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by James Webb

Look, if you’re some kind of fraidy-cat, you don’t need to read this book. Really. If you’re scared to take on anything new, just forget about this one. Try something else, like that book about the boy and the puppy. What’s the title? It’s Heart of a Samurai, by Margi Preus, but seriously, you wouldn’t like it. I mean, why would you want to read about a kid thrust into a situation that would scare the pants off of most people, when you won’t even try peas?

I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you a little bit about the book, and you’ll see that only someone really brave would want to read it—stop me if it gets too scary. Heart of a Samurai is about a Japanese kid named Manjiro; he’s 14 years old, and he lives in a fishing village, which means that when he grows up, he’ll be a fisherman too. In fact, fishing is what he’s doing when the book opens, but unfortunately for Manjiro and his companions, they’re not doing it very well. They get caught in a storm and are swept ashore on a deserted island, and as the months go by, they are slowly starving to death.

Ok, I can stop now, if you want. Starving is pretty scary. Well . . . if you insist.

Where was I? Oh, yes, starving to death. That’s when the John Howland appears on the horizon; it’s a whaling boat out of Massachusetts, and Manjiro and his friends are terrified when they are rescued. You see, it’s the year 1841, and Japan is a closed society, which has no contact with the West. Manjiro has grown up hearing all sorts of horror stories about what’s out there, far from Japan. Even worse, being taken aboard the American ship means the men will face exile, for once you’re away from Japan, you can never return. Manjiro’s group will have little to do with their rescuers, but he’s a curious boy, and before long he learns a few words of English, and finds himself working alongside the whalers. When they finally put ashore at the Sandwich Islands—what we know today as Hawaii—Manjiro (or John Mung, as he is known to the sailors) is faced with a choice: Try to get back to his native land, or accompany the vessel and its kindly captain to the place known as America.

Oh and there’s one thing I didn’t tell you—even though this is a novel, the story is based on something that really happened!

What would you do? Would you be brave enough to go? Well, no matter; you probably don’t want to read this anyway, right? Way too scary. Just in case, you can pick it up at any bookstore or library—if you have the courage.

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

A medieval con man meets his match

Review by James Webb

by James Webb

Because he has a secret he wants to keep, Johannes von Brock needs a certain kind of traveling companion—and he thinks he’s found someone perfect for the job. Ten-year-old Ansel is a smart boy, but he’s mute, and has been since his mother died suddenly when he was seven.

When Brock comes through their medieval village, Ansel’s father virtually gives him to the man, and so the lad finds himself serving an ersatz knight on an impossible quest: dragon hunting.

Award-winning British author Philip Reeve takes an old story and turns it on its ear in No Such Thing as Dragons, a beautifully written adventure story with surprising touches of humor and insight. At the heart of this compelling tale is a youngster forced by circumstances to be more than he dreams he can be.

Brock and his silent charge are headed for the village of Knochen, where, so they say, a dragon ravages the countryside. Though Brock has been hired to slay the beast, Ansel learns from his cheerfully honest boss that dragons aren’t real, and that Brock is basically a con artist. When they arrive at Knochen, they are met by an old acquaintance of Brock’s, a friar of dubious morality named Father Flegel. He informs them that the villagers have taken a young girl named Else up to a high pasture and left her there as a sacrifice to the monster. As Ansel hears the tales of the villagers, he begins to wonder if there may be something to the stories after all, and as he, Brock and a reluctant Flegel climb the mountain in search of the little girl, signs point to just one conclusion: Brock may be wrong!

No Such Thing As Dragons is a thoughtful and rewarding story that will tempt young readers—especially boys—to quit those video games for a while and get drawn into the infinitely more vivid worlds of their own imagination.

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

A timely story of Afghanistan

Review by James Webb

by James Webb

Guilt is a heavy burden to bear for adults, and it’s doubly so for a child; children don’t have the wisdom that comes with years to discern when events are due merely to chance, and when they are truly due to an individual’s actions; or maybe kids just don’t know how to rationalize themselves out of it. Fadi Sahid certainly doesn’t. The protagonist of N. H. Senzai’s debut novel, Shooting Kabul, is carrying a huge weight on his small shoulders—the loss of his sister Miriam. Born in Wisconsin to Afghani parents, he moved back to his father’s native land while barely in grade school, and now—a middle schooler—he’s escaped with his family from the Taliban-controlled country. In the confusion of the escape, his 6-year old sister Miriam is lost, and Fadi feels like it’s his fault. Now he’s living in San Francisco, coping with adjusting to a new school and new friends, but his heart is half a world away.

