Read On ... Life Stories

I'd like to write a companion to this book for biography.

Thomas Ford just received its copy of Read On ... Life Stories by Rosalind Reisner, the sixth title in the Read On... readers' advisory series, the second title this year. This book which focuses on autobiography and memoir has the same look and feel as the other books in the series. It has five reading appeal sections: character, story, setting, language, and mood. In each of these sections there are between seven and sixteen lists of book titles arranged around a theme, such as food-related memoirs and personal accounts from authors tracking down their ancestors. I like the headings, such as "A Hard Day's Night: Life in the Music Business" and "Crooked Lives: People Behaving Badly." It should be easy to use these lists to make readers' advisory displays.

I am pleased because Read On ... Life Stories is the first nonfiction title in the expanding series. Reisner chose well in writing about life stories, which are currently very popular with readers. Scanning through her lists, I see that she has chosen to include both classic and recent titles, spanning the late 1980s to 2008. I recognized many of the titles, many of which should be in many library collections. (That's too many manys in one sentence.)

There is a single index to Read On ... Life Stories which includes authors, titles, and subjects. Find a book that you like and then turn to its list for new reading suggestions. It is so easy that it should not be locked in a reference collection. Put your copy in circulation.

Reisner, Rosalind. Read On ... Life Stories. Libraries Unlimited, 2009. ISBN 9781591587668

The Outermost House by Henry Beston

I have a new dream - to spend a year in the wild doing nothing but watching birds as the seasons turn. It's been done before, of course, but it appeals to me greatly, especially as described by Henry Beston in The Outermost House.

Henry Beston did not really intent to spend fall 1926 to fall 1927 in a two room house looking down on a Cape Cod beach facing the Atlantic Ocean. He had gone with the plan of staying two weeks, during which he would relax and write. He was so comfortable that he extended his stay several times before latching onto the idea of staying a year, observing tides, marshes, clouds, and birds, and writing about them all. It sounds like a dream job to me.

The book that resulted is a classic of nature writing. Readers may find Beston much more pleasant to read than Thoreau, as Beston has no grand statements to make against the modernization of society. He's mostly just having fun, even when he stands in the freezing rain or swats at sand fleas. He does, however, report on disturbing trends, like disappearing bird species and the oil spills that were fouling beaches even in 1927. He also is more social, going to town for groceries once a week and frequently meeting with the local coast guards.

Not many public libraries have The Outermost House any more. It is a good time to rediscover this classic and make it better known.

Beston, Henry. The Outermost House. Holt, 1992. ISBN 0805019669

Diego: Bigger Than Life by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand, illustrated by David Diaz

A few weeks ago I saw I and I: Bob Marley, a biography for young readers written in verse by and thought that it was a novel idea to write a biography as a collection of first person poems. Now, looking at the new books shelf in the children's section of my library, I find Diego: Bigger Than Life by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand, illustrated by David Diaz. Again, a biographer has used poetry written as though it was written by the subject himself. I wonder how many other books like this there are?

That Mexican mural artist Diego Rivera can be the subject of a children's book is a curious thing to me. When I was a kid, all of the biographies were innocent, admiring, and sanitized. In the stories, the subjects were all well-behaved men and women whose lives were good examples for youth. Times and books have changed. While Bernier-Grand generally seems to admire Rivera's work and intentions, she profiles him as somewhat obsessive, self-centered, neglectful of family, and unfaithful to his lovers. He starts art projects knowing that his sponsors will later reject them. Obviously, young readers are not intended to follow Rivera's lead. So, what's up? Why tell children about Diego Rivera?

At this point it would be helpful to be a trained educator with a well-practiced answer. I'm not. I am a librarian and a parent (with a daughter who is 21 but who once was little), and I like the book for several reasons. 1) It is honest. No child who reads this book can grow up thinking that Rivera was a wonderful person, only to have the truth revealed later. I think my era has a lot of distrust of our parents' generation because they read us books that proved not to be true. 2) It shows that someone with many faults can rise above them to accomplish much good along with the bad. 3) A book like Diego gives parents and educators a lot to discuss with children. There is lots of bad behavior in our society, which children see on television, in the movies, and in the neighborhoods around them. You can not shield children from what is going on all around them. This book can be a starting point for conversation. 4) The story is well told, and Diego is an interesting character. Read a good book and you want to find another.

Bernier-Grand, Carmen T. Diego: Bigger Than Life. Marshall Cavendish, 2009. ISBN 9780761453833

Not Becoming My Mother by Ruth Reichl

Ruth Reichl has written several food-related memoirs that include "Mim tales," humorous stories about her mother Miriam Reichl. Writing these after her mother's death, she has regretted that they presented only one side of Mim's character - one that her mother would not have liked. In rediscovering a box of her mother's papers, Ruth found a woman she did not really know - someone who understood well the troubles that she appeared not to see - a woman who needed something meaningful to do. Ruth writes about her relationship to this new woman in Not Becoming My Mother: And Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way.

