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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The Last American Vampire by Seth Grahame-Smith

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THE LAST AMERICAN VAMPIRE by SETH GRAHAME-SMITH is an alternate history of America, from the colonies to the present, told by a person who experienced it all: Henry Sturges, the last American vampire.

Henry Sturges has been a major player in many key moments of American history. He came to America as a newly-married twenty-five-year-old Englishman, human and ready to start a new life. He and his wife were members of the Roanoke Colony, who built a fortified settlement in what is now North Carolina. Roanoke is infamously referred to as the Lost Colony – because its more than one hundred inhabitants disappeared without a trace.

The Roanoke Colony, including Henry’s wife, was completely wiped out by a vampire who had come to the New World in order to control it.  He is impressed by Henry’s spirit and decides to save him by turning him into a vampire.

The life of Henry Sturges follows the flow of American history very closely. He watches from a distance, trying not to attract attention, living independently from it until his friendship with Abraham Lincoln convinces him to take part.

THE LAST AMERICAN VAMPIRE is the sequel to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which details Henry’s involvement in Lincoln’s life – from the time when he was a young man to his assassination. The first book focuses on the events surrounding Civil War, with both sides backed by vampires.

Henry is one of the Union vampires, but the Union does end with the war. Vampires like Henry continue to fight to protect mankind at large. They still call themselves the Union far into the 20th century, though their numbers have dwindled considerably.

The novel jumps around through Henry’s history. The conceit of the book is that Grahame-Smith (whose fictional counterpart narrates the book) is pulling from diaries that Henry has kept through the years; he is picking out the most interesting parts and building a narrative of the power struggle behind the scenes of American politics – the strings of which are being pulled by vampires.

Henry spends time in both America and Europe meeting many notable figures throughout his life. Authors like Bram Stoker and Edgar Allan Poe make appearances, along with John D. Rockefeller and Nikola Tesla. Henry and his allies fight against the villains of history, including Jack the Ripper and Rasputin – who are both vampires themselves.

As a result of his involvement as an advisor to Abraham Lincoln, Henry is coerced into working for multiple presidents and repeatedly conscripted into armies. The American government knows exactly what Henry is, and they rarely hesitate to use him. America wouldn’t be the same without Henry Sturges.

The book is filled with photographs, which add to its sense of historical weight. It contains letters, telegraph transpositions, newspaper clippings, and email. Excerpts directly from Henry’s diary are also used liberally, to get a sense of what Henry was feeling at the time.

The pseudo-realism of the book is very engaging, and although the book looks like nonfiction – right down to its footnotes – it reads like a novel.

The line between real and imaginary is thinnest at this time of year, and I think there are few better ways to embrace that than by reading supernatural fiction. This book is action-packed and fun, while also being somewhat gruesome (as most vampire fiction tends to be). So, if you’re looking for something to quench your thirst for the supernatural, give THE LAST AMERICAN VAMPIRE a try.

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Untamed by Glennon Doyle & Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

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I have been on a nonfiction reading kick of late, with autobiographies and memoirs filling much of the space on my nightstand. Two recent titles I made my way through include “UNTAMED” by GLENNON DOYLE and “BORN A CRIME” by TREVOR NOAH. While vastly different in their subject matter, they each contain a powerful narrative voice.

In Doyle’s “Untamed,” imagine going on your book tour to promote your newest work of inspirational Christian literature and telling your fans that you’ve met the true love of your life. Oh, and guess what? It’s a woman. But that is exactly what Doyle did while touring for her “Love Warrior” book. As she puts it, she shared “her truth,” and while it may have upset some people, what she learned through the process is she has to be honest with herself and not live in a “cage” of fear or denial.

The analogy of being put into a cage is used throughout the narrative. She details her memories of when she “lost her wild.” She was 10 years old when the realization of society’s expectations started to weigh on her. This is when she remembers losing her happiness and turning to unhealthy ways of dealing — first bulimia, then later, alcohol.

