BLL Book Reviews -June 2016 Brewster Ladies Library 1822 Main Street Brewster, MA 02631 In this issue… Daniel Finds a Poem Picture Book (for 5-8 year-olds) by Micha Archer (Nori Morganstein) Latest Readings by Clive James (Kathryn Taylor) The Fight to Vote by Michael Waldman (Doug Wilcock) The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney by Richard A. Lertzman and William J. Birnes (Jim Mills) Pacific by Simon Winchester (Don Boink) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (Jim Mills) Dealing with China: An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower by Henry M Paulson, Junior by Don Boink The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson (Jim Mills) The Ghost Army of World War I by Rick Byer and Elizabeth Sayles (Don Boink) Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall (Jim Mills) Exit Right by David Oppenheimer (Don Boink) Daniel Finds a Poem (Penguin Random House, 2016) Picture Book (for 5-8 year-olds) by Micha Archer reviewed by: Nori Morganstein, Youth Services Librarian/Assistant Director Daniel Finds a Poem is one of the best introductions to poetry I have ever read, for children or adults. It’s about a little boy who comes across a sign for something called “Poetry in the Park.” He then of course asks the very important question, “What is poetry?” This question becomes the focal point for the whole story. A spider overhears Daniel’s question and tells Daniel that she thinks poetry “is when morning dew glistens.” Then Daniel climbs a tree and asks a squirrel what poetry is. The squirrel says, “poetry is when crisp leaves crunch.” Daniel proceeds to ask other animals in the park. He talks to a chipmunk, a frog, a turtle, a cricket, and even an owl. Finally, it’s time for Poetry in the Park, and Daniel has a poem to bring. He pieces together what all the animals told him poetry was and turns it into his own poem. The last page of the book shows Daniel stopping to watch a sunset over the pond and he says, “That looks like poetry to me.” The book addresses the idea that there isn’t always one right answer. Words like “poetry” can mean many different things to many different people. And of course more literally, the book explains that poetry is more than words. It’s what we find beautiful, compelling, and comfortable. The setup of the book is very familiar. It reads like a lot of other classic children’s books. Instead of the main character going up to different animals and asking, “Are you my mother?” or “Have you seen my hat?” he instead asks a rather deep, almost philosophical question: what is poetry? What a great book to introduce the idea of poetry, art, and creativity in general. I can see this book leading to families writing their own poems together. The real selling point to children will be the artwork. Everything is bright, colorful, and full of sunlight. The colors make me think of the illustrations in a Lois Ehlert book. The urban setting gives the story a very Ezra Jack Keats feel as well. The animals, even the cricket and the spider are drawn to look kind, soft, and friendly. I found the nighttime pictures (with the owl) to be breathtaking. The combination of bright artwork mixed with the ambiguous poetry question make for one remarkably compelling picture book. This book was impressive. It follows a familiar plot-line, yet addresses a new and thought-provoking concept. It teaches children that there isn’t always one right answer. It teaches children what poetry is or at least what poetry can be. The bright illustrations will be a major draw for kids of various ages. This is my favorite picture book of the year, so far. I highly recommend it. !1 of 10! Latest Readings, by Clive James reviewed by Kathryn Taylor Clive James is a man of letters in the classic English mode, updated for today. Born in Australia in 1939, he moved to England in 1962 and stayed there. Although he had already received a bachelor’s degree in Australia, he sought entrance to Cambridge University and read English literature. He went on to have a career of writing essays and literary criticism, composing poetry and song lyrics, publishing novels and (so far, five) volumes of candid and comic memoirs. He is a noted commentator on both television and radio – and along the way he also produced a well-regarded translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Although I had heard of James, I had never read anything by him until I came upon Latest Readings, published just last year. My loss, not to have discovered him earlier, for now we do not know how much longer we will have him. Already suffering from emphysema, in 2011 he was diagnosed with leukemia. As he notes, “I could hear the clock ticking.” He then concluded, “If you don’t know when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do.” His family descended on London, packed him up with his books and installed him in a house in Cambridge where he would “live, read, and perhaps even write.” There he does read and reread widely and deeply. Yale University Press had the wisdom to suggest that he “compose a little book about whatever” he had been reading. Thus we have Latest Readings. The book is a “slender volume,” 190 pages with an introduction and 29 brief chapters, only one as long as 12 pages (“American Power”), one as short as two pages (“Speer at Spandau”), most running four to six pages. James takes pride in thinking that Samuel Johnson would have “approved my plan for the organization of this volume: there isn’t one.” The collection includes notes on new books and those he had turned to again, the trivial as well as the serious. The writers who are examined are as diverse as Shakespeare and Hemingway; Edward St. Aubyn, Evelyn Waugh, and Olivia Manning; W. G. Sebald and Anthony Powell. Chapter titles include “Phantom Flying Saucer,” “Naipaul’s Nastiness,” “Women in Hollywood,” and “Richard Wilbur’s Precept.” His sentences are wonderfully rich, full of wit, wisdom and wry twists. A delight to read. Anyone who loves to read will find in this book familiar friends as well as some new names to explore. Then you may find yourself doing what I’ve been doing since finishing the book: scouring bookstores and Amazon for more books by Clive James. And if you might be wondering how Clive James is doing in March of 2016, he is still reading and writing, with a column in the English newspaper The Guardian as recently as March 13. There is a Latin phrase, Hodie mihi cras tibi, often found on old headstones in English graveyards and roughly translated meaning “Me today, you tomorrow.” It is meant to remind anyone reading it that life is fleeting. James includes an epitaph on the page facing his Table of Contents, cras mihi or “me tomorrow,” a puckish inversion, no doubt expressing his assumption that the morrow would be his last. Yet he is still with us and we can hope he will have many tomorrows. Clive James Read a fascinating or intriguing book lately? Write a review (300 – 900 words) and share your experience with the BLL community. E-Mail to Jim Mills [email protected] and have your review printed in an upcoming BLL Book Review. If you have any comments on our reviews or if there are any particular books that you would like to see reviewed Please contact us at: [email protected] The BLL Book Reviews Also appear on the Brewster Ladies Library Web Site http//:www.brewsterladieslibrary.org/ !2 of 10! The Fight to Vote by Michael Waldman reviewed by Doug Wilcock Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center at the NYU School of Law, has written a very timely book, The Fight to Vote, that details the history of voting rights and of voter suppression, as well as current efforts to reform or suppress the right to vote. As early as the pre-Revolutionary era voter suppression was an issue. William Blackstone, an English jurist, advocated disenfranchising the poor because they are " in so mean a situation that they are esteemed to have no will of their own." By revolutionary times sentiments had shifted, especially regarding those who served in the military. George Washington, on arriving in Massachusetts in 1775 to take command of the troops, was surprised to learn that New England soldiers elected their officers and that these same soldiers expected the same right once the revolution was won. From this point forward there were laws put in place that expanded voting rights, although not to women or to slaves. Waldman takes the reader through what he describes as the ebb and flow of voting rights. In 1824 John Quincy Adams was elected as President despite Andrew Jackson's winning both the popular vote and the electoral college vote. Adams won in the House of Representatives where each state cast one vote. In reaction to this, by 1828 all states but two had given voters, and not state legislatures, the power to choose presidential electors. By 1850 twenty-two states and territories allowed non-citizens to vote. But there were countervailing sentiments that later led to legislative action. John Calhoun of South Carolina, a states rights advocate, saw the natural rights approach of the Declaration of Independence as sentimentalism.