Serving Teen Through Readers' Advisory by Heather Booth

I am excited to report that the Thomas Ford Memorial Library has hired Heather Booth as our Teen Librarian. In preparation to work with her to revamp our services for teens, I read her idea-filled book Serving Teens Through Readers' Advisory.

I often skim rather than read library science texts, but Heather writes to entertain as well as inform and persuade, so I read it all. In this book about connecting teens with books and other library materials, she skillfully adapts adult readers' advisory ideas from Joyce Saricks, Barry Trott, Neal Wyatt, and others. Amidst her points about the unique needs of adolescent readers, she tells short stories about hand-selling and indirectly marketing books. I readily identified with her sample cases of offering books to reluctant readers, parents with vague ideas about class assignments, and teens who want more books like the ones that they already read.

Heather's book can also be used as a selection aid. Throughout her text, she includes many title suggestions, and in the appendices she identifies popular authors in teen genres and sure bets according to reading abilities. I am sure we can improve our collection with some of her suggestions.

A lot of libraries and librarians can benefit from reading Serving Teens Through Readers' Advisory. Consider it for your collection.

Booth, Heather. Serving Teens Through Readers' Advisory. ALA Editions, 2007. ISBN 9780838909300

Doubt: A Parable by John Patrick Shanley

One of the factors that keeps people out of book discussion groups is choosing big books that require many hours to read. Some people will read portions and skim, but many will not, so attendance is low when the books are gigantic. There is no need to worry with the choice of Doubt: A Parable by John Patrick Shanley. The 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama is only 58 pages. It reads very quickly, yet my book group found plenty to discuss for an hour and a half.

Doubt has only four characters: two nuns, a priest, and the mother of a student at a Catholic school. The year is 1964, and Sister Aloysius is unhappy with the times. A shortage of nuns has required the school to hire some lay teachers. The students are unruly and unmotivated. Ballpoint pens are replacing fountain pens. She thinks the song "Frosty the Snowman" is offensive to the church. Most importantly, Sister does not like the charismatic priest whom she suspects of abusing students.

Shanley has written a play that works on many levels, making it very discussable. It is of current interest because of the recent revelations of abuse by clergy in many denominations. It can also be scene as a political parable. Short as it is, it made members of the discussion remember many other works that they had read and plays that they had seen. With one character believing something for which there is no evidence, reading Doubt confirms a theme in True Enough by Farhad Manjoo, which I recently read. The intrigue within a community of nuns reminds me of The Abbess of Crewe by Murial Spark.

Book groups looking for a worthy and marketable book should consider this gripping play.

Shanley, John Patrick. Doubt: A Parable. Theatre Communications Group, 2005. ISBN 1559362766

Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by

Wangari Maathai won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her founding of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya. Two years later, her book Unbowed: a Memoir was published to critical acclaim. Now her story is told again in a picture book for children called Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Nivola.

The telling of a story of environmental abuse may seem a bit serious for younger children, but Nivola has simplified the story for ease of elementary understanding. The important point made is that when a person sees a problem, she can do something to solve it. Maathai could have easily accepted that a person could do little about deforestation, but she instead believed that she could with others do very much. As a result 30,000,000 trees have been planted. Caring, cooperation, and the importance of the individual are good lessons for young readers. Older readers should be reminded of this as well.

Planting the Trees of Kenya is the kind of book that parents and teachers may want to read aloud, so they can explain some of the unfamiliar words and describe the problems to their listeners. Then the children should be allowed to look at all the pictures which subtly include much about the culture in Kenya. Libraries with environmental or world cultures collections for children will want to consider this attractive book.

Nivola, Claire A. Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. ISBN 9780374399184

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri's latest collection of short stories Unaccustomed Earth comes at a great time for my library. We are featuring short stories in our summer reading program for adults, and it is great to have something new and brilliant to tout. Lahiri has excelled with this group of tales about the difficult relationships of Bengali immigrants to America who wish to preserve their culture and their children who long to assimilate.

