2022 Oakton Staff Picks
During Staff Day 2022, Oakton Staff from different department met virtually to discuss what they were reading and would recommend to our community. These were the books discussed:
The Book of Longings
by Sue Monk Kidd
“…, Sue Monk Kidd brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family in Sepphoris with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, a relentless seeker with a brilliant, curious mind and a daring spirit. She yearns for a pursuit worthy of her life, but finds no outlet for her considerable talents. Defying the expectations placed on women, she engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes secret narratives about neglected and silenced women.
When she meets the eighteen-year-old Jesus, each is drawn to and enriched by the other’s spiritual and philosophical ideas. He becomes a floodgate for her intellect, but also the awakener of her heart. Their marriage unfolds with love and conflict, humor and pathos in Nazareth, where Ana makes a home with Jesus, his brothers, James and Simon, and their mother, Mary. Here, Ana’s pent-up longings intensify amid the turbulent resistance to the Roman occupation of Israel, partially led by her charismatic adopted brother, Judas.
She is sustained by her indomitable aunt Yaltha, who is searching for her long-lost daughter, as well as by other women, including her friend Tabitha, who is sold into slavery after she was raped, and Phasaelis, the shrewd wife of Herod Antipas. Ana’s impetuous streak occasionally invites danger. When one such foray forces her to flee Nazareth for her safety shortly before Jesus’s public ministry begins, she makes her way with Yaltha to Alexandria, where she eventually finds refuge and purpose in unexpected surroundings.
Grounded in meticulous historical research and written with a reverential approach to Jesus’s life that focuses on his humanity, The Book of Longings is an inspiring account of one woman’s bold struggle to realize the passion and potential inside her, while living in a time, place, and culture devised to silence her” (Primo).
How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery across America
by Clint Smith
“How the Word is Passed is Clint Smith’s revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a slave-owning nation. Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation’s collective history, and ourselves” (Primo).
Reasons to Stay Alive
by Matt Haig
“Like nearly one in five people, Haig suffers from depression. Here he explains how, minute by minute and day by day, he overcame the disease with the help of reading, writing, and the love of his parents and his girlfriend, and eventually learned to appreciate life all the more for it. Both inspiring to those who feel daunted by depression and illuminating to those who are mystified by it, Haig’s humor and encouragement never let us lose sight of hope” (Primo).
The Midnight Library
by Matt Haig
“Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting new novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place” (Primo).
Throne of Glass
by Sarah J. Maas
After she has served a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, Crown Prince Dorian offers eighteen-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien her freedom on the condition that she act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin” (Primo).
Project Hail Mary
by Andy Weir
“Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he? (Primo).
The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future
by Ryder Carroll
“There’s a reason this system for time management, goal setting, and intentional living has been adopted by millions around the globe: it works. Not only will you get more done, but you’ll get the right things done. All you need is a pen, paper, and five spare minutes a day. In The Bullet Journal Method, Ryder Carroll, the system’s founder, provides an essential guide to avoiding all-too-common beginner mistakes and building a core discipline from which you can personalize your practice.
You’ll not only learn to organize your tasks, but to focus your time and energy in pursuit of what’s truly meaningful to you by following three simple steps:
- Track the past. Create a clear and comprehensive record of your thoughts.
- Order the present. Find daily calm and clarity by tackling your to-do list in a more mindful, systematic, and productive way.
- Design the future. Transform your vague curiosities into meaningful goals, and then break those goals into manageable action steps that lead to big change” (Overdrive).
American Gods
by Neil Gaiman
“Locked behind bars for three years, Shadow did his time, quietly waiting for the magic day when he could return to Eagle Point, Indiana. A man no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, all he wanted was to be with Laura, the wife he deeply loved, and start a new life. But just days before his release, Laura and Shadow’s best friend are killed in an accident.
With his life in pieces and nothing to keep him tethered, Shadow accepts a job from a beguiling stranger he meets on the way home, an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday. A trickster and a rogue, Wednesday seems to know more about Shadow than Shadow does himself. Life as Wednesday’s bodyguard, driver, and errand boy is far more interesting and dangerous than Shadow ever imagined-it is a job that takes him on a dark and strange road trip and introduces him to a host of eccentric characters whose fates are mysteriously intertwined with his own” (Primo).
Neverwhere
by Neil Gaiman
“…[Neverwhere] is the story of Richard Mayhew, a young London businessman with a good heart and an ordinary life, which is changed forever when he discovers a girl bleeding on the sidewalk. He stops to help her—an act of kindness that plunges him into a world he never dreamed existed.
