DWD's Reviews

Published in 2018 by Beacon Press. Read by Amy Landon. Duration: 6 hours, 21 minutes. Unabridged. Robin DiAngelo is a diversity trainer. She also happens to be white. She has noticed that it is very common for white participants to react very negatively during these training sessions, often acting very defensively and offering a lot of excuses. In this book, she looks at those excuses and lays out the refutations of those excuses. The good: White Fragility offers a very useful definition of racism. Hint: it is not just people acting horribly to other groups of people, it is a whole cultural system that we absorb. It also offers some practical advice about how to deal with your own prejudices. The bad: White Fragility is a repetitive book. It could have easily been edited down by one-third without a loss of any new material. Another weakness is that it doesn't really offer a list of common racist behaviors that people complain about. For example, I have heard African-Americ...

Published in 2007 by Worldwide Library (Worldwide Mystery). Originally Published in 2005. Historian Miranda Lewis has been invited to a Gettysburg re-enactment on the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3) by her old college roommate, Ginny. She accepts for two reasons - she wants to see her old friend and she has a serious crush on her friend's father, a retired judge and amateur historian who will also be there. She has been nursing this crush since she was 19 years old and he took her on a tour of the battlefield and taught her all about the battle. Things get complicated, though, when Ginny's estranged husband Wiley shows up. He is a hardcore Civil War Confederate reenactor, the sort of man who starves himself to the point of being ill just to look more authentic. The sort of man who decorates his personal vehicle (called the "Battlemobile") with little plastic Civil War army men. Wiley has been gone on the reenactor circuit for a while, traveling from...

Published in 2015 by YWAM Publishing . Read by Tim Gregory. Duration: 4 hours, 55 minutes. Unabridged. YWAM Publishing offers a series of biographies of Christian "heroes of history" aimed at home school students. The fact that this was part of series about "Christian" heroes was a surprise to me since this book didn't mention Hershey's faith at all. Nevertheless, this is an interesting and enjoyable biography of one of America's most successful businessmen, Milton Hershey (1857-1945). Milton Hershey: More than Chocolate is a book showcasing the value of persistence. Starting with a failed attempt by his father in the oilfields of Pennsylvania in the late 1850's, the first half of this book is a series of business failures from Milton Hershey and his father, Henry. Henry Hershey was more of a dreamer sort of entrepreneur - prone to rash decisions, excited by new technology and not very good on doing the follow up work to make sure that the ventur...

Published in 2018 by HarperAudio. Read by the author, Helen Thomson. Duration: 7 hours, 19 minutes. Unabridged. Helen Thomson is a science writer with a background in neurology. She was inspired by the story of the Jumping Frenchmen of Maine to set out to meet and interview ten people who literally experience the world differently than the rest of us. In Unthinkable , Thomson does a solid job of explaining possible scientific explanations for each of these people's conditions and how those conditions may simply be extreme versions of a phenomenon that we all experience. As in all collections (in this case, a collection of people), some are more interesting than others. For example, I found the story of the man who believed he was dead to be interesting but the story of the man who believed that he was a were-tiger was pretty lame all of the way around. The author and narrator She also looks at a person who doesn't forget anything, a woman who gets lost everywhere, including...

Published in 2008 by Indiana Historical Society Press. Most know that Abraham Lincoln came from Springfield, Illinois. But, a lot of people are not aware that at age 7, Lincoln and his family moved to Indiana from Kentucky. Lincoln and his family stayed in Indiana until just after his 21st birthday. In a four paragraph autobiographical sketch written in 1859, Lincoln devoted a little more than a paragraph to these years in Indiana, including this nice little sentence: "There I grew up." All of the stories of Lincoln's childhood (reading by firelight, the legend of the rail splitter, his aversion to shedding blood of any sort, his kindness to animals and more) took place in Indiana. Hoosiers are happy to claim him. The author, William E. Bartelt, worked for fifteen summers at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial as a ranger and historian and was the vice chair of the Indiana Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. There I Grew Up: Remembering Abraham Lincoln's Indi...

