As Glenn As Can Be by Sarah Ellis

Glenn likes boats, and raring round the lake in his boat, singing. He doesn't like fishing. Glenn also likes doing pranks, funny hats, singing to cows in a field and elephants in a zoo. He does not like bullying and refuses to participate. Glenn likes trees even in winter but he doesn't like the cold so he wears a hat and coat to keep warm. Glenn likes animals, especially his dog Nicky but also his other assortment of animals including a skunk. He prefers animals to people. Glenn also likes reading and is able to do many things at once even while memorizing music!

Glenn likes rules but not the rule his parents have made that he can only practice piano four hours a day! He loves to play piano more than anything else. Because when he's playing piano, "Glenn gets to be totally and completely Glenn."

 

Everyone loves to listen to Glenn play because his music instills strong feelings. He plays at concerts all over the world: in New York, Moscow, Toronto, Tel Aviv, Leningrad and Los Angeles. Audiences are thrilled but Glenn soon finds he doesn't like giving concerts. There are many reasons: the concert hall is cold, he doesn't like the piano, the audience is noisy. He doesn't even enjoy the applause. He would like people to simply sit quietly and listen and be quiet at the end of a performance. So he stops giving concerts.

Eventually Glenn finds a way to make music for an audience that makes him feel comfortable. He records his playing, listening to the recording and perfecting it. He has to be himself but in doing so, he's sharing his gift of making music with others.

Discussion

As Glenn As Can Be presents the life of the amazing, brilliant and unique Glenn Herbert Gould.Glenn was born in 1932 to parents Russell Herbert and Emma Florence in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. When he was three years old, Glenn began taking piano lessons, from his mother. It quickly became apparent that he had the gift of perfect pitch. Interestingly, Glenn's maternal grandfather was a cousin to the famous Norwegian composer Edward Grieg.

Glenn not only enjoying playing piano but liked to compose his own pieces too. His piano composition, A Merry Thought is his earliest surviving piece. In the fall of 1943, Glenn began studying piano with Alberto Guerrero and in June of 1945 passes his associate piano examination with the highest honours. While a Grade 9 student at Malvern Collegiate in Toronto, Glenn made his professional debut at the Eaton Auditorium. This was the beginning, at a young age, of a short, but brilliant musical career that saw him make his professional concerto debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at Massey Hall in 1947, and make his CBC Radio debut at the age of eighteen in 1950,. In 1955, Glenn made his American debut recital at the Phillips Gallery in Washington, D.C. In January of 1956, Glenn released his recording of Bach: Goldberg Variations to critical acclaim. In the late summer and through the fall of 1958, Glenn toured Europe giving concerts in Salzburg, Brussels, West Berlin and Sweden. Glenn also composed many works including a String Quartet, and a Prelude, Cantilena and Gigue for clarinet and bassoon! Glenn gave many readings, interviews and of course made many recordings of piano works. He passed away in 1982 from a stroke.

Glenn Gould grew up to be what has often been described as very eccentric. Many of these eccentricities are mentioned in Ellis's picture book. He didn't like the cold and wore warm clothing even when it was quite warm outside. He didn't like to be touched and eventually did most of his communicating by letters and phone. Glenn had specific requirements about the piano he used, and even the chair he sat on. Ellis's account is of a gifted musician who performed and lived life on his own terms, even though they may have seemed odd to others.

 

His story is beautifully illustrated by the artwork of Nancy Vo which were done in pen, watercolour and acetone transfer on Rising Stonehenge and Arches Aquarelle.

You can learn more about the amazing Glenn Gould at the official site: glenngould.com

Book Details:

As Glenn As Can Be by Sarah Ellis
Toronto: Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press     2022

Maryam's Magic: The Story of Mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani by Megan Reid

This colourful picture book tells the story of mathematician extraordinaire, Maryam Mirzakhani. 

Maryam loved to tell stories. She would tell her younger sister bedtime stories every night. Maryam and her friend Roya loved to roam through a favourite part of their city and imagine themselves in their stories.

At home Maryam loved to draw and write the stories she created in her mind. Reading and art were her favourite subjects and she hoped to be a famous writer some day. Maryam was fortunate to be able to attend school, now that her country of Iran was at peace.

One subject Maryam disliked was math. She did not like numbers. But when Maryam was twelve-years-old, she began studying geometry in math. Suddenly Maryam found herself liking math because "Every number held a story. It made those numbers into shapes -- and those shapes into pictures."

Maryam and Roya entered a competition for young mathematicians called the International Mathematical Olympiad. This was the first time girls had made the Iranian team and they did not disappoint. They both won medals. The two friends continued to practice for the competition the following year which was held in Toronto, Canada. At that competition, Maryam won the grand prize with a perfect score.

After college, Maryam attended graduate school at Harvard where she spent time with her professors discussing mathematical formulas and theories. As she did when she was younger, Maryam would spread sheets of paper on the floor of  her home to work on mathematical problems. Her daughter, Anahita would tell friends that her mother was a painter! Maryam continued to work on problems that dealt with infinity and she also wrote papers and presented her new ideas.

One of those new ideas was called " 'the magic wand theorem' because it worked like magic to solve many problems that scientists had been puzzling over for more than a hundred years." In 2014, Maryam won the Fields Medal for this theorem, marking her as the first woman and first Iranian to win the coveted prize.

Sadly, at this time Maryam was also diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. She died in 2017. Her lifelong friend, Professor Roya Beheshti, herself a mathematician, spoke about how Maryam was a girl eager to learn, with a kind heart. She was both a mathematician and a storyteller.

