Recent Read: The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz

The Inquisitor's Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz

A canonized dog that rises from the dead. A girl who has visions. A biracial young monk so strong he can rip wicked fiends limb from limb with his bare hands. A Jewish boy with miraculous healing powers.

They are the French king’s most wanted. Add to that a dragon who incinerates knights with his farts, a plot to destroy all the Jewish religious texts in France and some quicksand, and you have this medieval adventure that is rollicking, thoughtful, whimsical, and profound all at once. Who could resist?

A man has set out to find out who these notorious children are. What is their story? He finds it at the Holy Cross Roads Inn, where a number of the occupants have encountered the children at various times during their adventures. The butcher, the nun, the innkeeper, and others eagerly tell of their encounters with the young so-called saints, and little by little a magnificent story comes together.

It’s a story that touches on race, religious persecution, and foundational questions of faith. And yet it also manages to provide plenty of adventure and humor (sometimes of the potty variety: “I left my ass at the inn!”). For me, it was Gidwitz’s probing of life’s questions that stirred me most. The responses Jacob receives in response to his question, “Why does God allow it?” are profound and in my view, true.

The pages are illuminated with line drawings, as treasured books of the Middle Ages would have been. In a note at the end, Gidwitz explains his inspiration, citing the original tales and stories that inspired some of those in the book (apparently there is mention in a medieval text of a dragon whose gas “burneth as fire”).

By the end, I was bowled over by The Inquisitor’s Tale. A highlight of the year.

Recent Read: Ghettoside by Jill Leovy

Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy

What an eye-opening look into the so-called inner city of my own hometown. It's true that those of us outside of it are mostly ignorant of what goes on there. Though my high school had a few gang members in the student body (we even had a shooting at the gas station across the street once), it was still a foreign world I knew nothing about. My only real exposure to it was as a librarian assigned to a library in an area of LA right next to the 77^th. I remember going to that community a little scared. But what I found was lots of well cared for single family homes adorned with bars on every window and fences around the yard. The people I met and worked with from the community were nice and pleasant. Don't get me wrong; it was still the ghetto. I never left the building. We had to call the graffiti cleanup hotline on a regular basis. But it put a different, more personal face on this neighborhood that I had only seen through news reports, television, and movies.

It’s an important and timely book that delves into the multifaceted problem of homicide in South Central Los Angeles and, by extension murder in America. The statistics alone are staggering: Blacks make up 6% of the population and 40% of homicide victims in the US. Leovy focuses on the story of one such homicide: Bryant Tennelle, a good kid, from a good home, with a bright future, was gunned down one afternoon a few blocks from his house. Leovy takes us the through the investigation of his murder and the ensuing trial, often using events or people involved to tell us about other stories in the community, describe the state of law enforcement in LA, give historical background on homicide patterns, explain gangs and their role in the community, debunk isconceptions, and much more. It's a complex kaleidoscope. The detective work, the crimes, the organization of the LAPD--every last bit of it was fascinating. I was glued to the pages. I gained a real appreciation not only for the relentless and difficult work that detectives in such areas face on a daily basis, but also for the

Leovy's depictions are straightforward and real, though her opinions are clear. Her thesis: “where the criminal justice system fails to respond vigorously to violent injury and death, homicide becomes endemic.” Whether you agree or not, the book is still invaluable. I personally was sold.