Review of No Crystal Stair, by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

No Crystal Stair

A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller

by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson
Artwork by R. Gregory Christie

CarolRhoda Lab, Minneapolis, 2012. 188 pages.
2012 Boston-Globe Horn Book Award Winner for Fiction
2013 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book

This is a “Documentary Novel.” In the Author’s Note at the back, Vaunda Micheaux Nelson tells us, “Researching this family history was exciting and challenging, though nonexistent and conflicting information complicated the project. I did my best to tell Lewis’s story using facts where I could, filling gaps with informed speculation, making this a work of fiction. My goal was to leave readers with the essence of the man, an understanding of what shaped him, and a picture of how he and his National Memorial African Bookstore influenced a community.”

I think she admirably achieved this goal. The book reads like a work of nonfiction, so will be more interesting to kids who like nonfiction. It doesn’t read quite like a novel, but the absorbing information may be all the more interesting because it really happened. The author includes photographs and documents and even a copy of the FBI files on Lewis Michaux.

The story is inspiring. Lewis started out as something of the family troublemaker, growing up in his brother the preacher’s shadow. And it took awhile for him to find his own calling. Here’s where Vaunda Micheaux Nelson has him realizing what he should do:

I keep coming back to the same thing. Knowledge. Our people need to continue on the climb Douglass started. They need to read. I’m talking about books you don’t find in just any bookstore. Books for black people, books by black people, books about black people here and all around the world. The so-called Negro needs to hear and learn from the voices of black men and women.

This office would be perfect for a bookstore. My bookstore.

The author takes voices from people all around Lewis Michaux to show how he changed people’s lives. Through books.

lernerbooks.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Boy Who Met Jesus, by Immaculée Ilibagiza

The Boy Who Met Jesus

Segatashya of Kibeho

by Immaculée Ilibagiza
with Steve Erwin

Hay House, Carlsbad, California, 2011. 219 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #6 Nonfiction: Personal Stories

Immaculée Ilibagiza’s books fascinate me. Her deep love for Jesus was refined and purified in the fire of the Rwandan genocide. She tells that story in Left to Tell and her message of forgiveness in Led by Faith.

Then, in Our Lady of Kibeho she got even a Protestant like me excited about visions of the Virgin Mary that had come to three schoolgirls in Africa.

The Boy Who Met Jesus tells of another visionary from that time in Kibeho. Segatashya was a pagan shepherd boy who heard the voice of Jesus and then experienced repeated visions of Jesus talking with him, and his life was profoundly changed.

Segatashya’s visions have not yet been officially declared genuine by the Catholic church, but Immaculée interviewed people who talked with Segatashya and examined him, and none of those people have any doubt that he was genuine and his message was directly from Jesus.

The words he says Jesus told him may not appeal to those who believe you must exactly follow a certain doctrinal pattern, but I find the words full of love and beauty.

I will find the hearts of everyone who believes in me and follows my commandments — no matter which Bible they read or which religion they belong to.

When I come looking for my children, I will not only look in the Catholic Church for good Christians who do good deeds and acts of love and devotion. I will look across the entire world for those who honor my commandments and love me with an open and sincere heart . . . it is their love, not their religion, that makes them true children of God. Tell this one truth to all those to whom you speak in my name: Believe in me, and in whatever you do in life, do it with faith and love.

Those who do know of God, who have been taught of God’s ways, will be held to a higher standard . . . for to those who have been given, much will be expected. No one is forced to believe in God, but still, God lives in every person’s heart . . . just follow your heart to God’s love. Those who live in love will hear God’s voice, because God’s voice is a voice of love.

Though his message was not all sweetness and light. He foresaw the genocide of Rwanda, not knowing what it meant, but begging people to repent. He talked about the End of Days, but offered encouragement to those who follow Jesus.

After Segatashya’s apparitions, he was told by Jesus to go to other African countries and spread the message. Those stories are fascinating, too.

Immaculée tells about her visits with people who knew Segatashya and a member of the Commission of Enquiry who examined him. But I think my favorite part is where she met Segatashya herself as a college student before his death in the genocide. She asked him what Jesus was like.

