Review of A First Time for Everything, by Dan Santat

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

A First Time for Everything

by Dan Santat

First Second, 2023. 320 pages.
Review written March 12, 2023, from a library book
Starred Review

Here it is! Yet another book that convinces me that the absolutely perfect material for the graphic novel format is the middle school memoir. A First Time for Everything joins books like Smile, Real Friends, El Deafo, and many others that all brilliantly express the emotions and awkwardness of middle school — showing kids that they are not alone.

Caldecott-winning artist Dan Santat got to go to Europe the summer after his eighth grade year. It was an experience that changed his life.

First, he expertly shows some of his humiliations in middle school, so we understand his lack of self-confidence. Some girls who always tease him are along on the trip, but so are some kids from other parts of the United States, including a girl who seems to think he’s cool.

And they see Europe! They start in Paris and travel to places like Switzerland, Salzburg, Vienna, and London. The adults on the trip give them a lot of freedom (the Author’s Note in the back comments on that), and we really get the feeling of a kid experiencing Europe, meeting new people, and learning about himself.

I lived in Germany for ten years and visited many of the places portrayed in this book, so I loved that aspect of reading it as well. It made me want to go back. So much. (But then, most things do.) And when I do, I’m going to drink a Fanta and think of Dan Santat. (Well, and my kids. They love Fanta, too.)

This book is completely wonderful. He managed to put on the page the awkwardness of middle school plus the wonder of Europe plus the challenge of trying new things — and the way all that makes you grow. You could see the kid Dan gaining confidence and liking himself more as the story went on.

dansantatbooks.com
firstsecondbooks.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Woman All Spies Fear, by Amy Butler Greenfield

Award Winners, Biography, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

The Woman All Spies Fear

Code Breaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman and Her Hidden Life

by Amy Butler Greenfield

Random House Studio, 2021. 328 pages.
Review written February 26, 2023, from a library book
2022 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award Finalist
2022 Cybils Award Winner – High School Nonfiction
Starred Review

Okay, I meant to read this book once it was named as a Finalist for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award last year. When this year it won the Cybils Award for High School Nonfiction, that intention took on new urgency. On top of that, a book for younger kids about Elizebeth Friedman, Code Breaker, Spy Hunter, by Laurie Wallmark, was a 2021 Sonderbooks Stand-out and a 2023 Mathical Book Prize Honor Book. And I watched a PBS documentary about her online, “The Codebreaker.” This book for older readers gives many more details about her fascinating life.

Elizebeth Smith was born in 1892 and got started in code breaking by working for an eccentric millionaire, looking for hidden codes from Francis Bacon in the works of Shakespeare. That search came to nothing, but it was there that Elizebeth met her husband-to-be William Friedman, who turned out to be an equally brilliant code breaker.

Elizebeth ended up using her skills for the government to unravel and create coded messages during World War I, during Prohibition against rum runners, and during World War II and beyond. She and her husband helped found cryptanalysis as a science, and trained the nation’s corps of codebreakers.

Her career spanned world wars that happened before computers were used to solve codes, and she brilliantly could spot and break multi-layered cyphers of many different types and in many different languages, using paper and pencil.

This book is packed with amazing stories of her skills, with plenty of personal details about what was going on in her life. Her husband ended up battling mental illness, but Elizebeth carried on, a working mother when that wasn’t the norm. It tells about interagency rivalry as well as national security secrecy that kept her from getting credit for her amazing work.

I enjoyed the frequent “Code Breaks” in the book that looked in more detail at a specific kind of coded message. Those gave me new appreciation for Elizebeth’s intricate level of skill, showing how messages would get coded in multi-step processes — and she would still break them. (Though I was able to solve the simple cypher the author put in the Acknowledgements.)

This book tells a wonderful story of a brilliant woman who, in a time when women’s brains weren’t valued, used hers to defeat bad guys.

amybutlergreenfield.com
GetUnderlined.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of If You’re a Kid Like Gavin, by Gavin Grimm and Kyle Lukoff, illustrations by J Yang

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Current Issues, Starred Review 0

If You’re a Kid Like Gavin

The True Story of a Young Trans Activist

by Gavin Grimm and Kyle Lukoff
illustrations by J Yang

Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins), 2022. 36 pages.
Review written October 25, 2022, from a library book.
Starred Review

This colorful and informative picture book tells the story of Gavin Grimm, a transgender boy who went to court to be able to use the boys’ restroom at his high school.

The book is framed in a way kids can understand, talking about choices you can make and choices you can’t make.

Here’s how they explain that Gavin is transgender:

And if you’re a kid like Gavin Grimm,
you don’t choose if you’re a boy or a girl.

But if you’re transgender like Gavin Grimm,
you might choose to talk about it.

To tell your family, “I know you thought I was a girl,
but I’m really a boy on the inside.”

