Review of A Well-Trained Wife, by Tia Levings

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

A Well-Trained Wife

My Escape from Christian Patriarchy

by Tia Levings

St. Martin’s Press, 2024. 289 pages.
Review written October 18, 2024, from my own copy, purchased from Amazon.com
Starred Review

A Well-Trained Wife is a memoir from Tia Levings about her life in Christian fundamentalism, her abusive marriage, and how she finally got the courage to leave. Here’s an excerpt from the Prologue:

Allan screamed every night at the demons in the walls. He clutched at my neck as often as he tore his hair seeing those fiery red eyes. He swore he’d kill me. Or he’d take the kids “forever.” Finally, I begged him to see a doctor. I called him “unwell,” too afraid to call it insanity.

The church called Allan’s demons spiritual warfare. Seeing demons pointed to spiritual truth, not illness. Allan didn’t need medicine – I needed correction. They told me to submit more. Go to church more. And anyway, Allan refused doctors. That settled that.

And I was supposed to turn the other cheek. Divorce wasn’t allowed any more than doctors. Now, my long hair hid the scars resulting from my vows to love, honor, and obey. “Till death do us part” could mean by his hand, but who cared?

The Prologue tells us where the story is going, and then Tia’s story shows us how she got there. She starts out with her background in a fundamentalist church and her earnest desire to please God – as well as the boy her friend introduced her to who tried to molest her. And then guilt for that, and plenty of teaching about how a woman’s role is to get married and please her husband and have his babies. One of her best friends in high school was a guy she was afraid was gay – and believed that meant he’d go to hell if it were true.

And then she meets Allan. He is also looking for the woman God has for him. And he moves quickly. Tia relates their story with all the red flags that she didn’t realize were red flags at the time. They get married and get involved in increasingly more conservative churches. Both of them get discipled by people who tell them that Allan needs to be the one in control – complete with “disciplining” Tia and not letting her post anything online he hasn’t approved.

Tia’s story includes five kids and the excruciating story of an infant who gets heart surgery – and then passes away when only nine weeks old. Through it all, her husband is controlling and abusive – and Tia keeps thinking that if she does better, is more obedient, more pleasant, she can change things for them.

Until finally she realizes her life and her children’s lives are in danger, and she escapes in the night.

Tia Levings tells her story well. There’s lots of detail so we understand where she is coming from, and she speaks with compassion for her past self who went through so much and just wanted to please God. She talks about the many lifelines who helped her gain perspective, helped her even think about leaving, and helped her get her feet on the ground after she did leave.

I like these words of perspective in one of the later chapters:

But that’s the thing about puritanical high-control religion. All those God-rules had numbed the entire human experience. The good and the bad, the joy and the pain. The rules said there wasn’t more and I was wrong to thirst for it. Now here was reality, offering me drink.

And of course the book makes me reflect. Because I grew up in a conservative Christian home. I have described it before as not as extreme as those who were home schooled and deep into Bill Gothard’s teachings. We weren’t as extreme as what she describes here.

But then I think, hold on, the only reason my parents weren’t as extreme is that the churches they attended weren’t quite that extreme. But I attended Bill Gothard’s “Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts” many times. I think the only reason we didn’t go to the Advanced seminar (and maybe my oldest brother did?) was that it wasn’t happening nearby, and we’d never pay for plane flights.

I was third of thirteen children. We went to church twice on Sundays and on Wednesday nights as well. We went to Christian schools. Or at least we older kids did – the later kids were homeschooled. I went to a Christian university and married a young man I met there who had his own notebook from Bill Gothard’s Advanced Seminar.

