Samantha SeipleReseñas

Digital audiobook read by David de Vries

Subtitle: Theodore Roosevelt's Amazon Adventure

This is a children’s middle-grade book detailing the expedition to chart a previously uncharted tributary of the Amazon. To say that this journey was treacherous is an understatement. Canoes broke up over waterfalls, native tribes attacked the intruders, their food ran short (huntable game was NOT plentiful), some members of the expedition were untrustworthy, injuries and infection could prove fatal. They had to cut their own path through dense jungle in order to create a portage area around waterfalls they hadn’t anticipated. At one point they had to fell trees to build new canoes!

Then there were the dangerous animals: jaguar, venomous snakes, piranhas and the Anopheles mosquito which carried malaria. Oh, and their fellow adventurers posed a risk as well. One man frequently “stole” extra rations for himself, leaving the others with a quickly diminishing supply. Another’s dire health crisis resulted in his rations being cut off, “since he was going to die anyway.”

The book includes numerous photographs from the journey and other times in Roosevelt’s life. At the end of the story Seiple includes “Teddy’s Travel Tips” with notes on when to go, what to pack and what food and supplies one would need for such a journey. Additionally. she provides a timeline of career highlights in Roosevelt’s life.

It's a great introduction for the younger set on Theadore Roosevelt and this particular historic adventure. Now I need to read Candice Millard’s book on the same episode.

David de Vries does a fine job of narrating the audiobook. He has clear diction and a good pace for this nonfiction adventure story. However, listeners are encouraged to have a copy of the text handy to see the many photos, maps and lists.

In this book Seiple relates the highlights of Louisa May Alcott’s life before, during, and after Alcott’s short stint as an army nurse during the Civil War. With the extensive use of passages from the letters and journals of Alcott, her family members, friends, and contemporaries, Seiple weaves a compelling narrative that captures and keeps the reader’s interest. Especially vivid are the chapters relating Alcott’s work as a nurse in an army hospital. This is a worthwhile read for those interested in Alcott, the Civil War, and life in the nineteenth century.

Louisa on the Front Lines by Samantha Seiple recounts the little-known story of Louisa's experience as a nurse and how it affected her life and her writing.

At a time when women were considered to be weak physically and intellectually, Louisa May Alcott challenged every stereotype of her sex, from running through the streets for health to supporting a woman's right to vote

Her father Bronson Alcott's extreme idealism made him unsuitable as a father of a large family. His wife Abby worked any job she could find to support them. Lu took the burden of breadwinner on herself, working in various jobs "suitable" for a gentlewoman and by writing sensational stories. She was expected to marry and thereby help her struggling family but preferred independence. "I'd rather be a free spinster and paddle my own canoe," she wrote.

When the Civil War broke out, Lu watched the young men march off and felt frustrated with merely sewing "for the boys" and making lint for the hospitals. The establishment of the Sanitary Commission and appointment of Dorothea Dix as superintendent of female nurses led to a call for the first women nurses. A nurse had to be single, over thirty, and "plain." Lu applied and, with her family's blessing, traveled to Washington, D.C. to work in a hospital.

It is all very well to talk of the patience of woman; and far be it from me to pluck that feather from her cap, for, heaven knows, she isn't allowed to wear many; but the patient endurance of these men, under trials of the flesh, was truly wonderful. Their fortitude seemed contagious, and scarcely a cry escaped them, though I often longed to groan for them, when pride kept their white lips shut, while great drops stood upon their foreheads, and the bed shook with the irrepressible tremor of their tortured bodies. from Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott

Louisa wrote Hospital Sketches about her experiences, the first to document life for nurses during the war. It was a sensation during her lifetime. Somehow, we have forgotten this part of her life.

In vivid detail, Seiple recounts the hard work and long hours in a subpar facility, the suffering of the boys, the awful food, the ineffectual medical treatments, the high death rate, and how workers stole from the supplies and the wounded. Lu realized the importance of her role as surrogate mother, sister, and wife for the suffering and dying men.

