One criticism of the movie is that it didn't go into detail about the impact of the bombs when they were dropped on two Japanese cities in August 1945. Hiroshima by John Hersey was a groundbreaking work that revealed to the world in 1946 the devastation and suffering the bombs inflicted. Fallout by Lesley M.M. Blume goes behind the scenes of Hersey's efforts to tell that story despite intense pressure and censorship from the US government. The Bomb: Presidents, Generals and the Secret History of Nuclear War by Fred Kaplan takes us through the use of the first bombs and the nuclear arms race that's followed.
For Fans of Barbie There are a lot of great novels exploring relationships and identity with the same fun vibe as Barbie, but today's post focuses on nonfiction. Despite the comedy of the movie, there were some serious messages about finding your purpose, believing in yourself ("I am Kenough") and empowering girls and women. When Everything Changed: the Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to Today by Gail Collins explores the growth of women's rights and opportunities through 2008, when Hillary Clinton became the first woman to run for president. Amazons, Abolitionists and Activists by Mikki Kendall highlights key figures and events in the fight for women's rights. In Spinster: Making a Life of Own's One, author Kate Bolick considers how she and other women are choosing to remain single, defying the convention that once defied most women. Girl Rising: Changing the World One Girl at a Time by Tanya Lee Stone focuses on the stories of girls from around the world who found an escape from poverty through education. If you'd like to learn about the toy itself, try Barbie and Ruth: The Story of the World's Most Famous Doll and the Woman Who Made Her by Robin Gerber. It explores how Ruth Handler transformed the toy business and impacted American culture for generations.
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I read a lot of books about World War II, but usually not about specific battles or weapons. So I was surprised to find that I was completely engaged by Spearhead: an American tank gunner, his enemy and a collision of lives in World War II by Adam Makos. This nonfiction book, which the author adapted for young adults, could appeal to a lot of readers: those interested in armaments and weapons, those interested in the lives of soldiers and those interested in the ethical and moral dilemmas of war. The author follows a group of American tank operators and infantry fighting in Europe in 1944-1945, bringing them to life with details of their hometowns and personalities. You follow them into battle, cramped in the bellies of their lumbering tanks or dodging enemy fire while they ride on top. You're with them as they risk their lives, lose fellow soldiers who have become like family, and struggle with taking enemy lives. While the author spends time explaining the different types of tanks and military maneuvers, and paints riveting scenes of combat, the focus remains on the people fighting the war. This focus highlights the human toll of war, which I found especially relevant and heartbreaking in light of the current war in Ukraine. Despite the high-powered ammo and heavily armored tanks, often the weapons used in WWII offered the soldiers little protection. The sheer waste of life that comes with war came through very powerfully. Several chapters follow a young German tank soldier, the view from his side of the front lines, and his meeting with the “enemy” decades later. I have to admit that I finished reading about their reunion with tears in my eyes. If you like to read about the military or World War II, check out this book. It's about 300 pages, and includes pictures from the battlefield and the post-war reunion. “This is not a history book. At least, not like the ones you’re used to reading in school. The ones that feel more like a list of dates (there will be some), a declaration (definitely gotta mention that), a constitution (that too), a court case or two, and, of course, the paragraph that’s read during Black History Month (Harriet! Rosa! Martin!) . . . Instead, what this is, is a book that contains history. A history directly connected to our lives as we live them right this minute. This is a present book. A book about the here and now.” This declaration by author Jason Reynolds, in chapter one of Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, reveals quite clearly that readers will get something unexpected. Few books promise to give you a definitive history of racism, and even if they tried, you’d probably require a dictionary, thesaurus and PhD to understand it. Not so with this book. It’s a young adult version of the 2016 book Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi, author, activist and founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. Kendi asked Reynolds, a fiction writer whose books include All American Boys and Long Way Down, to translate his ideas for today’s teens. The book starts in 1415, with a chapter titled “The Story of the World’s First Racist.” Going back this far is a good reminder that Black history did not begin with slavery or the Civil Rights Movement. Black history has roots in the ancient empires of Africa including the Mali, Songhai and Great Zimbabwe. The other point this chapter drives home is that racism is deep-seated, and it’s often influenced by profit as much as hate. Racism isn’t just the thoughts or actions of an evil person, but policies that impact trade, government, and social norms. Systemic racism is not new, and its impact on how the world has been shaped cannot be overstated. “The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, whether financially or politically,” Reynolds writes. “… it’s woven into people as much as it’s woven into policy that people adhere to and believe is truth.” The book continues through history, shedding some new light on the causes of the American Revolution (Great Britain banned the slave trade, but the American colonies didn’t want to), the expansion