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Out of Time: Kage Baker, Connie Willis, and Groundhogs Day

21 Jan

A popular thought experiment is to decide where you would like to travel in time (my top three would be: back to see the dinosaurs, Victorian England, or a future moon colony on Mars).  Elements of time travel have been used in classic works like Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine.  Right now we have the hugely popular Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon and the continuing phenomenon of Doctor Who.  So if you are like me and can’t get enough of the “wibbily wobbly timey wimey” stuff as David Tennet’s Doctor would say, check out time travel works by two of my favorite Science Fiction Authors and my favorite time travel movie, Groundhog Day.

Kage Baker’s The Company Series

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Kage Baker is one of my favorite authors.  She unfortunately passed away too soon in January of 2010 at the age of 41.  Some of the unfinished works she left behind were published after her passing, but I’m sure she had many more amazing works in her.  We are, however, lucky that she concluded her excellent science fiction series The Company.  The novels chronicle the tales of cyborgs who are created when members of Dr. Zeus Inc (or “The Company”) travel back in time and grant immortality through technology to children who would have been killed at a young age.  The operatives’ mission is then to live forward in time and to preserve objects of art and endangered species for future generations.  The company’s efforts are not simply altruistic though and these efforts create a vast fortune for the organization in the future.

The first book, The Garden of Iden, is set during Renaissance England and centers around Mendoza, a new operative who has just come of age and is on her first mission.  She is trained as a botanist and because she had to live through the Spanish Inquisition during her mortal life she expects to want nothing to do with the regular humans around her, but that changes when she meets the passionate Nicholas Harpole, Sir Walter Iden’s secretary who also resides at the estate where Mendoza has been stationed.  This book packs inside a love story, a coming of age tale, science fiction, and historical satire.  The series in later books continues to explore in greater depth the mysterious Company and follows the stories of a variety of the operatives; the next novel in the series focuses on Mendoza’s mentor and father figure, Joseph, but fans of Mendoza will be pleased to know that she reappears throughout the books.  She plays a pivotal role in the last Company novel, The Sons of Heaven, which reveals what happens in July 9, 2355 when all transmissions from Dr. Zeus to its operatives mysteriously stop.

Connie Willis’ Time Traveling Historians

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Connie Willis is another favorite author of mine.  She has written several time travel books that while not a “series” all take place in the same alternate universe: Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Blackout, and All Clear.  Willis first wrote about her time travelers in her short story Fire Watch set during the Blitz, which is available in several short story collections available at BCCLS libraries including The Best of Connie Willis, The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories, and Fire Watch.  The stories feature historians who go back in time to study history from a first-hand perspective.  The time travelers are generally prevented from making alterations to history since the equipment will not function or send them to a different time than originally selected if it will cause an alteration in history or a paradox.  This leads to some of the drama since the historians may not be fully prepared for the situation they encounter, this is especially true of my favorite of her works Doomsday Book, which is set during the Middle Ages.  Within Doomsday Book there is an interesting parallel between the Influenza outbreak that is occurring in the future with the bubonic plague that is happening in the past; the story feels very relevant today with the recent Ebola outbreak.  To Say Nothing of the Dog: or, How We Found the Bishop’s Bird Stump at Last, is much lighter and more comedic in tone than the other novels.  Jerome K. Jerome, whose Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog, inspired the title of the work makes a cameo appearance in Willis’s work.  Although the books are set in the same universe and contain a few of the same characters, in general the books do not need to be read in any order and can be enjoyed individually, with the exception of Blackout and All Clear which were intended as a two volume work set during World War II in England.  Blackout definitely leaves the reader hanging, so you may want to check out both books at once so you don’t have to wait to learn what happens next; the six months I had to wait between them when they first came out seemed like an eternity without a time machine to jump me ahead.

Groundhog Day

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The movie Groundhog Day unlike the novels mentioned above doesn’t feature purposeful time travel, but instead features a jaded weatherman, played by Bill Murray who must relive the same day over and over and over again.  I’ve watched the movie almost as many times as Larry relived his visit to Punxsutawney, PA for Phil, the groundhog’s big reveal.  The redemption story and romance between Bill Murray’s Larry and Andie MacDowell’s Rita, are sweet, but it is the humor that makes this a repeat viewing favorite.  It is fun to see how Larry interacts with the town’s people each day and how gradually even if the day doesn’t change, he does.  For me if not exactly in storyline, in spirit it captures a bit of A Christmas Carol.  Tim Minchin and Matthew Warchus who created Matilda the Musical, are planning to adapt Groundhog Day as a musical this year.  I can see some very funny songs coming from the setup, but not sure how I feel about a singing groundhog.  Since Groundhog’s Day is coming up next month (February 2) it is the perfect time to check out this classic fun film.  And for a tasty treat while you watch, you could also celebrate in my family’s favorite traditional way with crepes.  In French tradition if you can flip a crepe fully over in one toss in the frying pan while holding a coin on Groundhog’s Day, you will have good luck for the rest of the year (and if you don’t succeed you are still lucky enough to have some tasty French style pancakes to eat).