I’ve long told myself that we had a good marriage for many years – until my husband let chronic resentment get in and had an affair and left me. But this book made me wonder how much I was fooling myself. I had wanted to be a stay-at-home Mom, but we couldn’t afford that and I worked part-time for most of the time we were married – and felt a little resentful about that. I happily followed his job around the country and the world – but I wonder if there would have been a better way to approach it. And of course, I knew absolutely nothing about sex when I got married. I always thought it was beautiful to learn together – but well, this book made me think more about those kids hurrying into marriage and thinking they knew “God’s right way” to do things. I’m just not sure I was any more clear-eyed than Tia was.

All that is to say that this book is compelling and well-written. And it made me think about what makes a good marriage – and that it’s perhaps not as clear-cut as my pastors used to try to make me believe.

I love this statement on the very last page:

I have a new spiritual practice now. One that is fluid and deeply private. There are no gurus or holy books of rules. My mycorrhizal network underground communicates through poetry, gratitude, compassion, reality, and supreme love. I’m a tree rooted to the deep with arms reaching for the sky. I’m a woman. A mother writer artist hiker friend, but more than any role. I am not half of another. Nor the completion of their aching soul. I don’t owe anyone my body or service. Training is for dogs. I’m a human soul on a journey home and I belong to me.

That makes me believe that Tia Levings is going to go on to live a good and joyful life. Not a perfect one, but a rich and lovely one, with plenty of joys and sorrows. And I believe that I am doing so, too.

Thank you for sharing your story, Tia! Here’s to a life free of rules but full of love and joy.

tialevings.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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Review of The Fabulous Fannie Farmer, by Emma Bland Smith, pictures by Susan Reagan

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

The Fabulous Fannie Farmer

Kitchen Scientist and America’s Cook

by Emma Bland Smith
pictures by Susan Reagan

Calkins Creek (Astra Books for Young Readers), 2024. 40 pages.
Review written October 18, 2024, from my own copy, sent to me by the publisher.
Starred Review

The Fabulous Fannie Farmer is, yes, about the writer of cookbooks. What I didn’t know is that she was the one whose cookbook – first published in 1896 – established using standard measurements in cookbooks.

Here’s how the author puts it, talking about Fannie’s childhood:

If Fannie had asked, “How much salt should I put in this soup?” her mother might have answered, “Oh, a goodly amount.”

The reply to “And how much butter?” might have been “The size of a chicken’s egg.”

“How long should I cook it?”

“Why, till it’s done, of course!”

Women weren’t supposed to need exact measurements and instructions – cooking was all about feminine instincts, after all!

The book tells about Fannie’s life, her setback of being laid up for years because of polio, and her eventually finding a place at the Boston Cooking School, first as a student, then as an assistant, and eventually as the principal.

As a teacher at the Boston Cooking School, she continued to perfect her skills and learned – and taught – about the science behind cooking food. She eventually took on the project of rewriting the school cookbook, testing every recipe until she reached perfection.

A fun twist is that the publisher didn’t believe it would sell many copies, so they required Fannie to pay the cost of printing. She agreed, for most of the profits – which ended up being a great deal for her, as editions of the book are still in print more than a hundred years later.

Cookbooks have never been the same.

Here’s what the author says when she tells about Fannie enrolling in the Boston Cooking School:

Let us take a moment to be grateful. If she hadn’t enrolled, we might all still be tossing in carefree pinches of baking powder and crossing our fingers that our Boston cream pie wouldn’t come out flat as a pancake.

Thank you, Fannie Farmer! And thank you, Emma Bland Smith and Susan Reagan, for bringing her story to life.

emmabsmith.com
susanreaganart.com

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Review of Close Up & Far Out, by Mary Auld & Adria Meserve

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

Close Up and Far Out

Seeing the World Differently

story by Mary Auld and Adria Meserve
illustrations by Adria Meserve

Creative Editions, 2024. 40 pages.
Review written September 30, 2024, from a book sent to me by the publisher.
Starred Review

This is a nonfiction picture book featuring Galileo Galilei, born in 1564, and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, born in 1632. What the two men had in common was they both revolutionized science by making lenses that revealed wonders people had never seen before. Galileo made telescopes that enabled people to view the wonders of the heavens, and Antonie made microscopes that showed people the wonders of bacteria.

