A Happy Turkey Day, I Mean Thanksgivig

I'm so far behind! I kept reading picture books and then I had a huge backlog and then my kid and I started watching TV at night so my blogging fell behind. This is a desperate catch-up for two weeks, and it's two weeks late. Oops.

I drove down to get my oldest son from college; they are closing for the rest of the semester (only exams) and have been all online for the past two weeks. Willamette University had really good discipline; my son says everyone masks up all the time and cases on campus were really low. Oregon around them had more of a problem. So the kids all go to basically self-quarantine while waiting to go home. I managed to do the trip without much contact with other people, but we still limited contact with the world when we got home. All shopping is curbside pick up, I didn't go to Costco for my Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, etc.

But we had Thanksgiving anyway. I made a roast turkey, my sweet & sour onions, pinwheels for appetisers, and a pumpkin pie (not as good as Costco's). I bought an apple pie from Safeway because we traditionally have one that is brought my my talented sister-in-law, but they were not coming over from the island this year. On the other hand, we got to have my son with us since his dad wasn't comfortable with him coming up yet. I'm not sure how much fun we were; my guy is a vegetarian and since he never has Thanksgiving with us none of our special dishes really resonate with him. He's mostly here for the pies.

We also had cornbread stuffing, roast vegetables, cranberry sauce from a can (they way God intended it), sweet rolls, homemade rolls (I made them), pecan pie, and chocolate pudding pie. We then ate from the leftovers until Monday, when I used up the rest of the turkey to make a turkey tetrazzini. I use the Pioneer Woman's recipe, which assumes everyone works 12-15 hours a day out on the ranch and needs to fuel up. So my food coma lasts a full week.

I also made a pesto lasagna on the weekend so my vegetarian son could have his own giant pile of leftovers. I meant to make it on Thanksgiving but I kept forgetting because I was always so full I forgot about food. 

I am surrounded by Cybils books and need to read about three books a day for the rest of the year.

Also, a very dear friend of mine died of breast cancer. She got several extra years but it wasn't enough. It never would be. I had hoped to visit her last summer, but there was a pandemic. I miss her a lot.

I pulled out reviews of the Cybils books to a separate post. That's not all of them, but I'll finish the rest after I put this up. 

My currently reading has again bloated to 28, indicating the problem I continue to have finishing anything.

The Book Date does a weekly roundup of what people are reading, want to read, or have read each week called "It's Monday! What Are You Reading" so I'll sign up there. Ditto for the children's lit version at either Teach Mentor Texts or Unleashing Readers. I will be eligible there for the next month for sure!

Started

History Smashers: The Mayflower, Kate Messner. 2020 Cybils nominee.

This Place: 150 Years Retold, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm. 2019 Cybils finalist.

More Than Marmalade, Rosalin Tolin. 2020 Cybils nominee.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Kate DiCamillo. Elementary book club pick.

Into the Deep, Christy Peterson. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Walk the Wire, David Baldacci. Because I felt tired of reading books from lists.

Sky Gazing, Meg Thatcher. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Women Win the Vote, Nancy B. Kennedy. 2020 Cybils nominee.

History Smashers: Women's Right to Vote, Kate Messner. 2020 Cybils nominee.

She Represents, Caitlin Donahue. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Network Effect, Martha Wells. Another choice to make reading fun again.

My Name Is Tami... And I Believe in Miracles, Tanitoluwa Idewumi & Craig Borlase. 2020 Cybils nominee.

5-Minute Really True Stories for Bedtime, Britannica Books. 2020 Cybils nominee.

An Extraordinary Union, Alyssa Cole. For book club on Saturday. I'm in trouble here.

This Is Your Brain on Stereotypes, Tanya Lloyd Kyi. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Kat & Mouse 1: Teacher Torture, Alex di Campi. Cybils finalist. 

The Dark Lord Clementine, Sarah Jean Horwitz. Cybils finalist and book club pick.

