Tennessee Library Association Tennessee Libraries 2007 Volume 57 Number 4 Book Reviews Rebecca Tolley-Stokes, East Tennessee State University Book Review Editor Bales, Stephen Lyn. Natural Histories: Stories from the Tennessee Culvahouse, Tim (editor) with photographs by Richard Barnes. The Tennessee Valley Authority: Design and Persuasion Fitzgerald, Stephanie. The Scopes Trial: The Battle over Teaching Evolution Hemphill, Helen. Runaround Lawrence, William P. and Rosario Rausa. Tennessee Patriot: The Naval Career of Vice Admiral William P. Lawrence, U.S. McCrumb, Sharyn. Once Around the Track Kidd, Ronald. Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial Montgomery, Michael, and Ellen Johnson, vol. eds. The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Vol. 5 (Language) Olwell, Russell B. At Work in the Atomic City : A Labor and Social history of Oak Ridge, Tennessee Rail-Trails Southeast: The Official Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Guidebook VanLiere, Donna. The Angels of Morgan Hill Trevathan, Kim. Coldhearted River: A Canoe Odyssey Down the Cumberland Van Willigen, John and Anne Van Willigen, editors. Food and Everyday Life on Kentucky Walker-Hill, Helen. From Spirituals to Symphonies: African-American Women Composers and Their Music Waselkov, Gregory A., Peter H. Wood & Tom Hatley, volume editors. Powhatan’s Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast, Revised and Expanded Edition Wilson, Charles Reagan, vol. ed. The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Vol. 3 (History) Bales, Stephen Lyn. Natural Histories : Stories from the Tennessee Valley. With a foreword by Sam Venable. Outdoor Tennessee Series, ed. Jim Casada. Knoxville : University of Tennessee Press, 2007. 312 pp. ISBN 1572335610. $24.95 Natural Histories is comprised of sixteen essays, four for each season of the year, about the various plants and animals that can be found in the Tennessee Valley. The author, Stephen Lyn Bales, works at the Ijams Nature Center as a naturalist in Knoxville. He has previously written columns about nature and the environment in local and regional newspapers. Bales is also an artist, as he provides his own illustrations which accompany the start of each chapter. He also created the cover art for the book. This book is part of the Outdoor Tennessee Series, published by the University of Tennessee Press. The series aims to promote a greater understanding of the environment. Bale paints a vivid picture about the natural world; this book is not just an encyclopedic explanation of plants and animals with the usual description of habitat, feeding habits, and life expectancy. Each essay begins with the animal or plant that he profiles, and somewhere in the course of the essay readers will find themselves learning about the human impact upon the featured organism on history and society and vice versa. http://www.tla.affiniscape.com/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=104&printpage=true (1 of 11)4/1/2008 8:55:17 AM Tennessee Library Association The author includes a variety of sources in his bibliography. The bibliography also directs readers to online copies of some of the sources referenced. A comprehensive index. concludes the book. This book is suitable for a general audience. However, it will probably appeal most to readers who already enjoy reading books about nature, the environment, current conservation efforts, or by those who like to be outdoors in the Tennessee Valley. Although those in the Tennessee Valley may have a greater appreciation for the locations that Bales writes about, any reader, regardless of their location, should still enjoy this book and not feel like they are being left out. This book is recommended for all public and academic libraries, especially for libraries that would like to add a nature/ecology book specific to Tennessee to their collections. Maya N. Berry Acquisitions & Public Services Librarian Christian Brothers University Culvahouse, Tim (editor) with photographs by Richard Barnes. The Tennessee Valley Authority: Design and Persuasion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007. 144 pp. ISBN 156898684X. $40.00. Certainly in its time and still today, the accomplishments of the Tennessee Valley Authority stand apart from other engineering endeavors. This unique government agency was established in 1933 and given a remarkable mission that would change landscape and people across a broad stretch of America’s heartland. Culvahouse’s book addresses the intellectual and social mindset behind the TVA’s radical revision of the Tennessee valley. Essays in this book revolve around a central theme laid out in the editor’s introduction: Modernism and the belief in the power of design to aid in the construction of an egalitarian, democratic society was the construct underlying the philosophy of the architects, engineers and designers who created TVA projects. Design in the early 20th century was based on three principles: “continuity with the landscape, forms derived from engineering function, and architectural form as a tool for social equality.” (p. 19) Contributors to this book—whose areas of expertise cover architecture, landscape