Book Review: Moonshot by Brian Floca

Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11
by Brian Floca (j629.454 Flo)

Terrific picture-book non-fiction title from author/artist Brian Floca, using the simplest possible terminology (combined with beautiful and highly detailed artwork — both watercolor and acrylic) to capture the basic details of the Apollo 11 mission for young readers. Floca manages to capture the heightened emotional states, and the technical details of what was involved with Apollo 11, without overwhelming kids with too much minutiae.

The opening two-page spread at the front of the book, and the closing two-page spread at the back of the book both feature a lot of the scientific details that are glossed over in the main text. So, in addition to being a a simple but emotional story, this book also provided a true learning experience for kids. I really enjoyed this book!

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to check out the extensive list of materials assembled as a booklist on the libraries’ BookGuide resources, called One Small Step… for tons of great Apollo 11 and NASA reading and viewing suggestions! For both adults AND youth!]

[ official Moonshot page on the official Brian Floca web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: A Thousand Naked Strangers by Kevin Hazzard

A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic’s Wild Ride to the Edge and Back
by Kevin Hazzard (Biography Hazzard)

After 9/11, Atlanta, GA local reporter Kevin Hazzard wanted to prove something to himself so he enrolled in an EMT course (Emergency Medical Technician). After working as the junior partner in the ambulance in the worst parts of Atlanta for a couple of years he decided to upgrade his skills to that of a Paramedic. As the Medic he’d be in charge and completely responsible for the outcome of the emergency call. He graduated at the top of his class and worked the night shift for an ambulance company in Atlanta for 10 years.

Hazzard flat out admits he’s dedicated to the adrenaline rush. If you remember the 1970’s TV show “Emergency!” that followed a firehouse and the paramedics attached to it, this is a more fast-paced, very realistic, gritty look at life working an ambulance in the inner city – “Most times my wife doesn’t know what I’m doing and is left to guess, drawing on a mental grab bag of all the calls I’ve run and found strange enough or scary enough to tell her about. Like the time a dispatcher came over the radio to say we’d passed the address and we responded by saying we knew but that they were still shooting, so if she could ask the caller to put down his gun, we’d be glad to go back.”

You can see his burnout on the horizon. He finally quits the job after 10 years, but the stories he tells are fascinating.

[ publisher’s official A Thousand Naked Strangers web site ] | [ official Kevin Hazzard Twitter feed ]

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: Goodbye, Friend! Hello, Friend! by Cori Doerrfeld

Goodbye, Friend! Hello, Friend!
by Cori Doerrfeld (jP Doerrfeld)

I was drawn to this book because of its adorable cover and my fondness for another of Doerrfeld’s books, The Rabbit Listened. This book and its detailed illustrations can help teach children about emotion regulation. Though we feel grief when we lose a pet or a friend moves away, we can try to look for the silver lining, such as the friendships strengthened through shared sorrow or the newfound opportunity to send hand-written letters to each other. That being said, it is important to allow children to process through their emotions, negative or otherwise, so I’d encourage a reader to gather other titles such as those listed below to help balance the messaging.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Happy Book by Andy Rash, I’m Worried by Michael Ian Black, Hooray for Today! by Brian Won or Frederick, by Leo Lionni.]

[ official Cori Doerrfeld web site ]

Recommended by Naomi S.
Eiseley and Williams Branch Libraries

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: The Night Fire by Michael Connelly (as an audiobook)

The Night Fire
by Michael Connelly (Compact Disc Connelly)

This is the third Renee Ballard novel by Michael Connelly, and the second to cross over with the Harry Bosch series (after Dark Sacred Night). Knowing that Connelly had aged Bosch out of the police force, and the author was looking for fresh LAPD ground to trod, I was very impressed by the first novel to feature his female detective Renee Ballard (The Late Show). It was obvious that that new series was set in the same storytelling universe as his Bosch novels, not to mention the Mickey Haller legal thrillers (Mickey is Bosch’s cousin). So at the end of The Late Show, I knew a cross-over with Bosch was going to be coming eventually. I was disappointed that Connelly didn’t let Ballard stand on her one for more than a single novel before his more senior sleuth showed up, and Dark Sacred Night felt a bit forced.

In The Night Fire, Ballard and Bosch’s unofficial working relationship — she’s still a cop on the Hollywood “late shift”, and he’s still a retired investigator who’s taking a shot at some cold cases — seems to have gelled a little more. As in most Connelly novels, there are multiple cases and plot threads running simultaneously, and in the end, most of those converge and end up having something to do with each other. This time, Renee feels compelled to keep an eye on the arson death of someone living on the street, and Bosch has a personal connection when his mentor dies and the murder book for one of his old cases is found among his belongings — apparently not worked on for 20 years. The arson murder is too “planned out” for it to have been spur-of-the-moment, and Bosch’s mentor appears to have been hiding things, even from his own wife.

