Showing posts with label Candace Fleming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Candace Fleming. Show all posts

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Amelia Lost

This was the first nonfiction book I have read in a while, and I really enjoyed it.  Although most Newbery books are fiction, I try to read nonfiction books because they are eligible for the award as well.  I found the Navigating History section (basically preface) particularly interesting.  The author of this book had to dig the truth about Amelia's life out from under tons of lies that she told about her past that couldn't possibly have been true.  It was interesting thinking about the ways celebrities were thought about then and now and what it was deemed acceptable to know about a famous person's life.  And I found it cool that no one looked up facts about things that celebrities told them to see if they were true because they didn't have a way to do it.  It would be so much easier to have been famous then than it is now because people trusted you.  One of my other favorite parts of this book was that there is a section about the week of her disappearance that is a page or two or three long and then a longer section about her life in chronological order, starting with her as an infant and toddler and ending at the point in time when the short disappearance sections began.  I felt this was a great way to set up the book and looked forward to the short sections that broke up the facts.  There wasn't a single thing that I disliked about this book and I think that lots of people would enjoy reading it.

Rating:  *****

Friday, January 1, 2010

The Great and Only Barnum: The Tremendous, Stupendous Life of Showman P.T. Barnum

If this book wins the Newbery this year, it will be the only non-fiction winner in over 20 years. I really liked this book because it tells the life of P.T. Barnum in a fun and playful way; I think it is probably impossible to write about Barnum without it being fun and playful! Who is P.T. Barnum? What is a "showman"? These are the questions I asked myself when looking at this book. Soon I found out that P.T. Barnum was the greatest and the most famous showman ever, and that a showman was someone who could make a great show. In this book you experience the ups and downs of Barnum's carrier. I recommend it to all!!!

Rating: *****