Archive for September, 2013

Vietnam: I Pledge Allegiance by Chris Lynch

September 20th, 2013

For our current students, soldiers from the Vietnam War are their grandparents’ ages, much like how my grandparents were in the World War II generation. Chris Lynch’s Vietnam series puts the war into perspective in an approachable manner.

The set-up is that the four books in the series follow the experiences of four friends from the same small town in New England. Each friend serves in a different branch of the military, so the reader gets to see the war from four vantage points. Morris, the protagonist of the first book, is in the Navy. What’s great is that students can see what life was like on a cruiser, see how distant the war was, and then follow Morris as he’s tranferred to a river runner on the Mekong River. He never knows where the next attack will come from and his eyes are opened to the darker parts of war.

What I appreciate about the book is that it’s not too preachy. With a tagline like “If friendship has an opposite, it has to be war”, you know that it will have some anti-war sentiments. For the most part, though, that’s Morris worrying about his friends. There is action that military or history enthusiasts will appreciate the detail down to the last C-123. The book does not glorify combat, though. This is not Call of Duty. People die unexpectedly; those left behind grieve as they spend the hours of tedium waiting for the bursts of chaos. This is war from an enlisted soldier’s eyes.

It’s a great book and a strong start to a series. It’s definitely worth having in your library.

The College, Career, and Civic Life Framework

September 19th, 2013

The new framework for Social Studies instruction includes a focus on evaluating sources and taking informed actions during a study of civics, history, geography, and economics. I’m intrigued.

Here’s a quote from the intro:

ADVOCATES OF CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION CROSS THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM, BUT THEY ARE BOUND BY A COMMON BELIEF THAT OUR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC WILL NOT SUSTAIN UNLESS STUDENTS ARE AWARE OF THEIR CHANGING CULTURAL AND PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENTS; KNOW THE PAST; READ, WRITE, AND THINK DEEPLY; AND ACT IN WAYS THAT PROMOTE THE COMMON GOOD. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES ON THESE OBJECTIVES. THE GOAL OF KNOWLEDGEABLE, THINKING, AND ACTIVE CITIZENS, HOWEVER, IS UNIVERSAL.

The Book of Blood by H.P. Newquist

September 12th, 2013

For the record, I am glad that I am not a doctor. When you are in the operating room, you do not want your medical professional squealing in fright at the insides of the human body. The Book of Blood is not a gross-out book, at least not intentionally.

But it’s blood! They’re talking about blood! [this is where I faint]

Until the past century, large gaps of time passed between breakthroughs in the study of blood. Part of that is because humans need blood and are usually pretty opinionated about parting with it. The Book of Blood traces the history of the study of blood, from Herophilus and Ibn al-Nafis to Karl Landsteiner and the oligosaccharide polymer. I had heard of Herophilus before but not the other two and that’s what I appreciate about the book. It branches into parts of scientific history that I was not familiar with. I also knew that there were different types of blood, but I didn’t realize what the differences between A and B and positive and negative were (it’s about the presence or absence of certain polymers).

The science is there. The history is there. It makes for a great nonfiction read.

Even a simple sentence like:

“In times when the body is sick or injured and is losing blood, the spleen can squeeze some of its stored-up reserves back into the body so that the proper amount is still flowing through the arteries and veins.”

grips the reader’s attention.

Squeeze? [this is where I scream and faint again]