Discussion

Once again readers are introduced to a little known woman scientist who has made significant contributions to her field of endeavour. Few young girls are drawn to the discipline of mathematics, often developing a strong dislike for it, early on. This was the case with Maryam.

She was born in Tehran, Iran in 1977. Maryam loved to read and wasn't initially attracted to mathematics. In fact, she wanted to become a writer. Maryam was inspired by the many biographies she watched on television of famous women. 

The Iran-Iraq was ending as Maryam completed elementary school. She was able to secure a place at the Tehran Farzanegan School which was run by the National Organization for the Development of Exceptional Talent. There she made a friend in Roya Behesti and the two girls scoured bookstores, buying the cheap books to take home and read. 

Initially, Maryam did poorly in mathematics but in her second year at the school she had a different teacher who encouraged her. When she and Roya began attending the high school, they were able to solve some of the questions from that year's national mathematics competition. The two girls went to their school principal and asked for classes in solving math problems like those offered at the boys school. Even though Iran's National Mathematics Olympiad had never had female entrants, their principal was undeterred. 

Maryam entered that Olympiad and she won the gold medal for mathematics at the Iranian National Olympiad in 1994. Maryam went on to win gold medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Hong Kong in 1994 and again at the International Mathematical Olympiad held the following year in Toronto. 

Maryam completed her B.Sc. in Mathematics from Sharif University of Technology in 1999. She then moved to the United States where she earned her Ph.D at Harvard, under the tutelage of Chris McMullen who had also won a Fields Medal. As she attended McMullen's classes, she asked many questions in English, she took her notes in Farsi. Her 2004 dissertation has been described as a masterpiece and "truly spectacular" and parts were published as separate papers in the top three mathematical journals.

She became an assistant professor at Princeton and a research fellow at the Clay Mathematics Institute. Maryam then joined the faculty at Stanford. It was Maryam's intellectual curiosity and her determination to consider problems that couldn't be solved that set her apart. Maryam married Jan Vondrak, a Czech applied mathematician and they had a daughter named Anahita.

Maryam's Magic captures the enthusiasm Maryam Mirzakhani had for mathematics, and especially for tackling difficult problems. While the text provides all the necessary details of Maryam's life and even explains in a very simple way some of her work, it is the illustrations by artist, Aaliya Jaleel that capture her joy at doing math and her unique method of working on problems. Maryam's imagination which she developed at a young age from her reading, was put to good use as a mathematician studying abstract surfaces. This too is captured in Jaleel's exquisite artwork.

Maryam initially didn't like math, but with an encouraging teacher, her attitude changed. With support, she grew more confident and did not feel intimidated by mathematics. Perhaps this is the key to success in math for girls. It also helped that Maryam had another friend who shared her interest. Maryam's fearless approach to mathematics, her courage to lead the way  and her humility in the face of her outstanding accomplishments are important lessons for girls everywhere. 

Reid's presentation of Maryam Mirzakhani's life and accomplishments offers encouragement for those girls interested in science and mathematics to persist and to be courageous. There is a place for them in the STEM world and they have much to offer!

In addition to the Author's Note, Reid has included an Important Dates section and a few suggestions for readers to learn more about Maryam Mirzakhani.

Book Details:

Maryam's Magic: The Story of Mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani by Megan Reid
New York: Balzer & Bray       2021

Bluebird by Sharon Cameron

Bluebird is a historical fiction novel based on a secret program code named Project Bluebird. The author has imagined a story that might have happened at the end of World War II as the Soviets and Americans raced to obtain secrets from the collapsed Nazi regime in Germany. In the novel there are two alternating narratives, that of Inge von Emmerich which begins in February, 1945 and of Eva Gerst which begins in August 1946. 

It is February, 1945. After taking her father's car for a joyride with her friend Annemarie Toberentz, sixteen-year-old Inge von Emmerich sneaks the car back home. Kurt, her family's chauffeur offers to clean the mud off it in exchange for two honey cakes. While Herr Gundersen gives seven-year-old Adolf and ten-year-old Erich their violin lessons, Inge enters her father's study. On his desk she sees a file with her name on it, something that puzzles her. When Mama finds her in the study listening to Papa's radio, she slaps her and sends her to her room.

Inge's papa works in a camp "rehabilitating the enemies of Germany. Teaching them to obey. To be better. To be useful and productive." The next day, Inge's mama pulls her from her League of German Girls meeting, and they drive quickly home. At home, her mama tells Inge, Erich and Adolf to each pack a bag with three changes of clothes and a coat. Inge's mother tells them nothing about what is happening or where they are going. Kurt drives them and Helga is also brought along. They don't go to Berlin  near papa's camp, as Inge expected, but instead drive to their summer lodge. And when they arrive, the car is unloaded of boxes and baskets of food, much more than three days worth.

At the summer house everyone is sent to their rooms. In her Mama's room next door, Inge hears the radio but cannot make out what is being broadcast. Kurt leaves during the night but leaves a car key and money for Inge under the door. After a week at the lodge, Inge questions her mama as to whether papa is coming. Her mama tells her that he is busy winning the war, creating a new world for them. Her abusive manner towards Inge leads her to leave the lodge and run to the Kleimann's house next door. Inge rips off some of the boards and spends time playing the piano until the house is hit by a bomb. Terrified she races home to find her mother has murdered Helga, Erich and Adolf and shot herself in the head. On the radio, Inge hears that Hitler is dead and the enemy is in Berlin.

