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Over the past 30 years, I have worked on many reference books, and so am no stranger to recording change. However, the pace of change seems to have become more frantic in the second decade of this century. Why might this be? One reason, of course, is that, with 24-hour news and the internet, information is transmitted at great speed. Nearly every country has online news sites which give an indication of the issues of political importance.

The post Why is the world changing so fast? appeared first on OUPblog.

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April is National Poetry Month! We’ve selected our favorite poetry books for you to share with your readers of meter and rhyme.

From clever poetry favorites and nursery rhymes, to craftily created illustrations and novels in verse, you’ll find poetry for all ages to inspire even the most reluctant future-poets.

If you work with children in need, you can find these books of poetry and many more on the First Book Marketplace.

For Pre-K –K (Ages 3-6):

Neighborhood Mother Goose  Written and illustrated by Nina Crews

Traditional nursery rhymes get a fun, modern treatment in this wonderfully kid-friendly collection. Illustrated with clever photos of diverse kids in a city setting, it’s a fantastic addition to any preschool library!

For 1^st and 2^nd Grade (Ages 6-8):

Sail Away Poems by Langston Hughes illustrated by Ashley Bryan

Legendary illustrator Ashley Bryan pairs the lush language of Langston Hughes with vibrant cut paper collages in this wonderful assortment of poems that celebrate the sea. It’s a read-aloud dream!

 

For 3^rd & 4^th grade (Ages 8-10):

Where the Sidewalk Ends: Poems and Drawings Written and illustrated by Shel Silverstein

Generations of readers have laughed themselves silly over the poems in this wildly imaginative collection from a beloved poet. Several members of our staff can recite poems from this book from memory – just ask. Giggles guaranteed!

 

For 5^th and 6^th Grade (Ages 10-12):

National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry: 200 Poems with Photographs That Squeak, Soar, and Roar! Edited by J. Patrick Lewis

An incredible gift for any kid, family, or teacher! Stunning National Geographic photos fill the pages of this huge anthology that introduces kids to poems both old and new. It’s a book they’ll never outgrow and will pull of the shelf again and again.

 Grades 7 & up (Ages 13+)

The Red Pencil Written by Andrea Davis Pinkney, with illustrations by Shane W. Evans

Both heartbreaking and hopeful, this beautiful novel in verse tells the story of a Sudanese refugee whose spirit is wounded by war but reawakened by creativity and inspiration. Readers will be moved by this story of optimism in the face of great obstacles.

The post Monthly Book List: Our Five Favorite Poetry Books appeared first on First Book Blog.

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Ten years after the UNSC’s referral of the situation in Darfur to the Prosecutor of the ICC, the sad reality is that all the main suspects still remain at large, shielded by their high position within the Government of Sudan.

The post South Africa and al-Bashir’s escape from the ICC appeared first on OUPblog.

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We begin with Amira's 12 birthday.  She is finally old enough to wear a toob yet young enough to enjoy her Dando lifting her to the sky.  Amira lives on a farm in South Darfur surrounded by friends and family, but changes are afoot.  Amira's best friend Halima and her family are packing their things and moving to the city.  They say the city has more opportunities.  Amira wishes she could go with them to Nyala and attend the Gad Primary School with Halima.  Amira is not so sure about her Muma's old fashioned ways.

                  "She does not like the idea of Gad,
                    or any place where girls learn
                    to read
                    or write,
                    in Arabic or English
                    or think beyond a life
                    of farm chores and marriage." (p. 13 arc)

Soon, the extra chores of 12, missing Halima, and trying to solve the ongoing bickering between her father and villager Old Anwar seem anything but troubling.  The relative peace of her village is shattered when the Janjaweed  attack, changing Amira's very existence.

Amira and the other survivors must pick up the pieces and leave the ruins of the village to find safety.  Their trek takes them to the refugee camp Kalma - the Displaced People's Camp.  Amira doesn't like this space surrounded by fences and barbed wire.

                    "Everywhere I look,
                      I see
                      people, people, and more people.

