Island Beneath the Sea (Isabel Allende)

Island Beneath the Sea  

Zerite was born a slave on the French island colony Saint-Domingue, a place we now know to be Haiti. She dreamed of a life beyond being someone's property, yet nothing life sent her way enabled her to escape. The paths of Toulouse Valmorain (her master) and Violette Boisier (prostitute and Zerite's friend) intertwine tragically and beautifully with Zerite's life in appalling ways, revealing a great deal about slavery and plantations on colonial Saint-Domingue and beyond. In fact, this story of Zerite's life is set in the late 1770s and spans historical events that occurred everywhere from Saint Domingue all the way to New Orleans.

Zerite is born into an inferior position in a tumultuous time, and she is a beautiful soul who lives an immensely difficult life. Throughout her story, I continued to hope against all hope that somehow things would work out for Zerite...that somehow she could ease through one loophole or another and find her happiness. Be forearned: rarely did this happen for Zerite; unfortunately, hers was a very realistic tale.

A work of historical fiction, Island in the Sea by Isabel Allende provides a holistic understanding of slavery in the Caribbean and gulf societies. Among the many stories colliding in this book is the fascinating history of the very factual uprising among slaves in Saint-Domingue. 

Slavery in America is a commonly explored topic in literature, although far from a fully exhausted one. Books such as this present the uncomfortable opportunity to digest slavery, one of the most unpalatable periods in history. 

*Amazon affiliate links included; please see disclosure statement at bottom of page.

Island Beneath the Sea (Isabel Allende)

13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey (Kathryn Tucker Windham and Margaret Gillis Figh)

June 12, 2011 marked the passing of Kathryn Tucker Windham, one of Alabama's most famous authors. Known for her storytelling abilities, Windham's most notable works were her Jeffrey books. 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey was Windham's first, and though it was published in 1969 it remains one of the most popular items in my nonfiction section to date.

From the ghost of a forlorn captain haunting Mobile's State Street to the sulking phantom of a young girl at Huntingdon College, 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey takes readers all over the state of Alabama in an adventure of legend and mystery.

13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey (Kathryn Tucker Windham and Margaret Gillis Figh)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou)

There are some books, some authors, whose styles resonate soundly within me. To Kill a Mockingbird is that way. Every time I crack it open, I literally sigh my way through it because it is just so...beautiful.

I really like to read and enjoy a rather nice variety of genres, but I LOVE it when an author takes ordinary words and crafts them into something so pretty it can only be called art.

Maya Angelou is an amazing wordsmith, and I adore her style. When I was about 2 chapters in to this book, all I could think was I will never forgive my high school English teachers for not exposing us to this.* I mean, we had to read "Hedda Gabler," for cryin' out loud! Ugh.


I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is Maya Angelou's autobiography. She and her older brother Bailey were brought South to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas when they were children (this would be the 50's), and encountered more than one brush with racism in its ugliest forms. The best parts of this book are Maya's penning of segregation and racism in ways most people have never fathomed. Before long they were returned to live with their mother, in California. She was a wild woman with a fierce love for her children but little regard for structured parenting. Maya's experiences living with her mother taught her everything she wanted to know and didn't want to know about family. Sadly, young Maya was sexually abused for a lengthy period of time, and soon after she and her brother returned to Arkansas for a time before a string of moves involving their father, their mother, and their grandmother. As Maya grew into a young woman, she questioned everything about herself, including her appearance, her sexuality, and her relationships with her family members. This "self-discovery" led to a pregnancy, and at a very young age Maya Angelou became a mother to her son.

Eventually Maya ended up in the theater and, through both her innate ability to paint pictures with her words and her proclivity for delivering them theatrically, has become an icon of both this century and the last. She continues to write and speak about her life, and the literary world is a better place because she's in it.

