The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey

The Secret Rooms: A True Story of A Haunted Castle, A Plotting Duchess, & A Family Secret
by Catherine Bailey

Published by: Penguin Books
Copyright: December 31, 2013
Format: paperback 
Pages: 512

Genre: Nonfiction, WWI, British History
Source: own book

From the back of the book:
When the 9th Duke of Rutland died alone in the cramped family archives on April 21, 1940, his son and heir, Charles, ordered the room sealed. Sixty years later, Catherine Bailey became one of the first historians allowed inside. What she discovered when she began reading through the duke's letters was a mystery involving one of the most powerful families in British society in the turbulent days leading up to World War I. The 9th Duke, who had devoted his entire adult life to organizing and cataloging several hundred years' worth of family correspondence, had carefully erased three periods of his life from the record. But why? Filled with fascinating real-life characters, a mysterious death, family secrets and affairs aplenty, The Secret Rooms is an enthralling, page-turning true story that reads like an Agatha Christie novel.

First - I think they rather mis-marketed this book. The title of this book is horribly misleading. There is no haunted castle - just a couple of random stories like those you would hear associated with any house that old and that are only mentioned in passing - so if you are expecting a ghost story, you are going to be sadly disappointed. There is a plotting duchess and a family secret, but honestly - they were not what made the book interesting to me. Finally, the secret rooms were not, in any way, actually secret. Everyone knew precisely where they were (they are clearly marked on the map in the book). They were just off limits. A better title would have been Secrets Rooms - i.e. rooms that held secrets.

The book really is the story of the author, who was in the process of researching a book about WWI. She was one of the first historians allowed into the archives of Belvoir Castle. Once there, instead of getting the information she was looking for about the war, she ran into a very precise gap in the records. Instead of being able to pursue her original plan, she gets derailed into trying to figure out why the 9th Earl of Rutland spend the last days of his life carefully destroying all the letters he could find for three very specific ranges of dates.

The first part of the book jumps around a bit - with rather too much emphasis on the whole 'curse on first sons' and 'deep dark secrets' thing trying to evoke the feeling of a Gothic novel almost - but was still fun to read as you followed the author around in her attempt to fill in the gaps and figure out what happened to John Manners (who became the 9th Duke of Rutland) during those periods of time.

The second half of the book is a rather more straightforward narrative, where the author explains what she pieced together once she gets her hands on the few letters that survived. It gets a bit bogged down as the reader goes mentally back and forth trying to tie together the information fed out piecemeal in the first half of the book into the narrative in the second half of the book. On the whole, however, the book offers a fascinating (and in several ways appalling) view into WWI and the activities of one very influential family. 

However, I really hated the way the author chose to end the book. The current Duke and his wife were apparently very helpful in terms of giving the author access to the archives, and in giving her permission to publish something completely different than the WWI book she was originally proposing to write. The book certainly doesn't paint most of the Dukes ancestors in a positive light at all. The way the book ended, it felt like the author was still extremely mad at the 9th Duke for terminating her original line of research (she lists the names of all of the soldiers whose stories she could no longer follow in the book - though honestly, if she was depending on the letters home of a single ADC - their story still would have been pretty impossible to tell - what if John had only written home about personal stuff and not the war, or what if he was a lousy correspondent? The frustration of finding that John had initially kept a detailed and well written journal and then learn that the time period she was interested in either suddenly disconnected or had been destroyed must really have gotten under her skin.) The ending of the book was really abrupt, piecemeal and unsatisfying. Seriously - at that point, to heck with John and his lot - she gave them their piece. What about tying together the WWI story and bringing it forward to modern times?  That would have been much more satisfactory. Instead the end left me ticked off too. 

So - some mixed feeling about this one. Initially I was enjoying the book very much, not for the "secrets" but for the history and sociology - information about the activities of some of the British Aristocracy leading up to World War I and just how badly the war was being run initally. It is a fascinating portrait of a time and lifestyle completely alien to a modern American. I just wish it could have tied up better. I felt rather cheated and left with the sludge of some seriously nasty people. Blugh.

So - the other bit of mismarketing was how promotional material related the book to Downtown Abbey. I can only assume they did that because someone decided that the only information Americans have about Great Britain in WWI is through the PBS series. They are not related. You do have intrigue and such, but it is not akin to watching Upstairs/Downstairs. If you were disappointed by how Downtown Abbey presented WWI and are interested in a more detailed description of the interactions of a Dukedom with the flow of historical events, this book might be of interest to you. If you are reading the book for a deep historical mystery with a dramatic reveal, you are going to be disappointed.

Mostly it is a serious history that got overlain by the machinations of a seriously dysfunctional family with too much power. If that interests you, it will be worth the 500+ pages.

When Oil Peaked by Kenneth Deffeyes (long)

When Oil Peaked 
by Kenneth Deffeyes

Published by: Hill and Wang; Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright: 2010

Format: hardback
Pages: 152
Genre: Non-fiction, oil
Source: own book

From the front cover:
In two earlier books, Hubbert's Peak and Beyond Oil, geologist Kenneth S. Deffeyes laid out his rationale for concluding that world oil production would continue to follow a bell-shaped curve, with the smoothed-out peak somewhere in the middle of the first decade of this millennium—in keeping with the projections of his former colleague, pioneering petroleum geologist M. King Hubbert. Deffeyes sees no reason to deviate from that prediction, despite the ensuing global recession and the extreme volatility in oil prices associated with it. In his view, the continued depletion of existing oil fields, compounded by shortsighted cutbacks in many exploration-and-development projects, virtually assures that the mid-decade peak in global oil production will never be surpassed. In When Oil Peaked, Deffeyes revisits his original forecasts, examines the arguments that were made both for and against them, adds some new supporting material to his overall case, and applies the same mode of analysis to a number of other finite gifts from the Earth: mineral resources that may be also in shorter supply than "flat-Earth" prognosticators would have us believe.

I purchased this book when it came out because I was considering using it for a class, but never got around to reading it since the class went a different direction (water issues mostly). With the recent, dramatic drop in gasoline prices in confluence with my environmental case studies class, I decided to pick the book up to see what kind of a foundation it would lay on the topic of peak oil.  

First I probably should explain that yes, as a geologist, I do believe that there is such a thing as peak oil. In, fact there are finite limits to most of the natural resources that we use every day and take for granted - gold, silver, tantalum, nickel, oil - all of these resources will some day "run out."  What the idea of peak  brings to the table, and why it is important, is that the point at which a resource runs out isn't important. It is the downhill slope we find ourselves on when extracting and processing that resource becomes increasingly costly and more difficult - where prices get higher and higher as more people are fighting over a smaller and smaller supply. It doesn't really matter too much what the total amount on the Earth of oil, copper or uranium is, what matters is what happens when we run out of the east stuff - how much damage are we willing to do to get that resource out of the ground and how much energy are we willing to use to get it ?  We points where there is a negative return on investment long before we 'run out' of anything.