She not only shares her struggles with addiction and bulimia but discusses her husband’s infidelity and how she finally dealt with these issues by giving herself a pass to stop “being good” and “start being brave.” She often says, “The braver we are, the luckier we get.” And in Doyle’s case, this seems to be true. This memoir is more than her story, it’s a wake up call to women.

No topic is off limits for Doyle. She discusses family, racism, religion, parenting, anxiety and so much more. She is adamant that martyring oneself does not make one a good mother. She advocates that women set boundaries, stop trying to please society and start pleasing themselves. She admits to not having all the answers but writes that she has started to trust her “Knowing” and that her life has only gotten better.

While this title is not my typical fare — I picked it up because a friend recommended it — I enjoyed it tremendously. I found myself laughing and crying many times during the reading. While not all of what Doyle preaches aligns with my personal philosophy, I appreciate her feminist approach and her recognition that how she was living was not working for her. This is a powerful addition to today’s inspirational titles and stands out because of Doyle’s passionate voice and delivery.

In “Born a Crime,” comedian and “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah uses tales from his childhood in South Africa to create a moving autobiography. His stories tell of apartheid and how the institutionalized system of racial segregation and discrimination shaped his upbringing and affected his family, but he also tells of his powerful, no-nonsense mother. His mother’s uniqueness is the star of much of the book.

Each story is proceeded by a section that explains parts of apartheid or South African culture. This is a clever and helpful addition because without it readers may not grasp the importance of the story or the significance to his life. Noah is funny, accessible and honest.

I could not put this book down. I was fascinated by Noah’s writing style and his descriptions of events. He does an excellent job of foreshadowing to keep the reader interested.

Noah’s respect for his mother is obvious. This book was written as a tribute to her and to give her credit for surviving a not-so-idyllic life, as much as it was for Noah to have an outlet. He dedicated the book to his mother: “My first fan. Thank you for making me a man.”

Noah’s matter-of-fact and humorous way of telling stories keeps the narrative moving and will make readers laugh, cry and want more.

Jeana Gockley is the director for the Joplin Public Library.

Find in catalog – Untamed & Born a Crime.

Comics Fun

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Heart and Brain: Body Language by Nick Seluk

Making Comics by Lynda Barry

Buried treasure can pop up in all sorts of places–on a tropical island, in an attic trunk, at a garage sale, or in this case, on a bookshelf.  I found these delights while looking for something else.  Isn’t that the case with a lot of things in life?

If you haven’t seen cartoonist Nick Seluk’s popular webcomic “The Awkward Yeti”, find it now.  Seluk’s humorous take on the relationship between human anatomy and human nature guarantees a chuckle.  He explores life through the eyes of Lars, a socially awkward, blue-furred, and bespectacled Yeti, who is the unwitting host to a community of cheekily entertaining internal organs.  Lungs wear sweatbands and jogging gear and are ready for anything other than exercise.  Gallbladder pleadingly offers its handmade “gifts” to everyone.  Spleen resembles a glowering ninja.  Bowel is an irritable conspiracy theorist who communicates in brown speech bubbles.  It’s the back-and-forth between charmingly optimistic, emotional Heart and pragmatic, rational Brain though that fuels the fun.

In Heart and Brain: Body Language, Seluk fills the pages with relatable inner struggles (budget vs pizza, anxiety vs relaxation, planning ahead vs living in the moment) and amusing dialogue that leave readers laughing.  Heart and Brain are the engines driving Lars and the book.  One of my favorite strips shows Heart filling Brain from a jar labeled “New Experiences” then shaking Brain vigorously; Heart then turns a tap attached to Brain and fills a bucket labeled “New Ideas”.  The magic lies in seeing Heart and Brain: Body Language for yourself because trying to capture the comic’s essence is like trying to parse comedy–dissection distracts from enjoyment.  Give this title to adults and teens who like “The Far Side” or “Calvin and Hobbes” or quirky humor in general.

Although I love to read comics, I never thought I’d be able to draw them–I know my limits.  That is, until I found Making Comics by Lynda Barry.  Barry, a nationally-known comic artist, educator, and MacArthur Fellow, is on a mission to enable everyone to discover their own creative spark.

Making Comics looks like a composition book full of doodles that’s been carried around in a backpack for half of the school year.  Each page, whatever its content, is covered in drawings and border designs and lettering in dusky watercolors lending a feel of sepia-tone except in blues and reds and yellows.  Drawings–some from Barry, some from her students who range in age from preschoolers to adults–are spontaneous and raw like those found in a sketchbook.

Barry believes that everyone is capable of art, of drawing, only that some folks have lost fluency in the language of image.  According to her, children “speak image”, “this language [that] moves up through your hand and into your head”.  She notes, “we draw before we are taught.  We also sing, dance, build things, act, and make up stories…Everything we have come to call the arts seems to be in almost every 3-year-old”.  For a lot of us, something happens along the way that separates us from creativity, especially drawing, and Lynda Barry aims to rectify that.

Following the content of Making Comics in sequence is similar to Barry’s comics class, but taking the activities out of context or in a different order is just as useful.  After an introduction designed to inspire, Barry opens concepts in “Lessons” then offers lots of exploration prompts in “Exercises”.  “Assignments” are longer, more involved activities that build on previously introduced ideas, and “Homework” takes those concepts to the next level through more intricate designs.  Thoughtful passages, hints, and tips are packed into each page; read everything!

Whether you want to reclaim that innate, easy creativity or know someone who does, this title is a great choice.  It’s also a fantastic way for teens and adults to explore particularities of the comic format.  Making Comics is a rich resource for students of all ages learning at home.  Give it a try–it’s fun and freeing.

You never know what gems you might find when you’re not looking for them.  Stop by the library and discover the treasures waiting for you!

Mac B. Kid Spy by Mac Barnett and The Only Black Girls in Town by Brandy Colbert

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Sometimes you just want to read a good mystery. In fact, I would say that a significant percentage of the “What should I read next?” types of questions from upper elementary students fall into the mystery genre. (Roughly 50% are “I finished every Dav Pilkey book, and now I don’t know what to read!” If this is you, come see us.)

Luckily, I have two excellent mysteries to recommend. In another stroke of luck, my first recommended title is both a mystery and a Captain Underpants/Dog Man read-alike If you are a parent of a child under 10, you have likely read or seen a book by MAC BARNETT. He is children’s literature royalty at this point. If you haven’t yet read any of his picture books, I would recommend every single one. Really.

The mystery/Dav Pilkey read-alike in question is his chapter book series, “MAC B., KID SPY.” The series is loosely based (but not if you ask the author …) on his childhood growing up with a single mother in Northern California in the 1980s. The book starts on a boring Saturday afternoon; Mac has already read, played his Gameboy and watched TV, and only 40 minutes have passed. Suddenly, he receives a call from the queen of England (as one does) ordering him to come to England promptly to track down the missing crown jewels. The plot only gets more outlandish as he flies across the Atlantic and dodges KGB spies, meets the French president and attempts to steal from the Louvre. “Mac B., Kid Spy” is laugh-out-loud funny and completely ridiculous in the best way.

The story is perfectly enhanced by Mike Lowery’s thin, pen-sketch drawings peppering each page. The specific combination of detail and simplicity in his illustrations lends to the slapstick comedy effect of the plot; for example, the chapter 15 cover image shows a straight-faced, outlined Mac B with his wobbly arm around Freddie the corgi. A straight mouth belies his nerves but overall, it’s just a simple drawing of a kid and a dog. In contrast, the illustration’s framing is fanciful and resembles a coat of arms and reads: “Chapter 15: KGB HQ.” Lowery draws primarily in black pen, with orange and blue details, and he is able to express a multitude of emotions with simple lines and geometric shapes. (If you need a recommendation for a good Mike Lowery picture book, the library has those as well.)

