September 2009 Staff Book Review

Last Updated on Monday, 30 November 2009 12:06

Frequently Asked Questions - Reader Services

September is here and brings with it the official beginning of Autumn as the air gradually gets cooler while school and activities get in order.  Here at the library we are ready to serve your educational needs, but we don't want you to forget the joy of reading in your spare time to relax and have some quiet.  The following books are ones the staff have enjoyed and would like to share with you.  You will find the fun and silly as well as deep moving stories to jump into and enjoy.

The Brooklyn Nine: a novel in nine innings by Alan Gratz
Staff Reviewer: Mary Lea Wallace, Norman Public Library

Every serious baseball fan will enjoy this series of short stories. Each story of this family saga centers on one family member whose life is changed by baseball. Beginning with a heroic immigrant boy in 1845 and coming full circle with an antique baseball found nine generations later, readers will be fascinated by the impact of historic events on the game of baseball and its best players

some of the players in this nine inning book are soldiers, some are Little League stars, some are professionals, some work on the fringe of organized crime. The flavors of all these related lives blend into the drama of America's true national sport.

Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
Staff Reviewer: Susan Gregory, Pioneer Library System

Into the Beautiful North,by Luis Alberto Urrea, is a poignant and funny story of how a teenage girl in a remote Mexican village becomes the savior of her town when it's overrun by drug lords.  Nayeli's father left to go "north" to the United States when she was a child, in search of work, and never returned. Slowly, the rest of the men in her village have left to go north, too, and there is no one to resist when members of a drug cartel move in.  She, her gang of girlfriends and Tacho, the owner of the local Internet cafe - he owns a laptop left by missionaries - head to Tijuana and the U.S. in hopes of finding warriors who will be brave enough to return with them to drive the gangsters away.  It takes two tries to cross the border illegally, but they succeed in making it to Los Angeles.  From there, Nayeli and Tacho drive cross-country to Kankakee, Illinois, the last place her dad was heard from.  She knows that if she can only find her father, all will be well.

Of course, it doesn't work out quite that way.  Her saving angel in Kankakee is the local librarian, based by the author on a real Illinois librarian, who makes her feel safe for the first time in months.  Nayeli does find her dad, eventually find brave warriors and return home.  The journey across the border and down American highways, seen through the eyes of a desperate young Mexican who is here illegally, is both hysterically funny and heartbreaking.  It will surprise and move you - don't miss it.

Zorgamazoo by Robert Paul Weston
Staff Reviewer: Mary Lea Wallace,Norman Public Library

To rescue lost Zorgles our two heroes went.
By finicky fate they were haplessly sent.
On a rollicking rhyming romp of a ramble,
Through dangers galore our heroes did scramble.
Read it and weep or cheer if you like.
See if you can without hollering "Yike!"
Don't miss this trip to Zorgamazoo.
It may make a rambling rhymer of you!

Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo
Staff Reviewer: Theresa Dickson, Pioneer Library System

I've just finished reading a thoroughly satisfying thriller/mystery about a serial killer who returns to a small town 16 years after the last killings stopped (there).  The heroine is Kate Burkholder, formerly Amish, now the police chief, and whose secrets create multiple levels of dread, mystery, and revelation.  The characters are well-drawn (well, not the killer, but hey - I don't want that dynamic a monster!) and very human.  I blasted through the book in one day - but warning to all (even Hardy murder mystery aficionados) don't read this book just before going to bed!  In face, Sworn to Silence is going on my list of "books to be avoided after sunset," along with a couple of John Sanford titles, Hot Zone by Richard Preston and others consigned to daylight reading.  Enjoy!

Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
Staff Reviewer: Susan Gregory, Pioneer Library System

Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada, has been called "one of the most extraordinary and compelling novels ever written about World War II."  Fallada was a best selling author in Germany before the war but spent the last years of the war in a Nazi insane asylum and died before the book was published in 1947.  This new edition contains an affecting afterword about the real-life couple who inspired the novel, as well as copies of the Gestapo records and infamous cards that led to their deaths.

