Dad of Divas' Reviews: July 2022

Friday, July 22, 2022

Book Review - Just Like Jesse Owens

Just Like Jesse Owens



About the Book

In Just Like Jesse Owens, civil rights icon, Ambassador Andrew Young and his daughter, Paula Young Shelton, deliver a powerful oral history about a special day in Andrew’s childhood that changed him forever. This story of race relations in the 1930s South is illustrated by bestselling Caldecott Honor winner Gordon C. James.

As a boy, Andrew Young learned a vital lesson from his parents when a local chapter of the Nazi party instigated racial unrest in their hometown of New Orleans in the 1930s. While Hitler's teachings promoted White supremacy, Andrew's father, told him that when dealing with the sickness of racism, "Don't get mad, get smart." To drive home this idea, Andrew Young Senior took his family to the local movie house to see a newsreel of track star Jesse Owens racing toward Olympic gold, showing the world that the best way to promote equality is to focus on the finish line. The teaching of his parents, and Jesse Owens' example, would be the guiding principles that shaped Andrew's beliefs in nonviolence and built his foundation as a civil rights leader and advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The story is vividly recalled by Paula Young Shelton, Andrew's daughter.


My Take on the Book
This was a great book that brings together strong concepts of advocacy and nonviolence. I loved the story and how this special day really guided the life of Andrew Young. I found the story to be amazing as it really shows how one day can change a life for the better. The book had great images, but even better was the messages thoughout the book.

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Book Review - Clifford the Big Red Friend Story Box

Clifford the Big Red Friend Story Box



About the Book
In Clifford the Big Red Friend Story Box join Clifford and his best friend, Emily Elizabeth, in this box set of six classic stories!

Young readers can now carry their favorite Clifford the Big Red Dog storybooks with them wherever they go in one convenient box set with a handle!

The story box includes six bestselling 8x8 paperback books, including Clifford’s Manners, Clifford’s Good Deeds, Clifford and the Grouchy Neighbors, Clifford and the Big Storm, Clifford Grows Up, and Clifford’s Pals.

My Take on the Book
If you love Clifford and his friends you will love this story box. In this box you get eight great books that let you enjoy not only Clifford but all of his friends. The books are easy to read and are great to share together as a family. 

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Saturday, July 16, 2022

Book Review - Change Your Questions, Change Your Life Workbook: Master Your Mindset Using Question Thinking


Change Your Questions, Change Your Life Workbook: Master Your Mindset Using Question Thinking



About the Book

Based on the bestseller Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, this workbook is a practical guide that helps readers ask the right questions for successful change.

In the bestselling classic, Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, Dr. Marilee Adams introduces Question Thinking, which shows how you can change your questions and your mindset for the most successful outcomes. This workbook puts those original ideas into action and makes them easy to implement.

In this workbook you get to choose an area of your life that you want to improve and then apply the principles and practices of Question Thinking to experience the benefits of this system firsthand. At the center of this work is the Choice Map, which helps you recognize the likely impact of the questions you ask. This book provides tools, warm-up exercises, somatic practices, and learning scenarios that bring the practical applications of Question Thinking into your professional and personal life. Thoroughly engaging, it includes how the Question Thinking protocols can help you switch from a controlling Judger Mindset to a flexible Learner mindset and learn how to facilitate more effective meetings and conversations.

Although this workbook can serve as a companion to the bestselling book, it has been designed to stand on its own. In the book, the fable’s hero undergoes a transformative journey by using Question Thinking, and this workbook helps readers undergo a similar transformation.


My Take on the Book
This workbook is a great add-on to the book Change Your Questions, Change Your Life. This workbook walks you through so many steps to be able to better understand and change the way that you use questions. The book is practical and easy to use and it definitely helps you to change the way that you think. 

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Book Review - Change Your Questions, Change Your Life


Change Your Questions, Change Your Life




About the Book

In Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, discover how the questions we ask ourselves and others can either expand our mindsets and open us up to exciting new possibilities or constrict our mindsets and limit our choices for successful change.

Change Your Questions, Change Your Life is an international bestseller that has sold over 400,000 copies in twenty-two languages. People have discovered that, when we’re looking for answers, we often forget to take the time to ask the right questions. But, as Dr. Marilee Adams shows, intentionally using questions helps us make wiser choices, find solutions, and transform our personal and professional lives.

Dr. Adams uses a highly engaging fable to illustrate how great results begin with great questions. The book’s hero, Ben Knight, learns such breakthrough insights and undergoes a transformative journey. As we read how his coach takes him step by step through the twelve powerful tools of Question Thinking, we also learn how to apply the same information and practical skills in our own lives. At the center of this work is the Choice Map, which provides a simple yet powerful image to predict the likely results of the questions we ask ourselves and others. It tells us how to change our questions and our mindsets for the most rewarding outcomes.

The book contains a new chapter delving into what neuroscience reveals about managing our stresses and fears more effectively using methodssuch as those described in this book. It includes powerful and practical tools that help readers switch from a constricting Judger to an expansive Learner mindset, achieve the results they desire, and foster breakthroughs.


My Take on the Book
Questions are not always easy to grapple with. We struggle at times to find the right questions to ask, but in this book you learn that when we work to change our questions we open ourselves to even more. This book challenges you to think broader than we may have in the past. This book also allows you to see that the world that we have is so complex and that though we grow up and build habits that may limit the questions that we ask, the the more questions that we do ask and the way we ask them will help us to be better leaders. This book uses practical ways to help the reader to begin changing the way we use questions for the good of the work that we do.

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Book Review - The Innovative Executive: Leading Intelligently in the Age of Disruption

The Innovative Executive: Leading Intelligently in the Age of Disruption



About the Book

In The Innovative Executive: Leading Intelligently in the Age of Disruption Bella Rushi helps business leaders react to ever-changing environments with flexible thinking and adaptability to create work cultures that thrive on innovation, risk-taking, and creativity.

Every executive knows that smart innovation is essential for success. But how do you create new growth strategies and address old business models that are at risk due to competition, global epidemics, or other drastic changes in the marketplace? Today, many companies don’t know how to select the “right projects” to pursue new growth opportunities. They struggle to find the best market opportunities and can’t decide how to efficiently allocate resources for R&D. Meanwhile, new and old competitors alike are disrupting the marketplace in dismaying ways. How do you innovate and win in today’s fast-moving business climate?

In The Innovative Executive, internationally renowned Bella Rushi argues that innovation should not only be a priority for survival but also for creating new sustainable growth. Companies need to flex their innovation muscles to reframe their business models, develop new capabilities, and leverage technology. Without the right methodology and framework, however, it’s difficult to succeed. The Innovative Executive will show you how to build an innovation agenda. Furthermore, it will help you align your innovation goals with business strategies and invest in ideas that will open future opportunities.

Rushi examines how innovative executives articulate the dream of success and effectively integrate key capabilities to focus on customer-centricity, leverage technology, and cultivate innovation competency and collaboration with their networks. Through stories of successful companies and her experience consulting with Fortune 500 companies, Rushi helps business leaders react to ever-changing environments with flexible thinking and adaptability to create work cultures that thrive on innovation, risk-taking, and creativity. 


My Take on the Book
This book is full of amazing advice for both large and small businesses. The author brings in concepts that people can understand no matter if they are an entrepreneur or a CEO of a large organization. Throughout the book the author allows the reader to examine culture, business structure and the customer experience in a whole new way. This allows you to reframe your own thinking about how your own business is run and set a new path for where you want to lead your own organization. 

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Book Review - I Wish I'd Known This: 6 Career-Accelerating Secrets for Women Leaders


I Wish I'd Known This: 6 Career-Accelerating Secrets for Women Leaders




About the Book
In I Wish I'd Known This: 6 Career-Accelerating Secrets for Women Leaders uncover the six blind spots that derail women’s career paths and learn strategies to effectively overcome them for an impactful, sustainable career.

