The Forbidden Orchid by Sharon Biggs Waller

The Forbidden Orchid by Sharon Biggs Waller (A Mad Wicked Folly) is a romantic adventure story set in the late 1800’s.  Action takes place in England, on board ship, and in rural China for Elodie Buchanan, a young girl trying to save her family’s fortunes. 

The first half of the book explains how Elodie’s father is a botanist who was captured and tortured in China.  Returning to England and the then relatively new gardens at Kew, he is troubled in both mind and body and remains estranged from Elodie’s mother and many younger sisters (all named for flowers).  Ultimately, the family home is threatened with repossession and he must return to hunting plants in China, with Elodie deciding secretly to accompany him.  To me, this is where the story truly begins with some shipboard passages reminiscent of Avi’s The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. Next, Elodie’s eyes are opened further as their group travels by smaller boat and then by horseback through China in search of a rare orchid. 

Despite the constraints of Victorian England, Elodie is a strong, if naive at times, heroine who grows in understanding and independence through her many adventures. The Forbidden Orchid is longish (almost 400 pages), but readers who persevere will be rewarded with a satisfying ending and can then look forward to a possible sequel with more adventures in China. The Forbidden Orchid received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. Sharon Biggs Waller completed formidable research and includes an extensive bibliography and author’s notes.

Herding Hemingway’s Cats by Kat Arney

I have been talking about Herding Hemingway’s Cats by Kat Arney quite a bit lately.  In particular, I spoke with several students, especially girls, who want to pursue science careers or write about science subjects and a part of our talks has turned to how to share science knowledge more broadly.  Kat Arney does just that in Herding Hemingway’s Cats where she helps her readers, as the subtitle states, with “understanding how our genes work.”

Arney, a science journalist with a PhD from Cambridge University, is a potential role model as well as an engaging writer. She blithely describes our genome, junk DNA and “throwing the switch” (turning genes on/off at the right time), plus plenty of history and other topics associated with recent scientific research based on her interviews with scientists in the field. Arney often turns to metaphors in an attempt to explain a more complicated idea so of course, I especially enjoyed her use of a library of cookbooks, complete with instructions for components (e.g., how to make frosting) and the way that copying and using recipes in a messy kitchen often results in changes along the way.  Herding Hemingway’s Cats received a starred review from Kirkus and will have a well-deserved place on the shelf next to the forthcoming (May 2016) The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies.