BookRags Blog

November 6, 2018November 6, 2018

Why Exercising Your Right to Vote Matters

Your right to vote.

Politicians often remark of civil participation, “If you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re probably on the menu.” This admonition sums up the importance of voting in the United States of America; it is the foundation of our democracy. And yet, this constitutional right was not always available to all people. Historically, Native Americans, African Americans, and women have been excluded from the process and in some places, voting is still suppressed.

Over the last century, many have fought long and hard for voting rights. Still, many citizens today choose not to exercise this prerogative, despite overwhelming evidence that voting has a profound impact on legislative policies that affect the distribution of wealth and our quality of life. The following fictional and historical books delve into the struggles, controversies, and stakes involved in casting a ballot in America.

Election

It’s high drama at a New Jersey high school where the political process during a student election goes awry. Election, by Tom Perrotta, is a fictional story that explores important themes such as Social Darwinism, justice, and hypocrisy that are often the focus of modern political elections. The idea of Social Darwinism is appropriately applied to the cutthroat world of politics where the novel’s main characters—teachers and students alike—manipulate and take what they think they are entitled to at the expense of others. Justice eventually catches up to a teacher whose actions and schemes undermine and betray his role as an educator. His co-conspirator and student nemesis must face the consequences of their actions as well in this risky quest for power.

America: A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction

Comedian, Jon Stewart, takes a satirical look at the failure of American culture and its political institutions in the book, America: A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction. Stewart explores the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government and how each have become corrupt in various ways. Stewart starts by arguing that the executive branch, which was intended to have limited power, has overreached its authority. He then mocks the legislative branch for how it is influenced by special interest groups, which ultimately alters the substance of bills before they become law. Finally, judges are charged with being partial to ideologies inconsistent with the values of the American majority. Since these three branches of government fail to function as they were intended, they have failed to promote the common good.

Dark Money

In Dark Money, Jane Mayer explains how corporatization of politics, oligarchy, and fear are the tools special interest groups use to garner votes. While it’s a commonly held belief among the electorate that most politicians are corrupt to some degree, the financing of elections by the super-rich is not as commonly understood. Mayer uncovers how the nation’s richest oligarchs used their wealth to bankroll think tanks, philanthropies, educational institutions, and newly formed political movements to shift society’s political ideology from the ground up. In a representative democracy, elected officials are supposed to champion the interests of their constituencies. Instead, Mayer reveals how politicians, enabled by wealthy contributors, now disproportionately represent the profit margins of big business, at the expense of the middle class and poor in America.

Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72

Renegade journalist Hunter S. Thompson gives a self-deprecating and subjective account of his coverage of a presidential campaign in Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72. His observations of the media are revealing as are his scathing accounts of politicians’ tricks of the trade used to court the toughest votes. Always in a tense and symbiotic relationship, politicians tend to view journalists as pigs hungry for any truth or falsity they can print, while journalists likewise view politicians mostly as liars and thieves. Thompson brutally deconstructs the voting populace, including the youth vote which is historically underrepresented. Ultimately, Thompson’s rock-n-roll style of journalism coalesces with American politics to reveal emerging cultural trends.

A Testament of Hope

Martin Luther King, Jr., fought tirelessly and nonviolently for Civil Rights in the 1950s and 1960s to gain equality for African Americans. These rights included equal access to housing, education and employment opportunities; freedom from discrimination; and the right to vote. In A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., King shows how only a small percentage of African Americans at the time were allowed to register. Many Southern leaders feared that if African Americans exercised this constitutional right, they would become a powerful tool for change. Brutality, abuse of laws, complex voting registration, and literacy tests prevented many African Americans from voting. King proposed change through automatic voter registration requiring only basic details from the applicant; abolition of any literacy tests; the application of registration laws to all levels of government; registrars appointed by the president; and versatile laws affecting the South and North. Eventually, these struggles lead to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, or religion; required equal access to employment and public places; and enforced the right to vote and desegregation of schools.

You Want Women to Vote, Lizzie Stanton?

Women were not allowed to vote in the U.S. until 1920. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, mild-mannered American suffragist who pioneered the women’s rights movement, was one of many who stood up to this injustice. She endured harassment and threats on her life while setting the tone for public debate on civil liberties for women beginning in the 19th century. This unassuming activist compared women’s lives and their lack of empowerment to those of slaves. She gave many speeches on the controversial movement and wrote others that were recited by Susan B. Anthony, who was put on trial for illegal voting. Only after decades of courage and activism was the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified.

The Constitution of the United States

The Constitution of the United States, written and signed in 1787, is a beautifully crafted document describing the fundamental characteristics of American governance. In the Preamble, the founding fathers justify the need for a representative democracy:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Now in 2018, we are the “Posterity” referred to by these men and as such have a duty to uphold our inherited rights. These include the 15th amendment, which gave citizens of all races the right to vote, in 1870; the 19th amendment, which established the right to vote regardless of gender, in 1920; the 24th amendment which prohibited states from denying the right to vote due to delinquent taxes, in 1964; and finally, the 26th amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18 years old, in 1971.