I like the way the authors tell about the lives in parallel – first getting the idea, then making and perfecting the lenses, then discovering amazing things, then trying to convince others and being met with skepticism. Eventually, Galileo was brought to trial for his ideas, but Antonie gained scientific acceptance. Still, this line at the end points out a contrast:

Antonie died famous and is now almost forgotten; Galileo died in disgrace but is now one of those most famous scientists that ever lived. But both men have changed how we understand the world.

The book ends with lists of things that were discovered because of each man’s work, and then these words of wisdom:

Both Antonie and Galileo remind us to ask questions, to look close up and far out for the answers, to question what we find again and again – and to be brave enough to think differently.

This large and lovely book tells an interesting story, but also gives insight onto how scientific discovery can work.

thecreativecompany.us

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Review of Pizza Face, by Rex Ogle & Dave Valeza

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Graphic Memoir, Starred Review 0

Pizza Face

by Rex Ogle & Dave Valeza

Graphix, 2024. 222 pages.
Review written October 3, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

I continue to maintain that graphic novels are the absolutely perfect format for middle school memoirs – the perfect way to express the angst we all went through.

In this follow up to Four Eyes, the morning Rex starts seventh grade, a giant pimple erupts in the center of his forehead – the first of many. So yeah, this is a graphic novel about a boy beginning to go through puberty, and feeling behind everyone else – he was only twelve in seventh grade, but his friends were all thirteen or turning thirteen. So he was the smallest, had the least hair, and had the highest voice.

And then come the bullies, the misunderstandings with friends, the saying something to try to be cool that hurts a friend’s feelings – and we’ve got a classic story of middle school angst.

There’s plenty of nuance going on here, such as becoming friends with the biggest kid in seventh grade, who starts out pushing Rex around, but ends up confessing he feels out of place, too. And gaining some insight about another bully when they’re both on in-school suspension.

This story captures the despair and hope of middle school, and does it with humor and compassion.

rexogle.com

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Review of Hello, Neighbor! by Matthew Cordell

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Hello, Neighbor!

The Kind and Caring World of Mister Rogers

by Matthew Cordell

Neal Porter Books (Holiday House), 2020. 40 pages.
Review written July 7, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

Hello Neighbor is a picture book biography telling about the life and career of Fred Rogers.

It begins with the Neighborhood – showing a hand placing a car in the model neighborhood and explaining about the television show. Then it goes back and tells about Fred Rogers’ childhood and what brought him into doing television.

I like the way the book captures special things about the show, including the beginning and ending songs, the cast of characters, the special guests, the visits that showed how things were made, and of course the Neighborhood of Make Believe.

Fred played many roles in the making of more than 900 episodes of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. He wrote the scripts. He was songwriter and singer, performer and puppeteer. He oversaw and approved what went on in every episode. Beyond his own contributions, he truly loved working with others. He respected and appreciated the talents and artistry of all who were involved in the creation of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. And because of this, everyone felt connected in a very sincere and personal way.

The illustrations along with the story help make this book special, as they capture so many scenes and people from the show. The spread at the beginning is especially wonderful with a quotation from Fred Rogers on top and a picture of him sitting at the piano composing, with all kinds of characters and things flowing out of the piano in a big creative cloud along with musical notes.

A lovely tribute to a man who was indeed kind and caring, put together in a way that respects and appreciates children. I am confident that Mister Rogers would have been delighted with this book.

matthewcordell.com
HolidayHouse.com

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Review of Out of the Shadows, by Fiona Robinson

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Out of the Shadows

How Lotte Reiniger Made the First Animated Fairytale Movie

by Fiona Robinson

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2022. 44 pages.
Review written May 4, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

This exquisitely illustrated book tells a story I’d known nothing about and fascinated me all along the way. It’s a picture book biography of the young woman who pioneered techniques in animation and made the first full length animated movie.

