Pinkalicious!

Hannah's favorite book is called "Pinkalicious". It's about a little girl who eats too many pink cupcakes and then turns pink! Hannah LOVES IT! She now calls everything pinkalicious. "Mommy, can I wear my pinkalicious coat? Mommy can I wear my pinkalicious pants?" And her favorite color of course is "pink, pink, pink, pink, pink!" Hooray for little girls!!!

Super Readers to the Rescue!

This is really late, but it shows you how quickly I download my pictures from my camera!

Take one SuperWhy...


And one Princess Presto...


And together you have the two cutest SUPER READERS ever!


Both my kids love the PBS show, SuperWhy! So, much that they wanted to be SuperReaders for Halloween. Hooray for GREAT media! Happy (late) Halloween!!!

Catching Fire!

So...I finished another two books this week! I told you I love to read! It's how I relax. This first one was "Catching Fire", which was the sequal to the Hunger Games. (Thanks to Sarah Gilbertson for letting me borrow this!!) Similar to the Hunger Games, I couldn't put it down! And similar to the Hunger Games, I can't believe it ended where it did! Now, I have to wait for the next one.



And here is what I really need to analyze about myself: The Hunger Games themselves (which take up a good portion of the book) are all about killing others so you can survive. You'd think I'd be a bit more uneasy about this book as I study media aggression!! Maybe I'm a bit more accepting because the Hunger games themselves are so controversial and portrayed as such a negative thing for society.

I also read "The Help", a novel about black women who worked as maids for white women during the 1960s.

VERY interesting! We actually read it for my book club and are going to discuss it tonight, so I'll let you know how it goes!

Nineteen minutes

I love books!

I especially love it when I get so caught up in the story that I read the book every spare second of my entire day. I can't put it down: I have to know what happens next!

Nineteen minutes, by Jodi Picoult was that kind of a book for me. A GREAT book, and I would definitely recommend it. I should note that there is a bit profanity, so be wary if you know this offends you.

This book is about a school shooting. Now, most of you know that I lecture for two days on school shootings so am quite interested in the topic.



The book starts out with the school shooting and then jumps back into time to follow the shooter (Peter) throughout his entire life. It also randomly jumps into the present to show his trial progresses.

The book also was from the perspective of Peter's mother for a lot of the book. You just felt SO bad for her. She was a good mother, and loved her son SO MUCH, and everyone else thought he was a monster. They didn't have these memories of him when he took his first step, or said his first word. No memories of snuggling in bed reading books, or birthday parties. I really empathized with this mother.

This really changed the way I think about school shootings. Honestly, a part of me wanted Peter to get off in the end. The book shows how he is bullied MERCILESSLY from his first day of kindergarten. I cried when I read that part, cause my little boy goes to kindergarten next year and it scares me that he might have these things happen to him.

The bullying never stops for Peter in the book, all the way up to high school. Peter targets his bullies, and part of me felt that he was just a little bit justified for shooting them. Now, before you think I've gone all apostate, obviously, I think murder is BAD. Don't do it! But this book REALLY made me think; about how we judge others, about revenge, and about the way we treat others.

And that's honestly the only thing I can think of to STOP these school shootings. I can teach my children to be a good friend, even to those who are a bit weird, or ugly, or whatever. And to defend others when they are being bullied. Maybe that one good friend is enough to prevent school shootings from occurring in the first place.

A lot to think about.