Review of Proofiness, by Charles Seife

Current Issues, Mathematical, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Proofiness

The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception

by Charles Seife

Viking, 2010. 295 pages.
Starred Review

I’ve already admitted that I’m a certified Math Nut. And that I read popular-audience math books for fun. I had to remind myself that I’m not teaching Introduction to Statistics any more, so I didn’t need to mark passages to read to the class. (I couldn’t stop myself, though, from noticing passages that would have been great to read to a Statistics class.)

This book is very much along the lines of How to Lie With Statistics, but it uses up-to-date, recent examples. It demonstrates all too public examples of people who, either through ignorance or malfeasance, use statistics for nefarious purposes.

When I started at the library where I work now, they asked me to participate in a game of “Three Truths and a Lie.” I had just read the introduction to this book and effectively used what I learned: I inserted a number into each statement. Sure enough, only one person guessed which statement was my lie! Here’s how this concept worked in a much more serious scenario:

“As he held aloft a sheaf of papers, a beetle-browed Joe McCarthy assured his place in the history books with his bold claim: ‘I have here in my hand a list of 205 — a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.’

“That number — 205 — was a jolt of electricity that shocked Washington into action against communist infiltrators. Never mind that the number was a fabrication. It went up to 207 and then dropped again the following day, when McCarthy wrote to President Truman claiming that ‘we have been able to compile a list of 57 Communists in the State Department.’ A few days later, the number stabilized at 81 ‘security risks.’ McCarthy gave a lengthy speech in the Senate, giving some details about a large number of cases (fewer than 81, in fact), but without revealing enough information for others to check into his assertions.

“It really didn’t matter whether the list had 205 or 57 or 81 names. The very fact that McCarthy had attached a number to his accusations imbued them with an aura of truth. Would McCarthy make such specific claims if he didn’t have evidence to back them up? Even though White House officials suspected that he was bluffing, the numbers made them doubt themselves. The numbers gave McCarthy’s accusations heft; they were too substantial, too specific to ignore. Congress was forced to hold hearings to attempt to salvage the reputation of the State Department — and the Truman administration.

“McCarthy was, in fact, lying. He had no clue whether the State Department was harboring 205 communists or 57 or none at all; he was making wild guesses based upon information that he knew was worthless. Yet once he made the claim public and the Senate declared that it was going to hold hearings on the matter, he suddenly needed some names.”

Charles Seife sums up the point of this book:

“As McCarthy knew, numbers can be a powerful weapon. In skillful hands, phony data, bogus statistics, and bad mathematics can make the most fanciful idea, the most outrageous falsehood seem true. They can be used to bludgeon enemies, to destroy critics, and to squelch debate. Indeed, some people have become incredibly adept at using fake numbers to prove falsehoods. They have become masters of proofiness: the art of using bogus mathematical arguments to prove something that you know in your heart is true — even when it’s not.

“Our society is now awash in proofiness. Using a few powerful techniques, thousands of people are crafting mathematical falsehoods to get you to swallow untruths. Advertisers forge numbers to get you to buy their products. Politicians fiddle with data to try to get you to reelect them. Pundits and prophets use phony math to get you to believe predictions that never seem to pan out. Businessmen use bogus numerical arguments to steal your money. Pollsters, pretending to listen to what you have to say, use proofiness to tell you what they want you to believe. . . .

“At the same time, proofiness has extraordinarily serious consequences. It nullifies elections, crowning victors who are undeserving — both Republican and Democratic. Worse yet, it is used to fix the outcome of future elections; politicians and judges use wrongheaded mathematics to manipulate voting districts and undermine the census that dictates which Americans are represented in Congress. Proofiness is largely responsible for the near destruction of our economy — and for the great sucking sound of more than a trillion dollars vanishing from the treasury. Prosecutors and justices use proofiness to acquit the guilty and convict the innocent — and even to put people to death. In short, bad math is undermining our democracy.”

But the good news is that you can fight Proofiness with knowledge:

“The threat is coming from both the left and the right. Indeed, proofiness sometimes seems to be the only thing that Republicans and Democrats have in common. Yet it’s possible to counteract it. Those who have learned to recognize proofiness can find it almost everywhere, ensnaring the public in a web of transparent falsehoods. To the wary, proofiness becomes a daily source of great amusement — and of blackest outrage.

“Once you know the methods people use to turn numbers into falsehoods, they are powerless against you. When you learn to shovel proofiness out of the way, some of the most controversial topics become simple and straightforward. For example, the question of who actually won the 2000 presidential election becomes crystal clear. (The surprising answer is one that almost nobody would have been willing to accept: not Bush, not Gore, and almost none of the people who voted for either candidate.) Understand proofiness and you can uncover many truths that had been obscured by a haze of lies.”

