The Salamander Room, Anne Mazer, illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher

One of the first lessons my father taught me about frogs, pollywogs, and salamanders is to wet your hands before you touch them. That has been so firm a part of my relationship with these outdoor beings that the first time I read The Salamander Room to my son, I hoped aloud, without meaning to, that Brian, the young protagonist had done that when he picked up his tiny orange friend. My father also taught me to release any outdoor creature so befriended within a few minutes, but I didn’t mind Brian’s approach as he quite effectively solved the theory behind this rule—don’t take them too long out of their natural environments—by creating a natural environment fit for salamanders inside his bedroom. It begins with wet leaves on the carpet and bullfrogs and crickets, then with more salamanders (for friendship’s sake). At each of his mother’s questions and objections, he comes up with a clever answer: bugs to feed the salamanders, birds to eat the additional bugs, trees to house the birds. He finally proposes removing his bedroom’s roof to let the birds fly freely. Each spread illustrates Brian’s solution, gradually transforming his room into a forest (with a drawer and wayward sock in the corner). The pictures are lush and beautiful (especially where the salamanders are sharing a drink of water from a boulder with Brian peering over them). They are also accurate with marlins, goldfinches, and painted buntings-no generic birds here. This book makes an easy connection between literature, imagination, and the outside world; it has already inspired several salamander runs in the woods this spring. (Diane Magras)

About the Author and Illustrator: Anne Mazer grew up with aspiring writer parents who constantly talked about their writing and the writing process. She did not realize until she was an adult that she had this calling, too. She is now a prolific writer of young adult, children’s, and picture books, including The Amazing Days of Abby Hayes series. Artists Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher have collaborated on many children’s book illustrations and design, including The Frog Prince Continued (by Jon Scieszka), Cat, You Better Come Home (Garrison Keillor), and My Many Colored Days (Dr. Seuss). They are married and live in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family, Lauren Kessler

When our scholar suggested Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family as a book for our Teaching American History participants to read, I was intrigued, as I know very little about Asian immigration to the US, or about the period of Japanese internment in World War II. The book begins with the arrival of Masuo Yasui in Hood River, Oregon in 1903. In the years following, Yasui works diligently to build a livelihood and a family, and eventually succeeds in becoming leading businessman in the community. He, his wife, brother and children are all well-respected, despite anti-Asian undercurrent that persists.

On December 7, 1941 the family’s life changes irrevocably. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Yasuis, along with thousands of other Japanese families, are rounded up and placed in internment camps, their lives and properties thrown into chaos. The Yasui family and their many children are spread amongst several camps, although a few grown children manage to escape. Eventually, after the War, the entire family is released, but anti-Asian sentiment in the Hood River area was so strong and overt that much of the family does not return. While the discriminatory actions and feelings do subside, the Yasuis, and over 100,000 other Japanese-Americans are not able to live the same lives as they had before the war.

The insights that Kessler provides, as well as her diligent research, make this story one to read cover to cover, heartbreaking though it is. While providing a wonderful biography of an exceptional family, Kessler also invites readers to explore the context in which this story happened, the war itself and complex responses of the Japanese-American community. (Martina Duncan)

About the Author: Lauren Kessler is an American author and journalist. Her narrative nonfiction includes, Dancing with Rose (in paperback, >Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer’s), Clever Girl, and The Happy Bottom Riding Club. Her shorter works have appeared in a variety of magazines and literary journals, including The New York Times Magazine, Utne Reader, and salon.com. She directs the graduate program in literary nonfiction at the University of Oregon.

Since Yesterday: The 1930’s in America, Frederick Lewis Allen

Just this past spring, a site chose “Fear and Hope: Writing from the Great Depression” as its Let’s Talk About It discussion series. The first book in the series, Since Yesterday: The 1930’s in America, was written during the end of the decade and actually first published in 1939. It followed Only Yesterday, a history of the 1920’s that ended with the Panic of 1929. Since Yesterday is a very readable history of that period to which my grandmother seldom referred and of which I learned little in high school or college. And as Jonathan Yardley commented in a review of Allen’s two most popular works, Allen has the “skill to synthesize an immense amount of discrete material, to interpret it with intelligence and without sentimentality, and to write about it with grace, fluidity and wit.”

If your impression of the early 20th Century was mostly of World War I and the Roaring Twenties, Since Yesterday will fill in a decade-long gap. Lou Gehrig and May West take their places beside Hoover and Roosevelt. Long dresses and golf flourish along with the New Deal. The Dust Bowl and Labor Riots fall into place. As you read, you can decide for yourself to what extent the current depression mirrors the Great Depression. Are we learning from history? Can we? (Carolyn Sloan)

About the Author: Frederick Lewis Allen was born in 1890, graduated from Harvard, was Assistant Editor at The Atlantic, and became Editor in Chief at Harper’s. He wrote as a popular, not academic, historian. He died in 1954.

Reflections in Bullough’s Pond: Economy and Ecosystem in New England, by Diana Muir

Described by The Providence Journal as “an epic history of New England,” Reflections in Bullough’s Pond, which was published in 2000, lives up to the hype. I discovered an old review copy on a bookshelf this past winter and found it to be a nonfiction page-turner that gave me a much clearer picture on the economic interplay between resources, technology, and, most significantly, population, in New England prior to the Industrial Revolution.

Using a small pond a few miles from Fenway Park as a focal point, Muir traces the story of New England from the pre-contact period though the 19th century, and even into the present, looking at developments in commerce and industry that, she asserts, were driven in large part by a population that had grown to exceed the agricultural capacity of the land on which it lived.

While clearly a meticulous scholar, Muir does not allow her complex argument to get in the way of her storytelling, and the result is an approachable book that draws together all sorts of threads to cast a slightly different light on the familiar terrain of home. Bullough’s Pond received the 2001 Massachusetts book award, and it’s easy to see why the judges made this particular decision. (Erik Jorgensen)

About the Author: Diana Muir ’s works explore New England’s history, landscape, and traditions. Her works include Thanksgiving: An American Holiday, An American History; The Glorious Fourth: An American Holiday, An American History; Giants in the Land; and Cocoa Ice, the latter two children’s books about the Maine woods and the ice trade, respectively. Born in Connecticut, Muir is still a New Englander living in the greater Boston area.