Feathered Serpent: A Novel of the Mexican Conquest by Colin Falconer

Wonderful historical detail, too much sexual detail.

Published in 2002 by Crown.

In my mind, the Aztecs have been short-changed by modern authors. There has not been enough attention to them and their interesting story. And Cortes! If ever anyone should get high marks for having ambition and bravery in spades, it's him.

Anyway, the historical details are well done in Feathered Serpent. Falconer almost makes you feel like you are there with the Spanish as the arrive at the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. He has created a multi-dimensional Cortes, rather than the stereotypical 'evil conqueror' Cortes (although, at the end I lost the feel for Cortes - I don't know if Falconer lost interest or he also lost his feel for the man). In most books and texts Cortes is portrayed as a gold-crazed, land-crazed conqueror - but his motivations are far more complex - including a complete disgust with the Mesoamerica's fascination with human sacrifice and the cannibalistic consumption of those sacrifices.

Hernan Cortes (1485-1547)

Unfortunately, Falconer's obsession with adding graphic, detailed sex scenes to his book just gets in the way. Another reviewer commented that there's one about every twenty pages - and I'd agree. We get all of the detail that adds nothing to the plot. I'm not trying to be a prude here - after all the main characters were considered to be the first to have a mestizo (mixed European and Native American) child so there's got to be some sex - but it was given such a prominent place in the book that I feel that it detracts from the work as a whole.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Feathered Serpent: A Novel of the Mexican Conquest by Colin Falconer.

Reviewed June 18, 2005.

Byzantium by Stephen R. Lawhead

The best description that I have for this book is that it is like a roller coaster

Originally published in 1996.

Why is it like a roller coaster?

A roller coaster is slow when it starts out and climbs that first big hill. Byzantium is also slow while Lawhead lays the groundwork and has the reader join with an enterprising group of 13 monks from Ireland and Britain that head off for a pilgrimage to Constantinople.

Like a roller coaster, once this book finally gets moving (around page 90 or so) the pace never stops and the reader is drawn into a wonderful world and is exposed to four cultures (Irish, Viking, Byzantine, Arab), as the main character is taken into slavery, lives the life of luxury, suffers from religious doubt, climbs to the heights of faith, fights corruption, is betrayed, and also travels the world in a whirlwind fashion.

This wonderful story, based on a composite of Irish monks from the 9th and 10th centuries, is a joy to read.

Bravo!

This is my first Lawhead book but it won't be my last.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Byzantium by Stephen R. Lawhead.

Black Cadillac (DVD)

Pretty good small budget movie

Released in 2003.

While not the best movie I've ever seen, this movie does what it sets out to do - draw the viewer in for some thriller action.

Two friends and a little brother have travelled to Wisconsin for an evening of booze and girls at a backwoods bar in the winter. After a barroom brawl a 1950s Cadillac menaces them and eventually pursues them - but our 3 protagonists have no idea why.

Randy Quaid as the local yokel good ol' boy sheriff is the only actor you're likely to recognize but, in my mind, young, pez-consuming Josh Hammond steals the show

I am unwilling to be a spoilsport, so I won't go into great details, but you can imagine the tension that develops with car chases in the winter on twisty country roads, a hitchhiking sheriff in the backseat spouting off platitudes and asking pointed questions and a general feeling that things are spinning out of control make the movie work.

The DVD commentary is interesting, especially discussions of the inspiration of the story and making a movie with budget constraints.

I rate this DVD 4 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on June 8, 2005.

Witch Hunt: A History of Persecution by Nigel Cawthorne

Good information but told in a repetitious manner that wore this reader down

A witch burning

Cawthorne's Witch Hunt: A History of Persecution is a recounting of the witch hunt craze that infected not only Salem, Massachussets, a topic with which most Americans have a least a passing familiarity, but throughout Europe to a much, much larger degree. The back of the back says that this book "...examines this persecution and the religious hysteria which inspired it." To me the use of the word examination implies that the author will interpret this hysteria and make observations and insights throughout the reading. Cawthorne does not do anything close to this, with the exception of a brief, four page introduction. Rather, he recounts witch trial after witch trial, often going into great detail about the tortures used and the indictments brought against the accused witches.

