Tag: book review

I love to read fun picture books with my children. Here are five great recent discoveries we have added to our favorites list.

Froodle by Antoinette Portis: a hilarious book about a bird who decides to do something out of the ordinary.

Hooray for Hat! by Brian Won: a nice lesson on dealing with grumpiness and bringing happiness to others.

The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires: a great lesson on ambition and persistence through frustration.

Have You Seen My Dragon? by Steve Light: a counting book with fantastic illustrations.

Prudence Wants a Pet by Cathleen Daly: a resourceful child uses her imagination in creating a pet for herself, until she finally gets the perfect one.

I recently read The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict, by the Arbinger Institute. This is a great book to read, with life-changing lessons if you open yourself up to it. A good reminder of how much our way of being influences the success we have in our relationships, both at home or in the workplace.

This is a book worth reading and studying repeatedly, like Leadership and Self-deception by the same authors.

The main focus of the book comes down to The Peacemaking Pyramid. We spend our lives in either two ways: helping things go right, or dealing with things that are going wrong. It makes sense that it is better and more effective to work first at helping things to go right! The steps to helping things go right include:

• Get out of the box/Obtain a heart at peace
• Build relationships with others who have influence
• Build the relationship
• Listen & learn
•  Teach & communicate

In the dealing with things that are going right, the only action is to Correct.

Reading both books will explain more fully what getting out the box really means, so I definitely encourage further reading and review!

My husband recently recommended a book that is well worth reading,  The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. I found this book extremely interesting, and it caused me to reflect on the habits I have, and habits that I would like to have. It is good news to know that habits can be changed or acquired (of course), but this book went a step further and offered insights on how much habits are such a part of our life. Every task in our day is a habit (think about how you brush your teeth, or how you back your vehicle out of your garage). Habits are a good thing because they free up brain power–if you have a habit in a situation then you don’t have to think about how to act. The trick is to make sure that our habits are appropriate, and produce the desired outcome.

I also found great application in this book in my role as a parent. I worry a lot about teaching my children good habits. The section on “keystone habits” stood out to me, and I think that is what the prophets are going for when they tell us repeatedly to have daily prayer and scripture study and family home evening. With those habits in place, other good things will follow to strengthen our families.

This is definitely a book worth reading! If you want to learn more, read this review on npr. Below are some quotes from the book that especially stood out to me.

• If you want to change a habit, you must find an alternative routine, and your odds of success go up dramatically when you commit to changing as part of a group (p. 91).
• Some habits have the power to start a chain reaction, changing other habits as they move through an organization. Some habits…matter more more than others…these are keystone habits (p.100).
• For many people, exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespread change (p. 109).
• Making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity (p. 109).
• Willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success (p. 131). Make willpower  a habit!
• Willpower isn’t just a skill. It’s a muscle, like the muscles in your arms or legs, and it gets tired as it works harder, so there’s less power left over for other things. If you want to do something that requires willpower-like going for a run after work-you have to conserve your willpower muscle during the day (p. 137). –do it early in the day before you are worn out!
• Signing kids up for piano lessons or sports is important. It has nothing to do with creating a good musician or a soccer star. By meeting practice expectations, they are building self-regulatory strength (p.139).
• Write out your plan–visualize how you will act.
• Let people (children?) have more control in their lives and their willpower will be stronger).
• If you dress a new something in old habits, it’s easier for the public to accept it (p. 210).
• Habits aren’t destiny. We can choose our habits, once we know how (p. 270). Once you understand that habits can change, you have the freedom–and the responsibility–to remake them (p.271).

Since becoming a parent, I’ve read quite a few parenting books. I haven’t read too many lately, since by this point I’m feeling mostly comfortable with the baby/todder/preschool years. But I was intrigued by “The Secrets of Happy Families” by  Bruce Feiler. This book is a great handbook for families who, as the author states in the introduction, “have survived the parental death march of sippy cups and diaper caddies”. A guide for families who are facing the challenge of raising children in a modern world.

The author was upfront about his goal: Instead of “5 easy steps” or “Six Simple Truths”, he strove to gather a great list of best practices for improving your family. His writing style was interesting and relevant. Confession time: Reading a non-fiction book usually takes me months (or longer) to finish, but this book pulled me in and I had it finished in less than week.

I did like how a lot of his ideas rang true to the principles I have studied in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World“. It is always nice to see the world, and research, catching up to the words of inspired prophets.

So if you are looking for some new ideas or best practices to try at home, check this one out. Below are my notes.

Happy Families consistently:

1) Adapt All the Time: think agile. Have weekly family meetings. Adjust and make changes as needed as you go along.

2) Talk. A Lot: Create a family narrative. Your children should know your family history. Share stories about parents and grandparents, especially their successes and failures.

3) Go Out and Play: Make fun. Play games. Take vacations. Have get-togethers. Invent goofy traditions. “Whatever makes you happy, doing it with other family members will make your family happier.”

