The Little Spacecraft That Could by Joyce Lapin and Simona Ceccarelli

The Little Spacecraft That Could by Joyce Lapin, illustrated by Simona Ceccarelli, is about the spacecraft that traveled to Pluto and then onward to view a snowman-shaped object in the Kuiper Belt called Arrokoth, sending back photos of both our most distant planet and a unique object that nobody even knew existed when the spacecraft left the Earth. 

If you're thinking of the story with a similar name (The Little Engine That Could), throw that idea out the window. It's not about huffing and puffing through space but a nonfiction book with lots of facts about the spacecraft New Horizons — its size, how it used another planet's gravity to slingshot outward at a faster rate, how important it was to get the trajectory of New Horizons just right, how long it took to get to Pluto, what kind of information it sent back to Earth and how long it took for the spacecraft to communicate with NASA as it traveled farther away, etc.

The Little Spacecraft That Could also talks about Pluto's journey from being called a planet to losing its "planet" designation, and then back to being a planet but now called a "dwarf planet" and how that all came about. I confess, this is the part that interested me the most because I'm old enough to have been a child who had to memorize the nine planets and do projects with them. Like most folks, I was shocked when scientists announced that Pluto had been taken off our list of planets. How and why did that happen and why did it get its designation back, but slightly altered? It's satisfying to finally have the answers. 

I call this kind of book a "picture book for young readers" because it's a book for slightly older elementary level children but which is still picture-book sized and loaded with gorgeous illustrations.

Highly recommended - The Little Spacecraft That Could would make an excellent resource for either an elementary school library or a science classroom, a nice addition to the library of anyone who has a passion for astronomy and/or NASA, or just a fun read for anyone curious about the journey of a spacecraft to our most distant planet and what exactly it found upon its arrival. It contains a very nice, 2-page glossary. 

There are so many fascinating bits of information about Pluto, our solar system, the spacecraft's journey, and what it found when it arrived in The Little Spacecraft That Could that I'm going to have to muzzle myself a bit. It's just the size of a piano! It's powered by plutonium! The only thing I found a little uncomfortable (at first . . . but I got over it) was the anthropomorphizing of a spacecraft in a nonfiction book. But, it makes the book a little more palatable for youngsters, I'm sure, and makes for cool spreads like this, showing the little spacecraft crying, "Wheee!" as it uses Jupiter's gravity to increase its speed (click on image to enlarge): 

Fun and educational! Many thanks to Sterling Children's Books for the review copy! 

©2021 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Climate Change and How We'll Fix It by Alice Harman and Andrés Lozano

It's Earth Day and I've been saving my review of this book just for today! It's so good. Climate Change and How We'll Fix It by Alice Harman begins with the very first thing you need to know: What's the difference between weather and climate? As I read the beginning of the book, it occurred to me that already I found that it had defined climate change in a more palatable and easily comprehensible manner than any other book I've read (and I do enjoy reading about climate change), enough so that I couldn't help but think that a lot of adults could get a great deal out of Climate Change and How We'll Fix It. 

From the introduction of Climate Change and How We'll Fix It:

In the first section of this book, we're going to try to answer the big questions you might have about climate change. Questions like "How do we know it's happening?", "What is causing it?", and "What will happen if we don't stop it. 

Then, in the second section, we'll look at some of the problems getting in the way of fixing climate change. And in the third section, we'll try to figure out how humans — including you! — can help solve these problems and create a better, safer world for us all. 

There's a pretty substantial list of contents but the first section, "What We Know" talks about the Greenhouse Effect, different types of energy/fuel and how they contribute to climate change or can reduce it, food and farming (impacts of farming on the climate and the reverse), "Too much stuff" (conspicuous consumption, particularly in advanced nations where advertisers try to convince everyone they need more, and how wasteful consumption adds to the problem), and how exactly scientists find the evidence and impact of climate change. 

The second section uses talking heads (illustrated with little conversation bubbles) to show the two sides of various issues. For example, the "That's not fair" problem has a person from an advanced nation and a nation that is trying to become wealthier in discussion. The person from the wealthier nation tells the other that his country needs to reduce its carbon emissions but the other country's opinion is, "Hey, you did it to make yourselves wealthy and now it's our turn." 

The third section, about solutions, goes into some interesting territory in that it tells the reader that there are ways to do your part but it's also important to understand that there are reasons people don't understand and act on climate change, that it's important to listen to others and learn from them, try to promote fairness in climate action, and not lecture people. I thought the bit about not lecturing because it doesn't work anyway but simply doing what you can was particularly great because, in fact, I've read an entire book about why people don't want to even think about climate change, much less accept it, and it makes a lot of sense to stick to simplicity — do what you can to help, but let others come to understanding of what needs to be done in their own time. 

Geared for older elementary level, Climate Change and How We'll Fix It would be an excellent library resource and wonderful for use in classrooms or for science reports. Adults who don't want to read a more in-depth book but just want to know the basics will get a lot out of it, as well. Here's an interior image to give you an idea of the reading level (click on the image to enlarge). 

Highly recommended - I've read quite a few books about climate change but this children's book is one of the clearest, most easily comprehensible books I've read. It does become a little repetitive in the latter half and I thought the fictional conversations were a tiny bit more complex than the text. Still, Climate Change and How We'll Fix It is an excellent primer about climate change: what it is, how scientists know it's not normal, why progress in reversing it has been slow, and what readers can do to help bring about change. It also contains a very nice glossary. 

