Kennedee's first road race

Kennedee has been asking to do a race for a while. She said, "mom I should do something that I am really god at, like racing".  So we signed her up for a little 1k.  She was a little nervous, but was happy that we would be able to be right on the side lines cheering her on.

I think she would like to do track events so you can better see your competition, race at your age level and get awards. But she sure was a cutie, so proud of her.

Recent Reads

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

This story is written from a young boy's perspective. Bruno is a 9-year-old boy growing up during World War II in Berlin. He lives in a huge house with his loving parents, his twelve-year-old sister Gretel, and maidservants. His father is a high-ranking SS officer who, after a visit fromAdolf Hitler is promoted to Commandant, and to Bruno's dismay, the family has to move away to a place called "Out-With" (which turns out to be Auschwitz Concentration Camp)

Bruno finds out he is not allowed to explore the back of the banana house or its surroundings. From curiosity and boredom, he decides to explore anyway. He spots a boy on the other side of the fence. Excited that there might be a boy his age, Bruno introduces himself and finds out the Jewish boy's name is Shmuel. Shmuel and his family were brought here, broken apart from each other and forced to work in Auschwitz. Almost every day, the two boys meet at the same spot. Soon, they become best friends, so similar, they are basically the same person in different circumstances, one a Polish Jew, the other a German. Over the course of the book, Bruno shows a great deal of naïvety while Shmuel seems to have more knowledge, as he has felt the suffering first-hand.

While the plot seems quite implausible, I still love the message..... "Bruno's innocence comes to stand for the willful refusal of all adult Germans to see what was going on under their noses".

The book has now been made into a motion picture as well.

ROOM by Emma Donoghue

The story is told from the perspective of a five-year-old boy, Jack, who is being held captive in a small room along with his mother. Since it is all he has ever known, Jack likes living in Room and believes that it constitutes the real world, while everything he sees on TV is completely separate and not real. It is fascinating to read this story from a 5-year old's perspective because although you know how terrible the situation is, you see the innocence in children. The story follows Jack's eventual realization that there is a world outside of Room, and into their escape and the challenges that come to a boy that has only ever met one person in his entire 5 year old life. I really enjoyed this book, although hard to imagine the tragedy it was.