The Book of Mormon

I was thinking to start in on some books which have significantly changed my life for the better - and then I realized that I was about to ignore the longest-standing of books in that category, which for me would be the Book of Mormon.
My mother read the Book of Mormon when she was 18 or so, and over the course of a year discovered the positive effect it's teachings had in her life. She was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints when she was 19. When she was 21, she met and married my dad.
So the influence of this book in my life started a long time ago. Because of it, I was taught from an early age to be kind, to be generous, to try to do good with the resources I have. That I am not here for my own pleasure, but for the eternal good of myself and those I come in contact with. That is a remarkable difference in attitude, and makes a great deal of difference in how I live.
Don't get me wrong - nobody (that I know) lives up to those ideals perfectly. But this book has another gift - and I will quote it here: "if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you." So it clarifies the truth found in the bible - that God will speak to his children, will not leave them directionless - and in doing so helps us to access that much more power to make the changes we all need to make in our lives.
It testifies of Christ with such clarity that I understand, in a way that is not always clear to me from the Bible, who he is and why I should want to be like him. And it gives simple, powerful ways to change my life to do so.

The Errand of Angels - Movie

I admit to having a sometimes morbid fascination with LDS movies - I will often watch them, even if I am reasonably sure they are useless, kitchy drivel. I have come to steel myself against that, in hopes of finding the occasional gem. This is necessary, because reviews on LDS movies are pretty useless. The crowd that watches them seems to consider it unfaithful to mention anything unfavorable - no matter how badly they were done - and nobody else reviews them, unless it's to say something unflattering about the LDS church in general. Not really helpful if I'm trying to find out if I will enjoy it of an evening with my family.
So, knowing where I'm coming from, I will say: this was really quite reasonable. The story was neither overblown, with things that most LDS missionaries - or members in general - never experience in their lifetimes (though we all hear about them); nor so understated that it lost all sense of plot or direction. It was the simple, pleasant story of a young woman's experiences on her mission, how hard it was, and how rewarding. So I will give it the highest praise I give to LDS movies: yes, I would recommend it to a friend.

Food Storage for the Clueless by Clark L. and Kathy H. Kidd

This is one of the few books I have given away multiple times - I am currently in need of yet another copy. As the title suggests, it is a comprehensive overview of food storage - the whys, wherefores, and 'how-to's. Reading this for the first time, I finally understood food storage as a principle of frugality. Full of recipes and humorous anecdotes, it includes instructions on making fruit leather, yogurt, and sourdough (both bread and start).
One of my favorite arguments for/explanations of how to use food storage is from the first chapter of this book. It goes something like this: if you eat two cans of tuna a week, that's approximately 100 cans of tuna a year. Suppose that tuna normally costs $.75 a can. Now suppose that you find the tuna on sale for $.50 a can. If you buy a hundred cans now, you will save yourself $25 over the course of the next year - if the price of tuna stays the same. If, instead, it goes up to $1.00 a can, you've saved yourself $50 - so that's a guaranteed %50 return on your investment, and a possible %100 percent return. No other use of money is likely to get you such good results (especially in the current economic climate). Now, if you buy 200 cans, and you only eat 50, you have not saved yourself any money. So it's important to know what you really can and will eat. And don't neglect the expected shelf life. But with those things in mind, food storage suddenly becomes a no-brainer, obvious way to take care of yourself and your loved ones.
I don't generally give stars on reviews (I'm thinking about it, but it becomes so arbitrary) - however, if I were giving stars, this book would get my top rating.

The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull

As a long-time reader of fantasy novels, and as a homeschooling mother with a busy household to run, I have long turned to children's novels as a way to find my allotment of magic and adventure within the span of a naptime or two.

First of all, let me say that this did not disappoint. For a little while at the beginning, I was worried; I really hate books that purport to be about magic but are really about people who can't tell imagination from reality - but this quickly resolved into genuine, full-fledged fantasy.

Surprisingly enough - to me, anyway - my favorite part was not the magic, in this - it was the morality. As an individual, it has become more and more important to me that the basic truths of morality - hurting people is wrong, and helping people is right - should, in some way, be present in the universes I read about. As a parent, I have come to really resent stories in which it is taken for granted that parents are so stupid, uncaring, or selfish that the only reasonable thing to do is lie to, deceive, and avoid them at every turn. While Mull was perhaps a little heavy-handed in his treatment of these points (he's developed a much lighter touch in his Fablehaven series- more about those later) it was so refreshing to read a children's book in which all of the parents seemed like honest, ordinary people that I could have loved it for that alone. All in all, the story was fun enough and the characters intriguing enough that I just plain enjoyed it - and that, at the end of the day, is what makes me call this a good book.