Dream Within A Dream

I decided to re-read Blackout and All Clear not long ago. I read them back in 2010, and while I don't usually re-read books, I did these because I always felt that I had read them too quickly. And the fact is I loved them as much the second time around as I did the first. Then I re-read my review and decided, 9 years after I wrote it, to repost it. This is what I wrote on November 17, 2010: "I have just finished reading  Blackout  and  All Clear  and find myself wishing that Connie Willis could have kept going. After reading these two books totaling 1,168 pages, I find I have become quite attached to the characters and had a hard time saying goodbye when I came to the end. They are just that good! The books are based on a simple enough premise. In 2060 Oxford, history is studied by traveling back in time to observe, collect data and interpret events firsthand under the tutelage of Mr. Dunworthy, the history professor in charge of time travel. The story centers...

It's Monday, May 3rd, and Hugo Ballard, 11, is about to embark on an exciting journey flying from Germany to New Jersey on the Hindenburg , one of two zeppelins crossing the Atlantic Ocean in 1937. Hugo had already had one big adventure, living in Kenya with his mom, dad, and younger sister Gertie for a year. But now Gertie is sick with malaria and needs to get home to NYC for the right medicine as quickly as possible and the zeppelin could get the family there in only three days. The Hindenburg  is big, almost as big as the Titanic, but it's a highly flammable gas, hydrogen, that gets the zeppelin off the ground and flying. And that's a pretty scary thought for Hugo and Gertie, but almost immediately, Hugo makes a new friend, Martha Singer, or Marty as she prefers. Marty is a zeppelin pro, this is her eight Atlantic crossing in one, thanks to her dad who works for the company. "It's magical" she tells Hugo, and indeed, it seems to be so. Even Gertie is lookin...

2018 was the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I and to commemorate it, a fair number of books for young readers were published. Stubby is one of those books and his story begins in a training camp far away from the war. For some soldiers, basic training can be a cold lonely process of endless drills and exercises. But in one particular camp, each time the bugle calls soldier's to a meal, stray dogs from all over always seem to show up, too. One of them takes a real liking to one particular soldier [Robert Conroy] and before you know it, man and dog have bonded. The soldier names the dog Stubby. Stubby is pretty smart, and learns to sit and to salute quickly and, of course, everyone seems to love him, But when orders come that the soldiers are shipping out, sailing across the Atlantic to a land at war [France]. Stubby is supposed to stay home, but at the last minute, he gets smuggled on to the troop ship. In the trenches, Stubby's excellent sense of smell...

D-Day June 6, 1944 "You are about to embark upon the  great crusade toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you... I have full confidence in your courage,  devotion to duty and skill in battle."                                                         General Dwight D. Eisenhower   Tuesday, June 6, 1944 My dearest Kitty, "This is D Day," the BBC announced at twelve. "This is the day." The invasion has begun!                               Anne Frank Today is the 75th anniversary and the world is honoring the heroes of that day in a big way - as we should. The D-Day landings on the Normandy coast by American, British, and Canadians soldiers and all the equipment they brought with them sometimes seems like an overwhelming miss...

Jack Ashville, an 11-year-old living in England, had always wanted a dog, and finally his parents had said yes. Now, except for school, he and Finn are inseparable, and Jack has worked very hard taking care of Finn and having fun with him. But Jack also loves to play video games with his dad, a soldier in the Army Reserves. Their newest video game is based on the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944, and while his dad wants to teach Jack something about D-Day before playing, Jack just wants to get to the video game. Then, Jack learns that his father might be deployed to a war zone, and he couldn't be more excited. At school, Jack's class is beginning to learn about the D-Day invasion of the Allies in World War II in preparation for a class trip to the beaches of Normandy, France. One of their assignments is to pick a soldier who died on D-Day and is buried in Ranville Cemetery there and learn all about them. Then, when they arrive at Ranville, each student can plant a small cross wit...