I Feel Bad

for not liking Sachiko:  A Nagaski Bomb Survivor's Story.  I mean, this is a very important story.  A story that deserves to be heard.  I just don't think it was told so well.  I did learn a lot, like, hibakusha is the name for survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagaski at the end of WW2. Also it was really acclaimed.  I don't know why it just felt not as compelling as I wanted it to be. 

Madeleine L'Engle

Becoming Madeleine:  a Biography of the Author of a Wrinkle in Time by Her Granddaughters has been criticized by some for being too easy on Ms. LEngle.  And okay, I get that.  I mean, aren't I the one who criticized Who Was/Is bios of the Little House lady and Alfred Hitchcock for the same reason?  But I have admitted how much I love L'Engle and I do feel that the authors, Ms. L'Engle's granddaughters explained why they ended the bio with the publication of AWIT and left some things out, so how can you be too upset?  I can't help it, I love L'Engle and I really enjoyed this book. 

FINALLY

I really, really did not enjoy Vincent and Theo:  The Van Gogh Brothers.  When it was chosen to be read by the group that follow for possible Printz winners I tried and tried and tried.  And then I gave up.  Then it was chosen by the group I follow for Newbery winners and I knew I had to try again. But man, man, I didn't like this book at all.  I hated that it was written in the present tense.  I just hated it. Thing is, I thought I would love it!  I loved my art history minor is college.  I love post-impressionism.  While Van Gogh is not in my top five favorite artists, he is, for sure, in the top ten.  I love apocryphal stories about him, especially about his time spent living with Gauguin.  Gauguin was a wild dude!  But this book was just one of those that didn't do it for me.  At all.  While I loved Charles and Emma:  the Darwin's Leap of Faith, loved, loved, loved it, this one by Deborah Heiligman just made me struggle.    Interestingly enough I don't remember if CAE was written in the present tense or not!  I am going to see if I can find out...hang on...no, from what I can see from excerpts provided online, the book isn't written in the present tense.  Why was most of this one?  I swear, if I had been written in the past, I would have liked it to a four-star maybe!  I bet I would have. In any case, I am glad I finished it.  The book is REALLY well researched and so it seems to me that Vincent van Gogh was as troubled as many stories show him to be, and even more so.  But man, the tense thing just drove me crazy!  If you don't mind a story mostly written in the present tense, you might really like it though!

Horror Stories

There are many horror stories that don't have anything to do with Halloween.  The Holocaust that took place during and before the outbreak of WW2 is one of them.  As Mr. Rogers said, look for the helpers.  That doesn't make the horror any less, but it does offer some hope.
Reading The Boy on the Wooden Box, by Leon Leyson I learned more about the horrors and more about one of the helpers, Oskar Schindler.
I have heard of the movie, Schinder's List, but I haven't seen it.
Leyson was the youngest person on Schindler's List.  He is listed this way: No. 69128, Eisendrehergeh.  He died in 2013, but not before he wrote this incredible book.
I learned more about the horrors of Nazi Germany, including information about the Plaszow camp, which I had not heard of prior to this book.
Schindler was named to the list of the Righteous Among the Nations, which was also new to me.   Fantastic book.  Hard.  But fantastic.

Never Too Many Murphys

Too Many Murphys was a very popular book back in the day.  I never read it, but maybe I will someday!  Regardless, A Savage Thunder:  Antietam and the Bloody Road to Freedom is not by TMM's author, Colleen O'Shaughnessy McKenna, it is by Jim Murphy.  He really has a way of making history come alive.  I love his stuff!  I must confess that I am not much of a battle history fan. And that is what this is, well a lot of it.  But the way that Murphy writes makes it all so interesting.
One of the things that again still surprises me, even though it shouldn't, it the war was not about the freedom of slaves.  The people of the north were just as racist as the people of the south.  And I wish that I knew more about Lincoln, because I don't know if he was truly an emancipator or not, in his heart, I mean.  I have been told that I should watch the movie and I need do that.

Did Oswald Act Alone?

"The President Has Been Shot!":  the Assasination of John F. Kennedy's author, James L. Swanson is convinced that he did. This book was, of course, the very opposite of the Richard Belzer one! As you can see, I pretty much asked if anyone believe the Warren Commission's report?  Well, people do!  I had asked my mom and she does.  I asked a bunch of my friends and it was 50/50.
This is a really, really well done and interesting book.  Swanson does an excellent job of presenting the events of that tragic day, stirring emotions but also presenting the facts.
Remember though, I think that moon landing was faked.  And the Warren Commission?  A group of fiction writers.
It is good to read this book though, for sure.  Just read something else, too.  I would recommend the Belzer book!

Harder than Hard

to read The Port Chicago  50 and learn of the horrible treatment of African American sailors.  Harder still to admit that I had not heard about this until I read Steve Sheinkin's book.  This is again one of those things that I pray and hope is different now among kids who are learning American history.  Here is more about the Port Chicago Disaster.  An excellent book.

I Survived....

The Blizzard of Glass:  The Halifax Explosion of 1917 was a great kids/tween non-fiction book by Sally M. Walker, a new-to-me-author that I will be reading more of, for sure.  The Halifax Explosion itself was new to me.  I did spend twenty minutes in a rest stop in Nova Scotia back in the 2000s, but I don't recall there being a pamphlet about it there.  It was 2:00am, so I might be wrong.  
This was an excellent book and sure to be popular with those who like the I Survived series and books by the awesome Jim Murphy.
That is picture was taken on Prince Edward Island.

Books (and worlds) Collide

Like I said back here, reading The Cat Ate My Gymsuit and Hitler Youth:  Growing up in Hitler's Shadow really made me look at TCAMG in a different way.
I've written about Susan Campbell Bartoletti before, when I read The Boy Who Dared.  She is a very incredible author.  I had read Hitler Youth years ago, listened to on those old CD things and I yet I was still sickened and horrified in the same manner hearing it again.
Hitler Youth.

"The weak must be chiselled away. I want young men and women who can suffer pain. A young German must be as swift as a greyhound, as tough as leather, and as hard as Krupp's steel."  That is what Adolph Hitler said about German young people.
Watch this interview that Joan Rivers did with Mr. Rogers in the 80s.  Watch it because it is beautiful, but also listen very carefully to what Mr. Rogers has to say about children.  Look at his face when he talks about having respect for them.

Mr. Rogers couldn't be more different from Adolph Hitler, of course, but again, I happened to see this interview while I was listening to Hitler Youth and the comparison just BAMMED me on the head.
It also got me thinking about when I was back in seminary school.  A professor had just retired before I started there, Eberhard Von Waldo.  He had written my Biblical Hebrew text book.  I had heard that was a soldier in Hitler's army.

After reading this I started thinking about him again, as I have, off and on, since I first heard that a seminary professor was once a Nazi tank commander.

So of course, I took to google.  First, I found a death notice of a different pastor, here.  The obituary says this, "As a student at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, East Liberty, she also came under the influence of the Rev. Dr. Eberhard von Waldo, a former German tank commander in World War II. Because of his strong Christian convictions against the war, he surrendered his command to the Allied troops, made his way to South America, completed seminary and arrived in Pittsburgh."

So when I read that, I thought...oh...okay, I see.  Here was a young man who really faced evil and risked his life to do what was right.

But then I found this, which gives the details of the surrender, "In 1945 the war was essentially over. He was serving on the German western front as the British and American armies were relentlessly pushing toward Berlin and victory. Since there was no fuel available the German tanks were abandoned. Von Waldow was put in command of ground unit of new recruits. I remember the sadness in his voice as he told of very young boys and very old men who were now being forced to serve on the front lines. There was not enough ammunition, and many of the new recruits had no training, and some did not even have weapons. Von Waldow was supposed to use these recruits to stop the oncoming allied forces! As they were on the very front lines waiting for the attack, von Waldow walked up and down his line commanding that no one shoot until his command. His troops were to wait a long a possible as the allied forces advanced until he personally gave the command to attack. Finally, their unit could see the British troops advancing toward them; von Waldow was screaming orders for his men to hold their fire until his command. The Brits kept advancing toward their line. Before any of his men fired their weapons, with the British forces in sight, von Waldow personally stood up, raised his hands and surrendered himself and his whole unit to the British. As he told this story I remember the pain in his voice, but also the pride that he had not caused the inevitable death of those young boys and old men who were under his command."

I don't know, to me they seemed like two very different stories of surrender.

 I found his obit just now.  I just found this, too.  After reading those, I am even more confused, concerned, sickened, even?