Slipping through the cracks of reality, Richard lands in Neverwhere—a London of shadows and darkness, monsters and saints, murderers and angels that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth. Neverwhere is home to Door, the mysterious girl Richard helped in the London Above. Here in Neverwhere, Door is a powerful noblewoman who has vowed to find the evil agent of her family’s slaughter and thwart the destruction of this strange underworld kingdom. If Richard is ever to return to his former life and home, he must join Lady Door’s quest to save her world-and may well die trying” (EReadIllinois).
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
by Neil deGrasse Tyson,
“What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There’s no better guide through these mind expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and bestselling author Neil deGrasse Tyson. But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in digestible chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.
While waiting for your morning coffee to brew, or while waiting for the bus, the train, or the plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe” (Primo).
He Who Fights with Monsters
by Shirtaloon
“It’s not easy making the career jump from office-supplies-store middle manager to heroic interdimensional adventurer. At least, Jason tries to be heroic, but it’s hard to be good when all your powers are evil.
He’ll face off against cannibals, cultists, wizards, monsters—and that’s just on the first day. He’s going to need courage, he’s going to need wit, and he’s going to need some magic powers of his own. But first, he’s going to need pants….
Experience an isekai culture clash as a laid-back Australian finds himself in a very serious world. See him gain suspiciously evil powers through a unique progression system combining cultivation and traditional LitRPG elements. Enjoy a weak-to-strong story with a main character who earns his power without overshadowing everyone around him, with plenty of loot, adventurers, gods and magic. Rich characters and world-building offer humor, political intrigue and slice-of-life elements alongside lots of monster fighting and adventure” (Goodreads).
The Book of Form and Emptiness
by Ruth Ozeki
“After the tragic death of his beloved musician father, fourteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house—a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn’t understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous.
At first, Benny tries to ignore them, but soon the voices follow him outside the house, onto the street and at school, driving him at last to seek refuge in the silence of a large public library, where objects are well-behaved and know to speak in whispers. There, Benny discovers a strange new world, where ‘things happen.’ He falls in love with a mesmerizing street artist with a smug pet ferret, who uses the library as her performance space. He meets a homeless philosopher-poet, who encourages him to ask important questions and find his own voice amongst the many.
And he meets his very own Book—a talking thing—who narrates Benny’s life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter” (EReadIllinois).
The Neighborhood
by Mario Vargas Llosa
“In the 1990s, during the turbulent and deeply corrupt years of Alberto Fujimori’s presidency, two wealthy couples of Lima’s high society become embroiled in a disturbing vortex of erotic adventures and politically driven blackmail.
One day Enrique, a high-profile businessman, receives a visit from Rolando Garro, the editor of a notorious magazine that specializes in salacious exposes. Garro presents Enrique with lewd pictures from an old business trip and demands that he invest in the magazine. Enrique refuses, and the next day the pictures are on the front page. Meanwhile, Enrique’s wife is in the midst of a passionate and secret affair with the wife of Enrique’s lawyer and best friend. When Garro shows up murdered, the two couples are thrown into a whirlwind of navigating Peru’s unspoken laws and customs, while the staff of the magazine embark on their greatest expose yet” (Goodreads).
The Greatest Love Story Every Told
by Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman
“The year: 2000. The setting: Los Angeles. A gorgeous virtuoso of an actress had agreed to star in a random play, and a basement-dwelling scenic carpenter had said he would assay a supporting role in the selfsame pageant. At the first rehearsal, she surveyed her fellow cast members, as one does, determining if any of the men might qualify to provide her with a satisfying fling. Her gaze fell upon the carpenter, and like a bolt of lightning, the thought struck her: No dice. Moving on.
Yet, unbeknownst to our protagonists, Cupid had merely set down his bow and picked up a rocket launcher. Then fired a love rocket (not a euphemism). The players were Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman, and the resulting romance, once it ignited, was… epic. Beyond epic. It resulted in a coupling that has endured to this day; a sizzling, perpetual tryst that has captivated the world with its kindness, athleticism, astonishingly low-brow humor, and true (fire emoji) passion….
Eighteen years later, they’re still very much in love and have finally decided to reveal the philosophical mountains they have conquered, the lessons they’ve learned, and the myriad jigsaw puzzles they’ve completed” (Penguin Random House).
Lakesedge
by Lyndall Clipstone
“When Violeta Graceling and her younger brother Arien arrive at the haunted Lakesedge estate, they expect to find a monster. Leta knows the terrifying rumors about Rowan Sylvanan, who drowned his entire family when he was a boy. But neither the estate nor the monster are what they seem.
