Review of Traveling With Pomegranates, by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor

Musings, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Traveling With Pomegranates

A Mother-Daughter Story

by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor

Viking, 2009. 282 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Biography

Sue Monk Kidd does meditative books very well. She catches you up in her musings and helps you reach life-changing insights along with her.

In this book, she pairs up with her daughter and both of them will speak to your soul.

This book covers some journeys the two took together, to Greece and France and home to South Carolina. The travels were momentous for both women. The first journey happened when Sue was turning fifty and Ann was graduating from college and growing up. So Sue was dealing with aging and maturing as a mother. And Ann was dealing with her life direction.

They both write in such a way that I felt I shared in both journeys. And both are dealing with a calling to write. Here’s a passage that Sue wrote:

“Perhaps she fought any urge to be a writer out of a need to separate herself from me and my path, the same way I separated myself from my mother and her path. When Ann went to college, I felt the invisible way she broke from me, in that way mothers feel barely discernible things. Even now, as we weave this new closeness, I do not mistake the separate core in her, her own nascent true self, and I watch how she protects it, even as she struggles to unfold it. Do her intuitions about writing come now because she has finally found enough of her separate self to entertain them?

“In my case, losing the small, true light was more like turning my back on it and finding something manageable. Becoming a nurse seemed more doable and sensible. You graduated and took a board exam. When you said, ‘I’m a nurse,’ you knew what you were talking about. You had proof. Nobody would register me as a writer. Would I be a writer if I never published anything? Would I be one even if I did? And the real question: how likely was it to happen? At eighteen, I couldn’t find the courage. I took all that passion and sublimated it into nursing. Until, at twenty-nine, it simply refused to go there anymore.

“I wonder if that’s the perennial story of writers: you find the true light, you lose the true light, you find it again. And maybe again.”

Later, back home in South Carolina, Ann writes:

“One day I thought: what if I approached learning the craft of writing as if it were an apprenticeship? Just do myself a favor and accept that it’s going to be a process, a slow, laborious process. In the Middle Ages, an apprenticeship lasted seven years. That was believed to be the minimum amount of time it took to learn a craft. I started to think of myself as an apprentice. I would tell myself, Relax, you’ve got seven years.”

That’s just a little taste of the luxurious explorations these women do, bringing the reader along into symbolism, and archetypes, and mother-daughter bonding. I read this book slowly and meditatively, a little at a time, and stretched out the enjoyment all the longer that way. A lovely book. You’ll feel you have two new friends when you finish.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/traveling_with_pomegranates.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 book given to me by the publisher at 2010 ALA Annual Conference and signed by both authors.

Review of Erika’s Story, by Ruth Vander Zee

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Picture Book Review, True Stories 0

Erika’s Story

by Ruth Vander Zee
illustrated by Roberto Innocenti

Creative Editions, Mankato, MN, 2003. 24 pages.

I actually found this book when I was weeding library books that hadn’t been checked out in two years. This one was in good condition, and when I started reading it, I was transfixed. It was too good to weed from the collection, and too powerful not to check out and review.

I should add that nonfiction picture books like this one easily get lost on the shelves. It’s not suitable for a school report, and kids usually don’t go looking in the nonfiction section for powerful stories. So they don’t get read as often as they deserve to be.

The story in this book is simple, and it’s powerfully told. The author met a Jewish lady in Rothenburg, Germany, and relates her story. The lady, Erika, speculates about how it must have been for her parents, herded onto a cattle car headed for the concentration camps. But she doesn’t know anything about them for sure.

“As the train slowed through a village, my mother must have looked up through the opening near the top of the cattle car. With my father, she must have tried spreading the barbed wire that covered the hole. My mother must have lifted me over her head and toward the dim daylight. What happened next is the only thing I know for sure.

“My mother threw me from the train.”

Erika was taken in by a woman who risked her life by caring for Erika and giving her a name and an approximate birthdate. She grew up and married and had children of her own.

The story is told simply and starkly. The pictures are beautiful and realistic. It’s interesting that the artist doesn’t show anybody’s faces except the baby, as if to emphasize all that Erika doesn’t know about her family. The pink baby blanket is also the brightest spot of color in the pictures from the past.

The story is also gently told, with an emphasis on Erika’s survival. You could read this to a child and then talk about it as much or as little as you like, but it’s a relatively gentle introduction to the horrors of the Holocaust.

And it’s definitely powerful for an adult reader, too. What would it take for a mother to throw her baby off a train? The book doesn’t ask any questions like that, which leaves the readers asking themselves.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/erikas_story.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 the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Here’s Looking at Euclid, by Alex Bellos

Mathematical, Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

Here’s Looking at Euclid

A Surprising Excursion Through the Astonishing World of Math

by Alex Bellos

Free Press, New York, 2010. 319 pages.

I’ve already confessed to being a certified Math Nut. So no one will be surprised that I could not resist a book with this title and snapped it up and enjoyed it thoroughly.

This author takes the human approach. He does talk about some fascinating mathematical concepts, but mostly it’s through meeting and talking with people who are even bigger Math Nuts than me. (I say that with reverence, by the way.) I like his chapter descriptions in the Table of Contents, which give you an idea of where he’s going. For example, here’s the first chapter, Chapter Zero:

“In which the author tries to find out where numbers come from, since they haven’t been around that long. He meets a man who has lived in the jungle and a chimpanzee who has always lived in the city.”

Another chapter, “The Life of Pi,” is described:

“In which the author is in Germany to witness the world’s fastest mental multiplication. It is a roundabout way to begin telling the story of circles, a transcendental tale that leads him to a New York sofa.”

So this is one of those books that covers lots of fascinating mathematical ideas, but also about the people who deal with them. And that’s probably enough for my readers to know if they’re interested or not.

I’ll conclude with the end of the author’s Preface:

“When writing this book, my motivation was at all times to communicate the excitement and wonder of mathematical discovery. I also wanted to show that mathematicians can be funny. They are the kings of logic, which gives them an extremely discriminating sense of the illogical. Math suffers from a reputation that it is dry and difficult. Often it is. Yet math can also be inspiring, accessible and, above all, brilliantly creative. Abstract mathematical thought is one of the great achievements of the human race, and arguably the foundation of all human progress.

“The world of mathematics is a remarkable place. I would recommend a visit.”

Let me add that this author makes a wonderful tour guide for your visit.

www.SimonandSchuster.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 the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of A Fistful of Rice, by Vikram Akula

Biography, Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

A Fistful of Rice

My Unexpected Quest to End Poverty Through Profitability

by Vikram Akula

Harvard Business Review Press, 2011. 191 pages.

This is an intriguing and hopeful book. Vikram Akula was working in India with a nonprofit organization that offered microfinance loans to poor people. But they quickly ran out of funds.

“The woman looked me in the eye, and with great dignity, she spoke the words that would change my life, ‘Am I not poor, too?’ she asked me. I stared at her, jarred by the question, and she went on. ‘Do I not deserve a chance to get my family out of poverty?’

“Am I not poor, too? With these words, this driven, determined woman suddenly made me see how unfair — unjust, really — our microfinance program was. Yes, we were helping hundreds of poor Indians take the first steps to pull themselves out of poverty. But my program had just $250,000 to spend in thirty villages — that was all DDS had been given for the project. And once that money was disbursed, there was no money left for other poor Indians who desperately wanted a chance too.

“The woman wasn’t asking for a dole. She wasn’t asking for a handout. She was simply asking for an opportunity. But we couldn’t give it to her.

“This was a defining moment for me. We had to find a way to change microfinance — to make it available to any Indian, or any poor person anywhere in the world for that matter, who wanted to escape poverty. Microfinance was a fantastic tool, but a deeply flawed one. There simply had to be a way to scale it beyond the constraints of how it was currently being practiced.”

