7. Hanging by the Thread by Donald Anderson
I loved reading this book. Donald Anderson uses a compelling story line to teach pretty powerful lesson. The story begins with a man losing a document in the Utah state capital building. The man, frantic, tries to leave the country. He doesn't make it far.
A little after the document is lost, Colton finds it, not knowing what it is. He asks his friend, Jeff, to help him understand the meaning of it. They can't alone, so they contact a BYU economics professor. The professor helps them uncover a secret plot to take over America.
A little after the document is lost, Colton finds it, not knowing what it is. He asks his friend, Jeff, to help him understand the meaning of it. They can't alone, so they contact a BYU economics professor. The professor helps them uncover a secret plot to take over America.
They discover that a secret group, nicknamed The Thread, has been slowly infiltrating the American government, whose goal is to eliminate freedom. The first freedoms to go are economic. The freedom to hire who business owners want, excessive taxes, government take over of certain powerful companies. These have already been lost. The document names several other freedoms to take later. It also tells of impending crisis that are to take place over the next two days.
Once The Thread knows who has the document, they try desperately to get it back. One of their own members becomes members of the Colton and Jeff's band. Colton and Jeff contact Colton's uncle to help them. They, with the BYU professor, and two other friends try hiding. That doesn't work for long. The Thread have access to government technology at their disposal. They locate them, and trick them into a trap.
Well, Colton realizes that they are in a trap and he and his uncle help the group escape. While they are escaping explosions go off in Seattle, New York and Los Angeles. The last one is going off in Salt Lake City, where Colton and his uncle happen to be. By chance, they locate the bomb and take it away from the city. In the end Colton and his uncle are hired by the government to track down members of The Thread.
This summary is brief, as I wanted to talk about what the book is really about. In the book Donald Anderson has Dr. Isaacson, the BYU professor, talk extensively about economic freedom, and why it is important. The book is fairly thick, about 350 pages. The last half of the book, however, are devoted to lectures on the importance of economic freedom. I think that America today has lost a vast majority of our economic power. The government taxes very extensively, making prices higher. It regulates many industries, making it harder to produce lower cost goods. If a company is cheating, they catch them.
What is wrong with the government ensuring that food companies provide safe food, some may ask? Nothing is wrong with that part of government regulations. It is where they seem to regulate everything else, that is the problem.
The governments role should never be, and was not intended to be by our founding fathers, to take on the role of protector. If you don't agree with a company's procedures or products, don't buy them. If enough people boycott a certain company, it will not succeed. That didn't happen recently, when the government took over control of several automobile companies. Some say that it would have been disaster had those companies gone out of business.
It may have been, but if a company cannot make money it should not be in business. If I own a small business, and I don't make enough money, I should go out of business or try something new. If the government is there to help me out, I'm not likely to try very hard to please people. I won't try my hardest to provide the cheapest, best service in town.
I highly recommend this book. It a very easy read. I read it in about 3 hours. Really worth it because of the lessons learned within its pages.
20. October Sky by Homer Hickham
I bought this book in the spring at the DI, based solely off of what I'd seen the movie. The movie is great. I had like how a boy from West Virginia could success and accomplish his dreams. I bought it and it sat in my room for several months.
The first day in July I decided to start reading it because I was bored and didn't have anything else to read. The story is about a boy, Homer Hickham. He is named after his father, but everyone calls him Sunny. He is an adventursome youth, having all the typical trials and fun times that comes with being young.
When the Russians launched the first Sputnik into space Sunny was captivated by it. He thought it was the coolest thing in the world, making things fly into space. He began to dream about being a scientist at NASA, helping the US win the space war with Russia.
Because he had a dream, he began to take an interest in science. He and his friends formed a rocket launching club, eventually making rockets fly about 1 mile in the air. They began with a series of failures, as should be expected. But they find a substance that they named "rocket candy" that could be purchased cheaply.
But there was a problem: the boys lived in West Virginia, in coal country. The coal company owned all the homes, equipment in town and most of the land. There was no place for launching rockets. Sunny's father was the mine superintendent and he could have allowed them to launch their rockets. But he resisted at first, giving into later pressures. He allowed them to launch their rockets outside of town.
