The Bard and The Book by Ann Bausum

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. He came to be known as the Bard of Avon, or the poet from Avon. But his fame was made in London. While he worked in London, first as an actor and later as a playwright, his wife Anne and their children remained in Avon. He was also a business partner in a new theater called the Globe which competed with others like the Rose, the Curtain, and the Swan.

Shakespeare was one of many London playwrights that included Christopher Marlowe, Ben Johnson and John Fletcher. From 1585 to 1613, Shakespeare wrote three dozen plays including comedies, tragedies, and histories. The latter were about the English nobility and kept Shakespeare and his company of actors in favour with the English Crown. They became known as the King's Men.

To write his plays, Shakespeare used paper ink and quill pens. Although none of his original manuscripts called foul papers have survived, he plays did. It was due to theatrical scribes like Ralph Crane who transcribed the foul copies into legible copies of the playwright's original text. Each players lines were written down glued together and rolled up into a bundle for each part. These rolls came to be known as the acting role referred to today.

Many of the famous roles in Shakespeare's plays were first acted by Richard Burbage. Shakespeare wrote his characters with this actor in mind. He first portrayed Hamlet, King Lear, and the hunchbacked King Richard III. Burbage was one of the King's Men and Shakespeare trusted him to bring his characters to life. All the actors in Shakespeare's time were men; female roles were played by teenage boys or young men. 

Shakespeare returned to Avon in 1610 likely to spend time with his family. His exact date of death and the cause, is not known for certain but it is known that he was buried on April 25, 1616. 

In Shakespeare's time, "The lines of a play lived in the memories of the people who performed and watched them." The plays were written to be performed not published. And publishers did not need the playwright's permission to publish as theaters owned the scripts. However, eighteen of Shakespeare's plays were published during his lifetime as thin books called quartos. The quarto was a sheet of folded twice to make eight pages. Some of these were accurately transcribed editions, others were not and came to be known as the bad quartos.

With Shakespeare's death in 1616 and Richard Burbage's death in 1619, it would be expected that Shakespeare's plays would vanish, forgotten over time. That they did not was due to the big idea that one person Ben Johnson had: he published a book of his own poems and plays. While critics took him to task for this, other publishers had the idea to publish the entire plays of Shakespeare. And they would do it by publishing a much bigger book, the folio.

Discussion

The Bard And The Book explains how William Shakespeare's plays were saved from oblivion and passed down through the centuries to be read, studied and performed and enjoyed.

After a brief introduction to Shakespeare and his company, Bausum dives right into how early books were published in 17th century England, explaining quartos, octavos, and folios. A folio-sized sheet of paper was eighteen inches wide and fourteen inches tall. Folded in half it produced four pages in a book. When multiple sheets were folded in this way, they could be nested inside one another and sewn along the fold to create a book. In this way, the publishers created a folio of Shakespeare's works. 

As Bausum explains, using the fourteen good quartos, prompt books, the rolls, the foul papers, and possibly Ralph Crane who had copied so many of Shakespeare's plays, it was possible to assemble the plays and print them. Bausum goes on to explain whether pages were numbered using a process called signatures, how publishers assembled the books without using pagination, and how books were typeset in the 1600's using compositors. The first printing of Shakespeare's plays in 1623 has come to be known as the First Folios.

Once the First Folios were printed, who purchased them? The author explores the history of the original edition of Shakespeare's plays, including who purchased the very first copy and the unique names and characteristics of each copy. The First Folio is considered the most authentic edition because it was printed by people who knew Shakespeare. The Second Folio was published in 1632, the Third Folio in 1663 and the coveted Fourth Folio in 1685.

One interesting feature of The Bard And The Book is the hunt undertaken by literary scholars for the individual copies of the First Folio. The quest to locate any surviving copies of the First Folio really began in 1902 by British scholar, Sidney Lee. This treasure hunt, over the last century, by various researchers, has revealed two hundred thirty-five copies of the book! Many have very distinctive characteristics.

The Bard And The Book is a fascinating read that provides many interesting facts as to how books began to be published and how we now have copies of all of Shakespeare's works. Bausum's writing is informative and easy to understand with clear explanations and touch of wit. The author was inspired to research and learn more about the First Folios after being introduced to the story by the playwright Lauren Gunderson. There is also an interesting section titled, The Making of This Book which will show just how differently books are made today compared to the 1600s! There is a list of Citations From The Plays of William Shakespeare, Source Notes, Bibliography and Additional Resources for further research.

Bausum has incorporated several photographs of the Folios within her text. It's interesting to note that when she was able to actually inspect a real Folio, she wasn't required to wear protective gloves as they were considered to be more damaging than bare hands. There are red, blue and white digital illustrations by Marta Sevilla. The illustrator employed gouache and coloured pencils for the cover. The author has divided her book into five Acts, with quotes from Shakespeare's plays featured prominently. Also included is a list of Contents of The First Folio with the author noting which plays had not been previously published and therefore would have been lost to history if not included. 

The Bard And The Book adds wonderful background information to the life and works of William Shakespeare, explaining how we owe a debt to just a few forward thinking men who preserved his works for future generations of readers and actors alike.

Book Details:

The Bard And The Book by Ann Bausum
Atlanta, Georgia: Peachtree Publishing Company Inc.    2024
103 pp.

The Monarch Effect: Surviving Poison, Predators, and People by Dana L. Church

The Monarch Effect presents the remarkable story of the monarch butterfly and how we came to learn so much about this fascinating insect.

The story begins in Chapter One Baby Monarchs and Barfing Blue Jays with the life cycle of the monarch butterfly, starting with the tiny caterpillar who hatches out of a very small egg on the underside of a milkweed plant. The complex relationship between the monarch caterpillar which requires the milkweed plant to survive and the milkweed plant which needs to protect its leaves is described. Key to this relationship is the many survival strategies the monarch caterpillar has developed. These include how to circumvent the tiny spiky hairs on the milkweed leaf and the toxic white oozing liquid of the plant which also acts as a glue. There are several types of milkweed plants and the monarch caterpillars have developed strategies to survive on each. 

Each stage of the monarch caterpillar's life from its five molts to the preparations it makes to pupate, where it forms a chrysalis and undergoes metamorphosis to a butterfly are described with many interesting details.

The research of Dr. Fred Urquhart and his wife Norah are the focus of Chapter Two. Where Do They Go? Urquhart's interest in monarchs began as a boy and carried on through the rest of his life. Dr. Fred Urquhart had plenty of questions about monarch butterflies: Where do monarchs go for the winter? Do they have somewhere safe and warm to rest or do they die off? One article Fred read suggested that monarchs overwinter in Canada and the Northern United States. But he could find no evidence of this. Dr. C.B. Williams, a scientist in England, suggested "...that monarchs fly down to the Gulf Coast in Florida to overwinter and return in the spring."  In 1935, Dr. Urquhart began to investigate this theory by tagging monarch butterflies.

Eventually the Urquharts were able to develop a successful way to tag monarchs and enlist the help of volunteers across North America. They formed the Insect Migration Association and created an annual newsletter. The tagging program showed that the monarchs' flight paths began in northeast Canada and ended along the US Gulf Coast and in Texas. 

In Chapter Three More To The Story, the hard work and determination of Kenneth Brugger and a Mexican woman, Catalina Trail would provide the answer as to where the monarchs overwinter. Their work to determine the overwintering location was crucial to Fred and Norah's research. The Urquharts did not know where the monarchs travelled after they left Texas and the Gulf area. Trail and Brugger would discover two overwintering sites: Cerro Pelon and Sierra Chincua.

What followed was controversy and rivalry after Fred Urquhart published a fourteen-page article in the August 1976 issue of National Geographic magazine. The article paid only a passing mention of the work of Brugger and Trail and failed to honor the promise to keep the overwintering sites completely secret. The reality was that the Urquharts didn't "discover" the overwintering sites as it's likely the Indigenous and local people of Cerro Pelon knew of them. After all, they cared for the forests and lived on the land.

Urquhart's article did create intense public interest from both scientists and citizens. One person deeply interested was Dr. Lincoln Brower.  In Chapter Four Squabbling Scientists, the relationship between Brower and the Urquharts is explored. What started on friendly terms quickly became a bitter rivalry as the Urquharts refused to share the location of the overwintering sites. Brower had developed a unique method of fingerprinting monarch butterflies using the cardenolide they ingested from the milkweed plants. Milkweed contains a poison in its roots, leaves, milk, seeds and nectar called cardenolides. This fingerprint would allow scientists to determine where the monarchs had originated based on the  type of milkweed. 

Even after the publication of the National Geographic article, the Urquharts would not reveal the location, so Brower took matters into his own hands. He used clues from the article to help: "The overwintering colony...was located on the slope of a volcanic mountain situated in the northern part of the State of Michoacan, Mexico, at a height of slightly over 3000 m." With the help of a fellow scientist, Dr. William Culvert, and topographic maps, Brower located the Sierra Chincua site. Incredibly, Brower and Culvert encountered the Urquharts at the site and an unfortunate accident that resulted in the deaths of millions of monarchs did not improve the situation. Perhaps one of Brower's most significant contributions to monarch butterfly science was the system of cardenolide "fingerprinting" he developed, which allowed researchers to determine a monarch butterfly's location of origin.

