Escape from the Land of the Snows: The Young Dalai Lama's Harrowing Flight to Freedom and the Making of a Spiritual Hero by Stephan Talty

Fifty-two years ago, the Dalai Lama fled Norbulingka, his palace on the outskirts of Lhasa, Tibet, for exile in India. For several days in March 1959, rumors had spread that the occupying Chinese army would arrest the spiritual leader at a dance performance which he had been firmly asked to attend "without his bodyguards." Crowds of Tibetans who had heard about the unusual Chinese "invitation" gathered before the palace to protect the Dalia Lama. Disguised as a common soldier, he slipped out of the palace before the fighting began, and with a large number of guards and advisers, he headed south. It was several days before the Chinese realized that he had fled. There were no Western observers in Lhasa, and it was about a week after the initial battles between the poorly armed locals and the highly trained Chinese soldiers before the rest of the world heard of the clashes. Tibet rebels carried messages to a CIA operative in the mountains who sent a coded message by radio, so when the Dalai Lama and his followers finally reached the remote southern border, Indian guard were waiting to escort him to a safe compound. By that time, the escape was an international front page story without any verified details.

According to author Stephan Talty in Escape from the Land of the Snows: The Young Dalai Lama's Harrowing Flight to Freedom and the Making of a Spiritual Hero, the details of what happened in Tibet in March 1959 are still debated. Chinese and Tibetan stories differ greatly. No one knows the number of deaths. Guessing from what the author says, if there are any photos or films, they are locked away in China. This was an event that happened in an unconnected world. Talty obviously believes Tibetan sources over Chinese, but his reporting is not totally one-sided. He emphasizes that the outbreak may have sparked by a total misunderstanding. There is no evidence that the Chinese were about to arrest or assassinate the Dalai Lama, but once they were challenged, they were efficient and successful in suppressing the Tibetan public. Talty's admiration for the courage and calmness of Dalai Lama is evident.

Some libraries are shelving this book in their religion section. While it obviously tells a little about Tibet's Buddhist faith, it is mostly history with a bit of biography. It should be in the history sections in most public libraries. It is also a good display book for March.

Talty, Stephan. Escape from the Land of the Snows: The Young Dalai Lama's Harrowing Flight to Freedom and the Making of a Spiritual Hero. Crown Publishers, 2011. ISBN 9780307460950.

The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love by Kristin Kimball

Kristin Kimball was a career journalist living in New York when she met Mark (last name never revealed). She had been sent to rural Pennsylvania to interview him about CSA (community supported agriculture) farming, a system by which consumers pay a single fee for a year's share of produce from a farm. In her fashionable clothes, she was not prepared to slaughter a pig, rake weeds, and cook for the farm hands for Mark, but that was how she got her interview and won Mark's heart. He won hers with food, confidently improvising delicious dishes with just-picked vegetables and just-butchered meats. According to her memoir, The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love, she fell in love quickly and soon abandoned her urban lifestyle to become Mark's partner in turning a neglected property in upstate New York into a diversied organic farm selling "whole diet" shares.

There have been back-to-the-land memoirs before, but I do not remember any that double as love stories. (Truck by Michael Perry has love and gardening.) Kimball tells about the couple's first year on the farm, a tense period during which all the fields had to be plowed, planted, and harvested, all the herds established, all the buildings repaired, and the wedding planned. From late winter to mid-autumn, they work around the clock, often assisted by curious neighbors who almost all thought the farm would fail. The wedding ceremony was never really planned, but three hundred guests were invited anyway. Kimball expected disaster, but how Mark saves the day is a great lesson in community. The barn was fixed, the vows exchanged, and everyone ate fresh farm produce.

This may sound like I gave away the story, but the joy of The Dirty Life is in the telling. Kimball lets readers know there's a happy ending at the start. Should it ever be turned into a movie, Mark will be the fun-to-play character - energetic, charismatic, and radically out of step with twenty-first century culture. Don't wait for a film, however. Read the book.

Kimball, Kristin. The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love. Scribner, 2010. ISBN 9781416551607.

