Reading Matters 2017 Gift List

Our top picks for 2017

Jennifer Minicus | Dec 12 2017 | comment

written for all ages | highly recommended

With just enough shopping days left before Christmas, here is the annual Reading Matters list of favorite titles for 2017. Some are newly published; some are old favorites. Feel free to add suggestions in our comments section. Happy reading!

Picture Book

Building Site Zoo and Trickster Tales from Russia by Sophie Masson

Dad and the Dinosaur by Gennifer Choldenko

Ages 7-10

26 Fairmount Avenue Series by Tomie DePaola

Jenny and the Cat Club by Esther Averill

The Robber Hotzenplotz by Otfried Preussler

Ages 9-12

Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley

The Doldrums and the Helmsley Curse by Nicholas Gannon

The Lost Property Office by James R.Hannibal

Nooks and Crannies by Jessica Lawson

The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Traftan

Two Selkie Stories from Scotland by Kate Forsyth

Ages 11-14

The Glass Town Game by Catherynne M. Valente

Living with Good Manners by John Narbona

The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stewart

Yours Truly by Heather Vogel Frederick

Teens

King Solomon's Mines by Rider Haggard

When Hell Was In Session by US Senator Jeremiah A. Denton, Jr. boys, ages 15+

Lorna Doone by Richard D. Blackmore ages 16+

Books and Authors that celebrated anniversaries in 2017

50th Anniversary

The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

75th Anniversary

The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton

The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House on the Prairie Series was born 150 years ago

Persuasion by Jane Austen, published 200 years ago

For those looking ahead:

Emily Bronte, author of Wuthering Heights, “turns 200” in 2018.

December 13, 2017

The resignation of US Congressman Trent Franks last Friday after allegations by former female staff members that he propositioned them about surrogacy has shocked the pro-life movement, in which he is a notable figure. Whatever was wrong in his behaviour, it is also apparent that he is confused about the ethics of surrogate gestation.

Franks opposes surrogacy procedures that discard embryos, but as Marjorie Murphy Campbell's commentary shows, he does not see that surrogacy as such is an offence against the woman (albeit she agrees to do it), making her an object in the pursuit of one’s personal desire for a child – who, I would add, is also offended and objectified by being cut off from its natural mother.

Indeed, if we paid more attention to “the child” today, and our intuitions about what is best for a child, it would be much easier to get our ethics right. As Margaret Somerville writes today regarding two other public issues: “A common mistake is not recognizing that we need to take into account both our emotional responses and intuitions, and what reason tells us in deciding on ethics.”

But at a time when public media give a platform to the “save the earth, have fewer children” brigade, the child seems in danger of being completely relativised. See Marcus Robert’s piece.