Boy oh Boy by Cliff Leek, Bene Rohlmann

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This colorful book, illustrated nicely by Rohlmann and written concisely, but informatively by Leek, takes a brief look at the careers of thirty men who have not exactly gone in for a career in a regular job in an office or a factory - although some may have begun their journey that way.

Some of them you will know by name - or certainly ought to know, and others will be more obscure if your experience is anything like mine. Personally I knew just over half of them. There were some others I'd maybe heard of, maybe not, but the important thing is that I'm a lot wiser now!

The mini-bio in each case gives important details about each person and explains why they're worthy of being included in such an august list. Listed alphabetically by last name, the 'boys' are these:

• Carlos Acosta
• Muhammad Ali
• César Chávez
• Luther Christman
• Ta-Nehisi Coates
• John Dewey
• Frederick Douglass
• WEB Du Bois
• Edward Enninful
• Jaime Escalante
• Grandmaster Flash
• Mahatma Gandhi
• David Hockney
• Ezra Jack Keats
• Lebron James
• Bruce Lee
• Richard Loving
• Nelson Mandela
• Patricio Manuel
• Thurgood Marshall
• Freddie Mercury
• Hayao Miyazaki
• John Muir
• Alfred Nobel
• Prince
• Bayard Rustin
• Carl Sagan
• George Washington Carver
• Oscar Wilde
• Kit Yan

Note that this isn't the order they're in in the book. I'm not sure what order they're in in the book since it begins with David Hockney, who has neither a first nor a last name that comes first in this list, nor was he born first. The list includes artists such as Hockney (painting), Prince (music), Miyazaki (film), and Acosta (ballet), sports such as Ali (boxing) and James (basketball), as well as union organizers such as Chávez and civil rights campaigners such as Ghandi, Loving, Mandela, and Rustin, so there's a variety, including two ftm transgender entries.

I have to note that most (60%) of the people in the list are Americans, with another 13% British, leaving the rest dotted around in an assortment of other countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia. I'd like to have seen better international coverage, but given who is in this list, it isn't too bad for a start, so I commend it as a worthy read, offering alternatives to boys who might be drawn to certain interests which some clueless people might foolishly seek to dissuade them from.

Supersize Cross Sections: Inside Engines by Pascale Hedelin, Lou Rihn

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Erratum:
There is a spelling error on the Hindenburg page. Item 04, about the keel, misspells the word 'structure'

Supersize cross-sections are not exactly supersize on an iPad, so my being only the kind of reviewer who doesn't merit a print book for review, I can only guess at how the final copy will look, but viewed in relatively small scale on a medium sized iPad, it looked swell, and would have fascinated me as a child, because I always enjoyed reading the 'how things worked' books, and especially ones with cutaways.

Starting with a pirate ship to get the saliva flowing, this book also covers the Orient Express (now that would have been useful when I wrote my parody!), The Titanic, the Hindenburg, a Sherman tank, the Saturn V rocket (always my favorite - modern rockets have nowhere near the same class that one did), the International Space Station, a submarine, a fire engine, and a host of other items, including a circus and totaling fifteen in all.

The drawings are in color, are crisp and clear, and each important part is numbered, with a key by the side of the drawing explaining what was going on in that section. It's perfect, and I commend it whole-heartedly!

The Dictionary of Difficult Words by Jane Solomon, Louise Lockhart

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I'm quite erudite and familiar with a lot of singular or putatively obscure words, but there were still some in here that I found new or otherwise interesting. I imagine this will be a useful book for any logophile - or if they were not one when they started reading this, they will undoubtedly be so by the time they're finished! The book devotes around two pages to each letter of the alphabet providing a total of some 400 words in all. It's illustrated amusingly by Lockhart and compiled by Solomon. Lockhart and Solomon sounds like a law firm doesn't it? Or an office of private investigators!

But I digress! This is definitely a book for anyone who loves words or who is interested in writing, and if you don't love words, you really have no business being a writer!

Planet Fashion by Natasha Slee, Cynthia Kittler

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Illustrated in style(!) by Cynthia Kittler, this book is an unusual one for children, but I think it will be well-received. Anyone who knows me well or who has read some of my reviews, will know I have no time for the fashion industry, but this book isn't about those pretentious and self-indulgent poseurs. It's a history book about how fashions have changed over the last century and who was wearing what and when. Naturally it's quite USA and Euro-centric, but it also covers other places, such as Australasia and Central America, which was commendable.

It's designed as a print book which means the tablet computer cannot really present it properly. It has to be enlarged to read the text, and then reduced to slide to the next double-page spread, and frankly this caused issues on occasion, with a page disappearing or appearing out of order until I swiped back and then forward again, which seemed to fix it. Do not proceed to page 33 or you will become stuck like I did, unable to swipe back from it! You have to use the slider at the bottom of the screen to get back. Those irritations aside, the book is fully-illustrated and very colorful, but it's not all imagery - there is a lot of text supporting each page and the book is quite long for a children's book, but it is packed with information and interesting facts, and the last few pages have timelines to augment the text.