To say, “I can’t keep the name you gave me. We have to pick a new one.”

To be honest about who you are.

But then Gavin faced another choice: What to do about the bathrooms at school. He went to school as a boy, and no one bothered him. But they had him use a restroom in the nurse’s office. After a while, he started using the boys’ bathroom.

The principal said it was okay, and that should have been the end.

But the book portrays that there were some who didn’t like it, starting with a teacher, who told people that he was really a girl. That started everyone talking about him. Other kids bullied and laughed at him. And they made him a topic of a school board meeting. Gavin then had another choice.

Gavin chose to speak up for himself. He went to the meeting at his school and told them where he belonged. He tried to make them see that he was just a kid, not a problem to be solved.

It didn’t work.

But he still had a choice. He could have used the girls’ bathroom, which didn’t feel right. Or he could have used the bathroom his school put into a closet, one that no other kid was forced to use.

And he could have chosen to stay quiet.

The spread with his choice has a wonderful sky at sunset behind Gavin — with the colors of the transgender flag.

But when you’re a kid like Gavin Grimm, you know the only choice you have is to fight back.

To stand up for yourself.
And your right to use the bathroom as yourself.
And your right to be in school as yourself.

Then it talks about how Gavin worked with the ACLU to continue to fight his own case and to try to help other transgender kids, too.

I wish that this book were only of historical interest! It helps kids understand why transgender kids want to be who they know themselves to be. And it encourages kids to make the choice to stand for what’s right. Even while acknowledging they shouldn’t have to.

harpercollinschildrens.com

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Review of Dancing at the Pity Party, by Tyler Feder

Biography, Graphic Memoir, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

Dancing at the Pity Party

A Dead Mom Graphic Memoir

by Tyler Feder

Dial Books, 2020. 202 pages.
Review written July 27, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

I like the way Dancing at the Pity Party gives you full disclosure in the subtitle. Yes, this is a graphic memoir about the author’s experience with her mother’s death from uterine cancer that happened when Tyler was 19 years old and a sophomore in college.

The book is really well done. It’s a wonderful tribute to her mother and the relationship they had. It tells the story of how the cancer unfolded and the horrible and strange things that did to her emotions. And it explores the mess of grief and the strange things people say.

I probably should not have read this book only eight months after my own mother died. One of the things people do that’s insensitive is compare grief. I can’t fully understand what Tyler went through, because my mother was 78, not 47, and had Alzheimer’s, so by the time she died, it seemed horrible that she’d been alive so long. But I found myself saying, “Yeah, but my father died, too!” – because my father died unexpectedly two months before my mother finally passed. And that has nothing to do with Tyler’s experience – but for me it pointed out that all grief is sadly individual. You can find people who understand certain aspects of what you’re going through, but each one of us has our own journey.

And that’s what’s brilliant about this book. It portrays Tyler’s individual journey with grief. It makes a beautiful tribute to her mother, and it’s a wonderful story about human emotions.

I especially liked her fantasy Deadmom App. Among other things, it mutes all Mother’s Day social media and looks up any movie to find out if the mom dies in it. (I went to see the Mister Rogers movie with Tom Hanks when my Mom was dying in another state. I didn’t know the other main character would be dealing with the deaths of his parents.)

She thinks of so many aspects of the experience of losing someone so important, things that you don’t necessarily think of when you think about loss.

Reading this book will touch your heart whether you’ve ever experienced grief or not.

penguinrandomhouse.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Choosing Brave, by Angela Joy, illustrated by Janelle Washington

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

Choosing Brave

How Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Sparked the Civil Rights Movement

by Angela Joy
illustrated by Janelle Washington

Roaring Brook Press, 2022. 64 pages.
Review written October 24, 2022, from a library book.
Starred Review

This powerful picture book biography tells the story of Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmett Till’s mother, and how she made hard choices so that the world would know about the terrible injustice that happened when her son was killed.

But that wasn’t the first hard choice she made. She faced bullying at school, though she graduated at the top of her class. Emmett’s father left her when Emmett was a baby, so she was a single mother. Polio left Emmett with a stutter, but she helped him and taught him to whistle to get through the stutter. That may have been why he ended up being accused of wolf whistling at a white woman. And murdered for it.

After Emmett’s death, Mamie paid a year’s wages to bring him north and used a glass-topped coffin to show the world what had been done to him.

Her brave choices helped start the Civil Rights movement, and even after Emmett’s murderers went free, she kept going to rallies, calling for justice.

Here’s how the book ends (before eight pages of notes at the back):

Yet still today, we whisper her name.

For lessons unlearned and hatred still living,
we whisper her name.
For strength to sow love in spite of our pain,
we utter her name.
For every son and every daughter who suffers still,
we cry her name.
For justice. For peace.
We shout her name.

A powerful and moving story, told in simple language and striking images.

