Lately I have been reading a lot of multi-volume books, especially in the category of YA dystopia (one of my favorite genres). Some who comment express resentment over this mode of publication. And yet it didn’t seem to hurt the popularity of The Hunger Games series, or Patrick Ness’s inimitable Chaos Walking.

I’ve gotten used to it, myself. I don’t even mind rereading when I get to the next “installment.” Of course I would prefer not to know about the series until all three (or four) are published, but that rarely happens.

What do you think? Why do you except the format for some series but not for others? Is it any different than a television series? Who do you think is behind it: the authors? the publishers? If you just came across one 900-page book, wouldn’t you be less apt to read it?

Jacqueline Woodson (Author), Sophie Blackall (Illustrator)

Gia lives with her single mom, who is very pregnant, and now everything in Gia’s world seems to revolve around the impending arrival of a new sibling. It’s all anyone can talk about. Furthermore, she sees the baby as a threat to her close relationship with her single-parent mother. Gia is building up a lot of resentment against the “ding-dang baby.” And when the whole family comes for Thanksgiving, Gia finally explodes, yelling out to everyone: “I’m so sick of that DING-DANG BABY!” Mama sends Gia to her room, and later comes to talk to her. Mama says, “You know what I’m going to miss the most when the baby comes, Gia?” And she tells Gia she will miss all their time together, just the two of them. They cuddle and hug, and then Gia suggests they go downstairs for pecan pie, because all three of them love it, even the ding-dang baby! This book is so touching and cute and funny, and has such wonderful illustrations, that you have to be grateful these two award-winning women collaborated on such a great project.

Note: Although the racially mixed nature of this [extended] family is not mentioned in the text, it is demonstrated by the illustrations.

Product Details
Reading level: Ages 5 and up
Hardcover: 32 pages
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile (October 28, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399239871
ISBN-13: 978-0399239878

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Just the Two of Us

Will Smith (Author), Kadir Nelson (Illustrator)

Will Smith, musician, actor, and father, celebrates a father’s love as he watches his son grow into a man, starting with the night he brought his son home from the hospital: “That night I don’t think one wink I slept/ As I slipped out of my bed, to your crib I crept/ Touched your head gently, I felt my heart melt/ ‘Cause I knew I loved you/ more than life itself.” Smith’s humor mixes with his affection so that the text doesn’t become too syrupy: “Sometimes I wonder what you’re gonna be/ A general, a doctor, maybe an MC./ I wanna kiss you all the time/ But I will test that butt when you cut out of line./ Why’d you do that?” This heartwarming portrait, illustrated by the amazing Kadir Nelson, is for all ages.

Product Details
Reading level: Ages 4 and up
Paperback: 32 pages
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks (February 1, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 043966943X
ISBN-13: 978-0439669436

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Who Will I Be, Lord?

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson (Author), Sean Qualls (Illustrator)

A little girl wonders what she will be when she grows up. She thinks about all the members of her family, what she loves about them, and what each of them do. In the end, she guesses, like her mama says, it’s up to her what she will be.

Note: The little girl’s great grandma is white, although the rest of the family is African American.

Product Details
Reading level: Ages 4 and up
Hardcover: 40 pages
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers; 1 edition (October 27, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0375843426
ISBN-13: 978-0375843426

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In Daddy’s Arms I Am Tall: African Americans Celebrating Fathers

Javaka Steptoe (Author and Illustrator)

Colorful pastiche of poetry and art styles celebrate the African American father. The images are varied and interesting; many are collages. The illustrations were done by Javaka Steptoe, who is the son of the late children’s book illustrator John Steptoe. Most of the twelve poems, written by a variety of writers and one by the illustrator, reflect a father who is strong, fun and loving. A couple of the poems are sad, but in a subtle way.

Product Details
Reading level: Ages 8 and up
Paperback: 32 pages
Publisher: Lee & Low Books (January 30, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1584300167
ISBN-13: 978-1584300168

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I’m Your Peanut Butter Big Brother

Selina Alko (Author and Illustrator)

With a black father and a white mother, a young boy wonders what his new sibling will look like when it is born. All of his conjectures evoke food imagery – a “semisweet dark Daddy chocolate bar” or a “mocha cloud.” The illustrations are absolutely adorable – a mix of gouache and mixed-media that are not realistic, but very fun.

