Book Review for On the Wings of Heroes by Richard Peck

I think this would be a wonderful book for middle schoolers to read while they are learning about WW2 because it teaches them about how things were for those who were left at home and how greatly the war effected even them. The main character, Davy, and his friend collect scrap metal for the war effort, cat tail fluff to be used in life jackets for soldiers, people are asked to save their fat drippings, flatten their tin cans, turn in extra tires, and many things are rationed.

This book is about what war costs, even if you are far from the battlefield. It's about all that people gave up willingly during those days to help win the war. It's about some people being selfless, doing what they feel is their duty, going beyond the call of duty, and others trying to take advantage of the situation. It is about loss, fun, waiting, making a game of scavenging, and fear. Davy's brother goes to war, his best friend leaves because of war, his Dad is coiled up inside because of war (he fought and was injured in the First World War), things change because of war. It's how people thought the First World War would mean there wouldn't be anymore, at least not as big as that, and wondering, if that other war didn't end wars, what were all the sacrifices for?

I would rate it PG for a little violence and dealing with some tough issues. I know this is a fairly short review, but it was a fairly short book. It's worth reading, best if you have a middle school kid in your life you can talk about it with, but also just if you want an easy read about how things were here at home during that time period.

Book Review for Neverwhere by Neil Gaimen

I have now read this twice and listened to it once. Neverwhere is about the magical world which is next to our own; in the gaps, underneath us in the sewers and subways and up above us on the rooftops. It is inhabited by people we do not notice, that our eyes wander over without really seeing, people who have fallen between the cracks or who have always been there. There is a hunter who has lived a hundred years and is still young, a girl named Door who is quite appropriately named, a Marquis de Carabas who views the world as a joke which waits to be deceived, and a man, Richard, from London Above (the “real” London) who finds everything in London Below a little hard to believe.

Neverwhere is entertaining, original, exciting, and has fascinating characters. The hero can get a little annoying at times, Richard is so determined he does not belong in the adventure in which he finds himself that he is a little surprised at himself when he does anything useful. He has a hard time accepting everything and consistently wants to get back to his old, normal life. I suppose Richard particularly annoys me because, were I in his situation (not having any family or really even good friends to tie him to the “real” world) and I stumbled into a magical, mysterious world, I wouldn't look back, wouldn't question, but would wholeheartedly plunge in.

I very much enjoyed this each time I read it and the time I listened to it as well, but it does not teach any great lessons, it is not as profound as even some of the children's books I have reviewed. I suppose the lessons which can be learned are to have an opened mind, that our destinies (if you believe in such things) are sometimes hard for us to accept and very different than we think they should be, and that honor is sometimes hard to see.

I would rate it PG-13 for violence, some torture, disturbing situations, suggestiveness, and language. There are some very unsavory characters whose profession is dispatch of people, or to torture them, or both and they delight in it.

If anyone is interested, this was also a mini-series which Neil Gaimen was very involved in the production of. It was made in the early 90's. I tried to watch it but it was too 90's-ish and the characters were far from matching up to my mind's eye ideas of them.

Book Review for The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

First, some slightly negative things. You wouldn't think this book would be hard to categorize, it being about talking animals and their everyday adventures. Given the content, one would think it is definitely a children's book, right? Well, I view myself as someone who has a fairly extensive vocabulary and there are a few words I do not know the meanings to. Grahame primarily uses simple language but will occasionally inject these words. After having thought about it a little more, I think these unfamiliar words occur because of when the book was written. We simply do not often use some of those words anymore.

I know children's books don't have to make sense, but the world within the Wind in the Willows slightly annoys me. In this world there are humans and talking animals. It is unclear where animals actually “fit.” Mole, Rat, Badger, and others will eat ham and other meat, cows wander in pastures (I assume some being raised for beef), but since the aforementioned characters are intelligent, you wonder “What about the animals they eat?” You could think, perhaps domesticated animals are dumb, but then, the horse which drew Toad's wagon talked. Toad is big enough to drive a full-sized automobile, “human” enough to be put in a prison alongside humans, and yet the gaoler's daughter speaks of Toad almost as if he is a “common” animal, which can be trained and fed out of her hand.

