October Book Talk

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Mrs. Mahoney's
October Book Talk
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Why Courage Matters
By John McCain
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Summary

• Senator McCain approaches the investigation of
  courage from a position of unease at how diluted
  a commodity it has become in our society, and at
  how shallowly the label is applied. In offering
  anecdotes of individuals whose actions embody the
  rarity of true courage, his well-drawn examples
  range from Navajo leaders to Colorado River
  explorers to Jewish freedom fighter Hannah
  Seneshand Burmese dissident and Nobel Peace
  Prize-recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. He coaches
  readers to believe that one can use "fear as
  the opportunity for courage," and, by tackling
  modest daily challenges, increase the probability
  of summoning deeper reserves when needed. The
  book is not a primer but is, rather, a
  declaration of why striving for courage is
  fundamentally important as an attribute of
  character.

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Barack Obama
The Politics of Hope
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Summary

• Part of the "Shapers of America" series, Barack
  Obama The Politics of Hope is a remarkably
  extensive biography for young adults about the
  charismatic African-American state senator from
  Illinois who has become one of the Democratic
  Party's most prominent figures. Tracing the
  journey of his life from Hawaii and Indonesia to
  Harvard Law School, Chicago's South Side, and the
  halls of Congress, Barack Obama is illustrated
  throughout with black-and-white as well as color
  photography. Chapter notes and an index round out
  this highly accessible resource.

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Feathers
Author Jaqueline Woodson
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Summary

• Narrator Frannie is fascinated with Emily
  Dickinson's poem, "Hope is the thing with
  feathers/ that perches in the soul," and grapples
  with its meaning, especially after a white
  student joins Frannie's all-black sixth-grade
  classroom. Trevor, the classroom bully, promptly
  nicknames him "Jesus Boy," because he is "pale
  and his hair is long." Frannie's best friend,
  Samantha, a preacher's daughter, starts to
  believe that the new boy truly could be Jesus
  ("If there was a world for Jesus to need to walk
  back into, wouldn't this one be it?"). The Jesus
  Boy's sense of calm and its effect on her
  classmates make Frannie wonder if there is some
  truth to Samantha'a musings, but a climactic
  faceoff between him and Trevor bring the
  newcomer's human flaws to light. Frannie's keen
  perceptions allow readers to observe a ripple of
  changes. Because she has experienced so much
  sadness in her life (her brother's deafness, her
  mother's miscarriages) the heroine is able to see
  beyond it allto look forward to a time when the
  pain subsides and life continues. Set in 1971,
  Woodson's novel skillfully weaves in the music
  and events surrounding the rising opposition to
  the Vietnam War, giving this gentle, timeless
  story depth. She raises important questions about
  God, racial segregation and issues surrounding
  the hearing-impaired with a light and thoughtful
  touch. Ages 8-up.

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Miss Crandall's School
For Young Ladies Little misses of Color
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Summary

• Grade 7 UpTwenty-four sonnets tell the story of
  Prudence Crandall and her efforts to educate
  young African-American women in Canterbury, CT,
  1833-1834. The school began as a boarding school
  for white girls when two black women inquired
  about taking classes and Crandall agreed, the
  townspeople withdrew their daughters. As she
  accepted more black students, the town became
  more vocal in its resistance, poisoning the
  school water supply, refusing to sell it
  supplies, and charging Miss Crandall and others
  with a variety of "crimes." The sonnet format is
  challenging but compelling. Each poem addresses
  an individual aspect of the story therefore, the
  tone and cadence change depending upon the person
  speaking or the event being depicted. . Lucinda
  Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School,
  Richmond, VA

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Chew on this
Everything you dont want to know about fast food
Author Eric Schlosser
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Summary

• The authors dish up a somewhat-less-stomach-churni
  ng look at the fast-food industry's growth,
  practices, and effects on public health. They
  trace the hamburger's early years and the
  evolution of the McDonald's Corporation's
  revolutionary Speedee Service System. They follow
  with vivid tours through feedlots, abattoirs, and
  a chicken-processing plant to explore how fast
  food has achieved spectacular international
  success, particularly among an increasingly obese
  youth market, then round off with glimpses of
  Alice Waters' Edible Schoolyard initiative and
  other alternatives less likely to lead to gastric
  bypass surgery. Readers may not lose their
  appetites for McFood from this compelling study,
  but they will definitely come away less eager to
  get a McJob and more aware of the diet's
  attendant McMedical problems

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Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!
Author Laura Amy Schlitz
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Summary

• From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Schlitz
  wrote these 22 brief monologues to be performed
  by students at the school where she is a
  librarian here, bolstered by lively asides and
  unobtrusive notes, and illuminated by Byrd's
  stunningly atmospheric watercolors, they bring to
  life a prototypical English village in 1255.
  Adopting both prose and verse, the speakers, all
  young, range from the half-wit to the lord's
  daughter, who explains her privileged status as
  the will of God. The doctor's son shows off his
  skills ("Ordinary sores/ Will heal with comfrey,
  or the white of an egg,/ An eel skin takes the
  cramping from a leg") a runaway villein (whose
  life belongs to the lord of his manor) hopes for
  freedom after a year and a day in the village, if
  only he can calculate the passage of time an
  eel-catcher describes her rough infancy her
  "starving poor father took me up to drown in a
  bucket of water." (He relents at the sight of her
  "wee fingers" grasping at the sides of the
  bucket.) Ages 10-up.

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Hiroshima Dreams
Author Kelly Easton
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Summary

• Lin cant explain the knowledge she has of the
  future, of what people will say or what will
  happen. Its a gift she shares with Obaasan, her
  grandmother, who has recently come from Japan to
  live with Lins family. But seeing the future is
  more than knowing whether or not a boy will call.
  What is Lin to make of the visions she has of a
  day long ago, when the atomic bomb was dropped on
  Hiroshima?
• Acclaimed author Kelly Eastons poignant
  coming-of-age novel about a girl with psychic
  abilities is rich in imagery and memorable
  characters

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Keeping Corner
Author Kashmira Sheth
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Summary

• Ba slipped the gold bangles from my wrists. The
  gold ones were plain so I didn't mind taking them
  off, but I loved wearing my milk-glass bangles
  and the lakkh bracelets. "A widow can't wear
  bangles," she said. "They are signs of a woman's
  good fortune. When your husband dies it's over."
  "What if my good fortune comes back?" "It
  doesn't." Pretty as a peacock, twelve-year-old
  Leela had been spoiled all her life. She doesn't
  care for school and barely marks the growing
  unrest between the British colonists and her own
  countrymen. Why should she? Her future has been
  planned since her engagement at two and marriage
  at nine. Leela's whole life changes, though, when
  her husband dies. She's now expected to behave
  like a proper widow shaving her head and trading
  her jewel-toned saris for rough, earth-colored
  ones. Leela is considered unlucky now, and will
  have to stay confined to her house for a
  year--keep corner--in preparation for a life of
  mourning for a boy she barely knew.

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The End
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