BOOK reMARKS

Reviewed by John Glover, Reference Librarian for the Humanities

A fictionalized account of the murder of Emmett Till, Bebe Moore Campbell’s Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine is an engaging novel about the lives of the people involved. Spanning the many decades that followed the murder, this story personalizes the heartache suffered by everyone involved, from the family of Armstrong Todd (the fictional stand-in for Emmett Till) to the power brokers of the Mississippi Delta to the man who put a bullet in his stomach to the descendants of every person involved. Campbell has a knack for bringing her characters to life in all their beauty and ugliness. No one, murderer or victim, gets away unexamined in this work.

Whether it was Campbell's intention or not (she died in 2006), this book is the very definition of thought-provoking. Abstract ideas of discrimination and oppression have almost no role in this book; instead the reader experiences the thoughts and feelings of people living in difficult circumstances. To say that black Americans have historically been oppressed is one thing, but it is entirely another to watch the destruction of lives in ways large and small. All the novel's black characters struggle to survive the injustice of Jim Crow, to escape it in the North, only to realize that the legacy of oppression is inescapable, and can mean destruction even when victory is in sight. All the characters -- white or black, male or female, rich or poor, young or old -- are forever damaged by the things they do and that are done to them as a result of who they are. In the end, however, most of them find a place of strength to draw from in order to handle life's trials.

Cabell Library PS3553.A4395 Y68 1992

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Reviewed by John Glover, Reference Librarian for the Humanities

Li-Young Lee is a poet of the core elements of human experience, shunning the transitory. His work encompasses loneliness, fatherhood, love, the inner life of children, and many other experiences familiar to readers of today, yesterday, or tomorrow. The poems of Book of My Nights are not very long as a rule, focusing with spare language on the things one tends to ruminate about in the hours between dusk and dawn.

On the death of his brother, in "Black Petal":

Ask him who his mother is. He'll declare the birds
have eaten the path home, but each of us
joins night's ongoing story

On the concerns of a father, in "Words for Worry":

Worry boils the water
for tea in the middle of the night.

Worry trimmed the child's nails before
singing him to sleep.

On youth and mortality, in "Stations of the Sea":

Once forsaken, I remain
hidden in the dust, a mortal threshold
unearthed by crying.

Crying, my body turns to dark petals.

The poet has been well-laurelled in his life as a poet, winning multiple Pushcart Prizes, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, among others. Perhaps the most prominent of Asian American poets, a collection of interviews entitled Breaking the Alabaster Jar was published in 2006. His poems have been anthologized in major works like the Norton Anthology of American Literature, signaling both provisional inclusion in the oft-debated canon and the regard in which his work is held.

Cabell Library PS3562.E35438 B66 2001

Cabell Library PS3562.E35438 Z46 2006 Breaking the Alabaster Jar

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Celebrating Black History Month at the VCU Libraries

Reviewed by Patricia Selinger, Head of Preservation

It was a tense moment. Sojourner Truth was about to speak at the second Women’s Rights Convention in 1851. Truth had been making many Americans uncomfortable as she spoke publicly of the hypocrisy of democracy when racism and sexism were tearing the country apart. Her book, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave, was published the year before and she had joined an abolitionist speakers bureau. Her supporters secured her a place on the program. As soon as she spoke, ongoing discussions halted. The elegant, privileged white feminist women at the meeting, who thought they could speak authentically for slave women, were quiet. Truth’s life stood in stark contrast to theirs, and she spoke much more persuasively than they could. She called on women who did not want her to speak or join the discussions to face their hypocrisy. She denounced men in the audience for withholding rights from their mothers, sisters, and wives. The question, “Ar’n’t I A Woman” perfectly captured the difference between black and white antebellum women.

Deborah White, a distinguished professor of history at Rutgers University, wrote a concise book on the development of stereotypes of slave women as well the horrors they were forced to face in their daily life. She describes well the issues and differences between slave and free women. While all women of the time were powerless and exploited to a degree, black women experienced an extreme form of persecution. Extensive footnotes authenticate her research and work. White proposed that the female slave trade had little to do with the woman’s ability to work; instead, it had everything to do with physical attractiveness and the black woman’s ability to have children -- children to benefit the slave owner alone. In essence, slave women were little more than sexual objects. White persuasively documents how the stigma persists to modern times. Black women have no era in history where they were respected or held privilege as a class in American society.

