Deborah Hopkinson

NonfictionAnimals

Dog days

Feature by Deborah Hopkinson

The dog days of summer may be winding down, but for many of us, dogs are an integral part of each day. Two new books explore our lives with these inseparable companions.

In Our Dogs, Ourselves: The Story of a Singular Bond, canine cognition researcher Alexandra Horowitz, bestselling author of Inside of a Dog, explores a spectrum of tail-wagging topics. Some essays tackle thought-provoking issues like the legal rights of dogs, health problems caused by inbreeding and research on the impact of early sterilization.

Others are more lighthearted, such as the chapter “Things People Say to Their Dogs.” Ever the researcher, Horowitz started capturing snippets of human-to-dog conversations overheard in New York City, and here she presents them to readers who can surely relate: “‘Leave it. We have better ones at home.’ (Man to dog desperately searching for lost tennis ball.)” Another favorite: “‘Hi, honey. Did you vote?’ (Woman to pleased-looking dog outside voting center.)” If you love dogs, and even talk to them, you’re going to rejoice at this entertaining and enlightening book.

Not only do we hold conversations with our dogs, we also take them places. Inspired by John Steinbeck’s classic Travels with Charley, author Peter Zheutlin took his 75-pound rescue Lab mix, Albie, on a six-week journey across America, which he chronicles in The Dog Went Over the Mountain: Travels with Albie: An American Journey.

The travel bug flows through Zheutlin’s genes: He’s a descendant of Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, better known as Annie Londonderry, who cycled 9,000 miles in the 1890s. Zheutlin’s travels were by car, exploring back roads and scenic byways to meet and talk with ordinary Americans along the way. “I wasn’t so much interested in driving across the country as I was in diving into it,” the author explains. He wanted to experience a personal journey but also offer something to the rest of us—“to share a more lighthearted, heartfelt, and dog-friendly tour of America, and in the process remind us what remains wonderful and grand and good about it, even as it seems the country is coming apart at the seams.”

Like his cycling great-grand-aunt, Zheutlin traveled close to 9,000 miles, loosely following Steinbeck’s route from New England to California and back. While the journey itself wasn’t always easy, his easygoing writing style makes for comfortable reading. The book includes a photo section, which (naturally) features the photogenic Albie in just about every picture: enjoying the view from the Grand Canyon, posing in front of a Route 66 sign and making new friends (human and canine). 

Your own next adventure might only be as far as the dog park, but reading The Dog Went Over the Mountain may inspire you, like Zheutlin, to end the trip with an ice cream cone and a hug for the dog who is part of your journey.

The dog days of summer may be winding down, but for many of us, dogs are an integral part of each day. Two new books explore our lives with these inseparable companions.

In Our Dogs, Ourselves: The Story of a Singular Bond, canine cognition researcher…

NonfictionChildren's & YAYA NonfictionYAMiddle Grade

Illuminating the past

Feature by Deborah Hopkinson

Three new books for young readers—a work of nonfiction, a novel and a unique memoir—offer fascinating insights into World War II, an era that helped shape the world we live in today.

The seeds of World War II were planted during the aftermath of World War I. Harsh financial penalties imposed on Germany, combined with the devastating effects of the Great Depression, contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party. Andrew Maraniss explores the prewar period for young readers in his masterful Games of Deception, which reveals the little-known story of the first United States Olympic basketball team. They competed in 1936, the year basketball debuted as an Olympic sport—and the year the games were held, amid controversy, in Hitler’s Berlin.

Young readers will likely be unfamiliar with much of this history, including the boycott efforts that surrounded the games, but Maraniss is an effective storyteller who skillfully paints a picture of the past by focusing on individual people and evocative details. Along with the players’ stories, Maraniss also introduces ordinary people who became eyewitnesses to history; these include a German Jewish boy named Al Miller who never forgot what it was like to watch Jesse Owens run.

The 1936 Olympics were, of course, a prelude to the horrors to come, and Maraniss follows his story through to the war’s end. Full-page photographs, a bibliography and a timeline enhance the book. A fantastic afterword traces Maraniss’ research process, including his meeting with 95-year-old Dr. Al Miller, who managed to escape Hitler’s Germany.

Alan Gratz’s latest novel, Allies, zeros in on one of the most dramatic military operations of all time: D-Day, the invasion of Normandy. Gratz has previously combined meticulous research with compelling characters and action-packed scenes in bestselling books such as Refugee, Projekt 1065 and Grenade. Allies is no different, as Gratz once again draws readers into history.

The novel opens with Dee Carpenter riding in a Higgins boat through the rocking waves on his way to Omaha Beach. Dee is a 16-year-old from Philadelphia who has signed up for the U.S. Army with a fudged birth certificate. But readers find out something else at the end of the first chapter: “His real name was Dietrich Zimmermann, and he was German.”  

The book also follows Samira, an Algerian girl in the French resistance who is trying to sabotage the German occupation and find her mother, with (she hopes) the help of a fearless little dog. Supporting characters include a Jewish soldier, a Canadian paratrooper and a character based on the famed African American medic Waverly “Woody” Woodson, who was part of the all-black 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion on Omaha Beach.

Allies is timely, not merely because of this year’s 75th anniversary of D-Day but also for its contributions to discussions of how individuals, communities and nations can be allies in today’s world.

Like Waverly Woodson, Ashley Bryan was also on Omaha Beach. Now 96 years old, Bryan has published numerous books for young readers, including the Newbery Honor book Freedom Over Me. Infinite Hope is the extraordinary memoir of this hugely beloved figure in children’s literature. Like many veterans, Bryan has never talked about his military service, so his story may take people by surprise.

When his draft notice arrived in 1943, Bryan was a 19-year-old art student who was already familiar with prejudice. One art school interviewer told him his portfolio was the best the school had seen, but “it would be a waste to give a scholarship to a colored person.” With his teachers’ encouragement, Bryan was accepted to Cooper Union, which judged applicants blind. Even this did not prepare Bryan for what he would experience when he joined the Army. “As a Black soldier, I found myself facing unequal treatment in a war that Blacks hoped would lead our nation closer to its professed goal of equal treatment for all.”

Infinite Hope tells the story of Bryan’s journey as a stevedore in the 502nd Port Battalion through mixed media, with large photographs interspersed with sketches, paintings and excerpts from his diary and letters. The result is both an intimate portrait of Bryan himself and a rare insight into the African American experience of World War II and the invasion of Normandy, where Bryan worked nonstop on Omaha Beach unloading cargo in the months after D-Day. Later, while guarding German prisoners of war in France after the war’s end, Bryan realized the Germans were given more respect than black American soldiers. After arriving home in early 1946, Bryan locked his WWII drawings away and rarely spoke of his experiences.

Infinite Hope makes Bryan’s incredible artwork, created in the midst of war, available for the first time. It is a must-read for young people, parents, educators and anyone interested in World War II. Most of all, it is the work of an inspiring American who truly embodies infinite grace.

Three new books for young readers—a work of nonfiction, a novel and a unique memoir—offer fascinating insights into World War II, an era that helped shape the world we live in today.

The seeds of World War II were planted during the aftermath…

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Girls across the ages

Feature by Deborah Hopkinson

Two masters of historical fiction send their heroines on life-changing journeys in these middle grade novels.

Gold Rush Girl
Award-winning author Avi (Crispin: The Cross of Lead, Sophia’s War) opens his latest novel in 1848, when Rhode Islander Tory Blaisdell makes a vow to live like Jane Eyre and control her own destiny. Her resolve is put to the test when her father decides to seek his fortune in the California gold rush, bringing along Tory’s little brother, Jacob. Tory convinces her brother to help her stow away. 

When the trio arrives in San Francisco, they’re confronted by the harsh realities of the mining craze. They trade their middle-class house for a dirt-floor tent on a muddy road. Water costs a dollar a bucket. When Tory’s father departs for the hills, she dresses as a boy to do manual labor. Then Jacob is kidnapped, and Tory and her friends must launch a desperate rescue attempt before he is shipped off as a cabin boy.

Gold Rush Girl tells an adventure-filled but grounded story of what life was like for many families whose dreams of gold came to nothing but who nevertheless made new lives for themselves in California. 

The Blackbird Girls
Anne Blankman’s The Blackbird Girls tackles a subject rarely touched on in middle grade fiction: the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.  

