Charlie Parker Played Be Bop – Chris Raschka

I love a children’s book that you have to think about. This one I had to ask my jazz musician husband how to read properly. It’s written in the form a jazz song, with a melody, a call and response between a saxophone and drums, the melody, a Charlie-Parker-style saxophone solo, and the melody again – with a lovely sustain at the end. I’ve been calling the lyrics back and forth with my two-year-old all week. And great art work, totally different in style than the other Chris Raschka book I’ve read – Five for a Little One.

I can’t recommend this highly enough.


Charlier Parker Played Be Bop
Chris Raschka
1992
Available from Amazon in boardbook, paperback, or hardcover.

Bad Science – Gary Taubes

Do you remember cold fusion? Wasn’t it going to save the world? Whatever happened? Read this book for an interesting, thorough history of the pseudoscience and sociology of cold fusion. Worth reading just to understand how science can go wrong, and how it corrects itself. Plus you get to see how shockingly venal and self-interested people can be. And you get to see for yourself the complete lack of evidence for cold fusion. The “discovery” Pons and Fleischmann reported (and some scientists thought they had confirmed) was just an artifact of bad experimental technique, combined with abuse of statistics, lack of expertise in physics, and an abiding desire for more grant money.

As a point of interest, check out the Amazon reviews for this book. Two of the five reviews (only five because it was published way back in the pre-historic era of 1993), give it the lowest level of one star, because the reviewers believe that cold fusion is going to save the world any day now and Gary Taubes is going to have to eat his words. These two reviews were written in 1999 and 2004, so I guess they’re still waiting. Tossing out the politically motivated reviews, it gets 4.7 stars.

Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion
1993
Gary Taubes
Out of print, but here is the listing at Amazon

The Conscience of a Liberal – Paul Krugman

Makes me feel hopeful about the future. Maybe now really is the time to get universal health coverage in the US and start making the country more equal.

The Conscience of a Liberal
Paul Krugman
2007
Available from Amazon

Buy, Buy Baby - Susan Gregory Thomas

A look at marketing to children 0-3. The author lays out the recent history behind the push for educational toys/TV for babies and toddlers – tracing it to the 1997 Clinton conference on early childhood development that was intended to promote high-quality preschools, but instead was seized upon by toy makers and TV producers as justification for academic-type toys and shows for very young children. She discusses what children under 3 really get from “educational television”. The answer: even with the best programs, the only thing they retain is recognition of the characters. For kids under 3, TV is just program-length commercials, like the Transformers or the Smurfs.

She talks about Baby Einstein, Sesame Street and Elmo, the Disney Princess package, the re-packaging and merchandising of childhood favorites (Clifford, Winnie-the-Pooh, Curious George), the impact of spin-off books on children’s book publishing, the use of curricula developed by toy/TV producers in preschools. Sometimes I stood in awe of the marketing genius, while at the same time being horrified by the uses to which it was being put.


Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds
Susan Gregory Thomas
2007
Available from Amazon

Five for a Little One - Chris Raschka

A marvelous children’s book about the senses. It has gorgeous illustrations, mostly woodcuts with some (I think) airbrushing. It also has an unusual and interesting rhyme scheme for a children’s book. The author has also written and/or illustrated a number of children’s books about jazz greats (like John Coltrane and Charlie Parker), and the rhyme scheme reflects that jazz feel. You can imagine the book being read out loud at a poetry slam by a man with a deep, melodic voice.

Five for a Little One
Chris Raschka
2006
Available from Amazon

Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) - Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson

Discussion of self-justification, the good and (mostly) bad side. Talks about how cognitive dissonance reinforces our positions. Fascinating, thorough, and scary chapters on “recovered” memories (a mental health disaster) and police interrogation (never talk to the police without a lawyer).

Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) : Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson
2007
Available from Amazon