Some of my favorite lines from the book:

On Maya's and Bailey's arriving in Stamps, Arkansas: "The town reacted to us as its inhabitants had reacted to all things new before our coming. It regarded us a while without curiosity but with caution, and after we were seen to be harmless (and children) it closed in around us, as a real mother embrace's a stranger's child. Warmly, but not too familiarly." pg. 5

"Of all the needs (and there are none imaginary) a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going to be hope and a hope of wholeness, is the unshaking need for an unshakable God." pg. 23

On her relationship with her brother: "Bailey was the greatest person in my world. And the fact that he was my brother, my only brother, and I had no sisters to share him with, was such good fortune that it made me want to live a Christian life just to show God I was grateful." pg. 22

Maya's feelings while listening to a white politician giving a speech at her high school graduation: "We were maids and farmers, handymen and washerwomen, and anything higher we aspired to was farcical and presumptuous." pg. 180

*I suspect that the reason I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was kept from us in high school was the chapter toward the end in which she struggles with issues relating to her sexuality. If I'm right, I find this rather unfortunate. I'm a full believer in taking care not to expose children and young adults to material not developmentally appropriate. I also believe that we all need to do a better job of making sure that we aren't "protecting" children and teenagers from issues we find too uncomfortable ourselves. Yet again, a post for another day.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou)

The Help (Kathryn Stockett)

Of all the books I read, there are precious few that grab hold of my heart the way this one has. I have not fallen so deeply in love with a book like this since To Kill a Mockingbird. The hubs was privy to many of the hilarious occurrences buried in these twenty or so odd chapters, and I love him for always listening when I started out with "You are not gonna believe what Minny Jackson has done to Miss Hilly Holbrook now!"

Set in the tumultuous 1960's in the even more volatile city of Jackson, Mississippi, this is the tale of a blossoming novelist and her desire to write about the precarious relationship between white ladies and their black maids. "The help" finally get their chance to tell their side of the story, but it is not without consequence for these truly brave women of Jackson.

Like all great novels, The Help is wondrously complex, with its side stories twisting and turning all over one another in one red hot mess. Skeeter is a new graduate with no prospects for a husband and, much to her momma's chagrin, is itching to put her shiny new English degree to use. While writing for the town paper, Skeeter's eyes become opened to the injustice of the way black people are treated. She begins to question the lines that have always been so clearly assumed between the white family and the help. Aibileen is one of the first maids willing to share her stories, and is soon followed by several others, all with the strictest condition of anonymity. They all have much to lose if they are discovered.

There are some truly lovable women in this book. Minny, Aibileen, and Skeeter are just the kinds of characters you love to love. Hilly, Stuart, and Elizabeth are simply the ones you love to hate. Regardless of which side they are on, every character is distinctively complicated. Their natures and their situations would easily give way to endless discussions in a book club or high school lit class.

I'm definitely filing this one under "Favorites." :)

For more about the author: http://www.kathrynstockett.com/ 

I also just discovered that The Help is coming to a theater near you in August! :)

The Help (Kathryn Stockett)

Diamond Jim Dandy and the Sheriff (Sarah Burell)

         

One of the funnier books my daughter has chosen lately, Diamond Dim Dandy and the Sheriff has been at the top of the "Frequently Read" list at our house. Best read with an exaggerated Southern drawl, Diamond Jim is a great pick for preschoolers or readalouds in the school setting. On an ordinary, boring, "nothing ever happens in Dustbin, Texas" day, Diamond Jim the rattlesnake slithers into town. He does a great job of freaking out the Sheriff, whose job of course it is to keep out ragamuffin rattlers like Diamond Jim. Even though he wins the affections of the townspeople, the Sheriff remains skeptical of this friendly rattlesnake until the day he puts his rattles to good use for a special little girl in Dustbin, Texas. 

