Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Monday, June 18th, 2007
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| Author: | Simon Winchester |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | non-fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2005 |
Simon Winchester begins and ends with the San Francisco earthquake (and fire) of 1906, but by the time he gets around to it the second time, he's provided descriptions of earthquakes and tsunamis throughout the world so detailed that I was almost afraid to finish the book. But how could I not? |
Winchester's descriptions of the people and places affected are compelling. For example, the Cassandra in me
was moved by the story of the fire chief of San Francisco, Dennis Sullivan, who argued "for years that the city was a tinderbox waiting to be struck.... He must have felt vindicated when, in October 1905, the National Board of Fire Underwriters declared that San Francisco's water-supply system... was in such poor shape that the hydrants would not be able to halt anything approaching a major fire." "[T]he San Francisco fires raged, at first wholly unchecked, for ... three days" after the earthquake. Within 12 hours, half of the city had been completely burned. "Time and again, since almost every one of the hydrants proved to be dry, the firemen could only look on impotently and suffer the jeers of the crowds which at first could not understand why nothing was being done to contain the inferno."
Winchester's explanations of the geology are clear and frank. The appendix about the Richter Scale is worth the price of admission.
Obviously, not for the squeamish. But a must-read for everyone else who lives on Earth. And not just for those who live in California. Look up New Madrid in the index.
-- Emily |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Crack In the Edge of the World, A: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 |
Posted in Biography, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Death is a central theme, History, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science | Comments Closed
Friday, June 15th, 2007
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| Author: | George MacDonald |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 5 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 5 and up |
| Genre: | fiction, fairy tale |
| Year of publication: | 1873 |
A parable that preaches unquestioning loyalty to an inherited monarchy and being hospitable to strangers. |
Like At the Back of the North Wind by the same author, this one is a book that fails to transcend its times.
I found it nearly impossible to stomach from early on. My 12 year old became outraged by the ending.
-- Emily Berk |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Princess and Curdie, The |
Posted in Conceptual: age 5 and up, Culture, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Fiction, History, Reading level: age 5 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
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| Author: | Janna Levin |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups
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| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups
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| Genre: | Fiction, biography |
| Year of publication: | 2006 |
What must it be like to be so intelligent that you can't trust anyone enough to believe him or her? So confident that you are right and that everyone else is wrong that you ignore the woman who loves you when she tells you that you must eat (and assures you that the food is really, truly not poisoned)? What must it be like to know that you are moral, that you have saved civilization, but to be convicted of immorality and forced to deny your true self?
Janna Levin (our madman who is not at all mad) worms us inside the minds of Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing and forces us to look out into the world through their eyes. When we hear Gödel's story, we may be tempted to think that paranoid insanity is part of terrific genius. But then what are we to think of Alan Turing (yes, he clearly was on the autistic spectrum, but he was not crazy and not harmful to himself or to others), who only wanted to solve very hard problems and love the occasional man and was forced to ingest hormones that destroyed his body and his self-respect? |
A very sad, but important book. A reminder that we must, must, must help our gifted children find communities in which brilliant minds are nurtured and supported and cherished for their idiosyncrasies. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, A |
Posted in Biography, Computers in society, Conceptual: for grown ups, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Fiction, Gifted, History, Math, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: Grown up | Comments Closed
Saturday, March 31st, 2007
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| Author: | Robert Heinlein |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | Fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1961 |
Winner of the 1962 Hugo Award. Story of a human child, raised by Martians on Mars, who comes to Earth and starts a sexual revolution.
I guess it was revolutionary for its time. But re-reading it 40+ years after its release, it strikes me as as preachy as anything by Asimov, with an attitude toward women that holds over from the fifties, and as sexually innocent (not) as The Harrad Experiment. |
Of course, The Harrad Experiment was written more than 10 years later, so that is some proof that Stranger may have been ground-breaking....
Some have suggested that Valentine, the Martian-human Stranger is a metaphor for an Asperger-spectrum gifted learner, who groks nearly everything he studies better and faster than any other human, but who also lacks social skills and an understanding of how humans are expected to behave. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Stranger in a Strange Land |
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Death is a central theme, Fiction, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: Sophisticated reader, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007
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| Author: | Zilpha Keatly Snyder |
| Illustrator: | Alton Raible |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 8 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction, history |
| Year of publication: | 1965 |
Gentle but involving story about young girl whose family has lost its farm, but not its love, principles, or dignity, in California in the Great Depression. One of the notable and wonderful things about this novel is that most of the adults, and most of the children, consistently act in honorable and thoughtful ways. The plot is driven principally by the harsh circumstances of the times. |
Details are provided about the life of the itinerant farm workers at an apricot farm. No doubt there were some landowners who were less kind to their workers. Even so, life was clearly not easy for many children or adults in those years. |
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Velvet Room, The |
Posted in Conceptual: 8 and up, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 8 and up | Comments Closed
Sunday, March 11th, 2007
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Wonderful piece about the author of the book Wicked
My now-12 yr. old has loved the musical since she first saw it when she was around 9. But we (her parents and older sister) have suggested that she not read the book until she is older, although we agree that the book is much more wonderful than the musical.
— Emily
\”Before seeing the Broadway musical “Wicked†for the 25th time, Gregory Maguire, who wrote the novel “Wicked,†was in the lobby of the Gershwin Theater last month persuading people not to read it. Granted, the people were 9, 10 and 13, and Maguire was telling their respective mothers that the book could be “a destination read for freshman year in college.†But when he saw the girls’ hangdog faces, he conceded that, if their mothers read it first and approved, they might try it at 16 instead. …\”
Mr. Wicked by ALEX WITCHEL
Posted in Biography, Broadway musicals, Child-raising, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Death is a central theme, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, History, Reading level: Sophisticated reader, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Monday, February 26th, 2007
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| Author: | Diana Wynne Jones |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1975 |
There are just a few authors that my 12 year old and I trust implicitly.
After having raced through umpteen of her novels, we may have placed Diana Wynne Jones in that category. Sure, The Magicians of Caprona was kind of stupid.... But if you locked us in a library, with a short deadline in which to emerge with a book we were willing to read, it might very well be one by Diana Wynne Jones.
Dogsbody pre-dates the Chrestomanci stories; it's a bit more science fiction than Jones' usual fantasy. The characters and plot -- Cinderella meets Puss (or, in this case, Dog) in Boots -- are very appealing.
The story is told mostly from the point of view of a high Illuminancy, Sirius, who, because he lost his temper and (apparently) killed someone, is exiled to Earth in the body of a new-born puppy. As Sirius learns how to survive as a dog, while solving the mystery of how he was framed, we also learn a bit about the Troubles in Northern Ireland and about how controling our impulses can help us get what we need/want. |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Dogsbody |
Posted in Animals, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, History, Reading level: age 8 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007
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| Author: | Jane Urquhart |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | Fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2006 |
Three plot arcs in which: - An autistic-spectrum woman carries on a lengthy affair with a geologist afflicted with Alzheimer's disease intersects with
- a 19th century capitalist assault on a bog and
- a 21st century romance
lead us to muse on the faultiness of memory and the ways in which artists, artisans, and denizens of the planet change the world by loving and hating and working and evoking and exploring it.
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Or, can it be that by living in the world, we change it so radically that we can't accurately remember it? |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Map of Glass, A |
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, History, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
Monday, January 8th, 2007
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| Author: | Rohinton Mistry |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2002 |
Poverty and religious fanaticism nearly destroy a Parsi family trying to care for a grandfather dying of Parkinson's disease in Bombay.
Wrenching, but the characters are so endearing that I found myself alternately clutching the book, putting it down in horror and sadness, then grabbing it up again to find out how everyone was doing.
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Highly recommended for very sophisticated young readers (teens, perhaps), especially those with an interest in the history and culture of modern India. |
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Family Matters |
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, History, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007
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| Author: | Diane Duane |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
Fourteen year-old wizard Nita's parents are worried about her "relationship" with her wizarding partner (a boy), so they ship her off to Ireland, where she gets into much more harrowing situations (and a romantic one as well) than those she might have experienced if she'd just stayed put in the USA.
My daughter and I loved the way the tiny Bard Cat interacts with her less gifted human allies. The seeming contradiction between the way wizards look -- ordinary -- and what they have to do -- extraordinary -- might be heartening to a child who feels that his or her specialness is not reflected in appearance or circumstances. And, the cameo appearances by Celtic mythological beings are fun.
The discussions of Nita's romantic thoughts (nothing graphic, but probably not of great interest to younger children) and the responsibilities that go along with great power, and the excitement, mayhem, and death that inextricably mix with battle might make this book appealing to adolescent readers, rather than to younger readers. |
My 12 year-old and I enjoyed reading this not very challenging, but plot-intensive story. We did feel that we might have liked it even more if we'd at least read the first book in this series first.
One of my cynical thoughts on reading this book was that Duane almost certainly was able to deduct a summer's vacation or maybe even a home in Ireland and use this book to prove that it was business-related. Must be nice to be a successful author.
-- Emily Berk |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Wizard Abroad, A |
Posted in Animals, Child-raising, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Death is a central theme, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 8 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