My thanks to Sterling Children's Books for the review copy! 

©2021 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Kivalina: A Climate Change Story by Christine Shearer

Climategate is emblematic of the "discourse of doubt" deliberately employed by the fossil fuel industry and its allies. This discourse sets up certainty as the only acceptable standard for acknowledging and thus acting on climate change, while simultaneously manufacturing uncertainty, to ensure such certainty is never achieved. Demanding certainty is also a deliberate misrepresentation of science, as science consists of gathering and assessing reliable data, producing replicable results, establishing areas of consensus, and building on the findings for greater understanding, while acknowledging areas in need of further research. In demanding certainty while manufacturing uncertainty, industries can forever frame the discussion as "the science is out and more research is needed," delaying regulations indefinitely even when evidence of harm and danger is overwhelming. 

~ p. 16

While downplaying and attacking government science, those opposed to regulations have also drummed up support by funding research institutes, such as the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, that produce primarily dire economic analyses of the possible consequences of regulation. Such reports have contributed to a widespread public perception that regulation in any form is inevitably expensive [...] These analyses seldom factor in, however, the costs already borne by society due to increased sickness and disease and thus medical care, as well as environmental degradation and clean-up -- public costs that therfore act as invisible subsidies to industry. Such cost-benefit analyses also systematically downplay or ignore the value and benefits of a healthy society and healthy ecosystems. 

~ pp. 32-33

Under the New Jersey and Rhode Island courts' reading, since former lead paint manufacturers do not presently "control" the premises containing lead hazards, meaning they do not own the buildings, they are not liable -- a decision deliberately ignoring the evidence suggesting that the companies knowingly created the nuisance in the first place. 

~ p. 48

The growing understanding of anthropogenic warming has been a process of international, cross-disciplinary scientific inquiry and collaboration going back more than a century. Weather refers to atmospheric conditions including temperature, wind, and precipitation over a short period of time, while climate measures the mean (average) and variability of weather over a relatively longer period of time. The term "global warming" describes the increasing average surface temperature of the earth due to steady buildup of heat-trapping gases in our lower atmosphere, while "climate change" more fully captures the scope of the effects. 

~ p. 77

More evidence of anthropogenic warming was unearthed in the 1980s, as samples of ancient air trapped in ice cores showed correlations between carbon dioxide levels and temperature. A two-kilometer-long ice core drilled in 1985, carrying a 150,000-year record, showed carbon dixoide levels rose and fell in line with records of past temperature shifts. Records going back 800,000 years show carbon dioxide levels got as low as 180 parts per million (ppm) in cold periods and 280 ppm in warm periods, but never higher. In 1980, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 340 ppm. As of 2011, it is about 390 ppm and rising at an average rate of about 2 ppm per year. 

~ p 82


First, a note. Kivalina: A Climate Change Story was published in 2011 and there is no update  reflecting what has happened since publication, although I just looked up the "current concentration of Co2 in the atmosphere" and Google tells me it was up to 405 ppm in 2017. In spite of the book's age (things are definitely changing fast), the book is still revelant because it's not just about the battle against rising water in a single island town. Instead, fully half of the book is about how corporations were allowed to grow and thrive, quickly giving them more rights than individuals, how and when human-driven climate change was first discovered and acknowledged (over 100 years ago) and how and why we have been deceived by corporations in ways that are not just damaging but deadly. It even describes how the American justice system has favored corporations over individuals, over the past century.

If you've read The Radium Girls and felt like screaming at the injustice, you'll feel the same about Kivalina. Rather than just describing climate change, it goes into other known hazards that were deliberately covered up by corporations who benefitted from the production of harmful products: leaded paint, tobacco products, and asbestos (which has never been banned and is actually making a comeback, in spite of being a known carcinogen) are the major products discussed.

The second half of the book is dedicated to Kivalina itself, a small island in Alaska. The history alone is rage-inducing. The children of Alaskan natives, now in "a small Inupiaq village that sits on a barrier reef island", were forced to attend a school where they would be taught like white people, deliberately keeping the children from being taught the traditional ways of their people, in the last century. Their school was built on the island of Kivalina in 1905, forcing families to relocate to the island. They're a people who practice subsistence living and the government tried to stop that, as well, but did not succeed. When climate change began causing the ice to melt sooner, removing protection from the island during storms and eating away at its shores, the islanders sought help relocating their population. They selected a location that works for continued subsistence. But, it turns out there is not a single U.S. government entity that has been created for the purpose of helping people relocate due to climate change.

Highly recommended - I'd like to see an update added to Kivalina: A Climate Change Story because the only articles I can find online are outdated (although there is still a website dedicated to amassing funds for a future move and info online indicates that the island is expected to completely disappear by 2025) but even slightly outdated the book serves the purpose of educating readers about how they've been deceived. It is equally fascinating and horrifying to find out just how far corporations will go -- to the point of letting people die -- to suppress important information about health and well-being in the name of making money. Everyone should read this book. It's a little on the dry side, especially in the first half. At times, I felt practically assaulted by information. But, it's incredibly well-researched, organized, and intelligently presented.

Note: I tried to adjust the color of the photo, above, and couldn't get it to come out quite right. The book is actually closer to black and white with a slightly brownish tinge -- nowhere near as brown as it looks. I bought my copy of Kivalina: A Climate Change Story from Haymarket Books.