Completed

Cy Young, Scott H. Longert. 2020 Middle Grade Nonfiction Cybils nominee.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Kate DiCamillo. For my elementary school book club. Attendance was light again. I suspect having it during lunch instead of class time lowers my desirability, and of course, I can't offer cookies since we are still remote. But the kids that showed up were enthusiastic; we discussed best and worst of Edward's various homes, and what happened to the families after he moved on. I kept my biggest complaint to myself -- Edward can't do anything. He's completely passive, so his entire journey is emotional, and when you think about it, it's rather frightening to be trapped inside an inanimate body with no hope of reprieve. He only ever managed to communicate with one other doll, so it's worse than the Velveteen Rabbit.

Finder, Suzanne Palmer. Sword and Laser pick. I liked it, but other members of the local club were disappointed. They found it hard to connect with the main character emotionally. I liked him more, but wasn't drawn to turn the pages fast enough to finish in time for book club. I also found the repeated use of the guy announcing he's about to explain his plan, and then we get cut out and have to wait a bit irritating. But since I have a loud inner twelve year old I laughed out loud at the complex plan involving the sex toys. I won't chase down Palmer's next book, but if I trip over it I'll probably read it. 

History Smashers: The Mayflower, Kate Messner. 2020 Middle Grade Nonfiction Cybils nominee.

Sky Gazing, Meg Thatcher. 2020 Middle Grade Nonfiction Cybils nominee.

Into the Deep, Christy Peterson. 2020 High School Nonfiction Cybils nominee.

More Than Marmalade, Rosalin Tolin. 2020 Middle Grade Nonfiction Cybils nominee.

History Smashers: Women's Right to Vote, Kate Messner. 2020 Middle Grade Nonfiction Cybils nominee.

------Week 2 -----

Walk the Wire, David Baldacci. This was a break because I was feeling lackluster about reading only stuff I had to for book clubs and Cybils. So I snuck out and checked this from the library and sped through it. It dragged a bit because it mixed together two of his series and I've only read the Amos Decker stuff, but it did remind me that I could go back and read the other stuff. Maybe in a few months. Also, it took place in North Dakota, which is awesome because my Read-in-all-50-states challenge hasn't been doing so well this year. Decker himself didn't really change much, but he's gearing himself up to do so. This book was more about realizing where he wants to go rather then getting there, and also solving a murder and saving the world from terrorists.

Network Effect, Martha Wells. Another indulgence! I had bought the Murderbot book when it came out, but got distracted from reading it. It was fun to hang out with Well's characters again. Murderbot gets to work with old and new friends. Well, colleagues. Well, co-workers. OK, friends. There were some unexpected side plots, and I ended up tagging this as a romance because of some of them. Now I want to reread them all because it's just so much fun to hang out with.

My Name Is Tami... And I Believe in Miracles, Tanitoluwa Idewumi & Craig Borlase. 2020 Middle Grade Nonfiction Cybils nominee.

She Represents, Caitlin Donahue. 2020 Cybils High School Nonfiction nominee.

This Is Your Brain on Stereotypes, Tanya Lloyd Kyi. 2020 Middle Grade Nonfiction Cybils nominee.

This Place: 150 Years Retold, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm. 2019 Cybils YA Graphic Novel finalist. This is a book of short stories, all in comic form, with assorted writers and artists. They start with an introduction to the character being profiled and their importance to history from a Native American viewpoint, then a timeline shows relevant events and laws. There's a lot of well deserved bitterness and a sense of living in a post-apocalyptic world throughout. It's an fascinating and powerful read and really speaks to the living presence of First Nations in today's world. 

Give All to Love, Patricia Veryan. OK, this is a very strongly flavored book, and if you don't like the flavor it won't work. The characters are emotional to an extreme, and will weep or despair or swoon at the slightest hint. Virtuous women seem vaguely unaware of many of their body parts, and completely oblivious to men's (evil women get a bit more scope). Everyone respectable believes deeply in honor codes and social norms and would rather die than break them, as they demonstrate several times. The cowardly bad guy is scorned from choosing exile over certain death on the dueling field (that he was fooled by a bluff makes his defeat even more satisfying. If you get over that, there's also the tiny issue that he's her legal guarding and has been raising her since she was ten or thirteen or so -- the gypsies that had apparently stolen her were vague as to her actual age. Anyone still here? No? I still enjoy the complicated families, born and found, Veryan creates and their bone-headed but giant hearted approaches to life. 

