Thank You for Your Service
David Finkel, 2013
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374180669
Summary
A profound look at life after war.
The wars of the past decade have been covered by brave and talented reporters, but none has reckoned with the psychology of these wars as intimately as the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Finkel.
For The Good Soldiers, his bestselling account from the front lines of Baghdad, Finkel embedded with the men of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion during the infamous “surge,” a grueling fifteen-month tour that changed them all forever. In Finkel’s hands, readers can feel what these young men were experiencing, and his harrowing story instantly became a classic in the literature of modern war.
In Thank You for Your Service, Finkel has done something even more extraordinary. Once again, he has embedded with some of the men of the 2-16—but this time he has done it at home, here in the States, after their deployments have ended. He is with them in their most intimate, painful, and hopeful moments as they try to recover, and in doing so, he creates an indelible, essential portrait of what life after war is like—not just for these soldiers, but for their wives, widows, children, and friends, and for the professionals who are truly trying, and to a great degree failing, to undo the damage that has been done.
The story Finkel tells is mesmerizing, impossible to put down. With his unparalleled ability to report a story, he climbs into the hearts and minds of those he writes about. Thank You for Your Service is an act of understanding, and it offers a more complete picture than we have ever had of these two essential questions: When we ask young men and women to go to war, what are we asking of them? And when they return, what are we thanking them for?. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1955
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., University of Florida
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize; J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize;
Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism
• Currently—lives in the Washington, D.C. area
David Louis Finkel is an American journalist. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 as a staff writer at the Washington Post. He wrote The Good Soldiers and Thank You for Your Service. He is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow.
Finkel's book The Good Soldiers describes several months he spent in 2007 as an embedded reporter with 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, also known as the "2-16 Rangers," as they worked to stabilize a portion of Baghdad.
The logs of Bradley Manning's IM chats with Adrian Lamo state that Finkel had the video which was released as Collateral Murder by Wikileaks but did not release it. Finkel has never publicly disclosed whether he had the video or not. In a washingtonpost.com webchat, he said, "I based the account in my book The Good Soldiers on multiple sources, all unclassified. Without going into details, I'll say the best source of information was being there [in Iraq]." (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/20/2013.)
Book Reviews
This is a heartbreaking book powered by the candor with which these veterans and their families have told their stories, the intimate access they have given Mr. Finkel…into their daily lives, and their own eloquence in speaking about their experiences…The stories of the soldiers and their families portrayed in Thank You for Your Service possess a visceral and deeply affecting power…that will haunt readers long after they have finished this book
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times.
As he did in The Good Soldiers, Finkel absents himself from the narrative, immersing the reader in the quotidian life of soldiers and their families. Thank You for Your Service is elegantly reported, free of the entanglements of crusading self-aggrandizement on the one hand and, on the other, an overidentification with its subjects. Finkel refuses to pathologize soldiers, even as he concentrates on the 20 to 30 percent who have been psychologically damaged to some degree by their service in Iraq or Afghanistan…This is not—nor should it be—an easy book. But it is an essential one. Finkel refuses to gild the misery and ugliness of the last decade and the unpoetic aftermath of war with the kind of sentimentality that has so often clouded our thinking, not only about our military commitments but also about the veterans they produce
Elizabeth D. Samet - New York Times Book Review
(Starred review.) These soldiers have names and daughters and bad habits and hopes, and though they have left the war in Iraq, the Iraq War has not left them. Now the battle consists of readjusting to civilian and family life, and bearing the often unbearable weight of their demons.... [T]heir stories give new meaning to the costs of service.
Publishers Weekly
Finkel did an extraordinary job of explaining the Iraq War in The Good Soldiers.... Now he brings the war home, following many of the same men as they try to figure out how to engage again with both family and society.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Finkel delivers one of the most morally responsible works of journalism to emerge from the post-9/11 era.... [T]he breadth and depth of his portraits of the men and women scarred by the 21st century's conflicts are startling.... The truly astonishing aspect of Finkel's work is that he remains completely absent from his reportage; he is still embedded. A real war story with a jarring but critical message for the American people.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to get a discussion started for Thank You for Your Service:
1. What kind of hope do these soldiers have to develop a reasonably "normal" life given their lingering physical and psychological wounds?
2. What was the emotional impact this book had on you? What were your primary and secondary responses: sadness, anger, frustration, a sense of unfairness, guilt? Anything else?