There is a small boy and a small girl who appear on each double-page whom you're encouraged to look for, and who are dressed in the fashion of the time, and there is also a search exercise at the back where you look at a series of smaller images taken from the earlier pages and then try to find which page it came from. Doubtlessly that would be easier in a print book too. Little kids will have a blast with that while learning something important about how we humans love to adorn ourselves for better or for worse as each page transports them progressively to a different era, and often a different country. I commend this as a fun and education book.

D-Day by Michael Noble

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a nice overview of what was involved for those people who had to face the beaches on D-Day, June 6th 1944. It's told truthfully but not too graphically, so it tells the story, and how bad things were, without overdoing it or skipping the truth about what those men - and women - faced.

Yes, there are women featured here, including one who went onto the beach with the men. She wasn't supposed to, but Martha Gellhorn was resentful that her then husband, Ernest Hemingway, got to go, and she was passed over for a male journalist when it came to her publication's chance to send someone. Martha had an interesting history (not covered here). She was fired from a job after she reported a coworker for sexual harassment. After other adventures, She hid in a lavatory on a ship during D-Day, and then went up on the beaches disguised as a stretcher bearer. She was arrested on her return to England.

She's not the only remarkable woman covered here. We learn of others, along with many men from several nations, including Germany, who were involved in one aspect or another of the landing, either taking part in it on land, sea, or air, preparing weather forecasts for it, designing vehicles to deal with conditions they would find there, or defending the beach, and so on. One story was of a fifteen-year-old boy who was on a boat tasked with towing materials across the channel which would be used to create a temporary harbor for other ships coming later. This was another critical mission which, had it failed, would have hampered the effort.

One of my favorites is Dave Shannon, an RAF pilot who hailed from Australia. The book doesn't mention this, but he was part of the Dam Busters raid in May of 1943 that took down the Eder and the Moehne dams in Germany and dealt a severe blow to the Nazi war effort. On the night before the Normandy landings, this same squadron, used to difficult flying tasks, were assigned to fly progressively in precise order across the channel dropping what the Brits called 'window' which was material that would give a radar echo that made it look like a convoy was crossing the channel. They would fly so far, return, then fly the same route again, but advancing very slightly each time. This is where the precise flying came in. If they had not been exact, the radar signal would have jumped and given the game away, but they did not fail. The Germans were convinced that a large convoy was approaching and that this was where the landing would be, when it was in fact a hundred miles away. It was one of the greatest deceptions of the war.

All of these stories are remarkable, and all worth knowing. I commend this as a worthy read.

Malinche, Pocahontas, and Sacagawea by Rebecca K Jager

Rating: WARTY!

Subtitled "Indian Women as Cultural Intermediaries and National Symbols," this book turned out to be completely wrong for my purposes and from the little I read of it, it felt to me to be completely wrong when it came to the purpose the author evidently intended it to serve. It seemed abusive to me in a way, in ascribing two, three, or four hundred years on, motives to women whose motives were never considered important at the time, so we have no idea what moved them to do the things they did, and we most certainly no grounds to ascribe high-flying reasons for their behavior.

The book does talk about the mythology that has built-up around these woman and discusses the roots and aims of that in some detail, but that aspect of their story as viewed today seems to me to be so painfully obvious as to be a fruitless exercise in pursuing it more. People have used these women for their own ends whether those ends were supposedly noble or malign. Of that there is no doubt, but the book seems like it wants to go beyond all that to view them in hindsight as cross-cultural ambassadors and I don't agree that's what they were. They were certainly not at the time, and ascribing such a role to them in hindsight seems pointless to me. It seems like it's just as abusive to them as people were in their own lifetime by disrespecting and using them in much the same way that people have done ever since.

The simplest solution to me is that these women acted in their own best interest, and in the interest of the foreigners for whom they may have developed feelings of affection, respect, or love. It's a perfectly human motive, and it's not superhuman. Malinche, who aided Hernán Cortés during the Spanish take-over of central America in the sixteenth century had been treated shabbily by her own people and was respected by the Spanish, so it's entirely unsurprising that she had switched loyalty and wanted to help those who had treated her better than her own people had. There is no overriding nationalist motive here, anti or otherwise. These women had no great plan. They had none of the hindsight we have today, to see where this was going. They were merely doing what they saw as best in their circumstances at the time.

The same 'motive' applies to Matoaka (aka Pocahontas) and Sakakawia (aka Sacagawea). Matoaka was a child and came to the Jamestown village because it was exciting and new, and there were new playmates to interest her. She was not a princess. She did not represent her father. She had no great diplomatic aspirations. Yes, she came often with gifts of food, but there's nothing recorded to show that this was her idea as opposed, say, to her father's idea. Maybe she talked her father into it, maybe not. We don't know! Maybe she was no more than a spy for her father, infiltrating the English camp and reporting all she saw back to dad. We don't know!

The great life-saving story that John Smith belatedly related was in my opinion pure fiction, and there's an end to it. He'd used the same story before in a different context. And Disney ought to be ashamed of themselves for dishonestly portraying it as a love story, but since when have they cared about historical accuracy, or about integrity in retelling ancient fairytales?

Sakakawia started out in very much the same as Malinche, being kidnapped at a young age and sold or traded off. Her life followed a somewhat less abusive trail than did Malinche's but they were both torn from their roots and were sharp enough women to make it work for them. My own personal feeling about Sakakawia isn't that she saw herself as a great diplomat either, but that she enjoyed new adventures and may well have talked her way into being the one wife of Charbonneau who went on this excursion merely because she relaly wanted to go. She had no great ambition to be a bridge between peoples and to pretend now that she was is farcical!

So I can't take a so-called 'scholarly work' like this seriously, I really can't, and I certainly cannot commend it as a worthy read.

Sacagawea: crossing the continent with Lewis & Clark by Emma Carlson Berne

Rating: WORTHY!

I'm reviewing three different books this month about the life of "Sacagawea" who is actually more accurately referred to as "Sakakawia" - which was, it's important to remember, her Hidatsa name, not her Shoshone name. No one at the time bothered to ask her about her previous name or her life before the Hidatsa era. All we know of her earlier life came out because of fortuitous coincidence during the expedition.

William Clark spent a lot of time with Sakakawia, but he never wrote anything down of their interactions - which admittedly were limited in regard to conversation since she spoke no English and he none of Shoshone, Hidatasa, or French, all of which she had at least a smattering of. Since American Indian names tended to be quite fluid throughout life, perhaps Sakakawia didn't care that much how she was referred to or would have been concerned if two centuries on, we had a clue what it really was or what her short life had been.

This book was fine, but of the three I've read, it was the least interesting even though it wasn't the last I read. I say that because the facts are very limited in discussing her life, and the only thing a new author can add is their own spin, which may or may not count for much. So one book about her tends to be very much like another. That's why I don't intend to write yet another boring book about her life on the expedition; I have something very different in mind which to my knowledge hasn't been done before, and this is why I've been reading all of these books, and why I intend to read the Lewis and Clark diaries too. This is all for background, but my story won't be the expedition, which I feel has been done to death and beyond.

This book tells a workmanlike version of the story if given to flights of fancy at times. That said it isn't ridiculously exaggerated and it does not make up stories any more than any bother such book has done. The problem is that these books tend to ascribe things that were never there in real life. All native Americans, for example, were tough people back then, men and women alike, so personally I don't feel there was anything particularly special about Sakakawia's toughness and abilities. Any "Indian Squaw" could have done what this woman did because it's what they did day in and day out!

I do feel, and this is just a guess, that she had an interest in adventure, and so was game to go on this expedition. It could have been Charbonneau's other wife (latterly referred to as 'Otter Woman' although no one actually recorded her name at the time) who went instead, but to me it feels like Sakakawia was intent on going and did not see her post-partum status as an obstacle, whereas Charbonneau's 'Other Woman' wasn't at all interested, and perhaps this 'Older Woman' saw his prolonged absence as a chance to get away from him and find a better life for herself? The truth is that we don't know how or why the cut was made the way it was, we just know it was.

The backcover blurb for this book - which is not typically in the hands of the author admittedly - claims that without Sakakawia, "Lewis and Clark certainly could never have succeeded," but I think that's patent buffaloshit. I think they would have succeeded with or without Sakakawia, with or without "Otter Woman" and with or without Charbonneau, but that doesn't take anything away from the real and solid contributions that Sakakawia made and the fortitude and can-do qualities she exhibited. She deserved a hell of a lot better than she got, and she deserves to be remembered, honored, and commemorated. If this book helps with that, then it's a worthy read.

Sacagawea : westward with Lewis and Clark by Alana J White

Rating: WORTHY!

With any book on Sacagawea the problem is not only getting her name wrong, but also fictionalizing her life and adding fanciful and wishful things which are not in the historical record. This is nothing new. Historical revision began over a century ago when the suffragette movement in the USA was looking for a strong female figurehead and poor Sakakawea was resurrected to fit the bill. That's when the myth-making began. No one stopped to think whether she would have wanted or supported something like that.

The fundamental truth about her is that the record is light. She's barely mentioned in the diaries that the two expedition leaders kept, and when she is, the variations in spelling are numerous making it difficult to do a search to find all the references to her. She's referred to as "the Indian woman", as "Charbonneau's squaw" (various spellings), and by the name the Hidatsa kidnappers gave to her (again with variations). That's how little regard she was given at the time.

No one bothered to record her original name or her thoughts and feelings about the journey. In that, she was treated like every other member of the expedition despite being the youngest who also happened to be carrying and expertly caring for a young baby for the entire journey. In this, she was treated as an equal to the men, so in that regard she might be considered the first recorded exemplar of equal rights in North America.

The closest we can come to her Hidatsa name is Sakakawia which means Bird (sakaka) Woman (wea). No one recorded why she had this particular name or what happened to her original Shoshone name. Native American names were very fluid, changing sometimes many times between birth and death. They were more like a current status - like something in social media - than an actual name as we in the west in modern times view names, so perhaps even Sakakawia didn't care that much what her name was.

This book along with most others, refers to her as Sacagawea which is closest to the name used phonetically in more than one spelling, in the diaries. As to her Shoshone name, no one knows what it was. A popular one doing the rounds is 'Boinaiv', but that sounds far too much like Bowie Knife to be taken seriously. Besides, as far as I know, Grass Woman in Shoshone is Ambosoni, not Bonaiv!

