High School Coffee Shops

I've gotten used to the idea of seeing coffee shops in bookstores even though I've never been tempted to pony up five bucks for a coffee and a table that I could use for reading. Call me cheap, but I'd rather add the five dollars to my book budget rather than add the effect of all those extra calories to my already poor diet. What I never expected to see was high school libraries opening up their own coffee shops in an attempt to remind students that there is actually a place called a library in the same building that they wander around in all day long.

Some say that it's working. Others think it is a bad thing.

Coffeehouses are springing up in high school libraries around the country, marking a big departure from the days when librarians sternly prohibited food, drinks and talking.

Some health advocates wonder whether high school students really need any more caffeine, or the calories in that caramel mochaccino.

But school officials say these coffee shops are promoting reading and studying by attracting teenagers who might not otherwise hang out in a library.

...

The coffeehouse trend comes at a time when many school systems around country are removing junk food and soda machines.

"They're already providing horrible school lunches. Now they're adding to that with 800-calorie drinks," said Susan Levin, a registered dietitian with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Many students load up their coffee with sugar and cream or buy dessert-like coffee drinks, Levin said.

Terry Shrader, Centennial High principal, said the Parent Teacher Student Organization considered whether it was a healthy idea before opening the cafe.

"Then they came in one morning and watched how many students walk through the door with Starbucks or those Vaults, caffeinated drinks," he said. "There's not any increase in the amount of caffeine they're drinking."

...

John Witmer, who has run a before-school cafe at Hastings High School in Houston since he became librarian in 2003, said it is extremely popular with the 2,800 students.

Before the coffeehouse opened, "they were running about 6,000 visits per year to the library and checking out about 3,000 books," he said. Now, "we're running about 65,000 visits and checking out about 45,000 books."

He has used the money earned to eliminate library fines, he said.

...

But 17-year-old Aaron Nall, a senior, said he doesn't think his fellow students read any more because of the cafe.

"I think this place is more a social scene than anything," he said. "And it makes it loud if you're trying to use the library."

I'm not ready to buy into the theory that something like this increases real library usage, and I can imagine how irritating all the extra noise must be to students who are actually there to use the library. But, on the other hand, you can't really protect people, high school students, included, from themselves and I doubt that they are consuming many more calories or much more caffeine than they would be consuming without having access to a mini-Starbucks in their school. I'm neutral on this one.

Matrimony: A Novel

Julian Wainwright, the main character of Joshua Henkin's Matrimony, finds out what most of us who have been around for a few decades learned for ourselves: life is what happens to you while you are making plans and dreaming about your future. One thing leads to another and, before a person realizes it, all that dreaming and planning for the perfect life may bear very little resemblance to the life into which he has grown. Sometimes that is a good thing, sometimes not.

Matrimony is a finely told story about long term relationships, some that survive against all odds, and others that fail with little warning after years of having seemed to be strong ones. Henkin begins his story at Graymont College where four freshmen students will meet and form bonds that will shape their adult lives. They are Julian Wainwright, only son of a wealthy New York City couple who chooses Graymont exclusively because of its highly rated “Fiction Writing Workshop,” and Mia Mendelsohn, the beautiful Jewish girl from Montreal with whom he falls in love almost immediately. And they are Carter Heinz, a poor boy from California whose schooling has depended on scholarships as long as he can remember, and his girlfriend, Pilar, the daughter of attorneys who wants nothing more than to become one herself.

Joshua Henkin takes what starts as two freshmen flings and follows those complicated relationships over most of the next two decades. We watch Julian struggle to become the writer he has so long dreamed of being while following Mia from one college town to the next as she continues her studies. We find that, despite their great friendship, Carter cannot control his envy of Julian’s wealth even when it threatens to end their friendship forever.

Matrimony does not use spectacular events to make its point about the nature of marriage. Rather, the author lets time sneak up on the two couples in ways that we all have experienced. Time passes, the honeymoon ends and real married life begins. The couples experience doubts about themselves and their spouses and must decide whether or not the rewards of a long term relationship compensate for its inherent downsides. They are confronted with issues of mortality and must make difficult choices for themselves and their parents.

Henkin offers few surprises about love or marriage but he tells his story in an Everyman kind of way that makes it memorable. I found myself wondering what will happen to Julian and Mia over their next three decades and wishing that Henkin had carried on for another two or three hundred pages.

Rated at: 4.0

A Gift Box for Reluctant Readers

The president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, hopes that spending some $11 million on book gift boxes for the poor of her country will encourage them to read more. She plans to give poor families gift boxes of up to nine books pulled together from a list of 49 titles that are deemed to be appropriate. Other than the fact that some of her critics declare that she would be better off building a few more libraries for her people instead of throwing this much money down what is potentially a black hole, the biggest controversy has centered on the choice of eligible books.