....at the Hurly burly Hotel, disorder, discomfort, bad management, and no visible head, reduced things to a condition which I despair of describing. from Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott

The experience changed Lu's life. She had seen the world, became close to the dying boys, and had contracted typhus and became mortally ill. Bronson brought Lu back home and she survived, although her health never fully returned.

Having lived fully, profoundly affected by the men she nursed, Lu went on "to create characters and stories that would transcend the page and full her readers' hearts." Including her most famous novel, Little Women.

I very much enjoyed Louisa on the Front Lines. Although it focuses on the few months Lu spent as a nurse, there is enough background information on her family and life to provide a fuller context. The battlefield is brought to life as a background to the men Lu nursed. It is a moving story.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

I picked up this title as an audio book through my library because the title intrigued me and I have an interest in history in general, and Civil War history. When I checked it out I did not know that this was a title written for a younger audience. While the target audience meant that Samantha couldn't go into the greater depth and detail that an "adult" book would have offered, I was very happy with the information provided.

Lincoln's Spymaster focuses on Allan Pinkerton, the man behind the most famous detective agency ever in the United States: Pinkerton's Detective Agency. Samantha does a good job of showing us who Allan Pinkerton was, from his assistance during the Civil War in not only keeping Lincoln safe (Pinkerton and his operatives were instrumental in foiling an assassination attempt before Lincoln was inaugurated) to sending out spies for the Union during the war. We also learn about how Pinkerton got started as a detective - he was originally a barrel maker - as well as some of his more famous exploits after the war catching train robbers and murderers. The writing is simple and Samantha sets a good pace. My 12-year-old son really loved the book as we listened in the car, and he's much more interested in fiction than non-fiction, so kudos for writing that captures the imagination and interest of a pre-teen boy.

My quibbles stem more from my perceptions. While knowing that this is a book written to a younger audience I would have liked to have known more about the people in Pinkerton's life. Samantha mentions that Pinkerton was the first (and only) man to hire women as detectives, finding them a valuable asset in his ability to fight crime, but we are not shown any of the exploits of these women in great detail. We also learn very little about Pinkerton's family life or relationship with his wife. Finally, the title of the book suggests more focus on the Civil War period, however Pinkerton's work as Lincoln's Spymaster is covered in just a few chapters. All of these bring my rating down a bit, but I am balancing my own expectations with my understanding that I am not the target audience for the book.

Certainly, if you have children who are interested in history, or even if they aren't and you want to get them interested, Lincoln's Spymaster is a great hook to do that. My son is a voracious reader, but mostly of fiction, so knowing that this book peaked his interest shows that Samantha's book does hit its mark with the target audience. And even though I wanted more, I learned a lot that I didn't know about America's First Private Eye.

This was a great book for young adults that explain how private eyes started in America. It goes into the history of why President Lincoln needed Allan Pinkerton's help for various things during the Civil War and follows with some of the issues the agency had in the years that followed. I actually learned quite a bit from reading this and highly recommend it.

An exploration of the life and work of Allan Pinkerton. The beginning of the book focuses on Pinkerton's move into detective work, a second part explores his spy work during the Civil War, and finally the work of the Pinkerton Agency chasing down early gangs and evolution into a security service company.
I started with the audiobook, it didn't hook me. I had a more engaged experience reading the text and like the original images.½

The story of the private eye is common in fiction, but this is the biography of America's first private eye: Allan Pinkerton, who left Scotland as a wanted man and started a new life as a cooper in Illinois. He stumbled into his first case. His reputation grew, and eventually he actually foiled an assassination attempt against President Lincoln. His agency eventually evolved into the US Secret Service. He eventually parted ways with Lincoln and returned to a private detective agency, but not until he'd changed the whole course of US history.

