A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison by Paul Jennings

Paul Jennings

Writing a tell-all book about your experiences in the White House is all the rage these days, whether you were a junior staffer or a member of the Cabinet.

But did you know that the first such memoir was written by a former slave, all the way back in 1865?

It's a little known piece of American History, one they don't teach you in school (but should), even if this book is more of a booklet by today's standards. Paul Jennings, slave to James Madison, was at his side for many years and respected so highly that Daniel Webster purchased his freedom after Madison's death to prevent him from being sold off by Dolly Madison.* (Jennings later worked off this debt to Webster.)

His life alone is pretty amazing, as he assisted with an attempt to rescue slaves via boat, and three of his children served with the Union in the Civil War. Fortunately, there has been a book written about him (by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, in 2012) which I hope to read someday.

In the meantime, I highly recommend you check out his memoir, which you can read online for free via Google Books. It won't take you long at all to read, but it is definitely insightful. Dictated (I think) to a person named JBR, it has some interesting things to say about President Madison, working to confirm some details of his life and dispel myths at other points.

From the very start, the writing is engaging. He talks about how Secretary Gallatin was a "tip-top man" and noted that the Secretary of War "always agreed with Mr. Madison" which could explain why the disastrous War of 1812 happened. There's great urgency in Jennings' voice as he describes the fear and confusion of the burning of Washington. Particularly telling is that the Madisons were assured "there was no danger" which was of course completely untrue, but typical of the American approach to that war--arrogance bordering on stupidity.

Perhaps my favorite recollection here is the woman who threw Dolly out of her house, because "Your husband has got mine out fighting, and damn you, you shan't stay in my house; so get out!"

It's neat things like that which make this small memoir shine, especially when you learn their source is fellow slaves. Reading this is almost like finding a hidden history.

Jennings is very casual and conversational no matter what the topic. He discusses how the South refused to let the capital move north after the War--and you wonder how that might have changed the face of the Civil War had they succeeded.

Despite his poor treatment at her hands. Jennings is kind to Dolly Madison. While he does burst the "Dolly saved the Washington portrait" story, Jennings also refers to how well-liked she was and feels pit at her poverty at the end of her life. The man even gave he money to help her. That's a level of forgiveness I don't think I could share, were I in his shoes.

This book tells more in about twenty pages than many biographies do in two hundred. It's a great, short read that could probably be finished on your phone while commuting to and from work. Regardless, history fans really shouldn't miss this hidden gem, which is highly recommended.

*In typical "Virginia Founding Fathers Were Terrible People Mode," Dolly promised Jennings his freedom, then went back on it. Funny, that gets left out of the biographies for kids, too.

Signal Boost: Support Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism & Beyond

I don't think I've ever posted on this blog about a crowd-sourced project before, but I really believe in this one and it's still a bit short of its goal.  As a disclosure, I am a backer of the project.

Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism & Beyond--Support the Writer Campaign is raising funds for an anthology of speculative fiction written by by people of color. It's designed to be an opportunity to spotlight the fact that, despite what you may see in popular culture, there are plenty of extremely talented writers out there who aren't white.

The project is meant to open eyes to this fact, because all too often, it appears that only white writers get the attention or that white characters are the only ones out there in the realms of speculative fiction stories. It's a problem that I've taken a particular interest in since coming back from ReaderCon. I've always been aware of it, but now it's something that I want to actively challenge, both in my choice of fiction that I read and in how I write my own stories.

I think the project's description puts it most accurately:

When watching a work of science fiction on the big or small screen, people of color often find themselves asking:

"Where did we go?"

"Did some melanin-devouring plague attack all humanity?"

"Do zombies only like the dark meat?"

But that's Hollywood. While studio executives continue to show the world's multi-hued population through its monochromatic lens, the literary field of speculative fiction has become more diverse than ever. Whether it's horror, science fiction, or fantasy, steampunk or steamfunk (and let's not forget sword and soul), writers of color are producing quality works and accumulating accolades and awards every day.

