Review of Before Music, by Annette Bay Pimentel, illustrated by Madison Safer

Art, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Before Music

Where Instruments Come From

by Annette Bay Pimentel
illustrated by Madison Safer

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2022. 88 pages.
Review written September 7, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

I was not at all prepared for how charmed I would be by this book. Before the title page, pictures filling up oversize pages show you a boy with a drum and a woman with a stringed instrument making music. There’s a bit of text:

Music doesn’t come out of nothing.
It always starts somewhere. . .
with something. . .
with someone.

I expected to learn about the instruments of the western orchestra. But instead, the first instrument presented is a rock gong, and the next one a pututu, made from a seashell. Yes, instruments from western orchestras are included, but they’re a relatively small part of the many, many ways that humans make music.

At the back of the book, the author explains that different cultures classify musical instruments in different ways. “In writing this book, I was inspired by the ancient Chinese system, which focused on the materials instruments are made of.” Each group of instruments is presented first with a large painting and pictures of someone making an instrument of that type. Next, the book explains how that material makes music, then we see many more instruments made with that material, subdivided using the Indian and Javanese focus on how they are played.

And there are so many kinds of instruments! Leafing through the 88 pages, I see instruments made from rock, found objects, clay, gourds, strings, metal, wood, reeds, flexible sheets, and human voices. Mixed between the descriptions of instruments and how they are made are features of musical innovators, people who figured out how to make new sounds from materials already used for instruments or how to improve what was being used.

As an example of the amazing variety found here, on the gourd instruments page, I see thirteen instruments from countries all over the world, only two of which I’d ever heard of before.

This book is fascinating and beautiful. There are suggestions at the back for kids to make their own musical instruments.

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Review of As Good as Dead, by Holly Jackson

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

As Good as Dead

by Holly Jackson
read by Bailey Carr with a full cast

Listening Library, September 2021. 15 hours, 4 minutes.
Review written July 20, 2022, based on a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

Big thanks again to my coworker Lisa, who recommended this trilogy to me. She was anxious to read an Advance Reader Copy of the third book, and I had never read any of them. So I was lucky and didn’t have to wait long in between books, because they were all published by the time I got to them.

In my review of the second book, I’d said that they stand alone okay, but now I say No, not at all. You absolutely need to read the other two books before you read this one. For one thing, you’d find out some major events of the earlier books, but mostly you’d understand the ins and outs of this one better.

Things escalate tremendously in each book. In the first book, Pip is a Senior in high school and takes on a 5-year-old murder case because she doesn’t think the dead boyfriend was actually the murderer, despite a texted confession. In the second book, Pip stumbles into an immediate case where a friend goes missing, but the police don’t think there’s anything to worry about. That case bumps up against another long-ago case of a serial killer.

Well, in this book, Pip gets involved again in an old case involving a serial killer. But this time, a person keeps commenting on her podcast episodes, “Who will look for you when you go missing?” and then some things happen to her that are eerily similar to experiences reported by victims of a Connecticut serial killer from years ago. But there’s someone in prison for the crimes, and there haven’t been any more since he was arrested. So when Pip gets a message from the mother of the convicted man, Pip doesn’t actually want to see the evidence that he is not the serial killer after all. Because that means he’s still out there and may have taken an interest in her.

I won’t say any more about the plot. There was a big turning point about a third of the way into the book, and I really disagreed with the decision Pip made. It had to do with not trusting the police.

As I kept listening and thought about it more, I had to admit that Pip had many, many reasons not to trust the police, and even though I wouldn’t have made that choice, I could believe that Pip would have.

And that choice contributed to an incredibly tense story from start to finish. I was listening this past week when traffic was terrible after a thunderstorm had gone through and stopped electricity and downed trees, and the audiobook had my nerves stretched tight — but at least I wasn’t bored for a second when my normally 15-minute drive took me an hour!

This trilogy is incredibly good, but be aware it’s extremely intense. And the crimes escalate from book to book and get closer and closer to Pip.

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Review of Marie’s Ocean, by Josie James

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Marie’s Ocean

Marie Tharp Maps the Mountains Under the Sea

by Josie James

Christy Ottaviano Books (Henry Holt). 48 pages.
Review written April 19, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

Dramatized in graphic novel format with speech bubbles, this book tells of the life of Marie Tharp and how she overcame prejudice against women and became the first person to map the ocean floor.

First it shows her childhood interest in science and beginning jobs, which were never as challenging as she could handle. But then everything came together when Bruce Hazeen, a graduate student at Columbia asked her to plot sounding data of the ocean floor from many ships going across the Atlantic Ocean, using sonar.

It goes on to show how Marie discovered something in common in the plots from the ships’ data.

And then I noticed something curious. A V shaped cleft ran through each of the profiles I had drawn.

Could there be a crack in the center of the mountains of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon?