Diamond Jim Dandy and the Sheriff (Sarah Burell)

The Watsons Go to Birmingham (Christopher Paul Curtis)

The self-proclaimed “Weird Watsons” are Kenny, Byron, and Joetta, along with their mom and dad. They are all just busy living life in Flint, Michigan in the 1960s. They have school issues, work issues, and behavior issues just like any other family. When Byron, the oldest brother, begins to make some seriously bad choices, their parents decide it is time for him to spend a few months with their grandmother in Birmingham, Alabama. Unfortunately during that time, a church is bombed by racist segregationists, which deeply affects the Watson family and changes their lives and view of the world forever. 

Christopher Paul Curtis takes a very dark and sad time in our nation’s history and presents it on a palatable 5th grade level. He concludes the story with a summary of facts about the civil rights movement and the heroes who gave their lives during this time. Winner of the Coretta Scott King Award and a Newbery Honor Book, it is very easy to see why this book is such an important and effective piece of literature. This tight-knit family experiences small doses of racism in Michigan, and Curtis thoroughly communicates the differences in Northern and Southern culture during this time. 

One of my favorite quotes (by whom, I wish I knew) is that a good writer notices things that other people don’t notice. Curtis brings to light several characteristics of daily life by black Americans during this tumultuous time period. One was that the Watsons had to plan out every single rest and refueling stop for the journey from Michigan to Alabama. They knew they would have to take great care in where they stopped and tried to rent motel rooms or purchase food, because many Southern cities simply refused service to African Americans. We travel a bit, and I can’t imagine setting out for a far away destination without the knowledge that we can stop anywhere we want to for gas or supplies. Another was the way Curtis pointed out that black people and white people could be pretty much just as ignorant about one another during this time, simply because they did not associate with anyone of the opposite race. Byron and Kenny were terrified during one rest stop because they were afraid the rednecks would catch them, hang them, and eat them for dinner. There were some very ugly things that happened in Southern states during the civil rights movement, but it would be unfair to say that all white southerners were hostile.

My only criticism of this work is that it was too brief, too light, with coverage too superficial for such atrocities in American history. I would love for Curtis to have delved more deeply into the issues of this time and how the Watsons were affected by them. But then again, that wouldn’t be a children’s book, now would it?  

The Watsons Go to Birmingham (Christopher Paul Curtis)

The Underneath (Kathi Appelt)

I'm not sure that I have ever read a book whose cover art is more misleading than The Underneath.

 It looks like it might be the sweet little tale of a dog who makes friends with some cats, right?

Actually... 

The Underneath is the story of a little cat who is dropped off in the middle of a Louisiana swamp, punished for the unspeakable crime of becoming "with kitten." This new mother retreats to the first place of safety she can find, which unfortunately is the home of a cruel swamp-dweller (Gar Face) and his abused hound dog, Ranger. Dog meets cat, and they become best friends. They raise the new kittens (Puck and Sabine) together and live in cautious harmony until Gar Face sinks to new levels of cruelty and greed. "The Underneath" is the space underneath the porch, the only space where Ranger and his cats can avoid risk of all the horrible things in life. 

Interspersed throughout the story of Ranger, the mother cat, Puck, and Sabine is another dark, mystic tale involving a magical water moccasin and her own story of anger, loss, and revenge. Grandmother Moccasin and her BFF the Alligator King (who happens to be positively enormous) are on the warpath to make someone pay for all that she has lost...and Ranger and his cats better be sure that they don't cross paths with these ancient, angry, and hungry creatures. 

The Underneath is sad, dark, and full of injustice. It's very suspenseful, and filled with characters you just want to loathe. It's also filled with characters you love and will cheer on throughout their many unfair tribulations. It presents numerous opportunities for deep discussions, and is a great choice for book clubs in older elementary or middle school. The Underneath makes you think about how people's own personal wounds can either lead them to continue wounding others in the same way, or to break the cycle of revenge by forging a new path in life. It makes you appreciate the swampland ecosystem. It forces the reader to examine what, if anything, makes a person truly un-redeemable. 

