non-fiction

Malala’s Magic Pencil – Malala Yousafzai (author), Kerascoët (illustrator)

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Malala's Magic Pencil CoverFirst Published: 17th October, 2017
Genre: Children’s Memoir / Picture Book
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

Malala has a comfortable life playing with her brothers and going to school, until the Taliban takes over her town.

This is not the story of a girl and her magic pencil. It’s the true story of Malala Yousafzai for younger readers. I do have some doubts about this title choice, as the context is not necessarily going to be clear for children picking this up. An adult will hopefully recognise the name and realise what it’s about.

The focus is on Malala wishing she has a magic pencil to change the world, then slowly coming to realise that she could do a similar thing through her writing. I did like the way this storyline tied together, as it makes it relatable for a younger audience. It does also highlight how reading and writing can be used in a practical way, which reluctant readers can sometimes find difficult to see.

The pictures are fairly realistic watercolour paintings with black ink outlines. The details help to make the settings clear. There are also swirly patterns in places, examples of which can be seen on the cover, which invoke a sense of imagination and creativity.

There are obviously violent aspects to the story, as Malala’s town was taken over by the Taliban and she was shot. This is handled in an age-appropriate way. There are some images with men carrying guns and it’s clear people are scared, but there are no scenes showing the guns in use. The attack on Malala is very glossed over. It cuts from saying they want to stop her to her looking out of a window with a hospital bracelet on. I do think this image could have been clearer about being a hospital, as the small details would be easy to miss, particularly if the reader hasn’t stayed in a hospital before. It wouldn’t have needed to show all the gory details of the attack to do that.

The text is better suited to older picture book readers. There are some longer paragraphs and pages with multiple paragraphs. There is also a lot to take in, even in this simplified form. That said, I think the framing of the story does make it understandable for the intended age range. It’s a difficult story to simplify and it mostly succeeds in that.

[A copy of this book was received from the publisher for review purposes]

Rainbow Bakes – Mima Sinclair

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Rainbow Bakes CoverFull Title: Rainbow Bakes: 40 Show-Stopping Sweet Treats
First Published: 6th October, 2016
Genre: Cookery Non-Fiction
Contributors: Mima Sinclair (writer); Danielle Wood (photographer); Sarah Leuzzi (illustrator)
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

This is a baking book full of rainbows and unicorns. The presentation is nice, with clear photographs and extra unicorn pictures adorning the pages. Recipes are split into four sections: whole cakes, small bakes, biscuits and cookies, and sweets and desserts.

Making things rainbowy means food colouring, which the book does discuss. The notes match my experiences. Liquid ones tend to flavour things when enough is used for dark colours, as well as often making mixtures too runny. The book doesn’t say it, but liquid red is a big culprit for taste, as it’s often beetroot. I used gel colourings, as these are easily available and go bright without making things taste odd.

The recipes have clear lists of things needed. Quantities are written out in full, so it says tablespoon rather than abbreviating it. This makes recipes a lot more accessible. There’s a wide range of things available, from fudge to bagels. Though the first impressions were good, the next step was to make things and see how the instructions held up.

My biggest project was the anti-gravity cake. This is a full-sized cake decorated to look as though rainbow sprinkles are pouring out of a floating jar above it, plus an optional unicorn. I chose this as a birthday cake. It isn’t noted in the recipe, but the unicorn used is from a toy range, rather than being sold as a cake topper. It makes it a good choice for children and adults like me, as it means the birthday person gets to keep the toy. I got the exact same unicorn as the book for my attempt at the cake. The only thing I switched out was the sprinkles: I used strands instead of confetti.

The instructions were clear and easy to follow. However, it suggests cutting the cake layers to make more layers. This would be fiddly to do and I couldn’t see a point in it, so I didn’t do that. The cake is already three layers deep and tall. Other than that, everything worked out. I made the dribble icing a bit too runny, so I didn’t get quite such a good effect. My blue was also different and turned teal when added to yellow buttercream. None of that was the fault of the instructions, and the differences were things someone wouldn’t notice unless they compared it to the book picture. I’d note this one does take a long time to do, as it has a lot of little bits to sort out. The final effect is good though.

Anti-Gravity Cake

Image Caption: A large colourful cake resting on a silver cake board. The cake is covered in teal buttercream. Purple and yellow icing dribbles down the edges. Pink buttercream is piped around the top edge. On the top, rainbow sprinkles fall down onto the cake from an apparently floating jar (spoiler: the falling sprinkles and jar are stuck to a stick). A white unicorn toy with rainbow mane stands near where the sprinkles fall on the cake. The background is a blue cloth with a silver dragonflies design.

An easier project was the rainbow fudge. It’s a quick fudge recipe, so it doesn’t need boiling. An oddity here is it needs melted white chocolate, but doesn’t suggest the common method of floating a plastic bowl in a saucepan of water. Though a heavy-bottomed saucepan can work for this, the bowl method is much less likely to burn, so I used the bowl. I also swapped the orange extract for vanilla, as it suits family taste preferences better.

This is a really quick recipe in some ways, but slow in others. It’s quick to melt everything down and make the basic fudge mixture. There’s not a lot to go wrong at this stage. What’s slower is the rainbow part, as the mixture needs to be separated and coloured. Then each layer needs a quick freeze before adding the next layer. It’s not difficult, but if cooking with children, this stage might be boring for them.

Cutting the fudge the next day was a bit challenging. I tried various knives, but ended up with the bread saw (a large serrated knife). It helped to freeze it for a few minutes between cuts. At this point, the fudge was very sticky, and would be difficult to transport. We ate it over several days, storing it in the fridge on plates covered in cling film. On the second day, it was firmer and much less sticky. If I was making this to take somewhere, I think I’d factor in that extra day of hardening.

The family really enjoyed the fudge. It mainly tastes of the white chocolate, so it’s worth getting good quality chocolate for it. This is one I can see making again.

Rainbow Fudge

Image Caption: Rectangles of fudge on a white plate. Each piece of fudge has rainbow stripes of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. They’re arranged in three semi-circles, as though they’re rainbows. A blue merunicorn toy also sits on the plate. The merunicorn has a boat symbol and is wearing an anchor hair ribbon, all modelled in plastic. The plate rests on a silky purple cloth with shiny spots.

My final choice was another of the sweet recipes, but one that’s more advanced. The fruit jellies are made in a similar way to jam, so it has more potential to go wrong if it isn’t boiled at the right temperature (it won’t set if it isn’t). This one also didn’t need artificial food colouring, so is a good choice for a sweet with nothing artificial. The main issue getting ready for this was the liquid pectin. For all the rest of the recipes, I got the ingredients from local supermarkets. This one had to be ordered, as I don’t have a baking shop locally.

I hit an obvious issue when I got started with this. The recipe recommends using a sugar thermometer, to make sure the boiling temperature is high enough. It’s a good idea in theory, but the average sugar thermometer is designed for people making big pots of jam. The quantities for the jellies were too small to cover the end of the thermometer. Usually, I’d simply have not bothered with the thermometer, but I figured a new cook would likely try to follow the instructions anyway. It’s a really bad idea. The thermometer can’t read the right temperature, and it can’t be attached to a small saucepan, so it’s a dangerous juggle to attempt to stir and test the temperature at the same time. The first batch did end up burning slightly due to this, though not in a way that couldn’t be salvaged (it just burnt a bit to the bottom, it didn’t flavour the whole mix). I never managed to read the required temperature on the thermometer.

For batch two and three, I went by my own experiences. That means I brought them to the boil, added the lemon juice and pectin as instructed, and then boiled rapidly for three to five minutes before testing. The recipe does explain how to test if it’s ready, by dropping some into cold water, which is all you really need. If it hasn’t hit the right temperature yet, it won’t pass the test.

The final jellies worked out fine. I made strawberry, blackberry and pineapple. The family were divided on which they liked best. I thought strawberry tasted a bit too much like solid jam, but that might be a plus for someone else. Pineapple was my favourite.

Fruit Jellies

Image Caption: Fruit jelly sweets on a tray. The sweets are roughly square and covered in granulated sugar. From left to right, they’re strawberry (dark red), pineapple (yellow) and blackberry (reddish purple). The tray is oval and silver. It’s placed on a dark blue cloth covered with a silver bees design.

