1915, give or take 10 years

The gravitational pull of my current project is such that it's even changing the way I'm choosing U.S. history books for 8-year-old S and 3-year-old F.

This month, we're focusing on biographies of Americans born within a decade of Alan Lomax -- between 1905 and 1925. The subjects are an eclectic bunch:

• Black Cat Bone: The Life of Blues Legend Robert Johnson by J. Patrick Lewis and illustrated by Gary Kelley
• Morris and Buddy: The Story of the First Seeing Eye Dog by Becky Hall and illustrated by Doris Ettlinger
• Clyde Tombaugh and the Search for Planet X by Margaret K. Wetterer and illustrated by Laurie A. Caple
• Rosa Parks: My Story by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins
• Joe Louis: America's Fighter by David A. Adler and illustrated by Terry Widener
• Rachel Carson: Pioneer of Ecology by Kathleen V. Kudlinski and illustrated by Ted Lewin
• Action Jackson by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan and illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker
• Babe Didrikson Zaharias: The Making of a Champion by Russell Freedman
• Grace Hopper: Computer Whiz by Patricia J. Murphy
• When Everybody Wore a Hat by William Steig

The boys' favorite so far seems to be the Grace Hopper book, because of its deft use of a visual pun. It includes a photograph of the computer bug -- that is, the actual moth, taped to a notecard -- that brought an early room-sized calculator to its knees. Even Jackson Pollock can't compete with that.