The Stand by Stephen King

I've come to The Stand late in the game. The original was written before I was born, this copy, the 1,200 page behemoth I just put down, is the version King intended to put out, uncut and without alterations. 

I know what you're saying: "1,200 pages?! You're mad!" At least, that's what I assume you're saying. But don't worry, as they say in The Stand: "Even the company of the mad is better than the company of the dead."

I'll start where King does, with Captain Trips. Captain Trips is the nickname given to the flu. This isn't your chicken noodle soup, stay home from work kind of flu. No, this is the turns your insides to jelly and wipes out 99.4% of the world's population kind. 

The detail that King devotes to Captain Trips' decimation of everyday peoples' lives is one of the most horrifying things I've ever read, and it's easy to figure out why: We've all had the flu, it's one of life's guarantees, like stubbing your toe or being disappointed by the 2nd season of True Detective. 

Let me tell you something, after reading the first chapters of The Stand, you'll be squeezing Purell over your Apple Jacks. 

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT by Daniel James Brown

&#8195 All along Joe Rantz had figured that he was the wake link in the crew. He'd been added to the boat last, he'd often struggled to master the technical side of the sport, and he still tended to row erratically. But what Joe didn't yet know--what he wouldn't, in fact fully realize until much later, when he and the other boys were becoming old men--was that every boy in the boat felt exactly the same that summer. Every one of them believed he was simply lucky to be rowing in the boat, that he didn't really measure up to the obvious greatness of the other boys, and that he might fail the others at any moment. Every one of them was fiercely determined not to let that happen. [p. 326]

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics sets its sights high on the cover with what in many cases would be an overblown phrase: "Epic Quest". It begins small, with the author's meeting with a dying Joe Rantz in the prologue, followed by other small introductions, to the rowing program at the University of Washington in Seattle, the Seattle sports reporter who wanted his city to take a higher place in public opinion, the men who worked for the program, the boys seeking a place on the freshman rowing team in the fall of 1933, and the goings-on in Germany, where Hitler was secretly building weapons and overtly building an enormous new stadium for the 1936 Olympics.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Boise, ID doesn't have too many major league celebrities, so it made some pretty big waves when our resident author Anthony Doerr hit the bestseller lists and then proceeded to win the Pulitzer for his second novel, All the Light We Cannot See.

 Me, I'm a skeptic. The more hype something gets, the more reluctant I become to jump on the bandwagon. Not only that, but I've long betrayed my English major roots by doubting the readability and enjoyability of books that earn major awards. Consequently, I had no immediate plans to pick up the prize-winning WWII novel that everyone in town claimed to be reading until my book club named it as the choice of the month. Even then, I put it off until almost too late, and then began reading immediately to try to beat the clock. 

Except... I couldn't put it down.

Flyboys by James Bradley

Fly­boys: A True Story of Courage by James Bradley is a non-fiction book about pilots in World War II. Mr. Bradley wrote sev­eral World War II books, the most famous is Flags of Our Fathers.

Fly­boys is an inter­est­ing book about a group of young men who had no idea what they were get­ting them­selves into. They were brave men who watched their friends die and still flew day in and day out.

I espe­cially liked the begin­ning of the book where Mr. Bradley talks about the his­tory of Japan, explain­ing how it came to invade other coun­tries and their feu­dal­is­tic cul­ture. The lat­ter came into impor­tance in the Japan­ese Army which made it impos­si­ble for sol­diers to refuse even the most inhu­mane orders.

Mr. Bradley chose a strange way to tell this story. The author jumps around a lot between his­tory, per­sonal sto­ries and time­lines and it’s dif­fi­cult, at some points, to keep track or coherence.

While there are some other issues with this book, it is a solid trib­ute to the brave Fly­boys in WWII. I would love to read his full inter­view with George H. W. Bush, who came across as gen­uine, tal­ented and modest.

Article first published as  Book Review: Flyboys by James Bradley

Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam

Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam is a collection of letters (and a few poems) written by soldiers and nurses who served during the Vietnam War. The editor, Bernard Edelman, did a wonderful job, and I would've written this review sooner, but I picked up another book, Home Before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam. It was written by one of the contributors to this volume. Edelman follows each letter with a paragraph about the writer of the letter. He mentioned that one writer, Lynda Van Devanter, had written a book about her nursing experience during the war. It's maybe even more amazing than this one, but I have to say both books are for mature readers.

