American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton.

Criminal, yes. Mastermind, not so much. I won’t spoil the story by telling you all about the man at the center of it, twenty something drug proponent and libertarian, Ross Ulbricht. Suffice it to say, he was able to elude identification and capture by multiple law enforcement agencies for a long time, not because he was such genius and master criminal, but rather because he was operating on the cutting edges of technology and the internet (the so-called dark web), and the afore-mentioned law enforcement agencies didn’t have the expertise to understand what he was doing exactly and how to catch him for a good while.

He called himself The Dread Pirate Roberts, Princess Bride allusion intended. He hoped to escape detection by pretending that he had turned his entire operation over to a new “Dread Pirate” long before the law caught up with him. It makes one wonder how many more cyber-criminals are out there justifying their grubby crimes by spouting idealistic juvenile propaganda about freedom and libertarian poppycock.

There’s also an episode in the book in which an associate of Ullbricht is invited to an evangelical church and “gets saved.” Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to been taught about sin and repentance and actually following Christ in obedience because she continues to engage in illicit sex and the production of pornography. It’s this kind of cheap conversion and Christianity that gives conversion itself a bad name and makes people think they can accept the love of Christ without acknowledging His Lordship over all of life. Another character in the book is an alleged follower of Christ who also becomes a corrupt cop and a thief. The book doesn’t have much good to say about the power of Christ to change lives.

Albricht himself grew up in Austin, Texas in a normal, middle-class home. Why did his path lead to his becoming the ultimate free-trading criminal of the Dark Web, creating a website called Silk Road where people could buy and sell not only drugs but also guns, hacking software, forgeries, counterfeit cash, and poisons freely and without limits? Again, it seems to have been the power even more than the money he was making that went to Ulbricht’s head. Why? I’m not sure.

American Kingpin is a fascinating look at the career and downfall of a man with more ambition than sense as well as telling the story of the law enforcement officers who found and captured Ulbricht and put an end to his overweening pride and plan to “change the world.” The idea that anyone should be free to put anything one wants into one’s own body, regardless of the consequences, is flawed, and as this story, shows, complete individual liberty leads to license and to chaos and even to death.

Painter, writer, naturalist, and founder of the Boy Scouts of America, Ernest Thompson Seton was self-taught as a boy both in art and in biology before he was able to get a solid education in both subjects later in young adulthood. His father wanted him him to be an artist because he saw more future in that profession than in Ernest’s chosen vocation of naturalist. Eventually, Mr. Seton combined the two talents he had for art and scientific study of nature to paint and write about the animals he studied in the wild.

Ernest Thompson Seton’s father seems to have been rather a tyrant and an unhappy man. When Ernest turned twenty-one, his father presented Ernest with a bill for the cost of his upbringing–room, board, education, even the cost for the family doctor who attended his birth–and told him that he had a duty to repay his parents every cent that they had spent on him. Ernest eventually repaid the “debt”, and he also changed his surname to Seton, that of his grandfather, because of his desire to distance himself from his tyrannical father. He sent checks home when he could, but made them payable to his mother, whom Ernest adored.

As an adult, Ernest became first a student of nature, and then a writer and artist who chronicled his stories and studies for others. He took thousands of photographs of animals and their habitats, collected specimens of birds and animal skins, and drew detailed pictures of the animals he observed. He then wrote a number of books about birds, animals, woodcraft, and other natural history topics. His Book of Woodcraft and Indian Lore became the basis for what was called the Woodcraft movement, whose aim was to “develop manhood through the proper direction of play, emphasizing the essential aspects of body and mind as well as spirit.” He influenced and gave his materials to Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts in England, and when that movement came to America Seton was invited to become Chief Scout and his Woodcrafters were incorporated into the Boy Scouts of America. (Unfortunately, there was a disagreement between Seton and the Boy Scouts leadership, and Seton was basically disinvited to be a part of the Boy Scout organization.)

This biography by Shannon and Warren Garst is an excellent introduction to the life and work of Ernest Thompson Seton. I would recommend it to boys who are involved in Boy Scouts as well as Trail Life participants and others who are interested in nature study and the history of popular biology and nature writing. I really had no idea what an influential man Ernest Thompson Seton was, and any Boy Scout or Trail Life USA member would do well to know more about the roots of their organization and its heritage.

Orion Kwirk is sure he was adopted. Or maybe he’s a space alien that got grafted into the Kwirk family. His mother studies the stars and worries about germs and accidents why too much. Rion’s father makes weird-flavored jellybeans for a living and explains scientific concepts for way too long. One sister is a drama queen, and the other is a word collector and academic star. But Rion’s somewhat estranged grandfather is the quirkiest of all the Kwirks.

