The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a quite long, and a heavily-referenced and indexed book about the intelligence of birds, how it works, how it evolved, what it's used for, how it expresses itself, and why some birds seem to have a lot more of it than others - and what this means going into an uncertain and climate-changing future. The book is full of stories and studies, as well as anecdotes, and is well-written and fully-engaging. It's packed with fascinating insights and fun facts, and covers a truly wide range of birds - and not just in North American but across the world. I found it enthralling and highly educational.

If I have a couple of complaints it would be that there were no pictures here. It's possible, of course to go look up online the birds that are mentioned, but it's a nuisance. It would have been nice had each bird discussed had a color picture to go with it. There are some line drawings, but these are used to separate the sections of the book, not to illustrate the text.

The only other complain is that while a lot of studies are discussed in the book, there is no information on what happened to the poor birds? Did the studies involve euthanizing them or where they merely captured, tested, and released? Some evidently were from what I gathered from the text, but in the case of others, their fate went unrevealed, and the studies didn't seem like they were non-invasive. It's all well and good to discuss the intelligence of birds, but if scientists are raping and pillaging nature to get this information on these birds which in some cases are threatened, then it seems to me I'd rather be ignorant about their intelligence than kill them off just to satisfy human curiosity! Maybe that's just me....

It wasn't the author who was doing this of course! She was merely reporting, but for a good reporter, especially one who seems to be so invested in her subject, you would think she'd have a care for the welfare of the subject. That aside, I did enjoy reading the book. It was well-written and it was a worthy read, so I commend it.

Waking Up in Eden by Lucinda Fleeson

Rating: WORTHY!

This was a biographical print book that I picked up because it sounded interesting and in the end, by and large, it really was quite engaging. In that respect it did go downhill a little toward the end, but in Hawaii, it's all downhill right? I mean they are volcanic islands after all! There was a bit more personal stuff in here than I cared for, and I certainly didn't need to know about the author's fling with a surfer dude, but aside from that thankfully very brief inter-lewd, the monologue about Hawaii, its history, traditions, exploration, and its flora and fauna were really quiet charming and well-written.

The author was a journalist, but decided to give up that life and move to Hawaii to take on the job of a fund-raiser for a botanical garden which aimed to preserve something of old Hawaii, and to exhibit it for the public. She spent many years there becoming pleasantly habituated to the life (after some initial hiccups), and stayed in the job until her immediate boss died from a heart-attack and her new boss seemed, she writes, more intent upon slashing budgets than pursuing his predecessor's goals.

Frankly I felt the author could have done more in terms of detailing Hawaii's wildlife, plants and animals and how they interlock. She does go into some detail about how tragical has been the human occupation of the islands, and how it has resulted in a massive extinction because of human predation and human-introduced invasive species, such as rats for example, along with feral cows, mongooses (yes, you heard that right), pigs and feral cats and dogs. Hawaii is the shameful world-leader in modern extinctions of plant species for example, where an estimated two plant species go extinct every year which is five hundred times faster than any purely natural rate. This is why some conservationists call Hawaii 'the extinction capital of the world'.

The mongoose was a seriously misguided error. It was introduced because the capitalistic sugar cane producers wanted the rats controlled, but the damage mongooses have done has more than outweighed the few rats they ate, since they prey on whatever takes their fancy and this includes Hawaiian species that have suffered far more greatly than rats ever will. This is what happens when people who are clueless about science are put in charge. Of pretty much anything.

It would have been nice to have more of that kind of overview in place of the unprotected sex on a first date chapter that we got, but that opportunity has gone now. That said though, I did enjoy this book for the most part and consider it a worthy read.

Harriet Tubman Conductor on the Underground Railroad by Ann Petry

Rating: WORTHY!

Adopting the same title as an earlier book: " Harriet Tubman, Conductor on the Underground Railroad" by Earl Conrad, this is a middle-grade book about America's first super hero. Forget Captain America. He's fiction. Tubman was the real thing. In many ways, as this book reveals, it's insulting to use the name she's most commonly known by. Harriet Tubman was born in slavery as Araminta Ross, and as a child was known as Minty. She became Harriet Tubman when she married John Tubman, who was a free man, and who had no interest in moving north with Harriet so she could be free as well. When she started talking seriously about running, he threatened to turn her in!

She decided to go anyway, but feeling bad for those she'd left behind, she became 'Moses' as she was known back then - a conductor on an underground railroad - which some had thought was a real railroad, really underground! Today she'd be known as a mule, but that often has negative connotations. There was nothing negative about Harriet, who was both physically and mentally strong, independent, determined, and who became expert in avoiding authorities, hiding out, reading the lie of the land, and successfully ferrying people to freedom.

