Historic Missouri Roadsides by Bill Hart

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This book review is a celebration of sorts of both the Missouri Bicentennial (2021) and National Preservation Month, also known as Historic Preservation Month (May). In Historic Missouri Roadsides, author, historian, and preservationist Bill Hart takes us on a two-lane highway trip through several of Missouri’s small-town destinations, introducing us to, or reacquainting us with, what they have to offer.

Before taking us on the road, Hart breaks down the “how to” of using his book, pointing out that how long each trip takes to complete is, in fact, up to the traveler. Each stop along two-lane Missouri includes basic historical information about the place, suggestions for where to eat and stay, as well as for where to visit and what to do. Hart reminds us that these trips are meant to be leisurely rather than a race from point A to point B: “Chill. You’re not traveling on two lanes to win any races […].”

These adventures are arranged neatly into six road trips: Missouri Highway 79 / The River Road; El Camino Real; Route 100 / Gottfried Duden & the Lewis and Clark Trail; Osage Hills and Prairies; Mostly Route 24; and The Platte Purchase. Each tour begins with a summary about the trip and information about where, exactly, to start, and each town visited within a given tour clearly directs us to the next town. Although it is possible to reach some of these points using freeways, I recommend following Hart’s directions, as exploring what’s along our byways (rather than the sameness of our freeways) is the beauty of venturing out in the first place.

I feel a special kinship with this book as I start to travel about again. It’s a fantastic resource for those of us who wish to start by seeing what the places close to home have to show us. One of my favorite things about this title is that the largest city we’re guided through is St. Joseph, with a current population of about 73,400, give or take, whereas the smallest cities are only in the double digits.

Don’t get me wrong – I love visiting Kansas City, St. Louis, and other larger Missouri cities – but Missouri has much outside of those cities to show us. For example, a 1910 Beaux Arts-style post office in Nevada; the historic Hall of Waters in Excelsior Springs; a theatre in Blackwater, where productions written and directed by a local playwright are featured and locals serve free punch and cake during intermission; and landmark bluffs and other natural sites in tiny towns like Arrow Rock. We may even opt for additional “side trips” that take us into more remote areas of the State, such as Lithium, which, once upon a time, was a Victorian resort town.

Hart touches on the prehistory of Missouri, mentioning which Indian tribes traversed which areas before European American settlement, as well as tells the story of town names and sites that take their name from Native American and early European American history. He also makes mention of conservation areas, national register listings and districts, state parks and historic sites, persons of note, and more.

Not to mention the wonderful photographs, which enhance the stories of these lesser-known Missouri places. Check out the magnificent 1884 Second Empire Federal Courthouse on page 20, the picturesque view from the Fourche à Duclos Roadside Park on page 43, or the Old Dutch Hotel and Tavern’s neon sign in Washington on page 86.

It’s worth mentioning that two editions of this book are published and that the second edition is expanded to include “Destinations,” which are meant as stand-alone places to visit rather than a guided road trip. These destinations include St. Joseph, Glasgow, The Boonslick area, Fulton, Sedalia, and the Arcadia Valley.

As noted in his foreword, this book is “a travel book, a history book, a photography book, and more.” Indeed, it is all that and more. It is an opposition to what Hart describes as “Generica,” or the commodification of place and product. The fast-food chains and big-box stores found along our freeways and in our commercial districts, for example, all of which look the same regardless of locale. Hart encourages us to turn away from Generica for the uniqueness of “what lies right beneath [our] noses here in the Show-Me State.” Not only does he encourage us in this direction, but he literally tells us how to get there.

Happy trails and, as always, happy reading.

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FRONT DESK by Kelly Yang

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If you have seen the movie “Elf,” you are familiar with the scene where Will Ferrell’s character bursts into his father’s work meeting yelling, “I’m in love, I’m in love, and I don’t care who knows it!” That’s how I feel about KELLY YANG‘s award-winning 2018 novel, “FRONT DESK.”

This middle grade chapter book tells the story of 10-year-old Mia Tang and her parents as they take on the biggest endeavor of their nascent life in America: managing and living at the Calavista Motel in Anaheim, California.

The novel begins in the early 1990s, a few years after the Tang family emigrated from China. Mia’s parents, who had established careers in China, have worked labor-intensive jobs since coming to the United States, and Mia has never stayed at one school long enough to make a best friend. When her parents are hired as the live-in managers at the motel and Mia meets Lupe at school, things seem to be turning around. But Mia soon learns that nothing is what it seems.

Yang deftly introduces classism, racism, the struggles of new immigrants and the dangers of making assumptions through realistic characters and authentic relationships. When Mia first meets Lupe, she thinks Lupe’s life is perfect and much different than hers, but it turns out that the two girls have plenty in common.