This biography tells the story of Richard Evelyn Byrd and his dog, Igloo. Byrd was an arctic explorer and adventurer. The book begins by explaining how Igloo became Byrd's pet, and then it describes their journey to Spitsbergen, Norway where they had to unload the body of Josephine Ford (their plane) on makeshift rafts as there was nowhere to port. They had to build the plane, construct a runway, and solve problems caused to the skis by a failed takeoff attempt. Despite it all, Byrd was the first person to fly over the North Pole. Later, Byrd also crossed the Atlantic and flew over the South Pole. On his South Pole, expedition, Igloo accompanied him to the "site" in Antarctica, but not on the plane trip.

I couldn't put this down. Well, I mean I could - I had to because I was reading it during my lunch minutes, but I zipped through it as fast as possible and can't wait to recommend it to absolutely everyone.

Starting with his humble origins as a cooper, Seiple tells the story of Pinkerton's rise to fame as America's first private detective, including his work as the head of a network of spies during the Civil War and his last battle with the James outlaws.

The book opens with a helpful list of characters, including the Pinkerton agency and their rogues' gallery. An epilogue explains the changes in the Pinkerton agency after Pinkerton's death and how it became a well-known security agency after ups and downs over the years. Source notes and an index are also included, as are black and white photographs throughout the book.

This was absolutely riveting. Seiple doesn't exaggerate or dramatize Pinkerton's life, but she writes a fast-paced narrative that grabs the reader from beginning to end, encapsulating the different major cases of Pinkerton's life and adding insights into his character, operatives, and the historical context. There is a certain amount of death and violence but it's presented truthfully without gratuitous graphic details. Seiple includes Pinkerton's female operatives, another first, and gives generous page-time to these overlooked historical figures. Readers will breathlessly follow Pinkerton's exploits as he protects Lincoln from potential assassination, his operatives track down spies and information during the Civil War, sometimes with tragic results, and Pinkerton's sons attempt to track down the James band of outlaws.

I have to wonder if other reviewers actually read the book. Usually, I skim other reviews to see what others thought and while I could see disagreement in Seiple's prose (some reviewers find her bland while my patrons and I love her matter-of-fact and brisk delivery) some things mentioned in the reviews are just....wrong. One says there is no index. Uh, yeah, there is, it's five pages long! Another says it's classified as a fiction novel. Um....where is it classified as that? It's definitely nonfiction, with plenty of original sources and notes. This annoyed me.

Verdict: I can definitely sell this to kids on its own; read about the first private detective in America, his network of spies, and how they saved Lincoln's life! Even better, it's a great tie-in to Kate Hannigan's novel, The Detective's Assistant, which focuses on Pinkerton's first female operative. I have lots of fans of Hannigan's zippy prose, breathtaking adventure, and extras and they will be thrilled to read the real story behind the story. I Survived fans ready to move on to more challenging titles would be a good audience for this as well. Highly recommended.

ISBN: 9780545708975; Published 2015 by Scholastic; Purchased for the library

Too complicated in structure for the intended young adult audience but still an interesting and well researched book about Japan's attempt to claim by force of arms the Aleutian Islands from Alaska during the early part of WWII. I learned about New Mexican Joseph Martinez who became the first Hispanic American (government classification) to win the Medal of Honor, posthumously. The 10th Mountain Division first saw action here. Many details are given about the horribly run Alaskan Indian Service which seemed as badly run as the continental version. Seiple does not delve into historically revising the atomic bomb attacks on Japan but strangely she does argue that Japanese government hadn't signed the Geneva Convention and therefore was not blameworthy in their slave labor practices of POWs or execution of anyone not Japanese. The fact that the Japanese government didn't adopt the Conventions doesn't negate that Japan was present at their signing. That is a ideological ploy used by revisionists to assuage guilty consciences after the fact. No legitimate government would ever publicly deny that the Conventions apply to all nations whether the country's representatives were present or not, constitutionally ratified or not. There is good and bad in this book, but mostly good.

Very interesting story of a little known event that occurred in American history.

Written for tweens and teens, this book gives basic details on the invasion and occupation of the Aleuts by the Japanese from June 1942 to October 1943. The battles fought there to reclaim the islands have been kept secret until just recently. This is why it is referred to as the "Forgotten War."

In addition to the description of the battles and occupation, there is also the story about how the Aleuts were evacuated from the islands and kept in miserable conditions for their safety. When they were allowed to return they found their homes destroyed and all their belongings ransacked - by the American forces.

Some information about the experiences captured white and Aleut prisoners had in Japan showed that the Aleuts were actually treated better than the whites, in contrast to their treatment in Alaska.

Pictures from both American and Japanese photographers accompany and enhance the text. It would be a quick read for an adult and an interesting one for a tween or teen.½

A fascinating, well-researched account of a little-known part of the Pacific theater in World War II.

It turns out Pearl Harbor wasn’t alone. That infamous strike is often treated as the lone instance of an attack on American soil during World War II. However, its partner in United States map sequester, Alaska, had its own role to play on the pacific front. Scratching your head to fill in the historical blanks? Samantha Seipel’s Ghosts in the Fog: The Untold Story of Alaska’s WWII Invasion delves deeply into the personal experiences of some of the principal characters in said invasion and details what, for most, is a forgotten battle.

The cover of Ghosts immediately catches the eye. A Japanese Zero fighter plane is pictured soaring into the red and white rising sun of Japan’s flag. Under the black and white stamped title are pictures of soldiers in various areas of Alaskan terrain. The same set-up is mirrored on the binding of the book. The style chosen definitely catches the eye and could easily stand out on a bookshelf to potential readers. In fact, the rising sun motif was what drew me to pick the book up.

The table of contents is broken down simply onto one page. It details the preface, ten chapters, afterword, acknowledgements, source notes, image credits, and index. The preface serves as a brief, one-page bridge into the meat of the story, while the afterword details the effects the Alaskan invasion had down the line. The source notes here would be particularly helpful in conducting further research on a topic likely to be slightly slimmed down for the intended audience.

Throughout the book, Seipel includes numerous photographs and maps which add greatly to the overall reading experience for those that may be unfamiliar with the setting of the battle front. All pictures and maps are in black and white, but the image quality is quite high given the era and circumstance. When shown, maps are presented with both key and scale, which is especially helpful when discussion of Aleutian island locations occurs.

The clarity with which the information is presented in Ghosts is one of the books strongest aspects. Though the narrative jumps around from character to character, the story never gets confused and the intended path remains clear. The language used is fitting for the intended adolescent audience, yet took nothing away from the book for myself. Some sections that may have been more colorfully worded with an older audience in mind did stick out, but, on the whole, the descriptions of events and terrain were striking enough as is. Very little page space is wasted with ancillary wording and the technical military jargon used is always in clear context.

If I was forced to raise one issue with the novel, there does seem to be a lack of emotion behind the writing. However, in the field of history perhaps that is for the best. I might even go so far as to suggest, given that each chapter uses anecdotes and first person accounts to drive the story, it is not even necessary to adopt anything but a neutral tone in this particular instance. The characters Seipel elected to focus on provide a great overview of many different aspects of the Alaskan invasion. From the Japanese to the native Aleutians to the Americans, no point of view is ignored. Moving through the book, the chapter titles serve to pique the interest of the reader with designations such as, “The Secret in the Dungeon”, “Invasion of the Ghost Warriors”, and “Dead Man Walking”. The end of each chapter also provides the reader a little extra push to keep going by often foreshadowing the next big event to come.

Overall, I found Ghosts in the Fog to be a compelling, adolescent-geared take on a little known portion of the war in the pacific. Seiple guides the tale with a deft hand throughout, taking care to never make a moment bigger than it actually was, but still communicating well why the reader should care about these events and people. Given my personal interest in Alaska, the book was an easy selection, but I would happily recommend it to others based on its own merits.

