Since the COVID-19 pandemic has made life more challenging for all of us, Hanover High's summer reading has been changed this year to offer more choices for students and eliminate a required assignment. The recommended titles include a variety of genres, topics and lengths. This week, I'm going to review a few of the FICTION titles that I have read and really enjoyed.
All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely - This engaging collaboration by two writers - one white and one African American - explores racism and police violence, issues that could've been pulled from the news today. When Quinn, a white teen, sees a white police officer brutalize a Black teen, his sense of justice is turned upside down. The fact that the police officer is a trusted family friend makes the situation even harder. But the book is not just told from Quinn's point of view; the Black teen, named Rashad, tells the story too. In this way, you get to explore the incident and its repercussions not just through one lens. It's a quick read that's hard to put down and the ending offers hope for healing that might help with issues we're facing in real life. Internment by Samira Ahmed - When a book or movie is called "dystopian," it usually invokes images of a post-apocalyptic society, where law and order have broken down in the wake of a terrible catastrophe like nuclear war. Books like 1984, The Hunger Games and The Road are considered dystopian. So is Internment. Unfortunately, the premise of this story feels a little too easy to imagine. It's the near future, and the U.S. government has imprisoned all Muslim-Americans in internment camps, including 17-year-old Layla and her family. Even though they are citizens, they are stripped of their rights and possessions and considered enemies of the state. This echoes what happened to Japanese-Americans during World War II, when the U.S. declared war against Japan and considered anyone with Japanese ancestry to be the enemy even if they hadn't been in Japan for generations. It also draws on the hate and fear directed at Muslims after the September 11th attacks committed by radicals in the name of their religion. This is a fast-paced, thrilling story of tolerance and reason triumphing over fear and hate. It also highlights the danger we face when we stay silent in the face of injustice. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay - When a Jewish girl and her family are rounded up in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, the girl locks her brother in a cabinet to keep him safe. She believes she'll be back soon to let him out and resume their lives. But she never returns to the apartment and is haunted by her decision forever. Her story is uncovered by a modern-day French woman who moves into the apartment and learns she was never taught in school about this terrible roundup. Her discovery that the French government helped kill thousands of its own citizens changes her life. A heart-breaking and powerful story. With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo - Emoni, the main character of this story, is an unwed teenaged mother trying to juggle the demands of parenting, work, school and her feisty grandmother. While you might think you can't relate to her experience, I would argue you'd be wrong. Hers is a story of falling short of expectations, pushing through disappointment to pursue your dreams and overcoming financial and social obstacles - things we can all relate to no matter our culture, gender or class. Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead - Part historical fiction, part fantasy, this story imagines that the famed network to freedom is a literal train running beneath the earth. I thought this idea would be hard to accept, but the author does an amazing job weaving the imaginary with the truth. The story follows Cora as she risks everything to flee from a life of brutal slavery, bringing to life the hardships of her captive life and the dangers she faced on the way to freedom. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michelle Richardson - During the Great Depression, when the country was sunk into desperate poverty, sometimes the only hope and diversion people could find came from books. But some rural towns were far from a library, so the government organized a group of women to deliver the library to them. These pack librarians rode horses and mules, miles each day, through rough terrain and bad weather, bringing hope via the printed word to the hopeless. In this fictionalized account, Cussy is a young woman considered an outcast in her Kentucky community because she suffers from a rare genetic disorder that turns her skin blue. She finds purpose and joy as a pack librarian., but also faces intolerance and physical danger from those suspicious of her color or the government program. Both the pack librarians and the Blue people of Kentucky are true stories. This book tells a story of tolerance and resilience in a new light.
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It's not often that I'm surprised by a book, but Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders is unlike anything I've ever read before. Part historical fiction, part supernatural fantasy, Bardo breaks free from the traditional format of a novel to tell the story of how Lincoln is haunted - and changed - by the death of his young son during the Civil War. The author takes two very different tacts in alternating chapters. About half of the novel takes place in the cemetery where Willie Lincoln is buried, populated by the spirits of dozens of other colorful characters who have not yet passed on to Heaven or Hell. While these spirits tell their stories, they're encouraging Willie to move on, but Willie lingers, confused, hoping his father will return to bring him home. This part of the novel is pure imagination, whimsical in the quirks that each character is given and the rules the society follows. These chapters reminded me of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. The rest of the novel is historical fiction, but instead of researching and imagining the people and events, the author uses excerpts from primary documents. The author quotes the letters of White House maids and politicians as well as news accounts and books of the time. These excerpts, each followed by a short citation, tell the story in the real words of the people who lived. This is harder than just doing research and summarizing; this requires poring through countless documents, picking out just the right pieces and putting them together in a way that makes sense. Iwas awed by the task the author undertook as well as the story that was told. For the first chapter or two, I was a little confused by who was speaking. But I soon was drawn into the story and accustomed to the unique structure. If you like history, especially Lincoln and the Civil War, this novel will fascinate you as it shows how a personal tragedy became a turning point for Lincoln's policies. If you like fantasy that explores what happens after death, this book offers a lot for you as well. Since school let out in June, I’ve been reading a veritable feast of books. Fiction as varied as a box of chocolates, biographies as savory as a rack of spices, and nonfiction as filling as a four-course meal. My figurative pants were feeling snug from all of the great books I’d devoured, but I was eager for yet another helping. September forced me to go on a bit of a diet as demands on my time changed, but now that my family and I have settled into the school routine, I’ve been able to pull up once again to the buffet that is the world of books.
Like any foodie who posts pics of favorite meals to social media, I wanted to share some of the books that I’ve been sampling. Below are bite-sized reviews of a few titles that I think you’ll find satisfying and — at the risk of pushing the food puns too far — downright delicious. All of these can be borrowed from the HHS library. FICTION Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez: Inspired by a true event, the 1937 explosion of an East Texas school that killed 300 people, this novel follows the experiences of a Mexican-American girl and an African-American boy whose growing love crosses racial barriers and risks another kind of eruption. Extremely well-written, riveting and heartbreaking. The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie: Best known as the lead actor on TV’s House, Laurie’s novel about gun runners, secret agents and billionaires is funny and full of action. It actually reminded me of a lighter version of The Night Manager, the recent AMC series about international arms dealers starring Laurie and Tom Hiddleston. Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys: No, this is not a sequel, prequel or related in any way to the Fifty Shades of Grey series. This novel is about the killings, imprisonments and deportations of thousands committed during Josef Stalin’s “reign of terror.” When Stalin’s Soviet Union invaded the Baltic nation of Lithuania in 1939, he ordered attacks on doctors, lawyers, professors, political activists and pretty much anyone he thought could pose a threat to his rule. Lina’s family was among them, enduring hard labor, starvation and unimaginable abuse in Siberian prison camps. NONFICTION Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship of Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X by Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith: I picked up this nonfiction account, recommended by Mrs. McCusker, soon after Ali died in June. It sheds light on the evolution of both men, the preacher into a radical leader and the athlete into a racial and religious symbol. It humanized men I’d known more as icons than as people. Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey and In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall: Both books focus on passionate women who devoted their lives to studying, and saving, endangered primates in Africa. Fossey spent years living with mountain gorillas; Goodall’s focus was on chimpanzees. Both furthered the world’s knowledge of the animals at a time when women often weren’t taken seriously in science, and their conservation work has had a lasting impact. Part memoir and part zoology lesson, the women and animals made this pair of books hard to put down. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman: Don’t be embarrassed if you’ve never heard of the Hmong. I’d mistakenly grouped them with the Vietnamese refugees who came here after the fall of Saigon. They’re a different culture, from an entirely different Southeast Asian country. But the lessons learned from this book — that doctors must be culturally sensitive, that medicine is not always stronger than spiritual beliefs — could apply to any interaction between different ethnic groups. The book follows a young girl with epilepsy and how stereotypes and misunderstandings nearly cost her life. The Good Soldiers by David Finkel: In 2007-2008, the author followed an Army unit serving on the front lines of Iraq. Deployed as part of President George W. Bush’s “surge,” which he believed would end the war, these soldiers began their tour with vigor and ended it physically and emotionally ripped apart. The author’s heart-wrenching descriptions of battles, soldiers wounded or killed, and the families left behind will stick with you for a long time. The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff: Even I will admit that this was a long book that took a while to get through. But if you’re interested in history or journalism, it’s fascinating. The book explores the role of the media in the Civil Rights Movement, and how the stories and images conveyed on racial issues impacted the nation. The book really highlighted the power of the media for and against change. We’ve read about and seen the famous pictures from the Freedom Marches and Little Rock Nine, but this book takes you behind the scenes with the journalists who often risked their lives to tell the story. The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester: When I was in graduate school to become a librarian, I had my first experience with the Oxford English Dictionary. It’s immense, it’s amazing, it’s intimidating. The years and effort it took to create a record of every word in the English language, including its origin and earliest printed use, must have been astounding. But that alone wouldn’t make it interesting to read about. The madman makes it interesting. An American locked for decades in a British hospital for the criminally insane — who also happened to be an incredible genius — played an unforgettable role in the project. Much of what we know about the English language today, we owe to him. The commemoration of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have passed, but as we held a moment of silence for those who died that day, I wondered how much do students really know about what happened. To adults my age, it’s not history; it’s something we lived through and will never forget. And being in the Boston area, where two of the planes originated, many of us have connections to someone who was directly impacted by that day. But if you’re a freshman, you likely weren’t even alive; if you’re a senior, you may have still been in diapers. In both cases, you may have little understanding of the events beyond what’s been covered in history class. That’s where media comes in, the countless documentaries, news