Books I Read and Other Assorted Oddities

 I love the  Harry Potter books and films, and I saw that a few of my friends had read this book. One of my coworkers suggested that I should bump it up in my to-read list, and so I did. Tom Felton outlines his experiences getting into acting, growing up with all brothers, and his early family life. Felton details his experiences working on the Potter films, and the actors, crews, and directors he got to work with. He is so complimentary of these great people, and he makes it clear how privileged he felt to get to rub shoulders with all of the people he worked with. He then tells of experiences after Potter , and his eventual spiral into substance abuse and eventually how he ended up in rehab. I found Felton's story honest. He doesn't hide behind the mistakes he made, or what he ended up doing. I also found his account humble, and he takes great care to recognize all of the people he worked with. His tributes to these actors is sweet, complimentary, and really interesting. I l...

It was summer 2023. I remember coming across breaking news headlines about two children who were found in Ivins, Utah, in deplorable condition. These two children had been abused by their mother, Ruby Franke, and her friend, Jodi Hildebrant. The children were malnourished and had been forced to do horrible punishments, outside in the stifling Utah desert heat in the summer. This has been one of the major child abuse cases to come out of Utah in recent years, a string of others not far behind. It's a case that I remember distinctly following. One of my coworkers recommended this book to me, and I'll admit, I was hesitant at first. Sometimes people who experience this kind of abuse and trauma become extremely anti, and I just wasn't sure I wanted to read about that. However, as I dove into Shari Franke's book, I found her to be the opposite. That impressed me, and just added to what I liked about this book. In The House of My Mother , Shari Franke (Ruby Franke's oldes...

 I picked this book up on Audible because it sounded interesting and didn't disappoint. A Woman of No Importance  describes the incredible true story of Virginia Hall, an American woman who served as an SOE spy during World War II. Virginia, rejecting her family's expectations of a highly advantageous marriage, pursued a career in the State Department. She dreamed of serving her country as an ambassador or in other roles high within the department. Blocked at every turn because of her gender, and then later, as a result of her amputated leg, she left the State Department at the start of World War II. She served as an ambulance driver as the German army advanced across the Maginot Line and into France. From there, Virginia was recruited to SOE - the Special Operations Executive. This secret branch of the British government was formed to conduct clandestine operations in Nazi-controlled territory. Virginia was sent to France as a journalist and spy. She made contacts in the Vich...

 This is a book that was recommended to me by several of my coworkers. I read it for my AP class, as several teachers before me used to use it in that class. If you want to truly know and learn about the horrors of the Holocaust, this is the book for you. Elie Wiesel took a ten-year vow of silence before writing about what he experienced at the hands of the Nazis during World War II. Wiesel describes how the Jews in his village in Romania hoped that the war would pass them by, how they knew that something was happening to Jews in other countries, but they hoped that nothing would happen to them. Wiesel then describes being forced into ghettos, then being taken to Auschwitz, where he was separated from his mother and sisters. Wiesel describes his experiences in the camp and the ending of the war as the Jews in the camps were liberated by the Americans and Russians. This book is chilling. There is no other way to describe it. Wiesel writes in vivid detail and describes the deep fear ...

This is a book I've used as an option in my AP class. It was the only book I hadn't read for the longest time. I finally finished it, and here is my review. The Devil in the White City  covers two true stories. The first is the story of the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. This part of the book follows the story of how the fair was built and the work that went into it by the famous architect Daniel H. Burnham. The second storyline follows the life of America's first serial killer, Dr. H. H. Holmes, who was active at the time of the World's Fair. Both accounts are true and pulled from primary source documents. Larson attempts to use the voices of the actual people involved wherever possible. This book was an interesting account on both sides. The individual stories were interesting, detailed, and as I said, Larson pulled from primary sources wherever possible. He often uses the "characters'" words when recounting their story. I enjoyed this aspect of it...

 This is another book that I read because of my AP class. I do have to admit that I enjoyed it more than I thought I was going to. The Boys in the Boat  tells the story of the 1936 U.S. Olympic rowing team. This team came from Washington State and was made up of a seemingly rag-tag group of boys. One boy in particular, Joe, came from very humble circumstances. Having been basically abandoned by his family multiple times in his childhood, Joe lacked confidence. By the time he got to the Olympics, his coaches had helped him succeed. I know next to nothing about rowing, but that was not a requirement to understand this book. Daniel James Brown does a great job of explaining the sport, and also introducing the mechanics of the boats themselves. I thought much of the background information he provided about boats and the legendary builder of them fascinating, but at times unnecessary. Joe's story is in many ways inspiring but also heartbreaking. Brown describes his childhood and ho...

 I picked this up because I needed a quick read to get me back on track with my reading goal. It did not have that effect for me. This book (because it's the young reader's edition) is appropriate for about 2nd to 4th grade. While I think it does a fantastic job at what it's trying to accomplish, I would like to get the full version and reread it. This book has been made into a film, and I think its message is excellent. Hidden Figures  follows the story of several African-American women trying to break into the field of aeronautics during and just after World War II. These women started as "computers" which meant that they were checking the math of the predominately white male engineers in other departments. These women were brilliant in their own right, and amazing mathematicians. Eventually, their skills could not be ignored, and many of them were promoted to other departments, and breaking racial barriers that had existed for a century. Based on the intended a...

