I raised the question last month as to just what I was hoping to accomplish with this site and even reviewing in general. There was some talk in various other sites about their intentions and while I can appreciate my own thoughts on "expanding the literary conversation", a recent afternoon of bookish talk with Jackie has persuaded me that really, there needs to be more of a concrete plan then just being part of the national discussion on books.

I mean realistically I could do that just by talking to my mother or brother on the phone, so then what's the point of the site?

I can appreciate goals of spreading the word on reading and literacy but from where I'm sitting I don't think I can contribute to those efforts. The people who find my site are already readers - heck the ones who read my column at Bookslut are clearly major bibliophiles - so it's just not my place to say that I'm helping kids read. I think it is librarians who do that job - I know that it was my elementary school librarian who went a long way towards turning me into a lifelong reader. The biggest thing she did was make me (and all the rest of us who wandered in and out of the library) aware of the newest books that she thought we might enjoy. I found books I connected with that way and after reading them I wanted to find more; soon enough, I was looking on my own. And now, thirty years later, I'm still looking.

I think it is the librarians who can get kids in the classroom or interact with them when they go butt dragging into the town library researching something for school (under extreme duress I'm sure), who really turn kids into readers. They are the front lines so to speak - the soldiers in the literary trenches. There are also all those people working in programs to get books to kids who can't afford them, or running community lending libraries or bookmobiles, that do the heavy lifting in terms of literacy. The next leg up the ladder would the be YA and kid lit booksellers who interject with the clueless relatives looking for gifts "for a nine-year old girl that loves horses or a ten-year-old boy who loves monster movies" and show them the books they need to consider buying. Get the right book and the kid will show up soon looking for more on their own - another lifelong reader is born because they got the right book at the right time.

A lot of my readers are those librarians and booksellers (as well as parents and book lovers) and so I think what I can do is let them all know about books I find that are really outstanding. Sometimes I just might be joining the chorus but there are also times when I can tell my readers about a book they have likely never heard of. That's how I can contribute to the bookish world - by getting a great author some new readers. It might not be saving civilization as we know it, but it's one more step in the battle for a larger literate world and I'm happy to do my part.

On that note, let me expand on my brief note the other day about Molly Gloss' The Hearts of Horses. This is an adult title but it is perfect -absolutely perfect - for high school horse lovers. Set during WWI in Oregon ranch country, it follows 19 year old Martha who has left home in an effort to support herself through breaking horses. She does not follow the widely held rough (and violent) techniques of the day and is more of a "horse whisperer". Gloss' detail on what Martha does and how she connects with the horses is fascinating, but that is only one small part of the novel (and don't worry that it gets bogged down in horse training detail - that is not the case at all). The real draw here is the way that Gloss shows Martha slowly making friends with the different families she works for and how they become part of her life and she part of theirs. There is so much of just living here - of families struggling against poverty and racism (it is WWI so being German is not such a great thing), of cruelty and callousness, of bad love, good love and doomed love. It's just a stellar look at what might be considered small lives but ultimately is everything about the human condition that a reader could want.

The moment for me though - the moment when I was blown away - comes when one of the characters who is dying hard of cancer has a sudden moment of clarity. Here is the passage:

"I couldn't sleep," she said, "so I've been knitting."

"Oh Tom, you have a cancer." She began to cry in earnest, and his face twisted into grief. He came blindly across the room to her and knelt at her chair, took her into his arms in a fierce grasp, and they clung together crying. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said, with his mouth in his wife's tangled hair.

This passage just slayed me, pure and simple because I have been there, because my father had that moment right before he died where he forgot and I had to tell him and it is a moment in my life of such complete sadness and despair; a day I can't forget, a look on his face that is still with me.

And Molly Gloss nailed it - she nailed all the sorrow of that moment like she had been there herself. I'm in awe of how beautifully she wrote about dying, just as I'm in awe of all the other gorgeous writing she packs into her book.

So, I heartily recommend The Hearts of Horses for readers of around the 14-15 and older age group (a small bit of sex at the end, but very carefully written). It is for those who have a love for things western or horses, or those who love big sweeping stories about families and people and teenage girls with pluck. It will likely resonate most strongly with girls, due to Martha being front and center, but any boy with an interest in horses will love it as well. A formal review will appear in next month's column, and I hope many of you will give it a read.