Book Review: Carrie

I don't watch horror.  Let me repeat - I did not watch horror, that is, until I met my now fiancee' and he kept trying to convince me to watch horror movies with him at Halloween.  I refused the first year, but the second year, I allowed him to introduce me to "mild" horror movies.  Those were enough for me, but out of those movies, he dreamt up another idea: for us to read "Carrie" together.

Now, I do read thrillers sometimes.  I consumed the entire "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" series without stopping.  So, I figured I could manage to read a horror/thriller by Stephen King.  We went to Half Price Books and each bought a copy.  The race was on - who would finish reading the book first?

I did.  I loved "Carrie" in the sense that I loved the movie "The Village" - I could relate to the religious upbringing.  For that reason, I could not stop reading the first half of the book.  The religious expectations of modesty and the prayers of repentance were all too familiar.

The second half was a drag, however.  King had basically told me, as the reader, what was going to happen in the end of the book, so it was hard to keep reading when I already knew what was going to occur.  On top of that, the constant switching from the narration of the story to the news and police reports seemed dry and repetitive.  It seemed he could have communicated the entire second half of the story in half as many pages and been more effective.

Don't get me wrong - I would still recommend the book to the same friends I would recommend "The Village" movie.  But in the same breath, I would whisper to them to skim read the second half and they would never know the difference.

Book Review: I Am Malala

I am the first to tell you that I am horrible at keeping up with the news.  I don't have cable TV, the few times I have subscribed to newspapers, I couldn't keep up with reading them, and until I discovered the "news" app on my iPhone a few weeks ago, I never even attempted to navigate the overwhelming amount of news posted on the internet.

Therefore, the first time I heard of Malala - the girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban - was when the movie came out in 2014.  When I first heard of her, the thing that stood out to me was the fact that her father was supportive of her even though he came from a culture where women were traditionally subjects and men celebrated their sons rather than their daughters.  I remember this quote from Malala's father, "In my part of the world most people are known by their sons.  I am one of the few lucky fathers known by his daughter."

I was impressed by that line, and it was always on the running list in the back of my mind to one day read Malala's book, Malala's story; therefore, when I was in Half Price Books a few months back with my fiancee' and saw this book lying out on a display, I bought it.  I was in angst about my own students' lack of appreciation for the education not only available to them, but basically shoved down their throats.  I was contemplating the topics for their upcoming research paper, and I wanted lack of educational opportunities to be one of the topics.  I figured the book could be used as a source for my classroom, as well as something I could enjoy reading for pleasure on weekends and evenings.

The cover of the book points out that Malala is a "Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize," and it also has a quote from the Washington Post comparing her story to that of the diary of Anne Frank, so I must say the bar was set very high before I even opened the cover.  While the story does not disappoint, at times the story-telling does.  It is easy to get lost among the many explanations of the strife in Pakistan among the government, the civilians, the Taliban, and the U.S. government.  Sometimes there is too much telling of the story instead of allowing the reader to simply experience the action and the emotion of the story.  For these reasons, it took me a few months to get through the whole book.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I have a hard time seeing my 16-year-old students sitting down to read the entire book, cover-to-cover, simply because of the facts mentioned above.  However, next year, the first time there is grumbling about the mandatory education they are required to participate in, I will be reading them this passage from the book.

Aunt Najma was in tears.  She had never seen the sea before.  My family and I sat on the rocks, gazing across the water, breathing in the salt tang of the Arabian Sea.  It was such a big expanse, surely no one could know where it ended.  At that moment I was very happy.  "One day I want to cross this sea," I said.

"What is she saying?" asked my aunt, as if I were talking about something impossible.  I was still trying to get my head around the fact that she had been living in the seaside city of Karachi for thirty years and yet had never actually laid eyes on the ocean.  Her husband would not take her to the beach, and even if she had somehow slipped out of the house, she would not have been able to follow the signs to the sea because she could not read.

I sat on the rocks and thought about the fact that across the water were lands where women were free.  In Pakistan we had had a woman prime minister and in Islamabad I had met those impressive working women, yet the fact was that we were a country where almost all the women depend entirely on men.  My headmistress Maryam was a strong educated woman, but in our society she could not live on her own and come to work.  She had to be living with a husband, brother or parents.

In Pakistan when women say they want independence, people think this means we don't want to obey our fathers, brothers or husbands.  But it does not mean that.  It means we want to make decisions for ourselves.  We want to be free to go to school or to go to work.  Nowhere is it written in the Quran that a woman should be dependent on a man.  The word has not come down from the heavens to tell us that every woman should listen to a man.

"You are a million miles away, Jani," said my father, interrupting my thoughts.  "What are you thinking about?"

"Just about crossing oceans, Aba," I replied.

"Forget all that!" shouted my brother Atal.  "We're at the beach and I want to go for a camel ride!"

Here, in just a short passage, the girl who stood up for education (in many different ways - you will have to read the book to understand all those ways) and was shot by the Taliban, gives us a succinct picture of what the lack of basic rights, among them education, does to the women in her country.  This is what my students need to see - a wider perspective than their own.  For the purpose of widening one's perspective outside of the too narrow world we exist in, for this I recommend this book.

Book Review: The Professor and the Madman

The subtitle for this book reads "A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary."  Sounds boring, right?

Well, maybe only the part that mentions the making of a dictionary.  The other part - the murder and insanity - that is what intrigues you enough to start reading...and keep reading...and finish reading.

To be honest, I'm an English major and a high school English teacher, and even though I read and write all the time, I was still skeptical when my fiancee' repeatedly recommended this book.

The skepticism ended when I began reading because, to be honest, I couldn't put this book down.  The book reads more like a mystery/drama (somehow magically combined)  rather than a history.  The intrigue of the relationship between a madman - who, believe me, did some pretty crazy things - and a well-esteemed professor is enough to keep one reading, but how this relationship brought about the dictionary - well, that part is especially enamoring if you, like me, are into words and reading and English-y stuff.

Although I often reach a "dead spot" in the middle of many books that I end up skimming or skipping over, there was no "dead spot" in "The Professor and the Madman."  It is a page turner, and it is no wonder that it was a national bestseller.

So, if you are a person who enjoys a bit of mystery, or some drama, or even the history of things or of words - in short, if you are simply a person who enjoys reading, I am pretty sure you will find this book intriguing to the very last page.

Try it.  And let me know what you thought.

Book Review: "Keeping Faith"

Three years ago, one of my brothers joined the Marine Reserves.  It was a move that surprised everyone in my large, close-knit family of eight siblings, and a move that no one understood or wanted him to take.  As a matter of fact, several of us tried fervently to talk him out of the making the commitment.  

When he started boot camp in San Diego, six months later, all of us were resigned to his choice and supportive of him.  As a family, we support each other and this meant overwhelming my brother with letters during his weeks in boot camp.  He struggled to write everyone back, and when we received his letters, we struggled to wrap our brains around the experience he was going through.  Even more than that, when we saw him at graduation, we struggled to understand the things that had suddenly changed about him and the fact that he wouldn't hardly smile.

During the months following, when my brother was attending the rest of his training for his MOS, my co-teacher, a former Marine himself, recommended this book to me.  Not only did he recommend it to me, he also brought up his copy for me to borrow.  

As a busy teacher, I stuck it on the pile of a dozen books I wanted to read in the near future.  It sat there for over two years.  I duly moved it from house to house (I think there were three moves during that time), and I even moved it to the top of the stack a few times.  

When I finished reading "The Good German" a few weeks ago, I looked at my stack of books, trying to decide what aroused my interest in reading.  I pulled this book out of the stack.  I wasn't sure I wanted to read it yet, but I figured I'd give it a shot, as nothing else was looking interesting.

It's a step by step narrative, in the first person, from both the perspective of the father and the son, of the son's experience in boot camp.  Like my brother, John Schaeffer joined the Marines out of the blue and against the will of his family.  Also like my family, John's dad (and the rest of the family) rallied around him and supported him once he had joined and departed for boot camp.

Reading "Keeping Faith" enlightened me.  It helped me understand what my brother went through, why it was hard for him to find time to write letters, why he told us not to send packages or write on the outside of his envelopes, why he was different when we saw him again at Family Day and graduation.  As a loyal big sister, I had tried my best to understand.  While I cannot say I fully understand now, I understand a little bit more of what my brother went through in boot camp and the reasons for his change in personality.

This book touched my heart, mostly because the relationship between my brother and I is a sore spot right now.  It speaks volumes to the loyalty and love of family, even when they disagree over a life path one of their number has chosen to take.

I would recommend this book to several people.  First, to those who have family in the Marines.  It helps you understand, a little bit more, what they struggle so hard to put into words when they tell you the experience is hard but the best thing they have ever chosen to do.  Second, I would recommend this book to young people who are considering the Marines.  It seems to give you a small snapshot of what you are contemplating doing in joining the Marines.  Third, I would recommend this book to anyone who needs a reminder of how important the unconditional love of family is, whether you agree with the choice your family member made or not. 

"Keeping Faith" isn't really about keeping faith; it's about keeping the loving bonds strong in a family.

Book Review: "The Good German"

A few years back, I went to the Scholastic warehouse sale with a teacher friend.  It is a well-known fact that teachers cannot resist books - multiply that times about ten and you have me, an English teacher, who cannot stay away from books, much less resist them.  Anyway, we went to this sale looking for bargains.  We ended up stuffing a box as full as we could get it and buying the whole thing for $25.  It was a good deal.  One of the books I stuffed in that box was "The Good German" by Joseph Kanon.

For the last two and a half years, this book has lay on my pile of books to be read.  Somehow, this pile seems to grow over time, rather than diminish.  I think the pile has at least a dozen books on it right now.  Every break and every summer I tell myself that I will finally get to the bottom of the pile.  Every so often during the school year, when I feel like I am losing my sanity from working sixty hour weeks, I tell myself I'm going to start frequenting a coffee shop and reading once a week again.  Then, I will get to the bottom of the pile of books.

The pile still remains, but I am on summer break and on a renewed resolve to read, both for personal enjoyment and professional development.  Almost two weeks ago, I was packing for a weekend trip, and I decided to take some reading material.  I perused the pile and pulled out "The Good German."  I stuffed it in my bag, along with a book for professional development, and figured neither one would be touched, as I expected to be busy the whole trip.  

I got to the hotel room and had some unexpected time to read.  I didn't feel like thinking about school, so I pulled out the novel.  It is a historical novel, set in the aftermath of D-Day in Berlin, and told from the perspective of an American journalist.  It has all of the requirements for today's novels: mystery, murder, love.  It has the power to make you keep turning the pages.  Those are all the prerequisites for a "good" novel these days.

As I read it, my mind had subconsciously checked off these things and was wondering if this novel had anything more to offer than any other bestseller on today's bookstore shelves.  While I'm not a renowned book critic, I will tell you two reasons I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even if it remains a book that I will only read through once.

I picked up the book because it was a historical novel.  I still like it for being a historical novel.  What's more, I find it to be an unusual historical novel in the fact that it is set in a time period and place that I have never heard of another novel being set in.  I have read an abundance of novels set during the war in Germany, in the concentration camps, all over Europe, but after the war?  I have heard the history of how terrible it was for the German people, but even history books are sparse on this point.  This book treats a time period and place that I have not seen other authors treat, perhaps because it is a difficult, uncomfortable time to discuss.  The author isn't always favorable in the picture he paints of any group: the Germans, the Russians, the English, or the Americans.  He reveals flaws in all the groups, and he helps you feel a minute amount of the pain the German people were probably undergoing at that time.

I suppose the purpose of a historical novel is to help you, the reader, walk in the shoes of the people of history for a little while.  Kanon does just that.  Mostly, you are walking in the shoes of an American journalist as he uncovers a scandal, but you also get short walks in the lives of German citizens after the war - both Jewish and non-Jewish.