Nine years later Sojourner Truth was speaking again, this time on the abolition of slavery. Rumors circulated in the audience that Truth was actually a man posing as a woman. Men demanded that she show her breasts to prove she was a woman. She did, saying that it was to their shame that she did so. At that time, “No” seemed to be the answer to the question “Ar’n’t I A Woman”. White argues that the black woman is still waiting for an affirmative answer.

The text of the speech “Ar’n’t [Ain’t] I A Woman?” can be found online at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/sojtruth-woman.html. The book was White’s first publication and won the Letitia Brown Memorial Book Prize.

Cabell Library E 443 .W58 1985

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Reviewed by Renée Bosman, Reference Librarian for Government and Public Affairs and Reference Collection Coordinator

Three Junes is a quiet character study of the McLeod family, told at three points in time over the span of ten years. Each section stands well on its own; indeed, “Collies,” the first part of the book, won the 1999 Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society Medal for Best Novella. Yet when read together, the stories complement each other and serve to provide multi-faceted portraits of the characters; the reader not only views Paul, the McLeod patriarch, through the lens of his own narrative, but from his son Fenno’s perspective as well.

The novel begins with Paul’s trip to Greece as a recent widower, during which he reminisces about his somewhat flawed, yet very loving, marriage to Maureen. Fenno’s story meanders between his life in New York during the time of Maureen’s illness and his homecoming to Scotland several years later, precipitated by Paul’s death. The third section studies the McLeod men from the eyes of an outsider, an acquaintance of Paul’s who also meets Fenno and one of his brothers through rather unusual circumstances. Yet rather than a too-coincidental and tidy ending, Fern’s impressions lend another dimension to the McLeod men and serve to underscore the themes of choice and ambiguity present in the lives of Glass’s very human characters.

Cabell Library PS3607.L37 T48 2002

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Reviewed by Ken Hopson, Manager, Media and Reserve Services

Most Westerners grew up hearing the word Gypsy, understanding it to portray a colorful sort of people who travel in caravans and read palms. In reality, they are an ethnic group of at least 15 million people, properly called "Romani." They have their own language and government, though no home country. Originally from Northern India, the Romani have spent the last millennium migrating to all parts of the world, eventually assimilating into communities where they feel comfortable. Throughout their history, the Romani have faced the xenophobic, which is among the topics approached in this film.

Tony Gatlif , of Romani ethnicity himself, has directed a film that is part personal journey, part love story and part exposé of a misunderstood people. Gatlif won numerous international awards for this film, which employed only two non-Romani actors.

Gadjo Dilo tells the story of Stephane (Romain Duris), a young Parisian, who travels to Romania in search of a female Gypsy singer who is on a cassette tape his father had given him before he died. Taken under the wing of the constantly intoxicated and overly excited Isidor (Izidor Serban), Stephane is eventually accepted by the Romani community and experiences both their jubilation and tribulation first hand. He also finds that the singer he has been seeking may not be the woman on his father's tape, but an altogether different Gypsy, the unconventional Sabina (Rona Hartner) sitting right next to him. This movie will make you happy and sad, offend and enlighten you, and fill your ears with some of the most unique music in the world.

PN1997 .G34 1999

Note: This is a VHS video, available for in-house use only, except for faculty, graduate and honors students. See the VCU Libraries Borrowing Privileges webpage for details.

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Reviewed by John Glover, Reference Librarian for the Humanities

Long before the movie version of Wonder Boys catapulted Tobey Maguire into the public eye, way before he published his Pulitzer-winning The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, back when he was only 25, Michael Chabon published his first novel, a slim coming-of-age story called The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. It brought him fame and a good reputation at an age when most writers are still diligently laboring in the vineyards of the literary and little magazines. It is a funny, moving book set during the summer when newly graduated college student Art Bechstein tries to figure out who he is and what to do with his life. In the process he winds up with a boyfriend and a girlfriend, gets involved with the Pittsburgh underworld at levels high and low, and has a series of pleasantly picaresque adventures.

This novel will appeal to readers who enjoyed The Secret History or The Catcher in the Rye, or really any good novel about what it means to be young and in love with the world. Chabon's prose is both exuberant and smooth in this book, telling the story with a minimum of fuss. Pittsburgh is on display in every chapter, a real presence and not just a generic setting, making this the kind of novel that inhabitants might point to if asked "what's it like to live here?" It's also a fun novel to read if you've only read Chabon's later work, partly for the pleasure of the book itself, partly for the pleasure of anticipating how he came to grow in later years.

Cabell Library PS3553.H15 M97 1989

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Reviewed by Phyllis Jennings, Librarian, Research and Instructional Services

This is the children’s alphabet book I have been waiting for. It is more fun than a McDonald’s playground and twice as original!

Alphabet books abound- some are based on animals, garden flowers, or popular characters in children’s books; here is one based on the metropolis. From the A of a construction site sawhorse to the Z of a tenement stairway, this book takes you on a tour of New York City in refreshing and original ways. The author/illustrator, Stephen Johnson, tells us: “The idea for Alphabet City came to me while I was walking along a city street. I noticed an ornamental keystone that looked like the letter S . Then suddenly I saw the letter A in a construction sawhorse and the letter Z in fire-escapes.”

Realistic pastel, charcoal, and watercolor paintings in a colorful, simple format will appeal to readers of all ages. You will soon find yourself looking for alphabet letters as you take your daily walk, with or without a child in tow. After you turn the last page, you’ll be happy to learn that this book has a companion titled City by Numbers, available at most public libraries.

Cabell Library Juvenile Literature PE1155.J645 1995

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Celebrating Black History Month at the VCU Libraries

Reviewed by John Glover, Reference Librarian for the Humanities

"What good is science fiction to Black people?" If you have ever wondered this, or if you've ever thought that the future was limited to shiny, cybernetic miracles, you need to read Bloodchild and Other Stories. A collection of five short stories and two wonderfully spare essays on the art of writing, this book serves as a fine introduction to the works of Octavia Butler (1947-2006).

Butler's novels have won the most prestigious awards in the science fiction world, even though they often deal with questions of race and culture that have not always captured the attention of science fiction writers, or the interest of science fiction readers. Her protagonists are frequently strong Black women - think Celie by way of Ellen Ripley. The stories in this volume include everything from synthetic diseases that rob people of their basic humanity to the subtleties of interpersonal relations in difficult circumstances. The title story is a science fictional exploration of the relationship between two unequal species that stands as a mind-bending exploration of slavery and human bondage. There are no laser swords or starships here - only a series of meditations on the possibilities of being human.

Cabell Library PS3552.U827 A6 2005

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Reviewed by Patricia Selinger, Head of Preservation

When I read The Bridge of San Luis Rey, I feel I am in the presence of great art. The author’s prose flows and evokes imagery like a masterpiece. It is a worthwhile diversion to refresh the spirit. With 200 pages, more or less depending on the edition, it takes just a short time to immerse into and emerge from a tale sure to stay with you forever.

The book begins with what Brother Juniper witnessed one day as he was walking on the road, just ten minutes from the bridge himself. He had stopped for a moment to celebrate the peace and joy in his heart. Then he heard a snapping sound and saw five people on the Bridge of San Luis Rey fall to their deaths. Trying to make sense of the incident, he wrote a treatise for the church to show how each person who died had been led to this death by God. Surely there was something in each person's life that warranted such an untimely, violent death. "Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan." Unfortunately, Brother Juniper failed to show the divine plan and the church burned him at the stake as a heretic. He had succeeded in showing the humanity of each person in their story — how everyone is good and bad, not evil but not divine, not always humble and not always self-indulgent. In his desire to include all the details of a person's life, he unwittingly wrote how everyone bears difficult loss and anticipates joy, both spiritual and carnal. And then, it was his turn to contemplate his role in forces of good and evil. Others in the town are affected by the deaths and seek meaning in their own way. The bridge becomes a metaphor holding together the land of the living and the land of the dead. What are the bridges you must cross in your life?

I have returned to this book many times in my life. Each time I am reminded what good prose is, and what a good story is. I believe it helps me to be a better writer.

Cabell Library PS 3545 .I345 B7

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Reviewed by Renée Bosman, Reference Librarian for Government and Public Affairs

In this beautiful novel, Geraldine Brooks breathes life into Mr. March, the father in Louisa May Alcott's beloved Little Women. As March is largely absent from Alcott's story, it is Brooks who truly introduces us to this character whom we follow from his youthful days as a peddler in the south to his post as a Union chaplain in the Civil War — first ministering to soldiers and later as the teacher at a contraband farm. Self-taught scholar, passionate abolitionist, and unorthodox clergyman, March is modeled on Alcott's father, Bronson Alcott, with inspiration drawn from his own papers, as well as those of friends Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

Narrated in the first person by March (with some chapters from wife Marmee's point of view), this very personal account of war, with all its brutality, inhumanity, and both physical and emotional suffering is quite disturbing, and difficult to read at times. Yet it is nicely interspersed with reminiscences of the Marches' domestic life in Concord, Massachusetts, which help create the rich character development of both March and Marmee. March won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Interested in more by Brooks, or other works about the Civil War? Check out Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks, or Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by her husband, Tony Horwitz.