The Tangs’ situation at the Calavista seems financially promising, but hotel owner Mr. Yao proves ruthless with his money. He is more concerned with its accumulation than fair treatment of his employees. The motel’s permanent residents (also known as the “weeklies”) include Hank, a kind, hard-working African American man who can’t seem to catch a break. Through her friendship with him and the others, Mia learns that, as with Lupe, she is not alone in her struggles. She also learns that everyone has a story to tell and that those stories are worth listening to.

One thing I loved about “Front Desk” and Yang’s writing more broadly is that every character does have a story to tell. The immigrants who are welcomed by the Tangs at the motel are not nameless, faceless visitors. They are husbands, wives, daughters, fathers and hard workers, all struggling to survive in a new country where they aren’t always welcomed. The weeklies aren’t just caricatures — they are individuals with talents to share and love to give, as well as friends turned family. Jason, Mr. Yao’s spoiled and sometimes mean son, isn’t just a stuck-up rich kid. He, too, has problems of his own, stories and struggles that give some insight into who he is.

I also love the development of Mia’s character. When the story begins, she is a bit unsure of her place in the world, especially as she endeavors to make new friends and help her parents at the motel. She also has dreams of becoming a writer, though her well-meaning mother encourages her to pursue math instead. As the story progresses, Mia becomes more confident in her talents. She also is encouraged to speak out, be bold, and pursue her passions after witnessing the injustices that her friends, neighbors and family experience.

Though the subject matter can be heavy, “Front Desk,” which is loosely based on Yang’s childhood, is also funny. By the end of the novel, I felt like I knew — and really liked — Mia Tang, and I couldn’t wait to dive into the 2020 sequel, “Three Keys.”

 

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The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes by Zachary D. Carter

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If there’s one college course that seems to fall into the “liked it/hated it” dichotomy, it’s probably Macroeconomics. For every student who leans into studying the national economy, there’s another who will be just fine to never again read such phrases as “elasticity vs. inelasticity of demand.” There’s one man to credit (or blame) for this: John Maynard Keynes.

Keynesian economics (read: macroeconomics) has pulsed throughout our political economy since the New Deal. In short, some of its main tenets concern full employment, aggregate demand clearing supply, and inflation. Still, I knew very little about the British economist himself. “The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes” by Zachary Carter certainly took care of that knowledge gap.

Mathematics, not economics, was Keynes’ University of Cambridge degree. After a brief stint as a civil servant, he returned to academic life at Cambridge, which was where the Exchequer’s office found him just prior to World War I. A banking crisis afoot, Keynes’ keen mind was known and needed. So he crammed his 6’7″ frame into a motorcycle sidecar and made his way to London.

The Great War and the British economy would engulf his life. He wouldn’t fight in the war, as he applied for conscientious objector status, a position he came by honestly. Keynes was part of the Bloomsbury Set, which included such notables as Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey. Of the many things that formed their bond, with the arts at the pinnacle, pacifism was certainly a part. For some in the group, that Keynes would work for the government during wartime went beyond the pale.

The frustration was returned in kind by Keynes. Someone, he argued, had to address the awful reality and manage a wartime economy. This wouldn’t be last time there was tension within the group. Years later, Keynes fell for, and subsequently married, a Russian ballerina. This was contrary to the Keynes they knew. Bloomsbury Keynes was a homosexual.

At war’s end, Keynes vehemently opposed the Treaty of Versailles. Forever an enemy of austerity measures, he believed the harsh economic terms would destabilize a defeated Germany and potentially lead to another world war. The treaty put Keynes at war with himself. As a young man, obtaining a post at the esteemed British Treasury was his singular goal. Now, having seen firsthand how important the roil of politics is, he could not sit quietly as a future disaster was being orchestrated.

He penned “The Economic Consequences of Peace” which became a sensation in both Europe and the U.S. His intellectual might was on full display, doubtless, but so, too, was his acid tongue. Sparring no one also effectively ended his government career (at least until World War II). Keynes is famous today for his economic theories. In the early 1920s, however, his fame was as a polemicist.

Had a pre-war work—finally published in 1921—augured more than just an acknowledgement that it “made a contribution to the field,” Keynes may have swiftly returned to university life, but, this time, in the philosophy department. His “A Treatise on Probability” was overshadowed by one of his friendly rivals. For when Wittgenstein’s “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” was published, the gravity shifted and all of academia fell in with the Austrian philosopher.

Keynes continued to publish on economics and, in so doing, challenged conventional (classical) economics. At the macro level, the study of economics was firmly entrenched in laissez-faire thinking: You let the business cycles work and equilibrium will be achieved. Keynes certainly agreed that supply/demand was the driving force. But what of those moments of disequilibrium? Laissez-faire’s response: It will won’t last; the market will stabilize in the long run. “In the long run,” Keynes returned, “we are all dead.” This rejoinder has been bandied about ever since and in a myriad of contexts. But here’s the rest of the quote: “Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if, in tempestuous seasons, they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.”

