Featuring 387 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction and Children's & Teen
KIRKUS VOL. LXXXI, NO.
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REVIEWS
Beloved singer Linda Ronstadt turns writer in her gracious memoir. p. 56
FICTION
The Last First Day
by Carrie Brown A beautiful piece of writing: bittersweet with nostalgia, surprisingly sensual and sharply nuanced p. 6
NONFICTION
Darling by Richard Rodriguez Rodriguez offers a compelling view of modern spirituality that is as multifaceted as it is provocative. p. 68
CHILDREN'S & TEEN
Romeo and Juliet
by Gareth Hinds The graphic novelist acts as director, set designer and costumer in this spectacular staging of the beloved play. p. 97
INDIE
Little House Unlocked Veteran writer Susan Wittig Albert reconsiders the makings of a classic. p. 148
Paul Williams, Crawdaddy and the Birth of Rock Criticism B Y G RE G O RY MC NA M EE
H e d i d n ’ t l o o k m u c h l i k e a r o c k ’ n ’ r o l l e r . When he got started, as a student at Swarthmore, he dressed like Doug Kenney’s character in Animal House, all plaid shirts, high-tide jeans and work boots. Decades later, he kept to that style—and if it worked in 1968, why not in 2008?—occasionally donning a sports coat for matters of business. He was soft-spoken but, in my experience, never hesitant to talk. Everything about him seemed intended to call attention elsewhere, but Paul Williams, who died at the end of March at the age of 64, was both fearless and inventive and deserving of praise for both qualities: fearless in that he had no qualms about marching up to the likes of Bob Dylan and Keith Richards to demand an interview; inventive since he took a natural entrepreneurial spirit, wedded it to a gift for good writing and a passion for rock music, and produced a magazine that introduced serious writing about the form to the world. That magazine was Crawdaddy, which, in its 23 years of existence, was the most influential vehicle for that serious writing on the market. Rolling Stone may have had Hunter Thompson and Joe Esz-
Chairman H E R B E RT S I M O N # President & Publisher M A RC W I N K E L M A N Chief Operating Officer M E G L A B O R D E KU E H N mkuehn@kirkus.com Editor E L A I N E S Z E WC Z Y K eszewczyk@kirkus.com Managing/Nonfiction Editor E R I C L I E B E T R AU eliebetrau@kirkus.com Children’s & Teen Editor VICKY SMITH vsmith@kirkus.com Features Editor C laiborne S mith csmith@kirkus.com Mysteries Editor THOMAS LEITCH Contributing Editor G R E G O RY M c N A M E E Senior Indie Editor KAREN SCHECHNER kschechner@kirkus.com Indie Editor RYA N L E A H E Y rleahey@kirkus.com Indie Editor D avid R a p p drapp@kirkus.com Assistant Indie Editor M AT T D O M I N O mdomino@kirkus.com
terhas, but Crawdaddy had Robert Christgau, Jon Landau, Richard Fariña and a host of other smart
Editorial Assistant CHELSEA LANGFORD clangford@kirkus.com
critics. One was Williams himself, who had a comprehensive knowledge of rock and its forebears,
Copy Editor BETSY JUDKINS
such that when he interviewed blues great Howlin’ Wolf in 1966 (a time so distant that it found the
Director of Kirkus Editorial P E R RY C RO W E pcrowe@kirkus.com
Rolling Stones just evolving from blues cover band to rock act), he was able to ask good questions that elicited unexpected answers—including the fact that the Wolf didn’t think too badly of one Elvis Presley, saying, “If he hadn’t went over and played the blues, he might not have been able to press the numbers he wanted to play.” Born on a mimeograph machine in a dorm room, Crawdaddy could be a little teen-beatish, as when Williams broke the news that John Lennon was filming Richard Lester’s How I Won the War: “Yes, fans, he has had his hair cut for the part.” But for the most part, it was hard-edged and right to the point, as when Samuel R. Delany, on his way to becoming a master of science-fiction writing, took on the phenomenon that was Janis Joplin: “A little common sense and any knowledge of the vocal machine…and you realize she’d be stone mute in six months if that sound were made full throat.” Williams championed Delany but more so another legendary science-fiction writer who was on the edge of being forgotten—namely, Philip K. Dick, whose literary executor he became. He sang with Lennon, hung out with Leary, traveled with The Dead. He wandered, he gathered, and he wrote things that hold up perfectly well nearly half a century later (“New York is New York, and it’s very good for some things”). He also wrote a couple of dozen books, including the now-obscure Das Energi, with its famous line “This is God talking.” Or maybe Jimi Hendrix. Travel well, Paul.
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contents fiction
The Kirkus Star is awarded to books of remarkable merit, as determined by the impartial editors of Kirkus.
Index to Starred Reviews............................................................5 REVIEWS.................................................................................................5 Publishing insider Amy Grace Loyd’s debut novel........14 Mystery..............................................................................................27 Science Fiction & Fantasy.......................................................... 37 Romance............................................................................................39
nonfiction Index to Starred Reviews..........................................................41 REVIEWS...............................................................................................41 Linda Ronstadt talks about her new memoir..................56 The Insiders’ assassination.................................................... 60
children’s & teen Index to Starred Reviews..........................................................75 REVIEWS.............................................................................................. 76 Ten years later, David Levithan’s view of gay life is more pragmatic.......................................................92 christmas & Hanukkah roundup..........................................127 interactive e-books.................................................................. 139
indie
In addition to the top-notch writing one expects from a New Yorker regular, Gladwell rewards readers with moving stories, surprising insights and consistently provocative ideas. Read the starred review on p. 55.
REVIEWS............................................................................................. 141 Susan Wittig Albert lifts the veil on a legend’s life........................................................................ 148
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on the web w w w. k i r k u s . c o m Check out these highlights from Kirkus’ online coverage at www.kirkus.com 9 Photo ©SFXFuture Publishing Ltd 2005
Kim Stanley Robinson has taken readers to near futures and distant planets in his science fiction. His new book, Shaman, is the story of a boy living 30,000 years ago and struggling to find his way. There is Thorn, a shaman himself. He lives to pass down his wisdom and his stories—to teach those who would follow in his footsteps. There is Heather, the healer who, in many ways, holds the clan together. There is Elga, an outsider and the bringer of change. And then there is Loon, the next shaman, who is determined to find his own path. In a world so treacherous, that journey is never simple—and where it may lead is never certain. New York Times best-selling author Robinson speaks with Kirkus writer Joe Marshall in September about his new science-fiction bildungsroman. In David Schickler’s memoir The Dark Path, a young man struggles to reconcile God, faith and sex as he stumbles toward finding his life. Since childhood, David Schickler has been torn between his intense desire to become a Catholic priest and his equally fervent desire for the company of women. Growing up in a family of staunch Catholics in upstate New York, Schickler senses God along what he calls “the dark path”—a shadowy trail that winds through the woods behind his childhood home. On this path, he begins his ongoing, frustratingly one-sided talks with God. Things don’t get any clearer for Schickler at college, where he initiates serious conversations about becoming a Jesuit just as he enters a passionate relationship with a vivacious, agnostic young woman. He tries various obsessions—karate, beer, writing fiction—attempting to duck the mystical God he feels called to serve as a priest. Schickler talks to Kirkus about his candid memoir in September.
In Lauren Grodstein’s The Explanation for Everything, there is nothing inherently threatening about Melissa, a young evangelist hoping to write the definitive paper on intelligent design. But when she implores Andy Waite, a biology professor and a hard-core evolutionist, to direct her independent study, she becomes the catalyst for the collapsing house of cards surrounding him. As he works with Melissa, Andy finds that everything about his world is starting to add up differently. Suddenly, there is the possibility of faith. But with it come responsibility and guilt—the very things that Andy has sidestepped for years. Professor Waite is nearing the moment when his life might settle down a bit: Tenure is in sight, his daughters are starting to grow up, and he’s slowly but surely healing from the sudden loss of his wife. His life is starting to make sense again— until the scientific stance that has defined his life (and his work) is challenged by this charismatic student. Grodstein speaks with Kirkus this month about her new novel. 9 And be sure to check out our Indie publishing series, featuring some of today’s most intriguing self-published authors, including best-seller Bob Mayer. Each week, we feature authors’ exclusive personal essays and reported articles on how they achieved their success in publishing. It’s a must-read resource for any aspiring author interested in getting readers to notice their new books.
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fiction THE THINKING WOMAN’S GUIDE TO REAL MAGIC
These titles earned the Kirkus Star:
Barker, Emily Croy Pamela Dorman/Viking (576 pp.) $27.95 | Aug. 5, 2013 978-0-670-02366-0
THE LAST FIRST DAY by Carrie Brown.............................................. 6 THE LAST ANIMAL by Abby Geni.........................................................8 BROWN DOG by Jim Harrison...........................................................10
Debut novelist Barker turns in a pleasant if largely predictable fantasy yarn. Nora Fischer is a brilliant literary scholar, “one of the best close readers of poetry I’ve ever worked with,” as her dissertation director tells her before dropping the big old but on her: but she doesn’t deal with big questions, with postmodernism or subalternity or dialogic hegemony or...well, Nora gets the picture. Neither is Nora a slouch when, quite by happenstance it would seem, she wanders through a mysterious portal into the otherworld. Though she has magically become more beautiful, she fails to attract the physical yearnings of Oscar Wilde, though she exchanges some good words with him all the same—and, he reminds her, “appearances are the only true reality.” Hmmm. No sooner are the words out than she is swept away by a handsome—well, prince, maybe, certainly VIP in this behind-the-mirror world—man (man?) who is very much something other than what he seems to be. Now Nora’s got other things to worry about, like how not to turn into stone (“cream colored stone. Marble, maybe”). Helping her along is a gruff and grumpy sorcerer type named Aruendiel—he wouldn’t be a sorcerer without a Welsh name, after all—who, though “a man of strong passions,” as another denizen of the back of beyond puts it, can’t be moved to make it a friends-with-benefits relationship. Will petrification ruin Nora’s looks? Will she ever find her true love in the magic kingdom? Will she get back to real life in time to pay her tuition? Barker’s pages tell all—and leave plenty of room for a sequel or even a series. Think of this book as Hermione Granger: The Grad School Years. An entertaining tale capably told.
SPIRIT OF STEAMBOAT by Craig Johnson......................................... 11 THE OUTCASTS by Kathleen Kent......................................................12 DOCTOR SLEEP by Stephen King........................................................12 THE LOWLAND by Jhumpa Lahiri..................................................... 13 ALEX by Pierre Lemaitre; trans. by Frank Wynne...............................16 THE LAST MAN STANDING by Davide Longo; trans. by Silvester Mazzarella..............................................................18 POLICE by Jo Nesb�; trans. by Don Bartlett.......................................19 BLEEDING EDGE by Thomas Pynchon................................................21 IN PINELIGHT by Thomas Rayfiel......................................................22 GOOD INDIAN GIRLS by Ranbir Singh Sidhu.................................. 24 DEATH OF THE BLACK-HAIRED GIRL by Robert Stone...................25 THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt..................................................... 26 GUILT EDGED by Judith Cutler.......................................................... 28 DETROIT SHUFFLE by D.E. Johnson...................................................30
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“Great reading...” from babayaga
BABAYAGA
school for boys. As the novel opens, Ruth reflects on her life while preparing for the cocktail party she and Peter throw annually on the first evening of the new school year. After receiving his Ph.D. at Yale, Peter rejected seemingly more prestigious job offers because he appreciated Derry’s stated mission of teaching indigent boys. Fifty years later, the school has begun marketing to wealthier families to survive, but Peter remains a gentle idealist. Ruth finds Peter’s genuine goodness, his belief in God and his genial passivity both enviable and irksome since she remains filled with doubt and inner conflict. Raised by a single father who died in prison shortly after he was exposed as a murderer, Ruth has never found life easy, but she has experienced kindness and generosity, first from Peter’s doctor father, who took Ruth in after her own father’s arrest, and then from the Yale psychiatry professor and Holocaust survivor who became her closest friend and surrogate mother. Born into middle-class security, Peter has never lost his sense of optimism, not even after his mother’s mental illness and the crisis in his romance with Ruth that separated the two young lovers for several years until they reunited as college seniors. They have never been apart since. On the evening of the party, Peter has a stroke. He survives but must retire. That Peter has been beloved by his students has always been obvious, but Ruth finally realizes that her life at the school and with Peter has been richer than she realized. A beautiful piece of writing: bittersweet with nostalgia, surprisingly sensual and sharply nuanced in its depiction of the strains and rewards that shape any long marriage.
Barlow, Toby Farrar, Straus and Giroux (400 pp.) $27.00 | Aug. 6, 2013 978-0-374-10787-1 Mix up Mad Men, Russian folklore, James Bond, An American in Paris, Gorky Park and maybe a hint of Franz Kafka, and you get something like, well, this decidedly odd and most entertaining sophomore novel by Barlow (Sharp Teeth, 2008). Will Van Wyck is anything but an ugly American, but he’s a bit at sea in the City of Lights. An adman par excellence back home, he’s been slowly stripped of his accounts, ignored at brainstorming sessions where his French counterparts are hopping about to jingles of “Chase your pimples away. Chase your pimples away.” But pimples dissolve, and so do mortals, in the face of the supernatural, as represented by the dazzling, chestheaving Zoya, whose lover wonders how it is that she manages to stay so young; she hasn’t changed a day since the liberation—or, for that matter, since the Franco-Prussian War, for all we know. Zoya’s got the zazzle of immortality thanks to being turned by a resourceful and oftentimes very bad witch named Elga, who turns up in the story just when mischief is needed, as when said lover winds up in the great beyond and a police detective makes his way to her door, only to be turned into a flea for his troubles. Naturally, Will meets Zoya. Naturally, she puts the zap on him: “There was an essence to her gaze—the way her eyes connected with his—that took the simplest words in his mind and effortlessly broke them down into small, useless heaps of letters.” Meanwhile, Will’s best pal in Paris turns out to be a CIA spook, and there’s all kinds of hijinks to be had there, as, undeterred, Inspector Vidot tours the demimondes of Paris by hitching rides on mangy critters, and Zoya stays a step ahead of the law, the KGB and everyone else who’s got an interest in her wiles. Barlow’s story is goofy, wholly original and a lot of fun, and he ably captures the feel of both the gray 1950s and free-spirited France. Great reading for a flight to Paris. Just stay away from witches, bathtubs and maybe the Metro once you get there—oh, and spooks, too.
DEADLINE
Brown, Sandra Grand Central Publishing (416 pp.) $26.00 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-1-4555-0151-9 A returning war correspondent covering a sensational murder case ends up with more than he bargained for. Dawson Scott has returned from Afghanistan and his job in the trenches for a national consumer news magazine, but he’s greeted with a not-so-welcome surprise: His mortal enemy has become his boss. Ready to walk off the job, he instead heads off to the Savannah, Ga., area to cover a murder trial that just might be connected to a pair of famous domestic terrorists: Carl Wingert and Flora Stimel, who were caught up in a hail of bullets back in 1976 when federal and local agents surrounded the Oregon hideout of the Rangers of Righteousness. But after authorities forced their way inside, they found only five of Wingert’s followers. Both Wingert and Stimel were missing. Even more worrisome was the evidence they left behind showing Flora had recently given birth. FBI agent and Dawson’s godfather, Gary Headly, was present the day the pair fought their way out of the dragnet and has been on their trail since. Now he is retiring and has good reason to suspect that one of the deceased involved in the Southern murder trial, Jeremy Wesson, was the son of the murderous killers. Headly
THE LAST FIRST DAY
Brown, Carrie Pantheon (304 pp.) $24.95 | Sep. 17, 2013 978-0-307-90804-9
The wife of a private school headmaster looks back at 50-plus years of marriage in this restrained yet emotionally powerful portrait of enduring love from Brown (The Rope Walk, 2007, etc.). Ruth’s husband, Peter, now in his 70s, has dedicated his life, and hers, to Derry School, a Maine prep 6
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IN CALAMITY’S WAKE
talks Dawson into covering the trial, but when Dawson travels to Georgia, he finds a lot more than a story. He also discovers Wesson’s beautiful widow, Amelia Nolan, the daughter of a former congressman, and her children. While Dawson attempts to piece together what happened to Wesson, he falls for Amelia, and Jeremy’s past returns to impact the present, somewhat predictably causing Dawson to go off the reservation and do something foolhardy and heroic. Brown’s plot doesn’t break new ground, but the veteran writer’s deft characterizations and eye for detail make this a winner. Satisfying, vintage Brown storytelling.
Caple, Natalee Bloomsbury (240 pp.) $25.00 | Sep. 17, 2013 978-1-62040-185-9
Who was Calamity Jane? A liquor-loving wild woman? A dime-novel invention? The daughter she abandoned sets out to discover the truth in an impressionistic portrait of frontier days. Forget Doris Day singing “The Deadwood Stage.” Canadian poet and novelist Caple’s (Mackerel Sky, 2004, etc.) patchwork depiction of the iconic female scout is darker and less definitive than Hollywood’s. Born Martha Canary, perhaps the child of poor farmers, or a madam, or maybe even raised by wolves, the mythic figure of Calamity Jane is surrounded by imprecision. All that young Miette knows is that Calamity Jane was the mother who abandoned her, and now, on the death of the kindly priest who raised her, Miette has obeyed his dying
MARCO DELOGU
An extraordinary new novel, set in both India and America, that expands the scope and range of one of our most dazzling storytellers:
“An absolute triumph”
“An author at the height of her artistry”
—Donna Seaman, Booklist, Starred Review
—Megan O’Grady, Vogue
“I wait for Lahiri’s books as if they’re rare comets and hold them in my hands like my firstborn.” —Megan Angelo, Glamour Knopf
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Davis’ writing is heartfelt and effective, but she adds too many superfluous characters and “secrets” to the plot.
wish and begun a journey to find her. Martha’s and Miette’s chapters alternate in a dreamy, often melancholic tale of the American West, a place of stupendous beauty and abundance, now in the throes of profound change because of settlement, the Civil War and suppression of the Native American population. Miette’s harsh journey, threaded with visions, ghosts and glimpses of violence as well as rumors of her mother’s life and location, concludes with an implausible letter and a tender death scene. Calling her novel a work of metahistoriographic fiction, Caple has concocted an atmospheric, sometimes-soaring, but increasingly uneven amalgam of research and lyrical prose. Only fitfully successful.
THE LAST ANIMAL
Geni, Abby Counterpoint (304 pp.) $24.00 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-1-61902-182-2
Human predicaments are complemented by the wild natural world in this excellent debut story collection from Chicago-based author Geni. The characters and events here are unusual and far-reaching, but Geni’s careful craftsmanship renders them immediate and real. Each story is threaded with page-turning, deeply felt tension, yet each has also been planted with a seed of magic in varying stages of growth. In the collection’s award-winning piece, “Captivity,” the narrator works at the Chicago Aquarium, specializing in octopuses, which she feeds in-tank, wetsuit-clad, while haunted by her missing brother. In “Terror Birds,” an ordinary family drama plays out with high stakes on an ostrich farm in the desert. “Isaiah on Sunday” and “In the Spirit Room” explore the loss of parents; “Landscaping” (the seed of magic here growing away from realism into striking lyricism) and “Fire Blight” show heartache from the parents’ sides. Broken families are a theme, and the people in these stories experience the fallout with unflinching awareness. Likewise, Geni is not afraid to make readers sit with an uncomfortable situation or watch characters struggle with difficult decisions. “Dharma at the Gate” follows a teenage girl and her dog as she contemplates a relationship that’s holding her back; readers will ache for her freedom. “The Girls of Apache Bryn Mawr” has an anonymous narrator—the protagonists are bunked together in a camp cabin the summer their counselor disappears. “The Last Animal” and “Silence” center on older characters looking for a kind of closure, and both have a quieter tension. An entrancing collection, recommended even for those who generally shy away from short story.
THE SECRETS SHE CARRIED
Davis, Barbara NAL Accent/Berkley (368 pp.) $15.00 paper | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-451-41877-7
An old tobacco plantation buries past secrets and unearths opportunities for new beginnings in Davis’ romantic generation-spanning debut. Leslie Nichols returns to her North Carolina roots to claim an inheritance left by her estranged grandmother. Once a darling of the luxury lifestyle magazine world, 38-year-old Leslie’s fallen on hard times since glossies have succumbed to electronic media, and she’s eager to unload Peak Plantation, head back to NYC and start anew. Sounds like a solid plan, but the heiress runs into some major stumbling blocks. First, she discovers Grandma Maggie’s ventured into the winemaking industry and left half of her estate to a handsome, younger business partner, Jay Davenport. Second, Leslie’s determination to unload the large house and make a quick killing is thwarted by a real estate market that’s as bottomed out as Leslie. Third, a sepia photograph of an old grave and a set of keys pique Leslie’s curiosity, and suddenly, she’s all hot to uncover secrets about her ancestors. And there are secrets everywhere. After resisting, Leslie agrees to partner with Jay in the wine business and puts her marketing skills to good use. Of course, romantic sparks fly while Leslie discovers old paintings, papers and the unmarked grave in the photo. She also uncovers a tragic event that could hold the key to unanswered questions and searches for witnesses who might know more. Maggie’s father, Henry Gavin, his wife, Susanne, and her hired companion, Adele Laveau, are at the crux of the secret, but Leslie has trouble piecing together the nuggets of information she obtains. That’s because she doesn’t have the same advantage the reader has: Adele narrates much of her story from beyond the grave and supplies huge chunks of the puzzle to readers long before Leslie figures things out. But Leslie can be forgiven for her obtuseness: Although several paces behind the reader, she’s preoccupied with extraneous complications. Jay hasn’t been forthcoming about every aspect of his own life, and haunting memories of her childhood pop up along with her good-for-nothing father. 8
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CONFESSIONS OF MARIE ANTOINETTE
Grey, Juliet Ballantine (464 pp.) $15.00 paper | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-345-52390-7 The final volume of Grey’s Marie Antoinette trilogy (Becoming Marie Antoinette, 2011, etc.) grimly details the queen’s sad and, to contemporary eyes, terribly unjust end. As a rabble invades the Palace of Versailles, Louis XVI still believes that his people wish him no harm. But his wife, Marie |
Antoinette, is more realistic: After years of being defamed by the French, ever since she was brought from Austria to marry Louis, she knows that the revolutionary mob’s threats to have her head are no mere rhetoric. From the sacking of Versailles to the royals’ removal to the Tuileries “for their own protection,” the dismantling of the French monarchy is minutely dissected. Unfortunately, the depiction of outcomes we already know can be less than dramatic if suspense and conflict cannot somehow be generated, and here, they are not. The royal family’s ill-fated escape attempt, engineered by Antoinette’s paramour Axel von Fersen, is vividly reconstructed, as is every permutation of the revolutionary process as various political factions dispute whether or not the royals should remain in place as constitutional rulers, be banished, or, finally, be tried and executed. Time and again, Antoinette pins her hopes on Axel and on some of the secret loyalists among her guards and jailers, but these hopes are repeatedly dashed as the Parisians prove that their barbaric rampaging trumps the machinations of even the canniest demagogue or courtier. It is excruciating to read about the humiliations Antoinette is forced to endure: the massacre of her faithful retainers, the execution of Louis, and separation from her daughter and her son, the dauphin, who, beaten and starved, is “reeducated” to vilify her. It is almost with relief that readers witness Antoinette’s own eventual march to the scaffold. Perhaps the tedium of this novel is partially due to the characterization of the queen herself. Despite all the indignities she suffers, she is never allowed to entertain or voice thoughts that are less than saintly and forgiving. An admirable if stiff portrait of a noble heart. (Agent: Irene Goodman)
a few scenes in which our saint-to-be finds herself on the verge of doing Very Naughty Things to and with her “bodyman”: “She ached. She felt so alone. She wanted to feel Gwladus respond, rise under her, strong and fierce. Hers.” No wonder those British huts, as Griffith writes early on, were always hot. In all events, Griffith does admirable work in imagining and populating the ancient British world and all its to-us exotic customs, its deep learning, its devotion to magic and prophesy—and Hild is a master thereof, from ferreting out plots against the crown to determining from a taste of mead that secret deals are being cut with the nasty Franks. A book that deserves a place alongside T.H. White, to say nothing of Ellis Peters. Elegantly written—and with room for a sequel.
HILD
Griffith, Nicola Farrar, Straus and Giroux (560 pp.) $27.00 | Nov. 12, 2013 978-0-374-28087-1 A historical novel of early medieval England to do T.H. White proud, based on the real life of the “Anglisc” girl who would become Saint Hilda of Whitby. Of Hilda’s—Hild’s—life not much is known, save that she was an adept administrator and intellectually tough-minded champion of Christianity in the first years of its arrival in Britain. The lacuna affords Griffith (Stay, 2002, etc.) the opportunity to put her well-informed imagination to work while staying true to the historical details, over which she lingers with a born antiquarian’s love for the past. Griffith’s attention to those details is refreshing and welcome, for the Dark-Age time of Hild is a confusing welter of battling Angles, Celts, Picts and even a few holdover Romanized Britons, of contending lords and would-be lords; Griffith’s narrative may be densely woven, but she provides clues and context enough for readers to keep the story and its players straight in their minds. “Straight” is perhaps not the best operative word, though, for Griffith does manage to get in |
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“...vividly entertaining...” from the last banquet
THE LAST BANQUET
whale. Under Ivy’s mentorship, Libertine signs on as a volunteer caretaker for Friday, under the strict and jaded tutelage of Gabriel, a globe-trotting wildlife expert. Friday, who lived in a state of chronic malnutrition in his South American pool, is gradually regaining his health on a carefully augmented diet of raw fish. Soon, he’s beginning to thrive on the affection he gets from his trainers and audience. This book raises many issues concerning killer whales as theme park entertainers, addressing the cultural phenomena that have contributed to both orca fever and captivity controversies (see Free Willy, Shamu, etc.). However, the plot mechanics grind too slowly, clogged with colorful but rambling dialogue and too much whale maintenance how-to. The principal conflicts—romantic entanglements among Friday’s team and the ultimate dilemma of whether Friday’s ongoing captivity is really less cruel than returning him to the wild—take too long to develop. By the time a genuine crisis erupts, readers may well have given up on these appealing but phlegmatic characters. The controversial and topical premise will be of primary interest to hard-core orca aficionados and, no doubt, someone in Hollywood.
Grimwood, Jonathan Europa Editions (320 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-60945-138-7
Jean-Marie d’Aumout is a liberal, democratic Frenchman obsessed with flavor whose life, narrated in an elegant debut, lays bare the extreme contrasts of pre-Revolutionary France. First encountered at age 5, eating beetles from a dung heap, his parents dead in their run-down chateau, the boy who will become the Marquis d’Aumout never grows out of his fascination with how things taste. Rescued by the Duc d’Orléans, who gives him his first, divine taste of Roquefort cheese, d’Aumout is sent to school and then military academy, where the friends he makes will shape his life. Charlot, heir to the wildly wealthy Saulx estate, will introduce him to one of his sisters, Virginie, whose life d’Aumout will save twice. Grimwood’s sensuous, intelligent, occasionally drifting account of the marquis’s progress is constantly informed by French politics, notably the immense gulf between the nobility and the peasants whom d’Aumout at least treats with fairness. Scenes at Versailles underline the decadence which will lead to social collapse. Through it all, d’Aumout is driven by a hunger to taste everything—rat, wolf, cat, etc.—and an erotic appetite that is explicitly filled. Ben Franklin puts in a late appearance before the revolution begins, and d’Aumout prepares for a final, extraordinary meal. Studded with bizarre recipes, this vividly entertaining account of a life lived during groundbreaking times is a curious, piquant pleasure.
BROWN DOG
Harrison, Jim Grove (448 pp.) $27.00 | Dec. 3, 2013 978-0-8021-2011-3 Pity poor Brown Dog, the Everyman of the North Woods, whose luck would be nonexistent were it not bad. Still, Brown Dog’s countenance is as cheerful as Don Quixote’s was woeful. Harrison’s comic hero—and in some ways alter ego—is as quixotic as they come, depending on kind winds to blow him a little money, some booze and a bit of righteous loving. In this exercise in well-effected repackaging, Brown Dog’s tales are lifted from other Harrison collections (e.g., The Farmer’s Daughter, 2009, and The Summer He Didn’t Die, 2005) and gathered in a single volume, which is just right. When we first met Brown Dog, he was a barroom horndog generally taken for an Indian (though, at first, he’s not so sure of that: “Now I’m no more Indian than a keg of nails”) and able to wheedle a drink or two out of passing anthropologists for his trouble. He was also the haunted discoverer of the body of an unmistakably authentic Indian below the waters of Lake Superior, waters so cold that bodies do not bloat and float in them. That body will turn up from time to time as Brown Dog leaves the Upper Peninsula on sometimes-unwanted quests—to Los Angeles, for instance, to hunt down a bearskin that’s been stolen from him and to Canada, in the company of some Native rockers. But mostly he hangs around in the pines, always just barely a step ahead of the law and in trouble in every other way; when we leave him in the hitherto unpublished novella He Dog, he is a step away from being pounded by “a strapping woman” named Big Cheryl, who reckons that the experience might just do B.D. some good.
FRIDAY’S HARBOR
Hammond, Diane Morrow/HarperCollins (352 pp.) $14.99 paper | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-06-212421-0 A motley team of whale enthusiasts rescues a killer whale, or at least consigns him to a more commodious captivity. Hammond returns to the scene of her last large-mammal cautionary tale (Hannah’s Dream, 2008), the Max L. Biedelman Zoo in fictional Bladenham, Wash. Viernes, an aging orca who was captured in the North Atlantic as a pup, is close to death in a Colombian theme park when he is rescued by Biedelman’s zookeepers, Truman and his girlfriend, Neva, with funding from Truman’s aunt Ivy, an eccentric philanthropist. After transporting him to his comparatively luxurious tank at Biedelman, Viernes, renamed Friday (the English translation of his Spanish name), attracts attention from scores of whale fans and, inevitably, animal rights activists. A creature communicator, the quirkily named Libertine Adagio, is drawn to Friday’s side when she receives subliminal messages from the 10
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Rollicking, expertly observed, beautifully written. Any new book by Harrison is cause for joy, and having all the Brown Dog stories in one place is no exception.
take her out to the assisted living facility where irascible former sheriff Lucian Connally is well into a bottle of bourbon. Lucian claims not to remember her either until she says “Steamboat,” a word that instantly transports them all back to the same day in 1988. A bad accident has left only one badly burned survivor, a young girl who will surely die unless she can be transported to Denver. A Life Flight helicopter has picked her up, but a vicious storm forces it to land at the local airport, where everyone says there are no planes that can make it to Denver in such a storm. Walt has a different idea. He drags Lucian away from a poker game and out to the airport, where he’s introduced to Steamboat, a rickety World War II bomber named after a famous bucking horse, very similar to the bomber Lucian flew over Japan. Neither the EMT nor the helicopter pilot will risk their lives. So Lucian, Walt, the local doctor, a female pilot with very little experience on large aircraft, the child, Amaterasu, and her grandmother take off on a flight that has little chance of success. Unlike Walt’s usual adventures (A Serpent’s Tooth, 2013, etc.), this novella shuns mystery for a wild and dangerous adventure that will leave you both touched and breathless.
SPIRIT OF STEAMBOAT
Johnson, Craig Viking (160 pp.) $20.00 | Oct. 21, 2013 978-0-670-01578-8 The day before Christmas finds Sheriff Walt Longmire of Absaroka County, Wyo., at loose ends, until a ghost from the past brings back long-forgotten memories. Johnson’s Walt Longmire mysteries are the basis for an A&E drama series. When a young woman walks into Walt’s office and asks about his predecessor, Walt can’t recall meeting her. But he’s willing to
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RISING SUN, FALLING SHADOW
In 1870, Lucinda Carter steals away (steal being the operative word) from the Fort Worth brothel where she’s worked in semi-slavery as a prostitute. But do not expect her to have a heart of gold. Despite the occasional seizures she hides from most of her clients, she is tough, conniving and deadly when necessary. Having procured a teaching position under false pretenses, she heads to Middle Bayou, Texas, where legend has it that the pirate Lafitte buried his gold and where she hopes to meet up with her secret lover. Meanwhile, young Oklahoman Nate Cannon joins the Texas police force and is assigned to work with veteran Rangers George Deerling and Tom Goddard. As Lucinda manipulates her way into the hearts of her new employers, a community of former land and slave owners from the Deep South, Nate and the Rangers track ruthless killer William McGill. Goddard, a former medical student with an intellectual bent, takes Nate under his wing, but Nate finds he needs to prove himself to the more coldblooded Deerling. Shortly after Deerling finally accepts Nate and confides that he once had a daughter he mistreated, the experienced Ranger is killed by one of McGill’s henchmen. Goddard tells Nate that he loved and married Deerling’s daughter, although, as a child, she was permanently damaged by her father’s decision to place her in an asylum for her epilepsy. She ran off while pregnant, and Goddard does not know what happened to their child, but his wife has become Lucinda. After McGill and Lucinda’ Middle Bayou plans go awry and Nate and Goddard close in, all hell breaks loose. A cinematic but refreshingly unsentimental take on the classic Western, starring a woman who is no romantic heroine, but a definite survivor. (Author tour to Houston, Dallas, Austin, New Orleans and Jackson, Miss.)
Kalla, Daniel Forge (352 pp.) $27.99 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-7653-3764-1
Kalla (The Far Side of the Sky, 2012, etc.) continues the saga of Dr. Franz Adler and Soon Yi Mah, who are trapped in World War II Shanghai. In 1943, Shanghai, the Paris of the East, suffers under Imperial Japan’s iron boot. Allied refugees are relegated to detention camps called “Civic Assembly Centers.” Stateless Jews like Adler are confined to Hongkew—Designated Area for Stateless Refugees—a ghetto by any other name. Food is scarce, and Adler worries about his sister-in-law and his young daughter, but the surgeon continues to treat those he can in a ramshackle building converted to a hospital in spite of the scarcity of medicines and only sporadic access to anesthetics. With solid descriptions of the exotic setting, Kalla offers a dramatic narrative in an obscure WWII battlefield. Kalla does his best work in drawing believable characters. There’s the new Mrs. Adler, Soon Yi, known as Sunny, a doctor in all but degree. She is half-Chinese and can move freely throughout Shanghai. Spurred into action by a summary execution, Sunny maneuvers her way into underground forces with the reluctant help of Wen-Cheng Huang, another doctor who has always loved her. Sunny finds herself trapped by double deceptions, betrayals and the sacrifices of bystanders. The exotically beautiful Jia-Li, Sunny’s childhood friend and much-soughtafter courtesan, herself is drawn into the bloody intrigue when she falls in love with Bao Chun, “The Boy General.” Badly wounded and seeking treatment from expert surgeon Adler, Chun’s been smuggled from a guerilla camp into Shanghai by Ernst Muhler, expatriate artist considered persona non grata by the Imperial Japanese Army. Muhler later disguises himself, takes residence among German expatriates and befriends Baron Von Puttkamer. The baron, a rabid Nazi, launches a plan to mass murder Jews in the ghetto, with the complicity of the dreaded Kempeitai, Imperial Japan’s gestapo, an effort that Adler must confront. Drama-filled historical fiction, with a denouement promising another installment. (Agent: Henry Morrison)
DOCTOR SLEEP
King, Stephen Scribner (544 pp.) $30.00 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-1-4767-2765-3 He-e-e-e-r-e’s Danny! Before an alcoholic can begin recovery, by some lights, he or she has to hit bottom. Dan Torrance, the alcoholic son of the very dangerously alcoholic father who came to no good in King’s famed 1977 novel The Shining, finds his rock bottom very near, if not exactly at, the scarifying image of an infant reaching for a baggie of blow. The drugs, the booze, the one-night stands, the excruciating chain of failures: all trace back to the bad doings at the Overlook Hotel (don’t go into Room 217) and all those voices in poor Dan’s head, which speak to (and because of) a very special talent he has. That “shining” is a matter of more than passing interest for a gang of RV-driving, torture-loving, soul-sucking folks who aren’t quite folks at all—the True Knot, about whom one particularly deadly recruiter comments, “They’re not my friends, they’re my family...And what’s tied can never be untied.” When the knotty crew sets its sights on a young girl whose own powers include the ability to sense impending bad
THE OUTCASTS
Kent, Kathleen Little, Brown (336 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-316-20612-9 After two novels re-imagining the history of her own New England ancestors (The Heretic’s Daughter, 2008; The Traitor’s Wife (originally entitled The Wolves of Andover, 2010)), Kent turns her attention to post–Civil War Texas, where law and morality are far more elastic. 12
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vibes, Dan, long adrift, begins to find new meaning in the world. Granted, he has good reason to have wanted to hide from it— he still has visions of that old Redrum scrawl, good reason to need the mental eraser of liquor—but there’s nothing like an apocalyptic struggle to bring out the best (or worst) in people. King clearly revels in his tale, and though it’s quite a bit more understated than his earlier, booze-soaked work, it shows all his old gifts, including the ability to produce sentences that read as if they’re tossed off but that could come only from someone who’s worked hard on them (“Danny, have you ever seen dead people? Regular dead people, I mean”). His cast of characters is as memorable as any King has produced, too, from a fully rounded Danny to the tiny but efficiently lethal Abra Stone and the vengeful Andi, who’s right to be angry but takes things just a touch too far. And that’s not to mention Rose the Hatless and Crow Daddy. Satisfying at every level. King even leaves room for a follow-up, should he choose to write one—and with luck, sooner than three decades hence. (Author tour to Boston, Boulder and New York)
his life in America, he has a pregnant wife and, soon, a daughter. The rest of the novel spans more than four decades in the life of this family, shaped and shaken by the events that have brought them together and tear them apart—“a family of solitaries [that]... had collided and dispersed.” Though Lahiri has previously earned greater renown for her short stories, this masterful novel deserves to attract an even wider readership. (Author tour to Boston, Chicago, Houston, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Providence, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.)
THE LOWLAND
Lahiri, Jhumpa Knopf (352 pp.) $27.95 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-307-26574-6 A tale of two continents in an era of political tumult, rendered with devastating depth and clarity by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author. The narrative proceeds from the simplicity of a fairy tale into a complex novel of moral ambiguity and aftershocks, with revelations that continue through decades and generations until the very last page. It is the story of two brothers in India who are exceptionally close to each other and yet completely different. Older by 15 months, Subhash is cautious and careful, not prone to taking any risks, unlike his impetuous brother Udayan, the younger but the leader in their various escapades. Inseparable in their Calcutta boyhoods, they eventually take very different paths, with Subhash moving to America to pursue his education and an academic career in scientific research, while Udayan becomes increasingly and clandestinely involved in Indian radical militancy. “The chief task of the new party was to organize the peasantry,” writes the novelist (Unaccustomed Earth, 2008, etc.). “The tactic would be guerrilla warfare. The enemy was the Indian state.” The book’s straightforward, declarative sentences will ultimately force the characters and the reader to find meaning in the space between them. While Udayan characteristically defies his parents by returning home with a wife he has impulsively courted rather than submitting to an arranged marriage, Subhash waits for his own life to unfold: “He wondered what woman his parents would choose for him. He wondered when it would be. Getting married would mean returning to Calcutta. In that sense he was in no hurry.” Yet crisis returns him to Calcutta, and when he resumes |
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INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
Amy Grace Loyd
The secrets of neighbors entangle a young widow in this publishing insider’s debut novel By Jaime Netzer really hired to resuscitate, and I think I managed to do something of that,” Loyd, who has also worked for the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, says. “Wonderful Denis Johnson wrote an original novel for me in four installments. It was called Nobody Move, but I don’t know if anybody noticed.” But since Loyd’s career was so high-profile and so public, she longed for its opposite, finding it in her narrator Celia’s obsession with privacy and anonymity. “Playboy was a challenge, and it was fantastic, but it was exhausting, and I think the privacy that Celia longs for was a little bit of wish fulfillment for me and a little kind of rebellion,” she says. “I wanted to believe I could create a world of my own.” And there was also the question of sex. Her male co-workers, whom she adored, joked about it a lot: “We had to make fun of it—it was the elephant in the room.” And, she says, they also loved porn; Playboy-style porn. Instead, Loyd wanted to portray sex between women that wasn’t staged, that wasn’t necessarily even about lust. “I wondered if two women could have a physical moment and be surprised by it and have it be about tenderness, about trying to rescue each other.” The questions the book wrestles with, she says, are universal. “I think that’s something we all navigate to varying degrees: sex and intimacy, good behavior versus bad,” Loyd says. “Celia was a great vehicle, as it turned out, for me to look at all of that.” Loyd says the book probably would’ve existed with or without Playboy, as the questions the novel asks have long interested her. But she admits that writing became a haven: “I actually really enjoyed my time at Playboy, and I don’t think I’d be the writer or the editor I am today without it, but there were tensions that made my needing that refuge and my enjoying the refuge of Celia and her odd world all the greater,” she says.
Photo courtesy Rex Bonomelli
It’s possible that if Amy Grace Loyd hadn’t served as Playboy’s fiction and literary editor for 6 1/2 years, her debut novel, The Affairs of Others, might be entirely different. Not likely, she says—but possible. Lushly written and suspenseful, the novel is about privacy and intimacy. Celia, a widowed landlord, becomes entangled in her tenants’ lives despite her best intentions to keep herself separate. It’s also about physical intimacy; about sex that is definitively not Playboy-esque. And those two elements—sex and privacy—are a direct response to her duties at Playboy, Loyd says. “The job required of me all sorts of being out there in the world, lots of being on the phone, and lots of persuading, lots of wooing, because I had the other content of the magazine to overcome a little bit,” she says. “It wasn’t the Playboy of the 1950s and ’60s.” And Loyd says the wooing was often successful, even if the general public missed her successes. “I was 14
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Loyd’s retreat is the reader’s benefit—even while maintaining suspense, the book still takes the time to hit psychological truths square on their heads, one after another. Those truths are the stuff of experience: Though Loyd researched the novel some, heading to the New York locations in which scenes are set and delving into the city’s history, she says most of her research was more personal. She talked to a few widows, but she adds, “I’ve felt widowed when relationships have gone awry and ended, because what do you do with all that intimacy and knowledge and tenderness, and where does it go? How do you heal something that feels so irretrievable?” Loyd often worked on the novel on the subway in New York, on what she calls the slowest train in the city, the R train. She commuted into work after rush hour and stayed till 8 or 9 p.m. While on the train, she’d read manuscripts, and she’d write. It took her somewhere between three and four years to finish The Affairs of Others, but that was due to that fact that she was not only busy with other work, but she also had her inner editor to deal with. “There was an editor in the process looking sternly at the other me and saying, ‘What the hell is this sentence?’ ” Loyd says, laughing. She adds that being an editor has both advantages and pitfalls for her writerself. “If I weren’t an editor I would still be exacting, but I wouldn’t necessarily have all the words for why I need to be that exacting, but I do get really cross at myself, and that slows me down.” But Loyd has always been both editor and writer. She nearly published a debut back in 2005, for Pantheon, but at the last minute, the deal fell through. “It was something internal,” Loyd says. “Someone there didn’t like it, and I just put it away.” She was hurt, but she kept writing, although she worried about what kind of writing she wanted to put out there, in public. The other potential problem about simultaneously editing and writing is that Loyd edits “lots of very established, very beloved people.” She stresses that “it’s their work that comes first.” She doesn’t go to work thinking, as she puts it, “ ‘Oh, God, Margaret Atwood, it’s such a burden for me too, the semicolon issue.’ I feel like it’s my choice as an editor” to keep her own writing life separate from that of the authors she edits. Loyd still juggles both jobs, both selves, in her current position as executive editor at Byliner, Inc., the online platform that started out delivering single-serving nonfiction essays and has since expanded to publishing fiction, from short stories to novellas.
“It’s still improvisational, and there’s still a lot of experimenting” at Byliner, she says. “It’s wonderful to be free from ‘you’ve got to cut it to make it fit.’ ” In her other job, Loyd is at work on a new novel about a migraine doctor, which she says involves much more research. Loyd has suffered from migraines since she was 4. “I wanted it to be an investigation into this thing: You want so much to help someone, to make them feel better, and often you can’t,” she says. She’s not certain whether she’ll tell the story in first person, but she knows that this story too will marry psychological questions with human, even erotic elements. “I’m a little daunted,” she says, “but I hope I can pull it off.” Jaime Netzer is a writer and editor living in Austin, Texas. The 2012-2013 Clark Writer-in-Residence at Texas State University, her fiction has been published in Twelve Stories and Corium Magazine. The Affairs of Others was reviewed in the Mar. 15 issue of Kirkus Reviews.
The Affairs of Others Loyd, Amy Grace Picador (240 pp.) $24.00 | Aug. 27, 2013 978-1-250-04129-6 |
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“Very fine work.” from the two hotel francforts
THE TWO HOTEL FRANCFORTS
has done what it can to hide him in the hinterlands. His protofeminist daughter—for this is 1968—is meanwhile looking to answer the burning question of whether “the bubble top, if it had been there, might have prevented the assassination—or at least the death—of Kennedy.” Well, weird things happen when a reporter’s obsession matches a source’s, and Lehrer expertly sails that particular sea. The writing sometimes seems a little tossed-off (“ ‘Food of the World’...seemed to mean Greek and Italian versions of scrambled eggs and toast”), but the way that Lehrer covers the ground (always skirting that “who” question) is fresh and convincing—and a couple of payoffs, including the longish denouement, come as a nice surprise. A footnote to the vast library surrounding the JFK assassination, but a good read nonetheless. (Agent: Timothy Seldes)
Leavitt, David Bloomsbury (272 pp.) $25.00 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-1-59691-042-3
An artfully crafted story of two marriages from Leavitt (English: Univ. of Florida), whose credits include Family Dancing (1984) and The Indian Clerk (2007), both finalists for the PEN/ Faulkner Award. The book is set in Lisbon, Portugal, among the refugees, after the outbreak of World War II. Pete and Julia Winters meet Iris and Edward Freleng, and their little dog, Daisy, when Edward steps on Pete’s glasses. They are sitting outside the Café Suiça, a place packed with foreigners hoping to escape Europe. While the Winters and the Frelengs have this problem solved— they will travel on the SS Manhattan, an American ship commandeered for the purpose—they have their own problems, and little more than a week to live through them. The Winters have been living in Paris for 17 years. Julia is temperamental, high-strung; she has sworn never to return to New York. The Frelengs are independently wealthy, for many years itinerant; they have for some time been settled in the Gironde, passing the days writing Xavier Legrand mysteries. Edward is unstable; Iris is manipulative; Julia is brittle; and Pete, the narrator, is conflicted—a good man who does a bad thing for the right reasons. Along the way, there is an affair and a fatal tragedy. Very fine work.
ALEX
Lemaitre, Pierre Translated by Wynne, Frank Quercus (384 pp.) $24.95 | Sep. 3, 2013 978-1-62365-000-1 In this unpredictable, oddly delectable French thriller, an attractive young Parisian woman is abducted, chained in a crate and brutalized by an avenger—a crime that doesn’t begin to hint at the gruesome killings to follow. The spoiler alert applies big-time to this book, the fourth of Lemaitre’s novels featuring Police Commandant Camille Verhoeven and the first to be translated into English. The surprises, early and late, reboot the unusual narrative and redefine the case at hand. The quick-tempered, Danny DeVito–short Camille is already feeling a bit shaky, having just returned to the force after four years. He suffered a breakdown following his wife Irene’s murder—a crime for which his smooth, elegantly dressed sidekick, Louis, feels responsible. Though solving this new case ultimately helps Camille deal with his personal loss, he is dogged by his decision to return to work after Irene’s death. But his guilt fades with each burst of intuition he has about the killings; the stranger the case becomes, the more he is drawn into it. A serial killer, deviant sexual behavior and hungry rats figure in the story. An eloquent thriller with a denouement that raises eyebrows as it speeds the pulse.
TOP DOWN A Novel of the Kennedy Assassination Lehrer, Jim Random House (208 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-1-4000-6916-3
Who shot JFK? In longtime PBS stalwart Lehrer’s novel, the question better becomes: How shot JFK? In a blend of police procedural and peek behind the curtains at how journalists do their jobs, Lehrer (Super, 2010, etc.) posits an uncomfortable scenario, at least for a beat reporter: A story returns, years after the fact, with a new and unforeseen wrinkle. In this instance, Dallas Tribune writer Jack Gilmore is going out to lunch—well, speaking before a lunch, anyway—on a strange twist to the assassination tale, relating how a request came from the copy desk for him to find out, before JFK’s motorcade set out for Dealey Plaza, whether the top on his limousine would be up or down. Hmmm. It had been raining before, but now on this beautiful warm day—well, Gilmore asks, the agent in charge orders the top taken off, and the rest is history. Or is it? That agent has been a seething erosive mess of guilt ever since, and the Secret Service 16
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SEVEN DEADLIES
Perry’s case, her thriving small business tutoring her privileged, spoiled and tragically flawed Mark Frost classmates. Each of the seven tutoring assignments she details is a mini-allegory about a deadly sin, complete with illustrations (not seen.) Lust involves the cossetted daughter whose birthday wish, a backyard concert by the boy band du jour, has unexpected consequences for her neglected, studious brother. Two of the anecdotes, Wrath and Greed, detail unorthodox, some would say criminal, methods for coping with sociopathic children. In Gluttony and Sloth, respectively, an obese student whose hunger literally knows no bounds and a video gamer whose body has atrophied except in those areas required for his all-consuming pastime suffer symbolic retribution for their excesses. As her “essay” ticks off the transgressions, some facts about Perry herself begin to emerge: She is academically gifted but humbly diligent, ever grateful and respectful toward her mother, and, where a handsome quarterback (in Pride) is concerned, as vulnerable as her airheaded Mark Frost schoolmates. As her own treatise about sin conclusively shows, it is possible to be too rich, but could Perry be too good? Although at first blush this “cautionary tale” mimics a
Levangie, Gigi Blue Rider Press (256 pp.) $25.95 | Oct. 17, 2013 978-0-399-16673-0 A 14-year old pens a premature and very precocious admissions essay in Levangie’s quirky latest (The After Wife, 2012, etc.). Perry Gonzales, daughter of “the estimable Yelena Maria Gonzales, R.N.” a hardworking single mother, is tendering her application to Bennington College, four years early. This scholarship student, who commutes from rough North Hollywood to the exclusive Mark Frost Academy in Beverly Hills, is already anticipating her future as a writer, a career that can only be advanced by attending the same Vermont college that produced Bret Easton Ellis and Donna Tartt. Her personal essay, as such essays must, demonstrates community service and extracurricular components: in
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YA novel in the Gossip Girls vein, Levangie’s conceit works on an adult level mainly due to the fact that it’s economical—too much elaboration would weigh down what is essentially a collection of frothy shaggy dog jokes. The most original admissions essay seen since Legally Blonde.
matching brief observations on classic characters with simple, sometimes emotionally effective line drawings. The pieces are brief and mostly self-contained, although a few characters (The Ugly Duckling, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland) get extended story arcs based on their idiosyncrasies and particular challenges, which feels a bit like tossing a Disney princess into the cast of HBO’s Girls. The characters are mostly cynical, although a few can be touching—see the “funemployed” Hansel and Gretel, perpetually alone together in the woods, or a gay Arthur hugging it out with Sir Lancelot. You’ll find Cinderella writing herself empowering Post-its: “You are in control of your own future. You are capable of amazing things,” immediately followed by “And fuck anyone who says otherwise.” The Tortoise and the Hare also have an interesting arc, with their lifelong competition played out in public. “It wasn’t until they were each about to fall asleep that night that it hit them at the same time: There is no destination. There isn’t a winner. There was never a race,” Manley writes. The illustrations are entertaining—the worried Chicken Little, next to a bottle of Xanax that reads “Take one any time you do anything,” is a highlight. From Red Riding Hood and her vibrator (“Lil’ Red”) to Beauty’s and the Beast’s sexting addictions, these fractured fairy tales may not be for everyone, but they are crafty. Not as poignant as Bill Willingham’s Fables series, but a cool, PG-13 revisiting of classic stories. For readers who grew up with the Internet, they may strike a chord.
THE LAST MAN STANDING
Longo, Davide Translated by Mazzarella, Silvester MacLehose Press (352 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-62365-034-6 A searing, dystopian parable that follows the intellectual Leonardo, a disgraced writer, as he navigates the collapse of society. This remarkable book is the Italian author’s first to be translated into English. Leonardo, retired from public life to his family home in a small village in Italy’s Piedmont region after his affair with a student, learns of the extent of social collapse in bits and pieces as it reaches his small community. He is not just retired, but retiring, preferring books to life. Until he is forced to migrate, in the company of his daughter, Lucia, and her half brother, Alberto, he clings to his former life, rereading Flaubert and Tolstoy. As the situation worsens, Leonardo thinks of his old life, and there are hints that his public humiliation at the hands of the young woman with whom he had an affair may be a kind of foreshadowing of what the world has come to now. If it is, Leonardo doesn’t see it. He tries to hide from suffering, and from causing suffering, until the situation has gone so far that everything he cherished must be renounced, including his idea of himself. When it comes, the sex is violent and the violence gruesome. “ ‘Stories of courage always come from the basest part of ourselves, poetry and profundity from the most arid part,’ in the words of an elderly writer [Leonardo] happened to meet early in [his] career.” Longo’s characters get in touch with the basest parts of themselves in order to preserve what is denigrated as “the most arid.” Visceral and gripping.
KING’S MOUNTAIN
McCrumb, Sharyn Dunne/St. Martin’s (336 pp.) $25.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-250-01140-4 Southern writer McCrumb, author of a series of Appalachian ballad novels (The Ballad of Tom Dooley, 2011, etc.), puts her hand to the Revolutionary War as the Overmountain militia men of North Carolina push off the British. In 1780, John Sevier has had little time to concern himself with the war up North. In the mountains of the Carolinas, the western frontier of the era, the fighting is with the Indians, and it is brutal and frequent. Politics between the crown and the Continental Army seem a distant worry, that is until Maj. Patrick Ferguson of the British army threatens those on the frontier: either pledge allegiance to the Tory cause or suffer the consequences. Feeling squeezed on both sides—by the Indians and the British—Sevier sets out to organize an army to defeat Ferguson. When word gets out of Ferguson’s threats, it doesn’t take much for all of the neighboring militias to join forces—in the end, over 2,000 men. But before the march, Sevier needs money and food and gunpowder for an army, and much of the novel is taken up with the organization of a battle. Meanwhile, in Ferguson’s camp, Virginia Sal, a young washerwomen, describes Ferguson and the ambivalence of those pressed to serve. Ferguson, the second son of a Scottish lord, is a wonder
ALICE IN TUMBLR-LAND And Other Fairy Tales for a New Generation Manley, Tim Penguin (240 pp.) $18.00 | Oct. 29, 2013 978-0-14-312479-5
Fairy-tale princes and princesses get a postmodern makeover in this wry but slight reimagining. Writer and illustrator Manley cribs much of the material here from his Tumblr feed, Fairy Tales for Twenty-Somethings, 18
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“A distinguished addition to fictionalized narratives focused on the Civil War and its aftermath.” from nostalgia
POLICE
to all: He eats off china and has met the king; Sal thinks he may be closer to God for all his fineness. As Sevier’s men get closer to the battle (as untrained soldiers who have sworn no oath), he prays their element of surprise will decide the victor. The book is well-researched, but it too often lacks a lively voice (save for Virginia Sal) and is caught up in logistics, to the detriment of atmosphere. There is no look or feel to the story that allows the characters to breathe. McCrumb’s novel is much like Sevier’s exploits—a slow march to an inevitable conclusion.
Nesbø, Jo Translated by Bartlett, Don Knopf (416 pp.) $25.95 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-307-96049-8 Having upped the ante with the previous novel in the Harry Hole series, the author goes for broke here. Arguably the most densely packed and ambitiously plotted novel in a series that has been getting darker with each volume, the tenth novel featuring Harry Hole is a companion sequel to its predecessor (Phantom, 2012). That book had left the former Oslo detective no longer a member of the police force and perhaps no longer alive. The publication of a new Hole novel removes the “spoiler alert,” though for the first third of the novel, Harry exists more as a memory or an inspiration than as a character. The audacity of the author’s vision here is that Hole is but one of a number
NOSTALGIA
McFarland, Dennis Pantheon (336 pp.) $25.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-307-90834-6 A Civil War novel from Vermontbased author McFarland (Letter from Point Clear, 2007, etc.) that, like The Red Badge of Courage, focuses on the horror of battle as well as on the psychology of the soldier. Summerfield Hayes signs up to fight for the Union for several reasons, some of them better than others. He’s from Brooklyn and was recently made an orphan when his parents died in an accident while visiting Ireland. Strangely, but perhaps most importantly, he feels the need to get away from his older sister, Sarah, for whom he has quasiincestuous feelings. In 1864, he finds himself fighting in the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia. Wounded by shrapnel and bleeding badly, he’s abandoned by his regiment but eventually wends his way to an Army hospital in Washington, D.C. Temporarily unable to escape, he listens closely to the conversations of his wounded comrades and is also subject to the tender ministrations of a nurse—Walt Whitman. It’s a matter of concern and outrage when an officious captain comes into the hospital and berates Hayes for being a deserter. Before the war, Hayes had been an outstanding baseball player, and early in his Army career—before the horrors of the Wilderness—he was instrumental in helping to set up a friendly rivalry between two competing teams. (It’s amusing that since there has to be some kind of rationale behind the teams, it’s decided to have single men on one team and married men on the other.) The captain investigating Hayes believes he’s now malingering simply so he can go back to New York and play baseball once again. Using a complex, effective narrative strategy, McFarland moves us confidently from battlefield to hospital to baseball diamond as well as through dream, reverie and memory. A distinguished addition to fictionalized narratives focused on the Civil War and its aftermath. (Author tour to Boston, New York, Vermont and New England)
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of characters who might be living, might be dead, might even be some sort of ghostly spirits. There’s a religious dimension to the plot twists of death and rebirth, of man playing god, both the redeemer and the avenger. The basic plot, not that there’s anything basic about it, is that a series of gruesome crimes have remained unsolved for years, though DNA testing offers new possibilities. The police who investigated the original crimes and failed to solve them are lured back to the murder scenes, on the anniversaries of the murders, and are then themselves killed in an equally gruesome manner. Is the killer the same as the first, covering his tracks? Or is he “an apostle of righteousness,” an agent of justice, insisting that those who failed to solve the crimes must pay for them? Is it even possible that the one stalking police is himself a member of the force, revolted at the corruption that those who read the previous novel know now extends to the top? Or is he part of that corruption? Casualties spawn new theories, as those thought dead turn out to be alive (and vice versa), and the complexities suggest that “the human brain is a four-dimensional labyrinth. Everyone’s been there; no one knows the way.” A surprise ending promises a fresh start for a series that had appeared to end with its previous novel.
a previous mission, now gone rogue at the demon’s behest. The final battle takes place in ancient excavations beneath Mexico City. The good guys knife, shoot and explode Zeta gunmen, chupacabra, giant albino snakes and 7-foot obsidian butterflies called chacmools. Ochse has hit on a new subgenre: military special ops battling supernatural enemies. Gore ensues.
LEFT
Ossowski, Tamar Skyhorse Publishing (240 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-62636-037-2 Massachusetts-based author Ossowski’s debut about a family’s fragmentation, forgiveness and love. Single parent Therese Wolley works hard to support her two daughters financially and emotionally. Older daughter Matilda sometimes suffers from nightmares, and young Franny interprets her world from an autistic perspective, enveloping herself in letters. But an item in the newspaper and an obligation to fulfill a promise abruptly alter the family dynamics. Therese packs the girls in her car and drives to her friend Leah’s home, which Franny thinks “smells like art.” The next day, Leah takes Franny on an outing, and Franny returns to discover her world is totally unbalanced. Therese and Matilda are gone, although her sister leaves behind a journal and a promise to return for her. Franny doesn’t understand her abandonment, but in many ways, she copes with the changes in her life in healthier ways than her sibling, her mother and guardian. Leah buries her demons until Franny innocently uncovers them while asking about pieces of artwork she finds under a mattress. Meanwhile, Matilda and her mother settle into an apartment in another town, and Matilda acts out her resentment toward her mother by allying herself with a neighborhood bad boy, skipping school, sneaking out of the house and drinking. Therese stubbornly refuses to supply satisfactory answers to Matilda’s questions, and she spends more time away from home as she worries that the past will come back to haunt her and her daughter. Although it does not have the strongest plot or ending, Ossowski’s narrative is more about the characters and their individual journeys: The author artfully portrays each in meticulous detail and employs superlative imagery to paint every thought and action. Ossowski, a mother of three (including a child with special needs), touchingly examines the elements that bind families together.
AGE OF BLOOD
Ochse, Weston Dunne/St. Martin’s (336 pp.) $24.99 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-1-250-03662-9 Ochse (Seal Team 666, 2012) offers Volume 2 chronicling the demon-hunting SEAL warrior team. In this saga, the paranormal-pursuit SEAL team heads to Mexico to battle the usual suspects: demons, werewolves and homunculi. SEAL Team 666’s mission is to rescue Emily Withers, the kidnapped daughter of a U.S. senator. Spinning his tale in short, cinematic chapters, Ochse employs characters direct from central casting. There’s Holmes, the rugged, handsome officer in charge; Laws, wise-guy intellectual; Walker, dedicated, sometimes-conflicted sniper; Yank, an African-American from Compton, scared straight; and YaYa, Middle Eastern in heritage but patriotic to the core. There’s even a hint of romance, with Walker being paired up with an attractive covert analyst. The main event comes when Team 666 confronts the Zeta drug cartel and an ancient Aztec cult whose members dress in the skins of the dead. Ochse laces the narrative with more acronyms than he defines, lists weapons exotic and prosaic, and splashes enough blood to satisfy fans of exploding heads. The action moves from New Orleans to California and then to Mexico City, but Ochse doesn’t rely on setting. His modus operandi is demonology—and bloodletting. The prime bad guy, his motivation unclear, is white-suited Ramon, werewolf and former Zeta assassin. The original kidnapping is a trick to lure the senator to Mexico, where he too is kidnapped, the snatch pulled off by a Team 666 member infected by an otherworldly presence during 20
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MR. LYNCH’S HOLIDAY
apparently a decent enough sort, “to this day has enjoyed a nearly error-free history of knowing how certain commodities around the world will behave,” but Maxine has a keen sense of how data flows and from whom to whom. One track she follows leads to a genius billionaire and electronic concoctions that can scarcely be believed—but also, in a customarily loopy way, to organized crime, terrorism, big data and the U.S. government, with the implication, as Horst later will ponder, that all are bound up in the collapse of the Twin Towers. (“Remember the week before this happened, all those put options on United and American Airlines? Which turned out to be exactly the two airlines that got hijacked?”) If you were sitting in a plane next to someone muttering about such things, you might ask to change seats, but Pynchon has long managed to blend his particularly bleak view of latter-day humankind with a tolerant ability to find true humor in our foibles. If he’s sometimes heavy-handed, he’s also attuned precisely to the zeitgeist, drawing in references to Pabst Blue Ribbon longnecks, Mamma Mia, the Diamondbacks/Yankees World Series, Office Space, and the touching belief of young Zuckerbergs in the age before
O’Flynn, Catherine Henry Holt (272 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-8050-9181-6
When a bereaved father visits his unhappy son, living in a disintegrating development in Spain, the result is a downbeat, comic, occasionally tender period of small revelations and adjustments for both Mr. Lynches. Noted British writer O’Flynn (What Was Lost, 2008, etc.) mixes banality and insight in her third novel, a soft-spoken story of the distance between supposedly close individuals. Dermot Lynch, an Irish immigrant to Birmingham, England, has lived a solid, quiet, working-class life as a bus driver and husband to Kathleen. Their only child, Eamonn, was clever enough to go to university, but his education has only served to cut him off from his roots, leaving him adrift and alienated. Eamonn and his girlfriend, Laura, moved to Spain during the height of the property boom, but now, their estate is half empty and crumbling, its value plummeting. And Eamonn’s sense of failure has driven Laura away. Dermot’s arrival doesn’t extricate Eamonn from his depression, especially after Eamonn loses his job, but the walks and talks shared by father and son offer moments of connection as well as exasperation. O’Flynn’s brush strokes can be broad—one-dimensional supporting characters; obvious symbolism, such as when Dermot saves Eamonn from drowning. Nevertheless, her gentle portrait of ordinary folk crossing borders, struggling for connection, has moments of understated empathy and charm. A low-key vignette of family life, appealing but not memorable.
BLEEDING EDGE
Pynchon, Thomas Penguin Press (512 pp.) $27.95 | Sep. 17, 2013 978-1-59420-423-4 Pynchon (Inherent Vice, 2009, etc.) makes a much-anticipated return, and it’s trademark stuff: a blend of existential angst, goofy humor and broad-sweeping bad vibes. Paranoia, that operative word in Pynchon’s world ever since Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), is what one of his characters here calls “the garlic in life’s kitchen.” Well, there’s paranoia aplenty to be had in Pynchon’s sauté pan, served up in the dark era of the 9/11 attack, the dot-com meltdown and the Patriot Act. Maxine Tarnow is, on the face of it, just another working mom in the city, but in reality, after she’s packed her kids’ lunches and delivered them at school, she’s ferreting around with data cowboys and code monkeys, looking into various sorts of electronic fraud. Her estranged husband, |
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“...eloquent exploration of life...” from in pinelight
THE WOLVES OF MIDWINTER
Zuckerberg that their bleeding-edge technology—“[n]o proven use, high risk, something only early-adoption addicts feel comfortable with”—will somehow be put to good use rather than, as Pynchon assures us, to the most evil applications. Of a piece with Pynchon’s recent work—not quite a classic à la V. but in a class of its own—more tightly woven but no less madcap than Inherent Vice, and sure to the last that we live in a world of very odd shadows.
Rice, Anne Knopf (320 pp.) $25.95 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-385-34996-3 Series: Wolf Gift Chronicles, 2
Second in Rice’s series (The Wolf Gift, 2012) featuring a cultured pack of dogooder werewolves. Reuben, a newly minted Man Wolf, has moved into the Northern California mansion he inherited from the lovely, mysterious and now late Marchent. The mansion, situated in a vast woodland, is also home to several older (in some cases ancient) men who are, when the occasion requires, werewolves. Among these “Distinguished Gentlemen” are Marchent’s uncle Felix, a giant named Sergei, the well-mannered Thibault, and the leader and conscience of the pack, Margon. The Gentleman are inducting the beginner werewolves, including Stuart, a young gay man, and Reuben’s latest ladylove, Laura, into new, immortal life. The group is preparing for a gala Christmas party they hope to make an annual tradition. The party will be followed by the midwinter rites, which the werewolves (known as Morphenkinder) have celebrated since time immemorial and which, in some packs, involves human sacrifice. Not Margon’s pack, however. His men (and women) wolves have a special instinct for sniffing out and mauling evildoers, particularly those who abuse and molest children. In fact, one night, after Reuben’s wolf persona emerges involuntarily, he rescues a kidnapped little girl, then devours most of her captor. The Gentlemen must put the public off the scent of their true identities, whence the party. But Reuben’s human entanglements pose complications. Marchent, who was murdered, is haunting Reuben, and Felix must enlist the aid of another supernatural group, the Forest Gentry, a kind of ethereal, chamois-clad tribe, to entice her troubled spirit away from the house. Reuben’s hated ex-girlfriend is about to give birth to his baby, and his father has decided to temporarily move into the mansion, where he will be the only resident who is not only mortal, but not privy to the werewolves’ secret. This complex fantasy world relies on an elaborate substructure of lore and history, and the action slows as points of exposition are repetitiously belabored. Fans will welcome Rice’s return to the realm of eccentric immortal predators. (Author tour to Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, Phoenix, San Francisco and Seattle)
IN PINELIGHT
Rayfiel, Thomas Northwestern Univ. (280 pp.) $18.95 paper | Sep. 30, 2013 978-0-8101-5236-6 The mysteries of life in a small town are beautifully told through the monologue of an old man’s musings. Rayfiel has created a poetic world through William, his narrator, who answers questions put to him by a real or imagined, but unseen, questioner about his life and those around him in Conklingville, a town now buried beneath the deep waters of a hydroelectric dam. William imagines the town below, seen through the shimmering, moving water. Rayfiel builds a narrative around the memory of a damaged man. There is no linear storyline; it jumps and stutters, runs into beautiful thoughts and touches on the ugliness of life. William is a throwback to an earlier time: a handyman and a carter who would rather spend time with horses than people. “A horse will take on any mood whatever you feel inside that’s what animals are for they show you what you’re feeling,” he says. And William is feeling much. His family has suffered tragedy—the disappearance of his sister—and the town itself revolves around several mysteries that bring the edgy side of small-town life to the surface. William tries to connect the dots of wayward clues and memories for the man who is asking him questions offstage. Here, the unknown, the unspoken, is as strong a narrative force as the spoken. This novel is unusual in form but beautiful in delivery. Nothing on the surface is what it seems, including the narrator’s vision of God. “See the real book it’s not the bible but us maybe we’re all together one big book…and He’s reading it turning the pages…and we’re just words on a page.” An eloquent exploration of life seen through an aging man’s eyes.
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a public television station, is approached by a kindly cop who somehow knows, despite sealed records, about her history and who enlists her to give whatever advice or solace she can to a young woman who’s gone through a similar ordeal. Jenny is a survivor’s survivor: forthright, no-nonsense, scarred but never bowed, with great compassion but none of the illusions about human nature that sometimes accompany good-heartedness. Amid political turmoil and disaster in an imagined near future, she takes in the horrifically battered young woman, aids a group of squatters, reunites (in a way) with part of her family, embarks on a romance, performs feats of footage editing, and becomes, eventually, the staggeringly unlikely confidante of the president of the United States. Loose, improvisational, not infrequently sloppy and—as the foregoing synopsis suggests—dizzyingly overloaded with plot, the novel would seem doomed, but amid the pulpy turns and the missing transitions, there’s a surprising power: Jenny is an irresistible character, and there are flashes here of insight and sweetness. The novelistic equivalent of a band jam session, with riffs well-worth listening to.
Sallis, James Bloomsbury (128 pp.) $24.00 | Sep. 10, 2013 978-1-62040-209-2
The latest from Sallis, best known for his Lew Griffin detective series and for Drive (2006), the basis for the Ryan Gosling film of the same name. This slim book features a rarity for Sallis, a female narrator. Abducted at 8 and confined for two years to a padlocked box beneath her captor’s bed, Jenny Rowan escaped at 10 and took up residence in the Westwood Mall, where, for 18 months of scavenging and contentment, she managed to evade detection. After the legend of “Mall Girl” grew and she was discovered by a security guard, Jenny ended up in the juvenile system until she petitioned for her independence on her 16th birthday. As the novel begins, Jenny, now an adult who works as an editor for
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STORM FRONT
in by August Bridge, a cranial surgeon, and his wife, Lily. Experimenting with the new field of psychoanalysis, August strives to restore Stella’s memory: She draws a series of scenes that provide clues, not least to the fact that she is an accomplished artist. At the Admiralty, she is recognized by Samuel, an officer there, and her past floods back—she is Etna Van Tassel, not Stella Bain. A flashback reveals that Etna and Samuel were young lovers in New Hampshire and that she begged Samuel, in front of his brother Phillip, not to marry another, to no avail. She married a dour Dutch professor, until a baseless scandal he fomented involving their teenage daughter and Phillip drove Etna—and Phillip—to France as a volunteer. Phillip and Etna’s affinity blossoms into affection as the duo, both ambulance drivers, steal moments together amid the carnage and horror of trench warfare. Although the novel’s structure is somewhat disjointed, and the preliminary amnesiac chapters seem gratuitous in light of the full revelations that follow, the characters are well-drawn and sympathetic. Many surprises are in store. An exemplary addition to Shreve’s already impressive oeuvre.
Sandford, John Putnam (400 pp.) $27.95 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-399-15930-5 Virgil Flowers (Mad River, 2012, etc.) chases after a biblical relic that turns every person whose path it crosses into a criminal. Lutheran minister Elijah Jones has lived a long time without stepping over the line. But the inscribed stele that turns up on the Israeli archaeological dig on which he’s a volunteer is too much of a temptation for even a dying man like Jones to resist. Sneaking off with the priceless relic, he high-tails it home to Mankato for the express purpose, it would seem, of presenting Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension with a new challenge. And quite a challenge it is, because what’s engraved on the stele is so controversial that it’s avidly sought by Yael Aronov, of the Israeli Antiquities Authority; Mossad killer Tal Zahavi; Turkish torturer Timur Kaya; TV archaeologist Tag Bauer; professor John Rogers Sewicky, who teaches ancient mysteries classes at the University of Texas; Lebanese college student Faraj Awad, who may or may not be a liaison for Hezbollah; assorted Beltway types who decline to identify their government agencies; and several lesser fry, from Elijah’s daughter Ellen Case to counterfeit lumber merchant Florence “Ma” Nobles, who are both presumably just out for the money. The wholesale pursuit of the relic by everyone in the Central time zone carries serious comic potential, but Sandford, unlike Elijah, sticks to the straight and narrow as he conscientiously follows everyone who’s embarked on this treasure hunt. The effect is to muffle Virgil and his senior colleague Lucas Davenport (Silken Prey, 2013, etc.) without creating anyone equally engaging to take their places. Quite a departure for Virgil and Lucas, but this is not a case that plays to their considerable strengths.
