Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson has spent his career working for the poor, the mentally ill, for youth tried as adults, and for other people somehow disadvantaged and lost in the American justice system. It's hard work, and it doesn't pay well. Every day he's faced with horrible stories of lives lost and damaged - yet he keeps at it with grace and diligence and perseverance.

In this book, Stevenson discusses his legal cases, uses notable individual stories to exemplify his points, and outlines the cultural need for compassion.

The book is heartbreaking, yet optimistic. The plight of some of their clients is truly upsetting - innocent people on death row, children abused in all ways and incarcerated with adults, mentally ill individuals without medical treatment. Stevenson and his Equal Justice Initiative staff have made great strides in cases argued and won with the Supreme Court.

It's the kind of book that forces you to look around you and wonder how you can make some difference. I can't argue a case before the Supreme Court. But I could lend a hand to the homeless. I could try to be a role model for disadvantaged kids. I could ... do something. And that's where it starts.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

How I managed 40+ years old without having read this book (or even seen the movie) is startling in itself. But when we decided to read "Go Set a Watchman" for book discussion at the library, I knew this was the perfect time to set that right.

I listened to the audiobook from our library, performed by Sissy Spacek - I hope I don't have to tell you how incredibly rich and wonderful it was to listen to her interpretation.

The book won a Pulitzer Prize, and until 2015 was the only book Harper Lee published. While the overall theme of the book is racism, it's also really about the first time kids discover the world is a cruel place. I won't go into synopsis or review - there have been more than 50 years of that already.

I did enjoy the book immensely, and reading this book may spur me to try out other "classics" that I somehow skipped previously.

The Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth L. Silver

I often wonder how much world knowledge is lost when the only "knower" dies without passing along their story. Somebody knows what really happened in every conspiracy, murder, tragedy or drama - but we may never know the truth if it's never spoken.

And that's the core of this story, too: Noa never took the stand in her own defense, and the mother of the victim wants to know the true story of what happened on New Year's Day. But it's a tangled web of deceit and lies (and goes much deeper than that one day). Awaiting her inevitable execution, this story is really all Noa has left to hold onto and she's not giving it up easily.

I loved that this book unspooled gradually. The book just dips you into the pool and you figure things out once you're already wet. At first you don't know who's dead - then you learn it's Sarah. But who was Sarah to Noa? Clue by clue you learn more and the story Noa's holding reveals itself. But it's probably not the story anybody really wants to hear.

This is an excellent book, and I devoured the last 100 pages way too late after my bedtime because I could not put it down.

After

by Amy Efaw

So often these days we hear about the ways that sex is romanticized for teens. It seems that every media outlet makes creates a form of entertainment that shows sex as something that every teen is doing, and there are rarely consequences. Here comes a book that shows an image of a teen and her reflection on the cover. In the reflection, her belly is a small bump. The book opens with a police officer banging on the door to Devon's apartment because a baby was found in a trash can minutes earlier. In this story, the main character is forced to face what has occurred in her life, not just on that one day, but in the months, and even years, leading up to it.

When I finished the book I wanted a sequel. I would really like Efaw to write about the baby when she becomes a teen. How did being a "trashcan baby" affect the rest of her life? Does she want to meet her biological mother? What has happened in Devon's life since that day?