Keynes advocated what economists now call “demand management.” Demand did not always clear supply, especially during times of war and depression. To Keynes, government expenditures via fiscal policies would shift the demand curve. Such movements would have a positive multiplier effect on other areas of the economy. His multiplier theory argued that laissez-faire’s inaction was actually actionable in that it allowed economic distress to reverberate.

While Keynes’ work would be seen as “revolutionary,” the man behind it was somewhat uncomfortable with that adjective. In many ways, his worldview was formed as a Burkean conservative. But he also valued some of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s egalitarianism. Merging the two philosophies to thwart authoritarianism was, to Keynes, a laudable enterprise. He loved his posh Bloomsbury life too much to see it end. Plus, he wanted the rest of us to have a chance to live such a life as well. So he was no Marxist. In fact, he believed that Marx’s argument that capitalism would inherently fail was inherently wrong. At the same time, he didn’t believe that there was any natural law that destined capitalism’s success either.

Keynes taught his theories at Cambridge, yet, initially, they were not winning the day among graduate students. (Marxism was.) This began to change. Not only were these students beginning to embrace Keynesianism, some would travel down to the London School of Economics and provoke impromptu debates with the students still fixed in laissez-faire. Eventually, American economics students embarked to Cambridge to study under Keynes.

Still, Keynesianism was at the periphery. Keynes knew he needed to codify it into an esoteric work meant for academics. (In the world of academia, “you need a theory to kill a theory.”) This was realized in the “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.”

The Great Depression resulted in Keynes becoming Churchill’s de facto chancellor of the exchequer. Particular attention was given to the fiscal policies put in place in the United States, as they were seen as test cases for Keynesianism. The result: American economists who initially resisted Keynes became Keynesians in the same decade of his death.

According to Carter, “No European mind since Newton had impressed himself so profoundly on both the political and intellectual development of the world.” The revolution had come. And as happens with so many revolutions, so comes the counter-revolution.

In the U.S., the aristocracy saw Franklin Roosevelt as a traitor to his class. Riled moneyed men were willing to fund academics and publications willing to challenge Keynesianism. William F. Buckley Jr.’s “National Review” used Friedrich Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” as its intellectual base and went to work. Keynesians were up for the fight. What left them reeling, however, was McCarthyism.

Keynesianism would have many morphisms throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. American Keynesians, at turns, embraced more corporate-influenced policies the British Keynesians found abhorrent. Another famous quote concerning Keynes came from President Richard Nixon: “I am now Keynesian in economics.”

Enter Milton Friedman’s monetarism and decades of strident debate concerning the size and role of government in fiscal and monetary policy, and here we are. (Economists can be an acerbic lot, where things get really personal, really fast.) And you don’t have to go back too far to see Keynesian fiscal initiatives at work, as in the 2008 financial dilemma.

Regardless of the modern relevance of Keynes, here’s what Carter wants us to take away from his astute book: Keynesianism isn’t so much about economic theory as it is about radical optimism. Keynes lived in a time of dire economic crises that gave rise to authoritarians who then took their respective countries off the cliff. For him, economics was the light by which we could find our way out. For us, Keynes was every bit a philosopher of war and peace.

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Before She Was Helen by Caroline B. Cooney

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Caroline B. Cooney is known for her young adult novels but she was intrigued with telling the story of someone who chose or was forced to live their life as a different person and managed to do it for almost 50 years. The resulting novel is her first for adults, Before She Was Helen.

Cooney’s effort is a well-done tale of surviving life’s challenges with a little murder and mayhem thrown in. NoveList (a reader’s advisory tool available through the catalog or the library website) describes the novel as compelling, funny, suspenseful, and intricately plotted with authentic characters. It’s the library’s pick for the Spring Book Discussion scheduled for April 26th from 6:00-7:00 p.m.

Helen is a semi-retired teacher living in the Sun City Retirement Village. The village is nice but bland. On a forgetful day a resident may need the garage door opener to identify their unit by which door goes up. You can be anyone you want to be and no one questions your past.

This suits Helen fine. She can have friends and participate in the lifestyle without too many awkward questions. Helen’s neighbor, Dom, may like the anonymity too but he doesn’t participate. He is an unpleasant man who doesn’t invite friendship. However, he and Helen have an arrangement. After a fall he gave her a key to his unit to be used only if he misses his daily check-in.

On the summer morning that begins this novel, Dom has not texted his usual message or responded to her text and phone call. Reluctant about what she might find, Helen uses the key. Dom is not inside the villa and in fact his golf cart (his transportation) is not in the garage. There is, however, a connecting door to next villa. This villa is largely unoccupied as the owners rarely come to stay and Helen knows of no other villas with a door between the units.