Launching rockets brought the boys trouble, though. One day the rocket they launched disappeared, and they were unable to find it. At the same time a forest fire started nearby, and the boys were blamed for it. Unable to prove their innocence, they were forced to stop launching rockets. This was a dark time for Sunny, as the girl he had a crush on started going out with Jim, his older brother. Jim was a star on the football team.
One day in the spring the science teacher asks Sunny how rocket launching was going. He admitted they hadn't done anything for a while. The teacher, Miss Riley, gave Sunny a book on trigonometry. She wanted him to start teaching it to himself, as he would need it to build rockets. When Sunny starts learning trig he realizes that the rocket could not possibly have started the forest fire. Excited, he goes to school the next day and proves that that the rocket boys, as he and his friends called themselves, and their rocket did not start the fire.
The book ends on a high note, with Sunny going to Indiana and winning a national science fair. He took display of rockets. On the day before the judging begins someone steals Sunny's rocket molds. He nearly faints when he finds out. He calls home, wanting to give up, but his friends and neighbors all come together in the effort to get him new molds. They arrive just in time, and Sunny wins the fair.
I like this book a lot. I think it shows us how determination to realize our goals, how to dream big. Sunny had every reason to give up building rockets, but he kept trying and trying until he succeeded. The book does have some more adult parts, parts that shouldn't be included in it at all. The movie does a good job in cutting those out. So be careful of how early a teenager reads this. There really only are a few parts, but otherwise a fantastic book.
The first day in July I decided to start reading it because I was bored and didn't have anything else to read. The story is about a boy, Homer Hickham. He is named after his father, but everyone calls him Sunny. He is an adventursome youth, having all the typical trials and fun times that comes with being young.
When the Russians launched the first Sputnik into space Sunny was captivated by it. He thought it was the coolest thing in the world, making things fly into space. He began to dream about being a scientist at NASA, helping the US win the space war with Russia.
Because he had a dream, he began to take an interest in science. He and his friends formed a rocket launching club, eventually making rockets fly about 1 mile in the air. They began with a series of failures, as should be expected. But they find a substance that they named "rocket candy" that could be purchased cheaply.
But there was a problem: the boys lived in West Virginia, in coal country. The coal company owned all the homes, equipment in town and most of the land. There was no place for launching rockets. Sunny's father was the mine superintendent and he could have allowed them to launch their rockets. But he resisted at first, giving into later pressures. He allowed them to launch their rockets outside of town.
Launching rockets brought the boys trouble, though. One day the rocket they launched disappeared, and they were unable to find it. At the same time a forest fire started nearby, and the boys were blamed for it. Unable to prove their innocence, they were forced to stop launching rockets. This was a dark time for Sunny, as the girl he had a crush on started going out with Jim, his older brother. Jim was a star on the football team.
One day in the spring the science teacher asks Sunny how rocket launching was going. He admitted they hadn't done anything for a while. The teacher, Miss Riley, gave Sunny a book on trigonometry. She wanted him to start teaching it to himself, as he would need it to build rockets. When Sunny starts learning trig he realizes that the rocket could not possibly have started the forest fire. Excited, he goes to school the next day and proves that that the rocket boys, as he and his friends called themselves, and their rocket did not start the fire.
The book ends on a high note, with Sunny going to Indiana and winning a national science fair. He took display of rockets. On the day before the judging begins someone steals Sunny's rocket molds. He nearly faints when he finds out. He calls home, wanting to give up, but his friends and neighbors all come together in the effort to get him new molds. They arrive just in time, and Sunny wins the fair.
I like this book a lot. I think it shows us how determination to realize our goals, how to dream big. Sunny had every reason to give up building rockets, but he kept trying and trying until he succeeded. The book does have some more adult parts, parts that shouldn't be included in it at all. The movie does a good job in cutting those out. So be careful of how early a teenager reads this. There really only are a few parts, but otherwise a fantastic book.
No comments:
Post a Comment