Nonfiction Monday: Their Skeletons Speak

Their Skeletons Speak: Kennewick Man and the Paleoamerican World Sally M. Walker

We're almost done looking at the long list for YALSA's Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. Sally Walker had two books on the list this year-- big congratulations to her!

Like her Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland, Walker looks at the history and science and significance of several sets of remains. This time, she focuses on the oldest skeletons found in the Americas.

The book mostly focuses on 9,000 years-old Kennewick Man, how we was discovered on a riverbank in 1996 and how much we have discovered about where we came from.

I'm a huge fan of Bones and so I love of Walker shows us how the reconstruction and renderings work in real life. I find such things fascinating. I also like how Walker looks at a range of finds and how they all relate to each other in forming a unified theory of early human life in the Americas. I hope Walker continues to write books on using forensic science and history-- wonderful stuff.

Today's Nonfiction Monday round up is over at Stacking Books. Be sure to check it out!

Book Provided by... the publisher for awards 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.

Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer. Doctors took the cells they had taken in her biopsy, and more collected after her death. They were the first cells scientists were able to keep alive in the lab. Not only did they stay alive, but they continued to divide and grow. The strain, named HeLa, has been the foundation of most medical advancement of the past 60 years. Her family had no idea.

While HeLa is famous, Henrietta Lacks is not. HeLa cells are a multimillion dollar industry. Her children can't afford health insurance.

This is multiple stories in one-- there is the story of Henrietta's life and death and her children's lives. There is the story of medical advancement-- what her cells allowed people to discover. There is a history of changing medical ethics and morals. There is also the story of Skloot finding the story. After years of mistreatment by the medical establishment, the Lacks family didn't trust her and didn't want to talk to her. It's the story of how Skloot proved herself trustworthy and what she learned.

One of the most heartbreaking things in the story is the family's search for answers. Most of them didn't understand the basics of cell science and didn't understand how their mother could be dead, but her cells still alive and growing. Her daughter, Deborah, wondered if her mother felt pain when her cells were injected with disease. One of the reasons Deborah (and the rest of the family) eventually trusted Skloot was that she promised them answers. She shared all of her discoveries about her life, her death, and what her cells have done with family-- something no one had ever bothered to do before (at least not in a way they understood.)

There is also the story of Henrietta's oldest daughter, Elsie. Elsie was epileptic and mentally retarded, probably as a result of neurosyphilis. After Henrietta died, Elsie was institutionalized, where she died at the age of 15. Part of Deborah's deal with Skloot wasn't just for her mother's story, but also her sister's. Deborah wanted to know what had happened to them.

The lack of information, and much of this story, is tied to race and class issues and the sickening history of the medical establishment and African-Americans.

One of the most chilling things is that, while many laws of changed, many haven't. If a doctor or hospital collects your cells for a biopsy or blood test or any of the other routine things we go in for, after the tests they can use the samples for research--including selling it. Disclosure that this might happen is recommended, but not required, and up to the institution.

Overall this is a fascinating book about a story that needs to told and known. It's gripping and Skloot explains the science parts really well for those of us without a background in medical research. The people jump off the page and grab you. You want to know more and want it to end differently, knowing that it won't. Highly recommended.

Read an excerpt here.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Nonfiction Monday: Outer Space

I'm still working through my stack of Cybils books. All of them were read last fall, but in trying to get them all read in time, I didn't get around to formally reviewing them all yet. But here are two of the nominees, both about space!

Mission Control, This is Apollo: The Story of the First Voyages to the Moon Andrew Chaikin and Victoria Kohl, with paintings by Alan Bean

Chaikin, who also wrote A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts writes a kid's version, detailing all of the manned Apollo missions, from the first deadly one to the final one--the last time anyone has set foot on the moon.

There are several pull-out informational pages and great photography, but the best part is the paintings. Alan Bean, who walked on the moon as part of Apollo 12, turned to painting full-time after retiring from NASA. Many of his paintings, along with paragraph-long captions written by him, show moments that weren't captured on film, and ones that try to capture the emotion of the scene instead of just the visual facts. There's also a great section on how he creates his paintings-- including bits of moon dust and scuffing his work with replicas of his lunar boots.

But Jennie! Painting instead of photos is one of your biggest complaints about We Are the Ship! Why is it a feature here and a detriment there?

