Book Scrounger's note: The following is a guest review by Doug, a.k.a. Professor Puzzler.

So many books I read end up getting lost in the recesses of my mind, and if you asked me sixth months later what I had read, I wouldn't be able to tell you much about the book. Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy will, I think, stay with me for a very long time. This is the story of a friendship between a preacher's son and a pauper black girl from a small island off the coast of Maine.

My wife found the book at Goodwill, and bought it because it takes place in our home state, and because it is a Newbery Honor book. 

I started reading it and was hooked from the very first page. The main characters (Lizzie Bright and Hunter Buckminster III) are such believable characters, and I had a sense -- which I seldom get from fictional books -- that these were real, honest-to-goodness people. My perceptions were shaped, perhaps, by the fact that I'm from Maine, and know the places described in the book.

But it wasn't until I was several chapters in that I suddenly realized that this book was only partly fictional. It is the story of one of Maine's most shameful historic events. It is the story of Malaga Island, and the state's decision to remove the island's slave-descended and mixed-race residents and place them in a home for the feeble-minded, where they lived out the remainder of their tragic lives.

Here are some of the things that I loved about this book:

1. The descriptions of the Maine coast, community, and church life.
2. Believable character interactions and ever changing relationships.
3. In keeping with #2, a recurring theme of forgiveness (not explicitly mentioned, but clearly evident).
4. Characters who don't always do exactly what you expected them to.
5. The depictions of human selfishness, along with selflessness and courage.
6. The sprinkling of humorous moments and funny dialogue in the midst of a difficult story.

When I see "Newbery Honor," I automatically think, "book for kids," but this is a book for older kids. It has also won "young adult" awards. The story, being based around tragic historic events, is very dark at times, and as you can probably deduce from what I've said so far, does not have a happy ending.

But it is a powerful book, and it deserves a place in your reading list. There is much more I could say about the book, but I don't want to spoil too much of it for you, so I'll stop here.

I have a feeling this will be one of those rare books that I'll come back to someday and read for a second -- maybe even a third time.

Scrounged From: Our local Goodwill store

Format: Paperback
Author: Gary D. Schmidt
Pages: 224
Content Advisory: Some violence, and depictions of white supremacist attitudes and actions.

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During my later elementary years, I really enjoyed reading the historical book series of The American Girls Collection, produced by Pleasant Company. As an adult, there are some I like more than others now, but Addy, written by Connie Rose Porter, is still my favorite. These series give girls (and boys too!) the opportunity to learn about history through characters close to their own age. The original series all follow the same six-book formula, and though the main characters are all growing up in different time periods, they all display courage and hope in various ways.

Each book contains many realistic illustrations, and a "Looking Back" section after the story that includes photographs and drawings, to give some more historical context to the setting and events described. 

Meet Addy:

In the first Addy book, we are introduced to Addy, a nine-year-old girl who is a slave on a plantation near the end of the Civil War. But in the very first chapter, Addy lies awake at night and listens to her parents talk about freedom -- they plan to run away. But before they get the chance, Addy's father and brother are sold. Addy's mother makes the difficult decision to run away anyway, and leave her one-year-old baby behind with Addy's aunt and uncle, hoping that the family will all meet up again in Philadelphia someday.

Reading this as an adult/parent has a whole different dimension to it. While this series obviously does not even begin to touch on all the horrors of slavery, reading about the punishments and family separations still had an effect on me as a child, and this story made it seem much more real than a history textbook could have.

Looking Back: This section gives a brief history of slavery in the US, as well as the underground railroad and Harriet Tubman, and the beginnings of the Civil War.

Addy Learns a Lesson:

This story is about Addy's introduction to school, and we get to see her navigate the difficulties of getting an education, and of friendship. Addy and her mother arrive safely in Philadelphia, but have almost nothing. They find help and hospitality at a church, and are soon able to earn a living, though making ends meet is difficult. But Addy is determined to learn how to read, and her determination begins to pay off. In addition to learning to read, she learns about what is most important in her friendships.

Looking Back: This covers the difficulties that African-Americans had in obtaining an education during this time (and previously), and the formation of some of the earlier schools.

Addy's Surprise:

Addy and her mother are working very hard, but they are still having a hard time affording basic necessities. Still, as Christmas arrives, they both want to find ways to surprise each other. Even in the midst of their difficulties, Addy is faced with the realization that there are still so many others that are worse off than her and her mother, and both she and her mother do their best to help with what little they have. At the end, Addy recieves a wonderful Christmas surprise as one of her family members reunites with her and her mother again.

