The Reader (Der Vorleser) by Bernhard Schlink

The Reader

Bernhard Schlink

Yes, I am fully aware that I’m about ten years late on reading this book.  But I assure you I have a good reason.  Ok, so I don’t really have a good reason, but I have a reason.  See, I have tried to read this book two other times, but couldn’t get through it.  Not because of the writing – it is exquisite.  I couldn’t get through it because of my language barrier.  Somewhere along the line (probably around 2001) I decided that I needed to read books written by German authors in German (I also decided I needed to read cheesy romance novels and YA lit like Harry Potter in German so that I wouldn’t be so “embarrassed” by reading them.  Well, I got over that about six years ago).  So I’ve tried to read the original version of The Reader (Der Vorleser) on two other occasions.  I could get through the first few chapters, but then I was confronted with words and concepts that I didn’t understand – especially when Michael is in law school and discusses abstract concepts.  Anyway, I finally decided that I really wanted to read the book and I “wussed out” and read it in English.

I’m so glad I did.  What a beautiful novel about life, hardships and how our perceptions of people can be completely wrong for the silliest/craziest reasons!  This book reminds me quite a bit of the movie Crash because it takes difficult situations and looks at them deeply and honestly.  Anna’s reasons for working at Kraków had nothing to do with her political leanings or beliefs, but people were (and can still be) so blinded by the atrocities of WWII they couldn’t see the truth.  Not that I think what happened to the millions of people persecuted during the Holocaust is in anyway acceptable.  What bothers me the most in many cases is that when we look back on history, we blanket what happened and blame haphazardly – much like Michael found himself doing in the book.  He wanted to blame his parents for not doing more, and he wanted to find Anna guilty.  And in many ways, he can and did.  But he realized, as I hope we can continue to realize as we examine history honestly, that their guilt is not as simple as it seems.  Fear, hunger and oppression were not hardships faced only by the prisoners of those camps.  Fear, hunger and oppression don’t make any of the events of WWII acceptable, but trying to understand what daily life was like for Germans during that time helps us understand how they could allow such things to happen.  And if nothing, understanding the why of the every day person during that time will help us identify the possibility of it happening again in the future.  Hopefully, we can see that when a people are hungry, jobless and scared, leadership can come in and take advantage of that weakness, and disaster can ensue if we aren’t careful.

Ok, so back to the book.  Michael is a young man who, early in life, has an affair with a much older woman.  As their relationship progresses Anna has Michael read to her – something that Michael perceives as romantic and loving.  Later in life, Anna is put on trial for crimes she committed as a guard at the Kraków work camp near Auschwitz.  Michael, a young law student, attends her trial and tries to reconcile this new Anna with the old Anna.  He realizes, during her trial, that she is covering up a secret that is much deeper and darker than he could have imagined, but her shame in both her actions as an officer and her secret confuse him and he is at a loss for what to do for her.

The ironic part of my experience reading this book is the fact that I shied away from it because of my “reading barrier”.  I could have experience this book in all it’s splendor years ago but I didn’t because of my stupid bilingual pride.  And now that I’ve finished the book, I’m left with the question – am I really that different from Anna?  Granted, I didn’t work at Kraków, and I’d like to think I have enough humanity to save people from atrocities.  But reading and good literature are such a huge part of my life, yet I’ve kept myself from so much great literature with my stupid rule.  Now I’m moved to try to find other areas of my life where I’ve unknowingly created barriers for myself.  And I totally plan to read the original version now so I can look at his writing style!

Any thoughts?

Swim the Fly by Don Calame

Swim the Fly

Don Calame

Here are the two short reviews I heard about this book.  First: this book is a must read for all teenage boys.  They love it! Second: I seriously almost wet myself laughing.  Since I find that most realistic fiction isn’t geared toward young male readers, and since I quite enjoy laughing myself silly (all urination aside), when I saw Swim the Fly on the shelf at Central High School, I immediately grabbed it and asked to check it out (much to the chagrin of Shar, their library secretary.  Guess it was on her reading list too).

