Posts filed under 'Non-fiction'
“They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan”
They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan by Benson Deng, Alephonsion Deng and Benjamin Ajak with Judy A. Bernstein
In the introduction, Judy Bernstein compares the situation that the three ‘lost boys’ of this title have been through as analogous to that of the novel Lord of the Flies. I liked this because you are reading this book for your English II Honors class and Lord of the Flies is required reading during the sophomore year. Once you have read both of these books, I think you’ll have great class discussions on the ideas of whether individuals need to be governed—whether they behave differently if they know that there is no policeman (or policewoman) on the corner, keeping them in line.
The three young men who tell their stories here are brothers and a cousin from ‘Dinka Land’ in the Sudan. They walked a 1,000 mile journey to the safety of a refugee camp in Kenya. (The map in the book is very helpful.) One of the first things that the lost boys did when they came to the United States (to San Diego, CA) was buy journals and write their stories. They begin with ordinary life in their villages—coming-of-age rituals of being circumcised, daily meals, caring for animals, the relationships between husbands and wives. As rumors of war spread, the boys are instructed on how to hide when the government soldiers come through the village. Eventually, the villages are raided and the boys lose track of their parents and other family members. They are on their own, trying to make it to safety.
Their trips—both together and separately, in the company of soldiers or with groups of similar lost boys—are circuitous. As the reader, I wondered about the long-term effects of their having witnessed so much death—murder, kids stepping on land mines, bombs going off in other kids’ hands. I wonder how they survived starvation and death from lack of water on numerous occasions. I also thought that, at your age, you may not have heard of some of the more awful things the book addresses, such as female circumcision.
If you are very moved by this book, you may enjoy reading A Long Way Gone, which I’ve reviewed on this blog. The boy in that book did not escape the rebel soldiers (as the three in this book managed to do), so his story is a bit different. He is forced to become a soldier as a mere child and to brutally murder villagers. The veteran soldiers keep him and other boys drugged all the time, so that they don’t have a real awareness of what they are doing.
Both books give us an idea of what war is really like when it is happening in your own backyard.
Add comment May 29, 2010
“Fast Food Nation”
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
Though I’d read several books about food in the last few years, I missed this one. So when it came up as a choice for summer reading in the English II Honors class, I thought I’d try it as well.
Fast Food Nation follows a tradition of muckraking journalism—it takes a problem, reports on it in depth, and hopes that through education, people will come together and demand change. I recommend reading the paperback edition because there is a section about the blowback from the original book. It made some very powerful people very angry. Also—don’t let the length of the book scare you. The last 100 pages are just the notes and bibliography.
Fast Food Nation begins by making interesting connections between the American Dreams of Walt Disney and Ray Kroc, one of the founders (the man who started the franchise we know today) of McDonald’s and goes on to discuss those of Carl Karcher (founder of Carl’s Jr.). Schlosser shows the darker side of these men as well as the energy, hard work, and vision that each needed to make his dream come true. (If your understanding of Walt Disney is completely rosy, and you are interested, you can find documentation of the other side in any biography written in the last 15 years—his involvement in fast food in minor. So FFN doesn’t spend too much time on him.)
Well, unfortunately, some big dreams turn into nightmares, and fast food dreams came to cause many problems across the nation. As McDonald’s and Ronald McDonald became the most recognized brand and character across the country, Americans ate more and more fast food, becoming fatter and fatter—and thus unhealthy in many ways. Schlosser discusses some of the social forces that are involved as well—with both parents working outside the home, often no one feels like cooking.
The sections of the book on teenage employees and how easy it is to create an uneducated, low-wage, benefits-free work force are interesting, as is the successful efforts of McDonald’s to keep workers from unionizing, and fast food employers’ ability to get millions of dollars in federal funds (yeah, taxpayers’ money) to train their workers while mechanizing jobs so that no training is necessary. There’s also the outrage of vegetarians and Hindu people over beef stock in French fires (it makes them taste better) as well as how fast food production has eliminated that American icon, the cowboy on the range. But the part of the book that really had people upset—that caused attacks on Schlosser’s credibility—was the section on the meat-packing industry. This feels like a flashback to The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. (A comparison of the two books would make a great class project.)