And, just FYI, Haymarket Books is currently having a sale on books on "black liberation". I placed an order so I can have some reading material for Black History Month and thought that was worth sharing (black liberation titles are 50% off). I can't wait till they arrive! I've been very happy with all of the Haymarket titles I've purchased.

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Saving Tarboo Creek by Scott Freeman and Susan Leopold Freeman

The idea that any organism lives and acts independently of others is a myth. The realization that all organisms are connected is a profound insight.

~fr. p. 175 of Advance Reader Copy, Saving Tarboo Creek (some changes may have been made to the final print version)

Saving Tarboo Creek: One Family's Quest to Heal the Land by Scott Freeman is about how the author and his family purchased a damaged plot of land and set about restoring it to bring back the plants and animals that once made it a healthy environment, including restructuring the original creek to make it a safe place for salmon to breed.

The author's bio is worth mentioning as it shows his expertise, which is important to those who might be skeptical when he talks about such things as climate change:

"Scott Freeman worked in environmental education and international conservation before completing a PhD in evolutionary biology at the University of Washington." He is married to the granddaughter of Aldo Leopold, author of the conservation classic A Sand County Almanac (click through to visit The Aldo Leopold Foundation) and wife Susan Leopold Freeman illustrated the book. Here's an interior view I located online to give you an idea of the illustrations:

The intro to Saving Tarboo Creek is strongly worded as it talks about the dangers of our current administration to our land, including the effect of policies ignoring climate change, although the text of the book is directed more at the history of that particular plot of land and the process of restoration (and what's involved in restoration, in general). It occasionally feels a bit like the author is giving you a college lecture -- in a good way; I felt like reading Saving Tarboo Creek was a learning experience. Freeman speaks from an expert viewpoint, both as a scientist and a person who married into a family in which observation of nature was simply a way of life. Toward the end of the book, he mentions one of the children of Aldo Leopold and how she recorded her observations of the changing climate over the span of many decades. The Leopold family is unusually connected to the land.

But, let's back up a bit. Saving Tarboo Creek will teach you a few interesting lessons about conservation, in general, and some fascinating history but it's specifically about a plot of land in Washington. Freeman purchased this piece of land knowing it was damaged. Trees had been harvested by past owners without any thought to replanting and a former creek had all but disappeared, no longer welcoming to the animals it would have hosted in the last century after decades of abuse. After buying the land, the family went about determining which trees and plants were original to the land (some of that involved intelligent guesswork, some of it viewing the original tree stumps) and then hired someone to dig out the creek and restructure it so that there would be a strong current in some places, quieter, sheltered water in others. He also balanced the replanting of original plants with others he thought more likely to survive the altered climate.

I can't recall what he called the planting sessions -- plantathons? (it's been a few weeks since I read the book) -- but I found one story particularly interesting. In order to fully plant the land, which was a huge job done in sections, the family needed a lot of help, so they got volunteers to join in on huge planting sessions and there was one particular area where the trees kept dying. After the first year, the author assumed the volunteers may have not known how to go about planting those trees properly and thus the die-off was caused by planting error. But, then it happened for a second and third year. Further investigation led to the realization that the soil in that particular area was not what he expected. It was clay that trapped water and was drowning trees that were intended for a drier area. The land was replanted successfully with trees that prefer wet roots.

Highly recommended, particularly to lovers of nature and science. There were a few scattered pages where the biological aspect of flora and fauna got a little too technical for me, but I found Saving Tarboo Creek absolutely fascinating. It was my first read of the year and a terrific way to start the reading year.

I received an advance review copy of Saving Tarboo Creek from Timber Press (via Shelf Awareness, in exchange for an unbiased review) and Yoohoo! I'd love to read more of your books, if you're listening, Timber Press people! Closet environmental fanatic, here.


©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Wonder Women by Sam Maggs

[Emma Edmonds] knew she deserved a military pension, but she also knew it would be difficult to convince the government she truly had fought in the war (even though it's probable that nearly four hundred women were active in the Civil War). So she did the most dramatic thing possible: at a reunion of her Michigan Infantry division, she showed up in full skirts and was like, "Hey guys, it's me, Franklin!" Everyone was utterly confused until her colonel admitted, "I recall many things which ought to have betrayed her, except that no one thought of finding a woman in a soldier's dress."

~ fr. p. 112 of Wonder Women, Advance Reader Copy (some changes may have been made to the final print version)


Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History by Sam Maggs is packed full of mini biographies of women for whom the term "kick-ass" is maybe a little mild. Going back as far as hundreds of years, author Sam Maggs tells stories of women with amazing skills and talents who refused to hide their abilities or let them die away for the sake of the menfolk.

Told in a breezy, modern style, Wonder Women describes the challenges each of these amazing women faced and how and why most of these historical powerhouses have fallen into obscurity. The short reason: men like taking credit, if not outright stealing, the work of people they consider inferior.

Each small chapter opens with an illustration and a quotation. The opening chapter, for example, describes Wang Zhenyi, a Chinese astronomer, mathematician, and poet who was active in the 18th century. Her quote:

"It's made to believe Women are same as Men; are you not convinced Daughters can also be heroic?"

