Thursday, January 11, 2007

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

I confess: I saw the movie before I read the book. Howl’s Moving Castle was made into a beautiful, fascinating film by Japanese anime director Hayao Miyazaki. After seeing the movie, I went to track down the book it is based on. The book (of course!) is even better than the movie.

Both the book and the movie follow the story of Sophie Hatter, who accidentally offends the evil Witch of the Waste. The witch turns Sophie into a 90-year-old woman and Sophie wanders off into the wilds to break the spell. She soon stumbles upon a magical moving castle that belongs to the mysterious Wizard Howl.

Sophie soon finds herself in an adventure involving a missing prince, a turnip-headed scarecrow, finding husbands for her younger sisters, two fire demons, a lost sorcerer, an enchanted dog, a king’s command, falling stars, mermaids, a very messy house, finding true love, and missing poetry homework.

Howl’s Moving Castle was one of the most enchanting books I’ve read in some time, and I highly recommend it to any fan of fairytales, stories about wizards, magic, or any fan of quirky British storytelling.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Tempting Faith by David Kuo

I usually read children’s fiction and avoid political non-fiction like the plague. But this book caught my eye and I’m glad I read it. It is different than the other exposes out there. It appeals to (as in, it makes an appeal to) all Americans, regardless of religion or political affiliation.

Tempting Faith is by turns a political expose and a very moving memoir of one man’s life. David Kuo worked in Bush’s office of Faith-Based Initiatives, campaigning for aid to small charities. Kuo began by believing he could use politics to bring money to under-funded charities across America. In the end, however, his department accomplished little and he left the White House disillusioned by politics.

The power of Kuo’s book comes not from his insider views on corrupt politics (though there is plenty of that), but rather from the lack of bitterness or anger in his writing. Though full of irony, his story has none of the barbs that so many political books do. Kuo writes as a man completely free from all concern for his reputation or career because, well, he is. He gave up on politics when he discovered he has a brain tumor and could die at any time. As Kuo himself writes, his health showed him what was important in life. Instead of trying to use politics to support charitable causes, he got involved with charities himself.

I think the most powerful part of the book is when Kuo writes about how, post 9/11, all the White House staffers got together, discussing how to get prayer meetings and candlelight vigils organized. Then they looked up and discovered the obvious: Americans had done all those things on their own. They hadn’t needed an initiative or an executive order to care about their fellow countrymen – they just did.