What happened in May & June?

I did read, but I did not blog. Reason: GARDENING, which is wonderful and satisfying but time consuming and physical.

Here is a list of young adult books I read in May for discussions with Zachary, a rising 4th grader who enjoys talking about the American history he is learning in school. I needed a review to hold up my side of the conversations, so a trip to the public library was necessary. I always refer to Zachary as my sister's grandson (Susan Wheeler Robinson 1956-2014) for continuity of her position in his life. Because of these conversations, I was able to share some Wheeler family history with Zachary: Rev. John H. Wheeler (1793-1871) fought in the Confederate Army (29th Regiment NC Troops Co. B ) as did his seventh son John Henry Wheeler (1837-1907) but his ninth son Hiram Wheeler (1847-1907) fought in the Union Army (2nd Regiment NC Mounted Infantry Co.H). The loyalty in the Wheeler family was divided as was many others in the Western North Carolina Mountains and Eastern Tennessee
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Confederate Soldier and Union Soldier by Denis Hambucken
Causes of the Civil War by Shane Mauntjoy
The White House is Burning by Jane Sutcliffe
The Day Fort Sumter Was Fired On by Jim Haskins

During this time, I also read Amazing Women of the Civil War by Webb Garrison and Civil War Women edited by Frank McSherry, Jr., Charles G. Waugh, and Martin Greenberg.  Both of these books were gifts from Gypsi and  perfect reading material for these months as they were short stories. Civil War Women was compiled to show the Civil War through women's eyes in stories by such authors as Louisa May Alcott, Kate Chopin and Eudora Welty.  Amazing Women of the Civil War was truly fascinating stories of women who were more involved in the war than most women by being spies, soldiers (an estimated 300 fought on the battlefield), journalists and angels of mercy. 

Reading The Year Without Summer by William Klingaman and Nicholas Klingaman was a result of a  FaceBook post regarding weather. It is almost unbelievable how one volcano eruption really did change history.  Product review from Amazon:

Like Winchester's Krakatoa, The Year Without Summer reveals a year of dramatic global change long forgotten by history

 In the tradition of Krakatoa, The World Without Us, and Guns, Germs and Steel comes a sweeping history of the year that became known as 18-hundred-and-froze-to-death. 1816 was a remarkable year—mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern U.S. and Europe in the summer of 1816.

In the U.S., the extraordinary weather produced food shortages, religious revivals, and extensive migration from New England to the Midwest. In Europe, the cold and wet summer led to famine, food riots, the transformation of stable communities into wandering beggars, and one of the worst typhus epidemics in history. 1816 was the year Frankenstein was written. It was also the year Turner painted his fiery sunsets. All of these things are linked to global climate change—something we are quite aware of now, but that was utterly mysterious to people in the nineteenth century, who concocted all sorts of reasons for such an ungenial season.

   Making use of a wealth of source material and employing a compelling narrative approach featuring peasants and royalty, politicians, writers, and scientists, The Year Without Summer by William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman examines not only the climate change engendered by the volcano, but also its effects on politics, the economy, the arts, and social structures.

As a result of reading The Year Without Summer, I had to read Mary W. Shelley's Frankenstein which was written during that cold summer.  It proved to be a book way beyond any expectation I had formed and putting it down was very hard and reading it again will be a pleasure.