Last Month of 2020! What Else Could Go Wrong?

Well, I haven't gone to bed yet, and I think it's still Monday somewhere. This has been a very short week for me, since I got my last blog out on Thursday or so last week.

I'm trying to do my running again, although my son has not been as aggressively training me. Of course, he's also in the thick of exams, so I guess his excuse is mildly valid. He did come with me on my monthly 5K, although he didn't stay back with me; he ran his and then sat in the car and read, possibly school related stuff. I puffed along at a slower pace, and then have managed to continue working through Runkeeper's Couch to 5K program. 

We've just about finished all the Thanksgiving leftovers, which is good because botulism would probably be a concern soon. It's now time to start baking for Christmas! I went to Costco today and stocked up on essentials such as butter and chocolate chips. I also managed to cook in my new Instapot. So far I'm just using it as a crock pot, but there are many recipes I could now try... I made Crockpot Falafel, which is fairly popular, and then I had to make my own pita bread to put them in because Safeway was out. This Pandemic is hard, my friends, but at least I've now learned to make my own pocket pitas. 

I'm not very excited about Christmas in general since we aren't going anywhere and no one is coming here (well, my kids are coming home but that's mostly involuntary). The boy who's already home and I spend about 30 minutes a day getting ready -- so far we've put up the outside lights and moved all the furniture around so we can put up a tree. The tradition is to put up the super cheap fake tree unless we are staying home for Christmas (most of the time we go to Utah), but this year is tough. We're home so we should splurge on a real tree, but we are sad and uninspired because this is the first Christmas we aren't spending with Grandma and the cousins since my oldest was born. So we just swept the floor and put off deciding a few more days.

I am surrounded by Cybils books and need to read about three books a day for the rest of the year. Also, I am falling far behind on my tiny reviews. I just finished last week's, so this week's is not ready yet. I will update this post when I can.

My currently reading is again a frightening 27.

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

Poisoned Water, Candy J. Cooper. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Outlaw: The Legend of Robin Hood, Tony Lee. Cybils finalist.

For Which We Stand, Jeff Foster. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Lifting As We Climb, Evette Dionne. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Citizenship, Race, and the Law, Duchess Harris. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Guardians of Liberty, Linda Barrett Osborne. 2020 Cybils nominee.

John Lewis, Duchess Harris. 2020 Cybils nominee.

March Fong Eu, Duchess Harris. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Becoming Kid Quixote, Stephen Staff & Sarah Sierra. 2020 Cybils nominee. 

The Cat I Never Named, Amra Sabic-El-Rayess & Laura L. Sullivan. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Becoming Muhammad Ali, James Paterson. 2020 Cybils nominee. Audio.

Sucker Punch, Laurell K. Hamilton. A book that is as far from a 2020 nonfiction nominee as it is possible to get. 

The Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears, Duchess Harris. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Completed

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

Poisoned Water, Candy J. Cooper. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Wolf Rebel, Paige Tyler. Substitute for my Library Quest: Action/Thriller bag. I think the current pandemic is the wrong time for me to be sympathetic to a character who declares "I can't be ruled by fear" as she admits to having a psychic condition that makes her prone to murderous fits where she attacks everyone around her, so she refuses company as she drives off to hang out with a child who is feeling sad about her parents' divorce. Because dealing with a problem is just cowardly, and all the people (children) who die will agree that their deaths were better than the protagonist having to modify her behavior in any way due to something outside her control. Gosh. Other than that, it was an OK paranormal with a few twists on the werewolf story and at least an awareness that some people might disapprove of a boyfriend who had recently left a group of terrorists dedicated to murdering you and all your friends. 

For Which We Stand, Jeff Foster. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling. This was fun -- they did a good job getting people to read and editing the shared reads. For the last chapter they had several families read -- even the little kids got to read some pages. This is a really good read-aloud in general, and having a bunch of great actors do the reading didn't hurt at all. But the free version goes away at the end of the year, so if you want it, listen now!.

