The James Logan Courier

Note: Each week, The Courier spotlights books newly arrived, or expected to arrive, in the James Logan Media Center.

Deogratias, A Tale of Rwanda by J.P. Stassen
Paperback: 96 pages
Publisher: First Second; 1st American Ed edition (May 2, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1596431032
ISBN-13: 978-1596431034

From the publisher:
Deogratias is just a boy. Benina is just a girl. Teenagers like teenagers everywhere. Only he is a Hutu, and she is a Tutsi — so say their ID cards.

We are in Rwanda in the days leading to a swift and gruesome genocide; the world will watch and do nothing. In less than a hundred days, eight hundred thousand human beings will be hacked to death.

Moment by moment, piece by piece, J.P. Stassen skillfully builds a masterpiece, an unforgettable tale that probes man's inhumanity to man. His eloquence, his storytelling power, and his sheer poetry elevate this harrowing story to the rank of a testimonial to one of the darkest chapters in recent human history.

With great skill and understanding, Stassen's Deogratias takes us back and forth in time, showing only before and after the killings — and inexorably revealing the grip of madness and horror on one young boy and his country.

Difficult, beautiful, honest, and heartbreaking, this is a masterwork by a major artist of our time.


Dead Connection, by Charlie Price
Reading level: Young Adult
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press (May 2, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1596431148
ISBN-13: 978-1596431140

From deadconnection.com:

He talks to the dead.
The dead talk to him.

Nikki is the cheerleader missing (presumed murdered) for months. Murray is the loner who talks to the dead residents of the town graveyard—and maybe hears Nikki's voice calling him. Six narrators—including Murray, the cop, the troubled witness, and perpetrator—drive this fast-paced thriller to a dramatic climax.