It shows how this discovery supported the continental drift theory, which was considered scientific heresy at the time.

Then Bruce was asked to map the locations where transatlantic phone cables had broken due to earthquakes. When Marie plotted the earthquakes – they were all happening along the rift valley she had discovered in the middle of the ocean.

The scientific community was still skeptical of her work. Then Jacques Cousteau towed an underwater camera across the Mid-Atlantic Ocean floor and showed the world that Marie’s rift valley indeed existed.

Thereafter, scientists’ and the public’s opinion of the rift valley and Wegener’s theory of continental drift slowly began to shift. Opinion also began to change regarding women at sea. In 1965, after fifteen years working at my desk, Bruce offered me my first spot as a woman aboard a research vessel.

Marie Tharp continued working, mapping all the world’s oceans.

Heinrich, Bruce, and I continued to collaborate and produced an elaborate painting called the World Ocean Floor panorama in 1977. This glorious map depicts a one-world ocean whose hidden mountains and valleys, created by the immense forces of Earth, erupted off the canvas and dispersed the idea of a flat and featureless seafloor.

By dramatizing her story, this book brings you into the challenges Marie faced as a scientist and how completely she triumphed over them.

mackids.com

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Review of Little Monarchs, by Jonathan Case

Children's Fiction Review, Graphic Novel, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

Little Monarchs

by Jonathan Case

Margaret Ferguson Books (Holiday House), 2022. 256 pages.
Review written September 12, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

This post-apocalyptic graphic novel features a 10-year-old protagonist, Elvie. With the help of her caretaker, Flora, she’s learned how to safely scavenge and survive on things left since mammals were wiped out on earth fifty years before.

It wasn’t war that wiped out humans. It was sun sickness, caused by a change in the radiation coming from the sun. The only people who survived were deep underground. Survivors, Deepers, lived in underground communities. Until Flora discovered that scales from Monarch butterflies could be used to make medicine that protects people from sun sickness. The problem is that it takes lots of butterflies to make enough medicine for a few people, and it expires after six weeks.

Eight years before, when Elvie was a baby, her parents traveled to Mexico, where they could find more monarchs and get more medicine and work on a vaccine. They left Elvie in Flora’s care. But they didn’t come back and sent a message by carrier pigeon that though they had made it, the trip was too difficult without a vaccine.

Not long after they received the message, marauders attacked their site and took it over. Since then, Flora and Elvie have been on their own, with Flora always trying to develop a vaccine, so humans would be able to live on the surface again.

All this background is communicated fairly quickly. Flora and Elvie have some adventures while simply foraging for supplies, and then an earthquake hits. After the earthquake, they find a toddler near the ruins of an underground station. They have no choice but to take care of him. But will his adults follow? And can they be trusted?

This graphic novel had me on the edge of my seat. I loved Elvie — so resourceful, feisty, and kind-hearted.

You might think the story of humanity wiped out by sun sickness would be dark and dismal, but since Elvie and Flora have the medicine, the pictures are bright and colorful. I learned a lot about Monarchs along the way. (Which goes well with a board game I bought recently called “Mariposas” that’s about Monarch migration.)

Bottom line, this is a really good story — great art, great characters, gripping plot.

jonathancase.net
HolidayHouse.com

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Review of The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh, by Candace Fleming

Biography, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh

by Candace Fleming

Schwartz & Wade Books, 2020. 372 pages.
Review written May 8, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh is a biography of Charles Lindbergh written for teen readers. As such, there’s a priority on being interesting and readable, but still a level of detail that gives you a complete look at his life.

She groups the book into two parts – the Rise and the Fall. He was only twenty-five years old when he made the transatlantic flight that propelled him into celebrity. He found a wife after that, and their first child was kidnapped, which made him again the focus of the whole nation. We learn all about his background, his upbringing, his ambitions, and his philosophy of life.

By the end of the book, I didn’t like the guy much, because of all I learned in the second half of the book. It tells about how he was duped by Hitler, but also how his own philosophy of life and belief in eugenics set him up to have sympathy with the goals of Nazism. He’d decided that fascism was a better form of government than democracy, because he thought white people with good genes should determine the direction of the country.

Candace Fleming does an excellent job of explaining his beliefs while pointing out problems with them. She shows the seeds of his ideas and how they developed over the course of his life.

She glosses over his life after World War II somewhat – but does mention that he had three other families in Europe, which he kept secret as long as he lived.