As Leta falls for Rowan, she discovers he is bound to the Lord Under, the sinister death god lurking in the black waters of the lake. A creature to whom Leta is inexplicably drawn…
Now, to save Rowan—and herself—Leta must confront the darkness in her past, including unraveling the mystery of her connection to the Lord Under”(MacMillan).
The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings
by Neil Price
“The Viking Age—between 750 and 1050—saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they reshaped the world between eastern North America and the Asian steppe. For a millennium, though, their history has largely been filtered through the writings of their victims.
Based on the latest archaeological and textual evidence, Children of Ash and Elm tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms: their politics, their cosmology, their art and culture. From Björn Ironside, who led an expedition to sack Rome, to Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, the most travelled woman in the world, Price shows us the real Vikings, not the caricatures they have become in popular culture and history” (Goodreads).
Anybody Out There?
by Marian Keyes
“…Life in the Big Apple is perfect for Anna. She has the best job in the world, a lovely apartment, and great friends. Then one morning, she wakes up in her mammy’s house in Dublin with stitches in her face, a dislocated knee, hands smashed up, and no memory at all of what happened.
As soon as she’s able, Anna’s flying back to Manhattan, mystified but determined to find out how her life turned upside down. As her past slowly begins coming back to her, she sets out on an outrageous quest—involving lilies, psychics, mediums, and anyone who can point her in the right direction.
Marrying life’s darker bits with wild humor and tender wit, Anybody Out There? is a strange and wonderfully charming look at love here and ever after” (HarperCollins).
Take My Hand
by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
“Montgomery, Alabama 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies.
But when her first week on the job takes her down a dusty country road to a worn down one-room cabin, she’s shocked to learn that her new patients are children—just 11 and 13 years old. Neither of the Williams sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black and for those handling the family’s welfare benefits that’s reason enough to have the girls on birth control. As Civil grapples with her role, she takes India, Erica and their family into her heart. Until one day, she arrives at the door to learn the unthinkable has happened and nothing will ever be the same for any of them” (Goodreads).
Red Queen
by Victoria Aveyard
“This is a world divided by blood—red or silver. The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change.
That is until she finds herself working in the Silver Palace. Here, surrounded by the people she hates the most, Mare discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power.
Fearful of Mare’s potential, the Silvers hide her in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess, now engaged to a Silver prince. Despite knowing that one misstep would mean her death, Mare works silently to help the Red Guard, a militant resistance group, and bring down the Silver regime.
But this is a world of betrayal and lies, and Mare has entered a dangerous dance—Reds against Silvers, prince against prince, and Mare against her own heart” (Goodreads).
Court of Thorns and Roses
by Sarah J. Maas
“When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.
As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.” (Primo).
Dragon Song
by Kristie Clark
“Dr. Eva Paz wants only a peaceful life on Roatán for herself and her dolphins, continuing their research in dolphin communication and educating children on the importance of caring for the reef.
But when Eva discovers that the Caribbean’s wild dolphin pod has been captured, she must go back into action to find them. Her pursuit returns her to the Pacific, where she finds her newest nemesis has engineered yet more sea dragons, and this time she finds herself embroiled in an international struggle that could end in a World War.
Dragon Song is the fourth book in Kristie Clark’s Order of the Dolphin series. Dragon Song may be read as a standalone, but it is best enjoyed with the other Order of the Dolphin series books: Killing Dragons, Dragon Gold, and Dragon Clan” (Kristie Clark).
—posted by Kevin Purtell
RHC Nonfiction Nightstand Titles
During the fall “What’s on Your Nightstand” event at the Skokie campus, the following nonfiction books were discussed.
Remember, if Oakton doesn’t own the book or our copy is checked out, you can order a copy to be sent from one of our consortium libraries for FREE! Most books take less than a week to arrive.
Madam Secretary: A Memoir
by Madeleine Albright, with Bill Woodward
“The highest-ranking woman in the history of U.S. government chronicles the story of her life, from her childhood as a Czechoslovakian refugee through her rise to power in the world of international diplomacy and policy-making, detailing her two terms as Secretary of State, her personal life, and the colorful personalities she met along the way” (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics).
