Voyages in the Underworld of Orpheus Black
By Marcus Sedgwick and Julian Sedgwick
Illustrated by Alexis Deacon
Walker Books, 2019

Voyages in the Underworld of Orpheus Black is a book that defies categorization, and is one of the most unique and affecting books that I've read this year.

Harry Black is a conscientious objector to the war; he is also an artist. His brother Ellis is a soldier; he is also a writer. They don't see eye-to-eye, however, both risk his their lives for his country. Harry is a firefighter—tasked with responding to the fires that break out during the devastating air raids on the city of London. In a rare wartime opportunity, Harry and his brother meet up for a beer at a London pub. Soon after they separate, the block where the pub stood is bombed to obliteration. Harry finds himself in the hospital in a hazy, surreal state of shock. Ellis' whereabouts are unknown. There is also a curious young German girl in the hospital—Agatha. 

It is in this otherworldly scenario that Harry draws and thinks, and digs to the tune of an unknown musician who plays with great beauty amidst the horrors. The reader has the benefit of understanding the musician's purpose. The story is told in prose, in Harry's sketches, and in the haunting speech of the musician, whose words turn often to song,

I've a story to tell of Harry Black,

who went to the Underworld and how he came back;

of the love for his brother, who'd pushed him away.

Of London by starlight, under attack,

of bombs falling, of people calling

   through darkened streets,

of sirens and wayfarers, of lost souls,

of vicious women and mindless dogs.

These are the things of which I'll sing.

There are many books about WWII, the Kindertransport, the bombing of London. None are like this one. Read it.

My copy of Voyages in the Underworld of Orpheus Black was provided by the publisher.

Sachiko - an audiobook review

Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor's Story
by Caren Stelson
Read by Katherine Fenton and John Chancer
Dreamscape Media, 2016

The survivors of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings are known as "hibakusha" in Japan. As with all combatants and victims of WWII, their numbers are dwindling; it is important for their stories to be told.  Sachiko shared her personal story and that of her family with author Caren Stelson.  Despite the horrific circumstances of the bombing, and a lifetime of related hardship, Sachiko remains amazingly positive.  Her story is compelling and Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor's Story contains the historical information that young people may need to put her story in context.  I highly recommend it.

I reviewed Sachiko for AudioFile Magazine.  You can read my entire review here: [http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2016_ypl_stelson_sachiko.html#]

Sachiko was on the National Book Award Longlist for Young People's Literature, 
and has garnered numerous other awards and accolades.

The Nazi Hunters - an audiobook review

The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi
by Neal Bascomb
Read by Jason Culp
Scholastic Audiobooks, 2016

I reviewed this book for AudioFile Magazine, and it's the recipient of an Earphones Award.The Nazi Hunters chronicles the 16-year ordeal to capture the notorious Nazi, Adolf Eichmann. Narrator Jason Culp conveys a palpable sense of the fear and tension endured in dangerous and fraught circumstances.


My complete review of The Nazi Hunters for AudioFile Magazine is here.

Want to see the 2016 Best Audiobooks list as selected by AudioFile Magazine?  You can receive free access to the complete guide and enter their contest for 6 months of free audiobooks.  The guide is a great resource if you're in collection development with some budget money left over! Click here for details.  The contest ends tomorrow!

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler - an audiobook review

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club by Phillip Hoose. Narrated by Phillip Hoose and Michael Braun.  (2015, Recorded Books)

This is the heretofore little-known story of schoolboys who challenged the Nazi army even as their country's leaders collaborated with the Germans. Alternating first-person accounts of young saboteur, Knud Pedersen, with carefully researched narrative, Phillip Hoose tells the compelling story of these daring young boys who were willing to risk their lives to free Denmark from German occupation. Without their parents' knowledge, the boys raided, stole, and destroyed German property with nothing more than bicycles for transportation! Their heroic actions sparked the Danish resistance.

Michael Braun narrates the chapters containing Knud Pedersen's first-hand recollections of the events. While his delivery is weighty, it lacks personality. It is through the actions of Knud that the listener learns to like and admire him, rather than through his speech. Because the book is targeted at a young audience (ages 12-18) and Knud himself was only a teen at the time, a younger narrator may have been more appropriate. Author Phillip Hoose does an excellent job with the alternating chapters. He reads precisely and takes great care in the pronunciation of Danish names and places.

This is a well-researched, captivating story that proves the ability of individuals to effect change against overwhelming odds.

4 CDs

Review copy supplied by LibraryThing.

Today is Nonfiction Monday. 

The Port Chicago 50 - a review

Sheinkin, Steve. 2014. The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights. New York: Roaring Brook.

The Port Chicago 50, as they became known, were a group of African American Navy sailors assigned to load munitions at Port Chicago in California, during WWII.  The sailors' work detail options were limited; the Navy was segregated and Blacks were not permitted to fight at sea. The sailors worked around the clock, racing to load ammunition on ships headed to battle in the Pacific. Sailors had little training and were pressured to load the dangerous cargo as quickly as possible.

After an explosion at the port killed 320 men, injured many others, and obliterated the docks and ships anchored there, many men initially refused to continue working under the same dangerous conditions. In the end, fifty men disobeyed the direct order to return to work. They were tried for mutiny in a case with far-reaching implications.  There was more at stake than the Naval careers of fifty sailors.  At issue were the Navy's (and the country's) policy of segregation, and the racist treatment of the Black sailors.  Years before the Civil Rights movement began, the case of the Port Chicago 50 drew the attention of the NAACP, a young Thurgood Marshall, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Through the words of the young sailors, the reader of The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights relives a slice of history as a Black sailor in 1944.

Steven Sheinkin combines excellently researched source materials, a little-known, compelling story, and an accessible writing style to craft another nonfiction gem.

Read an excerpt of The Port Chicago 50 here.

• The Port Chicago 50 was a 2014 finalist for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature.
• The Port Chicago 50 was the 2014 winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Excellence in Nonfiction.
• Steve Sheinkin is the author of Bomb! The Race to Build - and Steal - the World's Most Powerful Weapon - also a National Book Award Finalist, and the recipient of the Newbery Honor, Sibert Medal, and YALSA Award,

Contains:

• Table of Contents
• Source Notes
• List of Works Cited
• Acknowledgements
• Picture Credits
• Index

See today's Nonfiction Monday roundup at http://nonfictionmonday.wordpress.com 

Advance Reader Copy supplied by publisher.

Pure Grit - a review

Today is a perfect day to highlight Mary Cronk Farrell's latest book which chronicles the actions of Army and Navy nurses serving in the Phillipines during WWII.  Although amazingly, none of the nurses perished during their harrowing years on the forward battle lines and in prison camps, their service to their country and the fighting men was nothing short of heroic.

Farrell, Mary Cronk. 2014. Pure Grit: How American WWII Nurses Survived Battle and Prison Camp in the Pacific. New York: Abrams.

Pure Grit is a narrative nonfiction account, told with compelling human details. Photographs, quotes, correspondence, newspaper accounts, maps and military records were combined to create a gripping story that breathes new life into a little-known story that is fading from our collective memory.  Farrell was very fortunate to have interviewed the last surviving nurse of the seventy-nine who were taken as POWs by the Japanese.

Containing a Foreward, Introduction, Glossary, List of Nurses, Select Timeline, Endnotes, Bibliography, Web Sites for More Information, Acknowledgments, Image Credits and an exhaustive Index, Pure Grit could easily be considered a scholarly treatise on the topic — but Farrell has chosen to present her topic in a manner that simply cannot be ignored: a gripping story with personal and human details that will appeal to anyone over age 12 with even a passing interest in history.  Highly recommended.




Links of interest:

• Kirkus book review of Pure Grit
• An essay by Pure Grit author, Mary Cronk Farrell
• An interview with Mary Cronk Farrell
• Teacher's Guide for Pure Grit
• A history of Memorial Day as compiled by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

As you enjoy today's kick-off to the summer season, perhaps celebrating with friends or family or enjoying a well-deserved day off from work, consider participating in the National Moment of Remembrance.

From the U.S. Dept. of Veteran's Affairs:

...in December 2000, the U.S. Congress passed and the president signed into law “The National Moment of Remembrance Act,” P.L. 106-579 ...

The National Moment of Remembrance encourages all Americans to pause wherever they are at 3 p.m. local time on Memorial Day for a minute of silence to remember and honor those who have died in service to the nation.