Dr. Brower and his team's research is explored in detail in Chapter Five Secrets of the Forest. Brower's research considerably expanded our knowledge "...about monarch butterflies, their predators, and the special climate of the Mexican overwintering sites." They demonstrated that importance of the oyamel forests in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt to monarch butterfly survival. His research uncovered how the monarch migration northward to Canada works with "Successive generations of monarchs lay eggs farther and farther north until they reach southern Canada." 

Chapter Six Tracking Migration, explores scientists efforts to better understand monarch migration focusing on the pace of migration and the factors that might be affecting migration. This chapter also explores research into two models, the milkweed limitation hypothesis and the migration mortality hypothesis as reasons for the decline in monarch population.

As research into monarchs expanded, scientists realized they needed to be studying more than just monarch migration, In Chapter Seven, Tracking More Than Migration, the work of several scientists including Dr. Kelsey Fisher and Dr. Karen Oberhauser is featured. Oberhauser initiated studies on monarch egg counts while Fisher, who studies movement ecology, wanted to understand how monarchs find milkweed plants, how they find the Mexican overwintering sites for the first time and how do they know it's spring and time to head north again.

Chapter Eight, Monarch "Smarts" explores in greater detail the science behind monarch migration. Scientists wanted to discover how an insect with a such a tiny brain knows to fly three thousand miles south to an area approximately seventy-three miles wide. In order to understand this, researchers needed to understand monarch biology: researchers studied how their antennae functioned, the chemoreceptors and mechanoreceptors that monarchs relied on, how their eyes work and much more.

Chapter Nine Monarchs Around The World, asks the question "Where did monarch butterflies come from" To answer this question, the fossil record is considered and genomics, the study of genes has been used to try to answer this question. This chapter also explores where other populations of monarchs are found in the world. 

The significant decline of the western monarch population which is located west of the Rocky Mountains is explored in Chapter Ten Monarch Emergencies. This population spends spring and summer in Nevada, Idaho and Oregon and overwinters along the coast of California. The chapter also considers the decline in the eastern monarch migration. 

In Chapter Eleven Living Near The Monarchy, the efforts to protect the habitat of overwintering monarchs is discussed. The work of Dr. Columba Gonzalez-Duarte has focused on evaluating the Monarch Biosphere conservation model and found it wanting. This model has led to the unintended loss of the traditional way of life for local Mexicans living on the lands and have also led to the proliferation of organized crime. This chapter outlines the many problems of the model both for the butterfly and forest conservation and for the people living in the ecosystem. Instead, Gonzalez-Duarte proposes focusing on the entire habitat instead of just one species might be more successful to saving both monarchs and Indigenous culture and way of life. 

Discussion

The Monarch Effect offers readers a deep dive into the world of the monarch butterfly and the research being done to understand this remarkable and beautiful insect. 

Dana Church provides her readers with fascinating information on almost every aspect of the monarch butterfly. The Monarch Effect opens with a detailed introduction of the life cycle of the butterfly that includes many interesting facts readers will likely not know. For example, many readers will know that the milkweed plant contains a poison, called cardenolide which is found in every part of the plant. But did you know it is also toxic to monarch larvae? Church writes, "Less than half of all monarch caterpillars survive the milkweed's latex...If the amount of latex a caterpillar ends up accidentally eating doesn't kill the, they can recover in five to ten minutes. Otherwise, they end up in a nonresponsive, coma-like state and die." The author describes the various survival strategies monarch caterpillars employ to survive on different species of milkweed and then goes on to describe the rest of the life cycle.

From this point on, the focus of The Monarch Effect is to present the incredible amount of research that has been done in the last eighty years on monarchs beginning with the initial monarch research in the early 20th century by Canadians, Fred and Nora Urquhart into where exactly monarchs overwintered. Like many other scientific endeavours, such research was not without controversy and to that end Church presents a balanced account of the rivalry between the Urquharts and Dr. Lincoln Brower, an American researcher who contributed significantly to our understanding of monarch butterflies. She also highlights the bias of this early research in believing it "discovered" the monarchs overwintering sites, which were already known to the Indigenous peoples of Mexico.

Throughout the book Church highlights the many questions that arose as scientists learned more about monarchs. "...How do monarchs know when to start migrating? As they migrate, do they fly at a steady speed along the entire journey, or do they speed up or slow down at certain points?" How does weather impact monarch migration? Does the angle of the sun affect the migration? Other researchers wanted to know which US states monarchs arrived at first in the spring. When does the spring migration begin? Why does the timing and duration vary each spring? When the monarchs arrive in Mexico how do they choose where to roost? Do the same butterflies always roost together? How do monarchs locate milkweed plants? How do they decide on which plant to lay their eggs? As Church demonstrates, each piece of information led to more and more questions and required researchers to devise unique ways to find the answers. 

Several chapters are devoted to answering questions about the decline of monarchs and how we can best help the species recover. As with many environmental issues, the problems are complex and multi-faceted. Scientists are now advocating for for a combined approach that utilizes both Indigenous and Western traditional science knowledge. It is an approach that considers not just monarchs, but the entire ecosystem and habitat, one that better integrates humans with the natural world they are a part of. This will removing bias and blame and international effect to succeed.

The Monarch Effect is engaging and informative, written in an easy style, with understandable explanations about the complex problems facing monarch butterflies and the communities they are a part of.  The eastern monarch spans three countries, vastly different ecosystems, different cultures. The author encourages her readers to become involved in the monarch butterfly recovery efforts by sending sighting to Journey North, helping with tagging monarchs at monarchwatch.org and even counting monarch eggs and larvae through Monarch Joint Venture. 

The Monarch Effect is perfect for the budding entomologist and those interested in the natural world. Church includes a detailed Glossary and an extensive References list at the back to help with further research and reading. 

Book Details:

The Monarch Effect: Surviving Poison, Predators, and People by Dana L. Church
New York: Focus Scholastics     2024
309 pp.

Olivetti by Allie Millington

In this uniquely crafted story, a typewriter, a boy and his best friend join up to find his missing mother. The story is told in the alternating voices of Olivetti, a typewriter and twelve-year-old Ernest Brindle, whose mother has suddenly gone missing.

The story begins with the introduction of Olivetti, a typewriter who has lived with the Brindle family for years. Twelve-year-old Ernest Brindle lives with his mother, Beatrice, his father Felix, his older brother Ezra, older sister Adalyn and his younger brother, Arlo. Ezra loves working out, Arlo has his frogs Chives and Pickles, and Ernest carries around a dictionary. They live in the ground floor apartment in a building called Valley View in San Francisco. 

Olivetti came to the Brindles years ago in a cardboard box and sat on Beatrice's desk until Felix purchased a laptop for her. Three of the Brindle children had learned to spell using Olivetti rather than pen and paper. Olivetti knew three of the Brindles by their fingers, but Ernest focused on being along on the roof with his red dictionary. With the arrival of the laptop, they now often ought over it rather than the typewriter. 

One evening, while the Brindles were all out doing their own thing, Olivetti sees Beatrice answer her phone and rush out of the apartment. The next day she wakes early, crying. As she paces the apartment, Beatrice notices Olivetti and packs him into his carrying case. She packs her typewritten stories, memories and thoughts which she has named Tapestries into a garbage bag and throws them out. At the Heartland Pawn Shop, a visibly upset Beatrice sells Olivetti for one hundred twenty-six dollars.  

Later in the morning, the rest of the Brindle family start their day with Ernest retreating, as usual to the roof with his dictionary. When it's time to leave for school, Arlo gets Ernest from the rooftop. Inside  they hear their father, Adalyn and Ezra arguing about who will take Ernest to a new doctor, Dr. Branson, after school. Ernest hasn't spoken to his mother in seven days, after his last appointment with a different therapist. His father notes that someone has to take Ernest because Beatrice has left unusually early and has also forgotten her phone. That day while Ernest is in the middle of his presentation in Mrs. Fawn's class on the history of the dictionary, he is interrupted by Mr. Robles, the school principal. At the office, Ernest learns from his father that his mother has gone missing.

At home, Ernest and his family are in shock as they struggle to deal the Beatrice's disappearance. They spend a day putting up missing person posters. When Ernest puts up a poster outside the Heartland Pawn Shop, a girl from the shop tells him Beatrice was in the previous morning and sold them a typewriter. She tells Ernest the woman seemed very upset and sold the typewriter for a specific price. The Brindles meet with Mr. Corrie, the pawn shop owner and his daughter Quinn. It soon becomes apparent to the police that Beatrice left of her own accord.

The Brindles are upset and angry that their mother would simply leave after the "Everything That Happened".  Ernest's father tells them they must simply wait to hear from her and must carry on with their lives. But Ernest is wracked with guilt, believing that their mother may have left because of him and his refusal to deal with the "Everything That Happened" event. This leads him back to the pawn shop and his mother's typewriter. But Olivetti is no ordinary typewriter. With the help of Olivetti and his new friend, Quinn, Ernest works to solve the mystery of his mother's disappearance and in doing so finds acceptance, forgiveness and healing.

Discussion

Olivetti is a quirky, touching story about a boy struggling to cope with his mother's illness - referred to as the "Everything That Happened". Readers will not initially know why Ernest won't talk to his mother, what the "Everything That Happened" is, nor why his mother left. But as Ernest, Olivetti and Quinn work together, the backstory is revealed.

Most important to this is Olivetti, a typewriter that can communicate. Young readers who likely have never used a typewriter, will not know that Olivetti was a brand of typewriters first made in Turin, Italy in 1911. Olivetti typewriters were produced until 1994 when personal computers began to take over the market. The author uses the literary device of personification, assigning to the typewriter emotions and thoughts. 

As the opening narrator, Olivetti states that Beatrice Brindle used him to record all her memories, poems and thoughts through the years on pages she called her Tapestries. He reveals that typewriters keep every word given to them and are "...a protector of memories inside... Decades' worth of words."  Olivetti also reveals that typewriters speak, using their keys to spell words into the air. This language can only be understood by other typewriters. In the pawn shop, Olivetti meets Remi, a 1947 Remington Deluxe Model 5, who is old and doesn't quite work well. They strike up a friendship and Olivetti learns that Remi hasn't been used in years and is decline.

Olivetti also reveals that there is a typewriter code, "...to never let what has been typed into us back out. Communication with humans is strictly forbidden." Olivetti knows that breaking this code is unheard of  but when he learns that Beatrice has vanished,  he is determined to help the Brindles find her. To do that means breaking the typewriter code and "talking" to twelve-year-old Ernest Brindle. 

Ernest struggled with his mother's cancer diagnosis years ago. In his attempt to understand what was happening he turned to reading the Oxford Dictionary and eventually, on his ninth birthday requested the Physician's Desk Reference. He withdrew, often retreating to the rooftop of their apartment building to be alone. He's been to numerous therapists to help him with "Everything That Happened" without much success. The "Everything That Happened" was what Ernest was trying to forget. He also is not keen to make friends or meet new people because "Once you meet people, you might get close to them. And once you get close to them, you might lose them for good."  In this way, Ernest can avoid being hurt. He also just wants to forget, to pretend that none of it has happened.

However, it is Ernest who is determined not to sit back and wait for his mother to contact them, as his father has suggested. He feels intense guilt over her leaving, wondering if he's responsible. "What if that reason was me? The question lodged in m throat. The longer it stayed there, blocking my air, the more it seemed like the only thing that made sense. Mom spent the last few months worried about me. Taking me to therapists. Making me try new things. But maybe she got tired of trying. Maybe she got tired of me." It is Ernest who sets in motion the events that lead to his family finding Beatrice. In retrieving Olivetti, he uncovers the unusual typewriter's ability to communicate and finds a new friend in the pawn shop owner's daughter, Quinn.

The quest to find Ernest's mother draws him and Quinn into a friendship. Like Ernest, Quinn also believes she is responsible, in this case, for her parent's divorce. Over time, she has come to realize it wasn't her fault. "I know what it feels like to lose someone and not know now to get them back." With Quinn's help, Ernest begins to piece together what has happened to his mother in the days leading up to her leaving. When Ernest learns that his mother left not because of him but because her cancer has returned, he is devastated and angry. If he was to blame, it could be fixed but with cancer, the outcome is not so certain. In his pain, he strikes out at Quinn. He doesn't want a friend, even though he realizes that Quinn is a true friend when he reads her notes in the pages of his mother's Tapestries. Her diligence in reading tells him that she really cares about finding his mother.

Olivetti is a metaphor for Beatrice's experience in cancer treatment when he is dismantled by the artist Callum Kino. He is taken to Callum's studio warehouse and is placed "...on a long, narrow table surrounded on all sides by sharp, shining tools..." that will be used to take him apart. As this is happening, Olivetti wonders, "...Was this how Beatrice felt, when she had to lie on an operating table?" As Olivetti is examined by Callum, he wonders "Was this how Beatrice felt, during one of her many scans? An object under a microscope?" Even Ernest sees Olivetti's experience as a metaphor for his mother's cancer experience. When he sees Olivetti in Callum's studio as "...a heap of ruins" he realizes how alone and afraid the typewriter must have been, like his mother when she learned of the return of her cancer.

When Ernest loses Olivetti and rushes to the studio to retrieve him, he realizes how much he loves the typewriter and his mother. The loss of Olivetti reminds him of how much he misses and loves her and makes Ernest realize "Everything I was trying not to feel, everything I wanted to ignore..."  Olivetti has forced Ernest to confront both the reality of his mother's illness and his feelings. He has also forced the entire Brindle family to do the same. Beatrice felt she had to face the return of her cancer alone, while Ernest couldn't talk about cancer because that would make it real. Felix busied himself with work to try to forget. The entire Brindle family come to realize they have each other to draw strength from. They are not alone.

In the end, Millington provides a satisfying and heartwarming conclusion to her story. Cancer is often a terrifying diagnosis, especially when it involves a parent of young children who do not have the maturity to understand the illness and process their feelings. Life suddenly changes in ways that cannot be predicted. In some ways, Olivetti is a very timely novel, given the cancer diagnosis of the Princess of Wales, who has very young children and her very public acknowledgement. Millington has taken a sensitive topic and treated with with sensitivity while infusing a touch of magical realism.

Book Details:

Olivetti by Allie Millington
New York: Feiwel and Friends     2024
249 pp.

Uprising by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Lidia Janina Durr wants to join her papa and her older brother Ryszard at the lake on this sunny first day of September. They are at her Grandfather Albin's house in the countryside near Warsaw. Her mother refused to allow her to go, saying the men are busy fishing and won't want her there. After banging out Chopin's "Minute Waltz" in rebellion against her mother, Lidia races out of the house with an egg basket. In the field she hears and then sees a plane with the Nazi cross on its wings and watches as the plane drops a bomb that destroys their barn.

After the attack, they learn from the radio that the German invasion of Poland has begun. Lidia's papa refuses to stay with Grandfather and sells their automobile to grandfather's Jewish neighbor, Mr. Adelstein. He explains that this will be a safer way to travel back to Warsaw as the Nazis will think they are important people if they use the automobile. Before they leave, Grandfather warns Lidia that when the Nazis arrive in Warsaw, she must do whatever she needs to survive. 

They return to Warsaw, where they had moved a year ago so Lidia could study music at the same university as Chopin. They find their home has survived the initial bombing, but after several days hiding in the cellar, one corner has collapsed. Lidia, Ryszard and Mama search the home for clothing and supplies. Papa decides to join the Polish army to fight the Nazis, against the wishes of his family. After Papa leaves, their family maid, Ruth Gollstein whom they call Doda , along with her mother Bubbe arrived seeking shelter. Lidia insists that they accept them, although her mother is reluctant.

On September 17 they learn that Russia has invaded from the east. Then the Nazis announce that they will release poison gas into Warsaw if the city does not surrender. Warsaw falls and the Soviets and Germans sign a treaty dividing Poland in half. With Poland now occupied by the Soviets in the East and Germany in the West, life for Lidia, Ryszard and Mama becomes much more difficult. Their school building is destroyed and then all schools are closed by the Nazis. Jewish shops are targeted, Jews are forced to wear the yellow Star of David, libraries, museums and universities are closed, and Jewish men are put into forced labor.

Lidia and her family learn from Henryk Katz who was her papa's driver, that he is in a prison camp in Russia. Lidia's mother is despondent after hearing this as well as having discovered that the Nazis have stolen all their savings. This means that Mama must now work. Then a young Polish boy whose family had been helped by Lidia's parents, comes to warn them that the Nazis are planning to confiscate their home. Although Doda plans a way to save Lidia's beloved piano, they leave it behind and move into Bubbe's old apartment in the Wola district. It has no bathroom and one bedroom and a small kitchen. It is located on the south end of the Vistula River and near Lidia's piano teacher, Madame Kazowska.

In fall of 1940, thirteen-year-old Lidia and her family watch as the Nazis build a wall around the Jewish quarter using forced labour by Jews. One day after visiting the market, Lidia returns home to find Doda and Bubbe have been forcibly taken into the Jewish ghetto behind their apartment. The ghetto is now completely enclosed by a wall and guarded by Nazi soldiers. Lidia attempt to bring them food is cut short when she witnessed a Polish man shot dead for trying to do the same.

In 1941, Lidia learns from her friend, Maryna, that there are underground schools in Warsaw. Determined to attend, Lidia raises the tuition by selling the beautiful porcelain dolls her grandfather gifted her. They also receive a letter from Papa at this time telling that he is in a prison camp on a Russian island. Near the end of 1941, they learn from the underground newspaper, that Ryszard smuggles home, of the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor. From a story about mass executions at Chelmno, Lidia learns that the Jews are being sent to camps to be killed. Later when Lidia looks into the ghetto she sees that it is extremely crowded and that many people are desperately thin and are starving. This motivates Lidia to begin helping those in the Jewish ghetto by slipping them food.

Throughout the spring of 1942, with her friend Maryna, Lidia continues passing food into the ghetto by various means. However, when a sign warning that those helping the Jews will be immediately executed, Lidia and Maryna are terrified. They decide they must stop helping with the food. However, the two girls discover the reality of the ghetto as they witness the Polish Jews being loaded into boxcars of a train supposedly to resettlement camps. Hearing what she believes is Bubbe's voice, Lidia attempts to get near the area but she is warned and then slapped by a German soldier who threatens to place them on the train. 

In January of 1943, they awaken to fighting in the ghetto. As Lidia watches a group of young Jewish fighters take on the German soldiers, she is impressed by their courage. She confronts Ryszard, telling him she knows he is part of the resistance and insists that she too is intent on joining. Despite his threat to tell their mother, Lidia begins to reach out to those she knows are involved and soon finds herself undertaking dangerous work as a messenger. 

Discussion

Uprising is based on the real life of Lidia Janina Durr who was a member of the Polish resistance in Warsaw, during World War II. The novel is divided into five parts: Part 1 Invasion, Part 2 Occupation, Part 3 Resistance, Part 4 Uprising and Part 5 The Escape. 

Some details of Lidia's life differ slightly from what is portrayed in Nielsen's book. For example, Lidia was born in 1924 in Warsaw, Poland and was fifteen-years-old, not twelve, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. She joined the resistance two years later when she was seventeen and worked as a messenger. While being active in the Resistance, Lidia managed to complete her high school education at an underground school. She also illegally studied medicine in the underground University of Warsaw and music at the Conservatory of Music, where Chopin once studied Lidia participated in the Warsaw Uprising (August 1 to October 2, 1944) as a messenger. The Warsaw Uprising was led by the Polish resistance as the Germans were retreating from Poland ahead of the Soviets. The Polish Resistance hoped for assistance from the Soviets but instead, Stalin order Soviet troops to halt, allowing the Germans to attack and destroy the Polish Home Army and the city of Warsaw. Almost sixteen thousand resistance fighters were killed and close to two hundred thousand Polish citizens in Warsaw were executed by the Germans. As mentioned in Nielsen's novel, no outside support from the Allies was offered, dooming the resistance to fail.

In her Author's Note, Nielsen writes that she made Lidia a few years younger in her novel. The events portrayed in the novel are taken from Lidia's own journals, writings and stories told to friends. The difficult relationship portrayed in the novel between Lidia and her mother, Janina, was real and only resolved many years later near the end of Janina's life. It's likely the premature death of Janina's first daughter, Krystyna was a factor.

In Uprising, Lidia is often arrogant, stubborn and unwilling to follow advice or direction from the leaders in the Polish Resistance. She is not a likeable protagonist until she grows older and more mature. Whether this is an accurate portrayal of the real Lidia Durr or dramatic license is uncertain. At any rate, it is obvious that under the constant threat of death, amidst the horrors of war, Lidia showed remarkable courage, ingenuity and determination as a member of the resistance. 

Nielsen has included an informative Author's Note the provides more background information on the Warsaw Uprising and the people that Lidia worked with, some of whom are also in the novel, as well as Lidia's life after the war. There are many black and white photographs of Lidia and her family to help readers relate better to the real Lidia Durr. A map detailing the location of Poland, Russia and Germany would have been helpful as well as one of Warsaw to show the location of the Warsaw Ghetto in the city and some of the other landmarks. As Nielsen mentions in her Author's Note, the city was leveled by the Germans as punishment for the uprising.

Uprising is another well-written and engaging historical fiction novel by Jennifer A. Nielsen that focuses on the Polish uprising during World War II.

Book Details:

Uprising by Jennifer A. Nielsen
New York: Scholastic Press   2024
356 pp.

The Enigma Girls by Candace Fleming

In The Enigma Girls, the secretive behind-the-scenes story of the contributions made by teenage girls at Bletchley Park during World War II are featured.

Their story begins with the start of World War II which began with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. This came as a shock to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who had brokered what he believed was a permanent peace with Hitler. Germany was not to invade any other European countries after annexing Czechoslovakia in 1938. With the invasion of Poland, Britain declared war on Germany.

With the declaration of war, many government agencies were move to the countryside to protect them. One such agency was the Government Code and Cipher School (GC&CS), part of the Secret Intelligence Service. Their new location was a country estate fifty miles from London, called Bletchley Park. It was given the code name, Station X. The purpose was to break German codes and ciphers to learn the German military plans. Thousands of lives were at stake.

It all begins at the coastal village of Withernsea with the arrival of a dozen young women at St. Leonard's Hotel. One of those women was eighteen-year-old Patricia Owtram who was stationed there as a wireless radio operator to listen to German naval traffic in the Baltic and North Seas.

In 1940, eighteen-year-old Jane Hughes, the eighteen-year-old daughter of Lord and Lady Hughes was to be a debutante. But Jane did not want the parties, dances, or dinners. What she wanted to was to be a part of the war effort. It was a letter from a former classmate inviting her to join them at Bletchley that changed everything. After being sworn to secrecy, Jane was assigned to Hut 6 where she worked to break Enigma codes sent by the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht.

Eighteen-year-old Mavis Lever quit school to help in the war effort. Fluent in German, she was assigned to Cottage 3 at Bletchley, breaking Enigma ciphers from the Italian Navy Alfred "Dilly" Knox figured if she could speak German, she could learn Italian. He was a Greek scholar and pioneering cryptographer.

Sarah Norton, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the 6th Lord Grantley received a mysterious letter requesting her to Station X at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire in four days from an unknown Commander Travis. Sarah had been sent abroad two years earlier to learn German in Munich and was familiar with Hitler and his Nazi party. Now at Bletchley Park, and sworn to the utmost secrecy, Sarah was assigned to Hut 4, part of the German Naval Section, working as an Indexer in the Index Room. She scrutinized decrypts from the Kriegsmarine and wrote key information on index cards.

By 1942, the war office now required all able-bodied British women to do war work. Seventeen-year-old Diana Payne was sent to the Wren (Women's Royal Navy Service) training camp in New College, Hampstead and then on to Bletchley Park. There she was assigned to Hut 11A which held the Bombes - machines designed by Alan Turing to break each day's new Enigma setting. The Bombes required two tall girls to attend to them, using a menu which described how the machine was to plugged up and the order of the wheels. It was tiring and difficult work.

Gwen Davis, an eighteen-year-old from Bournemouth, joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) in 1942. She was sent to Hut 10, Block A to work on deciphering Luftwaffe's communications not encrypted by Enigma. Instead these messages were encrypted using a cipher book.

By June of 1943, twenty-year-old Ann Williamson had completed her degree in mathematics. She was required to do war work and eventually ended up at Bletchley Park in the Machine Room converting cribs (or guesses at the Enigma's settings for the day) and cipher text into a diagram. These diagrams, called Menus, required the ability to solve puzzles. The Menu was then sent on to a Bombe outstation.

Near the end of June, 1944, eighteen-year-old Joanna Chorley along with nineteen other WRENS arrived at Bletchley Park. She was assigned to work in Block F with Colossus I, the world's first electronic computer. It was used to determine the first half of a FISH setting. FISH were the most important top level Nazi communications enciphered by the more complex Lorenz SZ40/42 machine.

Marion Graham was sent to work in Japanese Section I in Block F, typing up Japanese messages that were decrypted and translated into English. These were sent to American cryptographers in Washington, D.C. Private Charlotte Vine-Stevens was also sent to Block . A member of the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service), she was to paraphrase translated Japanese messages which were then passed on to commanders in the field.

 By 1944, almost seven thousand people worked at Bletchley Park. It was not an efficient operation, deciphering 2500 army and air force messages every day and 2000 naval messages. The contributions of the young women, who constituted about three quarters of the workforce cannot be overstated. They were vital to the success of D-Day and the winning of the war.

Discussion

The Enigma Girls is an informative book about the contributions of ten British teenage girls at Bletchley Park during World War II. Since the Enigma Girls covers the war period from 1939 to 1945, Fleming profiles ten young women working at Bletchley Park, code-named Station X,  against the backdrop of war. Major events of the war are described including the invasion of several European countries and the Blitz in 1940, the sinking of the German boat Bismarck, the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the invasion of Sicily and the Italian campaign in 1943, and D-Day in 1944. Oddly, the events of Dunkirk in 1941 are not mentioned.

Fleming opens with the back story of World War II and the declaration of war by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1939. Chamberlain had hoped to avoid war by signing an agreement with Adolf Hitler after he annexed Czechoslovakia in 1938. Life in Britain drastically changed very suddenly as Fleming goes on to describe. One such change was the moving of GC&CS to Bletchley Park.

Much has been made of the significant contributions of Alan Turing, Dillwyn Knox and others in breaking the Enigma code and their work at Bletchley Park. However, there were over seven thousand people working at Station X, many of them young women who significantly contributed. Beginning with Patricia Owtram, who entered the war effort in 1930 as a wireless operator, Fleming highlights ten young women who were part of thousands would keep Station X functioning through the war. Some were the daughters of aristocracy while others were university students or recent high school graduates looking for something different. The young women are profiled in chronological order, as the war continued. Fleming describes their responsibilities,  how their work was, unknown to them,  interconnected and what life was like for them during the war. It is evident that many sacrifices were made for the war effort by these young women. The work was exhausting and often depressing. For example, resetting the Bombes was exhausting. They were noisy and smelly from the oil used to lubricate the Bombe's spindles. Diana Payne soon had calloused hands and fingers covered with small cuts. Her worth made her feel exhausted and lonely. "Many others experienced sleeplessness, hand tremors, loss of appetite, and nervousness. Some had breakdowns. Most worked on the edge of mental exhaustion. The long hours, the noise of the rotating wheels, and the intensity of the work put an enormous strain on the Wrens." 

Not only could the work be difficult, but even life outside of Bletchley Park could be challenging. The young women who arrived at Bletchley Park were assigned billets or temporary housing. The quality of these billets varied; they could be comfortable and the family welcoming or noisy, unfriendly and lacking in basic amenities. 

The young women working at Bletchley Park weren't able to see the entire picture and how their work helped others. The path of an enemy message from when it was sent by the enemy, to being intercepted and sent to Bletchley Park where cryptographers worked to decipher them is outlined by Fleming, midway through the book. With each profile, Fleming explains the tasks crucial to their work at Bletchley Park. Readers will learn about wireless, Morse code, the German Enigma machine, codes and ciphers, the British cipher machine called a Typex, how to break a cipher, indexing at Bletchley, decipher a message, the Bombes and how they worked and were reset each day, cribs, creating a Menu, enciphering a cipher, the German Lorenz SZ40/42, and the Colossus I - the first electronic machine. Fleming includes a wealth of black and white photographs of significant events in the war but also the few existing ones of Bletchley Park, and the machines used in the war effort. 

Fleming definitely highlights not only the contributions of these ten young women in particular but of all the women who joined the war effort in Great Britain, as well as the personal sacrifices. The Enigma Girls is a thoroughly researched book that will engage not only those interested in World War II history, but also the many contributions made by women in the war, as well as codes and ciphers. Fleming has included an Author's Note, an extensive Bibliography, Source Notes for each of the chapters, Photograph and Illustration credits, and a detailed Index.

Book Details:

The Enigma Girls by Candace Fleming

New York: Scholastic Focus     2024
371 pp.

The Girl Who Sang by Estelle Nadel

The Girl Who Sang is the Holocaust graphic memoir of the experiences of Estelle (Enia Feld) Nadel.

Enia Feld lived in Borek, Poland with her parents, Chaya and Reuven, her older brothers Moishe, Shia and Minashe, and her older sister Sonjia. In 1939, life for four-year-old Enia was carefree. Her family lived next door to her mother's brother and his wife (the Lambics) and her Aunt Hinda and Uncle Jozef Reiss and her cousin Mala Reiss. Enia's days were filled with learning to cook from her mother, who was a wonderful cook. Enia would attempt to learn how to make matzah before Passover. 

In 1939, Enia listens as her family discusses Hitler and his spreading of hatred for Jews in Germany over dinner. But Shia believes this hatred has spread even to Poland as he has been called a "dirty Jew" and has had rocks thrown at him at school. Jozef points out that Hitler has already invaded Czechoslovakia and that Poland might be next. Rueven however, is not as concerned: he believes God will protect them.

Enia loved Passover with the house full of people and the wonderful smells. Her father was a farmer and although her mother helped out by cooking for the villagers weddings, they were poor. Pudlina, a Gentile, often helped Enia's mother if she had a lot of cooking to do. 

Sabbath preparations were a special time. Because they didn't have a shower at home, Enia and her mother would visit the public showers bathe in preparation for the Shabbat (Jewish Sabbath). On Saturday, Enia's father and brothers would attend synagogue while Enia waited outside. To pass the time she would sing. Afterwards, their cousins would come over to eat lunch. Seventeen-year-old Sonjia and Dovid were sweethearts and everyone thought they would get married some day. 

But this happiness did not last forever. On September 1, 1939, the Germans invaded Poland. It wasn't long before the Germans arrived in Borek. Soon Russia invaded Poland from the east, dividing the country into two parts with the west occupied by the Germans. With these events, Shia questions his  father if they should cross to the Russian side to be safe, as many Jewish men were doing. But Rueven continues to believe God will protect them and that this trouble will pass.  By November 1939, Enia's mother began sewing the Jewish star on their clothing and told Enia she must always were the star when outside. Enia didn't know to be scared at this point. In December 1939, eleven-year-old Minashe and twelve-year-old Shai could no longer attend school because they were Jewish. Enia turned five and was taught how to read some Yiddish at home by her mother.

Gradually things worsened over the next two years. Reuven and Sonjia were assigned to work at the refinery in Jedlicze as was Jozef Reiss. Minashe, Shia and Sonjia were forced to work where the Germans assigned them. Sonjia tried to be on friendly terms with the German soldiers in the hopes it would keep their family safe. In July 1942, at a meeting held at the Feld's home, they discussed Hitler's struggles in Russia and the ghettos where hundreds of Jews were crowded together and not able to leave. They wondered if the purpose of the ghettos was a prison or something much worse. 

Then one night Enia is awakened by German soldiers coming to their house, searching for valuables. Afterwards, Chaya tells her family they are stealing from the Jews because they can. Two weeks later, in August, 1942, Sonjia arrives at her parents home, frantically warning them to leave immediately and hide in the fields. She tells them that the refinery has been surrounded by the Gestapo. Instead of hiding with her family, Sonjia tells her mother she is returning there as Father and her uncle as well as their cousins are still there. Sonjia is convinced she will be safe because the Germans like her. Chaya orders Shia to run and tell Tante Hinda and the Lambics to hide in the fields. 

As night falls, Chaya asks Minashe to check to see if it is safe to return to their home. When Minashe returns, he tells his mother that everything has been ransacked. Chaya decides to run leaving Reuven, Sonjia, Moishe and their cousins behind, in the hopes they can find safety. They would never see them again. They meet up with Aunt Hinda and Mala and  Chaya tells them to go to Maria Kurwoska's home as she has offered to help if needed.  Eventually, Chaya and Enia, Minashe and Shia are hidden in the attic of Pudlina's home. Because Pudlina is very poor, Chaya must go out every day to find food for her family. 

She learns that Hinda and Mala are hidden in Maria Kurwoska's barn and that Uncle Reiss and their cousins are in the ghetto at Krosno. A few days later, Shia goes to the ghetto to find Uncle Reiss and when he returns to Enia and their family he tells them the awful truth: Father and Sonjia have been killed. Moishe has also been killed. Enia would learn years later about what really happened to them. As the month's go by, Enia must learn to survive, through many difficult circumstances both during the war and afterwards in America.

Discussion

The Girl Who Sang is one Holocaust survivor's story of resiliency and courage. The novel itself is divided into five parts: Part 1 Innocence 1939 - 1942 in which Enia's carefree early childhood is portrayed. The arrival of the Nazis in Poland quickly changes everything. Part 2 Hidden 1942 -1944 describes the loss of her family and Enia and her brothers Minashe and Shia efforts to hide from the Nazis with the help of Pudlina and the Kurwoski family. Part 3 Liberation 1944 - 1947 beings with the liberation of Borek by the Soviets, the reuniting of Enia and Shia with Minashe, their return to their family home in Borek, and their travels across Europe to Austria and eventually to America. Part 4 A New Beginning 1947 - 1951 focuses on Estelle (Enia) and Steve's (Shia) journey to America, and Estelle and her brothers' early lives there including her adoption by the Nadels. Part 5 The Girl Who Sang is short and sweet but portrays Estelle's life that she built in California.

Enia whose name changed to Estelle when she arrived in America had to face many challenging situations. She did so with a maturity far beyond her years and with much courage. When Enia and Shia arrived in New York City, they were met by Minashe who had a job at a factory and could not live with them, something that upset Estelle.  She was often left alone for long periods of time as her brothers had to work so to pass the time Estelle went to the movie theatre. This was how she learned to speak English. Estelle began attending school for the first time when she was thirteen-years-old, a challenge because she struggled to read. Eventually, Estelle was placed first in a foster home and then adopted by Minnie and Nienman Nadel.  The adoption meant that Estelle's dream of living with her brothers as a family would never be realized.  She was further separated from her only family, her brothers when Estelle and Minnie moved to California. 

Despite this, Estelle made a life for herself in California, demonstrating her resiliency in overcoming adversity and adapting to the difficult changes life sometimes presents. During the war, Estelle had shown a great deal of courage in escaping the jail, hiding from the Nazis and travelling across Europe to safety. That same courage, resiliency and adaptability helped her face the new challenges living in America presented.