So this book can make the reader proofiness-proof. Besides being fascinating, it will empower you to see through the methods people use to try to cloud the truth. (You also might get some ideas for being a better contestant in a game of Three Truths and a Lie.)

I find myself wanting to cite examples of proofiness in action in the real world, but I’m afraid that once I get started, I won’t be able to stop. Even though I don’t teach Introduction to Statistics classes any more, I hope that professors out there will bring this book into their classrooms. They can use it to utterly silence that oh-so-annoying question students inevitably ask: “But how will we USE this?” The math in this book is woven into the very fabric of our society.

To finish off this review, I’m going to give a spoiler, so don’t read any further if you don’t want to know the “surprising answer” of who should have won the 2000 Presidential election:

Statistically speaking, within any reasonable margin of error, the 2000 presidential election in Florida was a tie. So according to Florida election law, the winner should have been determined by lot — the flip of a coin. I guess you can see why he says almost nobody would have been willing to accept that determination.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/proofiness.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 Daughter of the Forest, by Juliet Marillier

Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Daughter of the Forest

by Juliet Marillier

Book One of the Sevenwaters Trilogy
TOR Fantasy, New York, 2000 554 pages.
Starred Review

A huge thank-you to my sister Marcy, who gave me this book. I began reading it on the first leg of my trip to ALA Annual Conference 2011, read the first two chapters, and actually somehow left it behind between flights. So as soon as I got home, I ordered a replacement. Now I’ve read the second book as a library copy, but I’ve decided to order both the second and third books to have for my own. I am absolutely sure I will want to reread them again some day.

Daughter of the Forest is incredibly well-written. This is one of those books I love, a fairy tale retelling, but it’s done with a tremendous amount of loving detail, creating an intricate tapestry of a book. The story is told in old Ireland, in the time of the Druids, with Christianity just beginning to come. Sorcha and her six brothers are the children of Lord Colum, the powerful chieftain of Sevenwaters. Sorcha runs a little wild, the youngest of so many brothers. She has a bond with her brother Finbar, so they can speak without words.

Then her father and brothers capture and torture a Briton. Finbar, who is different, not so warlike, takes a bold step to help the Briton escape. The Briton is sheltered in the friar’s house. Can Sorcha, learning skills as a healer, help him survive? Will he be even willing to survive?

But her time helping the Briton is interrupted when her father comes home — with a new wife. This wife has a strange power over him. Sorcha and her brothers are uneasy.

And then the fairy tale I recognize begins. The evil stepmother turns all the brothers into swans. The only way Sorcha can restore them is to knit them all shirts out of nettles. But she must not utter even one sound until the work is done.

I never thought about it before, but there is definitely a novel in that tale! Juliet Marillier brings it to us with rich detail. There are some horrible moments, but you will be completely captivated by Sorcha’s tale. She goes from Ireland to Britain. The Fair Folk get involved. And the romantic hero is one of the most wonderful men I have ever encountered in fiction. He’s so loving, so careful to protect Sorcha.

Here’s a taste of Juliet Marillier’s rich prose, in the first chapter, when Finbar has declared he will not join his father’s military campaigns:

“Why do I remember this so well? Perhaps his displeasure with what we were becoming made Father take the choice he did, and so bring about a series of events more terrible than any of us could have imagined. Certainly, he used our well-being as one of his excuses for bringing her to Sevenwaters. That there was no logic in this was beside the point — he must have known in his heart that Finbar and I were made of strong stuff, already shaped in mind and spirit, if not quite grown, and that expecting us to bend to another will was like trying to alter the course of the tide, or to stop the forest from growing. But he was influenced by forces he was unable to understand. My mother would have recognized them. I often wondered, later, how much she knew of our future. The Sight does not always show what a person wants to see, but maybe she had an idea as she bade her children farewell, what a strange and crooked path their feet would follow.”

A truly magnificent tale.

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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 book given to me by my sister Marcy.

Review of Me . . . Jane, by Patrick McDonnell

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

Me . . . Jane

by Patrick McDonnell

Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2011. 40 pages.
Starred Review

This is an exquisitely designed and perfectly crafted book. All the art and the words come together beautifully, with economy of word, to tell the childhood of a scientist.

Me . . . Jane tells of the childhood of Jane Goodall. The title refers to the fact that Jane loved the stories of Tarzan of the Apes, and dreamed of living in the jungles in Africa like the Jane in those books.