This is a book where it feels like someone had tested the instructions, as generally they were clear and tried to give advice on the best way to approach things. The photographs also looked like the actual items. What I expect happened with the jellies is the tester didn’t need to use a thermometer, so hadn’t hit that issue.

Something that isn’t mentioned is the unicorns in the photographs. Some look like cake toppers, but others are toys, such as the one for the cake I made. It might not be obvious to check toy shops, rather than baking shops, for these items. I used the same toy as the book for the anti-gravity cake, which is a Schleich Bayala rainbow unicorn foal. These are easily available in Europe (available at Amazon UK). It may be harder/more expensive to get this exact one elsewhere, but there are other designs from the Schleich Bayala range in the US (available at Amazon.com). These are nicely detailed toys and the range covers a whole bunch of fantasy animals and people.

The toy in the fudge photograph is one the book doesn’t use, but also came from the toy shop. It’s a Tokidoki Mermicorno (available at Amazon.com and Amazon UK). Note for these, you get a random one in each box. This is a pretty solid toy, but I felt it was expensive for what it was and not being able to choose the colour. On the other hand, the toy stands up firmly, which is good for a cake topper. It might also be just the look you’re after.

Unicorns could obviously be swapped out for other toys, to match the interests of the person receiving the cake. The main thing is to use plastic toys without any hair strands or the like, so the toy doesn’t leave bits in the cake, and the cake can be washed off the toy.

Rainbow Unicorn Toy

Image Caption: A close view of the unicorn on the cake. They’re a plastic model with a white coat, golden horn and hooves, and rainbow mane and tail. They have a horseshoe of rainbow gems on their back end. They have a front hoof raised as though about to walk. There’s glitter on the hooves, mane and tail.

Another possible use for these recipes is pride events and the like. There are a number of cakes with striped rainbow layers, which look a lot like pride flags. The piñata cake looks like a gender reveal cake with rainbow sweets, so could work for an adult having a non-binary gender reveal party.

Some recipes are more challenging than others. This means I wouldn’t advise anyone inexperienced to pick recipes to try at random. Start with easier ones like the fudge, and move on to the bigger projects later. Most recipes do use colourings, so it could be an issue if colouring is a problem. But some are coloured with fruit, such as the jellies, and natural colourings could be used for other recipes (these are usually paler, but would still be colourful). It would also be possible to do recipes without the rainbow part.

I thought this was a strong book that did what it set out to do. It’s whimsical and makes it clear how to handle layering all the colours. There’s a good balance between basic recipes and advice on how to make things look decorative. The rainbow fudge was particularly popular with the family, and I’m sure I’ll be asked to make it again.

Hello, Cupcake! – Karen Tack, Alan Richardson

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Cupcake CoverFull Title: Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make
First Published: 24th April, 2008
Genre: Cookery Non-Fiction
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

This is a book about decorating cupcakes. The designs tend towards the whimsical, with cute critters, cakes that look like other food, and similar things. I can’t fault the layout of the book, as it’s very clear. There are decent photographs of each design and templates for shaped parts where needed. The opening explains basics like how to ice in different ways and how to turn a food bag into an icing bag. However, the proof in the pudding (or cake) is trying the instructions, which is what I’ll focus on in the rest of the review.

My first attempt was the design called “Rabbit Holes”. These are the back ends of rabbits, placed among other cupcakes that look like grass. I tweaked the design a little, as it used crunched up chocolate biscuits for the bunny fur. One of the family doesn’t like chocolate biscuits and I don’t eat crunchy textures. So I swapped that out for white chocolate curls, and made white/pink Easter bunnies instead.

An issue that came up in the preparations is this is an American book and I live in the UK. The feet of the rabbits were circus peanuts, which is something I’ve never seen here. I used fondant icing and shaped my own bunny feet as an alternative. Corn syrup, used to stick the bobbles on the bunny tail, is also not a UK product, but that’s quite often available in the import section of supermarkets. I did use corn syrup, but would have got the same result with a little basic icing (icing sugar and water). This would also avoid buying an item when such a small amount was needed.

