Subpar Parks: America’s Most Extraordinary National Parks & Their Least Impressed Visitors by Amber Share

Reviewed by Kristin

The title expresses it well. Unbelievably, some tourists are not impressed by the Grand Canyon. One star review here: “A hole. A very, very large hole.” Well, if that doesn’t impress you, buddy, I’m not sure what will. Amber Share covers dozens of funny and underwhelming reviews about locations in the United States National Park Service (NPS). It’s surprising how many people complain about the lack of WiFi and cell signal when they are in the middle of nature.

The NPS was established over a century ago in 1916 and became responsible for the management of federal lands already being protected under the presidential leadership of President Woodrow Wilson. Since that time, the NPS has grown to include more than 420 parks, recreation areas, seashores, rivers, and much more. The land mass included is over 84 million acres. These areas are of enormous national and cultural significance. Wouldn’t you think that most people appreciate that? Not everyone. Not even close.

Denali National Park in Alaska was established in 1980. The mountain lending its name to the park had a previous name: Mount McKinley (no thanks to President William McKinley, who never visited) but the peak was officially returned to its Native name by the state of Alaska in 1975 before the formation of the park. The park encompasses six million acres with an abundance of flora and fauna, but one reviewer tagged it a “barren wasteland of tundra.” Takes all kinds, I guess.

Moving on to warmer climes, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park features the very volcanoes which formed the Hawaiian islands. Beautiful and rare plants fill the park, as well as sea turtles and many bird species. Unfortunately, one reviewer was extremely upset by the fact that they “didn’t even get to touch lava.” Ouch.

In my home state of Indiana, Hoosiers are pretty much impressed by anything that interrupts the monotony of cornfields. Okay, that might be a personal opinion, but as a teenager I was always excited to go to the kettle hole lakes dotting the landscape of northern Indiana, formed by glaciers about 14,000 years ago. Going all the way up to Lake Michigan to Indiana Dunes (established as a national park in 2019) was even better. Being in the heartland of the U.S., crashing waves and rolling dunes felt like the ocean. One recent visitor to the new park had the rather negative comment that the “dunes are not that high.”

Author Share expresses her love for the parks, as well as her love of art. She makes a career as an artist and illustrator, and was inspired by these subpar reviews to make funny social media posts including her artwork. Fortunately, the project caught the attention of other national park fans, as well as rangers and other employees of the parks. This online project turned into this book, currently available on Tennessee READS as an ebook.

Buried Child by Sam Shepard

Reviewed by James Baur       

        Buried Child is a Pulitzer prize winning play written by Sam Shepard that seeks again to tackle the issue of the American Dream and its potential downfalls. Taking place during an economic downturn and the supposed degradation of morality in America, Shepard’s play puts an interesting spin on the typical family drama. What makes this play stand out amongst others is that instead of using larger-than-life caricatures of familiar personality types to express its message, the play throws a curveball and makes each character a sort of inversion on the typical “nuclear family” roles the reader is likely to expect. The father is powerless and lazy, the mother is hardly ever present, the children have failed to follow in the “family business” as per tradition – and to top it all off, a layer of mystery is added as we find out that seemingly everyone has forgotten about the existence of Vince, one of the youngest members of the family. What follows is a brief read that is very engaging and often confusing – but in the right kind of way, where you are likely to read the entire thing in one sitting just to unwrap the tightly packed family secrets kept just out of reach.

                Despite the depressing subject matter and setting, Buried Child’s writing is often humorous in a unique way. In the opening scene, the old and depressed patriarch Dodge has trouble hearing his wife, causing lines to be repeated and frustration to arise between the characters. Moments like this not only serve to emphasize the tedium and growing anger in the family’s life, but also are great for a laugh as the written font gradually increases in size to convey the two shouting, for example. The genius of Buried Child’s comedy is that it always is presented in a way that highlights the depression the characters are going through, so it isn’t always just cheap laughs – it’s trying to get at a main idea, too. Another example is Dodge and his son Tilden’s total fixation on ears of corn. Dodge simply doesn’t believe that corn could be found anywhere nearby, but Tilden insists that it’s right outside. This back-and-forth goes on just long enough to become humorous, while also being reflective of the mindset one may have during a time of extreme economic struggle. 

                Buried Child is a unique read that is well worth the attention of any fan of drama. Taking the traditional “nuclear family” story and turning it inside-out with an added layer of mystery, it never fails to grab the reader’s attention. The play doesn’t use any archaic language and is overall easy to follow provided you read it carefully. As always, I would recommend seeing it performed via YouTube or some other medium if you enjoy it, as seeing things played out in person adds a further understanding to the events that unfold. In the end, the story may not resolve itself in the way you expect, but it certainly does provide a fresh scenario that allows for deep critical analysis and interpretation on the reader’s part.

James Baur is a student at Valparaiso University, in Indiana who lives in Bristol when not away at school. While he studies Japanese and Accounting, he has always had a strong interest in literature and drama, especially classic works.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson

Reviewed by Jeanne

Most people know Bill Bryson as a travel writer of sorts, one who gives an extensive history of a place along with his experiences and does so with a good deal of humor.  His best known book may be A Walk in the Woods, which details his experiences walking the Appalachian Trail, but he’s also done books on England, the United States, and Australia as well as several other non-fiction books.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is Bryson’s account of growing up in Iowa in the 1950s.  Since that was my brother’s era, I gave him an audio version to listen to while he and his wife undertook a long drive, hoping it would keep them entertained.  My sister-in-law called to tell me that my brother laughed so hard she feared they might be stopped for distracted driving.

So when the BPL Winter Bingo started up and my sheet said “Read an Autobiography,” I knew just the book I wanted to read.

First off, true to form, Bryson isn’t just telling about his life; he’s explaining an era.  America’s obsession with the automobile was in full swing, and drive-in restaurants, movie theatres, and the like were popping up everywhere.  Atomic testing was going on in Nevada and was still something of a spectator sport; if you weren’t fortunate enough to live near a testing site, you could still get a bit of the thrill from reading comic books with titles like Atomic War! and Atomic-Age Combat. In schools, children were learning to shelter under a desk in case of a nuclear attack.   To size a shoe properly, the finer department stores had X-ray machines available.  According to tobacco company L&M, their cigarettes were “Just what the doctor ordered!” to soothe the nerves and sharpen the mind; Camel proudly ran ads proclaiming that more doctors smoked their brand than any other, perhaps as a way of implying that if cigarettes were healthy, then theirs were the healthiest.

Bryson discusses food, toys (some of the worst ever invented, but the section on Lincoln Logs was comedy gold), work (Bryson was a paperboy), and the mysteries of the opposite sex.  I found I remembered many of the things he described, although I had better memories of Silly Putty.  As I recall, we used it to make impressions of comic strips which one could then stretch and distort.  Why we considered this fun, I’m not sure; but I do remember buying lots of Silly Putty.  Slinkys, the coming of color TV, Hula-Hoops, TV dinners in aluminum pans, and reading about Dick and Jane are amusingly recalled. 

Bryson’s recollections make this trip down memory lane a particularly hilarious journey.  His loving view of his Des Moines hometown and his family are peppered with sardonic humor.  His mother was a dreadful cook who always managed to burn anything and everything.  Fortunately, his father’s palate was attuned only to two tastes, burned foods and ice cream. “Theirs truly was a marriage made in heaven,” Bryson writes, “for no one could burn food like my mother or eat it like my dad.”

While those who grew up in 1950s and 1960s will take especial delight in this trip down Memory Lane, non-Baby Boomers should get a lot of laughs out of it as well and conclude that Bill Bryson is one funny guy.

2000-2009: What a Difference a Decade Makes!

Reviewed by Nancy

As a youngster, back in the eighteen hundreds, uh, no, I'm sorry it was the early nineteen hundreds. Oh, no, I guess it was the mid twentieth century. Well, whatever. Anyway, a LONG TIME AGO when I was young and in school, anytime I was issued a new textbook the first thing I did was flip through the book and look at the pictures. Text only became important to me later in life. When I was young, I was all about the photographs.

I suppose that's why I so enjoyed looking at 2000 - 2009 The Decade That Changed The World by the editors of Life Books. (909.831 TWO Main)

Turning the pages of this book you can remember George Bush in his flight suit, Saddam Hussein in his hole in the ground, Tina Fey pretending to be Sarah Palin while playing the flute, the Boston Red Sox, Lance Armstrong, the flood of Hurricane Katrina, Michael Phelps, and on and on and on.

The book progresses through the decade year by year with a text summary of each year at the beginning of the section.

The 2001 section features only photographs of the inauguration of George Bush, the World Trade Center disaster, and the war in Afghanistan. For other highlights of that year, one must read the text.

If, after this, you feel the need to dwell on more lighthearted images, flip to one of the two "of the moment" sections and entertain yourself with a sassy picture of Amy Winehouse or an elegant photo of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

2000 - 2009 The Decade That Changed The World closes with a "farewell" section that presents photos of some of the national figures that exited this earthly plane during the decade.

Throughout the book I found myself thinking over and over again, "Oh, yeah, I forgot about that." If you'd like to review the things you remember, or check to see what you've forgotten, have a look at this book. It's fun!