Gail's Weekend Blog Finds

Alex at The Children's War reviews The Poppy Lady, a picture book about Barbara Elizabeth Walsh, who popularized poppies as a tribute to WWI veterans. Though I haven't read the book, myself, I like the idea behind it because many children see groups selling artificial poppies to support veterans groups. The Poppy Lady sounds as if it connects the past with the present.

I don't read a lot of blog book reviews prior to reading books because so many of them are favorable, sometimes over the top favorable. There's no need for me to read the reviews. The fact that a blogger is reviewing it means the review is going to be about how good the book is. I may try to skim the first para to see what the book is about, and if the book is reviewed at a lot of blogs, I'll probably recall the title and may pick it up and look at it if I stumble upon it somewhere. So blog reviews aren't wasted on me, I just don't use them the way most readers do. (Or maybe I do, I don't know how most readers use them.)

At any rate, I've been seeing the title Bomb, The Race to Build--And Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon for a while now. But it was only a few minutes ago, when I saw Tea Cozy's review, that it really hit me what this book is about and why I might be interested. As a young man after WWII, my father-in-law was involved in a study to determine what structures would withstand an atomic bomb. If I recall correctly, the group's conclusion was that there were none. He once told me that the work had paid well and been fun.  So now I'll probably be picking up Bomb when I stumble upon it. I may take a look at it and see if it would be appropriate for a "family gift" to pass around to relatives interested in reading about something connected to their Papa's work as a young man.

I actually found Defining Contemporary, Realistic & Historical Fiction at Stacked earlier this week. I had some thoughts about this post but was unable to post them there. (I'm often unable to post comments. Do these people see me coming?) Now I can't remember them! Though I do think I was wondering if  when a contemporary novel becomes dated it can become historical fiction. I think not. It's just dated, which isn't considered a good thing.