Shooting in the Wild: An Insider's Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom by Chris Palmer

Bonnie and I are devoted fans of PBS Nature, and in the past we have watched National Geographic Specials, Audubon Television Specials, and anything with the BBC's David Attenborough. I remember as a kid watching Wild Kingdom with zookeeper Marlon Perkins, which at the time fit well with Tarzan and Jungle Jim on Saturday afternoons. Like many people, we are fascinated by the images of animals in their natural habitats and appreciate the patience and dedication of nature filmmakers. And we sometimes wonder how they got their shots.

How the filmmakers get their incredible shots and whether they act honestly and ethically in doing so is the subject of Shooting in the Wild: An Insider's Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom by Chris Palmer. The author has been in the nature film business since the 1970s, working for the National Audubon Society (he produced several of their most hotly-debated films), Disney, Animal Planet, TBS, PBS, and IMAX. He's been in the field and in the production studios and knows intimately how the films are made, and he has some regrets, for over time he's learned firsthand how lusting for the shot leads filmmakers to dishonesty.

Here are some of the problems that Palmer sees:

• Getting too close to their subjects, causing animals to alter their behaviors and sometimes endangering both animals and production crews.
• Baiting animals to get them to appear for the cameras.
• Putting rival animals into enclosures to force confrontations.
• Using trained animals as stand-ins for wild animals.
• Editing and narrating films to make animals seem human-like.
• Sequencing films to tell unnatural animal stories.

These have always been problems, as the history of the wildlife film goes back to the works of Martin and Osa Johnson, which featured killing dangerous animals baited to attack the safari-loving couple. Palmer indicates that through the decades of the twentieth century the ethics of nature filming was debated and the industry had become generally more trustworthy, until the proliferation of cable networks began clamoring for exciting, low-budget nature entertainment. He points specifically at the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, and even National Geographic for producing action-packed programs that mistreat and misrepresent animals.

Palmer believes there is room to debate some issues, particularly merging shots from several wildlife observations to tell a clear, true-to-life story. Also, he argues that showing captive animals nesting is often better than risking disturbing the nests of wild animals who might subsequently fail to raise their young.

Shooting in the Wild is an engaging book by a filmmaker with a strong point of view about the impact of his industry on wildlife conservation. It should interest many animal lovers. More libraries should add it to their collections.

Palmer, Chris. Shooting in the Wild: An Insider's Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom. Sierra Club Books, 2010. ISBN 9781578051489.

Borrowed Names: Poems about Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madam C. J. Walker, Marie Curie, and Their Daughters by Jeannine Atkins

When I discovered Borrowed Names: Poems about Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madam C. J. Walker, Marie Curie, and Their Daughters by Jeannine Atkins on the "Books for Youth" list in the Editors' Choice, 2010 section of the January 2011 issue of Booklist, I never suspected how much I would enjoy the book. I confess that I expected something light and rhyming. What I found were three powerfully emotional accounts about women overcoming difficult circumstances and profound insight about mother-daughter relationships.

Why is Borrowed Names poetry? It doesn't rhyme. It is, however, laid out in verse in pieces that never last more than three pages. The words are precise and economic and certainly meant to be read aloud. Any one of the three sections could be performed as a library program. The Laura Ingalls Wilder/Rose Wilder Lane section would be popular in many areas. I am surprised there is no audiobook available in CD or downloadable.

What also strikes me about this wonderful book is that it is really more about the daughters than the very famous mothers. Living up to expectations, wanting to please, and wanting to truly help one's mother as an equal are themes in all three stories. Atkins's writing demands mature readers, but I suspect that are many daughters who will identify with these stories. Mothers should read them, too. (It may have little appeal to guys - I enjoyed it but I am a bit older than the target audience.)

Atkins, Jeannine. Borrowed Names: Poems about Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madam C. J. Walker, Marie Curie, and Their Daughters. Henry Holt, 2010. ISBN 9780805089349.

