Kirk Cameron is in the news again as his book, Still Growing, gains in popularity. See photos and a video of Kirk on “The View” here.

Kirk Cameron - Then

Kirk Cameron - Now

Kirk Cameron explains that he undertook “Still Growing” because,with all the 80’s nostalgia, it was a good time to tell his story. The book chronicles his journey from “Growing Pains” to his current work as a strong Christian.

Controversy isn’t something he avoided either. There are “Growing Pains” fan who believe that his refusal to cooperate with the producers’ wishes to make Mike Seaver’s (of the “Growing Pains” sitcom) life more exciting by having some sexual adventures and other “edgier” struggles, led to the downfall of the show. Cameron, who was a Christian the last few seasons of the show, took a stand against storylines that conflicted with his beliefs. While he recognizes that he was “overly fervent” then, he doesn’t believe that he was misguided.

And, of course, if he had not wanted to do the scenes because of conflict with any religion other than Christianity, he would likely have been lauded for being so principled.

According to an unnamed “famous screenwriter” he quotes in the book, he “sure picked the one unacceptable religion” for an actor.

Kirk explains it this way:

“I was trying to not break the level of trust we’d developed with families,” he said. . . .

“It would have been far easier to go with the flow,” he writes. “I would have made a lot more money . . . if I had played the game. It’s not easy to stand up for what you believe. I learned that from a very young age.”

And, in the end, each person’s self-respect and self-honesty is what counts.

“If you don’t have personal convictions you will be swept up by the tidal wave of culture, which doesn’t care about you in the end.”

Kirk Cameron on “The View”

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Bliss Broyard wrote “One Drop” after her ailing father called her and her brother in to see him before he died. In that conversation she learned that her father had been “passing” as white. Bliss has a blog, and she also has a website where you can find more information.

After growing up for the first twenty-three years of my life as a Wasp in Connecticut, I learned on my father’s deathbed that he had been raised as “colored” in New Orleans and Bed-Stuy Brookyn. This revelation answered some questions, such as why we never saw his family - and raised some new ones such as why did my father chose to live as white and what does all this mean to me.

I’m sure I’ll be ordering the book soon. It sounds fascinating.

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Here is the list of books I’ve read this week at the beach:

Bones to Ashes by Kathy Reichs - great story - held my attention to the end
Sundays at Tiffany’s by James Patterson - just plain weird and rather pedophilia-like - it left me feeling uneasy
Dear John by Nicholas Sparks - a very good read.
The Shack by William P. Young - another weird story. After a few chapters, I skipped to the end to see if the daughter lived or died - and that was that. Strange - and stupid - storyline.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy - a doomsday book that was fascinating. There was no explanation for how or why everything was burning with only a few survivors in the world, but it held my attention to the end.
3rd Degree by James Patterson - a very good story that I enjoyed. It was my last-day-at-the-beach book, and I read most of it while seated in a lounge chair on the beach - just a few feet from the gentle surf.
My daughter-in-law brought a People magazine - the one with Heather Locklear on the cover - and I read it cover-to-cover one evening.
I had the July 2008 issue of Reader’s Digest - and I read most of it, too.

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Last night RT and I watched “Delores Claiborne” on TV. It’s a Stephen King novel turned into a movie. It was good. It took awhile to get into it, but it ended up being riveting.

While Delores Claiborne was good, the BEST Stephen King book of all time is The Stand.

Gary Sinese was the main character in the The Stand movie. Well, it’s not technically a movie. It’s a four-part miniseries which just happens to be on the Science Fiction channel this weekend. Molly Ringwald was also one of the main characters.

Absolutely fascinating movie! However, as is often the case, the book was much better than the movie. Basically, in a top secret military laboratory, the virulent super flu bug gets lose. They try to contain it, but it spreads - and the Gary Sinese character is one of only a small percentage of people who is immune to the bug. So, after like 99 per cent of the people in the world are dead, it is up to the folks who are left to have the classic “good versus evil” battle.

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I’ve got my reading planned for next week. I’m ordering a copy of John McCain’s book, “Faith of My Fathers.” I’ll let you know what I think of it.

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I’ve been searching for the book of love letters that Carrie read to Mr. Big in Sex and the City: The Movie. I found this one, and I ordered a copy:

However, I found other love letter collections, as well. The book on Sex and the City: The Movie was titled Love Letters of Great Men.” I couldn’t find a book with that title. However, I did find this one:

Maybe that will have all the same love letters.

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I’m excited. The movie “The City of Ember” will be out in October, and the studio released a trailer from the movie today. The City of Ember is a children’s book, and I read it for the first time just a couple months ago. I started reading it and didn’t put it down until I was finished. It was fascinating.

Click this link to go to The City of Ember website where you can read about it and see the trailer.

the City of Ember is about a city that was built deep underground. The book never tells us why the city was built underground and why there would be no way to leave it for over two hundred years. However those hundreds of years have passed, and Ember’s powerful generator is old and it is getting close to being beyond repair. Now, two young people are in a race against time, and they search the city of Ember for clues that will solve the mystery of Ember’s existence and allow them to leave ember - before the lights go out forever.

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Today is Earth Day, and many folks are looking for books that they can share with their children to help them learn the importance of caring for our earth. Here are three great book selections for children on Earth Day:

The Wump World by Bill Peet
Ibis: A True Whale Story by John Himmelman
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

There are many other books, but these are three that I can personally recommend.

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From the first time I read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl many years ago, it has been one of my favorite books.  Viktor Frankl spent three horrifying years at Auschwitz and other Nazi prisons during World War II.  When he gained his freedom, he learned that almost his entire family had been killed.  Man’s Search for Meaning is his description of his experiences and his beliefs about the higher meaning in life.  A really amazing book with so much to make you think.

There is so much basic human truth in it - in addition to being such an incredible story of survival and triumph over the worst that mankind can throw at a person.  Here’s a rather long quote, but one that I feel is important:

“The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportuntiy - even under the most difficult circumstances - to add a deeper meaning to his life.  It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish.  Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal.  Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forego the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him.  And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.”

That just reminds me of John McCain and how he handled being a POW during the Viet Nam war.

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Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems in one of my favorite children’s books. It was a Caldecott winner a few years ago - and it very much deserved to win. Absolutely wonderful illustrations. The background of each page is an old black and white photograph. However, there are illustrations of Trixie, the little girl who loves her Knuffle Bunny, and Trixie’s family on the old photographs. Very clever. The story is also very heart-warming. It’s a story most children can easily connect with. Trixie and her dad goes to the laundromat (great lesson on that vocabulary word), and accidentally leave Trixie’s Knuffle Bunny there. I believe this is a book that every early reader should have in his/her personal library.

Willems has just published a follow-up book called Knuffle Bunny Too in which Trixie goes to school only to find that another child has a Knuffle Bunny, too.

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