Titus Welliver, who is playing Bosch in the Amazon Prime TV series of that title, narrates the chapters told from Bosch’s point-of-view, and Christine Lakin narrates the chapters seen through Ballard’s eyes. In the chapters where they interact, both actors narrate together. The audio version of this story was very compelling — taut storytelling, excellent police procedural plotting, and dark humor. There’s dramatic action and suspense, especially in the final 70 pages. I should also point out that Mickey Haller crosses over into this volume, as he and Harry scratch each others backs to get some mutual assistance, much to Ballard’s confusion/distrust.

I loved this one. After a brief stumble with the second Ballard, Connelly’s back on track with a winner in The Night Fire.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Connelly’s earlier Ballard novels, The Late Show, and Dark Sacred Night, or any of his Harry Bosch novels.]

[ official The Night Fire page on the official Michael Connelly web site ]

See Scott C.’s earlier reviews of both The Late Show and Dark Sacred Night as Books-on-CD here on BookGuide!

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: The Peanuts Papers, edited by Andrew Blauner

The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the Gang, and the Meaning of Life
edited by Andrew Blauner (741.59 Pea)

If you love “Peanuts”, Charles Schulz’s life’s work about a boy, his dog, and their world of little folks with grown-up sensibilities, you may like this collection of essays by other cartoonists, artists, and esteemed authors such as Umberto Eco and Ann Patchett – 33 in fact. What is clear is that the influence of these fictional characters made of few lines and copious observations on life is far-reaching and, in many cases, of lasting comfort and inspiration. From analyses of Lucy’s Psychiatric Booth to reverence for the economuy with which Schulz could convey complex emotions, to a declaration that Peanuts was as culturally significant in its way as the Beatles were in theirs. If you love Peanuts, you will want to take a look at this. And even if you don’t love Peanuts, it may get you to appreciate what it meant and still means to millions of other people.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition, by Lee Mendelson, Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life, by Charles M. Schulz, The Gospel According to Peanuts.]

[publisher’s official The Peanuts Papers web page ] | [ Andrew Blauner biography on the Blauner Books site ]

Recommended by Becky W.C.
Walt Branch Library

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

DVD Review: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
[DVD Beautiful]

If you remember the ads for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, when it was in the theaters, you may have been misled into thinking it was a biographical portrait of Fred Rogers, the amiable host of the children’s educational television show, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. It isn’t. In fact, “Mister Rogers” is a supporting character in this emotional story of reconciliation and forgiveness.

This story is based on the real-life experiences of author Tom Junod, who wrote an extended profile of Fred Rogers for a November 1998 Esquire Magazine article, “Can You Say…Hero?”. In this film, Junod has been changed to Lloyd Vogel, as portrayed by Matthew Rhys. Vogel is a hard-bitten, somewhat emotionally repressed man, known more for his journalistic articles that laid bare dark and dirty secrets on various topics. When his editor assigns him to do a small sidebar article on Fred Rogers for an Esquire issue dedicated to contemporary American heroes, Vogel thinks it’s a joke for a writer of his caliber. But he still heads to Philadelphia, and the studio where Rogers films his iconic television show. What he finds, in his first encounter/interview with Rogers (excellently portrayed by Tom Hanks), is a man of no artifice — the persona he shows to children, embracing their uniqueness and encouraging them to confront and embrace their complicated emotions — is the real man.

During the course of this film, Vogel’s encounters with Mister Rogers, who immediately adopts him as “my friend Lloyd Vogel”, help him to heal the critically damaged relationships he has with his father and his wife. The performances in this film, including both Hanks and Rhys, but also Chris Cooper as Vogel’s father, Susan Kelechi Watson as Vogel’s wife, Maryann Plunkett as Joanne Rogers, and Enrico Colantoni as Bill Isler, the real-life president of Roger’s production company, are all quite excellent.

My only complaint about this film is a few moments of surrealism as Lloyd has some hallucinatory dreams about Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Otherwise, this is a superb film. The DVD features numerous behind-the-scenes extras, that added much to my viewing experience. As someone who grew up on Mister Rogers and his oh-so-gentle embracing of the foibles of being a human being, I’ll admit I enjoyed the documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? a bit more than this film, but they are good companion volumes to each other.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Won’t You Be My Neighbor?] [Check out Tom Junod’s original Esquire profile article of Fred Rogers.]

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ] | [ official A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: Yes, Please by Amy Poehler (as audiobook)

Yes, Please
by Amy Poehler (Compact Disc Biography Poehler)

Amy Poehler’s life is perfectly distilled in this book comprised of short autobiographical stories. The audio book is narrated by Ms. Poehler and is a joy to listen to as she adds side notes and anecdotes not in the manuscript. It would recommend Ms. Poehler’s comedic approach to life, reflection and self-help.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Bossypants by Tina Fey, or Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick.]

[ official amysaysyesplease.com web site ] | [ Wikipedia page for Amy Poehler ]

Recommended by Cait L.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!