Game Over

Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto by Steve Almond
Brooklyn : Melville House, [2014]
178 p.; 20cm.

In late summer this year, I heard Steve Almond on several talk shows [you can hear him talking with the superb Dave Zirin at the 13 minute mark here] discussing this book, Against Football.  Hearing him talk about the moral problems of being a fan of football was interesting, especially because he was a devoted and obsessed fan of professional football, mainly of the Oakland Raiders.  He brought to the discussion an element missing in some criticisms of football - a passion for the thrills of the game for the fans.

To my mind, Almond has written a powerful and passionate denunciation of the popular love of football by the American public - something that polling data backs up.  Almond manages in this short [178 p.] manifesto to expose football as a brutal [even lethal] sport that embodies many of the shortcomings of US society - sexism, racism, militarism, and unbridled capitalist greed.  However, he also tries to explain why it is such an appealing sport for millions of fans.  He backs his critiques up with facts and data that are hard to dispute. 

Of course many fans will be angry or frustrated with Almond's critique.  Any fan reading this book, will have to confront that their support of football, is a support for a sport that ravages the brains and the bodies of its players [including this tragic injury at a nearby high school this fall].  For those reluctant to give up football, I would suggest checking out this moving video from Time magazine which explains a lot about CTE - the brain injury that is a direct result of football violence and is at the heart of the injury crisis confronting football.

Want to keep watching, enjoying football?  If you do, you at least owe it to yourself and your conscience to read this passionate renunciation of American football.

The War to End All War Protests

From LOC

Unraveling Freedom by Ann Bausum
Washington, D.C. : National Geographic, c2010.
88 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 26 cm.

This is one of those short, but visually stunning and well written books that National Geographic has been putting out for young readers (e.g. photobiographies Bylines & Knockout about Nelly Bly & Joe Louis, respectively, or Denied, Detained, Deported about abuses of US immigration).

I really enjoyed reading this book for the way that Bausum brings alive the times of WWI and makes the assaults on liberties and freedoms by the US government feel very contemporary. She is good at comparing the various attempts to propagandize, censor, and stifle dissent to similar actions that have accompanied other US wars, including the latest "war on terror."

I was struck, in reading the book, at how US trends of anti-intellectualism and blind patriotism have strong roots in domestic policies during WWI.  In the frenzy of anti-German propaganda (see graphic above), not only was German language instruction virtually wiped out of the US education system, but over half the states banned teaching any foreign language.

There is a lot to recommend about this book to any student interested in US history during the period of WWI and its aftermath.

So-so Dystopia

The Diary of Pelly D by L.J. Adlington
New York : Greenwillow Books, 2008, c2005.
1st HarperTeen ed.
282 p. ; 19 cm.

Tony V runs a jackhammer on City V - just one of the five major cities on a planet colonized by humans long before his birth.  He is working on clearing the city for reconstruction following a war that devastated it.  While working Tony discovers the diary of a girl his age who was in that war. 

L.J. Adlington's novel is creative and clever - the citizens of this world have gills, water is at a premium, there are hints of corporatist totalitarianism and ethnic cleansing - but somehow I just found it not very compelling.  The author of the diary was a young, rich, shallow "it girl" until the civil war started that destroyed her privileged life.  A lot of the novel is the supposed text of this diary, which for me is just too much of the mundane ramblings of this imagined material girl.  The really compelling content of the unraveling of her life and society doesn't come about until the last part of the novel. 

The novel does offer a good starting point for discussing and thinking about civil conflict based on haves and have-nots and on manufactured ethnic conflict.

I read this book due to the glowing teen review of it in VOYA, but I have to agree with Tasha Saecker, of School Library Journal who writes, "The true horrors of what is happening are muted until the end of the book, taking away much of its power. The concept is interesting and the world of Tony V is well rendered, but in the end, the novel disappoints."  Exactly.

Hard Life, Good Read

Tyrell by Coe Booth
New York : PUSH, c2007.
310 p. ; 18 cm. 

I've been planning to read this book for years.  This year there was an uptick in demand for all of Coe Booth's books - Tyrell, Kendra, and Bronxwood - so it seemed like a good time to take this novel home and read it.  I was not disappointed.

Tyrell is a tough book - there is a lot of profanity, drug use, fights, sexual situations and overall gritty scenes throughout the novel, but it all feels very necessary to the power of this novel. The hero, fifteen year old Tyrell, has to figure out how to make his way in a world where his father is in prison, his mother is completely immature, selfish, and incompetent and many of his role models are sexist, aggressive, law-breaking young men.  He wants to do right by his family (especially his young brother), his friends, his girl friend, and his conscience.  Tyrell is smart, friendly, and great with DJing, something he learned from his father. But with his father in jail, his mother worthless as a parent, he has to figure out how to get himself and his family out of the filthy temporary hotel that they are stuck in after losing their apartment.

The thing I loved about Tyrell, is that all the characters are complex. Characters has their strengths and some serious weaknesses.  The main character, Tryell, can be heroic, but he can also be a liar, a macho hypocrite, and aggressive.  But he wants to make something of himself, and has a strong ethical code of honor that he reflects on even when he falls short.  Booth's skill is creating interesting, vivid characters who reflect the wide range of human strengths and weaknesses as they navigate the distressing and profoundly unfair world of inner city poverty.

It's too bad that a novel like this could not be taught in a classroom curriculum (there's just too much raw language and situations) because there are so many ethical and moral dilemmas that come up throughout the novel - and the novel is popular with young men and women.  It may not be suitable for the classroom, but it is a book that many young people, including reluctant readers are bound to embrace.

Abduction is So Romantic, or Is It?

Stolen by Lucy Christopher
New York : Chicken House, [2013], c2010.
299 p. ; 21 cm. 

This 2011 Printz Honor book started out strong for me - a teenager meets a slightly older, attractive guy in a Bangkok airport, flirts with him, gets drugged, hustled off, and drugged some more, finally waking up his captive in a totally isolated homestead in the barren Australian outback.

I liked the beginning of Stolen, as the victim, Gemma, terrified that her abductor is eventually going to assault and murder her, begins assessing her odds of resisting, escaping, etc., and tries to deal with the extreme loneliness and fear that gnaws at her.  In addition to being young and vulnerable, she is thousands of miles away from family and friends and surroundings of her hometown of London, and in an intensely isolated and unforgiving environment.

For me the weakness of this novel is that it wants to be both a thriller/survival tale and also a love story - as the victim comes to deeply care for and admire her captor.  I just don't think the transition works.  The shift in the main character's attitude toward her kidnapper is fairly abrupt.  Around about 2/3s of the way through the book - right after her keeper saves her from dying of exposure in the desert sun during an attempted escape, she suddenly starts being easy with him.  Waking him from a wildly screaming dream he's having about being taken himself as a child into foster care - Gemma suddenly starts chatting with him about the stars, and is entranced with his glorious painting project that fills one of the outbuildings he has constructed.  The novel then rapidly unwinds and concludes with an ending that has Gemma getting back to her family ( I don't want to give too much away).

I couldn't help thinking how it would have been fascinating if this were actually two novels.  One, a story of survival with an abductor who Gemma has to figure out in order to outwit and outsmart - and maybe doesn't triumph.  I picture the other novel being a romance between a Gemmalike character and a quirky, artistic, iron-willed man who she runs away with - only to find herself increasingly cut off and isolated, yet also coming to admire and love his wild determination... Instead, I felt a bit like I was reading a Harlequinesque seduction fantasy where the handsome, misunderstood, dark stranger really does sweep the heroine off her feet (and into a trunk and into a rustic prison in the outback...oooh, soooo romantic - not.)

Clearly I'm in the minority in not thinking this was an absolutely fantastic novel - after all it was a Printz honor book, and a short glance at reviews on Goodreads will reveal how well-loved Stolen is (including this rave review by YA author, Maggie Stiefvater

Geeky Greatness

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
New York : Broadway Books, c2011.
374 p. ; 21 cm.

This is a great book, one that should appeal to a wide variety of readers.  I'm not a videogamer, but I loved how Cline creates a thrilling, realistic sci-fi adventure story that seamlessly weaves videogaming and videogaming allusions into the text and texture of his novel. Ready Player One is a dystopian adventure, a love story, a paen to geekdom, an homage to 80s pop culture, and frankly a fun and smartly plotted novel.  Not bad!

I found the novel a pleasure to read. It wrestles with the evils of corporatism, the alienation of virtual reality, the pleasures of camaraderie and romance, and the basic human struggle between good and evil.  There is just enough real violence (not much) in the book to keep the reader on edge, and a plot that moves smartly along.  Even for non-geeks, the book has many moments of recognition where the reader thinks, "Ah ha, I know what ______________ he's talking about!" (Fill in the blank with book, movie, videogame, TV show or song depending on the situation.

Cline somehow manages to convey the reality on the online experience, while always the maintaining the more final reality of the actual world - while at times having them almost (almost, but not quite) dreamily/nightmarishly blur closely together.

I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for an unusual, creative, and thrilling read.  

& Wonderful

Wideness & Wonder: the life and art of Georgia O'Keeffe by Susan Goldman Rubin
San Francisco : Chronicle Books, c2010.
117 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 22 cm.

One of the things I love about biographies for young people is that they are often short, vivid, compelling and not overwrought with insignificant detail.  I found this biography of Georgia O'Keeffe to be a beautiful introduction to the painter.

The book is handsomely designed with many lovely reproductions and photos that bring alive O'Keeffe's long and productive life of painting.  I think the thing that I really enjoyed was how the book conveys just how new and avant garde the work of O'Keeffe was at the time she was creating it.  Her work seems so accessible and mainstream now, but there really was nothing like it when she was painting.  Her mix of stunning color, expressionist vision, realism, and large scale focus on the single simple subject are all really amazing.

I also appreciate how the biography both pays tribute to O'Keeffe as a trailblazing woman artist, but focuses on her mainly as an innovative, interesting and successful American artist.  The biography pulls together a great deal of interesting information - her early farm years in Wisconsin, her teaching experience in rural Texas, her time at the Art Institute of Chicago, and of course her productive years in New York City and New Mexico (where the O'Keeffe Museum is located)

Home at Heart

Feels Like Home by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo
New York : Delacorte Press, c2007.
213 p. ; 22 cm.

I wanted to read this novel before the author, e.E. Charlton-Trujillo came to our school for the second time this October. I was glad I picked it.  It's a bit of a throw-back novel, in a sweet way.  There's no aliens, zombies, dystopian overlords, fights to the death, or raunchy sexual situations. What there is, is an homage to S.E. Hinton's 1967 classic, The Outsiders and an homage to the small-town outsider - an outsider with heart and brains and the determination to go on to bigger things.

It's a good old-fashioned drama - with grief for lost parents and family and grief for a past that is no more - all told though the viewpoint of a teen girl who is trying to come to terms with the past and with a brother who has let her down.

It's not a fast novel or a flashy novel, but it's a good, solid read.

Additionally, the author is a wonderful guest to have at a high school. She is passionate about writing, about connecting with young people, and about living a life of art and connection.  She's great with students and I'll be encouraging kids to check out her books and be looking forward to reading her latest novel, the award-winning, Fat Angie.

Solid Gone

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
New York : Broadway Books, [2014]
422 p. ; 21 cm.

Publisher's Weekly describes Flynn's Gone Girl as the "tale of a marriage gone toxically wrong" which "gradually emerge[s] through alternating accounts by Nick and Amy, both unreliable narrators in their own ways."  I couldn't have said it better myself - so I won't!  Booklist calls it a "compelling thriller and a searing portrait of marriage" which it is, though I'd say it's a pretty twisted and horrible portrait to be sure.  Booklist does note that Flynn "possesses a disturbing worldview, one considerably amped up by her twisted sense of humor." That is definitely true.

Almost all reviews note that it is compulsively readable and I have to agree.  But it does present a rather sordid and extreme view of human relationships and has some pretty crude generalizations about men, women and their interactions.

I think the strength of the book is the plotting (which is creative and unpredictable) and the use of the unreliable narrators - which keeps the reader guessing and on edge.  

Anyone working with young adults should be aware that though there is not a lot of graphic sex in the novel,  sexual situations are frequently referred to - and occasionally described in very explicit and crude terms.  It's definitely a novel for mature readers, but there will be a lot of requests for the book given its phenomenal success and the successful movie version of it which opened the day I finished the book, Oct. 3, 2014.

The title of this post is a nod to a Carter family song - and it's wonderful performance by the late Doc Watson. 

Nothing Natural About It

The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
New York : Hyperion, [2013]
308 p. ; 22 cm.

It's probably no surprise that I didn't care for this novel.  Most of what I wrote about Barry Lyga's I Hunt Killers applies here.  I'm just not interested in being entertained by the lurid retelling of serial killer exploits, but this novel scored VOYA's perfect 10s, so I kind of felt like I had to give it a chance.

So how was it aside from the serial killer aspect?  It was all right, but I just never could really believe that the characters were real people.  The novel for me felt like watching a TV show (and it's interesting that many of its fans reference TV shows in their reviews).

I don't want to be too negative about the book, so I'll just defer to fans of serial killer and murder/thrillers.  They love it! So if there's a student who is interested in this topic, I'll be sure to mention that this is a fun, thrilling and interesting read in that direction - with a plot that is sure to satisfy.

Peculiar, Creepy, and Wildly Inventive

A found photo from Riggs' collection.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Philadelphia : Quirk Books, 2013.
382 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.

I might have missed this book if not for a donation from our local Barnes & Noble store.  They gave our library several copies of various books from their "World Book Night"- including Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.  I was intrigued by the cover...

...and thumbed through it to see that it was filled with enigmatic,evocative and unsettling photographs from times gone by.  I was definitely hooked.

The novel combines history (WWII and Holocaust survivors), time travel, monsters, the supernatural, danger, and romance - as Ransom Riggs weaves a great story sparked by his own hobby/obsession with old photographs.

I really enjoyed the wonderfully imaginative interweaving of photos and story.  As you read the novel, you will find the related photo reprinted within close proximity the page you're on. The photos are memorable and haunting in their own right, and add an element of "is this true" to what is otherwise a truly "out of this world" thriller.

I will definitely recommend this book to students looking for "something different," students who like fantasy/supernatural, and to any student who enjoys horror/monster/paranormal stories, too.

Compass, Knife, Spyglass

An Alethiometer

His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman

The Golden Compass (bk. 1)
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, c1995.
399 p. ; 22 cm.


The Subtle Knife  (bk. 2) 
 New York : Ballantine Books, 1998.
288 p. ; 18 cm.


The Amber Spyglass  (bk. 3)
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, c2000.
518 p. ; 22 cm. 

I read The Golden Compass about 12 years ago for a class in young adult literature.  I thought it was pretty good at the time, but also remember having to rush through it so as to finish all the books on the class reading list.  When my son - who is now several years out of high school - heard me say I was fishing around for some books to read during this summer, he said , "You really ought to read all the books in the The Golden Compass series," better known as His Dark Materials.  I decided I would read them, and I have to say that I enjoyed them a lot.

The trilogy is a fantasy, science fiction tour de force. It manages to explore ideas of the multiverse, religion, theology, particle physics, war, loyalty, family, etc. within a wildly imaginative and every expanding story of adventure, danger, betrayal, loyalty and love.  Religion and theology plays a central role in the books, and so it is no wonder that Pullman's series has faced many challenges and controversy (think Banned Books Week!)

For myself, I liked The Golden Compass best.  I think it is the most spare and elegant - the next installments begin to layer on more and more elements of the supernatural - angels, god, the alternate worlds, etc. to the point where I found it a bit much.  The Golden Compass is also the book that presents Pullman's great conceit - the daemon, an intelligent animal embodiment of the persons psyche/soul.  It's really a marvelous concept and well developed throughout the trilogy.  Though the first book was my favorite, I have no doubt that fantasy fans would love all three.  There are great characters, exciting plot developments, and really wonderful expositions of the setting, etc.

Do you know a fantasy reader who has not read His Dark Materials?  If so they won't be disappointed.

Sprawling History, Sprawling Novel

The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia

Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
New York : Vintage Classics, 2011.
xxviii, 675 p. ; 21 cm.

I've been wanting to read Dr. Zhivago for some time, and given it's length  (675 p.), it seemed like a good choice for a summer read.

I enjoyed a lot about this novel - it richly conveys the crazy reality that war and revolution can force on people, and the ways in which people try to find a meaningful life within that.  It is also a great love story, of course, which is probably part of why the movie version in the 60s was so successful.

I liked the historical content and movement of a lot of the book, but I did find that the plot began to get a bit unwieldy and confusing as the novel went on, and felt rushed to me at the end.  I also just found the increasing number of improbable coincidences became distracting as read the book.

This was a good book, but not a fantastic novel, in the way that Dostoevsky and Tolstoy have their truly magnificent articles.  However, if a student is a fan of Russian/Soviet history and literature and is looking for a good read, Dr. Zhivago may be just what the doctor ordered!

A Game of Thrones
by George R. R. Martin
New York : Bantam Books, 2011, c1996.
835 p. : maps ; 18 cm.

Writing about A Game of Thrones in the London Review of Books, John Lanchester comments that there are many avid readers who will read just about anything, but will absolutely not read fantasy and science fiction.  That is almost an accurate description of me, except I will read a fantasy and sci fi that has become extremely popular, or is recommended to me by students.  A Game of Thrones definitely fits that description, and I'm glad I read it.

A Game of Thrones represents complex, unpredictable storytelling at it's best.  A character being a main character is no guarantee that he or she will still be alive at the end of the novel - and there is so much treachery, clandestine plotting, and violent conflict - that the plot itself presents surprise after surprise.  Likewise the novel may be moving along in an extremely realistic fashion when suddenly a supernatural element appears so seamlessly that I it caused me to do a reader's double-take.

I think the thing that pleased me most about Martin's Game of Thrones was that it really is well written.  I found myself at times quiet taken by the skill of descriptive setting, or the nuanced personality of a character.  Though - like many fantasy worlds of fiction - it can get a bit complicated and the reader may find herself rechecking the maps at the front of the book and the appendices at the back - the book does not disappoint.

This is not a book that a librarian needs to recommend - though written in the 1990s, the book (and series) has become something of a publishing phenomena due to the wildly successful HBO series which it inspired.  The book also has mature content, containing scenes of violence and sexuality.

Study War No More

British 55th (West Lancashire) Division troops blinded by tear gas  during the Battle of Estaires, 10 April 1918

The First World War by John Keegan
New York : Vintage Books, 2000.
xvi, 475 p. : ill., maps ; 21 cm.

I've been slogging through a lot of books of European history and especially WWI - The Proud Tower, The Sleepwalkers, and now Keegan's First World War, which I pointedly finished on Memorial Day.

World War One is truly emblematic of the sickening, meaningless, barbarous, and utterly worthless human phenomena of making war - particularly modern warfare.  Especially painful is the fact that WWI essentially lay the groundwork for WWII.  As Keegan states in the closing pages of his book, "The Second World War was the continuation of the First...."

When I finished this book, I was left numbed by the staggering numbers of young men killed in the WWI.  This passage toward the end of Keegan's work gives a sense of the monstrous carnage that WWI unleashed.

"To the million dead of the British Empire and the 1,700,000 French dead, we must add 1,500,000 soldiers of the Hapsburg Empire who did not return, two million Germans, 460,000 Italians, 1,700,000 Russians, and many hundreds of thousands of Turks...."

In what moral universe can a person truly reckon with or comprehend such massive slaughter?  And then to realize that these numbers will be increased by a factor of six or seven (including many more civilians) in the horrors of WWII leaves me feeling despair.

I will say that Keegan has managed to pull together a readable and lucid account of WWI which is no small accomplishment.  He also manages to tell the story with moral conviction, but a light ideological touch, so that the reader is allowed to form her own opinions about where the guilt and responsibility lies for the nightmare that WWI was. I would definitely recommend it to a student who is interested in a detailed but compact history of the "Great War."

a poet 'swonder full i fe!

Self Portrait by e.e. cummings 

at the National Portrait Gallery

E. E. Cummings: a poet's life by Catherine Reef
New York : Clarion Books, c2006.
149 p. : ill. ; 26 cm.

Finishing up April, National Poetry Month, with this biography of the famous US poet, e.e. cummings, seemed like a good idea.  And it was!  Reef has put together a wonderful and accessible biography of Cummings.  I really appreciated that Reef manages to present a lot of information in a manageable number of pages - and yet really develops a fascinating portrait of Cummings as a truly unique artist and human being.