I listened to the collection read by Sarita Choudhury and Ajay Naidu. In the both the first and the final stories, the two readers alternate as Lahiri has two voices telling these poignant stories. The first is the title story, which features an academically gifted daughter who has married late and is a new mother rather isolated in a new community. Her widowed father comes to visit and starts a garden for her. She wonders whether this is a sign that he expects her to offer him permanent place in her home, as a daughter would back in India. She is uncertain what cultural rules still apply.

Lahiri tries out a variety of scenarios in the collection In "Only Goodness," a brother and sister drift apart as they react very differently to their Bengali parents expectations. Both choose non-Bengali mates with opposite results. In "A Choice of Accommodations," a Bengali man reluctantly returns with his wife to the private school that he attended. The draw is the wedding of the schoolmaster's daughter, an attractive woman that he always worshiped from afar.

The collection ends with three interconnected stories about two Bengali children and their lives over thirty years. Hema's family gives Kaushik's family rooms while they look for their own house in the Boston area. While the families drift apart over cultural differences, Hema and Kauchik loosely bond in the first story. The story is written as a letter from Hema to Kauchik, who she remembers and wishes she could see again. In the second story, Kauchik wishes he could tell Hema about what has happened to him in his life. In the final melancholy story they do meet again. The book cover has meaning after you read this story.

Public libraries should definitely have this outstanding collection and use it to introduce readers to their short story collections.

Lahiri, Jhumpa. Unaccustomed Earth. Knopf, 2008. ISBN 9780307265739

8 compact discs. Books on Tape, 2008. ISBN 9781415943564

Hungry: Lessons Learned on the Journey from Fat to Thin by Allen Zadoff

I was attracted by the cookie cutter on the cover. I like cookies a lot. So does Allen Zadoff, the author of Hungry: Lessons Learned on the Journey from Fat to Thin. In fact, cookies are one of his trigger foods and a contributing factor to his food addiction.

Allen Zadoff is a compulsive overeater, and Hungry is a witty memoir more than a self-help book. He repeats throughout the book that the methods that he used to return to a more normal weight after having expanded to 360 pounds may not work for others. His aim is to encourage others with eating disorders that they can gain control of their lives through behavior modification.

Diets are out of the picture for Zadoff, as none ever worked. Daily planning and abstaining from trigger foods is in. (A trigger food is something that a person can not stop eating once he/she starts, like potato chips or cookies.) It has worked for him for twelve years because he starts every day with a plan of what to eat - three good meals and no snacks. If he fails one day, he starts over the next day with three good meals. He insists that penalizing oneself for past failure just leads to more failure and that it is important to start fresh each day.

Though Zadoff aims his book at people with serious eating disorders, Hungry is entertaining and thought-provoking quick read for almost any reader. I am sure many readers will identify and empathize with his story, as many of us imagine what would happen if we just gave in to all our desires. It may help some understand the problems that their friends have.

Not many libraries in my area bought this helpful book. I urge them to reconsider, for it might help someone a lot.

Zadoff, Allen. Hungry: Lessons Learned on the Journey from Fat to Thin. Da Capo Life Long, 2007. ISBN 9780738211053

True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society by Farhad Manjoo

Americans and other earthlings are divided by more than opinions these days. We do not even sense the same reality. There are few facts to which everyone agrees, no matter how much evidence can be produced and disseminated. Diverse portions of our population believes that NASA faked the moon landings, that Saddam Hussein planned the 9/11 attacks, and that anyone who wants a good paying job can get one easily. Modern communication technology is supposed to supply news and information to bring us to common understanding, but it has failed. According to Salon staff writer Farhad Manjoo in his new book True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society, there is too much information and much of it is manipulated for partisan purposes.

