Washington Post Book Reviews
For You
Wednesday September 15, 2010
|
IT'S A BOOK
IT'S A BOOK Lane Smith
Roaring Brook
ISBN 978-1596436060
$12.99
DOG LOVES BOOKS Louise Yates
Knopf
ISBN 978-0375864490
$16.99
Reviewed by Kristi Jemtegaard
Authors who take books as their subjects may border on solipsistic, but then, who are their readers if not self-absorbed children? And pushing books rather than the latest product tie-ins can't be all bad. In the case of these two titles, it's actually all good. Lane Smith's hero is an urbane monkey-minus-the-tail who sports a polka-dotted shirt, a straw boater (concealing a surprise sidekick) and a book under his arm. His nemesis is a computer-savvy donkey -- a jackass -- who just doesn't understand what monkey's retro paper package is all about. "'Can it text?' 'No.' 'Tweet?' 'No.' 'Wi-fi?' 'No.'" Donkey's gradual capitulation to the power of a real book is marked by both the hands of the clock (in a droll double-page time-lapse sequence) and the angles of his ears. But it's a mouse's final insouciant line that garners the biggest laugh.
While Lane Smith's monkey heads for the library, Louise Yates' book-loving dog takes a different tack and opens a bookstore. Alas, alack: Customers fail to flock. A silver-haired matron requests tea, and an elderly gent stops in for directions ... but Dog is not downhearted because he loves books. "He loved the smell of them, and he loved the feel of them. He loved everything about them." He whiles away the time reading the stock, and when a young customer finally appears, he's able to recommend the perfect book to her because he's read them all! Even in these hectic electronic days, these two titles prove there's no substitute for the right book for the right child (or donkey) at the right time.
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
|
| Comment on this Story | Printer Friendly | Share | Top |
THEY CALLED THEMSELVES THE K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group
Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Houghton Mifflin
ISBN 978-0618440337
$19
Reviewed by Abby McGanney Nolan
After bondage and the Civil War, newly freed slaves were treated to the fresh horrors of Reconstruction and hooded night riders. In her latest exploration of groups grounded in fear and hatred (her previous nonfiction book was the Newbery Honor Book "Hitler Youth"), Bartoletti shows where and how the Ku Klux Klan began and spread. It's tough reading, but Bartoletti presents this sobering slice of history with essential background information, memorable testimony from KKK members and victims alike, and plenty of edifying period engravings.
Klansmen -- and the women who helped them -- created a hostile world in which the newly freed couldn't be productive. Four murders in Choctaw County, Ala., led one sharecropper to abandon his field, saying, "I have no heart to work all day and then think at night I will be killed." African-Americans were often prevented from going to church or school, and they could not hope for justice since local law enforcement officers were often KKK members or KKK-friendly. The extent of the terrorism couldn't have been imagined before President Ulysses S. Grant sent undercover detectives into the South to infiltrate the Klan. Although Bartoletti focuses on the KKK's origins, she also touches on the group's periodic surges of membership over the last century and makes it clear that we haven't yet stamped out racial fear and violence.
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
|
| Comment on this Story | Printer Friendly | Share | Top |
|
|
 |
|
| Recent Stories |
 BOB DYLAN IN AMERICA
MOCKINGJAY
TRYING TO PLEASE: A Memoir
OFF THE GRID: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America
THE GRAND DESIGN |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
