If You Give a Man a Cookie, by Laura Numeroff

Parodies of children's books are fun, even more so when the author of a children's book parodies her own book!  Laura Numeroff is famous for If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and the whole series of similarly titled books.  Her newest, If You Give a Man a Cookie, is for Mom and Dad.  It's a little bit sexist, playing on the stereotypes of the man who worries about losing his hair, leaves messes around the house, falls asleep watching TV, and generally takes his wife for granted.

But stereotypes get to be stereotypes because they contain a grain of truth, and I'll go ahead and acknowledge that Numeroff's stereotypes have the ring of truth!  If you've enjoyed her previous books with your kids, read this one with the man or woman in your life and enjoy a good laugh!


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

ABC for Me: ABC Baby Signs, by Christiane Engel

When we had our first child, my wife started him on baby sign language.  I will never forget the day I came home from work and he signed "Daddy" when I walked in the door!  Our experience with signing really paid off when our third child came along and turned out to be non-verbal.  She is 15 today and we still use a lot of sign language with her.

Whether your baby is hearing or deaf, verbal or non-verbal, sign language is a wonderful early language tool.  Christiane Engel's ABC Baby Signs introduces useful, everyday signs to use with your baby or toddler.  The vocabulary is limited, in that it is an ABC book.  She teaches 26 common signs, arranged A to Z, plus a few more at the end.  It's a cute presentation, though.  Each page has a little rhyming verse for the sign, a picture to put the sign in context, and a more traditional drawing of a demonstration of the sign.

If you and your baby master these signs, not only with your communication improve, but you will be spurred to learn even more useful signs.  This will be a useful, colorful, and entertaining addition to your child's library.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

The List, by Robert Whitlow

Attorney Robert Whitlow's debut novel The List is sure to draw comparisons to John Grisham.  Whitlow's protagonist, Renny Jacobson, is a young attorney busy billing hours in an unsatisfying law career.  When his wealthy but stingy father dies, he dreams of living an independently wealthy life off his inheritance.  The inheritance turns out to be less than, and much more than, Renny bargained for.

In the mid-19th century, a group of aristocratic southerners, including Renny's ancestor, figured a way to hide assets away and protect their families' wealth in the face of the coming war.  Now, generations later, Renny learns he will take his father's place on The List.  Upon his introduction to the group, he quickly learns that The List isn't only about family wealth, but that it is surrounded by power and mystery.

Whitlow tells an suspenseful story, but more than the story of The List this is a story of Renny's pilgrimage as a Christian.  He is surrounded by Christians who pray for him and who teach him to pray.  Whitlow portrays the power of spiritual warfare as Renny has dreams that guide him and as he learns the power of trusting God--and the consequences of not doing so.  Renny's experiences with spiritual warfare are outside of my experience, and, I suspect most Christians would say the same.  But what Whitlow describes is certainly believable, based on stories I have read and heard from other Christians.

Whitlow writes believable, likable characters, if a little unoriginal, but the story is fun.  I enjoyed Renny's experience of moving toward belief, and the budding romance with another descendant of The List group.  He gives a good reminder that prayer matters and that God listens.

Fooled by Randomness, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a former trader turned philosopher (a too-limited description. . . .), came to wide renown with his book The Black Swan, the second book in his Incerto series.  Fortune magazine called his first book, Fooled By Randomness: The Hidden Rule of Chance in Life and in the Markets, one of the 75 "smartest books of all time."  It's full of thought-provoking and provocative reflections on the market.  It certainly challenges conventional thinking about the market.

While Taleb doesn't completely disregard the skills required for profitable investing, he does argue that much of what we call success in the market is attributable to luck.  All of our back-testing, portfolio analyzing, and fund manager evaluation is full of biases and mistaken methodologies that give us skewed results.  Often, people we think are successful in the market are "acute successful randomness fools" who have benefited from randomness.

Even as an investor, Taleb doesn't read the Wall Street Journal.  He prefers poetry.  He does keep the financial TV channels on, but with the sound down.  He says the commentators look so ridiculous when he can't hear them that it reminds him they have nothing productive to say.  Taleb draws from a large array of philosophical and mathematical sources.  He speaks of his aversion to outlines when writings, as well as limitations on the length of pieces he writes.  This leads to a somewhat rambling narrative that could have been cleaned up and organized.  But too much editing would deter from the beauty and pleasure of reading Fooled By Randomness. 

If you're looking for a guidebook for investing, keep looking.  If you're looking for a confirmation to your suspicion that success in the markets requires a great deal of luck, you may have found it here.  Whatever the case, Fooled By Randomness is guaranteed to give you a lot to think about.

Three More Jack Reacher Novellas, by Lee Child

If you're a fan of Lee Child's character Jack Reacher, you won't want to miss the stories in Three More Jack Reacher Novellas, a 2017 audiobook release.  If you don't know Jack Reacher, this collection would serve as a nice introduction.  Two of the main 3 novellas, "Too Much Time" and "Not a Drill" portray Reacher as we usually see him, as a drifter with nowhere to go and plenty of time to get there.  He frequently manages to get into the middle of something big when he's just minding his own business.  The third longer story, "Small Wars," features Reacher in M.P. mode.  I like the fact that his brother plays a significant role in this story.  He's mentioned in many of the Reacher books, but he's not a character in many.

The rest of the stories, shorter pieces, have similar themes, of course, but some range outside of the typical Reacher story.  A couple are told from another person's perspective; it's interesting to see Reacher as a secondary character.  I especially enjoyed two Christmas-themed stories, which show Reacher's softer, selfless side.  I enjoyed all these stories, even the ones that broke from the Lee Child mold.

(It should be noted that this audio collection, released at the same time as Child's book No Middle Name: The Complete Collected Jack Reacher Short Stories, contains the same stories as No Middle Name, minus three that appear on Three Jack Reacher Novellas, a 2014 audio release.)

Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites, by Tucker Carlson

I have recently become a fan of Tucker Carlson.  His interviews on Fox News are contentious and often hilarious.  Carlson was a print journalist, but got into TV as co-host of CNN's "The Spin Room" in 2000, then on "Crossfire."  During his tenure at CNN, he wrote Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News, which is as funny and insightful as Carlson himself.

Carlson's politics are on the right, and his positions on TV has consistently been so.  If you've ever seen him do an interview, that much is clear.  But Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites does not spend much time on issues.  His concern is experiences and personalities.  The business itself is weird.  He says "I became a talk show host in about twelve hours."  Of course, as he learned, it takes much, much less than that to stop being a talk show host!

Weirder than the business itself is the people.  With politicians, he learned that sanity is often only skin deep.  With TV networks, he learned that ratings are the only barometer of a show's success.  With show guests, he learned that there are plenty of people willing to drop everything to be a guest on a TV interview show, but that the quality of the guests is sometimes in inverse proportion to their availability.

Whatever your political inclinations, you will enjoy Carlson's insights and insider stories.  He's had a front row seat and a backstage pass to political events and personalities of the last couple of decades.  As much as I continue to enjoy his segments on Fox News, I hope he has another book or two up his sleeve.

Maria and Me, by Miguel Gallardo

Maria is on vacation with her dad.  Unlike most kids who come away from vacation with a photo album, Maria, whose father Miguel Gallardo is an artist, gets a graphic novel!  Maria and Me: A Father, a Daughter (and Autism) not only tells the story of Maria's vacation in the Canary Islands with her father, but it also tells the story of children living with autism.

Like many individuals with autism, Maria loves her routines.  She recites the names of people she knows.  Her dad draws pictograms to help her with daily tasks.  She enjoys focused, repetitive activities, especially pouring sand through her fingers.  Sometimes she self-stims.

An ongoing issue is the reactions of strangers to Maria and her behaviors.  Sometimes people just stare, sometimes they are downright rude.  Gallardo handles it with grace, but he notices.

Parents of children with autism will relate to many of the Gallardos's experiences in Maria and Me.  Maria's behaviors and tendencies will be familiar to many families.  Hopefully Gallardo's audience will extend beyond those already familiar with autism.  Maria and Me can be very educational for those unfamiliar with the disorder, giving them a personalized context which will help them recognize autism in other children so that they can respond with understanding and compassion, but, more importantly, with friendship and acceptance.


Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

I like Gallardo's simple but insightful description of autism: