Review: The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steven Sheinkin

This book is one from the Battle of the Books list for the school district where I am a librarian.  I have to write the questions for the competition for this book, so I picked it up to read.  I'm glad I picked this book, because it really opened my eyes to things I wasn't aware of, things I wonder how many other people are actually aware happened. 

This is a true story, based on 50 black soldiers who were accused of mutiny towards the end of World War II.  Now, I never realized just how segregated even the army was back then.  The black men were not allowed to actually go on the ships, or into the battles even. They worked on bases, had separate dorms from the white soldiers, and were only allowed certain jobs.  They couldn't even be promoted to officers in any way that would make them above a white man. 

This specific story is about a base called Port Chicago which is in San Francisco.  It was here that bombs and ammunition were loaded in order to go to the soldiers who were fighting in the war.  It turns out this was being done by the black soldiers.  And really, they had no training.  No one knew what was dangerous, although it was often wondered about how it might actually be.  So, there were no regulations, and no rules.  And no one there who might have been an expert on the actual bombs themselves.  It was so unbelievable to me, because the officers would even have their groups race and bet on which group would load the fastest.  Well, as you might expect at some point something is going to explode.  On July 17th, 1944, there was a huge explosion, and because everyone on the boat was killed, no one will ever know exactly what happened.  The whole port was destroyed. 

The black soldiers who weren't killed or severely injured were sent to another port to go back to work.  The ammunition was needed for the war.  But some of those men, 200 at first, were afraid to go back to working with the bombs after what had happened.  And they balked when they were first sent to do it again.  The basically said they would follow any order, other than they would not go load the bombs again.  They were threatened with being charged with mutiny, and even with being shot.  Some gave in, and went back to work. But 50 did not.  The book goes through their trial for mutiny. 

Of all the civil rights fights, this is one I'd never heard of.  As I read this, the way people actually thought about other people just because they were different?  My mouth just dropped open in shock.  I was appalled and so horrified.  Yes, I know things were bad, I'm not trying to pretend they weren't.  I guess I just never realized that people, who normally you'd consider pretty smart, could really be that stupid based on racism or prejudices.  I think things like this book, as well as fiction like The Help, are really important types of reads for people.  While there is still much unrest between people even today, to hear just how some people justify, or at least used to justify their beliefs is really eye-opening. 

Review: The City by Dean Koontz

First, thanks to Random House/Bantam Dell and Netgalley for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  Dean Koontz will always be one of my all time favorite authors.  And while a couple books ago I was a bit disappointed, that changed with the last one, Innocence, and now this one, The City, has totally won me back over.

I loved this story.  It was such a good story, and it moved along at the perfect pace.  There was plenty of suspense, and it was good to see things didn't happen quite the way expected, but in a way that was just as, if not more, satisfying.  There were still some of the major losses that you would expect with a Koontz story, people you loved, and hated to have to see disappear.  But then there were others that stuck around, even when you just knew, based on all the foreshadowing, that something horrible must be able to befall them. 

The main character is Jonah Kirk, or you might like his given name from his dead beat father, Jonah Ellington Basie Hines Eldridge Wilson Hampton Armstrong Kirk.  All names of famous musical artists, ones that Jonah's grandpa on his mom's side would be a big fan of.  His father did this to try to get in good with his wife's parents.  Didn't quite work, as Grandpa Teddy kind of saw it for what it was.  Fortunately for Jonah, he had the possibility of living up to that name with his own musical talent.  But at first his father didn't seem to want him to, or at least his father was afraid that his grandfather would turn Jonah against him.  Jonah's dad soon left, but then would come back.  Until one time that his mom caught him visiting the woman who lived in the apartment above them.  Then his mother knew it was time to be done with the man.  Now Jonah had some magical types of things that happened to him, as in all good Dean Koontz stories you would expect.  He was given a little charm by a cab driver that seemed to have good luck.  He had this woman he named Miss Pearl that would come up to him on very rare occasions and talk to him.  She might help him out, as she did the first time, helping him to find a piano at the community center that he could finally begin to learn to play on.  But other times she came when he was dreaming, and the dreams she gave names to the people in them, and told him whether they were dreams of things to come, or things that had already happened.  The people in these dreams would become a part of his life soon, but not in good ways.  One, the bad man that he saw the things from the past from, he wouldn't really come into contact directly much until the end of all this.  The other, the woman, he would come into close contact, and she was pretty scary. This story took place during all the Civil Rights unrest in the US.  And Jonah is a young, black boy.  He makes friends with a Japanese man that lives in the same apartment complex. Although he does go about it in a kind of self serving way.  He wants to enlist the man in his keeping track of this evil woman.  In the end they become really good friends, Mr. Yoshioka almost a bit of a father figure, definitely someone Jonah knew and loved as much as a family member. 