The next thing the books tend to do is to inflate Sakakawia's importance and contributions to the expedition by claiming, for example, that it could not have succeeded without her. I don't buy that, and neither Lewis nor Clark ever made such a claim, but this takes nothing away from the important contributions she did make, which were acknowledged by the expedition leaders.

Stoicism was an important part of Indian life. These people were tough and resilient, and Sakakawia was stoic without a doubt. She never complained, even when she was sick. She accepted what life laid before her if perhaps hoping always for something better. She obviously never wanted to be kidnapped by the Hidatsa, but she made a life with them. She more than likely didn't want to be married to Charbonneau, but she made a life with him, too.

When he signed on for the expedition, in part being allowed in because he could boast two "squaws" who spoke Shoshone, it raises the question as to why she went along when she had a newborn in tow, rather than his other wife who was referred to in later mythology as midapokawia (Otter Woman), although she remained nameless during the time of the expedition and disappeared from recorded history at that time.

But she was older with no new child, so why take the younger post-partum woman? Personally my feeling is that Sakakawia actually wanted to go on the expedition and didn't see her newborn as an obstacle. I really think she wanted the adventure and a chance of seeing her own people again, whereas 'Otter Woman' (Other Woman?!) wasn't that interested and perhaps saw this as a chance to get away from Charbonneau in his absence?

There seems to be some conflation of Otter Woman with the friend of Sakakawia's who was kidnapped at the same time as she was. That girl is referred to as Leaping Fish. I have no idea what the Shoshone for that name is, but fish is Akai. She was not Otter Woman, because Leaping (or Jumping) Fish managed to escape the Hidatsa and return to her own people. Why Sakakawia didn't go with her was never recorded. Perhaps she could not escape, didn't know about Leaping Fish's escape plan, or was recaptured. Or maybe she didn't want to escape because staying with the Hidatsa was an adventure for her - a chance to see different things. Perhaps that's why she married Charbonneau too. Perhaps she didn't escape because Charbonneau offered another distraction. We simply don't know.

So those are the facts, and this book does not embellish them inordinately. It tells a wider story, too, offering insights into life back then, into the different tribes we learn of, and so on, so it fills out the story and makes for a much more rounded reading experience. But in the end, one book about 'Sacagawea' is pretty much, of necessity, like another, because the facts don't change - only the spin an author chooses to put on them. So while I think I am done reading such books after this present flurry, I can commend this one as a worthy read.

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was an autobiographical comic following the author's long, and evidently ongoing, trek into gender identity. At one point, the author choses to use what are referred to as 'Spivak' pronouns (E, Em, Eir) after Michael Spivak, for reasons which are never made clear. These particular ones were first used in 1975 by Christine Elverson, so I didn't get why they weren't referred to as 'Elverson pronouns', but there it is.

For me, one big problem with these sort of options is that there is maybe half-dozen or more sets of them, all unagreed upon. For me, the worst problem with them is that they're superfluous when we already have they, them, and their which are all-inclusive gender-neutral words. Personally, I find this to be a fatuous and pointless attempt to create a new word group set when a perfectly functional one already exists. I'm for simplicity and clarity, for ease and comfort, so I will use existing, established pronouns in this review.

The journey they undertook in trying to feel comfortable with themselves is a remarkable and moving one, told here unvarnished and raw as it must have felt in making that journey. To feel constantly uncomfortable with your body in a world which has a two-million-year tradition of humans supposedly (if often delusionally) being definitely either male or female has to be traumatizing, and we get the whole feeling of that conveyed in this book. If it makes you feel uncomfortable and brings you along on this journey, then author is doing a fine job. It worked for me.

A person who starts out biologically female, and if the zygote is destined to be a male, certain things need to kick in, and often they do, but quite often they do not, or they kick in part way, and this is how we get a sliding scale, all too often holding people hostage, who feel somewhere adrift, but not exactly sure where.

In this case the author ended-up feeling extremely uncomfortable with breasts, and a vagina that bleeds periodically(!), but not feeling like a male either (even while harboring fantasies about male physiology), they became someone who is interested in friendship and companionship but not in marriage, children, or even sex. "What am I?" is a question they asked themselves frequently - as frequently, probably, as "Where am I going and what will I find when I get there?" which is a scary question for anyone in this position.

The blurb says this book is "a useful and touching guide on gender identity" but I disagree. I think it's more of a guide in lack of identity, and how to cope with that, how to work with it, how to address it and pursue your own path even while surrounded by uncertainty.

This was a long journey, and I traveled every step of the way, and I think this book is an amazing and informative volume, very personal, but universal, very uncomfortable, but comforting, readable, amusing, disturbing and unnerving. I think everyone needs to read this and try to understand it, especially in the political climate we've made for ourselves in the USA right now. I commend this as a worthy read and salute the author and wish them an easier journey in the coming years than it has been at times over the last few.

Art Makers: Polymer Clay for Beginners by Emily Chen

Rating: WARTY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I'd never heard of polymer clay and I don't consider myself an artist, but art interests me and has done more so since I started this childrens' picture book series of mine, so anything out of my experience zone tends to attract my attention.