Cabell Library PR9619.3.B7153 M37 2005
Download MP3 file

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Celebrating Black History Month at the VCU Libraries

Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

The Color Purple is one of Alice Walker's most celebrated novels. Its main character is Celie, an African American in the south who writes of her heartache and misery in a series of letters—first to God, then to her sister who is a missionary in Africa. A striking characteristic of this novel is its portrayal of African American men and how they treat African American women. Celie and other female characters are often raped, beaten, treated like mules, and degraded by their husbands, fathers, and lovers. In Celie's case, she goes from growing up with an abusive stepfather to a bad marriage with a much older man who treats her like a servant while spending much of his time with his lover, Shug. Despite their connection to the same man, Shug and Celie forge a unique and loving relationship that allows Celie to transform from being passive and submissive to being independent and self-confident. Her transformation also creates a positive change in her husband, Albert, and despite the tragedies and hardships Celie faced over the years, the reader is left with a sense of optimism about her fate. The Color Purple won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award for fiction.

Cabell Library PS3573.A425 C6

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Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

How to be Good delivers the same dry wit and subtle intelligence as Nick Hornby's other works (among them About a Boy, High Fidelity, and A Long Way Down). It is narrated by Katie, a middle-aged mother of two and wife of "The Angriest Man in Holloway," which is the byline on her husband's newspaper column. After many years of marriage, she is ready to call it quits but as she wavers and wrestles with this decision throughout the book, her husband undergoes some very dramatic changes. No longer is he angry (which means that he is now unemployed), he embarks on a campaign to save the world, starting with his street and city. He is mentored by his guru, GoodNews, a spiritual healer who moves into their home after being evicted from his apartment. Despite the humor and constant surprises, this book does address some complex issues: What makes someone a good person? Katie thinks she qualifies as Good because she is a doctor, a helper (even though she frequently has a bad attitude about her patients). Should being good require sacrifice? Is lack of marital happiness a sign of marital dysfunction? Does that merit divorce or require perseverance? Hornby was awarded the W H Smith Book Award for How to be Good in 2002.

Cabell Library PR6058.O689 H69 2001

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Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

Bel Canto opens with a lavish birthday celebration honoring Japanese businessman Mr. Hosokawa, whose sole reason for visiting this unnamed South American country is to hear the world-famous soprano, Roxane Coss. During the festivities, armed terrorists break into the Vice President's home, where the party is taking place. Their plan to kidnap the President is thwarted when they discover he is not in attendance, and instead, they hold the partygoers captive. The next day, several men and all women (except Roxane Coss) are released, and the captors and hostages settle into their new routines. The hostages are from all over the world, and have only Mr. Hosokawa's translator to assist them in communicating. As days stretch into weeks and weeks stretch into months, the captors and prisoners form strong bonds with each other and with the music that comes to dominate their existence. Life in the house becomes idyllic for many of its inhabitants, and preferable to the world outside the walls surrounding the mansion. Patchett's inspiration for Bel Canto was a 1996 hostage crisis in Lima, Peru, which lasted for more than four months and was said to include soccer games, chess matches between captors and hostages, and pizza delivery. Bel Canto won the Orange Prize for Fiction and was a P.E.N./Faulkner nominee.

Cabell Library PS3566.A7756 B4 2001

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Reviewed by Renée Bosman, Government Information Librarian

Possession begins when Roland, a scholar of the fictitious Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash, discovers a letter Ash wrote to Christabel LaMotte, one of the era's first feminist writers. Roland's sleuthing for more information regarding a possible link between the two poets leads him to Maud Bailey, a somewhat haughty and distanced LaMotte scholar. The two embark on a quest together, determined to uncover the truth and find out the extent of the Ash-LaMotte relationship, which could radically alter their lives' work and scholarship. Their journey takes them to the English countryside and France as they unearth old letters and journals that weave the story of this previously unknown romance.