The book starts with Lotte’s love for fairy tales and her discovery of Chinese puppets, jointed puppets controlled with sticks. Next, Lotte learned at school the traditional craft of Scherenschnitte, cutting paper to make intricate character outlines. Then she combined the two techniques, making characters from paper and turning them into jointed puppets. All while she was still a child.

As an older teen, Lotte got to go to acting school where she met a German moviemaker. Movies were still silent in those days, with intertitles between scenes to give dialog and live orchestras playing while the movies played.

I love the spread that describes why she got a chance to try her puppet techniques in animating movies. It was for a movie about the Pied Piper of Hamelin. They brought rats to the street where they were filming and set them loose.

The rats didn’t magically follow Wegener. They disappeared into the town, plaguing the townsfolk.

Next, the crew tried guinea pigs, painted gray with tails attached. A gunshot was fired into the air. The camera whirred. The guinea pigs were released. Wegener turned to see the little creatures in the middle of the street, chewing their fake tales off.

So Lotte got the chance to create her first animation. She used stop motion animation, giving the crew big baskets of wooden rats. They moved them little by little and photographed each step. It took all day, but when they combined the pictures of the rats with the pied piper, it worked perfectly. The movie was a hit!

The book talks more about how Lotte did her work, using a special table to film animations done with cut paper, and then the new improved table she invented herself to give more depth to the animation. It all builds up to a full-length movie they weren’t sure people would be able to sit through — and then had to have police manage the crowds. I like the story included that Lotte noticed smoke that the audience thought was a special effect and successfully stopped a fire by discovering the source.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed took its place in film history as the first full-length fairytale movie. It is also considered the oldest surviving full-length animation. For a young woman in 1926, this is a remarkable, almost unbelievable achievement. But all of this is true, and absolutely not a fairy story!

And if Lotte’s story weren’t fascinating enough, the wonderful illustrations accompany the text in perfect harmony. There’s generous use of silhouettes, mimicking the cut-paper characters from her work, but there’s plenty of variety. Sometimes words show as if on a reel of film and titles between sections look like the intertitles from silent movies. The back matter tells the reader more about Lotte’s amazing life.

This is a truly stellar picture book biography that I didn’t even know I needed.

abramsbooks.com

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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of Road Home, by Rex Ogle

Biography, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

Road Home

by Rex Ogle

Norton Young Readers, 2024. 264 pages.
Review written June 26, 2024, from an Advance Reader Copy sent by the publisher.
Starred Review

Rex Ogle began telling about what it was like growing up in poverty in the book Free Lunch. He continued, telling what it was like to grow up while getting hit by his mother and stepdad in Punching Bag. He moved in with his father. Then, in Road Home, he tells about living on the streets after his Dad found out he was gay and kicked him out.

It’s not an easy story to read. It’s good to know, right from the start, that he survived the experience and went on to become a successful writer.

You do get pulled into his plight. How can you get a home without a job? And how can you get a job without clean clothes and a shower and a phone and a home address?

At first, Rex moves in with an older guy who gave him his phone number. But eventually, he’s on the streets and learns tricks to finding food and a place to sleep.

As always, this book completely pulls you into Rex’s shoes, so it’s a gut-wrenching story. I’m so glad I knew from the start that the story has a happy outcome and he did not in fact turn out like his father told him he would — dying alone with AIDS. All the same, no one should have to live through what he did. I hope that telling his story will help others who come after him. As he says in the Author’s Note at the front, “No matter how dark the past, or even the present, the sun will always come up tomorrow.”

nortonyoungreaders.com

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Review of Homebody, by Theo Parish

Biography, Graphic Memoir, Teen Nonfiction 0

Homebody

by Theo Parish

HarperAlley, 2024. 224 pages.
Review written June 7, 2024, from a library book.

