Kent State

Kent State is the name of the book by Deborah Wiles and it is also the name of this university and when one hears it, it one's age or knowledge of history that impacts what it brings to mind.  I was born in 1971 so the Kent State killings had happened before I was born, and I first learned about it when I heard this song.  I remember asking my dad about it and he told me what happened. I can't remember how old I was at the time, probably 7 or 8.  My dad was NOT a fan of Nixon and so he definitely told me about the shootings from his own POV. 
As I grew older I learned more about it and began to have more sympathy for those National Guardsmen who were sent to Kent State and did the shooting.  I have not been able to find much about how they feel, fifty years later.  But I do believe what my parents told me years ago and what has been said many times over "rich men start the wars and poor men fight them."
This book is very well done and I think a very important book for all.
Living in the world is hard when we forget that the answer to everything is to respond with love.  And when we are finished responding with love, we should respond with love.  And when we are finished responding with love again, then we should respond with love...and so on and so on and so on...

Hieronymus Bosch

was a wacky painter.  I mean, this dude was doing his thing a WAY long time ago.  He died in 1516!  To the left is one of his most popular paintings.  I bet you have seen it.  It's The Garden of Earthly Delights.  Harry Bosch's full name is Hieronymus and, yes he was named after the painter.  The Wrong Side of Goodbye is the 21st in his series.  It was good.  I liked it a lot.  It did make me cry.  There was a story about Bosch remembering when Bob Hope and Connie Stevens did a USO Tour while Bosch was in Vietnam.  and Hope ordered his helicopter to land on the naval ship even though it was super dangerous to do so.  This just moved me to tears.  Then last night there was a PBS special on tv about Hope's USO tours.  I want to learn more about this.  I couldn't watch the show, so I need to try to catch it the next time it comes on.  I am not sure if it was this one or this one. 

This one wasn't all I wanted it to be

I really want to love a book.  I mean, I think authors are incredibly talented and disciplined.  I can't even imagine being about to write a book, I have a hard enough time with writing a blog post that makes sense.  So every book I read, I want to give it 5 stars and mean it!  But for me, Lemons was one of the few books that I took a star from after a few days, instead of adding one.  That's not to say that was terrible.  It probably is a 3.5 star.  But it just didn't seem Newbery to me.  Maybe if I weren't reading it for the Newbery group, I would have rated it higher, not holding it to an "is this Newbery-worthy" standard.  But then again, I don't think I would have finished it if not for the group.  Again, not that it's a bad book.  It's a decent book.  A good book.  I am sure people love this book!  It just didn't hold my attention really, sadly. 

Star Dust

Katherine Paterson is magic.
She really is.
The Same Stuff as Stars is another exceptional, heart-touching book from Paterson.
TSSAS is the story of two children, Angel and Bernie.  Angel is eleven, but has had to be much older.  Her father is in prison and her mother is not very reliable.  Bernie is six and she has had to parent him for a long time.  This story is told from the POV of Angel finds herself with her great-grandma and meets "the star man" a man who teaches her about the stars.  This is just a lovely, lovely story.   Very moving.

Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain

wasn't that a great, great song...

Listen, Slowly was also a great, great book.  I had really enjoyed Lai's Inside Out and Back Again and I was very excited to listen to this one.  Mai has just finished sixth grade and can't wait to spend her summer at  Laguna Beach like all summers before, especially this summer because of HIM!  Her family has other plans for her, however.  Mai's grandmother is going back to her native Vietnam to find out what happened to her husband during the war and they want Mai to go with her.

Mai seemed a bit spoiled to me...but then I remembered that she is only a sixth grader and then I thought, "dude, Mai's parents are nuts, this is too much for a kid to have to handle!"  And now I just think I was overreacting.

A beautiful story about learning about one's roots.

