You don't know how tired I am of writing four to seven thoughtful reviews each week! But I have made it to mid-November, and I'm planning to finish the year out. Perhaps I'll change my "review every book I read" policy in the new year. In the meantime, I think I'll do some speed reviewing this week. Forgive my tired brain.
Last week I finished:
If you're looking for a good, positive reading experience with a bit of drama and a bit of romance, Things You Save in a Fire will be your sweet spot. I'd seen a bit of buzz about this book, and the hold list at the public library was short, so I gave the audio version a try. The story is this: Cassie moves from Texas to Boston to help her near-estranged mother after surgery. This means transferring from one firehouse to another. As you can imagine, she's the only female, and things don't always go smoothly. She's also grappling with two incidents in her past that have soured her to love and made her unwilling to trust. Still, she finds herself falling for a fellow firefighter. This is a redeeming story, and although I found some of the drama a bit high for my liking, things wrapped up well, and I felt good after finishing it. It's a positive story. Give it a try. My rating: 3 stars.
The next five reviews are for books read for Cybils award judging and represent my opinions. My reviews do not necessarily reflect the opinions of other panelists.
By now you know who Katherine Johnson is--the star of the book Hidden Figures and the movie based upon it. In her new book for children, Reaching for the Moon, she finally tells her story herself. I'd say this book is for younger readers, maybe third- or fourth-graders, but Amazon says fifth or sixth grade. I saw in the news lately that the 101-year-old Ms. Johnson is being honored by NASA for her esteemed work in putting a man to the moon. I found this book interesting (I listened to the audio, and it was well done), but I did find it rather too focused on the racial and gender discrimination she experienced. In her experience, every white person was prejudiced and mean, and every black person was honest, hard-working, and just trying to get educated. As soon as folks talking about discrimination in "always" and "never" terms, a red flag goes up for me. No doubt Ms. Johnson, her family, and her black female colleagues at NASA faced discrimination, but to make that the heart of the story was disheartening. The movie took this a step further, though: Ms. Johnson did not have to leave the building to use the restroom as depicted in the movie. Shameful. My rating: 3.5 stars.
I was looking forward to reading George Washington Carver for Kids, as I know Carver was a man of many talents and much knowledge. In addition to discovering and teaching ways to use the humble peanut, he also held deep knowledge of agriculture, the importance of crop rotation (and not planting cotton crop after cotton crop as it leeches southern soil of life), and all manner of natural things. He was also a teacher, lecturer, researcher, and painter. I learned a lot from this book. I did find the constant returning to race throughout the story a distraction. It's certainly a part of the story, but the author seemed to want to make it the whole story. This was a man who strived for education so he could learn and do more for his country, and he changed many lives. My rating: 3 stars.
Another book for younger readers, Too Young to Escape, by Van Ho, is the memoir of a little girl whose family escapes Vietnam for Canada after the Vietnam War. She is left in Vietnam with her grandmother until the family can send for her several years later. The story is told simply, and the narrator is the young Van Ho, so it's easily relatable to the audience. Unfortunately, important context is lost in this narrative style, because young Van doesn't understand why the war was fought, what South Vietnam's losing the war meant, why her family fled without her, and the peril she is in because of it. She cannot inform her audience, who are likely too young to know the history of Vietnam, of the important details. It was a sweet story, but I'm concerned that the lack of context will remove much of the impact of the story for her young readers. My rating: 4 stars.
I just love reading about authors before they were authors. In Before They Were Authors, Elizabeth Haidle tells us about the young versions of our favorite authors, in graphic novel form. She talks about Mark Twain, Maya Angelou, Dr. Seuss, Sandra Cisneros, Roald Dahl, J. K. Rowling, Gene Yuen Yang, Beatrix Potter, C. S. Lewis, and Madeleine L'Engle. I do question some of the esoteric (at least to a young audience) choices on this list. What little kid is familiar with Maya Angelou's, Sandra Cisneros's, and Gene Yuen Yang's work? I fear they were added just to diversify the book, as all of the other writers were white. Amazon lists this as a teen/YA book, which really surprises me. I'd say third to sixth grade. I liked the book. It gave just enough pertinent information to be very interesting. I wished it was longer. My rating: 4 stars.
I know next to nothing about the constellations. When I look into the night sky, I can usually find the Big Dipper and Orion's Belt, but I can't do much more than that. I've always wanted to be able to look up and see pictures instead of lots of stars, but I don't have the skill yet. Therefore, I was very excited to read Seeing Stars: A Complete Guide to the 88 Constellations. This is a comprehensive guide showing each constellation (as well as many asterisms, such as the Big Dipper, which is not a constellation but a group of stars within one), giving a bit of its background, where and when it's best seen, and superimposing the constellation onto a picture of what it's meant to represent. I have to tell you, there are some farfetched constellations out there. Even when placed on a picture of what it reflects, it's hard to see how many of them are likenesses of the things they're meant to depict. Perhaps that's why I have trouble making pictures in the night sky. This is a good guide for a budding astronomer, I think, but reading it cover to cover got a touch tedious. My rating: 3.5 stars.
This week I'll be reading:
Cybils reading is winding down. There are about my last two books.
My current audiobook:
This is pretty fantastic.
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