Half Moon

Half Moon

by Douglas Hunter

I do try and read ALL of the book recommendations that I am given, especially when they give me the book.  I thank Olivier Berthe, FFIR at Lafayette Hall, for providing me the book I just finished, Half Moon, by Douglas Hunter.  Hunter tracks the history of Henry Hudson on his journey, sponsored by the largest trading company (VOC) from Amsterdam, to map the waterways of America in an attempt to gain more trading ports for future outposts.  Hunter is not afforded the journals of Hudson, who captained the boat, the Half Moon, as the journals were lost, but he uses the first mate Robert Jute as a resource.  Hunter goes through journals and information from other sources to piece together the 1609 voyage to North America. The first part of the book was rather dull.  The historical perspective of what was happening with various voyages and what Hudson would have learned before his trip was quite detailed but didn’t keep my interest.  The second part of the book was very interesting as it followed Hudson’s journey into Manhattan and up the Hudson River to my home town of Troy, NY!  I learned a great deal about the route, which I have taken many times during the course of my life.  When I was younger, my family had the opportunity to take many trips down the Hudson, under the Verrazano Bridge, and into the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Cod/Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.  A great book for anyone interested in history and how Hudson made it through the tide changes and the shallow parts of the river named after the voyager.  Enjoyed it!

   

Learning to Play the Game

Learning to Play the Game

by Jonathan Kohlmeier

Always great to receive suggestions for books, especially when it is a book written by the son of a person I know (my financial advisor).   His son suffers from Selective Mutism (a condition related to severe anxiety).  For his senior year high school project, Jonathan Kohlmeier decides that his culminating project will be to capture his life’s challenge in Learning to Play the Game.  Jon switches schools at the end of middle school and continues at the same institution through his high school years.  He does an outstanding job of capturing the emotions, feelings and thoughts related to his condition and how he begins to think about working through it.  After years of experience in an elementary school in which he and his parents have to fight with the school district, they finally find a small school that meets Jon’s needs.  Jon’s story provides great insight to what it means to feel alone, scared, and frustrated while being unable to name those emotions.  Luckily, he finds some teachers and eventually some friends that make comfortable enough to be himself.  High school students can be really brutal, but, through theatre, hard work, and loving teachers, he is able to succeed.  Congrats on writing your first journey book.  I’m sure there are many more books to be written – go out and do it!  

Born to Be Wild

Born to Be Wild

by Jess P. Shatkin

I had the chance to read NYU’s own Dr. Jess Shatkin’s book Born to Be Wild.  Jess is the director of the CAMS program at NYU, a program that helps students understand ways to enhance resiliency in this world full of crazy situations….  This book is especially helpful to those who are parenting or working with teens.  The book explores why teenagers are risk takers with behaviors that challenge authority figures and sometimes their own safety (such as use of illicit drugs, premarital sex, driving a motorcycle without a helmet, etc.).  Jess is a remarkably competent and likeable person.  The book shares personal stories of how he engages with his clients (at NYU’s Child Study Center) and his own children as they grew up. His easy-to-learn suggestions for being the best parent possible uses a ‘connect-the-dots’ approach.  He uses theoretical frameworks from noted researchers as a basis for his work and presents the material in an easy-to-digest manner.  He also shows how previously popular methods of “scaring kids straight” on topics of drugs and other behaviors that can harm them hasn’t worked, and he delves into the neuroscience to discuss how the brain works.  A relatively quick read – two nights and I was done.  Do yourself a favor and give this book to someone who has kids or those who can be a positive influence on kids.  Thanks, Jess! 

Mutant Message Down Under

Mutant Message Down Under

by Marlo Morgan

During my two-month illness, my oldest sister, Nancy, sent me Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan.  Morgan, a fifty-year-old divorced mother with two adult children, is asked to work on a health care project in Australia.  Morgan was a health care professional who believed in wellness related strategies to cure patients.  Morgan arrives in Australia and begins her project.  One day, she attends an event where she has her future told by a fortune teller. She is told that there is a journey in her future where she will meet her soul mate, which does indeed come true.  Morgan later goes on a tour of the outback and is asked to immediately join the Aboriginal tribe she had visited on a 90-day walk through the desert.  She feels compelled to do it.  The rest of the story captures Morgan’s journey of learning about respect of our world/nature, how to control her fear and pain (walking across the desert with no shoes), and how to connect to others through telepathy.  Each chapter teaches a new lesson.  The book is controversial, as many who read the book think that Morgan made up the entire trip.  Hummm…either way, still a series of valuable lessons for a person to learn.  Timely read for me.