Review: The Family Romanov by Candace Fleming

The Family Romanov--Candace Fleming
January 2014 by Schwartz & Wade
304 pages--Goodreads

From the acclaimed author of Amelia Lost and The Lincolns comes a heartrending narrative nonfiction page-turner. When Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II, inherited the throne in 1894, he was unprepared to do so. With their four daughters (including Anastasia) and only son, a hemophiliac, Nicholas and his reclusive wife, Alexandra, buried their heads in the sand, living a life of opulence as World War I raged outside their door and political unrest grew into the Russian Revolution.

Deftly maneuvering between the lives of the Romanovs and the plight of Russia’s peasants and urban workers—and their eventual uprising—Fleming offers up a fascinating portrait, complete with inserts featuring period photographs and compelling primary-source material that brings it all to life.

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This was a really interesting read.  I was surprised by some of the things I learned, like that the Romanovs were not all killed the very night of the revolution as Bolsheviks stormed the imperial palace.  Granted, all of my previous knowledge about the Romanovs came from the movie Anastasia, so it's not like I was any sort of expert on the family or that time period or anything at all about Russia.  But it still surprised me.  We (I) internalize probably far too much of the faux history presented in fictional tales.  

The Family Romanov:  Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia (great title by the way, I love long titles) is more than just a biography of Nicholas Romanov.  It is more even than a biography of him and his family.  This book covers the the legacy of the Romanovs, Nicholas and his family, his poor decisions as a ruler, the Russian aristocracy, the Russian peasantry, the development of the Bolsheviks, Lenin, civil unrest, the revolution, the early attempts at democracy, the transition to communism, the reality of communist Russia not living up to Lenin's ideals, the rise of Stalin, the execution of the royal family, conspiracy theories about the potential escape of some of the royal children, and the discovery of the Romanovs' bodies years later.  Not bad for a children's nonfiction. 

Fleming takes this ambitious scope and presents a narrative that is both interesting and easy to follow.  We really get to know Nicholas and the other Romanovs and we sympathize with them as people.  But we also see how their awful decisions and their oppression of the people led to civil unrest and eventually revolution.

I listened to this on audiobook (which was great for the pronunciations I never would have gotten on my own), so I missed out on all the great photographs in the physical copy.  I've heard they're amazing, so I'll have to drop in at the library and flip through a copy so I can see them.

Review: A Path Appears by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

A Path Appears--Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

September 2014 by Knopf

400 pages--Goodreads

An essential, galvanizing narrative about making a difference here and abroad—a road map to becoming the most effective global citizens we can be.

In their number one New York Times best seller Half the Sky, husband-and-wife team Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn brought to light struggles faced by women and girls around the globe, and showcased individuals and institu­tions working to address oppression and expand opportunity. A Path Appears is even more ambi­tious in scale: nothing less than a sweeping tap­estry of people who are making the world a better place and a guide to the ways that we can do the same—whether with a donation of $5 or $5 mil­lion, with our time, by capitalizing on our skills as individuals, or by using the resources of our businesses.

With scrupulous research and on-the-ground reporting, the authors assay the art and science of giving, identify successful local and global initia­tives, and share astonishing stories from the front lines of social progress. We see the compelling, in­spiring truth of how real people have changed the world, upending the idea that one person can’t make a difference.

We meet people like Dr. Gary Slutkin, who devel­oped his landmark Cure Violence program to combat inner-city conflicts in the United States by applying principles of epidemiology; Lester Strong, who left a career as a high-powered television anchor to run an organization bringing in older Americans to tu­tor students in public schools across the country; MIT development economist Esther Duflo, whose pioneering studies of aid effectiveness have revealed new truths about, among other things, the power of hope; and Jessica Posner and Kennedy Odede, who are transforming Kenya’s most notorious slum by ex­panding educational opportunities for girls.

A Path Appears offers practical, results-driven advice on how best each of us can give and reveals the lasting benefits we gain in return. Kristof and WuDunn know better than most how many urgent challenges communities around the world face to­day. Here they offer a timely beacon of hope for our collective future.

