Review of Fire in the Ashes, by Jonathan Kozol

Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Fire in the Ashes

Twenty-Five Years Among the Poorest Children in America

by Jonathan Kozol

Crown Publishers, New York, 2012. 354 pages.
Starred Review

This book is made up of stories — stories about some of the poorest children in America, but children whom Jonathan Kozol has known and cared about for twenty-five years. So we get to see them rise into adulthood. Some of them do not go on to productive lives, but most of them do, and the readers rejoice with Jonathan.

He begins the book with a note to the Reader, which begins like this:

Over the course of many years I have been talking with a group of children in one of the poorest urban neighborhoods of the United States and have written several books about them and their families. Readers ask me frequently today if I’ve kept in contact with the children and if I know how many have prevailed against the obstacles they faced and, in those cases, how they managed to survive and how they kept their spirits strong amidst the tough conditions that surrounded them.

It has not been difficult to keep in contact with most of these children because so many of them, as they have grown older, have come to be among my closest friends. They call me on the phone. They send me texts and e-mails. We get together with each other when we can.

The stories that follow are stories of particular children. But these stories put faces to poverty. They make us care. I can’t think of a better way to raise concern for problems in urban America than to get us to care about the children and families growing up there.

Sometimes life is more astonishing than fiction, and more inspiring, too. Even if you don’t want your awareness of issues raised, this book is worth reading for the stories alone. You will care about the wonderful people he features and follows into adulthood.

JonathanKozol.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of God Believes in Love, by Gene Robinson

Christian, Current Issues, Nonfiction Review 0

God Believes in Love

Straight Talk about Gay Marriage

by Gene Robinson
IX Bishop of New York

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2012. 196 pages.

Here’s a thoughtful, intelligent, personal, and thoroughly Christian presentation on why it’s time to make marriage legal for gays and lesbians.

Now, I come from a very conservative background. I grew up thinking the Bible was pretty clear that homosexuality is sinful. As I’ve grown up, though, I (obviously?) have far more gay and lesbian friends and co-workers, and I wonder. It was actually a sermon series on controversial issues in my own church that helped me see maybe the Bible is not so clear on that topic after all.

But this book helps me see intellectually what my heart had already figured out. That we’re calling things sinful that God almost certainly doesn’t call sinful.

I appreciate that Gene Robinson does take a Christian approach. He doesn’t say that God is wrong in this area. He very much feels that gay marriage can be God-honoring.

Usually when I review a book on issues, I present snippets from different arguments. This book does present well-thought out arguments that address most issues I’ve seen presented in, say, Facebook posts against gay marriage. But I don’t want to present sections out of context. When I do that, I often get arguments back, as if the quotation is all there is to say, and can be too easily refuted. Let me just encourage you, if you’re honestly interested in this question, of whether Christians can legitimately support gay marriage, to read this book and give it plenty of thought and prayer. I’m glad I did.

I will simply quote from the bishop’s summing up at the end:

I believe in marriage. I believe it is the crucible in which we come to know most deeply about love. It is in marriage that God’s will for me to love all of humankind gets focused in one person. It is impossible to love humankind if I can’t love one person. That opportunity to love one person and to have that love sanctioned and supported by the culture in which we live is a right denied gay and lesbian people for countless centuries. It’s time to open that opportunity to all of us. Because in the end, God believes in love.

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of When I Was a Child I Read Books, by Marilynne Robinson

Current Issues, Musings, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

When I Was a Child I Read Books

by Marilynne Robinson

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2012. 206 pages.
Starred Review

When I checked out this book, I expected a heart-warming memoir from someone I’ve been told is an outstanding writer. (I really must read her novels. I own at least one.)

Instead, I found scholarly and intellectual essays about a wide variety of things. Reading, yes, but also religion, justice, cosmology, ideology, liberalism, imagination, community, freedom. . .

I read it slowly, and the essays are on different topics, which I’m afraid is an obstacle to remembering all that was in this treasure-house of a book. But I did come back to it eagerly, and every time I dipped into it, it left me thinking deeply.

