nonfiction winners

I just finished two more books worth checking out.

The Miracle & Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets by Sarah Miller (Teen or Adult nonfiction)

I enjoyed Miss Spitfire, Caroline, and most recently Hick by Sarah Miller. All three of these books were about women who interested me. After reading Hick I looked through Sarah Miller's remaining books to pick out the next book and nothing really stood out to me. I said the heck with it and went ahead and put one on my to-read list any way. And I'm glad I did. Sarah Miller has this way of completely capturing your attention and writing about characters in such a way that you end up caring immensely about them whether you want to or not.

Prior to reading this I hadn't heard anything about the Dionne Quintuplets. This book is heartbreaking. The entire family ends up being messed up in one way or another (though there are a few characters I think were messed up before the quintuplets were born). The whole thing is appalling. The parents were put in an impossible situation. Nobody knew how to handle five babies being born at the same time (totally fair) and everyone's dark side came out. It was a complete train wreck. I couldn't stop reading and was once again ensnared in Sarah Miller's wealth of research and narrative nonfiction prowess.

There's nothing new to read here - families are messed up, humans are flawed, and emotions rule us despite our best efforts. But Sarah Miller will have you on the edge of your seat wanting desperately for not just the Dionne quintuplets to thrive, but for all the Dionne children to get the hell away from their childhoods and parents and have a fighting chance.

This is Orange by Rachel Poliquin & illustrated by Julie Morstad (nonfiction picture book)

A celebration of the color Orange. The cover is immediately arresting, both delicious and powerful. With marbled, creamsicle end papers, an otherworldly, scribbly cantaloupe, monarchs flying from the pages carrying the souls of loved ones, and a colored pencil spread that deserves to be framed, the illustrations alone carry the celebration, history, and importance of the color orange. There's nothing special about the text, but this tiny book delivers a punch. From the linguistic journey of the word Orange to the roles Orange has played in defining itself, art, culture, history, literature, architecture, religion etc. There's nothing untouched by Orange. I'm ready for Poliquin and Morstad to write about the rest of the colors!