library books! and others!

Fallout, by Trudy Krisher
Gen lives in the conservative beach town of Easton, North Carolina, in the midst of the peak of anti-communism McCarthyism and the most active hurricane season until 2005. Into her little world comes the ultra-liberal Wompers family, and she becomes Brenda Wompers's best friend. Forced to take sides during controversies that tear the town in half, Gen battles natural and social disasters, when the reunion must be caused by something as violent as a hurricane.

I live in a world where greenhouse gases might kill us in a few hundred years. Gen lived in fear of a nuclear explosion at any time, not to mention constant devastation by hurricanes. It is amazing that she was able to choose to love Brenda in spite of their differences, in spite of the fact that most of the town then branded her a communist. We should think harder about commitments that strong.
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Swimming to Antartica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer by Lynne Cox
At the age of nine, Lynne Cox swam for three hours during a freezing hailstorm, by her choice. Then, after swimming twenty-six miles across the Catalina Channel, winning multiple long-distance races, going around the Cape of Good Hope, and breaking the record across the English Channel at age fifteen, Cox decided that, during the Cold War, she would try to swim the Bering Strait. Big and Little Diomede, one Soviet and one American, stood across the border from each other less than three miles apart. The swim would be a peace-making gesture and research on swimming. After swimming the Strait and helping break the Iron Curtain, Cox set her sites on something even more outrageous: swimming to Antartica.

Inspiring. As a swimmer, it is especially motivating to me, but I think that anyone would be excited by reading this book. Cox was told when she was nine that she could swim the English Channel, and six years later she not only did it, but broke a record! And, involving even more resolution, she spent nine years trying to swim the Bering Strait. What is she doing now? What involves more than swimming for hours in thirty-four degree water?
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Greetings from Planet Earth by Barbara Kerley
Mr. Meyer asks Theo's class what makes earth special as the Voyager II is sent into space. This simple question changes Theo's life. Is it people? Is it animals? Is it art? Family? Technology? While he is trying to finish his assignment, Theo questions his home life. His father has been MIA in Vietnam for five years, and suddenly everything changes, and Theo wonders why his dad went to Vietnam in the first place, why he didn't come home, and most importantly, where he is now. In a year shaped by the golden record, Theo finds what makes us special.

It's one thing to have to deal with losing your dad, but then to find out he could have come back for five years?! Theo makes me realize how important family is.
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Blink: the Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
In Blink, Gladwell tries to answer three propositions: that decisions made quickly may be just as good as those made deliberately; that when such rapid thinking goes wrong, it is for a specific reason; and that first impressions and spontaneous decisions may be controlled. Thus, we learn why a man knew that a Greek statue was a fake immediately, even though it had been declared good by all the experts. We learn that on racial-bias tests a man who associated blacks with guns much faster than whites with guns was able to change his score drastically by thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela beforehand. Gladwell shows us that, as in the case of the Greek 'kouros', snap decisions may be made accurately, and, even more importantly, our wrong judgements that we make unconsciously can be changed by a few simple steps.

Some of these tests are scary. I don't think I'm racist, but even Gladwell, who is half Jamaican, scored badly on that test. I often think that instant decisions are of less value than considered ones, but often those spontaneous things come from a deeper level of our self, so quickly that we are unable to rationalize them. But we CAN change. Thinking of brilliant black people makes our tests agree with something we know to be true. Training policemen to have better instincts causes less bystander deaths. Screening orchestra auditions allows for a sudden equalization of genders in music. This is good news! Act on it! Read this book!