Swim the Fly has actually nothing to do with flies.  I was a little confused by the title until I realized that “the fly” is a swimming term…I know, I’m not very smart. Matt Gratton is, well, a wimp, but he is a dedicated member of his local swim team, and when he sees an opportunity to impress the über-hot Kelly, he volunteers to swim the 100m butterfly (should that be capitalized?  See, I know nothing of swimming).  The beginning of Matt’s problems is the fact that he really can’t swim the fly.  At all.  The good thing about this book is it really isn’t about swimming “the fly”, it’s about the summer adventures (and embarrassments) of a teenage boy who has two really great friends, uncontrollable hormones, and not the slightest clue about girls.

I loved this book.  It was hilarious.  Some of the situations Matt finds himself in are painfully funny – for example, drinking an extra dose of protein shake that turns out to be fiber laxative (totally not a spoiler, you kinda see it coming).  My tummy actually hurt thinking about it.  The best part is every crazy situation Matt gets himself into, I can totally imagine one or more of my former “super smart” students getting into.  It’s almost like the time I went to see SuperBad with some of my co-workers and we spent the entire movie laughing, not because it was funny (though it was) but because we kept naming students we could see trying to pull those kinds of pranks.

However, I will say that I’m not completely sold that this book is a “guy read”.  I actually think it’s more of a chick read about how guys think.  But I’m not sure – I don’t know any guys who have read it.  It won’t ever be in the collection at GMMS because it’s not middle school appropriate, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to find a guy to read it.  I thought about asking my dad, who loves to read, but I’m pretty sure it’s not his cup of tea.  He’d think it was funny, but anyone who loves Motherless Brooklyn  by Jonathan Lethem is kind of on a different level.

Regardless, I’d recommend this book to anyone looking for a light, fun summer read.  And if you happen to be a teenage boy (wow, this sentence TOTALLY started out creepy) let me know what you think!

Hereville: how Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch

Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword

Barry Deutsch

Amulet Books

2010

I swear I did not seek this book out based on my love and adoration for the book Hush.  I swear on everything holy.  It just happens to be another book about an Orthodox Jewish girl.  This one, however, has the imagination that rivals J. K. Rowling.  And it’s an award winning graphic novel (it was named one of the 2011 Great Graphic Novels for Teens).

Mirka lives in Hereville – an Orthodox Jewish community – with her family:  her father, her stepmother and her many siblings.  She has an amazing imagination and has always dreamed of fighting monsters – she even hides a book about monsters under her bed (because they live in an Orthodox community, they aren’t supposed to have or read non-Jewish books).  One day when she gets lost on the way to school, she comes across a peculiar house and sees a witch and angers a very large talking pig.  The pig starts to follow her and steal her homework, knocking her over and creating havoc in her world.  When she continually tells people that it’s the pig’s fault, no one believes her.  She devises a plan to get the pig to leave her alone only to have to save the pig shortly thereafter.  The witch appears and offers her a reward, which sends her on a quest to fight and defeat a troll.  The only person who can help her fight the troll is her stepmother, Fruma, a woman Mirka adores and fears all at once.

While I found the story extremely entertaining, I don’t know that students will be as drawn to it as I was.  I’ve tried finding out as much as I can about the author because I’m curious as to what would make him write a book about Orthodox Jews.  But I couldn’t make the connection – he doesn’t mention being Jewish and doesn’t look Orthodox.  He is, however terribly funny and extremely sarcastic – something that I enjoy, but I’m not sure students will identify with.  I think Deutsch intends to portray Orthodox Jewish customs respectfully, but it comes across as challenging if not a bit judgmental.  Maybe he simply intends to get people thinking about the customs in their own personal “Hereville”.  Whatever his intention, I don’t know that it will come across to middle and high school students.  I think they might miss the subtlety, and I definitely think they will be turned off by all of the un-translated Yiddish phrases.  If he’d included a glossary at the end so that people would know why Zindel says talking to Mirka is like “red tsu der vant” (red’ zu der Wand or talking to the wall).  The only reason I enjoyed some of his jokes is because I speak German and could figure out the Yiddish.

I can see why reviewers loved the book; I’m just not convinced that reviewer enjoyment will translate to student enjoyment.  But that’s the joy of books – ten people read a book and you get ten different opinions!