The pro-slavery crowd thought Moses was a guy, but it was Harriet leading people to the promise land of the free north. She began freeing her family, but when she came for John, he was already shacked-up with another woman and had no interest in Harriet. Despite set-backs like this, she continued to free her family and many others, and over a dozen trips or so, delivered three-score and ten people safely to the north. She worked in winter, when nights were longest, and she would bring them out late on Saturdays, so the newspapers would not be able to print notices of their escape until the following Monday, giving them plenty of time to move.

When the civil war began, she was of course on the Union side, initially working as a cook and a nurse, and later as a scout. She personally guided the raid at Combahee Ferry that freed ten times as many slaves as she herself had conducted north. After the war she was thanked for this in no way at all, and had to eke-out an existence by selling fruit and vegetables she farmed, and from the proceeds of two books which were written about her by a friend who wanted to help her. The union would not pay her a pension, and the only income she had was the pension her new husband - a man by the name of Davis - earned because of his role in the war. This helped to sustain her after he died prematurely of tuberculosis.

Tubman herself died in 1913 having lived to a ripe old age - probably her early nineties. I fully commend this book as a worthy read and a great introduction to a real hero.

Let's Fly a Plane by Chris Ferrie

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Friends, red kangaroos, children, lend me your engineers! Having just seen Fantasy Island at the movie theater, (the plane the plane - yes they did use that phrase and the movie was great!), how could I not want to review this book with such a bold and maybe even a teensy bit reckless title?

This was a short and fun little book about a kangaroo who wants to fly, but who can't seem to get off the ground. She seeks out author Chris Ferrie who has a doctorate in applied mathematics and who is a senior lecturer at the University of Technology in Sydney. Dr Chris explains the four forces involved in flight (drag, gravity, lift - or was it Uber? - no it was lift!, and thrust), and does so in simple terms. The lift component to flight is the one that's most often misunderstood, even in textbooks, but the explanations here are kept simple and straight-forward.

Red Kangaroo still can't manage to propel herself into the air, but she gets to fly in an airplane! This was a colorful and easy book, useful for introducing young children to a complicated idea without straining young minds. Hopefully a few who read this will become engineers and make some wonderful things because their interest in science was piqued by books like this one, I commend it as a worthy read.

A Beginner's Projects in Coding by Marc Scott, Mick Marston

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This book certainly isn't written for me, since my programming, while far from stellar is a bit more advanced than is taught here, but guess what? This isn't aimed at me. Who knew?! Seriously, it's written for any young children (or even adults who want to learn) who've never programmed in their life, and for that purpose, it's perfect.

Written clearly by Scott, and colorfully (and amusingly!) illustrated by Marston, it starts out with an explanation of what coding is and why it's important, before introducing users to the Internet-accessible MIT programming language called 'Scratch'. It advises how to log in (don't use your own name and do pick a pass phrase that's easy for you to remember rather than a complicated password). From then on, the child can assemble easy, but effective and entertaining programs like putting together a jigsaw - but simpler!

The programs can ask questions and provide answers, and even do some animation. Later the book talks about a next-level programming language called Python which is actually a professional language, but available for free and quite simple to learn especially if you've used Scratch beforehand, and got a feel for how programs are put together.

Python (which was named after the BBC TV show Monty Python's Flying Circus, but don't let that scare you!) is quickly installed on your computer so no web access or login is required once it's installed, and it's also quite simple - as long as you follow the step-by-step instructions given here. It can do a lot more than can Scratch and is perfect for young programmers wanting to spread their wings.

The book is bright, easy, and helpful, with lots of good advice, hints, and tips, and it even has a few words about web page programming too, which is a fun and useful thing to learn. I loved this book and commend it as a useful tool and a worthy read.

Small Matters by Heather Ferranti Kinser

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

If the fact that bumble bees have hairy eyeballs grosses you out, then this book is not for you! Not that bees really have eyeballs as such, but you know what I mean. The book literally zooms in on animals and finds things that are too small to be seen with the unaided eye.

I don't know about you, but for me, some books are way too long. This was too short, because it was over before I felt fully-satisfied by these truly engaging images and revelations. I wanted more, but for a much younger child than me, it's probably the ideal length. It educates young children to the unseen world, and encourages them to realize that there is much below the surface to fascinate and learn. I don't doubt that the lessons taught here will be as useful in preparing us for learning about fellow humans as they are in learning about the animals presented here, from all walks - and slithers an flights - of life.