The essay I remember most distinctly, was, of all things, “The Fate of Ideas: Moses.” In it, she points out that the Mosaic Law, which we often think of as harsh, was much kinder to the poor and downtrodden than modern laws, and particularly than laws in England before America was founded.

Moses (by whom I mean the ethos and spirit of Mosaic law, however it came to be articulated) in fact does not authorize any physical punishment for crimes against property. The entire economic and social history of Christendom would have been transformed if Moses had been harkened to only in this one particular. Feudalism, not to mention early capitalism, is hardly to be imagined where such restraint was observed in defense of the rights of ownership. Anyone familiar with European history is aware of the zeal for brutal punishment, the terrible ingenuity with which the human body was tormented and insulted through the eighteenth century at least, very often to deter theft on the part of the wretched. Moses authorizes nothing of the kind, nor indeed does he countenance any oppression of the poor….

These laws would preserve those who were poor from the kind of wretchedness More describes by giving them an assured subsistence. While charity in Christendom was urged as a virtue — one that has always been unevenly aspired to — here the poor have their portion at the hand of God, and at the behest of the law. If a commandment is something in the nature of a promise (“Ten Commandments is an English imposition; in Hebrew they are called the Ten Words), then not only “you will not be stolen from” but also “you will not steal” would be in some part fulfilled, first because the poor are given the right to take what would elsewhere have been someone else’s property, and second because they are sheltered from the extreme of desperation that drives the needy to theft. The law of Moses so far values life above property that it forbids killing a thief who is breaking and entering by daylight (Exodus 22:2).

More along those lines are found in “Open Thy Hand Wide: Moses and the Origins of American Liberalism”:

It is striking to note how protective, even tender, comparable Old Testament laws are toward debtors. This is Deuteronomy 24:10-13: “When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to fetch his pledge. You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge to you. And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep in his pledge; when the sun goes down, you shall restore the pledge that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it shall be righeousness to you before the Lord your God.” The Geneva Bible has a note that makes the law gentler yet. It says, “As though ye wouldst appoint what to have, but shalt receive what he may spare.” No one can read the books of Moses with any care without understanding that law can be a means of grace. Certainly this law is of one spirit with the Son of Man who says, “I was hungry and you fed me. I was naked and you clothed me.” This kind of worldliness entails the conferring of material benefit over and above mere equity. It means a recognition of and respect for both the intimacy of God’s compassion and the very tangible forms in which it finds expression….

The tendency to hold certain practices in ancient Israel up to idealized modern Western norms is pervasive in much that passes for scholarship, though a glance at the treatment of the great class of debtors now being evicted from their homes in America and elsewhere should make it clear that, from the point of view of graciousness or severity, an honest comparison is not always in our favor….

At present, here in what is still sometimes called our Calvinist civilization, the controversies of liberalism and conservatism come down, as always, to economics. How exclusive is our claim to what we earn, own, inherit? Are the poor among us injured by the difficulties of their lives, or are the better among them braced and stimulated by the pinch of want? Is Edwards undermining morality when he says “it is better to give to several that are not objects of charity, than to send away empty one that is”? Would we be better friends of traditional values, therefore better Christians, if we exploited the coercive potential of need on the one hand and help on the other? There is clearly a feeling abroad that God smiled on our beginnings, and that we should return to them as we can. If we really did attempt to return to them, we would find Moses as well as Christ, Calvin, and his legions of intellectual heirs. And we would find a recurrent, passionate insistence on bounty or liberality, mercy and liberality, on being kind and liberal, liberal and bountiful, and enjoying the great blessings God has promised to liberality to the poor. These phrases are all Edwards’s and there are many more like them.

Here’s a paragraph I liked from the essay “Imagination and Community”:

When definitions of “us” and “them” begin to contract, there seems to be no limit to how narrow these definitions can become. As they shrink and narrow, they are increasingly inflamed, more dangerous and inhumane. They present themselves as movements toward truer and purer community, but, as I have said, they are the destruction of community. They insist that the imagination must stay within the boundaries they establish for it, that sympathy and identification are only allowable within certain limits. I am convinced that the broadest possible exercise of imagination is the thing most conducive to human health, individual and global.

