Welcome back to Clark's Reading Corner: Where you sit in the corner and read.

Wonder by R. J. Palacio
A while ago, I got on an anti-young adult fiction kick. I got tired of adults spending all their time reading books about teenagers saving the world from bizarre societal collapses in the near future. I say this to underscore my praise of Wonder. You should read this book. It's about 5th graders - one in particular who has an indescribably messed up face - and navigating a real world that it, at times, nasty, brutish and short. Wonder became very well known a few years ago when it first came out, and I read it back then, but this fall we used it for a 'Blockburger Book Club' book (first ever).

Even though Julia is only in 3rd grade this year, we have unfortunately already begun to see that people aren't always nice at school, so we decided to read the book in sections and discuss it around the dinner table (much to Ella's displeasure). The book is an excellent reminder that the world is not divided up between good people and bad people. Instead, people are mostly just trying to survive through their own lives, and many of the offenses that we experience are because other people are more concerned about other things happening to them, or are simply unaware of how their actions are effecting others. That's not, however, an excuse for doing terrible things to others out of ignorance or apathy, instead it's a call to be more empathetic, and more open with others. The book is a beautifully written reminder that the world is a better place when we learn to look beyond ourselves. And hopefully between the book and her parent's not-too-subtle discussion, Julia will help make 3rd grade a little bit more bearable for someone this year.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost
This is a memoir-style book of what it's like for an American to move to a tiny tropical island in Kiribati. Hint: Tiny tropical islands do not look like Caribbean resorts. It's humorous and enlightening and not about cannibals or their sex lives. My longer review was recently featured on the bookburgerblog. (It's almost like being married to the owner of the blog gives me some kind of exclusive access.)

Lost in Shangi-La by Mitchell Zuckoff
During WWII, the US Air Force discovered* a remote mountain valley in New Guinea (now Indonesia) populated with many villages of natives who had never had contact with Western Civilization. So, being westerners, they started taking whatever opportunities they had to fly over and look at the "savages" that lived down there in complete isolation. Eventually, one of these flights crash landed, killing most of those on board but leaving 3 survivors. The book is fairly interesting, detailing the background of the major characters, the flight, the crash, the survival and eventual rescue. I found it very interesting that finding the survivors turned out to be much easier than rescuing them - there were no roads to this remove valley, nowhere to land a plane, and it was too high for helicopters to get there. It's got a similar sort of feel to Unbroken by Hillenbrand, but Unbroken is better.

*They weren't really the first westerners to find the valley, but we close, and the limited contact the other group had had was with a different part of the valley, so it doesn't really matter, and they didn't know about it at the time anyway.

Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson
The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson
These are Mistborn #5 ands #6 respectively. Mistborn is a great trilogy. Fantastic. And then Sanderson wrote Alloy of Law, which is in the same world, but hundreds of years later, and has graduated from middle ages technology, to the old west. Book 4 didn't capture the same quality as the original trilogy - in stead of feeling like an epic quest, it was more of a cheesy western, right down to the terrible title (is it a pun?). I waited to read #5 until #6 came out to complete this second Mistborn trilogy. Well, I have good new and bad news. Bad news first: it's not a trilogy, there's a 4th book to this set which is sadly not written yet. I don't like being patient for new books to come out, so I wouldn't blame anyone for holding off on reading these until the next book is close to completion. On the upside, the story from #4 has grown to feel more important and expansive, and the world has literally expanded as some new characters from previously unexplored lands have arrived. There is, of course, a shadowy sinister plot which we're only gradually becoming aware of. It took me a distressingly long time to notice that the main characters are named Wax and Wayne. Wax (short for Waxillium, which some Utah county couples are undoubtedly considering for a name right now) is the heroic lawman, with his sidekick Wayne who is delightfully quirky, specializing in disguises and, well, stealing your stuff. (But he always leaves something in trade.)

So, you should read Mistborn, because it's excellent, and if you liked it, you should continue on with the series, and if you find #4 to be a little underwhelming as I did, feel confident that the series improves from there, not back to the level of the original three, but certainly worth reading.