memoir

‘Cowpuppy’ by Gregory Burns

/ Pamela Kramer

Reading the title of this book, “Cowpuppy,” one might wonder what exactly Gregory Berns is writing about. To really understand this endeavor, you must read the fine print. “Cowpuppy: An Unexpected Friendship and a Scientist’s Journey into the Secret World of Cows” If you aren’t interested in animals, this is not a book for you. If you are worried that this is a book espousing veganism, Berns doesn’t do that, either. In fact, he admits to occasionally eating meat, and he feeds meat to his dogs. But he writes about his cattle from not just a scientist’s point of view, but as a behaviorist. His cows, we learn, are not just farm animals or tools, they are his friends.

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‘Pets and the City’ by Dr. Amy Attas is a wonderful book filled with “True Tales of a Manhattan House Call Veterinarian” that reads like a novel

/ Pamela Kramer

It’s difficult to write nonfiction that is so engrossing and relatable that it reads like fiction, yet that is just what veterinarian Dr. Amy Attas manages to do in her book “Pets and the City: True Tales of a Manhattan House Call Veterinarian.” This collection of anecdotes and personal history ranges from the why—the reason Attas wanted to become a veterinarian and how she accomplished that—to the many famous people who were/are her clients. From Joan Rivers to Billy Joel, we read about the connections that the uber rich and famous have with their pets. But we also read about those not in that stratosphere of economic wealth, and how money doesn’t dictate how much we love our four-legged (and sometimes three-legged) pets.

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‘Growing Up Under a Red Flag: A Memoir of Surviving the Chinese Cultural Revolution’ by Ying Chang Compestine

/ Pamela Kramer

Sometimes coincidences can be astounding. Last night I read the children’s picture book “Growing Up Under a Red Flag: A Memoir of Surviving the Chinese Cultural Revolution” written by Ying Chang Compestine and illustrated by Xinmei Liu. It’s a powerful book about how civil liberties flew out the door when Mao Zedong took over China and unleashed his Red Guard to terrify civilians into submission. The text is informative, very accessible, and appropriately shocking.

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‘Funny Farm: My Unexpected Life with 600 Rescue Animals’ by Laurie Zaleski is touching, charming, and humorous

/ Pamela Kramer
Funny Farm by Laurie Zaleski

“Funny Farm: My Unexpected Life with 600 Rescue Animals” by Laurie Zaleski is not what I was expecting at all. We know from the first page, the Prologue, that it’s about how Zaleski rescues animals, but what is unexpected is that more than half the book is about her childhood, her parents’ abusive relationship, and how her mother left and raised them in a tiny, dilapidated house where she also took in animals of every size, shape, and need. This book is the best kind of nonfiction—it’s nonfiction that reads like a novel, and it’s hard to put down. We want to know more about Zaleski’s family and how they will survive in the shack where they end up after leaving their very nice suburban home. We also want to know how Zaleski ends up with a farm and over 600 animals.

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Incredibly — ‘Better, Not Bitter: Living On Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice’ by Yusef Salaam an inspiring read

/ Pamela Kramer
Better Not Bitter by Yusef Salaam

The set of blazing emotions provoked by Yusef Salaam’s memoir, “Better, Not Bitter: Living On Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice,” includes strong doses of disgust, shame, anger — and inspiration. In 1989, five teenagers, all Black or Hispanic, were convicted in the notorious case of a young White female jogger who had been raped, beaten, tortured, and left for dead in Central Park. Salaam was one of those five teenagers.

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‘Poppy in the Wild’ by Teresa J. Rhyne a story of love and determination

/ Pamela Kramer
Poppy in the Wild by Theresa Rhyne

The title of the story, “Poppy in the Wild: A Lost Dog, Fifteen Hundred Acres of Wilderness, and the Dogged Determination that Brought Her Home” by Teresa J. Rhyne is a bit misleading. It’s not really just the story of a beagle from China who escapes from her foster family and gets lost in a California wilderness area. It’s also the story of Teresa (I feel as if we are on a first name basis) and her love for animals. 

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‘I Just Wanted To Save My Family,’ a memoir by Stéphan Pélissier

/ Pamela Kramer
I Just Wanted to Save My Family by Stéphan Pélissier

Stéphan Pélissier’s memoir, “I Just Wanted to Save My Family,” enlightens us by aiming an unforgivingly bright beam on the injustices engendered by the network of dark systems and practices that define governments and authoritarian figures all over the world. Unfettered nationalism. Corrupt populism. Cruel tyrannies. Stubborn bureaucracies and the frustrating red tape that characterizes them. Pélissier came face to face with all those dark realities because he dared to attempt to save his Syrian in-laws from the terrors of the government of Bashar al-Assad. The narrator/protagonist/attorney simply wanted to bring his wife’s family to France, his home.

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‘When Harry Met Minnie’ by Martha Teichner is a touching and heartbreaking story of dogs, friendship, and serendipity

/ Pamela Kramer
When Harry Met Minnie by Martha Teichner

I picked up “When Harry Met Minnie,” by Martha Teichner, thinking it was a story about dogs. I was wrong. While the dogs, two adorable but quirky bull terriers named, obviously, Harry and Minnie, are part of this story — it’s so much more. Teichner writes about serendipity, chance meetings that change lives, our love for our dogs and how they enrich our lives, the utter failure that our medical system can be for us in times of need, and above all, a friendship that arose quickly but became of supreme importance and changed the lives of both friends.

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‘A Promised Land’ by Barack Obama (review by Jack Kramer)

/ Pamela Kramer
A Promised Land by Barack Obama

For those readers who are soon to launch into Barack Obama’s memoir, “A Promised Land,” be forewarned: if you think you’re about to enjoy anything like a light-hearted romp through a very successful 2008 presidential campaign and an arguably quite successful first-term presidency, it would be wise to radically adjust your expectations. Much of the memoir is serious — often deadly serious. It’s an extraordinarily (near-obsessively) detailed account of several tumultuous years of world-changing, earth-shaking decisions, ideas, ideals, events, and frightful dilemmas. It’s also a seven hundred page roller coaster journey of emotions — joy, depression, celebration, sorrow, anger, love, fear, courage, desperation, confidence, and crippling self-doubt.

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‘They Called Us Enemy’ by George Takei is a graphic memoir that brings home the horror of racism and judging people by their race and is a must-read for teenager readers

/ Pamela Kramer

I’ve read about the internment camps for Japanese Americans during WWII, and there are many historical fiction books for children that are set in those camps (see some listed at the end of this review), but George Takei’s powerful memoir instilled in me a broader sense of what this country was like when this atrocity was implemented — taking away the property and rights of American citizens because of their ancestry and separating them from their homes. Continue reading →

‘The Light in Hidden Places’ by Sharon Cameron is an inspiring and unforgettable YA novel based on a real story that must be shared

/ Pamela Kramer / 1 Comment

light in hidden

Sharon Cameron’s genius is clearly demonstrated by the careful and masterful text she has created in “The Light in Hidden Places.” This is a real story of heroism and courage brilliantly re-crafted into a novel that takes readers directly into the heart of the darkest days of WWII Poland.

Stefania Podgórska has grown up on a large farm with her parents and many siblings. When she turns 13, she wants to escape the farm, so she travels to the larger city of Przemyśl, where she finds work with the Daimants, a Jewish family that owns a grocery store. Continue reading →