This story is a little too snarky for my tastes. Rion needs an attitude adjustment from the point of view of a sixty year old grandmother (me). But he does end up growing and learning and maybe even changing his attitude over the course of the book. And Papa Kwirk, the sort of hero of the story, also becomes more understandable and sympathetic by the novel’s end. So there’s that.

The characters in the story were believable (except for the name which is just a little too apropos), and at the same time quirky. The situation, Papa Kwirk’s death and subsequent parting wishes and post-death instructions, edges over into unbelievable at times, but it’s funny and enlightening. The moral of the story is “don’t judge a book by its cover”, or “there’s often more to a person or relationship than meets the eye.” Papa Quirk failed Rion’s dad when that dad was a boy, but maybe there’s more to the story than even Rion’s dad knows. This book could make readers look at family members and others in a new way, with more compassion and understanding, reserving judgment and giving mercy and forgiveness.

The book does have some mild profanity, and the treatment of religion is respectful, but syncretic—the all roads lead to God in the end sort of thing. Nevertheless, Mr. Anderson’s story about a father and his son and the son’s eccentric grandfather touched a nerve as I was reading, partly because I recently experienced the death of a family member myself. I would recommend it as a funny story and for the development of empathy and understanding.

I really enjoyed Roseanne Parry’s middle grade novel, Heart of a Shepherd. I said at the time that Heart of a Shepherd was very Catholic, and so is this historical fiction story set in 1863 about Irish immigrants, Danny and Kathleen O’Carolan. Kathleen is the older sister, fiercely protective of her younger brother, Danny. Danny is something of a scamp and prone to trouble, as he proves when just off the ship from Ireland, he is almost inveigled into joining the Union Army as a drummer boy.

The book is a coming of age novel about immigrants and identity and perseverance and trust and holding onto one’s faith and respect for different groups of people. That’s a lot of thematic elements to pack into one story, but Ms. Parry writes well. Danny’s and Kathleen’s adventures in the New World of New York City are embedded in a realistic and vivid picture of the Civil War times, and yet the two protagonists are easy to identify with in today’s world of immigrants and identity politics and questions of whom or what to trust or hold on to.

I look forward to reading Roseanne Parry’s other middle grade novel published this year, A Wolf Called Wander, and I will look for other novels by the same author. Historical fiction isn’t always as popular these days as it used to be, but this novel might a good one to try out if you or your middle grade reader is inclined in that direction or is studying immigration or the Civil War era.

The Montgolfier brothers, Etienne and Joseph, were eighteenth century French paper manufacturers who became known for their invention and flight of the first piloted hot air balloon.

On 19 September 1783, the Aérostat Réveillon was flown with the first living beings in a basket attached to the balloon: a sheep called Montauciel (“Climb-to-the-sky”), a duck and a rooster. The sheep was believed to have a reasonable approximation of human physiology. The duck was expected to be unharmed by being lifted and was included as a control for effects created by the aircraft rather than the altitude. The rooster was included as a further control as it was a bird that did not fly at high altitudes. The demonstration was performed at the royal palace in Versailles, before King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette and a crowd. The flight lasted approximately eight minutes, covered two miles (3 km), and obtained an altitude of about 1,500 feet (460 m). The craft landed safely after flying.

Sky Chasers is a fictional account of this wonderful accomplishment of the Montgolfiers, featuring a young thief called Magpie who manages to help the Montgolfiers with their invention despite her low social class and her female gender. Girls and orphaned, homeless pickpockets were not expected to be of much use or intelligence in eighteenth century France, just as they are not very respected in this day and time. Perhaps the gulf between classes and between boys and girls was much wider back in the 1700’s than it is today, but Ms. Carroll is writing a story for middle grade readers, not for adults. In this story Magpie finds a home and finds success and respect in spite of all the obstacles that are stacked against her.

I found this book to be an engaging and informative piece of historical fiction about a little known incident and time of history. Almost all I know about Louis XVI and Marie Antionette is their ignominious end, so it was interesting to see them in a different setting, before the revolution while they were still giddy and gay and pompous and entitled. Magpie learns whom to trust and whom to distrust and how to take advantage of the God-given abilities that she has been blessed to enjoy. Particularly if you’re interested in the history of flight or of hot air balloons or of invention or of eighteenth century France, this novel would be a light-hearted but thoughtful addition to your reading life.