The right to vote is a privilege we enjoy today because many Americans have fought to protect it. Preserve it by clicking here to register to vote!

October 23, 2018October 24, 2018

The Scariest Story Settings in the World

Ever wonder where horror writers find inspiration for their most frightening novels? Well, search no more. We’ll guide you on a journey to the creepiest ends of the Earth and show you the scariest story settings and places only the living fear.

Fengdu Ghost City

Fengdu Ghost City, referenced in the apocalyptic zombie novel World War Z, by Max Brooks, is where the King of Hell and its gates reside. In the novel, the Three Gorges Dam on China’s Yangtze River was taken over by zombies resulting in the dam bursting and killing thousands of souls downriver. This curse was unleashed to punish the living for building this massive structure and flooding the sacred city of the dead upriver years earlier.

In reality, by 2002, portions of the ancient site and scary story setting were preserved and relocated to higher ground to avoid being completely deluged upon completion of the dam. The Gate of Hell still awaits anyone brave enough to visit the vast complex of temples, shrines, and hideous statues torturing the dead. If you want to explore the underwater portion of ancient Fengdu, dive into the underworld of the abyss at your own risk. The dead await you in their watery graves.

Oak Hill Cemetery

Lincoln in Bardo, by George Saunders, is based on a true story of the death of William Wallace “Willie,” the son of President Abraham Lincoln, in 1862. The President makes several visits to the mausoleum locked behind an iron gate at Oak Hill Cemetery, in Washington, D.C., to grieve the loss of his son, who died when he was only 11 years old. Spirits surround them both as Willie descends deeper into a state of limbo, delaying his transition into the afterlife.

Over the centuries, the cemetery has been host to many other famous residents and departed spirits who reportedly do not rest in peace. Several white horses have been observed near John Van Ness’ tomb. Other headless apparitions haunt the garden cemetery regularly, making this one of the scariest story settings.

Akershus Fortress

The Scandinavian town of Oslo, Norway, is the mysterious setting for the fictional novel, The Snowman, by Jo Nesbø. The horrific story follows detective Harry Hole’s race to catch a serial killer who stalked and murdered women who had extramarital affairs that resulted in children being born with hereditary illnesses. Not far from the penthouse of character, Arve Støp, owner of the magazine Liberal, is the infamous Akershus Fortress.

This medieval castle is one of Europe’s most terrifying former prisons. Many locals believe it is haunted. This infamous landmark suffered several fierce sieges since the Middle Ages, including Nazi occupation during World War II, when several captives and traitors were executed. The most famous residents today are the apparitions of a woman and demon dog who wander the castle grounds.

Catacombs of Paris

The Catacombs of Paris are home to a diabolical coven of vampires in the novel, An Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice. Louis’ adopted daughter Claudia meets her unnatural end here at the hands of the coven. The distraught father later gets his revenge by burning the unholy beings while they rest deep within the catacombs.

The catacombs beneath the city of Paris are actually the final resting place for the skeletal remains of over six million people. You can see the departed stacked on top of each other in a ghastly display of mortality within this labyrinth of horrors. The underground network of tunnels was used to ease the problem of the city’s overflowing cemeteries in the 18th century. Tourists and the dead alike are always welcome.

The Witch House

The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a dramatic play based on the true story of the infamous Salem Witch Trails that took place in the early 17th century. The story follows John Proctor’s pursuit for justice as he and others stand falsely accused of the crime of witchcraft.

The Witch House in Salem, Massachusetts, is the last site still standing in this small New England village that was associated with the trials. By the time the mass hysteria subsided in this cruel chapter of colonial American history, 20 men, women, and children were tried and executed. The home belonged to Judge Jonathan Corwin. This witch investigator was part of the panel that condemned the majority of the accused to their cruel deaths—mostly by hanging. Now the museum hosts visitors worldwide, including the ghostly voices of children who still can be heard within its haunted walls.

Murder Castle

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness in the Fair That Changed America, by Erik Larson, is the true story set in the backdrop of the spectacular 1893 World’s Exposition, where over 200 grizzly murders took place. Near the Chicago Exposition Grounds, on the corner of Wallace and 63rd Streets, H. H. Holmes built his “murder castle” (which he named the “World’s Fair Hotel”) to satisfy his obsession for killing.

Holmes began his murdering spree before the fair opened. He would seduce women before he killed them and their children. It was suspected that he took the innocent lives of approximately 200 men, women, and children by the close of the exposition. However, the courts could only prove nine killings.

Although this scary story setting no longer exists, there were numerous reports of supernatural activity before the building was torn down in 1938. The castle’s former caretaker reported that the house was haunted before taking his own life after months of suffering from hallucinations.

Lake Shawnee Amusement Park

In the tale Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury, strange happenings occur when the carnival comes to town. The fictional story follows two thirteen-year-old boys named Jim and Will, who discover the evil that lurks at Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show. A variety of bizarre transformations occur, many of them connected with the carousel ride. It seems to have the power to turn adults into children and children into adults.