Citizenship, Race, and the Law, Duchess Harris. 2020 Cybils nominee.

John Lewis, Duchess Harris. 2020 Cybils nominee.

March Fong Eu, Duchess Harris. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Lifting As We Climb, Evette Dionne. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Guardians of Liberty, Linda Barrett Osborne. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Becoming Kid Quixote, Stephen Staff & Sarah Sierra. 2020 Cybils nominee. 

The Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears, Duchess Harris. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Still ridiculous but a little less so? But I'm honestly planning to finish most of these before my next birthday.

Uncompromising Honor 41/??, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial. This is a long battle, and traditionally I skim the battle bits. This one will probably not be done by my birthday, but as I'm listening to a serial that's not my fault.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Sword and Laser pick. 

A Long Time Until Now, Michael Z Williamson. 

Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky. I made a tiny bit of progress.

The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein, Farah Mendelson. Hugo finalist. 

The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton. 

Someplace To Be Flying, Charles de Lint. 

The Bone Witch, Rin Chupeco. Probably on top of the pile right now.

The Bourne Supremacy, Robert Ludlum. 

Return of the Thief, Megan Whalen Turner. 

A Lady's Code of Misconduct, Meredith Duran. 

The Wine-Dark Sea, Patrick O'Brien. My Tuesday book club book. 

An Extraordinary Union, Alyssa Cole. I did not finish this in time for book club. The others were not enthusiastic; they all prefer her contemporary books. 

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

Picture Books / Short Stories:

Women In Biology, Mary Wissinger. 2020 Cybils nominee.

This Is How I Grow, Dia L. Michels. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Everything Awesome About Sharks and Other Underwater Creatures, Mike Lowery. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Who Will It Be?, Paola Vitale. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Cityscape: Where Science and Art Meet, April Pulley Sayre. 2020 Cybils nominee.

I Am A Promise, Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Can a Tree Be Blue, Audrey Sauble. 2020 Cybils nominee.

ABC: What An Informed Voter You'll Be, Modern Kid Press. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Thanks to Frances Perkins, Deborah Hopkinson. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Dream Builder: The Story of Architect Philip Freelon, Kelly Starling Lyons. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Underground, Uijung Kim. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Pretty Tricky, Etta Kaner. 2020 Cybils nominee. 

I will try to get my Cybils post up so I can remind myself of what I thought about all these.

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. How to evaluate a school and see if it is functional. I'm not sure these authors really know much about education so I don't think their advice will help much.

Wool, Hugh Howey. 

Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho.

Under the Eye of the Storm, John Hersey. I believe Hersey that this is how men were, but it still seems alien to me.

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. Working on The Dark Lord Clementine, a middle grade fantasy.
4. Early Cybils: Started Robin Hood, a graphic novel from 2009? Somewhere therabouts.
5. Reading My Library. Finished 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. 
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 this one.
• Library Book: Bone Witch. Next: The Bride book.
• Ebook I own: An Extraordinary Union.  Up Next: Probably a T. Kingfisher.
• Library Ebook: You Too? Next: Games of Deception
• Book Club Book: The Dark Lord Clementine. 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 2

I'm still not all the way caught up, but if I don't send this out I'll be even farther behind!

High School Nonfiction

She Represents: 44 Women Who Are Changing Politics ... and the World, Caitlin Donahue. A collection of women, mostly from the US but a solid minority from other countries, who help shape the world through politics. There's a standard format: A page giving identifying information (date of birth, positions held, identifying quote), then two short essays that provide a personal biography and a political one. Then it finishes with a bulleted list of three or four achievements and some more quotations. It's a bit of a slog to power through them all, but it would be a fun book for dipping into or getting a quick overview of one of the included women.

