Book Review: Heaven, Just Believe (children's book)

Heaven, Just Believe, by Sandy Hill (Create Space, 2017, 28ppPB, $11.99, ages 5-9) Review by Skye Anderson

From the prolific author and grandmother Sandy Hill has come another children's book for the curious (and what child is not curious?): Heaven, Just Believe, for those children who wonder who goes to heaven, what do they do, and, basically, what it is like. Their beloved grandmother has recently passed away but, before she did, she visited Heaven and wrote about her visit in her diary which she saved for her grandchildren, Elliot and Ashley. The children miss the grandmother so much that they would love to visit her, but how can they?

Questions About Heaven

Elliot and Ashley have many questions about heaven such as: Do they dance in heaven? People? Angels? Do they giggle? Do dogs go to heaven? All these and more are questions the children have if they could visit but if they could visit they would learn the answers. The children believe - believe so hard, but can they learn about heaven without going there?

Bonus

Sandy Hill has another version of Heaven out, too, this one with no pictures so the young reader can read, imagine the pictures and then draw the pictures themselves. How cool is that?

Book Review: Above the Clouds (when a loved one passes away, for children)

Above the Clouds, by Kris Nulf (Book Baby, 2023, $14.95, 34ppPB, ages 5-7, kindergarten to grade 2) Review by Skye Anderson

Illustrator Carrie Knox has created the cutest little girl you ever will see. But the little girl is not happy - her mother has passed away and she misses her and wants to see her and be with her - she has many questions to ask. She is so sad that the pages are black and white.

The little girl's dogs try to make her feel better with kisses as she falls off to sleep (we even see the sheep she is counting). In her dream, way up there above the clouds, her mother appears with wings and the little girl is so happy the black and white pages turn to color. Then, amid the smiles, a rainbow appears to take the little girl back home again.

When she awakes in the morning, the little girl remembers her mother with joy and promises to do good and be happy.

Author Kris Nulf has written a book in rhyme that is simply perfect in every way! This book is for you and for anyone who has lost someone and misses them.

Book Review: In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War (Vietnam)

In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War, by Tobias Wolff (Vintage, 240pp, 1995, $12) Review by Skye Anderson

No, not a book about a pharaoh in Egypt. This reviewer always needs to figure out why a book was titled as it was. . . . and remains at a loss here, as well as about 'the lost war' (except that we lost the war in Vietnam rather than winning it?).

The emotions Pharaoh's Army brings up are numerous and unsettling - author Tobias Wolff does an excellent job of describing Basic Training at Ft. Jackson, SC, and describes travel and waiting in the Army, particularly on the way to a war overseas ("Hurry up and wait"). Wolff is perhaps this generation's Jack Kerouac or Holden Caulfield (he speaks in raw language to some 'revolutionaries' but not to all, to some grown-up hippies and conscientious objectors but not all).

My Vietnamese language came back and most of the tones, more of the vocabulary, thanks to this highly-respected memoirist.

Thirteen Chapters

At first, thinking they were 13 short stories, I soon found out differently: the first two chapters are highly unique in their juxtaposition and explanation. But, why thirteen?

Fiction or Non-fiction?

But is this a book of fiction or non-fiction? A memoir is a little of both. And there are not yet enough books out about Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan and, I wonder, are more of them written by officers or enlisted personnel? Begun over there or not until the soldier comes back and has time on his hands?

Can anyone write a book about their experiences in the military or in a combat zone? Perhaps, since each person's experiences are unique yet they all share so much in common just by being in the military plus since the military transfers its people so often, they can run into each other a few times in just one career. Many experiences are shared, just not at the same time.

So, yes, you can write about your time in the military even if it wasn't heroic, simply by embellishing a few experiences as author Tobias Wolff did. It helps to meet your buddies as civilians and shoot the breeze, however.

Unsettling

Wolff is the brilliant kid who doesn't know where he is going so he lands in a relationship that is caustic. He also lucks out in Vietnam and befriends a meal. And, my, how wars change. There was so much more freedom in Vietnam than in Iraq or Afghanistan if you consider what one individual can do or where one can go - alone. And what he can drink.

