Book Review: First Ladies Make History (OT)

First Ladies Make History, by Anita McBride and   (White House Historical Association, 2024, 24pp HB, $9.00) Review by Skye Anderson

First Ladies Makes History is a little book that packs a wallop of colorful information about the wives of our presidents.

We loved the inside covers: the inside front cover has a drawing of each of the first ladies along with the dates and their husbands while the inside back cover has the presidents - all in cartoonish drawings but easily recognizable.

First Ladies opens with a chronological few pages, introducing us to some of the ladies. Each two-page spread thereafter features a different topic that many first ladies had in common, mostly the issues they favored, such as diplomacy, education, and civil rights. 

We simply loved the incredible depictions of the ladies and could recognize nearly all of them, even though they sort of look alike. It will be fun to try to identify the first ladies on the bak cover, too.

First Ladies Make History will rekindle your knowledge of history and spark an interest in government in your child. Author Anita McBride was Chief of Staff to a first lady and Giovanna McBride, her daughter, is an Education major and author.

Book Review: Ofi' Tohbi' Ishto' and The Chickasaw Clan Animals (OT)

Ofi' Tohbi' Ishto' and The Chickasaw Clan Animals, by WT Skye and Sarah Garcia (Chickasaw Press, 2024, $7.99, 24pp) Review by Skye Anderson.

Basically a book of elementary piano music which also portrays the Chickasaw people and their clans of animals, Ofi' Tohbi' Ishto' both educates and also entertains. The tune about a skunk delightedly gives us music for the teacher as well, so both student and teacher can play a fun duet.

This book contains six little songs, mostly in a minor key - one about each animal starting with the big white dog, then raccoon, woodpecker, deer, skunk, and alligator. Each animal has its clan or family of Chickasaws.

We can see so many ways this book can be used in a classroom or family. Children will have their favorite animal, perhaps due to the tune they like best. And there are paragraphs about the white dog and the other clan animals, as well as three Native American musical instruments and, finally, two pages of vocabulary and musical symbols - a lot of information and fun packed into six songs and a few pages.

And if you look closely, you will see the big white dog's body is wrapped around to the back cover! Give your child a star if they notice that!

Book Review: Red Platoon (COP Keating, Medal of Honor, Afghanistan, 2009)(OT)

Red Platoon: A True Story of American Valor, by Clinton Romesha (Penguin Randomhouse, 2016, 400pp PB, $17) 

A Hard Book to Read

If this book doesn't change your life, it will at least be the book you think about for years to come. I know I will, not only because I was deployed to Afghanistan the year before COP Keating, but also because author Clinton Romesha is such a magnetic writer. The entire book but especially the beginning in which the stage is set, the soldiers introduced, and the command outpost described, is simply riveting.

Any Afghanistan or Iraq veteran will relive their deployment even though the years may be different, the weather may be different, the precise location may be different, and the geography - mountains or desert. Some things, however, remain the same: Hesco barriers, tent chow halls, MREs, guard duty, cleaning weapons, paper script.

A Hard Book to Put Down

Red Platoon is a warm book, a long book, but one you can't wait to get back to even as you know the ending. But take my advice and do not skip to the final pages until you have read the entire book preceding it or the writing and flow and suspense will be spoiled.

The reader will finally experience vicariously the meaning of 'band of brothers' even though other books explain it well also. When people live 24/7 through trying times, they become family, they take care of one another even though interpersonal scrabbles also exist. And they make best friends - for life.

The reader will also comprehend the roles of the soldier, the NCO, and the officer, and perhaps consider that young boys start their military training early in life by playing team sports like football where each team member has an important role and each must listen to and follow the leader.

What's it All About?

October 2009, the mountains of northern Afghanistan, a small outpost, not well located (makes you think of Dien Bien Phu* all over again). A day-long battle resulting in several deaths and a Medal of Honor (two, actually). 

The book starts by introducing each of several soldiers and their weapons and specialties - their backgrounds and who is best friends with who. I would suggest you tear out the map of COP 
Keating so you can refer to it often, and perhaps look up rank and weapons (SAW, claymore, M4, etc.) so the battle description is more memorable. I also wrote down the names of the soldiers who died that day. . . . 