of slavery, the Civil War (the first enslaved men who tried to fight for the North were sent back to the southern plantations they escaped from), Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement. It discusses well-known figures – Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., – as well as names that might be new to you – Angela Davis, Jack Johnson, Stokely Carmichael. It breaks down some of the mythology around the people and historical events that history textbooks have simplified over the years (for example, Rosa Parks was not just a tired old seamstress when she didn’t give up her seat on that bus). Of particular interest to me was more recent American history, including the “War on Drugs” in the 1980s that many studies have shown led to harsher penalties for Blacks than for whites, something still represented in our prison populations today. Another was a public school policy called No Child Left Behind in the 2000s, where schools in poor, mostly Black communities had funding pulled when they failed to meet certain standards – which caused them to fall even farther behind. The book does an amazing job tying our history together, helping us better understand the causes and effects of racism in our country so we may better understand what’s happening in our communities today. The authors do so in a way that is conversational, engaging, and even inspiring. Their hope is that young readers, equipped with this new knowledge, will not only recognize racism, but become actively antiracist – not just bystanders in the quest for a better world, but leaders of that world. 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. I am fascinated by World War II, a conflict so huge that it seems to have a million different elements: D-Day, Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust, Japanese internment, Soviet sieges, and so on. No matter how many years have passed, or how many books and movies are made, there always seem to be another story to tell. To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino recounts the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan. Most of us know the basic details, which are often wrapped up in whether the US was right to unleash the nuclear age in an effort to end the war. This book doesn't get bogged down in that debate. Instead it paints - in vivid scientific, physical and emotional detail - the impact on the cities and people devastated by them, that day and in the months and years since. The stories of Japanese survivors are heartbreaking, especially those who fled after the first bombing and sought safety in the city that became the second target. Can you imagine living through one bomb - a bomb that incinerated your family on the spot, flattened entire neighborhoods and left thousands with horrific burns and radiation poisoning - only to endure it again a few days later? For many people, survival was a matter of inches: a person shielded by a wall or tree may have survived while someone standing steps away was vaporized. The author follows a handful of survivors, much as John Hersey did in his 1946 book Hiroshima, as well as other notable participants such as the pilots who dropped the bombs. While Hiroshima is a powerful book, To Hell and Back goes farther and digs deeper. The 2015 edition uses modern language, making it feel less dated than Hersey's book, but it also has the benefit of following up with eyewitnesses who lived into the '90s and 2000s. It was powerful to read how the bombings continued to haunt the survivors, many fighting until old age for a ban on nuclear weapons and an end to war. This book is especially timely given President Obama's recent visit to Hiroshima, the first sitting president to ever visit the city. When he met with survivors and echoed their calls for peace, I pictured the men and women whose suffering and courage I had read about. The book gave me new insight into the use of the atomic bombs and made me rethink what I had learned about a terrible part of history. The book is 400 pages and some of the scientific explanations can get confusing, but it's worth sticking with it for the eyewitness accounts. 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. When Alison Smith was 15, her beloved older brother Roy was killed in a car accident. She and her brother were so close growing up that their mother combined their names into the knickname "Alroy." Grief tore her apart, shattering her deep religious faith and sending her into a physical and emotional tailspin. The memoir Name All the Animals details that struggle. In the question-and-answer section at the end of the book, I learned that Alison was an adult when she began writing it. An aspiring novelist, she was looking for a book idea when her professor said "write about yourself." She recalled thinking that nothing significant had ever happened to her. I share this because, after reading the book, I was haunted by Smith's grief and couldn't believe that she had recovered so thoroughly that she wasn't still living with that sorrowful weight every day. In fact, that would be my only criticism of the book: it ended too soon. After describing three years of grief so raw that she disconnected from her peers; saved half of every meal for her lost brother; and found solace in a relationship that her school and parents would never understand, let alone condone, Alison hit bottom. Believing there was no way to end the grief, she considered joining her brother. Thankfully, she did not follow through and the realization she had that day began the difficult journey toward peace. But I wanted to know more about how she carried on. We were with her for three years of sadness and despair, and I wanted to be with her for more of the healing. I feel like that would have given me more closure. Despite that, Name All the Animals is a beautifully honest and vivid account. It's 300 pages, but once you pick it up, it is hard to put down. |
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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