You’re going to the community pancake breakfast, you’re going to watch the patriotic parade, you’ll fire up the backyard barbecue or lounge on the beach and you’ll round out the evening by watching fireworks. Great ways to celebrate Independence Day with family and friends. But what’s this holiday really about, and why does it especially matter in this all-important election year?

Lest we forget or take for granted how we obtained the democracy we enjoy (or want to enhance) in the U.S., there are many books – fiction as well as non-fiction, written then or now – that can remind, inform, enlighten or inspire us. Some of the best include:

Non-Fiction (Written Then)
Common Sense – Thomas Paine
The Federalist Papers – Alexander Hamilton
Autobiography – Benjamin Franklin
Democracy in America – Alexis de Tocqueville

Non-Fiction (Modern)
1776 – David McCullough
Washington’s Crossing – David Hackett Fischer
John Adams – David McCullough
Alexander Hamilton – Ron Chernow
Founding Brothers – Joseph J. Ellis
Paul Revere’s Ride – David Hackett Fischer

Fiction
Burr – Gore Vidal
Rise to Rebellion – Jeff Shaara
Arundel – Kenneth Roberts

For Young Readers
Johnny Tremain – Esther Forbes
Sophia’s War – Avi
My Brother Sam Is Dead – James Lincoln Collier

It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was. – Anne Sexton

Each of us has a view of our father that is, in large part, myth. Even in our adulthood, we see him through our child-eyes. First a god, then all too human. He fills or fails the expectations we have of what we imagine a father should be.

We rarely consider who our father was before we existed but, were we to try, at best we would have only the smallest taste. If we become parents, we tend to re-imagine our fathers, either trying to emulate them or trying to correct their deficiencies by being better parents to our own children.

Literature abounds with great books by and about fathers. Through these books, we can better understand and appreciate the unique relationship between fathers and their children. Can you see your father in any of these memorable ones?

Non-Fiction:
Lt. Col Mark Weber – Tell My Sons
“Pa” Ingalls – Little House on the Prairie
Robert M. Pirsig – Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Errol Flynn – The Baron of Mulholland

Fiction:
Atticus Finch – To Kill a Mockingbird
Baba – The Kite Runner
Tevye – Tevye and His Daughters
The Man – The Road
Mr. Bennett – Pride and Prejudice
Bob Cratchit – A Christmas Carol
Horton – Horton Hatches the Egg
Jean Valjean – Les Misérables
Thomas Schell – Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Jack Torrance – The Shining

For all those fathers grappling with teenage children, share this gem from Mark Twain:
When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.

Note to Readers – Every now and then, I will re-post a blog entry that has withstood the test of time. Whether you missed it the first time ‘round or read it years ago, I feel it’s worth sharing again. I chose In and Out of War from May 2014 for this Memorial Day weekend because this election year will have major repercussions on our nation’s decisions concerning future warfare. As we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice, it is fitting to remember the legacy of war… and peace. Vote wisely.

I suppose if one lives long enough, one will experience war up close or from a distance. Our attitudes toward war, toward those who engage in it or are subject to its consequences, are influenced by the times and circumstances in which we live, by the people we know, by the experiences we have … and by the books we read.

Every war generates its own literature in its time and in later generations. The same war does not automatically generate the same story, or viewpoint, or reader response. The best war literature makes us contemplate the meaning of war to us, personally and as part of larger communities, nations and a diverse species sharing a singular planet.

Whether you choose to read a classic or contemporary book about war, consider following it with a book that approaches the same conflict from an opposing viewpoint. Stretch your vision of humanity. The point is not to change your opinion, although that is possible, but to give you a greater understanding of the human experience.

This blog post honors those who serve and sacrifice on behalf of the rest of us.

For all the children out there who think their moms aren’t up to snuff, let me suggest that your Mother’s Day reading includes books on my list of worst literary mothers (for the mothers out there who feel they aren’t appreciated enough by their children, make one of these books your Mother’s Day gift to them!). You might want to reconsider ….

Medea by Euripedes – Does it get any worse than killing your own sons as revenge against their father? Perhaps literature’s original bad mama, she set the bar high.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert – Emma Bovary’s romanticism doesn’t extend to motherhood. Her suicide, soon followed by her husband’s death, leaves her daughter alone, penniless and forced to work in a mill.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck — Cathy Ames (later known as Kate Albey) is this epic’s Satan, Jezebel, and Eve all rolled up into one. Running a brothel aside, she’s also responsible for the deaths of many people including her parents. Add to that, she slept with her brother-in-law, shot her husband and abandoned her twin sons (after failing to abort them with a knitting needle). Even after committing suicide, she further inflamed the Cain and Abel relationship between her sons by leaving all of her possessions to only one.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov – No matter how sorry we may feel for Charlotte Haze’s bovine, clueless existence, her desire for what she imagines is the fine life leads her to bring pedophile Humbert Humbert into her nubile adolescent daughter’s life. Disaster for all but, somehow, Nabokov elicits absurd humor in this tale.

Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth – There are overbearing mothers in every culture but Sophie Portnoy is every cliché of the overbearing Jewish mother, rolled into one. Her punishment is the son she has to mother.

Carrie by Stephen King – Here’s what happens when your mother is a fanatic, in this case a religious fanatic. Margaret White’s warped view that it is sinful to be a woman dooms her daughter and nearly an entire town before bringing on her own awful demise (for which we find ourselves cheering).