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This book is ambitious.  I don't know that I've seen such a wide scope in a single book before.  In general, A Path Appears is about increasing opportunity, both domestically and internationally.  More specifically, it covers education, crime, poverty, malnutrition, gang violence, addiction, sex trafficking, early childhood intervention, prenatal care, family planning, agriculture, mentoring, literacy, charity, business, advocacy, human psychology, metrics, investments, marketing, and pretty much everything else under the sun that can be linked to aid work.  Kristof and WuDunn take a strategic, research based approach to determining the efficacy of aid groups and evaluating which groups make the most impact per dollar.

The book is peppered with suggestions for how you can get involved in making a difference.  If you take anything from this book it is the idea that ordinary people, not just millionaires, can make a significant difference in the world by making smart aid decisions.  Pick a cause, and the book probably describes a group that addresses that cause.

I was disappointed that the book didn't spend more time on sex trafficking or domestic violence. The accompanying PBS documentary dedicated an episode each to those two issues, and they are super important.  Sex trafficking in particular doesn't get the kind of attention it needs.  Looking at that decision from further back however, it makes a bit of sense.  A documentary on sex trafficking will pull in more attention and funding than one on micro nutrients and efficacy metrics.  And a chunk of people who watch the documentary will go off and immediately start reading the book (me), so I suppose it was an effective marketing strategy.

This book is important, yes, but it is also compelling.  Kristof and WuDunn are excellent story tellers.  They make you care about each and every one of the people they highlight and the many dozens of causes those people support.  They manage to capture the magnitude of these problems without making you feel helpless.  Rather leaving you drowning in a sea of unfillable need, they empower you with tools to do good.  A Path Appears is a must read for anyone who wants to make a positive difference in the world, whether in your own neighborhood or on the other side of the world.  And if you haven't read their earlier book, Half the Sky, do that right now.

Mini Review: Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman

Charles and Emma:  The Darwins' Leap of Faith--Deborah Heiligman
December 2008 by Henry Holt and Co.
272 pages--Goodreads

Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, his revolutionary tract on evolution and the fundamental ideas involved, in 1859. Nearly 150 years later, the theory of evolution continues to create tension between the scientific and religious communities. Challenges about teaching the theory of evolution in schools occur annually all over the country. This same debate raged within Darwin himself, and played an important part in his marriage: his wife, Emma, was quite religious, and her faith gave Charles a lot to think about as he worked on a theory that continues to spark intense debates.

Deborah Heiligman's new biography of Charles Darwin is a thought-provoking account of the man behind evolutionary theory: how his personal life affected his work and vice versa. The end result is an engaging exploration of history, science, and religion for young readers.

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Charles and Emma is an interesting biography.  It let me get to know Charles and Emma Darwin as people.  I love how the biography focuses on their relationship as well as Darwin's theories.  The science story is well known, but I had never known how much Darwin struggled with the publication of his theories, both because of the inevitable public backlash and because of his personal religious doubts.  And I've never seen Emma's side of the story represented before.

Quotes from the Darwins' diaries and letters are weaved in seamlessly with the narration.  Charles and Emma is an engaging text. This is good nonfiction.

Review: They Called Themselves the K.K.K. by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group--Susan Campbell Bartoletti
August 2010 by Houghten Mifflin Books for Children
172 pages--Goodreads

"Boys, let us get up a club."

With those words, six restless young men raided the linens at a friend’s mansion in 1866. They pulled white sheets over their heads, hopped on horses, and cavorted through the streets of Pulaski, Tennessee. Soon, the six friends named their club the Ku Klux Klan and began patterning their initiations after fraternity rites, with passwords and mysterious handshakes. All too quickly, this club would grow into the self-proclaimed “Invisible Empire,” with secret dens spread across the South. On their brutal raids, the nightriders would claim to be ghosts of Confederate soldiers and would use psychological and physical terror against former slaves who dared to vote, own land, attend school, or worship as they pleased.

This is the story of how a secret terrorist group took root in America’s democracy. Filled with chilling and vivid personal accounts unearthed from oral histories, congressional documents, and other primary sources, this is a book to read and remember.