A simple plot summary does not even begin to do justice to this multi-layered novel. Byatt's narrator presents the parallel stories of the present-day scholars and their Victorian subjects through a variety of literary forms, including poetry, letters, diary entries and fairy tales. This postmodern romance also tackles some interesting themes, such as the nature of literary biography and scholarship in light of our incomplete access to the full truth about the stories of authors' lives. Yet for all its intellectualism and wealth of literary allusions, the narrative of Possession seldom lags, and you will soon find yourself wrapped up in the mystery surrounding Ash and LaMotte, which increasingly consumes Maud and Roland. Possession won the 1990 Booker Prize.

Cabell Library PR6052.Y2 P6 1990

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Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

This fascinating novel proves that you don't have to like the characters in order to like a book. A Confederacy of Dunces is highly comedic in its gross caricatures of New Orleans citizens. The main character is Ignatius Reilly, an obnoxious, obese freeloader who, though a middle-aged man, still lives at home with his equally unlikable alcoholic mother. Ignatius imagines himself to be a philosopher and reformer, so when he is forced to get a job, he attempts to galvanize workers to complain about workplace conditions (he names this campaign a "Crusade for Moorish Dignity"). When this plan goes awry and he is fired, he gets a job as a hot dog street vendor where he eats many more hot dogs than he sells and again fails in his revolutionary attempts. He eventually must flee the city to avoid being committed to an asylum.

The story behind this book's publication is as interesting as the novel itself. John Kennedy Toole failed to have it published, and committed suicide in 1969. For the next several years, his mother's attempts to find a publisher was unsuccessful until she insisted on showing it to Walker Percy (The Moviegoer, The Last Gentleman) who was teaching at Loyola in New Orleans. Although he was reluctant to read it, he was quickly convinced that it should be published and sent it to Louisiana State University Press. When it was published in 1980, it became an immediate success, both literary and commercial, and even won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1981.

Cabell Library PS3570.O54 C66 2000

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Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

I can't remember how many times I read this book as a child—but I do remember being fascinated by this tale of independence and survival. When a group of Russian hunters arrives at a remote island and kills many of its inhabitants, those remaining decide to abandon the island. As the ship sails away the narrator, Karana, notices that her young brother is still on the island. Hysterical, she jumps overboard and returns to shore and together they prepare to survive alone until another ship returns for them. Her brother is killed the next day by wild dogs, and Karana spends the next several years in solitude on the island. She encounters many dangers, including wild dogs, hunters, an earthquake, an octopus, and a tidal wave. While her life is dangerous, she also learns survival skills—she makes weapons, builds a house and fence, builds and mends a canoe, and makes her own clothes. Both the day-to-day aspects of a solitary life, and the dangerous adventures she encounters makes this a fascinating book for late elementary and middle school students, but on rereading it, I can say that it is a great quick read for adults as well. Island of the Blue Dolphins won the 1961 Newbery Medal.

Cabell Library Juvenile Literature PZ7 .O237 I75

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Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

Atonement begins in England during the time period between the first and second World Wars. It is centered on three characters: thirteen-year-old Briony, an aspiring writer, her older sister Cecilia who recently returned home after three years at Cambridge, and their next-door-neighbor and Cecilia's childhood friend, Robbie. From an upstairs window, young Briony observes a surprising encounter between Cecilia and Robbie: they appear to fight and then Cecilia submerges herself in a large fountain. Briony feels threatened by this and wonders about Robbie's motives. Later that evening, she falsely accuses him of a crime, as she is convinced that he is a dangerous maniac. The story then jumps forward to World War II, as Briony tries to atone for what she now realizes was a case of mistaken identity, while struggling with the guilt she feels about forever altering the lives of Cecilia, Robbie, and the rest of her family.

Atonement was a 2003 ALA Notable Book and won the WH Smith Literary Award (2002) and the National Book Critics' Circle Fiction Award (2003).

Cabell Library PR6063.C4 A86 2001

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Reviewed by Renée Bosman, Government Information Librarian

"Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." So begins The Blind Assassin, a story of two sisters, one of whom dies young, yet is still revered by devout fans of her posthumously-published novel. Laura Chase's sister Iris is left to live among the fallout caused by both Laura's death and the publication of her "scandalous" novel. The story presented to the reader is told by an elderly Iris, who shares a rather cynical and detached account of their childhood, her coerced marriage to an older husband, and the subsequent downfall of the once-prosperous Chase family. Iris's musings shift seamlessly between past and present, and interspersed among her story are excerpts from Laura's novel, The Blind Assassin. Atwood's novel-within-a-novel approach provides just enough clues to read between the lines of Iris's tale, leading the reader along at a measured pace to the ultimate "AHA!" moment of realization of what really happened during those years prior to Laura's death. When I finished this book, I put it down with a stunned "wow." The Blind Assassin won the 2000 Booker Prize.