An Evening at the Library with Michael Perry

All week people have been coming to the reference desk to tell me how much they enjoyed last Friday's Evening with Michael Perry, a program sponsored by the Western Springs Library Friends. Even at the Morton Arboretum on Tuesday morning, I chanced upon one of the 63 people who attended the library program. Recognizing me, she said, "I really enjoyed Friday night!" It's unanimous. I did, too.

In case you don't know, Michael Perry is the author of a series of memoirs depicting his everyday life in a rural Wisconsin, starting with Population: 485. He describes himself as an incredibly lucky man to be part of such community with family and friends that he has known his entire life. It is not that he has never left. Population: 485 is a "coming home story," according to Perry. "Just one of many [such books]" he humbled said. Maybe, but his book stands out for its eloquence and sympathetic descriptions. In telling about his driving ambulances and fighting fires with his brothers and mother in the volunteer fire department, he conveys how we all have a duty to get past our differences to be good neighbors.

"Belonging" was a theme of the evening. Just as Perry appreciated being part of a community and being accepted by ours for the evening, he writes books that belong among other books. Just as he called Population: 485, a "coming home story," he followed with Truck: A Love Story, which he said is also a gardening book. When asked whether the love was for a woman or for the old truck, he replied that his heart was big enough for both. His latest book Coop could be called a "back to the farm" book, but it is much more. I wonder what's next. Actually, he did tell us he is writing two more books, one of which is for young adults, but I can't quite remember their plots.

Perry told stories about and read from each of his books, including the collection of essays Off Main Street. We mostly laughed as he pointed to the humor in situations, such as having kidney stones, but he also was serious about family and responsibility. And as the son of parents who have fostered many children, he defined family in a broader way than most of us would. I think we all left the room with bigger hearts.

Perry said that he enjoys speaking in libraries, and I believe him. He spent a long evening with us, signing books and talking to everyone who waited. I recommend him to libraries far and wide.

Six Years of ricklibrarian and Many Years of Letters

Today I have been blogging for six years. I started with a short review of the novel Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry, which is still one of my favorite books. I have given it to a lot of readers at my library. It is not actually representative of what I review, as I read much more nonfiction. I also now aim for three paragraphs instead of the review journal model of about 150 words. I feel the longer review lets me sound more like I'm writing you a letter.

I miss writing letters. I used to keep a box of nice masculine stationery (nothing flowery and no perfume) in my desk and bought sheets of commemorative stamps to attach to the top right hand corner of the matching envelopes. I enjoyed composing messages to friends in far-flung places and then getting replies with out-of-state or foreign postmarks. Weeks might go by before a response, but I cheered finding replies in our mailbox. I always enjoyed receiving news and stories paired with kind words and encouragement from my friends in other places. (I still have boxes of letters in the closet and am contemplating a conservation project.)

I have reaped many benefits from writing this blog, but I have always wished that more readers would comment - satisfy my letter-in-the-mailbox desire. Many bloggers have told me the same tale of too few comments. We're all Charlie Brown's waiting for Valentines. I understand that many readers are busy and just pass by to see the latest posts, reading only when the subjects appeal. Often, they may feel they have nothing to say about a book that they have not read. I am more likely to find comments when I write about something other than books or other library materials. I got many comments last summer when I wrote about the library job market.*

When I finish my latest book project, I may try to reflect more on library services and culture, like I did in the early days of this blog. What do you think? Send me a comment.

* By the way, we now have another opening for a tech savvy reference librarian who enjoys event programming, writing, and readers' advisory. Check the Thomas Ford Library website.

Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields

What do you do as a writer when your biographical subject is secretive and has a community full of friends protecting her privacy? Charles J. Shields faced this situation in writing Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. Lee, of course, did not agree to an interview and the townspeople of Monroeville, Alabama politely declined to discuss Lee. So, he had to talk to the few Lee associates left in New York, Kansas, and other parts of her home state. He also sought out every archived interview and document that he could find. The result is a biography that is by no means complete. Very little is revealed about Lee's life after the mid-1960s and the section about her work with Truman Capote on In Cold Blood is probably longer than it might have otherwise been.

