joe starita | Watching the Words

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. Book bloggers create their own lists based on the chosen topics and post links to our lists. It’s a way of all sharing our thoughts and our love of books. And who doesn’t love lists??

So this week’s challenge was to list the top ten worlds from books that we wouldn’t want to live in. The first part of the list was easy, I’ve haven’t met many dystopian societies that have much to recommend them… After that it got a little tricky since I don’t read a lot of books that take place in different worlds so I included some that take place in times/places that I wouldn’t want to live in.

Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins – There’s nothing good about a world that pits teenagers in a televised contest to the death.
Delirium series by Lauren Oliver – Love as a disease? Not cool…
Divergent series by Veronica Roth – Being forced to choose a faction, serums that affect your brain, fighting, death – doesn’t sound like all that much fun to me.
The Giver by Lois Lowry – While things do improve some, eventually, in later books, who wants to live in a world without color, beauty, memory, emotion?
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent – Iceland in the early nineteenth century is brutal enough before you consider the whole beheading thing…
Lorien Legacies series by Pittacus Lore – Disgusting aliens shooting up everything and trying to take over the planet so they can ultimately destroy it – need I say more?
Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien – Lots of fighting and really repulsive creature hanging around in creepy places.
I Am A Man by Joe Starita – Being a Native American in this country in the nineteenth century is not something I would recommend.
Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra – Taking place throughout the wars in Chechnya, the brutality and poverty and fear are heartbreaking.
A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park – The story of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, this heartbreaking tale brings forward this horrific war and its effect on the innocent and the children in the country.

i am a man

I had the honor of receiving a scholarship to attend the annual conference of the Association for Rural & Small Libraries (ARSL). So back in September I packed my bags and headed to Omaha for a long weekend. The weather and the city were both lovely and my peers were insightful, sharp, and funny. I came back home with new ideas and new energy. While I was there, I also had the opportunity to meet a number of fantastic speakers – Lee Rainie, the Director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, Craig Johnson, the author of the popular Longmire series (also a TV series on AMC!), and Joe Starita, the author of I Am A Man, the true story of Chief Standing Bear.

To be fair, it was difficult to write an unbiased review of the book. Joe Starita is certainly an oral storyteller and listening to him speak inspired me to devour this book and this story, even through parts of the book that seemed to drag. While the passion that is so evident in Starita’s speaking style does not always translate into his written work, it is a truly amazing story, well-researched, and well-worth reading.

In 1877 Chief Standing Bear is forced to travel with his family and the rest of the Ponca tribe to the Indian Territory, never to return to their homeland, leaving behind their homes, their farms, their possessions, and their burial grounds. Devastated by disease, the environment, and arduous travels, a small group of Ponca join Chief Standing Bear as he attempts to make the 600 mile journey back to his homeland for one reason only – to bury his son. I Am A Man chronicles his journey, not only to the Indian Territory and back, but his journey to justice – to the Federal Courts in a case against the United States Government – in his quest to be treated as a man. In the midst of horrendous and inexplicable circumstances, his fortitude and his faith are inspirational.

Title: I am a Man: Chief Standing Bear’s Journey for Justice
Author: Joe Starita
Genre: Non-Fiction, History
Pages: 288
Publication: St. Martin’s Griffin, January 2010