I don't know.  I just don't know.  Here is another article I found.

Maybe he did a lot of wonderful things for Jewish-Christian relations.  I am sure he did, right?  I mean, there are many other people who say so.  But man...I just don't know.

A Plague Upon You!

Jim Murphy is an author that I found this year and I am so glad I did.  Like Blizzard, I had no prior knowledge of the events chronicled in An American Plague:  the True and Terrifying Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793.  More than 5,000 people in Philadelphia died from Yellow Fever been August 1 and November 9.  I feel like I rushed through this book.  I had it dialed up to 3 speed on the audible and I think I am going to go back and listen again.  Very interesting book and super well done.  Again, I am ashamed and bewildered at the treatment of African Americans in our country's history.  It just appalls me.  Can we ever make amends for such behavior?

Just not sure...

why a book like Blizzard isn't as popular as the I Survived series.  This was the first book I've ever read by Jim Murphy and the first I ever heard of the Great Blizzard of 1888.  Which was a REALLY bad storm!  This book is super well done.  I am not a history fan.  I am especially not a history fan of any time in history before WW2 and so for a book to get and keep my attention, the way that this one did, that is saying something.  It made me want to read more about this blizzard, and more by Murphy. 
The other thing that was really interesting here was the whole history of the National Weather Service.  A lot of folks, like me remember when you had to read a newspaper or watch tv or listen to the radio to find out the weather forecast.  Now it is available on your phone at any time.  Before that it was available on the computer at any time.  But back in these days?  Just crazy, crazy how it all went down!  A great read. 

All I Know about Benedict Arnold, I Learned from the Brady Bunch

Until I read The Notorious Benedict Arnold:  a true story of adventure, heroism, and treachery, this truly was all I knew.  When I saw that Steve Skeinkin had written a book about him, I knew I wanted to read it, having really enjoyed Bomb and really enjoyed it.  I learned a lot!  Sadly, this period of history doesn't seem to grab me, so I probably won't read anymore about him.  But I did enjoy this and I do recommend it!

The War to End all Wars

When I was young I always thought that "the war to end all wars" was WW2.  Later I learned that it was WW1.  Sadly I don't know much about WW1.  The only thing I ever really knew about it was All Quiet on the Western Front, and not even the book, but the made-for-tv movie starring John-Boy.  I knew about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the sinking of the Lusitania, and the bungled Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations.  I knew about mustard gas and the trenches, but that was it.
So it was only right that I read The War to End all Wars:  WW1.  I can't say that I remember too much more than what I knew before, except that I knew I never really knew how it was a war that started because of a lot of misunderstandings and that no one really wanted the war in the first place.  This book was good, but it wasn't my cup of tea.

One of the Greatest Things about Books

is all of the new, cool stuff that you learn!  Reading Escape!:  The Story of the Great Houdini  was a great introduction into a man I had heard about, of course, but knew little about.  Harry Houdini was born Erik Weisz in Budapest, Hungary.  It was Austria-Hungary back then.  He reinvented himself a lot though, and told folks he was from Appleton, Wisconsin though, and can you blame him?  We all love Wisconsin!
This is a great first book about the crazy and wacky man who was known as Houdini by Sid Fleischman, who was a magician, in addition to being a great writer and father of Paul Fleischman, who wrote one of my most favorite books in the whole-wide world, Seedfolks.  Great, great book.

misleading title, but full of information!

Flesh and Blood So Cheap:  the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and Its Legacy was a really good book for me to read because I don't remember as much as I wish I remembered about the second wave immigration and the history of labor relations in the US.  This book contained a really great recap and gave me a lot of information that I didn't have before, including some personal stories about big names in the history of it.  If you want a good book about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, even though it is historical fiction, I would recommend Uprising.
The end of the book talks about modern day sweatshops, especially in Bangladesh.  It sites a 2009 fire.  But sadly, in 2013 there was another fire that killed more than 1,000.  I found it here on this page first.  Another super-sad thing about reading books that talk about immigration to the US is that today there are so many who want to put up walls, when on our Statue of Liberty it still says, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless tost to me, I lift my lamp, beside the golden door."- Emma Lazarus.  If we don't feel that way anymore, then we need to take that statue down, scribble off the words, at least or change them, as some have jokingly suggested.  Because what a joke that is now, to have those words there, when we really don't seem to mean them anymore.