Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas by Jim Ottaviani and Maris Wicks

The true stories of three scientists who changed the way we think about primates forever.  Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas were all recruited by anthropologist Louis Leakey and set out, with little to no training or background, on field research that would result in discoveries that advanced our understanding of the link between humans and primates.

Another triumph from First Second!  Seriously, can they do anything wrong?  I don't think I've read anything from First Second that I haven't loved.

This is a great middle grade graphic novel that does an excellent job at showing how each of the three women got her big break, the research she did, discoveries made, and also the toll this kind of work took on her personal life.

Jane Goodall was the first to be discovered by Louis Leakey.  Jane had always wanted to study animals, but for a while her work had nothing to do with animals.  She jumped at the chance to visit a school friend in Kenya, and there she met Louis Leaky, who was working in Nairobi.  She started out working as Leakey's secretary, but soon had the chance to study chimpanzees.  So off she went, with no schooling in anthropology or sciences, no advanced degree.  She named the chimpanzees, much to other scientist's disgust (scientists usually would number them), but when Jane observed chimps using tools and eating meat, she earned the respect of her peers.

Annie Sullivan and the Trails of Helen Keller by Joseph Lambert

Annie Sullivan comes from the Perkins Institution for the Blind to work with Helen Keller, and blind and deaf girl with no way of communicating.  Helen is wild and savage, trapped in a silent dark world.  Annie, however, is no shrinking violet, and is determine to get though to Helen, despite the interference of Helen's parents.

This was excellent.  Not only was the story beautifully told, but the visual representation of Helen's world was incredibly striking.

I have never read Helen Keller's The Story of My Life, or anything about Annie Sullivan, but of course I know the story of Annie Sullivan working with Helen and finally having the breakthrough at the water pump.  I'm pretty sure I saw a movie about Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller, but I can't remember which one.  That is all to say I didn't know very much about Annie Sullivan as a person, apart from her work with Helen, and it was fascinating.

Annie had a difficult childhood, dealing with the death of her parents, younger brother, and growing up in an asylum and poorhouse.  She was also partly blind, and couldn't read until she came to Perkins and underwent several operations.  Annie had a temper!  She was not a patient person, which seems like the wrong sort of person to be a teacher, but she was actually exactly what Helen needed.

We learn about Annie's loneliness, and her close relationship with Dr. Michael Anagnos, the director of Perkins Institution.  He was the one who sent Annie to Helen, and he was very proud of both of them.  Annie got frustrated with Perkins taking much of the credit for Helen's achievements.  Annie and Dr. Anagnos had a falling out over a story Helen wrote, and allegedly plagiarized, which I had never heard about.

Annie was often frustrated while working with Helen in Alabama, and it wasn't just Helen that was causing frustration.  Annie lived in New England her whole life, and found the Southern way of doing things enraging.  Annie was not one to hold on politeness and formality.  She often became angry when she felt people were talking down to her, or didn't think she was smart.

I loved how Helen's dark world was represented.  At the beginning, when things are from Helen's point of view, everything is dark and hardly has any form.  Things continue this way, until she begins to put it together that things have a name and a use, and then her world starts to take on more defined form.  It was a wonderful, beautiful way to represent how Helen's world suddenly opened up when she learned to communicate with people.  Helen's world becomes more solid as she learns more and more.  Once she understood what Annie was trying to do, Helen wanted to know the name of everything right away.  It must have been amazing.

I highly recommend this one!

Lily Renee, Escape Artist by Trina Robbins

Lily Renee grew up a privileged child in Vienna, Austria.  After Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938, everything changed for Lily and her family because they were Jewish.  No longer able to go to her school or play with her friends, things go from bad to worse until Lily is sent away first to England and then to New York.  Later, reunited with her parents, Lily eventually began work drawing comic books.

I enjoyed this, and I liked that we got to here a real story about a Jewish child who was part of the Kindertransport.  The Kindertransport was a program that got children, mostly Jewish children, out of Nazi-occupied countries and to England.  Almost 10,000 were able to escape this way.  Nine months before World War II began the program was ended.  I could be wrong, but I don't remember reading a lot about this in middle grade or YA books, fiction or non-fiction.  It's a really interesting piece of history and it was great to hear about it. 

Lily got out on the very tail end of the Kindertransport, she was on one of the last trains that were allowed to leave.  Although she was staying in England at the home of her pen-pal, she was not treated well.  Lily didn't get to go to school, but stayed home and worked for her friend's mother.  Lily had never had to do household chores in her life and wasn't good at them.  She was given only one meal a day.  Eventually she ran away and for a time worked as a mother's helper, companion, even as a nurse, before discovering her parents had made it out of Nazi-occupied Austria and were waiting for her in New York.

It was in New York that Lily applied for and got a job working for Fiction House.  The book ends after she gets the job, pretty much, so we don't get to learn about her later life. Maybe because it's a middle grade book, the thought was not to take the story into her grown-up life?  There's a little summary at the end, but not much.  Or maybe it was just because the most "interesting" part of her life was the escape from Austria.

I'm a big fan of Trina Robbins, and I always love hearing about women in comics, so I definitely recommend this.  Suggest it to your kids who like to read historical fiction, even though it's a biography, it reads like historical fiction.

Lily Renee, Escape Artist comes out November 1.