All of the above aside, I have read The Wind in the Willows 4 or 5 times and I have thoroughly enjoy it each time. Though it is a children's book, I think it is one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read. You often almost feel as if you are reading a poem instead of prose. How Grahame captures the simple beauties of the river, describes the barrenness of a winter landscape, and the call of the elusive Pan are wonderful.

He paints characters which are easy to love and friendships that are splendid in their quiet way. Grahame shows how Ratty and Mole fit together so perfectly and yet also points out the allowances they make for one another; he shares how loyal, kind, and giving a friend Badger can be, despite all of Badger's reclusiveness; and then there's Toad, who is generous, prideful, loving, and ridiculous.

What is The Wind in the Willows about? It is about the River, which is the love of Ratty's life. Friendship, and how even perfect friends must sometimes sacrifice their own comfort or happiness to put their friend's needs and wants ahead of their own. It is about simple joys and longing, silly passions and loyalty. Picnics, lazy days, warm fires, homesickness, and wanting to leave home. It is about animals but also seeing in the characters Grahame has made those things which make us human.

I would rate this “G.” There is very mild violence and a tiny bit of language (such as someone being called an “ass”). Personally, I think this book would be best shared if read aloud, especially because some of the “bigger” words.

Book Review for To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

You may be wondering why I am going to do on a review on a book this old, I mean, most of you probably had to read it for school at some point. Well, I am reviewing it because I've read it three or four times and it is one of my favorite books. If you haven't read it for a few years, I encourage you to read it again because it tries to teach some lessons that are best not forgot.

It can't really be called a "coming of age" story since Scout's too young to be coming of age, she's just eight, but it is about growing up. I believe one of the reasons why I love this story so much is because it takes place in the "good ole days" but shows how those days were also filled with darkness in some ways.

You see, in the town of Maycomb, based on the family you were from, you had a precast mold, "No Crawford minds his own business, The truth is not in the Delafields, etc." and certain families were expected to be drunks or poor or unbeholden to no one. The prejudices go deep, deepest when it comes to the color of your skin. So, alongside the story of the sleepy town, where everyone knows everyone and Scout, her brother, Jem, and their friend, Dill, have free reign of their street and try to get their reclusive neighbor to show his face. There runs a deeper, darker story of a black man wrongfully accused. Condemned, despite Scout's father's best efforts, because what it comes down to is a white man's testimony against a black man's, and a black man's testimony isn't enough in a small Southern town in 1935.

I love the characters. Scout and her rambunctious tomboyishness, her innocence, and the frequent attempts to turn her more into a "proper" lady. I love her brother, Jem, and his, at first, grudging loyalty to his father because he is just beginning to understand there are other, nobler ways to be a "real man" other than hunting, playing football, and being young and strong. I love their father, Atticus, and his sense of fairness, duty, and warmth hidden beneath his aloofness. Their friend, Dill, and his mischievousness resourcefulness. Their cook, Calpurnia, and her sense of pride in herself, her people, and in the family she is working for. I also love the neighbors for all their peculiarities.

It teaches lessons of loyalty and duty; of how essential it is for justice to be blind in regards to race, gender, and socioeconomic status; the importance of children feeling they are needed and wanted, as well as abstractly loved; that sometimes the best way to stop an angry mob is to remind them they're human through the voice of a child; and, though the good ole days were wonderful in many ways, some things are even better now and can be even better in the future.

My only regret is that Harper Lee did not write other novels. I am so glad she at least left us with this treasure.

Yet another reason why I love this book is for the closing remarks of Atticus, in the trial of Tom Robinson, which I think is one of the most excellent speeches ever written. I do not think it is short enough that I can write out the whole thing without infringing on copyright laws, so I won't. Also, it means more having the majority of the book before it, so I encourage you again, read this book or reread it. Here's a (rather long) excerpt from the speech:

Atticus paused, then he did something he didn't ordinarily do. He unhitched his watch and chain and placed them on the table, saying, "With the court's permission -"

Judge Taylor nodded, and then Atticus did something I never saw him do before or since, in public or in private: he unbuttoned his vest, unbuttoned his collar, loosened his tie, and took off his coat. He never loosened a scrap of his clothing until he undressed at bedtime, and to Jem and me, this was the equivalent of him standing before us stark naked. We exchanged horrified glances.

Atticus put his hands in his pockets, and as he returned to the jury, I saw his gold collar button and the tips of his pen and pencil winking in the light.

