KidLitCon 2011

Conference Corner, General 0

I spent last weekend in Seattle at KidLitCon and had a fabulous time!

KidLitCon is an annual gathering of bloggers who specialize in children’s books. I went when it was in Washington, DC in 09, and loved it. Last year, it was the same weekend as the Horn Book Colloquium at Simmons, and that was closer, so I went to Boston instead, and got to be a fangirl meeting Megan Whalen Turner. But this year, especially when I heard it would be in Seattle, I wanted to go to KidLitCon again.

What did I take away from KidLitCon?

1. Connection!

KidLitCon is the friendliest conference you could ever hope to attend. I figure it’s because almost no one who attends blogs for their job — they do this because they love it. So you’ve automatically got about a hundred people who love what you do. Definitely a bunch of kindred spirits!

This year, there was a special connection for me. You see, seven years ago, I posted a review of The Hollow Kingdom, by Clare Dunkle. Clare also lived in Germany at the time, and she got in touch with me, and we became friends. Clare was the one who put me in touch with Farida Dowler. Sure enough, our reading tastes made us friends and we became e-mail buddies. Later, when my marriage was falling apart, I needed friends to talk to about it who didn’t know my husband, so I could say all I needed to say without hurting his reputation. Farida provided a kind and helpful ear, and over the years I came to think of her as a dear friend.

So, at KidLitCon, I finally met her!

Here I am with my dear friend Farida, finally meeting in person! (And I was delighted when her round up of the conference also talked about how nice it was to meet!)

Some other lovely connection moments were meeting my roommate, Lisa Song of Reads for Keeps (we’d worked out the arrangements via e-mail, and she ended up being delightful); having a spontaneous dinner with Dorine White of The Write Path; and finishing off the conference with breakfast with Liz Burns, of A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy, whom I first met at KidLitCon09, and saw again at two ALA conferences. But that doesn’t mention all the many interactions with so many wonderful and friendly people. From start to finish, KidLitCon is the perfect place to meet people who love what you love and are happy to meet you, too.

Here’s a lovely group of people I had lunch with:

Above are Lisa Song, Melissa Fox, Maureen Kearney, Liz Burns, and me.

Let me repeat that the people I met at KidLitCon (including the ones I didn’t get pictures of) are fantastic people! Passionate about books and reading and literacy and libraries, and just a wonderful community to be part of.

What else did I get out of KidLitCon?

2. Encouragement!

A lot of the panels were about doing what I believe I’m already doing: Blogging about both old and new books; writing reviews that tell why I reacted a certain way to a book; trying to do good with my blog. These panels were inspirational, and gave me additional ideas to do what I do even better. They rekindled my excitement about being a book blogger.

Chris Singer of Book Dads reminded us that the books you choose to review can make a difference.

The panel with Maureen Kearney, Melissa Fox, and Jen Robinson encouraged that blogging a variety of types of books can keep your passion alive.

The panel on Critical Reviews, with Kelly Jensen, Abby Johnson, Julia Riley, and Janssen Brandshaw, gave us some nice tools of things to look at when analyzing why a book worked or didn’t work for you.

Richard Jesse Watson talked about using your blog to play, to express yourself. He said, “Isn’t blogging like yodeling into the abyss?” He also said that play is one of the most important ways to rejuvenate your voice. He left me inspired to have fun with blogging and try new things.

3. Fascinating Information!

Friday night, we met a whole bunch of Seattle-area authors, as they got to talk for 90 seconds about their latest book. Of course my to-be-read list just got longer.

The Keynote Address by Scott Westerfeld on Saturday morning was wonderful. He talked about how he came up with the idea for the Leviathan series and how working with an illustrator changed how the story went. He talked about how technology changes our lives, but you can’t predict ahead of time how it will go. He showed some fan art and said that, thanks to fan art on the internet, we may be living in the age of the illustrated novel again. Another good quote: “In the west, we crazily think that illiteracy is related to pictures.”

In the panel “Moving Beyond Google Reader,” Jen Robinson gave some good instruction about how to set up a weekly or biweekly newsletter with your blog. Since that’s how Sonderbooks started, I definitely plan to follow her instructions to get back to that.

And the final panel, “Prejudice and Pride,” on Diversity, was simply amazing in all the good stuff that came out.

In the picture are Brent Hartinger, Sara Ryan, moderator Lee Wind, Justina Chen, and Sarah Stevenson.

Some quotables from that panel:

“What we are doing is art, not sociology.” — Brent Hartinger

“We’re writing a character, not an archetype.” — Lee Wind

“Do you have the right to write a character who isn’t you? YES!”

