I Have Two Mommies. I Have Two Daddies - by Stephy R. Salazar, illustrated by Bianca Silva
This is a sweet picture book about two diverse families, one child with two mothers, and one child with two fathers. Colorful illustrations and rhyming text get across the point that these families are no different, in their actions and their love for each other, from any others.
The Race Across Anaconda Swamp - by Sharon Duke Estroff and Joel Ross, illustrated by Mónica de Rivas
This is the second book in the Challenge Island STEAM Adventure series, published by Challenge Island, a STEAM enrichment program that has become a franchised company. There were some references to the first book in this title, but it stands alone well enough on its own. Three children are magically transported to a tropical rainforest island, where they have to work together to solve problems and accomplish tasks using items on hand and imagination. Daniel and Joy are cousins, and Kimani comes from somewhere else (it's never explained where) and is full of knowledge about STEAM concepts - science, technology, engineering, and math. A parrot named DaVinci apparently provides the artistic elements.
The book tells the story in 15 chapters and 120 pages, followed by an additional 24 pages with a challenge for readers similar to that in the story. The challenge reminded me of ones my children did as part of the Odyssey of the Mind and Destination Imagination programs. Children who participate or are interested in these programs would be an ideal audience for this series.
Alaska is for the Birds! Fourteen Favorite Feathered Friends - by Susan Ewing, illustrated by Evon Zerbetz
Poems and pictures about fourteen birds found in Alaska, in succinct ten-to-twelve line rhyming couplets by Susan Ewing, complemented in a double-page spread by colorful linocut prints by Evon Zerbetz. The clever poems capture the behaviors of the birds, and the detailed illustrations highlight some of their primary physical characteristics.
Many of the poems introduce new vocabulary (for me, words like pectinate and pelagic), and the meanings can be discerned from the context, but there is also a two-page glossary at the end of the book. The author has also included a half-page of additional information on each bird just before the glossary. I especially appreciate the inclusion of the collective nouns often used with each species. (For example, I never knew a group of hummingbirds is a bouquet, charm, glittering, or shimmer - all are appropriate!)
Although the publisher, West Margin Press, indicates in the book's study guide that it is aimed at ages 5–8 and grades K–3, I think it could be used by older children and students too, at least through ages 12 and grade 6. This book belongs in every Alaskan library, and could also be used in state studies in the rest of the country.
Voices in the Dead House - by Norman Lock
This interesting historical fiction is set in Washington, D.C., in the brief period between mid-December, 1862, and January 21, 1863. Poet Walt Whitman and author Louisa May Alcott were both in the city at that time, helping in Civil War hospitals. Alcott worked as a nurse at Union Hotel Hospital in Georgetown, until she had to quit a little over a month later due to contracting typhoid. Whitman had originally gone to Fredericksburg, Virginia, to check on his wounded brother George, but starting in late December, volunteered as a visitor and wound-dresser at Armory Square Hospital (and others). Although there's no documentation the two met or even knew of the other, they could have crossed paths during Alcott's short time there, and that is the premise of the novel.
The first 140 pages are told in Whitman's voice, the next 112 in Alcott's, followed by brief (2-3 pages) final sections for each. The novel is inspired by Alcott's book Hospital Sketches and some of Whitman's poetry, particularly "The Wound-Dresser," according to author Norman Lock. He incorporates some of the events from Alcott's book, as well as lines from some of Whitman's other poems ("The Sleepers" and "Come Up from the the Fields, Father") and Whitman's book Memoranda During the War. Whitman and Alcott encounter real people (such as photographers Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner, and nurse Dorothea Dix) and places (such as the White House, Ford's Theater, and the Naval Observatory). In an afterword, the author explains who and what is fact and fiction in his novel.
I do think it would help the reader to be somewhat familiar with both authors and their works mentioned above before reading this book. I've been an Alcott fan since childhood, so I enjoyed her part of the book more, and I feel Lock has captured her personality quite well. This book has inspired me to read Whitman's Leaves of Grass (referred to frequently in his section) and Memoranda During the War, as well as Hospital Sketches, one of the few Alcott works I haven't yet read. I'd also like to read more of Lock's American Novels stand-alone series.
Leaves of Grass - by Walt Whitman
I tried to read this book of poetry because it was mentioned so frequently in Voices in the Dead House, a book I read and reviewed for the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Unfortunately, I couldn't finish it. Most of Walt Whitman's free verse poems are way too long, in my opinion. It sometimes seemed like he was simply stringing together bunches of proper nouns or synonyms, rather than using imagery. More enjoyable for me were shorter poems like "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer," “Ethiopia Saluting the Colors,” and "O Captain! My Captain!"
Given that the book that inspired me to read Leaves of Grass was set in December 1862 and January 1863, what I *should* have read was the 1860-61 edition, the third of many, as Whitman constantly added, deleted, and edited poems from the original 1855 edition. Reading that one, plus Drum-Taps and Sequel to Drum-Taps (small poetry collections written during the Civil War and folded into later editions of Leaves of Grass), would have given me the background I needed for Voices in the Dead House, rather than trying to read the entire, huge final edition.