Professional women are subject to blind spots—obstacles that can minimize career potential, impact, or advancement. Some women end up drifting instead of driving through their careers, going it alone instead of building a posse, and leaving their “reputationality” (that special something we are known for) to chance.

Authors and executive coaches Brenda Wensil and Kathryn Heath have spent decades coaching more than 800 women and working with women executives, middle managers, and professionals across industries and age groups. In this book, they outline six challenges women commonly face on their professional journeys and map a way to accelerate through them for higher-impact careers. Readers will learn how to:

  • Set a vision, strategy, and plan for their careers
  • Learn who they are, what they offer, and how to tell their stories
  • Seek and act on feedback to guide their paths
  • Prepare and practice for the best outcomes
  • Enlist help and support from others
Effective women leaders inspire innovation, sustain profitability, manage risk, and create environments for inclusion and diversity to increase. Chock full of strategies, stories, and practical skills, this book will hasten a woman’s progress and impact as a professional woman and liberate her to excel in her career on her own terms.

My Take on the Book
This book provides a great map for women to look and explore their own leadership journey. The book talks through a number of skills that they can use to advance their own career. The book provides the reader an opportunity to develop strategies that can be put into place immediately. As a father to two girls this book is one that I know will help them as they get older. I know that they are not ready for this yet, they will be and the authors have really made a book that is easy to use. I love the stories that are interspersed throughout the book as they make the concepts come alive!

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Book Review - Revenge of Zombert

Revenge of Zombert



About the Book
In Revenge of Zombert, the final episode of the ZomBert Chronicles, can Bert and Mellie foil a plot to turn the entire town of Lambert into ravenous zombie consumers?

A thrilling finale to an arch mystery-adventure series pits Bert the cat against the infamous YummCo Labs. Bert was a bedraggled stray before nine-year-old Mellie Gore adopted him—and has already escaped from YummCo once, vowing to find a way back to free the other captives. Now the Yumms have nabbed Bert again, and he wants revenge. Mellie’s plans to rescue her pet are interrupted when the entire town, including her own parents, begin turning into YummCo-product-consuming zombies. And why is Mellie herself suddenly starved for food to fuel her buzzing brain? What exactly is happening at the YummCo Labs? With trademark wit and a taste for the playfully macabre, award-winning creators Kara LaReau and Ryan Andrews close out the ZomBert Chronicles with a funny and suspenseful flourish.


My Take on the Book
This is a great end to the series. While I will not give any spoilers, I will say that Bert and Mellie bring forth an epic adventure as they take on YummCo. The book brings forth humor and suspense and it is a book that draws you in from page one to the very end. The book is a ton of fun and to be honest I am sad that this was the final book in the series!

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Friday, July 15, 2022

Book Review - A Perfect Mistake

A Perfect Mistake



About the Book

In A Perfect Mistake you get a moving, voice-driven novel about friendship, responsibility, and fighting against unfair expectations, for fans of Rebecca Stead and Erin Entrada Kelly.

Max wishes he could go back in time to before he was diagnosed with ADHD, before he grew to be the tallest kid in his class, and before he and his best friends went into the woods in the middle of the night. Max doesn’t remember what happened after he left his friends Will and Joey and the older kids who took them there. He’s not sure if he wants to remember. Knowing isn’t going to make Joey talk to him again, or bring Will out of his coma.

When the local authorities run out of leads, Max realizes that without his help, they may never know what really happened to Will. Charged by the idea that he may be the key to uncovering the truth, Max pairs up with classmate and aspiring journalist Sam to investigate what really happened that night. But not everyone in the community wants that night to be remembered.


My Take on the Book
This was a great book that in many ways normalized ADHD. You do not always see this in a book, but this book really allowed you to see and experience this in a new way. The author has done a great job a creating characters that you can empathize with but also connect with because they feel like people that you really know.  

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