Posts Tagged ‘heart’
Erin Gruwell is an amazing person. She was able to reach her tough students and make connections with them that “the system” had written off. Much as people would like to deny it, there is racism in our schools. If given a chance, I think that all kids can succeed. It’s the stereotypes and told that you’re stupid that brings a lot of these kids down. Poverty and their domestic situations don’t help in the least either. Erin saw through everything and at such a young age! I believe it’s people like her that truly change the world for the better.
Teach with Your Heart
To me, the mark of a good book is when you don’t want to see it end. And when it does end, you can’t stop thinking about it. That’s how this book was to me. The characters were so richly drawn that I actually felt like they could be real people. When some of the injustices happened I had to remind myself that this was fiction. Sara Gruen writes this amazing story against a backdrop of the Great Depression and that adds so much to the story. I can’t say too much about it without giving away important plot points, but I did not see the big twist coming. I’m surprised I didn’t, as all the signs were there, but I was just so engrossed in the story that I didn’t put them together. This is a book I will read again and again.
Texas Two Step Heart
I was sweeping up two dustpans full of shedded hair in less than a week. One good comb with the Furminator and all shedding was done. Finnegan loves getting brushed and it is so easy to use. My sister has already fallen in love with mine.
How the Heart Runs
Works great. Picks up anything on any surface. Lightweight, easy to operate and handle. It’s not as quiet as some, but I don’t mind as I don’t use my vacuum 24 hours a day. The hose and attachments are surprisingly really strong. They pick up almost anything.
The Awakened Heart Meditations
This is a great pocket pedometer. It’s lightweight, easy to use and sturdy. I sometimes leave it in my messenger bag and it still records my steps, kcals, and distance. Most of the time it’s in my front pocket. Thanks to previous reviews expressing concerns about the small clip (not the big holster one but the one that attaches to the wrist strap) I pay more attention to how I string it around my belt loop!
The memory function is useful for those times when I forget to log my info. But I’m still trying to figure out how to reset the pedometer for specific walking exercises. It will measure info from the time you clip it on to the next day.
Still, I’d recommend this item for fitness walkers, or even those simply curious about their daily walking habits. It’s amazing how much a person walks in one day!
Pour Your Heart into
This book is completely unbelievable, but who cares when the hero is so wonderful? For some reason, I enjoy stories about “wild” people adjusting to life back in civilization. I read Alice Hoffman’s Second Nature (Gaffney’s admitted inspiration for this book) many years ago, and I’ve also seen the great Truffaut film, The Wild Child. Gaffney’s book is interesting because, being a romance novel, it has a happy ending – the wild man adapts to society and finds a home.
This story takes place in 1893 in Chicago during the World’s Fair. The hero’s name is Michael MacNeil and as a young boy he was on a rafting expedition in Canada with his aunt and uncle in which no one survived but him. He spent the next 18 years living in the wild, alone except for animal friends. Then he is found and locked up as a human “oddity.” The heroine, Sydney, meets Michael because her father is an anthropologist who wants to study him to prove whether human beings are innately good or bad. Eventually, her father abandons his study of Michael, and Sydney and her two brothers decide to help him learn to adjust to the civilized world.
This book had a lot of really cute scenes, and I loved how slowly and believably Sydney and Michael fell in love. I also loved the characters of her two younger brothers. Where I think the book dropped the ball a bit was in its characterization of the time period. Gaffney points out how horrible it is that Michael is caged at first – but when Sydney and her family visit the World’s Fair, there is no mention of the hundreds of people who were similarly on “display” at the Fair. The character of Michael has a HUGE problem with animals being caged at the zoo, but there are no comments about the Exposition’s Midway Plaisance? I personally find the objectification of people at the 1893 Fair far more objectionable than a zoo (although a 1893 zoo was bad, too) and I wish it had been addressed.
That’s sort of a minor problem, though, when the overall romanti
Wild at Heart
This is the kind of book you can read over and over again. 5 stars
The Wounded Heart of