Yolanda Ridge's Blog, page 5

Other Words for Home

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Title: Other Words for Home







Author: Jasmine Warga







Publisher: Balzer + Bray







ISBN: 9780062747808







Publication Date: May 2019

I don’t know how I missed Other Words for Home when it was first published. It was a Newbery Honor book. And the cover is absolutely stunning. Whatever the reason, I’m glad I finally got a chance to read this wonderful middle grade story told in verse.

On the surface, Other Words for Home is about Jude’s move from Syria to America with her mother. It beautifully portrays Jude’s love of Syria and her heart break over leaving. I felt every bit of her pain as she’s forced to leave behind her Babba and her older brother who is fighting for change in their war-torn country.

The book also shows Jude’s experience of America; from the noise and speed of everyday things to living with her uncle’s family to attending 7th grade at an America school. She becomes a translator for her mother, who’s pregnant, and does a crash course in both language and culture.

Below the surface, Other Words for Home is about prejudice against Arabs and Arab Americans. Jude experiences this even more acutely when she decides to wear the hijab after she gets her period. Jasmine Warga handles all these issues with grace and transparency.

I don’t want to give away too much. Because I want you to read the book. But I will say this; when Jude tries out for the school play, she not only finds her voice – she discovers that she wants to be seen. And even after I finished reading the last page, I was cheering her on.

The front cover blurb says it all:

“This is a necessary story. We’re lucky to have it in the word.”

Jason Reynolds

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The Miraculous

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Title:  The Miraculous







Author: Jess Redman







Publisher: FSG Books for Young Readers







ISBN: 9780374309749







Publication Date: July 2019

As promised in my last post, I’m taking a break from CRISPR to talk about my favourite middle grade fiction.

The Miraculous is about 11-year-old Wunder, a self-proclaimed miracologist. From a young age, Wunder has believed in miracles and kept a notebook full of extraordinary stories. Then his baby sister dies at only 8 days of age and his mom goes into a major depression. Wunder’s belief in magic disappears. Because how can miracles exist in a world that’s also full of unbearable loss and suffering?

This book was recommended to me by my good friend and writing partner, Christine Thomas Alderman. We have very similar taste so I expected to like The Miraculous. But I didn’t necessarily expect to love it as much as I did. My favourite excerpt:

“And suddenly Wonder understood.

Everyone was connected. The living to the living, and the dead to the dead too. And no one was ever alone. And no one was ever truly gone. And nothing ever ended.

Because love never ended.”

Enough said. Except this – when I finished, I wondered whether The Miraculous would speak to the intended audience of 8 to 12-year-olds as much a it spoke to adult gatekeepers like agents, editors, booksellers, parents, and… me. Unfortunately, my now 14-year-old sons (gulp!) are not so good at helping me judge this anymore. So I leave you with a final word from The Masked Reader:

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CRISPR and… Science Literacy Week!

In celebration of Science Literacy Week, Annick Press is doing a giveaway! Enter to win a copy of CRISPR and a virtual classroom visit with yours truly!

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ENTER TO WIN!!

Annick Press has been awesome at helping me get the word out about CRISPR. They are a marketing machine! I don’t like being behind the camera but they made it okay. I’m so grateful for their support with my CRISPR and… blog series!

I can’t believe it’s already been two weeks since CRISPR: A Powerful Way to Change DNA hit the bookshelves! I’ve heard back from some readers and I’m very pleased with the response. It’s nice to get good reviews, sure, but it’s even better to hear from readers who appreciate the book and understand the content enough to ask questions!

Now that my kids are back in school and CRISPR is out in the world, I’m turning my attention to another nonfiction book proposal and a middle grade novel that’s begging to be revised. Stay tuned for new book reviews as I get my head back in the game.

Thanks for reading and please subscribe if you want to receive notification of future posts.

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CRISPR and CORONAVIRUS

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For this—my last post in what I hope has been an interesting and thought-provoking #CRISPRand . . . blog series—I’m not going to start by asking whether coronavirus has affected your life. Because of course it has. The way it’s affected you may be a lot different than the way it’s affected me but one thing’s for sure: this virus has affected us all.

