Queen of the Falls
Queen of the Falls by Chris Van Allsburg Houghton Mifflin, 2010 40 pages Did you ever wonder who first had the crazy idea to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel? That honor belongs to a 62 (yes,...
View ArticleTemple Grandin
Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World by Sy Montgomery Houghton Mifflin, 2012 148 pages Children with autism are (often very obviously) outside the norm in...
View ArticleMaterial World
Material World: A Global Family Portrait by Peter Menzel, Charles C. Mann, and Paul Kennedy Sierra Club Books, 1995 256 pages When I was in college, I often treated myself to a Friday or Saturday night...
View ArticleMiss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile
Miss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile by Gloria Houston; ill. by Susan Condie Lamb HarperCollins, 2011 32 pages I love books about books. Or, perhaps more accurately, I love books about people who love...
View ArticleThe Gift of Inspiration: The Little House Books
Little House in the Big Woods and others by Laura Ingalls Wilder; ill. by Helen Sewell (first editions) and Garth Williams HarperCollins, orig. pub. 1932 I was trying to decide what to post...
View ArticleAbigail Adams
Abigail Adams by Alexandra Wallner Holiday House, 2001 32 pages Grade-school lessons about the women’s movement are pretty limited in scope. They tend to focus on the women’s suffrage campaigns of the...
View ArticleMama Miti
Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai and the Trees of Kenya by Donna Jo Napoli; ill. by Kadir Nelson Simon & Schuster, 2010 40 pages I’ve written before about my desire to raise my daughter with a nuanced...
View ArticleCall the Midwife
Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth Penguin, 2012 3 volumes I love BBC TV. Even the old shows, with their fuzzy camera work and costumes that look as if they came out of a long-neglected dress-up bin. I...
View ArticleA Train in Winter
A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France by Caroline Moorehead Harper, 2011 374 pages I don’t really remember when I first learned about World...
View ArticleThe Librarian of Basra and Alia’s Mission
The Librarian of Basra: A True Story From Iraq by Jeanette Winter Harcourt, 2005 32 pages Alia’s Mission: Saving the Books of Iraq by Mark Alan Stamaty Alfred A. Knopf, 2004 32 pages When the United...
View ArticleDare the Wind
Dare the Wind: The Record-Breaking Voyage of Eleanor Prentiss and the Flying Cloud by Tracey Fern; ill. by Emily Arnold McCully Farrar Straus Giroux, 2014 40 pages I was prowling around the Internet...
View ArticleThe Secret Lives of Codebreakers
The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park by Sinclair McKay Plume, 2012 352 pages Bletchley Park, where the Enigma code was cracked Near the...
View ArticleWomen in Clothes
Women in Clothes by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, Leanne Shapton et al. Blue Rider Press, 2014 528 pages I have an ambivalent relationship to fashion. I love clothes. I love expressing myself through...
View ArticleLet It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters
Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters by Andrea Davis Pinkney; ill. by Stephen Alcorn Harcourt, 2000 Where I sit writing, in one of my city’s newest public library branches, I can see...
View ArticleThe Fishing Fleet: Husband Hunting in the Raj
The Fishing Fleet: Husband Hunting in the Raj by Anne de Courcy Harper, 2014 335 pages To know me is to know that I am somewhat obsessed with Victorian England. I picked up a copy of A Christmas Carol...
View ArticleA Life in Secrets
A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII by Sarah Helm Doubleday, 2006 493 pages More than 15 years ago, at the beginning of our marriage, my husband and I read William...
View ArticleBrown Girl Dreaming
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson Penguin, 2014 352 pages I don’t read a lot of poetry, and I’m not entirely sure why. When my poetry-loving friends put up Facebook posts sharing a favorite...
View ArticleRise of the Rocket Girls
Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, From Missiles to the Moon to Mars by Nathalia Holt Little, Brown & Company, 2016 352 pages The space industry was a dominating presence in my...
View ArticleRadioactive
Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss It Books, 2010 208 pages I've always been fascinated by Marie Curie. At a time when women's education was confined...
View ArticleThe Best We Could Do
The Best We Could Do By Thi Bui Abrams, 2017 336 pages Last August, I took a business trip to San Francisco for a conference I attend every year. On the final day, I had several hours post-conference...
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