Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

When I was flying home from Africa back in March, I read an article in the in-flight magazine (hey, when the flight is upwards of 17 hours, you'll eventually look at everything!) about books by Africa writers. I'm a little bemused that it seems like most of them are African writers who live in England and write in English, but it's a start. My library had this one, so I decided to take a look. Or a listen.  Title: Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? Author : Lizzie Damilola Blackburn Publication Info: Penguin Audio 2022, 11 1/4 hours. Original hardback, Pamela Dorman Books 2022, 384 pages Source: Library Publisher's Blurb: Meet Yinka: a thirty-something, Oxford-educated, British Nigerian woman with a well-paid job, good friends, and a mother whose constant refrain is “Yinka, where is your huzband ?”    Yinka’s Nigerian aunties frequently pray for her delivery from singledom, her work friends think she’s too traditional (she’s saving herself for marriage!), her girlfrie...

I'll not deny I have some qualms about publicizing this amazing and somewhat over-visited area. I won't be including any precise location information for ruins or pictographs, though that info is out there. This hike was the purpose behind the road trip featured last weekend. After picking up Gretchen at SLC and doing our hike at Little Wild Horse Canyon, we met the other 3 members of the party in the Valley of the Gods, in Bears Ears National Monument. Today we'll focus on the hiking trip, and next week I'll provide a smorgasbord of ruins and rock art. Pre-hike dispersed camping. Not an actual campfire, but a safe gas fire for us to sit around.   Because we had to pick up our parking permits and get water info at the ranger station, then leave most of the cars and pile into one for the drive to our start point, we hit the trail at a blazing 10 a.m.  Fortunately, the weather was still relatively cool following a very cold front (didn't hurt that the TH was about 520...

This one comes out of the "random audiobooks on historical/science/nature topics" file.     Title: Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner,and an Gentleman Solve the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail Author: Stephen R. Bown Publisher : Phoenix Books, Inc., 2007, 8 hours. Original hardback published 2003 by Viking, 256 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Blurb (from Overdrive) : A lively recounting of how three determined individuals overcame the constraints of 18th century thinking to solve the greatest medical mystery of their era. The cure for scurvy ranks among the greatest of military successes, yet its impact on history has mostly been ignored. Stephen Bown, in this engaging and often gripping book, searches back to the earliest recorded appearance of scurvy in the 16th century, to the 18th century, when the disease was at its gum-shred, bone-snapping worst, to the early 19th century, when the preventative was finally put into service. Bown introduces us,...

Another book I picked up from the fantastic Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays blog hop  hosted by Greg Pattrige of Always in the Middle . Check out his blog for a list of additional middle grade reviews.     Title : Chasing Helicity Author: Ginger Zee Publication Info: Disney Hyperion, 2018. 204 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Blurb (Goodreads): Helicity is well aware that her name is unusual - kind of like Helicity herself. The word Helicity means to spin, and for as long as she can remember, Helicity has been fascinated by the weather. The weather is Helicity's escape from her own reality - may that be school, her father's strict discipline, or her brother's imminent departure for college where he's all set to play football. One fateful day, Helicity and her horse head out on a long ride to take a break from life at home. Even with her vast experience with weather, Helicity is unprepared for the elements she faces. The choices Helicity makes before,...

I was going to share photos today from my April backpack in Grand Gulch, but I realized there were too many fun shots from the roadtrip parts of the journey, so I'm starting there. On April 15 I left Seattle, headed to southern Utah via Salt Lake City airport, where I picked up my friend Gretchen. We had a half day extra before meeting other friends to backpack, so we visited Little Wild Horse Canyon, a beautiful slot canyon where I was very careful not to hurt myself.* *See report from last year on my spring trip to Utah . On the Road I do love me a good road trip. Leaving Seattle in the dregs of winter and heading into the Canyon Country is a special bonus. Made it over the Cascades with only a few snow flurries, and could enjoy a look back at snow-covered mountains and interesting lenticular clouds. Rest stops can be interesting. I was intrigued by the truck they had to invent in order to transport windmill vanes to the wind farms. I camped the first night in a state park in Ore...