Did You Know?: Over One Hundred Facts about Haiti and Her Children by Marjorie Charlot

3 stars
nonfiction
received for review

I snagged this one for review because my brother is Haitian.

Seemed like a cool idea-- 100+ facts about Haiti.

And it was interesting.

Unfortunately it also suffered from being poorly edited, poorly organized, and lacking in balance (some sections had what felt like too much information while others had nowhere near enough).

Mostly I would say this is a collection of mini biographies.

And I do mean MINI.  Like a paragraph.

Ultimately, if you have an interest in or connection to Haiti, maybe give it a try, but it would probably be a far better read if you picked it up and enjoyed a fact or two here and there, rather than reading it straight through in one sitting the way I did.

Christmas Gift Guide Heroes Edition

Heroes for My Son
Heroes for My Daughter
by Brad Meltzer

I haven't had a chance to sit down and read either of these cover to cover yet, but I LOVE the concept.  Meltzer takes various figures from history and gives brief bios.  I love that it's not a book of female heroes for the girls and male heroes for the boys but both books are compilations of all different people. men and women.

I love having these on my shelf.  Next time one of my kids needs to do a biography type project I know where I'm having them start!

I doubt kids will sit and read these all at once, but I think they're wonderful additions to any child's library.

Hannah Arendt: A Life in Dark Times by Anne Heller

4 stars
biography/nonfiction
copy received for review

From GoodReads:

Hannah Arendt, one of the most gifted and provocative voices of her era, was a polarizing cultural theorist—extolled by her peers as a visionary and denounced by others as a fraud. Born in Prussia to assimilated Jewish parents, she escaped from Hitler’s Germany in 1933 and became best known for her critique of the world’s response to the evils of World War II.

A woman of many contradictions, Arendt learned to write in English only at the age of thirty-six, and yet her first book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, single-handedly altered the way generations of Americans and Europeans viewed fascism and genocide. Her most famous—and most divisive—work,Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, brought fierce controversy that continues to this day, exacerbated by the posthumous discovery that she had been the lover of the great romantic philosopher and Nazi sympathizer Martin Heidegger.

In this fast-paced, comprehensive biography, Anne Heller tracks the source of Arendt’s apparent contradictions and her greatest achievements, from a tumultuous childhood to her arrival as what she called a “conscious pariah”—one of those few people in every time and place who don’t “lose confidence in ourselves if society does not approve us” and will not “pay any price” to win acceptance.

I didn't actually know much (if anything) about Hannah Arendt before reading this.  I found the book fascinating and packed with information with seeming dense.

It was clear and easy-to-read without feeling simplified.

My only complaint would be there was some repetition... as though the author were concerned that people might only read some sections or not read them in order... or not remember anything from the previous sections.  This was possibly more apparent/annoying to me since I read the whole thing in a day.

All in all a good biography.

The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig

5 Stars
nonfiction-- autobiographical
YA (can you call it YA if it's nonfiction?) or maybe even younger

Esther was 10 when the soldiers came, accusing her family of being capitalists and loading them onto a train headed for Siberian exile.

Interestingly enough-- they were Jews.  But the Russians got to them before the Germans did.  As bad a Siberia was, it wasn't a concentration camp.

Esther's story of Siberia was really interesting.  I wish it were longer, though.  I'm curious as to how they managed to rebuild after finally being allowed to return to Poland when Esther was about 15.

Highly recommended.  Very interesting and not as graphic or hard to read as, say Anne Frank's Diary.  (Not that I ever finished that one... I got bored.  Isn't that terrible?)  I think younger readers would get a lot out of this one.

I read this one for the Shelf Discovery Challenge and it counts for the Support Your Local Library Challenge!

Mormon Scientist by Henry J Eyring

Did not finish
Nonfiction
book club (sorry, ladies... I give up!)

I've been reading this book for months.

Well, okay, it's been sitting here with a bookmark in it for months. I've renewed it to the ends of the earth-- including taking it in and asking the librarian to check it in so I can start all over.

Let me start by saying it's fascinating. It really is. Henry J Eyring's story of his grandfather is really really interesting.

(Side note, for those that are familiar with LDS church leadership and highly confused-- Henry J is the son of Henry B of the First Presidency. The book is about Henry, father of Henry B. Clear as mud? Yeah I thought so too. This is why I don't name kids after us...)

Anyway.

So if it's so interesting, you're asking, why didn't I finish it? Um... because I have a limited attention span/tolerance for nonfiction. :D

The books biggest problem is organization. It's not chronological. I'm sorry, my OCD brain simply cannot handle a non-chronological biography.

PLUS, it's in sections, so when you start a new section it's almost like you're starting over again... back to his childhood.

So really, after finishing the first section of the book, starting the next seemed... redundant.

Which isn't fair, because he's a fascinating man and his story deserves attention....

But between the organization and pregnancy brain (you caught last week's Wordless Wednesday, right?) I topped out at page 116.

Now the irony (perhaps anyway... my senior English teacher may quibble with that use of the word) is that I ABSOLUTELY recommend this book! Like I said, his story is fascinating and really deserves attention... I just have no attention to give at the moment.**

Anyway-- you should try it, though. Then come tell me how the other 100 some odd pages were. :D

**I swear that needs a term.... like Pregnancy-Induced, Nonfiction Aggravated Attention Deficit Disorder.... PINAADD. Hmm... Maybe not. :D

Completely random note-- this makes 400 posts!!