The Pregnancy Project

The Pregnancy Project: A Memoirby Gaby Rodriguez with Jenna Glatzer
Published by Simon and Schuster
224 pages

Publisher's Description:For her required senior project, Gaby Rodriguez decided to fake a pregnancy to get an inside view of what it's like to deal with the pressures and stereotypes of being a teen mom. The inspiration for the project came from her own mother, who became pregnant with her first child in 8th grade, and her older sisters, who all had children of their own as teenagers.

It started as a school project…but turned into so much more.
Growing up, Gaby Rodriguez was often told she would end up a teen mom. After all, her mother and her older sisters had gotten pregnant as teenagers; from an outsider’s perspective, it was practically a family tradition. Gaby had ambitions that didn’t include teen motherhood. But she wondered: how would she be treated if she “lived down” to others' expectations? Would everyone ignore the years she put into being a good student and see her as just another pregnant teen statistic with no future? These questions sparked Gaby’s school project: faking her own pregnancy as a high school senior to see how her family, friends, and community would react. What she learned changed her life forever, and made international headlines in the process.

In The Pregnancy Project, Gaby details how she was able to fake her own pregnancy—hiding the truth from even her siblings and boyfriend’s parents—and reveals all that she learned from the experience. But more than that, Gaby’s story is about fighting stereotypes, and how one girl found the strength to come out from the shadow of low expectations to forge a bright future for herself.

My Comments:


Faking the pregnancy wasn't easy; she found mentors to coach her on the symptoms that accompany each stage of pregnancy, enlisted a friend as well as her boyfriend to help spread rumors and act along with her, and built a realistic fake belly with some help from her mother. In addition to dealing with negative stereotypes, she also had to face the disappointment of her older siblings and teachers, some of whom were angry when they found out she'd lied to them.

Rather than composing a simple narrative of her life during the project, Rodriguez lays out her family history, how the project itself came about, and the media frenzy that ensued when she revealed her ruse at a school assembly. Those expecting the story to focus solely on her experiences during the fake pregnancy may be disappointed, but the "whys" behind the project, as well as the results, are clearly important. Rodriguez'writing is plain, but her story is compelling.

Her story has also been made into a Lifetime original movie (as advertised on the book's cover): http://www.mylifetime.com/movies/the-pregnancy-project.

Amelia Lost

Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart
by Candace Fleming
published by Schwartz & Wade
118 pages

Publisher's description:

From the acclaimed author of The Great and Only Barnum—as well as The Lincolns, Our Eleanor, and Ben Franklin's Almanac—comes the thrilling story of America's most celebrated flyer, Amelia Earhart. In alternating chapters, Fleming deftly moves readers back and forth between Amelia's life (from childhood up until her last flight) and the exhaustive search for her and her missing plane. With incredible photos, maps, and handwritten notes from Amelia herself—plus informative sidebars tackling everything from the history of flight to what Amelia liked to eat while flying (tomato soup)—this unique nonfiction title is tailor-made for middle graders.


My comments:

The description above gets a couple of things wrong. Earhart drank tomato juice when flying, and while it may be intended for a middle grade audience, I think many older readers could pick up Amelia Lost without worrying that it is too young.

After a brief preface on the difficulty of separating fact from fiction (in which she dispells legends like Earhart's claim to have been unimpressed by an airplane at a 1908 fair), Fleming delves into Amelia's 1937 disappearance. Dual narratives cut back and forth between the 17-day search for Earhart's plane and her life story. Fleming has made a great effort to unravel the truth of Earhart's life and disappearance from the myths.

More pages are devoted to Earhart's professional life, but Fleming also depicts her youth, including the troubled home life caused by her father's drinking. Her adult personal life also gets adequate coverage, perhaps thanks to the fact that her manager, George Putnam, eventually became her husband.

Fleming doesn't portray Earhart as the only or even best female pilot of the time. She learned to fly from Neta Snook, and Louise Thaden beat her in the 1929 Women's Air Derby -- a race from California to Ohio. Earhart benefited from better publicity thanks to Putnam, and (as noted by Fleming) her disappearance guaranteed her legendary status. Fleming admires Earhart for what she was and is: an inspiration to women who dream of accomplishing more than is expected of them, and who wish to live life on their own terms.

Earhart's 1937 autobiography was fittingly titled The Fun Of It -- she seemed to delight in setting records and constantly pushing the boundaries of what she (or any pilot) was capable of. Before her last flight, told Putnam that if she must go, "I'd like best to go in my plane." The desperate messages later received from radio enthusiasts as far away as Florida indicate that in the end, she may have changed her mind.

There are many great photographs and newspaper clippings, courtesy of Purdue University and the George Palmer Putnam collection. I would describe the three maps that are included as "servicable" rather than "incredible." The most amazing illustration may be from Betty Klenck's notebook. Next to a page of doodles is a transcription of what may be Earhart's final calls for help (page 81). The design features a 1930s font and very cool 30s-inspired lettering from cover to cover. I also really like the many text boxes and sidebars that cover everything from a failed romance in Earhart's youth to her friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt.

For the most part, I didn't find any unnecssary definitions (one of my pet peeves) embedded in the text. A notable exception appears in "The Way It Works," a text box on page 3 that defines GPS and transmitted (it means "sent"). I was worried that this text box was an indicator of facile writing to come, but was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be a fluke.