                      I'm glad to stop walking.
                      I'm glad we have finally reached who-knows-where.
                      But already I do not like this place." (arc p. 139)

It would be easy enough to give up in such a desperate place with no real end in sight.  Amira and her family have lost so much.  But when Amira meets Miss Sabine and is given a gift of a red pencil she discovers some things about herself, her family and those on the journey with her.

Written in free verse, The Red Pencil is a story of family and loss and hope.  It was eye opening for me on a number of levels.  One is that it is so easy for me not to see what is happening in the world from my perch here in NYC.  The horrors of Darfur in the early 2000s seemed so far away in time and place that I wonder how many people in North America are aware of what was happening.  I find myself very impressed with the deftness of Andrea Davis Pinkney's hand when it came to writing the passages dealing with the violence.  She truly tells the story from a 12 year old's point of view, and the free verse format allows for silences that speak volumes.  The illustrations by Shane W. Evans are playful within this serious book and somehow bring a feeling of safety to the pages.

A must read for librarians, teachers and students.

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This week, we announced that South Sudan is the 2011 Place of the Year and quizzed you about how much you know. Now, we present a slideshow of photos provided courtesy of Lucian Perkins and the United States Holocaust Museum.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Andrew S. Natsios served as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2001 to 2005, where he was appointed as Special Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan. He also served as Special Envoy to Sudan from October 2006 to December 2007. He is author of the forthcoming volume Sudan, South Sudan, and Darfur: What Everyone Needs to Know.

View more about this book on the

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Yesterday, we announced that South Sudan is the 2011 Place of the Year. How much do you know about Sudan, South Sudan, and Darfur? Test your knowledge with this quiz by Andrew S. Natsios.

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By Andrew S. Natsios For more than two centuries, Sudan has attracted an unusual level of attention beyond its own borders. This international interest converged in the last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century as four independent forces met. First, there is the rebellion in Darfur, which has generated greater international concern than any other recent humanitarian crisis. This long-neglected western region has been intermittently at war since the 1980s and claimed the lives of 300,000 Darfuris in its most recent phase. The rebellion beginning in 2002 led to an ongoing humanitarian emergency, costing Western governments

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A Hare in the Elephant’s Trunk by Jan Coates

Review by Chris Singer

About the author:

About Jacob Akech Deng:

Jacob Deng now lives in Nova Scotia, is married and has a young family. His foundation, Wadeng Wings of Hope, seeks to build schools for young children in southern Sudan.

Watch the trailer:

About the book:

In the little village of Duk Padiet in southern Sudan, a boy named Jacob Deng thrives on the love of his mother, the companionship of his sisters, the excitement of learning how to look after his uncle’s herds of cattle. The year is 1987, and suddenly in the night soldiers from the north invade the village, looting, burning, and killing. The war has arrived, and the life of Jacob will never be the same.

This novel is based on the real life experiences of a Sudanese boy who, with thousands of other boys from the region, fled for his life and spent seven years walking through deserts, grasslands and forests, crossing crocodile-infested rivers, surviving life in massive refugee camps. The so-called Lost Boys of Sudan – as they were called by an American aid organization – numbered as many as 27,000, and while many died – from starvation, attacks by wild animals, drowning, or through the brutality of the military – many survived. Jacob never returned to his village, but though he was only seven years old when he had to flee, he somehow managed to live through an almost unimaginable ordeal.

Throughout the seven years covered in this story, Jacob resists the temptation to join the liberation army. Steadily Jacob finds himself more and more adhering to his mother’s advice that getting an education is crucial to escaping the cycle of violence that afflicts his country. Jacob’s struggle, then, is to persist in seeking out teachers and eventually a school where his ambition to learn about the world can be met. Through it all he learns about loyalty and love for close friends who have been thrust together with him on this extraordinary journey, and also about the guiding light provided by the memory of his mother.

My take on the book:

T

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A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park

Review by: Chris Singer

About the author:

Linda Sue Park is the author of the Newbery Medal book A Single Shard, many other novels, several picture books, and most recently a book of poetry: Tap Dancing on the Roof: Sijo (Poems). She lives in Rochester, New York, with her family, and is now a devoted fan of the New York Mets. For more infromation visit www.lspark.com.

About the book:

A Long Walk to Water is based on the true story of Salva, one of some 3,800 Sudanese “Lost Boys” airlifted to the United States beginning in the mid 1990s.

Before leaving Africa, Salva’s life is one of harrowing tragedy. Separated from his family by war and forced to travel on foot through hundreds of miles of hostile territory, he survives starvation, animal attacks, and disease, and ultimately leads a group of about 150 boys to safety in Kenya. Relocated to upstate New York, Salva resourcefully learns English and continues on to college. Eventually he returns to his home region in southern Sudan to establish a foundation that installs deep-water wells in remote villages in dire need of clean water. This poignant story of Salva’s life is told side-by-side with the story of Nya, a young girl who lives today in one of those villages.

Watch the trailer:

My take on the book:

Many books have been written about the story of the Lost Boys of Sudan yet I haven’t ever seen anything written for 9-12 year olds until A Long Walk To Water. I’m very familiar with the story of the Lost Boys as I worked for some time with a few of the Lost Boys who were resettled in Lansing, Michigan. Salva’s story is similar to many of the boys I met and spoke with, yet I never tire of hearing their incredibly inspirational stories. In fact, every time I read one of these stories I’m often moved to tears. Salva’s story, as told through the writing of Linda Sue Park, was no different.

I’m thrilled that Linda Sue Park wrote this for middle readers. If there’s ever a story about the harsh realities of life in some parts of the world, which could provide some much needed perspective to American 9-12 year olds it would be A Long Walk to Water. While many of our kids

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By Gérard Prunier

During the years of civil war in Sudan, both the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) and the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) considered the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), then closely allied to the communist Derg, to be an enemy.

After Mengistu’s regime had been overthrown, both the EPLF and the EPRDF guerrilla movements, which had ascended to power with Khartoum’s help, realized that their Sudanese ally was not so friendly. Yet there was a modicum of difference in their experience with Khartoum’s hostility: in the case of Eritrea it was plain and open, Khartoum supported the Eritrea Jihad armed movement and Eritrea’s President, Issayas Afeworki quickly invited the SPLA into Eritrea to retaliate against Sudan.

In the case of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, although duly suspicious of Khartoum’s policies, he nevertheless tried to keep a more or less neutral stance towards the Sudan’s Muslim Brothers’regime. Zenawi fought against Sudanese military encroachments when they took place - mostly through helping the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) rebels. He even launched Operation Black Fox deep into Sudan in 1994, but later expelled the SPLA from Ethiopia in 1999. Why? Because by then the relationship between Asmara, Eritrea and Khartoum had turned 180° due to the Ethio-Eritrean War of 1998-2000.

With the war, Issayas stopped supporting the SPLA and decided to woo Khartoum. As a result, Meles let the former guerrillas come back to Addis-Ababa after they “regularized” their diplomatic status by signing the so-called “Consolidated Peace Agreement” (CPA) with the northern government in January 2005. Yet Meles kept an even balance between politeness to the North and friendship with the South. Not so in the course followed by Asmara, which progressed deeper and deeper with Khartoum as its own quarrel with the US grew. Things became worse with the support given by the Eritreans to the radical Islamist Shebab then fighting the Ethiopian Army in Somalia.

This game of strategic musical chairs took on a new turn when President Omar el-Bashir recently visited Asmara. Bashir was, of course, invited in open defiance of the March 4^th ICC indictment, both to score a point against the international community (read “the US”) and to cement Issayas’ ever growing involvement with the Muslim and Arab world. This confirmed and accelerated Addis-Ababa’s rapprochement with Southern Sudan. Already in February, Ethiopia announced that it had contracted a Chinese company to build a $25m highway between Gambela, Ethiopia and Akobo. What it had not announced was that it was also giving the Juba government discreet but growing military support. The relationship has now gone even deeper since the Ethiopian Prime Minister became an international advocate for the SPLA.