“What you need to know is this: Jesus knows us all to the very depths of our souls, all our dreams and worries, all hopes and fears, all our goodness and all our weakness,” he explained. “He can see our sins and faults and wants nothing more than for us to heal our hearts and cleanse our souls so that we can love him as immeasurably as he loves us. When he sends us suffering, he does it only to strengthen our spirits so we’ll be strong enough to fight off Satan, who wants to destroy us, so that one day we can bask in the glory of his presence forever.”

Whatever your beliefs about God, it’s hard for me to imagine someone reading this book and not being touched.

hayhouse.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of The Journal of Best Practices, by David Finch

The Journal of Best Practices

A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man’s Quest to Be a Better Husband

by David Finch

Scribner, New York, 2012. 224 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #5 Nonfiction: Personal Stories

This book is sweet. As an adult, David Finch was diagnosed as having Asperger’s Syndrome. It actually opened his eyes to why his marriage was falling apart. He began working on learning how to be a good husband, and kept a Journal of Best Practices.

He writes with plenty of humor. Some of the practices, wives might assume a husband would know without being told. I’m thinking of things like “Laundry: Better to fold and put away than to take only what you need from the dryer.” David Finch used his diagnosis to tackle things like that without blame and simply strive to be nicer for his wife to live with.

Here’s where he explains how the diagnosis helped:

Once I learned that I have Asperger syndrome, the fact that we’d had these serious marital problems seemed less surprising. Asperger syndrome can manifest itself in behaviors that are inherently relationship defeating. It’s tricky being married to me, though neither Kristen nor I could have predicted that. To the casual neurotypical observer (neurotypical refers to people with typically functioning brains, i.e., people without autism), I may seem relatively normal. Cognitive resources and language skills often develop normally in people with Asperger syndrome, which means that in many situations I could probably pass myself off as neurotypical, were it not for four distinguishing characteristics of my disorder: persistent, intense preoccupations; unusual rituals and behaviors; impaired social-reasoning abilities; and clinical-strength egocentricity. All of which I have to an almost comically high degree. But I also have the ability to mask these effects under the right circumstances, like when I want someone to hire me or fall in love with me.

Looking back, I suppose a diagnosis was inevitable. A casual girlfriend might have dismissed my compulsion to arrange balls of shredded napkin into symmetrical shapes as being idiosyncratic or even artistic. But Kristen had been living with me — observing me for years in my natural habitat — and had become increasingly skilled in assessing autism spectrum conditions in her job as a speech therapist….

Most people intuitively know how to function and interact with people — they don’t need to learn it by rote. I do. I was certain that with enough discipline and hard work I could learn to improve my behaviors and become more adaptable. While my brain is not wired for social intuition, I was factory-programmed to observe, analyze, and mimic the world around me. I had managed to go through school, get a good job, make friends, and marry — years of observation, processing, and trial and error had gotten me this far. And my obsessive tendencies mean that when I want to accomplish something I attack it with zeal. With my marriage in dire straits, I decided that even if I needed to make flash cards about certain behaviors and staple them to my face to make them become second nature, I was willing to do it.

Kristen didn’t know it, but that was what her life was about to become — her husband, with the best of intentions, stapling flash cards to his face. Okay, not to his face. And there were no staples involved. But flash cards? Definitely. Many people leave reminder notes for themselves: Pick up milk and shampoo, or Dinner with the Hargroves at 6:00. My notes read: Respect the needs of others, and Do not laugh during visitation tonight, and Do not EVER suggest that Kristen doesn’t seem to enjoy spending time with our kids.

I found two things particularly endearing about this book:

1) That he was willing to make so many changes to make life easier for his wife.
2) That his wife loved him despite the hugely egocentric life he was living before the diagnosis and that she never asked him to be perfect. (Some of his descriptions of what he was doing before are pretty outrageous. But she clearly loves him.)

This is a lovely and humorous story about two imperfect people, one exceedingly quirky, learning to live together with love and grace.

SimonandSchuster.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Balloons Over Broadway, by Melissa Sweet

Balloons Over Broadway

The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade

by Melissa Sweet

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2011. 36 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Sibert Medal Winner
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out #4 Children’s Nonfiction

Balloons Over Broadway is the true story of an artist written by an artist, and it shows. To create the art for the book, Melissa Sweet began by making toys and puppets — just like Tony Sarg did.