There is a fundamental disconnect between economic models that assume that as long as a demand exists, there is an infinite supply that can be brought to market, and the reality of our finite natural resource base. I will try to illustrate this with an admittedly lame example ...

(Bear with me - there is a book review here too.) 

Take an existing product, like a smart phone. As long as there is a demand for smart phones, even if Apple and Samsung were suddenly to disappear in a cloud of smoke and counter lawsuits, some company will rise to supply the market with smart phones. If those smart phones get too expensive or lack the functions the market wants, then other companies will rise to fill that gap. (Yes this is an oversimplification of the invisible hand idea, but it will serve for now.) So the idea is that as long as there is a demand, the market will respond with a supply that will dynamically respond to changes in demand.

But what happens if there suddenly is no more tantalum (Ta - atomic number 73) available? Tantalum is an element so, outside of some really expensive processes involving a cyclotron or something, there isn't a feasible way of making more of it - certainly not in amounts large enough to support current levels of industrial use. This limitation impacts all of those smart phone companies (as well as several other industries).

Traditional market theory states that someone will come up with a substitute, but it doesn't really work that way with elements. Instead - as the supply gets smaller and smaller, the things that it get used for will become prioritized by how much the market is willing to spend - cell phones verses medical implants for example. In some cases there might be other elements with similar properties that can substitute, in other cases, there won't be, so some products would become extremely expensive, have to change radically to something else, or simply disappear.

Following through with this example, you can see that it isn't the point at which the tantalum runs out that is economically important - it is the point at which the mines reach their peak. For a finite resource there is going to be a peak point of production - a point after which there won't be enough new discoveries to maintain production so there will be a decline in supply as the mines won't be able to provide enough to keep up with the demand. This causes the price to go up and up - and since we are talking about an element here, there wouldn't be an easy switch - you can't just substitute uranium or chlorine for tantalum.

Now what happens to our market ? Well, smart phones would start to get really expensive - like that $6,000 Lamborghini premium mobile phone, but the sticker price would apply to your iPhone or Android phone as well. Some companies will start making Ta-free, lower priced phones but they are going to be bigger, luggable models that don't fit in your pockets. Computers will also change and/or get more expensive (it might even drive us back to desktops and away from tablets). Hip implants will change. Etc. etc. 

The market response is much messier, but at least in this case there are ways for the market to adapt - though we might not like them. But what if we are talking about resources were there just are not any clear substitutes or substitutes that can be brought to market quickly enough - like oil (water also comes to mind) ? Things aren't messy then - they are downright ugly.

Which leads me in a very roundabout way back to the book. We currently have a situation where we are almost certainly beyond (or at) peak for conventional oil production but in the past couple months oil prices have plummeted - seemingly in defiance of the peak model I just described. 
What's up with that ? 

This is exactly the sort of question I want my students to be asking and why I pulled the book out. See, it was a geologist, M. King Hubbert, who originally came up with the whole concept of a peak in connection to the U.S. oil supply. Deffeyes, the author of When Oil Peaked actually worked with Hubbert at Shell and this is his third, and most recent book on the topic. 

Hubbert's 1956 graph entitled United States crude-oil production base on
assumed initial reserves of 150 and 200 billion barrels.

I read the book basically to see how well it would work as an exploration of the topic and determine if it would be suited for student use. Unfortunately my answer to both questions was "not very well." As an exploration the topic it is pretty weak. It reads more like a bull session with someone over beers rather than a cogent discussion. You would have to already have a pretty good handle on the topic for this discussion, I mean book, to make much sense to you. Ideas are tossed out rather randomly and the topical flow is very weird, plus the author has chosen to make one-line jokes a priority over clarity. 

On that note - the author's privilege pervades the text with jokes that have a tendency to punch down. Towards the second half of the book I have WTF scrawled on many pages in association with jokes that while not offensive (actually one did offend me) but, like I said, punch down or use stereotypes as lazy attempts at humor. I was not impressed. 

In terms of technical content, the book lacks any serious references and the author - with intent - uses just-so stories to make most of his points. That is fine as a starting point, but without more serious discussion or at least references to allow one to pursue a point with greater depth, this approach provides little value to students. 

Too much of the book is composed of the author just writing down stuff that interested him without bothering to do any sort of background research for context. Some random examples: 

From the Uranium chapter - the chapter starts with a series of disconnected statements that I can't tell if the author is agreeing with or arguing with or what. One of the statements is  "The nuclear waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain doesn't look effective or safe" [pg 71]. Um, huh ? This book was published in 2010 but back in 2009 the Obama administration 'officially' cancelled the project and stopped requesting money for it. Actually Obama and Harry Reid made closing Yucca Mountain a priority (both campaigned on it) and started dismantling it as soon as Obama took office in 2008. A quick look into the topic reveals that apparently they couldn't really do that and there have been court cases etc, but as things stood in 2010 Yucca Mountain was to outward appearances, cancelled. If the author wanted a one-off sentence it should have read Yucca Mountain has turned into a political and legal quagmire though that still doesn't help with the context issue.

Then the author makes an extremely unclear argument that there is plenty of uranium around to use based on his Gaussian model of uranium distribution in the Earth's crust (I actually had to look this up on-line to figure out - from the book I couldn't tell if he though there wasn't enough uranium or that there was plenty and the model he created was published in Scientific American - was it really that different of a magazine then? peer reviewed ? this just seems weird). Next, for reasons completely unclear to me, he mentions that he is nervous about uranium roll-front deposits (that there haven't been enough discovered in other countries, that the model of a roll-front sedimentary deposit is wrong, or something else - I have no idea) and then randomly starts talking about copper deposits. Why? I have no clue.  

Later in the chapter he makes the completely reality challenged statement "Yucca Mountain, in nobody's backyard" apparently completely unaware that around 75% of the residents of Nevada oppose housing nuclear waste there and have been fighting it tooth and nail for years. Plus, his take Radwaste storage is pretty ill-informed at best. 

And from the last paragraph of the chapter "One final way of sugarcoating the renewal of nuclear-power reactors would be burning up part, or all, of the inventory of military nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapon inventories are being reduced in Russia and the United States. Using the fissile ingredients from bombs to generate electric power is the modern equivalent of 'they shall beat their swords into plowshares.'"