His solution ended up being charging higher interest — and making a profit from the work the poor people did.

It sounds atrocious, but Vikram Akula ended up convincing me it was a brilliant idea. Now his company is helping thousands of times more people — and has people wanting to invest more money, rather than them having to ask for money.

The book goes into details of how his program works and how they make it good for the people who get the loans as well as for the company. It’s a fascinating story.

I especially liked these paragraphs toward the end of the book:

“I believe a commercial approach is the best way to give the most poor people access to finance. My early days at DDS taught me a crucial lesson: the poor are really no different from you or me. They’re not stupid or slow, and they aren’t looking for us to rescue them or teach them anything. The relationship between SKS and our members is mutually beneficial. Our members are receiving tools that have long been denied them, and using them to do things they’re naturally skilled at doing. In return, SKS is building an enormous member base, establishing a brand, raising money in investments, and continuing to expand the number of poor members served. It’s a perfect circle, one that benefits everyone.

“The notion that it’s somehow unethical to enter into a profitable business working with the poor is insulting to the poor. They are not children who need our protection. They’re working women and men who are thriving under a system that allows them to take their economic lives into their own hands. Treating them as anything less is unjust.”

This reminded me of Libraries.

Bear with me, as I realize I’m someone obsessed by an idea. But I’ve seen homeless people who go to the library every day absolutely refuse when kind people want to give them hand-outs. When my oldest son was small and my husband was a Senior Airman, we had a low enough income to participate in the WIC program, and it felt very demeaning. The government workers assumed we didn’t know much about nutrition, for a start. In the end, the little bit of financial help they could offer wasn’t worth the “educational” sessions we had to sit through. I had too much pride.

So how does this relate to Libraries? Libraries help the poor tremendously, but they allow them to keep their dignity because they help rich people, too. Bottom line, libraries are a big cooperative to purchase books for an entire community at a lower price. Everyone benefits, so no one has to feel that they are singled out to be “helped.” Libraries help everyone, and people can be proud to use them, without feeling obligated.

It is similar with SKS. The investors are making money because of the hard work of those who take out loans. And they are able to get out of poverty, but don’t have to feel indebted to those who made it possible. Those people benefit, too.

Sometimes, you help people more when you allow them the dignity of helping you. When the investors in SKS make a profit, they allow the “helping” not to be all on one side.

Vikram Akula closes his book telling the story of another woman, a woman whose whole family has been helped by SKS.

“I thought back to the woman in the faded purple sari, all those years ago — the woman who asked the question that changed my life: ‘Am I not poor, too?’ And I couldn’t help but contrast her with smiling Yellamma, proudly telling me about how SKS has helped her family.

“‘Am I not doing well?’ she asked. Yes, she was.”

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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 the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Radioactive, by Lauren Redness

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

Radioactive

Marie & Pierre Curie

A Tale of Love and Fallout

by Lauren Redniss

!t Books (HarperCollins), 2011. 205 pages.
Starred Review

This book is amazing, and like no book I’ve ever read before. It’s a biography, a record of love and scientific discovery, but it’s also a work of art.

There are striking images on almost every page. The artist used cyanotype printing, which she explains in a note at the back.

“Using this process to create the images in this book made sense to me for a number of reasons. First, the negative of an image gives an impression of an internal light, a sense of glowing that I felt captured what Marie Curie called radium’s ‘spontaneous luminosity.’ Indeed, the light that radium emits is a cyan-like, faint blue. Second, because photographic imaging was central to the discovery both of X-rays and of radioactivity, it seemed fitting to use a process based on the idea of exposure. Last, I later learned, Prussian blue capsules are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a “safe and effective” treatment for internal contamination by radioactive cesium and radioactive thallium. (After the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, cyanotype ingredients were spread on the grass in North Wales to safeguard grazing animals.)”

The story told in the book is also fascinating. She tells how Marie met Pierre Curie and their progress in science together. She tells about Pierre Curie’s tragic death and Marie’s life afterward and continued distinguished work. Throughout the story, she provides images and clips and stories about things that happened with radioactivity later, such as Hiroshima, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl.

I had no idea how radium was touted and marvelled over when it was first developed. The Curies did not patent their findings, but others were not so scrupulous.

“A fictitious Dr. Alfred Curie was hatched to shill Tho-Radia face cream. Radium-laced toothpaste, condoms, suppositories, chocolates, pillows, bath salts, and cigarettes were marketed as bestowers of longevity, virility, and an all-over salubrious flush.

“Radium was also touted as a replacement for electric lighting. Early electric light was both brilliant and blinding. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, ‘Such a light as this should shine only on murders and public crime, or along the corridors of lunatic asylums, a horror to heighten horror.’ Even after the development of softer, incandescent bulbs, some lamented that electric light would ‘never allow us to dream the dreams that the light of the living oil lamp conjured up.’ The fragile glow of radium, on the other hand, offered a retreat into forgiving shadows and candlelit intimacy. Radium let the wistful romantic pose as champion of scientific advance. A chemist named Sabin von Sochocky concocted a luminous goulash of radium and zinc sulphide, with dashes of lead, copper, uranium, manganese, thallium (a neurotoxin discovered by chemist and Spiritualist William Crookes), and arsenic, and sold it to the public as ‘Undark Paint.’ Undark was marketed for use on flashlights, doorbells, even ‘the buckles of bedroom slippers.’ ‘The time will doubtless come,’ von Sochocky declared, ‘when you will have in your own house a room lighted entirely by radium. The light thrown off by radium paint on walls and ceilings would in color and tone be like soft moonlight.'”

The story is fascinating and surprising. The images are stunning and memorable. This book is definitely not for children, but if it were, I would think this was a sure winner of the Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished picture book providing a visual experience. Spend a little time gazing at the pages of this book, and you will be amazed. Spend a little time reading the pages of this book, and you will be intrigued.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/radioactive.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 the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Energy Island, by Allan Drummond

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Picture Book Review, Science, True Stories 0

Energy Island

How One Community Harnessed the Wind and Changed Their World

by Allan Drummond

Frances Foster Books (Farrar Straus Giroux), New York, 2011. 36 pages.
Starred Review

Energy Island is a nonfiction picture book about an island in Denmark that uses only renewable energy generated on the island. The island is very windy, so wind power is a major source of energy on the island, and you can see the effects of the wind in all the illustrations and the repeated cry of “Hold on to your hats!”

The story is told well, beginning with the Danish Ministry of Environment and Energy sending a teacher named Soren Hermansen to the island of Samso to try to help the island become independent of nonrenewable energy. The book shows the resistance to the idea, and then the small and large beginnings. A breakthrough happened when a storm knocked out the off-island sources of energy, but the wind turbines that had been installed on the island still provided power.

The inspiring story is told quite simply, with exuberant illustrations. Sidebars give more detailed explanations of the concepts involved for those who want to know more.

This isn’t necessarily a book for school projects, so I hope that it doesn’t get buried in the nonfiction section. I hope children find it, because it tells a beautiful, inspiring — and true — story.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/energy_island.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 the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Barefoot in Baghdad, by Manal M. Omar

Cross Cultural, Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

Barefoot in Baghdad

A Story of Identity – My Own and What It Means to Be a Woman in Chaos

by Manal M. Omar

Sourcebooks, 2010. 244 pages.

Manal Omar knows how to work cross-culturally. She begins her book like this:

“Throughout my childhood I struggled to answer the simplest of questions: where are you from? I was born in Saudi Arabia to Palestinian parents who moved to Lubbock, Texas, when I was six months old. During my childhood, my parents would uproot me every few years, from Texas to South Carolina to Virginia. Living in the American South, I was far from the image of a Southern belle, and yet the summers I spent in the Middle East only emphasized my American identity and made it clear to me that I would also never exactly be an Arab poster child.

“By the time I was in high school, I had learned to embrace and love all parts of my joint identity with the fervor only a teenager could feel. I was an Arab and an American. I was a Palestinian and a Southerner. I was a Muslim and a woman. As I grew, I accepted that the emphasis on each facet of my identity would shift with the phases of the moon. Growing up in a world struggling to understand multiculturalism, I saw this ability to move among my many identities as my own secret superpower. . . .

“In Iraq, I was finally able to put my superpower to full use. A wave of my American passport at the checkpoint of the fortified Green Zone allowed me access to the representatives of the U.S.-led coalition. My adherence to Muslim dress and my fluent Arabic made it possible for me to live in an Iraqi neighborhood with no armed security. This unique access allowed me to see an Iraq that was accessible to few others. With each passing season, the country would shed its skin from the past and emerge as a completely new place. Who was better positioned to adapt within a country experiencing a period of tumultuous change than someone who had been raised with an ever-shifting identity? In Iraq, I found a place with as many complicated contradictions as I had in myself. Here, though, my internal complexity was manifested in an entire society. My international colleagues were struggling to force Iraqi culture into convenient boxes, but I simply accepted its unique, fluctuating shape. International journalists marveled over the fact that women who were covered head to toe walked side by side with women with orange-colored hair and wearing tight jeans, but I simply shrugged. It was natural to me. The mosaic of identities inside Iraq was not hypocritical or schizophrenic; it was what made the country powerful.”

Manal went to Iraq to work for Women for Women International.

“Women for Women International focused on the most vulnerable women. This usually meant those who were the primary breadwinners in their house: widows, divorcees, or unmarried women living with elderly parents. In addition to the economic challenges, there was a social stigma attached to these women. This meant that their finding work was even more difficult.”

This book tells about her experiences there, and tells stories of some of the women she met and was able to help or wasn’t able to help. However, over the years she was there, the situation in Iraq deteriorated, and eventually she had to leave and base her actions from Jordan. So in that way, this book tells a sad story. Manal herself describes it this way:

“Barefoot in Baghdad is not a story of the war in Iraq. It is the story of the women in Iraq who are standing at the crossroads every dawn. It is the story of my time working with Iraqis as they struggled to create a new nation and a new identity. It is informed by my years of living and working within communities throughout the country. It recounts my own experiences and the stories of the men and women I encountered, each of them players in one of the most complicated political struggles in our era. It is also a memoir of the discovery of my many identities and the strengths and weaknesses inherent within them. Finally, it is a story of finding love in the most unlikely place. As my life became intertwined with the lives of the Iraqis around me, I lost sight of where my horizons ended and theirs began. Their expectations became my expectations; their disappointments, dreams, pains, and losses became my own.”

This book tells a fascinating story, and will give you insight into the lives of women in Iraq today.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/barefoot_in_baghdad.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 the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Heaven Is For Real, by Todd Burpo

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Heaven Is For Real

A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back

by Todd Burpo
with Lynn Vincent

Thomas Nelson, 2010. 163 pages.
Starred Review

I gobbled up this book in one afternoon. It’s not long, and the story it tells is truly amazing.

My first reaction was that this story would be a hard one for an atheist to explain away. However, I was quickly informed that is not the case. This concerns a little boy’s testimony. As for me, I think his way of talking about it totally rings true, but the fact that he was so young does allow skeptics to propose that he may have been swayed without realizing it.

However, if you do believe in Heaven, this book will encourage you tremendously. And anyone who has suffered a miscarriage, or lost a beloved parent will find themselves incredibly touched.

Colton first gave them a clue that something unusual had happened when they drove to the city where he almost died.

“‘Do you remember the hospital, Colton?’ Sonja asked.

“‘Yes, Mommy, I remember,’ he said. ‘That’s where the angels sang to me.'”