Note: Black father and white mother

Product Details

Hardcover: 40 pages
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers; 1 edition (March 10, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0375856277

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Welcome, Precious

Nikki Grimes (Author) Bryan Collier (Illustrator)

Award winners Nikki Grimes and Bryan Collier celebrate a new life and family love with this gorgeous picture book for very young children. The text is lyrical: “Welcome, Precious. Welcome to the warm circle of your daddy’s arms, the slippery kisses of your giddy grandmother, and the cool tickle of Mommy’s nose rubbing against your belly button.” For the most part, the pictures are adorable, depicting very cozy domestic scenes.

Product Details
Hardcover: 32 pages
Publisher: Orchard Books; 1 edition (September 1, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 043955702X
ISBN-13: 978-0439557023

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For more books on black families, check out all the resources at The Birthday Party Pledge, a new website dedicated to promoting gifts of multicultural books to the children in our lives.

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For more reviews of books for children and teens, go to Booking Mama’s feature, Kid Konnection, posted on Saturdays. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, leave a comment as well as a link on her site.

Again, Teagan struggles with exerting her free will to be what she feels she was meant to be, rather than what others would have her be. But now that she is even more goblin-esque, her task is more challenging as well. Warring within her are a martial hunting instinct and a knack for compassion. “There is no such thing as destiny,” her boyfriend Finn argues. “Just becoming. Choosing to become what you were created to be, or choosing to walk away from it.”

Teagan knows this well from her mother, who taught her the poem of Gerald Manley Hopkins, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame,” which in part reads:

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves – goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.”

Hopkins means that each individual being has an essential nature, and it is the spark of God. He wrote in his Notebooks at p. 342, “All things therefore are charged with love, are charged with God and if we know how to touch them give off sparks and take fire, yield drops and flow, ring and tell of him.” The purpose of being then, is to strive for moral perfection and to become one’s “highest” self, so as to reveal God’s immanence in the world. The conclusion of the poem reads:

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is –
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.”

It should be noted that Hamilton’s theology is never as overt as this. She, for example, does not quote the end of Hopkins’ poem. But she gives us hints through the centrality of poetry and song to her story, and through the particular poems she selects as themes, especially William Blake’s “Tyger Tyger,” the first stanza of which is:

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

Note that the title of the first two books of this series are taken from this poem. Blake famously goes on to ask:

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”

Again Hamilton is pointing out through verse that God has put both evil and goodness into the world. But in her second book she seems to be making more of a stand: you can still choose. (Indeed, the stanza immediately above refers to the scene in John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” after the angels win the holy war in heaven after Satan’s revolt against God. Satan too, had free will, and made a choice.)

In Book Two, after Teagan is infected with Kyle’s DNA, so that she becomes less bard and more goblin, she is able to “bilocate,” which means she can leave her body and go into the mythical realm of Mag Mell. Her spirit form has tiger eyes, and the tiger part of her nature becomes more salient. (Like Blake, Hamilton chooses to illustrate the essence of the tiger in both physical and moral dimensions.) And yet, Tea insists she not be called the nickname “Tiger” and is clearly waging a powerful battle with her own instincts.

This is Teagan’s struggle, and one which will continue in Book Three.

Evaluation: This book must be read in close conjunction with Book One, because it is assumed the reader remembers all the characters and mythological background from the first book. For those who do so, this book is like having a pleasant family gathering with those characters, while waiting for more momentous events.

Rating: 3.5/5

Published by Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2011

Inspektor-Detektiv Willi Kraus, 35, is a respected Berlin homicide cop who received the Iron Cross for his heroism in World War I, and additionally is a local hero for solving a child-killer crime not long ago. His wife Vicki died two years earlier in a freak accident, and her sister now raises his two young sons, Stefan and Erich.

Now Kraus has two new cases. Washed up in the river on the west side of Berlin near Spandau, the body of a woman has been found with mutilated legs – her fibulae have been surgically removed and replanted in the opposite direction. Kraus also is charged with finding a missing Bulgarian princess. While missing persons are not within his ordinary purview, this situation could cause a diplomatic crisis. Both cases turn out to be connected, however. In fact, a number of women have gone missing over the past nine months, all of whom were thought to be under a hypnotic trance when they abruptly left their homes and took the train out to Spandau, from which they never returned.