For the most part, this book was well-written and very informative, colorfully illustrated and explained in detail where necessary. This 'clay' is made from polyvinyl chloride or PVC. The water that comes into your house and the waste you flush away more than likely runs through PVC pipes, and the electricity you use more than likely runs through cables insulated with PVC. Polymer clay is treated in various ways with 'plasticizers' to render it into modeling clay. You will need to work it to get it soft and ready to mold into whatever shapes you want, but once it's 'loosened up' it's just like clay. When heat-treated though, instead of melting or drooping, it hardens and retains its shape; it's rather like baking ceramic or pottery. It also retains its color. This makes it perfect for making items you want to keep and even use, such as jewelry. You could make buttons for your clothes and other useful items such as, for example, the pieces for a chess game - and even the chessboard itself!

The author shows many techniques and steps the reader through making a variety of items, some of which look good enough to eat - such as fake chocolate chip cookies and a fruit flan that, when done properly, looks very realistic. Polymer clay comes in a variety of bright colors and it mixes readily with other colors to blend shades. There are also varieties you can get which make for a semi-translucent or a pearlescent finish. You can, as the author explains, add other materials to the clay to change appearance, and make a more matte finish to your project. The clay remains workable until 'cured' by heating at relatively low temperatures in an ordinary oven, but perhaps a dedicated oven might be a better bet, or an alternate heating technique. Here's why.

The author doesn't mention this, which for me was a big no-no, but there are certain health risks associated with long-term use of certain types of polymer clay - specifically those which contain more than 0.1% of any of a half-dozen specific chemicals known as phthalates. This is why polymer clay isn't a good material for making children's toys or for making items which might be used as food containers. I understand that the manufacturers of this clay have sought to remove such plasticizers from the clay since 2008, but it's always a good idea to be fully aware of what it is you're working with and what the risks are, which is why I would have preferred at least a mention of this in the book.

I found this an inexcusable omission in that this was not mentioned at all. I also understand from reading around on the topic, that the clay doesn't necessarily need to be baked - it can be heat treated with a hair dryer, dryer for example, or put into very hot water and left for a time to harden that way. Given that some formulations of polymer clay could exude hydrogen chloride gas when heated, the water idea seems like a safer bet to me, but maybe more modern formulations of the clay do not have this problem.

The fact is that I don't know, and the author made no mention of this in this book. I think this was a serious omission and which is why I am not recommending this book. The author also neglected to mention pricing, which can vary and change over time, I know, but a rough price-range would have been nice as a guide. A dedicated oven (an old toaster oven will do) might cost around $70. The clay itself costs about a dollar an ounce, or perhaps more from a brief survey I did, and a hand pasta roller - which you can use to work the clay and make it malleable prior to modeling, will be around $30, although you can work it by hand or even with a rolling pin, I guess; then you would not want to use that rolling pin for food, so a dedicated roller is also wise.

So while this book did offer hints, tips and advice about getting started, the lack of any sort of pricing or safety warnings made it a fail for me, and I cannot commend it. It may well be that safety concerns have been reduced with newer formulations of this material, but still a note of caution would have been wise I felt, especially if (for all I know) there may be 'cut price' older formulations of this material out there. Hopefully there are not!

The Art of Visual Notetaking by Emily Mills

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was an interesting book discussing a technique for note-taking that involves not just notes, but graphical elements to enhance the written word, highlight portions of it, and make specific points stick in the memory.

While I am confident this will help people who are very visual in how they retain information, I have to say that for me personally, I saw no use for it. I am not a student and rarely attend lectures and conferences, so I have no need of note-taking for that purpose, but I can see a use for this in brainstorming ideas for writing projects which I'm very much into!

One thing I would have liked to have seen discussed is how well this author's note-taking held up over time so that, for example, if she went back several years later, and consulted notes she had taken much earlier for a conference or lecture, how much of what she had drawn and written would be clear to her.

The reason I mention his was that she included images of two examples of her own work, one a church conference which was the first thing she did this on, and another - a later example of her note-taking - when she attended a lecture by a writer. To me the church conference material made a kind of sense, but the material she had prepared representing the writer's lecture made zero sense at all. It conveyed literally nothing except that the writer was tall, which to me was irrelevant and said more to me about the author of the notes than the author the notes were about! Obviously they were not taken for me and would mean more to the person who created the record, but I would have liked to have heard about that side of the process.

This raised another issue related to the one I just raised: we do not remain the same people over our lifetime. While there are, of course, continuities, we are different in high school than in college and different again in a college senior year than we were when new to college life. It occurs to me that we do not perceive the world in quite the same way, and therefore the imagery that we might employ to represent something as a high school senior might be significantly different from that we employ as a college senior or a doctoral candidate. This author must have insights into that, but I don't recall any of that being raised here which mades me sad and a little disappointed.

That aside, though, I think this book has value and it was a worthy read for me. There were some minor issues related to the fact that this was obviously designed as a print book with little thought given to the electronic version which is why page 73 for example, led to blank page 71, which in turn led to page 74! Strange but true. Note that this was an advance review copy, so maybe there will be changes to get rid of the 'sticky' screens, where one swipe won't move the screen to the next one.

I had several similar issues with books I read this weekend, all of which were no doubt designed as print books while other books I read had no such issues so something was going on independently of my tablet. Maybe I should have tried two tablets and written this in the morning?! But my considered opinion is that the ebook version requires attention and I'm sorry publishers undervalue ebooks so badly. Sometimes I found myself swiping three or four screens just to get the page numbering to go up by one! Obviously there is an issue with the conversion process which perhaps ought to be given some serious attention if this is going to be actually issued as an ebook.