The way that paragraph is written it sounds like he is tossing an idea out there for 'us' to use, right? Book published in 2010 and he says this 'would be' a way to sugarcoat nuclear use? 

I guess he never heard of the Megatons to Megawatts program? The 1993 agreement between the US and Russian governments under which Russia would convert 500 tonnes of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from warheads and military stockpiles (equivalent to around 20,000 bombs) to low-enriched uranium (LEU) and to be bought by the USA for use in civil nuclear reactors? Yeah - that program actually ran until 2013, when Russia competed their end of the deal, making around $17 billion. (U.S. weapons were also converted). A new deal wasn't negotiated since US/Russia relations haven't been that great lately. Here is a NPR report from 2013 on the program - "For the past two decades, 10 percent of all the electricity consumed in the United States has come from Russian nuclear warheads."

If he did know about those programs, the way he wrote that paragraph is disingenuous at best and if he didn't know about those programs - well that is worse. They weren't exactly a secret.

There are many examples like this from the book - the author makes some statement, or suggestion, or whatever it is meant to be, that seems to lie out there its own bubble, shunning context, in defiance of the rest of the world.

And the Climate Change chapter is better ignored completely. It is a hash of either brutal oversimplification or a haze of misunderstanding. I do have to point out that the Black Death - peaking in 1346/53 - caused a huge population crash that might have rather more to do with pushing "societies down into survival mode" than the onset of the Little Ice Age (starting around 1350.) And all I can say is that based on his collection of suggestions is that he doesn't appear to give a d*am about the other species on the planet. 

Mudstone is NOT the same thing as shale!  %#*$& geologist should know that!  Fracing shale typically works because shale is fissile. Mudstone has different implications. I know that some oil people tend to use the term "shale" for any tight, small grained rock but a geologist should be better about their terminology. Sorry - I have pages of notes here that I am trying to condense into something coherent and not just a list of issues/complaints but that one annoyed me.  

The mineral resources are in the book because wind and solar power development depend on access to trace and rare-earth elements, which in turn take energy to acquire and process. This needs to be kept in mind - wind turbines and solar panels can't be manufactured out of thing air - it is energy intensive and requires use of more of those finite resources. I just wish he had tied this together better.

There are lots of other things that I could mention, but in deference to anyone who hasn't given up reading in despair by this point, I will sum up ... It was with almost equal parts interest and annoyance that I completed this book. Some of the discussion was historically interesting or illuminating but way too much was disorganized and disengaged.

I think that the author does have some interesting things to say about oil, using stop-gaps and not wanting to get stuck in a dead-end with respect to energy policy and infrastructure, but I find it odd that he seems to be proposing a one-size fits all solution - i.e. there is one  solution that we should put all/the bulk of funding towards. I think different solutions need to be integrated together. I also found much of the discussion shallow or meandering. 

Mostly it felt like this book was composed out of a loose outline that never got fleshed out. Ultimately it was disappointing. I think that the only people who are going to get anything out of it are people who already are familiar with the topic. This definitely isn't the place to start if you are a student or want to learn about the concept. Sigh, which means that I am going to go back and read his first book Hubbert's Peak to see if it is any better suited as an introduction to the topic. I am just really, really hoping that it is better written as well. 


Oh - about oil prices ... take a look at this graph from the EIA (U.S. Energy Information Administration) 

See what happened last year?  Production (supply), the blue line, kept going up while consumption (demand) dropped. Classic oversupply causing a price drop. So does this mean "Yeah! we aren't really near peak oil at all" ? Nope. Sorry. This also isn't because of the tight-oil (shale-oil from the Bakken) making the US "energy independent" either.

These exceptionally low oil prices are actually bad for US oil production. See, it costs more per barrel to extract oil from the Bakken then from someplace like Saudi Arabia.  If you look at the graph below the breakeven point for oil from the Hess Bakken is around $60 a barrel, so if the price of oil drops below $60, you would be losing money for each barrel of oil you pull out of the ground and sell. At the $50/barrel line on the graph you can see that most of the US plays are on the wrong side of the break even point - i.e. bad news for US production.

Just FYI - the break even point for oil from Saudi Arabia is closer to $25/barrel. This means that some oil suppliers can survive low prices much better than others. There are oil-rich nations / oil companies that are hurting right now because their oil-fields are on the wrong side of the breakeven point at the current price of oil. However, many of them are going to keep pumping, at least for a while, for a variety of reasons - ex. making a little money off the oil and working at a net loss waiting for prices to rebound is better/less expensive in the long-run than shutting everything down and having to rebuild later. Prices are going to rebound at some point, the question is when.

We have almost certainly passed peak on conventional oil resources. The world is increasingly dependent on non-traditional oil sources. There is a lot of oil in non-traditional sources, but it takes more energy to get it out of the ground, refine it and move it to market so the energy return on investment (EROI) is much lower than for conventional oil - thus there might be more of it, but we have to use much more of it to get the same amount of energy out. This means that we are still looking at an oil peak, it is just a somewhat different when you include the non-traditional sources.

And this discussion of cost doesn't even consider the external costs associated with non-conventional oil sources - like environmental damage we do trying to get it out of the ground (see for example Athabasca tar sands and the Keystone Pipeline - part 2) and the extra CO₂ that gets put into the atmosphere from acquiring it and using it. 

Complicated stuff. Now I need better books to help explain it.

Animals Teachers by Janet Halfmann

Animals Teachers
by Janet Halfmann
illustrated by Katy Hudson

Published: September 2, 2014
Publisher: Blue Apple Books 

Pages: 36
Format: Ebook (I have purchased a hardback now too)
Genre: Nonfiction Picture book
Age range: 4 - 8 years
Source: Digital book provided by Publisher for Cybils consideration and I have now purchased a hardback.

From Blue Apple Books:

How Do Animals Learn To Swim, Fish, Box, Or Build?

In the forest, in the pond, in caves, prairies, and jungles, in all the world's outdoor "classrooms," baby animals are...learning! They are taking lessons on how to be an expert swimmer, alarm-sounder, racer-chaser, or hide-and-seeker. They don't have books, or desks, or computers. But they do have teachers!
With clear, graceful prose and striking illustrations, Animal Teachers showcases the teacher-student dynamic between adult and young animals as they are taught crucial skills needed to handle daily challenges.
An entertaining combination of science and storytelling, this instructive title presents skills that a dozen different young animals have to learn.

First off - the illustrations absolutely blew me away. They are breathtakingly lovely. When I read the digital copy with my daughter, she wouldn't let me turn the pages until she finished drinking in the images - including the end pages. Just gorgeous. I have ordered the hardback and can't wait to see what the illustrations look like in person.

