Summer Book Reviews

Even though I didn't post on here all summer, I did get some reading in. It wasn't as much as I've done the rest of the year (why? I'll blog about my other summer adventures later), so I thought I'd put it all in one post.

The Horse Boy, Rupert Isaacson
I loved this book. I had heard about it a few times and was interested, so I finally made it to the library to pick it up. It's a father narrating the true story of his son Rowan's life with autism, beginning from the time he was born, through his diagnosis and subsequent events/therapies/treatments, and finally the family's journey to Mongolia to find healing for Rowan.

Rupert Isaacson was a writer and human rights activist who had worked as an advocate for a tribe of Bushmen in Africa. His experiences with the shamans of this and other tribes colored his view of medicine and healing. Rupert and his wife, Kristin, and Rowan spent a weekend with many such shamans at a conference, where Rowan exhibited signs of progress and healing when being in their presence. Later, Rowan, who spent much of his time "inside himself", in his own world, as is characteristic with autism, finally opened up around animals, especially horses. It was while riding the horse of a neighbor that Rowan finally began to talk and interact with those around him, including his father, who was ecstatic at sharing his love of horses with his son. Rowan improved so much as a result of time spent with the horse, and had responded so little to conventional treatments for autism, that Rupert began to form an idea to combine these two seemingly healing powers for his son. Thus, the family embarked on a journey to Mongolia, the country where horses were domesticated, and where shamanism is the national religion.

The rest of the tale is a beautiful, sweeping description of the wild Mongolian countryside, the rituals of the shamans, and the joy and sometimes fear in the family's journey of traveling hundreds of miles and riding the Mongolian horses. In the midst of the journey, Rowan begins to make human connections with those around him, showing signs of possible healing for himself and other autistic children.

This book made me think about healing in the context of my own religion. I strongly believe in the power of healing, and the faith to be healed. Of course, as Latter-day Saints we usually hold the belief that healing only comes by the power of the priesthood, and from the faith of the person being healed. This book described a lot of the faith side, but obviously did not included\ priesthood in an LDS sense. However, healing truly did take place and it was interesting to step back and look at the concept of healing with a larger worldview. I would be interested to know others' thoughts on the concept of healing, specifically the thoughts of LDS people who have read about or seen similar healing experiences outside our faith.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See

This book was recommended by my Aunt Nancy, who has great taste in books and has read many more books than I have! I loved this one as well. It was the story of a young girl named Lily growing up in a remote Chinese village in the 19th century. It was a very compelling description of the lives, trials, hardships, and inequities that Chinese women endured for many centuries, and probably still do to some extent.

Women in China during this period were valued only for their ability to produce sons, who would then become the head and leader of the family. Girls were required to have their feet bound beginning at age six or seven, or their marriage prospects were completely nonexistent. And if marriage wasn't an option, girls would be sold to other families as a concubine, or "little daughter-in-law" when that family's daughters-in-law failed to produce sons. Girls were seen only as liabilities, extra mouths to feed until they could one day be married off to husbands who would then treat them as property, and own them until their deaths, when the sons would then take over as commander of the woman's life and fate.

These women, however, were clever and found ways to enjoy life and even exert their power in their own subtle ways. Many girls were taught from a very young age to use Nu Shu, a secret writing language developed by women that could be used away from men's influence. At age seven, Lily is paired with a "lao-tong", or "old same", a young girl from another village with whom Lily will forge a lifelong friendship, a relationship that in this culture was more sacred, more intimate than marriage in some ways.

The story follows Lily and her lao-tong, Snow Flower, from before the time they meet, throughout the major events of their lives, as they record messages and letters to each other on a paper fan. Each woman's life takes unexpected turns, but the friendship prevails throughout extreme hardship and even changes in personality and circumstance.

I'll stop the description here, as I feel that to say any more would spoil the story. I found this a fascinating look at another culture and the way women's rights and lives have changed in the world throughout the last century or two.

To Destroy You is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family, Teeda Butt Mam

Another recommendation from my aunt, this book was thoroughly enjoyed as well. It was an account of a family's experiences and struggles during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. The story is told from the point of view of the family's youngest daughter, Teeda, who was fifteen when the takeover began.

The Butt family was a fairly well-to-do and prominent family from Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge communist regime took over Cambodia in the mid 1970s. The family, with the rest of the city's residents, was ushered out of their beloved city and back to rural ancestral villages, where people were then arbitrarily moved and transferred at the will of the regime's leaders. The Butt family lost their father right away, but the restof the family stayed remarkably intact throughout the 4-year, excruciating ordeal they were forced to endure. But life went on, weddings happened, babies were born, and the family survived to tell the world of the hell they went through.

The beginning of the book contained a history of the cultures and governments of Southeast Asia. This included comments about Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos, as these countries now exist because of arbitrary borders drawn by foreign governments and have ancient tribal lines that transcend these borders. I thoroughly enjoyed this section, having traveled to Vietnam. It was very interesting to read more about the history of the Vietnam war, the different perceptions of this war as experienced by citizens of Southeast Asia, and the impacts on surrounding countries.

Teeda and her family lived in rural jungle villages for most of the story, forced to perform hard physcial labor 12 to 14 hours a day, no matter the age, condition, or gender of the person. The Khmer Rouge maintained a nameless, faceless, power that rendered the citizens of Cambodia helpless to do anything about the terror of the situation in which they were placed. When the regime finally collapsed, Teeda and her new husand of four days and the rest of their extended family began the long journey on foot to the Cambodian-Thai border where they hoped to finally find freedom. The spent a few weeks in a refugee camp, where Teeda's sister Mearadey wrote to every relative abroad she could think of, asking for sponsors to help their family emigrate to America. Finally, Mearadey, her husband, and three children were put on a bus and given the necessary means to make it to the US. Shortly after, Teeda and the rest of her family, including her frail mother, were put on a bus as well, but before they could breathe a sigh of relief at being able to escape, the bus turned around and took them back to Cambodia, which meant certain death.

With extraordinary courage and perseverance, Teeda's family once again made the trek across Cambodia, the dangerous crossing into Thailand, and survived the refugee camp long enough to settle in America. This heartbreaking story was fascinating for me to read, as I learned of events and gross human rights abuses that were going on in the world so recently. In fact, Teeda and her family made their second escape into Thailand right during the time I was born.

I would suggest this book to anyone looking for a story of human courage that is beyond the so often told or read Western stories of the Holocaust, etc. This story is comparable but, much more recent and with a different angle. You won't be disappointed.

Calling Limbo

An interesting thing happened the other day...our ward was dissolved. I haven't experience this before, and it's a little unnerving. I mean, we've only been in the ward a little over a year, but I didn't realize how attached I'd gotten. All of the wards in our stake are small, but we had one of the smallest, situated geographically in an area where it could easily be split and absorbed by the two surrounding wards. And that's what happened. Yes, our small ward struggled a bit, there weren't enough people to fill all the callings, and it was hard dealing with lots of inactivity when trying to fill said callings. But the calling I had here was unforgettable to me. What started out feeling like one of the most daunting callings I'd ever received, turned out to be my very favorite. I connected with my young women more than I ever thought I would. I know everyone always says that in a "teaching" calling like this, you end up learning more than those you actually teach. I think it became true for me here. I learned to observe, listen, speak, lead, serve, and much more. I feel that I truly learned, for the first time, how I personally receive inspiration and saw how that worked in my life and the lives of others. There was just something about our little group, struggling, learning, laughing together, that I'll miss. Now it's on to a new ward, and most likely, a new calling. I'm excited to see what I'll learn this time, but a little nervous too. I mean, how could I possibly love my next calling as much as I loved this one? It kept me busy in a way that I love to be, and kept me distracted from a job I don't love, and abated loneliness in my new found free time during this stage in my life when most of my good friends live in other states. It's truly been an experience to remember. Now, I guess I'll have to learn to attend Relief Society again, something I haven't really done in nearly 3 years. Anyone else had a similar experience? Or am I total sap?



Love these girls.