A year ago, no one had ever heard of Covid-19. Now it controls the way we live, interact and move through our days.

I wrote CRISPR: A Powerful Way to Change DNA before our world was turned upside down by coronavirus. I had a chance to mention Covid-19 in the last stages of the editing process. But at that time, there was no way to know how CRISPR technology would apply to the pandemic.

As I write this post, we still don’t really know. But here are some ways scientists are using CRISPR to fight the coronavirus that causes Covid-19:

1. TESTING

As I mentioned in my brief post titled CRISPR and COVID, the first test for Covid-19 using CRISPR was approved for use in the US by the FDA in June. Sherlock Biosciences, based in Cambridge, configured the CRISPR enzyme to hunt down coronavirus gene sequences and emit a fluorescent glow if found. Other researchers are working on similar tests that could provide rapid results and even be done from home.  

2. VACCINE

A Stanford lab is working on a genetic vaccine using CRISPR to not only find coronavirus RNA within human cells but also destroy it. Early studies show delivery by inhalation (with something like an asthma inhaler) reduces the virus by 90%. If successful, it could be developed into a vaccine for SARS-Cov 2 (the specific virus that causes Covid-19) and other forms of the coronavirus too. Read more about this approach, which goes by the cool name PAC-MAN, here. 

3. IMMUNITY

In CRISPR: A Powerful Way to Change DNA, I talk about how CRISPR can be used to treat HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. There’s also a discussion about the rogue scientist who engineered the world’s first gene-edited babies to be immune to HIV by editing a specific gene at the embryonic stage. While this is not likely to happen for Covid-19—at least not any time soon—it’s not outside the realm of possibility.  

[image error]How HIV infects cells and replicates; adapted from Alex Boersma’s illustration in CRISPR: A Powerful Way to Change DNA.

Like you, I’m hopeful that we will soon have a vaccine that allows us to return to life as we knew it before Covid-19 came crashing into our lives. Whether CRISPR will help make this happen is still unknown. But I really think gene editing has the potential to change a lot of things in our lives; for better and for worse. 

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Even though I know a lot about genetics, writing CRISPR: A Powerful Way to Change DNA was eye opening for me. It wasn’t hard to provide a balanced view of the pros and cons of gene editing because I really believe there are both. By providing information and asking questions, I hope readers will be able to start forming their own opinions. It will, after all, be up to all of us to decide how CRISPR will shape our future. 

One week till publication day! Be sure to get your copy of CRISPR: A Powerful Way to Change DNA by pre-ordering through Annick Press , online retailers and your local bookstore.  

Image credits: Alexandra_Koch (pixabay), Alex Boersma, National Park Services

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CRISPR and SPACE

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Do you dream of going to the moon? Living on Mars? Visiting planets beyond our solar system?

I love to travel. But I’m not sure my body (or my mind) is up to the challenge of going into space. Specially trained astronauts have visited the moon and lived on the ISS (shout out to my fav, Chris Hadfield) by taking extreme measures to protect themselves both mentally and physically. What happens if an ordinary person like me wants—or in fact needs—to take the next step of moving to another planet?

Most of the time, when we think about colonizing another planet, we imagine terraforming it—or changing it—to suit us. But what if instead we could change ourselves to suit it? 

Sound like something from a low budget science fiction film? Maybe. But let’s take a look at what kinds of changes might be necessary for humans to be able to live happily ever after somewhere far, far away. 

BECOMING ALIEN

There are lots of things we’d have to consider in adapting ourselves to life on another planet as outlined in this detailed article from the Genetic Literacy Project. Here’s a sample: 

Gravity – low gravity causes a decrease in bone mass, which can lead to broken bones and osteoporosisAtmospheric Pressure & Gas Ratios – low pressure can result in less oxygen, which we need to breatheSolar Radiation – low amounts of sun exposure can lead to vitamin D deficiency; high levels increase cancer risks

At this point, I’m sure you’re thinking those are pretty big things. How could we possibly change ourselves to suit life on a planet even slightly different than our own without space suits and plastic domes? 

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Physical adaptation as we know it is part of a slow evolutionary process that relies on random changes to DNA that make us more suited to the environment we live in (the topic of my next book—stay tuned!). But with the discovery of CRISPR, we now have a way of speeding up this process through gene editing.

