Review of $2.00 a Day, by Kathryn J. Edin & H. Luke Shaefer

Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

2_dollars_a_day_large$2.00 a Day

Living on Almost Nothing in America

by Kathryn J. Edin & H. Luke Shaefer

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2015. 210 pages.
Starred Review

This book was published in 2015, so it was written before the election season got going, but it has strong political repercussions.

The book puts faces on extreme poverty, but the approach is a scientific one. Nothing here is sensationalized. The authors took statistics and facts, then dug deeper to give an understanding of what’s going on so that such deep poverty has become so widespread. At the end, they offer some ideas for things we can and should do about this.

This book is based on academic studies and census data. In the 1990s, author Kathryn Edin did an in-depth study of welfare recipients. But in 2010, she found more families in much worse shape.

In the summer of 2010, Edin returned to the field to update her work on the very poor. She was struck by how markedly different things appeared from just fifteen years before. In the course of her interviews, she began to encounter many families living in conditions similar to those she would find when she met Susan and Devin Brown in 2012 — with no visible means of cash income from any source. These families weren’t just poor by American standards. They were the poorest of the poor. Some claimed food stamps, now called SNAP, for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. A few had a housing subsidy. Most had at least one household member covered by some form of government-funded health insurance. Some received an occasional bag of groceries from a food pantry. But what was so strikingly different from a decade and a half earlier was that there was virtually no cash coming into these homes. Not only were there no earnings, there was no welfare check either. These families didn’t just have too little cash to survive on, as was true for the welfare recipients Edin and Lein had met in the early 1990s. They often had no cash at all. And the absence of cash permeated every aspect of their lives. It seemed as though not only cash was missing, but hope as well.

Edin dug deeper and met Luke Shaefer, a leading expert on the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP).

That fall, during an early morning meeting in her office in Cambridge, Edin shared with Shaefer what she had been seeing on the ground. Shaefer immediately went to work to see if he could detect a trend in the SIPP data that matched Edin’s observations. First, though, he needed to determine what income threshold would capture people who were experiencing a level of destitution so deep as to be unthought-of in America. Accordingly, he borrowed inspiration from one of the World Bank’s metrics of global poverty in the developing world — $2 per person, per day. At the time, the official poverty line for a family of three in the United States worked out to about $16.50 per person, per day over the course of a year. The government’s designation of “deep poverty” — set at half the poverty line — equated to about $8.30 per person, per day. As far as Shaefer and Edin could tell, no one had ever looked to see whether any slice of the American poor fell below the even lower threshold of $2 a day for even part of a year. With the SIPP, it was fairly easy to estimate how many American families with children were reporting cash incomes below this very low threshold in any given month….

The results of Shaefer’s analysis were staggering. In early 2011, 1.5 million households with roughly 3 million children were surviving on cash incomes of no more than $2 per person, per day in any given month. That’s about one out of every twenty-five families with children in America. What’s more, not only were these figures astoundingly high, but the phenomenon of $2-a-day poverty among households with children had been on the rise since the nation’s landmark welfare reform legislation was passed in 1996 — and at a distressingly fast pace. As of 2011, the number of families in $2-a-day poverty had more than doubled in just a decade and a half.

It further appeared that the experience of living below the $2-a-day threshold didn’t discriminate by family type or race. While single-mother families were most at risk of falling into a spell of extreme destitution, more than a third of the households in $2-a-day poverty were headed by a married couple. And although the rate of growth was highest among African Americans and Hispanics, nearly half of the $2-a-day poor were white.

One piece of good news in these findings was that the government safety net was helping at least some households. When Shaefer added in SNAP as if it were cash — a problematic assumption because SNAP cannot legally be converted to cash, so it can’t be used to pay the light bill, the rent, or buy a bus pass — the number of families living in $2-a-day poverty fell by about half. This vital in-kind government program was clearly reaching many, though not all, of the poorest of the poor. Even counting SNAP as cash, though, Shaefer found that the increase in the number of families with children living in $2-a-day poverty remained large — up 70 percent in fifteen years. And even after throwing in any tax credits the household could have claimed in the prior year, plus the cash value of housing subsidies, the data still showed a 50 percent increase. Clearly, the nation was headed in the wrong direction.

Reflecting on these numbers, we, Shaefer and Edin, sought out even more confirmation that what we had found represented a real shift in the circumstances of families at the very bottom. With this in mind, we began to look for other evidence, beyond the SIPP, of the rise of $2-a-day poverty. Reports from the nation’s food banks showed a sizable rise in the number of households seeking emergency food assistance since the late 1990s. A look at government data on those receiving SNAP revealed a large increase in the number of families with no other source of income. And reports from the nation’s public schools showed that more and more children were facing homelessness. Taken together, these findings seemed to confirm the rise of a new form of poverty that defies every assumption about economic, political, and social progress made over the past three decades.

The questions the authors bring to these numbers reflect what they’re trying to explain in this book:

Statistics can help identify troubling trends like these, but they can’t tell us much about what’s going on beneath the numbers. In fact, these statistics led to more questions than answers. What had caused the rise in $2-a-day poverty among households with children? Was the landmark welfare reform of 1996 partly to blame? Were these families completely detached from the world of work? Or were they enmeshed in a low-wage labor market that was itself somehow prompting spells of extreme destitution? How was it even possible to live without cash in modern America? What were families in $2-a-day poverty doing to survive? And were these strategies different from those poor families had been using prior to welfare reform, when AFDC still offered such families a cash cushion against extreme destitution? What was so indispensable about cash — as opposed to in-kind resources such as SNAP — for families trying to survive in twenty-first-century America?

In 2012, they launched an in-depth study in four different areas in America.

In each of these places, we looked for families with children who had spent at least three months living on a cash income of less than $2 per person, per day. In most cases, these spells of such dire poverty proved to be much longer. We visited with these families over the course of many months — and, in some cases, years — talking with them frequently, sharing meals, and observing their daily lives. As common themes emerged from their stories — such as their surprisingly high level of attachment to the formal labor market and the frequency with which doubling up with family or friends precipitated a spell of $2-a-day poverty — we looked back to the SIPP and to other sources of data to see if we could see them there as well.

In the end, we followed eighteen families, eight of them featured here. As had been true of those Edin first encountered in the summer of 2010, some of these households received SNAP or lived in subsidized housing. But others weren’t getting even those benefits. During the course of our fieldwork, some of these families escaped $2-a-day poverty; others did not. Most escaped only to fall back into extreme destitution again.

The book does show the reader these families, helps the reader understand what’s going on, puts faces on this level of poverty. Rather than demonizing the poor as just looking for government hand-outs, we can see and begin to understand how people can get trapped in this.

Here’s the concluding section of the Introduction:

America’s cash welfare program — the main government program that caught people when they fell — was not merely replaced with the 1996 welfare reform; it was very nearly destroyed. In its place arose a different kind of safety net, one that provides a powerful hand up to some — the working poor — but offers much less to others, those who can’t manage to find or keep a job. This book is about what happens when a government safety net that is built on the assumption of full-time, stable employment at a living wage combines with a low-wage labor market that fails to deliver on any of the above. It is this toxic alchemy, we argue, that is spurring the increasing numbers of $2-a-day poor in America. A hidden but growing landscape of survival strategies among those who experience this level of destitution has been the result. At the community level, these strategies can pull families into a web of exploitation and illegality that turns conventional morality upside down.

None of the people whose stories appear in this book see a hand-out from the government — the kind that the old system provided prior to welfare reform — as a solution to their plight. Instead, what they want more than anything else is the chance to work. They would like nothing better than to have a full-time job paying $12 or $13 an hour, a modest dwelling in a safe neighborhood, and some stability above all else. In the 1990s, we, as a country, began a transformation of the social safety net that serves poor families with children. More aid has been rendered to a group that was previously without much in the way of government assistance — the working poor. Extending the nation’s safety net in this way has improved the lives of millions of Americans. But there are simply not enough jobs, much less good jobs, to go around. And for those without work, there is no longer a guarantee of cash assistance.

$2.00 a Day shows that the transformation of the social safety net is incomplete, with dire consequences. We believe the time has come to finish the job. Doing something more to help these families won’t be easy; it will require a commitment by all of us. The government’s emphasis on personal responsibility must be matched by bold action to expand access to, and improve the quality of, jobs. But there will always be circumstances in which work as a primary approach to alleviating poverty won’t work. In those cases, we need a system that truly acts as a safety net for families in crisis, catching them when they fall.

The bulk of the book looks at the lives of these eight families in detail. It helps you understand and feel the pain of the plight they face. You have to admire some of the creative ways they’re finding to survive.

The authors particularly look at things like “perilous work” — jobs that even endanger health, that don’t offer reliable hours and terminate employment at the slightest “offense.” They look at housing problems and cobbled-together solutions, and what the poor will do to try to keep their children safe.

This is an academic study, but the authors are good at telling the stories of the people they encountered.

In their chapter on solutions, the authors don’t advocate going back to welfare, since it robbed people of their dignity and self-worth. They point out that the Earned Income Tax Credit has the opposite effect.

In-dept interviews with 209 EITC claimants in the Northeast and Midwest in 2007 showed that while TANF receipt confers stigma and shame, claiming the EITC gives people dignity and restores their pride. First, the EITC is tied to employment. Second, tax credits are included as part of your federal tax refund — along with wages that were overwithheld. This lends the impression that the government benefit is “earned,” a just reward for hard work. Third, you don’t have to go to a welfare office to apply — an address that in and of itself connotes stigma. Instead, roughly 70 percent of EITC beneficiaries find their way to a professional tax preparation firm such as H&R Block, Liberty Tax Service, or Taxman. There you are not a supplicant. Instead you are a customer, there to claim your tax refund like any other American.

I could relate to this because, when my husband joined the Air Force, before I found a job at our new assignment, we qualified for WIC. But to get the benefits, we had to sit through a “class” teaching about nutrition, and all the staff pretty much treated the applicants as idiots. I never went back. Fortunately, I found a part-time job, but I remembered that getting this government assistance meant giving up my dignity. (The Earned Income Credit, though, was another story.) That’s one thing I love about libraries. We offer help to all, and there is no shame tied to it.

The authors go on:

We are not arguing here that the EITC is a solution to $2-a-day poverty. But it does offer a critical lesson in how antipoverty policy ought to be crafted. Too often, America has gone down the road of trying to shame those in need. We’ve put up barriers. We’ve made people jump through hoop after hoop — all based on the not-so-subtle presumption that they are lazy and immoral, intent on trying to put something over on the system. TANF is a perfect example. Yet research shows that the intrusive treatment people typically receive at the welfare office can undermine their confidence in government and erode political participation. It stands to reason that this kind of treatment could also erode the very confidence that is so necessary for pulling yourself out of $2-a-day poverty. Shame may act as a barrier to claiming that little bit of cash that might stop a downward spiral. As a nation, the question we have to ask ourselves is, Whose side are we on? Can our desire for, and sense of, community induce those of us with resources to come alongside the extremely poor among us in a more supportive, and ultimately more effective, way?

There are many more ideas of things we can do in that final chapter.

Our approach to ending $2-a-day poverty is guided by three principles: (1) all deserve the opportunity to work; (2) parents should be able to raise their children in a place of their own; and (3) not every parent will be able to work, or work all of the time, but parents’ well-being, and the well-being of their children, should nonetheless be ensured.

There’s so much more in this book I’d like to copy out. Don’t rely on my review, because you’ll miss so much. This book is worth reading! It’s impeccably researched and clearly presented, and it will stir your heart.

hmhco.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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.

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Review of Miracle Man, by John Hendrix

Biography, Christian, Historical, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

miracle_man_largeMiracle Man

The Story of Jesus

by John Hendrix

Abrams Books for Young Readers, New York, 2016. 44 pages.
Starred Review

This is a picture book telling about the life of Jesus Christ, done by an accomplished picture book illustrator.

Now, I personally am not completely crazy about the book, since I have my own conception of Jesus’ story, and there’s some necessary simplification. For example, he gives Andrew’s lines to Peter (the only disciple named in this book, besides Judas) in the story of the feeding of the five thousand.

But the more I look at this book, the more it’s growing on me. John Hendrix makes the characters in the story look like Jews. Jesus looks tough, and his clothes are a little ragged. But the most interesting feature is that he makes the words of Jesus part of the art and larger than life.

The author introduces Jesus like this:

On a day that didn’t seem at all unusual, there came an unusual Man. He looked like any other man, but he was like none who had ever lived before. This Man was God’s son. When he spoke, his words made things happen. His words came . . . ALIVE

[ALIVE is spelled out by butterflies in the illustration.]

The stories told about Jesus include calling the disciples and the miraculous catch of fish, healing a leper, healing the paralytic (after his friends broke through the ceiling), and calming the sea. I especially like the author’s paraphrase of Jesus’ words after he stops the storm:

I am the Son of the living God who made the water and the winds. Did you forget who was in your boat?

The story goes on with the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus walking on the water, including Peter walking on the water. (“Peter, have faith in my feet, not your own.”) Then we come to the Last Supper and Judas’ betrayal.

The crucifixion is mainly alluded to — very tastefully done for a picture book — one page with Jesus carrying the cross and then a grand scene with the heartbroken disciples, and the women in a corner with Jesus’ body, and the very walls of Jerusalem seeming to say, “It seemed the miracles had COME TO AN END.”

Then we have a spread from inside the empty tomb, graveclothes on a ledge, and Jesus outside in the light looking at a butterfly.

But God’s Son, Jesus, the Miracle Man,
had in store one last glorious miracle . . .

I haven’t seen another book about Jesus’ life quite like this one. The word that comes to mind is Majestic.

The Author’s Note at the back explains why John Hendrix wanted to tell this story. I liked hearing that he was fascinated as a child by the words of Jesus in red in his Bible.

You may have heard about the life of Jesus many times before, but my hope is to share the familiar story with you in a new way. Perhaps the best way to experience the Easter story is to momentarily forget about the trappings of religion around it and see the man at the center. In my experience, the story changes when we think of the people who experienced Jesus in person during the time he walked among us. Those people didn’t have a steepled church building or know anything about Christian theology. They simply met a man, some of them for only a brief moment, and they were changed forever.

Most of all, the author’s love for the Miracle Man shines through. This book is a wonderful way to tell children about Him.

johnhendrix.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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.

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Review of The War That Saved My Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

war_that_saved_my_life_largeThe War that Saved my Life

by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
read by Jayne Entwistle

Listening Library, 2015. 7.5 hours on 6 compact discs.
Starred Review
2016 Newbery Honor Book
2016 Odyssey Award Winner
2016 Schneider Family Award Winner

I always try to listen to the Odyssey Award winner, since it is given to the best children’s or young adult audiobook of the year. This year, the winner was also a Newbery Honor book and a Schneider Family Award winner, so I already knew it was something special. First, I got to listen to Echo, which was also a Newbery Honor book but the only Odyssey Honor audiobook. It was so good, it was hard to imagine an audiobook being chosen above it.

Even with that much build-up, when I listened to The War that Saved my Life, I was not at all disappointed. This was one of the few audiobooks that, when I got to the last CD, I brought the book into the house to finish listening, rather than wait until the morning and my next trip to work. It was way too good to wait!

I should say a word about the narrator, Jayne Entwistle. I’ve listened to other books she’s read, The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place and >As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust. I always enjoy her distinctive voice. Now, I do enjoy almost all English accents, but Jayne Entwistle does an excellent precocious little girl. And she does a fine job making the voices of the various characters distinctive. In this case, she didn’t need to do as many voices as in The Scandalous Sisterhood, and she put just the right character into each of the voices she did portray.

The story in The War that Saved my Life is heart-wrenching. The story is told by Ada Smith. She’s got a club foot, though at the beginning of the book, she doesn’t know that’s what it’s called. She only knows that her foot is disgusting, according to her Mam, and she’s not to let anyone see her. She must stay in their one-room apartment in London.

It’s bearable for Ada when she has her little brother Jamie to watch over. But as Jamie’s getting old enough to go to school, he’s also old enough to start playing outside. Ada’s heart is torn being alone in the apartment. So she decides to teach herself to walk.

Not long after, they learn that London children are going to be evacuated to the country because bombs will be coming from Hitler. Mam hasn’t decided if she’ll send Jamie. Ada asks about herself.

Mam still didn’t look at me. “Course not. They’re sending kids to live with nice people. Who’d want you? Nobody, that’s who. Nice people don’t want to look at that foot.”

“I could stay with nasty people,” I said. “Wouldn’t be any different than living here.”

I saw the slap coming, but didn’t duck fast enough. “None of your sass,” she said. Her mouth twisted into the smile that made my insides clench. “You can’t leave. You never will. You’re stuck here, right here in this room, bombs or no.”

All of that happens in the first two chapters.

But Ada decides then and there that she will leave with Jamie. Her Mam doesn’t know she can walk, and Ada steals Mam’s shoes and sneaks out with Jamie to get there early on the day the children are evacuated.

Once they’re in the country, Ada and Jamie are indeed the last ones picked. The “iron-faced” woman in charge takes them to the home of Susan Smith. Susan doesn’t want children. She is mourning the loss of her “very dear friend” Becky, who lived with her and kept horses.

There’s still a pony named Butter out in the field, and Ada is fascinated with it. The story that follows shows us clearly how Ada’s life is saved. Susan’s and Jamie’s lives are changed along the way.

Words can’t adequately describe this book and how brilliantly the story is woven. The two short chapters at the beginning prepare us for how deprived Ada is, but it’s more fully revealed as she comes out of the room and copes with the country.

Here’s a bit from their ride on the train:

The buildings ended and suddenly there was green. Green everywhere. Bright, vibrant, astonishing green, floating into the air toward the blue, blue sky. I stared, mesmerized. “What’s that?”

“Grass,” Jamie said.

“Grass?” He knew about this green? There wasn’t any grass on our lane, nor nothing like it that I’d ever seen. I knew green from clothing or cabbages, not from fields.

Jamie nodded. “It’s on the ground. Spikey stuff, but soft, not prickly. There’s grass in the churchyard. Round the headstones. And trees, like that over there.” He pointed out the window.

Trees were tall and thin, like stalks of celery, only giant-sized. Bursts of green on top. “When were you in a churchyard?” I asked. What’s a churchyard? I might have asked next. There was no end to the things I didn’t know.

Later on, it seems utterly realistic that, rather than being grateful, Ada gets frustrated and annoyed with all the things Susan tells her, full of words she doesn’t know. When Susan makes a beautiful dress for Ada for Christmas, she has a complete meltdown, unable to feel that something so nice can be for her.

But most of the book is filled with little victories. Ada learns to use crutches. She learns to care for Butter. She learns how to go among people and makes friends.

And the backdrop of all this is the war, which does come even to the countryside. And the looming question of what will happen when Ada has to go back?

This is a beautiful book. Even though I listened to it, I’m going to keep my Advance Reader Copy, because I am going to want to treasure Ada’s story again. I’m sure I’ll notice subtle emotional cues I didn’t catch the first time.

How can I tell children about this wonderful book? I may decide to play up the bombs and spies (Yes, they are both in there). This is ultimately a book about the value found in every person and how love can save your life.

kimberlybrubakerbradley.com
listeninglibrary.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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.

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Review of My Two Blankets, by Irena Kobald & Freya Blackwood

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

my_two_blankets_largeMy Two Blankets

by Irena Kobald & Freya Blackwood

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, 2015. 32 pages.
Starred Review

This is a simply lovely book that poetically shows the reader what it feels like to be an immigrant in a country where you don’t know the language.

On the page where our narrator says, “Nobody spoke like I did,” we see strange shapes coming out of people’s mouths all around.

When I went out, it was like standing
under a waterfall of strange sounds.
The waterfall was cold.
It made me feel alone.

I felt like I wasn’t me anymore.

When I was at home,
I wrapped myself in a blanket
of my own words and sounds.
I called it my old blanket.

My old blanket was warm.
It was soft. It covered me all over.
It made me feel safe.
Sometimes I didn’t want to go out.
I wanted to stay under my
old blanket forever.

She meets a girl in the park. Slowly a friendship develops, with shared activities. Slowly she begins to learn words of her new home.

At night, when I lay in bed
under my old blanket,
I whispered the new words
again and again.

Soon they didn’t sound so cold
and sharp anymore.
They started to sound warm and soft.
I was weaving a new blanket.

The new blanket grows warm and soft and comfortable as the old one.

The metaphor used in this book is cozy and accessible. Readers will feel happy with the immigrant child as she finds joy in her new home. The soft pictures beautifully accompany the text, dipping into the metaphorical when the blankets are described.

We read on the back flap that the author was inspired to write the book by a friendship that developed between her own daughter and a Sudanese child. She teaches aboriginal children in Australian outback communities who use English as their fifth language.

This book is a lovely way to build bridges of understanding.

freyablackwood.com.au
hmhco.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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.

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Review of Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine, by Laurie Wallmark

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

ada_byron_lovelace_largeAda Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine

by Laurie Wallmark
illustrated by April Chu

Creston Books, 2015. 40 pages.
Starred Review

Hooray! A picture book biography of Ada Lovelace, a great female mathematician, the person who wrote the first computer program.

Now, for me, I preferred the graphic novel version of fact mixed with fiction found in The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, but this picture book is perfect for kids, firmly establishing that women can be truly great at math and computer science.

As a picture book biography, the book gives many pages to an incident in Ada’s childhood. Here’s the text that begins a section where Ada was trying to invent a flying machine and ended up playing in a cold pond and catching pneumonia:

And with her mother often traveling, Ada was lonely. Her journals, filled with pages of inventions and equations, kept her company.

The best part was when her sketches flew off the page and became real.

The accompanying picture shows birds flying just out of reach, including a mechanical bird. This may be unfortunately misleading – it looks like the book has turned to a book about a magic, rather than a factual biography. In fact, in the rest of the book, the illustrations simply show what’s described. Okay, there’s one exception where Ada was blind for a time from her illness, and we see what she’s imagining as she sits in the corner of the picture with eyes closed. But this flight of fancy is much more clear as a flight of fancy.

I came up with one other complaint. The book talks about Ada using Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine to calculate 12 times 15. The picture shows Ada looking closely at the machine with a completely different number showing. That’s a little confusing.

But those are admittedly minor complaints. The author nicely explains how Ada Lovelace wrote a computer program before a computer actually existed – based simply on Charles Babbage’s plans for one.

The paintings illustrating the book are gorgeous. Except for that one quibble where it’s not clear yet that the illustration is symbolic, they wonderfully accompany the story and shed light on the events, adding variety and interest.

Because Babbage never finished building the Analytical Engine, Ada never got to see her program run. But the influence of her work lives on. More than one hundred years before the invention of the modern computer, Ada had glimpsed the future and had created a new profession – computer programming.

Ada couldn’t know that one day a computer language would be named after her — Ada. And one of Ada’s uses? To guide modern flying machines.

The girl who needed crutches ended up flying after all!

lauriewallmark.com
aprilchu.com
crestonbooks.co

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The Most Wonderful Thing in the World, by Vivian French and Angela Barrett

Fantasy, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 2

most_wonderful_thing_in_the_world_largeThe Most Wonderful Thing in the World

by Vivian French
illustrated by Angela Barrett

Candlewick Press, 2015. 32 pages.
Starred Review

This is a fairy tale retold in “the time of your grandmother’s grandmother.” The beautiful paintings show clothing from the early twentieth century or late nineteenth century (I’m sure the illustrator could tell you precisely which). The paintings portray a Venice-like kingdom with a city set on a lagoon.

The king and queen decide that to find their daughter a husband, they will look for a young man who can show them the most wonderful thing in the world.

While princes and courtiers are bringing marvels to the king and queen (and here the illustrations are amazing), Princess Lucia has decided to see the city and to learn about its people.

Salvatore is the grandson of Wise Old Angelo, who gave the king and queen the advice. Salvatore brought the letter, and he’s sitting outside when the princess ventures out.

As Lucia came running out of the palace, she saw Salvatore sitting on the wall, playing with a little tabby cat.

“Excuse me, she said, pulling her cloak closer to cover her silk dress, “do you know the city?”

Salvatore smiled proudly, “Of course! I have lived in the kingdom all my life. Nobody knows the city better than I do, pretty lady. North, south, east, and west.”

“Can you show it to me?” Lucia asked. “Today?”

Salvatore was surprised. “But it would take longer than a day. Much longer.”

The princess put her hand on his coat sleeve. “Please?”

The young man bowed low. “I am Salvatore, pretty lady, and I am entirely at your service. Today, tomorrow, and the next day, until you have seen all that you want.”

“Thank you,” said the princess, and they walked away toward the heart of the city.

You can see where this is going! But the natural progression is carried out so beautifully and satisfyingly. The suitors bring some truly amazing things, but none of them is the most wonderful thing in the world. What the answer is, of course, is perfect.

The paintings in this book are very small and detailed, though truly wonderful, so it wouldn’t necessarily work for reading to a large group.

But anyone who likes an illustrated fairy tale will find a treasure in this book.

candlewick.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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.

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Review of The Princess in Black and the Hungry Bunny Horde, by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

hungry_bunny_horde_largeThe Princess in Black and the Hungry Bunny Horde

by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale
illustrated by LeUyen Pham

Candlewick Press, 2016. 90 pages.
Starred Review

A third book about the Princess in Black! She’s a pretty and prissy princess in pink most of the time, but she has a secret identity – she’s the Princess in Black! She fights monsters with ninja moves!

As this book begins, Princess Magnolia is going about her ordinary business, ready to have a princessly brunch with her friend Princess Sneezewort. But then her glitter-stone ring rings! The monster alarm!

When the Princess in Black arrives at the goat pasture, where the hole leading to Monsterland opens, she doesn’t see anything scary. She sees a whole throng of fluffy purple bunnies.

The bunnies don’t look threatening. In fact, they look adorably cute. But there are hundreds of them. And they are terribly hungry. They eat all the grass in the goat pasture. Then they eat an entire tree. They eat a goat horn. They have their eyes on the Princess in Black.

In this case, it is Blacky the Pony (the secret identity of Frimplepants the Unicorn) who saves the day. The bunnies of the hungry bunny horde all speak the language of Cuteness.

Cute sniffles. Cute wiggles.

Cute hops. Only other cute animals could understand.

And that was why Blacky understood.

Because Blacky was not just Blacky the pony.

He was also Frimplepants.

Frimplepants the unicorn.

And Frimplepants the unicorn was as cute as they come.

This book came in at just the right time, when I was scheduled to read to a third grade class on Read Across America Day, and this book seemed perfect. Third graders might believe themselves to be too sophisticated for picture books (even though I know better). This book has 12 chapters and 90 pages. The text I quoted above covers three pages, and there are illustrations on every page (or at least every spread). So the book is accessible for someone who hasn’t been reading long but is ready for chapters – and there’s absolutely nothing boring about it.

And what I love about it is that the story is good enough that younger children who can’t read yet will love it, and older children who are completely capable of reading longer chapters will enjoy it as well. And adults won’t get tired of reading it either. There is much humor in the situation of cute bunnies creating such havoc.

Why should something easy to read and simple to understand be boring? The Princess in Black is the opposite of that.

squeetus.com
candlewick.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/hungry_bunny_horde.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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.

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Review of Headstrong, by Rachel Swaby

Biography, Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review, True Stories 0

headstrong_largeHeadstrong

52 Women Who Changed Science – and the World

by Rachel Swaby

Broadway Books, New York, 2015. 273 pages.
Starred Review

I was going to write that all parents of daughters should read this book. Then it occurred to me that this would be a fabulous book to hand to a teenage daughter. Then I realized that all educators should read this book. Finally, I realize that I think this is a book everyone should read.

