World Without Fish

World Without Fish Mark Kurlansky

Fish are dying out because of over-fishing, climate change, and a whole host of other issues. Once fish die out, it’ll start a chain reaction to other animals and then land creatures and surprisingly soon we’ll see catastrophic effects to human life.

This is a book with a MISSION. It’s written to turn us on to the problem facing fish and our oceans, written to spur us into action (there’s a whole chapter on how to start a movement.) Despite that, Kurlansky does a WONDERFUL job of explaining the complexities at play here. You can tell how much he’s studied this because there’s not one simple solution, there’s not one simple problem. This guy gets the sheer complexity and tiny facets of the issue and does a fantastic job of explaining them to younger readers. It also gets props for its excellent design. Major points in the text are handwritten in large letters, often in varying colors. There’s a comic that runs throughout showing how everything can die off within a generation. There are several solutions on how to help, and not one is stop eating fish, because Kurlasnky seriously respects fisherman and the role they play in alerting us to, and helping solve, the problem.

That said... the text is a bit alarmist and while I don’t doubt its accuracy, if you’re going to have something this extreme, you need some source notes and a bibliography to back it up. The only thing that gets cited is The Origin Of Species.

Seriously people--CITE YOUR SOURCES! Give us a bibliography of where we can check your facts instead of just organizations to get involved. Why is this such an issue?

Book Provided by... my local library

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Prince William and Kate

Prince William and Kate: A Royal Romance Matt Doeden

Starting with a brief biography of Wills and Kate before they met, and then detailing their courtship, engagement, and wedding, this is one that will be really popular with younger middle grade girls.

There’s nothing here that I didn’t know (and I’m not a huge royal watcher) but there are lots of large photographs and a good story about current events that kids are interested in.

This is one that didn’t wow me, but I wish we had in our library collection, because I know that if I put it on display, it would be snapped up in an instant.

Book Provided by... the publisher, for Cybils consideration

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Nonfiction Monday: Mysteries of Angkor Wat

The Mysteries of Angkor Wat Richard Sobol

When Sobol lived out a life-long dream to photograph the ancient ruins at Angkor Wat, he found something completely unexpected. When he gets to the temple complex, he is surrounded by children selling souvenirs. Anyone who's been to a developing nation tourist destination is used to this swarm of kids. Instead of pushing through, he takes their photograph and asks them to show him their favorite spot in the ruins. They will if show them their special dee no soo he comes back to see them. Sobol asks everyone and no one knows what the dee no soo is.

The book then delves further into the life of the children who grow up around the complex-- their school day (they start learning English early so they can more easily talk with international tourists) games they play, and extra-curriculars (like traditional dance classes.)

Eventually, he finds the kids again and they take him to see the super-special dee no soo. I won't say what it is, but it's so amazingly awesome. It's a something tourists won't see and it's something that only a kid would notice. It's perfect.

By focusing on the children, Sobol makes this book very kid-friendly. It's not a report book on Angkor Wat, but a great story about modern kids growing up next to something ancient. At the same time, there's great information and photographs introducing the Cambodian temple complex to readers. I love that he stopped to talk to the kids and thought to ask them what their favorite part of the complex was-- he discovered something he never would have seen.

The whole thing is really very cool.

Today's Nonfiction Roundup is over at A Curious Thing.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Nonfiction Monday: Flesh and Blood So Cheap

Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and its Legacy Albert Marrin

It's probably about time I got around to reviewing the book that I nominated for the MG/YA Nonfiction Cybils.

While this book is about the tragic fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, it's about so much more. Much of the book is about placing the fire in context. We're more than half-way through the book before the actual fire. Marrin instead details the immigration boom between the Civil War and WWI. He explores the tenements and the life that many of the Triangle workers led. There's some great stuff on photographer Jacob Riis and income inequality on Manhattan. There's a history of the sweatshop and how garment manufacture moved from home-based piecework to the factory. We also get information on the labor movement up until that point in time.

And then comes the devastation of the fire and the aftermath-- both in the local sense of judgements and sentences handed down (or not) and the larger impact on worker's rights.

There's also great information on how the mob became linked with unions and the history of the garment industry since the Triangle fire.

I most appreciated the end section on the modern sweatshop and the double-edged sword of sweatshop labor. Not even that it allows us cheap clothing, but that while, to a Western eye, these jobs seem horrible and inhumane, often in the locale of the sweatshop, its seen as a very good job with a much higher earning potential and better working conditions than anything else out there. It's a complicated issue that has more gray than we like to think, and I was happy to see it so well presented in a book for younger readers.

All in all the fire, the context, and the effects are presented and explained really well. There are several black-and-white photographs to illustrate the text and bring turn-of-the-century New York to life.

Today's Nonfiction Monday Round-up is over at Books Together.


Book Provided by... my wallet

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Nonfiction Monday: Wheels of Change

Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) Sue Macy

This is a very interesting book because it’s not just a look at bicycle history and how bicycle-mad America was in the late 19th century, but an in-depth look at how the bicycle helped the cause of women’s rights.

The bicycle allowed women greater freedom of movement and an acceptable way to exercise. In order to take part in its popularity, dress had to change and become less restrictive-- good by corsets, hello bloomers! (Did you know that the reason girl bikes don’t have that top bar is to make room for the heavy skirts worn at the time?) I also loved how women’s groups and farmers worked together to call for greater paving of roads-- and how the bicycle helped phase out horses in the years leading up to the automobile.

The design is wonderful-- frequent pull out boxes/side bars show different ways bikes were seen in pop culture-- one’s on racing, one on songs about biking (including, of course “Daisy Bell” aka “Bicycle Built for Two”) , one on bicycles used in advertising, etc, etc.

Lots of primary sources including frequent newspaper articles from around the country and big photographs. I especially loved that not all the photographs were of white riders-- there are a few of African-American women riding their bikes, too.

A refreshing quirky history that was very enjoyable to read.

OH! And a personal surprise-- the forward was written by Leah Missbach Day, the founder of World Bicycle Relief and MY OLD CAMP COUNSELOR. What?!

Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is over at Playing By the Book.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Wideness and Wonder

Wideness and Wonder: The Life and Art of Georgia O'Keeffe Susan Goldman Rubin

I ended up reading this one in one sitting. I was just going to start it while having a coffee at the coffeeshop and then BAM! I turned into a table hog, as I just kept turning the pages until I turned the last one.

This not Rubin’s only Cybils nominee-- she also wrote the Bernstein biography Music Was It: Young Leonard Bernstein.

In Wideness and Wonder, Rubin writes a fascinating and engaging account of O’Keefe’s life, but also really gets across how many barriers she had to break in the art world by being a female and American -trained.

What really blew me away though, was the design. As one would hope from a biography about an artist, it’s amply illustrated with her work. What I especially appreciated is that it was work from her entire career-- not just the flowers and animal bones. I never knew about her Art Deco-style work, which I absolutely adored. In addition to O’Keefe’s work, there are several photographs of her and the people in her life. Going beyond that though, and into the actual book design, every page is a different color---purple, yellow, blue and often has a subtle design in paler tones. It’s subtle enough that I didn’t find it at all distracting.

A wonderful book about a fascinating person.

Book Provided by... my local library

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To Timbuktu

To Timbuktu: Nine Countries, Two People, One True Story Casey Scieszka illus. Steven Weinberg

Casey and Steven meet while studying abroad in Morocco. They then return to their colleges on opposite sides of the country. After graduation, they move to Beijing to teach English for 6 months before backpacking through SE Asia and then going to Mali for a year, where Casey has a Fulbright to study the role is Islam in education.

There are a few things that make this book transcend the genre of “here’s a tale of my crazy adventures abroad”. One is Casey’s frank honesty in her writing, especially about the strain certain things put on their relationship. The other is Steven’s illustrations-- there’s a picture on every page and I most appreciated the crazy patterns he puts on the Malian fabric (which Casey assures us are not made up.)

They see many problems with gentrification of Beijing and the destruction of the hutong and with backpacking culture (going to a place to see the ‘unknown’ changes it) and they see both sides of the issue without taking sides. I think these issues are often glossed by travel memoirs or writers aren’t self-aware enough to see that they’re part of the problem (especially when writing about how tourism has spoiled a place that you’re a tourist in.) Casey handles such things really well.

They capture China so perfectly. It made me a bit heartsick, actually. Especially when talking about the street food.