The Prologue is a striking way to start the book – at an enormous America First rally, where Lindbergh revved up the crowd. The author doesn’t give the name of the speaker running the rally when this paragraph comes up:

A couple of Firsters stepped assertively toward a reporter. Would the press cover the rally fairly this time? they wanted to know. Or would the newspapers be biased and inaccurate as usual? Many rally-goers believed the media couldn’t be trusted. Their hero, the face of America First and the man they’d come to hear speak tonight, had told them so. “Contemptible,” he’d called the press. “Dishonest parasites.” In a recent speech he’d even told supporters that the press was controlled by “dangerous elements,” men who placed their own interests above America’s. That was why he had to keep holding rallies, he explained. Someone had to tell it like it was. Someone had to speak the impolite truth about the foreigners who threatened the nation. It was time to build walls – “ramparts,” he called them – to hold back the infiltration of “alien blood.” It was time for America to close its borders, isolate itself from the rest of the world, and focus solely on its own interests. It was the only way, he claimed “to preserve our American way of life.”

Candace Fleming did her homework. There is a 6-page bibliography and 30 pages of source notes at the back.

candacefleming.com
GetUnderlined.com

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Review of The Legend of Iron Purl, by Tao Nyeu

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

The Legend of Iron Purl

by Tao Nyeu

Dial Books for Young Readers, 2022. 48 pages.
Review written September 7, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Okay, how can I possibly resist a picture book about a knitting superhero? Especially one packed full with Tao Nyeu’s adorably cute fuzzy animals?

In this book, Granny Fuzz (a mole), tells stories to a bunch of little furries about the amazing Iron Purl, who singlehandedly fixed the wrongdoing of the outlaw Bandit Bob.

And Iron Purl does it with super fast knitting! She knits the bad bats into cocoons, stopping their plundering, and talks them into making a farm of their own. When there’s a fire at the carnival in a tree, soggy yarn balls put it out, and yarn helps rescue a little one in trouble, with knitted nets for anyone who needs to jump. Every time Bandit Bob tries to make mischief, Iron Purl’s knitting always saves the day.

But then comes the showdown!

Much to Iron Purl’s surprise, Bandit Bob was also skilled in the yarn arts. She had met her match, and she welcomed the challenge.

Of course there’s a happy resolution. But it’s all such silly good fun!

Every home that includes a knitter and children needs this book.

taonyeu.com

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Review of Jane Austen Cover to Cover, by Margaret C. Sullivan

Austenalia, Creativity, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Jane Austen Cover to Cover

200 Years of Classic Covers

by Margaret C. Sullivan

Quirk Books, 2014. 224 pages.
Review written July 25, 2022, from my own copy, given to me as a gift.
Starred Review

First, a great big huge thank you to my coworker Pam Coughlan, who gave this book to me as a parting gift when I got transferred so I was no longer her supervisor. What a delightful treat it is!

The book tells the history of Jane Austen’s publications — with pictures of covers along the way.

They started out quite plain, but it’s fun to watch fashions in cover design change over the years. Some of the covers are almost funny when a Jane-lover realizes how little they have to do with what’s inside the book.

The chapters cover distinct time periods: 1811-1818 — while Jane Austen was alive, and shortly after; 1832-1920, 1920-1989, and 1990-2013 (Yes, there has been a revival). After that, there’s a chapter with book covers that use stills from movie adaptations, and then a chapter of foreign language editions.

It’s peppered with Jane Austen quotations, especially ones appropriate to scenes shown on the covers, and plenty of information about the different editions featured.

Above all, it’s super fun for any Austenite to browse through. I’m keeping this one in my coffee table to pull out for browsing. (It’s a glass-topped coffee table with a drawer.) So much fun!

quirkbooks.com

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Review of The Last Mapmaker, by Christina Soontornvat

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

The Last Mapmaker

by Christina Soontornvat

Candlewick Press, 2022. 355 pages.
Review written July 24, 2022, from my own copy, picked up at ALA Annual conference and signed by the author.
Starred Review

This book is wonderful! It took me on a voyage to enchanted lands, complete with danger, friendship, treachery, and self-examination.

The book begins with twelve-year-old Sai, who has been pretending to be from a good family lineage so she can serve her Assistant year with the old master mapmaker. She doesn’t know how she’ll hide it when she turns thirteen and should receive her lineal — a chain of gold links with one link for every generation of distinguished ancestors.

But then the Queen announces a contest, now that the island is at peace, to map the distant regions of the globe. Sai’s master is going, and he needs her to use her steady hands to get his observations on paper.

But after the voyage departs, Sai learns that they are looking for the Sunderlands — a vast southern continent thought to be mythical. But Sai also learns that there are consequences to “discovery,” that it often doesn’t work out well for those who are “discovered.” Yet if they succeed in mapping the Sunderlands, she can stop hiding her heritage.

Meanwhile, Sai helps a stowaway and makes friends on the voyage — but needs to figure out who she can trust. Storms at sea and mythical creatures add to the adventure. Yes, there are some coincidences in the plot, but they were easy to forgive because I was enjoying the story so much.

A magical tale of discovery, both of the world and in Sai herself.