People of all ages are strangely drawn to weird amusement parks, unaware of the dark consequences that lurk in every dimly lit tent or poorly maintained ride. The age-old troupes of creepy clowns, fortune tellers, and strange potions are all suspect, but the real dangers are much worse. Horrific deaths by electrocution, fires, and derailed roller coasters are the most hazardous. So are the spirits of several accident victims believed to still haunt the Lake Shawnee Amusement Park in West Virginia. Even though it’s been closed since the late 1960s, the rusted rides still remain. They serve as a ghostly reminder of the perils that await carnival goers anywhere one comes to town.

Old Dutch Burying Ground

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving, follows the story of a school teacher pursuing his love interest in a small secluded town in New York that was settled by the Dutch. His plans are thwarted by a Headless Horseman who is believed to be a soldier beheaded by a canon during the Revolutionary War. The ghost runs nightly in search of his head, always returning to the buried body in the cemetery by daybreak.

The cemetery referenced in the book is the Old Dutch Burying Ground in Sleepy Hollow, New York. It’s where some of the oldest graves of European settlers can be found in the United States. Some of the famous bodies buried there include Carnegie, Rockefeller, Chrysler, and the author, Irving.

Visitors often report whispers from the mausoleums and the woods beyond this scariest story setting. Some speculate it’s the apparition of a decapitated soldier who was found and later buried in the cemetery during the Revolutionary War. Irving’s Headless Horseman was based on this unlucky casualty of war. Go for a midnight stroll through the graveyard if you dare.

The Stanley Hotel

A boy’s perception and a possessed hotel interact with deadly results in the novel The Shining, by Stephen King. Five-year-old Danny Torrence and his parents, Jack and Wendy, are spending the winter at a resort high in the Colorado mountains. As Jack becomes more and more obsessed with the hotel, he becomes its possession. He even tries to follow through with its demand to kill his wife and son. It is the hotel’s one weak spot, its aging boiler, that allows Danny and his mother, along with his friend Hallorann, to get out of the hotel without becoming its victims.

According to King, he was inspired to write the disturbing novel after he and his wife spent the night at The Stanley Hotel, in September 1974. They were the only guests because the staff was in the process of closing down the seasonal vacation spot for the winter. That night he had a disturbing dream about his young son running and screaming down the halls of the hotel. After he woke up shaking he decided to write the book about a possessed writer.

Tourists are encouraged to visit the historic hotel that opened in 1909 and still hosts a Shining Ball on Halloween. Guests often request Room 217 referenced in the novel. An early check out time is expected.

October 2, 2018October 8, 2018

Why Tiny Is So Big

Whether it’s tiny houses, miniature books, bite-size burgers, small airplane seats, or mini cars, we are obsessed with all things teeny. Sometimes the world feels like it’s getting bigger, while everything seems to be shrinking around us. At one time or another we have all been expected to make a huge impact with very little, in which case courage, resourcefulness, and quality-over-quantity must prevail. The following books feature small objects of greatness where tiny has never been so big.

The Miniaturist

The protagonist in The Miniaturist, Nella, navigates her way through betrayal and self-discovery in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. Mystery surrounds the newly married woman as she hires an unknown miniaturist to craft tiny objects for her wedding gift: a lavishly ornamented cabinet that contains an exact replica of her house. The items Nella receives from the anonymous miniaturist represent various conflicts throughout the novel. The dolls reflect the puppetry of manipulation and control that dominates her in-laws’ relationships. A piece of marzipan symbolizes both the sweetness and innocence of the childhood she left behind. The small cradle conveys her sexless marriage to her gay husband and a prediction that there will be a child in her house. A miniature wedding chalice commemorates the married life she aspired to and a symbol of hope that she and her husband may still live out the ideal life of a bride and groom.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

In this classic children’s book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice follows a rabbit hole into a strange world where she shrinks herself with a potion then encounters tiny objects that alter her existence. Her journey into a miniature realm begins with a tiny door located behind a curtain in a long hallway. It can only be opened with a tiny golden key. It is an entrance way to the garden. A bottle marked “Drink Me” appears on the little glass table as Alice is trying to get through the tiny door. She drinks its contents, which make her shrink to a height of 10 inches. Once through the door, eventually, she finds another little bottle in the White Rabbit’s house. It has no label at all; however, when Alice drinks it, she immediately grows almost too large to fit in the house. When she fills up the Rabbit’s house and prevents him from entering, he and his neighbors throw pebbles at her. The pebbles turn into little cakes as they hit the floor. Alice eats one and shrinks to a height of 3 inches. Her adventure continues as she explores various spatial relationships and fantastical characters that ultimately teach her important life lessons about the value of knowledge and the burden of suppression.

The Hobbit

Bilbo Baggins is a Hobbit, a small creature half the size of a man who has the courage of a giant. He is invited on an adventure by Gandalf, a wizard, but is not interested in leaving the familiarity of his home. Bilbo has no desire to travel or increase his world view in the face of incomprehensible danger. Gandalf finally convinces the Hobbit to embark on the adventure in search of stolen treasure that will change him into a hero by the end of the journey. Early in the tale, Bilbo finds a magic ring that makes him invisible. This ability helps him become brave. He frees dwarves from spiders and wood-elves and faces a dragon with great courage. In the end, although Bilbo is profoundly altered by his journey, he is happy to live a simple life when he returns home again. The Hobbit is content with the knowledge and honor he has earned from making personal sacrifices and taking risks to help others despite his small size.

