By Super Kitty
 
“Americans now spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, and recorded music—combined,” according to Chew on This, a book by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson that examines the fast food industry and its effects worldwide. Drawing connections between rising childhood obesity levels and the increasing popularity and power of fast food restaurants, it brings to light disturbing facts about “an industry that both feeds and feeds off the young.” Unlike many similar books, it’s a fairly easy read, with occasional pictures and short pieces about real people, many of them teenagers, whose lives are affected by the fast food industry every day. And for anyone who reads it and is inspired to take action, check out the extras in the back for ideas on how to get started.

Before reading Chew on This (and The Omnivore’s Dilemma), I had only a basic knowledge of the fast food industry, and it’s amazing how much such companies influence our everyday lives—and even more amazing how few of us realize it. Although the information Chew on This details is often disturbing, the authors don’t say fast food is bad, don’t eat it. Instead, they present their research with the attitude that “Everyone should be allowed to make up his or her mind. But in order to make up your own mind, you need to get more than one point of view. Chew on This was written to give a different point of view from the one presented every single day in hundreds of fast-food ads.”

No matter what you think about the fast food industry (or if you’re just beginning to form an opinion about it), Chew on This is an engaging, thought-provoking, and most of all, important book that’s especially good for discussions/book groups. I would highly recommend it for readers ages twelve and up.

By Piranha T.

The newspaper industry in the 1800s wasn’t fair. Most editors declared that it was too rough a pursuit for women, and relegated the few female reporters to writing about recent social events and the hair styles of celebrities. Only a few women managed to land in-depth reporting jobs, or a regular column in a newspaper or magazine. Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland were two of those women.

Pennsylvania-born Nellie Bly wrote her first articles for a smaller newspaper which allowed her to write investigative articles about the poor, working conditions, and other subjects which most editors found unfit for women. When she went to New York City, she managed to land a job at the World newspaper, where she wrote regular articles which displayed little-known facts about a variety of things to the public which she learned by going undercover throughout the city.

Elizabeth Bisland, born in the south, known for her beauty as well as her writing skills, also found a job in New York after writing for other publications for several years: writing a regular column about recent books for the magazine The Cosmopolitan.

In 1889, to boost declining sales, the World sends Nellie Bly to race around the world. Her goal is to beat the fictional record established in Jules Verne’s book Around the World in Eighty Days. But only hours after she leaves, the editor of The Cosmopolitan sends Elizabeth Bisland around the world the other way. These two pioneering female journalists set a record against time, fiction, and each other.
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80 Days was a very interesting book. Set near the turn of the 19th century, this is a fast-paced historical nonfiction book about two very real, very skilled women pioneering in the world of journalism in a race which fascinated not just the nation, but the world. In addition to narrating the journeys of Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland, Matthew Goodman provides interesting information about other subjects in the world at the same time, such as conditions of immigrants and the influence of the telegraph. And in the narrations of their journeys, readers learn interesting facts about the world and culture in the nineteenth century. It does not, however, feel as though information is being forced into the text—instead, it flowed naturally and enhanced the text rather than making it dry. Although 80 Days was written for older audiences, I found it to be very interesting, and recommend it to readers twelve and up, especially those who like history and geography.