And here’s a section from that same essay about the nature of education:

From time to time I, as a professor in a public university, receive a form from the legislature asking me to make an account of the hours I spend working. I think someone ought to send a form like that to the legislators. The comparison might be very interesting. The faculty in my acquaintance are quite literally devoted to their work, almost obsessive about it. They go on vacation to do research. Even when they retire they don’t retire. I have benefited enormously from the generosity of teachers from grade school through graduate school. They are an invaluable community who contribute as much as legislators do to sustaining civilization, and more than legislators do to equipping the people of this country with the capacity for learning and reflection, and the power that comes with that capacity. Lately we have been told and told again that our educators are not preparing American youth to be efficient workers. Workers. That language is so common among us now that an extraterrestrial might think we had actually lost the Cold War.

The intellectual model for this school and for most of the older schools in America — for all of them, given the prestige and influence of the older schools — was a religious tradition that loved the soul and the mind and was meant to encourage the exploration and refinement of both of them. I note here that recent statistics indicate American workers are the most productive in the world by a significant margin, as they have been for as long as such statistics have been ventured. If we were to retain humane learning and lose a little edge in relative productivity, I would say we had chosen the better part.

I love it when she waxes eloquent about books:

Over the years I have collected so many books that, in aggregate, they can fairly be called a library. I don’t know what percentage of them I have read. Increasingly I wonder how many of them I ever will read. This has done nothing to dampen my pleasure in acquiring more books. But it has caused me to ponder the meaning they have for me, and the fact that to me they epitomize one great aspect of the goodness of life….

I have spent literal years of my life lovingly absorbed in the thoughts and perceptions of — who knows it better than I? — people who do not exist. And, just as writers are engrossed in the making of them, readers are profoundly moved and also influenced by the nonexistent, that great clan whose numbers increase prodigiously with every publishing season. I think fiction may be, whatever else, an exercise in the capacity for imaginative love, or sympathy, or identification.

I love the writers of my thousand books. It pleases me to think how astonished old Homer, whoever he was, would be to find his epics on the shelf of such an unimaginable being as myself, in the middle of an unrumored continent. I love the large minority of the writers on my shelves who have struggled with words and thoughts and, by my lights, have lost the struggle. All together they are my community, the creators of the very idea of books, poetry, and extended narratives, and of the amazing human conversation that has taken place across millennia, through weal and woe, over the heads of interest and utility….

I belong to the community of the written word in several ways. First, books have taught me most of what I know, and they have trained my attention and my imagination. Second, they gave me a sense of the possible, which is the great service — and too often, when it is ungenerous, the great disservice — a community performs for its members. Third, they embodied richness and refinement of language, and the artful use of language in the service of the imagination. Fourth, they gave me and still give me courage. Sometimes, when I have spent days in my study dreaming a world while the world itself shines outside my windows, forgetting to call my mother because one of my nonbeings has come up with a thought that interests me, I think, this is a very odd way to spend a life. But I have my library all around me, my cloud of witnesses to the strangeness and brilliance of human experience, who have helped me to my deepest enjoyments of it.

I didn’t intend to quote so much! But that gives you an idea of what’s found here. This isn’t light reading; it’s deep and thought-provoking. She’s coming from a Christian and intellectual perspective and I found her words stirred up ideas I’d never thought about before.

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism, by Ha-Joon Chang

Current Issues, History, Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism

by Ha-Joon Chang

Bloomsbury Press, New York, 2010. 286 pages.

I have to recommend this book, because it was a huge eye-opener. I’m not sure I absorbed everything, mind you, but I was impressed.

Ha-Joon Chang is a professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge. In all of the short chapters, teaching some truths about economics, he uses examples from international economics and international politics. Here is someone who knows what he’s talking about! He uses statistics and clear counter-examples to show why some things commonly believed about capitalism are simply not true.

I’ll quote some excerpts from the Introduction to give you an idea what’s going on in this book. I do recommend this book highly for anyone who does any thinking about public policy.

This book is not an anti-capitalist manifesto. Being critical of free-market ideology is not the same as being against capitalism. Despite its problems and limitations, I believe that capitalism is still the best economic system that humanity has invented. My criticism is of a particular version of capitalism that has dominated the world in the last three decades, that is, free-market capitalism. This is not the only way to run capitalism, and certainly not the best, as the record of the last three decades shows. The book shows that there are ways in which capitalism should, and can, be made better. . . .

Once you know that there is really no such thing as a free market, you won’t be deceived by people who denounce a regulation on the grounds that it makes the market ‘unfree’ (see Thing 1). When you learn that large and active governments can promote, rather than dampen, economic dynamism, you will see that the widespread distrust of government is unwarranted (see Things 12 and 21). Knowing that we do not live in a post-industrial knowledge economy will make you question the wisdom of neglecting, or even implicitly welcoming, industrial decline of a country, as some governments have done (see Things 9 and 17). Once you realize that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rich for what they are — a simple upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make all of us richer, as we were told (see Things 13 and 20). . . .

Human decisions, especially decisions by those who have the power to set the rules, make things happen in the way they happen, as I will explain. Even though no single decision-maker can be sure that her actions will always lead to the desired results, the decisions that have been made are not in some sense inevitable. We do not live in the best of all possible worlds. If different decisions had been taken, the world would have been a different place. Given this, we need to ask whether the decisions that the rich and the powerful take are based on sound reasoning and robust evidence. Only when we do can we demand right actions from corporations, governments and international organizations. Without our active economic citizenship, we will always be the victims of people who have greater ability to make decisions, who tell us that things happen because they have to and therefore that there is nothing we can do to alter them, however unpleasant and unjust they may appear.

This book is intended to equip the reader with an understanding of how capitalism really works and how it can be made to work better. . . .

Most of the issues I discuss in the book do not have simple answers. Indeed, in many cases, my main point is that there is no simple answer, unlike what free-market economists want you to believe. However, unless we confront these issues, we will not perceive how the world really works. And unless we understand that, we won’t be able to defend our own interests, not to speak of doing greater good as active economic citizens.

If you’d like to educate yourself to be a good economic citizen, this book is a great place to start. If you’d simply like to have some food for thought and some solid evidence behind your opinions, this book is also a great place to start. I’m not at all sure I grasped all the arguments or would be able to articulate them myself. But I at least was convinced myself! And my eyes were opened to worldwide economic situations I had known nothing about.

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Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of The Pun Also Rises, by John Pollack

Creativity, Current Issues, History, Nonfiction Review 0

The Pun Also Rises

How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More Than Some Antics

by John Pollack

Gotham Books, 2011. 212 pages.

I can’t help but love a book that traces the history of puns and reports the many ways they have contributed to human history.

When I saw this book was ordered by the library last year, I knew what I had to get my Dad for Father’s Day. Sure enough, he came to visit me right before Father’s Day, when he had not yet received my gift. The first thing his eye fell on when he walked into my dining room was the stack of books in the corner with this one on top. I had to laugh. I knew it was the right gift for my Dad. Never mind that I was also looking forward to reading it!

I enjoyed the introduction the most. The author tells about how he went to the eighteenth annual world pun championships to investigate competitive punning and ended up the winning the whole thing. He continues, talking about the noble history of the humble pun:

Critics and curmudgeons often deride the pun as the lowest form of humor. Others would counter that if that’s true, it would make punning the foundation of all humor. A close study of history reveals, however, that the reflexive association between puns and humor is a relatively recent development. In ancient Babylonia and Greece, to wit, punning often had religious implications and could even lead to armed conflict.

In any case, punsters throughout history have served as some of the most adventurous scouts on the frontiers of language. . .

It’s simple, and not so simple. As children gleefully learn to spot and evaluate secondary meanings in common words and phrases, they’re really learning how to think critically. To get the joke, they have to overlook the obvious to explore other possible interpretations of what they have just heard, and fast. . . .

So what’s the alchemy at work here? How do the best puns manage to layer so much meaning, humor, even irony into just a few words? And why in the world is punning so intrinsic to human expression that it sparks such mischievous delight in languages as diverse as Tzotzil, Yoruba, French, Pitjantjatjara and Japanese? . . .

But what, exactly, is the link between punning and civilization? What cultural, emotional or functional need does it fulfill across so many centuries and continents? What makes wordplay in general, and punning specifically, such an enduring part of language? Could it be biological and, if so, what evolutionary purpose might it serve? And why should laughter itself even matter in the survival of the fittest?

Ultimately, while puns may seem simple, the art and implications of punning are not. So why, exactly, do bears go barefoot, and what does that reveal about the human condition?

I hope you enjoy this hunt for answers.

I think this is enough for me to tell you. That was enough for me to know I had to read this book. If you feel vaguely repelled by this description, don’t bother. We don’t need you to know the truth. As John Pollack says at the end of his book:

Inevitably, some people will never like punning because it fogs up the lens of clarity through which they view the world and impose order, or at least the illusion of order. But if puns seem, at times, to confuse, they actually enlighten us through both laughter and insight. They keep us from taking ourselves too seriously, and sharpen our capacity for creative thinking. Ultimately, puns keep our minds alert, engaged and nimble in this quickening world, revealing new connections and fresh interpretations. And that’s why, even as we hurtle into a future of uncertain opportunities, puns will always be more than some antics.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Shiny Objects, by James A. Roberts

Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth 0

Shiny Objects

Why We Spend Money We Don’t Have in Search of Happiness We Can’t Buy

by James A. Roberts

HarperOne, 2011. 353 pages.

Here’s a timely look at materialism in America. The author says in his introduction:

We are a nation in love with shiny objects. Our homes, our cars, our offices, our purses, and that storage unit we hate to admit to are all overflowing with our precious belongings. Whether your personal weakness is shoes, cars, jewelry, cigars, or any other possession (vintage posters, books, and watches are my downfall), we Americans love our money.

When it comes to spending money, are you more of a tightwad or a spendthrift? . . . Given that we are a nation of consumers, you might be surprised to learn that the majority of Americans would be classified as tightwads. With a high percentage of people living from paycheck to paycheck, how can consumerism be so rampant? It all boils down to how we pay for our purchases and the “pain of paying” associated with each payment method — it’s not that tightwads don’t want to spend money, they just don’t want to feel like they’re spending money. We are a nation addicted to plastic. Using credit cards greatly reduces the pain associated with paying for our purchases — so much so, in fact, that credit cards have earned the nickname “spending facilitators” by those of us who do research in this area. When we use credit cards, we make quicker purchase decisions, are more likely to buy, and are willing to pay more. . . .

As a professor at Baylor University, I have spent over twenty years conducting research with thousands of consumers from all walks of life on the related areas of materialism, credit card use, and compulsive buying. Why, in a land of plenty, do Americans want more? And why is more never enough? Given that most Americans would readily admit that money and material possessions are not going to make us happy, why do we continue to act as if they will? This book is the culmination of my efforts and those of other researchers to answer such questions. And though consumers are inscrutable, we have begun to unlock some of the mysteries behind materialism and its impact on our lives.

That gives you the idea. This book looks at studies done on consumer behavior and attitudes toward money. And it also attempts to teach the reader and gives tips for getting your actual behavior more in line with the things that matter most to you — which usually, bottom line, is not money. This book is both interesting and helpful.

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Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of A People Tall and Smooth, by Judith Galblum Pex

Christian, Cross Cultural, Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

A People Tall and Smooth

Stories of Escape from Sudan to Israel

by Judith Galblum Pex

Cladach Publishing, 2011. 219 pages.

A People Tall and Smooth tells the stories of many Sudanese refugees who have ended up in Israel.

Judith Galblum Pex and her husband John run a hostel in Eilat, Israel. She introduces the situation that developed in 2007 with these words:

“People from over one hundred nations intermingle in Israel. Besides Jews from Kazakhstan and Kansas, Burma and Belgrade, Calcutta, Congo and places in between, over a million tourists every year add to the mosaic. Include in the mixture two hundred thousand legal and illegal workers from countries such as China, Thailand, Philippines, Nepal and Ghana, and it’s clear that the average Israeli is used to seeing faces of all colors and shapes.

