by Lisa Deresti Betik. Pub Date September, 1, 2020.
5 stars. Best enjoyed with your favorite little curious mind.
In the Dark is a beautifully illustrated book for kids about a ‘darker’ side of science–what happens when most of us are sleeping at night!
This book covers many different subjects concerning biology, astronomy, and anatomy. For example, the first section is on the human body and why sleep is important for repairing and maintaining our bodies and brains. It acts as a fantastic reminder for both children and adults as to why sleep is so important. I found the review of circadian rhythm to be an interesting reminder that I think kids will be able to integrate into their lives as they grow.
The next two sections cover nocturnal creatures and plants and the biology that they’ve developed in order to adapt and survive. It covers predator/prey relationships, the anatomy of the eye of a cat verses that of a human, how plants capture and store energy for nighttime, and also moon gardens (everyone should have one!).
The last section is all about one of my personal favorite subjects: Astronomy! There is a lot to learn and some very cool and beautiful charts that kids can reference regarding meteor showers, constellations, planetary positions, aurora borealis, and the phases of the moon.
There is so much information and so many opportunities to learn in this book for both kids and parents. For someone like me who has always had a passion for science, this was a nice little refresher course–I picked up a few cool new facts as well!
It is so important to foster a love of science in young minds and I think this book does that with panache. The colorful and beautiful illustrations accompany some very fun information, which gives kids, especially those who are visual or right-brained, the opportunity to retain some very useful information that they will definitely be able to apply to the world around them. I have a feeling that I will be buying a few copies for birthday presents and we will probably be planning meteor shower watching parties soon.
Page 40, In the Dark
Thanks to NetGalley and Kids Can Press for the opportunity to read this advanced copy in exchange for a fair and honest review. I loved this one.
By Megan Lynn Kott & Justin DeVine, Pub Date: September 1, 2020.
Cover
5 Stars. Best enjoyed with your favorite furry being nearby.
Unfamiliar Familiars gives the modern witch (or interested reader) a few extra options for what kind of furry companion might be best fit them. It delves into forty unusual creatures that most wouldn’t associate with magical practices. How do you know which of these cute or unusual creatures might fit you best? Why, through a short, silly quiz that matches you! My unusual familiar is a Dik-Dik, which is totally fair given my short stature.
Overall, this book was absolutely adorable and was a very fun read. The illustrations are fantastic and rendered in a gorgeous pallet of various water colors. The quiz has some funny questions that made me smile, like “PANDAS,” and each creature’s description contains some interesting facts about the creatures as well as a few fun, potentially ‘magical’ properties each creature may possess. It also gives some suggested names for your new familiars, their zodiac and elemental associations, and their strengths and weaknesses, all which offer plenty of humor and pop culture references!
Thank you to Chronicle Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy, provided in exchange for a fair and honest review!
4.5 Stars. Best Enjoyed Anytime Your Morbid Curiosity Taps on the Glass
Tómas Prower takes us on an amazing journey into the one of the most important, yet seemingly taboo, parts of life: Death. I have been enjoying this one for a month now. This is the reference book I didn’t know I needed in my life and I have learned so much so far and will probably need to buy copies for my close friends and relatives. It has seriously opened my eyes to various religious practices, deities associated with it across cultures, and how people around the world grieve. It has also broadened how I, myself, see the subject matter. As a professional in the funerary arts (after reading this I feel like that’s kind of what it is: an art), Prower has first-hand experience handling the complicated relationship most westerners have with dying, death, and the grief that we experience when our loved ones pass on to the next plane of existence.
Each chapter and section covers a different culture, starting with the ancient and moving into the modern, extrapolating out the belief systems surrounding death, the gods and goddesses involved, practices related to both the preparation of the body of the deceased, and the rituals that are undertaken by the living to ensure a good afterlife for the person whom has passed, providing some first and second-hand stories on how others have used the rituals and knowledge related to their own cultures to help them with their own experiences. He also gives tips regarding things we can do now to strengthen our own relationship to the inevitable and also to help plan fot it so that our families and friends can focus on grieving so they can live their own lives again. Not only does this book feed your morbid curiosity, but it also silently builds coping mechanisms.
For those of us who live in this giant melting pot of western culture, this guide to the world of death and varying religions is super important. Most of us do not talk about death enough and do not have a healthy relationship with it, but it is something we will periodically be exposed to it as both those who experience the loss of another and our own inevitably. Death doesn’t always have to be seen as morbid and taboo, it can also be seen as the end of a marvelous journey that we have all had the privilege of undertaking. By building a healthier relationship with the end, we can learn to celebrate and relish the adventure leading up to it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd. for the advanced reader copy in exchange for a fair and honest review!
I’d like to preface this review by saying I’m a Murderino, a term adopted by “My Favorite Murder” listeners and fans as a calling card of the subset of people in our society who are fascinated by true crime, mostly by the heinous act of murder, what leads to it, what makes a murderer tick, and finding justice for victims. As I sit here typing my thoughts–days after finishing Jensen’s book–I am watching season 2 of Mindhunter, with BAU agents Ford and Tensch (Jonathan Groff and Hold McCallany) questioning a rather convincing David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam”, played by a prosthetics-clad Oliver Cooper (whom– oddly enough–you won’t find credited in IMDB, even though he does a fantastic job).
That said, as a Murderino, I’m naturally inclined toward a morbid curiosity, one which so often draws me to stories of true crime. I’m also a fan of supporting the interests of our niche community, of which Billy Jensen is a part. However, that does not in any way mean that this book does not fully earn the 5 stars that I have given it, nor that I let that influence me–matter of fact, it made me extra critical. What it does mean is that my interests in it are driven by my own aforementioned inclinations and, quite frankly, whenever I had the chance to pick this up it was often difficult to set it back down.
Chase Darkness With Me is one part memoir, one part true crime anthology, one heaping scoop of how-to manual, and a dash of in memoriam for a fallen friend. It covers pieces of Jensen’s young life, including how he became interested in true crime and his beginnings as a journalist, eventually moving into the convergence of the two halves. As he progresses, it becomes clear how entwined these two pieces became as he tells us bits of his personal life in between descriptions of the murder and missing persons cases he worked on. Some of these cases were rather high-profile. Not just the GSK, but also the Allentown Murders investigation (known by some as the Bear Creek case) and the Pulse Nightclub mass shooting (which happened while he was on vacation in Orlando), among others. However, he mostly wanted to help with the less high-profile cases, the ones that weren’t getting media exposure and were, therefore, less likely to be solved without some help. He described the way in which he was involved and the techniques he used to bring attention and much-needed tips for finding the identity of perpetrators and information on where missing persons were last seen.
It also talks about his relationship with his friend and professional partner, the late Michelle McNamara, the brilliant mind whose interest and in-depth investigation into the East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker–whom she coined the “Golden State Killer”–eventually helped to catch the serial offender behind these crimes. Although her partial victory was posthumous, through Jensen we get some insight into who McNamara was to her friends and family and how massively important her legacy was. We get the chance to witness the excitement on the night GSK was captured and justice could finally be served for so many victims and their families.
There is a lot of information within these pages and Jensen does not hide his reasoning behind writing it. As a front-lines champion of crowd source criminal investigation and a forefather of social media tip campaigns, his main interest is the recruitment of the right kind of people to help along investigations in the same way that he has done. It’s too much for one man to take on and too many people are getting away with literal murder every year. The homicide detectives charged with investigating these murders are often so buried that they don’t always have the time or manpower required to do so, especially as crime doesn’t take a day off. However, the victims and their families need justice, and there are things that civilians can do to help, even if it feels like something small. Jensen provides a step by step guide to those who wish to contribute in the same way he has, which has proven successful on more than one occasion, but definitely isn’t for the undedicated or faint of heart.
Chase Darkness With Me is a not necessarily a window into Jensen’s life and passion, it is more like a sliding glass door. He beckons us towards it, allowing us to see not only the things he has experienced and been involved in, but also the details into his methodology–the ways in which he has accomplished the things he’s done. He then asks those who are brave enough to come out of their comfort zone–to grip the handle of this door, slide it open, and follow his lead–and help him chase the darkness.
Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for providing an advanced copy in exchange for a fair and honest review!
Always Lost in Words 