On March 31^stthe Presidential Affairs Minister of the Southern Sudan government (GoSS), Luka Biong Deng, asked Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to raise the issue of South Sudan’s fiscal crisis at the G20 Summitin London the following Thursday. Due to a drop in world oil prices, the GoSS, which gets 99% of its income from the oil money payments transferred by Khartoum, has practically gone bankrupt. So now in a new twist of fate Meles finds himself being an advocate for the SPLA he had once banned from Ethiopian territory, while Issayas Afeworqi embraces President Bashir against whom he used to support that selfsame SPLA.

Of course, the first underlying layer of logic remains, as ever, the Ethio-Eritrean mutual hostility. Forty-eight years after the beginning of the Eritrean war of independence, the knives are still drawn. And Sudan remains the third angle of the triangle, now cozying up to one of the players and then trying to stab him.

Among students of the Horn’s regional history, the prize money goes to those who can explain the underlying logic of the continuities buttressing these apparent contradictions. Any takers?

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Gérard Prunier is a widely acclaimed journalist as well as the Director of the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa. He has published over 120 articles and five books, including The Rwanda Crisis and Darfur: A 21st Century Genocide. His most recent book, Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophefocuses on Congo, the Rwandan genocide, and events that led to the death of some four million people. Living in Ethiopia allows Prunier a unique view of the politics and current events of Central and Eastern Africa. Be sure to check back on Tuesdays to read more Notes From Africa.

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Eve Donegan, Sales & Marketing Assistant

Since Africa’s past and present can be complicated, we thought it would help to have a quick overview of some of the groups and political figures in Sudan and Somalia . We have selected some key topics that Gérard Prunier often referenced in Notes from Africa, and have provided a quick rundown of what they are.

Sudan:
-  Justice and Equality Movement (JEM): JEM is a rebel group in Sudan that is involved in the Darfur conflict. Like other rebel groups, they strongly oppose the Sudanese government which is run by Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir. JEM is under the leadership of Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir.

-  Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir: Khalil Ibrahim is from the Kobe branch of the Zaghawa ethnic group. He started and currently leads JEM. Ibrahim has claimed credit for starting a government revolt in regard to the Darfur conflict.

-  International Criminal Court (ICC): The ICC is an independent institution, although they maintain close ties with the United Nations. They were established to control perpetrators of serious international crimes, such as genocide and war-related crimes.

-  President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir: Sudan’s leader, President al-Bashir, has been in power since 1989. This year Sudan will have their first democratic election in which current Vice President, Salva Kiir Mayardit, will challenge al-Bashir’s presidency. Mayardit is also the leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) .

Somalia:
-  African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM): AMISOM works in Somalia to stabilize the country as a whole. Their mission is to, “…create a safe and secure environment in preparation for the transition to the UN.”

-  Transitional Federal Government (TFG): The TFG was formed in 2004 and is one of several attempts to create a stable government in Somalia. The TFG is hoping to establish a democracy in Somalia with the planned democratic elections coming up this year.

-  President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed: Sheikh Sharif became president after Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed resigned in December of 2008. He has been called a “moderate” leader, and was the chairman of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).

-  Union of Islamic Courts (UIC): After winning a battle for Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, the UIC controlled most of southern Somalia for six months. The group was made up of local Islamic courts that were created by businessmen to catch and punish their enemies.

Prunier brings these people, groups, history, and conflicts to life in his weekly blog. Keep reading on Tuesdays to find more Notes from Africa.

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By Gérard Prunier

The indictment of Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir by the International Criminal Court on March 4th was an expected move. Beforehand commentators had tried to guess what kind of reaction could be triggered if the regime felt threatened by international action. The guesses ran from predicting an internal coup – Bashir’s associates would consider him a liability and dump him, to dire predictions of attacks against foreigners – embassies recommended that their personnel should be extra careful and not go out if they could avoid it, and by way of starting an impending attack by the Darfur Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)guerrilla group against Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.

In their considerable variety, all these predictions had one thing in common: they were grand. They required dramatic action and implied violent and desperate resolve. The whole paraphernalia of media Islamism – terrorists, fanatical crowds, rabble-rousing agitators – was supposed to be brought to the fore. The perpetrators were to be dangerous and the victims important. When the indictment was issued and the reaction duly took place, the reality was much less grand. It was much meaner and devoid of all the grandstanding which had taken place.

