Category Archives: Nonfiction

Review: Bugs in Danger: Our Vanishing Bees, Butterflies, and Beetles by Mark Kurlansky

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Bugs in Danger by Mark Kurlansky

Bugs in Danger: Our Vanishing Bees, Butterflies, and Beetles
Mark Kurlansky
Bloomsbury USA Kids
Published November 12, 2019

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About Bugs in Danger: Our Vanishing Bees, Butterflies, and Beetles

By now you’ve probably heard that bees are disappearing–but they aren’t the only species at risk. Populations of fireflies, butterflies, and ladybugs have all been declining in recent years, too. This middle grade nonfiction explains the growth, spread, and recent declines of each of these four types of insects.

Exploring human causes, like the Baltimore electric company that collected fireflies to attempt to harness their phosphorescent lighting source, to natural occurrences, like the mysterious colony collapse disorder that plagues bee populations, master nonfiction storyteller Mark Kurlansky shows just how much bugs matter to our world.

My Review

You may have heard some talk about the disappearing bee population (I think I saw a TED Talk about it recently, and I feel like I’ve seen it mentioned in the news, too.), but maybe you didn’t realize that the problem extends to other types of insects, too. Certainly, I didn’t. I also didn’t realize that beetles are responsible for pollinating so many species of plants, either! I guess I had never really thought about it?

BUGS IN DANGER is easy to read, informative, and engaging. It’s a great introduction to insects for people who know almost nothing (like me!) and provides a great overview to how these animals play critical roles in the world. I think it would make a great classroom resource or even a great research source for someone doing a science project about bees, beetles, or butterflies.

Overall, I really recommend reading BUGS IN DANGER. It’s a pretty quick read and a great starting point for understanding how important bees, beetles, and butterflies are to our environment.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 up.

Representation
Just bugs!

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog. I received a free copy of BUGS IN DANGER in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris

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The Truths We Hold
Kamala Harris
Penguin Press
January 8, 2019

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About THE TRUTHS WE HOLD

Senator Kamala Harris’s commitment to speaking truth is informed by her upbringing. The daughter of immigrants, she was raised in an Oakland, California community that cared deeply about social justice; her parents–an esteemed economist from Jamaica and an admired cancer researcher from India–met as activists in the civil rights movement when they were graduate students at Berkeley.

Growing up, Harris herself never hid her passion for justice, and when she became a prosecutor out of law school, a deputy district attorney, she quickly established herself as one of the most innovative change agents in American law enforcement. She progressed rapidly to become the elected District Attorney for San Francisco, and then the chief law enforcement officer of the state of California as a whole.

Known for bringing a voice to the voiceless, she took on the big banks during the foreclosure crisis, winning a historic settlement for California’s working families. Her hallmarks were applying a holistic, data-driven approach to many of California’s thorniest issues, always eschewing stale “tough on crime” rhetoric as presenting a series of false choices. Neither “tough” nor “soft” but smart on crime became her mantra. Being smart means learning the truths that can make us better as a community, and supporting those truths with all our might.

That has been the pole star that guided Harris to a transformational career as the top law enforcement official in California, and it is guiding her now as a transformational United States Senator, grappling with an array of complex issues that affect her state, our country, and the world, from health care and the new economy to immigration, national security, the opioid crisis, and accelerating inequality.

By reckoning with the big challenges we face together, drawing on the hard-won wisdom and insight from her own career and the work of those who have most inspired her, Kamala Harris offers in The Truths We Hold a master class in problem-solving, in crisis management, and leadership in challenging times.

Through the arc of her own life, on into the great work of our day, she communicates a vision of shared struggle, shared purpose, and shared values. In a book rich in many home truths, not least is that a relatively small number of people work very hard to convince a great many of us that we have less in common than we actually do, but it falls to us to look past them and get on with the good work of living our common truth. When we do, our shared effort will continue to sustain us and this great nation, now and in the years to come.

My Review

I’ve been curious about TRUTHS WE HOLD for a while, so when my name finally came up in the holds at the library, I was super excited to read it.

A lot of it focuses on her family and early life, events that shaped Kamala Harris’s beliefs and values. She also discusses some of the issues she tackled as a prosecutor and California’s Attorney General.

I found her message inspiring, and her hope for the future really uplifting. She seems really smart and deeply caring, and her passion for the people she serves made reading about what can be big nameless, faceless political issues interesting the way that having a passionate history teacher makes even the grinding parts of history engaging and memorable.

