I wonder if you have been hearing about Nelson Mandela over the weekend.  He was an amazing man who changed the world and made it a better place for all people.  Reading his biography by Kadir Nelson will help you understand what a courageous man he was.

 

Leslie, Robert Frost’s oldest daughter remembers what it was like for her father when everyone thought he was wasting his time with words in Papa is a Poet by Natalie S. Bober.  The book opens with the Frost family’s return to the United States from England.  One of the first things they discover is a review of a book of  Frost’s poems, North of Boston. The Frosts hadn’t even known it had been published so while her father dashes off to see his publisher Leslie waits and dreams about the life they hope to return to on their farm in Derry, N.H.  I think their Sunday picnics by Hyla Brook sound wonderful.  The Frosts were a family that did a lot of learning and creating together and Leslie notices how the bits and pieces of every day life creep into her father’s poems.  Phrases from some of Robert Frost’s most famous poems can be found throughout the  biography.  The entire poems  these excerpts are from are printed at the end.

“Papa thought that any book worth reading twice was worth owning.  So instead of buying desserts, we bought books.  Papa told us to reread stories we remembered with pleasure.  He wanted us to enjoy books so much that we would be lonely without them.  And he told us to memorize poems in order to know them by heart.”

The Road Not Taken, The Pasture and Dust of Snow are three of the poems I carry in my heart.  I wonder which Frost poems you will choose to know.

After a war is over, after the fighting has stopped there is still a lot of hardship for the people left behind trying to rebuild their lives.  Christmas from Heaven tells the story of how one man decided to bring a little bit of happiness to the children in  Berlin after WWII was over.  There was little food in Germany and pilots from the United States and other allied nations were flying supplies in.  The children stood and watched at the edge of the air field and Lt. Gail Halvorsen went over to talk to them.  While he answered their questions, “Hal” noticed how serious and quiet they all were.  He wished he had something to share with them, but all he had in his pocket were two sticks of gum.  Though it was very small it passed them through the fence and watched as the children passed the gum from person to person enjoying the smell grateful for even the smallest joy.  That moment inspired Hal.  He knew that each of the soldiers had gum and chocolate in their rations and he hoped he could convince them to share. He told  the children what he would try to do and told them they would know his plane because he would wiggle his wings as he approached.  The next day he gathered the treats, attached them to handkerchief parachutes and showered the treasures into the waiting arms of the children below.  This one small act of kindness was noticed and, rather than get into trouble for doing something that had been unauthorized, an operation was begun – Operation Little Vittles.  The pilot became known as The Candy Bomber and his story, told both in this picture book and in a more detailed biography called The Candy Bomber, is an amazing one.  “From little things come big things.”  No act of kindness is too small.

I hope you’ll read these biographies and check out some of the others on that shelf.  People do amazing things.  I wonder if someday some of your stories will be told there as well.