The Sudanese government decided to expel thirteen of the most important NGOs working in Darfur. Together they kept alive about 650,000 out of the 2.7 million internally displaces persons (IDP). How? By distributing food, supplying health care, and distributing fuel, fuel which is essential to run the pumps that bring the water from the wells that have been dug in the camps. One should try to imagine the incredibly cramped situation of the refugees who literally live on top of each other. Previously available water simply wouldn’t do. Wells were dug. Deep wells. Wells that required fuel for the pumps. Within two weeks the refugees will be desperately chasing any water, including dirty and contaminated water, because there won’t be anything else. Another crisis in addition to the reduced food rations and rapidly disappearing health care.

This was the cleverest and most cowardly way to re-start the genocide (which had been “on hold,” so to speak, for the past two years, with a regular but limited number of casualties). It was not started with noisy bullets and cruel looking Janjaweed riders, but silently, through disease and underfeeding.

Bashir and his henchmen knew that the world might not tolerate pictures of massacres, but people quietly dying under their tents are not much of a show.

Now some of the Janjaweed who feel a bit deprived of their usual benefits have taken to kidnapping three workers of Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) Belgium and are asking for a ransom. United Nations Secretary General Ban ki Moon reacted immediately by holding the Sudanese government responsible for the kidnapping. Once more, it was the humanitarian workers who were hit, in an attempt at stampeding them out of Darfur and causing as much suffering and destruction as possible among the IDP population.

Last month the Sudanese Army fought the guerillas in a series of pitched battles in Muhajiriyyah and on the slopes of Jebel Mara. This terror was roundly beaten. Starving civilians to death is definitely easier, even if it is the act of cowards.

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Gérard Prunier is a widely acclaimed journalist as well as the Director of the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa. He has published over 120 articles and five books, including The Rwanda Crisis and Darfur: A 21st Century Genocide. His most recent book, Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophefocuses on Congo, the Rwandan genocide, and events that led to the death of some four million people. Living in Ethiopia allows Prunier a unique view of the politics and current events of Central and Eastern Africa. Be sure to check back on Tuesdays to read more Notes From Africa.

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By Gérard Prunier

The so-called, “Darfur peace talk” in Doha, Quatar on February 17th was even more ridiculous than the previous efforts at “building peace” in the desperate province of Western Sudan. The language of the final communiqué sounded like an Arab transliteration of a Henry James novel: they expressed their “high appreciation for His Highness the Emir of Qatar Khalifa al-Thani’s generous sponsorship of the peace process,” they “recognized the constructive support of neighboring countries,” they “accorded a strategic priority to peace,” they “accepted to take the necessary measures to create a favorable environment to help attain a lasting peace settlement,” and they promised “to commit themselves to continue serious discussions leading towards peace.”

The reader remains dumbfounded by the yawning abysses of what we call in Arabic, kalam faadi (empty talk). The whole reunion led to absolutely nothing but pious platitudes, while all hell broke loose between the very parties who were facing each other and discussing in Doha.

In early February violent fighting had broken out in Muhajiriya, in South Darfur. This was followed by the bombardment of Thabit on the 18th and a battle in Sheriya, just west of Al-Fashir on the 19th. Finally there were carpet bombings of various locations in the west of Jebel Mara in Central Darfur. The government congratulated itself on a “new development in the peace process,” and The Justice and Equality Movement(JEM) guerrillas declared on February 23rd that “the signing of the Doha Agreement, February 17th 2009, was certainly a step forward along the road for peace in Darfur.” Then, on February 24th, upon learning about the probable indictment of President Omar el-Bashir by the International Criminal Court (ICC) next March 4th, JEM guerrilla chief Khalil Ibrahim announced that “now the war will intensify.” Did I hear anyone mention the word duplicity?