I was really struck by how original Cummings was.  His poetry still has a freshness and vitality, but must have seemed stunningly unique when he published it. Reef also gives attention to Cummings serious work as a painter (as the self-portrait above reveals).

Reef also conveys what an original Cummings was in so many ways.  Though from a very conventional family, he rebelled by moving to Greenwich Village, volunteering to be an ambulance driver in WWI, traveling widely abroad, championing avant-garde artists (e.g. the Armory Show artists).

Reef manages to convey the various milieus that defined Cummings' life - WWI, the 1920s, WWII, the New Deal, etc.  She also brings Cummings to life as a man of great dedication, passion, talent, wit, playfulness and (yes) love - and all in the space of 149 pages enlivened with wonderful photographs and illustrations.

I would definitely recommend this book to any student curious about E. E. Cummings specifically or the life of an artist and writer generally.

Entertaining, That's All

Boy Nobody by Allen Zadoff
New York : Little, Brown and Co., 2013
337 p. ; 24 cm.

It's already been said, but this book echoes The Bourne Identity and James Bond.  The promotional material from Zadoff's website highlights a lot of the positive buzz around the book (and its sequels).  I can't help feeling that it's a bit over-hyped. (Though a movie and sequels may create more success for the book and series).

Yes, the book was entertaining.  It moves along, is well-plotted, and there's suspense, action, and interesting developments.  I'd feel fine recommending it to a student wanting a spy/assassin/action/thriller novel; it delivers...

But I just couldn't care about the characters very much.  I really felt no emotional connection to any of them, and frankly found the female characters more fitting a male-fantasy ideal than any connection to reality.  That said, if you want a fast, action-based clandestine thriller, then Nobody might be just what you want.

Nasty, Brutish, Short...and Helpful

Waterloo: June 18, 1815: the battle for modern Europe by Andrew Roberts
New York : Harper Perennial, 2006, c2005
143 p. : ill., maps ; 21 cm.

Of course I've heard of Waterloo and had a vague idea of when and where it happened.  Also, I've encountered the battle of Waterloo in Les Miserable by Hugo and in Vanity Fair by Thackeray, but never read a history of it.  I enjoyed and appreciated this short book by Andrew Roberts.  This was a great, short and very clear account of the battle.  It really helps the reader appreciate the momentous stakes of the battle, the terrible violence of the conflict, as well as the ways in which the outcome of the battle could have well gone to the French forces under Napoleon instead of to the European forces under Wellington.

It is definitely a short, helpful history of Waterloo that would be useful to any high school student wanting to know more about the last, terrible battle that Napoleon waged - the outcome of which brought the Napoleonic era to a close.

A Winter Read

Image of Antartica is from NSIDC

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
New York : Ace Books, 2000, c1969.
304 p. ; 21 cm.

It's been a brutal winter in the Midwest, so this was an excellent book to finish out winter with, and welcome in spring.  Le Guin's masterpiece is set on the planet Gethen - nicknamed "Winter" by the first visitors from earth.  The novel is told from the viewpoint of Genly Ai  - an envoy from earth, who is sent alone to the planet to try and persuade its humanoid dwellers to join the Ekumen - a loose confederation of eighty-plus planets peopled by other human species.

The great twist of Le Guin's novel is that on Winter the humans have no gender until they enter estrus - and the gender that emerges during the 5-7 period of "kemmer" is not set for an individual but is dynamic and requires a partner to fully proceed.  Le Guin uses this lack of fixed gender to explore many political, social and cultural concepts that could play out in such a gender free - and non monogamous culture.  Imagine a world in which individuals might be both a mother and father and in which there was a bond with "kemmer" partners, but not usually a lifelong bond.  Le Guin's spins out her story of Gethen with its two competing "nations" - Karhide and Orgoryen - with skill and creativity, and her storytelling seems effortless and completely believable.

The novel is exciting, interesting, contemplative, and wonderfully satisfying.   I would definitely recommend it to any student who likes science fiction, and would recommend it to any student looking for a really intelligent but fun to read novel.

The Sad Tower

The Proud Tower by Barbara Tuchman
New York, Macmillan [1966]
xv, 528 p. illus., ports. 25 cm.

Barbara Tuchman intrigues me.  A woman who made her mark with several classic histories back in the 1960s when it must have been a daunting task to be a woman trying to get scholarly work published in the field of European history.  Not only did she get published, but is recognized for - not one - but several classic volumes of history such as A Distant Mirror, The Guns of August, and this book, The Proud Tower.  Every May as I've conducted the inventory of our collection, I've seen The Proud Tower, and thought, "I'm going to read that." In this 100th anniversary year of the start of WWI, I've finally gotten around to reading it.  It is a magnificent read, but probably one that would swamp most high school students.  I greatly enjoy history - and European history - but I have to admit that it was a long, dense - though enjoyable - read.

The Proud Tower is subtitled, A Portrait of the World Before the War: 1890-1914, and though, I'd call it a portrait of the Anglo-European-Slavic world, it is a monumental history.  Tuchman surveys the great political and cultural trends that defined the end of the 19th century and the run up to WWI: the declining power of the British aristocracy, the rise of naked US imperialism, Anarchism, Socialism, music, philosophy, and militarism.

