Author: joycesmysteryandfictionbookreviews

When my kids were little we used to read a Sesame Street book that started this way: “Follow the Monsters wherever they go, sometimes they’re fast, sometimes their slow…” This toddler book reminds me that kids are interested in monsters (Cookie and otherwise) from a young age. If you know a little monster who is interested in monsters, get them this book.

The author retells the stories of many monsters in a way that felt like hearing a story or fairy tale. Some of the many featured monsters are Apep (from Ancient Egypt), Beatrice Rappaccini (Hawthorne), Dorian Gray (Wilde), Frankenstein (Shelley), and The Weird Sisters (Shakespeare). Each entry includes additional facts including the category of monster, Base of Operations, Timing, Powers, Deeds, Fear Factor, Weakness, etc. There are additional sections that enlarge upon each monster’s tale; for example, in the Dracula section, one can read Dear Dracula and The Grisly Tale of Elizabeth Siddal.

This book is a wonderful compilation of monsters, their stories and more. It will be welcomed by those who like the weird and wonderful.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this (scary…not really but good) read. All opinions are my own.
#TheBigBookOfMonsters #NetGalley

A hodgepodge here…mystery, women’s fiction, non-fiction.  Take your pick!

Kudos to Anne Perry! She is not an author who rests on her laurels. Ms. Perry recently started a series with Daniel Pitt, son of long-term series regulars Thomas and Charlotte and now, she has started a series featuring Elena Standish. This novel takes place as Hitler is rising to power in Germany.

The characters in the family…Elena is an aspiring photographer. Her sister Margot was widowed shortly after marrying during WWI. Grandfather Lucas was in MI6 during WWI and maintains his connections. His wife, also was active in the war. Then there are Elena’s parents Charles and his wife Katherine. He is a diplomat; she is American. There are many characters not in the family, from the Jewish population in Berlin to the Brownshirts to those who are busy plotting and to Cordell at the British Embassy.

The settings in the novel are vividly described. The book opens in the shadow of Vesuvius where tourists are creating their reality, away from their daily concerns. It is here that Elena meets Ian, a man who sets her on a perilous mission. Thanks to Ms. Perry, i felt like I was on the train with them, right there in the compartment as the talked about themselves. There are so many equally vivid scenes. To mention a few, a British diplomat goes to lunch with Hitler and t he reader feels him sweating; a book burning takes place and the crowd watching is alive in the reader’s mind, a train hurtles toward Paris from Berlin and the reader feels the anxiety of the characters who need to escape quickly.

There are murders and conspiracies and Elena is clearly in peril. The plot does center on some coincidences but I was willing to accept that. The ending of the novel is a crescendo of events with a clear sense of unresolved issues for future novels or at least that is my hope.

I loved Death in Focus, a novel with rich and vivid characters who are trying to make their way in a world that was for ever changed by WW I and is now hurtling toward another war. There are some parallels to our world today in terms of the author’s description of how people who feel they have nothing, feel better when they have a group to hate.

I highly recommend this novel. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this e galley in exchange for my honest review.

Other reviews

“[Anne Perry] has found the perfect time period to showcase a family’s impassioned defense of democracy and social justice in the face of rising totalitarianism. . . . Obvious comparisons to Charles Todd’s Bess Crawford and Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs are warranted, but this novel also hearkens back to Helen MacInnes’s classic spy thrillers and Mary Stewart’s romantic suspense novels. At turns heartbreaking and action-packed, this gripping and superbly written story proves Perry still has what it takes.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Elena’s many narrow escapes and Perry’s immersive re-creation of Nazi-era Europe will keep readers enthralled by this series debut. The numerous characters working behind the scenes both for and against Elena—her beloved grandfather, for example, who is the former head of MI6—are well drawn, but it is the smart, gritty heroine herself who will ensure that readers eagerly anticipate the next in the series.”—Booklist

From the book jacket:

“Sometimes you have to be brave

Sometimes you have to leave behind everything you know to go somewhere safe.

This is the story of one small dragon’s journey to find a new home.”

I include the above because, once know, it makes sense that this story of a journey is about a refugee.  I did not fully realize that when reading the book.  As a story about a refugee, it is straight forwardly told and for the youngest children.  Through beautiful, simple illustrations young readers/listeners watch asa  young dragon with a suitcase goes on a journey and finds a new group and a sense of safety.

The book could also, in my opinion, be a metaphor for journeys that each of us takes.  We all have our imaginary suitcases full of what we learned and need and, with them, move on to take greater risks.