So, what was Doha apart from an alcohol-free cocktail party? It was:

• A failed attempt by Khalil Ibrahim to free his brother who had been captured by the Khartoum Army after the failure of the JEM raid on Omdurman last May. Khalil’s brother was also his Chief-of-Staff and his main weapons procurement officer. Many other prisoners were to be exchanged (JEM , which had had the upper hand, has captured a lot of government Army officers in Darfur).
• It was also a bid by JEM for center stage. Their desire to be recognized as the main, or perhaps even the sole, interlocutor of the international community among the Darfur guerrillas.
• It was a signal to Muhamar al-Gaddafi, the new “King” of the African Union, that JEM and Khalil were the main players in Darfur.
• It was also a discreet forum in which to try to negotiate the freedom of Hassan al-Turabi, Khalil’s old political mentor who was arrested last month and is now in dangerous detention in Port Sudan (Turabi is 72, he has high blood pressure and Port Sudan is one of the hottest spots on earth. His place of detention is not air-conditioned).

In other words, Doha’s cocktail party was only an episode in the ongoing conflict in Darfur and logically just opened into more violence. As Khalil said, now that the peace talks are over, “the war will intensify.”

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Gérard Prunier is a widely acclaimed journalist as well as the Director of the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa. He has published over 120 articles and five books, including The Rwanda Crisis and Darfur: A 21st Century Genocide. His most recent book, Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophefocuses on Congo, the Rwandan genocide, and events that led to the death of some four million people. Living in Ethiopia provides Prunier with an up-close look at the politics and current events of Central and Eastern Africa. Be sure to check back on Tuesdays to read more Notes From Africa.

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Eve Donegan, Sales and Marketing Assistant

Gérard Prunier is a widely acclaimed journalist as well as the Director of the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa. He has published over 120 articles and five books, including The Rwanda Crisis and Darfur. His most recent book, Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe focuses on Congo, the Rwandan genocide, and events that led to the death of some four million people. In this original post, Prunier discusses the history of the Joseph Kony led Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the ongoing conflict that led to almost 200 deaths this Christmas.

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) had its own way of celebrating Christmas: on December 25th it hacked an estimated 189 people to pieces in the Congolese town of Faradje, 80 km from the Sudanese border.
This homicidal explosion was a direct result of the combined attack by Congolese, Southern Sudanese, and Ugandan troops on the LRA stronghold in Garamba National Park in the DRC where the political-religious sect had been holed up for the past two years.

The LRA is made up of a semi-deranged leadership manipulating abducted illiterate children who have been brainwashed into committing atrocities. Indeed, its leader Joseph Kony has time and time again reneged on promises of turning up in Juba for peace talks with the Ugandan government, but the LRA’s murderous actions put it beyond the pale of civilized society. Beyond this moral judgment it remains for the social analyst to explain – not excuse – what is going on.

• Atrocious as it is, the LRA is the expression of the 23 year old alienation of the populations of Northern Uganda who have been punished beyond reason for the atrocities that they themselves visited upon the Southerners during the period of the Obote II and Okello governments (1980-1986). In spite of being preyed upon by the LRA vultures, the Northern Ugandan Acholi tribe still half supports it because it fights the Museveni regime.

• During its long history of fighting the Kampala government, the LRA has been aided and abetted by the Sudanese regime in Khartoum; not because it is Islamic (Kony’s confused “religion” is a hazy blend of Christianity, traditional cults, and messianic inventions), but because its is both a thorn in the side of Uganda and a problem for the potentially secessionist semi-autonomous government of Southern Sudan. Khartoum’s regime loves to mess things up towards the Great Lakes which it sees as an area of Islam’s future expansion.

• If we broaden our view even more, we can say that unfortunately the International Criminal Court which has indicted Kony and his officers for crimes against humanity (of which they are fully guilty) has cut off any avenue of negotiation with the cult leader who now prefers to die fighting than to end his days in prison in Europe.

• And last but not least, the LRA has acted as an evil magnet for all the social flotsam and jetsam resulting from years of war and insurgency in the whole region, from the Congo to Northern Uganda and from Southern Sudan to the Central African Republic. The LRA traffics in prohibited game animals, exploits various mines, and it gets money and weapons from Khartoum. Worse, it gives “employment” to disenfranchised young men (and even the girls it uses as servants and sex objects) who are left to fall through the supposed “safety net” of their inefficient governments and of a bewildered and slow-moving “international community.”

