My Enemy's Cradle

My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


LOVED the way this book ended!!! I am a sucker for WWII books and learning about what went on. A sucker for stories of survival. And of course, a sucker for romance and happy endings:) The unfolding romance in this story was just the icing on the cake! A must read!



A little note about this book for me:



I am embarrassed to say how ignorant I am to some things that have gone on in human history...I learned about something I didn't know happened during WWII. This story shows a bit of what was of the Lebensborn Organization(Wellspring or Fountain of Life). It was an organization set up by the Nazi's in attempts to "breed" the "Master Race." It is just shocking to read about these sort of things. In places like the Lebensborn Organization(or the one portrayed in the book), pregnant women were gathered like animals to be fed and properly fattened to supply endless blonde haired blue eyed children to the Nazi Regime. The babies would be taken from their mothers and put up for adoption to Nazi families. And sometimes, the babies were never adopted or not adopted for months. And for months those babies sat in nurseries unloved and untouched other than the every four hour feeding and diaper changes required. The worst part...learning that when the child was born, if it had a flaw like a cleft lip it was murdered and the woman who gave birth to the child was told the baby was a stillborn. It was sad to learn that babies were taken from their mothers at birth and adopted out to Nazi families against their will. There were so many more things just wrong about all that went on during this time in history...So much to reflect on and so many questions of how and why...



This book was so good and had such a sweet ending. I loved how it tells the story of a German soldier and his disdain for what the Nazi Regime was doing. There are probably so many untold stories where German citizens had no other choice but to do as the Nazi's demanded ie, giving up their land, businesses, son's, etc... I love how this book tells of a story like this. The untold stories of mother's and the loss of their babies(I don't love that this happened, just love that the story is being told to the world). I don't recall learning it in history class? Maybe I am ignorant, but I just didn't know this actually occurred.





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Informative Read

Hellhound On His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin by Hampton Sides

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


In this book, Hampton Sides puts together the details of both James Earl Ray(Martin Luther King's killer)and Martin Luther King during the days leading up to King's assassination. There were so many details about Martin Luther King I didn't know, and I never knew anything about his killer until now.



I have always revered Martin Luther King. It was sad to learn about how things happened in his family in the years after his death. I never knew his brother, AD King was also found dead several years after King's assassination. His mother was also gunned down while playing the organ at a church...just sad. His dad had a lot of sorrow and loss of his family.



I liked something King's father said to reporters who were eager to hear how he felt about the manhunt that was going on for his son's assassin(who had just escaped prison). When reporters questioned him about the escaped assassin, his response was, "I hope they don't kill him. Let's hope he doesn't get killed. You're looking at the face of a black man who hates nobody." Even after all he had been through he had no hate.







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A Five Star Read For Sure!!

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Absolutely 5 stars hands down!! I hope there is a sequel so I can hear what happens to each of the characters.



A great book about the Help AKA the colored house maids to the white folk of the 1950's and 60's in Jackson, Mississippi. All around great read and enlightening too. I've never considered myself a prejudice person. I've never really understood why the color of someone's skin can make such a difference to some? I guess a lot of it comes from ignorance. Not that I am excusing anyone for their ignorance...

There are so many great stories good and bad that opened my eyes to what really did go on in some cities like this back in the 60's when Martin Luther King was making his debut with his speeches and the civil rights movement was going full force. I loved learning more about these women. I know it is a historical fiction, but I can only assume what went on in this book is very similar to what really went on... I was so happy to read of the good white folk who treated their Help with dignity...they treated them like equals...But don't be fooled there are a lot of heartbreaking sad stories too, of down right mean and prejudice people.

Some of my favorite parts of the book I have quoted here. Now it may not be exactly as it appears in the book as far as spelling and punctuation, because I listened to this read.

In this part Miss Skeeter(Eugenia) had been called ugly by a boy at school. Her black maid Constantine comforted her and they had this conversation:

Constantine: "Well...is you?..."

Miss Skeeter: "Constantine sat down next to me, at the kitchen table...she pressed her thumb hard into the palm of my hand. Something we both knew meant, listen...listen to me...

Constantine: "Now you looka here Eugenia...Ugly live up on the inside, ugly be a hurtful mean person...Is you one of dem peoples?..."  "Every morning, until you dead in da ground, you gone have to make dis decision...you gone have to ask yo-self...am I gone believe what dem fools say about me today?"

Miss Skeeter: "She kept her thumb pressed hard in my hand, I nodded that I understood. I was just smart enough to realize she meant...white people. And even though I still felt miserable, and knew that I was...most likely ugly. It was the first time she ever talked to me like I was something besides my mother's white child. All my life I'd been taught what to believe about politics, colored's, being a girl, but with Constantine's thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.

I Loved hearing all of the wisdom in Abilene's stories to May Mobley. I wish I had bookmarked all of them here is one I did book mark:



One of Abilene's stories to May Mobley:

Once upon a time there was two little girls, one girl had black skin, one girl had white.
Little colored girl say to the white girl "How come yo skin be so pale?" White girl say, "I don't know, how come yo skin be so black? What choo think that mean?" But neither one of dem girls knew, so little white girl say, "Well, let's see..You got hair, I got hair," Little colored girl say, "You got a nose I got a nose," little white girl say, "I got toes, you got toes." So we's the same, just a different color, said the little color girl, the little white girl, she agreed and they was friends.

A quoted portion of the book I liked Miss Skeeter saying:

I can't help but think what my life would be like if I hadn't written the book? Monday, I would have played bridge, and tomorrow night I'd be going to the league meeting and turning in the newsletter. Then on Friday night Stuart would take me to dinner, and we'd stay out late, and I'd be tired when I got up for my tennis game on Saturday...tired and content n' frustrated, because Hilly would have called her maid a thief that afternoon, and I would have just sat there and listened to it, and Elizabeth would have grabbed her child's arm too hard and I would've looked away like I didn't see it. and I'd be engaged to Stuart, and I wouldn't wear short dresses, only short hair, or consider doing anything risky, like write a book about colored housekeepers...too afraid he'd disapprove. And while I'd never lie and tell myself I actually changed the minds of people like Hilly and Elizabeth, at least I don't have to pretend I agree with them anymore.
-Miss Skeeter

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A Good Read...

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

FYI  Contains a few spoilers...

Wow!

This is a survical story about a Bombedier whose plane went down in the Pacific ocean. He survived many days a drift on the sea until he was found by Japanese soldiers. At that point he became a POW. He was a particulary special POW... He had been an olympic runner prior to the war. This ultimately helped him survive not only for his stature of body, but because of who he was to the American people.

I liked hearing about his running career, as running interest me these days. There were parts of his survival on his raft that testified to me that he was being watched over by God.

It was hard hearing of the cruelties of men. So, so, SOOOOO inhumane... It made me angry at first. Then when the writer continues Louie's story of how he overcomes his own anger towards the men who took him into the darkest hours of his life. I understood and remembered those men are men.

What a great man Louie Zamperini is. My favorite part was when he remembers his promise he made to God on the raft. He remembers and then the rain starts to fall again as it did when he nearly died of thirst. Chills I tell you!

Definitely a great read! A friend of mine brought out this good point: The other thing to take home from this book is to REMEMBER this story and others like it. To remember how this man was tortured, teased, dehumanized...There is never a time to put any human being through something like this. Not even if our national security depends on it.

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