Bellows and Shrieks

The End Games by T. Michael Martin
New York, NY : Balzer + Bray, [2013]
369 p. ; 22 cm.

If you have any doubts that The End Games has been well-received, check out the praise on T. Michael Martin's website - wow!  I wish I could say I loved this book. I guess I'm just not enough of a zombie fan to completely enjoy the book - though I did appreciate the quality of the writing.  That is a positive trend that I've noticed with many YA books - really top-notch writing across many subjects and genres.

I would agree with critics that the book is very imaginative.  I like how it draws on video-gaming language and knowledge in a way that is thoroughly integrated into the plot.  I also liked the unusual pairing of an older brother with a very young brother who has autism.  The plot device of two characters bound up in a survival/journey ordeal is well traveled (think Huck and Jim in Twain's masterpiece, the father and son of McCarthy's The Road, or the Alex and Darla in Mullin's Ashfall) and is well done here.   But for me, I found several key actions of the plot confusing and overwrought, certain characters almost cartoonish, and just too many actions where I had to suspend disbelief and just accept the improbability. I really found the deranged Capt. Jopek a bit much - his abilities with weapons makes him seem more superhuman than real.  I also just never felt the emotional pull I was supposed to feel with the main character's memories of his troubled homelife that existed before the zombie apocalypse.

But problems aside, the book is fast, exciting, dramatic, action packed, and written with striking and fresh language. It has some gory scenes, but rarely seems written for shock effect. The language is also amazingly free of obscenities, and there is a nice romance woven into the plot with a soft touch.  Not bad for a first novel.  So, if I have a student asking about a good zombie novel - I'll definitely send them looking for The End Games.

Oh, and "Bellow and Shrieks"? Bellows is the name that the main character, Michael, gives to the zombies.  Shrieks?  Well, you'll have to read the novel to figure out that reference.

Heartwarming, Sort Of

Back cover illus. by Bosma

Winger by Andrew Smith
New York : Simon & Schuster BFYR, 2013
438 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.

Winger is a readable, entertaining book.  Smith is great with dialogue and humor and the plotting moves along well.  It's a coming of age novel told in the voice of Ryan Dean West, aka "Winger" who is starting his junior year at a boarding school for wealthy kids in the Pacific NW.  He's smart, scrappy, a hard-playing, talented rugby player with heart, apparently cute, but...he's only 14 - two years younger than his peers (and especially Annie, his friend who he desperately loves and hopes will feel the same).  Winger is also immature, crude, completely obsessed with sex and rating the attractiveness of girls and women, and prone to fighting.  The Booklist reviewer nailed it: "In short, Ryan Dean is a slightly pervy but likable teen."

I would have said "somewhat likable" - I found at least one his pranks creepy and repulsive, his constant ranking of females tiresome, and his jealous possessiveness both hypocritical and annoying.  These would not have bothered me so much - except that Smith has written essentially a male fantasy tale.  Winger, in spite of his immaturity, and insistence on what a loser he is, ends up with the two most attractive and interesting girls in the school in love with him. As the School Library Journal reviewer noted about one of the girls: "One wonders what she sees in Ryan Dean."

The novel ends with a shocking act of violence that doesn't seem believable (at least not in the context of the novel) and raises a lot of questionable issues about the supposed motives and behaviors of closeted gay guys. 

In spite of my criticisms, the novel is funny, fun to read, and likely to appeal to both boys and girls.

Kurlansky's Tasty History

The Big Oyster: history on the half-shell by Mark Kurlansky
New York : Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2007, c2006.
xx, 307 p. : ill., maps ; 21 cm. 

What a fun way to learn about the history of New York City!  Kurlansky again finds a way to entertain and inform while presenting his discoveries about another item that humans put in their mouths.  He has tackled salt, and cod (which I reviewed here about a year ago).

Like his other books, this one is well-written, fascinating, and very informative.  In it you'll learn that for many years in the 1800s, New York City was the oyster capital of the world - but that in a short time ballooning population and industrialization led to the demise of the rich oyster beds of the New York harbor - due to pollution and and over-harvesting. Kurlansky does a great

There is a lot to The Big Oyster - it is a practical history of the early years of New York City, with a lot about the earliest European settlement of the area to the bustle of the 19th and 20th centuries.  But it is also a social history and a foodways history - including recipes from various eras.  Finally, it is both an environmental history and cautionary tale about the squandering of precious natural resources.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone curious about the history and culture of America's most dynamic city, New York.

Ka-Boom!

Ashfall by Mike Mullin
Terre Haute, IN : Tanglewood, c2010.
466 p. ; 22 cm.

The picture at the top of this post should give you pause.  Yellowstone Park [shaded in green], the US national treasure of hot springs, geysers, mountains, lakes and wildlife is basically the crater - or caldera [large red boundary] of an incredibly massive supervolcano that last had a major eruption about 640,000 years ago.  Ok, 640,000 years ago is a long time, but the problem is that it will erupt again in the future - probably not in our lifetimes (but it could).   It is the unlikely, but theoretically possible event of such a nation-shattering (about 2/3 of the US would be significantly damaged) and world-altering volcanic event that starts Mike Mullin's first novel off with a bang.

The novel is set far away (hundreds of miles) from Yellowstone,  - in Iowa - but not far enough away to escape the devastating noise, ash and ejecta of the eruption.  The event creates a cataclysmic environment through which the hero of the novel - 17 year old Alex - seeks to survive as he heads east toward Illinois where his family is.  His ordeal through this landscape - one that brings to mind Cormac McCarthy's The Road -  forms the plot of this thrilling novel.

As you might imagine this new, altered world brings out the best and definitely the worst in people and institutions that Alex is exposed to.  A bright spot is his joining forces with a remarkable young woman, Darla, whose skills and courage help Alex survive.  Not surprisingly the two eventually fall in love, in a rather believable, and touching way. 

The novel should appeal to all kinds of readers.  There is disaster, survival, action, romance, and some gritty violence and tragedy.  I really appreciated how Mullin allows his novel to really delve into the complex ways that individuals and institutions can trend toward good - and definitely toward evil in situations of grave social disruption.  I could easily recommend this book.  We also recently acquired the sequel - Ashen Winter.

An Addictive Novel

Crank by Ellen Hopkins
New York : Simon Pulse, 2004.
537 p. ; 18 cm.

Hopkins manages to pull you into the mind and world of a high school-aged good kid drawn into a downward spiral due to her growing addiction to methamphetamine (crank).  She does it with really nice verse that allows her to often have the main character's thoughts, spoken words, and dialogue from others all in one poem.

