My Favorite Picture Books and Middle Grade of 2020

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The year 2020 was a great year for books. I reviewed many of them here in previous columns, but it was impossible to share them all. I am going to highlight some of the best picture books and novels that I have yet to share.

DERRICK BARNES and GORDON C. JAMES’ “I AM EVERY GOOD THING” is one of the best books I read this year and maybe one of the best picture books I have read in a long time. Barnes and James won a multitude of awards (including the Newbery Medal) with “Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut,” their last picture book, and they did not disappoint with the follow up.

The last few years have offered a great deal of self-esteem themed picture books with many notable titles — including “Crown” and “I Am Enough,” to name a few — but “I Am Every Good Thing” somehow feels uniquely fresh. Even the best picture book encouraging self-confidence runs the risk of relying on cliches or overwrought phrases. The power here lies in the mundane, in the personal aspects of what the narrator (in this case, a young Black boy) believes he is good at, as well as in the boldness and confidence of the broader proclamations. I read this book as part of a library program designed to encourage children to think about what makes them special. While I was not the target audience, I found myself reading and rereading passages of this book because it made me feel good about myself. The best picture books are universal, offering something for every reader.

James’ illustrations are similar to those in “Crown,” and they excel here for similar reasons. The oil paint portraits feel as grand as the bold proclamations the narrator makes throughout. James paints the children in the book as they see themselves or how they wish others would see them.

Another picture book I loved in the latter part of 2020 was the FAN BROTHERS’ “THE BARNABUS PROJECT,” which follows a group of misfit pets (or “failed experiments”) as they try to break out of the Perfect Pets secret lab. Barnabus, a hybrid mouse-elephant, acts as the leader in this epic escape story that begins in an underground lab where perfectly cute, fluffy and well-behaved pets are created.

Barnabus and the other failed experiments sit alone under bell jars until they are recycled into something cuter. The lush illustrations lend a weight to this (very cute) escape story, making Barnabus’ experience feel both real and grave. The Fan Brothers (Terry, Eric and Devin) create adorably strange neighbors for Barnabus as well, including birdlike creatures with long legs and puffball bodies, a box turtle with a fuzzy body and a tiny monster with the stripes, wings and antennae of a bumblebee. The full-page spreads showing the underground pipes connecting the laboratory to the pet shop up above, as well as the breakout scene, are layered, complex, and beautiful. This is one to own.

JERRY CRAFT’s 2019 debut graphic novel, “The New Kid,” won a multitude of awards, including the Newbery Medal for the best children’s book. I enjoyed the fun, funny and insightful book well enough, but I have to admit that I loved the 2020 companion even more. “CLASS ACT” picks up where its predecessor left off, with protagonist Jordan navigating his second year as one of the few Black students at a prestigious, all-white private school. This time around, we get to hear from his new friend Drew, a darker-skinned boy at Riverdale on a scholarship, as well as their wealthy white friend Liam. Drew in particular struggles with what it means to be Black and poor when most of his friends are not. His grandmother’s words echo in his brain (“You have to work twice as hard to be just as good”) as he works to make good grades, navigate friendships and figure out who he wants to be. If “Class Act” were not a graphic novel, it would read much differently. Though the subject matter is often serious, the accessibility and humor of Craft’s illustrations gives it the feel of a (really great) sketchbook over a weighty memoir. Each chapter illustration borrows from a popular comic or graphic novel (some favorites include Jeff Kinney’s “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and Shannon Hale’s “Real Friends”), and the award-winning author/illustrator includes directional cues when it may be difficult to know which way to read.

The last middle-grade novel I loved this year was KELLY J. BAPTIST’s “ISAIAH DUNN IS MY HERO.” This book, which began as a short story for the middle-grade anthology “Flying Lessons and Other Stories,” follows preteen Isaiah, a sweet kid who is faced with serious challenges as he and his family endure homelessness, wrestle with grief and battle substance abuse. His writing and the notebooks his dad left behind serve as a buoy that keep him from going adrift. He spends Saturdays in the library, writing poems and reading his dad’s stories, all of which are about Isaiah the superhero. The actual Isaiah may not be sure if he is a superhero, but his dad’s love for him gives him the confidence to keep going when it seems as if life has turned against him. I love Isaiah as a character — he is sweet, a good friend, a good son and a good big brother. The circumstances mean he has to be stronger than a kid should have to be, but Baptist still lets him be a kid. Finally — though I may be biased here — I appreciate that the library is an oasis for Isaiah, a place where he can get lost in books and in his writing. This is an excellent debut novel about growing up, loss, the power of words and the importance of community.

The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures by Jennifer Hofmann

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East Berlin, early November 1989. Protestors seeking political reforms thrum the city. You can feel it: The old communist order is falling apart. And so is Bernd Zeiger, Stasi officer.

