Lets Race

I read the Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo last night, because my son had seen an ad for the movie, and thought it looked good. We tried to request it from the library, but everyone else had the same idea, so we were on a long list, so I requested it from his school library, and as luck would have it, they both became available to us Wednesday. So we decided to read it together.
I don't know how after knowing my child for his entire life he can still surprise me, but he did. He reads as quickly as I do. We each sat on the couch and cruised through the book in one evening. I had to get up to help my other son with something, and when I came back to the couch, he was 30 pages ahead of me.
And he finished before me, was able to answer my questions, and told me he didn't care for the story. Now it is a children's book, but it was 200+ pages, with 4 seperate story lines intertwined, and he kept up.
Anyway- the book was cute, satisfying and will be cute as a movie. And now we can see it together and have another discussion about the relative merits of book and film. He thinks it will be good, even though he didn't care for the book. We'll see.

hot and flat

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America by http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18675.Thomas_L_Friedman">Thomas L. Friedman

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had to stop reading this and return it to the library. I only just got it back, and now I have finished it. I will freely admit I breezed through this book, as one often does with something you agree with. The author's discussion of the links between oil prices and everything else- education and status of women, religious extremism, development of a country's human resources, democracy, etc, sound far fetched when I tried to summarize it to some one later, but seemed logical and well supported while I was reading. His ideas about China, India and the role of the US as an ideological leader were also thought provoking.
But this is from me, a person who was glad when gas prices were high, and who is excited about the new leadership in this country.

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