Gulliver’s Travels

Lemuel Gulliver, in Gulliver’s Travels, is a doctor and seafaring explorer who finds himself stranded on the island of Lilliput after a violent storm. He wakes up surrounded by thousands of miniature people, called Lilliputians, who have tied him to the ground. His presence as a giant in this land offers a new perspective on humanity to Gulliver, as he befriends these tiny humans. They slowly come to trust Gulliver and he is integrated into their culture helping them in an important military victory with neighboring Blefuscu. Gulliver is commended and named an honorable man at Lilliput. However, after several years there, he must flee the island when the government intends to arrest him for treason. Brobdingnag the second land to which Gulliver travels is the complete opposite of Lilliput—it is a land of giants. Now, he is the size of Lilliputians when compared to these inhabitants. Gulliver sees much of the grotesque aspects of humanity through his new microscopic view and is repulsed by many of their cultural habits. He eventually flees back to England for fear of his life and his desire to be with people his own size once again.

The Poetics of Space

The author of The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard, is a French philosopher who explores the subjectivity of the soul expressed in poetic imagery. Poetry uses images to provoke a response in the reader that seems to come from a forgotten likeness. The author observes that imagination is a major power of human nature. The certainty that poetic imagery is not subject to rules of logic does not diminish its reality. Poets are able to communicate images and stimulate values through the use of fantasy in miniature. Size in a fairytale is not absolute and the perspective of distance can make a dreamer feel larger or more able than he is. Often people choose to ignore the miniature worlds and objects in tales and miss their value. By allowing yourself to absorb the absurdity of small things we are transported back to the perspective of our childhood imagination.

In the Small

The book In the Small describes how mankind has created many dangers for itself including terrorism, nuclear weapons, economic collapse, and global warming. However, none will take a final toll on the world like its biggest threat: an eerie blue light that encompasses the globe known as “the Gaia Effect.” The Earth has become so enraged with the damage that man has caused, nature has no choice but to strike back with this phenomenon. Now, in a cruel twist, the blue light that she is emanating is targeting mankind and shrinking them to a smaller size so they are no longer a threat. People are now forced to adapt to their new size by wearing dolls clothes and creating weapons to defend themselves against creatures like cats and dogs that now threaten their existence. The survivors raid miniature museum displays and convert a normal-sized skateboard into a supply transport. Their new reality of being smaller than rats poses many more challenges and demonstrates the strength of the human spirit and its infinite drive to survive and adapt.

August 3, 2018September 27, 2018

Incredible Stories of Immigration to America From Around the World

Since the beginning of our young republic, the United States of America has been recognized as a nation of immigrants. America is a rich melting pot of people from every country around the world, where the freedom to become a citizen and pursue happiness, regardless of race or ethnicity, has served as the bedrock of our ideals. The following books share the struggles of immigrants who risked everything to be part of this unique democracy.

Enrique’s Journey

Enrique’s Journey, by Sonia Nazario, is the harrowing true story about a son’s desperate attempt to reunite with his mother after their separation. When the 17-year- mother leaves Enrique and his siblings in Honduras to find work in the United States, it is so she can feed her family. Enrique decides to search for her on his own despite great danger, traveling across Mexico with little food, and hopping trains even as he encounters violent banditos and corrupt officials. He finally enters the United States, but is deported several times before he is able to reside there permanently. This tale of courage, determination, and love depicts the challenges faced by immigrant children after being separated from their parents.

The Devil’s Highway

The Devil’s Highway, by Urrea Luis Alberto, is a non-fiction book that recounts the dangerous trek of 26 Mexican migrants crossing the United States border. The true story describes in tragic detail the challenges they face traveling through a desolate stretch of desert called the “Devil’s Highway” in order to avoid border patrol and tougher immigration enforcement. After getting lost, 14 of the travelers die from heat stroke or hypothermia due to the extreme weather conditions. This loss of life has a profound impact on not only the group of remaining migrants, but the Border Patrol that discovers them.

The Sun is Also a Star

The Sun is Also a Star, by Nicola Yoon, is a young adult novel about love, fate and immigration. The protagonist is Natasha, a Jamaican-American teen, who meets and falls in love with Daniel, a Korean-American, in New York, on the same day she and her family are facing deportation. Natasha resists being forced to leave the United States while Daniel is on his way to a college admissions interview at Yale. A romance develops between the two teenagers as their lives are about to drastically change. They focus on God’s plan for their own lives, even as they inevitably intersect with the lives of others.

Esperanza Rising

Esperanza Rising, by Pam Munoz Ryan, is an inspiring story about an affluent Mexican girl’s migration to the United States in the 1920s. Esperanza has an idyllic life living on a large and successful vineyard in Mexico until her father’s sudden death at the hands of bandits. Due to Mexican laws unfavorable to rich landowners, Esperanza and her mother are stripped of their property and forced to flee to America. Esperanza must come to terms with poverty and learn the importance of familial ties, as she faces the difficulty of earning a living in a migrant camp.

