Friday Books: Please Rise!

We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride -- This is a great book! There are several characters whose stories overlap a lot or a little. Mostly it is about an 8 year-old boy, the son of Albanian immigrants. His eye-witness account of his life is poignant: sweet and very perceptive. He and his family have suffered some crises and escaped from political persecution. Their lives are not easy.

We follow the events happening to this family along with parallel stories of two different soldiers who returned from Iraq with physical and/or mental-emotional injuries.

The book is asking us to think about atrocities and how people react to and/or recover from the trauma. Can life still be seen as beautiful and worth living?

While it's a sad book, I completely loved it and loved how the story wrestles with the question of bad vs good and trauma vs the beauty of life. A 5-star book, engaging and easy to read even though it grapples with a Big Question.

Reminds me of a Little Free Library.. except big. So cool!