This riveting story opens on the fateful morning of April 26, 1986, when Valentina Kaplan’s father doesn’t return from the late shift at the Chernobyl power station. At school, Valentina’s neighbor and classmate Oksana, whose father also works at Chernobyl, taunts Valentina with anti-Semitic insults. In the aftermath of the disaster, the girls are separated from their mothers and evacuated to Leningrad, where they live with Valentina’s grandmother, Rifka. The experience challenges Oksana’s attitudes about Jewish families, while Valentina begins to connect more deeply with her faith and her family’s history. 

Flashbacks from Rifka’s life during World War II deepen Blankman’s exploration of the transformative power of friendship across time. Rich with historical details, The Blackbird Girls places Valentina and Oksana’s compelling relationship firmly at the story’s center.  

Two masters of historical fiction send their heroines on life-changing journeys in these middle grade novels.

Gold Rush Girl
Award-winning author Avi (Crispin: The Cross of Lead, Sophia’s War) opens his latest novel in 1848, when Rhode Islander Tory Blaisdell makes a vow…

Children's & YA

Review

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

What do you do when you have a bad day? If you're like me, you just might find yourself reaching for your old dog-eared copy of Judith Viorst's classic, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, first published in 1972.

Over the years reading about Alexander's bad day has become a tradition for families everywhere. Now Judith Viorst has turned her attention to another fact of daily life. Just as there are sure to be bad days, there's almost sure to be one messy kid in the family! The messy kid here is definitely not Olivia, the narrator of Viorst's new book. And Olivia doesn't really have many complaints about her big brother, Jake, either. But Sophie is another matter altogether.

"And then there's my little sister, whose room is seriously I mean seriously REVOLTING. Which is one of maybe a MILLION reasons why my sister Sophie is super-completely and totally THE MESSIEST." Little Sophie doesn't just have a messy room. No, explains Olivia, the situation is far more serious. It is true that Sophie totally disappears under the pile of stuff in her closet. But she also makes a mess of finger-painting at school, wrecks ALL the sandcastles entered in the sandcastle contest at the beach and on a visit to a farm you guessed it falls right into the mud with the pigs.

And though Sophie TRIES hard to be very neat and careful when she helps her big sister and brother make a special breakfast in bed for Mom, well, Sophie on the bed with a tray of food is definitely a recipe for disaster. For the truth of the matter is, "Sophie is ALWAYS making and being a mess." Robin Glasser's lively pen and ink and watercolor illustrations bring the exuberant Sophie and her escapades to life. Kids will be fascinated by the detailed drawings of Sophie's many disasters. (Especially the one where Mom finds some lost mice in Sophie's mop of red and messy curls!)

A super-complete and total portrait of messiness, this is the perfect book for that untidy little person in your life, or the long-suffering sibling who, like Olivia, has to admit in the end that "Sophie's a kind and very nice person, even though she messes up breakfasts and beds."

 

Deborah Hopkinson's new books for children, Bluebird Summer and Fannie in the Kitchen, will be published this spring.

What do you do when you have a bad day? If you're like me, you just might find yourself reaching for your old dog-eared copy of Judith Viorst's classic, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, first published in 1972.

Over the…

NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

Hero of Two Worlds

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

In this engrossing biography, author and history podcaster Mike Duncan, who explored the Roman Republic in The Storm Before the Storm, illuminates the eventful life of the Marquis de Lafayette. Lafayette is, of course, a popular hero of the American Revolution. Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution broadens our understanding of his engagement in other major political movements, as well, chronicling his role in the French Revolution and the toppling of the Bourbon Dynasty in 1830.

At first glance, nothing in Lafayette’s early history suggests his future commitment to liberal ideals. Lafayette (1757–1834) was born Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier in Chavaniac, France. A son of the nobility, he lost his father when he was only 2, making him the sole heir to the family’s fortune. His mother’s death when he was 12 left him in the care of guardians who made many decisions for him, including arranging his marriage to Adrienne d’Ayen at age 16. They were a devoted couple until her death in 1807.

Duncan traces the origin of Lafayette’s embrace of liberty and equality to the summer of 1775, when he first learned of George Washington and the colonists’ struggles. Politics had cut short his career in the French army, so Lafayette decided to follow this new noble cause. He managed to become a major general in the Continental Army, and by age 24, he’d earned a stellar reputation on both sides of the Atlantic.

