Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun: A Personal History of Violence (2010)

This graphic novel is based on a book of the same name by Geoffrey Canada and is illustrated by Jamar Nicholas. It is a memoir of the lessons learned growing up on the streets of the South Bronx. There is a code that is passed on from older kids to younger kids as they emerge from their families' apartments out on to the street. If they don't adhere to this code the consequences are some form of violence and the older the kid, the more severe the consequences.

As he gets older, Canada finds that the means to defend himself increase in efficiency from the fist to the stick to the knife and to the gun. At first he feels he must carry a gun to defend himself but he eventually comes to the realization that the consequences of using the gun could mean taking a life. He decides that carrying the gun makes it too easy and convenient to shoot someone so he decides to get rid of the gun and rely on less violent ways to survive.

And yet, these are young men who because they are armed feel less inclined to avoid confrontations that could escalate into bloodshed.
The power of the gun is no less intoxicating to them that it was to me. The evidence of their need to carry a weapon for self-defense is made clear to them every day as they talk about who was shot, who was robbed, who was killed.
They are not going to swap their guns just for sneakers, or gift certificates, or small amounts of cash. And unfortunately for us all, many of them have not been raised in the church or with any moral teaching, so the fact that they might end up taking a life is not a persuasive argument for throwing away their guns.

Canada is very involved with the ambitious program, Harlem Children's Zone, so that children can walk to school and the store without fear.

The illustrations in this book are in black, white, and gray and are rough and stark. They add to the fear and intimidation that the writer grew up with.

I highly recommend this book.

My rating: ++++

The Windup Girl (2009)

Like his other book, Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi's story takes place in the future when fossil fuel reserves are used up, sea levels threaten coastal cities, and genetic companies are creating new species of plants and animals to help mankind. Unfortunately, there are also new species of diseases to destroy food crops and people. This new world has calories as the basis of world trade instead of oil. Taking place in Bangkok, we follow an American with a mission to find a rare seed bank, his plant manager who is a Chinese immigrant, a leader in the Trade Ministry's White Shirts, and a member of the Japanese New People, a genetically created and lab raised human known as a windup girl.

By then they were only mopping up. AgriGen and PurCal and the rest were shipping their plague-resistant seeds and demanding exorbitant profits, and patriotic generippers were already working to crack the code of the calorie companies' products, fighting to keep the Kingdom fed as Burma and the Vietnamese and the Khmers all fell. AgriGen and its ilk were threatening embargo over intellectual property infringements, but the Thai Kingdom was still alive. Against all odds, they were alive. As others were crushed under the calorie companies' heels, the Kingdom stood strong.

The thing I really loved about this book is how the reader is immediately immersed in the language and life of the characters - there is not easing into the story with descriptions of the city and explanations of the foreign terms. This book was fantastic!

My rating for this book: ++++1/2

Push (1996)

This novel by the author, Sapphire, is about a sixteen-year old girl who, when we meet her, is pregnant, illiterate, and being kicked out of her school. This is her second child, both from incestual relations with her father. Her mother, jealous of her husband's attention to Precious, abuses her physically, emotionally, and sexually.

Precious knows the only way out of this is to get her G.E.D., find work and accomodations for herself and her child. Luckily, she enters an alternative school and starts to learn to read and write.

I big, I talk, I eats, I cooks, I laugh, watch TV, do what my muver say. But I can see when the picture come back I don't exist. Don't nobody want me. Don't nobody need me. I know who I am. I know who they say I am -- vampire sucking the system's blood. Ugly black grease to be wipe away, punish, kilt, changed, finded a job for.
I wanna say I am somebody. I wanna say it on subway, TV, movie, LOUD. I see
the pink faces in suits look over top of my head. I watch myself disappear in
their eyes, their tesses [tests]. I talk loud but still I don't exist.

As Precious shows remarkable progress in her classes and learns she is not alone in her support groups, we see her language improve and see her learn she is not alone in her experiences.

This is a very tough read because of the suffering this girl has been through. Readers should be warned that there is sexual content and that it is raw and not pretty.

My rating for this book: ++++

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Creating Currents of Electricity & Hope (2009)

This autobiography was written by William Kamkwamba with Bryan Mealer. William is a young man who lived with his family on a farm in Malawi. He completed the state sponsored primary school and was looking forward to attending secondary school when his country felt the devastating effects of a drought. With all of his family's savings gone to buy food necessary for his family to survive, he could only go to the library where he studied books. He thought that he would try to keep up and be able to rejoin classes at a later time. His favorite subject was science, in particular, physics. While reading the section of the book on electricity he started to design a wind generator so his family could have light at night.