architecture, graphic design, industrial design and fine arts—articulate the ways in which these modern design principles invigorated and informed philosophy and practice at the TVA. Architecture, the physical manifestation of the TVA’s social mission, is central to any discussion of the TVA and design. Christine Macy’s essay is quite aptly devoted to Richard Wank, the chief architect for the TVA from 1933 until the early 1940s. Wank, like many who designed for the TVA and like his European counterpart Gropius, believed form should follow function. That emphasis was best expressed in the dams (TVA housing tended more towards the traditional to ease the transition towards modernism), which, by 1941 were being hailed as important American contributions to avant-garde design. Mention of the Tennessee Valley Authority has always, and will always, evoke conflicting feelings. Its ambitious social mission could not assuage the pain of those who lost homes, farms and beloved landmarks. This aspect of TVA is acknowledged here, particularly in Jane Wolf’s essay, “Redefining Landscape,” and in Jennifer Bloomer’s contribution, “Watauga.” Re-designing the landscape was a radical act according to Wolf. By re-shaping the land the TVA created a vast new region linked by the Tennessee river and TVA development projects. This man-made landscape corrected some of the negative effects of bad land management, brought modern technology to an impoverished area, and provided recreation areas to feed the new tourism industry. One cannot help but ask, as Wolf does, what was lost in the process of creating the new? Bloomer’s reflective essay on Lake Watauga provides something of an answer to this complex question. Barry M. Katz, Steven Heller, and Todd Smith, in their discussions of industrial design, graphics, and the fine arts round out this investigation of the relationship between modern design and the TVA’s campaign to modernize the Tennessee River Valley. Taken together, the essays combined with Richard Barnes’ insightful photographs and a concise bibliography make this book a small, but valuable contribution to the TVA bibliography, and a recommended purchase for public as well as academic libraries. http://www.tla.affiniscape.com/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=104&printpage=true (2 of 11)4/1/2008 8:55:17 AM Tennessee Library Association Susan M. Hanson, Library Specialist Special Collections,Walker Library, MTSU Fitzgerald, Stephanie. The Scopes Trial: The Battle over Teaching Evolution. Minneapolis, Minn.: Compass Point Books, 2007. 96 pp. ISBN 075620185. $24.95. This middle grades book in the Snapshots in History series provides readers with an excellent description of the summer of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee. An entire nation had its eyes and ears on this very small East Tennessee community as reporters and spectators from all parts of the country overran the town and, “for the first time in history, a trial would be broadcast over the radio”. Of course, the focus was the Scopes trial, on the surface a battle over the teaching of evolution, but ultimately, a test of our constitutional laws regarding freedom of speech and separation of church and state. The author provides background material in a lively and entertaining fashion. Explanations of fundamentalism, the development of the theory of evolution, the conflicts between evolution and creationism, and the mechanics of constitutional law are included. In addition, Ms. Fitzgerald provides portraits of the persons that were a part of the trial process: John Scopes, William Jennings Bryan, Clarence Darrow, and others. Our laws, cultural values, and court proceedings are explained succinctly, but well. Facts are presented in a way that demonstrates to the reader that most things are not black and white, but gray. A feature that enhances the book’s usefulness and quality is the wonderful original photography of the trial, its setting, and its participants; their arrangement and placement is fine and they provide context to the event. Included also is a timeline beginning in 1543, a glossary that defines in simple but accurate language, terms such as creationism, fundamentalism, grand jury, and testimony, and a good website that leads the reader to online information. The book also provides source notes, a bibliography, further reading, and an index – all is well organized. The Scopes Trial is included in the accelerated reader program and has a reading and interest level for grades 6-8, although adults may also find it enjoyable and informative. Recommended for public and school libraries. Sandra Clariday Merner Pfeiffer Library,Tennessee Wesleyan College Hemphill, Helen. Runaround. Asheville: Front Street, 2007. ISBN 1932425837. Helen Hemphill delivers this follow up to her first book Long Gone Daddy that was released in 2005. This book is also written for the young adult who is struggling to find their place in the world. The lead character in this book is Sassy, an eleven-year-old girl who has had her first kiss, but wants real love, the kind of love she reads about in the romance magazines that she secrets in the corner of her closet.