5-Minute Really True Stories for Bedtime, Britannica Books. 2020 Elementary Nonfiction Cybils nominee.

Jane Against the World, Karen Blumenthal. 2020 High School Nonfiction Cybils nominee.

Kat & Mouse 1: Teacher Torture, Alex di Campi. 2006 Graphic Novel Under 12 Cybils finalist. I dragged my feet on reading this because I thought the protagonists were the ones torturing the teacher; as I am old i tend to cheer for the teachers in that case. But I was pleasantly surprised that our heroes were defending teachers with their clever sleuthing efforts. I like the poor girl in a rich school concept, and find the conflict between the craven mom willing to give in to blackmail to make their new life work and the cheerful dad who does not intend to forge grades for rich brats. I think I'll try to follow this series along.

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

OK, this remains ridiculous. But I'm honestly keeping active bookmarks in all of these!

Uncompromising Honor 39-41/??, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial. Bad guys are helping the Solies, but who are they to argue? Also, Baen repeated a section. I noticed!

Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling. I'm listening to celebrities read this to me. This goes away at the end of December, so I'd better finish up!

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Sword and Laser pick. I want to finish this!

A Long Time Until Now, Michael Z Williamson. Easy read, but not a page-turner.

Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky. I want to finish this!

The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein, Farah Mendelson. Hugo finalist. Argh, I'm enjoying this but have no time.

The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton. I don't want to give up.

Someplace To Be Flying, Charles de Lint. Making progress. But I should be reading the current book, not this old one.

The Bone Witch, Rin Chupeco. The library will want it back soon.

The Bourne Supremacy, Robert Ludlum. It expired. I'll put the hold back on.

Return of the Thief, Megan Whalen Turner. I'm still torturing myself by not moving on from the middle of the story. But my son wants it so I should pick it back up.

Wolf Rebel, Paige Tyler. Substitute for my Library Quest: Action/Thriller bag. The protagonist just decided to endanger a child to make herself feel better. I'm not impressed.

A Lady's Code of Misconduct, Meredith Duran. Again, I liked the set up but I'm still bogged in the middle.

The Wine-Dark Sea, Patrick O'Brien. My Tuesday book club book. I'm still behind.

Picture Books / Short Stories:

These Cybils nominees are discussed on the previous Cybils post.

These nominees will be discussed on the next Cybils post which I am still working on (unless you see a link here, and then it'll be there). 

And these were my non-Cybils judging picture book reading for the past fortnight:

Wanda Gag: The Girl Who Lived to Draw, Deborah Kogan Kay. 2008 Nonfiction Picture Book Cybils finalist. I know and love the picture book Millions of Cats but I knew nothing about the author. She was a fascinating artist who had to support her siblings and mom from a young age, have a deep artistic vision and many other projects, and was in general a cool woman. 

Fabulous Fishes, Susan Stockdale. 2008 Cybils Nonfiction Picture Book finalist. My nephew loved sea creatures, so this is exactly the kind of book I would have brought home for him to enjoy. Although he preferred photographs to drawings, so the bright and enthusiastic pictures would have charmed me but been tolerated by his fastidious younger self. The easy rhymes and carefully chosen words with lots of alliteration and internal rhymes make this a delightful read-aloud. Too bad I can't test it on him -- he's a high school senior now.

A River of Words: A Story of William Carlos Williams, Jen Bryant. 2008 Cybils Nonfiction Picture Book finalist. I like these biographies where the illustrations try to evoke the feeling of the poet's words. The collage and bright colors echo Williams's breaking with standard rules to make his word pictures. 

Let's Go! A Story of Getting From There to Here, Lizann Flatt. 2007 Cybils Nonfiction Picture Book finalist. Fun and cheerful pictures with a good try at diversity show how people traveled in America across the years. I liked how First People were active and varied in the early page, although they then seemed to completely disappear. Maybe the illustrator was just drawing the ones who wore fashionable city clothes. Anyway, the people were charmingly cheerful and the illustrations had lots of fun details and were busy without being cluttered.