GOOD INDIAN GIRLS Stories
Sidhu, Ranbir Singh Soft Skull Press (240 pp.) $15.95 paper | Oct. 15, 2013 978-1-59376-531-6
Achingly merciless, London-born author Sidhu’s 12 short stories sharply delineate the edges of identity and sanity. Playwright, novelist and Pushcart Prize winner Sidhu populates his collection with Indian diaspora. These haunting tales simultaneously attract and repel, enchant and shatter, evoking the ambiguous relationships between past and present, others and self. An airplane crash prompts a gas station employee to descend deeper and deeper into a madness in which everything, beginning with India itself, drops out of existence. Hoping to gain self-confidence and perhaps love, a young woman joins a decluttering class and finds herself drawn to a serial killer. A diplomat’s wife has spent so many years adapting to new cultures that she is dismayed to learn of her husband’s plan to retire. With the discovery of her pet python’s death, her confusion—what could India possibly mean to her now, after so many years and so many personas?— merges with an erotically tinged grief. Mysteriously promoted from a bottom-rung post in Africa to a cushy job in San Francisco, an alcoholic Indian diplomat tries to figure out why everyone believes he is an Urdu poet. Complicating matters are his emotionless lover and her father, who wields a strange power over her. A man’s addiction to classic novels impels him to hire a professional reader, which ruins his marriage. The discovery of a skull at an orphanage catalyzes a cult, a cult that replicates the hierarchy and complicity of colonization. Each ending seems unfinished, leaving each heart cracked open, perhaps to endure more pain or perhaps to remain simply unfulfilled. Deftly sifting through
STELLA BAIN
Shreve, Anita Little, Brown (272 pp.) $28.00 | $14.99 e-book | $30.00 Lg. Prt. Nov. 12, 2013 978-0-316-09886-1 978-0-316-21544-2 e-book 978-0-316-09885-4 Lg. Prt. A wife risks every chance of domestic happiness by heading to the front long before America’s entry into the Great War. A woman awakens in a field hospital in Marne, France, in 1916. Fragments of memory surface: She recalls that she was serving near the front as a nurse’s aide and ambulance driver before suffering a shrapnel wound and shell shock and that her name is Stella Bain. Driven to seek answers about her identity from the Admiralty in London, she travels there and, ill, is taken 24
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a range of less-often-visited emotions, Sidhu creates inscrutable characters inhabiting bewildering circumstances. Smart, provocative and poignantly disturbing, this collection, the author’s U.S. debut, signals a writer to watch.
collapse. The manicured, Ivy-ish campus is rife with halfwayhouse residents, mentally ill homeless people and addicts—that last group a class that includes plenty of students, too. Maud has her own issues with drinking, but her biggest problems are the ongoing affair she’s pursued with Steven, a married professor, and a column she’s written for the campus paper mocking anti-abortion protesters at a nearby hospital. Just as Maud’s writing grabs attention and her relationship with Steven falls apart, she’s killed in a car accident. The novel isn’t halfway done by then, and what follows isn’t an easy morality play about abortion rhetoric or teacher-student relationships. Rather, Stone pursues a close study of how Maud’s death has undone many of the certainties of those around her. The incident drives her father back to drinking and pondering past corruptions. An adviser recalls her own history as a protester and reconsiders her faith. And Steven, who was arguing with a drunken Maud before her death, reckons with his own complicity. Stone gives this story the rough shape of a police procedural—Steven is the main person of interest—which gives the prose some snap and avoids sodden, moralizing lectures. What emerges from Stone’s crisp storytelling is a critique of tribalism of all sorts—religious, academic, police—that doesn’t damn those institutions but reveals how they work to protect their own interests at the expense of those of others. An unusual but poised mix of noir and town-and-gown novel, bolstered by Stone’s well-honed observational skills. (Author tour to Boston and New York)
BETWIXT AND BETWEEN
Stilling, Jessica Ig Publishing (296 pp.) $16.95 paper | Dec. 10, 2013 978-1-935439-84-4
Peter Pan revisited. Stilling reimagines the world of the children’s classic, and all of the familiar characters and places are here, including the Darlings, the Lost Boys, Tinker Bell, Captain Hook, pirates, cowboys, Indians, Neverland and early Edwardian London. Stilling even introduces J.M. Barrie as a character. But this is revisionist Pan, for the novel begins in the modern world with the murder of a child in Massachusetts. One afternoon, Preston Tumber visits Gregory Hawthorne, a strange neighbor, and is offered a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. Out of politeness, he reluctantly accepts the gift, but on the way home, he experiences a seizure and dies. He wakes up in the here and now of Neverland and becomes one of the Lost Boys. Meanwhile, his parents are grieving, yet they find their grief somewhat mitigated with the arrest of Hawthorne, who protests his innocence. A few weeks after his arrest—and before he’s brought to trial—he’s killed in prison. Shortly after this, a new Lost Boy arrives in Neverland, Peyton, who is Preston’s best friend. It seems as though he, too, was murdered, and obviously not by Hawthorne, who died several weeks prior to Peyton’s death. Meanwhile, in turnof-the-century London, young Winifred Darling has a serious fall and faces a difficult recovery. In her delirium, she seems to have visited Neverland and to have met young Peter. Back in 21st-century Massachusetts, a game’s afoot, as there’s obviously a murderer of children on the loose. A revisionist reconstruction that never quite works due to the jarring disjunction between fantasy and reality.
THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2013
Strout, Elizabeth—Ed. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (356 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-547-55482-2
Plenty of great stories, but lighter on discovery and revelation than some previous annuals. For the reader whose consumption of short stories doesn’t extend much beyond this yearly collection, the latest delivers the goods. With novelist Strout (The Burgess Boys, 2013, etc.) serving as guest editor and making the final selection, the collection includes a number of writers widely regarded as masters of the form: Alice Munro, Lorrie Moore, George Saunders and Junot Díaz among them. Almost half of these stories originally appeared in either the New Yorker or Granta. Strout explains that voice was the dominant criterion in her selection: “Arguably, authorial voice is more important in a short story than in a longer piece of fiction. The ride is quicker, the response heightened, and less space is available in which to absorb patches of soggy writing or gratuitous detail.” One of the quickest rides that generates the strongest response is “The Chair” by David Means, a firstperson narration (as many of these stories are) by a father who can’t be trusted to know himself, let alone do best by his son, as he finds himself “having to reestablish my command, or better
DEATH OF THE BLACK-HAIRED GIRL
Stone, Robert Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (288 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 12, 2013 978-0-618-38623-9 The death of a star student at an upper-crust university unsettles friends, faculty and family in a piercing novel from veteran novelist Stone (Fun With Problems, 2010, etc.). Stone’s eighth novel introduces student Maud Stack as a privileged young woman enveloped by a cloud of danger and |
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Regrettably, mountains of unnecessary detail and disorganization obscure what might have been an intriguing saga.
yet, my guidance—a towering figure in his little mind....” Quite a few of these stories concern the essence of storytelling: “Stories are about things that don’t happen. They could happen, but they don’t. But they could” (Steven Millhauser, “A Voice in the Night”); “I’m Paul Harvey, and now you know the rest of the story” (Callan Wink, “Breatharians”). As always, the Contributors’ Notes on the stories are fascinating, and writers will be encouraged to learn that one of the best stories here—“Horned Men” by Karl Taro Greenfeld—was rejected by some 50 publications before making it to print.
THE GOLDFINCH
Tartt, Donna Little, Brown (784 pp.) $30.00 | Oct. 22, 2013 978-0-316-05543-7
A long-awaited, elegant meditation on love, memory and the haunting power of art. Tartt (The Little Friend, 2002, etc.) takes a long time, a decade or more, between novels. This one, her third, tells the story of a young man named Theodore Decker who is forced to grapple with the world alone after his mother—brilliant, beautiful and a delight to be around—is felled in what would seem to be an accident, if an explosion inside a museum can be accidental. The terrible wreckage of the building, a talismanic painting half buried in plaster and dust, “the stink of burned clothes, and an occasional soft something pressing in on me that I didn’t want to think about”—young Theo will carry these things forever. Tartt’s narrative is in essence an extended footnote to that horror, with his mother becoming ever more alive in memory even as the time recedes: not sainted, just alive, the kind of person Theo misses because he can’t tell her goofy things (his father taking his mistress to a Bon Jovi concert in Las Vegas, for instance: “It seemed terrible that she would never know this hilarious fact”) as much as for any other reason. The symbolic echoes Tartt employs are occasionally heavyhanded, and it’s a little too neat that Theo discovers the work of the sublime Dutch master Carel Fabritius, killed in a powder blast, just before the fateful event that will carry his mother away. Yet it all works. “All the rest of it is lost—everything he ever did,” his mother quietly laments of the little-known artist, and it is Theo’s mission as he moves through life to see that nothing in his own goes missing. Bookending Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, this is an altogether lovely addition to what might be called the literature of disaster and redemption. The novel is slow to build but eloquent and assured, with memorable characters, not least a Russian cracker-barrel philosopher who delivers a reading of God that Mordecai Richler might applaud. A standout—and well worth the wait.
THE MOUNTAIN OF LIGHT
Sundaresan, Indu Washington Square/Pocket (352 pp.) $16.00 paper | Oct. 8, 2013 978-1-4516-4351-0 Sundaresan (The Shadow Princess, 2010, etc.), author of previous novels about India, produces a 19th-century saga about British colonialism, Indian nationalism, and the transfer of a symbol of power from the hands of one monarch to the next. Deposed Afghani ruler Shah Shuja has some pretty magnificent arm candy: the 186-carat Kohinoor diamond, currently the centerpiece of an armlet entrusted to his beautiful wife, Wafa Begam (who’s cleverly hidden it). The husband and wife spend their days languishing in lush Shalimar Gardens as unwilling guests of the ruler of Punjab, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who wants the diamond. Following the couple’s failed escape attempt, the maharajah withholds food, and Shuja caves and hands over the jewel. It turns out Shuja’s a pretty weak person who, with British and the maharajah’s help, manages to retake his throne—but soon is deposed again. Now that Ranjit Singh possesses this treasure, he turns over the armlet to his much younger, favorite wife, Maharani Jindan Kaur, the daughter of a water seller. She provides Singh with a baby boy, Dalip Singh, whom she’s determined to put on the throne after his father dies. Over the years, England’s domination of the region strengthens, and many more soldiers and civil servants are stationed there. The British East India Company inventories the treasuries of the local rulers and claims ownership of their riches for England. Dalip, under the guardianship of an English couple, finds himself being feted by Queen Victoria’s court, but he’s also snubbed for his ethnic origins, an affront that lasts a lifetime. Through Shuja, Ranjit Singh and Dalip, Sundaresan constructs engrossing and vivid worlds, but the author’s storytelling technique is disorganized and overly complicated, as if she’s determined to cram every scrap of data she’s uncovered in her extensive research into the story. The inclusion of numerous characters—many inconsequential—is confusing and necessitates frequent references to a list of primary and secondary characters placed at the beginning of the book. At one puzzling point, the narrative imitates an Agatha Christie mystery replete with a theft, a long list of suspects and a death, which adds little value to the book. 26
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THINK OF ME AND I’LL KNOW Stories
someone fated to be in this new place.” (She appears to be the child of a black woman and a Jewish man.) On the island of Lamu, off the coast of Kenya, she meets Adé, a Swahili Muslim man who gives her the Arabic name Farida after they fall blissfully in love. They decide to marry, Adé takes her to meet his mother, and Farida applies herself to learning island ways, from making a fire to covering herself in public. (Her enthusiastic embrace of tradition makes the lyrical descriptions of their lovemaking somewhat jarring, since this would have been forbidden.) When the community decrees that the couple must go to America to ask her parents’ permission to marry, Farida’s illusion that she truly belongs shatters on the bus ride to the Kenyan capital to apply for Adé’s passport. Leaping up to protest against the soldiers who board and matter-of-factly begin to pocket the passengers’ valuables, she feels a gun pressed against her cheek; Adé rescues her, but Farida’s American invulnerability is gone. Her alienation is further reinforced by dealing with corrupt officials and callous hospital staff after she comes down with malaria and meningitis. Readers know from the novel’s first page that Farida and Adé are no longer together, so it’s no surprise when they learn there is only one seat on the plane to take her to the States for treatment. Still, it’s again jarring to be told “I never saw him again,” with no further elaboration. Walker obviously intends this to be a poetic account of a long-ago idyll, but readers simply don’t know enough to credit her assertion that “In Adé’s sturdy arms…I became myself.” Too sketchily developed to fully succeed as a novel, though the prose is gorgeous.
Varallo, Anthony Northwestern Univ. (176 pp.) $17.95 paper | Sep. 30, 2013 978-0-8101-5240-3
Iowa Short Fiction Award winner Varallo (Out Loud, 2008, etc.) offers a third collection of short literary fiction. Young, disaffected Mira moves from one job, one relationship, to another in the allegorical “Some Other Life,” believing there’s some truth in the life of a reclusive child. “Time Apart Together” explores the ennui of a college dropout and lackadaisical garage band drummer. The young man shills for a soon-to-collapse credit company and attempts to shed Ursula, a girl obsessed with being wanted. Varallo moves the setting to high schools in “Everybody Knew,” “Slow Car” and “Tragic Little Me.” The first of the trio offers an unusual premise—a student confirms his self-absorption when he unwittingly puts on a class comedy skit the day after a fellow student dies. “Tragic Little Me” introduces Leaf, introverted and intellectually incurious but with a gift for art. Leaf appears again in the penultimate story, “Lucky Us,” sharing an unsettled home with her mother and grandmother. That story crackles with an unexpected, electrifying moment as the grandmother is confronted by a mugger. As the young thug attempts to steal her takeout meal, she bites him, and “he screamed out in pain” and then “looked at Miriam as if she were someone who contained surprising depths. Someone worthy, even, of his worthless respect. He winked at her.” The remaining stories, “The Nature and Aim of Fiction,” “After the Finale,” “No One at All” and the titular story feature in turn a supercilious writing student, a befuddled grandfather, a lonely young boy and a jobless father. Each of them, as with every other piece, unfolds with a sense of alienation, of children struggling to cope in a complex world and adults confused by circumstance. Varallo has a striking talent for drawing realistic characters, especially young people, and dropping them into situations where resolutions are hard-earned and not always satisfying.
m ys t e r y A TAP ON THE WINDOW
Barclay, Linwood New American Library (512 pp.) $25.95 | Aug. 6, 2013 978-0-451-41418-2
Atmospheric tale of small-town mayhem by Toronto-based mystery writer Barclay (Trust Your Eyes, 2012, etc.). Barclay may live over the line, but he’s got a fondness for upstate New York, especially that within earshot of Niagara Falls, where bad guys can dump their victims and watch them bob in the waves just for grins. It takes a certain sadistic type to do so, of course. Check: Barclay’s got one. Maybe more than one, given the strong-arm ways of the local gendarmerie. The story takes off with a start from the get-go, when private investigator Cal Weaver, lost in a depressed fog since the death of his son, picks up a hitchhiker who claims to have been a friend of the boy—and perhaps more. Bad idea, picking up a young woman in the rain, but that’s where that insistent tap on the window comes in, and that’s where things begin to go haywire. Suffice
ADÉ A Love Story
Walker, Rebecca Little A/New Harvest (128 pp.) $20.00 | Oct. 29, 2013 978-0-544-14922-9 Memoirist Walker (Baby Love, 2007, etc.) makes her fiction debut with a short, sad tale of love that flowers but cannot take root in Kenya. Traveling in Africa, the unnamed American narrator feels “less and less like an outsider, and more like |
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THE STAR OF ISTANBUL
it to say that by the end of the tale, there’s a pile of bodies to account for (“You don’t think he did it,” says his wife of one suspect. “I don’t,” Cal replies. “But I’ve been wrong before”), and Barclay has skillfully hidden the identity of the perp behind a couple of barrels’ worth of red herrings. Barclay turns in a taut procedural. His prose is often relaxed, even conversational; “It struck me that she was dressed for much colder weather than we were currently having” lacks the smart-alecky zinginess of a Raymond Chandler, but it’s also exactly the sort of thing a reallive gumshoe on a cooling trail might think. A smart whodunit with satisfying twists and turns. Mystery buffs couldn’t ask for more.
Butler, Robert Olen Mysterious Press (368 pp.) $25.00 | Oct. 7, 2013 978-0-8021-2155-4
The second foray into crime fiction by Pulitzer-winning novelist Butler features a big shipwreck, a little seduction and a lot of chatter. Following Mexico-set The Hot Country (2012), Butler puts journalist/secret agent Christopher “Kit” Marlowe Cobb on the ill-fated ocean liner the Lusitania, whose sinking by a German U-boat in 1915 helped thrust the United States into World War I. Cobb is ostensibly tailing a German agent while traveling in style across the Atlantic, but his attention is equally drawn to Selene, a silentfilm star with whom he starts a fling. If that’s behavior not necessarily befitting a secret agent, it does draw Cobb further into a tangled plot involving codebreaking, rare books and alliances with Turkish leaders. Butler is an excellent observer of interior psychological detail—he enjoys having Cobb test conversational patter for hidden meanings—and his fine description of the Lusitania’s demise shows he can write action-packed scenes as well. Even so, this is a wordy book for one that aspires to the crisp efficiency of a thriller. Cobb can deliver noirish tough-guy patter, particularly when he’s tangling with a goon or bedding Selene, but his scene descriptions can often feel like overstuffed sofas of detail and conversational analysis. That’s unfortunate, since underneath that ornamentation is a thoughtful study of the moral obligation to violence: In the same way the Lusitania incident forced the U.S. off the sidelines, Cobb is routinely put in positions where doing nothing is the wrong choice, a point that hits home toward the novel’s end as he witnesses evidence of the Turkish mass slaughter of Armenians. Though the story drags somewhat, it’s a pleasure to watch Cobb clear away layer upon layer of scheming and disguises to expose some ugly truths about humanity. A respectable work of historical crime fiction, a form Butler is still mastering. (Agent: Warren Frazier)
SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMEONE DEAD
Beaton, M.C. Minotaur (304 pp.) $24.99 | Sep. 17, 2013 978-0-312-64013-2
Agatha Raisin solves the case of the obliging villager whose kindnesses didn’t keep someone from killing her, perhaps for an excellent reason. When Gloria French first moved to the quiet Cotswold village of Piddlebury, the locals were delighted by her willingness to pitch in by raising money for the church, reading to oldsters and doing many other little jobs nobody wanted to do. So when Gloria’s found dead, poisoned by homemade elderberry wine, a member of the Piddlebury parish council hires Agatha to find the killer. Questions quickly arise. Why did a wealthy woman like Gloria borrow things, insignificant or expensive, from her neighbors and refuse to return them? And did this odd habit provide motive enough for murder? Agatha and one of her assistants, taking up residence in the local pub, soon find that many in the village had cause to hate Gloria. They’re especially interested in the vicar’s wife, who, tired of Gloria’s constant flirting, went to her house on the day of the murder to retrieve a borrowed item. The villagers, claiming that the killer must have been a passing outsider, stick to this story even when one of their own swipes a bottle of wine from Agatha’s car and is found dead. As usual, man-hungry Agatha is attracted to a handsome stranger staying at the pub. She’s livid when her beautiful, clever assistant, Toni, who’s often attracted to unsuitable older men, takes off for Spain with Agatha’s ex-husband. Although the villagers do their best to freeze her out, Agatha isn’t about to let anything stop her from finding a callous killer who’s added her to his list of potential victims. Fans of this long-running series (Hiss and Hers, 2012, etc.) will feel right at home and find plenty of mirth and mystery.
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GUILT EDGED
Cutler, Judith Severn House (224 pp.) $28.95 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-7278-8293-6 An antiques restorer gets in a dither when a herd of porcelain horses gallops across her horizon. Lina Townend (Guilt Trip, 2012, etc.) has enough on her youthful mind. Her current beau, Morris, is in France and can’t be bothered to phone her. Her pixilated Pa keeps running out of champagne and sending her round to Marks and Spencer for more. She has a growing pile of battered china to repair for |
A BASKET OF TROUBLE
numerous well-paying clients. And her partner and self-adopted grandfather, Griff Tripp, is in the hospital for an urgent heart bypass. So when a middle-aged matron drops by with a white Beswick pony she’s ready to part with for a mere £600, Lina doesn’t have time to figure out what’s off about her; she just sends her packing. Soon, other dealers report offers of similar white horses, more valuable than other colors of Beswick because they’re relatively rare. Lina reports her uneasy feelings to DCI Freya Webb, who can’t do much about them because she’s laid up in the end stages of a difficult pregnancy. So Freya turfs her over to DC Carwyn Morgan, the local police art expert. Morgan is gorgeous enough to make a worthy replacement for the unreliable Morris. But he’s interested in more than just ponies; he’s looking to make a case against Titus Oates, whose partner in forgery is none other than Lina’s Pa. Getting the goods on the pony pushers without grassing up Titus forces Lina to walk a fine line. And life gets still more complicated when Griff is released from the hospital to convalesce under her watchful eye. Gentle humor and deft plotting make Lina’s sixth outing a treat.
Groundwater, Beth Midnight Ink/Llewellyn (312 pp.) $14.99 paper | Nov. 8, 2013 978-0-7387-2703-5 A sister steps in to help when her brother’s horse-riding business is the scene of an accidental death—or murder. Gift-basket designer Claire Hanover is thrilled to bring her husband, Roger, to celebrate the opening of Gardner’s Stables, her brother Charley’s most recent venture. Since Charley’s been dogged by bad luck, Claire is determined to support his new business no matter what—but no matter what happens sooner rather than later. Just days after the opening, Kyle Mendoza, one of the stable hands, is found dead, his body crushed in the back of Gunpowder’s stall. Although rumors start circulating that Charley’s outfit isn’t safe, Claire suspects it may be a case of foul play, especially as Charley is insistent that Gunpowder has always been a sweet animal. Claire trades in the ribbons and scissors of her craft to sleuth on Charley’s behalf, uncovering several motives for murder from local competitors and others closer to home. She soon finds her worries about Charley’s business eclipsed by her worries about Charley’s marriage to Jessica, which seems to be crumbling fast. Now that Kyle’s family is suing for negligence, can Claire save the day before her brother is forced to start all over again? The latest starring Claire (To Hell in a Handbasket, 2012, etc.) packs in more action than a typical cozy, though readers annoyed with the heroine’s occasional know-it-all tone might enjoy seeing her in a bit of peril.
DEVIL WITH A GUN
Grant, M.C. Midnight Ink/Llewellyn (312 pp.) $14.99 paper | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-7387-3499-6 A gutsy San Francisco reporter takes on a Russian mob boss. Journalist Dixie Flynn (Angel With a Bullet, 2012) spends little time in the office since she’s usually out on the streets covering crime and digging into unusual stories. So when her editor asks her to do an inspiring piece for the Father’s Day issue, she comes up with a story far from the editor’s mind. A short message in the Classified section alerts her to hairstylist Bailey Brown’s search for her father, Joe, who vanished when Bailey was just a child. Bailey’s younger sister Roxanne, following in the footsteps of their late mother, is an addict and a whore. Undaunted, Dixie drags the reluctant Roxanne out of a seedy hot-sheet motel and reunites her with Bailey. The investigation leads her to Russian crime boss Krasnyi Lebed, who’s so determined to learn the whereabouts of Joe Brown that he wants to use the girls as bait to catch him. Dixie finds herself having to use her newly acquired handgun to fight off Lebed’s murderous, slimy underlings. Luckily for Dixie, she has some friends willing to lend a hand, from her police detective buddy Frank to well-connected bookie Eddie the Wolf. But it takes the dangerous ex–hit man Pinch to save her from her own stubborn bravery. Action, violence, wall-to-wall sleaze—it’s all in a day’s work in ballsy Dixie’s second outing. Readers willing to pick it up will find it hard to put down.
KATE’S PROGRESS
Harrod-Eagles, Cynthia Severn House (256 pp.) $28.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-7278-8309-4
An unexpected legacy rescues a London PR executive from her dreary round of romantic mishaps and sends her off to Exmoor, where mold, mildew and true love await. Kate Jennings’ grandmother sees no reason why she should wait till she’s dead to provide for her five granddaughters. So she sends them each £125,000 and invites them to do whatever they like with it. Instead of treating herself to a world cruise as therapy for the unsuitable men on whom she’s wasted three of her prime years, Kate decides to purchase Little’s Cottage in Bursford, not far from where her builder father grew up, and take a six-month leave of absence from her job. The place needs work, but she has the skills and the time for the “Cinderella Project” of restoration. After all, it’s not as if she’s going to be spending the rest of her life in Exmoor, she reflects, as God and the gentle reader laugh. Soon enough, Kate |
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“...delightfully frothy...” from strangled in paris
STRANGLED IN PARIS
meets unsought complications. She babysits Dommie and Hayley, the children of her neighbors Kay and Darren Tonkin, in return for laundry services. Lady Camilla Blackmore, widow of the local gentry, latches onto her and takes her into her circle. Camilla’s younger son, Jack, courts Kate, or at least flirts madly with her, just as he’s done with everyone in skirts ever since his divorce. His older brother Edward, a Byronic type who turns Kate’s knees weak, smolders and glowers. House parties are organized; a point-to-point horse race, as well. Beautiful Addison Bruckmeyer, Ed’s poisonous London attorney, sweeps into Blackmore Hall with her heart, if she has one, clearly set on marrying the heir. Someone leaves anonymous notes warning Kate to sell the cottage and leave. There’s never much doubt where all this is heading. But romancer Harrod-Eagles, who also writes Inspector Bill Slider’s whodunits (Blood Never Dies, 2013, etc.), updates Jane Austen so gently and firmly that fans will lap it up.
Izner, Claude Minotaur (320 pp.) $25.99 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-312-66217-2
A sinister society provides a point of entry for sleuthing Parisian bookseller Victor Legris to solve a baffling series of murders. On the first Sunday in January 1894, as a violent storm wracks the Normandy coast, ship’s captain Corentin Jourdan rescues a young woman from the icy water. After neighbors whisk her off to safety, Jourdan looks into her bag and is annoyed when he realizes that its contents compel him to travel to Paris. Once there, he awkwardly searches in the Tenderloin District for certain people whose names appear in a notebook from the girl’s bag. Not far away, tippling vagrant Martin Lorson witnesses a murder: A man in a felt hat strangles a woman to death. Martin finds, near the body of the opulently dressed victim, an unusual black pendant that he pockets. Hoping to avoid claims of dereliction and also help his sad friend Martin if he can, watchman Alfred Gamache asks for help from Victor, who spends countless hours in his bookshop discussing local events with his assistant, Joseph, aka Jojo. Before Victor can gain any traction in the case of the murdered Louise Fontaine, Baron Edmond de La Gournay and famous couturier Richard Gaétan, both members of the unconventional Black Unicorn Society, are also found murdered under similar circumstances. Could they be connected to the dead Louise? Though Izner’s sixth (In the Shadow of Paris, 2011, etc.) rambles quite a bit, the digressions provide a delightfully frothy wide-angle portrait of colorful belle-epoque characters and settings.
MURDER WITH MERCY
Heley, Veronica Severn House (240 pp.) $28.95 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-7278-8281-3
Ellie Quicke has her hands full with daughter Diana’s pregnancy, a spot of sabotage in her latest renovation project, a bout of flu in her household and, of course, murder. The project of turning rambling Pryce House, left to Ellie in old Mrs. Pryce’s will (Murder in Mind, 2012, etc.), into a hotel has been moving along apace until Hugh, the project manager, shows up at Ellie’s door complaining that Mikey has been breaking into the construction site and turning on faucets, unscrewing fittings and generally making a mess. That’s the same Mikey who’s been living with his mother, Vera, in an attic apartment at Ellie’s since shortly after the death of Vera’s husband, Edgar, Mrs. Pryce’s son. When Ellie goes upstairs to ask Vera to have a word with Mikey, she finds the single mom weak and feverish. Soon, the flu has hit not only Vera, but Ellie’s husband, Thomas. Ellie’s time tending her own sick is shortened, however, by her daughter’s pleas that she look after Diana’s invalid husband, Evan, while Diana—expecting her second child any day—tries to keep their real estate firm afloat. Meanwhile, DC Lesley Milburn asks Ellie to probe the deaths of several elderly and infirm ladies who may have had some help on their final journeys. Given the threats from social services to take Mikey into care and from Edwina Pryce to break Mrs. Pryce’s will, it’s not clear whether Ellie will be able to fulfill DC Milburn’s request before another soul is sent heavenward. Heley’s 13th finds Ellie beleaguered but resolute as ever as she deals with the fallout from hell-bound good intentions.
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DETROIT SHUFFLE
Johnson, D.E. Minotaur (336 pp.) $25.99 | Sep. 3, 2013 978-1-250-00676-9
A return to the morass of corruption and political turmoil that was 1912 Detroit suggests that it wasn’t all that different from today. Will Anderson is still suffering from the radium treatments forced on him when he went undercover at the Eloise Mental Hospital (Detroit Breakdown, 2012) to help the family of his lover, Elizabeth Hume. Elizabeth, who’s deeply involved in the women’s suffrage movement, is battling to get the 19th Amendment passed in Michigan, where it’s fiercely opposed by the Michigan Liquor Association. The MLA is run by the duplicitous Andrew Murphy, whose vicious gang of toughs will do anything, including commit murder, to prevent the amendment’s passage. |
TRIPTYCH
When Will prevents a mysterious figure from shooting Elizabeth at a rally, she and Detective Riordan both think he’s hallucinating. Their reaction only makes Will more determined to protect his love. Tipped off to one of Murphy’s schemes by a prostitute who works as a secretary for Murphy, Will steals a truck from his father’s electric car factory and enlists the help of Elizabeth’s mentally unstable brother and his equally dicey friend to sneak into Eloise and steal a recording machine, which they hide in the MLA offices by posing as exterminators. Stung by Elizabeth’s pity for his mental state and still uncertain whether he can trust the head of Elizabeth’s security team or even Riordan, Will resorts to a drinking spree and loses several days of his life. Despite all the obstacles ranged against him, he refuses to give up his quest to protect Elizabeth. Will’s fourth is his best outing yet, packed with action by turns funny and chilling and deftly blended with the historical background.
Liesche, Margit Poisoned Pen (250 pp.) $24.95 | $14.95 paper | $22.95 Lg. Prt. Oct. 8, 2013 978-1-46420-178-3 978-1-46420-180-6 paper 978-1-46420-179-0 Lg. Prt. A woman must uncover the secrets of the past before she can face her future. In 1940, Edit Palmay left Hungary for China to meet her missionary husband. After World War II, they made their way to Chicago, where they raised their family, including their youngest child, Ildiko. Born in America, Ildiko never really listened when her mother told her tales of the old country or recounted what happened when Edit went back to Budapest to try to discover what became of her vanished sister, who may have been either a hero of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution or a spy for the hated secret police force AVO. Not until Edit is killed when she falls, or is pushed, under a train does Ildiko resolve to discover what really happened. Her romance with a married man has ended badly, but her mother’s Hungarian friends introduce her to Gustav, a talented photographer who was involved in the revolution before escaping from Hungary. It’s Gustav who points out some unsettling features in an uncompleted triptych that Edit made for her in needlework, which apparently tells the story of one of Ildiko’s favorite fairy tales. Traveling to Hungary to visit her relatives and retrace her mother’s footsteps, Ildiko finds the country still in the grip of communism and her relatives afraid of revealing too much. Gustav has also made the trip to see his dying uncle, whose past is interwoven with Edit’s. In a shocking turn, Ildiko discovers that her mother’s killer had a motive that goes all the way back to the revolution. Liesche (Hollywood Buzz, 2009, etc.), the daughter of Hungarian refugees, cleverly weaves her family’s history into a fine mystery that is an even finer tale about finding one’s roots.
MISSING
Jorgensen, C.T. Five Star (360 pp.) $25.95 | Oct. 23, 2013 978-1-4328-2723-6 Before she can find help for her missing child, a woman must first convince the police that she’s on the right side of the law. Karin Preston’s not eager to send her little girl Haley on her first sleepover at babysitter Melanie Allen’s house. But Melanie’s daughter Jennifer can’t wait to spend time with her best friend. When Karin shows up at Melanie’s to pick up Haley, not only is the house deserted, but a layer of dust implies that no one’s been inside for months. Wary of the police, Karin calls them anyway in hopes of getting an Amber Alert out on her missing child. Ridgewood Police Department Detective Casey Jansen is put on the case, though the state of the supposed crime scene makes it hard for him to believe that Karin even has a child. Karin remains adamant. She can’t produce a photo of Haley, but she’s certain that Jansen will capitulate when he sees Karin and Haley’s own home—that is, until she notices that all the trappings of childhood have been cleared out, making Karin realize that she’s dealing with something bigger than she anticipated. Her nightmare recalls a situation she found herself in years ago, one that explains why she goes by the surname of Preston rather than McGrath. Last time Karin was in peril, she was in it alone, but this time, she has the support of Joe Canan, the former boyfriend who returned from his work in Caracas the second he heard of Haley’s existence. Uniting past and present mystery, Jorgensen’s book paints the moral dilemmas of her characters with broad strokes, sketching out numerous subplots with uneven results.
A NASTY PIECE OF WORK
Littell, Robert Dunne/St. Martin’s (272 pp.) $24.99 | Nov. 19, 2013 978-1-250-02145-8
And now for something completely flip, as ironic spymaster Littell (Young Philby, 2012, etc.) turns to the vicissitudes of domestic crime. Ornella Neppi isn’t really a bail bondsman. She’s a puppeteer who’s minding the store while her uncle recovers from ulcer surgery. But she knows he’s not going to be pleased that after she accepted the deed to a $375,000 condo in East of Eden Gardens as surety for accused cocaine seller Emilio Gava’s $125,000 bail, |
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COMMUNITY
Gava skipped Las Cruces and the deed turned out to be a forgery. Now she wants Lemuel Gunn to hunt Gava down. Gunn is a former New Jersey homicide detective who was tossed out of the CIA for making trouble in Afghanistan, where they already had enough of it, settled in New Mexico and got a PI license. He can’t resist his client’s legs or the chances she provides for nonstop banter (“The sight of her vertebrae left me short of breath”). And Gava seems to have so little sense of self-preservation that he’s phoned the cops in advance to warn them when and where he’ll be selling coke. Why he’d dime himself out is the most pleasing puzzle here, and once Gunn and Ornella figure it out, nothing that follows quite measures up to it. But a good time is guaranteed for all—except maybe for the Baldinis and the Ruggeris, feuding crime families who seem determined to wipe each other out. Brainy when it needs to be, arch at every conceivable opportunity and good-natured withal. It’s a pleasure to see Littell, who’s always seemed kind of tightly wound, relax a bit and invite readers along for the ride.
Masterton, Graham Severn House (240 pp.) $28.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-7278-8310-0 After a car accident, a man struggles to recover his memory and find out the truth about the small town in which he’s convalescing. Michael and his girlfriend, Tasha, are driving the windy roads of the Cascade Mountains when a tailgater runs them down. When he wakes up weeks later in the Trinity-Shasta Clinic, Michael can’t remember a thing, even his own name. When the kind doctors tell him that he’s Gregory Merrick, Michael doesn’t know enough to disagree, and he prepares to spend much needed time recuperating in Trinity, a local town of convalescents and their companions. He’s set up as roommate and companion to local resident Isobel, and the arrangement quickly turns sexual, much to Isobel’s delight. In spite of Michael’s desire to be happy, he becomes convinced that there’s something suspicious about the town. He’s especially troubled by the constant whispering between the hospital staff and select residents. In addition, he’s nagged by the sense that there’s something he still can’t remember, something that has to do with a woman at the hospital to whom he feels drawn. At length, Michael does the unthinkable and investigates Trinity, determined to find out whether secrets are being kept in order to help residents or for more nefarious reasons. Fans of Masterton (The Red Hotel, 2013, etc.) may be shocked by the lack of blood and gore, whose absence allows more plot development than usual.
PAGAN SPRING
Malliet, G.M. Minotaur (304 pp.) $24.99 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-1-250-02140-3 A small English town can’t stop talking about the murder of a dislikable newcomer, which the hunky vicar is responsible for investigating. Max Tudor sees part of his role as vicar in the English village of Nether Monkslip as acting cordial to new residents of the town. In the case of hairstylist Gabby Crew, Max has no problem striking a friendly tone, but it’s hard to muster the same for Thaddeus Bottle and his wife, Melinda. The former playwright and actor has alienated the folksy town residents to such a degree that both he and his wife have become obligatory guests rather than welcome additions to community events. When Thaddeus is found dead in his own home, the small town is rocked, in spite of his unpopularity, by what appears to be yet another local murder (A Fatal Winter, 2013, etc.). Although his duty to welcome Thaddeus has ended, Max’s responsibility for investigating is just beginning, since his MI5 background makes him DCI Cotton’s favorite off-the-books assistant. Now the amusingly gossipy townspeople have more to discuss with Max than his blossoming romance with local Awena Owen. (And that’s just as well, because Awena may be away for the duration.) Max must depend on the loose lips of his congregation to solve a mystery rooted in a lost generation before the perpetrator focuses on a new victim. A well-told tale whose greatest beauty, its charming cast of characters, binds together two generations.
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THE SÉANCE SOCIETY
Nethercott, Michael Minotaur (304 pp.) $24.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-250-01739-0
Nethercott’s debut is a pleasantly retro whodunit, set in 1956, in which otherworldly spirits compete for attention with flesh-and-blood sitcom types. Detective George Agnelli’s been on the job for 38 years, and when he says something smells fishy, you’ve got to listen to him. After they listen to him, private eye Lee Plunkett and his unlicensed partner, Mr. O’Nelligan, agree to investigate the death of wealthy inventor Trexler Lloyd, dead at a séance he hosted shortly after convening the Otherworld’s Fair. Agnelli’s suspicious of coroner Felix Emmitt, an associate of Lloyd’s, who just happened to be on hand to pronounce him electrocuted after the Spectricator, a gadget he developed to facilitate communication with the dead, added him to their number instead. As it happens, everyone else on the scene looks equally suspicious. Lloyd’s widow, |
“...charismatic and blistering...” from critical mass
CRITICAL MASS
Constanza, is so alluring that anyone might have done anything to win her. Celebrated medium C.R. Kemple has clearly been spending too much time among spirits. Ex–speak-easy queen Sassafras Miller might as well be on her own planet. The other participants in the séance, Loretta Mapes and Herb and Adelle Greer, are either desperate to contact their beloved dead or convinced they have the gift of second sight themselves. Even the household’s domestics seem to have stepped from the pages of Agatha Christie. Everything Lee and his courtly partner assumed about Lloyd’s death turns out to be wrong, in the fine tradition of Golden Age puzzlers. And like them, this one ends with a long explanatory denouement as logical as it is rickety. A nostalgic blast from the past that conscientiously resurrects the strengths and weaknesses of its decorously wacky models.
Paretsky, Sara Putnam (448 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 22, 2013 978-0-399-16056-1 V.I. Warshawski tackles the monstrous legacy of early nuclear-fission research. Somebody is trying to kill her, strungout Judy Binder tells Dr. Charlotte “Lotty” Herschel, who runs the Chicago drug clinic where she’s been a revolving-door patient. So Lotty asks her old friend V.I. Warshawski to drive downstate to Palfry Township to check on her. V.I. doesn’t find Judy, but she does find two mastiffs, one shot to death, the other seriously wounded, and the corpse of Judy’s friend Ricky Schlafly, a meth cooker who came home from Chicago to get killed in the middle of a cornfield. Still looking for Judy, V.I. questions her mother, Kitty Binder, in Skokie and learns that Judy’s son Martin, a brainy computer tech at Metargon, went missing 10 days ago. In the first of many bait-and-switch instances, V.I. decides that she’d rather hunt for Martin than Judy and even talks hard-bitten Kitty into bankrolling her search. The trail will lead her all the way back to the Uranverein, where Kitty’s mother, Martina Saginor, worked with a circle of Nazi physicists to split the atom even though they knew their success would fuel Hitler’s war machine. Back in the present, meanwhile, Cordell Breen, who inherited Metargon (“Where the Future Lies Behind”) from the father who developed the BREENIAC architecture that drove early computer research, makes it clear that he’s just as interested as Kitty in the disappearance of Martin, who’d been closer than he would have liked to Breen’s Harvard-educated daughter Alison. There’ll be more fatalities, more digging into the past, more family skeletons, more brushes with intrusive government agencies and more flashbacks to the early years of the century before a showdown at another farm finally makes it safe for V.I. to venture out in public again. Beneath the fierce scientific rivalries, the targets are so familiar that there’s little room for mystery, though V.I. has a charismatic and blistering way of bringing old secrets to light.
DAZZLED
Nunes, Maxine Five Star (256 pp.) $25.95 | Oct. 23, 2013 978-1-4328-2730-4 A struggling young actress can’t tell whether her closest friend is dead or alive. Nikki Easton isn’t so much an upand-coming actress as an up-and-goingnowhere actress. Her closest friend Darla Ward, by contrast, has recently transitioned to her first feature film. It’s the sort of thing that makes Nikki almost want to get the nose job her agent keeps insisting on. When Darla stops returning Nikki’s calls, Nikki shows up at her place and finds that it’s been tossed. A quick call to the police produces nothing. The police are more concerned, however, when four bodies turn up in an abandoned house. Nikki’s asked to come downtown to identify a young Jane Doe who may be Darla. When Nikki sees the body, it’s beaten so badly that she can’t tell whether it’s Darla, and it’s up to Darla’s brother Kyle to make the final determination that it is indeed his sister. Kyle tells Nikki that Darla got caught up in drugs with bad boy Johnny Rambla, though from what Nikki remembers, Darla wouldn’t be caught dead with that sort of Neanderthal. Nikki, who’s in shock, doesn’t know where to turn. Luckily, supportive Detective Jack Adder helps her navigate the Hollywood power plays that may explain what’s happened to her friend. Nunes’ debut guides readers through sharp twists behind the Hollywood glitz, revealing more than some may want to know.
BLIND JUSTICE
Perry, Anne Ballantine (352 pp.) $26.00 | Aug. 27, 2013 978-0-345-53670-9 William Monk, of Queen Victoria’s Thames River Police (A Sunless Sea, 2012, etc.), steps outside his bailiwick to rescue his friend Sir Oliver Rathbone from a dire fate. It all begins when Monk’s wife, Hester, hears from Josephine Raleigh, one of her assistants at the clinic she runs in Portpool Lane, that Abel Taft has |
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extracted so many donations to the poor from his Nonconformist congregants that some of them, including Josephine’s father, John, are approaching destitution themselves. Brothel keeper–turned-bookkeeper Squeaky Robinson, pressed by Hester to investigate the Brothers of the Poor, soon reports that precious few of those donations are actually going to the poor, and Taft is promptly put on trial for fraud. Rathbone, newly appointed to the bench, is the presiding judge, and he soon realizes that the case isn’t going nearly as well as it should. Under the expert questioning of Taft’s barrister, Blair Gavinton, Brothers of the Poor steward Robertson Drew succeeds in making Taft’s accusers, including Hester herself, look silly, intemperate or malicious. Suddenly, Rathbone realizes that he has a secret weapon against Drew: an extremely compromising photograph bequeathed to him by his malignant father-inlaw, Arthur Ballinger (Execution Dock, 2009), that would utterly destroy Drew’s reputation and render his testimony worthless. Should he share the photo with prosecutor Dillon Warne or keep it to himself? After much agonizing, Rathbone decides to share it—and then watches as a stunning development in the case leads to his own arrest for perverting the course of justice. Now it looks as if the imprisoned judge will either rot in jail or fall victim to one of the criminals he’d tried—unless of course Monk and Hester can somehow clear his name. Paring back on her usual period detail, Perry produces her fleetest tale in years. If the courtroom sequences are never exactly surprising, they’re guaranteed to produce the deep satisfaction you feel after hearing a series of particularly rousing speeches.
lockbox as she slept? How does the death of the man charged with commercializing the Sacropiano Corporation’s genetically modified seeds and pesticides fit into the intricate dance among beekeepers, police functionaries, industrialists and eco-terrorists? Why have the local bees been afflicted by colony collapse disorder? And how on earth is Simona going to keep out of the limelight when everyone involved in the case, from Maurizio’s lover, Albanian shepherd Mehmet Berisha, to nationally known bee researcher—a certified schizophrenic—seems determined to keep her at its center? Quadruppani is better at raising questions large and small than settling them, and his ending is marked by a distinct sense of anticlimax. Along the way, however, readers can expect the trademark pleasures of the Italian countryside: great scenery, great food and great conversazione.
THANKLESS IN DEATH
Robb, J.D. Putnam (416 pp.) $27.95 | Sep. 17, 2013 978-0-399-16442-2
Lt. Eve Dallas goes up against a spoiled kid who’s suddenly developed a taste for killing. Lots of families get a little edgy as Thanksgiving approaches. But that’s no excuse for Jerald Reinhold to stab his mother 54 times when she nags him once too often, then to lie in wait so that he can take a baseball bat to his father. Some sons would feel pangs of remorse after murdering their parents, but Jerry just feels powerful and liberated—finally he’s become a man, the way his whiny mother always wanted him to be—and, financed by the money he’s stolen from his parents’ accounts, he considers whom to kill next. Since Jerry’s nursed a grudge against the whole world since childhood, there are many candidates, but he settles on Lori Nuccio, the girlfriend who got him two jobs he couldn’t keep but threw him out when he hit her. Killing’s too good for Lori, Jerry decides, and he devotes several hours to torturing her first. Although the kid thinks he’s invulnerable, Eve, who’s been offered a Medal of Honor and a captain’s bars for her tireless work (Delusion in Death, 2012, etc.), is close behind him. The surveillance cameras outside his parents’ house instantly make him the leading suspect, and the trace evidence he cavalierly leaves at Lori’s apartment confirms his guilt. But his skill is growing with every murder, along with his bankroll. Which of the dozens of people who’ve crossed him over the years will become his next target, and how can Eve and her squad head him off? Considering how few complications the chase offers, Robb does a fine job of keeping up the tension. Both the cops and the killer make use of more futuristic gadgets than usual.
THE SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE OF THE WORKER BEES
Quadruppani, Serge Translated by Casa, Delia Arcade (224 pp.) $23.95 | Sep. 3, 2013 978-1-61145-840-4
Italian author Quadruppani’s first appearance in English asks who’s disrupting both the beekeepers of Pied-
mont and their hives. Now that she’s lost the argument with her husband, retired police chief Marco Tavianello, about vacationing in the mountains rather than at the seaside—the first of many droll arguments between the bickering leads—Commissario Simona Tavianello, of Rome’s National Antimafia Commission, expects that at least she’ll be able to relax and enjoy herself. She doesn’t reckon with the corpse she and Marco will discover inside beekeeper Giovanni Minoncelli’s honey shop. Even worse, police officer Maresciallo Calabonda takes a lively interest in keeping Simona local, partly due to her celebrity-cop status and partly due to the ballistics tests showing that the victim, gay engineer Maurizio Bertolazzi, was shot to death with Simona’s own gun. How and why did the killer purloin the weapon from her 34
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THE TENTH WITNESS
Norman’s ex, neurotic socialite Julia Drusilla—if she signs the appropriate papers that very day. Editor Santlofer shows Julia hiring private eye Pericles Cristo, who was framed and forced out of the NYPD, in his capable opening chapter. From that point on, routine is the order of the day. The story is so familiar and the chapters so short that the star-studded roster of authors would have to struggle to endow their contributions with any originality, and most of them settle for keeping the ball in play. Some of them introduce new characters for Perry to question; some of them don’t. James Grady, Dana Stabenow and C.J. Box take it upon themselves to develop the plot; Heather Graham, Marcia Clark and Val McDermid wallow in genre clichés. The episodes, interrupted periodically by anonymous snippets from the criminal’s point of view, are so formulaic that even though Ken Bruen and Max Allan Collins sound just like they always do, Perry’s whole skein of conversations—you can hardly call them adventures—are readily integrated into a seamless story whose only problem is that it isn’t very interesting. Other contributors include Stephen L. Carter, Charlaine Harris, Sarah Weinman, Bryan Gruley, Alafair Burke, John Connolly, Lisa Unger, S.J. Rozan, Mary Higgins Clark, Mark Billingham and Lawrence Block, all of them presumably recruited for the much better work they’ve done elsewhere.
Rosen, Leonard Permanent Press (288 pp.) $29.00 | Sep. 15, 2013 978-1-57962-319-7
Years before the events of Henri Poincaré’s striking debut (All Cry Chaos, 2011), the future Interpol agent, now a consulting engineer, gets dragged into an equally grueling case when his treasure hunt turns into a Nazi hunt. Lloyds of London, which was the insurer for the HMS Lutine when it sank off the Dutch coast in 1799, thinks it’s high time they recovered their settlement by plundering the boat, which is legally theirs, for its cargo of gold. Poincaré and his partner, Alec Chin, have successfully bid to construct a diving platform to be used in the operation. But Poincaré gets seriously redirected when he meets Liesel Kraus, a guide who pulls him out of the coastal mud flats and insists that he escort her to her brother Anselm’s birthday party to fend off the Bayer heir Anselm’s fixed her up with. Romance blossoms between Liesel and Poincaré, along with dark suspicions about the Kraus family’s steel empire, when Anselm, intent on jumping into the infant market for personal computers by recycling the precious metals used in their manufacture, engages Poincaré to develop a chemical process for isolating those metals. If Anselm and Liesel’s father, Otto, was really a Schindler-style hero during the war, as an affidavit signed by 10 concentration-camp survivors attests, then why are the signatories suddenly dying of heart attacks? And why is Liesel’s godfather, Viktor Schmidt, so eager to shut down Poincaré’s investigation into this case that isn’t even a case? Torn between his love for Liesel and his need to learn the truth about her family, Poincaré makes a series of discoveries that won’t surprise genre fans or anyone who stayed awake during history class. If it’s hard to wring new headlines from Nazi industrialists, Rosen uses this familiar background to tell a story as heartfelt as it is ambitious.
MORTAL BONDS
Sears, Michael Putnam (352 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-399-15867-4
Disgraced Wall Street trader Jason Stafford hunts the proceeds of a scam more successful and grandly scaled than he ever dreamed of. When he killed himself in prison, William Von Becker left an unholy mess behind. The Ponzi scheme he’d run for years had finally blown up, leaving the latest investors holding the bag. The rifts between his widow, Olivia, and her children—foreign-exchange expert Binks, prodigal son Virgil, Asperger’s-stricken Wyatt and daughter Morgan—make it hard for them to present a united front about anything. And they’re stung by accusations that as much as $3 billion is still unaccounted for. On the theory of setting a thief to catch a thief, Virgil hires Stafford to look for the missing money. Jason’s preliminary inquiries among William Von Becker’s associates and staffers don’t turn up the loot, but they do reveal another important player: Colombian banker Tulio Botero Castillo, who claims that Von Becker’s haul included $100 million in negotiable bearer bonds. Castillo’s under pressure from some unsavory types with quick trigger fingers to recover the bonds, and he’s more than happy to share the pressure with Stafford. Soon, the tax attorney whose murder kicks off the tale is joined by two other victims, whose deaths do not bring Stafford any closer to his goal. Meanwhile, his poisonous ex-wife, Evangeline Oubre, has left Louisiana
INHERIT THE DEAD
Santlofer, Jonathan—Ed. Touchstone/Simon & Schuster (288 pp.) $25.99 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-1-4516-8475-9 In a follow-up, though hardly a sequel, to the round-robin novel No Rest for the Dead (2011), 20 authors team up to track down a missing heiress and raise money for the victims’ support group Safe Horizon. Angelina Loki couldn’t have picked a worse time to run away from the home she shares with her father, nonpracticing lawyer Norman Loki. Little does Angel know that in two weeks, when she turns 21, she’s set to split a mammoth trust fund with |
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“...dependable, authentic thrills...” from black pearl
BLACK PEARL
for a stay in New York. She says it’s to make amends under her 12-step program and spend some time with her son, whose autism makes him a handful for either parent; Stafford’s lover, Skeli, predicts darkly that she’s looking to reunite with Stafford after the spectacular flameout of her second marriage. Any way you look at it, the man has serious problems. As densely plotted as Sears’ strong debut (Black Fridays, 2012), with complications that keep mounting in the race to the final curtain. A particularly nice touch is the subordination of the scheming suspects to Stafford’s troubled, loving relationship with his son.
Tonkin, Peter Severn House (240 pp.) $28.95 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-7278-8284-4 Adventurer Richard Mariner battles terrorists and forbidding natural elements in his quest for fortune in a land that time forgot. Back in 1973, Mizuki Yukawa, of the Yakimoto Freshwater Pearl Company, died mysteriously in the jungles of Benin La Bas in central Africa. Decades have passed, erasing all trace of the young woman and her boss, Dr. Koizumi, who was beheaded. Indigenous fauna have died out or been killed by rebels. Now, in 2013, months of torrential rains wash the skull of Koizumi out of the region, along with enough of the invaluable oysters unique to the region to pique interest in a new expedition. At the forefront are Richard and his wife, Robin, as well as a pair of Russian business partners, Maximilian Asov and Felix Makarov, and their team of Russian mercenary muscle. Max’s daring daughter Anastasia, who first brought him evidence of the priceless resource, is along as well. Working with the country’s president, Julius Chaka, they follow Koizumi’s maps, underestimating the danger posed by a regiment of locals who have seized the region, a divider between Benin La Bas and its unfriendly neighbors. Small wonder that Chaka was less than forthcoming. Anastasia’s recklessness, born of her damaged relationship with Max, makes matters even worse when the group is trapped and endangered. Mariner’s 19th adventure, revisiting many characters and places from his 17th (Dark Heart, 2012, etc.), sometimes bogs down in the details of allegiances and political minutiae. But Tonkin delivers dependable, authentic thrills on treacherous land, in turbulent waters and even aboard hovercrafts.
NOW YOU SEE IT
Tesh, Jane Poisoned Pen (250 pp.) $24.95 | $14.95 paper | $22.95 Lg. Prt. Oct. 8, 2013 978-1-4642-0196-7 978-1-4642-0198-1 paper 978-1-4642-0197-4 Lg. Prt. It takes a combination of psychic ability and a knowledge of magic tricks to solve the murder of a magician. Private investigator David Randall (Mixed Signals, 2012, etc.) is suddenly flush with cases. A socialite asks him to find her missing diamond bracelet, and magicians Taft and Lucas Finch want him to locate a missing box which was reputedly owned by Harry Houdini. Randall is happy to have his mind occupied so that he’s not constantly feeling guilty about the death of his daughter. Although he’d like to marry his housemate and girlfriend, Kary, his overprotectiveness puts her off. Another housemate, Camden, is always willing to help on cases. But although his psychic powers are often helpful, Camden has problems of his own. He’s lost his beautiful singing voice, and Ellin, the girl he wants to marry, reports troubles with her Psychic Service Network’s TV programming. A visit to the magic club where the Finch brothers were working reveals the body of Taft, murdered and hidden in a magician’s trunk. As always, the cops warn Randall away, but since both the club owner and Lucas want him to solve the crime and find the box, he continues to investigate the local magicians, whose tight little community is a hotbed of jealousy, bruised egos and theft. Kary succeeds in becoming a magician’s assistant, and Camden uses his abilities to try to get rid of the pushy fake psychic who’s driving Ellen crazy, but it’s a combination of clues from both that finally solves the crime. The charms of Tesh’s quirky characters often outweigh the mystery.
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COLD TUSCAN STONE
Wagner, David P. Poisoned Pen (250 pp.) $24.95 | $14.95 paper | $22.95 Lg. Prt. Sep. 3, 2013 978-1-4642-0190-5 978-1-4642-0192-9 paper 978-1-4642-0191-2 Lg. Prt. An American translator finds danger and excitement helping a Roman friend crack a ring of art thieves. Although he grew up in Rome, his mother’s home, Rick Montoya has always felt more American than Italian. So Beppo Rinaldi, one of the few full-blooded Romans to attend the American Overseas School of Rome, thinks Rick would be the perfect guy to help him find out who’s stealing Etruscan burial urns from the graves around Volterra and smuggling them to discreet private collectors around the world. Rick came to Rome about six months ago from New Mexico, his father’s home, to work as a translator. Beppo, |
who works for the art squad of the Italian Ministry of Culture, wants Rick to pose as a buyer for a New Mexico art gallery looking for handcrafted items to supplement its stock of Navajo artifacts. Rick is happy to spend some time in the ancient Tuscan hill town. He quickly makes contact with the three suspects on Beppo’s list: gallery owner Antonio Landi, importer-exporter Rino Polpetto and private art dealer Donatella Minotti, a college friend of Rick’s girlfriend, Erica. A quick tour of the local museum led by curator Arnolfo Zerbino gives Rick enough background in Etruscan art to make his cover story credible. But his investigation quickly hits a snag when local police discover that Rick was the last person to see Landi’s employee Orlando Canopo before the unfortunate workman plunged to his death. Commissario Carlo Conti of the Volterra Police has little patience for the art squad and even less for Rick, who may have signed up for a more difficult lesson in Italian police culture than he bargained for. Like the Etruscan urns he seeks, Rick’s debut is wellproportioned and nicely crafted.
DOING HARD TIME
Woods, Stuart Putnam (320 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-399-16414-9
Now that he’s graduated from the Yale School of Drama, Stone Barrington’s son Peter heads with his friends and movie collaborators, Ben Bacchetti and Hattie Patrick, on a road trip to La-La Land, little suspecting that a Russian mobster is determined to kill him. At least that’s one of the plot strands here. Another is the continuing saga of Teddy Fay, the rogue CIA agent who takes to the road again after a stranger in his little North Carolina town looks funny at him. Teddy’s path crosses Peter’s in Paso Grande, N.M., where Teddy, using the alias Billy Burnett, has landed a job as a mechanic at a service station Peter pulls into after a blowout brings him within the sights of the two Russians following him in a Lincoln Navigator. Getting wind of their dastardly plan, Billy kills them both, buries them and the Navigator in a swimming pool–sized hole he digs with a backhoe, trades his recognizable Cessna for a nearly new JetPROP, and takes off for Las Vegas after telling Peter that the guys who were looking for him changed their minds and turned around. Peter’s too distracted by Centurion Studios’ upcoming production of his first movie to question this story, but Stone’s not. Meanwhile, Yuri Majorov, the mobster supposedly killed at the end of Unintended Consequences (2013)—yeah, right—not only isn’t dead, but vows to send more assassins after the two Teddy put in the ground in order to force Stone to sell him his interest in The Arrington, his wildly successful hotel. It’s only a matter of time before Peter offers Billy a job, and the one-time domestic terrorist joins forces with Stone to get Majorov for real. It’s a natural alliance, since both men are businesslike, resourceful, masters of many skills, quick on their feet and fond of casual sex. |
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The nonstop action is certain to keep fans turning pages, even though the figures Woods is putting through their paces are plot functionaries rather than characters in any meaningful sense.
science fiction and fantasy FORTUNE’S PAWN
Bach, Rachel Orbit/Little, Brown (352 pp.) $15.00 paper | Nov. 5, 2013 978-0-316-22111-5 Rollicking space opera starring a tough, sexy, armor-clad space chick who smells like rotten meat. So, anyway, thinks the massive, clawendowed dude who ought to be Deviana Morris’ mortal enemy. Devi, as she’s known, returns the compliment. “There are four space-faring races in the known galaxy: humans, aeons, lelgis, and xith’cal,” she mutters—adding that the last are “always dangerous.” So what’s an 8-foot-tall xith’cal doing aboard their ship? Well, therein hangs a tale. Devi is an accomplished sleep-arounder, tough and cynical, though capable of melting a bit in the arms of the right space guy; when she’s not, she is most definitely kicking butt and, thanks to her ability to speak Universal, taking names out in space. She’s also got a secret weapon, namely, “Custom Verdemont master craft knight’s armor,” which is a bigger deal than it might seem. Bach, aka Rachel Aaron, a much-published fantasy/science fiction author best known for her Legend of Eli Monpress series, does a nice job of painting a scenario that, if familiar—think the space marines of the Alien franchise or the motley crew of Firefly—allows her plenty of room for action. And action aplenty is what she delivers, with lots of variegated blood and memorable characters, major and minor. Devi is the most complete of them, but New Agers, for instance, will thrill at Novascape Starchild, a groover who utters oracular sayings such as “[t]here is no top or bottom in space. We are all exactly where we are meant to be.” And where we’re meant to be is tucked inside our armored long johns blasting xith’cal. Lots of fun.
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AUTUMN BONES
intelligent, and their tides ebb and flow according to their own mysterious purposes. What better way to outfox the Sea & Light Book betting agency than to walk the lighthouses to where they’re needed? Moreover, if George can locate his father’s Vox Universalis, communication with the seas might be established. Tempted by the prospect of large amounts of money, George agrees to help. But the world has changed since his self-imposed exile: Vast steam pipes emanating from the Lake District steam mines snake across the countryside; London is a hissing, steamenshrouded madhouse whose inhabitants have been enticed into ever more bizarre modes of expression. Who is the fabled Iron Lady? And what, exactly, are her intentions? Though the plot—improbable, even by steampunk standards—of this intricate yarn runs out of, er, steam, about three-quarters of the way through, there’s plenty of humor to keep things churning. And U.K.-savvy readers will recognize certain rather scalding satirical elements. An impressive enterprise that moves very, very slowly.
Carey, Jacqueline ROC/Penguin (432 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-451-46518-4 Carey’s latest supernatural urban fantasy, a sequel to Dark Currents (2012). A small town on the shores of Lake Michigan, Pemkowet caters to summer tourists, who flock in to goggle at Pemkowet’s eldritch inhabitants—fairies, ghouls, vampires, naiads and so forth—whose benevolent supervisor is Hel, the Norse goddess of the underworld. Daisy Johanssen, daughter of a demon and a single mother, is Hel’s enforcer and designated liaison to the Pemkowet Police Department. Her personal life is complicated enough. She lusts after her partner, werewolf Officer Cody Fairfax; the feeling’s mutual, but Cody wants a traditional family and must mate with another werewolf. She finds Stefan Ludovic, the leader of the ghouls, or Outcasts—rejected by both heaven and hell, they’re immortal and feed on emotions—dangerously alluring. And she’s dating Sinclair Palmer, a seemingly normal human who organizes bus tours for the tourists. Neither is her caseload simple, what with a rutting satyr who kicks off a serious orgy, a hell-spawn lawyer sniffing around, hobgoblins swindling tourists with shell games and a teenager abducted by vampires. And then Sinclair’s twin sister and mother show up. What he didn’t tell Daisy is that both his sister and mother are powerful Obeah sorcerers, and if he doesn’t return to Jamaica with them to take up his familial role, they’ll release his grandfather’s duppy, or ghost—with disastrous consequences. Daisy has moxie to spare and refuses to be intimidated. But she’ll need all the help she can get. In Carey’s capable hands, all this seems not just convincing, but enchantingly normal thanks to the flawless backdrop, skillfully articulated plotting and splendid characters. A fine addition to the series.
DYING IS MY BUSINESS
Kaufmann, Nicholas St. Martin’s Griffin (384 pp.) $15.99 paper | Oct. 15, 2013 978-1-250-03610-0
An amnesiac discovers he can’t stay dead in Kaufmann’s entry into the urbanfantasy realm. Trent, a man who has no last name and no past that he can remember, dies often but fails to remain dead. Every time someone murders Trent, he pops back to life. Most would think that’s a pretty decent deal, but Trent is filled with remorse because his rebirth is contingent on someone else dying: usually, the person who is closest to him at the time. That’s bad enough when it’s the one who kills him, but sometimes an innocent gets the short end of the stick, and, no matter what Trent is, he does have a conscious. He also has a short memory that goes back no more than a year in the past; that’s when Underwood, the shadowy individual who has made him part of his team, found him and gave him a home in a dirty room with a single bed. Underwood promises to find out who Trent really is and why he can’t die but keeps putting it off. While Trent is on a mission to retrieve a box that Underwood wants, he blunders into a battle between a pair of odd individuals and a flock of murderous gargoyles. That’s where Trent meets Thornton, the undead werewolf, and Bethany Savory (yes, that’s her name), a tiny woman with pointy ears. They lead Trent to others who are on the same quest, including magicians, vampires and various magical creatures. Together they all face a terrible power backed by a growing army of the dead in a battle to save New York, thus setting up a future confrontation in a story yet to come. Although Kaufmann writes well, unlike the innovative works of masters of the genre like Mike Carey and Neil Gaiman, his work tends to rely heavily on clichéd, by-thenumbers plotting.
FIENDISH SCHEMES
Jeter, K.W. Tor (352 pp.) $25.99 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-7653-7402-8
Belated sequel to Infernal Devices (1987), the iconic Victorian fantasy for which the author himself coined the term “steampunk.” George Dower, the timid and not very knowledgeable ex-owner of a repair shop in Clerkenwell, has been rusticating far from London while gambling away the money he gained by selling the remarkable (and to George, largely incomprehensible) clockwork contrivances of his late father to the Royal Society. Finally broke, he’s invited to attend the unveiling of a steam-powered walking lighthouse, a critical component of which was invented by George’s father. George fails to understand why anybody would need a walking lighthouse. As Lord Fusible of Phototrope Limited explains, the seas themselves are 38
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“...an altogether promising debut.” from ancillary justice
ANCILLARY JUSTICE
with main characters who are easy to root for—they are, after all, protecting countless future generations of humanity. But at its core, this is standard thriller fare: beautiful young woman faces seemingly insurmountable odds but remains undaunted. The villain is about to commit murder but gives a long explanatory speech instead. Any cynical reader will want to yell, Pull the trigger, already! Although Erin’s motives are deeply personal, the consequences of her actions will reverberate through the rest of time and space. What if psychopathy is eliminated from the human race? Will we turn into a planet of sheep like the 17 other stagnant worlds? If so, ours will be a long-term slide, perhaps lasting thousands of years into the future. To care as deeply as Erin cares takes true empathy. Raises interesting questions about the nature of humanity. Although the plot depends on wormholes and faster-than-light space travel, readers won’t have to be science-fiction fans to enjoy it. (Agent: John Silbersack)
Leckie, Ann Orbit/Little, Brown (416 pp.) $15.00 paper | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-316-24662-0 In which a zombie imperialist space cop gets caught up in a complex plot to—well, this enjoyable sci-fi outing gets even more complicated than all that. Those who have seen the film Event Horizon will remember that a starship that got caught up in a time-space-continuum eddy got all, well, weird—or, as its creator puts it, “[w]hen she crossed over, she was just a ship. But when she came back—she was alive!” Debut novelist Leckie’s premise dips into the same well, only her spaceship has become, over thousands of years, a sort-of human that is also a sort-of borg made up of interchangeable-partsbearing dead people. Breq, aka One Esk, aka Justice of Toren, has his/her/its work cut out for him/her/it: There’s a strange plot afoot in the far-flung Radch, and it’s about to make Breq violate the prime directive, or whatever the Radchaai call the rule that says that multisegmented, ancillary humanoids are not supposed to shoot their masters, no matter how bad their masters might be. Leckie does a very good job of setting this complex equation up in not many pages, letting detail build on detail, as when Breq finds—well, let’s say “herself ” for the moment—in an increasingly tangled conspiracy that involves the baddest guy of all, the even more multifaceted head honcho of the Radch. As the action picks up, one just knows there’s going to be some battering and bruising out on the shoulder of Orion. Leckie’s novel cast of characters serves her well-plotted story nicely. This is an altogether promising debut.
r om a n c e FOR THE LOVE OF MAGIC
Chapman, Janet Jove/Penguin (304 pp.) $7.99 paper | Aug. 27, 2013 978-0-515-15321-7
When Rana Oceanus leaves her husband to find herself and sort out some unexpected challenges, she sets in motion the kinds of astonishing events that can only manifest when Titus Oceanus (aka the king of Atlantis) is involved. Rana and Titus have been married for 40 years and have lived in a variety of locations and times. Now that their grown children have settled in the 21st century in remote and magical Spellbound Falls, they have practically moved there, too, though they still rule the kingdom of Atlantis. Rana is in love with her husband, but they were married in a different time, with different rules, when she was only 15. Restless and agitated, she buys a tiny, mysterious house, where she can contemplate independence and Self and is both touched and irritated when her bid for space brings out the best and the worst in Titus. Meanwhile, odd, ominous events in the community put everyone on edge, and Titus must consider what is best for his family, their magical friends and his beloved Atlantis. Chapman has built an engaging world of immortal gods, magic seas and hidden kingdoms with her Spellbound Falls series. The main storyline revolves around Titus and Rana, and it is refreshing to see a romance unfold around a couple that has a few years on them (though, since Titus is immortal, he has a few thousand years on him, apparently). Fierce, arrogant and alpha Titus maintains a sweet tenderness with Rana even when she is defying him, and her gentle, powerful wisdom is endearing,
THE CURE
Richards, Douglas E. Forge (320 pp.) $24.99 | Sep. 17, 2013 978-0-7653-7409-7 In this clever science-fiction thriller by Richards (Amped, 2012, etc.), a scientist attempts to cure human psychopathy. Erin Palmer’s family was murdered by a psychopath when she was a child, and as a scientist, she commits herself to finding a cure that will eliminate that personality defect from the human race. Approaching a solution, she learns she is being observed by aliens who have traveled from light years away—so her work has galactic, even universal significance. There are 17 other civilizations in our neck of the Milky Way, and they are all stagnant and meeker than the human race. So, in the long run, perhaps Earth’s psychopaths have their place as drivers of progress. Meanwhile, the aliens among us want to learn what Erin knows. The complicated plot thread is fun to follow through its many twists and turns. The story is well-written and fast-paced, |
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THE CURL UP & DYE
especially when she fails to understand her own foibles. Their relationship is textured and complex and fun to watch. There are outlandish elements to the book, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously, which increases its charm. Smooth writing and consistent, layered characters support a plot that is completely unrealistic but in an entertaining way, though too many characters and a lot of series back story make the beginning confusing and somewhat sluggish. A quirky, breezy magical romance that fans will enjoy.
Sala, Sharon Sourcebooks Landmark (288 pp.) $14.99 paper | Feb. 4, 2014 978-1-4022-8396-3 A romantic comedy featuring a young woman stuck in the past and her next-door neighbor, who harbors a secret passion. LilyAnn was once crowned PeachyKeen Queen of Blessings, Ga., but that was years ago, when her boyfriend was still alive. When he died in Iraq, LilyAnn remade her identity into the grieving girlfriend, and now, 11 years later, although graveside visits have ended, she is overweight, unhappy, anti-social and stuck in a life she had little hand in shaping. Her companion over the years has been Mike Dalton, a childhood friend and next-door neighbor. He has adored her forever and hopes one day she’ll wake up so their love can be less one-sided. Thankfully, the ladies at the local salon, The Curl Up & Dye, will help the two move in the right direction. Meanwhile, T.J. Lachlan has come to town, and his rowdy machismo has inspired LilyAnn to lose some weight. The turn of events has outraged Mike (he suspects LilyAnn of flirting with T.J.), who feels his decadelong patience and faithfulness has been for naught. Mike plans on making LilyAnn jealous; she plans on ignoring him. They both give each other the cold shoulder. And then LilyAnn recognizes that she may have been in love with Mike all along, if only he would talk to her again. Only when T.J. reveals himself to be a real villain do Mike and LilyAnn realize that they should dispense with all their nonsense and get married. Sala, author of dozens of novels (A Thousand Lies, 2013, etc.), seems less interested in the motivations of her characters than the machinations of the plot, leaving a sense of tired inevitability to the happy ending. Two-dimensional characters and clunky writing leaves little to recommend this predictable romance.
SOMETIMES A ROGUE
Putney, Mary Jo Zebra/Kensington (352 pp.) $7.99 paper | Aug. 27, 2013 978-1-4201-2715-7
Bravely standing in for her very pregnant twin sister, the Duchess of Ashton, Sarah Clarke-Townsend is abducted by Irish agitators; being rescued by Rob Carmichael sets in motion a series of events that will change both their lives forever. When an early morning carriage ride turns first into surprise early labor and then into an attack by political miscreants determined to abduct the Duchess of Ashton, Sarah saves her sister’s life by taking her place in the hands of the villains. Lucky for her, the duke’s friend Rob Carmichael, a Bow Street Runner, is just coming for a spontaneous visit and offers to track her down and bring her home. Following her trail is a challenge, rescuing her even more of one, but they manage to escape, fleeing across Ireland with her captors on their heels. Reaching a port city in dramatic fashion, they just barely make it to a boat and on the water in front of their pursuers before braving a wild storm in their path to England. Blown off course, the two wind up on the shores of Rob’s family’s estate, and there are a few surprises waiting for him there. Trying to protect Sarah’s reputation, Rob claims her as his fiancee, confusing an explosive attraction the two feel and which they have resisted mainly because of their misaligned social situations. Regency favorite Putney brings her signature style and wit to this novel, the fifth in her Lost Lords series. Mixing suspense, adventure and romantic complexity with well-developed characters and a clever, twisting storyline, the end product is smart, fun, sexy and tender. At first kept apart by insurmountable barriers, Rob and Sarah still bond through their intense shared experiences. When the external barriers begin to erode, other conflicts arise, and the dashing, irrepressible heroine and gallant, fearless hero must find their way to happy-ever-after. Both elegant and swashbuckling, romantic and rollicking—an entertaining, satisfying romance.