The book begins:

“Jane had a stuffed toy chimpanzee named Jubilee.

“She cherished Jubilee and took him everywhere she went. And Jane loved to be outside.”

Every single illustration that shows Jane as a child shows her with Jubilee. And then at the end, a photograph of Jane as an adult reaching out to a chimpanzee mirrors the illustrations of her as a child. But my favorite thing is the picture at the front of the book of a happy Jane as a girl, holding her stuffed chimpanzee. The illustrations, even though cartoons, are recognizably of the same girl and toy.

I appreciated the pictures even more when I got to the end of the book and saw a picture of baby Jane hugging the same toy chimpanzee. Only in the baby picture, the toy is fluffy and new. Looking back at the picture of an older Jane still proudly holding Jubilee, now I noticed that almost all the fur is worn off! Especially in the middle, where she’s holding it. I now truly believe that she did everything with Jubilee!

The story tells of a curious and observant little girl. She loved animals, and was patient enough to hide in the chicken coop and watch until she found out where eggs came from. She loved nature and read the Tarzan books sitting in her favorite tree.

The story is told simply, with just a sentence or two on each page. You could read this to very young children, but older children will find plenty of details to think about as well. The design is beautiful, with most pages of text decorated with “ornamental engravings from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,” across from an illustration of Jane and Jubilee in that part of the story. The note at the back says that the engravings “collectively evoke Jane’s lifelong passion for detailed, scientific observation of nature.” I think they succeed in that.

This book is magnificent because it tells a true story, and at the same time evokes the feeling of what was in this little girl that motivated her to become the famous scientist. The author doesn’t have to come out and tell you she was patient and observant and indeed had great attention to detail. You get all those things from the story.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/me_jane.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 Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run, by Michael Hemphill and Sam Riddleburger

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Historical, Humorous, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run

by Michael Hemphill and Sam Riddleburger

Dial Books for Young Readers, 2009. 168 pages.
Starred Review

This book was absolutely perfect reading for this weekend — the 150th anniversary of the 1st Battle of Bull Run. I actually had tickets to a reenactment today, an especially big one because of the Sesquicentennial. However, then we had a heat wave and I’ve had a headache for three weeks that I’m really hoping will finish up. Basically, I figured out that being outside during a heat advisory to watch people pretend to kill each other probably wouldn’t be a very smart thing to do. Instead, I read this book, and it thoroughly convinced me I made the right choice!

I love the way the book begins, giving you the tone right from the start:

“All right, let’s get the whole name thing out of the way quickly.

“My name is Stonewall Hinkleman.

“No, it’s not a nickname. It’s my real name. Like I tell my parents — even Stonewall Jackson’s real name wasn’t Stonewall. But they don’t listen and it’s too late now anyway. I’m stuck with it.

“So, you’d think I could at least go by my middle name, right? It’s Traveler, after Robert E. Lee’s horse. Yeah, that’s right, a horse!

“I’m Stonewall Traveler Hinkleman and if you think that’s as bad as it gets, you haven’t heard the worst part.

“You see, both of my parents are Civil War reenactors. This means my dad — who’s really a geeky computer tech — dresses up in a uniform and runs around in fields with a bunch of other boring guys who are all pretending they are in the Civil War. My mother pretends she’s a nurse, even though in real life she barfs at the sight of blood.”

And Stonewall explained all about a reenactment, so I didn’t need to see it myself!

“You want to know what a reenactment is really like? It doesn’t matter which battle it is, because they’re all the same.

“A big bunch of guys wearing blue Yankee costumes come huffing up the hill. Waiting for them are my dad’s friends — a big bunch of guys in gray Confederate costumes. We jump out and we charge. I have to blow my bugle and everybody else fires their guns, which don’t have ammo but are still ridiculously loud. About half of them fall down and pretend to be dead. They roll around with these hilarious grimaces on their faces. Then they’re still for a while, probably taking a nap or eating a candy bar, until the ‘battle’ moves somewhere else and they get back up and rejoin the ‘fight.'”

But the reenactment of the First Battle of Bull Run ends up being completely different for Stonewall. You see, he left his bugle at home. When he goes to buy a replacement, he’s given a magic bugle. He doesn’t know it’s magic until he blows it and it sends him back in time — to the actual Battle of Bull Run. It turns out, he’s been sent on a mission. A crazy right-wing nut has also gone back in time, and he’s planning to change history to make it so the South will win the war. Stonewall’s job is to stop him. Fortunately, the crazy guy’s beautiful daughter, about Stonewall’s age, also got sent back in time.

And the real battle is not anything like a reenactment.

“Am I freaked out? Of course I’m freaked out. Reenactments may be boring, but at least they’re predictable — pretend to charge, pretend to shoot, pretend to die. But there’s no pretend about this. I can actually hear bullets buzzing over my head. I look down. There’s a guy on the ground in front of me holding his bloody stomach and trying to keep his insides from spilling out. I throw up all that leftover soup I ate for breakfast.”

This book is a completely fun way to learn about Civil War history. I’ve listened to Bull Run, by Paul Fleischman. It’s very excellent and well-written, but I’m not sure I retained a lot. In this case, following along with Stonewall Hinkleman, I got a much better grasp of the advances and retreats involved in the battle. Of course, I’ve also been to the battlefield (It’s a few miles down the road.), so it was easy to visualize the houses, roads, and hills he refers to. (And that made me wonder how they can make the reenactment work at all, since it doesn’t take place on the actual battlefield, just on a big field — without the houses and hills at the actual battlefield.)

I loved it that Stonewall knew what was going on because of his parents being Civil War buffs and his having gone to reenactments all his life. He knew when Yankee charges were due; he knew when to expect retreat. His perspective makes it easy for the reader also to understand the various movements of the battle.

And Stonewall meets his great-great-great-great-uncle Cyrus, the one he’s always mocked for getting shot in the butt at Bull Run and dying of an infection. It turns out that Cyrus is a teen and the furthest possible thing from a coward. In fact, Stonewall would like to just get out of there, but that’s hard to do when someone like Cyrus is around, gallantly helping the injured, capturing artillery, and the like.

I’ll definitely be pushing this book all summer. In fact, I think it will make great reading for the entire Sesquicentennial. It gives you a taste both of what the war was like and also the whole reenactment craze. But even more, it’s a great read. Laugh-out-loud funny, but with real danger and a difficult task.

Sam Riddleburger is the pseudonym of Tom Angleberger, who wrote The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, and he’s becoming my number one choice of author for middle school boys. Though it’s not only middle school boys who love his books.

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

Musings on Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

Fiction Review, Old Favorites, Romance, Starred Review 0

Jane Eyre

by Charlotte Bronte

Signet Classic, 1982. 461 pages. First published in 1846.
Starred Review

This is not going to be a standard review. It turns out I already did a review of Jane Eyre back in 2001, when I was first writing Sonderbooks. If you haven’t read Jane Eyre, Dear Reader, stop reading these spoiler-filled musings and go read the book! It’s a classic! You really should read it!

I listed Jane Eyre on my list of about ten favorite books when I was a Freshman in college. I loved it wholeheartedly — the romance, the melodrama, the true love, the clever and conscientious but plain heroine. I’m still a romantic, and I still loved the story, but I found my perspective at 47 quite different than when I first read it around 15.

In the first place, I hadn’t remembered that the book is a thoroughly Christian one. There are multiple obscure Biblical allusions, over and over again. Now, I understood the allusions, but I’m definitely not used to seeing them in a book that’s for the general public. It made me wonder how much readers miss, reading it today. For example, “A frequent interlude of these performances was the enactment of the part of Eutychus by some half dozen of little girls; who, overpowered with sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the fourth form, and be taken up half dead.” (Eutychus fell asleep when Paul preached a long sermon and fell from the third loft, but was then restored.)

But mostly I found myself awfully cynical over the romance! Mr. Rochester is just plain mean when he works at making Jane jealous. She could have done much, much better with half a chance of meeting more people! Mostly, I now have a hard time thinking anything at all good about a married almost-40-year-old man who falls in love with a 19-year-old! Right, they’ll have a lot in common! Sure, she’s the only one who’s ever really understood him! I have a much, much harder time believing that than I did when I was a teenager. Rather than find Mr. Rochester romantic, this time I thought him making a fool of himself, and not even being very nice while he was at it.

Mind you, I do like Jane and the way she deals with him as he manipulates her. I don’t blame her for falling in love with him, but if she’d seen more of the world, I hope she would have realized how much better she could have done. (I read a book once that said the reason so many middle-aged men have affairs with much younger women is that those are the only ones stupid enough to fall for the line, “My wife doesn’t understand me.”) This guy was twice her age and besides being married, had had three different mistresses. He doesn’t deserve you, Jane!

What’s more, I found myself wondering if the insane wife was actually insane before she got locked in the attic for years and years. Mr. Rochester explains to Jane that soon after the wedding, he hated his wife, even before she went mad — as if that makes it okay. He tries to portray himself as so compassionate for “keeping” her locked up in the attic with a jailer and pretending she doesn’t exist. I still wonder: How insane was she before she got locked up?

