 suits, that he had just bought. The lawyer he was working with was a strong, tall woman. When he asked her out, she said no. He eventually wore her down. She was a really good partner for him. As a parent, he worked hard to try to be there for his children. Even when he was a Senator, he flew home every weekend to spend time with his family.
I really appreciated his thoughts on faith. He grew up in a house that didn't have religion in it. But he decided to be baptized in a church as an adult. His mother, who was a skeptic her whole life, became afraid of what was ahead when she was dying of cancer.

As a person who did not vote for Obama (twice), I thoroughly enjoyed this book. This was written in 2006, before he had run for president. So I wonder what the book would be like if he had written it in 2017 instead of 2006.

Book 30- "In My Hands" by Irene Gut Opdyke

It was interesting to read this book right after the election. During a time when so many people are afraid for the future of the country, it is good to remember that America is still the greatest country in the world. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Founding Fathers set up the country to be run the way it is. Yes, the government has its moments of corruption. But that is NOTHING compared to what happened in Europe back then. Many of her descriptions made me physically ill, to think of the mass destruction of nearly an entire race of people. Just because of one man and his followers. Thanks to checks and balances, I'm pretty sure that we will never get to that point.

Irene was a nursing student in Poland when the war hit. I had no idea how devastated Poland was until reading this book. Everyone was trying to tear that country apart. She was a prisoner of war, and was held against her will as a nurse in a hospital. When she finally escaped she worked in a restaurant with a German man who sympathized with her wanting to help the Jews that lived nearby. While he never asked her about her plans, he let her use his facilities and money to save the lives of 10 people by hiding them away. She sent even more to the forest near their house, to keep them safe. At one point she was working for a high ranking official in the Army, and when he found out she had to become his mistress in order to keep them safe.

What an amazing woman. I wonder if I would be brave enough to do something similar. I can't even imagine the fear people had to live with at that time. I am so grateful for the time and place I was born in!

Book 6- "the Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande

This book fulfills the "A book recommended to you by your spouse" category on the Modern Mrs. Darcy challenge. Brandon had this book loaned to him by his supervisor during his surgery rotation, and he told me I had to read this as well.

Now, I LOVE making checklists. While teaching Special Ed, I had a checklist of how to write each student's IEP, what goes into making a goal with the benchmarks that they need to meet, what I needed to do all day with each student, how to run each meeting. I even wrote out a checklist of what needed to be done every day with one student, divided into 15 minute increments. It is such a great way to feel organized. I have planners and journals to keep me organized, even now. I always have to have lists at the grocery store, because if I don't then we end up wandering the aisles and end up with 2 boxes of cookies and 8 different kinds of juice. Not very productive.

This book is about the benefits of making checklists in the medical field, and covers examples of checklists and dispersing the responsibility in other fields. 

One example was while making a skyscraper. They need to have a complicated system of communication between each specialty in order to make sure that the building works the way it is supposed to. They also need to have a checklist for each complication that can happen, to make sure that each worker knows what their role is. This was so interesting to me because we live right now in the land of skyscrapers. From our balcony, I can count at least 7 skyscraper apartment buildings. So to learn a little bit of what goes into them is amazing.

Another great example was WalMart during Hurricane Katrina. The federal government didn't come in time to help the people who were stranded at the SuperDome, or thousands of people who were stranded on an I-10 overpass (terrifying!). When the executives at WalMart heard from their employees about the awful state that New Orleans was in, they jumped in and helped out themselves. They had employees passing out formula and diapers to people who needed them, or axes and shovels for people who had to help dig someone else out. Because the executives were willing to let go of total control (which was the issue FEMA had), they were able to help people that much quicker.

Another example is in the operating room itself. The checklist allows all roles to feel included and involved, and to allow everyone to communicate their issues. 64% of surgeons surveyed said that they thought their communication was just fine, but only 23% of anesthesiologists felt that the communication went well.

Finally, the example that I really was interested in regarded airplane pilots. They have a list of 200+ checklists, some mundane and some for the unheard of. For example, when the cargo door gets loose. That creates a serious drop in pressure in the cabin. In an incident in 1989, a hole was actually blasted in the side of business class, and sucked 9 people out of the airplane on a flight from Honolulu to New Zealand. That is TERRIFYING. So, because of that they now have more notifications on the dashboard that the crew can identify, and more lists to help the crew stay calm.

Overall, it has been a difficult transition to getting these lists into the operating room, but it has cut down on errors and helped reduce turnover of staff. I am excited to be starting my online master's degree in March (!!!) in Special Education, and you'd better believe that I will be making checklists along the way to stay on top of my studies!

Book 45 of 2015- O for a Thousand Nights to Sleep" by Lorilee Craker

So, I thought this was a professional's book that will be helpful in sleep training. I was excited that it came right now because ever since Daylight Savings (curse Benjamin Franklin for thinking it up) Cora has stopped sleeping through the night. I am about to LOSE MY MIND. I love her, but my nerves are a little more frayed at 4 AM when she's ready to play.