I'm glad I read it, especially since I hope to read at least one of the new WWI books that have come out recently.  I can't say that I'd recommend it to just any high school student interested in history.  But if a student is a European history aficionado, or just looking for a rich book on Europe before the "Great War" then I'll definitely think of Tuchman's masterpiece.

A Tough One

Inexcusable by Chris Lynch
New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, c2005.
165 p. ; 22 cm.

I nearly didn't post on this book, mainly because it's getting a bit old (2005), but it was such a powerful and tough little book that I had to write up a review.  I've wanted to read the book since my son read it years ago, and I'm glad that I finally did.  Inexcusable is the story of a date rape and is written from the point of view of Kier Sarafian, the perpetrator, who relentlessly tries to excuse and justify his deed.  The book moves right along, and - with it's strong character development, nice sports angle, and dramatic relationship crises - should appeal to both young men and women.  

The novel received a lot of praise when it came out, including being a National Book Award finalist. And after reading it, I can see why.  The strength of Lynch's book, as pointed out by reviewers, is his ability to keep the book from being an easy "black and white" case of good guy / bad guy.  Instead  Lynch gives us a character study of the kind of "good guy" whose charm, recklessness, immaturity, arrogance and self-denial are, in fact, the very components of a self-centered and self-serving sexual user and potential rapist.

By telling the novel from the point of view of the accused, Lynch is able to explore the blurred morality of a perpetrator who refuses to accept that he has done anything wrong.  In this way he is able to draw the reader into the same moral questions around consent, manipulation, and violation.  Students who read it will have to wrestle with how reliable a narrator Kier is and just how much of a "good guy" is he.  The book would be a great book for sparking discussions and would pair well with Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak.

Slow Start, Awesome Finish

If I Ever Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth
New York, NY : Arthur A. Levine Books, 2013.
359 p. : ill. ; 22 cm. 

When friend and scholar (and author of the invaluable American Indians in Children's Literature [AICL] blog, Debbie Reese, told me at the end of the summer that I should read this YA novel by Eric Gansworth, I made a note to myself to do that.  Well, a lot has happened since the end of the summer and I have finally gotten around to reading If I Ever Get Out of Here, and I'm glad I did.  It's a great little treasure of a book about friendship, being poor, fitting in / not fitting in, bullying, racism, family ties, and the wonderful (and not so wonderful) moments of coming of age in junior high.

I have to confess that beginning the novel, I was a bit suspicious that this was going to be simply a rehash of Sherman Alexie's wonderful The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian.  There are some striking echoes of that book in the beginning - a dorky (smart, scrawny, funny, likable) Indian kid who is in a school program of nearly all white kids and has to deal with the prejudices at school and the resentments and hassles from friends and family on the reservation. Fortunately the similarities are only that and Gansworth's novel stands on its own charms and strengths. 

I also have to say that the novel started out a bit slow for me, but shortly after the midpoint of the book, I was hooked and had a hard time putting it down. The coming together of several plot lines and dramatic events really makes the last third of the novel a wonderful read.

I can't say enough good things to convey the quality of this book.  The heart of the novel is the friendship between two middle school boys - Lewis, a Tuscarora Indian, and George, son of an Air Force Dad whose family lives on a base and is always threatened with having to up and move.  The boys first bond over their love of music - especially the Beatles and Paul McCartney (and so the picture at the top of this post), but soon learn how hard it is to really be truthful and steady in friendship.  I love that Gansworth manages to weave together several (many!) important strands with passion, grace, humor, intelligence and - dare I say - love.  Seriously, we have a book of two boys in junior high becoming friends in the deepest sense, of the frictions between minority and majority culture, of the love of making and listening to popular music, of military life, of the complicated good and bad bonds of family life, of bullies and their accomplices, or life in the 70s...wow! Additionally the book includes a playlist of all the songs touched on in the book - and you can access this playlist on the author's website.

Sometimes I read a YA book and it has such promise and then falters with what feels like gimmicks meant to make it more appealing to a teen audience.  I really didn't experience that in this fine novel.  I will definitely recommend this to any student who has enjoyed Diary of a Part-time Indian (it's in our school's curriculum) and will be sure it gets on the radar of teachers looking for another author who can lay down a good story, shine a light on what it's like to grow up Indian in the US, and keep it real.   

Lovely Love Story

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
New York : St. Martin's Griffin, 2013.
328 p. ; 22 cm.

Eleanor is an outsider (who thinks she's fat) in a family with a volatile, creepy step-Dad, and Park is a quiet Korean-American who is neither popular nor unpopular. These two "somewhat-misfits" find each other on the first day of 11th grade on the bus - and after a slow start, fall in love.

Rowell has managed to create a really engaging and interesting love story - built on strong characters, dialog and conflict.  The story manages to be both mature, but incredibly sweet and almost naive.  I think the thing I loved best about this book is that instead of building on the myths of romantic love with all its surface appeal, she manages to convey how two young people can develop a real appreciation for each other's uniqueness, intelligence, and sweetness (while also falling for each other physically).

I especially appreciated Rowell's ability to convey some of the misgivings that a love partner can have (what will others think of me dating this outsider, this strange-dressing kid, this unpopular person?).