CRISPR

Here’s how gene editing could help us adapt to the conditions above:

A specific mutation in the LRP5 gene causes people to have higher bone density, which could make them more suited to life in low or even zero gravityScientists have identified changes in several genes that allow people to live in high altitudes (such as Sherpas in Nepal) and survive high pressure (such as deep sea divers) Skin pigmentation—another trait controlled by (you guessed it) genes—can influence both cancer risk and vitamin D update depending on the level of solar radiation



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With CRISPR, it may one day be possible to edit our genes in specific ways to produce the traits we desire. This comes with some serious concerns. What if end up living in a society where some people are engineered for space travel and others are engineered for work in an underground mine?

To find out more about genes, CRISPR, and the different ways gene editing could become part of our future, pre-order CRISPR: A Powerful Way to Change DNA. Its available through Annick Press , online retailers and your local bookstore.  

Image credits: Creative Tail (Wikipedia Commons), Clipart Lord (Wikimedia Commons, ArtsyBee  (pixabay.com)

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CRISPR and VISION

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Do you wear glasses or contacts? Ever find them . . . inconvenient?

I wear both and I must admit, I don’t really like either. But I’m incredibly grateful for the gift of sight. When I’m fumbling around for my glasses, I sometimes wonder what it would be like to not see anything at all. 

According to the World Health Organization, at least 2.2 billion people have vision impairment or blindness. In the United States, approximately 1% of children and 2% of adults are considered blind, meaning that they must find other ways to do things people with normal vision do with their eyes.

LCA10

Leber’s congenital amaurosis (LCA) is the leading cause of blindness in childhood. The symptoms of LCA vary, but most people born with the condition are legally blind. They may only be able to differentiate between dark and light and see limited movement.

There are several types of LCA. Type 10 is caused by a single mutation—or spelling mistake—in a gene called CEP290.The mutation is inherited from both parents, who are generally unaffected. Scientists aren’t totally sure what the protein made by CEP290 is supposed to do. But they do know that when it’s not working properly, light-sensing cells in the retina stop working too.   

Never heard of LCA? That’s probably because it only affects 2 to 3 people out of 100,000. But the condition hit the news headlines earlier this year when a person with LCA10 became the first to receive CRISPR treatment administered directly into the body. 

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CRISPR

The treatment is part of a clinical trial—which goes by the rather confident-sounding name BRILLIANCE—being run as a partnership between Oregon Health & Science University (Portland), Editas Medicine (Cambridge, Massachusetts), and Allergan (Dublin). It uses a system called CRISPR to fix a mutation in CEP290 through gene editing. 

Gene therapy is not new. In fact, I did a thesis project on it during the last year of my undergraduate degree (which was longer ago than I care to admit). This trial differs from the ones that came before in two very significant ways: 

CEP290 is edited to fix the spelling mistake, not replaced with an entirely new gene.CRISPR is injected directly into the eye, not into cells that have been removed from the eye.

It won’t take long for BRILLIANCE scientists to know whether CRISPR can restore vision in people with LCA10. If successful, CRISPR could be used to treat other forms of inherited blindness. It may even bring us closer to a cure for more common forms of vision impairment. 

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This raises the question of how society defines disease as discussed in a recent Discover Magazine article, Why Deaf People Oppose Using Gene Editing to “Cure” Deafness. It also forces us to consider the line between disability and enhancement. What if, for example, CRISPR techniques become so advanced that we could give someone X-ray vision?

It may sound like science fiction, but it’s a possibility we should all be aware of as gene editing moves forward. To find out more, pre-order CRISPR: A Powerful Way to Change DNA, available through Annick Press, online retailers, and your local bookstore.   

Image credits: Clker-Free-Vector-Images (pixabay), PNGKit, Piotr Siedlecki (publicdomainpibtures.net)

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CRISPR and CATS

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Are you a cat person? Dog person? Both?

I always thought I was a dog person. Until we moved onto an acreage teeming with mice. (Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But when one of those little critters snuck into the house it definitely felt like I was under siege.) Enter Jupiter, an orange tabby we adopted from the SPCA.