 I am woefully ignorant of the vast majority of the contributors, which I hope to be able to fix once the project is funded. (I will allow myself the one caveat that given I work heavily as a review of comics, I can only spend so much time reading anything else, so my knowledge of modern fiction writers in general is far less than the average active reader, I'd wager.)  However, I can speak personally for the quality of Tobias Buckell's prose, whose first novel I read several years ago.  I also saw Anil Menon, Daniel Jose Older, and  Vandana Singh at ReaderCon on various panels, and all of them impressed me as authors I wanted to seek out and read from, based on their views about the nature of writing.

As of this writing, the project is a little over $3,000 short of its goal. It is a flexible funding campaign, so the project will at least be partially funded. But for $10, you can get an electronic copy of an anthology that has talented individuals working together to show that the world of the possible has as many shades as our own reality.

If you enjoy short fiction and have the funds available, please help this project meet its goal, both for your own reading pleasure and for the statement it makes that books like this are things we as readers want to see on our shelves.

The Victory Season by Robert Weintraub

1946 was a year of transition for America, the world, and baseball, as this engaging book by Robert Weintraub, published just in time for the 2013 season, shows.

Part baseball history, part cultural background, Weintraub weaves a narrative of how baseball dealt with returning war veterans, the changing nature of the post-war America, and a challenge to its complete control of baseball players in an era of labor strife.  Placing the reserve clause in context of paralyzing strikes across the country, along with fighting with those who risked their lives for freedom over a few thousand dollars, really shows that the owners of baseball could be horrible people when it comes to money.

And that's before we get into their attempts to block the Dodgers from signing Jackie Robinson.

Weintraub also looks at how Rickey's integration of the game factors into this cultural maelstrom, using interviews with Mrs. Robinson to aid in bringing the trials of Robinson to the fore, even though he was "only" in the minors in '46.  Little anecdotes that are both tragic and heartwarming show not only the bald racism of the South (including a really bad show by Baltimore) but the quiet racism of defacto segregation in Canada and elsewhere.  I really enjoyed hearing about African American players involved in Armed Forces games in Europe, something I had no idea existed.

I would argue this book's greatest value is not in its retelling of the 1946 season (which focuses on the biggest names, teams, and events) but in bringing in background information that even a dedicated fan of the game may be unaware.  For instance, I had no idea there was an Armed Forces World Series or that they played baseball in German prison camps.  Weintraub goes into carefully researched detail about the major league players who lost their lives in WW2 or who made sacrifices nearly so great.  There's an awesome story about Larry MacPhail trying to capture the Kaiser in WW1 and we also get to see the wildly varying reactions of star players to fighting during their prime earning years.  It's a tribute to their greatness that some volunteered or tried to get out from cushy jobs to see action.

Because they were the two teams in the 1946 World Series, the book focuses a lot on the St. Louis Cardinals (an early adopter of the "build from the farm" strategy) and the Boston Red Sox (whose first real taste of the "Curse of the Bambino" begins here).  We also see the Dodgers, Yankees, and Cubs a fair amount, which is one of the few failings of Weintraub's writing--there's a definite focus on the bigger market teams. However, in fairness, in a book already boosted out over 400 pages, it would be hard to include more details.

The other issue the book has does relate to Weintraub's writing style, however.  He tries to mix a style that incorporates the breezy slang of both 1946 and 2012, and they often clash awkwardly.  While it may be true, I'm not sure hearing about Leo the Lip getting in someone's grille is the best way to phrase something.  I got used to this merging after awhile, but it may throw a few readers for a curve.

That's a minor complaint in a book that does so many things well.  While hailing the "Greatest Generation", Weintraub rightly doesn't treat them like gods.  He talks openly about the flaws of the owners (completely destroying the "baseball was better then" myth by showing just how awful the owners could be, including one story that leads to deaths), the players of the time, and the American people who did things like create false scarcity.  He's hard on Truman as a leader when referenced, and notes just how bad things were if you were a player, openly boggling at how the players allowed the owners to get away with so much.  I particularly liked his point about how we call people like Musial and DiMaggio "boys" but don't use the term nearly so often for the players before or since.  This was a unique group, operating in a different time, and Weintraub shows that to the reader.

Bringing the story of the 1946 season to life could have been a dull historical piece that retreaded ground covered by others.  Instead, Weintraub works hard to bring lesser-known factors to light, such as the attempt to get players to move to Mexico, an ill-starred idea that I think might have been the last major challenge to the supremacy of Major League Baseball.  Picking the best moments to highlight, we see players  fighting through injury, pivotal choices that may have changed history (making the Red Sox play 3 exhibition games before the World Series, of all things!), and ground-breaking moments (the first NL playoff).  The book is a real page-turner, because instead of a blow-by-blow, we see the things most interesting recounted, often on a more personal level than other histories have managed.

The Victory Season is not for the casual fan, clocking in at over 400 pages and covering territory that only those addicted to the game from an early age (like me) can appreciate.  For the person who counts down to pitchers and catchers reporting who wants to learn more about the game's history, this is a great present for them to read between innings of rooting for their favorite teams.

My thanks to Little, Brown, and Co. for providing me with a copy of this book.

An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

Lacey Yeager is almost as hot as the art she's involved in selling, using everything she knows to rise above her station in the art world.  Manipulative, cunning, and a bit lucky, she fights for a place in a world where the world million doesn't even need to be used.  Never failing to try and gain an edge, Lacey won't even let the events of September 11th stop her from hobnobbing with the elite and joining their ranks.  But sometimes, it's just not meant to be, as this fictional chronicle by Renaissance man Steve Martin shows.

Steve Martin has been a part of my cultural orbit for my entire life, whether it was Saturday Night Live re-runs, guest appearances, or his 1980s movies.  While his acting started to leave me cold over time and Martin himself gave up stand-up, the idea of Martin the writer has risen to be one of his greatest strengths.  Picasso at the Lapin Agile is a great play to read that I hope to see life someday.  I was happy to find this at the library, waiting to be grabbed, and I'm glad I was the person who found it.

For those who don't know, one of Martin's interests is art, and he uses that interest to really infuse this book with knowledge and opinion about damned near all of the art world, giving it a basis in the real world that another writer could not manage if they set their world in the same aura of big-name art dealing.  When the characters in this book discuss Warhol's place in the pantheon of artists or the way certain painters are either ignored or "discovered" over time, you can tell it's not just research for Martin.  These are things he has either discussed or considered on his own.

Similarly, Lacey's rise to power, using her positive and negative traits to get to the point of owning her own gallery, are frequently marked with allusions to other kinds of stardom.  I don't doubt that Martin, in his trek from Disney employee to the star of the Pink Panther remake (in some ways, a rise and fall all its own), encountered people, male and female, who were not above crossing the borders of legality to try and gain an edge.

And that's the thing that really makes this book so good.  I'm an amateur art geek who is conversant from Egyptian art to the Pop era.  I have so many holes in my knowledge that people use my art expertise as a golf course, but I love going to galleries and have over time developed a way to understand what makes one painting better than another from the same time frame.  For me, the talk of Rembrandt, Matisse, and others both real and imagined meshed well with what I knew and really gave the story depth.  But if I only knew a Van Gough when the signature was pointed out to me, I could still appreciate Lacey and her story.

After all, isn't it the most American thing to do, over the course of the 90s and 2000s, to do everything you could to rise to the top, even if it was a house of cards, ready to tumble?  The dot com bubble, the housing bubble, the impending student loan bubble--they all result from the fact that we as American lust to be the richest thing around and will often do stupid things (like take out a second job to afford a more fashionable car we can't drive in because we have to work so much) just to look "better" than the rest of humanity.  Just as Lacey's actions that generate the wealth she needs to move from auction house girl to world traveler eventually banish her to the backwaters of the art work, America's actions over the past half century are quickly placing us in company with Greece instead of China.

In the end, Russia may just bury us after all, just like those who Lacey tries to screw over end up burying her.  Given that Martin sets this story to coincide with the boom and bust of America's overall economy, I think he's purposefully going for the comparison.  Lacey and the art world are avatars for Martin to make social commentary, using a literary device that goes back at least as far as Homer.