While you and I know that the Berlin Wall is set to topple, the characters in Jennifer Hofmann’s excellent debut novel The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures do not. And, really, the protests that contribute to the wall’s cracking are just sporadic backdrops throughout the novel. What Hofmann gives us is a small cast of characters trying to lurch their way through daily life in a regime that has already taken so much from them.

Zeiger, nearing the end of his career as an officer in East Germany’s brutal secret police organization, is—like the wall—on the verge of total collapse. He has “developed a death wish, passive but pronounced.” The impetus for his breakdown: Lara, a waitress at the café he frequents, has disappeared. Apparently, Zeiger is so starved for human connection that an accidental near fall at the café, resulting in Lara catching herself by placing her hand on his shoulder, has reduced him to a vessel of total need. His life is a double helix of loss of meaning and a yearning for the one thing that might restore some balance: Lara. Driving Berlin, he sees her everywhere. “Lara, the blinding cherry lights ahead. Lara, the speckle of dried dirt on his windshield. Lara in the stratosphere. Lara in the ether.”

If Zeiger had one life-defining event, it was penning a reference work entitled “Standardization of Demoralization Procedures” (SDP Manual). As a young Stasi officer, he was unsettled by the Soviet method of torturing subjects into confessions (real or not). So he codified a different kind of torture, where recipients were at the end of a barrage of mental maneuverings (ridiculous, yet effective) that led to mental chaos. If they confessed, great. If not, it didn’t really matter. A different charge awaited.

An example of its comic absurdity: Subchapter 1.1, “Demoralization through Repetitive, Tedious Speech,” where, in one case, a Party spokesman talked for so long he had “anesthetized an entire room of journalists with his old Berliner lilt.” Still, to Zeiger, it was his “life’s work, a substantial volume, the closest he’d come to fathering.”

I won’t give away what becomes of Zeiger’s search for Lara, but it’s ultimately both fantastical and beautiful. Throughout his pursuit, we learn that Zeiger was on his way to becoming a young orphan after his father was marched into oblivion, Germany having lost the Eastern Front during World War II. (The Eastern Front cost many German children their fathers, “when more stray dogs than grown men had roamed the streets.”) The process of becoming an orphan was complete after his mother received a small box, courtesy of the Soviets. Inside were the remains of her husband. Soon after, she had an “accident’ and “fell face forward into her Walther service gun.”

Dark stuff, indeed. However, the book is often wickedly funny. When a colleague presents a picture of his adult son (also gone missing), Zeiger sees in him “features reminiscent of circus performers with pituitary problems.” Further losing his repose, Zeiger says to this colleague, “I think I’m dying.”

“Differently than the rest of us?”

“I believe so.”

“What makes your death so special?”

“That it’s mine.”

Then there was that time in Zeiger’s career when he reported to work having not received the memorandum that the color gray had been banned within the Party. At HQ, everyone else wore clownishly bright attire. The concept of gray, he learned, “was the sustenance of skeptics.”

So there you have Zeiger, crushed by the Soviets in his youth and then made to do their bidding as an adult. And he knows it. “Failure and shame; iron and steel.”

There are moments in the novel when the question of “Why?” is asked. Why was insanity allowed to reign for so long? It’s almost impossible to find a satisfactory answer. One can only circle around it. “Misery was never content with its victories, not because it was greedy, but because it had no memory.”

The torturer ends up torturing himself. “Any room, he realized, can be a torture chamber. It need not be titled as such to become one. A bedroom, a pretty house, a state, one’s own porous skull.” Hofmann’s novel is a reminder that the building and ultimate tearing down of a wall that was meant to divide expended too many lives, lives that would have been better spent doing just about anything else.

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The Secret, Book & Scone Society by Ellery Adams

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I enjoy mysteries with well-developed characters and if it is part of a series, all the better. Ellery Adams’ Secret, Book and Scone Society series has everything I like.

The series gets its title from the first book, The Secret, Book & Scone Society. The setting is the small town of Miracle Springs, North Carolina. The town is situated on the Appalachian Trail and is known for its thermal pools and spa. The afternoon train brings not only tourists but those seeking the comfort and relief the thermal pools provide.

Nora Pennington, the owner of Miracle Books, looks forward to the shoppers and to those seeking change and healing. She is a former librarian and a bibliotherapist. After talking to and listening to her readers she selects titles that help them achieve change and peace.

Nora was the recipient of bibliotherapy after an accident left her with burn scars on her right side. A nurse at the hospital knew Nora’s love of books would help her. The carefully chosen titles took her from despair and remorse to hope.

Sitting in the park before opening the bookstore, Nora meets a man in need of her talents. He works for the company bringing a new housing development to Miracle Springs. Something about the project has him deeply troubled and an employee at the thermal pools told him about Nora.

Before he comes to the bookstore, Nora sends him to the Gingerbread House for a scone. Hester Winthrop, the owner, will bake him a customized scone. She draws people out then adds ingredients to their scone that will invoke a special memory.

However, somewhere between receiving his scone and his session with Nora the stranger meets the train and not in a good way. Estella Sadler, owner of Magnolia Salon and Spa, is the first to tell Nora about the death. She is followed by Hester who at least knows the man’s name is Neil.

Soon a deputy arrives requesting the presence of Nora and Hester at the sheriff’s office. June Dixon, the employee at the thermal pools who sent Neil to Nora, has also been brought in to be interviewed. After the interviews the ladies are convinced that Sheriff Hendricks will not investigate Neil’s death. The easy thing for him to do is rule it a suicide.

Feeling that the troubled man who sought them out deserved better, the ladies decide to find out for themselves if it was suicide or murder. They want to keep their investigation a secret so to explain their meetings the four (Estella has already been asking questions) form a book club – the Secret, Book, and Scone Society.

It soon becomes apparent that things are not what they seem with the new housing development. Then another partner in the development is found dead and Estella is charged with his murder. Can Nora and her new partners find the murderer and free Estella before someone else dies?

Each of these ladies is a loner because of past traumas. To trust each other and become friends, they realize they must share their most painful secrets. As they meet to share information and theories, we hear the stories and the traumas that have brought them all to Miracle Springs.

This series is a winner if the rest of the books are as good as the first. Nora is the lead but each of the four women are strong, sympathetic characters. The setting is charming as is the bookstore in an old train depot. The mystery keeps you turning the pages with some twists you might not see coming.

I’m looking forward to “The Whispered Word”, “The Book of Candlelight” and what other titles may follow. Recommended read-alikes are Jenn McKinlay and Eva Gates. I will add Susan Albert Wittig as I think if you like the China Bayles series you’ll like this one too.

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The Book of Dust Trilogy by Philip Pullman

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Philip Pullman wrote the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials (beginning with The Golden Compass) back in the late nineties. These books center on a young girl, Lyra Belacqua, living in an alternate reality England where every human is born with a shapeshifting animal companion known as a daemon.

In the His Dark Materials trilogy, readers follow Lyra’s story as she thwarts the Magisterium, a religious-organization-turned-government that controls society by suppressing knowledge. Lyra meets a boy from our world who possesses a knife capable of cutting through the invisible veils between dimensions. The two of them travel to other realities, trying to understand what binds these worlds together – a substance known as Dust.

I loved these books when I was young, so you can imagine my delight when, in 2017, Philip Pullman began another trilogy, THE BOOK OF DUST, still focused on Lyra’s story, but with a wider lens.

Volume one, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, details the events that brought Lyra to Jordan College – Lyra’s father left her as a ward of Jordan when she was an infant. The protagonist of this novel is Malcolm Polstead, an eleven-year-old boy whose parents run an inn three miles from Oxford.

He spends his time paddling his canoe, proudly referred to as La Belle Sauvage, up and down the river. He runs errands for his family and the nuns living in a priory on the opposite bank. The nuns have taken in a baby – Lyra – and when her father visits the inn, Malcolm takes him to visit the priory.

Soon, the whole region begins experiencing heavy rainfall, which swells the river and destroys the priory. Luckily Malcolm and Alice, a teenager working at the inn, are able to rescue Lyra just as the river begins to flood.

Malcolm and Alice get Lyra into La Belle Sauvage and the three of them begin flowing down river. They intend to take Lyra to Jordan College in Oxford, but the current is too strong. Instead, they follow the river to London – where Lyra’s father lives. Along the way the group have many misadventures, and multiple encounters with a dangerous man who is after Lyra.

Volume two, THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH, picks up Lyra’s story after the events of the original trilogy. Lyra is now a twenty-year-old undergraduate at a ladies college in Oxford.

Lyra and her daemon, Pan, are having difficulty adjusting back to a normal life after their adventures. One of the last places that Will and Lyra visited was the world of the dead – a place where no daemon can follow. Lyra had to leave Pan behind, and neither of them has truly come to terms with that trauma.

The physical result of the separation is their ability to leave one another’s side – a feat impossible for most humans and their daemons. Pan takes advantage of this to storm off on his own whenever he and Lyra get into a fight. On one of these excursions, he witnesses a murder.

The dying man entrusts Pan with a key to a locker, inside he and Lyra find a journal that tells of a building deep in the desert where they grow a special rose that grants the ability to see Dust. The journal says that daemons are not allowed to go to this building, and describes how people who want to go in must separate from their daemons.

Pan wants to know more about these mysteries, but Lyra would rather keep her head down and deal with more practical concerns. She and Pan get into another argument, this time about the ways that Lyra has changed since they returned from their adventures. The next morning he is gone, and Lyra finds a note that says “gone to look for your imagination.”

But a human without a daemon, or a daemon without a human, is never completely safe. Other daemons can sense that something is off with Lyra, and it makes their humans nervous. Lyra will have to call on friends both old and new to find Pan and bring him home.

The third volume in the trilogy is in the works right now, and there is very little information about it. But the library has copies of La Belle Sauvage and The Secret Commonwealth, if you would like to join me as I eagerly anticipate the conclusion of THE BOOK OF DUST.

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Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams & Beach Read by Emily Henry

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As of late, I have been on a romance reading kick. If you would have asked me several years ago if I liked romance, I’d have answered in the negative, but that opinion was not really based in fact. I had read few romance books at that point and thought they were all about the sex scenes. What I have discovered in reading more romance titles is that, while some do have pretty elaborately described sex scenes, most are focused on the relationship and connection that develops between two people, and the majority have a happy or uplifting ending.

I think I have needed these “everyone lives happily ever after” endings to balance out the other stressful things happening in my life over the past few months. So if you are looking for some lighter fare during this time, here are some options:

In the “BROMANCE BOOK CLUB” by LYSSA KAY ADAMS, Major League Baseball player Gavin Scott went from being on top of the world — thanks to hitting a grand slam in one of the biggest games of his life — to having one of the worst nights of his life, discovering his wife had been faking it. He throws a giant fit, moves to the guest room and refuses to talk to his wife, Thea, about their issues. So she asks him to move out.

Holed up in a seedy hotel room, drinking his emotions away, Gavin is introduced to a secret male book club where his friend and teammate, Del Hicks, and other high-powered movers and shakers in Nashville get together, read and discuss romance novels, using them as “manuals” to better understand their wives and girlfriends.

Gavin thinks it’s a crazy idea, but after Thea asks for a divorce, he is willing to try anything. He starts to read a Regency romance novel called “Courting the Countess” and is soon putting his newfound knowledge to use trying to win Thea back.

I could not put this second chance romance down. I read it over the course of a weekend and loved every minute of it. It made me laugh out loud several times, and while the character development was quick, I felt like I got a good sense of most of the characters. The subject matter was serious, but the book had a positive, energetic feel to it — light, fluffy and full of emotions that were easy to identify with.

In “BEACH READ” by EMILY HENRY, lead character January Andrews is struggling. Along with the loss of her father, she seems to have lost her picture perfect life too. First, she discovers her father was unfaithful to her mother. And then, her boyfriend breaks up with her. As if that was not enough, she develops a serious case of writer’s block.

With her bank account about to become overdrawn, she has little choice but to pack up and leave the city for the one option she has — a beach house her father left her. Unfortunately, it’s the place he shared with his mistress, but January is desperate, so she resigns herself to staying there until she is finally able to complete the novel she has been promising her agent for months.

Little does she know she is about to run into a former classmate and fellow writer Augustus Everett. Gus lives in the neighboring beach house and is also working on a novel. The two get off to a rocky start — her yelling at him to turn the music down and him making cutting comments about her — but they soon call a truce.

And more importantly, they make a bet about writing. He will write something happy, and she will write a more realistic-type Great American Novel. The loser will have to write a blurb for the winner’s book. As part of their deal, their weekends are spent on research together. Gus is in charge of Friday nights, and January is in charge of Saturdays. What ensues are a lot of datelike outings, and eventually, January is on the brink of breaking one of the rules Gus set at the beginning — not to fall in love with him.

The plot is somewhat predictable, but it does not detract from the book’s readability or the chemistry between the characters. It is a lovely, compelling title. Both characters have had their hearts broken, though in different ways, and they use their time together to heal, build a relationship and develop new writing skills.

And if you are looking for additional romance titles, here are a few more:

• “The Overdue Life of Amy Byler” by Kelly Harms

• “Evvie Drake Starts Over” by Linda Holms

• “Meet Cute” by Helena Hunting

• “The Kiss Quotient” by Helen Hoang

• “The Bride Test” by Helen Hoang

• “When Dimple Met Rishi” by Sandhya Menon

• “The Sun is Also a Star” by Nicola Yoon

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Random Treasures from the Stacks

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Oh, No! Where Are My Pants? and Other Disasters: Poems  selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins with pictures by Wolf Erlbruch

Peculiar Questions and Practical Answers: A Little Book of Whimsy and Wisdom from the Files of the New York Public Library  New York Public Library, illustrated by Barry Blitt

Smithsonian Handbook of Interesting Insects by Gavin R. Broad, Blanca Huertas, Ashley H. Kirk-Spriggs, and Dmitry Telnov

Sometimes in life you find treasures where (or when) you least expect them–in a sock drawer, a box in the attic, a coat pocket.  (Hello, $20 bill!)  I love those moments of serendipity, those little happy accidents that bring a surprise and brighten my day.  On my way to this week’s book review, I happened upon some delightful gems tucked away on the library shelves, and I’m excited to share them with you!

I found this treat in the Children’s Department.  Oh, No! Where Are My Pants? and Other Disasters: Poems is a picture book of 14 poems just right for “one of those days”.  In a year overflowing with “those days”, this book nails it.  Editor Lee Bennett Hopkins gathers from a variety of poets verses designed to validate children’s feelings in situations that make a day “one of those”.  Ranging across regret (cutting off your braids on dare), fear (being stuck alone at the top of the Ferris wheel), loneliness (watching your friend move away), stage fright (freezing up during your big debut), panic (being separated on the first day of school), embarrassment (giving the wrong answer during class), and more, the poems–some poignant, some humorous–allow readers to recognize and understand that life is a mix of the good and the not-so-much.  Illustrator Wolf Erlbruch balances the potentially overwhelming feelings with warmth and humor.  I chuckled and groaned at Kate McAllaster Weaver’s poem about disgust, “Oh, No!”: “Hello apple! / Shiny red. / CHOMP. CHOMP. / Hello worm. / Where’s your head?”  The look Erlbruch drew on the boy’s face is priceless.  Give this book to early elementary students and their grown-ups to read and discuss together.

I never thought I’d use the words “beauty” and “delight” to describe a book of insects, yet here I am applying them to the Smithsonian Handbook of Interesting Insects by Gavin R. Broad, Blanca Huertas, Ashley H. Kirk-Spriggs, and Dmitry Telnov.  Finding it was truly a happy accident!  In my experience, insect books are for identifying recently-dispatched intruders.  This is not a dry, clinical field guide to household pests; instead, it’s a gorgeous photography book.  Thick yet compact in size, it is an easily portable and robust collection of striking beetles, flies, ants, moths, bees, wasps, and butterflies.  Each entry is a two-page, minimalist spread of a full-color photo on a white background accompanied by the specimen’s common name, scientific name, size, “distribution” (current range), and a paragraph of basic information or an interesting fact.  Don’t look to this title for comprehensive coverage of the insect world; it is exactly what it advertises–a book of interesting insects, many of them not found in the American Midwest.  Enjoy the photography that places their quirky natural beauty front and center.  The specimens are truly a wonder!  The purple shine of the Darkling Beetle’s shell is deep and radiant like a Siberian amethyst, and the Orchard Cuckoo Bee’s blue-green iridescence is almost three-dimensional in the way it pops from the page.  The hairy patterns on the Thistledown Velvet Ant surprisingly resemble a Halloween costume.  This book is an eye-opening look at select insects (no murder hornets here, thankfully) and is guaranteed to spark the interest of nature lovers elementary age to adult.

And now for something completely different!  From the 1940s until the late 1980s, the New York Public Library kept a file of intriguing reference questions written or typed on index cards.  Peculiar Questions and Practical Answers: A Little Book of Whimsy and Wisdom from the Files of the New York Public Library brings highlights from those files to a Google-centric world.  Compiled by a committee of New York Public Library staff and illustrated by Barry Blitt, this pocket/purse-sized title offers chuckles and makes you say, “hmmm”.  Some entries are dated, very much of their time, and some remain relevant today.  Each entry consists of an original question from the files and its year asked followed by an answer as if it were being asked currently.  Muted watercolor illustrations in a palette of blues, greens, browns, and reds are sprinkled throughout.  One of my favorite questions was asked in 1983, “Is there a list of buildings that were designed and built in the shape of fruits and vegetables?”  Across the page, King Kong sits atop a giant carrot swatting at airplanes.  Someone in 1944 desperately needed to know, “Is it possible to keep an octopus in a private home?”  (Spoiler alert: be sure to keep a tight lid on the tank because they’re escape artists.)  If you’re an adult looking for a book that’s short and light and fun, try this one.

You never know what treasures you’ll find at the Joplin Public Library.  Stop by or call us at (417) 623-7953 to find out more.  See you soon!

How the Post Office Created America: A History by Winifred Gallagher

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I fancy sending and receiving mail: cards, letters, mail art, packages, and postcards. I delight even in receiving unsolicited consumer catalogs and other junk mail that make for great collage material. In a word, mail is fun. At its inception, however, what came to be our country’s postal service wasn’t meant for fun, but for a “secure, independent communications network so that [our country’s co-founders] could talk treason and circulate the latest news without fear of arrest.”

Readers interested in the history of the United States Postal Service or the history of the founding of America will find Winifred Gallagher’s How the Post Office Created America: A History fascinating. Throughout the book, Gallagher draws parallels between the development of the postal system and that of our country, illustrating that one could not have happened without the other.

In addition to needing a way to “talk treason,” our forefathers desired a way to disseminate information to the public in post-Revolutionary America. Prior to this time, mail, which was then the only means of remote communication, was a privilege rather than the given that it is today. Those who lacked access to this communication network also lacked access to information. The postal service was increasingly relied upon as a means to educate the public about our country’s development and encourage their participation. Newspapers are among the first materials to be mailed to the masses. In fact, it was common for printers to double as postmasters. The distribution of newspapers via the postal service helped democratize access to information similar to how the post democratized access to communication.

But it wasn’t easy and it didn’t happen overnight. Gallagher expounds on the challenges that beleaguered the post. Transportation, for example. The earliest mail carriers were post riders. Men, usually, though not always, who carried the post on horseback and rode tirelessly to their destinations or to hand the mail off to their relay (not unlike a relay race). This was especially dangerous in a mostly unsettled country thick with uncertainty and thin, at best, with the infrastructure required to carry out the service.

Post roads were mapped to connect the country, as well as to shape its settlement. Mail was increasingly delivered by stagecoach (so called because it would stop at various intervals, or stages, along the way). By 1813, Congress authorized steamers to carry mail and, in 1823, “all waterways” were declared post roads. The development of the postal service is closely tied to that of the railroad with a sort of public-private partnership that led to the Railway Mail Service, which, until aviation came along, was the most efficient method of transporting the mail. According to Gallagher (and she makes a great case), the postal service single-handedly supported the aviation industry by subsidizing its infrastructure.

Transportation wasn’t the mail’s only challenge, however. Another was safety. Not only that of postal employees, but of the mail itself. Especially during the post rider, stagecoach, and railway days, it was not uncommon for the mail to be stolen. When mail traveled via railway it did so in wooden train cars that were placed behind the engine car, which meant that it was susceptible to fire, endangering both employees and the mail.

Finances were yet another challenge. In the early days of the American postal service, it was not the sender who paid for personal correspondence, but the recipient. One went to the post office (because that was the only option prior to home delivery) and asked for their letters and paid only for those that they wished to receive. Not surprisingly, this was costly. Not to mention the accumulation of unwanted letters, which ended up in the Dead Letter Office (an interesting destination and story in and of itself).

The postal service did more than overcome challenges, though. It changed America’s social landscape. During the Victorian era, letter-writing became extremely popular, especially among women. So much so that post offices installed separate windows for women to pick up their correspondence so as to keep aligned with that era’s social mores (i.e. to keep the women from the men, especially because, at that time, post offices could also double as places of vice). Books about the etiquette of writing letters abounded and stamp lockets, a locket containing stamps worn on a chain around the neck, became popular, as did stamp collecting.

In her final chapter, she examines the postal service’s missed opportunity to provide the Internet as a non-profit public service rather than our current privatized for-profit system. When considering how different access to electronic communication and information might look had the post prepared for a digital future, she imagines: “They would have insisted that every post office in America become a neighborhood media hub equipped with a bank of computers that enable citizens to go online for little or no expense–a service now provided by more than sixty nations around the world, to say nothing of America’s own public libraries, where people que up or take a number for online access.”

These considerations have merit. After all, the postal service and the Internet are not unlike one another. Both came about to fulfill the need for remote communication and the dissemination of information, while helping to democratize access in the process. Interestingly, public perception of both has been, at times, similar. To wit: It was feared that mail order catalogs and buying/selling goods through the mail would destroy local businesses much like it’s feared that buying/selling goods online will do the same.

Gallagher details America’s long, winding postal road with an intriguing history that spans two centuries while skillfully supporting her claim that the post office created America. In the final words of her afterward, “Whither the Post,” Gallagher encourages us “to reflect on what the post has accomplished over the centuries and what it could and should contribute in the years to come” before deciding its future. To state it simply, reading this title has only strengthened my opinion that, too often, our postal service is taken for granted.

As always, happy reading.

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“A Polar Bear in the Snow” by Mac Barnett & “In the Half Room” by Carson Ellis

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2020 has been a roller coaster of a year, but books have been undeniably good.

This year, all three of my favorite picture book authors/illustrators have released new titles — two debuted on the same day. I wrote about Christian Robinson’s “You Matter” a few months back, so I will reserve this review for the two most recent titles.

One of my favorite artists, Caldecott honoree CARSON ELLIS released her third solo book last month. “IN THE HALF ROOM” is a nod to Margaret Wise Brown’s infamous “Goodnight Moon,” both textually and visually. Like much of Ellis’ work, though, it leans toward the strange, a trademark effect that makes her art both beautiful and unique. “In the Half Room” is textually simple. Each page names half of an item with an accompanying illustration (“Half chair, half hat/Two shoes, each half/Half table, half cat”). Admittedly, the premise sounds a bit sleepy, but Ellis’ gouache paintings are so beautifully detailed that some of the illustrations feel like fine art. The watercolor paint effect gives her art a human touch, replete with undefined edges and misshapen freckles on the “half a face.” The book takes a strange turn midway through, however, with two halves of a person joining together with a “SHOOOOOP” and running out the front door into the night. In the acknowledgements, Ellis credits her young son Milo with the idea, “though he’s not sure about the ending” (I will let you decide). The image after the ending may be my favorite, though: half a cabin sitting in an empty field with a full plume of smoke puffing out of the half-chimney to hang over the full, twinkling stars.

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The second title I want to share features two return guests. MAC BARNETT (author of “Mac B., Kid Spy”) and SHAWN HARRIS (illustrator of “Everyone’s Awake!”) have known each other since childhood, though “A POLAR BEAR IN THE SNOW” is their first collaboration. Barnett, like Ellis, has a reputation for funny books that make you feel as if you are part of a secret club, and this picture book, though simple, fits that mold. In “Polar Bear in the Snow,” we follow the eponymous creature as it lumbers through the snow as the narrator wonders aloud where he is going. The text is fun and will lend itself well to storytime, but the real star here is Harris’ illustrations. The musician/illustrator (Harris also fronts the rock group, The Matches) used an ink pen and scissors to create a 3D effect that makes the polar bear pop from the page. The first page reads: “There is a polar bear in the snow,” though all we see is a textured white page. As we turn the pages, bits of the polar bear appear; first a nose, then eyes, then a full body. The snow on which he trods is actually carefully torn layers of white construction paper, and the animals (and a very scared man) he meets are simple shapes cut out of white paper. The description sounds simple, though maybe that is where the genius lies.

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Both Ellis and Barnett created wildly successful virtual followings during quarantine. Ellis’ #transmundanetuesdays on Instagram began as daily art challenges ranging from self portraits to drawings done with your nondominant hand. In fact, one of the best things to come from that time for my household is our collection of Transmundane Tuesday art. I can also credit Barnett for the idea for our Mac B. book club, as we worked to model bits of it after his “Mac’s Book Club Show” book club (Harris was also a key collaborator here).

Both “In the Half Room” and “A Polar Bear in the Snow” are available to borrow from the Joplin Public Library, and I would highly suggest doing so if possible. For more excellent Carson Ellis art, check out her award-winning 2018 title, “Du iz Tak,” also available at Joplin Public Library.

The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency by John Dickerson

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The time is nigh, fellow citizens. This Tuesday, we shall exercise our franchise and elect a president. Many have made their respective choice already via absentee or mail-in voting, so tabulating the results among the 50 states could require some collective patience. Regardless, we do know that come January 20th, either Joseph R. Biden or Donald J. Trump will take the oath of office at noon, thus bestowing the privilege to wield the powers vested under Article II of the U.S. Constitution. Always a weighty event, now is a fine time to explore the office of the presidency.
This is what John Dickerson tackles in The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency. Mercifully, Dickerson doesn’t devote much time to what has been explored elsewhere, and for quite some time: that we are in the age of the “imperial presidency,” where the U.S. presidency now brandishes power beyond what the Constitution allows. It’s also known (perhaps somewhat erroneously) as the “unitary executive,” its more legalistic name. (I say “mercifully” because there’s plenty of excellent scholarship on this already.)
If anything, Dickerson addresses evolving presidential powers through anecdotes. For example, William Henry Harrison didn’t offer policy initiatives during his campaign, as he believed that would encroach on congressional prerogative. We now, of course, expect a whole array of presidential proposals, mostly of the domestic variety. However, when it’s realized that so much of the workday is spent addressing voluminous foreign policy matters, a new reality quickly manifests within a newly sworn president. Consider President Kennedy. Soon after taking the oath of office he was made privy to an operation that was already in full planning motion: The Bay of Pigs invasion.
President Eisenhower has received renewed interest in recent years, and Dickerson follows suit. Eisenhower developed a quadrant system where he assigned issues an importance level, Q1 housing the most urgent. He was prescient enough to realize that Q1 could swallow up a presidency; so the challenge was to ensure that the urgent didn’t crowd out other initiatives he wanted to achieve. (And did you know that Ike had such a bad temper White House staff referred to him, just among themselves no doubt, as “the terrible-tempered Mr. Bang”? Fully aware of his temper, Ike wrote in his journal, “Anger cannot win. It cannot even think clearly.”)
Dickerson doesn’t share such narratives as mere historical asides. He’s attempting to edify the reader on how our previous presidents led the executive and how historical events were met and managed by presidents, which in turn changed the presidency. Prime example number one is FDR’s initiated policies during the Great Depression. A lesser known example is that presidents were once not expected to be “on the scene” when natural disasters struck. LBJ changed that in 1965 after a hurricane devastated New Orleans. When his motorcade came across a 9th Ward high school sheltering displaced residents, LBJ addressed them: “I’m your president and I’m here to help you.”
Dickerson structured the book so that you can essentially pick any section and begin reading, as most anecdotes last only a handful of pages. But this is also the book’s greatest weakness. Just when you think you found a theme, we’re off to another president of another era, over and over again. Plus, there are too many plodding sentences telling us what a president should strive to accomplish. While I think Dickerson is correct on the merits, stylistically more than a few sentences made me wince. Dickerson was once a political reporter for Slate and Time. He’s a television reporter now, so maybe that’s why his writing has taken on a folksy sheen, where metaphors are freely mixed.
Still, the book certainly works well in spots. Dickerson seemingly knew that no U.S. political history book would be complete without revisiting the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The framers understood that the challenge was to establish a limited federal government that was still vigorous enough to function. While the will of the people manifests through elected representatives, their passions must be checked. In Federalist No. 51, James Madison wrote, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls would be necessary.” Thus the separation of powers: a bicameral legislature, an executive branch, and an independent judiciary. They knew that unscrupulous officeholders could be elected. What they hoped was that the institutions would survive.
I’ll leave it to you to wrestle with what the founders would think of the balance of power we have now. But I will say that they placed Congress under Article I of the Constitution for a reason. There are many factors that have led to waning congressional relevance (with gerrymandering leading the way), but it would be intriguing to know how the founders would process the practice of outsourcing legislation to the executive branch, where an executive order is decreed only for it to be summarily ended by the next president.
Dickerson uses his conclusion to offer modest remedies to the political realities we have now. I appreciate the effort, but I’m dubious. Dickerson acknowledges that there’s no longer an environment where a president and a ranking member of the opposing party will sit in a room and compromise à la President Reagan and Speaker Tip O’Neill. These two men were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, so they certainly argued. But when one crossed the line with a press comment, the other was called and offered an apology. They agreed on little, but they knew that governing such a large, heterogeneous country meant compromising so that there was working legislation to address complex problems. (Even President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich met privately to discuss legislation.) Anyway, yes, we should consider how to better our outsized presidency, as Dickerson proposes. But just as the political landscape we live in today resulted from accretion, so also is the hope for a return to a point where a moderating spirit between the two political parties is more rule than exception.

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Vanishing in the Haight by Max Tomlinson

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The Summer of Love occurred in the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco in 1967. Tens of thousands of young people converged on the neighborhood for music, drugs, and free love. Max Tomlinson chose this setting to begin his novel, Vanishing in the Haight.

Margaret Copeland, problem child in her wealthy family, left home to join the thousands gathering in Haight-Ashbury. However, sharing a mattress with strangers in a noisy, smoke-filled room has lost its appeal. High and clutching a dime Margaret is on her way to a pay phone. She wants to go home but a stranger who knows her name is waiting. Her body is found in a nearby park beaten, raped and suffocated with a dry cleaning bag.

The San Francisco police attributed her death, despite inconsistencies, to the Zodiac killer. Her family was not convinced and now 11 years later her dying father wants the truth. His hope is that Colleen Hayes can find the man responsible for Margaret’s death.

At first glance Colleen is not an obvious choice. She’s on parole after serving 9 years for manslaughter. She killed her husband when she discovered he molested their 8 year-old daughter, Pamela. She does have a business, Hayes Confidential, but is awaiting her PI license.
Colleen came to San Francisco a year earlier to reconnect with her daughter. In her search for Pamela she found the body of a young woman and helped Dan Moran of Santa Cruz Homicide find the killers. Impressed by her tenacity, Moran is the reason Edward Copeland wants to hire her.

The only job Hayes Confidential has is guarding an abandoned paint factory where Colleen is also living. This is where Edward Copeland’s lawyer finds her. Unsure about taking on the case Colleen doesn’t say yes or no. The decision is made for her by an early visit the next day from her parole officer. After Colleen declines his advances, he deems her living situation is a parole violation. She agrees to look into Margaret’s murder for much needed money and legal help with her parole officer.

Colleen starts digging and one of the first things she wants is a look at the police file. Futile requests have been made by the family before but she goes ahead with the paperwork. As she works her way from one desk/department to another at SFPD, calls are made alerting someone to her request.

She doesn’t get the file but she has the name of the investigating officer and tracks him down. Forced into retirement soon after Margaret’s death, Jim Davis agrees to meet and bring his copy of the murder file. But someone doesn’t want Margaret’s killer found and Davis is killed before he can talk.

The tension builds as Colleen follows clues and evidence that was ignored in the initial investigation. We know the police were protecting someone in the summer of 1967. How far will they go to shield a killer? A killer who is back and stalking his next victim. Colleen wants justice for both Margaret and Jim but can she find the truth before there is another death?

Tomlinson has penned a tough, tenacious heroine in Colleen. She’s smart, has a strong desire for justice, and can be gently compassionate. It is interesting to have a novel set in a time when you had to have dimes for the pay phone, the library was the place to go for research and finding addresses, and you put on bell bottoms and platform shoes for a night out.

This was billed as a book one in the Colleen Hayes mystery series. The second book, “Tie Die”, is out and I’m looking forward to Colleen’s next case.

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