Category Archives: books

I am not sure what to write about this one. I received Bad Unicorn as a donation from a parent at our annual book sale at our school and the title and the cover got my attention. As is usually the case, I took it home to read aloud with my youngest son.

Apparently, this is the first in a trilogy by Platte F. Clark. It tells the story of Max, who has found a magical book that can give him incredible powers. Meanwhile, the world itself has been “sundered” into three zones, with our Earth as we know it just one of those zones. Bad Unicorn, aka The Princess, comes from another zone, and she has been sent on a mission to kidnap Max and the book, and bring them back to a bad wizard.

Needless to say, the unicorn in question is not nice. She is a destroyer, full of powerful magic and a nasty attitude. Oh, and she likes how humans taste, so she is motivated on her mission because she is promised the state of Texas for lunch. Meanwhile, there are these dragons, disguised as humans … and the story gets way too convoluted to explain here. There are echoes of every adventure story you have read in Bad Unicorn. I can’t decide if that is good or bad, however.

What I can say is that the pace is quick, the humor flies fast and furious, and it was a rather enjoyable read-aloud. I just put the second book (Fluff Dragon) in my “to read” bin, as my son was wondering where the story continues. And we are all about keeping him reading …

Peace (in the magic),
Kevin

Walter Isaacson covers familiar turf, for me anyway, on the history of the world of computing and technology, stretching back to the ground-breaking ideas of Charles Babbage and Lady Ada Byron Lovelace, to the present in his newest book, The Innovators. Knowing the stories here did not distract me from enjoying Isaacson’s book, however. His strong writing style and ability to put events and people into a perspective made for enlightening reading.

I particularly liked how Isaacson tried to draw out trends of the origins of innovation, building on recent ideas about how ideas often surface through collaboration, the “right cultural moment” and other factors more than individual genius and insights. Some innovations do get lost to the annals of time. Some get reborn. Some ideas are seeds to be planted and suddenly, bloom like crazy and change everything.

The thread of research and development investments by companies and the government run through the success stories here, as Isaacson notes it is often from these cauldrons of ideas that technology which transforms society emerge, although he does rightly point out that the modern start-up culture — with low overhead and quick adaptation to a changing market — is changing that paradigm of innovation, to some degree.

The Innovators is solid fast-moving tour guide of how we got to this moment, and Isaacson’s threads back to Lady Ada and her ideas on how machines might work in conjunction with people (and not to replace people)  is a masterful way of locating ideas on the timeline of history, even if ideas are not always ready for their own time.

Peace (compute),
Kevin

You would think we would have read this book by now. The author is local, my wife knows the husband of the writer, and the book got pretty good publicity and reviews (and some awards) when it came out. But … a tale of four sisters in a summer cottage … not a big draw for my son. But his book club chose The Penderwicks and so, into the story we went … and ver glad for it, we are.

In fact, the book is a nice reprieve from so many of the action-orientated novels that we have been reading together lately. A tale that reminds one of the English manners books (whose genre my wife adores), The Penderwicks is centered on characters as much as plot, with the sisters coming to life on the page as they help a neighboring boy deal with his overbearing mother’s plans to send him to military school.

I won’t give the story away, but you will come to know the sisters well. The gentle adventures that take up these pages are lovingly told, with strong writing. You’ll care about the Penderwick sisters — Rosalind, the oldest with the burden of being the oldest on her shoulders; Skye, the quick-to-anger and quick-to-defend-the-family sister; Jane, the young writer with an imagination as large as the sky; and young Batty, whose friendship with the family dog, Hound, had my son and I giggling at times because her dog reminded us of our dog (Duke, also a hound).

I’m glad we found The Penderwicks and may seek the sisters out again in the sequels.

Peace (in the story),
Kevin

The other day, a former student who is now in high school visited my classroom. I immediately asked, “What are you reading?” Just like old times, when he and I would chat about books in my sixth grade classroom.

“Blood of Olympus. You?” he asked.

“Same,” and we both laughed. Years have passed, and somehow, writer Rick Riordan still has us reading his books of mythological demigods in the midst of crisis, saving the world. My 10 year old son and I just finished The Blood of Olympus, which it the last book in this particular series that is an offshoot of The Lightning Thief series, with hero Percy Jackson.

Listen, no one will ever put these books up on the same literary level as Shakespeare but Riordan has done something magical — he has hooked an entire generation of adolescent boys (and girls .. plenty of my girls read these books, too, but my boys are more likely to be disengaged with reading and so I often think of them here) with stories of mythological action and adventure. I appreciate that he has developed some interesting female and male characters, weaving their stories in and out of the course of the books. And add in a gay demigod character, too, and Riordan is reaching out into a wide terrain in his series.

My son and I both agreed, after finishing the book the other day, that Riordan in The Blood of Olympus, did an admirable job of tying up many loose ends and bringing the entire series to a close, with the defeat of the Earth goddess who was intent on waking and destroying the world with vengeance and revenge.

And as we flipped through the glossary of Roman and Greek terms at the end, we could not help noticing a little teaser text. Riordan is at it again. The next series is set in Asgard, and so it looks like we’ll be moving into Nordic territory soon. Odin, here we come!

Peace (in the book),
Kevin
PS:

“What? Another science fair story! Ahh….”

That was my son’s initial response as we started to read aloud Jon Scieszka’s new Frank Einstein and the Anti-Matter Motor. We had just finished reading aloud Science Fair, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson (thumbs up) and had watched a viewing of the movie, Frankenweenie, in the neighborhood (thumbs up but an odd thumbs up).

It was just by chance that all three stories had a science fair competition at the center of the plot, but it does feel like the push for fiction for middle readers into STEM areas is falling on some common narrative tropes. The “science fair” is one of those I am seeing a lot (as is my son).

He got over his initial response, though, as we dove into Scieszka’s story of a young inventor (Frank), and his pal (Watson), creating robots who can sort of think for themselves and then a scientific energy-creating breakthrough called the Anti-Matter Motor (combine water with anti-water). A nemesis in the form of Edison wreaks havoc. The illustrations by Brian Biggs were a big hit, as they complemented the text and provides some scientific drawings of ideas in the head of Frank Einstein (My son later noted, “Did you notice that Frank and Einstein makes …. Frankenstein?”).

I hate to say it, but I wasn’t all that fond of the writing here and I found the plot development too predictable. Written in the present tense, the story never went deep enough for me. Maybe I am more critical than I need to be, even reading through the eyes of my fourth grader. Sorry, Jon Scieszka — I love the work you do to instill reading habits in young readers, particularly boys, and I notice this book sits on top of the New York Times list for young readers. My son, though, liked it well enough, and wondered when the second volume was coming out. (next year, it seems).

Maybe that’s all that matters … (or anti-matters)

Peace (in the science),
Kevin

There’s a reason this gem of a book is sitting on top of the New York Times book list these days. What if? (Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions) by Randall Monroe (he, of xkcd comic fame) had me laughing, and thinking, and wondering about the world in new ways. The premise is that, at Monroe’s website, folks submit scientifically based absurd questions and he tackles some of them from a scientific standpoint.

The clash of serious and absurd, and Monroe’s engaging voice and comic interpretations, makes for an incredible read. Some of the issues that he tackles here include: could you swim in a pool where they cool spent nuclear fuel rods? Or what would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How about if you drained all the oceans on Earth? What would this place look like then? (interestingly enough, this is a question one of my won students asked me the other day as we were discussing the oceans. I need to bring this chapter in for her). Or, could someone really live on an astroid like the Little Prince?

Man, I could go on, but you need to get it yourself. What If? will keep you not only pondering life’s mysteries, but also pondering who the nuts are who come up with these questions (the answer: us.)

Peace (in the questions),
Kevin