It's Monday - Again - Poetry & More

   Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and 

  

Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they and others have been reading! Your TBR lists will grow! 

    

           Books from Candlewick Press, including one book of poetry and more! I am grateful! #PoetryMonth 

           I'm writing a poem every day in April for Poetry Month. Come visit, or, visit Jama's Alphabet Soup here for all the ways poets are celebrating this month.

       From Goodreads:  In 1937 in the snowbound city of Kiev (now known as Kyiv), wry and bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko organizes her life around her library job and her young son--but Hitler's invasion of Ukraine and Russia sends her on a different path. Given a rifle and sent to join the fight, Mila must forge herself from studious girl to deadly sniper--a lethal hunter of Nazis known as Lady Death. When news of her three hundredth kill makes her a national heroine, Mila finds herself torn from the bloody battlefields of the eastern front and sent to America on a goodwill tour. 

        The rest, the coming friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the underlying threats in the plot, terrifying. It is based on a real person and reading about what she took on as a real responsibility to save her country felt very real. Like all Kate Quinn's books, it was a story of a terrible part of our past history. 

         What I struggled with because of Russia's current war on Ukraine was finding much sympathy for them in this book. And they were the people who were suffering. Despite the current horrible news, the Russian people did become our allies in World War II and suffered extraordinary losses, helping all the rest of the Allies fight the Nazis and win. It is what is now happening that presents a dilemma, even when reading a story that is over seventy-five years old and one partly fictionalized.

        

         

             Jeannine Atkins' books often teach me. Her books craftily tell stories about women, most not well-known, some educated in science areas, often not, if at all, well-recognized. Be sure to check the list of her books, now this newest one, Hidden Powers, Lise Meitner's Call to Science. 

        Lise was a young Jewish girl in Austria who wanted to study chemistry. There were roadblocks because she was a girl, but she persisted and finished a Ph.D., and went to work in Berlin. The blocks continued. At first, women weren't allowed in the science buildings, and when finally admitted, they weren't paid, and had to take an assistant position only. Lise Meitner's story is an inspirational story of a scientist who did keep going with her work, eventually getting to the point that she recognized a new thing, nuclear fission, though it was not named at the time. The Nazis were starting to achieve more power, Lise and some colleagues are worried, and they eventually lose their jobs because they are Jewish or will not join the Nazi party. Jeannine's writing keeps the time and tension going by sharing the latest events and much of the time letting Lise herself share her thoughts. Others do, too. In one early scene, a friend says "Nobody believes that foolishness." As is known about that terrifying era, people did. And Lise replies, wishing people didn't make up things. "There's rot in the lie that one group of people/is worse than others. One lie sets a space for more." 

         Some of the text foreshadows things that will happen. Lise tries to remain in Berlin but at last, she understands it is not safe to remain. The tension between safety, poignant scenes of goodbye, and Lise's work after so many years calls the reader to hope for better. It is of interest that other more well-known scientists are in this story, too, like Einstein and Fermi, many of whom fled Germany in order to be safe. .    

        Jeannine shows the feelings so well through the poems. There is happiness in finding answers in the research, in the friendships with colleagues and family friends, small trips to a beach. Finally, sadness at how her world changed in her homeland and horror that her research ended in the atomic bomb.

     It is a bittersweet end, but an admirable story where one can feel Lise's passion for her science, her home, her friends, yet ending in her sorrow for country, friends, and some colleagues. It's a complex story that is intriguing to read from a life I hadn't known.

           

      Tracy Sorell tells the tale of young River who has not been well and cannot participate in the Powwow dancing this year, but as the day and all the dances and rituals are done, she realizes that next year will be different and she will be able to join in. The story and the extra information in the back describes the schedule, the rites, and the dances that follow a rigid procedure. Madelyn Goodnight illustrates with gorgeous colorful costumes with people on the sidelines and dancing on nearly every page, all people in their special attire for the Powwow. I enjoyed looking at all the costumes and the facial expressions, too.

         I imagine most know that there are recent scientific studies showing that trees are helping other trees in need, and other plants in their area, too. This story doesn't really explain that but young Britta thinks she knows it already. She knows her friends, Apple and Magnolia well. When Magnolia's leaves turn brown instead of yellow in the fall, Britta is watching. Through the winter, she just "knows" that Apple is helping and she does a few things, too, to keep these friends together, like knitting a long scarf to wrap around them and connect them! There is more and I'll leave you readers to read and find out what. Though Britta's dad tries to answer kindly, he thinks that tree "friends" probably don't help each other and her older sister is "definite" about it, Britta's Nana supports and helps, saying "Unusual friendships can be the most powerful of all." Laura Gehl offers a story to discuss, perhaps do more research, a story to love and Patricia Metola illustrates it with almost dream-like colors, focusing on Britta, whose faith never wavers.

What's Next: still the new John Green and I'm not sure what's next!