Quick, name a scientist who was female and who changed the world with her work. Most people think of Marie Curie and draw a blank when they try to come up with any further names. Rachel Swaby specifically left out Marie Curie from this book. But she found 52 other women who did world-changing scientific work.

I heard Rachel Swaby speak at the 2015 National Book Festival. She was wonderful, so delighted and intrigued by the stories she’d uncovered about these amazing women. I checked out the book and since then have been reading one chapter a day. The fifty-two chapters are an easily digestible 3-4 pages, but highlight the way these women changed the world.

The author chose women who are already dead (“whose life’s work has already been completed”) and she leaned toward women who overcame obstacles, so these stories are inspiring as well as informative. She includes women who worked in the fields of medicine, biology, genetics, physics, geometry, astronomy, math, technology, and invention.

The Introduction explains why this book is so needed:

This book about scientists began with beef stroganoff. According to the New York Times, Yvonne Brill made a mean one. In an obituary published in March 2013, Brill was honored with the title “world’s best mom” because she “followed her husband from job to job and took eight years off from work to raise three children.” Only after a loud, public outcry did the Times amend the article so it would begin with the contribution that earned Brill a featured spot in the paper of record in the first place: “She was a brilliant rocket scientist.” Oh right. That.

The error – stroganoff before science; domesticity before personal achievement – is so cringe-worthy because it’s a common one. In 1964, when Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin won the greatest award that chemistry has to offer, a newspaper declared “Nobel Prize for British Wife,” as if she had stumbled upon the complex structures of biochemical substances while matching her husband’s socks. We simply don’t speak of men in science this way. Their marital status isn’t considered necessary context in a biochemical breakthrough. Employment as an important aerospace engineer is not the big surprise hiding behind a warm plate of noodles. For men, scientific accomplishments are accepted as something naturally within their grasp. . . .

We need not only fairer coverage of women in science, but more of it. . . .

As girls in science look around for role models, they shouldn’t have to dig around to find them. By treating women in science like scientists instead of anomalies or wives who moonlight in the lab as well as correcting the cues given to girls at a young age about what they’re good at and what they’re supposed to like, we can accelerate the growth of a new generation of chemists, archeologists, and cardiologists while also revealing a hidden history of the world.

By her own standards, Hertha Ayrton was a good scientist. So was the detail-oriented seismologist Inge Lehmann, and the firecracker neuroembryologist Rita Levi-Montalcini, too. The scientists in this book aren’t included because they were women practicing science or math in a time when few women did – although by that criterion, many would fit. They’re included because they discovered Earth’s inner core, revealed radioactive elements, dusted off a complete dinosaur skeleton, or launched a new field of scientific inquiry. Their ideas, discoveries, and insights made earth-shaking changes to the way we see the world (and that goes for the seismologist, too). . . .

So instead of calling every standout woman in science the Marie Curie of her field, the next time someone really lives for their work, let’s call them the Barbara McClintock of their specialty. If a scientist charts new territory, let’s refer to them as the Annie Jump Cannon of their particular exploration. If a researcher puts herself in physical danger for an experiment, let’s say she’s like any number of the scientists here who worked with radioactivity or mustard gas.

There are fifty-two profiles in this book. Read one a week, and in a year you’ll know whose research jump-started the Environmental Protection Agency, who discovered wrinkle-free cotton, and even whose ingenious score has now saved generations of struggling newborns. So little coverage has been dedicated to these scientists elsewhere that, in going through these profiles, I hope you’ll feel like you’ve gained a breadth of knowledge that rivals that of Salome Waelsch.

This book hit home to me because I was one of a small minority of women in a graduate mathematics department in the 1980s. It would have done me good to know that outstanding scientists and mathematicians who were women were nothing new at all.

And the book is interesting, too! Each brief biography begins with an intriguing paragraph and then gives you the rest of the story about these women who indeed overcame challenges and accomplished great things.

This book would be a fantastic place to start for novelists looking for actual historical characters with fascinating lives. I say this because I’ve already read a wonderful novel about one of the featured scientists, Sophie Kowalevski, Beyond the Limit, by Joan Spicci. I’m left wanting to know more about most of these amazing women.

Here are a few introductory paragraphs to get you intrigued:

Maria Sibylla Merian loved bugs long before scientists had uncovered their mysteries, loved them at a time when few people were interested in those vile, disgusting things. Acquantances assigned credit or blame for her unusual passion to her mother, who had looked at a collection of insects while Merian was still in the womb. Something about those pinned and polished bodies, shimmering powdery wings, and articulated legs instilled a fascination in the child growing inside her.

Two members of the division of war research at Columbia University spent an entire day grilling Chien-Shiung Wu about her work in nuclear physics. Regarding their own top-secret projects, the interviewers remained dutifully mum until the very end of the day, when they asked if Wu had any idea what they were up to. She cracked a smile. “I’m sorry, but if you wanted me not to know what you’re doing, you should have cleaned the blackboards.” They asked her to start work the next morning.

