Tales from the Past, the Circus and the Clouds


by Nick Petrulakis



Ever been the last person to know that great things are happening in your own backyard? Alameda Reads is one of those great things-an adult literacy program, funded through the Alameda Free Library, that gives adults the chance to become students again and get the skills needed to obtain a driver's license, have better employment opportunities or just be able to read their child a bedtime story.
From their hard work comes Wish You Were Here!, a collection of remembrances of favorite places and times and of dreams-past, present and future. Did you know that an unexploded bomb makes a "gara-gara" sound as it drops from the sky over Yokohama? Or that the fabric used to make traditional Afghani robes is Bakhmahl? Or that Mazatlan means "land of the deer"? These far-flung examples demonstrate the breadth of experiences of your neighbors. To find out what's happening in your backyard, pick up a copy of Wish You Were Here! today.
Wish You Were Here! by the students of Alameda Reads (2006, 83 pp., $13.80)

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IT'S THE RARE BOOK THAT COMES along and simply stuns readers with remarkable evocations of a time and place-a book filled with language that's lyrical but never aloof. And if that same book is peopled with circus freaks trying to scrape by during the Depression, well, so much the better.
Enter the world of Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants. Her narrator is Jacob Jankowski. He's 90 or 93; it's hard to remember which. And while his exact age is a bit of a puzzle, the memories of his life certainly aren't: Orphaned just before graduating college. Left penniless at a time when the country was reeling. Made his home with a band of circus crazies. Jacob's reminiscences begin with the horrific image of a big top in chaos, with a beautiful, sequined circus performer intent on murder amidst the confusion.
To understand why, you'll have to follow Jacob's winding memories, but in Gruen's hands, you'll love every wrong turn.
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (Algonquin Books, 2006, 335 pp., $23.95)

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WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU looked up in the sky and saw a face in the clouds? A billowing mountain range? Or perhaps a fluffy Studebaker? It's a pastime forgotten by many adults who need children to remind us that clipper ships can sail over our heads and to answer questions like, "Where do these clouds come from? How come that one-right there!-looks just like the neighbor's cat?"
Cloud Boy, by Oakland writer Rhode Montijo, is a delicate little picture book full of pale blue skies and lots of gray and white clouds. Cloud Boy is lonely living in the sky-until he decides to make his own magic. Little readers will be fascinated to watch a resourceful young one craft beautiful objects out of the fluff of nearby clouds. Older readers will be thankful to finally have an answer to a nagging question through the use of this beautiful, ethereal book.
Cloud Boy by Rhode Montijo (Simon and Schuster, 2006, 32 pp., $12.95)

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