the promise

This is the story of one woman's promise to send a class of first-graders to college.  While I admire all her hard work and the fact that she was successful in following through on her promise, I was bored by the book.  The writing lacked sophistication and flair, and I was thoroughly annoyed by her self-promoting.  Not one I would recommend.

the power of half

The summary of this book made me want to read it, but it ended up being a disappointment.  The writing was not engaging and I was quite annoyed with this family.  Basically, the Salwen family decides to sell their house and donate half of the profit to the Hunger Project.  They visit Ghana to see where their money will go and become a closer family in the process. 

Here are my problems with this book: 1) The family sells their 2 million dollar, 6500 square foot house to move to one half the size.  Is this really a sacrifice?  I do admire the thought behind their "project" but had a hard time reading about what a life-changing downgrade their new house was (Dan and I live in a 1150 square foot home!)  2) The family came off as holier than thou the entire book...very annoying.  The daughter was described as the perfect, do-good child.  3)  The writing was so basic to the point of boring.  Only a short section even discussed their trip to Ghana and we never ever hear about their actual project.  The entire book was about the process of trying to sell the house and deciding to which project they will donate the money.

Overall, not my favorite book...far from it!

the whale warriors

"The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a radical environmental group, is led by Paul Watson, who pursues whaling ships with his ship Farley Mowat and a crew of volunteers. Watson formed Sea Shepherd after he broke from Greenpeace, and the group is responsible for sinking eight whaling ships and ramming even more illegal fishing vessels—without loss of life. Adventure writer Peter Heller was invited to accompany Watson and crew during their 2005 campaign against the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctica, and the result is this intimate and hair-raising eco-adventure.

The Farley Mowat is armed with water cannons, a catapult (for flinging garbage), a reinforced bow for ramming, and a weapon known as the "can opener." After weeks of heavy seas, fog, iceberg dodging, and cat-and-mouse with both the whalers and with Greenpeace—there is no love lost between Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace—on Christmas Day, in a Force 8 gale, the Farley finally encounters the Japanese fleet."

Loved this book!  I only wish it didn't have so many f-bombs so I could use it in class :)  Dan said there is a TV show based on Watson's campaign against whalers called Whale Wars...definitely adding it to our rental queue.

a thousand sisters

Wow, what a heart-wrenching book.  This is the story of Lisa Shannon, a woman who gives up a comfortable life to help the women of war-torn Congo, all after seeing an episode of Oprah.  I was absolutely horrified, shocked, and saddened to read about the atrocities Congolese women face every day.  What interests me most about A Thousand Sisters is that Shannon works through Women for Women International, an organization through which we sponsored a Rwandan woman.  I admire all Shannon did, and continues to do, for women without a voice.

mountains beyond mountains

I read 150 pages of this book about Paul Farmer, someone who has set out to better the lives of Haitians through his medical clinic and the organization he founded, Partners in Health.  His work to eradicate TB in Haiti is fascinating, and while I really like this book, it is too tedious for me to finish right now.  I may come back to it some day, but at this point, I am putting it down for better reads!  This is the first book I haven't finished in a long time, but I can't feel guilty about it :)