854-858 (2018 #67-71). The Rest of October 2018

Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly, read by Ramon de Ocampo and Amielynn Abellera - audiobook, realistic fiction, 2018 Newbery Medalist.  Seriously?  The book was OK, but not great.  Rather tedious, and with some annoying characteristics like unsympathetic mothers (what is up with that?  Girl in Reverse had one too), including one who sneaks cigarettes, and kids using matches and candles out into the woods.  Abellera read the part of deaf character Valencia, the only one who told the story in first person; de Ocampo did the rest of the narration.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, read by Bahni Turpin - I can see why the book and the audio version won so many awards in 2018:  Michael L. Printz Honor award for young adult (age 12-18) literature, Coretta Scott King Author Honor award for "outstanding books for young adults and children by African American authors and illustrators that reflect the African American experience," Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production, and Audie Awards for Young Adult and for Best Female Narrator. Outstanding realistic fiction that will likely be a very good movie too.

American Spring: Lexington, Concord, and the Road to Revolution by Walter R. Borneman - nonfiction, advance reader edition.  Very readable account of the early period of the American Revolution, from Paul Revere's little-known ride of December 1774, through the conflicts at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, to the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775.

Lisette's List by Susan Vreeland - audiobook, historical fiction.  Lisette and her husband Andre leave Paris in 1937 and go to the (real) village of Roussillon in Provence to care for his aging grandfather, Pascal.  Lisette is at first frustrated, because she hoped to work as an art museum curator in Paris, but she learns that Pascal met the artists Cezanne and Pissarro (through his work in the ochre mines, as a pigment salesman, and as a frame maker), and has some of their paintings, as well as a possible Picasso.  When Andre enlists to fight in World War II, he hides the paintings.  Much of the book is about what Lisette does to get through the war, and her quest to find the paintings afterward.  She meets Mark and Bella Chagall, and is gifted with one of his paintings as well.  The story moves slowly, but Vreeland does a wonderful job describing the Provençal countryside and way of life.  The audiobook is read by Kim Bubbs, who does a wonderful job with all the French words in the book.  The afterword identifies which paintings are real and which are not.

Carnegie's Maid by Marie Benedict - audiobook, historical fiction.  Speculative historical fiction on why the 19th century multimillionaire Andrew Carnegie may have become a philanthropist.  Author's Irish ancestors worked as domestics and used the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh.  Similar mistaken identity story supposedly happened to one of her ancestors.  In research, used newspaper ads of immigrants searching for lost family who came before them, and was able to access materials and see areas where domestics lived and worked in the Frick Pittsburgh, "a perfectly preserved late nineteenth-century house museum of Andrew Carnegie's colleague Henry Clay Frick." (p. 280) Book ranges from November 4, 1863 - the completely fictional Clara Kelley's arrival at the port in Philadelphia - to the prologue of December 23, 1868, when "at the age of thirty-three, he wrote a letter to himself pledging to focus on the education and 'improvement of the poorer classes'" (p. 273), which supposedly his love and interactions with Clara inspired, according to the story.  The epilogue takes place October 14, 1900, when Clara, who has become a nurse, takes a young relative to the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh.

© Amanda Pape - 2018

853 (2018 #66). Dr. Jo

Dr. Jo is a picture book biography about someone I'd never heard of before - Dr. Sara Josephine Baker, one of America's earliest female physicians and a pioneer in public health, especially in urban immigrant communities in the early 1900s.  This book is similar to those in author Monica Kulling's Great Ideas series, which are picture book biographies of lessor-known inventors, such as Lillian Gilbreth and Frank Zamboni.  Most of those are written at about a fourth-grade reading level, and my guess is that this book falls there as well.  The watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil illustrations by Julianna Swaney are pretty; maybe too pretty when picturing gritty immigrant tenements.

© Amanda Pape - 2018

[I received this hardbound book from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program in exchange for an honest review.  It will be added to my university's curriculum collection for the use of future teachers.]

851 (2018 #65). Finding Dorothy

Finding Dorothy, by Elizabeth Letts, is mostly about Maud Gage Baum, wife of Oz creator L. Frank Baum.  The book alternates between tracing Maud's life, beginning in 1871 when she was ten years old and ending at Christmas 1899 (just before The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is published), and the 1938-1939 time period, during the making and premiere of  The Wizard of Oz movie.  In the latter sections, Maud is on the set, trying to make sure the movie stays true to her late husband's intentions, and meets Judy Garland, the actress playing Dorothy, befriending and becoming protective of her.

Learning about the life of Maud (and of Frank) gives some insights into the inspirations for characters and scenes from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  Dorothy may have been inspired by the hard life of one of his and Maud's nieces (but not the one named Dorothy, who died as an infant a year before the book was published).

And, like all good historical fiction, this book inspired me to learn more - I went back to The Annotated Wizard of Oz, Centennial Edition, edited by noted scholar Michael Patrick Hearn, which I first read in December 2007.  After reading Finding Dorothy, the background material in the introduction to this annotated edition was even more meaningful.

© Amanda Pape - 2018

[This advance reader edition was sent to me by the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program in exchange for a review.  It will be passed on to someone else to enjoy.]
© Amanda Pape - 2018