Event: Royal Oak Book Club
Date: February 21, 2016
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 PM
Location: Vinotecca, 417 South Main Street, Royal Oak, MI 48067
Cost: Everyone pays for themselves
Parking: Free on Sunday
Point of contact: Michele Marion michele.marion@swe.org
Other info:
Discussing Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty By Muhammad Yumus
Book Review of In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
Book Review by Beth Nunning
In the Unlikely Event tells fictional accounts of an unfathomable period of time in Elizabeth, NJ. In the early 1950’s, while the author was a teenager, three planes crashed in a three-month time span in that small town. The main character, Miri, is 15 and trying to be a normal teenager as her friends and family try to cope with the terrible series of events.
The stories of the characters become intertwined as they are all affected by the crashes. Miri and her mother see the first plane as it is going down. Miri’s best friend’s father is the town dentist responsible for identifying the victims by their dental records. All in all, the entire town is affected. Some lose loved ones or know someone who has lost a family member in one of the terrible crashes. Some people witness a crash and rush to rescue anyone they can.
As time passes, people leave the town to get away from potential danger and others rallied to get Newark airport closed (and succeeded for a while) to avoid further tragedy. The story is book ended by Miri returning to Elizabeth, NJ 35 years later and seeing people she knew as a young girl and shared something only those living there could.
This book was not was what I expected from an author I’d read as an adolescent. I didn’t know the plane crashes had happened, so it prompted me to read news articles about them. Overall, I thought the book was well-written and the stories tied together nicely, it was just different from the Judy Blume who wrote Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing.
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