THE SPIDER LADY by Penny Parker Klosterman and WHITE LIES: HOW THE SOUTH LOST THE CIVIL WAR, THEN REWROTE THE HISTORY by Ann Bausum

For an all-nonfiction meeting we started our discussion with our picture book, The Spider Lady by Penny Parker Klosterman -- a true account of Nan Songer, a young girl whose lifetime obsession with spiders and the extraction of silk from their webs led to her becoming a World War II heroine who supplied the silk from black widow spiders' webs to be used as crosshairs in guns, bombers, periscopes and other U.S. military tools. Although we all agreed that this was a great story about Nan's perseverance and learning from experimentation via her own "scientific method," sadly the physical presentation of this picture book for older readers left a lot to be desired. Here are the things we found problematical: the very light-colored text was difficult to read; the almost monotone palette of the illustrations -- which was pleasant at first -- became tedious as it continued on and most of the pictures just showed Nan working with spiders; the little blocks (sidebars) of additional information were distracting as well as being difficult to read due to lack of contrast between their text and background; the book was too long with writing that didn't really have a 'voice'; the Back Matter which did present an Author's Note and Bibliography could have presented more detailed information as well as scientific pictures of the different types of spiders shown randomly throughout the book. SO...though spider-loving middle-schoolers or science teachers would probably be intrigued with this book as a springboard to further research on spiders and/or Nan Songer, as a general read-aloud it would not really work well, due to the myriad problems delineated above.

We had a great discussion about our (much) longer YA nonfiction book, White Lies: How the South Lost the Civil War, Then Rewrote the History by Ann Bausum. We all agreed that although a very long read, this book presented many new facts about the Civil War and its causes and aftermath, and it was great that it was published during this time when some U.S. History is a victim of efforts to 'cover up' the so-called unpleasant parts. We liked that it focused on the stories of individual participants in the various scenarios that the author described. We appreciated the Introduction where the author explained why she wrote this book, but some readers were put off by the tone of anger shown by the writer, a white woman who grew up in the south, learning the 'Lost Cause' myths about the Civil War, etc. that were prevalent throughout her schooling who didn't realize the truth until much later -- after a great deal of extensive research -- which we also appreciated. We would have liked it even better if she had included more sources of personal recollections of people who were involved. Once again we were unhappy with many facets of the format: the very small text; the black print on grey paper and very small white print on black paper inserted in the middle of each chapter was hard to read, not to mention very distracting, and the extra inclusions of details of specific Civil War monuments throughout equally so. The Source Notes and extensive Bibliography in the back matter were excellent, but once again -- difficult to read due to even smaller type size; the inserted groups of pictures throughout had no specific connections with the actual text that we were reading at that point. Some readers also wondered whether YA readers of today would even pick up this book to read, but we felt it was a good resource that could be introduced by teachers and that it might be a stimulus for further student research. We thought it was "...an important book that maybe won't change anything," but we were glad that it had been written. 

 A note on format: It appears that more and more nonfiction books for young readers are being published to supposedly cater to their 'decreased attention spans.’ Many books now seem to try to emulate websites, with a lot of 'stuff' stuck in, in different fonts or print sizes, sidebars, etc. Whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen, but as adult sophisticated readers, we have usually found it very distracting. 

HEROES by Alan Gratz and AT THE DROP OF A CAT by Elise Fontenaille

We began with a discussion of our novel, Heroes by Alan Gratz. We had mixed feelings about this story set in Hawaii before, during, and after the December 7, 1941 attack by the Japanese Air Force on Peal Harbor. We all agreed that this was not a highly 'literary' piece of fiction, and some felt that it was more plot-driven than character-driven, and was written to basically cover the points that the author wanted young readers to know about this moment in history. Some readers were not thrilled with the result, while others felt that it was an excellent action-packed story, easily accessible to its target audience. They felt the fact that it seemed almost like a video game or a comic book was entirely appropriate, since the two main characters, Frank and Stanley, were obsessed with creating their own superhero, nicknamed 'The Arsenal of Democracy'. Those who weren't thrilled with the story felt it wasn't realistic, and questioned some of the plot points, including the fact that Frank, who was always scared, suddenly felt like a superhero during the bombing, and other details in the story that just didn't make sense. Others felt it was OK to ignore those details, suspend disbelief, and relate more to the action of the story, the loyalty between the two friends, Frank's ability to finally feel brave, and the satisfying ending. We all agreed that it treated this event in our country's WWII history well, including the prejudice that arose against Japanese-Americans who lived in Hawaii at the time (which included Stanley, whose mother was Japanese and whose dad was White), and other details of what actually happened at the time. We also appreciated all of the author's notes at the end which included these and several other important facts about this period, as well as a very clear map showing locations mentioned in the story. We felt that young readers, especially those who liked a lot of action would be very engaged in this book, and would probably love the comic strip created by Frank and Stanley when they grew up, which was shown at the very end.

We all had various issues with our picture book, At the Drop of a Cat by Élise Fontenaille, illustrated by Violeta Lópiz. We didn't feel like young children would be particularly engaged in this story of a 6-year-old boy's observations of and love for his grandfather -- partially due to the sometimes confusing illustrations which were created by a lot of overlaid images, few of which showed anything clearly. One reader felt that the depiction of the grandpa was even quite scary. We felt that the proposed wordplay in the story didn't really work, and other than the boy's obvious love for his grandpa, not much else happened. There was no story arc, no excitement, nothing showing what the little boy ever actually did, no cat! -- the title notwithstanding -- and no real ending...the supposed story. just. stopped. When we realized that this book had been translated from the French, we figured that maybe something had been lost in the translation, and that perhaps there is a cultural difference in the expectations of what a picture book should accomplish for children. In our perception, even though the book was very positively reviewed in the French world, in our world it basically fell flat.