While Fadi can’t imagine things could get any worse, they do—a lot worse—for you see, it’s the fall of 2001, and not long after he starts school, the September 11 attack makes his life almost unbearable, with name-calling, threats and physical violence. He perseveres, however, because he has a goal. Fadi’s one passion is photography, and he joins Ms. Bethune’s Photography Club when he hears about a city-wide student photography contest; the prize is a trip to India, and Fadi thinks that from there, he should be able to make it back to Afghanistan to find his sister!

With a little help from his big sister Noor, and his friend (and potential girlfriend) Anh, Fadi will try his utmost to win the contest, bring his mother Zafoona some peace, and try to stop one bully who has it in for him. N. H. Senzai has written a compelling novel for young readers, one that puts them in the shoes of a culture that’s been largely misunderstood because of recent events. And it has an ending that you won’t see coming; what more could you ask for?

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

An alien in junior high

Review by James Webb

by James Webb

Ketchvar III has a job to do, and it isn’t easy; he’s an alien from the faraway planet of Sandoval who has come to Planet Earth to evaluate its inhabitants for the Galactic Federation. This isn’t some purely anthropological expedition, either. The lives of Earth’s entire human population hang in the balance, as Ketchvar’s experience will determine whether they’re worth saving—or annihilating. The outlook isn’t good, since Earth’s dominant species don’t appear to be doing a very good job as caretakers of their planet

The inhabitants of Sandoval resemble another earth creature—specifically, a snail—and the Federation’s superior technology has enabled Ketchvar to take over the body of a randomly selected human to conduct his analysis. That random selection happens to be one Tom Filber, a 14-year-old boy from an astonishingly dysfunctional family, the butt of jokes and the designated target of every bully at his junior high school.

At least that’s how Stuck on Earth, David Klass’ new novel for young readers, starts out. There are a lot of silly interactions between the befuddled Ketchvar, his hormone-infused host and the people he comes in contact with. They already think Tom is weird (his nickname is “Alien“), but they aren’t prepared when Ketchvar takes things to a new level. But then, Klass slyly takes the reader to a new level, turning this sci-fi romp on its ear by suggesting that what’s happening, however silly, is real—but not for reasons you’d expect.

Klass deftly weaves a story of growing up, environmentalism, the girl next door, human nature and all-powerful alien beings in a strikingly original way. Stuck on Earth manages to be hilarious, thoughtful and poignant, and there are plot twists you won’t anticipate; it’s got an ending that will leave you wondering, to boot. Don’t miss this entertaining novel.

James Neal Webb works with an alien species called “college students” at a university library.

Medicine

Medicine

The power of one very simple tool

Review by James Webb

by James Webb

Atul Gawande writes for The New Yorker, but by trade he‘s a surgeon; after a particularly harrowing operation in which the patient nearly died, he took a hard look at what had gone wrong and he found that a simple error had nearly doomed his patient. Not long after, he happened upon an anecdote that piqued his interest—an account of an Austrian community hospital where a girl had been brought back from apparent brain death due to drowning. Intrigued, he began searching the literature for a confirmation of what had occurred in Austria, and he found it in a Johns Hopkins study detailing a reduction in infections after surgery. They had one factor in common, and that was the use of a checklist.

The Checklist Manifesto is Gawande’s account of this “aha!” moment, and his search—under the auspices of the World Health Organization—to find out if something as simple as a checklist could improve patient survival rates. The quest led him in many different directions, one of which was the obvious idea of trying it out in real-life situations. As he recounts, this was not as easy as it might seem, because surgeons as a rule are confident and headstrong and don’t take kindly to being second-guessed by a sheet of paper. It also led him to the construction industry and the complex process of building a skyscraper. To ensure that tasks get done correctly (and to keep the thing from collapsing), construction engineers use—you guessed it—a checklist. Finally, Gawande gained some priceless insight from the aviation industry.

Unless you avoid newspapers and television, you’ve probably heard of Captain “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549. After taking off from New York City’s LaGuardia Airport on January 15, 2009, the plane struck a flock of geese, unbelievably losing both engines in the process. While he was justly heralded for gliding the airliner to a safe landing in the Hudson, Sullenberger resisted efforts by the press to make him a hero, insisting that it was a team effort. Gawande points out that today’s modern airliner is so incredibly complex that no one person, or even a team of people, can operate one safely on their own; the crew of Flight 1459 relied on a simple tool during their forced landing. That tool is one that has been used by pilots everywhere almost since the dawn of aviation—the checklist.