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This is a very interesting and compelling read.  They Called Themselves the K.K.K. does a wonderful job of contextualizing the Klan within the Reconstruction.  I appreciate that Bartoletti uses this book to really try to understand the Klansmen, their reasons, and their motivations.  Rather than just condemning the acts of the Klan, which we already know are wrong, the book explores why a person would be driven to join a hate group and do monstrous things.  This is what I like best about this book and this is exactly where Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan falls very, very flat.  I read non-fiction to understand, not to rehash oversimplified good-bad dichotomies.  

On that note, I love the quote by W.E.B. Du Bois about Klansmen: "These human beings at heart are desperately afraid of something.  Of What?  Of many things, but usually of losing their jobs, being declassed, degraded, or actually disgraced; of losing their hopes, their savings, their plans for their children; of the actual pangs of hunger, of dirt, of crime."   I think fear is a big part of what drives prejudice.

This book focuses on the early development of the Klan during Reconstruction.  I expected it to spend more time on the Jim Crow Era and the Civil Rights movement.  It's still good, and I will definitely be able to use Chapter 6 about Klan violence against sharecroppers during my Roll of Thunder unit. 

The audiobook for They Called Themselves is excellent, but somethings just don't work well in that format, specifically the timeline.  The physical book is a good balance of text, white space, insets, and  pictures, though the dialects might be difficult to understand in print.  The source material occasionally uses offensive language or images, but it is handled tastefully.  Bartoletti doesn't censor the history.

The source notes are definitely worth a look, especially the bit about Bartoletti's visit to a modern day Klan meeting.  It's creepy.  The Klan still uses the same rhetoric and fans the flames of the same fears about people who are different.  Children are still learning this close-minded life view, and not just in Klan families.  These same arguments are  prevalent in today's politics, though in a diluted form.  That's why meaningful interaction with people who are different from you is important.  

All in all, They Called Themselves the K.K.K. is a well researched, engaging, well crafted narrative and excellent non-fiction text.

Review: Bomb by Steve Sheinkin

Bomb:  The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon--Steve Sheinkin
September 2012 by Flash Point
266 pages--Goodreads

In December of 1938, a chemist in a German laboratory made a shocking discovery: When placed next to radioactive material, a Uranium atom split in two. That simple discovery launched a scientific race that spanned 3 continents. In Great Britain and the United States, Soviet spies worked their way into the scientific community; in Norway, a commando force slipped behind enemy lines to attack German heavy-water manufacturing; and deep in the desert, one brilliant group of scientists was hidden away at a remote site at Los Alamos. This is the story of the plotting, the risk-taking, the deceit, and genius that created the world's most formidable weapon. This is the story of the atomic bomb.

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This is one of those books that has won so many awards that you wonder if it can ever live up to it's reputation.  Bomb does.  Beginning with an FBI take down of a Soviet spy, this book is engrossing.  Science.  Spies (willing and reluctant).  A world war.  More spies.  It's a book that both teens and adults can enjoy. 

Sheinkin does an excellent job of interweaving primary sources with exposition.  With firsthand accounts from scientists, spies, pilots, politicians, and survivors, the entire book is interesting.  Unlike some nonfiction texts, Bomb makes history accessible.  You don't need much background in the history or science to understand and enjoy the book.  Sheinkin also gives us a sound understanding of the context of the decision to use the bomb.  He makes us understand why Truman felt justified in using the bombs on Japan, but he still acknowledging the horror of what happened.  He neither excuses nor condemns.  He just lays out what happened and lets us draw our own conclusions.  

The ending is positively chilling.  "The making of the atomic bomb is one of history's most amazing examples of teamwork and genius and poise under pressure.  But it's also the story of how humans created a weapon capable of wiping our species off the planet.  It's a story with no end in sight.  And, like it or not, you're in it."

My only question is, where were the Germans in all of this?  I know the focus of the book is America vs Soviet Union, but come on.  There's no way they weren't spying on the Americans.  Yes, it creates tension to not know how close the Germans were to completing the bomb while the Americans faced set back after set back, but still.   

Bomb is no dull history text book.  It is an interesting and engaging text worth every award it has received.   I haven't been so engaged in a nonfiction text in ages.  Both the topic and the writing style are excellent.  

