Duchess HarrisCritiques

A simple and thoughtful introduction to the topic of news and investigative journalism. Clear in it's presentation and focus.

Literary Merit: Excellent
Characterization: N/A
Recommended: Yes
Level: Middle Grade and High School

A fair examination of mass shootings coupled with an exploration of possible causes and solutions, "Mass Shootings in America" is an astute overview of its title topic. Dr. Duchess Harris examines mass shootings from a historical perspective, a cultural perspective, a political perspective, and even covers what mass shooting looks like around the world. While this work could be categorized as an overview for a student project as it covers much in the span of only 104 pages, it also provides a jumping point for young readers and researchers to explore each chapter further with its plethora of sources in the back of the book.

This is highly recommended for all nonfiction collections that serve tweens and teens. The book is well researched and carefully handles this heavy subject matter with ease. It is well worth the sticker price.

Literary Merit: Excellent
Characterization: Very Good
Recommended: Recommended
Level: Middle School and up

How Journalists Work is a nonfiction book about news literacy and the path to becoming a journalist and what the job entails. It was a really interesting read and provided a lot of information on the schooling it takes to become a journalist, the various majors that can be completed to help get a job in journalism, and the key aspects of performing the job to best ability.

One of the most interesting and relevant aspects of the book is the topic of social media and how it plays a role in our news coverage. Social media makes getting breaking news instantaneous, rather than waiting for something to be printed in a newspaper or discussed on the broadcast evening news, but it also adds more pressure to journalists to fact check and make sure what they are presenting is accurate.

I’m not quite sure how to rate this book because it’s nonfiction and factual, but I had to read it for my review group at work, and overall, it was very interesting and an important read for this day and age especially, as it allows people to really understand the ways journalists work in getting factual news out to the general public.

Reading Level: Upper Elementary and lower middle grades

This book is for upper elementary or middle grades
• This book would be a great resource for teachers to use in the classroom. Each of the four chapters has some sort of discussion or writing prompt with additional sources.
• There is also a Stop and Think section at the end of the book with additional discussion questions and writing prompts.
• The book includes numerous full color photos along with diagrams and maps to support the text.
• There is a table of contents, a Fast Facts section, Important dates, a glossary and additional resources including online resources.
• The book addresses some historic protests along with recent protests
• The book seems to be neutral and discusses protests against Donald Trump and his policies along with protesters of Obama and his administration.
I would recommend this book for students doing school projects and research on political protests and social change.½

Duchess Harris’ book, Growing Up a Girl, is part of a series of books that discuss related topics. While this book may have similar aspects to the other books in the series, Growing Up a Girl definitely stands on its own. There are no other books in the series that must be read before or after to fully understand the material presented in this book. Harris is certainly qualified to receive accreditation for her book, given that she holds both a PhD and a JD (Juris Doctorate), and has also written and co-written other works regarding both women and race issues.

Growing Up a Girl is written from an impartial and unbiased standpoint. The material is continuously presented in a matter-of-fact tone with factual and even numeric presentation being its basic foundation. One thing that bothered me, though, was the use of photographs dispersed throughout. While the colorful pictures did add a sense of balance and contrast to the plain, black typeface used for the text, the factual nature of the text did not balance well with many of the girls and activities portrayed in the photographs.

The basic concepts of gender biases, body image and self-esteem, gender-based violence, and friends and enemies are the main discussion points within the content of the book, which are all important issues for young girls growing up in this day and age to be familiar with. While the material is not told from a first-person point of view, it still has an approachable tone that would help young girls reading it to not only comprehend, but also relate to. The scope of the material does seem to span the spectrum, but the focus always remains on the basic issues that are involved with being a young girl at this time in history.

Even though the style of the book is intended to be informative and factual, it does carry an easy-to-read tone to appeal to adolescent female readers. There are examples that, although fabricated, help to provide a visual and realistic depiction of the specific content being presented. Harris clearly states that these examples are “hypothetical,” but by including them in this work of nonfiction, readers can better understand the material being presented and get a good frame of reference to help ensure comprehension. These examples throughout are also presented in ways that are easy for a young reader to understand, without dumbing down the material too much, or, conversely, describing examples that may lead to confusion or miscomprehension.

As I previously mentioned, my biggest concern with the book were the choices of photographs placed throughout. While some photos are meant to draw attention to the absurdity of some things, like females being linked to the color pink and teenage girls gossiping about another girl standing mere feet away, others that I believe are intended to be taken seriously did not fully hit the mark for me. There are photos of girls of different sizes, shapes, and skin colors, but they all seem to be wearing perfectly applied make-up. Then there are girls in exercise clothes, which are predominantly pink, who also seem to have an unrealistic amount of make-up on and perfect manicures while they are supposedly jogging. Some of the photos managed to single-handedly wear away my belief in the credibility of the overall book. The font choice, colors, sizes, and placement of the text throughout worked well, but the photos really pulled my attention away from the material at hand.½