The holes in the story may have actually made the book better for our church group book discussion. We had many questions to ask, such as "Why did Lee never finish the second book after To Kill a Mockingbird?" Early in the book, Shields suggests he'll show us why. Some of us felt he did not deliver. We suggested many contributing factors but who could say what held her back. These included:

• Lee really had nothing further to say after doing so well the first time.
• She was always cautious, even on the first book, for which she had much editorial help, and feared writing a poor second try.
• Promoting To Kill a Mockingbird broke her habit of writing and she never refound it.
• She truly disliked the spotlight thrust upon her after the first book.
• Returning to Monroeville after years in New York disrupted her work.
• She needed to give her family more attention.
• The death of her trusted editor made another try unappealing.
• Her friend Truman Capote's cold response to her writing turned her off.

Many of these could be factors but they also sound like excuses. She is known to have started books on at least two occasions and said on several occasions that she lived to write, so the "nothing left to say" argument does not ring true. I think the answer lies in a mix of factors involving discipline and confidence.

Some of our group felt disappointed that the biographer did not draw a clearer picture of Lee. I think that might be too much to ask when there is so little known about Lee's thinking from the last forty years. I enjoyed the book as a "just what we know" account. I suspect there will be fuller biographies in the future - if Lee's papers become public and friends ever feel free to speak. Don't hold your breath, however, because it may be many years before the whole story is told.

Shields, Charles J. Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. Holt, 2006. ISBN 080507919X

Courtship: Valentine's Day: 1918: Three Plays from the Orphans' Home Cycle by Horton Foote

Having just read and discussed Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields, I was reminded that Horton Foote wrote the screenplay for To Kill a Mockingbird. Remembering that I enjoyed reading his plays, I reread Courtship: Valentine's Day: 1918: Three Plays from the Orphans' Home Cycle, short plays which are really appropriate reading for today, our day to celebrate romance.

Foote's three plays are set between 1915 and 1918 in the small town of Harrison, Texas. They begin with Elizabeth Vaughn complaining with her younger sister Laura about how much they are missing because their father will not let them go to the local dance. Sitting on the porch listening to the music, Elizabeth wishes she could be there with her new beau Horace Robedaux, who drops by to describe the event. Her father, identified formally through the trilogy as Mr. Vaughn, frequently visits the porch to urge the college age girls inside and to dissuade Horace from staying. By the end of the one act "Courtship," we learn much about the community and just how serious Elizabeth is about Horace.

The first surprise of the one-act, three-scene "Valentine's Day" is that it is set at Christmas 1917. We learn what happened the previous Valentine's Day, while the characters resolve ten-month-old disagreements. "1918" is set a few months later when the community is beset with a flu epidemic and the return of soldiers from the war in Europe. Elizabeth and Horace remain the focus in these plays through which the troubles of the times are eloquently expressed. The couple endures, and we are left feeling that their love is what will hold their world together in the challenging decades to come. The plays are good reading for today or any day.

Foote, Horton. Courtship: Valentine's Day: 1918: Three Plays from the Orphans' Home Cycle. Grove Press, (1987). ISBN 0394560744

Calvin Can't Fly: The Story of a Bookworm Birdie by Jennifer Berne and Keith Bendis

"Calvin is a starling. He was born under the eaves of an old barn with his three brothers, four sisters, and sixty-seven thousand four hundred and thirty-two cousins. Starlings have big families."

So starts Calvin Can't Fly: The Story of a Bookworm Birdie, a children's picture book by Jennifer Berne and illustrated by Keith Bendis.

Calvin looks much like any other starling, which is pretty cute in this picture book, and you would expect him to be like his three brothers, four sisters, and sixty-seven thousand four hundred and thirty-two cousins, but he does not keep up with his flying lessons. Instead, he is in the hollow-in-the-tree library with a variety of little animals reading books. The "nerdie birdy" especially likes stories about pirates and dinosaurs, and he includes a good bit of nonfiction into his reading list. What he learns about weather becomes particularly important later in his own story.

