unnecessary baggage

The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare by Kimberly Brock

Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

Genre: historical fiction

Review: If this book had just stuck to the story of Alice, and her daughter, Penn, it would have been much stronger.  Instead, Brock chose to make it more convoluted by throwing in their family history: they are descended from Eleanor Dare, the only survivor of the lost colony of Roanoake.  And supposedly, Eleanor left behind a book that has been passed down through all the generations of female Dare descendents since 1585 through to 1945, when the book takes place.  Or maybe the book was just the invention of Eleanor's mother?  And there's a stone that she carved soemthing on, that was lost, but then found, but then lost again?  This is where a started to get bogged down, and ultimately, I found that I just didn't care enough about this part of the story.

I liked Penn and Alice as characters, though, and was interested enough to want to know what happened to them.  Did Alice ever come to terms with her mother's mental illness and death?  Was Penn able to get a fresh start and make friends?  Were they able to come to terms with each other in the wake of Penn's father's death?  There's more than enough there for a good story without the intrigue.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

flying over Ethiopia

Black Dove White Raven by Elizabeth Wein

Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)

Genre: historical fiction, YA

Review: If you're like me, and really had no idea that the Italians took over Ethiopia in the 1930s, and maybe had only a vague idea that Haile Selassi was the emporer of Ethiopia at some point, but no real clue about when or why he was important or anything else, this book is a great place to start.  It's not really about Haile Selassi or the Italo-Ethiopian war, but you'll learn a lot about both as you read.

This book is really about flying, and family, and bravery, and loyalty, with a lot of imagination and quick-thinking thrown in.  Emilia and Teo are being raised as siblings by their mothers, who are barnstorming pilots.  Delia (Teo's mom) does the flying, and Rhoda (Em's mom) is a wingwalker.  When Delia is killed by a bird strike, Rhoda takes Emilia and Teo back to her home in Pennsylvania.  But Rhoda and Em are white, and Teo is black, and they must figure out to be a mixed-race family in the 1920s.  To escape the racism that faces them in the US, they travel to Ethiopia, following Delia's dream.  That's where Haile Selassi and the war come in, but the story stays tightly focused on Emilia and Teo's experiences.

Emilia and Teo's voices are a joy to read.  Wein beautifully captures their relationship, their wonder at their new life in Ethiopia, their terror at what the threat of war means to their adopted country, and their trepidation as they learn to fly.  There are so many reasons to read this book.