Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi

A history teacher's perspective

Published in 2003 by Scholastic.
Winner of the 2003 Newberry Medal

You may wonder what a high school world history teacher is doing reading a book by Avi.

Well, here's the deal - I am searching for high quality historical fiction in a variety of reading levels for a future project for my class. Avi's Crispin: The Cross of Lead fits the bill perfectly for my students with lower level reading skills.

Set in Medieval England, Avi creates an interesting story and accurately depicts the toil of a peasant's life, pointing out some of the more interesting aspects of that time in history, including the plague, the power of the church, the massive amount of illiteracy, the filth, and more. What I like about it is that Avi writes a simple book without talking down to his readers.

This book fits my classroom's need wonderfully. For all of you teachers out there I strongly recommend it.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi. 

Reviewed on November 2, 2005.

Fall Down Laughing: How Squiggy Caught Multiple Sclerosis and Didn't Tell Nobody by David L. Lander

     

A great read

Published in 2000 by Tarcher.

As a kid, I always thought of Lenny and Squiggy as the two dolts that live upstairs from Laverne and Shirley. I've been watching the DVD collections of the show with my kids and I've noticed something. Usually, I grade papers when I watch TV (one of the perks, lots of papers!) and I find myself listening to Laverne and Shirley, but I stop and WATCH Lenny and Squiggy. Squiggy, in particular, is in constant motion and always doing something weird/quirky/downright odd and inappropriate!

Squiggy

So, I was inspired to go out and find Fall Down Laughing: How Squiggy Caught Multiple Sclerosis and Didn't Tell Nobody and read more about Lander's struggle with MS. Plus, it's always interesting to see how someone made it to the big time.

Both parts of the book are interesting and a pleasure to read. I enjoyed myself thoroughly and blasted through the book in no time. Landers' stories about his early career, how he hid his MS and how he deals with it now are told with all of the grace of a natural born storyteller.

Lander has done voice work in his later years.  Lander voiced Henry, the persnickety penguin in the Oswald series. Henry is known for not being particularly athletic with the slogan "sl-o-o-w and steady." Very appropriate for Lander.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Fall Down Laughing: How Squiggy Caught Multiple Sclerosis and Didn't Tell Nobody by David L. Lander.

Reviewed on April 21, 2009.

The Watchmen by Alan Moore

Originally published in serial form in 1986 and 1987.

I was interested in seeing the movie. The reviews sounded interesting so I thought I'd read the book first. And with reviews like, "The greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced" and "One of Time magazine's 100 best novels" on the cover, how could I go wrong with The Watchmen?

I dabble in comics. I read the big collections. I have no figurines, no stickers on my car. I see the movies, but usually on DVD. I own precious few comic books, mostly borrowing what I read from friends or the library.

On the other hand, I am a voracious reader and I like to think that I know a little about books.

I appreciate the fact that this book was groundbreaking in its day. It offered a bleak, jaded and, frankly, more realistic look at the whole concept of superheroes. When it asks, "Who watches the watchmen?" that is an important question.

Showing the Comedian committing atrocities in Vietnam is a nice twist on those Superman cartoon movies that show Superman fighting the Germans. Showing an all-powerful Dr. Manhattan literally not caring about the little people is an interesting but barely explored theme - what happens when the superhero realizes he doesn't care about the little people anymore because he is not one of them?

But, the relentless dark nature of the book and the insistence on highlighting nearly every single watchman with his or her own volume just wore me down. I lost interest with the volume on Dr. Manhattan. He's just plain old boring. The parts that concern him feel like they were written by an unsure college freshman who is trying to sound philosophical. Tedious is more like it. 

 Rorschach is interesting and along with the Owl their combination of cool tools and psychological dysfunction comprise the modern-day incarnation of Frank Miller's vision of Batman in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Laurie is interesting, to a point.

Veidt is tedious because his plan to unite humanity has no basis in history, which is a real hoot! The smartest man in the world does not know the history he claims to have studied? Invasions from aliens have happened, figuratively, of course. The Persians caused the Spartans and Athenians to unite. But, in two generations the Spartans worked with Persians to defeat the Athenians. Cortes had the help of several Indian groups to defeat the Aztecs. American Indian groups worked with the United States government to subdue other groups. This plan is comic booking at its worst - adolescent political theory applied to a big picture idea.

Anyway, I won't be seeing the movie. I skimmed the end of the book. I'm glad the Owl gets the girl. Good for him, at least someone got something out of this overly-pretentious, overly-hyped read.

I rate this graphic novel 2 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Watchmen by Alan Moore. 

Reviewed on April 21, 2009.

Note: This book made it on a "book ban" list in Florida. Ugh. I'm not fond of this graphic novel, but I don't want to ban it.

Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe by William Rosen

This Could Have Been So Much More.

The title of Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe promises so much - the last great Roman Emperor (or first Byzantine Emperor, if you prefer), the Bubonic Plague, how the plague helped create the series of nation-states that have made up Europe for centuries. Throw in the Silk Road and how Europe was able to get its own silk worms, Justinian's multi-faceted wife Theodora, Belisarius and a discussion of how the Bubonic plague may have paved the way for Islam by weakening a resurgent Roman Empire under Justinian and you should have an amazing book - one that fills a void in most history books - the void left where "ancient" history ends and medieval/Dark Ages history begins.

But, this book will not fill that void except for the most dauntless of readers. Justinian is not dealt with in any organized fashion after the first few chapters - he becomes an office rather than a person. Belisarius is described in one campaign after another but you never get a feel for him. The wordy writing style gets in the way of any chance to have the story told. All historians need to remember that they are telling a story - telling it in one's best dissertation-speak does not necessarily tell it well and certainly makes it less interesting for most readers.

Justinian (c. 482-565)

What Rosen does do well - too well - is tell the story of the Bubonic Plague. For page after page the reader is told about the animals that are the best hosts for the plague, how fleas spread it, what kind of fleas are best to spread it, how fleas bodies work and how they spread the plague when they bite, what kind of fleas like what kind of animals best, how far fleas can jump, how fleas carry the plague in their little flea bellies, and on and on about fleas. There is also an extensive description on the physiology of the plague "bug" itself, including its flagella that it uses to move around. I could tell more but I skimmed a lot of it out of frustration.

Ironically, when the discussion turns to the effects of the plague, such as how it affected the burgeoning Roman re-birth under Justinian and may have enabled Islam to get a secure foothold in Byzantine territory a few years later, Rosen verbose writing style dries up, as if there were a limit to the number of pages he could write.

So, like I said in the title, this could have really been so much more.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon here: Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe.

Reviewed on March 15, 2011.

Holes by Louis Sachar

A literary phenomenon

Published in 2006
Read by Kerry Beyer
Duration: 4.5 hours
Unabridged

I teach high school Spanish and history but even if you don't have much interaction with young people, you'd have to live in a cave not to have noted the literary phenomenon that is the novel Holes. Although my students don't read Holes in my class, they have mentioned it so I decided to listen to it as an audiobook during my drive to and from school.

The plot itself is fairly unique in that there are literally no loose ends. Nothing is introduced that does not have a consequence later on, be it the prison guard quitting smoking and chewing sunflower seeds instead or the references to peach preserves, it all ties together. All of that makes the story less believable, more like a dark fairy tale but all of the more enjoyable.

Louis Sachar

The story itself is pretty solid. There's a mystery, a sense of camaraderie and an awful tale of injustice in the flashbacks. It is dark, but not overwhelmingly so.

