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Recap:
Bootleg travels all the way back to the Pilgrims coming over on the Mayflower with their casks of beer and hard liquor. Then it works its way through the events leading to the 18th Amendment - aka Prohibition - and finally winds up with the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th.

All along the way, Bootleg is spiked with liquor-related trivia, and insight into the minds of those who fought so hard to free America from the grip of alcohol.

Review:
Oh BoB, I just never know what kind of book you're going to deliver. Graphic novels, fantasy, contemporary, NIVs... and always a few volumes of that divisive genre: nonfiction. Nonfiction can be so hit-or-miss for me. Some texts, like Amelia Lost, turn out to be surprisingly entertaining and revealing. Others, like Bootleg, not so much...

Bootleg covers a lot of ground - literally working its way from the Pilgrims up to MADD and Red Ribbon Week. But the vast majority of the text is focused on the 1920s, the era of Prohibition. Honestly, I learned a TON. Now I could tell you all about Al Capone, the bar smashing Carrie Nation (aka Mother Nation aka Carry A. Nation), and the role that mothers played in passing the 18th Amendment. I was especially interested in how the amendment completely backfired - rather than putting an end to the nation's widespread drinking problem, it did quite the opposite. Not only did "wets" get much more creative in their brewing, their children got in on the act too. Breaking the nation's highest law became a game for the whole family!

If Bootleg had just been edited a little further, I think I would be a big fan. But there were many chapters that just seemed redundant, and the passages that detailed the long, drawn-out political process quickly lost my attention. To be truthful, I really just skimmed the entire second half.

This book is going up against Between Shades of Gray tomorrow in the BOB. Do I really have to tell you that I'm cheering for BSoG? Lina for the WIN!

Recommendation:
Bootleg is a book that I think would be best read in bits and pieces, rather than straight through. Readers who enjoy learning about history, and drinking, would definitely be engaged here.

Did You Know?:
- When George Washington ran for the House of Burgesses, he brought beer, wine, rum, cider and brandy for those who came out to vote at the polls. He won.

- Soldiers in the Continental army had a daily ration of hard liquor.

- NASCAR racing started with the gutsy drivers who had practiced racing by driving loads of moonshine through the back country of the South.

- In the years leading up to prohibition, the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) helped get a law passed that required all schools to provide "temperance education." Their Science textbooks contained "scientific facts" like "This alcohol [wine] is liquid poison," and "It will make a good and kind person cruel and bad; it will make a bad person worse."