The contents are divided into the following sections:

• Women of Science
• Women of Medicine
• Women of Espionage
• Women of Innovation
• Women of Adventure

At the end of each of these sections is a Q & A with a living woman who has experienced or is currently working in a male-dominated field:

• Dr. Lynn Conway - Computer Scientist, Electrical Engineer, and Science Educator
• Dr. Buddhini Samarasinghe - Molecular Biologist, Cancer Researcher and Founder of STEM Women
• Lindsay Moran - Author, Journalist, and Former CIA Operative (I reviewed her book: Blowing My Cover)
• Erica Baker - Engineer
• Mika McKinnon - Field Geophysicist, Disaster Researcher, and Science Writer

Highly recommended - Wonder Women is the kind of book that ought to be required reading for both sexes -- girls, so they know they can do whatever they choose if they're willing to put out the effort, boys so they don't go around thinking girls are inferior. I don't know the age range -- although, admittedly, I'm actually skeptical of age ranges, anyway, knowing that some children are into adult novels and nonfiction well before adulthood -- but I know I would have enjoyed it around the age of 10-12 and I wouldn't limit it to pre-high schoolers. The writing style is very modern. Sometimes that bothered me (particularly when the author said "skillz" rather than spelling the word "skills" properly) but I do think that style makes Wonder Women particularly accessible to the younger crowd and that is, of course, its intended audience.

Quirk Books is having a pre-order promotion. Included in the offer is a set of wallpapers for phone, tablet, and desktop (free with purchase) and a drawing for signed, framed prints. Click through this link to read about it and find the sign-up widget:

Pre-Order Offer: Wonder Women by Sam Maggs

The Quirk Books website is an awfully fun place to hang out, by the way. I highly recommend bookmarking it for future fun.

©2016 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert

The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
Copyright 2015 (released January 6)
Picador - Nonfiction/History/Science
336 pp., including extensive bibliography

I read Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe in 2010 and didn't realize she'd published a new book till a former blogger friend mentioned it. I ordered it that day without bothering to read about it, but with a good idea about the gist, since Field Notes from a Catastrophe was about climate change.

The beginning of The Sixth Extinction was, I thought, a bit wobbly. A book about past mass extinctions as well as the one humans are currently creating, I expected the chapters to be tied into each other a little better. Instead, each of the first few chapters felt like entirely separate entities. It turned out there's a reason for that bumpy start. Apparently, those first few chapters (I don't know how many) were originally published as individual articles.

However, eventually Kolbert hit her stride and The Sixth Extinction began to feel like it had a purpose, leading up to but not overly strident about the concept that humans have not only altered the earth by driving the climate change that is likely to lead to a mass extinction in the ocean in about 35 years but also about how we've already been causing extinctions of flora and fauna for almost our entire existence. I found it startling, although I don't suppose I should. In today's world, you blink and another animal goes extinct or is added to the endangered list.

Still, the book was surprising in many ways. I've been reading about climate change for a long time and the science is solid but I've never read anything at all about ocean warming. This, it appears, is the concept that ought to induce panic. It's not the melting icecaps, which are causing rising oceans and killing off animals that require the icy regions' strength in order to survive, nor even the warming that's causing storms to grow stronger. Instead, it's the acidification of the water that is a fearful thing. Once it reaches a certain level . . . massive die-off, gloom, doom. Really, the potential loss of all that seafood alone ought to be enough to frighten us to action.

The only downfall to this book is that it can get a little too scientific, at times, at least for some of us. I'm not well-versed in biology; I don't know a family from a genus from a hole in the head, but the author liked using the Latin names of flora and fauna and occasionally went a little deeper into the science than I'd have liked. I can read between the lines but I felt a little stupid, I suppose.

Highly recommended. Another frankly terrifying but exceptional book by Elizabeth Kolbert, excellent as a follow-up to Field Notes from a Catastrophe, although not as in-your-face blunt and a little more technical. The few lines about the likelihood of life as we know it ending in the near future were uttered by scientists, not the author herself.

Side notes: I have an unfortunate tendency to read the comments below articles about things like climate change and I must admit that I don't understand how anyone can possibly fall for the concept that climate change is a hoax, a misconception that's especially prevalent in the U.S. The science backing up the fact that climate change is human-driven (and that we are actually in a cooling period, yet still managing to warm things up in a damaging way) is extensive and has been around for a lot longer than the political division over it (before the petroleum industry began heavily lobbying and buying off U.S. Congressmen, in other words).

Kolbert even talks about how long ago the first person discovered that we were causing climate change. 100 years, people. At one point, a Russian scientist recommended burning fossil fuels to deliberately change the climate, making more of Russia livable and screwing up life for North Americans. All Russia had to do was wait, though, as the dependence upon fossil fuels grew and we made the change without malice.

©2015 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Two minis - Spy Smuggler by Jim Eldridge and Nick & Tesla's Robot Army Rampage by Pflugfelder and Hockensmith

Spy Smuggler: Paul Lelaud, France 1942-1944 by Jim Eldridge is the fictional tale of a French teenager living in occupied France.  During the invasion, Paul's father was killed fighting on the Maginot Line, so Paul and his mother have moved in with her brother, a baker.

Paul thinks Uncle Maurice is a coward. Instead of fighting the Germans, he keeps his head down and insists that it's important to get along with them to prevent getting killed. But Uncle Maurice is actually quietly involved in the Resistance.

Spy Smuggler is a well-drawn tale of life in an Occupied France during WWII. Among other things, Paul has Jewish friends who are deported. I thought the author did an exceptional job of placing the reader in the shoes of a young boy who is old enough to feel like he needs to get involved in the fight to get his country back, old enough to understand that terrible things are happening but just innocent enough not to have a full perspective and to need the gentle guidance of his uncle. When his Jewish friends are deported, the story becomes particularly gripping and realistic.