This book, and many of Hopkins very long novels in verse are very popular and I can see why. Her strength is that she deals honestly with the appeal of drug abuse - while at the same time illuminating the horrors and dangers of addiction.  It's a skillful balancing act that keeps her book compelling but not preachy.  Also the variety of poetic line structures works pretty well - allowing calm meditative poems, jumbled high-on-meth poems, broken blocks of verse to reflect multiple voices and perspectives, etc.

In a short "Author's note" at the beginning of the book, Hopkins reveals that much of the substance of her novel in verse is from her own life as a mother with a meth-addicted daughter, though she admits that many events, characters, etc. are composites based on real life experiences.

No need to recommend this book, as it remains very popular.  I'm glad I finally got around to reading it, so I can appreciate its many strengths.

Hi Tech Guilt

A version of Think Tank 1's cover from the Top Cow Website

Think Tank 1 by Matt Hawkins
Los Angeles : Top Cow Productions, Inc., 2013
1 v. (unpaged) : chiefly ill. ; 26 cm.

David Loren has a guilty conscience.  He is the main character of this new graphic novel series from Matt Hawkins and Rashan Ekedal, and he's begun to question his role as a super-intelligent weapons developer for a Pentagon think tank that recruited him with a full scholarship to Cal Tech when he was just 14.  

In the 10 years since that time he has begun to question the value of what he is doing (reflecting on the human toll that his lethal creations have) and he wants out.  Unfortunately for David, he's pretty much a prisoner on the high-security base where he lives and works.  But given his technical wizardry, he decides he's going to escape - one way or another.

The story is fast-paced, exciting, interesting and ends with a dramatic twist that sets the reader up for the next installment of Think Tank.  Not bad for a debut graphic novel.

I really appreciated the author's scientific and ethical depth.  The novel ends with a section that explains some of the terms and references found in the story (e.g. DARPA, Einstein quotes, etc.) and contains references to some of the real-world hi-tech weaponry currently being developed by the Pentagon and its private contractors.  A good read for the tech-savvy, current-events aware fan of graphic novels.

For more insight into Think Tank take a look at this interview with Matt Hawkins, or this review of Think Tank 1.

Homo Cursorius

Born to Run: a Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
New York : Vintage Books, 2011, c2009.
1st Vintage Books ed.
287 p. ; 21 cm.

For the past couple of months my son has been insisting that I had to read Born to Run - so I did.  He was right; it was a great read!  Not perfect, but pretty amazing!

The book is an exuberant introduction to the phenomena of ultrarunning, but it is more than that.  It is a celebration of human running, of adventure and determination, and the amazing - and often larger than life -  personalities of ultrarunners.  Even more, the book serves as a provocative look at human origins, evolution and the possibility that modern humans (all of us!) are born with the capacity to run far longer and farther than most of us have ever run - and to do it with minimal injuries.  This last aspect has McDougall casting a rather critical eye on the whole modern running shoe industry.

McDougall's hook for the book is his search for the enigmatic indigenous people of Northwest Mexico, the Tarahumara who survived contact with the Spaniards by avoiding engagement with them, opting instead to live in the very sparse, barren, and rugged terrain of the Copper Canyon in Mexico.  The Tarahumara also happen to be world class endurance runners, and McDougall's renewed interest in long distance running (which had hobbled him with injuries) is rekindled during his successful search for the Tarahumara.  His contact person, almost-mythical gringo runner and hermit called el Caballo, draws McDougall into his wildly ambitious plans to stage a race in the dangerous Copper Canyon pitting the greatest ultrarunners from North America against the greatest Tarahumara runners.  As you can imagine, the outcome is hair-raising and almost unbelievable.

I have to admit that when I first began reading the book, I was a bit put off by McDougall's overblown style and descriptions - every character is the most amazing, most awesome, most eccentric, most etc. etc., that one could imagine.  However, on Googling some of the characters in the book, they have in fact accomplished ridiculously grueling feats of running endurance - and often faster and more energetically than any other humans on the planet.  My only other complaint is that the book would have been much better with at least some photos - particularly of the characters who populate the book.


This book will definitely have you thinking a lot about running, whether you are someone who has never run before or are a seasoned marathoner. And it does it with fun, adventure and a true zest for the subject.  Not bad for a book on something as common as running from here to there!

Awesome Science, Awesome Earth

From the European Space Agency

The Story of Earth: the first 4.5 billion years, from stardust to living planet by Robert Hazen
New York, N.Y. : Penguin Books, 2013.
306 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. 

I love a good science book, and this one did not disappoint.  As Nancy Curtis of Library Journal writes, "Hazen has a gift for explaining science in lay terms."  He is able to convey a lot of rather intricate and tricky scientific knowledge and concepts about the formation of the earth and its features, but in ways that get the reader to visualize and contemplate the vast changes that our planet has undergone.  His book helps explain the way in which earth's familiar geology is intricately tied up with the existence of life - in other words, without life, the earth would be a very different place geologically. Specifically, Hazen posits that most of the minerals found on earth would not exist without the chemical changes in the land, oceans, and atmosphere that life sets in motion.

For me the most exciting part of reading The Story of Earth is how it provokes thinking and imagining the nearly incomprehensible stretches of time that make up both earth's history (that 4.5 billion years) and its future (about another 4 billion years).  I think I must be like most humans and feel that a lifetime of 75-100 years is a long time, or that ancient  history (human, that is!) 2,000-3,000 years in past is immense.  But the extent of deep time really is breathtaking - the thought that life was present by the 1 billionth year of earth's existence and yet carried on for another billion year before getting the knack of photosynthesis is really incredible. Of course it was the recognition of deep time that helped Darwin see the potential for truly radical changes of organisms - given only minute changes at any one time.

I will definitely be recommending this book for any students looking for a good science read.

Appetizer With Chopsticks

Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral
New York : Razorbill, c2012.
1 v. (unpaged) : ill.(chiefly col.) ; 25 cm.

I really like a lot about this genre-blending novel.  It combines evocative photography/images/drawings, scrapbook-like formatting, links to YouTube videos, and IM shots to create a novel/pastiche of a teen piano prodigy's disappearance, mental troubles, family backstory, and passionate love affair with a mysterious and elusive teen from Argentina.  (The flavor of the book can be sampled at its Tumblr website.)  The story is told with sparse text and the "novel" can be read in about 30 min to 1 hour - and it is compelling.   So far so good! 

But for me the novel has significant shortcomings.  The idea of unreliable narrator is carried to the next level in this book by making the visual narrative itself (images of photos, plane tickets, menus, invitations) very unreliable.  After finishing the book and wondering about the ending, I found myself looking more closely at the visual text of the book.  Contradictions and incorrect documents and dates are taken to such a point as to render the very images potentially false.   At a point I came to be so aware of being manipulated by the authors that I couldn't really enjoy the narrative of the book.  Ultimately the book seemed more interested in its technique and appearance - and lacking in heart.

All this is in some ways all right with me.  This is a book that would be fun to have several readers read and then discuss (and argue about what they think happened - or didn't happen for that matter).  I also like that the book is easy to read and yet can really get readers to question what it means to trust the narrative of a book - fiction or non-fiction.

When I checked out reviews of the book, they seem to fall into two general camps: people love the book (see Kirkus and Reading Rants) or they like the book, but ultimately find it lacking (see Oops and Never Ending Bookshelf [note spoilers]).  I'd have to say I fall into the latter camp.  I find the novel to be more of a intriguing appetizer, but not a main course that satisfies.  Nevertheless, I'll be curious to see how students react to this book.

The Intoxicating Now

The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp
New York : Knopf, c2008.
294 p. ; 22 cm.

This novel made its way to the movie screens late this summer - after receiving critical praise at Sundance 2013.  After seeing the positive reviews of the film, I wanted to read The Spectacular Now, and I'm glad I did.

Sutter Keely is the hero/antihero of this well written novel. He's a senior in high school who loves having fun, going to parties, having and not having girlfriends, telling good stories, drinking, and hearing himself talk.  In spite of his growing dependence on alcohol, and in spite of being a bit of a fast-talking, self-satisfied goof-off - Sutter has a lot of heart and really wants to do right by those he cares about.

The novel avoids easy plot events that seemed to be coming, and instead deals with the very real and often difficult emotional life of its characters - all while entertaining the reader with humor, sparkling dialogue, and an interesting plot.  The only really tricky thing about the book is its matter of fact acceptance of Sutter's alcoholism - but even there, the novel allows events and the reactions of others to get the reader really thinking about the complications of substance use.

Tharp has a wonderful ear for dialogue and makes a novel that young people can just enjoy for its humor and easy-to-relate-to situations, while really going deeper into the complicated process that a young person will face if they are trying to be authentic, decent, true to themselves, and caring toward those they love.  Definitely a novel worth reading.

No Fault, All Star

From John Green's Tumblr - he also is the co-creator of Vlogbrothers - wow!

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
New York : Dutton Books, c2012.
1st ed.
318 p. ; 22 cm.

This is a very popular novel in our library - and this is a beautiful novel.  That is a wonderful thing to be able to write, and I'm really pleased to have recently had to buy a second copy of this novel (and will probably buy a few more when it comes out in paperback).

John Green has always been one of those solid author's in our collection with books like An Abundance of Katherines and Looking for Alaska, but with Fault in Our Stars - there has been a notable uptick in interest in Green.  In fact, I read the book after a couple of students said I had to read it.

It is really a testament to Green's skill as a writer that he takes on such a fraught topic as teens with cancer, and is able to create a deeply moving, tough, realistic, and existentially wonderful love story out of it. 

The story manages to deal with love, art, death, parenting, passion, fear and hope without feeling overwrought and forced. There are a few moments where the characters are just a little to facile with words and "profound," but those moments are few.  The plotting of the novel is also really nice.

Without giving away the plot, I will just say that by the end of the book, Green had me completely swept up in the emotional life of his characters...and it was hard to close the book when I was done.

One last note: the copy I read was loaned to me by a student.  I told her our copy was out and that the next one was on order, but that I wanted to read it soon.  She said, I'll loan you my copy.  Perks of being a librarian!

Gone But Not Forgotten

Map of Perdido Beach as posted on WikiFayz

Gone by Michael Grant
New York : HarperTeen, 2009, c2008.
1st pbk. ed.
558 p. : maps ; 21 cm.

This is the first book of the popular  Gone Series by Michael Grant.  It is a blend of science/paranormal fiction, action, horror, and thriller set in a small beachside California that is suddenly hit by a disaster of fantastic proportions: all persons 15 or older instantaneously disappear, the town is surrounded by a 20 mile radius bubble/force-field that is impenetrable, and - to make matters worse - many humans and animals are beginning to develop physics-defying powers and mutations.  Needless to say, it's a setting for the sorting out and conflict of the best and the worst human behaviors.

First, I should say that the book is VERY readable and entertaining, and moves along at a smart clip with lots of action, intrigue, surprises and hooks.  It is also skillfully written with many moments where the interactions of characters are subtly handled. On his website, Grant writes,

"When they're done with the first book, I want them to need that next book desperately. I want to surprise that reader and scare that reader and make that reader fall in love. In the end I want the reader to put down the book and think, 'Man, that was fun.'"

I think he has succeeded well.  Definitely fun, but for me I won't be hurrying to grab up the next installment - Hunger - in the series.  My main problem with Gone was that the necessity for the "willing suspension of disbelief" is stretched to the breaking point.  I was willing to accept the disappearance of all humans, 15 and up (pretty cool set-up), I was willing to accept the morphing preternatural powers of some of the characters and even the strange forcefield bubble that defines the FAYZ as this little landscape of horrors is called (could it be rationally related to the nuclear mishap referred to in the novel when a meteorite hit one of the reactors and fortunately buried its uranium deep underground?). But when the "Pack Leader" coyote started talking - and when he began communicating with some evil presence deep in the gold mine...well, you get the picture.

My second problem was with the ending.  It seemed rushed, chaotic, and not believable.  There is a scene where one of the "good guys" has a chance to easily kill one of the bad guys - who is truly a murderous psychopath - and just can't do it, alllowing the "bad guy" survives for another day (and another sequel). The ending seemed clearly dictated by the demands of allowing a sequel - and that really drives me nuts.

Complaints aside, I would happily recommend Gone for a student who is looking for a fun, somewhat scary, exciting read.  Especially a student who like long series - this one has five more installments: Hunger, Lies, Plague, Fear and Light - all of which our library owns.

Maybe a Masterpiece

Image scanned by Gerald Ajam

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
London ; New York : Penguin Books, 2001.
xl, 866 p. : ill. ; 20 cm.

This should really go under my "summer break" reads, but I only finished it this weekend - so here it is as an fall semester post. As you can see from the page count (866!) it is a bit of a long book.  I had been wanting to read Vanity Fair for some time, and since summer is a good time to take on a thick book, Vanity Fair was on my list.

I found it fairly enjoyable and an interesting read.  It is hard not to be entertained by the pretenses, schemes, dishonesty and greed that infects the cast of characters from various classes of mid-19th century English society that are the subjects of Thackeray's novel.  He has a rather cynical and sarcastic tone throughout much of his work - in some ways closer to a satirist, than a straight novelist. 

