Author Archives: Alicia Abdul

What I love about vacations is the amount of time I can dedicate to reading. Do a little cleaning, then read, run and errand, then read. A few of my favorites from this past week already include a few murder mysteries, wait, take that back, all of my favorites this week have somehow dealt with a murder mystery. Hmmm, should someone be concerned? No, they’re just plain good! There’s Rotters by Kraus that is old-fashioned creepy, which leads right in to the nonfiction, The Poisoner’s Handbook by Blum about real cases of murder by poison through the early 1900s. You can take it back to the 1500s in License to Quill by Quercia that offers an alternative reality in which William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe were part of English espionage. Speaking of alternative perspectives, how about the housegirl that lived with the Borden’s before the infamous murders in Sweet Madness by Leaver and Currie? In A Madness So Discreet by McGinnis and A Curious Tale of the In-Between by DeStefano, there are two well-written authors trying to solve a mystery with special powers or a special circumstance surrounding their lives. And I’ve saved the best for last, The Life We Bury by Eskens that combines storytelling, a murder, and a war story that will make you hurt.

Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying “You can never be overdressed or over-educated,” so, I like my books to teach me something. And, Jonathan Fetter-Vorm’s graphic history of the first atomic bomb is just such a book. I walked around after finishing it, spreading the factoids that I was previously unaware of to people who weren’t asking for the information. Several other books have had the same impact: Sneaker Century: A History of Athletic Shoes by Amber Keyser that I recently posted about and A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman. I find the collection of the information put into a readable nonfiction text is brain food. The best kind.

Trinity is as much about the politics as the science and the human element. The font is easy on the eyes and there is a nice balance of narrative and dialogue, with the illustrations moving the story forward alongside the words, which cannot be said for all graphic novels.

Are there more graphic novels that do as good a job? Feed me!

Malala Yousafzai said “O​ne child, one teacher, one pen, and one book can change the world”. I could end there because its eloquence is moving, but also because it is representative of her. She is a child who read widely under the tutelage of her teachers, including her father, took up a pen to blog anonymously about life in Pakistan under the thumb of the Taliban, and is now demonstrating globally the need for girls’ education and that evil forces cannot win.

Her story is what engages the world alongside her actions and speeches. In 2012, she published her story I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban with the help of Christina Lamb and it has been followed up with a young reader’s edition written alongside young adult novelist Patricia McCormick called I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up For Education and Changed the World in 2014. But the latest book engages the youngest audience about who Yousafzai is: For the Right to Learn: Malala Yousafzai’s Story written by Rebecca Langston-George and illustrated by Janna Brock. So while it is not written or co-written by Yousafzai, it pulls out the essential elements of her story and makes it accessible to educate an entirely different audience than the other two. Children will grow up recognizing her accomplishments, while young adults and adults have gotten to know her since her attempted murder in 2012.

I will confess, I did not read her adult biography until this past summer and subsequently kicked myself for not doing it sooner. In that narration I was drawn to her activism and thirst for life while simultaneously recognizing that she’s still a child with her ultimate comforts being family, friends, food, and a good book (can’t we all say the same?). Likewise, she reiterates her girlhood, though having received a Nobel Peace Prize and speaking in front of the United Nations, in the young reader’s version that drills down to the fundamentals. It is not about the shooting, rather who she was before and who she strives to be after, providing the ultimate heroine in any fight against evil; like Anne Frank, whose diary has provided insight into the musings of a girl in an incredibly dark situation and helped the world recognize that we can all aim higher. Lastly, the picture book, written by Langston-George again captures the essential Yousafzai narrative with Disney-like imagery that does not take away from the message, instead provides a lush backdrop for Yousafzai’s own descriptions like the breathtaking Swat Valley. But my favorite panel is one of the last pages where she is addressing the United Nations in a shawl gifted by assassinated Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto’s children, where she seems so small in a room of big ideas and politics, with her image looming large on the screen behind her and she speaks the words “o​ne child, one teacher, one pen, and one book can change the world”.

Your aim should be to know her, read about her (starting with these three!), and feed off of her passion.