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.
September 2005 Archives
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."
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).
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.
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.
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.