Overall, this is a very forgiving design. The sprinkles to make the rabbit fur hide any mess in the icing below. The iced grass cakes can be messy without it looking bad, as grass doesn’t have to follow any set pattern. I found the instructions clear, and it wasn’t difficult to modify as needed.

Bunny Cupcakes

Image Caption: Rabbit and grass cupcakes. The rabbit cakes are the back end of a bunny, with white chocolate curls as fur. A bobble tail (coated in pink nonpareils) is in the centre of the bunny cakes, with two back feet made of white fondant icing and pink chocolate details sticking over the edge of each cake. Around them are grass cupcakes, with piped green buttercream, and jelly beans and chocolate eggs on the grass.

I also tried the “Pumpkin Patch” design. The base cupcakes baked flat (more on that later), so mounding the icing as described was a challenge. I wasn’t happy with the result. My usual cupcake recipe would likely rise better, making the mounding process easier, and meaning it wouldn’t require too much icing to achieve.

Another problem with the pumpkins was the writing icing I used didn’t really match the orange of the chocolate curls I used to coat the pumpkins. This was a supply issue rather than being anyone’s fault, but not being able to get the right colours matters a lot more with this design. There isn’t as much room to use different colours or tweak the design.

All that said, the family thought they were good, so it wasn’t a complete disaster. But designs like the rabbit holes are much more forgiving when it comes to having to use alternate items.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Image Caption: Pumpkin cupcakes. Orange cupcake cases contain mounded cakes covered in orange chocolate curls. Darker orange icing marks out the segments of the pumpkin. A piece of green liquorice with a pink centre is on top as a stalk.

I’d say the ease of the designs is going to depend on how easy it is to get the items used. Americans will find it a lot easier to follow the instructions. Even there, the claim that anyone can make these is an exaggeration, as it does take a bit of skill to get a cake looking reasonable. I also think some of the designs would be daunting to a beginner, as they used so many different items. Some of these could be simplified down and still look and taste fine.

Though this is mainly a decorating book, there are a few cupcake recipes. I’d note my standard recipe for cupcakes is to use equal amounts of self-raising flour, sugar and butter, with an egg or two. The recipes in this book were somewhat different. Partly due to cultural differences, as self-raising flour isn’t a thing everywhere, so it uses plain flour with raising agents added. However, some of the differences didn’t make very good cakes, in my opinion.

Vanilla cupcakes are a staple in my family, as they are one of the few that everyone likes. The recipe here uses butter and vegetable oil. The latter turned out to be an issue. It made the cake mix very runny, which was harder to handle. The cakes baked very flat, which wasn’t good for the pumpkin cakes, and meant they weren’t as fluffy. Also, the oil leached into standard paper cases, which didn’t look very good. They need thicker cases or foiled cases to work. There can be a bit of this with any cupcake baking, but it was much more pronounced using vegetable oil.

I sort of tried the lemon poppy-seed cupcakes, but I altered the recipe before using it. This is because the only lemon included is a bit of grated peel. This recipe is something I’d expect at fancy restaurants, where stuff only tastes of a hint of whatever it is, because bland is fashionable. With my whole working class upbringing thing, I like my lemon cake to actually taste of lemons, so I swapped the cream cheese for lemon curd.

I didn’t feel inspired to try the other cupcake recipes. I did try the almost-homemade vanilla buttercream, but it’s a little strange that it uses marshmallow fluff. Buttercream is very simple to make from scratch. This takes that and makes it more complicated. Which is a comment I’d have with a number of the recipes. It was interesting to try the variations, but they aren’t what I’d give a beginner, and I didn’t notice any improvement in taste or texture for the extra hassle.

When it comes to cake decorating, there’s a lot to like in this book. There are many cute designs, which can act as inspiration even if they’re not directly followed. It explains basics like how to ice things, and I particularly liked the tip of using food bags as an icing bag. I do think there’s a bit of a mismatch in places between the intended beginner audience and the complexity of the projects. Also, the recipes are something I’d skip.

This Is Your Brain on Parasites – Kathleen McAuliffe

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parasiteFull Title: This Is Your Brain on Parasites: How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society
First Published: 7th June, 2016
Genre: Science Non-Fiction
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

This is a science non-fiction book, looking at the ways parasites manipulate behaviour. A broad definition of parasite is used, which includes parasitoids. It also looks at things like behaviours that have evolved to avoid getting infected.