Here are some other reviews of Hereville:

 School Library Journal 

The Whole Megillah

A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park

A Long Walk to Water

Linda Sue Park

Clarion Books

2010

In my life I have read many moving books – books that made me reconsider my world view and books that have made me reconsider my view of self.  As a middle school librarian, sometimes the books that move and inspire me are books that I cannot add to my collection because they are inappropriate for the grade level I serve.  But the issues still remain, and because I want to encourage young people to become reflective members of society, I constantly look for books that will help them see the world in a broad, non-egocentric way.  There is a great, big, fascinating world out there, and the sooner we can teach young people to embrace it, the better off our future will be.

Over the past two years, I’ve read several very moving books about the struggles of misplaced natives all over Africa.  But none were middle school appropriate.  Enter Linda Sue Park and her short novel about two young people in Sudan.  A Long Walk to Water many not be the best book I’ve ever read, but it is written in such a way that it will inspire and inform middle school students about the lives of people who live half a world away.  It is a short novel – about 120 pages – and it is mostly the story of Salva and his struggle to survive.  After violence strikes while he’s at school, he is forced to walk to a refugee camp in Ethiopia, and then years later to another in Kenya, all the while not knowing whether his family is alive or dead.  At the beginning of each chapter there is a short narrative from the perspective of young Nya, a girl growing up some twenty years later in southern Sudan, who must walk for eight hours each day to fetch water for her family.

What struck me most about the book is that I could not imagine how these two stories would intersect.  I didn’t notice at first that the accounts were over 20 years apart, so I assumed that Nya and Salva would meet, she would save him and they would marry, or something like that.  Having read other novels by Park (A Single Shard is another one that really made me think), I should have known that it would be different.  And I loved it.  Park does an amazing job of creating an inspiring, realistic story (well, it is based on a true story so it should be realistic) that explains the trials occurring in Africa in a way that young people will relate to and possibly be moved to action.  The one thing I would recommend to making this book just a bit better would be a resources list at the end.  Salva’s organization is mentioned, so there’s a possible starting point for those interested in getting involved, and I suppose it wouldn’t be too difficult for students to find information on their own.  But I’ve seen how middle school students conduct research (and I’m working daily to make them better, more saavy researchers) so I feel like a list of trusted organizations might be helpful to them.

All in all the book may not have moved me in the way that other books did, however, I think it is perfectly written for young people, and I hope that it is a catalyst for them to see the world in a different way and to understand that sometimes making a change in the world happens one step at a time.

Salva Dut's Organization - Water For Africa

Other books about the Lost Boys & Girls of Africa

What is the What? by Dave Eggers

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Other Reviews of A Long Walk to Water

5 Minutes for Books

Meredith Dias

The Future of Libraries and How Seth Godin Proves He's Never Been In a Library

So honestly, I’m kind of shocked that this is my second non-book post in the last week, but this blog post ticked me smooth off (as my friend MattFrye would say).  Clearly, Seth Godin has not actually visited a public or school library recently, or had a conversation with a librarian.

One of the biggest pains of my job is explaining constantly what I do.  I understand the necessity of explaining myself because the role of librarians has morphed completely in the last decade.  Also, I find that I have to explain my job to people who either don’t use libraries or don’t have school aged children.  People who visit the public library know what my job entails, and so do parents.

So here’s why I take issue with what Godin said.

First, I’m appalled at Godin’s definition of the librarian of the future, not because of what he’s asking of us, but because we already do all that stuff.  We teach people how to use the information they find to create new and innovative products, ideas, you name it.  We teach people how to critically think and how to be information literate – which is a term that means they know how to identify, locate and use the information they need to complete any task.  Again, it is clear to me that Godin has not visited a public or school library recently.

The next library is ...a place where people come together to do co-working and coordinate and invent projects worth working on together. Aided by a librarian who understands the Mesh, a librarian who can bring domain knowledge and people knowledge and access to information to bear.

That’s what I do each and every day, and if you walk into the Mesa County Public Library, you’ll see the same thing.  Just look at their list of events and classes offered, and you'll see that the library is a place where people and information come together to form ideas.  Libraries and librarians bring information and people together constantly.  All. The. Time.  And they do it with a smile on their face and more patience than Mother Teresa (ok, maybe that’s a stretch, but they have lots).

Second, Godin’s reasoning behind not needing a library for research is…well, you decide.