Dreams of Joy

Dreams of Joy, by Lisa See, takes place in the 1950’s and is told from the perspective of a nineteen-year-old, Joy, and her adoptive mother, Pearl. After Joy’s adoptive father hangs himself, she naïvely steals her college fund and runs away to China, hoping to find her birth parents and the true meaning of life. The communist government has sent her birth father, an artist, to live with peasants in the countryside. Joy travels with her father, Z.G., to their new home where they will work collectively among the peasants. Although Joy misses the conveniences of America, she enjoys her new home, eventually falling in love with a promising young artist named Tao. After suffering terrible setbacks, as well as becoming a mother, Joy discovers her true sense of identity.

Of Beetles and Angels

Of Beetles and Angels, by Mawi Asgedom, is the true story about Selamawi Haileab Asgedom, or Mawis, as he journeys from a refugee camp in Sudan to America, where he is eventually accepted to Harvard. As a young boy, Mawi is taken on a dangerous trek through the desert to reach a refugee camp in Sudan. Eventually, his family arrives in Chicago with the help of the World Relief Christian organization outreach. With the church sponsorship, Mawi’s family settles in a suburb where he overcomes the challenges of cultural differences, language barriers, and poverty. Through hard work and his father’s influence, he becomes a Harvard graduate.

What Is the What

What Is the What, by David Eggers, is based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who travels from Southern Sudan to United States. The author tells the story of Deng, mixing fictional and non-fictional elements. The protagonist faces many dangers during his journey through Africa, including disease, wild animals, and corrupt soldiers. While suffering from hunger and illness, Deng and many other refugees walk through his war-torn country to reach refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia. After eventually arriving in America, he is robbed and forced to contend with more challenges and hardships as an impoverished immigrant.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín, is a historical romance novel set in New York City. The fictional story follows a young Irish immigrant, Eilis Lacey, from her hometown of Enniscorthy, Ireland, to America after World War II. After arriving alone and settling in Brooklyn, Eilis dreams of finding steady work that was unavailable to her back in Ireland. Eventually, she finds a job at a department store during the day and begins taking evening classes to study bookkeeping in the evening. When she discovers a new love interest, a family tragedy strikes and she is forced to revaluate the new life she has created for herself in America. She must choose between independent self-discovery and the familiar life she left behind.

The Namesake

The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, is a novel that follows the life of Gogol Ganguli as he struggles to discover his place in the world as a second-generation immigrant in the United States. In his youth, he finds it difficult to deal with the unusual name and traditions his parents have passed on to him. However, as Ganguli grows older, he begins to appreciate what his parents sacrificed to move to America from India and the difficulties they faced in their adopted country. He eventually strikes a peaceful balance despite being caught between two conflicting cultures with very different social, religious, and ideological differences.

America Is in the Heart

America Is in the Heart, by Carlos Bulosan, is an autobiography about the Filipino-American poet and activist. It follows the author’s life as a poor young man growing up with his father on a farm in the Philippines, while his mother and siblings must live separately in another city to survive. His story continues with his migration to America in the 1930s, where he hopes to find a better life. Instead, the author discovers a land torn apart by racism and its exploitation of workers. Bulosan details the plight of migrant laborers and his struggles with inequality. Despite his negative experiences and difficulties, he grows to love America and has hope for a better future in his adopted country.

July 4, 2018July 19, 2018

Revolutionary Women Who Defied Authority to Win Freedom

The price of freedom was paid not only by our forefathers but those brave women who, through struggle and resistance, paved the way for all of us. This Fourth of July, let’s celebrate the courage of revolutionary women who refused to accept the societal expectations of their time; many are still fighting for freedom today.

Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai grew up in Pakistan advocating for the rights of girls to acquire an education in her homeland. Unfortunately, this revolutionary belief made her a target. In 2012, after leaving school, she was shot in the head by a member of the Taliban in retaliation for her support of young girls like herself in the pursuit of education. After making a full recovery in Britain, Yousafzai decided to stand up to the fundamentalist political group instead of living in fear or hiding. Her story brought world-wide attention and support from the United Nations, leading her to write about her ordeal in the book, I am Malala. It became an international best seller. Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 and continues to inspire through her activism and fight for the rights of children and women around the world.

Angela Yvonne Davis

Angela Yvonne Davis is an American author, professor and political activist fighting for the rights of the oppressed. In her youth she was one of the leaders of the Black Liberation movement and opposed the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. As a lesbian and black feminist, she supports gay rights and speaks out against racism and sexism, fighting against the exclusion and subordination of women and people of color throughout American society. In 1997, she co-founded Critical Resistance, an organization that works to abolish a corrupt private- and state-run prison system, which has been the focus of her activism in recent years. Davis continues to be an advocate for social and education reform to address homelessness and incarceration and has criticized the broken immigration system.