Spy Smuggler also describes the two resistance factions in France and their differing methods as Uncle Maurice and his little circle are placed in danger when the Maquis choose killing over more subtle methods, leading to Nazi retribution.

I've read 2 books from the My Story series and when I read the first I was irritated to find that what I thought was a real-life diary was, in fact, a fictional tale.  I just looked up the series and it appears that Scholastic has listened to complaints about the misleading covers that did not list an author name as the authors' names appear on the most recent releases from the series, at least in the UK. Here's a list of the My Story titles for boys.

Spy Smuggler also contains a timeline of events relevant to the story and a number of period photographs at the back of the book.  I love the extra information included in the My Story books.

Highly recommended for children or adults seeking to learn more about life during WWII.

Nick and Tesla's Robot Army Rampage by "Science Bob" Pflugfelder and Steve Hockensmith is the second in Quirk Books' Nick and Tesla series of middle-grade science mysteries.  I reviewed Nick and Tesla's High-Voltage Danger Lab, recently.

Still living with their nutty absent-minded scientist uncle, Nick and Tesla are surprised to find that their favorite store -- a junky place with loads of fun gadgets and parts for their science experiments -- has been cleaned up; and, equally stunned when their uncle becomes interested in the new owner, a mechanical engineer specializing in robotics. When local businesses become victim to a series of burglaries, Nick and Tesla decide to investigate.

To figure out what's going on, Nick and Tesla must build new gadgets, including tiny robots meant to look like bugs.

The Nick and Tesla series is such fun it almost makes me wish I had children at home so that I'd have an excuse to build little robots.  In this case, I got an ARC that doesn't actually contain one of the templates but I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out if I try.

Highly recommended - Science, mystery, things to build.  What could be more fun? I think the Nick and Tesla books would be especially fun for homeschoolers or parents seeking to keep their children entertained (although you do need to help out with the building process) during breaks from school.

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Mini Reviews: Nick & Tesla's High Voltage Danger Lab by Pflugfelder & Hockensmith and Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell

I've fallen a little behind so I'm going to do mini reviews, today. Well, sort of mini.  My reviews have been growing longer, lately, so size is a relative term.

Nick and Tesla's High-Voltage Danger Lab by Pflugfelder and Hockensmith is the first book in the Nick and Tesla series published by Quirk Books. I won a copy in a Facebook contest and Eric at Quirk Books not only replaced the book when it disappeared in the mail but also sent the next two titles, which I'm very much looking forward to reading.

In Nick and Tesla's High-Voltage Danger Lab, siblings Nick and Tesla are sent to live with their Uncle Newt, a crazy inventor, while their parents are spending the summer working in Uzbekistan. To fill the time, they make a bottle rocket and launch it but Tesla's special necklace from her parents gets caught on the rocket and lands on fenced property with terrifying guard dogs. In order to distract the dogs so Tesla's pendant can be recovered, the two build a "Robocat Dog Distractor" fueled by Mentos mints and diet cola. Unfortunately, they're not able to retrieve the pendant but during the attempt they discover fishy things are happening on the grounds, make two new friends and, well, the plot thickens. Nick and Tesla eventually solve the mystery, recover the pendant and discover some new facts about their parents.

Highly recommended - Slightly wobbly writing is offset by an enjoyable mystery, an adventurous story and instructions for several science creations that you can make at home. What a great blend of ingredients for youngsters, teachers and anyone else who can stand a little nerdy fun! I told my husband about the robotic cat and he said, "Did they tell you not to use a glass bottle?" "No," I replied, but I told him the instructions specifically listed a 2-liter plastic bottle amongst the supplies. "When Howard did that, he got a couple chunks of glass in his hand," Husband told me. Howard was his childhood-to-college best friend (and the best man at our wedding). From the look in Husband's eyes, just mentioning the robotic cat brought back fond memories.  But, definitely don't use glass to build your robot.

On a side note, engineer husband found the Nick and Tesla books quite exciting and eagerly flipped through Nick and Tesla's High-Voltage Danger Lab to look at instructions for various gadgets you can build at home, once I introduced him to the subject matter. He was like a kid in a candy shop.  I love it when something lights up my husband's eyes that way.

Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell is a book of short stories that was sent to me by my sweet friend Sandie, whom you may know from her blog, Booksie's Blog.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I opened Vampires in the Lemon Grove, although it was all over the book-blog world, last year.  The first story is the title story, "Vampires in the Lemon Grove," which is about two elderly, lemon-eating vampires who have marital difficulties after one of them develops a fear of flying. The following stories become weirder and weirder, but the writing is so sharp that my copy is packed with Post-its and I don't know that I ever felt the urge to abandon it, although I definitely thought my head was on the verge of exploding into a shower of lemony chunks, at some points.

There are little bits of her writing that will make you stop to reread or nod your head in recognition at some observation of human behavior. Like this:

That summer Nal was fourteen and looking for excuses to have extreme feelings about himself.  

~p. 54, from "The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach, 1979"

Although many of the stories were just a bit too weird for me, I really began to have fun when I reached "The Barn at the End of Our Term," a story that begins by describing a reincarnated U.S. President, Rutherford B. Hayes, now a horse living with a number of other reincarnated presidential horses, a few regular horses who aren't the least bit interested in politics and a smattering of other farm animals. Although I'm not entirely certain I understood what the author was trying to say, I got the impression that the farm was a form of purgatory and one need only jump the fence to move on to heavenly realms.