Wikipedia and the huge databanks of information have basically eliminated the library as the best resource for anyone doing amateur research (grade school, middle school, even undergrad). Is there any doubt that online resources will get better and cheaper as the years go by? Kids don't shlep to the library to use an out of date encyclopedia to do a report on FDR. You might want them to, but they won't unless coerced.

 There’s a part of me that doesn’t feel the need to respond to this statement because it’s clearly...uh…uninformed (he must have gotten his information from Wikipedia…).  Wikipedia has eliminated the library as the best resource for research?  Ha.  Double Ha.  In fact, I actually have to fight to get teachers to allow their students to even use Wikipedia as a starting point.  Wikipedia is not considered a valid or reliable resource by most (though it's proving to be more reliable than it used to be) and no one doing any sort of research – amateur or otherwise – should use it as their only source of information.  While he is correct in that most students won’t come to the library to use an out of date encyclopedia, they will come to the library to use an online one, or any other of our many online databases, or to use a web-based tool to present their information (like Glogster, Prezi, Animoto, VoiceThread or Xtranormal – any of those tools ring a bell sir?  No?  Go ask your local librarian, he or she will know).  Unfortunately, many of the free online resources are being overrun with advertising, and other quality online resources – like databases – aren’t getting cheaper.  School districts are being forced to purchase fewer and fewer.  Thank goodness the public library still purchases enough so that patrons can conduct meaningful research.  Also, I’d like to extend a friendly challenge to Mr. Godin.  I’d like for him to come in and teach one of my classes how to use Ebsco or another database.  It’s not that easy.  So the truth of the matter is, using Google or Wikipedia might be easier but definitely not better.

Truth be told, I wonder if Mr. Godin’s opinion would be the same if he made less money.  I know that sounds a little harsh, but I wonder if it’s true.  Let me put it to you this way.  I read about 2 books per week, that’s 100 books a year (at least).  Many of these books are new releases, so they’re still hardback.  But in order to make a conservative estimate, let’s say I only read paperbacks.  Books alone would cost me about $1000 a year.  I watch fewer movies – about 1 a week.  But at $12 a pop, movies would cost me about $625 a year.  That’s $1600 a year that I save by going to the public library.  That’s about $130 a month I save, and I’m single and childless.  Imagine how much money a family of four would save.

Godin also talks about the Kindle and ebooks.  Quite frankly, this goes back to my thoughts that he’d be singing a different tune if he lived paycheck to paycheck. “An ebook costs about $1.60 in 1962 dollars.”  Uh, $1.60 was a LOT in 1962 – a gallon of regular gas cost a mere $0.31, so an ebook would have cost you the equivalent to 5 gallons of gas.  If I re-figured the amount of money I save by visiting the public library based on this figure (each book would cost me approximately $20), I’d spend over $1900 on books alone.  Now I know lots of people who buy books for $20, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  My whole point in making the comparison is the simple fact that in these economic times not everyone can afford to buy books, ebooks or DVDs.  I feel like the tone of Godin’s article was a little condescending to people who struggle financially.  Luckily for everyone (Mr. Godin included) libraries provide equal access and librarians provide information, assistance and guidance to everyone regardless of the size of your pocketbook.

I know that not all libraries are created equal, and some libraries might not be doing all these things, and some librarians still might be nothing more than shushing book pushers.  So maybe the truth is that I'm offended that Godin didn't research things a bit more.  His library of the future is here - it may not be every library everywhere, but it is here and librarians are already doing all the things he claims we should be doing in the future.  So maybe I feel snubbed that he (and LOADS of others) haven't noticed the advances that we're making in Library Land.  How do we fix that?  We advocate, we keep defending ourselves and show what a benefit we are to students and the community.  And we encourage people who write uninformed blogs that they should come visit us so they can see that the "future" is already here.

Here’s his actual blog post The Future of the Library.  It is very possible that I went on the defensive and missed his point.  I encourage you to read the post, visit your local library and decide for yourselves.

Here are some other reactions to his blog as well

Phil Bradley (the swank UK search guru whose image I borrowed above...)

The Unquiet Librarian (Buffy Hamilton - I'd really like to be her when I grow up)

Happy Reading!

Suzanne

Image above provided by Phil Bradley's Photostream via Flickr

(see what I did just there?  That's called attribution.  Something a librarian can teach you to do in about 3 easy steps...)