71. To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

listened on Audible

narrated by Brittany Pressley

Unabridged audio (4:30)
2019
153 pgs. - Novella
Adult SciFi
Finished  6/30/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.21 - 21,750 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: different planets way, way, WAY out...

First line/s: "I never knew an Earth that was unaware of life elsewhere."

My comments: Set on a spaceship that has traveled 14 light years through the galaxy to four planets somewhat similar to Earth to research possible lifeforms.  To travel, each of the four astronaut/scientists are put into states of torpor, where their body ages very slowly and they can pass through time only aging about 1/10th of what they normally would.  That in itself is fascinating, but the science and the philosophy and the relationships between the four people on this mission astounded me.  I really loved it.

Goodreads synopsis:   In her new novella, Sunday Times best-selling author Becky Chambers imagines a future in which, instead of terraforming planets to sustain human life, explorers of the solar system instead transform themselves.
            Ariadne is one such explorer. As an astronaut on an extrasolar research vessel, she and her fellow crewmates sleep between worlds and wake up each time with different features. Her experience is one of fluid body and stable mind and of a unique perspective on the passage of time. Back on Earth, society changes dramatically from decade to decade, as it always does.
            Ariadne may awaken to find that support for space exploration back home has waned, or that her country of birth no longer exists, or that a cult has arisen around their cosmic findings, only to dissolve once more by the next waking. But the moods of Earth have little bearing on their mission: to explore, to study, and to send their learnings home.

            Carrying all the trademarks of her other beloved works, including brilliant writing, fantastic world-building and exceptional, diverse characters, Becky's first audiobook outside of the Wayfarers series is sure to capture the imagination of listeners all over the world.

58. Recursion by Blake Crouch

read on Audible
read by Jon Lindstrom and Abby Craden
Unabridged audio (10:47)
2019 Random House
336 pgs.
Adult Fantasy/Sci Fi/Time Travel
Finished  7/1/2019
Goodreads rating:  4.28 - 10,195 ratings
My rating:   4.5
Setting: More-or-less contemporary NYC, Maine, Tucson, and various other places in the world....

First line/s:  "Barry Sutton pulls over into the fire lane at the main entrance of the Poe Building."

My comments:  Whew.  This was one helluva ride. 
What is memory?  How does memory and time and the brain work? Physics?  Biology?  Science fiction?  Blake Crouch has created a story that goes from point A to Point B by traveling through D and L and X and F - all over the place.  Time travel and science and two complex and interesting personalities come together over and over ... and over ... again..  Read it!

Goodreads synopsis: Memory makes reality.
          That’s what New York City cop Barry Sutton is learning as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome—a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.
          Neuroscientist Helena Smith already understands the power of memory. It’s why she’s dedicated her life to creating a technology that will let us preserve our most precious moments of our pasts. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent. 
          As Barry searches for the truth, he comes face-to-face with an opponent more terrifying than any disease—a force that attacks not just our minds but the very fabric of the past. And as its effects begin to unmake the world as we know it, only he and Helena, working together, will stand a chance at defeating it.
          But how can they make a stand when reality itself is shifting and crumbling all around them?

51. Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah

listened on Audible
read by Lauren Ezzo
Unabridged audio (9:57)
2019 Lake Union Publishing
332 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished 6/7/2019
Goodreads rating:  4.22 - 22,437 ratings
My rating:  4.5

First line/s:  "The girl could be a changeling.  She was almost invisible, her pale face, hoodie and pants fading into the twilit woods behind her.  Her feet were bare.  She stood motionless, one arm hooked around a hickory trunk , and she didn't move when the car crunched to the end of the gravel driveway and stopped a few yards away."

My comments:  There might be a few very small spoilers in the following response to this book.  Every now and then you read a story that is so touching and so different that you don't care as much about the coincidences and the too-good-to-be-true ending as you might usually.  This was a charming story from beginning to end, where a broken, genius, - and I must say, with a bit of a rolling eye: manipulative - child wins all the good things she deserves.  It's about people that aren't' as broken as they thought they were coming together to make things right.  And make things work.  I enjoyed everything about this book - the characters, the setting, and even the reality of too-stupid-to-be-real laws and child welfare rules.  Highly recommended.

Goodreads synopsis: An Amazon Charts, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Postbestseller.
          In this gorgeously stunning debut, a mysterious child teaches two strangers how to love and trust again.
          After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin barefoot and covered in bruises.
          The girl calls herself Ursa, and she claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles. With concerns about the child’s home situation, Jo reluctantly agrees to let her stay—just until she learns more about Ursa’s past.
          Jo enlists the help of her reclusive neighbor, Gabriel Nash, to solve the mystery of the charming child. But the more time they spend together, the more questions they have. How does a young girl not only read but understand Shakespeare? Why do good things keep happening in her presence? And why aren’t Jo and Gabe checking the missing children’s website anymore?
          Though the three have formed an incredible bond, they know difficult choices must be made. As the summer nears an end and Ursa gets closer to her fifth miracle, her dangerous past closes in. When it finally catches up to them, all of their painful secrets will be forced into the open, and their fates will be left to the stars. 

18. Murder Theory by Andrew Mayne

#3 The Naturalist (Dr. Theo Crain)
listened on Audible (8:42)
read by Will Damron
2019, Thomas & Mercer
296 pgs.
Contemporary Mystery/Thriller
Finished 2/15/19
Goodreads rating: 4.49 - 391 ratings
My rating:  3
Setting:Contemporary Atlanta and other east coast domiciles

First line/s:  "The helpless  man in the wheelchair thrilled him.  It wasn't a physical thrill or something he'd describe as deviant but the fact thst it was this man who was unconscious and at his mercy excited him."

My comments: Theo Cray is still a reckless, belligerent, thoughtless, brilliant scientist who is a blast to follow.  There seems to be even more scientific information that I found a little difficult to follow in this third book, but I ignored it and took it for what it was - interesting filler (which could be true or not...).  He didn't always have enough clues to get him from one place to another, but this was glossed over a bit, and his awkward and/or dysfunctional relationships with people had my eyes rolling big-time.  But I enjoy this guy, the messes he gets himself into, and his ability to walk through dog shit and come out smelling like a rose every time!

Goodreads synopsis:  The desire to kill is becoming contagious in this riveting novel of conceivable mad science by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Naturalist.
          Computational biologist and serial-killer hunter Dr. Theo Cray receives an off-the-record request from the FBI to investigate an inexplicable double homicide. It happened at the excavation site where a murderer had buried his victims’ remains. In custody is a forensic technician in shock, with no history of aggression. He doesn’t remember a thing. His colleagues don’t even recognize the man they thought they knew. But an MRI reveals something peculiar. And abnormal.
          What on earth made him commit murder?
          After discovering that a mysterious man has been stalking crime scenes and stealing forensic data, Cray has a radical and terrifying theory. Now he must race against time to find a darker version of himself: a scientist with an obsession in pathological behavior who uses his genius not to catch serial killers—but to create them.

48. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

read on my iPhone
2016, Crown
342 pgs.
Adult SciFi
Finished 6/3/18
Goodreads rating:  4.1 - 126,999 ratings
My rating:  5
Setting:  Contemporary USA

First line/s:  "I love Thursday nights.  They have a feel to them that's outside of time.  It's our tradition, just the three of us -- family night."

My comments: I swallowed this whole, reading it in less than a day. It’s the second science-fiction I’ve read recently and I enjoyed it almost as much as the first. Couldn’t put it down. I don’t understand even the teeniest tiniest corner of quantum physics, and there is one place near the end that I still can’t quite wrap my mind around - but it doesn’t matter when it comes to the enjoyment of this thriller. It was really good.

Goodreads synopsis: “Are you happy with your life?” 
          Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. 
          Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. 
          Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.” 
          In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.
          Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.
          From the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy, Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human—a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of.

PICTURE BOOK - Newton's Rainbow: The Revolutionary Discoveries of a Young Scientist by Kathryn Lasky

Illustrated byKevin Hawkes

2017, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York

HC $17.99
Bosler J 530.092

44 pgs.

Goodreads rating:3.66 - 53 ratings

My rating:4 (or maybe even more)

Endpapers:  Ocean blue

Illustrations:  I love Kevin Hawkes (a Mainer) illustrations.

1^st line/s:  ""On Christmas Day over three hundred years ago, in a village in England, a baby was born too early.  The midwives who helped deliver him had never seen such a tiny baby, so little that one said he could fit into a quart pot."

My comments:  Yes, this is a particularly text-heavy picture book.  It's perfect for the 4th or 5th grader who has to read a biography and has a tough time plowing through a chapter-book length piece of nonfiction.  (That would have been me and many of the students that I've taught over the years.)  It's beautifully written and illustrated, gives all sorts of really interesting information, allowing the reader to get a real feel for the brilliant, eccentric person that Isaac Newton was and the times in which he lived.  I learned a lot!

Goodreads:  Famed for his supposed encounter with a falling apple that inspired his theory of gravity, Isaac Newton (1642-1727) grew from a quiet and curious boy into one of the most influential scientists of all time. Newton's Rainbow tells the story of young Isaac--always reading, questioning, observing, and inventing--and how he eventually made his way to Cambridge University, where he studied the work of earlier scientists and began building on their accomplishments. This colorful picture book biography celebrates Newton's discoveries that illuminated the mysteries of gravity, motion, and even rainbows, discoveries that gave mankind a new understanding of the natural world, discoveries that changed science forever.

PICTURE BOOK - Karl, Get Out of the Garden: Carolus Linnaeus and the Naming of Everything by Anita Sanchez

Illustrated by Catherine Stock

2017, Charlesbridge

48 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.05 - 37 ratings

My rating:  4

Endpapers:  brown sketches of plants and animals on white

1^st line/s: "Karl Linne was in the garden again.  He just wouldn't stay out of it!"

My comments: 

This picture book, perfect for elementary age kids and a great introduction to classification in 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade, is interesting and informative. I had no ideas that the classification system was created by a Swedish young man who had a love for flowers and became a college professor - in the early to mid 1700s. Fascinating! Excellent book. Includes an afterward, easy explanation of how the classification works, a timeline, and resource list.

Goodreads:  Do you know what a Solanum caule inermi herbaceo, foliis pinnatis incises, racemis simplicibus is?*
          Carolus (Karl) Linnaeus started off as a curious child who loved exploring the garden. Despite his intelligence--and his mother's scoldings--he was a poor student, preferring to be outdoors with his beloved plants and bugs. As he grew up, Karl's love of nature led him to take on a seemingly impossible task: to give a scientific name to every living thing on earth. The result was the Linnaean system--the basis for the classification system used by biologists around the world today. Backyard sciences are brought to life in beautiful color.
          Back matter includes more information about Linnaeus and scientific classification, a classification chart, a time line, source notes, resources for young readers, and a bibliography.

Lookup! Henrietta Leavitt, Pioneering Woman Astronomer - Robert Burleigh

Illustrated by Raul Colon

2013, Paula Wiseman; Simon & Schuster

HC 16.99 Carlisle's Bosler Library

32 pages

Goodreads rating: 3.79

My rating: 4

Endpapers: Dark Blue

Title Page:  two-inch strip on the top and a 1/2-inch strip on the bottom is an illustrations of the night sky looking through tree branches.  this is a nice model to share with kids what an appealing title page looks like.

Illustrations: Full page drawing on one page, text (many with lined borders) on the facing page, some double-page spreads

1^st line:  "Night after night, Henrietta sat on her front portch, gazing up at the stars."

Goodreads:  Look up! is a picture book biography of the astronomer Henrietta Leavitt. The story is of a little girl who loved the night sky, who loved the stars, who followed her dream and persevered academically in a man's field. Most astronomers, at the time, being men, of course. But she knew what she wanted, and she knew she could do it. Henrietta's job--she got paid thirty cents an hour--was not to gaze through the telescope. Her job was to examine, to study, the photographs taken by others. She was good at her job, and through her measuring, through her detailed study, she made an important discovery, a discovery having to do with measuring distances and the vastness of galaxies.

My comments on Goodreads:  Henrietta Leavitt certainly made huge contributions to astronomy, and this book clearly and cleverly shows the process she went through to discover them.  The illustrations are lovely, and the three pages of additional information at the end are perfect for the older reader and teacher (or parent) that want to learn more.  Included at some great quotes about stars, a glossary, deeper information about Leavitt's discovery, and a bibliography and list of internet resources. A MUST addition to a study of astronomy, women in history, or just a fascinating read for star gazers!

One Beetle Too Many: The Extraordianry Advntures of Charles Darwin - Kathryn Lasky

Illustrated by Matthew Trueman
Candlewick, 2009
$17.99
40 pages
for: grades 3+
Rating: 5
Endpapers: green with lighter green ferny leaves twining around

Dedication from KL: "In celebration of children, whose boundless curiousity gives thme a right to know their history on Earth." Don't ya love it?

I've been trying to get my hands on this book for over a year. Thank you, Tucson Library for coming through. It only took a year!

This is a super biography of Charles Darwin - making him a real person. You can feel his curiosity, see his peering and examining and thinking. You can totally visualize the rain forests of South American...Patagonia...the Galapagos. Following his five-year journey on a map would be great - wish one were included in the book.

Kathryn Lasky discusses the controversy - and such a major controversy it is - between creationism and evolution. Theology vs. science? Hmmm.....

She tells how Darwin's father despaired over his son's lack of ambition with his studies, over his inability to find a career he deemed suitable. Even Charles' loving wife, Emma - who provided ten (TEN!) children for him - was not comfortable with his theories of evolution.

This is a wonderful, fascinating biography for 4th - 5th - 6th graders. Lots to think about, and lots to learn. A must-have for a biography unit.

Most of the illustrations are just great. A couple, of mountains and snow and the sea, are a little too barren for me - but I guess they're trying to depict the setting, huh? The illustrations in What Darwin Saw by Rosalyn Schanzer would go so beautifully with this - I'd use the two books together. Compare and contrast. Higher level thinking skills. Mmm hmm.

4. Who Was Albert Einstein? Jess Brallier

Illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker
WHO WAS Biography Series
For: Grades 2-4 (RL 3.3)
Grosset & Dunlap, 2002
Paper, $4.99
106 pages

These readable, intersting, fact-filled biographies fit the bill perfectly to teach BIOGRAPHY to my entire class without having them all read the same book. Between the school library and local bookstores (I didn't find any at Bookman's) I was able to find more than enough for each student in my class. Each is set up the same way, beginning with a quick overview, six to eleven chapters telling of the person's life, then a timeline of the life with the facing page having a timeline of what was going on in the world at the time.

I learned a great deal about Albert Einstein. An incredible peace-lover, war-hater that brought about the creation of the atomic bomb. A U.S. citizen when he died. A deep, deep thinker and somewhat of a loner. It was really quite sophisticated information, perfect for my fourth graders. And I discovered some really interesting facts about his Judaism!