In some thirty pages, we meet a sea-snail, a shark, a butterfly, a bird or two, a snake, an insect or two, and others that each has a microscopic secret to success. For example, I'm sure many of you know that a gecko has a sort of 'suction pad' on its feet that help it climb the walls, but the details of exactly how this works are really interesting - and it's not really a suction pad! Each creature we visit here has a similar script about some aspect of its life. It turns out that 'small matters' are big deals! I found it fascinating and educational and I commend this as a worthy read.

Follow Those Zebras by Sandra Markle

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This book was definitely a worthy read. I mean who's doesn't love a zebra - and here's a British joke: who doesn't appreciate a zebra crossing?! This is about Zebras crossing scores of miles of terrain (when they're allowed to with farm fences not getting in their way). A herd (sometimes known as a zeal of zebras!) of some 2,000 animals, would disappear periodically and return just as seemingly magically.

No one knew where they went or why, so they fitted collars to some o the mares (who fight less, of course, than the stallions do, so they're much less likely to damage a collar) to track them by satellite. They made some interesting discoveries, and in the light of climate change, a scary discovery, too.

The book for me was a bit too prolix. The 44 pages could have been cut by maybe a quarter and still presented a solid and educational book, but I'm not going to bring it down because it had a few extra pages of zebra pictures, including some young 'guns. The story it told was very educational: scientistic and informative, and it handsomely explained what was happening, so I commend this one as a worthy read.

Beijing: A Symmetrical City by Dawu Yu

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I found this book to be highly dissatisfying. I imagine it was not designed as an ebook, but that's all a reviewer like me ever has to judge it by, and it was less than stellar. It was also quite confusing and left me in the dark much of the time. Some of the text was misleading. For example, at one point when discussing the front entrance to the Forbidden City, the text mentions the "U-shaped Noon Gate" but all of the gates in the illustration are rectangular! The previous illustration had U-shaped gates (or more accurately, n-shaped!), so i couldn't tell if the text was wrong, the illustration was wrong, or if I was simply misunderstanding what was being said, or what. I'd specify a page number, but there were no page numbers in the book, which was another problem, at least for reviewing purposes.

Note that the book was 'adapted' whatever that means (I assume because of the fact that Chinese and English texts flow in different ways, but I may be wrong about that), by Yan Liu, and translated by Crystal Tai, so it's entirely possible that something got lost long the way. The illustrations by the author are meticulous and colorful, but they're very busy and it's often hard to distinguish exactly what's being talked about. Plus I have no idea what gender the author is. It's irrelevant to the review, except in that I can't use 'he' or 'she' to I'll stick with 'they' or something equally neutral.

There was a guide in the back of the book which highlighted greyscale drawings with colors to indicate specific parts of earlier illustrations. If only those had been included along with the text, it would have been a big improvement! It didn't help to have them in the back - and especially not in an ebook because unlike with a print book, it's a nightmare trying to go back and forth in a ebook and keep your place readily.

Some of the illustrations were oddly chopped-up, too. For example, regarding the aforementioned Forbidden City issue, this was also where it looked like one image had become trapped behind another, so maybe the text was right, but the image it referred to had become hidden behind the next image or mangled or something. But there were other issues, and again the transition point seemed to be they Forbidden City page.

Initially (and I was reading this in Adobe Digital Editions on an iPad FYI) there was one page per screen, but in landscape mode, it was possible to slide the image across and see a seamless 'full-page spread' as it were, whereas other images had a vertical white line down the screen marking the page transition. Right after the Forbidden City page though, the layout changed so that double page spreads were included on one screen, making them much too small in portrait mode, and comfortably visible only in landscape.

Again, this is not a problem you would have with a print edition, but publishers insist on sending out only ebook version for review unless you happen to be a top tier reviewer. What this means is that books can get electronically-mangled and publishers all-too-often fail to make sure the book is readable. This clearly happened here, but even ignoring all of that, the book as still confusing and sometimes indecipherable, and frankly I disagreed with the premise that Beijing - even ancient Beijing - is symmetrical. At least if it is, the author failed to convince me! I found the book not acceptable, and I cannot commend it as a worthy read.

Work It, Girl: Michelle Obama by Caroline Moss

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Part of the "Become a leader like..." series, this book covers Michelle Robinson, lawyer, scholar, activist, and who also happened to become married to the president of a few years back (and before he was president!). She came from quite humble beginnings and was sometimes discouraged from pursuing her dreams, but she refused to let others' opinions dictate what her goals would be or where her sights would be aimed, and she achieved every one of them that she set herself, graduating Princeton and Harvard and working in a law firm before moving into more community-spirited occupations.