While this is an impressive bit of research, the book felt half-done. It was as if Cawthorne had written up his research notes and then had to hurry off to write something else before he added his own touches. What he leaves us with is more than 200 pages of torture, false accusations and descriptions of supposed orgies between witches and Satan. The first dozen times I read about them, I was interested. By the 50th time, they become most wearisome. Not that they were not horrific stories, but there was just no analysis, no synthesis. This is not so much the work of a historian than a gathering of research.

So, what does this book do well? It is a wonderful resource for someone wanting to know basic facts about the ways that the Spanish Inquisition and the Witch Hunts physically tortured and financially abused their victims. I'll keep it as a resource for my world history classes just for those topics.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

Reviewed May 22, 2005.

This book can be found here on Amazon: Witch Hunt: History of a Persecution

An Open Letter on Translating (Kindle) by Martin Luther

A piece of history, yet still accessible

Originally published in 1530.

I should note that I am a lifelong Lutheran and Martin Luther is one of my personal heroes, despite his numerous flaws.

An Open Letter on Translating is a September, 1530 letter to Luther's critics concerning his translation of the Bible from Latin into German. This was very controversial at the time and it led to a lot of disagreement (even wars) over who should be allowed to read the Bible and who should interpret its meaning.

Luther defends his translation in his very best combative style. He correctly notes that not all turns of phrases translate literally from one language to another. He notes, along with a liberal dose of insulting names for his opponents, that he and his team of translators did a lot of research and took great care to make his translation accessible and accurate.

Martin Luther
(1483-1546)

What is perhaps most amazing is that this document is immensely readable for anyone conversant with the issues of the Reformation, even though it is nearly 500 years old. His irreverent style won over many of the common folks of his day and made him the Western world's first international bestselling authors.

The letter veers off topic towards the end and meanders into a general criticism of indulgences and entreaties to saints which is why I only give it 4 stars.

It can be found on Amazon.com here: An Open Letter on Translating by Martin Luther.

Coal Black Horse by Robert Olmstead

"It is a tale ... full of sound and fury; signifying nothing." -Shakespeare

Published in 2007 by Algonquin Books

The above quote tells quite a bit about Olmstead's Coal Black Horse. It is garnish and flair, it is pretty words and gruesome descriptions of the horrors of war, but it is a story without a point, except to say that life is without value and, eventually, someone will end yours and it will all be over.

Olmstead borrows heavily from the styles of Howard Bahr and Stephen Crane to create this book. From The Red Badge of Courage he borrows the stylistic device of never quite letting the reader what battlefields or locations the book is set in - that is until he suddenly tells you that it's in Gettysburg. How Robey avoids tens of thousands Confederate soldiers stacked up along the Potomac River (they massed there for days waiting for flood waters to go down) is a mystery to me. Why Olmstead decides to tell the reader the battlefield at that moment is a mystery as well.

Civil War dead scattered on a battlefield

From Bahr he borrows many of the same style of battlefield descriptions - the chaotic glimpses of a battle that remind me of quick movie cuts. The poetic descriptions of awful destruction, brutality and inhumanity are powerful, and reminiscent of Bahr. But, Olmstead lacks Bahr's ability to tell a story. Coal Black Horse plods along and eventually becomes a dark, depressing novel. It starts with death and ends with 2 murders and two attempted murders and no one seems to care about any of it. No love. No joy. Just dreary existence.

I note in the back cover that Olmstead received an NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) grant to write this book. If this is what we are paying for with government-provided grants, than I suggest we stop. Certainly he can write this stuff on his own. Others write much better works and without government assistance.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on May 26, 2009.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Coal Black Horse.

On the Decay of the Art of Lying (kindle) by Mark Twain

Not Twain's best work.

Twain (1835-1910) says that On the Decay of the Art of Lying was an essay written in 1885 for a $30 prize for the "Historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford". Twain notes that he did not win a prize for this essay.

The essay focuses on the lost art of lying. Twain discusses different kinds of lies, situations in which people lie and why all lies are not bad.

The essay is sometimes funny but mostly sounds like an old stand up routine about good lies and bad lies.

The Kindle version is very short - only 86 locations which equals about 12 regular pages.

I rate this essay 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: On the Decay of the Art of Lying by Mark Twain.

Reviewed on May 28, 2009.