The book wouldn't be the success it is without two characters in particular - the shrewd and scheming Rebecca Sharp - and the long-suffering lover, William Dobbin.  Rebecca, or Becky as she is more commonly called, has nasty character flaws - duplicity, appalling mothering, and scorn and ridicule for those she pretends to care about - but the reader can't help but appreciate her intelligence, cunning, and resourcefulness (and realize that she is no worse than the majority of characters that people Vanity Fair). 

Dobbin, as the introduction points out, is surely modeled after the author himself - who, like the character, endured unrequited love for years of his life, enamored of an already married woman.  Dobbin really is the only truly redeeming character in the book and serves as a foil to the many scoundrels populating the novel.

In the introduction to the book, John Carey argues that Vanity Fair is as great a masterpiece as Tolstoy's War and Peace.  I'm doubtful.  It's been more than ten years since I read War and Peace, but only two years since I read Anna Karenina, and I really don't think Thackeray's work is on par with Tolstoy.  I agree that it comes close at times, but Thackeray's general misanthropy and caustic view of humanity ends up depriving Vanity Fair of the pathos needed to overwhelm the reader, the way Tolstoy does.  Nevertheless, Vanity Fair is a remarkable work of fiction, and I would recommend it to any student asking for a recommendation from the classics of English fiction.

To Boneville - Finally!

Graphic is from Out of Boneville and comes from the Comic Book Legal Defense fund's article about a school library challenge being defeated.

Bone: out from Boneville by Jeff Smith
New York : Graphix, 2005.
1st Scholastic Ed.
138 p. : col. ill. ; 24 cm. 

I've been meaning to read Bone for a long time.  Too long!  When I first started in school librarianship over 10 years ago, and was looking for graphic novel recommendations, Jeff Smith's Bone consistently appeared in many graphic novel "Best" lists.  Bone has had great publishing and critical success.

I enjoyed Bone a lot, though I'm a little surprised (and pleased!) at how popular it is in the high school library.  I think I am surprised because it is so good-natured, likable, and lacking violence, sexual situations, and obscenities and even makes references to Moby Dick! It is a comic book series that continues to circulate frequently at my library.  Perhaps this is due to the fact that there is a lot of humor, likable characters, action, adventure and ambitious (dare one say epic?) plotting to the Bone tale.
I don't think I'll be reading all of the Bone books (we currently have numbers 1-8), but I can recommend the book and say that it does not disappoint. Fans of Bone might want to visit the author's lively web page.

A Terrible January

A torchlight parade of SA formations passes in review before President Paul von Hindenberg, who sits in the window of the chancellery, on the night when Hitler was made Chancellor of Germany - USHMM

Hitler's Thirty Days to Power: January 1933 by Henry Ashby Turner, Jr.
Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley, 1996.
xii, 255 p., [32] p. of plates : ill. ; 23 cm.

This was a very readable and informative book.  It is also a very disturbing and painful book to read, since I had not realized that the fortunes of the Nazis were very much in decline at the start of New Year, 1933. It really is a remarkable look at how Hitler insisted on an all or nothing offer of power, in spite of many pressures from within and without of the Nazi party for him to accept a coalition role in governing Germany.

There is much to ruminate over in this short, powerful look at the fateful month of January 1933: the willingness of the bourgeoisie to accept the violent and racist rule of the Nazis, the role of the rule of law in allowing the rise of dictatorial powers, the mistakes of elites in assuming they can control the representatives of vulgar right-wing populism.  There is also just the awful realization of what handing the reins of power to Hitler will mean for the Germans, the Jews, and the world.

I would definitely recommend this book to any student interested in the rise of the Nazis.

Southern Gothic

The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O'Connor
New York : Noonday Press : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, c1988.
243 p. ; 21 cm.

I saw the movie Wise Blood a long time ago in college, back when I was living in the South, and Flannery O'Connor fascinated me with her brooding and disturbing portrayals of people lost in moral quagmires of obsessions and religion.

Well, The Violent Bear it Away, does not stray far from religious obsessions - and their troubling effects on the subjects of the novel.  The novel develops the intense conflict between Tarwater, an orphan raised to be a great prophet by his religiously crazed uncle and his nephew, Rayber - the strict rationalist - who is out to "cure" Tarwater of the effects of his upbringing.

The forces and personalities at the heart of the conflict hint at irreconcilable tragedy and the ending will leave the reader either satisfied at the resolution, or - as in my case - feeling that it was a bit contrived and rushed.

I can't say I'd recommend the novel to students, but a student looking for a southern writer to read and research might find O'Connor fascinating.  Her writing is also interesting and tinged with dark humor.

Not Your Great Grandfather's War

Bitterly Divided by David Williams
New York : New Press, 2010, c2008.
Pbk. ed.
310 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.

This is one of those great history books that causes you to rethink the things you thought you knew about a major event.  In this case, the author is reexamining the Civil War - particularly the prevailing view of the Confederacy as society committed in wartime to the success of an overwhelmingly popular cause - the the desire to preserve secession and the white southern way of life.

Williams instead details how the secession movement was an anti-democratic takeover of southern legislatures by powerful elites - especially the large slaveholders.  He presents a wealth of documentation showing that secession never had a popular mandate - until armed conflict actually broke out.  Williams also points out that the Confederacy had to rely on severe conscription laws to fill the ranks of the army and how the exemption of large slaveholders created mass discontent. Finally Williams documents how the large landholders of the Confederacy contributed to the defeat of the South by dedicating much of their land to luxury items on which they could make exorbitant profits (due to the blockade) instead of foodstuffs that would have helped feed the soldiers and their families who struggled to feed themselves due to shortages and the lack of manpower.

The book is a powerful indictment of war profiteering and the exploitation of the lower classes by the rich southern aristocracy during the Civil War - themes that still have resonance in the current US landscape of war and wealth inequities.

Bloody Times

This Hallowed Ground by Bruce Catton
New York : Vintage Books, 2012, c1956.
1st Vintage Civil War library ed.
ix, 437 p. : maps ; 21 cm.

In the 1950s and 60s Bruce Catton was recognized as the essential and most popular historian of the Civil War.  He has written many volumes on those terrible years of 1861 to 1865 - such as A Stillness at Appomattox which our library also owns.  Though not read as much of late, I was pleased to see this one-volume history of the Civil War reissued in 2012.