The speed with which cattle are killed and processed has risen exponentially. A job that once required the skill of a butcher is done in assembly-line fashion. Large meat-packing corporations advertise for workers in Mexico, who come to the jobs (legally or illegally). They have no health insurance, and the injury rate is very high. Injured workers are ‘kicked to the curb’ and new ones replace them. Reading this section of the book makes you think that working in meat packing must be one of the worst jobs in the world. But the part that makes you sick is that, due to the speed and lack of training in butchering, when cattle are disemboweled, feces sprays on the meat which is later ground in and arrives in your fast food hamburgers. That’s one reason why E. coli started breaking out, leading to illness and death. In addition, sick cows are killed, dirty meat and blood from the floor is mixed in with the final product. While this section of the book is stomach-turning, it’s also riveting—you can’t stop reading.
And there’s a great lesson. Although people have tried through government to pass laws to change the industry (pretty unsuccessfully—meat packers donate a lot of money to conservative legislators, and one who was vital to these decisions at the time the book was written was married to a woman on the board of the largest meat packer in the world), what has worked much better is to stop eating at fast food places. When business declines, they make changes to bring it back.
Add comment May 25, 2010
“Into Thin Air”
Much has been written about Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and I can’t say anything new, but that, like every reviewer, I thought it was a great book. I’m glad that it’s one of the options for your summer reading.
As you know (or will know when you finish the book), Krakauer climbed Mt. Everest in 1996—at the very time that one of the worst killing-storms hit the mountain. His party (as well as another linked to a famous guide) was one of the most affected in a storm that left five climbers dead and one–who appeared dead–very frostbitten, losing his hand and parts of his face.
Though it’s been awhile since I read the book, three things have stayed with me. The first is the deep irony of the circumstances—that Krakauer hoped to show how, with the right guide and enough money, these days just about anyone could climb the much commercialized Everest. Yet two of the five people who died in the storm of the day Krakauer descended the peak were guides Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, the world’s best. And so nature can’t be controlled, no matter what we believe. The second thing that has remained with me over the years is how an oxygen-deprived brain can cause people to make terrible decisions, ones that put their own and others’ lives at risk. And last, though I can’t say it was surprising, is the sadness of learning that climbers, who were very close to their long-time goal of climbing Everest, left others to die because helping them would have meant that they had to turn away from the peak and not ‘summit.’
So—what most affected you?
Add comment May 18, 2010
“Super Freakonomics”
Maybe I shouldn’t do this so soon after commenting on Freakonomics, but I just loved this one, too. Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance, like its predecessor, has the reader looking at trade, data and economic transactions in a new way. Chapters include:
- How is a Street Prostitute like a Department Store Santa?: In which we explore the cost of being a woman.
- Why Should Suicide Bombers Buy Life Insurance: in which we discuss compelling aspects of birth and death, though primarily death.
- Unbelievable Stories about Apathy and Altruism: in which people are revealed to be less good than previously thought, and also less bad. (This was my favorite chapter!)
- The Fix is In—and It’s Cheap and Simple: in which big, seemingly intractable problems are solved in surprising ways.
- What Do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo Have in Common: in which we take a cool, hard look at global warming.
- Monkeys are People Too.
When you have an assignment for outside reading in your econ class, this is another fun choice.
Add comment April 1, 2010
“Freakonomics”
Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
When your econ teacher assigns some outside reading, this is the book to grab. It’s entertaining as well as informative. Its authors are a well-respected economist (as you’ll learn from your reading, back in 2003, Levitt received the Clark Medal as the best economist under 40) and a journalist who writes for some great publications including The New York Times and The New Yorker. Together, they look at some very odd issues and apply the science of economics to them. The result is written in a style that anyone can understand and that makes the subject fun. I mean it’s really a wacky book.
