Book Review: The Snow Fell Three Graves Deep: Voices from the Donner Party by Allan Wolf

The Donner Party left a bloody footnote in United States history and this book is a novelization about their journey and hardships.

Can you imagine walking across the United States? Can you imagine what it was like to be a part of the Great Western Expansion when hundreds of people walked, rode horses, traveled by wagon across the United States? Did you know that these wagon trains traveled on average at about 3 miles per hour? We drive across this country now and pick up a bite to eat or visit a bathroom at a rest stop. It still feels like a gargantuan endeavor, but early settlers faced difficult challenges - bad weather, illness, few resources… BUT the Donner Party faced unfathomable difficulties and even harder choices when they chose to travel a relatively new path AND the weather turned bad much earlier than expected. I mean really bad. Seriously folks, 15-20 FEET OF SNOW. That makes even the worst of our New Hampshire winters seem tame.

Read this historical fiction pieced together by author Allan Wolf from documents and stories shared by both survivors and those who perished (through letters and journals.) And yes, there is cannibalism involved - so if you are squeamish - don’t pick up this book. But if you are brave enough to crack open these pages - put yourself in their shoes and think about how you might survive. Think about how each person carries within themselves the possibility of heroic and villainous acts - often times both.

Finally, note that there are extensive notes at the end of this novel. Please check them out before you start reading - you will find a list of characters (put a bookmark on this page because it is hard to keep everyone straight), a timeline, short biographies of the characters in this story, some glossaries and more. Some you might want to read before you get started, and some you might want to leave until the end. But know they are there.

 

Book Reviews: I Know What I am: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi / Sicilio AND Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough

Artemisia Gentileschi was an artist who lived in the late 1500s and early 1600s. 
And these two novels about her life offer some two very possibilities for her mental reality.

If you are going to read both, try the Sicilio book first. This is a graphic novel which is FULL of contextual detail. It shares the contextual and historical background for Artemisia and her art. This isn't an easy book to read in any any. There are a lot of characters in this book to keep track of, a lot of context that sets the stage for what she went through - it is DENSE with historical information. But beyond that - this book is full of betrayal, abuse, rape, dishonesty... AND persistence, feminism, overcoming. I loved this book because it provided the context to better understand the world Artemisia lived in. I loved this book because many of the messages are universal to humankind - bigger than a time and place in the world. 

Once you have finished the  Sicilio book, try the McCullough. After having build the context of Artemisia's life, this different mind-set perspective (offered in a novel in verse) will offer another possibility for Artemisia's viewpoint of her own life, and how she overcame the hurdles she encountered.

In any case, this is a book about art but also about feminism and about #MeToo. Note that there are a lot of triggers in this book: rape, lecherous men, and living with a shaky foundation. 

Enjoy these books, look up the art - check out Artemisia's art as well as that of her contemporaries. Enjoy and learn.

Book Review: Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Here we have a salmon salad and peanut butter sandwich (on gluten-free bread). AND Black Brother, Black Brother. How can life get better than this? You may not be brave enough to try my sandwich, but this book is worth tasting.

Black Brother, Black Brother is about biracial siblings who start attending a new school. However, their experiences are very different. Trey is the popular athletic kid but Donte is seen as a problem. What is the most visible difference between the boys? Trey is light colored, like their Norwegian-descended father,  Donte has his African American mom's coloring. 

One bully really makes Donte's life miserable. Alan is the captain of the fencing team and the bain of Donte's existence. Donte decides that the only way out of his mess is to get retribution and decides to beat Alan at his own game - fencing.

In the end notes of this book, Jewell writes that her own biracial children, one with light skin and the other with darker skin, have had very different experiences growing up in the USA. She says, "My grandmother taught me that everyone is a 'mixed-blood stew' and that diversity of appearance (skin color, hair and eye color) are to be celebrated. Everyone is human and everyone carries an ethnic heritage that results from the origins and journeys their ancestors made." 

Reading Black Brother, Black Brother reminds us that we need to celebrate our differences - it is those differences that make our world an interesting place to live. 

You can find this book on the shelf at the Nashua South library.

 

Book Review: The Music of What Happens / Bill Konigsberg

I totally enjoyed this book about two teen boys, thrown together by chance, who discover a new love. Both boys have had some rockiness in their lives - though the troubles have been very different. This is a fun story all on its own, but...

The title comes from the poem Song by Seamus Heaney. This poem has made me think of the soundtrack of my life. Not the music playing on electronic devices - but the sounds of life. For me that is a lot about laughter, dogs barking, birds singing, trucks moving (we live near a busy business with lots of trucks) coyotes, turkeys, silence, the timer on the oven, stories, and right now - snow shoveling. I think that the soundtrack of my life also includes smells and feels and all that is around me. Is it always perfect? Nope - there is dog poop in there (We DO have three dogs), but I wouldn't trade in my soundtrack. Do I encounter difficulties and obstacles? Of course, but life is partly about overcoming and some about reaching for. Life is about trying new things and being OK with failing but not giving up. Sometimes life is about frustration but that is OK because sometimes life is about applause - even if is only myself applauding for myself. 

Yes this book is about two gay boys, but their experiences are pretty universal - not in the specifics but in the generalities. I hope you enjoy this book.

 

Book Review: This Promise of Change by Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy

Jo Ann Allen lived in a small community in Tennessee. There were both African American and caucasian people who lived there, but they followed very different rules. The library was for whites only as was the lunch counter. Many jobs were only available to white people. AND the schools were segregated. Jo Ann spent the first 9 years in schools for Negros (the word used at the time) before schools in Tennessee were ordered to integrate. Jo Ann and 11 other students were the first African American students to enroll in Clinton High School. Jo Ann tells her story in this memoir in verse. 

Book Review: Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz

This is a fictionalized account of the life of Jack Gruener. Yanek, a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, survived the Holocaust and 10 Concentration camps. Jack and his wife, Ruth, reached out to Scholastic to make sure that their story was told. Read these pages to better understand those horrible times.

Note: Reading this story really puts my own troubles into perspective. Flesher