2017 Nonfiction for Elementary Age Children

Mar13

Alexander Graham Bell Answers the Call by Mary Ann Fraser. His father was a speech therapist. His mother was hearing-impaired. Young Aleck was an inventor and an experimenter. After his brother and sister both died of tuberculosis, Aleck “was inspired to do more with his life.” He became a teacher of the deaf by day and an inventor and scientist by night and in his free time. This picture book biography of the Father of the Telephone emphasizes Bell’s childhood, but takes him through to the invention of the first telephone and those famous words, “I need you, Mr. Watson.” Then, a couple of pages in the back of the book tell about Aleck’s other inventions and give a timeline of the major events of his life. As an introduction to the life of Alexander Graham Bell, this colorful book should serve quite well.

Voyager’s Greatest Hits: The Epic Trek to Interstellar Space by Alexandra Siy. The device of dividing the book into “tracks” instead of chapters is a bit gimmicky, as are the track titles: Thing 1 and Thing 2, King Jupiter, The Lord of the Rings, Last Tango in Space, etc. Nevertheless, the photographs and the information about the eight “tracks” of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are vivid and informative. The style is breezy and colloquial, but accurate: “Most planets spin like tops as they orbit the sun. But Uranus spins on its side. It’s totally tilted.” And as justification for the title and the chapter designations, did you know that Voyager carries a “Golden Record” with 90 minutes of the best music from many cultures and times? It’s meant to be a message to any extraterrestrials who might encounter Voyager in space someday.

The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked & Found by Martin W. Sandler. “The exciting true story of the captaincy, wreck, and discovery of the Whydah — the only pirate ship ever found — and the incredible mysteries it revealed.” The pirate ship Whydah sank in a storm off Cape Cod in 1717; it was finally found and recovered in 1984. This book tells the story of the ship’s pirates history as well as the details of how the ship was recovered and what the archaeologists found when they brought the ship’s contents to the surface. This title is a great one to give to pirate enthusiasts who want to know the truth about piracy and its history.

Amazon Adventure: How Tiny Fish are Saving the World’s Largest Rainforest by Sy Montgomery. Not just a picture book about saving the rain forest, this book, with lovely photographs, is an in-depth look at the ecological system in the Brazilian rainforest and at the ways that scientists and businessmen and fishermen are working together to preserve those systems and keep the balance of nature, well, in balance. Science is showing that catching the tiny fish called piabas is good for the environment: as people catch the piabas and sell them for pets around the world, they also work to preserve the environment that enables the piabas to grow and reproduce. And since the people who live in and around the rainforest can make a living from fishing for piaba fish, they are less likely to engage in other kinds of commerce that might destroy or damage the rainforest. The book provides a fascinating and thought-provoking look at how people can work together to solve ecological problems in a real-world, practical way.

Irenaeus by Simonetta Carr. The latest in a series called Christian Biographies for Young Readers, this biography of a second century hero of the faith combines a lively and informative text with beautiful illustrations. This book was chosen by WORLD Magazine as Outstanding 2017 Nonfiction for Children (Real Lives Category), and it certainly lives up to the award. It’s so important for children to be introduced to the controversies and heroes of history, Christian history in particular. We have, in so many areas, forgotten our heritage and forgotten how to think clearly and deeply about theology, teaching, and doctrine. Irenaeus and the other books in this series are a start in the direction of correcting that deficit.

The Danger Gang and the Pirates of Borneo by Stephen Bramucci

Mar12

I really didn’t think this was going to be “my type of humor” as I began this book, but the more I read the more I enjoyed it. I even chuckled out loud a few times, and for me that’s major.

When Ronald Zupan’s parents are kidnapped by Zeetan Z, the world’s most ruthless pirate, while they are exploring the jungles of Borneo, Ronald and his rather unadventurous butler, Jeeves, are called to the rescue. Ronald’s fencing opponent, Julianne Sato, and his pet cobra, Carter, are also enlisted to form the Danger Gang, a fearless foursome indeed.

Ronald learns some lessons in humility and respect for others. Jeeves learns courage and perseverance. Julianne becomes a leader, and the snake, Carter, saves the day once or twice. All in all, this fantastic and perilous story is rather frothy, but worth the ride nevertheless.

A few quotes to whet your appetite for this fun-filled adventure:

“‘Julianne, you are possibly the sharpest sidekick that I’ve ever met,’ I said.
‘That’s because I’m not a sidekick,’ she called over the noise. ‘I’m your partner.'”

“There are times in any master adventurer’s life when all eyes are watching him and he has to do something bold and brilliant.”

“Doubtful friends are worse than enemies, and fire ants are the worst of all.”

“The more people you care about, the more there is to scare you in the world. And yet, if you didn’t care about people, there would be nothing worth protecting.”

“He who endures will conquer. So will he who never gets stung by a blister beetle.”

“That’s what partners in dazzling schemes and grand adventures do. They stick together.”

“That’s the thing about thrilling adventures. They change you, whether you know it or not.”

The Ice Sea Pirates by Frida Nilsson

Mar8

According to the author blurb in the back of my book, “Frida Nilsson is a leading Swedish author who won the Astrid Lindgren Prize in 2014. Her books have been translated and published worldwide and nominated for multiple awards including the prestigious Youth Literature Prize in Germany. The Ice Sea Pirates has been nominated for five major awards, including the August Prize, and won of [sic] three of them.”

Well, I can see the virtues of The Ice Sea Pirates. The plot hangs together well. The characters, especially Siri the heroine and protagonist, are engaging and believable. The themes of courage and compassion for all living things are woven into the story and into the journey that Siri makes to rescue her little sister, Miki, who has been kidnapped by evil pirates. The ending is good, even if it is somewhat ambiguous and bittersweet.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that something is lost in the translation. Siri, although she is mostly a brave and likable character, goes on long crying jags at crucial moments in the story:

“I cried. I cried so hard my chest hurt.” (p.80)
“A woman came past as I sat weeping by the water.” (p.83)
“But I just carried on crying and for a long time we just sat there, me sobbing and Nanni with her hand on my back. She tried to comfort me several times but it didn’t work.” (p.100)
“And I wept about everything, about the boxes and the hat and the dice, about people who made purses out of mermaids, about everyone who took more than they needed.” (p.197)
“I burst out crying. It went on and on; I didn’t even try to hold back the tears.” (p.230)
“It made me so sad and angry that a huge lump grew in my throat and I gritted my teeth against the tears.” (p.266)
“Watching this made me feel ill and I wept to see the wounds on the wolf’s hide. . . I couldn’t stop crying.” (p.292)
“That night I lay in bed and wept.” (p.302)
“I didn’t answer, just went on crying.” (p.303)

I probably missed or skimmed over a few crying episodes. Not that crying isn’t the proper response to many of the cruel and sad experiences that Siri has in the book, but the frequency seems excessive. Maybe it’s a Swedish thing?

In addition to the excess of tears, there’s a certain ambivalence about how animals are treated, how they should be treated, whether wild animals are dangerous or friendly, and just the attitude toward animals, especially wolves, in general. Are the animals in the story to be used for food or not? Are the wolves to be feared or tamed? Siri has a heart for the animals that she encounters that are being used or mistreated, but even though she doesn’t approve of what one hunter does to catch wolves, Siri eats the wolf meat when she is hungry anyway. She repeats the adage that one should never take more from “nature” than one needs, but there is no resolution in the end with the pirates and the hunters and the slavers, just an armed truce.

It’s a book worth reading, especially if you are interested in Swedish children’s literature or pirate stories or “northerness”, but in the end it’s one I would only recommend to a select few readers who have a special interest in those topics.

Into a Book’s Profound

Mar6

We get no good
By being ungenerous, even to a book,
And calculating profits—so much help
By so much reading. It is rather when
We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge
Soul-forward, headlong, into a book’s profound,
Impassioned for its beauty, and salt of truth—
‘Tis then we get the right good from a book.

~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born on March 6, 1806. The oldest of twelve children, eight boys and four girls, she wrote poetry from childhood, beginning at the age of six, or perhaps four. Elizabeth was educated at home by a tutor, and she read voraciously. At the age of fifteen, Ms. Barrett became ill with an unspecified illness which gave her great pain in the spine and the head. She took laudanum for the pain, which doctors could not heal, and the drug probably worsened her health in the long term. She also later had tuberculosis. At the age of thirty-nine, after a life of invalidism and poetry, Elizabeth Barrett met the poet Robert Browning. The two courted in secret, because of Elizabeth’s father’s strict and controlling views, and then they ran away to be married. Elizabeth’s father disinherited her, as he did all of his children who dared to get married.

Texas Republican Primary Election, March 6, 2018

Mar5

Tomorrow is the official voting day for the primary election in Texas, the election in which both Republicans and Democrats in Texas choose the candidates who will be running for statewide and for local offices in the fall of this year. This election is important because I never want to be placed in the position I was in 2016 when I had to choose to vote for a third-party candidate in the presidential election. I could not in good conscience give my vote to either the Democrat or the Republican presidential candidate, so I was effectively disenfranchised in that political race. I would prefer to help choose good candidates so that I can vote for someone even if Idon’t agree with all of his or her positions on the issues.