"Gentlemen," he said. Jem and I again looked at each other: Atticus might have said, "Scout." His voice had lost its aridity, its detachment, and he was talking to the jury as if they were folks on the post office corner.

"Gentlemen," he was saying, "I shall be brief, but I would like to use my remaining time with you to remind you that this case is not a difficult one, it requires no minute sifting of complicated facts, but it does require you to be sure beyond all reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant. To begin with, this case should never have come to trial. This is as simple as black and white.

"...And so a quiet, respectable, humble Negro who had the unmitigated temerity to "feel sorry" for a white woman has had to put his word against two white people's. I need not remind you of their appearance and conduct on the stand - you saw them for yourselves. The witnesses for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption - the evil assumption - that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.

"Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson's skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women - black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire."

Atticus paused and took out his handkerchief. Then he took off his glasses and wiped them, and we saw another "first": we had never seen him sweat - he was one of those men whose faces never perspired, but now it was shining tan.

"One more thing, gentlemen, before I quit. Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal...There is a tendency in this year of grace, 1935, for certain people to use this phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions. The most ridiculous example I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and the idle along with the industrious - because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority. We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe - some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others - some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men.

"But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal - there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court..."

"I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system - that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family. In the name of God, do your duty..."

Perhaps the greatest reason to read To Kill a Mockingbird can be learned from a 1966 letter written by Harper Lee to James J. Kilpatrick, the editor of The Richmond News Leader, in response to the attempts of a Richmond, Virginia, area school board to ban To Kill a Mockingbird as "immoral literature":

“Recently I have received echoes down this way of the Hanover County School Board's activities, and what I've heard makes me wonder if any of its members can read.

"Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that “To Kill a Mockingbird” spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners. To hear that the novel is "immoral" has made me count the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of doublethink.

"I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism...."

I would rate this book as PG for brief violence, light language, but mostly for dealing with some pretty "heavy" stuff, in terms of a man being wrongfully accused of rape, and all the situations which arise from this.

Book Reviews: Coming Soon!

I have decided since one of my greatest passions is books, I am going to do a series of book reviews. My purpose is two-fold, it is not only to review books in the traditional sense (my thoughts and feelings about them), but also to give them a rating (as in G, PG, R, etc.). I just did a brief search to see if anyone else is doing this and there are a few sites, but when I went to them and tried to search for some popular books, they didn't show up.

I wish to give these ratings so people have a better idea of what they are getting into. Books are a little more tricky than movies because how bad, scary, etc. a book is partly depends on the reader's imagination. For instance, I have a very good imagination so, based solely on my imaginings, I would be tempted to give Lord of the Rings an R for terror (those Nazguls are pretty terrifying) and also an R to the Hunger Games trilogy for brutality (my imagination can do a lot with the description of the genetically modified dogs and what they did to the tributes). But my imagination is not everyone's imagination, so I would actually rate each of those as PG-13. Also, as someone recently pointed out to me, in books you can skim/jump over unpleasant and bad sections. Some of us are better at this than others and, if you are good at it, you can act as your own content filter.

I know some people will very much disagree with this, but with movies I sometimes allow them to have “redeeming factors.” As an example, The Royal Tenenbaums has a lot of bad stuff, but is one of my very favorite movies because, in terms of cinematography, it is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen. Also, even though Gladiator is a very brutal movie, I still really like it because it is a great story, very well made, and the acting is superb. In the same way, I will try to convey the redeeming factors of books, or share when I do not think they really have any.

In the future I will try and rate books as I read them so as to have individual book reviews and fresh impressions, but some of my first reviews are going to lump a few books from series together.

Oh, I suppose I should share, though I have read and enjoyed many classics (the unabridged Les Mes., Hunchback of Notre Dame, Jane Erye, some Jane Austen books, The Foundation series, most of the Dune Series, etc.), I am unashamed to admit I have read the Twilight series twice and enjoyed it both times. I'm not saying they are quality literature, or that they are not cheesy, and slightly ridiculous, but I thought they were entertaining and good escapism books. Anyway, that's a warning that some types of people should probably read my reviews with a grain of salt.

With all of that said, I will go for now. I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Note: In my "rating" the various books, I will follow similar guidelines to those put forth by the Motion Picture Association of America, to review those guidelines, you can click the link below.
What Each Rating Means