What Kraus discovers is a horrific preview of barbarity to come. And yet he, like so many other Jews at that time, still thinks that reason will prevail, and resists the idea of leaving Germany. At one point he muses:

Sylvie was the third person this week who’d told him to get out of Germany. It was getting annoying. His family had been here what, since the time of Charlemagne? Why would anyone think he’d just pack up and run? And yet…he couldn’t keep himself from wondering if he ever really did have to leave…where would he go?”

But increasingly, his ability to do his job is stymied by anti-Semitism. As more and more non-Jews are hypnotized by facism, more and more Jews sleepwalk to their deaths. At the end of the book, you find yourself racing through to see if Kraus will escape in time.

Discussion: For me, there were some problems with the book. The intermittent insertion of German phrases is bizarre – the characters presumably all speak German, not English. It just didn’t make sense. The tropes of hypnotism and sleepwalking are clever but at the same time too obviously trying to convey a message about pre-War Germany. And while I accept that the author messed around with the dates of some historical events for plot reasons (which he explains in the afterward), the addition of dialogue from some of the many historical figures of the era just felt like unnecessary “name-dropping.”

Evaluation: This is a definite page-turner with an interesting premise – a Jewish cop trying to solve a crime in the early days of the Nazis. There is an eclectic, interesting cast of characters, and by the end, you can’t put it down until you know what will happen. Thanks to the review by Barbara at Freedom Acres for drawing my attention to this book!

Rating: 3.5/5

Published by St. Martin’s Press, 2010

This is the second installment of a trilogy set in the 1700’s in England, of which only the first two volumes have yet been published. In the first, we learned that Jessamine Luxton, a beautiful young girl of 16, has learned healing arts from her father Thomas. She falls in love with a young man, Weed, who has come to live with them, but then she becomes mysteriously ill. At the end of the first volume, she has recovered, but at the price of her own soul, and that of Weed’s. Her father’s soul, she discovered, was already lost. (See my review, here.)

At the beginning of volume two, Jessamine leaves her home to find Weed, who has disappeared. As she travels to London though, she is not alone, but accompanied by a dark force unleashed by her father’s garden of poisonous plants. By the time Weed finds her, she is not the girl she used to be, and Weed must take his own journey to try and save her from the depths of self-destruction.

Discussion: This is one of the darkest YA books I’ve read in a long time. A hint of what is to come can be found in the heroine’s name.

Jessamine was named for the vine with the botanical name Gelsemium sempervirens, sometimes referred to as yellow jasmin. One of the most notable attributes of the plant is the beautiful fragrant flower it produces, but all parts of the plant are extremely poisonous. This turns out to be the case with the character Jessamine as well. In spite of her outward beauty, she turns poisonous to all in her orbit.

The problem for me, however, is that the author has Jessamine become immoral because of the influence of the evil Oleander, Prince of Poisons, whose power has been released by her father’s poison garden. It is Oleander who drives both Jessamine and Weed to commit the evil acts they do. I just don’t know how I feel about the whole “the devil made me do it” take on their behavior. Sure, Oleander could be seen as a metaphor, except that he is not – he is depicted as an actual character. Furthermore, he is pretty much omnipotent since he can get in their heads, so it’s not as if the characters are able to exercise good judgment about the choices they make. In fact, they are almost “excused” because of Oleander’s influence, and that means being excused over some pretty egregious acts, including murder, adultery, drug addiction, betrayal, and thievery. Moreover, Jessamine has additional reasons to think she might have been “destined” to be evil, and so there is the additional issue of fate versus self-determination.

Unless you are the sort that does not like fantastical elements to your books, this series is quite interesting, and raises numerous points to think about and discuss, among them: what defines love, what is necessary to sustain it, and what poisons it.

Evaluation: It’s not impossible to start the series off with this second book, but you will miss out on some nuances, and maybe even more importantly, you will miss out on the halcyon times when at least some of the characters were suffused with goodness.

Rating: 3/5

Published by Balzer & Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins, 2011

Jessamine Luxton, 16, lives alone with her father Thomas, who is an apothecary and healer in the 1700’s in Northumberland, England. Her father lets her help with tending and preparing healing herbs and flowers, but will not allow her into his locked garden of poisonous plants. He is obsessed with discovering anecdotes to the poisons, suspecting that formulae once existed. When he finds out that a local orphan known as Weed has a special knack with herbs and plants, he takes him in, hoping Weed has the secrets he so obsessively seeks.

