Personal Challenge Commitment Complete: Resistance Reading

Even though Magic Resists decided not to host this one after all, I went ahead and used her Bingo card to guide my own little foray into resistance reading. And I set myself a goal of four books so I could go ahead and claim it towards my challenge tally for the year.

I may have fulfilled my personal commitment, but I may read a few more books before the year is out. If I manage to complete a Bingo while doing so, that will be a bonus!

My Book List:
1. Hitler's First Victims by Timothy W. Ryback (1/24/19)
2. Code Talker by Chester Nez w/Judith Schiess Avila (3/8/18)
3. Mr. Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal (3/23/19)
4. Becoming by Michelle Obama (3/27/19)
Complete!

Becoming: Review

Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child—What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end.
~Becoming (2018) by Michelle Obama

Sometimes a work is so important that it becomes difficult to put into words what you thought and felt while reading it. Most often (for me, anyway) that happens with poetry. It has happened again with Michelle Obama's memoir. This is a powerful and moving story of her journey--a journey of becoming that is still going on. A process that doesn't stop as long as you are willing to keep learning and growing and changing when necessary.

Reading about Michelle's early years, I was struck by how similar our backgrounds were. A mother who was there, at home whenever we were home (though mine worked part-time in the school lunch room--she was there when I left for school in the morning and there when I got home in the afternoon). A father dedicated to hard work and supporting his family--a man who never let physical ailments stand in the way of his responsibilities to go to work and get the job done. A feeling as a student that it was unthinkable to not excel. And not because parents put out any kind of overt pressure that grades must be at a certain level--but knowledge that those parents had done everything they could to ensure their children would have a better life and knowing that we didn't want to disappoint them...or ourselves. 

It was inspiring to read her reflections on where she came from and where her journey had taken her. To have underlined the evidence that she and Barack Obama are good people who come from solid American families; who value the same things we all value (or should value if we don't). Unfortunately, it was also disturbing to read her personal experiences of what it was like to be on the receiving end of all the hate and racial diatribes and the down-right lies that confronted and followed them once her husband began his political ascent to the nation's highest office. Reading newspaper reports--even viewing it on television is one thing; reading about the personal toll it took on Michelle and her family is another. It reminds me how truly horrible some people are at being human. 

But--that's not the take-away that Michelle would want us to end with. She reminds us throughout the book that whoever we are and wherever we are, we can take what we're given and make the most of it. We are all in the process of becoming and where we have the power to do so we need to take control and become with a purpose--choose to become more than we are now, to become a better version of ourselves. And to encourage others to do the same.  ★★★★★

Mr. Churchill's Secretary: Review

Mr. Churchill's Secretary (2012) by Susan Elia MacNeal follows the war-time adventures of Maggie Hope who has just landed a job as a typist at 10 Downing Street under the brand-new Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Maggie is a British girl--but spent most of her life in the United States with her aunt after her parents were killed in an automobile accident. Her aunt, also British, had accepted an academic position in the States and taken the young Margaret with her. Maggie, all grown up with a mathematics degree under her belt, returned to England to sell the aunt's house and when she found it impossible to sell in the current market she decided to stay in England. 

She had hopes of doing more important war work than just typing--after all, with her degree she felt she could manage a high-level private secretarial position just as well as her good friend David who works at Downing Street. But she found that door closed--tightly shut as an all-boys club. David convinces her to take the typist's position when her predecessor is murdered--stabbed in what is officially being called a mugging, but there are rumors that it may have been more serious. It isn't long before Maggie's flair for intricate problems and remarkable code-breaking ability plunges her into more difficult situations than typing fast enough to keep up with Churchill. She finds herself in the middle of a plot that involves her very much alive father, a threat to the Prime Minister, and bomb hidden somewhere in St. Paul's Cathedral. She has some very important war work to do after all.

This is a nice introduction to a new series. MacNeal has invested a lot in historical research and it definitely shows--although there are moments when Maggie uses certain phrases that sound very 2012-ish rather than 1940-ish. Not often enough to really jar, but momentarily distracting. I enjoyed getting to know Maggie and her friends very much and felt that this book was really a "getting-to-know-you" effort rather than a total immersion in Maggie's world. I look forward to Maggie finding her feet and settling down to her work in future installments. And perhaps when she is more settled, the reader will be as well.

Overall, the story is absorbing and highlighted the fact that the Irish unrest was more of a factor during the war years than I realized. I didn't know how much damage was done on the home front by the Irish radicals even during the time that the Blitz was going on. That thread gave the plot an extra depth and a slight twist at the end. A good read for a Saturday afternoon. ★★★

Code Talker: Review

Code Talker: The first and only memoir by one of the original Navajo code talkers of WWII (2011) by Chester Nez with Judith Schiess Avila.