The Language of Universe: A Visual Exploration of Mathematics, Colin Stuart. A lovely and large book, suitable to hold comfortably between two or three people -- either two mathematically inclined peers or an adult and child (or children). This book looks at all sorts of mathematics and how they appear or are used in the world. Bold background colors help organize the text and guide the reader; occasionally I wasn't sure of the sequence I was expected to follow but that was an occasional annoyance. It's really dense; I am not sure I'd want to read it cover to cover at one sitting because the best way to react to many of the pages is to start talking about them and trying out some of the ideas. I received a copy of this book for review.

Palate Cleansers

These books I'm barely reading; I use them as palate cleansers between books I'm actually reading.

The Educated Child, William Bennett. 

Wool, Hugh Howey. Mysteries in two silos are explored.

Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho. Fairies! And two young kids with no ability to read each other's plans. 

Under the Eye of the Storm, John Hersey. .

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca. Dealing with gifted children in the classroom.

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2017. None. I just need 3 YA books to be done. But YA is hard. 
2. Cybils 2018. None.
3. Cybils 2019. Finished This Place, last of the graphic novels. Now onto middle grade books.
4. Early Cybils: Several nonfiction picture books.
5. Reading My Library. Working on the action adventure one. 
6. Ten to Try. At 9/10. I'm STILL working on the last one. 
7. Where Am I Reading: 31/51 states. 27 Countries. North Dakota fell into my lap.
8. Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge.  I'm done.
   

Plans

I'm putting this at the end because I suspect it's complete fiction, but I feel I should attempt some structure.

I am reading: 

• Book I own: Return of the Thief. Next: No idea. Especially since I keep avoiding thi sone.
• Library Book: Wolf Rebel. Next: The Bride book.
• Ebook I own: An Extraordinary. Up Next: Probably a T. Kingfisher.
• Library Ebook: Lifting As We Climb Next: Becoming Kid Quixote
• Book Club Book: Howl's Moving Castle. Next: .
• Tuesday Book Club Book: Wine Dark Sea. Next/also: Somewhere To Be Flying until we pick something.
• Review Book: None. Up Next: Not sure.
• Hugo Book: The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein. Next: Joanna Russ.

End of November Cybils Reading, Part 1

I'm a Round 1 Nonfiction judge so I'm reading as many of the nominated books in my triple category as I can. There's the picture books, the middle grade books, and the high school books, all clamoring for my attention. Somehow the calendar keeps ticking, so somewhere I need to find a lot more time!

I got behind on writing up what I've been reading last week, so I thought I'd do it all this week. But now I'm running behind again, so I'm breaking this up into two parts. Reading is more fun than reflecting!

High School Nonfiction

Into the Deep, Christy Peterson. The ocean is an unexplored frontier that scientists are trying to get a grip on. Peterson takes into the water for looks at the different ecosystems at different levels, the currents and features that affect the planet around them, and how scientists are figuring out how it all fits together. Each chapter will have some featured scientists in their own box, describing their career and current research. Some work for universities, others for foundations or for companies, and all are very enthusiastic about their work.

Later chapters look into how humanity has affected the ocean and what that might mean for our future, which is actually rather grim. There's global warming of course, with higher sea levels and temperatures, but also the effects of the slaughter of so many whales, which affects a lot more than I had known. There's a lot to learn, but the prose was more trying to be invisible than to be gripping. The book assumes the reader is already interested rather than sparking a new fascination.

Jane Against the World, Karen Blumenthal. This was hard for me to read, because I'm so tired of reading about how important it is to so many people that women suffer. I like that it starts and remembers the Janes of Chicago, who created a network providing women of all incomes with access to health care, especially abortions. It covers a lot of the history of reproductive law, and then follows along the path of Roe Vs Wade (and the Georgia case that ran alongside it). Blumenthal clearly thinks that women should be accepted as people, but she strives to be fair to all sides. Groups such as Catholics who believe earnestly that women should not be considered fully human with control over their bodies (she doesn't phrase it like that, but really that's what it comes down to) are reported on fairly as they marshall efforts to ensure that more women suffer and die. Argh!