Modern Romance
by Aziz Ansari with Eric Klinenberg
“At some point, every one of us embarks on a journey to find love. We meet people, date, get into and out of relationships, all with the hope of finding someone with whom we share a deep connection. This seems standard now, but it’s wildly different from what people did even just decades ago. Single people today have more romantic options than at any point in human history.With technology, our abilities to connect with and sort through these options are staggering. So why are so many people frustrated?…
For years, Aziz Ansari has been aiming his comic insight at modern romance, but for Modern Romance, the book, he decided he needed to take things to another level. He teamed up with NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg and designed a massive research project, including hundreds of interviews and focus groups conducted everywhere from Tokyo to Buenos Aires to Wichita. They analyzed behavioral data and surveys and created their own online research forum on Reddit, which drew thousands of messages. They enlisted the world’s leading social scientists, including Andrew Cherlin, Eli Finkel, Helen Fisher, Sheena Iyengar, Barry Schwartz, Sherry Turkle, and Robb Willer. The result is unlike any social science or humor book we’ve seen before. In Modern Romance, Ansari combines his irreverent humor with cutting-edge social science to give us an unforgettable tour of our new romantic world” (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics).
Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
by Steve Silberman
“Going back to the earliest days of autism research and chronicling the brave and lonely journey of autistic people and their families through the decades, Silberman provides long-sought solutions to the autism puzzle, while mapping out a path for our society toward a more humane world in which people with learning differences and those who love them have access to the resources they need to live happier, healthier, more secure, and more meaningful lives.
Along the way, he reveals the untold story of Hans Asperger, the father of Asperger’s syndrome, whose ‘little professors’ were targeted by the darkest social-engineering experiment in human history; exposes the covert campaign by child psychiatrist Leo Kanner to suppress knowledge of the autism spectrum for fifty years; and casts light on the growing movement of ‘neurodiversity’ activists seeking respect, support, technological innovation, accommodations in the workplace and in education, and the right to self-determination for those with cognitive differences” (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics).
Rocks Off: 50 Tracks That Tell the Story of The Rolling Stones
by Bill Janovitz
“To Bill, all artists reveal themselves through their work and the Rolling Stones are no different: Each song exposes a little more of their soul. In Rocks Off, Janovitz reveals the forces at work behind the band’s music by deconstructing their most representative tunes from their incredible fifty years of record making.
Written by a Stones fanatic, this is a song-by-song chronicle that maps the landmarks of the band’s career while expanding on their recording and personal history. Much like friends pouring over old records or having a barroom argument over the merits of certain songs, the book presents the musical leaps taken by the band and discusses how the lyrical content both reflected and influenced popular culture. The song choices are chronological and subjective; many of them are the classic hits; however, the book digs deeper into beloved album tracks and songs with unique stories behind them” (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics).
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari
“How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations, and human rights; to trust money, books, and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables, and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come?
In Sapiens, Dr. Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical—and sometimes devastating—breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural, and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, palaeontology, and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come?” (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics).
The Souls of Black Folk
by W.E.B. Du Bois
“E. B. Du Bois was the foremost black intellectual of his time. The Souls of Black Folk, his most influential work, is a collection of fourteen beautifully written essays, by turns lyrical, historical, and autobiographical.
Here, Du Bois records the cruelties of racism, celebrates the strength and pride of black America, and explores the paradoxical double-consciousness of African American life. When it was first published in 1903, The Souls of Black Folk quickly established itself as a work that wholly redefined the history of the black experience in America, introducing the now-famous problem of the color line. In the decades since its publication, its stature has only grown, and today it ranks as one of the most influential and resonant works in the history of American thought” (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics).
Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism
by Barry Prizant, Ph. D. with Tom Fields-Meyer
“Autism is usually portrayed as a checklist of deficits, including difficulties interacting socially, problems in communicating, sensory challenges, and repetitive behavior patterns. This perspective leads to therapies focused on ridding individuals of ‘autistic’ symptoms. Now Dr. Barry M. Prizant, an internationally renowned autism expert, offers a new and compelling paradigm: the most successful approaches to autism don’t aim at fixing a person by eliminating symptoms, but rather seeking to understand the individual’s experience and what underlies the behavior” (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics).
-posted by Kevin Purtell
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Japanese-American Internment
This year is the 70th anniversary of United States Executive Order 9066 – the order that forced Japanese-Americans into internment camps during WWII. The library has acquired many new titles to commemorate and remember this tragic event in U.S. history. Here are a few of the many titles we carry on this subject.
by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston & James D. Houston
“Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when her family was uprooted from their home and sent to live at Manzanar internment camp – with 10,000 other Japanese Americans. Along with searchlight towers and armed guards, Manzanar ludicrously featured cheerleaders, Boy Scouts, sock hops, baton twirling lessons and a dance band called the Jive Bombers who would play any popular song except the nation’s #1 hit: ‘Don’t Fence Me In.’