"Ghosts in the Fog" is a brief history of the Aleutian Island campaign during World War II. I would categorize this as a specialized book, as it discuss an extremely small part of World War II- a part of the Pacific War, namely, the Aleutian Campaign, without any real reference to other parts of the War.

Author Samantha Seipel has worked previously as a librarian, and currently works as a freelance journalist. She does have a Master's degree in Library Sciences, but neither her author information in the book, nor the biography section on her website give much information about her previous writing experience. As she does have the Master's degree in Library Science, I would feel comfortable in assuming that she knows how to research and that she was able to find a number of good sources, but I think I would be more inclined to give weight to her book if she had written more books, especially about history. Also, the copy of the book that was able to me was an advanced copy, and it does not include a bibliography of any sort, nor does she mention sources by name in the text of the book. Although I understand that this not the finalized copy, I feel that I can not be the only reader who would have wanted to see the even an unfinished bibliography. Because of this lack of bibliographical information, it is somewhat difficult for me to assess accuracy, although she does seem well-informed, and she does not give the reader any of her own opinions on the sometimes delicate subjects broached in the book. Seipel also steers clear of any sort of sensationalism or stereotyping, as I would expect from a modern day book about the war; that is, some books written closer to the time of the war still have some lingering prejudices from the time, but Seipel is able to share her story without any of this.

As a whole, I found the book to have a good scope. I think that it covers an important topic- the Aleutian Islands Campaign tends to be forgotten by most, even in many history classes, so I think Seipel brings a needed magnifying glass to what is known as "the Forgotten Battle." So much research is done on the more recognized areas of WWII that I find it refreshing to have something written on this aspect, but I find that even as a young adult's book, "Ghosts in the Fog" could have been longer and gone deeper into the story; the book covers a three and half year period of time in only 173 short pages of text. I admit that I am used to more academic history texts, so maybe I am unrealistic in my expectations, but there has to be a great deal more to the story than Seipel is giving.
I also wonder if perhaps some of the information Seipel read was too graphic and/or morbid for a younger reader's book. She mentions how bloody and awful the Campaign was, so that possibly could have directed some of the editing decisions.

Overall, I was pleased with the book's narrative. I found it easy to read, but not simplistic or condescending. Any of the unfamiliar terms used are explained in the text-most of these are Native Aleut terms that the service men picked up and used themselves. The language used would probably be most appropriately categorized as a middle school level, but I think that older students would also be able to enjoy the book. “Ghosts in the Fog” is mainly written as a chronological account of the Aleutians Campaign, although Seipel does change the structure in the last few chapters to follow different threads of the story narrative more clearly. That is, the first eight chapters start with a chronological narrative through to the end of the Campaign, while the last two chapters go back to earlier times in different areas of the story, to tell what happened to those taken prisoner or evacuated earlier in the book. I think this approach works well, as it would be somewhat odd to jump from topic to topic within a chapter in an effort to just stay in chronological order. The chapters themselves have intriguing titles which do not give any information away to the reader, but work rather to draw the reader’s interest by using exciting words like “dungeon,” “ghosts,” and “attack.” On the first page of every chapter, the reader is given the exact setting, with island names and dates to orient the reader. I feel this would have been more effective had a map been included, and I can only hope that one was inserted in the final publication of the book. The table of contents has listings for source notes and an index, but again, these resources are not available in this advanced copy.

Also mostly missing from this copy of the book would be photographs. There are a few on the first few pages, and than on some later pages there are spaces for other pictures, but after a while, those spaces disappear as well. In fact, there are only six images in the entire book, and I can not help but wonder how many more or planned. As I said, I think at least one map of the Aleutian Islands would be extremely helpful, but I think more maps would be even more beneficial, especially if the editors included one of the Pacific Ocean so that the reader could see the extreme distances traveled by some of the people in the book. Without any images, however, there is nothing to take away from the text, which is presented in an easily read print, and which tells an interesting story. The cover of the book is mostly done in red and white, the colors of the Japanese flag. The main illustration is of a plane flying toward a rising sun, which has a nice symbolism to it. There are also four small photographs on the bottom of the cover. The main title on the cover is done in a font that seems to be fading, or perhaps is covered by the titular “fog.”