“In 2007, however, a new group appeared on the scene whose appearance and status was unlike any other till this time. We began to notice men, women, children and babies on the streets in our town of Eilat who were exceptionally black and strikingly tall.

“‘Where do they come from and who are they?’ My husband John and I asked ourselves. ‘What language do they speak?’ Having managed The Shelter Hostel in Eilat on the Red Sea since 1984, we are used to interacting with diverse people groups and were eager to meet these new arrivals.

“Our questions were answered when a tall, dark man walked through our front gate one morning. ‘I’m Gabriel, a refugee from Sudan,’ he introduced himself in perfect English. We then had even more questions. How did these Sudanese get to our city of Eilat in the south of Israel? What made them want to come to Israel of all places? Were they refugees from the genocide in Darfur that we’d been reading about lately?”

Their questions were answered by the refugees that came streaming to them. I was fascinated by how many Sudanese believed this passage from Isaiah 18 applied to them:

“Woe to the land of whirring wings along the rivers of Cush, which sends envoys by sea in papyrus boats over the water. Go swift messengers to a people tall and smooth-skinned, to a people feared far and wide, an aggressive nation of strange speech whose land is divided by rivers … At that time gifts will be brought to the Lord Almighty … to Mount Zion.”

Judith Galblum Pex writes:

“Whatever the original meaning, many Sudanese took this passage as a personal encouragement in their complicated struggle as refugees in Israel. Still, life with uncertainties in Israel was better for them than what they had endured in Africa.”

This book tells the stories of several Sudanese refugees, of different backgrounds, who wound up on their doorstep and became their friends. The writing is a little uneven. I would have preferred less about how they got the stories and the author’s reaction to the stories, and a focus on just the stories themselves. However, the stories are so compelling, you can get past that distraction.

This book contains amazing true stories of powerfully resilient people with a strong faith in God who have come through incredibly difficult events. The stories are both eye-opening and inspiring.

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Source: This review is based on a book sent to me by the publisher.

Review of The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

Biography, Cross Cultural, Current Issues, History, Nonfiction Review 0

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana

Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe

by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

Harper, 2011. 256 pages.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana tells the story Kamila Sidiqi and how she kept her family of sisters — and many of their neighbors — going when the Taliban came.

Kamila got her teaching certificate in 1996, just before the Taliban came. She’d gone to classes despite the war. But with the Taliban in charge, she couldn’t teach. Her father and oldest brother had to leave Kabul, for fear of getting targeted by the Taliban. She and her sisters had to stay inside, and could only leave the house in full chadri with a male relative escort. The situation in Kabul got worse and worse.

“This is what I have to figure out, Kamila thought to herself. I need to find something I can do at home, behind closed doors. I need to find something that people need, something useful that they’ll want to buy. She knew she had very few options. Only basic necessities mattered now; no one had money for anything else. Teaching school might be an option, but it was unlikely to earn her enough money, since most families still kept their girls at home out of fear for their safety. And she certainly didn’t want her income to depend on an improvement in the security situation.

“Kamila spent long days thinking about her options, considering which skills she could learn quickly that would also bring in enough afghani to make a difference for her family. And then it came to her, inspired by her older sister Malika, who, along with being a great teacher, had over many years developed into a talented — and sought-after — seamstress. Women from her neighborhood in Karteh Parwan loved her work so much that Malika’s tailoring income now earned her almost as much as her teacher’s salary. That’s it, Kamila thought. I’ll become a seamstress.

“There were many positives: she could do the work in her living room, her sisters could help, and, most important of all, she had seen for herself at Lycee Myriam that the market for clothing remained strong. Even with the Taliban in power and the economy collapsing, women would still need simple dresses. As long as she kept quiet and didn’t attract unnecessary attention, the risks should be manageable.

“Kamila faced just one major obstacle: she had no idea how to sew.”

