BLL Book Reviews - June 2017 Brewster Ladies Library, 1822 Main Street, Brewster, MA 02631 In this issue… Teacup (Picture Book for 4-8 year-olds) by Rebecca Young and Illustrated by Matt Ottley (Nori Morganstein) We Do Our Part: Toward a Fairer and More Equal America by Charles Peters (Susan Carr) A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order by Richard Haass (Doug Wilcock) Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (Jim Mills) We Meant Well; How I Helped Lose The Battle For The Hearts and Minds Of The Iraqi People by Peter Van Boren (Don Boink) Democracy: A Case Study by David A. Moss (Doug Wilcock) The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finked (Jim Mills) Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat by Giles Milton (Don Boink) Telegraph Days by Larry McMurtry (Don Boink) The Heir Apparent: A Life of Edward VII, The Playboy Prince by Jane Ridley (Jim Mills) The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944 – 1945 by James D Hornfischer (Don Boink) But What If We Are Wrong: Thinking About The Present As If It Were The Past by Chuck Klosterman (Don Boink) Teacup (Dial Books, 2016) (Picture Book for 4-8 year-olds) by Rebecca Young and Illustrated by Matt Ottley reviewed by: Nori Morganstein, Youth Services Librarian/Assistant Director Teacup is a surreal story for readers who like tales of adventure. It’s the story of a boy who takes off on a boat in search of a new home. He travels across the ocean looking for a speck on the horizon. All he takes with him is a small bag and a teacup with some earth in it from where he used to play. He has good days out on the ocean and bad. He passes dolphins, giant waves, darkness, whales, and storm clouds. At one point, the earth in his teacup begins to grow. After a little time, a whole tree grows out of his boat. The book ends with him on an island, his new home, where he is eventually joined by a girl with a tree in her boat, and a broken eggcup. This is the kind of book that will have children wondering what is real. Is the boy dreaming or is he really in the ocean? The book never really answers that question. It’s up to the reader to decide. It’s a great book to broach the concept of fiction versus nonfiction. Is it possible for trees to grow in a canoe? What would the boy really need to survive so long on the ocean? For slightly older readers, the book can also work as a great way to start discussing metaphor and symbolism. What might the tree represent? Why does the girl have a broken cup too? On the surface, this is a book of an adventure or journey and any child can appreciate that. But, it also works as a good book to start talking about things beneath the surface. The best part of the book is the illustrations. This is a beautiful book. The ocean looks real. The artist clearly spent a lot of time on the ocean. And the opening pages (and front cover) look like Breakwater Beach in Brewster at low tide. This is a book for beach goers, and ocean lovers, and I can see a lot of children here relating to the pictures they see. Some illustrations look like photographs. And others look more surreal. There’s one page where the water is so clear, it looks like the clouds in the sky are also in the water (and not just reflected there), and it looks like whales are swimming in the clouds. This book can work for a wide range of ages. Adults would appreciate the artwork. Children would love the adventure story. And older kids would love a deeper discussion brought on by the dream-like atmosphere. This would make it perfect for a bedtime story read to more than one child. I also highly recommend it to ocean lovers and dreamers. !1 of 10! We Do Our Part: Toward a Fairer and More Equal America (April 2017) by Charles Peters reviewed Susan Carr Perhaps I loved this book because I agreed with many (OK, all) of the author’s conclusions. Maybe I loved it because he covered the stories of my lifetime. Or possibly it appealed to me because he was able to look back and admit to the times when he was wrong. Charles Peters is a lawyer and journalist who spent most of his 60 year career in Washington, DC. He helped found the Peace Corps and was the founder and long time editor of The Washington Monthly. He is the author of several books, including How Washington Really Works. In the forward of We Do Our Part, Jon Meacham refers to Peters as Vox Clamatis in Deserto (a voice crying in the wilderness) beseeching us “to heed the better angels of our nature.” Peters starts his book in the early 1930s when America was in the depths of the depression. Many people were down and out and before FDR put his plans in place, many people survived through the generosity of others. Peters’ mother used to feed hungry people who came to her door. His friends’ mothers did the same. The same spirit was in evident through WWII, the 50s, and the 60s started with John Kennedy’s “Ask what you can do for your country”. “Indeed, the spirit that problems could be overcome seemed to grip the country.” However, by the end of the decade, Martin Luther King and Bobbie Kennedy had been assassinated, we were into the Vietnam War, demonstrations were happening in cities and on college campuses. But, according to Peters, “Part of the motivation was an idealistic concern with stopping the war, but it was coupled with something less admirable, a desire to evade the draft and let someone else do the fighting and dying… part of a growing class separation.” And in 1979 Jimmy Carter, made an address to the country where he warned about “selfishness and self- absorption.” A malaise was settling in. One change is especially important as we witness the stalemate occurring in Washington, today. “In the New Deal, almost no one entered public service with the idea of cashing in on that service when they left…And the numbers of those who, whatever their motivation for entering government, left it to make more money continued to grow, soaring from the twenty whom Cabell Phillips was able to name in 1946 to thousands during the administration of George W. Bush. They would become lobbyists or work inside corporations or law firms to formulate strategies for dealing with Congress and executive branch agencies.” Peters tells of many other changes: the amalgamation of most of the nation’s wealth in the hands of very few, the growth of a luxury economy, the power of the NRA, excesses of the war on crime, gerrymandering, Reagan’s deregulation, and recently the effort by the Republican Party to do anything to make Democrats fail. These and many other efforts have brought about a concentration on money and stagnation of the governmental process. Peters highlights the people of these years, 1930 to 2017 who played a role and made a difference. He includes the high mucky-mucks and the lowly, the honorable and the not so. In spite of all these depressing trends, Peters offers hope…not a quick fix… but hope. The Democrats have realized their massive error of leaving the worker out of the picture. People have emerged from the shadows since Trump was elected, marching and protesting. The example of California’s turning pro-education and pro- immigrant, an example for other states. The central theme would be “reducing the role of money in politics” and encouraging public service, not eating from the public trough…so to speak. His book is a description of the times, but also, a call for action. Another thing to like about Peters…His hopeful outlook. “Having witnessed the wonders of the Roosevelt era, I know what the American people are capable of.” One could label this book a simplistic look at the times or his painting with a very broad brush. For instance, the attempt to avoid conscription wasn’t unique to the Vietnam War. It was a common event for a reluctant soldier to pay his way out of service during the Civil War. Or we can’t assume that politics has been exempt from lobbying, sweetheart deals, bribery and even worse, up until the 70s and 80s. Yet, Peters’ idealism and appeal to our heeding the better angels of our nature, should not be ignored. Indeed, what else can turn the tide? !2 of 10! A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order by Richard Haass reviewed by Doug Wilcock Dr. Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, shies away from the word chaos, instead choosing disarray to describe how he sees the state of the world and the U.S. role in that world. Absent the certainty of major power confrontation that characterized the Cold War, Haass feels that American foreign policy has largely failed to comprehend the new world order that features multiple actors, regional grievances and conflicts, and interests not neatly contained within sovereign states. As he points out, in many cases the principal actors are not nations, but rather loose amalgamations formed to promote a particular interest.