Doing her due diligence, she goes back through Dom’s place and over to the next villa. When there is no answer to the doorbell and repeated knocks Helen goes back to the connecting door. Could Dom be in the next villa? His missing golf cart says no but now she really wants to see the next villa.

Dom is not there and the villa appears so empty that Helen doubts anyone ever lives there. A rainbow of light catches her eye and she discovers a beautiful glass tree dragon sculpture. Unable to resist she snaps a picture with her cell phone and goes home.

Wanting to share her discovery with her great niece and nephew she sends the photo from Helen’s phone to her family phone, Clemmie’s phone, and texts the beautiful sculpture. For most of her adult life the world has known her as Helen. Clemmie only exists for her family and they know nothing of Helen.

The response Clemmie gets is surprising. The glass sculpture is actually a rig for smoking marijuana. The tree dragon was stolen from the maker, Borobasq, and Clemmie’s nephew has already contacted him about her discovery.

Clemmie’s fingerprints are in the villa with the stolen statue. Then her niece sends her news from her hometown, the decades old murder of the high school basketball coach is being reopened. The same coach who forced her transformation from Clemmie to Helen.

To add to her worry, Borobasq soon finds her. The glass maker is actually a drug dealer and whoever stole the rig took his cash, lots of cash. He has come to find his money and inflict a little pain. Before he can determine Helen’s involvement in the theft a body is found in Dom’s garage.

With the sheriff questioning her about what happened next door while a drug dealer hides in her bathroom, Helen has to think fast. Can she figure out what is going on before Clemmie is exposed and her two worlds collide?

Cooney takes us back and forth from Clemmie’s youth through young adulthood and Helen’s situation. We go from the culture of the 1950’s to navigating senior living and modern conveniences. “Her life didn’t turn out the way she expected—so she made herself a new one” is accurate and inadequate. There is so much more to Helen’s story which is why it’s a good pick for the library’s Spring Book Discussion.

The Spring Book Discussion for Before She Was Helen will be Monday, April 26th, from 6:00-7:00 p.m. via Zoom. You can find the link on handouts at the library and it will be posted on the Joplin Public Library Facebook page. We hope you’ll join us.

The library has this title in print and in the ebook format on both MoLib2Go.org (Overdrive) and Hoopla. If you find the print and MoLib2Go.org titles checked out, it is always available on Hoopla.

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18 Tiny Deaths by Bruce Goldfarb

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18 TINY DEATHS: the Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics by BRUCE GOLDFARB tells the story of a woman whose impact on crime solving cannot be overstated.

Lee first learned about the importance of forensic investigation from her friend George Magrath, who was the country’s only medical examiner at the time.

Magrath was medical examiner for Suffolk County, Massachusetts – which includes Boston. He covered a number of famous and unique cases during his time as medical examiner. He was the first person on the scene following Boston’s molasses flood in 1919.

At the time of his death, Magrath was still the only full medical examiner in the United States, and his expertise were in danger of dying with him. Frances Glessner Lee used her political savvy and her family’s fortune to make sure that her friend’s work would continue.

She had already helped Harvard Medical School found a Department of Legal Medicine. Magrath had been teaching at the school for years, and it seemed an excellent place to launch a new field of study. Lee contributed much of the funding used to start the school, and single-handedly curated the special library used by its students.

As the Department of Legal Medicine continued to expand, they ran into a difficulty – the State police departments did not understand the need for legal medicine. It was imperative that Lee find a way to show them its importance.

Lee and the new head of the department began developing an intensive week-long seminar, which could be held twice a year, to teach police officers about the most important aspects of an investigation, including the keystone of the case: the crime scene.

In order to give her students hands-on training, Lee created dollhouse sized models of scenes, sourced from actual crimes. These models were crafted by Lee herself, made to scale, and accurate down to the last detail.

Lee called these dioramas the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, and used them as teaching tools in her lectures. Officers were asked to observe the diorama for ninety minutes, and then report on what they had observed.  Lee wanted them to focus on taking in as much information as they could, and urged them not to jump to conclusions during their examinations.

The Nutshell Studies are both eerie and beautiful. They have working light fixtures, worn places on the flooring, and even mail left under the mail slot in the front door of an unoccupied parsonage where one of the victims was murdered.

The Smithsonian had a number of Lee’s Nutshell Studies on exhibit in 2017, and the images are still available on their website. I recommend you seek them out, if you are interested in seeing the detail for yourself.

18 TINY DEATHS is a detailed account of Frances Glessner Lee’s life, from her upbringing as the only daughter of a wealthy family to the impact her work left on the world following her death in 1962.