To Rutherford, this new life hums with the strangeness of the future.  The man has a cavalry of electric beasts that he rides over his acreage: ruby tractors and combines that would have caused Rutherford's constituents to fall off their buggies with shock.  

~p. 116, from "The Barn at the End of Our Term"

Rutherford humorously decides his wife has returned as a goat and follows her everywhere, while the horses debate whether the barn is heaven.

[James Buchanan's] nostrils flare with self-regard.  "I am being rewarded," Buchanan insists, "for annexing Oregon."

"But don't you think Heaven would smell better, Mr. Buchanan?"

~p. 117

I could quote this book all day. Another of my other favorite stories tells the tale of participants in the annual Food Chain Games, for which people gather in the Antarctic to cheer on the whale or the krill.  Team Krill has never had a winning year.

Perhaps it is odd to have rules for tailgating when the Food Chain Games themselves are a lawless bloodbath.  And that is what a lot of fans love about the games: no rules, no refs, no box seats, and no hot pretzels -- not below the Ross Ice Shelf! So take these rules of mine with a grain of salt. That said, I've seen too many senseless deaths over the years. Some people think they can just hop down to the South Pole with a six-pack of Natural Ice and a sweater from the Gap, and that is just not the way we do it for the Food Chain Games. The Team Krill vs. Team Whale match takes place every summer in the most dangerous and remote tailgating site in the world. With the -89° F temperatures and the solar radiation, not to mention the strong katabatic winds off the polar plateau, it can be easy to lose faith and fingers.

~p. 135 from "Dougbert Shackleton's Rules for Antarctic Tailgaiting"

Recommended for lovers of weird but wonderful writing.  Mind officially blown, ready for more from Karen Russell.

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind:

Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope

By William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer

I've already written a little about The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, but I've just finally, finally finished the reading. I did not finish a single book, last week (actually, for nearly 2 weeks) so even if I hadn't had limited computer access I wouldn't have had much to say on the blog.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is the memoir of William Kamkwamba, a Malawian who was forced to drop out of secondary school after a crippling drought that killed many of his countrymen and left his family struggling for several years. Because they were barely making enough money to survive, they didn't have any excess to pay for school fees and a uniform. Kamkwamba was a drop-out for five years. He was already one of those curious little boys who take radios apart to figure out what makes them work, as a youngster.

During the drought, as he starved and watched others around him starve and die, young William thought that if only he could make a windmill like he'd seen in the science books in the library, he could power his family's home and create a pumping system to water his father's crops, so that a complete loss of crops would never happen, again. William may have been unable to attend school, but he did his best to keep up with the work on his own and read and reread books on science and physics. Eventually, he began drawing up plans for the windmill he'd dreamed about building and started collecting parts.

Building the windmill was an arduous task. He had to melt plastic and hammer it into shape, salvage yards and yards of wire and metal bits and have pieces welded together, find wood for the frame (no easy task in a country that has been heavily deforested) and locate various working parts I don't quite understand -- a dynamo, a battery. I can't say I fully followed the mechanics of this rather basic device.

Kamkwamba was teased and called "mad" but he ignored people or explained his plan and forged on. Eventually, he managed to power three rooms in his family's house and news spread about the boy who had built a windmill ("electric wind" is what he called it -- the closest words in his language). The press wrote about young William's invention, someone blogged about it, and he ended up attending a conference for scientists and inventors. With help from investors, he was able to attend a better school and build even more to help his family and villagers, including a fresh-water pump that is shared by women in the village, lights and new roofs.

What I loved about the story:

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is truly amazing story of determination, creativity and a big heart. William Kamkwamba is not an egotist. He was driven entirely by the experience of starving and watching those around him starve, resort to stealing, or die if they couldn't acquire food. He wanted to make the lives of the people around him better and prevent starvation. I was impressed by his attitude and his heart. He could have simply gone off to enjoy the opportunities given to him in education, but instead he spent his time off making improvements in his village, just as he had planned.

When he attended the inventors' conference, he still didn't speak much English so upon being asked how he realized his dream to build a windmill, he said, "I get information about windmill . . . And I try, and I made it." Everywhere he went, people shouted, "I try, and I made it!" after his speech. Yes, I do believe that's worthy of a refrigerator magnet. It brought tears to my eyes, if you must know.

What I disliked about the book:

The only thing that frustrated me about The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is that there was never any mention of his age. How old was he during the drought and starvation? What was his age when he started gathering pieces and parts to make his windmill? That was something I wanted to know. Obviously, he was young, but how young? I have not read the supplementary material at the back of the book, so I'm hoping there will be some mention of his age.

Bottom line:

Highly recommended. A wonderful tale about a fellow with a huge heart and a massively energetic, creative mind. I would recommend this book to anyone, but it would also make an excellent addition to a school curriculum because it is both inspiring and instructive.

More bookfoolery to come, tomorrow. I have much to share, but no time to post it right this moment.

My thanks to TLC books and HarperPerennial for the review copy.

