The defining moment of Kati Marton's life occurred when she was six and the police came for her mother during the Hungarian Revolution. Her mother was imprisoned for a year, joining her father in prison. The authorities forced Marton and her sister to move in with strangers. Before that their lives had been blessed especially by Communist Hungary standards. Kati's parents had hired a French nanny and she learned to speak French as a child.

If you love Paris or even if you are just curious about life in the famous city, this memoir makes a good read. I wasn't familiar with Kati Marton's books or journalism - she worked as a foreign correspondent for ABC news and NPR - so this memoir made a nice introduction to her work.  

Marton was one of the first women to be hired as an international corresponded for ABC.  She met Peter Jennings in London before beginning her post to German in the 1970s. They fell in love and began an international romance that was mostly centered in Paris. But before that Kati had studied abroad in the city of light during the momentous year of 1968. She came from the States where her parents had emigrated after leaving prison.

Being fluent, Katy did well studying at the Sorbonne and even in the midst of the student uprisings she managed to pass her orals with flying colors as the city erupted in siege around her.

Not only does Kati tell of her relationship and marriage to Jennings but also she records her second marriage to Richard Holbrooke, the UN ambassador who died several years ago.  They also met in Paris after Kati had separated from Jennings.  Richard was eminently kind and proud to be married to a successful ambitious woman; apparently, Jennings was not. But unfortunately, Holbrooke died and left Katie alone after her children were grown.

So what did Kati do? Return to Paris, of course. And in the period of her grieving, she let the daily life of her favorite city flow around her: the children going to school in their uniforms, the visit to the bakery for the daily baguette, the small cinemas where people left earnestly debating old American films. She also walked the streets each day and discovered buildings or plagues that she'd never seen, many about her Jewish heritage that like the former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, she had not even know about until late in life.

Paris: a Love Story is a wonderful tribute to a great city. If you enjoy the coming of age section, you will certainly enjoy Alice Kaplan's Dreaming in French which describes the formative years of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Susan Sontag and Angela Davis.

I read a review of Three Day Road, Joseph Boyden's first novel of World War I, which mentions that this isn't necessarily an anti-war novel.   I had to read the sentence in that review several times to make sure I wasn't misreading or misunderstanding.  Does a war novel have to come out and specifically declare a stance? 

Really, Boyden includes anti-war elements right up to the breathtaking ending: senseless killings, madness, morphine addiction, shortsighted military leadership, dehumanization, and the day to day terror.  The characters in this book do seemingly impossible and horrible things in the name of combat.  Is that not stance enough?  Is it even important?

It is true that this book is about more than the descent into the hell of trench warfare.  It is a really poetic story of Xavier Bird and Elijah Whiskeyjack, Cree Indians who have grown up in Canada near Hudson Bay.  They have spent their childhood patiently hunting, skills which serve them well as snipers in some of the worst battles of World War I, including around Vimy Ridge and the Somme.  Maybe it needs to be said, but being good at killing moose to survive the winter is different than being good at killing Germans. Xavier and Elijah react differently, but equally destructively, to war.

The novel flashes back between their time spent in France and Belgium to Xavier's return from war where he is collected by his remaining relative, his aunt Niska.  The three day journey by canoe proves most difficult for Xavier who is crippled and addicted to morphine.  Niska's stories to distract Xavier pull the arc of the stories together and create a thoughtful and character driven war story versus one of all action.  This is not a page turner and can be rough going emotionally at times, but I thought it was wholly worth it in the end.

Two other excellent novels, Deafening by Frances Itani and The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart also pair World War I stories with strong female characters and life in rural Canada. 

This novel is the first that I've read that tackles the problem of climate change head-on. An environmental tragedy in Mexico has forced most of the continent's monarch butterflies to find a new winter habitat. Flight Behavior also narrates the story of a young woman, Dellarobbia, who lives on a hard-scrabble farm in Appalachia. She's herded in by a strict mother-in-law, Hester, and even more so by the family's poverty. One day she decides to risk her marriage by having a tryst on the family's mountaintop with a telephone lineman named Jimmy.

After hiking up the mountain, Dellarobbia sees through the fog (despite her severe myopia) that the hills and trees are on fire: hundreds of monarch butterflies have nestled there. The young woman abandons her plan for an affair and returns to her mother-in-law's to pick up her two young kids, Preston and Cordelia.

Dellarobbia's history affects many pieces of the narrative: she's lost both her parents when she was young, got pregnant as a senior in high school, and married Cub to do "the right thing." Then she suffered a miscarriage and it took many years for her to have a child.

She was very smart in school but only had one decent teacher, her English teacher. She never went to college. Yet she defies her parents-in-law in their plans to log the mountain. Somehow the media finds out about the countless monarchs that have arrived in backwoods Tennessee and overnight Dellarobbia becomes a media sensation.

Kingsolver, who studied ecology on the graduate level, knows her science. She also knows the people of Appalachia, how they think, how they react to newcomers and experts. For in a matter of hours, a bunch of college kids, environmentalists, TV crews, and scientists descend upon their land.

The novel is also examines Dellarobbia's and Cub's marriage. Why is she always having crushes on other men? Why does she feel more like Cub's parent than his helpmate? Dellarobbia understands that Cub is a decent and kind man, yet intellectually she feels they have little connection. Complicating things is the arrival of Dr. Ovid, a monarch specialist who moves his study-trailer onto the field behind their house. He and his grads students soon transform the family barn (they pay decent rent) into a real laboratory where Dellarobbia soon learns how to check lipid levels of the butterflies, weigh them, count them scientifically, and record their "flight behavior." Suddenly, Dellarobbia has a career that fascinates her and a passion for her work.

Dellarobbia's best friend Dovey adds humor, and a hint of what Dellarobbia's life would have been like if she hadn't married. Then there's Reverend Billy whose sermons begin to center on the natural world and our responsibility to protect it as the logging deal gets closer to happening.

One of the closest relationships in the book is between Dellarobbia and her son Preston, who at age five has already decided to become a scientist. Together, they study an animal encyclopedia from 1952 and books on lambing because Hester has finally consented to let Dellarobbia help with that aspect of their farm.

The climate change theme never gets polemical though Kingsolver does incorporate a list of things that ordinary people can do to lower their carbon pollution. A fun fact about the book is that all of the female characters' names come from Kingsolver's own family.

Kingsolver really gets inside the heart and mind of this questing woman Dellarobbia--at a time of crises. In a wonderfully tense scene, Dellarobbia helps with a lamb birth, surprising herself with skills and dreams that she never knew she possessed.

Another lyrical novel about butterflies, entomologists, and the fragility of life is Sanctuary Line by Jane Urquhart. For a nonfiction account of the science behind climate change, read The Global Climate Reader edited by Bill Mckibben. 

As any parent knows, young children are curious about the world. At the library, we explore a range of topics during Preschool Science and Math. When the weather turns cold, I turn to one of my favorite themes for preschool science: Animals in Winter. Here are some of the activities we did in December!

Dressed for Winter

Children were invited to "dress the animals for winter" by gluing cotton balls onto shapes of a hare, fox, and weasel. This activity helps to illustrate an animal adaptation, where brown fur changes to white so that the animals are better camouflaged in the snow.

Fat? Feathers? Sweaters? Which is the Best Insulator?

Discussing the world in a scientific manner, helps children expand their vocabulary and build knowledge. This simple experiment provides a great introduction to the scientific method. First, children were asked to predict which insulator would best keep them warm: fat, feathers, or yarn. We indicated that prediction on a chart. Then, the children were asked to experiment and observe each insulator using prepared plastic bags lined with each insulator. The children placed their hand in the insulated bag and dunked it into a bowl of ice. Once they experimented with each, they evaluated whether their prediction was correct.

Animal Tracks

On a table covered with white paper, we placed foam stencils of bear, dear, bird, and fox tracks. During the program, children created a jumble of tracks in the snow using the stencils and black markers. In order to create an opportunity for writing, children were encouraged to label the tracks.

Bird Feeder

This is a simple bird feeder that preschoolers can assemble fairly quickly -- and should stay useful if it is under cover. The bird feeder provides an opportunity for the children to continue their observation of animals in winter at home. The instructions for the feeder can be found at this blog.

Nurture your young child's fascination with the natural world! The more they know, the smarter they'll grow.