Primates : the fearless science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas by Jim Ottaviani, Maris Wicks

Rating: WORTHY!

Louise Leakey, the renowned, if controversial Kenyan paleoanthropologist, got three things unquestionably right - he talked Jane Goodall into studying chimpanzees, recruited Dian Fossey to study gorillas, and Biruté Galdikas to study orangutans. Each of these three were each self-starting groundbreakers in their respective fields: hard-workers who contributed immensely to our understanding of these three major primates, which in turn helped us to understand both ourselves and the primitive hominids that Leakey himself was studying.

I've read and enjoyed books written by each of these three "Trimates" as Leakey referred to them, and so it might seem strange to then go on and read a necessarily limited graphic novel about them, but I admire them immensely and I found this book amusing, educational, and well-worth reading as an introduction. It's suitable for young and old alike, and so serves its purpose well. It's divided into three sections, one for each of them, beginning with Goodall, then moving on to Fossey and Galdikas in turn, including sections in between where all three meet, albeit on very rare occasions. You can find photos online of these encounters along with much material about their research.

Only Galdikas, the youngest of the three, still remains in the field so to speak, having married a "local" and taken up residence down there, and she continues her research. Fossey was murdered brutally on St Stephen's day in 1985, and Goodall is in her mid-eighties, but still an energetic advocate for chimpanzees. I enjoyed this book and commend it as a worthy read.

Bird's Eye View The Natural World by John Farndon, Paul Boston

Rating: WORTHY!

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

Erratum:
"Pampas deer grass" should be ‘pampas deer graze' I suspect on the South American page.

This colorful and educational book is quite literally what it says: a bird's eye view of various places of beauty and fascination in the world, starting in the Florida Everglades and going down over South America, out to a Pacific atoll, then across the Pacific to Uluru Rock in central Australia, up over the Guilin Hills in China, across the Asian Steppes, down over the Himalayas, through East Africa, across to Wales, on to Northern Scandinavia, back to the Irish coast, and then to France.

At each stop we learn about the animals and plants that live there, and a little about the ecology and how the land got to be that way at that location. It was unusual, fun, and very interesting, and hopefully it will lure readers into learning more. I don't think anyone who has read this book or anything like it can fail to see what horrible things we're doing to our planet and how urgent it is that we stop doing those things and rectify the evil we've already perpetrated. I commend this fully as a very worthy read.

The Classroom Mystery by Tracy Packiam Alloway, Ana Sanfelippo

Rating: WORTHY!

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

In what's looking like a series here, I got the welcome chance to review a second young children's book from the same writer (Alloway) and illustrator (Sanfelippo) team who brought us The Map Challenge which I positively reviewed yesterday. Who says Britain and Argentina can't get along? Okay, you got me. No one says that. I just made it up to get attention!

Seriously, this book explores ADHD in the same way the other book took a look at dyslexia. In this book, the main character is Izzy, who can't forget that someone stole the classroom rabbit's food. She has a form of ADHD and cannot focus on the math lesson. Eventually she gets everyone involved in the crucial effort to find that poor rabbit's crunchy snacks.

The nice thing about these books is that they don't pick on the one with the condition, nor do they put him or her in a negative light. Instead, they emphasize the positive, and it's because of her 'super powers' that come as part and parcel of ADHD that Izzy is able to recall things and make connections that others do not - so, yes, you got it - she solves the mystery!

As usual (so it seems!) in the back of these books are teacher and parent resource pages, advising on certain aspects of (in this case) ADHD, and discussing events in the story and ways to improve on some of the deficits of attention that may hamper an individual at times (and no, it doesn't involve medication!). I liked this book as much as I liked the first one. Izzy was actually rather endearing, and I commend this as a worthy read.

Kitchen Science Lab for Kids by Liz Lee Heinecke

Rating: WORTHY!

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

You can't have a poetical name like 'Liz Lee Heinecke' - and that last name redolent of my favorite Dutch lager, without a certain confidence that whatever she cooks up in the kitchen will be worth followinbg. Not that I've cooked up any yet, but I have my list of ingredients prepared so I can try at least a couple of them over the July 4th weekend. I;ve made jelly rolls before, but never a tie-dyed one, so that's on the list. Plus I need the food coloring for another project related to my 'The Little Rattuses' series!