William gives us a view of his day-to-day life as well as introducing us to his family and friends. We also see how his family exists from crop to crop and when they have a poor season, how the entire country suffers. We see how civilization breaks down when there is no food and how governments in third world countries like Malawi increase the suffering with rampant political corruption.

This bright young man fashioned his windmill using parts of machinery left in scrap yards. He gets his light working and then works on improvements such as a brake to stop the rotors when the wind was too high and a circuit breaker so his make shift wiring wouldn't cause a fire in the thatched roof.

His work was finally brought to light when people visiting his village school's library noticed the structure and reported it to their superior. After he saw it with his own eyes he told the national radio station about it. Since then, William has visited England and the United States and has become a spokesman, not only of wind power, but also HIV/AIDS.

This book is a true inspiration and a testament to the benefits of an education.

My rating for this book: ++++

Red Glass (2007)

Laura Resau has written this story about a group of people taking a young orphaned boy to his home village in Mexico with adoption papers with the hope of finding any of his relatives to sign them. Sophie, her great aunt (Dika), Mr. Lorenzo (Dika's boyfriend), and Angel (Mr. Lorenzo's son) drive in a VW bus through Mexico to Pablo's village. Along the way we see the reasons why Pablo's parents made the desperate decision to sneak across the border to the U.S. After watching his parents die in the desert and being rescued after three days in the desert, six-year old Pablo was slow in trusting and communicating with his rescuers.

Pablo's grandmother, great grandmother and lots of friends are thrilled to see him return and welcome Pablo's new friends with open arms.

And once in a while she asked me to check on him, because he'd been a city boy
for a year and he wasn't accustomed yet to country life. I would find Pablo and
his cousins chasing lizards and playing hide-and-seek, yelling and laughing and
breathless from running. When I called them back for meals, they were always
rosy-cheeked, covered in dirt, loaded down with treasures they'd found in the monte and spouting off stories of animal encounters. Since we'd
arrived, he hadn't asked me once to read to him.

After Mr. Lorenzo and Angel make their way to their home village in Guatemala, Sophie learns that Angel was attacked and their passports stolen. She slips away from Dika with the copies of the passports Mr. Lorenzo had left behind and stikes out to Guatemala, regardless of the dangers of a lone, blond, teenaged gringa may encounter. Luckily she meets generous people who give her rides and run interference with bad guys. Yeah, right!

Reading about the countrysides, villages, and the warm, loving people of these countries makes reading this book worthwhile. The chapters are introduced by quotes from The Little Prince, one of my all time favorite books.

My rating for this book: +++

A Christmas Carol (1843)

Charles Dickens' classic story about Ebenezer Scrooge has always been a favorite of mine in movie form but until now I had never read it. DailyLit offered it in installments through email so I could not resist reading it. What a treat!
I doubt there is anyone who is not familiar with the story of the stingy man who was visited by ghosts and shown how Christmas was more than just an excuse for people to pick his pocket but to share what he had and enjoy the feeling of making others' lives better. What I missed by not reading the book was the amazing language used. The first phrase that stopped me was:

Marley’s face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar.

Not having studied literature to any length, I don't know if this phrase is common to the era or the creativity of the author, but I loved it. Many of the words I was familiar with since they were used in my favorite version of the movie with Alistair Sim, like the following:

He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.

While it was fun to get the story in installments, I recommend that the reader gain access to a book with the original illustrations or access them through The Gutenberg Project: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm.

I recommend this book to anyone who has never read it or hasn't read it in a while.

My rating for this book: +++++

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1993)

Maya Angelou's autobiography is very moving. The language she uses is so musical I can hear her voice speaking the words in a rhythm that is like poetry. Each chapter details one event in her life and introduces us to the people who influenced her one way or another.

Most of all, it's a story which shows how it is possible to become a successful and influential person even with the toughest of beginnings. It made me think of the adults I knew and how I was influenced by them. I admire and am jealous of her ability to remember so many scenes from her childhood.

I don't know why I hadn't read the book before now. It's one of those books that everyone must read once in their lives.

My rating for this book: +++++