Freefall by Joshua David Bellin

FREEFALL by Joshua David Bellin is definitely worth a read if you are a sci-fi fan and are looking for adventure, romance and space travel science. Bellin packs all of that, plus commentary on socio-economic and racial disparities, into FREEFALL which alternates between time periods (Earth in 2150-2151 and an Otherworld in 3151).  Cam is a privileged Upperworld teenager from Earth who becomes enamored of a young woman named Sofie, leader of the Lowerworld opposition. Sofie holds steadfast to her beliefs:  “The main job of a pundit or priest or philosopher … was to tell stories. Publicly, where anyone who wanted to could hear them.  Sometimes the stories were called sermons. Sometimes they were called dialogues. Sometimes they were called parables. Sometimes they were called Vedas. No matter what they were called, their purpose was the same: to lead their audience to the ways of wisdom.”

And it is Cam who struggles to live up to her expectations: “She’d seen through me the way she always did, seen that deep in my heart I was holding back, expecting her to prove something to me before I committed fully to her cause. Life’s like that in the Upperworld.  You learn to believe there’s always an out.” Earth is rapidly disintegrating and the leaders send two starships (with their passengers in deep sleep) to another planet – a millennium in the future. Of course, there are complications and not all is as it should be in the future world for Cam and his friends Adrian and Griff or for Sofie and her people. Read FREEFALL, called “a strong choice for YA sci-fi shelves” by School Library Journal, to see what happens next.

Dealing with Social Issues ...

On a day when the announcement comes about DACA being rescinded, here are a few comments on a couple of titles dealing with social issues …

TALES OF TWO AMERICAS is edited by John Freeman and contains essays and poems from thirty-six contemporary writers such as Larry Watson, Julia Alvarez and many more. Each author has contributed to these “Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation.”   They often write of their youth and what they know, with Sandra Cisernos (“I changed my name from sand-druh sis-narrows to sohn-druh seez-neh-ros”), for example, contrasting Chicago neighborhoods, describing her childhood and her reasons for leaving. Timothy Egan asks “Was It Better Then?” when he attended University of Washington and worked part-time as a longshoreman in a past where he says “people without college degrees … could live well, in the same neighborhoods as the swells.” Exploring current politics, Richard Russo writes, “Losing your job makes you scared; losing your work makes you angry” and he notes the importance of seeing people, of valuing and respecting their work.  Annie Dillard uses a two paragraph entry to describe a good day’s work, calling to mind Emily Esfahani Smith writing recently in the New York Times: “a good life is a life of goodness — and that’s something anyone can aspire to, no matter their dreams or circumstances.”  TALES OF TWO AMERICAS received a starred review from Booklist and deserves consideration for inclusion in our Senior writing classes since it offers students short introductions to quality writing by authors they may not have yet read.

DESIGN THINKING FOR THE GREATER GOOD by Jeanne Liedtka, Randy Salzman and Daisy Azer is published by Columbia University Press and discusses applying design principles from the business sector to non-profits and government.  It is split into three parts: first, an introduction which defines design thinking (“a problem-solving approach that is human centered, possibility driven, option focused and iterative”); then, the majority of the book which contains ten stories of its application; and a third part which offers insights for adopting design thinking in the reader’s organization.

The authors note that we are seeing the democratization of innovation from trained experts to everyone and argue that their case study participants “used the tools of design thinking to reduce risk, manage change, use resources more effectively, bridge the communication gap between parties, and manage the competing demands of diverse stakeholders.”  One example involves “turning debate into dialogue” at the FDA. Another describes the “power of local thinking” at the Community Transportation Association of America in order to better meet needs of low-income workers. The tone of this book is rather academic, but the message is powerful:  “have a passion for exploration and learning and the courage to try” while focusing together on key questions like What is? What if? What wows? and What works?

Economics ... history and future

I promised some more non-fiction reviews and here are a few loosely tied to economics, opportunity and business history.

I had high hopes for LIFTOFF by Donovan Livingston, but it frankly read as more petulant than inspiring to me, even though it is subtitled “from the Classroom to the Stars.” Maybe that was because this was originally crafted to be a spoken verse graduation speech and therefore it conveyed a sense of yearning and need for dialogue? 

Somehow, LIFTOFF just felt like it was not directed to my teachers or students who already read and discuss The Other Wes Moore. They might honestly be more interested in the foreword Moore wrote or in his organization, BridgeEdU, which works to make college completion more attainable.  

If you wish, you can decide for yourself; here is a YouTube video link to Donovan Livingston’s speech. 

I also recently read Benjamin C. Waterhouse's THE LAND OF ENTERPRISE which is subtitled "A Business History of the United States." Waterhouse, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina, is correct when he opines that we too often "relegate business to the margins of the tale" of  American history.  As a regular reader of "the daily dairy of the American dream" (The Wall Street Journal), I often reflect on business' impact on society.

This ambitious and heavily foot-noted text covers economic activity from colonial times to the present. Waterhouse gives many, many examples in 12 chapters which deal with eras from "Conquest, Colonies and Capitalism" through "Factories Come to America" to "Finance Takes Flight." In "Business Gets Big," for example, he explains how our modern negative images of big business "embody the enduring cultural power of the large corporations that emerged to dominate American business in the late 19th century," including railroads, steel and oil. Waterhouse's chapter titled "After the Industrial Economy" would pair nicely with the more specific case study in  The Glass House by Brian Alexander. In all honestly, I think the text is a bit too dense for our high school students, but college history students and business practitioners would likely be surprised by many of the details he includes.

THE FINANCIAL DIARIES by Jonathan Morduch and Rachel Schneider is a very insightful look at "how American families cope in a world of uncertainty," arguing that it is volatility in cash flow rather than differences in income levels which contributes to inequality and difficulties with long-term financial planning.

Last Fall our students read excerpts from J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy and and I can see them also building empathy for Becky and Jeremy Moore and other Financial Diaries Households.  Morduch and Schneider describe how their team of ten researchers lived in Ohio, Kentucky, California, Mississippi, and New York while learning about cash flow for 235 households - collecting information on over 300,000 transactions between 2012 and 2013. The data is presented in numerous bar graphs and in stories with quotes like, "Work, family and church are the constants in Janice's life. And worry." Many readers will find the uncertainty and the extent of month to month fluctuations for low and lower-middle income families to be shocking. THE FINANCIAL DIARIES received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

That somewhat more scholarly text could easily complement The Unbanking of America which we have recommended to Junior Theme students. And, perhaps it would add a layer of insight to a recent Census Bureau report about The Changing Economics and Demographics Young Adulthood from 1975 to 2016.  Amongst the key findings is the degree to which young adults increasingly live with parents:

[Source: U.S. Census Bureau]