Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans by Kadir Nelson

"Most folks my age and complexion don't speak much about the past," begins an aged narrator in Kadir Nelson's new book Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans. "... No parent wants to tell a child that he was once a slave ..." Of course, the narrator does tell the story of blacks in the United States from 1565 when African laborers entered Florida with the Spanish colonists to the election of President Barack Obama. She explains slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the achievements of great leaders, such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida Wells, Duke Ellington, Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King. Throughout, she expresses pride in her heritage.

Heart and Soul is an excellent introductory historical narrative. All the highlights of black history are recalled. What distinguishes Nelson's book, however, are his illustrations, many of which are of museum quality. His work reminds me not only of painters Thomas Hart Benton and George Caleb Bingham but also of photographers Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. Nelson is careful with authentic detail and packs a lot of emotion in each picture. I'd enjoy going to a Kadir Nelson exhibit.

Heart and Soul is intended as an introduction to black history for young readers, but I think we are all young enough to enjoy the book. Like his prize winning We Are the Ship, it should be in libraries everywhere.

Nelson, Kadir. Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans. Balzer + Bray, 2011. ISBN 9780061730740.

The Circus Fire: A True Story by Stewart O'Nan

Our book group was unanimous. None us liked the idea of paraffin and gasoline as a coating on the bigtop. In this era, what Stewart O'Nan told us about the fire that burned down the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Hartford, Connecticut on July 6, 1944 seems very hard to believe. We are now so much more safety conscious and have so many rules and regulations. 167 people died in a tragic fire that need never have occurred. What were the circus owners and managers thinking? Did they even care?

We were not so unanimous in accessing O'Nan's book The Circus Fire: A True Story. Many thought it was not an engaging book. The narrative is strictly and unbendingly chronological, and each paragraph may take the reader to a different scene. There are also so many names to learn. On page 24, O'Nan provided a list of some of those names, but he does not warn the reader to take notes. He did not include an index, which might help readers double check who did what. Instead, O'Nan wrote a journalistic, comprehensive book, the book he would have liked to have found when he had his first questions about the fire. Members of the book group would have preferred a better flowing narrative with few characters. We liked the large collection of photos.

The flaws in the book (real or perceived) make it a better title for a book discussion. Nothing draws people out more than having something about which to differ. Also, reading The Circus Fire will make you check for exits next time you go in a theater or stadium. It is worth reading just for that.

O'Nan, Stewart. The Circus Fire: A True Story. Doubleday, 2000. ISBN 0385496842.

A Nomadic Student in the Libraries of the University of Texas

Here is my postcard shot of the heart of the University of Texas campus showing the iconic tower. What many people do not realize is that the tower is a library. When I was an undergraduate, it was the Main Library on campus. I learned on my orientation tour that only graduate students and professors could climb the stairs to the many floors loaded with books. I had to request titles at the main desk and wait for them to be delivered later. I was encouraged instead to spend my time at the Undergraduate Library located in the Main Library's morning shadow.

As I started my freshman year at UT, I almost daily passed the Renaissance tapestry to settle into a study carrel of the Undergraduate Library where I could look out at rows of students at tables and carrels or turn to look at the ever-present pigeons outside the windows. For a break I might go upstairs and look at the Earle Stanley Gardner desk and typewriter. There was also an audio lab where I could request headphones and a music selection. Constant student traffic and the appealing diversions, however, made the Undergraduate Library a less than ideal spot to study.

I took my books and wanderlust on a campus tour trying to find the perfect place to study. While I never found it, I did enjoy the shade of trees, bird songs, and vistas from grand staircases. I also discovered a wealth of libraries. I remember studying in the following at some point in my tenure as a student:

• The Physics and Math Library
• The Engineering Library
• The Chemistry Library
• The Catholic Student Center Library
• The Art Library
• The Geology Library
• The Communications Library
• The Reference Room of the Main Library
• The Library School Library in the Harry S. Ransom Center
• The Perry Castenada Library (which became the new main library when I was a graduate student)

There may have been more libraries that I do not now remember. I did not spend much time in my room. Instead, I was out looking for an open table, comfortable chair, quiet, and academic atmosphere - a place that fit my romantic desire for scholastic immersion.