Weed soon falls for the beautiful and lonely Jessamine, who recognizes his goodness and reciprocates his affection. But before long Jessamine is struck by a mysterious malady and is close to death. As her father and Weed struggle to save her, the truth about her illness is revealed, and the lines between healing and poison, life and death, and good and evil, become inextricably blurred.

Evaluation: This book has a Gothic, sinister tone with fantasical aspects overlaying the sweet, coming-of-age young love story. It is book one of a trilogy, so you will want to have the second volume on hand, since it ends in a bit of a cliffhanger.

Rating: 3/5

Published by Balzer & Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins, 2010

Note: I was inspired to read this book by the reviews of Beth Fish Reads and Raging Biblomania. Come back tomorrow for a review of the sequel, The Poison Diaries: Nightshade!

When not occupied with work, Lucas is very focused on his family. He is part of a blended family of natural and adopted siblings headed by Greek parents. The much-loved father is now dead, however, and two of the siblings are out of touch. He, his black brother Leo, and his mother remain very close. But he “visits” his father frequently in the graveyard. He also visits with fellow vets, and contributes to their care. He eats a lot, and walks and bikes a lot, and works out in his apartment, especially when he can’t obtain a sex partner with whom to work off his energy:

As he often did after a good ride, he wanted a woman. Instead he did several sets of push-ups, normal and wide stance, and then did chin-ups and pull-ups on a bar mounted inside the door frame of his bedroom.”

But generally, he is pretty successful at finding women, and sometimes, they just show up unbidden at his door.

The main tool of his trade is his iPhone (one wonders how this will seem to readers in ten years), but when necessary, he has access to and skill with a number of lethal weapons.

His status as a vet enables Pelecanos to incorporate a plot line about problems faced by those who served in Iraq, including the let-down of quotidian life compared to the constant adrenaline rush of battle. Lucas’s flirtation in the borderlands of criminal life helps him reach the highs he felt in Iraq, for which he knows he is “lucky.”

This exhilaration is fully activated for Lucas as he chases down the stolen drugs, navigating through the dangerous shoals of D.C.’s violent underbelly of crime.

Discussion: Lucas is a Jack Reacher [of the Lee Child thriller series] who showers. He is bursting with testosterone, perfectly built, irresistible to women, trusted by black and white alike, and flexible on morality. (Killing is only done to bad guys as a means to a good end.) He is good to his mother, helps the needy with money, and respects the elderly. In short, he is a bit cartoonish.

Moreover, like Jack Reacher, we don’t know much about what goes in Lucas’s head. By contrast, we know the brands of every outfit he wears, we know every dish he orders in restaurants, and every component of his exercise routines. We also get a street-by-street map of everywhere he walks, bikes, or drives. It was all a little too much detail for me – as if Pelecanos were setting up the scenes for a screenplay rather than adding meaningful information to the story.

Women in this story are in all cases objectified: Lucas’s mother is saintly (in spite of a possible problem with alcohol), and younger women are either whores (used by bad guys) or outlets for testosterone excess (used by Lucas). Even though one of Lucas’s conquests is a lawyer and one a law student, their main function seems to be to show how irresistible Lucas is.

Evaluation: I was disappointed in this book. I loved the author’s Drama City because of the characterizations. But Spero Lucas is too cartoonish for me, and the book is written too much as if it is meant to include set directions for a movie. The role of women in Spero’s life gave me the creeps. Neverthless, some of the bloggers I consult regularly for book reading ideas, including Kathy, Julie, and Caite, all liked it very much, and I recommend checking out their reviews as well!

Rating: 3/5

Published by Reagan Arthur Books, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc., 2011

This class system was first imposed in order to discourage future uprisings, so that ideas of rebellion could not be communicated. It also became a way to exert power and control over members of the lower classes.

Charlaina Hart, 17, and her little sister Angelina, 4, are of the vendor class, and are supposed to speak only Parshon (the vendors’ language) and Englaise. But the two girls share secret skills which they must never reveal at the cost of their lives. Charlaina (called “Charlie” by her friends), can understand any language. Moreover, her ability is not restricted to words; she can decipher any type of communication, including those that are visual or tactile. Angelina, on the other hand, is mute, but she too has secret abilities that no one else has.

Ludania is ruled only by queens, and the current one, Queen Sabara, is solidly evil. Although Sabara is getting too old to keep going, no female heir has been produced, and she is starting to panic. It is not the kingdom she cares for as much as her immortality; if she has a legitimate heir, she can transfer her “essence” into the heir, displacing the persona occupying the body. She then is ensured of at least another whole lifetime of existence and rule.

Her grandsons are not only no help, but one of them, Max, seems to have fallen for a girl (Charlie), and thus is not as diligent as he should be in helping with her nefarious plans. Besides that, rebel forces are making headway against the queen. She is running out of time.

Discussion: In spite of this book’s great premise, there were a couple of aspects to the story I didn’t think worked too well. The overly evil queen with her magical “essence” transfer ability muddied up the genre waters for me.

Then there’s Max. He is suddenly and inexplicably smitten with a girl below his class, and we are never given any reason for it whatsoever. (Even though Max tells Charlie several times that she is “beautiful,” it is made clear in the book that Charlie may be nice looking but is not above average.) She is rude to Max, which could have appeal for a guy who probably only gets pandering, but he never reveals that this is a source of attraction. In fact, we never know what he’s thinking at all. Max is just a good-looking guy who is suddenly after Charlie.

On the other hand, some of the characters are drawn better than others, such as Charlie’s little sister Angelina, and the rebel leader Xander, and they are quite endearing. But the only heads we ever get into are Charlie’s and the Queen’s.

This book has some very creative aspects but can’t seem to decide if it wants to be a dystopia or a fantasy or a YA coming of age story. As a dystopia, the idea of mandating that power be delineated by language is a great plot organizing principle. Characters being named for “ancient” cities (such as Charlie’s friend “Brooklynn”) is also a nice touch. But world-building aspects are practically nonexistent. As a coming of age story, the YA tropes are somewhat hackneyed, such as the guy who has been the heroine’s best friend forever but he is not the guy she falls for; the sidekick who is always getting the heroine into trouble; and the incredible naivety of the heroine. It is as a fantasy though that I think the story suffers the most. The Queen is like the Snow White queen on steroids – she is just too evil to be real. And yet her magical powers were not enough to have prevented someone from killing her in the night, which surely would have happened at some point over the years.

Evaluation: This blend of dystopia, fantasy, and coming-of-age novel has some inventive aspects to it. It will be interesting to see how subsequent volumes (yes, it has been signed to become a trilogy!) manage the world-changing necessitated by the conclusion of this book.

Rating: 3/5

Published by Margaret K. McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, 2011

It is easy to see how they became confused. Lincoln was not well-known outside the country, and the Democrats, led by Stephen A. Douglas, consistently castigated Lincoln as a “Black Republican” whose goal was to incite civil war, emancipate the slaves, and make blacks the social and political equals of whites. (At one debate Douglas challenged the audience: “If you desire negro citizenship, if you desire to allow them to come into the State and settle with the white man, if you desire them to vote on an equality with yourselves, and to make them eligible to office, to serve on juries, and to adjudge your rights, then support Mr. Lincoln and the Black Republican party, who are in favor of the citizenship of the negro.”)

Presumably the current newspapers of Drogheda double-checked before publishing on November 5, 2008….

In alternate chapters we meet Sophie Marks, a young girl of 14, who is home-schooled and never allowed out of the house. Her mother has moved her around frequently, always claiming the “No Good” is after them. While her mother goes to work, Sophie gazes longingly out the window wishing she could go outside and feel the sun and be under the blue sky. Her mother says outside is too dangerous, but one day Sophie can no longer resist, and sneaks out to meet her neighbor Joey Rudd, who begins to share his loving family with her.

Both young women are imprisoned, and both receive hope and support from the kindness of strangers. It is clear both of them will come together somehow, but for most of the book, we only know that they are each so sorely deprived of love that they gravitate to its promise like moths to a flame.

Discussion: There are some wonderful characters in this book, my favorite of whom are Joey’s two “aunts” who have a boundless store of wisdom and love to share. But there are some bits in the book that don’t make sense to me. In the beginning, the police seem totally oblivious to Peter’s physical threats – made right in their presence! – toward Emmy. In addition, with Kephart I often get the sense that the beauty of words can take precedence over meaning (or at least, the meaning is lost on me). Take this passage, for example:

A room that isn’t mine. The sound of toss and dream, and sheets like the fried bottom of a pan. At the far end of the room, in a square: sun like it’s been poured into a glass of milk and swallowed – a blank face in a square space of scratch and rake and air clot.”

I have no idea what that means.

Nevertheless, it’s a book you won’t soon forget.

Evaluation: Another lovely and poignant story from an author who is so popular among book bloggers for good reason.

Rating: 3.5/5

Published by Egmont USA/Laura Geringer Books, 2011

Cinder works as the only full-service mechanic in New Beijing’s weekly market, and she has a reputation as one of the best. When handsome (and single) Prince Kai, 19, brings his malfunctioning android to her for repairs, an attraction is formed, although Kai doesn’t realize Cinder is a cyborg; Cinder is convinced he would never look twice at her if he knew.

Meanwhile, a ball open to everyone is being planned to celebrate the anniversary of the end of WWIV, in spite of Kai’s father just dying of the horrible plague that is sweeping the country, and in spite of the unexpected and unwelcome visit of the evil queen Levana of the Lunar race. Cinder can’t attend in any event; her wicked stepmother Adri would never allow it. Only her stepsisters Peony and Pearl may go.

This is the final straw for Cinder, who plots an escape from her stepmother with the help of her own android, the very human-like and endearing Iko. Adri tries to destroy Iko, and even takes away Cinder’s prosthetic foot so she can’t go anywhere the night of the ball. But then Cinder intercepts a warning meant for Kai, and decides she must go to the ball. Even at the cost of Kai seeing she is a cyborg, she has to get the message to him before it’s too late.

Evaluation: This is a very enjoyable read. The characterizations are delightful. Adri and Levana are over-the-top evil, but they’re supposed to be; after all, this is a fairy-tale retelling! Kai is charming, and I liked that his attraction for Cinder seems to be based on her being the only one in the kingdom who doesn’t fawn all over him. But Cinder and Iko are the real stars of the story. Iko the android is adorable, and Cinder is terrific: she is talented, strong, smart, loyal, not reluctant to be covered with grease from her job, and not afraid to stand up for what she believes.

But here’s the bad news: this book is only part one of a planned quartet, and it ends with a whopper of a cliffhanger. Gaaaaah! Nevertheless, I’m glad I read it, and will be happy to re-read it when subsequent volumes in the series are produced.

Rating: 4/5

Published by Feiwel and Friends, an imprint of Macmillan, 2012

Addendum: Cinder is on audio too. Macmillan Audio has a production narrated by Rebecca Soler. You can listen to Chapter One here.

Generally when one thinks of our thirty-fourth president, one thinks of golf. Indeed, during Eisenhower’s eight years in office (from 1953-1961) he played almost 800 rounds of golf. Plagued by a football knee injury however, he was never satisfied with his score, and once grumbled, “If I don’t improve, I’m going to pass a law that no one can ask me my golf score.”

Eisenhower playing golf in 1956 (Time Life Pictures - Getty Images)

But Eisenhower was much more adept than his diversionary life suggested, even if the fact that the press played up his avocations (he was also fond of painting) tended to obscure his successes as President. One of the greatest of his achievements was the commanding way in which he handled the Suez Crisis of 1956.

In that year, America’s closest allies pursued a course of action profoundly adverse to U.S. interests and which also brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. In the greatest secrecy, Britain, France, and Israel prepared and conducted an invasion of Egypt in response to Gamal Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal.

Gamal Nasser came to international attention in 1952, when he and a group of army officers overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan. He became president of Egypt in a military coup in 1956. Nasser wanted to build the Aswan High Dam to regulate the flow of the Nile River, and sought financial aid from the United States. The U.S. was willing to assist the Egyptians only if they installed financial controls that the Egyptians considered infringement on their sovereignty. The Soviet Union was willing to assist Egypt under less onerous terms, but the U.S. used its leverage in arms sales to dissuade the Russians. Unable to find satisfactory financing for the dam, Nasser then nationalized the Suez Canal, planning to use revenue from operation of the canal to pay for the dam.