Looking Back: Holidays were much simpler in this era anyway, but during the Civil War, most families could not afford "extras." Still, many found ways to make their Christmas celebrations meaningful and festive. This section also touches on the celebration of Juneteenth, as well as the later introduction of Kwanzaa. 

Happy Birthday, Addy!:

In this story, Addy meets an elderly woman named M'dear, who is blind. Despite the fact that she can't see, M'dear is able to perceive more than she appears to. Since Addy was born into slavery, she doesn't know what day she was born on -- only that she was born in the spring. M'dear encourages her to "claim" a birth date -- when she finds a day that feels right to her. 

Addy continues to learn and hope and work at her education, but the streets of Philadelphia sometimes teach her some ugly things -- that she and others like her can be freely discriminated against just because of the color of their skin. Still, the story ends on a positive note, with hope that someday things will get better.

Looking Back: This section covers certain lifestyle issues of the time period: birth, children's games, education, jobs, and the way the Civil War affected families.

Addy Saves the Day:

Addy and her family are working hard to earn extra money, still holding out hope that their remaining family members will be found soon. Meanwhile, their church puts on a fair to raise money to help wounded soldiers, widows, and separated families. Addy and her friends choose to make spool puppets and put on a puppet show. But not all of her friends are easy to work with. The fair goes well, but when something goes wrong, Addy chooses to take action. At the end, she gets a wonderful surprise.

Looking Back: This section talks about city parks and other public recreation during this era, and about things families did during their leisure time.

Changes for Addy:

The Walker family has been steadfastly searching for the rest of their remaining family members. Addy has been writing letters and not hearing anything back, which is discouragaing, but she never gives up hope. Then one day, she receives an answer, and is sure that very soon, their family will be whole again. She is mostly right, but also has to suffer the pain of loss, as so many other families do.

Addy's experience is also contrasted with her friend Sarah's, which was unfortunately common. While Addy makes good progress with her education and hopes to be a teacher someday, she is saddened when her friend Sarah has to drop out of school in order to earn enough money for her family to pay their rent. In the midst of the hope and determination, it is important to see this side of things too, that some people, as Sarah's mother puts it, "got to eat today and pay for this here room tomorrow. We can't be dreaming about someday."

The story ends with Addy reading the Emancipation Proclamation at her church. 

Looking Back: After the Civil War, Reconstruction brought many advancements for African-Americans, but not all of it lasted -- the South soon instituted "black codes," and made segregation worse. This section concludes with an overview of the Civil Rights movement, up through the life of Martin Luther King Jr. 

As much as I like this series, it is still worth pointing out to children that Addy is fortunate in many ways: she is able to stay in school and obtain an education, and she is able to at least discover the fate of all of her missing family members, which was not the case for many children who were in a similar situation.

Scrounged From: A birthday present from my childhood

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Book Scrounger's note: The following is a guest review by Doug, a.k.a. Professor Puzzler:

In 1985, Neil Postman wrote a frightening and prophetic book called Amusing Ourselves to Death, in which he analyzed the state of public discourse in the United States. In fact, he subtitled his book, "Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business."

This book should be required reading for all students before graduating high school.

In his foreword to the book, Postman explains the difference between Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984 and then he writes, "What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one..." and "This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right."

From there Neil Postman goes on to argue persuasively that we are becoming a society which would rather be entertained than informed, and that more and more the media will pander to our desire for entertainment, until we reach the point that all conversation is "sound bite conversation."

To me, the most extraordinary thing about this book is that Postman wrote it when the internet was in its infancy, and the concept of "social media" hadn't even entered anyone's minds. And yet, everything Postman wrote about in 1985 describes perfectly where we are as a society in 2016. Nobody wants to think deep thoughts or read in-depth analysis of anything. The basic premise of our society is: "If it can't be expressed as a facebook meme," it's not worth considering.

Postman, on the other hand, would probably have argued, "If it can be expressed as a facebook meme, it has been robbed of any surrounding context and is therefore good purely for entertainment." And even though Postman could not have predicted social media, he predicted the effect it is having on our society: it has become the cornerstone of our hunger for entertainment over understanding.

And it's not just reading, it's also listening. Postman writes about the Lincoln-Douglas debates, in which presidential candidates debated policy for three hours straight, took a one-hour break for supper, and then continued three more hours. And the hall was packed with spectators. Imagine that! People thought it was worth their time to sit and listen to people argue policy for six hours in one day! Today, debates have become circuses in which we're more interested in watching a trainwreck than listening to anything substantive.

It reminds me of a quote which is often (and probably incorrectly) attributed to Mark Twain: "The person who does not read has no advantage over the person who cannot read." We have become a society that can't be bothered to learn, study, read, and understand. And so we are no better than a society that can't do any of those things. 

Format: Paperback
Author: Neil Postman
Pages: 163
Content Advisory: None

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Book Scrounger's note: The following is a guest review by Doug, a.k.a. Professor Puzzler:

If you want to gain a better understanding of the migration of blacks from the south to the north and west during the twentieth century, while reading personal stories of those involved in the migration, I highly recommend Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns.

This book can look a bit daunting for people who, when they see the word "nonfiction," expect something dry, pretentiously academic, and tedious. But this book is anything but dry; its narrative will keep your attention from start to finish. Considering the book is 538 pages long (not including acknowledgements, notes, and indices), you'll want to set aside a good block of time for it.

The book follows the lives of three migrants (and their families) from the south: Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling, and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster. Each of these people left the south for different reasons, during different decades, and for different areas of the country (Chicago, New York, and California).

Even though the stories of these three people are separated by many years, their stories are told concurrently. Thus, we read about each of the migrants' living situations in the south, then about their reasons for leaving, then their actual exodus, etc. At first glance, I thought I would have a hard time keeping the stories and people straight, because of the way the book jumps from one story to another (and because Ida Mae's husband was named George, giving us two main characters named George!), but actually there was very little confusion; the events of each subject's life were so distinctly different from the others that I had no trouble keeping track of the people involved.

In the spaces between the stories of these three migrants, Wilkerson occasionally elaborates on general conditions in the north, the south, and the west; the advancement of the Civil Rights movement, and other related subjects. She also inserts related stories from other people she interviewed, as they help support the information she provides about the broader social and political picture.

For the most part, Wilkerson is not heavy-handed in her analysis of the events; she lets the characters' stories speak for themselves. The writing style is engaging, and the events are interesting, making this a quick read (for a 500+ page history).

I have read some complaints from other reviewers that by the time she gets through the first part of the book, she begins repeating herself, and the book should have been better edited. It is true that she does occasionally repeat herself, and the sudden repetition of something you've already read can be a bit disconcerting. However, it's good to remember that when she does this, it's typically because she's referring to a "minor character" that she previously mentioned a hundred pages earlier, and she wants to make sure that we remember this person she's talking about. Perhaps there are better ways to refresh our memories than to spend a paragraph recapping what she's told us before about this person, but I considered it to be only a minor flaw in the writing.

I'd like to share one of my favorite paragraphs from the book -- a paragraph about Ida Mae Brandon Gladney:

"Many years later, people would forget about the quiet successes of everyday people like Ida Mae. In the debates to come over welfare and pathology, America would overlook people like her in its fixation with the underclass, just as a teacher can get distracted by the two or three problem children at the expense of the quiet obedient ones. Few experts trained their sights on the unseen masses of migrants like her, who worked from the moment they arrived, didn't end up on welfare, stayed married because that's what God-fearing people of their generation did whether they were happy or not, and managed to not get strung out on drugs or whiskey or a cast of nameless, no-count men."

This paragraph resonated strongly with me, because it reminds me that still today, we struggle with the same sorts of broad-sweeping generalizations; we see the very worst of a group of people, and then associate that "worst" with every member of the group, without stopping to look clearly and carefully: people who are not Christian like to look at groups like Westboro Baptist and lump all Christians with them; people who are not Muslim like to look at the worst terrorists and assume all Muslims are just like that; irresponsible, right-leaning "news" sites like to look at the worst actions perpetrated in the name of "black lives matter" and arbitrarily and illogically call the entire movement a "terrorist organization" or a "hate group."

It seems that nothing has changed.

And now I'll step down from my soapbox and say: I highly recommend reading this book, and if you have teen children who are voracious readers, and are prepared for a handful of stories of graphic violence, this book is a great educational tool.  You will learn how the "Great Migration" affected the south, the north, and how it affected the lives of individual people and families along the way.

Scrounged From: Professor Puzzler's Christmas wish list

Format: Paperback
Author: Isabel Wilkerson
Pages: 622
Content Advisory: Some scenes depicting graphic violence, and several scenes demonstrating racist attitudes and actions.

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