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My Grandmother’s Life
Augusta follows a thirteen-year-old farm girl forced into marriage and motherhood who, after being abandoned in the city, must find a way to survive for herself and her children. Where did the idea for this novel come from?
This novel is based on my grandmother’s life. The image of her on the cover was from a 2.5×3.5 inch daguerreotype. When my aunt Ivon gave it to me, she said it was taken on her wedding day, and she was wearing her eighth-grade graduation dress. EEEK.
You went into great detail to get the setting right, especially in regard to money, life in the city, and even the emergence of home appliances. Did you do a lot of research to maintain the accuracy of the subject?
I researched life in Arkansas at the turn of the twentieth century. Finding out what it was like for the very poor in 1920s Detroit was a surprise. My mother told me that my grandmother came to Detroit wearing a feed sack as a dress.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
My father was Buddy. He told me that his mother made him share, with other children, the goodies he received when he was in the hospital. I made a point of discovering what candies were popular at the time and what toys children may have received.
What is the next book you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?
My next book will be out in April 2023. Big Guy is a middle-grade children’s book. Like Black Beauty, this story is told by the horse. I trained horses and gave riding lessons for many years. The personalities that I convey are my imagining of the personalities of horses that I knew and loved.
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The historical novel begins in 1906 on a rural farm in Arkansas, where Augusta was raised on a hard-knock farm and married off to the widowed father of one of her classmates at the age of thirteen. They flee the failed cotton crops for factory work in Detroit, and Augusta must navigate city life alone as a new mother. Abandoned by her second husband, Augusta works as a waitress, but with four children to provide for, she is forced into a decision that will haunt her forever.
Algebra for the Urban Student: Using Stories to Make Algebra Fun and Easy
![Algebra for the Urban Student: Using Stories to Make Algebra Fun and Easy by [Lee, Canaa]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51-x1J65Z5L.jpg)
Before you read my review of Algebra for the Urban Student: Using Stories to Make Algebra Fun and Easy by Canaa Lee, you should know that I am one of those strange people who really enjoy a good Algebra problem. I have always loved Algebra, so I was pretty excited to get my hands on a book about Algebra for review purposes. I am also a homeschooling parent so I am always interested in textbooks, especially those that incorporate new methods of learning. This book did not disappoint.
Lee is a high school math teacher who conceived of the idea for this book while she was working at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. She was a math teacher given the task of figuring out how to incorporate reading and literacy into her math class. To do this, she would find several topics in her class that shared a theme and try to build a story around them in order to teach them together. The book relies heavily on building an ongoing story throughout the entire course in order to help students retain knowledge and follow along as they shift from one concept to another. As someone right in the midst of teaching Algebra, I think this is a brilliant concept.
Lee wanted to demonstrate to her students that Algebra could be demystified and could become more than just a jumble of numbers and letters. This is especially important in some urban environments where the population is largely poor and underrepresented when it comes to education. Test results from many urban areas prove this time and again. I also know from teaching my own children (who hate math) that making the concepts of Algebra clearer can be a daunting task. Incorporating these concepts into stories can get through to students who simply don’t learn from numbers alone.
The book covers a plethora of relevant and important topics: equations, inequalities, absolute value, graphing, slope, ordered pairs, slope-intercept form, relations, functions, statistics, ratios, proportions, rate of change, compound inequalities, geometry, perimeter, area, surface area, volume, factoring, quadratic equations, quadratic trinomials, parabolas, domain, range, vertex, vertical stretch, horizontal stretch, horizontal shift, polynomials, monomials, binomials, trinomials, leading coefficients, and discriminants. It was very thorough. The author provides ample practice problems throughout the book. She also makes it very clear how the problems relate to every day life. I found it very relatable and relevant.
I would rate the book a 4 on a 5-point scale. Providing a supplement with an answer key to check the answers after doing the problems would definitely move it up to a 5. This is a book I would use in teaching my own children when we run across a particularly troubling concept. Lee has made math relatable for people who might have trouble.
Pages: 88 | ASIN: B0792VFC1W
A Snapshot of American Reading Habits in 2017
As Dr Seuss said “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
Reading opens up a vast world of knowledge, pleasure and fun. It also comes in many forms. What books do you love to read?
Old favorites
According to Global English Editing’s latest infographic, a few well-known, well-loved authors tend to top the charts. Writers like JK Rowling, John Grisham and Stephen King, who have published page-turner after page-turner, were among the highest paid authors of 2017.
But one reader’s trash is another’s treasure, and we don’t all want to read the same things. Every state in the country had its own favorite books and writers this year, from Hilary Clinton in Rhode Island to Dan Brown in Arkansas.
New beginnings
Reading has been framed as an old-fashioned pleasure, even a dying one. But the evidence shows that younger people are reading more than older people, and we’re all reading just about as much this year as we did last. The death of the book will be a long time coming.
Ready to read?
If it’s been a while since you picked up a book, that’s not surprising. We’re all constantly distracted by a world that throws information at us from every angle. Given that, it’s a surprise that books still mean so much to so many of us.
Then again, maybe it’s not. Can you imagine a world without books? Neither can we. Check out Global English Editing’s infographic below for all the fun facts about America’s reading habits in 2017.
LITERARY TITAN 