But I am willing to let that slide and declare this a worthy read because I think this process has a lot of potential.

Portfolio: Beginning Pen & Ink by Desarae Lee

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Part of the Portfolio art series from Walter Foster Publishing, this book takes the reader from beginning level to competency status with advice on tools of the trade, techniques, step-by-step examples, and ideas for projects. It covers drawing techniques for achieving ink effects such as softly graduated shading, each aimed at improving your drawing technique and making it look ever more advanced and professional.

The book instructs on terminology with examples, explaining light, mood, shadow, texture, tone and value in terms of drawing effects, and while most of the book is black ink on white paper, it also introduces the idea of using color. This book was designed as a print book and there were issues with the page numbering such that, even on a full-screen iPad, I had to swipe by four screens before the page number went up by one. I'm not sure what was up with that. It looked to me like this was yet another book designed with little thought given to the electronic version. Aside from making it difficult to go to a specific page to reference something I'd read earlier, this was a minor issue, and overall I consider this a worthy read and a useful asset to anyone who is interested in pursuing this as a hobby or a career.

The Ultimate Guide to Surviving in the Wild by Clive Gifford

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

If you don't know Leia and Caroline Carrico to ask them personally how to survive the wilderness as they did for two days recently, then this book is your next best bet. They made it out of the woods using survival training, and with what's in this book you can too - or out of the frozen tundra, or the parched desert, or the thick of the Amazon.

The book is short, but it's packed with useful information and it worked well on an iPhone so it's very portable. Anything more might be overwhelming, but something like this is memorable and handy. It covers several different types of locale, from the Sahara desert to the Arctic desert to the salty sea, and from the jungle to the mountains, and it offers simple and readily understandable tips about survival, finding shelter, making shelter, finding food and water, and avoiding dangerous animals.

Also included are real life stories of people who were smart, who did nothing foolish and everything right, and who made it out of being lost in each of these areas. In truth there's nothing better than getting direct advice from people who have been there and who know the risks and solutions, but failing that, this book will help to make a difference. I'd personally have liked a bit more detail on finding water and food, with photographs of the food sources and how to identify you have the right kind rather than something similar which is dangerous, so I don't know if I'd agree that this is quite the ultimate guide, but that aside, I consider this a worthy read which will at the very least inform you of the dangers and some realistic solutions.

Artist Toolbox: Surfaces & Supports by Elizabeth T Gilbert

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This, the third title in a series, proved to be another useful book of information to help you not so much take steps as to stride confidently through your art ambitions by ensuring that you have the most suitable surfaces on which to work once you embark on an art project. It covers not only drawing and painting surfaces you might employ, but also what effect this medium has over that medium when using those surfaces.

Just like a building, a firm foundation gets your creation off to a good start in not only supporting your work physically, but also bolstering it artistically in terms of how your work looks both texturally and colorfully. There's no point is painting brilliantly if your support isn't there and your efforts are washed out or otherwise undermined because of a poor choice of material on which to paint or draw. It's not just how you do it and what medium you use to create the work, it's also about upon what medium you use as a foundation for your work, and how that's going to interact with your other materials and influence the final piece.

The book covers:

• Canvas
• Glass
• Metal
• Panels
• Paper
• Stone
• Textiles

And the coverage isn't just in selecting a good medium and knowing how and what to paint on that particular piece, but also how to clean and prepare the material before you paint, so your efforts are not destined to fail. It also covers how to best preserve your work once it is painted.

The book contains some fabulous examples of artwork on each of these surfaces, and while no one can guarantee you will end up with strong artwork like those, you will be assuredly a lot closer to it knowing your materials and approaching your project fully prepared than ever you will going at it haphazardly! I commend this for being comprehensive, easy to understand, and offering good advice, and lots of tips and examples.

Artist Toolbox: Drawing Tools & Materials by Elizabeth T Gilbert

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This book is less about creating great art than it is about the tools you will need to create great art, and more importantly than the tools, how to use tools to get you the image you're seeking. And it also talks about creating great art - so what's not to like?!

As the title suggests, it covers a range drawing media, from colored and graphite pencils to crayons and crayon-like painting sticks in assorted forms, along with charcoal, vine charcoal, white charcoal, and conte materials, but it doesn't just talk about what's available, it gets into it about how to employ those materials to get the kind of results that will elevate your work to the next level, and it includes advice on how to store those materials to best preserve and protect them to prolong their life.

Since the surface upon which you create your art is also an important tool this area isn't spared attention, so we have a discussion of different materials available, and how your painting materials work on each surface, with some photographic examples of results achieved using different tools on different surfaces.

It goes beyond this as well, with step-by-step instructions on working through several projects for even a beginner to learn to draw effectively, so in short, everything you will need to get a firm grounding in your materials and your technique. I commend this as a comprehensive and useful tool to add to your artistic arsenal.

