Internment by Samira Ahmed

INTERNMENT by Samira Ahmed is a must-read novel set in the near future where seventeen year-old Layla Amin and her family – all American citizens – are sent to an internment camp that, ironically, lies not too far from Manzanar. Surrounded by an electrified fence, Layla and other detainees are forced to live in surplus FEMA trailers, eat at the Mess, attend meetings at the Hub auditorium and listen to limited information from their media units.  When Layla first arrives at the camp and sees all of the guards, guns and watchtowers, she muses, “I wonder what else they’ve built.  What else can they do to us when America isn’t looking?”  Gradually, a small group of teens begin non-violent resistance actions and manage, with the help of a few sympathetic guards, to get the word out about what is happening at Camp Mobius.

It’s a disheartening and disorienting experience; one where finding an inner strength is a constant battle.  As Layla’s friend, Ayesha, says, “Hope is basically faith, right? It’s intangible. You literally can’t grasp it.  That’s why it is easier to doubt than believe. That’s why it’s easier to give up than persists. … it actually is important to question, because searching for the answer can strengthen our resolve.  But holding on to hope isn’t easy. It’s work.”  

Best-selling author Samira Ahmed’s work will definitely prompt discussion. Her comments are uncomfortable and harshly critical at times; plus, some of the characters’ actions (meekness of adults, risk-taking of guards, cruelty and physical violence of the Director) can feel unrealistic. However, given actual recent actions of the government like housing undocumented immigrants (including children and babies) under a bridge in ElPaso, it seems essential to foster these discussions. I can envision developing a unit that shares resources like this map of the world’s religions or this list of other books (some for younger readers) advocating social justice.  

INTERNMENT received well-deserved starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, School Library Connection, and School Library Journal. I would like to include many more quotes here, but encourage you to read the entire book instead. Meet the author at 3pm on Sunday, March 31st at 57th Street Books in Chicago.

Ten Drugs plus Drugs, Money, and Secret Handshakes

TEN DRUGS by Thomas Hager is subtitled “How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine” and Hager writes about both breakthroughs and unintended consequences of experimentation and development. In his Introduction, he stresses that “No drug is good. No drug is bad. Every drug is both.” Leaving out more well-known drugs like penicillin and aspirin, Hager uses each of ten separate chapters to highlight the history of a drug (like CPZ, the first antipsychotic) or family of drugs (like statins), writing “my preference is for lively stories and memorable characters.” For example, one chapter briefly covers efforts through the 1930s to isolate the hormone progesterone, outlines the continued research in the 1950s with support from Margaret Sanger and Katharine McCormick, and touches upon restraints from local laws and possible ethical concerns with regard to informed consent of patients. Hager then notes, “by 1967 [after FDA approval], thirteen million women around the world had taken some form of the Pill. The number of users today, with greatly improved formulations, tops one hundred million.” Other chapters discuss opium, vaccines (especially smallpox), or chloral hydrate (knock-out drops). His summaries are indeed brief and readers will want to explore elsewhere for more details; what I found amazing, though, is our relative ignorance – even thirty years ago – about how some systems in the body work and therefore about how drugs might interact. TEN DRUGS received a starred review from Kirkus which commented also about how “nowadays, lifesaving drugs attract less attention than those that improve the quality of life.” 

DRUGS, MONEY, AND SECRET HANDSHAKES by Robin Feldman is subtitled “The Unstoppable Growth of Prescription Drug Prices.” Feldman is a Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings and has written other books about the intersection of science and law, including ones which focus on patent law and drug pricing strategies. In her latest text, she documents the “high cost of brand medications for common conditions,” and the extent to which government budgets are “struggling to cover the cost of new, expensive medicines.”  She argues that “internal incentives push every market participant towards behaviors that increase prices, knocking out the normal checks that should operate as brake-points on the market.” After background information on the market and the effects of rising prices, she uses subsequent chapters to explain how incentive structures for insurance companies, pharmacies, doctors and patient groups drive prices higher. Another chapter looks at drug company efforts to keep out lower priced competitors. And, finally, she suggests some changes for “realigning the industry’s incentives with society’s interests.” 

Feldman addresses an extremely complex topic and provides a much needed overview for policy makers, although this seems quite complex (e.g., while some changes would seem to increase competition they may move oversight from a Federal to a State level) even for those of our students who are very interested in the impact and power of the pharmaceutical industry.  DRUGS, MONEY, AND SECRET HANDSHAKES contains truly extensive notes (more than a third of this roughly two-hundred page book), plus a helpful index and several diagrams.