On the Shelf – Book Reviews

There are several new-to-the-Downieville library books for children and young people, which can currently be found on the New-to-the-Library cart, but which will eventually find their place of residence in the children’s section. Here are three of them, each of which came to the Downieville Library from the Plumas County Library, through a project supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.

The Last Stand, by Antwan Eady, is an Easy Reader work of fiction, based in reality. It begins, “Papa has the last stand. It wasn’t always this way. A year ago, there were two. The year before, five.” It is the story of a boy and his grandfather who now have the last stand at a farmer’s market in a community that can’t afford to lose it. The sign at the stand reads, “Earl’s pumpkins, peppers, plums & eggs”. That is what the people of this African-American community come to buy, in what would otherwise be a food desert.

As Eady remarks in his Author’s Notes, “[a] little over a century ago, Black farmers made up fourteen percent of farmers in America. Today, that number is less than two percent.” And, with that decrease in the number of farmers, comes also a decrease in the opportunity for fresh produce in communities which once depended on it.

The book, which the author describes as a “love letter”, dramatizes the caring relationship between farmer and community members, the life and work that go into providing necessary food to those who would otherwise go without, and the close ties of a family working together. It also raises the question of what will happen when the current generation of aging farmers is no longer with us. Will there be someone who will carry on the work?

Gamerville, by Johnnie Christmas, is a Juvenile graphic novel. It tells the story of Max, who lives to play video games. Specifically, he has been getting ready to compete in the Gamerville Video Game Tournament, and has thus been preparing his strategy for “Lone Wolf of Calamity Bay”. And, the tournament is one week away.

Calamity, however, finds him first. His parents, who think he is spending way too much inside, playing video games, have arranged for him to go to a month-long camp, starting tomorrow. Max, obviously does not want to be at the camp, which makes his life there very difficult, indeed. In fact, Max is constantly plotting ways to escape to the tournament, which just happens to be on the other side of the lake from the camp.

Not wanting to spoil the story for the reader, let me just pose these tantalizing questions: Will Max ever reconcile himself to the camp and its people? Will Max somehow make it to the tournament? What will become of Max’s relationship with his parents?

How Do You Spell Unfair?, by Carole Boston Weatherford, is a non-fiction Juvenile book. The subtitle of the book is “NacNolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee”, and it tells the story of how this 13-year-old girl from Akron, Ohio, was one of the first African-American finalists in the National Spelling Bee. It is a story of achievement — and it is a story of discrimination.

Since the early twentieth century, Black students had competed in separate spelling bees. But, the winners of those all-Black contests were not allowed to compete in the regional bees, a required step to qualify for the national championship. The first National Spelling Bee was held in 1925, and the national contest were never officially segregated. However, the path to the national contest was strewn with segregation and discrimination. So, it was something of a miracle that MacNolia Cox was able to achieve her way to that highest pinnacle of spelling.

However, just because a Black student was fortunate enough to work her way through a system that wasn’t segregated, didn’t mean that she still wouldn’t face discrimination at that highest level. Thus, the title of the book.

A footnote: even though it is mentioned only briefly in the book’s epilogue, it should be noted that on September 15, 2021, a resolution that “honors the life, legacy, and achievements of MacNolia Cox [as] an inspiration for young students of Color today” passed unanimously by the United States Senate.