Each two page spread talks about a lesson - swimming lessons, boxing lessons, shouting lessons - and then talks about how baby animals learn that skill. Then there is also a question, like - "Who taught you what's good to eat? Do you ever try to bite your toes ?"  This answer-question style makes it a great candidate for read alouds to younger readers, providing opportunities for audience participation.

Animal Teachers is a gentle, lovely introduction to animals that provides younger children a different perspective than your typical "what sound do chickens make?" style of thing. It should also prove a good informational text for kindergarten or 1st grade students and work as a jump off point for projects. Two thumbs up!

Fighting Fire! by Michael Cooper - rambing discussion instead of strict review

Fighting Fire! Ten Deadliest Fires in American History and How We Fought Them
by Michael L. Cooper

Published: March 4, 2014
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

Pages: 224
Genre: Nonfiction 
Age range: 10 - 14 Years
Source: Provided by Publisher for Cybils consideration

From the cover:
Since colonial times, the destructive power of fires and the bravery of those who fight them have remained constant in American history.

Fighting Fire! presents ten of the deadliest infernos this nation has ever endured: the great fires of Boston, New York, Chicago, Baltimore, and San Francisco; the disasters of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, the General Slocum, and the Cocoanut Grove nightclub; the wildfire of Witch Creek in San Diego County; and the catastrophe of 9/11. 

Each blaze led to new firefighting techniques and technologies, yet the struggle against fires continues to this day. With historical images and a fast-paced text, this is both an exciting look at firefighting history and a celebration of the human spirit.

Okay - so I am about to be something of a wet blanket here (which is almost a pun, sorry about that). The tag line on the back of the book says:

Discover their stories and find out how each one changed the way fires are fought today. 

So - random piece of information about me that you might not have picked up on, since I haven't been posting about it lately - I do HAZWOPER (Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response) 40- and 8-hour training. I am pretty much on the operations end but I know several fire fighters and emergency response personnel. I already knew about all of the fires discussed in this book but I was interested in how the author was going to discuss them and excited about the idea of looking at them in the context of how firefighting changed because of each of them.

I thought the book started out well - the historic fires were discussed and basic issues, like the fact that there was no such thing as professional fire fighters initially and that as the idea took shape there were competing private companies that took to activities like fighting over which company was going to fight a fire (while the buildings burned down) and setting fires in each others patches (thus the first sentence from the blurb really annoyed me) as well as issues with the lack of equipment and infrastructure. It felt like the book was laying the base for a good discussion of how things have changed over time.

Then, somewhere about the General Slocum/Triangle Waist Fire chapters, things started going downhill for me. These were historic events that had some major repercussions but the book focused more on the horror of these fires without really taking the time to discuss how important changes were made in public attitudes and in law - it went from feeling educational to feeling like tawdry sensationalism. I felt that more time should have been taken to discuss context and impact - there was a bit, but not enough. The Triangle Waist Fire in particular marked a change between the concept of fire suppression to fire prevention. For example - the building they were in was of modern construction and considered "fire proof." For one narrow meaning of the term, this is true. The building was basically fine - it was just the people and the contents that burned.

There are lots of things to discuss that I felt were given insufficient attention. The Triangle Waist Fire was utterly horrific - it took until fairly recently for the last six bodies from this fire to be positively identified - almost 100 years. And it might seem more personal to young readers - nearly half the victims were teenagers. Changes in how people thought about the treatment of immigrant workers followed this fire. From the technology end - the nets that the fire fighters had, well, they didn't save any lives. The fire fighters actually got there quickly and put out the fire quickly. But they were clearly working with tools inadequate for the job of rescuing people. And building codes and inspections ... lots to discuss there too.

The 'fire escape' to nowhere from the Triangle Waist Fire. Instead of leading to the roof or the ground,
for some weird reason it lead to a second floor skylight.  I really want to see the building plans because
I don't understand the descriptions of this at all. Plus, the thing was weak and substandard anyhow
- it collapsed and many people fell to their deaths from here. Not how a fire escape is supposed to work.

Oh, oh - and the book mentions that "[The factory owners'] insurance company paid each victim's family about $75" but fails entirely to point out that the insurance company actually paid Harris and Blanck (the owners) about $400 per life lost and that they settled at trial for paying out about $75 per life. They actually made about $60,000 of the deaths of the workers!  It infuriates me even now! and they opened a new factory all of a week or so after the fire - one with no fire escapes and too few exits! Here - OSHA has a great link roundup from the 100th anniversary - https://www.osha.gov/oas/trianglefactoryfire.html go read - I will stop ranting about this one.

Okay - to get back on track ... The Cocoanut Grove chapter was a bit better - some specific changes were discussed. Still felt more sensationalized though. 

Then for some reason the book skips from Cocoanut Grove (1942) to 9/11 (2001). Um - there were fires between these two points. Some important ones actually. And thinking more about this, given the context of the book, the 1903 Iroquois Theater fire (NFPA pdf) should have been included as well. Six hundred and two people were killed and major changes were made in building codes following that fire. It is pretty relevant to the supposed discussion at hand.

So, anyhow, 1943 - 2000 falls into a black hole, along with the Rattlesnake Fire (1953) - started by arson in which 15 fire fighters died, is still used as a training example and led to major changes in how forest fires are fought, the Yellowstone fires of 1988 that never were controlled - they were finally put out by snowfall, the Oakland Fire Storm (1991) that destroyed 3469 homes, Alaska's 2003 fire that burned 1,305,592 acres - I will stop, you get the idea. Lots of possible candidates here.

Right so fast forward to 2001 - the book gives you a localized perspective of events mostly through the perspective of Chief Picciotto, then gives you some death statistics and says absolutely nothing about how this fire changed fire fighting or anything about different technologies used or anything to provide contexts. (BTW - a command center and a staging ground are two different things.) Many friends and friends of friends from around here went to help fight this fire and deal with the aftermath. I was personally offended by this chapter. The book makes it sound like emergency responders were just wandering around at random and doing ill advised things without fairly giving a sense of the utterly overwhelming scale of events. This was a huge event, even if you just look at it through the perspective of fire fighting and the book doesn't to it justice. Now that I think about it, this chapter was written quite differently from the previous ones. The other chapters were putting events into historical perspective - this one was really a personal view of events. I admit that for some of us it is still hard to put 9/11 into historical perspective - and that much of the books intended audience, they were not born yet, so for them this is already ancient history. Just - this chapter didn't mesh well. What changed in how we fight fires due to 9/11 book? What was different here - inadequate tools for the job verses Triangle Waist ? This was a huge important events in many ways but I don't think that the book handled it all that well.