The tower is now the Science Library, and I am now a student far far away.

The Howson Branch of the Austin Public Library

I'm just back from a trip to Texas. While in Austin, I had a few free hours and the use of a car, so I visited the branch library where I had my first library job. The Howson Branch of the Austin Public Library has changed a bit since I worked there as a desk assistant from 1976 to 1978 while I attended library school. The change was obvious as I approached.


When I worked at the Howson branch, the lawn was just grass. There may have been a few close-trimmed shrubs around the building and trees close to the street, but it was not the garden it is today. There are numerous perennials rated for the Austin climate dressing up the place. It would be nice to sit outside the library and read now.


Of course, the inside of the library has changed. We used a camera-based checkout system when I worked at the Howson branch. We would photo the patron's card with the book pockets and the numbered date cards. If the card did not return, the microfilm would be checked months later, and a notice to return the book would be mailed to the patron.

We had no online catalog. I'm not sure that we even had a card catalog for the branch. Every six months, the main library sent us a newly printed paperbound book catalog. If my memory is clear - a big if - we had one big floppy volume for authors, one for titles, and another volume for subjects. Covers were gray or pale blue or pastel pink.

There was a small collection of vinyl record albums. CDs and DVDs did not exist. Now there are plenty of both, as well as downloads from the website. There were no public use computers like there are now. We had the red version of The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature - the edition with fewer titles. We had lots of large print books and mysteries. I remember reading Sports Illustrated and The New Yorker on my breaks. There was a big meeting room which sometimes hosted the library trustee meetings.

My favorite memory is helping Sally Ann, the children's librarian, with the puppet show production of Strega Nona. Children laughed as the yarn flew everywhere. Poor Big Anthony!


The least-expected coolest thing I found on my visit was the electric auto recharging station in the library parking lot. Recharge your mind and your electric car at the same time at the library.

No one knew the branch librarian Marian Laws, who I remember fondly. I have since discovered that she died September 28, 2010. I hope she saw the refurbished library.

The Story of Charlotte's Web: E. B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic by Michael Sims

You might think that writing a children's book would have been an easy task for an acclaimed poet and essayist like E. B. White. During his career of writing for literary magazines, especially The New Yorker, he was quick and prolific. Though he wrote about what he knew well - farmyard animals - it took him seven years to write Charlotte's Web. Michael Sims recounts the effort in The Story of Charlotte's Web: E. B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic.

The Story of Charlotte's Web is divided into three parts, the first two being accounts of White's childhood and career as a writer. They are titled "Elwin" and "Andy" for the names to which he answered at different ages. Friends and family never called him "E. B." The first half of the book serves as a good biographical introduction to the author's life up to the point he wrote his classic children's novel. Then Sims tells about the writing of Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web.

I particularly liked learning about the collaboration of author, illustrator, and editor in creating the books. Stuart Little was illustrator Garth Williams first children's book, and he was well known by the time he tackled the difficult assignment of drawing a realistic and sympathetic spider. Editor Ursala Nordstrom of Harper & Brothers fostered and defended the books, both of which drew heavy criticism from New York Public librarian and Horn Book Magazine reviewer Anne Carroll Moore. Nordstrom had an accomplished career as editor for Margaret Wise Brown, Margret and H. A. Rey, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Maurice Sendak, Shel Silverstein, and many others. I also liked reading about White's lifetime love of wildlife and being outdoors.

The Story of Charlotte's Web is the kind of book that is a pleasure to read and makes you want to read others. It belongs in many public libraries.

Sims, Michael. The Story of Charlotte's Web: E. B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic. Walker & Company, 2011. ISBN 9780802777546.

