Book Review: Internment by Samira Ahmed

This book starts with a book burning. 

Layla is living in a time when America is out of control: a new president, a Muslim ban, exclusion laws, rampant Islamophobia, and a curfew, and finally relocation camps. 

This story, set in a near future America, features a repeat of the injustices played out after Pearl Harbor was bombed and many Japanese Americans were placed in relocation camps, but this story revolves around Muslims. After Layla sneaks out to meet her boyfriend and is out past curfew - she races home only to hear loud knocks on her door in the middle of that night by the Exclusion Authority. Though not a consequence of her actions, her family is targeted for relocation and given 10 minutes to pack a single bag each to take into their new lives. Phones are confiscated - there is no way to tell her boyfriend what is happening, she has no pictures of them together, no way to hear his voice. And so it begins...

So if you found yourself in Layla's position - what would you do? Keep quiet and try to survive? Or rattle all the chains, put yourself and your family in danger, and try to change things EVEN THOUGH YOU KNOW THE DANGERS?

This book moves at a fast clip and will keep you thinking all the way through. It is available in print in our library or through SORA. 

"Unless we know our history, we're doomed to repeat it? Isn't that the lesson? But we always forget. Forgetting is the American grain."

 

Book Review: Early Departures / Justin A. Reynolds

First of all let me just state that my ancient ereader is the best. No back light, a tiny keyboard, and it is a beast. Yay for that.

Now for the book.

• This was a fast read - the book just grabs you and holds you
• It will make you think about honesty and death
• There is humor rolled into this book (though it didn't really make me LOL)
• The character development is good - all the way through

Early in this story you learn that there are moments that divide your life into before and after. Like March 13, 2020 - when this pandemic sent us home from school. None of us are the same as we were before that date. Some change is good, some bad - but we have all been impacted. Think of before. Think of after. For Jamal that moment was 11:43 - when Jamal's parents were killed in a car accident. After that moment - nothing is the same as before and now Jamal is just sliding through life without taking anything seriously - not his schooling, not his girlfriend, not his best friend. 

And then... there is a party, and a drowning, and again nothing is the same. 

 

Book Review: How to be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery

You have heard of comfort food, right? Or Saturday clothes? Or sliding into your favorite slippers. Well - Animal books are my comfort reads and one of my favorite writers of animal stories is Sy Montgomery.

This book contains 13 animal stories - from dogs to pigs to spiders and even Matschie's tree kangaroo  (look it up - they are just so cute). Each of these stories shares a connection between people and animals. And all of those stories together are balm for my soul.

I hope you find some sort of comfort book - a type of book that you return to again and again in order to make everything feel right in your world. 

"Just being with any animal is edifying, for each has a knowing that surpasses human understanding. A spider can taste the world with her feet. Birds can see colors we can't begin to describe. A cricket can sing with his legs and listen with his knees. A dog can hear sounds above the level of human hearing, and can tell if you're upset even before you are aware of it yourself." (Sy Montgomery in the introduction)

All of those facts seem like little miracles to me. They fill me with awe. And they make my world a richer place to live. And yes, all of that is comforting.

Book Review: Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

I have been reading Peter and the Starcatchers with a group of students. They LOVE it. I fervently DISLIKE it. What the heck?

Peter and the Starcatchers is both a retelling of Peter Pan (now I want to reread the original Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie) and an action adventure book. As a matter of fact, there is a LOT of action in this book. Good guys, and bad guys, and those in between - pirates and savages, and porpoises that speak a porpoise language. There are mermaids with huge mouths and devouring teeth and a huge monster that eats people.  This plot twists and turns but there is often escape happening or running away or running toward. 

This is an action thriller between covers. 

The truth is - this just isn't my kind of book. Am I glad I read it? I think so. What I learned is that I need more from a book that action. I need something added, something to take with me. And for me - this book just didn't offer that.

BUT - you might enjoy it. If you like short chapters with lots of action, if you like retellings of stories, if you like characters that can surprise you and LOL moments - this might just be your book. 
 

Book Review: Words We Don't Say / K. J. Reilly

Joel just doesn't fit into school very well - he is more interested in cars than math (at least the way they teach it at school.) He goes to school, he does what he has to, he gets by. This is his story in his unfiltered internal dialog (along with his filtered external voice) and a bunch of unsent text messages. (Can you really save these to draft?)

Anyway, Joel must participate in community service as a graduation requirement and volunteers at the soup kitchen each Wednesday night. Luckily Eli also volunteers then and he has an incredible crush on her. At the soup kitchen he meets a bunch of characters, some who are willing to share their insights and others who remain silent. Many are veterans and many have mental illness.

Why would I recommend this book? The characters are flawed but  well formed and interesting. There is a very big difference between Joel's internal voice (lots of swearing) and his external voice (which is pretty polite.) There is some insight into mental illness and trauma. And a real value placed on intelligence that isn't of the Advanced Placement variety.  Finally, I found myself LOLing at multiple points in the story even though many of the topics in this book are heavy ones. 

If bad language bothers you - stop - don't read. If you don't enjoy visiting someone else's mind - stop. But if you like to jump into someone else's experience and see all of the richness that makes us human - jump right into this book with both your eyes and your mind wide open. 

 

Book Review: My Whole Truth / Mischa Thrace

Can't get your hands on a book? I have been playing with the various platforms that we have subscribed to which offer ebooks. This title comes from Junior Library Guild (JLG). The books on JLG are only offered for a period of time - up to ninety days. As I finish this story - there are about 60 days left for people to access it.

So what is this story about? Seelie loves horses and has spent a splendid day out riding. From the back of a horse, she notices a boy from school watching her - Shane. He is a few years older and has spent his school years bullying her. She flips him the bird and rides into the woods. He is a good ole boy - an athlete, he has friends. When she gets back to the barn, Shane attacks her and she must defend herself - she kills him in the process.  As the story begins, she is calling 911 in order to get help. She has been cut and stabbed. She is bleeding profusely. She needs help - not only medical help but the support of her friends.

This story is about all that, it is also about arrest, the court system and the fear of prison. It is about her friends - in all of their imperfection. 

This book isn't the perfect read. Some of the characters are a bit two dimensional and and some of the situations feel a little forced. But all in all, it is pretty entertaining. It kept me reading.

Today is Tuesday, March 2 - you have a couple of months to read this. You can find Junior Library Guild on our website under the Read tab.
 

Book Review: Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable by Mark Dunn

I found this novel at a thrift store and it has been sitting on my shelf. Quickly, before vacation ends, I decided that I needed to pick out a book that was ENTIRELY different from everything else I have been reading. BINGO - I did it.

This book is about an island off the shores of the USA in which the population is proud of their love of language and linguistic abilities. In the middle of the island stands a monument dedicated to Nevin Nollop, the (fictional) author of the sentence "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog"  which is spelled out in tiles on the monument. (Anyone who is over a certain age and has taken a typing class will recognize this sentence as it contains of the letters contained in the English Language and is often used for typing practice.)

One day a young girl walks by the monument and discovers that one of the tiles has fallen off - the letter Z which she quickly delivers it to the Offices of the High Island Council. The council members come to the conclusion that this fallen letter is a message from the deceased Nevin Nollop to exclude the letter from any further communication within the island. Within a few days the council has issued an edict that letter Z has been banned from use in both writing and speaking. Furthermore, if a citizen is caught using the letter there are increasingly dire consequences including public humiliation, standing in the stocks or being flogged, and finally expulsion from the island or death. 

Losing a letter is not such a terrible fate - it is only the letter Z which is hardly used.  Unfortunately, over the course of the next few months, more and more tiles fall off of the monument until there are very few letters left and language becomes increasingly restricted. Life becomes more and more difficult. 

This is a playful book that is a lot of fun. The entire book is written in letters from one citizen to the next. I found myself seeking banned letters. Feeling sorry for the citizens. And hoping for a miracle and a resolution to the problem. 

This book is going in my backpack to school on Monday and will be entered into the collection. It is an older book (2001) but so much fun.