A little while later, they asked him more about it.

“Then he grew serious. ‘Dad, Jesus had the angels sing to me because I was so scared. They made me feel better.’

“Jesus?

“I glanced at Sonja again and saw that her mouth had dropped open. I turned back to Colton. ‘You mean Jesus was there?’

“My little boy nodded as though reporting nothing more remarkable than seeing a ladybug in the front yard. ‘Yeah, Jesus was there.’

“‘Well, where was Jesus?’

Colton looked me right in the eye. ‘I was sitting in Jesus’ lap.'”

That’s in the intro, to give you an idea of what’s in store. Then they tell about their crisis, where it looked like their four-year-old son was really going to die. Appendicitis wasn’t diagnosed correctly, and by the time a doctor at a second hospital figured it out, it should have been too late.

Colton’s father, Todd Burpo, is a pastor. But this was the latest of a series of trials, and he found himself yelling at God. “Where are you? Is this how you treat your pastors?! Is it even worth it to serve you?”

But miraculously, Colton recovered. And it was enough of a miracle that they noticed an awful lot of nurses coming to his room and just staring at him in amazement. One of them pulled his Dad aside.

“‘Mr. Burpo, I’ve worked as a nurse here for many years,’ she said. ‘I’m not supposed to tell you this, but we were told not to give your family any encouragement. They didn’t think Colton was going to make it. And when they tell us people aren’t going to make it, they don’t.'”

It wasn’t until four months later that Colton told them about hearing the angels sing.

“It was that conversation in which Colton said that he ‘went up out of’ his body, that he had spoken with angels, and had sat in Jesus’ lap. And the way we knew he wasn’t making it up was that he was able to tell us what we were doing in another part of the hospital: ‘You were in a little room by yourself praying, and Mommy was in a different room and she was praying and talking on the phone.’

“Not even Sonja had seen me in that little room, having my meltdown with God.”

They continue to ask Colton about his experiences, trying not to ask leading questions. They found out things from a child’s perspective that matched what they would expect from the Bible.

Some of the things he said were very striking. I loved this one:

“Suddenly, he piped up again. ‘Daddy, remember when I yelled for you in the hospital when I waked up?’

“How could I forget? It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. ‘Of course I do,’ I said.

“‘Well, the reason I was yelling was that Jesus came to get me. He said I had to go back because he was answering your prayer. That’s how come I was yelling for you.’

“Suddenly, my knees felt weak underneath me. I flashed back to my prayers alone, raging at God, and my prayers in the waiting room, quiet and desperate. I remembered how scared I was, agonizing over whether Colton would hang on through the surgery, whether he’d live long enough for me to see his precious face again. Those were the longest, darkest ninety minutes of my life.

“And Jesus answered my prayer? Personally? After I had yelled at God, chastising him, questioning his wisdom and his faithfulness?”

Later Colton had more bombshells for them. He talked about meeting his sister — the child he’d never known about, who had miscarried. He claimed to have met her in heaven. He also spent time talking with his Dad’s father, Pop, whom he had also never met on earth. He didn’t recognize a picture of Pop as an old man — but then later he spotted a picture of Pop young and newly married — and Colton knew him right away!

I also love the way he tells his Dad the pastor that the Holy Spirit “shoots down power for you when you’re talking in church.” He says the Holy Spirit showed him, that Colton got to watch the Holy Spirit “shooting down power.”

But I think my personal favorite of all the things Colton says is when he’s describing God’s throne:

“‘It was big, Dad . . . really, really big, because God is the biggest one there is. And he really, really loves us, Dad. You can’t belieeeeve how much he loves us!'”

Read this book to be encouraged and inspired. At the end of the book, Colton sums up what he wants to tell people:

“I want them to know that heaven is for real.”

