November 2009

Why don’t we all agree to read a book a month, but we each pick our own. Then, at the end of the month we all do two things: 1) we all review our books, give a favorite quote, a highlight, say if you’d recommend it for our kids to read –something—anything (by the way, when I say “book” I really mean anything readable. It could be the newspaper, the Ensign, Money Magazine, books of scripture. . . . etc. Just so we can share what we are learning, thinking about, liking,. . . etc. Maybe have some of our kids report too). 2) give any recommendations for the next month (that way if some people want to read the same thing, they can).

The Brothers

In the time before Creation, before so many of the children of God turned away from their Father and walked knowingly into the dark, there was a choosing, a sifting, a contest of ideas and a battle for souls. In that great premortal war, each of us learned the first lessons of life: The great ones may fall. The wicked can change. The weak and the foolish can become the strongest of all. And the battle between good and evil is the same regardless of the time or place. The Brothers is the first novel in a new series by national bestselling author Chris Stewart. The Great and Terrible takes us from the beginning of time to the final hours of the last days, revealing the greatest secret of all: The children of God can defeat the adversary, for we have fought him before.

The BFG

One night when Sophie can't sleep, she goes to the window of her orphanage and sees a giant walking down the street, blowing something into the windows. When the giant sees her, he grabs her and takes her back to his desert cave home.

There he explains, in his strange and garbled English, that he was blowing dreams into the minds of children, and that the other giants who live in the desert -- and are twice his size -- eat children all over the world. He, though, is the Big Friendly Giant (BFG), and eats nothing but disgusting snozzcumbers. But when the other giants head to England to eat children, Sophie hatches a plan, involving dreams, the Queen of England, and the BFG, to stop them once and for all.