Sunday, August 8, 2010

We Are the Ship: the Story of Negro League Baseball

We are the ship : the story of Negro League baseball / words and paintings by Kadir Nelson ; foreword by Hank Aaron.-- New York : Jump at the Sun/Hyperion Books for Children, c2008.
88 p. : col. ill. ; 29 cm.
ISBN: 9780786808328

1. African American baseball players. 2. Baseball -- United States – History. 3. Negro leagues – History.

Using the voice of an unnamed player Kadir Nelson tells the story of Negro League baseball from its beginnings in the 1920s through its end in 1960. In his oil paintings he gives every player’s portrait a bearing, as if the viewer is looking up at an exquisitely colored monumental statue of the man.

Calamity Jack

Calamity Jack / Shannon Hale, Dean Hale, and [illustrated by] Nathan Hale. -- New York : Bloomsbury, 2010.
144 p. : chiefly col. ill. ; 29 cm.
Sequel to: Rapunzel's Revenge
ISBN: 9781599903736 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Fantasy comic books. 2. Giants -- Comic books, strips, etc. 3. Graphic novels. 4. Jack and the beanstalk--Comic books, strips, etc. 5. Jack tales--Comic books, strips, etc.

741.5973

As he and his new friend Rapunzel head back east to his old hometown of Shyport, Jack thinks back on his past. He’s always been a schemer; he likes to think of himself as a “criminal mastermind with an unfortunate amount of bad luck.” He remembers the pranks and heists he and Prudence the pixie used to pull, including the last one which caused him to flee Shyport, and, worries that Rapunzel might not want to stick around once she discovers his criminal past.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde / Robert Louis Stevenson ; wood engravings by Barry Moser ; foreword by Joyce Carol Oates.—Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998, c1990.
157 p. : ill. ; 17 cm.
ISBN: 0803292406

1. Good and evil – Fiction. 2. Horror fiction. 3. Science fiction.

823.8

While out for a Sunday walk, Mr. Utterson, a very respectable lawyer, and his cousin Mr. Enfield pass by a door on a back street. The door is worn, blistered, discolored, and neglected. When he sees it, Enfield starts to relate a very odd story to his cousin about the occupant that lives behind the door, a Mr. Hyde. One late night he was walking along this street, he witnessed the collision of two pedestrians, Mr. Hyde and a young girl “of maybe eight or ten who was running as fast as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran into each other naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground … it was hellish to see.” Enfield and the child’s family accost Hyde and confront him with his cruel indifference. Seeking to buy them off and avoid a scandal he offers to pay restitution of one hundred pounds. He unlocks a door on the street, the very one that reminded Enfield of the story, steps inside, and returns with ten pounds in coin, and a check for ninety pounds drawn on the account of a very prominent citizen, whom Enfield would prefer not to name to his cousin. The amazing thing to Enfield was that the check, which he assumed must be a forgery or a fake, is honored by the bank the next morning.

Mr. Utterson, however, already knows the name on the check. He knows because he knows that the door morally deformed Mr. Hyde unlocked is the rear entrance to the home of his friend and client, the upright citizen, Dr. Henry Jekyll. He returns home, and from his safe he takes out the will of Dr. Jekyll, and rereads the very strange instruction, “in the case of the decease of Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., F.R.S., etc. all his possessions were to pass into the hand of ‘his friend and benefactor, Edward Hyde’” not only that, “but in the case of Dr. Jekyll’s disappearance or unexplained absence for any period exceeding three calendar months,’” Hyde would also inherit all. What is the hold that this grubby little man has over Jekyll? Utterson is determined to find out.

Squirrel's World

Squirrel's world / Lisa Moser ; illustrated by Valeri Gorbachev.— Cambridge : Candlewick Press, 2008, c2007.
44 p. : col. ill. ; 23 cm.
Audience: Ages 5 - 7.
(Candlewick sparks)
ISBN: 9780763640880

1. Animals – Fiction. 2. Forest animals – Fiction. 3. Helping behavior – Fiction. 4. Humorous stories. 5. Squirrels – Fiction.

813.6

Squirrel likes to go, go, go. He likes to help his friends, but he doesn’t slow down to listen to what they say to him. Sometimes he helps and sometime he tries to help and the result is not at all helpful.

2010-2011 Texas Bluebonnet Nominee

Children at War

Children at war / P. W. Singer.—New York : Pantheon Books, c2005.
xii, 269 p. ; 24 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index
ISBN: 0375423494

1. Child soldiers – History – 20th century. 2. Child soldiers – History – 21st century.

355.0083

Singer gives a sobering social and political analysis on the increased use of seven to seventeen year-olds to fight the civil wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It includes over thirty pages of endnotes and includes the words of former child soldiers who fought in Columbia, Lebanon, Liberia, Kashmir, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, and Sudan. It begins with a quote from a seven-year-old: “The rebels told me to join them, but I said no. Then they killed my smaller brother. I changed my mind.”

Why did the “recruitment and employment of child solders…one of the most flagrant violations of the norms of international human rights [and] contrary to the general practices of the last four millennia of warfare” suddenly become so prevalent? Singer cites three main causes. The first is poverty. The booming global economy of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries left many people behind. “Indeed, three billion people, roughly half the world’s population, currently [2005] subsists on $2 or less a day.” He then goes on to translate this poverty into its results:, illiteracy, inadequate housing or the complete lack of housing, lack of access to safe drinking water, malnutrition, disease, and civil war.

