Soul Catcher (2007) by MIchael White

This is an historic novel set in the US in the 1850's. It is about a slave catcher who is dispatched to catch and return a couple of runaway slaves.  The book is mostly from the slave catcher's point of view.  He is a complex character.  He is not good, nor is he bad, and somewhere in the middle I ended up rooting for him.  It is a story of redemption and good nearly but not quite triumphing in an evil system.

cross country meet at Cerritos 2018-10-21

Today James was in a cross country prelim at 19800 Bloomfield, Cerritos, CA. He ran three quarter (3/4) mile in the 3rd and 4th graders. There were 131 runners.  He came in 32nd.  Time was 5:45. He talked with his colleague during the race and then sprinted at the end and passed a bunch of runners.

The Optimistic Decade (2018) by Heather Abel

This is a novel set in the high desert in Colorado in the 1980's.  There is a summer camp run by a hippie type which caters to upper middle class white/ Jewish kids which is run as a protest of sorts to  consumerism and miltarism. It's provocative and a decent read.

Halloween Fun Run today 10/14/2018

This was the first cross-country meet of the year.  James, who is in third grade, ran with the 3rd and 4th grade boys today.  There were 17 in the race.  James came in 4th with a time of 5:41. This beat his time from last year by 8 seconds.

Go Set a Watchman (To Kill a Mockingbird #2) by Harper Lee (2015)

This is a sequelt to To Kill a Mockingbird written 50+ years after the original.  It picks up with Scout in her mid twenties, during the 1950's, living in New York. She comes back to visit and finds Maycomb Alabama different.  Blacks are assertive and whites, including her father, are defensive.

This is not nearly as good as the original, but there is something to it.  It reflects a regression both from the 1930's to 1950's (not sure it's really) and also from when written from 1960's to 2015 (which I think is real). 

REad it, but only if you read the original first.