I have even more issues with the 2007 wildfire chapter - there was nothing about what changed in firefighting here either. In fact, I am not even sure why this particular fire was included. I believe that it still stands as the largest evacuation in California, but why is that special? Lots of wildfires require evacuations. That isn't new. There have been plenty of other wildfires that were larger, some that caused way more damage to structures. The 1871 Peshtigo Wildfire is estimated to have killed 1700 people or more but it happened the same year as the Great Chicago Fire so it tends to get forgotten about. This 2007 fire, more commonly known as the Witch Fire (it started near Witch Creek) ranks 5th or lower in terms of acres burned in California. It was expensive but not as expensive as that Oakland fire. I just don't understand why the book picked this fire to close with. This was the last chapter - shouldn't it have been about something big ?  Instead it was more of a "We Love You Firefighters" - which is all well and good (some of my relatives and friends were fire fighters - so yup, totally on board with a big thank you) - but again this chapter felt completely tacked on with little rhyme or reason.Why this fire book?

More recently, in the 2013 Yarnell Hill fire 19 hotshots lost their lives leading to some intense debates about those last resort fire tents. But that would have happened after the book went to press I can forgive this one.

And does anyone remember the Great White fire at The Station nightclub in 2003 that killed 100 people and injured 230. Overcrowded club where pyrotechnics started a fire which spread amazingly quickly along flammable foam used as insulation in the building. Two of the four exits were chained shut, and some bouncer initially prevented people from using the stage door, so that the only exit was the front door - causing a huge bottleneck as people tried to escape. Sounds eerily familiar once you have read the stories about Cocoanut Grove and Imperial Theater, doesn't it. 

Sorry - I started rambling again.

Ah, but one of the reasons that I was so interested in this book was that link to technology, right.  So well did it do there?  As far as I can see, not well at all ...

What about the robots used as scouts in collapsed buildings? What about infrared sensors to find trapped people?  Scooting back in time, what about the development of fire suppressant foam? Smoke detectors? SCBA - self contained breathing apparatus? The only technology that the book really seems aware of is fire engines. There were a bunch of opportunities here to explore changes in how we fight fires and they were all ignored.

Also the way the last chapter ends is totally trivial ... "From colonial bucket brigades to modern engines that can pump ten thousand gallons of water a minute, firefighting techniques and technology have evolved dramatically. But one thing hasn't changed over the centuries: the dedication and bravery of our fire fighters."

a. As I already pointed out the behavior and concept of being a fire fighter has evolved significantly since colonial times - the books author even tells us so in the first few chapters!

b. The book barely mentions the changes in technology! Which is one of the things I was most interested in reading about! It has a lovely little gallery of images of fire engine photos over time WITH NO CAPTIONS TELLING YOU ANYTHING ABOUT THEM!

Oh man and the recommended reading list of 10 books has 4 books about 9/11 !

Oops - I started rambling again didn't I.

To sum up - yes I know that I am being a bit unfair since I know so much about this topic. I can poke holes and nitpick in a way that kids can't and won't. However, I still feel that this could have been a much better book if it did what it claimed on the back cover. The book took a great concept, good pictures and decent writing - then didn't really deliver. It fell back on listing 'some famous' fires, ditched the how we fight concept halfway through and ended with a whimper.

BTW - it is not a discussion of the ten deadliest fires in US history as advertised - the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) list is here and you can see only a little overlap. For example, this book has no coal mine fires. And, amazingly - those Great Fires like in Boston and Chicago - the loss of life there was extraordinarily low given the massive destruction, so while they were unarguably historically important, they were not 'deadliest' fires. Thus, the book doesn't even follow that criteria. Or you can take a look at the NFPA Deadliest Single Building or Complex Fires and Explosions list (the Great White/Station nightclub fire is there at number 17). Again, no match. I don't understand the criteria that the author used here.

On the other hand, most kids don't know anything about any of these events (this is also apparently increasingly true with adults as well - which really surprised me) so as a first introduction this book isn't that bad - I would much rather have kids read this book then learn nothing about these events, and I find it a much better true adventures style book than many I have read. Plus, it can serve as a jumping off point for more research - there are lots of obvious holes and unanswered questions that might spur interest in a younger reader. It might also be a good choice for reluctant readers. If you have students, I would say younger middle school age, interested in the topic, give this book a go. It isn't actually bad, it just really didn't live up to my expectations - in several ways.

Let me put this a bit differently.  I was hoping that there would be way more discussion of problems and the technologies used to overcome them. I would have given this book to my son to read then. Instead it focuses more and more on the horrific events and even starts to personalize them, without pulling back and providing a larger context or a really discussing technology at all.  I won't be giving this book to my son. He would have nightmares ... which leads me to this ... 

An important warning  - this book should only be given to readers that are not sensitive to fairly non-graphic but intense descriptions of death and tragedy. Some of the events described are pretty horrific and could lead to nightmares. Also be aware that if your students do some web searching on these fires, they might run into some pretty graphic images and much more graphic descriptions (testimony about the Triangle Shirt Fire and Cocoanut Grove fires still makes me ill to read) so preselect sites for them to visit to keep them from stumbling into anything too deep.

Well - there you go - a long rambling discussion that I hope helps you to decide whether this book would be a good one for any budding fire fighters in your life. 

The Story of Buildings by Patrick Dillion

The Story of Buildings: From the Pyramids to the Sydney Opera House and Beyond 
by Patrick Dillion
illustrated by Stephen Biesty

Published: March 11, 2014
Publisher: Candlewick

Pages: 96 pages

Genre: Nonfiction
Age Range: 9 - 12 years
Grade Level: 4 - 7
Source: library

Summary from Candlewick:
Featuring beautiful double spreads and flaps
We spend most of our lives in buildings. We make our homes in them. We go to school in them. We work in them. But why and how did people start making buildings? How did they learn to make them stronger, bigger, and more comfortable? Why did they start to decorate them in different ways? From the pyramid erected so that an Egyptian pharaoh would last forever to the dramatic, machine-like Pompidou Center designed by two young architects, Patrick Dillon’s stories of remarkable buildings — and the remarkable people who made them — celebrates the ingenuity of human creation. Stephen Biesty’s extraordinarily detailed illustrations take us inside famous buildings throughout history and demonstrate just how these marvelous structures fit together.

Aspiring architects will be in their element! Explore this illustrated narrative history of buildings for young readers, an amazing construction in itself.

