Book review: The Jazzy Books (kids, dog, learning-fun)

Introducing: The Jazzy Books! by Sonja McGiboney (Sonja McGoboney Publishing, 2017-2019, $8.99 [most titles on sale for the holidays at 40% off], early grades, ages 3 and up, available at JazzysBooks.com)

The Jazzy Books! Dog-gone Fun!

“Jazzy? What kind of a name is that?”

“Oh, a dog’s name, you say? Well, in that case, what a GREAT name for a dog!”

The Jazzy books are fun, unique, very primary ‘color-full’ and creative kid-dog books that teach numbers and colors and shapes and time and lots more for young readers ages 3-8. Jazzy is the cutest little pit-bull-type (PBT) dog that you and your kids will fall in love with right away. Photos and words by author-photographer Sonja McGiboney join to make simply the most keepable books I have seen in a long long time.

Jazzy and Friend

Three-year-olds can read the pictures as they are being read to by their 8-year-old brothers and sisters.

Meyer has Fun Reading his Jazzy Book!

Author McGiboney has created more than 10 Jazzy books. I say, ‘more than,’ because some of them cover two topics. For instance, although Jazzy Colors teaches colors with her dog Jazzy, McGiboney has paired each color with a month so Jazzy can teach the months of the year at the same time a little one learns colors. Two for the price of one, right?

“Why?” “Why Not?”

One fine day, McGiboney, a professional photographer, realized that she had too many photos of her oh-so photogenic rescue dog Jazzy, from adorable puppyhood onward,

so she had to do something with them and, with a background in early childhood education, why not let Jazzy teach youngsters to count and say their ABCs and to learn more about the wide wonderful world they live in, with the help of Man’s Best Friend, Jazzy the dog.

                                                  Can Learning be Fun?

Jazzy makes learning fun-easy and McGiboney has included pages of activities on Jazzy’s website for children to help make Jazzy come alive for them plus special learning pages for five of the books (Jazzy Shapes, Jazzy Time, Growing Up Jazzy, ABC Jazzy and Counting Down Jazzy) including word cards and even cupcakes.

And all that Jazz!

Watch Jazzy ‘dance’ here. (Well, she actually does a few tricks and then plays in the water.)

And watch her do more tricks here (she loves to show off what she can do). (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K_ULaqCG9k)

Jazzy was quite the model as a young pupster - and still is.

Added Value

  

Jazzy’s books have caught on quickly in elementary schools as the little four-year-old dog and her human visit area schools to demonstrate their books. And the website even features lesson plans that can be used in school, for home-schooling and just for family fun.

Order the Jazzy books at JazzysBooks.com in book form or pdf. Many of them are on sale for the holidays!

Next: We review several of the Jazzy books starting with ABC Jazzy.

(Photo credits: Sonja McGiboney Photography, ASmileADayPhoto.com)

Book Review (OT): Mrs. Rossi's Dream (Viet Nam, 1967, 1987, MIA - from both sides)

Mrs. Rossi’s Dream, by Khanh Ha, (The Permanent Press, 2019, $29.95, 311 pages)

War: “From Both Sides Now”

An intriguing premise: Viet Nam, more than10 years after the ‘war’ ends, alternating with Vietnam 1967; both, from both sides.

Viet Nam, 1987, the mother of a GI missing in 1967, presumed dead. Her adopted teenage daughter (Vietnamese). Searching for the GI.

Hmmmmmm. . . .

An intriguing book cover with white water lilies and just the hint of a GI in the background, possibly to be overlooked on the book cover itself but very visible online.

Better Summary than . . . .

Mrs. Rossi’s Dream could easily have been a collection of short stories some of which intercalate until they merge almost too quickly: numerous stories which merely set the stage rather than advance the narrative, but the vignettes set the stage well, even if some or most seem to have nothing to do with the characters at the time.

Experience Viet Nam by Reading

You will smell the fragrance (and stench) of a tropical country, you will hear the night sounds of crickets, you will taste rice in all its glory and in every conceivable combination, and you will even be shocked and disappointed by human nature during war (unless you were part of it).

You will learn a few words of Vietnamese and look up place names and other historical facts about the war in general.

You will read what GIs thought of the Vietnamese people and why many North Vietnamese young men dreaded their conscription (“Born North, Die South”).

You will hear the voice of LT Rossi, the American; of a POW and his guards; of Vietnamese elders and young villagers; of the Viet Minh and Viet Cong and the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) but you may easily mix them all up.

Suffice it to say that you will experience 1967 Vietnam and 1987 Vietnam, war and post-war Vietnam, but always in the countryside of fireflies and constant rain and floods and rice and leeches.

Mrs. Rossi’s Dream

Mrs. Rossi’s dream is either her hope of finding her son or his remains, the purpose behind her trip to Vietnam along with her adopted Vietnamese daughter ,or perhaps her son came to her in a dream and she wants to verify the dream. Or it may just be wishful thinking. Which ever it is, is up to the reader.

A literature junkie will find much to discover and discuss. Anyone familiar with the war and the language will find even more, either because he was in the military in Vietnam or perhaps studied the language and culture for work (as I did).

Book Review: (OT) Maryland State Book Selection: Bloodsworth (murder, Baltimore)

Bloodsworth: The True Story of the First Death Row Inmate Exonerated by DNA Evidence, by Tim Junkin (Workman Publishing, 2004, 294 pages, $16.95 paperback), the “One Maryland One Book” for 2018 and the Howard County Book Connection (Maryland) selection for 2019-20!

 In a Nutshell

(Yes, this is a spoiler but since the story was splashed across all the front pages almost-always and forever beginning in 1984 Baltimore, you probably already know the details and the ending.)

You fall in love quickly and marry her, move to Baltimore from the Eastern Shore, but she turns out to be a junkie. You still love her so you try - but it doesn’t work out so you leave for home, Cambridge, Maryland, and almost immediately, the police show up to arrest you for a rape and murder of a young girl in the sultry summer of 1984 Baltimore.

A horrible crime (watch the PBS episode here), the entire city pressures its detectives to wrap it up in a hurry – and so you are convicted, sentenced to be executed.

Mistaken Identity. . . .

Kirk Bloodsworth Today

How can that be? You are innocent but the city wants to solve the case fast, and you’ll do.

But how can you prove your innocence against the sightings by two young boys and five adults – and was the investigation done according to Hoyle? How eyes lie. . . .

How to Survive Prison. . . .

Incarceration in Baltimore is no cake walk. Somehow, you survive and pass on helpful hints such as ‘never borrow,’ and you work out lifting weights in the gym so you appear indestructible.

But, alone, the tears come: ah, the injustice of it all.

An appeal, a second trial which you also lose.

An Innocent Man. . . .

You write letters daily for several years, telling and re-telling judges and politicians that you are innocent – signing them AIM, An Innocent Man. You finally find an attorney to review the case from scratch and eventually evidence from the scene is discovered that the FBI missed and now, in a long shot, undergoes DNA analysis.

Breathless months follow until, nine years after the 1984 murder, the DNA is found to be not a match for you. Voila! And suddenly you are a free man – free to speak out against the death penalty, free to work for the Innocence Project, free to fall in love and finally make something of yourself.

All thanks to the new forensic tool of DNA fingerprinting which also identified the actual perpetrator. Eventually. After 20 years!

Was it just all a bad dream?

Local Story Becomes National News

The reader will come across the names of Maryland governors that are familiar: judges and prosecutors and defenders, not so well known. Places names, maybe.

How to Read Bloodsworth

First, set aside plenty of time (294 pages) in big chunks or be prepared to take the book with you wherever you go (stash it in your purse or bookbag) to read when you have a minute waiting in line or longer at the dentist’s office.

Bloodsworth is riveting. It is a book you can’t wait to get back to, to find out what happened in your absence.

Secondly, know that you may get bogged down in the legal proceedings that are detailed and seemingly repetitive (but only seemingly).

And, never fear – the science behind DNA fingerprinting* will not bog you down. As a matter of fact, it may be too cursory.

