The American Male at Age Ten

This piece, by Susan Orlean, was also an easy read. Though it was far lighter a subject than "Shadow of a Nation", it was hilariously relatable, despite there being a bit of a time lapse between my 10th year and young Colin's 10th year. Orlean does a terrific job of capturing the passion and spirit of a young, energetic boy, who has seen too little to be tainted with cynicism and coldness brought on by reality, but seen enough to know some thing about how the world works. His perplexing ability to observe and make rather true observations about the world and the things in them remind me very much so of my 8 year-old (going on 23) cousin, Charlie. This whole story cracked me up, especially with topic of girls.

Shadow of a Nation

I really enjoyed this piece by Gary Smith. As a former athlete, it touched home on a lot of issues I dealt with in high school, though not nearly as extreme as in Takes Enemy's case. But still very similar in certain ways. I come from a tiny town as well where high school sports are it, they are the pinnacle of one's hometown existence. Certain kids are good enough to continue on with their passion in college, others are not as fortunate, but Gary Smith does a great job of portraying this contradictory little reservation town and the stress and mixed signals it sends to its youth. He also does tremendous job of describing just how short termed and temporary that pinnacle of high school sports stardom really is in the grand scheme of life. Especially when explaining how a lot of people from the reservation don't always make it back to the peak they had at one time been on, when it seemed their whole life was ahead of them. It was very relatable and easy to read for me, I love reading things like this story.