She met Barack Obama in that first law firm and traveled with him to the Senate and the White House, despite having some doubts about both places! This book tells a fascinating story and makes it all the more a pity that her aversion to politics will prevent her from running for president. If she did, I do not doubt that she would win hands down without question. I commend this book as a worthy and inspiring read for young chidlren.

The Not Bad Animals by Sophie Corrigan

Rating: WORTHY!

Erratum:
p17 has 'bast' instead of 'bats' in the 'facts' section! Bast was a cat god of the Egyptians.
I don't know of any scorpion that's poisonous, but several are venomous! The difference is that if you eat a scorpion (and people as well as animals do eat them) you won't be poisoned, but you can get its venom injected if one stings you!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Here's another educational book about animals. This one tries to improve the undeservedly bad reps of certain critters such as spiders, sharks, and vampire bats. Good luck with that! But it's intelligently written and amusingly-illustrated by an author who is evidently English as judged by her lingo (or perhaps Australian?) and whose last name maybe ought to be 'Incorrigible'? I ask this because I'm by no means convinced that cats have anywhere near the negative reputation she seems to think, yet here they are, right up front, getting a PR job. I find that highly suspicious!

The book even features hyenas, so if you're a fan of the recent (as of this blog post!) Birds of Prey movie, in which Harley Quinn had a pet hyena (not recommended!), you may find this entertaining! I did. But then I loved that movie. The book also features skunks, which I agree are very cute. I'll never forget this one episode of Mythbusters in which the stated task was to determine the best method of removing skunk smells from clothing.

In order to do that, they had to get a skunk to spray, and they had this cute little thing that refuse to spray no matter what they did! It was hilarious, It was like the anti-skunk, but having encountered one walking in to work one dark morning (I was walking in to work - the skunk was already quite busily at work), and noticing how it turned so its back was always toward me as I passed it, the very opposite of what most wild animals will do, I would never trust one as a coworker! That said, it did not spray me since I kept moving and made no threat to it, so I thank that skunk for its forbearance and restraint under trying conditions.

But I digress. The book covers crocodiles, vultures, rats (which I personally adore, having had pet ones and started a children's book series - The Little Rattuses™ - about them), wasps (which, call me waspish, but I certainly do not adore), scorpions (which I adore even less, having found one in the bathtub one night that had apparently been enterprising enough to climb up the bath drainpipe, but then stupid enough to find itself in a slippery bathtub with no exit!), snakes, toads, wolves, ants, and so on, you can see that the animal kingdom is well covered and it's not just all about mammals, as far too many young children's books are.

This book is very well done - amusing, entertaining, nicely put together, hosted a wealth of animals in its eighty-some pages and was very educational. Yes! It's correct, for example, when it advises that peeing on a jellyfish sting will not help. It might even make it worse. The best treatment for such a sting is to pour vinegar on the affected area and then remove the stingers with tweezers (don't scrape them off with anything). What's not to like? Okay, apart from the vampire bats, what's not to like? Okay, vampire bats and scorpions, what's not to like? Really? I commend this as a worthy read.

Play Like an Animal! by Maria Gianferrari, Mia Powell

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Maria and Mia what a team! The author amusingly explains why animals do some of the crazy things they do, and the illustrator (Powell) illustrates them with verve and passion. The idea is of course, to talk kids into exercising their right to be animals as well, playing like these amusing creatures do, and there's nothing wrong with that.

The book covers a variety of animals, but as usual with young childrens' books, it's mostly the mammals which are favored, such as peccaries, rhinos, monkeys, gorillas, and so on, but there are also aquatic mammals featured such a dolphins and otters, along with a couple of birds - ravens and keas - and who wouldn't mourn a kea?! (Sorry, I could not for the life of me resist.)

The behavior of the animals is explained in growing - they need to learn to defend themselves, to get a mate, to stalk prey, to escape being prey, and even to develop their minds, as is the case with ravens. The book was gorgeously illustrated and amusingly written, and I commend it as a worthy read.

Vivienne Westwood by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vergara, Laura Callaghan

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I've enjoyed very many of these young children's biographies about a host of different people, all written by the same author but often with a different artist. In this case it was Callaghan who contributed some beautiful and bright illustrations, in keeping with the subject matter since Westwood is a British fashion designer, who all but single-handedly brought punk and new wave fashions (so-called!) into the mainstream.

I should say right here that I have less than zero respect for the modeling-fashion industrial complex, which is why I like this book. Westwood was very much a rebel and her spirited approach, even though in many ways buying into the shallow and pretentious world of fashion, was to turn things on their head. She also preferred books to fashion magazines, and encouraged a recycling sort of an attitude by suggesting people buy fewer clothes and wear therm more often.