Did ordinary Geman citizens try to resist the Nazis or did everyone just "follow orders?"  Yes, people tried to resist, despite the futility of such efforts.  Otto and Anna Quangel, a nondescript working-class couple in their fifties, just wanted to be left alone to survive the war, until they received word of their only sons's death on the front.  Otto, the foreman in a furniture factory, is so enraged by the loss of their son and the brutality that he sees daily that he enlists Anna's help with a subversive plan: they will write two index cards each Sunday that carry messages of resistance, then drop them in public places and hope that the messages move people to their own acts of resistance.  For over two years, the cards are dropped all over Berlin.  When the Quangels are finally caught, it is almost a relief, but more is to come.  Their respective paths to certain death lead the reader to wonder not only at the human capacity for deceit and cruelty but at the human decency that can surface at unexpected times.  I hope that anyone with an interest in World War II and a curiosity about how the German citizens endured a monstrous regime will read this - it's a powerful, brilliant book.

Field of Honor by D.L. Birchfield
Staff Reviewer: Megan Morgan, Public Information Office

D.L. Birchfield's Field of Honor is not for the easily offended.  That said, this engaging and highly creative fictional satire is recommended for those who enjoy a good laugh, even if it's at their own expense.  Field of Honor is about a half-blood Choctaw Native American named Patrick McDaniel, and the story follows this poor man's many misadventures. McDaniel was a scout in the Marines during the Vietnam War, but when he got lost in the jungle, he decided to desert the corps instead of admitting his humiliation; he couldn't face the embarrassment of becoming known as an Indian who got lost in the woods.  It takes him a long time to sneak back to the U.S., and then he spends many years hiding in McGee Valley in Oklahoma because he believes that the marines will relentlessly hunt down and punish any Vietnam deserters.  Since McDaniels is cut off from any communication about the war, he has no idea what Vietnam turned into, and his persecution paranoia increases.  Birchfield doesn't hesitate to criticize and comment on the Vietnam situation, or the hypocrisies of the military.

But the novel really picks up when McDaniel stumbles into a secret, underground Choctaw civilization that lives untainted by the "Germans" (which is what they call Americans and whites).  Their world is run by a philosophy called "games theory," which revolves around the Native American sport of stickball. (It's a bit like lacrosse with two sticks.) Underground, McDaniel learns about Choctaw culture and encounters their education system, which teaches Choctaw children a scathing history of American treatment of Indians. But, Birchfield, a Choctaw himself, doesn't leave any group out of his ridicule - even Choctaws.

Field of Honor is frequently hilarious, and Birchfield's strong imagination shines on every page.  Readers, especially Oklahoma readers, will enjoy this alternative view of Native American history. One weakness of the book, however, is the ending, which leaves some questions unanswered, especially about the protagonist's love interest.  Nevertheless, the wonderfully absurd plot twists and turns in the last few chapters are bound to make readers laugh in disbelief.

Birchfield visited the Norman Public Library recently, and was one of the speakers for the Native American stickball presentation.  The author and professor originally hails from Oklahoma (he attended OU in the 70s), and jokingly asked the crowd before he began his presentation if there were any old girlfriends of his in the audience. Birchfield now lives in Canada.  He read a few selections from his historical satire called How Choctaws Invented Civilzation and Why Choctaws Will Conquer the World which paradies the Anglo-centralized history written in textbooks.  In this book, Choctaws are referred to as the Lords of the North American Continent.  Birchfield also read a selection from Field of Honor, and the section he read was arguably the funniest part in the book.  His ready wit made the readings come to life, and he had the audience chuckling all throughout the presentation.  Check out Field of Honor, or any D. L. Birchfield's other books, if you are looking for a good laugh and don't mind a little sarcasm, and support this Oklahoma-bred writer.