And, yes, there was a dog in it.

Book Review: 'Twas the Year of the World Series (OT)(Children's book)(2021 Atlanta Braves)

'Twas the Year of the World Series, by Debbie Clark (Mascot Books, $19.95, 2024, 34ppHB) Review by Skye Anderson 

Souvenir to Save!

What a wonderful memory if you love baseball or if you are an Atlanta Braves fan or if you want to know every little detail about the 2021 World Series and the team that won it, after so long. 

Incredible Illustrations!

We knew we would love 'Twas the Year of the World Series when we saw the crowds - on the inside front and back, on the cover, and on all but three pages of the book itself. Some views of the crowds were fuzzy, out of focus, because the eye is drawn to someone close to the 'lens' rather than in the background. The faces are grey and orange and white and black blobs but there is no question that they are faces in the crowd. And several pages are reminiscent of a scrapbook.

The Story - Six After Twenty-six

Every big name player down through the ages, every game of the 2021 World Series itself - all six with the Astros, and winning 4 to 2 games. What a way to celebrate and keep this striking souvenir children's book.

Book Review: How to Defeat Bully Brain: OCD Detectives (OT)(Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)(children)

How to Defeat Bully Brain: OCD Detectives, by Ella Kim (Gatekeeper Press, 2024, 76pp, ages 8-12, $10.99PB) Review by Skye Anderson

Hot on the heels of Volume 1, A Story about OCD* and starring a boy, comes Volume 2, OCD Detectives starring a girl, written by highschool student Ella Kim.

What is OCD?

OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, is a condition whose definition (with examples) appears on page 66 at the end of the book.

Now that the reader has read volume 1and knows a bit about OCD we know that Bully Brain is a voice in your head (often secret) telling you to do things that may interfere with your best life. What can one do about a Bully Brain?

Along comes Scarlett, a detective who founded Defeating Bully Brain Organization. Her job is to find OCD candidates, teach them a technique to overcome their type of OCD and send them on their way to find others to teach but some students are harder than others and take longer - we are all different.

First, we have Alice with Dirty Dan, then Noah and finally Jackson with Goody Gil. Using Detective Scarlett's method, they all learn to overcome their Bully Brain and graduate to becoming 'teachers' themselves, with more difficult cases.

The Method

Scarlett teaches the Step by Step Method which can be followed in many situations life throws at us.

A Scrapbook

Defeat looks like a scrapbook with simple colorful illustrations on each page. A fun and helpful book to refer to often.

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Book Review: Ava and Maya the Fairy Dragon (OT)

Ava and Maya the Fairy Dragon, by Medha Bhaskar (6 years old) (Independently published, 40pp, $17.99HB, 2025, ages 4-12) Review by Skye Anderson 

With gorgeous illustrations in bold primary colors and simple lines yet illustrating exquisite creativity, Ava and Maya the Fairy Dragon is a lesson in believing. 

Little Ava plays in the forest, perhaps chasing butterflies but never catching one: one day Ava becomes lost and who appears but a fairy dragon, Maya, with scales that shimmer like stars. Maya rescues Ava and returns her to her home and family - thank goodness! 

A lovely book about love, family and believing - believing in secret friends to share adventures with. Believe and it will come true, if only in your dreams.

Reminiscent of Peter Pan, Maya appears only to Ava and only at night, bringing dreams of lovely adventures with hints of a sequel. Both believe in butterflies and magic, sparkling rainbows and friendship.

We can't wait for more adventures of a little girl and her secret fairy dragon friend!

Book Review: The Color of Sound (young violinist on strike, Bernese Mountain Dog, synesthesia)

The Color of Sound, by Emily Barth Isler (CarolRhoda Books, $19.99 HB, 336pp, 2024, ages 11-14, grades 6-8) Review by Skye Anderson

Rare indeed is the book for middle-schoolers that also keeps adults reading to the end - in almost one sitting! The Color of Sound is one such book, written, I'm sure, with both young and old(er) in mind.

Author Emily Barth Isler does not talk down to middle-schoolers but considers them an almost-equal, able to understand complex relationships, having studied them subconsciously for at least a dozen years, yet it is only now that the girl's understanding coalesces and wise words emanate.

The more usual book for middle schoolers is overshot with dialogue, so Color is refreshing with just the right amount. 

And the cover, like the cover of Aftermath,

is one you will return to often as you see different things in it each time. The intriguing cover of Color wraps around, with a girl on the front and a look-alike on the back with time and music woven in.

What's it All About?

Our protagonist Rosie has the rare ability to sense colors when she hears sound*. She is also a child prodigy and has played the violin all her life. 

Until now. 

Now is the six weeks she and her mom stay at her maternal grandparents where her mother grew up - a large house almost in the country. 

Rosie is on strike: she left her violin at home and demands to take a break from that life of lessons and practice and rehearsals and competitions and orchestras and music camps. But Grandmother is in the late stages of Alzheimers, Grandfather is a quiet man, and they have a big slobbery Bernese Mountain Dog, who is always in the way. 

And, they have a shed that Rosie takes shelter in one day only to find another soul there to educate her. But who is this other? And can Rosie change that 'other'?

It's About Relationships and Family History

Can children really educate their parents, change them? Perhaps only when they know the whole story, as Rosie discovers, in bits and pieces, the story of her family and generations past - why she knows nothing about them. Yet.

Did Rosie choose violin or did her talent choose it for her? Why is it so important to her mother and her father?

The Color of Sound will stay with the young reader for a long time and may just spark an interest in acting, in music, in family history, in dogs.

Bonus: Like Aftermath with mathematical terms like chapter titles, The Color of Sound introduces each chapter with a musical term (pianissimo, staccato, etc.) and it is up to the astute reader to discover why. Although a background in music will make reading this book a richer experience, no background at all will not hinder its enjoyment.

*synesthesia: one receives information in two of the five senses at once (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell). Sounds may have colors, words may have taste, . . . .

Book Review: A Fatal Arrangement (Pacific Northwest, flowers, murder)

A Fatal Arrangement, by Gayle Roper (Annies Fiction, 2020, 214pp HB, $19.99) Review by Skye Anderson

There are romance novels and then there are steamy romance novels. This is neither. 

A Fatal Arrangement is what I call a cozy mystery - it has no graphic violence, and generally no swearing or sex - just a darn good tale.

Cozy mysteries often come in groups (a series). Sometimes they star a dog* or cat, sometimes they center around a bookstore or a yarn shop**, or a bakery with a recipe included, an inn, a geographical location. You name it and I bet there is a mystery series with that theme.

This cozy mystery starts with a death - five years ago - a disappearance, actually. And an empty boat.  But, could it be murder? Grandpa's last diary entry seems to say so but who would murder a grandpa?

A Fatal Arrangement stars a let-go botany professor who worked with the police probably at the University of Washington in Seattle (my alma mater), who takes over her grandmother's florist shop on Orcas Island in Puget Sound (Orcas really is an island there). Her first weekend also features a book signing of famous authors who got their start in a writers' course on the island, a last-minute wedding, poisoned flowers (hence, the title), a break-in, a thumb drive (jump drive), another break-in, a dachshund named Bear, another break-in, and hiding things from the police. 

Oh, and did I mention the cliffhangers at the end of chapters? And the professor whose heart goes pittypatter when the island's handyman appears (or a member of the city's finest). Our budding florist has a lot to learn about small town friendships and to learn the common names of plants and flowers rather than the scientific ones (Genus species) if she wants to keep her new friends, the owner of the local bookstore and the owner of the bakery next door and. . . . 

A Fatal Arrangement will make you want to read more cozy flower mysteries!

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*To Fetch a Thief by Spencer Quinn, but Quinn's are classy tales

**On Skein of Death by Allie Pleiter, a typical cozy mystery

Book Review: The Secret of the Forgotten City (Nancy Drew 52)

The Secret of the Forgotten City, by Carolyn Keene (Grosset & Dunlap, 1947, 208pp HB, $5.99, ages 8-12, #52 of 163 in the series - or possibly 600) Review by Skye Anderson

Women of a certain age grew up with Nancy Drew ('born' in 1930) just as men of a certain age grew up with the earlier Hardy Boys Mysteries (b. 1927). 

At first, Nancy had a blue roadster (a car, usually blue), two best girl friends, and a boy friend in college, Ned. The girls wore dresses and Nancy was so very lucky to be in just the right place at just the right time and to always be able to travel the next day to another part of the country to solve a mystery. She was quite the amateur sleuth (solver of mysteries and crimes). So much so that law enforcement officers often would 'break current day rules' and ask for her interference in solving a crime.

Then-day Nancy (aged 16-18) evolved with the times and went on TV, sported a modern haircut and wardrobe, including pants; her books have even been "shortened" from 25 chapters to 20.

Carolyn Keene, the "author," is actually several authors who were paid to write a formula book - but they loved Nancy and could identify with her which is why she became such an iconic figure in literature - more so than the Dana Girls, Trixie Belden or Sue Barton but just a little bit ahead of Cherry Ames (the nurse)(see end of article).

Some of the Nancy Drew books are amazingly technical in parts, parts that Nancy ends up solving. For example, in The Secret of the Forgotten City, Nancy and friends go on an archeological dig out West in Nevada (but generally the place names are generic) with no experience or training but first, Nancy must decipher some carved stones.

The Forgotten City

In The Forgotten City, Nancy and pals search for gold and as a result, Nancy and Ned almost become fatalities. Almost.

Starting with a theft, and going on to 102-degree days and then too much water, plus a scam, this may be Nancy's most scary mystery yet.

A Play on Words

In The Crooked Banister, Nancy's adventures would be grand entertainment around Halloween. From a moat on fire, to a robot technically ahead of his (her?) time, to poisoned portraits, this tale is almost too weird to believe. And the haunted house belongs to Mr. Banister, of course - the normal one, that is, but gone.

Do you Remember. . . ?

Your first Nancy Drew book? I do. I was 8 and it was a Christmas present. From then on, I was hooked, until I grew up that is.

Oh, and about the dog. . . .

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Book Review: susan, linda, nina & cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR (OT)

Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR, by Lisa Napoli* (Abrams, 2021, $28 HB, 352pp) Review by Skye Anderson

Would you read a book with the title Susan? How about Linda? or Susan and Linda? or Nina - does that ring a bell? or Susan and Linda and Nina? I bet you got it at Susan, Linda, Nina and Cokie though! Even if the title looked like this: susan, linda, nina & cokie.

Or, does this little exercise bring you back to "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice"?

Susan, Linda, Nina and Cokie is the extraordinary story of the "founding mothers" of NPR (National Public Radio)! Susan Stamberg, Linda Wertheimer, Nine Totenberg and Cokie Roberts were on the radio for decades and not just 'on the radio' but on NPR and not just 'on' but helping to birth that iconic piece of oral history.

If you don't recall all four women, that's OK: I only remember three of the names even though I am an avid member of my local public radio station and 'grew up' with all of the founding mothers.

A Long Book of Recent Radio History, Replete with Gossipy History

At 352 pages, this is a long book about four enterprising young women whom we all know and listen to on a daily basis. We invite them into our homes.We may not recognize their faces but know their voices well. 

Author Lisa Napoli deals with everything. Starting with cancer and going on to plagiarism and sexual harassment with a discussion of the financial woes of NPR in 1983. And if, at the end, you still get the four founders mixed up, that's OK, too!

We begin at the beginning with a chapter on the background of each of the women, then how they met over a few years, how hard they worked as the Women's Movement was in its infancy, how little they made (salary-wise) and what they are offered for a speech nowadays. Along the way, the author digresses onto threads of what is happening in the world at the time. All that makes for a fascinating few evenings of reading.

*complete with a timeline