To be a good book, however, requires more than just an ability to comment.  While Martin probably will never be the best at narration, his dialogue is razor sharp, echoing without repeating his best acting work.  There were many times where I could hear Martin mentally while the character spoke, giving the story a lot of life and energy.  This was really needed because often the characters are unlikable (either rich bores or people on the make) and when Lacey says things like how she was sad there was no crime after failing at her "Lacey Drew" impression, the comedic timing is perfect.

My only real issue with the story is that I found the narrator to be an off choice.  Martin picks an art critic who was briefly a lover of Lacey's and later her dupe to tell Lacey's story, blurring whether it is fact or fiction within the context.  He's not a loser, but he's the kind of person who always ends up being an also-ran, and compared to Lacey, he's a dullard who can only reflect her light.  I guess that's the point, but I feel like the book might have been better served by keeping the narrator out of the story entirely.  You can tell Martin is trying to be post-modern, but I think it was one layer of clever too many in an otherwise really good book.

An Object of Beauty has a lot going on, just like the best paintings.  It's both a case study, an admiration of audacity, and a warning to those who will do anything to win.  Martin's got a great feel for intricate writing such as this, and I hope he continues to pour energy into books such as these and less facile films that play upon his reputation but don't play to his strengths.

Catching Fire (The Hunger Games Book 2) by Suzanne Collins

Katniss and Peeta have won the games, but their prize is the wrath of President Snow.  As unrest stirs in the districts, Snow makes it clear to Katniss that life as she knows it is over, and one false move means death for her and everyone she cares about.  But the pain is only starting when the "celebration" of the 75th annual games puts Katniss and Peeta in the Games for the second consecutive year--against other Games winners.  With her every move potentially a killer for those at home, is Katniss brave enough to defy the Capital and stay alive against the malice of the Snow and the deadly killers she's trapped with?  She's saved Peeta once, but doing it again might be tricky in the second book of the Hunger Games.

[Warning:  I do spoil some things here, which is unusual for me.  If you haven't read the books and want to, might be better to skip this.]

Ever tried to start a charcoal grill when it's windy?  No amount of paper or lighter fluid can help you.  It's going to take a long time to get those coals to catch, and you are liable to get extremely frustrated.  That is exactly how I felt about reading most of Catching Fire, whose title is extremely apt because the story takes about 200 pages to start getting interesting and for the fiery action to get started.

Oh sure, things happen in the first dozen or so chapters.  As with the first book, Collins is careful to explain everything and provide sufficient information so that no one can be the least bit puzzled.  The trouble is that the explanation is way too long and is even more infuriating this time, because it often takes all the suspense out of everything.  Just in case we weren't sure that there was resistance to the Capital, we get multiple pages showing us it's happening.  Just in case we weren't sure that those who help Katniss out in any way will be brutally tortured, we get not one but two instances of it.  Just in case we don't get that Katniss wants to save Peeta, Collins mentions it so many times I began to wonder if it was going to be plot point that Katniss saves herself instead.  Nope!

Now maybe I'm a bit harder to fool than most readers (I've been known to announce, mid-mystery book, "so and so did it" and be right over half the time), but a lot of the potential enjoyment I might have had out of the shock and surprise moments of Catching Fire were ruined because, for me at least, Collins was telegraphing them a mile away.  None of the big shocks, right up to the rushed reveal in the last chapter, were a surprise to me.  I called them like I was Minnesota Fats playing 8-ball for cash.

• It's so obvious they're going to crack down on District 12, Gale's beating is inevitable, because she's not gonna harm Prim and Katniss' mom isn't doing anything illegal.
• It's so obvious Cinna is planting defiance in Katniss' outfit from the line "I only hurt myself" that when he's taken away, it's a flat moment.
• It's so obvious Haymitch has convinced the others to save Peeta and Katniss, because it happens so many times it's as obvious as the fact that Katniss and Peeta aren't going to die.
• It's so obvious Johanna is saving a person she hates *I* start to hate Katniss' stupidity at not seeing it, too.
• It's so obvious that Haymitch is scheming to take down the Capital from the moment you learn he survived the games by beating them at their own torture device that to learn there's a revolution awaiting at the end of the book is about as shocking as "there is no more District 12."