Old Testament Legends being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal books of the old testament (Kindle) by M.R. James

Sometimes interesting, mostly tedious

Originally Published in 1913  

M.R. James has collected additional stories from the Old Testament era. None of these is included in the canon books. These are not stories from the Apocrypha but even more stories. In times past, some churches actually treated some of these stories as scripture.

According to M.R. James, some of these are quite ancient and some are newer. The stories are arranged chronologically and feature Adam, Eve, Cain, Abraham, Job, Joseph ,Jeremiah and Solomon. A new, non-Biblical character is Ahiker, advisor to the King of the Chaldeans.

The stories about Adam and Eve mostly concern how they deal with being sent from the Garden of Eden. The story of Job is a re-telling of his book in the Bible, but it is more satisfying than the original.

M.R. James (1862-1936)

The story of Solomon is very bizarre. Solomon uses a ring to control demons in order to build the Temple. Abraham gets a lot of attention in these stories and we get to read stories about him as a young man and as an old man. There is a long story about Joseph (the interpreter of dreams) and a young woman that conspires to marry him.

The problem with these stories is the writing. They were written in a style that mimics the King James version, which was the par for the course for Biblical translation when M.R. James wrote this book. But, it's just makes some of these stories even more difficult to enjoy reading.

There is one more issue with this Kindle version. Many times the capital "C" is actually replaced with a capital "G". So we have Gain and Abel and the Gaananites. It's no big deal, especially since I paid nothing for this version, but just be aware of it if you choose to read these stories.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Old Testament Legends.

Reviewed May 29, 2009

Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion (Kindle edition) by Mark Twain

Story of a trip by Mark Twain to Bermuda - starts fairly weak and ends strong

First published in 1877 by The Atlantic.

The title of this essay has it right - these are just a series of stories about a trip that Twain (1835-1910) and some friends took to Bermuda from New York City. Twain wrote this for "The Atlantic" in 1877 and his wry style makes him an excellent travel companion.

In reality, Twain's story of the trip is the story of the people he meets along the way. Most of the stories are humorous, some are duds and about an equal number are quite funny. I won't forget the story about the town with the cat situation for quite a while.

Twain on Bermuda:

"We never met a man, or woman, or child anywhere in this sunny island who seemed to be unprosperous, or discontented, or sorry about anything. This sort of monotony became very tiresome presently, and even something worse. The spectacle of an entire nation groveling in contentment is an infuriating thing."

Twain on modern communication:

"The Bermudians are hoping soon to have telegraphic communication with the world. But even after they shall have acquired this curse it will still be a good country to go to for a vacation, for there are charming little islets scattered about the enclosed sea where one could live secure from interruption. The telegraph-boy would have to come in a boat, and one could easily kill him while he was making his landing."

Can you imagine what he'd say about cell phones, text messages and Twitter?

I rate this essay 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion by Mark Twain.

Reviewed May 29, 2009.

Thank God for the Atom Bomb by Paul Fussell

The works of a brilliant essayist are a joy to read.

Originally published in 1988.

I admit, I was attracted to Thank God for the Atom Bomb because of the title. Our library had it featured on its web page with some excerpts and I was intrigued. I was not disappointed.

The title essay is simply brilliant. It is also caustic, blunt and nuanced. I'll refer to it before the next time I teach about World War II.

There are two more essays on World War II. I found the two essays on George Orwell to be most interesting. His commentary on the differences between tourism and travel reminded me of the Twain essays I've been reading lately. "Taking It All Off in the Balkans" is the account of his visit to a nudist resort in the former Yugoslavia - very funny and (I've got to say it) revealing.

Paul Fussell

Two essays were just not interesting to me, being mainly about poetry and I find myself unable to muster the interest to read poetry, let alone read extensive commentary on it. I skimmed those.

The essay on the 2nd Amendment ("A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.") comes off as a poorly-researched rant as opposed to the well-researched arguments made in the Atom Bomb essays. It stands out in this collection for that reason.

The other oddball essay is my 2nd favorite (after the title essay). Fussell went to the Indy 500. Try to imagine an East Coast college professor who writes about poetry standing around Indy's infamous snakepit and the guys with the "Show us your t*ts" signs. Fussell's comments are quite observant and show that he really spent some time walking around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and getting a feel for racing in general. Having just attended my 24th Indy 500 six days ago I was especially interested in his comments. I would be most interested in seeing Fussell's thoughts at having more racial diversity in the fields and 3 women in the race nowadays.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This collection can be found on Amazon.com here: Thank God for the Atom Bomb by Paul Fussell

Reviewed on May 29, 2009.