Freakonomics asks questions such as: What do school teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? (Given the right incentives, these people, known for integrity, will cheat). What does the legalization of abortion in the U.S. have to do with declining crime rates? (This discussion is quite politically incorrect and sadly enlightening.) Why do drug dealers still live with their mothers? (Unless they are on the top of their business pyramid, they don’t make enough money to move out–but drug dealing is a ‘glamour’ job like being a movie star. Everyone dreams of making it to the top.) What can parents do to make their children smart and successful? (Sadly, everything they can do must be done long before they become pregnant or have children. So forget Baby Einstein.) Do first names help or hinder children in being successful? (The names that successful people give their children are later popular with less successful parents, and they don’t alter lives very much.) How are member of the Ku Klux Klan like real estate agents? (When they’re looking out for number one, don’t get the idea that it’s you.) What kind of profile on a dating service gets results?
In Freakonomics, you’ll learn that incentives matter—and how odd some incentives are; that the phrase ‘conventional wisdom’ was never meant to indicate that it was ‘smart’ or ‘right’ (and it still isn’t most of the time). The authors tell us that there’s no unifying theme in this book, and that turns out to be true. Reading it is just a chance to look at economics in a new way and to turn some old assumptions upside down. Lots of fun—and it just meets that 200 page requirement, so it’s a quick red. Come check it out.
P.S.—The authors wrote another book—Superfreakonomics. I haven’t read it yet, but I bet it would make another great outside reading book for econ class.
Add comment March 2, 2010
“Beautiful Boy” and “Tweak”
“It hurts so bad that I cannot save him, protect him, keep him out of harm’s way, shield him from
pain. What good are fathers if not for these things?” Thomas Lynch, “The Way We Are”
David Sheff begins Beautiful Boy with this quote. The fact that he can’t save his son Nic, from his addiction to meth doesn’t stop him from trying again and again, doesn’t stop him from blaming himself for any and every mistake, small or large, that he made in raising Nic, doesn’t keep him from the intense research about meth addiction that informs this memoir.
To say I was riveted from page one is not hyperbole. I wanted so badly for everything to get better, for Nic to wake up and see what his addiction was doing to his family, to him. But as a meth addict this wasn’t even possible for Nic. The research tells you why and Sheff explains it. It seems the best possible hope to stop meth addiction is never to start, not once. If this is hard for you to believe, if this just seems like the sort of fairy tale that teachers tell, YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK. And—if you are suffering because someone in your family is an addict—if a parent, brother or sister is lying, stealing your money, breaking into your house or your room, promising to do better but never acting on that promise—YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK. It will reinforce the “three C’s of Al-Anon” for you: you didn’t cause it, you can’t control it and you can’t cure it. One focus of this book is to help addicts’ family members to stop being ‘addicted to addiction’—to work on living their own lives.
Beautiful Boy is as much a story about relapse as it is about anything. As it opens, Nic returns from college very excited to see his family, his little brother and sister. But he’s relapsed into crystal meth addiction and life explodes. From here, we track back to look at the course of Nic’s addiction. David Sheff, as Nic’s father, will blame himself about so many things: his divorce from his first wife, his unconventional raising of Nic, the fact that he did drugs himself when he was young. Yet to the reader—who will acknowledge that Nic’s joint-custody life must be lousy because it requires him to jockey between the Bay Area (San Francisco) and Los Angeles—parts of Nic’s childhood seem ideal. He is allowed so much creativity; he lives with his father, step-mother, sister and brother in one of the most beautiful, desirable neighborhoods in the country (in Marin County); his step-mother is an artist and encourages Nic’s own artistic skills. He is not only smart and well-loved by his teachers at his exclusive private school—he’s an agile athlete too, and has the time and money to surf. His father joins him and takes the kind of interest in Nic’s activities that most kids only dream about.
