Notorious Benedict Arnold

The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism, and Treachery Steve Sheinkin

I think that Sheinkin gets nominated every year, and I know he’s made it through to the short list at least once. There’s a reason why-- he’s just that good. Sheinkin has a way of telling a story, even one you think you’ve heard before and making it completely riveting. In this book he takes on Benedict Arnold, American hero and traitor. It’s a rip-roaring yarn of fierce battles, crazy stunts, and incredible bravery that then goes completely wrong when Arnold does the unthinkable. Although we’re still unsure as to WHY he did it, we get a much more complete picture of the man than we usually do. Sheinkin can really bring history alive.

I hope he takes on Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys soon!

Book Provided by... my local library

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Nonfiction Monday: Revolutionary War

2009 saw 3 books about the Revolutionary War nominated for a MG/YA Cybil Award.

For Liberty: The Story of the Boston Massacre Timothy Decker

Covering the Boston Massacre, this is an illustrated book for older readers. It's picture book format but almost works as a graphic novel. In black-and-white illustrations we see a close up of the first bullet fired, of the anger in protesting faces and in one chaotic crowd scene, small bubbles that show the steps in loading a musket.

Interestingly, this is the story of the Boston Massacre as told from the British perspective. While I think this a valuable balance to the history of the event, it ends up very skewed. It never mentions that people died, but does show 5 coffins. We get no names and it's very easy to walk away from the book thinking that the dead were British soldiers. In the end the text is so slight, relying much on visuals, that it doesn't give enough information. There's also no back matter for further reading or to fill in missing information.

Revolutionary War (Battle Box)

This is a rather intriguing concept. The Battle Box is a... box o'stuff. There's a book about the war, and then 13 pieces of war memorabilia-- things such as a replica of Continental Congress Dollar and a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Libraries who worry about circulating such things don't need to worry-- they're all pictured in the back of the book (which is useful even if you get to keep the goodies because it explains what each item is.)

The book itself is in interesting concept. It focuses almost exclusively on the major battles of the war, but it's also just a series of pull-out boxes. Yes, one can have pull-out boxes and no main text to be pulling out from. Very good for browsing and leafing through with TONS of great information--body and prisoner counts on both sides for each battle, timelines, mini-biographies, maps and more.

It'll work best for readers with some background information of the war to put it into context, but it's a very fun and cool concept.

Washington at Valley Forge Russell Freedman

OH LOOK! Russell Freedman wrote an awesome book.

This one covers the infamous winter the Continental Army spent at Valley Forge and how (and why) it completely transformed them from a ragtag group of soldiers into a fighting force capable of beating the British.

This was the most informative of the three books and while nothing can beat the kid appeal of Battle Box, this one wins for literary quality. It reads well and gives so much more information than one normally gets about that winter. It also does a great job of showing Washington's military inexperience (while we has a war hero, he had never commanded anything larger than a regiment before) and the political machinations that went on behind his back. Valley Forge not only transformed the army, but was also when Washington showed us how he became the father of our nation.

Plus, lots of great visual aids and more than enough back matter and citations to make me swoon.


Today's Nonfiction Round up is over at Telling Kids the Truth.

Books Provided by... the publishers for CYBILS consideration, except for Battle Box, which was provided by my wallet, for CYBILS consideration.

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.

Books for Nerds

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves M. T. Anderson

Octavian's not everyone's cup of tea. We know that right? This is not a book with mass teen, or general reader appeal. This is a book for your readers. Your nerdier types. You know who they are.

Sometimes, I think we get too hung up on "appeal." We're always asking who the audience is and if they will like it. We deal in buzz and word of mouth and everyone's trying to be the next Harry Potter or Twilight.

We don't have room for the odd book like Octavian. We wonder if, when books like this get awards, if the awards have lost touch with "what kids are reading today" even if the award is about quality and not appeal.

In our desire to get everyone reading and everyone into libraries we forget the nerds. The ones who've always sought refuge in our stacks. And I always wonder, in our quests to make everything appeal to everyone, if we're pushing away our core audience--the misfit geek crew.

Or, in my snarkier days, I'm wondering if we're just trying to make libraries cool so that the fact we spent every lunch period in our youth in the library will now be cool, and not nerdy, because we obviously still have some unresolved issues from our childhoods.