I'm really sorry if these things surprised you.  Maybe it's my fault as a reader.  Maybe I am expecting too much of a YA book.  But this book really feels like Collins is underestimating her audience.  Had she eased off on the clues or some something really out there, like keep Peeta dead, I might feel differently.

As it stands, the story is one-dimensional filler, with the most interesting parts being the diabolical creations made for the arena.  Collins is at her best when we're in the Games, and I really did think the idea of putting them in a giant circle, with conditions unfamiliar to Katniss, was a nice touch.  But then again, that's to force her to have partners, so it too, is a bit of a giant telegraph, as well as being a giant watch.  The fog was creepy and the jays calling out the tortured screams of friends and family was a nice touch.  Unfortunately, all of that was really crammed in the last 100 pages, which is a shame.  I'd have loved to see more terrors inflicted on the group.  When the characters talk about how "this is moving fast" they aren't kidding.  (Never ever let your character comment on your failings as an author.  That's a softball for any reader not enjoying themselves.)

Unlike Book 1, this volume really comes to a screeching halt, using a one-page summary of events (I kid you not) to get the reader up to speed, looking very much like plotting notes typed up and formalized and placed at the end of the book.  I'm sorry, that's lazy, sloppy writing and no editor should ever have let that pass.  It read like a comic book recap page, but instead of being helpful to anyone who came in late, it's there to tell someone who has been with the book all along what they missed while Katniss was being incredibly clueless.

I mentioned in my first review that I didn't care for Katniss as the focal character, and she's even worse here. She just acts like there isn't a brain in her head for thinking instead of acting.   Katniss can't see past the nose on her face, which is infuriating because it means Collins has to keep everything from the reader, too.  I'd have found this book a lot more interesting from Haymitch's perspective, and we could use the video of the Games to handle that section.  I get that Collins is trying to show that a girl can be the protagonist, but that's only if she's interesting.

Katniss is about as interesting as plain brown wallpaper.

Despite these problems, I do applaud Collins for trying to show some feminist tendencies in a teen character.  Unfortunately, rather than being proactive, Katniss is a reactive feminist.  "I don't want this" is fine, as she rejects the Capital, rejects the roles Gale and Peeta have for her, and rejects Haymitch for using her.  But what exactly is Katniss for?  I sure don't know.  I don't know that she does, either, and that part of why her character is lacking.  The others, who know what they want, from Snow to Cinna to even the Career tributes, are a lot more interesting as a result.

So why do The Hunger Games have so many problems?  I think I figured it out, and it didn't hit me until this book closed with the destruction of District 12:  Hunger Games is "What if Star Wars Featured Leia?"

Now, it's not fan fiction in the way that I understand 50 Shades of Gray to be.  But the concepts are extremely familiar:  A one-dimensional hero that doesn't so much fight FOR something as against it, a love triangle between a strong female and two men who are diametric opposites on the surface but are both good at the core, a ruling class that is far more technologically advanced than its citizens--except for the resistance, an unlikely alliance among disparate factions, a leader who will destroy entire planets districts to prove a point, side-character who are far more interesting than the main ones, an enigmatic mentor, and so on.

Collins is borrowing liberally from George Lucas's themes, and once I figured it out, I hit on exactly why I don't care for this story:  The more I watched Star Wars, the less I liked it.  Why would a giant tribute to that movie franchise be any different?

At first, I thought the homage to Leia and Han with Katniss' "I know" was just bad writing.  Now I see that it's part of a larger theme, which means nothing is going to get more complex or ambiguous.  The bad guys are the bad guys, the good guys are the good guys, and we'll wrap it up with hope for the future.

That's my problem with the Hunger Games.  At its core, there's no struggle, no realization that life lives in shades of gray.  I need the Roddenberry ambiguity when I read an epic story like this, and it's just not there. This book doesn't leave me fired up, it leaves me like that charcoal pit in the wind:  waiting for something to show signs of life.

