"Running Record" Thursday

Books # 22, 23 & 25 all by Laura Ingalls Wilder Little Town On the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years & The First Four Years

Yes, that means that I finally finished this series, after attempting it several different times during my life up to this point & always giving up somewhere in the middle of Farmer Boy~I finally did it! :) I enjoyed these books & reading about Laura's life & felt that they got a little bit more interesting with each book as she became a little bit older. I was also pleased to see the reappearance of Nellie Olsen because I was beginning to wonder if their paths had only crossed for one short time in their lives, but yet they plucked her character from that experience to turn her into the Laura's 'nemesis' for the TV show. It was good to know that in "real life" Laura knew her fairly well even if they didn't get along all that well.

Book # 24 The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers by Harry Bernstein

I found this book to be an intriguing read. On one side of the street lived Christians & on the other side of the street were Jews. Neither side ever really mixed with the other that the author could recall, except for several times when news was received of a death or in times of rejoicing during WWI. Once, when it was found out that one of the Jewish girls was seeing one of the Christian boys-her family sent her to Australia to live with relatives so that she could avoid the "death" that would occur if it had continued. As the author remembers, this is the attitude that was held on this street, in Europe, in those days surrounding World War I. His book is the story of his sister & her Christian boyfriend who later became her husband & how his family, the neighborhood & he himself as a young boy reacted to their relationship AND how it ended up helping to bring them all together again too, if only for a little while.
I thought this book was great & enjoyed the fact that the author was in his 90's when this book finally got published & saw some success. He did a wonderful job of telling his family's story & I hope to be able to read his follow-up book sometime soon. This book does make me think though that it is silly the "things" we use to keep each other apart & divided~aren't we all HUMAN beings after all. Why don't we start treating each other that way then?