Four or five decades ago, we got our news from a handful of mainline sources, as many people watched network news every evening. With cable television and the Internet widely available, people now choice other sources that have more "point of view" and less objectivity. Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, Larry King, Bill O'Reilly, and other media stars have more influence on public opinion than most politicians. Most people only check news sources that will tell them what they already believe. When mainline and liberal channels carried refutations of the Swift Boat Veterans claim that John Kerry acted cowardly in the Vietnam War, conservatives who believed the story did not even notice.

Manjoo rebukes many local television stations for the use of video news releases or VNRs. Many political, professional, and industrial interest groups send slick videos to the stations, which may air them on their local news programs without any verification of the content. The stations are more interested in advertising revenues than the veracity of the news and are happy to reduce the cost of news gathering. Tobacco companies, the oil industry, and pharmaceutical firms often get their viewpoints reported as facts.

The manipulators do not always get their way. I found the most encouraging story was how tobacco companies ultimately failed to stop much of the regulation of the use of their products. Big tobacco counted on its customers to stand up for them, not realizing that addicts do not really love their pushers. Wanting help to break their habits, many smokers actually favor regulation . Tobacco killing over 400,000 people per year is a "fact" that just can not be glossed over anymore.

True Enough is a lively and engaging look at "truthiness" which should be in more public libraries (institutions devoted to the presentation and dissemination of all viewpoints).

Manjoo, Farhad. True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society. John Wiley & Sons, 2008. ISBN 9780470050101

The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith

I think the thing that I like best about books in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith is the universal compassion that runs through the stories. There are special moments and thoughtful exchanges, such as this conversation on page 125 of the latest title The Miracle at Speedy Motors.


Mma Ramotswe introduced herself. You do not know me, Mma. I am Precious Ramotswe."

The woman listened attentively, with the manner that older people have with names. She belonged to a Botswana where names meant something, connected people with places, cousins, events; even with cattle.

"Ramotswe? There was an Obed Ramotswe in Mochudi, I think. He . . ."

"Was my father. He is late now. My father."

The woman lowered her eyes in sympathy. "I am sorry. He was a good man."

Mma Ramotswe felt proud, as she always did when someone remembered her father. Invariably they used the expression good man; and he was. He was the best of men.


Readers everywhere will understand the emotions of the characters in this story set in remote Botswana. The local flavor of the story may draw readers in to the story. The universal themes keep them.

The Miracle at Speedy Motors is the ninth title in the series. Public libraries need to have them all.

McCall Smith, Alexander. The Miracle at Speedy Motors. Pantheon Books, 2008. ISBN 9780375424489.

Wild at Heart: Man and Beast in Southern Africa: Photographs by Chris Johns

Bonnie brings home great books.

I wonder if Wild at Heart: Man and Beast in Southern Africa will be a rare book some day. Not many libraries bought this over-sized booked when it was published by the National Geographic Society in 2002. Inexpensive used copies can be found on the Internet now, but new copies are still $65. It is awkward to shelve, and the landscape layout with the binding at the top makes it heavy to hold. Still, for someone who loves African wildlife and longs to visit the preserves of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and South Africa, it is a wonderful book.

Unbind the book and many of the photos could be mounted and framed, especially the landscapes and wildlife scenes. Not all the photos, however, are pleasant. Photographer Chris Johns includes candid shots of poaching, predators killing prey, poverty, and squalor. Essayist Peter Godwin frankly discusses the problems of mismanaged parks, shrinking habitats, displaced people, and political misdeeds along with his accounts of wildlife conservation.

My favorite section is the remarkable story of a female cheetah who successfully raises a litter of five cubs to adulthood on Mambo Island in the Okavango Delta. It is followed by a section about the plight of wild dogs, which are not really dogs but a separate line of canines. Some of the wild dog hunting photos are rather bloody. You have to be a wildlife enthusiast (as I am) to like this book. If so, it is worth the wait to ILL.