“This is a call for a plenitude of stories.” — Justina Chen

More than one author pointed out that the more stories there are about a group, the less tense people get. So the solution: Let more stories be told!

“You have tremendous power in what you choose to talk about.”

Also, we do need a certain distance from a topic, so sometimes people NOT in a particular group can tell a story better.

Remember: “People are not only one thing!”

So, that begins to tell you how wonderful KidLitCon was. I never would have gone if I’d realized I’d be recovering from a stroke, but I’m so glad I did! And it did not solve my problem of needing more sleep, and so getting way behind on blogging. However, it did remind me how much I love blogging and books and bloggers and book people. And it reminded me I’m doing it for fun, but I am also doing good while I’m at it.

Finally, big kudos to the organizers who put together a fabulous conference! Here are Jackie Parker of Interactive Reader and Colleen Mondor of Chasing Ray:

Thank you so much, ladies, for planning a weekend I will never forget!

National Book Festival Tips

General 0

I’ve lived in Virginia for five years now, and I’ve been to the National Book Festival four times. The first two years weren’t as good an experience as the next two, so I thought I’d share some tips.

1. Purchase books you want signed ahead of time!

I just ordered two copies of Okay for Now, by Gary Schmidt, one for me and one for a gift. This is what made me think of writing this post. This year, I have to work on the Saturday of the Festival (September 24), but this year they are extending the festival to two days, so I can attend on Sunday, which is when Gary Schmidt is speaking.

The reason for this tip? The tent where they sell books is a crowded, awful place. You will have a hard time looking at books and a long line to pay for them. They will be sold at full price. But if you are like me, you will see books you want and purchase them on a whim, only to discover that you can’t make it to the long line when that author is getting books signed. Much better: If you really want to get a book signed, purchase it ahead of time and bring it to the festival.

Last year, I didn’t get any books signed, and enjoyed the Festival tremendously, with more time to listen to authors. The year before, I got a book signed by Shannon Hale, and was unutterably thrilled when she knew who I was (from my website) as soon as I told her my name.

2. Plan your schedule.

The Library of Congress Festival website has the schedule of when each author will speak and when they will get books signed. Getting books signed will require waiting in line, probably starting before the scheduled time. If you just stroll around the festival, looking for what’s interesting, you’ll have trouble getting into a tent and you’ll miss out. And might get rained on.

3. Plan to get a good seat in a tent — and stay there!

Most years that I’ve gone to the National Book Festival, it’s been raining. Last year, instead it was blazing hot. Either way, you’ll be much much more comfortable in a tent. However, the tents do not have enough seats for everyone who wants to hear these incredible authors speak. So a couple years ago, when I very much wanted to hear Mo Willems speak, I planned to get in the tent to hear the speaker before him. Sure enough, you can usually find a seat up close when one speaker finishes, if you’re right there to grab a seat from departing people.

I discovered two years ago that if there are two speakers you want to hear who are speaking in the same tent, you will be treated to some fabulous speakers you might not have heard otherwise if you just STAY IN YOUR SEAT! Seats are gold — try not to leave once you snag one!

So those are my three big tips. I’ll see if I get new ones this year, when I’m only going to the half-day events on Sunday. Here is my post about National Book Festival from ’09, but it doesn’t look like I posted any last year, probably because I didn’t bring my camera and only took pictures on my phone. But I heard some great authors, just by sitting in a couple tents all day (in the blazing heat). I’ve got to share!

Here’s Rebecca Stead, not long after winning her Newbery Medal for When You Reach Me:

And here’s M. T. Anderson, talking about the Flame Pits of Delaware:

Anita Silvey, of the Children’s Book a Day Almanac and the book, Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book:

Katherine Paterson, our current distinguished Ambassador for Children’s Books:

Here’s Judith Viorst, the author of the classic Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, reading the new utterly delightful book Lulu and the Brontosaurus. (Alexander himself was in the audience!)

And finally, Jerry Pinkney, now a Caldecott Medalist. I’d discovered what a great speaker he is the year before, at the National Book Festival, and have now heard him speak three times, once receiving his well-deserved medal. I love it when he takes questions from the audience, because he does so well with the children who ask questions.

Oh, and one final tip! Last year, some local book bloggers got together and had dinner in DC after the Festival. That’s a super way to finish it off. Anyone going to the Festival on Sunday? Leave a message in the comments or contact me on Twitter at @Sonderbooks! It’s a great time to get together with other book lovers.