Unlike Blumenthal, I find it hard to be even-handed with regard to this topic. It feels like pointing out how many of the Nazis really thought they were doing the right thing. Many Americans today are still very dedicated to reducing women to lesser creatures, or at least making them suffer and die for wanting to be people. That's what being "Pro-Life" means to me. This book does not sound like that -- she manages to stay calm. Anyway, this is a great book that looks at the history of reproductive law in America, which doesn't hide how hard the legal process fights to keep from noticing that women are actually involved in it. It's well organized and paced, with black and white photographs of many of the key people involved.

The back matter includes a medical and legal glossary, a timeline showing important court cases, quick bios of the supreme court justices involved with Roe v Wade, and a good bibliography and index.

Middle Grade Nonfiction

History Smashers: The Mayflower, Kate Messner. The hook for the History Smasher series is that a lot of what we think we know is wrong, so let's have some fun looking for what really happened. Of course, this is aimed at kids, many of which knew nothing, so I find the approach a bit funny. But they will be around a lot of adults who may know the popular stories, so reading this book is a great way to build up your "Well, ACTUALLY" credentials. 

I liked how Messner shares the details of her research. She explicitly talks about primary vs secondary sources and the problems with each, how historians try to piece together a story from various information (she has a lot of fun with wills that list complete inventories of households), how biases affect both historians and readers, and why various stories were amplified despite having no evidence or being openly invented. She's also willing to take the points of view of Native Americans, something the early European settlers had great difficulty with. So when the Pilgrims (they didn't call themselves that) are raiding stores the find when exploring, she points out that theft was their introduction to the people living there. There are frequent illustrations of various styles, small boxes pulled out for some details, and a conversational tone that keeps things interesting. It was fun to read this right before Thanksgiving, even though I didn't manage to produce an authentic eel dish to present at our meal. OK, I wasn't going to try for authentic, but maybe next year I'll pick up some sushi for an appetizer.

Sky Gazing: A Guide to the Moon, Sun, Planets, Stars, Eclipses and Constellations, Meg Thatcher. This is definitely a how-to book, but also a why-to. Each chapter describes something in the sky, what it is and how we can observe it, including some ideas for specific activities. The author is very keen on making a sky journal to observe stuff, but I did wonder if maybe there were apps to record this data. All the better for producing lovely graphs at the end, I mean!  But with the variety of observations and experiments possible, each identified by difficulty level, there is something for almost every kid, family or class to try. 

Along the way Thatcher works hard to make thing comprehensible. I liked the scale model of the solar system running along the bottom of the pages, from the Sun at the start to Neptune at the very last page. There's a good index in the backmatter. The size is large but easy to hold, and the layout and text work well together. 

More Than Marmalade: Michael Bond and the Story of Paddington Bear, Rosanne Tolin. My family was too old for the movie, and before that Paddington was a bit of a fringe thing for me. I read a handful of them (and a few Olga de Polgas, which I preferred) because I liked English kidlit from an early age, but they weren't that popular among my peers. The English humor made them clearly different from American books. Tolin looks harder, showing Michael Bond's childhood with literary parents, a love of reading, and a strong dislike of school. He dropped out to work for the BBC (and to fight in WWII) and worked as a cameraman for Blue Peter (the show that the author of Wild Girl worked on), but he always wanted to be a writer.  There's a great anecdote about the inspiration of Paddington Bear; Bond had writer's block and when he confessed to his agent he had no ideas, he was told to look around the room and describe what he saw. When he spied the bear he had bought for his wife, a star was born.

Bond drew inspiration from memories of the Kindertransport children his parents had fostered when he was a child, and deliberately made Paddington a refugee. This makes complete sense to me now, but went completely over the head of child me. Tolin has lots of other details, from parallels from Bond's life to stories of how toys were designed in keeping with the popularity of the books; the signature rain boots were necessary because without them the stuffed bears wouldn't stand up. Apparently Bond became a bit of a work-a-holic, neglecting his family in attempts to keep up with fan mail and more stories. No hard feelings though; his daughter appreciated Paddington's importance to the world. 

This is a fun little book but probably of more interest to active Paddington fans. Maybe the recent movie means there are lots of those?