The story tells about how Tony Sarg liked to figure out how things worked even as a child, and how he conceived of the Macy’s Parade balloons as a kind of marionette with controls underneath instead of above.

Throughout the book, there is variety and fascinating detail in the illustrations. And she captures some of Tony Sarg’s thought processes in making the parade balloons.

Ultimately, this is a true story of creativity and overcoming challenges. And like all great picture books, you really must see it yourself to appreciate it fully. This one’s worth reading for adults, but is simple enough and interesting enough for young elementary age readers. I hope kids find it in the Biography section, because what we have is a great story.

melissasweet.net
hmhbooks.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

I’m posting this tonight in honor of Nonfiction Monday, hosted today at 100 Scope Notes.

Review of Feynman, by Jim Ottaviani

Feynman

written by Jim Ottaviani
art by Leland Myrick
coloring by Hilary Sycamore

First Second, New York, 2011. 266 pages.
Starred Review

How to make the life and work of a brilliant, if quirky, physicist accessible to the general reader? Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick have done an amazing job by putting the biography in graphic novel form.

Not only do they present the scope of Richard Feynman’s accomplishments, including such a wide variety from work on the atomic bomb to work on the committee investigating the space shuttle’s explosion, they also present the basic idea of some of his pioneering concepts in physics. And they talk about his personal life, including his first wife who died not too long after their marriage, and his defense of a man who was running a strip club, and his decision to give up drinking.

The one thing I didn’t like? It was hard to tell apart all the physicists in their shirts and ties. I finally got to where I could spot Feynman by his crazy hair, but that was about as far as I got.

However, this book inspired me to want to read more about Feynman, and it was a fascinating and interesting story in its own right. It didn’t inspire me the way Feynman’s Rainbow did, but it was another side to a man who made a big difference on our planet.

This is Teen Nonfiction, and I decided to post it on the regular nonfiction page rather than the Children’s Nonfiction page, because even in the graphic memoir format, it’s going to go way over the heads of most children, but most adults won’t mind reading a comic book about a great scientist.

firstsecondbooks.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of The Art of Miss Chew, by Patricia Polacco

The Art of Miss Chew

by Patricia Polacco

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2012. 42 pages.
Starred Review

Patricia Polacco tells a personal story here about the art teacher who got her started as an artist.

It begins with another teacher, Mr. Donovan, who noticed that if he gave Patricia extra time, she could pass her tests with no trouble. He also sees that she’s a natural artist, and helps her get in with the high school art teacher, Miss Chew.

Miss Chew taught Patricia how to paint and how to see. She noticed that Patricia was seeing patterns instead of letters and got her in with a reading specialist. But especially, she valued Patricia’s art and gave her a featured place in the art show, the only non-high school student in the show.

This book is best read to be appreciated. I’ve long loved Patricia Polacco’s art, but the paintings in this book feel more warm and loving than ever. In the paintings themselves, you can clearly see how deeply grateful she still feels toward those two remarkable teachers. There’s also a sparkle in the pictures of young Trisha as she discovers true joy in making art.

A remarkable and memorable book.

patriciapolacco.com
penguin.com/youngreaders

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Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Temple Grandin, by Sy Montgomery

Temple Grandin

How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World

by Sy Montgomery

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, Boston, 2012.
Starred Review

Years ago, I read Temple Grandin’s book for adults, Animals in Translation, and named it a 2005 Sonderbooks Stand-out. In that book, she described how being autistic has given her extra insight into how animals think, and touched off her amazing career.

This book, written for children, tells more about that amazing career. She talks about what it was like growing up autistic, and how different she was from other kids. There are plenty of pictures, including some of her drawings of ways to make slaughterhouse systems more humane.

The overall message of Temple’s life is that the things that made her different from other people were the things that made her work so notable and so needed. This book is phrased to fascinate people interested in Temple Grandin’s life and achievements, but also to inspire kids who feel like no one understands them. Maybe their differences are the keys to their strengths.