In detailing Lafayette’s long career, Duncan takes a measured approach to his subject, making excellent use of primary sources, especially letters. The author effectively balances Lafayette the man with Lafayette the public figure and helps delineate the relationship between the United States and France. 

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of A Hero of Two Worlds is Duncan’s exploration of Lafayette’s long and enduring popularity with Americans. (Unlike the French, the Americans never stopped loving him.) In 1824, Lafayette was invited for a visit by President James Monroe as the nation prepared for its 50th anniversary. Lafayette received a hero’s welcome, his presence reminding “local and state leaders they were a single nation with a shared past and collective future.”

Lafayette was a unique and unifying figure in American history, celebrated and revered by all political parties. As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, Duncan’s impressive biography provides an insightful look at the American Revolution that can be appreciated by history lovers and general readers alike.

Mike Duncan’s insightful, impressive biography of the Marquis de Lafayette can be appreciated by history lovers and general readers alike.
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Fallout

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Bestselling author Steve Sheinkin is best known for his 2012 book, Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon, which was a National Book Award finalist, a Newbery Honor book and winner of the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal. Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown is another engrossing work of nonfiction that reads like a page-turning spy thriller as it takes up the issue of nuclear weapons and international politics in a wide-ranging, information-packed account of the Cold War, including the development of the hydrogen bomb and the tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States that nearly erupted into war during the Cuban missile crisis.

Sheinkin clearly knows this terrain like the back of his hand, and his narrative jumps nimbly from Soviet spy Rudolf Abel’s secretive life in New York City (which will remind adult readers of the popular FX show “The Americans”), to the rise of Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev after the death of Josef Stalin, to the scientists developing the hydrogen bomb, and finally to President John F. Kennedy as he faced a terrifying standoff in October 1962. The Cuban missile crisis, Sheinkin observes, “was a bit like a chess match between grandmasters.” As he depicts the conflict between two world powers, even readers familiar with the details of the crisis and its resolution will find themselves on the edge of their seats.

Although Fallout’s primary narrative ends there, Sheinkin follows up on the players in an epilogue, where he also includes a personal touch. He reflects on how, as a teen, he fully expected that he would experience nuclear war before he graduated from high school. 

In short chapters written in his signature energetic style, Sheinkin provides vivid details that keep interest high, such as 13 year-old paperboy Jimmy Bozart’s discovery of a nickel with a secret code hidden inside or the intricate tradecraft practiced by two Soviet agents as they jump out of subway cars at the last minute to lose a tail while en route to a secret meeting at the Bronx Zoo. (Who would have thought the Bronx Zoo was a rendezvous point for spies?) Even minor characters on this international chess board stand out. Sheinkin expertly balances action, historical context and the events of his narrative. Meticulously researched, Fallout includes copious source notes and an extensive bibliography. 

Fallout is a compelling read that provides a riveting picture of the events of the Cold War. It’s the work of a nonfiction master at his best.

Fallout is a compelling read that provides a riveting picture of the events of the Cold War. It’s the work of a nonfiction master at his best.

NonfictionNatureEnvironment

Believers

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Poet, essayist and cultural commentator Lisa Wells takes on the complexities of our relationship to the climate crisis in Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World, a thought-provoking and heady mix of memoir, journalism and philosophy. Wells isn’t writing as a scientist or futurist here but as a former teenage idealist—someone who, as she puts it, “drifted into adulthood” after dropping out of high school and spending months in a wilderness survival program to gain the knowledge and skills needed to “form egalitarian villages on the post-apocalyptic frontier.”

Wells grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s and threads her personal journey throughout the book. “When we were kids, my friends and I went looking for a unified and stable theory of how to live—propping up idols and knocking them off their pedestals,” she writes. Eventually Wells realizes, “There is no solution to the problems we face, but there are solutions.”

Exploring those solutions drives the narrative of Believers. Wells seeks out a variety of people whose radical responses to the climate crisis challenge and defy the norm. The characters she profiles are varied and fascinating, and their stories may resonate with older readers who remember their own idealism during the 1960s counterculture movement.

One particularly strong presence in the book is the late Finisia Medrano, whom Wells met while Medrano was leading a group of ecological activists in the dry desert landscape of eastern Oregon. Wells dubs her “an itinerant outlaw,” dedicated to rewilding the American desert with foragable food so people can survive the eventual collapse of society.

Wells also explores the growing severity of wildfires in the West. One section details the work of Indigenous Americans such as Ron Goode, the Tribal Chairman of the North Fork Mono in California, to revitalize the landscape by reintroducing traditional practices like controlled burns and to shift our cultural understanding of the West’s fire-adapted landscapes.

While Wells is adept at communicating her own coming-of-age story and life journey, Believers is most compelling when the author allows the fascinating people she meets to speak for themselves, providing a rich mosaic of perspectives on life in the 21st century. Believers is a reckoning with climate change and a testimony about how to live on our threatened planet that will engage thoughtful citizens everywhere.

Poet and cultural commentator Lisa Wells profiles a variety of people whose radical responses to the climate crisis defy the norm.
NonfictionMemoirAnimals

London’s Number One Dog-Walking Agency

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

“It was pigeons that started it all, not dogs.” So begins Kate MacDougall’s charming coming-of-age memoir, London’s Number One Dog-Walking Agency. After knocking the heads off some ugly porcelain pigeons at her desk in the antiques department of an auction house, she decided to change careers—and, it must be said, her life. She’d recently had a conversation with a dog walker, so she chose that as her next job. Her mother was blunt: “This is a GHASTLY mistake.”

Still, MacDougall plunged in. Her first client was an impossibly energetic Jack Russell named Frank (a girl) who loved her special ball more than anything. It started fabulously but didn’t end well—a Rottweiler ate Frank’s ball—and with that first mishap, the young entrepreneur began to grasp that while dog walking sounded simple enough, there were challenges galore when it came to getting clients, keeping them happy and making enough money to live on.

As MacDougall figured out her new career, she realized that humans were often harder to handle, especially where their beloved “dog children” were concerned. One owner sent a stern email with the subject line “Mud.” It read, “Winston is NOT allowed in mud—as you know. I presume this was an awful accident?” Needless to say, the blissfully mud-rolling Winston had not been consulted about this rule.

Each chapter of this lively memoir features a dog (or two), some humans, adventures, laughter, tears and a running tally of how many dogs MacDougall has walked (beginning with one in 2006 and ending with 100 in 2014). There were some setbacks, including the 2008 recession. But there was love and growth, too, as she and her boyfriend married and acquired their own dog, Mabel.

If MacDougall is as skilled with dogs as she is with a pen, it’s no wonder her agency became number one. London’s Number One Dog-Walking Agency bounds along with the energy of a rambunctious pup and exudes the wisdom of a beloved canine with an old soul (you know the type). MacDougall’s writing sparkles with humor, joy and wit. And for dog lovers, of course, the best part is: It’s all about dogs.

If Kate MacDougall is as skilled with dogs as she is with a pen, it’s no wonder her dog-walking agency became number one.
Children's & YAPicture Book

Dakota Crumb: Tiny Treasure Hunter

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

A museum at night is the setting of this inventive picture book starring the plucky and determined Dakota Crumb, a mouse on a mission. As the story opens, the big-city museum has closed; only guards are visible as Dakota creeps out, carrying a sack and her trusty treasure map. She is seeking a “famous priceless treasure.” It’s hidden somewhere, and naturally X marks the spot. Will the intrepid mouse be able to find it?

Young readers will enjoy joining this small scavenger as she slips past knights in armor mounted on huge steeds and sweeps minute objects such as a postage stamp and an action-figure toy into her sack, staying just out of the reach of a cleaner’s broom. Her quest brings her to the land of Egypt, where an enormous cat statue stands watch. Could the ancient temple hold the ultimate prize?

Dakota Crumb: Tiny Treasure Hunter is successful on several levels: as an introduction to museums, as an adventure story and as a seek-and-find book. The treasures Dakota collects throughout the book provide a fun opportunity for kids to explore what can constitute a museum collection. 

Illustrator Kelly Murphy’s clear, colorful pen and ink images entice readers to look closely at paintings on the museum’s walls and tiny details in the exhibits. Her linework is particularly effective and will make it easy for young children to identify the many objects included in each spread. Activities at the end of the book add to the clever design. Preschoolers and early elementary-age readers will especially enjoy going back through the pages to find the items on Dakota’s list of treasures, which Murphy has sprinkled throughout the pages. 

Dakota Crumb is a delight that readers will return to again and again. In that way, it’s a bit like a favorite, fabulous museum. 

A museum at night is the setting of this inventive picture book starring the plucky and determined Dakota Crumb, a mouse on a mission.

Children's & YAPicture Book

The Cot in the Living Room

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Author Hilda Eunice Burgos’ heartfelt first picture book is the story of a Dominican American girl who lives in Washington Heights, a New York City neighborhood. The girl’s parents keep a cot in their living room where children whose parents work late or overnight shifts can sleep.

Like Burgos herself as a child, the narrator must share a bedroom—and her big sister snores!—so she’s jealous of her family’s overnight guests and the attention they receive. “It would be so much fun to have the whole living room to myself!” she declares, not fully grasping that for children like Lisa, whose grandmother cleans offices, or Edgardo, whose mother plays music gigs that last until the wee hours of the morning, it’s not that simple.

Being separated from their families and sleeping on the unfamiliar cot affects each overnight guest differently. Raquel asks to keep the light on, while Edgardo discovers that the narrator’s mother doesn’t know his favorite lullaby. The narrator nonetheless maintains that the situation is unfair until one night when the cot isn’t occupied and she sleeps on it herself. Suddenly, she realizes how scary it is to try to fall asleep in a strange, dark room, and her newfound empathy helps her to come up with a creative way to comfort Raquel the next time she comes to stay.

Gaby D’Alessandro’s warm illustrations depict the family’s home as a safe and welcoming place. City buildings appear through the windows and on blocks of the colorful quilt that’s depicted on the book’s bright, decorative endpapers. Both Burgos and D’Alessandro are Dominican American, and D’Alessandro incorporates subtle cultural details, such as floral paintings and a Carnival mask displayed on the family’s living room walls.

Burgos, author of the middle grade novel Ana Maria Reyes Does Not Live in a Castle (2018), writes in spare, evocative prose that makes the narrator’s journey of personal growth feel natural and genuine. Text and art work in harmony to create a portrait of a close-knit community where neighbors help one another through small but meaningful acts and where hard work is a way of life. The Cot in the Living Room beautifully captures the gifts we receive when we open our hearts to others.

Author Hilda Eunice Burgos’ heartfelt first picture book is the story of a Dominican American girl who lives in Washington Heights, a New York City neighborhood. The girl’s parents keep a cot in their living room where children whose parents work late or overnight shifts can sleep.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Many Shapes of Clay

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Author-illustrator Kenesha Sneed is a Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist who mines her own artistic background in her evocative first picture book, Many Shapes of Clay: A Story of Healing.

Eisha lives with her mother, a clay artist whose studio is in the basement of their apartment, and their cat, who loves long naps. When Eisha wonders why her mother leaves her molded clay shapes on the shelves instead of playing with them, her mother explains that the shapes are fragile, then gives Eisha a piece of clay to experiment with.

As Eisha moves the clay in her hands, it evokes ideas and memories, including a day last summer when she picked lemons with her father. Eisha molds her clay into the shape of a lemon and paints it yellow. She brings it outside to the apartment stoop when she and Mama take a break from their hard work. “Sweat drips down from the top of her head to the tip of her chin. Mama misses Papa too,” Sneed writes, offering the book’s first indication that Mama and Eisha have suffered a terrible loss.

Outside, Eisha notices that when she taps on the clay lemon, it makes a musical sound, but she taps a little too hard and it breaks, shattering into many pieces. “Each piece reflects the sadness she feels,” Sneed writes. Eisha’s mother acknowledges her daughter’s grief and helps her to create something new from the broken pieces of clay that will help carry her memories and love for her father with her into each new day.

With its subtle and perceptive depiction of grief, Many Shapes of Clay stands out among children’s books that deal with this topic. The story unfolds gently as Sneed slowly reveals the intensity of Eisha and Mama’s loss. Eisha’s contemplation of her inability to put her broken pieces of clay back together is particularly moving: “What Eisha feels is hard to describe—like something that is too heavy to lift. Like something that might last forever.” Sneed’s spare, lyrical prose and earth-tone illustrations come together beautifully to depict the uneven, uncertain process of healing.

Many Shapes of Clay heralds the arrival of a talented new picture book creator.

Author-illustrator Kenesha Sneed is a Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist who mines her own artistic background in her evocative first picture book, Many Shapes of Clay: A Story of Healing.

NonfictionWomen's HistoryHistory

The Secret History of Home Economics

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Whatever stereotypes we associate with the profession of home economics, Danielle Dreilinger is here to assure us that everything we think we know is wrong. As she explicates in her thoroughly entertaining book, The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live, home economics in the United States is much more complex than we might have imagined.

Since the time of Catharine Beecher, who published A Treatise on Domestic Economy in 1841, home economists have not simply reacted to societal changes and trends but have helped shape them. For starters, we have home economists to thank for things like food groups, the designation of a federal poverty level and the consumer protection movement. Home economics also opened doors for some women, including women of color, to enter careers in science that may have otherwise been closed to them.

As a journalist, Dreilinger knows the power of storytelling and makes the women from this history come to life. For example, she mines oral histories to shed light on the challenges Dr. Flemmie Kittrell faced as an African American nutritionist visiting South Africa in 1967. Dreilinger also provides overall historical context, delineating the marginalization of Black women in the home economics field.

As for the role of home economics in the 21st century, Dreilinger says the most common response she received when telling others about writing this book was, “We should bring that back.” Dreilinger closes with several suggestions for doing just that, including diversifying the profession to include more people of color and teaching home economics as an interdisciplinary field that explores the connection between our homes and the world, “with an eye to addressing the root causes of problems such as hunger, homelessness, isolation, and environmental devastation.”

Dreilinger, who completed her book during the COVID-19 pandemic, correctly notes that people have been thinking about the meaning of home and how homes work more than ever before. As we look toward the future, it’s always good to consider where we’ve been, and The Secret History of Home Economics helps us do that.

Whatever stereotypes we associate with home economics, Danielle Dreilinger is here to assure us that everything we think we know is wrong.
Nonfiction

North by Shakespeare

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

In his entertaining new work, North by Shakespeare: A Rogue Scholar’s Quest for the Truth Behind the Bard’s Work, bestselling author and investigative journalist Michael Blanding digs deep into the world of Shakespearean scholarship. He chronicles the tireless research of Dennis McCarthy, an outsider in academia, about links between Shakespeare’s plays and the writings of Sir Thomas North, a member of Queen Elizabeth’s court.

Blanding first met McCarthy in October of 2015, at a dinner reception after a lecture. Readers’ first reaction to McCarthy’s beliefs may be similar to Blanding’s: dismay at the prospect of yet another conspiracy theory about the true author behind Shakespeare’s work.

Yet there are certainly many mysteries about Shakespeare’s life that have given rise to speculation—for example, “how a glover’s son from Stratford could have had the intimate knowledge of Italy” apparent in his plays. McCarthy’s theory seeks to explain such discrepancies. He doesn’t believe the plays’ authorship belongs to the aristocratic North, however. Rather, he thinks Shakespeare borrowed specific phrasings, plot lines and scenes from North’s published and unpublished writings.

Blanding’s energetic narrative traces McCarthy’s search for more of North’s writings and his use of plagiarism software to provide evidence for their influence on Shakespeare. He also delves into Tudor history, illuminating North’s life as a traveler and aristocrat. Along the way, Blanding considers “what it takes to change established ways of thinking” within academic communities.

It’s unclear if Blanding’s highly enjoyable foray into the field will have an impact on Shakespearean scholars, but at the very least, North by Shakespeare will provide readers with the tools to enter the fray themselves. The book includes McCarthy’s estimated timeline of North’s plays next to a timeline of Shakespeare’s work, which readers can use along with McCarthy’s other techniques to examine passages from both North and Shakespeare themselves. It’s almost as much fun as sitting in a theater.

Michael Blanding’s deep dive into the world of Shakespearean scholarship is almost as much fun as sitting in a theater.

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