©2010 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Bookfoolery and Babble, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Case of the Crooked Carnival by Michele Torrey

The Case of the Crooked Carnival

by Michele Torrey

Copyright 2010

Sterling Publishing - Children's (Middle Reader)

92 pages

From the publisher:

Drake Doyle and Nell Fossey, are fifth-grade crime-fighting science detectives, and the two best friends solve mysteries in their home lab – by analyzing the evidence, developing a hypothesis, and testing out their theories. In The Case of the Crooked Carnival, Drake and Nell will take readers on four exciting new whodunits: Are ghosts and ghouls keeping Edgar Glum awake? Have aliens invaded Mossy Swamp? What’s the crooked game everyone’s losing at the carnival? And why is the town bridge going bananas?

The Case of the Crooked Carnival is the 5th in the Doyle and Fossey, Science Detectives, series. I'd never heard of the books until this one arrived in the mail, a surprise from Sterling Kids. I sat right down to read it immediately and absolutely loved it .

A middle reader with short chapters, The Case of the Crooked Carnival is easily readable by children of many ages and excellent for educational use. I wouldn't limit the reading to the ages specified: 9-12. At least one of my children would have probably enjoyed this book by the time he was 5 or 6 and even older kids who find science frustrating or just enjoy a good story might get a kick out of this series. There is nothing annoyingly childish or cutesie about this particular title. It's funny but intelligently written. The two young science detectives solve four different mysteries using science principles and then the latter third of the book is devoted to setting up your own lab (what to gather, where to put it) and how to do some simple experiments.

I would have loved to have the Doyle and Fossey series available when I was homeschooling my eldest son. Also, it doesn't matter that The Case of the Crooked Carnival is the 5th in a series. The author does a great job of filling in readers so that they get a decent understanding of how the two science detectives work and why they are interested in science (both have a parent working in a science field). The author is a microbiologist and immunologist and I believe her love of science and her sense of humor are both evident in this delightful series.

Bottom line: Science is made fun in this humorous book that would make a great addition to any home library. Especially recommended for teachers, homeschooling parents, and kids old enough to handle "chapter" books.

Gushy thanks to Sterling Kids for the review copy!

©2010 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post at Bookfoolery and Babble, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert

Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change

By Elizabeth Kolbert

Copyright 2006

Bloomsbury - Non-fiction/Science/Environment

225 pages, incl. chronology, index, selected resources, bibliography and notes

As the snow is compressed, its crystal structure changes to ice. (Two thousand feet down, there is so much pressure on the ice that a sample drawn to the surface will, if mishandled, fracture, and in some cases even explode.) But in most other respects, the snow remains unchanged, a relic of the climate that first formed it. In the Greenland ice, there is nuclear fallout from early atomic tests, volcanic ash from Krakatau, lead pollution from ancient Roman smelters, and dust blown in from Mongolia on ice age winds. Every layer also contains tiny bubbles of trapped air, each of them a sample of a past atmosphere. --p. 30

The Vostok core, which is now stored in pieces in Denver, Grenoble, and on Antarctica, contains a continuous climate record stretching back four full glacial cycles. --p. 129

In legitimate scientific circles, it is virtually impossible to find evidence of disagreement over the fundamentals of global warming. Naomi Oreskes, a professor of history and science studies at the University of California at San Diego, recently tried to quantify the level of consensus. She conducted a study of more than nine hundred articles on climate change published in refereed journals between 1993 and 2003 and subsequently made available on a leading research database. Of these, she found that 75 percent endorsed the view that anthropogenic [human-caused] emissions were responsible for at least some of the observed warming of the past fifty years. The remaining 25 percent, which dealt with questions of methodology or climate history, took no position on current conditions. Not a single article disputed the premise that anthropogenic warming is under way. --p. 164

To research climate change, Elizabeth Kolbert traveled around the world, speaking to scientists who study changes in not only climate but flora and fauna affected by climate changes. In Field Notes from a Catastrophe, she explains in clear (but sometimes a little technical) terms how and why recent climate change has been proven to be man-made and what we can expect if changes aren't made . . . well, yesterday. It's been 4 or 5 years since the book was published and things were already looking ominous.

Field Notes from a Catastrophe is definitely a scary book. One scientist made a discovery that led him to go home and tell his wife that the good news is that the job is going well and the bad news is that the verdict is pretty much the end of life as we know it, not that far down the road.

Combine the text of this book with the daily reports of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and it's a little hard to be optimistic about life on Earth continuing for as long as we'd like. The most fascinating facts, in my opinion, were some parallel discoveries by scientists in totally different fields. One discovered a buried city in the region of ancient Babylonia and came to the conclusion that a severe drought that lasted for many, many years led to the death of that city. Written records of that particular city and its lasting drought (unfortunately, I didn't mark those bits and can't recall the name) were previously thought to be mere legend but were proven accurate. At the same time, another scientist determined that the same drought was responsible for the end of the Mayan civilization.

The conclusion: (in my words) There is a breaking point beyond which civilizations cannot continue and humans die off -- even in advanced civilizations with specialized means for growing and storing agricultural products.

Meanwhile, a warming Earth means changing precipitation patterns. Just as some regions, like the American Midwest, are predicted to suffer from drought, others will experience more--at least more intense--rainfall. The effect is likely to be particularly punishing in some of the most densely populated regions on Earth, including the Mississippi Delta, the Ganges Delta, and the Thames basin. A study commissioned a few years ago by the British government concluded that under certain conditions, floods of a magnitude now expected no more often than once a century could, by 2080, be occurring in England once every three years. (As it happened, the very week I was in the Netherlands, thirteen people were killed by exceptionally heavy winter storms in Britain and Scandinavia.) --pp. 125-6

4.5/5 - Comprehensive research; excellent writing. A book that will leave no doubt as to how and why we've been misled into believing that the scientific community is divided on the issue of climate change and how much evidence there is to show that global warming is a catastrophe in progress.