In an early chapter, we read:

Along with these problems, people with autism often have amazing talents. It’s as if the brain makes up for deficits in one area with special gifts in others. “Autistic people have a really stellar ability to use the visual parts of the right side of the brain to compensate for problems with language processing,” Dr. Minshew says. Most children take a long time to find Waldo hidden in a detailed cartoon — but autistic children usually spot him right away. In situations like this, says Dr. Minshew, autism “may be a decided advantage!” And, these kids may be able to make friends with others who share their interests, such as art, music, computer programming, or writing.

“If I could snap my fingers and be nonautistic,” Temple says today, “I wouldn’t do it. It’s part of who I am.” One man who first heard Temple speak when he was a young soldier stationed in Denver, phoned a call-in radio show years later to talk to her. “Thank you so much,” he said, “for giving me the inspiration to say that my brain’s not broken. Just different.”

A fascinating book about a remarkable woman.

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Source: This review is based on an Advance Review Copy I got at an ALA Conference and checked against a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Charles and Emma, by Deborah Heiligman

Charles and Emma

The Darwins’ Leap of Faith

Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2009. 268 pages.
Starred Review
2010 Winner YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award
2009 National Book Award Finalist
2010 Printz Honor Book

Okay, when this book first came out, I wasn’t too interested. I grew up in a conservative Christian family, and didn’t exactly see Charles Darwin as a hero. Then the book kept winning awards, and got strong comments from the judges in School Library Journal’s Battle of the Books. I thought I really should read it. Then I met Deborah Heiligman at the 2010 ALA Annual Conference. When I found out why she wrote it, I knew I had to read it. I purchased a book and got her signature. However, it still took me until this year, when I was taking a class on the Printz Award, to finally get it read.

Deborah explains in the Acknowledgments at the back of the book how her husband got her interested in the story that would become this book:

“Jon’s been writing about science and evolution since we met. I had just graduated from college with a major in religious studies. We started talking immediately — about science and religion and writing and pretty much everything else — and we haven’t stopped since.

“One day, about seven years ago, Jon said to me, ‘You know, Charles Darwin’s wife was religious.’ I looked at him. He continued, ‘And they loved each other very much. She was afraid he would go to hell and they wouldn’t be together for eternity.'”

Evolution is supposed to be opposed to Christianity, right? So how is it possible that Charles Darwin’s wife was deeply religious — and yet the two were very much in love.

Deborah Heiligman tells the love story of Charles and Emma Darwin beautifully. It’s clearly a work of nonfiction — she relies heavily on letters and journals and notebooks written by the two of them — but it reads like a novel. Of course, in a story book, the marriage probably wouldn’t have worked. I found it especially interesting that Charles’ father advised him not to tell his new wife about his doubts about religion. But Charles couldn’t hide them from her. And she loved him anyway and even edited his books, including The Origin of Species.

This book tells the story of how Charles Darwin’s scientific theories developed, but it especially shows us the man who loved his wife and children very much. And whatever your views, you can’t help but fall for the man presented here, and the wife who provided exactly what he needed to be such a distinguished scientist.

This book is wonderfully presented. I like the quotations at the head of each chapter and the way Deborah Heiligman has arranged the facts in such an interesting manner. This book presents a compelling story that is all the more amazing because it’s true.

“You will be forming theories about me & if I am cross or out of temper you will only consider ‘What does that prove.’ Which will be a very grand & philosophical way of considering it. — Emma to Charles, January 23, 1839”

DeborahHeiligman.com
HenryHoltKids.com

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Source: This review is based on my own book, purchased at ALA Annual Conference and signed by the author.

Review of The Wilder Life, by Wendy McClure

The Wilder Life

My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie

by Wendy McClure

Performed by Teri Clark Linden

Brilliance Audio, 2011. 9 discs, 10 hours, 43 minutes.

This audiobook was a fun one to listen to while driving to work and back. It felt a little on the long side, but I handled that by giving myself breaks of a few days in between discs. The narrator sounded a little too much like a teenager to me, actually sounding a whole lot like Natalie Moore, who narrated Dairy Queen. However, I got used to her voice and rationalized that the author was indeed a lot younger than me, so it was okay.