Simple-- because of how they're treated. Many of the paintings aren't mere replicas of photographs, however masterfully rendered. Also, the paintings are treated as works of art, making this almost a combination space book and art book. Each painting also has Bean's commentary-- what he was trying to capture and why he made the artistic choices that he did. They range from almost photo-realistic to fairly abstract. They also aren't the only visual elements in the book-- there are many, many photographs.

In addition to the paintings, my second favorite part of the book is the back flap, which shows a picture of Chaikin and Bean-- taken when Chaiken was 12 years old and Bean was training for Apollo 12.  What a wonderful story-behind-the-story, that a boy meeting one of his heroes would grow up and create something so awesome with that same person.

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

Cars on Mars: Roving the Red Planet Alexandra Siy

In January 2004, two rovers landed on Mars for a mission that scientists had planned to last three months. Six years later, and they're still going. (I checked! You can keep up-to-date here!)

Cars on Mars details the first four years of the mission and what the rovers, and scientists back on Earth, encountered and discovered.

Lots of cool Mars photos and fun information and showing how, no matter how prepared you are and how many hypothesis you have, you'll always find something new to surprise you.

My main complaint was the food metaphors, usually used to describe bedrock. They were seriously over-extended and got a bit tortured at times. Plus, I kinda want to EAT Mars after reading this book. Even though I know it's not made of cake and ice cream, it was compared to it SO OFTEN, that I think it must be pretty tasty.* And, she also says that "Fancy cakes are indisputably delicious." (p14) Well, let me dispute that RIGHT NOW. Most fancy cake is rather disgusting. Too much frosting, and it takes so much time to put together that by the time you eat it, the cake is stale.

While I understand the cake and ice cream imagery might make it easier for some kids to visualize what was going on, there had to be a way to doing it that didn't keep bringing up food.

Or maybe I should have eaten before reading the book.

My favorite bit was actually in the back matter, a spread called "Much more about Mars and the rovers" which is little tidbits and facts that I'm assuming wouldn't fit in the main narrative. One thing I didn't know was that the company that makes the Rock Abrasion Tool (which the rovers use to scape rocks so the scientists at home can figure out what they're made of) is based in New York and the cable shields are made of aluminum from the World Trade Center as an outer-space memorial to those who died in 9/11.

*Also lots of references to blueberries, but that's NASA's fault, because that's what they named the small, round rocks the size of peppercorns

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

Round-up is over at the Bookends Blog!

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.

Nonfiction Monday

So, the Cybils shortlists are out, which includes the shortlist for Middle Grade and Young Adult Nonfiction, which I was privileged to help put together. While there are many nominated titles that I haven't reviewed yet (and they are coming) there was only 1 from the short-list that I hadn't actually reviewed yet.

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland Sally M. Walker

So, I was sick over the holidays and spent a lot of time on the couch watching TV, where I became addicted to Bones. But even better? When they were doing all their medical mumbo-jumbo (the bones haven't fused yet, so this was obviously a younger person who...) I knew what they were talking about, just because of this book.

Yes, I'm a little partial to it because, for me, it's local history (and I learned SO MUCH that I didn't already know!)

Walker follows around a team of forensic anthropologists as they look at up colonial remains and try to discover who these people were, how they lived, and how they died.

There is one major missing factor in this, and it's one the author addresses up front-- the information is only about the colonists (both European and African.) There is nothing on the lives of the Native Americans who were already living here. This is because of cultural and religious concerns of several Native American tribes about the handling of remains. As Walker says in the introduction, "This choice [to not include Native Americans] is meant not to diminish the importance of Native Americans in the history of the Chesapeake region, but rather to respect the desire of their descendants to see their remains treated in a manner that respects cultural customs."

But, what it does cover is how scientists excavate remains and what different clues tell us. When Walker talks about how you can tell if it's a child or adult by fusing of the bones, she gives the readers pictures so we can see what fused and unfused bones look like. There's a picture of a female and male skull, which arrows pointing out the differences.

We learn about the science of forensic anthropology, as well colonial history-- burial customs, work customs, diet, and all sorts of other things.

Parts of it are not for the squemish, but it's a great book for your science kids and your history kids. I kept telling Dan what I was learning and showing him the pictures. A fantastic book in a year of fantastic nonfiction for younger readers.

Round up is over at Whispers of Dawn!

Book Provided by... the publisher, 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.