WHEN RAIN CLOUDS GATHER by Bessie Head
This book was loaned to me by a friend, along with several other books with a slight or major African theme. It is a story about a refugee from South Africa who ends up in a small village in Botswana. The writer, Bessie Head, is one of Botswana's most famous writers, and she too was born and educated in South Africa before leaving for Botswana like her protagonist. I loved this book. The politics, the setting, the skepticism towards outsiders and the welcome of guests of village life in southern Africa were all lovingly portrayed; it made me very nostalgic for Malawi. The story was about a man who didn't want to get involved, but couldn't help being involved; in development, in politics, in issues of race and class, and in love with the other characters, but without any heavy-handedness. It was simply and eloquently told; I really enjoyed this book.
LONGITUDE by Dava Sobel
This is about the history of navigation and the discovery of a practical method for determination of longitude at sea, which was a feat that the British government rewarded (many years late) with a fortune in money and recognition through their Longitude Prize. The leading intellectuals of the 1600 and 1700s are mentioned in the book; Newton, Huygens, Hooke... but the man who solved the problem was a clock maker named Harrison who had no formal training or apprenticeship; just a clever imagination and some serious engineering skills. He built 4 clocks over his lifetime that solved the problem in almost unique ways, and his son finally did claim the prize after his death. As a science nerd, this book has been on my list for a long time and I'm glad to finally check it off. It is non-fiction, but the drama around this particular topic was real and sustained across the intellectual world for more than a century... good reading.
OUT OF THE DUST by Karen Hesse
This book was in the pile that I thought I had made from my friend Misha (including When Rain Clouds Gather) but when I thanked him for lending it to me, he disclaimed any knowledge. I need to perhaps get some sticky notes going about which books belong to which people. This book's cover has 2 interesting things on it to draw a reader in; a black and white photograph of a serious freckled girl in a straw hat looking older than her years, and a John Newberry Medal imprint. If you don't know, the Newberry is an award given out once a year to the best contribution to American children's literature. When I was in 5th grade and we had a read-a-thon at school (I raised the most money and read the most books doing so) I think I must have read 20-30 Newberry books as part of the challenge. They range in style and content like any good chunk of award-winning literature does; there are some simple picture books and some young adult novels... you get the idea. I was very drawn to the book becaue of the Newberry medal, and because it looked like a pretty serious book for a children's book, in part because of the photograph. So... Out of the Dust is the story of a young girl in (I think) Oklahoma during the mid 1930s dust bowl era. She plays the piano and lives on a farm with her parents, who are struggling to keep plants in the ground. Tragedy strikes them from all directions -- the weather, bad luck, death, wind, dust, loss of hope. She runs away at one point, but comes back home, because it is home. The wonderful thing about this book though is not the story (although I really liked the story and stayed up past my bedtime finishing this admittedly quick read) but the fact that it is told in poems. The poems of our pre-teen narrator as she witnesses or causes these tragedies, responds to and grows from them, are in a lovely and genuine voice. It made my night, reading this book. It isn't strictly very poetic - no rhyming, no formal structure - but it is the crystallized and condensed vision and voice of a girl in a rough place in tough times, and the poems' short lines and simple language are more powerful than prose might have been. I really liked this book!
SOPHIE'S CHOICE
So I finally watched the movie version of the book. I love Kevin Kline. I love Meryl Streep. Peter Nichols is good too; I like him fine. Meryl was amazingly beautiful in this film, but beyond that what I liked about the movie was how close it stayed to the book; there were some characters left out, and a few details that I found important or significant in the book were missing, but I didn't miss them. It was true to the story, and heartbreaking. In some ways, Sophie and Nathan felt a little too sympathetic in the movie because of these oversimplifications; in the book you really got to see their flaws much more clearly, and it made your sympathy for them and for Stingo the narrator more acute in a way, but it was powerfully acted, and I'm glad I can cross that one off my list too.
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