And it also makes you love your own pets just a little bit more! And at the risk of turning this into a PSA: spay and neuter your pets, people! ;) 

The Underneath (Kathi Appelt)

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain)

Alabama's Big Read project this year is with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. A fellow librarian and myself collaborated to put together a gigantic adventure journal for our students. The journal includes a word search and word scramble, places for students to sketch a steamboat and draw a Most Wanted Pirate sign, and tons of opportunities for research on everything from southern culture to the typical dress of boys and girls in the 1800's to Robert Fulton (inventor of the steamboat engine). There is something for everyone in this journal, and I have had an absolute blast with my students as we've studied it!

One reason I wanted to create the adventure journal was because Tom Sawyer is written on an 8th grade reading level. Twain's vocabulary is rather extensive, and even 5th graders get tangled up in the "conjectured's" and the "alacrity's" and the "constrained's". So, I re-read the book myself so I could book-talk it for all of my kinds in grades 1-5. What a great book! Not one chapter went by without my thinking the Big Read book pickers are a team of geniuses! This book is really funny, well-woven, and it does a fantastic job of reminding us all how kids act, think, and play.

Tom Sawyer is an orphan living with his brother and sister under the care of their Aunt Polly. Rather predisposed to mischief, Tom tends to either find or make an enormous amount of trouble. From accidentally witnessing a murder to getting stuck 5 miles underground in an enormous cavern, Tom is highly capable of getting himself into trouble. Good thing for Tom, he's rather good at getting himself OUT of trouble, too!

I read this book long ago when I was in elementary school, and likely would never have chosen to read it again if it were not for the Big Read. I'm so glad I did! This book now ranks high among my top favorites! And many of my favorite quotes are from Mark Twain, so it's no surprise that I absolutely loved his style, sarcasm, and wit.

Get full text of Tom Sawyer here: http://www.google.com/books?id=j5UgAAAAMAAJ&dq=the%20adventures%20of%20tom%20sawyer&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=false

You can also download the entire thing for FREE on Kindle or Stanza iPhone apps.

Here is my wikispace page I created for The Big Read: http://nheskids.wikispaces.com/The+BIG+READ+Resources

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain)

When Zachary Beaver Came to Town (Kimberly Willis Holt)

I think as adults we often forget how hard life is for kids. Even on a daily basis, when there are no major crises, kids experience frustrations, glee, and social conflict that are especially hard just because they don't yet know how to deal with them. Middle schoolers have it the worst, because everything (to them) is magnified 1000%.

Toby Wilson is a Texan middle schooler who is having an extremely rough summer, even by normal standards. His mother has left him and his father, his best friend's brother is fighting in Vietnam, and the love of his life (well, the love of his middle school life) is with another guy. And while he's feeling sorry for himself, along comes Zachary Beaver. Zachary is a 15 year old boy who is larger than life...literally. He is a big guy, and his "guardian" is capitalizing on his size by pulling him around from town to town in a trailer and charging admission to see the "Fattest Boy in the World." Zachary turns out to be sort of a jerk, the kind who is the way he is because he has had a hard life, too. When Toby and his best friend Cal get to know Zachary, the find out that he is full of surprises...and they surprise themselves when they go to great lengths to help him.

One of the recurring issues for Zachary is that he wants to be baptized. Because of his enormous size, and his discomfort with the town's minister (probably because even in such a wee little town the dude never even tries to see or help Zachary), he refuses to even attempt to go to church. In one conversation about baptism, Toby finds out that ,"First, he should respond to our altar call. He can wait till the fourth stanza if he wants. He must confess he's a sinner. Then we'll schedule him in our baptistery. He'd be the tenth person to be baptized in our brand-new baptistery." Reverend Newton says that as if Zachary would win a big prize. Kind of like the time IGA grocery store gave Earline a color TV for being the ten-thousandth customer.