Wild at Heart: Man and Beast in Southern Africa. National Geographic Insight, 2002. ISBN 0792269055

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

It seems like I have always known about Helen Keller. I probably heard about her as an elementary school student many years ago. I may have seen The Miracle Worker (1962) with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke on television. What I had not done until last week was read The Story of My Life.

Of the many surprises the book had for me, first was how visually descriptive it seems. When Keller relates incidents, I can almost see them. I think this is because she puts everything into context, includes motion, length, depth, and position. I would know these qualities of a scene if I saw them. Keller knew them from sense of touch and the narration supplied by her companions, especially her teacher Anne Sullivan.

The second surprise was her eloquence and rich vocabulary. It is amazing to think that she began her education with only the memory of the word wawa for water remaining from her infancy. She relates that she was a vibrant child with advanced language before she went deaf and blind at the age of nineteen months. She claims to have lost all of the early learning, but I wonder if it really was the foundation of her revival.

The third big surprise for me was that Keller wrote her autobiography as a college student. She was only twenty-three when it was published. Already she had traveled extensively in the U.S. and Canada and met Alexandre Graham Bell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Mark Twain. She had read their works as well as much history and classical literature. She read Latin, French, and German. The only subjects that she seemed to find difficult were geometry and calculus.

The Story of My Life was originally published in 1903. Keller lived until 1968, writing other books and articles. She was surprisingly active as a reformer, espousing the causes of women's rights, birth control, fair labor practices, socialism, and pacifism. A Gallup Poll taken in 1999 listed her fifth among most admired people of the Twentieth Century, behind Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr, John F. Kennedy, and Albert Einstein. I would move her up.

Obviously, The Story of My Life is a book that every public library should have. The restored edition from Modern Library, published on the centennial of the original edition, has a selection of Keller letters and other supplements.

Keller, Helen. The Story of My Life. Modern Library. ISBN 0679642870

Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut

Recently, Nonanon praised Armageddon in Retrospect, a new volume of previously unpublished pieces by the late Kurt Vonnegut. Now that I have read it, I agree. The short stories, his letter to his family from post-World War II Europe, and the speech Vonnegut gave in Indianapolis just before he died are all filled with wit, candor, and compassion. Together they make a bold statement about the futility of war and the ethics of victory (if there really is such a thing in war).

I wonder why the stories sat unpublished. Was Vonnegut not satisfied with them or did he just move on to other projects so quickly that they were left behind? Several are set in Dresden during and after the Allies leveling of the city at war's end, when many children, women, seniors, and other noncombatants were killed needlessly, arbitrarily. Collateral damage. Maybe the author felt that he had said enough with Slaughterhouse Five. Whatever the reason, now is a good time for them to emerge, as they speak well to the generation questioning the sense of the war in Iraq.

My favorite story is "The Unicorn Trap" set in the time of William the Conqueror's consolidation of control in England. I like the conscientious serf who does not want to become a tax collector, denying his wife upward mobility. I also especially like "The Commandant's Desk," one of several stories around the issue of soldiers looting the homes and shops of the towns that they liberated. The cabinet maker is another vehicle for Vonnegut's voice.

Though the book can be put in the 80os, I think it will be more easily found by readers in the fiction collection. All public libraries should add this treasure of Vonnegut.

Vonnegut, Kurt. Armageddon in Retrospect. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2008. ISBN 9780399155086

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

At a time when some writers have tried to pass off fiction as memoirs, Sherman Alexie has taken a different tact. He has written The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a novel based on his experiences as an Indian attending an all-white school. In an interview with Rick Margolis of School Library Journal (August 2007, p. 29), he explains that he had written 450 pages of a family memoir and part of it just did not fit the rest thematically. He said readers would hardly believe it anyway, so he made it into a novel for teens to fill a promise that he had made to write such a book. The resulting book has been widely praised in reviews and won a National Book Award.

So there may be a more serious memoir still coming. I suspect that too might be powerful reading. I enjoyed The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian thoroughly, but one thought nags at me. With the exception of his family support, his depiction of the reservation is almost totally negative. Everyone has given up on life and turned to alcohol. This broad generalization is probably more acceptable in a teen novel because it is part of the hero's feelings more than objective truth. It will be interesting to see how he portrays the reservation in a memoir.

I also wonder how the Indian community views this book. I think about The Oldest Rookie by Jim Morris, part of which takes place in my hometown. It is fortunate for Morris that he no longer works there (he commuted in daily so he never actually lived there), as the locals mostly did not like the book. Truth hurts. Also, Morris may not have been totally fair.

I hope Alexie keeps writing for readers of all ages. The success of this book should encourage it.

Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Little, Brown and Company, 2007. ISBN 9780316013680

The Nonfiction Narrative: Exploring Nonfiction in a Readers' Advisory Context

Neal Wyatt of Chesterfield County Public Library in Virginia, author of The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction, spoke to about 40 librarians from around the western and southern Chicago suburbs about The Nonfiction Narrative: Exploring Nonfiction in a Readers' Advisory Context this morning at the Metropolitan Library System headquarters in Burr Ridge. In the spirit of her presentation, here is a brief on the workshop.

Narrative: Low, for this was an instructional workshop. Wyatt did incorporate some story telling. I especially liked her quick summaries of the books that she highlighted.

Nonfiction Categories: Task Instruction, How-To

Nonfiction Types: Explanations

Subjects: Library Science, Readers' Advisory, Nonfiction Books

Pace: Fast, Quick, Lively

Tone: Upbeat, Affirming, Instructive, Humorous

Intent: Learning/Experiencing

Special Features: The attendees formed four groups (1) to write up RA briefs for popular nonfiction books and (2) to prepare to recommend other books to a client based on the book enjoyed and its appeal factors. Wyatt also provide helpful handouts with tips for working with nonfiction.

What You Should Know: Narrative is just another word for story. Narrative nonfiction includes books that are basically true (some memoirs less so) that score high on story factors, as apposed to straight factual style. Like fiction, narrative nonfiction appeals to readers for characterization, story line, setting, good pacing, and appealing tone. Unlike fiction readers, nonfiction readers want books about subjects from which they learn or experience. Any librarian can with just a little thought and practice adapt to recommending nonfiction as well as fiction, to work toward a whole collection approach to readers' advisory.

Target audience: This workshop (which I assume will play in other venues) will appeal to librarians wishing to improve their ability to get good nonfiction books into the hands of appreciative readers. They will also like getting a few new titles to put on their own reading lists.

What I'm Taking Away: I will play around with her nonfiction types, which are sub-genres that can move around beneath various nonfiction categories. Wyatt said that as a profession we are still sorting out how to organize our readers' advisory tools. This is of particular interest to me as I try to write a book on biography, which ends up as both a category and a type in the Wyatt's scheme. There is no one right way to do this. Various schemes will probably always be needed for differing client needs.

Last Thought: Wyatt says that pace and tone are the two most important appeal factors in recommending books that clients enjoy. I think that she is right, and they may be the most challenging to identify. The librarian and client may not have a common vocabulary from which to work. We're going to have to do good interviews, welcome feedback, and try again and again.

The Heart Has Reasons: Holocaust Rescuers & Their Stories of Courage by Mark Klempner

Imagine that you live in the Netherlands in 1940. The German Army has invaded your country and taken over your government. At first, the spokesmen for the new regime promise that you will be able to continue with your life as it has been for your ancestry is the same as theirs. In fact, life will be better because they will clean up the bad influences in your society. Do you feel reassured? Do you ignore that Hitler had promised to honor Dutch neutrality just days before the invasion? Do you ignore the firebombing of Rotterdam? Do you ignore the past seven years of news from Germany? Why do some people have a J on their newly issued citizenship cards?

