Senor Parrot's Perch

Christmas truly is the most wonderful time of the year. Working so hard to find the time to travel across the country to spend time with our families, and then the fun time we have make it the highlight of the year.

But, today, the day after Christmas, I feel that I’ve missed it. The focus on family, especially our children, neices and nephews, seems to have left Jesus on the periphery this year. It’s the tragedy of Christmas.

It has been slowly moving toward this for me. Despite church on Christmas Eve, despite telling the Nativity story to our children over and over, for me it seems to have�become perfunctory, not an act of love or devotion. It’s time I changed.

Jesus’ message to the church at Ephesus warned them to return to their first love, to devote themselves to Jesus and not to His works. It’s devotion to our Christ that transforms our actions and activities into more than acts of duty. Its devotion to our Jesus that makes our lives rich and transforms us. It’s our unity in our faith in Jesus that transforms our love and extends Christmas through the entire year, longer then the toys that break or the memories that fade.

So, I hope you had a Merry Christmas, and I pray, too, that you enter into a meaningful and prosperous New Year. I don’t have a bible handy to get a proper quote, but John writes something about prospering as our souls prospers. So, let us all have a year where our souls truly prosper, and avoid another Christmas Tragedy.

Sherry at Semicolon didn’t so much post a list of “Best Books”, but maybe a “Best Method” for choosing a book to give as a gift. Her post is based on the so-often asked question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I like this approach. It’s simple, just like me, and it’s a fun way to dream about and imagine what might be in our kids’ futures, too.

I was reading author Gail Gauthier’s blog today and she was writing about an article she had read concerning reviews in general-something we’ve all noticed- that they are on their way out at newspapers.

Gauthier makes a point that I wholeheartedly agree with. She says

Traditional book critics provided an education for their readers, too. Sure you always had your elitist folks who seemed mainly interested in showing off what they thought they knew to the lesser mortals who read their work. But you also had people who truly shared what they knew. You really could learn something from reading book reviews.

Reviewing well is quite a talent, and a good reviewer generally knows a bit about the landscape in the general area that they review. They have a lot to contribute to making the book, or movie, or play more interesting and compelling. This is what I experience, at least, when I read a good review. It is also one of the primary features that I look for daily in the Wall Street Journal (what? that Business rag? Yup-they have great reviews of books (an army of reviewers), movies (Morgenstern rocks the cinema!) and theater (Teachout, whose appreciation of good theater and acting everywhere it’s found has made me appreciate local theater even more!)), as well as many other newspapers that I can find online.

If these types of reviews disappear, where will we ardent, hungry fans go? Most book and arts blogs don’t really attain this crucial aspect of the review. Certainly my reviews here don’t. I just write about something that I like, point out why I like it, and say if I think you might like it. I really don’t have time for that heavy lifting that goes into making a great review, nor do I have that temperament. Thank God for the ones that do!

Nancy Pearl was interviewing Father/Son writing team Arthur and Alex Dorros on her Book Lust podcast where they talked about their new book Numero Uno. Numero Uno is the tale of two men, Hercules and Socrates, who find themselves in an argument over what is most important: the brawn of Hercules or the brains of Socrates.

The villagers, tired of the continuous argument, devise a clever contest to settle the question of who is n�mero uno once and for all, and the results surprise everyone.

The discussion about this story really caught my interest, Especially since it first took form as a 6th grade writing assignment for Alex. His father, Athur, an established children’s author and illustrator, recognized the excellence of the story and they pursued the published version together.

As I was listening, I thought “Who is this Arthur Dorros?”, not recognizing the name. I found his website and saw that he was the author of When The Pigs Took Over”, a very entertaining tale of two brothers, one of whom always thought more was better. I highly recommend it. Now I’m going looking for Numero Uno, as well.