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/heaven_is_for_real.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 the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Queen of the Falls, by Chris Van Allsburg

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

Queen of the Falls

by Chris Van Allsburg

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2010. 40 pages.
Starred Review

Chris Van Allsburg’s books have always amazed me. One of the first ones my husband and I were given was The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, and those pictures still fill me with wonder and a sense of something mysterious and magical. In fact, all of his books, and all of his pictures, convey that sense of mystery and magic.

What’s amazing is that he managed to convey that same feeling in a nonfiction book about a historical event. But perhaps it’s not completely surprising, since Niagara Falls certainly have wonder and majesty. Still, I don’t think every artist could convey it so well.

This book tells the story of sixty-two-year-old Annie Edison Taylor, who was the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. In fact, she was the first person to even have the crazy idea of going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She hoped to make her fortune after doing this amazing act by traveling on the lecture circuit and showing the barrel.

The book shows the process she went through. There’s an awe-inspiring spread as Annie’s barrel hits the calm right before going over the edge. I wonder if it’s possible to read that page without your pulse quickening.

After her daredevil stunt, fame and fortune did not follow. A grandmother in her sixties didn’t look like a daredevil, and it turned out that the publicists she hired weren’t trustworthy.

Reading this book was an interesting contrast to another book I just read — Amelia Lost, by Candace Fleming, about Amelia Earhart. Amelia Earhart did achieve fame and fortune by doing daredevil stunts and then traveling on the lecture circuit. But Amelia was young and beautiful, and had an outstanding publicist who was also in love with her.

But Annie still achieved something amazing, and this book memorializes her story in a beautiful way.

I like what Annie tells a reporter at the close of this book, with the Falls spread out before them:

“That’s what everyone wonders when they see Niagara. How close will their courage let them get to it? Well, sir, you can’t get any closer than I got. You ask any person who’s stood here, looking out at those falls, what they thought of someone going over them in a barrel. Why, every last one would agree, it was the greatest feat ever performed.

“And I am content when I can say, ‘I am the one who did it.'”

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/queen_of_the_falls.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 the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Biography, Nonfiction Review, Parenting, True Stories 0

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

by Amy Chua

The Penguin Press, New York, 2011. 235 pages.

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle reading this book. Here in Northern Virginia, there are so many Tiger parents pushing their kids, and I had a feeling I’d feel sorry for the kids. Either that, or I’d be filled with guilt that I hadn’t been more of a Tiger Mom and ended up with prodigy children.

But Amy Chua handles the delicate topic with grace and humor. Although she acknowledges that there are stereotypes involved here and every single Chinese mother is not one way and every single American mother the other way, she does point out that the culture in which she was raised was completely different than typical American parenting culture.

“There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids’ true interests. For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly. I think it’s a misunderstanding on both sides. All decent parents want to do what’s best for their children. The Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that.”

However, she also uses the book to show that, no matter how strong your convictions about parenting, every child is different, and what works for one may not work for another. We all make mistakes, and the important thing is to do your best.

And nothing shows you your own weaknesses and misconceptions like being a mother.

Amy Chua tells a good story, too. She tells of her noble quest to sacrifice to raise perfect children, and the obstacles and drama along the way. I found myself a fascinated by how well it was working out with her prodigy children, though she definitely shows her own defeats. And, what do you know, the girls did not turn out to need years of expensive therapy.

“All the same, even when Western parents think they’re being strict, they usually don’t come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments thirty minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It’s hours two and three that get tough.”

And this Tiger Mother believed her way was definitely best:

“As I watched American parents slathering praise on their kids for the lowest of tasks — drawing a squiggle or waving a stick — I came to see that Chinese parents have two things over their Western counterparts: (1) higher dreams for their children, and (2) higher regard for their children in the sense of knowing how much they can take.”

All in all, this book made me feel much less judgmental of the overachieving parents I see come into the library. And other people who don’t parent the way I do. The fact is, everybody can think they have the one right way to parent, but there are strengths and weaknesses with every approach, and every child is different. In Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, you can read along as Amy Chua learns that lesson.

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