Inge manages to start the car and drives to their home in Berlin, hoping to find her papa. As she enters the road near the house, she passes a truck of Soviet soldiers and doesn't stop for her friend, Annemarie who is in the field running towards her. Their home is in ruins and her papa is not there. While Inge searches for the file with her name in her papa's study, she hears soldiers voices downstairs. She hears Annemarie's voice and when she begins screaming, a terrified Inge hides underneath the large desk in the study. After the soldiers leave, Inge rescues the unconscious Annemarie and drives to her papa's camp. The car breaks down just a kilometer away, so leaves Annemarie in the car unconscious and walks to the camp. There Inge sees the most horrific sight imaginable: piles of human bodies.

At first Inge believes this is the work of the Soviet Communists. She meets a man in faded striped clothing from the camp, whom she believes is a prisoner of the Communists. She asks him about her father but he thinks her father is one of the prisoners. As the former prisoner starts to take Inge to the man in charge, she notices that the soldiers are Russian. She begins to realize that the people in the camp were prisoners of the Nazis. When she asks about a man named von Emmerich, the former prisoner tells her about the doctor and how "He wanted to know what he could make you say make you do. How much you could endure. He made sure you were crazy, before you died." He tells her the prisoners were "lab rats", "unworthy of life" and that everyone running the camp has been arrested....except the doctor. Inge flees the camp, realizing that everything she's been told is a lie.

August, 1946, sees Eva Gerst and her companion, Brigit Heidelmann watching as their ship pulls into New York harbour. Brigit doesn't speak and is easily upset so Eva leads her back to their cabin to get their suitcases. Both girls have papers sewn into the lining of their skirts. Miss Schaffer, in charge of their group leads the thirty-eight refugees off the ship and into customs. 

Eventually Eva and Brigit are met by Elizabeth Whittlesby, who goes by the name of Bets. She is from the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and will help to resettle Eva and Brigit. She takes them to her car where they find a young man named Jacob (Jake) Katz in the back seat. Eva notices that he has "the most extraordinary beautiful hazel-green eyes". Brigit is wary of Jake, but when he begins to play the harmonica, she is distracted and smiles. Eva has noticed they are being watched at the airport and then followed by a man with shiny shoes in a car.

They arrive at Powell House and Eva and Brigit are assigned to the blue room. But when Eva goes to find a phone, she runs into the man with the shiny shoes who's been following them. He warns Eva not to talk about her father to anyone and to hold her end of the bargain, to bring the US government her father. He hands her his card with the name of Mr. Cruickshanks on it. Eva knows this is not his real name. And she also knows her father won't be using his real name either. The United States government wants not only her father but also Anna Ptaszynska who is a killer.

The key to finding her father might just be Dr. Schneider, a doctor at Columbia hospital who had been corresponding with her father over research. Eva believes she must find her father before Cruickshanks and the U.S. government do, or there will be no justice. And justice for herself and for twenty-seven people, whose names she has memorized is what matters most.

Discussion

Bluebird is an intriguing historical fiction novel based on Project Bluebird, a top secret program run by the CIA from 1949 to 1950. Not much is known about Project Bluebird except that it was a mind control program devised to determine if special techniques such as hypnosis and certain drugs could be used in interrogation and conditioning. It also sought to understand if it could be used to obtain accurate information from willing and unwilling subjects, and if it were possible to control the physical and mental actions of willing and unwilling subjects. There were many other goals as well, such as how long post-hypnotic suggestion could be retained, can a person's personality be altered and if so, how long will it hold. Cameron offers more detail in her detailed Author's Note at the back of the novel.

Cameron draws her readers in immediately with the alternating narratives of Inge von Emmerich, daughter of a German doctor who works at a camp, set in the final days of World War II as the Soviet army moves into eastern Germany, and that of Eva Gerst set eighteen months later in August, 1946 as she and a fellow German, Brigit Heidelmann are arriving to start a new life in America. Eventually, these two narratives converge, with readers likely coming to understand the connection between Inge and Eva beforehand.

However, the guessing doesn't stop there: readers begin to wonder who Eva and Brigit really are.  Eva/Inge is on a mission to find her papa, known as "the doctor" at  Sachsenhausen Concentration camp located in Oranienburg, north of Berlin. In the novel when Eva discovers the truth of her papa's work, she is horrified and determined to mete out "justice". As it happens,  the Allies discover her identity as the missing doctor's daughter, and she is offered passage to North America to help locate him. Eva's determined to find him not for the Allies, but so that she can kill him. 

 

As the search goes on for her father, Eva begins to learn more about her father's research and why the U.S. and even the Soviets want him. Cruikshanks sums it up for Eva: "Imagine, Fraulein, if the mind was a moldable object. If memories could be plucked out...and replaced. Imagine if we could say a word, and have a captured soldier walk back across the lines and disable his own country's weapons. If an agent never blew their cover, because they were unaware that they were an agent at all? Imagine if a man like Hitler could have been removed years ago with one of his own officials...."

 

But Eva sees the dangers in such a program. "You could make them 'better', Eva thinks. And who gets to decide who is better and who isn't?" Cruikshanks also believes that Anna Ptaszynska was her father's first and most successful experiment. Who Anna is becomes a source of conflict and personal terror for Eva. At first she believes that Brigit/Annemarie is Anna but then she begins to suspect she might be based on her shadowy memories of events that occurred when she was very young. The files she has stolen from her father's study, seem to confirm this. All of this feeds on the profound conflict Eva is experiencing over her own identity.

 

Eventually, Eva learns the truth from her father about Anna. He tells her that Cruikshanks would love to have an Anna but that he doesn't need her. "He only thinks he does. The process of splitting the personality, of placing a hypnotic suggestion, bending a mind to a certain will, it's all so....messy. Overcomplicated, inefficient, and the outcomes are impossible to predict. When all you really need to make another person do what you wish is the application of the right leverage...."

Eva discovers that her papa has manipulated people to save himself, but  this backfires when he is taken by the Soviets and not the Americans as he had hoped. Eventually, through the efforts of Jake,  Eva learns her true identity and discovers that maybe this justice was for herself and her lost family. 

 

As the story progresses, Eva changes from an uninformed teenager living in a Nazi regime to understanding just what that regime was doing to people it deemed were "less". Her life immediately after the war is consumed by revenge and obtaining what she believes is justice. But in America, events play out in a way that sees justice determined differently than what Eva intended. She also begins to fall in love with Jake. When he leaves for a time, Eva feels fear for the future. In the end, Jake's return suggests a happier, better future. Their love offers readers hope, that in spite of the most horrible of events, there can be a life worth living.

Bluebird is another excellent novel by Sharon Cameron: there's a storyline filled with twists, shady characters, mystery and a touch of romance. There have been so many novels written about World War II, but Cameron has found a new aspect to write about which should peak the interest of those readers looking for something a bit different.

 

For information on Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp: https://www.sachsenhausen-sbg.de/en/history/1936-1945-sachsenhausen-concentration-camp/

Book Details:

Bluebird by Sharon Cameron
New York: Scholastic Press    2021
438 pp.

Aggie & Mudgy: The Journey of Two Kaska Dena Children by Wendy Proverbs

Eight-year-old Maddy lives with her mother (Cherrie) and her grandmother whom she calls Nan. Maddy's parents are separated and her father is not around. The three of them, along with their dog, Buskers, live on Rupert Lane, named after Mr. Rupert who built the homes. Mr. Rupert, who seems rather crusty, is Scottish and Metis.

One day Maddy asks Nan to tell her about the two girls in a sepia-coloured photograph tucked away in Nan's desk. In the photograph there is a taller girl who has her dark hair tied back, and a younger girl with braids. Nan begins her story about the two girls:

They lived in a community called Daylu, in the far north on the British Columbia-Yukon border and were of the Kaska Dena people. The older girl was Mac-kinnay and her younger sister was Beep. When a black robed man came to their community, he told the Kaska Dena people they must be baptized into the Catholic church and in doing so, must take a new name. The priests and nuns wanted to turn the Kaska people away from their beliefs and have them take on the Catholic Christian beliefs. So when Mac-kinnay and Beep's family were baptized at Holy Family Mission, the two girls took on the names of Agnes and Martha. However they didn't like the names very much, so they changed them to Aggie and Mudgy. Their parents, Long and Yanima still called them by their old names.

When Long died in a hunting accident, Yanima had to raise the girls on her own. She did have help from her son, Sylvestor and also from their community. Soon another priest, by the name of Father Allard, came to the village. As there was no school in their community, he told Yanima that the girls must go away to school to learn to read and write and worship God. Instead of sending the girls to a closer school in Whitehorse, they were to travel with Father Allard to the new school in Fraser Lake, British Columbia.

When the day came for the girls to leave, Yanima couldn't bear to see her daughters off. Instead, Sylvester and their grandmother Gyuss, as well as many of the community, came. Aggie and Mudgy left with Father Allard and the two Dick brothers whom he hired to take them across Dease Lake. The two Kaska Dena girls did not know it, but they were about to embark on a journey that would take them far, far from their homes and their families.

Discussion

Aggie & Mudgy is the story of the author, Wendy Proverbs' birth mother Mudgy and her Aunt Aggie's journey to Lejac Residential School. The story is based on Aggie's memoir about their journey from Daylu to Fraser Lake. Wendy was one of Mudgy's twelve children, eight of whom were placed into the care of social services at birth. Wendy was adopted at birth into a non-Indigenous family who loved and cared for her. She has been able to meet two brothers and four sisters and is grateful for the loving family she was raised in. While Mudgy was able to return home once during her time at Lejac and see their mother, Yanima, neither girls ever returned to live at Daylu. their ties with their community and their culture, broken. Mudgy died in 1976 while Aggie passed away in 2001. Father Elphege Allard died in a canoe accident in 1935. The Lejac Residential School finally closed in 1976.

LeJac Residential School

Unlike many books on the experiences of Canada's residential school survivors, Aggie & Mudgy is about their journey to the school. It was a journey of almost "...1,600 kilometers by riverboat, truck, paddlewheeler, steamships and train" undertaken by two very young girls in the company of a total stranger from a very different culture. The sisters had no understanding of where they were going. It also demonstrates the degree that the government and churches were willing to go, to gather in as many Indigenous children as possible.

The author employs the story within a story method to tell her young readers about her birth mother and aunt's journey. Their story is told by "Nan", grandmother to eight-year-old Maddy. The telling is rich in Indigenous bush craft and cultural practices. For example, when Nan tells Maddy about eating fish,  she also explains that "They were used to a diet of fish, as well as moose, caribou, and mountain sheep. Gathering seasonal bounty such as plants, roots, and wild berries was a nutritional and tasty addition to their diet."  

In another example Nan explains to her granddaughter about Aggie and Mudgy's grandmother Gyuss's beading and how the girls were just learning to master this skill. "Their grandmother beaded many items. She used seed bead that are made of very small pieces of European-made glass. her patterns were cut from birch bark and often incorporated floral designs. Her moccasins, gloves, and pouches were well made, and when she could, she traded these items at the Hudson's Bay Company trading store. Gyuss was just beginning to teach Aggie the more difficult moccasin designs when the priest took the girls away." 

Nan also explains how the Europeans came to change many things, not just their names. "They changed the names of communities and mountains and rivers too. The Kaska Dena always knew Daylu as a gathering place where Aggie and Mudgy's ancestors and family lived. It only became known as Lower Post in the late 1800's, after Europeans established a trading post there."

Through Nan, young readers also learn a bit of history of some of the places Aggie and Mudgy travel to on their way to the residential school. For example, Nan tells Maddy about Wrangell, Alaska. "A long time ago, in the late 1890's, Wrangell was a very busy port of call. The reason for this was because of gold. Gold fever gripped North America as gold was discovered in the Yukon. due to gold fever, Wrangell thrived as thousands of men travelled up to the Yukon, seeking their fortune."  

Nan also provides information on the different First Nations tribes that occupied the areas they were traveling through.  For example, in Prince Rupert, Nan explains that "...Prince Rupert is a huge, deep ocean port community situated on an island - Kaien Island - that is connected to the mainland by a bridge. Many Tsimshian First Nation tribes have lived in that rugged area for millennia, and totem monuments stand tall like sentinels in their territory. The Tsimshian actively traded with other First Nations and Europeans." When Maddy asks what they traded, Nan tells her, "Before the Europeans arrived, northwestern interior and coastal First Nations traded food items such as eulachon, which is a small fish that is prized for its oil, known as eulachon grease....They also traded carved horns spoons, obsidian rock, and thin little white dentalium shells. When the Europeans arrived, beaver pelts were highly sought after, as well as sea otter, mink, fox, marten, and muskrat. This became known as the fur trade, and it turned into a huge industry throughout Canada."

While at times Nan's narrative can seem almost encyclopedic, with the many bits of information she provides Maddy, it makes this short novel a wealth of information and serves to help young readers understand how things were before European contact and some of the changes that occurred afterwards. For example, by detailing the trading that the Tsimshian First Nation participated in, we see a vibrant, thriving culture that interacted with other peoples in North American and even Russia.

The profound effect the residential school had on Aggie and Mudgy is implied by Nan's inability to continue her story once the girls arrived at Lejac. She tells her daughter Cherrie that she is a coward for not being able to tell her granddaughter what happened to Auggie and Mudgy at Lejac. But Nan does reveal that she is Mudgy's daughter and the reader does learn some of what the two sisters experienced at Lejac. Author Wendy Proverbs ends the telling in a positive uplifting way, a tribute to herself, and her ancestors who are survivors because of their resiliency, courage and determination. She honours these qualities in her mother and aunt in her retelling, while acknowledging the intergeneration effects of the residential schools.

There is a Bibliography and a Suggested Reading List at the back of this short novel. The author has also included an excellent map that shows just how far Aggie and Mudgy travelled from their home in Daylu to Lejac. This novel offers an excellent opportunity to learn about the residential school system for younger readers.

image credit: https://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/local-news/sacred-healing-ceremony-to-take-place-at-site-of-lejac-residential-school-3859738

Book Details:

Aggie & Mudgy: The Journey of Two Kaska Dena Children by Wendy Proverbs
Wandering Fox Books     2021
134 pp.

Fallout: Spies, Superbombs and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown by Steve Sheinkin

World War II has ended with the United States and Russia emerging as the two dominant world powers. For the United States, that domination is partly due to the dropping of the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But now the race is on to dominate in the age of nuclear weapons.

In June, 1953, paper boy Jimmy Bozart was collecting for his paper route. He often was tipped an extra nickel or dime. From the two retired teachers on the top floor of the apartment building, Jimmy was given a quarter and five nickels. But on his way down the stairs, he slipped and the change spilled. Jimmy found the quarter and four of the nickels. The fifth nickel was in two parts: the back and a hollowed out front containing what looked like a tiny piece of film.

Jimmy raced home, wondering if the strange nickel was somehow connected to Soviet spies. The Cold War was intensifying and any bit of information might help. By 1953, the Soviets and United States were locked in a deadly race to build atomic and nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

Eventually the nickel came to a classmate's father who was a detective in the New York police and he passed it on to the FBI. They questioned the two teachers and did further investigation into the origins of the nickel but were unable to determine anything. The film was sent to code breakers in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, the man who actually crafted the nickel was living in Brooklyn, not far from Jimmy Bozart's family. That man was Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy who had entered the country via Canada.

It wasn't until August, 1949 that the Soviets successfully tested their first atomic bomb, a weapon they were only able to make after stealing the technology from the United States. In early 1950, President Harry Truman announced the United States was working on a new, more powerful bomb, a hydrogen bomb or H-bomb. Abel was working to steal that technology in the hopes of giving the Soviets an advantage.

But the H-bomb would become a reality very quickly. Edward Teller, a Jewish physicist who fled Germany during the war, came to work at a secret lab called Los Alamos in New Mexico. After working on creating the atomic bomb, Teller along with other scientists wondered if it were possible to make a big bomb by fusing atoms together. It was Teller and Stanislaw Ulam who solved this problem. In November 1952, the United States successfully tested a H-bomb. By 1956, the U.S. would have 3,700 bombs. By 1959, the U.S. had over 12,000 bombs.

In the months after Josef Stalin's death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev managed to seize control of power in Soviet Russia. He was determined to see the spread of communism throughout the world. In 1955, the Soviets successfully tested their own hydrogen bomb. The nuclear arms race was now on. Like the U.S., the Soviets began stockpiling bombs and building planes and rockets to deliver those bombs.

As both the United States and the Soviet Union continued to develop, test and stockpile nuclear weapons, a series of events over 1960 and 1961 would draw the superpowers into the ultimate nuclear showdown. 

Discussion

With Fallout, Steve Sheinkin continues the story of the arms race and the development of weapons of mass destruction that began during World War II and was told in his book Bomb. In this book, he follows the events that led up to the showdown between the Soviet Union which was placing nuclear missiles in Cuba and the United States, the intended target of those missiles.

The series of events were many and all connected. The first was the capture of U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers who was on a final reconnaissance flight over the Soviet Union on May 1, 1960. These flights, in the era before satellites, had provided the United States with valuable military intelligence about the Soviet build-up of weapons.

The second was the growing alliance between Khrushchev and the new leader of Cuba, Fidel Castro. President Eisenhower considered Castro a growing threat not only to the U.S. but also to other countries in South America. The third was the election of John F. Kennedy as President of the United States in November, 1960. He was the youngest president ever elected to the office and he was relatively inexperienced. Khrushchev saw him as weak and immature but it was Kennedy's reluctance to escalate the conflict that helped avert a war.

The fourth event was the invasion of Cuba by the United States with the intent to remove Fidel Castro. There was evidence the Soviets were sending military supplies to Cuba. After much planning and denial by the U.S., the invasion occurred at Bahia de Cochinos, the Bay of Pigs and was a massive failure. 

This was followed by the successful launch by the Soviets of a cosmonaut, Yuri Gagurin, into space - the fifth event. It meant the Soviets now had the potential capability to send a nuclear warhead over the ocean to America. 

Finally, the building of the Berlin wall served to increase tension dramatically in Europe. This was the one place where communism and the free world directly faced off. After World War II, Germany was a country divided: West Germany was democratic while East Germany was a communist dictatorship. Similarly, the capital of Germany, Berlin was also split in two. East Berlin was part of communist East Germany while West Berlin was part of democratic free West Germany. Life in East Germany and East Berlin was difficult as both were oppressive, police states. As a result, people fled from east to west and by 1962, over a thousand a day were leaving. This infuriated Khrushchev who wanted to take over the entire city of Berlin. To stop the drain of people, Walter Ulbricht suggested building a wall between East and West Berlin.

These events were all important catalysts. But it was the fact that the Americans had bases all over Europe including a new operational one in Turkey and that the Soviets were still behind in the nuclear arms race that led Khrushchev to undertake what he later admitted to his son, was "a bluff". "The missiles in Cuba had always been a bluff....The goal was to give the Americans a taste of their own medicine, to make them live with a bit more fear. That would even out the global balance of power. The Soviets could refocus on driving the Americans out of Berlin, and the march to Cold War victory would continue from there."  

It was unbelievable that it was this irresponsible "bluff" which brought the world to the brink of  nuclear war. It seems President Kennedy and Soviet naval Captain Vasili Arkhipov who was the chief of staff for the four Soviet subs near the naval blockage and who had seen the horrors of radiation poisoning from the K-19 nuclear submarine disaster, were the two men who likely prevented nuclear war. Kennedy couldn't imagine starting a nuclear war, despite intense pressure from his military staff and Arkhipov refused to allow the launch of a nuclear missile from one of the subs.

Fallout is well researched, and a fascinating read. The events are told in three parts bookended with a Prologue and an Epilogue. Each part presents black and white photographs of the major players in the events described. Sheinkin does an excellent job of portraying all the moving parts of these events including Russian spies, world leaders, and ordinary citizens including a young paper boy. Despite being well written, this is a book for much older readers and adults. The events are complex and all interconnected.

Sheinkin undertook the research and writing of this book before being interrupted by the pandemic. Nevertheless, he was able to continue his research and talk to Francis Gary Powers Jr. as well as Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, son of Nikita Khrushchev. Dr. Khrushchev was able to provide valuable insights into the events from the Soviet perspective.

Fallout is a must-read for those who want to understand Europe as it exists today and the current events unfolding between Russia and Ukraine.

Book Details:

Fallout: Spies, Superbombs and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown by Steve Sheinkin
New York: Roaring Book Press     2021
341 pp.

June Almeida, Virus Detective! by Suzanne Slade

June  lived in Glasgow, Scotland with her parents and her younger brother, Harry who was just a baby. June loved school because she loved learning. Science was her favourite subject and she loved to share what she learns with her parents and Harry. When June was ten years old, Harry became very sick and died. It was a difficult time for June and her family.

As she grew older, June's passion for science grew. June loved to read science fiction and her easy manner helped her gain many friends. She loved to photograph nature, having a keen eye for details. Unfortunately June's dream of attending university to study science was just a dream. Her family could not afford to send her to school and so she left her studies at age sixteen to help her family financially. 

Instead she got a job in a hospital lab where she used a microscope to examine samples from hospital patients. When her family moved to London, England, June found another job in a hospital lab. In London, she met her husband, Henry. After they married, June and Henry decided to emigrate to Toronto, Canada where she was hired to work in a new research lab. In this lab, June began working with an electron microscope that magnified samples 25,000 X . An electron microscope uses a beam of

electrons to view samples. It is able to create very detailed pictures based on how the electrons behave when they hit the sample. June hoped to obtain clearer images of what she was researching.