I feel I have no real political home anymore. I cannot support most of what our president says, and I can only support a small portion of his actions. Yet, he leads the Republican party, and Republican candidates must at least pay lip service to him and to his agenda (if they can understand what “agenda” President Trump even supports from one day to the next as it changes and morphs), or they risk losing the support of the party apparatus and of the millions who follow Mr. Trump, blindly, no matter what he says or does.

On the other hand, I cannot support much, if any, of what the Democratic Party and its elected officials support: abortion on demand paid for by our taxes and health insurance premiums, indiscriminate gun control, takeover of the health care system by the federal government, the silencing of those who disagree with them on gay and transgender issues, and the suppression of religious and moral conservatives, relegating them to a back corner where they are to be “seen and not heard.” So, I am caught between a rock and a hard place.

At any rate, after some research and prayer, these are the candidates I plan to vote for in the Republican primary tomorrow. I will vote in the Republican primary, not because I consider myself to be a Republican anymore, but because I feel I can exercise more influence there than I can in the Democratic Party primary. I can never vote for a Democrat unless that Democrat decides to go against his own party and become a pro-life conservative. I don’t know any Democrat in Texas who is even trying to do that.

U.S. Senator: Ted Cruz Sometimes Mr. Cruz goes off in directions that are way too extreme for me, and I still haven’t forgiven him for getting himself into the predicament of having to endorse Donald Trump. But I think Mr. Cruz generally does a good job for Texas and for the nation.

Governor: Greg Abbott I also don’t like Mr Abbott’s close ties to the president and endorsement of his candidacy, and like Cruz, Abbott gets shrill and unreasonable about the whole issue of immigration. But Mr. Abbott is pro-life, and he works hard to make Texas prosperous and safe. His judicial and commission appointments have been good, and he is trying to get honest pro-life and fiscally conservative people elected to the Texas legislature. So, yeah.

General Land Office Commissioner: Jerry Patterson Texas Homeschool Coalition (THSC) is endorsing Mr. Patterson, and Donald Trump is asking me to vote for George P Bush. “Bush not only endorsed Trump in 2016 but campaigned for him around the state as chairman of Texas Victory.” I’ll go with THSC and Patterson.

Commissioner of Agriculture: Sid Miller Endorsed by Texas Right to Life (TRTL), THSC, and other conservative groups.

Railroad Commissioner: Christi Craddick Endorsed by TRTL, THSC, C-Club, and others.

Presiding Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals: Sharon Keller

Court of Criminal Appeals Judge, Place 8: Michelle Slaughter Endorsed by THSC, TRTL, and other conservative groups.

1st District Court of Appeals Judge: Katy Boatman. Endorsed by THSC, TRTL. The other guy, Terry Yates, seems to be well-respected, too.

185th District Judge: Stacey Bond.

189th District Judge: Erin Elizabeth Lunceford

263rd District Judge: Charles Johnson. Endorsed by THSC, TRTL.

295th District Judge: Richard Risinger. Endorsed by TRTL and others.

257th Family District Judge: Melanie Flowers. Endorsed by THSC, TRTL, and others.

280th Family District Judge: Angelina D.A. Gooden. Endorsed by Houston Chronicle and others.

County Criminal Court-at-Law Judge No.8: Jay Karahan. Endorsed by C-Club, Houston Chronicle and others. (He’s accused of “performing gay marriages”. He does do weddings, and since so-called gay marriage is legal, I assume he does those. I’m not sure why a criminal court judge is making time to do weddings, but if that’s how he wants to spend his time, then have at it.)

County Criminal Court-at-Law Judge No.11: Aaron Burdette. He seems to have more experience than his opponent.

County Civil Court at Law, No.2: Erin Swanson. Endorsed by THSC, TRTL, C-Club, and others.

County Civil Court at Law, No.4: Sophia Mafrige. Endorsed by C-Club, TRTL, THSC, and many others.

Harris County Republican Party Chairman: Paul Simpson. I’m not impressed with Mr. Simpson’s opponent, and it seems that Mr. Simpson has done a good job in a very difficult position.

Here are some links for you to help you make up your own mind, if you live in Texas and if you haven’t already voted in the primary:

Big Jolly Endorsement Slate Tracker for the 2018 Harris County Republican Primary. This chart shows who’s endorsing whom for all of the contested races in the Harris County Texas Republican Primary election.