How does all this turn out so terribly wrong? Nic experiments with alcohol and marijuana in middle school. From there, he moves on to harder drugs. After going away to Paris as an exchange student, he not only comes home with an ulcer, but has become an addict. His many efforts at rehab fail over and over in a heartbreaking cycle of addiction and sobriety. He is depressed. He uses up his health insurance allowance for rehab and then his parents dive into their bank accounts. Meanwhile, David Sheff, the father, has a brain hemorrhage and nearly dies. It seems he’s going to have to let go or he won’t be around to raise his younger children. Yet even his father’s near death doesn’t stop Nic’s addiction. He takes up with a girlfriend who shoots meth and speedballs with him.
Since Sheff has done so much research, he will tell the reader how meth burns away nerve endings and wipes out the brain’s dopamine (a neurotransmitter responsible for feeling good, for feeling pleasure); how addicts cough up the lining of their lungs. He points out the fact that if the body and mind are to heal, the addict must be sober for two years. Nic is sober once for eighteen months and relapses; then again for almost two years and relapses.
Tweak is Nic Sheff’s telling of his own tale, but he covers a shorter time period than his father does in Beautiful Boy. Tweak is a young adult book (it’s meant to be read by teens), and it covers some pretty scary territory. As a crystal meth addict, Nic has ‘turned tricks’ for drug money; he gets an infection from shooting up and nearly has his arm amputated. It’s tough to read about someone destroying himself—especially if you’ve read Beautiful Boy first and are thinking of Nic as his father portrays him. However, Nic’s story might be the incentive you need to bolter yourself against peer pressure, to reject a life in ruins.
Add comment February 25, 2010
“Readicide”
Readicide: How Schools are Killing Reading and What You Can Do about It by Kelly Gallagher
The dedication of this book states: “For those educators who resist the political in favor of the authentic.” So this is a book for teachers, and teachers of language arts will find it especially useful. (This review is directed primarily to teachers.) However, if you are a student who is doing any sort of research project on high-stakes testing (like STAR/CST tests) or on why teens don’t read very much, you’ll find this book useful. You can check it out from the textbook room (rather than the circulation desk at the library).
In his introduction, Gallagher, an English teacher from Southern California, introduces the term ‘readicide’ “because it cuts to the central ironic thesis of this book: rather than helping students, many of the reading practices found in today’s classrooms are actually contributing to the death of reading.” I agree with this premise, as do many folks who want to nurture a love of reading in teens (such as librarians and English teachers). Gallagher discuss how we can turn the trend around.
Basically, Gallagher uses data to show that school are more interested in nurturing test-taking skills than in nurturing a love of reading. We limit positive reading experiences; we overteach pleasure reading books (which should just be read, not studied!); we underteach classic books (so that they are too confusing–and students hate them and give up).
Readicide quotes Marzano (so what Gallagher discusses lines up with what teachers here at COHS are working toward practicing); argues that testing data is something beyond damn lies (as Mark Twain so aptly put it); that current practice leads to word poverty and a deficit of knowledge capital (it doesn’t matter if you can read the words if you don’t know what the writing is about); that we spend so much time teaching to the test, we can no longer study long, challenging works–and thus, students don’t develop higher-level thinking skills; and that SSR is necessary to allow students to build their prior knowledge and background.
Gallagher offers many suggestions and examples lessons for helping teens read books for pleasure without ruining those books with long reports and worksheet interruptions. He also shows how to approach a difficult text that requires teaching so that teens can still enjoy the ‘deeper meaning’ without getting either bored or lost.
There’s an appendix of 101 books that Gallagher’s reluctant readers love–these are current titles (and happily, I’ve read many of them–several are reviewed in this blog).
Add comment January 4, 2010
“1776″
1776 by David McCullough (Another title I read in keeping my promise to find good non-fiction.)
This is a great story written by a great storyteller. David McCullough has won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. (If this doesn’t mean anything to you, let’s just say this guy is among the best of the best American history writers.)
As a book about a momentous period of history, it’s short—under 300 pages excluding the endnotes—a factor that is often a deal breaker here at COHS. And its brevity is part of its success—it’s a tightly woven story of the trials and triumphs of George Washington and the Continental Army. The reader meets many players in the American Revolution from both sides of ‘the pond’.