3. Talk about the individual soldiers whose stories most struck you. Adam Schumann, for example: how did he change over the course of the war? What was his attitude going in and, after three combat tours, coming back about? Or Tausolo Aieti—what hope does he have in life?
4. What do we owe the men and women who return from the wars? In what way is society living up to its obligations...and in what way is it failing to do so?
5. What could be done better to help these veterans readjust to civilian life?
6. Are you related to any veterans? Are you yourself a veteran? How does Finkel's book resonate with your experiences?
7. Nic DeNinno continues to be haunted by the memory of breaking into a house, throwing a man downstairs, hearing a woman scream and seeing a baby covered with shards of glass—only to be teold later by his lieutenant that they'd "hit the wrong house." Nic feels, he says, "like a monster." Should he feel responsible for that mistake or others like it? What would you say to him if you were called upon to counsel him?
8. Talk about the urge many veterans have to commit suicide? What would you say to someone to dissuade him or her from taking his own life?
9. Are the two current wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, different from the other wars this country has fought? Why does it seem that so many veterans are returning emotionally or mentally shattered from these confrontations? Or are we simply more aware this time round of the damage that combat can do to the psyche?
10. What is Peter Chiarelli, vice chief of staff, told about the state of brain/neuroscience when it comes to helping victims of PSTD? How well does the underlying ethos of the military, its CAN DO! orientation, cope with the slow, even passive, pace of mental health recovery?
11. What do you predict for Adam and Saskia Schumann?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
Sheri Fink, 2013
Crown Publishing
576 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307718969
Summary
Pulitzer Prize winner Sheri Fink’s landmark investigation of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina—and her suspenseful portrayal of the quest for truth and justice
In the tradition of the best investigative journalism, physician and reporter Sheri Fink reconstructs 5 days at Memorial Medical Center and draws the reader into the lives of those who struggled mightily to survive and to maintain life amid chaos.
After Katrina struck and the floodwaters rose, the power failed, and the heat climbed, exhausted caregivers chose to designate certain patients last for rescue. Months later, several health professionals faced criminal allegations that they deliberately injected numerous patients with drugs to hasten their deaths.
Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting, unspools the mystery of what happened in those days, bringing the reader into a hospital fighting for its life and into a conversation about the most terrifying form of health care rationing.
In a voice at once involving and fair, masterful and intimate, Fink exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals just how ill-prepared we are in America for the impact of large-scale disasters—and how we can do better. A remarkable book, engrossing from start to finish, Five Days at Memorial radically transforms your understanding of human nature in crisis. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1968-69 (?)
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., University of Michigan; Ph.D, M.D., Stanford University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize-Journalism; National Magazine Award
• Currently— a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center,
Washington, D.C.
Sheri Fink is an American physician, journalist, and a reporter on subjects covering health, medicine and science. A 1990 graduate of the University of Michigan, she received Ph.D. and M.D. from Stanford University in 1998 and 1999.
Career
Dr Fink is a a senior fellow with Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and a staff reporter at ProPublica in New York. Her articles have appeared in a number of high profiled publications such as the New York Times, Discover and Scientific American.
She has contributed to the public radio news magazine Public Radio International (PRI)’s The World covering a number of topics including the global HIV/AIDS pandemic and international aid in development, conflict and disaster settings.
Her first book, War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival (2003), is about medical professionals under siege during the genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, published in 2013, is an account of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. The book is based on her Pulitizer Prize winning 2009 article published at ProPublica.org and in the New York Times Magazine.
Awards
In 2010, she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for her article about the deadly choices faced at New Orleans' Memorial Hospital during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. She also won a 2010 National Magazine Award for Reporting for the article and was a finalist for the 2010 Michael Kelly Award. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/19/2013 .)
Book Reviews
Although she had the material for a gripping disaster story, Dr. Fink has slowed the narrative pulse to investigate situational ethics: what happens when caregivers steeped in medicine's supreme value, preserving life, face traumatic choices as the standards of civilization collapse. This approach is a literary gamble, demanding more of readers than a standard-issue medical thriller would. But Dr. Fink...more than delivers. She writes with a seasoned sense of how doctors and nurses improvise in emergencies, and about the ethical realms in which they work.... Sheri Fink has written an unforgettable story. Five Days at Memorial is social reporting of the first rank.
Jason Barry - New York Times
Though not present during the disastrous days, [Fink] interviewed more than 500 participants, from hospital executives to family members, prosecutors and ethicists, recording their comments and descriptions so meticulously that her gripping narrative captures not only the facts of the situation, but the thoughts of her witnesses and the feverishly unfolding disorder, confusion and tragedy. Her choice of sentence structure, the almost staccato voice, and the starkness of style and language reflect the circumstances so well that the reader cannot help being pulled into the discordant rhythms of those chaotic hours…The tone is...visceral and very appropriate to the atmosphere created by the storm and its consequences. What we have here is masterly reporting and the glow of fine writing.
Sherwin B. Nuland - New York Times Book Review
Fink has done a masterful reporting job, and Five Days at Memorial is often engrossing, particularly those pages that take readers inside the hospital...Fink’s book is essential reading for anyone who cares about New Orleans, the breakdown of order in disaster zones, and medical dilemmas under crisis circumstances.
Boston Globe
A triumph of journalism...Fink re-creates this world with mastery and sensitivity, revealing the full humanity of each character. Unlike post-storm commentary that jumped to black and white conclusions, painting the doctors as heroes or villains, Fink’s narrative wades through the muck and finds only real people making tough choices under circumstances the rest of us, if we’re lucky, will never experience
Houston Chronicle
Every page gives evidence of meticulous research, thousands of hours spent interviewing, prowling the halls at Memorial, reviewing legal documents and transcripts...[Fink] offers no easy answers, no rush to judgment. But she does deliver an amazing tale, as inexorable as a Greek tragedy and as gripping as a whodunit.
Dallas Morning News
Fink’s descriptions of the flooded hospital, her extensive interviews with those who were there, profiles of investigators and study of the history and ethics of triage and euthanasia come very close to a full airing of how a disaster can upset society’s usual ethical codes, and how that played out at New Orleans’ Memorial Medical Center....Fink has written a compelling and revealing account.
Seattle Times
In this astonishing blend of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalism (Fink, who also has an M.D. and Ph.D., won the award for the investigative reporting on which this book is based) and breathtaking narration, she chronicles the chaotic evacuation of the hospital and the agonizing ethical, physical, and emotional quandaries facing Memorial nurses and doctors, including a nightmarish triage process that led to the controversial decision to inject critically ill patients with fatal doses of morphine..
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Fink’s six years of research and more than 500 interviews yield a rich narrative full of complex characters, wrenching ethical dilemmas, and mounting suspense. General readers and medical professionals alike will finish the book haunted by the question, "What would I have done?"
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [Fink] offers a stunning re-creation of the storm, its aftermath, and the investigation that followed.... She evenhandedly compels readers to consider larger questions, not just of ethics but race, resources, history, and what constitutes the greater good.... And, crucially, she provides context, relating how other hospitals fared in similar situations. Both a breathtaking read and an essential book for understanding how people behave in times of crisis.z
Booklist
Pulitzer Prize–winning medical journalist/investigator Fink War Hospital, 2003 submits a sophisticated, detailed recounting of what happened at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina. Fink draws those few days in the hospital’s life with a fine, lively pen, providing stunningly framed vignettes of activities in the hospital and sharp pocket profiles of many of the characters.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to get a discussion started for Five Days at Memorial:
1. To understand the pressures doctors and nurses faced, readers needed to know exactly what it felt like to be trapped in a sweltering hospital in a city that had descended into chaos. Do you think Sheri Fink does a good job of recreating those conditions?
2. What do you think of the behavior and decisions made by the medical staff at Memorial? Where you shocked by the lethal injections of morphine? According to Dr. Ewing Cook, "It was actually to the point where you were considering that you couldn’t just leave them; the humane thing would be to put ’em out.’’ What do you think?
3. What shocked, or disturbed, you the most? The actions of the staff? The unpreparedness (short-sightedness?) of the hospital? The horrific conditions everyone operated under?
4. How would you have fared under the conditions at New Orleans' Memorial?
5. What legal and ethical standards must doctors be expected to uphold in a disaster? Should they—or any professional—be held to the same standards that operate during normal conditions? In other words, is there a gray area in ethics when things go disastrously wrong?
6. In such situations as occured at Memorial, who should be saved first? Who should make those decisions?
7. Why did the local grand jury decline to bring charges against Anna Pou? Do you agree with its decision? To what degree should Pou be held accountable for her actions?
8. Ultimately, who is most responsible for the tragedy at Memorial Hospital? The hospital owners? The staff? The local, state, or federal government?
9. What lessons were learned from the hospital disaster at Memorial?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism
Naoki Higashida, 2007 (Eng. transl. 2013, David Mitchell, KA Yoshida)
Random House
176 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812994865
Summary
You’ve never read a book like The Reason I Jump.
Written by Naoki Higashida, a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, it is a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Parents and family members who never thought they could get inside the head of their autistic loved one at last have a way to break through to the curious, subtle, and complex life within.
Using an alphabet grid to painstakingly construct words, sentences, and thoughts that he is unable to speak out loud, Naoki answers even the most delicate questions that people want to know. Questions such as: “Why do people with autism talk so loudly and weirdly?” “Why do you line up your toy cars and blocks?” “Why don’t you make eye contact when you’re talking?” and “What’s the reason you jump?” (Naoki’s answer: “When I’m jumping, it’s as if my feelings are going upward to the sky.”)
With disarming honesty and a generous heart, Naoki shares his unique point of view on not only autism but life itself. His insights—into the mystery of words, the wonders of laughter, and the elusiveness of memory—are so startling, so strange, and so powerful that you will never look at the world the same way again.
In his introduction, bestselling novelist David Mitchell writes that Naoki’s words allowed him to feel, for the first time, as if his own autistic child was explaining what was happening in his mind. “It is no exaggeration to say that The Reason I Jump allowed me to round a corner in our relationship.”
This translation was a labor of love by David and his wife, KA Yoshida, so they’d be able to share that feeling with friends, the wider autism community, and beyond. Naoki’s book, in its beauty, truthfulness, and simplicity, is a gift to be shared. (From the publisher.)
Author Bios
Naoki Higashida
Naoki Higashida was born in 1992 and was diagnosed with autism at the age of five. He graduated from high school in 2011 and lives in Kimitsu, Japan. He is an advocate, motivational speaker, and the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction. (From the publisher.)
David Mitchell
• Birth—January 12, 1969
• Where—Southport, Lancashire, UK
• Education—B.A., M.A., University of Kent
• Awards—John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
• Currently—lives in County Cork, Ireland
David Stephen Mitchell is an English novelist. He has written five novels, two of which, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has lived in Italy, Japan and Ireland.
Mitchell was born in Southport in Merseyside, England, and raised in Malvern, Worcestershire. He was educated at Hanley Castle High School and at the University of Kent, where he obtained a degree in English and American Literature followed by an M.A. in Comparative Literature.
Mitchell lived in Sicily for a year, then moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught English to technical students for eight years, before returning to England, where he could live on his earnings as a writer and support his then pregnant wife.
Works
Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), moves around the globe, from Okinawa to Mongolia to pre-Millennial New York City, as nine narrators tell stories that interlock and intersect. The novel won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (for best work of British literature written by an author under 35) and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.
His two subsequent novels, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2003, he was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. In 2007, Mitchell was listed among Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.
His next novels were Black Swan Green (2006) and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010), which the Boston Globe called a "masterpiece" and which prompted Dave Eggers to refer to Mitchell, in a New York Times review, as "as one of the more fascinating and fearless writers alive.”
In 2013, he and his wife Keiko Yoshida translated into English a book written by an autistic 13-year-old Japanese boy. The Reason I Jump became a New York Times bestseller.
In 2012 his novel Cloud Atlas was made into a film. In recent years he has also written opera libretti. Wake, based on the 2000 Enschede fireworks disaster and with music by Klaas de Vries, was performed by the Dutch National Reisopera in 2010. He has also finished another opera, Sunken Garden, with the Dutch composer Michel van der Aa, to be premiered in 2013 by the English National Opera.
Personal life
After another stint in Japan, Mitchell currently lives with his wife Keiko Yoshida and their two children in Clonakilty in County Cork, Ireland. One of their children is autistic.
In an essay for Random House, Mitchell wrote:
I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, but until I came to Japan to live in 1994 I was too easily distracted to do much about it. I would probably have become a writer wherever I lived, but would I have become the same writer if I'd spent the last 6 years in London, or Cape Town, or Moose Jaw, on an oil rig or in the circus? This is my answer to myself.
Mitchell has the speech disorder of stammering and considers the film The King's Speech (2010) to be one of the most accurate portrayals of what it's like to be a stammerer: "I'd probably still be avoiding the subject today had I not outed myself by writing a semi-autobiographical novel, Black Swan Green, narrated by a stammering 13 year old." Mitchell is also a patron of the British Stammering Association. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/16/2013.)
Book Reviews
The Reason I Jump may raise questions, as many books have, about the nature of autism. But it raises questions about translation as well. [David Mitchell's] translation, at its best, is a dance between an objective search for equivalent language and an intuitive grasp of the author’s intent, which may have nothing to do with the translator’s point of view. The parents of an autistic child may not be the best translators for a book by an autistic child.
Sallie Tisdale - New York Times
Please don’t assume that The Reason I Jump is just another book for the crowded autism shelf.... This is an intimate book, one that brings readers right into an autistic mind—what it’s like without boundaries of time, why cues and prompts are necessary, and why it’s so impossible to hold someone else’s hand. Of course, there’s a wide range of behavior here; that’s why "on the spectrum" has become such a popular phrase. But by listening to this voice, we can understand its echoes.
Chicago Tribune
Astonishing. The Reason I Jump builds one of the strongest bridges yet constructed between the world of autism and the neurotypical world.... There are many more questions I’d like to ask Naoki, but the first words I’d say to him are "thank you."
Sunday Times (UK)
This is a guide to what it feels like to be autistic... In Mitchell and Yoshida’s translation, [Higashida] comes across as a thoughtful writer with a lucid simplicity that is both childlike and lyrical.... Higashida is living proof of something we should all remember: in every autistic child, however cut off and distant they may outwardly seem, there resides a warm, beating heart.
Financial Times (UK)
Higashida’s child’s-eye view of autism is as much a winsome work of the imagination as it is a user’s manual for parents, carers and teachers.... This book gives us autism from the inside, as we have never seen it.... [Higashida] offers readers eloquent access into an almost entirely unknown world.
Independent (UK)
Like millions of parents confronted with autism, Mitchell and his wife found themselves searching for answers and finding few that were satisfactory. Help, when it arrived, came not from some body of research but from the writings of a Japanese schoolboy, Naoki Higashida. The Reason I Jump...is a book that acts like a door to another logic, explaining why an autistic child might flap his hands in front of his face, disappear suddenly from home—or jump.
Telegraph (UK)
This is a wonderful book. I defy anyone not to be captivated, charmed and uplifted by it.
Evening Standard London
Whether or not you have experienced raising a child who is autistic...this little book, which packs immeasurable honesty and truth into its pages, will simply detonate any illusions, assumptions, and conclusions you've made about the condition.... What Higashida has done by communicating his reality is to offer carers a way forward and offer teachers new ways of working with the children, and thus opening up and expanding the possibilities for autistic kids to feel less alone. All that in less than 200 pages? What an accomplishment.
Herald Dublin
The Reason I Jump is an enlightening, touching and heart-wrenching read. Naoki asks for our patience and compassion—after reading his words, it’s impossible to deny that request.
Yorkshire Post (UK)
Every page dismantles another preconception about autism.... Once you understand how Higashida managed to write this book, you lose your heart to him.
New Statesman (UK)
A rare road map into the world of severe autism...[Higashida’s] insights...unquestionably give those of us whose children have autism just a little more patience, allowing us to recognize the beauty in ‘odd’ behaviors where perhaps we saw none.
People
Just thirteen years old, effectively unable to speak, Higashida used a special alphabet grid to compose this slim, informative book, which provides an unprecedented look into the mind of a young person with autism.... Higashida gallantly attempts to explain why he and others with autism do the things they do.... Surely one of the most remarkable books yet to be featured in these pages.
Publishers Weekly
In addition to demystifying his condition and translating his experience, the author intersperses some short fables and a concluding short story that shows remarkable empathy and imagination, as the death of an autistic boy leaves a family transformed. "[Higashida] says that he aspires to be a writer, but it's obvious to me that he already is one," writes Mitchell. Anyone struggling to understand autism will be grateful for the book and translation.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to get a discussion started for The Reason I Jump:
1. What new insights have you gained by reading Naoki Higashida's book? What surprised you most about his depiction of what it is like to be autistic?
2. David Mitchell says that the problems of socialization and communication people with autism display "are not symptoms of autism but consequences." What does he mean exactly...what is the difference as Mitchell sees it?
3. Talk about Naoki's statement that autism may be a result of our civilization's growing disconnect with nature:
I think that people with autism are born outside the regime of civilisation… [in which] a deep sense of crisis exists… Autism has somehow arisen out of this… if, by our being here, we could help the people of the world remember what truly matters for the Earth, that would give us a quiet pleasure.
What do you think of that assessment? Is there any truth in what Naoki says?
4. Talk about the way in which Naoki believes that he and others with autism feel a sense of guilt: "The hardest ordeal for us is the idea that we are causing grief for other people." What would you say (or have you said) to Naoki or any other individual with autism.
5. Naoki indicates that language, which the rest of us use to communicate feelings, actually get in the way of feelings: that language is simply incapable of conveying our astonishment at the world. Have you ever felt the inadequacy of words to describe your own experiences?
6. Do you know someone, a friend or a member of your own family, with autism? If so, how true does this book ring for you?
7. What is the state of treatment and/or understanding of autism today? What do we (society and the medical profession) need to learn about autism? Does this book help? Will it make a difference?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb, 2013
Little, Brown & Co.
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316322423
Summary
When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education.
On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive.
Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize.
I Am Malala is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.
I Am Malala will make you believe in the power of one person's voice to inspire change in the world. (From the publisher.)
See the 2015 film—He Named Me Malala—with Malala Yousafzai as herself.
Listen to our Movies Meet Book Club Podcast as Hollister and O'Toole discuss the movie and book.
Author Bio
• Birth—July 12, 1997
• Where—Mingora, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
• Education—local public school
• Awards—Pakistan's National Youth Peace Prize; Sakharov Prize
• Currently—lives in Birmingham, England, UK
Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani school pupil and education activist from the town of Mingora in the Swat District of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She is known for her education and women's rights activism in the Swat Valley, where the Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school.
In early 2009, at the age of 11–12, Yousafzai wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC detailing her life under Taliban rule, their attempts to take control of the valley, and her views on promoting education for girls. The following summer, a New York Times documentary was filmed about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region, culminating in the Second Battle of Swat. Yousafzai rose in prominence, giving interviews in print and on television, and she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize by South African activist Desmond Tutu.
On 9 October 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus. In the days immediately following the attack, she remained unconscious and in critical condition, but later her condition improved enough for her to be sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, UK for intensive rehabilitation. On October 12, 2012, a group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan issued a fatwa against those who tried to kill her, but the Taliban reiterated its intent to kill Yousafzai and her father.
The assassination attempt sparked a national and international outpouring of support for Yousafzai. Deutsche Welle wrote in January, 2013, that Malala may have become "the most famous teenager in the world." United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown launched a UN petition in Yousafzai's name, using the slogan "I am Malala" and demanding that all children worldwide be in school by the end of 2015—a petition which helped lead to the ratification of Pakistan's first Right to Education Bill.
In the April 29, 2013, issue of Time magazine, Yousafzai was featured on the magazine's front cover and as one of "The 100 Most Influential People in the World." She was the winner of Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize and is currently nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize. On 12 July 2013, Yousafzai spoke at the UN to call for worldwide access to education, and in September 2013 she officially opened the Library of Birmingham.
Yousafzai was into a Sunni Muslim family of Pashtun ethnicity. She was given her first name Malala (meaning "grief stricken" after Malalai of Maiwand, a famous Pashtun poet and warrior woman from southern Afghanistan. Her last name, Yousafzai, is that of a large Pashtun tribal confederation that is predominant in Pakistan's Swat Valley, where she grew up. At her house in Mingora, she lived with her two younger brothers, her parents, and two pet chickens.
Yousafzai was educated in large part by her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, who is a poet, school owner, and an educational activist himself, running a chain of schools known as the Khushal Public School. She once stated to an interviewer that she would like to become a doctor, though later her father encouraged her to become a politician instead. Ziauddin referred to his daughter as something entirely special, permitting her to stay up at night and talk about politics after her two brothers had been sent to bed.
Yousafzai started speaking about education rights as early as September 2008, when her father took her to Peshawar to speak at the local press club. "How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?" Yousafzai asked her audience in a speech covered by newspapers and television channels throughout the region. (From Wikiipedia. Retrieved 10/10/2013.)
Book Reviews
The touching story will not only inform you of changing conditions in Pakistan, but inspire your rebellious spirit.