I can understand why Catton was so popular.  This history is very readable and engaging and offers a great overview of the important events and battles of the Civil War.  It lacks some of the more interesting social and personal perspectives that a more recent history of the war might have, but it is nonetheless a compelling read.  Catton is able to present the long and complex campaigns of the Civil War in a way that is fairly easy to follow.

I would definitely recommend this book to a student looking for a good introductory narrative of the Civil War.

Out There with Kafka

(image from Steppenwolf Theater production, fall 2008)

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
New York : Vintage International, 2006, c2005.
1st Vintage International ed.
467 p. ; 21 cm.

This one has a bit of everything: a sophisticated but sensitive 15 year old main character, Colonel Sanders, a downpour of leeches, some sex, an old man who talks to cats, time travel, a road trip with a 29 year old trucker and even a library (yes, a library!) as one of the main settings.

I first read a Murakami novel about 10 years ago - The Wind Up Bird Chronicle and it was a tour de force, so I was looking forward to this one which is on the AP Lit recommended list.

I was not disappointed in this novel. It is extremely creative and interesting with wonderfully memorable characters - from Ms. Saeki, the librarian stuck in her lost love from decades ago, to the endearing Mr. Nakata who is illiterate but wise and able to converse with cats. The novel can definitely be described as magical realism, but it is much more than than that. It is a fable, a murder mystery, a coming of age story, a meditation on love, time, loyalty, goodness and evil.

This is not an "easy" novel, but it should really appeal to students who love to read literature and are looking for something truly unusual, creative and yet with a lot of substance - a book that will stay with you long after you've put it down.

Like Coffee with Cream...and Sugar

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler
New York : Little, Brown, 2011.
354 p. : col. ill. ; 22 cm. 

A really lovely book, that offers several creatively fresh angles on the romance that falls apart between two unlikely teens.

The first nice hook of this book is the premise.  The book is the supposed text accompanying the box of returned "artifacts" of this couple's brief love affair which is being ended by the girl after she learns of her boyfriend's secret second girlfriend.

The next appealing aspect of the book are the lovely full color paintings by Maira Kalman which begin each chapter of the book - usually being a chapter describing one item in the box and how it relates to the couple's romance and break-up. These illustrations (like the one at the top of this entry) are simple - but wonderfully colorful and evocative.  They also serve to stoke the reader's curiosity and add texture to the novel.  I often found myself gazing at them before beginning a chapter, and then looking back at them after reading the chapter.

Another strength of this book are the characters, who are richly developed and complicated.  Min Green, the girl who tells the story, is smart, irreverent, artsy and - unfortunately - naive.  Her boyfriend the popular, good looking Ed Slaterton is a jock and a bit of a cad, but is also very smart in math and clever and funny.

If I had a complaint for this book, it would be that it was a bit too long.  I felt like it lost its pace about 2/3 of the way through, and like other critics of the book I found myself being a bit annoyed with the narrator - her obsession with films and inability to see the flaws of her boyfriend get tiresome toward the end.  However, I felt like the book found its footing toward the end and I would definitely recommend it to any student looking for a book about dating, romance, first love, and break-ups.

For me this book called to mind Chbosky's Perks of Being a Wallflower and Cohn's Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.

The One I Couldn't Read

Marked by P.C. and Kristin Cast
New York : St. Martin's Griffin, c2007.
306 p. ; 21 cm.

What can I say about this book? It's a hot mess of a work - sloppy, uneven, awfully plotted, silly dialogue, boring, unoriginal...and extremely popular - sigh.  It is a book that successfully takes advantage of the vampire phenomenon but is such a mix of high and low (pretentious references to myth and American Indian "lore" along with crass commercialism and sexuality) and poor writing that I just could never lose myself in it.  Unlike the Twilight series- where I didn't care for the plot and characters - but could appreciate the strong writing and structure of the book, this one just left me completely unsatisfied.

I really tried to give it a go, but around page 125, I signed the papers and pulled the plug (something I almost never do with a book I've started). I just couldn't take anymore lines like the following when the main character sees a "hot" young man at her new vampire school:

"The door opened and oh my dear sweet lord I do believe my heart totally stopped beating.  I'm positive my mouth flopped open like a moron.  He was the most gorgeous young lad I had ever seen. He was tall and had dark hair that did that adorably perfect Superman curl thing. His eyes were an amazing sapphire blue and..." (p112)

And that was one of the better passages of the book.  I guess this book and the series it launched (The House of Night series) proves that reading is an incredibly subjective endeavor - even just reading for entertainment.  I'm not above reading a book for light fun, but this one just didn't do it for me. 

Yum

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
New York : Penguin Press, 2006.
450 p. ; 25 cm.

I've been wanting to read Michael Pollan's book for quite a while, probably since hearing him interviewed on radio (or TV) back in 2006 when the book first came out. I remember being most intrigued by his findings that, thanks to the industrialization of food, corn has become the basis for nearly all food in the US, and that what is sold as "food" is often a chemically assembled/reassembled mix of corn, fats, salts, sugars, and "natural" flavorings that are rarely healthy or nutritious.  Well, living in Illinois - the land of corn - (OK, coming in 2nd place to Iowa) and the home of the villainous "food" giant ADM and "food" behemoth McDonald's, I simply had to read Pollan's book.  I wasn't disappointed.

Pollan's book is an interesting read on many counts - as science, natural history, social history, and culture.  It is a book that offers a rare glimpse into the extremely destructive nature of agriculture/agribusiness as it is practiced in the US - and the many ways that the worst practices of agriculture (monoculture and complete dependence on fossil fuel) are encouraged and enforced by US law and policy.

His book also looks at agricultural practices that are beneficial to humans and the environment - including the importance of local foods.  As a mostly vegetarian eater, I really appreciated his interesting insights into what is good and bad about the "organic" food supply as it has evolved in the US, particularly as it has become a huge multi-billion dollar industry itself.  I also found a lot to think about regarding the positive benefits of having livestock on farms - livestock that are allowed to pasture and participate in a rich multi-cultured farm,  not livestock that are raised in large-scale confinement operations. 

For the leisurely non-fiction reader, the book is a bit on the long side and took me awhile to finish, but I was really pleased when I realized that our library also has an edition of the book for younger readers (still weighs in at about 300 pages) that is really excellent.  The young reader's edition has a lot of great photographs and graphics that frankly would have been wonderful in the adult version, so I can definitely recommend it as well.

An Unsettling Run

Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
New York : Simon & Schuster, 2005
xix, 262 p. ; 22 cm.