Homebody is a graphic novel memoir about the author’s search for home in their own body — their coming-out journey as transgender nonbinary.

I’ll be honest — it’s harder for me to understand nonbinary gender than other transgender journeys. But Theo telling their own story helps me understand better. I love their depictions of gender euphoria — of feeling happy and at home in their own skin after realizing that nonbinary was the right fit for them.

As a graphic novel, this is a quick read. I had trouble distinguishing between different people in the pictures — they mostly looked alike to me, but the most important character is Theo themselves, and I could tell which one they were.

This book tells about Theo’s journey feeling at home in their body, and mentions they are attracted to women (so first thought they were lesbian), but there is no mention or depiction of sexual experiences, unlike Gender Queer, which is a favorite target for book banners. I’m guessing they’ll still take offense at someone explaining how they know nonbinary is the right description of their gender, but let it be known that this book is not about sex.

And it is a book about joy. Reading this book lifted my heart with gladness for Theo learning to make her own body feel like home.

EpicReads.com

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Review of One Step Further, by Katherine Johnson, illustrated by Charnelle Pinkney Barlow

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

One Step Further

My Story of Math, the Moon, and a Lifelong Mission

by Katherine Johnson
with her daughters Joylette Hylick and Katherine Moore
illustrated by Charnelle Pinkney Barlow

National Geographic Kids, 2021. 48 pages.
Review written January 5, 2022, from my own copy
Starred Review

Here’s a wonderful picture book biography that tells about the groundbreaking life of Katherine Johnson and weaves in the experiences of her three daughters growing up with her example.

The book uses photographs and artifacts from Katherine’s life to give wonderful visuals, giving a taste of the times. The daughters are pictured with speech bubbles giving commentary on the artifacts and the main text, effectively pulling the reader into the story with child guides.

Segregation affected Katherine’s life, and it also affected her daughters’ lives. When she moved in order to find a job that used her talents, her children experienced segregation. But I also like that when she became a human computer for NACA, there were many other college-educated African-American women working there (segregated from the white computers). The kids are pictured saying about that:

Our neighborhood was full of smart and stylish Black women mathematicians. At church, at school pickups, at summer cookouts, in our kitchen.

They took such pride in their jobs and looked so perfect every day. We didn’t know quite what they did, but we wanted to be like them.

The theme of “one step further” is carried through the book, as Katherine continued to push to go one step further. Her daughter Kathy also went one step further by participating in sit-ins to protest racial segregation.

The book progresses through to Katherine’s important work on the moon launch and how John Glenn asked Katherine to check the math of the mechanical computer before he was willing to take off.

I like the page at the back that tells how NASA named a building and then an entire facility after Katherine. It also tells how her daughters followed in her footsteps, with one working for NASA and the other two working as teachers.

There are ten pages of detailed historical notes after the main story, so older kids intrigued by this can learn how they can find out more. This biography is put together in a wonderfully inviting package.

natgeo.com

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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of Latinitas, by Juliet Menéndez

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review 0

Latinitas

Celebrating 40 Big Dreamers

by Juliet Menéndez

Godwin Books (Henry Holt), 2021. 102 pages
Review written December 11, 2021, from a library book

I’m not a big fan of collective biographies. When there are page after page of short bios, the details start to run together. But this book is something special.

Latinitas has forty one-page biographies of Latinas who accomplished great things, with about half of each bio focusing on the subject’s childhood. There’s a folk-art style illustration of each subject as a girl, with a banner giving her name and what she’s known for. She’s holding things that symbolize her accomplishments.

Something I liked about this collection is that I hadn’t heard of a large proportion of these truly amazing woman. I am so glad their stories will become more well-known. They come from countries all over Latin America. The first woman featured, a military leader, was born in 1651 in Mexico, and the last one, an Olympic gymnast, was born in 2000 in the United States.

I hope many young Latinas find this book and are inspired!

julietmenendez.com
mackids.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.

What did you think of this book?

*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.