Calvin Can't Fly is a bright colorful book. I like the details, especially the finely drawn insects about which the little birds dream and the cows with the bright red lips. I also like how the author and illustrator deal with the issue of individuality. We are all a bit like Calvin in some way, and that is good. We will all develop some unique talents that help our friends - or in this case, cousins.

Don't let your age keep you from reading Calvin Can't Fly. Read it to a child or grandchild if you can.

Berne, Jennifer and Keith Bendis. Calvin Can't Fly: The Story of a Bookworm Birdie. Sterling, 2010. ISBN 9781402773235.

Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World by Jennifer S. Uglow

I rarely review a book that I don't finish, but I think I will make an exception for Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World by Jennifer S. Uglow. It is really an outstanding book for someone interested in eighteenth century science and the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. Uglow has brought together a tremendous amount of research on the work and lives of a group of ambitious men who wanted to understand the universe and make a good living at the same time. The writing is clear and interesting. A good reading of the book explains much about how science and industry have transformed our world in the last three hundred years. Lunar Men would make a good textbook for a class.

I'd like to finish Lunar Men sometime, but with 588 pages, there is so much of it. I renewed it twice but never got more than twenty-five pages read in a day - often only ten or fifteen - and I would have to stop and read something else. There are so many names and so much detail. Supposedly the book is about five men who were members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, England: Matthew Boulton, James Watt, Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin, and Joseph Priestly. The author describes and tells stories about them and about many of their scientific and industrial associates as well. I had to refer to the book jacket several times to remember who the five primary subjects were. I could have used a scorecard to keep track of the secondary characters.

I generally found myself liking the men, who seemed to feel that their work would create a better world. They formed good friendships and cared for their families well. But they were not saints by any means. They harbored many class prejudices and saw no moral problems with working men, women, and children in their factories or digging canals from sun up to sun down or later for little pay. They also could not foresee the environmental problems they hatched. They especially seemed to use lead and mercury often. On the positive side, they seemed sympathetic to the American colonies, opposing the repressive taxing measures from Parliament and King George as bad for business. They all seemed to be friends with Benjamin Franklin.

Because these men pretty much created the world in which we now live, Lunar Men seems an important book.

Uglow, Jennifer S. Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. ISBN 0374194408.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Death is our friend. Maybe friend is a little too strong a word, but as portrayed in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, he is sympathetic to our suffering and was very taxed by the horrors of Nazi Germany during World War II. He tried to stay aloof, but some stories were just too beautiful for him to ignore. As he gently lifted the souls of the dead from their bodies, he usually tried to speed away without observing the circumstances. He concentrate on the colors of the sky. There was too much horror to contemplate, yet he found he had to stop whenever he was in the presence of a remarkable young girl, Liesl Meminger.

Death saw Liesl steal her first book, The Grave Digger's Handbook, which had been dropped in the snow close to her brother's grave. Though a book with no plot, it was all the girl going into foster care had to remember her brother. With the help of her foster father Hans Hubermann, she learned to read from that book. It also gave her a thirst for more books, which were hard to find in the poor suburbs of Munich. With the help of her close friend Rudy Steiner, the boy who worshiped Olympic star Jesse Owens, she stole several more, as well as apples, bread, and cookies. They stole first for themselves but then also for their families, and Liesl stole for Max Vandenburg, the artistic Jew hidden in the basement.

Death, Liesl, Hans, his wife Rosa, Max, and Rudy are all great characters who draw readers into this superb story about the spirit to survive in terrible times. While marketed for teen readers, The Book Thief is being chosen and enjoyed by many adult book clubs. We can't keep copies on the shelves at my library. I was spellbound by the audiobook read by Allan Corduner.

Zusak, Marcus. The Book Thief. Knopf, 2005. ISBN 9780375842207.

Random House Audi0, 2006. 11 compact discs. ISBN 0739337270

Shaun the Sheep: Season One

Why haven't our friends in Great Britain been making more Wallace & Gromit movies? It's because they have been making Shaun the Sheep episodes for the BBC. Never heard of Shaun? We hadn't either until we saw a trailer on a Wallace & Gromit DVD. We checked our local library system and found a small collection of Shaun episodes featuring the smartest sheep of them all. We loved them and wanted more.

