Review of The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich

Fiction Review, Historical 0

The Night Watchman

by Louise Erdrich

HarperCollins, 2020. 451 pages.
Review written June 22, 2020, from a library book

Set in 1953, The Night Watchman tells about people of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota and how they stood up to the federal government of the United States threatening to take their lands. Here’s what the author wrote in a piece at the front of the book:

On August 1, 1953, the United States Congress announced House Concurrent Resolution 108, a bill to abrogate nation-to-nation treaties, which had been made with American Indian Nations for “as long as the grass grows and the rivers flow.” The announcement called for the eventual termination of all tribes, and the immediate termination of five tribes, including the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.

My grandfather Patrick Gourneau fought against termination as tribal chairman while working as a night watchman. He hardly slept, like my character Thomas Wazhashk. This book is fiction, but all the same, I have tried to be faithful to my grandfather’s extraordinary life. Any failures are my own. Other than Thomas, and the Turtle Mountain Jewel Bearing Plant, the only other major character who resembles anyone alive or dead is Senator Arthur V. Watkins, relentless pursuer of Native dispossession and the man who interrogated my grandfather.

Pixie, or – excuse me – Patrice, is completely fictional.

The story is about Patrice, who works in the Jewel Bearing Plant. But she needs to take some time off to try to find her sister, who has gone missing in the big city and is in trouble. Meanwhile, more than one man would like to win Patrice’s attention, and Thomas is disturbed by a letter that came from Washington, DC. Eventually, he needs to put together a delegation to make their case before Congress. Various colorful characters will help him out.

I read this book and finished very happy that these people successfully stopped their nation from being terminated. However, historical notes at the back, telling which parts came from truth, made my heart sink with this paragraph:

In all, 113 tribal nations suffered the disaster of termination; 1.4 million acres of tribal land was lost. Wealth flowed to private corporations, while many people in terminated tribes died early, in poverty. Not one tribe profited. By the end, 78 tribal nations, including the Menominee, led by Ada Deer, regained federal recognition; 10 gained state but not federal recognition; 31 tribes are landless; 24 are considered extinct.

But the book itself tells a good story, all the more poignant because it’s based in truth. A story of people up against the powerful, but also living and loving and making lives together. It is comforting that these people indeed triumphed in their struggle.

harpercollins.com

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

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Review of Defying Gravity, by Tom Berlin

Christian, Nonfiction Review 0

Defying Gravity

Break Free from the Culture of More

by Tom Berlin

Abingdon Press, 2016. 108 pages.
Review written January 9, 2020, from my own copy

This little book was given to me when I joined Floris United Methodist Church, where the author is the lead pastor. It’s a book about giving generously, which might make you suspicious coming from a pastor. However, Tom Berlin tells a personal story of how giving changed his life – and he expresses that he hopes that others will find the same joy.

He told the story when I went to the membership information night of how his young bride insisted that they give a tenth of their income – much to his dismay. But as the years went by, her example eventually changed his attitude, and he discovered that an attitude of generosity can set you free from the gravity of this world and this culture, that you need to hoard and you always need more.

The book is short, with only four chapters. They talk about the pull of money in our lives, and how to break free of financial gravity and realize that we are stewards of God’s money.

So it may be short, but these are big lessons. I’m still absorbing if there are some changes I can make to be more generous.

All of us can defy gravity. It doesn’t take lots of money. It does take time. It takes sacrifice. It takes a shift in our view of the world. We must learn to see our lives as belonging to God and trust that God will direct our lives in a generous way that will bring us joy and significance.

God longs for us to experience a life in Christ that will make us generous in all ways, with our kindness, compassion, and love as evidenced in the use of our time and money. Such a life enables us to break free of the world’s gravity and enjoy the pull of God’s kingdom so that the Spirit of God will be evident in our own.

abingdonpress.com

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Review of We Are Water Protectors, by Carole Lindstrom, illustrated by Michaela Goade

Contemporary, Picture Book Review 0

We Are Water Protectors

written by Carole Lindstrom
illustrated by Michaela Goade

Roaring Brook Press, 2020. 40 pages.
Review written April 21, 2020, from a library book

The Author’s Note at the back of this picture book does tell us that her motivation to write it came from April 2016 when the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe protested against a pipeline going through their sacred lands and were joined by more than five hundred Indigenous Nations. But the text is universal – about standing on behalf of water and the earth.