According to Mark Klempner in The Heart Has Reasons: Holocaust Rescuers & Their Stories of Courage, a small number of Dutch citizens knew exactly what they should do in 1940. There was no way that they would sit still and comply with restrictions. They would resist and undermine the Nazi authorities by hiding Jewish children in their homes or helping transport them to Dutch farms to be kept or shuttled out of the country. They may or may not have considered the dangers. Not to act would have been immoral.

In his book, Klempner presents the stories of ten Dutch resisters whom he interviewed in 1996. They risked their freedom and lives daily by carrying children on bicycles, on trains, or through alleys. Some stole identification or ration cards from municipal offices. Others took food and money to the foster parents who kept the children. Some kept children either in attics or pretended that they were their own. All found the resistance thrilling and fulfilling. Most report that in a strange way that the war years were the best in their lives.

The Heart Has Reason is about more than just World War II. Klempner questioned his subjects about their lives after the war. Many have worked for other causes. In their responses, they portray the world as a dangerous place filled with evil that has to be faced and defeated. They are all pragmatists, who point out the shallowness of the post-war "never again" pledge from world governments. There have many "holocausts" since.

Most readers will find the rescuers' stories inspiring and Klempner's analysis thought provoking. They may feel a bet remiss for not doing more themselves. The Heart Has Reasons would make an interesting book discussion club choice.

Klempner, Mark. The Heart Has Reasons: Holocaust Rescuers & Their Stories of Courage. Pilgrim Press, 2006. ISBN 0829816992

The Man Whom Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus by Jashua Kendall

There are no synonyms, according to Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869), author of Roget's Thesaurus, for no two words have the exact same meaning. There are many words with near meanings from which to choose to clarify messages, and the eccentric polymath and classifier tried to organize them. He created his thesaurus first for himself, as he found he needed a stronger vocabulary. When he published it late in his life, many reviewers cheered it, but some opposed him for providing a crutch to lesser minds.

According to journalist Joshua Kendall in The Man Whom Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus, Roget was a physician and scientist who made compulsively made lists from childhood in response to the discord and chaos of his life. He did not realize that his focus on the lists would help him to stay free of the madness that infected his grandmother, mother, sister, and uncle. His thesaurus was a byproduct of his effective personal therapy. It also eventually made him rich.

Roget rubbed shoulders with almost everyone in science, medicine, literature, and government of his time. At one point, he was considered the most eligible bachelor in London, but he seemed blind to the designs of young women around him. His lectures were well-attended, he was president of nearly every learned society in London at some point in his life, and he was praised for perfecting the logarithmic slide rule. His family, however, fell apart around him, and he also suffered mental breakdowns.

General readers will enjoy this biography full of vocabulary facts and family drama. Most public libraries should consider adding it to their collections.

Kendall, Joshua. The Man Whom Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2008. ISBN 9780399154621.

Jack Plank Tells Tales by Natalie Babbitt

Gardening season has finally begun here in Illinois. For me that means that audiobook season has also begun, as I often listen to a good book while weeding and dead-heading outdoors. On Saturday while trimming rose bushes and trying to keep getting terribly scratched, I listened to a jolly pirate's tale, called Jack Plank Tells Tales by Natalie Babbitt.

Jack Plank was rather a washout as a pirate for he did not really like the noise and danger of attacking other ships. He preferred watching the seagulls, feeling the sea breeze, and peeling a few potatoes for soup. His shipmates on the Avarice kept him on for years because he was pleasant to have around, but in hard times when booty was scarce, they put him ashore at a port called Saltwash, now in Jamaica. The innkeeper Mrs. DelFresno told him that he could stay for one gold sovereign per day, provided he behaved himself and got a job within a week.

Every day Jack joined the residents of the inn for dinner to say that he did not find a job that day. For reasons he explained in stories, he could not be a farmer, baker, fisherman, or take any of the other recommend jobs. His stories involving sad trolls, beautiful mermaids, gullible ghosts, and other fantastic creatures kept his dinner companions entertained.

Jack Plank Tells Tales read by John H. Mayer is fun listening for young and old.

