Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by Ruth Hogan

QUEENIE MALONE'S PARADISE HOTEL by Ruth Hogan (The Keeper of Lost Things) has a really beautiful cover and a quiet storyline. The main character, Tilly/Tilda, has returned as a grown woman to a happy place from her childhood: Queenie Malone’s fabulous Paradise Hotel in Brighton, England. Flashbacks give the reader perspective from Tilly as an innocent child narrator: “having ‘mysterious ways’ gave God quite a lot of chances to get away with things that he didn’t have to explain, but then he was God, after all, and in charge of everything, so she supposed you just had to trust him.” When older, Tilda reads her mother’s diary and learns some surprising news about her dad, Stevie, and her grandparents. It changes her feelings for her mother and helps her to reach out more to others, like Miss Dane, an older neighbor, and Daniel, a café owner who accepts and encourages her. As Tilda reflects, “my mother’s words are rewriting the childhood that for so long I have claimed as my own. The people and the places are still there, but the perspective has slipped so far out of focus that I barely recognize the story that was once, and ought to remain, so familiar.” Although not especially memorable, QUEENIE MALONE'S PARADISE HOTEL is more about how readers will feel as they enjoy the escape of an endearing, charming, heartwarming, feel-good story – enjoy!

How We Learn by Stanislas Dehaene

HOW WE LEARN by Stanislas Dehaene is subtitled “Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine . . . for Now.”  Dehaene, a professor of experimental cognitive psychology at the Collège de France, has clearly taken steps to make his material approachable and memorable, including providing several colored diagrams and images which illustrate brain and neural development. However, HOW WE LEARN is not a light and easy read. Dehane begins on a more theoretical level with Part One (What is Learning?) and offers seven definitions; continuing to Part Two (How Our Brain Learns) where he devotes an entire chapter to the role of nurturing.

As an educator and librarian, I struggled with finding a target audience for this text amongst my peers, primarily due to its scholarly nature and somewhat limited practical applications. For example, I do think they would be interested in his comments on grades; he says: “Grades alone, when not accompanied by detailed and constructive assessments, are therefore a poor source of error feedback.” Other colleagues would likely disagree with his clear favoritism for explicit teaching over constructivism (or discovery learning) with further comments like, “The most efficient teaching strategies are those that induce students to be actively engaged while providing them with a thoughtful pedagogical progression that is closely channeled by the teacher.”  These ideas are developed in Part Three, the Four Pillars of Learning: Attention, Active Engagement, Error Feedback and Consolidation. Overall, I am pleased to see so many positive reviews and hope that Dehane (and the many other scholars he cites) will next turn attention to how one makes remote learning more effective, especially in these uncertain times. As Dehane notes, “Numerous studies, both in humans and animals, confirm that stress and anxiety can dramatically hinder the ability to learn.” For those seeking more detail, HOW WE LEARN contains over 50 pages of notes and bibliography, plus an index.

The Address Book by Deirdre Mask

THE ADDRESS BOOK by Deirdre Mask explores “What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power.” Mask looks at situations over time and around the world (Europe (London, Vienna, Berlin, ancient Rome), Haiti, India, Iran, Japan, Korea, and South Africa), concluding that a street name and number signifies much more than merely ensuring mail and package delivery. In fact, she learned that “most households in the world don’t have street addresses” and tells numerous stories while exploring the development, origins and politics involved with street names. Each of her chapters is headed with a city and a question so, for example, Mask looks at “Philadelphia: Why do Americans Love Numbered Streets?” and “St. Louis: What Do Martin Luther King Jr. Streets Reveal about Race in America?” This debut work is a fascinating look at history, economics and society, a non-fiction book filled with unusual facts (e.g., Second Street is the most common street name in America). THE ADDRESS BOOK received starred reviews from Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.