This book tells an interesting and colorful story and I commend it as a worthy read.

Bob Dylan by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vergara, Conrad Roset

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I've enjoyed very many of these young children's biographies about a host of different people, all written by the same author but often with a different artist. In this case it was Roset, whose work was good and very entertaining.

This one talks about folk legend Bob Dylan who unintentionally became the voice of an era as he produced his songs about life and war throughout the sixties and for several decades beyond. I commend it for any young children who are interested in music and making change.

Alan Turing by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vergara, Linzie Hunter

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I've enjoyed very many of these young children's biographies about a host of different people. This one is about computer scientist Alan Turing, who was responsible for breaking the secret of a major German coding machine in World War Two and who was subsequently persecuted for his homosexuality.

Way to thank a war hero, UK! He was, at long last, pardoned, but he should never have been arrested for it in the first place, and the pardon came long years after his suicide. If he'd been hailed as the hero he was and funded, he could have put Britain at the forefront of computing.

This book doesn't pull any punches and tells his story simply and in enough detail for young minds without overdoing it. It's nicely-illustrated by Hunter and is well worth the reading. I commend it. There is one small glitch which hopefully will have been fixed before this goes on sale. At the back of each of these books is a timeline with actual photographs of the subject at different points in their life. This book is no different, but the person featured in the photographs isn't Alan Turing; it's Astrid Lindgren, author of the Pippi Longstocking books! While Turing might well have been amused by this, it really needs to be fixed.

Even More Fantastic Failures by Luke Reynolds

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I had some issues with this one (not least of which the sub-title 'people who changed the world'? In some cases, yes, but for most, not hardly!), but I support its aims, and so I commend it as a worthy read. The book has thirty chapters, not all of which are devoted to a person. Some chapters have a secondary story (called 'The Flop Files') about someone or something, as well as inset boxes with very brief stories, so it's packed with information.

That's where my issues came from though: some of the information is somewhat misleading or doesn't tell the whole story. The chapters cover these topics:

1. Barack Obama with a sub-story about Ta-Nehisi Coates.
2. Kehkashan Basu
3. Alan Naiman with a sub-story about Virginia Apgar.
4. Nick Foles with a sub-story about fireworks.
5. Emma Gonzalez with a sub-story about the 54th Mass. volunteers.
6. Ryan Coogler with a sub-story about George Lucas.
7. Bryan Slat
8. The Reggae Girlz with a sub-story about the USNW soccer team.
9. Lin-Manuel Miranda
10. John Cena with a sub-story about Michael Phelps.
11. Joan of Arc
12. Socrates with a sub-story about Mary Shelley.
13. Phiona Mutesi with a sub-story about Queen Victoria.
14. Stephanie Kwolek with a sub-story about penicillin.
15. Robert Indiana with a sub-story about Specks!
16. All American Girls Professional Baseball League
17. Carvens Lissaint with a sub-story about Bette Graham.
18. Christina Martinez
19. Ayanna Presley with a sub-story about William Wilberforce.
20. Mohammed Al Jounde
21. Mindy Kaling with a sub-story about Kalani Brown.
22. Patricia Smith
23. Carl Hayden Community High School Robotics Squad with a sub-story about The Toronto Raptors.
24. Jeremy Stoppelman with a sub-story about Norm Larsen.
25. Beyoncé Knowles with a sub-story about Bruce Springsteen.
26. Greta Thunberg with a sub-story about Angela Zhang.
27. Lois Jenson
28. New Orleans Superdome
29. Grace Hopper with a sub-story about Janet Guthrie.
30. Haifaa Al Mansour with a sub-story about Roxane Gay.

As I mentioned, I had some issues with some of the information presented here. I don't undertsand some of these pairings. Putting the US Woman's national (soccer) team with the reggae Girlz (also a soccer team) makes sense, but pairing Emma Gonzalez with the 54th Mass. volunteers? Does the author not realize that rampant ownership of military grade weapons is the driving force underlying Gonzalez's campaign? I doubt she'd want to be associated with an actual military outfit! Phiona Mutesi with a sub-story about Queen Victoria? However, those are just quirks so I really not much bothered about that. Below are some examples of the issues I'm really concerned with.

The achievements of the US women's national soccer team (USWNT) have been extraordinary, but they went out of favor with me after strutting all over the Thailand team which they beat 13-0 in 2019. I never thought I'd see a women's team behave like Donald Trump. The book has nothing to say about that, attempting to silence critics of their unconscionable behavior by quoting Mariah Burton Nelson who apparently claimed that criticism of the women's team stems from a fear of successful women! That's not only arrogant, blinkered, and presumptuous, it's plain wrong to blindly tar everyone with the same ill-advised brush. Personally I don't fit into that pigeon-hole.