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nonfiction TUDORS The History of England from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I
These titles earned the Kirkus Star: ON PAPER by Nicholas A.Basbanes.....................................................45
Ackroyd, Peter Dunne/St. Martin’s (512 pp.) $30.00 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-1-250-00362-1 978-1-250-03759-6 e-book
TAKING THE STAND by Alan Dershowitz......................................... 51 DAVID AND GOLIATH by Malcolm Gladwell....................................55 STRINGS ATTACHED by Joanne Lipman; Melanie Kupchynsky.......63 DARLING by Richard Rodriguez........................................................ 68 LIFE AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT by J. Craig Venter............................. 73 ECSTATIC NATION by Brenda Wineapple..........................................74
TAKING THE STAND My Life in the Law
Dershowitz, Alan Crown (528 pp.) $28.00 Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-307-71927-0
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Prolific British novelist, biographer and critic Ackroyd launches the second volume of his sweeping history less than two years after beginning with Foundation (2012). Readers curious about 16th-century British daily life or culture must look elsewhere; Ackroyd concentrates on Britain’s ruling Tudors—minus the first, Henry VII, covered earlier. This installment opens with the 1509 accession of Henry VIII (1491–1547). Few mourned his harsh and rapacious but also unwarlike father, who left a full treasury which Henry soon emptied in wars with France before plunging into the dynastic and religious quarrels that dominated his reign. Obsession with having a male heir, not lust, was responsible for his plethora of wives. No fan of the Protestant Reformation, Henry broke with the papacy over its refusal to grant a divorce from his first wife. Once he had destroyed papal authority and looted its property, he disappointed reformers by largely preserving Catholic credos such as priestly celibacy and transubstantiation. His death and the accession of 9-year-old Edward saw the Anglican Church’s transformation into a recognizably Protestant body, which his Catholic sister and successor, Mary, could not reverse in a stormy five-year reign. By this point, readers may be wearying of interminable, fierce and bloody religious controversy, a feeling Elizabeth shared. But religion obsessed 16th-century Britons, so her efforts to cool matters were only partly successful, but she proved a prudent, less bloodthirsty ruler and the most admirable Tudor. As usual, Ackroyd is a fine guide. A solid multivolume popular history: readable, entirely nonrevisionist and preoccupied by politics, religion and monarchs—a worthy rival to Winston Churchill’s History of the English Speaking Peoples.
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“It wasn’t all courtship, corsets and carriages—the grim reality behind a great author’s world.” from jane austen’s england
RAISING HENRY A Memoir of Motherhood, Disability, and Discovery
Adams, Rachel Yale Univ. (272 pp.) $26.00 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-300-18000-8
For years, Adams (English and American Studies/Columbia Univ.; Sideshow U.S.A.: Freaks and the American Cultural Imagination, 2001) focused her attention on disability studies. Her self-described “obsession” with outsiders sensationalized due to their physical deformities turned personal when her second son, Henry, was born with Down syndrome. The author’s clear, precise memoir offers an account of her feelings, which run the gamut from shocked dismay to unequivocal acceptance, and the process by which she and her husband arrived at a place of profound love and gratitude for Henry and his differences. Relying on a support network of friends and, for Henry, occupational, speech and feeding therapists, special educators and evaluators, Adams frequently doubted whether anything she was doing would make a difference during his first years. A literary critic, she charts her course personally and professionally, as a new mother to a disabled child and as a scholar of disability studies, examining how these two roles intersect and complement one another. She cites innumerable books and studies and explores views on prenatal genetic testing. In describing the “paradox of disability,” she writes, “If we live long enough, it will happen to all of us. And yet when it happens it always comes as a surprise.” While Adams admits that nothing could have fully prepared her to be a parent of a disabled child—including her expertise in the field—this work reflects her thoughtful balance of cerebral and nurturing instincts. “I like to think that someday Henry will read every word of this book,” she writes, “taking pleasure in seeing our entwined stories recorded in print.” An illuminating narrative on how the experience of mothering a special needs child requires intellectual work as well as emotional growth.
JANE AUSTEN’S ENGLAND
Adkins, Lesley; Adkins, Roy Viking (448 pp.) $26.95 | Aug. 19, 2013 978-0-670-78584-1
It wasn’t all courtship, corsets and carriages—the grim reality behind a great author’s world. Jane Austen (1775–1817) was more genius than realist, delicately creating a world richer in psychological insight than in documented reality. In this cultural history of Austen’s era, Roy and Lesley Adkins (Jack Tar: Life in Nelson’s Navy, 2009, etc.) show the England that Elizabeth Bennet and Emma 42
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Woodhouse never much discussed. It was a society where life was nasty, brutish, short and smelly. Standards for cooking, cleaning and personal hygiene were abysmal, and there was no running water. Not only did homes easily burn, but there was also no bathing as we know it. (“What dreadful hot weather we have!” Jane wrote to her sister Cassandra. “It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance.”) Chamber pots were emptied out of windows, people urinated on the street, toilet paper did not exist, and women had little (and some nothing) in the way of sanitary protection. Superstition prevailed over medicine; one diarist describes trying to cure a sty by rubbing it with the tail of a cat. No one in Austen’s day had teeth like Emma Thompson or Colin Firth; some, like Dorothy Wordsworth, were toothless by the age of 30. The poor had it worse, especially children; provided they survived infancy, they were often consigned to a barbaric existence working in the mines or sweeping chimneys. Austen didn’t write entirely in a vacuum, of course, and the Adkins’ frequently point out just where her novels reflect the domestic and social world she knew, particularly as in regards to clothing, footwear and social customs. The authors let their facts tell the story, which is a wise choice given the often bland writing style. For fans of Austen and English history, a deeply informative picture of Regency life.
SHORES OF KNOWLEDGE New World Discoveries and the Scientific Imagination
Appleby, Joyce Norton (288 pp.) $25.95 | Oct. 14, 2013 978-0-393-23951-5
A social historian explores the “intellectual consequences” of the expeditions of Christopher Columbus, which “nudg[ed] Europeans toward modern ways of thinking about their planet.” Appleby (History, Emeritus/UCLA; The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism, 2010, etc.) makes the assertion that “the most significant consequence of the age of discovery is the awakening of curiosity among Europeans about the world in which they lived.” Not only was the geography of the known world stretched to include North and South America, but the biblical narrative of the Creation and God’s purpose were also challenged. Thinkers raised the question of whether or not the Creation was a one-time event, considering the existence of human civilization in far-flung places. Some Christian missionaries condemned the brutality practiced by conquistadors, and Paul III issued a papal bull prohibiting the forced enslavement of native populations. Unfortunately, the argument became moot when millions of Native Americans were killed by European diseases and African slaves were forced by their European conquerors to work on plantations and gold mines. On the positive side, the widening of European horizons spurred intellectual curiosity, as well as the expanded knowledge needed
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to circumnavigate the globe—e.g., mapmaking, measuring the circumference of the Earth, astronomical knowledge and the determination of longitude. In fact, the attitude toward knowledge itself changed. “A passion for collecting information through observations, measurements, descriptions, and depictions of new phenomena grew stronger,” writes the author, replacing the scholarly focus on received wisdom. Appleby points out that in the beginning of the 17th century, Italian friar Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake when he challenged received wisdom, but by its end, “Newton laid the foundation for modern physical science.” A quick traverse over time leads the author to Darwin and the conclusion that Columbus’ discovery hastened the tempo of intellectual discovery. “Over the course of four centuries,” she writes, “studying natural phenomena became an activity defining western modernity while loosening the hold of religious dogma over scientific inquiry.” Entertaining popular history. (20 illustrations)
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AMERICAN COUP How a Terrified Government Is Destroying the Constitution
Arkin, William M. Little, Brown (368 pp.) $27.00 | $12.99 e-book | Sep. 10, 2013 978-0-316-25124-2 978-0-316-25125-9 e-book
National security expert Arkin (Divining Victory: Airpower in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War, 2011, etc.) follows up Top Secret America: The Rise of the New Security State (2011, co-authored with Dana Priest) with this report on America’s secret government. The author contends that America’s government functions as “a dual system.” There are the “ABCs” of public law guided by the Constitution, and there are the “XYZs” functioning between the lines, “the charter of another realm.” Arkin focuses part of his argument on the federal government’s response to
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Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Alerted a week before the storm system arrived, he reports, the George W. Bush administration was discussing drafting a declaration of martial law under the terms of the Insurrection Act of 1807, and the author discusses Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s opposition to federalization of the emergency response. Since Katrina, state governors have signed on to Barack Obama’s “series of five integrated National Planning Frameworks covering the new buzzwords ‘prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery.’ ” The author traces what the dual system is designed to do and how it performs, given the fallibility of the human agents tasked with executing it. He highlights the cascading failures of the federal response to Katrina, how the system evolved from the beginning, and what the legal possibilities may be for its current preventive and protective missions. The XYZs were born under Harry Truman and came of age during the Eisenhower administration. Arkin traces successive transformations, highlighting Bill Clinton’s makeover as an enabler for subsequent actions by Bush and Obama. He provides useful backdrop in the form of discussions of martial law and how such relevant laws have been employed. A systematic discussion that provides a well-documented basis for assessing future developments. (8 pages of b/w photos)
NOVEMBER 22, 1963 Witness to History
Aynesworth, Hugh Brown Books (256 pp.) $26.95 | Sep. 3, 2013 978-1-61254-127-3
An eyewitness rehash of the John F. Kennedy assassination. Veteran journalist Aynesworth (JFK: Breaking the News, 2003, etc.), then a reporter with the Dallas Morning News, was not on assignment but chatting with friends in Dealey Plaza when JFK was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald. With a pencil bought from a nearby child, he began taking notes on the backs of utility bills. His eyewitness articles on the assassination and both the arrest and killing of Oswald won him accolades as the reporter who owned the assassination story. This book, first published 10 years ago and now reissued to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination, offers a vivid recounting of those chaotic days. Many other books offer fuller, more thoughtful accounts, but Aynesworth’s just-the-facts reporting can raise goose bumps. The entire bizarre cast is here: ex-Marine shooter Oswald; strip-club owner Jack Ruby, the unsavory and unstable character who killed the assassin, shouting, “You rat son of a bitch!”; and Marguerite Oswald, the assassin’s combative mother. Readers alive at the time will have forgotten many details, such as the fact that six reporters served as Oswald’s pallbearers. Aynesworth takes delight in noting the inaccuracies in the first report from the scene by United Press International reporter Merriman Smith, who physically prevented the AP reporter from phoning in news of the assassination. The author dismisses all conspiracy theories, blaming them on the “pervasive 44
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influence” of Oswald, an “inadequate mope” who appeared incapable of such a crime; Ruby, who acted spontaneously (and did not know Oswald); and the excesses of early conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Jim Garrison. A solid tale of a momentous event—for those who need another or want to pick up a few unknown nuggets from a man who was there.
SHAPING OUR NATION How Surges of Migration Transformed America and Its Politics Barone, Michael Crown Forum (304 pp.) $27.00 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-307-46151-3
The Washington Examiner’s senior political analyst examines the internal and immigrant migrations that have “peo-
pled” America. Few commentators have studied the history of American politics as thoroughly as Barone (Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America’s Founding Fathers, 2007, etc.), and he continues his life project here with a look at our constantly churning population, mass movements that have had a continuing effect on our politics. Picking up about where David Hackett Fischer’s estimable Albion’s Seed (1989) left off, Barone looks first at the antebellum spread of the Scots-Irish from the Eastern Seaboard to the Southeast and Southwest. He turns then to four other epochal surges: the first half of the 19th-century migration of New Englanders across upstate New York and the Midwest and of planter-class Southerners from the coast to the Mississippi Valley; the 1840-1890s immigrations of Irish Catholics and German Protestants; the mass movement from rural to urban America from the end of the Civil War to World War II; and the 1970-2010 immigration of Latin Americans and Asians to major American cities. Within these larger transformations, Barone pursues a variety of intriguing subplots—Andrew Jackson as the perfect embodiment of the American Scots-Irish, the unique, “annealing effect” of WWII, the role of air conditioning in repopulating the South, and the recent exodus from high- to low-tax states—and he emphasizes two recurring themes: the unanticipated beginnings and the rather abrupt endings of these mass migrations and the widespread unease, even fear, each development engendered. How could the republic possibly absorb these changes? Barone ably demonstrates how practiced the United States has become, how sturdy our constitutional framework has proven, at accommodating the religious, economic and cultural diversities that accompany vast, unexpected additions to and shifts within our population. As Congress once again debates immigration reform, Barone delivers a timely history lesson. (19 b/w maps)
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“Self-proclaimed bibliophile Basbanes proves a delightful and intrepid guide in this capacious history of paper.” from on paper
PROVENCE, 1970 M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste
ON PAPER The Everything of Its Two-Thousand-Year History Basbanes, Nicholas A. Knopf (448 pp.) $35.00 | Oct. 17, 2013 978-0-307-26642-2
Barr, Luke Clarkson Potter (288 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 22, 2013 978-0-307-71834-1
In his debut, Travel & Leisure editor Barr revisits a pivotal moment in culinary history with a brio and attention to detail that rivals that of his subjects. In 1970, when ardent Francophiles Julia and Paul Child, Richard Olney, M.F.K. Fisher and James Beard convened in Provence, a pantheon of American food writers inspired by all things French were to experience not only a transition in their perceptions of Gallic primacy, but the first stirrings of a revolution in American gastronomy—a revolution they helped bring into being, fired almost as much by contentiousness as amity. Barr, Fisher’s great-nephew, reveals how these encounters within a rather insular coterie happened more or less by accident but at an incendiary time, when American attitudes toward its own culture were alight with change. The author also demonstrates how these writers, challenging themselves to temper nostalgia and embrace new ideas, opened a door to a seductive philosophy of simple pleasures that led directly to today’s pervasive “foodie” ethic: cooking as a practical but rewarding art form. Their respective cookbooks and Child’s immensely popular TV show encouraged Americans to celebrate their gustatory diversity, gravitate to fresh and organic ingredients, learn more sophisticated but accessible techniques, and enjoy a growing sense of liberation from old ways—even autocratic French ones. Barr chronicles this demystification process by focusing on how this group of strong personalities reacted to a fortuitous point in time. He does so in such an immediate, inviting way that one feels a member of the party, privy to the conversations, the meals, the generous gestures and corrosive rivalries. The author’s most invaluable resource was a 1970 journal kept by Fisher, who emerges as the linchpin of the book. Warmly written, balanced but unsparing in its portraits, and culminating in a touching coda, Barr’s persuasive book overcomes the occasional longueur to offer an enhanced appreciation of some groundbreaking cooks and their acolytes.
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Self-proclaimed bibliophile Basbanes (About the Author: Inside the Creative Process, 2010, etc.) proves a delightful and intrepid guide in this capacious history of paper. As the author quickly discovered, paper is more than merely a surface for print; it is an indispensible product with connections to war (paper cartridges changed 17th-century firearms), health (tissues, toilet paper and disposable bandages) and politics (printed documents were central to the Stamp Act, Watergate, and countless other laws and scandals). Just as we are “awash in a world of paper,” Basbanes writes, “we are awash in
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a world of paper clichés”: “a house of cards,” a “paper thin margin,” “a tissue of lies,” “pulp fiction,” etc. Identity is confirmed by showing one’s “papers,” and we ascertain truth by comparing whatever is “on paper” to reality. Basbanes’ research took him around the world: to China, where papermaking first began nearly 2,000 years ago; Japan, where artisans still practice traditional methods; and across America, including the Crane Paper mill, manufacturers of paper for all American currency, the Kimberly-Clark company, which took their World War I overstock of cotton surgical dressings and invented Kotex, and publishing-stock maker P.H. Glatfelter, which is countering the rise of the e-book by providing paper for postage stamps, Hallmark cards and tea bags. Central to Basbanes’ history are people—artists, crafters, curators, librarians, origami makers, writers and recipients of letters—and surprising revelations. In 14th-century Europe, for example, the invention of the spinning wheel led to an increase in linen production, which led to an increase in rags, which lowered the price of paper, which caused Johannes Gutenberg to see that investing in mechanical printing would be a good idea. Only several hundred years later was paper more cheaply made from wood pulp. As his impressive bibliography and notes section suggest, Basbanes has investigated seemingly every detail of paper’s 2,000-year history. A lively tale told with wit and vigor. (60 illustrations)
ONCE UPON A TIME The Lives of Bob Dylan Bell, Ian Pegasus (592 pp.) $35.00 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-1-60598-481-0
A British journalist peers across the Atlantic to suss out what Bob Dylan has been up to over the last half-century. Former Observer editor and current Herald columnist Bell (Dreams of Exile: Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography, 1993) opens with an incident that has been well-reported to the point of near-tedium: that inglorious moment in Manchester, England, in which a spectator yelled “Judas,” only to have Dylan instruct the band, “Play it fucking loud.” The year was 1966. Soon, Dylan would be different, but for that moment, he was tousle-haired, defiant and snotty: “Jean-Jacques Rousseau on a good day could not have contrived this savage boy,” Bell smartly remarks. Packing his narrative with similarly learned cultural references, and sometimes sounding like an Oxford don speaking about the Beatles’ Aeolian cadences, Bell ponders the deliberateness with which Dylan built up his vast body of work, from improbable beginnings to his latter-day minstrelsy. Bell often assumes a portentous, arch tone, as if he’s caught Dylan red-handed in an act of flimflam: “Maybe Bobby Zimmerman just decided, back in 1958 or 1959, that you don’t get to be a star if you’re Bobby Zimmerman, from little Hibbing—where the hell?—in Minnesota.” Perhaps, but maybe someone who’s started in the music business as a teenager is allowed to reinvent himself, just as every 46
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other American is and maybe every other Briton, too. Alternately, Bell sometimes takes Dylan a little too seriously, a notuncommon phenomenon in the vast literature surrounding him. Yet, he often hits just the right note, as when he divines that by merely seeking a little privacy after Blonde on Blonde, Dylan was adding to his legend: “Simply by stepping back from the microphone, Dylan had become ‘a recluse.’ ” A middling book. Greil Marcus is better on Dylan’s place in the context of the “old, weird America,” though Bell ventures some useful observations from afar.
THE CHAOS IMPERATIVE How Chance and Disruption Increase Innovation, Effectiveness, and Success
Brafman, Ori; Pollack, Judah Crown Business (240 pp.) $24.00 | Aug. 13, 2013 978-0-307-88667-5
Pop psych meets pop business in Brafman’s (co-author: Click: The Forces Behind How We Fully Engage with People, Work, and Everything We Do, 2011, etc.) latest outing in the land of counterintuition, written with the assistance of leadership expert Pollack. Business types live and breathe for data, analysis and endless planning. Yet, as Joseph Schumpeter observed, there’s something irresistibly compelling about cleaning house, resetting priorities and otherwise changing course by means of what he called “creative destruction.” Brafman doesn’t quite counsel burning down the house, but he isn’t shy of introducing a little bubonic plague into the equation, either. Drawing on the results of a three-year consultancy with Martin Dempsey, now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Brafman urges that we consider the bright side of chaos and calamity: The Black Death may have brought about all manner of death and destruction, but “it was actually instrumental in bringing about Europe’s ascent to greatness.” Post–James Gleick, the word “chaos” has been applied and misapplied in all sorts of half-baked, Gladwell-ian ways, and Brafman plays it a little loose at times. Nonetheless, this book has value in encouraging a rethinking of how things get done, particularly in heavily institutionalized cultures. For instance, in the military, there’s a manual for everything, including one on the proper way to change a tire on a tuck. But why read a manual when a YouTube video would do? Such useful ideas come from what the author calls “casual downtime,” the thinking time that institutions too often don’t budget for. And what situation wouldn’t benefit from more thinking about it, as long as it’s not perfectly unbroken? For some readers, there won’t be much news here, but for others—particularly those down the chain from Dempsey—there’s much good food for thought in Brafman’s sometimes-brash assertions.
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WHEN WILL THE HEAVEN BEGIN? This Is Ben Breedlove’s Story Breedlove, Ally with Abraham, Ken NAL/Berkley (320 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 29, 2013 978-0-451-23964-8
Breedlove pays tribute to her irrepressible, fun-loving younger brother, Ben Breedlove, who died from a heart condition when he was only 18 years old. Just days before his death, he posted video a video online, “This Is My Story,” which reached millions of viewers around the world with his message of faith. Ben had only been in the world three months when his parents learned he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a heart condition that causes dangerous arrhythmias. Eager to do whatever was needed to help Ben, the parents were told, “You can’t fix it.” So they lived with it and did everything they could to give their son a normal life. Though health problems often kept him out of school, Ben readily made friends with his easy smile, sense of humor and caring nature. His greatest pleasure was making videos with his friends, eventually launching an online advice program for teenagers. In writing about her brother, Ally uses a third-person perspective at odds with the personal nature of the story, but she wins readers over with the genuine, heartfelt tone. Ally and Ben’s parents, determined to allow their son to live life as fully as possible, remained vigilant without being overprotective. By the time he was a teenager, Ben’s heart problems had grown increasingly worse. Then, one day at school, he passed out. While the emergency team worked to bring him back from the brink, he experienced a dream or vision. He didn’t know what to call it, but what he saw put him at peace with death. After this traumatic event, he described his experience in his video and posed the question: “Do you believe in angels or God?” He answered, “I do.” These words comforted his family and inspired people of many nationalities and faiths. Both heartbreaking and uplifting, the book resonates on basic human and spiritual levels.
an intriguing intellectual detective story around a map that the author was summoned to examine several years ago. Evidently the work of a Chinese cartographer, it was an enormous and beautifully wrought map that just didn’t fit with the usual work of the Ming period and thus puzzled scholars. It centered on the South China Sea, rather than the landmass of China, and it was strikingly accurate in terms of modern proportions and coordinates. Tracking down the English lawyer John Selden, who had left the map to the library upon his death as part of an enormous donation of books and manuscripts, yielded the writings of this brilliant 17th-century scholar who was embroiled in the raging debates of the day over free trade and the rights of citizens versus sovereignty of the king. Brook works backward in uncovering the provenance of the map, from the first Chinese scholar at Oxford, Michael Shen, encouraged as part of the passion generated for Oriental languages by Selden and others; to the East India Company commander John Saris, who traded in Asian goods and probably brought the map to England as payment of a debt; to the strange and wonderful Chinese characters and symbols on the map itself, which reveal it to be
MR. SELDEN’S MAP OF CHINA Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer
Brook, Timothy Bloomsbury (256 pp.) $25.00 | Oct. 22, 2013 978-1-62040-143-9
A work of exuberant scholarship radiates from a map of China bequeathed to Oxford’s Bodleian Library in 1659. Brook’s (History/Univ. of British Columbia; The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, 2010, etc.) mentor was the legendary “English historian of Chinese science” Joseph Needham, and Brook creates |
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“Farmer and philanthropist Buffett examines how to improve the world’s food supply and make it more secure.” from 40 chances
EARTHLY MISSION The Catholic Church and World Development
a sophisticated charting of sea routes by a canny cartographer with some acquaintance of European maps and of Southeast maritime trading. An infectious, satisfying exercise in intellectual doggedness. (color insert)
40 CHANCES Finding Hope in a Hungry World Buffett, Howard G. with Buffett, Howard W. Simon & Schuster (352 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 22, 2013 978-1-4516-8786-6
Farmer and philanthropist Buffett (Threatened Kingdom: The Story of the Mountain Gorilla, 2005, etc.) examines how to improve the world’s food supply and make it more secure. The author—a U.N. World Food Program Ambassador— has committed the foundation his better-known father, Warren, helped him establish to putting his knowledge and experience to work in the particular circumstances of countries in Africa, Asia, and South and Central America. The author’s earlier travels on behalf of wildlife conservancy—supporting mountain gorilla and cheetah survival—and his studies on the impact of conflict and war undergird his foundation’s focus on the protection of the global food supply. With tireless enthusiasm, Buffett has worked to recruit educators to upgrade methods in the countries he has visited, and he introduces many here. He sees an important role for America in the maintenance of worldwide agricultural productivity, but it depends on accumulated improvements in skills, physical and cultural infrastructure, and technology and cannot simply be exported to areas lacking the culture, infrastructure or soil quality. The author discusses how he searches out the expertise required to consistently, successfully address specific problems of growing food crops with the tools and seeds available on local soils. This effort is very much in the tradition of Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s. Buffett believes that improvements in seed stocks and soil management and technology upgrades are absolutely necessary, as are people qualified to impart the required knowledge and skills. The author’s commitment to education, and action, on behalf of such capacities, shines through his book. An impressive example of how an individual’s diligent work can truly affect the world. (b/w photos throughout)
Calderisi, Robert Yale Univ. (288 pp.) $35.00 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-300-17512-7
A wide-ranging survey with many touching stories of the work the Catholic Church has achieved in the developing world: much good, some bad. Former World Bank director Calderisi (The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn’t Working, 2006) gives a fairly evenhanded, critical appraisal of where the church has best used its vast resources for real change in the lives of the poor, in terms of education, basic services and as a liaison with local governments. Other than the Jesuits, who were trailblazers in spreading universities across the world, and early missionaries, who made education available to all social classes and to females, international action in rebuilding war-torn economies really took off at the end of World War II. Treading carefully, the author looks at the role of religion in world development, defined broadly as meeting “basic needs” so that “people will have the freedom and opportunity to lead lives they value.” The Catholic Church, Calderisi notes, is a bundle of sublime contradictions: an emphasis on materialism as well as spirituality; guarding a staggering wealth yet having the ability to bestow enormous benefits on the poor; the upholding of reason “as the most marvelous of God’s creations”; and one of the few religions that offers women leading roles in governance yet blocks their accession to priest or pope. While the church has a topdown structure, it also has an unparalleled commitment to the value of human dignity and to a sense of “collective well-being.” The Second Vatican Council in 1965 helped unleash a yearning for diversity-rich mission work. As the author moves from Africa to Asia to Latin America, he spotlights some tremendous examples of courageous and significant Catholics. He takes exception to the church’s role in the Rwandan genocide and in the failure to meet the need for birth control and effectively combat the AIDS crisis. A levelheaded work by an author determined to hold the church to its humanitarian ideals.
FULL FATHOM FIVE Ocean Warming and a Father’s Legacy
Chaplin, Gordon Arcade (280 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-61145-895-4
When Chaplin (Research Associate/Academy of Natural Sciences; Dark Wind: A Survivor’s Tale of Love and Loss, 1999, etc.) was invited to accompany an 48
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expedition to the Bahamas to see the coral reefs, he was overjoyed at the chance to relive boyhood memories. In 2003, the author received a call from an associate curator at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, where his father’s papers were archived, and was offered a chance to return to the idyllic scenes of his childhood. He had grown up on an island in the Bahamas that subsequently became the location of Paradise Beach and a magnet for tourists. Chaplin’s father was the author of the “771-page definitive work” Fishes of the Bahamas, and Chaplin had accompanied his father on many of his collecting trips. His memories would be invaluable for a planned 50-year retrospective on the state of the reefs and the fish they housed, she informed him. “We aim to go back to the original sites to make our own collections,” the ANS representative told him,” and you are the only person alive who knows exactly where they are.” The author, an advocate of sea conservation, put aside his own writing to join the project. During that trip and subsequent follow-ups, it was established that despite the effects of “[g]lobal warming, disease, bleaching, pollution, rampant algae, hurricanes, overfishing and overdiving,” which have caused severe coral degeneration and a reduction in the number of fish that populated them, species biodiversity is still intact. Nonetheless, he warns, unless measures are taken to reverse the degradation of the reefs, the “world’s most diverse ecosystem will have been destroyed.” A call to action leavened by Chaplin’s recollections of a long-gone way of life, when his parents were part of the Duke of Windsor’s social set on the Bahamas and he was a young boy sharing in his father’s adventures at sea. (19 photos; 6 color plates; 2 maps)
native peoples. Newly freed—some of Jane’s own slaves from the Gullah community had been offered the choice to make a new life in Liberia—the African-American colonists were often riven by dissension, prompting the Wilsons to move father south to Gabon to start another mission among the Mpongwe. Curiously, with the election of Abraham Lincoln, patriotism resolved the couple to return to the South, believing “that the question of liberty was at the heart of the crisis.” Clarke underscores the irony of their use of the word “liberty” (as in the liberty of the North “to impose its will on the South”): This wise couple, who had fought the international slave law and worked fervently to educate and uplift the freed slaves, emerged from the war’s devastation mystified but committed to a moribund “Southern way of life.” A florid yet thorough and compelling history of missionary work and the 19th-century African-American experience both in America and abroad.
BY THE RIVERS OF WATER A Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Odyssey Clarke, Erskine Basic (448 pp.) $29.99 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-465-00272-6
A sinuously nuanced pursuit of a Southern Christian missionary couple’s conflicted journey from slaveholding Savannah, Ga., to West Africa. In the thoroughgoing fashion of his Bancroft Prize–winning Dwelling Place (2005), religion historian Clarke devotes enormous care to delineating every aspect of the world known to his protagonists: Jane Bayard, from Savannah, and John Leighton Wilson, from Black River, S.C. The two well-to-do products of white plantation culture had made a marriage of convenience in 1834 in order to fulfill their dream of embracing missionary work in Liberia, as part of the expanding evangelical work sponsored by the American Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches. It was brave and dangerous work, especially since the pernicious miasmas (malaria) had felled most of the other white missionaries who arrived. However, the Wilsons survived, even thrived, setting up missions and schools for the colonists and |
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“A detailed and well-organized account of a world in which billions changed hands overnight.” from a giant cow-tipping by savages
A GIANT COW-TIPPING BY SAVAGES The Boom, Bust, and Boom Culture of M&A Close, John Weir Palgrave Macmillan (320 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-230-34181-4
M&A Journal founder and editor Close provides an insider’s account of the fast-paced, high-stakes arena of mergers and acquisitions. “M&A has a deceptively mundane definition,” writes the author. “It means taking control of a company, with or without the consent of the executives running it…In one stroke, you expand your business and eliminate a competitor….It sounds simple...[but] it has revolutionized corporate Earth and enriched the members of the guild as perhaps none of them ever imagined.” Close’s sequential account, which runs from the 1970s through the present, introduces a cast of contemporary robber barons of finance, including Edgar Bronfman, Lord James Hanson, Robert Campeau and many others. Close details prevailing practices, drawing on a wealth of information, flavored with gossip about wild parties, cocaine use and sexual extravaganzas during the working days of “nocturnal underground Wall Street.” He also shows how some of the protagonists invested their post-deal profits—e.g., John Kluge’s 6,000-acre estate in Virginia, where the recreation was finally disrupted by a Fish and Wildlife Service criminal investigation. Close exposes the anti-Semitism that has continued to rear its head and examines how it has become a factor in particular takeovers. The author also discusses the lawyers and judges whose tactics and decisions shaped the world of takeovers—e.g., Joseph Flom and others from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, who worked on defense mechanisms. The justices of Delaware’s Chancery and Supreme Court, one of the country’s leading venues for business law, imposed limits on what could be done as they redefined the responsibilities of boards of directors to both their corporations and shareholders. The new generation of Delaware judges will surely make their own contributions. A detailed and well-organized account of a world in which billions changed hands overnight.
A COLOSSAL WRECK A Road Trip Through Political Scandal, Corruption, and American Culture
Cockburn, Alexander Verso (580 pp.) $29.95 | Sep. 10, 2013 978-1-78168-119-0
The personal and political chronicle of the witty, eloquent liberal scourge who never let left or right get in his way. 50
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The late journalist Cockburn (Guillotined: Being a Summary Broadside Against the Corruption of the English Language, 2012, etc.), who died in 2012, was a rare bird in the opinion business: unpredictable yet consistent in his approach to power. Whether writing for the Nation, Village Voice or the newsletter CounterPunch (which he co-founded), he was always the proud son of a family where Marxism was the dominant faith, authority was the enemy, and revolt was the answer. He found Barack Obama “slithery” as a candidate and hopeless as president. He held Rupert Murdoch and the New York Times in equal contempt and regarded Christopher Hitchens as a publicity hound. He was no respecter of party platforms, hating in more or less equal measures the Iraq War, vegetarianism, gun control, abortion, the whole idea of global warming and any police officer who gave him a ticket. He didn’t mind taking sides when he had to and happily helped destroy the re-election campaign of South Dakota Republican Sen. Larry Pressler. (“I am responsible for the Democratic majority in the Senate,” he later crowed. “Take that, you work-within-the-system types!”) He found common ground with anyone who fights the power, including Julian Assange, Ron Paul, and the tea party and Occupy movements. Cockburn loved America but thought it fascist; the killing of Osama bin Laden was an act of “brute, lawless, lethal force.” He could get sentimental about the death of old friends but kept mum about his own approaching demise. Instead, he went out in typical style, railing against the military-industrial complex. A fine trip through a rambunctious, productive, provocative and well-lived life.
SUSAN SONTAG The Complete Rolling Stone Interview
Cott, Jonathan Yale Univ. (168 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 22, 2013 978-0-300-18979-7
A humanizing interview with the late cultural icon, who was often perceived as a fiercely aggressive and polarizing intellect. In 1978, Rolling Stone contributing editor Cott (Days that I’ll Remember: Spending Time with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, 2012, etc.) conducted this interview with the woman he had known as a professor when he was a student, and RS published it the following year. It is reminiscent of a time when popular magazines would commit what now seems an unthinkable number of pages to the profile of a serious author. Though it ran long in the magazine, it runs much longer here, offering a conversational warmth that some might find more inviting than Sontag’s published work. Though she says, “I’m not really a polemicist,” she maintains that the writer’s mission is “to be in an aggressive and adversarial relationship to falsehoods of all kinds.” What she perceived as falsehoods were often controversial, but her interviewer never offers a hint of challenge. Cott is more like an acolyte, occasionally fawning, asking questions that reflect his own erudition. This interview
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“An engaging recounting of a life of serious purpose and splendid flair.” from taking the stand
ran a quarter-century before Sontag’s death, but it captured her at the peak of her cultural prominence, discussing Illness as Metaphor and On Photography, showing how slack metaphors and reductive interpretation misrepresent the essence of reality. Most illuminating is the personal detail—e.g., how she started reading seriously at 3 and “was writing up a storm by the time I was eight or nine years old.” What made her perfect for that magazine at that time was her pivotal role in the bridging of high and popular culture: “When I go to a Patti Smith concert at CBGB, I enjoy, participate, appreciate and am tuned in better because I’ve read Nietzsche.” Or, as she had previously written, “If I had to choose between the Doors and Dostoyevsky, then— of course—I’d choose Dostoyevsky. But do I have to choose?” Another side of a significant 20th-century writer, preserved from the archives.
CAMELOT’S COURT Inside the Kennedy White House
Dallek, Robert Harper/HarperCollins (512 pp.) $32.50 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-06-206584-1
The author of An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (2003) returns with descriptions and assessments of the fallen president’s principal advisers. Dallek (The Lost Peace: Leadership in a Time of Horror and Hope, 1945–1953, 2010, etc.) begins with some quick chapters about JFK’s pre-presidential life before commencing his voyage. The president’s brother Robert, the attorney general, emerges as the key adviser, reappearing continually in the narrative, especially during the most crucial issues—the missile crisis of 1962 and the civil rights agenda (which, as Dallek notes, took a back seat to foreign affairs). The author introduces each adviser with a description of his (yes, all were men) background and notes that the new president put into his Cabinet—and into his non-Cabinet advisory groups—Republicans and others who annoyed the left wing of his own party. The author shows us the roles that each played and the reputation that he had among the others and with the president. Arthur Schlesinger, for example, was more at the fringes than popular understanding would have it; the Joint Chiefs of Staff were continually at war with the White House on potential actions in Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and elsewhere. (Unsurprisingly, they favored military action.) Deputy National Security Adviser Walt Rostow emerges as the most hawkish of the bunch, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, the least decisive and/or consistent. Dallek examines each of JFK’s crises in detail, focusing on what the advisers were (or were not) telling him, and he notes several times that their failure to reach consensus was a serious problem. The author spares no one. He chides JFK for his womanizing, LBJ for his ego and McNamara for his credulousness. Here is perhaps the only account of the 1963 March on Washington that does not mention King’s speech. More than a little admiring of Arthur, but there’s cleareyed criticism of his Round Table. (8-page b/w photo insert) |
TAKING THE STAND My Life in the Law
Dershowitz, Alan Crown (528 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-307-71927-0
One of the most distinguished lawyers of his generation reflects on his life and extraordinary career. Readers acquainted only with Dershowitz’s TV persona will likely be surprised by the keen sense of humor, the graciousness offered opponents (with a few notable exceptions), and the tenderness toward family, friends and mentors the controversial law professor reveals here. They’ll surely recognize the outsized ego and the passionate, full-throated advocacy of the many and varied legal causes with which he’s so often identified. This memoir opens with an account of his Brooklyn boyhood, his undistinguished high school years, his intellectual awakening at college and his flowering at Yale Law School. After clerking for the legendary Judge David Bazelon and then for Arthur Goldberg on the U.S. Supreme Court, Dershowitz (The Trials of Zion, 2010, etc.) became the youngest full professor ever at Harvard Law School. For more than four decades, he has used this perch to teach, write and speak about the law’s intersections with science and psychiatry and especially about matters pertaining to constitutional and criminal law. Most unusually for a law professor, Dershowitz has maintained a highly active appellate practice, and he narrates the rest of his life in the law through the many cases he’s handled. Many of these unfailingly interesting tales feature high-profile clients like Leona Helmsley, O.J. Simpson, Mike Tyson and Bill Clinton. Dershowitz bristles, though, at being labeled merely a celebrity lawyer, and he reminds us of the many obscure defendants whose cases he accepted pro bono due to the important legal questions raised. Best known in recent years as a stout defender of Israel, Dershowitz has become an important voice with an active role in the evolution of American law, touching on an astonishing breadth of issues, including capital punishment, affirmative action, pornography, national security, academic freedom and human rights. An engaging recounting of a life of serious purpose and splendid flair. (Two 8-page b/w photo inserts)
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WALLS Travels Along the Barricades Di Cintio, Marcello Soft Skull Press (288 pp.) $16.95 paper | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-59376-542-8
Canadian journalist Di Cintio (Poets and Pahlevans: A Journey into the Heart of Iran, 2006, etc.) leads a whirlwind tour of the world, looking at the unlikely places where the human mania for erecting bar-
riers has shown itself. Take the Western Sahara, for example, all rippling sand dunes and the occasional oasis, formerly known as the Spanish Sahara. When Francisco Franco was dying, he sent up a casual middle finger to his anti-colonial foes by dividing the territory between Morocco and Mauritania, countries that promptly set about squabbling over it. The result? Thanks to endless hard work, a wall now extends into the desert that is “longer than the Great Wall of China”—though it’s not likely to last as long. The wall may make its Moroccan builders feel more secure, but people have a habit of getting over and around such structures, as Di Cintio notes when considering the walls that have gone up on the U.S.–Mexico border and between Israel and the Palestinian settlements. The walls are everywhere: In the last Spanish settlements on the African continent, Ceuta and Melilla, walls proclaim that here stands Europe, while the wall that divides India from Pakistan is permeable precisely because the people who live there aren’t as concerned with being separated as the politicians in Karachi and New Delhi are. Even in Canada, Di Cintio observes, which boasts the world’s longest unarmed border, obstacles divide the wealthy from the poor of Montreal: a structure known as “the Fence of Shame and the Wall of Shame—the same term used for the berm in the Western Sahara.” Solid journalism that takes readers into cheerless, contested places they probably would not wish to see for themselves. An eye-opener.
THE KING OF SPORTS Football’s Impact on America
Easterbrook, Gregg Dunne/St. Martin’s (368 pp.) $25.99 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-1-250-01171-8
Head-slaps and high-fives for the sport that dominates America’s popular imagination by Atlantic Monthly contributor and ESPN.com “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” writer Easterbrook (The Leading Indicators, 2012, etc.). The author crafts a football sandwich, the spicy meat of his complaints lying between two soft-bread sections celebrating Virginia Tech, whose successful program and coach (Frank Beamer) he presents as exemplars. In the beginning, 52
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Easterbrook describes Beamer’s background, temperament and approach; in the end, he chronicles Tech’s 2012 Sugar Bowl overtime loss to Michigan. His patent intent is to show that success need not lie upon a foul foundation of cheating and other sorts of corruption, financial and otherwise. The “meat” chapters are the most engaging and include some details, examples and statistics that will alarm even cynics about the sport. Easterbrook probes such issues as the NFL’s tax-free status (a not-for-profit!), the failures of many major college programs to help their players graduate (especially black players), the recent research about concussions (at all levels of the game), the role of football on the college campus, the sham of “showcases” for high school athletes, the infinitesimal chance a boy will make it to the NFL, the “cult” of football in school and culture, and the effects of the game on those players who don’t make it (the vast majority). Some individual case studies are alarming and profoundly depressing, but—make no mistake—Easterbrook loves the game, and most of the recommendations he discusses (and lists at the end) are quixotic. Financial disclosures? Six-year scholarships for college players? Rankings to include academic records of players? Financial bonuses for coaches whose players do well academically? Not gonna happen. Moreover, the author does not aggressively examine, though he does mention, the proposition that the game’s popularity is principally based on violence—would anyone watch the NFL if it were flag football? Trenchant analysis, wrenching case studies, Utopian recommendations.
TEN BILLION
Emmott, Stephen Vintage (176 pp.) $12.00 paper | Sep. 10, 2013 978-0-345-80647-5 A rallying call to arms on the deteriorating state of our overcrowded planet. British environmental expert Emmott, current chief of Microsoft Research’s Computational Science Laboratory in Cambridge, presents a succinct and righteously pessimistic manifesto on the human race’s impact on planet Earth. Channeling his inner Al Gore, the author forewarns of the issues of an increasing global population rate (currently at 7 billion and counting) as it gains momentum and causes the expanding degradation of the planet’s intricate ecosystemic network. Disturbing the harmonious interdependent synergies of the Earth’s atmosphere may bring about what Emmott calls an “unprecedented planetary emergency.” The dire consequences of overpopulation are all around us, writes the author, and he delivers a laundry list of human offenses: increasing demand for fresh water could lead to the resource’s eventual scarcity; mushrooming levels of greenhouse gasses produced from industrial production alter the Earth’s climate and weather patterns; mounting food and fuel demands increase pollution; melting ice caps contribute to rising sea levels; and land misuse is causing the “mass extinction” of species. Emmott directly blames humans for these disasters, since “our cleverness, our inventiveness, and
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“A neuropsychologist makes the shocking discovery that his brain scans are identical with those of serial killers.” from the psychopath inside
our activities are now the drivers of every global problem we face,” from methane gas plumes to global warming to deforestation. With charts and photographs and a stark few-sentences-per-page layout, the author further illustrates the catastrophes at our doorsteps with sufficient urgency. He also offers several possible solutions. A “technologizing” approach incorporating nuclear power, “geoenergy” and desalination efforts is one, along with a radical, universal behavioral change that replaces overconsumption with hyperconservation. Both, however, pale in comparison to Emmott’s hopelessly resigned final thought on the final page: “I THINK WE’RE FUCKED.” Shocking facts and an indispensable message to galvanize a world in potential crisis.
EMINENT HIPSTERS
Fagen, Donald Viking (176 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 22, 2013 978-0-670-02551-0
Not really a rock memoir, but rather a book as distinctively peculiar and edgy as one might expect from the co-founder of Steely Dan. The literary debut by keyboardist Fagen, a former English major who has written pieces on popular culture for magazines, opens with essays concerning his formative years as a skinny, anxious nerd immersed in jazz and science fiction, rebelling against 1950s suburbia as a self-described “subterranean in gestation with a real nasty case of otherness.” He writes of radio hipsters and jazz clubs, of the “mendacity on the part of adults that was the most sinister enemy of all.” Fagen ends this section with a reminiscence of his years at Bard College, where his underachieving bohemian classmates included Walter Becker, who became his musical partner. And that’s pretty much it for Steely Dan, since “that’s another story,” one that perhaps he is saving for another book. Instead, the second half is what he understatedly calls his “grouchy tour journal from the summer of 2012,” when he teamed with Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs as the Dukes of September, performing their own hits and older R&B for an audience he appears to dislike. The younger ones are “lazy, spoiled TV babies” who have “ultimately turned us into performing monkeys.” Other fans are the same generation as the headliners: “Mike, Boz and I are pretty old now and so is most of our audience. Tonight, though, the crowd looked so geriatric I was tempted to start calling out bingo numbers.” On another, there “were people on slabs, decomposing, people in mummy cases.” Some of this is acerbically funny in a self-lacerating sort of way, and some of the essays, particularly the one on hero worship and disillusionment (“I Was a Spy for Jean Shepherd”), are very incisive, but much of it is a downer. It’s characteristic that the author knows what his readers want—the story of Steely Dan—and refuses to give it to them.
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THE PSYCHOPATH INSIDE A Neuroscientist’s Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain Fallon, James Current (256 pp.) $27.95 | Nov. 1, 2013 978-1-59184-600-0
A neuropsychologist makes the shocking discovery that his brain scans are identical to those of serial killers. In 2005, Fallon (Psychiatry and Human Behavior/Univ. of California, Irvine), a self-described “mechanistic, reductionist, genes-control-all scientist,” was studying the brains of criminal psychopaths when he found a scan of his own brain, which was in use as a control for a research study on Alzheimer’s patients. To his surprise and disbelief, he noticed his scan shared identical features with those taken from actual psychopathic killers, which he was analyzing for a different project. Apparently, he “shared [with them] a rare and alarming pattern of low brain function in certain part of the frontal lobes—areas commonly associated with self-control and empathy.” At first, Fallon doubted the validity of his initial hypothesis that such a scan was a valid means of identifying criminals with psychopathic tendencies. He was a well-respected, happily married father of three wellloved children, and he had a thriving research and teaching career. His life belied the characteristics of the typical psychopath, who may be a “glib and disarmingly charming” risk-taker but is also coldhearted, manipulative and cruel. Fallon relates the painful story of how he came to recognize certain traits within himself that did not result in criminal or even immoral behavior but were nonetheless distressing to his friends and family. In the years following the first and subsequent similar scans, he explored his behavior and relationships more deeply and came to a sobering recognition that he was indeed lacking in empathy, “was superficial, grandiose, and deceitful” and had unwittingly hurt people close to him. Yet he had escaped becoming a criminal and instead was a “prosocial psychopath” whose adventurous risk-taking side benefitted society. Absorbing, insightful and quirky.
THE THOUGHTBOOK OF F. SCOTT FITZGERALD A Secret Boyhood Diary Fitzgerald, F. Scott Page, Dave—Ed. Univ. of Minnesota (88 pp.) $12.95 paper | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-8166-7977-5
A very short, incomplete diary in which ardent devotees of the novelist might find a glimmer or two of significance. By the standards of even what the editor’s introduction terms “juvenilia,” this diary or memoir or notes on girls by the
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14-year-old “Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald of St Paul Minn U.S.A.” is barely marginalia from a boyhood that had yet to turn literary. Though the afterword argues for literary significance in the dialogue, lists and some of the characters, readers will strain to unearth a glimmer of the fiction that would later flower in the tone of the manuscript (considerably shorter than the framing essays, even after padding with period photos). The book deals almost exclusively with what concerns most 14-year-old boys: girls—where he stands with them and they with him. Missing its first seven pages, the “Thoughtbook” has plenty of rankings of who likes whom and why. Early on, the boy writes, “I was more popular with girls than I have ever been befor” [sic—spelling is not his strong suit]. A few months later, “I have two new crushes, to wit—Margaret Armstrong and Marie Hersey. I have not decided which one I like the best. The 2nd is the prettiest. The 1st is the best talker.” Talk prevailed, as two weeks later he gushes, “I am just crazy about Margaret Armstrong and I have the most awful crush on her that ever was.” Elsewhere, Fitzgerald writes of being third in a girl’s ranking of affections but working his way toward first. Such rankings changed as often as the weather, and this “Thoughtbook” is like the weather report of budding romance. Scholars could make use of this material, but it should otherwise interest only Fitzgerald completists. (12 b/w illustrations)
EMPIRE ANTARCTICA Ice, Silence, and Emperor Penguins
Francis, Gavin Counterpoint (304 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-1-61902-184-6
A highly readable, enjoyable account of one man’s year serving as a doctor at Halley Research Station, the British Antarctic Survey’s base on the Brunt Ice Shelf. Francis (True North: Travels in Arctic Europe, 2009) was looking for space, solitude and silence—and a chance to get close to emperor penguins—when he signed on with the survey’s medical unit. His job taking care of the men and women on the isolated base was undemanding, giving him time to read, gaze out his window, ski around the base, and help other crew members with their daily chores of keeping the base and its equipment operational and monitoring its research projects. Francis fills his account with many stories of early polar explorers and their ordeals in bitter weather and isolation, lacking as they did the benefits of modern technology that keep today’s polar crews in relative comfort and safety. A keen observer of his surroundings, the author writes vividly of auroras, clouds, stars, sunlight, darkness, ice and snow. Who but a doctor would describe a patch of pink-stained snow as “melting down like gently deflating lungs”? Francis is focused not on his companions but on what lies outside their shelter; although he profiles them briefly, readers do not get to know them well. The author makes clear that, on the base, rules 54
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of conduct are enforced, and there are a few hints of strife: He smuggled penguin eggs inside the base but was forced to get rid of them, and he was not allowed to dissect an adult bird. In one chapter, Francis discusses the psychological effects of isolated confinement; at the end of his year, his pleasure at his release into a green and fragrant world is clear. What gets surprisingly short shrift here is the emperor penguin, featured in the subtitle but out of reach for much of the author’s stay in Antarctica. A literate, stylish memoir of personal adventure rich in history, geography and science.
THE KRAUS PROJECT Essays by Karl Kraus
Franzen, Jonathan; Kraus, Karl Farrar, Straus and Giroux (336 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-374-18221-2 Two angry men rail against their culture. Franzen (Farther Away: Essays, 2012, etc.) discovered Austrian essayist, playwright and poet Karl Kraus (1874–1936) when he studied in Berlin in 1981-1982. A prominent social critic in early-20th-century Vienna, Kraus had been long forgotten, but his work resonated with Franzen, who saw the sharp, bitter writer as a kindred spirit. Franzen calls Kraus a “farseeing prophet” who hated, above all, the media, which thrived on gossip and was antagonistic to the “kind of spirituality/imaginativeness that, as Kraus saw it, makes us human.” As a kind of homage, Franzen has translated four of Kraus’ essays for this bilingual, profusely annotated edition. He warns readers that Kraus is a difficult writer, and in translation, his work comes across as stilted and awkward. The essays themselves, however, may be less interesting to readers than the extensive annotations. Sometimes a few lines by Kraus, for example, are followed by several pages of notes: Franzen’s autobiographical ruminations and detailed, informative historical context by Ohio State professor Paul Reitter. Novelist Daniel Kehlmann, a friend of Franzen, also rings in with comments. Franzen’s personal reflections focus on his response to Kraus, his early ambitions and frustrations as a writer, his engagement to the woman he eventually married and the reasons he embraced “anger as a way of life” at the age of 22. Although he claims that he has outgrown his former rage, like Kraus, he is critical of much in his own culture: Apple products, Steve Jobs, French literary theory, Salman Rushdie’s tweets, 1,000-page biographies, the blogosphere, Amazon, John Updike, social media, Facebook and assaults to the natural environment. Readers interested in Kraus will be better served by Reitter’s The Anti-Journalist: Karl Kraus and Jewish Self-Fashioning (2008). This book is for Franzen’s fans.
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“A far-and free-ranging meditation on the age-old struggle between underdogs and top dogs.” from david and goliath
STRATEGY A History
Freedman, Lawrence Oxford Univ. (752 pp.) $34.95 | Oct. 2, 2013 978-0-19-932515-3
Strategy, that term beloved of war and business, is far more than a mere plan. So observes Freedman (War Studies/King’s Coll. London; A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East, 2008, etc.) in this comprehensive, vigorous survey of strategy and its evolution. Strategy is a byproduct of conflict, or at least of situations “where interests collide and forms of resolution are required.” Beyond that, the definitions are many: It seems to be about developing a series of plans that balance ends and means with the resources available to attain those ends. Schools of thought have developed around strategy, with the Periclean supposedly concerned with accomplishing decisive victories, while the Sun Tzu method is to avoid direct confrontation whenever possible. However, Freedman valuably notes that there are plenty of instances in which Chinese strategists have gone full frontal while Greek strategists have employed ruses and deceptions, which introduces the notion of situationality. That is to say, the best strategy, in business or at war, would seem to be the one that most closely responds to actual situations on the ground and one that, as one of the strategists whom he studies remarks, may not even be clearly formulated ahead of time. In closing a text that takes in various bits of wisdom and experience from the likes of Napoleon, Mao, Bayard Rustin and Michel Foucault, Freedman also observes that strategic efforts to win some goal are just part of the task at hand—for, having won, there’s now the necessity to govern or to bring goods to new markets or to retain battled-for rights, etc. A lucid text that raises questions while answering others—of great value to planners, whether of an advertising campaign or a military one.
DAVID AND GOLIATH Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
Gladwell, Malcolm Little, Brown (304 pp.) $29.00 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-316-20436-1
A far- and free-ranging meditation on the age-old struggle between underdogs and top dogs. Beginning with the legendary matchup between the Philistine giant and the scrawny shepherd boy of the title, New Yorker scribe Gladwell (What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures, 2009, etc.) returns continually to his main theme: that there are unsung advantages to being disadvantaged and overlooked |
disadvantages to being “advantaged.” Though the book begins like a self-help manual—an early chapter on a middle school girl’s basketball team that devastated more talented opponents with a gritty, full-court press game seems to suggest a replicable strategy, at least in basketball, and a later one shows how it’s almost patently easier to accomplish more by being a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond—it soon becomes clear that Gladwell is not interested in simple formulas or templates for success. He aims to probe deeply into the nature of underdog-ness and explore why top dogs have long had such trouble with underdogs—in scholastic and athletic competitions, in the struggle for success or renown in all professions, and in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies the world over. Telling the stories of some amazingly accomplished people, including superlawyer David Boies, IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad, and childhood-leukemia researcher Jay Freireich, Gladwell shows that deficits one wouldn’t wish on anyone, like learning disabilities or deprived childhoods, can require a person to adapt to the world in ways that later become supreme benefits in professional life. On the other hand, children of the newly wealthy who have had every good fortune their parents lacked tend to become less well-equipped to deal with life’s random but inevitable challenges. In addition to the top-notch writing one expects from a New Yorker regular, Gladwell rewards readers with moving stories, surprising insights and consistently provocative ideas.
INSIDE THE CALIFORNIA FOOD REVOLUTION Thirty Years that Changed Our Culinary Consciousness Goldstein, Joyce with Brown, Dore Univ. of California (320 pp.) $34.95 | Sep. 30, 2013 978-0-520-26819-7
Restaurateur and cookbook author Goldstein (Tapas, 2009, etc.) interviews pioneers of California cuisine, paying tribute to their roles in shaping how the world has come to regard dining out. Fresh, seasonal, sometimes organic, artisanal, or locally sourced, often drawing from several cultures, even political—from 1970 to 2000, “California cuisine” inspired ideas now taken for granted at the table. Not without its detractors, who considered the cuisine elitist, the media-driven label was initially avoided by several chefs. Goldstein proposes that California cuisine flourished due to the state’s climate and environment, which allowed for varied produce, coupled with an entrepreneurial spirit that hoped to depart from the traditional, Euro-centric fare of the times. Borrowing from the lightness of nouvelle cuisine and the innovation of fusion cooking, the cuisine’s early days presented then-unusual alternatives, with occasional missteps, as well as now-famous signature dishes. Changing perceptions of food led to the rise of such
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INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
Linda Ronstadt
The versatile singer turns writer in her gracious memoir Simple Dreams By Gregory McNamee
Photo Courtesy Photo_Hummin’
Linda Ronstadt has spent decades as a singer defying expectations, long ago graduating from the “rock chick” of the late 1960s and ’70s to the bona fide diva of the 1980s and beyond. Her choices along the way weren’t always easy. As she notes in her new book Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir, her early efforts at her noted role in Pirates of Penzance “sounded like a choirboy’s voice rather than a grown-up lady opera singer,” while her record company begged her not to do “the Nelson Riddle orchestral stuff or my albums of Mexican songs—they said they’d kill my career.” She tells Kirkus, with an audible smile, “They should have been right.” But they weren’t. And now, defying her own expectations, the 67-year-old Ronstadt has written a book—and a searching, honest and entertaining book at that. Ronstadt is quick to say that she has never considered herself a writer. She attended the University of Arizona 56
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in her native Tucson for a semester, where she read the poetry of William Butler Yeats—but then her career took off, and she moved to Los Angeles and stardom. “I never wrote anything in my life, never kept a diary. I wrote the occasional thank-you note, and that was it.” “Really, I never thought I could write a book,” she says. But then, she recalls, she sat next to author Michael Pollan at a dinner party a couple of years ago, and he asked her whether she was going to write a memoir. When she said she thought she lacked the craft to do so, Ronstadt recalls, he encouraged her. She continued to doubt herself, but she set to work all the same, determined to have a chance at what she thought of as setting the record straight and correcting “somebody else’s version of what they say I said, a version of yourself that you can’t recognize.” And besides, she adds modestly, “I’d formed some observations about the music business along the way that are either interesting to you or aren’t interesting. I wanted to set down what I had learned along the way and the people I encountered and why I made some of the choices that I did.” She also demurs, “I am seldom happy listening to my own recordings because I will hear something I think I should have done better.” When asked whether she transfers that hard self-criticism to her writing, she replies, “When I was writing my book, I asked myself two things. Is it true? That was the first thing. And then, Is it clear? I realized early on that I was better off writing a strictly chronological book, so it begins with my early life in Tucson, then my first albums and tours, and so on to the present.” A more practiced writer, she adds, might have done something more imaginative, structurally speaking. With that, she recalls having been a longtime reader of the Paris Review, whose famed interviews on craft
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suggested to her that writing and singing were kindred arts. “Of course, the tools are different,” she says, “and words are much more precise than sounds.” Striving for just that precision, she’s turned in a much different book from what publishers have approached her for in the past. “I’ve had offers over the years,” she says, “but always to write a kind of tell-all book. I didn’t want to give out information that was private. I do dish dirt if it was there, but this isn’t that kind of book.” Yes, truth be told, there’s not much dirt in these pages—and that alone sets Ronstadt’s book at some remove from, say, Rod Stewart’s recent memoir or Keith Richards’ Life. Instead, Ronstadt takes pains to thank the people who have been present to help her along, from encouraging parents and cousins to helpful mentors in the music business. There may have been a few sleazy characters along the way, but she chooses to, well, borrow from her beloved friend Nelson Riddle, with whom she recorded what are probably the first crossover exercises from rock to the “great American songbook,” to accentuate the positive. Readers will learn nothing shocking about California governor Jerry Brown, that is to say, but they will learn about the strong work ethic and artistry of the likes of Jerry Wexler, Jimmy Webb and Rosemary Clooney—and even of arranger and songwriter Jack Nitzsche, one of the few people in the book who figures in anything other than a positive light, thanks in part to an unusually personal way of airing criticism. (Chalk one up for Gram Parsons for hoisting Nitzsche by his own petard—or, more properly, his trademark hat, a comeuppance story that Ronstadt relates with chaste pleasure.) Far more often, she insists on the importance of getting along: “When I hire a musician to record or perform, the first thing I look for is a shared sensibility. Whatever the musician listened to or read or saw or where he lived growing up informs every note he plays in a myriad of ways….If the group lacks a shared sensibility, it is pure misery.” Ronstadt has long since moved beyond being the rock goddess of old; she announced her retirement a couple of years ago. Instead, in her book, she hands over the crown of “first fully realized female rocker” to Chrissie Hynde. When reminded that Hynde is probably ready to hand the crown on herself, Ronstadt praises younger singers such as Duffy, Adele and Alicia Keys, pausing to note, “I know she’s gone, but check out Amy Winehouse’s live version of ‘Valerie’ on YouTube, too.” Asked whether she has any other writing projects in mind, Ronstadt good-naturedly insists, “I’m a |
reader.” But books, like albums, have a way of planting themselves in unexpected ways—ways unexpected even to the writer. For now, we have this graceful, and gracious, account of a life spent in music. Gregory McNamee, a Kirkus Reviews contributing editor, is a longtime resident of Tucson, Ariz., Linda Ronstadt’s hometown. Simple Dreams was reviewed in the Jul. 1 issue of Kirkus Reviews.
Linda Ronstadt’s Top Five
Asked to pick five songs that are representative of her work over the years, for the imagined benefit of someone who’s been under a rock for the last five decades and hasn’t heard her before, Linda Ronstadt names these: • “Anyone Who Had a Heart” (from “Winter Light,” 1993) • “Adieu False Heart” (from Linda Ronstadt and Ann Savoy, “Adieu False Heart,” 2006) • “Lover’s Return” (from Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton, “Trio II,” 1999) • “It Never Entered My Mind” (from “Lush Life,” 1984) • “El Crucifijo de Piedra” (from “Mas Canciones,” 1991) —G.M. Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir Ronstadt, Linda Simon & Schuster (208 pp.) $26.00 | Sep. 17, 2013 978-1-4516-6872-8
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significant figures as Wolfgang Puck, Jeremiah Tower and Alice Waters. Thoughtfully woven related themes include sustainable agriculture; differences between Northern and Southern California kitchens, from guiding principles to plating styles; perspectives among self-taught and professional chefs; increasing acceptance of ethnic dishes; the popularization of open kitchen designs, and more. While several interview highlights detail the beginnings of particular restaurants, with frequent mentions of Spago and Chez Panisse, the most perceptive accounts consider broader philosophies on everything from dining habits to ingredients. For the most dedicated food historians, the narrative reveals a period rife with invention. Facsimiles of menus provide glimpses at past trends and staples. Goldstein convincingly presents a case for California cuisine as a vital force in strengthening connections among food, chefs and diners in ways that have transcended region. (24 b/w photos)
GROWING UP GRONK A Family’s Story of Raising Champions
Gronkowski Family with Schober, Jeff Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (224 pp.) $25.00 | Jul. 9, 2013 978-0-544-12668-8
Each of the five Gronkowski siblings gets a chance to run the ball up the middle in this tepid profile of an exceptional American family that has so far managed to send three of its sons to the NFL. Gordie Jr., Dan, Chris, Rob and Goose weren’t like other kids growing up in rural New York State. For one thing, they were significantly bigger than everyone else. They were also driven to obsessively hone their physical gifts, spending thousands of hours in their basement gymnasium bulking up and beating the tar out of each other. But such were the rites of passage that helped define much of this colorful, sports-loving clan. Papa Gronkowski—a terrific player in his own right who later went on to found his own fitness supply company—instilled the hard-nosed dedication in each of his boys as they took turns chasing down the dream of becoming professional athletes. Three have already made it, a fourth came awfully close, and a fifth is coming on strong. That, however, is pretty much the extent of what readers will learn about the Gronkowski family dynamic. They worked hard, supported each other and never quit. End of story. Mother Gronkowski, for instance, barely earns a mention, even though what life must have been like for the only female member of such a rambunctious family unit surely seems like fertile ground for real exploration. Bland quotes from friends and neighbors down through the years add little to the family portrait and do even less to differentiate one Gronkowski from the next. “He blossomed into the person he became. He has a great sense of humor”—that’s about as penetrating as this breezy sports biography dares to get. Unapologetically laudatory and ultimately dull. 58
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DESCENT A Memoir of Madness
Guterson, David Vintage (80 pp.) $4.99 e-book | Sep. 10, 2013 978-0-8041-6925-7
A writerly account of the downward spiral of clinical depression. Writing about one’s own depression presents unique challenges. Sinking into the abyss typically renders the writer incapable of writing, so such memoirs are almost invariably written well after the fact, with the writer describing what, at the time, seemed an affectless void. Prize-winning novelist Guterson (Ed King, 2011, etc.) differs from many in knowing specifically what triggered his depression and exactly when it started. He was in Washington, D.C., during the attacks of 9/11 and found himself not only devastated, but wondering how others could resume their lives, almost as if nothing had happened: “Anyone not despondent, I believed, was wearing blinders. The rightness of unhappiness was obvious and clear. The only reasonable response to the world was an overwhelming and excruciating sadness; everything else was willful delusion.” Reasonable enough, but neither his drive home to Washington state nor the months that followed lifted his spirits. Guterson consulted therapists, took pills and pondered suicide. It’s impossible to criticize the recovery and catharsis reflected in this manuscript, but it’s plain that he’s no longer at a loss for words and that those words seem selfconsciously literary. Of discussing his condition with his family, he writes, “There is such a thing as filial indulgence and a manner of discourse possible between siblings that’s possible nowhere else. In other words, our dialogue was fraught with complication to the point of a compelling Freudian mootness.” Only in the last few pages does he turn the corner toward a recovery more gradual and less specifically causal (pills? time? love?) than the shock that blindsided him. A slim addition to a long bookshelf on depression.
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THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND THE ASSASSIN Madness, Vengeance, and the Campaign of 1912
Helferich, Gerard Lyons Press (304 pp.) $28.95 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-7627-8299-4
A lively account of Theodore Roosevelt’s would-be murder reveals the roiling issues and personalities of that key
campaign. Not many people know the name of John Flammang Schrank (1876–1943), a German-American New Yorker who tracked Roosevelt’s stops on the railroad campaign circuit of late summer and early fall of 1912 and resolved to shoot him. |
The actual shooting on October 14 in Milwaukee was superficial, unlike that 11 years earlier of President William McKinley, assassinating him and thus leaving Roosevelt as president. Yet Roosevelt’s shooting certainly yanked American politics into the modern era and revealed the courage of the irrepressible victim. In this light-pedaling, accessible study, Helferich (Stone of Kings: In Search of the Lost Jade of the Maya, 2011, etc.) creates several wonderful character studies: of Roosevelt, whom he calls either the Colonel or “the third termer,” to designate the focus of Schrank’s rage against him in putting himself up for election to a third (nonconsecutive) term; of the much-maligned incumbent President William Howard Taft, Roosevelt’s handpicked successor who was so cowed by the anxiety of influence that he could not exert his own will in his own term and, when the wildly popular Roosevelt resolved to challenge him for the Republican nomination, fell out with him in an ugly, public battle; and of Schrank, a friendless landlord with accumulated grievances who believed Roosevelt’s hubris and unchecked ambition to run for a third term was a gross abuse of tried-andtrue democratic institutions. Moreover, Helferich examines a dream that Schrank supposedly had that convinced him of Roosevelt’s conniving in McKinley’s murder and lent some truth to the court’s assumption that Schrank was delusional. Outsized personalities within a blistering campaign render this work a rollicking history lesson.
RUNNING LIKE A GIRL Notes on Learning to Run
Heminsley, Alexandra Scribner (224 pp.) $25.00 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-1-4516-9712-4
With humor and honesty, Elle UK books editor Heminsley details the anxiety and exhilaration she felt when she decided to try running in her mid-30s. Like most children, the author had enjoyed running around and playing, but over the years, she writes, she had forgotten she could run: “Somehow I had lost sight of the fact that not being a runner and being unable to run were not one and the same.” Her first run quickly turned into a walk, and she didn’t lace up her shoes for another three months. Then her brother announced that he was entering the London Marathon, and Heminsley decided to sign up, too. Months of training and proper eating ensued. The author takes readers on the emotional ups and downs of that first race as the miles passed slowly by and Heminsley reached and pushed past her limits. The author’s supportive family, including a father who had run marathons and a brother also in training, encouraged Heminsley to finish that first marathon and sign up for many more. Each time she finished a race, she experienced the high of accomplishment followed shortly thereafter with the question, now what do I do? As the years and miles passed underfoot, Heminsley spent increasing amounts of time questioning this need to run. Finally, she realized she didn’t need to run for a |
cause, although she did; she didn’t need to run for weight loss or exercise, although the benefits of running were evident in her new, more streamlined body. She could just run for the sake of running. For anyone contemplating running, Heminsley provides valuable insight into the mechanics and emotions inherent in the sport. The author also includes information regarding proper gear, physical ailments and preparing for a marathon. Useful insights into how to run and why one woman does so for sport and for its life-enhancing effects.
THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE
Héritier, François Translated by Bell, Anthea Harper/HarperCollins (96 pp.) $14.99 | Nov. 1, 2013 978-0-06-229104-2
A stop-and-smell-the-roses book by a distinguished French anthropologist. According to Héritier (Two Sisters and Their Mother: The Anthropology of Incest, 1999), this book originated as a response to a postcard from her physician, friend and fellow academic, who wrote that he was enjoying his holiday in Scotland and referred to it as “a ‘stolen’ week.” The author started thinking about who was stealing what from whom and why her habitually overworked colleague felt the need to experience life’s sweetness during a stolen week rather than to enjoy it on a daily basis. Her response was “kind of a prose poem paying tribute to life… an enumeration, an ordinary list in one long sentence, of ideas that came to me of their own accord by fits and starts, like a long, whispered monologue” cataloging “the intimate thrill of small pleasures.” Essentially an essay-long sentence broken into more digestible bite-sized chapters (for to devour it all at once would make life seem more exhausting than sweet), she doesn’t write as an academic or an anthropologist, nor are the pleasures she shares particularly personal, though they do reflect her perspective as a woman and her experience as someone who remembers World War II. Her list runs the gamut from “remembering to breathe deeply now and then” and “feeling surprised that you are still alive,” to “urinating outdoors.” At the end, she invites readers to add to the list, reinforcing the idea that life’s riches are inexhaustible. Of her own list, she writes, “We are simply concerned with the way to make everything in life a treasure of grace and beauty that always keeps growing of its own accord, in a place where you can draw on it daily.” A reminder of blessings.
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Th e I n s i d e r s ’ A s s a s s i n a t i o n Top Down
November 22, 2013, marks the 50-year
Lehrer, Jim 978-1-4000-6916-3 This book is reviewed in this issue.
anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, one of the most written about
Drawing on his experience as an eyewitness, Lehrer’s novel, out on Oct. 8 and dedicated to Secret Service agents, depicts a reporter who confirms the top will be down on JFK’s vehicle and a Secret Service agent whose crushing guilt years later drives the reporter to re-enact the events.
episodes in American history, with just as much conspiracy as fact. There will be intriguing books about Kennedy and the assassination coming out this fall, including ones by Robert Dallek, James
Dallas 1963
L. Swanson and Philip Shenon. But this year’s
Minutaglio, Bill; Davis, Steven L. 978-1-4555-2209-5 This book was reviewed in the Jul. 1 issue.
slew of books about the assassination are notable for the number of insiders commenting on the
In a chronological, episodic narrative that grows chilling, Minutaglio and Davis’ book, out on Oct. 8, unearths the various fringe elements rampant in Dallas in the three years preceding John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Both writers are longtime observers of the sometimes-volatile Texas personality.
event: reporters who were there (writing both fiction and nonfiction), one of the last surviving staff members of the Warren Commission and a Secret Service agent who’s now telling his story.
History Will Prove Us Right: Inside the Warren Commission Investigation into the Assassination of John F. Kennedy
November 22, 1963: Witness to History
Aynesworth, Hugh 978-1-61254-4127-3 This book is reviewed in this issue. As a 32-year-old Dallas Morning News reporter, Aynesworth witnessed the assassination, the arrest of the assassin and the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby. Aynesworth’s book, which pubs on Sept. 3, recounts the events from the point of view of an eyewitness.
Five Days In November
Hill, Clint; McCubbin, Lisa 978-1-4767-3149-0 This book will be reviewed in a forthcoming issue.
Willens, Howard P. 978-1-4683-0755-9 This book will be reviewed in a forthcoming issue. Willens supervised the Warren Commission’s investigation and finally speaks out here, defending the commission’s findings. Using his journals and notes, Willens backs up former Chief Justice Earl Warren’s claim that “history will prove us right,” despite strident criticisms of the commission’s findings. His book is out on Oct. 31. – Ian Floyd
Hill was Mrs. Kennedy’s Secret Service guard, who clung onto the rear of the president’s vehicle moments after the shots rang out. In an hour-by-hour account that is heavy on images and pubs on Nov. 19, Hill recounts the moments with Mrs. Kennedy that preceded the assassination and the days immediately afterward. 60
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“A well-written, thorough scrutiny of a landmark speech that illustrated Lincoln’s vision and clarified his future purposes.” from writing the gettysburg address
THE SMALL HEART OF THINGS Being at Home in a Beckoning World
Hoffman, Julian Univ. of Georgia (168 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-8203-4556-7
A sharply observed, occasionally overwritten collection of essays on the interrelationships of man and nature, of soul and place. Born in Britain and raised in Canada, Hoffman now lives in and often writes of the Balkans, near the Prespa Lakes, a region of natural splendor and deep political divisions. He and his partner “were led to this Greek village by a book. Having read a glowing review of it in a bird-watching magazine, we bought the book on the off chance that we might someday visit the region it described. But it took only a single evening of leafing through its pages, reading passages aloud, and looking at photographs to reach a decision of far greater import…it captivated us from the start.” An impetuous romantic, the author also came to love that particular place, and here, he shares that love, as well as his love of books about places, for he seems to connect with nature from a particularly literary perspective. He writes of “the resonance of place,” “the environmental vicissitudes of place,” and the feeling that “there are no clean, easy lines that connect ourselves to a place, as if we were joining up a question with its answer in a beginner’s language book.” More compelling than such grand pronouncements and conceptual conceits are the specifics of experience and detail, the wonder Hoffman finds in this seemingly insignificant woods, in the cry of this bird or the stateliness of that tree, and the exhilaration he feels as he experiences life as part of the natural world: “The places where I can look up or out, either at the vast ceiling of cloud and sky, or the disappearing horizon, and feel more or less the same thing: the inconsequential scale of our lives. Paradoxically, it is in those places that I feel most alive, experiencing a wild and shuddering depth to existence.” A deeply felt book that will lead readers to other books that inspired it.
