by Rachel Toalson | On My Shelf
On my shelf this week:
Confessions of a Scary Mommy: An Honest and Irreverent Look at Motherhood, by Jill Smokler
The Unwritten Rules of Friendship: Simple Strategies to Help Your Child Make Friends, by Natalie Madorsky and Eileen Kennedy-Moore
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, by Elizabeth Gilbert
I’m not sure how I’ve gone this long without reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, but I have. So it’s high time that book is on my shelf, I’d say. Also reading a humorous mommy book and a guide to helping our kids develop empathy and compassion and, as a result, be great at making friends. This is something I’ve become increasingly concerned with—not just for my own children but for all children. They are growing up in a world of screens and have become increasingly less connected in face-to-face communications. I feel like anything I can do to help my kids become better able at reading nonverbal cues and really connect with their peers will help them in their future. The Unwritten Rules of Friendship is a phenomenal book for teaching even things I didn’t know about friendship! (Also great for writers who want to write children’s literature—gives you some great insights for underlying themes to have in your books.)
Best quotes so far:
“Children who are physically hurt by parents, caretakers, siblings, or other children don’t learn to respect authority or to stand up for themselves—they learn that ‘might makes right.'”
Madorsky and Kennedy-Moore
“The most important thing you can do to help your child become more empathic is to help your child talk about his or her own feelings. Talking with children about their feelings not only helps them to understand these feelings better but also shows them that their feelings matter and that they will be treated with compassion.”
Madorsky and Kennedy-Moore
“If you talk about the value of kindness but then ridicule others, your child won’t learn compassion. If you talk about the importance of self-control but hit your child when you are angry, your child won’t learn restraint. If you talk about taking turns but then cut into a long line of waiting people, your child won’t learn to respect others. As parents, it’s our job to show children that relationships are about caring rather than power.”
Madorsky and Kennedy-Moore
Read any of these? Tell us what you thought.
by Rachel Toalson | On My Shelf
On my shelf this week:
Get a Literary Agent: Secure Representation for Your Work, by Chuck Sambuchino
Wolves of the Beyond#2, Shadow Wolf, by Kathryn Lasky
Scary Close, by Donald Miller
This week I’m reading a book about securing an agent (highly recommended—I thought I knew all there was to know about literary agents and pitches and such, but I have learned SO MUCH. It’s chapter on query letters is worth the investment alone.), a fantasy book with my 8-year-old (it has beautiful language) and a book on vulnerability and how to have intimate relationships (also highly recommended. Donald Miller has always been one of my favorites, and I was so glad to know he’d finally written another book!).
Best quotes so far:
“If you think your book has a problem, it does—and any book with a problem is not ready.”
Chuck Sambuchino
“An agent’s job is to sell your work and guide your career—neither of which includes editing. It’s your job to make your work as close to spotless as you can before submitting.”
Chuck Sambuchino
“To have an intimate relationship, you have to show people who you really are.”
Donald Miller
“The problem is this: those of us who are never satisfied with our accomplishments secretly believe nobody will love us unless we’re perfect.”
Donald Miller
“Having integrity is about being the same person on the inside that we are on the outside, and if we don’t have integrity, life becomes exhausting.”
Donald Miller
“When two people are entirely and completely separate they are finally compatible to be one. Nobody’s self-worth lives inside of another person. Intimacy means we are independently together.”
Donald Miller
Read any of these? Tell us what you thought.
by Rachel Toalson | On My Shelf
On my shelf this week:
You Are a Writer, by Jeff Goins
Allegiant, by Veronica Roth
Family—The Ties that Bind and Gag! by Erma Bombeck
This week I’ve got a writing book, the last in a dystopian series by Veronica Roth and another from Erma Bombeck (I just can’t stop reading her…she’s hilarious.
Best quotes so far:
“Writing is mostly a mind game. It’s about tricking yourself into becoming who you are. If you do this long enough, you begin to believe it. And pretty soon, you start acting like it.”
Jeff Goins
“You show me a boy who brings a snake home to his mother and I’ll show you an orphan.”
Erma Bombeck
Read any of these? Tell us what you thought.
by Rachel Toalson | On My Shelf
On my shelf this week:
The Orphan Master’s Son, by Adam Johnson
Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion, by Sara Miles
The Mindful Child: How to Help Your Kid Manage Stress and Become Happier, Kinder, and More Compassionate, by Susan Kaiser Greenland
This week I’ve got a new book club read, a spiritual memoir and a parenting book about mindfulness.
Best quotes so far:
“By practicing mindfulness kids learn life skills that help them soothe and calm themselves, bring awareness to their inner and outer experience, and bring a reflective quality to their actions and relationships. Living in this way helps children connect to themselves (what do I feel? think? see?), to others (what do they feel? think? see?), and maybe to something greater than themselves.”
Susan Kaiser Greenland
“By giving themselves enough breathign room to take in what’s happening in their inner and outer worlds, children can identify both their talents and their challenges by using mindfulness techniques. The outcome is dependent on developmental capabilities (young kids are limited in what they can do by their stage of physical and emotional maturation), but those who practice mindfulness can develop a sense of balance and a calm, concentrated mind that is capable of creativity, happiness, tolerance and compassion. With such minds children are better able to define what they want to do and achieve the goals they set for themselves. With such minds children will be ready to change the world for the better.”
Susan Kaiser Greenland
“The key to managing stress and other difficult situations does not always lie in the situation itself but rather in how kids and their parents respond to it.”
Susan Kaiser Greenland
Read any of these? Tell us what you thought.
by Rachel Toalson | On My Shelf
On my shelf this week:
The Right to Write, by Julia Cameron
Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: Techniques and exercises for crafting dynamic characters and effective viewpoints, by Nancy Kress
Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson
This week I’m reading two writing books, including one of the best ones I’ve ever read (Cameron’s) and a true story about murder and mayhem at the 1893 World’s Fair.
Best quotes so far:
“A page at a time, a day at a time, is the way we must live our writing lives. Credibility lies in the act of writing. That is where the dignity is. That is where the final ‘credit’ must come from.”
Julia Cameron
“Writing for the love of writing, the sheer act of writing, is the only antidote for the poison of a credibility attack—and the antidote is short-lived and must be readministered.”
Julia Cameron
“True art requires true honesty, which means that for our art’s sake, as much as for our own, we must learn the skill of vulnerability.”
Julia Cameron
“I think of my creativity as my most valuable asset. It is my wealth.”
Julia Cameron
Read any of these? Tell us what you thought.
by Rachel Toalson | On My Shelf
On my shelf this week:
The Horse and His Boy, by C.S. Lewis
If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing In the Pits? by Erma Bombeck
The Best of Dear Abby, by Abigail Van Buren
This week I’m reading a collection of Dear Abby advice, a book by humorist Erma Bombeck (because I just love her and now much read everything she wrote) and a new Chronicles of Narnia book with the boys.
Best quotes so far:
“It used to be a good day for me when I could remember what I called (my children) for, let alone remember who they are.”
-Erma Bombeck
Read any of these? Tell us what you thought.