I ordered my copy of Field Notes from a Catastrophe from Paperback Swap after reading about it in Nick Hornby's Shakespeare Wrote for Money, which I've yet to review. I'm not sure I'll forgive Hornby for a while. This book is frankly terrifying, although I certainly feel like Kolbert did such a great job of explaining ice core samples that anyone who has been misled into believing climate change is a farce should be able to read this book and understand just how much evidence there is of climate change over, literally, hundreds of thousands of years and how scientists are able to determine that recent change is human-driven.

There is also some explanation of the Bush administration's fascinating level of disinformation, the U.S.'s embarrassing behavior at Kyoto and wobbly American policies that pretty much negated any potential progress toward slowing global warming, in recent years. China is predicted to become the biggest contributor to climate change, in the near future.

The good news? Flowers are still blooming in Vicksburg. It's not over, yet.

More photos forthcoming. We're really colorful, at the moment.

A Climate for Change by K. Hayhoe and A. Farley (review)

A Climate for Change
by Katharine Hayhoe and Andrew Farley
Copyright 2009
Faith Words - Nonfiction/Science/Christian
206 pages, incl. discussion questions and nearly 40 pages of sources, plus numerous charts, graphs & photos

What do you mean you're not interested in global warming? If you're about to skip this review because global warming is a blow-off topic, an "I'm not really interested" thing, or you think Al Gore's trumpeting is a crock, then you're missing the point that changing climate (not weather -- climate . . . the authors explain the difference) affects all of us.

First things first. I loved A Climate for Change because it answered absolutely every question I had about global warming but the authors never resorted to politics, instead simply stating the facts. It's written from a Christian perspective, drawing on scripture and describing humans as the "stewards" of Earth, but I think anyone who either questions global warming or believes in it and just doesn't feel like they know enough about it to speak intelligently and answer questions would enjoy this book.

I fell into the latter camp and enjoyed A Climate for Change so much that it's going on my keeper shelf.

The most important thing I learned was the meaning of climate change versus weather change. It sounds intuitive, but we've all expressed dismay at how on earth one of our friends can be quoting record cold temperatures proving that her area is experiencing the coldest winter in decades when the entire planet is supposed to be warming up. Isn't that a contradiction? Nope, it's not. And, I can't possibly explain as well as the authors of A Climate for Change, but it boils down to this . . . weather changes day-to-day and it's chaotic. Climate changes over long time periods.

You can have a cold winter or a temperature-breaking week in either direction without it having anything at all to do with climate. Climate change generally happens over thousands of years. The fact that climate change over the entire planet has happened in a matter of a mere 200 years (since the Industrial Revolution) is not normal. And, it's happening faster than even scientists with predictive models anticipated -- enough so that your 15-year-old gardening guide may be out-of-date because the planting zones have changed.

And, how does climate change have anything to do with us? I think I'll refer you to the book for the answer to that question, but it's surprising. In the U.S., we have a tendency to feel uniquely protected or immune from happenings in the world at large and it's true that the poorer nations will suffer even more from changes in climate, but climate change does and will have an impact on everyone. It's worth reading the book to find out how global warming could touch your life.

Even the last holdout, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, released a statement in 2008 acknowledging the effect humans are having on their environment.

Today, there is no legitimate national or international scientific organization that does not accept the fundamental role of humans as drivers of recent climate change.

These estimates are actually nothing new. Back in the 1960s, one of the earliest climate modelers in the Soviet Union, Mikhail Budyko, concluded that if the planet were to warm by several degrees, Canada and the Soviet Union would benefit. That's because much more of their land area would become useful. In the spirit of the Cold War that prevailed during those times, Budyko recommended to the Soviet government that they burn every piece of coal they could lay their hands on. His purpose? To deliberately enhance global warming so that the rest of the world, including the United States, would suffer and the Soviet Union would benefit.

Fortunately, no one took the idea seriously enough to actually carry it through. But today, we are nonetheless well on our way down Budyko's suggested pathway. And, at least in the area of agriculture, the results are much as he predicted.

Rising temperatures threaten the poor, the disadvantaged, the elderly, and our children--those whose health is most affected by extreme heat events. In 2000, the World Health Organization estimated that there had been, in that year alone, 150,000 deaths due to climate change. The estimate includes deaths as a result of extreme weather conditions that are occurring with increased frequency, changes in temperature and rainfall conditions that influence the transmission patterns for many diseases, and patterns of food production and supply.

5+++/5 - This is the kind of book I wish everyone would read and talk about. It's well-written, thorough, clear and succinct. Charts, graphs and photos add plenty of visuals. Additional reading suggestions and tons of scientific sources will give anyone who still isn't convinced plenty of material to make an informed decision. My only complaint--and obviously, it didn't bother me enough to take off a point--is that the conclusion sounds a little heavily Christian and preachy. So, some may not like those final few pages. I didn't find the rest of the book heavy-handed; it's worth reading, even if you feel like you have to skim the Christian portions.

Don't forget! I'm giving away 5 copies of A Climate for Change. Note: The giveaway has ended. This is a breezy book, not at all boring and heavy like a lot of non-fiction and hugely, highly recommended. You should definitely try to win a copy.

I'm off to run errands and then I've decided to continue with the Nano. Eeks. Wish me luck.