Okay, but Jane completely wins me over in the second half. How incredibly refreshing to see someone decide she would rather die than be a mistress! Yes, she’s truly tempted, horribly tempted. But she follows her principles. Mr. Rochester tells her about his mistresses:

“It was a grovelling fashion of existence: I should never like to return to it. Hiring a mistress is the next worst thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading. I now hate the recollection of the time I passed with Celine, Giacinta, and Clara.”

Jane wisely reflects:

“I felt the truth of these words; and I drew from them the certain inference, that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching that had ever been instilled into me, as — under any pretext — with any justification — through any temptation — to become the successor of these poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same feeling which now in his mind desecrated their memory. I did not give utterance to this conviction: it was enough to feel it. I impressed it on my heart, that it might remain there to serve me as aid in the time of trial.”

But where Jane fully won my admiration and my heart was after she asked herself who would be hurt by her becoming Mr. Rochester’s mistress. “Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?” Her answer made me cheer:

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad — as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth — so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane — quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.”

You go, Jane!

Now, part of my enthusiasm for Jane was reflecting that if young women today had half the principles of Jane Eyre, and refused to have affairs with married men, how many, many lives would not be torn apart! If more people let principles rein in their passions, I persist in thinking that many less hearts would be broken, including mine.

However, by this time I was loving Jane and rooting for Jane, so no matter how dissimilar our situations, now I saw myself in her. I, too, felt torn away from the one I had thought was the love of my life. Okay, so he left me, and didn’t want me around. Leaving wasn’t my choice — though the decision to stop begging him to come back seemed almost as difficult as Jane’s decision to tear herself away. The fact is, I had never stopped loving him, and when he moved to the other side of the world, I felt like my heart was being torn out of my chest. How could I fault Jane for loving Mr. Rochester when I still love my husband? I could easily understand Jane’s despairing wanderings. I took great comfort in Jane’s realization that was the same as I had come to — that there was nothing she could do to help the man she loved with all her heart. She would have to entrust him to God’s care.

“Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. Night was come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night; too serene for the companionship of fear. We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us: and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had risen to my knees to pray for Mr. Rochester. Looking up, I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty Milky-way. Remembering what it was — what countless systems there swept space like a soft trace of light — I felt the might and strength of God. Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He had made: convinced I grew that neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. I turned my prayer to thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the Saviour of spirits. Mr. Rochester was safe: he was God’s and by God would he be guarded. I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere long, in sleep, forgot sorrow.”

Later, I again found myself cheering for Jane when she grew busy and happy teaching school. However, I fully believed that she would have dreams, over and over again, about the one she loved — no matter how serene her day to day life, no matter how admirable her accomplishments.

And then I related to her next temptation. I thought Charlotte Bronte was brilliant that this was the next thing Jane faced: Her temptation was to give her life being a really really good Christian. She could devote herself to Christian service, and she would be good at it. But service without heart. St. John’s proposal was a true temptation. But because Jane had known real love, she could not settle for a mockery of marriage. No matter how dressed up it would be in piety, her heart sensed that it would be wrong, that love itself is sacred.

I’m not sure if I’m explaining why I related to this. I guess there’s a side of me that also thinks I can hide my pain in Christian service. Yes, God is enough. Yes, my relationship with God is incredibly comforting me. But if I keep my heart out of it, even that service will be worthless. As it says in I Corinthians 13, “If I give all I possess to feed the poor and deliver my body to the flames, but have not love, I am nothing.”

So, by the end of the book, I’m loving Jane, rooting for Jane, and relating to Jane. I’m still a romantic, so I love the part where Jane asks God for direction, and in answer she can hear Mr. Rochester’s voice across hundreds of miles. By this time, I don’t begrudge Jane her happy ending, no matter how contrived. Honestly, with Mr. Rochester crippled and blinded, the relationship seems a bit more equal. Though I do wish Jane would stop calling him “my master”!

Anyway, 30 years ago when I read Jane Eyre, I thought it a beautiful story of true love persevering despite all obstacles. I think that today I see it as a beautiful story of a young woman with true character and true faith and genuine love and forgiveness in her heart.

And a rousing read, no doubt about it!

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Source: This review is based on my own long-owned paperback copy.

Review of Revolution, by Jennifer Donnelly

Adventure, Audiobooks, Contemporary, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Revolution

by Jennifer Donnelly
read by Emily Janice Card and Emma Bering

Listening Library, 2010. 12 CDs. 15 hours, 4 minutes.
Starred Review
2011 Odyssey Honor Winner

This book is incredible. One of those audiobooks that had me thinking about it all day long and eventually bringing the CDs into the house to finish listening.