Then you will google COP Keating and Medal of Honor and Romesha and discover that Jake Tapper wrote Outpost and a movie was made**. 

Red Platoon, however, will stay in your mind - written by the Medal of Honor awardee in a riveting book in which he remains humble. . . .

*Dien Bien Phu is a set-piece battle that ended France's domination of Viet Nam in 1953.

**Netflix also has a series called "Medal of Honor," in which session two is about Romesha and session six is Carter's story (the second MoH awardee from COP Keating)

Book Review: Cocktails with George and Martha (OT)(the play, the movie, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)

Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, by Philip Gefter (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024, $32, 347pp) Review by Skye Anderson

Who are George and Martha? Who is Edward Albee?

Not the Washingtons (the first president and his wife) but the very famous stars of the movie based on Edward Albee's play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 

'Cocktails' refers to the play and movie which takes place over only one evening and features cocktails and knock-down, drag-out arguments - and secrets exploding into the open. 

The Fight is On!

George, an established history professor, and Martha, his wife and the college president's daughter, meet the new, young biology professor and his wife and have them over for drinks after a faculty party. George and Martha have an explosive argumentative marriage - but, is that love? And can such a marriage survive an evening (til dawn) like this? With humiliation and verbal barbs?

Author Philip Gefter has written a humungous (347 pages) story that encompasses all - the play, the movie, the differences between a play and a movie (twice), plus how the players were selected and how the they interact in real life. It is an eye-opener that you simply can't put down, full of four-letter words, innuendos, and hurting those you love.

We follow Liz Taylor and Dick Burton (both British by birth) in the play and in their real married life in public and in private.  

Virginia Wolff also changes American film as it pulls society out of the Code Era and its niceties into realism.                          

Why Read This Book?

We can imagine a college course in which the movie is shown and discussed, followed by a reading and discussion of the book. This course would appeal to movie buffs, high society in NYC, grandparents and college students who contemplate the role of reality in marriage. 

Book Review: Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice (and a service dog!)

Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice, by David Tatel (Little, Brown and Company, 2024, 352pp, $32) Review by Skye Anderson

"If talking too much about my dog is a crime, . . . I plead guilty."

It's All About the Dog vs It's Not About the Dog!

A German Shepherd Dog (GSD) service dog graces the cover, along with a retired appellate judge - a cover you can't forget! 

We first heard about Vision (and Vixen, the dog) about six months ago, finally obtained a copy of the book last week and nearly read it cover to cover overnight. Of course, this reviewer is a dog trainer and wanted to read about Vixen's life with Judge Tatel, but the author acknowledges up front and sets us straight: although a dog appears in the book, this is not the dog's book primarily. Nevertheless, he mentions Vixen a few times before her chapter - at the end.

Disappointment?

Nevertheless, we had read a sample (and loved it!) so we started in and soon found an engrossing story of a man we would like to meet, along with his four children.

David Tatel is a brilliant attorney* who just happened to be in the right place at the right time, most times, to snag an exciting job opportunity. But starting at about age 15, he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a progressive type of blindness which is genetic. Tatel was embarrassed and didn't admit to being blind for many years. He learned to hide it by accommodating his condition and depending more on memory and hearing, but finally consented to using a cane.

Tatel worked to be known as a judge who happened to be blind - not to be known as a blind judge. And finally, decades later, he agreed to a service dog, Vixen, who changed his life and gave him (and his wife) more independence, even though learning to work with a service dog was the hardest thing he had ever done.

His book goes into detail, chapters of details, on the job of a federal appeals judge** (who happened to be, twice, considered for a Supreme Court Justice opening) and the decisions he made, as well as the evolution of the current Supreme Court which he does not totally agree with or approve of.

Tatel's writing style is so engrossing that you, too, may read it in nearly one sitting!

A fascinating tale of a fascinating man but if you are looking for a dog book, I just hope this last part of Tatel's book is turned into a children's book! Nevertheless, Tatel's personality and sense of humor shine through in his memoir. And on page 193, he gives advice to appeals attorneys on how to do a good job!

*educated at the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago

**appointed by President Clinton to succeed Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit Court