Chile's official choices include titles by Allende, Salinger, Kafka and others. Here's what I would put into a box if I were trying to create a little enthusiasm for reading in the life of some non-reader:

1. Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry

2. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

3. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

4. Battle Cry of Freedom - James M. McPherson

5. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler

6. Team of Rivals - Doris Kearns Goodwin

7. Time and Again - Jack Finney

8. Time on My Hands - Peter Delacorte

9. We Were the Mulvaneys - Joyce Carol Oates

I would hope that the combination of literary fiction, light reading and history would make my target reader yearn for a little more of each type. These are some of my favorite books, of course, but it would be easy enough for me to come up with other combinations that might serve the purpose even better. What do you think?

This Is Not Rugby

Or is it? This is the most amazing football touchdown that I have ever seen. The kids from Trinity University in San Antonio scored on this unbelievable play to pull out a 28-24 victory over Milsaps College last weekend. There were 15 different laterals during this one play and somehow or another no one dropped the ball, accidentally pitched it forward instead of backward, or got tackled. Unbelievable.



Here's the whole story.

I Never Saw Paris

Books and movies about what happens immediately after death have been popular for a long time. The story might be about a confused soul wandering among the living while trying to figure out what happens next, about angels who guide the newly dead across the River Jordan, or about someone having one last chance to defend his life before his final destination is determined. In I Never Saw Paris, Harry Freund wonders what might happen if a several people killed in the same accident were to face that final judgment together.

When four New Yorkers waiting on the sidewalk to cross the street are crushed by a car whose driver has been struck by a fatal heart attack, all five of the newly dead find themselves face-to-face with Malakh, an angel who is there to prepare them for the court appearance that will decide their fate. Malakh requires each to practice for that court date by explaining his life in front of the others and he keeps them relatively honest by prodding them in the right direction with scenes from their past that usually show them at their worst.

But Malakh is in for a surprise when the little group bonds so tightly that his job becomes a bit of a challenge. Suddenly the Holocaust survivor, the young man who made a nice living as a gay prostitute, the elderly black woman who knows the Bible almost by heart, the rich socialite whose only purpose in life was to shop at the best stores, and the powerful businessman who cheated on his wife with a vengeance realize that they are all in this together.

Harry Freund makes the point that life is long enough for most people to slip now and then by doing things that they are ashamed of for the rest of their lives. But some slip more often, and in more serious ways, than others. I Never Saw Paris is a hopeful look about what might happen when it comes time to explain ourselves. This is one of those rare books that I enjoyed despite not really liking a single character in the story, human or angel. That is an accomplishment in itself.

Rated at: 3.5

Darkness Falls

Oil production has become a common target of terrorists who see shutting it down or holding it hostage as a means of influencing world politics. Western economies cannot survive without a steady flow of crude oil, a product that to a larger and larger degree is produced in countries not exactly friendly to Western ideas and influences. Oil companies have come to be cast as villains on the world stage and have also attracted a new breed of terrorist, environmentalist extremists, in addition to the more familiar brand of terrorism suffered at the hands of Islamist extremists. Thus is the stage set for the latest thriller from Kyle Mills, Darkness Falls.

When new bacteria surprisingly appear in the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, bacteria with a voracious appetite for oil and the drilling equipment used to produce it, Erin Neal, a retired expert in the prevention and control of oil field disasters, finds himself there at the not so subtle request of Homeland Security. As one oil well after the other stops producing, it becomes apparent that the bacteria have the ability to spread from one well to the next and could permanently kill oil production from the biggest producing field in the world. Thirty percent of the world’s production is seen to be at immediate risk, something that could destabilize international politics to the point of causing open warfare and countless deaths.

Erin Neal is devastated to find that his own research into the design of oil-eating bacteria to be used in oil spill cleanup may have been adapted by his former girlfriend and fellow scientist to develop similar bacteria capable of destroying oil still in underground reservoirs. Neal, who had been driven to living in seclusion by the woman’s apparent drowning, begins to suspect not only that she may still be alive but that she could be involved with people who are willing to protect the environment at the cost of millions of lives.

Working with Homeland Security and within the highest levels of government, Neal finds himself in a desperate race to catch those responsible for spreading the bacteria before the world’s entire oil supply is destroyed. As they come to realize that losing oil means losing the power necessary to produce and transport food supplies, to generate heating and cooling for billions, and to fuel the economy and military, Neal and his team understand that only they can prevent the ultimate loss of millions of lives. If they fail, mankind will be reduced to a standard of living not seen for hundreds of years.

Kyle Mills has written a first rate thriller, a nightmarish reminder that our way of life is almost completely dependent on a natural resource that is less and less found within our own borders. Love them or hate them, it is clear that this way of life is dependent on the success that oil companies have in replacing oil reserves for at least the next several decades.

If you don’t believe me, read Darkness Falls.

Rated at: 4.0