Cabell Library PR9199.3.A8 B55 2000

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Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

Another favorite Banned Book is Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning classic To Kill a Mockingbird. Set in depression-era Alabama, it is both an endearing story about two children and their father, and a compelling examination of Southern race relations. Atticus Finch is a defense attorney with two young children, Scout and her older brother Jem. As an adult, Scout narrates the story of her childhood spent trailing after Jem and their summer friend Dill. One summer, their father is asked to defend Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a poor white woman. Atticus is criticized by many for taking the case seriously; his commitment to justice and equality in the face of threats and insults is a lasting lesson to his young daughter who idolizes him.

Cabell Library PS3562.E353 Various Locations

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Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

Set in antebellum Virginia, in fictional Manchester County, The Known World is a 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner and debut novel by Edward P. Jones. It examines the paradoxical circumstances surrounding a free black class that owns slaves. The book opens with the death of freed slave Henry Townsend, who owns a plantation and 33 slaves. Responsibility for operating the plantation is left to his wife, Caldonia and before long, things begin to fall apart. Slaves escape, free blacks are resold into slavery, and masters and slaves grow increasingly suspicious of each other. This is a highly intricate novel--the reader is introduced not only to the Townsends, but to their parents, most of their slaves, their teacher, Henry's former owner, neighbors, the white law enforcement officers patrolling the county, and several others. Despite the breadth of characters presented, rarely are they purely good or purely evil--even Henry's former master who often treated his slaves harshly is depicted as a doting father to his children and lifelong mentor to Henry. To explain how free blacks viewed slave ownership, one character comments "It is not the same as owning people in your own family. It is not the same at all...All of us do only what the law and God tell us we can do. No one of us who believes in the law and God does more than that...We owned slaves. It was what was done, and so that is what we did."

Cabell Library PS3560.O4813 K58 2003

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Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

To celebrate Banned Book Week, which is September 24 - October 1, I reread a childhood favorite, Bridge to Terabithia. I first read this in fifth grade; I vividly remember sobbing as I read the ending and wondered if I would do the same thing this time around. Set in rural Virginia, this book is about a friendship that changes ordinary life into a world of imagination and magic. The two main characters are fifth graders Jess and Leslie. Leslie is the new kid in school and after a rocky start, becomes Jess's best friend. Together, they invent a secret world called Terabithia, which they rule as King and Queen and defend against opposing foes. When Jess is faced with the tragic loss of his best friend, he is at a crossroads--will he abandon Terabithia and refuse to heal after Leslie's death, or will he accept the challenge of ruling Terabithia alone? While as a ten-year-old, I cried when Leslie died, this time I was most struck by the simple beauty of Jess's grief in the days that follow. This was especially touching after learning that Katherine Paterson wrote this novel for her young son after his best friend died. Perhaps because of the subject matter, Newbery Medal winner Bridge to Terabithia is ranked #9 on the top 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books (1990-2000).

Cabell Library Juvenile Literature (4th Floor) PZ7.P273 B7

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Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

In the years since this book was published in 1997, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman has become required reading in many medical and nursing programs. It is a well-researched and impartial look at the clash between American health care providers and immigrants from Eastern cultures. Tragedy is set in motion when a Hmong family who had immigrated from Laos to Merced, California takes their infant daughter to the emergency room during a seizure. Her American doctors diagnose Lia Lee with severe Epilepsy while her parents attribute the seizures to qaug dab peg, or "the spirit catches you and you fall down." While Western medicine focuses on healing bodily problems through medicine and physical treatments, the Hmong prefer animal sacrifices and shamanism, as they believe spiritual healing will correct the physical symptoms. Language barriers, cultural differences, and misunderstandings about medicine doses lead to more confusion and problems as both sides struggle to care for Lia. This book highlights the importance of understanding immigrant cultures and the beliefs about illness and treatment that inform different worldviews.

