Library & Literary Miscellany

In case you hadn’t heard, the Olympics have begun! Below are a few web resources and books to check out, in case you find yourself needing something to do in-between events.

A Few Olympic Web Resources

• BBC’s animation on the ancient Greek Olympics
• CBBC Newsround Special Report on The Olympics
• CNN’s Report on the Olympics
• The History Channel has a collection of video clips from different historic Olympic events
• Infoplease’s Olympics 2008
• Internet Public Library’s Olympics Pathfinder
• A Voice of America Special English piece on Tibet and the Olympics
• From the International Olympic Committee: Animated tutorials covering sports at the summer games and videos of moments in past Olympics
• PBS’ Online News Hour China Prepares for 2008 Olympics
• New York Times map of Olympic Medals with an interactive visual for charting medal winning over time
• Scholastic’s Olympics Research Starters
• What Sporting Type are You?: interactive quiz from CNN
• Lists:
  • 18 Smaller Olympic Countries to Root For
  • 25 Sites to Experience the Beijing Summer Olympics

A Few Olympic Books

Fiction

For Kids

• Asterix at the Olympic Games (Asterix) by Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo
• Elympics: Poems (Olympics) by X. J. Kennedy
• Koala Lou by Mem Fox
• The Mud Flat Olympics by James Stevenson
• Tacky and the Winter Games by Helen Lester
• Hour of the Olympics (Magic Treehouse #16) by Mary Pope Osborne

For Young Adults/Adults

• Before I Go by Riley Weston
• Bone Cage by Angie Abdou
• Lori: The Circle of Friends (Book 1) by L. Diane Wolfe

Nonfiction

For Kids

• Olympics (DK Eyewitness Books) by DK Publishing
• The Olympics: Legendary Sports Events by Matt Christopher
• Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman by Kathleen Krull
• The United States Olympics Committee has also made available publications for teachers to help them bring the Olympics into the classroom: Journey to Beijing, Grades 1-3 by United States Olympic Committee and Journey to Beijing, Grades 4-6 by United States Olympic Committee

For Young Adults/Adults

• Beijing’s Games: What the Olympics Mean to China by Susan Brownell
• The Encyclopedia of the Summer Olympics (Watts Reference) by David Fischer
• The Night Olympic Team: Fighting to Keep Drugs Out of the Games by Caroline Hatton
• Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World by David Maraniss
• Swifter, Higher, Stronger: A Photographic History of the Summer Olympics by Sue Macy

Reference

• The Complete Book of the Olympics: 2008 Edition by David Wallechinsky

There’s no shortage of things to watch (for example, the first Team USA game, USA vs China, is at 10:15am ET the morning of August 10) and to think and pray about (for example, the Bachman family and all those who are present for the games and other controversies that have continued to surround the Beijing games) as the Olympics proceed.

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The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer (2002 hardcover, 2004 softcover) Ages 9-12

“Human” is defined narrowly in Nancy Farmer’s The House of the Scorpion. Farmer envisions a world in which creating clones from existing humans genetic code is a reality. Matteo Alacran (Matt) is one such clone; he just happens to be the clone of puissant opium lord El Patron. Although Matt is the clone of El Patron, he is continuously persecuted as a “creature” without a soul, even as “worse than an animal.”

As the marking (branding) on Matt’s foot suggests, he is considered to be nothing more than “Property of the Alacran Estate” (or to put it another way: the organ replacement for El Patron). Matt is seen as not worthy of telling the truths to about himself, until his bodyguard Tam Lin tells him the dirty little secret, “No one can tell the difference between a clone and a human. That’s because there isn’t any difference. The idea of clones being inferior is a filthy lie.” Farmer’s whole book is constructed to get us thinking about truth and lies, human and non-human, regress and progress, right and wrong.

Even in creating an alternative world, speculative fiction/fantasy speaks to issues in our world. Farmer creates a future world that is both exceedingly strange and familiar. The evil empire called Opium is tucked in between the U.S. and Aztlan (formerly Mexico). El Patron’s drug kingdom is farmed by “eejits,” who Matt is horrified to discover are brain-dead clones. The eejits live hopeless, choiceless lives. Farmer’s construction of the eejits forces readers to value their power to choose—whether it be small choices such as whether or not to take a drink of water or whether it be larger choices such as what to do with our lives. While each one of us sometimes makes wrong choices, a key idea of the book seems to be that the ability to choose for ourselves is essential to feeling “wholly” human.

Even though Matt has not had his brain deadened (due to his position as a favorite of El Patron), he feels empathy with his fellow clones. This very human emotion of empathy enables him to have the courage and resolve to help change the situation. Partly because he is El Patron’s clone and partly because he is discovering who he is as a unique individual with the ability to choose what to make of his life, Matt has an indomitable will to survive. Through the course of the story Matt faces much opposition, first from the evil, conspiring Alacran family on the estate and then in Aztlan where he is captured and taken to a base orphanage after he flees the estate following El Patron’s death.

At the close of the book, he escapes the orphanage and returns at last to his inheritance, the Alacran estate, with plans to…well, I won’t spoil the end for you. I’ll just say that the end is not without hope for humanity. Farmer’s original, fast-paced tale is lined throughout with questions about genetics, ethics, and politics and its premise could be used to engender many classroom and/or bookgroup discussions.

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