Review of You Can Count on Monsters, by Richard Evan Schwartz

Children's Nonfiction Review, Mathematical, Prime Factorization, Starred Review 0

You Can Count on Monsters

The First 100 Numbers and Their Characters

by Richard Evan Schwartz

A. K. Peters, Ltd., Natick, Massachusetts, 2011.
Starred Review

When I first heard of this book, I was delighted, and rushed to order my own copy. I was even more delighted when I read the book. I requested that the library system order it as well. This book would have been absolutely perfect when my sons were young and exploring numbers. I hope I get a chance to share it with a child.

I love it so much because of my experience making my prime factorization sweater. I chose a color for each prime number, then made a chart of all the natural numbers up to 100, showing their prime factorization with colors. I loved all the patterns that resulted.

Richard Evan Schwartz uses a similar idea, but adds a lot of creativity: For each prime number, he creates a monster! Then composite numbers are shown with the monsters from their prime factorization interacting together. It’s a lot of fun to look through the pictures and see the way he’s worked in the monsters. He’s also got an arrangement of dots on each page that demonstrates more about the number and the way it’s composed.

He says he created the monsters to explain prime numbers and factoring to his daughter, and I would love to share this book with a child. You can look at it again and again.

There’s a lovely simple explanation of multiplication and factoring at the front of the book. Then he explains the method behind the monsters:

“Each monster has something about it that relates to its number, but sometimes you have to look hard (and count) to find it.”

“For the composite numbers, we factor the number into primes and then draw a scene that involves the monsters that match those primes.

“It isn’t always easy to recognize the monsters in a scene. For instance, here is the scene for the number 56. You should see three 2-monsters buzzing around one 7-monster. Recognizing the monsters in the different scenes is part of the fun of the book!”

This book would also be great support for a child learning the multiplication tables. If you visualize monsters, they’ll be much easier to remember!

Most of all, I love the way this book showcases the playful, creative, and beautiful side of mathematics. You can count on Monsters to show you just how much fun math can be!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/you_can_count_on_monsters.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 my own copy of the book.

Attention Math Nuts!

Mathematical 0

I maintain that I have proved my status as a Math Nut when I displayed my prime factorization sweater on my blog. (I remain very proud that when you insert the term “prime factorization sweater” in Google, my picture comes up.)

However, I haven’t posted a whole lot of mathematical content. Probably more mathematically-oriented books than most book blogs, but definitely not the majority of my posts.

But that may be about to change! Because my attention was directed to a post called The 50 Best Twitter Feeds for Math Geeks. It’s on the blog Best Colleges Online.

Anyway, these feeds sound so good (and some are the feeds of authors whose books I’ve reviewed), I will probably follow all of them. So — once I’m getting more Math News, I’m sure to pass on more Math News… We shall see…

If you are a fellow Math Nut, you will want to check out these Feeds!

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.

Ten Years of Sonderbooks!

General 0

I missed it! I was in the hospital dealing with the minor problem of a stroke, and I let my TEN year anniversary of starting Sonderbooks slide right by!

Sonderbooks was originally an e-mail newsletter. I preferred to call it an e-zine, which posted 107 “issues.” I began in August 2001, with Sonderbooks #1. I’m not sure on which day, but at the start of the month, because I posted four issues that month. At the time, I planned to make it a weekly e-zine, and planned to simply post all the books I’d read that week. Publication slowed down at times. Eventually, I tried to read a book from each category and include one Picture Book Pick and one Old Favorite in each issue.

It wasn’t long before I pursued my dream and converted it to a website. I had so much fun discussing the books I’d reviewed with library customers! I was working at Sembach Base Library in Germany, which is a small community, so I became friends with many of our customers, and posting the reviews got us talking to each other more. I loved doing it, and reviewed every book I read. I continued to post it in issues, updating the website at the same time as I sent out an e-zine with that week or month’s reviews. Here are links to all 107 issues of the e-zine.

At the end of the summer of 2006, my life was in major upheaval. My husband left me and moved to Japan. I had to leave Germany and move back to the States. My oldest son went off to college in Florida. I lost my job (because my husband’s term in Germany was up). I began graduate school in Library Science, deciding that if I had to support myself and work full-time, I’d like to do it as a librarian.

With all that going on, I got way behind in posting reviews. But then I got to take a class in Web Site Development. I decided it would be simpler to post reviews one at a time on a blog — and simply post them on the website one at a time instead of in issues. I revamped my site with a logo that my friend Deborah Gregory made for me, and started out with a new look. Here are the 1,250 reviews before the 2006 change.

Even though the blog format is perfect for reviews, I haven’t been willing to give up the main site. There you’ll see the covers of the two most recent reviews I’ve posted in each category. You’ll find links to authors’ websites and to related reviews. I also have links between all the books in each category. Each category also has a main page where I list all the books reviewed since the site revision. I may start having to separate out some categories (like Teen Fantasy), but for now I just keep adding them on.

Of course, as long as I was adding a blog, I also added a blog for Sonderquotes, quotations from books I was reading; Sonderblessings, a simple list to remind me to be thankful; and Sonderjourneys, my personal journeys and musings about life. In case you were wondering? “Sonder” is a German prefix that means “special.” (“Sander” doesn’t mean anything.) Also in case you’re wondering, as a kid I was very very tired of having my name confused with Sandra, so I was thrilled to find German words beginning with Sonder and claimed this German-English title as my own.

My biggest frustration with Sonderbooks? When I began, I was only working 20 hours per week, and I still struggled a bit to keep up with writing reviews for all the books I was reading. Now I’m working full-time, and I’m currently way behind. I know, I know — I should decide not to review some of the books I read. Honestly, if I don’t have much that’s good to say about it, I won’t review a book. However, right now I have quite a stack of books I really loved. Can I get them reviewed soon? Well, while I was out on sick leave, I did catch up and got all the library books I’ve read reviewed. So now I just need to catch up on the books I own. (Why library books first? They have a due date of course!) I’m going to try to blaze through them this weekend, but it’s probably too big a stack to actually finish. If the year ends up, and I still haven’t caught up, I will have to admit defeat.

Because at the end of each year, I love compiling a list of my favorites. There are now ten lists of Sonderbooks Stand-outs posted. Be sure to browse these favorites.

So — ten years from an e-mail newsletter to family and friends to a website and blog that gets as many as 10,000 hits per month! And I’m having so much fun doing it!

In the future, I’d like to get another list of all the reviews going, and I’d like to keep post lots more lists of Sondy’s Selections. But meanwhile, I’ll be happy if I can catch up on writing reviews! And I’m wildly looking forward to Kidlitcon11 in Seattle next weekend, where I hope to meet other like-minded bloggers. Back in ’01, I didn’t know anyone else like me, an enthusiast wanting to go on and on about books, particularly children’s books. Now the internet has acquainted me with a whole blogiverse of people like me!

Review of I Dreamed of Flying Like a Bird, by Robert B. Haas

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

I Dreamed of Flying Like a Bird

My Adventures Photographing Wild Animals from a Helicopter

by Robert B. Haas

National Geographic, Washington, DC, 2010. 64 pages.
Starred Review

This book is a delight to look at. Robert Haas is an aerial photographer. In this book, he tells the story of getting his stunning images — and he also includes the images.

He tells about his methods; it sounds much more difficult than I ever would have guessed. He usually flies with the door off the helicopter and not one, but two, safety harnesses. It’s very cold up there with the door off, so he wears many layers of clothes.

In this book, he focuses on some images that have a story behind them, like the time he saw a herd of African buffalos being hunted by lions. Another time, he found a bear in Alaska just coming out of its den from a winter’s hibernation. He also does amazing photography of sea creatures, and once the pilot almost lost control right over a large group of sharks.

My favorite image, though, is the one that goes with this description:

“One of the most beautiful sights from the air is a large flock of flamingos moving around in shallow water. The flock forms one shape after another and leaves different patterns as it sweeps across the water. One time off the coast of Mexico, I came across a large flock of flamingos that changed its shape every few seconds, and I kept shooting and shooting for a very long time. And then, when I was just about to leave, I noticed something that was simply unbelievable — the hundreds of flamingos in the flock had actually formed the shape of a flamingo! I was able to capture that shot, and it has become one of my best known photos.”

I’m taking a class on the Caldecott Medal, and we have been discussing whether a photographer will ever win for the most distinguished picture book. I hope last year’s committee gave this book consideration, since the images are truly stunning. This book will be enjoyed and marvelled over by children and adults alike.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/flying_like_a_bird.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 False Princess, by Ellis O’Neal

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The False Princess

by Ellis O’Neal

Egmont USA, New York, 2011. 319 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a lovely romantic fairy-tale-type story that will keep you guessing. Fans of Ella Enchanted and The Goose Girl and Princess Ben (like me!) will enjoy it.

Nalia has grown up as crown princess of Thorvaldor. But after her sixteenth birthday, her parents summon her and tell her that her entire life was a lie.

Every royal child of Thorvaldor gets a prophecy from the Oracle. The prophecy Nalia learned was a bland one about peace and prosperity. But on that memorable day, her supposed parents tell Nalia what the prophecy really was:

“According to the oracle, there was a chance the princess could die, murdered, before her sixteenth birthday. It was not certain, but the chance was great enough that, when she sought the foretelling, all the oracle saw was blood, and the princess dead in this room.”