To do this she decided to use the electron microscope to take images of viruses surrounded by antibodies. 

In 1960, June gave birth to a baby girl and then eventually returned to her research as well as authoring papers. This led to a job offer from a scientist at a hospital in London, England, so they returned to the city. 

A researcher named David Tyrell asked June if she could investigate what seemed to be a new virus that had given a boy a very bad cold. Using a technique called negative staining to prepare the virus sample, June then put it into the electron microscope. The virus was different from any she'd seen before with tiny dots around it. This virus was similar looking to two other viruses she'd seen from animal samples. June's paper on these viruses years ago had been dismissed, but her work confirmed the existence of a new virus. June and the other doctors decided to call the virus a corona virus because of the crown of dots surrounding it.

Henry wanted to return to Canada but June did not want to give up her work in London. They divorced and June continued working on many different viruses. Her work allowed doctors to develop medicines to help people sick from certain viruses. After retiring from her research, June continued to learn, teaching herself to play the flute and to use a digital camera. 

Discussion

June Almeida, Virus Detective is a timely picture book given the Covid-19 pandemic. June Almeida is virtually unknown, yet she was an accomplished woman researcher and scientist who discovered a new family of viruses, the corona virus. However, SARS, MERS and Covid have all made people across the globe more aware of corona viruses and the severe illness they can cause. It was June Almeida who laid the groundwork for research into these unusual viruses.

June Hart was born in 1930 to Jane and Harry Hart in Glasgow, Scotland. June's younger brother died of diphtheria when he was six years old. June was ten and his death drew June into an interest in science and medicine. June was a good student, passionate enough about science that she won the science prize at Whitehall School. Because she couldn't afford to continue on, June left school at sixteen to work. She trained as a laboratory technician at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. During her time there, she was also able to complete further technical certification. 

June moved to London in 1952 when she was twenty-two years old.She met her first husband, Enrique Rosalio (Henry) Almeida. Their shared love of classical music drew them together and they married in 1954. They emigrated to Canada in 1956 and four years later, June gave birth to her daughter, Joyce. In 1964, the couple returned to London where she found work as an electron microscopist with Professor Waterson at St. Thomas Hospital. Unfortunately, Henry wanted to return to Canada but June's work was beginning to gain recognition and she refused to leave. They divorced in 1967.

June began to realize that she needed a university degree to further her research so she obtained her M.Phil. in 1970 and in 1971 her D.Sc. from the University of London. As Suzanne Slade mentions in this picture book biography, June began using what is called immune electron microscopy to study viruses. 

As time went on and June's reputation grew, David Tyrell , head of the Health Common Cold Research Unit asked June to look at a virus, B814 that he and his team had isolated from school boys who had colds. When June viewed them using the electron microscope she recognized that they were similar to other viruses she had previously seen in mice and chickens. These viruses had "spikey projections" on their surface that gave them the appearance of having a crown or "corona". June considered these a new family of viruses and Almeida, Tyrell and Waterson labelled them as corona viruses. These viruses were mostly ignored for years because they were not believed to cause serious illness. We now know differently.

Slade provides many of the important details of June Almeida's life, a story of determination and resiliency.  Lacking the financial means to obtain the education she would need to work in the field of science, June set out to work in a hospital and gain the experience she needed. Her hard work, attention to detail and abilities soon resulted in better work, opportunities to participate in research and publish papers. Eventually she was able to attend university and get the education she needed to advance in her profession.

Although June made many major contributions to medical science - the use of morphology to classify viruses and discovery of a new family of viruses, the corona virus - were probably her most significant. Readers might wonder what benefit pictures of viruses offered to scientists and medical practitioners. Visualizing a virus helps work out its morphological characteristics and has allows scientists to devise methods of treating persons who are infected. For example,  June's work on the rubella virus, which can cause congenital birth defects, helped doctors understand how the virus interacted with the immune system. Slade writes that "Her pictures helped scientists develop medicines that could attach to viruses and block them from making people sick." 

June Almeida is yet another brilliant woman scientist, in a long list of brilliant women scientists whose stories are being recovered and told to a new generation of girls. Picture books like June Almeida, Virus Detective, serve to inspire young girls,  that careers in science are possible, and that they have significant contributions to make! 

In researching and writing this picture book, Suzanne Slade was able to talk with June's daughter, Dr. Joyce Almeida who answered questions and provided much primary source material. Slade has included a detailed note titled "More About June", a timeline of June Almeida's life, and a Selected Bibliography. The illustrations were created digitally by Elisa Paganelli. 

You can read more about June Almeida's life and her work from the What Is Biotechnology website.

Book Details:

June Almeida, Virus Detective by Suzanne Slade
Ann Arbor, Michigan: Sleeping Bear Press 2021

Torpedoed! The True Story of the World War II Sinking of "The Children's Ship" by Deborah Heiligman

On September 9, 1940, Nazi Germany commenced bombing London. World War II had been going on for almost one year, but the United States was not yet involved. At first the Germans bombed military targets but when the RAF (Royal Air Force) fought back, they began bombing civilian targets such as the city of London, the port of Liverpool and other English towns. To escape the bombing, British citizens hid in underground bunkers, and subway tunnels. The Blitz, as the bombing came to be called, was supposed to be the prelude to an invasion by the Nazis to secure England. Hitler had already invaded Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France. 