Ruth assumed that deep down her mother wanted her daughter to follow her example. There had been direct statements to the contrary - warnings about marriage and careers - but Ruth did not take them seriously. In the unsent letters and scraps of paper that served as her mother's haphazard journal, she found her mother had been serious. Miriam had tasted the world of work briefly on several occasions only to have husbands (supported by the prevailing mood of the time) insist that the woman's place was in the home, where all the new time-saving appliances left little to do. She was clinically depressed. Miriam did not want her daughter to be an intelligent woman with nothing to do. Her gift to Ruth was presenting herself as someone not to become.

Not Becoming My Mother is a small and fascinating book about a woman who represents women of her age, women denied careers after World War II. Book groups should pounce on it.

Reighl, Ruth. Not Becoming My Mother: And Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way. Penguin Press, 2009. ISBN 9781594202162

As We Forgive, a Film by Laura Walters Hinson

Various experts estimate that at least 800,000 and maybe over a million people lost their lives in the chaotic weeks of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. No one in the country was untouched by tragedy, and the longing for justice is high. At one point the prison population of the small country grew to greater than 100,000, many suspected of genocide crimes. Keeping so many prisoners was a burden for Rwanda, which needed workers to rebuild the country. With the help of evangelical ministers and local village officials, the Rwandan government began releasing confessed murderers back into their villages and neighborhoods, where they are taking part in reconciliation councils. Some websites say 22,000 were released in 2003, 36,000 in 2005, and 68,000 in early 2008. No matter what the numbers, many survivors are unhappy and afraid to have the guilty among them.

As We Forgive focuses on two women who lost their families in the genocide and the two men who admitted committing the murders. One of the women embraces the process of reconciliation, saying that it is the only hope that her community and nation has. The other women is reticent, though she does agree to meet the former neighbor in a group conversation with a pastoral minister and community leaders.

In the process of discussions, the needs of both survivors and the guilty men are revealed. Mostly, the survivors need help harvesting crops, winnowing grains, and rebuilding houses, while the confessed need tasks to help them regain respect and self-respect. Agreements are reached to the pleasure of the local leaders who hope to eliminate longstanding prejudice between Tutsi and Hutu.

As We Forgive is an optimistic documentary that admits that it is rather daring to be so hopeful. Some brief scenes of the genocide are included, but the bulk of the film is set in the present. At 53 minutes, this thoughtful film is a convenient length for discussion groups who should find plenty of topics.

As We Believe. MPower Pictures, 2009.

Advice for the Reluctant Weeder

I have always enjoyed weeding library collections because they always look so much better after the work is done. Tattered volumes disappear and there is room to shelve more books. Even more important, out of date materials are gone. Some librarians (I have known some) really hate to part with books. "Just think how the author would feel to know they were being weeded!" Now that I am an author that sort of resonates, but I still realize that the work has to be done.

Diane J. Young now has an article in Library Journal to help the reluctant weeder. Click here.

Bone Sharps, Cowboys, And Thunder Lizards: A Tale of Edward Drinker Cope, Othniel Charles Marsh, and the Gilded Age of Paleontology

Today we think of paleontology as one of the fun sciences. Nearly everyone seems to like a good dinosaur discovery with its lively debate about what the bones reveal. We enjoy stories about the travels and work of modern dino-hounds, such as Paul Sereno, Sue Hendrickson, and Xu Xing. Paleontologists were not always held in such high regard. In fact, in the late nineteenth century, they were ridiculed for their crazy theories and their bitter rivalries. Jim Ottaviani and the artists of Big Time Attic tell about early paleontologists, who perhaps deserved some of their bad press, in the graphic novel Bone Sharps, Cowboys, And Thunder Lizards: A Tale of Edward Drinker Cope, Othniel Charles Marsh, and the Gilded Age of Paleontology.

The publisher of Bone Sharps, Cowboys, And Thunder Lizards labels it as "science/history," but Ottaviani says clearly in his afterward that it is historical fiction. Most of the characters are or were based on real people, but the author took artistic license with the story in the way movie producers do when they present true stories. Time lines are rearranged, quotes are given to other speakers, and people who never actually met meet. Ottaviani adds eleven pages of notes to let readers know what was fact and what was fiction in his story. It is a pretty clever way to teach history.

Being a graphic novel, you might think it could be read very quickly, but there is so much content in the pictures themselves. A reader must take some time looking at facial expressions and what is going on in the background. Not all of it made sense to me. I was grateful for the notes at the end.

The publisher G. T. Labs has a series of science history graphic novels. I am placing some more reserves to see what else I might learn.

Ottaviani, Jim and Big Time Attic. Bone Sharps, Cowboys, And Thunder Lizards: A Tale of Edward Drinker Cope, Othniel Charles Marsh, and the Gilded Age of Paleontology. G. T. Labs, 2005. ISBN 0966010663