Jupiter took care of the mice. He also brought a lot of love into our home. Along with a pile of fur.

ALLERGIES

Over 10% of people are allergic to cats. For them, the gentle purr of a feline friend comes with anything from sneezing and sniffling to skin rashes and asthma.

So what do you do if you love cats (or hate mice) but can’t breathe when Fluffy is around? The options are limited:

Antihistamines (pills you take every day)Allergy shots (which only work for some people)Natural remedies (read more about these options here)Hypoallergenic cats (Although no cats are entirely NONallergenic, some hypoallergenic breeds are pretty cute. Then again, have you ever seen a sphynx cat?)No cats (no comment)

For animal lovers, there has to be another way.

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CRISPR

Most cat allergies are triggered by a specific protein found in cat saliva and skin. The pesky protein, known as Fel d 1, spreads when cats shed their hair and dander (a nice way of saying dead skin) through grooming.

For decades, scientists and immunologists have been fighting Fel d 1with everything from breeding programs to specialized cat food. None of these approaches have been entirely successful and some have been very expensive.

Enter CRISPR, a gene editing technology that can delete the gene that tells the body how to make Fel d 1. Using cells obtained from 50 cats (with help from the SPCA), scientists from Indoor Biotechnologies have shown this is actually possible. The early results are promising but more study is necessary to determine whether Fel d 1 does something important to cat well-being. Still, the US company is optimistic that a one-time injection could make your beloved pet Fel d 1-free in the very near future. 

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Even if it doesn’t work, CRISPR could still provide other alternatives. Perhaps we could edit the human genome so the immune system isn’t triggered by Fel d 1. Or maybe it would be easier to gene edit the pesky house mouse right out of existence.

Ideas like messing with the human genome and editing an entire species into extinction come with a range of practical and ethical issues. If you’re interested in reading more about CRISPR—how it works, what it can be used for, and where we should draw the line—pick up CRISPR: A Powerful Way to Change DNA. The book is aimed at readers ages 14 and up but suitable for younger readers with an interest in science and adult readers wanting to understand the nuances of this powerful technology. It’s available for pre-order through Annick Press , online retailers and your local bookstore.  

Image credits: Marta Simon (pixabay.com), Clker-Free-Vector-Images (pixabay.com), K Whiteford (PublicDomainPictures.net)

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CRISPR and COFFEE

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Love your morning latte? Or afternoon frappé? You’re not alone. Coffee’s one of the most-consumed drinks in the world, second only to water. 

Most of us enjoy the jolt of caffeine that comes with a cup of joe. But some people aren’t so lucky. Instead of providing a perk, caffeine can cause anxiety, insomnia, diarrhea . . . and other unpleasant stuff. For this reason—and probably more—it’s estimated that 12% of global coffee consumption is decaf.  

HOW TO DO DECAF

There are several different ways to decaffeinate coffee. The most common methods involve soaking unroasted coffee beans and adding a solvent to draw the caffeine out of the bean.

If you enjoy your java sans caffeine, you may want to stop reading now. But if you want to know more, here’s some detail:

Ludwig Roselius first discovered decaf in Germany in 1903 when a shipment of coffee beans got swamped with seawater. Roselius went on to invent the first commercial decaffeination process, which involved steaming the beans in an acid bath and using benzene (a chemical found in crude oil, gasoline, plastics, detergents, drugs and pesticides) as a solvent.Benzene turned out to be carcinogenic, so it was replaced by other solvents like methylene chloride (also used as a paint stripper and a degreaser) and ethyl acetate (nail polish remover).



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Drink decaf but kept reading anyway? Be assured that this process has been given a clean bill of health by government regulation bodies. Still, many argue that the process affects the flavor of the beans and robs coffee of nutrition (yes, coffee is nutritious—find out more here. 

There are other methods of decaffeination that use things like activated charcoal filters and carbon dioxide pressure (for more information, check out this BBC article) but they’re pretty pricey and not 100% effective. So the search has been on for an alternative. And now, we just might have one.