Either way, both?  Let me know what you think if you read this one.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Quarto for this book in exchange for an honest review.

A special note on the Reginald Hill novel.  This author’s Dalziel and Pascoe series is not to be missed for fans of British mysteries.

This book is part of a new series from Wide Eyed editions. Each will feature the biography and work of a well known artist and is geared for elementary school students. If this book is anything to go by, this will be an informative and beautifully illustrated series.

The book includes many of the important aspects of the artist’s life from her polio and devastating accident to her meeting Diego Rivera and her travels to places including the U.S. and France, where she was the first Mexican artist to find her work in the Louvre. There is also information about how Kahlo painted, what she painted and her love of Mexico. The illustrations are much in the style of the artist and many of her paintings are featured in the background of the text. At the end of the book, the reader can learn more about Kahlo and her works of art.

Some quotes:

Frida liked to paint lots of outfits or versions of herself in the same picture. She did this to show what it was like to feel like lots of different people, all rolled into one body.

Sometimes Frida felt on top of the world! When she felt like this, her paintings would be filled with sunny colors and Mexican plants from her garden. Sometimes Frida felt low and frustrated that one of her legs was always more tired than the other. When she felt like this, her paintings were filled with gloomy colors.

This book deserves its place in school and home libraries. It is a wonderful way for children to learn about art history.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this read in exchange for an honest review.

From the Publisher

Portrait of an Artist: Frida Kahlo

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon, or Frida to her friends, was an artist. She lived in sunny Mexico. Unlike most artists whose work you might see in a gallery, Frida didn’t go to art school. Instead she taught herself. At this time, it was thought that only men could become ‘serious artists’. Frida thought that was silly, so she didn’t let it worry her.	At this time, the most famous artists in Mexico were mural painters who painted straight onto walls. The most famous of them all was Diego Rivera. One day, Diego was painting near where Frida lived. She took one of her paintings to show him. As soon as he saw it, he could tell that Frida was a brilliant artist.	In Mexico, Frida made friends with a French poet called André Breton. He loved Frida’s unusual painting of a bath and asked her to show her work to people in Paris. This was the first time her art had been so far away from Mexico.

This book is part of a series on STEM scientists.  Temple Grandin’s unique gifts and talents as well as her autism are touched on in this short, easy to read biography.  It is a good introduction but those who are truly interested in Ms. Grandin may want a bit more. Fortunately at the end of the book, there are suggestions for additional reads and a couple of website suggestions.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book in exchange for an honest review.

#TempleGrandin #NetGalley

When my children were in school, a wise teacher said to always encourage girls to do math and to let them know that they can do every bit as well in math as in English.  While this book is for all children, I was reminded of how important it is to introduce math as a fun subject and one that can lead to experimentation and knowledge.  Math is not just supposed to be learning the basic four functions as this book so ably proves.

Geared toward children ages six to ten (though I think older children too), the book is divided into sections on topics like geometry and fractals.  The experiments and activities are very hands on and photos help to show kids what to do.  Wise adults will encourage children to explore and not focus on perfection, but rather on the learning process as they do the activities that they find appealing.

Filled with things that can be done at home or school, this book is an excellent resource.  Many thanks to NetGalley and Quarto for this book in exchange for an honest review.

#LittleLearningLabsMathGamesForKidsAbridgedPaperbackEdition #NetGalley From the Publisher WELCOME TO THE SECRET WORLD OF MATHEMATICIANS. This is your introduction to the gorgeous, exciting, beautiful math that only professionals see. What’s truly astounding is that it’s accessible, even for kids ages six to ten. We think that if more kids had a chance to play with a wider world of math, there would be far more math enthusiasts in the world. Most people think you learn math by climbing a sort of ladder: first addition, then subtraction, then multiplication, then fractions, and so on. In fact, math is much more like a tree. There are many different areas of math that require only a basic foundation. Plenty of this lovely and woefully ignored math doesn’t require any previous knowledge. It’s accessible to everyone, if they only knew it existed. GEOMETRY Geometry is the study of shapes. There are a lot of different ways a shape can be. It can be flat (like a circle or a square) with two dimensions—length and width. It can be solid (like a block or a ball) with three dimensions length, width, and height. A shape can be made from lines connected at corners (mathematicians call these edges and vertices; we’ll learn more about those in chapter 6), or it can be made up of curves. A shape can have different numbers of edges and corners, or a different arrangement of curves from another shape. A shape can have different sizes. TOPOLOGY Topology is one of many ways to study shapes. In topology, you can deform, or change, a shape in certain ways—by stretching, bulging, or squeezing—without turning it into a different shape. However, the rules of topology say you can’t glue a shape to itself or poke a hole in it, because if you do that, you’ve created a new shape. Topologists study these changeable shapes to explore what other properties of a shape are still important. COLOR MAPS LIKE A MATHEMATICIAN When you color a map, you’re probably most interested in making it beautiful. When mathematicians talk about coloring a map, they’re trying to figure out the fewest number of colors they can use so that no touching areas are the same color. Often, the “map” is not of a place—it’s a picture with various regions to color. Mathematicians study map coloring to learn about efficiency and conflict resolution. Today, one important application of map coloring is for cell phone frequencies. STITCHING CURVES Sometimes equations are too hard to solve, even for professionals! For these problems, people invent methods that are easy to compute and that approximate (come close to) the solution. This branch of mathematics is called Numerical Analysis.These numerical algorithms are usually done on a computer, and by doing more calculations you can make your approximate solution as good as you need. Curve stitching is a way to approximate a curve by drawing only straight lines, without any computation needed. The closer you draw the lines together, the better the approximation to the curve you make. We can use the same technique to make a variety of curves and shapes that can be turned into beautiful art. FANTASTIC FRACTALS A fractal is a shape that is similar to itself no matter how far you zoom in on one particular part. Fractals occur in nature, such as in ice crystals freezing on a window. They are interesting to mathematicians and scientists as part of Chaos Theory and the study of patterns found in nature where parts are similar to the whole. For example, look at the ferns on the right. Notice how the blue branch of the fern looks like a smaller copy of the green fern, and the purple portion of the fern has a very similar shape to both the whole green fern and the blue branch. Understanding fractals has helped research in the stock market, fluids, astronomy, and weather. Fractals are also interesting to artists simply because they are beautiful. GRAPH THEORY Graph Theory is the study of how things are interconnected. This includes how computers are connected to each other in your house and on the Internet, how to efficiently place power plants to provide electricity in cities, the best locations to put fast food restaurants so that no one is too far from their favorite junk food, how to plan airplane flight paths, and more.

This book is part of a series of biographies; this time elementary school aged readers will learn about Maya Angelou.  Maya’s story is clearly and inspiringly told.  The ups and downs of her life, the struggles, losses and victories all receive attention, although the full details of some of the more difficult aspects of her life are not fully explicated.  This makes sense given the book’s audience.

Maya’s early life, her move to her grandmother, her return to her mother and subsequent elective mutism are all here.  Her love of reading and her eventual finding of her voice are described.

The many accomplishments and first that this remarkable woman achieved are described beginning with her becoming the first black woman train conductor, work in television and of course, her commitment to civil rights and teaching.  Maya knew and grieved the loss of other well known African Americans including Malcolm X and Martin Luther king.  Ms. Angelou’s writings are also cited, starting with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and going through her inaugural poem for Barack Obama.  Her many awards are also listed.

The back of the book details a timeline and there is also a glossary.

This is an excellent and inspiring biography.  As an adult, I finished the book knowing more about this remarkable woman than I had previously.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book in exchange for an honest review.

I remember watching Gilmore Girls with my daughters. Every week we looked forward to seeing what was happening in Starrs Hollow. The cast of characters, the wit, the charm, the patter, the place; the show was just perfectly pitched. There was Emily, aloof but somehow vulnerable; Loreli, fast talking and rebellious and Rory, the funny teen who was intense and driven to succeed. Around them were so many others from Luke to Richard to Max and to Rory’s loves, Dean, Jess and Logan. Then there were all the friends and frenemies from Lane to Paris, Sookie to Michel and more. There was angst, college and love of child, friend, family, place. All these came together in a perfect mix. (For those of you who missed the Gilmore Girls phenomenon, the shows are available on Netflix).

So, as you can imagine, I was very excited about this book. It did not disappoint. Following an excellent introduction there are chapters that focus on relationships including mothers and daughters, fathers, romances and friendships. Throughout the reader learns about or is reminded of the depth of the characters. The second half of the book is about the role of the show in popular culture. There are sections on feminism, popular culture, class and small town life.

If you enjoyed Gilmore Girls, give this book a look. It will let you relive many good times in Stars Hollow with so many friends. If you missed the series, here is a chance to enjoy it and learn more.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this read in exchange for an honest review.