After I read Rodriguez' memoir I told a friend that this book has one of the marks of great writing - it leaves you feeling disturbed, troubled and a little lost in that gray area between right and wrong.  On one had, as a reader I felt such empathy for the main character, young Rodriguez - stuck as he is in a world of racism, poverty, run down schools, and violence (from peers, strangers and police) - but also as a reader there is something truly disturbing and repulsive about the violence and misogyny that he participates in.  However unsettling the book, it is timely and important to read.  We watch the main character make better and better choices as he opts to be a force for organizing change in his neighborhood as he grows and matures (and, importantly, is offered opportunities to be engaged in positive change).

A reader hoping to see mainly the hopeful and positive humanity of gang-involved youths will be disappointed; many of the characters in the world of Rodriguez' memoir ultimately chose a life of predation and violence.  Likewise those looking to justify their belief in a punitive, zero tolerance law-and-order approach to youth and gang violence will also be disappointed; Rodriguez' journey from gang-banger to artist and community organizer passionately demonstrates that human beings can change for the better and leave behind violence and nihilism when they are treated with respect and love and have actual opportunities to better themselves.

I'm pleased to see that this book - originally published in 1993 - has been republished in 2005.  In spite of this book being the frequent target of challenges (most books that don't offer black and white versions of morality are subject to controversy), it is a thoughtful and well written glimpse into the lives of young people growing up in social situations that no young person should have to navigate - so like many of our young people today.

History Uncovered

Kill Anything that Moves by Nick Turse
New York : Metropolitan Books, 2013.
370 p. : ill., map ; 25 cm.

In 2001 Nick Turse was a graduate student doing research at the National Archives on PTSD among Vietnam Veterans when an archivist working there asked him if a veteran could suffer PTSD from witnessing war crimes.  The archivist then presented Turse with the first of many boxes of long (and intentionally) neglected documents of the Pentagon's Vietnam era War Crimes Working Group.  So began Turse's 10 year odyssey of research and interviews that would result in this seminal study of US military policy and practice in Vietnam.  Turse's contention - backed up with copious notes, Pentagon records, and sworn testimonies by veterans and Vietnamese survivors - is that official US policy from the office of the President on down was to wage war in Vietnam in a way that knowingly targeted millions Vietnamese non-combatants. He argues that My Lai was not an aberration, but typical of the US method of waging war in Vietnam.

This book is sure to become a standard reference to the Vietnam War.  It is also likely to be controversial - arguing as it does (and as did Nuremberg prosecutor Telford Taylor) that the highest officers and officials in charge of the Vietnam War warranted proceedings for war crimes.

Kill Anything That Moves is one of those that great histories that calls into question the commonly accepted narrative of US history; in that way it reminds me of Douglas Blackmon's Slavery by Another Name, an expose of the murderous convict labor system in the South, or James Brady's Imperial Cruise, a stunning exploration of the white supremacist ideology in US foreign policy leading up to WWII.

Another Southerner

The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
New York : Vintage Books, 1990.
180 p. ; 21 cm.

The past several years I've been updating our library's collection of literary criticism and noticed the availability of several volumes of Bloom's criticisms for Eudora Welty.  I acquired two and added a couple of her novels, too.  I had heard of Welty, but had never read any of her novels so I picked The Optimist's Daughter - the novel that brought Welty a Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

In some ways the novel is more of a meditation than a novel.  Very little really "happens" in the novel - a daughter returns to the south to be with her father for a surgery that does not turn out well, and has to deal with the shallow new wife that her father recently married.

Before returning to Chicago where she lives and works, the main character, Laurel revisits the home of her childhood and ruminates on the people her mother and father were.

It's not an incredibly compelling read, but I enjoyed it and appreciated its subtle and light-handed touch, a touch which does not take away from seriousness of the subject matter. I'd definitely recommend Welty for a student looking for an author to research for an English class.

Welty's novel reminded me a bit of Carson McCullers, and made me want to go back and reread some Flannery O'Connor - which I have not read in many, many years.

Profoundly Disturbing

My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
New York : Abrams ComicArts, 2012
221 p. : chiefly ill. ; 25 cm. 

This is an excellent graphic novel - profound and disturbing.  It revisits one of the most lurid serial killer stories - that of  Jeffrey Dahmer - but manages to avoid being lurid or sensational at all.  Instead it is a compassionate telling of the middle and high school years of the young Jeff Dahmer, told by Derf Backderf, a classmate and erstwhile pal of Dahmer.

The book presents a very honest portrait of the lives of young people in an Ohio community in the mid 1970s.  Backderf is able to retell the rather low humor and insensitive world of high school guys he hangs out with - but with a deft and sensitive touch.  He is also able to subtly convey the outrageous ways in which all the adults of Bath, Ohio ignore the clear signs that Dahmer was an extremely troubled young man - especially his intense alcohol abuse during school hours.

To me the greatest strength of this graphic novel is Backderf's ability to have compassion for Dahmer, and yet not excuse or minimize the horrid crimes that he committed.  Within the telling of My Friend Dahmer, there is never a moment where one feels like Backderf is trying to forgive or excuse what Dahmer did.  However, he is able help the reader consider Dahmer as a human being - one with a history in a real time and a very real place - albeit, one who eventually became a merciless and grotesque killer of over a dozen young men.

Don't Miss This Trane

A Love Supreme: the Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album by Ashley Kahn
New York : Viking, 2002.
xxiii, 260 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.

I picked up this book at a library book sale this year and read it as someone who likes jazz, but frankly is pretty ignorant about many aspects of jazz.  The book was a treat in that it is very accessible for the lay person interested in jazz, but also makes many references to various jazz artists, techniques, movements, recording studios, etc.  In this way it expanded my limited knowledge, tempted me to learn more, but managed not to overwhelm me - not bad! Kahn's book really conveys the heady times that the mid-1960s were for jazz - and explains why A Love Supreme is one of the iconic albums in the history of jazz.

I really enjoyed learning about John Coltrane's rise to fame - his rigorous practice habits, his brilliance as a performer and composer, his addiction and recovery from heroin, his work with Miles Davis, his role as leader of the quartet that created A Love Supreme, and sadly, his premature death from cancer in 1967. 

It was especially fun to listen to the album - which I bought from iTunes - while reading this book.  Chapter 3 of the book (p. 83-127) provides a thoughtful analysis of the album, section by section, so it serves in effect as a listener's guide. Though not necessary, I'd definitely recommend that readers get their hands on a copy of Coltrane's album to enjoy while they read this fine book.

Another Great Graphic Novel

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2007.
232 p. : chiefly ill., maps ; 24 cm.

Alison Bechdel has been creating comics for many years for her syndicated Dykes to Watch Out For which has a small but significant following.  Her book Fun Home, which had both popular and critical success is likely to bring her work to a much wider audience - something she apparently was not prepared for.