Many parasites are talked about in detail, including how the parasite was researched. Though not intended as the book’s main theme, that part was also of interest. It shows how science is often hampered by who can get funding or fund their own research.

The style is accessible to people with little knowledge of science. Basic concepts are explained, such as insects being able to make decisions. It’s important to realise they’re not instinct machines in order to understand that a parasite could knock out their ability to make choices.

One thing that stands out with the parasite examples is a lot are rather more subtle and cunning than the average science fiction parasite. Some do take over the bodies of their hosts completely, but often it’s not that extreme. For example, humans are sent running to water, thus allowing the parasite to release offspring into the water. All it requires is making the skin feel like it’s burning. No direct brain control is required.

The positive aspects of parasites are discussed briefly. An example was crickets being made to jump into the water, which provided a meal for a rare trout. Without the parasite, there might not have been trout. The ecology of parasites is complicated, which has implications when it comes to trying to eradicate certain parasites. It could have unexpected results.

Where the book fell down for me was discussing humans. It wasn’t about what was covered. Examples include how gut bacteria might influence someone’s weight, and parasites as an environmental factor in schizophrenia. It also touches on how inequality can alter the chances of someone being impacted by harmful parasites, such as Toxocara infections being less common in White Americans and more common in African Americans.

Though a lot of that information is interesting, the perspective it was presented from wasn’t comfortable. It’s written from a privileged perspective that assumes the reader will be too, so mental illness is a tragedy and fatness is a disease. When saying people shown images of sick people become more prejudiced against those who are different to them, like disabled people and immigrants, it’s making a statement about who is the default person and who is different.

This is a wider issue when it comes to science, as it can mean studies miss the obvious and programmes based on the research fail to understand the communities they’re supposed to help. A research example was the scientist who tried to use the smell of durian to make his research participants feel disgust. But he’d not taken into account that many were Asian and were used to it. This is such an obvious thing that it really shouldn’t have needed to hit the lab before someone figured it out. Yet it’s portrayed as the surprise that no one could have predicted. Shock horror: you won’t feel disgusted by foods you’ve grown up eating and enjoying.

I liked this book when it was about wasps making cockroaches indecisive. It contains a lot of examples, and would be a valuable starting point for science fiction writers wanting to expand their basic knowledge. It also has a bibliography to aid with continued research. But once it starts talking about people, it hits the common non-fiction territory of wading through a series of microaggressions (and some not so micro ones) to get to the information. I could have done without that part.

[A copy of this book was received from the publisher for review purposes]

Conversation in Strange Horizons

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Bogi Takács and I have a non-fiction piece in Strange Horizons. It’s called Gender, Sex, and Sexuality in SF: A Conversation. We talk about various stuff, from things we think are handled badly to recommendations. This also marks my first non-fiction sale.

While we were talking, I did have a tangent that I didn’t include. It’s something I think would interest my fiction readers more than people who don’t know who I am. Namely about the issue of times when it’s hard to show in a short story that humans do something too / it’s not an alien-only thing. I had a story where it was an issue: “The Dragonfly People” in Rainbow Lights. The viewpoint character is a giant scorpion-like alien, who comes from a strict trinary gender system. She assumes, based on what she sees, that humans have a strict binary gender system. Without concepts like being trans existing in her own culture, or a fluent shared language to discuss the issues, she remains thinking her initial assumption is correct.

It was something I considered at the time I wrote it, though I felt overall it’d be clear it wasn’t my view from my body of work, and there was a sequel in progress about the alien/human relations in the next generation that tackled those issues.

But the thing that struck me, and where this tangent is going, is those sorts of stories are rarely the ones where people are saying they couldn’t see how to mention it. They tend to be stories with human viewpoint characters, very human-like aliens, and/or characters who speak each other’s languages fluently. Which is why I often feel like replying to those statements with, “Is your viewpoint character a giant scorpion who thinks humans are weird squishy things that make funny sounds? No? Then someone can tell them trans people exist, okay.”

Now, I’m off to eat solstice chocolates. I hope you enjoy the conversation!