-Written by Aimee Harris, Head of Reference

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Martin’s Children

7 Jan

January 15 is the 86th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, the legendary Civil Rights Leader. The Hoboken Library and other BCCLS libraries have countless books on Dr. King and his legacy.  However, it is even more interesting to read the stories of the people who were inspired by Dr. King to foment change in our country, or even those who predated Dr. King by fighting Civil Rights’ battles before the protests and demonstrations of the late 1950s and early 1960s.  In this list of books, I have assembled only a small sampling of books about people who actually put their lives on the line to bring about change.  Most of these books are aimed at slightly older readers, perhaps from fourth grade through teens, because the subject matter is often hard to explain to younger readers.  For these children, it is appropriate to focus on Dr. King and Rosa Parks, the most identifiable and most written about figures of the Civil Rights’ Movement.  However, slightly older readers can expand their reading to include people, often students of their own age, who showed incredible courage to bring about the necessary change to our country.

(Click the images for links to the catalog.)

The Girl From the Tar Paper School: Barbara Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil rights Movement, by Teri Kanefield.

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“And the children shall lead.”  This is the story of a Virginia high school student who led a 1953 strike to get her ramshackle “separate but unequal” school brought up to viability.  When local groups would not back her on this crusade, she became a driving force, through non-violent protest, in getting schools integrated so that African American students would attend schools of equal quality to their white counterparts.

Child of the Civil Rights Movement, by Paula Young Shelton.

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The daughter of activist/politician/UN Ambassador Andrew Young shares her memories of growing up in the Civil Rights movement.  She speaks specifically about experiencing Jim Crow laws as a child, when she could not enter restaurants and movie theatres patronized by white people.  She also recalls sitting underneath the family table as Dr. Martin Luther King and her parents planned non-violent action.  As a four year old child, Shelton was taken by her parents to the historical march in Selma, Alabama.

As Good as Anybody: Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Joseph Heschel’s Amazing March Toward Freedom, by Richard Michelson.

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Two great men, both religious leaders of their own people, led parallel lives that led them to reach out to one another at a particular time in history.  Rabbi Abraham Heschel had experienced, first hand, discrimination against Jews in Europe and learned from his father’s wisdom to, “Walk like a prince not a peasant.  You are as good as anybody.”  In different words and different ways, Dr. King learned and conveyed the same lessons as they walked, side by side, in the march in Selma, Alabama.

We Shall Overcome, the Story of a Song, by Debbie Levy.

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It started as a hymn sung in African American churches, but it became a mighty anthem and the song most associated with the Civil Rights movement.  The lyrics conjure the unity and determination of a movement: “Deep in my heart, I do believe, that we shall overcome someday.”

Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down, by Andrea Davis Pinkney with illustrations by Brian Pinkney.

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The husband-and-wife team join their talents to tell the story of the lunch counter protests of 1960 became a part of history.  Through well-chosen words and food metaphors, Ms. Pinkney recounts the action of the seed group of four students who sat, politely, at a luncheonette counter in a “white’s only” area and asked to be served as equals.

The Voice that Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights, by Russell Freedman.

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The premier writer of juvenile non-fiction tells the story of Ms. Anderson, a child of Philadelphia, who developed her amazing contralto voice in church choirs.  Discriminated against in the United States, she went to Europe and trained to be a concert artist but, when she returned to her own country, she was prevented from performing in many venues.  The most notable act of discrimination occurred in 1939 when Anderson was forbidden by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) from performing at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.  Championed by none other than Eleanor Roosevelt, the concert was moved to the Lincoln Memorial where Marian Anderson’s voice reached 75,000 people on the National Mall and thousands more through radio transmission.

The Power of One: Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine, by Judith Bloom Fradin.

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It took one woman to be an instrument of change.  This is the story of Daisy Bates who served as a mentor to the nine courageous young people who, under Federal guard, integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.  Despite death threats and personal harassment, Daisy and her group faced down a hostile community led by Governor Orval Faubus who blocked the doors of the high school to prevent the entrance of the Black students.

We’ve Got A Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March, by Cynthia Levinson.

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This is the story of the historic march on Birmingham told through the eyes and personal recollections of four people who participated.  Audrey Hendricks, Washington Booker III, Annetta Streeter, and James Stewart represented different aspects of the Black community, yet they came together to take part in this protest.  There were approximately 4000 young people involved in the protest, and 2500 of them were jailed for their participation.  The book also highlights the life of Fred Shuttlesworth, a compatriot of Dr. King’s whose work is less well known.

The Case for Loving, by Selina Alko.

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(This book will be published in 2015).  Until 1958, it was illegal for people of different races to marry in many states under miscegenation laws.  A Virginia couple who had married in Washington, D.C. and then returned to their Virginia home to raise their family, Richard and Mildred Loving were subsequently arrested for breaking the law prohibiting interracial marriage and became the test case in the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned these discriminatory laws and upheld their marriage as lawful.

The most amazing thing to me is that most of these books are far from ancient history.  Children can easily find older family members and members of their communities who can recall viewing the events of the 1960s on their small-screen television sets.  Meanwhile, it is important to understand the scope of the work that Dr. Martin Luther King and his compatriots carried out through books and films available through the library.

-Written by Lois Rubin Gross, Senior Children’s Librarian

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