Atul Gawande’s determined effort to see his theory through is at the heart of The Checklist Manifesto, and its implications are widespread; he shows us a simple tool for complex problems that can be applied to business, government and just about any situation where unanticipated complications can lead to disaster. It remains to be seen whether this surgical Cassandra’s solution will be heeded.

James Neal Webb works for the Vanderbilt University Library.

YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA

On grieving and growing up

Review by James Webb

by James Webb

Most adults would probably agree that the wisdom that comes with age is in large part due to having experienced both love and the death of a loved one. They’d also probably agree that while the former can be painful, the latter is infinitely more so, and it’s the one thing they wouldn’t wish on anyone else. In Jennifer R. Hubbard’s debut novel The Secret Year, Colt Morrissey isn’t so lucky: Julia Vernon, the girl he’s been secretly seeing for the past year, has died tragically, and to make it worse, he’s had to keep the grief bottled up. Then one day, Julia’s brother Michael confronts him with Julia’s journal, tells him he knows about their relationship and gives him the book.

In the days and weeks that follow, as he slowly relives their romance from Julia’s point of view, Colt will change the way he feels about Julia, his friends, his family and ultimately himself. It won’t be easy, though; Syd, the girl who’s been his pal since grade school, has suddenly taken an interest in him that is more than friendly, and Colt in turn is finding himself attracted to Kirby, Michael’s girlfriend. And at home, Colt’s older brother comes home from college with a startling announcement. All of these elements pivot around the dynamic of the culture clash between Colt’s lower-class neighborhood and Julia’s friends (and boyfriend Austin) from the “right” side of the tracks on Black Mountain.

Teen readers will see a lot of themselves in this book, and that includes some things that parents may find uncomfortable. Hubbard succeeds in avoiding the obvious clichés in The Secret Year; her characterizations are realistic, as is the plot. There are no easy solutions in life, and no storybook endings—we make the best of what fate gives us, and that is what Colt does.

James Neal Webb has more wisdom than he’d like, unfortunately.

YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA

When a carefree summer goes off course

Review by James Webb

by James Webb

Jock lives a seemingly idyllic life; it’s the summer between eighth and ninth grade and he spends his days working an admittedly easy job on his grandfather’s golf course. He does a little greens keeping, helps his Grampus work on adding holes (the course only has 13), and mans the front counter when his older sister Meredith ditches work to be with her boyfriend.

All is not peaceful in paradise, however. There’s his younger brother Egon, for one thing. He’s bigger than Jock, and as anti-social a personality as you’ll find. Egon would be an even bigger headache if it weren’t for the fact that he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Then there are the Noblett brothers, who have a major grudge against Egon, and by extension, Jock; dodging them takes some of the fun of summer away. And finally, there are Jock’s parents, Leonard and Peach—while Grampus is a little eccentric for an ex-Marine, Jock’s ex-hippy dad and mom are downright weird. Chris Lynch’s hilarious new novel, The Big Game of Everything, stirs all these ingredients into a perfect storm of trouble for Jock.

Trouble arrives one day in the form of two of Grampus’ ex-Marine buddies. They come to play a round of golf, but they leave with Egon, or at least they capture his greedy heart. Egon is assigned to caddy the two men, and by the time he returns, he has reached new levels of obsequiousness with the big tippers, including sporting a huge gold ring one has given to him. Then, when his Grammus arrives with a new boyfriend, things get even crazier, and Jock wonders if his family will ever be the same again—and if that’s necessarily a bad thing.

Lynch is an award-winning author who has written some serious novels, but this one takes a serious concept and stands it on its ear. The Big Game of Everything is a book full of laugh-out-loud humor, with a cast of crazy but believable characters. At its center, young readers will find an entertaining life lesson about discovering what really matters.

James Neal Webb once hit himself with his own golf ball.

Starry, starry night

Review by James Webb

by James Webb

Sometime between the second and third week of November, if you go outside late at night and look in a clear sky towards the constellation Leo, you will see something marvelous. That something is the Leonid meteor shower, and the sight of fireballs streaking across the sky every three or four minutes evokes a sense of wonder and astonishment and even a bit of smallness in the observer. Writer Christopher Cokinos immersed himself in the history and science of meteors over several years, and the result is The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars.