Journal of a Prairie Year by Paul Gruchow

"I crossed an old fenceline. The fence had been gone for five years, but its ghost lurked in the bluegrass that choked out all native growth along its path. Another century might pass before the line of the fence was no longer visible. The prairie was created over millennia and lasted for millennia; once it was wounded, its bruises were also slow to heal."

I had not heard of Paul Gruchow before I found his books on the regional publications shelves at the shop at Open Book in Minneapolis. I learned of Milkwood Editions when I attended the Public Library Association Conference in Minneapolis in 2008, and I have enjoyed much natural history writing in the past, so I bought Journal of a Prairie Year, first published in 1985 and brought back in print by Milkwood in 2009. I took it back to my daughter's apartment and finished before I boarded my plane home three days later.

Journal of a Prairie Year is a fairly small book in size - only 138 pages of text - but it is filled with natural drama and philosophy. Gruchow went outdoors in all types of weather to check on the flora and the fauna, the sky and the soil, the wind and the state of his soul. He admitted that the great prairies of the Midwest had been mostly plowed, but he thought their natural force of earth and atmosphere had not been tamed. The gray and cold of winter could force him indoors, and the unreachable horizon always verified his small role. Still, he found joy in the inevitable spring and the lives of the wildlife that survived the bitter wind, hail, and floods that came each in their season.

Gruchow was a literary reader as well as naturalist and farmer, and he features quotes from other authors. Wallace Stevens, Annie Dillard, and D.H. Lawrence influenced him, as did Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Gruchow could write a good sentence and paragraph himself. Readers of essays and natural history will enjoy his work.

Gruchow, Paul. Journal of a Prairie Year. Milkweed Editions, 2009. ISBN 9781571313188.

Lyndall Gordon Interview on Biography

Thanks to LISNews, I learned yesterday about Lyndall Gordon on Biography, a Five Books Interview from The Browser. Librarians who suggest books to readers may want to browse through these interviews with "experts" who each identify five defining books in their field. Gordon is a biographer who has written about Charlotte Bronte, T.S. Eliot, Emily Dickinson, and Virginia Woolf. In her interview, she names five books that stretch the definition of biography in some way. The article which stretches over four web pages will especially interest anyone who likes literary biography, as the subjects are Eliot, Dorothy Wordsworth, Anton Chekhov, Eva Hoffman, and Jane Austen.

Gordon says the emphasis on facts separates biography from fiction, but the good biography has to go beyond the facts and probe the unknown life. Her favorites seem to include some thoughtful speculation. She also says that they focus on a particular time or phase of the subjects' lives. There is a place for straight documentation, she says, but biographies that are focused are usually better reading.

It appears that there is a Five Books Interview nearly every day. Recent topics include Spanish and Moorish cooking, memoirs, border story fiction, and elementary education. "Orson Scott Card on Science Fiction" should interest many readers and librarians.

Burma Chronicles by Guy DeLisle

If you are an artist and you are attached to a mission of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in a Third World nation for over a year, how would you choose to tell your story? Cartoonist/animator Guy DeLisle chose to write and illustrate a graphic novel titled Burma Chronicles. In six panels to a page, he recounts his time in Myanmar taking care of his infant son while his physician wife Nadege went on medical missions out of the capital Yangon (formerly called Rangoon) into regions where rebels were trying to overthrow the dictatorship. Left in Yangon with his son and a housekeeper, Guy wandered the streets, made new friends, and tried to make sense of the Burmese culture. It was easy to be accepted as long as he had his child. Without him, he was little noticed.

Yangon proved to be a city in transition with big department stores and beggars on the streets, fast computers from Japan but unreliable electricity, many friendly people and ever-present uniformed military carrying weapons. Dogs nipped at Guy's heals as he rode his bike through the streets at night, coming home from another party at an embassy or headquarters of an NGO. He always hoped to find the air condition working in the little house that his family rented. The hot, humid night were almost unbearable for a Canadian.