Going into book three, I admit, I'm not hopeful.

The Hunger Games (Book 1) by Suzanne Collins

In a dystopian United States that's been turned into districts, with a cruel capital where none with power go without, a reminder that resistance is futile happens every year: The Hunger Games.  Two teens are chosen from each district and must battle to the death to survive.  Katniss volunteers to fight to save the life of her baby sister, and eventually she's placed in a battlefield with a set of allies she's not sure she can trust, up against districts that plan to win every year.  Can Katniss survive this brutal torture, and what happens if she does?

Welcome to the series of books that completely derailed the Summer of YA.  I was warned I probably wouldn't like them, and boy were all of you right.  As I write this review, I'm about halfway through book two--and I finished book one back in June.  For the purposes of this review, I'm only going to discuss book one.

First, let me talk about what I like about this book.

• Part of why I think it's important is that it serves as a sort of anti-Twilight.  Instead of teaching young women that they should be passive and allow men (especially older men) dominate them, Katniss is a fiery spirit, doing what *she* thinks is best and refusing to allow others to tell her what to do.  Sometimes this gets her in trouble, especially when it comes to the climax of this first volume.  But the fact that at no time does Katniss give in to the males in this world (although she learns that she does not have to do everything alone) is very important.  Like it or not, kids take ideas from the culture they're exposed to.  They internalize things.  While I am glad teens are reading 600 page novels, I do worry quite a bit about what's *inside* those novels.  The Hunger Games may not be the best written thing I've ever read, but its message is a good one, for both young women and young men.

• Once we get into the games themselves, this book actually flows relatively well.  The scenes within the games are action-packed, and I like the fact that Collins was not afraid to hurt her two main characters and give me the impression right up until the very end that they could die.  Similarly, anyone who the reader might care about could also get the ax at any moment.

• The sadism of the Hunger Games themselves comes across very well.  From the opening dash for supplies to the placement of water only in such a way that the fighters must battle to keep it to the ending, where the losers of the game are brought back in a horrific manner that actually terrified me just a bit, Collins does a really nice job of showing just how awful this is.

• There's a clear indication that a deep divide in wealth is not only disgusting, but it's a moral wrong.  I know my politics are on my sleeve with this one (and the next point), but the fact is, while we don't make poor people battle for the right to have food for a year--yet--the Capital is not that far off from how the uber-rich live in this country while people in the streets try to scrape along, with costs rising and jobs growing ever more scarce.  I know Collins based the Capital on Rome, but the decadence of the Roman elite is not any different from hearing about movie stars and politicians with multiple homes and a dozen bathrooms and other things that make me want to puke when I have students who can't afford a meal but don't qualify for reduced lunch.

• Katniss wants control of her body.  Collins may not refer to reproductive rights directly, but it's clear there's an allusion to it if you read carefully.  Katniss dislikes having the designers try to make her look more feminine, is horrified that they wanted to give her implants, and talks about how she does not want to bring kids into the world, even if that's what is expected of her.  Showing that these decisions should be up to Katniss and not the (male) power structure is another thing I liked.

So that's good stuff, right?  Well, unfortunately, there's also one heck of a lot that's wrong, and I just can't get past them to make this a book I'd re-read.  Over time, they're making it so I can barely finish the trilogy.

• The opening is one of the worst I've ever read.  I know that there's a desperate fight for life, but it's 130 pages (out of 370) before I get there.  That's just too damned long.  I understand the need to world-build (but that has its issues, see below), but Collins is pedantic and methodical in her approach, working slowly until we get to the good stuff.  I probably would have given up, except that I really wanted to know this book inside and out before teaching again, so we can discuss it in class.

• The book is written like she's reading over my shoulder.  Countless times, Collins takes pains to explain *exactly* how something is possible or how it works.  It's like she's afraid I might not believe part of the narrative if every set-up is not given careful detailing in advance.  Yes, in some cases, we do need to know information for a payoff later, but she does it way too much.  It feels like she wants to be there to say, "See?  I told you all about the changing environment so you'd never question when it happens later!  Isn't that great?"  Given the wonders we have in the Hunger Games world, I think I would have bought that--and many other--ideas she painstakingly explains.