AngelaJoyBooks.com
WashingtonCuts.com
mackids.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Welcome to St. Hell, by Lewis Hancox

Biography, Graphic Memoir, Teen Nonfiction 0

Welcome to St. Hell

My Trans Teen Misadventure

by Lewis Hancox

Graphix (Scholastic), 2022. 298 pages.
Review written October 2, 2022, from a library book

Memoirs in graphic novel format are the perfect way to capture all the emotion and angst of the teenage years. In Welcome to St. Hell, Lewis Hancox tells about how difficult life was for him in high school when his name was Lois and everyone thought he was a girl.

Lewis grew up in a small town in England, officially named St Helens, but known to locals as St. Hell. It wasn’t a posh town, and the book is peppered with British slang I had to get used to, but it gives the feel of the place where he grew up.

I like the way older Lewis ushers the reader through the book, assuring everyone that it’s all going to turn out okay. But he tells how uncomfortable he was in his own skin when everyone – including himself – thought he was a girl.

And yes, when he started making out with his first girlfriend, his dysphoria made him extremely uncomfortable getting intimate — and there’s a diagram showing his naked body as it was then, with all the things he was uncomfortable about highlighted.

Yes, current book banners are citing that page. No, it’s not pornography. It’s a cartoon, and it’s not going to titillate anyone. It’s demonstrating his extreme gender dysphoria.

And he went through extremes to try to get a body that looked more like a man’s. Extreme dieting followed by obsessive working out. When he finally got to go to a gender identity clinic, it felt like life was opening up for him. And calm and happy adult Lewis, who has been leading us through the book, shows that he did find the solution to his troubles.

So if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like for transgender teens, who may not know yet that they’re transgender, only that they’re different, I highly recommend this book. And it needs to be available to teens, so the transgender ones who might come across it will know they are not freaks and they are not alone.

If you think that teens are too young to know which gender they are, I offer this book as a counter example. Lewis may not have then known what his feelings meant, but he knew that something was wrong with the way people perceived him. Please have some respect for what people know about their own bodies. Please!

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Sanctuary, by Christine McDonnell, illustrated by Victoria Tentler-Krylov

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Sanctuary

Kip Tiernan and Rosie’s Place, the Nation’s First Shelter for Women

by Christine McDonnell
illustrated by Victoria Tentler-Krylov

Candlewick Press, 2022. 36 pages.
Review written August 5, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Here’s a picture book biography of a woman I’d never heard of before — who truly deserves to be celebrated.

Kip Tiernan grew up during the Great Depression and watched her grandmother serve soup to the line of men who came to their door. Later, as an adult in 1968, she sold her business and gave the rest of her life to serving the poor.

First, she worked in shelters. Kip noticed that women would disguise themselves as men to get help in the shelter.

She later opened the nation’s first women’s shelter. Her work was beautiful because she respected people’s dignity.

She wanted to open a sanctuary with flowers and music where women wouldn’t be reminded they were poor, a shelter with no chores, no questions asked, just good meals and warm beds. She hoped the volunteers at her shelter would listen to the guests. When you listen to others, you show respect; you learn who they are and what they need.

This beautiful picture book celebrates a woman who gave her life to helping others.

The author teaches English to immigrant women today at the shelter that Kip Tiernan founded.

wanderwomenproject.com/places/kip-tiernan-memorial
candlewick.com

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Review of All Boys Aren’t Blue, by George M. Johnson

Audiobooks, Biography, Teen Nonfiction, True Stories 0

All Boys Aren’t Blue

A Memoir-Manifesto

by George M. Johnson
read by the author

Macmillan Audio, 2020. 5 hours, 12 minutes.
Review written November 9, 2020, from a library eaudiobook

In this book, George Johnson talks about what it was like for him growing up Black and queer, even in a loving and supportive family.

His storytelling style is interesting and engaging, though a little repetitive in spots. He had me on the edge of my seat when I listened to him tell about getting his teeth kicked out when he was five years old. His stories of his family, especially his grandma, are warm and loving.

When he talks about sexual coming-of-age, he gets way more detailed than what this middle-aged heterosexual white woman wanted to hear. But this book isn’t written for heterosexual middle-aged white women. It’s written especially to other Black and queer folks to find out they aren’t alone. He even talks about how little information he had about gay sex and how he hopes he can help others go beyond trial and error with a few less errors.

I’m glad this book is out there, and even for those not in its target audience, it’s a story of a boy growing up as an outsider and finding his way with the help of community.

iamgmjohnson.com
us.macmillan.com/audio

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Marie’s Ocean, by Josie James

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Marie’s Ocean

Marie Tharp Maps the Mountains Under the Sea

by Josie James

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

mackids.com

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

Biography, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh

by Candace Fleming

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

candacefleming.com
GetUnderlined.com

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