Babbitt, Natalie. Jack Plank Tells Tales. Listening Library, 2008. 2 compact discs. ISBN 9780739364086

E. E. Cummings by Catherine Reef

I noticed E. E. Cummings: A Poet's Life by Catherine Reef in the Best Books for Young Adults 2008 list from YALSA in the March 1, 2008 issue of Booklist.

Poet E. E. Cummings (1894-1962) is remembered by contemporary readers more for his novel use of capitalization and punctuation than his verses. Scattered across pages and broken up into fragments, his words are hard to follow, their meanings difficult to grasp. In this compact, illustrated account of the revolutionary poet, author Catherine Reef explains that Cummings viewed his poems as bridges between language and visual art. Early in his career, he was more successful as a painter than poet. He viewed his life as an artistic mission that should not be compromised or limited by medium. The result was a life full of good friendships with other poets (Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams) and difficult romantic and family relationships.

While aimed at teenage readers, Reef does not filter adult themes like prostitution and infidelity from Cummings life. Adults may also enjoy this sympathetic portrait of a gentle but complicated man. The author includes many samples of Cummings poetry and photographs of his associates and the places that he lived and visited.

I notice that only sixteen of the public libraries in the SWAN catalog of the Metropolitan Library System have this well-done biography, and there is no agreement where it goes. More should have it somewhere in their collections.

Reef, Catherine. E. E. Cummings. Clarion Books, 2006. 149p. ISBN 9780618568499.

A Soldier's Story

A Soldier's Story, a 1984 film about racial segregation in World War II, is a mystery in several ways. Most obviously, it is a film in which an military investigator seeks to discover who murdered the friendless Sargent Waters on a foggy night right outside camp. Did a local member of the Ku Klux Klan kill the black soldier as a "get out of Louisiana" message aimed at the African Americans in training? Did a white officer who felt Waters was disrespectful shoot him? Could it have been one of his own men, all of whom came from the Negro baseball league?

The other mystery is how so few of us remembered A Soldier's Story, which was based on a Pulitzer Prize winning play and nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Out of nineteen people at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library's showing of the film, only one had seen it when it was released twenty-four years ago. It was really quiet good. How had it been forgotten?

The story follows Captain Davenport, an African American investigator well played by Howard E. Rollins, Jr., as he questions anyone who knew the victim. Among the men from the company that he interviews is Private First Class Peterson, played by a very young Denzel Washington. In flashbacks, Waters is played by Adolph Caesar, who was nominated as best supporting actor.

The film has a very theatrical quality, as one might expect from a movie based on a play. At points lighting spotlights characters telling their memories. Dialogue has a scripted and quotable feel that one used to find in movies. It also seems almost like a musical, as it starts with Patti LaBelle as Big Mary singing in the local colored bar, and several other scenes follow with Larry Riley as C. J. Memphis singing in the mess hall or back in the bar.

A Soldier's Story was a good choice for our discussion group. We talked about the characters and the mystery first. Then we discussed the segregation of the American military until 1948 and the importance of military integration for the civil rights movement that followed. I recommend the film to film fans and other libraries holding discussions.

Laughing Without an Accent by Firoozeh Dumas

It is fun reading books before they are published. I get a privileged feeling just holding a review copy, which may be a bit silly, seeing that the publishers gave many of them away at the Public Library Association Conference in Minneapolis. Still, I was really pleased when Uma from our library offered to let me read an advanced reader's edition of Laughing Without an Accent by Firoozeh Dumas, the author of Funny in Farsi. The book is due out at the end of April 2008.

In her new volume, Dumas continues to tell amusing stories about her life as an Iranian who moved to the United States as a child before the revolution of 1979. In some ways, she grew up very American, watching television, eating fast food, and going away to college. Still, because of her early years in Iran, her perspectives remain atypical. She is a sort of inside outsider, a perfect person to notice the odd aspects of American life that natives tend to take for granted.

