Howling Frog Books

Weapons of Mass Instruction: a Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling , by John Taylor Gatto Gatto is well-known as a former teacher who now speaks on anti-school themes. He taught in New York City schools for 30 years and won awards like Teacher of the Year; then he quit and started speaking and writing about his perceptions of the public school system, which he believes is nearly completely evil, deliberately designed to stifle human beings into conformity and subservience, and far too profitable for anyone in power to truly change. He's got some really good points. He'll make you think, and he's inspired many parents to homeschool their kids (Gatto is a major advocate of unschooling). He's just full of frightening statements from various influential people. Try this quotation, from Woodrow Wilson in 1909: "We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the ...

Demon Ex Machina , by Julie Kenner I found this series on the WTM discussion board; someone said she wrote books, and I wondered what they were, and it was this fun series, which answers the question of: what happens to Buffy the Vampire Slayer when she grows up, retires from hunting evil, and becomes a soccer mom? OK, Kate Connor is a retired Demon Hunter, but it's the principle of the thing. Kate is dragged out of her suburban retirement when demons show up in town, and this is the 5th book of her adventures, as she juggles carpooling, playdates, and ultimate evil. Fellow moms will relate. I don't want to discuss the storyline, since it would reveal way too much about how the series goes, so suffice to say that it's both funny and hard to put down. Read the series, and start with Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom. The Tartan Pimpernel , by Dr. Donald Caskie You gotta love the title! This was a really nice memoir by Dr. Caskie, a minister of the Scottis...

Warriors of God , by James Reston, Jr. Warriors of God is a double biography of Saladin and Richard I during the Third Crusade. I first saw it when it was published about 10 years ago but didn't get to read it, so I was happy when I ran across it a few weeks ago at the library. I must say I learned quite a bit about the Crusades. The book gives about equal time to Saladin and Richard and shows the conflict from both sides. It's no wonder Saladin is still considered such a hero in Arabic cultures; he was a good general and generally a decent man as well. He comes off a bit better than Richard, who was a great warrior and very dashing, but also greedy, bloodthirsty, and oddly vacillating at times. I like Reston's writing--he also wrote The Last Apocalypse , a neat little book about what Europe looked like in the year 1000 AD (last time everyone was expecting the apocalypse, since the book came out in 1999). This book on the Crusades is pretty lengthy and you ha...

The Bad Book Affair , by Ian Sansom (A Mobile Library mystery) I don't think the Mobile Library mysteries are all that well known, but they're fun to read, especially if you're a librarian. They center on Israel Armstrong, "Tumdrum's and possibly Ireland's only English Jewish vegetarian mobile librarian." Tumdrum is a tiny village in the middle of nowhere in Northern Ireland, and Israel, who is sort of a schlub, wants big cities and sophisticated conversation. Instead he runs the bookmobile. These are mysteries in the same sense as the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books are--there's a minor mystery, but really it's all about the characters and the life. But instead of being uplifting and generous, they're daft and funny. Israel is very like Arthur Dent, always out of place and 10 minutes behind the conversation. The mystery part has to do with the "bad books"--the books Israel has to keep under the counter so innocent children w...

The Children's Book , by A. S. Byatt I'm never quite sure if I really like A. S. Byatt or not. She's a good writer--one of the few modern novelists that I will read at all--and I do enjoy her writing most of the time, but she's also kind of pretentious. But I really wanted to read The Children's Book, which sort-of centers on a large English family whose mother is a writer of children's books. Her character is modelled on E. Nesbit, one of my favorite Edwardian children's authors. It's almost an ensemble novel; there is an enormous cast of characters. Most of them are Fabians (early British socialists). They are artistic, they read William Morris and Ruskin and like to talk about free love and Nature and paganism. As the novel starts, they are so naive and hopelessly clueless, it's sort of painful. You want to pat them on the head. It's as if they think wearing art linen and dancing in the woods will fix the world. There are darker undercurrents ...

The Last Days of Socrates , by Plato I must have read this in college, since I own a copy and there is a photocopy stuck inside, but I can no longer remember anything about it. Katie will be doing ancient history again next year, and I'm trying to prepare a bit by reading some of the texts she will need to know about. Our guru-book suggests that we try reading part of a dialogue aloud together--I'm not going to have her read the whole book! Anyway, it's not a terribly difficult text and I got through it pretty quickly. I enjoyed the first dialogue, the Euthyphro, and Socrates' self-defense speech the most. His debating style, or philosophical style--whatever you want to call it--is so generalized and abstract, I'm always wanting to argue back. Of course there is quite a lot about Forms. I suppose I should plan on reading more Plato, but on the other hand I just got a book about ancient rhetoric styles, and am thinking of reading Aristotle's writings on rhetoric ...

To School Through the Fields , by Alice Taylor It's hard to tell exactly when this memoir of childhood in the Irish countryside is set, but I think sometime in the 50's. The technology could be anytime from 1900 on, really. Taylor tells anecdotes from her childhood, loosely arranged around the calendar year. It's an enjoyable book and a fast read, with some good stories and some tragic ones too. Most of my reading energy right now is going into A. S. Byatt's new novel, The Children's Book . It's another really long novel, but much more interesting than The Swan Thieves. Still on the bloated side, I think, but at least she's good at it.