Ack! Okay I am torn by another book here. The illustrations in the book are absolutely amazing. You have detailed pictures of famous building packed with information. Click on the picture of Notre-Dame for example. There are a bunch of callout boxes talking about the different parts of the structure. 

Super cool, right ? Reminiscent of David Macaulay's books like Pyramid, Cathedral and Underground.  I was immediately drawn to this book.

However, I have been finding the writing style, um, well plodding and choppy honestly. See, this is how the book starts ...

BUILDING A HOUSE
Imagine you find yourself in a forest. Night is falling. You have to build a shelter. 

You gather sticks and stack them up to make a cabin, but the sticks keep toppling over. At last you learn how to tie them with vines to hold them upright, but when you crawl into the cabin, there's hardly any space inside. Logs don't keep out the rain either. It trickles between them and drips on your face. 

Maybe you find yourself in the mountains, so you decide to make a stone house. But though you gather all the stones you can find, you don't have anything to stick them together with. After hours of hard work, your house is just a heap of rocks. 

If you find yourself by a river, it's even worse: there's nothing to build with but mud.

Right. So my first problem is that you are talking to an age group intimately familiar with mud, sticks and stones. They are already building constructions out of these materials. They get it. Plus, lots of these kids might be in the scouts too. And the book starts out talking down to them. Not to mention making our ancestors sound like a pack of idiots. ARGH! The text is just too dumbed down and vastly oversimplifies things or makes stuff up. It doesn't live up the illustrations for me.

Sorry, this one doesn't blow up as big.

Here is another example:

The greatest of all Egypt's rulers was Pharaoh Djoser. He expanded his kingdom far into Africa and Arabia, and his people worshiped him as a god. But as time went by, an uneasy feeling began to keep Djoser awake at night. He was the most powerful man in the world, but one day he would die just like the poorest beggar. He had defeated all his enemies, but he could never conquer time. 

Okay - so around here kids cover some portions of ancient civilizations in 6th grade and would usually have a unit or two about ancient Egypt in elementary school (mummies and pyramids are cool stuff!). So, the first things is that you are going to have is an argument about this "greatest of all rulers" stuff. Ramses II is usually the go to choice for greatest. Plus you can have some spirited discussion about Khufu (aka Cheops) of Great Pyramid fame and Amenhotep III who ruled Egypt at the height of its power - in any case, the name of some third dynasty guy is not going to feature prominently here. Then the rest of the paragraph is just made up stuff. Filler that is not historically accurate, nor does it address what is so interesting about what Djoser did. 

So, kids probably won't know this Djoser guy, but they will recognize the name Step Pyramid and many will have some idea of its importance in terms pyramid design, leading eventually to the Great Pyramids at Giza. So, why does book spout some gibberish about Djoser's motivations rather then talk about the design questions here - building a giant pyramid isn't easy - you have to get the pitch correct - too steep and it collapses - too shallow and it would take way too much time and too much material. Yes, this was the first stone monument but there was precedent - taking the basic structure of a Saqqara mastaba and stacking it. That is worth talking more about.

Also, Djoser isn't actually the interesting one here. Imhotep, Djoser's minister (vizir) is because he is the one responsible for design and construction of the Step Pyramid. Imhotep is considered often considered to be the earliest known architect and engineer, and one of the earliest physicians history. A Pharaoh being kitted out for immortality is par for the course. But the fact that Imhotep was one of only a few commoners ever to be accorded divine status after death is much more interesting.

Oh, right - the book also says ...

Djoser's great pyramid at Saqqara didn't fall, though. It remained, like a mountain against the Egyptian sky. Sandstorms buried his shrine. But when it was dug out, thousands of years later, its walls were as smooth and strong as ever.

Book - we have the internet - why are you saying silly things? No it was not not "smooth and strong as ever" - sheesh I am drowning in hyperbole here. The Step Pyramid is amazingly cool - you don't have to make up stuff! 

Now all of this said, I am still going to get my son a copy, because the illustrations are just that awesome. But why, oh why couldn't the text have lived up to them. 

So if you have child interested in architecture, this book would make a good present for the illustrations, but good golly be prepared for them to get just outraged at some of the stuff in the text.  

Florence Nightingale by Demi

Florence Nightingale 
by Demi 
Published: February 4, 2014
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Sold by: Macmillan 

Pages: 40 pages

Genre: Nonfiction
Age Range: 4 - 8 years
Grade Level: P - 3
Source: library


Summary from Macmillan:

Florence Nightingale revolutionized the world of medicine by emphasizing cleanliness, food that was hot and nutritious, and organization in hospitals. What began as an attempt to make army hospitals safer and more effective became a lifelong mission, and remains relevant today.

 

This new picture book biography of Florence Nightingale, from celebrated author and artist Demi, beautifully portrays the story of Florence's life and explores the long-lasting effects of her career. 

 

This is an absolutely beautiful book. The style reminds me of enamel work. I don't know how I missed Demi before, but I will be seeking out more of her work to share with my kids.

Plus, for so many people Florence Nightingale has become more of an idea than a person. And most kids don't know about her at all. This book presents her story in clear prose with lovely, detailed illustrations that show the contrast between the privileged world Nightingale gave up and the world of the poor and forgotten that she chose to serve.  The illustrations do gently suggest the full horror of what the field hospitals and workhouses would have been like. This allows you to see both the challenges Nightingale faced and provide a stark before and after contrast, showing what she accomplished. It is impressive work.

The story is a summary of Nightingale's entire life, so it might be lacking some of the in-depth information older children might want, but this does make it very approachable for younger children. I especially like the fact that the story tells you about some of the concepts - like collecting detailed information about how places functioned and striving for efficiency - that Nightingale based her work around. If you have a child enamored of Doc McStuffins, this book would give them a real life example to aspire too. Thumbs up.

The Pilot and the Little Prince: The Life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry by Peter Sís

The Pilot and the Little Prince: The Life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry  
by Peter Sís
Published: May 27, 2014
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Sold by: Macmillan 

Pages: 48 pages

Genre: Nonfiction
Age Range: 5 - 8 years **
Grade Level: Kindergarten - 3 **
Source: library

** I disagree with the age range here. I would think 3rd grade minimum. 

Summary from Macmillan:
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in France in 1900, when airplanes were just being invented. Antoine dreamed of flying and grew up to be a pilot—and that was when his adventures began. He found a job delivering mail by plane, which had never been done before. He and his fellow pilots traveled to faraway places and discovered new ways of getting from one place to the next. Antoine flew over mountains and deserts. He battled winds and storms. He tried to break aviation records, and sometimes he even crashed. From his plane, Antoine looked down on the earth and was inspired to write about his life and his pilot-hero friends in memoirs and in fiction. Peter Sís’s remarkable biography celebrates the author of The Little Prince, one of the most beloved books in the world.