Read this book: Symphony for the City of the Dead by M.T. Anderson

I rarely say this, but you have to read this book. Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad by M.T. Anderson is the kind of history writing that teachers dream about it. It's factually accurate, for westerners covers a little known period of history, is passionately written and filled with riveting prose. Simply put, this is the book you have to read if you want to understand modern Russia.

Have I persuaded you yet?

I was fairly surprised that Anderson would be the one to write a book like Symphony as it is straight up history and built around an adult protagonist (composer Dmitri Shostakovich). Anderson is a great writer, but still, for all that he has written historical fiction in the past,  this title does not give him the room to manufacture drama. He had to follow the story exactly where it took him and let it tell itself as events occurred. As a Russian story set first in the time of the last tsar and then under Lenin and Stalin, there is a lot of politics and some of the pages are far less gripping than others. But Anderson is patient and smart and so exceedingly skilled that he makes the machinations of the Soviet state in the Russian breadbasket during the 1920s read as incredibly exciting.

I don't know how he does it, I just know that he does and you have got to read this book.

Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia

Former underground fighter Owen Z. Pitt thought he had turned his life around, thought he'd finally found a way to have a perfectly boring, respectable life. After all, what's more boring and respectable than being an accountant, right? But when his boss turns out to be an out-of-control werewolf, those less-respectable skills at buttkicking allow Owen to survive a vicious attack. Of course, the whole werewolf thing comes as a bit of a shock, but it all begins to come into focus when Owen is recruited by a mercenary bounty-hunting organization called Monster Hunter International, devoted to hunting and exterminating paranormal threats to the planet, and making big bucks in the process.

MIKE'S PLACE by Jack Baxter & Joshua Faudem, illus. by Koren Shadmi

Riveting is the first word that comes to mind, once you've finished this graphic novel from :01 First Second and stopped saying things like, "Oh my G-d, oh my G-d."

MIKE'S PLACE: A True Story of Love, Blues, and Terror in Tel Aviv tells the interwoven stories that form the whole of the suicide bombing that blew apart a popular club in Tel Aviv in 2003. It starts in 2003, just before an American filmmaker named Jack turns up in Israel to start an independent movie about Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian on trial in Israel for orchestrating terrorism, only to find that another film crew was already well in-process.

Instead, Jack decides to film at Mike's Place, a popular bar where politics weren't allowed. As Gal, the owner of the club says early on, "Mike's Place is the real Israel--the best part of the Middle East." Jack hires Joshua, a bartender from Mike's with a degree from film school in Prague, to be his cameraman, and shooting ensues, including lots of interviews with the people who work at the club as well as footage of what it's like at Mike's Place each night.

Throughout the graphic novel, other stories are interspersed - we see two British citizens who are preparing some sort of attack, and learn about the relationships among the people at Mike's Place, including a bit of their history and the nature of their relationships. We learn, too, a bit about everyday life in Israel along the way.

The book is split into six sections, each one introduced with words from the Qur'an. As the authors say at the close: "Our long-time friend and prominent Muslim-American cleric, Imam Benjamin Bilal, helped select the scriptures from the Qur'an that are quoted at the beginning of the six chapters of this graphic novel. We wanted to show that if Asif and Omar (the bombers) had perhaps meditated upon and understood these sacred words things may have worked out differently for them and for the victims of the terror act they committed in the name of their religion and politics."

THE BOY IN THE WOODEN BOX by Leon Leyson

I constantly have students asking for books about the Holocaust, and now I have another great one to add to my collection.  THE BOY ON THE WOODEN BOX by Leon Leyson will add an interesting perspective for students searching for more knowledge about that terrible time in the history of our world.

Leon Leyson lived in Krakow, Poland, with his family.  His childhood was filled with family, school, and friends until the Nazis arrived and at the age of ten he was forced to leave school and begin the fight to survive.

Monkey Wars by Richard Kurti

Group think, lust for power, oppression of minority groups and flimsy justifications for war are all themes explored in Richard Kurti's Monkey Wars. If you think that those themes sound like they have been plucked from news headlines over the past decade then you are correct.  The only difference is that these things occur in a monkey society in present day India.

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler by Phillip Hoose

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler tells a long overlooked story from World War II that is incredibly interesting. Phillip Hoose, author of The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, Claudette Colvin and many other impressive nonfiction titles, tackles here the story of the teenagers who served as the primary resistance against the German occupation of Denmark starting in 1942. It's a story of stealing guns, cutting wires, sabotage and bombing during wartime. For readers looking for something new on WWII (which I think is pretty much everyone), this is a must read.