This book here is dubbed the 'Edible Edition' but I'm not sure why - unless the print version is printed with vegetable ink on rice paper or something! I suspect it's because there are other labs, and this is the one working with actual food. Overall I found it enjoyable. It is full of great ideas for fun foods and drinks, but more than this, it offers some science tips on why foods bake, cook, ferment, rise, and otherwise behave the way they do when manipulated in our kitchens. This was a fun twist that I really enjoyed because knowing some science is never a bad thing.

This book covers simple projects like 'mere' decoration (that's not 'decoration of meres' but decoration of foods, BTW), to tastier treats like desserts, as well as drinks, main courses, snacks and sauces (again with the poetry!), so there ought to be something for everyone. All of these recipes are nut-free and other potential allergens are identified, so those fears are also addressed. The preparations are aimed at being child-friendly too, so there are advisories about potential problem areas where an adult might be needed or is required.

The recipes begin not only with a complete list of ingredients, but also any other items needed to complete it successfully, and each step is laid out with a photograph so you can make sure you're staying on track - assuming you can keep your mind off sampling those ingredients along the way! There's a richness of recipes and no frugality of finished foods to enjoy when you're done. It's fun, easy to follow, great to look at, and it's educational! Who could ask for a more useful book than this? I commend this one as a worthy read followed by a worthy eat!

Sticks and Stones by Melissa Lennig

Rating: WORTHY!

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

This is another inventive and creative book for kids which will teach them creativity and self-reliance - things which will last far longer than any toy they can make or buy. But more than this, it helps eke out a tight budget and also gets kids outdoors. Time away from that video screen is never a bad thing. On top of this, we need more engineers - especially female ones. Who knows? Working with their hands and seeing how to turn ideas into a working finish product could well lead them into a useful and rewarding career. At the very least they will have a love and appreciation of nature and the outdoors.

In this book they will learn how to use outdoor materials to build a shelter and a fort (outdoor survival and history right there!) as well as bridges, dams, and fences. There are large and small scale projects including simple things like making ochre paint from rocks and a marshmallow roasting stick. It's never a bad thing to lure them in with something offering a treat if it hooks them on learning rather more complex projects! And picking up basic manual skills will build confidence and inventiveness which will grow their mind.

The book includes a score of projects and also, most importantly, includes a wealth of safety advice. I commend this as a worthy, educational, and useful read.

100 Things to Recycle and Make by Fiona Hayes

Rating: WORTHY!

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

This was a sweet and fun book with lots of easy-to-follow construction plans. It's divided into sections, so pretty much whatever suitable item you have around the house can be made into something, whether the material be cardboard boxes or tubes, egg cartons, paper plates or even items from nature. Each section has a score of items to make, so you'll never be stick for something to make although you may be spoiled for choice!

I enjoyed reading this and while my own children are a bit old for a book like this one now, they loved this kind of thing when they were younger. Working with the hands improves the brain, and allows children to think outside the box - quite literally, seeing it not as a box, but as something to be created and then played with and enjoyed.

Entertaining your kids doesn't necessarily mean trip to the store to buy something expensive and made from plastic which eventually is likely to end in some ocean somewhere, killing wildlife. This is a sane and creative alternative, and very easy on the budget! It brings not only immediate rewards to children, but also sets them up with confidence and self-reliability for their future. I commend it fully.

Draw Like an Artist: 100 Flowers and Plants by Melissa Washburn

Rating: WORTHY!

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

This was an amazing book on drawing that does exactly what it promises to do: it supplies easy to follow step-by-step realistic line-drawing examples for creating 100 flowers and plants that look amazingly realistic.

Starting out with the most simplistic of initial images, the authors shows you how to refine them in five, six, or seven simple steps to turn it from a crude blob outlining what you want, into an ornate flower, of from a spike into an detailed leaf, and so on. Page after page of these examples painstaking outlined (and then filled in!) in simple steps. Yes, they're drawn by an artist, but I'd be willing to bet that any budding artist who works through this book, follows the advice, and copies these examples will be turning out an end result that looks remarkably like the images depicted in this book. I commend it.

The Map Challenge by Tracy Packiam Alloway, Ana Sanfelippo

Rating: WORTHY!

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

This is a short, colorful, useful, and educational young children's book to open up discussion about dyslexic children.

