The Inside Scoop: You Saw the Film – Now Read the Book!

Attention Anglophiles! If you loved the movie “The King’s Speech”, the book of the same name, written by Mark Logue, grandson of Lionel Logue, will add to your enjoyment. Letters, photos and diaries that are in the grandson’s possession were shared with filmmakers and became the basis for this book. Details of Logue’s ancestry and life in Australia are included, as well as comments about speech therapy over the years. When I watched the movie, I never got a true sense of the timeline of events, as none of the characters aged visibly. The movie covers the years spanning from 1926 through 1939. Logue was summoned to the Palace often when the King was due to give a speech. He spent many Christmas days with the Royal family so that he was present for the annual Christmas Day message from the King that was broadcast live. Their friendship continued beyond the point where the King felt enough confidence to speak in public without Logue at his side and lasted till the King’s death in 1952. The fabulous Mozart and Beethoven pieces that are part of the soundtrack are wonderful to listen to also. Enjoy! -Rita

The inside scoop: The Buddha in the Attic

I just finished The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka. It is a short book describing the journeys of Japanese picture brides from Japan to San Francisco. Their collective experiences are shared, from their wedding night, settling into married life, backbreaking work in the fields, or the life of domestic help for white folks, raising families. They eventually are faced with internment and the tragedy of losing the life that they have created in America. 

Another fiction book that deals with the Japanese internment is Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jaime Ford.  Taking place in Seattle, a young Chinese boy befriends a young Japanese girl based on mutual exclusion. Their friendship grows until she is sent to the internment camp in Puyallup. Their separation haunts him for the rest of his life.

Dear Miss Breed by Joanne Oppenheim is the true story of San Diego Public librarian Clara Breed who befriends many of the Japanese children that visited the library.  She sends them letters of encouragement and care packages of books when they are interned. The correspondence from the children over the years describes the squalid conditions that the Japanese Americans endured for the duration of the war. 

And finally, Stubborn Twig is the true story of the Yasui family of Hood River, OR. Their life as Issei (first generation Japanese in America) and Nisei (second generation) is documented, continuing to the third generation. All of these titles share what it is like to be rounded up from one’s home, distrusted, accused of spying for the Japanese (because of nationality and facial features) and forced to live in camps under inferior conditions.

– Rita

On January 6, 1987, a bill (H.R.442) was introduced in the House of Representatives to have Congress and the President formally apologize and make restitution for the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II.  The following year it would be passed as Public Law No. 100-383.  The National Archives has an excellent bibliography of the history and documents related to this topic: Documents and Photographs Related to Japanese Relocation During World War II

Straight out of the box: How They Croaked

A recent arrival to the Juvenile Non-fiction collection caught our attention here in the Technical Services Office: Georgia Bragg’s How They Croaked: the Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous.  Nineteen famous figures from history are profiled.  Some chapters cover territory that is probably familiar—Marie Curie’s radiation poisoning or Julius Caesar’s assassination.  Others bring to light less well-known history —Edgar Allan Poe could have had rabies!  It’s suggested for a middle-school reading level, but is not for the squeamish.  Bragg doesn’t shy away from the gory details—from the medical malpractice that probably contributed to the deaths of Queen Elizabeth I and President Garfield to Henry VIII’s….erm… explosive funeral.  Also available as a book on CD.

The Inside Scoop: Stories by Global Activists

I have been reading Anodea Judith’s book Waking the Global Heart: Humanity’s Rite of Passage from the Love of Power to the Power of Love, this week. It is a thoroughly original look at human/cultural evolution that blends history, mythology, psychology and chakra energy systems to explain the collapse of our institutions and material world, and provide insight for developing a new story for humanity that is life-affirming. She argues that since humans are now capable of influencing the trajectory of evolution, we are faced with a tremendous responsibility which is calling forth a maturity of the heart so that each of us can choose how, or whether, to take part in the creation of a more livable world.

Many people are already engaged in creating a more livable world and their stories are being told more, and more. While each of these stories centers on personal experience with human or environmental misery, I offer them up as hopeful antidote to the doom and gloom so prevalent these days, because of the courage, creativity and action they portray.  May you too find ways to share your concern and your gifts with the global community

 More than good intentions: how a new economics is helping to solve global poverty, by Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel.

 And still peace did not come: a memoir of reconciliation, by Agnes Kamara-Umunna and Emily Holland.

 Rat island : predators in paradise and the world’s greatest wildlife rescue, by William Stolzenburg.

 It happened on the way to war : a marine’s path to peace,  by Rye Barcott.

 How sportsmen saved the world : the unsung conservation efforts of hunters and anglers, by  E. Donnall Thomas Jr.

 When Johnny and Jane come marching home: how all of us can help veterans, by Paula J. Caplan

The inside scoop: Some of my favorite shipwrecks

Playing in the sand by the skeleton of the Peter Iredale on summer vacation trips to the Oregon Coast, my brother and I would try to outdo each other with who could make up the most horrifying shipwreck story.  In our games, it was always night; with fifty-foot waves; and the ship’s captain usually got eaten by sharks.  Then the pirates would show up.  Now, when I go to the beach, I still like to take a good, spine-tingling shipwreck story or two to read.

 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

While not the first tale of shipwreck survival ever published, (the Crusoe character is believed to be based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk) Defoe’s fictional account was so influential its title is now synonymous with the genre.

 Island of the Lost: shipwrecked at the edge of the world by Joan Druett

In January of 1864, the Grafton was returning to Australia from a prospecting expedition in the South Pacific.  The ship wrecked and the five men aboard were stranded on the southern tip of a small island near New Zealand.  Five months later, the Invercauld also sank, leaving 19 survivors stranded on the north end of the same island.  Neither group knew of the other’s existence.  The Grafton survivors worked together: hunting, building shelter and eventually getting all five safely off the island.  The Invercauld survivors fought with each other, never successfully made plans for being stranded long-term, and eventually turned to cannibalism.  Only 3 survived.  Druett is a maritime historian and an outstanding writer, and she weaves a vivid tale from diaries, letters and newspaper accounts.

The Terror by Dan Simmons

In 1845 the two ships of the Franklin Arctic Expedition entered the Arctic waters of northern Canada in search of the Northwest Passage.  Neither of the ships and none of the 129 members of the crew ever returned.  Simmons’ novel imagines what happened.  Spoiler alert: The Terror doesn’t just refer to the name of the ship.

 South: a memoir of the Endurance voyage by Ernest Shackleton

Shackleton’s own account of his failed attempt to trek from one side of Antarctica to the other, doomed when his ship became trapped in pack ice, leaving him and his crew of 28 shipwrecked in Antarctic waters.  One of the most famous true stories of shipwreck survival.

 The Unforgiving Coast: maritime disasters of the Pacific Northwest by David H. Grover

Grover describes 9 of the most harrowing shipwrecks to take place between northern California and Vancouver Island. 

 And of course I can’t write about shipwrecks without mentioning the Titanic:

Lost Voices from the Titanic: the definitive oral history by Nick Barratt presents the story of the Titanic entirely through first person accounts from the survivors and other documents and primary sources.

 -Amy