The other thing I liked about the book is the perspective from which it is told.  As I mentioned before, the author reveals the failings of all nationalities involved in Berlin.  Although it is told from an American's standpoint, this American journalist comes to realize that even the Americans are not faultless in their dealings.  The author doesn't paint anyone, not even the Americans, as perfect heroes.  He reveals the humanity and the corruption in everyone.  I believe this is why he created the main character and narrator as a journalist because the nature of a journalist is to investigate and to discover things that don't meet the eye.  

You could discuss many themes for this book, but the one I walked away with is "everything is not always as it seems."  The author teaches this lesson in multiple places in the book, helping the reader to see that stereotypes for any nationality, any people, in any time or place, are never always true.

My Favorite Childhood Book

Asking me to choose my ONE favorite childhood book is like asking a kid in a candy store to choose one piece of candy; it cannot be done!  Perhaps even then, in those young years, I should have seen my English teacher future, for I have had a love of books for as long as I can remember.

I don't remember having a favorite preschool book that was read to me.  I know I was read to - a lot - but I don't recall liking one specific book.  When I think of my favorite books, two specific series pop up in my memory - one from elementary school and one from middle school.

I had not been reading for very long when someone introduced me to the "Amelia Bedelia" series.  Amelia Bedelia is a maid who takes everything literally, so when the family she is working for says "Let's hit the road," Amelia Bedelia goes outside, finds a stick, and literally hits the road.  I loved reading about her adventures in camping, cleaning, and babysitting.  They were guaranteed to make me laugh, and perhaps the Amelia Bedelia series is what first gave me my love for double or underlying meanings.  To this day, I will still choose a book, movie, or song that has a hidden meaning over one that is straightforward and easy to understand.

I think my favorite Amelia Bedelia book has to be about the time she babysits.  She takes all the instructions very literally, making a humorous experience for the reader.

I still own the Amelia Bedelia series; I bought them again recently to help my students understand idioms and double-meanings.  The simple words and funny illustrations never cease to make me laugh when I open those books.

I have to tell you about my second favorite series of books as well; these are the "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Although I have had an active imagination from childhood, I have always been a realist, as well; therefore, books that are based on true stories, and especially historical fiction, appeal to me the most.

My dad began reading the "Little House" series out loud to the family when I was in middle school.  (We had a nightly family read aloud for many years when we were children.)  I fell in love with Laura and her unconventional ways.  I fell in love with the stories - the pioneer life, the prairie towns, and Laura's eventual beau and husband, Almanzo.  Reading these books was like going back in time; I remember times when I reread them on my own and the scenes were so real in my mind that I was surprised to look up and see the warm security of my family's home around me when I finished an intense chapter about surviving a blizzard on the prairie.

I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder so much that I begged my mother for a dress like hers - complete with a "hoop skirt."  My dear, talented grandmother made me the dress, and I wore it for Halloween one year.  Then, when I was twelve, my dad and I took a trip together and he let me choose the destination.  I chose to go visit the replica cabin of the "Little House in the Big Woods" outside of Pepin, Wisconsin.

Because of Laura Ingalls Wilder, I fell in love with historical fiction.  To this day, I still choose to read historical fiction over any other type of fiction.

If I had to choose a favorite out of her book series it would be hard.  When I was younger, my hands down favorite was always "Farmer Boy."  It detailed Almanzo's growing up years on a farm in northern New York state.  While I was jealous of Laura's pioneer experiences, I was just as jealous of Almanzo's farm experiences and somehow, his upbringing was more secure than all the dangerous adventures Laura's family was always having.  Perhaps this is why I liked "Farmer Boy" the most.  As I became a teen, my favorite book became "These Happy Golden Years."  It details the courtship between Laura and Almanzo, and of course this appealed to my teenage girl heart.

I think I still judge a lot of books based on my first loves in the world of books...  Does it have a deeper meaning?  Does it provide humor?  Does it educate me historically?

Who knew that your favorite childhood books could shape your thinking that much?