Summer Reading - Three books I recommend

Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes (Eric Litwin – Author; James Dean – Illustrator)

I came across this book while reading it with my youngest niece, who was 4-yrs-old at the time.  While she didn’t yet know how to read, she had been trained to pick up visual cues (music notes), which signaled that it was her turn (as Pete the Cat) to belt out variations of this refrain: “I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes.”       

 

Not to give too much of the story away, it begins with Pete the Cat starting out his day wearing brand new, white shoes.  As he wanders about the neighborhood, he steps into various piles of mess – strawberries, blueberries, etc – which would change his white shoes to red then blue and so on.  However, rather than get mad or sad by the changes, Pete the Cat would respond by bursting into songs. Regardless of what color his “new” shoes turn into, he loves it!  

 

I found both the story and the experience of sharing it with my niece endearing.  First, it gave us an opportunity to actively participate and collaborate in reading a story: I read the text; she sang the refrain.  In so doing, we both helped bring the story to life while having fun.  Second, while Pete the Cat may seem like a simple children story, it carries an important life message.  Regardless of what we encounter in our day (or journey), like Pete the Cat, we should finds reason to rejoice rather than lament.  Third, like any great book, Pete the Cat meets its readers at their level be it child or adult.  For my niece, it was probably a fun, interactive bed time story.  For me, Pete the Cat was a simple, but powerful, reminder that change is a part of life and helps add color to it.  So, best to respond with SONGS!                  

 

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (Anne Fadiman) 

Classified as narrative non-fiction, this book details the medical travails of Lia Lee, a Hmong baby girl born to refugee parents, who spoke no English.  From infancy, Lia suffered from epilepsy.  Her health quickly devolves as her Hmong parents and American doctors, divided by language and culture, sought and fought (each other) to care for her.  Unfortunately, due to a series of escalating events fueled by cultural misunderstanding and mishaps, Lia went from plump, willful baby to brain-damaged toddler (age 4) who would live out the remainder 26 years of her life in a vegetative state.   

 

How did this happen!?!?!?  

 

Fadiman sought to answer this very question.  Meeting Lia a year after the “grand seizure” that permanently damaged her brain, Fadiman adopted a research and writing process akin to the scientific method.  She read and reference countless medical reports from the various hospitals, doctors and nurses who cared for Lia; scientific journals on epilepsy; historical non-fiction for context, especially the Hmong’s experience before, during and after the Vietnam War.  She conducted numerous in-person interviews with Lia’s family, doctors and social workers. For a time, she even visited Lia’s family regularly and lived in the Hmong community.  Additionally, she followed up with key players over the years to clarify her understanding of people and events as well as get updates on them.  Fadiman met Lia and her family in 1988 and didn’t publish her book until 1997 after exhaustive research and legwork.  It felt as if Fadiman wanted to get the retelling right when the reality had gone so wrong.     

 

When reading this book, one can’t help but feel that Lia serves as a metaphor for her people.  Impacted by extenuating circumstances (foremost being the Vietnam War), the Hmong were recruited by the CIA as foot soldiers to fight America’s proxy war against Communism in Southeast Asia.  When America failed in its effort to contain Communism, the Hmong became a target for the North Vietnamese Communists.  Such events turned the Hmong from independent, mountain people to displaced refugees in America living on government aid.   

 

But that is only half the story.  Like her people, Lia defied medical convention and social assumption.  While most patients in vegetative states typically die within 2-5 years, Lia lived on for another 26 years at home with her family and under their love and care.  Rather than being a burden and shunted, Lia became an integral part of her family and their motivation for carrying on.             

 

Fadiman’s thorough and fair-minded recounting of events didn’t just help answer the question “Why” that follows every great tragedy, but also “To what end.”  Lia’s story helped usher in important changes on the local and national level.  For example, now, it’s not uncommon for hospitals serving large immigrant communities to employ translators to care for patients.  Also, many medical schools (foremost being Yale) make Fadiman’s book mandatory reading for first year students.  Perhaps, it’s to remind them that factoring in differing cultural perspective is an important part of patient care.                

 

The Simple Path to Wealth (JL Collins) 

Looking to improve your personal finances, but don’t know where to start?  Consider The Simple Path to Wealth. Unlike most finance books, this one is easy to read, understand and implement.  (Translation: No financial jargons!) 

 

This book is a by-product of a series of letters that Collins, who loves all things investing, wrote to his young adult daughter, who could care less about investing and simply wants to get on with her life.  With that in mind, the author tries to distill decades of studying and investing his hard-earned money into a small book with key lessons he’d learned through decades of trial and error.  The book’s Table of Content provides good preview for what is to come:            

·       Debt: why you must avoid it and what to do if you have it 

·       The importance of having f-you money 

·       How to think about money, and the unique way understanding this is key to building your wealth 

·       Where traditional investing advice goes wrong and what actually works 

·       What the stock market really is and how it really works 

·       Etc… 

The value of Collins’ book lies in the simplicity with which he conveys the financial essentials. (He did boil the financial ocean.)  Individually, each chapter stands on its own merit.  Collectively, they are series of breadcrumbs left by a wise, experienced investor trying to help guide others to the promise land: financial independence.  

 

Collins does the seemingly impossible by showing readers that the formula for financial success is simple.  However, one shouldn’t confuse simplicity for easy, because the (emotional) discipline required to be successful is hard…One can light the way, but we all must walk our own path.