Review: How They Croaked by Georgia Bragg

How They Croaked:  The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous--Georgia Bragg
Illustrated by Kevin O'Malley
Marc 2011 by Walker Childrens
184 pages--Goodreads

Over the course of history men and women have lived and died. In fact, getting sick and dying can be a big, ugly mess-especially before the modern medical care that we all enjoy today. How They Croaked relays all the gory details of how nineteen world figures gave up the ghost. For example:

It is believed that Henry VIII's remains exploded within his coffin while lying in state.
Doctors "treated" George Washington by draining almost 80 ounces of blood before he finally kicked the bucket.
Right before Beethoven wrote his last notes, doctors drilled a hole in his stomach without any pain medication.
Readers will be interested well past the final curtain, and feel lucky to live in a world with painkillers, X-rays, soap, and 911.

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This is not a good book to read right before bed.  Despite the disclaimer in the first few pages to not read it if you don't have guts for gore, I read it.  And I have a very weak stomach.  I tend to pass out during first aid training.  And after shots.  So, interesting tidbits like Elizabeth I developing puss-filled sores in her throat make me nauseous.  I even got grossed out while writing this review.  So, not really my type of book, but I can see middles schoolers loving it.  I mean, Henry VIII's corpse exploded; even I think that's cool.

It seemed like there were some biographical inaccuracies, but I don't know my history well enough to say so definitively.  It's less of a blatantly incorrect facts and more of a oversimplification/telling history from the winner's bias thing.  Bloody Mary was not all bad and Elizabeth I killed her fair share of people.  I don't know.  

My only real complaint is a few glaring omissions.  Where are Rasputin and Phineas Gage?  Seriously.  Rasputin  was poisoned, beat to a pulp, shot four times, and drowned.  And it was the drowning that killed him!  And Phineas Gage got a steel rod shot through his head and was surprisingly okay, conscious, chatting with the doctor that examined him.  He didn't die until 12 years later.  Maybe Bragg needs to write a sequel:  How They Didn't Die When by All Rights They Should Have. 

How They Croaked has a light, almost conversational tone.  Bragg doesn't overload you with facts or dense text; it's just a nice easy read.  Since each historical figure's death story stands independently, it is easy to put down and pick up the book at will.  It's a fun, though gross, read, and it makes me very happy to live in a world where doctors wash their hands and use antibiotics.

Review: Plagues, Pox, and Pestilence by Richard Plat

Plagues, Pox, and Pestilence--Richard Platt
Illustrated by John Kelly
October 2011 by Kingfisher
48 pages--Goodreads

A comprehensive history of disease and pestilence, told from the point of view of the bugs and pests that cause them. The book features case histories of specific epidemics, ‘eyewitness’ accounts from the rats, flies, ticks and creepy-crawlies who spread diseases, plus plenty of fascinating facts and figures on the biggest and worst afflictions. Illustrated throughout with brilliantly entertaining artworks and endearing characters, you’ll be entertained by a cabinet war room showing the war on germs, a rogues’ gallery highlighting the worst offenders, the very deadliest diseases examined under the microscope and much more.

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Plagues, Pox, and Pestilence is super fun and very informative.  It's surprising how much information they fit on 48 pages.  But the book never feels overloaded.  The layout is similar to Eyewitness books with one main topic per page-spread with chunks/paragraphs of supplemental information spread across the page-spread.   The book covers a few diseases in detail (plague, small pox, malaria) and glances over a few more.  I would have been interested to see more about the diseases skimmed over, such as Ebola and HIV.  I'll have to save that interest for another book.  The book also addresses how far we've come in the fight against disease as well as future threats, such as antibiotic resistant tuberculosis. 

The illustrations are a lot of fun.  It is very colorful, and the characters are quirky.  The rats and mosquitoes don't play a central role; they mostly just highlight the informational paragraphs.  

My only complaint is that the book is so thin, it can easily disappear on the bookshelf, but that's the price you pay for getting the paperback.  Aside from that, it's a great short informational text.