I’m not usually a huge nonfiction reader, but I found myself sneaking in a few pages of TRUTHS WE HOLD between chores and in other odd spare moments. I would recommend reading this book to anyone who’s curious about Kamala Harris’s life and her values.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 15 up.

Representation
Kamala is a Democratic Senator from California and currently running for president.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
No profanity.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief story about how she met her husband.

Spiritual Content
References to her Christian faith.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content 
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links which cost you nothing but which help support this blog.

Review: Them by Ben Sasse

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Them: Why We Hate Each Other and How to Heal
Ben Sasse
St. Martin’s Press
October 16, 2018

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About THEM

Something is wrong. We all know it.

American life expectancy is declining for a third straight year. Birth rates are dropping. Nearly half of us think the other political party isn’t just wrong; they’re evil. We’re the richest country in history, but we’ve never been more pessimistic. What’s causing the despair?

In Them, bestselling author and U.S. Senator Ben Sasse argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, our crisis isn’t really about politics. It’s that we’re so lonely we can’t see straight—and it bubbles out as anger. 

Local communities are collapsing. Across the nation, little leagues are disappearing, Rotary clubs are dwindling, and in all likelihood, we don’t know the neighbor two doors down. Work isn’t what we’d hoped: less certainty, few lifelong coworkers, shallow purpose. Stable families and enduring friendships—life’s fundamental pillars—are in statistical freefall. 

As traditional tribes of place evaporate, we rally against common enemies so we can feel part of on a team. No institutions command widespread public trust, enabling foreign intelligence agencies to use technology to pick the scabs on our toxic divisions. We’re in danger of half of us believing different facts than the other half, and the digital revolution throws gas on the fire. 

There’s a path forward—but reversing our decline requires something radical: a rediscovery of real places and real human-to-human relationships. Even as technology nudges us to become rootless, Sasse shows how only a recovery of rootedness can heal our lonely souls.

America wants you to be happy, but more urgently, America needs you to love your neighbor. Fixing what’s wrong with the country depends on you rebuilding right where you’re planted.

My Review

I think I heard about THEM on a news program where the author, Senator Ben Sasse, was interviewed, and the concept of the book really struck a chord with me. I’m definitely more of a peacemaker type of personality, so I don’t like conflict. It tends to make our current political climate a bit scary to me. Lots of people (myself included) have really strong feelings about issues, and that can make for volatile and stressful family get-togethers. (One time, after trying unsuccessfully several times to end a political debate between two family members, I literally changed the subject and shouted over them, telling a story about a girl scout trip I took with my daughter. I just kept shouting until everyone else stopped talking. It was very rude and embarrassing and also apparently totally necessary.)

At any rate, I was really curious what Sasse would have to say about how to move toward more civil exchanges with people and how to maintain relationships across political divides. He said a lot of smart things– some just about the evolution of the culture and the changes to communities that technology has brought. I agreed with his synopsis of the way communities are not as deeply connected now as people use phones and tablets for everything from social media to movies and TV.

There were some things I didn’t agree with. I believe in civil discourse, so I agreed that we need dialogue and to be able to talk with people who have different viewpoints than we do. But it’s not always safe to do that. Sometimes, when it’s not safe, it’s better to suspend those conversations. I felt like he wasn’t very realistic about that.

I did like a lot of what he had to say, though. There were no easy solutions. A lot of it comes down to crafting a diverse community for yourself, one that includes a variety of political ideas. The idea is that this helps you remember that good people belong to both political parties. We both want the same things: a thriving democracy that allows us and our children to live healthy, happy lives, with an optimistic financial future. But we often differ on how to get to that result and what the government’s role should be in getting us there.

I recommend THEM for readers who are frustrated with politics. It’s one of those books I think everyone should read, regardless of your party affiliation. It’s less about his ideology and more about our culture and why we’ve become so polarized in political views and what to do about it.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 15 up.

Representation
This book is written by a Conservative Republican Senator.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used twice or so.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Sasse mentions church attendance on Sunday.

Violent Content
Some references to a riot on a college campus.

Drug Content 
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links which cost you nothing but which help support this blog.

Review and Blog Tour: Shame Off You by Denise Pass

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Shame Off You: From Hiding to Healing
Denise Pass
Abingdon Press
Published August 21, 2018

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About Shame Off You: From Hiding to Healing

Shame is an assault on the core of who we are. It assassinates our character, minimizes our worth, and dashes our hope. Like Adam and Eve, we often hide shame, but hiding never heals it. Left unattended, shame can develop into a crippling reality that paralyzes us. Like an infectious disease, shame impacts everyone . . . but not all shame is bad. Shame can either be an oppressive and powerful tool of worldly condemnation or a source of conviction that God uses to bring his people back to himself. Having the discernment to know the difference and recognize shame in its many forms can change the course of one’s life.

In a transparently honest style, Pass shares of her experience dealing with shame after learning that her former husband was a sexual offender. Having lived through the aftermath, she leads you into God’s Word where you will see for yourself that God is bigger than your pain, shame, mistakes, and limitations.

Shame Off You shares how freedom can be found in choosing to break the cycle of shame by learning from the past, developing healthy thinking patterns, silencing lies, and overcoming the traps of vanity and other people’s opinions.

My Review

This book gave me so many things to think about. It really called into focus the way I react to certain things and has helped me start to break down why I react that way and how to respond differently or break the cycle of shame.

The author is pretty transparent about some difficult things she has been through, and that makes so much of what she says accessible and real because you know she’s been through those big emotions herself. She’s also really funny. I liked that sometimes even when talking about difficult things, she’d say them in a funny way to lighten things up.

SHAME OFF YOU is a very spiritual book. I don’t think you could read the book and enjoy it without embracing her spiritual point-of-view. It’s really meant to guide people within Christian faith toward releasing shame and breaking the cycle of shaming others.

I’m also not sure how accessible the book would be to teen readers. The writing is a little bit dense, but the concepts really apply to any age, and the topic is a great one for teen readers. I wonder if the author would consider doing a youth edition at some point.

On the whole, I’m so glad I read SHAME OFF YOU. I want to go back and highlight some passages that I want to remember and be able to revisit later. I think it will be a big help to me as I continue to think about way shame impacts me and others in my life.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
None.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
The author briefly discusses discovering that her husband sexually abused their child. No explicit details given.

Spiritual Content
This is in every way a Christian book. Quotes from scriptures, prayers and devotionals open and close each chapter.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog. I received a free copy of SHAME OFF YOU in exchange for my honest review.

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Review: Dreamland (YA Edition) by Sam Quinones

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Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic (YA Edition)
Sam Quinones
Bloomsbury YA
Published July 16, 2019

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About Dreamland (YA Edition)

As an adult book, Sam Quinones’s Dreamland took the world by storm, winning the NBCC Award for General Nonfiction and hitting at least a dozen Best Book of the Year lists. Now, adapted for the first time for a young adult audience, this compelling reporting explains the roots of the current opiate crisis. 

In 1929, in the blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio, a company built a swimming pool the size of a football field; named Dreamland, it became the vital center of the community. Now, addiction has devastated Portsmouth, as it has hundreds of small rural towns and suburbs across America. How that happened is the riveting story of Dreamland. Quinones explains how the rise of the prescription drug OxyContin, a miraculous and extremely addictive painkiller pushed by pharmaceutical companies, paralleled the massive influx of black tar heroin–cheap, potent, and originating from one small county on Mexico’s west coast, independent of any drug cartel.

Introducing a memorable cast of characters–pharmaceutical pioneers, young Mexican entrepreneurs, narcotics investigators, survivors, teens, and parents–Dreamland is a revelatory account of the massive threat facing America and its heartland.

My Review

If you’re looking for a book that explains how the opiate epidemic started and why it became such a pervasive problem, DREAMLAND is the right book. The author explores the issue from all sides, from the actions of a pharmaceutical company to pill mill doctors to some stories of people who became addicted or saw opportunities to capitalize on the addictions of others.

As I read, each new chapter revealed more and more disturbing truths. So many failures at so many levels allowed this problem to take hold and explode across communities across the country.

DREAMLAND doesn’t link to this, but I recently saw a news report from a Washington Post reporter who was part of an effort to publish a database showing how many prescription pain pills were distributed to different counties in the US. I looked up my own county and was pretty much floored by the total number. I suppose I should have been less surprised since Quinones does point out in DREAMLAND that 9 of 10 of the top prescribing counties in the US during the peak of the pill mill problem were counties in Florida.

I definitely recommend DREAMLAND to anyone who wants a deeper understanding of how we got here and why the opioid epidemic happened in the first place.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used infrequently

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Quinones follows a church-based addiction recovery program.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
Obviously this book contains references to drug abuse. It doesn’t contain graphic scenes showing characters abusing drugs, but gives a lot of information about how drugs were trafficked. One person Quinones describes was raised by an alcoholic, abusive father.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog. I received a free copy of DREAMLAND in exchange for my honest review.

Review: For Such a Time as This by Sharon Risher with Sherri Wood Emmons

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For Such a Time as This
Sharon Risher with Sherri Wood Emmons
Chalice Press
Published June 11, 2019

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The instant her phone rang, Reverend Sharon Risher sensed something was horribly wrong. Something had happened at Emanuel AME Church, the church of her youth in Charleston, South Carolina, and she knew her mother was likely in the church at Bible study. Even before she heard the news, her chaplain’s instinct told her the awful truth: her mother was dead, along with two cousins. What she couldn’t imagine was that they had been murdered by a white supremacist.

Plunged into the depths of mourning and anger and shock, Sharon could have wallowed in the pain. Instead, she chose the path of forgiveness and hope – eventually forgiving the convicted killer for his crime. In this powerful memoir of faith, family, and loss, Sharon begins the story with her mother, Ethel Lee Lance, seeking refuge in the church from poverty and scorn and raising her family despite unfathomable violence that rattled Sharon to her core years later; how Sharon overcame her own struggles and answered the call to ministry; and how, in the loss of her dear mother,

Sharon has become a nationally known speaker as she shares her raw, riveting, story of losing loved ones to gun violence and racism. Sharon’s story is a story of transformation: How an anonymous hospital chaplain was thrust into the national spotlight, joining survivors of other gun-related horrors as reluctant speakers for a heartbroken social-justice movement. As she recounts her grief and the struggle to forgive the killer, Risher learns to trust God’s timing and lean on God’s loving presence to guide her steps.

Where her faith journey leads her is surprising and inspiring, as she finds a renewed purpose to her life in the company of other survivors. Risher has been interviewed by Time Magazine, Marie-Claire, Essence, Guardian-BCC Radio, CNN, and other media sources. She regularly shares her story on American college campuses and racial-reconciliation events. “To Forgive a Killer,” her essay as told to Abigail Pesta published in Notre Dame Magazine, won the 2018 Front Page Award for Essay published in a Magazine, awarded by the Newswomen’s Club of New York .

My Review

When I heard about FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS, I knew I needed to read it. I remember hearing about the shooting in Charleston and feeling deeply disturbed at the boldness and actions of the killer. Rev. Risher tells the story of her family and her journey through grief toward healing with courage and very straight talk. This isn’t a flowery, feel-good story. It’s raw and real, full of struggle, humanity, and faith.

Risher wades into political waters as she describes her personal evolution into an advocate for sensible gun laws and for racial equality in the United States. Hearing her perspective on why she travels the country speaking and how she developed her message moved me, too. It made me think about the way I have conversations with people.

She suggests beginning with a common ground. What is something that both parties agree on? Find that common ground and then build on it. I’m hoping to put this into practice in my own life as I have conversations about social issues with people I care about.

Risher’s frank discussion of racism in America left me with chills. Her calls to action to learn to have difficult conversations, to keep talking about racial issues even when we’re uncomfortable, stick with me even after the pages of the book are closed. I agree with her, and I want to find appropriate ways to be part of those conversations, too.

All in all, I think FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS is a must-read for anyone in America. This shooting happened here, perpetrated by a man with abhorrent ideas, ones shared by too many other people. After an event like that, I find myself wondering what to do, or how to respond. I think this book does a lot toward equipping people to do those very things.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Sharon Risher’s mother, two cousins, and a childhood friend, who are all black, were killed by a white supremacist at their church in Charleston.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used near a dozen times throughout the book.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief recollection of falling in love and getting married.

Spiritual Content
Risher herself is a chaplain and calls on her faith to help herself and others through deep grief and anger.

Violent Content
Some brief descriptions of the mass shooting at the AME church in Charleston.

Drug Content
Simon and his friends drink alcohol, which is legal at eighteen in Australia.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog. I received a free copy of FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS in exchange for my honest review.