How not to recommend books and alienate people...

Book recommendation is an art...an art that's impossible to master.  I've always avoided recommending books to people I know, unless the person is truly desperate to find a book and is close to begging.  I dislike recommending because...there are always some people who hold a strong opposite opinion and are not afraid to remind you, or other people that your both know, over and over again.  There's nothing more discouraging to see someone else trashing the book that you truly enjoyed reading.  It's almost like being told that your child is ugly.  No matter what people say...the books you buy, the books you read, and the books you like, can be used to judge you.  Recommending books sometimes makes me feel...exposed and vulnerable.


I always think book reading is a fairly private business.  We like certain kind or genre of books due to upbringing, culture, life experiences, work and education.  There are no two people exactly alike in this world, that's why it's so hard to find someone who reads similar books as we do.  I'm envious of people who stay in the same reading group for years.  I think they have found their literary soul mate. Rating books is also a very subjective matter.  Some people give 5-stars to everything they like; others are reluctant to give even a 4-star.  I have a friend who constantly gives 2-stars to books she hates and 3 to books she likes.  On the other hand, I have a friend who always gives 5-stars, as long as she likes the book.  So much for comparing ratings...


If I really have to, I will recommend books that are well known to be accepted and loved by many different demographics.  For example:  Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, DaVinci's Code by Dan Brown...or even YA favorites like The Hunger Games.  Those books never fail me.  I can hide among millions of people who also favorite the books and be invisible...

Asian Parenting, or Unasian Parenting, Part 2

If I get a dollar every single time someone asks me if I only allows my kids to get As, I would have enough money to retire and also send all three of my kids to a reputable private college.  Although I grew up in an Asian family where $5-$20 bills were rewarded for getting As, for my kids, getting As is....nothing different.  We don't celebrate or rewards As, or Bs, or punish Cs, for that matter.  Report cards don't mean anything in our house and all our kids know that.  They somewhat gets the point that no ones cares about their report card but themselves. I still remember one time I was mad at daughter for staying up until two to finish an English essay, then forgot to bring it to school the next day...resulting a B instead of an A.  Another girl heard us talking about it in the carpool and assumed I was mad because of the grade.  The next day I got a Facebook comment on my wall: her mom telling me that she doesn't care if her daughter gets a C, since people with all As have no social life...If you tell my 15 year old daughter that, she'd laugh until she couldn't get up.


Although I don't agree with most of the Asian parenting style...I did read up on parenting and education books.  Through out the 15 years since my first child was born, I've read more than my share of parenting/education books.  A lot of them I read and forgot...but a few stood out.  The first one is Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn--and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less.  I always think playing is the most important thing a child can do, not ABCs, reading or math.  If they learn the enjoyment of playing...the learning will follow.  After all, our fascination about life is everything that carries us along, right?  Then lets move on to reading....




I always thought that reading aloud to your kids would help them learn to read in a snap.  Since I want my kids to enjoy the love of reading for life, I started reading to my first born when she was still inside me.  I also read diligently to her when she was a baby, a toddler, a preschooler, and a kindergartner, day in and day out, sometimes up to 40 books before bed.  Then the Judgement Day arrived.  She wasn't reading in first grade, nor second.  When her friends were devouring Harry Potters, she was just playing with her hair.  I took matter into my own hand and bought 10 different learn to read books and taught her phonetics myself.  Finally, she started reading own her own in third grade and hasn't stopped since.  The reading books for parents is definitely, Jim Trelease's The Read-Aloud Handbook.  It has great recommendations of books to read to your children as well as the reasons why.  A new book, A Family of Readers: The Book Lover's Guide to Children's and Young Adult Literature, by Roger Sutton, who has lots of experience editing and reviewing children's literature has a wealth of information and book recommendation, too.



My two other children did not have such a hard time learning how to read.  Reading just came naturally for them without my help.  My middle child started reading game tips and tricks he found online...for Mario, Kirby and Animal Crossing games, when he was 5 or 6....then moved on to Captain Underpants, and eventually to Warriors and Pendragon.  He's now ten and loves to read books about Halo, spies, robots and aliens.  He never went through the beginning reader stage or struggles.  My youngest one, who's 7, just started reading alone.  His favorites are the Magic Tree House books and non-fiction.  Asian or not, I think the love of reading if the best gift you can give your children.

