Laura R.

Life in communists Poland via the eyes of a child

Little Carp by Marzena Sowa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

To children, life is normal, because that is all they have ever known.

And for Marzi, in the 1980s communist Poland, all the things that go on around her are normal. Be it waiting in line for products, such a toilet paper or meat, so having no place to play in Winter, and having to do so in the halls of her apartment block.

Though her parents know what life was like “before”, this is the only life she has ever known, and so this memoir, written after Marzi is a grown woman, is told from the sever-year-olds point of view.

Wonderful slice of life, when life was hard.

I look forward to reading the rest of the stories in this series.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review

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Sarah Scribbles strikes again, herding cats

Herding Cats by Sarah Andersen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Oh, wow, another Sarah Scribbles. I am well pleased. 🙂

If you have been following Sarah’s cartoons, you know what you are in for, and you should buy this book to have them all collected in one place. If you are not aware of her cartoons, here are my favorite ones in this volume:

And, even if you have been reading her online, she has bonus material in this book, about creativity, and not giving up, and enjoying your art, and good pep talk for future or current artists.

And her final words? “Go Make Stuff”.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Indigenous children do not need to be rescued by white people

Beyond the Green by Sharlee Mullins Glenn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There are far too many stories of white people saying indigenous children, giving them a better life.

Indigenous children do not need to be rescued.

I was worried, when I started to read this book, though the description hinted otherwise, that this book would be like that. That Britta kept devising plans to save her foster-care sister from returing to her birth mom made me worried that perhaps this wasn’t the story I hoped it was.

I was pleasantly surprised.

Britta, a Mormon child, feels that Dori would be better off with her family who had had her for the first four years of her life. She can’t imagine that the Indians could take as good care of her “sister” as her family did.

But, as all good books do, this one allowed Britta to grow and change, and see things from another point of view.

And her wise grandpa had a great quote:

Differ’nt don’t necessirly mean worse, Britta-girl,” he said. “Sometimes it means better. Sometimes it just means differ’nt. And thank goodness for differ’nt. Too much sameness would make for a might bland world.”

The author made this all feel very real, and very special, probably because it is a fictionalized version of her own foster sister, that was returned to her birth mother.

Odd, every day elements make it very real.

Highly recommend this for school libaries, public libraries, and just for good old-fashioned reading.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Little Fish, Big Picture

The Sockeye Mother by Hetxw’ms Gyetxw (Brett D. Huson)
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When you live in a city, you tend to get disconnected from nature. We might see it in the park, and we might see it in our gardens, but we don’t connect it all in our minds. And this might be the problem with why so many people do not get that we really are interconnected.

This lovely, lush, beautifully illustrated picture book uses the example of the Sockeye salmon to explain how important it is to the existence of all life around it, not just the people, Gitxsan, of the Xsan (or River of Mists or the Colonial name of Skeena River).

We learn the life’s path of the Miso’o or the sockeye, from fry (their earliest form post egg) to their final breeding form, as the months change, and the different moons signal different things in the life of the fish.

This is a wonderful way to introduce children, and probably some adults, to just how important a small little fish can be, and why it is important to the Gitxsan rely on it.

Just look at these lovely pictures.

And there is a great youtube video that lets you hear all the Gitxsan words pronounced.

Highly recommended to children, libraries, schools, and homes. A lovely book to own and look at, and perhaps, learn from.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Figure skating and coming out

Spinning by Tillie Walden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The problem with memoirs, if the author is being true to themselves, is that things don’t always happen in a neat, perfectly rounded up way, the way they do in fictionalized stories. As I was reading this, I didn’t realize it was a memoire, and I kept wondering why the author didn’t expound on what she was writing about, give more details, but the author is in her early 20s. This is her fifth book. As far as I can tell, she is entirely self-taught, so for me to be asking for things that she probably hasn’t finished processing is a bit far fetched.

I bring this up, because, for example, she mentions that she realized she was a lesbian early on, but didn’t know what to do about it. Didn’t know how long to hide it. Didn’t know, exactly how to act on it. She says she realized that she got into figure skating because of the love that her first instructor showed towards her, the mother figure she wished she had, and she realizes that is the only reason she continued to skate, as she was still looking for that love.

This is a sad, longing story, of a girl lost in the world of figure skating, going through the motions, but not happy about it.

And this is a girl that at some point realized that art was what gave her the love and passion and joi de vivre that she once felt for figure skating, and so abandoned it to focus on her art.

I can’t wait to see what she writes next. Deep, interesting read.

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Souring through the skies

Nothing But Sky by Amy Trueblood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A good historical novel doesn’t make you stop and want to look up things, or perhaps it does. There were several times that I wanted to know if the person in the story, that had just been introduced, was real, and was pleased when I found out they were. That is the best kind of historical novel, to me, spinning in real events, around your fictional story.

This is a story about wing-walking and barnstorming. These are feats done by men and women after the first world war, hanging from bi-planes, while people watched from below. That is the main plot, of Grace, who is a wing-walker, who performs these stunts in the midwest, in the 1920s. This part is all realistic, and a bit of fun. There is also a sub-plot involving her two waitress friends at the diner, who want to go to Hollywood, and are running from an arranged marriage.