This book tells the compelling story of how Kamila faced that, and many other obstacles that were by no means minor, and built a thriving business that even helped other neighboring families without men in charge.

I like the author’s summary at the end of why Kamila’s story is so important:

“Brave young women commit heroic acts every day, with no one bearing witness. This was a chance to even the ledger, to share one small story that made the difference between starvation and survival for the families whose lives it changed. I wanted to pull the curtain back for readers on a place foreigners know more for its rocket attacks and roadside bombs than its countless quiet feats of courage. And to introduce them to the young women like Kamila Sidiqi who will go on. No matter what.”

www.gaylelemmon.com
www.harpercollins.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/dressmaker_of_khair_khana.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Haiti After the Earthquake, by Paul Farmer

Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Haiti

After the Earthquake

by Paul Farmer

PublicAffairs, New York, 2011. 431 pages.
Starred Review

I first heard of Dr. Paul Farmer’s work, bringing health care to poor people all over the world, when I read the books Strength in What Remains and Mountains Beyond Mountains, both by Tracy Kidder.

Paul Farmer has been working in Haiti for decades, doing excellent work there. So when I heard that he had written a book called Haiti After the Quake, I made sure I got my hands on it quickly.

This book tells a sad story of devastation, but ultimately it’s a hopeful book, with a bright outlook for Haiti’s future. It does point out problems with the many non-governmental organizations working in Haiti. For Haiti to thrive, the government needs to be able to provide basic services like water, transportation infrastructure, and healthcare. But he presents good directions to head in the future.

To add to the in-depth analysis, after Dr. Farmer’s section, there are chapters written by eleven distinguished guest writers, many of whom were in Haiti on the day of the quake, and all of whom have a valuable perspective.

This is an important book, and a thoughtful and well-written one.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/haiti_after_the_earthquake.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Beauty Queens, by Libba Bray

Contemporary, Current Issues, Humorous, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Beauty Queens

by Libba Bray

Scholastic Press, New York, 2011. 396 pages.
Starred Review

Okay, this book is hilarious, laugh-out-loud funny. It is irreverent, has frank sexuality of different types, and makes fun of people who give easy answers — including a Christian leading a song “Jesus is my Co-pilot” while their plane crashes. However, most of the things the author makes fun of fully deserve to be made fun of. The book mostly mocks our corporate culture and the messages we send to women about their bodies and their sexuality. And the book is definitely funny. Did I mention that it made me laugh out loud?

I love Libba Bray from the moment I heard her speech at the 2010 Printz Awards. Funny irreverence is where she shines, and in this book, she harnesses it all into a rollicking tale of survival.

The story is about a group of survivors of a plane crash on a desert island. The plane was filled with Miss Teen Dream contestants, and all the adults (and most of the contestants) die in the crash. But don’t worry! I’ll give you the first page or so, so you’ll know it’s a Happy Story:

“A WORD FROM YOUR SPONSOR

“This book begins with a plane crash. We do not want you to worry about this. According to the U.S. Department of Unnecessary Statistics, your chances of dying in a plane crash are one in half a million. Whereas your chances of losing your bathing suit bottoms to a strong tide are two to one. So, all in all, it’s safer to fly than to go to the beach. As we said, this book begins with a plane crash. But there are survivors. You see? Already it’s a happy tale. They are all beauty queen contestants. You do not need to know their names here. But you will get to know them. They are all such nice girls. Yes, they are nice, happy, shining, patriotic girls who happen to have interests in baton twirling, sign language, AIDS prevention in the animal population, the ancient preparation of popadam, feminine firearms, interpretive dance, and sequins. Such a happy story. And shiny, too.

“This story is brought to you by The Corporation: Because Your Life Can Always Be Better (TM). We at The Corporation would like you to enjoy this story, but please be vigilant while reading. If you should happen to notice anything suspicious in the coming pages, do alert the proper authorities. Remember, it could be anything at all — a subversive phrase, an improper thought or feeling let out of its genie bottle of repression, an idea that challenges the status quo, the suggestion that life may not be what it appears to be and that all you’ve taken for granted (malls, shopping, the relentless pursuit of an elusive happiness, prescription drug ads, those annoying perfume samples in magazines that make your eyes water, the way anchormen and women shift easily from the jovial laughter of a story about a dog that hula-hoops to a grave report on a bus crash that has left five teenagers dead) may be no more consequential than the tattered hem of a dream, leaving you with a bottomless, free-fall feeling.