Houston Chronicle: Houston Voting Essentials

The List by Patricia Forde

Mar5

The List is a rather illogical ecological dystopian story about a future Earth in which the survivors of a disaster, caused by global warming/climate change, congregate in the city of Ark. In Ark, language is limited to an approved list of only 500 words, since the corruption of language and advertising and slick persuasion made Earth’s inhabitants ignore the warnings of eco-prophets who told the people that the planet was warming and apocalypse was imminent.

“Then came the Melting. The ice that turned to water and flooded the planet, the sea devouring everything in its path. Towns and villages swallowed whole. The old technology destroyed. Animals extinct. And all the written word gone.”

Letta, however, is apprentice to the official Wordsmith, the person charged with retrieving and preserving all of the old words, to hold them in reserve for a day when it will be safe again to allow people to use a multitude of words. When mankind has again learned to use words responsibly and wisely, then the Wordsmith and his apprentice will have the words, stored away where they can do no harm in the meantime.

The villain in this story is loopy; he thinks that taking away from people the power of speech will somehow make them wise and discerning, unable to be fooled by false persuasive speeches and writings. Or maybe he just thinks he is right, everyone else is wrong, and so taking away words will force the people to obey him. But if they have no power to speak, no words, how will they know anything? How will they obey if they don’t even understand what they are being told to do?

The ending of this one is a set-up for a sequel, so expect book two to follow shortly. The List is Irish author Patricia Forde’s debut novel. Fellow Irish author Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl series) blurbed The List as “the fantasy book of the year.” So, opinions may vary.

The Exploits of Xenophon by Geoffrey Household

Mar1

So I finished this Landmark history book last night, and I really found it absorbing. Apparently, it’s a famous story that comes from the Anabasis by Xenophon, but my ancient Greek history is a little rusty. I’ve heard of Xenophon, but I didn’t know anything about this little incident. It’s really all about this orphaned Greek army marching all over Asia Minor and trying to survive and get back home. They encounter multiple enemies, raging rivers, treachery, harsh winter weather, and more treachery and finally the army does make it back to Greece, or at least near-Greece, maybe Thrace/Bulgaria, just across the Dardanelles from Constantinople?

I needed a better map in my head to follow all of the wanderings of the Greek army called the “Ten Thousand” because supposedly there were that many Greek soldiers in this super-duper Greek fighting force of mercenaries who were tricked into fighting for the younger brother, Cyrus, of the Persian emperor, Ataxerxes, in Cyrus’s attempt to take over his brother’s throne. The Greeks won the battle for Cyrus, but while they were enjoying a little plundering, Artaxerxes managed to kill Cyrus. So they became an army without a mission, trapped deep in enemy territory, with no way to get home safely. Artaxerxes just wanted to get rid of them, and so he allowed them to march north through Kurdistan and Armenia and then west to the Black Sea. Not that the Persians didn’t harass the Ten Thousand as much as possible, and then the Kurds were another problem, and the rivers and snows and mountains, and then more Persians and other “wild tribes.”

Xenophon apparently wrote the Anabasis, the story of the March of the Ten Thousand, in the third person, writing about how “Xenophon did this” and “Xenophon decided that”. He probably wrote his masterpiece that way to “distance himself as a subject, from himself as a writer,” according to Wikipedia. Mr. Household chose to put the whole story into first person and write it from Xenophon’s point of view, a perspective that is already in the original, just disguised a bit. I’m not sure why Household switches the narrative to first person, but it does make the story more immediate and modern-sounding. We’re rather fond of first person memoir in our day and time.

Household also says in the preface to the book that he modernizes some of Xenophon’s style and cut the story for this juvenile edition to quarter of its original length. However, all of the content is pure Xenophon. I think it would be fascinating to follow the Ten Thousand on their journey on a map of ancient Mesopotamia, Turkey, and Greece, and read this slimmed down version of the Anabasis aloud as a family—especially if you have a family of adventurers.

A few random facts, courtesy of Wikipedia:

“Traditionally Anabasis is one of the first unabridged texts studied by students of classical Greek, because of its clear and unadorned style.”

“The cry of Xenophon’s soldiers when they meet the sea is mentioned by the narrator of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), when their expedition discovers an underground ocean. The famous cry also provides the title of Iris Murdoch’s Booker Prize-winning novel, The Sea, the Sea (1978).”

Author Geoffrey Household served in British Intelligence during World War II in Romania, Greece and the Middle East. He was best known for his suspense novels, especially one called Rogue Male. Between the World Wars, he worked in the banking business in Romania, moved to Spain to sell bananas for United Fruit Company, and came to New York and wrote radio plays for children for CBS.

I really wish I knew more about how Bennett Cerf found and assigned different authors to write the books in the Landmark history series. Cerf on hiring authors: “I decided not to get authors of children’s books, but the most important authors in the country.” How did Mr. Household come to Cerf’s and Random House’s attention, I wonder?

