Book Review: Million Dollar Goat (children's book)

The Million Dollar Goat, by Melinda McCall* (Argyle Fox Publishing, 2023, $16.99 HB/$9.99 PB, 32 pp, ages 3-9)**

A Story of Two "Kids"

Can goats be adorable? In a word, "Yes!" And Ernie, a Nigerian dwarf goat, proves it with the help of illustrator Laraib Sukhera and writer-veterinarian Melinda McCall. But do goats eat money as depicted on the cute cover or do goats find money or do goats steal money or are goats worth a million dollars or what? Your own little kid will have some wild ideas before reading this book about another little kid (baby goat).

Based on a "true story," The Million Dollar Goat will soon become your child's favorite. Kids all over will be calling their dogs, "Million Dollar Dogs," when they go to the vet clinic to get spayed or neutered or maybe even when they get too close to a skunk and get 'skunked.' Or run into a door or play too rough or eat too much and have to go see their doctor, an animal doctor, a veterinarian.

Ernie starts out as a baby goat, a kid, who goes to the vet at three weeks old and meets Dr. Melinda for the first time - but not the last! Does that give you an idea for the million dollars? Do you wish you were Ernie's person, Sophie Jo - or not?

What's Next?

Perhaps a stuffie*** that looks like Ernie! A coloring book? 

-------------

*The author will sign books (for Ernie, and tell his story) at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival on May 4 and 5, 2024.

**Reviewed by Skye Anderson

***stuffed aninal

Book Review: Nel and the Fling! (children's book)(OT)

Nel and the Fling! A Story about Responsibility, by Julie le Cornu (Brok Pty Ltd, 2019, $19.95 Australian, 30 pp HB) First in a series

Flings are adorable. Doesn't everyone want one? So, when Nel manages to catch one, she is elated until she finds out how much work it is to care for another being. Nel also finds out that not all animals or flings like living in captivity. Some shrink.

Quandry

Nel dearly loves her fling but, ah, the work involved and no matter what she does to help give her fling a happy, comfortable life, Nel just doesn't succeed. What to do is a lesson in responsibility. When Nel frees her fling, she also frees herself!

Reminiscent of This is The House that Jack Built, Nel & the Fling! will be a fun book for your child to learn as it repeats each paragraph.

Other books in the series include The Groobs and The Lady of Rara-Jou.

---------------------------

Review by Skye Anderson

Book Review: The Groobs (children's book)(OT)

The Groobs: A Story about Many Things, by Julie le Cornu (Brok Pty Ltd, 2019, $19.95 Australian, 30 pp HB) 4th in a series

Groobs* are simply lovely creatures who come in shades of yellow and orange and tan and red until we see blue and brown and green and purple groobs - and more. But groobs obey their leader, the multi-colored groob, until he starts giving orders that destroy. The groobs sill obey - that is, until a brave little groob asks a question and changes their lives for the better.

"A story about many things" will challenge the reader to look carefully at each page to see whimsical items the author has stashed there, from a baby groob in mother's pouch like a kangaroo to standing on people's hands as they are shaking hands (both hands at the same time).

Other books in the series include The Lady of Rara-Jou and Nel and the Fling!

Review by Skye Anderson

-----------------------------------

*Groobs look like colored snowmen but furry. You want to just hug them, antennas and all.

Book Review: The Lady of Rara-Jou (children's book)(OT)

The Lady of Rara-Jou: A Story about Giving, by Julie le Cornu (Brok Pty Ltd, 2019, $19.95 Australian, 30 pp HB) 6th in a series* 

A rhyming book with the final word of each line in color, The Lady of Rara-Jou** is an experience your child will have fun with, learning some Australian words and spellings to boot!

The lady of Rara-Jou has a hole in her heart that she tries to fill with things that belong to other people, things that the reader will love to point out and name, even the Teddy Bear with one leg.

How the lady learns that taking things from others will not make her happy in the long run is a story to remember.

----------------------------------------------------------

*Other books include The Groobs and Nel & the Fling!

**Rara-Jou is a solar system and the lady is blue in more ways than one

PS - giving is the opposite of taking

Review by Skye Anderson

Book Review: Soldier Girls (three deployed National Guard women, Afghanistan, Iraq)

Soldier Girls, by Helen Thorpe (Scribner, 2014, $28 HB, 432 pp) Best book of the year: Publishers Weekly

If you have worked in a hospital or for a college or have served in the military, you know that that experience is more than just a job. It is a culture. 

Soldier Girls is a long yet fascinating book about three women soldiers' lives in the Indiana National Guard: three women of different ages, with different jobs. They deployed together to Afghanistan in 2004-05, returned home to various experiences, and two of them also deployed to Iraq in 2008, then returned home.  This book chronicles their friendships, the trials of working and living in a man's world, operating in a combat zone and also returning 'home,' changed, to family and friends.

The National Guard is a unique career, whether full-time, or, more likely, part-time. One can stay with the same unit of soldiers for an entire career. On the other hand, we are more familiar with the larger national military services - Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force - where one is transferred as an individual every 3-5 years, but in smaller job classifications, may work with the same people years later at a different duty station.

So, being in a state national guard unit, soldiers may form long-lasting bonds. And, if deployed together, a group quickly establishes relationships* that may last a lifetime. Or not.

Our group of three women were truck drivers and weapons repair technicians, two were married, one had children, one was in her 50s while the others were in their 20s and of college-age. Different, yet when living and working together, formed stable long-lasting relationships

So Different and Yet, So Much the Same

Everyone in the military shares some of the same experiences. Every combat soldier has had some  experiences in common. And yet, each one is different. This reviewer spent several days of her deployment at the military base where these three women spent a year, in Afghanistan, albeit a couple of years after the incidents in the book, when some rules were relaxed and others tightened. 

Soldier Girls traces the lives of the three women from the day they enlisted to twelve years later, after deployments, marriages, divorces, IEDs, injuries, leaving the Guard - but mostly focuses on the friendships, the training, the culture, the dogs each base 'adopted,' the housing (tents) and PXs, the weather and the food. If you, dear reader, have been deployed, you will relive your time 'down range' in the 'sandbox' and remember, amid the differences.

Uniforms erase differences: on a deployment, one does not have kids or a mortgage to pay. Your laundry is taken care of, your meals are provided and you do not have to go grocery shopping. Life is simpler. And military friendships differ from civilian ones - some last outside of the deployment and others do not. The military changes people and deployments really change a person for the better - in some ways.

Writing Style

Soldier Girls is a keeper!

Review by Skye Anderson

*Some readers may feel this book should be R-rated for the frequent accounts of affairs. Rest assured this is not as frequent in all deployments.

Book Review: The Healer's War (a nurse in VietNam)(OT)

The Healer's War, by Elizabeth Scarborough (Doubleday/Bantam, 1988, 320 pp HB, $26.99) Winner of the Nebula Award for science fiction or fantasy in 1989. 

Irreverent Woman at War

No holds barred, this novel is unusual and captivating, as well as often irreverent - quite often, as a matter of fact. In three parts, the first, "The Hospital," being the longest, followed by "The Jungle" and finally the shortest "Coming Home," The Healer's War is about an Army nurse in Vietnam, written by an Army nurse who served in Vietnam.

For the Veterans - Different War, Same Stuff

A fast read this book is, that details memories, the same yet different of just about anyone who has been deployed to a combat zone, but how times have changed, how the Army has changed - more formal today though some aspects are still the same, especially in the boonies where protocol takes a back seat to staying alive.

Part One, "The Hospital"

Fortunately, author Elizabeth Scarborough gets the Army right, at least an Army hospital in a deployment zone. Living in a small small hooch, sweating, working night shifts, getting to "know" the GIs, taking care of wounded Americans as well as Vietnamese, one of whom seems to be a holy man who gives Kitty his necklace as he is about to die. 

The necklace is magical and shows colors around people to warn Kitty of their intentions but the necklace also gives Kitty healing powers. After all, this is a fantasy novel.

You might want to read this lively part of the book with pen and paper to remember the names the characters. In addition, the diary of a combat nurse's shifts, colleagues, and patients may bore the reader, though those with some hospital experience will eagerly devour the stories and recollections.

Part Two, "The Jungle"

Surviving a helicopter crash, Kitty and her young patient must navigate the jungle and along the way they meet a snake, villagers, and the VietCong.

This part must be read carefully so as not to mix up days.

Part Three, "Coming Home"

Home, finally, Kitty, though disilusioned, experiences what many returnees experience after returning from combat - a culture that doesn't understand. How Kitty finally finds peace and a new meaning to her life closes out the novel.

Drawback: Although the author includes a two-page glossary of Vietnamese terms, she writes, "My apologies to any Vietnamese speakers for inaccuracies. I wish I had had your assistance when compiling this." That is no excuse, especially when this reviewer was a Vietnamese speaker, and finding one in 1988 would have been easy.

Review by Skye Anderson