Bessie Head

Bessie Head is one of the most influential Botswanan writers of the 20th century. She was born to an affluent white woman and black servant in South Africa, in 1937. During this time, interracial relationships were against the law, so her life was controversial from the beginning. Head was raised in an orphanage after her mother committed suicide. Then, at the age of twelve, she attended an Anglican boarding school for black girls which changed her life. Introduced to the world of books, she eventually became a teacher and journalist. The heavy burden of being a child of an interracial relationship in apartheid South Africa took its toll, and Head decided to migrate to Botswana. She then focused on racial issues and politics, along with the psychological trauma of divisions among human beings. Growing up interracial, without a family, and eventually without a country, profoundly influenced her life and writing. Despite these challenges, Head tried to rise above divisions between human beings and resists being labeled “feminist,” “black,” “African,” or “revolutionary” writer.

Harriet Tubman

Born into slavery in 1822, Harriet Tubman endured cruel beatings until she escaped from her abusive slave owner in Maryland in her early 20s. Although she made it to the North, it was not long before Tubman returned to Maryland to help free her relatives. She subsequently began helping more slaves escape by setting up daring raids in the South and establishing links with the Underground Railroad. Tubman continued these efforts in South Carolina during the Civil War, creating a spy ring to transition former slaves into a new life of freedom. Eventually, after the war, she set up a charity in Auburn, New York, to aid neglected African Americans. She also joined the women’s suffrage movement before she died in 1913, concluding a long life of heroism and activism.

Deborah Sampson Gannett

Deborah Sampson Gannett was a Massachusetts woman who was born into hardship. At age 22 she changed her name to Robert Shurtlieff and enlisted into the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Initially she was detected after disguising herself as a male soldier, but eventually was able to pass herself off as a man and fight alongside male soldiers. Gannett was granted a uniform and military equipment, then marched with 50 other recruits to West Point, New York. Her secret was finally discovered by a doctor after she was wounded by a musket in Tarrytown, New York, in 1782. She received an honorable discharge, then went back to her home in Massachusetts. After being rejected by her Baptist church for impersonating a male soldier, she married a man and had three children. She faded into obscurity, but not before sharing her adventures on a speaking tour in 1802.

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft was a revolutionary English writer, philosopher and feminist in the late eighteenth century. Controversial in her time, she wrote about feminist principles and held radical views on the American and French revolutions. She is best known for her treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The book, first published in 1792, was a scandal as it advocated for women’s education and equality. It remains a fundamental text of Western feminism and continues to contribute to modern social thought. Wollstonecraft’s inspiration for her writings most likely stemmed from a difficult childhood of family instability. She endured her father’s alcoholic abuse towards her mother and frequent moves around England due to her family’s financial troubles. Eventually she married William Godwin, but then died of complications from the birth of her second daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. Her daughter was heavily influenced by her mother’s writings, carrying on her beliefs and penning the now canonical novel, Frankenstein.

Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette is best known for excesses that inspired a radical revolution. Initially, the young queen from Austria was well liked when she married the prince who would eventually ascend to the throne as King Louis XVI. However, after a reported affair, expensive spending habits, and military support for France’s enemies in Austria, the tide started to turn against the once-beloved queen. The royal couple’s popularity plummeted as they and the rest of the royal family bought expensive clothes and jewelry for elaborate celebrations, while many French people suffered in poverty. Accused and convicted of depleting the treasury and high treason by revolutionaries, she was condemned to die by guillotine like her husband in 1793. Both were buried in unmarked graves. The deaths of many more at court finally subsided with the end of the French monarchy and then the French Revolution that finally concluded in 1802.

Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc was a 17-year-old illiterate peasant who claimed to receive ominous spiritual visions in the early 15th century. Her courage and faith helped her convince the uncrowned King Charles VII of France to let her go to war against England. Her perseverance and tactical strategy turned the siege in France’s favor despite their having endured several devastating defeats at Orléans during the Hundred Years’ War. Eventually, after several engagements with the enemy, Joan of Arc was captured by the English two years later. She was tried, found guilty of being a heretic, and burned at the stake for the crime of crossing-dressing in male military clothing. Despite the damning label, she became known as a heroine and patron saint who changed the tide of a war that would eventually deliver her country out of the control of enemy hands.

May 8, 2018

Must-Read Books About Extraordinary Teachers and Their Journeys

In honor of National Teacher Appreciation Day on May 8, we share inspiring narratives about extraordinary teachers, acknowledging their remarkable experiences as educators and celebrating their tireless dedication to students.

The Miracle Worker

The Miracle Worker, by William Gibson, is based both on Helen Keller’s autobiography and the letters written by Keller’s teacher, Anne Sullivan. An extraordinary educator, Sullivan was able to connect with her young deaf and blind student in incredible ways. Sullivan taught Keller to better communicate despite Keller’s overwhelming disabilities, showing her the meaning of language by signing into her hand. This work took patience and a unique sensibility that others in Keller’s life lacked. The result was an incredible breakthrough that led to an enduring bond between teacher and student. Sullivan and Keller became lifelong companions and friends who would both find much success in literary and academic fields.