According to Goldfarb, her Nutshell Studies are still being used in the annual seminars to this day.

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Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu

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A couple of months ago I saw a Netflix trailer for a movie called “Moxie.” It was set to be released on March 3, 2021. Looking further, I discovered that it was a book. Exciting news, so I placed it on hold, determined to read it before I watched the movie.

A bit of background before starting the review — the young adult novel “MOXIE” was published in 2017 by JENNIFER MATHIEU, and comedian Amy Poehler, who is also the director of the Netflix movie, is quoted on the cover of the book as saying, “Moxie” is sweet, funny, and fierce. Read this and then join the fight.”

Quiet, dependable, rule-following Vivian Carter has had enough of her small town high school’s tendency to support male football players over anyone else. The football players, especially principal’s son and quarterback Mitchell Wilson, get away with treating the girls at East Rockport High as second class citizens. Mitchell and his buddies continually harass Vivian’s classmates and friends, and despite complaints from the female students to the school’s administration, they are never disciplined, punished or even corrected.

The school administration’s lack of support for the females at the school shows through in the form of surprise dress code checks focused completely on the females, not doing anything about hallway and classroom harassment, and hosting expensive pep rallies for an average football team, while the winning girls’ soccer team wears dated uniforms and gets little recognition.

Inspired by her mom’s Riot Grrrl past and a box of paraphernalia labeled “My Misspent Youth” that she discovers in the attic, Vivian creates a zine that she is soon distributing, anonymously, from the restrooms at East Rockport High. Her first call to action is mild, with a request to decorate hands with stars and hearts, but after continued harassment, Vivian and Moxie supporters put an ambitious call forward that has the principal threatening suspensions for anyone participating.

Poehler’s book cover quote is accurate, Moxie is “sweet, funny, and fierce.” Vivian’s character is hard not to like, even when she’s acting like a stereotypical, hard-to-understand teenager. Her growth through the story is marked and interesting to follow. As is that of her friends, mom — all those around her. While she is the lead in the book, there are many strong supporting characters and Mathieu does a good job developing their personalities. It is a good introduction for teens to the topics of female empowerment, zine creation, and the Riot Grrrl movement of the ‘90s.

About the movie — I did watch it after I finished the book, but as is my usual experience with book-to-movie offerings, it was not my favorite. I liked the book so much better.

It must be hard to translate a book into film and keep all the fun things about it. I do not envy screenwriters and directors this challenge. They changed a lot of the original storyline — the calls to action, who was the top administrator, even how the zines were created — and I am not sure why. I do not feel like the changes made the film any more interesting, but I was probably too focused on the changes to really enjoy it.

I will say though, the movie props were great — I loved Vivian’s room decorations — and the diversity of the cast was refreshing.

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We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga by Traci Sorell, illustrated by Frane Lessac

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Pictures have such power!  Bright and bold or quiet and soft, the stories they tell vary as widely as those told by words alone.  What happens when powerful pictures and beautiful text meet in the same book?  Magic!

Traci Sorell creates magic with her first children’s picture book, We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga.  A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, she introduces Cherokee culture with a trip around the seasons giving thanks.  Otsaliheliga is a Cherokee expression of gratitude, akin to “we are grateful”, and Sorell infuses every page with the feeling.  Beginning with uligohvsdi, autumn, her sparse prose describes the natural world and ceremonies and food and art and games and music and history and agriculture–so much that is wonderful about life–in language welcoming her young audience. Sorell’s writing has a quiet beauty about it.  Her words have a rhythm that mirrors nature, “As bears sleep deep and snow blankets the ground…When showers fill streams and shoots spring up…Every day, every season.”

Veteran illustrator Frane Lessac takes Sorell’s text and punches it up all the notches without compromising its delicate delivery.  Lessac uses gouache on paper to create scenes full of zip and vigor that burst from the page in an explosion of color.  Her bold sunset on the book’s cover blends the spectrum of orange in ways that only nature can.  Inside, a summer garden invites you to dig in the rich, brown soil brimming with energy and to pick deep green and red vegetables under a sun so bright you expect the people on the page to break a sweat.  An interior scene bathed in shades of salmon and coral exudes the warmth of winter family visits and warm soup served with buttery bread while outside the window the cold weather gear of cousins feeding the birds pops against the snow.

We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga is tender and affirming.  A smiling elisi, grandmother, rocks a tiny, new family member amongst the fall leaves while others gather buckbrush to weave baskets.  Three generations brave the winter cold to honor an uncle who has died.  Extended family embrace a relative departing for military service.  Groups of children play a rollicking round of stickball in the summer heat.  The bold illustrations reinforce the text.  It’s a delight to read and to view.