Matthew Love - Time Out New York
Ms. Yousafzai has single-handedly turned the issue of the right of girls--and all children--to be educated into headline news. And she is a figure worth hearing.
Isabel Berwick - Financial Times
On October 9, 2012, the teenaged Yousafzai was very nearly assassinated by members of the Taliban who objected to her education and women's rights activism in Pakistan. Currently, she lives in England, under threat of execution by the Taliban if she returns home. Lamb, who has been reporting from Pakistan for 26 years and was named Foreign Correspondent of the Year five times, helps Yousafzai tell her hugely significant story.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for I Am Malala:
1. Would you have had the bravery that Malala exhibited and continues to exhibit?
2. Talk about the role of Malala's parents, especially her father, Ziauddin. If you were her parents, would you have encouraged her to write and speak out?
3. How does Malala describe the affect of the growing Taliban presence in her region? Talk about the rules they imposed on the citizens in the Swat valley. What was life like?
4. Mala has said that despite the Taliban's restrictions against girls/women, she remains a proud believer. Would you—could you—maintain your faith given those same restrictions? *
5. Talk about the reaction of the international community after Malala's shooting. Has the outrage made a difference...has it had any effect?
6. What can be done about female education in the Middle East and places like Pakistan? What are the prospects? Can one girl, despite her worldwide fame, make a difference? Why does the Taliban want to prevent girls from acquiring an education—how do they see the female role? *
7. This is as good a time as any to talk about the Taliban's power in the Muslim world. Why does it continue to grow and attract followers...or is it gaining new followers? What attraction does it have for Muslim men? Can it ever be defeated?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
* We received an email sharing the following perspective, which draws a clear distinction between the Muslim faith and Taliban practices. The email relates to Questions 4 and 6, respectively:
There is no "overt" Muslim prejudice against women. Although there are some customs in Islam specifically intended for women, these customs are for a reason. Everything has a reason. The Taliban, however, take things to a far new level. They overtly shed women of certain rights they deserve. There is a distinction between Islamic rules and customs and Taliban discrimination.
Muslims do not prevent women from acquiring an education. It is the Taliban that does so. Educating women is encouraged in Islam. One of the biggest Muslim scholars was in fact a woman.... Like Malala, I am sad the Taliban carry out their activities in the name of Islam. And I am glad her story is being heard... —Sarah, a student.
My Story
Elizabeth Smart and Chris Smart, 2013
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250040152
Summary
For the first time, ten years after her abduction from her Salt Lake City bedroom, Elizabeth Smart reveals how she survived and the secret to forging a new life in the wake of a brutal crime
On June 5, 2002, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart, the daughter of a close-knit Mormon family, was taken from her home in the middle of the night by religious fanatic, Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. She was kept chained, dressed in disguise, repeatedly raped, and told she and her family would be killed if she tried to escape. After her rescue on March 12, 2003, she rejoined her family and worked to pick up the pieces of her life.
Now for the first time, in her memoir My Story, she tells of the constant fear she endured every hour, her courageous determination to maintain hope, and how she devised a plan to manipulate her captors and convinced them to return to Utah, where she was rescued minutes after arriving. Smart explains how her faith helped her stay sane in the midst of a nightmare and how she found the strength to confront her captors at their trial and see that justice was served.
In the nine years after her rescue, Smart transformed from victim to advocate, traveling the country and working to educate, inspire and foster change. She has created a foundation to help prevent crimes against children and is a frequent public speaker. In 2012, she married Matthew Gilmour, whom she met doing mission work in Paris for her church, in a fairy tale wedding that made the cover of People magazine. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 3, 1987
• Where—Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
• Education—Brigham Young University (currently enrolled)
• Currently—living in Park City, Utah
Elizabeth Ann Smart-Gilmour is an American activist and contributor for ABC News. She first gained widespread attention at the age of 14 when she was kidnapped from her home and rescued nine months later.
Smart was abducted from her bedroom in her family's Salt Lake City home on June 5, 2002 at the age of 14. She was found nine months later on March 12, 2003, in Sandy, Utah, 18 miles from her home, in the company of Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Ileen Barzee. Her abduction and rescue were widely reported and were the subject of a made-for-TV movie and non-fiction book.
On October 1, 2009, Smart testified to being threatened, tied, and raped daily while she was held captive.