If this all sounds appealing, consider signing up for the Children’s Department’s Chapter Book Club. Sign-ups launched back on September 7. We’ll read chapters from the book, pass on confidential files for top secret missions, and end with a kung-fu party. Of course, for now, this will all take place on the internet because it’s what the queen wants. Queen’s orders, after all. Call the library for more information and check out the “Mac B.” series (there are five in all) at the library or on Libby.

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I am going to switch gears entirely to share the second mystery, BRANDY COLBERT’s middle grade debut, “THE ONLY BLACK GIRLS IN TOWN.” This middle grade novel follows Alberta, a 12-year-old surfer in a coastal California town who, for the first 12 years of her life, was the only Black girl in town. She has had the same best friend for years, but lately, Laramie seems more interested in boys and being popular than watching Alberta surf or visiting the comic book shop together. So when Alberta discovers that the Black family moving into the bed and breakfast across the street includes a girl her age named Edie, she is thrilled. They click quickly, and Alberta begins spending weekends at her huge, old house while her parents work. It is during one of these said weekends that Alberta and Edie discover a box full of old journals in the attic. The journals are penned by a woman named Constance who moved to San Francisco in the 1950s. They become determined to find out who Constance is, especially because no one on their street seems to recall a woman named Constance who, if the journals are correct, was harboring a secret about her identity.

Colbert is well-known for her young adult novels, and it is clear that her ability to write for and about teenagers is not exclusive to the more mature end of the spectrum. “The Only Black Girls in Town” is a book about growing up, forging and maintaining friendships, and figuring out who you are in the midst of it all. I sped through this book, and thought about it for days afterward. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a consuming novel about friendships, identity and a touch of history. You can find “The Only Black Girls in Town” and Colbert’s young adult titles at Joplin Public Library.

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The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States by Walter Johnson

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History runs through St. Louis like a current.
It’s downtown as tourists spill around the Old Federal Courthouse—where the infamous Dred Scott case began—on their way to the glinting Gateway Arch, the national monument to Western Expansion, to empire. It flows westward to Forest Park, site of the 1904 World’s Fair, and through the architectural grandeur of surrounding houses. Wending northward yields a scarred history with dilapidated red brick houses and embattled residents. The transition is striking, leaving even the most casual of observers to ask: What happened to St. Louis?
Walter Johnson, author of The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States, has some answers. From the book’s subtitle, it doesn’t take much to conjecture that his answers are far from any feel-good musings over a once halcyon St. Louis. If you want a narrative that waxes poetic about, say, the St. Louis Cardinals as it relates to the city’s history, look elsewhere. What Johnson, a Harvard professor and native Missourian, does provide is a deep look at St. Louis’s racial and political economy history. A book with resounding vitality, it is, in a word, incendiary.
St. Louis was the early republic’s long reach westward. It became the outpost where William Clark (of Lewis and Clark), serving as superintendent of Indian Affairs, oversaw treaties that ceded over 419 million acres to the United States. Still, this did not stop white settlers from calling him a “race traitor” after he ordered the removal of several hundred settlers along the Arkansas River to avoid conflict on Indian land. They refused the order and he was swiftly removed from office.
Such settlers found an ally in Senator Thomas Hart Benton, a man who sounded “like an angry god in love with his own voice.” Johnson brands Benton as one of the many “second-chance strivers” who made their way to Missouri because they missed making their fortunes either back East or down South. Total Indian removal to make way for white expansion was the order of the day. (Or, as Johnson puts it, “Genocide was the vanguard of empire.”) And St. Louis housed the key garrison. The legendary names we know from the Civil War (Grant, Lee, Longstreet, Sherman) spent their early military careers as Indian fighters stationed out of St. Louis.
This new influx of white inhabitants also had little use for slaveholders as they owned a potential impediment to white labor: slaves. St. Louis became fiercely anti-black and the site of the nation’s first recorded lynching. In 1836, just hours after disembarking a steamship, a free black man was accused of murder and then burned alive behind the Federal Courthouse. This view that blacks were essentially disposable was solidified by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1857 Dred Scott case, Chief Justice Taney writing that blacks (whether free or enslaved) “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
To be sure, St. Louis had its paradoxes. There was a relatively small slave population. Yet it had one of largest slave markets in the country. There was a white population that didn’t particularly care whether one owned a slave or not so long as said slave (and slave owner) didn’t impede their quest for property. The mid-1800s were complicated further with the arrival of Germans fleeing the Revolutions of 1848. And since many of them were Marxists, they believed private property should not exist at all, certainly not human chattel. As such, when the time came, quite a few Germans joined the Union Army. There’s a twenty-foot statue of Franz Sigel in Forest Park today. Sigel was a German-born St. Louisan who became a distinguished Union general. He was also, Johnson mordantly states, “a stone-cold communist.”
Following the war, Walt Whitman and William Tecumseh Sherman advocated moving the nation’s capital to St. Louis. And there was a brief period of unity between white and black laborers during the St. Louis General Strike of 1877, the first such strike in the nation. However, such solidarity had long since evaporated when, a few decades later, St. Louis passed its first segregation ordinance. Still, downtown St. Louis was full of verve and was nationally known as a “sporting city” (full innuendo). At the turn of the century, ragtime music, invented by black musicians, thundered out of St. Louis, the nation’s fourth most populous city.
But you wouldn’t find ragtime at the 1904 World’s Fair. (It was banned.) You would, however, find a spectacle that’s hard to fathom. In Forest Park, visitors could pay a nickel and pose for a photo with Geronimo. There was a “human zoo,” where Filipinos and Pygmies lived. During colder days, white ticket holders would throw rocks at their huts so that they would come out and perform. A young T.S. Eliot often bought daily tickets to the fair. A visitor might glimpse Mark Twain sitting down to dinner with Henry James.
Much of the twentieth century, according to Johnson, was a calculated effort to engineer a city that encouraged white flight to the suburbs (back when it was thought that the city would merge administratively with St. Louis County). The land where the Arch stands today was once seen by many as the “Greenwich Village of the West.” This mattered little to city officials, as it presented a “redevelopment” plan for the area. The 1935 bond issue passed overwhelmingly and 40 square blocks were bulldozed. (Yet it was soon revealed that the plan was a speculative real estate venture.) Interstates were expanded to encourage white mobility and racial restrictive covenants were common.
As with so many present-day municipalities, St. Louis struggles with viable ways to raise revenue. So enters the now ubiquitous TIF districts, where municipalities essentially have to “give it away.” Even if an area is blighted and developed, the resulting sales tax revenue comes at the expense of stagnant property tax levies. The result: perpetually underfunded schools.
Some may push back at Johnson’s stressing racial enmity as a constant thread running through St. Louis’s history. However, after reading of the 1917 East St. Louis Massacre, it seems that the onus shifts to having to explain how race was not a driving historical force. Officially, the death count is around 40. But historians believe the number is in the hundreds. (It also left 6,000 blacks homeless.) After the massacre, a congressional report concluded that the companies operating in East St. Louis cared nothing for the civic life of the area.
Johnson thoroughly unpacks the Ferguson of 2014 within the context of the Michael Brown shooting. There are reams of reports detailing how the city, via the police, went revenue-farming on poor black residents. But Johnson’s ire is focused on what was not included: the structural racism found in the area. (He notes that such racism is not unique to St. Louis; as we have seen, it’s fixed in many other cities as well.) This book is his response.
The St. Louis of today is one where a poor black child born in the North will have a life expectancy that is eighteen years shorter than a white child born in a nearby suburb. Such grim realities, Johnson notes, have an impact, and grassroots are forming. The challenges are legionnaire, but still they try. Johnson stops by a high school and watches a track meet. Even after the track coach’s son was shot dead by a police officer in 2017, she’s still there, trying. The kids are still out there running, some of them literally for their lives.

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