It’s also an engaging introduction to contemporary Cherokee culture and a good OwnVoices title for little ones.  Key Cherokee words appear throughout, and each is presented written in the Roman alphabet, phonetic spelling, the Cherokee syllabary, and English.  The book includes helpful resources at the end–a brief glossary, an enlightening note from the author, and information about the Cherokee syllabary.

From the moment I saw it on the shelf, I couldn’t wait to read this title.  I wish I had had the opportunity to immerse myself in it as a child.  There’s something new to see with every visit, and I love the warmth and security found within the pages.  Traci Sorell has become a new favorite for me among picture book authors.  I can’t wait to see what she does next, and I can’t wait to find more of Frane Lessac’s illustrations!  I hope you have a chance to explore their work, too.

The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman by Margot Mifflin

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March is Women’s History Month. To celebrate, I encourage you to read a book written by – or, better yet, by and about – a woman. I started this year’s celebration by doing just that, with Margot Mifflin’s The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman. Admittedly, this wasn’t my first reading of this title, but my third.

Olive Oatman was born to parents who decided to settle in the American southwest as it was becoming the American southwest. Although much of the Mormonism that she was brought up with was left out of the many narratives about her life, Mifflin picks up Olive’s story at the point when it was, in fact, that very Mormonism that influenced the family’s move. Following the Brewsterite sect that broke away from Brigham Young, the Oatmans set west with others to what they thought would be a sanctuary and some sort of nation in and of itself, a nation within an expanding nation (both of which were destructive, to say the least, in their makings).

On their trek to California from Illinois, Olive’s father, Royce, broke the family away from the original Brewsterite caravan in what is now southwestern Arizona, quickly leading to the family’s demise. After an intense night “marooned on a tiny island surrounded by quicksand in the Gila River in Mexico,” the family encountered members of the Yavapai Indian tribe, who, after seemingly harmless initial contact, killed Royce, his wife Mary Ann, and four of their seven children. Lorenzo, who was all but dead after the attack, was thrown off a cliff and left to (presumably) die, while two of the daughters – Olive, 14, and a younger sister, Mary Ann – were taken by the Yavapai.

Olive and her younger sister spent about a year with the Yavapai Indians. According to Mifflin (and others), they were treated as captives, which is to say that they were treated poorly. The Mohave tribe, upon seeing the girls’ mistreatment, requested that they were traded to them. After negotiations, the girls were traded to the Mohaves, who accepted, raised, and treated them as their own. Olive spent about four years with the Mohaves; Mary Ann fewer only because she perished during a famine that they experienced.

Olive and Mary Ann were led to the beautifully described Mohave Valley by Topeka, who became their Mohave sister. Espaniole, a festival chief, and his wife, Aespaneo, became the girls’ Mohave parents. The bond that the girls, especially Olive, had with their Mohave family was strong. When Mary Ann died, both Olive and Aespaneo mourned in the traditional Mohave manner. The Mohaves gave Olive a nickname, which “confirms her acceptance within the culture; if she had been marginalized within the tribe, she would never had warranted one.” Some suspect, though never substantiated, that Olive married and had children while with the tribe.

It’s unknown whether Olive actually wanted to rejoin white society after her time with the Mohaves. It is known, however, that she had no choice but to do so once her whereabouts were discovered. The Mohave Indians were forced to return her to the whites “in exchange for horses, blankets, and beads.” Olive was upset during her so-called restoration to white society, which, as Mifflin points out, is an indication that she did not wish to return. Also, Olive never spoke ill of the Mohaves and, when the opportunity arose later in life, she went to greet and see a member of the tribe speak at an event.

I would be remiss if I did not mention Olive’s tattoo – the blue tattoo – not only because that is the book’s title, but because I am a visibly tattooed woman, though in another, vastly different, context. Nevertheless, I’m intrigued by Olive’s status as a tattooed woman, as well as interested in the history of women and tattoos, which, admittedly, is what prompted my initial reading of this book (and others by the same author).

Placed on her chin, Olive’s tattoo was a very public, permanent mark – in the 1850s! – of her time with the Mohaves. Unlike some other tribes, the Mohaves did not tattoo their captives. Rather they tattooed only those who became a part of their tribe. Mifflin writes that Olive’s willingness to be tattooed indicates her willingness to become Mohave. Olive is the first known tattooed white woman in the United States, as well as the first known to profit from her tattoos. (In addition to her chin tattoo, she had vertical lines on her arms, though those were never shown publicly.) Olive’s narrative became so popular that tattooed ladies – women with real tattoos – started showing their skin in circuses and sideshows, stealing Olive’s story, distorting it and claiming it as their own, saying that they were captured and forcibly tattooed by Indians.