Dead Poets Society

Dead Poets Society is a fictional story about a group of high school boys at a wealthy private school and the English teacher, John Keating, who changes their lives. Keating challenges both the school’s conservative curriculum and his students’ expectations by exposing them to classic works of literature, showing them how literature applies to their own lives. He encourages them to be free thinkers and focus on their creative instincts rather than the regimented and traditional methods of studying. Part of their unconventional education involves the discovery of a secret club known as the Dead Poets Society that Keating established when he was a young student at the school. Inspired by their teacher, the boys revive the club’s traditions and meet in a cave, where their journeys of self-discovery lead to unintended consequences.

The Freedom Writers

The Freedom Writers Diary

The Freedom Writers Diary is a non-fiction book about a group of at-risk students who are taught how to journal by a first-year English teacher, Erin Gruwell. Inviting her class to draw inspiration from such books as Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, Gruwell helps her students write about their own tumultuous lives. The Freedom Writers Diary is told from different perspectives. The students’ entries are anonymous and are often conveyed in dramatic and emotional tones. As the students progress from freshmen to seniors, their writing styles mature and develop, demonstrating the way that their education has prepared them for college acceptance.

Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie is a true story about the lasting bond between a student, Mitch Albom, and his revered college professor, Morrie Schwartz. After college, Albom abandons his dream of becoming a professional musician and eventually works as a sports columnist instead. Years later, Schwartz, who is dying, reconnects with his former student who feels like a failure. Reuniting after 16 years, they decide to meet every Tuesday to share life experiences and memories. Over the course of several weeks both men reflect on life’s lessons and the natural occurrence of death as part of life. The professor’s final instruction to his student has a profound effect on both men.

To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher

To Teach

Bill Ayers’s book, To Teach, is a nonfiction book about education reform drawn from the author’s personal experiences. Ayers is known for his prominence as a political leader in Chicago and his support of President Barack Obama’s political career. His groundbreaking arguments about the flaws of the public school system have gained popularity over the years. He insisted that school systems are too bureaucratic and rigid, thus hindering the creativity and personal development of students. Believing that standardized tests risked de-humanizing students, he touted the importance of teachers instructing interactively and holistically, while respecting the individuality of each and every student.

Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher’s First Year

Educating Esme

Educating Esme, by Esme Raji Codell, is drawn from journal entries written during Codell’s first year teaching at-risk students at an urban school. Codell delves into her day-to-day observations and emotions as she attempts to help troublesome teenagers and navigate the expectations of dysfunctional parents and colleagues alike. Codell describes the difficulty of maintaining her optimism as she tries to reason with both administrators and students. Her enthusiasm is unshakable as she devises new and creative ways to battle the bureaucrats and motivate the children to learn.

Push

Push, by Sapphire, is a novel about a 16-year-old girl, Precious, struggling to overcome insurmountable odds with the help of her rigorous teacher, Ms. Rain, at a special school for abused girls. Ms. Rain supports Precious’ journey of self-discovery by helping her face the consequences of her parents’ sexual abuse and encouraging her to cultivate a positive self-image. With the help of her new support network, Precious begins to make major changes in her life and commits to following a different path. Under her teacher’s guidance she empowers herself to pursue an education and take better care of her son, refusing to follow in her mother’s tragic footsteps.

February 21, 2018May 8, 2018

Literary Soulmates Who Influenced Each Other Through the Ages

Jack London and Charmian Kittredge - Litarary Soulmates

Many romantics believe love conquers all, but can love also create legends? Possibly, especially if passionate partners also share a passion for the writing life. Here are 10 inspiring couples who wrote extraordinary books as literary soulmates while romancing each other—shaping not only their partners’ hearts but the most influential literary works of all time.

Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss

Jonathan Foer and Nicole Krauss

Authors Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss married in 2004 and were together for ten years. During the early years of this celebrated New York couple’s relationship, reviewers noted the similarities in the story lines of their second novels—Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Krauss’ The History of Love. Although the couple denies comparisons, both books do nostalgically address World War II and a child’s loss of his father. Krauss reflected on their relationship and parallels of their lives as literary soulmates: “First, it has to do with why we love each other, long before we ever get to the fact that we’re writers or write about similar things. I think we come from such a similar place. His grandmother survived the Holocaust. I think we intuited a lot of the same things in the silences of our childhood.”

Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt

Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt BookRags

Paul Auster, author of The New York Trilogy married another acclaimed novelist, Siri Hustvedt, author of The Blazing World, in 1982, after they met at a poetry reading the previous year. Both penned these and other important novels during their marriage. Among them was Auster’s Leviathan, in which he used the narrator, Iris, from Hustvedt’s earlier novel, The Blindfold. Reflecting on meeting his wife the first time, Auster playfully said, “Siri likes to say it was love at first sight, but it wasn’t for me. For me, it took about, oh, I don’t know, 10 minutes.”

