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NEW PUBLICATIONSC&RL News, February 2008Vol. 69, No. 2 by George Eberhart Custerology: The Enduring Legacy of the Indian Wars and George Armstrong Custer, by Michael A. Elliott (336 pages, October 2007), explores the many reasons why a fascination for Custer can flourish even as most 21st-century Americans are appalled at the Manifest Destiny that he represented. Elliott looks at Custer reenactors and interpreters, museums and parks, Custer buffs, and Indian narratives in an effort to assess the ongoing resonance of the events on the Washita River in 1868, in the Black Hills in 1874, and on the Little Bighorn in 1876. As a final insight, he compares the Indian Wars to American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan that can be seen as a modern-day struggle for cultural supremacy with tragic consequences for indigenous peoples. $25.00. University of Chicago. 978-0-226-20146-7.  Field Guide to Harry Potter, by Colin Duriez (300 pages, December 2007), serves as a convenient analytical introduction to J. K. Rowling’s seven-book series. Duriez, also an expert on Inklings C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, shows how the Harry Potter series fits easily into the larger traditions of both romanticism and children’s fantasy literature, and he examines the key themes of education, relationships, personal growth, metaphysics, magic, and morality. An 80-page glossary of beings, places, things, and events in the Potterverse is followed by a short summary of each of the books and a timeline. $16.00. InterVarsity Press. 978-0-8303-3430-3. Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses, by Elizabeth Tucker (241 pages, October 2007), examines the social, psychological, and cultural elements embedded within the academic ghost stories passed along by students both verbally and in their e-mails. Since this is primarily a literary exercise, Tucker isn’t concerned with the veridicality of the experiences, instead focusing on the paranormal tale as part of an initiation ritual into college life and adulthood. The one library ghost mentioned is the spectral construction worker of Rush Rhees Library at the University of Rochester. $20.00. University Press of Mississippi. 978-1-57806-995-8. Institutions of Reading: The Social Life of Libraries in the United States, edited by Thomas Augst and Kenneth Carpenter (368 pages, July 2007), offers several perspectives on the influence of American libraries on public reading habits. Of particular interest are Michael A. Baenen on the political role of the Portsmouth (N.H.) Athenaeum prior to the Civil War; Elizabeth McHenry on the importance of black reading rooms; Elizabeth Amann on 1898 and the Hispanic Society of America; and Roy Rosenzweig on preserving digital information. $28.95. University of Massachusetts. 978-1-55849-591-3. Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains: A Guidebook, by Georgann Eubanks (426 pages, October 2007), is the first of three travel guides to North Carolina literary landmarks and historic sites. This one covers the 27 counties in the state’s mountainous west, highlighting Black Mountain College, Cold Mountain, Biltmore House, the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, the childhood home of Anne Tyler, the Carl Sandburg House, and the Brown Mountain lights (the starting point for Jules Verne’s 1904 novel Master of the World). Many libraries, bookstores, colleges, and museums are included in the 18 suggested driving tours. $35.00. University of North Carolina. 978-0-8078-3137-3. Multicultural and Ethnic Children’s Literature in the United States, by Donna L. Gilton (236 pages, July 2007), reviews the history of multiculturalism in American children’s literature, general trends and controversies in the field, mainstream responses, and the many specific initiatives to produce, distribute, and collect ethnic children’s books. Gilton summarizes an impressive array of sources in arguing for continuing research into this topic and serving the needs of a new mix of immigrants. $45.00. Scarecrow. 978-0-8108-5672-1. Rudolph, Frosty, and Captain Kangaroo, by Judy Gail Krasnow (408 pages, November 2007), memorializes the Golden Age of children’s music in the late 1940s and early 1950s when the author’s father, Hecky Krasnow, produced for Columbia Records such classic children’s songs as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty the Snowman,” “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” “The Captain Kangaroo March,” “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” and “Smokey the Bear.” A vivid portrait of a forgotten pre-rock era when the voices of Gene Autry, Bob Keeshan, Fess Parker, Rosemary Clooney, Art Carney, and Burl Ives offered kids imaginative, nonsentimental music of substance. $24.95. Santa Monica Press. 978-1-59580-026-8. The Secret History of the War on Cancer, by Devra Davis (505 pages, October 2007), documents the shady, behind-the-scenes influence of corporate interests on the search for cancer cures from the 1940s onwards, primarily through emphasizing treatment rather than prevention, ensuring that many key researchers have industry backgrounds, and manufacturing and magnifying public doubts about scientific evidence. Epidemiologist Davis uncovers evidence showing how the carcinogenic dangers of tobacco, asbestos, air pollution, workplace cancer risks, benzene, power lines, and personal care products have been underplayed by corporations, lawyers, governments, and even the medical profession itself. $27.95. Basic Books. 978-0-465-0156-5.  Slinging Doughnuts for the Boys: An American Woman in World War II, by James H. Madison (300 pages, August 2007), tells the story of the author’s accidental discovery in the American Cemetery above Omaha Beach of the grave of a woman from his home state and what he found out about her through the boxes of correspondence and her diary that her brother had kept. Although Elizabeth A. Richardson of Mishawaka, Indiana, seemed an ordinary enough 25-year-old who joined the Red Cross in 1944 to serve in England and France, Madison soon learned that “the women slinging doughnuts and pouring coffee from Red Cross Clubmobiles were hardly typical and their work anything but ordinary.” Her perceptions of the war, the hardships, and the GIs she met are an invaluable record of the mostly forgotten social life of World War II. Luckily, she took many photos and even drew some watercolors. Madison places her frank and detailed observations into vivid context. Richardson’s tragic death in a military plane crash in July 1945 comes just at the point when you feel that you were getting to know her well. $24.95. Indiana University. 978-0-253-35047-3. George M. Eberhart is senior editor of American Libraries, e-mail: geberhart@ala.org |
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