I've been highly supportive of the women's team and enjoyed their success for many years, but I can't support a team harshing like that on fellow women when that opposing team was quite clearly outmatched. I didn't even have a problem with their scoring of 13 goals. What I objected to was the theatrics after every goal, as though the goal had been scored miraculously against impossible odds when there had been no such achievement. The insane strutting and posing after every single goal was shameful exhibitionism shaming a team that was clearly being overwhelmed.

If the USWNT had done that same thing against a more equally-matched team like the Brazilians, or the Germans, I would have had no problem with it, because then it would have been earned, but this was not, and it diminished the US team to behave like that. I support women in sports and equality, especially in pay and especially for the USWNT after all they've achieved, but that same team has fallen steeply in my esteem after that shameful and embarrassing exhibition.

On the topic of Charlotte Brontë, yes, Robert Southey did tell her that "literature cannot be the business of a woman's life," but what this book doesn't mention is that he did praise her talent. I found that omission to be dishonest. It makes it sound like he was completely negative and dismissive of her when all he was doing was expressing the prevailing sentiments of the day among men. Yes, that's unacceptable, but back then it was the norm. It's misleading to portray him as some arrogant jerk of a guy walking all over a novice female writer.

I'm not sure why Stephanie Kwolek was paired with a sub-story about penicillin, but since Kwolek worked for Dupont which has, at best, a questionable record with regard to what I shall call 'chemical abuse', a word about those failures might have been a better use of space than one about penicillin. Not that Kwolek was involved in the invention or the ill-advised use of Teflon, but still!

I'm not sure why basketball player Kalani Brown was included as a sub-story with comedy writer and actor Mindy Kaling, but Brown's story is hardly one of failure! She missed four free throws in a row? So what? She came from a family of sports players so she had a leg-up into her sporting life, and was no doubt not a stranger to losing a game here and there much less to missing a throw. That story seemed odd and hardly fit into the theme of the book.

Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus was hardly the failure it's represented as being here. No, it did not take off as a best-seller from day one, but it was well-received (despite some criticism) and it sold well in her lifetime. A better story would have been to tell how Mary bounced back after her husband drowned.

One of the inset box stories talks about Eliud Kipchoge, a marathon runner, but the box makes no mention of the sponsorship he got from Nike, and the fact that he wore controversial and specially-designed running shoes for his attempt! These are the same kind of 'augmented' shoes that were under critical review recently, and which several other people have broken records while wearing.

That's all I'm going to write about the issues I had. I think the book in general is well-written and tells an important story about not giving up, but I'm not sure it makes it clear enough that giving up on one thing to turn attention to another is an important part of life and success. The diversity in the book is commendable, but it's also very sports-heavy and once again it's very USA-centric as though only important success stories occur in North America, and the rest of the world not so much, but while I dislike that kind of dangerous nationalism, I do consider this a worthy and inspiring read overall.

A Bowl Full of Peace by Caren Stelson, Akira Kusaka

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a short and well-illustrated (by Kusaka) picture-book about a family which (kind of) survived the H-bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki on 9th August 1945. I say 'kind of', because the family really didn't, and today only one of them remains. The rest of them died either in the initial explosion or from radiation which spread afterwards and made people sick before anyone fully-realized what it was or what it could do.

There are many questions surrounding that war and the bombs. People make much of the death toll those two bombs wreaked which was, with the blast and the radiation, perhaps a quarter million - about the same number that died in the St Stephen's Tsunami of 2004. The thing is that without the bombs, the toll was already astronomical. To put it in perspective, the Battle of Stalingrad alone killed two million people!

Yes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were largely civilian populations not directly involved in fighting (although there were military bases and munitions factories there), so there is a difference, and people can argue that it was necessary because the toll of taking Japan by traditional means was going to be high, but others can argue equally well that Japan did not need to be taken. It could have been blockaded and forced to surrender with no loss of allied life. Alternatively, a demonstration of the bomb's devastative power could have been made over an unpopulated area. That and the threat of dropping bombs on populated areas would have impressed the war leadership of Japan sufficiently without killing innocent civilians.

And yes, it's easy with the distance of three-quarters of a century, to pretend to know what was best back then; but let's not forget that a Christian country, far from turning the other cheek, is still the only nation on Earth to have used atomic bombs in war, and those two bombs back then killed more civilians than all the acts of Islamic terrorism since.

But this book isn't interested in politics because it's a very personal story of loss: of a family of children playing outdoors just a half mile from the epicenter, all but one of which miraculously survived the initial blast. It's about a family that, even though they were evacuated from the area immediately afterwards, still succumbed one-by-one to the sickness of the black rain.

Only one of them, Sachiko Yasui, survived, and now she opens the eyes of others to the horror of nuclear war. It's not just that, but all war which must stop, but nuclear war is the most terrifying act of hostility that we can do to each other and to the planet, and this story handily explains why.

Frida in America by Celia Stahr

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

For a biography with this title, this books spends a lot of time delving into Frida's childhood and teen years, as well as with a couple of trips she took back to Mexico while largely living in the USA, but the subtitle of this volume is "The Creative Awakening of a Great Artist." That time she spent and the experiences she had, whether in the US or in Mexico, or traveling between the two, contributed immensely to the intriguing artist she became.

The bio starts out brightly with Frida and her husband, artist Diego Rivera, traveling to and arriving in San Francisco, but that all comes to a jarring halt as we travel back in time for a history of her life up to this point - which occupies fully a quarter of the narrative - before we get back to her life in the US. For me that wasn't so bad because I find the subject of this biography endlessly fascinating, but others might find themselves irritated when the title so boldly promises a US story and they get sent to Mexico for an extended period! Maybe such readers should learn to be less provincial?!

What did impress me was how well researched this is. I've read a variety of books about Frida Kahlo, but never one that was so delving and so revealing of her inner workings as this one is. It was impressive and truly engrossing for me. Regardless of what it meant before, her art takes on a whole new meaning once you're initiated into the symbolism she employed so often in her work. The story picks up back in the US with Diego's commission, his workaholic approach to his painting as well as his endless philandering and his absurd misgivings over his (at least initially) erroneous belief that his wife was as bad as he was. Far too many men project like that, and poor Frida has to deal with all of this largely by herself.

The book has a wealth of detail about their life both in Mexico and in the US, the people they met, the relationships they formed and the impact they had, as well as the experiences that moved them in return. They were very influential on each other too, each taking cues from the other's work, and expanding or amplifying them in their own art. In a way, their art was a way of talking to each other about topics they perhaps felt uncomfortable discussing face to face.

Frida's initial love-affair with the US was an uneasy one at best, and it quickly turned to disappointment and antagonism the longer she remained there. She missed her family and her homeland greatly which didn't help her state of mind, and her husband was very neglectful of her, focusing on the murals he had arrived in the US to paint, and working insane hours, leaving Frida very much to her own devices. She cultivated her own friends and relationships and worked on her art, showing increasing sophistication and steady improvement over her time in the USA. This books explains all of that and excavates, sometimes a bit too deeply for me!) the meaning, symbolism, and origins of her imagery.

If I have a complaint about this book, it's the same one I would have (and have had!) about any such book where art is discussed in detail, and that is the complete lack of any examples of her art, or any photographs of her which were taken during her travels. Fortunately, with the name 'Frida Kahlo' being so very well-known these days, it's possible to find on the Internet a lot of the pictures discussed in this biography, but it's a nuisance to have to halt reading and go searching for them.

Many images, in particular the photographs that are mentioned, I could not find, which was very frustrating. I don't know if the author's intention is to include the images in a print version and they were simply omitted from the review ebook. I wouldn't blame her for that, because Amazon's crappy Kindle format is renowned for mangling anything that's not plain vanilla text, but if the pictures could have been included in a PDF version of the book made available for review, that would have been truly awesome! It made it rather tedious at times to read a long and detailed description of the art or a photograph without being able to readily view it, or in some cases without being able to see it at all.

That aside, I really enjoyed this book and commend it as a worthy read. But then I'm heavily biased when it comes to Frida Kahlo. She probably the first person I'd visit if I ever managed to get my hands on a time machine! I commend this book as a worthy read for fans of art or of Kahlo.

How Not to Die by Michael Greger

Rating: WORTHY!

This book was recommended to me by a weird niece who I love, but who neglected to tell me it was a doorstep of a book. I almost needed a shopping cart to haul it out of the library with. The author is a medical doctor who has made a long study of diet and health, and the book is packed with advice about what's good and safe to eat and what's not. The thing is that he goes into way too much detail and the book reads more like a scientific treatise than a popular book on health. It has copious end notes in addition to the waffling text so be advised that the actual reading text is only about two-thirds of the entire thickness of this tome.