CRISPR

The idea behind it is simple: instead of taking caffeine out of coffee beans after they’re grown, why not grow beans that have no caffeine in the first place? Although scientists have been working on this for over two decades, a new method of gene editing is making it reality.

Using CRISPR, a UK company called Tropic Biosciences has successfully created a naturally decaffeinated coffee bean by editing the plant’s genome. Coffee plants make caffeine from a natural chemical (xanthosine) through a three-step process carried out by the genes in the cell. Knock out one of those genes through CRISPR gene editing and the plant can no longer make caffeine. But it can still make coffee beans full of flavor and nutrition.  

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Tropic Biosciences is also using CRISPR to edit the genome of the Cavendish banana (the kind most commonly found on supermarket shelves) so it’s resistant to disease. If that goes well, who knows what might come next. A caffeinated banana? 

If you want to know more about how CRISPR works and what other things it could be used for, pick up CRISPR: A Powerful Way to Change DNA . The book, which includes a crash course on genetics, will hit the shelves (and the mailbox) September 8, 2020 .  It’s available for pre-order through Annick Press , online retailers and your local bookstore.  

Image credits: eommina (pixabay.com), PiNkOpHiLiC (Deviant Art), Pppoooiii3 (Wikimedia Commons)

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Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen!

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Title: Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen!







Author: Sarah Kapit







Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers







ISBN: 9780525554189







Publication Date: February 2020

Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen! is a story told through letters (also called an epistolary story – something I just learned!) between 11-year-old Vivy and her baseball hero, VJ Capello. In terms of diversity, Vivy is on the autism spectrum and VJ is black. This creates challenges for them both but what really bonds them is their mutual love of the knuckleball.

When Vivy gets a chance to play on her first real baseball team – after years of watching her older brother play and practicing with him in their backyard – she encounters bullying from the coach’s son and lack of support from her mother (especially after she gets a concussion from being hit by the ball). She gets encouragement and support from the coach, the catcher on the team, and her dad… but not so much her brother, who’s dealing with a totally different “coming of age” experience. And then of course there’s VJ, who responds to her letters with advice, shares his own experiences, and even gets into an argument with Vivy after pushing her to take action.

What I really liked about this book is how Sarah Kapit invites readers into Vivy’s head through her letters to VJ. You get a sense of how Vivy’s autism affects her but it’s not presented so much as a difference but as a reality. After all, someone with autism doesn’t know what it’s like to be someone without autism so why would they explain things through that lens? Vivy talks about flapping her arms the same way she talks about wiping sweat off her brow; just a normal thing for her to do.

Baseball is not really the focus of Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen! but there are enough scenes on the field and bits of knuckleball trivia to satisfy sports fans.The true strength of this story is Vivy’s resilience as the only girl on a team, persevering through injuries and bullying to do what she loves.

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Genesis Begins Again

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Title: Genesis Begins Again







Author: Alicia D. Williams







Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers







ISBN: 9781481465809







Publication Date: January 2019

This book. Alicia D. Williams wrote it before the murder of George Floyd. But I ordered it in response to that event as part of an ongoing effort to educate myself and my children on what it’s like to be a black person in America (and elsewhere). I fully admit that I should have picked it up earlier. And that I should be making more of an effort to diversify my reading.

This book broke my heart. Genesis – a 13-year-old, infinitely likable protagonist – hates her black skin so much that she injures herself trying to lighten it and steals her mom’s credit card to buy bleaching cream. She’s got a whole list of things she doesn’t like about herself (started by bullies at her old middle school in Detroit but added to by Genesis herself) and a difficult family life. Her dad struggles with addiction and can’t hold a job. Her mom works hard to support the family under the judgmental eye of Genesis’ grandma.

Things slowly get better for Genesis when she moves into a new neighborhood; a move forced on her at the beginning of the book when they’re suddenly evicted from their home (again). With a few true friends and a newly discovered talent for music, Genesis starts to accept herself and her family. But Genesis Begins Again doesn’t have one big, happy ending. Her mom doesn’t suddenly get a high paying job and her dad doesn’t magically become sober or quit gambling. This is real life and this book gives readers an unflinching look at how hard things can be for someone like Genesis.

Don’t wait. This is the book you – and your loved ones – need to read. Or at least one of them.

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