Sammy is off to scout camp, but their first game when they get there is to follow a map and discover the flag, safely returning with it to the scout camp! Sammy, who is dyslexic, is chosen to be the map reader and he can't do it! After accidentally sending them in the wrong direction a couple of times, someone takes over the map chore, and Sammy is left to observe everything along the way. When the map is lost later, he is able to navigate back home by using the visual cues he absorbed on the journey out.

The book takes a sweet and simple approach, laying out playful issues and problems, with nothing too overwhelming. The children show a positive attitude and do not mock Sammy, and everything turns out well in the end because of Sammy's excellent visual memory which enables him to use his own personal set of 'signposts' to get them safely home. In the back of the book are tips for both parents (presumably including guardians and older family members) and teachers on dyslexia-related problems, along with discussion points about the story, and even tips for boosting memory skills - and when I say the first one is for the birds - I don't mean it's a bad tip!

As this book points out (and at least one study has confirmed: Enhanced Recognition Memory after Incidental Encoding in Children with Developmental Dyslexia Hedenius M, Ullman MT, Alm P, Jennische M, Persson J (2013) PLoS ONE) dyslexic children tend to have better memory for recalling things they have seen than do non-dyslexic children. Tracy Packiam Alloway is a psychologist with a PhD-level education, and Ana Sanfelippo is a talented Argentinian artist with a degree in graphic design. I congratulate them and commend this book as a worthy read.

The Big Book of Twisted Fairy Tales by Sue Nicholson

Rating: WORTHY!

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

Personally I think 'twisted' is a misnomer for a quartet of stories about honesty, kindness, responsibility, and teamwork, but it wasn't my choice! Rest assured that the stories are only twisted in the sense that they're changed and updated in relation to the originals.

Cinderella, whose original story revolved around a shoe fetish, loves dancing of course, but what's she to do when everyone except for her seems to be getting new shoes for the newly-opening dance school? Cindy puts her best foot forward however. This story is aimed at teaching about generosity and kindness. Unlike Cinderella, Beauty has her wish granted, and is given a pony which she names Flick, but (and here actually is a twist!), the beast isn't the animal, it's Beauty! She neglects her charge and the horse charges away! Will her parents have to pony-up for a new ride, or will beauty become more stable? This story aims to teach responsibility.

One of the fun things about these stories is how the characters each appear in the stories of the others. They not only exist in the same world, they live in the same town! One of those other characters is Jack who, like two beans in a pod, is just as irresponsible as Beauty, and who ends up destroying the family's crop. This story is about honesty, though. Will Jack fess up and will mommie bean him for his behavior? Last, but not least, is Snow White, who unaccountably isn't white in this story, so "yeay!" for diversity, but "huh?" for logic. Snow's problem doesn't exactly dwarf the others, but it is serious. She's one of the best soccer players, yet she's paradoxically not a team player! Will she also learn her lesson or will there be a penalty for her behavior?!

I liked these stories and commend them as a worthy read for young children, offering useful lessons.

Hide and Seek, Little Chameleon by Anita Bijsterbosch

Rating: WORTHY!

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

This was a fun children's book which is short and colorful with simple images for the young. In most images, a chameleon hides and you and your kid have to figure out where it is. The book also talks colors and offers counting opportunities, so it's quite educational too.

Some of the chameleon finds were not so obvious, so this is good training. My one fear was that if a child had some sort of color deficiency in their vision, they might not see the chameleon at all, but when I took a little screenshot of some pages (the part of the book where the chameleon was hiding) and tinkered with them to change the colors, removing red, or green, or blue, and when I desaturated the image turning it to grayscale, the chameleon was still discernible, so I guess it's good to go! The only one where it pretty much disappeared altogether, was where it was hiding on a page featuring a lion, so I can't blame it for that! LOL! Besides, you could still see the eye even on that page. I'm happy to call this a worthy read for young children and a fun exercise in hide and seek!

Betty and the Silver Spider by Craig Luebben, Jeremy Collins

Rating: WORTHY!

Amusingly, but carefully written by mountain guide Luebben and illustrated ably by artist Jeremy Collins, this graphic novel teaches important safety and technique for both new and expert climbers. Although the initials of the title spell BATSS, there's nothing bats about the story, as near-expert climber Betty attempts the top-level Silver Spider climb on the indoor 'rock face', and her partner, Moe is literally learning the ropes and when not to let go of them.