Farewell to Manzanar is the true story of one spirited Japanese-American family’s attempt to survive the indignities of forced detention . . . and of a native-born American child who discovered what it was like to grow up behind barbed wire in the United States” (Enriched Content Provided by Syndetics Solutions).
edited by Jeff Hay
This book “Provides background information on the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, presents the controversies surrounding it, and offers first-person narratives from Japanese Americans who were impacted by the internment” (Enriched Content Provided by Syndetics Solutions).
by Jasmine Alinder
“When the American government began impounding Japanese American citizens after Pearl Harbor, photography became a battleground. The control of the means of representation affected nearly every aspect of the incarceration, from the mug shots criminalizing Japanese Americans to the prohibition of cameras in the hands of inmates. The government also hired photographers to make an extensive record of the forced removal and incarceration. In this insightful study, Jasmine Alinder explores the photographic record of the imprisonment in war relocation centers such as Manzanar, Tule Lake, Jerome, and others. She investigates why photographs were made, how they were meant to function, and how they have been reproduced and interpreted subsequently by the popular press and museums in constructing versions of public history.
Alinder provides calibrated readings of the photographs from this period, including works by Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, Manzanar camp inmate Toyo Miyatake (who constructed his own camera to document the complicated realities of camp life), and contemporary artists Patrick Nagatani and Masumi Hayashi. Illustrated with more than forty photographs, Moving Images reveals the significance of the camera in the process of incarceration as well as the construction of race, citizenship, and patriotism in this complex historical moment” (Enriched Content Provided by Syndetics Solutions)
Kimi Cunningham Grant
“Sipping tea by the fire, preparing sushi for the family, or indulgently listening to her husband tell the same story for the hundredth time, Kimi Grant’s grandmother, Obaachan, was a missing link to Kimi’s Japanese heritage, something she had had a mixed relationship with all her life. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, all Kimi ever wanted to do was fit in, spurning traditional Japanese cuisine and her grandfather’s attempts to teach her the language.
But there was one part of Obaachan’s life that had fascinated and haunted Kimi ever since the age of eleven – her gentle yet proud Obaachan had once been a prisoner, along with 112,000 Japanese Americans, for more than five years of her life. Obaachan never spoke of those years, and Kimi’s own mother only spoke of it in whispers. It was a source of haji, or shame. But what had really happened to Obaachan, then a young woman, and the thousands of other men, women, and children like her?
Obaachan would meet her husband in the camps and watch her mother die there, too. From the turmoil, racism, and paranoia that sprang up after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the terrifying train ride to Heart Mountain, to the false promise of V-J Day, Silver Like Dust captures a vital chapter of the Japanese American experience through the journey of one remarkable woman.
Her story is one of thousands, yet is a powerful testament to the enduring bonds of family and an unusual look at the American dream” (Enriched Content Provided by Syndetics Solutions).
by Greg Robinson
“The confinement of some 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, often called the Japanese American internment, has been described as the worst official civil rights violation of modern U. S. history. Greg Robinson not only offers a bold new understanding of these events but also studies them within a larger time frame and from a transnational perspective.
Drawing on newly discovered material, Robinson provides a backstory of confinement that reveals for the first time the extent of the American government’s surveillance of Japanese communities in the years leading up to war and the construction of what officials termed “concentration camps” for enemy aliens. He also considers the aftermath of confinement, including the place of Japanese Americans in postwar civil rights struggles, the long movement by former camp inmates for redress, and the continuing role of the camps as touchstones for nationwide commemoration and debate.
Most remarkably, A Tragedy of Democracy is the first book to analyze official policy toward West Coast Japanese Americans within a North American context. Robinson studies confinement on the mainland alongside events in wartime Hawaii, where fears of Japanese Americans justified Army dictatorship, suspension of the Constitution, and the imposition of military tribunals. He similarly reads the treatment of Japanese Americans against Canada’s confinement of 22,000 citizens and residents of Japanese ancestry from British Columbia. A Tragedy of Democracyre counts the expulsion of almost 5,000 Japanese from Mexico’s Pacific Coast and the poignant story of the Japanese Latin Americans who were kidnapped from their homes and interned in the United States. Approaching Japanese confinement as a continental and international phenomenon, Robinson offers a truly kaleidoscopic understanding of its genesis and outcomes” (Enriched Content Provided by Syndetics Solutions).
-posted by Gretchen Schneider
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What's On My Nightstand? 