Night and Day (Jesse Stone #8) by Robert B. Parker

Jesse Stone returns to form

Published in 2009.

After the rather awful Stranger in Paradise I was afraid the whole series was going to just fizzle.

I was pleasantly surprised with Night and Day. It is a return to higher standard of reading to which I had grown accustomed. The plot moves along nicely, the witty banter is plentiful. The case is distressing but not super-hero level.

I will not go into all of the plot details. Those are outlined by others on the page. All in all, this is a pleasant and quick read. Everything I look for in a Parker novel - detecting, banter, psychobabble and a bit of romance (in a macho sort of way, of course).

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Night and Day (Jesse Stone #8) by Robert B. Parker.

Reviewed on May 30, 2009.

Fear the Worst: A Thriller by Linwood Barclay

WOW! This one starts in a hurry and never slows up!

Published in 2009 by Bantam.

Normally, I am very skeptical of all of those little blurbs that cover books. This one came with all kinds of blurbs from established authors and professional reviewers, including "Will leave you breathless - Robert Crais", "A one-sit thriller - Michael Connelly" and "The surprises just keep on coming - Charlaine Harris."

Well, guess what? Fear the Worst lives up to its praise. I'd never heard of Linwood Barclay before I read this book, but he writes a terrific thriller.

The premise of the book is that car salesman Tim Blake's daughter goes to work one day and does not return. No one at her job has seen her before. No one in the area knows anything about her. Her best friends don't know anything. She's just gone. The whole idea comes from the author's daughter who looked at him at breakfast one day and said, "Suppose you came to pick me up at my job, and found out I'd never worked there?"

This book is jam-packed with action, but none of it seems over the top. There are dozens of plot twists, a body count that would make a Sylvester Stallone movie jealous and surprisingly normal good guys going against bad guys that are real bad, but not unrealistically bad.

What do I mean? Well, I can't really get into it without creating spoilers, but suffice it to say, it's not like our hero, a car salesman, takes out the Russian Mafia singlehandedly, but the bad guys are certainly bad enough.

One very nice touch is that the main character always refers to every car by it's make and model. He never calls it a blue mini-van. It would be a Honda Odyssey. Why is that a nice touch? Car salesmen know cars - all of them.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Fear the Worst: A Thriller by Linwood Barclay.

Reviewed on June 1, 2009.

The Night Watchman by Mark Mynheir

Pretty good thriller

Published in 2009 by Multnomah.

I feel silly, but it wasn't until I was 85% done with The Night Watchman that I actually read the entire description on the back of this book. In my defense, it is rather wordy....

Anyway, it was not until that point that I realized that this was actually a "Christian" cop book. That doesn't bother me since I'm a Christian. But, my experiences with Christian fiction have been mostly negative. A lot of it is clumsy, to say the least.

So, I guess this is a long way to say that this one was not clumsy. Instead, it was different. It is a "Christian" detective story in which the main character is not Christian. Not even searching. Not even close. He carries a big gun and he uses it lots of times. He lies. He cheats. Praying bothers him. He suspects that church-going people are weak and does not believe that God can change a person's life.

Mary Mynheir

So, on to the book. The main character is Ray Quinn, a homicide detective that has been forced to retire due to injury. He walks very slowly with a cane. Now, he's the night watchman at a condo building. He becomes convinced that a murder-suicide at the building is really a double murder and the story gets going.

The book was enjoyable. Ray is an interesting character and the give-and-take with his night watchman colleague Crevis is often humorous. The fact that he cannot beat up everyone or use the resources of the police/legal system makes him interesting - he has to improvise and think more. The mystery is realistic although I thought it wrapped up a little too neatly.

 The author is a police officer who has worked homicide, narcotics, the SWAT team and just about everything else.

This is the first in a new series of mysteries centered around Ray Quinn. I'll be keeping my eye out for more.

Read my review of the second book in the series here: The Corruptible: A Ray Quinn Mystery.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Night Watchman by Mark Mynheir.

Reviewed on June 3, 2009.

