Daniel James Brown

I walked into my local library in Little Boston and as I was checking out the librarian asked if I had read enough books over the summer to qualify for the adult summer reading program.

Hell yeah, you bet I read enough.

I was awarded the choice of picking a free book and I chose Daniel James Brown's book Facing the Mountain: A True Story of American Heroes in the World. I'm so glad to have stumbled upon this excellent book about the Japanese American internment camps and the young men who show more despite all the hate thrown at them showed up and punched the Nazis and helped liberate Europe.

The sadness in reading this book is the realization of how far we have not come on our own soil.

In the epilogue, Brown quoted a letter from Truman to Eleanor Roosevelt about attacks against returning Japanese American families to their communities, "These disgraceful actions almost make you believe that a lot of our Americans have a streak of Nazi in them."

I like to hold on to this quote from the author also in the epilogue, "In the end, they helped us win for us a far better world than the one in which they found themselves when Japanese bombers first appeared over Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. Now, more than a generation later, it is up to us to cherish and protect what they won, to devote ourselves yet again to the principles they defended, to surmount our own mountains of trouble, to keep moving upward together on the long slope of our shared destiny." show less

“On September 1, 1894, two forest fires converged on the town of Hinckley, MN, trapping more than 2000 people. The fire created its own weather, including hurricane-strength winds, bubbles of plasma-like glowing gas, and 200-foot tall flames. As temperatures reached 1,600 degrees F, the firestorm knocked down buildings and carried flaming debris high into the sky. Two trains—one with every single car on fire—became the only means of escape. In all, more than 400 people would die, show more leading to a revolution in forestry management and the birth of federal agencies that monitor and fight wildfires.”

This book tells the true story of the 1894 Great Hinckley Firestorm, which burned 350,000 acres in 5 hours and killed over 400 people. It is the story of a logging town in Minnesota. Many of those logs provided additional fuel to the fire. The narrative provides a vivid sense of this disaster. It also presents the context and aftermath.

It is well-structured. The author builds suspense as the fire approaches the town. He portrays the panic people feel when they find themselves trapped. Brown has woven these stories together through researching diaries, letters, and news articles. It is filled with individual stories and acts of heroism.

“As she stepped outside an enormous blast of hot air slammed into the house, bowling mother and child over, tumbling them 25 or 30 feet into a nearby cornfield. Anderson ran to them and knelt beside the dazed mother, imploring her to let him take the baby. He’d save its life if he could save his own…She resisted at first, but then looked where Anderson was pointing at the wall of flame advancing toward them and thrust the baby into Anderson’s arms.”

Brown’s grandfather was a child when this fire hit town, so he had a personal interest in documenting this disaster. His grandfather survived but lost family members. It is scary, heart-wrenching, and sad, but also an excellent example of bringing a lesser-known piece of history to light. show less

If you like narrative non-fiction, in the style of Laura Hillebrand, you have to read Boys in the Boat.

Honestly, I couldn't really fathom how a book about rowing boats down a river was going to be soooo interesting, but I ended up really caring about the boys, their coaches, and the man who crafted their beautiful boats. Throw in some compelling history about the Nazi Germany propaganda machine, and I was pretty hooked.

The book follows an 8 man crew team from Washington University, and more show more specifically, one boy on the team named Joe Rantz. Joe had a very tumultuous childhood, and is the type of character you can really root for to succeed.

The book does a great job of keeping the reader engaged by weaving tales of Joe with stories of the extremely hard training the crew teams endures with anecdotes of the supporting cast of characters and history of the times.

The descriptions of rowing and the races make you feel like you are right there . . .so the excitement of the sport comes through.

Some might complain there was too much detail, but for me, this book was five star all the way.

UPDATE: Re-read this one, and it was just as good the second time around. show less

The Boys in the Boat - D.J. Brown
Published 2013
audio performance by E. Herman
4 stars

This is a very well told story. The 1938 Berlin Olympics is iconic in 20th century history. The winners, the losers, its location and its propaganda value, make it one of the most remembered of modern Olympics. Daniel Brown uses just the right combination of biographical human interest and historical stage setting to give the team rowing competition the same importance as Jesse Owens or Louis Zamperini.

The show more biographical focus of the story is Joe Rantz. All the details of his difficult family life (or lack there of), and his depression era financial struggles, become the backstory of one eighth of a championship team. Joe Rantz and his teammates are an underdog story. They are not from families of the ivy league, financial elite. The odds were stacked against them long before freshman team tryouts.

There were a lot of people involved in this story. I loved the way each personality was brought to life. Brown used direct interviews, diary and journal entries and newspaper quotes. He was not overbearing in his use of historical statistics. The grim financial figures of the depression were balanced with their individual human impact. I liked the way Washington State Crew team workouts were juxtaposed against Hitler’s rise to power. The only time that the story became a bit tedious was during Coach Ulbrickson’s interminable indecision about the final team choices for the Olympic boat. Having advance knowledge of the final decision made me lose interest for a while.

I listened to the great Edward Herman read this one. He was wonderful. It’s sad that he won’t be around to read any new books. I also had a text copy, which is very important because it has photographs. show less