Outliers

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

This title was recommended to me by both a student and a colleague, so I couldn’t resist reading it, even though it isn’t my usual type of book.  In it, Gladwell tries to answer the question: Why do some people succeed far more than others?  Common knowledge states that these great successes are smarter and work harder.  This is wrong, according to Gladwell, who says “they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” He proposes a theory that a number of other factors are involved, including birth date, year of birth, cultural legacies and family background.

He looks at people as diverse as Bill Gates, Mozart and J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project which created the first atomic bomb. Gladwell asks questions like:

Why are Asians so good at math?

Why are the best ice hockey players born in January, February and March?

How is the education system in the United States unfair to lower income students?

While I don’t agree with all his conclusions, I have to admit that this book certainly made me think about some of the assumptions we make about success, hard work and cultural stereotypes.  I would recommend this book to students who like to think about what makes people successful and what roles stereotypes play in our lives.

The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

It is my guess that every reader of this book will have a strong emotional reaction to it.  This award-winning book made me so angry and sad, that I almost abandoned it a number of times.  It is the true story of a childhood written by journalist Jeannette Walls.  She and her two sisters and brother were raised by unique parents who Walls portrays realistically, but at the same time sympathetically.  Her father was an eccentric, brilliant, and alcoholic man, who couldn’t hold down a job, but whose charisma was so strong his children and wife were always his defenders.   In contrast, Wall’s mother was an artistic, free-spirit  who viewed the responsibility of a family as an inconvenience she refused to allow to interrupt her life.  When the children were very young, the family lived a nomadic lifestyle, travelling through the Southwest, usually living in the poor section of town when they settled for brief periods of time.  Eventually, they were forced to moved to the small coal town Rex Walls has left as soon as he was grown, living in a ramshackle structure that could hardly be called a house.  The four children had no indoor plumbing, no food most of the time, and little clothing, despite the freezing winters.  Even though the kids lived through poverty, hunger, and constant jokes and bullying from the other students at school, Walls never judges her parents, telling her story in a straight-forward, non-judgmental manner.  In fact, it is clear that all the children continue to love their parents, in spite of the neglectful, even abusive in my opinion, way they were raised.

For me this book was so difficult because my family has always viewed children as treasures, to be cherished and given as many enriching and positive experiences as we can afford.  To see children so completely neglected was hard for me to read, and impossible for me to comprehend.

I recommend this title to students who want to read about how strong and forgiving the human spirit can be.  It is the perfect choice for readers who loved  A Child Called It or  White Oleander.

Here is a short video interview with Walls you can look at when you’re not at school.

Picturing America books

The library is pleased to announce that we have received a grant featuring fiction and non-fiction books on the theme Picturing America. There are a total of 19 titles, including three titles in Spanish translation. The titles are wide-ranging and thought provoking, including books as complex as Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville to picture books like Sweet Music in Harlem by Debbie Taylor. A complete listing of the tiles can be found at the programs website:
Picturing America.

We have the books on the plexiglass bookshelves right by my desk when you come in the library. There are also very cool bookmarks you can take, whether or not you borrow any of the books. The goal of the program, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association, is “to encourage and strengthen the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture through libraries, schools, colleges, universities, and cultural institutions.” These books are a wonderful addition to our library, and are being prominently displayed along with coordinating bookmarks.