Book about the student loan scam in the US education

Alan Collinge's The Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt in U.S. History is a serious read. I have known that most people go to college with a student loan, except those fortunate ones who receive grant and scholarships. But if you need a loan for your education, you need to be aware the following issues:

The interest rate: Do you know the interest rates of these loans can be as high as 29.9%?

Government's involvement: Do you know the major student loan provider; Sallie Mae's fee income increased 220% between 2000 and 2005? - Congress has given banks and loan providers a "free ticket" to extract as much money from students as possible.

Lenders are allowed to take up to 25% as collection fee on defaulted loans - they make money out of the poor/needed students!

If you haven't noticed any of the above issues, PLEASE read this book beofre you take on a student loan.

An incrediable Read! - Thanking the Monkey

Karen Dawn's Thanking the Monkey makes you rethink the way animals are treated around the world. The title suggests that the author intends to bring up the issues in a playfully but seriously way. The book is full of funny and witty commentary and cartoons. I particularly loves the humorous and hilarious cartoons - make you laugh and think deeper, especially for those who are NOT vegans.

It is a well-written book about animal abuse, animal rights and animal welfare. Yes it is a comprehensive but an easy-to-read book.

The Bird, the Monkey, and the Snake in the Jungle

This book uses full-bleed illustrations to tell the adventure of a bird, a monkey and a snake - they search for a place to live in the jungle after their homes are destroyed by a rainstorm. Every morning the bird sings, the monkey wakes to eat nuts and the snake complains when the falling shells hit on his back. The story enhances with pictures on the outer margin of each right-hand page. It is a story book but it also looks like a game.

I read this book simply because it is one of my reading assignments for my children literature class! But I do love the story and the primitive-style illustrations.

Dear Miss Breed ...

A role model for librarians!

Joanne Oppenheim's Dear Miss Breed is a book about a children librarian who devoted her self to the Japanese American children and made a difference to the lives of them. Clara Breed was the children librarian at San Diego Public Library when the Japanese Americans were sent to the concentration camps in 1940s. She kept correspondence with her young incarceration library patrons. In doing so she gave the children a way of keeping connection with the “outside” (outside the camp) world. She also sent them library donated books.

This book is a collection of her letters along with articles, photographs, and other primary materials integrated by the author. As a librarian, I highly recommend this book for all librarians and future librarians to remind us the role of a librarian.

John West: The Last Goodnights: Assisting My Parents with Their Suicide

When our pets are old and sick, we would end their suffer by putting them to sleep because it is the merciful thing to do. When your parents suffer from terminal illness and unbearable pain, what would you do? Should your parents have the rights to end their lives in dignity?

In this book, John West brings up the issues in a very personal way. He honesty shares his journey to assist his own parents with their sucidies. It is NOT an easy book to read, especially for someone like me who dealt with end of life issue with my own brother.

Book: An American Soldier who spent twelve years in communist China

Why a POW of Korean soldier refused repatriation in 1953, instead spending twelve years in communist China? What on earth was he thinking?  These two questions lead me to finish Clarence Adams' book just in a few hours.

Mr Adams chose to stay in China with a hope to find educational and career opportunities not readily available in his own country - simply because he's Black. He earned a university degree and learned the language. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, he returned to the US with his wife and two children in 1966.

It is a remarkable African-American autobiography; but it is also a book about war, the racial issues in the United States, and the life in China during the Mao's disastrous Great Leap Forward.

"All animals deserve the care and protection we give our pets"

The ways we treat the farm animals is so cruel. On factory farms turkeys are simply fattened until their wings are useless; chickens are fattened until they cannot stand up with their feet. Cows simply are fed with corn. Farm animals are raised for slaughter. Ruby Roth’s That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals is a very first children book which teaches children that all animals have souls and emotions similar to our pets. It is a great book to teach young generation about what is happening on factory farms. This book makes a strong argument for reducing animal consumption as well as eliminating factory farms.