As I said, I think that this book tells an interesting side World War II that most people do not realized happened, and I think it is important to bring this story to light. I do not think that I would use this book in a classroom, as I feel it was somewhat short for what it was trying to do, but I think that it would be appropriate in a middle school history class. I would love to use a different book on the same topic as a supplementary text while teaching World War II in a history class, since most classes tend to focus on the European and South Pacific theaters of the War.

As the UNO Children’s Library does not have any other books about the Aleutian Islands Campaign, I would recommend this one, only if a finished copy was available. Even with “Ghosts in the Fog,” I think that the collection could benefit from more texts on the same topic.

Looking at different reviews on barnesandnoble.com, I think that some of the reviewers found some of the same shortcomings that I did with the length and depth of the text, but seemed to agree that as a first book on the topic, middle schoolers might enjoy “Ghosts in the Fog.” The reviewer from School Library Journal specifically mentions the numerous unique pictures, so that gives me hope that the final published book at least corrected that shortcoming.½

On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This was the reason the US entered World War II. On June 7, 1942, Japan invaded the Aleutian islands of Alaska... and on June 10, 1942, the US government denied that it had happened. More than 15,000 US soldiers were sent to Alaska, and by the end the final battles, more soldiers had been lost than at Pearl Harbor. And the public knew nothing. Seiple tells the story, explaining why the islands were strategically important to both the Japanese and the Americans, and why the US government decided to lie about what was happening there. Archival photos, maps and documents give key information about the military decisions and mistakes on both sides, as well as the tales of soldiers and civilians trapped on the islands. Part of the story is also about prisoners of war, including a boatload of civilians taken to Japan and held for three years, and many native Aleutian Indians who were forced by American authorities to relocate far away from their tribal lands and homes. The relocation shelters and supplies revealed the racism and prejudice against the native Alaskans, who suffered great harm from malnutrition, illness and exposure. This is no tale of how great America was for defeating foreign invaders -- this is a story about what war is like on a small and deadly scale, and how the outcome can depend on something as fickle as the weather and as undependable as a series of mistakes that look like good decisions at the time. 7th grade and up.

Seiple, S. (2011). Ghosts in the fog. New York: Scholastic Press. 221 pp. ISBN: 978-0-545-29654-0. (Hardcover); $17.99.*

On December 7, 1941 the Japanese government bombed Pearl Harbor. Four days later the United States declares war on Japan (Germany and Italy too). D-Day was on June 6, 1944. And if we look at timelines of World War II, we will find many dates that have been burned into our collective memories (Kristallnacht, November 10, 1938; Hitler is Times, Man of the Year, January 2, 1939; …). In all of these dates, in all of my memories of the major events of World War II, I do not ever remember reading about the Japanese invasion of Alaska. Do you? This fact alone is enough for me to recommend Seiple’s surprising nonfiction account of the Japanese invasion and occupation of several of the Aleutian Islands. While this story gets off to a sluggish start, once we really begin to learn of the bloody battles, told from the perspective of those folks living on the island, it is absolutely riveting. Did you know, for example, that the battles on the islands were among the bloodiest hand-to-hand combat battles of the entire war? The obvious question is why do so many American people know so little (if anything) about this part of the war? Seiple’s book will help readers understand some of the reasons. Don’t miss this book! Purchase it for every middle school and high school library and bring it to the attention to the history teachers and history lovers in your school district.

great book for anyone that likes history.

Please see my review on Amazon.com under C. Wong. Thank yoi.