Rated

I just looked at our own Bonnie's photos of the 2011 Joplin tornado where both she and her daughter lost their homes.  Disasters happen, but when they come on a worldwide scale, they seem even more unreal than Bonnie's.  Thank God.  I don't know how she copes from day to day, and I probably wouldn't survive too long if the whole world went mad.  Naturally, this means I enjoyed Susan Beth Pfeffer's series for teens that begins with Life as We Knew It, but in the back of my mind, I fear "it" really could happen here.  And wouldn't you know it, it's noon on Saturday and the tornado warning sirens are in test mode.  Nancy 

Rated 

In the Name of Heaven, by Mary Jane Engh, tells us "the first official statement of unqualified religious toleration ... lasted less than a year."  Not a hopeful sign for things to come, but an indication of the subject in a book whose subtitle is 3,000 Years of Religious Persecution.

Engh is a good writer, so the tales of intolerance unfold as you learn details about our shared history.  For example, the reason Islam spread more rapidly in Africa than Christianity was cultural - Africans were already used to circumcision and polygamy.

Engh closes with this thought: "Persecution may still be popular, but it is no longer fashionable.  That is progress."  Good book.  Nancy  

Diversity quotations

Rated 

How about a real horror story?  Plague Time, by Paul W. Ewald, says germs are out to get us - "We are their food."  And that's just the first sentence! 

Rated 

Whenever I devour a book, I want to tell the world.  Tahir Shah's Sorcerer's Apprentice is that kind of read.  Shah went off to India to learn the trade secrets of the conjuror Hakim Feroze.  Fortunately, Shah is a wonderful storyteller who tells us how magic is performed against a background of fascinating characters in bizarre circumstances.  I can't wait for his next book.  Nancy

Rated

The Magic Kingdom is part of all of us.  Everyone now living has grown up with Mickey Mouse.  But there is, as always, a back story of what really happened.

Richard E. Foglesong's Married to the Mouse examines the very interesting history of Walt Disney World and the city of Orlando, Florida, which the author refers to as the marriage of the high school quarterback and the homecoming queen.  There are bound to be problems in such unions.  Nancy