Snow on Martinmas

author: Heather Sleightholm
name: Wayne
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2017/04/30
date added: 2017/04/30
shelves: children-s
review:
'Snow on Martinmans by Heather Sleighholm is a book about the November 11th religious holiday. I did not grow up in a religious tradition that taught me about Saint Martin, but I liked this picture book about a snowy day and a feast.

It's snowing at grandma's house and she is telling the children about Martinmas. It celebrates Saint Martin who was a Roman soldier who cut and shared his coat with a poor beggar. He became a monk and was made bishop, but he didn't want to be one at first. They found him hiding among the geese, so the holiday is celebrated with feasting on geese.

It's a warm story about a holiday with food on a cold day. It's also about the kindness we can show others. The illustrations are a bit one dimensional, but they are colorful and folksy. I found it charming and unassuming.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Xist Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.


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A Soldier's Sketchbook: The Illustrated First World War Diary of R.H. Rabjohn

author: John Wilson
name: Wayne
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2017/04/30
date added: 2017/04/30
shelves: children-s, non-fiction
review:
'A Soldier's Sketchbook: The Illustrated First World War Diary of R.H. Rabjohn'
by John Wilson has over 100 sketches that Russel Rabjohn made during his time in the First World War.

Russell Rabjohn joined the Canadian army when he was 18. Because he was a trained artist, he was assigned to draw dugouts, maps, and graves. Because of this, he was allowed to carry a sketchbook, which was also his diary of the war. The book is broken up into chapters, including his training, his time in Vimy and Ypres and the end of the war and heading home.

Russell Rabjohn was in the fight at the Battle of Passchendaele, a brutal, bloody, muddy battle that has a 100 year anniversary this year. He lost a lot of people around him as the bombs fell.

This is a book for younger readers, so the diary entries are not completely printed, but there is text giving a flow to the events. There is also a timeline of the war and a further reading list.

What is most notable are the stunning sketches that are made. Most soldiers were prohibited from taking pictures or sketches of the war. The author of this book, John Wilson, first ran into these in a privately published book from 1977. Rabjohn has 5 written diaries in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

This is a moving record of a young man, far from home, experiencing terrible things around him and recording them. I'm very glad I got a chance to read this ebook.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Tundra Books, Penguin Random House Canada, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.


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Super Women: Six Scientists Who Changed the World

author: Laurie Lawlor
name: Wayne
average rating: 3.38
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2017/04/30
date added: 2017/04/30
shelves: non-fiction, children-s
review:
'Super Women: Six Scientists Who Changed the World' by Laurie Lawlor is a book for middle school readers that gives short biographies on six amazing women.

Included in the book are the bios of Eugenie Clark, who swam with sharks, and Katherine Coleman Johnson, one of the human computers at NASA, whose story was told as part of the recent film Hidden Figures. Marie Tharp mapped the ocean floor, Florence Hawley Ellis was an archaeologist and anthropologist of Pueblo cultures. Gertrude Elion worked on treatments for leukemia and AIDS and won the Nobel Prize. Margaret Burbidge was an astrophysicist in an era when women weren't even allowed to use some of the larger observatories.

It becomes apparent that these are women who overcame adversity. Many also benefitted from World War II, when women of their skills were suddenly given opportunities. Many of them had trouble working in their field or even getting in to the classes they needed. All of them made significant findings in their field.

I've read a few books on S.T.E.M. and many of them feel a bit uninspired. This is the sort of thing that could inspire a young person to look to these fields and see the people who have gone on before them.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Myrick Marketing & Media, LLC, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.


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Walden

author: Henry David Thoreau
name: Wayne
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1854
rating: 5
read at: 2017/04/29
date added: 2017/04/29
shelves: non-fiction, classics
review:
'Walden' by Henry David Thoreau holds up pretty well for a book written in 1854. I found the writing style to be easy enough for my 21st century brain to comprehend.

This is a non-fiction book about the two years that Thoreau spend in a cabin out by Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. The book is full of details such as the costs he will save by living off the land, and how the pond changes throughout the seasons. He spends time talking about the neighbors he has, both human and animal. He gives opinion about the pursuits of other people he knows and their degraded way of living. It ends with an entreaty to explore the world around us for "The universe is wider than our views of it."

I grew up near woods, and I spent many days wandering them alone. I learned to listen to the sounds and see the animals and signs they left. This book resonated with that younger version of myself. I really enjoyed the time I spent with Walden.


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Green Arrow, Volume 2: Island of Scars

author: Benjamin Percy
name: Wayne
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2017/04/29
date added: 2017/04/29
shelves: graphic-novels
review:
'Green Arrow, Volume 2: Island of Scars' is three stories, with two told in flashback. This is ok, except if you haven't read the previous volume, the shift to the present will be a bit confusing.

In the last volume, Oliver Queen lost everything and is stranded on an island again, but the book starts with a story about his half-sister Emiko that also has a flashback embedded in it. Emiko and her mother are in Tokyo and Emiko is trying to get her mother out of the debt she owes to crime boss Oyabun. In a flashback to happier days with Green Arrow (you know, when he had money and a place to live in Seattle), she recalls a case involving The Clock King. For some reason The Clock King can see the future of everyone but Emiko, and that ends up saving Green Arrow. Finally we get to the present and Ollie is stranded, but he's not alone: Black Canary and John Diggle are stranded with him.

This collects issues 6-11 of the latest series. I like Emiko, but I feel like her story should be better developed or she's just going to feel like so many other teenage sidekicks. I think there could be more to this character, but I'm not feeling it yet. The second half of the book is better with Ollie, Dinah and John figuring out how to stay alive and get off the island.

The art in this book was really good. I love the W. Scott Forbes covers on the early issues. They are very striking. Stephen Byrne's work on the Emiko/Ollie issues are good. Otto Schmidt's work on the island issues is really good. Juan Ferreyra inks the last issue well too.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from DC Entertainment and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank ou for allowing me to review this graphic novel.


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The Art of the Strain

author: Robert Abele
name: Wayne
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/04/27
shelves: non-fiction
review:



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These Heroic, Happy Dead: Stories

author: Luke Mogelson
name: Wayne
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2017/04/27
date added: 2017/04/27
shelves:
review:
'These Heroic, Happy Dead: Stories' by Luke Mogelson is a collection of 10 short stories with a linked theme and some subtle links between them.

The stories here are about people affected by recent wars that American has been involved in. Through deployments to criminal activity. A shady military contractor, a reporter talking about Kabul, and a guy who talks his way into a crew job on a boat in the San Francisco bay are just a few of these characters. These are flawed, human characters who sometimes make bad choices. Much of that is fueled by experiences they've had in a warzone.

The author is a recent reporter for the New Yorker and was based in Afghanistan. Like many short story collections, I thought some stories were better than others. A couple of the stories are online at The New Yorker if you want a sample.

The writing style is clean and unbiased. There is no weighting judgment placed on the characters or their actions. They just are who they are, forever changed by war. The work is reminiscent to me of the writings of Tim O'Brien. I enjoyed reading this work.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Crown Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.


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