How I Made it to Eighteen: A Mostly True Story by Tracy White

Stacy has some issues, which is probably why she's at Golden Meadows mental hospital. She has self-esteem issues, drug issues, trust issues, self-image issues, eating issues, relationship issues... In other words she has a lot to work on. Delving into Stacy's past through 'interviews' with her friends, flashbacks of Stacy's memories, and seeing her progression with actual nurse and therapist notes, you slowly see through the walls that Stacy has put up to keep others out and find yourself caring for a deeply troubled young woman. And bear in mind, as Tracy White puts it, all of the stories in this book are at least 95% true.

It took a while for me to get into this. You might have noticed that I'm not a 'serious issues' reader. I'm more than a little OK with admitting I generally like my stories fluffy. But this one I felt that I needed to plow through (probably to keep up with Arianna), I'm glad that I did. Stacy/Tracy's story sneaks up on you, while at first she comes across as just an angry angsty teen with ridiculous amounts of issues you slowly see how these things developed and the environment that allowed them to fester. It makes you want to sit and listen to her story for a little longer, not because you are wishing for a happy ending but rather because you care and want to sit with this character and listen as a friend. I kind of felt like the character of Stacy weaseled her way into my psyche and made me empathetic to her experience. I guess I have to give the 'serious issues' genre another chance.

We Are On Our Own by Miriam Katin

Lisa is Jewish six year old growing up in Hungary on the eve of WWII. Her mother Esther goes to great lengths to ensure their survival while Lisa's father fights in the Hungarian army. While much of this is told from Lisa's perspective, this story is really Esther's.

I find that I'm having a hard time summarizing this book. I think it's such a different perspective of the war and yet so encompassing of what people would go through to survive. Miriam Katin has done something very special with this. The character of Lisa is actually based off of Miriam Katin's own experiences during WWII, and she builds this memoir off of her own memories, the stories that she was told by her mother, and the letters shared between her mother and father. Esther was obviously a remarkable woman, which comes across so strongly through the illustrations. This is one of those times where you can't envision the book being told any other way and it having the intense impact that comes across through this book. I've read many different biographies and memoirs of WWII, and this one is definitely up the ranks with Maus by Art Spiegelman and Night by Elie Wiesel.

Smile by Raina Telgemeier

One ordinary day, Raina has an accident that knocks out both her front teeth.  As if being in middle school wasn't bad enough, now she's in middle school with no front teeth.  Raina's accident is followed by years of painful surgery and all kinds of unpleasant mouth related drama.  While all this is going on, Raina is also learning more about herself, her interests, and whom her friends are.

This was great.  It was sweet and uplifting and made me laugh and cringe.  It was very honest

While it might seem like this biography is mostly about a young girl's teeth drama, which is partly true, there's also all the stuff that's going on with Raina's group of friends.  You're probably familiar with this dynamic.  You have a big group of kids who are all friends and there's one kid who ends up being teased a lot.  Oh it's all in fun, you're all friends, but there's one who's always getting ganged up on.  That's Raina, and as time goes on, she's getting awfully tired of it.  She wonders if these people are really her friends at all.  I was so glad when in high school Raina finally got up the courage to tell all those not very nice "friends" where they could shove it and went off and did her own thing.  And when she did, she found people with similar interests who she really liked and who really liked her.

The art was done in traditional comic strip style in black and white with straight panels

While for much of the book Raina is in middle school, I think both middle grade and high school students would enjoy this.  It's not just about middle school or teeth.  It was about discovering yourself and that's something that any age person can relate to.  Especially when it's done so nicely.

Escape from "Special" by Miss Lasko-Gross

Melissa is misunderstood from an early age. Full of sturm and drang, she has a hard time in most 'normal' situations. Melissa is special, and labeled as such much to her detriment. It isn't until she learns to push past the psychobabble that she somehow learns to be at ease with herself.

I enjoyed this book, but I'm having a hard time vocalizing why.

This is a semi-autobiographical book, and you can kind of tell. Parts are so awkward, that they must be real. I like the fact that the character of Melissa is not immediately lovable, her strangeness grows on you like a fungus and you can't help root for her in the end. She's weird, too cerebral for her own good, been psychoanalyzed to bits, and has enough angst to fuel an entire state's worth of middle schoolers; yet you want her to find people to connect to, you want her to succeed (whatever that might be), and at least in my case you aren't really sure why you want those things for her.

Awesome characters, the vignettes are well done, my only problem was the illustrations. Not my favorite. It worked for this, but not super pleasant. The sequel is A Mess of Everything.

A Dangerous Woman: The Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman by Sharon Rudahl

In this graphic biography, the fascinating life of Emma Goldman is told.  Emma Goldman was an anarchist and activist who fought for the rights of the workers.  She was jailed multiple times, founded the Free Speech League and the magazine Mother Earth and was eventually deported to Russia. No matter what the situation was, Goldman had no fears about standing up, loudly, for what she believed in.

What was nice about this particular biography was that we get to see Goldman's activist life, but also her personal life.  While she had multiple lovers, she believed her soul mate was Alexander Berkman, who was jailed for almost half his life.  Goldman even was in on an attempted plot to free him from prison.  When Berkman finally was released, they discovered that too much time had passed.  They never stopped loving each other, but knew they were not meant to be in a relationship.

I honestly didn't know anything about Emma Goldman.  I enjoyed reading about her a lot.  I don't agree with all the actions she took, or the way she went about things sometimes, but man, she sure was passionate about what she believed in!

This graphic was illustrated in the grotesque (this probably isn't the right word, but it's as close as I can get) style that I don't love, but it kind of felt appropriate for this one.