Hoose takes readers through his discovery of the story and how he met Knud Pedersen, one of the teens primarily involved. Using numerous sources as well as Pedersen's own words (denoted throughout the text), he explains how the RAF Club was formed soon after the German Army arrived and then, a few months later, how the larger Churchill Club was formed. In both cases the members were teenagers (and later a few young men), who dedicated their time to making life difficult for the Germans even though most of the adults around them appeared determined to cause as little trouble as possible.

The personal story of the boys and their escalating efforts is peppered with information on the larger issues of the bloodshed in Norway (which did not allow the occupation), the underground efforts in Sweden (which was neutral but supportive of the resistance), and more importantly just why the Germans were interested in any of these countries to begin with. (It's not about occupy and conquer for the sake of occupy and conquer, but rather about raw materials, trains, industry and infrastructure).

I have long felt that WWII literature for children's & teens relies far too much on the Holocaust to the detriment of many other important stories from the war. It's way past time for books like The Boys Who Challenged Hitler (and M.T. Anderson's upcoming Symphony for the City of the Dead) to be written so teens can learn more of the complex elements of the war.

Tinder by Sally Gardner

The cover says it all: A snarling, snow-white werewolf with razor sharp teeth leaps over the frosty rooftops of a medieval town. This sums up the novel in my opinion - startling, dark and intense.

I'll start by saying that the artwork by David Roberts, which is sprinkled throughout Tinder, is very effective. Every drawing seems to emerge from the mist. They sneak up on you and before you realise what is happening, they've got their bony fingers around your throat.

The story begins with 18 year-old Otto Hundebiss, he's a deserter of the Thirty Years War (1618 - 1648). His decision to flee comes after seeing a vision of Death cross his path. Lost in a dense forest, wounded and wrestling with a series of fever-dreams, Otto is rescued and nursed back to health by a mysterious shaman.

Before releasing him, the shaman gives Otto a set of dice. As you'd assume, the dice aren't for the occasional game of Yahtzee, they are magic, and Otto relies on them to guide him through the entire novel.

Traveling through Mitteleuropa, he stumbles upon Safire, a beautiful redhead who's also on the run from a group of dastardly soldiers. They meet and fall in love, but, as good stories go, Safire is taken away and Otto finds himself on a quest of madness and self-destruction in order to get her back.

Brotherhood by Anne Westrick

The South during Reconstruction was not a very pleasant place to be - as a southerner. The South  was occupied by  U.S. soldiers (formerly Union soldiers) who were not very interested in making life any easier for the "rebels" they were supervising as they rebuilt their cities, businesses, and homes after the Civil War. Brotherhood is an interesting read as a story told from the view of a young southern boy. Westrick provides  descriptions of what life was like during that time period as a southerner and how difficult life was under the occupation of the conquering Union Army.
With his father dead, the "Yankees" occupying his city, and the newly freed African American men taking the  jobs created by Reconstruction, life is difficult for Shad and his family. The discontent of the community is palpable and gives rise to the Ku Klux Klan as an organization "dedicated to supporting the needs of the widows and families of fallen Confederate soldiers." Shad and his brother join up, Shad thinking it a good thing to take care of those around him. As things get out of control, Shad starts to realize that the Klan is dangerous and he must decide where his loyalties lie - family, Klan, or what  he feels is right in his own heart. I highly recommend this read!

Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner

Standish Treadwell can't read, can't write, Standish Treadwell isn't bright. At least, that's what his teachers and classmates think. The truth, of course, is much different.

Standish's dyslexic brain does operate on a slightly different frequency than everyone else, that much is a given, but he's anything but slow. His hyper-vigilance gives him an extraordinarily sharp & vivid insight into the world around him.

And what a world it is.

Don't be fooled, Maggot Moon is no syrupy, coming of age story. Standish doesn't find redemption in a group of misfit friends, he doesn't grab the eye of the girl that's way out of his league, he doesn't score the winning touchdown to the cheers of his newly-converted classmates. No, there's none of that predictable claptrap in this novel. No happy endings in Zone 7.

Dirt Bikes, Drones, and Other Ways to Fly

We are told not to judge books by their covers. We should also not judge books by their titles: Dirt Bikes, Drones, And Other Ways To Fly is neither Twitter- nor acronym-friendly (DBDAOWTF?). Based on the title, I didn’t expect a moving study of how we respond to grief. Based on the title, I didn’t expect a thoughtful exploration of the morality of military drone use and how our nation’s military engagements affect small-town America. And, based on the title, I didn’t expect the novel to explicitly incorporate the Emersonian concept of the Over-Soul either. But Conrad Wesselhoeft addresses all these and more in his young adult novel.

