The Grace of Silence: a memoir by Michele Norris

Michele Norris is a journalist best known for her work on NPR's All Things Considered.  She initially planned to write a book about the various conversations on racism taking place nationwide following President Obama's election.  However, she soon realized that much of the circumvention and avoidance of truly open discussion about race and racism that she had observed as part of her work were equally present in her own family.  There were stories that had directly affected her own parents and grandparents which were hushed up or sidestepped.  Norris decided to explore her family's experience to better understand how and why they dealt so calmly with the disrespect and violence visited upon them.

Since her father never spoke of the incident, Norris struggled to uncover the story of his being shot by a white Birmingham policeman. She describes the difficult process of locating any public records--from newspapers or the police, particularly since crimes against blacks weren't considered noteworthy.   She frames the event with a description of how black soldiers in WW II were initially limited to noncombatant, frequently menial roles in segregated units. Having sacrificed to obtain freedom for others, many veterans came home to Jim Crow laws and high unemployment, and denied the right to vote.  Those who challenged such treatment risked physical harm or death, even when in uniform. In the case of her father,  injustice was met with  flight to the Midwest.

Indignities existed on her mother's side as well.  The second great family secret that Norris discovered was that her maternal grandmother worked for Quaker Oats portraying Aunt Jemima, with all the accompanying and humiliating stereotypes.  Clearly there were  moments of great discomfort within her family when considering events such as these in the past.

The author takes a look at her own upbringing to appreciate how her parents protected her and encouraged her to excel.  Norris's stories of her family are moving and instructional--providing a necessary reminder of both the overt and insidious forms of racism.

Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta

I have a bad habit of peeking at the ending of suspenseful books somewhere around halfway through to see who makes it and who doesn't. By the end of Chapter 4 (page 41) of Those Who Wish Me Dead I was ready to see if 13-year-old Jace Wilson survives.  He is being pursued by some seriously evil bad guys--two brothers who epitomize the meaning of psychopath.  Brothers Jack and Patrick Blackwell are soulless killers who leave a trail of dead--and frequently tortured--victims who either witnessed their previous crimes or can identify them as they proceed to commit their next one.   Only three characters stand between them and their prey:  an instructor in wilderness survival skills, his wife, and a fire spotter. Outgunned and outthought at every turn,  Ethan Serbin struggles to keep his promise to protect the boy, but first he must find him.  Knowing his pursuers are getting closer, Jace, or Connor as he is now called, has run away from the group of troubled teens that he was placed in as part of a witness protection program.  He enlists fire spotter Hannah Faber to help him--and they flee deeper into the Montana mountains--and into the teeth of a growing forest fire.  How much more hopeless can a boy's chances of survival be?

Admittedly the book requires the reader to suspend belief in a number of plot twists--i.e., how Ethan's wife Allison can leave the hospital where she is recuperating from severe burns and a beating to guide a detective on horseback into the woods towards the fire.  Still,  this a great book for a day or two at the beach or a camping trip.  Come to think of it, students preparing for Outdoor Ed can pick up lots of useful wilderness skills before heading out. Recommended.

Watership Down by Richard Adams

With the school garden starting to take off-- pea and squash plants, beets, carrots all looking healthier each day--I have started to think about predators, namely the rabbits that have been hopping around behind the performing arts building.   I have a feeling they are just waiting for our vegetables to be worth harvesting.  What to do?   Get drawn into an all-out war against the furry raiders?  Nope--it's a reminder that it's time to re-read Watership Down, the timeless classic about a small group of homeless rabbits striving to create a safe place for themselves in a challenging and dangerous world.

Adams has built a complete society in the rabbits of Watership Down,  including a language and an oral tradition with supreme beings and mythic heroes to inform and inspire them.  Hazel is their leader, a determined and wise rabbit who believes that somewhere there can be a peaceful and secure future for those who have joined him.  With his size and martial training, Bigwig provides bravery when it is needed the most.   Other supporting characters include the fierce and powerful Woundwort, who seeks to destroy the band and enslave the survivors; Fiver and Blackberry, who support Hazel with their abilities as seer and problem-solver, respectively; and the does who risk their lives to escape from captivity.  Dangers abound in this quest for a safe home.  Besides Woundwort and his troops, there are the men who plow up the land and patrol their gardens with dogs and guns  and  the non-human hunters--the foxes, cats, and weasels who are an inevitable part of their world.  The rabbits find help in unlikely places, a seagull and a mouse, and throughout their adventures display incredible fortitude, trust, loyalty and courage.

We will still try to discourage the CWA rabbits from excessively raiding our garden, but with Hazel and crew in mind, I think it's possible to look a little more kindly on them.  Who knows what stories they have to tell?

Hild by Nicola Griffith

A reviewer describes this historical novel as "being like Game of Thrones without the dragons . . ."* Very true. The novel recreates a violent and unforgiving, yet decidedly complex world,  a king's court in the Dark Ages.  Plots abound as ambitious priests,  warlords, rulers of competing families-as well as potential traitors within their own families, all jockey for power and influence as King Edwin of Northumbria seeks to become "overking" of all the Angles.  Hild, based on an actual historical figure, Saint Hilda of Whitby,  is Edwin's niece and his seer, who, though barely past childhood, is expected to know everything and predict the future.  Her survival depends on her accuracy and ability to maintain the king's trust.  Hild's mother,  Breguswith of Kent, has trained her well. Hild speaks Anglish, British and Latin, and can read and write, rare talents for anyone in the seventh century, much less for females.  At various points in the novel she must identify threats,  maintain a spy network, act as healer and midwife,  predict the seasons, and decide when to plant crops. She proves herself to be a fierce fighter, both feared and respected.   She must live by her wits, trust few, and hide her emotions, including her love for her half-brother, Cian.  It is a lonely life with rare moments of peace.  