The praise for this work - which calls to mind another standout graphic novel Stitches - is well deserved.  It is a rich memoir/graphic novel which is subtle and nuanced as it tells the story of Bechdel's complex, rich, and troubled family of origin - led by parents whose frustrated dreams and repressed sexuality created an intense environment of simmering anger and emotional detachment.

The amazing thing about Fun Home is that in addition to illustrating the conflicts and tensions in her home,  Bechdel is able to convey what a rich and tangled upbringing she had.  Her father and mother were both aspiring intellectuals/artists and much of the power of her work lies in her ambivalence toward the legacy of her family - and her refusal to either condemn or condone the shortcomings of her parents.  Her memoir also deserves praise the ways in which it circles around themes and events the story instead of following a singular straightforward narrative and the ways in which she finds echos of her upbringing in film, myths and novels.

I would highly recommend this graphic novel to students who are interested in a multi-layered, complex coming of age stories and family stories dealing with secrets, conflict and even death - since her father's apparent suicide (possibly an accident) is at the heart of this fine work.  The novel does deal with some mature emotional and sexual issues, so it might not be suitable for immature readers.

Payback and Karma

Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood by Eileen Cook
New York : Simon Pulse, 2010.
261 p. ; 21 cm.

Well written fun! What more can I say about this very readable revenge tale.  The plot seems straight-forward enough: 8th grader gets horribly betrayed and humiliated by her best friend (a popularity-aspiring "mean girl"); moves away for 3 years; and then returns for her senior year with a very different look, and a lusciously detailed plan for payback. 

As you might guess, her campaign for revenge doesn't go in exactly a straight line, but instead leads her to discover a few truths about herself and the costs of deception and revenge.  All of this is woven into a very enjoyable, thoughtful, occasionally humorous and believable story that is hard to put down.

Getting Revenge is not a great novel, but it doesn't aspire to be that - but it is a novel that exceeds its modest aims, and has more depth to it than you might think on just glancing at it's appealing cover (see the graphic above), and the humorous by-line on the cover: "This time, the mean girl is going down."

Next time a student asks for something "good to read" and is looking for something fun, I won't hesitate suggesting this solid work of teen revenge and self-discovery fiction.

Trouble in the Windy City

Divergent by Veronica Roth
New York : Katherine Tegen Books, 2012, c2011.
487 p. ; 21 cm.

Okay, so the Chicago of Divergent is not quite the ruined city of the Great Fire of 1871 (picture above), but it is a run-down, post-war future Chicago where human society is structured around five factions representing five personality types - Erudite, Dauntless, Candor, Amity, and Abnegation.  

Veronica Roth has developed a great set-up for her novel, envisioning a society where the factions have developed ways to live in harmony by having each faction contribute to the well-being of society with their unique, but mutually beneficial roles, but since conflict is at the heart of a good novel, some faction leaders are not satisfied with the role of their faction and want to overturn the social order. Furthermore, every citizen must chose their faction and be initiated into it at the age of 16.  Most chose their faction of origin, but not everyone, and there's the rub.

There is a great deal to admire about Divergent.  The plotting is crisp, characters are interesting and usually multidimensional, and the setting is evocative and imaginative.  The narrative is rarely dull, and there are some thoroughly enjoyable imagined scenes of post-war Chicago, and excellent plot developments that keep the reader engaged.  Roth has also created a compelling heroine, Beatrice/Tris, who will definitely put readers in mind of Catniss from the Hunger Games. She is smart, complex, competitive, and develops throughout the novel.  My main frustration with the novel, is the ways in which the demands of leaving the novel open to a trilogy occasionally compromise the plot.  There were a couple of times toward the end of the novel where I thought to myself, "That character would never have done that," but felt like the action was required to keep certain other characters alive for future installments in the trilogy.

Overall, I would highly recommend Divergent, especially to any reader who is looking for a thrilling dystopian adventure.  The fact that the novel is set in our home state of Illinois - and is scheduled to be a feature film in 2014 - doesn't hurt either!

Four Teens and a Funeral

Tangled by Carolyn Mackler
New York : HarperTeen, 2011, c2010.
308 p. ; 21 cm. 

Mackler is the author of the ever popular and frequently challenged book, The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things - and that is probably the book by her I would have read if a student had not recently turned in Tangled and said, "Mr. Murrey, this was great.  You have to read it!"

I read it and enjoyed it quite a lot.  It's the story of four teens and the unlikely ways in which their lives come together and in which each of them grows and matures. The springing off event of the novel is a short week trip to a Caribbean island resort where the four of them end up briefly interacting. The rest of the novel takes place in New York state and  New York City (and so the picture above of the Sheep Meadow in Central Park).

I'd say the thing that pleased me the most about the book was that I didn't really care for it at first, beginning as it does from the point of view of Jena.  She is one of those "teen" characters who is feels just a little too smart, cute (but doesn't think she's cute), and self-aware. But oddly she grows on you and the other characters round out the novel really well - defying the surface stereotypes they seem, and revealing full, evolving human characters in the process.  There are some nice plot turns throughout and lots of low key humor.  Finally, there is a really tender romance in the book, and who can turn that down?

I'd definitely recommend this book for any readers interested in relationship fiction. 

And I'll No Longer Be a Capulet

Perfect Chemistry by Simon Elkeles
New York : Walker, 2009.
360 p. ; 22 cm.

Okay, so it's not actually a retelling of Romeo and Juliet, but this young adult romance has fine echoes of the play - a boy and girl whose class and ethnic differences would seem to prohibit closeness find themselves falling deeply in love with each other.

I wouldn't have been likely to read this novel, except that it has circulated a lot since I added it to our collection and I've heard kids recommending it to each other. I found it very readable and - in spite of having some fairly predictable plot outcomes - it has compelling characters who are not just flat stereotypes.  It also works as a way of exploring the masks that young people wear to get by and the ways in which their class backgrounds can define and limit the choices they can make.  Overall, like Romeo and Juliet, it's a homage to the power of love - and the risks that characters are willing to take for love.

The novel is set in a suburb of Chicago where the high school has a divide between the wealthy white kids and the Latino students - some of who are involved in gang activities.  The novel deals with the accurate and distorted views that the two groups have of each other, and what happens when those boundaries are crossed.

The novel also deals with family life, street life and the difficulties of having family with serious disabilities.  
There is a fair bit of mature language and some frank sexual situations - not overly graphic, but definitely not suitable for classroom use, or for recommending to younger readers. 