A bibliography, source notes, picture credits and index are appended. Of these sections, the bibliography is the most useful. It includes archival collections; books by Earhart, Putnam and Earhart's sister, Muriel; documentaries; and recent scholarly works. There's also a separate section for websites.

The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton

The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton
by Connie Nordheilm Wooldridge
184 pages
published by Clarion Books

Publisher's description:
Edith Wharton, author of Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, and other acclaimed novels, was born into a wealthy family. Beginning in childhood, Edith found ways to escape from society's and her family's expectations and follow an unconventional, creative path. Unhappily married and eventually divorced, she surrounded herself with male friends. She spent much of her life in Paris and was recognized by the French government for her generosity and hard work during World War I. Her literary and personal life, her witty and incisive correspondence, her fondness for automobiles and small dogs--all are detailed in this warm and sparkling account of a woman well ahead of her time.

My comments:
I must confess that (having never been required to read any of Edith Wharton's books as a student and not being inclined to pick them up on my own) I knew almost nothing about her before picking up this biography. I thought that maybe the "brave escape" the title referred to might mean that Wharton would abandon the life of wealth and privilege she was born into to live as a pennliess writer, and at first I was a little disappointed that she merely gave up the stuffy old-money social circle of her parents while managing to hold on to the wealth and privilege.

Eventually I came to see that rejecting her parents' ideals and aspirations is nothing to sniff at, though. Her actions are ones that any independent or rebellious teen can admire. Wharton also had the courage to pursue a career as a writer at a time when it was not respectable for a woman to write. By winning a Pulitzer for The Age of Innocence, she made the writing profession a respectable one for women to pursue.

I found Wooldridge's writing to be clear and engaging. It's clear that she respects Wharton, imperfections and all. The many photographs of her and her beloved bachelor friends and dogs are interesting, and well-captioned. There's nothing fancy about the design of the book, but the paper is high quality, the fonts look nice, and it's just the right size (not too big, not too small).

The book is well-researched, drawing from university archives, Wharton's body of work, and other biographies. The back end materials include source notes, a bibliography, a list of Wharton's works, and an index. I found the index to be very helpful whenever I needed to refresh myself on one of Wharton's many bachelor friends. The abbreviations used in the source notes confused me at first. It seems like there should have been an easier way to keep the length of the note citations manageable without resorting to two pages of abbreviations. The arrangement works well enough, but is a bit clunky.

I think the highest praise I can give The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton is that I'm actually interested, for the first time in my life, in reading Wharton for myself.

Borrowed Names

Borrowed Names: Poems about Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madame C.J. Walker, Marie Curie and their Daughters
by Jeannine Atkins
Published by Henry Holt and Co.
224 pages


Publisher's Description:

As a child, Laura Ingalls Wilder traveled across the prairie in a covered wagon. Her daughter, Rose, thought those stories might make a good book, and the two created the beloved Little House series. Sara Breedlove, the daughter of former slaves, wanted everything to be different for her own daughter, A’Lelia. Together they built a million-dollar beauty empire for women of color. Marie Curie became the first person in history to win two Nobel prizes in science. Inspired by her mother, Irène too became a scientist and Nobel prize winner. Borrowed Names is the story of these extraordinary mothers and daughters.

My Comments:

Who knew that Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madam C.J. Walker and Marie Curie were all born in the same year (1867) and all had daughters who helped them gain a place in history? I wasn't aware of this connection before picking up the book, and so I thought the premise behind it (free verse biographies of all six women) a little odd until reading about the common birth year in the introduction. Then, as I got into the book and discovered how closely the three daughters worked with their mothers I thought, "A-ha!" and the book made perfect sense to me.

The stories of all three mother-daughter pairs were fascinating in their own right, and their lives also overlapped in interesting ways. For instance, Ingalls and her daughter Rose may have walked right past Walker and her daughter A'Lelia at the International Exhibition in San Francisco, and Rose and the Walkers later lived in New York during the Great War. (I love that it is referred to as The Great War and not World War I; it's easy to forget, now, that there was a time between the world wars). A'Lelia and Irene both attend to wounded soldiers during the war. Rose and Irene Curie may have also walked on common ground in Europe after the war. I also love how feminist each of the women are in their own ways. Laura Ingalls insisted on finding a preacher who would remove the word "obey" from her wedding vows, Madam C.J. Walker used her savings to build her own company from the ground up, and Marie Curie won a nobel prize for physics before women were even allowed to speak at the awards ceremony.

I learned a lot about each of the women, and also think that the poems work well as poetry. Although written in free verse (which doesn't conform to conventional rhyme or meter) the poems didn't read like regular sentences that have just been broken up by an editor. The verses gave me just enough detail to leave me with an impression of what was going on; leaving me room to interpret what was happening with the women's lives. This, to me, is how poetry should read.

The design is charmingly old-fashioned. I wasn't enamored with the cover when I first saw pictures of it online, but it looks more appealing in-person. Black and white photographs of each of the women appear at the beginning of their section. Atkins doesn't refer to exact years in her verse, but instead speaks in generalities like the beginning of the Great War, second summer of the war, etc. I liked this, because I could focus on the stories without feeling that I would need to remember any dates for later. "Legacies" sections at the end of each mother-daughter biography and a time line at the very end are helpful in tying everything together. Atkins also includes a selected bibliography at the end. Some of the selected titles have been written for younger readers, and are marked as such. I was disappointed to see only three books listed for the Walkers.

Your Comments?