Definitely Some Pants on Fire

Expecting to find that there were some nuggets of folkoric myth which have been debunked (or, perhaps, that social pressure has squashed since the dark ages of my schooling), I was eager to read this book. I love discovering "fun facts" and righting my knowledge base, shaky as it is. But once I dove (dived?--perhaps another book I need to read) in, I was jarred by the absolute and unapologetic fictional account of our "history" that we've all been spoon-fed. Okay, not all of us. There are some people arguably who have a private or home-school curriculum that gets things right, but the textbooks used by public schools just don't, and there is seemingly no effort to do so, because that might tick some people off. So basically, history is being taught the way a large portion of our (conservative) citizens wish it actually were, and so there you go. Doesn't matter if it happened that way, as long as it sounds good. Gosh, all my life I'd heard about the educational brainwashing that went on in communist countries . . . um, not so different here, folks. "Heroification" is the word author James Loewen uses, and it's an appropriate one. I actually found this book very difficult to read, and had to do so in small chunks because it was too disheartening. Nevertheless, I do think it's a very important read for any teacher, parent, or politically savvy member of society who doesn't want to continue with the fable that has been passed as our official story. I get it--no one likes to admit they were wrong and that they need to change. But the bottom line is that if we don't do just that--face up to our wrongdoings and do better next time, or at least try--we will lose that job, that marriage, that relationship with our kids, or maybe even our democracy.

A Diamond in the Rough

After a trip to Abilene, my kids found this book and chuckled when they gave it to me, wondering if it would stand up to the rigors of my post-reading critique. My copy is an ARC, with cover art that looked very amateurish to me. Let's just say that faced with this, my expectations were quite low. Nevertheless, this author can write! I was drawn in to the three intertwining stories of the female protagonists, two women and an adolescent girl. The stories held up, the plot moved along, and I would most definitely read another book by author Dare DeLano. I would, however, recommend a new cover design.

Ominous

This author's wise and unbiased research into the happenings of Charlottesville and the January 6 riot are impressive. That a team would so gallantly take on the task of analyzing both of those horrible events, piece by piece, to discover where things went wrong, is admirable and gives one hope. That is, until you realize that sometimes those in power are not in search of ways to thwart wrongdoing, but rather the ones perpetrating it.