In the book, The People’s Hospital, Dr. Ricardo Nuila takes a look at our broken medical system, focusing on the challenges and inequities in the health insurance world. He focuses on six case histories of people whose treatment has been affected by their income, immigration status, or twists in state Medicaid law.

It’s the middle of March and up pops a bud on our traditional family favorite milk-and-wine lily that blooms off and on all summer! Admittedly, we have had a few warm days, but on the day I discover the bud, the high is 49° with a freeze warning for the night.

My two for one picture book review today features two picture books from the same publisher to help children deal with some of life’s struggles. They are neither preachy nor didactic but approach real problems in a child friendly way.

Today, March 11, 2023, marks the 107th anniversary of the birth of a premature baby in Brooklyn, New York. His chances for survival were precarious. As a child of Jewish immigrant parents in a daily struggle to make ends meet, his chances for making a name in the world were even less probable.

Jennifer Zeigler begins her book, Worser, with a title that is a play on words. Middle schooler William Orser acquired the nickname long ago when someone noticed that his first initial combined with his last name made “worser.” The name stuck with an additional irritation to him because it is so ungrammatical.

Obsessions, compulsions, manias, urges, impulses, yearnings, desires, hankerings – we call them by a lot of names. Some have positive connotations and some are negative. Some are sophisticated words to go in technical manuals, and some might be spit out by a straw-chewing guy in overalls, sitting atop a wood rail fence.

Mark Dawidziak sets the tone for his search for the cause of death of Edgar Allan Poe as he begins his account with Poe’s passing from this life on an appropriately stormy night on October 7, 1849 when he was only forty years old, adding that nobody knows the precise cause.

Twenty-five feet of crumbly brick walk in need of replacement. Our walk was an open invitation to tumble and spend time recuperating from a bad fall. The brick beauty was long gone, replaced with broken shards interspersed with weeds. But just try to get a brick and concrete expert out to restore it. Not twenty-five feet.

It started with a note in a package from our librarian daughter back in 2016, “Dad, you’ll recognize yourself on page 140 especially (and other pages as well). You’ll both enjoy this.” Inside the package was A Man Called Ove. Page 140 said, “When he was driving somewhere, he drew up schedules and plans and decided where they’d fill up.

Rez Dogs, by noted author Joseph Bruchac, is an example of my contention that some of today’s best writers are doing their work for middle graders. The verse novel begins with Malian, on a visit to her grandparents on a Wabanaki reservation, when she notices a dog. Her connection to the modern world comes immediately.

Bucket lists of various lengths have gotten a lot of hype since the movie back in 2007. My very short bucket list contained important items. My husband Al and I completed the first item of visiting all fifty states several years ago. Yesterday was a big day as proof came early and late that an even more important item could get that marvelous checkmark.

Erika Bolstad begins her eight-year memoir with curiosity about her great-grandmother. “Her name was Anna Josephine Sletvold. That’s about all I knew when all of this began during the darkest days of the Great Recession.”

The mail still runs. Stores are open. Nobody gets cake. Still, today, we are celebrating a day that is dear to my heart. Read Aloud Day has been official for only 14 years, but reading aloud became a favorite activity for me by the time I was ten years old. My nine-years-younger sister Ruth became my willing audience.

In case you’ve ever wanted to read a story that you’ve already read, but told from a different viewpoint, this is your chance. Little Women, written by Louisa Mae Alcott, told her story based largely on her own family from Jo’s viewpoint. Since she was the model for Jo, she knew the narrator well. In Marmee, Sarah Miller returns to the setting with the same story but told from the viewpoint of Jo’s mother who is Marmee in Little Women.

Following has become a big thing on social media platforms, but it has been around in other forms for a long time. I can’t even guess how many times I’ve heard people talk about “following the career” of someone who started as a barely known and moved on to great success. I’m using this meaning for my blog today.

In Rough Sleepers, Tracy Kidder follows the career of Dr. Jim O’Connell who devoted his life to homeless people who frequently slept on the street. Dr. Jim’s career began with an early choice as he neared the end of his residency and was challenged by the chief of medicine to postpone an impressive fellowship to spend a year creating a health organization for homeless citizens.

It’s not the first time my words have been repeated back to me, but it may have been the most pleasant. About fifteen years of life had happened since I first said them to my friend, Karen Konnerth.

I wish I could remember who recommended that I read Prairie Fires so I could do a proper thanks. If you have ever loved the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder in any format from the books to the TV show that was based on them, you will want to read this account of how they came to be.

One of my professors used to alert us that he was “making up history” when he gave logical explanations that could not be proven. I’ve thought about his words as I’ve considered the Southern tradition of eating black-eyed peas and cabbage (or collard greens) on New Year’s Day to ensure luck and money for the coming year.

Leonard Marcus, in his nonfiction account for middle graders, Mr. Lincoln Sits for His Portrait, looks at a different side of Abraham Lincoln. In this book, an account is given of how Lincoln used photography in his runs for office and in creating the image he wanted after he was elected.