Tompkins-McCaw Library RA418.5 .T73 F33 1997

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Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

The best word to describe Gilead is peaceful. It is a slow-moving, meandering novel written as a letter from an elderly father to his young son, to be read when the son reaches adulthood. It recounts events from four generations of Ames living in Gilead, Iowa--primarily focusing on the fathers who have all been clergymen. Reverend John Ames writes to his son about his Abolitionist grandfather, who came to Iowa from Maine to fight slavery, and who served in the Civil War as a Union chaplain when he was fifty years old. Ames also describes his pacifist father who struggled to make peace with his own father, a polar opposite. He records details of his life in the present--observations about his young wife and son, internal turmoil about how to respond to his best friend's wayward son, and the process of aging and preparing for death. Over all of these threads is the narrator's beautifully expressed love for and appreciation of life as a precious gift. Marilynne Robinson's Gilead won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and 2004 Book Critics Circle Award.

Cabell Library PS3568.O3125 G55 2004

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Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

I love books with fun titles. It sounds very impressive (in my librarian's mind) to drop fun-titled books into conversations about reading. The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time is one of those books, and what is even better is that the plot is as quirky as the title. It's quick and light, but educational at the same time, as it is the first book I've read or heard of that was written from the perspective of an autistic child. Fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone has Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of autism characterized by obsessive interests (in Christopher's case, science and math), an extremely literal interpretation of the world, and an inability to relate emotionally to others. When his neighbor's dog Wellington is murdered, Christopher decides to solve the mystery. In the process he uncovers information about his neighbors and family, and he conveys these details and his understanding of events--including those that are very emotional--in a detached, strikingly unemotional voice that makes for very interesting reading. The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time won the 2003 Whitbread book prize and was a 2004 ALA Notable Book.

Cabell Library PR6058 .A245 C87 2003

Posted by at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

Pulitzer Prize-winning Empire Falls is simply one of the most amazing novels I have ever read. I discovered it at a book sale and picked it up because of the attractive cover. Although I hadn't heard of Richard Russo before, and thought I'd made a unique discovery, I was surprised to find that he is widely considered to be among the best contemporary novelists. While many authors sacrifice plot and focus on character development, or vice versa, Empire Falls is a masterful blend of both. Richard Russo delves into the lives of several blue collar characters in Empire Falls, a fictional Maine town. While it was once home to a thriving textile and manufacturing empire owned by the Whiting family, Empire Falls is now a town in the shadow of better days. The central character is Miles Roby, manager of the Empire Grill. The Empire Grill is owned by Mrs. Whiting, the sole remaining Whiting estate heir who has implied that she will one day bequeath the restaurant to Miles. In the meantime, he waits and struggles with various family dynamics--his soon-to-be-ex-wife and her future husband, his daughter's struggles at school, working with his brother to improve the Grill, memories of his mother's relationship with the Whiting family, and the constant confusion surrounding Mrs. Whiting and her true motives. Russo develops all of these subplots and secondary characters and weaves them together into a story that is at once humorous and heartrending.

Cabell Library PS3568 .U812 E4 2001b

Posted by at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

The Shipping News, winner of the 1993 National Book Award for Fiction and the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, is truly a literary masterpiece. At its center is Quoyle, an awkward, lonely newspaperman who takes his two daughters to his ancestral home in a small town on the Newfoundland coast to start a job at the Gammy Bird, the local newspaper. While writing about car wrecks, the shipping news (records of what ships come and go), and shipwrecks, Quoyle learns about his family's history and develops friendships with the other newspapermen and townspeople. Significantly, it is in this cold, remote fishing village where Quoyle finally experiences a new life which forces him to face his past, his fears, and his insecurities and look to a more promising future.

Cabell Library PS3566 .R697 S4

Posted by at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian

Charming Billy (1998) is this year's GO READ selection. It won the National Book Award and was a 1999 ALA Notable Book. The story opens as a group of Irish Americans are gathered in a Bronx bar following the funeral of main character Billy Lynch. What follows is an exploration of lost love, nostalgia, and betrayal as Billy's life story is pieced together in the following hours. Throughout his adult life, Billy struggled with alcoholism, traced to his cousin Dennis's revelation that his fiance in Ireland had died. Despite his lifelong sorrow and alcoholism, Billy married and was known to his friends and family as a romantic, a charmer. As a friend explained, "If you knew Billy at all," he said, "then you loved him. He was just that type of guy."

Consider reading Charming Billy in the coming weeks, and join others at VCU for book discussions and special events throughout the fall semester. See the GO READ VCU website for more information.

Cabell Library PS3563 .C355 C48

Posted by at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)