The book discusses equipment and technique, offering hints and tips for safer, better climbing, including belaying, bouldering, gym etiquette, leading, top-roping (you'll get it when you see it!), tying knots, and everything else you will need to know to have a fun, educational, and above all safe climb in your nearest rock climbing gym. I am not a climber, nor am I planning on becoming one, but even so I enjoyed it and learned a lot - who knows, maybe I'll write a novel about a climber one day, and if I do, I'll know just where to go to get the low-down on the high up. I commend this as a worthy read especially if you're into climbing.

David Bowie by Isabel Sanchez Vegara, Ana Albero

Rating: WORTHY!

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

Erratum:
“This made his eyes look like were different colors” should read look like they were different colors!

I've been following this series quite closely and enjoyed very nearly all of the books I've read in it so far. This is another one to add to the list of successes. David Bowie's career in playing music either as an amateur band member at fifteen or as a legend right before he died in 2016 at the age of 69, spanned over half a century. He constantly reinvented himself and in this spate of musical biopics (including the phenomenal Bohemian Rhapsody and then Rocketman, and the documentary on the Beatles by director Peter Jackson) which seem to be flourishing lately, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see one crop-up about him.

He's been in and out of musical success since he debuted The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars in the early seventies, and resurged with Ashes to Ashes and Let's Dance in the early eighties, and in between he had a minor film career. He was also a controversial figure regarding his androgyny, but it's not completely clear (at least to my knowledge) whether this was more of an image he was portraying or more of the person he actually was, so I didn't feel that omitting it was a bad thing in this particular case. Overall I enjoyed this and thought it a worthy and educational read.

Mahatma Gandhi by Isabel Sanchez Vegara, Albert Arrayas

Rating: WORTHY!

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

Another in a children's 'Little People, Big Dreams' series which I've been following, this one tells a great story. Anyone who's watched the Richard Attenborough movie starring Ben Kingsley, and written by John Briley will realize how important it is for young children to be introduced to people like Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as opposed to an excess of superhero movies where people typically beat the pulp out of one another. Not that those aren't fun in their place, but let's not ever take them seriously as solutions to problems!

Naturally a life like Bapu's cannot be adequately captured in a book of this nature, but I felt that author Vegara does a fine job in distilling the important stuff. This book, delightfully illustrated by Albert Arrayas, follows Ghandi's life from childhood through university in London, to South Africa and back to India, and it explains his philosophy and where it came from. For young children, that's an important start. I commend it.

1, 2, 3, Who's Cleaning the Sea? by Janina Rossiter

Rating: WORTHY!

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

I don't personally know Janina Rossiter, but we've exchanged an email now and then, and I've favorably reviewed several of her books on their merit, most specifically the 'Tovi the Penguin' books. She's branched out into a different concept here: teaching counting and at the same time offering some environmental awareness to young children. I believe this is something of a companion to her 'ABC' book, although I haven't read that one.

In an era where we find trash islands floating in the ocean and beached whales with pounds of plastic in their gut, and as National Geographic reported last October, your table salt most likely includes tiny plastic particles no matter where in the world you buy it, it hits any rational, caring person hard in the head as to how badly we're making a mess of our environment.

The book aims to counteract some of that by educating youngsters about this nightmare of a problem. It starts with the number one and finds a marine animal to represent each number in one way or another. Obviously the 8 is an octopus, but what number is a Jellyfish collecting plastic bags? Children will have fun finding out which other animals have different numbers of legs or fins, but more importantly, they will learn how bad our ocean is and how desperately it needs help.

Yes the ocean is huge, but so is the problem. We've been tossing modern trash into it for decades, and like climate change, it's way past time to stop making things worse. Maybe a kid who reads this will grow up to take charge of the problem and fix what we have so poorly managed. I commend this book as a worthy read.

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.

The Looking Book by PK Hallinan

Rating: WORTHY!

I loved this book. It's a great idea especially if, like the somewhat beleaguered, but upbeat woman in the story, you have kids who are glued to the video screen whenever they get a chance. It encourages them to get to the other side of the screen - the screen door that is! - and enjoy the great outdoors.

Mom hands the kids a pair of eyeglasses each, but there are no lenses in them! She advises the kids to put them on, and to go outside to see what they can see through these special 'glasses'. It turns out that the kids notice more wearing them than they're used to seeing - especially on the highly restricted and biased canvas of a video screen! It also turns out that they learn they can see just as much even without the glasses, so their whole world opens up. I think the story is a great and inventive idea to encourage kids to pay attention to the world around them and get away from the idiot box for a while. I commend it.