The group of characters in this book were all colorful and so easily loved or hated.  While there was no animal really in this story, somewhat unusual for a Koontz story, overall it still was a great cast of people to build a story around.  I think that the amount of background spent on most of the characters and storylines was perfect.  Maybe a bit more time spent on one side character, but what was learned through that branch definitely added to the story.  I can once again go out and announce to the world that Dean Koontz is one of my favorite, as well as one of the best authors out there.

A to Z April - H: Historical Fiction

So yesterday I discussed a quick list of "all" of the genres of book that there are, or that I mainly read from or think about.  Today I am going to talk about one that is often my favorite, historical fiction.  While I wouldn't say that I read a lot of historical fiction titles, the ones that I do tend to be really good and make me want to learn even more about that time period or historical figure.  So today I will share 5 of my favorite historical fiction titles, in no particular order.


1.   

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory is one that I probably only started because of the movie.  But the movie really got me interested and so I got the book and read it, and became even more intrigued with Henry VIII.  As always, the book was much better than the movie.

2. 

Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman is a book that I just finished this past week and loved.  I won't say too much in this post, because you can read my review HERE.  But it is a book about Hitler and his "friends" told from a girl who was a favorite family friend from the time when Hitler was first working to take over before World War II. 

3. 

Playing with Matches by Lee Strauss is also a book I read lately that was very good.  Like the last one I talked about, it took the German history of WW II and told it from the German point of view, as opposed to what we usually get from the Jewish survivors side.  Not that this is any better, I'm just saying it is a different and interesting way to read about that time period.  You can read my review of this one HERE. 

4. 

 

The Coffin Quilt by Ann Rinaldi is a recent favorite of mine.  While the Holocaust has fascinated me probably since I first read The Diary of Anne Frank, I have recently become fascinated by the Hatfield and McCoys Feud, thanks to the History Channel's recent movie.   You can read my review of this title HERE. 

5.  

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is one that I also am a huge fan of.  It is a time period that again I hadn't read much about, and only knew what little I feel I learned about it in school.  It is one that I decided to read before the movie came out, and fell in love with how great of a book it was.  And it is a movie that I feel they did a great job of staying close to the book.

Wow, as I finish this post I am just left thinking of all the ones that I wish I could list, because I guess there are a lot more historical fiction that I read than I thought.  What are your favorite historical fiction, or maybe do you have a period in history that you are fascinated with learning as much about as you can?

Reincarnation by Suzanne Weyn

Funny story, I took this when it was a stripped cover book at the store. Then bought it later at a school bookfair. So I was able to conveniently keep one copy at school to read at lunch, and then, when it turned out to be such a good read, I was able to read it at home as well.

This is the story of two, you might call them star-crossed lovers, people who keep meeting over time as they are reincarnated as different people in different times, and always something keeps them apart, or ends one of their lives right as things are about to start happening for them. It begins with the boy as a Neanderthal I'm guessing, and the girl as a Cro-Magnon. Then they are an Egyptian and a Nubian, then they come back in ancient Greece, and so on and so forth. Almost all the times we see them also seem to be either big historical times, or else very charged with some kind of racial tension. At one point the girl is even reincarnated as a guy, and the guy is reincarnated as a girl.

Fun story, and in the end, modern times, it seems as if they may actually get a chance to be together, although the story leaves off before we could possibly know for sure. But we are left with hope.