Daemon by Daniel Suarez

Top-notch techno-thriller, with equal emphasis on the "techno" and the "thriller"

Published in 2009 by Signet

Daemon is part 1 of a series. I do not know if there will be more than one sequel but the next book, Freedom, is coming in 2010. (Note: Click on this link to see the review I wrote about Freedom)

A computer program created by a mad genius has infiltrated the world's computers and is creating a 'new world order'. A revolution is in the mix and it will be led by the world's disaffected and misfits - the tattooed computer geeks, the pierced gamers, crazed psychopaths that treat all life like it is a NPC in a computer game, etc.

There have been plenty of books, movies and TV shows about the computer that has taken over a building or a spaceship, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey . but this is the first one I've heard of in which the entire world economic system has been hijacked. I'm no computer expert, but and I am competent at most things concerning computers and the thing is, Daniel Suarez makes it seem so possible...

Daniel Suarez

Lots of techno stuff, tons of action, lots of death and destruction. The book is a rolling rampage and I'm going to be looking for the sequel!

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: DAEMON

Reviewed on June 9, 2009.

You Wouldn't Want to Be in Alexander the Great's Army!: Miles You'd Rather Not March by Jacqueline Morley and David Antram

Published in 2005.

I ran across this series at the local library. I'd never heard of it before but I certainly enjoyed You Wouldn't Want to Be in Alexander the Great's Army: Miles You'd Rather Not March. It is aimed at 4th - 8th grade, depending on the reading level.

The cartoonish characters are fun, the history is accurate, although limited. That's okay, it is intended to be an introduction to the topic, not a graduate thesis. The nice thing about it is that it shows that history is not "boring." It is full of fascinating stories.

My only complaint about the book is the map. There is one, in the front. I think there should be one for every topic to show where Alexander is moving his men to now!

I would gladly include this book in any 4th-8th grade classroom library.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

Find this book on Amazon.com here: You Wouldn't Want to Be in Alexander the Great's Army!: Miles You'd Rather Not March.

Reviewed on June 2, 2009.

You Wouldn't Want to Be a Civil War Soldier: A War You'd Rather Not Fight by Thomas Ratliff and David Salariya

An entertaining, historically solid introduction to the Civil War for 4th graders and over

I just discovered this series and I've been reading a few of them for fun this summer.

You Wouldn't Want to Be a Civil War Soldier is entertaining and it contains solid, accurate history presented in a visually interesting format.

While I've been looking a few of these over for my own personal entertainment, my almost 4th grade daughter has been sneaking them out of the stack and reading them without any encouragement from me. Imagine! Kids surreptitiously reading history!

The only complaint I have about the back is the total lack of African American faces in the drawings. The book notes that 179,000 African American soldiers served in the war, which is good but fails to include a single African American in the drawings. While it mostly makes sense due to the strict segregation of the army (the book follows one soldier from Connecticut who joins before the First Battle of Bull Run and stays until Appomattox), if I had been the editor I would have insisted on including African Americans on pages 26 & 27, the pages that talk about the siege of Petersburg and the Battle of the Crater. African Americans made up the bulk of the Union troops in the first wave of the Battle of the Crater and it would have been a great place to include some different faces in the art.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on June 11, 2009.

This book can be found on amazon.com here: You Wouldn't Want to Be a Civil War Soldier 

You Wouldn't Want to Be a Slave in Ancient Greece by Fiona MacDonald and David Antram

A fun way to get your essential bits of history 

As a history teacher, I think just about all of history is fascinating - the cultural tidbits, the technology, the religious beliefs, the wars, the governments. It's all fascinating! But...convincing my students is another matter entirely.

This series does an excellent job of looking at history from an interesting point of view and showing why it was tough. The art is accessible and just cartoonish enough to not be one of those boring illustrations that fill history books and plenty realistic enough that to clearly see and understand what is going on (for example, the women who are weaving on pages 16 & 17 are cartoonish but their loom looks pretty realistic).

In You Wouldn't Want to Be a Slave in Ancient Greece, you learn a lot about slavery in general that can be applied to any time - the drudgery and humiliation, the loss of freedom and the uncertainty. There is also a lot of Ancient Greece-specific information such as their attitudes towards foreigners and women.

I'd recommend this book for students in grade 4 or higher. I'd even recommend it for adults that want a little pain-free learning!