Safari Babies by Lisa McClatchy, Cindy Kiernicki

Rating: WORTHY!

This was a sweet book for young kids talking about African animals (mostly mammals as usual - you won't find a crocodile here, but you will find an ostrich) and their young. It's brief, colorful, and informative, and covers a variety of critters starting with Lions and zebras, and going on through elephants, gazelles, hippos, meerkats, warthogs, and so on - the usual suspects. A bit more variety would have been nice. Some emphasis on threatened species would have been good (some of the species here are vulnerable or threatened, but there was nothing said on that topic). Overall, this isn't bad for kids to learn a bit about the world, so I commend it as a worthy ready for young kids.

Brilliant Ideas From Wonderful Women by Aitziber Lopez

Rating: WORTHY!

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

This was a great book championing women who invented something or greatly-enhanced something yet who have received little or no credit for it. The only one in the entire book I'd heard of was Hedy Lamar so shame on me! But now I know better!

This book is aimed at a young audience, but it's educational for anyone and everyone, and it's important to realize and properly understand that it wasn't white men who did everything in history. Nor was it all white women, so having someone of color in here would have been better, but for now, I'll take this. Maybe volume two will fix that other discrepancy.

This was an ARC, so there were some errors in it which I presume will be fixed before the final edition comes out. I list them here as (hopefully!) a help to the author and publisher. The section on Stephanie Kwolek, the inventor of Kevlar®, talks about nylon as being natural, like silk, but it isn't! It is organic in that it contains carbon, but that's not the same as saying it's natural. Nylon is very much artificial.

Page 23 ends the description in the middle of a sentence. It would be nice to have the rest of that sentence! This same thing happens on p30 where it seems to suggest that Mary Anderson invented the windshield rather than the windshield wiper! In this context, and from what I've read, the tram operator wasn't stopping repeatedly to clean off the windshield, but driving with the front windows open because of the sleet. This is how Mary came to the conclusion that a windshield wiper would be a good idea.

Note that I don't merit a print copy for reviewing, so all I get is the ebook, and in that context, there is an issue on page 26. The ebook shows only one page at a time, not a double spread, so swiping to this page made it appear as though it was a continuation of something from a non-existent previous page. It was only when I swiped to the next page that I saw that the title section for this double spread was on the second of these two pages. This isn't obvious and is in fact confusing in the ebook. On p27, where the article actually begins, there is also a grammatical error where it begins, "Helen's initially wanted to study..." There's an apostrophe 's' too much there, it would seem!

On page 28, Maria Beasley's birthdate is completely wrong. She could hardly have invented an improved life raft used on the Titanic if she was born 35 years after it sank! Should the date be 1847 instead of 1947? I don't know since I couldn't find a birth date given for her, but 1847 would make sense. Finally, on page 32, there's a Spanish phrase at the end of the description, which appears to be a Spanish translation of the start of the previous sentence. I don't know what that's all about (given the author's name perhaps the original of this book was written in Spanish?), but it certainly doesn't belong there in an English edition!

Those issues aside (and believe me I understand how easy it is to make goofs like that - we authorial wannabes have all been there!), I commend this as a worthy read and an educational read too.

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.

Maria Montessori by Isabel Sanchez Vegara, Raquel Martín

Rating: WORTHY!

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

This was another in a series of which I've read and reviewed several, nearly all of them positively. This is about a woman who brought a fresh perspective to education, starting with children who had some sort of mental impairment. Back in her day (her real work began at the turn of the century) these children were not well-cared-for and were written-off in terms of assessing their capabilities and futures. Montessori changed this and showed that with the right stimuli, these children had capacity far beyond what they were typically consigned to in life.

The book doesn't cover everything. Notably missing is Montessori's own child which she had 'out of wedlock' as it used to be called. She chose to remain a single mom because had she married the father, she would have been expected to give up her work, which she refused to do. Is this something that very young children need to know? I guess that's up to the parent/guardian and what they think their child can handle, but it's not necessary to include it in a book like this, although her son did end-up assisting her in her work when he grew older.

The book was informative, well-illustrated, and told a good - and true! - story. I commend it as a worthy read.