Anyway, Octavian is for the type who comes to the library even if it's not cool. Octavian is for, well, ME.

You should read the first one first. If you liked it, you should read the second. This one finds Octavian and Dr. Trefusis in British-occupied Boston, and then escaping to British-occupied Virginia, where the governor has promised escaped slaves their freedom if they fight for the Crown.

Octavian is taught harsh truths about the freedom is not equality, and no longer being a slave doesn't mean respect, or that people will value your life as much as they value their own. We see war, gritty horrifying war. We watch Norfolk burn. We hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait.

And I cried as I came to see the type of man Dr. Trefusis really was and lost all respect for him.

This book will be less shocking to readers than the first. While Anderson writes powerful and moving accounts of plantation slavery and war, readers are familiar with these themes, unlike the shock of the twisted ways of the College of Lucidity. But, if you liked the first, pick this one up and slip it to your bookworms.

Nonfiction Wednesday--1775-style

Today, we return to our regular book reviewing! These are both adult non-fiction titles that were recieved as part as Mini Book Expo for Bloggers, which if you are a book blogger and don't know about, you should totally check out.

Hurricane of Independence: The Untold Story of the Deadly Storm at the Deciding Moment of the American Revolution Tony Williams

In September of 1775, when the American colonies were preparing for war, a hurricane struck its way up the East Coast, affecting many of the revolutionary players. The hurricane, while taking many lives where it first hit in North Carolina's Outer Banks, did not have much effect on history. Williams uses it as a window in which to view the beginning of the war. Sadly, the window is not big enough to do what he wants to do and, overall, the book lacks cohesion and focus. More than anything, the storm serves as an excuse for an extended metaphor about the brewing political tempest. The book ends with a chapter on a second hurricane that struck Newfoundland shortly after the first struck the East Coast. Where Williams's conclusions that this was a different storm are interesting and new, one must question why they are included on the book of ostensibly about the American Revolution.

Although the premise is weak, and much of the material has been covered before, Williams's writing style is very engaging. For readers who have not yet read their way through the plethora of books on the Revolution, Hurricane of Independence is highly readable and interesting. I'm not just saying that! This book had some organization issues, but really, an excellent writing style and I look forward to reading more by the author.

Williams has a knack for writing about the weather and I wish he would have done a history of eighteenth century North American hurricanes. I firmly believe Williams could write a fascinating account, both due to his writing style and the fact that in this title, that is where he really added to the field.

Published by Sourcebooks.

A Treatise of Mathematical Instruments John Robertson

This is a reprint of the third edition of this title, which came out in 1775. Already I know you're asking, "Jennie, why on EARTH did you ask for this book?" Well... science history is pretty cool.

The parts of this book that I understood were really interesting. It's not an easy book to understand--first off, the font is based on the original, when they used s's that looked like f's. Plus, um... math tools I've never seen. And... math.

It starts off with a publishing history about the Sector Compass, which is what math people used before the slide rule. Now, this might sound dull, but there was much intellectual theft! And Galileo suing people for intellectual theft! Even though maybe he didn't invent the thing after all! Intrigue!

The treatise then discusses basic math tools. After a lengthly explanation of each, and how it might be used, there are several practice problems with long explanations on how to solve the problem using the tool in question. I totally understood the part on how to use a protractor, but when we got to the sector compass? And there were logs and trig functions? I really tried, but my eyes glazed over.

However! There are great discussions on how to make your own carbon paper, eighteenth century style, as well as a ton of information on British naval theory (and a mathematical proof on the most space-efficient way to store ones cannon balls), architecture, and how to draw using perspective. PLUS! When discussing the gunners callipers, Robertson is explaining how to use the conversion tables that are printed on the side. One of the example questions was the following: How long with 33 butts of beer serve a crew of 324 men, allowing to each man 3 wine quarts a day?. Talk about real life examples! This shows how important beer was to the navy (because it's sanitary to drink?) and is just a very practical question because there are a several conversions that need to be done to answer the question.

Also, the lack of standardization! A beer gallon was different than a wine gallon! One of the charts on the callipers was converting English feet to French feet (the measurement, not the body part.)

But, overall, there were many pages of computations I did not understand. The parts of this book I did get were fascinating. The other parts made me feel dumb.

Published by Invisible College Press.














*hee hee* butts of beer *hee hee*

We've already established that I'm 10.