As is evident by the title, this is an extraordinary memoir by one of the Original 29 Code Talkers (officially, 29--32, by Chester's count because he includes 3 men who helped develop the code). It details Chester's life from his early years in the Checkerboard through his war years and beyond. While the primary focus is on his time in the Marines helping to develop the code and then putting it to use in the Pacific Theater, we learn quite a bit about what it was like for a young Navajo to grow up pre-1940. Of course, life for Native Americans on the reservations was never easy and the forced relocation onto the reservations was a dark period in our history, but Chester considered his home life to be fairly happy until the white men decided to decimate Navajo herds because of over-grazing. Not only did this wipe out the wealth of Navajo families, but since the government used Navajos to enforce the thinning of the herds it also created distrust and sowed division among the people.

It was amazing to read how Chester and the other young Navajo men bravely used the very language that their white school teachers had tried to strip from them to save the country they loved. How they courageously laid their lives on the line for a country that had oppressed and restricted them--and that would never treat them as equals when they weren't wearing the uniform of their country. Heck--the U.S. Army soldiers that Chester was sent to help at one point nearly killed him--accusing him of being a Japanese soldier in a stolen uniform. All because he did not look like the standard G.I. Joe. It was heartening to read that the Marine commanders did recognize their worth...and a number treated their men as equals, regardless of rank. It is a shame that enough of us don't carry that over into everyday life.

Chester tells his story with humor and humility. Others call him and his fellow Code Talkers heroes. He never claims that title for himself, saying that he merely did what he knew he could do--as well as he could do it. He speaks of family and friendship--of all the things that made the fight worth taking up. He tells us of the bravery of others and shows us how important this piece of our shared history was. ★★★★★

[Finished 3/8/19]

Hitler's First Victims: Review

In Hitler's First Victims: The Quest for Justice, Timothy Ryback recounts the background and events of one of the many "What If" situations leading up to World War II. At its most basic, the book argues that there may have been a great difference made in history if the rule of law and Germany's judicial system had worked as well as it had previously been capable of in the years leading up to the war. In the first instance, if Hitler and his, then, smaller band of followers had received a stiffer penalty for their actions in what became known as the "Beer Hall Putsch," much might have been avoided. At the most extreme, it was possible "since Hitler's stated goal was to topple the Weimer Republic, he could have been dispatched to the Reich Court in Leipzig, where a conviction for treason could have resulted in a death sentence." As it was, the procedures were botched and the group faced a sympathetic local judge and received a ridiculously light sentence. Hitler and company were unrepentant and left the court (albeit to short prison sentences) in a celebratory mood more fitting to the victors of a conquest.

Once Hitler rose to the Chancellorship and the Nazi forces began to take over, there was still the remnants of judicial power left to those who wished to see the country returned to a free republic. As the first concentration camp (then called a detention camp and work camp for political prisoners) was formed at Dachau, it still fell under the jurisdiction of state police authority and due process. When political prisoners--nearly all Jews--began to die in suspicious circumstances, Josef Hartinger, a German prosecutor, began collecting evidence and meticulously examined every coroner's report looking to build a case that would bring justice to the camp and seriously hamper the power of the SS men who were gaining control of the camp. His efforts managed to halt the killings temporarily, but the steamroller that was the Nazi movement soon ran him--and the few good men helping him, such as state medical examiner Dr. Moritz Flamm--over. Ryback poses the question: What if there had been hundreds of Hartingers and Flamms throughout Germany, standing up to Nazi rule? Would the weight of judicial evidence and power been enough to strangle the Nazi movement before it hurtled Germany into World War II? Of course, we'll never know--but he makes a strong case.

The book is meticulously researched and gives an excellent portrayal of a country on the brink--unsettled and with its citizens often caught unawares by the movement of power and unsure how to fight back. Even those with some power--like the judiciary and state police--found it very difficult to work within the laws to try and combat the creeping evil. The records of Josef Hartinger and Dr. Flamm make it all too clear how quickly the political landscape could change--taking with it the rules, conventions, and laws that hold a society together. 

An absorbing historical account of men who, as they watched their way of life going off the rails, tried their best to stave off the coming Nazi deluge. It is disturbing to read of these early Nazi atrocities (which actually pale in comparison to what was to come), but it was also heartening to read about men who were trying to do what they could to maintain a system of justice in perilous times. ★★★★

Resist Reading Challenge

What is The Resist Reading Challenge?

***Update: Magic Resists has decided not to host after all. Unless she objects, I'm going to hang on to her Bingo card and use it for reading prompts for a little resistance-reading of my own.

In her original post, she left our goals to our own judgment. I've got my eye on at least two books that I'd like to read in 2019 (including Michelle Obama's book Becoming). In order to make it a challenge, I'm going to commit to four books. I hope to do more--but if I do four I will be able to claim the challenge as complete. I'm also going to use the Bingo card categories to help direct my choices. If I manage a bingo, that will be a bonus!

My Book List:
1. Hitler's First Victims by Timothy W. Ryback (1/24/19)
2. Code Talker by Chester Nez w/Judith Schiess Avila (3/8/18)
3. Mr. Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal (3/23/19)
4. Becoming by Michelle Obama (3/27/19)
Complete!
5.