The king and queen were sure this would be their only child. They were ready for desperate measures:

“He stopped short, his eyes fixed on mine. When he spoke again, he sounded tired, like a man at the end of a long journey. ‘We hid the princess away so that she would be safe until after her sixteenth birthday. And we replaced her with another baby, a false princess. You.'”

The court magicians take off the glamour that’s been on Nalia all her life, and she loses her birthmark. She learns that her name is Sinda Azaway. She doesn’t even get to say good-by to her best friend, Kiernan, an earl’s son, and she’s sent to live with her aunt, who thought she was dead.

The king and queen send gruff Aunt Varil a gift she can’t even use. Aunt Varil is a dyer, and Sinda tries to help, but it turns out she’s no good at dyeing or any other kind of labor fitting to her new station. However, she does learn she has an innate magical talent (which no one in the royal family ever does), and is dangerous unless she learns how to control it. She tries to get into the magical academy in the capital, but can’t afford it. However, she finally gets a break when a kind lady wizard takes her in as an apprentice. And then she’s close to the castle and finds out something’s funny about the “real” princess.

This is a very good yarn, another delight for people who enjoy fairy tales (like me!). The plot is complex, with plots and counterplots — almost too complex, but not quite. There’s a nice touch of romance, and plenty of action. Sinda is in a unique position to find out what’s going on, and also in a unique position to set things right. Her journey to do that is perilous but fascinating, scary but exciting.

This is a wonderful first novel! Ellis O’Neal has spun a complicated tale and done a great job of getting it all across, and making it a delight to read. This is just the sort of book that I read and wish I had written myself! I’m really looking forward to Ellis O’Neal’s future offerings!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/false_princess.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 Silver Bowl, by Diane Stanley

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

The Silver Bowl

by Diane Stanley

Harper, 2011. 307 pages.
Starred Review

I read this book during the 2011 48-Hour Book Challenge, and completely loved it. It helped make the challenge a beautiful experience.

The Silver Bowl is traditional fantasy, but with a very unusual plot. You won’t know what to expect, and you will be enchanted and delighted with the story.

Molly is the seventh child of a poor man with a mad wife, so she’s sent away to work at the castle when she’s only seven. Her mother guesses why Molly is “troublesome,” because she gets visions like Molly’s. Molly’s mother is on her deathbed, but she gives Molly a necklace her father made, and some advice:

“Now listen to me and remember what I say: when these things happen in the future, try not to draw back in horror and surprise, or to cry out. It’s natural to be frightened, I know, and it may be that you haven’t the skill to hide it. If that is the case, then you must spin some tale. Say a spider bit you or that you are prone to fits. But whatever you do, don’t tell anyone the truth.”

Molly means to follow her mother’s advice. But then she’s set to polishing a beautiful silver bowl, and the bowl gives her visions — visions of a curse on the royal family, a curse about to strike. Who can Molly tell? Will anyone believe her? Can she save the king?

I love Molly’s feisty character in this book. And the people she meets and makes friends with among the castle servants are well-fleshed-out, too. I especially like the Donkey Boy, Tobias. Here’s the scene when Molly is new to the castle and meets Tobias:

“I was put under the charge of a big girl named Bertha, who’d worked there for several years. She enjoyed ordering me about as though she were a duchess and I was her lowliest servant. Yet she was just a scullion, same as me, except that she was trusted to handle the fine and delicate things, while I attended to the pots and the spoons, and whatever could not be broken.

“On my third day she happened to go to the privy, leaving some goblets on the sideboard waiting to be washed. They were made of fine crystal, etched with cunning designs and rimmed with gold — worth a fortune I’m sure. I should never have touched them. But I thought to impress Bertha by showing how helpful I could be. Perhaps she would be kinder to me then. And so I picked up one with my soapy hands.

“You’ve already guessed that I dropped it.

“The donkey boy was standing in the doorway. His hair was in his eyes, his nose ran, and his mouth hung open. Naturally, I took him for a dimwit. Never did I dream he could be quick.

“But quick he was. He saw the goblet fall; and suddenly there he was, upon his knees, hands outstretched. He caught it before it hit the ground, lost his balance, rolled over onto his side, then onto his back, all the while holding it safely aloft. At last he rose to his feet again and handed it back to me — after which, having spoken nary a word, he returned to his place by the door.”

This is a beautiful book about a little servant girl who tries to save the kingdom.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

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