The women come from all sides of the political divide -- there's Betsy DeVos and Jacinda Ardern, and Donahue manages to sound just as proud of both women's accomplishments. And while conservative women are lauded, the criteria for womanhood is liberal -- many lesbians or bisexual women, as well as trans women are included. It feels a bit odd to point that out, because why wouldn't trans women be included? 

Poisoned Water: How the Citizens of Flint, Michigan Fought For the Lives and Warned the Nation, Candy J. Cooper. The basic story of how the city of Flint poisoned its people is grim enough; Cooper attempts to find a more positive through line by highlighting how the ordinary people worked to discover the truth and then get something changed. But despite huge efforts, they weren't actually that successful, so the positivity is a bit muted. But the book does a good job of telling what happened, from the racist zoning and city line drawing that made Flint's bankruptcy inevitable and then the dangers of the city manager system, where one (appointed) manager had all the power, and his only mandate was to balance the budget. So citizens were overcharged for services such as public water, even when the water was laced with lead or carcinogens. Cost cutting efforts included not hiring competent people to run the water plant, so well-meaning people pulled over from other city branches tried to jury rig something from outdated manuals and a few web searches. They were not successful. The state agencies reserved their disapproval for anyone going over their heads to the federal experts. 

Today the pipes still aren't trustworthy. The people have a sense of community, or rather several communities because Blacks and whites still don't mix much. Other cities now can see a map of their possible futures, and maybe a few of them will know enough to alter course? But many others will be doomed to follow as our ancient city water systems continue to degrade. I wasn't completely won over by the citizenship hook, but the overall description of Flint was well told. 

Middle Grade Nonfiction

Cy Young: An American Baseball Hero, Scott H. Longert. I read sports biographies like these by the small handful as a kid (and I wasn't even a sporty kid). This one had the cheerful air of a guy finding out that his hero is an even greater person than he dreamed -- Cy (short for Cyclone, as his pitches felt to the other team) was a hard worker, a straight-up guy, and a kind man. He also pitched for a very long career, and kept in shape by being a farmer. His dad fought in the Civil War and then came home to marry and have a baseball playing kid. It's all fun! But there's a glaring omission in the very detailed history, which sometimes covers every important pitching game in a season. It never mentions that Cy was protected by not having to play against Black baseball players. Not noticing that baseball was segregated is a huge omission -- there's asterisks next to every record set when the players don't have to compete against the best players. 

Women Win the Vote!: 19 For the 19th Amendment, Nancy B. Kennedy. Nine short (3 large pages, but with illustrations) biographies of American women who worked for suffrage. There's an effort to include a few non-white women, but mostly these are the big names we are familiar with. It's a good overview of the people involved with getting women the vote. 

It ends with a round-up of people who didn't make the 19 top list, including some men who weren't eligible but who helped. In the back there's a timeline of events, notes for the sources/quotes for each biography, a source list and an index. Oh, there's also some photos of women and their banners, and a suggested list of places to visit that are relevant. I like this book and the wealth of books coming out in this 100 year anniversary of suffrage, but I'm not sure a lot of people would sit down to read it cover to cover. It's a good jumping off place for more research though; kids looking for ideas on who to write biography reports on would have fun here.  

 

Elementary Nonfiction

Oscar's American Dream, Barry Wittenstein. A history of a city (I think New York?) told through the occupancy of a corner retail space. Oscar is the neighborhood barber who starts it, spreading goodwill through candy for children. But he moves on to a better job working for the city, and new owners come in, go bankrupt, are burnt out, or change and reinvent themselves with the times. At the end the block will be torn down for luxury apartments and a descendent of Oscar and and woman who remembers the candy commiserate about it. It's a fun concept, but I found myself unsettled by all the broken stories -- what happened to the women whose dress shop went bust in the Wall Street Crash? Was their adequate fire insurance for the burnt out proprietor? Why in the world did everyone keep the barber pole?