On November 16, 2009, Barzee announced she would plead guilty to assisting in the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, as part of an agreement with prosecutors. On May 19, 2010, Barzee was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. As part of a plea deal between the defense and federal prosecutors, federal Judge Dale A. Kimball gave Barzee credit for seven years that she already has served.
On March 1, 2010, Mitchell was found competent to stand trial for the kidnapping and sexual assault charges in federal court by judge Kimball; his trial began on November 8, 2010, and on December 10, 2010, the jury found Mitchell guilty on both counts. On May 25, 2011, Mitchell was sentenced to two life-terms in federal prison.
Activism and journalism
On March 8, 2006, Smart went to Congress to support sexual predator legislation and the AMBER Alert system, and on July 26, 2006, she spoke after the signing of the Adam Walsh Act. In May 2008, she traveled to Washington, D.C., where she helped present a book, You're Not Alone, published by the U.S. Department of Justice, which has entries written by her as well as four other recovered young adults.
In 2009, Smart commented on the kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard, stressing that dwelling upon the past is unproductive. On October 27, 2009 Elizabeth spoke at the 2009 Women's Conference in California hosted by Maria Shriver, on overcoming obstacles in life.
In 2011, Smart founded the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, which aims to support the Internet Crimes Against Children task force and to educate children about violent and sexual crime.
On July 7, 2011 it was announced that she would be a commentator for ABC News, mainly focusing on missing persons.
On May 1, 2013 in a speech at a human trafficking conference at Johns Hopkins University Smart discussed the need to emphasize individual self-worth in fighting human trafficking.
I thought,"Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away." And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value. Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.
Smart went on to ask that listeners teach children how to gain self-worth and avoid becoming a victim.
Personal life
Elizabeth Ann Smart was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Edward and Lois Smart. She has four brothers and a sister and is the second-oldest child in her family. Smart attended Brigham Young University (BYU), studying music as a harp performance major.
On November 11, 2009, Smart left to serve a Mormon mission in Paris. Smart returned temporarily from her mission in November 2010 to serve as the chief witness in the federal trial of Brian David Mitchell. After the end of the trial she returned to France to finish her mission, coming home to Utah in the spring of 2011.
In January 2012, Smart became engaged to Matthew Gilmour, a native of Scotand, after a courtship of one year. The couple met while serving as missionaries in the France Paris Mission. They married on February 18, 2012, in a private ceremony in the Laie Hawaii Temple.
Memoir
Elizabeth published a memoir of her experience. Co-authored with Chris Stewart, the book details both Smart's kidnapping and the formation of the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, which works to promote awareness about abduction. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/09/2013.)
Book Reviews
Smart’s memoir is as compelling as it is disturbing. Her stoic Mormon faith, moreover, will both inspire and mystify readers.... What many readers will not easily grasp is how she retained her hope. My Story might have better answered those questions had Smart continued with the narrative of her life beyond 2003 and discussed her education, her mission, and her marriage. Still, even had Smart fleshed out her past 10 years, her resilience likely would remain a mystery of faith, a final tender mercy in her story of suffering and survival
John G. Turner - Boston Globe
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for My Story:
1. Describe Elizabeth's kidnapper, Brian David Mitchell. Smart herself calls him a “manipulative, antisocial and narcissistic pedophile.” Is there anything in his background to suggest he would end up as a kidnapper and serial raper? Is someone like Mitchell evil? Or is he sick, mentally deranged?
2. What about Mitchell's partner, Wanda Ileen Barzee? She herself is a mother; one wonders what would prompt her to maltreat a child like Elizabeth. Brazee receieved a sentence of 15 years, seven of which the judge said she had already served. How do you feel about that?
3. One of the most remarkable aspects of Elizabeth's experience is how she used her faith to maintain hope. Would you have been able to hold onto your beliefs in light of relenting cruelty and fear?
4. In addition to her faith, what else inspired in her the will to live?
5. Elizabeth speaks of near-rescues, in particular, one in the library when a detective questioned Mitchell. Why didn't she cry out?
6. Why did it take six years for the courts to finally try and convict Mitchell. What was holding up the system?
7. What can be done about child abducters? How can society protect its young children from predatators like Mitchell?
8. Elizabeth Smart has said that it does no good to look back. Yet in her many public appearances and her work with her foundation, is she not doing just that? Wouldn't it be too painful? Or is her work precisely what helps to heal those wounds?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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