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on June 9, 2009.

You Wouldn't Want to Live in a Medieval Castle by Jacqueline Morley

Historically solid and entertaining.

Published in 2008.

I just discovered this series and I've been reading a few of them for fun this summer.

You Wouldn't Want to Live In A Medieval Castle is entertaining and it contains solid, accurate history presented in a visually interesting format.

While I've been looking a few of these over for my own personal entertainment, my almost 4th grade daughter has been sneaking them out of the stack and reading them without any encouragement from me. 

The book mostly is about a little girl who is brought into a castle to work as a damsel (lady-in-waiting or a body servant). The book is also about a real historical event - the siege of Rochester Castle in Kent, England in 1215 by King John who is having trouble dealing with the barons after he signed the Magna Carta.

There is also quite a bit about a young page who is trying to become a squire so that he might become a knight someday.

Everyday life in the castle is discussed (carrying water for baths, common dining areas, sleeping arrangements, daily Mass, etc.) and so are the details of laying siege to and the defense of a castle.

The only problem I had with the book is a simple matter of labeling. On pages 8 & 9 they have a map of the Bailey (the interior of the fortifications). On the key they label things like the chandlery and the barracks without telling what they are. They are defined in the glossary in the back but a word or two on the map page would have been nice.

Still, I highly recommend this book for kids who are in 4th grade or higher. Also, for any adults who want a painless refresher on castles and medieval life!

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: You Wouldn't Want to Live in a Medieval Castle. 

Reviewed on June 11, 2009.

You Wouldn't Want to Live In Pompeii by John Malam and David Salariya

This is a great series

Published in 2008.

I recently stumbled onto the You Wouldn't Want to... series and have found them to be a delightful and painless way to introduce young people to different historical concepts.

You Wouldn't Want to Live In Pompeii is a standout in a standout series of books. It teaches about the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 that destroyed Pompeii, but it also teaches about Roman culture. The readers will learn that the Romans used enslaved Greek men as teachers for their sons, that the Romans made sacrifices to their gods, foods they ate, types of art, the gladiatorial games and the rediscovery of Pompeii in the 1700s and, more importantly, the archaeological work of Giuseppe Fiorelli in the late 1800s.

This would be great for 3rd grade or higher. Even adults can have a good basic understanding of what happened at Pompeii with this little book.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: You Wouldn't Want to Live in Pompeii: A Volcanic Eruption You'd Rather Avoid.

Reviewed on June 12, 2009.

You Wouldn't Want to Be a Roman Gladiator!: Gory Things You'd Rather Not Know by John Malam and David Salariya.

An entertaining, historically solid book - for 4th graders and over

Originally published in 2001 by Franklin Watts.

Illustrated by David Antram.

You Wouldn,t Want to Be a Roman Gladiator! is entertaining and it contains solid, accurate history presented in a visually interesting format.

While I've been looking a few of the books from this series for my own personal entertainment, my almost 4th grade daughter has been sneaking them out of the stack and reading them without any encouragement from me. Imagine! Kids surreptitiously reading history!

The book details the life of a gladiator that is captured as a slave in battle in Gaul. We follow him to his sale in the market and what kind of jobs he might have been sent to (in the mines, as a galley slave, on the farm, etc.) The slave is sent to gladiator school and we learn about their training, what they ate, the different types of gladiators and how they were punished. We learn about different types of gladiator fights and how gladiator fights were generally organized.

Well done. It should be a welcome part of any Rome unit from 4th grade and up.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: You Wouldn't Want to Be a Roman Gladiator!: Gory Things You'd Rather Not Know.

Reviewed June 14, 2009.

Fields of Fury: The American Civil War by James McPherson

A great introduction to the Civil War by a first-rate historian

Published in 2002

Pulitzer Prize winner James McPherson's foray into children's literature, Fields of Fury: The American Civil War is a beautiful, well-written book that fits the bill perfectly.

McPherson briefly covers all aspects of the conflict, from "Bleeding Kansas" to the difficulties in Reconstruction. As a Civil War buff (I have over 75 books and have read dozens more) I can think of no main topic he did not touch upon. In fact, I added a few stories to my repertoire for my classes.

Most topics are covered with a two page spread - text on the even pages and a full page photo, map or painting spread on the facing page. Also, with every topic there is a "Quick Facts" section.