Best First Books for Your Baby

I'm a sucker for reading, and for books.  Our family has thousands of books, 4 eReaders, and almost every single popular magazines.  Times, Newsweek, Good Housekeeping, Fortune, People, National Geographic, The Horn Book,  Money...to name a few; and this is not counting our professional subscriptions.  I'm not an educator nor a writer, but after 40 years of reading and 3 children ranged from 7 to 15, I do know a little about book choices.  Family and friends always ask for my recommendations, and I always happily oblige.  It finally occurs to me to write them down somewhere, where I could just refer the post to the people who ask...

So here's my first list, best baby books:


Goodnight Moon - Almost everyone heard about this book, and have purchased this some time in their life, but there's much more than just reading it out loud...for example:  Make you child find the little mouse that's hiding in every spread.

I Love You, Sun.  I Love You Moon -  This is another book that has almost a sing-song like lyrics...telling your child to love everything in the nature: flowers, clouds, river, fish....and of course, you and me.

Freight Train - At a glance, it looks like a 'boy' book, but both boys and girls will enjoy the simple and basic drawings, introducing your child not only to the different cars of the train, but also concepts such as over/under, light/dark and day/night.


Jamberry - A delightful and rhyming read, with a boy and a bear picking all kinds of berries....One berry, two berry, pick me a blueberry.  The illustrations are upbeat and colorful.


Is Your Mama a Llama? - Little llama goes around asking all his baby animal friends if their mother is a llama, too.  The answers are all poetic and rhyming, telling little llama that their mom is not a llama because she has flippers, has feathers, or says, "Moo...", etc.


The Very Hungry Caterpillar - The caterpillar just hatched from an egg, so he's going around hunting for food.  He ate one apple, 2 pears.....and so on.  There are little holes on the pages (where the caterpillar eats through...) and your baby can put their finger in each, as they count with you.


Pat the Bunny - This is a texture book, where a bit of different textured material is inserted in each page so your baby can touch and feel them, for example, the fluffy material for the bunny, and the shiny one for the mirror.  A series of similar books are published after this book became popular, but this original is the best of all.



Studies have found that reading to your babies cultivates the love of literature and reading in your child, as well as creating a special time that you and your baby spend together, which he will always remember and cherish.  If you only have time to do one thing with your child each day, read aloud to him.  It's the best gift you could give your child.


Happy reading!

Why didn't I read this sooner? Blame my history teachers.

I always wonder about people's different taste in reading, or in books.  Why do we read the different books that we read?  Why do our all-time-favorites so different from our best friend's?  It's a puzzle that always baffles me...I know some taste are acquired by life experiences, like a dog-lover reading books about dogs, or a neurosurgeon reading books about brains; but how about the books that we read for fun?  Why does your best friend loves mysteries while you only read biographies?

I always thought I read everything...by everything I mean any books that interest me, or attract me by their cover, or summary.  I read books in every single subject one could think of...brain, economy, surgery, biography, politics, parenting, business, math...and of course, the fictions.  However, when I started sharing books with my friends, I realize that there are a lot of books that I actually don't read.  For example, romantic novels, political stories (unless it's a biography), historical fiction that takes place in the US...or fantasy novels with werewolves or vampires.  When the book "The Help" was climbing the charts, I avoided it in purpose, since the description says, 1960's, Mississippi.  I did so terrible in history when in school, I just don't think I can understand or handle anything that happened more than 5 years ago.


Then I started hearing good things and reviews about the book, I mean, lots of them.  I finally gave up and ordered it on my Kindle, so that just in case I wanted to read the book, it's available.  Many months passed, during which I read lots of other books, some serious and deep, others not so.  Then the raves about the audiobook started coming.  I downloaded it from Audible.com as my first ever audiobook and started listening...WOW!  The women who lend their voices to this book were amazing, their southern accents, the feelings in their voice...I was drawn in right from the first sentence.  Then I decided the to read the book myself to get through the story faster, and regretted not starting this book as soon as it was published.  Stockett did an amazing job on her first book, about Mississippi in the 1960s, the conflicts and complex relationships between the helps and their white employers.  The book is narrated by three voices, a white female writer, and two African American helps, and a decision that they risked their lives to make.  Wonderful book, wonderful writing, and wonderful narrating in the audio format.  I don't think I could think of any other equivalent works.