Seeing Ants

A.S. King is just an incredible writer.  Everybody Sees the Ants is very different from the other books I have read by her.  But now that I think about it, every book I have ever read by King is different from the last, because she is such a great writer.
This one is told from a male POV and it deals with a subject very near and dear to my heart and prayers. The MIA/POW soldiers.
Lucky Linderman is named after the grandfather he has never met, the grandfather who never came back from Vietnam.  But Lucky visits his grandfather, tries to bring him home.  He also is working through his dysfunctional family and the horrible bullying that he has endured at school.
Just another fantastic book from King.

Mary Downing Hahn, is it time for a Newbery?

Where I Belong is the newest book from Mary Downing Hahn and it is more like Stepping on the Cracks than say, All the Lovely Bad Ones or Deep and Dark and Dangerous.

But where I belong is like all of the Mary Downing Hahn books I have read in that I couldn't put it down.  Real characters, so well written and original.  Easy to recommend to someone who wants a great, great read.  

She is one of those authors whose talents just make me say, "wow."  Hahn has never won a Newbery that I could see, or an Honor, but she should have either taken the whole deal or gotten an Honor for Stepping on the Cracks, for sure.  I really feel that she has a good chance this year with this moving story of a young boy who has been bounced around from foster home to foster home and put up with misery at school.  Now he finds himself looking for the Green Man in the woods near his current home.  I am not good at summing up books, and there is no need to, so I will only say that this book was excellent.  And if Newbery doesn't pull another 1954, then it should get some kind of recognition.   

Read! Now!

The Golden Day is a very odd book.  I saw it on a couple Mock Printz sites and then saw it was pretty short and a mystery and historical fiction set during the time of the Vietnam War and I thought, why not?  So I bought the audio download and what a journey it was.  After I bought it, I discovered that it is set in Australia.  I am glad that I found this out AFTER I bought it, because of my own goofballishness, I don't think I would have read it, had I known and then I would have been the loser.
The story takes place in an all girls school, in a class of tweens, on the day that Ronald Ryan, that last man to be executed in Australia, was hung.  This event has really troubled the girls' teacher, and so she says to them, "Let us go out into the garden and contemplate death."
The young teacher wants to go into the garden to see one of the gardeners, a poet named Morgan.  She has a thing for him.  He's a poet and hippie and she is in love.  She also believes that the class can learn from him.
Well they do learn.  Something.
What a book.  What a wild, weird, floaty, psychological mind-trip book.  Very, very different.  A Printz winner?  Maybe.  Maybe.

What a Story

The Crossing is a must-read.  I didn't know much about Juarez, Mexico.  I still don't, but The Crossing is one of those books that will cause me to do tons of research on it.  This book takes place fairly recently after the Vietnam War and is centered around a young boy named Manny who lives in the streets of Juarez and an American Army General who is still reliving he horror of his time spent in country.  The conditions on the streets of Juarez at that time were horrible.  In an author interview at the end of the audiobook, Paulsen tells that he spent time in Juarez and his time there inspired this book.  He says in the interview that at the time of his taping of the interview, the condition of life for the children of Juarez were reported as being still horrible.  I googled it today and found much the same, though, promises of much hope.  What an incredible story of the impact of greed, war, of children and hope and hopelessness.  An incredible, incredible story.

How I Love Cars...

And how I loved The Car by Paulsen.  When you know a little bit about Paulsen's life, you can really see it come through in his writing.  Terry has been neglected by his parents and when they both just up and leave, each thinking that the other is at home with Terry, Terry's life really has just begun.  In the garage is a kit car, a Bearcat, which I really didn't know anything about until I read this book and Terry puts it together and heads west, maybe to see an uncle he once met who seemed kinda nice.  On the way he meets an old hippie, who had a bad run in Vietnam and the two of them meet up with another vet and man, Terry really learns about real life now.  Just a great, great, great book.