All of this is captured beautifully in Nadel's poignant retelling of her experiences. It is a story told with dignity and graciousness. Estelle touches on the many times she felt deep hurt and abandonment when her brother Shia didn't live up to her expectations or made difficult decisions that led to separation and loneliness for Estelle. Over the years, Estelle came to forgive her brothers, especially Shia, recognizing that he had to made hard decisions while still a child himself.

Illustrator Sammy Savos effectively portrays the intense emotions Enia experiences: the desolation and grief that young Enia experiences over the death of her beloved mother, the terror when their village is bombed by the Russians, and the deep sense of loss when she reunites with Dovid,  the young man her sister Sonjia intended on marrying and who is now married to someone else, the deep grief and sense of abandonment she felt when she was placed for adoption to the Nadels - forever ending her hope of being together with her brothers.  Panels portraying her experiences during the war are dark and ominous, while those of life in America have a brighter, hopeful palette.

The title of the memoir comes from Estelle's love of singing. It was her singing that brought her to the attention of someone at the Displaced Persons camp in Austria, and led to her and her brothers emigrating to America. On the boat over to America, Estelle sang her heart out and became known as "the girl who sang".  Estelle would continue to sing all her life, at many Jewish temples throughout America. 

Nadel has included a list of members of the Feld and Reiss families, and their rescuers at the front of the novel for easy reference. In the Afterword, Nadel tells her readers what happened to others in the story: Emilia Wilusz and her parents Jan and Maria Kurowski, Pudlina, Mala and Wujek Reiss, Mel (Minashe), Steve (Shia), and Estelle. There is an interesting Behind The Scenes which describes how Sammy Savoy crafted the graphic panels as well as some photographs of Estelle and her family. 

The Girl Who Sang is a beautifully crafted and poignant memoir of a family who survived the Holocaust and who went on to live their best lives.

Book Details:

The Girl Who Sang by Estelle Nadel
New York: Roaring Book Press  2024 

245 pp.

Force of Nature by Ann E. Burg

In Force of Nature, the life of author and scientist Rachel Louise Carson is portrayed in free verse. The story opens sometime around 1917 when Rachel is in fifth grade. With her Mama, Rachel observes the natural world around her with attention and delight; "a beautiful butterfly flit from leaf to leaf."

Rachel lives in Springdale with her Mama and Papa. Her father sells insurance, a disappointing and tedious job that he never planned on taking. She has an sister Marion who is ten years old and a brother Robert. Marian lives as home now after being abandoned by her husband Lee, mere months after getting married.

When Rachel wants to invite her classmate Alice to show her the woods, her Mama tells her to choose her friends wisely lest she end up like her older sister Marion. So Rachel accepts that she can't have friends come to visit. With her dog, Candy, Rachel explores the fields and forests. She loves poetry, especially poems about the sea. Marion finds a job doing bookkeeping while Robert has left to join the Army Air Service.

After a brief illness, Rachel is back in school. Everyone in her class knows someone fighting in Europe. Some have lost relatives in the Battle of Verdun. Meanwhile, Robert is busy transporting bombs on his biplane. His letter relates the story of a Canadian aviator who saved a plane by crawling onto the crushed wing to balance the plane so it could land. Rachel decides she will write a story about this aviator and submit it to the St. Nicholas Magazine. She aspires to be a writer. To encourage her, Rachel's mother leaves her a pocket-sized note book so she can write down the details she notices. Her story is published, five months after submitting it.

Eleven-year-old Rachel is kept home from school as the illness killing soldiers her brother Robert wrote about in his letters, has not spread. The influenza has resulted in limits placed on railroad travel and saloons. Eventually the war ends in the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

Rachel continues to have stories published in St. Nicks and becomes an Honor Member of the Saint Nicholas League. Robert returns home from war but seems changed, unable to focus and sleeping most of the time. Rachel's father gets another job working at the power plant but remains unhappy. And Marion is learning Continental Code from Robert and a friend. She has her picture in the paper but the accompanying story is filled with many made-up details about her which puzzles Rachel. Marion marries Burton Williams, a friend of her brother Robert.

Rachel graduates high school and enrolls at Pennsylvania College for Women, fifteen miles from Sprindale. At school, Rachel finds Miss Croff, her freshman composition teacher very supportive. Meanwhile, Marian's marriage to Burton is failing so she moves back home with her daughter Virginia and her new baby Marjorie. At the end of the semester, Robert also comes to visit with his wife Meredith and their baby, Frances. With all these people in their small home, tensions are high. Eventually Mama tells Robert he can pitch a tent in the yard which they do. Everyone can hear quarreling and crying day and night.

With Marian recovering from appendicitis, her young daughters are needy, wanting comfort. So Rachel helps her sister by taking the children outside to show them interesting things in nature. It is Marjie who seems to enjoy nature the most.

In her sophomore year, Rachel will study French, psychology, Introductory Biology and two English courses. She also decides to work on the school newspaper. Rachel has a new roommate named Helen who is younger. Miss Croff continues as Rachel's advisors, but she is impressed by Miss Skinker, her biology professor. She is glamorous and elegant. Miss Skinker is impressed with Rachel's "probing questions" and that she helps her classmates. She impresses upon Rachel that 
"It is not enough

to embrace knowledge

if we are not also willing

to use that knowledge

to benefit the world."

Rachel soon discovers that she really enjoys biology and it is become her favourite subject. She wants to change her major and seeks the guidance of Miss Croff and Miss Skinker. Miss Croff refuses to advise that she change her major. She tells Rachel there is very little opportunity or women in science and suggests instead that she add a minor in science. Miss Skinker also tells Rachel much the same. She indicates she had been turned away from jobs despite being qualified. She wants Rachel to follow her heart but also to succeed. All of this leaves Rachel discouraged with the fear that she will end up like her mother. Her fellow students are puzzled by Rachel's desire to change her major especially considering she is such a good writer. Rachel's attempt to explain to her friends how she feels is met with laughter.

Summer sees Robert, Meredith and Frances move in with Meredith's family. Rachel's papa is often sick and can only tend his garden. Rachel tells her mother that she wants to change her major but like her teachers, her mother doesn't support this change. Rachel returns to college but early in the semester she decides to move forward with the change in her major. Miss Skinker and Miss Croff tell her they will support her in this. Rachel's move to focus on science rather than her writing will eventually pay off in ways no one can anticipate. As Rachel gains experience in the world of science and returns to her writing, she offers the world the opportunity to reconsider the beauty of the natural world and to reconsider how we are trying to tame that world.

Discussion

In Force of Nature, the life of Rachel Carson is fictionalized through the use of free verse. There are no titled poems, but the poetry is interspersed with pages titled Field Note in which Rachel observes the natural world around her. As author Ann E. Burg notes in her Author's Note she "wanted to capture a unique and tenacious spirit" that was Rachel Carson.

Using verse, Burg succeeds in portraying Rachel Carson as an intelligent young woman determined to follow what she truly loved - observing and learning about the natural world we are a part of. In Force of Nature, Rachel is portrayed as not only delighting in the discovering the natural world around her but also in passing that on to those around her, especially her young nieces. Although she begins college studying writing and English, her fascination with the natural world cannot be denied. Despite warnings that studying science would offer few opportunities, Carson persisted, deciding to take an enormous risk. Carson was fortunate to obtain an internship at Woods Hole in Massachusetts and later a position in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, at a time when jobs were rare for women in science. 

And as history now shows, she was able to convey the wonders of the natural world to millions of readers through her books. But  more importantly Rachel Carson was able to use her love and knowledge of the natural world and her science background to warn the world about the indiscriminate use of pesticides. She correctly foresaw that man's desire to conquer nature could have devastating effects for both the world and humanity. Her book, Silent Spring was the birth of the environmental movement. She accomplished what Miss Skinker had encouraged her to do, years earlier - use her knowledge to benefit mankind.

Burg also conveys the difficulties and tragedies in Rachel Carson's own life. Her mother had to give up a teaching career when she married, something that was common in the early twentieth century. Her father was dissatisfied with low-paying jobs that offered little satisfaction. Her siblings also struggled with neither Robert nor Marion completing high school. Robert returned from a war a changed man, like many of his generation. Her sister Marion had a failed marriage. The family struggled financially during the depression, resulting in Rachel postponing her doctorate studies at John Hopkins. Her father also died during this time making their financial situation worse. The niece Rachel was helping died suddenly leaving her son, Roger an orphan. Rachel had ongoing health problems including breast cancer which would claim her life in 1964.

Force of Nature has lovely illustrations created by artist Sophie Blackall using Procreate, a digital 6B pencil, gouache and brushes. At the back of the book, all the illustrations are shown with the caption, "Can you name them all?"  A map showing the important towns and cities relevant to Rachel Carson's life would have been a good addition.

Author Ann E. Burg read Rachel Carson's own works and used Linda Lear's biography, Witness for Nature to help craft Rachel's story in Force of Nature. This novel in verse is a beautiful tribute to a somewhat-forgotten pioneer and scientist in environmental sciences.

