Brief Reviews: Rodrick Rules, Your Happily Ever After, Forget Me Not

Still playing review catch up so here's a few more! Happy reading.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules by Jeff Kinney, YR, 2009, 218p, rating=2.5
Source: own

The film adaptation of this book was the first of 10 movies that kicked off the $1 summer kid series at our local theatre.  The kids and I went to see it and I actually liked it!  I stumbled into the book about a month later in my son's book collection and thought, "Why not? I'm having a reading slump, I could use a laugh.".  So I read it and I definitely like the movie better!  The film version gave it a story with heart.  The book was just more antics (like first book) and was just not for me.  My 5 and 9 year-olds liked it though.  I guess I'm not a kid at heart after all!! ;)

Sidenote: We saw the film adaptation of book #4, Dog Days, when it came out this summer and it was a hoot!

Your Happily Ever After by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, NF -self-improvement, ebook, p2012, c2010,  64p, rating=5
Source:  own

This book was adapted from the author's talk in the April's General Conference in 2010.  You can read the original discourse HERE or purchase it prettied up for free for your Kindle HERE (don't know how long it'll be free). 

Here we read counsel on how we can achieve our very own "happily ever after".  Favorably geared for women but certainly the principles can apply for men as well.  Pres. Uchtdorf talks about what we can do between the "Once upon a time" to the "They lived happily ever after".  Here's an outline of what you will find in the book:

• Trial is part of the journey
• Stay true to what you know is right
• The gospel is the way to happily ever after

A wonderful, quick life affirming read.  Read it and be inspired to seize your happily ever after.

Forget Me Not by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, NF -self-improvement, ebook, p2012, c2011, 56p, rating=5
Source: own

Another General Conference talk (Oct. 2011) prettied up and made into a book by this author.  You can read the original discourse HERE or purchase it for free HERE for your Kindle. 

This counsel I greatly enjoyed.  I like how Pres. Uchtdorf premised this talk telling of the German legend of how this beautiful flower got it's name "...just as God had finished naming all the plants, one was left unnamed. A tiny voice spoke out, “Forget me not, O Lord!” And God replied that this would be its name." and then using this flower as a metaphor for his discourse .."The five petals of the little forget-me-not flower prompt me to consider five things we would be wise never to forget.". 

The five things are:

1. Forget not to be patient with yourself.
2. Forget not the difference between a good sacrifice and a foolish sacrifice.
3. Forget not to be happy now.
4. Forget not the why of the gospel.
5. Forget not that the Lord loves you.

His words were simply keen, true, and inspiring.  This will definitely be one of those books I will turn to when I need a pick me up.

By the way, the images of forget-me-nots in this book were absolutely beautiful!  It's definitely now one of my favorite flowers.

Dieter Friedrich Uchtdorf, a former German aviator and airline executive, is the Second Counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).

Uchtdorf was born to ethnic Germans Karl Albert Uchtdorf and Hildegard Else Opelt in Moravská Ostrava (German: Mährisch-Ostrau), which at the time was in the Nazi-occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (now Ostrava, Czech Republic). When he was a child, his family moved to Zwickau in eastern Germany while his father was away in the army, traveling through areas being bombed. Uchtdorf's family joined the LDS Church when he was young as a result of his grandmother's encounter with a church member in a soup line.

When Uchtdorf was about ten, his father's political beliefs, incongruent with communist Russian rule, earned him the label of "dissenter", thus putting their lives in danger. They fled East Germany and resettled in American-occupied West Germany.

From 1959 to 1965 Uchtdorf served in the West German Air Force.

Uchtdorf first entered the aviation industry as a pilot, then became a chief pilot and later an executive for Lufthansa Airlines. In 1975 Uchtdorf was appointed head of Lufthansa's Arizona Training School, and in 1980 he was made head chief pilot of cockpit crews. He became the senior vice president of flight operations in 1982. (Image and profile info courtesy of Goodreads)