Something Special

Okay for Now as a book that I tried to read many times before but I just couldn't get into it.  This time I had to read it for work and I was dreading it so much because of all of my failed attempts.  Once I made it through the first chapter, however, I fell in love with Doug and the whole book.  It is set in the tiny town of Marysvile, NY in 1968 and 1969.  Doug is the youngest son of a sweet mom and an abusive dad.  He also has two older brothers, one at war in Vietnam and another a trouble maker who reminded me a lot of the older brother in Troublemaker.  There is just so much in this book.  It is about families and growing up and finding yourself and it is very much about the times in which the book is set.  A fantastic story.

A Surprise Sequel...Surely Was....

I never expected a sequel to One Crazy Summer!  I bought the audio as soon as I saw it.  Especially after I saw that Sisi Aisha Johnson was the reader.  She is amazing.  And so was OCS and so is P.S. Be Eleven.  OCS should have won the Newbery but of course, it didn't.  Another 1954.  PS begins right where OCS left off.  The girls are back from visiting their Black Panther mother in California and facing some new challenges and changes back home in Bed-Stuy.  Pa has a new lady friend, Uncle Darnell is back from Vietnam, the Jackson Five debute on the Hollywood Palace.   This is a great historical fiction book and just a great book overall.

Man...

Even though I felt that last year's Newbery was a good choice, now that I have read Inside Out and Back Again, I feel like maybe it should have won.  But Dead End in Norvelt was awesome...so I don't know.  It is close.  It is def not like 1954.  For sure.  But wow, Inside Out and Back Again was incredible and heartbreaking and eye-opening, well, eye-opening to a dummy like me who didn't know much about Vietnamese refugees, after the Fall of Saigon.  What a beautiful story about ignorance and understanding and human folly and the human heart.  I loved this book. 

Music is His Life!

For What It's Worth is a really good book.  I enjoyed it a ton and read it quickly, but I don't know a lot of teens I would recommend it too, because, well I don't know.  There are a ton of references to albums and bands in it, and they are actual albums and bands, not like in the bizarre Why We Broke Up, which references a million movies and movie stars that have never existed.  I knew most of the music that Tashjian mentions, but I don't know if teens do.  Maybe they do?  Maybe they don't, but just like I didn't know much about Rimbaud (okay ANYTHING) I was compelled to find out more after reading Radiant Days.  So yeah, I will recommend the book for sure to teens.  And I know I will recommend it to adults.  The book is set in 1971-1972, when Quinn heads back to school after the summer that Jim Morrison has died.
Judy, Jim and Tupac.  The three most important people in music, ever.
Anyway.
Quinn is fourteen and he is a music fanatic!  He has a sweet record collection, a mom and dad, a sister who is a freshman at Brandeis, and he lives is Laurel Canyon.  His mom is friends with Mama Cass, he actually would see people like Janis and Jim hanging out.   He gets a job helping Frank Zappa.  It's just his neighborhood, you know?  In the right place at the right time.  This year he gets his first girlfriend, so there is the young love part.  He also starts to realize more about the world around him.  Remember this is Vietnam time.  The protests, the draft, Watergate is in here.  This is would be a great book to recommend to a teen having to do historical fiction, actually.  I mean, they would enjoy it and it is also historical!
Anyway, great book!

Cricket Fans!

If you love the game of cricket, then you will love Jasper Jones.  I don't know many books that detail the game play as much as this book.  I have no clue how cricket is played but a lot of it is played in Australia, I guess, where Jasper lives and Charles, the main character, lives as well.
Jasper is the bad news dude in town.  He is always blamed for everything.  He is an outcast of mixed race and his dad is a drunk and well, EVERYONE knows that Jasper Jones is bad bad bad.
So when he knocks on Chuck's window in the middle of the night and begs him for help, Chuck is a little hesitant.  But Chuck's a good guy and Jasper seems nicer than all the rumors make him out to be and nothing has ever been PROVEN to make Jasper officially bad and Chuck doesn't believe all of the rumors and so he goes to help Jasper in the middle of the night.  Jasper leads him to his special hide out in the woods and there is the body of a classmate, the sister of Jasper's crush and the daughter of a prominent man.
Jasper swears he hasn't done it and begs Chuck to help him find out who did, because both he and Chuck know that EVERYONE will think that Jasper did it, without even asking questions.
And so begins a journey into small town evil secrets and rumors and young love and self-discovery.  And it is all really well done.  And it takes place during the Vietnam War.  And Chuck's best friend Jeffery is Vietnamese and he and his family face a great deal of prejudice from the jerk-offs in town.  Jeffery was my favorite character by the way and I love the dialog between him and Chuck.  Jeffery has a brave and bold wonderful spirit.
I liked JJ, and for it being NOTHING like books I enjoy and the first book I have read in ages, I have to say I enjoyed it.  Its a smart, smart book, very different and original.

So that's an interesting title...

Maybe there is just something wrong with my mind and the way I think. Maybe no one else even thinks twice about the title of the book Shooting the Moon.
I just absolutely loved this book. I thought it was beautiful and wonderful and simple and complex and powerful. Frances O'Roark Dowell is a truly blessed author. She is excellent at character development and putting the reading right inside the character's head.
The last book that of her's that read was Ten Miles Past Normal, which I loved as well.
Shooting is told from the POV of Jamie a twelve year old girl who lives the on the US Army base of Ft. Hood in Killeen, TX. Her father is a Colonel and pretty much the top guy at Ft. Hood. Jamie and her brother TJ have always grown up loving their country and the army. Their family is tight and strong and pretty cool. The Colonel is a serious man who loves his family first, then the army, then football, as Jamie sees it.
TJ is set to go off to college in the fall but instead, he enlists in the army because his best friend is MIA in Vietnam. Jamie is thrilled. She can't wait to hear all about war and she wishes she could enlist as well. The Colonel and Jamie's mom aren't quite so excited and try to talk TJ out of it, but his mind is made up.
While TJ is in country, he sends letters home to his mom and dad and undeveloped film home to Jamie. Jamie learns to develop the film and learns a lot from what she sees and from getting to know the other young soldiers at Ft. Hood.
Man...man...this is just a really solid, good, good historical fiction book. I can't see anyone not loving the way this story is told and the questions and emotions that it will raise.

Until They All Come Home

"It may have been the wrong war. But the people who fought it went there for the right reason and that is, they loved their country. And I think it is a great mistake, particularly for those who were not alive or at memory age at the time, or even those who were, whose memories got jaded by-- In some cases not jaded, were so emotionally influenced by the disaster the war turned out to be, to forget that those who fought it were there because we sent them there." - Dan Rather.  Vietnam and the Presidency:  Media and the Role of Public Opinion.  March 11, 2006 at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum
I haven't blown through too many books lately, as you can see.  I started taking a Universal Class on the Vietnam War.  When I was in junior high and high school, it seemed as though we started US history every year with the colonies and never got any further than WW2.  I didn't take any US history classes in college because I AP'd out of US History 1 and 2 and so I took other history courses instead.  Now I wish I could go back and redo!  But, through Universal Class, I now have a chance to study something that has always been on my mind.  Back in the late 80s I was working in a library shelving books.  I opened a book to make sure the old-fashioned card had been slipped and the book was ready to go back on the shelf.  Out from the book slipped a POW/MIA sticker, created by the National League of Families.  I had never seen one before and this was, of course, pre-internet days.  The only thing I could do was write a letter to the address on the sticker.  I explained how I had found the sticker and inquired about it.  I received a letter explaining about the sticker and the fact that there were still MIA and POW soldiers in Vietnam.  I couldn't believe it.  I was 15 or 16 at the time and ever since then I have prayed for those men to come home.  For some peace to come to their families and loved ones.
So for right now I'm learning things I should have learned long ago.  I'll be back soon though.  God Bless our service men and women.