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews — Creepy Corinne Dollanganger leaves her kids with her own terrible and abusive mother, then feeds them arsenic so she can keep her inheritance. The epitome of the creepy mom.

Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin – Once you’ve procreated with your twin brother, it’s doesn’t matter how much you say you love your kids when the one you most support turns out to be psychopathic, animal-torturing monster.

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver presents the only mother on my list created by a female author (yes, Lionel is a woman). Kevin had as little chance in life as his victims. Before he became a teenage mass murderer, he endured Eva Khatchadourian, one of the most depraved mothers in literature. Nature? Nurture? Chilling!

The Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn – The epitome of self-denial and self-indulgence, Eleanor Melrose is victimized before becoming the victimizer of her son through omission and commission.

For younger readers and the child in all of us:

Coraline by Neil Gaiman –This is a great way to instill an appreciation of mothers by their children. “Think another mother will be better than me? Let me read you the story of Coraline!” Buttons for eyes! Buttons for eyes! A dark novella with a lesson for all of us who thought at some point in childhood that our parents were less than perfect.

Stranger than fiction:

Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford – Can this list not contain a memoir about having Joan Crawford for a mother? All the more horrific because this is non-fiction. But it is a warning to parents that your children will probably have the last word on your parenting.

April 22nd is Earth Day. Like sinning six days a week and praying on the seventh for forgiveness while promising to do better (or try to do better), we set aside Earth Day to acknowledge the wonder of the beautiful planet that sustains us, pray for its wellbeing and promise to show more reverence for it the remaining days of the year.

One day of prayer and promise can be quickly forgotten in a year full of distractions. Fortunately, there are many excellent books – non-fiction, novels and poetry — to inspire us and remind us of the daily devotion the earth deserves. One of my favorite ecologically-minded books is Echoes of Earth. Watch my 2013 video webcast interview with author Sue Baugh to see why. Then check out these other worthwhile books:

Non-Fiction
Silent Spring – Rachel Carson
An Inconvenient Truth – Al Gore
Hot, Flat and Crowded – Thomas L. Friedman
Moral Ground – Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson (editors)

Fiction
Ecotopia – Ernest Callenbach
Prodigal Summer – Barbara Kingsolver
The Shell Collector – Anthony Doerr
The Road – Cormac McCarthy

For Children
The Lorax – Dr. Seuss
Dear Children of the Earth – Schim Schimmel
The Great Paper Caper – Oliver Jeffers

Poetry
The Walk – Friedrich von Schiller
The Triumph of Life – Percy Bysshe Shelley
A Forest Hymn – William Cullen Bryant
Song at Sunset – Walt Whitman

Don’t forget to recycle your books by sharing them.

On April 12th, a Living Legend will turn 100. Beverly Cleary, the Newberry and National Book Award-winning author received that official moniker from the Library of Congress in 2000. A well-deserved honor for the creator of treasured children’s books, including Henry and Ribsy, Beezus and Ramona, Ralph S. Mouse, and Dear Mr. Henshaw.

On becoming a centenarian, Cleary mused, “I’m surprised that I’m almost 100. I sometimes write the figures down on paper to make sure.”

How does a writer become a legendary author? Many authors will tell you they loved reading from the get-go. Not Cleary. She was assigned to the lowest reading group in first-grade, considered a late reader. Instead, she’d daydream, getting beaten on her hands by her teacher. The reason Cleary gives for avoiding books was because she didn’t find them interesting.

Lucky for us, she was encouraged by her parents, discovering books more to her liking in the third grade and eventually leading her to the inspiration for writing a new style of children’s books.

In a recent interview with Publishers Weekly, Cleary recounted, “When I was young, I told my mother I wanted to write, and she said, ‘That’s fine, but you must have a way of earning a living. Work for one year before you try to write.’ It was sound advice, so I went to library school and became a children’s librarian.”

During her years as a librarian in Yakima, Washington, Cleary had an encounter with a child that would shape her writing career years later. “It was a little boy who changed my life,” she says. A boy who “marched right up to my desk and demanded, ‘Where are the books about kids like us?’ I couldn’t find any books about kids who played on the sidewalk in front of their houses. Authors back then thought their characters needed to go to sea or have big adventures. Well, most kids don’t have adventures, but they still lead interesting lives. My life is interesting to me, but I’m surprised it’s interesting to anyone else. I haven’t had any spectacular adventures or gone to sea. Finally, when I sat down to write, I thought about that little boy.”

The result was Cleary’s first novel, Henry Huggins, published in 1950. For the next two decades, the prolific author churned out at least one book a year, often starting the day after New Year’s Day and finishing in May or June. The remainder of the year was used to let new ideas take seed, much in the way a farmer lets the land seasonally go fallow. To date, hers books have sold more than 85 million copies.

Cleary’s favorite character is Henry’s pesky kid sister, Ramona. Although Cleary contends “I was a well-behaved girl,” she adds, “but I often thought like Ramona.” For example:

RAMONA drummed harder to show everyone how bad she was. She would not take off her shoes. She was a terrible, wicked girl! Being such a bad, terrible, horrid, wicked girl made her feel good! She brought both heels against the wall at the same time. Thump! Thump! Thump! She was not the least bit sorry for what she was doing. She would never be sorry. Never! Never! Never!

Of the many rewards that come with success, Cleary says the greatest reward from her writing career has been, “the children who have discovered the pleasure of reading with my books. I remember when I made the same discovery in third grade, and it was a turning point in my life.”

Happy 100th, Beverly Clearly!