UNDER THE EAGLE Samuel Holiday, Navajo Code Talker Holiday, Samuel; McPherson, Robert S. Univ. of Oklahoma (288 pp.) $19.95 paper | Oct. 6, 2012 978-0-8061-4389-7
A combination of memoir and ethnography study examining an unusual, inspiring aspect of the World War II Pacific campaign. Holiday is one of the last living Navajo “code talkers,” a group of Native American Marines recruited to develop an |
unbreakable code derived from their unique tribal language. As co-author McPherson (History/Utah State Univ., Blanding; Navajo Land, Navajo Culture: The Utah Experience in the Twentieth Century, 2002, etc.) observes, “The Navajo code talker experience was as much mental and spiritual as it was physical [due to]…the emphasis Navajo culture placed on religion.” One strength of their collaboration is a clear portrait of the daily challenges faced by the Code Talkers in both training and battle. Holiday’s engaging musings on his hardscrabble (yet traditioninflected) childhood and the young Navajo males’ surreal entry into war alternate with McPherson’s explications of Native American history, symbolism and ritual. The scholar argues that Holiday’s experiences connected these ancient cultural markers to the Marines’ intense “island hopping” campaign against the Japanese. Holiday seems serene in recalling participation in brutal battles at Saipan and Iwo Jima, though he notes that the Code Talkers were frequently at risk of being mistaken for the Japanese foe. Following the war, he overcame “nightmares of the enemy standing over me smiling” by having an “Enemy Way” ceremony performed for him. Still, the Code Talkers found postwar life challenging, having been sworn to secrecy. Since each chapter contains an overview of relevant Navajo symbolism, followed by part of Holiday’s recollection of his improbable life story and McPherson’s lengthy interpretation of the young soldier’s experiences, the overall narrative feels rather unwieldy. However, many readers will find the fusion of military and cultural histories enjoyable and fascinating. The combination of Holiday’s recollections and McPherson’s academic expertise creates a valuable addition to the canon of specific WWII narratives.
WRITING THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
Johnson, Martin P. Univ. Press of Kansas (336 pp.) $34.95 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-7006-1933-7
Johnson (History/Miami Univ.; The Dreyfus Affair: Honor and Politics in the Belle Époque, 1999) analyzes how, when, where and by whom the Gettysburg Address was written. The author ably debunks the myth of Lincoln scribbling a few words on the back of a yellow envelope on the train to the Pennsylvania cemetery dedication. “It seemed odd that the origins and writing of a speech that had become such an important part of American identity should be surrounded by so many questions,” he writes. Lincoln scholars and Civil War buffs will be delighted with Johnson’s meticulous investigation of the few days Lincoln had to prepare a “few appropriate remarks” at the site of the battle that was the turning point of the Civil War. There is barely an hour for which he doesn’t specify Lincoln’s location or to whom he spoke. There is no doubt that the president wrote the first draft of a two-page text in Washington, D.C. The second page disappeared the day before the dedication,
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and a pencil-written page took its place, forming the Nicolay (named after Lincoln’s private secretary, John George Nicolay) or delivery text copy. Lincoln went away to revise his speech at least twice after his arrival in Gettysburg and also made revisions as he delivered the speech. The author carefully compares not only the five handwritten copies, but also the many postdelivery documents and revisions. Even Lincoln wrote out a revision, based on many of the iterations that were available. Focusing on involved persons, word changes, capitalization and even paragraph breaks, Johnson has exhausted every possible facet of this speech and the people who may have suggested words or phrases. A well-written, thorough scrutiny of a landmark speech that illustrated Lincoln’s vision and clarified his future purposes. (12 photos)
JULIA CHILD RULES Lessons on Savoring Life
Karbo, Karen Skirt! Books/Globe Pequot (240 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-7627-8309-0
Karbo’s (The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons from the World’s Most Elegant Woman, 2011, etc.) delightful foray into Julia Child’s life blends entertaining facts with Child-inspired lessons for living the good life. The author chronicles the great cooking instructor’s childhood in Southern California, her work in Sri Lanka, her lifelong love affair with Paul Child, her trials while learning to cook and her midlife TV career. Child’s life has been dissected many times, but Karbo adds a personal layer to the narrative. While exploring her inspirational and aspirational qualities, the author weaves in bittersweet memories of her family life and her mother, an early fan of Child. As an explanation of America’s complex fascination with Child, Karbo writes, “[m]y theory is that our real attachment to Julia is less about her cooking, or even about what she did for the cause of serious cuisine, and more about our admiration for her immutable aptitude for being herself.” The author holds Child up as an example of a woman comfortable in her own skin, intent on creating good food and finding a passion in life. Karbo underscores the lessons for achieving a happy life, as lived by Child, using chapter titles like “Live with Abandon,” “All You Need Is a Kitchen and a Bedroom” and “Cooking Means Never Saying You’re Sorry.” Along the way, the author ladles out solid advice for contemporary women on a variety of topics, including the joy of hard work and how to both cultivate ways to amuse yourself and disobey the rules that society sets out for women. “Julia pretty much ignored the whole thing, and it may be the only real lesson there is for the end of our days,” writes Karbo about Child’s take on old age. “Just pretend like it isn’t happening, until you have no choice but to accept reality.” A lighthearted trek through a food icon’s life, studded with satisfying tips for modern living. 62
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THE 80/20 MANAGER The Secret to Working Less and Achieving More Koch, Richard Little, Brown (288 pp.) $27.00 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-316-24306-3
Koch (The Star Principle: How It Can Make You Rich, 2010, etc.) discusses how to successfully apply his “80/20 principle” to business management and leadership. The author believes that “if you divide the world into causes and results,” then relatively few causes bring about most of the results. He names the phenomenon the “80/20 principle,” modeled on a similar concept formulated by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto more than 100 years ago. Koch applies the rule to current business practices. He does not believe that running businesses using accounting methods alone stands much chance of success, and he insists that one of “the most harmful, ridiculous, idiotic, yet enduring assumptions of the business world is that all sales are good, all revenue is valuable, and all sources of revenue are of roughly equal importance.” At Filofax, a company he rescued, Koch found that just 4 percent of stock-keeping units generated 93 percent of revenue and 20 percent of profits, while one-fifth of the customers accounted for 91 percent of sales. The author distills lessons from this and other cases into a 10-point system designed to help managers recognize where they can obtain the greatest results from the application of the 80/20 principle. These include developing investigative skills, building networks and connectivity, mentoring and using leverage. Koch enriches his arguments with references to his own experiences at the Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company. The author advocates “time rich” methods (effective use of time), arguing that there is a negative relation between work time and productivity. He takes pains to separate this view from time management and seeks to cultivate the management skill of “calculated inactivity.” A lively presentation that effectively combines ways to improve leadership with business problems and solutions.
THROUGH DUST AND DARKNESS A Motorcycle Journey of Fear and Faith in the Middle East Kroeker, Jeremy Rocky Mountain Books (288 pp.) $20.00 paper | $14.99 e-book Oct. 14, 2013 978-1-927330-74-6 978-1-927330-75-3 e-book
What happens when a man questioning religion goes looking for answers in a theocracy? The author is a somewhat lapsed Mennonite. Unable to figure out his views on God, Kroeker (Motorcycle Therapy: A
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“Moving and motivating—a must-read for practicing professionals and would-be musicians.” from strings attached
Canadian Adventure in Central America, 2006) decided to ride a motorcycle from Germany to Iran. Though other motivations were hazy at best, the idea stuck, and he embarked. Getting into Iran was no easy task, and in the process of attempting it, the author encountered a barrage of obstacles as well as friendly and open people who were willing to take him under their wings. Much of what happens is amusing, and all of it was educational for Kroeker. He learned that in many cases, the people he spoke to would prefer a more liberal government, but he is astute enough to know that those who didn’t would probably not want to discuss the matter with a Westerner. This understanding of nuance and his own limitations make his journey a joy to follow. Kroeker provides plenty of from-the-gut laughs without ever giving the impression that he doesn’t take his surroundings or subject matter seriously. This is an impressive and necessary feat when juggling such a volatile combination, and he handles it with aplomb. The accompanying photographs are what one would expect from a man out to commemorate a personal trip rather than to professionally document the scenes he encountered. Perhaps the best thing about the book, though, is that Kroeker doesn’t neatly sum up his problems with his faith. “Though I had failed to see it earlier,” he writes, “part of the motivation was to search out God from another vantage point….All my life I’ve sought God through a lens, as we all do, but it’s a long lens. Through it, you just can’t see everything.” Pragmatic yet still beautiful and hopeful. (32 pages of color photos)
HOLDING ON UPSIDE DOWN The Life and Work of Marianne Moore Leavell, Linda Farrar, Straus and Giroux (480 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 22, 2013 978-0-374-10729-1
A detailed biographical study and literary critique of modernist poet Marianne Moore’s life (1887–1982) and work. Moore scholar Leavell’s (Marianne Moore and the Visual Arts: Prismatic Color, 1995) intimate portrait is the first biography written with the support of the Moore estate. Though Moore left behind an extensive archive recounting each week of her life, she revealed little of the inner workings of her cloistered personal self. Leavell delves deeply into Moore’s early work and its connection to her eccentric life and relationships. The poet never married, seemingly never fell in love and suffered poor health for much of her life. From her early 20s to her 60s, Moore lived with her mother. Yet the poet maintained intense friendships with Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and Elizabeth Bishop, and she became editor of The Dial in 1925. Critics agreed that she was the “finest poet writing in America,” yet her popularity would be limited to a small devoted following. Her complex poems first began garnering recognition in 1915, and she went on to win major awards, including the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Moore was still receiving |
recognition and awards for her work “in the last decade of her life.” In her 60s, the reclusive Moore became a celebrity. Major magazines published feature stories about the elderly spinster poet, and her college readings were sellouts. In 1967, on her 80th birthday, Moore appeared on Today to promote a book of her collected works. “Greatly beloved yet little understood, highly esteemed yet barely known outside of English departments,” writes Leavell, “Marianne Moore is a poet of paradoxes.” A well-researched, scholarly excursion into the life of a complex personality and the world she inhabited.
STRINGS ATTACHED One Tough Teacher and the Gift of Great Expectations
Lipman, Joanne; Kupchynsky, Melanie Hyperion (352 pp.) $24.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-4013-2466-7 Inspirational lessons from the life of one tough teacher. Today’s parents who lament their children stressing over tests may be horrified by the themes of tough love and tenacity offered by this biographical tribute to the late Jerry Kupchynsky, “Mr. K,” a gifted high school strings teacher from East Brunswick, N.J., whose exacting methods helped spawn the careers of generations of musicians and educators. Journalist Lipman and Kupchynsky, a violinist and Mr. K’s daughter, met as children when Mr. K joined his daughter’s exceptional talents on violin with Lipman’s on viola to form half of a string quartet that would also include Kupchynsky’s younger sister, whose disappearance decades later reunited the authors. The bond forged through the intensity of creating music is but one of the storylines running through this engrossing account of Mr. K’s life. Born in 1928 in the Ukraine, Mr. K endured a litany of wartime atrocities before immigrating to the United States as a refugee in 1946. But prior to fleeing to the U.S., it was the sound of a German soldier playing the violin that sparked his love for classical music. Surviving these early hardships helped instill in Mr. K an appreciation of adversity as a motivator, an unflagging belief in the value of hard work and a willingness to fight for the underdog. With a booming Ukrainian accent and “trim” mustache, Mr. K’s battle-ax demeanor and perfectionist drive struck both fear and a ferocious desire to succeed in the hearts of his pupils. One of his more unforgiving approaches involved singling out a section’s weakest player—“Who eez deaf in first violins?”—and forcing the guilty party to play alone with a stronger player until the weak one improved. While tactics like these may not have earned his students’ immediate devotion, they never forgot him and often found they could achieve more than they ever dreamed. Moving and motivating—a must-read for practicing professionals and would-be musicians.
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THE RISE OF ABRAHAM CAHAN
Lipsky, Seth Schocken (240 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-8052-4210-2 978-0-8052-4310-9 e-book
A seasoned newsman reports on the life of one of America’s great newspaper heroes, a writer and editor who practiced his craft in Yiddish. Abraham Cahan (1860–1951) was the founder and editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, New York’s pre-eminent Yiddish newspaper. New York Sun and English-language Forward founder Lipsky presents a succinct biography of his distinguished predecessor as part of the burgeoning Schocken/Nextbook Jewish Encounters series. Born in czarist Russia, Cahan was born anew in 1882 when he landed in America, ignorant of the English language. He quickly conquered the native tongue of his new nation and wrote, in English, narrative fiction of immigrant life in a unique voice. His masterpiece, The Rise of David Levinsky (1917), was an epic novel of a poor immigrant who achieves considerable, but ultimately unfulfilling, wealth. In many ways, the novel paralleled the author’s own rise, though Cahan’s signal achievement wasn’t in the garment trade but in the newspaper that chronicled the culture of downtown Jews. The Forward ranked third of all the city’s morning papers in any language, and in its pages, newly arriving immigrants received instruction in American ways. The paper featured an agony column, which famously advised legions of troubled readers, and it published the works of Sholem Asch and the brothers Singer. Home to Jewish public intellectuals, it debated (not always on the right side) the Russian Revolution, Zionism, strike actions and a host of other urgent matters of the day. The paper was always anti-communist, and Cahan was always Jewish though never religious. In his autobiography, The Education of Abraham Cahan, he had little to say about his private life. Lipsky follows that example with scant information regarding Cahan at home. A straightforward narrative of the public life of a complex, commanding newspaperman. (16 pages of b/w illustrations)
THE ONCE AND FUTURE WORLD Finding Wilderness in the Nature We’ve Made
MacKinnon, J.B. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (240 pp.) $25.00 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-544-10305-4 An earnest but diffuse look at what we mean when we talk about nature and the natural world and why what we think about nature is important. 64
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To understand how to sustain life on this planet, one must first understand the past, writes Canadian freelance journalist MacKinnon (Dead Man in Paradise, 2007, etc.). His exploration of the past is largely anecdotal, filled with stories featuring elephants, grizzly bears, wolves, bison, whales and creatures no longer found on Earth. Often, these are tales of unintended consequences, demonstrating what happens when humans tamper with Mother Nature. The decline of species has been so devastating, writes the author, that today, nature is only 10 percent of what it once was. MacKinnon cites Easter Island as an example of a once richly forested land that is now desolate and barren, and he asks whether that example of social and ecological collapse occurring in only a few hundred years is the future we have been creating for ourselves for millennia. (Or, is the endurance of the Easter Islanders, surviving on rat meat in their ruined ecosystem, one that should give us some measure of hope for our own survival?) The author writes that since millions of the world’s population now live in urban areas, most people are unfamiliar with nature and are, therefore, unaware of its significance. It is clear that he would like to increase awareness and make people see that nature and human nature are intertwined: “We shape the world and it shapes us in return.” An intriguing but uneven perspective on rewilding. If the image of a bit of lichen clinging to the slopes of a single mountain appeals to you as an apt metaphor for life on planet Earth, this book is for you.
MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH EATING Lessons in Food and Love from a Year in Paris
Mah, Ann Pamela Dorman/Viking (288 pp.) $25.95 | Sep. 30, 2013 978-0-670-02599-2
An American diplomat’s wife finds sweet solace in Parisian culture and cuisine. It had been Mah’s (Kitchen Chinese: A Novel About Food, Family, and Finding Yourself, 2010) childhood dream to live in Paris, so when her husband accepted an extended assignment to France, she was ecstatic. The typically nomadic lifestyle of a foreign serviceman can be tough on a spouse, however, and when the author found herself alone in the City of Light after her husband was reassigned to Iraq, she was flummoxed. Despite her trepidation, Mah—whose predicament frequently mirrors that of diplomatwife–cum-chef Julia Child—exuberantly writes of wandering around Paris “conscious of my American accent and Asian face” yet bravely immersing herself in its regional cuisine, which alleviated her loneliness and satiated a blooming curiosity about the luscious food of France. Mah savored the cuisine of 10 different French regions, beginning by sinking her teeth into clumsily ordered but impeccably prepared steak frites, then tackling headier fare like Andouillette. Threaded throughout are anecdotes on Mah’s Chinese-American childhood, her often difficult life as a
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diplomat’s wife, and the connection between French cultural history and its food. The author lingers over these stories as lovingly as the scrumptious food set before her. Recipes round out each colorful and mouthwateringly described segment as Mah travels to the Brittany region searching out crepes, Provence’s chunky vegetable soupe au pistou, and the Savoie staple, fondue au fromage. Consistently passionate and emotionally resonant, Mah’s prose brims with true love—not only for her adventures in and around the fragrant Parisian marketplaces, but also for daily life sharing delectable food with her husband and rediscovering herself during his lengthy absences. A bighearted, multisensory tour of France.
ALL THE SONGS The Story Behind Every Beatles Release
Margotin, Philippe; Guesdon, Jean-Michel Black Dog & Leventhal (672 pp.) $50.00 | Oct. 23, 2013 978-1-57912-952-1
Quick: What’s the last cover the Beatles ever recorded? If you answered “Maggie Mae,” from “Let It Be,” then you’re likely to inhabit the same geeky, completist universe as French Beatleologists Margotin and Guesdon. Their thoroughness, not to say obsessiveness, yields all sorts of surprises, even for the initiated. Consider, for instance, that “Please Please Me,” the group’s first official album, was recorded in a single day, February 11, 1963—well, many readers may know that. But who knew that the band took three hours to record two songs, then broke for 1 ½ hours, then recorded three songs and overdubbed three more, then took another 1 ½–hour break, then recorded six songs between 7:30 and 10:45? Well, now you do. And who knew that Eddy Thornton, Ian Hamer and Les Condon played trumpet in the 1966 session that yielded the canonical cut of “Got to Get You Into My Life”? (Thornton, by the way, was a member of Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, while the other two were in-demand jazz players.) There’s all sorts of spinoff trivia in these wonderfully well-illustrated pages, from the fact that Humble Pie copped the sound of “Paperback Writer” to the circumstances surrounding John Lennon’s “Ballad of John & Yoko” and the eventual tensions that tore the band apart. There are a few modest missteps—it’s not particularly useful to know that George Harrison’s song “Piggies” was “a social critique light-years away from the Eastern philosophy of which he had become a fervent devotee”—but, for the most part, this is rock-solid stuff. Essential for Beatles fans and a pleasure to read. (fullcolor illustrations and photos throughout)
THE BEAST Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail
Martínez, Óscar Verso (224 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-1-78168-132-9
Grim, grisly account of the predations suffered by impoverished migrants on the hazardous journey to el Norte. Previously published in Spain in 2010 and in Mexico in 2012, Martínez’s debut is the hard-won result of immersive journalism. After several large-scale kidnappings of migrants, the author spent two years following the routes used by undocumented travelers though Mexico. He found that the rise of powerful, violent drug cartels has eradicated the rules of an already challenging journey; now, the migrants are universally viewed as human chattel to be exploited. Martínez writes precisely, with bleak gallows humor, as when he notes of cops unhappy with his investigation, “a dead migrant is commonplace, but a couple of dead journalists is another matter.” Yet all his observations are numbingly bleak. He finds border cities, like the notoriously violent Ciudad Juarez, to be “racked by a madness akin to civil war,” while the feared Los Zetas “have infiltrated everywhere. Not even the Army is clean.” The narrative is a litany of horrors: casual murder, near-universal sexual assault and frequent accidental deaths via freight-hopping. Martínez portrays a Mexican society in which these pathologies are universally understood, yet cartel intimidation and bureaucratic corruption have destroyed the social order: “There is, simply put, nobody to assure the safety of migrants in Mexico.” Meanwhile, the United States’ high-tech border militarization has resulted in a “funneling” effect, forcing vulnerable migrants and drug smugglers to share increasingly constricted routes. “Where is it safe to cross? And the answer is, nowhere,” he writes. “The US government has made sure of that.” Martínez develops attentive portraits of the migrants, officials, aid workers and criminals he encounters; his first-person account is executed with passion and grit, illuminating a heartbreaking yet easily ignored reality. A harrowing look at the real costs of globalization, immigration and drug-prohibition politics, short on solutions and absent hope.
MAN REPELLER Seeking Love. Finding Overalls.
Medine, Leandra Grand Central Publishing (256 pp.) $25.00 | Sep. 10, 2013 978-1-4555-2139-5 Medine writes the well-publicized blog Man Repeller, and her debut memoir reveals extended, comedic stories about
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her Manhattan upbringing, adolescent embarrassments, young marriage and, always, details about what she wore. The author defines herself as “this girl who accidentally stumbled into what turned into a career that allowed me to penetrate an industry I’d always admired.” Her penchant for sartorial choices that have nothing to do with garnering male attention—and her writing on the subject—resonates with thousands of devoted blog readers. She is candid, rebellious, outspoken and able to laugh at herself, and these qualities are on display on every page. “You can rest assured…that each and every sartorial object depicted, dramatized, and described…is as authentic a nod to my memory as it is to the clothing that shapes it,” she writes. Peppered with photos of Medine, some of which qualify in equal measure as unflattering and hilarious, the book is divided into chapters according to each one’s central item of unattractive clothing. These include “The Tent Dress,” “The White Socks,” “The Lesson of the Harem Pants,” “The Canadian Tuxedo,” and, for the closing story of her wedding, “The Big White Dress (And an Organza Jacket).” Throughout, Medine confesses to innumerable outrageous outfits and her present-day verdicts on the clothes; the aforementioned harem pants, for instance, are ruled “violently offensive,” but they did contribute, in a funny way, to her reconciling with the boyfriend she later married. In a strong, consistent narrative voice, Medine displays wit, unabashed openness and a knack for weaving seemingly superficial, materialistic details into essays that are rich with sly wisdom and the colorful personalities of family members and friends. Humorous, insightful and sometimes-sparkling essays that will appeal to readers interested in the pure fun of fashion.
FORGOTTEN ALLY China’s World War II, 1937-1945
Mitter, Rana Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (464 pp.) $30.00 | Sep. 10, 2013 978-0-618-89425-3 A retelling of China’s war of resistance from 1937 to 1945 against a brutal and murderous Japanese invasion and how that experience helped shape the
China of today. “China,” writes Mitter (Modern Chinese History/Oxford Univ.; Modern China: A Very Short Introduction, 2008, etc.), “remains the forgotten ally.” China was the first nation to resist Axis aggression and for eight bloody years, never stopped fighting, at the cost of between 14 and 20 million deaths. Mitter focuses primarily on Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist Party leader who, in the 1920s, nominally unified China and tried, unsuccessfully, to destroy the Chinese Communist Party. The author offers a more nuanced portrait of a complex man with great ambitions for a modern China who faced bitter odds as the Japanese moved inexorably across China. Mitter shows a man both capable of inspiring intense national loyalty and also of committing acts of immense 66
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cruelty. In 1938, in an attempt to halt the Japanese advance, he ordered the destruction of the dykes holding back the Yellow River; 500,000 Chinese died. Chiang’s order to requisition grain from central China led to famine for millions of Chinese. Mitter traces the slow disintegration into “corruption, carelessness, and callousness” of both Chiang and the Nationalist Party as the war with Japan dragged on. During the war years, Chiang had created a national identity for China from which much was expected of the Chinese people but who, in turn, expected much from their government. The Nationalists could not keep their side of the bargain; in the end, the Communists could. There are many side tales and numerous other characters in the book, yet Mitter’s narrative élan, in the manner of David McCullough, creates a complex history that is urgently alive. An important, well-told tale of China at war.
JUST TELL ME I CAN’T How Jamie Moyer Defied the Radar Gun and Defeated Time Moyer, Jamie; Platt, Larry Grand Central Publishing (288 pp.) $27.00 | Sep. 17, 2013 978-1-4555-2158-6
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Platt (Only the Strong Survive: The Odyssey of Allen Iverson, 2002, etc.) tells the story of how Moyer turned a below-average career into the stuff of legend, becoming, at 49, the oldest pitcher in Major League Baseball history to win a game. Released from the Texas Rangers in 1990 at the age of 28, Moyer’s career might well have been over. Instead, he went on to pitch for six more big-league clubs, win a World Series with his hometown Philadelphia Phillies and rise to No. 35 on the alltime wins list with 269. With a sub–90 mph fastball even in his prime, Moyer’s success is a slap in the face to the number-crunching statisticians manning professional baseball’s front offices. As the book’s title suggests, much of that success is credited to his never-say-die attitude and determination to prove doubters and naysayers—of whom there are many—wrong. Equally as much, if not more, is attributed to his mastery of the mental game, learned through his relationship with baseball psychology guru Harvey Dorfman. Though the book is presented as a memoir by Moyer, it is narrated entirely by Platt, who was there to witness the pitcher’s struggles as he attempted to come back yet again following a 2011 injury that should have ended his career. There’s more than enough drama in Moyer’s unique story to overcome the book’s slightly confusing chronology, and the subject comes across as one of professional sports’ all-too-rare truly good guys. But the real value here is in the portrait of the mind of an elite pitcher, revealing the inner structures of the game in a way that will deepen even a casual fan’s understanding and enjoyment. A fascinating look at one man’s improbable athletic journey, offering insight into one of sport’s most cerebral positions.
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“A British Muslim reveals a harrowing tale of violence, imprisonment and torture.” from radical
RADICAL My Journey Out of Islamist Extremism
Nawaz, Maajid with Bromley, Tom Lyons Press (296 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-7627-9136-1
A British Muslim reveals a harrowing tale of violence, imprisonment and torture. Meeting racism head-on as a teenager in Southend in Essex, Southeast England, in the early 1990s meant that Nawaz, whose family was from Pakistan, had to fight off British thugs and began to identify with the shock value of American hiphop music. Radicalized by the events in Bosnia and Palestine, Nawaz and his brother, Osman, were steered by a British Bangladeshi Muslim named Nasim Ghani toward the revolutionary Islamist group Hizb al-Tahrir, which aimed to unify all Muslim countries under an Islamic state. From attending meetings, which indoctrinated the young men into a fervently anti-Western, anti-Israel militancy and appealed to their anger and resentment, Nawaz grew more provocative in his overt, aggressive Islamist views; he was expelled from Newham College, alarming his parents. While studying Arabic at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, he became a leader of HT, volunteering to go to Pakistan and help with recruitment, among other places, and to Egypt, where he was tasked with secretly reviving the HT organization that had been banned by the autocratic Egyptian regime. In the aftermath of 9/11, this was perilous work: The noose was soon tightened around Nawaz and his colleagues, who were rounded up and thrown into Cairo’s notorious Mazra Tora prison at a time when “such niceties as the Geneva Convention” didn’t matter. Enduring years as a political prisoner challenged his righteous views, and bit-by-bit, he recognized the errors of his ways, supported in his legal battles by Amnesty International. Nawaz became a celebrity and a darling of the media circuit, galvanizing a new movement of Muslim tolerance and moderation. A lively and convincing antidote to hatred.
MIRAGES The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1939-1947 Nin, Anaïs Herron, Paul—Ed. Swallow Press/Ohio Univ. (440 pp.) $34.95 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-8040-1146-4
In a book published in associationwith Sky Blue Press, the celebrated diarist, novelist and electric personality reappears with all the fire of her eroticism in pages untouched by a Bowdler or a Puritan. Or an editor, it seems: There are no notes, timelines or other aids for readers embarking for the first time on Nin’s ocean. Even the photographs bear only the names of the subjects and a |
location (“John Dudley at Hampton Manor,” for example). These annoyances aside, readers will find Nin a most entertaining companion—her multiple simultaneous relationships with men, her gleefully graphic descriptions of sex acts. The author does not include much in these diaries about public events (Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima and V-E Day merit brief mentions); mostly, she is interested in her interior world—and in the choreography of sexual relationships, in and out of bed. Her lovers were, in some cases, celebrities—among them Henry Miller, critic Edmund Wilson (whose pudgy body she compares unfavorably with those of her younger beaus) and actor Rupert Pole. Nin yearned for the unknown, as well, including random young men she met on college campuses during her readings. Among the most interesting passages involve her relationship with young Gore Vidal, whom she found incredibly attractive and bright (she cooled when she saw how he portrayed her in his novel The City and the Pillar). Though he reciprocated, nothing much physical could occur between them due to his homosexuality, which he initially lied to her about. (She was not fooled.) Nin also examines her many sessions with her therapists, her dreams, publishing projects, frustrations with critics, fears and fantasies, regrets and resolutions. “I live drunk with desire,” she writes. In one late entry, Nin complains, mildly: “My world is so large I get lost in it”; readers will do the same—and gratefully so.
THE VIKINGS
Oliver, Neil Pegasus (304 pp.) $27.95 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-1-60598-483-4 Scottish archaeologist Oliver (A History of Scotland: Look Behind the Mist and Myth of Scottish History, 2009) explores the vast influence of the relatively short Viking Age. The Viking Age began with the raid on Lindisfarne in 793 and lasted until the Norman invasion in 1066. The Vikings invaded, and often stayed, in lands from Turkey, and possibly Persia, all the way to Greenland. The men sought land, escape from harsh rulers, adventure, power and, most importantly, riches. When the Vikings invaded, they demanded and got enormous sums of Danegeld, a tax raised to pay tribute to them. It is reported that Aethelred the Unready (or poorly advised) paid 48,000 pounds (in weight) of silver in what was pure blackmail. The round-bottom, oar-driven boats used by the Swedish Vikings could not survive in the rigors of the North Sea and beyond, but they were excellent for entering rivers that led to the Black Sea. It was the invention of the keel that loosed the Norwegians, along with the Danes, on the West. These larger sailboats allowed them into the North Sea and inexorably onward through Scotland, Ireland, England, France and into the Mediterranean. They affected the destinies of all they met, established the first true democracy in Iceland and, as an unintended result, even spread Christianity. Their
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“With compassion and profundity of vision, Rodriguez offers a compelling view of modern spirituality that is as multifaceted as it is provocative.” from darling
conversion was purely pragmatic and political; they understood that Christian barbarism was more acceptable than that of the great heathen hordes. Oliver had few resources for this history: coinage, archaeology and written records. While the Vikings left no written records, their victims did. The author has studied his sources in depth and provides a great chronicle of these nation-shapers who stretched the limits of the known world. (24 pages of color illustrations)
DARLING A Spiritual Autobiography
Rodriguez, Richard Viking (256 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 7, 2013 978-0-670-02530-5
An acclaimed gay intellectual and journalist’s musings on the state of and interrelationship among Christianity, Judaism and Islam in the post-9/11 digital age. In this collection of essays, Rodriguez stylishly delves into the meaning of life, death, sexuality and the printed word in the 21st century by examining his own Christian faith. The events of 9/11 awakened him to the fact that the God he worshipped as a Catholic was “the same desert God [to which] the terrorists prayed.” He went to Jerusalem to experience the “ecology” of the place that gave rise to not only Christianity, but also Judaism and Islam. In the emptiness of the desert, the printed word came to have sacred status for all three religions. What partially distinguished them were notions of paradise. “For Jews,” he writes, “Eden was pre-desert [and] [f]or Christians and Muslims, paradise…[was] post-desert.” Rodriguez transforms his insights into lenses through which he views not only himself and the gay community to which he belongs, but also American culture. A friend’s Easter Sunday death from AIDS in the Las Vegas desert becomes an occasion to ponder the campy neon paradise the city represents. A beloved female friend he refers to only as “Darling” becomes the focal point for witty meditations on how Rodriguez’s own place as a homosexual in both the church and society depends on female empowerment, or lack thereof. The death of newspapers becomes a way for the author to reflect on the rise of technology. In this new “enlarging, unstable [and] ethereal” world, the former weightiness of words has been replaced by a disturbing relativism. Like newspapers, sacred texts such as the Bible, Torah and Quran become little more than objects stripped of meaning. With compassion and profundity of vision, Rodriguez offers a compelling view of modern spirituality that is as multifaceted as it is provocative.
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FREE SPIRIT Growing Up on the Road and Off the Grid
Safran, Joshua Hyperion (288 pp.) $24.99 | Sep. 10, 2013 978-1-4013-2460-5
Safran recounts growing up on the fringes of society, raised by a mother who dropped out of college in the early 1960s to become a hippie. The author is now a lawyer whose successful defense of a battered woman wrongly incarcerated for 20 years is the subject of the 2011 documentary Crime After Crime. Safran describes his mother’s embrace of the counterculture with wry humor and a vivid eye for detail. When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, she was pregnant and unmarried. Determined to raise her child and hoping for assistance, she joined a radical lesbian commune in San Francisco. When the child turned out to be a boy, they rejected him, and she turned instead to a collective “of gay male babysitters who would watch the children of activist feminist mothers so they could take part in political protests.” While receiving regular welfare checks, Safran’s mother unsuccessfully pursued an artistic career, all while indoctrinating her son on the evils of capitalist imperialism and nuclear war. Abandoning art, she tried subsistence agriculture in Northern California. There, the author had to contend with living in sheds and shacks without indoor plumbing, frequent hunger and often being left to fend for himself. When he was 9, his mother began a four-year relationship with an alcoholic who pretended to be an exiled revolutionary. Although her lover had violent rages and was brutally abusive to both of them, she married him. Despite being intimidated by bullying from his stepfather and fellow students, Safran finally mustered the courage to confront them. With help from teachers and encouragement from a longtime family friend, he excelled in school and eventually came to reject his mother’s ideological preconceptions. A remarkable account of survival despite the odds. (b/w photos throughout)
ROLL WITH IT Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans
Sakakeeny, Matt Illus. by Birch, Willie Duke Univ. (232 pp.) $23.95 paper | Nov. 8, 2013 978-0-8223-5567-0
A scholarly account of the rites, rituals and traditions of the famed brass bands of New Orleans. In his debut book, ethnomusicologist and journalist Sakakeeny (Music/Tulane Univ.) delves into the subculture of brass bands in New Orleans. By focusing on three bands—Rebirth,
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Soul Rebels and Hot 8—the author attempts to elucidate the ways in which music influences the larger community. “The experiences of New Orleans musicians like those in the Hot 8 Brass Band say something about the vitality of local black culture,” he writes, adding that for a significant portion of the population, music creates an important “sense of community.” Yet as Sakakeeny makes clear, the story of the city’s brass bands is far more complex than music alone. Beyond its entertainment value, music serves as the “site where competing social, political, and economic vectors intersect.” In many ways, these vectors serve as a microcosm for the problems within the city at large. While many of these musicians have achieved global recognition, in New Orleans, their talent is often overlooked. As a result, they fall victim to poverty, unemployment and dependency issues, the latter of which “eventually take all but the sturdiest musicians out of the game.” Yet in a city notorious for its murder and incarceration rates, Sakakeeny uncovers a silver lining as well: “young people respond to their circumstances by picking up an instrument.” Though the author does a fine job of highlighting the many positives music brings to the city, his work is no lighthearted romp. As he makes clear, beneath the blaring of the horns remains the familiar hum of problems that have long plagued the city. An occasionally dry but competently told tale of a celebrated musical tradition whose story is rarely told. (11 illustrations)
WOMEN WHO DON’T WAIT IN LINE Break the Mold, Lead the Way
Saujani, Reshma Amazon/New Harvest (176 pp.) $23.00 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-544-02778-7
A challenge to the dynamics of women in the workplace. After losing her run for Congress, Saujani—former New York City deputy public advocate and the founder of Girls Who Code—felt like a failure. However, she soon realized that just by entering the race, she had proven to herself that she could be a strong woman, determined to follow her dreams regardless of the odds. The author invites women and girls to step beyond the conventional parameters of females in the workplace and move into a new paradigm befitting the 21st century. She believes that fear is the biggest factor holding women back from reaching their dream jobs. By taking a leap of faith based on self-confidence, ambitions and abilities, Saujani feels women can shift consciousness and create an environment in which they receive equal pay and are encouraged to enter into more traditionally male jobs in science, technology, engineering and math. If following your dreams means quitting an unsatisfying but stable job, she writes, then quit. Defy the odds and live a more fulfilling life. Part pep talk, part battle cry, Saujani believes sponsorship and a supportive sisterhood are keys |
to changing the “old model of feminism,” which she believes is holding women back. “Consider this a call to action,” she writes, “an anthem to inspire women and enlist them in remaking America….We must change how we think about leadership, how we apply for jobs, how we teach our daughters, what we dream, and how we go for it. We must teach ourselves not to wait, that our time is now.” A passionate call for women to rise above the expected norms in order to live productive, authentic lives.
THE INTERLOPER Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union
Savodnik, Peter Basic (288 pp.) $27.99 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-465-02181-9
A journalist’s sure-footed probing into Lee Harvey Oswald’s three years in Russia finds an unsettling time of retrenchment and rage. Why did Oswald shoot President John F. Kennedy? That, writes journalist Savodnik, remains the key question—not whether the gunman had any accomplices. The author believes Oswald acted alone and was essentially fulfilling an inescapable channeling of estrangement that found expression, after his failed Russian experiment, in sharpshooting and assassination. Largely peripatetic and homeless, never fitting in anywhere, thanks to a dysfunctional home life, absent dad and erratic mother, Oswald eventually gravitated toward the Marines in 1956 in order to escape his mother. The regimen did not suit him, since essentially he was unschooled and undisciplined, and his vague yearnings toward Marxism were naïve and unformed. Still, he managed to force the hand of the Soviet Union when he tried to defect, then attempted suicide to garner sympathy for his cause; incredibly, Russia allowed him to stay and even gave him a job and apartment in Minsk, thus endowing this inconsequential transient with something like heroic status. Even women found the outsider attractive, something he never had experienced before, although most of his co-workers at the Experimental Department in the Minsk Radio Factory kept their distance from the rather too-clean, meek former American. Savodnik gamely looks at the various friendships Oswald made, surely all of them monitored by the KGB, as his resolve to stay began to crumble after a year and some months. He recognized that he would not find a home in Russia as he had hoped—another in a long series of “interloping” failures. Oswald’s dissatisfaction would fatally seize on something, somewhere, soon. An oddly intimate foray into the life of this most banal specimen of evil.
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JFK IN THE SENATE Pathway to the Presidency Shaw, John T. Palgrave Macmillan (256 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-230-34183-8
A longtime congressional correspondent for Market News International assesses the unique senatorial career of John F. Kennedy. JFK’s eight-year Senate tenure coincided exactly with the popular Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency and roughly with Lyndon Johnson’s ironhanded majority leadership. In a hidebound institution governed by strict rules of seniority and a hierarchical system of committee chairmen, little political oxygen remained for a junior senator. But Kennedy never set out to become a Senate insider and never bothered to become the legislative workhorse that might have led to real influence. Rather, he used the Senate as a platform to hone his political persona, burnishing his speaking and writing skills, traveling widely, deepening his knowledge of foreign affairs, learning to maneuver at the highest levels of American politics, and defining himself (in contrast to the sitting president) as a forward-looking politician capable, notwithstanding his startling youth, of leading the country. Shaw spends only scant time on Kennedy’s domestic efforts, his plan to improve New England economically (including a controversial vote that distinguished him as more than a parochial voice) and his role on the McClellan Committee investigating labor racketeering. Notably absent during the vote to censure McCarthy and conspicuously silent on the issue of civil rights, JFK occupied himself largely with foreign policy, and here, Shaw likely overestimates the senator’s impact as a party spokesman. The author devotes an unusual amount of space to Kennedy’s chairmanship of a special committee charged with selecting the five most outstanding senators in American history, arguably the only Senate matter JFK brought to complete fruition. During this time, as Shaw makes clear, JFK was otherwise engaged (including literally to Jacqueline Bouvier): winning a Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in Courage, making a splashy last-minute bid for the 1956 vice-presidential nomination, resoundingly winning Senate re-election and positioning himself as the man to beat in 1960. A sharp look at the eight-year apprenticeship of only the second sitting senator in American history to go straight to the White House.
THE POISON PATRIARCH How the Betrayals of Joseph P. Kennedy Caused the Assassination of JFK Shaw, Mark Skyhorse Publishing (288 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-62636-060-0
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Title aside, only the final chapters of the book examine the toxic biography of Joseph P. Kennedy. Instead, Shaw takes an unusual route into the thicket of JFK conspiracy literature, focusing on the perturbing question of why the flamboyant civil attorney Melvin Belli, an associate of mobsters, would have been recruited to provide Jack Ruby’s defense following his televised shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. Belli pursued a strange “psychomotor epilepsy insanity defense,” here termed “absurd,” which failed at trial; Ruby died in 1967 awaiting a new trial after his subsequent death sentence was overturned on appeal. Later, Belli avoided the topic, telling conflicting stories about how he came to represent Ruby. Gangster Santo Trafficante supposedly warned notorious mob attorney Frank Ragano—whose memoir, closely examined by Shaw, implicates Jimmy Hoffa and others in the conspiracy—to never ask Belli about Ruby. Thus, Shaw argues that “probing Belli’s behavior before, during and after the Ruby case is essential to any search for the truth” about the killings. Certainly, Belli seems capable of obfuscation; the author portrays him as “a braggart of the first degree [and] a Mafia groupie.” Shaw finds it suspect that Belli’s trial gambit was to make Ruby look “crazy when no one else in the real world thought he was” and ultimately argues that Belli was a plant meant to subtly control Ruby. The problem, as with most JFK assassination conspiracy theories, is the difficulty of directly connecting Belli’s curious behavior to the purported Mafia assassination conspiracy. A clearly written but fevered polemic on the corruption of power, built around an intriguing theory, but it lacks a smoking gun.
KENTUCKY TRAVELER My Life in Music
Skaggs, Ricky with Dean, Eddie It Books/HarperCollins (352 pp.) $25.99 | Aug. 13, 2013 978-0-06-191733-2 Legendary bluegrass and country musician Skaggs reflects on his life and career. Born and raised in the eastern Kentucky mountains, the author knew from an early age that he was destined to be a musician. After receiving his first mandolin at the age of 5 in 1959, young Skaggs was given his first big chance only a year later, performing side by side with his idol Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys at a local concert. Skaggs’ natural talent had already made him something of a local celebrity—the only reason he got on stage with Monroe was because the crowd chanted for him—but Skaggs’ musical roots go even deeper. Raised in a musical home, he recalls his mother singing hymns and other tunes around the house as she did chores. He also tells how his father aspired to be a musician, but the death of Skaggs’ uncle in World War II killed the brothers’ dream of making it as a duo. As Skaggs’ musical talent developed, so, too, did his passionate Baptist faith. For Skaggs, music was synonymous with spirituality. Even after becoming a crossover country music star, Skaggs recalls his mother asking him, “Son, you know who got you here, don’t you?” To which Skaggs replied, “Yes, Mama. Jesus did.” Skaggs’ memoir is
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“C.S. Lewis might not approve of the language, but he’d surely approve of the sentiment. A thought-provoking entertainment.” from unapologetic
not only his personal history, but also a narrative history of bluegrass music and its eventual decline. He is a faithful observer, and among his best anecdotes are those from his time playing with New South at the Red Slipper Lounge in Lexington. Having been superseded by pop country, bluegrass would be bumped to the festival circuit. Years later, Skaggs re-embraced his bluegrass roots, though he doesn’t regret his foray into country, and he remains a formidable presence in the music scene as the owner of Skaggs Place Recording Studio and Skaggs Family Records. Lacking the dirt of other high-profile music memoirs, Skaggs’ life is an affirmation of hard work, drive and faith. (16-page b/w photo insert)
PRUDE Lessons I Learned When My Fiance Filmed Porn
Southwood, Emily Seal Press (264 pp.) $16.00 paper | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-58005-498-0
The dream nuptials of a bride-to-be become complicated by a fiance with a penchant for porn. With great relief, Internet blogger Southwood writes of formally consummating a three-year long-distance relationship by relocating from Vancouver to her boyfriend Robbie’s place in Los Angeles and getting engaged. A restless gal of 28 who’s happy to divulge her sexual repertoire of only “twelve guys and one girl,” this move would be her tenth so far—and hopefully her last. Just days before Southwood’s departure, Robbie, a Hollywood cameraman big on expressive feelings, drops the bombshell that he’s been offered a prized cinematography position with a “reality TV porn” program. Flabbergasted and ambivalent, Southwood agonized over her reaction: Would her latent sexual prudishness spoil their relationship and hijack the wedding, or should she just process the information and deal with it? Their situation worsened before it resolved, and throughout, the author shrewdly ruminates on relationship pitfalls. Southwood’s contemporary analysis revolves around the “ownership” credo of monogamy; these days, she asks, “exactly how much of our significant other’s body and soul do we get?” However, as Robbie’s livelihood put unwanted pressure on their sex life yet concurrently provided a surfeit of hilariously awkward predicaments, the author pauses to shrewdly comment on the male-dominated world of pornography, its effect on early sexual development and infidelity, alongside an explicit cornucopia of porn varieties, sexual positions, terms and conditions, compliments of Robbie’s new job. The main theme running through Southwood’s memoir, however, is not how soul-sucking and unapologetically raunchy the sex industry can be labeled by outsiders, but how much open and unfettered communication is required when one-half of a partnership becomes threatened by the other’s involvement in it. A hip, humorous confessional written with maturity, panache and sex-positive vibes. |
UNAPOLOGETIC Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense
Spufford, Francis HarperOne (240 pp.) $25.99 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-06-230045-4
A highly personal—and unconventional—defense of belief in Christian doctrine. Well, not defense of doctrine, exactly, but defense (the root meaning of apologia) of Christian emotions and their “grown-up dignity.” Besides, writes Spufford (Red Plenty, 2012, etc.), going on to the second meaning of the term, “I’m not sorry,” even though as an Englishman writing about religion, “I’m fucking embarrassed.” Spufford’s language isn’t exactly Aquinian or Augustinian, but it gets to the point—to several points, in fact. One, bouncing off the trope of the messages emblazoned on buses in Britain to the effect that since there probably isn’t a God, we should all just try to be happy on our own, gets Spufford’s dander up sufficiently to mount a crusade fought in naughty words: “New Atheists aren’t claiming anything outrageous when they say there probably isn’t a God. In fact they aren’t claiming anything substantial at all, because really, how the fuck would they know?” Yes, and vice versa: What’s the ontological proof? Spufford is short on arguments that would cause Christopher Hitchens to budge an inch from the position of nonbelief, but his cause seems more personal than all that: He’s explaining his belief in the context of what he brightly calls “the human tendency, the human propensity to fuck things up”— that is, to lay waste to all the things that matter and then spend the rest of our lives either trying to patch them up or trying to pretend that it doesn’t matter. “I don’t care about heaven,” he professes. “I want, I need, the promise of mending.” C.S. Lewis might not approve of the language, but he’d surely approve of the sentiment. A thought-provoking entertainment.
I BELIEVE IN ZERO Learning from the World’s Children
Stern, Caryl M. St. Martin’s (272 pp.) $25.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-250-02624-8 978-1-250-02625-5 e-book
A story of UNICEF from the front lines. Stern, the president and CEO of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, recounts how she started her branch of UNICEF and was then tapped to take over the top job and almost immediately dispatched to Mozambique, where she was introduced “to the effects of severe poverty on mothers and children.”
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Between 2007 and 2011, she visited Mozambique, Darfur, Sierra Leone, Haiti and Kenya. She writes about the problems of expressing to people the very real pain and suffering she has discovered in these poor countries. Admirably, she personalizes and individualizes what are often presented as general problems—a woman in Mozambique, whose fourth child was her first to survive, in an earthen-floored birthing unit located a four-hour walk from her place of work. So shocking are the situations she encounters that she finds herself continually making comparisons with her own family’s Holocaust past. In Darfur, she was struck by not only the images of malnourished children, but also the “ghostlike eyes” of the women who had been through hell telling their stories of their own rapes, as well as those of their children. Equally brutal was her encounter with the maternal neonatal tetanus virus and her presence at the death of a 6-day-old infant convulsing in pain, as well as the impotence of those who knew the disease could be treated but could not stop it. “I used to regard heroes as people who had done unique, unimaginable things: saving a child’s life or standing up to a bully,” she writes. “After visiting Haiti, I decided that sometimes my heroes were people whose whole lives had been destroyed but who day after day took a breath and resolved to carry on, have faith, and pursue their dreams anew.” A powerfully written, heartbreaking account of making sure that all children have the opportunity to “dream big dreams and have a fighting chance to realize those dreams.”
JFK, CONSERVATIVE
Stoll, Ira Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (288 pp.) $27.00 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-547-58598-7
Former New York Sun managing editor Stoll (Samuel Adams: A Life, 2008) makes a correction to the JFK record. The author hews closely to Kennedy’s speeches—from freshman Democratic congressman to senator to president—to revise what he perceives is a misrepresentation of the politician’s core beliefs. Indeed, he wasn’t a liberal, as defined as “bigspending, big government,” and as he noted of his liberal peers in Congress, “I’m not comfortable with those people.” Stoll reminds us that JFK’s conservative views were “hardly a secret during his lifetime.” They were recognized for what they were by the likes of Richard Nixon and Jacqueline Kennedy. JFK’s views on communism and fiscal restraint encapsulated the darling conservative theories propounded by leaders who came after him, notably Ronald Reagan. Since JFK wrote or heavily edited his speeches and penned numerous books, Stoll underscores what must have been JFK’s deeply held beliefs, starting with “Christian morality,” which emerged from his strong Catholic upbringing. His use of biblical passages (Rose Kennedy’s influence, apparently) to illustrate the struggle between good and evil as it was being played out during the Cold War is striking. Stoll sees in Kennedy’s deep religious convictions, fervent 72
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anti-communist stance, wariness of labor unions, and urge to exercise fiscal restraints and free trade more than rhetorical pandering to the electorate; they are essentially guides to how he intended to steer the country. His signature policies as president, besides attempting to defeat the communists in Cuba, were cutting taxes and bolstering the military, all of which were priorities before civil rights, which even Martin Luther King Jr. complained JFK had not done enough to advance. Stoll makes a solid case by carefully scouring the record. A compelling textual study of how JFK became all things to all people.
THE BIG NEW YORKER BOOK OF CATS
The New Yorker Random House (352 pp.) $40.00 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-679-64477-4 978-0-679-64478-1 e-book
A worthy follow-up to last year’s Big New Yorker Book of Dogs. Covers, cartoons, authors of pieces both longer and shorter, reflect current views of the feline subject in all its glory, and sometimes disgrace, as well as those of bygone days. Poets like Ted Hughes and Robert Graves sit alongside contributions from the magazine’s former regular columnists—e.g., James Thurber’s 1952 post-party tale “The Case of Dimity Ann” and E.B White’s informative “How To Make a Cat Trap” (1930). White offers both a complicated assembly job and a simpler, more lethal one for those hardy enough to try. In “The Cats” (2003), John Updike writes about inheriting eight acres and countless cats. Included in this generous collection are big cats, lost cats, Army cats, bookstore and even wine-shop cats, cat therapists, a cat man, catsitters and cat savers. Cartoons and covers reflect more of these cross or interspecies types of rapport and humor. In 1954, a Republican owner of a Manx cat reported his pet’s reaction to the mention of the name “Harry Truman” and how he got her down from the living room mantel by saying “Eisenhower.” In one cartoon, a dinnerparty host arrives with a cat perched atop a tray and asks his guests, “Cat, anyone?”; another cartoon wonders, “Who’s Really Running the City.” This theme is also echoed in some of the selections included among the 24 cover reproductions, like the Sleeping Beauty from Nov. 24, 1997, or the Cat vs. Dog game of chess from June 24, 1974. Other contributors include Roald Dahl, Jamaica Kincaid, Haruki Murakami, Susan Orlean, Robert Pinsky, Ariel Levy, T.C. Boyle and Steven Millhauser. The quality, humor and variety make for another successful New Yorker collection. (illustrations throughout)
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“A fascinating glimpse at a scientific frontier—not always easily understandable but well worth the effort.” from life at the speed of light
APPOMATTOX Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War
LIFE AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT From the Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital Life
Varon, Elizabeth R. Oxford Univ. (352 pp.) $27.95 | Oct. 3, 2013 978-0-19-975171-6
What exactly was the meaning of the surrender at Appomattox? Robert E. Lee’s surrender of his starving army to Ulysses S. Grant effectively brought the Civil War to an end; remaining military resistance collapsed shortly thereafter. But once the killing ceased and the Confederate troops had returned home under magnanimous surrender terms, what had truly been resolved? Slavery and secession were ended by force of arms; the South accepted that, however grudgingly. Yet many social and political questions remained to be settled by leaders from both sides of the conflict. Predominating among these leaders were the borderstate Democrat Andrew Johnson, who had succeeded the murdered Lincoln, and Lee and Grant themselves. Varon (History/ Univ. of Virginia; Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789–1859, 2008, etc.) considers how the months following the surrender came to be viewed by each side as a golden opportunity for conciliation squandered by the other, partly as a result of radically different interpretations of the meaning of the North’s military victory and the terms under which the South had laid down its arms. Drawing on sources ranging from newspaper editorials and congressional testimony to the poetry of Herman Melville, the author explores the evolving disagreements between Unionists and the former Confederates about moral culpability for the war, the restoration of the occupied states to the union, and especially about the rights to be accorded the freed slaves. Johnson’s approach to reconstruction seemed only to substitute serfdom for slavery and otherwise left the South largely unchanged; this enraged the radical Republicans, who saw this result as a betrayal of the Union dead. Grant observed and vacillated but finally supported the radicals. Lee emerges as less the conciliating figure of modern legend and more a sectional leader who felt betrayed by what he saw as federal interference in Southern affairs beyond anything agreed to at Appomattox. A careful, scholarly consideration of how the ambiguities surrounding the defeat of the South resolved into the bitter eras of Reconstruction and Jim Crow. (34 b/w halftones)
Venter, J. Craig Viking (240 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 21, 2013 978-0-670-02540-4
Best known for sequencing the human genome, Venter (A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life, 2007, etc.) now looks ahead to the possibilities for synthesizing life. The author compares the nine months needed to achieve this in 1999—using his “whole genome shotgun method”—to the new technologies available today that can do the job in one day. Venter reprises the sequence of discoveries—from the role of DNA and the structure of the chromosome to modern techniques of “genetic engineering,” now called “synthetic biology”—and he situates the current work of his own research teams at the nonprofit J. Craig Venter Institute in the broader context of similar ongoing research—e.g., at MIT, “a sophisticated genetic circuit has been assembled” to detect indicators of cancer and release “a tumor-killing factor.” Venter then explains how his initial success led him to two new projects: a “new method of environmental shotgun sequencing” that samples ocean waters and has resulted in the discovery of more than 80 million previously unknown genes and an estimated “billion trillion organisms for every human on the planet”; and the creation of a synthetic genome by transferring a chromosome from one species of bacteria to another, in effect creating a new species synthetically. The author hopes to be able to determine the minimum number of genes needed to maintain a cell’s life and is also exploring the hypothesis that the evolution of life has not only occurred gradually due to random genetic mutations. He believes that the addition of chromosomes also occurred, providing a mechanism for dramatic leaps. He looks to a future in which robots will be able to sequence alien life on another planet and transmit the information back to Earth. A fascinating glimpse at a scientific frontier—not always easily understandable but well worth the effort.
ONE SOUFFLÉ AT A TIME A Memoir of Food and France
Willan, Anne with Friedman, Amy St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $27.99 | Sep. 17, 2013 978-0-312-64217-4
British founder of the bilingual La Varenne cooking school in Paris, veteran cookbook author and world traveler Willan traces her experiences through piquant anecdotes, including favorite recipes that mark salient memories and friendships. |
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“History on the grand scale, orchestrated by a virtuoso.” from ecstatic nation
From her Yorkshire roots to a Cambridge education, training in Paris to marriage, American citizenship, entrance into “worldliness,” the creation of La Varenne, envisioned as an alternative to the famed Cordon Bleu, La Varenne’s closure and her later career teaching at venues such as the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, Willan admits to a life often characterized by luck and privilege. With the assistance of Friedman, she narrates with ease, briefly recalling encounters with elite personages and celebrated chefs such as Julia Child. Without selfaggrandizing, such moments vivify a slice of the gastronomic world, particularly during the 1970s, when women were seldom permitted in professional kitchens, nouvelle cuisine was finding its footing, and the explosion of the Food Network had yet to occur. The handful of less-than-flattering scenes—such as those revealing quirks of students and colleagues—are treated with gentle humor, and the author mentions hardships with graceful aplomb. Willan segues between chronology and recipes in a straightforward manner, resulting in an episodic career memoir interwoven with momentous life occasions, from cross-Atlantic moves to weddings and deaths. Compelling chapters on La Varenne in Paris and its courses at Château du Feÿ in Burgundy reveal the pleasures and complications of working in the kitchen, though readers seeking more in-depth details will find these chapters too few. A charming, if not revelatory, portrait of a woman determined to bring French cuisine to a wider audience, with emphasis on traditional, accessible recipes that respect the intellectual side of cookery. Recommended for Francophiles and culinary enthusiasts.
THE MAN WITH THE ELECTRIFIED BRAIN
Winchester, Simon Byliner (32 pp.) $1.99 e-book | Aug. 6, 2013 978-1-61452-083-2 A short, scary and ultimately redemptive recounting of the veteran journalist’s mental breakdown. While researching his best-selling The Professor and the Madman (1998), the author came to fresh terms with the mystery of his own madness decades earlier, which began when he was a student at Oxford. Before embarking on an Arctic expedition, a rite of academic passage, he found himself engrossed in Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage. “When I woke five hours later, the whole world seemed to have changed, to have suddenly gone entirely and utterly mad,” he writes. Nothing made sense to him or looked familiar; if it looked vaguely familiar, it seemed threateningly strange. He uncharacteristically fell asleep for another eight hours and awoke to remember that he had an errand to run but had no idea where he was going, why, or even how to start his vehicle. “I swerved off down the road, for a destination unremembered, by way of a route unchartered,” he writes and then tells how he crashed his van 10 minutes later. Things eventually got better, so he didn’t 74
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tell anyone before leaving for the Arctic, where things then got life-threateningly worse. He survived, married (almost numbly catatonic at his wedding), launched his journalistic career, raised a family, and still suffered these spells with frightening regularity, a couple times a month, each lasting nine days. Almost by chance, he encountered a doctor who said, “I know what’s wrong with you; and I know how to fix it. Don’t worry anymore. You’ll soon by fine.” And so he was, though the electroshock treatments he received remain controversial and their effectiveness, inexplicable, and his research for his book, after initially providing him with a pat diagnosis, left him with more questions. All the more effective through its matter-of-fact understatement, as it illuminates mysteries it can’t resolve.
ECSTATIC NATION Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877
Wineapple, Brenda Harper/HarperCollins (736 pp.) $35.00 | Aug. 6, 2013 978-0-06-123457-6
A sweeping look at the Civil War in the context of its social, cultural and intellectual climate. Wineapple (Modern Literary and Historical Studies/Union Coll.; White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 2008) begins with a bang: the death of John Quincy Adams on the House floor, after decades of fighting to end slavery. From there, she takes up the narrative of some 50 years of turbulent American history, full of grand schemes, bitter conflicts, brilliant characters and unforgettable stories. Among the plotlines are the effort by Southern slaveholders to find new territories to expand into, so as to preserve the balance between slave and free states in the Senate; the abolitionists’ appeal to higher laws; the rise of transcendentalism, spiritualism and other quasi-religious philosophies; and the settlement of the West. It would be hard for a master novelist to top the cast of characters, who run the gamut from politicians to writers, soldiers, ministers, nurses, journalists and outright frauds. Wineapple covers the grand sweep of history, from the run-up to secession and the war itself to the Reconstruction era and its ultimate betrayal. Secondary plots abound, from plans to annex Cuba to the Indian Wars. Throw in all the quips, slogans, insults and grand sentiments of an age when educated men and women prided themselves on their eloquence, and you’ve got the recipe for a wonderful saga. Wineapple gives all the major players a turn in the spotlight and, in the case of the true giants of the era, Abraham Lincoln especially, their full due. The author effectively draws in all the currents of the time, from popular culture and polemical journalism to the grand literary monuments. Best of all, she brings it together in a compelling narrative that will enlighten readers new to the material and thoroughly entertain those familiar with it. History on the grand scale, orchestrated by a virtuoso.
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children’s & teen These titles earned the Kirkus Star:
CHASING SHADOWS by Swati Avasthi; illus. by Craig Phillips..... 77 SPELLING TROUBLE by Frank Cammuso......................................... 80
NORTHWEST PASSAGE by Stan Rogers; Matt James; illus. by Matt James............................................................................ 113
THE BEAR’S SONG by Benjamin Chaud............................................81
PARROTS OVER PUERTO RICO by Susan L. Roth; Cindy Trumbore; illus. by Susan L. Roth........................................................................ 113
MO’S MUSTACHE by Ben Clanton......................................................81
GOD GOT A DOG by Cynthia Rylant; illus. by Marla Frazee..........114
DEEP IN THE SAHARA by Kelly Cunnane; illus. by Hoda Hadadi...........................................................................83
THE WAR WITHIN THESE WALLS by Aline Sax; illus. by Caryl Sterzelecki; trans. by Laura Watkinson...................... 115
THOR by Graeme Davis.......................................................................85
EAT LIKE A BEAR by April Pulley Sayre; illus. by Steve Jenkins.... 115
INHUMAN by Kat Falls....................................................................... 88
BATTLE BUNNY by Jon Scieszka; Mac Barnett; illus. by Matthew Myers.....................................................................116
THE MIDNIGHT DRESS by Karen Foxlee.......................................... 90 SPIKE by Debra Frasier....................................................................... 90 LITTLE NAOMI, LITTLE CHICK by Avirama Golan; illus. by Raaya Kara; trans. by Annette Appel.............................................................. 94
THE IN-BETWEEN by Barbara Stewart...........................................119 MY NAME IS BLESSING by Eric Walters; illus. by Eugenie Fernandes................................................................. 123 MR. WUFFLES! by David Wiesner.................................................... 125
DON’T SAY A WORD, MAMÁ / NO DIGAS NADA, MAMÁ by Joe Hayes ; illus. by Esau Andrade Valencia................................... 96
LITTLE SANTA by Jon Agee................................................................ 127
ROMEO AND JULIET by Gareth Hinds..............................................97
BIG SNOW by Jonathan Bean............................................................128
THE ANIMAL BOOK by Steve Jenkins................................................ 98
THE CHRISTMAS WISH by Lori Evert; illus. by Per Breiehagen.... 130
JUST SO STORIES, VOLUME 1 by Rudyard Kipling; illus. by Ian Wallace............................................................................100
THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS by Susan Jeffers.................... 132
EAT UP, LITTLE DONKEY by Rindert Kromhout; illus. by Annemarie van Haeringen....................................................101 CALL OF THE KLONDIKE by David Meissner; Kim Richardson....105 SEX & VIOLENCE by Carrie Mesrobian............................................105 MORE THAN THIS by Patrick Ness................................................... 107 THE TORTOISE & THE HARE by Jerry Pinkney...............................110 BATTLING BOY by Paul Pope.............................................................110
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THE CHRISTMAS CAT by Maryann Macdonald; illus. by Amy June Bates.....................................................................134 SANTA CLAUS AND THE THREE BEARS by Maria Modugno; illus. by Jane Dyer; Brooke Dyer........................................................134 THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS by Clement C. Moore; illus. by Holly Hobbie......................................................................... 135 DUSK by Uri Shulevitz....................................................................... 137 NEOMAD INTERACTIVE COMIC by Sutu....................................... 140
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MARIE ANTOINETTE, SERIAL KILLER
Alender, Katie Point/Scholastic (304 pp.) $18.99 | $18.99 e-book | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-545-46809-1 978-0-545-57669-4 e-book A family trinket leads an American student in Paris to an undercurrent of ancestral deceit and supernatural murder. Colette Iselin is about to leave on a nine-day school trip to Paris. She summers in New York City. And her best girlfriends are two very rich queen bees. A perfect life—except that Colette’s parents are divorced, and Colette is too terrified (and shallow) to tell her besties she shops secondhand. On the eve of her departure, she finds a family heirloom necklace. What initially seems just a pretty accessory proves to be a link to a secret society sworn to protect Marie Antoinette—and its heirs are being mysteriously decapitated. Even as Colette explores this grisly, dangerous puzzle, she plays an emotional tug of war, torn between wanting to be herself and wanting to fit in. From sweet and fickle Colette to a consummate mean girl to an unassuming heartthrob, archetypes of chicklit abound, along with supernatural chills and well-researched accuracy. Though Alender’s heroine might be too shaky to stand on her own feet at times, the descriptions of Parisian streets, bistros, monuments and meals are sturdy. Colette is likable, but her temperament is as bumpy as the ancient, cobbled streets she explores; though sometimes frustrating, it makes her all the more genuine. All the flavor of a macaron, bound by a ganache of sweet, supernatural grit. (Supernatural chick-lit. 13 & up)
HE SAID, SHE SAID
Alexander, Kwame Amistad/HarperCollins (336 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | $18.89 PLB Nov. 19, 2013 978-0-06-211896-7 978-0-06-211899-8 e-book 978-0-06-211897-4 PLB A star high school quarterback bets he can get the attention of a girl who claims not to be interested by leading a protest for a cause she champions. Omar “T-Diddy” Smalls has the swagger that comes with his exalted status. The fact that he has moved to Charleston, S.C., from Brooklyn adds to his aura, and he attracts the attention of every desirable girl at school—except for Claudia Clarke, who calls him “immature, shallow [and a] fraud.” Omar never runs away from a challenge, and he bets his friends that Claudia will become his next conquest. Socially conscious, Claudia is more interested in protesting budget cuts that will wipe out the arts, the library and other school activities—excluding 76
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sports—than in Omar. Omar uses his considerable charisma and stories from his activist uncle to lead a successful protest and bring the impending cuts much-needed attention. Through working together, Omar develops genuine feelings for Claudia, and she finds herself drawn to him. Told in alternating chapters by each of the main characters, this lively romance has humor and heart. The use of social media anchors the story in today’s culture, while the banter between Omar and Claudia is clever and sounds just right for two smart, college-bound teens. Urban-fiction readers will enjoy this, but it will also appeal to any teen reader seeking a romantic read with lots of fun. (Fiction. 14 & up)
SUPERKID IN TRAINING
Allison, Jennifer Illus. by Moran, Mike Dial (208 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 12, 2013 978-0-8037-3759-4 Series: Iggy Loomis, 1
The author of the Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator series piles on the yuks in this slapstick science-fiction opener. Daniel is outraged that he suddenly has to share a bedroom with Iggy, his way-too-cute (“Why dis not working??!!!! Dis make me so angwy!!!!”), not-quitetoilet-trained little brother. Wider disasters threaten, though, after Iggy swallows new neighbor Alistair’s bug collection and begins to acquire insect powers and characteristics. It seems that Alistair and his parents are actually aliens from the planet Blaron, visiting Earth to gather new varieties of broccoli (which they call “frackenpoy”) because that’s all they can eat. Fortunately, Iggy’s symptoms can be suppressed with a Human Normalizer, which looks like a pacifier. Unfortunately, the Blaronites have another device that combines Daniel’s obnoxious friend Chauncey Morbyd and a cardboard carton into a robot that will eat the entire universe. Despite a bit of sibling reconciliation at the end, the plot, like the cast, is two-dimensional at best. Readers who relish silly names, broccoli jokes, domestic chaos and gross goo of various sorts in their fiction, as well as lots of robots and aliens, though, will definitely have no cause for complaint. Moran’s frequent illustrations range from small views of popeyed cartoon faces to diagrams of DNA molecules and, for some incidents or punch lines, sequential panels. Labored, but it doesn’t take psychic powers to see how this could be a crowd pleaser. (Science fiction. 9-11)
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“Illustrations of everyday objects compare what Erik sees to what his classmates see, revealing that seemingly minor details…can be a major problem for people with CVD.” from erik the red sees green
ERIK THE RED SEES GREEN A Story About Color Blindness
Anderson, Julie Illus. by López, David Whitman (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-8075-2141-0
Anderson’s first book is a colorful, happy-go-lucky look at color vision deficiency. Erik the Red, a creative redhead, doesn’t feel right. Suddenly, he can’t read the chalkboard, do the right homework or kick to his own team. Rhyming admonitions playfully correct him: “Erik the Red, is your brain still in bed?” He’s happiest in art class, until one day, he paints himself as Erik the Green. Classmate Annabel understands what’s wrong: He has color vision deficiency, also known as color blindness, just like her father. The new, green chalkboard, color-coded homework questions, and green and red pinneys mix him up. Erik’s green-tinted vision contrasts well with López’s brightly varied colors; even the eager faces of Erik’s classmates are a spectrum of diverse skin tones. Illustrations of everyday objects compare what Erik sees to what his classmates see, revealing that seemingly minor details—yellow chalk on a green chalkboard or color-coded index cards—can be a major problem for people with CVD. With careful explanations and simple, matter-of-fact accommodations, Erik can participate in school again, but in art class, he still enjoys being “color vision quirky.” An author’s note answers common questions about color vision deficiency and offers ways to help people with CVD (such as resisting the urge to quiz them on what color something is), and the yellow-green endpapers act as clever punctuation. This cheery portrayal of color vision deficiency will appeal to curious and quirky kids who want to see the world a little differently. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)
BEST FOOT FORWARD
Arndt, Ingo Photos by Arndt, Ingo Holiday House (36 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-8234-2857-1
Through striking photographs of the undersides of animal feet, a wildlife photographer demonstrates how they reflect an animal’s size, speed and mode of travel. This single-topic book is appealing in its simplicity. Its organization makes it easy to see the features that make walking, climbing, swimming, digging and jumping possible. A doublepage spread shows a single foot against a black background accompanied by the phrase “Whose foot is this?” Turn the page to find the answer and a photo of the animal—tiger, leaf-tailed gecko, mallard duck, giant tortoise and kangaroo—in its natural surroundings. Opposite each animal portrait are four smaller images, including three more examples of feet used to move |
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in the same way. The snapping claw of a lobster introduces the section on “extraordinary feet.” In all, Arndt’s remarkable closeups demonstrate similarities and differences among 24 distinctive animal feet, flippers and claws. The author concludes with a photograph of his own foot, connecting these creatures with child readers. A helpful index allows readers to turn back to just the foot they want to see. First published in Germany in 2007, it is the photographer’s first children’s book in English. A convincing display of animal adaptations from an unusual point of view. (Informational picture book. 3-8)
CHASING SHADOWS
Avasthi, Swati Illus. by Phillips, Craig Knopf (320 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | $20.99 PLB Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-375-86342-4 978-0-375-89527-2 e-book 978-0-375-96341-4 PLB Two friends alternate narration and struggle with grief and trauma after a
violent murder. Freerunners who fearlessly climb and jump through the city as an urban obstacle course, Holly, Savitri and Corey are nearly inseparable—Holly and Corey twins, Savitri and Corey dating, Holly and Savitri best friends. But then a gunman murders Corey and gravely wounds Holly. Comatose Holly dreams that a snake man, Kortha, claims Corey for the Shadowlands. Phillips’ masterful dream illustrations, marked by fluid, bold lines and strong angles that create impeccable clarity and movement, provide intermittent graphic-novel segments. The strategically deployed illustrated sections pack major narrative and emotional punches. Upon waking from her coma, Holly can’t let go of her dreams. She latches onto her favorite comic-book character, a vengeance-bound superhero named Leopardess. Meanwhile, Savitri struggles to support the ever more distant and erratic Holly at the cost of dealing with her own needs. The two desperately try to make meaning of Corey’s death and find his killer. The girls are sympathetic in different ways, and their development as characters is natural, logical and seamless. Avasthi deftly weaves story elements and narrative techniques— two narrators, the graphic portions and even a flawlessly executed second-person passage—to create a rich portrait of friendship and the depths of reality-shattering grief. Haunting, mesmerizing and intense. (Graphic fiction hybrid. 13 & up)
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“Overall, a lively introduction to the food business that may well help readers find their place at the table.” from so, you want to be a chef?