specials, fictionalized reenactments and books hoping to shed some light on the story. Since I personally still have a hard time looking at pictures or video of the planes slamming into the World Trade Center, I naturally head toward books to help me not just understand, but to remember and, even after all this time, to grieve. Unfortunately, for years, I couldn’t find any good books about what happened (and this is a librarian talking!). There were children’s books, inspired by a fireboat that helped rescue survivors in New York or a general push toward kindness and tolerance. There were adult books, dense tomes trying to follow the paper trail toward the attackers and their financial backers. There were books that recorded survivors’ testimonials, chronicled the hero dogs that helped dig through wreckage for body parts, or recounted the devastating effects on soldiers who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq during the seemingly endless War on Terror. There is a great novel,Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safron Foer, about a boy trying to make sense of his father’s death in the attacks, but at 368 pages, it scares some students away. Then I found Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes. Set in the boroughs of New York City ten years later, the book follows 10-year-old Deja in her struggle to understand why her father went “crazy” after Sept. 11, why he can’t hold a job and the family must live in a cramped homeless shelter. In school, her classes memorialize the attacks, but don’t really understand the ramifications, the effects still rippling through people’s lives. With the help of her friend Ben, whose father served in the military, and Sabeen, who has been bullied for being Muslim, Deja uncovers her family’s long-held secret. She finally understands why her father is the way he is. Although this book is geared for middle schoolers (grades 4-7 if you read the reviews), I bought two copies for the HHS Library. Sure, the main characters are younger, but I think many of us can relate to their confusion over something that adults feel was life-changing but is mere ancient history to them. When I read about Pearl Harbor or Vietnam, I feel the same sense of detachment that young people may feel about 9/11. This novel can help students explore and process their feelings about the attacks, and the memorial services that come every September. It’s done without being overly graphic or unnecessarily somber, and I would recommend that every HHS student devote the few hours it would take to read this short novel. You may already know the story behind The Martian, the Oscar-nominated movie starring Matt Damon. But if you've only seen the movie, you're missing the great look into the psyche of the stranded astronaut that is contained in the book. And if you haven't seen the movie yet, I highly recommend that you read the book first. I started with the book, written in 2011 by self-proclaimed science nerd Andy Weir. From friends who have seen the movie, I have heard that the stories are very similar. When Mark Watney and his team of astronauts are caught in a terrible sandstorm while exploring Mars, Watney is presumed dead and left behind. Facing a distant, and very slim, chance of rescue with supplies only meant to last a short time, Watney must invent ways to grow food, expand water and air supplies and restore communications with NASA. Eventually, a rescue plan is put into place, but it requires a dangerous trek across Martian terrain where survival depends on stretching Watney's equipment, abilities and determination beyond their limits. The main difference between the movie and the book is that much of the book is told through Watney's journals. Instead of just watching him devise a system to grow potatoes using his own waste, as you do in the movie, you read what he is thinking (and smelling) as he mixes bags of poo with soil samples from Earth in the hope of growing enough food to survive. In the scene where Watney loses his recently regained ability to talk to NASA, the book reveals his shift from confusion to terror to anger when he realizes it's a result of his own mistake. These glimpses into his mindset make the reality of his situation -- the hopelessness, fear, ingenuity and bravery-- all the more pressing. It turns a story of survival into an exploration of the rollercoaster emotions a person experiences when faced with danger. At times, the scientific explanations in the book went over my head, but that didn't limit my enjoyment. Even without understanding every detail, I was riveted by Watney's plight and cheering for a happy ending. The story of survival against all odds -- whether it occurs on Mars, the oceans of Earth or in a dysfunctional family -- is something most of us can relate to. The Martian was a great read, and now I can't wait to see the movie. When an accident at a Vermont nuclear power plant causes a meltdown, and forces people who live nearby to abandon their homes, everyone blames Emily's parents. Her father was an engineer, and her mother was a spokeswoman for the plant, and both were known as big drinkers. Whether drinking played a part in the accident or not, 16-year-old Emily can't handle the accusations and scorn of people who've lost their homes - on top of the pain of losing her parents. So she runs away in the hope of putting distance, and memory, far behind her. She buries her feelings and fears in drugs and other seedy behavior, until she meets a 9-year-old boy who fled a rough foster home. The boy gives her new responsibility, new hope, and eventually heartbreak so big that she risks going back to her radioactive home near the plant to await her fate. Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian has a happy ending, but readers must first endure the pain and fear that Emily goes through. Despite the tragedy, or perhaps because of it, Emily finds a courage and resilience she didn't know she had. I think many of us can relate to the sadness, confusion and fear that Emily goes through, as well as the bravery she shows, even though each of us has our own unique troubles and challenges. When 15-year-old Bee's mother goes missing, she's not content with her father's answer that it's "complicated" and not her fault. When she gets her hands on a thick envelope of documents including emails, journal entries, receipts, and an FBI file, Bee is determined to find out what really happened. What she discovers is shocking, heartbreaking, snarky, sweet, silly and relatable all at once. In a novel told through these found documents, with occasional interjections by Bee, we discover the answer to the title question Where'd You Go, Bernadette? We learn about a quirky family that lives in a house that must be weed-whacked on the inside, one that plans a trip to Antarctica because Bee gets straight As, one whose dinner reservations are made by a virtual assistant based in India (thus leading to the FBI file). We also learn about a creative woman who can't recover from crushed dreams, her genius husband who throws himself into work to escape reality, and their uniquely gifted daughter who loves her family despite its eccentricities and flaws. Written by Maria Semple, the book is a quick read. It's hard not to be drawn into the lives of Bee, Bernadette, Elgie and the rest of the quirky cast of characters. In the first few weeks of school, I heard many students grumble about their summer reading assignments. More than a few could not bring themselves to pick up a book while hanging with friends on the beach or going on a family vacation. I am the complete opposite, which I guess isn't much of a surprise since I'm a librarian. But even before I had this fancy degree and powerful position, I loved summer reading. It's my chance to plow through a bunch of books without being interrupted by work, my daughter's sports schedule or other obligations. I love nothing more than sitting outside on a beautiful day with a book in my lap. They go with me to the beach, in the car, on my deck... Here are a few of the books I read this past summer, all of which I recommend to you. Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, by Jon Krakauer: Written by one of my favorite nonfiction authors, who's also known for Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, this book explores the life of Pat Tillman. Tillman was an NFL superstar when, after the attacks on September 11, 2001, he gave up a million-dollar career and joined the military. When he was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan, the government hid the truth from the public and even Tillman's family. I liked this book because it was more than just a story about a soldier (although there was plenty in it for people who like soldier stories). The book really examined what motivated Tillman to leave professional sports to go to war, and revealed how he resisted the government's efforts to use him as a propaganda tool. It was also interesting to read about the government conspiracy to cover up the truth of Tillman's death as well as its often misleading reasons for entering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place. Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, by Sheri Fink: When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, hospitals were among the hardest hit, trying to save sick and injured patients without electricity, enough medicine or even enough to eat. This book tells what happened at one hospital, where a doctor was accused of intentionally overdosing several patients because she felt they'd be too hard to evacuate or would die in the process. Some people called her and the nurses who worked with her heroes for trying to minimize patients' pain in a terrible situation. Others, including the government, called them murderers and tried to press criminal charges. The book gives a detailed and disturbing picture of what life was like in flooded New Orleans, and makes you think. What would you do in the same situation? What choices would you make? The second half of the book was a little repetitive, but the first half was incredible. Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee: As a huge fan of To Kill a Mockingbird, I was both excited and nervous about reading this long-lost book. Critics immediately complained that favorite characters were turned into racists, others were killed off and the writing wasn't strong. But I found the book to be really interesting, especially in thinking about how bits and pieces of it were revised and developed into the Mockingbird I know and love. Was it great writing? No, Harper Lee needed an editor and this book was released as it was found...no editing at all...so at times she was wordy and made outdated references. But there were flashes of the great writer that Lee could be (again, she needed an editor!). Was Atticus a racist? I don't think so. Anyone who read the whole book would see that he had reasons for fearing outsiders and trying to protect his African American neighbors in his own way. You may not agree with them, but I think you'll agree that the cries that he was a racist were exaggerated. Mockingbird explores being true to yourself and trying to understand others' point of view. Watchman delves into how we forge our own identities, apart from our parents, as we grow from children to adults. Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder: Another nonfiction read, this one follows a Harvard-educated doctor who devoted his life to treating the poorest of the poor in rural Haiti. The subject, Dr. Paul Farmer, was a remarkable and unique man. In some ways, he made me think of Pat Tillman and the Memorial Hospital doctors: could I make the sacrifices and face the challenges that they did? Probably not. Did I feel like a selfish person reading about his work? A little. One of the things the book showed me was that treating disease in poor countries requires much more than medicine. It requires a huge shift in social policies: jobs for the poor, roads to improve transportation, water purification systems, and so on. Anyone interested in international relations, working with charities or medicine would like this book. I read two more books in September, but this post is probably already longer than most students will read so I'll save them for another time. All of these books are available in the HHS library. Come by and check them out. classic about an experiment to make man smarter still relevant in age of cloning & other 'progress'6/11/2015 If there was an operation that would make you smarter, would you do it? Should you do it? That's one of the main questions sparked by the novel Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes. Scientists, hoping to "fix" mental retardation, develop an experimental operation to alter human intelligence. Testing it first on a mouse named Algernon, whose intelligence has soared as a result, the scientists try the procedure on a mentally retarded man named Charlie Gordon. Charlie tells the story through diary entries ("progress reports") which show his progression from "moron" to a genius that surpasses that of the experts around him. It delves into the benefits of his newfound intelligence as well as the pitfalls -- such as having no one smart enough to talk to. And when original test subject Algernon starts to lose his intelligence, Charlie is forced to face the possibility that his own development may not last much longer. The book sparks a lot of thought about what makes a person -- Is it intellect? Is it compassion? Is one sufficient without the other? It also makes you think about the reach of science and medicine -- should we "play God" and try to "fix" people? Are we really aware of the consequences of the progress we claim to be making? It's hard for me to believe this book was written in 1959 -- it doesn't sound dated, and the issues are just as relevant today. Think about the cochlear implant, which can make a deaf person hear again -- some deaf people are against this because they feel being deaf is part of their identity, not something to be fixed. Think about genetic testing and cloning -- we can identify disabilities before a person is even born. Should we fix them? Will it be taken too far to the point where we're engineering babies with blue eyes and above-average height? While the book is slow-paced at times and the opening chapters, written while Charlie is mentally retarded, can be a little tricky to read, I recommend sticking with it. It's a fascinating, well written and thought-provoking book. This seems to be the era of buzzy fiction thrillers with very dysfunctional characters and wild plot twists. Gone Girl, written in 2012 by Gillian Flynn and released last year as a movie, started the trend with the crazy story of Nick and his “missing” wife Amy. The Dinner, a 2013 book by Herman Koch about two couples in denial about a terrible crime committed by their sons, is another one. Told by untrustworthy narrators, with whole chapters that you later realize were distorted if not outright lies, the reader is unsure what to believe for most of the book. Yet, you keep reading, even though the main characters are kind of jerks, because you just HAVE to know what’s going on. And when you finish the book, usually after a series of late nights staying up reading into the wee hours or long days of not putting down the book except to use the bathroom, you’re haunted and maybe a little disturbed. The Girl on the Train is a similarly messed-up book. In some ways, the comparisons to Gone Girl have created a huge fan base for this 2014 book. But in other ways, the hype has hurt, with some readers feeling that The Girl on the Train was a letdown after Gone Girl shattered expectations as well as norms of the fiction genre. I am not one of those readers. I loved both books, even as I loathed some of the characters. As I read The Girl on the Train, I ignored chores around the house, work I had brought home, even my poor daughter’s pleas for attention just so I could race to the end (Worst. Mother. Ever). Rachel, a divorced alcoholic, fills the void in her life by imagining the lives of the people she sees outside her train window. When something terrible happens, she’s not sure what she’s seen and what she’s done, and the reader struggles along with her to piece things together. The puzzle gets even more jumbled when the author writes from the point of view of two other characters: Anna, who is the new wife of Rachel’s ex-husband, and Megan, one of the people she’d been observing whose disappearance Rachel is trying to unravel. About three-quarters through the book, I got a sense of what was really going on and I had to go back and re-read some earlier parts. I spotted the author’s trickery then and thought it was pretty clever. The comparisons to Gone Girl are apt: very flawed characters that you are drawn to even though you don’t like them, a plot that seems to be one thing but turns out to be something else. And like Gone Girl, after I finished reading, I couldn’t exactly say it was a pleasant experience. But I did enjoy it, the way I enjoy the the combination of fear, disgust and thrill I get from riding a roller coaster. It turned my stomach at times, but it also got my pulse racing. |
AuthorMrs. McHugh is a librarian and instructional technology specialist. She loves talking books and pop culture with her students at Hanover High School. Archives
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