The only problem I have with this book, and it is relatively minor one, is that while you can tell she did some amazing work on getting the barnstorming part of the story correct, she doesn’t seem to have done as much research on the Hollywood part. And this probably won’t bother most people.

But it bothers me.

You see, my grandmother worked for Disney and Warner Brothers. My father worked for RKO, (which became Universal), and Warner Brothers. There is some amazing history there, some amazing people, especially in the 1920s, when this story took place. If she can throw in real people in Chicago, why can’t she throw in real studios in Hollywood? Why can’t she name areas of Los Angeles? It would make the story just as real when it was in Lincoln, Nebraska.

So, good, strong protagonist, and good strong story. So, other than that minor thing with the movie studios, I would recommend this good, and exciting, and surprising story.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Those wacky humans

50 Wacky Things Humans Do: Weird & amazing facts about the human body! by Walter Foster Jr. Creative Team
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a great little book of bits of science to get kids interested in well, the human body.

I went into this thinking, yeah, tell me something I don’t know, and coming out saying, I did not know that.

For example, while I did know that mother’s milk helped babies with their immune system, I did not know that the process of mothers kissing their babies helped move the babies germs into the mother so that her immune system can fight the germs, and give the immunity to her baby through mother’s milk. Way cool.

And while I know we have all heart of fireflies, did you k now that humans give off a very faint glow as well? Too soft for humans themselves to see, but there, none the less.

And another fun fact, is that human newborns have a grip so strong, that if they hung on to your finger, you could lift them up, and they would still hang on.

Kids get these little tastes of fun facts, and more, and hopefully want to delve in deeper than this book takes them, to learn more about the human body.

Great introduction to science.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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What is a proper job

When Are You Going to Get a Proper Job?: Parenting and the Creative Muse by Richy K. Chandler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I almost passed this book by. The thought of another self-help book, telling how to raise your kids. Please, I am so over that, and besides, my kid is grown and out the door.

But then, I read the description, that this was a graphic novel take on it, and then I read the book itself, and fell in love with Tariq and is little fiery muse.

This story is so close to how it is for any freelancer, who wants to do some sort of art for their own pleasure. As someone who writes, it is hard to find the time to do the art form you enjoy while raising kids. The voices that discuss this, and the actions that happen to Tariq in the book, reflect all the different ways to solve this problem.

I like the solutions demonstrated, and enjoyed reading the story as well. Well done.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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The right kind of Sherlock retelling

Girl Detective by R.A. Spratt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The book is describing Friday as an 11 year-old Sherlock Holmes, and that is sort of correct. But she is not just that. She is a whole person herself.

If you are thinking, oh, this is sort of like Encyclopedia Brown, which is what I thought going in, you will be pleasantly surprised that it is not. The only similiarty is that there are usually simple mysteries that if you are observant you can solve as well. All but a few were like that, at least for me. Some, near the end, felt a little dues ex macina.

There are some great lines in the book, to give you a good idea of the humor, as well as the writing style.

Friday had received an A+ for her presentation on Rosalind Franklin and how Watson, Crick and ovarian cancer had combined to cheat her out of a Nobel Price for her role in the discovery of the structure of DNA

See, if you didn’t know this, you learned this now.

Another quote that I put aside for this was:

“Yes,” said Friday. “The one thing Binky excels at is following instructions without thinking.”
“He gets that from our father,” said Melaine. “All the Pelly men are good at not thinking.”

And don’t be put off because the books were originally written and published in Australia. It has been “translated” for the most part, although there were little bits where I could tell it wasn’t originally an American book (which is fine by me).

So, you are probably asking, what is the book about? Well, it is about an 11 year old girl solving mysteries. If I say much more than that, it takes away from the enjoyment of reading and enjoying the book, at least it would for me. Friday is very likable, despite not fitting in (or in spite of, because who really does fit in at school?).

And yes it is Middle School (as opposed to YA), but don’t let that stop you. It is a quick (about 2 or 3 hours) fun read, and if you are burned out on YA or NA or whatever the current trend is, I would suggest picking this one up.

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Turtle Island, all the way down

Turtle Island: The Story of North America’s First People by Eldon Yellowhorn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Too many books about the Indiginous people of North and Central America take place after first-contact, after the Europeans have come and “discovered” them, as though they needed to be found.

This book, based on myths, and archeological digs, and stories that the elders have passed down, is the story of the people of Turtle Island, one of the names given to the North American continent by some of the First Nation people. The stories of these people, go from the time that they first came to Turtle Island in the last great Ice Age, to the year before Columbus came, bringing death and the end of a way of life that had been going on for thousands and thousands of years.

Each section explains how we know what we know, and what life was like back then. The saddest part, is the last chapter, with assimilation, and residence schools.

This should be a text book in all classrooms, and I hope it is. This is the story that needs to be taught.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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