SO, YOU WANT TO BE A CHEF? How to Get Started in the World of Culinary Arts
Bedell, J.M. Beyond Words/Aladdin (224 pp.) $18.99 | $9.99 e-book | Oct. 22, 2013 978-1-58270-437-1 978-1-58270-436-4 e-book Series: Be What You Want
The latest entry in the Be What You Want series serves up a useful introduction to the world of culinary arts. Through a lively narrative spiced with interviews, profiles, quizzes and recipes, Bedell offers plenty of enthusiasm and a dash of caution for young people who love food. Interspersed profiles introduce readers to the likes of Roland Mesnier, executive pastry chef at the White House, and Sarah Clements Olivieri, co-owner of a food truck in Orlando, who share insights into the industry. Advice common to several interviews is to start early, find mentors and don’t invest heavily in culinary schools before knowing that’s what you really want to do. Bloggers, videographers, food critics and cookbook writers add to the heady stew of ingredients necessary in turning an interest in food into a career. Recipes are included, though they vary in their use of metric or English measurements; only one provides conversions. Furthermore, some recipes (crispy duck salad and orechiette pasta with late-summer squash, tomato jam and Pecorino) seem a stretch for novice cooks. The extensive glossary probably didn’t need to include “cookbook,” “fast food” and “ingredients,” and the extensive bibliography’s websites and online articles are a full course compared to the few included books, which are more of an amuse-bouche. Overall, a lively introduction to the food business that may well help readers find their place at the table. (industry resources) (Nonfiction. 9-16)
WHY DO I SING? Animal Songs of the Pacific Northwest Blomgren, Jennifer Illus. by Gabriel, Andrea Sasquatch (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 10, 2013 978-1-57061-845-1
A wolf’s howl. A loon’s haunting cry. What do they communicate? Seeing a title like Why Do I Sing? Animal Songs of the Pacific Northwest, readers might expect to discover the possible meanings of various animal sounds. Instead, the author dreamily imagines. A cricket’s song, she posits, “is of summer and warmth everywhere.” Each of the 14 Northwest creatures’ vocalizations is described in a four-line stanza, including—oddly—the eversilent starfish: “As the STARFISH are washed by the tide’s ebb and flow, / They just might be singing a song we can’t know. / We don’t see or hear the world the same way / As so many living 78
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things near us each day.” The poetry is often stumblingly cumbersome, as in the marmot stanza: “In wintertime MARMOTS sleep in dens under rock piles, / By summer, high peaks sound with their whistles, heard for miles.” In a cozy denouement, humans sing around a campfire, “for joy.” Gabriel’s handsome, atmospheric watercolor paintings on textured paper capture scenic panoramas or zoom in to render animals larger than life, from honeybee to meadowlark. While this is a lovely visual tribute to Pacific Northwest animals, the stilted verse makes it a disappointing followup to the team’s award-winning Where Do I Sleep? A Pacific Northwest Lullaby (2008). (Picture book/poetry. 2-7)
RADIO GIRL
Brendler, Carol Holiday House (208 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-8234-2861-8 Cecelia Maloney (“Cece…rhymes with peace”), 14, lives in Newark, N.J., in 1938 above Loomis Hardware and below the Loomis family. Her adored Pop is a radio sound-effects man, and she wants nothing more than to be in radio, too. Although she cons Pop into signing her working papers, she finds herself lying to her Ma and practicing deception at an ever-increasing level. She sneaks into New York City, talks her way into a Saturday copy girl’s job at Columbia, meets glamorous radio folk like Orson Welles (on whom she has a huge crush), and narrates it all in her starry-eyed, Depression-era teen voice. Cece is certain of her impending radio stardom and so completely misses her mother’s worry, her father’s erratic behavior and their poverty. First novelist Brendler has worked extremely hard at getting the setting, slang and tone of the late 1930s, but her characterizations are disappointingly one-note. Cece’s Ma is long-suffering, her best friend is a boy-chaser, an aspiring young reporter who befriends Cece is earnest; Cece’s note is that she is completely self-involved and naïve as heck. The climax utilizes Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast to unravel all the secrets and lies. Despite intimations of drunkenness, adultery and the coming war, Cece is as wholesome as a glass of milk, if as oblivious and self-centered as any teen then or now. (Historical fiction. 10-14)
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HEREAFTER
Brian, Kate Hyperion (320 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-4231-6484-5 Series: Shadowlands, 2 Following the introduction of this place for dead people in Shadowlands (2012), the sequel focuses on Rory’s growing understanding of the nature of the island community of Juniper Landing
and her place in it. Handsome dudes Tristan and Joaquin could distract any 16-year-old, but Rory is amazingly obtuse, needing each piece of the puzzle explained explicitly. She’s a Lifer and will be joining Tristan, Joaquin and the others of Juniper Landing who don’t move on but help the newly dead go either to the Light or the Shadowlands. Still, there are oddities that she doesn’t explore, nor does the author explain, resulting in a mystery at the heart of the plot that is more irritating than intriguing. Many of the Lifers seem to blame Rory for the unnatural decay of flowers and plants, but why is any person to blame for this? Rory’s firstperson narration is interspersed with unattributed third-person chapters, and as more and more goes awry, the interspersed narrative becomes increasingly disturbing. More appealing to readers who like to be surprised than those who like logic, this middle volume is all too focused on moving readers from the end of Book 1 to the beginning of Book 3. Even though Brian develops her world more fully, characters remain one-dimensional and bog down in trite romantic tropes. Misses the mark. (Paranormal romance. 12 & up)
THE SAVAGE LANDS
Briggs, Andy OpenRoad Integrated Media (210 pp.) $7.99 paper | Oct. 8, 2013 978-1-4804-0014-6 Series: Tarzan, 3 On the 100th anniversary of his creation, Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, returns in updated adventures. While Tarzan leads his ape family, the Mangani, in search of a better food supply, Jane, her doctor father and the other denizens of the illegal logging camp Karibu Mji deal with a new face: Lord William Greystoke. Ostensibly, he’s in the Congolese jungle to see to his family interests and search for his lost cousin. That cousin may be Tarzan, who is rumored to have survived the plane crash that killed his parents years ago and subsequently been raised by apes. Of course, Greystoke has darker plans. Firstly, he wants to find the downed plane and the research notes that will lead him to the lost city of Opar, thought to be the site of mines rich in the rare mineral coltan. He may also be there to ensure Tarzan doesn’t return to claim his rightful title of Lord Greystoke. |
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Jane and her friend Robbie escape Greystoke’s clutches to warn Tarzan, but the whole party ends up in danger thanks to a mad queen, her man-eating apes and an active volcano. British author Briggs’ third updated tale features modern tech and diction and a Jane who’s no damsel in distress in a believable (enough) and at-times thrilling jungle adventure. Backmatter on Burroughs and Tarzan may lead new readers to the classics. (Adventure. 12 & up)
TURN LEFT AT THE COW
Bullard, Lisa Harcourt (304 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-544-02900-2
Family secrets, an unsolved bank robbery, summer on a lake, a treasure island and a first romance are the ingredients for this inviting middle-grade mystery. Unhappy with his new life and new stepfather in Southern California, 13-year-old Trav runs away to the small town in Minnesota where his dad grew up and his grandmother lives. He quickly learns why his mother won’t talk about his father, who died before he was born. Suspected of having robbed a local bank, the man disappeared in a storm, his boat washed up on an island in the lake. Everyone figures Trav knows where the money is, a theory confirmed when some of the burgled money turns up in local stores after his arrival. Trav manages to convince neighbor kid Kenny and his hot cousin Iz of his innocence, and together, they try to figure out where the loot might have been stashed and who has sent Trav a threatening note. Careful plotting and end-of-chapter cliffhangers add to the suspense. The first-person narration suggests that Trav’s imagination has been fed by too much television, but the imagined threats become frighteningly real as the story progresses. Trav’s voice is believable, Bullard’s Minnesota setting full of convincing detail, and the boy’s hesitant romantic efforts add a pleasant embellishment. A promising fiction debut. (Mystery. 9-12)
THERE ARE NO MOOSE ON THIS ISLAND!
Calmenson, Stephanie Illus. by Thermes, Jennifer Islandport Press (32 pp.) $17.95 | Oct. 11, 2013 978-1-934031-34-6
A young boy out with his father is certain that he will spot a moose. So is
the moose. After their ferry docks on a small Maine island, the boy tries very hard to convince his father that a moose is nearby in the woods. The father, his nose planted firmly in a guidebook, says no. They see many animals, fish and insects as they walk about. |
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The smiling moose is quite chatty and offers frequent clues in speech bubbles (“What am I? A mouse?”). Finally, he poses in full double-spread splendor. But it is not until the boy and his father are back on the ferry that the father sees the moose. Calmenson writes in quatrains with a humorous point of view. Thermes’ brightly hued watercolors are lively and appealing, with the sky and waters in lovely shades of blue. The moose is decidedly anthropomorphized, and there are no guides to the flora and fauna depicted, so this is not for serious nature enthusiasts. However, the story is entertaining and would serve as a good introduction to family outings. A valuable reminder to enjoy the outdoors and keep an eye out for possibilities! (Meet the Moose facts, author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)
A SPARK UNSEEN
Cameron, Sharon Scholastic (352 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-545-32813-5 978-0-545-57801-1 e-book In this gripping sequel to The Dark Unwinding (2012), Katharine Tulman seeks a discreet shelter for her uncle in Paris but instead finds intrigue and danger in the court of Napoleon III. After a midnight attempt to kidnap Uncle Tully leaves two men dead, Katharine realizes that Stranwyne Keep can no longer protect him from the avaricious interest of the British and French governments, which both covet the military applications of his ingenious clockwork creations. She fakes her uncle’s death and flees with him to Paris, where she also hopes to learn the fate of her beloved, Lane Moreau. Thanks to the machinations of adversaries old and new, her careful plans almost immediately begin to unravel. Katharine’s astute first-person narration beguiles readers; in Cameron’s polished prose, scenes of social fencing are just as dramatic as passages of intense action. New secondary characters deepen mysteries and provide welcome touches of humor. Though the sequel provides enough detail to stand alone, the story will resonate most fully with readers who are familiar with Katharine’s romance with Lane and her bond with Uncle Tully. This absorbing, intelligent adventure will reward Cameron’s faithful readers—and may also win her some new ones. (Historical suspense. 13 & up)
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SPELLING TROUBLE
Cammuso, Frank Illus. by Cammuso, Frank Amulet/Abrams (96 pp.) $14.95 | $6.95 paper | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-4197-0803-9 978-1-4197-0804-6 paper Series: Misadventures of Salem Hyde, 1 A fledgling witch receives necessary guidance from a talking cat in this utterly
adorable page-turner. Plucky, pigtailed and bespectacled Salem Hyde just wants a friend. After a misguided attempt to use her magic lands her in the principal’s office, Salem’s family decides she needs an animal companion. One well-placed call later, she meets knowledgeable and talkative feline Percival J. Whamsford III, otherwise known as Whammy. Whammy isn’t just a chatty kitty; he is a Magical Animal Companion and will help Salem learn how to use her magic properly. However, the two get off to a rocky start (Salem had wanted a unicorn, not a cat), despite Whammy’s best efforts. When Salem casts a big blunder of a spell at her school’s spelling bee, Whammy arrives in the nick of time to help her and prove his friendship. Cammuso’s jokes are laugh-out-loud funny, with one of the most memorable bits borrowed from Abbott and Costello’s iconic “Who’s on First” routine. Simply drawn, wide-eyed characters populate Cammuso’s genial tale, lending it a Sunday-morning-comics feel and a gentle nostalgia that conjures visions of Calvin and Hobbes meeting a young Samantha Stephens. A delightful buddy story and an auspicious series opener; be sure to make room on shelves for Salem and Whammy. (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)
THE CITY OF DEATH
Chadda, Sarwat Levine/Scholastic (336 pp.) $16.99 | $16.99 e-book | Oct. 29, 2013 978-0-545-38518-3 978-0-545-57640-6 e-book The nonstop action in this exciting sequel to The Savage Fortress (2012) uses every bell and whistle of the suspense novelist’s craft to satisfy readers—no middle-novel syndrome here. Ash Mistry escapes tensions at home and in school by returning to India with the half rakshasa Parvati. Their aim: to keep the mystical aastra that is the Koh-I-Noor diamond out of the hands of the evil sorcerer, Lord Alexander Savage. Ash experiences much physical and emotional violence as the tale progresses: danger to his first love, further initiation into the Kali-aastra, betrayal by one of his closest friends and abduction by two man-sized stone monkeys. Characters from Hindu mythology once again play a key role in the narrative. Though the story is set mainly in Kolkata, the city of Kali, goddess of kirkus.com
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“Minidramas unfold by the square inch on delicious curry-, paprikaand olive-colored pages—cloaked and shifty-eyed lurkers, a mysterious lady with a poodle, a monkey-hatted child.” from the bear’s song
death, the climax takes place off the coast of southern India in an ancient undersea palace. The ending leaves a great many plot threads unresolved, promising a third in the series. The well-integrated background information, a doomed romance and lots of video game action will keep teens reading and panting for more. (Fantasy. 12-15)
THE BEAR’S SONG
Chaud, Benjamin Illus. by Chaud, Benjamin Chronicle (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 17, 2013 978-1-4521-1424-8
Hibernation is for grown-ups—Little Bear has adventure on his mind. In mad pursuit of a bee, Little Bear races through the forest, farther and farther away from his snoozing, cave-bound father: “Little Bear is too caught up in honey thoughts to hear winter’s whisper. A busy sort of buzzing beckons him instead.” Eagle-eyed readers can track the bear and bee all the way to Paris from the French countryside, devouring the hundreds of fanciful details that populate each gorgeous, oversized, doublepage spread. When Papa Bear wakes up and sees his errant cub is missing, he too dashes off, eventually ending up at the Opéra Garnier and—oo la la!—even finding his voice onstage: “Grooooaaaarrrr!” Minidramas unfold by the square inch on delicious curry-, paprika- and olive-colored pages—cloaked and shifty-eyed lurkers, a mysterious lady with a poodle, a monkeyhatted child. Even in the Opéra’s exquisitely rendered architectural flourishes lurk images of forest beasts, and the honeycomb endpapers aptly flank the busy visual hive within. The playful, poetic text—brilliantly translated from the original French— hums along as nature and culture stylishly collide: “Now where could that bee and that Little Bear be?” This extraordinary picture book, first published in France as Une chanson d’ours (2011), is as happy a surprise as finding a honey-filled hive at the end of a fur-raising journey. (Picture book. 2-8)
MO’S MUSTACHE
Clanton, Ben Illus. by Clanton, Ben Tundra (32 pp.) $17.95 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-1-77049-538-8
Monster + mustache = “Huzzah!” —with a soupçon of cool. “Mo just got a mustache. / A BIG, BLACK, beautiful mustache.” All the other monsters are impressed. Tutu says, “It’s superific!” Nib says, “Dude! Awesome.” Knot says, “I say! What a splendid mustache. Nicely trimmed!” Soon each of the monsters appears, be-mustached. |
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Each hairy facial adornment is different. “Bob, Bill and Ben all got EXTRA-LONG and super-squiggly mustaches. They were on sale!” Mo expresses his dismay: “WHAAA?!” So Mo bids farewell to his happening mustache and decides to rock out a “LONG, LINED, lovely scarf.” Every monster follows suit. Like Queen Victoria, “Mo is not amused.” “WHY IS EVERYBODY COPYING ME?!” And all the monsters confess that they emulate him because they respect his taste and his style. “You’re one hip, happening hombre!” Surprised, Mo suggests a fashion show. The monsters all show off their own styles…and Mo brings his rainbow afro! Author/illustrator Clanton’s supersimple linedrawn monsters in pastel colors perfectly communicate the big emotions of Mo’s tale. The half text/ half speech-bubble narrative will engage storytime audiences and lapsitters with a minimum of inflection on the reader’s part. Requests for repeats are a certainty, and small ones will learn a lesson about individuality while enjoying this delightfully fun monster tale. Mo’s mustache? Magnifique! (Picture book. 3-6)
100 MOST FEARED CREATURES ON THE PLANET
Claybourne, Anna Scholastic (112 pp.) $7.99 paper | Nov. 1, 2013 978-0-545-56342-0
Fertile fodder for fans of faux fearful freakouts. The latest in a largely interchangeable series with nearly identical titles (100 Deadliest Things on the Planet, 2012; 100 Most Awesome Things on the Planet, 2011; etc.), this gallery of creepy creatures offers unapologetically sensationalized content. Small portrait photos, five per spread, are matched to names, size ranges, two pithy descriptive notes and “scariness ratings” on a scale of one to five shark teeth. Along with, no surprise, 10 types of shark, the entries include a variety of biting insects and parasitic worms, poison frogs, snakes, carnivorous mammals on land and in the sea, deadly birds (a cassowary “[k]icks hard enough to tear an animal open or rip through a car door”), poisonous jellyfish and killer spiders. No need to fear, writes the author, “most” of these animals will leave you alone if not bothered, and “most” of their bites or stings have medical treatments. Browsers seeking self-inflicted terror or disgust will find in the small but rousing pictures a wide range of open maws and jagged teeth—but (with rare exceptions like the guinea worm being pulled from a sore) nothing seriously gruesome or disturbing. Choruses of delighted “Eeewww”s guaranteed, as well as exposure to such important scientific terms as “mustelid” and “parasite.” (“Top 100” countdown, index) (Nonfiction. 8-10)
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“There’s action, adventure and humor here, not to mention a fiercely proud female disguised as a boy.” from will in scarlet
WILL IN SCARLET
Cody, Matthew Knopf (272 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | $19.99 PLB Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-375-86895-5 978-0-375-89980-5 e-book 978-0-375-96895-2 PLB The origin story of one of the Merry Men is rousingly told. It’s 1192. Thirteen-year-old Will Shackley, son of a lord returning from the Holy Land with King Richard I, becomes caught up in deadly political machinations when he runs afoul of the evil Sir Guy of Gisborne, loyal to the king’s usurping brother, Prince John. Wounded after fleeing his ancestral home and his beloved uncle’s murder, Will is grudgingly given haven in Sherwood Forest by a band of outlaws headed by a brute (no—not what you’re thinking). Determined to return to his father’s castle to exact revenge upon Sir Guy, now installed there, Will leads the band on a raid with treasure as its ostensible object. As the tale proceeds, Will, a deft swordsman wearing a red coat that gives him his name, finds friendship among the outlaws and begins to feel loyalty to them; he also grows in maturity as he learns that villainy isn’t as easily recognizable as he once believed. Readers familiar with the Robin Hood legend will find an unusual, perhaps unsettling, interpretation of their hero: First appearing as a drunken, irresponsible lout, Rob, too, develops self-discipline and eventually hits his stride; the story of how he comes to lead the Merry Men is plausibly told. There’s action, adventure and humor here, not to mention a fiercely proud female disguised as a boy. Characters are likable, and some modern turns of phrase don’t interrupt the narrative’s flow. A nice addition to the Robin Hood canon. (map, cast of characters) (Historical fiction. 9-12)
THE WOLF PRINCESS
Constable, Cathryn Chicken House/Scholastic (320 pp.) $16.99 | $16.99 e-book | Oct. 4, 2013 978-0-545-52839-9 978-0-545-52840-5 e-book An uneasy mix of school story, adventure and fairy-tale tropes, this British import hits all the expected notes—orphaned heroine, exotic setting, hidden treasure, unknown heritage and exciting events—but never quite manages to produce an engaging composition. Heroine Sophie Smith is only slightly more fleshed-out than her friends, Delphine (part French, very stylish) and Marianne (the smart one who, of course, is not stylish and wears glasses). Orphaned at a young age, Sophie spends the majority of her time at boarding school. With only vague memories of her father, Sophie treasures the necklace he left her and hears his 82
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voice in her dreams. When the chance to visit Russia, a country that has always fascinated her, on a school trip arises unexpectedly, Sophie jumps on it. Diverted from the school’s itinerary, the three girls wind up in an isolated, dilapidated castle complete with hidden passages, loyal retainers and a real, live princess. Readers will realize much sooner than Sophie that all is not what it seems and will surely wonder at the naïveté of contemporary kids who willingly go off with a complete stranger. The uneven plot drags before taking a sharp turn into melodramatic violence. Unfortunately for readers who persevere, the ending is ultimately both unbelievable and essentially unresolved. Considerably less than the sum of its parts, this mashup won’t satisfy fans of fantasy or realistic fiction. (Adventure. 9-12)
THE BEST SATURDAY EVER!
Cook, Gary Illus. by Sward, Adam Scarletta Press (40 pp.) $15.95 | $15.95 e-book | Sep. 16, 2013 978-1-938063-25-1 978-1-938063-23-7 e-book Series: Robbie’s Big Adventures, 1 With a storm rolling in and the power shorting out, a young boy finds a new source of entertainment in Cook’s salute to the imagination. A hard rain has put the kibosh on going outside, and a downed tree has cancelled the wonderful world of electronics. “Oh Robbie, come on. / Just wait, you’ll be fine. / Sit down and start thinking. / You’ll have fun in no time!” So Robbie makes himself a costume—always a good first step—and then lets his brain and toys take over as he pilots a spaceship, saves the city from monsters, fights aliens, joins the circus. It’s kind of like a Nike ad: Just do it. There are no great secrets here, just letting imagination run wild. Cook’s forcibly rhymed text is not going to set any reader’s hair on fire, with its lock-step predictability and clunky scansion. Sward’s artwork shifts all about, from spooky dark to slimy monsters to a clown who is more terrifying than all the rest of the beasts and aliens combined. Then the sun comes out, the power returns, and Robbie heads outside, where he can still let his imagination roam. Low-key but amiable; still, the terrible verse makes this a no-go. (Picture book. 4-8)
NO!
Corderoy, Tracey Illus. by Warnes, Tim Tiger Tales (32 pp.) $14.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-58925-150-2 Otto has learned the dreaded “no” word, for life for his family and friends, as well as for himself, just got more complicated. kirkus.com
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“Otto was adorable. Everybody said so.” So begins this lively tale starring the winsome anthropomorphic baby rhino. The story is simple and familiar enough. Otto has learned to say “no” and does so at every opportunity. Until, that is, he realizes that “no” has its limits and that “yes” can sometimes be a more satisfying word. Capably combining full-page illustrations, doublepage spreads and spot illustrations, this picture book takes full advantage of the format. As the story dances along, readers will be turning the pages with glee to see what Otto refuses next. Illustrator Warnes’ animal cast delights the eye and lifts the heart. His skill in depicting expressions is extraordinary. The book itself is designed impeccably, with endpapers, title page and frontmatter doing double duty as storytelling devices. The book’s only weakness is a slight bit of overwriting in the middle of the story that interrupts the language pattern. The illustrations, however, more than make up for the less-than-crisp text. An entertaining romp of a book that amusingly addresses this often difficult aspect of toddlerhood. (Picture book. 2-6)
HOW TO LOVE
Cotugno, Katie Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (400 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-06-221635-9 978-0-06-221637-3 e-book Fifteen-year-old Reena dreams of graduating early from high school and studying at Northwestern to become a travel writer, but all that takes a back seat when her forever crush, Sawyer LeGrande, turns his green-eyed gaze on her. Reena, a self-professed ice queen, has managed to keep her feelings about Sawyer to herself, but when he begins dating her best friend, Allie, everything comes rushing to the surface. A tragic event nearly derails Reena and Sawyer’s romance before it can begin, but an irresistible chemistry pulls them together despite their sorrow. Reena falls fast and hard for Sawyer, but he is caught in a downward spiral of addiction that threatens to pull both of them under. Believing a separation is best for them both, Sawyer disappears for two years, leaving Reena alone and pregnant. “Before” chapters chronicle Reena and Sawyer’s tumultuous romance, while “After” chapters tell of Sawyer’s return and Reena’s simultaneous attempts to punish him or forgive him. The clunky back-and-forth construction robs the story of its heart, throwing Reena’s emotional stagnation and Sawyer’s complete turnaround into question. The undeniably passionate relationship feels as flat and immature in the end as when it began. Ambitious, but sadly disconnected and undeveloped. (Fiction. 14 & up)
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THE OSIRIS CURSE
Crilley, Paul Pyr/Prometheus Books (295 pp.) $17.99 | $11.99 e-book | Oct. 15, 2013 978-1-61614-857-7 978-1-61614-858-4 e-book Series: Tweed & Nightingale, 2 A pair of teen detectives bops between London and Cairo in a steampunk adventure that would probably make a better movie than it does a book. Octavia Nightingale and Sebastian Tweed return in this sequel to The Lazarus Machine (2012), solving mysteries in a Victorian London jam-packed with automatons powered by human souls and carriages running on Tesla turbines. Their search for Octavia’s kidnapped mother entangles them in a larger mystery, with missing scientists and Egyptophile cultists around every corner. Each solved puzzle reveals a further complication: traitors, lizard people, rocket launchers—even a secret world. Perhaps the number of threads is too many to keep under control; some characters are dropped abruptly, while one major arc comes to a character-building ending without ever developing through a beginning or middle. The overall mystery is impenetrable, but the set dressing of “vacuum tubes and wiring...tools and gears, clocks, glass beakers filled with strange liquids, and disassembled automatons” makes the right backdrop for a novel that climaxes with an airship-vs.-ornithopter dogfight over London. Purists take note: Among the myriad errors and inconsistencies are copious anachronisms detracting from the Victorian feel. Busy, but at least there’s a death ray. (Steampunk. 15-17)
DEEP IN THE SAHARA
Cunnane, Kelly Illus. by Hadadi, Hoda Schwartz & Wade/Random (40 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-375-87034-7 Lalla, a little Mauritanian girl, gets her heart’s desire when she shows her mother that her faith is important to her. Lalla sees her mother, her big sister, Selma, her cousin Aisha, her grandmother and all the other women in her West African town all wrapped in malafa, the colorful veils that wrap from head to toe. She wants to look beautiful and grown-up too, but each female family member tells her that wearing the malafa is more important than beauty, mystery, being a mature woman and even tradition. When Lalla figures out for herself that the malafa is central to the religious practice of Muslim women in her region, then her mother joyously wraps her in “a malafa / as blue as the Sahara sky / as blue as the ink in the Koran / as blue as a stranger’s eye.” The author notes that she changed her opinion regarding the wearing of veils for religious reasons when she lived in Mauritania and wrote this book to share the |
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joy she observed. The collage illustrations done by an Iranian artist show the colorful cloths of “lime and mango,” the beautiful women wearing the veils in different ways and the details of the houses. Poetic language, attractive illustrations and a positive message about Islam, without any didacticism: a wonderful combination. (Picture book. 5-7)
DINOSAUR RESCUE!
Dale, Penny Illus. by Dale, Penny Nosy Crow/Candlewick (32 pp.) $15.99 | Nov. 12, 2013 978-0-7636-6829-7 Dale does for rescue vehicles what she did for an array of cars and trucks in Dinosaur Zoom! (2013)—namely, sends them racing toward a rendezvous with jewel-toned dinos in their drivers’ seats. Uh-oh, a loaded truck is stuck partway through a railroad crossing, and a train is barreling down the track. Send for Dinosaur Rescue! Set to a patterned text that repeats end words or phrases in the next lines (“Rescue dinosaurs rushing. / Rushing to get there in time. / To get there in time, / before it’s too late!”), the increasingly melodramatic scenes feature scads of dinosaurs. They are anthropomorphized but identifiable and drawn in exacting detail, and they hasten to the scene of the prospective disaster in a brightly colored fire truck, ambulance, helicopter or like conveyance. They then busily provide first aid and other services after stopping the train “just…in…time!” These scaly civil servants then wheel back to their headquarters to unwind and bed down. A labeled cast list of dinos at one end and trucks at the other sandwich this yummy treat for fans of all things large and roaring. (Picture book. 3-6)
EXTREME OPPOSITES
Dalton, Max Illus. by Dalton, Max Godine (48 pp.) $9.95 | Oct. 1, 2012 978-1-56792-503-6
A witty, sophisticated book of opposites. “Too big”: A dismayed big-game hunter looks down at three colossal footprints while his porters chuckle at his discomfiture. “Too small”: A bearded castaway leans against a palm tree on an islet that’s just barely big enough. “Too late”: A quartet of dinosaurs, bags packed, dolefully watches the ark disappearing over the horizon. “Too early”: A rooster crows, silhouetted in the window against a starry night sky, with an irate would-be sleeper glaring at him from bed. Not for children just learning opposites, these illustrations invite older kids to study visual irony—sometimes with guidance. While most 84
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kids will get “too heavy/too light” (a stork struggles to carry a baby elephant in a sling; a child is carried aloft by a just-bought balloon), other images may require some explanation. “Too noisy” depicts a couple of mimes, aghast, with a squalling baby; “too quiet” presents a scuba diver in the embrace of a giant octopus, trying in vain to signal another diver, who’s swimming away. The cartoons’ hip, limited palette and dry wit will appeal to adults, but the images never lose sight of the child audience, as is manifest in a couple of quite funny underwear-related gags (“too loose/too tight”). With whole stories unfurling in each image, the book has potential for classroom use as well as for solo enjoyment. (Picture book. 6-10)
THE EYE OF MINDS
Dashner, James Delacorte (336 pp.) $18.99 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-385-74139-2 Series: Mortality Doctrine, 1 Digital nightmares lurk in this Sleep. Now that the Internet is a completely immersive experience, gamers like Michael find themselves drawn to the real-life simulators that make daily living seem so much more real than outside the Sleep. But when a young woman disables the safety measures and kills herself in front of him, Michael is forced to help VirtNet Security hunt down Kaine, a dangerous gamer who is wreaking havoc in the digital world and is targeting the physical one as well. Michael heads off into the Sleep with two virtual friends and quickly finds that the safety he had previously found there no longer exists. Dashner’s matryoshka vision of digital worlds is oddly limited by realism—despite the impressive tech setups and the nod to the infinite creative possibilities of virtual reality, both Michael’s home life and real-world simulator lack presence. That absence carries over to Michael and his friends as well. They have few defining features or preferences, seemingly nothing but an immersion in a virtual world and some skills at coding. Secondary characters are much more defined through names, vivid descriptions, actual personality traits and more. While the pacing is mostly solid, Dashner goes overboard in the setup for the plot twist, revealing it too soon and making the last 50 pages a bit of a slog. High on concept, this is an intriguing read for the digital generation. (Science fiction. 12 & up)
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“Thor emerges as an enthralling figure, brought out of the pagan world and stripped of his everyday importance as Christianity spread through Scandinavia.” from thor
THOR The Viking God of Thunder
Davis, Graeme Osprey Publishing (80 pp.) $17.95 paper | Sep. 17, 2013 978-1-78200-075-4 Series: Myths and Legends If this book is any indication of the quality of this new series, readers are in
for a treat. Thor, the Norse god of storms and thunder, looms large, particularly among the Vikings and along the whole sweep of North Atlantic islands west to Iceland. He is mentioned in numerous accounts, from pagan religions and the early Icelandic sagas known as the Eddas and onward to superhero stardom. What makes Davis’ retelling of the Thor story so gratifying and edifying is his willingness to delve into this vast literature and exhume the prize nuggets. He squares them to history— on Odin as the father of Thor: “this may be a later addition intended to bring Norse mythology into line with the classical Greek and Roman model”—as well as other literature. Thor emerges as an enthralling figure, brought out of the pagan world and stripped of his everyday importance as Christianity spread through Scandinavia. This is not to say that Davis avoids the great battles Thor has been said to have engaged in, from one with a woman who was revealed as the personification of old age to those against monsters of every ilk, and these make for rousing, intelligent reading. Illustrations include copious material from archives as well as dramatic, full-color paintings. As a vest-pocket history, this one likely won’t be beat anytime soon. (Mythology. 12 & up)
PERFECT RUIN
DeStefano, Lauren Simon & Schuster (368 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-4424-8061-2 Series: Internment Chronicles, 1 An original premise dominates this latest dystopia: A city has floated above the Earth, apparently for millennia. Is it a prison or a refuge? Sixteen-year-old Morgan feels trapped on Internment, her city that floats on a rock in the sky. Her brother Lex tried to jump from their island, only to go blind in the attempt. As the story slowly unfolds, readers learn that Internment is a totalitarian monarchy. Morgan’s best friend, Pen, loves her life on Internment, believing all the propaganda even as she enjoys flouting the suffocating rules. Morgan, however, learns that the king and his government do not merely closely watch those they suspect of nonconformity—sometimes they kill them. When a girl is found murdered and excerpts from a subversive paper the dead girl had written begin to appear, |
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Morgan finds herself pulled ever more strongly into opposition. DeStefano creates a believable world in her sky city, with a nicely done police-state theme. If the story moves along slowly, related in Morgan’s flat present-tense narration, it remains interesting enough. Characters are developed well, including the dead girl through her quotations. Suspense builds slowly as the plot unfolds, ending, of course, on a cliffhanger. The setting may be novel enough to keep readers going. (Dystopian adventure. 12 & up)
HOW NOT TO BE A DICK An Everyday Etiquette Guide Doherty, Meghan Illus. by Doherty, Meghan Zest Books (176 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-936976-02-7
Jokes about cheese logs abound in this humorous but sometimes-belabored etiquette guide ostensibly aimed at teens. Following an introduction that defines what makes a person seem like a dick, seven chapters address situations ranging from initiating romantic relationships to behaving responsibly at after-office get-togethers. An uneasy line is straddled in terms of its intended age range. Readers are dutifully exhorted to make sure they wear proper attire to school dances: “Most schools have dress codes for dances. Read them carefully!” Yet there’s also advice on how to politely use a coffee shop as your office if you’re working from home. Further, a section on safety and manners at parties seems at times to employ the euphemistic term “sugary beverages” for alcohol and suggests “If you are buzzing on sugar or if someone spiked the punch, DO NOT DRIVE.” This cagey approach to the topic of teen drinking is confusing at best and at worst, may strike readers as condescending. There are some funny moments, particularly in the simple black-and-white cartoons of a girl and boy that accompany the text throughout. However, as etiquette goes, there’s not much that is new here and a real question of whom this is for. (Nonfiction. 14 & up)
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DINO TRACKS
visual pop and graphic interest found in his other books. Worst, there is a little in the way of takeaway from this—what should readers learn? To carefully count their invitees? To smush them to make them fit the party space? To be relieved, as Mr. Potato is, when the guests all leave? That Newtonian physics do not apply to potatoes? Skip. (Picture book. 3-5)
Donald, Rhonda Lucas Illus. by Morrison, Cathy Sylvan Dell (32 pp.) $17.95 | $9.95 paper | $9.95 e-book Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-60718-619-9 978-1-60718-631-1 paper 978-1-60718-643-4 e-book Donald gets the paleontology right in this introduction to fossilized tracks and trackways but crams it into verse that is, to put it mildly, dreadful. “Down by the river and in the rock— / what are these marks I see? / In some you can lie and curl up inside, / and some have toes of three.” Quality of the poetry aside, Donald nonetheless begins by accurately explaining how prehistoric footprints were made and then discovered. She expands on the topic with a tour of dino environments, from tropical river banks to polar snows— noting along the way the distinctive sorts of marks left by single passersby and by herds; by adults and juveniles; by feet and, much more rarely, tails and even wings. Along with occasional visual segues from ancient times to modern, Morrison supplies winningly melodramatic close-up views of toothy predators and well-armored herbivores displaying colorfully patterned skin, scales or feathers. Closing notes (in prose, thankfully) and quizzes provide reinforcement and additional background. Passable art and content, but the narrative presentation couldn’t be worse. (map) (Informational picture book. 7-9)
ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO
Doodler, Todd H. Illus. by Doodler, Todd H. Little Simon/Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) $14.99 | $12.99 e-book | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-4424-8517-4 978-1-4424-8518-1 e-book Mr. Potato’s birthday party is an opportunity for games, counting and Doodler’s execrable verse. Invitations sent (but not counted), Mr. Potato excitedly prepares for his party. It’s fun at first, as his friends mingle and they all play party games, but then the doorbell rings again, and 20 potatoes fill the room. With no way to turn or move, things quickly get out of hand, and suddenly, the accessorized brown ovals become accessorized white dollops, the potatoes having been “smushed.” “But… / …now that they were mashed potatoes, / the party could resume. / The potatoes had a ball / with much more party room!” Readers will recognize the familiar counting rhyme, though unlike Iza Trapani’s remakes, the rhythm and rhyme are big misses—“One potato in the house. / Then two, three, four, / five potato, six potato, / knocked at Mr. Potato’s door”—and only get worse, Doodler rhyming “sixteen” with “thinking,” “come” with “everyone,” “friends” with “again.” Even the seemingly digital illustrations are ho-hum, lacking the 86
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RAWR!
Doodler, Todd H. Illus. by Doodler, Todd H. Scholastic (40 pp.) $12.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-545-51118-6 Fronted by a padded cloth dinosaur, a whiny monologue on being big that will likely go begging for an audience. “Being a dinosaur is hard,” the narrator—depicted in the very simple cartoons as a towering, popeyed, green theropod—begins. Why? Everyone else is shorter, furniture is too small, and roaring, toothy giants have a scary reputation. Really though, “I am careful. / I am helpful. // I have good table manners.” Hugeness can be a plus in sports or on the playground, too. Besides, knowing that “RAAWWRRR!” just means “Hello” in Dinosaur, no one should ever be afraid to meet one. Right? Toddlers drawn to the strokable cover and the style of art aren’t likely to be body-conscious enough to absorb the reassuring message, and school-age children of all sizes will be put off by the volume’s babyish look. Also, though the dino’s big teeth are somewhat rounded off rather than pointy, its efforts to seem inoffensive don’t come off as all that convincing—particularly to readers who have met, say, the foxes who are so “helpful” to Chicken Little and the Gingerbread Boy or Jon Klassen’s deadpan predators. Heavily earnest and as mushy of approach as it is of cover. (Picture book. 3-5)
THE COLORED CAR
Elster, Jean Alicia Wayne State Univ. Press (224 pp.) $14.95 paper | Sep. 13, 2013 978-0-8143-3606-9 Sweet family nostalgia combines with the harsh realities of coming of age African-American during the Great Depression. Patsy, based on the author’s aunt, is 12 and has lived a contented life in Detroit. May Ford, Patsy’s mama, busily works in her summer kitchen, a structure built by Patsy’s hardworking father to allow his wife to chop, jar and store a wide variety of fruits and vegetables for winter. All is well with the world. However, when May decides to take her daughters to Tennessee by train, Patsy’s view of the kirkus.com
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“Erskine redeems many faults with a clear passion for racial justice and hope for change.” from seeing red
world is shaken. She is curiously unprepared for the hostilities of racism and discrimination and is changed forever when, upon the train’s departure from Cincinnati, she and her family are forced to give up first-class seats for seats in the titular “colored car.” Elster’s story offers an engaging glimpse inside day-to-day life at that time. The narrative sparkles when guiding readers through the sights and sounds of Patsy’s neighborhood. However, the story stumbles, seemingly sacrificing narrative ease for a determination to adhere to the real-life events it is based on. Thus, Patsy’s reaction to racism feels melodramatic and confusing, marring an otherwise easy and informed read. Sharp historic insight wars with cumbersome sentimentality in this sometimes-overwrought yet heartfelt tale. (Historical fiction. 8-12)
SEEING RED
Erskine, Kathryn Scholastic (352 pp.) $16.99 | $17.99 e-book | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-545-46440-6 978-0-545-57645-1 e-book Big changes are coming to smalltown Virginia in 1972. Inheriting not just his great-greatgrandfather’s name, but his hair color too, 12-year-old Frederick Stewart Porter, aka Red, is grieving his father’s recent death. His mother wants to sell the family auto shop and generations-old Porter land to move closer to her relatives in Ohio. Red’s plan to thwart the sale becomes waylaid, however, by prejudice and family secrets. In his reflective, first-person narration tinged by references to pop culture of the time, he unknowingly joins a Klan-like group, which alienates him from his black, once–best friend, Thomas. As Red connects with Thomas’ great-grandmother Miss Georgia, he vows to find the land that once held a historic African-American church. His search inadvertently uncovers a mysterious map from the past, his family’s involvement in the church’s demise and even his namesake’s role in a murder. It also raises Red’s awareness of racial inequality and the meanings of legacy and family. There’s a lot going on, much of it clearly written to convey lessons. Add a teacher who encourages questioning authority, a bitter, generations-long dispute with violent neighbors, and a budding romance, and readers have a borderline didactic novel that raises too many issues with resolutions that are too quick. Still, there’s no question the author’s heart is in the right place. Erskine redeems many faults with a clear passion for racial justice and hope for change. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)
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A MAMMOTH IN THE FRIDGE
Escoffier, Michaël Illus. by Maudet, Matthieu Gecko Press (36 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-8775-7950-9
How did that mammoth get in there? And how to get rid of it? Young Noah opens the refrigerator, and...“There’s a mammoth in the fridge!” he cries. The family, sitting calmly at the dinner table, is understandably skeptical. “Come and eat your fries,” Dad calls back. But when he sees the mammoth jammed in tightly, he slams the door and tells Mom to call the fire department. A sturdy red truck speeds through the streets: “Wheee-ooo! Wheee-ooo!” One fireman carries a butterfly net, and the other two hold a big square net, grimly. When the first fireman opens the door, the mammoth escapes, leaving them all tangled in the big net. The mammoth hits the street and, pursued by a small crowd, climbs a tall leafy tree, remaining there long enough for everyone to get tired and leave. “Come on. It’s not our problem,” says Noah’s father. Night falls; the mammoth hears “Here, kitty, kitty” and is enticed to come down by a cute little girl named Elsa brandishing a bunch of carrots. She lures him home to her room, where he goes to sleep on the rug...right next to the unicorn, sea monster and dinosaur. With minimal lines, abundant white space and a retro palette, each of Maudet’s illustrations suggests a stand-alone cartoon, nicely in tune with Escoffier’s deadpan drollery. This sublime absurdity should please adult readers as much as very young listeners. (Picture book. 3-5)
TASK FORCE
Falkner, Brian Random House (288 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | $20.99 PLB Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-449-81299-0 978-0-449-81301-0 e-book 978-0-449-81300-3 PLB Series: Recon Team Angel, 2 Recon Team Angel, a group of teens trained for espionage and surgically altered to resemble the invader alien race (The Assault, 2012), are back for their next mission…going deep into alien territory. The Great Bzadian War is well under way, and the humans are losing. It will be only a matter of months before the Bering Strait freezes over sufficiently to allow the aliens to transport their heavy equipment over from Russia to invade the last bastion of freedom, the United States. In a last-ditch effort to delay the attack they know is coming, the Allied Combined Operations Group has deployed the titular task force deep into Bzadian territory (formerly Australia) to take out the factory that produces the power cells that keep the alien forces moving, hopefully buying time for the humans to launch their |
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“Readers will find themselves drawn into Lane’s story through the author’s consistent worldbuilding and striking turns of phrase.” from inhuman
own attack and build up defenses. Lt. Ryan “Lucky” Chisnall must once again take his team deep into enemy territory, risking his and their lives to save the human race from extinction. Short sentences, clipped dialogue and a bounty of initialisms and technical language make this a winner for kids who love military-style adventures. The clear battle lines drawn between humans and Bzadians facilitate easy, total immersion. The action never stops, keeping readers engrossed in a rapid-paced tale that doesn’t hesitate to deal with the realities of a war of survival. (Science fiction. 12 & up)
INHUMAN
Falls, Kat Scholastic (384 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-545-37099-8 978-0-545-520348 e-book Falls’ (Rip Tide, 2011, etc.) first novel for teens is the nail-biting start of a new trilogy. Nineteen years ago, the deadly Ferae Naturae (“of a wild nature”) virus killed 40 percent of America’s population. Now, 16 year-old Lane McEvoy lives a safe, sterile life in the shadow of the Titan, a 700-foot-tall wall that extends from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, separating the uninfected west from the Feral Zone to the east. Lane’s life is turned upside down when the head of Biohazard Defense makes her an offer she can’t afford to refuse. Director Spurling has evidence that Lane’s father, Mack, is a “fetch,” paid to retrieve valuables left behind during the exodus two decades before. Unless Lane locates her father so he can recover something the director has lost, Spurling will expose Mack’s treason, and Lane will lose him to execution by firing squad. As she ventures into the Feral Zone, Lane picks up two unlikely allies: the enigmatic feral-hunter Rafe and the militant, by-the-book guard Everson. Readers will find themselves drawn into Lane’s story through the author’s consistent worldbuilding and striking turns of phrase. Lane is an appealing and credible protagonist; her progression from obsessive cleanliness to fearless engagement with the infected is subtle and believable. Sure to satisfy fans of the dystopian-romance genre and to gather new ones along the way. (Dystopian adventure. 12 & up)
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STRANGEST ANIMALS
Feldman, Thea Sterling (32 pp.) $9.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-4549-0636-0 Series: American Museum of Natural History Easy Readers High-quality photography compensates, at least in part, for inadequate commentary in this diverse gallery of exotic creatures and behaviors. In the sharp, bright pictures, an alien-looking anglerfish dangles its glowing lure, a hagfish coils within its cloak of icky slime, and a mimic octopus miraculously morphs into an apparent flounder. These and 13 other land and sea animals pose in riveting close-ups. Alas, the text is not quite so clear. Along with leaving budding naturalists to sound out words like “anemone” and “arowana” on their own, Feldman adds rhetorical interjections (“What a strange way for a bird to get a meal!”) rather than systematic information about each animal’s range or physical characteristics. She also both fails to explain what an arowana actually is (the close-up in this case being a little too extreme) and, with the line “a lizard can break its tail off and run away,” misleadingly implies that any lizard can do this. Mary Kay Carson’s Deadly and Dangerous (978-1-4549-0629-2), publishing simultaneously in the same series, offers even more rousing visuals (notably, in this case, gruesome scenes of predators chowing down) and a somewhat more informative narrative text. Instead of much-needed leads to further information, both volumes close with an unrelated profile of a staff scientist at the American Museum of Natural History and feature a link to the publisher’s site. Plenty of eye candy but low on nutritional facts. (Informational early reader. 6-8)
STARLIGHT GREY A Story from Russia Flanagan, Liz Illus. by Docampo, Valeria Barefoot (48 pp.) $7.99 paper | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-84686-778-1 Series: Magic Stories, 1
This early-reader adaptation of a Russian story reads like a “Cinderella” tale but casts a third-born son as its protagonist. Ivan does good on his promise to his dying father to sit by his grave after he dies, and he also takes the place of his older brothers in the vigil when they are too frightened to stay true to their word. As a reward for his bravery and loyalty, the father’s ghost gives Ivan a magic bridle that ends up helping him win the princess’s hand in marriage even though he isn’t as handsome, rich or successful as his brothers or the other knights who compete in the challenge she sets forth. The story is broken up into short chapters, which will support new readers’ progress through the kirkus.com
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text, but sentence length, typeface and some vocabulary may prove challenging. Illustrations will doubtlessly help clarify the story, though a key plot detail that has Ivan passing through the ears of his magical horse, Starlight Grey, is not depicted in the art. Ultimately, the fresh fairy-tale content of the story will likely motivate readers to puzzle through its delivery even if it’s not just the right fit for their skills A title for confident emerging readers interested in new princess and knight stories. (Early reader/folk tale. 6-8)
A GLUTEN-FREE BIRTHDAY FOR ME!
Fliess, Sue Illus. by Morris, Jennifer E. Whitman (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-8075-2955-3
Simple rhymes, pictures and idea combine in this story that’s nevertheless a little too heavy on the instructional side. It’s a summer birthday, with celebrants in shorts and sandals, baby and dog on the lawn, and the “birthday girl” wearing her crown. She and her mom bake a gluten-free cake together. Her friends, a multiethnic group with button eyes and comma noses, join in the piñata fun and the face-painting, until it is time to go in for cake. One boy sits forlornly outside, and when the protagonist goes to get him, he explains he cannot eat gluten. Surprise! She says she cannot either and that all can be merry. It is hard to believe a child who needs to avoid gluten would not already know that one of her guests does too, as is the notion that the boy would have gone to a birthday party without his parent checking the gluten situation out. In any case, it ends with a promise for ice-cream pie the next year. Included are two gluten-free recipes (although the Chocolate-Cookie-Crumble cake does include half a cup of brewed decaf coffee, which may give some pause). There are also tips for friends and family with gluten sensitivities (the author uses the word “allergy” but does not talk directly about celiac disease, which is not an allergy) and a short list of websites. Somewhat useful if not particularly artful. (Picture book. 4-7)
ANDI UNEXPECTED
Flower, Amanda Zonderkidz (224 pp.) $10.99 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-310-73701-8 Series: Andi Boggs
This series opener for middle-grade mystery fans introduces sixth-grade amateur detective Andi Boggs and her sidekick, next-door-neighbor Colin. Andi, short for Andora, and her older |
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sister, Bethany, recently lost their scientist parents in a plane crash and have moved in with their aunt Amelie, who lives in the longtime family home in the remote little Ohio college town of Killdeer. There, Andi discovers a mysterious chest labeled “Andora” in the attic. No one, however, appears to know anything about this other Andora, who the kids discover was born in 1929. Curious about her namesake, Andi decides to investigate with her new partner, Colin. Enter the villain of the book, the egotistical local historian Dr. Girard, who’ll do nearly anything to get interesting material for his new book about children of the Great Depression. Flower weaves in some history and also shines a light on the emotional difficulties the two recently orphaned girls experience, especially Bethany, who lashes out at those around her. Characterizations, while never complex, stand out as nicely individualistic. The mystery itself is intriguing enough, especially as the children uncover a few more clues about the mysterious Andora. Some life-threatening suspense highlights the book’s climax, and a small smattering of religion keeps the story appropriate for a Christian audience. A fun little detective story with some simple life lessons. (Mystery. 10-14)
TWIGS
Formento, Alison Ashley Merit Press (272 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 18, 2013 978-1-4405-6565-6 In a charming if sometimes over-thetop small-town drama, Madeline “Twigs” Henry navigates family secrets, boyfriend troubles and a friendship with a spirited older woman. Twigs, given her nickname because of her small size at birth, works at a drug store under the supervision of a foul-tempered slacker named Dink. While running the store by herself, she encounters Helen Raymond, a middleaged woman whose dramatic reaction to her husband’s leaving her involves wailing in an aisle and throwing bottles of hair dye. Twigs’ own family circumstances are becoming complicated: Her brother, a soldier stationed in Iraq, goes missing, and her father, an alcoholic who abandoned the family, contacts Twigs and her mother and sister. Twigs therefore finds comfort and empowerment in connecting with Helen. The larger-than-life characters and gestures bring humor and action to the story, but sometimes, they are too exaggerated to be believed. A professor at Twigs’ community college is cartoonishly strict, and Twigs’ willingness to physically assault Helen’s husband and continually refer to his new girlfriend as “his whore” feels oddly out of proportion to the situation. Still, Twigs is a compellingly flawed character, and as her family situation and relationship with her college-freshman boyfriend change, Twigs’ growth is palpable. Like many of its characters, imperfect but earnest. (Fiction. 14-18)
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“Frasier’s exceptional artwork and text will have readers rooting for the lovable Spike.” from spike
THE MIDNIGHT DRESS
Foxlee, Karen Knopf (288 pp.) $16.99 | $9.99 e-book | $19.99 PLB Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-375-85645-7 978-0-449-81821-3 e-book 978-0-375-95645-4 PLB A literary mystery with a Down Under flair. Like Foxlee’s debut (The Anatomy of Wings, 2009), this is set in the Australian countryside in the 1980s and is peppered with Australian terms that may be unfamiliar to American readers (caravan, petrol) and references to historical moments that may not register (Chernobyl). But the assured and powerful writing will carry readers beyond any momentary stumbling blocks. Rose Lovell and her father are drifters. When they alight in Leonora, Rose finds herself drawn into friendship with the ebullient, sparkling Pearl and preparations for the annual Harvest Parade, which leads her to odd, old Edie Baker, a seamstress and storyteller who provides angry Rose with unconditional support. Each chapter begins with the end of the story: A girl has disappeared after the parade, a girl who might be Rose or might be Pearl, undercutting the poignant but hopeful story with the anticipation of something terrible. This is, in the end, a story about the tensions of love and anger, between parents and children, between boys and girls and men and women, and about the tension between being alone and being accepted. Fans of Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie mysteries will be delighted to find similarly smart, intricate storytelling loaded with genuinely teen concerns. Atmospheric, lyric and unexpected. (Mystery. 13 & up)
SPIKE Ugliest Dog in the Universe
Frasier, Debra Illus. by Frasier, Debra Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) $16.99 | $12.99 e-book | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-4424-1452-5 978-1-4424-8988-2 e-book Spike, an abandoned “Ugliest Dog in the Universe”–contest winner, finds love and a new home in this heartwarming tale about beauty—and its many permutations. Verbally abused and cast away, Spike’s resilience and optimism remain—largely due to Joe, the kind boy from next door. First-person narration makes the dog all the more endearing: “If you could see inside my heart, you’d say...beautiful.” Joe’s mom, while sympathetic, says they can’t afford a dog, so Spike works hard to charm her. With an earnest sincerity, he explains his efforts to become more appealing. It’s only when Spike spoils a catnapping scheme and Joe is paid for a published drawing of Spike that the dog and boy are finally united. Frasier’s exceptional artwork and text will have readers rooting for the lovable 90
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Spike. Using found materials, she creates ingenious collages that act as metaphors, revealing beauty in what once appeared useless and worn-out. Blue jeans tell Spike’s story, hard-working and durable; they also connect him to Joe and his mom, who both wear the fabric. Evangeline, the award-winning cat, is surrounded by silk and lace. Seamlessly integrated design enhances both emotional and comedic beats, as the author reveals beauty in its myriad forms. Brilliant. (Picture book. 4-8)
SEASON OF THE WITCH
Fredericks, Mariah Schwartz & Wade/Random (256 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | $19.99 PLB | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-449-81277-8 978-0-449-81279-2 e-book 978-0-449-81278-5 PLB A teenager worries that a spell she cast against a school bully will have serious consequences in this intriguing psychological thriller by the author of The Girl in the Park (2012). High school junior Toni isn’t looking forward to the first day of school. Popular Chloe is furious at Toni for making out with her boyfriend while they were split up and is sending her threatening texts. In addition, Toni’s parents are struggling to recover from her father’s affair with his graduate assistant. Worried and alone, Toni reaches out to Cassie, her best friend Ella’s cousin, who is also suffering due to the recent death of her younger brother. Cassie tells Toni she’s a witch and can help her punish Chloe. Toni plays along, but when tragedy strikes the same night they hex Chloe, Toni is terrified the magic actually worked. She avoids Cassie until Cassie threatens to cast a spell on Ella for insinuating to their family that she had something to do with her brother’s death. Toni must broker a peace between the cousins while also learning how to be a better friend to both through nonmagical means. What seems at first to be a supernatural thriller is actually a realistic and frank treatise on karma and the redeeming power of female friendship. Fredericks displays an insider’s knowledge of dramatic adolescent interactions through unaffected prose and dialogue-heavy chapters that make the pages fly. A refreshing take on the mean-girl trope. (Fiction. 13-16)
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FROM NORVELT TO NOWHERE
Gantos, Jack Farrar, Straus and Giroux (288 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-374-37994-0
The chase after a serial killer sparks an eventful, if not particularly life-changing, road trip in this sequel to the Newbery-winning Dead End in Norvelt (2011). Following the poisoning of yet another old lady (see previous episode), 12-yearold Jack—aka “Gantos boy”—finds himself drafted to squire his crusty, arthritic neighbor Miss Volker from Pennsylvania to Florida. The ostensible mission? To kill her lifelong would-be beau and chief suspect, Edwin Spizz. Gantos (the author) displays a dab hand at crafting witty one-liners (“Honestly, without guns how do you think old ladies ever get kissed?”) and hilariously improbable situations. He also seems determined to jam in as many references to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Moby-Dick and other classics as possible, along with Miss Volker’s lectures on topics from Anne Hutchinson and the Puritans to Norvelt’s founder, Eleanor Roosevelt, and FDR’s infidelities. Jack (the boy) may drive the car on the journey, but it’s the interactions and back stories of Miss Volker, Spizz and other adults that drive the story itself to its drolly gothic denouement. This occurs in a Miami funeral home, leaving Jack (the boy) perhaps not far from where Jack (the author)’s earlier semifictional avatar, Jack Henry (Heads or Tails, 1994, etc.), resides. Dollops of history and mystery, plus gross to wickedly barbed comical set pieces set in a talky, ambling, amiable odyssey. (Historical fiction. 11-13)
AZZI IN BETWEEN
Garland, Sarah Illus. by Garland, Sarah Frances Lincoln (40 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-84780-261-3 Though given a British setting, this sensitive tale of a young war refugee slowly adapting to a new life will strike chords of sympathy and recognition
small house, and, joy of joys, her grandmother arrives to reunite the family. In Garland’s sequential panels, Azzi’s subdued emotional landscape is clearly mapped in her body language, occasional tears and sweet smile. Her city of origin is never specified, freeing the sharply felt anxiety and life-altering disruption she and her parents experience from particular locales or wars. A positive but not blandly idealized portrayal of challenges displaced people face. (Graphic picture book. 7-9)
THE MONSTER IN THE MUDBALL
Gates, S.P. Tu Books (224 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 15, 2013 978-1-62014-141-0 Series: Artifact Inspector, 1
The first in the planned Artifact Inspector series offers readers an African folk tale set in contemporary London with a Chinese-English protagonist suf-
fering from dyspraxia. It is multiculturalism in the extreme. Unfortunately, while it has diversity in spades, the story itself is difficult to follow, and the third-person narrative fails to muster readers’ rapt attention. Eleven-year-old Jin can hardly believe his eyes when a mysterious ball of mud rolls into a stream and hatches a fearsome monster. Things go from bad to worse when the creature drags Jin’s baby brother into her sewage-pipe lair. Fortunately, Jin is not alone in his quest to save his brother. When Mizz Z, chief inspector for the Risk Assessment Agency for Ancient Artifacts, shows up and discovers that Zilombo is free, she joins forces with Jin to save the baby and return the monster to the safety of her dried-up mudball. One of the novel’s greatest shortcomings is that the description of Zilombo is so complex. It’s next to impossible to imagine what this creature actually looks like, which pulls readers out of the story as they attempt to reconcile all of Zilombo’s mismatched parts. This combines with a glut of frustratingly two-dimensional characters for a rather ho-hum read. Unfortunately, it’s a little like watching mud dry; here’s hoping future installments have more zip. (Adventure. 8-12)
almost anywhere. A hasty nighttime departure with her parents leads to a long ride in a motor launch crowded with other refugees. In “the new country,” Azzi finds herself living with her parents in a oneroom flat, going to a school where she doesn’t speak the language and pining for her left-behind grandmother. Her feelings of isolation are soon eased by Sabeen, an adult classroom helper who speaks her language and teaches her English phrases, and Lucy, a friendly classmate. Azzi in turn helps her parents settle in by sharing newly learned words and also by planting a handful of the beans her father had brought in her class’ summer garden. In time, her father receives a work permit that allows a move to a |
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INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
David Levithan
Ten years later, the noted teen writer’s view of gay life is more pragmatic By Gordon West
Photo courtesy Jake Hamilton
It’s been a decade since David Levithan’s Boy Meets Boy was released, a young-adult novel set in a town where different was normal and a drag queen could be both quarterback and homecoming queen. It was clearly an ideal, a hope for Utopian acceptance and freedom of expression where two boys falling in love would be just as everyday as a morning cup of coffee. But whereas Boy Meets Boy is a love story with strong strokes of whimsy and optimism, Two Boys Kissing is a more pragmatic telling of the harsher reality served to both former and current generations of the LGBTQ community. Centering on two teen ex-boyfriends who decide to kiss for 32 hours, 12 minutes and 9 seconds in order 92
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to break a world record and shatter prejudice, the chapterless book is told from several perspectives. Its fibers alternate among the points of view of the titular two boys, their friends and families, observing strangers and an omniscient voice of LGBTQ forefathers. Their commonality is simple: Make sure these two boys kiss, break a record and make a lasting statement to their community, their families and those who think of them as inferior abominations. So is this a story of stark determination, a Norma Rae declaration via public snogging? Or is it meant to bring awareness to how challenging life used to be for the LGBTQ community and how now, even with societal and political advancements toward acceptance, it can still get pretty hairy? “Some people concern themselves with history,” Levithan writes by email. “Others don’t— at their own peril. That said, awareness is not the same as experience, and we can’t pretend that knowing what happened is at all the same thing as feeling it happen. Which is why it’s so important to give history a voice as well as a record. That was definitely on my mind with Two Boys Kissing.” It was also on his mind as he was writing Love Is the Higher Law, his 2009 novel about 9/11, “knowing that as the years pass, we know what happened on 9/11, but can easily lose the memory of what it was actually like to live through it, all the small details that add to the greater experience.” Two young men who lock lips in the name of equality. A gay teen whose father beats him. A bluehaired boy who might mess up falling in love with a pink-haired transgendered boy due to his own anger about harrasment. A young gay man whose ribs and face and spirit are shattered in a violent attack. All of these personages in Two Boys are presided over by a voice of kirkus.com
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the past, an amalgam of the generation who protested at Stonewall, battled an epidemic head on (even when the president of the United States of America wouldn’t acknowledge it), and who want only the very best for current and future generations. These interpretations of harrassment, prejudice, and past and present travesties are far removed from Levithan’s more blithe book from 10 years ago. Is Two Boys meant to document how far the LGBTQ community has come? “I just wanted to be as truthful as possible to the characters and the story,” Levithan anwers. “I don’t think there’s an equal correlation—the enormity of what we’re up against is nothing compared to what the generation before mine was up against. There’s a line in the book—something like ‘Just because it gets better, it doesn’t mean it’s always good.’ That’s certainly true. But it’s also better.” This year, Two Boys isn’t a solitary entry on the roster of LGBTQ-friendly YA books. There’s Aaron Hartzler’s Rapture Practice, Alexander London’s Proxy, Bill Konigsberg’s Openly Straight, Hannah Moskowitz’s Marco Impossible and Steven dos Santos’ The Culling, to name a few. Such a lineup is a feat that all the optimism in the world wouldn’t have conjured several years ago. To commemorate the moment and spread the word about their books, Hartzler, Konigsberg, Levithan and London joined forces for a whistle-stop tour of sorts earlier this summer during New York City’s gay pride week. “It was nothing short of awesome,” Levithan, who is also a respected editor at Scholastic, writes. “Aaron, Alex, Bill and I had a blast, and just the act of going out there with our four books (along with A.S. King at one point) was deeply powerful for all of us. We absolutely want to do more stops and involve more authors. For me, it was a perfect way to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Boy Meets Boy, because it certainly showed what a difference a decade has made.” Anyone familiar with Levithan’s work knows that music plays a significant role both within his books and while he’s writing them. So what was on the old Victrola this time? “A lot of songs were swirling around as I was writing,” Levithan writes. “Some to be expected…and some less expected. The most intense musical moment for me came during a very intense scene toward the end—I had put on Hauschka, a Scandinavian instrumental artist, so I wouldn’t have any words getting in the way. But then, just as the scene was reaching its most intense, my playlist moved alphabetically from Hauschka to The Head and the Heart and their song |
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“Lost in My Mind”—and it was absolutely the right song for the moment, and I did something that I’ve never done before, which was play the song on loop until the scene was over and I was sobbing.” As someone who is generally about as stoic as Bea Arthur on a rainy Monday morning, even I can admit to a few tears when reading Two Boys Kissing—and I wasn’t even listening to The Head and the Heart. Part of it was Levithan’s writing. Part of it was the reminder of previous generations who withstood so much (even if their affection for younger generations is widely idealized here). Most of it was being called to remember my own youth as a gay teen in Texas and thinking there’s no way in hell kissing a boyfriend in public would have gone over well. But wait: If the two boys kissing here are loosely based on Matty Daley and Bobby Cancielo (who broke the record for the longest kiss on September 8, 2010), what record would Levithan likely want to break? “Most novels written with other authors,” he answers. “Because it’s so much fun.” Gordon West is a writer, illustrator and, sometimes, photographer living in Brooklyn. He is admittedly addicted to horror films and French macarons. Two Boys Kissing was reviewed in the Jul. 15 issue of Kirkus Reviews.
Two Boys Kissing Levithan, David Knopf (208 pp.) $16.99 | $19.99 PLB Aug. 27, 2013 978-0-307-93190-0 978-0-375-97112-9 PLB
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“...the visual narrative portrayed in Karas’ warmly expressive crayonand-pencil illustrations on the right side of each spread reveals an equally adventuresome, action-packed day for Little Chick.” from little naomi, little chick
LITTLE NAOMI, LITTLE CHICK
Golan, Avirama Illus. by Karas, Raaya Translated by Appel, Annette Eerdmans (34 pp.) $17.00 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-8028-5427-8 A delightful depiction of the parallel lives of a young girl and a tiny chick from dawn to dusk. Preschooler Naomi stretches to greet the day while a picture of a wide-eyed yellow chick looks on passively from the wall behind her bed. Appel’s lithe translation from the Hebrew of Golan’s plain, lightly rhymed verse describes consecutive phases of a typical day in the little girl’s life, with each segment ending with the refrain, “But not Little Chick.” Awakened by her father, Naomi brushes her teeth, eats, goes to preschool, plays, makes art, listens to a story, naps, goes shopping with her mother, puts on her pajamas and eventually hops back into bed with her stuffed bear—“But not Little Chick.” Those following the text alone might think the only thing Little Chick has in common with Naomi is “snuggl[ing] in for the night” and feel a bit sorry for her. But the visual narrative portrayed in Karas’ warmly expressive crayon-and-pencil illustrations on the right side of each spread reveals an equally adventuresome, actionpacked day for Little Chick. Pre-readers are sure to revel in the hilarious mischief Little Chick enjoys with barnyard friends, while those reading to them will be fascinated by the effective conveyance of this information through images alone. The true essence of a picture book: a unique balance of visual and written narrative sure to enchant young and old alike. (Picture book. 3-6)
BLYTHEWOOD
Goodman, Carol Viking (496 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 3, 2013 978-0-670-78476-9 Readers looking to lose themselves in a beautifully told fantasy, ripe with magic, forbidden love and unspeakably dark forces, will find a happy home at Blythewood, a boarding school for girls. Having lost her mother and been forced to seek employment as a seamstress in order to survive, Avaline Hall never dreamed that she would one day attend her mother’s beloved alma mater. But when a mysterious fire erupts at the factory and nearly claims Avaline’s life, everything changes. Suddenly, Ava finds herself face to face with her estranged grandmother and the opportunity to attend the school of her dreams. Though the storyline meanders a bit, what follows is a series of discoveries about Blythewood, Ava’s mother and her own strange powers that will hook readers and 94
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keep them reading despite a few slow spots. The novel is at its best when the story turns to the topic of forbidden love and sparks fly between Ava and the mysterious dark-eyed, winged boy who rescues her on more than one occasion. While intent on discovering his identity, Ava is equally determined to learn why her mother was expelled from Blythewood and to uncover the truth behind her own paternity. It’s a long and winding road that leads Ava toward the answers to her questions, and readers are likely to agree that it’s a journey well worth taking. (Fantasy. 12 & up)
I HATE EVERYTHING!
Graves, Sue Illus. by Guicciardini, Desideria Free Spirit (28 pp.) $12.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-57542-443-9 Series: Our Emotions and Behavior Young Sam absorbs easy-peasy strategies for coping with anger issues to kick off a second quartet of openly therapeutic titles in the Our Emotions and Behavior series. Fits of rage having escalated into a physical attack at a birthday party, Sam is towed off for a timeout by his aunt, who advises him to take a deep breath, count to 10 and think of alternatives to acting out. Sam apologizes to his peers and passes a later test of equanimity with flying colors. Likewise, in Take a Deep Breath (978-1-57542-446-0), Ruby, Andy and other children (plus a teacher, on whom a spider suddenly lands) exhale stage fright and other anxieties away. Daisy’s anxieties about a household move are dispelled by her grandpa’s advice to be more optimistic in But What If? (978-1-57542-444-6). And in I Didn’t Do It! (978-1-57542-445-3), apologies and remedial action help Polly mend fences with her alienated friends after she lies about who’s at fault for a series of mishaps. Each story ends with a whiplash-inducing final spread with an unrelated episode illustrated in a slightly different cartoon style about some other childhood crisis overcome. A closing page of discussion topics signals that these may look like fodder for newly independent readers, but they’re really meant to be shared. Functional, in the most limited sense of the term. (Early reader/bibliotherapy. 5-7)
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CHARLIE BUMPERS VS. THE TEACHER OF THE YEAR
Harley, Bill Illus. by Gustavson, Adam Peachtree (160 pp.) $13.95 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-56145-732-8 Series: Charlie Bumpers, 1
Charlie Bumpers is doomed. The one teacher he never wanted in the whole school turns out to be his fourth-grade teacher. Charlie recalls third grade, when he accidentally hit the scariest teacher in the whole school with his sneaker. “I know all about you, Charlie Bumpers,” she says menacingly on the first day of fourth grade. Now, in addition to all the hardships of starting school, he has gotten off on the wrong foot with her. Charlie’s dry and dramatic narrative voice clearly reveals the inner life of a 9-year-old—the glass is always half empty, especially in light of a series of well-intentioned events gone awry. It’s quite a litany: “Hitting Mrs. Burke in the head with the sneaker. The messy desk. The swinging on the door. The toilet paper. And now this—the shoe on the roof.” Harley has teamed once again with illustrator Gustavson (Lost and Found, 2012) to create a real-life world in which a likable kid must face the everyday terrors of childhood: enormous bullies, looming teachers and thick gym coaches with huge pointing fingers. Into this series opener, Harley magically weaves the simple lesson that people, even teachers, can surprise you. Readers will be waiting to see how Charlie faces his next challenge in a series that marks a lovely change of pace from the sarcasm of Wimpy Kid. (Fiction. 7-10)
THE GIRL WHO HEARD COLORS
Harris, Marie Illus. by Brantley-Newton, Vanessa Nancy Paulsen Books (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 26, 2013 978-0-399-25643-1 A little girl with synesthesia engages the world with all five senses, plus. Little Jillian is thoroughly in touch with her senses, relishing the taste of maple syrup on waffles and the smell of wet grass. But what she loves most are the colors that all the sounds she hears make. The bark of a dog is red, and the tinkle of her bicycle bell is silver. She loves school as wholeheartedly as everything else—her teacher’s voice is green—but when a lunchbox crashes to the floor and Jillian calls it yellow, all the children begin to laugh at her—a sad, black sound. When Music Day rolls around and all the children play, Jillian is overwhelmed by all the colors she hears. Fortunately the visiting musician is also a synesthete, so he understands exactly what she means and explains it to everybody. While the tidiness of Jillian’s resolution strains credulity, the exploration |
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of her unusual perception charms. Brantley-Newton’s digitally composed illustrations present a ponytailed, freckle-faced little girl who greets the world with verve. Her teacher has a particularly groovy hairstyle (though it’s a little odd to see it repeated on both the musician and one of the little boys in Jillian’s class). A brief author’s note gives a little bit more information about synesthesia, grounding it in the experiences of children Harris has encountered on school visits. An engaging look at a fascinating difference in perception, for younger readers. (Picture book. 4-7)
PRETENDERS
Harrison, Lisi Poppy/Little, Brown (304 pp.) $18.00 | $9.99 e-book | Oct. 15, 2013 978-0-316-22244-0 978-0-316-22234-1 e-book A new series with a Gossip Girl–esque conceit from the best-selling author of The Clique. X-Phonie, one of Noble High’s Phoenix Five freshmen operating under a code name, breaks into their teacher’s safe to reveal the sordid (or not-so-sordid in this case) journals of the school’s most infamous students. First up is Vanessa, the brown-skinned, greeneyed girl who’s always in it to win it. Her hefty footnotes often outweigh her journal entries. Hipster Jagger’s parents were arrested, and now he lives alone in the back of a pet store. Basketballer Duffy is so much the object of Lily’s obsessions…er... affections that she steals his Nikes and keeps a running tab of the souvenirs she’s collected. Finally there’s drama queen Sheridan, who lives in a fantasy world imagining she’s Massie Block from The Clique. The first installment winds by turns in and out of the very clean world of the five teens’ journals. Harrison nails the voices of her female protagonists but struggles with those of her male ones, particularly Duffy, who still plays the Wii when most boys his age would have graduated to a more ageappropriate gaming system. Little happens beyond introducing the characters and their interests/crushes/interactions with one another, with the result that this feels like a tepid attempt to recreate the bawdy ridiculousness of Gossip Girl. A lukewarm retread of the snarky teen chick-lit of yore. (Romance. 12 & up)
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DON’T SAY A WORD, MAMÁ / NO DIGAS NADA, MAMÁ
Hayes, Joe Illus. by Andrade Valencia, Esau Cinco Puntos (32 pp.) $17.95 | $7.95 paper | $7.95 e-book Sep. 10, 2013 978-1-935955-29-0 978-1-935955-45-0 paper 978-1-935955-30-6 e-book Mamá has always been proud of her loving daughters, even when they’ve grown. Rosa, her husband and their three children live “in a little house just down the street from her mother.” Sister Blanca lives alone “in a little house just up the street from her mother.” One year, each sister plants a garden, growing tomatoes, corn and “good hot chiles.” Each woman gives their mother some and tells her that she is going to give her sister half her yield—but: “Don’t say a word, Mamá!” In the night, each unknowingly passes the other with a basketful and leaves it in her sister’s empty kitchen. In the morning, each is astonished at the enormous pile of tomatoes and gives still more to her mother, who accepts them with a shrug: “you can never have too many tomatoes.” This is repeated with the luxuriant crop of corn, but Mamá at last spills the beans—or rather the peppers—as she can’t manage a similar surplus of chiles. Storyteller Hayes uses repetition, parallel structure and short sentences masterfully, unspooling a sweet family tale that never turns saccharine. His own Spanish translation appears alongside the English text. Andrade Valencia contributes highly saturated paintings that combine a folk aesthetic with magical realism, playfully depicting anthropomorphized vegetables marrying and having babies as the sisters marvel at the bounty. This book overflows with affection—and you can never have too much of that. (Bilingual picture book. 4-7)
THE PITCHER
Hazelgrove, William Elliott Koehler Books (252 pp.) $15.95 paper | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-938467-59-2 Hazelgrove knits a host of social issues into a difficult but believable tale in which junior high–age Ricky has a gift: He can throw a mean fastball. Although the story opens with triumph—young Ricky surprises and impresses a carnival barker with his pitching—success generally proves elusive for this son of undocumented immigrants. With an abusive, mostly absent father and racially motivated bullying by teammates and adults, it’s not just Ricky’s pitching in need of a change-up. His supportive, spitfire, Latina mother is seriously ill and without health insurance, his goal of making the high 96
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school team is increasingly unlikely, and the litany of obstacles appears otherwise unending. Class issues? Check. Dyslexia? You bet. But Ricky’s first-person voice is entertaining and unflinching; when a drunk, ex-pro pitcher offers surprising assistance, the youngster notes that “we are equipped to handle all the bad shit, you know. But good things are a little trickier.” Given the gritty portrayal of can’t-catch-a-break lives and the cruelty and kindness of people young and old, sophisticated readers might balk at a somewhat implausible solution when Ricky is thrown one final curve before tryouts. But no one will really mind—this kid deserves a break. An engaging, well-written sports story with plenty of human drama—this one is a solid hit. (Fiction. 12 & up)
HIDEOUS LOVE The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein
Hemphill, Stephanie Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (320 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-06-185331-9 978-0-06-220923-8 e-book
A fictionalized verse biography of the tortured genius behind Frankenstein. Hemphill here turns her poetic sights on the young life of 19th-century English prose master Mary Shelley (1797-1851), who famously authored Frankenstein at the tender age of 20. Much as she did with Sylvia Plath (Your Own, Sylvia, 2007), the author explores the particular challenges facing a gifted female artist who allies herself with a renowned male poet. Central to the plot is the parentage of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley, daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, the pioneering feminist philosopher who died days after Mary was born, and William Godwin, a radical political philosopher who espoused free love for all but his daughters. In her father’s salon, Mary meets her future husband, budding Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, when she is only 16; he is 21 and married. Though initially finding Percy “fairylike / with the curly blond hair / of a schoolgirl” and “hands frail as silk stockings,” Mary soon becomes smitten, especially with the attention Shelley pays her intellect. When her father forbids her to see him, Mary runs off with him, beginning their exile in Europe, which leads to the birth of some of the greatest Romantic literature of the day and a raft of brutal personal tribulations for Mary. A bleak but riveting portrait of the artist as a young woman. (author’s note, biographical notes, Shelley bibliography, suggested reading) (Poetry. 13 & up.)
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“Hinds as director, set designer and writer has expertly abridged the original text while embellishing it with modern sensibilities.” from romeo and juliet
GOOD NIGHT, MOUSE!
Henry, Jed Illus. by Henry, Jed Houghton Mifflin (32 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-547-98156-7
A sleepy mouse gets some shut-eye after soothing help from a bevy of friends in this follow-up to Cheer Up, Mouse! (2013). Frontmatter pages show a yawning, sleepy mouse ready for slumber but unable to settle down for the night. Luckily, a veritable stampede of woodland pals comes to his aid, first trying “to wear him out” and then attempting a bath, a cuddle, shelter from the moonlight, a midnight snack, and finally, a lullaby orchestrated by a bat, tree frogs and crickets. The happily-everafter ending sees Mouse sound asleep and cuddled up in a leafy bed with only the titular words, “Good night, Mouse” in an italicized whisper above him. This closing page is fittingly the sparest illustration, as well, with prior spreads dominated by the busy, well-intentioned efforts of Mouse’s friends as they help him get to sleep. Why Mouse’s friends are not as sleepy as he is and are not in need of help to get to sleep themselves remains a mystery in the text—are they all adults and Mouse a child? In any case, Henry’s multimedia pictures evoke the soft style of Christopher Denise’s illustrations in Phyllis Root’s Oliver Finds His Way (2008), though with less overt anthropomorphic characterization. A sweet addition to the bedtime-book shelf. (Picture book. 2-4)
ROMEO AND JULIET
Hinds, Gareth—Adapt. Illus. by Hinds, Gareth Candlewick (144 pp.) $21.99 | $12.99 paper | Sep. 10, 2013 978-0-7636-5948-6 978-0-7636-6807-5 paper Shakespeare’s tragic lovers receive star treatment in this spellbinding graphicnovel production. Hinds as director, set designer and writer has expertly abridged the original text while embellishing it with modern sensibilities. His edition retains the flavor and poetry of the 1597 play and its memorable and oft-quoted dialogue. It is in the watercolor and digitally illustrated panels that he truly presents a stunning visual reading. Juliet and the Capulets are from India. Romeo and the Montagues are from Africa. Thus, the political rivalries of Verona become contemporary and more meaningful to 21st-century readers. The Capulets are dressed in reds and the Montagues in blue—all against the finely rendered lines of Verona’s buildings and Friar Laurence’s monastery. Beautiful shades of blue infuse the night sky as the two lovers swear their eternal devotion. The panels vary in size to control the pace of the plot. Sword fights pulse |
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with energy and occasional karate thrusts for added drama. The most moving image—a double-page spread without words—is depicted from above in shades of gold and brown stained red with blood as Romeo and Juliet lie dead and immortalized in each other’s arms. As thrilling and riveting as any staging. (author’s note) (Graphic drama. 12 & up)
THE DARKEST PATH
Hirsch, Jeff Scholastic (336 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-545-51223-7 978-0-545-51225-1 e-book Fifteen-year-old Callum Roe is caught up in the second American Civil War. It’s 2026, and the United States is once again fragmented. Federal forces are at war with the Army of the Glorious Path, which includes most of the former Confederacy plus additional states, including the southwest, Alaska and Washington. The Path—a militant and religiously fundamentalist organization—in which women are robed and veiled “companions” ministering to the men—is dedicated to being “a light in the darkness and the rod that falls upon the backs of the defiant.” Cal, captured by the Path six years previously, is set to move up from novice to citizen when Capt. Monroe reneges on a deal, and Cal instead becomes Pvt. Callum Roe in the army. When he kills a man to protect a dog, he becomes a runner, off the Path, intending to journey across the war-torn country from Arizona to his former home in New York. Cal’s first-person point of view offers the immediacy of his personal experience in this actionpacked drama, but unfortunately, it isn’t up to offering the fuller social and political history of the war that many readers would find interesting. An intriguing vision of a possible future rooted in current politics and wrapped in an exciting tale of war. (maps) (Fiction. 12-18)
TANDEM
Jarzab, Anna Delacorte (448 pp.) $17.99 | $20.99 PLB | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-385-74277-1 978-0-375-99077-9 PLB Series: Many-Worlds Trilogy, 1 A girl is forced to take the place of a parallel universe’s version of herself. Ordinary girl Sasha Lawson has dreamt that she is another person, Princess Juliana, since she was a little girl. After an amazing prom night with a handsome classmate, Sasha is torn from her world |
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“These cut-and torn-paper illustrations have realistic color and features: eyes that look at readers, teeth that amaze, and tiny legs, whiskers or feelers.” from the animal book
and sent to the parallel world of Aurora. There, she learns that her date is really Thomas Mayhew, Aurora’s analog (a counterpart but not necessarily an exact double) of her classmate. He is a member of the King’s Elite Service of the United Commonwealth of Columbia. (In Aurora, the first attempt at revolution in the American colonies failed, and the successful one yielded monarchy.) His mission was to abduct Sasha, as she is an analog to the UCC’s Princess Juliana, who has disappeared shortly before a peace treaty with nearby Farnham is to be sealed through Juliana’s arranged marriage. The UCC will send Sasha home if she successfully impersonates Juliana and thereby prevents war with Farnham. Unsurprisingly for genre readers, Sasha falls for Thomas despite trust issues while also connecting with Juliana’s fiance, charming Prince Callum. The worldbuilding is sometimes clunky but always interesting; the villain’s lack of trustworthiness is obvious enough to undermine intrigue, but the deeper into the book, the more entertaining it gets. Although the exposition and story take a while to sync up, Jarzab succeeds with a parallel-world concept that is also an entertaining read. (Science fiction. 12 & up)
THE ANIMAL BOOK
Jenkins, Steve Illus. by Jenkins, Steve Houghton Mifflin (208 pp.) $24.99 | Oct. 29, 2013 978-0-547-55799-1 Building on years of experience in selecting animal facts and creating arresting illustrations, Jenkins surpasses his previous work with an amazing album characterized by clear organization, realistic images and carefully chosen examples. The thoughtful, appealing design will both attract browsers and support those looking for specifics, but this also provides a solid introduction to the vast animal kingdom. After a chapter of definition, information is presented in sections on animal families, senses, predators, defenses, extremes and the story of life. More facts appear in the final chapter, which serves both as index (with page numbers and thumbnails) and quick reference. Most spreads have an explanatory paragraph and then a number of examples, each with an animal image and a sentence or two of detail set on white background. These cut- and torn-paper illustrations have realistic color and features: eyes that look at readers, teeth that amaze, and tiny legs, whiskers or feelers. Some are actual size or show a close-up portion of the animal’s body. Sections end with a jaw-dropping two-page image; chapters end with charts. Jenkins fills out this appealing celebration with a description of his bookmaking process. With facts sure to delight readers—who will be impatient to share their discoveries—this spectacular book is a must-purchase for animal-loving families and most libraries. (glossary, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 5 & up)
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A BAG OF MARBLES
Joffo, Joseph Illus. by Bailly, Vincent Translated by Gauvin, Edward Graphic Universe (128 pp.) $9.95 paper | $21.95 e-book | $29.27 PLB Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-4677-1516-4 978-1-4677-1651-2 e-book 978-1-4677-0700-8 PLB One almost never hears the sentence, “I’m reading a Holocaust book for fun,” but parts of this memoir of French Jews fleeing the Occupation read like an adventure story. No one would describe this book as a thriller, but it has false identities and escapes through the forest in the dark of night. Ten-year-old Joseph even looks a bit like Tintin, with his skinny frame and blond hair. For a brief portion of the war, he spends his days eating pastries and watching the same movie over and over again. (Bailly’s pictures of the free zone in Marseille are gorgeous.) But the memoir is always a moment away from tragedy. In real life, Joseph Joffo’s father died in a concentration camp, and the last image in the story highlights his framed, sepia-toned photo. A few scenes are deeply poignant. Early in the book, Joseph is told to deny his Jewish identity, and he asks, “What is…a Jew?” His father says, “Well, it’s kind of embarrassing, but…I don’t really know.” At the time, Joffo probably didn’t think he was living an adventure story. He had to flee from one zone of France to another, hoping he wouldn’t be caught by the Nazis. For the 128 pages of this graphic novel, though, readers can pretend this is an awfully big adventure, and they’ll keep flipping pages, hoping it doesn’t turn into another story altogether. (Graphic memoir. 11-18)
ULTIMATE FIGHTING The Brains and Brawn of Mixed Martial Arts
Jones, Patrick Millbrook (64 pp.) $23.95 e-book | $31.93 PLB | Nov. 1, 2013 Series: Spectacular Sports 978-1-4677-1711-3 e-book 978-1-4677-0934-7 PLB
An overview of the sport known as mixed martial arts and some of its players, from fight-fan Jones. Mixed martial arts is a furious style of fighting that combines a variety of traditions—sambo, jiujitsu, muay thai and taekwondo, as well as catch wrestling and boxing—into an acrobatic display of violence. One reason for the sport’s appeal is that it is real, as opposed to the sham antics of professional wrestling: The blows are true, and the blood is, too. Jones surveys the origins of the sport in sometimes-breathless prose, with all its infighting and rough-and-tumble antics. He profiles many of the fighters and gives highlights of their great matchups. kirkus.com
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Details are likely to appall readers who are not already enthusiasts: “Sonnen struck Silva’s body and face nearly 300 times” in a match that was merely minutes long. And can Jones really be serious when he writes, “It is well known that many boxers have suffered long-term effects due to repeated punches to the head, but the sport of MMA is still too young to know what a career of taking strikes to the head will do”? Duh. These fighters wear minimal gloves, and one look at their faces in the many photos that accompany his book will let readers know just what is going on. As a sports historian, Jones has done a thorough job, but it’s for MMA fans only. (Nonfiction. 10-18)
THE BROKENHEARTED
Kahaney, Amelia HarperTeen (352 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-06-223092-8 978-0-06-223094-2 e-book In a futuristic society solidly divided into the haves and have-nots, a ballerina from a wealthy family finds romance, danger and deception when she crosses class lines. Seventeen-year old Anthem Fleet lives in Upper Bedlam, on the right side of the tracks. The wrong side is the South Side, where poverty is the norm, along with widespread crime sponsored and supported by the Syndicate. Coaxed by her best friend, Zahra, a fun-loving bad girl, she slips out of her family’s high-rise penthouse to crash a South Side warehouse party. Here, Anthem meets a tall, chisel-cheeked South Sider named Gavin, and soon, the entranced Anthem is skipping her ballet practices to see him—and drawing the attention of the Syndicate, which kidnaps him from the bed where they lie sleeping. Distraught, Anthem runs through the perilous streets, only to fall off a bridge, suffering fatal injuries. But death is not her end: An underground doctor brings her back to life, illegally implanting Anthem with a mechanical heart that endows her with superhuman powers and enables her to begin a dangerous quest to save Gavin. No matter that no heartstrings will be tugged here; the action and subplots provide a strong and steady force to push readers forward. Some stunning revelations coming out of left field will cause jaws to drop. A ripping if unsubtle page-turner. (Science fiction. 14 & up)
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TEARDROP
Kate, Lauren Delacorte (464 pp.) $18.99 | $9.99 e-book | Oct. 22, 2013 978-0-385-74265-8 978-0-307-97631-4 e-book Series: Teardrop, 1 When given the choice to “[s]ave the world, or save the girl,” a young man named Ander, scion of a mystical race of beings with power over water, chooses
the girl. Seventeen-year-old Eureka Boudreaux has no idea how or why she survived the car crash that claimed her mother’s life, and there have been plenty of times when she wished she hadn’t. Four months and one suicide attempt after the accident, Eureka struggles to adjust to life without her mother and to a world that is suddenly filled with mystery and danger—with Eureka, unwitting agent of an apocalypse Ander’s people are trying to prevent, at the center of it all. Kate’s lush, sensuous descriptions bring the Louisiana bayou to life as Eureka battles against extraordinary forces of nature, desperate to discover who and what she truly is and how she can save the people she loves. While the characters are rich and appealing, and there’s plenty of danger, romance and intrigue to entertain, readers may find themselves frustrated by how long it takes to learn the truth about Eureka’s powers. All of the ingredients are there, but the murkiness surrounding the mythical underpinnings of the novel keeps it from reaching its full potential. Still, there’s plenty here to make for a terrific weekendafternoon read. (Paranormal romance. 14 & up)
NO ANGEL
Keeble, Helen HarperTeen (384 pp.) $9.99 paper | $7.99 e-book | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-06-208227-5 978-0-06-208228-2 e-book Keeble applies a heaping helping of wit to explore the question of what it’s like to be the answer to someone else’s prayers. Raffi Angelos thought admission to St. Mary’s School for Girls and Boys was a dream come true— after all, it’s only just started admitting boys, so the girl-boy ratio is bound to be amazing. But he hadn’t counted on being the only male on campus. It isn’t long before he realizes his troubles are just beginning. There is something dramatically wrong at St. Mary’s, as well as with Raffi himself. The headmistress’s daughter, Faith, has been praying for help to rid the school of demons, and she just knows that Raffi is an angel in disguise. When he suddenly sprouts wings and a halo, he realizes there are things he’s never known about himself. But there’s more to being an angel than wings. Why has no one told him about the |
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different types of angels—like that some of them have multiple sets of eyes orbiting their heads? Finding a balance between his normal life and his new paranormal talents, Raffi must fight off adoring middle graders, lecherous teachers and threatening demons—and save Faith from a fate worse than death. After all, Faith is his soul mate…isn’t she? The plot is tried and true, but Raffi’s likable voice, well-drawn characters and dead-on humor makes it good fun anyway. An angel book with a sense of humor. (Paranormal humor. 12 & up)
FRIGHTFULLY FRIENDLY GHOSTIES
King, Daren Illus. by Roberts, David Quercus (128 pp.) $12.95 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-62365-026-1
Who’s afraid of the big, bad…spider? When the ever-frightened Pamela Fraidy is stuck in the attic with a leggy spider, it’s up to her fellow phantoms to work together and set her free. Tabitha Tumbly, poltergeist, Charlie Vapor, a courteous specter who can walk through walls, and Wither, a fearlessly emotional poetry-writing ghost, successfully do so. They are just a few of the amicable spirits who reside in the old house, also populated by “still-alives” who are always mean—they trap ghosts by closing doors and scream and shake whenever ghosts try to communicate! After efforts to befriend the still-alives fail, the ghosts call in a ghoul to send them on their way. But how to get rid of the ghoul once the job is done? Hint: A living creature with eight legs may hold the answer. Playful dialogue, gentle suspense, childlike characters, appealing black-and-white spot and full-page illustrations as well as an array of comic misunderstandings and themes of loyalty and friendship blend together nicely here in a chapter book that young readers will doubtlessly enjoy. Though the plot is a trifle thin and fragmented, even reluctant readers will giggle their way through as they see that misbehavior is often motivated by fear and that even the scariest adversary has vulnerabilities. Kids will be happy to spend time in this particular haunted house. (Fiction. 6-9)
JUST SO STORIES, VOLUME 1 Kipling, Rudyard Illus. by Wallace, Ian Groundwood (64 pp.) $19.95 | Sep. 10, 2013 978-1-55498-212-7
A sunset-colored cover beckons readers to a newly illustrated edition of the classic collection. 100
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The wraparound jacket presents a surreal dreamscape that encapsulates the transformations Kipling describes in his stories. On the back, a humpless camel and short-nosed elephant enjoy a moonlit dip, while their reflections reveal hump and trunk; on the front, a short-legged kangaroo, smooth-skinned rhino and spotless leopard likewise appear above their transformed reflections. Within, readers will find six of Kipling’s tales: “How the Whale Got His Throat”; “How the Camel Got His Hump”; “How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin”; “How the Leopard Got His Spots”; “The Elephant’s Child”; and “The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo.” Each story is illustrated with four luminous, full-color paintings, most occupying a single page in the manner of oldfashioned color plates. Also like color plates, the specific scene illustrated is indicated with a representative selection from the text. Wallace invests each scene, including the humorous ones, with poetic gravitas and refrains from anthropomorphizing his animal characters. Herons scattering above the Elephant’s Child, nose clutched tight in the Crocodile’s maw, indicate his very real danger; the Ethiopian solemnly marks the Leopard’s coat with his fingers. An illustrator’s note explains the genesis of the book and his artistic approach to each individual story. Volume 2, completing the collection, is due out in spring 2014. An elegant, timeless treatment for all those best beloved. (Short stories. 5 & up)
ANNE FRANK’S CHESTNUT TREE
Kohuth, Jane Illus. by Sayles, Elizabeth Random House (48 pp.) $12.99 | $15.99 PLB | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-449-81255-6 978-0-375-97115-0 PLB This brief but powerful introduction to Anne Frank’s life uses a format suitable for both newly independent readers and older readers who need simplified text. The chestnut tree is used as a framing device, providing a narrative hook to introduce Anne and her life in captivity in World War II–era Amsterdam. A quote from Anne’s diary is paired with a powerful image of Anne looking out through an attic window at the tree’s bare branches. The concluding pages detail how the tree finally met its end in a powerful storm; sadness is countered with the hopeful description of hundreds of saplings from the famous tree planted around the world. A rather overwrought final page draws a parallel between these new trees and Anne’s words, which “have been planted in the minds of the millions who read her diary.” (Oddly, the tree depicted here does not appear to be a chestnut.) The context of the Nazi era and the basic facts of Anne’s life are skillfully summarized, ending with her family being sent to concentration camps and a brief acknowledgement that “Anne did not survive the war.” Touching illustrations in muted tones augment the portrayal of Anne’s character and add to the atmospheric depiction of her life in the Secret Annex. kirkus.com
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“There is hardly a fairy-tale or gender trope that Kontis doesn’t turn on its head….” from hero
A sensitive introduction to a young woman whose words continue to live. (bibliography, author’s note) (Early reader/biography. 6-12)
HERO
Kontis, Alethea Harcourt (304 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-544-05677-0 The cover is terribly wrong—again— but Kontis’ return to the Woodcutter family is still mightily entertaining. This story focuses on Saturday Woodcutter, whose sister Sunday from Enchanted (2012) is now queen. Saturday is a big, strong girl who has not figured out her magic, except that the ax she was given as an infant has turned into a sword that strengthens and heals. Tossing away a magic mirror endangers her whole family, especially her changeling brother, Trix, and she goes off to find and save him. She’s mistaken for her lost brother, Jack Woodcutter, by a blind witch whose eyes he stole and who imprisons Saturday. The witch also keeps captive a man named Peregrine, magicked by the witch’s daughter into taking her place. Peregrine does his best to keep busy and sane, while dressing as a woman and trying to both serve and outwit the witch. Peregrine and Saturday are a wonderful couple, as they spar, miss signals and exchange roles, aided by Betwixt, a chimera also held by the witch. There is hardly a fairy-tale or gender trope that Kontis doesn’t turn on its head, and readers don’t need to know about Hercules cleaning out the Augean Stables to find Saturday’s impossible task of cleaning the witch’s bird’s nest both hilarious and revolting. Whether Kontis tells the tales of other Woodcutter children or not, readers will await her next with joyful anticipation. (Fantasy. 11-18)
EAT UP, LITTLE DONKEY
Kromhout, Rindert Illus. by van Haeringen, Annemarie Gecko Press (20 pp.) $14.95 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-8775-7933-2
playfulness, Little Donkey zips the plate through the air like a Frisbee. Mama doesn’t fly off the handle; she figures it is time to go to the park, where there are some ducks. “Hello, ducks. Little Donkey isn’t hungry. Eat as much as you like.” Little Donkey has a sudden change of heart, or stomach. But he is willing to share his lunch with the ducks. Good thing, since there are a lot of them. A perfect, elemental fusion of story and art. (Picture book. 3-6)
FIRE STORM
Lane, Andrew Farrar, Straus and Giroux (352 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-374-32311-0 Series: Sherlock Holmes: The Legend Begins, 4 The teenage Sherlock solves mysteries about two different housekeepers and faces up to a vicious sociopath in this sequel to Black Ice (2013). In the marketplace, Sherlock overhears two strangers talking about finding his mentor and his daughter, Amyus and Virginia Crowe. Believing that the Crowes may need help, Sherlock and his friend Matty go to their home, only to find the house empty. There is, however, a clue that sends Sherlock and Matty, accompanied by the violinist Rufus Stone, off to Edinburgh. Sherlock initiates the action in this caper, not one of the adults, exhibiting his growth and integration of their teaching. Historical Edinburgh and its looming castle reinforce the sense of foreboding created by the story’s events. The narrative resolves nicely with a breathtaking ending that involves men with crossbows and a grizzly bear. The denouement indicates that the next installment of this winning series begins right after Sherlock returns from Edinburgh. This rewarding mystery/adventure novel has it all: great characters, a fearsome villain, a generous ration of suspense and hints of romance. Fans of the previous books will devour it; new readers to the series will have no problem diving in. (Adventure/mystery. 13-17)
THE EXTRA
Lasky, Kathryn Candlewick (320 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-7636-3972-3
Little Donkey doesn’t want lunch, until the ducks do, in Kromhout’s bon-
bon of a tale. “Lunchtime,” calls Mama. Little Donkey ascends his towering highchair. Van Haeringen places donkey (in natty blue headgear) and chair on a great field of hot orange, with linework that is beguilingly simple. (In addition to a snood of her own, Mama sports a voluminous housedress that has been crossed with a green barber pole.) Once he’s aboard, Mama offers some tidbit. Little Donkey balks, just because little donkeys do that on occasion. The text is simple but both humorous and direct: “ ‘Here comes a train!’ says Mama. ‘My tummy says no.’ ” In a fit of |
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The rarely told story of the Nazi genocide of the Romani people unfolds through the eyes of a heavily fictionalized “film slave,” a Romani girl forced into service as an extra in a Leni Riefenstahl film. Lilo is 15 when the Nazis cart her family off to a concentration camp. She’d assumed they were safe—settled, urban, skilled |
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“Grimace toothily and glare as they will in Garrigue’s mordant cartoon illustrations, the hulking wolves stand no chance.” from how to ward off wolves
Sinti, unlike Roma who traveled in caravans and were easier targets of bigotry. But there’s no safety in Buchenwald or Maxglan, where her mother is the subject of sadistic procedures and her father vanishes in the night. In a stroke of luck, she’s taken to be a forced extra, a film slave in the backdrop of Leni Riefenstahl’s film Tiefland. Along with the other Romani imprisoned by Riefenstahl, Lilo fights to stay alive in circumstances less extreme than the camps but still horrific. Filmmaking details provide a unique flavor in a tragic story that’s otherwise all too familiar. Amid death and torment, Lilo encounters unexpectedly frequent sparks of human decency. Conveyed in at-times overly expository prose, Lilo’s story is fiction laid upon the life of actual Romani Holocaust survivor Anna Blach. Context is provided by a deeply problematic author’s note, which dedicates more than four pages to Riefenstahl but only three sentences to the modern Romani, mentioning neither the modern reality of anti-Romani bigotry nor the simple fact that “Gypsy” (used through the note as synonymous with “Romani”) is now considered pejorative and should be avoided. In the end, the touching story of survival carries readers over the occasional infelicities. (Historical fiction. 12-16)
HOW TO WARD OFF WOLVES
Leblanc, Catherine Illus. by Garrigue, Roland Insight Editions (32 pp.) $14.99 | Sep. 10, 2013 978-1-60887-194-0
Helpful advice for children bothered by wolves. Actually, it doesn’t take much to drive them off: Hide under a sheet, and they’ll take you for a ghost; blow on their long fur until it ruffles up, and they’ll float away like feathers; tell them a scary story; even just spitting out hard candy makes them “howl and growl and run.” Grimace toothily and glare as they will in Garrigue’s mordant cartoon illustrations, the hulking wolves stand no chance. The small, fearless children they try to menace only send them fleeing again and again with insouciant ease. Similar strategies bring similar results in How to Outwit Witches (978-1-60887-193-3)—simply slamming the book shut on one is particularly effective (not to mention gruesome)—and in How to Get Rid of Ghosts (978-1-60887-195-7). The agenda is visible but sits lightly on the comical pictures and brief, matter-of-fact narratives in these French anxiety-dispellers. Real children with nighttime anxieties of any sort may take heart from seeing this cast of popeyed poppets in action. (sticker sheet) (Picture book. 6-8)
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PI-RAT!
Lee, Maxine Illus. by Lee, Maxine Tiger Tales (32 pp.) $14.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-58925-143-4 A pirate rat and his fearless crew sail the seas—until a “monster” ends the voyage. The captain of the pirate ship and his fellow travelers, a squirrel and cat, go sailing, conquering everything and fearing almost nothing. The bold shipmates pogo-stick across the heads of toothy crocodiles, dance merrily in the scary dead of night, and blow raspberries at a shark eyeing them hungrily, all ready for his meal, bib on and fork and knife in hand. And just as children would have it, there are no rules on the ship, and the merry trio eat and drink (without cleaning up, of course), bungee jump from the ship’s tall mast and paint the walls with reckless abandon. But then a giant, hairy foot appears, and trembling with fear, the pirates end their escapades. Through the ship’s portholes, readers see glimpses of the “BIG. Scary. VERY hairy” beast. As the monster’s paws pluck the cat and squirrel from the sea, the rat waves a tearful goodbye. Who is this fearsome beast? It’s the rat pirate’s mother, holding out a fuzzy towel for her little rat, who smiles back at her from the tub. And the cat and squirrel—tub toys—have been placed on the floor to dry. Adorable, mixed-media illustrations with lots of humorous touches will coax any little landlubber to the sea—er, bathtub. Good piratical fun. (Picture book. 3-5)
A STRANGER THING
Leicht, Martin; Neal, Isla Simon & Schuster (288 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 12, 2013 978-1-4424-2963-5 Series: Ever-Expanding Universe, 2 This first sequel to the sci-fi comedy Mothership (2012) continues its wry banter as a human girl—or is she?—fights to keep her half-alien baby safe from both the good aliens and the bad ones. After giving birth to her half-alien daughter, Elvie finds herself imprisoned on Earth instead of in a spaceship. Elvie’s baby’s daddy, the staggeringly handsome but equally stupid Cole, certainly is an alien Almiri—but Almiri can’t have daughters, can they? Whatever. The new family has wound up in Antarctica with other undesirables, at an underground facility run by fearless leader Oates. The plot thickens when rivals arrive, sending the group racing on dogsleds across the frozen continent in search of Elvie’s crashed spaceship. Although attacked by killer whales, Elvie reaches the ship, where she finds that she did not manage to kill the evil Dr. Marsden in the first book. Leicht and Neal keep the main focus of the series on comedy but weave in enough suspense to keep the pages turning. It really is funny, kirkus.com
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thanks to Elvie’s wry inner commentary, Cole’s oh-so-sincere but painfully slow mental processes and the fizzy mix of characters. Even during the final action scenes, they introduce a new character, a highly developed baby that Elvie calls “Bok Choy,” as that is the child’s dominant vocabulary. Who knew science fiction about unwed motherhood could be so very hysterical? (Science fiction. 12 & up)
BONE BY BONE Comparing Animal Skeletons
Levine, Sara Illus. by Spookytooth, T. S. Millbrook/Lerner (32 pp.) $19.95 e-book | $26.60 PLB Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-4677-1701-4 e-book 978-0-7613-8464-9 PLB
An intriguing combination of questions, answers and playful illustrations presents the comparative anatomy of animals, based on their bones, in an original way, with mixed results. What if you had no bones at all? What would you look like with bones at the end of your spine? What if your hand bones reached your feet? What animal would you look like? The author, a biologist and veterinarian, has taught children’s environmental-education classes as well as college students. Her “what if ” questions are right on target for young learners, connecting them to the subject and extending their imaginations. She covers the differences between vertebrates and invertebrates and some skeletal particulars, but this is more a collection of intriguing points than an organized introduction. Unfortunately, the presentation gets in the way of the information. Questions and explanations appear in both a chunky letterpress and hand-lettered–like sans-serif style; answers are in uppercase; this busy typography won’t help fledgling readers. Spookytooth’s illustrations use a diverse group of children to demonstrate major points. These pictures add humor, and some are instructive as well, though others are confusing. Sideby-side human and animal skeletons have major parts labeled; later X-ray views are less meaningful. For organized information, Steve Jenkins’ Bones: Skeletons and How They Work (2010) is a better choice. Amusing enough, but there is little intellectual meat on these bones. (more about bones and vertebrates, glossary, further reading) (Informational picture book. 5-9)
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WHISTLE IN THE DARK
Long, Susan Hill Holiday House (192 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 15, 2013 978-0-8234-2839-7
A sadly flawed premise undermines Long’s debut novel, early chapters of which won the Katherine Paterson prize. On his 13th birthday, Clemson joins his father in the depths of their small Missouri town’s lead mine. Clem hates mining, but his grandfather’s disability due to “miner’s consumption” and doctor bills from his sister’s epilepsy mean his family needs the money he’ll earn. Despite the manifest need, every day he hopes his Pap will release him, just as every week Grampy writes to the mining company in hopes of “compensation.” The writing is at times lovely, and it charts Clem’s emotional state with precision. His relationship with Esther and friendship with a bootlegger’s daughter are particularly touching. Unfortunately, that clarity does not extend to the actual mining, which, though Clem clearly hates it, is never made real for readers. He descends with a shovel; he “mucks” for ore; he ascends. More seriously, Long’s story is anachronistic in both directions: The characters have 21st-century sensibilities, even as Clem seems to live by 19th-century rules. Unlike in the 1800s, in 1924, when the story begins, Missouri state law prohibited mines from employing anyone under age 16. And as there is evidently no union nor any clear precedent, Grampy’s expectation of compensation for his lung disease seems highly unlikely. The at times lyrical writing cannot compensate for the flawed history. (Historical fiction. 8-12)
THE FALL OF FIVE
Lore, Pittacus Harper/HarperCollins (416 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-06-197461-8 Series: Lorien Legacies, 4 “Lore” (aka James Frey) moves his ponderous, jumbled science-fiction epic forward an inch by dropping a traitor into the band of superpowered refugees charged with saving Earth from evil aliens. The tale has already become so complicated that even confirmed series fans may welcome the long, sluggish stretches of hanging out, fretting, flirting, bickering and undisguised recaps. These are packed in between the paltry number of violent but widely spaced encounters with brutish Mogadorian invaders. Here, the already indigestibly large cast of teenage Loriens and their human helpers gains three and loses one as two chancy new allies, multiple gems with mystical properties, prophetic visions of terrifying doom, ravening monsters, mysterious scars and hints of new powers arrive to add more flimsy trinkets to the literary flea market. Confusingly, three of the Loriens switch off |
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as first-person narrators but are given (whether from authorial inertia or incompetence) indistinguishable voices. Following the climactic denouement, the young heroes end up more or less where they were in the previous episode: split up and on the run. Sample chapters, not labeled as such, from three spinoff novellas are appended. Likely headed for the best-seller lists—but not on its merits. (Science fiction. 12-14)
BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR
Maroh, Julie Illus. by Maroh, Julie Translated by Hahnenberger, Ivanka Arsenal Pulp Press (160 pp.) $19.95 paper | Sep. 25, 2013 978-1-55152-514-3
From Belgium, the graphic novel on which the 2013 Palme d’Or–winning film of the same name was based. Clementine is 15 in 1994 when she sees a beautiful young woman with blue hair crossing the plaza. That night, the woman figures in an erotic dream, and her world is rocked. “I had no right to have thoughts like that.” When she meets blue-haired Emma for real, she begins an at-first platonic relationship with the art student, who tells Clementine of her own coming out. The relationship turns sexual (graphically, beautifully so) and complicated. The story is told in flashback; readers meet a years-older Emma in the aftermath of Clementine’s funeral as she reads Clementine’s teenage diaries. The late2000s scenes are somber and washed with blues, while the bulk of the tale is drawn in delicate black, gray and white with strategic highlights of blue. The text is occasionally clunky and purposive—“We do not choose the one we fall in love with, and our perception of happiness is our own and is determined by what we experience…”—but the illustrations are infused with genuine, raw feeling. Wide-eyed Clementine wears every emotion on her sleeve, and even if today’s teens will feel that her mid-’90s experience is rather antique, they will understand her journey perfectly. Though a bit of a period piece, a lovely and wholehearted coming-out story. (Graphic historical fiction. 16 & up)
ANTON AND CECIL Cats at Sea
Martin, Lisa; Martin, Valerie Illus. by Murphy, Kelly Algonquin (256 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-1-61620-246-0 This collaboration by a respected author of literary fiction and her niece, an educator and writer of poetry for children, is an odd mix of talking cats, oceangoing adventure and mystical events. 104
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Slender, gray Anton and large, black Cecil are not much alike, but, readers are told, the brothers love one another and enjoy their mostly peaceful life as stray cats in a seaside town. Pensive Anton enjoys listening to the sailors singing in the local saloon; adventurous Cecil prefers to pace along the dock, seeking sustenance and occasionally spending a day on board a fishing boat. Their low-key lives change dramatically when Anton is taken to sea against his will, and Cecil sets out to find him and bring him home. The plot is carefully woven, the vocabulary rich and distinctive, and the characters engaging (particularly Hieronymus, a hilariously loquacious mouse). Unfortunately, the overall effect is confusing rather than charming. The decision not to explain a key turning point may leave readers perplexed and even troubled, while other details fall just a bit too short of the fantastic to seem truly magical or rely on exceedingly unlikely coincidences. Cat lovers will be sorry to see Anton and Cecil suffer indifference and outright abuse from sailors and pirates, as well as facing other dangers, but they’re still not likely to care overmuch about the eventual resolution. (Fantasy. 9-12)
THE LAST PRESENT
Mass, Wendy Scholastic (256 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-545-31016-1 Series: Willow Falls, 4
The latest volume in the Willow Falls series finds Amanda and Leo trying to save a young girl through a series of eventful time-traveling adventures. Magical, mysterious Angelina D’Angelo has set out quite the task for best friends Amanda and Leo. For 10 years, Angelina has been thwarted as she attempted to place a benediction on a young girl named Grace, who now languishes in a coma. Amanda and Leo must time travel to Grace’s prior birthday parties to ensure that the benediction successfully occurs, and they must get it right not once, but three times, to save her. Or so Angelina says. The friends discover that the story is more complicated and that it is wrapped up with Angelina’s own closely guarded secrets. Character development and closure are key here. Amanda and Leo do a lot of growing up as they negotiate complicated ethical terrain as well as a relationship evolving from friendship into romance. Further, Mass successfully weaves together the stories of familiar characters from previous volumes and finally reveals a full picture of Angelina, the powerful, flawed puppet master of the previous episodes. While the tale has general appeal, it is most suited for devoted series fans, who will most appreciate the tying up of loose ends and revelation of long-held secrets. (Fantasy. 8-12)
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“Adding only transitional paragraphs, the authors skillfully arrange… letters plus diary entries, telegrams and Pearce’s articles for the Denver Republican to convey the men’s story in compelling, first-person voices.” from call of the klondike
BANG
McMann, Lisa Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster (256 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-1-4424-6625-8 Series: Visions, 2 Captivating in its own right, McMann’s second installment in the Visions trilogy is more than a bridge novel. It’s been just over a week since Jules saved new boyfriend Sawyer and his family’s rival pizza parlor, and Sawyer has begun seeing his own visions of tragedy. The author ratchets up the intensity, as Sawyer’s visions appear in even more unusual venues and include sound— “[e]leven fucking gunshots” to be exact. Enlisting the help of Jules’ gay, older brother, Trey, the teens set out to solve the mystery of where the shooting takes place and who may be involved—on both sides of the gun. They deduce that the gunshots take place at a school, but talking and writing about a school shooting may get them into trouble. Playing sleuth rather than receiving the visions this time, Jules has more time to focus on the ethics of the visions, such as what purpose the visions fulfill and whether the recipients have a moral obligation to save the lives they see in their visions. It’s not just visions but Jules and Sawyer’s relationship that grows bolder, with both new emotional and physical feelings (though sex is not an issue yet). Who will receive the visions next? McMann gives fewer hints this time, but another dramatic, quick-paced thriller is certain. (Supernatural thriller. 14 & up)
CALL OF THE KLONDIKE A True Gold Rush Adventure
Meissner, David; Richardson, Kim Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills (168 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-59078-823-3
A remarkable collection of documents paints a picture of the Klondike gold rush in vivid detail. In 1897, two 20-something Yale grads, Stanley Pearce and Marshall Bond, were among the first to hear about the gold found in the Klondike. They quickly booked tickets on a ship, gathered food and equipment, and headed north, hoping to strike it rich. Their mining backgrounds and monetary help from their families gave them an edge over their fellow fortune seekers, but the obstacles were still enormous, as their letters make clear, including two months of grueling travel over mountain passes and down the Yukon River. Adding only transitional paragraphs, the authors skillfully arrange these letters plus diary entries, telegrams and Pearce’s articles for the Denver Republican to convey the men’s story in compelling, first-person voices. The attractive design incorporates intriguing pull-out quotes, maps, |
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posters, documents and many well-chosen, captioned photographs, including one of Jack London, who camped near Pearce and Bond’s cabin. London, also mentioned in a diary entry, later kept in touch with Bond and based the fictional dog Buck on one of Bond’s dogs, making this an excellent companion to The Call of the Wild. A memorable adventure, told with great immediacy. (timeline, author’s notes, bibliography, resources) (Nonfiction. 11 & up)
SEX & VIOLENCE
Mesrobian, Carrie Carolrhoda Lab (304 pp.) $17.95 | $12.95 e-book | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-4677-0597-4 978-1-4677-1619-2 e-book An intelligent, wry 17-year-old is brutally beaten in a communal shower by two classmates after he hooks up with one of their former girlfriends, setting the stage for a difficult recovery. Evan knows he’s sort of a dick when it comes to girls, but being constantly uprooted to various boarding schools by his emotionally inept dad has caused him to eschew relationships and focus on honing his knack for identifying Girls Who Would Say Yes. After the assault that leaves Evan in the hospital, his father whisks him off to his own boyhood home in Minnesota, where he’s uneasily sucked into a tightknit group spending their last summer at home getting high and hanging out before going off to college. Evan’s intense, often-discomfiting first-person narration will deeply affect readers, and his darker side is troubling—in an aside about girls with eating disorders, he thinks, “I’d known some of those barf-it-up girls, and they were the worst. So crazy. So clingy. The first to get deleted from my phone.” Packed with realistically lewd dialogue that is often darkly funny, this is a pitch-perfect, daring novel about how sex and violence fracture a life and the painstakingly realistic process of picking up the pieces. Evan’s struggle is enormously sympathetic, even when he is not. Utterly gripping. (Fiction. 16 & up)
TRAILING TENNESSEE
Mimms, Cory Wheeler Craigmore Creations (224 pp.) $14.99 paper | Oct. 18, 2013 978-1-9400520-0-7 A sudden tragedy sends 14-year-old Eli Sutton into a challenging Appalachian Trail adventure in which he confronts both his limitations and his powers of endurance. Eli always knew that someday he’d hike the A.T. all the way to Maine, but when a horrific accident |
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proves to be beyond his coping strategies, that hike becomes a reality far sooner than he ever expected. The landscape and the solitude are comforting, but new discomforts and dangers do little to replace the grief he thought he could escape. He does gain solace from an old journal kept by his grandfather and passed down to Eli; the trials his ancestors endured, like losing their farm, allow Eli to glimpse a larger world of both pain and meaning. The friends he finds on the trail also help him see beyond his current morass. Debut novelist Mimms weds hiking know-how to the drama of grief with a steady touch and pitchperfect tone. Journal entries from Eli’s grandfather’s time provide a pleasing contrast in structure, and Eli’s spooky musings on the Raven Mocker and U`tlun’ta add a taste of otherworldly flavor. Only the ending of the book feels too abrupt and coincidental to be well-earned. A compelling story of one teenager, one trail, a few friends and many ghosts. (Adventure. 10-13)
HARRY AND THE MONSTER
Mongredien, Sue Illus. by Nick, East Tiger Tales (32 pp.) $14.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-58925-146-5
Sometimes when nightmares keep children awake, no one in the family gets any rest. When Harry wakes, screaming from a dream of a purple monster, he wakes up the whole family. He’s so frightened that the next night, he doesn’t want to go to bed. His mom suggests imagining the monster wearing a pair of pink pants on his head, saying “You’ll laugh so much that it won’t be that scary.” But when Harry dreams a pair of flowery underpants onto the monster’s head, the brute roars, “Who put these pants on my head?” Next, Harry’s father offers a suggestion, but it, too, backfires and enrages the monster. Finally, one night, his father comes up with the winning solution. Young readers will likely feel a special kinship with Harry, and they will respond to the repetition and buildup of the story. The depiction of the monster is just right: not too scary and reminiscent of Cookie Monster. The sweet, colorful illustrations offer details that will have readers giggling: When the monster gets stuck in a honey-colored jelly, he’s covered with little sticky blobs; when he topples into a Christmas tree, he ends up decorated with stars and ornaments. Sleepy children will be inspired to invent their own very silly, very unscary creatures before they nod off to dreamland. (Picture book. 3-7)
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MY MOM IS A FOREIGNER, BUT NOT TO ME
Moore, Julianne Illus. by So, Meilo Chronicle (40 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-4521-0792-9
A chorus of children with foreignborn mothers join voices to express their side of the immigrant experience. Having a mom who’s a foreigner can be tough. “She makes me do stuff foreign ways,” like taking soup to school and kissing people hello. Child and mom don’t always look alike, and her accent—not to mention the silly foreign nicknames—attracts unwanted attention. But “compared to OTHER Moms, / I know that she’s the best.” Moore’s well-meaning book, inspired by her own childhood, is something of a disaster. The rhyming quatrains limp along, forcing scansion to suit the rhyme scheme: “My Mom is a foreigner, / She’s from another place. / She came when she was ten years old, / With only one suitcase.” Amateurish rhyme is just one of this book’s problems, though. Adult and child readers alike would be forgiven for thinking that those four lines are spoken by the same child and refer to the same mother, but they don’t. Seemingly arbitrary changes in typography are clues that the child speaker is changing; narration is shared in five different typefaces among eight or so children with mothers from all over the globe. So’s illustrations, uncharacteristically, do not rise to the admittedly considerable design challenge, failing to provide sufficient clues to let readers know which statements belong to which child until the last few pages, when it is far too late. A confusing mess. (Picture book. 5-8)
EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED FROM A LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK
Muldrow, Diane Golden Books/Random (96 pp.) $9.99 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-307-97761-8
Chicken soup for fans of Golden Books, from the line’s editorial director. Reasoning that hard times have come to America (“The chickens have come home to roost, and their names are Debt, Depression, and Diabetes”), Muldrow offers this book as palliative. She gathers single illustrations from 61 Little Golden Books and adds pithy captions as anodynes, such as “Don’t panic…” (beneath Tibor Gergely’s 1948 image of a dismayed child holding detached braids) or “Have some pancakes” (Richard Scarry, 1949). Though some of her advice has a modern inflection (“Don’t forget your antioxidants!”), the pictures all come from titles published between 1942 and 1964 and so, despite the great diversity of artistic styles, have a quaint period look. Not to mention quaint period values, from views kirkus.com
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“With a nod to Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Ness brilliantly plays with contrasts: life and death, privacy and exposure, guilt and innocence.” from more than this
of apron-wearing housewives and pipe-smoking men (or bears) to, with but two exceptions, an all-white cast of humans. Furthermore, despite the title’s implication, the exhortations don’t always reflect the original story’s lesson or theme; rather than “Make a budget—and stick to it!” the lad in Miriam Young’s 5 Pennies To Spend (illustrated by Corinne Malvern, 1955) actually used his hoard to help others in need. Ephemeral—unlike the art here (some of it, at least) and those fondly remembered little books. (Picture book. 12 & up)
HEAVEN IS PAVED WITH OREOS
Murdock, Catherine Gilbert Houghton Mifflin (208 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 3, 2013 978-0-547-62538-6
Fourteen-year-old Sarah discovers first love and family secrets in this sweet-as-acookie Dairy Queen companion for slightly younger readers. Sarah Zorn, D.J. Schwenk’s brother Curtis’ science-fair partner, had bit parts in the Dairy Queen trilogy, but she takes center stage in Murdock’s latest. Even though it’s summer, Sarah and Curtis are preparing for their ninth-grade science-fair project: waiting for Boris, a calf born dead, to decay. In narrator Sarah’s mind, they are just friends. Curtis, with typical Schwenk communication problems, tells Sarah he wants a real girlfriend just as Sarah’s hippie grandmother, Z, invites her to Rome. In a series of journals, introduced by black-and-white images of Rome, Sarah describes both the pilgrimage to seven churches of Rome—a pilgrimage that Z had not quite completed 46 years before as an art student— and her growing awareness of “boy-liking” feelings for Curtis. Advice from D.J., who has a minor but comforting chauffeuring role, helps Sarah mature, as does having to be responsible for the increasingly erratic Z as reasons for her pilgrimage become evident. This coming-of-age novel with an endearingly naïve narrator unfortunately bogs down midway under the weight of Roman church history. The cover, cleverly connecting Oreos and cows, will attract preteens. Fans of the trilogy will be delighted to revisit both the Schwenks and Red Bend, Wisc. (Fiction. 10-14)
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MORE THAN THIS
Ness, Patrick Candlewick (480 pp.) $19.99 | Sep. 10, 2013 978-0-7636-6258-5
Seth, not yet 17, walks into the Pacific Ocean and ends his life. Or does he? He wakes, groggy, in front of the house in England where he spent his childhood, before his little brother, Owen, was kidnapped and the family moved to America. He spends days in a dust-covered, desolate landscape scavenging for food in empty stores, imagining that he’s in a “hell built exactly for him.” His dreams are filled with vivid memories of his life: his romance with a boy named Gudmund, a photo that’s gone viral, and farther back, his inability to keep Owen safe. Seth is rescued by a girl named Regine and Tomasz, a younger, Polish boy, from pursuit by a silent, helmeted figure they call the Driver. Past and present collide as Seth struggles to determine what’s real and what isn’t, whether circumstances are all of his own doing. He faces doorways everywhere, with genuine death seemingly just beyond, but there are hints of something even more sinister going on. There are no easy answers either for Seth or readers. With a nod to Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Ness brilliantly plays with contrasts: life and death, privacy and exposure, guilt and innocence. In characteristic style, the author of the Chaos Walking trilogy delves into the stuff of nightmares for an existential exploration of the human psyche. (Fiction. 14 & up)
WINTER IS FOR SNOW
Neubecker, Robert Illus. by Neubecker, Robert Disney Hyperion (32 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 15, 2013 978-1-4231-7831-6
A paean to wintertime and especially its snowy weather, this picture book fails to match the achievement of the many others that deal with this popular theme. The child pictured in the jacket art is an unabashed lover of all things winter, and in rhyming text, he extols the season’s virtues to his curmudgeonly younger sister. Her responses (also rhyming) resist his enthusiastic praise of snowball fights, skating and the beauty of snowflakes “glittering like diamond dust.” Since the book ends up being about her eventual, grudging warming up to wintertime, it’s curious that she doesn’t appear on the cover, and her change of heart seems rather abrupt, reading; “Winter is for all these things? / Is it really so? / Winter might not be so bad. // Winter is for SNOW!” Such pat lines are par for the course in the text, which isn’t so much a story as it is a list. Illustrations show greater achievement, particularly in scenes depicting many characters milling about a snowy city landscape, evoking an animationlike flair. |
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Another snowy day book, but not special enough to recall Keats’ masterpiece. (Picture book. 3-5)
THE TOWER OF SHADOWS
Nykko Illus. by Bannister Graphic Universe (48 pp.) $6.95 paper | $27.93 PLB | Nov. 1, 2013 978-1-4677-1517-1 978-1-4677-1233-0 PLB Series: Elsewhere Chronicles, 6 In this abbreviated episode, the muchreduced central cast mounts a twin assault on the Master of Shadows and the dark lake from which he and his teeming umbral minions have sprung. The action picks up as Rebecca, Max and Theo follow enigmatic old Gabe to the high tower where the Master waits. There, they find a doppelganger of Rebecca that, according to Gabe, she must kill while the boys are dispatched to drop a flash bomb into the inky lake called the Source. Punctuated by snarky banter from the children and thunderous scenery-chewing by the adults (“Your overreaching excess will destroy you, you poor fool!”), the ensuing battles bring only partial success for the mission. There are many spectacular explosions, heroic feats and last-instant rescues, though, as well as destruction on a truly grand scale. In contrast to the at-best sketchy plotline, Bannister’s atmospheric illustrations feature expressive characters placed in finely detailed, eerily organic landscapes or dim subterranean reaches inhabited by menacing swirls of shadow. The lapidary art repays examination, but notwithstanding a prefatory thumbnail recap and later on-the-fly explication, new readers will get more out of this sometimes-dark series by taking the volumes in order. (Graphic fantasy. 11-13)
HITLER’S SECRET
Osborne, William Chicken House/Scholastic (352 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-545-49646-9 978-0-545-57651-2 e-book Two teenagers are recruited to infiltrate Nazi Germany to retrieve a valuable package that might end World War II. It is 1941. The United States has yet to enter the fray, and the British government is quickly becoming aware that they are losing the war. However, the defection of Rudolf Hess, Deputy Führer of the Third Reich, gives them information that they might use as leverage against Hitler. Located deep behind enemy lines is a young girl being held in a monastery; Hess claims she is the daughter of a high-ranking Nazi official. While it is never confirmed, it is thought that her 108
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father is Hitler himself. Officials determine that the best plan for extraction rests on two teen refugees from Germany, code named Otto and Leni. After only two weeks of intense training, the two are dropped behind enemy lines with the order to retrieve the girl. The fast-moving plot is populated by both real and fictional characters. Stock characters, familiar tropes and scenes that seem lifted straight from the silver screen are clear evidence of Osborne’s career as a blockbuster screenwriter (according to the jacket flap, his credits include The Mummy and GoldenEye). Unfortunately, the nonstop action shortchanges both plot and readers; danger only makes for good fiction when readers care about the characters. Explosive but lacking depth. (Historical fiction. 12 & up)
SPELLBOUND Tales of Enchantment from Ancient Ireland Parkinson, Siobhán Illus. by Whelan, Olwyn Frances Lincoln (66 pp.) $19.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-84780-140-1
Pretty pictures aren’t enough to compensate for indifferent storytelling in this slender gathering of tales from a former Irish Children’s Laureate. Readers familiar with the lore should recognize the standard-issue versions of the “Children of Lir” and the tale of Labraid Lorc (here “Labhra” Lorc), a legendary king with horse’s ears. In addition to these, Parkinson presents four tales of beautiful princesses transformed into various animals (and, in one, an ugly hag), plus a cursory account of Cú Chulainn’s exploits up to his wedding. The patchy prose alternates between flights of lyrical description (of, usually, one princess or another) and plain exposition with occasional awkward phrasing: “Gentle Etain got to hear that poor Ailill was very unhappy….” One entry, “The Enchanted Deer,” feels more like a fragment than a full story. There are no source or introductory notes, and rather than being at the front where it would be more immediately helpful, the pronunciation guide is tacked on at the end. The stylized illustrations add lyrical notes of their own with jewelrich hues and delicately drawn figures, but they sometimes fight with the text. Whelan portrays an “old woman” gathering rushes in the “Land Under Wave” as quite young-looking. Anemic despite the art and no match in scope or style for Marie Heaney’s Names Upon the Harp, illustrated by P.J. Lynch (2000). (Folk tales. 10-13)
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“The use of a limited palette and lots of undecorated white space makes the close communication of jungle, savannah, forest and marine animals seem more plausible than it would otherwise.” from elephant’s story
ELEPHANT’S STORY
Pearson, Tracey Campbell Illus. by Pearson, Tracey Campbell Margaret Ferguson/Farrar, Straus & Giroux (40 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 22, 2013 978-0-374-39913-9 In this offbeat tale, friendship forms as the result of a lovable, bumbling elephant’s mistake. When Elephant comes across a lost book, he accidentally inhales its words. The words are soon sneezed out, but the letters are in chaos. Not knowing how to fix them, Elephant takes the letters to his friends, who, much to Elephant’s distress, are not very interested in restoring them to the book. Clever design shows Alligator about to “chew” the letters, while Seal just wants to “spin” them. The use of a limited palette and lots of undecorated white space makes the close communication of jungle, savannah, forest and marine animals seem more plausible than it would otherwise. Finding no real help, he just sniffs the letters back up into his trunk. When Gracie—the book’s owner—finds Elephant sitting on her beloved book, strangely, she chooses to pull on his trunk (an action that seems rather cruel). Only after that doesn’t work does she tickle him, which elicits a sneeze that releases the letters. Gracie then uses the letters to create a new story about friendship. The adorable endpapers are particularly noteworthy, featuring Elephant posing as the 26 letters in the English alphabet, echoing the main theme of the book. A sweet, funny story—though not without its awkward moments—with a metafictive theme that should entertain. (Picture book. 3-6)
THE MYSTERIOUS WOODS OF WHISTLE ROOT
Pennell, Christopher Illus. by Bond, Rebecca Houghton Mifflin (224 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 10, 2013 978-0-547-79263-7
A strange, whimsical debut that may never quite convince readers why they should care about it. Carly Bean Bitters is a likable 11-year-old with a strange malady: She is awake at night and sleeps during the day. This allows her to notice a strange phenomenon—a squash that appears on her roof. Carly soon meets Lewis, a musician and a rat, who explains that the squash is a member of his band, taking the place of a rat who has been abducted by owls. When Lewis introduces Carly to the other members of his rat community in the Whistle Root woods, she learns that the owls’ current behavior is abnormal—they used to dance to the rats’ moonlight tunes before they suddenly began snatching them. Thus begins a bizarre journey for Carly, who must discover the reason behind the owls’ sudden change of heart and other strange |
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occurrences in the woods and her town. Though the back story behind the Whistle Root wood and various characters’ behavior is eventually explained, the explanations themselves are often disjointed and don’t quite add up. This feeling of arbitrariness makes it hard for readers to engage with the rats’ plight. While this quiet book achieves a timeless feel—being identifiably set neither in our world nor in another—this cannot atone for a history of the magical woods and creatures that sometimes feels nonsensical. (Fantasy. 8-10)
BATTLE MAGIC
Pierce, Tamora Scholastic (464 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-439-84297-6 978-0-545-52035-5 e-book Pierce continues to fill gaps in her Circle of Magic sequence—here sending three of her mages eastward to defend the (Tibet-ish) land of Gyongxe against an invasion from (China-esque) Yanjing. Falling chronologically between the events in Street Magic (2001) and Melting Stones (2008), the tale focuses on plant mages Rosethorn and Briar and stone mage Evumeimei. They travel from small but mountainous Gyongxe to the rich palace of Emperor Weishu in Evvy’s adjacent homeland and then back in a series of battles and tests of both magic and character. Though the popular author’s prose and pacing are as fluent as ever, her efforts to elaborate on or at least disguise her cultural models are, at best, cursory, and her plotting is likewise paint-by-numbers. Having trotted from pillar to post, the central trio splits up at the story’s exact center so that Evvy can go off to a first meeting with the animate mountain’s heart that will be her traveling companion in later adventures, while Rosethorn and Briar essentially march in place, from a narrative standpoint anyway. The three reunite in time to see Weishu and his teeming armies engage Gyongxe’s many major and minor gods in a climactic battle. Pierce herself has teeming armies of fans, guaranteeing that this routine, cozily predictable outing will be a huge seller. (map, glossary) (Fantasy. 10-14)
THE 14 FIBS OF GREGORY K.
Pincus, Greg Levine/Scholastic (240 pp.) $16.99 | $16.99 e-book | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-439-91299-0 978-0-545-58440-1 e-book The addition of math-contest pressure and the impending subtraction of a best friend equal a stressful sixth-grade year for Gregory Korenstein-Jasperton. Gregory’s lifelong pretense that he loves math as much as the rest of his family—really, he prefers |
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“Bejeweled with blooming cactuses and buzzing with bees, reptiles, mammals and more, the desert tableaux will engross readers.” from the tortoise & the hare
writing—catches up with him when long division eludes him. Worse, Kelly, his best friend and writing buddy, is moving at the end of the year. Of course, they can see each other at Author’s Camp in the summer, if Gregory does well in school. Extra credit for entering the City Math contest might improve his math grade. It would certainly please his father, the first contest winner. This family and friendship story is the author’s first novel. Each chapter begins with a poem in a form that will be familiar to readers of his poetry. These “fibs” have six lines with their syllable count based on the Fibonacci sequence: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13. They chronicle Gregory’s state of mind and contribute to the final, satisfactory solution. Dialogue and humor carry the thirdperson narrative along swiftly, and the characters are appealing. It is unusual to meet a family in middle-grade fiction that enjoys playing math games at the table, and it’s refreshing to be reminded of the importance of honesty with family and friends. By any reckoning, a successful debut. (Fiction. 8-12)
THE TORTOISE & THE HARE
Pinkney, Jerry Illus. by Pinkney, Jerry Little, Brown (40 pp.) $18.00 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-316-18356-7 With luminous mixed media pictures, a short, carefully meted-out text and a Southwestern U.S. setting, Pinkney (The Lion and the Mouse, 2009) takes on another of Aesop’s fables—marvelously. A persevering tortoise and a speedy but arrogant hare tackle a challenging racecourse that includes rocky elevations and a water crossing. When a farmstead’s cabbages tempt the hare, he tunnels under a fence to gorge and nap. Meanwhile the tortoise, closely observed by desert denizens, passes the slumbering hare and wins by a length. In the tortoise’s scenes, the fable’s moral inches along, like him: The first proclaims “SLOW”; the second, “SLOW AND”—and so on, with the victory spread featuring the entire moral. The ingenious layout mixes bordered panels, spot illustrations and full-bleed single- and double-page spreads, arranged to convey each racer’s alternating progress through a golden landscape. Bejeweled with blooming cactuses and buzzing with bees, reptiles, mammals and more, the desert tableaux will engross readers. The critters’ bits of clothing—hat, bandanna, vest—add pops of color and visually evoke the jaunty characters of Br’er Rabbit stories. Hare’s black-and-white checked neckerchief does duty as the signal flag and Tortoise’s victory cape. Lush, encompassing endpapers feature, in the front, a layout of the racecourse and, in the rear, the reveling animals, with the hare, still stunned, gazing out at readers. A captivating winner—start to finish! (artist’s note, design notes) (Picture book/folktale. 3-6)
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IF DINOSAURS LIVED IN MY TOWN
Plumridge, Marianne Illus. by Eggleton, Bob Sky Pony Press (56 pp.) $16.95 | Nov. 6, 2013 978-1-62636-176-8
A mishmash of prehistoric fact and fancy, well overmatched by illustrations featuring images of full-sized dinos that look just as real as the photographed children who pose around or on them. With a similar premise to Bernard Most’s classic If the Dinosaurs Came Back (1978) but without even its loose brand of internal logic, the author introduces 26 dinosaurs by name and suggests a supposed occupation or consequence. These often appear to be entirely arbitrary: “If a Tarbosaurus lived in my town… / …he and his cousin, Tyrannosaurus Rex, could have a hamburger eating contest!” In frequently clumsy phrasing (Corythosaurus “had hundreds of little teeth inside of her cheeks to chew with”), added dinosaur “Factprints” on each spread offer mixes of “facts” that sometimes contradict fossil evidence, as with a claim that Liopleurodon was larger than the blue whale. Others are just pure speculation: Maiasaura “would be very gentle with tiny human children” and Parasaurolophus calls “sounded like notes played on a French horn, or even a deep-throated trombone or bassoon.” On the other hand, though many bear human expressions, Eggleton’s dinosaurs are both realistically detailed and convincingly integrated into playgrounds and other familiar modern settings. The most recent reference in the bibliography is dated 2006, and one is as old as 1988. Eye-brightening visuals in search of a better text. (index, not seen) (Picture book. 7-9)
BATTLING BOY
Pope, Paul Illus. by Pope, Paul First Second/Roaring Brook (208 pp.) $24.99 | $15.99 paper | Oct. 8, 2013 978-1-59643-805-7 978-1-59643-145-4 paper A young boy with a divine pedigree may be Earth’s last chance to rid Arcopolis of its scourge of monsters. In Arcopolis, the streets aren’t safe to roam past curfew. Luckily for its denizens, the hero Haggard West helps battle the evil forces of Sadisto and his hooded ghouls. However, in a shocking turn of events, evil triumphs over good, and the metropolis is left without protection. In a world far, far away, a 13-year-old son of a god has been chosen to help Earth fight the onslaught of monsters as a rite of passage. Sent with only a few possessions, including an array of magical T-shirts, Battling Boy helps the city—but he finds he cannot do it alone. Pope’s creation is a fast-paced, taut, capes-and-tights tale successfully incorporating all of the elements needed to construct a winning kirkus.com
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superhero yarn. It’s got a twist that is sure to appeal to every young reader; who doesn’t want to see a superhero who’s their own age, free of all the pain and heartache most adult superheroes have these days? Pope’s art isn’t for everyone; it’s frenetic and distorted—not the usual slick, superhero stuff. However, those who pick this up will not regret it: Battling Boy is an accessible superhero anyone can enjoy. An abrupt ending will have readers on tenterhooks for the next installment. A masterful nod to the genre. (Graphic adventure. 12 & up)
THE CARPET PEOPLE
Pratchett, Terry Clarion (256 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2013 978-0-544-21247-3
Pratchett’s first children’s book has finally crossed the pond, 42 years after its initial publication and 21 years after its second, revised edition (which this edition mostly matches). Before there was the Discworld, there was the Carpet. It’s a world, if you’re microscopically small, and where there’s a world there’s the possibility of adventure, magic and a bit of philosophizing. Deep in the Carpet, a small tribe finds itself drawn into a large story when Fray (a natural phenomenon that astute readers may suspect is a vacuum) destroys their village and mouls riding snarg-back attack. Led by chieftain Glurk (“He’s a man of few words, and he doesn’t know what either of them means”), his younger brother Snibril, and Pismire, a shaman who believes in the power of positive thinking and deduction more than magic, the Munrungs find themselves teaming up with a dark, mysterious wanderer and a small (even by their standards) but feisty king to save all of civilization. Pratchett’s early foray into using humor and fantasy as a lens by which to examine the absurdities of the world may hold few surprises for his loyal legions, but it’s the perfect starting place for young readers; seasoned Pratchett fans will just revel in his wit, his subversion of tropes and his sense of humanity. An addendum contains the original 1960s text. Small in scale but large in pleasure. (author’s note; illustrations not seen) (Fantasy. 9 & up)
STAINED
Rainfield, Cheryl Harcourt (304 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-547-94208-7
admonishments, she knows her outer appearance has defined her life. “Ugly people get ignored…if they’re lucky. And me, I get stares, taunts, or people going out of their way to pretend they don’t see me.” She has few close friends, and cosmetic treatments have been put off due to her parents’ financial difficulties. All of these concerns are swept away when she is abducted on her way home from school. Her captor is someone she and her family trusted, and the physical, mental and sexual abuse inflicted is designed to totally break her spirit. Told in first person by Sarah and Nick, a lonely boy from school who wants Sarah to see him as a friend, this story gives readers an intimate look at raw emotions. There is not much nuance here; both bullies and bad guy are quite one-dimensional. The sexual abuse and the violent past acts of Sarah’s captor are presented unflinchingly. The fairly simple style and quick action make this a good choice for reluctant readers. Sarah’s determination to stay alive and escape will resonate with readers, and they will cheer her efforts to overcome her underdog status. (Thriller. 14 & up)
ABIGAIL
Rayner, Catherine Illus. by Rayner, Catherine Tiger Tales (32 pp.) $14.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-58925-147-2 Gorgeous, lush illustrations strengthen a somewhat loosely connected story. Abigail is a giraffe who loves to count. She tries to count the spots on a ladybug, the stripes on a zebra and the splotches on a cheetah. But no one will stay still long enough. Then Ladybug suggests counting a field of flowers, and Zebra and Cheetah offer their help. Abigail finds that her friends are “not very good at counting,” so she spends the day teaching them. By the time they get the hang of it, though, darkness has fallen. But all is not in vain. With a dramatic vertical gatefold, Abigail shows them the stars to count. Rayner’s sumptuous watercolors both realistically portray the animals (managing to make Abigail endearing as well) and give readers a sense of the evocative atmosphere of the African savanna. Where the book weakens is in its page design and ending. Three double-page spreads, leading readers’ eyes backward instead of forward have the unwanted consequence of stalling the page-turns in an already haltingly paced story. The ending, when it arrives, is lackluster and leaves readers with little of the sense of the grandeur the illustrations evoke. A richly illustrated story that could benefit from better page design and crisper storytelling. (Picture book. 3-7)
A teen beaten down by peer bullying finds inner strength when she is abducted and held against her will. Sarah has endured stares and teasing all her life due to the port-wine birthmark on her face. Despite her mother’s |
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SIX MONTHS LATER
Richards, Natalie Sourcebooks (320 pp.) $9.99 paper | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-4022-8551-6
Chloe calls herself “the last slacker standing” but figures she’ll have all senior year to repair her tattered GPA. Instead, she wakes up to find six months have passed in which her world has changed beyond recognition—including herself. She’s ratcheted up her GPA and achieved stratospheric SAT scores, thanks to the study group she can’t remember participating in. She’s shaken by the charged attraction she feels toward bad boy Adam, who shows up moments after she awakens in response to a call she doesn’t remember making. Meanwhile, her feelings for Blake Tanner—gorgeous, sought-after and evidently now her boyfriend—have morphed from infatuation to fear. For the first time ever, Chloe’s popular—but her best friend, Maggie, won’t speak to her. Like Chloe’s parents, the therapist she’s been seeing for her panic attacks seems confused by Chloe’s lack of enthusiasm for Blake and indifference to her stellar grades. The flashes of memory Chloe experiences with Adam are more troubling than confusing, but his warm presence is all she’s got. Richards’ use of the present tense is enormously effective here, one of the few novels in which suspense actively relies on readers’ immersion in the now. As tension rises among these sharply observed characters, this smart, edgy thriller taps into the college-angst zeitgeist, where the price of high achievement might just be your soul. (Suspense. 13 & up)
NAVY SEAL DOGS My Tale of Training Canines for Combat
Ritland, Michael St. Martin’s (208 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 29, 2013 978-1-250-04182-1
Special force SEALS are elite enough, but SEAL dogs are a breed apart. Author Ritland was a SEAL for many years, training and handling SEAL dogs, and first told about his training routines and exploits in his book for adults, Trident K9 Warriors (2013). This book is a special retelling for young readers. In solid, yeomanly prose, Ritland and Gary Brozek, uncredited, bring readers through the training process; these are dogs schooled to the nth degree in nonlethal force. They also spend a good amount of time with Brett (a 12-year Navy SEAL veteran—last names are rarely used in SEAL literature) and dog Chopper in Ritland’s current work with the nonprofit Warrior Dog Foundation, which hopes “to make certain that retired [military working dogs] are able to live out the remainder of their lives in a positive environment.” Great 112
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details come to the fore, such as fascinating stuff on “tells,” that is when a dog signals that this or that is happening, and just what a dog bite can do to human flesh. There is even a positive note on George W. Bush’s weapons-of-mass-destruction fiasco—it prompted the formation of an elite K-9 unit. (Photos not seen.) About time these heroes got the attention they deserved for a young audience. (Nonfiction. 12 & up)
THE LION FIRST BOOK OF NURSERY STORIES
Rock, Lois Illus. by Vagnozzi, Barbara Lion/Trafalgar (96 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-7459-6341-9
The current emphasis on early literacy has books of nursery rhymes popping up, but collections of nursery “stories” seem to be fewer in number. This one offers a nice roundup for family enjoyment. The key to this medley of 15 tales is the folksy artwork (a blend of Tony Ross and Emma Chichester Clark), which is droll in tone but sidesteps being cartoonish. Faces have broad noses, eyes are dots, and curved lines form mouths. Visible brush strokes add swooshes of color that lend a simplified nuance to the short retellings written in a modern style. “Goldilocks was quite used to getting her own way. So she didn’t care a bit that she was not supposed to go alone into the woods.” For all its colloquialism, the text displays some fairly sophisticated vocabulary: “The wolf huffed. The wolf puffed, and his bad breath buffeted the straw house until it blew to bits.” The stories are an assortment of folk tales, fables and other favorites that range from the familiar—“The Three Billy Goats Gruff ” and “the Emperor’s New Clothes,” to name just two—to some non-Western ones such as “Walnuts and Pumpkins,” a tale from Turkey, and “The Greedy Monkey,” from Pakistan. Each one is attributed to a country of origin, except, alas, for “The Man Who Never Lied,” which is from “Africa.” Elegant it’s not, but down-to-earth it is, with a high entertainment factor for reading aloud and family sharing. Storytellers should also take note. (Folklore. 5-10)
THE THIRD DOOR
Rodda, Emily Scholastic (288 pp.) $16.99 | $16.99 e-book | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-545-42994-8 978-0-545-57803-5 e-book Determined to save the walled city of Weld, four volunteers venture once again into the Chamber of Doors. The first time he was confronted with a choice, Rye selected the golden Door, a kirkus.com
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“With bold acrylic strokes and India-ink outlines, [James] paints scenes from the historical journey as well as the singer’s more modern one.” from northwest passage
regal gateway for heroes. On his second journey, Rye chose the mysterious silver Door. In those adventures, he was successful in finding his brothers, Dirk and Sholto, lost behind the golden and silver Doors, respectively. However, this third adventure begins as Rye, his brothers and Sonia flee from the misdirected wrath of the Warden of Weld. As Rye faces the Doors again, he is drawn to the plain wooden Door. Beyond lies The Fell Zone. Even with his pouch of magical objects, Rye may be no match for its cruel Master and his minions. But alliances shift, and soon, Rye learns the truth, forcing him to make difficult choices that will affect the entire world. This is no pedestrian fantasy. Richly detailed landscapes are populated by all manner of monsters and fueled by magic. Engaging characters must resolve complex problems. And surprising twists are around every corner. However, readers unfamiliar with the previous two volumes in this trilogy will be hopelessly lost in the story’s intricacy; they would be well-advised to start at the trilogy’s beginning, with The Golden Door (2012). A satisfying finish to a rousing trilogy. (Fantasy. 8-12)
NORTHWEST PASSAGE
Rogers, Stan; James, Matt Illus. by James, Matt Groundwood (56 pp.) $24.95 | $19.95 e-book | Sep. 10, 2013 978-1-55498-153-3 978-1-55498-403-9 e-book This stunning portrayal of early efforts to explore Canada’s Northwest Passage presents Rogers’ 1981 song in combination with glorious illustrations, historical commentary and a gallery of explorers. Called Canada’s “other national anthem” by a former prime minister, Rogers’ well-known lyrics describe Sir John Franklin’s disastrous expedition of the 1840s, comparing it with the singer’s own travels across the country. Franklin’s ships became icebound. His men disappeared and may have resorted to cannibalism before starving to death. Nevertheless, the English explorer has been honored as the discoverer of the Northwest Passage. Today, with the ice diminished and Canada and other Arctic countries looking forward to a year-round shipping route, this history has become even more relevant. James supplies a timeline of exploration and an account of this failed journey that explain Rogers’ allusions, and, more strikingly, he illustrates the song’s various threads. With bold acrylic strokes and India-ink outlines, he paints scenes from the historical journey as well as the singer’s more modern one. Deep blues and whites predominate, and there is a sense of desolation. Oversized double-page spreads sometimes meld the explorers’ experiences with Rogers’ own. Panels depict the historical episodes. Both realistic and allusive, these images are as haunting as the song. For U.S. readers, an illumination of a little-known history; for all Americans, a treasure. (words and music, sources) (Informational picture book. 8 & up)
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DRAT THAT CAT!
Ross, Tony Illus. by Ross, Tony Andersen Press USA (32 pp.) $16.95 | $12.95 e-book | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-4677-2030-4 978-1-4677-2036-6 e-book When it comes to mischief, no pet can top a pampered cat. Suzy has long white fur and impossibly large blue eyes. Her full name is Suzy Cat Baggot. She is mostly well-behaved, but “when she felt like it, she could be really naughty.” She loves to hop up onto Granddad’s lap and get his trousers all hairy. Once, Suzy “did a piddle” on Dad’s golf bag, and the smell won’t go away. Suzy also thinks the new sofa will be perfect for sharpening her claws. Whenever anything bad happens, Suzy gets the blame—“usually because she had done it.” Drat that cat! One day, Suzy stops eating; the children try everything, but she just lies listlessly on the bed. Dad takes her to the vet, who advises that she stay overnight. The house seems very empty without her. The children cry and even look in the garden for a place to bury Suzy. Two days later, Suzy has recovered and can come home. Everybody celebrates, treating Suzy like a queen. Late that night, Suzy visits Charlie, the dog next door, and explains that she was just pretending. She wanted the family “to know JUST how much they love [her].” Ross smartly keeps the text simple, letting his hilarious illustrations and keen understanding of feline psychology shine. A must for any child with a cat in the family. (Picture book. 4-7)
PARROTS OVER PUERTO RICO
Roth, Susan L.; Trumbore, Cindy Illus. by Roth, Susan L. Lee & Low (48 pp.) $19.95 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-62014-004-8 An ambitious project: The text on each vibrant, doublepage collage, arranged vertically, intersperses the near-extinction and slow comeback of the Puerto Rican parrot with over 2,000 years of human history. “Above the treetops of Puerto Rico flies a flock of parrots as green as their island home….[T]hey nearly vanished from the earth forever. This is their story.” From this dramatic beginning onward, both artwork and text encourage slow absorption of each spread before the turn of the page. Various peoples—from unnamed aboriginals to Taínos, Europeans, Africans and eventually North Americans—brought with them new flora, fauna and habits, all contributing to the demise of the native birds. Finally, in 1968, two governments began the work that continues today to restore the wild flocks. There are fascinating details about a 1539 fortress wall, leather jackets worn by parrots during hawk-avoidance training and materials used to mend an injured |
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“Divinity is indicated with a faint halo, but Frazee never sacrifices the ineffable humanity of each depiction; her Gods are fat, skinny, joyful, contemplative, worn-out.” from god got a dog
wing. The onomatopoeic derivation of the parrots’ Taíno name, iguaca, is developed nicely in its repeated use as the parrots’ call. By turns poetic and scientific, the text offers a wealth of information. Every paper-and-fabric collage is frame-worthy, from depictions of waterfalls and rain forest to sailing ships, hazards and, of course, parrots. From the commanding cover illustration to the playful image on the back, simply spectacular. (afterword, photos, chronology, sources) (Informational picture book. 8-14)
GOD GOT A DOG
Rylant, Cynthia Illus. by Frazee, Marla Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (48 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 29, 2013 978-1-4424-6518-3 Several of the poems from Rylant’s wry meditation God Went to Beauty School (2003) are regathered, rearranged and luminously illustrated by Frazee. Notably absent is the poem “God Is a Girl,” as Rylant has expanded that notion by occasionally regendering the deity so He becomes She in roughly half the poems. In the titular poem, readers learn that “She never meant to. / … / She was always working / and dogs needed so / much attention. / God didn’t know if She / could take being needed / by one more thing.” Frazee’s illustrations take the idea of the multiplicity of God in all of us and run with it, depicting Him or Her as a black, tattooed nail artist; a middleaged white woman eating by herself; a little dark-skinned boy on roller skates (with hair sticking straight! up!); a bearded, dark-skinned dude playing poker with Gabriel; a homeless black woman. An illustration appears opposite each poem, allowing readers to stop and ponder each of God’s earthly aspects. Divinity is indicated with a faint halo, but Frazee never sacrifices the ineffable humanity of each depiction; her Gods are fat, skinny, joyful, contemplative, worn-out. Readers will be glad and relieved when they turn the final page to learn that, having adopted Ernie the dog, God now “has somebody / keeping Her feet warm at night.” Funny, devout and oh, so human; this collection hits home. (Poetry. 10 & up)
THE MISADVENTURES OF THE MAGICIAN’S DOG
Sackett, Frances Holiday House (192 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-8234-2869-4
A boy learns magic and comes to terms with his feelings about his absent serviceman father, deployed overseas, with the help of a talking dog. 114
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On his 12th birthday Peter Lubinsky asks for a dog —peculiar, given that he doesn’t like dogs. He quickly realizes the pooch he chooses has actually selected him, and in the privacy of Peter’s bedroom, the dog reveals his ability to speak and the reason for singling Peter out: The hound once belonged to a master magician (not the stage kind; he can actually do magic) who’s now evil (a side effect of working magic, which requires strong, often negative emotions) and turned into a rock. Now the dog must teach Peter magic so the boy can make the magician human again. With the hope that he might become powerful enough to bring his father home and abetted by two younger sisters, Peter embarks on a series of implausible, muddled adventures that don’t coalesce. There’s action and humor here but clichés aplenty, too. The main actors are likable, but characterizations are superficial, and Peter’s actions and decisions are obviously plot-driven. Eventually, Peter recognizes that he doesn’t need to channel anger to draw out his abilities, as the dog had advised, but that love works its own magic. An interesting but strained debut with some appeal, particularly among undemanding readers. (Fantasy. 9-12)
COPYCAT BEAR
Sandall, Ellie Illus. by Sandall, Ellie Tiger Tales (32 pp.) $14.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-58925-120-5
An intelligently designed picture book that patently delivers themes of diversity, tolerance and self-acceptance. Blue, a “ginormous” blue bear, tries to copy everything his orange-colored bird friend, Mango, does. But when Blue inadvertently ruins Mango’s nest and then nearly squashes her when he tries to fly, Mango has had enough. She soars away to be on her own, only to find that her solitude doesn’t fulfill her as friendship does. The gray-colored type of the story’s text, the contrasting colors of Blue and Mango, and the variously colored letters spelling the title on its cover underscore one of the book’s themes— diversity. The numerous double-page spreads laced with expansive white space visually emphasize another— the wide-open mindset of tolerance. The story arc follows these visual clues as Mango tires of her solitude and returns to find Blue, snuggling down into his fur when she does. Claiming him as “My copycat bear,” she makes readers understand that she has accepted him for who he is, annoying quirks and all. The final endpaper delivers one more message—that of self-acceptance. Blue, who has always accepted his proclivity to try to do bird things, is shown “helping” Mango as she plucks worms from the ground. A charming story with overt but entirely worthwhile messages. (Picture book. 3-6)
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THE WAR WITHIN THESE WALLS
Sax, Aline Illus. by Strzelecki, Caryl Translated by Watkinson, Laura Eerdmans (176 pp.) $17.00 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-8028-5428-5 The sights, sounds and smells of the Warsaw ghetto assail readers’ senses in a raw, brutal telling of the unimaginable horror of that time and that place. When the Nazis took Warsaw in 1939, they immediately initiated their separate war against the Jews in an ever-worsening web of destruction. Jews were prevented from using public transportation, doing business or attending schools. Then thousands were moved to the overcrowded ghetto, where they died of epidemics and starvation. Finally, relocations to the concentration camps emptied the ghetto. Sax gives voice to the fear and anger, hopelessness and terror through Misha, a fictional young teen who represents those who really lived and died there. In short staccato sentences, he bears witness to the madness, telling it all, from the struggle to stay alive to the corpses in the streets to the beatings and executions. Misha takes part in the doomed Warsaw Uprising and survives to tell the world of this last act of defiance. Strzelecki’s pen, ink and black-and-white pencil illustrations graphically depict pain and despair as they accompany text printed on stark white or black backgrounds. With the events of the Holocaust growing ever more remote with the passage of time, Sax gives modern readers an unrelenting, heart-rending insight into the hell that the Nazis created. Gripping, powerful, shattering. (Historical fiction. 14 & up)
EAT LIKE A BEAR
Sayre, April Pulley Illus. by Jenkins, Steve Henry Holt (32 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 22, 2013 978-0-8050-9039-0
With a subject not quite as underappreciated as their previous book’s (Vulture View, 2007) but giving it just as stunning treatment, Sayre and Jenkins follow a bear’s eating habits throughout the year. A grizzled, lumbering bear wakes up in the springtime. What is there to eat? The bear sniffs the air. Crunches a few dandelions. Pause. “With long, strong claws, / dig in. Dig down. / Paw and claw and pull. / Find … // … ants! / Chew them, / sour and squirming. / Lick your lips.” As the months go by, bears eat many different types of food. Often thought to be powerful, top-of-the-food-chain predators, bears find that delicate berries and pine cones are tasty treats too. Sayre does not shy away from the carnivorous meals, but gruesome details happen off the page. Jenkins creates incredible scenery full of majestic |
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mountains, crisp streams and a sublimely textured bear. (The bear’s fuzzy coat is created with handmade fig-bark paper—a fruit, which given the opportunity, a bear would likely love to munch!) Key food-finding action words such as drink, search, forage, hunt, gather and eat lead up to perhaps the most important one of all: prepare. The bear, full from months of feasting, settles down into a warm, cozy den. Inquisitive, informed and lyrical; an intriguing extension to hibernation classics. (appended facts, author’s note) (Informational picture book. 4-8)
THE WINTER OF THE ROBOTS
Scaletta, Kurtis Knopf (272 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | $19.99 PLB | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-307-93186-3 978-0-307-97562-1 e-book 978-0-375-97110-5 PLB What if the robot apocalypse was beginning— subtly—in your own neighborhood? Blue flashes and sinister clanking noises emanating from the junk abandoned near the otter habitat that Jim and his science-fair partner Rocky (short for Rochelle) plan to observe via remote camera turn out to be the remains of a defense research project. The fierce, Taserarmed, self-reprogramming dinobots don’t make more than a fleeting appearance until the penultimate, climactic chapter, but since Jim and his friends take up robot construction and programming when the ottercams are stolen, it becomes clear early on that their skills will be put to use in ways larger than a local robot-fighting competition. The burnt-out buildings of the research company highlight the North Minneapolis setting of an urban neighborhood struggling with contemporary economic hardship. Scaletta provides his seventh-grade protagonists with complex back stories and gives them a fair amount of freedom to roam, sophisticated understanding of the adult world and plenty of smarts for learning how to code instructions for semi-autonomous robots. These young teens’ own autonomy is a given—parents and adults close to them remain clueless. By the time Jim and his friends confront the robot menace with their own impressively armored fighting creation, they have mastered a fair amount of coding and hardware technology in robotics. A deft mix of middle school drama and edgy techno thrills. (Science fiction. 11-14)
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“An enthusiastically taboo, devil-may- care outing for combat fans—and a great writing inspiration to use on old books headed for the bin.” from battle bunny
THE SNOWY DAY
Scheffler, Axel Illus. by Scheffler, Axel Nosy Crow/Candlewick (32 pp.) $12.99 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-7636-6607-1 Series: Pip and Posy What could go wrong with a day in the snow? Pip, a male rabbit, and Posy, a female mouse, continue their generally joyful trek through toddlerhood in this simple story of friendship, difference and compromise. Lively and lovable illustrations rendered in ink, watercolor and colored pencil portray the charming pair as they dress for a winter adventure and traverse a nearby park, frolicking, sledding and making snow angels all the way. It’s a fine day out in the snow—until they decide to make a snow creature. Posy wants to create a mouse, while Pip has decided on a rabbit. Anger is felt, snow is thrown, both get cold and soaked, and with no grown-ups around, it’s up to the two to sort out their problems for themselves. Short, clear sentences infused with a childlike sensibility highlight their decisions and show the merits of generosity as well as how a compromise can be reached. While the text can at times be a trifle instructive, it is still inviting and accessible, and the illustrations provide a nice balance. The appealing faces of Pip and Posy, full of genuine emotion, are sure to welcome readers to this world, which is forgiving, warm and cozy despite the snow. Just the ticket for children who are developing social skills and learning what it is to be a friend. (Picture book. 2-5)
BATTLE BUNNY
Scieszka, Jon; Barnett, Mac Illus. by Myers, Matthew Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) $14.99 | $12.99 e-book | Oct. 22, 2013 978-1-4424-4673-1 978-1-4424-4674-8 e-book What if a creative, military-obsessed kid took a pencil and went to town on a boring old book? This bold premise will cause some eye-popping as the Don’t Write In Books rule is gleefully violated. Scieszka and Barnett’s story is laid over a particularly saccharine and tepid picture book, a gift from Gran Gran to Alexander for his birthday. “Everybody needs a Special Thinking Place,” the text coos. “Where is your Special Thinking Place?” In the foundation story, Birthday Bunny anticipates birthday gifts, finds that his friends have forgotten, pouts, gets a surprise party and learns a lesson. Myers’ underlying oil paintings—some covering a whole page, others oval-shaped on faded cream paper that’s yellowing at the edges—feel decidedly old-fashioned. But neither prose nor pictures are safe from the pencil bandit. Copious words and fragments of words are struck through (though all remain clearly legible), with new words and letters hand-printed above. Careful, childlike pencil drawings (realistically smudged) enhance 116
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and completely reflavor the original paintings. Birthday Bunny is given an eye patch and a WWF belt, becoming Battle Bunny: “I am going to whomp on you, bird brain, and pluck you like a sick chicken!” Bunny’s weapons include megatron bombs and robot killer bees. “He went back to digging” becomes “He went down for the count.” An enthusiastically taboo, devil-may-care outing for combat fans—and a great writing inspiration to use on old books headed for the bin. (Picture book. 5-10)
BYRD & IGLOO A Polar Adventure
Seiple, Samantha Scholastic (192 pp.) $16.99 | $16.99 e-book | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-545-56276-8 978-0-545-56277-5 e-book
Framing an explorer’s expeditions from the viewpoint of a sidekick pet can engage readers, so long as the animal is not overly humanized. In this case, the descriptions of Adm. Richard Byrd’s historymaking flights over the South Pole and the North Pole are eyeopening, and they are told in tandem with the story of Igloo, the fox terrier Byrd was given in 1926. The accounts of the yearslong preparations and the details of the extreme weather conditions that derailed Byrd’s takeoffs more than once are intense. “It was so cold the eggs were frozen in their shells, and [the cook] had to boil them first before he could fry them.” There’s even a race within a race as Byrd and Roald Amundsen vie to be the first to the North Pole. Unfortunately, the emotions attributed to Igloo occasionally cross over the thin line between fact and imagination: “Igloo watched in horror as the plane crashed into a snowdrift.” What make the account work at all are the many quotations from Byrd and others that are folded into the account. Far too many of these are unattributed within the text, giving them the feel of invented dialogue; despite an impressive source list, nothing in the backmatter verifies them. Black-andwhite photos add visual interest, but the scrapbook design that frames them is rather precious. Man and dog versus nature is a good read, but this one needs better navigation. (index, not seen) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
JACOB’S EYE PATCH
Shaw, Beth Kobliner; Shaw, Jacob Illus. by Feiffer, Jules Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) $17.00 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-1-4767-3732-4
Mother and son co-authors tell the story of young Jacob and his time wearing an eye patch to correct two common eye conditions. Whenever Jacob goes out, people ask him about his eye patch. Curious onlookers feel free to ask the personal question: kirkus.com
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“Why does your boy wear an eye patch?” (“His eyes need correction,” would be the obvious answer to the nosy.) Normally Jacob doesn’t mind answering questions, but today he is anxious to get to the science store, where he hopes to buy a new lightup globe. Everywhere he turns, people ask about his patch, and his mother is happy to answer, even though Jacob just wants to keep going. Jacob’s thought bubble, “Seriously?” lets readers know his frustration. And that’s it. Built on such a weak premise, this story provides no surprises. Feiffer’s art seems to have been rushed. From page to page, older brother Adam’s face changes, and after a two-block walk from the ice cream store, the ice cream has neither melted nor been licked. At the page turn, the cone simply disappears. The weak narrative is also confusing (at one point, five hours a day is patch time and in another, three hours). Feiffer’s talents are wasted here. Readers wishing for an emotionally satisfying treatment of the same subject should turn to George Ella Lyon and Lynne Avril’s award-winning The Pirate of Kindergarten (2010). Didactic, confusing and not particularly informative. Seriously? (authors’ notes) (Picture book. 3-8)
THROUGH THE ZOMBIE GLASS
Showalter, Gena Harlequin Teen (480 pp.) $18.99 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-373-21077-0 Series: White Rabbit Chronicles, 2
In this follow-up to Alice in Zombieland (2012), Ali Bell and her friends, fellow hunters of invisible spirit zombies, confront internal threats and endless relationship drama. Just when Ali’s getting into a comfortable rhythm with her new zombie-fighting life, everything falls apart. Romantically, things are great with her boyfriend, Cole, right up until two out-of-state zombie slayers arrive. One is Cole’s gorgeous ex, and the other, a handsome “he-slut,” shares visions with Ali when he meets her eyes—just like the visions that kick-started Ali and Cole’s romance. Before Ali can figure things out, Cole has already dumped her, leading to pages of misery for everyone involved. Meanwhile, Ali is bitten during a zombie hunt and has a strange reaction, even after being given the antidote. In the mirror, she sees a sinister zombie version of herself that wants to take over, forcing Ali to struggle against her zombie counterpart’s hungers. Additional storylines feature relationship struggles for Ali’s best friends and a spy among the slayers feeding information back to the evil corporation that wishes to use zombies. The slow-paced story is plagued by tension-stealing tropes—the paranormal-romance-sequel formula in which the hero abruptly dumps the heroine and the zombie-movie cliché in which a victim conceals an infection. However, Ali’s female friendships are endearing. The unbalanced plot stretches too far, over too long. (Horror/paranormal romance. 14-17)
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ANN AND NAN ARE ANAGRAMS A Mixed-Up Word Dilemma Shulman, Mark Illus. by McCauley, Adam Chronicle (36 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-4521-0914-5
It is bad enough that Robert’s Mom and Dad Are Palindromes (2006), but when he learns that his sisters are anagrams, it nearly sends him over the edge. To Shulman’s credit, while presenting the “more than 101” (according to the jacket) different word, phrase or sentence pairs that have the same letters, he manages to create a plot with a problem for his hero to resolve: “Grandma Reagan is in Anagram Danger.” The strategic use of distinct typographies for the wordplay and the mirroring of color for specific letters in selected pairs will help readers see just how true this and other statements are—literally. They will have a field day tracking the word puzzles, from the cross-stitched Neil Armstrong quote (and its re-phrased version) on the endpapers to the “Despaired dried peas” and “Old Nose noodles” in Grandma’s pantry. McCauley’s mixed-media compositions, rendered in primary colors, take inspiration from comic books, The Twilight Zone and pop art for a mid-20th-century aesthetic. The far-fetched and funny conclusion featuring a giant “tuna” is an appropriate match for the opening, in which grandma sends Robert to find his “aunt,” but only the savviest of vocabulary aficionados will have seen it coming. Repeated readings reveal more playfulness, starting with the dedication. Although the complex form is challenging to imitate, this tale will surely spark fun wordplay; successful practitioners will fawn proudly. (Picture book. 6-10)
LONE WOLVES
Smelcer, John Leapfrog (190 pp.) $16.00 | $9.99 paper | Sep. 10, 2013 978-1-935248-40-8 978-1-935248-55-2 paper Her grandfather’s wisdom and support guide an Alaska Native girl who dreams of racing sled dogs. Other village teens drink and do drugs; for Denny, 16, mushing supplies all the exhilaration she needs. She loves her home and family (her mother and grandparents); still it’s not an easy life. No indoor plumbing means melting ice for bathwater, visiting the outhouse when it’s 60 below outside. The family sweathouse (sauna) and this world’s stark beauty offer compensation. Like Anne Frank, whose diary she reads for school, Denny confides her frustrations and sorrows to hers. Her mother’s hostile to Denny’s mushing; her father won’t acknowledge her. Only her grandfather, heartened by her interest in their history, offers |
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encouragement and solace. Readers root for Denny as she places third in a local competition, then dreams bigger: entering the 1,100-mile Great Race. Denny, who’s in need of a lead dog, is intrigued by the wolf she encounters. Could he be trained? Stereotypes are thankfully few: Denny’s shy, not impassive or stoic. Village teens, like their urban counterparts, are savvy tech users. The adult-focused language glossary, clumsy transitions, and puzzling inconsistencies in voice and tone occasionally jar but are ultimately eclipsed by narrative strengths. Powerful, eloquent and fascinating, showcasing a vanishing way of life in rich detail. (glossaries of Indian words, mushing terms) (Fiction. 12-16)
CHUPACABRA
Smith, Roland Scholastic (304 pp.) $16.99 | $16.99 e-book | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-545-17817-4 978-0-545-53908-1 e-book Series: Cryptid Hunters, 3 Marty and Grace return for their third rare-animal adventure (Tentacles, 2009, etc.). Thirteen-year-old cousins Grace and Marty were separated at the end of their last adventure. Grace agreed to leave with her grandfather, Dr. Noah Blackwood, even though she knows he is not the wildlife conservationist he pretends to be on his television show. Marty stayed with Grace’s father (and his uncle), Dr. Travis Wolfe, world-renowned cryptozoologist. When Wolfe leaves them alone, Marty and his best friend, Luther, decide to try to find Grace at Dr. Blackwood’s Seattle Ark, one of his chain of zoos. With the help of a new friend, Luther and Marty sneak into the Ark and begin searching for Grace. Blackwood discovers that the boys are on the property, but he can’t pinpoint them; likewise, the boys find the secret research lab beneath the Ark, but they can’t get to it. Everything is complicated by Blackwood’s genetically created chupacabra, a legendary cryptid and voracious monster loose in the lab’s ductwork. Smith’s third in a series of four adventures stands alone well enough, but it works best as part of the series (a helpful recap of the series thus far orients readers to its labyrinthine twists). The adventure sequences are entertaining, but some of the humor may strike kids as rather lame; the ever-hungry Luther’s antics especially ring false. A decent-enough adventure, but not one for the ages. (Adventure. 9-12)
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THE FORT ON FOURTH STREET A Story about the Six Simple Machines Spangler, Lois Illus. by Wald, Christina Sylvan Dell (32 pp.) $17.95 | $9.95 paper | $9.95 e-book Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-60718-620-5 978-1-60718-632-8 paper 978-1-60718-644-1 e-book
An introduction to simple machines that goes wrong at “Fort” and just gets worse. Wedging the informational content into uncommonly awful verse (“These are the wheels and axles / that move my wagon without hassles”), a young narrator describes each step in the construction of said “fort” (actually, in the bland illustrations, an elaborately designed playhouse). In doing so, the book demonstrates each of six simple machines, mostly tools, in action, though not always in the right order or with much sense to their use. Grandpa, who furnishes most of the labor, really should be levering up rocks to clear the site before, not after, the project’s sawn boards have been assembled, for instance. Moreover, the tools on display include a never-seen-in-use hammer and spirit level, plus a pulley that would be useful for a treehouse but is nonsensical here: “This is the pulley that brings up the treats, / so yummy and sweet that we love to eat.” Looking much larger inside than out in final views, the finished building is furnished as a science lab and in a shocking (shocking) denouement, the owner turns out to be a girl. A visual quiz, explanatory notes and other pedagogical backmatter fill the closing pages. Readers will be “plane” inclined to ditch this screw-up. (Informational picture book. 7-9)
THE PRINCESS OF CORTOVA
Stanley, Diane Harper/HarperCollins (320 pp.) $16.99 | $9.99 e-book | $17.89 PLB Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-06-204730-4 978-0-06-204733-5 e-book 978-0-06-204731-1 PLB
Molly, Alaric and Tobias return to share a final adventure that will intrigue, sadden and ultimately satisfy admirers of their earlier escapades (The Cup and the Crown, 2012, etc.). Having gained his throne (though it’s still a bit precarious) and possession of a magical loving cup, Alaric has decided to strengthen his position by courting his brother’s widow to create an alliance between the countries of Westria and Cortova. He’s unhappy, to say the least, when he discovers that his uncle (and rival for the crown) seeks to marry his son to the princess. The return of this former adversary as well as the introduction of two clever and unpredictable characters whose intentions kirkus.com
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“This may be Stewart’s first novel, but she exhibits a practiced skill, keeping events ambiguous enough to have readers guessing throughout.” from the in-between
and alliances are unclear keeps the suspense high despite the length of the text and the fact that much of the action is relatively subdued. Flowing naturally from prior events, Stanley’s complex plot allows her main characters to display their hardwon wisdom and maturity. Magical elements aren’t woven in quite as seamlessly as before and are likely to seem as confusing to readers as they do to Molly. By contrast, using the game of chess as a framework succeeds splendidly, echoing the complex political maneuvering that is at the heart of the tale. Like the earlier volumes, this is an excellent blend of familiar fantasy tropes and original ideas and elements that will please readers while giving them plenty to ponder. (Fantasy. 10-14)
MICKEY PRICE Journey to Oblivion
Stanley, John P. Tanglewood Press (308 pp.) $15.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-933718-88-0
In a tale that requires not just the suspension of disbelief, but expulsion of prejudice, NASA sends a group of 1970s fifth-graders to the moon on a secret mission. Recruited from a Florida orphanage by men in black, Mickey joins a company of peers at the Kennedy Space Center and, after two days of “training,” finds himself headed for Oblivion Base. Why? It seems that the reactor powering the supersecret site has gone haywire, and adult astronauts can’t fix it because a new substance being mined there, pleurinium, somehow makes anyone older than 13 seriously sick. Stanley assembles a crew of standard but artfully tweaked character types (both the hotshot lunar-rover driver and the Apple One–toting computer geek are girls, for instance), and he tucks in memorable set pieces, from some queasily explicit zero-gravity vomiting to an exhilarating climactic race across the rugged lunar surface. Along with the uncommonly strained premise, though, this flashback tale is saddled with pace-killing interludes in which the adult Mickey tries to convince his own skeptical children that the flight actually happened. And despite an extended buildup, he inexplicably fails at the end to produce a certain lunar memento he brought back that would have established his veracity. An adventure punctuated with moments of hilarity and suspense but overall as thin as the interplanetary vacuum. (Science fiction. 10-12)
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THE IN-BETWEEN
Stewart, Barbara St. Martin’s Griffin (256 pp.) $9.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2013 978-1-250-03016-0 This debut novel delves deeply into a possibly psychotic character or, perhaps, one who may be experiencing paranormal events. Fourteen-year-old Ellie nearly died in a car crash that killed her mother, or perhaps it was her father who died. A lonely girl who believes her best friend betrayed her, Ellie moves with her family to a tiny town where Ellie meets the beautiful and fascinating Madeline Torus, apparently Ellie’s alter ego. Madeline simply appears in Ellie’s room, where the two become fast but secret friends. When Ellie starts high school in her new town, Madeline remains in the background, although Ellie claims that it’s Madeline who’s helping around the house. The girl has a history of psychological problems, even including a suicide attempt. She remains convinced Madeline is real although no one else can see the girl—or can they? As Ellie begins to settle in, will Madeline help or hinder her? Madeline has a similar suicidal history…. This may be Stewart’s first novel, but she exhibits a practiced skill, keeping events ambiguous enough to have readers guessing throughout. Written in journal form, the scenes change as Ellie enters new periods in her life and begins new journals. Readers, then, encounter only the unreliable narrator, and it is they who will decide if events have been real or imagined. A most intriguing book and debut. (Suspense. 12 & up)
PENELOPE CRUMB FINDS HER LUCK
Stout, Shawn K. Illus. by Docampo, Valeria Philomel (224 pp.) $14.99 | Oct. 17, 2013 978-0-399-16254-1 Series: Penelope Crumb, 3
Penelope returns in her third adventure, in which she struggles with leading a community mural-painting project, helping plan the secret escape of an elderly yet feisty fortuneteller and avoiding the Bad Luck as much as possible. As in the previous books, Penelope is still coping with the loss of her Graveyard Dead dad as well as the fact that her former best friend, Patsy Cline, has a new BFF in Vera Bogg. All she wants is to be someone’s Favorite and to benefit from some Good Luck, but she knows that the Bad Luck is perpetually waiting (like “surprise test[s] on decimal points”). Perhaps it’s a sign her luck is changing for the better when she is voted to lead the Mother Goose mural painting at the Portwaller’s Blessed Home for the Aging, but she soon discovers being the boss isn’t so easy. Stout populates her story with appealing characters who |
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“A moving story about hurt children, brave teachers and the poetry within.” from a waste of good paper
shine in both snappy dialogue and Penelope’s wry yet winsome first-person narration. A lost lucky charm, a reception revealing a most unusual interpretation of Mother Goose and a foiled getaway all lead to the realization that what matters most is having people around who value you for who you are and that “things don’t always stay the same”—and that many times, “that could be a good thing.” Although full of candies and melting Popsicles, this sweet tale is refreshing rather than cloying. (Fiction. 7-10)
ALL THAT’S MISSING
Sullivan, Sarah Candlewick (368 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 8, 2013 978-0-7636-6102-1
After his maternal grandfather and guardian has a stroke, Arlo, an 11-yearold orphan, runs away from impending foster care to the home of his prickly paternal grandmother. In this family-lost-and-found story with a mystery element and a touch of the fantastic, Arlo moves in with his grandmother Ida, who, because of a familial estrangement, is a stranger to him. Despite her crusty demeanor, Ida is not unhappy to see him, and slowly, she and Arlo forge a connection. Ida is the best realized character in the book, more empathetic than her practical and resourceful grandchild, and the pain she tries to conceal under her hardened exterior is palpable. Although the main thrust of the tale involves the making of a family, a second story thread concerns Ida’s home. A mysterious man is anxious to buy it—why? How Arlo and his new friend Maywood thwart the buyer, who turns out to be an art thief, rounds out the tale; although this plotline is intriguing and moderately suspenseful, it requires a lengthy setup, and the embedded supernatural element seems tacked on, giving the material a lumpy feel. Still, patient readers will root for this youngster as he works to create a place he can call home. (Fiction. 8-12)
“THE PRESIDENT HAS BEEN SHOT!” The Assassination of John F. Kennedy Swanson, James L. Scholastic (336 pp.) $18.99 | $18.99 e-book | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-545-49007-8 978-0-545-49654-4 e-book
Readers coming cold to this book about the assassination of John F. Kennedy will learn a great deal about the crime but much less about the man who died. Swanson devotes a scant 20 pages to the issues that dominated Kennedy’s presidency before describing “the Kennedy 120
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mystique.” In his telling, John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy come through as very human figures (albeit ones without weaknesses), who cast a bright light on national, global and political landscapes. His telling is almost hagiographic. The assassination and its aftermath occupy the heart of the book, the writing often straining to pull at heartstrings. This is particularly evident when describing Jackie Kennedy’s actions before and during the funeral. Of course she was bereft—but strong enough to plan the entire observance down to the eternal flame on the grave. As for Lee Harvey Oswald, Swanson asks many gratuitous questions about what made him kill before admitting that neither he nor others know. Why ask? In the epilogue, Swanson waxes purple, stating that “Oswald struck from the shadows. Then he robbed us of the rest of the story.” Well, what about Jack Ruby? Although the narrative verges on mythmaking, the many, many photographs and diagrams give the volume some value. Readers wishing for a more restrained, neutral, journalistic treatment should stick with Wilborn Hampton’s Kennedy Assassinated: The World Mourns (1997). (source notes, further reading, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10-14)
A WASTE OF GOOD PAPER
Taylor, Sean Frances Lincoln (293 pp.) $8.99 paper | Sep. 15, 2013 978-1-84780-268-2
Through the journal he keeps, Jason Dooley offers readers a window into his life at Heronford, a British school for kids with behavioral and emotional difficulties. When Jason loses his temper, he kicks teachers, hits fellow students, throws chairs and fire extinguishers, and has to be forcibly restrained by Pete, his teacher. Pete seems to see something in Jason and offers him a notebook that becomes JASON’S JOURNAL. At first, Jason says it’s just a waste of good paper and only writes rude jokes and “a load of crap and squiggles.” Gradually, though, Jason takes to writing, and his journal becomes his voice, offering readers the gift of his life and humanity. No longer is he just that misbehaving boy in a school apart from “normal” kids; he reveals himself and the experiences that helped make him. He describes the home he is sent to when his mother is hooked on heroin and his yearning to regain normalcy instead of getting into fights and watching children’s television “because it was how to forget about the place you were.” If it’s not quite believable that Jason could write such a sustained and focused journal, it is, nevertheless, a powerful testament to the power of words and the influence of strong teachers. A moving story about hurt children, brave teachers and the poetry within. (author’s note) (Fiction. 11-16)
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BANG
Timmers, Leo Illus. by Timmers, Leo Gecko Press (48 pp.) $17.95 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-8775-7918-9 Silly results turn a multivehicle accident into a street party in this onomatopoeic import. Spread-filling iterations of the title or a long screech appearing at every other page turn prompt young audiences to chime in on the noise. It all starts when a deer driving a yellow roadster while reading (a book, not a cellphone) hits a garbage can (“BANG”), then takes a rear-end hit from a hog driving a truck full of chickens (“BANG”) who become festooned with fashion accessories after a collision (“BANG”) with the giraffe on the way home from the store, and so on. Subsequent tailgating motorists shower the growing chaos with tires, fish, veggies, little bunnies, paint and, in a climactic four-page foldout panorama, ice cream. Just to give the escalating catastrophe/frolic a more surreal air, Timmers wildly exaggerates his animal cast’s features and expressions and adds high-sheen highlights to the surfaces of his brightly colored, sharply defined scenes. Carping critics and motor-safety wonks may be displeased to see all of the victims laughing at the way their flying cargoes end up adorning all and sundry. The violence here is strictly cartoonstyle though, with no harm done and ice cream for all at the end. A cautionary tale on the hazards of distracted driving? If anything, just the opposite, but it’s sure a lot of fun. (Picture book. 5-7)
WOLF AND DOG
Vanden Heede, Sylvia Illus. by Tolman, Marije Translated by Nagelkerke, Bill Gecko Press (96 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-877579-47-9 Translated from Dutch, this brief import describes the sometimes-humorous interactions between Dog and his
toothy cousin, Wolf. Presented in nine chapters, with just a few scant stanzas of free verse to a page, the stories evoke simple situations and minor conflicts, including a very scary (to Wolf, anyway) cat who has invaded his woods. Wolf, full of bluster, is never really as frightful as he thinks himself to be; Dog is mostly calm, although when faced with the stress of driving away the cat with a fearsome bark, he can only manage a pathetic “Weef!” This is all the funnier since the illustration shows him giving it his all before an unimpressed feline. In a typical passage, Wolf intends to raid Dog’s refrigerator: “Give me beer and meat and soup and cheese. / And half a dozen loaves of bread. / Heap the plate high. / I need to build up my strength!” In another, which seems to suffer from a translation issue, Wolf rearranges the letters |
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of some of Dog’s words, creating new ones. Unfortunately, the rearranged word that confusingly sets the scene is “pack” to “cap.” Others—“live” to “evil” and “star” to “rats”—work better. More appealing than the text are Tolman’s delicately detailed, yet childlike color-infused, anthropomorphic illustrations that appear on almost every spread. A quirky little tale with appeal to newly minted independent readers with sophisticated senses of humor. (Fiction. 7-10)
GOING, GOING, DRAGON!
Venable, Colleen AF Illus. by Yue, Stephanie Graphic Universe (48 pp.) $6.95 paper | $20.95 e-book | $27.93 PLB Nov. 1, 2013 978-1-4677-0726-8 978-1-4677-0973-6 e-book 978-0-7613-6009-4 PLB Series: Guinea PIG, Pet Shop Private Eye, 6 Is there a dragon on the loose in Mr. Venezi’s and Stuff? Mr. Venezi no longer sells pets; he just sells stuff—like walrus toothbrushes and aardvark neckties; the animals are there but not for sale. Sasspants the guinea pig and Hamisher the hamster have also changed careers, and they are trying to decide what to do now that they are no longer detectives. Mr. Venezi isn’t close to paying his rent, but he’s paying plenty of tongue-tied attention to Charlotte, the owner of the bookstore, which is outgrowing its space. Her daughter, Bree, loves dragons; when Mr. Venezi starts noticing that the merchandise is disappearing and being replaced by piles of money, Bree and the animals decide there’s a dragon living in the shop. What will Sasspants and Hamisher do? Who or what is leaving that money? Will Mr. Venezi ever ask Charlotte out? Venable caps her series of graphic novels for young readers with a light mystery readers won’t have any trouble solving. As usual, the fun is in the interaction of the characters: clueless Mr. Venezi, enthusiastic Hamisher and the smartest pig in the room—Sasspants. Yue’s bright, colorful, expressive panels extend the sly humor (check out the mouse with Princess Leia hair) and boost the giggles. The happy ending is visible from miles off; fans will reach it and go right back to Book 1. (Graphic fiction. 7-11)
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YOUNG FRANK, ARCHITECT
Viva, Frank Illus. by Viva, Frank The Museum of Modern Art (40 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 17, 2013 978-0-87070-893-0 A visit to a museum proves to be transformational for a cross-generational pair of architects. Young Frank is a very young architect who lives with his grandfather, also an architect and also named Frank, in a stylish high-rise apartment in New York. Young Frank loves to make things with household objects: a chair out of toilet-paper rolls, a curvy skyscraper out of a stack of books. Old Frank is skeptical that real architects do this kind of thing. A visit to the Museum of Modern Art with his precocious grandson shows Old Frank that architects do in fact make all kinds of things. The Franks peruse exhibits by two famous architects also named Frank: Gehry and Lloyd Wright. Inspired by the visit, they spend the evening back at the apartment designing a whole city full of imaginative creations from found objects, including a building made entirely from chocolate-chip cookies. Young Frank feels a little older, more “like a REAL architect,” and Old Frank feels “younger—and a little wiser.” The whimsical, cartoonlike illustrations recall Viva’s New Yorker covers, and the pages are furnished in a designer palette of grays, olives and ochres. A gentle plug for the MoMA, this exquisitely designed book would be an enticing prelude to a visit with a young child as well as an invitation to all readers to let their imaginations run wild. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)
WHY DO WE FIGHT? Conflict, War, and Peace
Walker, Niki Owlkids Books (80 pp.) $16.95 | $16.95 e-book | Sep. 15, 2013 978-1-926973-86-9 978-1-77147-048-3 e-book A penetrating look into the roots of global conflict, the many ways it can begin and possible resolutions. Attempting to answer the question “Why do we fight?” is ambitious from the start. Following a natural arc by explaining different types of conflict and then contemplating ways conflict can escalate, Walker touches on topics that could each have their own book. However, she keeps the pace lively and the flow of information smooth. Preteen readers may anticipate finding solutions to conflicts in their everyday life, but instead, the focus is on global issues: fighting over natural resources, culture clashes, religious beliefs, etc. Underlying parallels to personal practice can certainly be drawn, but it is not the ultimate purpose of this work. Designed in a visual, infographic style with bold headlines and a sharp yellow, black and white 122
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color scheme, the sunny layout provides structure and bounce to a dense topic. In a concluding chapter entitled “What do YOU think?” Walker encourages readers to use their newfound knowledge and tolerance to become global activists. A laudable goal, but directions to getting involved with organizations such as UNICEF’s Voices of Youth or Amnesty International would have been appreciated. As an overview of global conflict, it’s concise and accessible—remarkably so—but as a call to individual action, it’s less successful. (sources, index, author’s note) (Nonfiction. 11-14)
SECOND VERSE
Walkup, Jennifer Luminis (270 pp.) $15.95 | $7.95 e-book | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-935462-86-6 978-1-935462-87-3 e-book A supernatural murder mystery with a love interest rooted in the past and present. New to the town of Shady Springs, Lange quickly learns that Halloween is a serious event for this sleepy town, especially when it comes to The Hunt. The Hunt is a simulated murder mystery put on by the seniors at her school, the Preston Academy of Arts, to challenge the underclassmen’s ability to solve the whodunit. Although not keen on the blood and gore of The Hunt, to get in the holiday spirit, Lange offers to host a séance on the Friday the 13th that falls before Halloween. To up the séance’s creep factor, Lange decides to hold the event in the barn of her 200-year-old farmhouse, which has seen its fair share of violence, including the murder of an entire family. During the séance, the teens are visited by a spirit that conveniently binds Lange with Vaughn, her secret crush, in a mission to uncover the past and find a present-day killer. Although at times the text takes dark twists and turns that may feel graphic to susceptible readers, it is tempered by mundane teen concerns and a budding romance. A fast-paced thriller best read with the lights on. (Suspense. 14 & up)
WHATEVER
Walsh, Ann Ronsdale Press (200 pp.) $11.95 paper | $11.95 e-book Sep. 25, 2013 978-1-55380-259-4 978-1-55380-260-0 e-book Darrah, angry that her mother’s preoccupation with her younger brother’s out-of-control epilepsy has caused her to miss an important audition, pulls the fire alarm in the hospital and then must face the consequences. kirkus.com
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“Scenes of soccer, school and storytelling intersperse the exposition of their poverty, relieving it of caricature or condescension.” from my name is blessing
After pulling the alarm, while escaping down the stairs, Darrah accidentally knocks over elderly Mrs. Johnson, who breaks her leg. The consequences in the Canadian justice system are for her to face all the involved parties in a Restorative Justice circle; they then agree on an appropriate punishment. Darrah suffers from a bad attitude at the outset, showing little guilt and, initially, a lack of empathy. She’s sentenced to provide inhome assistance to Mrs. Johnson, a wise, nearly blind lady who’s determined to straighten the teen out, partly with cooking lessons that immediately strike a chord with Darrah. She quickly realizes that few know of Mrs. Johnson’s eyesight problems and worries over whether to protect her secret. Darrah makes a remarkably rapid turnaround in attitude, becoming devoted to her slightly cranky mentor and also getting swept up in a new friendship with the woman’s agreeable grandson. In addition to relying on the all-too-familiar transformation-under-tutelageof-wise-elder trope, Walsh takes on more issues than she can effectively handle and never quite does justice to any of them, in spite of a few likable-enough characters. Darrah goes from too-bad to too-good way too fast to be believable or especially satisfying. (Fiction. 11-14)
MY NAME IS BLESSING
Walters, Eric Illus. by Fernandes, Eugenie Tundra (32 pp.) $15.99 | Sep. 10, 2013 978-1-77049-301-8
This expressive picture book, based on a real family, lovingly tells a hard story with a twist. It’s difficult to broach poverty, disability and custody issues in so few pages without sounding maudlin, but Walters manages by speaking simply. Muthini, whose name means “suffering,” was born with two fingers on his right hand and none on his left. Living with his loving but impoverished grandmother, Grace, and cousins, Muthini endures gossip from kids and adults, their disdain etched with as little as a mouth or eyebrow slant. Grace counters that his large heart, brain and spirit compensate for his hands, but love and spirit can’t feed him. Grace tearfully explains that he’ll be better off at an orphanage. Grace’s frankness communicates the difficulty of this choice without condemning Muthini’s disability; when Muthini’s two fingers catch a tear from Grace’s weary face, the poignant gesture is more than enough to communicate their bond. The lines in the characters’ faces are both pained and painstaking, communicating everything from sadness and scorn to joy and relief. Scenes of soccer, school and storytelling intersperse the exposition of their poverty, relieving it of caricature or condescension. A photographic afterword gives background on the real Muthini and Grace, as well as Walters’ Creation of Hope foundation for Kenyan orphans. With dignity and quiet acceptance, this story illustrates that blessings, like family, can take unexpected forms. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8) |
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NOWHERE TO RUN
Watson, Jude Scholastic (224 pp.) $12.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-545-52137-6 Series: 39 Clues: Unstoppable, 1 The Cahill super serum is in jeopardy… or has it already been compromised? Just when 13-year-old Dan and 16-year-old Amy Cahill began to think life might approach some semblance of normalcy at the Attleboro, Mass., estate they inherited from their grandmother Grace, the former matriarch of the Cahills, they are attacked at the graveside services for their attorney, Mr. McIntyre, and nearly buried alive. Then their faces are splashed over every tabloid and gossip website in town along with outlandish lies that portray them as spoiled rich kids. And then the federal government begins to investigate them for embezzlement. Someone is definitely after them. Following the trail leads to media mogul J. Rutherford Pierce, who came out of nowhere to control newspapers and businesses across the country. Disturbingly strong and invulnerable henchmen keep attacking; could the serum that Dan and Amy fought so hard to protect, the biggest secret of the Cahill clans, have been leaked? What would that mean to the Cahills…and the world? Good thing the branches of the family are still working together. Series veteran Watson kicks off a new quartet of Cahill adventures with a collection of showy, unrealistic action scenes sprinkled with a few puzzles and populated by two often inconsistent main characters. Pedestrian writing won’t matter to series fans. Trading cards and online games will drive this offshoot series to the Gordon Korman–penned conclusion next year. (Multiplatform fiction. 8-12)
ANGEL FEVER
Weatherly, L.A. Candlewick (496 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 26, 2013 978-0-7636-5680-5 Series: Angel Burn, 3 The Angel Burn trilogy ends with plenty of action and heaping portions of romance, complete with jealousy, rivalries and lovers’ quarrels. In a nice twist on the usual angel meme, the angels in this series are the bad guys, feeding on humans’ auras and killing them. The humans respond by worshipping the angels even more, except for Willow and Alex’s band of Angel Killers. In middle volume Angel Fire (2012), the group succeeded in killing much of the angels’ leadership, but devastating worldwide earthquakes resulted, and the angels have pretty much taken over anyway. Half-angel Willow and boyfriend Alex find a secure underground CIA base where they train and plot, only to learn that they are so severely |
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“When posed in groups, they hold hands, wave and put arms round one another’s shoulders—they may be dead, but their affection is palpable.” from mi familia calaca / my skeleton family
outnumbered that victory appears impossible. Meanwhile, halfangel Seb still loves Willow, who still loves Alex. Willow’s trek across the country and the solo adventure of another major character stand out as high points in this entry. Weatherly’s action scenes move briskly, and she draws out the impossibleto-win-but-can-they-do-it-anyway scenario. For romance fans, she provides appropriately spaced hot kissing scenes and hints at behind-the-curtains sex. Then there’s the lonely Seb, who can’t stop loving the unavailable Willow. The main characters are, of course, supermodel-attractive and bound together by raging love forever, except when they’re having a spat. Despite (or perhaps because of) the standard-issue romance tropes, fans of the series will find all they want here. (Paranormal romance. 12 & up)
MI FAMILIA CALACA / MY SKELETON FAMILY A Mexican Folk Art Family in English and Spanish
Weill, Cynthia Illus. by Zárate, Jesús Canseco Cinco Puntos (32 pp.) $14.95 | $14.95 e-book | Sep. 10, 2013 978-1-935955-50-4 978-10935955-51-1 e-book
Though they are skeletons, this family couldn’t be friendlier. Canseco Zárate’s papier-mâché sculptures grin out at readers broadly, as only skeletons can. Weill’s bilingual text gives them voice in both English and Spanish. Big sister Anita, wearing a yellow dress with red flowers and patent-leather Mary Janes, introduces first herself and then her family. Her brother Miguel, she confides, is “a brat” (“Él es muy travieso”); his bony knees stick out under his blue shorts. Juanito, the baby, on the other hand, is “so cute!” (“¡Él es tan lindo!”)—and, indeed he is, with a little kewpie-doll topknot atop his bare skull. There’s her “hermosa mamá”; her “guapo papá”; her grandmother, who “gives…good advice”; her “sweet” grandfather; her “bisabuela,” who “tells wonderful stories”; and her pets: “¡Son mis mejores amigos!” The figures are posed alone or in groupings against varying pastel-colored backgrounds. The details traditional Oaxacan artist Canseco Zárate includes charm as fully as Weill’s crunchy vocabulary. Abuelita sports blue-rimmed cat’s-eye glasses; Anita’s great-grandmother uses a walker; the skeletal cat wears a pink belled collar. When posed in groups, they hold hands, wave and put arms round one another’s shoulders—they may be dead, but their affection is palpable. Just right for the Day of the Dead or for a fresh take on family structures—tan lindo! (Picture book. 4-8)
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WHEN DAD WAS AWAY
Weir, Liz Illus. by Littlewood, Karin Frances Lincoln (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-84507-913-0
“Away” in this case means “in prison.” In an unlikely opening, young Milly first learns from taunting schoolmates that her father’s been jailed. Devastated, she receives information (“He stole something that didn’t belong to him”) from her mum as well as support from her teacher. She visits her dad so that he can read stories to her (he later sends more on a CD), sees him again at Christmas and, eventually, joyfully welcomes him home after his release. The brief episode’s sober tone is reflected in Littlewood’s loose, equally subdued scenes of redheaded figures—eyes generally cast down or to the side—exchanging hugs and sad smiles. Though written by an Irish librarian and storyteller and originally published in Great Britain, this import is generic enough to offer recognizable experiences, as well as a measure of comfort, to children with incarcerated parents on this side of the pond. Appended Web-based resources include both U.K. and U.S. organizations. Bland but therapeutic and, sadly, all too useful. (Picture book. 5-7)
BLACKOUT
Wells, Robison HarperTeen (432 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-06-202612-5 978-0-06-223331-8 e-book Wells’ new novel brings home all the uncertainty and fear that comes from the threat of modern warfare waged with terror. Life in small-town Utah is relatively simple for Aubrey, Nicole and Jack. Fitting in, being popular and getting by are their priorities, until the night of the homecoming dance. They’ve heard about the terrorist attacks being carried out across the country, but nothing has prepared them for the mass roundup of all teens by the U.S. military. A virus has been discovered, leaving some teens with superpowers. Aubrey can become invisible, Jack can read minds, and Nicole can make everyone like her. Some teens were infected on purpose, evaluated for their powers and trained to carry out terrorist attacks designed to bring America to its knees. The government is now fighting back, quarantining all teens to identify those with powers that can be used to establish a new line of defense. But can they really be effective as a defense if they can’t tell who among their friends and co-workers is really working for the other side? Wells clues readers in, though, keeping tension high. While the end brings the immediate episode to a conclusion of sorts, more and bigger conflicts loom. kirkus.com
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In a world where terrorism is an increasing threat, this fast-paced book brings it home. (Thriller. 13 & up)
WHAT NOISE DOES A RABBIT MAKE?
Weston, Carrie Illus. by Byrne, Richard Andersen Press USA (32 pp.) $16.95 | $12.95 e-book | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-4677-2032-8 978-1-4677-2038-0 e-book All the other animals make very distinct sounds. What about rabbits? In the still of the night, the meadow fills with rabbits, who nibble peacefully for hours. As the sun comes up, the farm rings out with noises. The rooster trumpets out a “Cock-a-doodledo,” the horse neighs, the dog woofs, and so on. This causes a young bunny named Raggety-Taggle to wonder just what noise a rabbit makes. He tries thump-thumping with his foot, but this just attracts a predatory cat that nearly catches him. The chase wakes up the dog, who pursues the cat; it also stirs up the cows, the sheep, the horses, the pigs, the rooster and the farmer on his tractor. When the farmer blows his horn, all the animals stop short, tumbling into an awkward pile. All, that is, except Raggety-Taggle, who quietly runs all the way home. Later that night, as the sun goes down, the rabbits again fill the meadow, and Raggety-Taggle wonders “just why anybody would ever want to make a noise at all.” The treatment of animals and their sounds is entirely predictable (if spelled with a British accent—the cat says, “Miaow!”), but it’s leavened with the sly lesson about the value of being quiet. Byrne’s colors are bold, and his animals, drawn with an appealing simplicity, are apt for preschoolers. Though far from startlingly original, it’s good for a giggle or two. (Picture book. 3-5)
ASHER’S FAULT
Wheeler, Elizabeth Bold Strokes Books (264 pp.) $11.95 paper | Sep. 17, 2013 978-1-60282-982-4 Guilt can prove more potent than adolescent hormones when, during your first kiss, the little brother you’re supposed to be watching drowns. Fourteen-year-old Asher Price lives in small-town Florida with all the average American trimmings: divorced parents, one brother and a broken screen door. Asher’s father left the family and is absent save for his mother’s frequently voiced disdain. A reserved young man, Asher finds escape from his fractured family with a vintage Minolta. Then comes handsome, charismatic Garrett, who triggers stirrings Asher wants to explore. When Garrett |
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and Asher sneak off to share a kiss at the public pool, Asher’s brother drowns. A consequent combination of guilt and religious reflex suppresses any urges Asher has to pursue his attraction to Garrett—or any guy—ever again. Neither as optimistic as David Levithan’s Boy Meets Boy (2003) nor as revelatory as emily m. danforth’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2012), this novel finds itself in a realistically awkward place between. It’s a study of how sad and treacherous it can be for an LGBTQ teen—or any teen—to achieve self-acceptance. The rhythm of the text often falls into short phrasing, making it read the way photographers might digest their surroundings: in rapid-fire observations of the tiniest details. A book of subtlety that won’t necessarily change the world but could make a world of difference to LGBTQ teens grappling with identity. (Fiction. 14 & up)
MR. WUFFLES!
Wiesner, David Illus. by Wiesner, David Clarion (32 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-618-75661-2 A house cat pooh-poohs most proffered toys and gets his comeuppance tangling with a tiny alien spacecraft and its penny-sized adventurers. Peppered with speech bubbles in English, alien- or insectspeak, Wiesner’s multipaneled tour de force treats the green ETs to maximum upheaval. Their initial celebration at landing turns to mayhem as their craft is buffeted by Mr. Wuffles. The aliens assess a smoldering engine part and disembark for help. The ensuing comic interplay pits cat against aliens as the tiny ones flee beneath a radiator cover. A ladybug and several ants assist them, and the repair’s successfully made by harvesting cross sections of detritus: pencil eraser, M&M, marble and metal screw. The insects have decorated the wall of their lair with drawings à la Lascaux, the menacing Mr. Wuffles depicted prominently. After sketching a game plan, with insects playing transport and diversionary roles, the crew escapes back to the ship. Against oak floorboards and wallpaper prettily conveyed in ink and watercolor, the now-crazed Mr. Wuffles is riveted to the radiator, perplexing his human. Final panels show the cat gazing out the window, claws fruitlessly deployed; ants draw new scenes on their wall. Wiesner truly “gets” cats: An end-flap photo shows that the artist’s “model” for the beleaguered Mr. Wuffles is indeed a household denizen. Expertly imagined, composed, drawn and colored, this is Wiesner at his best. (Picture book. 4-8)
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COOPER AND PACKRAT Mystery on Pine Lake
Wight, Tamra Illus. by DiRocco, Carl Islandport Press (150 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-934031-86-5
Packed with intrigue and sweet humor, this mystery with a conservation twist will grab young readers. Twelve-year-old Cooper and his little sister, Molly, live at their family’s business, a campground on Pine Lake in Maine. Cooper loves canoeing, camping and, perhaps most of all, the lake’s loons—and he is determined to protect this year’s hatchlings. Living at the campground has a downside, though: It seems that his chores never stop, and his parents are so preoccupied with the business, there’s no family time. He’s also supposed to be nice to all the campers—and that includes the camp bully, Roy. But enter ally Packrat, an upbeat kid and new fast friend. Disaster strikes when Cooper and Packrat discover someone has dammed up the lake, causing the water to rise and destroying the loons’ eggs. Who is the culprit? Roy? Or Mr. Bakeman, a perpetually grumpy neighbor who openly professes his hatred of the loons? Hope is restored when Cooper and Packrat learn the loons may lay a second set of eggs, and they quickly hatch a plan to prevent another disaster. Wight has penned a winning cast of characters, dialogue that sparkles and a plot that flies. DiRocco’s detailed and humorous black-and-white illustrations elevate the book’s charm even higher. A story that should turn even the most finicky readers into happy campers. (Mystery. 8-12)
THE ROMANS Gods, Emperors, and Dormice
Williams, Marcia Illus. by Williams, Marcia Candlewick (40 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 10, 2013 978-0-7636-6581-4
In cartoon panels, the inimitable Williams offers snapshots of ancient Rome from the mythological creation of the universe to the fall of the empire. Lightly salting her account with Latin quips (“In theobroma cacao fidemus!”), Williams pens a semiserious narrative history broken up into bite-sized bits on single-topic spreads (“The Gruesome Gauls”). She illustrates them with small cartoon scenes that depict significant incidents or scenes of daily life. Dropping side comments and the occasional Res vera (“fact”) as he goes, a dozy dormouse aptly named Dormeo Augustus squires young readers along. He leads them past the major gods, the tale of Romulus and Remus, Rome’s first seven kings, the Republic, the Caesars and a select few other emperors. There are side excursions to the Forum and a crowded bath, plus 126
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glimpses of patrician and plebeian life, slavery, gladiators and the renowned Roman army. Though a certain amount of mayhem makes its way into her account, the author tones down the worst excesses (as Dormeo puts it, the Sabine women were “treated most cruelly”—that’s one way to put it) or acknowledges them only in passing. Not a very detailed picture, but broad enough to leave younger readers with a general sense of how grand the grandeur was. (Informational picture book. 8-10)
EMPIRE OF BONES
Wilson, N.D. Random House (448 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | $19.99 PLB | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-375-86441-4 978-0-375-89574-6 e-book 978-0-375-96441-1 PLB Series: Ashtown Burials, 3 From the Everything but the Kitchen Sink genre of fantasy, this third volume of the Ashtown Burials continues its breakneck pace with myriad characters and plotlines. Most of the main characters and situations were introduced in previous titles (The Drowned Vault, 2012, etc.), so a solid working knowledge is required to have any sense of events here. Smith siblings Cyrus (Rus-Rus) and Antigone (Tigs) are here joined by their mother, rescued from a coma, and older brother, Dan, who has the gift of prophecy through his dream connection to the transmortal Pythia. Readers wishing for a listing of characters and their relationships will realize soon enough it doesn’t matter all that much, so long as they generally know who is good and who isn’t. The book is practically one long battle as the Smiths and their companions use fantastical weapons and powers to save Ashtown and thus the world. Despite attempts at gender equity, Cyrus’ story takes precedence. One newcomer, an Irish monk nicknamed Niffy (his real name is Boniface), is developed enough to become interesting, but few are on stage long enough for readers to get attached, and many characters from previous books are killed. Though not particularly gory, this is full of disturbing images, and the humor that marked the first book is almost completely absent. This middle volume of a planned five is for fans only. (Fantasy. 10-14)
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“Zhang’s precise prose skillfully delineates Eva’s unique first-person point of view, and the sisters’ intense relationship continues to be deeply compelling.” from once we were
THE FINAL DESCENT
Yancey, Rick Simon & Schuster (320 pp.) $18.99 | Sep. 10, 2013 978-1-4424-5153-7 Series: Monstrumologist, 4
The Monstrumologist quartet wraps up in a haphazard, patchworked finale. Even though Yancey offers a tonesetting disclaimer via an “editor’s note” at the forefront of the novel that the manuscripts he “translated” into this work were “nearly indecipherable, physically as well as contextually,” fans will still come away ultimately unsatisfied—possibly even feeling cheated—by this disjointed conclusion. In the main narrative (there are at least three), Will Henry, now 16, often drunk and colder than ever, helps Monstrumologist Pellinore Warthrop track down the T. cerrejonensis, a giant, snakelike critter that poisons its human prey then swallows them whole. At the same time, the novel also fast-forwards decades later to 1911, when Will returns to care for an elderly Warthrop and then reverts back to when he was first taken in by his employer. All this makes for a confusing read, and the future plotline serves as a spoiler to the central narrative. Also inserted are broken stanzas of poetry and italicized rants on the meaning of love and life that connect at a much more simplistic level than the earlier books. Still, parts of the novel are quite exciting and will induce just as much stomach-turning if not full-on gagging. At the end, the results feel rushed, as if Yancey were trying to quickly finish the job. Even the relatively anemic page count implies it. A fizzling anticlimax. (Horror. 14 & up)
ONCE WE WERE
Zhang, Kat Harper/HarperCollins (352 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 17, 2013 978-0-06-211490-7 978-0-06-211492-1 e-book Series: Hybrid Chronicles, 2 In the sequel to What’s Left of Me (2012), Eva and Addie must decide whether the government’s latest anti-hybrid initiative justifies an act of terrorism as a response. Since their dramatic escape from the Nornand Clinic, Eva, Addie and their fellow fugitives have hidden with other hybrids—people whose bodies are shared by two souls—and grown frustrated by their rescuers’ cautious ways. Meanwhile, the sisters’ increasing independence is testing their bond: Eva longs to pursue her romance with Ryan, while Addie has her own secrets. Tensions reach a breaking point when the hybrids learn the government is promoting a false surgical cure for their condition. Several call for a violent protest, and they invite Eva and Addie to cast their lots with them. Zhang further develops the dystopia introduced in her first novel with mixed success. |
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Many aspects of its history and politics remain vague, and the new characters are forgettable. Nevertheless, the sisters’ ethical dilemma resonates due to the genuine horror of the false cure. Zhang’s precise prose skillfully delineates Eva’s unique first-person point of view, and the sisters’ intense relationship continues to be deeply compelling. Newbies won’t find this novel stands alone, but fans will have plenty of reasons to be impatient for the third book in the series. (Dystopian adventure. 13 & up)
christmas & hanukkah roundup LITTLE SANTA
Agee, Jon Illus. by Agee, Jon Dial (40 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 17, 2013 978-0-8037-3906-2 Santa’s origins are explained in this novel, quirky exploration of how Santa, the elves and the flying reindeer found
their callings. Little Santa is the youngest child of a hardworking family eking out a hardscrabble existence at the North Pole. The whole family, except for Santa, hates their hard life, and they decide they will relocate to Florida. When a major blizzard buries everyone inside, brave Santa takes his snowshoes and a sack of food and goes up the chimney to seek help. With perfectly reasoned logic, the text unfolds like a folk tale, with Santa finding everything he needs, such as a flying reindeer and talented elves who can make shovels and a sleigh. The elves climb aboard the sleigh to fly back to the North Pole with Santa, where they make themselves useful improving the homestead. Santa’s family moves to Florida the next winter after all, and “you know the rest of the story.” Agee’s polished prose has the ring of authenticity, and it’s a satisfying story that adults won’t mind reading again and again. The minimalist, cartoon-style illustrations use thick outlines and a muted palette except for Santa’s adorable, bright-red suit with pointed cap. His red suit and his smile make little Santa stand out in his glum family, and this amusing story stands out in a similar way as a cheerful, original Christmas tale. (Picture book. 4-7)
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ABC HANUKKAH HUNT
Balsley, Tilda Illus. by Poole, Helen Kar-Ben (32 pp.) $17.95 | $7.95 paper | $6.95 e-book Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-4677-0420-5 978-1-4677-0421-2 paper 978-1-4677-1637-6 e-book This alphabet-centered rhyming scavenger quest asks readers to point out Hanukkah-related symbols and fare, from the obvious to the more nuanced. Beginning with “Antiochus” for the letter A, the king who “would not let the Jews be free,” Balsley briefly identifies the significant symbols of the holiday’s commemoration. These include the “Brave Maccabees,” the small “Cruse of oil” and the temple being “Dedicated” after “freedom won,” making sure to capitalize in a bold type the essential letter for each vital word (initials except for “eXtra”). Each page has a question or directed visual activity to complete using the simply drawn picture clues. “So now we have Eight special days. / Special how? Describe the ways. // Which Menorah shows day three? / Count the Flames and you will see.” Typical examples such as L for latkes and M for menorah share the alphabet with unrelated choices such as R for Reading and Q for Quick to fill out the alphabet structure. Despite this, the basics of remembrance— through celebration, the lighting of candles, gifts and gatherings with potato pancakes and jelly doughnuts—are strongly evident. Though the theme is executed capably, the production is lackluster, created digitally with childlike caricatures inhabiting both biblical and modern-day scenarios. Though the book is unlovely, the interactive format could inspire some worthwhile conversation. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-5)
BIG SNOW
Bean, Jonathan Illus. by Bean, Jonathan Farrar, Straus and Giroux (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-374-30696-0 David tries to help his mother with Christmas housecleaning, but his mind swirls with thoughts of the big snow predicted to fall that afternoon. The flour he measures for cookies reminds him of a snow’s initial, light dusting; soapy bubbles seem like fat flakes piling up; clean bed linens appear as white-blanketed pastures. With each association, the boy abruptly abandons his task to go “check the weather.” Children and caregivers will recognize the familiar scene—how many times have little helpers gone missing? They’ll also hear the echoes of their own conversations, of hopeful questions about a snow’s arrival and accumulation, 128
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breathlessly posed again and again. These repeated behaviors, the cycle of questions and answers and a boy’s coming and going, structure this seasonal story and capture the cozy monotony of a domestic day indoors. Sandy browns and lemony yellows make the warmth of David’s home palpable—even its smells and rhythms, almost. As the snowstorm gets bigger and bigger, readers survey its progress by noting changes on delightfully detailed double-page spreads of David’s backyard and surrounding neighborhood. Dusky pinks, cool whites and blues deliver a muted winter afternoon and evening, effectively contrasting with the glowing luminescence of twinkling windows. Winter’s chills, rituals and resulting familial closeness, rendered in simple, surprisingly poignant drawings, make this a perennial read at first frost. (Picture book. 2-6)
HANUKKAH IN ALASKA
Brown, Barbara Illus. by Schuett, Stacey Henry Holt (32 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 22, 2013 978-0-8050-9748-1
In Alaska, Hanukkah can have its own special festival of lights when conditions are just right to witness the aurora borealis, or northern lights. Living so far north presents challenges as well as the wonder of a wintry natural landscape. In a little girl’s backyard, a moose has taken up residence, nibbling on the branches of the tree where the girl’s swing hangs. While beautiful, the moose can also be dangerous. Luring him away with apples and carrots does not work, but when the girl and her family cautiously come out on the last clear night of Hanukkah to watch the colorful display in the darkened sky, a trail of latkes on the snow tempts the moose away from the swing, to the relief of this clever little girl. This story was first published in the anthology A Hanukkah Treasury, edited by Eric A. Kimmel (1998). In this picture-book rendition, Schuett illuminates the uniquely glacial atmosphere with realistic acrylic and gouache paintings that visually climax with a sash of skylight colors that emulates the melding of Hanukkah candle wax. The symbolism of the holiday is articulated in the little girl’s final reflection: “Hanukkah can be pretty funny in Alaska, and miracles can happen in a lot of different ways.” This refreshingly particular Hanukkah celebration effectively encourages readers to gain a new understanding of “miracle.” (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-7)
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“This innovative version of the old song should appeal readily to today’s children….” from the twelve days of christmas
ARTURO AND THE NAVIDAD BIRDS
Broyles, Anne Illus. by Lewis, K.E. Translated by Soanish, Gust Pelican (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 30, 2013 978-1-4556-1801-9
A boy named Arturo decorates the Christmas tree with his grandmother, Abue Rosa, in this bilingual English/Spanish story. As Arturo unpacks their box of ornaments, Abue Rosa explains the origin of each tiny family heirloom. Some are from her childhood; some were made by family members; others were gifts from friends. When Abue Rosa goes to the kitchen to check on dinner, Arturo unwraps a glass bird. As he runs and plays with the ornament, making the bird seem to fly, the glass bird hits the wall and breaks. Arturo unsuccessfully attempts to repair the bird and then tries to make amends by making a new, pine-cone bird for his grandmother. When he tearfully confesses to the broken ornament, his grandmother kindly comforts him and tells him the new bird ornament will remind her both of her grandson and of her friend who gave her the glass bird. Soft-focus illustrations create a dreamy quality, with scenes depicting the family stories for each ornament in paler hues in the backgrounds. The story is warm and sincere, with genuine emotions conveyed in the little boy’s attempt to make amends and his grandmother’s loving resolution to an unfortunate accident. An understated but solid story portraying strong family ties between grandmother and grandson. (Picture book. 4-8)
ONE SPECIAL CHRISTMAS
Butler, M. Christina Illus. by Macnaughton, Tina Tiger Tales (32 pp.) $14.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-58925-145-8 Series: Little Hedgehog
The latest entry in the Little Hedgehog series finds him delivering Christmas gifts for Santa Claus, who is stuck at home with a cold. When the story opens on Christmas Eve, Little Hedgehog finds a note from Santa and a sled loaded with presents outside his door. Being a helpful hedgehog, Little Hedgehog pops on his favorite red stocking cap and sets off in a hurry to get the job done. The plot unfolds with one mishap after another. First, the sled goes downhill too fast, and the presents fall out into the snow. Hedgehog uses his red hat as a stretchy sack to load up the presents, but a strand of wool catches on a bush, and the hat unravels, spilling out all the presents once again. Badger comes to the rescue, and finally, the two succeed in delivering all the gifts to the forest animals. The illustrations include a few textural highlights of velvety flocking, as in some of the previous |
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Little Hedgehog stories, but this rises beyond the gimmick. It has a stronger plot with more drama than most of his other books, along with the usual cuddly-cute critters. A strong outing for Little Hedgehog; the cozy Christmas setting is a bonus. (Picture book. 3-6)
THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
Cabrera, Jane Illus. by Cabrera, Jane Holiday House (32 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-8234-2870-0
Cabrera continues her series of modern interpretations of classic children’s songs with an updated, chipper version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” featuring groups of cheerful animals and other cute characters getting ready for Christmas. The little girl in this version of the folk song is surprised by her “true love” (or, more likely, her best pal), who gives her a flock of tiny birds partying in the pear tree. That gift is followed by two drumming dogs, three cute cats and four magic mice. A story unfolds in Cabrera’s bold, naïvely styled acrylic paintings, with the little girl and boy and all the animals gathering around an outdoor Christmas tree under five shining stars. As the song continues, other animals join the outdoor winter fun, along with elves a-baking indoors and snowmen outside singing. Following 11 dancing reindeer and 12 skating penguins, Santa arrives in his sleigh to take the little girl and boy back home. This innovative version of the old song should appeal readily to today’s children since the animals and their actions are all recognizable. The new words are quite easy to sing, and the musical notation is included in the final pages. There are many picture-book versions of the old song in print, but this bright, sunny variation is good fun for young children, particularly as a sing-along experience. (Picture book. 3-8)
IS IT CHRISTMAS YET?
