It's
Marvelous Middle Grade Monday
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and #IMWAYR day
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October 1, 2024 by Wide Eyed Editions
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
I'm endlessly fascinated by innovations that have changed the way that people go about their daily lives, and yet there are fewer books about these sorts of innovations than about, say, World War II. Even though trains aren't the first form of transportation that comes to mind right now, there's no denying that their introduction changed the way that people got from one place to another.
This is a fascinating book that covers just about every facet of trains that one could imagine. The origins of trains are well laid out, there are several mini biographies of people involved in train innovations, and there's exquisite detail about things like running a railroad, and how the various types of trains (steam, diesel, electric) run. Famous trains and train lines are discussed, and there are fun facts like the introduction of time zones... I had no idea Eastern Standard Time came into existence because of train schedules. The chapters about Train at War will be very helpful for students researching different conflicts for National History Day, and I was captivated (and somewhat horrified) by the British use of railroads to control the native population of India. There are fun sections on some railway oddities, and a brief look at the future of trains. A timeline, index, and glossary complete this helpful and fascinating look at trains.
I especially appreciated that an effort was made to be inclusion of innovators from marginalized backgrounds, including the Black mechanical and electrical engineer Granville T. Woods, woman inventor Mary Elizabeth Walton, and Hideo Shima, who designed the Japan's bullet trains.
The one down side of this book is that there is so much information crammed onto the pages that the print was rather small. The trim size on the book is only 10"x 12". Also, the price of this is about $30, which shouldn't be surprising, but is a little alarming.
Do you remember The Way Things Work (1988), by David McCauley? This book is rather like that; a really good overview of everything you would ever need to know about trains, extremely well illustrated, but, sadly, without wool mammoths. There aren't a lot of students who are interested in trains at my middle school, but the ones who are tend to be obsessive. This is the one book about trains that will answer all of their questions. I've been looking for something like this for twenty years!
September 10, 2024 by SparkPress
ARC provided by Young Adult Books Central
Paula Levy is being raised in 1956 in a middle class family in Queens. Her mother was fourteen during the Great Depression, and her father had to flee Nazi Germany, so they are not very sympathetic to what utter DRAGS they are. They made her wear pleated skirts and sweater sets, and care about her academic work. They even make comments about the rock music that has recently enthralled her like "Music she calls it. I thought the furnace had exploded!" This is why it is so important that she has made a "cool" friend at school, Barbara. Barbara has blonde streaks in her hair, wears makeup, and wears tight skirts and sweaters. While the two bond over a love of rock music and Catcher in the Rye, Barnara can't possibly been seen in public with such a drip. Paula is a little concerned; her neighbor Margaret, whose parents knew her father in Germany, is a goodie two shoes who never hesitates to tattle on her. When rumors swirl that Elvis will be on the Milton Berle show, Barbara makes plans to go to the studio and meet him, but Paula learns when she watches the show that it was filmed in California. She eventually visits Barbara's apartment, which is disheveled, and learns that Barbara's mother is remarried. After Margaret shows Paula a picture of her father with another woman and baby girl, she has Barbara help her look through family pictures to find out more information, after a perusal of the phone book in the local drugstore doesn't turn up any information. Mrs. Levy is appalled to find Barbara in the home, and the parents sit down and tell her that yes, the father had another family, but they were swept up in the Holocaust, and no, she can never see that tramp again! After Barbara is caught kissing 19-year-old Billy in her living room, she is hauled to the doctor to make sure she is not pregnant, and threatened with an all girls' Catholic school. Since the girls are so fed up with their lives, they decide to run away. At first, Memphis sounds like a good idea, but Paula has questions. She suggests going to Cleveland to live with her Aunt, but Barbara thinks that sounds like Nowheresville. Instead, they settle on going to Hoboken and staying with Barbara's estranged father. After withdrawing $285 from Paula's savings, the two take off, and find the father's run down aparment easily enough. It turns out he is a jaxzz musician, but Barbara doesn't really want to stay with him. The girls return to the city but make the mistake of talking to some sailors on leave. The sailors make advances, and the police accuse the girls of "playing their trade" and get set to arrest them. Luckily, Barbara's father has alerted her mother, who shows up at the bus station. There's quite an altercation, and even the parents start to throw insults at each other. In the end, things are worked out, and because Paula has stood up to her parents, they start to get along a little better.
I have read many, many teen novels that were written at this time period, and Langbert manages to capture the essence of those books while adding a modern twist. Books of that era were all from the point of view of the "good" girls. That was the aspiration. Girls like Paula with tight sweaters? No nice girl would have anything to do with them. To see Paula portrayed as a girl of similar breeding who was intrigued rather than repelled by Barbara's interests and background was quite fun. Young readers won't understand quite how revolutionary this is, but it gave quite a twist to the overarching feelings of the era.
Paula's not a bad kid. She does well in school. She wears the dweeby clothes her mother buys for her, even though she has (shocked gasp!) quit buttoning the top button of her blouses and has been turning the collar up! She' understandably miffed with Margaret, who is rather self righteous, especially when her mother makes her stay with Margaret's family for ten days while the mother is in Cleveland helping the aunt with a new baby. Paula's father couldn't possibly take care of her. The running away plans are fascinating, and I imagine that there were a lot of kids during the 1950s who did run away. Remember, Paula's mother grew up at a time where, if families couldn't take care of their children, children were often left to fend for themselves. Paula did have a bit of understanding that the plan wasn't the best one, which was good to see.
There are plenty of cultural touchpoints; there would have been many parents who survived the Holocaust, and they wouldn't necessarily have talked about what they lost. I could have used a few more tiny historical details, but there were enough, and Mrs. Levy's solid middle class presence and values were perfect.
I'd love to see more books about teens and tweens in the 1950s; I would have expected a lot in the 1970s or 80s as nostalgic pieces, but there never were very many. For more glimpses at this era of bobby socks and Poodle skirts, pick up Frazier's Mighty Inside, Walsh's Red Scare: A Graphic Novel, Crowder's Mazie, or Elliott's Suspect Red.
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