American History – Reading for you

Women without a voice in the American West

The Woman Without a Voice by Louise Farmer Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I was younger, then I am now, I loved reading the Little House on the Prarie books. I loved watching the show based on the series, and never thought about what Ma must have thought about what was going on, what she really thought about leaving her family behind to follow her husband, and live out in a sod house, and make do. Laura Ingles Wilder tells the stories looking back at her childhood.

This book is very small, and short, but it is the author’s view of what her greatgrandmother must have gone through, and the other women that were in the family, as they pushed westward. There is not a lot of source material, but Louise grabs what she can. This is almost an exercise in showing what can be gained by source material. She visits the asylum her great-grandmother was housed in for 16 years until her husband died, as well as reading the reports of her.

It is an interesting look back at a time when women had no choice but to do as their husbands said to do.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Hidden Women

Hidden Women: The African-American Mathematicians of NASA Who Helped America Win the Space Race by Rebecca Rissman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nicely done middle-grade version of Hidden Figures would be the best way to describe this, though I have to say I have only seen the movie and not read the book, so that may be to simplified, although the bibliography does list that book, as well as others, as one of the author’s sources.

What is nice about this is how Rebecca brings in what was going on socially while these women were working for NASA, about the civil rights movement, and the cold war. And the story does not end with with the landing on the moon, but goes as far, in the final chapter, the epilogue as talking about where women of color are today, in the agency.

Would recommend this for middle school classrooms and libraries. Lost of positive stories of women working to advance despite obstacles. Good to get the story out for the younger readers too.

Thanks to Netgalley and Captstone for making this book available for an honest review.

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The Pullman Porter

The Pullman Porter by Vanita Oelschlager
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Great book for teachers or curious students about what was important in the lead-up to the Civil Rights movement. I was not aware of the history of the Pullman porter, nor what part it played in the Civil Rights movement.

Short, brief sentences, easy to read, great pictures, fun facts. This was a delightful book to read.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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What is POTUS

When Penny Met POTUS by Rachel Ruiz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh, this was fun. I was going to sit down and write reviews of a whole bunch of pictures books I read today, but I had to stop right here, after reading this one, and write about how much I enjoyed it.

The story is about a little girl who gets to go to work with her mother who works for POTUS. The little girl doesn’t know what that means. She thinks with a name like that, it must be a monster or an alien, and she really wants to meet it. [POTUS is a nickname for the President Of The United States.]

Her mother takes her to work, and she sneaks out in search of her monster POTUS. She asks people if they have see this POTUS, and they all say, not right that minute, but they saw POTUS earlier.

Finally, she runs into a woman feeding the fish, and she turns out to be the POTUS. Penny is so disappointed because she is human. But then the POTUS shares ice cream with her, and that makes her being human ok.

Just look at that delightful POTUS:

I loved that this book is on such an in the moment level, and so told from Penny’s point of view. She has a delightful imagination. I love that the president is a woman, and Penny is not surprised that she is, but that she is human. And I loved that her mother was able to take her to work with her.

So, I think this picture book would appeal to kids reading it or just looking at the pictures, as well as parents or guardians reading it.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Indigenous children do not need to be rescued by white people

Beyond the Green by Sharlee Mullins Glenn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There are far too many stories of white people saying indigenous children, giving them a better life.

Indigenous children do not need to be rescued.

I was worried, when I started to read this book, though the description hinted otherwise, that this book would be like that. That Britta kept devising plans to save her foster-care sister from returing to her birth mom made me worried that perhaps this wasn’t the story I hoped it was.

I was pleasantly surprised.

Britta, a Mormon child, feels that Dori would be better off with her family who had had her for the first four years of her life. She can’t imagine that the Indians could take as good care of her “sister” as her family did.

But, as all good books do, this one allowed Britta to grow and change, and see things from another point of view.

And her wise grandpa had a great quote:

Differ’nt don’t necessirly mean worse, Britta-girl,” he said. “Sometimes it means better. Sometimes it just means differ’nt. And thank goodness for differ’nt. Too much sameness would make for a might bland world.”

The author made this all feel very real, and very special, probably because it is a fictionalized version of her own foster sister, that was returned to her birth mother.

Odd, every day elements make it very real.

Highly recommend this for school libaries, public libraries, and just for good old-fashioned reading.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Souring through the skies

Nothing But Sky by Amy Trueblood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A good historical novel doesn’t make you stop and want to look up things, or perhaps it does. There were several times that I wanted to know if the person in the story, that had just been introduced, was real, and was pleased when I found out they were. That is the best kind of historical novel, to me, spinning in real events, around your fictional story.

This is a story about wing-walking and barnstorming. These are feats done by men and women after the first world war, hanging from bi-planes, while people watched from below. That is the main plot, of Grace, who is a wing-walker, who performs these stunts in the midwest, in the 1920s. This part is all realistic, and a bit of fun. There is also a sub-plot involving her two waitress friends at the diner, who want to go to Hollywood, and are running from an arranged marriage.

The only problem I have with this book, and it is relatively minor one, is that while you can tell she did some amazing work on getting the barnstorming part of the story correct, she doesn’t seem to have done as much research on the Hollywood part. And this probably won’t bother most people.

But it bothers me.

You see, my grandmother worked for Disney and Warner Brothers. My father worked for RKO, (which became Universal), and Warner Brothers. There is some amazing history there, some amazing people, especially in the 1920s, when this story took place. If she can throw in real people in Chicago, why can’t she throw in real studios in Hollywood? Why can’t she name areas of Los Angeles? It would make the story just as real when it was in Lincoln, Nebraska.

So, good, strong protagonist, and good strong story. So, other than that minor thing with the movie studios, I would recommend this good, and exciting, and surprising story.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Amazing adoption of time travel in slave times

Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Damian Duffy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Good books make you cry. Great books make you think. Fantastic books stay with you long after you read them, and haunt you with their story. This book, this book has all those factors. If the story is this good in graphic novel form, it makes me feels I should run right out and read the original.

I thought, when I got it, I would flip through a few pages, and then go back to work. Well, 200 something pages later, I had not gone back to work.

Very moving story of a young, black woman from 1976, going back in time to save an ancestor. This happens several time, each time, returning seconds, or hours after she left. She only knows it is happening when she gets dizzy. And the time she is send back to has to be one of the worse times to be black, as she finds herself on a plantation in pre-civil war Maryland. And the ancestor she has to save, is the son of the plantation owner.

Worse, then having to keep saving the white man, is that the woman who would be her great-great-great-something grandmother is black, and wants nothing to do with the son.

And in between, we see a non-whitewashed, so to speak, story of life as a slave. This graphic novel makes this book available to many more people, people who should read it. This should be offered in schools, in libraries, and anywhere people need to read this, and understand the history of the black people in the US. Very sad, very moving, and very compelling.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Historical novel, done well

Freedom’s Just Another Word by Caroline Stellings
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was a little too young in 1970 when this book takes place, so I don’t remember too well the things that were going on then and I certainly was not a young black woman living in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. And yet this novel felt so real so true to the time that once I got past the introduction I was hocked on her voice and her dream of becoming a blues singer

This is the story of how Louisiana meets Janis Joplin and is offered a chance to audition if she can get down to Austin Texas in time.

And you would think that would be enough to the story but this is not a simple road trip, but a journey of thoughts as well as places. The world is changing in 1970, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.

I throughly enjoyed this story and felt the author got everything right including Janis Joplin. I highly recommend this book. Well done historical fiction.

Thanks to Netfalley for providing this book for an honest review.

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For those who love Laura Ingalls Wilder, and want to know more.

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My father was a young man when the Depression hit, in 1929. And although the line of work he was in, first building movie stars home, and then working for the studios building sets, did not suffer, the rest of his family did. He was, if not the sole supporter of his family, of his four, then three brothers, and parents, he was at least the main breadwinner. This effected him for the rest of his life. He knew how to pinch pennies like it was no ones business. Although he ended up building a house for the family he had later, in a posh area of L.A., he would still shift through trash cans to find recycling material, on trash day, before recycling was a big thing.

Laura Ingalls Wilder survived not one, not two, but three depressions. We, as a collective we, remember the one in 1929, because our grandparents, and parents remember it. But few today remember the ones that happened in the late 1800s.

Laura did, and she, like my father, knew that there might, and would be another one around the corner, and so stayed as thrifty as she could be, even when her farms in the Ozarks was doing well, and she was relatively comfortable. And, because she had survived, she figured that others could do the same, without government help.

I bring this last point up, because this is a major theme going through this very weighty tome about Laura’s life. The second major theme, that is hammered home, is that the homestead act was a disaster, and caused the Dust Bowl. And because the Homestead act was help from the government, Laura was a hypocrite in later life.

You may think you know about the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, because you have read all the Little House books, as I have. You may think, well, I have also read the ones that came out after her death, such as On the Way home (her leaving the Dakotas for the Ozarks), West from Home (about her trip to San Francisco to hang out with her daughter Rose), or even Little house in the Ozarks the collection of her columns she was writing for the newspapers, before she wrote the little house books. Yes, I too have read those as well, and yet, much of Prairie Fires covers even more than that. It brings in the history of what was really going on, when her stories were supposed to have taken place, as well as the history of what happened after she left the Dakotas, until, in the height of the depression, she started writing about her life, to bring in a little more money.

Have you ever wondered why The First Four Years is so very, very different from all her other books? This book answers that question. It also explains how the books are really out of order, how Little House on the Prairie should have come first, then Little House in the Big Woods.

And although I love her books, and probably always will, it is amazing to see how she and Rose, her daughter, changed the narrative, so that everything was built on self-reliance, that no one ever needed a hand out if they all stuck together, and by gum, you could have a farm, and make a living, and it was all good, despite that not being how it ended up.

Warning, this is a long, and weighty book, filled with footnotes, and citations, and a boat-load of research.

Highly recommend it to all of those of us who grew up on these stories. Everyone should add this book to their collection.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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