I almost didn’t make it through the first two CDs, since the book starts out very depressing. Andi Alpers’ little brother Truman died two years ago, and Andi is convinced it’s her fault. Her mother can’t cope, but spends her time painting pictures of Truman. Her father walked out on them. The only thing that keeps the sadness at bay is Andi’s antidepressants, but if she takes too many, she starts having hallucinations. Even her music can’t keep the depression away for long.

Then Andi’s Dad comes in and takes charge. He puts her mother in a psychiatric ward and makes Andi accompany him on a trip to Paris. He’s a world-renowned geneticist, and his job is to find out if a preserved child’s heart belonged to the Dauphin of France who was locked in a tower during the French Revolution.

While in Paris, in an old guitar case, Andi finds a hidden compartment and a diary written during the French Revolution by a girl who was companion to the Dauphin. The details of Andi’s life are intricately parallel to the story in the diary. Meanwhile, she meets a French musician who seems to really care about her. But even weirder things begin to happen.

The plotting in this book is exquisite. There are resonances between the two plotlines on so many levels. It also doesn’t hurt that the diary is read by another voice, with a beautiful French accent!

The reader only slowly discovers the full story of Truman’s death and all that Andi is dealing with. Despite her prickly exterior, we come to care about her deeply.

This book is amazing. The craftsmanship is astonishing, in the weaving of the two plotlines alone. If you add to the mix how much research the author must have done, it’s an incredible achievement. An interesting thing for me is that I had just seen an article on the Catacombs of Paris in National Geographic. The article talked about cataphiles who explore the tunnels and showed a picture of “The Beach,” where parties happen. The article came out after the book, just a month before I read it. But the French musician Andi meets is a cataphile, and he takes Andi to a party at The Beach in the catacombs, described exactly like the picture. I was impressed that the author took such care with contemporary details, and have no doubt she was also careful about historical details.

Hmm. Now that I’m posting this review, I don’t know where to put it. The diary is historical, but Andi’s story is contemporary. There’s a small paranormal element. It almost should be put in a class by itself as “Masterpieces.” I think I’ll put it in the “Contemporary” category, but be aware that there is much more to this book.

The whole time I was listening to this book, not only did it stick with me all day long, but I was telling everyone I worked with how incredible it was. I do recommend it in audio form, since listening to the French accent added a level of enjoyment for me. Teens and adults alike will find this book a work of art.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/revolution.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 Chime, by Franny Billingsley

Fantasy, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

Chime

by Franny Billingsley

Dial Books, 2011. 361 pages.
Starred Review

Full disclosure: I consider the author, Franny Billingsley, a friend, because we attended the same fabulous writers’ conference in Paris in 2005, so I definitely was predisposed to like this book. However, I was predisposed to like her then because I liked her books so much, so it’s kind of a circular bias — which all started because she’s an outstanding writer.

Though a little way into Chime, I might have quit, because I’m not a fan of dark fantasy, and this book definitely gets dark. However, I was extremely glad I didn’t quit, because by the end I thought this book a masterpiece.

At the start of the book, Briony hates herself, which makes it a little harder for the reader to like her. Here’s how she begins:

“I’ve confessed to everything and I’d like to be hanged.

Now, if you please.

I don’t mean to be difficult, but I can’t bear to tell my story. I can’t relive those memories — the touch of the Dead Hand, the smell of eel, the gulp and swallow of the swamp.

How can you possibly think me innocent? Don’t let my face fool you; it tells the worst lies. A girl can have the face of an angel but have a horrid sort of heart.

I know you believe you’re giving me a chance — or, rather, it’s the Chime Child giving me the chance. She’s desperate, of course, not to hang an innocent girl again, but believe me: Nothing in my story will absolve me of guilt. It will only prove what I’ve already told you, which is that I’m wicked.

Can’t the Chime Child take my word for it?”

At the start of this story, you suspect it’s a historical novel set in a superstitious time when witches were hanged. We’re sure Briony must not be a witch and this must be a story of how she was falsely accused.

The setting fits. Briony’s father is a clergyman in the Swampsea. Her twin sister, Rose, has something wrong with her so that she still acts like a child. Early on, Rose runs into the swamp while Bryony is talking to their new lodger, the handsome Eldric. They set out looking for her, being sure to bring a Bible Ball — a piece of paper with a Scripture written on it. We assume it’s a quaint superstition.

But right away, Briony hears the Old Ones of the swamp calling to her. She has the second sight. That’s how she knows she’s a witch.