Oh dear, this is another one of those puzzles. This book is absolutely beautiful. My son said that the pictures were more important than the words and they are what told the story.  I find that I agree.
The images are poetic. They tie in very strongly to the feeling of The Little Prince.

Follow the face of the land - Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers

Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers

It is the text is where we run into problems. There is the skeletal story told in normal text at the bottom of the pages. This story flows, but is pretty basic. I suppose that technically if all you read is the text at the bottom, you could consider the book appropriate for the age range listed (5-8) but you would also be missing most of the story.

See, there is more text, in a stylized script inside the illustrations - woven into the illustration or going in a circle around the round images in the page (you can an example in the page above.) This text is where things get more interesting and bulk out the story. However - since this font is small and often goes in circles, it would be almost impossible to read to a group a children. And since children are generally pretty clever, they are going to notice this text and expect you to read it. (Have you ever tried to skip text in front of a group of 1st graders - not happening.) This illustrative text is also where the vocabulary kicks up a couple notches as does the depth of the material. You wander out of the range of 5-7 year olds and into more of a 4-5 grader territory. This is the sort of book where an individual reader pours over each page, soaking in the details.

So, beautiful, interesting - though it really needed to talk more about the books de Saint-Exupéry wrote. Most of them are just listed as emblems with a year published or awards won. He was world famous as an author-pilot, but the book lets that first one lie rather fallow - you are flowing along with the story and then ...

then there is the ending. If you don't know anything about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and have never read The Little Prince this is going to be a spoiler so


Spoiler alert?  sorta  ...  


See, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry vanished on a reconnaissance mission during WWII - he took off on a spotting mission and never returned. It was one of the great mysteries of WWII.  The assumption generally was that he had been shot down and he was hailed as a hero. So - tough ending for a kids book, but doable. 

The way this book ends - the last two page spread reads ...


"But he never returned. Some say he forgot his oxygen mask and vanished at sea."


"Maybe Antoine found his own glittering planet next to the stars."


But the problem here is that I have never seen anyone imply that he forgot his oxygen mask. This is such a weird line to add - I can only assume that the author is attempting to gently allude to the possibility de Saint-Exupéry might have committed suicide in a fit of depression rather than being shot down by the Luftwaffe as had been assumed for decades. When his plane was discovered, off course from where it was supposed to be, and material finally recovered in the early 2000's, there were no bullet holes in the pieces they found. However, my understanding is that they didn't recover much of the plane, so the lack of bullet holes doesn't really mean that much.

In terms of adult biographies of de Saint-Exupéry this has been a huge point of contention since about 1998. There is some evidence that suggests he might have intentionally committed suicide, but it is also entirely possible that the plane really was shot down by the Luftwaffe or that something happened to the plane, or that there was a pilot error. He was flying around in the middle of a world war after all. There simply isn't enough information, as far as I have seen, to draw a strong conclusion. Either way, no one suggested he left off his oxygen mask, at least not that I have seen anywhere, so as far as I can work out,  that line is made up - which is my first problem.

The second issue that I have is that you don't even need to go there in a picture book meant for K-3 kids. I am profoundly disturbed by the way this author chose to add "Some say he forgot his oxygen mask" - I mean, why? Why end the book like that - there are only three sentences on the last two pages and that didn't have to be one of them. It implies either Antoine was careless/stupid or that it was done with intent. The book never really discusses depression but does list all of de Saint-Exupéry's crashes (and boy were some of them doozies!) The book also talks about the first time that de Saint-Exupéry had to use an oxygen mask. This sets things up in an uncomfortable way. If you want to talk about depression or fog of war then talk about it don't just slyly insinuate something and leave it sitting there like that.

It really upset my son when he read the book and he is 12. He was attracted by the art and was totally focused on the book. Then hit the last page and voiced disapproval. We had to have a discussion about what was being implied there. He loved the book up to that point (which is the other issue I raised - the text is really too complex for the intended age range).  And yes - the way this is set up, kids are going to notice that line.

Plus - the book just ends like that. There are no end notes or anything. It just stops. Most books would at least give you a 'his books live on' or 'the world mourned his loss'  - you could still end the book with the line about "Maybe Antoine found his own glittering planet next to the stars." without leaving your child readers totally bereft. A book that was a celebration of de Saint-Exupéry's life ends rather like a smack in the face. It has been seventy years since he disappeared - you could at least say something about his impact as a author. 



End spoiler alert 


Okay - sorry. I will stop ranting now.  I think the most exasperating kind of book is one that you are really loving up to the point it disappoints you and starts dating that trashy book from the other shelves.


So to sum up  - if you have an older elementary school child interested in maps or old airplanes or who really loved The Little Prince - this would be a good book for them, but be ready to discuss how the book ends.


The author/illustrator talks about this book at http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/gallery/2014/jul/27/peter-sis-antoine-de-saint-exupery-the-little-prince

Gravity by Jason Chin

Gravity
by Jason Chin
Format: hardback

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Copyright: 2014
Published: April 29, 2014

Pages: 32

Genre: Nonfiction
Age Range: 5 - 8 years
Grade Level: Kindergarten - 3
Source: library

Summary from Roaring Brook Press/Macmillian:

What keeps objects from floating out of your hand?

What if your feet drifted away from the ground?

What stops everything from floating into space?

Gravity.

As in his previous books, Redwoods, Coral Reefs, and Island, Jason Chin has taken a complex subject and made it brilliantly accessible to young readers in this unusual, innovative, and very beautiful book.

Well, we hit our first disappointment in our nonfiction Cybils reading odyssey. My daughter loves space - she has a dozen space books, a little astronaut hanging from her backpack, and last year for show and tell, she didn't bring in a toy - no, she painted and built a Styrofoam model of the solar system. All things space are currently one of her obsessions.

We loved Redwoods by Jason Chin so when I saw Gravity, I thought that this would be a winner with my daughter. I just read it to her last night and she said, "I don't think I like this book."  She wasn't able to explain why, she is just six after all, but her disappointment was quite sincere. We ended up reading a couple of Elephant and Piggie books afterwards to cheer her up.

The illustrations are beautiful, intricate and everything that I have come to expect from Jason Chin ...

My daughter did see the jokes in the illustrations (though she thought that the little girl should put down the banana and pick up the astronaut and book instead) and spent time looking at everything, especially the last couple of pages - More About Gravity - where she worked to interpret each illustration before I was allowed to read. But in the end, as I report, she wasn't happy with the book.