The tragic dimension of the LRA saga is a direct expression of the situation in Central Africa where neither guns nor diplomatic action seem to get anywhere. Given Kony’s messianic bend the best solution might be an exorcist.

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Yesterday I did an on-line chat with several readers at Donlin Drive Elementary School in Liverpool, NY. THANK YOU! to librarian Mary Fulton and the students who did a great job preparing for the session--I hope they had as much fun as I did!

Now on to a few thoughts about my recent reading. During any given stretch of time, I always enjoy reading a variety of genres. There is a broad general pattern--mysteries, nonfiction, food and travel books for adults; novels for young people; several picture books every week; a poem every day (at minimum, and several more on Poetry Fridays thanks to all the great poetry bloggers!) It's pretty haphazard; I've always said that I'll read anything as long as it's GOOD. I can recall only one stretch during which my reading was deliberately structured: For several months during 2006, I read exclusively novels for young people because I was on the panel of the National Book Awards, and for several months after that, I read mostly adult books in an attempt to even things out.

So I have no idea why this most recent batch skews so heavily to adult. Doubtless it will even out again, after I pick up the usual haul of riches at ALA in June....

Fiction:

AN UNCOMMON READER, by Alan Bennett. Adult hardcover, gift (thanks, Betsy!). A bite-sized novella by one of England's leading lit lights. Terrific premise: What if the Queen (yes, as in the current queen Elizabeth II) became an avid reader? If you're an Anglophile, a bibliophile, a humor (humour)-ophile, you'll love this perfect mouthful of a read.


LIQUOR and SOUL KITCHEN, by Poppy Z. Brite. Adult, library. A very reliable source recommended these books (are your ears burning, Joe Monti?). They're both set in the restaurant world of pre-Katrina New Orleans, but not in the silly surface way of many 'food novels'. Brite depicts the restaurant kitchen in all its UNglamorousness, the heat and the knives and the killing hard work. There's a third in this series (PRIME, which actually comes between the two above) that my library didn't have. Must request it.


Aside: I'm on something of a New Orleans kick at the moment. In addition to the Brite books, my nightstand holds copies of THE GREAT DELUGE (nonfiction) and A CONFDERACY OF DUNCES (fiction)--the latter on that endless list labeled 'books I've never read that I really MUST get to SOON', the former recommended strongly by Deb Murphy, a Harper Collins sales rep. (By the way, most of the sales reps I know are TERRIFIC sources for answers to the what-should-I-read question.)


THE WILLOUGHBYS, by Lois Lowry. Middle-grade, ARC. Do you like your icons skewered? A story that takes on what seems like every cliche in children's literature and pokes wicked, good-natured fun at them all. Orphans, babies left on doorsteps, nannies, a scary neighbor...with the bonus of a hilarious glossary at the end.

(I also read another ARC, but will blog about it closer to its pub date.)

Nonfiction:

TRUTH AND BEAUTY, by Ann Patchett. Adult memoir, paperback loan (thank you, Nancy Werlin!). Patchett on her lifelong friendship with another author, Lucy Grealy (AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE). I love-hated this book: some great writing, an interesting look into the MFA-workshop-fellowship path chosen by many adult fiction writers (which caused me to once again thank the stars that I somehow ended up published in children's instead...), a moving recollection of a friendship. But I also found myself irritated at times by the solipsistic nature of both the writing and the subject. If you like TMI*, you'll get it well-written here.

*Too Much Information


ABOUT ALICE, by Calvin Trillin, Adult memoir, library. Trillin's paean to his wife, who died too young from cancer. Perhaps best appreciated if you have followed the author's career over the years--his food books, essays for The New Yorker and Gourmet--laughing yourself into a sideache over his self-deprecation and acute icon-skewering (I guess I have a thing for icon-skewerers....). But I think anyone who's ever been in love will love this book, as slim and elegant and witty as its subject.


THEY POURED FIRE ON US FROM THE SKY, by Benson Deng, Alephonson Deng, and Benjamin Ajak. Adult memoir, library. Three Lost Boys from Sudan take turns narrating their perilous journeys from their home villages to new lives in the U.S. The structure is a little confusing--I lost track of who was who several times and had to keep turning back to check--but all three stories are remarkable.


BASEBALL, by George Vecsey. Paperback purchase. Part of the Modern Library series in which a writer tackles a seemingly boundless subject within the confines of a couple hundred pages. A salute to the author, who manages to include many of baseball's most beloved stories while including some I had never read or heard before. Favorite moment: a heartbreaking quote from Oscar Charleston, the great Negro Leagues batter who never got to play in the majors. "Just one swing," he said. Just one swing in the majors--that was all he wanted....



Coming soon: the full schedule of events for my West Coast tour!

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Even though this is above the age level I usually write about, it is such an awesome way to spread a love of books that I had to pass it along. This young man shares the books that he's found meaningful and have helped shape his view of the world. Classics (in the original sense of Marcus Aurelius), science fiction, philosophy, pop culture, psychology, sociology, current fiction, poetry, etc. which, when set to music ["Slow Motion(Explicit Version)" from "Third Eye Blind: A Collection (Remastered)"] become social commentary.

My son is working on his personal music biography, and this is somewhat the same idea. This would be a great reading list for anyone, but for young people coming of age at this time in this culture, the titles are particularly appropriate. I am fascinated by the communication opportunities that new social media communities like YouTube present to all of us. This is just as valid a way to communicate the importance of books in our lives as any other. It's also going to reach a lot more people than BookTV. Check it out. I'd love to hear your comments.

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The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that in Tuscola, Texas, a 9th-grade English teacher has been suspended (on paid leave) after a student's parents complained to police about a book their child read by Pullitzer-Prize winning author Cormac McCarthy called Child of God from the 9th-grade reading list . The 1974 novel is a story about an outsider falsely accused of rape, who then begins killing people and living in a cave with their decomposing bodies.

The reading list was compiled by all of the high-school English teachers for an advanced Placement class. Last week the school board voted to keep the three-year veteran teacher on paid leave even though more than 120 parents attended the meeting asking that he be reinstated. In fact most of the school's parents are in favor of reinstating the teacher. The teacher has not been charged with anything, but is being investigated for distributing harmful material to a minor. In the meantime, the book has been deleted from the reading list by school officials.

My first response to this story was, "here we go again."

My second was, "why did the parents report this to the police instead of the principal?" Were they concerned about the reading list or were they exploiting an opportunity to push their own agenda?

It occurs to me:

• that the list was assembled by a group of high school English teachers not just the one on suspension.


• since the author is a Pullitzer Prize winner and this is a 34-year old title, the English teachers must have agreed that despite it's macabre story line, it had redeeming value or it would not be on the list.


• the student chose to read this book. If the parents were that concerned, why didn't they help their child select a "more appropriate" title?


• if we accept the premise that a community has the right to decide what is and is not offensive,(even though it is clearly a violation of the first amendment) and we know that most of the school's parents are in favor of reinstating the teacher, can we infer that the parents filing the complaint are out of step with the majority of the town's 700 inhabitants?

As I've stated before, banning books makes them more attractive to the people. What credentials to these parents have for judging whether a book is or isn't worthy of study? Why didn't these parents choose to minimize the alleged "damage" the book produced by quietly discussing the book with their child and then moving on to reading a book that was more in line with their personal moral code? Why report it to the police?

I understand that definitions of "good writing" vary and there will never be consensus. It seems clear to me, however, that these people must be making a larger point, although I'm in the dark as to what that might be. The situation might be more understandable if it were a current book reflecting today's pop culture. But, it's not. Unfortunately, the knee-jerk reaction to book challenges in schools is to pull the title. And predictably, that is what happened in Tuscola. One can only hope that cooler heads will prevail in the end and that nobody has to leave town.

What invariably happens when books are challenged or banned is that they achieve a stature far greater than they would have claimed had the book not been challenged. The American Library Association (ALA) website gives a comprehensive history of book challenges in this country as well as helpful advice in coping with a book challenge.

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