Art by Ed Benes, Rafael Albuquerque, Rags Morales, and John Dell. Published in 2010 by DC Comics. There are three stories in this collection. Superman / Batman: Finest Worlds is the 8th volume in this series.  Story #1. "The Fathers" The weakest of the three. A piece of Kryptonian technology is found in a farm field near Smallville. It comes to life for a few seconds and triggers a reaction in the Batcave. It turns out that the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel have a previously unknown connection... I rate this story 3 stars out of 5. Story #2. "Lil' Leaguers" Worlds collide in this one. Smaller, more childlike versions of all of your favorite DC superheroes and supervillains enter the Superman / Batman world. Their world is literally smaller and weapons don't really hurt each other in that world. In fact, their universe is just a much more pleasant place on every level. The page where Superman and Batman meet their miniature selves is quite amusing. ...

Published by DC Comics in 2016. Art by Neal Adams. A group of men dressed like Superman crash land in an older couple's Iowa cornfield. They then fly to Lex Luthor's corporate headquarters and engage in a fight against an invasion. It is Darkseid's soldiers coming through a red "tunnel" called a "boom tube". The boom tube allows people to travel from one planet to another instantaneously - like a tunnel between worlds. But, these three new Supermen are not very good at fighting the bad guys are are fairly confused about how to use their super powers. Turns out they are three Kryptonians that have come to defend Earth from an invasion of Darkseid's troops led by his oldest son, the immortal Kalibak, in the hopes that Superman will go to Krypton to deal with a Darkseid invasion.  Meanwhile, Superman is in the Middle East saving civilians in a war zone. Among those civilians are an orphan and his dog. Superman is stopped by a time-controlling alien th...

Published in 2011 by Brilliance Audio. Read by Phil Gigante. Duration: 7 hours, 56 minutes. Unabridged. The premise of Soft Target is pretty simple: the Bruce Willis movie Die Hard meets Minnesota's  The Mall of America , except in this book it is called America: The Mall. It's Black Friday, the biggest shopping day in the biggest shopping mall in America. Suddenly, Islamic terrorists throw off their disguises, shoot the mall Santa between the eyes and take a thousand people hostage. Turns out that super tough retired Marine Ray Cruz is shopping in the mall and almost immediately sets out to start taking out the bad guys... So, if the book had just followed that basic story line, it would have been better. Instead, it moves away from this compelling story (the "thriller" promised in the title). Instead, we get a lot of political wrangling with an up and coming politician-type leader of the Minnesota State Patrol, his subordinates and the FBI. This character, named O...

Published in 2017 by Valiant Entertainment, LLC, Art by Stephen Segovia, Barry Kitson, Diego Bernard and Cary Nord. Faith Herbert is a superhero (Zephyr) in hiding. She has been accused of a murder she did not commit in another series (she's a member of some sort of Justice League/Avengers type of group). She no longer acts as a superhero and her secret identity now has a secret identity. She is working in an office and trying not to get noticed. Now, a note about this graphic novel. Before this book, I had never heard of Faith Herbert or this series. But, I was attracted to the front cover because of Faith. Faith is a woman of generous proportions - something I have never seen in any comic book. In fact, I can't think of a single superhero comic that features an overweight superhero without it being a joke (Mr. Incredible's gut doesn't slow him down, but it has been a  sight gag  from the very first trailer of the first movie). This got my attention because I am a...

Published by Brilliance Audio in 2018. Read by the author, Kevin Allison. Duration: 1 hour, 22 minutes. Unabridged. Kevin and Ben are best friends and have been since first grade. They are both a little different than the other guys. Both are more interested in singing and acting than in sports. Both have active imaginations, a wide-ranging knowledge of movie and Broadway soundtracks and both have quirky senses of humor. As they go through school together, they have sleep-overs, they start a theater club and they even write a play together that they perform in front of their Catholic school in Cincinnati. Ben even teaches Kevin all about the birds and the bees in a three day tutorial on the playground during recess (Surprisingly solid info considering that it was based on what the older neighbor boys told him). But, on the weekend before the beginning of seventh grade, everything changes when Kevin tells Ben his biggest secret... This audiobook was brilliantly read by the author. ...

Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction. Publishers Weekly Top 10 for 2017. New York Times 10 Best Books of 2017. Published in 2017 by Simon and Schuster Audio Read by Kelvin Harrison, Jr. and Chris Chalk and Rutina Wesley Duration: 8 hours, 22 minutes. Unabridged. Jojo lives in rural Mississippi on a small farm, but it is a complicated world. He is bi-racial. His white father (Michael) is in Parchman Farm, officially known as the Mississippi State Penitentiary. His African American mother is a frequent substance abuser and is in and out of his life so much that he and his toddler-aged sister just refer to her by her first name, Leonie. His little sister treats him much more as a parent than Leonie. He lives with his African American grandparents (his grandmother is dying of cancer) and his white grandparents won't have anything to do with him because they are racists and cannot stand the idea that their son had mixed-race children. To make it all the more complicated, ...

Originally published in 1961. Howard Fast (1914-2003) was a prolific writer (more than 60 novels, plus scores of short stories, plays, articles and histories). He is most famous work is  Spartacus , the novel that inspired the iconic movie by Stanley Kubrick. April Morning is my second Howard Fast novel and if you throw in Spartacus you see a trend in Howard Fast's books - he likes to tell the story of the underdog who fights back. In this novel, the underdogs are the colonists of Massachusetts. The April morning in the title is the day that the British army moved on the stores of gunpowder in Concord, Massachusetts. This is when Paul Revere makes his famous ride. This action is now known as The Battles of Lexington and Concord. The book takes place in and around Lexington. Adam Cooper is a fifteen year old boy in 1775 and the troubles of Boston with the British Redcoats seems a world away. His father is deeply involved with the committees that try to workout a common response to...

Published in 2018 by Listening Library. Read by Abigail Revasch and Tara Sands. Duration: 8 hours, 20 minutes. Unabridged. Middle school in a new town is tough enough - establishing new friendships, figuring out a new school and a new town and more. Being a superhero in middle school has extra difficulties. How do you keep your secret identity a secret? How do you keep up with your homework when you are patrolling for bad guys at night? How do you balance your superhero and regular people friendships? And, if you are Squirrel Girl, you also have to balance your squirrel and human friendships.  After successfully establishing herself as a genuine superhero in the first novel, Squirrel Girl is working on non-violent ways of dealing with bad guys, she has a tough new English teacher and she and her BHFF (Best Human Friend Forever), Ana Sofia are still sorting out what friendship is all about. Squirrel Girl's new town (Shady Oaks, New Jersey) is getting a mall. But, everything see...

Published in 2015. Packard and Hope set out to investigate why formerly active members of Christian churches (all denominations) leave and don't come back to any church at all. These are not members that leave and go to a new church - these are members that completely walk away from any church. He calls them "dechurched" or "dones", as in they are completely done with church. Every year, churches across the country lose active members. In this case, Packard and Hope are not talking about merely regularly attending members - they are talking about members who lead committees, music directors and even former clergy. These are part of the leadership of the church - the people that are committed enough to get things done. Packard and Hope assumed that these folks were simply "burnout" cases - people that just were tired and dropped out altogether.  "Instead, the dechurched are walking away from church work, but not the work of the church. They're ...

Published by Christianaudio.com in 2017. Read by John Pruden. Duration: 7 hours, 2 minutes. Unabridged.  In the 1960's to the 1970's, Steve McQueen (1930-1980) was the epitome of "cool" in Hollywood. Movies like The Magnificent Seven , Bullitt  and The Great Escape  made him one of the most sought-after actors in the world. But, there was a long back story to Steve McQueen and his tragic death due to cancer had a surprising twist for a man who seemed to be out to take as much out of life as possible. Greg Laurie, a super-successful California pastor (who I had never heard of, but his Wikipedia page is something else) wrote Steve McQueen: The Salvation of an American Icon  in order to investigate a rumor that Steve McQueen became a Christian before his death. He decided to be methodical and investigate McQueen's life from its beginning in Beech Grove, Indiana to its end at Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. McQueen was born at St. Francis hospital in Beech Grove, Indiana, a...