Gamal Nasser

The British envisioned the canal as an important strategic asset because it greatly reduced travel time by sea to its prize colony, India. Even though the canal lay entirely within Egyptian territory, Britain and France owned nearly all the stock in the canal company and Britain had controlled and operated the canal since the 19th century. The British stationed 80,000 troops in the canal zone to protect its interests.

The British and the French could not envision the canal to be operated by mere Arabs (thought to be not even able to make water run down hill). Moreover, the Europeans distrusted Nasser, a dictator in his own country who was openly seeking to be the leader of the Arab world. Meanwhile, Israel and Egypt had been engaged in numerous deadly border skirmishes since 1948. The Israelis were eager to attack Egypt and annex more territory as a buffer zone between the two countries.

The British, French, and Israelis secretly concocted a wild scheme whereby the Israelis would attack Egypt from the East. Britain and France would then intervene militarily to protect their vital interests in the canal.

In mid-October 1956, just before the American presidential elections, the Israelis invaded Egypt, and the British and French launched a large expeditionary force that they had secretly assembled in Malta and Cyprus, ostensibly to separate the Egyptians and Israelis, but actually to retake the canal. Seeking to establish their influence in the Mideast, the Soviets threatened to use all necessary force, including nuclear weapons, to prevent the Europeans from taking the canal.

Eisenhower was just recovering from a severe heart attack. His Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, was also very ill. Nevertheless, during this crisis with the world at the brink of war, Eisenhower managed to keep his composure. Through deft diplomacy and careful manipulation of the procedures of the United Nations, he led an American effort to persuade the British and French to withdraw from Egypt and avoid a world war, all the while keeping the Soviet Union from establishing a foothold in the oil rich Mideast. (It may have helped that the Soviets had their hands full elsewhere, as they were busy brutally putting down popular uprisings in Hungary and Poland.)

Eisenhower realized that Egypt was completely within its right to nationalize the canal with appropriate compensation to the British and French shareholders of the canal company. He also firmly believed and asserted that the law was the same for Egyptians as it was for his long time allies. He rightfully felt betrayed by Britain and France, which had kept their machinations secret from him. He had to take sides against his close friends and allies from World War II to prevent World War III. Moreover, he had to confront a strong pro Israeli lobby and a staunchly pro Israeli Democratic party during a period immediately before the presidential election. All this while conducting his own re-election campaign while his Secretary of State was hors de combat and he himself was recovering from his own medical crisis!

Discussion: Nichols gives us an arresting description of a strong, decisive leader under great pressure. If anything, Eisenhower is portrayed even more favorably than in Michael Korda’s stridently positive Ike, An American Hero.

Eisenhower is surely our most underrated modern president. He had the guts to tell our two closest allies to discontinue a policy near and dear to them. Moreover, he defied a recalcitrant and uncooperative Israeli government, just before a presidential election no less, and forced them to cede territory they had just taken from Egypt by force of arms. Compare the reluctance of our more recent presidents to sacrifice electoral advantage and assert American strategic interest by not objecting to Israel’s construction of additional settlements in occupied land!

Eisenhower 1956 reads almost like an adventure novel with the president as the chief protagonist. But that quality may be its biggest shortcoming. It contains more detail (at what time did Ike arise, how did he sleep, what did he eat) than I found interesting in a book even about very important historical events. On the other hand, Nichols’s analysis is keen, albeit sparse.

Note: An excellent map is included, as well a number of photographs of the key players.

Rating: 3/5

Published by Simon & Schuster, 2011

Hazel and Jack are each 11 years old, and have been best friends since they were six. Hazel feels an obligation to be there for Jack now that his mother is suffering from depression. After all, when Hazel’s parents got divorced, Jack tried to cheer up Hazel by giving her his most prized possession – a baseball signed by Minnesota Twin MVP Joe Mauer. He also is her only friend at the public school she goes to now. Her father will no longer pay for her to go to her private school where creativity was valued; in the public school, the emphases on rules and memorization are so different that Hazel has trouble adjusting. In sum, Hazel, adopted from India, never feels like she fits in anywhere with her different looks and different interests except when she is with Jack.

One day out on the playground, Jack gets injured by a piece of enchanted mirror that falls from the sky. It was made by a demonlike creature, and it turned Jack’s heart to ice. He begins to be mean to Hazel, and then he disappears; he has gone off to live with an icy white witch called The Snow Queen. Hazel doesn’t think about how Jack has changed; she only knows that her friend needs to be rescued. She takes a backpack with some emergency items and Jack’s baseball, and heads into the enchanted woods to find the Snow Queen and get Jack to come back home with her.