It’s a great book, but I’m not sure it’s a YA book. (I read it because it’s a Cybil’s nominee.) It’s mostly a post-college adventure and I’m not sure on the teen appeal.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, Casey Scieszka does mention her father is a children’s book author. :)

Book Provided by... my local library

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Secret Santa!

I love Secret Santa. It's up there with Otis Redding singing "White Christmas", watching Love Actually on repeat, snow angels, gingerbread, and mulled wine for "favorite things about the holiday season."

What if there were a Secret Santa JUST for Book Bloggers. Oh wait! There is! Sign ups end tomorrow, so go DO IT NOW.

Bloody Times

Bloody Times: The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln and the Manhunt for Jefferson Davis James L Swanson

In my review of Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, (Swenson's other book for young readers) I pointed out that there was no bibliography or source notes included.

Bloody Times doesn’t have source notes or a bibliography (beyond “Bloody Crimes [the adult book this book is based on]...contains an extensive bibliography for further reading) but it does have a Further Reading list, a who’s who, and a glossary. (The glossary words are also bolded in the main text which is nice, but I found their choice of which words to include a bit... odd.) So, the back matter is better than Chasing Lincoln’s Killer but still incredibly disappointing.

The book itself covers two journeys-- the one that Lincoln’s funeral train took and the one that Jefferson Davis took between the fall of Richmond and his eventual capture. I found the Davis sections much more appealing because most of it was new to me, and, let’s face it, evading capture and trying to not end the war is just going to be more action-packed than a funeral train.

The main text didn’t pack and action and oomph of Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, mainly because the events didn’t lend themselves to the same sort of storytelling. It won’t be as well-liked by readers.

Most disappointing? Swanson thoroughly debunks the story that Jefferson Davis was wearing his wife’s clothing when he was finally captured. I always rather loved that mental image.

Overall, a solid effort, but won’t win over the non-history lovers like his first one did.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Jane Austen: A Life Revealed

Jane Austen: A Life Revealed Catherine Reef

Jane Austen didn’t leave much behind about her personal life. Very few of her letters survived, and family accounts of her appearance and personality directly contradict each other. One niece said she had “fine naturally curling hair, neither light nor dark” and another said she had “long, long black hair down to her knees.” Reef details what we do know, what’s debated, and what’s speculated about Austen’s life. Throughout, she weaves in the plots of Austen’s novels, often highlighting how they dovetail with events happening in Austen’s life at the time of writing.

Overall, I think Reef does a great job in writing a compelling biography with such scant primary source material. I think the referencing of book plots was a nice touch, but it also gives me pause. I think many readers will already know the plots and find the summaries a bit tedious. Other readers who will discover Jane through this book will find the plot summaries so well detailed, they may lose the inspiration to read the books for themselves.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Nonfiction Monday: Many Faces of George Washington

The Many Faces of George Washington: Remaking a Presidential Icon Carla Killough McClafferty

George Washington is forever etched into our minds as an old man with a clenched mouth and a powdered wig-- the same way he appears on the $1 bill. Or maybe a slightly more majestic side view from the quarter.

But George Washington was not always old and everyone who knew him said that no painter ever got his likeness quite right.

So... what did George Washington really look like?

The staff at Mt. Vernon wanted to find out and they wanted to make three statues of Washington-- one at 19, when he was a surveyor, one at 45 when he was a General in the Revolution, and one at 53, when he was being sworn in as the President.

The book is two-fold-- one part is history and explores who Washington was at the time-- how his actions and events shaped the man. The other part is science, technology and art-- how they determined what Washington looked like and then used that knowledge to make the statues. They couldn’t disturb Washington’s remains and just x-ray them to get a good sense of skull shape, so instead they looked at one bust that had been made from a mask taken of Washington’s face. They aged it up and down. They looked at his tailoring orders to learn about his body shape and how his clothes fit.

It’s a fascinating read. I already knew a bit about this due to a local news story (Mt. Vernon’s just a few miles away from my house) but I enjoyed learning more about the process (and now want to make the jaunt over to see the statues in person.) I think kids will be really interested to learn in more concrete terms that history’s figures aren’t perpetually frozen in time in their most iconic portraits or photographs-- they used to be kids, too and when they were, they just didn’t look like short versions of themselves. The process they went through to reconstruct Washington at different time periods is also a bit like a CSI or Bones episode, so that’s always cool.

A very neat book.

Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is over at Charlotte's Library!

Book Provided by... my local library

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Silk & Venom

Silk and Venom: Searching for a Dangerous Spider Katheryn Lasky, photographs by Christopher G. Knight

In this Scientists in the Field-esque book, we meet Greta Binford, an arachnologist who studies the brown recluse spider. We get an overview of spiders in general, Binford’s biography, and then follow her and her students on a trip to the Dominican Republic to look for brown recluse spiders. (Binford specifically studies how the brown recluse ended up in North America and how it’s related to the South American species.)

The book does a good job of balancing science with the process of doing science, which is something I always appreciate. I also like that we discover several different types of spiders, not just the brown recluse. Close up photography shows how different they are visually, but we also get a good information on how they act differently. Superhelpful and cool is the “glossary of spiders” at the back, which is basically a photochart of all the spiders we’ve met with the scientific and common names and on which pages they appear.

But... while it's Scientist in the Field-esque, it's not a Scientist in the Field book and lacks that certain something that make that series so awesome.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Throne of Fire

The Throne of Fire Rick Riordan

Aphosis- the snake of Chaos- is rising. Sadie, Carter, and the other magicians need to find a way to stop him before he destroys the world. Their only chance is finding and wakening Ra. But they can’t all do that, because an army is coming to attack Brooklyn House, and all the other magicians in the House of Life think the Kanes are evil.

Oh, and it’s Sadie’s birthday.

Epic adventure quest filled with mythical gods and monsters? Yes! It is, after all, Riordan.

Very enjoyable and fun. I continue to love the duel narration of this series. My favorite was Bes, the dwarf god, who travels with and protects the Kanes because Bast has to spy on Aphosis.

I’m a huge fan of Riordan’s children’s work (I haven’t reviewed any of the Percy Jackson stuff because I listen to it and I don’t review audio books, but I really like them) for great rip-roaring adventure. Plus, you learn things about mythology and ancient cultures and that’s always awesome.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Oil Spill

Oil Spill!: Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico Elaine Landau

I am very familiar with Elaine Landau as she’s written several books for the True Books series, which is GOLD for all my 2nd and 3rd graders who have research reports to do. She also writes for a lot of different nonfiction series that make up the “report book” bulk of a public library collection.

Oil Spill takes a different track-- this isn’t a report book. Sure, it could definitely be used for a report, but it has a high pick-up-and-read browsability factor Landau walks the reader through the Deepwater Horizon spill-- from the initial explosion up to today.

For once, I FINALLY understand how that blowout preventer was supposed to work and how it failed. She explains the mechanics of how drilling works and what went wrong in a way that instantly makes sense without over-simplifying the situation.

This is one the far young side of Middle Grade. In 32 concise pages, she walks us through the spill, trying to stop the oil and gas from gushing out, the clean-up, the effects, and the aftermath, plus ways kids can help, index, glossary, and further reading. All the while, she conveys a lot of information in a super-accessible way.

Not to mention the text is full of big, bright diagrams and photographs.

It’s very well-done and a great book.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Darth Paper Strikes Back

Darth Paper Strikes Back: An Origami Yoda Book Tom Angleberger

Dwight’s been suspended because Origami Yoda is too much of a distraction. It gets worse-- the Principal's recommended that Dwight be sent to CREF-- the Correctional and Remedial Education Facility-- where the really, really bad kids go. Before being hauled off, Origami Yoda tells Tommy to do one more thing-- assemble a case file. So Tommy’s back on the case, this time letting everyone detail the good Origami Yoda’s done and all the bad things that have happened since he left. Once again, Kellan illustrates and Harvey makes comments-- even though Harvey and his origami Darth Vader are responsible for this mess in the first place.

Just as awesome as the first PLUS! A new Star Wars pencil game (very cool) and some serious love for Robot Dreams
.

Here’s a tip girls-- if you have to decide between 2 guys, and one gives you Robot Dreams because “It’s so great. It’s this really beautiful story...” and one guy gives you an Elvis-playing Teddy Bear. GO FOR THE ROBOT DREAMS GUY. Trust me on this one. Go for Robot Dreams.

Lots of excellent Star Wars nerdery, lots of hilarity, and well, if you liked the first, you’ll like this. If you haven’t read the first, what are you waiting for?!

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.