What on Earth: Birds by Mike Unwin, Paulina Morgan

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a fun and colorful book and you'll never guess what it was packed with information about! Birds, you say? How did you guess?! Seriously, this was a neat little book and a useful tool for young children interested in living things around them - and which kid isn't? In an age where climate change denial idiots simply do not get that the damage we are doing to Earth is critical and the dire fallout from it imminent, the more our young children know about the world, the better they will be prepared to fix it. After all these are the children who will be forced to grow up living with the awful mess we've made because we adults refuse to grow up.

Notwithstanding the educational content, the book isn't dull reading - far from it. It combines three facets inviting readers to explore, create, and investigate, so there is always something new and interesting in the flight plan - or the walking plan or the swimming plan depending on which birds we're talking about! Readers will learn about flight and migrations, about food and bird plumage, and about anatomy and behavior.

One minor quibble is that this is another book designed as a print book with little thought given to the ebook version. I read this on an iPad, and the double page spreads worked fine until page 13 which was printed lengthwise such that if you had the print book, you would rotate it ninety degrees to read the page in portrait format as opposed to landscape which all the other double spreads adopt.

This was hard to read on a tablet because every time you change the angle of the pad to look at it lengthwise, the image on the screen rotates and defeats your purpose! The only way to see it was to keep the tablet completely flat and slowly rotate it to see it as the authors intended. It was annoying, but as I indicated, not a deal-breaker. Overall I consider this a worthy read and a useful educational tool for children.

The Complete Food Substitutions Handbook by Jean B MacLeod

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

If Jean B MacLeod who can stand against her?! I was interested in this book, but having looked at it, I confess that I'm wasn't sure how to review it. The problem isn't that there is anything wrong with it, it's that the book is quite literally what the title says. It is the complete book of food substitutions! It is an alphabetized list of a huge number of food items, many of which I have never heard of, with alternative items that you can replace them with in recipes, if you don't have the original or if you want to change it out for whatever reason. The book covers the globe with entries from literally every continent except Antarctica, which admittedly isn't known for its vegetable or meat products!

So without tasting a significant sampling of the recipes, all I can say is that the author has done some serious work here, and that from the substitutions I recognize, it looks like they will work just fine. That's not to say a substitution is always meant as an exact replacement. Sometimes the substitution is so close to the original that it's an obvious replacement and shouldn't really affect anything, but other times the replacement food is different or even quite different, so the aim is more to replace the texture or effect of adding this particular ingredient rather than replace the taste. The thing is that this book gives you choices so you can maybe find a cheaper ingredient, or one you're not allergic to, or one that fits your dietary requirements. The choice is yours! And that's the point! Most items have several options, so you can readily play with them to find something you will like.

Once again, I think the book was designed as a print book because there is very little use made of electronic linking. It's in alphabetized sections, so you can tap the letter in the contents and go to the start of that particular letter's entries, and you can tap from that same letter header for any section to return to the contents page, but one thing I noticed is that quite a number of items in the list will say something like BITTER ALMOND OIL See OIL OF BITTER ALMONDS, and there is no link to tap to go there. That would have been a nice feature.

Given that people sometimes put fake entries into lists like this so they can prove it if someone copied their list, I half wondered if, under 'FIG LEAVES' it might say, 'See LOIN CLOTHS', but it didn't! I was a little disappointed in that, but fig leaves are a legitimate food item here, so that would have meant missing an entry and thereby making the book rather less complete! So I understand, really I do! Maybe the author has an even more sneaky one hidden away somewhere else!

But overall, I liked this book, and I commend it as a complete food substitutions guide.

The Art of Modern Quilling by Erin Perkins Curet

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I had no idea what quilling was - never heard of it, which is why I was interested in this particular volume. It turned out to be quite fascinating. It's a skill that can be - I assume since I'm not a quiller myself - learned quite readily with some practice, and it requires little in the way of equipment to pursue this. The results are charming if they're to be judged by what this book contains. On that topic, I have to observe that this author seems to have an inordinate fondness for butterflies, but they were very pretty, and there is much more contained here than just alluring lepidoptera!

The most elaborate item she demonstrates is a clock face to which was attached a clock mechanism to create a wall-hanging, working clock. The work involved seems to my not-even-amateur eyes to be heavy and requires a dedicated crafter, but the result is quite stunning. I have to say though, that the utility of it to me was lessened by the fact that the clock had so many components and was so colorful that it was more likely to befuddle than enlighten anyone who was trying to decipher the time of day from it! As a hanging decoration however, it was truly eye-catching.

I think I was most impressed by the jewelry the author constructed. The paper is curled, glued, and treated with some sort of fixative so it's not just raw paper. She created a pair of dangling earrings which were rather bell-shaped and quite pretty, and she made a necklace out of quilled hemispheres of paper glued together to make spheres, and threaded onto a string. The end result was remarkable. Not that I plan on making any of this myself, but I can't help but admire the skill and work that went into all the things she made. They were solid, colorful, beautiful to look at, and very attention-grabbing.

There's a quilling article in Wikipedia if you want to learn a little about the art, but if you want to learn how to actually do the art, then this is definitely the book to go with. The author has clearly mastered this, and has gone beyond mimicking things - as anyone would do when developing her skills - and she has moved on into a fascinating and creative world of her own. I commend it for a captivating and instructional glimpse into a world I had not known even existed.