So much that I wanted to avoid historical fiction, I found myself being pulled into this sad period of American history, when not everyone was treated equal.  I still could feel the sadness and the pain, long after finishing the book.

New Year New Book

I love to read, and I love buying books...eBooks, that is.  We have two Kindles and a Nook Color in the family.  I got my first Kindle (a generation 2) August 2009 as a birthday gift from my husband, and fell hopelessly in love ever seen.  Since both my daughter and son are avid readers as well, when Amazon announced a new and better Kindle in July 2010, we pre-ordered it right away.  Now with about 800+ books in my Kindles and truly enjoying the freedom of not carrying 4-5 books at once, and not having to pay over-weight luggage fee when we travel,  I have been trying to convince my friends to get their own for a while.

Lots of my friends claimed themselves readers, but they don't buy books, and they frown at the idea of paying more than $100 to buy an eReader.  They borrow books from friends, library; or they pick up books at garage sale and second hand book stores.  They really enjoy it when I bring them bags of my old quality paperbacks and hardcovers.  (I absolutely cannot stand what do you call those?  Mass produced paperbacks?  How could someone handle something so horribly designed for reading?)   So far, I sold one Kindle.  I don't know what it is...how can people who constantly claim that they are book-lovers, or avid readers...not fall for a Kindle?

There are several reasons that they commonly use:  I can still get books pretty cheap at the used book store; I thinking of getting an iPad, so I'm waiting to decide; I don't read long books, I just scan interesting books at Barnes and Noble for the summary; I like the feel of real books; too expensive; too low tech; I'm waiting for more features for my money......you name it.  I finally gave up and concluded that someone who does not fall for a Kindle immediately can not actually be a book-lover.  Period.

For the new year, I have a few "to read now" books that I want to get to.  A new book by Lisa Genova, who wrote the book Still Alice that I loved so much.  Genova is a real life neurosurgeon, who bought her real life experiences and knowledge into her stories.  Still Alice was a story about a successful lawyer who tried desperately to fight her symptoms of a hereditary early-onset Alzheimer's.  In Left Neglected, she wrote about a woman who lost the ability to use part of her body after an accident.  I can't wait to read the book.

What am I reading now?

Being a reader all my life and having three kids in various ages have a lot of advantages:  I know quite a bit about books, what to read, and what to buy.  We have two Kindles, a Nook Color and various Apple gadgets in the house, each with its own Nook, Kindle or iBook application.  People always ask advice about books to buy, for both kids and adults; and I've been sharing my family reading list forever.

Christmas day is great day to read, the shopping craze is over and all gifts are opened (many book-related)...What else is better than to read, on the couch?  This what we're doing right now, ignoring the cold and the wind.   I just finished How to Be an American Housewife, about a Japanese young woman who married an American Navy Medic after WWII, trying to start new and better life in the United States.  The story is about herself, her family, the clashes of two completely different cultures, the challenging relationship between her and her American born daughter, and the misunderstanding between her and her brother.  The first 1/2 of the book was narrated by the main character, Shoko, while the second 1/2 was narrated by her daughter, Sue.  I enjoyed reading this family's saga in two different narrative voices, which is found commonly in Jodi Picult's books.  At times, this story also reminded me of a favorite from long time ago, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, which was also about Asian moms and their American born daughters.  The ending was bittersweet.  It left me wanting more, especially more about Sue, and her young yet wise daughter Helena.  Margaret Dilloway did a surprising good job on her first book.


Coincidentally, I'm jumping right back into the same time period reading Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand, which landed on many best book lists of 2010.  Anyone who had read her book Seabiscuit: An American Legend (Special Illustrated Collector's Edition), knows what a talented writer she is.  This is a story about Louie Zamperini, a juvenile delinquent turned Olympic track runner, crash survivor, POW, then army hero.  My friend told me some chapters can be hard to tolerate, but I'm ready with a box of Kleenex right besides me.  I'll let you know how I like it.  Merry Christmas, everyone!