One of the other picture books we love around here has a reverso poem by Marilyn Singer. I saw that she had a whole book of reverso poems with great illustrations and I bought it "for" one of the kids for Christmas. (It's for me, let's be honest.) The book has familiar fairy tales in poetic verse and on the facing page the same poem from the last line to the first with the punctuation fixed up so it means something totally different. My boys didn't realize it, but it made them think about language in a new way. Colin was especially intrigued with this book - he was like a detective figuring out a clue. Ha! Fun.
2. American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse
I don't read a lot of (any?) true crime and I can't remember why this one caught my attention. The author, Monica Hesse, is a journalist and I think that was part of what piqued my curiosity. She spent months researching the story where it took place, conducting dozens of interviews.
The crime was arson. Over the course of several months in 2008 and into 2009, someone was setting fire to old abandoned homes and buildings in Accomack County, Virginia. More than 80 fires! How could they get away with so many fires for so long? Vigilante groups set up fairly elaborate operations to try to catch the arsonist. Profiles were made - even a guy who worked out the block where the arsonist might live (he was right!). The volunteer fire departments were putting out multiple fires every night for months. They were at capacity - everyone was on edge.
Hesse set all this up so well. It really kept me up at night. I don't like to think this kind of crime spree can go unsolved for so long. Along with the chapters about the fires and the efforts to catch the arsonist, Hesse introduces us to the pathetic lives of the couple responsible for the fires. The woman was clearly the mastermind. How? Why? Because this is true crime, we never get a satisfactory answer to those questions. Interesting to note, though, that even though the profiles led practically to this couples' doorstep, they didn't suspect a woman or the hometown boy who was too dumb to pull it off.
Besides the psychology of the arsonists, which was a rich subject, the whole arson spree was made possible by a town full of once occupied homes that had been abandoned because the town was pretty much dead. There's no reason to be in Accomack County unless you live there. It used to be a tourist destination (one of the fires was at the once-loved hotel where presidents had stayed). Sad all around.
3. The National Cookbook by Sheila Hibben
"There are those who think a cookbook is just a book for cooks; and if that were so, there would, perhaps, be no need for an introduction to a manual on what the bright young men call the technology of the kitchen. But, as the months of compiling this volume have gone by, and I have sent and received hampers of correspondence with people interested in food all over the United States, I have let my spirits rise. I have felt as if I were writing not only a geography of this country, but a social study of its inhabitants, for I have been in communication with people who really believe that how we do things, as much as what we do, is significant - people who still hold that a thing, even an apple pie, must have style to be important."
Sheila Hibben and I would be FRIENDS! She published The National Cookbook to preserve the regional idiosyncrasies in American cooking. (It was published in 1932, by the way.) This 425 page cookbook with hundreds of recipes from all over America is one of the most interesting books I've ever read! It's out-of-print, naturally. I looked it up on Goodreads, and it's not there. First time I haven't been able to find a book on Goodreads! I found one copy on Amazon for $300. One of my friends works at the BYU Library and I asked if she would check it out for me. She did! The reason I even know The National Cookbook exists is because of Laura Shapiro's book What She Ate. Shapiro mentions it in the chapter about Eleanor Roosevelt.
There are so many things in this book. A "good" oven instead of a specific temperature. Bringing something up to "blood" temperature - I thought that was a little gross, but Brian guessed that it meant you wouldn't feel hot or cold if you touched it, same temperature as your blood. I wanted to try some of the recipes. A Pot Roast with Spaghetti from New York looked promising - it had familiar ingredients like onions, carrots, garlic, parsley, celery, tomatoes, spaghetti. Then I read the directions. I was instructed to do fairly normal stuff, if using the most time-consuming methods. Then it said to boil the spaghetti in "vigorously boiling" water for 20 minutes. That's when it dawned on me that even the products available in 1932 are very different from what I get at the store today. Too bad! One day I'll get a copy of my own and try a recipe anyway.
4. The Cooking Gene: A Journey through African Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty
Michael W. Twitty is a wonderful combination of intelligence and talent. He does riveting cooking demonstrations using only what his Southern slave ancestors would have used, cooking the food they would have cooked with the equipment and in the kitchens where they would have cooked. Food stories and food history are one of my favorite subjects. When I saw this book I felt like Twitty had read my diary. The food story of the American South is a complicated one. Black slaves creating signature dishes from the crops and proteins available. White Southern women serving those dishes in their homes. I recently binged on a bunch of seasons of Top Chef. Chefs from the South cook "Southern" food - by that I noticed that often meant things like collard greens, seafood (shrimp), grits, biscuits, fried chicken. Their food seems to be a comfort and pride of both black and white people. Interesting.
I wanted to like The Cooking Gene so badly! But, I didn't. Twitty bounced around subjects and places, poetic musing and prose. What is happening?! I couldn't follow it. I'll go back to watching him on YouTube videos cooking in Colonial Williamsburg.
This is a Battle of the Books selection that I bought last year because I liked the cover. Bridget and I started reading it in December, then we stopped and started again late in February when it got closer to the battle dates. Esparanza is a 13 year-old girl living in Mexico at a beautiful ranch. She's quite spoiled - especially by her father. In the first chapters, Esperanza's father dies in the fields and is brought back to the house. (This is in the 1930s, btw.) Everything starts falling apart for Esperanza.
Esperanza's mother doesn't inherit her husband's ranch because she's just a woman - don't let's be crazy. One of her late husband's brothers, Tio Luis, tries to convince her to marry him - her life would go on just the same as before! But Tio Luis is garbage and Esperanza's mother won't marry him. The house burns down and we're pretty sure Tio Luis has something to do with it. Esperanza and her mother, with the help of employees Alfonso, Hortensia, and Miguel, escape to California.
Most of the book takes place in the farms surrounding Bakersfield, California. Migrant workers lived in rough "camps" with their families and worked for pennies a day putting rubber bands around bunches of asparagus, cutting eyes out of potatoes, boxing up peaches, etc. Esperanza's mother gets very sick and has to be in a hospital for months and that means Esperanza, former spoiled rich girl, becomes a totally different person as she works to keep her mother cared for and saves money to bring Abuelito to California. The seeds of leadership are beginning to be sown in Esperanza as she witnesses workers who try to ask for better wages and more humane treatment get bused back to Mexico whether they are U.S. citizens or not.
This book is GRIM. Every night after reading a chapter or more, Bridget and I would sigh and wonder if anything good would ever happen for Esperanza and her mother and friends. During the last few chapters I was bawling like a baby. This is historical fiction, but this is a real thing that happened. There is a National Monument called Cesar E. Chavez National Monument near Bakersfield, California, that has museums and replicas of the camps where the migrant workers lived. I'm really glad this book was on the list for Battle of the Books and I'm really glad it has a cool cover because now it's one of Bridget's favorite books and I think it's made both of us better people.
"This, then, is the story of Lincoln's political genius revealed through his extraordinary array of personal qualities that enabled him to form friendships with men who had previously opposed him; to repair injured feelings that, left untended might have escalated into permanent hostility; to assume responsibility for the failures of subordinates; to share credit with ease; and to learn from mistakes. He possessed an acute understanding of the sources of power inherent in the presidency, an unparalleled ability to keep his governing coalition intact, a tough-minded appreciation of the need to protect his presidential prerogatives and a masterful sense of timing."
The Audible version of Team of Rivals is over 40 hours long, but it definitely doesn't feel like 40 hours. One of my favorite subjects of study is leadership and Lincoln really cracked the code on it. An early story in the book describes a high-profile case that was to take place in Illinois and the lead lawyer needing an Illinois man to help. People recommended Abraham Lincoln and the lawyer went to meet him. Lincoln was wearing ill-fitting clothes and he looked like a true backwoods bumpkin, but the lawyer was won over after only a few minutes and hired him to do the job. Lincoln spent hours researching case law and observing the judge who would preside over the case. When the case was moved to Ohio, Lincoln didn't realize that his services would no longer be needed so he kept working. He showed up for the trial, much to the chagrin of the lead lawyer and the Ohio man he'd hired, Edwin Stanton. Stanton was especially unimpressed with the gangly Illinois lawyer and went out of his way to show his disdain. Lincoln sat in the galley for the entire trial and afterward shook the hands of the men who had disregarded all the briefs he'd given them and turned their backs when they saw him coming at the hotel where all of them were staying. Lincoln told Stanton and the other lawyer that he'd learned a lot from them, that he'd go back to Illinois and learn how to be a lawyer now!
One of the ingredients to Lincoln's perfect leadership was his ability to learn from every experience, every defeat, every humiliation, of which he had plenty. The moment he won the Republican nomination for president in 1860, he sent letters to his rivals; Salmon Chase, William Seward, Edward Bates, Montgomery Blair. These men had looked on Lincoln as a puppet or a bumpkin. Chase and Seward in particular thought they'd be able to control him. Seward became one of Lincoln's dearest friends and Chase proved to be not as great as he could have been. After Lincoln's first few months in office, he recruited Edwin Stanton to be Secretary of War. So many egos! So many feelings! Every time Chase (Treasury Secretary) felt slighted, he would pen a letter of resignation to Lincoln. Lincoln would woo him back, soothe Chase's hurt feelings, and everything would go on. Lincoln needed the experience, the strength and the connections of all of these men to have a successful presidency. And Lincoln had no ego. (One of my favorite moments of the book was when Lincoln finally accepted Chase's resignation. Chase was caught totally off guard. It was the best.)
The chapters about the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, and getting the 13th Amendment into the Constitution were absolutely thrilling. The pause Lincoln took before signing the Emancipation Proclamation because his hands were shaking with the emotion he felt and he didn't want history to judge his signature to be uncertain. His process of writing speeches was illuminating - he'd have an idea, ponder it out, test verbalizing it on his secretaries or whomever was close by, then he'd deliver the words in perfect spirit. "It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
I believe it was the Thirteenth Amendment that completed Lincoln's mission on this earth. He'd had threats on his life before the Civil War was over. None were successful until after the legal end of slavery in the United States was accomplished.
Throughout the book there are examples of Lincoln's greatness and humanitarianism. It brought me to tears many times. He was truly praiseworthy - I am always seeking after that and when I find it, I cry with the recognition. Lincoln was a giant in every relationship in his life, in every circumstance. True leadership requires the depths of humility. Most people aren't capable of it.
Who knew the making of a dictionary could be so interesting! Simon Winchester begins each chapter of The Professor and the Madman with the definition of a word. And he includes the history of many words, too. That was a fun sidebar every time.
The dictionary here is the Oxford English Dictionary. THEE dictionary. Winchester describes it as being as big as a tombstone. Ha! Remember when Christopher said he would buy Rory this dictionary and then his credit card was declined? Let's all get past the fact that the little bookstore in Stars Hollow would definitely not have a tombstone-sized $2000 book for sale.
Anyway! How on earth could a person put something like this together? Every single word ever spoken in the English language, plus the first time it was ever used in print. Now there's something - the first time it was ever used IN PRINT. What if there were peasants out there making up words all the time and then some writer comes along and uses it and BAM it's a word now because it's in print? A person makes this dictionary by enlisting the help of a LOT of people. Dr. Murray, who became the lead man on the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, had bookstores put fliers in all their books asking for help from readers. One of those readers ended up being an American doctor and crazy person, Dr. William Chester Minor. Minor was imprisoned at Broodmor in England for killing a man. Dr. Murray didn't know for quite a while that his best dictionary helper was also criminally insane. When Murray did find out, he went to visit Minor regularly and became his friend. How refreshing! Minor had experienced some traumatic stuff during the Civil War in America and he had almost nightly hallucinations that people were coming into his room and molesting him or making him do horrible things. Minor's mind was full of strange traps, but he was very intelligent.
The Professor and the Madman is a short and interesting read (like me). Toward the end there is a very squeamish moment. Get ready. Or skip the end. You're better off not knowing, really.
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