Cokinos’ story is both scientific and personal; his research corresponded with a turbulent time in his life (he was going through a divorce), and he repeatedly draws correlations between the two. With any other subject, this might be a fatal flaw for a book, but in The Fallen Sky, it works, because many of those who followed the same quest over the years had their own personal demons. One of the first is a name not commonly associated with meteors—the arctic explorer Robert Peary, who, Coskinos discovers, comes across as more of a huckster than a scientist.

In fact, hucksterism seems to run as an undercurrent throughout the lives of many of those who studied meteors. The greatest example is Harvey Nininger, a self-taught scientist and meteorite collector, who pursued them with an Ahab-like zeal for most of his 99 years, often embroiled in controversy. Coskinos’ personal story interweaves with his research; he goes to the spot where Peary found the Greenland meteorite; he scours the Midwest plains and the Arizona desert, following in the steps of Nininger; he travels to the Australian outback, where startling discoveries are being made about ancient falls; and finally, he journeys to Antarctica, where scientists are gathering meteorites in search of the earliest life on Earth. Along the way, his marriage falls apart, and in the end he falls victim to a common ailment among those who explore the great white south—depression.

Like many of the people he writes about, Coskinos is obsessed with his subject, and the result is a book that, like meteors themselves, provides flashes of illumination and glimpses into the darkness. The Fallen Sky is a dense but fascinating book, and well worth your time.

James Neal Webb has seen more than his share of late night skies.

Saving the planet, one dollar at a time

Review by James Webb

by James Webb

As scientists and statesmen grapple with the ever-increasing effects of global warming, there are those who think that things are just fine as they are—making the job of any ecological white knight a difficult one. It is to this battlefield that Pulitzer Prize winning writer Edward Humes brings his expertise, in his new book, Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet.

The people Humes profiles in Eco Barons are trying to save us from ourselves not with an army of followers, but single-handedly. Meet Doug Tompkins, the billionaire founder of clothing giant Esprit; not content with creating an environmentally friendly corporation, he’s using his fortune to buy up large swaths of Chilean rain forest with the intent of giving it to the Chilean people as a national park.

He’s not the only one doing this kind of thing. Ted Turner, multi-billionaire founder of CNN, has bought enough land in Montana and the Great Plains to rival Yellowstone National Park. He’s torn down fences and outlawed hunting, and in the process earned the enmity (and grudging respect) of his neighbors. Like Tomkins, he wants to preserve what little wild areas we have left. On the other side of the continent there’s Roxanne Quimby, the founder of Burt’s Bees, who is lending her considerable fortune to the preservation of the Maine woods, which is also in danger of the developer’s ax.

Humes also profiles people whose only currency is the legal system, like Peter Galvin and Kieran Suckling, founders of the Center for Biological Diversity, who have forced the government—using existing law—to do their job and protect our environment. Then there’s Terry Tamminen, a former pool cleaner turned environmentalist, whose dedication led to an appointment by California’s Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to head that state’s EPA, and put it on the leading edge of climate change legislation.

Eco Barons is a sometimes depressing and even infuriating book; it seems that the prospect of making a profit blinds all too many to the damage they are doing. Yet Humes presents us with more than a look at people who want to change this world for the better—he presents us with hope.

James Neal Webb often walks at Radnor Lake, Nashville’s own Walden Pond.

YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA

A post-war journey to adulthood

Review by James Webb

by James Webb

Evie Spooner is a 15-year-old New Yorker growing up in post-World War II Queens; she loves the Dodgers, candy cigarettes, her parents and Frank Sinatra, though not necessarily in that order. She's learning from her friends how women are supposed to act, but she doesn't think she'll ever be as pretty and sophisticated as her mother. Evie's looks apparently came from her long-departed father, a man eclipsed by her adored stepfather, Joe. Her late summer reverie is broken by his announcement that the three of them will be vacationing in Palm Beach, Florida, but this is a trip that will cover more than miles: it will be a journey from childhood to adulthood, where her loyalty will be tested and she will learn both the joy of love and the shattering pain of betrayal.

What I Saw and How I Lied, which won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in November, is the marvelous new book for teens by Judy Blundell, a veteran writer of more than 100 books, who is publishing under her own name for the first time.

Blundell has good reason to want her name on this work; it's a compelling coming-of-age story of blackmail and tragedy with a strong moral center. Evie Spooner is that center, and as the awkward teen tries to fit into the social scene at a rundown hotel her father is negotiating to buy, she finds herself falling in love with handsome young Peter Coleridge, whose Long Island father has "business interests" in Palm Beach. More importantly, he served with Evie's father in post-war Austria, and she quickly realizes that there's more to their past connections than he's saying. As summer wanes, her feelings for Peter increase, her stepfather's negotiations become strained, and there's talk of bad weather ahead. More than one kind of storm is brewing for Evie.

This beautifully written story is full of period detail, from a post-war New York City right out of Life magazine to a sleepy and sticky Florida courthouse, and its well-drawn and original characters spring to life on the page. Like much of the best literature being written for teens, this gripping novel would also make a top-notch read for adults.

James Neal Webb works in a university library.

YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA

Going back in time with a hero

Review by James Webb

by James Webb

Robert B. Parker’s literary protagonist, Boston detective Spenser, is brave, witty, strong and smart, with a streak of impregnable integrity and a stubborn determination to do the right thing. Through almost 40 novels, Parker has given us glimpses of Spenser’s past, but his newest novel, Chasing the Bear, takes us back to an incident that molds the boy into the man he would become.

As a teenager growing up in Laramie, Wyoming, Spenser is raised by his father Sam, and his two uncles, Patrick and Cash. An all-male household means a lot of testosterone-influenced activities, including boxing and hunting. But the three men also try to expose their young kin to the classics (like Shakespeare and Milton) and encourage him to do what’s right. These lessons come into play when Jeannie, a friend from school, is taken upriver against her will by her abusive, alcoholic father, and Spenser has no choice but to follow them in a small, rickety skiff. The choices he makes in trying to rescue Jeannie will have repercussions both in the short term and for the rest of his life.

Chasing the Bear will appeal to teen readers in much the same way the Spenser mysteries appeal to adults. Spenser’s wit, strength and moral rectitude serve as a stand-in for the way we want ourselves to be. He’s the quintessential hero, and we all need a hero, no matter what our age.

YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA

A post-war journey to adulthood

Review by James Webb

by James Webb

This beautifully written story is full of period detail, from a post-war New York City right out of Life magazine to a sleepy and sticky Florida courthouse, and its well-drawn and original characters spring to life on the page. Like much of the best literature being written for teens, this gripping novel would also make a top-notch read for adults.

James Neal Webb works in a university library.

YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA

Following in the footsteps of history

Review by James Webb

by James Webb

Josh Connors lives in the 19th century; well, not literally, but he might as well. The eighth-grader is a resident of Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, a little town whose stock-in-trade is the fact that in 1859 a preacher-turned-revolutionary attempted to capture the Union Army ammunition depot housed there in order to precipitate a slave rebellion. That man was the famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) John Brown.

This historical link is more than an idle plot device in the haunting new novel for teens, The Night I Freed John Brown. Author John Michael Cummings cleverly draws parallels between the fanatical Brown and his loyal sons, and Josh’s dysfunctional family. Josh’s father, Bill Connors, is a beaten, bitter man, and everything in his life reflects this, from his lack of pride in himself and his home, a period house overgrown with trees, trash and weeds, to his hateful, almost evil treatment of his wife and three sons.

Josh’s involvement with the well-to-do new neighbors, the Richmonds, triggers a reaction in his father that makes his previous treatment of the family seem mild, and his subsequent interaction with his ex-con cousin Ricky and the new priest at St. Peter’s down the block makes things even worse. His decision to defy his father and appear as one of John Brown’s sons in a play sets off a chain of events that threatens to tear his family apart. A happy ending doesn’t appear very likely.

The Night I Freed John Brown succeeds on many levels; it’s a deeply affecting story of a young man’s efforts to break free from an abusive parent, a look at life inside a national historic site and something of a mystery to boot. Cummings brings out the all too often ignored point that sometimes parents don’t tell kids everything, and that ignorance can alter how we see things. Finally, it subtly, but firmly, tells us that we have to make our own happy endings, and that life will go on, whether we like it or not. That’s quite an achievement for any book, regardless of genre.

James Neal Webb’s favorite historical site is Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Josh Connors lives in the 19th century; well, not literally, but he might as well. The eighth-grader is a resident of Harper's Ferry, Virginia, a little town whose stock-in-trade is the fact that in 1859 a preacher-turned-revolutionary attempted to capture the Union Army ammunition depot…

James Webb

Sailing into treacherous waters

A medieval con man meets his match

A timely story of Afghanistan

An alien in junior high

The power of one very simple tool

On grieving and growing up

When a carefree summer goes off course

Starry, starry night

Saving the planet, one dollar at a time

A post-war journey to adulthood

Going back in time with a hero

A post-war journey to adulthood

Following in the footsteps of history

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