• Despite all this explanation, there are two problems that just sink the book for me.  Issue one is that her characters are less fleshed out than the world is.  I just don't care about Katniss.  She's boring.  She's Cyclops when I want to read about Wolverine.  She's Hal Jordan instead of Guy Gardner or John Stewart.  To move to a literary comparison, she's Harker instead of Van Helsing.  Katniss is portrayed as having only one major flaw, which is that she doesn't always think long-term.  That's boring.  She's not selfish, jealous, funny, or anything that could get me to care.  That goes double for Gale, which makes the love triangle fall flat as a pancake.  I spent most of the games worrying more for Peeta, who shows a depth of character that Katniss lacks.  I know Katniss is the narrator, so we learn less about her directly, but she's so much of a blank slate here (we know more of what she doesn't want than what she does) that it hurts the book.

• The biggest flaw, however, is that despite all the explanations, this world just doesn't hold up on its face.  The Capital has everything it could ever want, which it gets from the districts.  Okay, I am down with that so far.  But the level of tech they have is just impossible.  America is back to the 19th Century everywhere BUT the Capital.  That's fine, I got it.  The problem is that the Capital is not only modern, it's futuristic.  There's no reference to anyone making transistors or computer chips in one of the districts--which would be a must if the Capital even matched 21st Century tech.  Yet somehow, these people have showers not even Bill Gates can design or own that will change on command.  They can terraform at will.  They can make a package appear in the middle of nowhere and broadcast movies in the sky.  These people have miniature flying saucers yet we're told they have to have coal from District 12.  It just doesn't add up.  Despite all of Collins' explanations, there's no explaining how the tech is so high if the regions supporting the non-working Capital are providing raw material only.

I am a person with a low bar for suspension of disbelief.  I read comic books, where irradiated spiders don't kill the people they bite.  But there has to be an internal logic within whatever crazy stuff you're asking the reader to go along with.  I know that Collins wanted to show how opulent the Capital was, but she takes it too far.  Every time something uber-technological happened, I was thrown right out of the book trying to figure out how in the hell it was possible based on the resources known to me as the reader.

Maybe that's something the last two books will explain, but I kinda doubt it, based on my reading of book two so far.  While I am happy kids are reading and while I know there is YA material that works for teens and adults, The Hunger Games just isn't that kind of book.  It's fine as a surface read, but when you start to think too hard, it falls apart quickly.  (Maybe that's why, in a disposable culture, the book succeeds.  No one else but me is examining it out.)  Since it reads so slowly, it invites thinking--and when you think too hard, there's just a whole host of problems.  If you haven't read the Hunger Games by now, don't.  You aren't missing anything.

Summer of YA

After spending two years teaching middle school and having it look like that will be continuing for the foreseeable future, I decided that I needed to get better acquainted with the books that my students are reading.  I fully admit that my YA knowledge is quite limited, and that needs to be corrected so that I can be better informed of what my students like to read.

I will be honest, YA has never been a genre I've been overly fond of, even when I was the target demographic.  Once I left children's books behind, I jumped to non-fiction and left fiction behind.  I read a few of the required classics here and there, but for the most part, if I was reading for pleasure, it was either non-fiction or adult fiction (Tom Clancy, Tony Hillerman, etc.) that my mother approved for me.  Even then, and to this very day, I read fairly little prose fiction.  (But I do read a comic book or two.)

So I vowed that this will be the summer of YA--my goal is to read at least one a week before the year starts and then read at least two a month going forward, to get myself better acquainted with the genre.  I'm starting with the books I will be teaching this year as well as the Hunger Games and I hope to do at least short reviews here as I go along.

I'd love suggestions, but please make sure they are on the low-end of the YA scale.  Things for high-school won't help me or anything that really has strong adult and/or controversial themes.

Sometime soon, my reviews will kick off with thoughts on the first book of The Hunger Games.  See you then!