Oh, by the way, Exploits of Xenophon is one of the more rare titles in the Landmark history series. It’s listed at anywhere from $30.00 to $80.00, used, at Amazon.

To learn more about the Landmark series of biographies and history books for young people, check out this podcast episode, Parts 1 and 2, of Plumfield Moms, What Are Landmark Books? Why Do They Matter?

Skeleton Tree by Kim Ventrella

Feb27

This one falls into the category of really odd and quirky middle grade fiction, but readable, if you can get past the premise: a skeleton emerges from the soil in Stanly’s backyard. Only Stanly, his friend Jaxon, Stanly’s little sister Miren, and the Kyrgyzstani babysitter, Ms. Francine, can actually see the skeleton tree, at least most of the time, and Miren calls the skeleton Princy.

Weeeell, as Jack Benny used to say, that’s a lot to take in: a dancing skeleton who may or may not be making Miren’s illness better —or worse. And Stanly wants to take a picture of “Princy”, win a prize, and force his estranged dad to pay attention to his deserted family. Stanly’s and Jaxon’s friendship is a lovely bit of business: Jaxon has OCD, and Stanly simply accepts Jaxon’s fence-post counting and food pickiness as a part of his friend’s personality.

I really liked parts of this book: Stanly’s relationship with his little sister, protective even when he was annoyed with her brattiness; Jaxon and Stanly and their friendship; the total weirdness of having a skeleton growing in a tree in your backyard. However, the sadness of Miren’s illness, the dad’s neglect of his family, and Stanly’s mom’s very difficult financial and living situation finally got to me, and I really didn’t want to finish the book, even though I had to know what would happen to Stanly and Miren and Princy.

Also, I know it’s so minor as to be nitpicking, but I really think Stanly should be spelled with an “e”, “Stanley”. It just looks wrong the way it is in this book.

Two Polish setting tales

Feb26

The Wolf Hour by Sara Lewis Holmes

The Dollmaker of Krakow by R.M. Romero.

Ms. Holmes gives us a story of pigs (three little ones plus a mama pig), wolves, and a girl with a red cap, fusing together the folklore of the Polish forest, the Puszcza, with the tales of the city, of magic flutes and stolen, enchanted girls. It’s a book that talks about the roles we are expected to fill and the changes that we can make if we have the courage to do so. Girls are not supposed to be woodcutters, but Magia, the red-capped girl, knows that becoming a woodcutter like her father is what she is meant to be. And wolves are meant to be the villains of the story, but what if the little pigs are the real tricksters and bad guys, luring the wolves to their doom?

Actually, I thought the setting for this story was somewhere in a magical Poland, but maybe it’s Ukraine or even Russia. Wherever it is set, the tale is dark and creepy but with just enough humor and lightness that it’s perfectly appropriate for middle grade readers who like a bit of scariness and suspense mixed into their fantasy reading. Fans of the TV series Once Upon a Time or Grimm might take to this twisted version of fairy tale world.

The Dollmaker of Krakow is partially set in Poland, World War II Poland, but also in a mythical Kingdom of the Dolls where events mirror to some extent the event in Poland. The evil rats have invaded the Land of the Dolls and enslaved all of the dolls, so when the doll Karolina tries to escape, she finds herself blown the wind into World War II Poland and living in the shop of the The Dollmaker. Karolina and the man known as the Dollmaker become friends with a Jewish violinist, Jozef, and his daughter, Rena, and from that friendship come danger and an opportunity to influence the course of events both in our world and in the Land of the Dolls.

Again, it’s a Holocaust tale, so it’s dark and rather scary, but there is a sense of hope that one person—or one doll— can be brave enough and persevering enough to make a difference and shine some light into that darkness.
‘

Edna St. Vincent Millay, b.February 22, 1892

Feb22

Renascence

ALL I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked the other way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I’d started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.
Over these things I could not see:
These were the things that bounded me;
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
And all at once things seemed so small
My breath came short, and scarce at all.

As the poem goes on, the poet experiences some sort of awakening or death and resurrection, or renascence, and finally, the poem of 200+ lines ends with these words:

O God, I cried, no dark disguise
Can e’er hereafter hide from me
Thy radiant identity!
Thou canst not move across the grass
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however silently,
But my hushed voice will answer Thee.
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,—
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—-the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

Millay was by no means a Christian poet, but her poems, many of them at least, are subject to Christian interpretation. This one was definitely a favorite in my adolescent years, and it still is. The description of a spiritual awakening or rebirth is vivid and quotable.