Laura R.

Historical novel of a beauty pagent

Like Vanessa by Tami Charles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There is a story about Nichelle Nichols, who played Urura, in the original series of Star Trek, that she wanted to quit, after the first season. She felt she wasn’t doing anything special on the show, and felt she could do better elsewhere. But Martin Luther King Jr. told her to stay. That her being on the show as showing girls that looked like her, that they could be more.

And, in the 1983, for the first time since the Miss American contest began, a woman of color won. Vanessa Williams. Black girls, who thought they could never be Miss America now saw that they too could aspire.

Representation is important. It is important because, while we can imagine that we can be something, it is hard if we don’t have role models that show that yes, it can happen.

And while I had a feeling that some things in this book would turn out the way they did, this doens’t mean that this was all slapped together. This book made me cry at the right points, and feel for Vanessa at the right points, and all the feels were there.

And this is probably, although as the author says, she did not come from quite such a hard place as the Vanessa in this book, she too tried the beauty content route, and knows from where she speaks.

Well researched (I like that in an historical novel), and well written, and just wonderful.

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

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Things to know about chickens

Chicken Fact or Chicken Poop: The Chicken Whisperer’s Guide to the Facts and Fictions you Need to Know to Keep your Flock Healthy and Happy by Andy Schneider
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a well written reference guide to how to take care of your backyard chickens.

And this is done in a series of “old wives’ tales” about chickens, that are passed around either by word of mouth or by the Internet. I agree with most of these. Each “myth” is explained and the book also notes who explains it, such as a veterinarian

The one fact that I agree with, which I have seen shot down in another chicken book I reviewed, was the use of diatomaceous earth, and how good it was for fighting mites, and that it doesn’t harm the chickens.

The only “Fact or Poop” that I disagree with is the one about keeping a rooster. I have had my rooster fight to protect my (his) flock, from raptors (although not always succeed). The book says they are not necessary, and perhaps the hens can protect themselves on their own, but I must say that my rooster did love his flock and did everything he could to protect them. (The final trick was to have a flock of crows that liked having fresh water, and so fought off the raptors to keep their water and food coming.)

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

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What you need to know about Black Women

Black Girls Rock!: Celebrating the Power, Beauty, and Brilliance of Black Women by Beverly Bond
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is very important to have representation in literature, in books, on TV, in the movies. It is very important that children can see that there are “people like me” that have done great things.

If you don’t know that there are others like you, in life, in history, how can you know what has come before, and what you can do?

This book is a collection of essays, of speeches given, by women of color, by black women who are alive today, as well as short pieces on black women who have come before.

Yes, we all know who Sojourner Truth was, or I hope we do, and we certainly know who Harriet Tubman was, but how often are we taught about Zora Neal Hurston, when we are taught about the men of the Harlem Renaissance.

What I love about this collection is how varied the women in this volume are. We of course, begin with Michelle Obama, but we have Angela Davis, and Maxine Waters, Joy-Ann Reid, and Toshi Reagon.

This is a great collection. What a wonderful thing Beverly Bond did to create the Black Girls Rock Awards in 2006.

Highly recommended for schools and libraries as well as personal collections.

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

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Feminists year round.

The Little Book of Feminist Saints by Julia Pierpont
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I first picked this book, I thought, oh another book about famous women. Wonder if I’ll learn anything new.

Answer, yes, yes, I did.

This is more than just short histories of famous women. This is a collection that calls out why these women are famous and should be known about, and what they were known about. Yes, it is odd to make it out to be saint days, but why not?

And these are not light little nothings about famous women. These are all statements of why we should honor and listen to these women from the past and present.

For example, here is the excerpt about Rachel Carson, whose feast day is April 14:

The cancer had metastasized and her body had burns fromt he radiation.
Even the wig she wore when she went out was hot and itchy. And no one-her critis in particular-could k now of her condition, for fear it might be used to call her objectivity into question:
Silent Spring’s unprecedented claim was that petrochemicals were linked to human cancer. That day in San Franscico, she emphasized the urgency of her findings. “We behave,
not like people guided by scientific knowledge, but more like the poverbial bad housekeeper who sweeps dirt under the rug in the hope of getting it out of site.” “The Pollution of Our Environment”
would be her last speech: she died six months later.

And here is part of the excerpt about Nina Simone, the matron saint of soul:

“When I heard about the bombing of the church in which the four little balck girsl were killed in Alabama,” she said, “I shut myself up in a room and that song happened.”
The result was “Missisippi Goddam,” a rallying cry for the movement and one of Simone’s most famous protest songs.
Everybody knows about Missisippi-goddam.

And while I had heard and knew of Nellie Bly, the famous female journalist, I had not considered how important her story on the Insane Asylum was. And although I knew that Frances Perkins was the first female member of a U.S. president’s cabinate, I was not aware of how much work she did to make the Social Security Act be established, or minimum wages, or the forty-hour work week, and the banning of child labour.

This is a great book to get people to read, and realize how many great women are out there that we should know more about.

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

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Looking at the stars

What We See in the Stars: An Illustrated Tour of the Night Sky by Kelsey Oseid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Do you remember looking up at the stars as a kid, being told that is Orion’s Belt, Casiopea’s Chair or that is the Big Dipper, and all you could see were stars, not the picture the names suggested. And when you looked at reference books, they weren’t much better help.

This book is for the kid in us, as well as kids today. It is so cool. Well researched, well documented, and lovely pictures, showing which stars are supposed to represent what parts of the constellation. There is also a little bit of history, and what the brightest star is. This last bit is important, because depending on the light pollution in the area you are in, you might only be able to see the brightest star.

Each major constellation is written about, both ancient as well as modern. But, wait, there is more. This book also covers the Milky Way, the Sun and the phases of the moon.

The only failing is that there is not a large foldout start chart showing where to find all the stars, although that would be rather hard, because it is different depending where you are in the world.

Highly recommend this book for classrooms, libraries and personal homes.

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

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Funny Canadian History

Is Canada Even Real?: How a Nation Built on Hobos, Beavers, Weirdos, and Hip Hop Convinced the World to Beliebe by J.C. Villamere
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Did you know that Canada is a real country? That 2017 marks her 150 year of independence? Did you know they have their own tv and government and have hosted the olympics?

As an American I know how horribly ignorant we our of our neighbors to the north. And you are probably wondering how different they could be

This book pokes fun at those differences. You don’t need to know Canadian history or culture to enjoy this book. You don’t need to know who was the first prime minister or what tv shows they have had. In fact the book is written with the assumption that you do not know any of these things.

Don’t expect to read it to learn anything non trivial though. This is all weird trivia and totally fun. We learn there is a cartoon character called Peter the Puck to promote hockey. We learn about a pair of mascots for the Calgary olympics called Hidy and Howdy, pollard bears even though there are no polar bears living in Calgary. And we learn that the name of the Hudson Bay Company magazine fit years was called The Beaver.

Each chapter ends with a quiz with the answers, which are also amusing.

Would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read about the weirder facts of Canada

Thanks to Netgalley for making this available for an honest review

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For those who love Laura Ingalls Wilder, and want to know more.

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My father was a young man when the Depression hit, in 1929. And although the line of work he was in, first building movie stars home, and then working for the studios building sets, did not suffer, the rest of his family did. He was, if not the sole supporter of his family, of his four, then three brothers, and parents, he was at least the main breadwinner. This effected him for the rest of his life. He knew how to pinch pennies like it was no ones business. Although he ended up building a house for the family he had later, in a posh area of L.A., he would still shift through trash cans to find recycling material, on trash day, before recycling was a big thing.

Laura Ingalls Wilder survived not one, not two, but three depressions. We, as a collective we, remember the one in 1929, because our grandparents, and parents remember it. But few today remember the ones that happened in the late 1800s.

Laura did, and she, like my father, knew that there might, and would be another one around the corner, and so stayed as thrifty as she could be, even when her farms in the Ozarks was doing well, and she was relatively comfortable. And, because she had survived, she figured that others could do the same, without government help.

I bring this last point up, because this is a major theme going through this very weighty tome about Laura’s life. The second major theme, that is hammered home, is that the homestead act was a disaster, and caused the Dust Bowl. And because the Homestead act was help from the government, Laura was a hypocrite in later life.

You may think you know about the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, because you have read all the Little House books, as I have. You may think, well, I have also read the ones that came out after her death, such as On the Way home (her leaving the Dakotas for the Ozarks), West from Home (about her trip to San Francisco to hang out with her daughter Rose), or even Little house in the Ozarks the collection of her columns she was writing for the newspapers, before she wrote the little house books. Yes, I too have read those as well, and yet, much of Prairie Fires covers even more than that. It brings in the history of what was really going on, when her stories were supposed to have taken place, as well as the history of what happened after she left the Dakotas, until, in the height of the depression, she started writing about her life, to bring in a little more money.

Have you ever wondered why The First Four Years is so very, very different from all her other books? This book answers that question. It also explains how the books are really out of order, how Little House on the Prairie should have come first, then Little House in the Big Woods.

And although I love her books, and probably always will, it is amazing to see how she and Rose, her daughter, changed the narrative, so that everything was built on self-reliance, that no one ever needed a hand out if they all stuck together, and by gum, you could have a farm, and make a living, and it was all good, despite that not being how it ended up.

Warning, this is a long, and weighty book, filled with footnotes, and citations, and a boat-load of research.

Highly recommend it to all of those of us who grew up on these stories. Everyone should add this book to their collection.

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

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Picture book is best at making pictures

Home Sweet Home by Mia Cassany
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is more visual, then anything, since it is, after all a picture book. It is supposed to be various homes as seen by pets.

While the houses are quite interesting to look at, I doubt many children will ever actually see any houses like these in their lifetime, even if they travel to the countries where these houses are, although Victorians are prevalent in San Francisco. But I have been to Japan, and never stayed at a traditional house, they are not that common any more.

The best way to read this book, I think is just to star at the pictures, which are quite detailed, and fun. The text is ok, but the pictures sell this book.

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

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