Review: And Still We Rise by Miles Corwin

And Still We Rise:  The Trials and Triumphs of Twelve Gifted Inner-City Students--Miles Corwin
April 2000 by William Morrow
418 pages--Goodreads

Bestselling author of The Killing Season and veteran Los Angeles Times reporter Miles Corwin spent a school year with twelve high school seniors -- South-Central kids who qualified for a gifted program because of their exceptional IQs and test scores. Sitting alongside them in classrooms where bullets were known to rip through windows, Corwin chronicled their amazing odyssey as they faced the greatest challenges of their academic lives. And Still We Rise is an unforgettable story of transcending obstacles that would dash the hopes of any but the most exceptional spirits.

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Many books and movies about education are meant to be warm fuzzy feel good stories.  And Still We Rise is not one of those stories.  Corwin doesn't sugar coat anything.  He is realistic.  Some of these students don't make it.  The teachers are not saviors.  I actually really disliked the main teacher.  Granted, she's teaching in a harsh environment, but she lets her own issues with the administration and parents bleed out into her classroom at the expense of her teaching.  The book covers the course of an entire school year, focusing on one student at a time.  Each student is distinct and their story engaging.  We get involved with their stories and it kills us when one of them doesn't make it. 

This book gave me a lot of things to think about as a teacher:  expansion of the canon, ways to teach, understanding where my students are coming from, not making assumptions based on a student's appearance, keeping my personal life personal, and continuing on even after making mistakes.

I appreciate that Corwin explores the complexity of the affirmative action.  He is in no way unbiased, but he does back up his position with a lot of evidence.  Is it fair and will it serve America as a whole if we exclude a chunk of the population from college because they didn't have the opportunity for a top-notch K-12 education, or because they had to work 40+ hours a week to make ends meet in addition to going to school so they never had time to study for the SAT when going to college could give them the chance to pull themselves and their families out of poverty?  At the same time, the kid with a better SAT score legitimately knows more, and has better skills, (I'll ignore for now the issue of how accurate SAT is at measuring college readiness).  Should we punish that kid for being dealt a better hand?  Affirmative action is a imperfect solution to a very unbalanced set of starting circumstances.  I don't have an answer, but I appreciate the exploration.

The narrative is occasionally scattered, as if Corwin couldn't remember what he had already said and so went back and repeated himself.  This may have been done to clarify, but as the same wordage is used again and again, it just feels repetitive.  There is also some strong language.  I feel like it is authentic to the inner city kids Corwin writes about, but it will bother some readers.

And Still We Rise is not a boring read, though it is at times a downer.  It presents complicated issues that don't have any clear, much less easy solutions while keeping readers engaged with the human side of those issues.

Review: Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan by Rick Bowers

Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan--Rick Bowers
January 2012 by National Geographic Children's Books
154 pages--Goodreads

This book tells a group of intertwining stories that culminate in the historic 1947 collision of the Superman Radio Show and the Ku Klux Klan. It is the story of the two Cleveland teenagers who invented Superman as a defender of the little guy and the New York wheeler-dealers who made him a major media force. It is the story Ku Klux Klan's development from a club to a huge money-making machine powered by the powers of fear and hate and of the folklorist who--along with many other activists-- took on the Klan by wielding the power of words. Above all, it tells the story of Superman himself--a modern mythical hero and an embodiment of the cultural reality of his times--from the Great Depression to the present.

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I bought this book solely because of the title.  The phrase "Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan" was so intriguing that I had to pick it up.  The book parallels the history and development of the Ku Klux Klan with the creation and development of the Superman mythos.  For the first three fourths of the book, the two stories are only juxtaposed, not interwoven directly.  It is not until the very end of the book that Superman directly confronts the KKK in a radio series.  Though this is an interesting incident, it is an isolated one; and I think it is a bit too tenuous for a good thesis.  The book is more of a dual biography than an exploration of a direct confrontation, which is what the title advertises.