History Smashers: Women's Right to Vote, Kate Messner. Another entry in Messner's series about how wrong common knowledge history is. In the case, apparently most people think that a while in the past, people suddenly noticed that women couldn't vote. Whoops, they said, we should fix that, and so the 19th Amendment was passed. In reality, it took an awful lot of women making an awful lot of noise, and America (and the world) had to be mostly dragged kicking and screaming into a world where it's a little bit harder to pretend women aren't people. Messner follows American Suffrage from the Seneca Falls (well, a bit earlier) and profiles many of the key players. She's also not hesitant to discuss the racism the movement displayed, especially around the 15th Amendment. Admittedly, that was a nasty ploy by men to explicitly cut women out of the vote, but it was also the only game left standing. Even if women didn't want to support it, the vitriolic racism displayed by many is not pretty. Messner does a good job with that, and with profile women outside the white mainstream that aren't as famous. In fact several times she does a round up at the end of a chapter of women who made contributions, and most of them were new to me.

I liked this cheerful and breezy book. Messner once again is happy to share the details of how she learns things as well as the facts themselves, so it's a book about how history is made as much as the history itself. I'm still not convinced children need as much smashed, but they will enjoy testing adults to see if they have fallen for some of the mistakes.

My Name is Tani ... And I Believe in Miracles, Tanitoluwa Adewumi. A chess story! Tani is a refugee who lives in a homeless shelter in New York and goes to a school with a chess club. His parents can't pay the fees, but the coaches are impressed with his enthusiasm and let him in anyway, and he excitedly starts going to tournaments. The co-writer lets his voice come through, so things are narrated from his point of view. We hear about the dangers they face in Nigeria and the decision to come to America, but Tani doesn't know the details of their status or the state of their asylum request; he's only a kid. He sees his parents working hard and being cheerful in the face of hardship, so that's how he behaves as well. 

I really liked the chapter on the state tournament, where he takes us through each game, happy for his successes and worried for his tougher matches. I have a kid who played chess in high school, and I know it's not always interesting to hear about a chess game. I tried to watch a few matches and almost fell out of my chair in boredom. So well done making these events gripping, and I especially like the story of the final, where he realizes that he made a huge blunder that could cost him the match. However, he knows that he only needs a draw to win the tournament, so he puts on a serious face and offers his opponent his hand for a draw. I hope that poor kid never reads this book... It's a good story of a child learning to succeed in his passion, but also to attack life with equal joy.

This Is Your Brain on Stereotypes: How Science Is Tackling Unconscious Bias, Tanya Lloyd Kyi. This is a sharp and concise discussion of how people are drawn to quick judgements and generalizations from a biological and sociological viewpoint. It draws on studies and experiments and how that plays out in the world today. It's not looking to cast blame but does have a clear stance that racism and prejudice are wrong and harmful and that therefore people will want to minimize them. The writing is good if not stellar, and the pages are broken up with illustrations often enough to keep the book inviting.

The last chapter has ideas for personal action the reader can take on a personal and wider level to combat prejudice in themselves and the world, suggestions for further reading, a bibliography for anyone wanting to check the studies, and a good index.

 

Elementary Nonfiction

She Leads, June Smalls. This is my favorite format for picture book nonfiction -- great illustrations, large clear statements that are written to be read aloud with relish, and smaller font for the expanded explanation of the concept of the page. That way the book works for less sophisticated readers or large groups, but has deeper options for kids who are into it and able to stay still. The subject is interesting as well -- elephant society and socialization, how they work together and adapt to their environment. It's a bit anthropomorphic, but that's common in how science looks at the world. 

Earth Shattering Events, Robin Jacobs. Lovely and fun book about the more exciting aspects of geology, with cheerful illustrations showing the science and the effects. Behind it all is a sense of compassion and care -- the loss of life isn't minimalized, the greater effects on the poor are understood, and there's no attempt to pretend humanity doesn't have an effect on climate. It's large enough to have clear pictures and large text but not unwieldy. This book is right on the border between elementary and middle grade reading; it's a text heavy picture book and a simply written middle grade science book.

Amphibian Acrobats, Leslie Bulion. Poetry book that uses amphibians as the subject matter to show off a variety of poetic types. It did feel a bit as if the main purpose was to demonstrate the poems, not explain the creatures; I rarely felt that the shape of the poem had implications for the information delivered. Since I'm here for the science, I found myself digging my heels in when reading the poems. I wanted more than a good sound or a haiku image; I wanted to learn about the creature. I think this probably works better if you go in looking for poems and think of any facts as garnish.