Previously, I had only read of King George III as a madman, and was surprised to find him pretty reasonable in this account. I learned why the leaders of the British Army and Navy made some costly decisions that, on the surface, appear blundering and foolish, but on closer examination, had merit. I understood why Washington ‘crossing the Delaware’ is so famous an event. I even learned about William Lee, the slave who served with Washington, always by his side and in the thick of things.
Though the success of the American Revolution depended on many people—and they are given credit here—George Washington is the star of the book. He takes the most ragtag, miserable group of diseased, undisciplined men, who several times flee from battle (you won’t read that in your history book!), and wins a war for independence. Success didn’t follow a straight line, and many important battles were lost along the way, causing Washington to despair and his second in command (Charles Lee) to privately question Washington’s ability to lead.
1776 began so badly for Washington that he wrote to Joseph Reed (an adjunct general):
“I have often thought how much happier I should have been if, instead of accepting of a command under such circumstances, I had taken my musket upon my shoulders and entered the ranks, or, if I could have justified the measure to posterity, and my own conscience, had retired to the back country, and lived in a wigwam.”
Reed, along with Charles Lee came to criticize Washington for indecision—which was, as 1776 shows—a valid criticism. But Lee is the worst sort of backstabber. In an encounter that seems like it should have come from a fictional tale of intrigue, Lee wrote a letter to Reed about Washington:
“[I] lament with you that fatal indecision of mind which in war is a much greater disqualification than stupidity or even want of personal courage. Accident may put a decisive blunder in the right, but eternal defeat and miscarriage must attend the men of the best parts if cursed with indecision.”
This letter was accidentally delivered to Washington, who opened and read it! Imagine if you were risking your life, your reputation and the future of the colonies for independence and then found out that your ‘second in command’ guy is doing this behind your back! You’ll be surprised to found out what Washington does. (And don’t worry, fate will eventually deal with Lee.) Persevering through these kinds of trials points to Washington’s greatness. As I read, this story was one of the most memorable in the book because my mind linked it to the stories of some politicians today who whine about being criticized and then throw in the towel (or their job as governor), moving on to write their own scathing criticism of those who don’t agree with them. Maybe they should be reading this book instead of having their own screeds ghostwritten.
The other scene that stuck with me was the story of Henry Knox and the movement of cannons from Fort Ticonderoga (New York) to Boston. That’s 300 miles in the dead of winter—horrific conditions—with 120,000 pounds of artillery. This was amazing in that it was brilliant and almost impossible at the same time. It’s the kind of thing that inspires true admiration. Read it!
Add comment December 9, 2009
“Lies My Teacher Told Me”
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen
This book was originally published in 1994 and was revised in 2007. I’d been thinking about reading it for a long time, but finally put it on the top of my list when I realized I should be reading more non-fiction because I had little to recommend to you.
And I do recommend this one! It challenged just about everything I learned in my history course (dinosaur days, yeah), and shows that not much has changed in the courses you are taking now—unless your own U. S. History teacher is challenging the textbook by sharing information with alternate points-of-view.
I’ve tried to have a clearer picture of American history by reading selections from Columbus’s journal (now, that was eye-opening—his own words prove him to be a vicious brute) and paying attention to alternate versions of wars and presidential policies. But Loewen tackles treatment of Native American (from Columbus forward) in detail; he dishes the dirt about American policies from the time of the Pilgrims forward. Did you know:
- Christopher Columbus did not discover that the world is round (lots of people already knew this)? He, with the Spanish explorers he brought to the New World, hunted and murdered Indians for sport and dog food? That he had the hands of Indians cut off as punishment for disobeying the Spaniards?
- Plagues had killed off so much of the Native American population before the Pilgrims arrived that those Pilgrims arrived to lands that were already cleared and ready to be populated (i.e., a lot of the hard work of ‘settling’ was already done)? That Squanto, famous for helping the Pilgrims, was not just an Indian traveler who happened to speak English, but had been enslaved twice by Europeans? That when he finally got home again, his tribe had been wiped out by a plague—probably a good reason for him to align himself with the Europeans?