The paintings on the large spreads in this book are colorful, lush, and gorgeous. We see a Native American girl repeating to the reader what she’s been told about the importance of water. We come from water – from our mother’s womb to the nourishment of water on the earth.

We also hear of a prophecy of a black snake that would come and poison the water, plants, and animals.

Now the black snake is here.
Its venom burns the land.
Courses through the water,
Making it unfit to drink.

Our protagonist declares she’s going to fight the black snake, and here the book is beautifully inspiring.

We fight for those
Who cannot fight for themselves:
The winged ones,
The crawling ones,
The four-legged,
The two-legged,
The plants, trees, rivers, lakes,
The Earth.

We are all related.

The language is simple and the pictures are beautiful. The reader will learn about Native American culture in a way that invites them also to contribute to protecting the water.

At the very back of the book, there’s a pledge to be a steward of the Earth and a protector of the water, and to treat all beings on the Earth with kindness and respect.

www.mackids.com

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Review of So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo

Audiobooks, Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

So You Want to Talk About Race

by Ijeoma Oluo
read by Bahni Turpin

Blackstone Audio, 2018. 7 hours, 41 minutes.
Review written June 17, 2020, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2020 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #7 General Nonfiction

I wish I already knew the things talked about in this book. I wish the topic wasn’t so timely in 2020. And I wish it hadn’t taken timely current events to get me to listen to this book. However, all things taken together, I’m very glad this book exists to educate me about issues of race and how black people in America have many very different experiences than I do. And I’m glad I finally listened to it.

This book is a black person telling things like they are. She doesn’t hold back to spare your feelings. So much of what she says was eye-opening for me. I hadn’t thought much about how the world responds to black people, because the world doesn’t respond to me that way.

I was surprised by how long the book was. It turned out that she had plenty of things to cover, and covered them well. Whatever else I was feeling as I listened to this book, I wasn’t bored for even a second.

I liked the way she approached explaining privilege. She first talked about ways in which she herself is privileged. One of those ways is by having a college degree. Yes, she worked hard for that degree. It did help that she was born into a family that valued education. But once she got the degree, she was able to get better-paying jobs, even when they didn’t use anything she learned while gaining the degree. Just having the degree got her a higher income. Then she encourages the listener to consider their own privilege.

Something disturbing happened during the week I was listening to this book. There have been many protests going on, and some friends of mine actually posted things that exactly fit what Ijeoma Oluo had talked about. One was accusing protesters of “making everything about race.” Another said “I want my country back!,” and yet another posted a video of a white man who’d traveled across America and said what good people he’d found throughout this country and that we should all calm down. That story was nice, but he seemed completely oblivious to what I’d just learned, that if a black man traveled throughout this country, he couldn’t count on a positive and helpful attitude in every neighborhood where he shows up as a stranger. The very idea that black people and people of color have very different experiences in America than white people do was an insight I became much more aware of from listening to this book.

I still have a long way to go. This author, like others, said that you’re going to make some mistakes. But better that than continuing on my oblivious path. And she finished the book with some practical steps those of us with privilege can take.

ijeomaoluo.com

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

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Review of The Doughnut Fix, by Jessie Janowitz

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Doughnut Fix

by Jessie Janowitz

Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, 2018. 298 pages.
Starred Review
Review written August 20, 2018, from a book sent by the publisher
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#8 Contemporary Children’s Fiction

This book is a whole lot of fun to read. Doughnuts! What could be better?

Tristan and his two sisters get taken on a road trip one Saturday – and then told that they’re moving out of New York City to Petersville. Their parents have bought a ramshackle old house a bike ride away from the tiny center of town. His mother is going to open a restaurant.

When Tristan bikes into town the morning after they move, he spots a sign that makes him hungry – “Yes, we do have chocolate cream doughnuts!” Except the trouble is, the sign is a lie. Winnie, the lady in the general store says she quit making the doughnuts because they were so popular, it was too much bother to make them. They were so good, they were in the newspaper.

“Too much work. After that story, people came in here from all over, all hours of the day and night. Nearly drove me crazy. I really had no choice.”

Just in case you think you don’t get it, let me tell you, you do: the General Store’s chocolate cream doughnuts were so good, and people liked them so much, they decided not to make them anymore.

Tristan can’t stop thinking about those doughnuts. So when they’re told that they don’t need to start school until after Winter Break, and his parents tell them to work on a project – Tristan chooses to bring back the doughnuts to Petersville.