In the woods, Hazel must overcome not only the fear of the unknown that awaits her, but a bunch of threatening characters from other fairy tales in what the author, in an interview, called “a sort of dark Hans Christian Andersen theme park.” Hazel has to summon all her reserves of courage and determination to get through the woods, which she does, in the name of friendship. But all of this is only the prelude to the real battle: getting Jack to want to come home.

Discussion: Like all fairy tales, this one uses magic metaphorically so that the story can be read and understood on multiple levels. Hazel has already seen Jack is changing before the magic mirror affects him; he wants to hang out with other boys more, and he is becoming “scratchy and thick,” which is Hazel’s way of characterizing the changes in her friend. Indeed, even the witch warns her that someday Jack will be a man: “you will not even know him, and he will only think of you with a passing smile.” But Hazel understands that already there have been many Jacks and many Hazels: “And maybe she wasn’t going to be able to know all the Jacks that there would be. But all the Hazels that ever would be would have Jack in them, somewhere.”

This is not all she learns on her journey, which forces Hazel to grow up as well. Most of what she learns has to do with the hazards of wanting something for yourself, without thinking about others. There will always be a cost. And some times what you think is your “heart’s desire” turns out much differently than you expected. She also learns there are some things she can never understand, but she must adapt to them anyway, because they are part of the world.

For the most part I loved the updating from “The Snow Queen,” except for one change. In the original, the boy’s heart is restored when the tears of the little girl fall onto his chest and penetrate his heart, melting the lumps of ice and consuming the splinters of the mirror. In this update, Hazel cries, but it is only when Jack takes the baseball and squeezes it that he recognizes Hazel and the breakthrough is made. I thought the original better answered the question of how Jack escaped the spell on him, while also reinforcing the ties between the two children.

Evaluation: Yet another book that makes the point “the world isn’t always what we can see.” This lovely recasting of a fairy tale is intended for middle grade and up, but might be scary for the younger readers in that category.

Rating: 4/5

Note: The book includes captivating illustrations by Erin McGuire, some of which are shown above.

Published by Waldon Pond Press, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2011

For more reviews of books for children and teens, go to Booking Mama’s feature, Kid Konnection, posted on Saturdays. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, leave a comment as well as a link on her site.

“It takes a village” to ensure that each child has a home library, yet finding books that feature children of color can be challenging. This new site provides annotated lists (picture books, historical fiction, graphic novels, books boys love, speculative fiction, poetry, global fiction, etc.) so that adults can go into a bookstore or library armed with titles that truly reflect the diversity of our world.

(picture credit Amy Schimler)

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Nathan is ready to convert for Mina until he is exposed to the anti-Semitism of the mosque. Furthermore, Hayat, acting out of jealousy, takes some irrevocable steps to sabotage the relationship. The result is worse than he anticipated, and nothing short of catastrophic.

Discussion: The whole of the book seems to be a confession by Hayat about how he hurt his beloved Aunt Mina with his use of the Quran to wreak havoc on her romance with Nathan. But by the end of the book, I did not get any sense that he understood why what he did was wrong beyond hurting his aunt. That is, he doesn’t seem to have gained insight into the complexity of the Quran and the pitfalls of reading portions of it out of context; nor does he seem to have any awareness of the 7th Century sociopolitical atmosphere that led to conflicts between Muhammad and other traders and thus informed the Quran. Moreover, he shows no insight into how contemporary politics also affect interpretation of the teachings of Muhammad by the imams in the mosques. Finally, in spite of numerous instances of Hayat being confronted by hypocrisy by adherents of Islam, he never reflects upon what this might mean. In summary, Hayat shows no insight over anything; there is only regret that his scheming turned out worse than he hoped it would.

To me, it seemed like the author was giving Hayat redemption for confessing. That felt shallow to me, and not enough justification for reading through the whole story; I would have been more satisfied from redemption through some self-awareness.

Evaluation: This book provides an interesting look at the life of Muslims in America, but the plot was ultimately unsatisfying to me.

Rating: 2.5/5

Published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc., 2012

Note: Julie of Booking Mama reviewed this recently, and she loved it; be sure to check out her positive take on this book!