There is also a nice play-off in this book between the loving home of Park (who has a manly but kind Dad and an appearance-concerned, but sweet mom who is Korean) and Eleanor who lives in a poor family with several young kids, a kind but wimpy mother who ultimately sides with Eleanor's dangerous, alcoholic stepfather.

How Eleanor and Park fall in love and how they will handle the impossibilities of Eleanor's situation drive the story forward and provide an interesting and poignant end to the novel.

Rowell's book was a Printz honor book this year, and I can see why!

Velvet Gloves and Iron Fists

From the Wikipedia article on the 1848 revolutions

1848: Year of Revolution by Mike Rapport
New York : Basic Books, 2010, c2008.
xii, 461 p. : ill., map ; 24 cm.

You might remember that a while back I wanted to read Barbara Tuchman's Proud Tower, but realized that my background knowledge of 18th and 19th century Europe was sorely lacking - and so read a slim little volume about the Napoleonic Wars - and then was going to read 1848. Well, I've read it, and what an intense and complicated time 1848-1850 was!  Revolutions in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Venice, Rome, Buda and Pest, Naples, and Florence (among others) pitted liberals, reactionaries, nationalists, imperialists, Papists, monarchists, socialists, revolutionaries, the peasantry, and the nobility in violent conflicts to determine the future of regions, kingdoms, and  Europe as a whole.  By the time 1850 rolled around, the forces of authoritarianism, conservatism and reaction sadly had triumphed - but what an incredible time it was...

In spite of the extreme complexities involved (maps would have been an invaluable addition to this book), Rapport writes well and is able to convey many of the significant underlying themes, conflicts, causes and effects of the year 1848.  His book really is relevant, since much of what stoked the conflicts still exists - extreme wealth and extreme poverty, ethnic versus nationalist tensions, majority rule versus minority protections, and individual rights versus the common good.

I can't say I'd recommend this book to just any student, but if there were a student who loved history and was interested in European history, then this is definitely an excellent read!

I Hate Killers

Cain by Henri Vidal, Paris

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga
New York : Little, Brown, 2012
359 p. ; 22 cm.

"Serial murder is a relatively rare event, estimated to comprise less than one percent of all murders committed in any given year. However, there is a macabre interest in the topic that far exceeds its scope and has generated countless articles, books, and movies." -- FBI Serial Murder Report, 2005

I guess I'm just a bit of a contrarian when it comes to many things that popular culture offers as entertainment, and the popularity of serial killer entertainment (e.g. Silence of the Lambs or Dexter)  is one of them.  It's a form of entertainment that leaves me feeling manipulated and repulsed - and that's how I felt after reading Lyga's serial killer novel - I Hunt Killers. I know this puts me in a minority, because the novel is very popular.

The novel attempts to be a compassionate and complex thriller whose hero is Jasper, a 17 year old raised by his now imprisoned father who is a sadistic, methodical, diabolical, and sickeningly brilliant serial killer.  The father exposed young Jasper to all the gruesome details of his crimes in the hopes of turning him into a killer like himself.  And so the conflict - as Jasper becomes a man, will he be a normal person, or is he fated to become like his father - a remorseless pathological killer?  And this conflict plays out in Lyga's novel with the onset of a series of gruesome murders in the town where Jasper lives and grew up.  Jasper - wrestling with his tortured history and trying figuring out his identity - is determined to use his intimate knowledge of serial killers to help the police catch and stop the murderer.

The novel features many of the tropes of serial killer entertainment - some gruesome gore, a riveting battle of wits, an evil genius of a serial killer (ala Hannibal Lecter), and heart stopping danger and action.  Oh, and the novel ends with a plot twist that sets up the novel for it's sure sequence, Game, which we also have.

I think one of the things that saddened me about this novel, is that Lyga is really a very talented writer.  His plotting and dialog are very effective - and he is able to skillfully convey the ambiguity of self that confronts anyone trying to come to terms with his or her identity.  But it ultimately feels sleazy and voyeuristic to me.

I do understand that people are fascinated with gruesome crimes and events - I'm not immune to it myself.  There is a certain thrill of terror and relief to knowing what horrible things could and have happened - and yet that one has so far avoided.  The world is definitely filled with horror and terror, but for myself, I'd rather read true histories or case studies, and wrestle with my own existential questions of "Why?" - instead of be taken though a fictional - supposedly entertaining - and at times manipulative account of murderers and murders.

Pulses, Waves, Plagues and War

Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887.

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
New York, NY : G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2013.
457 p. ; 23 cm. 

I loved Yancey's Monstrumologist and his wonderful follow-up, The Curse of the Wendigo - but his latest book, The 5th Wave wasn't as satisfying to me.  The writing is really good, the plotting is interesting and engaging, and there is a lot of great action and thrills, but ,ultimately, for me there is just too much that strains credibility.  What I liked about his previous two books was their specificity - a few characters involved in very circumscribed actions.  The 5th Wave on the other hand involves the global (and I mean global) eradication of humanity by a super-advanced invasion force of aliens - but it just happens that a few characters who knew each other before the invasion not only survive the extermination, but successfully resist and sabotage it.  I also just found the most important plot twist involving one of the main characters to be completely unbelievable.  Either he would have never changed his behavior - or the aliens would have never been so stupid as to use such characters in their operations to rid the earth of humans.

