Kid Lit Review of “This Book Will Make You an Artist” by Ruth Millington
Rhapsody in Books Weblog
by rhapsodyinbooks
3w ago
This book draws upon the works of 25 of the world’s best-known artists, and for each one the author provides a little history, and a lot of explanation about how to employ their styles in creating a work of art. The suggestions are so imaginative and fun to do – parents and teachers will appreciate all the activities that can be generated from this book to keep kids (and adults!) busy for hours. Learning about techniques such as pointillism, impasto, collage, and woodblock printing will also give readers a new appreciation for all kinds of art, and why the seminal works featured in the book h ..read more
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Review of “The Getaway List” by Emma Lord
Rhapsody in Books Weblog
by rhapsodyinbooks
2M ago
As this story begins, Riley Larson is just graduating high school. Her BFF Tom no longer lives in the area, but he can watch the ceremony being live-streamed, so she does their secret handshake on the stage. We understand right away that Tom is still the most important person in Riley’s life, even though their relationship is supposedly platonic. (We don’t buy that for even a minute.) Riley is at loose ends after graduation – everyone else, it seems, knows what they want to do and will be off to college, but Riley only garnered a hat-full of rejections. She decides to take off for New York Ci ..read more
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Kid Lit Review of “How Do You Spell Unfair? MacNolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee” by Carole Boston Weatherford
Rhapsody in Books Weblog
by rhapsodyinbooks
3M ago
In a Foreword, Weatherford relates that spelling bees have not always been open to Blacks in segregated areas in the US. In 1908, a 14-year-old Black girl from Ohio led her team to victory in a nationwide spelling bee, and whites were angry. Thereafter, Blacks were barred from many local spelling bees, even in the North. She writes: “There would not be another Black finalist at a national spelling bee until 1936. This is her story.” Weatherford uses a call and response technique in the style of a spelling bee to tell it. She begins with Macnolia’s love of words, and how “her idea of fun was r ..read more
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Kid Lit Review of “The Tree and the River” by Aaron Becker
Rhapsody in Books Weblog
by rhapsodyinbooks
3M ago
Aaron Becker is known for his work on films like “The Polar Express,” and you can see the influence of his cinematic background in his books. His newest is a time-lapse wordless story about the evolution of a civilization that arises and metamorphoses around an enduring tree alongside a river. The imagined cityscapes are wondrous: intricately drawn, ranging from medieval to futuristic and steampunk. The lack of words in the book allow you to fill in the story with your imagination, but the breadth and depth of the illustrations do as well. We see hope transmute into glory; occasional decay an ..read more
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Kid Lit Review of “Dasher Can’t Wait for Christmas” by Matt Tavares
Rhapsody in Books Weblog
by rhapsodyinbooks
3M ago
In Dasher Can’t Wait for Christmas, Matt Tavares continues the endearing story line he began with Dasher, telling kids about Santa’s Christmas deliveries from the perspectives of Santa’s reindeer. Dasher is the youngest of the reindeer helping Santa, and shares the same impatience and excitement for the holidays that many young children feel. As Tavares explained in an interview: “Dasher is a little kid, in a lot of ways. She’s adventurous, curious, kind, and brave. And like a lot of little kids, Dasher has a very hard time waiting for Christmas!” On the night before Christmas Eve, Dasher tho ..read more
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Kid Lit Review of “The Hanukkah Magic of Nate Gadol” by Arthur A. Levine
Rhapsody in Books Weblog
by rhapsodyinbooks
4M ago
Hanukkah, also called the Festival of Lights, is a Jewish holiday that celebrates a miracle from the second century BCE. King Antiochus, ruler of Judea (in present-day Israel) forbade the people there from practicing Judaism. He tried to force the Jews to follow Greek beliefs and to assimilate into Greek culture. When they resisted, he ordered his troops to destroy their holiest site, the Temple of Jerusalem. The Jews, forming a ragtag band led by Judah the Maccabee, battled for some three years for independence and the freedom to practice their own religion. Finally in 164 B.C. the Maccabees ..read more
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Review of “System Collapse” by Martha Wells
Rhapsody in Books Weblog
by rhapsodyinbooks
4M ago
I’m not sure you’d want to read this 7th book in the series without having read the previous installments, but then, why would you want to *miss* the previous books? The protagonist, who is part robot with organic parts, calls itself Murderbot, because of an incident now somewhat far in its past for which it wasn’t guilty, but the appellation stuck. In any event, Murderbot is a security robot, or SecUnit, designed to protect its human clients from any threats. But Murderbot went “rogue,” having hacked its controlling module, so that it now has free will. Murderbot would like nothing better tha ..read more
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Review of “Caesar’s Last Breath:  Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us” by Sam Kean
Rhapsody in Books Weblog
by rhapsodyinbooks
4M ago
Sam Kean is a writer of books that discuss scientific discoveries in a relatable and entertaining style. Four of his books, The Violinist’s Thumb, The Disappearing Spoon, The Tale of The Dueling Neurosurgeons, and this one: Caesar’s Last Breath, were all named as Amazon’s top science book of the year. Caesar’s Last Breath tackles the subject of the air we breathe; of gases more generally; and how their composition on earth tells the story of the evolution of the earth and of the ways in which mankind has changed its planet. Nitrogen and oxygen are the main ingredients of air, making up 99 per ..read more
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Kid Lit Review of “Goddess:  50 Goddesses, Spirits, Saints, and Other Female Figures Who Have Shaped Belief” by Dr. Janina Ramire
Rhapsody in Books Weblog
by rhapsodyinbooks
5M ago
Cultural historian Dr. Janina Ramirez has put together a collection of stories about female goddesses, spirits, saints, and other female figures who have shaped belief over millennia, and whose stories, she avers, deserve to be told. She adds that these women were not perfect, but were complex: sometimes peaceful, sometimes loving, and sometimes vengeful, but always very powerful in some way. She observes: “The women of the past were no different from us today in these basic ways and understanding them can help us to understand ourselves better.” The selection of 50 goddesses from the myth ..read more
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Review of “Babel: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution” by R. F. Kuang
Rhapsody in Books Weblog
by rhapsodyinbooks
5M ago
There are so many ways we are separated from others: class, race, gender, gender orientation, and expanding the lens yet wider, culture, history, and language. The poet Adrienne Rich, in her book The Dream of a Common Language, expressed frustration in her efforts to overcome the barriers just between two people in an intimate relationship. T.S. Eliot famously explored the same problem in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock when he lamented: “And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the nov ..read more
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