Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time (Millicent Min #2) by Lisa Yee

★★★★½

This book is a clever companion book to Millicent Min, Girl Genius. It covers the same time period as Millicent Min, and sometimes the exact same events, only the story is told from Stanford Wong's perspective.

I was impressed that this book is more than just the same story from a different angle. While I pegged Millicent Min for audiences as young as "upper elementary grades", this book I would put solidly in the middle school grades. Stanford's life is somewhat more complex than Millicent's. Not only is he struggling to pass summer school English, but he's hiding his summer school from his closest friends, he has a strained relationship with his parents, he has an aging grandparent who is slowly losing her mental faculties, and he likes a girl. (The book mentions "hickeys" and "second base", both in a vague manner showing that Stanford himself doesn't quite understand what those words mean.)

From a multicultural point of view, I liked that this book was about a Chinese-American boy, but while his Chinese-American-ness was central to his character, it was also clear that Stanford was just another American kid trying to make his way through adolescence. On the one hand, this book is about a kid who just happens to be Chinese-American; the main plot is that Stanford loves basketball, but has failed English, so he needs to go to summer school. I imagine he's relatable to many young readers, and he's non-stereotypical because he doesn't fit the model minority mold. On the other hand, Stanford does have a tiger dad, and his family's dynamics were a pretty realistic portrayal of a Chinese-American family. Plus, Chinese culture makes regular appearances, mostly in the way Stanford's grandmother likes to make dim sum.

A couple things led me to rate this book just shy of 5 stars. First, for much of the book, it really bothered me that Stanford lied so easily. While he eventually comes clean with all the big lies, I'm not sure he ever had any kind of realization that all the little lies along the way were detrimental, too, like in the way they hindered his ability to communicate meaningfully with his parents.

Also, I didn't feel like I got enough closure with Digger. He's only a supporting character, but he was fleshed out enough that we know he acts out partly - or mostly - because he does not have a supportive home life. He is not a one-dimensional bully - we see his vulnerability a couple times - and yet there is no indication that he might change for the better after we leave the characters to their imagined futures. Too bad there isn't a book from HIS perspective!

Millicent Min, Girl Genius (Millicent Min #1) by Lisa Yee

★★★★

I picked up this book because of my interest in diverse books, especially for children. The main character is an 11-year-old girl who happens to be Chinese. Race is not a central issue of the book, but Chinese-ness does make occasional appearances. (I found it interesting, perhaps even a little disappointing, that Millicent did not call her grandmother by any of the typical Chinese words for grandmother.)

For the first few chapters, I felt uneasy. Millicent Min is a child genius, an 11-year-old who is just finishing up her junior year in high school. Each chapter is a journal entry, and Millicent's voice is both informal and pedantic, making for great humor. The first-person narration, however, is unreliable; Millicent seems unaware that other students treat her poorly, yet the reader sees the situation more clearly. I felt bad for Millicent, and wondered if other readers might laugh at her, just like her classmates. As the book progressed, though, Millicent became much more self-aware, her character more likable (she reminded me of the endearing Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory), and the uneasiness lifted.

Heading into the book, I was also concerned that a Chinese child genius might feed too much into the model minority stereotype of all Chinese students being academically successful. This may have been true, but I think the other non-stereotypical Chinese characters more than balanced it out. Millicent tutors Stanford Wong, a Chinese boy who is a jock and not at all academically oriented; her parents are laid back and goofy, the opposite of tiger parents; her grandmother does have an interest in Feng Shui, but otherwise her grandparents were known mostly for being community activists.

Mostly this book is about Millicent trying to figure out where she belongs, and how that sense of belonging relates to happiness. There is a very meaningful thread about the loss of a grandparent, perhaps making this book a relatable option for someone who has experienced the same.

I have to admit that both Stanford and Emily (Millicent's best friend) had to grow on me, but in the end they won me over - Stanford by growing as a character, and Emily by being loyal and just the kind of friend Millicent needed.

Fascinating: The Life of Leonard Nimoy by Richard Michelson

★★★

My to-read list is way too long, and I have yet to find time to read Leonard Nimoy's two autobiographies, I Am Not Spock and I Am Spock. When I saw this children's book in the library, I snatched it up, figuring it could serve as a quick introduction and tide me over until I get around to the autobiographies.

It's a decent book, but I'm not sure who the intended audience is. On the one hand, it's a picture book, but I'm afraid I didn't find the illustrations very compelling. They did a great job portraying the content of the book, but they just seemed sad to me. All the illustrations were colored in muted tones, and it looks like many of them were depicting night-time scenes, to fit with the "Reach for the Stars" theme. That darkness - despite the peppering of stars - conveyed a sense of loneliness to me. I do, though, have to give credit to the illustrator for very effectively rendering human likeness; before reading the text on one page, I looked at the accompanying drawing and immediately thought, "What's John F. Kennedy doing here?" - and lo and behold, Leonard Nimoy did indeed have an interaction with John F. Kennedy!