The Tyrant's Daughter by J.C. Carleson

The remaining members of a royal family are whisked away from their "somewhere" Middle Eastern home by the CIA and relocated to the United States after the King/Dictator/Tyrant/Father/Husband/Brother/Uncle is assassinated. As we read this story and follow Laila's attempts to fit in to her new Western surroundings we find out some of the details of what life was like under her Father's rule back home, and the changes that have taken place since her Uncle has taken over - as Laila finds them out.
I love the way that Carleson tells this story through Laila's eyes. Innocent and unknowing of the atrocities associated with her Father's regime, she seeks out information and learns things about her country and family that are not easy to digest.
In the end, we are left asking the question "How much like are parents are we destined to think and act?"
An intriguing story of family, friendship, war and those that wage it in relation to those around them.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Many women wanted to do what they could to help out the war effort during World War II. Despite the fact that women were not allowed to fly planes in combat, they were allowed to fly them over friendly territory through the Air Transport Auxiliary. Maddie and Julie come from different backgrounds, but manage to become fast friends. Each woman gets to tell her part of the tale and neither one knows what is happening to the other, despite the fact that they are in the same French town. One in hiding with the French Resistance, and the other as a captured spy subjected to interrogation from the Nazis. Wein has written an intelligent and captivating novel. The two main characters draw you into their world, demanding that you keep reading to see where the story goes, if both women make it out alive, to determine what is the truth and to connect all of the pieces from one woman's story to the other. Fans of historical fiction, spies and World War II will love this book.

"Fire on the Mountain," by Terry Bisson

Maybe you remember John Brown from your history class. An abolitionist, he believed that peaceful reform of slavery was impossible, and only a violent disruption of the slaveholding status quo would end this massive, brutal injustice. In 1859 he attempted to start a slave revolt by seizing the US arsenal at Harper's Ferry in Virginia, but the assault went wrong and he and his comrades were caught and executed for treason.

Terry Bisson's Fire on the Mountain is an alternate history that asks the question - what if the assault had succeeded? What if instead of a civil war started by slaveholders who wanted to continue exploiting human beings, America had a revolution started by people who believed that all human beings should be free? In real life, John Brown worked closely with Harriet Tubman, and many scholars believe that if she hadn't been prevented by illness from traveling south to help him plan the attack, he would have succeeded. Fire on the Mountain takes a simple change - she didn't get sick, she helped the rebels, the attack was successful and started a revolution - and extrapolates a whole complicated marvelous utopian future from that. It opens 100 years later, as the prosperous state of Nova Africa is about to put a man on Mars, and pieces together the history through letters and testimonials. 

ABOVE THE DREAMLESS DEAD: world war I in poetry and comics

Today is the centennial anniversary of the start of World War I, once known as "the war to end all wars." (If only.) It was 100 years ago today that Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated by a Serbian nationalist. As noted in this recent article in The New York Times, World War I may not have ended all wars, but it did change how they were fought. For one thing, it introduced the world to the use of chemical weapons; for another, it involved an enormous amount of soldiers from many countries. More than 8.5 million people died during the war, and another 20 million or so were injured.

First Second Books will be issuing on September 23rd a spectacularly good (and horrifyingly awful, in the best sense of the phrase, meaning that it both horrifies and inspires a kind of negative awe) anthology pairing songs, a bit of prose, and the work of a number of war poets with the art of various comics contributors. The book is entitled ABOVE THE DREAMLESS DEAD: world war I in poetry and comics, and it is edited by Chris Duffy. The title is drawn from the final phrase in Wilfrid Wilson Gibson's poem, "The Dancers".

The War to End All Wars: World War I by Russell Freedman

Freedman is a master of history! He balances just the right amount of text with amazing historical photos to paint a picture of what the world was like in 1913 heading into the political nightmare that awaited it and the Hell into which the entire continent descended. 

We are initially introduced to the major players, their relationships to one another and rationale for why they would or would not get into a war with their neighbors. As events unravel, the tenuous peace that existed also began to fall apart spiraling into the deadliest and most horrific war humanity had ever experienced.

Freedman explains the reasons behind the high killed in action and wounded numbers experienced on both sides. The advances in military power had far surpassed the advances in military tactics, thus allowing the defenders to quite literally slaughter an attacking force. Major battles are discussed with reference to the numbers of men lost on both sides, and the horrific conditions in which they were asked to fight. These conditions contributed heavily to the wounded and death toll.

A superb example of a middle grade and older nonfiction book. Kids interested in learning about World War I will devour this book.