Hospital Sketches - by Louisa May Alcott
I read most of Louisa May Alcott's novels as a young girl, as well as A Long Fatal Love Chase and some of her short stories, but hadn't read this fictionalized account of her time as a Civil War nurse until recently. Alcott had gone to Washington, D.C. to serve, and wrote letters home to her family in Massachusetts about her experiences. She was encouraged to turn those letters into short stories that were first published in a magazine, and later compiled into a book first published in 1863.
The book is, unsurprisingly, so much in the style of the Little Women series, with humor sprinkled in among the seriousness of the subject. Nurse-to-be Tribulation Periwinkle (because in that era, Alcott would not have used her own name) makes the decision to go and makes rather frustrating preparations, has a rather amusing trip to Washington, and then describes a day and a night in the hospital wards, often describing her interactions with patients. My favorite story was the sad one of John (real-life John Suhre). She also writes about her sojourns around Washington, briefly about the illness (typhoid) that sent her home, and in a postscript, apparently answers questions from readers of the magazine articles about her experiences.
The Kindle version that I read, available through my library, was the 1863 edition with a biographical introduction by Amy Holwerda written in 2011.
Memoranda During the War - by Walt Whitman
Memoranda During the War by poet Walt Whitman, opens as follows: "During the Union War I commenced at the close of 1862, and continued steadily through '63, '64 and '65, to visit the sick and wounded of the Army, both on the field and in the Hospitals in and around Washington city. From the first I kept little note-books for impromptu jottings in pencil to refresh my memory of names and circumstances, and what was specially wanted, &c. In these I brief'd cases, persons, sights, occurrences in camp, by the bedside, and not seldom by the corpses of the dead. Of the present Volume most of its pages are verbatim renderings from such pencillings on the spot" (p. 1). He also wrote about other observations he made around the city during that time.
I liked this better than most of Whitman's poetry, as it is short (92 pages) and more succinct. I can see some of the inspiration for the poems in Drum-Taps and Sequel to Drum-Taps (small poetry collections written during the Civil War and folded into later editions of Leaves of Grass). One example is the memorandum about the murder of Lincoln, where he writes (page 60): "...there were many lilacs in full bloom. By one of those caprices that enter and give tinge to events without being at all a part of them, I find myself always reminded of the great tragedy of that day by the sight and odor of these blossoms. It never fails." In Sequel to Drum Taps (1865) there is a poem called "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" which is an elegy to Lincoln.
The memoranda actually only take up the first 76 pages, which is followed with 16 pages of "notes" added later. The first half of these clarify parts of the memoranda, but the last half, particularly the section starting on page 89: "Future History of the United States, growing out of the War—(My Speculations,)" is merely wordy and superfluous.
The book was originally published in 1875, ten years after the end of the Civil War. I read a 1990 edition of this public domain work available on Google Books.
The Gown - by Jennifer Robson
I won The Gown from Library Thing's Early Reviewer program back in October 2018, but never received a copy from the publisher (William Morrow). It still appeared on my Not Reviewed list (I've been an Early Reviewer since November 2007), so I checked my libraries and borrowed and read the e-book this month. (ETA 16 September 2022: I checked out a print copy shortly after Queen Elizabeth II's death.)
The gown of the title was Elizabeth's wedding gown (from her November 1947 wedding, while still a princess, to Philip Mountbatten), which is pictured on the book's cover. Although the book is subtitled "a novel of the royal wedding," it's really historical fiction about two women who worked as embroiderers on that gown, and the granddaughter of one of them.
In post-war London of early 1947, 25-year-old Ann Hughes, a long-time embroider for designer Norman Hartnell, meets newly-hired 22-year-old Miriam Dassin, a Jewish refugee from France liberated two years earlier from a concentration camp. Miriam has been referred to Hartnell's by Christian Dior, but she is also a talented fiber artist. Ann's widowed sister-in-law is moving to Toronto, Canada, and Ann needs a new roommate to keep her housing, so she invites Miriam to live with her.
Soon, Hartnell gets the commission to design and make Princess Elizabeth's wedding gown. Ann and Miriam are put in charge of embroidering sample motifs ("York roses in several sizes, star flowers, ears of wheat, jasmine blossoms, and smilax leaves" - page 141), and embellishing them with seed pearls, crystals, and beads. Later, they are the lead embroiderers on the gown's bodice, sleeves, skirt, and train - done in a workshop with no windows, as even then the public was eager to learn details of the gown.
In Toronto in 2016, journalist Heather Mackenzie's grandmother dies and leaves her a box with exquisite embroidery samples in it. Losing her job shortly after, she decides to go to England to unravel the mystery of her grandmother.
Heather's story is necessary to fill in what happened to Ann and Miriam after the royal wedding, as the story set in the past ends shortly after that. There's romance (good and bad) for all three women, but it, like the royals, is really a minor part of the story.
In February 2017, author Jennifer Robson interviewed Betty Robson, one of the seamstresses at Hartnell who had helped create Princess Elizabeth's 1947 wedding gown. She even worked Betty in as a character near the end of the book. Robson also spent a day at Hand & Lock, London's oldest and the world's foremost custom embroidery workshop. to see what the work done by Ann and Miriam might be like. This and other research made the book come alive.
What I liked best, though, were the details about everyday British life after World War II. For example, wartime rationing was still in effect - Elizabeth paid for her wedding gown mostly with clothing coupons she had saved.
No comments:
Post a Comment