The audiobook lasts about 4.5 hours. It was read by Kerry Beyer. A little research shows that this may be Beyer's only foray into audiobook narration. That would be justified. It's not that he did a bad job (he was easily understood), it's just that, as a frequent listener of audiobooks, I know that there are much better readers out there. Beyer had a tendency to make every sentence sound as though he were exclaiming over the most marvelous of things. It was all supposed to sound very exciting but it grated after a while. I suppose it's not the fault of the reader but the fault of the producers who didn't re-direct his efforts.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Holes by Louis Sachar.

Listening Woman (Joe Leaphorn) by Tony Hillerman

Third in the Leaphorn series and one of the best

Originally published in 1978.

Like most fans of Hillerman, I've read them all. I'm sporadically going back through them and re-reading ones that I read more than a decade ago.

I've grown used to the older Leaphorn, the one that uses his head and thinks through problems and mostly avoids the physical stuff. This one is a younger Leaphorn that uses his head but gets involved in a lot of physical action. This one would make a great movie, but since I've not been happy with the few adaptations that I have seen I guess that I would prefer that no one make the attempt.

Tony Hillerman
(1925-2008)

Lots of Navajo culture is introduced in Listening Woman. This one lays the groundwork for a lot of the future books, including introducing multiple characters and does a lot of exploration into Leaphorn's quirky sense of interested agnosticism in regards to Navajo religious beliefs. The plot centers around a couple of murders and lots of discussion of Navajo witches and a dark family secret.

This one would be a good one for a book discussion group.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Listening Woman by Tony Hillerman.

Reviewed on May 2, 2009.

All Clear (audiobook) by Connie Willis

A sci-fi book for lovers of history

Published in 2010 by Audible Studios.

23 hours, 56 minutes.
Read by Katherine Kellgren.
Unabridged.

43 hours of audio listening later (read wonderfully by Katherine Kellgren who handled a wide variety of accents and aging characters with real skill), I am finally done with the Blackout/All Clear saga. These books are intended to be one giant book, not a series, although you would never. ever know that from the audiobook's cover. To her credit, the author, Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Connie Willis introduces the second half of this audiobook with a warning that you had better listen to the first half first. Indeed you should and you should listen to the second installment as soon as you can after hearing the first one because there is no review, no scenes where the characters re-hash everything for the benefit of the listener. This is literally the second half of a very large book and she starts out exactly where she left off.

See my review of Blackout here.

All Clear continues the premise of Blackout (of course) and follows the adventures of late 21st century historians who learn about the past by time travelling. They observe and learn by blending in and becoming part of the past. They operate under the belief that they are unable to actually alter history (and apparently they have never read Jack Finney's Time and Again!) but they should not really do anything to test that theory.

Blackout/All Clear is both science fiction and historical fiction. Its real strength lies in its historical research and the way that it makes the reader experience London during World War II. The bombings, the inconveniences, the rationing, the danger, the weariness, the randomness of death from a bomb dropped from the sky - those aspects of the war come through crystal clear. Some reviewers have complained about the length of the books (and they are a big chunk, believe me, I know).  Certainly, a Reader's Digest type of editing job could easily cut out hours and hours of listening time without much affecting the plot of the story. Scenes could be cut, conversations could be shortened. There are certainly aspects of mind-blowingly stupid behavior on the part of the characters that had me wondering of Willis had gone daft.

Connie Willis

But, Willis has created an experience here. This is not so much a story but an homage to the regular, everyday people that endured the cruel attacks of a dictator, the privations of war, made communities in subway tunnels, survived when they were literally alone in the world. It is a bit of their experience and as such it is priceless. I teach history so nothing about this book really surprised me. I knew the bare facts but Willis has created a chance for the listener to get a taste of what it was like to live the facts, not just know them. For that, I have to thank her.

Throw in a bit of drama, a touch of sci-fi, the lovable completely awful Hodbins and I have to recommend Blackout/All Clear to anyone interested in World War II. Sci-fi fans are bound to be disappointed but I like both and I certainly enjoyed this.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found here: All Clear.

Reviewed on March 12, 2011.