- That John Brown was not mentally ill and/or deranged?
- That Abraham Lincoln, who was idolized when I was younger, and then demonized as a racist later (at least in some books I’ve read), was actually deeply thoughtful about race and country—and probably deserves much of the respect he receives (although for reasons more complex than textbooks allow)?
- President Woodrow Wilson (whom I’ve always thought of as a decent man because of his championing of the League of Nations) was an open racist who removed African Americans from all levels of government?
- Helen Keller was a ‘left-wing socialist’ who wrote extensively championing the common person?
- That several U. S. history textbooks say the same thing, almost word-for-word, as if they’ve all been written by one person with one point-of-view? (Unless they are plagiarizing from one another and no one has noticed!)
Lies My Teacher Told Me discusses lots of the stuff history book publishers are afraid to let you know about our history because they are afraid you won’t be able to take it—you’ll be unoptimistic about your future. (Hum. . .) The thing is—as bad as some these facts are—they are incredibly interesting. Loewen argues that if the facts were in your history books, you’d like the subject a lot more—and people of all ethnic backgrounds as well as both genders would have role model from the past.
There are people who won’t like Lies My Teacher Told Me. I read a review on it that stated, “To account for the deplorable situation, [Loewen] offers this quasi-Marxist explanation: ‘Perhaps we are all dupes, manipulated by elite white male capitalists who orchestrate how history is written as part of their scheme to perpetuate their own power and privilege at the expense of the rest of us.’” (Gilbert Taylor) These words are taken out of context as Loewen is asking a rhetorical question, and then answers that, no, it’s really unlikely that this is the case. Ironically, this is just the kind of ‘tweaking’ that Loewen is decrying.
Read it. You may be disgusted by the facts, but you’ll be fascinated as well.
Add comment December 8, 2009
“Queen Bees & Wannabes”
Queen Bees & Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends & Other Realities of Adolescence by Rosalind Wiseman
Although this book is directed to parents of girls, it’s a great book for the girls themselves to read (as it is for anyone who deals with girls such as teachers and counselors). It is the basis for the movie Mean Girls; in fact, the Queen Bees in the book are sometimes referred to as the RMG (Really Mean Girls).
I’m afraid that the introduction to the book—in which Wiseman establishes her credentials as someone who is a natural to author such a book (she’s spent years teaching classes for girl and started Empower, an organization for girls)—will be a bit off-putting. But keep reading. You’ll recognize yourself and your friends (both true friends and those that you are afraid will ostracize you). You’ll recognize the roles that girls play in their cliques (although they many not call them cliques)—The Queen Bee, the Sidekick, the Wannabes, the Messenger, the Banker, the Torn Bystanders, the Target. And you’ll get a lot of good advice about how to navigate these shark-filled waters of teen girlhood, about recognizing the patterns of behavior in cliques.
Wiseman also discusses boys, boyfriends, parties, drugs, sexuality, and homosexuality. She also has a chapter on the roles of guys in their cliques (again, they’d never use the word ‘clique,’ even though that’s what they are). She shows how easily something can go wrong for a girl, wrecking her reputation or putting her on the bottom of the social ladder. She quotes many teen girls and points to parenting styles that work and don’t work. (The best style of parenting teens is “The Loving-Hard-Ass Parent.”) Finally, she talks about getting professional help for girls when it is needed.
I picked this book because I wanted to read some non-fiction that I might, in turn, recommend to you. It’s amazing how quickly it brought me back to the days of Queen Bees and the struggles to be happy when the RMG’s are calling all the shots, deciding who they will invite to parties, who will be able to sit with them in the cafeteria, who will be the Target and isolated at any particular time. The good news is that the social hierarchy of teen girls loses all power in adulthood. It’s very rare to find an adult Queen Bee, and if you do, you’ll probably be able to ignore her. But in the meantime, Queen Bees and Wannabes will help you to stand up for yourself without leaving you to stand alone.
2 comments November 30, 2009
