Conversation’s Comeback (Maybe)

Dinner time. The phone rings.  Another political recording. Maybe, instead of gritting my teeth , which I do, I should start a conversation with the real people around me about the importance of voting. A new book categorized as young adult (YA) nonfiction could launch a new meal time activity: talking to each other.

A WOMAN IN THE HOUSE (AND SENATE): How Women came to the United States Congress, Broke Down Barriers, and Changed the Country, by Ilene Cooper, illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley. Foreword by Former U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe, Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2014

Through a curious set of circumstances, at the same time this book captured my attention, I was also reading A Fighting Chance by Elizabeth Warren and Tough Choices by Hilary Rodham Clinton. What an interesting trio of books!

If you’d like a tip about which one to read first, I’d recommend the YA because it is a good summary and grounding for the other two.  In her acknowledgements, the author, an editor for Booklist whose first book was Susan B. Anthony, says lack of space prevented her from profiling many other women. She encourages readers to look at Women in Congress 1917-2006. I did.

Information from this book is available on the website:

http://history.house.gov/Exhibition-and-Publications/WIC/Women-in-Congress.

This site is definitely well worth the time if your curiosity and courage are heightened by reading author Cooper’s book. Mine were.

The three books on my reading table related well. Both Elizabeth Warren and Hilary Clinton are profiled in author Cooper’s lively and well researched book which includes an appendix, bibliography, and an index which is on its way to being well-thumbed at my house.  Maybe yours, too.

Go ahead. Start a conversation.

 

What Every 5th Grader Needs

Too old for a babysitter. Not old enough to stay home alone. Just “almost.” That’s Albie’s dilemma. Until he gets a new nanny.

ABSOLUTELY ALMOST by Lisa Graff, Philomel Books, 2014

Calista tunes in right away. She tells Albie she isn’t a baby sitter. They will just hang out.

Entering a new 5^th grade is hard enough. When you are always “almost” and never “most”, as Albie sees himself, life is tough. Add a few bullies, which seem to populate every 5^th grade story, and you know fairly soon what Albie is up against. Then Calista arrives. She helps him see life and himself differently.

Calista is like a bridge between Albie and the adults in his life—parents, teachers, neighbors in his New York apartment building-- and between Albie and his friends and classmates who may or may not be the same people.

 

Complications rush in like a run-away subway train when the family of his best friend Erlan, who Albie suspects may be his only friend, is selected to allow TV cameras into their home. Suddenly Erlan lives in the middle of a successful reality show. The boys try to work around it, but it’s almost--that word again--impossible to have a private best friend talk with a camera leaning in.  

If, as a parent, you read this book before you place it somewhere to be discovered, think of it as a guide for crossing the bridge between parent and pre-teen experiences. You will see all sides of these developing relationships. No one will be right all the time. Good news for you, because you will be thinking in the not too distant future that surely no one could be wrong all the time.

 A former children’s book editor, Lisa Graff has written other books, too, among them A Tangle of Knots and Sophie Simon Solves Them All.  I can't help but wonder if she didn't have a bit of Calista's savvy when she was a teen.   

Visit her at www.lisagraff.com.