Here’s a taste of Christina Soontornvat’s beautiful prose:

Paiyoon was the last mapmaker of his kind still working in An Lung. He used old-fashioned mapmaking techniques, drawing coastlines as intricate as a lace collar. This meant that he worked slowly, but in the end, each map was exquisite enough to hang in a museum.

Some people in An Lung said, That man would draw the pebbles on the beach if he had a pen fine enough. Others said, The spirits must have blessed him with the gift of far sight. And still others said (in frightened whispers), Stay away from that old Paiyoon. Everyone knows he sold his soul to a demon in exchange for his mapmaking talent. I liked that one best.

candlewick.com

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Review of Make Way for Animals! by Meeg Pincus, illustrated by Bao Luu

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Make Way for Animals!

A World of Wildlife Crossings

by Meeg Pincus
illustrated by Bao Luu

Millbrook Press, 2022. 32 pages.
Review written July 4, 2022, from a library book.
Starred Review

This is a simple nonfiction picture book about many different things people have constructed to help animals get across busy roadways that cut across their habitats.

I have been fascinated by animal crossings ever since seeing wooded bridges above the highways in Europe.

This book shows bridges like that in the Netherlands, but also a pipeline for penguins in New Zealand, a crossing for crabs on Christmas Island, an underpass for elephants in Kenya, a rope bridge for ringtail possums in Australia, and much more.

The book also gives details about the specific animals helped by the crossings. Notes at the back give details about specific places.

The main text is simple but fascinating. I like the variety in the different kinds of crossings featured. All of them save animals lives and help them have a wider habitat.

MeegPincus.com
lernerbooks.com

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Review of Revolution in Our Time, by Kekla Magoon

Award Winners, History, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

Revolution in Our Time

The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People

by Kekla Magoon

Candlewick Press, 2021. 390 pages.
Review written August 20, 2022, from my own copy, purchased at the Walter Awards and signed by the author.
2022 Printz Honor Book
2022 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award
2022 National Book Award Finalist
2022 Walter Dean Myers Honor Award
Starred Review

Revolution in Our Time is an amazing work of scholarship, telling the complete history of the Black Panther Party for young people, complete with hundreds of photographs and plenty of sidebars and analysis. It won multiple Honor awards, and the meticulous research and clear presentation make it an obvious choice, even for awards that are usually won by novelists.

I didn’t know much at all about the Black Panthers. And honestly, all my impressions of them were negative. I certainly didn’t know that much of their reason for existing was to protest the same disproportionate police violence against Black people that still exists today. But it went much further than that. They wanted to help Black people in poverty and help Black communities come together. Reading this book helped me understand the organization was much more nuanced than anything I’d heard about them.

The Panthers fought a revolution in their time, just as we are fighting one in ours. They were called troublemakers, terrorists, and branded as anti-American, but the truth of their work belies these labels. They boldly claimed their place at the vanguard of a centuries-old fight for equality, and their legacy continues to lead the way forward. The story of the Black Panther Party is one of violence and heartbreak and struggle and conviction. It is the story of a group of young people who set out to change the world around them — in very radical ways.

They came up against many obstacles — including an FBI effort to stop them. They had many successes and many failures. This book tells their complete story, and it opened my eyes.

I was especially interested to learn that especially at the beginning, they were careful to follow all laws. They “policed the police” following police actions with legally owned guns, to protect people in their neighborhoods from police violence. I’m afraid I’m not surprised this resulted in some changes to what was legal.

I like the way the last chapter focuses on how young the founders of the Black Panther Party were. There is a reason the author targeted this amazing work of scholarship to young people. Here’s a paragraph from that last chapter:

I discovered an archival video in the course of my research, with former civil rights movement leaders who were looking back in the early 2000s at their own words and convictions of the 1960s. They declared in retrospect that the biggest mistake of the civil rights era was to believe that all the problems could be solved in their lifetime, and they failed to train the next generation to take up the mantle in the necessary ways to maintain the struggle. My own life experience bears this up in a lot of ways: young people are often underestimated and excluded from challenging conversations. Whether it’s to protect the children, or due to a misguided faith in their own power to solve everything, the perennial mistake of elders is to dismiss the power and potential of youth. On the flip side, the mistake of youth is often to dismiss the wisdom and experience of those who have gone before. In their day, the Panthers didn’t make either of these mistakes. They placed the core of their emphasis on building a cadre of revolutionary youth, and they promoted empowerment through education about Black history. They were undermined and overturned at every stage, perhaps partly because of the truly systemic nature of the change they envisioned, and the fact that they made real progress in these directions in a very short time frame.

Not that the author paints a completely rosy picture of what the Black Panthers were trying to do. But whatever you know about the Black Panthers, I suspect this book will give you a fuller picture. An amazing story of people who wanted to bring about equality and were willing to fight to get it.

keklamagoon.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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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