Anyway, this was not a book done by a professional. She is a mom speaking to a mom, but I actually really enjoyed that. She tells of some of the different things that happen with each month from birth to a year. While they weren't totally accurate to Cora's timeline (I mean, crawling at 5 months???), it was pretty informative. For example, I "get" to look forward to an outburst of independence at about 9 months. Woohoo, right? And in the next month Cora will start to figure out that the person she already laughs at in the mirror is herself. I am excited for a lot of these tiny changes, and can't wait to see more!

Book 15 of 2015- "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch

I read this book in one day. It was a pretty quick read! 

It is a series of small lectures that Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, wrote as a way for his children to remember him by. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and only had a few months to live when he was asked to give a lecture.

The lectures themselves were not that groundbreaking. He talked about why he was the way he was, and his outlook on life. He talked about rules he lives by ("sometimes all you have to do is ask"), and things he remembers about each of his children and his wife. He talked about how he is preparing for their future without him, and the way he was raised.

When you read it like that, it could be seen as a boring book. But then I thought about how he was trying to leave a legacy for himself for his family to remember him by. It made me think of what I would want to leave behind if I were to pass away. (Not too soon!) I'm glad I have this blog so I can have Cora remember me as I am now, and not just as she will remember me starting in a few years.

Book 13 of 2015- "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Ishmael Beah

This was another quick read. However, it was completely gut wrenching. I couldn't believe the things that this boy soldier had to go through. It shows how people can become so depraved and desensitized that they can commit completely awful crimes in the name of whatever cause they believe in. 

This is the story of a boy who was caught in the middle of the Sierra Leone rebellion in the 90's. Ishmael was captured by the soldiers while he was running from the war. Along the way he discovered that his entire family had been burned alive in a house when the rebels fell upon it. He became addicted to the soldiers' drugs, and was willing to do whatever they asked in the name of revenge. By the end of the war, he was capable of burying people alive, killing them in gruesome manners, and not caring if he took out a village of civilians in the process. He was taken back by UNICEF and brought into rehabilitation, and ultimately found a long lost uncle. He ended up having to escape from Sierra Leone when the rebels took over the government, because some of his friends from the rehab center had already joined the army again and he needed to get out. He had a friend in New York, who ultimately adopted him.

I think the fact that he was able to escape that mindset is nothing short of miraculous. He had so many friends who couldn't find a way out, so they went back to the front lines. He doesn't know what happened to them.

I am sure that the people who recruit children to be soldiers and force them to commit such atrocities will have a special place for them after they die.

Book 6 of 2015- "In the Heart of the Sea" by Nathaniel Philbrick

I had seen this book on an article on Buzzfeed titled "Books you should read in 2015 before they become movies". It is the true story of the ship that was attacked by a sperm whale, which inspired Herman Melville's "Moby Dick". Plus, Chris Hemsworth is going to star in the movie. What could go wrong?

IT WAS SO BORING.

I thought it would have been written at least a little in the style of a novel. The first 50 pages or so (the first quarter of the book) were about the history of Nantucket. Which was like reading paint drying.

They already gave away the most harrowing part of the story in the foreword, so I was just trying to get to the part where the men were shipwrecked and started eating each other. That, horrifyingly enough, was the only interesting part of the book.

They referenced other incidences where severe starvation has led to desperate measures in this book, such as the Donner party. Brandon and I listened to a podcast about this one time driving through the Donner pass, and it made us both realize what a sad situation it was. These people were misled by a few people who deliberately left out crucial parts of the journey while describing it to the Donner party, and that led to their downfall. It was also the mistakes of the leaders of the ship Essex that led to so many people dying. Out of 20 people who survived the shipwreck, only 8 were accounted for at the end.

So, while it will make a good movie, since I'm assuming they will leave out the super boring parts at the beginning and end, it was painful to get through. But if you like historical books, by all means check it out!

"Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand

So everyone and their dog has recommended this book to me. I finally read it... It's fantastic thinking of what the human spirit can overcome. I have to admit, I would have taken a lot longer through the raft scene and the POW scenes if I didn't already know what was going to happen. Brandon told me pretty much all the details of the story beforehand.

To be honest, I don't blame him for turning into an alcoholic. Who could? He had been through so much, and almost died on a constant basis for years, that he needed any kind of escape he could find. At one point, he discussed how there are certain things necessary to life. Food, water, shelter, and dignity. These prison guards were so unbelievably cruel, it's hard to imagine people actually being able to live through that. I laughed when they discussed the things they would do to retaliate against the guards... on the one hand it's a "boys will be boys" kind of mentality, but they really needed to survive. Any way possible.

The most amazing thing (SPOILER ALERT- skip this paragraph if you haven't read the book and want to) is that Zamperini forgave his prison guards. That is much more than I could have done. He even sought out the most cruel of guards who haunted him in his dreams, and tried to forgive him. What a man.

This movie comes out later this year, and I will be watching it. Hopefully it won't gross me out too much. It was pretty hard to stomach.