Attila by William Napier

For those of you who follow me on Goodreads, I'm sorry you have to read my review twice. I promise to make this one more in depth and relevant. For the rest of you, here goes.

If this book is any judge, Napier can write a decent historical fiction novel. Attila is the first of three novels about, you guessed it, Attila the Hun. And it's a really interesting book! I didn't really know anything about him, so this book was a good introduction. For instance, did you know it was Attila the Hun who finally brought down the Roman empire once and for all? And did you know that he was a "hostage"? Rome's way of securing allies was to trade youth from prominent families of the two nations. So Attila spent much of his youth in Rome while a Roman boy spent much of his youth with the Huns. This was done as security--if one nation turns on the other, they risk the death of their hostage.

That being said, I unfortunately can't recommend this book in good conscience. Napier has a particular love for the "f-word" that I just can't accept. As much as I would love to read the rest of the trilogy, I can't because I know he'll use it more and more throughout the trilogy as Attila grows up and goes into battle more and more. It's so disappointing, because Napier has a wonderful book other than that! And it wouldn't be that difficult to take the swearing out. He only has soldiers use it in battles and skirmishes. I know, I know, he's just using it to "stay true to his characters," but do you know what? I felt like he betrayed his characters by making them say those things. Each use of the word felt unnatural in the character's mouth. I felt like he was just using that word to stir people up and not because that's what his character would've said.

So, in the end, this great book is brought down. And now I have to find a different book about Attila the Hun to satisfy my curiosity on what happened to him.

Just So Stories for Little Children by Rudyard Kipling

I loved this book. That's all there is to it. Kipling has written a very cute collection of short stories telling how the world came to be as it is currently. Sure, it has a very heavy British Imperialist influence, but it's just so stinkin' cute that you can't help but love it.

My only problem with the book? Figuring out when I can read it to my kids without feeling bad about telling them blatant lies. Maybe if I get into the habit of reading fairy tales with my kids before bed I could slip this in as a collection of fairy tales. Because in all honesty, these stories are really the perfect model for the lies we all tell little kids when we're not ready to tell them the scientific truth about why some things are the way they are (or when we really don't know the answer).

The thing I love the most about the book? There's a clear cause-and-effect theme throughout the stories. You behaved in X manner, so now Y will happen to you. It's said out loud to the audience and in direct connection to the punishment that is usually meted out. I don't have any kids, but I imagine this might be a good way to introduce how a relatively short lived behavior might have long term consequences. If you have kids and you've read these stories since having kids, let me know if you think that works.

The saddest thing about Kipling for me is that I can only read one or two of his books before I have to read something else. I tried to start Puck of Pook's Hill, but I just couldn't do it.

The Wizard of Oz Series by L. Frank Baum

That's right, The Wizard of Oz was not the only book written about the wonderful land of Oz, it's a whole series with 15 books (at least 15 written by L. Frank Baum... his nephew took over the series after that and it's really not worth reading after the 15). After spending the last monthish reading this series here are a few things that struck me.

1) There are two types of books in this series. One type introduces new people into the land of Oz (this comprises most of the first half of the series), and the other type shows the characters fighting some evil force. All of the books deal with some misfortune, but a good handful have the people of Oz fighting the forces of evil and greed and destruction. If you want to go all academic (okay, okay, you talked me into it... I'll go there) you could look at the forces working to destroy the land of Oz and how they relate to problems in America at the time. Especially with greed... since Oz has no money and everyone loves each other it's a very good foil to the American capitalist system and how broken it was in the 1910s and 1920s when these books were written.

2) The land of Oz truly holds the answer to the majority of the problems in our world. How much better would the world work if there was no money and instead everyone was doing their best to help out their neighbors? People would go into professions based on their ability to help other people instead of the amount of money they would make. We would need very few laws because bosses wouldn't take advantage of their employees, businesses wouldn't take advantage of their customers, and individuals wouldn't take advantage of those around them. How much more would we be willing to give if we didn't question other people's motives? It reminds me of a story one of my professor's told towards the end of the semester last year.

There's a homeless man on the street asking people for money. One man stops, talks to the man, and gives him all the money in his pocket, a $5 bill, without passing any judgments on the man. Awhile later another man passes by, stops, talks to the homeless man, gives him $20 out of the $100+, but gives him a lecture on how he expects the man will only use this money to buy drugs or alcohol instead of food. Which man gave the homeless man more?

Although this story isn't the exact same as the situation in the land of Oz, I think that it shows the necessary step to achieve an Oz-like land--getting past our assumptions of people. If we could just quit assuming that every person is trying to take advantage of us, how much better would the world be? I believe that if we quit looking at people with suspicion they would rise to our expectations. And each individual would be happier because they would be looking for the good in people instead of the bad. The world could be a happier place just because we wished it so. You may call it wearing rose colored glasses in a dreary world, but I call it unpeeling the smog covering the world and revealing the techni-color landscape that is Oz.