Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
In Not Quite a Ghost by Anne Ursu (Walden Pond Press, 2024) Violet moves to a new house that has surprising secrets. When she finds herself battling a lingering illness, she suspects something in the attic’s yellow wallpaper is watching her. All of this complicates her new year in middle school, which is already bringing
The Woman Who Couldn’t Wake Up: Hypersomnia and the Science of Sleepiness by Quinn Eastman (Colummbia University Press, August 2023) is a medical examination of figuring out the rare condition of idiopathic hypersomia (IH), including the history of the diagnosis and the pharmacological treatment the condition. As the title suggests, it begins with the story of
I was so excited to read a novel that took place during the early days of the COVID pandemic, so I eagerly sought out Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine, 2021). I read it last month and even today I’m struggling to eek out thoughts on what I think of it. I don’t
As a woman, getting a medical degree in the 1880s was no small task, and Martha Hughes Cannon was determined to do so in order to better serve those in her Utah pioneer community. Her Quiet Revolution by Marianne Monson (Shadow Mountain, 2020), a work of historical fiction, captures the life of this frontier doctor,
In Nothing is Little by Carmella Van Vleet (Holiday House, 2022), middle schooler Felix begins to come to terms with himself, his place in his family, and his identity as a person. His story is driven by his own search for the identity of his absent father, with “detective work” he hides from his mother
It was a sad day for me when I passed on my favorite parenting book. Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age Five by The American Academy of Pediatrics is a great book for any parents of little ones because it provides so much great care advice. But, I no longer have
Henrietta Lacks died at age 31, her body racked with cancerous tumors growing out of control. She was a poor black woman in the public ward of Johns Hopkins hospital in 1951, a person who hid her intense pain from her family and friends as long as she could. Her story is one that could
As the title and the cartoonish digitally rendered illustrations may suggest, I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat: History’s Strangest Cures by Carlyn Beccia (Houghton Mifflin, 2010) is a rather silly book. By providing quizzes along the lines of “which remedy will help you feel better?” Ms. Beccia manages to surprise the reader
Awwwww … newborn babies! I am a bit excited by the image of an innocent, soft, wrinkly newborn baby these days, for obvious reasons. Less than eight more weeks until a newborn daughter joins my family! I found Birth Day by Mark Sloan (published 2009) one day when I was browsing the shelves looking for
As regular readers of this blog know, I’m currently expecting my second child, a girl. Monkey should join my family at the end of February or maybe early March. I’m quite excited to meet my little girl. What better way to get in a baby mood by start reading some books about babies! I gave
For those that read this blog regularly, it is probably no surprise that I prefer art, literature, history, and social sciences to mathematics and science. Before this month began, I hadn’t read any books in the Dewey Decimal 500s category or the 600s category (for the Dewey Decimal Reading Challenge) in all of 2009. I
Remember how just the other day I said I give books more of the benefit of the doubt lately? The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean is a fine example of that. A year ago, I may have dismissed it entirely because it seems so superficial to me. (Actually, I probably would have dismissed it
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