During the last two and a half decades of her 103 years, Italians liked to joke that everyone would recognize the pope, so long as he appeared with Rita Levi-Montalcini. Though she stood only five feet, three inches, the stories of her work and her life were as large and dramatic as her iconic sideswept hair.

Alice Hamilton’s professional successes – of which there were many – fell at the intersection of science and social issues. Although she earned a degree in medicine from the University of Michigan, gaining further training in bacteriology and pathology at the University of Leipzig and the University of Munich, she didn’t think herself capable of becoming anything more than a “fourth-rate bacteriologist.” But what she lacked in bravado, she made up for in her dedication to problems both “human and practical”: typhoid outbreaks, lead poisoning, and the widespread horror of occupational disease.

Learn the fascinating stories of these and forty-eight other women and along the way become better informed about history and better understand how capable women are and have long been at being scientists.

rachelswaby.com
broadwaybooks.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/headstrong.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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.

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Review of To Hold the Bridge, by Garth Nix

Fantasy, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

to_hold_the_bridge_largeTo Hold the Bridge

by Garth Nix

Harper, 2015. 400 pages.
Starred Review

This is a collection of stories by the brilliant Garth Nix. Based on the copyright page, most were published previously, but not necessarily in the United States. (Garth Nix lives in Australia.)

They are uniformly well-written, but there is a tremendous variety of topics. The title story is set in the Old Kingdom world of Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen, Across the Wall, and Clariel. There are also stories set in the world of his other novels A Confusion of Princes and Shade’s Children.

But there are a wide variety of things going on here. His magic always was original. There is a dark twist in a lot of the tales, but this book makes for tremendously enjoyable reading.

I liked the story about the granddaughter of William the Conqueror and the Sword in the Stone. It turns out the magic of the Britons, holly and forest magic, conflicted with the iron magic of the Norman conquerors. This story is an example of Garth Nix’s complicated magical rules which he communicates to the reader through the eyes of his characters who already understand it. He never descends into expository hell, the bane of many fantasy writers. And he can even pull this off in short stories.

Besides revisiting his own worlds, he also goes into the worlds of The Martian Chronicles, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Hellboy, and Sherlock Holmes — introducing his brother Sir Magnus Holmes, who is a specialist in occult magic. I especially liked the retelling of Rapunzel, where Rapunzel cleverly exploits the requirements of how a witch must treat a guest. Though the witch does some clever exploitation herself.

There are two vampire stories and a zombie story (which is also a unicorn story) and a story about a witches’ school (another one that’s especially good). I did mention there’s a wide variety in these tales. It took me a long time to read, because each story is so satisfying in itself, it’s easy to stop at the end of a story.

A magnificent collection by a master world-builder who also knows how to show you the hearts of his characters.

garthnix.com
epicreads.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/to_hold_the_bridge.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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.

What did you think of this book?

Review of George, by Alex Gino

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

george_largeGeorge

by Alex Gino

Scholastic Press, New York, 2015. 195 pages.
Starred Review
2016 Stonewall Children’s Literature Award

I’ve got a transgender adult daughter, so I was ready for this book, about a transgender 10-year-old. But it opened even my eyes.

The story is simple and well-told. The narration talks about George as “she,” but the people around her treat her as male and assume that she is male, even when they’re trying to be supportive and encouraging.

At the start of the book, George’s teacher is finishing reading Charlotte’s Web to the class, and George can’t keep from crying when Charlotte dies – which of course attracts jeers from boys in the class, including one boy who used to be George’s friend.

George’s teacher tries to be supportive.

“It takes a special person to cry over a book. It shows compassion as well as imagination.” Ms. Udell patted George’s shoulder. “Don’t ever lose that, George, and I know you’ll turn into a fine young man.”

The word man hit like a pile of rocks falling on George’s skull. It was a hundred times worse than boy, and she couldn’t breathe. She bit her lip fiercely and felt fresh tears pounding against her eyes. She put her head down on her desk and wished she were invisible.

George’s class is going to perform a play of Charlotte’s Web. George wants with all her heart to be Charlotte, but is told that there are too many girls who want the part.

This book helped me get inside the head of someone who is figuring out who she really is. And showed me just how difficult that would be – to understand, and then to try to tell the people around you.

This is a children’s book about what it feels like to be transgender. Wow. Perhaps it will help some transgender kids feel less alone. But maybe even more important, perhaps it will help other kids experience empathy, which is one of the best antidotes to bullying. It would be harder to mock someone for being transgender after you’ve read about George just wanting to be who she is.

And it’s also a great story about a kid who wants to surprise everyone by really shining in her class play.

alexgino.com
scholastic.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/george.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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.

What did you think of this book?