American Notes - Charles Dickens

American Notes: For General Circulation (Dickens, 1842)

After regaling myself with Martin Chuzzlewit, I figured it would be as good a time as any to read my first Dickens non-fiction, seeing as it immediately preceded Martin and touches a similar subject: those wild, rebellious colonials.

While certainly no sweeping national analysis a la De Tocqueville, Dickens's American Notes capture several enlightening and informational snapshots of what America was in the 1840s, from Boston to St. Louis, from partisan politics to deviations from the good Queen's English.

Dickens's interest in social reform and justice probably made him a boring travel companion. While his wife Catherine perhaps wanted to hit the beach, Dickens was excited to see prisons, workhouses, orphanages, reform schools, and institutes for the blind, deaf, and dumb. Indeed, that's about all we get of New England - how their prisons work, what good and bad there is in their design, how they are trying to educate and employ the poor, and so on. Some vignettes are moving and uplifting (the education of Laura Bridgman), others are terrifying (the solitary confinement prisons in New York and Pennsylvania, the list of personal advertisements describing the physical injuries of runaway slaves).

Of course, Dickens the humorist gets in a few good laughs, starting with his mock praise of the "spacious" steamliner accommodations on the trip over. The trials of travelling provide plenty of opportunities to make comic lemonade, while reminding me how awesome cars and airplanes are. The widespread habit of chewing tobacco also evokes Dickens's comic ire - no matter where he goes, he is bespattered with inadvertent spittle. Those uncouth Americans!

Arbitrary rating: 4 out of 5 wild, rebellious colonials

Bringing Up Girls - James Dobson

Bringing Up Girls (Dobson, 2010)

I'm not much of a self-help reader (or a non-fiction reader in general, as can be seen by my published track record), but I figured I'd better read this one!  Though I'll probably need to reread it later, when it will be more applicable... Dobson covers a wide array of topics, from the unique physiology and temperament inclinations of the fairer sex in childhood to the minefield awaiting them in young adulthood.

Where this book is strongest, in my opinion, is in its impassioned call to parents to educate and support daughters as they try to find their way in an increasingly anti-female world. Girls and women are still continually exploited for their perceived beauty or lack thereof, and however "progressive" we might think we are, our society sets up girls for a lifetime of self-doubt, self-loathing, and empty cheats against any cherished hopes of true love and appreciation.

There are also some great snippets of information about the physiological and emotional differences between boys and girls that should not be ignored. I had no idea a baby girl goes through an early puberty-like event that helps develop her brain, or that baby boys' brains get blitzed by testosterone early on (yes, we crazy boys are officially suffering from brain damage). I'm excited to see the similarities and differences between my kids as they grow.

The weakest aspect of the book was its organization, or lack thereof.  Anecdotes, citations, and asides abound. In one chapter directed to moms, there are several pages directed at dads (who get their own chapter later).  Another chapter is simply a newspaper story, cited in full, that doesn't really relate to the previous or following chapters.  Many of the anecdotes (especially the ones near the ends of chapters) are targeted maliciously at heartstrings. C'est la vie.  The main thing I learned is that I need to stay involved in my little girl's life - and though she's only five days old and I have a long way to go, I don't see any danger of dropping that ball.

Arbitrary rating: 4 out of 5 heartstring-tugging anecdotes