West With Giraffes, by Lynda Rutledge

West With Giraffes is a charming novel based on historical fact. Lynda Rutledge has taken the 1938 acquisition by the San Diego Zoo of two giraffes from Africa and told us their story. Belle Benchley, aka The Zoo Lady, was the first female director of a zoo, although she was not accorded her rightful title until she had been running the zoo for many years. She purchased two young giraffes from Uganda and had them shipped to New York. During their voyage, a massive hurricane nearly killed the female and destroyed people and property all along the eastern seaboard.

Our story begins with the journey of the two giraffes across a United States countryside mired in Depression. The giraffes provided much-needed excitement and entertainment as they proceeded through cities and small towns on their cross-country trip. Imagine trying to truck two giraffes across the country without any interstate highways!

That’s the factual part. The rest, while based on these historical facts, is both conjecture and delightful flight of fancy by Rutledge. She introduces us to Woodrow Wilson Nickel, whom we first see at the advanced age of 105 in a nursing home, trying to write the story of his youth. He remembers himself at 17 years old, starving, penniless, orphaned, arriving in New York from Dust Bowl west Texas in search of the only relative he knows. “Cuz,” though, has died in the hurricane. Woody spies the giraffes at the dock in New York harbor and is mesmerized. He steals a motorcycle and follows them to their quarantine location where he hides, steals whatever food he can find, watches and waits. When they begin their trip west, with their handler Riley Jones and a driver he has hired, Woody does whatever it takes to follow along.  

But so does “Red,” a young woman with a camera, a “borrowed” green Packard and a passionate longing to become a famous photographer like Margaret Bourke White.  She is hell-bent on taking photos of the entire journey that she will sell to Life Magazine. Woody is pretty mesmerized by Red, too! Not too long into the story, Woody is hired by Riley when the truck driver shows up drunk one day.

Adventure follows adventure as they meet up with various challenges (like mountain roads) and unscrupulous folks along the way. 

This book is not just a fun read, a good story engagingly told. It’s also a pretty clear picture of the state of the people of this country during the Depression. The description of Dust Bowl Oklahoma and Texas is wrenching. And the snapshot of “Okies” being turned away at the California state line is heartbreaking. More often than not, however, the resilience and determination of the characters – and their love of the giraffes – give the book a hook into our hearts that leaves us smiling.

— Jeanie Smith

Dune, by Frank Herbert

The release of a new movie adaptation of Dune by Frank Herbert in October of 2021 had a lot of people dusting off their old copies of the book and waxing nostalgic about this epic work of science fiction that many had lost themselves in reading years ago. And apparently many others were inspired to read it for the first time, because copies with the newer cover were hard to come by at the library and available in all kinds of special formats on Amazon — from single paperbacks, to deluxe hardcovers, to full sets of books 1-6 and beyond.

Our group tackled it with some trepidation, and in the end, those who liked science fiction and remembered reading it way-back-when still loved it for its elaborate world-building. Those who were not already into the genre seemed to struggle with it, although I think we were all glad to have given it a try. We in the BBB pride ourselves on not shying away from a reading challenge, and Dune was certainly that!

Enough people love this book that its legacy has not only endured but flourished since its original publication in 1956, hence the new adaptation in 2021 starring the VERY popular Timotheé Chalamet. This article from The New Yorker explains some of that unique appeal among its millions of fans: “Dune” Endures

Julie Feirer

How the Word is Passed, by Clint Smith

This is a remarkable book unlike any other than I have read as I have explored over the past two years books on racism, anti-racism, caste, mass incarceration, the realities of slavery. This book is in many ways a travelogue. But a very specific travelogue, exploring sites all over the US – and one in Africa – that illuminate our history with enslavement and its aftermath. Smith visits and talks to other visitors and guides at:

  • Jefferson’s home at Monticello, Virginia, where he takes a tour that not many others take, seeing the realities of Jefferson as a slave-owner and as the father of enslaved children;
  • Whitney Plantation in Louisiana, which is the only plantation devoted to looking at life from the perspective of the enslaved;
  • Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, the largest and one of the most brutal prisons in the United States, built on the site of a former plantation, where African-Americans represent 76% of the incarcerated population;
  • Blandford Cemetery in Virginia, the resting place of over 30,000 Confederate soldiers, where he attends a Sons of Confederate  Veterans (SCV) commemoration celebration;
  • Galveston Island, Texas, where the last enslaved people were finally informed of their freedom after the end of the Civil War and where the Juneteenth celebration was born;
  • the Wall Street area of lower Manhattan in New York City, most of which was built by enslaved persons and which housed a thriving slave auction site until 1762; and
  • Goree Island off the coast of Senegal, where 33,000 people were chained and passed through the House of Slaves and the Door of No Return to be loaded into the holds of ships for the “Middle Passage” cross-Atlantic trip to permanent enslavement in the colonies and the emerging United State; this is a place where today the local population grapples with how to teach their history to their children.

What is remarkable about this book to me is Smith’s gentle courage. He manages to talk directly, but without accusation, with those who do not see life through the same lens. We hear from organizers of the SCV celebration, the tour guides and gift shop proprietor at the prison in Angola, along with many others. He hears their stories and then gently asks them to see things from the Black American point of view.

In a beautiful epilogue, Smith talks with his grandparents. They tell of stories received from their grandparents who were enslaved. They remember their own stories of the Jim Crow south.

Smith’s prose evokes clear images of the places he visits and the people with whom he talks. This is a beautiful book. If you’re interested in dipping your toe into some of the recently published books on “our original sin” and its aftermath, this is an excellent place to begin.

— by Jeanie Smith