What can I say I got this book for free so I read it? Our library is taking part in "The Big Read". Apparently people don't read anymore so the National Endowment for the Arts (does that mean taxpayers are paying for this? I really hope not. I need to look into that. I may give my copy back to the library...AHHHH! I just looked it up. The NEA "budget" for 2011 was $154...I am taking this book back to the library and telling them to keep it TODAY.) give people a book for free and the library has book clubs, art exhibits, movie viewing (the Sci-Fi channel made this book into a mini series-which the author had no part in and didn't like at all how they changed her characters and basically took out the important parts and just added violence...Why would I watch that?) and even dance/singing recitals to get people to read again. I kind of wish I looked into a little more ahead of time ("the big read" and Ursula K. Le Guin) because if I had, I probably wouldn't have bothered to read it. The book is...okay? I am not a Science Fiction fan (yes I loved Harry Potter and Twilight, but I honestly don't think they truly fit into that category...at all) but the word FREE is hard for me to pass up. I have come into the habit of reading for too long at night on the nights Aaron is at work and I actually only had around 10 pages left in the book last night and at 10pm (that isn't a late night reading by any stretch of the imagination...) I was literally falling asleep so I had to stop reading. I finished it this morning. It wasn't a boring or bad book, it just isn't my kind of book. It is about a wizard named Ged and his journey to becoming a true wizard and defeating a dark shadow he released as a boy because of his pride...yada yada yada (I LOVE that this came up to spell check and gave "Yoda" as a choice to correct it!)...That is all I can muster to explain what it was about. I didn't
dislike A Wizard of Earthsea, but I didn't really like it either. That is the best I can do. In the beginning I thought I would like it. At times I even really enjoyed it. But then I just read it to see what would happen. I read a little about Le Guin and decided I wouldn't bother with any more of her books because she is a liberal, feminist (in the worldly "burn your bra" kind of way. I believe in feminism in a very less worldly way-
read this if you want to know what I mean.) that writes about gender neutrality, anarchist, and other things I just think are kind of stupid. None of these themes were in this book and it is a safe read-other than the creepy "dark shadow" he had to destroy...take back...I am not even sure what really happened because it went from describing the encounter with the shadow that Ged was having, to what his friend that accompanied him on the last leg of quest who thought was a battle but couldn't really see what was happening...Blah, blah, blah...I am getting sick of talking about it. If you are a huge science fiction/Le Guin fan and you happen to stumble upon this post through the world wide web-don't take offense. I am more of a classics kind of girl. Anne of Green Gables, Sense and Sensibility, and Little Women are all in my top 10 favorite books. If you are a sci-fi fan you will probably love this book. Me not so much-though at times I did get sucked in. So, I guess that means it is good if a non-sci-fi fan liked some parts of it enough to think in the end this may be a favorable review. Now I really am going to go back to my lists of classics. I said I was going to do that after finishing
the Help (which I liked 95% of and the other parts were too much for this sheltered, conservative). This time I mean it. I am thinking some Mark Twain (never read anything but quotes by him...sad I know) is sounding good right about now...
***Update*** When we homeschool we start with our "morning routine" (pledge, morning prayer, scripture study...). In the
Thomas Jefferson Education book I read, it says right after this (but before you get into studying secular things) you should take the time to teach something "that is your own". Something I have learned in my studies that I can teach him. They called it "kid school", but we are calling it "Mommy school" because it makes more sense to us...and yes Jake does still call me Mommy and I am soooo glad. I decided to start doing Mommy School today so I could teach him the lesson I learned just this morning. Jake and I had a great discussion today about the fact that we need to learn about our government. We can't complain about the way things are run if we aren't willing to study it and take part in changing what it wrong. So, we decided we are going to start studying, more in depth, the branches of the government and their responsibilities. We discussed why we monitor what he reads, plays on the Wii, and watches on TV. I told him about the things I learned about the author of this book (how she writes in later books in this series about gender neutrality, feminism, and anarchy...) I just finished reading and what other books in her series start to talk about-things that we don't believe in. I told him about the National Endowment of the Arts and the founding for the "Big Read". Long story...shorter...we had a discussion about researching before jumping in to something. We talked about "
The Family: A Proclamation to the World" and how we know that our gender is an essential characteristic that we were given by Heavenly Father (when I was explaining why I wouldn't read any more of her books). We talked about our roles as women and men-fathers and mothers. I told him that there may come a time that he does like the fact that we won't let him read certain books or watch certain shows but that I hoped he would always remember why we did it. We talked about so much and it was so AWESOME! When we were done I told him that was what I wanted to talk to him about for "Mommy School" (I am not sure that is the name we will stick with...) today. To this he said: "That was Mommy School? I thought we were just talking!" We were. And that is why, even though it is Hard (notice the capitol H), we homeschool.