It occurred to me that getting baptized doesn't sound all that exciting when you have Reverend Newton breaking it down to schedules and which stanza Zachary could walk down the aisle. He's more excited about the new baptistery than he is about what getting baptized would actually mean for Zachary. Reverend Newton also left out a key requirement in the process. Not only should a person confess that they are a sinner, they should also believe in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Once that change of heart and soul has been made, the baptism is merely a symbol. A meaningful, important symbol, but just a symbol. Reverend Newton should have explained that more clearly.

I really appreciated that one of the key figures in the story was Miss Myrtie Mae, the town's librarian. Miss Myrtie Mae pays attention, and she makes things happen for Toby, Zachary, and Cal the way only a librarian can. ;)

When Zachary Beaver Came to Town (Kimberly Willis Holt)

The Rick and Bubba Code (Rick Burgess/Bubba Bussey, with ghostwriter Martha Bolton)

You can tell by the wad of chewing tobacco in "Mona Lisa's" jaw that this is no ordinary book. A play on The DaVinci Code (which is a fabulous work of fiction, by the way, so long as you recongize that it is fiction), The Rick and Bubba Code was written by a popular duo of radio show hosts who broadcast from Birmingham. Also known for being very strong and outspoken Christians, Rick and Bubba's Christian worldview is a very important part of this book. It is filled with funny stories about their families, and woven throughout is the relevance of faith. There isn't much meat here, but it is a nice choice if you need a light, funny read or a simple brain break. My favorite feature, I must point out, is that the Mona Lisa on the cover is sporting a mullet.

The Rick and Bubba Code (Rick Burgess/Bubba Bussey, with ghostwriter Martha Bolton)

The Last Sin Eater, by Francine Rivers

Cadi is a young girl whose family is living in the mountains somewhere around early 20th century. Her parents don't seem to care a thing about her, and she thinks it's because her younger sister died while in her care (sort of). She carries around a tremendous amount of guilt for her sister's death, and thinks that the Sin Eater is the one who can help her get rid of her guilt. The Sin Eater (in keeping with mountain community culture) is a person whose job is to take in the sins of the newly dead through a ritual involving bread and wine. Along comes a prophet/missionary (called the Man of God), whose very presence causes the violent leader of their community to forbid anyone's contact with the man. Cadi is drawn to him, and as a result she and several others are saved as they hear the good news about the real Sin Eater. Her choices cause a chain reaction that unveils the deepest and darkest secrets of their settlement.

The book was heavy on the dialect dialogue, which is probably a good reason to listen to the audio version. It was okay, but not my favorite Francine Rivers. Overall rating: good, not great.

The Last Sin Eater, by Francine Rivers

Hurricane Song, by Paul Volponi

Like the rest of America, I watched the events of Hurricane Katrina unfold on television. Though I probably had a tad more insight than most- due to a friend (who is an RN) being stuck in a downtown New Orleans hospital-I was still safe and sound with my family hundreds of miles away from the action.
Reading this caused my personal memories of Katrina to resurface. I remember being glued to the TV, horrified by the things that were happening in the Superdome. I remember wondering why, with current technologies providing weeks of advance notice, there were still so many people stuck there. I remember seeing those people stranded in the Superdome scream out for help, and how they were blaming every person and agency imagineable for their pain and suffering. When my husband and I headed to Slidell and Mandeville (cities on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain) with my best friend and her extended family to do what little we could to help, I remember the unfathomable amount of devastation, the sweltering heat, the feeling of helplessness, and most vividly the disgusting stench of rotten food and human waste and death and disease.

This book transformed me (in the magic way that books do) into a 17 year old black teenager who took shelter with his family in the Superdome during Katrina. I experienced-through Miles- the terror of having to pay off gangs of thugs to prevent them from burning my things and beating up my family. I breathed the smell of 100+ degree heat saturated with feces and urine. I saw a man, so overcome with the heat and filth and hunger, commit suicide. I had to step over crack pipes in the bathroom, and eventually bought pills from a hussler to keep me from having to go to the bathroom at all. Providing the reader with a thorough experience of Katrina's Superdome is what this book did best. I was hypnotized by the story, and found myself hurting so deeply for the people who went through such a terrible ordeal. I thought that Volponi tripped and stumbled a tiny bit, though, when he gave these characters dialogue that insists the color of their skin was the reason they were there. Throughout the book I flip-flopped between wondering if he was just using those statements to make it more real, or whether he was trying to make a statement.