I first read The Hiding Place  in my 8th grade honors English class. It was a book that I found fascinating and enjoyed at the time. As I was again trying to find books to include in my AP class, this is one that I thought of. I read through it a second time.  Corrie ten Boom was a devout Christian, raised in Denmark. She lived with her father and sister, Betsy, in their clock repair shop in a small Dutch town. As World War II broke out and the Germans invaded, the ten Booms were suddenly very aware of their Jewish neighbors. Corrie and her family begin helping the Dutch underground, helping take in Jews for short periods and hiding them in their home. Eventually, the ten Booms were caught, and Corrie was sent to Ravensbruck. This is a story of survival, faith, and doing what's right. This book is a memoir, with Corrie ten Boom telling the story of her experiences during World War II. The story itself is well-written, and the pacing of the story kept my attention. It was a rel...

 This is a book that I use in my AP class. I've been looking for an excuse to read it for a long time, as it's always sounded interesting. Tara Westover grew up in Idaho. Her parents were something of doomsday preparers, taking the religion of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to an extreme. They believed fervently in preparing for the End Times, stockpiling food, fuel, and other supplies, and making their best effort to go off grid. Westover's father also deeply mistrusted the U.S. government and what he called "the Medical Establishment." Even after horrendous accidents, the family rarely visited hospitals or saw doctors. Westover was also kept out of school. Things began to change for her once she started suffering horrific abuse from her older brother Shawn. After taking the ACT, and earning a scholarship to BYU, Westover started to realize that the world was so much wider than her father's. As she discovered herself, she lost her family, fin...

 My coworkers were all reading this, and I have to say that I'm fascinated by the royal family, so I gave into temptation and listened to this on Audible. Listening to the audio book was totally the way to go, since Prince Harry reads it himself. Spare  by Prince Harry is a heartbreaking memoir outlining Harry's treatment by the British tabloids. He outlines his experiences with the tabloids from the time his mother died until his departure from the royal family. This fascinating memoir gives an inside look into the workings of the royal family, and their relationships with the press. The memoir certainly makes it look as if all is not well in the house of Windsor, and attempts to set the record straight (from Harry's perspective) of what happened among the family members. Overall, I did enjoy this book. I loved the way Harry writes (and because I listened to it, the way he reads). I found his descriptions of events and places beautiful, and wish I could use it in AP! His p...

This book was recommended to me by one of my teachers as a possibility for AP. I didn't end up going with it, and I don't think I still will, but I very much enjoyed the memoir. I Want You to Know We're Still Here  is Esther Safran Foer's memoir about life after the Holocaust. She describes how her and her parents came to the United States following the end of WWII, and her life following. She is obsessed with discovering her family's history. She describes traveling to Israel and Ukraine to meet with people who knew her family, particularly her father's family. She eventually is able to track down the Ukrainian family who helped hide her father during the war. Through this family, Foer was able to learn about her half sister, who her father had never mentioned. This connection to family is so incredibly important to the author. Overall, I did enjoy this book. The family history side of it particularly drew my attention. In my religion, there is a big focus on f...

I read this book to prepare for AP next year to use as one of my lit circle selections toward the end of the year. Just Mercy  details the case of Walter McMillian, a black man convicted of capital murder in Alabama in the late 1980s. The issue - Walter didn't commit the murder that prosecutors illegally pinned on him. The author, Bryan Stevenson, started a nonprofit in Alabama specifically to help people like Walter, and other death row inmates who had inadequate legal counsel when sentenced. As Stevenson outlines the many setbacks and the failures of the courts to listen to Walter's innocence, he also details other work that he did during the six years it took to secure Walter's release. Stevenson works with youth who were detained and sentenced to life in prison (even for non-homicide offenses), women, and other underrepresented populations who lack access to proper legal counsel and therefore end up in prison for far longer than they deserve to be. This book pleads with...

 This is another book that I'll use for AP. Jon Krakauer describes what led up to the Mt. Everest Disaster of 1996. Since he was personally a part of the expeditions that ultimately lost 12 climbers on the mountain, he gives his perspective while attempting to represent the other members of the expedition accurately. Sent to write an article for a magazine, Krakauer joined the expedition of guide Rob Hall. Several other expeditions were on the mountain that season as well, a Tawainese team, a South African team, two other commercially led teams, and then an IMAX film crew. Summiting Mt. Everest on May 10, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer's expeditions were caught in a storm late in the day. Ultimately several members of both expeditions, including guides Hall and Fischer, died in the bitter cold and storm. I didn't love this book. I didn't hate it; it was interesting, but not really something that's normally in my interests. I also struggled with how much background Kraka...