Dinosaur Lady, Linda Skeers. A biography of the discoverer of many of the formative fossils that helped scientists recognize dinosaurs and the history of creatures on earth. But since she was a working class woman, the English scientific establishment refused to take her work seriously -- after all, she kept wanting to get paid for it! I liked the balance of historical details and recognition of how modern people find most of what she faced injust, and the illustrations kept the story moving.

Crossings, Katy S. Duffield. A lovely book that looks at the development of animal crossings in many roadways and other manmade hazards to examine how animals fit into their ecosystems and how humanity often blithely attacks those ecosystems without even noticing. I liked the illustrations, the large print summaries and the extended explanations. The pictures have warm colors and a lot of detail, and the layout of the illustrations helps to convey the information presented in the text. The book punches above its weight; it's both a enticing picture book and a primer on ecology and technology; it encourages the understanding of an entire ecosystem and how changing one part has reverbrations throughout the web, and also looks at how people can look at data, form ideas, test them and implement them. It's a book to appeal to budding artists, scientists, and engineers.

The Story of Civil War Hero Robert Smalls, Janet Halfmann. Robert Smalls put on the captain's hat and steered a confederate warship out of the harbor, stopping to pick up his family and the families of his crew, and bluffed his way past the guns guarding the way by correctly signaling at the correct times as he had learned from observing the white officers who had confidently left slaves on guard after a hard days work committing treason against America. He delivered the boat, its weapons, and his people to a Union fort, and then served in the Union Navy for the rest of the war, despite more racism that kept putting incompetent white men in charge while letting him do all the work. 

We see Smalls from childhood, where his nice owners don't beat him much. This does not reconcile him to slavery, and he spends much of his youth working to save up to free himself and his wife, but the war interrupted the plans. I like reading about active Black heroes who make their own stands to navigate their world, and Robert Smalls is a great choice. The escape itself is a stressful chapter, as the men use darkness and shadows to convince the cannons they sail past that there's a white officer on the bridge. 

Your Place in the Universe, Jason Chin. A book of relative sizes, which builds up from a child's body to the universe itself. It's not a new concept, but this book does it really well, going from children actively studying the world to showing them standing on each others head to measure against a giraffe, giraffes next to trees and buildings, buildings next to mountains. In each case the book builds from the known to the new so that the size of the bigger thing is comprehensible. Of course, this falls apart a bit when we go into space, but by then the confidence is there. I hadn't heard about galaxy clusters, or known that our galaxy seems to be in a void!

This is a fun picture book, and it even has the postcard address where you specify your place in the galaxy and beyond. And the conclusion at the end as it comes back to the children again felt satisfying.

A Voice Named Aretha, Katheryn Russell-Brown. This biography of Aretha Franklin celebrates her as the Queen of Soul. The text traces her life from singing with her charismatic family in churches through her professional career and how she exerted her control over her professional life. The colors of the illustrations are rich in gold and purple, chosen by the illustrator to reinforce her title as Queen (there are even some crowns hidden in the pages). The end notes are interesting; there's an essay giving more details on Franklin's life and personal statements from author and illustrator on why they made the book and how the music of Aretha Franklin has influenced their lives.

Backmatter also includes sources for the quotations and a bibliography.

Hello Neighbor! The Kind and Caring World of Mr Rogers, Matthew Cordell. A sweet story with delicate, gentle illustrations matching the tone of homage to a caring man who worked hard to make a show about kindness and emotional literacy for small children. It starts with the making of a TV show and goes back to look at how Fred Rogers grew up both to want to make a show like that and how he learned how to do it, and why this kind of children's programming was innovative, important, and imitated. 

There's a small surge in books and movies about Mr Rogers, and I'm not sure how they play for children, who don't have the nostalgia of having the show in their own childhood. It's an interesting book anyway, but I think it's more for an adult to share with a kid than something they'd seek out on their own.

The backmatter includes photos and details, how the author feels about Mr Rogers, and a glossary showing the care that went into details of the show and places to go for more information, including an archive of the shows themselves.