But, these incredulities aside, there is a lot to enjoy in this novel.  The waves of destruction (thus the title) by the aliens are frightening and exciting to the imagination: a massive EMP (electromagnetic pulse), induced tectonic upheaval creating worldwide megatsunamis, a very lethal viral pandemic, and sleeper human/alien killers, and... well, you get the picture.

Yancey also creates a strong and interesting female hero - something that is refreshingly more common these days (think Hunger Games, Slated and Divergent).  In spite of not enjoying the book as much as I thought I might, I'd still give it high marks, and not hesitate recommending it to students looking for something exciting and interesting to read.

Goodbye Cruel World

from Scotese.com - an awesome source of paleomaps from earth history

The Great Extinctions by Norman MacLeod
Buffalo, N.Y. : Firefly Books, 2013
208 p. : ill. (chiefly col.), col. maps ; 26 cm.

Confession: I love books about deep time, especially about the earth.  This is a book that satisfied my hankering for science books about the very, very distant past.  And regarding the deep past, what could be more interesting than those rare great extinctions in which enough conditions - sea levels, climate, extraterrestrial impact, volcanism - occurred together that a dramatic percentage of all life on earth was wiped out?  The topic is even more compelling when one thinks about the possibility that we are living at the start of the 6th great extinction event.  However, I'd have to give this book a mixed - though mostly positive - review.

The strengths of this book are it's organization - each great extinction event is presented chronologically and maps, charts, and knowns and unknowns about the event are presented in much the same order.  I also really appreciated the number of illustations and maps in the book.  The author is able to cover a lot of territory in the book and make a lot of it accessible.  A lot, but not all of it - and that is my main critique of this book for a high school collection.  There are times where the data and explanations are very complex and difficult to follow and will turn off and frustrate the general reader.  Therefore I would recommend this book to students researching the science of the great extinctions or students who are avid science readers; the general reader is probably going to get bogged down long before finishing this book.

Nice, Little (Book) - Big, Terrible (Wars)

From Wikipedia

The Napoleonic Wars: A Very Short Introduction by Mike Rapport
Oxford, U.K. : Oxford University Press, 2013
xiv, 149 p. : ill. ; 18 cm.

I'm not sure what recently prompted me to want to read European history.  Perhaps it's the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI - which will be commemorated this August - perhaps it's seeing books on the shelf about Napoleon, or perhaps it's just my wanting to get away from fiction for a while.  Whatever the reason, I recently picked up a book I've been wanting to read for some time: Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower (about Europe in the decades just before WWI).  Starting it made me realize that I wanted to know more about the period before Tuchman's book, so I picked up Mike Rapport's 1848: Year of Revolution.  Guess what? Yes, I needed some background for 1848 and so I settled on this fine, little introduction to the Napoleonic Wars.

I love these "Very Short Introduction" books from Oxford.  They cover a wide variety of subjects and are written for lay readers by experts in the field being covered, and are short and concise.  As you can see, this one has just 149 pages, and the book is small enough that Napoleon could have it tucked under his buttons in the David portrait above - and we'd never know it!

Joking aside, the book was really eye-opening to the scale of carnage and destruction that the French Revolutionary and subsequent Napoleonic Wars brought to Europe (and the world).  I had always thought that WW I was the first real mass-carnage, total war to take place in Europe - but Rapport makes the case that the percentages and scale of casualties (along with the global nature of the wars) puts the Napoleonic Wars in the same league as WWI.

I also appreciated his attempt to show the conflicting views on the legacies (good and bad) of Napoleon's expansionism - especially in light of the extreme reactionary responses to his aggression.

Now I'm ready to tackle 1848 and then, hopefully, to take on The Proud Tower.

Alt Control Delete

Slated by Teri Terry
New York, N.Y. : Speak, 2013.
346 p. ; 21 cm.

I found Slated to be a good, but not great read.  I love the plot set-up:  in a near-future authoritarian state young criminals are not executed for serious crimes, but are "slated" - they have there memories wiped and are implanted with a surveillance/control wrist monitor (Levo) that physically requires them to moderate their mood - and will short-circuit their central nervous system if they become extremely angry/violent or extremely depressed.  Upon being released from hospital training/confinement after being slated, the offender is place with an adoptive family. 

But things in Slateland are not what they seem.  Feared secret police / paramilitary agents called the Lorders keep a watchful eye on citizens and it seems likely that not all slated individuals were guilty of any crimes at all.

The story deals with main character Kyla who has a few abnormalities for a slated parolee - she has dream/memories and her Levo doesn't keep her from becoming angry or violent.  In the course of the novel she begins to question her identity and status, all the while falling in love with another slated individual, Ben.

There are some exciting plot developments, and thrilling episodes where Kyla and others are in serious danger, but ultimately the publishing demands for a trilogy, force the plot to turn on too many improbables and the novel ends without any serious resolution.

I think this could have been a great young adult novel - with hints of V for Vendetta and the Handmaid's Tale (the Lorders reminded me a lot of Atwood's "Eyes") - if it had been limited to one volume with tight editing.  But that, of course, would have limited the money-making potential for the publisher, and so instead of a satisfying novel, we are left with a third of a novel - a good third, but still a third.