It isn't the spareness of the text - she loves Viva Frida and has already read that book over again a few more times. I really am not sure.

For my part, I think that Gravity is a lovely book for preschoolers. You might even be able to sneak it into kindergarten, but the age range being listed here is seriously off. Don't make the mistake of wandering into a second grade classroom with this book - it isn't gonna fly. And I too finished the book wanting something a bit more somehow. 

The Mad Potter by Jan Greenberg & Sandra Gordan

The Mad Potter: George E. Ohr Eccentric Genius
by Jan Greenberg & Sandra Gordan

Format: hardback

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Copyright: 2013
Published: October 29, 2013

Pages: 56

Genre: Biography
Age Range: 7 - 11

Source: library

Summary from Roaring Brook Press/Macmillian:

When George Ohr's trove of pottery was discovered in 1967, years after his death, his true genius was discovered with it. The world could finally see how unique this artist really was!

Born in 1856 in Biloxi, Mississippi, George grew up to the sounds of the civil war and political unrest. When he was 22, his boyhood friend introduced him to the pottery wheel. The lost young man suddenly found his calling.

"When I found the potter's wheel I felt it all over like a duck in water." 

He started creating strangely crafted pots and vases, expressing his creativity and personality through the ceramic sculptures. Eventually he had thousands at his fingertips. He took them to fairs and art shows, but nobody was buying these odd figures from this bizarre man. Eventually he retired, but not without hiding hundreds of his ceramics.

Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, authors of the award winning Ballet for Martha,  approach this colorful biography with a gentle and curious hand.

This is an interesting biographical trip through the life of an eccentric artist whose creations were unappreciated during his lifetime. His body of work disappeared from view - actually he hid it all - and when it was re-discovered in 1967, it took the art world by storm. Ohr's motto was "No two alike" and it shows in the amazing array of pieces that he produced. 

Born in Biloxi, Mississippi in 1857 - four years before the start of the Civil War - the son of German immigrants, he started life with advantages that many would have envied. His father started the first blacksmith shop in Biloxi and his mother ran a grocery store. While most children would have followed in one of their parents footsteps, George Ohr struck out on his own to find his own way. The book follows his path through a few failed careers, through his discovery of ceramics and though the trials and tribulations of being a conceptual artist in an age of craftsmen. 

Pottery was predominately of a solely functional nature, but Ohr was an artist in clay - experimenting with form to the point that he eventually abandoned symmetry entirely. His glazes, use of materials and his overarching vision are all amazing to behold. They also overwhelmed potential customers and curtailed his ability to actually sell his work.

Source: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-mad-potter-of-biloxi/

On one hand, this book is a wonderful introduction to a little known (outside of ceramics / fine arts circles) artist whose work now has amazing influence on new artists. George Ohr is a fascinating character (though as I was reading I kept wondering what his wife's life was like and what she thought of it all). His art is just breathtaking and worth just staring at all for its own merits. 

On the other hand, I think the book cheats a bit - focusing on the 'misunderstood genius' angle when it also sounds like George himself was a pretty difficult character. The book also glosses over the fact that Ohr inherited money from his parents, which allowed him to set himself up as a town eccentric. He could afford to refuse to sell his pottery to people he didn't think appreciated it enough. For example, he sent an unsolicited sample of 50 pots to a New Orleans museum and when they only wanted to purchase 12 of them, George demanded all of the pots back. Most of the artists I know would have been thrilled to sell that many items.

There seems to be a blurry line between playing at the eccentric and really being a bit unhinged about things. (Speaking as an environmental geochemistry I also have to wonder if the use of heavy metals in his glazes eventually had an impact on him - many of the things he would have been working with are neurotoxins - they accumulate in the body and might actually have caused the shift from playful unconventional to truely pathological - but that is all speculation on my part!)

On the important subject of historically significant mustaches ... well George Ohr has been compared artistically to Picasso, but honestly - given the mustache - I see him more like a Salvador Dali. 

If you have an interest in an unconventional artist, want a children's story about dedication to ones' artistic vision, or a small glimpse into post-Civil War reconstruction life (though I would have liked to see that play a bigger role) this book is worth your time.

If you are interested, here is a link to the museum that is dedicated to his work, the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art. From the website, their ...

"mission is to promote and preserve the unique legacy of Biloxi potter George E. Ohr and the diverse cultural heritage of the Mississippi Gulf Coast; and to exhibit works which exemplify the independent, innovative, and creative spirit of George Ohr, emancipated craftsman Pleasant Reed, and Ohr-O’Keefe Museum architect Frank Gehry. This mission is served through compelling exhibitions and educational experiences viewed from a fresh perspective relevant to our community, the region, and the nation with a strong focus on ceramic arts. -Board of Trustees 1/13/2010"

Josephine - Words by Patricia Hruby Powell and Pictures by Christian Robinson

Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker
Words by Patricia Hruby Powell
Pictures by Christian Robinson

Format: hardback

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Copyright: 2014

Pages:  104

Genre: Biography
Source: library
Age range: 7 - 10 years

Summary from Chronicle Books:

In exuberant verse and stirring pictures, Patricia Hruby Powell and Christian Robinson create an extraordinary portrait for young people of the passionate performer and civil rights advocate Josephine Baker, the woman who worked her way from the slums of St. Louis to the grandest stages in the world. Meticulously researched by both author and artist, Josephine's powerful story of struggle and triumph is an inspiration and a spectacle, just like the legend herself. 

Written in free-verse, with an unusual layout for the text, it took me a couple pages to get into the swing of things (mostly because I was expecting a straight biography), but once I got into the rhythm I didn't want to stop reading. The book takes you from Josephine's childhood in St. Louis, into the streets with her as a performer, and onto the stage as the toast of Paris. Josephine Baker was more than just a groundbreaking entertainer, she also played a role in WWII.  It is a pretty amazing story.

The first 16 pages of the book are available at
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/titles/josephine.html

Segregation and the impact it had on her self-esteem and career are central to the story. The book manages to take on some of the complexity of her life without oversimplifying it too much, creating a child friendly introduction to a woman often called the first African American superstar.

One of the things I immediately wanted to do once I finished was to go out and find out more about Josephine Baker - grab an adult biography. I am just old enough that my mother talked about her so I have dim memories of her - now I want to know more about her life and times.

Here a short video for the book which shows you the style ...

BTW - here is a brief intro to the real Josephine Baker (warning brief upper body nudity - after all this was Paris in the 1920s!)

I read Josephine to my kids last night, they both gave it a thumbs up too. They also became very curious about the times she lived in and about what happened to the children in her Rainbow Tribe.