Many of her stories are about adjusting or not adjusting to a new culture. She features her own experiences, as well as those of her parents and her husband, who is French. Each story is well-crafted and compelling, and she makes readers feel as though they too are immigrants trying to sort out what to do in unfamiliar situations. I think my favorite story may have been her telling of her uncle's funeral at which the family traded the usual Iranian mourning customs for eulogies remembering the uncle's humorous traits; Dumas could hardly believe the family would accept this break with tradition but they did. She makes a point about how America has changed her family. She also tells how Iranians and other immigrants have changed America.

Most public libraries are going to want Dumas's new book. It should be very popular with memoir readers. It should also be popular with librarians, whom she compliments several times.

Dumas, Firoozeh. Laughing Without an Accent. Villard, 2008. ISBN 9780345499561.

Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment by Anthony Lewis

If I wrote "All war is immoral," could I be arrested and sent to prison. In many countries where the military holds power, I could. Even in the U.S., it depends on the time and the place, according to Anthony Lewis in his recent book Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment.

During the First World War, when there was very little tolerance for dissent across the country, the Montana legislature passed a very repressive sedition law. A traveling salesman who said in a Montana saloon that wartime food restrictions were a joke was sentenced to seven-to-twenty years of hard labor. At the same time, socialist Eugene V. Debs was convicted of violating the Espionage Act for saying in a speech in Canton, Ohio that three men who had been arrested for helping a draft resister were heroic. Did the Supreme Court help Debs? No, it upheld his conviction in 1919 and he served three years in prison. The man in Montana was luckier, as a federal judge there ruled that he and 47 other residents of the state had been wrongly convicted.

Though the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution protecting free speech was established in 1791, the first favorable ruling in the Supreme Court was in 1931. It took the efforts of numerous federal judges and Supreme Court justices through time to finally uphold the right of free speech. Among the heroes in this book are Learned Hand who was ruling in favor of First Amendment rights before most other federal judges, Oliver Wendell Holmes who took up the cause after the First World War, and Louis D. Brandeis whose dissenting opinions eventually swayed the Court.

A point that Lewis makes throughout the book is that our constitutional rights are not protected simply by the existence of the constitution. There have to be brave jurists willing to uphold the rights when legislatures, governors, and presidents try to circumvent them. In making his point, he points out the many attempts of the current administration to brush the constitution aside. The job of protecting our rights never ends.

Freedom for the Thought That We Hate is a quick and compelling read that discusses many aspects of what is protected by the First Amendment. Librarians should read it and put it on display.

Lewis, Anthony. Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment. Basic Books, 2007. ISBN 9780465039173

Your Brain on Cubs edited by Dan Gordon

When I heard the title Your Brain on Cubs, I pictured an ironic collection of confessional stories from die-hard fans. I expected to enjoy reading about long afternoons of watching the Phillies and the Cubs run their scores into double digits and of the heartbreak of seasons lost. I did not expect a serious book about brain science and psychology.

Your Brain on Cubs is a collection of essays by neurologists who tell about what is going on in the players' and fans' brains during the game and away from the park. Central to the discussion in "The Depths of Loyalty: Exploring the Brain of the Die-hard Fan" by Jordan Grafman is the idea that Cub fans actual find social benefits from the team's losing tradition. Around the team is a community of disappointed fans who live with a sense of mission from year to year. Members of this group exhibit great ability to delay gratification, to accept other hardships, and to reflect on life. Rooting for the team is thus character building and good for self-esteem.

Later essays deal with many serious issues, such as player use of performance enhancing drugs, the superstitions of fans and players, and the psychology of winning. It is best to allot ample time to read.

Your Brain on Cubs is not for the casual reader, as there is professionally serious vocabulary at points. If you have time and patience, there is a much to ponder. Warning: serious fans may see themselves in the clinical studies.

Your Brain on Cubs. Dana Press, 2008. ISBN 9781932594287