The Non-Review

I have a confession to make. Although I am currently reading several books, I haven’t finished a single one. As such, I can’t exactly write a book review today. However, I do have several excuses for why I haven’t read a book. In deference to your time, though, I will limit myself to two:

(1) For the last several weeks, I have been working on and revising my paper on international genocide literature for children. As luck would have it, not long ago I heard an interesting report on my local NPR station. Two researchers (Roberto Posada and Celcilia Wainryb) were interviewed about their recently published article on the effects of war and violence on children. Naturally, I had to read the article and even cited it in my paper.

Most interesting to me was the conclusion that children raised amid war and conflict develop a heightened sense of revenge, which tends to perpetuate the cycle of violence. I found this conclusion particularly interesting in relation to Jean-Philippe Stassen’s graphic novel about the Rwandan genocide Deogratias (the book that inspired me to start writing this blog in the first place). At the end of the novel, Deogratias sets out to avenge the murders by poisoning those he believes responsible: a French (or perhaps he’s Belgian) “peacekeeper,” a Hutu soldier, and a European clergyman.

(2) On a lighter note, I have also been frantically trying to organize my life since I am moving out of the country in exactly seven (7!) weeks. I own massive amounts of books and have been trying to make some sense of them. Below are several pictures of my book disarray. I welcome any recommendations for organizing and storing these books for the next year (or two).

Now that my excuses are made, I need to dash and read a book. Ciao.