Since reading this book I’ve been reflecting on our family traditions. Traditions are so important and give your family identity. What does it mean to be a Tanner? Chineese food for Christmas, dad making biscuits for Sunday breakfast, setting off our own fireworks for the fourth of July, etc. I like the idea of goofy traditions–so I’m on a quest to see how we can strengthen and add to our traditions.

“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions”–Dalai Lama

Ideas for Family Meetings: 1) What went well in our family this week? 2) What things could we improve in our family? 3) What things will you commit to working on this week?

The Agile Family Manifesto: 1) Solutions exist 2) Empower the children 3) Parents aren’t invincible 4) Create a safe zone 5) Build in flexibility

Chapter on Family Dinner–“What you talk about is more important that what you eat (or when you eat it)”

Hunger Games for mealtime: Word of the Day, Autobiography Night, Pain Points (bring up a dilemma that a family member is facing, work together to devise solutions), Word Game Night (thesaurus, alliteration, fill in the blank, whats the difference between?), Bad & Good (Share a bad thing about the day, then share a good thing)

Chapter on creating a family mission statement.

Chapter on how to handle marital conflict.

Chapter on allowance. Bribe your children the right way: “Here is five dollars. If you add three vegetables this month, you get to keep it. If you don’t, you have to give it back.”

Chapter on talking to your kids about sex. “It’s not a talk. It’s a conversation.”

Chapter on how you organize and decorate your home says a lot about your family. Arrange your furniture to enhance your family priorities.

Chapter on family vacations. Being prepared with a checklist, work in mission impossible or amazing race type games into your vacation to build excitement and strengthen family bonds.

Chapter on sports: Don’t pressure your kids. Just “Shut up and cheer!”

Chapter on family reunions.

Lately I have been thinking more about the type and quality of food that we are eating in our home. We definitely have some room for improvement. I recently discovered an interesting blog, Word of Wisdom Living. I haven’t looked through it extensively yet, but one of the books they suggested reading is “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto” by Michael Pollan.

This book was really fascinating. Basically the point of the book, or the manifesto, is “Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.” The following is from the Word of Wisdom blog review of the book:

“Pollan exposes the problems with modern food.  He soundly condemns the practice of nutritionism, the practice of looking at the nutrients in food individually, thus losing sight of the synergy of nutrients working together in their native milieu.  Taking nutrients out of their natural context has led to the industrialization of food, as well as today’s foolish trend towards functional foods” (source).

I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in healthy eating habits. I particularly liked the Rules of Thumb for Healthy Eating (listed below) included in the last section of the book, since they gave me specific guidelines and ways that I can make improvements in our diet, without having to drastically change the way we eat.

My notes from the book

“Nutritionism–the belief that food is foremost about nutrition and nutrition is so complex that only experts and industry can possibly supply it” (p. 200). With the advent of nutritionism, people are very confused and worried over what to eat.

“Modern civilization has sacrificed much of the quality of its food in the interests of quantity and shelf life” (p. 97). Interesting to note, studies of isolated populations eating a wide variety of traditional diets had no need of dentists.

The story of refined grain: grind the wheat kernel and remove all the healthy stuff and your left with worthless white powder. Scientists then discover that vitamins have been removed, so the “fortify” the bread to put the good stuff back in. But can they really put everything back in? What are they overlooking.

Soil Problems: “Chemically simplified soil produces chemically simplified plants”. Since the 1950s, “the nutritional quality of produce in America has declined substantially” (p. 115). Basically “you now have to eat three apples to get the same amount of iron as you would have gotten from a single 1940 apple” (p. 118).

The rise of diabetes: “Medicine is learning how to keep alive the people whom the Western diet is making sick” (p. 135). The solution: Stop eating a Western diet!

“As technology reduces the time cost of food, we tend to eat more of it” (p. 187). Microwaves make for easy cooking, so we eat more.

Spend more money on healthy food, rather then on healthcare costs!

Rules of Thumb that are Conducive to Better Eating

Eat Food

• Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. Also, don’t eat anything  incapable of rotting (ie. twinkies).
• Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar , b) unpronounceable, c) more than five in number, or that include d) high-fructose corn syrup.
• avoid food products that make health claims.
• Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.
• Get out of the supermarket whenever possible (shop farmer’s market or CSA box instead).

Eat Mostly Plants

• Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
• You are what you eat eats too.
• If you have the space, buy a freezer.
• Eat like an omnivore (diversity).
• Eat well-grown food from healthy soils.
• Eat wild foods when you can.
• Be the kind of person who takes supplements.
• Eat more like the French. Or the Italians. Or the Japanese. Or the Indians. (a traditional diet has proven the test of time)
• Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism (ie. soy prepared in innovative ways, as opposed to traditional tofu)
• Don’t look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet (ie. the glass of wine that is the key to everything)

Not Too Much

• Pay more, eat less. (Eat good quality food. Learn to recognize your body’s signals and stop eating when you are full). “The better the food, the less of it you need to eat in order to feel satisfied” (p. 188).
• Eat meals. (Cut out the snacks)
• Do all your eating at a table.
• Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.
• Try not to eat alone.
• Consult your gut.
• Eat slowly.
• Cook and, if you can, plant a garden.