On the other hand, Bloodsworth is immensely readable, not put-downable, and exciting even if you know the ending in advance, as we all do who have read the words on the front cover - even with the repetition of the investigation and two trials (you can probably skip some of that part)

Why Read Bloodsworth

Bloodsworth is a good book, well worth the time. Others agree with me - whether it is for the breathless plot or the magnetic writing style. As a matter of fact, Bloodsworth was selected for the Howard County Book Connection (2019-2020) as well as the “One Maryland One Book” selection for 2018. 

Oh, and by the way, the preface is written by Sir Alec Jeffries, long overdue for the Nobel Prize and cousin of a resident of our town!

Bloodsworth has also been made into a documentary!

*If you are interested in DNA fingerprinting, read the very readable

The Blooding: The True Story of the Narborough Village Murders by Joseph Wambaugh.

Book Review: The Secret Life of Dog Catchers (California, Animal Control Officer, Dogs, Horse, Druggies, . . . . )

The Secret Life of Dog Catchers: An Animal Control Officer’s Passion to Make a Difference, by Shirley Zindler (Shirley Zindler, 2012, 249 pages, $12.95)

Has it really been seven years since The Secret Life of Dog Catchers was published? We here at DogEvals kept waiting for our county library to order a copy but we finally gave up and purchased it for review.

I was ecstatic to find a large collection of short chapters in Dog Catchers, animal stories that I could read when I had just a few minutes (I had just finished reading a wonderful book for a writing competition and writing two reviews about it and was ready for some light reading).

And they were more than just short stories, they led to a conclusion. In many chapters we follow the personal pets of the author as they grow.

Light Reading? Was I Wrong!

I started with Dog Catchers late one Saturday night.

And stayed up til 2 am! (but it took another couple of days to finish it)

This is one author I want to meet!

Dog Catchers is a book you will carry with you until you finish it. Each story is funny and warm and human and perhaps a little bit tragic. I couldn’t wait to be back to reading it.

But Why Did Zindler Self-Publish?

I’m going to have to write author Shirley Zindler and suggest she contact an agent – this book is so good, I am sure a publishing house will pick it up.

What’s It All About?

Forty-five short chapters and a few not so short, each with an adorable animal photo to start, including the very adorable little pittie puppy on the front cover (Have you ever ripped off the cover of a paperback book and framed it? I have.). Animal stories with dogs mostly, but also cats and kittens, several about horses (including positive reinforcement training), pigs (smart little ones), bats, raccoons who wandered through open doors (!!) into houses, chickens (cock-fighting), llamas and goats who need hoof help, deer stuck in fences, skunks stuck inside houses. . . .

People and Animals - You Gotta Love 'Em

Zindler is also a very special human who knows so much about animals she will wow you. She lives with a pilot husband, an aunt who helps with the kids and house, two teens and a young niece, three dogs, two cats, three horses and numerous foster humans and animals (including new litters that have to be cared for around the clock) throughout the book.

Being an animal control officer* (also known as a dog catcher) is also or mostly about dealing with people – frightened people and dangerous gang members and animal abusers and even animal hoarders – all of whom need to be handled with kid gloves so Zindler can remove the animals if necessary for their health and welfare. And she does so with aplomb and caring and even humor.

New Definitions?

I loved the stories about miscommunication because we all know people like that: people who call in about a dog hit by a car lying on the side of the road (“Please come right away!”) who turns out to have a broken toe nail, people who call in about a vicious dog attack (the dog simply barked from a 20-foot distance) or even the time the bite marks on the victim were too small to be seen.

A Very Human Human

I would love to have Shirley for my friend. She is madly in love with her husband after 20 years, she is humanly sleepy when on-call for the night shift, she is lucky enough to be able to take her dog with her to work.

Who Should Read?

Yes, some of the stories may “yuck-you-out” but most will entertain you and inspire you, perhaps to volunteer at your local shelter if you don’t already do so!

Of course, animal lovers will love Dog Catcher, but so will dog people and horse people and people people: after all an ACO may run into druggies and gangs and livestock owners and non-animal people – she needs to know how to handle each one with the animal’s best interest in mind (according to the law which may be too flexible for an animal’s best future).

Why Does She Do What She Does?

She educates. She saves. She is passionate about making a difference. She does it for the animals. Read it for the animals.

________________________ 

*One chapter takes the reader through a typical yet very varied day as an ACO (Animal Control Officer)