“This is the sort of thing we are warning you about.

“But let’s not worry, shall we? There’s nothing to worry about. Though there is the threat of war, it happens in the background, in snippets on the nightly news between ads for sinus medicines. It’s none of our concern. This is a happy story.

“Now, our story begins, as many happy stories do, with a blue, blue sky. A blue, blue sky punctuated by thick white clouds; they drift across the expanse like semicolons, reminding us that there is more to come. The pilot, a man in his forties who once stayed on a mechanical bull for a full eight seconds, has just turned off the FASTEN SEAT BELTS sign. The flight is on its way to a remote tropical paradise where the girls will compete against one another for the title of Miss Teen Dream.

“Oh dear. Compete is a rather ugly word, isn’t it? After all, these are such lovely girls, pure of heart and high of spirits. Let’s say that they will be ‘drawing on their personal best,’ and some girls will ‘proceed on a path of Miss Teen Dreamdom’ while others will ‘have the option to explore other pageant opportunities elsewhere at an unspecified future time.’ Ah. There. That’s much better, isn’t it?”

That should give you the idea. If the above strikes you funny, you will enjoy this book, because that is just the beginning.

When twelve girls find themselves on a beach after the plane crash, Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins, Miss Teen Dream Texas, organizes them into two teams, The Sparkle Ponies and The Lost Girls, to find out what they have and deal with the situation. They’re determined to stay Pageant-ready until they are rescued. But rescue is not quick in coming.

Here’s the scene when the Lost Girls come back and report that there are no survivors at the plane crash site:

“Taylor’s sharp clap echoed on the beach, ‘Teen Dreamers! We need to focus like it’s the final interview round and the questions are all about anorexia and current events. Now, I know y’all are upset. This is just plain awful. But God doesn’t make mistakes. Is this a setback, Teen Dreamers?’

“‘Totally,’ wailed Miss Arkansas. Her left arm was broken. It had been bandaged into a ninety-degree angle as if she were perpetually waving to an unseen crowd.

“‘No, ma’am. No, it is not. I know what Ladybird Hope would say. She would say that this is an opportunity for growth and the establishment of your personal brand. Everybody loves a survivor. And everybody loves a Miss Teen Dream contestant. When you put those two together, you have a lot of hope. And big endorsement opportunities when we get back. Let’s get a woo-hoo goin’!’

“A halfhearted chorus of ‘woo-hoo’ rippled through the horseshoe-shaped cluster of exhausted, hungry girls.

“Taylor shouted, ‘Now, I know y’all can be louder than that!’

“‘WOO-HOO!’

“‘That’s the Miss Teen Dream spirit. Sparkle Ponies, report: What did y’all salvage from the plane?’

“The girls listed off their bounty: four hot roller sets, two straightening irons, a few teeth-bleaching trays, five seat cushions, three waterlogged beauty magazines, a notebook, laxatives, diet pills, a few suitcases filled with clothes, evening gowns, a collection of mismatched bathing suit tops and bottoms, various shoes, bags of pretzels, and bottles of water.”

It’s actually surprising how well the girls do under these difficult conditions. To add to the fun, the author throws in that they have crashed on an island where a government conspiracy is taking place. What’s more, after some weeks, the cast of the reality show, Captains Bodacious IV: Badder and More Bodaciouser and their shipload of pirates, gets shipwrecked on the very same island.

That should give you the idea. It’s not intended to be realistic. (Or is it?) The story is punctuated with pageant data sheets about the contestants and “Commercial Breaks” in favor of products made by The Corporation. I loved lines like this: “Lady ‘Stache Off. Because there’s nothing wrong with you. . . that can’t be fixed.”

This book is good, silly fun with barbs pointed at our corporate culture. Definitely an entertaining read.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/beauty_queens.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.