I'm pleased I read this novel.  The writing is strong and it's good to know that this kind of book is popular with a lot of young adults. Students who like the novel or want to know more about it and the author would do well to visit the official website of the book.

Bitter Sweet

Sugar Changed the World: a Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos
Boston : Clarion Books, c2010.
ix, 166 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.

Just as Kurlansky's book on cod makes the case for the often overlooked importance of cod in world affairs and US history, so too Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos' wonderful book on sugar brings this common food item to life by telling its bloody & compelling history.  There is a painful irony that such a sweet substance is so inextricably tied into the immense holocaust of the African slave trade in the Americas - especially in South America and the Caribbean.

For example, in Sugar Changed the World we learn that in just over 100 years between 1701 and 1810 years, nearly a million slaves were shipped into just two "sugar" islands in the Caribbean - the British sugar/slave islands of Barbados and Jamaica. The book reveals that sugar slavery was an especially brutal and lethal fate for slaves.  Up to the time of Emancipation in the US, about 500,000 slaves were brought into North America, while more than 2 million were taken to the various "sugar" islands - and yet at Emancipation, the slave population in North American had risen 4 million, while the slave population of the islands was 670,000.  The sugar plantations of the Caribbean were places where most slaves were worked to death.

The book conveys the hell that was the sugar plantations of the Caribbean (and eventually of Louisiana in the US) in ways that are factual without being overwhelming for middle to high school readers. In detailing the workings of the sugar slave plantations the book would make an excellent pairing with The Poet Slave of Cuba by Margarita Engle.  A strength of Aronson and Budhos' book is that it not only chronicles the horrors of the the sugar slave world, but presents the culture and resilience of the people who lived and died as slaves in the sugar plantations and as workers in the sugar industry after slavery officially ended.

Aronson and and Budhos do an excellent job of giving the global history of sugar (where it came from, and how it became cultivated), explaining how sugar is processed, and revealing that sugar was an economic engine for the emerging imperialist states of Britain, the US, and France.The authors also devote a significant section of their book to the successful slave revolt in Haiti and the contradictions of the US relations with Haiti.

The book has excellent photos, maps and graphics which make the story interesting and very clear.  I would highly recommend this book for any student interested in the fascinating and brutal history of sugar. Lastly, for any teachers considering using the book in their classrooms, there is a great website for the book - including a Teacher's Guide!

Evolution Even a Caveman Could Understand

The Rough Guide to Evolution by Mark Pallen
London ; New York : Rough Guides, 2009.
vi, 346 p. : ill., maps ; 20 cm. 

This is a wonderful book - interesting, comprehensive, thoroughly researched, and engaging.  It serves as a great introduction to Charles Darwin, to the principles of evolution, and to the many ways in which Darwin's groundbreaking work has shaped modern intellectual and cultural life.

Frankly, the most refreshing thing about this book is that it demolishes the spurious and intellectually bankrupt tenets of creationism and creationism's reemergence under the guise of "Intelligent Design." Pallen meticulously reviews the veritable ocean of scientific evidence supporting evolution - showing clearly that that those who deny evolution have as much scientific standing as someone who believes the sun circles the earth. The book also does an admirable job of detailing how the majority of religious thinkers and leaders accept the factual nature of evolution and do not see it as a threat to theism. Sadly, the book points out that it is in the United States that anti-evolution ignorance has developed it's deepest roots.

The book succeeds in explaining in clear language the current understandings of evolutionary theory, but the explanations are not always simple or easy to follow.  I found myself having to read and reread sections on cladistics and genetics.

The book is really enjoyable in that it is broken into sections that can be read solely for their content, e.g. Human Origins.  I would recommend this book to any student curious about Darwin, evolution, human origins, and creationism - or to any student researching these topics.

A Hard Look at Blue Eye

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
New York : Vintage International, 2007, c1970
xiii, 205 p. ; 21 cm. 

The first thing to say about this novel, by Nobel Prize winning author, Toni Morrison, is that it is an amazing first novel. It richly conveys the texture of the lives of three African American girls in a town in Ohio in the 1940s - focusing on one especially pitiful girl, Pecola, who is treated by all as "ugly" and is obsessed with wanting blue eyes.

It is a gritty novel of childhood cruelties, bonds of sisterhood, the dynamics of race, class and sexism.  Poverty, incest, domestic violence, alcoholism, pedophilia and prostitution all come under scrutiny in Morrison's tale.

For me the most vexing aspect of the novel revolves around a male character who rapes his daughter.  The author ventures to enter into the mind of the perpetrator and - frankly - ends up creating a false and "artistic" artifact out of this act of sexual violence.  I say this with some trepidation, realizing that all artists take risks in trying to enter into scenarios and personalities that are radically distinct from their own. Often such risks produce stunning works of art.  However, my assessment is that Morrison grossly misses the mark on this one, and ends up with a rather fanciful, empathetic, and even sympathetic portrayal of the rapist. 

Considered as part of the body of work of Morrison, Bluest Eye, is definitely worth reading and, as I said is a powerful and very readable book.  I just think it deserves a hard look at it's shortcomings.  As I told a friend, my feeling after reading the book [regarding the character who commits the incest/rape] was, "She doesn't know what she's talking about.  She doesn't have any business going there...."

Light Read, but a Good Read

If I Was Your Girl by Ni-Ni Simone
New York : Kensington Pub. Corp., 2008
viii, 261 p. ; 22 cm.

Ni-Ni Simone is an extremely popular author at our library, and so I finally got around to reading one of her novels to see what makes her books spend so much time off the shelves and in the hands of readers.

After reading If I Were Your Girl, I understand the appeal of her books.  Simone is great with dialogue and conveying the attitude of her characters.  She's also skilled at moving the plot along, while creating a rich array of interesting characters.  One of the things I really enjoyed about Simone is that she is able to explore the mistakes and shortcomings of her characters without being preachy, but is also able to show them developing and succeeding in ways that are interesting and not always predictable.

I especially liked how Simone is able to make a really creepy "player" like Quamir - the main character's first boyfriend - believable to the point where the reader almost believes his lies and lines. With convincing dialogue and scenes we are able to sympathize with Toi, the main character as she struggles to figure out which characters actually care about her, and which characters are simply out to use her.

Finally, the plot is really satisfying in that Toi's maturation and development during the novel is reasonable and not miraculous - and the life she creates as a young teen mother is redemptive, but still not easy.

I am truly grateful that there are authors like Simone who are writing for the teens, especially young women, who want the realism and grittiness of urban fiction and novels with "drama" - but is able to do it with meaningful characters and dialogue, instead of simply peppering her narrative with graphic sex and obscene language.