Unwind by Neal Shusterman - One of the classes I'm working with recently selected this book, nominated for the Eliot Rosewater Book Award, as one of their novels for this semester. It's been flying off the shelves for some time now, so I was quite excited when I had to actually take the time to read it for work instead of pleasure.

The concept is intriguing...abortion is outlawed. Well, almost. Abortion is illegal from the time of conception until a child reaches the age of 13. At that time, between the ages of 13 and 18, parents can elect to have their child "unwound", kind of a reverse abortion. "They're not exactly killed. Instead, their body parts live on, thanks to recent medical advances that enable every single body part --- from hair to feet to internal organs --- to be donated to others who need (or at least can afford) them. From the age of 13 until 18, millions of kids are at risk of undergoing this procedure, of becoming "unwound." No one knows the dread and fear that teenagers must endure. We meet Connor, a troublemaker whose parents find it easier to sign an unwind order than to deal with his disruptive tendencies. There's Risa, a ward of the state whose excellent piano playing abilities are not quite enough to save her from unwinding in the face of budget cutbacks. And there's Lev, whose parents are unwinding their tenth child as part of the church's mandate to tithe, or to give one-tenth of their earnings back to the community."
(http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/9781416912040.asp)

The social and moral issues brought to light while reading this book were quite intriguing. Although "unwinding" isn't exactly a practice one may see as happening in our society, the parallels one can draw (and discuss with a class) are quite interesting to say the least. I hope I have the opportunity to sit in on some of the class discussions as it would be very enlightening to see what point-of-view seniors will have about the subject!

I also recently read Superfreakonomics written by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. I absolutely adored Freakonomics, the earlier and ground-breaking offering by these two author/economists. The first offering made me analyze things differently on many levels, actually looking more at the importance of data opposed to taking ordinary, every day things at face value. This new book gave me even more of the same...plenty more to think analytically about!

The most interesting part of this book in my opinion (and since this is MY blog, you've got to read MY opinion!) was the chapter debunking the controversial issue of global warming. I've read widely about this issue, and since I lean to the side of thinking that it's much to do about nothing, Dubner and Levitt won my heart once again by providing me with even more data from renowned and respected scientists (ala the men even Bill Gates looks up to) which support the fact that it's all really just a lot of politically motivated hoopla.

Of course, I'd recommend this book highly to anyone who often finds himself/herself frustrated with listening to the talking heads in the media and Washington simply try to force-feed us their opinions again and again. This book encourages you to think for yourself in a critical way. Maybe your instincts aren't always incorrect!

The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford - This book was the second selection of our Faculty Book Club for this year. I didn't know a lot about the book outside of the fact that it had been on the NYT bestseller list for several weeks. After reading it, I'm very thankful to my colleagues for choosing it as one of our selections! Ironically, it kind of goes hand-in-hand with our previous selection, Sarah's Key in that the plot focuses on the American internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, sort of similiar to the French roundup of French Jews during that same period. Very interesting that we chose two books that were so similar!

From the NYT review: On the eve of America’s World War II internment of its Japanese residents, 12-year-old Henry Lee meets his first true love. Her name is Keiko, and she’s the only other Asian at Henry’s otherwise all-white Seattle elementary school. She’s also Japanese, which lies at the heart of Henry’s subsequent struggles — with his Chinese nationalist father; his racist, bullying classmates; and, finally, his brutally suspicious country. The hotel of the book’s title is the real Panama Hotel, and that’s where Ford’s story begins, with the basement discovery of what Seattle’s Japanese families left behind when they were sent to the camps. The tale jumps between 1986, just after the death of Henry’s wife (whose name is not Keiko), and the 1940s, setting up its driving mystery: What happened to Henry’s dark-eyed childhood sweetheart? Though the story of life in war-era Seattle and the detention of the city’s Japanese families, including Keiko’s, is rich in detail, its characters feel thin. Henry is terribly earnest and seems always too old for his age — at 12, he has the caution and calm of a 56-year-old; at 56, Ford refers to him as “Old Henry Lee.”