The book is about Wendy McClure’s childhood passion for the world of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and her quest to revisit the world of the books by seeing all the Little House sites peppered over America.

Now, I’ll confess right up front that I never read the Little House books myself. I think I read the first one, Little House in the Big Woods, on the urging of Karen Iwata, my best friend in second and third grades, but I thought it was frightfully boring. Those pioneer books didn’t grab me. I remember I also gave up on Caddie Woodlawn.

However, when my sons were growing up, my husband read them all the Little House books, which he had read and loved when he was a child, and I listened in and found them not so bad at all. What’s more, we had visited the home in Missouri where Laura lived as an adult and wrote the books.

And I certainly know about loving childhood books! Some day, some day, I will visit Prince Edward Island, where Lucy Maud Montgomery set her books. Hmm. Maybe I should write a book about it when I do. Though at least Laura Ingalls Wilder had many, many home sites, so Wendy McClure did have a book-length story to tell.

I found the book all the more fascinating because right now I’m in the middle of researching my family history. I keep thinking of the old picture I saw of my grandma as a baby with her brothers in front of their sod house. I remember her telling me, “Just like Laura Ingalls Wilder!” She and my grandpa were actually born in Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma — so quite near the original Little House on the Prairie. What’s more, lots and lots of my ancestors were pioneers and farmers, moving steadily west, so the world of the Little House books is really quite close to the story of my own roots — and that made Wendy McClure’s visiting the home sites all the more interesting to me.

And I have to admit, Wendy McClure knows how to make the tale interesting. She tells about each place she visits, the people she sees, and what she felt to see them. She explores lots of her feelings about the books and about the places, many of which any book lover can easily relate to. She also throws in facts about Laura and her family, but sprinkles them nicely so we don’t get bored.

In short, I recommend this book for anyone who loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, or just anyone who loves going back to the children’s books they cherished as a child. The story doesn’t have a lot of tension or a driving plot, but that actually makes it nice listening for a commute. And, hey, anyone who gets a chance to do a Little House road trip, following the steps of Laura Ingalls Wilder (and Wendy McClure), will definitely want to have this for the ride.

www.terriclarkvoiceover.com

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Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Sex, Mom, & God, by Frank Schaeffer

Sex, Mom, & God

How the Bible’s Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics — and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway

by Frank Schaeffer

Da Capo Press, 2011. 298 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #4 Biography

Sex, Mom & God continues along the lines of Frank Schaeffer’s earlier book, Crazy for God. Frank’s parents, Edith and Francis Schaeffer, were my own parents’ heroes, and in these books, Frank Schaeffer reveals that his upbringing was even more extreme than my own. Much more, in fact.

Frank Schaeffer has ended up with a theology much more liberal than my own, but I still appreciate his words in this book. Be careful when you revere Scripture so much, you don’t stop to think if the God you worship would really be behind what you think Scripture is saying.

I do have a very high respect for the Bible. But I still think we would all do well to listen to Frank Schaeffer’s words about any holy Scripture:

‘There is another choice: To admit that the best of any religious tradition depends on the choices its adherents make on how to live despite what their holy books “say,” not because of them. “But where would that leave me?” my former self would have asked. “I’d be adrift in an ocean of uncertainty.” Yes, and perhaps that’s the only honest place to be. Another name for uncertainty is humility. No one ever blew up a mosque, church, or abortion clinic after yelling, “I could be wrong.”’

The book is also entertaining, though I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it. He tells what his mother told him about sex, her take on what the Bible says about sex, and what he learned for himself. The stories about what his Evangelical culture said about sex still give me a fascinated horror. But what can I say? I really like the perspective he has ended up with in writing this book, somehow laughing at the crazy ideas we humans come up with, yet as his subtitle says, managing to love women and Jesus anyway.

I also love it that he shows so much love and respect toward his Mom, who now has Alzheimer’s. He makes it clear that, no matter what her theology, her heart was kind and loving.

A very interesting book, especially for those who grew up Evangelical. I suspect it would also be interesting for those who think that Christians are narrow-minded. Frank Schaeffer definitely does not take a narrow-minded approach himself.

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Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.