Book reviews by library staff and guest contributors
One of the reasons I like history so much is it is made up of stories. Women's History Month gives us an opportunity to dive into the stories of women. Below are some newer biographies and memoirs of women from all walks of life.
March is Women's History Month. There are so many books that tell the rich history of women and how they have changed the world. Below are some great newer reads. I encourage you to check them out.
Author Jason Reynolds teamed up with artist Danica Norgorodoff to rework his 2017 novel in verse Long Way Down into a graphic novel. The result it perfect - and haunting.
A loving Cherokee family waits at the mountain's base for a young pilot to return from war. Told in song, this picture book provides a larger to smaller view where the action and words are incorporated into the grandmother's weaving, building to a surprise finale. Author Traci Sorell's website describes her as an author of inclusive works for inquisitive young minds and this picture book showcases that beautifully, blending history, culture, and art in an uplifting way.
In 1951 two British government officials, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, left on a boat sailing from Southampton to France and then disappeared. Though there were suspicions that they had defected to the Soviet Union, this wasn't confirmed until five years later when they appeard at a press conference in Moscow. In the years after this it became clear that they were not the only two British "gentlemen" to have been recruited by the KGB, there were at least 3 others and they all became known as the Cambridge Five.
Otsaliheliga (oh-jah-LEE-hay-lee-gah) is a Cherokee word that is used to express gratitude. Otsaliheliga is a reminder to celebrate blessings and reflect on struggles. This picture book follows a year of Cherokee celebrations, starting in fall and ending in summer. Seasonal events pictured include playing in the leaves, dancing at the Great New Moon Ceremony, making corn husk dolls, gathering wild onions, and planting strawberries.
Local legends and lore abound in this middle grade graphic novel about a young girl named Snapdragon who befriends the town witch. It turns out the elderly witch, Jacks, is a licensed animal rehabilitator who also assembles roadkill skeletons and sells them for profit on eBay. This is wonderfully weird, but not exactly otherworldly.
Bowwow Powwow by Brenda Child (Red Lake Ojibwe), is about imaginative Windy Girl, and her dream of an amazing powwow. Her dream melds stories from Uncle with her own powwow memories. Under the beat of the drum, Windy Girl dreams about traditional dancers “dancing their style” and grass dancers “treading the northern earth”. She also dreams about swirling colorful costumes and powwow fast food stands – selling things like blueberry sno-cones, fry bread, and popped maize. Her dog friend, Itchy Boy, wakes her from the dream so she can enjoy the real powwow right in front of her.
Jim Agnihotri can’t shake the image of the two women falling from his mind. A former captain in Her Majesty’s forces, Agnihotri has read of the case while recuperating from terrible injuries to mind and body from a skirmish in 1891 Karachi, but it is the perplexing mystery surrounding the deaths of two wealthy Parsee women who apparently jumped from a Bombay clock tower on their own accord that haunts him. Why would the Framji women jump at such an interval apart? And why would two young women seemingly happy with their lives choose to end them so violently?
I'm frequently asked to name my favorite book or to list my top ten, and mostly I just get stumped by that question. I love so many books for so many different reasons and they shift in my estimation as this one moves up or that one moves down and all fully dependent on what has wowed me recently. But there is one book I read seven years ago that has consistently been a go-to for me when asked for a favorite.
This is the true story of how Omar Mohamed and his younger brother Hassan spent their childhood as refugees at the Dadaab camp in Kenya* separated from their mother and longing to return to their home in Somalia. Life is difficult in Dadaab. The many long years of waiting without enough resources along with thousands of other refugees wears the residents down and dashes their hopes and dreams for the future.
The 2021 *Stonewall Award-Winning board book, We Are Little Feminists: Families, features photographs of families with children aged 0-5 with their siblings, parents, grandparents, and more. The broad representation sets this (and the other two books in the series) apart. Candid-style photos show children and parents playing, laughing, sharing snacks and smiles, and bring readers into the lives of LGBTQ+ families from a variety of races, ethnicities, and family structures as well as being inclusive of various disabilities.
In her debut thriller (though not her 1st written work), Matheson dives right into the goriest of serial murders and the angsty-est of protagonists. Our angsty hero is Detective Inspector Anjelica Henley who, on her first day back to active duty after a severe injury, finds herself confronted with dismembered body parts - parts that are clearly not all from the same body. And if that's not bad enough, the way in which the victims are found is all too similar to the pattern set by Peter Olivier, a serial murderer known as the Jigsaw Man, who has been in prison for the past two years.
This audiobook provides a treasured portal to the past. It features original recordings from 1908-1946 of speeches by Booker T. Washington, the poems of Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar recited by the poets, comedy routines, and more. All told, there's approximately 1 hour and 47 minutes of content.
To hear these famous voices is very special. The sound quality is on par with other historical recordings I've heard. That takes a moment to get used to, but feels intimate, like you've gone back in time and are witnessing the moment.
Booklist puts out lots of top 10 lists. Their most recent one is about medical issues books: Top 10 Health & Wellness Books: 2021.
Warm-weather nature explorations may feel a long way off. But that doesn’t mean that junior naturalists are entirely without opportunities to learn more about the environments around us.
From the award-winning author of Station Eleven, an exhilarating novel set at the glittering intersection of two seemingly disparate events–a massive Ponzi scheme collapse and the mysterious disappearance of a woman from a ship at sea. Emily St.
Wisconsin's Digital Library just got bigger. There are now 300 magazine titles that have been added for you to check out from home. They range from popular and venerable (Us Weekly, The New Yorker, National Geographic, Cooks Illustrated) to the obscure (Cricket Skills and Secrets). The magazines include current issues and back issues.
Famous for his pioneering flight from New York to Paris, Charles Lindbergh was lionized in his lifetime. Fleming’s well-researched biography is a rags-to riches story that doesn’t side-step Lindbergh’s Nazi sympathies and white supremacist activities, but rather portrays the path of eugenics pseudo-science paired with disinformation that he followed to get there.
In Eldridge's new series the main character is a Chinese-Norwegian ninja-trained woman who takes on the Ukranian mob in Los Angeles. Talk about cross-cultural! This is it. It's also action-packed and fast-paced and the perfect book to dive into if you're hunkered down during this polar vortex.