John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion

Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne BookRags

Novelists John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion married in 1964 after a long courtship starting in the late 1950s. They wrote and travelled together throughout their relationship, constantly collaborating as literary soulmates. They edited one another’s best work, including Dunne’s highly acclaimed, The Studio and Didion’s Slouching Toward Bethlehem. In Didion’s autobiography, The Year of Magical Thinking, after Dunne’s death, she recalls her life with the famous author and the heartache involved in losing him and their only child. “We imagined we knew everything the other thought,” she writes, “even when we did not necessarily want to know…”

Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky

Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky BookRags

The first meeting between beat poet Allen Ginsberg and his lifetime love, Peter Orlovsky, in 1954, is a story of life imitating art. Ginsberg was in an old Victorian apartment in San Francisco when his host, the artist, showed him a nearly life-size painting, Nude with Onions. Ginsberg was immediately struck by the beauty of the boy in the painting. The model and young Adonis, Orlovsky, happened to be in the next room. He became not only Ginsberg’s life partner, but also the muse of his poetry; Ginsberg would publish the work that would define his generation—Howl and Other Poems—just two years after they moved in together

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas

Gertrude Stein Alice B Toklas BookRags

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Modernist writer Gertrude Stein announces the impossibility of its own existence; clearly one cannot write another’s “autobiography,” and yet this nonsensical task is exactly what Stein sets out to do. The novel playfully and arrogantly features the character of Gertrude Stein as one of the three “geniuses” whom Alice has met. At the same time, The Autobiography is absolutely affectionate in the way it pays tribute to the lovers’ lives among Parisian artists in the 1930s. The two frequently hosted other Modernist writers and painters, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and many, many others.

Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir

Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir BookRags

Renowned French philosopher and existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre wrote No Exit and many other literary works while in a life-long open relationship with Simone de Beauvoir, beginning in 1929. De Beauvoir is the accomplished author and feminist most famously known for her book, The Second Sex as well as The Ethics of Ambiguity. Although they never married, the writers were in a committed relationship for over 50 years. Beauvoir wrote of her companion as her soulmate, “We were two of a kind, and our relationship would endure as long as we did: but it could not make up entirely for the fleeting riches to be had from encounters with different people.” Still, they read and edited the other’s work with the same respect and love they had for each other.

Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West

Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville West BookRags

In 1928, Virginia Woolf famously based her novel Orlando on her lover (and fellow writer) Vita Sackville-West, whose son declared the work “the longest and most charming love letter in literature.” Less well known as a writer, Sackville-West curiously wrote a match-sized book for the Queen Mary’s dollhouse several years before the publication of Woolf’s novel; the tiny artifact has only recently been published as a life-sized book. The story was one of 200 “volumes” housed in the dolls’ house and featured a “sprite,” a mischievous time traveler, who donned the fashions of various historical epochs. In Woolf’s novel, Orlando likewise moves fluidly through time, shifting easily between genders and among costumes. So while literary history believes Sackville-West to be the basis for Woolf’s novel, Orlando likely has a source in the dollhouse book.

Jack London and Charmian Kittredge

Jack London with Charmian Kitteridge, BookRags

Jack London was a prolific writer, penning numerous classics, including White Fang, that were based on his real-life adventures as a seafarer and gold prospector in Alaska during the late 1800s and early 1900s. His mistress turned wife, Charmian Kittredge, was his typist and editor. She helped London meet his deadlines by organizing his work after his morning ritual of typing 1,000 words per day. We know much about London from her daily diary entries. Kittredge was not only his inspiration but constant companion on sailing adventures across the Pacific Ocean. She also accompanied him on his travels by train on lecture and book tours throughout the United States, in the early 1900s. They had a true passion for each other. London enjoyed her spirit for adventure and lust for life that matched his own. In a love letter to her, he proclaimed those sentiments: “But You, You, who are so much more, who know life and have looked it squarely in the face, who are open-eyed and worldly wise, and mature in thought and knowledge.” In another letter he expressed, “Dear, sweet Love, you are mine, I am yours.”

Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barret Browning

Elizabeth Barret Browning and-Robert Browning BookRags

Victorian poets Robert Browning, author of My Last Duchess, and Elizabeth Barret Browning were married in secret, in 1846. Their dedication to each other and their craft were shared in countless letters and noted by close friends. They produced significant work during their passionate relationship as literary soulmates that included Barret Browning’s Aurora Leigh and Sonnet XXIX. Her most famous Sonnet 43, in Sonnets from the Portuguese, was written for her husband with the famous opening verse, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

Peter Abelard and Heloise d’Argenteuil

Abelard and Heloise BookRags

Peter Abelard was a medieval scholar from the eleventh and twelfth centuries who wrote numerous works on philosophy and theology. The love affair between him and his student Heloise d’Argenteuil—an intelligent writer, scholar and feminist—had serious consequences for them both. Although they were married in secret and had a son together, they were ultimately forced apart by Heloise’s uncle who had Abelard castrated for not fulfilling his marital obligations to his niece. After the couple separated, she became a nun and he a monk in separate monasteries. They continued their love affair through correspondence—in The Letters of Abelard and Heloise—expressing their deep feelings for each other and regrets. Despite her dedication to the church, Heloise could not deny her longing for Abelard as expressed in one of her letters: “In my case, the pleasures of lovers which we shared have been too sweet—they cannot displease me, and can scarcely shift from my memory. Wherever I turn they are always there before my eyes, bringing with them awakened longings and fantasies which will not even let me sleep.”