On the other hand, the reading level seemed more appropriate for middle elementary grades. I can see elementary students reading this book on their own, but then I was bothered that the book assumed a certain amount of broad knowledge. For example, the book references "jump shot" and "soda jerk" without any context whatsoever for young readers to figure out what those phrases mean. Maybe it's just meant to be read aloud by older, more knowledgable readers.

I did like the book, and was happy to learn more about how the Vulcan hand greeting was inspired by a Jewish hand gesture - something I was only vaguely aware of before. Also, it was fun to see that Leonard Nimoy's Boston in 1949 included a few places still quite familiar to modern-day Bostonians.

But then - suddenly! - the book was over. It was such an abrupt ending.

The last four pages consists of two afterwords. The first provides more information about Leonard Nimoy's work and accomplishments, and the second was an Author's Note describing the author's personal relationship with Leonard Nimoy. Clearly the story was meant to bring the reader from Leonard Nimoy's childhood to his success with Star Trek, but I think the content of those last 2 sections were just as informative and interesting as the main body of the book.

This Fight is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America's Middle Class by Elizabeth Warren

★★★★★

I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Warren, and Ken pre-ordered this book for me even before it was released. Life being busy, however, I hadn't gotten around to reading it until now. I was actually spurred on by having had the amazing opportunity to see Senator Warren speak live at a town hall event. Now, reading this book, I could easily imagine her voice speaking the words, full of passion and intensity.

Without going through a full post-mortem of the 2016 presidential election, suffice it to say that I, personally, do not subscribe to the idea that "economic anxiety of the poor white working class" was the primary reason for why we got the results we did. But the "economic anxiety of the poor white working class" was certainly a factor, and the bulk of this book goes a long way towards explaining the economic reality faced by the poor working class - people who used to be able to live as middle class.

I really enjoyed the personal anecdotes from Elizabeth Warren's own life (and the accompanying photos). She had a humble upbringing, and after a medical emergency, her family was saved from the brink of financial disaster because of a government that ensured a livable minimum wage. As a young adult, she took an unconventional path towards college graduation, which was only possible because of a government that supported affordable commuter colleges and the infrastructure that allowed students to physically get there. For Elizabeth Warren, the fight is personal: she wants every American to be given the same kinds of second chances that she and her family got in the 1960s.

This book provides an eye-opening history of how, after the Great Depression, government policies and regulations leveled the playing field and helped set the stage for long-term economic stability and prosperity for all Americans, regardless of class. (Brief asides do admit that the vast majority of benefits were enjoyed by white people, and racial inequality is an issue in itself.) But then, wealthy corporate leaders systematically stacked the deck in their own favor by promoting pro-business and anti-government rhetoric and policies, breaking the system that had already been proven effective, and leading to wider and wider disparities in income growth - the rich got richer while the poor and middle class stayed where they were, or became worse off.

Elizabeth Warren makes the argument for the kind of social contract Americans enjoyed after the Great Depression, one in which "we worked together to form a giant insurance program, with each of us contributing through taxes. When we needed a hand, we could turn to each other, through our government, to help us make it through... [W]e were all in one big American boat together - rich and poor, working and nonworking, young and old." (p. 99-100) I know some people will reject that kind of philosophy as "socialist" - as if "socialist" were, by definition, a bad thing. And yet, I would think that Christians (who make up a significant portion of the Republican base) especially would find that kind of social contract appealing, because it seems like the most efficient way to ensure that we "value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others." (Philippians 2:3-4)

To implement that social contract, Elizabeth Warren believes strongly in two specifics tenets: 1) trickle-down economics is total bunk, and 2) the most important thing the government can do to promote opportunity for all is to invest in education, infrastructure, and research. And she brings the receipts, with data and sources backing up her position, all listed out in the Notes section. I also found her no-nonsense attitude - with lines like, "That idea is stupid on its face." (p. 182) - pretty entertaining.

Though most of the book focuses on economics, policies, and the powers that influence them, a few pages towards the end of the book directly addresses the racism, prejudices, and bigotry of the Republican party - and Donald Trump, specifically.

The book wraps up with Elizabeth Warren's perspectives during the 2016 presidential campaign, and her reaction to the results. She doesn't hold back when she paints a bleak picture of the kind of damage a government run by Trump and his Cabinet can do - and has already done - to Americans and the world we live in. But, the book closes with optimism. Elizabeth Warren lays out exactly what this fight entails - we have to fight bigotry, create opportunity, and demand democracy - and what we each have to do. Specifically, she urges all of us to use whatever platform we have to stand up, speak out, get involved, and even call out other people to do the same. She commits herself to fighting this fight for all Americans, and she invites us to join her.