It’s not all that simple. He needs to get the recipe from Winnie, and then she wants him to make a business plan. He needs to negotiate a good price on the ingredients, and they have to get a business license, not to mention making the doughnuts and filling them with chocolate cream – despite his four-year-old sister’s “help.”

Maybe that all sounds boring, but the quirky characters in the town combined with Tristan’s unusual family and Tristan’s determination to get these doughnuts made – all add up to a funny and absorbing tale.

Of course, Tristan also needs to make a new friend – and he gains some insight about his former best friend. Meanwhile his gifted and talented sister Jeanine is having more trouble adjusting than he is, which comes as a surprise for him.

There are recipes in the back of the book plus tips on starting a business. The flap says that this is the first book in a series – that makes me happy, because these characters are a whole lot of fun.

Beware, though – This book will make you hungry.

jessiejanowitz.com
jabberwockykids.com

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

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Review of The Queen of Nothing, by Holly Black, read by Caitlin Kelly

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Queen of Nothing

by Holly Black
read by Caitlin Kelly

Hachette Audio, 2019. 9.5 hours on 8 CDs.
Review written February 28, 2020, from a library audiobook
Starred Review

The Folk of the Air trilogy is so good! The Queen of Nothing is the third and final volume of the trilogy. The whole series is full of twists and turns and reversals. Each book has multiple moments where you’re not sure how the main character is even going to survive, let alone triumph. The books are full of assassinations and betrayals and political intrigue, and each book is more intense than the one before. I listened to this audiobook on my commute, and it’s one of those that once I got somewhere near the end, I had to bring the final CD inside the house to listen because I couldn’t bear to stop.

Jude has been brought up in Faerie after the redcap former husband of her mother killed both her mother and father, but pledged to take care of her and her twin sister. This adopted father taught her to be a deadly fighter, but at the start of this book, he’s fighting on the other side.

I don’t want to say much about how the book opens, because it gives away some of what went before. (And, yes, you must read these books in order.) I’ll just say that Jude is in exile in the mortal world. Her twin sister, Taryn, convinces Jude to go into Faerie “just for a few hours” pretending to be Taryn, so she can truthfully testify in the case of Taryn’s murdered husband.

Not surprisingly, things do not go as planned, and Jude is trapped in Faerie with people planning to make war against the High King of Faerie. Perhaps Jude can get information to use against them….

Twists and turns and treacheries follow. Holly Black is unsurpassed in her ability to surprise and shock her readers. But she is also able to delight us.

It is just as well I listened to this book, because in print form I don’t think I would have been able to stop. This way the enjoyment lasted longer. As it is, this book is responsible for me not remembering where I was going on an evening when I planned to go to choir rehearsal after work.

blackholly.com
HachetteAudio.com

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Review of House of Dreams, by Liz Rosenberg

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, L. M. Montgomery, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

House of Dreams

The Life of L. M. Montgomery

by Liz Rosenberg
illustrated by Julie Morstad

Candlewick Press, 2018. 339 pages.
Starred Review
Reviewed July 7, 2018, from a copy sent from the publisher.
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#4 Longer Children’s Nonfiction

I am an avid L. M. Montgomery fan. I have read all of her published journals. I’ve read all her novels. Usually when I read a biography, I think how much nicer it was to read about these things in L. M. Montgomery’s own words. But I didn’t feel that way about House of Dreams.

In the first place, Liz Rosenberg did a great job of giving us the high points of L. M. Montgomery’s life. She speaks frankly of bipolar disorder and that there was no real treatment for it in her time. When Maud had a long low period, we don’t have to wade through the despairing journal entries, but we get a summary.

I thought I knew the whole story. But this book was the first I heard a crucial fact about Maud’s passionate love affair with Herman Leard – he was publicly courting another woman. It always made me crazy in her journals to read all the reasons why he wasn’t actually suited to her for marriage. I had no idea that she was protecting herself from jealousy. (I did know that she herself was engaged at that time to Edwin Simpson.)

I also knew that her life ended very unhappily and that she was very disappointed in her oldest son Chester. This book puts perspective on that and gives more details than Maud did about what Chester had done. (It’s this part that makes the book more for young adults than for children.) And I did not know that her death was probably a suicide, though I did know that she ended her days feeling despairing.

Her life ended unhappily, but there was so much inspiring about her life. Her persistent work at writing and her eventual success of climbing “the Alpine path” is always an uplifting story to hear. This quiet imaginative girl from Prince Edward Island achieved fame and wealth and a lasting legacy. The illustrations by Julie Morstad are perfect and make the book a treasure. (I’d love to see Julie Morstad illustrate all of L. M. Montgomery’s novels!)

I’m not going to keep all of the books that publishers have sent me to consider for the Newbery – but this one is going right into my collection of books by and about L. M. Montgomery. It’s a lovely book about a fascinating and inspiring life. I do recommend it to all my friends, teen and up, who love the Anne and Emily books.

candlewick.com

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

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Review of Kiss Carlo, by Adriana Trigiani

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Historical, Romance 0

Kiss Carlo

by Adriana Trigiani
read by Edoardo Ballerini

HarperAudio, 2018. 16 hours, 2 minutes.
Review written June 3, 2020, from a library eaudiobook

I listened to Kiss Carlo as a Skip-the-Line loan for an eaudiobook during the Covid-19 pandemic, when I’m listening to audiobooks on my phone (instead of CDs in the car) for the first time in my life. So I didn’t have to wait for an available copy, but I had to finish in 14 days, and my status as a library employee wouldn’t help me fudge that. This meant a little extra time doing puzzles!

The book is a historical novel about a big Italian family in South Philadelphia shortly after World War II. Nicky Castone has been engaged to his girl Peachy for seven years. She even waited for him during the war. He drives a cab for his family’s taxicab company, which is in a feud with another branch of the family and their taxicab company. Nicky is an orphan, but his aunt and uncle love him as their own. He’s also looked after by Hortense Mooney, the black dispatcher at the cab company. She tells Nicky that Peachy isn’t right for him.

Another plot thread deals with Calla Berelli, who is taking over her father’s theater, which runs Shakespeare plays year round. The theater is struggling, and the rise of television isn’t helping. Nicky’s been doing odd jobs at the theater for a long time, wherever he’s needed, and one night – which happens to be the night he finally told Peachy he was working at the theater – an emergency calls an actor away, and Nicky, who’d been prompting and knew all the lines, had to take the part.

In that moment, Nicky begins to realize that acting makes him feel alive. His fiancée is not at all pleased, which eventually tips Nicky off that maybe they aren’t right for each other after all.

But the path Nicky travels takes many twists and turns from there, including impersonating Carlo, an ambassador from Italy scheduled to be an officiating dignitary at a jubilee celebration in a small town in Pennsylvania. Nicky does it to escape Peachy’s angry father, and Hortense accompanies him as an American government official to lend him credence.

Okay, after that paragraph – let me give up trying to explain the plot. But it’s all in good fun. Some of the turns the plot takes are maybe a little unlikely, but the story is enjoyable. The big strength is in portraying the close-knit Italian-American community and the various characters along the way.

The narrator did a great job voicing the characters, expressing their characters with enough consistency that I could tell who was speaking by the voice used, and with a nice use of accents.

This was a light-hearted listen that still pulled you into the world of the book.

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Review of Stamped, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

Audiobooks, Children's Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

Stamped

Racism, Antiracism, and You

by Jason Reynolds
and Ibram X. Kendi
read by Jason Reynolds

Little, Brown Young Readers, 2020. eaudiobook. 4 hours, 11 minutes.
Review written June 10, 2020, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Wow. This book claims more than once that it is NOT a history book, it is a NOW book. All the same, I learned more about history – and how it relates to my own life in the present – in four short hours than I have learned in a long time.

This book is a “remix” of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s book for adults, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. I heard the two authors talk about it in an event sponsored by School Library Journal last week, and they said that Jason Reynolds did the writing, in order to appeal to young people, and he used the original book as his research material. They said that Dr. Kendi was kind of like Jason’s research assistant. (And then they both laughed.)

The result? Yes, it’s written in a way that children can understand and not be bored and will grasp the nuances. But he doesn’t speak down to children, and there’s absolutely nothing that would make an adult feel like it’s beneath them. So I think the result is an interesting and dynamic summary of Dr. Kendi’s work, presented in a way that will have you mesmerized. (Jason Reynolds reading it is especially good.)

It’s short – only a little over 4 hours – and packed with information. To be honest, I retain information better when I see it than when I hear it. So I’m planning to read both this book and the original adult book in print form so I can refer back and better absorb all that information. But listening to it first did get my eyes opened.