That verbose style turned me off a bit, and I didn't read it cover to cover, but I skimmed and read in detail parts that interested me. There were many such parts. Most of what's in here isn't new or news to vegetarians and vegans, and you could probably get a good feedback out of it from reading only the last section where the doctor talks about his own dietary habits. Follow those or emulate them closely and your health will improve, and also, very likely, your life expectancy. The advice is simple: eat whole foods, fresh vegetables and fruits, and a variety, and you'll be doing the best you can for whatever your genetic inheritance has set you up with.

The author points out issues and problems and explains perceived discrepancies in medical diet advice. For example, a dissenter may argue that fruit has fructose in it - a sugar. Isn't that bad for you? That's why eating whole foods rather than processed foods is the word here. When you eat a fruit, you eat the whole thing including the fiber. It's not just the juice, nor is it just the sugar. It's everything, and one part of the fruit helps to mitigate another, so the sugar is processed by your body as part of the whole meal of the fruit and it doesn't spike the way it would if you drank the sugar, like in a can of cola, for example.

The book is full of useful information like that - about why this works better than that does. And eating whole foods doesn't necessarily mean you have to buy everything fresh and cook it all from scratch for every meal, but the book points out that one price you may pay for buying canned vegetables, for example, as opposed to fresh, is that the canning process often involves adding salt (or sugar, or both). So if you look for 'no salt added' in a can, for example, and drain the fluid from the can, cooking the food in fresh water, you can mitigate a lot of the problems with buying canned food. The same applies if you drain the 'syrup' (read 'sugar' form canned fruit, and just eat the fruit.

The author also has a book out with also the same title as this except for an added 'T' on the end: How Not to Diet. I'm not about to embark on that one! I have too much other stuff on my plate (reading plate), but don't worry, because there are some cooking tips included in this book, such as, for example, how to prepare cruciferous vegetables (Broccoli, cauliflower): after chopping them or breaking them apart, let them sit for a while so the 'damage' the cutting process has done allows time for various enzymes in the veggies to interact and create beneficial compounds which will contribute to your health. The book is full of simple things like that, but there is so much in this book that it's too much to remember. However, if you take away only the message of cutting back on meats and substituting whole, fruits and veggies and some whole grain, you will be well on your journey towards better health, rest assured. I commend this book as a worthy read - or skim!

Insect Superpowers by Kate Messner, Jillian Nickell

Rating: WORTHY!

This book seemed rather obsessed with ants, but that aside it was a worthy read for any child who wants to learn fun and interesting stuff, learn more about insects, or be a bit grossed out. We're talking about supersonic assassins, decapitators, green bolts, malevolent mimics, aphid imposters, false flashes, weight lifters, mutant grasshoppers, shells of steel, machine gun butts, vomitizers, glue shooters, evil architects, fungus farmers, sonar smashers, super stings, pirate queens, and jaws of doom!

I defy any kid not to be interested in something in there! Illustrated in fine style by Nickell and written breathlessly by Messner, this book is sure to appeal to your kid. Or you. You can pretend it's for your kid. Really. It's ok. I won't tell. Honest.

Strapless by Deborah Davis

Rating: WORTHY!

This was an intriguing biography of two people who intersected when one painted the portrait of the other, and the portrait was deemed scandalous. This result had very different effects on both participants.

The artist was John Singer Sargent. You may well ask why he wasn't named John Artist Sargent since he couldn't sing a note. I asked it, but the book never answered. That's books for you. Moody as hell.

The sitter was Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau. Both were American ex-pats, she having moved to France with her mom after the Civil War, and he having moved there to study art. She married a banker and became a much talked-about celebrity despite being merely a socialite. He became well-regarded after having successful exhibits in the annual Paris art Salon.

The thing was that this was in an era where no one blinked at endless classical nudes, and portraits were common. The scandal came about because of one curious thing: Sargent painted Gautreau with one thin strap of her gown partway down her arm. Yes, that was it. And this was in France! And she never really recovered from it. Sargent felt so bad about it that he hid the portrait away for thirty years letting hardly anyone see it. Now it hangs in the Met in New York where anyone can see it. Six years after the original, someone painted an homage to it, and no one blinked an eye. This is why I don't have a lot of regard for art critics! LOL!

The book was well-written and went into a lot of detail about various people's lives and the relationships between the two main characters and other well-known people of the era. It may be too much detail for some, not enough for others, but for me it was fine. I confess I did skim a bit here and there where it was of little interest to me, but I read avidly for most of it. I would have liked to have read more about Singer's art: his techniques and so on, but the author seemed interested only in the size of his canvas! Someone should tell her it's not the size that matters, but what you do with it! That aside, though, I did enjoy it and commend it as a worthy read.