Sarah Smith in Book Club

4 years ago

Loved your video Sarah, I have to admit I haven’t managed to read the allotted number of pages this week due to work, family commitments and workmen in the house, sorry. But what I have read I have enjoyed, what resonated with me was how Daniel must have felt moving away from the life he knew to first a camp then to Oklahoma where he was so different to the other children. I grew up in a city and went to a primary school in a deprived area, they was a mix of different children in the school , from lots of different backgrounds. When I moved up to secondary school there was a bigger melting pot of people from different races & religions. I had a friend who had moved from India and started secondary school part way through the year, she had to make new friends , learn a new language and fit in to a new country. She embraced it and one memory I have is attending her sister’s Hindu wedding. When I was 12 my parents moved to a small village & I had to move school, it was a small village secondary school which to students came from surrounding villages, it couldn’t be more different from my previous schools with predominantly white middle class students. I can’t image how it would feel if my Indian friend had joined that school, it would probably be how Daniel found his new school, I don’t think it would have been so easy to be accepted there. If we only grow up and surround ourselves with people who are like us it is hard to accept people who are different. As our dog trainer told us make sure your puppy meets lots of different breeds of dog, people of different ages & colour so they have a balanced view of society, the same applies to us in our relationships. That’s my thoughts for this week. Steph

Ha!!! Me waffling!!! Love this book!!! Oh and the other two points sarah drew out about what’s normal to us isn’t everyone else’s normal…I think reading is a super way of beginning to hear other peoples stories, I loved when the smiths came to stay with us and even the differences we noticed between our cultural experiences were fascinating…and that’s two quite similar cultures!! At the mercy of…that point was a good one, not one I’d necessarily have drawn out! I guess it made me think is that I’m often at the mercy of my own story, of the things I tell myself…it’s easy to become a victim to our own thoughts and understandings…how we frame what we experience and the truth we glean from it totally shapes us…obviously we can’t lie to ourselves or pretend things didn’t happen but we don’t have to be at the mercy of our own minds…see page 73…”we are always choosing situations that hurt us….”

Great thoughts! Thanks for sharing. I’ve been thinking about the theme of love in reading this week. How it can look all kinds of ways. Happy reading!