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? ? LiveJournal Find more YOUR 2019 IN LJ Communities RSS Reader Shop YOUR 2019 IN LJ Help Login Login CREATE BLOG Join English (en) English (en) Русский (ru) Українська (uk) Français (fr) Português (pt) español (es) Deutsch (de) Italiano (it) Беларуская (be) abbylibrarian — Subscribe Readability Log in No account? Create an account Remember me Forgot password Log in Log in Facebook Twitter Google No account? Create an account Abby the Librarian Subscribe LiveJournal.com makes no claim to the content supplied through this journal account. Articles are retrieved via a public feed supplied by the site for this purpose. Recent Entries Profile Archive Abby the Librarian January 30th, 2020 , 04:11 am The Poison Eaters http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AbbytheLibrarian/~3/UEyQ7_QSjJo/the-poison-eaters.html The Poison Eaters: Fighting Danger and Fraud in our Food and Drugs by Gail Jarrow. Grades 6-10. Calkins Creek, 2019. 160 pages. Review copy provided by my local library. Booktalk: How much would I have to pay you to eat poison? What if you knew that it would make you feel sick and weak and lose weight? What if you knew that you could possibly die? The "poison eaters" were a group of young men who volunteered to participate in a study about food safety, to eat food that had been preserved with potentially harmful substances, so that scientists could prove that the producers and packagers of processed foods were killing America. Go to the store today and pick up any packaged food. We take for granted that it will have a label listing the ingredients and nutritional information. That if the item contains an active ingredient (like in medicines), it will be listed on the box. That if the item could cause harmful side effects or needs further instructions, there will be a warning label on the box. That was not always the case. And it took a huge battle and a long, long time to win those requirements to protect the American consumer. It is truly disturbing what food packagers and processors used to be able to get away with. People were sickened by rotten food that had been disguised with formaldehyde to mask the smell. Mothers gave children "soothing syrup" that contained alcohol or morphine - yes, it stopped teething pain... because it knocked them straight out until morning! Quack doctors were able to sell "medicine" making outrageous healing claims without testing anything or even making sure it was safe to consume. And our American government let them get away with it - until the poison eaters stood up to say that it was wrong and things needed to change. My thoughts: This book provides so many riveting and appalling examples of what producers were able to get away with before the government enacted regulations. I kept reading bits out loud to my husband because I was so outraged that people had to deal with this. Beyond just unsafe and unsanitary food preparation, Jarrow also touches on issues like the radium girls who were poisoned by radium that was advertised as healthy and the pregnant mothers who were prescribed thalidomide which caused catastrophic birth defects. Gail Jarrow is a master of narrative nonfiction and this book is packed to the gills with historical figures and facts. It was fascinating to me how many groups and individuals rallied for the passing of laws to protect consumers while the House and Senate (no doubt influenced by the deep pockets of the food and drug manufacturers) drug their feet. Even after regulations were passed in 1906, producers often found loopholes and made huge profits off them. Readers interested in American history, especially those with an interest in food science or medicine, will find much to pore over here. Readalikes: Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America by Susan Campbell Bartoletti (HMH, 2015). Although the subject matter's a bit different - this one concentrates on the spread of a deadly illness - these books both deal with health threats in the early 1900s and the struggle to stop them. Readers of narrative nonfiction who are interested in the history medicine and health will enjoy both. Leave a comment Share Flag January 27th, 2020 , 01:23 pm Youth Media Awards!! http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AbbytheLibrarian/~3/qNXjoCBZx4c/youth-media-awards.html In case you haven't seen, the 2020 Youth Media Award winners were announced this morning ! I am so, so pleased to see so many books of my heart honored this morning and I know that those that didn't appear on these lists are still wonderful and worthy . Congratulations to Jerry Craft for his Newbery medal for New Kid , the first time the Newbery Medal has been awarded to a graphic novel (yes, they are REAL books!). I loved how this book approaches racism and microaggressions in a super kid-friendly and humorous way. New Kid was also awarded the Coretta Scott King Author Award! I am so super stoked that The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander, illustrated by Kadir Nelson garnered not only the Caldecott Medal (Nelson's first!), but a Newbery honor (yesssss Kwame!) AND the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. I think this may be the first time that we have a double double - both the Newbery Medal and the Caldecott Medal winners also won the Coretta Scott King awards! Both of these are very special books. So many other amazing books were honored! I know I'll be working on double checking whether we own all of these and putting in some orders for the ones we missed. Check out the full list here ! Leave a comment Share Flag January 23rd, 2020 , 04:11 am Born to Fly http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AbbytheLibrarian/~3/QNxCLG5zqts/born-to-fly.html Born to Fly: The First Women's Air Race Across America by Steve Sheinkin. Grades 6 and up. Roaring Brook, 2019. 288 pages. Review copy provided by my local library. What it's about: Why is Amelia Earhart the only female pilot that most of us can name? Yes, she was amazing, but profiled here you'll find a dozen other women just as daring, just as capable. This is the true story of the 1929 Women's Air Derby. Starting with profiles and brief biographies of most of the major players in the race, Steve Sheinkin introduces us to women like Amelia Earhart (whom you may have heard of), Marvel Crosson (who built her first airplane from boxes of parts), and Elinor Smith (who at age 17 was disciplined by the mayor of New York City for flying underneath four New York bridges, the first to attempt such a stunt). And then we get to the race and I dare you to be able to put the book down once it starts. It was a grueling race, leapfrogging from Santa Monica, California across the South and Texas, up through the Midwest and ending in Cleveland, Ohio. Men had held air derbies before, but this one, just nine years after women got the vote, was just for the ladies. LOTS of people didn't believe women could do it or that women should do it. Flight was new and risky. This race meant days and days of long flying before airplanes were climate controlled or had radios. Add to that the ominous telegram that one of the racers received before the race: BEWARE OF SABOTAGE. My thoughts: This is a fascinating and compelling narrative nonfiction look at a dozen or so trailblazing women. These were women taking tremendous risks - pilots and passengers still died on the regular in these days before seatbelts and enclosed cabins and reliable oxygen supply. And they were also facing a lot of naysayers who said that women shouldn't be doing any of that. If a man died in an airplane crash, he was heralded as a hero who risked life and limb in the pursuit of technological advances. If a woman died, she was held up as an example that women should not be allowed to fly. The first half of the book is interesting enough, but once the race starts (about halfway through), I absolutely could not put this book down. My husband knew when I got to that part because I started just smiling and nodding at anything he was saying, never taking my eyes ...