The authors talk about three kinds of attitudes. The first is Racism, which they say is a system, and a set of ideas, not a set of people. A person may express racist and antiracist ideas all in the same day, let alone all in the same lifetime. Therefore saying, “I’m not a racist.” isn’t helpful, because you may have both antiracist attitudes about some things and racist attitudes about other things. It’s also good to be aware how much racism is baked into our culture, so it’s hard to escape.

Racist attitudes developed because people wanted to justify slavery. The authors even cite the first racist. Other people may have had the same attitudes before him, but he qualified as the first racist because he wrote about those ideas in a book that was widely read, making people feel good about enslaving Africans, with various justifications given to emphasize that they were inferior to whites and destined by God for slavery.

The second kind of attitude is Assimilationism. The assimilationist attitude is that black people can be good and worthy – if they become like white people. These ideas are much more subtly racist. On the surface, they look like they are uplifting black people, but when you look more closely, they talk about exceptional black people who achieve success, and imply that those who do not check off the boxes are less than these others.

The third attitude is the one to strive for, Antiracism. This attitude sees the inherent good in all people, and doesn’t imply that black people need to change in order to be fully human and fully worthy of respect.

The book shows how racist ideas are baked into our culture, and how laws have been made to reinforce those ideas. This Not-a-History Book did go through and explain ways Racism affected our laws and culture even after slavery was officially ended. When he talked about the 70s and 80s, I was shocked by how many things he cited, which I’d heard from my parents, were based in racism – without openly admitting they were based in racism. And he talked about how people could run for office without openly talking about racist attitudes while at the same time playing on racist fears.

Something that was striking to hear, knowing that it had been written well before current events and our current president’s tweet last week – was how the phrase “Law and Order” was used in campaigns to send the message that this person was going to crack down on black people – while pretending they’re only going to crack down on crime.

The book didn’t touch Trump’s presidency, stopping with the election and presidency of Barack Obama, while still pointing out the backlash from that and never implying that was by any means the end of racism. I was a little disappointed it stopped there, especially as I am seeing racist issues play out before my eyes. Maybe there is too much material?

But my goodness, I was shaken and enlightened by this book. I do plan to go over it again in print form, as well as reading the adult book it’s based on.

I highly recommend this book to anyone. Now, on the one hand, I don’t feel qualified to tell any black person what books they should read about racism. On the other hand, it was written by two black men, and it goes beyond personal experience and points out history that you won’t hear about in school, so it has something to offer them as well. As for white folks like me? Well, I for one had so much to learn from this book. If you read it or listen to it, you’ll be thinking these things over for a long time to come. And as a NOW book – you’re going to now be able to spot racist and assimilationist ideas when they happen around you.

jasonwritesbooks.com
ibramxkendi.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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.

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Review of Bedtime Bonnet, by Nancy Redd, illustrated by Nneka Myers

Contemporary, Picture Book Review 0

Bedtime Bonnet

by Nancy Redd
illustrated by Nneka Myers

Random House, 2020. 36 pages.
Starred Review
Review written June 5, 2020, from a library book

Here’s a delightful family story about an young African American girl and her family – and how they do their hair at night.

The first line is,

In my family, when the sun goes down, our hair goes up!

The girl introduces us to all the family members, who all do their hair a different way. Her brother “twists and tightens each of his locs.” Her sister, mother, father, and grandma all have a different hair routine, and then Mommy braids the girl’s hair. But Grandpa doesn’t do anything to his hair, because he doesn’t have any.

There’s one problem, though. When her braids are all set and it’s time for bed, she can’t find her bedtime bonnet.

I need it to protect my hair from tangles and lint while I sleep.

She searches high and low for it and asks everyone in the family. We notice that all the other members of the family have a way of protecting their own hair at night.

When the hiding place of the bonnet is discovered, everyone gets to laugh.

At the end of the book, we get to see the family setting out in the morning with everyone’s hair looking great.

Yes, this book works as a window into something I didn’t know much about – how to care for African American hair. Yes, this book will be nice as a mirror for kids who are familiar with this kind of routine. But if that were all it did, I’d skip writing a review.

Bedtime Bonnet offers a just plain delightful story for preschool and early elementary readers. There are colorful, warm pictures of a loving family, complete with a silly Grandpa. There’s a situation of something important lost, and then found in a funny way. I was just completely charmed by this delightful picture book. When I finally get to do in-person storytimes again, I’d like to try out this book with an audience.

nancyredd.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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.

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