The author has recreated a vibrant and complex medieval society based on her own research into English history.  She describes lives of privilege and of hardship for all classes of people--royalty, farmers, warriors, and servants and slaves.  Above all, Griffith has created a believable character in Hild--one with fears, longings, loyalties, passion and curiosity.  Following the plot can be challenging, requiring a map, a family tree and a glossary (all included), but it is also very rewarding.   Recommended



*Back cover:  Neal Stephenson

Thousand Words by Jennifer Brown

Ashleigh is a teen who seems to have everything--a circle of good friends, a best friend, good grades,  a place on Chesterton High's cross country team, and a cool boyfriend name Kaleb.  The one problem is that Kaleb is now on his way to college, and Ashleigh is afraid he'll forget her; already he seems to spend more time with his baseball buddies than with her.  So Ashleigh,  drunk and encouraged by her friends, decides to take a naked selfie and send it to Kaleb so he will remember her.

Unfortunately, distance relationships can be challenging, and Ashleigh can't get over her sense that Kaleb is lying about his social life at college.  Her distrust started when she heard that he had either talked about or shared her picture with one or more of his friends, and she just can't shake her doubts and jealousy.  Eventually,  Kaleb has  enough of her accusations and breaks up with her. Ashleigh's friends, in a misguided show of support, spray shaving cream on his house and rub shoe polish on his car windows.  Kaleb's payback --no surprise--is to broadcast the photo.

Thousand Words  is Ashleigh's story of how she is targeted by supposed friends and strangers alike when the picture goes public.  She is bullied both in school and online and  is sentenced to community service as a consequence for texting child pornography.  Ashleigh's family is victimized as well; her father is the superintendent of schools and families challenge his ability to set a good example when his only child is caught sexting.  Through her retelling of events Ashleigh reveals the intense pain she feels from the shame and betrayals and where she finds the support that helps her survive.

The Bear by Claire Cameron

Cameron's book about two young children, five-year-old Anna and three-year-old Stick, orphaned by a bear attack while canoe camping on an island in Algonquin Park, Ontario, is absolutely impossible to put down. The story is based on an actual event--the death of two people in 1991 in the park, and the fictionalized version builds on what was known about the attack and on details of the wilderness environment provided by the author who was once a ranger in the same park.  In this account, Anna is awake in the family's tent, listening to her parents quiet talk by the campfire when her mother starts to shout.  Soon thereafter, her father reaches into the tent, grabs Anna and her brother and throws them into a large cooler that the family carries with them to store food.  Cameron describes the attack and its aftermath through the eyes of the five-year old, who can't figure out why the bear (or large black dog, as she first thinks), is trying to get into the cooler and why her parents don't answer her calls for help.

Eventually the bear leaves and the children manage to get the lid open and crawl out.  Anna's and Stick's dad is not there and the camp is a mess.  Anna doesn't see her father, but she does spot his shoe stuck on a piece of meat like the leg of lamb she once saw in the refrigerator at home.  Why, she asks herself, would Daddy put his shoe on a leg of lamb?  The children's mother is still alive, although motionless.  She whispers to her daughter to "be brave" and to put her brother in the canoe and leave the island, because it's not safe.  The rest of the novel details this bewildered child's efforts to do what her Momma wants--to paddle away and then wait for her parents to come get them.  Anna has to draw on every ounce of will and devotion to her parents and baby brother to combat hunger, thirst and fear of the black dog's return.   She is alternately hot, freezing, hungry, angry, scared and delirious.  I must confess to peeking at the later chapters so that I could keep reading about the children's suffering.  This is a great book, although not recommended for reading before or during Outdoor Ed!

Good Kings Bad Kings by Susan Nussbaum

This award winning book serves as an eye-opener on the care--or lack of care in most cases, of a group of teens with disabilities who are confined to a privately-run  but government-sponsored nursing home in Chicago.  The story is told through the voices of  three of the teens, two of the staff, a recruiter for the company that runs the home and wants beds to be filled, and a smart young woman, also disabled, who is hired as a data-entry clerk, a job which provides access to patient records and prompts her to ask questions.

A variety of relationships emerge from the teens' narrations.  Sad, vulnerable Mia is often stranded in her oversized and broken wheelchair.  Sometimes Teddy attaches her chair to his automated one so he can move her around.  Teddy adores Mia and watches over her until she mysteriously starts to shun him.  Yessie is also wheelchair-bound, but that doesn't stop her from taking on girls that steal from her or call her names. Orphaned and grieving but tough, fifteen-year-old Yessie finds a friend in Jimmie, one of the aides, who feels fortunate to escape from a life on the streets herself.   The other aide, Ricky, is a pretty cool Puerto Rican who cares about the kids and has a major crush on Joanne, the data-entry clerk.  Their romance and Joanne's increasing involvement in patient advocacy are high points of the book.

Ricky, Joanne and Jimmie are the "good kings."  There are, unfortunately, a number of "bad kings" who are abusive or criminally negligent as part of a system that values making money over delivering quality care.  The home, also know as the ILLC--Illinois Learning and Life-Skills Center, has a higher than expected number of hospitalizations for its clients.  There are disturbing undercurrents of  danger for the residents, who have few resources other than their own spirit and resilience and the dedication of the "good kings" to deflect the physical and psychological threats that confront them on a daily basis. The language is honest and raw and the situations are very believable. The tension comes from wondering if there will be any justice for the characters. The novel is gripping and at times tough to read, but its well worth the effort.