Book Details:

Force of Nature by Ann E. Burg
New York: Scholastic Press   2024

278 pp.

Heroes by Alan Gratz

Frank McCoy and his best friend Stanley Summers live on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, located ten miles west of Honolulu, on the island of Oahu. It is a little island in the middle of the harbor which is both a body of water and the name of the United States military base. While Stanley has grown up in Hawai'i, with his father and his Japanese American mother, Mitsuko, Frank has moved there from Pensacola, Florida where his father was previously stationed. Frank, along with his older sister Ginny and their parents now live next door to Stanley in a row of bungalows they call Nob Hill. Frank's father is a Navy pilot, while Stanley's father is a flight crew chief at the air station. He is in charge of fixing the planes that Frank's father flies. Frank's sister Ginny who works as a secretary at Dole Pineapple in Honolulu,  is dating Brooks Leonard, a seaman second class on the USS Utah. 

Frank and Stanley have a shared interest in creating a comic book with Frank doing the story and Stanley doing the illustrations. Making their way home from baseball practice in a small aluminum boat, the two friends discuss their ideas for a superhero they want to name, the Arsenal of Democracy. When they arrive at Ford Island, they find two boys, Arthur Edwards and Johnny Ross picking on a younger boy, Charlie Moon. When Stanley goes to intervene, he gets attacked by the boys and punched. But instead of coming to the aid of his best friend, Frank freezes up and watches as Stanley is beaten. This angers Stanley who can't understand why Frank, who is much bigger than the other boys, didn't come to his aid. What his best friend doesn't know is that Frank is terrified of almost everything.

When they arrive at their homes, Frank's sister Ginny immediately senses the tension between the two boys but she thinks it is due to an argument. 

Brooks offers to take Stanley and Frank on a tour of the Utah early on Sunday morning. For Stanley it means a break from Japanese school. Frank meanwhile is struggling to tell his friend why he didn't step in to help him during the fight. On Sunday morning the two friends take their boat down carrier row where the Utah and the light cruisers, Raleigh and Detroit are docked. They are greeted by Brooks Leonard when they climb aboard the Utah. The ship feels safe, powerful and invincible. 

Just as Frank begins to explain to Stanley why he didn't come to his aid during the fight, they see a squadron of fighters approaching from the northwest. This is quickly followed by fiery explosions on Ford Island. Confused and surprised, everyone believes this is a drill but as the planes buzz the Utah Frank sees a "meatball" on the bottom of the plane's winds. This is what  the red rising sun of the Japanese flag is called by Americans.

Quickly Frank, Stanley, and Brooks realize the Japanese are attacking Pearl Harbor. Within seconds the ships are being torpedoed. The Utah begins sinking, tilting toward the harbor. Stanley wants to get off the ship but Brooks tells them to take cover behind the large stacks of timber on the deck. Caught in the middle of an attack, with the Utah capsizing, Frank, Stanley and Brooks must abandon ship. This will mean jumping into the shark infested waters of Pearl Harbor with torpedoes and bullets exploding all around them? 

Discussion

Heroes is another historical fiction book written for middle school readers, this time with the focus on the attack on Pearl Harbor. Set against this dramatic scene, Gratz explores what defines a "hero". 

Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, thirteen-year-old Frank McCoy stands frozen to the side as his best friend Stanley is beaten by two boys. Despite being bigger than both of the boys who attack Stanley, Frank doesn't step in because he's afraid of getting hurt. This creates tension between the two boys as Stanley has no idea why Frank didn't help him.

The reality is that Frank lives in constant fear of getting hurt. He worries about sharks, eels, volcanoes and plane crashes. About getting struck by lightning, or burning himself on the barbecue, or wearing flip flops. Frank took advanced swimming lessons in case he ever had to swim to shore. Ironically, this skill does help him save a trapped sailor during the attack.

Upset by his friend's seeming cowardice and not yet knowing the cause, Stanley tells Frank what he believes defines a hero. The boys are talking about the design of their comic book superhero when Stanley tells Frank what defines a hero. "A real hero steps in when they see people getting hurt, no matter what." He explains to Frank he likes Superman because "...he uses his powers to help people who're in trouble, for no other reason than it's the right thing to do." 

Frank does eventually come clean to Stanley but it isn't until the boys are on Ford Island as it's being bombed by the Japanese. Frank now feels that he doesn't have to hide his fear and that maybe Stanley will understand. He explains that a vicious dog attack in third grade is behind his fear of getting hurt. The attack left him with ropy scars on his stomach and a lasting state of fear. Since that time, he is constantly evaluating the relative danger of everything.

However, Frank's actions during the bombing of Pearl Harbor demonstrate that he is no coward. Initially he behaves as he's been doing for the past five years - either trying to avoid danger or freezing when confronted with danger. This is seen when Stanley saves a sailor from tracer fire on the deck of the Utah while Frank remains frozen in fear. But when Frank and Stanley are in a launch that needs to go to the Raleigh to get a torch to free sailors trapped in the Utah, it is Frank who suggests they swim the rest of the way to Ford Island, allowing the launch to do the rescue. 

Then on their way to taking a wounded sailor to the hospital on Oahu in a boat, Frank and Stanley encounter a young sailor trapped in the water by a ring of burning oil. To Stanley's shock, Frank decides he will swim underwater to rescue the sailor. His decision to take this risk is a dramatic change, one that Stanley does not want to be involved in. Stanley wants them to save themselves, but Frank knows he can save this sailor from a gruesome death despite the sharks, eels, fire and risk of running out of air.

"Who was this Frank McCoy who wanted to jump into burning water to try and rescue some man he'd never met before....Was I the Frank McCoy who froze up when the going got tough? Or was I the Frank McCoy who could be brace in the face of danger? Who stood up for his friends in a fight? Who helped people when they were in trouble? I was still afraid. Of pretty much everything.....But of all the things in the world I was afraid of, I suddenly realized that my greatest fear was being too scared to do the right thing."

Gratz's portrayal of the chaos and destruction during the Pearl Harbor attack seem very realistic with the exception of the two boy's continued focus on how their superheroes would behave. It's likely that the terror, chaos, and the immediate prospect of death would quickly replace any ideas of superheroes in these young boys minds. They have seen the dead body of a young sailor Brooks Leonard whom they both know. Suddenly the reality of the attack and the possibility of their own deaths would be foremost in their minds. They would be focused on surviving and helping others to survive.

Heroes allows young readers to experience through the eyes of two young boys, the cataclysmic event that pushed the United States into the war. The story also portrays how the pre-existing discrimination towards Japanese Americans led people like Stanley's mother to bury treasured family heirlooms to save their families. The story also tackles the issue of anxiety in children, with the main character, Frank McCoy having suffered for years from unaddressed anxiety. In the case of Frank, he seems to conquer his fears quite suddenly and become a hero.

Author Alan Gratz has included the comic book that the fictional Frank and Stanley produce after the war called The Arsenal of Democracy. Readers should note that the comic panels were drawn by the real life illustrator Judit Tondora. There is a map of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 showing the position of the various boats, submarines and Frank and Stanley's homes. The Author's Note includes information on the attack on Pearl Harbor and how the consequences of the attack played out for the war, for the United States and for Japan as well as the legacy of Pearl Harbor. Gratz also discusses how he incorporated the events of Pearl Harbor into his story. 

Book Details:

Heroes by Alan Gratz
New York: Scholastic Press   2024

219 pp.

Amil and the After by Veera Hiranandani

Amil And The After is the sequel to The Night Diary, which chronicles the experiences of the fictional Hindu family during the Partition.

Twelve-year-old twins Amil and Nisha, their father, Dadi their grandmother and Kazi the family's Muslim servant, are now living in Bombay, India. It is  January 1st, 1948. Last year, India's Prime Minister Nehru had announced that at midnight on August 14th, India would become independent from British rule and be partitioned into two countries, India and Pakistan. When this happened, India was to be for Hindus, Sikhs and non-Muslims, while Pakistan would be the home for Muslims. As a result, Amil's family had to flee their home in Mirpur Khas which was now part of Pakistan as they are Sindh Hindu and travel to Jodhpur, India. The journey was treacherous with Amil almost losing his life. The Partition had resulted in people across India and Pakistan fighting and killing each other. After a short stay in Jodhpur, Amil's family moved to Bombay for Papa's new job at the hospital. He is covering for a doctor who may or may not return.  

Amil loves to draw but finds reading and school work difficult. The letters of the alphabet all look the same or flipped, making learning difficult for Amil. Nisha suggests that he draw for Mama, as a way of expressing his pent-up feelings. Amil decides to do this.

One Saturday on their way to visit Papa's cousin Ashok, they pass a refugee camp in the old military barracks. Amil recognizes the Sindh words being spoken in the camp. Six months ago, these people had been living normal lives in what was now Pakistan. Now they are living in terrible conditions and seeing the camp upsets Amil.

School continues to be a struggle for Amil, while his twin sister, Nisha, excels. Amil wishes for a friend, someone who isn't too competitive but who also has a sense of humour. He also wants a bicycle. Amil prays to his mother, asking her to make at least one of these wishes come true. Then at school, Amil encounters a boy during lunch break, as he's taking out his tiffin. Kazi has prepared Amil's lunch of rajma masala, roti, raita, and mango pickle. At first the boy refuses Amil's offer of food. He shows Amil a flip book he's made and this so intrigues Amil that he wants the boy to teach him how to make one. They strike a bargain where the boy will take half of Amil's lunch as payment for teaching him how to make a flip book. Eventually the boy reveals himself to be called Vishal and tells Amil he is from a royal family.

Amil and Nisha struggle to settle back into life, amidst continuing fallout from the Partition. Violence, an assassination and uncertainty seem to be everywhere. But when Amil and Nisha discover Vishal sleeping on the street, Amil is determined to help his new friend.

Discussion

Amil And The After is the story of one family's struggle to rebuild their lives after the Partition in 1947 India. Their traumatic and life-changing experiences leave them uncertain about the future and wondering why they survived when so many others did not. In this novel, set in 1948, their story is told from the perspective of twelve-year-old Amil. He almost died from dehydration as they crossed the desert in their journey from Mirpur Khas, Pakistan to Jodhpur, India.

The story begins on January 1, 1948, four months after the Partition, but it is not in the past. People are still fleeing over the border between Pakistan and India and communal rioting continues with attacks in Karachi and Delhi.

The events around the Partition have left Amil with many questions including why Muslims and Hindus are fighting one another. In Mirpur Khas, Amil's family, who are Sindh Hindus, went to the Sikh temple while some Hindus went to Sufi (Muslim) shrines. His papa tells him, "Our community had Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Jains all going about their business."  People were able to live peacefully, despite their differences. The Partition changes all of that.

Amil realizes that his experiences have changed him. Instead of focusing on how to have fun or get a treat, he has many complicated questions. He wonders why they survived, why they have a home and food and others do not. When he sees a young boy playing in the dirt in the refugee camp in Bombay, Amil recognizes that he could be that boy "If a few things had gone another way..." Was it luck that he hadn't died in the desert, that they have a safe place to live and food?

Eventually Amil discovers that his new friend, Vishal is living on the street. In Vishal, Amil sees "...a boy exactly like he was, just unlucky instead of lucky." When Amil offers to help him, Vishal seems indifferent because he believes he is worthless and that no one cares. While Amil believes the difference between him and Vishal is simply a matter of luck, Nisha believes they shouldn't waste that "luck" and should act to help Vishal. As a result they end up taking Vishal home, feeding him and helping him to clean up and get into clean clothes. This restores Vishal's belief in his own dignity. 

When Vishal doesn't return to school, Amil is not content to simply let things go. He and Kazi discover he is seriously ill in the refugee camp and learn that his real name is Vasim Qureshi, meaning he is likely a Muslim boy. Amil is now determined to help his friend, eventually getting him treated at the hospital where his father works. He doesn't care that Vasim is Muslim, only that he is his friend. But Amil also wants to ensure that Vasim remains safe and that he doesn't end up back in the refugee camp. His determination pushes his father to find a safe place for Vasim and ultimately leads to his family helping him. The message is that we don't have to do big things, sometimes it is just helping one person that makes a big difference.

Amil And The After encourages young readers to look beyond differences and see the humanity in those who are different. Sometimes all that separates us from being homeless or a refugee is luck and circumstances. This message is an important one for people in all countries. As the Partition continues to have repercussions in India even today, this message is needed more than ever. 

As mentioned in Hranandani's first book, The Night Diaries, the experiences of the characters in this novel are based on her own family's experiences. She reiterates this in The Author's Note at the back. Also included is a Glossary of terms used in the novel. 

Book Details

Amil And The After by Veera Hiranandani
New York: Kokila       2024
342 pp.

The Tree of Life by Elisa Boxer

It was winter in the ghetto called Terezin. There were many children in the ghetto, scared and lonely. One woman, Irma Lauscher, was secretly teaching the children to read and write, and also to celebrate Jewish holidays. She asked one of the prisoners who left the ghetto each day on work detail to smuggle in a tree sapling. He agreed even though this meant risking his life if he were caught.

When the sapling arrived, it was a comfort to the children who planted it in a pot. Eventually, the children planted the sapling in the ground within the ghetto. To keep the sapling alive, the children each shared a few drops of their precious water each day. The tree grew taller and was known as Etz Chaim, the Tree of Life.

Meanwhile, many of the children were removed from the ghetto and sent by train somewhere even worse. But those children who remained continued to water the tree. After the war and the prisoners were released, the tree was now five feet tall. Before the children left the ghetto they gave the tree one more drink and placed a sign by it that read, "As the branches of this tree, so the branches of our people." 

Over the years the tree continued to grow, a mature, silent witness to what had happened in the ghetto. Irma survived the war and send seeds from the tree all over the world. In 2007, after a flood, the tree finally succumbed. But six hundred saplings were now living throughout the world!

In 2021, a fifteen foot descendent of the tree of life was planted in New York City. There children will come to care for it and learn more about the past, the ghetto, and the teacher and the children who had hope for a better future.

Discussion

The Tree of Life is the touching story of Jewish children creating a memorial of hope in the darkest of times, when most of them would have no future.

In January, 1943, Irma Lauscher and a group of Jewish children gathered in Theresienstadt concentration camp to plant a tree. This was to celebrate the Jewish holiday called Tu B'Shvat which is called "The New Year of The Trees".

Theresienstadt, also known as Terezin, was a Nazi concentration camp and ghetto located thirty miles north of Prague in the Czech Republic. Theresienstadt was originally a fortress created in the late 18th century by Emperor Joseph II of Austria. Terezin was located within the fortress. However, during World War II, with the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the Nazis converted Terezin into a Jewish ghetto and concentration camp. The ghetto held over fifteen thousand Jewish children, of which only one hundred fifty would survive. Most of these children and the Jewish adults as well, were sent to their deaths at the extermination camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz.

Unlike many other camps, Terezin prisoners were scholars, philosophers, scientists, musicians and artists. The camp was used as a propaganda tool to prove to the world that the Nazis were treated the Jewish people well. In 1943, the camp was beautified in response to a request by King Christian X of Denmark to inspect it. Named Operation Embellishment by the Nazis, the camp was cleaned, fakes shops and cafes were created and thousands deported to Auschwitz to alleviate overcrowding. When the inspection was done in June of 1944 by Danish officials they saw freshly painted rooms holding no more than three Danish Jews per room. The officials did not ask to see areas of the camp that were not part of the official tour and any questions they asked of residents were not answered. Rafael Schachter, a Czech composer, along with other Jews, was forced by the Nazis to give a repeat performance of Verdi's Requiem. He was deported to Auschwitz in October 1944  and gassed the next day. In September 1944, the Nazi's made a propaganda film titled Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet  or, Terezin: A Documentary Film of the Jewish Resettlement. 

Despite this, the children of Terezin were educated, even though it was apparent most of them would not survive. This was a ploy by the Nazis to hide the camp's true purpose. Irma Lauscher was one of the teachers. She was born in Hermanuv Mestec in 1904 and went on to earn a teaching degree from Chales University in Prague. In 1932 she married Jiri Lauscher. They had a daughter, Michaela in 1936.  Irma continued teaching even after they were deported to Terezin in 1942, helping the Jewish children learn about Jewish history and traditions.

The seeds for the tree were smuggled in by an unknown prisoner who worked outside the camp. In the spring of 1943 the tree was planted in one of the Terezin yards. Another version has Irma bribing a Czech guard who smuggled in a sapling of a silver maple. The tree survived the war by being watered by the children of Terezin, most of whom did not survive. Irma and her family also survived. 

After the war, Irma often visited the tree at Terezin, who grew into a stout sixty foot silver maple. Unfortunately, the tree was destroyed by a flood in 2003. But by that time many saplings of the original tree grew in the United States and Israel.

Elisa Boxer tells the story of the Tree of Life in this lovely picture book with digitally created artwork by Alianna Rozentsveig. It is a gentle retelling that focuses on the sacrifice of the Jewish children, to create a symbol of hope and peace, for a future they would never have. This symbol was spread throughout the world, in the form of saplings planted in different cities. Each tree is  a reminder to children of all peoples and faiths, of the lives lost and offers a reminder to fight hatred in all its forms.

The artwork portraying life in Terezin is dark and conveys a sense of foreboding with shades of beige, brown and black while the children are shown in brighter colours. The train taking the Jewish children to their deaths in Auschwitz, belches black smoke against an ominous dark sky. In the postwar images, the background is light, conveying a sense of hope.

There is an Author's Note at the back as well as a Selected Sources section which offers readers the opportunity to explore more in-depth the story told in the book.

Book Details:

The Tree of Life. How a Holocaust Sapling Inspired the World by Elisa Boxer

New York: Rocky Pond Books    2024