Other Women's Stories: What I'm reading this week (11/4/19)

Last week I finished:

I danced around reading The Gown for many months until I finally decided to take the plunge in audio. I wasn't sure it was going to be quite my style, and I've read so many mediocre novels this year. In many ways, it was exactly what I expected. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't spectacular. The story is this: In post-World War II England, Ann Hughes and Miriam Dassin are embroiders at a dress shop that often creates dresses for the Queen. Consequently, the shop is charged with creating Princess Elizabeth's (soon to become Queen Elizabeth II) wedding gown. Ann is betrayed by a man and flees to Canada never to speak of it. French ex-pat Miriam is trying to heal from her experiences in a concentration camp during the war. In the present day, Ann's granddaughter, Heather, is trying to piece together Ann's past, which she and her mother know nothing about. One of my least favorite fiction tropes is the present-day young woman (usually a journalist--she is in this case, too) who finds herself jobless and without purpose delving into the past to solve a family mystery. This likely doesn't bother most folks, but I find it tedious. That and a rape scene somewhat soured me to the book. But, I did like most of the characters who seemed to get along well, and the whole woman-as-victim trope wasn't as heavy as in other historical fiction being written today. So far as I know, this was not based on a true story, which I had hoped to find. Overall, it was what I expected, and the audio was a good listen. If you like historical fiction, don't mind some improbability nor moments of high drama, I think you'll like it. My rating: 3.5 stars.

Another book that I'd been dancing around for awhile is Janet Benton's Lilli de Jong. This is the story of an unmarried mother in about 1880s America. With little means to support herself and her baby, she must work as a wet nurse for a society family. She makes hard decisions in order to best meet her baby's needs and has no support from family and very little from society. The reader can easily see the parallels between unmarried mothers in 1880 and today; though the situations have changed some, the stigma is nearly gone, and society provides help for today's struggling single mothers, the strains are the same. The book keeps neutral as to what conclusions you are to be drawing until the author's note at the end, which I could have done without. I was more impressed by being left to my own conclusions. I found the book well-written and thought-provoking, though there were an inordinate amount of descriptions of nursing infants. Each page had a nursing scene, and that got tiresome for me. I recommend this one for students of history who want to think about how far we've come, and yet, how very little changes after all. My rating: 4 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.

I have run onto so many books through Cybils reading that I never would have known about otherwise. And many of them have been terrific. One of the best I've read so far has been This Promise of Change, the autobiography of Jo Ann Allen Boyce, who was one of twelve black students who integrated Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee, in 1956. When the Supreme Court decided that it was unconstitutional to have segregated schools, Clinton officials knew it was time to integrate. They did not want to, but they did it because that was the Supreme Court's decision, and they did not want to be lawless. This makes the Clinton 12 and interesting case. We're used to reading about the Little Rock 9 (1957) and little Ruby Bridges in New Orleans (1960), where officials opposed having black children in their schools and took extraordinary measures to prevent it. The Clinton 12 experienced little initial opposition, but as the fall term went on, more and more demonstrations and instances of mobs, violence, and KKK activity happened. The military was called in at one point to restore order. Eventually, things settled down and the begrudging attitude of "we don't want to, but we will" prevailed. Many of the twelve did not graduate from Clinton. Several moved away to seek integrated schools and better opportunities. The book is written in verse, a few of the chapters rhyming, but most not. I enjoyed this style for this particular book because the verse brought an immediacy to the story that straight prose could not have. It was expertly done, and I feel that the author provided a balanced perspective. It is perhaps one of the books this year that moved me most. Any child or adult would get something from it. My rating: 4.5 stars.

Another very powerful book for middle grade readers is Rex Ogle's Free Lunch. Similar in tone and subject matter to Sherman Alexie's You Don't Have to Say You Love Me (see my review here), this is Ogle's autobiography of a Hispanic-white middle-schooler who is poor, dealing with a chaotic home situation, and desperately in need the love of parents who are simply unable, due to their own issues, to give it. There is abuse, both verbal and physical, hunger, and poverty. The book is heartrending, and yet, you get the feeling that young Rex is going to make it to a better way of living. Though he has very little power over his situation as a child, he seems to be making choices that will give him a chance of escaping this kind of life in the future. His message to young students who are dealing with similar situations is to hang in there, endure until you can escape and make your own life. He does not acknowledge his family in the afterword (though he talks about a sister who is not in the story), leading one to think he has perhaps severed his relationship with his mother, father, and stepfather. Ogle did an exemplary job of putting you in young Rex's shoes, his likes (comic books and Chinese food), his anger issues, his concerns that he is not a good person, his loneliness and frustration and hopelessness. It's heavy material, and there are difficult parts, but overall, I felt hopeful for Rex. Ogle wisely ended the story with a reprieve from the family's poverty and dysfunctional family life, which helped. I cannot recommend this one enough for someone wanting a glimpse into the lives of those living in poverty and the issues they face beyond simply not having enough. I know people who live in this situation, and the book brought it to life with very clear eyes. My rating: 4.5 stars.

I told someone at work I was really looking forward to reading a children's book about moles, and she thought I was a little nuts, but Moles (The Superpower Field Guide) is one of my favorite Cybils nonfiction reads so far. Go figure. I am a sucker for nonfiction books in which the author is obviously excited about what they're teaching you as well as books that have a good sense of humor. It's especially helpful in children's nonfiction. Let's be real, there aren't a lot of folks who see a book about moles on the shelf at the bookstore or library and say, "YES! This is exactly what I've been looking for." So the author has to be creative in her approach. I have no particular fondness for moles, in fact, before this book, I had no idea what made a mole different from a gopher or other underground-living creature. But this book made moles so interesting to me I was hooked. The author, Rachel Poliquin, has a previous book about beavers, and an upcoming book about ostriches (alluded to in this book) is due out November 19. I'll be reading them both. If your young reader loves to learn about little-known animals, get a copy of this book. Good heavens did I like this goofball book. My rating: 4.5 stars.

One of the joys of this children's nonfiction reading project is learning more about historical figures I'm sure I studied years ago in elementary school or high school but remember very little about now. I frankly don't remember learning anything about Charles Darwin's several-year-long journey aboard the H.R.S. Beagle, beginning in 1831, in which he gathers samples and other information that leads him to his theory of evolution. His theory puts him in the company of other scientists throughout history who were considered heretics by the Church for trying to prove something contrary to Bible teaching. This is a graphic novel, and although I don't have a lot of experience reading graphic novels, I enjoyed this one. My one issue is that it seemed there were occasional skips in the story, unexplained situations, and poor transitions from one place to the next. Perhaps my lack of experience with graphic nonfiction is partially to blame, but I don't think it's fully to blame. Once again, I would have been better off skipping the author's note at the end which got too woke for me. Overall, for a book I did not look forward to reading, I enjoyed this one quite a lot. My rating: 4 stars.

Another graphic nonfiction book from last week was Don Brown's Rocket to the Moon!, the story of man's centuries-long quest to conquer space, and specifically, the 1950s and 1960s space race between the USSR and America and Apollo 11's moon landing on July 20, 1969. We all know the story, and I've read several (adult) books about this topic (see a recent review here), but this book was helpful in filling in the missing pieces. For instance, I didn't understand the design of the Saturn rocket or, frankly, what the "Eagle" was, until this book. So bravo to you, Don Brown! I really liked this book, and your little space cowboys will too, I think. My rating: 4 stars.

This week I'll finish: