There's gems in here worth unpacking -- Dr. Tatum pushes hard against delimiting anti-intellectual perspectives of black boys and argues for intellectually stimulating, relevant, and content-rich text mediation. Can't wait to read his newest book on advanced literacies -- Tatum puts a stake in the ground and manages to balance both a focus on intensive scaffolding and supports while at the same time advancing intellect and knowledge.
On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing …
Review of 'Ancillary Justice' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
The key twist in this fun sci-fi novel is that the narrator is a single AI operating as a person, but also simultaneously a ship and ancillary parts. This allows the author to give us a god-like perspective while also keeping the narrator just relatable enough to empathize with. It's a great way to play with perspective and it's well-played throughout the novel. Recommended.
Enjoyable thought experiment on what the world might be like after a colossal epidemic. Unfortunately, my reading was a bit disjointed, due to no fault of the author, because my copy had 20 pages ripped out of it at the very end. I had to wait for a library copy to continue. So my review is not coherent and a result... But I can say it is beautifully written and if you need a captivating sci-fi read, you'll enjoy this book.
A psychology professor specializing in the cognitive and neurological bases of language and reading discusses …
Review of 'Language at the Speed of Sight' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I heard Seidenberg speak at a ResearchEd conference in Brooklyn a while back, and I found what he had to say really interesting, but he was a bit kooky and used terms I'd never heard before like "statistical learning," so I wasn't sure what to think, as he seemed to stand outside of the mainstream of education speak. My interest was piqued however, as I happen to also follow the Language Log blog, which he is a contributor to, and in reviewing my notes of his talk, his points continued to jump out at me.
So I finally got around to reading his book when I had a coupon on Google Books, and I figured, what the heck. I don't have any time to read much but I should probably see what it's about.
And man, am I glad I chipped away at this on bus and train rides over …
I heard Seidenberg speak at a ResearchEd conference in Brooklyn a while back, and I found what he had to say really interesting, but he was a bit kooky and used terms I'd never heard before like "statistical learning," so I wasn't sure what to think, as he seemed to stand outside of the mainstream of education speak. My interest was piqued however, as I happen to also follow the Language Log blog, which he is a contributor to, and in reviewing my notes of his talk, his points continued to jump out at me.
So I finally got around to reading his book when I had a coupon on Google Books, and I figured, what the heck. I don't have any time to read much but I should probably see what it's about.
And man, am I glad I chipped away at this on bus and train rides over the last 2 weeks. The reason he stands outside of the mainstream, it turns out, is because public education is nearly completely disassociated from research, a point he raises vituperatively in his book. This book should be read by anyone involved in education, whether policymaker, administrator, teacher, or parent.
I've been a teacher of special education for 7 years and an administrator for 3, and I am embarrassed to say that Seidenberg lays out facts about reading I had nary a clue about. And he lays it out trenchantly, wittily, and, at times, impassionately, because he sees clearly what a crime it is that the majority of educators similarly have not a clue.
"We live in a world that is known, every corner thoroughly explored. But has this …
Review of 'A new map of wonders' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Took me 3 renewals to finally get through this book. It's definitely interesting, but I had a hard time sustaining interest -- yet I felt obligated to mush onward since there was just enough moments of discovery to make it worth it. The best part of this book are Henderson's abundance of allusions. I started a Spotify playlist from all the classical songs he references, for example.
Yet the allusions are also coupled with what ultimately becomes a really distracting feature - the sidebar quotations on each page. Rather than relegate all the references to a footnote or endnote, Henderson's publisher elected to format down the width of the text and gift a full third of the side of each page to the notes. I found this formatting made the text really hard to read and much more difficult to access than it should have been. If I wanted all …
Took me 3 renewals to finally get through this book. It's definitely interesting, but I had a hard time sustaining interest -- yet I felt obligated to mush onward since there was just enough moments of discovery to make it worth it. The best part of this book are Henderson's abundance of allusions. I started a Spotify playlist from all the classical songs he references, for example.
Yet the allusions are also coupled with what ultimately becomes a really distracting feature - the sidebar quotations on each page. Rather than relegate all the references to a footnote or endnote, Henderson's publisher elected to format down the width of the text and gift a full third of the side of each page to the notes. I found this formatting made the text really hard to read and much more difficult to access than it should have been. If I wanted all of the text squeezed into a tight space, I would be reading more on an e-reader.
I would recommend this as a nightstand or toilet-side book -- fun to dip into for short bouts, but hardly a page turned on its own.
In a ruined, nameless city of the future, a woman named Rachel, who makes her …
Review of 'Borne' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
This is a book about a ruined city ruled by a giant flying biotech bear named Mord. That description beggars the question of why you should bother reading it. But the author pulls it off, with gusto. This is compelling and fun dystopian fiction, filled with wonderful turns of phrases and moments that give you somber pause. This is what teens should be reading instead of the drab Hunger Games series.
A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A …
Review of 'A Christmas Carol' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
First Dickens I actually completed! I must say, it is an enjoyable tale, and his archaic and verbose descriptions are a real pleasure (well, the majority of them, at any rate; there were a couple that were a bit strange -- more on that here).
Perhaps I will re-tackle one of his magnum opuses again one of these days.
"A young Swedish boy finds himself in penniless and alone in California. He travels East …
Review of 'In the distance' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
This is an immersive, innovative, compelling story. There's elements of Cormac McCarthy's mythic plains here, but not quite so nightmarish. More just flat and bleak.
The protagonist spends the majority of the story keeping himself as far as possible from civilization, but when he inevitably ends up back in touch with a human being, he ends up re-encountering a magnified version of his brutal self, whereupon he flings himself back into the void of the wilderness again.
This book is for any seeker of an identity that no longer exists.
Orphaned Kit Tyler knows, as she gazes for the first time at the cold, bleak …
Review of 'Witch of Blackbird Pond' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
While the ending is conventional, the rest of this novel is refreshingly subtle. The protagonist, Kit, battles the strictures of a Connecticut Puritan colony, while finding her place as an alien arrival within it. The author manages to portray Puritan society in a critical light without denigrating it completely -- in the end, it is rather human nature that is truly put on trial.
Review of 'Tinkering toward utopia' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
This book was written in 1995, yet it remains eerily relevant. Which goes to show that the study of history is worth the investment -- at least when it comes to public education. You'll come away from this book with a healthy dose of skepticism towards any starry eyed ed reform pitch. I'd recommend reading this alongside Dana Goldstein's "Teacher Wars" for more on the historical cycles of education policy. The author's recommendations for viewing ed policies as hypotheses to be tested by practitioners who can hybridize it with other techniques are cogent and insightful. And they are one of the few who acknowledge the great complexity of the enterprise of education. Highly recommended, and a fairly quick read to boot.
A Natural History of the Senses is a vibrant celebration of our ability to smell, …
Review of 'A natural history of the senses' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
A book about the 5 senses. At times sublime, at others Ackerman overreaches a bit to sound like new age poetry. Either way, however, you will learn a few fun factoids you may not have known along the way, and come away with a renewed sense of wonder about what it means to be alive.