 This is again another book I intend to use for AP. Something I love about this is the rhetoric is two-fold - you not only have to look at the dialogue but the drawings as well. Art Spiegelman relates the story of his parents' experience as Jews in Poland during World War II and all that they went through in the camps. This book goes through conversations Art had with his father in the present (he lived in New York before his passing) and their World War II story in the 1930s and 1940s. Vladek (Art's father) owned a textile mill in Poland. He was drafted and sent to the border to fight the Germans before the onset of the War. He was captured and sent to a POW camp before being released and sent home. Once the Germans took over Poland, Vladek lost his mill and he moved his family in with his in-laws. Things gradually got worse for them. They lost Anja's (his wife's) grandparents, then Anja's parents, and their young son was sent to live with extended family for his s...

 This is a book that I plan to use in my AP Language class next year, and so, needed to read. Unbroken  follows the story of Olympic runner Louis Zamperini. Laura Hillenbrand tells the story of Louie's childhood and the trouble he caused in Torrance, California until he finally discovered running. From there, he competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. As World War II broke out, Louie was drafted and sent to the Pacific. On a rescue mission, Louie's plane went down over the water and the surviving two members of the crew and Louie floated on a raft for more than a month without being rescued. Instead, they landed in the Japanese-occupied Marshall Islands and taken prisoner. As prisoners of war under the Japanese, they were taken back to mainland Japan and placed in prison camps, forced into labor, unfed, and severely beaten. Louie survived two years in these camps, first at Ofuna, then Omori, and finally Noetsu. At the end of the war, the camps were liberated, and Lou...

 As I prepare to teach AP language next year, I will probably be reading a lot more nonfiction in the coming months. This book is one of the ones that I'll be using at least portions of in my curriculum for next year. An American Childhood  by Annie Dillard follows her experiences of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s. Through a series of vignettes, Dillard explores her childhood memories discussing everything from school, playing in the snow, to boys, and into her adolescence. The memoir focuses on her various interests as a child, maturing until she was 16. This book was a hard read for me. On one hand, it is beautifully written. Dillard has an incredible style and way of capturing the essence of how children see the world and dictate time. On the other hand, some of the stories are incredibly dull. It was also not easy to identify with some of her memories and experiences, and so difficult to buy in myself. By the end, and after some good struggle with the book, I did fi...

 This was another book club read for our team book club. I don't read much non-fiction, and I didn't know who Trevor Noah was before reading the book, but overall, I did end up enjoying this memoir. Trevor Noah, a successful South African comedian, tells the story of how in Apartheid South Africa, his birth was against the law. Noah explores his race and how that influenced his identity as well as the race of his mother, his father, and the rest of his family. He explores his relationships with his mother in particular, as she was central to his life, and ended up being shot in the head (but surviving) by his step father. Overall, this was a light-hearted take on the deep racial divides that existed in South Africa during Apartheid. I didn't know much about Apartheid going into the book, and I'm glad I was able to understand more of what South Africa was like during that time. Despite the serious topics that Noah touches on, domestic violence, abuse, race, the book does...

So sorry for the absence of reviews. I caught up with what I had finished, and I've started back for a new school year, so things are super busy, but I finally finished  Slaughterhouse-Five . This once again as a book club read. The BBC has a list of 100 books that they bet most people haven't read, and this is one of them. I had never read this book, so this was my first time through. Billy Pilgrim is unstuck in time. As the story progresses, it is quickly established that the story is nonlinear. At times, Billy is in Germany as a prisoner of war. At other times, he's in his house in 1950, talking with his daughters. At other times, he is on an alien planet called Tralfamadore. These memories all lead up to the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, a real event that Kurt Vonnegut himself lived through. This book is very complicated. It is clear that the nonlinear structure of the novel is very intentional. The order of the experiences we read is exactly how Vonnegut meant them....

This is another book that I use in my classroom. My 10th-grade students enjoy this story. I've read this book a few times, and I enjoy it more every time I read it. Warriors Don't Cry  by Melba Patillo Beals tells the true story of her experience integrating Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Melba was a normal teenage girl. She had friends, went to class, got good grades. She had a tight-knit family at home. Her life was forever changed when she put her name down on a list of students to possibly integrate Central High School. Melba went from a normal school to what she describes as a battlefield. She had to be escorted to every class by a soldier from the U.S. military, she had to watch every corner and staircase, she was beaten, spit upon, and yelled at, and even had segregationists calling her home to try and scare her out of going to school. This book is another narrative that is particularly sensitive in the current climate of racial tensions. I also think this...

This book came up in my free monthly Audible Original. I've been on a British Royal kick (don't judge, but yes, I watch The Crown on Netflix... I may have seen it several times). I don't know a lot about British or European history, and so this sounded like an interesting read. The Life and Times of Prince Albert by Patrick Allitt is not a comprehensive biography of Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria. Instead, it focuses on several places where he had influence. Albert made something of his role as the queen's consort, a position that had little importance before he pushed for change and reform. This book was less of a book and more of a lecture series. Allitt himself does call it that, and since it's from the Great Courses, that's what readers should expect from the start. I personally enjoy history, so I did enjoy the content. It was engaging and interesting. I liked that Allitt was not afraid to show Albert's struggles as well as his successes a...