MMGM- When Things Go Wrong

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Unleashing Readers

Temporelli, Max, Gozzi, Barbara, and Innocente, Agnese (Illustrations)
When Everything Went Wrong: 10 Real Stories of Inventors Who Didn't Give Up! 
Publication May 2, 2023 by Andrews McMeel Publishing
E ARC provided by Edleweiss Plus
There's always a place for reading abotu inventions in middle school. Might go years without a teacher interested in Invention Convention, then there's somebody who is all in AND wants all the students to read about inventors. This new title is an interesting mix of text and graphic novel style panels, and is centered around the theme of making mistakes that sometimes lead to the answer really needed. 

Just enough information about the person's life is given to make this handy for a report or for a starting place for research, but the real draw here is the information about the invention process. While we all know a little about Edison's quest to create a filament for his lightbulb, we get even more of a breakdown here. I found Jan Matzeliger's work on machinery for manufacturing shoes much more interesting, but I wish there had been more about his Dutch Guinea background. Marconi, Dyson, Steiff, and Goodyear all have names that sound familiar thanks to the products they created, but more attention should be paid to Spencer (inventor of the microwave), Kwolek (Kevlar) and Pemberton (Coca Cola). Most interesting to me was Greatbach, who created the pacemaker.

Like the graphic nonfiction Yummy: A History of Deserts or A Shot in the Arm, When Everything Went Wrong will appeal to students who like to consume information with lots of pictures, and who are very dedicated to the format. I was a little irritated by the style of noses; I don't understand why a large number of illustrators like to make the noses a darker color than the rest of the face, but not everyone is as distracted by that as much as I am. This is available from Follett in a hardcover, which is most likely paper over board, so might not hold up very long. 

Parsons, Karyn. Clouds Over California

July 11, 2023 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Stevie (aka Stephanie) lives in Santa Monica, California in the 1970s with her mother, who is very glamorous and was the top of her class at the Barbizon School of modeling even though there were few Black models at the time. Her father is white, and used to work for the CIA, but now runs a vending machine business with his brother. He is very old fashioned, and doesn't think that her mother should go back to college, because he is able to provide for his family. The parents often go out to fancy restaurants, sometimes bringing Stevie with them. Stevie is struggling to fit in to her new school. Even though she likes her teacher, Mrs. Quakely, there are kids who are rude to her and make fun of her hair, although she does play tetherball with Ally and tries to embrace her new environment. There are changes at home, as well. Her older cousin Naomi has been sent by her mother to live with Stevie's family because she's been "a problem". She wears tight flares and polyster shirts, and brings her Chaka Khan albums with her, and is interested in the Black Panther movement. She looks "like a Soul Train dancer"! Stevie is enthralled with her cousin, but is also worried about her mother. There have been phone calls from a man, and Stevie sees her mother at the library with Clarence. Her mother is secretive, and Stevie finds a recording device in a crawl space, so she figures it won't be long before her father figures out what her mother is doing. Will this mean that her parents will get a divorce? How can Stevie navigate all of the changes in her life? 
Strengths: Young readers will be confused as to why Stevie's father is against her mother going back to school, and that's the great thing about historical fiction-- things were not always the way they are now, and children need to see this. Stevie's classmates and teacher find her hair to be exotic (and there's some good information about not touching people's hair!), and she mentions that she doesn't know anyone else who is biracial. Naomi is an interesting character; "problem" teens in the 1970s were much different than problem teens today! There are lots of good details about ordinary life, and plenty of pop culture is mentioned. There was an uptick in the number of divorces during this time period, and I think it was a fairly common worry for children. Pair this one with another 1970s, California-set title, Amos' Cookies and Milk, for an even better understanding of this decade. 
Weaknesses: I cannot pin down a year for this one. Probably 1974, even though Bubble Yum didn't come out until 1975. At one point, people are going to see American Grafitti and Cleopatra Jones, but those wouldn't have still been in the theaters in 1974. I also wondered about the fact that Stevie didn't consider it Christmas unless she saw It's a Wonderful Life on television; I don't remember that ever being on television until after the 1977 Marlo Thomas It Happened One Christmas, and even then I had to stay up and watch it at midnight. Okay, I guess I AM a little too picky about historical details, but having read Magoon's Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party's Promise to the People, I was a bit confused about Naomi's involvement with the Black Panthers, who weren't nearly as active in the 1970s. If you can just take a deep breath and view this as set in a vague 1970s setting instead of looking for clues to things you remember happening in your own childhood, you'll enjoy this a lot more!
What I really think: This is an interesting snap shot of life in the 1970s, and since there isn't a lot of historical fiction set during that time, I will probably purchase it. Fiction from that time, like Blume's Blubber (1974) hasn't held up well, but I appreciated all of Parsons' shout outs to literature from that time.