libraryalissa's review
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
A fascinating exploration of a unique event in American and Tennessee history. Even living nearby and being somewhat familiar with the story, I was genuinely surprised by many of the details and was captivated by how we are repeating this same history 100 years later, especially in our history classrooms. This is a brief, narrative examination of the history and subject, filled with photos and lots of back matter. I think students interested in this type of nonfiction will be engaged throughout.
pwbalto's review
5.0
If you ever feel like your K-12 education missed a spot, chances are there’s a really good childrens or teen book on the subject.
Last month I learned about hookworm and its effects on the American South in American Murderer by Gail Jarrow, this month I’m reading the chilling and very familiar sounding battle over teaching evolution in public schools in The Monkey Trial by Anita Sanchez.
Mencken: "The most ignorant man, when he is ill, may enjoy whatever boons and usufructs modern medicine may offer... The literature of the world is at his disposal in public libraries. He may look at works of art. He may hear good music. He has at hand a thousand devices for making life less wearisome and more tolerable: the telephone, railroads, bichloride tablets, newspapers, sewers, correspondence schools, delicatessen. But he had no more to do with bringing these things into the world than the horned cattle in the fields, and he does no more to increase them today than the birds of the air.
On the contrary, he is generally against them, and sometimes with immense violence. Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men. Every valuable thing that has been added to the store of man's possessions has been derided by them when it was new, and destroyed by them when they had the power. They have fought every new truth ever heard of, and they have killed every truth-seeker who got into their hands."
Anita Sanchez does not fail to draw a connecting line between the rise of Fundamentalism that happened in the teens and 20s - and the corresponding beginnings of the schism between rural folk and city "elites," (by the way 100% exacerbated by that a-hole Mencken calling em all yokels and morons while bandying about terms like 'usufructs') - and the deep ideological and social gulfs that characterize 21st century political and cultural rhetoric. She was writing in the summer of 2021, sounds like, so she talks about climate change deniers and anti-vaxxers, but just one year later and we're deep in crisis mode over what books people want to allow our children to read and which ideas we will allow them to be exposed to.
I cannot think of a more timely lesson from history. Essential in every school.
Last month I learned about hookworm and its effects on the American South in American Murderer by Gail Jarrow, this month I’m reading the chilling and very familiar sounding battle over teaching evolution in public schools in The Monkey Trial by Anita Sanchez.
Mencken: "The most ignorant man, when he is ill, may enjoy whatever boons and usufructs modern medicine may offer... The literature of the world is at his disposal in public libraries. He may look at works of art. He may hear good music. He has at hand a thousand devices for making life less wearisome and more tolerable: the telephone, railroads, bichloride tablets, newspapers, sewers, correspondence schools, delicatessen. But he had no more to do with bringing these things into the world than the horned cattle in the fields, and he does no more to increase them today than the birds of the air.
On the contrary, he is generally against them, and sometimes with immense violence. Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men. Every valuable thing that has been added to the store of man's possessions has been derided by them when it was new, and destroyed by them when they had the power. They have fought every new truth ever heard of, and they have killed every truth-seeker who got into their hands."
Anita Sanchez does not fail to draw a connecting line between the rise of Fundamentalism that happened in the teens and 20s - and the corresponding beginnings of the schism between rural folk and city "elites," (by the way 100% exacerbated by that a-hole Mencken calling em all yokels and morons while bandying about terms like 'usufructs') - and the deep ideological and social gulfs that characterize 21st century political and cultural rhetoric. She was writing in the summer of 2021, sounds like, so she talks about climate change deniers and anti-vaxxers, but just one year later and we're deep in crisis mode over what books people want to allow our children to read and which ideas we will allow them to be exposed to.
I cannot think of a more timely lesson from history. Essential in every school.
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