Colorways: Acrylic Animals by Megan Wells

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I've reviewed several books about art and painting over the last few months. I don't consider myself an artist by any means, but I have dabbled, and it is a topic which fascinates me and in which there is always something to learn - especially if you're a writer and want to imbue your stories with a little realism. It doesn't hurt to absorb some advice from established artists in books like this to sort of sprinkle yourself with a bit of authenticity to use in your writing projects. Plus the books are interesting in themselves. I'm always happy to learn how artists do what they do and get such appealing works out of the seemingly paltry source materials of some colored pigments and some brushes. It's really quite magical when you think about it. The paintbrush as a magic wand! Paint as fairy dust!

This book is firmly in the acrylic camp, and it takes a loose and playful approach to painting animals. This artist definitely has fun, and the art here isn't about absolute photographic realism, but about conveying a sense and feeling for the animal subject and making it stand out, in both how the basic image looks and also in the colors it employs including some collage techniques in one image.

The subject titles are amusing. We have complementary cows, pointillistic pandas, tetradic llamas, and vibrant flamingos. The titles are a hint to the technique the author/artist is going to use and the shades and hues of paint that are going to be employed in it, because each exercise follows a slightly different strategy to reaching the end goal, although there are certain rules about building-up the painting which are common to all. The level is beginners, so if you're just starting out, have a little experience, or have never picked up a brush before, this should still work for you. I don't think anyone is so advanced that they can't learn from a new talent!

There was one section on painting a giraffe that I found interesting for several reasons. The author shows her work - like anyone taking a math test should do! - so you can see the steps to the result, and sometimes looking at those early images, I wondered if I were painting this, would I have stopped there and not gone on to 'finish' the work. Is a work of art ever finished? I guess it is if the artist thinks so, but there are different places any individual can stop and say it's done, so it was interesting to think about that. Another reason this was interesting is that the giraffe image was laterally reversed in the final picture. I think someone got an image the wrong way round, but it didn't detract from the effect of seeing the resulting finished-image after following all the steps to get there.

The book is replete with hints, tips, suggestions, and most importantly, encouragement, and the whole works well together to give anyone a solid grounding in expanding their range and ability if they're looking for a leg up. I commend it as a worthy read. Each time I read something like this it makes me want to go pick up some supplies at the art store and get to it! Fortunately for my kids' clothing and dietary needs I restrain many of these impulses! But setting yourself up with some basic brushes and colors doesn't cost that much these days, and you can paint on pretty much anything you want! Grant Wood's American Gothic was painted on "beaverboard" which is more like cardboard than it is like canvas! So grab this book and get to it!

The School of Numbers by Emily Hawkins

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a comprehensive and fun book with quite a few tips, pointers (indicators - not the dogs, which I found a bit disap pointer ing...), and hints along the way, and it covered a surprising array of mathematical concepts from simple math to powers, and from geometry to negative numbers. It even finally got me a visual that clarified in my mind why the so-called Monty Hall problem makes sense!

This 'problem' is where a person offered a choice to open one of three doors (or maybe boxes). One of the options contains a nice prize, the other two contain a booby prize or nothing at all. The person chooses which door or box to open, then the host (Monty Hall in the original show, although the problem predates his show) opens one of the booby prize doors showing you that it was wise not to choose that one. Then he gives you the option to change your choice. Should you change? It seems counter-intuitive, but the fact is that you will more than likely improve your odds of winning if you change. Many people (even some mathematicians) find this hard to believe. I did initially, and even when I decided that changing your choice was the indeed the better option, I still couldn't get my mind around why! Now it's clear thanks to this book!

But the book contains much more than that, and it explains things clearly and simply, with good examples, and little exercises for the reader to follow (with the answers!). There were a couple of errors in the book - or at least what seemed like errors to me, but math isn't my strong suit, so maybe I'm wrong. I'll mention them anyway. There was a section on geometric progression which used the old story of starting with one grain of rice on a chess board, and doubling the number of grains on each subsequent square. It's a great demonstration, but on page 47 it's seemingly implied that a chess board has only 62 squares! Wrong! Eight squared isn't 62!

The other issue was on tessellation (I told you this book was comprehensive!) which is a fascinating topic and really only a fancy way of saying 'tiling', but it suggests that triangular tessellation requires adding 6 walls whereas hexagonal tessellation requires only 3 and this is what makes bees so smart? I could not get my mind around that concept at all - not the smart bees, but the walls. I had no clue in what context this was supposed to be true. I mean if you draw a triangle and want to add another triangle, you have to draw only two more walls, and there's your second triangle making use of an existing wall from the first. If you have one hexagon and want to add another, you have to draw five more walls!

If you have two hexagons side-by-side, you need to draw four walls to make another, whereas if you have two triangles, you need draw, again, only two walls to make a third! Admittedly, if you have three existing hexagons, making a shallow cup shape, then it's true you need add only three more walls on the concave side to make a fourth hexagon, but with three triangles, depending on how they are joined, you still need add only two walls - or perhaps even just one wall. Now maybe I am missing something or maybe the concept that was being conveyed here wasn't worded very well for clarity - or was over my head(!), so like I said, I may be wrong but it seemed to me this needed something more to be said!

But that was a minor issue and I'm happy to commend this as a worthy read and a great math tutor for young minds.