The second is the technological advance in small arms: automatic rifles, land mines, and rocket-propelled grenades, are now light enough and simple enough to use and maintain that even a child can do it. “The ubiquitous and Russian-designed Kalashnikov AK-47, which weighs 10 ½ pounds, is a prime example. Having only nine moving parts, it is brutally simple. Interviews reveal that it generally takes children around thirty minutes to learn how to use one. The weapon is also designed to be exceptionally hardy. It requires little maintenance and can even be buried in dirt for storage…Thus, a handful of children now can have the equivalent firepower of an entire regiment of Napoleonic infantry.”

With the end of the Cold War a number of weak government began to totter as the funding they had been receiving from the superpowers disappeared. This made them more vulnerable to attacks by rebels. However, the rebels could no longer count on support from superpowers either, and so they turned to crime to generate income. Drug trafficking, kidnapping and protection rackets proliferated, and as they did so, ideological concerns began to disappear and war become “an alternate system of profit and power.” War becomes not a means to an end, but an end itself. “Highly personalized or purely predatory armed groups, such as warlords, which are focused on asset seizure, are particularly dependant on this new doctrine of using children.”

Most child soldiers come from the poorest part of the population. About a third of them are abducted by armed bands, the other two-thirds join to avoid starvation, occasionally encouraged by their parents because they are unable to care for them. “A good portion of girl soldiers who join as ‘volunteers’ cite domestic abuse or exploitation.” Many join to revenge the death of family member usually one or both parents. Once enlisted they are then indoctrinated. Their “training typically uses fear, brutality, and psychological manipulation to achieve high levels of obedience.” Abducted recruits are often forced, “to take part in the ritualized killing of others very soon after their abduction. The victims may be POWs for the other side, other children who were abducted for the sole purpose of being killed in front of the recruits, or, most heinous of all, the children’s own neighbors or even parents. The killings are often carried out in a public manner, such that the home community knows that the child has killed, with the intent of closing off any return.”

Having broken down the child down physically, and psychologically, he or she is then filled with basic infantry tactics. Some are given more specific duties as spies, or couriers, or suicide bombers. Girls are often assigned to be “wives” of adult officers. Generally all are sent out to attack civilian targets that are poorly defended. Typical orders are to kill everyone in a village and then burn it to the ground. Singer quotes a UNICEF worker who said, “Boys will do things that grown men can’t stomach. Kids make more brutal fighters because they haven’t developed a sense of judgment.” They are also assigned to be shields for their commanders or cannon fodder in what are termed human wave attacks. “The tactic is designed to overpower or wear down a well-fortified opposition through sheer weight of numbers. The very value of children is that they are extra targets for the enemy to deal with and expend ammunition upon.”

Singer concludes his book with recommendation on how to prevent children from becoming soldiers and how former child soldiers can be rehabilitated. He also warns that training for American soldiers must include how to fight them. “The hard reality is that our soldiers must be trained and prepared for what to do in the certain eventualities in which they will come face-to-face with child soldiers.”

Binky the Space Cat

Binky the space cat / by Ashley Spires.-- Toronto : Kids Can Press, c2009.
64 p. : col. ill. ; 23 cm.
Audience: Ages 7 to 10.
(Binky Adventure)
ISBN: 9781554533091 (hardcover)

1. Cats -- Comic books, strips, etc. 2. Graphic novels. 3. Space flight -- Comic books, strips, etc.

741.5971

Unlike your average cat, Binky has a purpose; he is a space cat. Binky is also an indoor cat. He is not been allowed in the space outside his home. But even as a kitten he realized that his home was being invaded by aliens! His humans, both the big and small one would exclaim, “Ew, bugs!” Binky did his research in books and online and discovered that aliens and bugs,
“--can fly
--steal your food
--lay eggs
Binky came to three conclusions:
1. Obviously bugs and aliens are the same thing.
2. Too bad humans aren’t smart enough to figure this out.
3. That must be why they need a cat around.”

Determined to protect his humans, Binky sends away for his Space Cat kit and trains very hard to deal with the alien menace.

Half Broke Horses

Half broke horses : a true-life novel / Jeannette Walls.-- New York: Simon & Schuster Audioworks, 2009.
8 sound discs (ca. 9 hr.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
Unabridged
Read by the author
Compact discs
ISBN: 9780743597227

1. Arizona -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction. 2. Ranch life--Arizona--Fiction. 3. Ranch life--Texas--Fiction. 4. Smith, Lily Casey, 1901-1968 – Fiction. 5. Texas -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction.

813.6

Jeannette Walls takes on the voice of her maternal grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, and tells the story of her life from Lily’s point of view. Lily died when Jeannette was eight. In reconstructing her grandmother’s biography used her mother’s reminisces and local histories, which presented her with several versions of events, so she made some artistic choices and presents Lily’s story as a first person “true-life novel.”

Born on a horse-breeding ranch in West Texas and raising her own children on a large cattle ranch in Arizona, Lily was very familiar with riding and training horses. She was also became a fearless horse racer, air pilot, taxi driver and teacher. Refusing the traditional role of ranch life she begs for a formal education and gets a partial one at the Sisters of Loretto Academy in Santa Fe, until half way through her first year when her father wrote the Mother Superior that he didn’t have the money to continue her education. When she arrives back at the ranch she discovers he’s spent it on some pure-bred dogs, dogs, which are ironically shot by a neighbor for bothering his cattle. This reinforces her already strong tendency of determined and persevering self-reliance.