Readers follow Guy everywhere he goes - famous temples, the Australian Club (where Guy goes swimming in the rain), and mansions where expatriates meet for play groups. They even gets to tag along on a couple of MSF missions to villages where regular medical care is nonexistent. Burma Chronicles is quirky, surprising, fascinating journey that you can find or order through your public library.

DeLisle, Guy. Burma Chronicles. Drawn and Quarterly, 2008. ISBN 9781897299500.

Rat Island: Predators in Paradise and the World's Greatest Wildlife Rescue by William Stolzenburg

In our throw-away society, we do not make things to be fixed. It's easier and cheaper to buy a new (fill-in-the-blank) than take it to a repair shop - if you can find one. The (fill-in-the-blank) is probably out of date anyway. A person has to be clever and driven to fix almost any mass manufactured gadget, appliance, or machine. Just think how much harder it is to fix an environment. The prevailing feeling has been "once spoiled, always spoiled."

In Rat Island: Predators in Paradise and the World's Greatest Wildlife Rescue, science beat journalist William Stolzenburg reports on a growing dissatisfaction with environmental fatalism. Starting in the 1960s, some naturalists in remote area conservation have studied islands overrun with invasive species that have driven native species to eradication and planned counterattacks to save or restore wildlife. They have used old-fashion hunting skills or newly manufactured highly-targeted poisons to eliminate entire populations of rats, weasels, feral cats, goats, and pigs. On some islands off the coast of New Zealand, Alaska, and Baja California, the naturalists have actually succeeded.

As you might imagine, there have been some failures as well. Even more common have been some campaigns that have met their primary objectives, such as killing all of the rats on an island, but have had unexpected side effects, such as a significantly large number of bald eagle dying on an island that had only a handful of resident bald eagles. Some animal rights groups have opposed the campaigns arguing that their methods and objectives are cruel and their objectives arbitrary.

In classic storytelling style, Stolzenburg recounts the history of the island-saving movement episode by episode, profiling key scientists and describing difficult campaigns. I particularly enjoyed learning about many places that I will probably never visit. Having also written Where the Wild Things Were, Stolzenburg is a promising young author. More libraries should add his books.

Stolzenburg, William. Rat Island: Predators in Paradise and the World's Greatest Wildlife Rescue. Bloomsbury, 2011. ISBN 9781608191031.

Avian Architecture: How Birds Design, Engineer, and Build by Peter Goodfellow

Like many people, I admire birds. Perhaps envy.* I'd love to fly and be able to travel annually to distant continents. I'd like to be able to sing as well as some do. I'd enjoy being able to build nests as cleverly as they do, too.** British teacher Peter Goodfellow focuses on that latter talent in his recent book Avian Architecture: How Birds Design, Engineer, and Build.

You will notice that the word "nest" is not in the title. The subject of avian architecture includes many other kinds of structures built for breeding and raising young. Goodfellow describes them all, starting with simple scrape nests, caves, and holes and ending with the elaborate theaters built by bowerbirds to attract mates and avian food storage structures of woodpeckers. In each chapter, he provides blueprints for standard structures and step-by-step illustrations of birds at work. He also explains the benefits of the structures that are designed for specific purposes in challenging environments. What is particularly impressive is that the birds accomplish so much with just the material at hand, usually twigs, grasses, and mud. Some birds build quickly, while some others take months. And they do this all with just their beaks, breasts, and feet.

The highly illustrated text portion of Avian Architecture is just short of 150 pages when you subtract the title and verso pages. You may skim it pretty quickly, but I recommend taking the time to read the text and captions to learn some incredible facts about species worldwide. Either approach, however, will be pleasurable, as Avian Architecture is a beautiful, well-illustrated book.

Goodfellow, Peter. Avian Architecture: How Birds Design, Engineer, and Build. Princeton University Press, 2011. ISBN 9780691148496.

*Maybe just fruit and seed eaters. I wouldn't want to eat insects or worms and regurgitate them for my young.

**I still like playing with Lego's, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, etc.

The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media by Brooke Gladstone

Many people have low opinions about media and the reporters and commentators that they read, hear, and see. That's actually not a new phenomena, according to NPR's Brooke Gladstone. Regard for media moves in cycles. In her new nonfiction graphic novel, The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media, she recounts how the bearers of bad news have often been singled out for vilification throughout history. Ironically, she also shows how the public has continued to harken to the news, no matter what the era, technology, or message. We want to know what is happening and how it will effect us, though we may choose to disregard news and analysis that does not fit our political or philosophical views. The global digital age has made our contradictions more glaring and possibly more dangerous.

Gladstone includes many topics and trends specifically about media in The Influencing Machine, but in a sense her book is really about everything from the workings of the brain to our way of life. The back cover says that she is "visionary and opinionated," which I think she would accept readily. She discusses the longing for fair and unbiased reporting, but she holds that because reporters and media people are just people like everyone else, they can not be totally disinterested in the news they broadcast. Reporters at the war front are in the protection of the military; White House reporters need access to the White House; advertising revenue pays for the reporting of all news, including news of business and commerce; and most reporters do sympathize with their own countries and governments. No one is truly disinterested. Also, being fair does not mean the media has to repeat opinions from the uninformed equally with opinions from experts. For example, a scientist knows more about science than a politician.

Illustrated by Josh Neufeld and looking like a comic book, The Influencing Machine is entertaining and difficult to set aside. It will probably make some people on both ends of the political spectrum uncomfortable. Gladstone ends with eight double columned pages of source notes supporting her arguments.

Gladstone, Brooke. The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media. W. W. Norton, 2011. ISBN 9780393077797.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson

With Isaac's Storm, his well-spun story of the 1900 hurricane that destroyed Galveston, Texas, Erik Larson established himself as a leading author of narrative history. He followed with the highly praised The Devil in the White City, a book that wove together the stories of a visionary architect and a mass murder at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Interest in Thunderstruck, his story about the development of radio and the capture of a murderer, waned rather quickly, but with In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, Larson has recaptured the attention of readers. The book has been on many best sellers lists since April, and reserve lists at libraries are long. I enjoyed all four books.

I have heard readers say that In the Garden of Beasts takes a little more effort to read and that they needed more breaks in reading than they needed for previous books. I suspect this might be true as there are many German military and government officials, foreign diplomats, and U.S. State Department officers introduced in the first half of the book. A reader with prior knowledge of key players in German and World War II history will have an easier time remembering who was assisting and who was opposing the work of academically-minded American ambassador to Germany William E. Dodd, a man who hoped to quietly help the German government rid itself of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. His flirtatious daughter Martha also had a large number of friends and suitors. A reader who can accept not remembering every name will enjoy the story more.

In In the Garden of Beasts, Larson takes readers back to 1933 and 1934, a time when few people in the international community were concerned about Hitler and the Nazi Party. Ambassador Dodd anticipated an easy assignment. The State Department was mostly concerned with the German government paying its debts to American financiers. The American public wanted to recover from the Great Depression and paid little attention to foreign news. Those who did read the news saw Nazi restrictions on Jewish life as little different than Jim Crow laws in the U.S. The seriousness of the situation slowly dawned on Dodd, but officials in Washington were not sympathetic to his reports. They would not even issue travel warnings when American citizens were being beaten by Storm Troopers.

With the mass executions of June 30, 1934, Hitler revealed his full intent to govern Germany absolutely. As Larson tells the story, I wondered how the world could still doubt Hitler's dictatorial abilities and mad ambition. In the Garden of Beasts is a revealing look at a time that is mostly forgotten.

Larson, Erik. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. Crown, 2011. ISBN 9780307408846.