Now the producers have released Shaun the Sheep: Season One, which includes 40 comic episodes of Shaun and his farmyard friends, which include a mischievous flock of sheep, three smart aleck pigs, an easily angered bull, and Bitzer, the well-meaning dog who tries to keep them all in line. Bitzer takes his commands from the Farmer, a hapless human who never sees all the mayhem around him. Every day brings some new adventure.

One of my favorite episodes begins with the Farmer buying a new CD music system that he saw in a catalog. When he gets it, he dumps the old turntable and his records on the junk pile at one end of the sheepfold. Shaun and the flock find them and set up a disco inside the barn, while the Farmer struggles with the directions to his new CD system. The pigs don't want to miss the party. The Farmer hears music but can not find its source. I've told you enough about that. I don't want to spoil the fun. In another great episode, Timmy the youngest sheep sneaks into the Farmer's house to watch horror videos and eat pizza in the living room. Bitzer and Shaun have to save him from being caught.

The clay animation is amazing and the stories are great for any age. Because no words are ever spoken, you don't even have to speak English to enjoy them. More libraries should stock Shaun the Sheep.

Shaun the Sheep: Season One. Hit Entertainment, 2010. 2 compact discs. ISBN 0884487108554

Tom Kastle at Friday at the Ford

When it is windy and cold, you don't go out without good reason. Eighty people found their reason in the warm, cosy basement of the Thomas Ford Memorial Library last Friday night. Folksinger Tom Kastle played Friday at the Ford, our occasional concert series sponsored by the Western Springs Library Friends, who served refreshments.

We billed Tom as a maritime singer, for he performs many songs about sailors and the sea, lakes and rivers, and he knows of what he sings, being a ship captain himself. He still sang a number of such songs, including "Carry Nelson Home," "Cold Winds," "Down by the Embarras," and the title song to his latest CD, Tommy's Gone to Hilo. He also showed us something new - his singer/songwriter side. His new repertoire included ballads and love songs from his previous CD Across the Center Line, including the title song, “Wastin’ My Time,” and “Dance with You.”

Tom is an engaging entertainer who had us singing along on choruses right at the start of the evening before turning to some more introspective songs. For almost every song he had a story. I enjoyed hearing about the blacksmiths' gathering in Minnesota (picture above) and of his performing a wedding as a ship's captain. And we were singing along again at the end of the performance. As people left, I heard many thanks to the Friends and Library for bringing Tom in.

Tom enjoys playing libraries. Programmers can learn more at his website. You can also find a good selection of pieces on YouTube, including "In Fire is Iron Born."

Smash the Windows by The Virginia Company

"And the larks they sang melodious"

For over a week, the CD Smash the Windows by The Virginia Company sat on my desk. I had checked it out along with other folk music CDs at the Downers Grove Public Library without ever really looking at it closely. While finally listening in the car, I remembered Barry Trott of the Williamsburg Regional Library telling me that he played period music at Colonial Williamsburg and I wondered if he knew the performers. At a traffic light, I looked more closely at the back of the CD. There was Barry grinning right at me!

I am impressed. The trio plays lively and melodious, including jigs, rounds, marches, and lots of drinking songs. I am convinced by the songs that they must really be sailors and highwaymen reincarnated, and the beer must really flow in Williamsburg.
I have picked out Barry's voice, as he has several solos, including "The Jolly Thresher" and "The Jolly Miller." They don't write songs like these any more. One of the other members of the band has a deep bass voice that reminds me of light opera; his "My Love is Like a Red Red Rose" by the poet Robert Burns should make women swoon. I also really like "Spanish Ladies" which features the third voice and particularly good harmony of all three and sweet fiddling, too.

There are many great lyrics:

"The longer we sit here and drink the merrier we shall be."

"I'd marry you all but the wife won't agree."

"There's no drinking after death."

Listening is great fun. Seek out Smash the Windows. It may be hard to find.

The Virginia Company. Smash the Windows. 1996.