Synopsis: Mice live in a dangerous world full of predators, cold, heat, and floods. They have built a society in small cities around the world, and they have the Mouse Guard to watch the paths between the cities. Unfortunately, a traitor has entered their midst, and they must protect their cities from invasion by traitor mice.
My Thoughts: I bought this book because I could see how beautiful the artwork was and because my friends suggested it to me as a fantastic kids book that could come with a children’s RPG. I thought it would be a good gift for my step-son-to-be. We have yet to play the game, but I was a little disappointed in the book. My step-son-to-be is almost to the level where he can read the book himself, which makes it a great purchase for him, but I found the storyline a little lacking in plot. That, of course, is true of many books appropriate for a gifted 5 and a half year old to read himself. I will encourage him to read it, though I am uninterested in reading any further in the series myself.
I give 3.5 stars because I loved the artwork and feel that it really is appropriate for the child for whom I bought it.
Summary: In Get Ready to Get Pregnant, Dr. Lu provides a lot of important information for women who wish to become pregnant within the next several months (longer, if you plan on getting down to a target weight before getting pregnant, as he suggests).
Summary: In the 1920s, the Osage Indians of Oklahoma were the richest people per capita due to the discovery of oil on their land. The federal government decided that the Osage were not “fit” to make monetary decisions on their own, and they were appointed legal guardians who did anything but guard the safety of their legal charges. Over a period of several years, many rich Osage were murdered (or died suspiciously) in what appears to be a conspiracy among legal guardians to gain control of the wealth. Outlining malicious greed and terror, Killers of the Flower Moon begins by following a specific set of murders that the FBI “solved.” Grann then continues the book by describing his own research into other mysterious deaths that happened around the same time.
Synopsis: Alexandria leaves her home in America to travel Bulgaria and teach. But on her first day there, she runs into a mysterious family, whose bag she accidentally “steals.” When she discovers how valuable the contents are, she feels she has to find the family and return the bag personally. However, the family is difficult to find and she is led on a wild goose chase looking for them. All the while, strange people are following and threatening her.
Synopsis: This is the epic story following the lineage of Kunta Kinte, who was kidnapped as a teenager from his home in Africa to be a slave in the US. His family is dramatically followed down the line to Alex Haley, the author. In fact, this turned out to be false – the story was plagiarized (including some of the characters) from a lesser known book, and Alex Haley apparently didn’t know much about his African ancestors.
ill patients and the emptying of state-funded mental hospitals. Due to terrible conditions in state hospitals and to the discovery of antipsychotics, many well-intended people wanted to improve the condition of mentally ill people by giving them independence and better living conditions through outpatient treatment. So the founders of NIMH, with the help of President Kennedy, began a federal program intended to care for patients on an outpatient basis, as well as providing resources which were intended on reducing the onset of mental illness in future generations. Unfortunately, as the state hospitals closed en masse, these federal programs didn’t do their job as intended. The federal programs focused too much on trying (and failing) to reduce the new onset of mental illness, and not enough on taking care of people who were released from hospitals. Many people from the hospitals had nowhere to go and/or stopped taking their meds (for various reasons). The populations of homeless and jailed/imprisoned mentally ill people skyrocketed. Violence by and against people with mental illness skyrocketed. Chaos ensued.
Hibernator's Library 