Though the title was a bit misleading, is was an interesting book.  It is targeted at a younger crowd, 5th-8th grade or so.  Kids that age, especially comic book fans, would be very interested in the development of their favorite superhero.  The book  brings out a lot of intriguing facts, such as the similarities between Superman's origins and Jewish mythology (Moses in a basket/Kal-El in a rocket), and Superman as a bit of everything, making him able to appeal to everyone (he is both a country boy and a metropolitan reporter; he is alien, the ultimate foreigner, but he is quintessential American; he mild-mannered and quiet but a strong defender).  The chapters on people infiltrating and spying on the KKK were particularly interesting. The juxtaposition of the spies' secret identities works well against the backdrop of the Superman mythos.  

The book does a good job of contextualizing the KKK against the backdrop of the Reconstruction and the perceived threat of "non-traditional Americans."  It explains how the Klan emerged by pandering to the fears and desires of a few before turning militant.  However, in some parts the book over-biased against the KKK.  Let me be clear, what the Klan stands for is not okay, and I in no way agree with its premise.  But the "The KKK is bad" message was overhanded.  The book stops being merely factual and gets a bit propagandistic, to the point of oversimplifying the issue.  I read non-fiction to learn and understand, not to learn catch phrases to throw around.

The way the Superman radio show took on the KKK was very interesting.  The book gives us a synopsis of the plot of the 16-part series that juggles action and excitement with a moral message without getting too preachy.  That a mainstream media production both would and could successively combat an ideology is very cool.

I appreciate that the end of the book was not sugar-coated.  Bowers readily acknowledges that some of the people involved in the creation of Superman were just in it for the money.  Not every body lives happily ever after, some of them died selfish or bitter.  The loose ends don't tie up neatly, an accurate reflection of reality.  It was an interesting book--not a play by play of a book-long confrontation with the forces of evil, but good.

Review: Half the Sky by Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Half the Sky--Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
2008 by Knopf
294 pages--Goodreads

From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world.

With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope.

They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad. That Cambodian girl eventually escaped from her brothel and, with assistance from an aid group, built a thriving retail business that supports her family. The Ethiopian woman had her injuries repaired and in time became a surgeon. A Zimbabwean mother of five, counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate and became an expert on AIDS.

Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty.

Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential reading for every global citizen.

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I read Half the Sky after watching the documentary of the same title on PBS a month or two ago.  It was a surprisingly compelling read.  The oppression of and violence toward women and the huge problems in the world are not subjects I really want to read about, but the Kristof and WuDunn spend the majority of the book on the stories of individual women.  I wanted to know how these stories resolved, so I rarely wanted to put the book down.  Half the Sky was a good mix of stories about individuals and information about organizations you can support financially or volunteer with.  The book definitely has an agenda and a bias, but I felt like they did a good job of addressing the issues with a decent amount of objectivity.   They represented the complexity of each issue, frankly acknowledging that there is no easy fix for any of these problems, but still make you feel able to help.  The book focused on sex slavery, education, maternal health, and violence against women.

The book was very effective in its progression.  We learn about a teenaged girl who is raped with a stick and develops a fistula (a hole in her vaginal canal into her rectum or bladder).  We dwell on that horribleness for a little while.  Then we learn that those kinds of injuries are sustained all the time in childbirth because mother's don't get the proper medical attention or even help from a trained midwife.  The injustice is heightened and we want to do something to change the situation.

In any book like this, we run into the conundrum of respecting other cultures' beliefs and practices while at the same time standing up for what is right.  They did a good job of, for the most part, describing things that most people would agree are not cultural things but universal human rights violation, such as the lack of prenatal care and medical services to lessen maternal mortality.  The  spent a small amount of time on female genital cutting and mentioned head scarves (head scarves are not inherently oppressive, but a matter of modesty), which are more culturally loaded.  Though one of authors is Chinese American, both authors are American, so the book is written from a Western perspective.   I don't think that discredits or invalidates the book.  Half the Sky is still draws awareness to the issues, even if the stories are told by someone outside the problem.

My main criticism of the book is that it ignores violence discrimination against women in the United States, where we are far more likely to be able to have an impact.  I understand that they wanted to focus on the developing world, but ignoring the domestic abuse that happens in our own neighborhoods felt like a gross oversight.  

Overall, it was a very good read.  I didn't expect to like it as much as I did.  Though the subject matter is disturbing, they did a good job of presenting it tastefully.