A Black Hole is Not a Hole by Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano

One time, in my AP Chemistry class, I needed some extra credit. And by “some” extra credit, I mean a lot of extra credit. The most fun way I earned extra credit? Sewing a little white felt mole from this exact pattern and turning it in for Mole Day. The least fun way I earned extra credit? Making a Powerpoint that explained String Theory.

Although A Black Hole is Not a Hole is a compact, pleasing little science book with illustrations both charming and beautiful, and the scientific explanations are slow and clear without being oversimplified… reading this book felt a little like making that String Theory Powerpoint. This is high science that my brain is just not equipped for. How I ended up in AP Chemistry and not AP English is a great mystery.

Young scientists, allow your brains to grow bigger than mine and enjoy this book. Maybe by the time you are in high school, you won’t need any extra credit.

 

The Fairy Ring or Elsie and Frances Fool the World by Mary Losure

I like a good nonfiction book that exists solely to call attention to an interesting, obscure bit of history that you never would have heard about otherwise. I read a biography of a lady who stole a lot of babies once that I found questionably authoritative and downright horrifying exactly for that reason: reading about these small moments in time, these strangely influential people who have fallen from history’s radar, makes me feel like the universe is vast and interesting.

You’d think I would say that about a book about Black Holes and not about two child trick photographers…. but that’s neither here nor there.

The Fairy Ring is a pleasantly slender history of two young girls who may or may not have actually seen fairies in their backyard, but who did indeed make some trick photos with paper fairies, and those photos indeed did get national press, and the forgery was not revealed until they were both old ladies. It’s an interesting little story and Losure does a good job of calling attention to the strangeness of being a small girl in England, where you have limited agency in your daily life, but maybe have the singular power to materialize fairie-kind.

 

That Mad Game: Growing Up in a Warzone ed. by J.L. Powers

In case black holes and fairies are a little too upbeat for you, might I present to you a collection of narrative essay about children growing up in war zones? This is a weighty read, but worth it – each chapter is a narrative written by someone who has seen war or the effects of war firsthand, and the book as a whole becomes this testament to our world’s violent, violent history. The fact that there are so many wars past and ongoing conflicts is just baffling, especially considering the personal impact. The essay’s authors explore their own childhoods as unwilling players in war – as a Cambodian refugee, the child of a PTSD-addled Vietnam vet, as a civilian in an occupied state, as a potential Taliban recruit, as an orphan.

This book is fascinating, chilling, humbling, and it feels important. This is a small-press book – I hope that it finds as many readers as it can get.