Contains a wealth of information for secular or mixed-religion families preparing for the God talk with kids.
Written for secular parents from a nonreligious perspective, this guide explores methods of teaching youngsters about God, religion, and spirituality.
Russell is the polar opposite of secular writers such as Richard Dawkins. Avoiding an in-your-face style, she emphasizes the golden rule and tolerance. She suggests incorporating religious trappings—places of worship, holidays, books, prayer—into family regimens; she even flirts with the possibility of sending a child to a religious school. For the skeptical, some of this may seem a tad too touchy-feely. “Make a collage using pictures of famous religious leaders—and non-religious ones—and then leave it up for a few months in your child’s room. See if it sparks conversation.” However, while Russell at times seems to be out-Flandering Ned Flanders, this is, after all, a book about dealing with children, and Russell is skilled at relating to kids on their own terms. For her, the God discussion has supplanted the dreaded “birds and bees” talk for secular parents. In fact, the inspiration for the book was when her 5-year-old blurted out, “Mommy…you know what? God made us!”—a statement that made Russell feel “like a cartoon character being hit…with a frying pan.” Her own investigations to address the situation resulted in this well-written, thoroughly researched work that mixes advice, humor, and history. It also includes footnotes, an appendix of major world religions, recommended readings, and facts and figures on atheism in the United States. Chapters deal with a variety of topics such as reactions of grandparents and other relatives, mixed-faith marriages, kids being harassed at school, and how to handle discussions of death. At the same time, her easy-to-read style is down to earth and conversational: “When it comes down to it, ‘tolerance’ is just a way of asking people not to be total dicks to one another.”
Contains a wealth of information for secular or mixed-religion families preparing for the God talk with kids.Pub Date: March 31, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Brown Paper Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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