Originally published in 1911. Way back in high school in the 1980's I had to read Ethan Frome . I didn't remember anything about it except that it is set in New England and it involved an accident in the snow (no spoilers - this is laid in the first four paragraphs.) I decided to revisit this book and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Ethan Frome is a New England farmer who limps around town due to a 24 year old injury. He is sad man who almost never has visitors to his struggling farm. He makes up the difference by doing odd jobs, such as ferrying visitors around. The narrator of this book tells us the story of Ethan Frome, as it was told to him (or her?) by Ethan Frome himself when the narrator was forced to stay the night in the Frome house during a terrible snowstorm. Edith Wharton (1862-1937) This is a story of regret, love, temptation and obligations. I have no idea why we read this book in high school because there is simply no way that a high school reader wo...

Originally published in 2013. Union General William Tecumseh Sherman near Atlanta in 1864. This book is aimed at 4th-8th graders. It tells an abbreviated history of the Civil War, featuring a lot of pictures and text boxes. It makes for a disjointed read, but it is really designed to be a kid version of a coffee table book. I was not fond of its description of slavery vs. abolitionism argument on page 6. It takes a neutral stand, meaning that it makes an equal space for the argument for abolitionism and point of view of the slave owners. Really? The description of the Springfield Rifle on page 18 makes it sound like it could be fired accurately up to 500 yards. In reality, it was a lot less than that for the average soldier. Sure, it could kill someone at 500 yards, but in the hands of the average soldier that would be the shot of a lifetime - or an accident. On page 39, it pronounces that Sherman intentionally burned Atlanta. He may have, but if he did he kept it to himself. He di...

Published in 1954 by Random House. I n the 1950's and 1960's Random House created an extraordinary history series for children called Landmark Books. There were 122 books in the American history series and 63 in the World Landmark series. A very solid description of the series can be found here:  link . When I was a kid my little hometown library had what seemed like an endless shelf of these books. I loved these books - I even remember where it was in the library nearly 40 years later! Undoubtedly, these books are part of the reason I am a history teacher. Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) This book is part of a subset of the Landmark Books series. If the book took place outside of the United States the book belonged to the World Landmark Books series. Simon Bolivar was born in the Spanish colony that is now Venezuela. He was educated in Spain but was keenly aware that the government of Spain considered the colonies to be inferior to Spain and incapable of self-government. He...

Published by WordFire Press LLC in April of 2019. Read by Charles Kahlenberg. Duration: 5 hours, 22 minutes. Unabridged. The title of Three Military SF Novellas says it all - this audiobook is actually a collection of three novellas. Nothing about any of these stories was particularly original, but I enjoyed two of the three immensely. Story #1 is called Comrades in Arms . It is set in an asteroid belt that is actually the front line of a war between humans and a insect-like species. This story has a familiar vibe - think Robocop meets Enemy Mine . I rate this novella 5 stars. Very entertaining. Story #2 is called Escape Hatch . It is set on a future earth in which a water-based alien species has invaded. They are sort of like eels and jellyfish. They combine together to create massive sea monsters and they are destroying Earth's combined navies. This story has a clever twist and has a very satisfying ending. I rate this novella 5 stars. Story #3 is called Prisoner of War . Thi...

Published in 2018 by Fulcrum Publishing. In a little more than 100 pages this graphic novel tells the story of eight little-known African Americans who lived trailblazing lives. I had heard of three of them, which made me feel a little more pretty good - a little more informed than the average reader might be. As Gill tells these stories he confronts racial issues head on. However, he does have a clever way of dealing with the word n*****. Whenever that word is used, a stylized caricature of a man in "blackface" is inserted instead. It makes the point and it shows how out of bounds the word is when a picture is used instead of a word. The art is simple and interesting and the stories move at a quick pace. This book would be a great addition to a classroom library. I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: STRANGE FRUIT, VOLUME II: MORE UNCELEBRATED NARRATIVES from BLACK HISTORY .