"Three Weeks with My Brother" by Nicholas and Micah Sparks

The book jacket caught my eye: blue sky with strip of white cumulus clouds, the silhouettes of two bicycle riders pedaling across the horizon. The view might be looking up from a hill or across a dark, grassy meadow. The title, "Three Weeks with My Brother" sits below the bikers and is located on that grassy expanse. Below that are the authors names, Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks is in larger print. "A Memoir" in tiny letters is printed just below the clouds. My impression was the bike riders were two boys and, being a memoir, one of the two must have met with a tragic end. I was wrong.

It is amazing how many thoughts can go through one's mind as the hand reaches for the book on the shelf to pick it up and read the blurb on the inside sleeve to find out what the book is about. I also thought one of the authors must be famous and I had no idea who he was. I was right about that one. Nicholas Sparks was offered a million dollars for his third novel and the only one he submitted to publishers for possible publication. A writers fairy tale dream come true. "The Notebook" quickly became a movie as the author's next book: "Message in a Bottle". As I read, "Three Weeks with My Brother", I vaguely recall reading about the author and his book, "The Rescue".

"Three Weeks with My Brother" chronicles the Sparks brother's whirlwind 3 week trip around the world. The book starts with a lesson learned in childhood and those first 4 chapters of the book introduce the brothers as children and the adults they become. The idea for the sudden crash tour of the world was Nicholas', the unadventurous one. His initial excitement gives way to anxiety and doubts about taking the trip. "The Rescue" is true fiction about a father dealing with a toddler that does not talk. Nicholas is ambivalent about leaving his wife, Cathy, home alone for three weeks to care for 5 children. One son may or may not be autistic or have CAPD.

Cathy not only gave him the okay to take a vacation with his brother, she also encouraged it. Like Cathy, Micah's wife Christine readily agreed to her husband taking off for a world tour without her. As the reader journeys with the brothers to exotic places around the world, we come to understand why the wives so easily agreed to the trip without a word of protest.

Armchair travelers can experience the first view of Easter Island from the sky. We can wonder, along with the men, "what the descendants of the Incas thought about his church-sanctioned burial place" in Lima, Peru~a tribute to the Spanish explorer who "captured Atahualpa, the leader of the Incas. When he demanded and received as ransom a roomful of gold for his release, he promptly executed the king anyway before enslaving the natives." While visiting Tikal in Guatemala, Micah thinks it will be cool to get a photo of him lying on a stone slab that was used by Mayans offering human sacrifices to their gods. Nicholas thinks it is a bit morbid, and the horrified tour guide quickly stops the photo shoot.

As the travel stories unfold with the chapters, incidents like that blend easily with a walk through the men's childhood and road to adulthood. Their story could be a rags to riches tale. As I read, the phrase: "God gives with one hand and takes away with the other" kept coming to mind. Micah was 3 and 1/2 years old when he decided to run away from home taking his younger siblings with him. Nicholas was trained to do anything his brother told him to do, so when Micah ordered him to follow, he did. Readers follow the boys from that Minnesota farm to a Los Angeles community that "still smoldered with the angry memories of the Watts riots in 1965." The kids did not get that far when they ran away from home, their father relocated the family when he studied at the University of Southern California.

"Three Weeks with My Brother" is well written. The childhood stories are not retold as adults, but as seen through the eyes of the child. I felt like I watched Nicholas and Micah grow up. There is tragedy in this book which sparked sad memories from my own life experiences. There is also joy, fun and family humor, which did likewise. Most of the people on tour with the men are older, married couples. This causes them to discuss what is more important to make a marriage last: communication or commitment. Similar conversations concern thoughts on life, death, God and prayer. And Tour Guides.

Like most world travelers the brothers learn that "people are more alike than different" despite cultural differences. Published by Warner Books in April 2004, "Three Weeks with My Brother" by Nicholas and Micah Sparks is 356 pages of good writing. It is an excellent read. The only thing missing was a photo of the guinea pig, among the black and white photos included in the chapters. I give it a thumbs up. Now I am off to read "The Notebook" to discover what type of novel gets offered a million dollars from a publisher.

Authors Note: Prior to acceptance and publication of "The Notebook", Nicholas Spark published a book, , "Wokini" in collaboration with Olympic Medalis, Billy Mills which sold 50,000 copies. Nicholas Sparks website. The quote "people are more alike than different" is from Senator Barack Obama