Kaden: The Story of a Boy Who's a Little Brown

Yesterday Tanner came home from school very excited. They had talked about Martin Luther King, Jr. because of the upcoming holiday, and apparently Tanner owes him a debt of gratitude.

Tanner: "Mom, I really like Martin Luther King. "
Me: "Yep, he did a lot of good, didn't he?"
Tanner: "Yep. Because of him Kaden can drink clean water and sit anywhere he wants on the bus. He even gets to go to school."
Me: "Um....yeah... He did do a lot to help people of all colors."
Tanner: "Uh-huh. Because Kaden is a little brown. And because of Martin Luther King, he gets all the rights of a normal person."


Kaden is 1/4 Tongan. I guess that makes him "a little brown." :)

The results are in....

It's time to move the 2009 reading list. It's been in the sidebar, and with a new year upon us, it's got to go. I can't bring myself to just delete it, so it's getting it's own post. Last year I made my first real new year's resolution. It was to read 24 books over the 12 months. Here's the final list:

2009 Reads

• Christmas Jars - Jason Wright
• Eclipse - Stephenie Meyer
• New Moon - Stephenie Meyer
• Twilight - Stephenie Meyer
• These Three Remain - Pamela Aidan
• Duty and Desire - Pamela Aidan
• An Assembly Such As This - Pamela Aidan
• The Book of Mormon
• The Actor and the Housewife - Shannon Hale
• Common Sense - Thomas Paine
• Glenn Beck's Common Sense - Glenn Beck
• For One More Day - Mitch Albom
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer
• Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom
• Austenland - Shannon Hale
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
• The Girl Who Could Fly - Victoria Forester
• The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
• The Second Time Around - Mary Higgins Clark
• Five Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me for Women - Richard Paul Evans
• Take Two Chocolates and Call Me in the Morning - Emily Watts
• The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
• The Wednesday Letters - Jason Wright
• Recovering Charles - Jason Wright
• The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch
• Nights in Rodanthe - Nicholas Sparks
• A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
• The Goose Girl - Shannon Hale
• Till We Have Faces - A Myth Retold - C.S. Lewis
  

I managed 29 books. My very favorite for the year was The Book Thief. Everyone should read that book. It gives a very real perspective of WWII Germany and is an amazing lesson in humanity. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn round out the top 3 for me for the year. It was definitely a fun year of reading and I'm looking forward to more, although at a slightly slower pace :)