Hurricane Song also has another story about the relationship between Miles and his jazz musician father. A little cheesy, I'll fully admit, but a nice addition to the pressure and stress of the Superdome horror show.

I do wish that Volponi had included more about the history of New Orleans. It is an incredibly unique and significant city, and while Hurricane Song has the teen's attention (and it will), they might as well learn something! *Lots of harsh language in this one, people. Nothing that teenagers don't hear in the hallway at school, but it's enough for me to make a point about it.

This is Volponi's web site, and a fantastic resource to read more about his motivation for writing Hurricane Song.

Hurricane Song, by Paul Volponi

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

I feel as though my brain has been assaulted. The 394 pages of this monster were filled with the strangest, most obscure, most bizarre characters and events that I have ever encountered in a book. I am unsure that I have recovered enough to describe it, but here goes. Hold on tight.

Ignatius Jacques Reilly is a thirty year old, very well educated, egotistical, mentally deranged, idealistic yet diluded, morbidly obese man still living at home with his mother in New Orleans. He passes the days by writing insanely in his collection of notepads, watching movies at the local theater (but disrupting by screaming criticism at the screen), concocting plans to overthrow the government, and harassing everyone around him. It's pretty easy to see where Ignatius got his crazy, because his mother is just as bad...though I would concede that she is slightly more in touch with reality. (But only slightly.) Because of a debt owed by the Reilly duo, Ignatius is sent out to find a job. This leads to an absurdly ridiculous turn of events involving a riot in a pant-making factory, an underground pornography ring, and a comical attempt at hot dog vending.

The descriptive language used by this guy is hilarious. Rather than saying he was too fat to wear the former hot dog vendor's uniform, he says that "the costume, of course, had been made to fit the tuburcular and underdeveloped frame of the former vendor, and no amount of pulling and pushing, inhaling and squeezing would get it onto my muscular body." (page 228)

There are about 10 other minor characters that are sprinkled throughout. There is the flamboyantly gay Dorian Greene, who goes along with Ignatius's conspiracy for gay men to infiltrate the military and therefore take over the world solely because the "kickoff rally" will be a fantastic party. Then you have Darlene-the-Stripper whose act includes a cockatoo, policeman Mancuso who is forced to dress up in silly costumes while on patrol until he brings in a real criminal, and elderly and demented Miss Trixie working at the pants factory who makes daily demands for her Easter ham and turkey. Some of these people are inconsequential, some are vital to the plot of the story-even though you have to wade through Ignatius's spew to actually find it-and all are badly broken. They also have a heavy and distinctively New Orleans accent. I found myself rereading more than one page in attempt to figure out what the heck "Recor plain star at thirty a week" (page 218) really meant. (Translation: Record playing starts at thirty dollars a week.)

By the way, A Confederacy of Dunces was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1981.

I really had to work to read this bad boy. Its peculiarity wasn't endearing, its characters were confusing, and though its ending provided closure, it wasn't happy closure. I am glad to have read it, though, because a) It is an award winning book, b) It is renowned in the world o' books, and c) I can see it being valuable for study on the undergrad level or above. *There are some rather shocking and inappropriate manifestations of Ignatius's sexual delusions, which do fit in with his characterization but are still completely out of line for discussions in the high school setting. Kids should not, I repeat NOT, be reading this book. The truth is, though, with the way the whole situation is worded, they probably wouldn't understand it anyway.

It's over the top, this book. It is wild and shocking and completely unlike any other of its kind....I guess that is what makes it a perfect representation of New Orleans.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole