Bantam Rahman’s The Library Bus tells the simple story of Pari, an Afghan girl who’s about 5 years old. Pari’s mother drives a bookmobile to villages and refugee camps where girls have no schools.
It’s a cute story to introduce children to Afghanistan, but I’d like more character development. Even small children have distinct personalities.
The story with its charming illustrations is worth a read.
The Radium Girls by Kate Moore tells the story of the young women who worked in factories painting iridescent numbers on watch and clock dials. In New Jersey and Illinois after WWI, girls were hired to use paint made with radium to make the dials glow in the dark. The technique they were required to use was to lick the tip of the brush, dip it in the paint and paint the numbers. Then they were to repeat. No step to clean the brush.
At the time radium was believed to be an ultra-healthy substance. No safety precautions were taken.
These girls were proud to earn good wages and had a good lifestyle. Proud of their work, when they would go out dancing, they would take the radium dust rub it on their eyelids and skin, which made them glow.
As you can imagine, the women started to get ill. One woman had awful jaw pain, and when she went to the dentist her jaw fell out, which was the first of many ailments that inflicted her and her colleagues. One after another, the girls began to experience horrific health issues. The radium would attack their bones. Others, as you’d guess, got rare, devastating cancers.
Statue of a Radium Girl, Ottawa, Illinois
The girls began to take legal action and the two radium companies fought them tooth and nail. The story soon turns to one of courage and tenacity as these women fight for their lives and fight for justice in the courts against two Goliath companies.
In many ways the story is hard to take, but because these women banded together and had great resilience and remained strong in spirit and clung to hope, The Radium Girls was not a depressing story. My only critique is that the author’s scope covering two factories which weren’t that connected, made the book confusing at times. Yet I understand her desire to tell the full story. I think it would have been better if Moore had focused on fewer girls and added an epilogue about the others. I highly recommend reading The Radium Girls.
If you like Downton Abbey, you really should read Gail MacColl and Carol McD. Wallace’s To Marry an English Lord. I got the audio book from the library. The narrator had the perfect voice, elegant and slightly aristocratic.
To Marry an English Lord presents all sorts of facts and vignettes about the American heiresses, and there were dozens if not hundreds, who crossed the ocean to marry well. The focus is on New York socialites, whose fathers had fortunes, but couldn’t break into the elite circle of the Kickerbockers. Kickerbockers were the descendants of the first New York settlers from Holland, these people wore knickerbockers, i.e. pants that stopped at the knees. No amount of money could get you into their social circle so those with new money headed for England where they were welcomed not just for their money (though that was key) but also because American girls were so open, confident and free. British girls were sheltered and shy. They were chaperoned everywhere, but the American parents gave their girls a lot more freedom. And they had much larger clothing allowances. A British girl would make do with 3 new gowns a season, but the American would get 18 or so spending about $500.000 in todays money (plus a 50% tariff). The British men noticed, in droves apparently.
The book covers every aspect of the women’s lives from dress, parents, education, hobbies and such to marriage, infidelity and socializing. I found it quite interesting that these girls had the best of all worlds because as was typical in the U.S. at the time they were encouraged to be spirited and confident as debutantes and unlike the women who married in America after they wed they could follow the custom of getting involved in politics or writing, which was normal in England.
The book is a solid and entertaining social history that makes me think a real life Cora had more meaningful work to do, more extravagant parties to give, more friendships and probably more infidelity than we see on Downton Abbey. (Mind you I’m happy Cora did not hop into bed with Bricker, the bounder.) The authors’ style is full of wit and energy.
While I enjoyed being able to listen as I drove, I think I’ll get the actual book, because I can envision wanting to fact check the history and that’s hard to do with a CD.
As I work on my novel for young readers, I thought Carolyn Marsden’s Silk Umbrellas would inspire me. Marsden introduces readers to traditional Thai culture through Noi, a young girl in about 5th grade, and her family. Noi’s grandmother paints silk umbrellas and Noi helps her. The family needs money since the father can’t get gainful employment. Her mother makes mosquito nets and Ting, Noi’s older sister must quit school to contribute to the family’s income.
The writing is very lyrical and romantic. I thought it was a little too dreamy and ideal as I can’t believe that Thai’s are so untouched by modernization and the outside world. Since the umbrellas are sold to foreign tourists, I think I’m right. Noi would be acquainted with things like T shirts, TV and cell phones, even if she learned about them from a friend’s family.
The story is lovely and shows different attitudes towards child labor. Noi pities her sister and hopes to stay in school, while Ting, the sister, is realistic and uncomplaining. She seems to
All in all, I wish there were some images in the book because children would need the visuals to better understand Thailand. The glossary that defines words like Kun Mere (mother) and faring (foreigner) is a help, though I prefer footnotes on the page where each term is used. I’d say Silk Umbrellas is a good book on Thailand, but most certainly shouldn’t be the only book a child reads about the country.
OmoresOtempora
smkelly8
![12113 - Apprentissage - [EXPLORED 1/6/2022]](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52942938865_3719dcdea7_s.jpg "12113 - Apprentissage - [EXPLORED 1/6/2022]")
Xingu, Volume 2 
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