What We’re Reading

Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun. World War I, insofar that it is remembered by Americans, is remembered as the first world war America won. The Great War which ravaged Europe doesn’t have the same hold onto our social imaginary as World War II does, and for good reason—we entered in 1917, didn’t really do any serious fighting until the final six months of the war, and our country was unscathed in the fighting. However, Trumbo’s classic anti-war novel reminds us of the price that war takes, even on victorious powers, by looking at the individual lives impacted by war. The story of a wounded soldier, Joe, who awakens in a hospital, has memorial flashbacks of his life back home while slowly realizing what has happened to him: he has lost all his limbs. I first read this book as an undergraduate, and it was well-worth revisiting many years later.

~ Paul Krause

Robert McCloskey, One Morning in Maine. Any young child that grew up in Maine was raised by the stories of Robert McCloskey. Images of the coastline, loons, and blueberries immediately pop into our imaginations as we remember our mothers tucking us in under a full moon during a Nor’easter mid-November. A cozy fire burning, an open window, and the pitter patter of sanderlings calm our minds as we hear McCloskey telling us how Sal lost a tooth digging for clams with Jane. The idea of losing a tooth worries her as it may deter their father from going sailing. Instead, the three go to a mechanic shop to replace a sailboat part. The mechanical part then turns into a symbol…of how something can break yet eventually is replaced with something better. McCloskey makes this connection because Maine is not just a state that grows you, but it mends you back together. It is the only entity that knows you better than you know yourself.

~ Sarah Tillard

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