A famous photo of an escaped
slave named Gordon. This is one
tough images I mention in the
review. The picture is entitled
"The Scourged Back"

McPherson's descriptions of the personalities, the battles and the general strategies of the war are first-rate. He also touches on such topics as how the war was financed, the role of women in the war, the difficulties faced at home by the families of the soldiers.

 The publisher recommends this book for 4th to 8th graders. I would have to say 5th-8th graders. There are some graphic images of the war, including famous, but still arresting, photos of African Americans digging up buried soldiers (with 6 skulls and a leg still wearing a boot and pants on a litter) for re-burial and a photo of an escaped slave showing his heavily scarred back courtesy of repeated whippings from his owner. Also, the text about the Battle of Shiloh mentions an eyewitness account of a man who was leaning against a tree with his bloated intestines piled up in his lap. I'm not against children learning the awful truth of war and slavery but I'd wait one more year before introducing those images to kids.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Fields of Fury: The American Civil War

Reviewed on June 16, 2009.

Inkheart (Inkheart Trilogy, Book 1) by Cornelia Funke

ALA Notable Children’s Book Award Winner.

Winner of the Book Sense Book of the Year Children's Literature Award.

Published in 2003.

I saw the ads for the Inkheart movie and decided to read the book first because, as everyone knows, the book is almost always better than the movie.

Anyway, the Inkheart book in built upon a interesting premise - the people and characters from a fantasy novel come to life. 

I do not give the book 5 stars. The book is a dark piece of fiction - relentlessly so. The mood is nearly always somber and I found the book compelling but often depressing.

The plot is fairly simple and the bad men in the book do a lot more threatening than real evil, but they do evil things - mutilations, burning people out of their homes, kidnappings, blackmail, and so on.

I have no problem with books that depict that evil exists in the world. As C.S. Lewis noted:

"Those who say that children must not be frightened may mean two things. They may mean (1) that we must not do anything likely to give the child those haunting, disabling, pathological fears against which ordinary courage is helpless: in fact, phobias. His mind must, if possible, be kept clear of things he can't bear to think of. Or they may mean (2) that we must try to keep out of his mind the knowledge that he is born into a world of death, violence, wounds, adventure, heroism and cowardice, good and evil. If they mean the first I agree with them: but not if they mean the second. The second would indeed be to give children a false impression and feed them on escapism in the bad sense. There is something ludicrous in the idea of so educating a generation which is born to the...atomic bomb. Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker." 

With all of that being said, you know the young people in your life. If scary stories cause bad dreams and the like, wait until they get to middle school for this one.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on June 16, 2009.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Inkheart (Inkheart Trilogy)

Last Reveille by David Morrell

A change of pace for Morrell

Originally Published in 1977.

David Morrell is one of my favorite authors. The only problem with being a Morrell fan is that he's not a big name author like King, Koontz or Grisham. You have to explain who he is to author book people and they usually get turned off when you mention one of the most famous characters in fiction: Rambo. Too bad because Morrell writes multiple genres - suspense, historical fiction, horror - and he does them well and he is definitely should be known more as the creator of the cartoonish image most people have of Rambo. Anyway, I'm slowly working my way through his older books and enjoying myself.

David Morrell

Last Reveille is Morrell's first foray into historical fiction. First published in 1977, the 1994 edition has an eight page introduction to the book that sets the book up quite well. He notes that it is similar to the John Wayne movie The Shootist in that there is an aging character that becomes a composite, a symbol of America's past (note that the book was nearly done when the movie came out).

The aging character is Miles Calender, a name designed to evoke his age and the distance he has traveled. The young soldier that is learning his ways is Prentice, a named taken from apprentice. They are involved in Blackjack Pershing's expedition into Mexico to try to capture Pancho Villa.

Is it good historical fiction?

Yeah. It seems solid to me. I am a history teacher but I do not claim to be an expert on Pancho Villa, Pershing or the military hardware of the time, but it sounded good.

Is it a good book?

While not Morrell's best, it is a good book, worthy of your time. Kind of like a western with some real nuggets of literature thrown in. There are themes, exploration of the male psyche (father figures, friendship, etc.) and gunfire. What's not to like?

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Last Reveille by David Morrell.

Reviewed on June 19, 2009.