“I tried to disbelieve Stepmother when she told me I’m a witch. I knew she was right, yet I tried to make a case for myself, pecking at the proof Stepmother offered — pecking at it, turning it over, saying it didn’t exist. Then pecking at another bit, and another, until Stepmother took pity on me. If I wasn’t a witch, she asked, how else was it that I had the second sight?”

Later, when they go into the swamp again, Eldric’s tutor doesn’t bring a Bible Ball — and sure enough, he gets lured into the Quicks and swallowed by the swamp. We realize that all the “superstitions” Briony’s been talking about — Mucky Face, the Brownie, the Boggy Mun, and hearing ghosts — It’s all real, and she can see them.

There’s also a mystery. Two months and three days before the start of this story, Briony and Rose’s Stepmother died. Right away Briony tells us there’s something more to that death:

“But the villagers are wrong about Stepmother, and so is Father. She would never kill herself. I’m the one who knew her best, and I know this: Stepmother was hungry for life.”

I’m sure this is a book that will get better with each rereading. The author feeds you the details slowly, and your curiosity builds. How did Stepmother die? Is Briony a witch? What caused the fire in their library? Can Briony get the Boggy Mun to stop the Swamp Cough that’s killing Rose?

Yes, the story starts out dark and sinister, but I love the beautiful way it all ends up, and all the different threads that come together. I’d better say no more than that! This is a book well worth reading and rereading. This is a fantasy novel, true, but it doesn’t read quite like any other.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/chime.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 Minding Frankie, by Maeve Binchy

Contemporary, Fiction Review, General, Light Reading, Literary, Starred Review 0

Minding Frankie

by Maeve Binchy

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2011. 383 pages.
Starred Review

Maeve Binchy’s books always end up keeping me reading until the small hours of the morning. Why, oh why, didn’t I know better than to start reading this book late at night, thinking I could stop after only one chapter? It’s not that the plot is exciting or action-packed, but you definitely get to caring about these people and want to find out what happens to them.

I do love the way she brings characters we’ve already seen in her other books. You don’t by any means have to have read the other books, but you have the sense that these are old friends. Everybody has a story in Maeve Binchy’s books, and in each book she focuses on a set of intertwined lives and the beautiful way they get through.

Minding Frankie is about the birth of a little girl.

Josie and Charles Lynch live in 23 St. Jarlath’s Crescent with their son Noel. They had always hoped Noel would be a priest, and set aside money early on for that purpose. Noel, however, was definitely not interested.

“Not so definite, however, was what he actually would like to do. Noel was vague about this, except to say he might like to run an office. Not work in an office, but run one. He showed no interest in studying office management or bookkeeping or accounting or in any areas where the careers department tried to direct him. He liked art, he said, but he didn’t want to paint. If pushed, he would say that he liked looking at paintings and thinking about them. He was good at drawing; he always had a notebook and a pencil with him and he was often to be found curled up in a corner sketching a face or an animal. This did not, of course, lead to any career path, but Noel had never expected it to. He did his homework at the kitchen table, sighing now and then, but rarely ever excited or enthusiastic. At the parent-teacher meetings Josie and Charles had inquired about this. They wondered, Does anything at school fire him up? Anything at all?”

Later, Noel got an office job instead of continuing his schooling.

“He met his work colleagues but without any great enthusiasm. They would not be his friends and companions any more than his fellow students at the Brothers had become mates. He didn’t want to be alone all the time, but it was often easier….

“He took to coming home later and later. He also took to visiting Casey’s pub on the journey home — a big barn of a place, both comforting and anonymous at the same time. It was familiar because everyone knew his name.”

Meanwhile, Noel’s parents aren’t sure what to do with the money they had saved to train Noel for the priesthood. And then Charles Lynch is told they don’t want him at his job any longer.

Into this home comes a woman from America, Charles Lynch’s niece Emily. Emily’s father moved to America years ago, and never kept in touch with his family. The family isn’t sure what to expect, but Emily is the sort of person who changes people’s lives by getting to know who they truly are.

She helps Charles and Josie realize what they really want to do is build a statue to St. Jarlath. And she helps Noel realize that he’s an alcoholic and needs help.

But then Noel gets a life-changing phone call. A woman he knew once and spent a drinking weekend with wants him to visit her in the hospital. She tells him she’s pregnant, and he’s the father. And she’s about to die of cancer.

So the book is about Noel trying to get his life together and be a father. The social worker assigned to his case doesn’t think he can do it. But thanks to Emily, there is a community of people around St. Jarlath’s Crescent who care and who help him with minding the little girl, Frankie.

