More odd historical eras

Thought that Samurai Shortstop was a long shot. 1890s Japan, odd culture versus new. Boy playing baseball. Even had a good beginning (which was apparently written up in Nintendo Power) where the uncle commits ritual suicide instead of being executed. It then continued with a lot of school hazing and people being really mean to each other. Again, who is the audience. I'm going to have to pass.

Lisle's Black Duck almost made it, but it was very disorganized. It kept flipping back to a boy interviewing a man who may or may not have been a rum runner. It started well, with a newsclipping of a three rum runners being found, but switched to the interview. Got into the story, got exciting, then switched back. This happened so often that I lost any interest I would have had in the Prohibition Era, which was too bad. I wanted to take an Exacto knife to the book and just take out the boring parts. Again, not an era we study in middle school, so will pass.