When the bombing began, people hid in basements, bomb shelters or in the subway. The bombing in London often lasted most of the  night. After the "all clear" sounded in the morning, people came out of their shelters to see the devastation. For some families like the Grimmonds, they would discover their home was a pile of rubble. Five of the Grimmond children, thirteen-year-old Gussie, "and her younger sisters, Violet, ten, and Connie, nine, and two of her little brother, Eddie, eight, and Lennie, five" were slated to sail from Liverpool to safety in Canada as part of a government program to protect the nation's children. 

The Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB) was sending British children to safety in other countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa. Thousands of children had already been sent out of England to safety. Although the ships had Royal Navy warship escorts, this was risky as German U-boats were targeting ships in the Atlantic. In fact, U-boat 48, which would play a part in this story, had already left its home port of Lorient, France.

On Thursday, September 12, 1940, Gussie Grimmond and her siblings along with the other CORB children waited on the Liverpool docks to board their ship, the City of Benares. There was fifteen-year-old Bess Walder, along with her younger brother, ten-year-old Louis. nine-year-old Jack Keeley and his six-year-old sister Joyce, who was unhappy about travelling on the boat. There were other children on the City of Benares such as eleven-year-old Colin Ryder Richardson who was "traveling alone, all the way to New York, to live with friends of his parents." Fourteen-year-old Beth Cummings was also on the ship, sent by her mother to what she hoped would be safety. There was Marguerite Bech along with her children, Barbara who was fifteen and her younger siblings, Sonia and Daniel.

To the children, the SS City of Benares was a luxury ship.The almost-new ship was a steam-powered ocean liner that had carried passengers to India. When Ellerman Lines, the owner of the ship offered it to the British government for use in the CORB program, it was repainted grey and had defensive artillery guns installed. There was some discussion about identifying the ship as having children on board but CORB decided against this. It was decided that the SS. City of Benares would travel as part of a convoy with military escort ships. On board, were ninety children, the British crew numbered forty-three, while there were one hundred sixty-six lascars, or Indian sailors who were bakers, cooks, porters, and crew. Most of the Indian crew were Muslim and poor. Very little is known about them as after the tragedy their fate was mostly ignored.

The ship set sail, after a short stay in the Mersey River waiting for it to be cleared of mines, on Friday, September 13, 1940. The SS City of Benares was under the command of Captain Landles Nicoll but Admiral Edmond McKinnon, commodore of the convoy was also on board. The Benares was the lead ship in a convoy of nineteen vessels that included oil tankers, steamships and freighters. They were accompanied by HMS Winchelsea, and the corvettes, Gladiolus and Gloxinia.

The City of  Benares reached the open water of the Atlantic, where there was a gale blowing. Meanwhile, U-boat 48, now at sea for five days, went deep to avoid the storm. On September 17, the HMS Wichelsea, Gladiolus and Gloxinia left the convoy. Captain Nicoll wanted to leave the convoy, as the Benares was the fastest ship in it, and could easily sail quickly into safer waters. Unfortunately, he was overruled by Admiral MacKinnon. It would be a decision that would have terrible consequences.

Near the convoy, unknown to MacKinnon and Nicoll, was German U boat U-48 commanded by Kapitanleutnant Heinrich Bleichrodt. The U boat had sighted the lead ship in the convoy but because of the bad weather, had to delay attacking it. But when the storm abated for a time in the evening of September 17, 1940, U boat U48 sent two torpedoes towards the Benares. They missed. A minute later, at 10:01 P.M., a second torpedo made a direct hit. The ensuing tragedy and loss of life would end the transport of children to Canada during World War II.

Discussion

It's very evident that Heiligman has done a considerable amount of research in order to be able to tell the story of the sinking of the City of Benares. The story is made personal, the human element the main focus, by telling the stories of some of the children where possible, who were passengers on the ill-fated ship. These were children, already stressed by war and bombing, who faced life and death decisions on their own. It must have been both daunting and terrifying. 

Heiligman ably portrays life in Britain during the Blitz, which helps readers understand why parents might have made the choice to send their children far away to safety in another country, while knowing the threat of German U boats. The author sets the stage for the voyage, explaining the process of being selected by CORB for the program, what it was like for the children and their families as they parted ways, and their time on the SS City of Benares up to the disaster. The retelling of the sinking,  the childrens' attempts to abandon ship and the struggle to survive in the frigid cold of the Atlantic make for sobering reading.

To achieve this, the author used a considerable number of resources. For example in her Select Bibliography at the back of the book, Heiligman lists Interviews from the Imperial War Museum Sound archive as one of her sources. These interviews are of some of the children who survived. The author herself also interviewed John Baker, Sonia Bech Williams and Maggie Paterson. A full list of the cast of people involved is provided at the front of the book. At the back of the book, After The Voyage informs the reader of what happened to some of the children who did survive.

Readers will be drawn into this novel by the realistic cover, and the opening A Note To Readers in which the author was asked if she wanted to learn more about a custom made red child's life jacket. As Heiligman notes, it is a story "...full of drama and despair, triumph and joy."

Torpedoed! is well-written and well worth reading. The sinking of the SS City of Benares is an event that is mostly forgotten this side of the Atlantic. Heiligman's account was published in 2019, prior to the 80th anniversary of the disaster.

Book Details:

Torpedoed! The True Story of the Word War II Sinking of "The Children's Ship" by Deborah Heiligman
New York: Henry Holt and Company 2019
292 pp.