Consumers, Grace Hansen. This is part of a great series on Ecology for little people. I love the covers -- they apparently gave big "sciency" glasses to a bunch of kids and told them to look like a scientist. The text is simple sentences that give the basics of a topic; in this case, what it means to be a "consumer" organism. The photos are sharp an interesting, and I like that they use real vocabulary. There's a table of contents, a glossary and an index, all of which work both as their intended purpose and as demonstrations of what these part of a book do. This is an example of trying to do a simple thing and doing it quite well.

Wild Style: Amazing Animal Adornments, Jenna Grodzicki. This bright slightly irreverent book looks at animal looks, especially looks they modify through behavior, and then discusses how and why and for what benefit the animal does this. Animals may be avoiding predators or attracting food or luring a mate, and the concept of zoology is absorbed -- people can study animals and make predictions about the benefit of an observation and then test that. The back matter has more formal information about each animal -- official name and habitat, and then includes suggestions for further reading. The pictures would entice an animal lover and the texts nudges kids towards a scientific mindset. It's not very deep though; mostly it's there to show off the pictures of cool animals doing cool things. I received a copy for review from the publisher.

Alphabet of Black Cultures, Jeffrey Daniels. Nice alphabet book with a consistent art style that I think is based on African style -- it's a little cubist with figures created from blocky chunks and strokes. Distinctive and appealing. Each page has an illustration of the chosen word for the letter and a description of what it is and how it's used and where it's from. It's a fun alphabet book that provides some context for African cultures. The publisher shared a review copy with me.

The Story of Alexander Hamilton: A Biography Book For New Readers, Christine Platt. An educational biography of Hamilton, with didactic elements like review and comprehension questions scattered along the way. I also liked the little timelines that helped put events in context; I wish more books had those! It covers his childhood, revolutionary and constitutional work, and then his death, all in clear and comprehensible language with illustrations along the way. Its moral compass is clear -- anti-slavery, pro-democracy, and everything that I expect in a elementary text but is now maybe political?

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book in return for including the following text in my review:
Copyright line: Excerpt from The Story of Alexander Hamilton: A Biography Book for New Readers (The Story Of: A Biography Series for New Readers), by Christine Platt, published by Rockridge Press. Copyright © 2020 by Callisto Media. All rights reserved.

Purchase link: https://www.amazon.com/Story-Alexande...

The Voice of Liberty, Angelica Shirley Carpenter. This is not a book about the Statue of Liberty, but about the New York suffrage movement's protests around its dedication. They wanted to use the moment to show the gap between rhetoric and reality; the men organizing things wanted them to shut up. The three leaders of the organization are shown, as are the hard work and confrontational efforts of the women in their attempts to put women's right to vote into the discussion. It's an interesting look into a neglected piece of history.

Let's Eat: Mealtime Around the World, Lynne Marie. A fun book that shows what different kids around the world are eating, starting with breakfast and moving through the day. There are kids from South America to Iceland, with fun facts about the countries included. I wish they had kept the facts to food stuff; most of them are which makes the odd comment about llamas seem out of place. It wouldn't have been hard to link them all to food -- there must be a traditional food to eat while watching cricket, a popular sport in India. 

The publisher sent me this book for review.

Rock Climbing, Marie-Therese Miller. This short explanation is part of a series on extreme sports. It goes over the different types (bouldering, free climb) and the equipment used by each type. Along the way it prods the reader with questions -- why pick one type over another? Which would you prefer? At the end I had a solid sense of how climbing was done, but not a feel for *why*. Maybe the author thought it was self explanatory? The pictures were mostly clear photos; not spectacular but good images, except for one blurry shot that I didn't understand.

The publisher provided me with an ecopy for review. 

For Spacious Skies: Katherine Lee Bates and the Inspiration for "America the Beautiful, Nancy Churnin. I learned a lot from this book! I hadn't even known the the song was written as a poem and only later set to music, let alone that there was a popular contest to pick the best tune. I certainly didn't know about the poet, who was an accomplished woman, a writer, a suffrage advocate, a settlement house worker, and a college professor. I enjoyed learning about her and her career. I do quibble a bit about the end bit, which seem to imply that by now we've achieved the "mending of differences that pushed people apart" that Bates wanted but did not live to see. I think that's a bit overly optimistic, but I hope we are still pushing in that direction. 

The Old Man and the Penguin: A True Story of True Friendship, Julie Abery. The penguin is very cute. He meets the old men when he struggles to a beach covered in oil; Joao cleans off the penguin and tries to return him to the wild, but Dindim wants to stay. He'll leave on his aquatic migration south, but returns to hang with his human friend.

That's all very sweet, but I felt sad that Dindim wasn't building any relationships with his own kind. The backmatter discusses the pollution that caused the problem, and exhorts the reader to help deal with it, and also provides instructions on what to do if a wild animal is found so that there aren't more pet penguins being created whenever there's an opportunity. 

I liked the gentle and friendly illustrations, which did a good job of showing Dindim's emotions without overly anthropolizing him. Joao is an old man and is drawn that way.

Whooo Knew: The Truth About Owls, Annette Whipple. A fun animal picture book, with lots of information about owls. There were plenty of gorgeous photos-- usually one giant one per page and then an assortment of smaller shots. The pictures were great, but not eye-poppingly amazing, which was a little disappointing because the cover had led me to hope for amazing. It looks at sleeping habits, anatomy, seeing, hearing and hunting, all the stuff kids like to ask about. I was a bit confused about nesting vs roosting spots, but that's because it's only been about a week since I learned that birds don't tend to sleep in nests; that's where eggs go, not a bedroom. So I'm primed for the difference now. 

Owl books are great places to learn about owl pellets, and this one has instructions on how to do your dissection safely. It's well laid out, with a variety of different fonts in different sizes to draw the eye from section to section, and ending with the pellet dissection and a glossary plus web sites for more information. 

I received a copy of this book from the publisher. 

Stem in the World Series, Marne Ventura. Although a fun book and great for baseball fans, I felt it needed a bit more focus; the book moved around between how technology has changed viewing the game, building stadiums for baseball, and tracking metrics for the game. It's all interesting, but I wanted a sharper organization and more lines from principle to execution -- tell me what statistics are, and then how it affects the World Series. Tell me how technology made cameras and radios, and then how it changed how we view the game. 

I liked the clarity of the text and the many photos. The publisher provided me with a copy of the book for review.

I want to once again appreciate the kids on the covers, who are all apparently modeling "scientist with cool glasses" to great effect. All these books do some things I like a lot -- they explain their ecological topic with simplicity but without talking down to kids, and are willing to use big words that say exactly what they mean. They all model tables of contents, chapters, indexes and glossaries in ways that make evident what they are for -- they work within the book but since they might be the first time a student notices them, I like how well they do their job. The book treats the reader as an introductory scientist, an approach that a lot of kids will appreciate. 

The publisher provided me with e-copies of all these books for review.

Decomposers, Grace Hansen. The waste-recyclers of the ecosystem! This one seems to assume that the reader already read Consumers; detritivore is defined by not in the glossary. Hmm, there doesn't seem to be order notations. I like the slightly gruesome photos in this one. 

Food Chains, Grace Hansen. The photos in this one were well chosen and vibrant -- I liked the giraffe slurping up leaves and the contrast with the earthworms squirming through dirt. I'm not sure Hansen got down to the basics with the description of photosynthesis; are the readers really expected to understand what a "chemical process" means? The diagram also seemed to expect some prior knowledge. 

Food Webs, Grace Hansen. Good photos choices and clear writing. I thought the Table of Contents was a bit skimpy; there were more sections that could have been called out. 

Photosynthesis, Grace Hansen. Good pictures, good organization, good text. 

Producers, Grace Hansen. There are links to go through to the publisher's site for more activities, but I haven't tried them out. I like the glowing photos of plants in this one.