That description doesn’t sound like a book that would keep me up reading through the night. But Maeve Binchy’s books are about Community. The characters are quirky, and some are powerfully flawed, but as we watch them working together, helping each other, working out problems, making mistakes, being wonderfully kind, we get hooked into their stories.

Another uplifting and life-affirming book by Maeve Binchy. I highly recommend getting to know the wonderful people who live in her books.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/minding_frankie.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 The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

The Great Wall of Lucy Wu

by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

Scholastic Press, New York, 2011. 312 pages.
Starred Review

Full disclosure: I met Wendy Shang at KidLitCon09 and liked her very much. She’s also a local author, a member of the awesome DC KidLit Book Club, and a volunteer for Fairfax County Public Library — so an all-round wonderful person! Anyway, I was definitely predisposed to like her book, but I confess I didn’t expect to love it like I did. In fact, I checked it out as soon as I saw the library had ordered it, but I found myself putting off reading it. I expected some sort of problem-novel book about being Chinese in America.

I decided I really should read my friend’s book, and chose it as my first choice for the 2011 48-Hour Book Challenge. And I was completely delighted with it! Yes, okay, it does have issues about a sixth-grader being Chinese in America. But mostly, it’s a great story about an American kid whose sixth-grade year does not turn out as she expects it to.

Lucy Wu has been looking forward for ages to the day when her older sister Regina, the one everyone thinks is so perfect, moves out of their shared bedroom and goes to college. But Lucy’s hopes come crashing down when she learns that her grandmother’s long-lost younger sister, Yi Po, is going to come visit for several months. And the only place where she can sleep is that bed Regina vacated in Lucy’s room.

Then Talent Chang tells Lucy’s mother that her mother is starting Chinese school on Saturday mornings. Never mind that Lucy has basketball practice at that time. Her parents see this as her chance to learn how to communicate better with Yi Po. Lucy loves basketball. She lives and breathes basketball.

“When I tell people that I play basketball, I usually get two kinds of reactions. The first is an awkward pause while my entire height of four-foot-nothing gets examined up one side and down the other, followed by something like, “O-kaaaay. What other sports do you like?” The second, while more positive, is really not any better. It’s a big fishy grin, followed by, “Oh! Just like Yao Ming!” Like I have anything in common with a seven-and-ahalf-foot-tall male basketball player, other than the fact that we’re both Chinese.

“But I love basketball. The day I got the hang of dribbling the ball through my legs counts as one of the best days of my life, and that feeling I get when I know the ball’s going in because everything has lined up perfectly is the greatest rush. To me, getting the ball to an open teammate on a no-look pass is a thing of beauty. And tell me there’s something more exciting than the last few seconds of a tied-up basketball game where tenths of a second count.”

So when they announce there’s going to be a basketball game this year between the teachers and the sixth-graders, and the Captain of the sixth grade team will be chosen by who can shoot the most free throws, well of course Lucy wants to be Captain, and her best friend Madison is sure she’ll win. But then she learns that Sloane Connors wants to be Captain.

“She’s the head of a little group that Madison and I secretly call the Amazons, and they can make your life miserable in a thousand different ways.”

Lucy does not want to cross Sloane, but unfortunately Sloane already found out that Lucy was planning to try out for Captain. Lucy wishes Madison would let her be a coward and give up, but Madison is adamant that Lucy will win and lead the team to victory.

I was going to just dip into this book while I was focusing on writing reviews, but I found myself reading it eagerly. And when I finished, I had a big smile on my face. This is a lovely, well-crafted book. Lucy comes across as a very real American kid. Yeah, she complains a bit much about having her great-aunt move into her room — but honestly, what American kid wouldn’t? There’s a boy she likes, and you won’t believe what happens when she gets a chance to have a good conversation with him. (This was beautiful, in a catastrophic way, but I won’t give it away.)

All the elements are woven together expertly — Lucy’s passion for basketball, her relationships with her family members, her birthday party plans, Chinese school and the girl Talent Chang who is annoyingly perfect but wants to be friends, school and the mean girls going after her, embarrassment over the ways she and her family are different, and even some cross-cultural awareness as to what Yi Po went through during the Cultural Revolution. It’s all in there and told in an engaging, warm, and delightful way.

And it’s all woven together with the story of a Chinese idiom that illustrates that things often turn out quite different than you expect. Bad things often turn out to be good, and good things often turn out to be bad.

Well, with this book, I was predisposed to like it, and it turned out to be delightful beyond my expectations. I wonder if there is an idiom for that?

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