Olive was not like any other woman of her time. Upon her return to white culture, a man by name of Stratton wrote a (highly profitable) sensationalized account of her capture and she became a touring lecturer during a time in which it was highly unfavorable for women to work or have agency outside of the home. Eventually, Olive married a man named John B. Fairchild. In a letter to her aunt that the author includes and discusses in the postscript, it seems Olive’s marriage was a happy one. Eventually, Olive and her husband settled in Texas, where she died in 1903.

In her epilogue, Mifflin discusses Olive’s posthumous appearances. That is, her ongoing legacy in literature and television, connecting her to numerous novels and shows inspired by her story, as well as to those who tried to write themselves into her story. The author refers to this legacy as “Oatman’s Literary Half-Life” and notes, and seems disappointed, that not once in these fictional accounts is Olive reunited with her Mohave family. Indeed, it is disappointing that, even in fiction, Olive never makes her way back to the Mohaves.

I might mention that you will not find this book on the library’s shelves, but as an e-book via the library’s Ebsco eBook Collection database, which may be accessed with your library card on Joplin Public Library’s website or through their card catalog.

As always, happy reading.

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WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER by Tae Keller & WE ARE WATER PROTECTORS by Carole Lindstrom

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I know the actual Super Bowl just happened, but I did not watch any of it. Instead, let me tell you about my Super Bowl: the Youth Media Awards.

Every year, the American Library Association announces the best books and media in a variety of categories. For picture books and illustrations, it’s the Caldecott Medal. For children’s books generally, it is the Newbery. For the best books by African American authors and illustrators, it is the Coretta Scott King Award, and the Pura Belpre follows the same guidelines but for Latino authors and illustrators.

TAE KELLER’s “WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER” won the Newbery Medal this year; the Newbery committee didn’t ask me, but I do approve of this decision.

The novel follows 12-year-old Lily, who has just moved from sunny Southern California to rainy Washington with her mom and teenage sister to care for her sick Halmoni (“grandmother” in Korean). Halmoni has always made Lily and her sister Sam feel special. When they were young, she would tell stories of “long, long ago when tiger walked like man” stories just for them that always included two very special sisters. However, the move isn’t an entirely welcome one, especially because Lily discovers Halmoni is more sick than her mom let on — and she keeps spotting a giant tiger around town. With the help of her new friend Ricky, Lily works to uncover what the tiger wants and, by that effort, heal her grandmother.

“When You Trap a Tiger” shows readers the power of stories, both in giving us hope and in changing us. When Lily first meets the tiger, no one, with the exception of Halmoni, believes her. Her sister and mom both blame stress or her wild imagination. But when the tiger proposes a deal in exchange for her grandma’s recovery, Lily knows what she must do.

As Lily works to give the tiger what it wants, she realizes she is not who she thought she was. She discovers a different, stronger view of herself. The typically reserved and quiet Lily feels empowered to make big decisions, strengthen relationships and say she’s sorry. At the novel’s start, Halmoni warns Lily that the tiger characters in Korean folktales are not always what they seem. But neither, Lily learns, is she.

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For the first time, the Caldecott Medal was awarded to an Indigenous author-illustrator team. CAROLE LINDSTROM and MICAELA GOADE’s “WE ARE WATER PROTECTORS” tells of the connection between people and the land and our duty to protect and preserve water. Lindstrom’s poetic call to action portrays oil as a black snake that can destroy our water if we let it.

The Ashinabe/Métis author was inspired to write this book following the widespread protests of the Keystone XL pipeline in South Dakota, but its message of our connection to and responsibility for the earth is a timeless one.

Goade’s watercolor illustrations are lush and include a broad spectrum of colors and shades reminiscent of water. The young girl featured on the cover appears with her chin raised proudly and her black-blue hair flowing into the swirling water. The rich blues and greens are calm, even as our narrator speaks in dramatic tones and passionate pleas. I feel the most calm when I am near the water; Goade does an excellent job communicating its tranquil nature.

In “We are Water Protectors,” the young narrator encourages readers to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves and to care for our earth and other living things. That is a sentiment I can get behind.

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For a full list of award-winning titles and honorees, check out the School Library Journal award article: https://bit.ly/3k5YZVN.

 

The Silence by Don DeLillo

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Illusory though it is, there’s an endorphin-rush moment when you begin a novel that feels as though it was written just for you. The story’s arc is almost irrelevant. What blows your hair back are the observations in sentences that seem perfectly formed. It’s as if your limbic system has been waiting for this moment. And from this instant, you know that you will need to read everything ever written by this author, this new shadow of you. For me, one such author is Don DeLillo.
I don’t recall how it was in my twenties I ended up reading DeLillo’s “Libra,” a novel about Lee Harvey Oswald. I wasn’t particularly interested in traveling into an imagined rendering of Oswald’s mind. By novel’s end, however, I felt as though I learned more about him than any nonfiction book could reveal. But more than anything, it was DeLillo’s writing that had me up, pacing and reading. There was a rhythm to the words. To this day, I will reread a chapter of DeLillo, much in the same way we listen to our favorite musicians over and over.
DeLillo’s awards and accolades are many, his influence on a generation of writers legion, notably Jonathan Franzen and the late, great David Foster Wallace. His modernist style made him a talisman to those pondering modern life. While DeLillo may not be a widely read author, his writing reminds me of what someone said of The Velvet Underground: not many listened to their music, but those who did started a band. Reading DeLillo made one want to write. And, after 50 years as a published author, he’s still at it.
His latest novel, “The Silence,” could actually be considered a novella. It’s only 117 pages, double-spaced. (The fact that such a svelte book was released in a fickle publishing industry speaks to DeLillo’s reputation.) It takes place on Super Bowl night, the year 2022. A couple, Tessa and Jim, are flying back to New Jersey from Paris. As they approach stateside, the commercial plane loses its lift and plummets. Whereas Jim had been staring at the screen that tracks the plane’s location, airspeed, and estimated time of arrival, he now visualizes the soon-to-be news footage reporting their fiery demise.
At the same moment, another couple, Max and Diane, are ready to watch the game in their Manhattan apartment and are also waiting for Tessa and Jim to join them. Already there is Martin, a former university physics student of Diane’s. Then all electric currents and signals disappear. When it dawns on them that this outage is widespread and not likely to end soon, Max (who appears to have a slight gambling problem) loses it a little. He stops just staring at the blank screen and starts to announce a made-up football game, replete with commercials.
Martin, already a man with “a nowhere stare,” begins spouting thoughts that are sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes absurd. For him, that blank screen means so much more than a power outage. “What is it hiding from us?” Not knowing what else to do, Diane observes and listens to these two, a low-grade panic beginning to well insider her. “The pauses were turning into silences and beginning to feel like the wrong kind of normal.”
Tessa and Jim survive the crash and eventually find their way to Max and Diane’s apartment. (On the shuttle ride from the crash site to a medical clinic, the van comes across a woman jogging amidst this grid shutdown. An odd site, the van’s driver slows to the jogger’s pace, the shuttle riders watching her as she blithely jogs.)
DeLillo is a master of dialogue. In this novel, however, the characters don’t really converse with each other. More than once, someone will exclaim that they are just going to say what comes to mind, for—given the current situation—no one is going to remember it anyway.
During the Cold War, DeLillo’s work explored how life plays out under the threat of mutually assured destruction. There was a dread mixed with weapon-worship, as evidenced in his noting that we named warheads and rockets from Greek and Roman mythology. On this night, in the year 2022, there’s no electrical power to launch such force. The conversation is no longer about nuclear arms; it’s now “the language of living weaponry. Germs, genes, spores.” To Martin “the war rolls on and the terms accumulate.” In fact, he seems to think that this blackout is just the beginning of World War III.
If you have yet to read DeLillo, I would recommend beginning with earlier works, such as “White Noise” or “Libra.” The former devilishly satirizes university culture in an era of unyielding media saturation; the latter shows us how a disillusioned loner can make history. (I am not saying don’t read his latest novel, for it was certainly prescient, being that it was written before our own upheaval that greeted us soon after last year’s Super Bowl. I am saying that his earlier works are that of a virtuoso.)
Another theme DeLillo mines is the formidable nature of crowds. In the “Silence,” our characters try to avoid what they know is taking place on the streets. (Max ventures out briefly to take in the growing tension, “a thousand faces every minute,” “curses rising into the air.”) This power is on full display in “Mao II” (another recommendation), the book beginning with a mass wedding ceremony officiated by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
In “Underworld,” DeLillo’s brilliant magnum opus (and my favorite), we begin with “an assembling crowd,” making their way to game three of the 1951 National League pennant, these New Yorkers bringing “with them the body heat of a great city and their own small reveries and desperations, the unseen something that haunts the day.” Outside the Polo Grounds, a black kid, with “a shine in his eye that’s halfway hopeful,” gathers with other kids—black and white—who can’t afford a ticket. They briefly strategize the best way to jump the turnstiles.
Inside, during the game, Jackie Gleason holds comedic court. An F.B.I. agent whispers to J. Edgar Hoover that the Soviets detonated their first hydrogen bomb test. This is the game where Bobby Thomson hits the series-winning home run with “the shot heard around the world.” The kid who jumped the stiles catches the ball. “This is the people’s history and it has flesh and breath.” Such events are life-defining. Yet they are, as all moments are, fleeting, “fading indelibly into the past.” It’s an electrified blend of fact and fiction that reveals truth, the very reason we read serious fiction. This is why we read Don DeLillo.

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