Chapman, Jane Illus. by Chapman, Jane Tiger Tales (32 pp.) $14.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-58925-149-6
A little bear named Teddy gets ready for Christmas with his father, Big Bear, in this decidedly cheerful British import. Teddy is anxiously awaiting the arrival of Christmas, asking his father endless questions in the manner of little ones everywhere. Father and son work together to wrap presents, bake a cake and search for a Christmas tree. The tree that Teddy chooses is too large to fit through the doors of their house, and when they bring it through the window, the top of the tree |
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“The superb photographs are, of course, digitally composed, but with such skill that little Anja really seems to be riding on the back of a polar bear…or flying through the sky in Santa’s sleigh.” from the christmas wish
snaps off. Teddy dissolves into tears at the accident, but father and son work together to repair the damage and decorate the tree for Christmas Eve. A joyful concluding spread shows the bear pair on Christmas morning, sprawled under their tree, eating cake and candy and enjoying their unwrapped gifts. The text is aggressively jolly, with sound effects and key words and phrases set in display type and lots of exclamation marks. But Chapman’s large-format illustrations are appealing, with plenty of humor and motion, and her bears are amusing—especially Teddy, who really does look like a teddy bear come to life. A story with a youngster getting ready for Christmas with just his dad should be a welcome choice for single fathers to share with their children. (Picture book. 3-6)
DECK THE WALLS A Wacky Christmas Carol Dealey, Erin Illus. by Ward, Nick Sleeping Bear Press (32 pp.) $14.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-58536-857-0
This hilarious parody of the familiar Yuletide carol starts with mashed potatoes on the walls and ends with cousins sliding downhill in the snow and the whole family singing carols together. The traditional Christmas song of “Deck the Halls” has a buoyant rhythm but relatively sedate words and images, such as boughs of holly. This version features a group of five cousins who like to mix things up and enjoy their food in some nontraditional ways. As the song begins, the cousins are mashing potatoes, flipping blobs onto the walls. The kids make a snowman out of tomatoes and more mashed potatoes and try olives on their fingers and celery stalks behind their ears. As the family dinner disintegrates, the cousins play olive hockey with celerystalk sticks; major splashes of gravy result before sensible aunts and uncles intervene. Each line of text is interspersed with the traditional refrain of “Fa la la la la, la la la la” in large type, and the new song lyrics can be sung to the old tune, following along in suitably merry measure. Amusing illustrations and a large format make this a fine choice for singing along with a group, and the traditional words and music are also included. “ ’Tis the season to be jolly,” after all, and this rollicking parody neatly fits the bill. (Picture book. 4-8)
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THE CHRISTMAS WISH
Evert, Lori Illus. by Breiehagen, Per Random House (48 pp.) $17.99 | $20.99 PLB | Sep. 10, 2013 978-0-449-81681-3 978-0-375-97173-0 PLB Make a wish—for a truly magical Christmas story with supersized photographs of a darling little girl napping with a polar bear, meeting a reindeer and flying across the snowy sky in Santa’s sleigh. The little girl, Anja, lives somewhere “so far north that the mothers never pack away the wool hats or mittens.” That snowy land is presumably Norway, where the book’s photographer and author live with their real-life daughter, Anja, the charming model dressed in traditional Scandinavian clothing for the striking photographs that illustrate the story. The fictional Anja dreams of becoming one of Santa’s elves, and one snowy day in December, she sets off on her skis to find Santa Claus. She is helped by talking animals, including a reindeer who leads her to Santa in his sleigh. Santa allows Anja to drive the sleigh and delivers her back to her snow-covered home with a gift of a magical bell. The superb photographs are, of course, digitally composed, but with such skill that little Anja really seems to be riding on the back of a polar bear, skiing down a mountainside or flying through the sky in Santa’s sleigh. The photographs use lovely backgrounds of snowy trees, sparkling icicles and the northern lights to create an enchanted atmosphere echoed by the text, which unfolds in fairy-tale cadences. A captivating Christmas story with a magic all its own. (Picture book. 3-8)
MIA’S NUTCRACKER BALLET
Farley, Robin Illus. by Ivanov, Olga; Ivanov, Aleksey Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.) $9.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-06-223830-6
A gray kitten named Mia poses in her glittering pink tutu on the cover of this somewhat confusing retelling of The Nutcracker ballet. As the story opens, Mia and her family are having Christmas dinner with her visiting grandparents, with Mia dressed in her pink tutu. The grandfather cat presents Mia with a toy nutcracker and begins to tell her the story of the famous ballet. As the grandfather begins the story, the narrative shifts to a performance of The Nutcracker, with Mia now playing the part of Clara, a flamingo, her godfather. All the roles in The Nutcracker are played by different animals, and it is a little puzzling visually to see a giraffe and a pig peeking out from inside the mouse costumes. The ballet unfolds in traditional fashion, with Mia/ Clara dancing with her feline prince and Mia’s sister dancing the part of the Sugarplum Fairy. The ballet sequence ends when kirkus.com
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Mia returns to her own bed with her new nutcracker toy keeping watch from her windowsill. The illustrations are greetingcard pretty, with lots of pink and purple and swirling snowflakes. The all-animal cast of characters diminishes the effectiveness of this interpretation as an introduction to the story for younger children. There are many appealing retellings of the ballet in print; The Nutcracker by Susan Jeffers (2007) remains the gold standard. (Picture book. 3-6)
BORIS AND STELLA AND THE PERFECT GIFT
Goldman, Dara Illus. by Goldman, Dara Sleeping Bear Press (32 pp.) $15.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-1-58536-859-4
A pair of big-city bears celebrates Hanukkah and Christmas Eve in their shared apartment in this sweet, age-appropriate story that borrows the structure of O. Henry’s classic Christmas story, “The Gift of the Magi.” Boris is a musician who grew up in Russia; he celebrates Hanukkah. Stella is a baker whose family came from Italy; she celebrates Christmas. Each wants to buy a special present for the other for the holiday, but both bears have just a few coins in their individual banks. Stella sells her small but beloved Christmas tree, growing outside in a pot on their balcony, and uses the proceeds to buy a new dreidel from Israel for Boris. At the same time, Boris sells his dreidel collection to buy a sparkling glass star for the top of Stella’s tree. Inviting illustrations are filled with the details of the bears’ cozy apartment and their joint celebration of the eighth night of Hanukkah and Christmas Eve, complete with potato latkes and Italian panettone cake. A neat, touching conclusion shows the bears celebrating and making plans for starting a new collection of dreidels, as well as growing a new Christmas tree with seeds from a pine cone from the original tree. An inclusive, accessible interpretation of O. Henry’s beloved story and a “perfect gift” for families who celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah. (Picture book. 4-8)
MY OWN LITTLE CHRISTMAS STORY
Goodings, Christina Illus. by Gulliver, Amanda Lion/Trafalgar (32 pp.) $7.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-7459-6295-5
steps, from the angel visiting Mary and Joseph through their journey to Bethlehem, followed by the birth of Jesus and the visits from the shepherds and the Magi. The conclusion offers a final, longer page of text that alludes to the family’s departure for unspecified reasons, “so we can keep Jesus safe.” This graceful retelling will serve well as a first storybook about the Nativity, as it goes slightly beyond the basic story of the birth in the stable and gives just enough age-appropriate information for the intended audience. Pleasant, cheery illustrations in a naïve style use characters with simple, almost childlike faces and present a calming, optimistic atmosphere overall. The text is set in a larger font, also making this a suitable choice for beginning readers. A simple, satisfying presentation of the most important events in the Nativity story. (Picture book/religion. 3- 7)
PEEK AND PLAY CHRISTMAS STORY
Goodings, Christina Illus. by Harrison, Siobhan Lion/Trafalgar (10 pp.) $9.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-7459-6261-0
Babies and toddlers can enjoy a simple introduction to the Christmas story with this cleverly constructed board book, which was first published in Great Britain. Unlike most Nativity stories for younger children, the cover of this book shows the three Magi holding their gifts ready for presentation. Each of the following five double-page spreads has two or three brief lines of text on the upper left-hand page that end with a question. The right-hand page is a gatefold flap that can be lifted to reveal the answer to the question posed in the text. For example, the first spread shows Joseph and Mary riding on their donkey. “Is it far?” When the flap is lifted, a town is revealed in the distance, with the words “Nearly at Bethlehem.” Subsequent flaps are lifted to reveal the inside of the stable, the angels announcing the birth to the shepherds, the star followed by the Magi and the entire cast of characters surrounding the baby Jesus in the manger. Unfortunately, the final question regarding the appearance of the Wise Men is awkward to read, if grammatically correct: “For whom are the gifts they bring?” However, cheery illustrations in jewel-bright hues will appeal to young children, and the well-constructed book has sturdy cardboard pages with rounded corners that should stand up to enthusiastic use from toddlers. This introduction should please little ones and their parents alike. (Picture book. 1-4)
This British import is a gentle, simplified retelling of the Nativity story for younger children, from a prolific author of Christian books for children. With just a few lines of text per page, the story is told in terms that youngsters can grasp. It unfolds in simple, logical |
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“Farias, an artist from Argentina, provides appealing illustrations with a muted palette matching Eduardo’s mood.” from when christmas feels like home
WHEN CHRISTMAS FEELS LIKE HOME
she bothers writing to Santa at all since she lives within easy walking distance. The dialogue is stilted at best—“I’ll take you home on my way delivering presents and making wishes come true around the world,” Santa tells Snow Bunny—and his sleigh is drawn by only six reindeer. Though kindness is a quality to be celebrated, this particular vehicle is, alas, forgettable. (Picture book. 3-6)
Griffith, Gretchen Illus. by Farias, Carolina Whitman (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-8075-8872-7
When a little boy named Eduardo moves from a village in an unnamed Latin American country to a town in the United States, he struggles to feel at home in his new surroundings. Eduardo moves to the U.S. in the fall, bringing along his fútbol (soccer ball) and his family’s box of Christmas decorations, with a hand-carved Nativity set that Eduardo cherishes. He loves playing fútbol, but the boys in his new neighborhood play football with a ball of a different shape. He starts school, but he struggles with English lessons, though he does well in math. Eduardo’s parents and aunt and uncle gently encourage him to adjust, and gradually, he makes friends and participates in family celebrations at Halloween and Thanksgiving. On Christmas, Eduardo sets out the family’s Nativity set and announces, “This is home.” Eduardo’s adjustment is perhaps a little too quickly resolved, but the genuine emotions and strong family support are sensitively portrayed. Spanish words and phrases are skillfully woven into the text, with each use defined through the illustrations, context, or by the word or phrase being repeated in English. Farias, an artist from Argentina, provides appealing illustrations with a muted palette matching Eduardo’s mood. A gentle, lyrical story that can be read year-round as a sensitive exploration of the meaning of home. (Picture book. 4-8)
SNOW BUNNY’S CHRISTMAS WISH
Harry, Rebecca Illus. by Harry, Rebecca Orchard/Scholastic (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-545-54103-9
A sweeter-than-sweet tale of a little bunny who gets her Christmas wish. Snow Bunny lives by herself in a tree in the forest. Though she whistles happy tunes, she is very lonely, so she writes a letter to Santa asking for a friend. “This is the only present I truly want.” Missing the mail “by a whisker,” she resolves to set out for the North Pole on foot, equipping herself with a pair of mittens, some frosted cookies and a map. On her way, she meets a bear cub with cold paws, a little fox with no Christmas-tree decorations and some lost fawns. “Kindly” giving away her mittens, cookies and map, she reaches the North Pole without further incident. Santa gives her a ride home, where, to no one’s astonishment but hers, she finds all of her new friends waiting. The soft-edged paintings depict a wintry but nonetheless cozy forest liberally decorated with silver foil accents. Children will wonder why so manifestly nice a bunny is friendless and why 132
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CHRISTMAS EVE WITH MRS. CLAUS
Hueston, M.P. Illus. by Weidner, Teri Sterling (16 pp.) $12.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-4027-7736-3
Someone’s in the kitchen with Mrs. Claus, cooking up Christmas Eve goodies for the reindeer, Santa’s helpers and old St. Nick himself. This lift-the-flap book has sturdy cardboard pages and a square format; it opens to double-page spreads with expansive scenes of Mrs. Claus in the kitchen. In this story, Mr. and Mrs. Claus are polar bears, and Santa’s helpers are animals such as a raccoon, a fox, squirrels and mice. Mrs. Claus, who seems to be an absent-minded sort of bear, keeps forgetting where she has stored the ingredients for the special treats she is baking. Each spread asks readers to find a missing item such as a jar of honey, chocolate chips or a bowl of popcorn. Lots of mice helpers are hiding under the flaps, sometimes aiding in the holiday preparations and sometimes digging into Christmas treats such as candy canes or nuts. The final page finds Mr. and Mrs. Claus wearing red-and-green–striped scarves that the busy animals have been knitting. Pleasant illustrations in watercolor and pencil show smiling bears and cheerful animals earnestly engaged in their Christmas Eve preparations. A sweet Christmas treat for little ones just getting used to a real story as well as their slightly older siblings. (Picture book. 2-5)
THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
Jeffers, Susan Illus. by Jeffers, Susan Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $17.99 | $18.89 PLB | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-06-206615-2 978-0-06-206616-9 PLB Jeffers has created a lovely story incorporating the words of the old folk song with one important change: a clever substitution of Santa as the giver of all the gifts instead of the narrator’s “true love.” A little girl named Emma is the star of this version, and in a dramatic opening sequence, she surreptitiously opens a package on Christmas Eve with her name on it. The gift is a box kirkus.com
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decorated with pictures of Santa’s reindeer, and inside is a musical snow globe with a little partridge and a tiny pear-tree branch. After Emma accidentally breaks the snow globe, she falls asleep, heartbroken—and the reindeer magically fly out of the gift box, pulling Santa’s sleigh behind them. Emma climbs aboard, carrying the box with the snow globe, and she is off with Santa, flying on a magical odyssey to find all the animals and characters mentioned in the song. They end up at the North Pole, where Santa repairs her snow globe while Emma is sleeping. When Emma opens her presents on Christmas morning, her intact snow globe is a satisfying surprise. Jeffers uses her signature style to great effect, with varying perspectives, detailed costumes, and light reflecting off snowy surfaces and sparkling jewels (plus Emma’s pet Westie). A whimsical, magical interpretation of a holiday classic, improved by the additional storyline and the charming narrator. (artist’s note) (Picture book. 3-7)
HANUKKAH BEAR
Kimmel, Eric A. Illus. by Wohnoutka, Mike Holiday House (32 pp.) $16.95 | Jul. 1, 2013 978-0-8234-2855-7
A well-used trope of misidentification allows a village elder to innocently open her home to a possible predator with humorous, even endearing results. Despite her advanced age of 97 and her poor eyesight and hearing, Bubba Brayna “still [makes] the best potato latkes in the village.” When Old Bear is awakened from his winter sleep by the savory aroma of frying latkes and comes to her door, Bubba Brayna invites him in for a fresh batch, mistaking the bear’s rotund girth and bushy face for the heavy-set bearded rabbi’s. Heading straight for the kitchen, the growling bear is encouraged to play dreidel with nuts he chooses to eat, then devours all the latkes with jam like any hungry bear would. Sleepy and satisfied, he leaves with a gift of a red woolen scarf around his neck. After some investigating by the crowd that has gathered at Bubba Brayna’s door, which includes the actual rabbi, a new batch of potatoes are brought from the cellar, and with everyone’s help, Bubba Brayna hosts a happy Hanukkah. This newly illustrated version of The Chanukkah Guest, illustrated by Giora Carmi (1990), is a softer rendition, with acrylic paints and curved lines in tints of yellow, brown and green for warm, earthy atmosphere. The now-classic tale’s humor still fosters eye-rolling laughter, with Wohnoutka’s illustrations as rib-tickling complement. (Picture book. 4-6)
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SADIE’S ALMOST MARVELOUS MENORAH
Korngold, Jamie Illus. by Fortenberry, Julie Kar-Ben (24 pp.) $17.95 | $7.95 paper | $6.95 e-book Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-7613-6493-1 978-0-7613-6495-5 paper 978-1-4677-0051-1 e-book
The fragility of a child’s lovingly crafted clay menorah highlights the symbolism of the candle-lighting ritual. At school, Sadie works hard to carefully sculpt and paint her clay menorah, featuring a raised, centered candle holder for the shamas (lighting candle) and flanked on either side by four lower candle holders. Proud of her blue-and-pink work of art, Sadie is eager to show it to her mother on the last day of the week. In her rush, she trips and drops the menorah, which breaks into “a million, zillion pieces.” Through tears and disappointment, Sadie and her mom realize that while the shattered menorah is not repairable, the shamas remains perfectly intact and becomes “Sadie’s Super Shammash” to light all the menorahs in the home each year. Korngold and Fortenberry’s Sadie, of Sadie’s Sukkah Breakfast (2011), is adaptable. She subtly demonstrates the importance of the ninth candle on a menorah, which is always set apart as the one to kindle the flame on each new candle each night. A combination of gouache and scratch art details the sequence of scenes and emotions, which range from happy anticipation to surprised dismay to satisfaction and pride. A lovely, realistic examination of one specific aspect of the holiday, this will spark discussion as well as inspiration. (Picture book. 3-6)
AN OTIS CHRISTMAS
Long, Loren Illus. by Long, Loren Philomel (40 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 22, 2013 978-0-399-16395-1
As the title indicates, the little tractor Otis celebrates Christmas. Christmas is always exciting, but this one is “even more special,” as a baby foal is due. That snowy Christmas Eve is made more thrilling yet when the farmer gives Otis his very first Christmas present: a new horn. Otis can barely contain himself. But in the middle of the night, he awakes to hear the sounds of consternation in the pregnant mare’s stall: “Something [is] very wrong.” Unfortunately, the snow is falling fast, and the stable hand sent to fetch Doc Baker promptly fishtails into a snowbank. It’s Otis to the rescue again. Off he goes, “putt puff puttedy chuff,” through the woods (where he is briefly lost) to Doc Baker’s, where he uses his new horn to sound the alarm. Doctor and tractor make it back just in time. While Otis is a charming |
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character, and the Christmas theme has great appeal, this is a rather lackluster outing for the sturdy tractor. Long’s heroic art is at its best in scenes with people and animals, his Lawsonesque line investing characters with emotion and movement. The rendition of Otis’ journey is rather less effective; only the most credulous of children will accept the sight of Otis inching his way down a massive, snow-covered tree trunk. The text likewise underwhelms, with its overreliance on exclamation points and treacly delivery. A rare miss for Long and Otis. (Picture book. 3-5)
THE CHRISTMAS CAT
Macdonald, Maryann Illus. by Bates, Amy June Dial (32 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 17, 2013 978-0-8037-3498-2
Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci of the Madonna and baby Jesus holding a cat inspire this tender Nativity story about a kitten that becomes a beloved pet of the Christ child. The story begins with a wailing baby. “Jesus was beautiful, like all babies. And like all babies, he cried.” That thematic thread of a cranky, crying (but cute) Christ child continues, with the only thing that will calm him the purring and attention of a ginger kitten. The cat bonds with the baby in the stable immediately after the child’s birth, soothing the crying baby when parents, doves, a cow and a donkey have all failed. When Joseph, Mary and Jesus flee King Herod’s soldiers, the cat stows away in the donkey’s pack, once again soothing the child and stopping his crying. The final page of the story shows Mary next to Jesus as a boy with his full-grown cat, with one of Leonardo’s similarly structured drawings reproduced on the last page with an author’s note. Evocative illustrations in watercolor, gouache and pencil are filled with golden light, capturing the touching interactions between mother and baby, child and cat. This warm, inviting interpretation offers a new slant on the familiar story, interesting to all but especially irresistible to cat lovers. (Picture book/religion. 4-8)
DEAR SANTASAURUS
McAnulty, Stacy Illus. by Kaminsky, Jef Boyds Mills (32 pp.) $15.95 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-59078-876-9
with family and his best friend, holidays, and escapades at school and summer camp. Ernest tries hard to behave so that he can be on the Nice List, but like a lot of little boys, he finds all sorts of creative ways to entertain himself that lead to trouble. In each letter, Ernest talks about what he wants for Christmas, focusing on the Jurassic Turbo Scooter X9. Every month, Ernest changes his desired scooter color and the kinds of special features, but by December, he has settled on a lava red model with lots of specific add-ons, including a siren. Ernest’s escapades are amusing, but the repetitious requests for different scooter models wear a little thin by December 24. Santasaurus fulfills Ernest’s request along with a pink tricycle for his little sister, Amber, and a purple scooter for best friend Ty. Frenetic, cartoon-style illustrations in jazzy shades add to the humor. Funny but not hilarious—a book that proves the truism, less is more. (Picture book. 4-8)
SANTA CLAUS AND THE THREE BEARS
Modugno, Maria Illus. by Dyer, Jane; Dyer, Brooke Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-06-170023-1
Once upon a time, there was a clever Christmas innovation on the classic tale of Papa, Mama and Baby Bear, with Santa Claus standing in for Goldilocks. The bears in this irresistible tale are polar bears, living in a comfortable home with a stone fireplace and Scandinavian Christmas decorations. On Christmas Eve, the three bears go out for a late-night walk while their pudding cools on the table. Santa Claus arrives to deliver their presents, and he follows the Goldilocks pattern of eating the Christmas pudding, breaking Baby Bear’s chair and falling asleep in Baby Bear’s cozy bed. The text follows the familiar structure of the original story, but when the bears find Santa asleep, he pulls out their gifts instead of running away. In a delightful twist, there’s “a great big present for Baby Bear, a middle-size present for Mama Bear, and a wee little present for Papa Bear.” A final wordless page shows the bears just starting to open their presents on Christmas morning, but young readers must imagine the package contents for themselves. Charming watercolor illustrations by the motherand-daughter team bring the polar bears to life and give Santa Claus an amiable, gentle persona. And Santa promises Baby Bear a new chair for next Christmas. Just right. (Picture book. 3-6)
Ernest B. Spinosaurus is a young dinosaur boy who is trying to stay on Santa’s Nice List. Santasaurus, that is. The text of this comical story consists of 17 letters written by Ernest to Santasaurus, beginning with a thank-you letter for Santa’s recent Christmas gift and ending with Ernest’s thankyou letter the following year. Ernest tells Santasaurus about his daily life, offering humorous descriptions of his interactions 134
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“Every element of the book’s thoughtful design is skillfully chosen, including surprising perspectives, effective use of white space and an elegant type that echoes the muted palette of the illustrations.” from the night before christmas
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
However, the short rhymes are also simple enough for very young children to understand. No new territory here, but a very cute mouse having a very merry Christmas all the same. (Picture book. 2-5)
Moore, Clement C. Illus. by Hobbie, Holly Little, Brown (40 pp.) $18.00 | Oct. 22, 2013 978-0-316-07018-8
FROSTY THE SNOWMAN
Hobbie’s fresh interpretation of the beloved Christmas classic offers a new way to see the arrival of St. Nick, from the perspective of one of the children of the household, rather than just the father. An intriguing cover illustration sets the scene, with the four children of the family snuggled up in a huge bed. The three older children are sound asleep, but look closely at the youngest boy, a towheaded toddler in a footed sleeper-suit. He’s wide awake, and he and the family’s cat head downstairs together. The little boy hides in a striped armchair and secretly watches as Santa arrives for his delivery. The father of the family is also awake and watching, connecting effectively with the narrator’s voice in the poem. There is a hushed, magical feeling in Hobbie’s masterful illustrations, done in watercolor, gouache, and pen and ink. She effectively captures the subdued lighting of the quiet house at night and the dark, mysterious atmosphere of the outdoor scenes with deep-gray skies, snowy vistas and a single fox standing by. Every element of the book’s thoughtful design is skillfully chosen, including surprising perspectives, effective use of white space and an elegant type that echoes the muted palette of the illustrations. This is a quiet Night Before Christmas, one to savor and read over and over, year after year. (artist’s note) (Picture book. 3-7)
CHRISTMAS MOUSE
Mortimer, Anne Illus. by Mortimer, Anne Harper/HarperCollins (24 pp.) $12.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-06-208928-1 A little mouse perched on a pecan tart and staring out at the reader forms the intriguing cover illustration for this rhyming exploration of a mouse-sized Christmas celebration. The protagonist mouse wears a tiny red and green crown as he hangs lights and holly, arranges ornaments on the tree and places presents underneath. He helps himself to treats from the Christmas Eve dessert buffet, sings carols with mouse friends by the fire and finally falls asleep in a Christmas stocking awaiting Santa’s arrival. Santa grants the mouse’s Christmas wish (left out for Santa in a tiny red envelope) with a huge wheel of blue cheese all his own. Mortimer’s detailed, polished watercolors are captivating, with tiny surprises, such as the reflection of Santa in a shiny ornament or a gift tag with cat and mouse paw prints to identify recipient and giver. The brief, rhyming text is a touch singsong-y and perhaps a bit too earnest, with a rather limp conclusion of “MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!” |
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Nelson, Steve; Rollins, Jack Illus. by Zahares, Wade Charlesbridge (28 pp.) $17.95 | $9.99 e-book | Nov. 1, 2013 978-1-62354-012-8 978-1-60734-671-5 e-book “Thumpety thump thump, look at Frosty go!” He’s come back to life again with an edgy, 21st-century vibe in this updated picture-book version of the beloved children’s song that has been popular for over half a century and has become indelibly associated with Christmas. Previous illustrated versions of the song featured an oldfashioned, jolly snowman and sweet, 1950s-era children. With this new interpretation, Zahares creates a striking, moody atmosphere in his arresting pastel illustrations. The views of Frosty dancing around the village feature deep, saturated colors, bold shapes and a pervasive blue haze of shadows against the snow. Zahares has invented a completely different Frosty, with huge red buttons, long, wooden arms and diamond-shaped eyes that seem menacing rather than friendly. Although the snowman is described in the lyrics as “alive as he could be,” this Frosty seems rather like a robot—quite possibly a scary, 10-foot-tall robot that might whack you with his huge broom. Nevertheless, the multiethnic child characters, extra-large trim size and vibrant illustrations in double-page-spread format make this a natural choice for reading or singing with a stouthearted group. A CD of the song, as recorded by Kenny Loggins, is included with the book. Most will find this newfangled Frosty a fine fellow, but a few sensitive readers may find him more of a nightmare than a fairy tale come to life. (performer’s note, artist’s note) (Picture book. 3-8)
ON THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM
Pasquali, Elena Illus. by Vagnozzi, Barbara Trafalgar (10 pp.) $9.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-7459-6241-2
A simple retelling of the Nativity story with tactile elements embedded on each spread. In the five double-page scenes, Mary and Joseph travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, angels visit the shepherds, and the Magi come from afar. The cartoons, which look to be acrylic paintings in rich jewel tones, are cheery, and the prose is straightforward and just enough for the youngest audience. Each page holds one touch-and-feel feature, dubbed a “finger-trail,” which |
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is created by cutting out the top portion of the page to make an indentation and reveal a layer of patterned paper underneath. Through them, readers are encouraged to “feel” the flight path of angels and the foot trails of shepherds and Magi. However, the gimmick is unevenly presented. On the first page, the finger-trail feature is incomplete, since not all of the donkey’s hoof prints marking Mary and Joseph’s journey are cut away, and the finger-trail on the final double-page spread, which is meant to lead little fingers to the gifts of the three Magi, merely traces the outlines of their backs. A pleasant-enough offering that would have been improved by elimination of the gimmick. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)
SANTA’S MIDNIGHT SLEIGHRIDE
Pasquali, Elena Illus. by Vagnozzi, Barbara Trafalgar (10 pp.) $9.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-7459-6242-9
by hijacking Santa’s sleigh and another in which he actually receives some gifts bookend the collection. In between, Papa Smurf uses a book of Nostrasmurfus prophecies to trick an illiterate troll; animate snowpeople inadvertently lead Gargamel to the Smurfs’ village but then save it; Lazy Smurf nods off with a hibernating dormouse, both of whom are rescued from a hunter; and Lumberjack Smurf battles a dragon to save an elf who has been turned into a talking Christmas tree. Even young eyes may strain to make out the small, if bright blue, figures and cramped lines of dialogue in the sequential panels. Furthermore, not only does Gargamel come in for a wince-worthy amount of physical and emotional abuse, but Papa Smurf ends up burning his book. Still, the tales have at least nostalgic value, and the plots are not only lickety-split but well-supplied with altered but recognizable holiday songs (“Santa Claus is smurfing to town…”) and other quips. Grinch-weary readers in particular may be smurfertained. (Graphic stories. 6-8)
THE CHILD OF CHRISTMAS
Santa Claus makes a few deliveries on Christmas Eve. In droll double-page paintings, which look to be acrylics in rich, warm colors, a cheerful Santa flies his sleigh and whooshes down the chimney. Each page is embedded with a “finger-trail” (created by cutting out the top portion of the page to make an indentation and reveal a layer of patterned paper underneath) for little ones to trace the path of Santa’s flying sleigh or the reindeers’ footprints in the snow. Out of all Pasquali’s books that use the finger-trail gimmick, this one is the most effective, and the colorful touch-and-feel elements lend themselves to Santa’s annual nocturnal journey. Unfortunately, not all of the footprints have been cut away, resulting in a frustrating inconsistency for an audience that can least tolerate it. The workmanlike prose describes the scenes, while action and onomatopoeic words (“plod,” “whoosh” and “tip-toe”) accompany the fingertrail feature. Pasquali’s talents deserve better than this erratically applied gimmick. (Board book. 18 mo.-3)
THE SMURFS CHRISTMAS
Peyo Illus. by Peyo Papercutz (56 pp.) $10.99 | $5.99 paper | Sep. 17, 2013 978-1-59707-452-0 978-1-59707-451-3 paper Series: Smurfs
Piper, Sophie Illus. by Williams, Sophy Lion/Trafalgar (32 pp.) $8.99 | Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-7459-6291-7
The Nativity story is retold in familiar, everyday language with a petite, illustrated format in this somewhat unbalanced Christmas offering imported from Great Britain. The story begins and ends with announcements from angels, starting with the Annunciation of the impending birth to Mary and ending with a warning to take the newborn Christ child to safety in Egypt. The longish text interweaves the story of Christ’s birth as told in the four Gospels, a narrative decision that is not clearly spelled out anywhere in the volume. The back cover copy notes it’s “retold with simplicity and sincerity from the Gospels,” but there should be a clear indication that the text is a compilation from several books of the Bible. Though the retelling is polished and easy to understand, the sentence length and complexity indicate a story for older children, while the soft-focus, rather sweet illustrations seem targeted to a preschool audience. The volume’s small trim size and a cover decorated with sparkly gold stars also give the impression that the book is aimed toward a younger audience than the text would indicate. Suitable for advanced preschoolers who can listen oneon-one to an adult reading a longer, more complex story or for older children who don’t object to a book that seems designed for little ones. (Picture book/religion. 4-8)
Six wintry smurfisodes making their first appearances on this side of the Atlantic feature the usual cast of blue-skinned gnomes and their hapless nemesis, Gargamel. A story of one Christmas Eve that Gargamel nearly ruins 136
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“The pacing speeds up and the amount of artificial light gradually increases until the luminous final page, on which the boy exclaims, ‘It’s as light as day.’ ” from dusk
THE SMALLEST GIFT OF CHRISTMAS
Reynolds, Peter H. Illus. by Reynolds, Peter H. Candlewick (40 pp.) $14.00 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-7636-6103-8
Roland is disappointed by the size of his tiny, red package on Christmas morning, but he learns that bigger is not always better. When Roland wishes for a bigger present, his package is magically replaced with a larger one. But it’s not big enough for Roland. He wishes again and gets an even bigger box, the pattern repeating until Roland’s gift is a big as a house, then as big as a skyscraper. Still not big enough. Roland angrily takes off in a spaceship to “search the universe” for a gift that’s big enough to satisfy him. As the spaceship gets farther and farther away, he gradually has a change of heart. Roland realizes that the tiny dot of Earth, with his own home and family, is the gift he wants most of all. The touching conclusion shows Roland at home on the sofa with his family—the only gift he needs. Hand-lettered text and sophisticated, cartoon-style illustrations give the story the look of one for older children or even adults, but the theme will be easily understood by younger children. The message is skillfully and subtly conveyed, and though the lesson could be heavy-handed in less sure hands, readers will be both entertained and satisfied by Roland’s progression from greedy glutton to grateful son. A warmhearted, whimsical story with a folkloric feel and a theme that is anything but small. (Picture book. 4-10)
DUSK
Shulevitz, Uri Illus. by Shulevitz, Uri Margaret Ferguson/Farrar, Straus & Giroux (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 17, 2013 978-0-374-31903-8 A grandfather, his grandson and their hound dog stroll through a city as the sun sets, meeting comical characters and observing the brightly lit city at night. Caldecott Medalist Shulevitz explored daybreak in Dawn (1974) almost 40 years ago, with a similar odyssey by a grandfather and grandson in a country setting. This time, the “[b]oy with dog and grandfather with beard” head for the city, a fantastical location with tall, narrow buildings that have an Art Deco look and cars and clothing that suggest the 1930s. The boy and his grandfather meet several odd characters from different time periods and places; they speak in rhyming text about their shopping quests. As daylight fades, the lights of the city come on, including streetlights, lighted store windows and brightly lit Christmas decorations. The glowing windows of apartments display candles for Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, shown equally in three adjoining windows, and children celebrating the three holidays parade through the town. The pacing speeds up and the amount |
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of artificial light gradually increases until the luminous final page, on which the boy exclaims, “It’s as light as day.” With the comicrelief exception of the rhyming shoppers, the text is spare and polished, strung together in measured prose like a string of bright holiday lights. Shulevitz elegantly captures the magical quality of twilight as well as the gleaming allure of the bright lights of the big city. (Picture book. 4-8)
TALLULAH’S NUTCRACKER
Singer, Marilyn Illus. by Boiger, Alexandra Clarion (48 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-547-84557-9
In the fourth entry in the popular series about budding ballerina Tallulah, she wins a part as a mouse in a professional production of The Nutcracker, but the performance doesn’t turn out as she imagines. Tallulah is thrilled when she begins rehearsals with a professional ballet company for their holiday production. She and the other mice are taught by the ballet master, and Tallulah tries hard to be the most enthusiastic mouse in the cast. While spunky Tallulah is full of drive and passion for ballet, she also develops a bit of an attitude and begins to brag to her dance-class friends and brother. On opening night, Tallulah steps on the tail of another mouse, causing a chain accident of fallen mice and soldiers. She is comforted backstage by the ballet master and the dancers playing Clara and the Sugar Plum Fairy, who share their own stories of performance mishaps. The story unfolds with skillful pacing and a delicate balance between Tallulah’s free-wheeling thoughts (indicated in a different typeface) and the dramatic tension of the ballet rehearsals and performance. Boiger’s whimsical watercolors are beautifully composed, creating captivating scenes of dance class, the backstage area and the performance. Tallulah shines as a real little dancer with her own distinct style, learning step by step. (Picture book. 4-8)
MY PEN PAL, SANTA
Stanton, Melissa Illus. by Bell, Jennifer A. Random House (32 pp.) $9.99 | Sep. 24, 2013 978-0-375-86992-1
A little girl named Ava corresponds with Santa by mail for an entire year; their monthly letters make up the text of this mildly amusing holiday story. The letters begin in January with Ava’s thank-you letter for her Christmas presents and continue with a pair of letters for each month through the following Christmas Eve. Ava asks Santa lots of questions in her letters, shown on the left-hand pages with scenes from Ava’s world. Santa’s patient letters answering |
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“Childlike illustrations in muted soft colors depict a particularly appealing Hebrew school classroom and a modern elderly city dweller in striped socks and pink slippers.” from the eighth menorah
all of Ava’s questions are shown on facing right-hand pages with accompanying views of life at the North Pole. Cheerful illustrations in a loose, comfortable style add considerable appeal to the story, but Ava’s letters don’t always seem child-written, and Santa’s letters are sometimes expository lists lacking humor. The little girl’s letters include several questions about whether Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are real and whether “presents come from our parents.” Santa always manages reasonable explanations in his responses, but the questions are ones adult readers might wish to avoid altogether in a children’s book about Santa. The conclusion is the best part of the book, with Ava’s single Christmas request, to meet Santa, satisfied on the final, wordless page. The letter format has become popular as a textual structure in picture books, but this collection of missives misses the mark. (Picture book. 4- 7)
ESTHER’S HANUKKAH DISASTER
Sutton, Jane Illus. by Rowland, Andy Kar-Ben (32 pp.) $17.95 | $7.95 paper | $6.95 e-book Sep. 1, 2013 978-0-7613-9043-5 978-0-7613-9044-2 paper 978-1-4677-1638-3 e-book Esther the gorilla chooses a batch of inappropriate Hanukkah gifts in this misguided tale. Esther lives in an upscale jungle neighborhood complete with smartphones, a swanky mall and all the pristine flora of a well-kept jungle suburb. There, menorahs are lit and displayed in windows on the first night of the holiday. Esther makes her rounds with various gifts for her friends, which turn out to be a bit thoughtless. Sarah the monkey receives a pair of socks big enough for an elephant, Hal the hyena gets a jungle gym he cannot climb, Josephine the turtle finds a jogging suit ridiculous, and Oscar the elephant is insulted by the book 100 Jokes About Elephants. In contrast, Esther receives some wonderful gifts, which causes her to become disconcerted with her own poor choices. Though Sarah tells her that “[p]resents are not the most important part of Hanukkah,” Esther decides to hold a party on the last night to resolve her blunders. After lighting candles, eating latkes and singing songs, everyone exchanges Esther’s gifts so that each friend leaves with something suitable. Deeply hued paintings of anthropomorphic middle-class life are populated by well-dressed animal caricatures; they emphasize the unfortunate theme of a shopping-oriented holiday rather than the more significant features of a Hanukkah observance. Not a great choice for this year’s holiday list. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)
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A VERY FUDDLES CHRISTMAS
Vischer, Frans Illus. by Vischer, Frans Aladdin (32 pp.) $15.99 | $12.99 e-book | Oct. 1, 2013 978-1-4169-9156-4 978-1-4424-3511-7 e-book
In this second story about Fuddles the cat (Fuddles, 2011), he is accidentally locked out of the house on Christmas Eve, leading to a snowy adventure for the pampered feline. In the self-centered manner of most cats, Fuddles thinks all the special Christmas decorations and preparations must be there just for him. There’s an unguarded table with a huge turkey, packages with interesting ribbons, and an enormous tree with lights and sparkly ornaments, just waiting for him to climb. After the Christmas tree topples to the ground, a befuddled Fuddles runs out the open door just as guests are entering. But Fuddles is clearly an indoor cat. Suddenly, he is in a frozen, white world, and he can’t get back into the house. He rambles around his yard, plowing through the snowdrifts, before finding his way back into the house by sliding down the chimney. Vischer, an animator for Disney, provides polished, computer-generated illustrations, showing off the cat’s comical, high-energy antics with effective use of display type and white space. He uses a satisfying array of perspectives, including a surprising, all-black spread of the cat sliding down the chimney that is laugh-out-loud funny. Fuddles is quite a character, and kids (and adults) who love cats will love Fuddles too. (Picture book. 4- 7)
THE EIGHTH MENORAH
Wohl, Lauren L. Illus. by Hughes, Laura Whitman (32 pp.) $16.99 | Aug. 4, 2013 978-0-8075-1892-2
This evenly paced story explores a common dilemma in Jewish families—that of multiple menorahs—and gives a little boy the opportunity to do some independent problem-solving. One more menorah may be just one too many for Sam’s household, and at Hebrew school, Sam complains about the menorahmaking activity. “My family has seven menorahs! Maybe I can make something else.” Undaunted, the teacher encourages Sam to make one anyway, so Sam resolves to give it to Grammy. Grammy’s weekly phone call reveals that Hanukkah will be quite different in her new building, as open flames are not permitted in the apartments—just in the community room. Even so, everybody just uses the electric menorah. After some reflection, Sam decides his newly created menorah will be the perfect Hanukkah surprise for his grandmother and her condo neighbors, and on the first night, he gives it to her so she can share it and light it in the community room with her friends. Childlike illustrations in muted soft colors depict a particularly appealing kirkus.com
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Hebrew school classroom and a modern elderly city dweller in striped socks and pink slippers. The dialogue-heavy text is delightfully natural: “Nuh uh,” Sam replies during a guessing game with Grammy. Sam and his Grammy are a simpatico pair, one readers of all ages will be able to relate to. (Picture book. 5-7)
ZOOMER’S OUT-OF-THISWORLD CHRISTMAS
Young, Ned Illus. by Young, Ned Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $17.99 | $18.89 PLB | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-06-199959-8 978-0-06-199960-4 PLB Series: Zoomer In this third entry in an imaginative series, Zoomer the zestful hound dog hits his stride with a wacky Christmas Eve visit from aliens who crash-land in the field near his house. Zoomer and his older twin brothers are shocked to see the inhabitants of the spacecraft: parents, three children, a robot and a gigantic, multilegged pet called a yarple-headed gigantaziller. The visit with the aliens takes Zoomer into fantastical territory with a picnic of out-of-this-world food, games with amazing equipment, and a swim in a magically concocted “force-field swimming pool” with individual submarines for each kid and a friendly sea monster. The spaceship, however, is broken and in need of a new wheel. Zoomer generously donates his beloved tricycle so the alien family can get home for Christmas, and they leave the canine brothers with a stellar Christmas gift: a real star for the top of their tree. Zoomer is further rewarded on Christmas morning with a new, two-wheeled bicycle and a special note from Santa. Humorous illustrations showcase the expressive pooches and the amusing aliens with lots of funny details to pore over in the large-scale format. Kids will connect with this wildly exuberant fantasy, and Zoomer seems destined to zoom off into further ingenious adventures in unexplored territories. (Picture book. 4-8)
interactive e-books BYRON BARTON COLLECTION #1
Barton, Byron Illus. by Barton, Byron Oceanhouse Media $4.99 | Jun. 18, 2013 2.3; Jun. 18, 2013
Introducing the setting for each mode of transport, the books open simply: “On the road,” “In the sky,” etc. Each subsequent page then highlights a different type of truck, airplane, etc., and with a true minimum of words conveys a good bit of information about their functions. “Planes” and “Boats” focus on the passenger jet and cruise ship as specific types, while “Trains” and “Trucks” concentrate on what they do. To assist early readers, words zoom up and are spoken when objects in the pictures are touched, and all words are highlighted as they are read; Oceanhouse’s signature style is an excellent complement to Barton’s simple compositions and text. Young readers will enjoy moving the vehicles, people and even the clouds while realistic (and optional) sound effects such as honks, murmured speech and engine noise play in the background. Extra movement is provided by subtle animations. A drop-down bar gives easy access to the audio options, page selection and information tabs. Bright, simple and loaded with big machines—a steam engine, a fire boat and even a crop-duster, among others— this app is sure to appeal to young transportation enthusiasts. (iPad informational app. 2-5)
BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY
Disney Publishing Worldwide Disney Publishing Worldwide Applications $0.00 | Jun. 13, 2013 1.1; Jun. 27, 2013
The Science Guy celebrates 20 years on the air (including reruns) with a modest but diverse pocketful of science games, demos and random facts. A digital desktop with 10 tappable items on top or in a drawer serves as the gateway to a variety of activities. There’s an “alien invasion” with four optical illusions, instructions for six low-cost physics or chemistry experiments, 10 short video clips (each with, take note, a link to buy the entire original episode), a challenging geology-based digging game and an easier one that tours the solar system. Other diversions range from a touch-responsive periodic table of the elements to instructions for tying a bow tie. Along with Nye’s rapid commentary, at many times, a Bill bobblehead spouts facts in his voice or sings out the show’s theme song with a tap. As in the shows themselves, the directions and explanations are concise but clear, with digestible doses of specific terminology. Not deep but broad and effective in conveying some of the pleasures of scientific enquiry along with the overcaffeinated personality of the show’s host. (iPad game app. 7-10)
Barton’s books about transportation are notable for their spare simplicity and bright pop-art illustrations; here, four gain added value with features that both entertain and encourage reading skills. |
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“[The comics pages] often alter inventively when swiped rather than just turn and feature melodramatic voice-overs activated by tapping dialogue bubbles, and they were created in part by the young cast itself.” from neomad interactive comic
NEOMAD INTERACTIVE COMIC
Sutu Illus. by Sutu Bighart $2.99 | May 24, 2013 3.0; Jun. 17, 2013
In an electric mix of live video clips, CGI effects and neon-hued comics pages, young Aborigines have exciting adventures both in Western Australia’s Pilbara Desert and in outer space. The stories center around the scruffy Our Gang–style Love Punks, faces painted to resemble the mottled, elaborate hangout they have built from recycled junk. In the first two episodes, they take a flying car for a joy ride, then encounter the echidna god Jiribuga. Meanwhile, the Satellite Sisters play a fast-paced zerogravity game and watch over Earth from orbit to protect it from falling space junk. In the finale, the two groups combine to rescue a spaceship full of tourists from being swallowed by the sky god Mingkala. The children are comfortable in front of the camera, the dialogue never sounds artificial, and both the video and the graphic segments show top-drawer production values. The comics pages are particularly noteworthy: They often alter inventively when swiped rather than just turn and feature melodramatic voice-overs activated by tapping dialogue bubbles, and they were created in part by the young cast itself. Furthermore, tapping bilingual lines a second time causes a translation to appear—or, for effect, sometimes not: “An ancient gigantic angry sky god! It’s trying to suck us into its muji!” Pranks and banter fly as the young cast hilariously hams its way through the plot, but there are also earnestly delivered messages about the importance both of environmental conservation and of respecting traditional beliefs. Dazzling. (includes three “making of” featurettes) (iPad graphic-novel app. 6-10)
MEGAMAMMAL MEG Meg Atherium’s Guide to the Greatest Mammals That Ever Lived!
Vohs, Sandra Illus. by Lynch, Daryl 3r Interactive LLC $2.99 | Mar. 28, 2013 2.0; Jun. 19, 2013
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Wasabi Productions Wasabi Productions $0.99 | Aug. 15, 2013 1.0; Aug. 15, 2013 Two reluctant music students join forces with several jammin’ jungle musicians to form a band. This 3-D animated storybook begins with two young gorillas grousing about having to go to piano/ violin lessons. Their instructor—a grandmotherly gorilla that hangs from a vine—coaxes compliance, which her young protégés grudgingly furnish. As luck would have it, a self-taught drummer and guitarist are trading riffs just a few trees away. When their hip sounds reach the ears of the students, their teacher invites the improvising apes into the school space, and a new band is born. Readers are invited to poke and punch gorillas to prompt their involvement, and tapping each one produces both snippets of music and dialogue. The only beef parents may have with this story is that the music students continually say things like, “This is Grandma music” and “It’s so old fashioned.” True, those are common sentiments among those who would rather skip the discipline and play “cool” music, but the truth is, the great majority of those who play cool music today do so because they were disciplined in the mastery of their instruments. This story never significantly reinforces the value of that, which could lead little ones to believe that their dream of becoming great without instruction or discipline is a reasonable expectation. Slick graphics, decent interaction, solid storytelling, flawed story. (iPad storybook app, 3-7) This Issue’s Contributors
For children (and grown-ups) who are sick of dinos, dinos, dinos 24/7, here’s a plea from “Meg Atherium” to remember the giant prehistoric mammals. “I’d like your undivided attention because I’ve got some complaining to do,” opens the shaggy ground sloth in Lynch’s minimally detailed cartoons. Sure, dinosaurs ruled the Earth for 120 million years and then disappeared through tantalizingly mysterious causes. So what? Why should they get all the movies, books, posters, breakfast cereals, pajamas and lunch boxes? Claiming that nonreptiles deserve at least as much respect, Meg introduces herself and a 140
gallery of equally jumbo Cenozoic Era animals. These include Baluchitherium (Meg calls him “Big Baluka”) and the 7-foot-tall bird Diatryma, which also mysteriously died out. The optional voice-over is particularly lively. Paired to images of extinct creatures that look like plush toys and respond to taps with a diverse array of silly noises or small animations, Meg’s argument may strike many as compelling. Perhaps it’s time to chime in on her rallying cry: “Boycott dinosaur lunch boxes! No more dinosaur books at story time!” As if—but she makes a strong case. (iPad informational app. 6-8)
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# Alison Anholt-White • Richard Becker • Kim Becnel • Marcie Bovetz • Kimberly Brubaker Bradley • Louise Brueggemann • Connie Burns • Timothy Capehart • Ann Childs • Julie Cummins • GraceAnne A. DeCandido • Dave DeChristopher • Elise DeGuiseppi • Lisa Dennis • Andi Diehn • Carol Edwards • Robin L. Elliott • Brooke Faulkner • Laurie Flynn • Laurel Gardner • Carol Goldman • Ruth I. Gordon • Faye Grearson • Melinda Greenblatt • Heather L. Hepler • Megan Honig • Julie Hubble • Jennifer Hubert • Shelley Huntington • Kathleen T. Isaacs • Laura Jenkins • Betsy Judkins • Deborah Kaplan • Joy Kim • Megan Dowd Lambert • Angela Leeper • Peter Lewis • Ellen Loughran • Lori Low • Wendy Lukehart • Meredith Madyda • Lauren Maggio • Joan Malewitz • Hillias J. Martin • Kathie Meizner • Daniel Meyer • Lisa Moore • Kathleen Odean • Deb Paulson • Rachel G. Payne • John Edward Peters • Susan Pine • Rebecca Rabinowitz • Kristy Raffensberger • Nancy Thalia Reynolds • Amy Robinson • Lesli Rodgers • Erika Rohrbach • Leslie L. Rounds • Mindy Schanback • Dean Schneider • Hillary Foote Schwartz • Stephanie Seales • Chris Shoemaker • Karyn N. Silverman • Robin Smith • Karin Snelson • Rita Soltan • Jennifer Sweeney • Deborah D. Taylor • Gordon West • S.D. Winston • Monica Wyatt • Melissa Yurechko •
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indie WHAT’S YOUR LANE? Career Clarity for Moms Who Want to Work a Little, a Lot or Not at All
GUDAO, LONE ISLET: THE WAR YEARS IN SHANGHAI A Childhood Memoir Blair, Margaret Trafford (216 pp.) $19.05 paper | $2.99 e-book Sep. 20, 2007 978-1-4251-1142-7
Abdilla, Brenda F. CreateSpace (166 pp.) $16.95 paper | $9.99 e-book Apr. 9, 2013 978-1-4819-0451-3
A survivor of World War II internment recalls cosmopolitan, pre–World War II Shanghai and three years as a prisoner of the Japanese army. Born in Shanghai to British expats, Blair (Shanghai Scarlet, 2012) spent her early childhood with her brother, parents and Chinese caretakers in the International Settlement, a predominantly British concession within Shanghai. Her memoir opens in 1941, when innocently content 5-year-old Blair is gently woken by Ah Ling, “my nurse, the centre of my life, my Chinese mother.” Readers know Pearl Harbor will be bombed and the world will change, but Blair takes time to paint her life before that in the concession, a “lone islet” or gudao of safety, as well as the bustling “hot din” of Shanghai. As December nears, Blair senses tension, but even after Japanese soldiers seize control of the International Settlement, she fails to comprehend the danger; she writes of Christmas cake and receiving a new doll. Throughout her memoir, Blair maintains this difficult balance of viewpoints. She details historical events (she later studied history at Glasgow University) yet relates her story as a child. In July 1942, Blair’s family is relocated to their first camp, where Blair enjoys a “last, perfect summer” of swimming, her father’s prodigious baking and the relative freedom to roam. Soon, rumors circulate of more dire internment camps, Blair’s father is imprisoned, and Ah Ling returns to Canton. Blair, her mother and brother move to a closely guarded, crowded camp and later to a squalid, dilapidated convent. Through a jury-rigged radio disguised as a toy, prisoners keep tabs on the war, while Blair skillfully builds suspense as camp conditions worsen. Yet she remains a child, knitting dolls’ clothes from unraveled sweaters, re-reading Beatrix Potter and daydreaming of summer vacation. Only as her 9-year-old body grows thin, her mother sick and her father’s fate more tenuous do readers glimpse the lasting effects of war. Young Blair swings obsessively on makeshift parallel bars, each swoop recalling her father: “Is he safe…Is he safe?” A well-written, moving perspective on imprisonment, World War II and the history of Shanghai.
A work of nonfiction by a certified career coach designed to help mothers decide which post-baby career path is right for them. Abdilla identifies seven career lanes ranging from forgoing income and staying home with the kids to continuing to work full time and arranging for child care. Her tone is both warm and no-nonsense, and reading her advice feels like listening to a trusted friend who just happens to have a leg up on life experience. While she immediately comes across as an authority on juggling motherhood and career management, she’s also refreshingly realistic, admitting in her introduction, “We all screw ourselves in one way or another when it comes to our set up at home and our careers.” Her detailed descriptions of the pros and cons of each “lane” bring into relief common-sense arguments that might not be apparent to emotional and overwhelmed parentsto-be. In the chapter titled “The Slow Lane,” Abdilla notes that although working reduced hours might seem like the ideal solution for a career-minded mom, “You might condense a full-time job into less pay and have fewer hours to accomplish it.” While the specificity of the scenarios Abdilla outlines allows parents to decide which lane is best for them, it also means that readers will be able to skip inapplicable sections. There’s enough general information, however, to make the whole book a worthwhile read for most new parents. Interactive exercises are helpful and straightforward; some include sample answers to guide readers in completing them. Abdilla also offers information about her own past to help readers see how a person’s history influences his or her parenting style. A chapter about dividing household chores in a way that feels fair to both parents could be useful for any couple. Most parents could benefit from reading this smart, insightful guide about the realities of creating a work/life balance.
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THE LAST OF THE TITANS
speaking out against bigotry, etc. Main characters Jack and Riley are unique individuals, but young readers will still be able to identify with them and vicariously enjoy the saga. While Carestio may rely on the time-honored premise of adventurous kids running across a mystery and outwitting crooks to fight crime, he gives the mystery a 21st-century gleam. New technologies and modern attitudes burnish old-fashioned situations and settings, modernizing Carestio’s boy and girl detective characters. The criminals they hunt are clearly dangerous enough for the reader to take seriously, but parents needn’t worry about young ones reading a James Ellroy–like tale by mistake. An intelligent sea gull narrates the tale with wry, amusing asides to the reader that break the fourth wall and relieve dramatic tension. The contemporary narration also references Google Earth and the recent recession. Descriptions are chatty and entertaining, dotted with anecdotes and fun facts that pique real-world curiosity and enhance the picture of the little town, the heroes and the villains. The action is almost cinematic in its structure, with many staccato beats that evoke pictures and sounds with quick snippets of description and sudden bursts of onomatopoeia. The text suffers from an unfortunate number of typographical errors but is otherwise solidly professional in presentation. Younger kids may be challenged by some of the more complex words and constructions in the text, but avid older readers could grow a bit with them. A uniquely effective story of crime-fighting kids.
Bowman, Darryl D. Starview Press (340 pp.) May 12, 2013 978-0-615-75579-3
In Bowman’s debut thriller, a former military officer tries to stop a rogue CIA agent from getting his hands on a Titan nuclear missile abandoned during the Cold War. In 1993, Kirk Cule, a former Air Force pilot and astronaut trainee, receives the tragic news that his father, wife and son have been killed in a car accident. While mourning, he discovers his late father’s journals from the 1960s and begins to read through them. It turns out that his father, also an Air Force officer, commanded a Titan nuclear missile silo in Virginia that was part of a secret CIA operation. Kirk scours the Virginia countryside until he uncovers the abandoned silo and, with the help of a friend, works to get it back online. At the same time, readers learn the back story of Donner Bly, the megalomaniacal CIA agent who originally set up the covert missile installation. (The author imaginatively pulls out all the stops as he traces Bly’s history from the OSS in World War II to the Cuban missile crisis and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.) Bly escapes from the Supermax prison where he has been doing time for being “a thief and a traitor” and tries to get his hands on the remaining Titan as part of a blood-chilling revenge scheme involving a decommissioned Gemini space capsule. Kirk, however, has other plans. This thriller’s plot is somewhat far-fetched, but the author’s ready wit carries readers over the narrative’s rough spots. Techno-thriller fans will revel in all the details of Kirk’s prepping the Titan missile. Many thrillers neglect the human element, but in this case, the author consistently does right by his can-do heroes and outsized villains. He also includes an engaging touch of The Right Stuff and Space Cowboys as Kirk puts his audacious plan into motion. An accomplished thriller that will appeal to fans of Brad Thor and Vince Flynn.
HOW HEALTHY IS YOUR DOCTOR? What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About Health Could Be Hazardous to Yours Collins, Kathryn Whitegrass Press (308 pp.) $14.95 paper | $8.93 e-book May 10, 2013 978-0-9889365-0-8
In this nonfiction exploration of the complexities and limitations of modern health care, Collins looks closely at the prescribing, testing and treatment practices of physicians across the nation and attempts to show readers how to be better informed when visiting the doctor. Collins doesn’t simply offer a warning to get a second opinion, as many physicians do. Instead, she breaks down the industry phase by phase, exploring the factors that influence prescription writing, test ordering and diagnoses. For example, readers are warned in one chapter that doctors are provided incentives to sell one medication over others. An oblivious patient, particularly one who already feels convinced about a medication due to advertising and the media, might sign off on a medication routine, not knowing of the doctor’s questionable bias. The author spends an exhaustive chapter raising awareness about external factors that influence the treatment patients can expect from the industry. This chapter alone makes the book worthwhile to a reader less familiar with the modern,
COUSINS & ROBBERS Tales of Black Jack Jetty Carestio, Michael A. CreateSpace (100 pp.) $7.84 paper | July 15, 2013 978-1-4909-0934-9
Carestio’s children’s adventure successfully updates the classic kids-solvingmysteries genre. A gentle bridge between children’s lit and adult crime fiction, Carestio’s (Black Jack Jetty, 2010) novel follows young cousins who set out to catch a gang of robbers who have been raiding houses in their seaside resort community of Black Jack Jetty. They embark on a fast-paced, enjoyably realistic adventure that promotes good values: self-sufficiency, 142
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media-influenced world doctors and patients both face. Collins also discusses the phenomenon of “overtreatment” and the effects the growing pharmaceutical industry has had on providing treatment. Collins describes one point in her career as an emergency physician when four new drugs were entering the market every month—and not solely due to groundbreaking discoveries. Many new drugs are simply enhancements or variations of older drugs, and as they saturate the market, physicians have a difficult time keeping up with the information. The author paints a clear picture of the ways in which multiple industries feed off one another to create a system that appears to be more about profits and bottom lines than delivering premium health care to Americans. The book is not all gloom and doom, though. Collins also documents ways in which health care has changed for the better since she began her career in the emergency room nearly four decades ago, and while encouraging readers to become more informed and aware of healthy practices versus quick fixes, she points out that doctors are people, too. She ties up the work with suggestions for changes in the industry, including a larger focus on food as medication and preventive, rather than prescriptive, medicine. An eye-opening study of a growing industry, featuring a plethora of tips and advice for any reader, from patient to physician.
analyzing businesses by industry groups and an overview of fundamental investment dynamics, including book value and the power of earnings. In describing quantitative market analysis, Gayed addresses the tenets of market timing and describes the difference between top-down and bottom-up market timing. When the author turns his attention toward investment strategies, however, the downside of a 20-year-old text may be evident. Indeed, using the “Crash of 1987” as the primary example to teach a lesson about investment strategy is hard to justify when the Great Recession of 2008 goes unmentioned. Despite this omission, which should have at least been acknowledged with an editor’s note, the principles discussed by the author do, in fact, apply across the decades. With scrupulous attention paid to factual accuracy and detail, Gayed’s volume could easily function as a fundamental text on stock market investing, but it may overwhelm the average investor.
DESERT MOJITO
Ghassemi, Nazli Self (292 pp.) $16.99 paper | $9.99 e-book May 13, 2013 978-0-9853009-0-6
INTERMARKET ANALYSIS AND INVESTING Integrating Economic, Fundamental, and Technical Trends
An engaging debut novel of romance, parties and expatriate life in Dubai. Maya, a globe-trotting freelancer and poet, has a complex, international background: She was born in Wisconsin to an American mother and an Iranian father, spent her childhood in Tehran and went to school in Switzerland during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Now, after four years as an adult in Dubai, she’s become accustomed to the rhythms of the global city, as have her friends—on-the-go Arkansan Janet, Lebanese human resources manager Michele, and gay Pakistani-British Asif, among others. Her biggest problem is figuring out whether her relationship with American businessman Mark, a newcomer to Dubai, is romantic or not. Author Ghassemi provides a detailed portrait of the city’s malls, bars and indoor ski parks. Although her novel focuses mainly on the adventures and dramas of Maya and her friends, it also looks at the city’s less luxuriant side, including the Filipino service workers and Indian construction workers who keep the city growing and operating. The book also explores what it means for a nominally Muslim region to depend on the presence of a mostly secular, Western-influenced population. The women’s determined consumption of alcohol shows one of the more frivolous aspects of this cultural balancing act, but the book moves into deeper territory when it depicts Maya and Mark’s trip to the Iranian island of Kish or Asif ’s struggle to share his life in Dubai with his husband. This is a fundamentally upbeat story, however, with happy endings in store for nearly everyone. The strong prose will likely keep readers turning pages, particularly its Arabic-sprinkled dialogue and Maya’s snappy comebacks (“Hello, prosthetic skyline”). Engaging women’s fiction with an international twist.
Gayed, Michael E.S. CreateSpace (510 pp.) $19.95 paper | Oct. 15, 1990 978-1-4819-5961-2
A thorough, if academic and somewhat dated, explanation of the various forms of stock market analysis. Published posthumously, this second edition of Gayed’s 1990 book was republished “without updates or changes, keeping it true to the original in his honor,” writes the author’s son in a foreword. Interestingly, this may be both the book’s greatest strength and weakness. As a textbook on analysis, the work is solid and timeless. Gayed carefully and methodically describes the process of investing in stocks. Then, in detailed individual sections of the book, he fully describes and lays out the assets and liabilities of three distinct methods of analysis: economic, fundamental and quantitative. In the context of these analytical schools, the reader is likely to learn a great deal about business and stocks in general. In discussing economic analysis, for example, Gayed covers the business cycle, inflation and interest rates, the composite index, and leading, lagging and coincident indicators. The section on the fundamental school of analysis, which the author says is “by far the most widely used by the majority of Wall Street professionals,” includes a comprehensive discussion of financial statements, an excellent subsection that explains the importance of |
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“Pithy writing, an unswerving plot and witty characters give this thriller a notable gleam.” from the man with blue green eyes
THE MAN WITH BLUE GREEN EYES
with the Taliban, underlining the fact that the war on terror is a truly international effort. In a straightforward, linear fashion, Johannesen relates his experiences as he and his men engaged in a series of skirmishes in the Afghanistan town of Musa Qala in the summer of 2006. At the time, he commanded the 1 Light Reconnaissance Squadron, which was trained as a mobile response group. However, upon arriving in Musa Qala to relieve a British contingent, they found themselves effectively hemmed in by the Taliban. Until they were relieved themselves by a British infantry unit, they were attacked on a daily basis, often multiple times per day. Throughout this account, Johannesen offers clear insight into his squadron’s role, his view of how they fit into the overall effort to defeat the Taliban, and how soldiers saw themselves during a mission that wasn’t always rigidly defined. Although the author expresses his feeling that the squadron didn’t achieve its primary objective of defeating the Taliban, he also expresses without hesitation his pride in his men and their performance, and he uses his knowledge of military operations to make clear that their work was not in vain. Readers accustomed to U.S. accounts of military operations may find the author’s evenhandedness and calm demeanor unusual at first. He shares his observations about working in Musa Qala with Afghan National Police officers and soldiers from different nations, and his ability to understand and explain contrasting viewpoints lends authority to his words. This detailed military memoir’s reasoned viewpoint makes for an engrossing read.
Howell Jr., R.A. CreateSpace (332 pp.) $12.50 paper | $2.99 e-book Mar. 30, 2013 978-1-4681-8682-6 In this debut thriller, two singles vacationing in paradise find love and sunken treasure, but the treasure belongs to a drug cartel that wants it back. Luck seems to be on the side of Bill and Vicky. After meeting on Isla La Madre, the blossoming of their romance is followed by the discovery, while snorkeling, of a cigarette boat and close to $60 million—not to mention bullet holes and skeletal remains. The two take the money and try their best to hide evidence of the shipwreck, but that doesn’t stop the Miami Mafia from realizing that a rather sizable payment is now missing. They send their man to recover the funds and take care of any related problems. Howell sets up his story remarkably well, wasting no time in getting Bill and Vicky together and proficiently establishing their new relationship without dawdling. They snorkel, make love and even have an awkward moment when Vicky breaks the ice by implying that Bill’s an alcoholic— all within the first 50 pages. But it’s their shrewd response to finding bundles of cash at the bottom of the sea that makes them appealing. They consider every option—destroying the money or turning it in to the police, for instance—and they’re cautious even without knowing if they’re in danger. It’s clear to readers, however, that a menace is lurking: Mob man Rizzo enlists Eddy, who’s not above murdering someone to cover his own tracks. The baddies get close enough to the lovers to ramp up suspense, which leads to a rousing car chase and the introduction of a police presence, mostly in the form of Officer Tony Sanchez. His scenes are less engaging, since readers are a few steps ahead of his investigation, but his refusal to let a murder case go cold is laudable. Numerous ships and scenes at sea lead to amusing nautical metaphors—Vicky notes that she and Bill, both with the money, are “on the same boat”—and even waterladen threats, like Rizzo suggesting that Eddy “plug some dike” with an unlucky man. Pithy writing, an unswerving plot and witty characters give this thriller a notable gleam.
GET YOUR CHILD TO THE TOP Help Your Child Succeed at School and Life Jones, Megan Lisa Laernn (276 pp.) $13.99 paper | May 28, 2013 978-0-615-76334-7
A comprehensive, hands-on guide to raising happy, successful children. As an investment banker, writer and mother, Jones can relate to her audience: concerned parents who want the best for their children but are so “busy trying to provide [them] with…housing, food, a school, and some love” that they “don’t really have time for conceptual debates about ultimate right choices.” Her argument is that the current educational system in America is antiquated, resulting in a decrease in test scores among not only poor children, but those of the middle class as well. “Trickle up illiteracy,” she calls it. To combat this, she argues, schools need to increase their focus on technology, financial savvy and science, giving students the practical skills they need in today’s globalized, digitized world. She’s concerned about character, too, and passes along balanced, practical guidance to parents about how to inspire their children to be thoughtful citizens: “Children should be guided, not pushed. But sometimes they should be forced as they need to learn not to
THE TIGERS AND THE TALIBAN Risking Everything for Afghanistan Johannesen, Lars Ulslev gopubli.sh (284 pp.) $42.00 paper | Jun. 5, 2013 978-8-793011-24-3
A Danish reconnaissance commander, in his debut, presents a thorough, you-arethere accounting of a five-week engagement 144
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get their own way but rather discipline and following through on their commitments.” At times, some of the advice can feel clichéd—“Character counts,” “Be polite,” “No one owes you anything”—and stylistically, the book has a laundry-list quality to it, with large chunks offering a series of brief, mostly common-sense snippets related to having a successful life, health, faith and risk-taking. The structure may bore some readers, although many more might find the simple format helpful, particularly in the sections that discuss education, where Jones offers clear summaries of a variety of things parents might have heard but not understood, such as explanations of charter schools, magnet schools and vouchers. Moreover, while some of the life advice may feel hackneyed, it’s also a welcome retreat from some of the more extreme parenting books of late. Jones isn’t a tiger mom or a helicopter parent; she’s a strong, mostly effective advocate for raising thoughtful, well-rounded children. A well-researched, personable advice book on helping children become the best they can be.
come from: fat, protein, carbohydrates, cholesterol, sodium, etc.—after every recipe help make this cookbook a lifesaver, perhaps literally. Underserved by its title, this cookbook will be a gamechanger for cooks hungry for quick, easy ways to create practical, healthful and inspired fare.
WHERE THEY BURY YOU
Kohlhagen, Steven W. Sunstone Press (344 pp.) $32.95 | $24.95 paper | Sep. 2, 2013 978-0-86534-939-1 Opening just before Lincoln is inaugurated, this historical novel describes the world of cowboys and Native Americans as it collides with the Civil War. In his second novel, Kohlhagen (Tiger Found, 2008) weaves a complex tale around the real-life murder of Santa Fe’s provost marshal Maj. Joseph Cummings and the thousands of dollars stolen from the Army, the church and the New Mexico Territory during the time of the Civil War. He blends fiction with reality and uses many historical characters—Cochise, the chief of the Chiricahua Apaches; Kit Carson, one of the American frontier’s controversial legends; Augustyn “Auggy” Damours, a gambler and con artist. Kohlhagen also introduces several fictitious characters, including the sassy Lily Smoot, a Santa Fe poker dealer and occasional prostitute; U.S. Army captain John Arnold, who, over time, serves as a sort of father figure to Lily; and David Zapico, store owner and businessman. In the book, this unlikely (and untrustworthy) team of outlaws bands together to pull off one of the greatest heists in American history. Their plan, however, is not without its hiccups, close calls and, ultimately, fatalities. Greed and stupidity often get in the way. But, this is not the only plot unfolding. While the plan for embezzlement slowly takes shape, we see the effects the “White Eyes” have on Native American nations. Kohlhagen capably sketches the growing tensions between Native Americans and the U.S. soldiers and settlers; among various nations, as they unwittingly enter each other’s territories due to increasing loss of land to U.S. forces; and between the Union and Confederate soldiers as Lincoln takes office and the Civil War breaks out. Throughout the novel, it’s clear that few people trust each other, and for good reason, as everyone appears to have an agenda. In this rough-and-tumble frontier story, endless layers of deceit up the ante and interest.
HEALTHY MEAT AND POTATOES
Knight, Charles; Knight, David BookSurge Publishing (256 pp.) $23.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Feb. 28, 2007 978-1-4196-5966-9 According to cooking-show host Knight and his son, there’s no need to give up old favorites in pursuit of healthy eating if cooks use these simple, healthful recipes. Using novel cooking techniques and ingredient tweaks, the Knights adapt traditional favorites to contemporary dietary trends (less fat and salt), putting rich fare—such as chicken cordon bleu, Peking duck, bourbon-stuffed filet mignon, roast stuffed veal, chili, etc.—back on the healthy table. Knight explains how to make a low-sodium stock from fresh vegetables and meat and how to create a roux that can thicken other sauces. Though many recipes employ the waterless cookware that Knight started his career by selling, experienced cooks should be able to adapt regular stovetop cookware (cast iron, etc.) so as to avoid investing in new pots and pans. Under Knight’s careful guidance, even beginners should soon feel confident, especially after he offers insight into how kitchen mistakes can happen. He warns, for example, that in making the lobster bisque, readers should “please read the entire recipe before beginning” and “keep your face away from the flames.” As the title suggests, meat and potatoes get star treatment—including over a dozen tuber recipes—but other vegetables get loving treatment as well: pesto, Italian-style spinach, mustard greens, squash, etc. The six-recipe dessert section offers treats such as amaretto fruit cake (using a commercially available cake mix) and bread pudding “baked” on the stovetop. Short explanations about why and how good food is created, a detailed index, a metric conversion chart and a detailed list of calories—including where they |
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“Mercado’s reaching adulthood in one piece is remarkable; arriving with her soul intact is miraculous.” from the armor of love and hope
REMAKING AMERICA
THE ARMOR OF LOVE AND HOPE
McCormack, Richard—Ed. Alliance for American Manufacturing (380 pp.) $14.95 paper | Jul. 10, 2013 978-0-9892574-1-1
Mercado, Doris Manuscript (316 pp.) Jun. 1, 2013
Mercado’s memoir chronicles how a middle child from a large family experiences love, forgiveness and hope despite a lifetime of abuse, neglect and abandonment in the mountains of Puerto Rico. The memoir opens with scenes of an idyllic childhood. Mercado lived in a small town outside Ponce, Puerto Rico, where her life included colorful characters in a bustling community. There were eight children at the beginning of Mercado’s story, all battling to use a single bathroom and hairbrush. Doris’ mother, Lina, worked as a seamstress. She was stern, but she encouraged 4-year-old Doris to read the newspaper. Doris’ father was well-liked and played affectionately with the children in their chaotic but happy household. Within two years, two more boys were born into the Mercado family; both needed extensive medical attention. The strain took its toll, and finally, the family moved in with Doris’ beloved grandmother in the mountain town of Jayuya. After the move, Doris’ life deteriorated. Her mother beat her repeatedly with a broomstick, and Doris spent many days nursing badly bruised limbs. Life continued to fall apart for the Mercado clan, particularly when Doris’ paternal grandmother invited Lina and the youngest children to New York for a fresh start. Doris and five of her siblings were left in the care of their father, although it was 14-year-old Doris who assumed chief responsibility. Within days of her mother’s departure, Doris’ father also walked out without explanation, leaving Doris and the others to fend for themselves. This living arrangement continued for another three years. Doris warned the children to keep their situation secret, so they wouldn’t alert the authorities. This profoundly sad story of neglect is told in simple, direct language. Doris’ capacity for forgiveness is astonishing, as is her single-minded focus on the love she feels for the brothers and sister left in her care. She eventually moved to the U.S., and her reunification with her parents was filled with more pain and abuse. Mercado’s reaching adulthood in one piece is remarkable; arriving with her soul intact is miraculous. A straightforward, moving story about resilience.
In a series of essays, a team of experts argues that a robust manufacturing sector is necessary to keep the American dream alive. Following up on the notable 2009 work Manufacturing a Better Future for America, editor McCormack (Lean Machines, 2002, etc.) and like-minded business wonks suggest ways to nurture a renaissance in U.S. manufacturing. The book comes at a pivotal moment; the sector has lost nearly 6 million jobs in the 21st century, and its contribution to the gross domestic product declined to 11.9 percent in 2012 from 22.7 percent in 1970. Renewed interest in rebuilding America’s manufacturing base, however, offers a chance to change course. The book’s 10 contributing authors—including business executives, engineers and journalists—contend that the United States must adopt new policies regarding trade, infrastructure, taxes, education and energy and develop a comprehensive strategy to encourage domestic production while leveling the international playing field. McCormack opens with a sobering assessment of the state of American manufacturing, and his survey of key industries such as semiconductors, chemicals and automobiles reveals the United States as a diminished giant, outstripped by global rivals. In an equally compelling chapter, trade lawyer Eric Garfinkel calls for stronger enforcement of World Trade Organization rules to prevent some nations from bending them. Journalist Harold Meyerson is perhaps the group’s biggest skeptic, as he points to Germany’s vibrant manufacturing culture to argue that an industrial revival without labor unions is no revival at all. This articulate, well-sourced and skillfully constructed anthology covers an impressive amount of ground. The authors tackle thorny issues, such as value-added taxation, labor relations and Chinese currency manipulation, and often challenge prevailing wisdom; for example, manufacturing advocate Harry Moser contends that corporations’ narrow focus on labor costs has led them to overlook the sizable hidden costs of shifting production overseas. Although none of the proposed remedies are easy fixes, the book’s main message—that manufacturing is critical to the future of American prosperity—is gaining traction among economic observers. The chapters are long and densely packed, and McCormack wisely gives each chapter a synopsis for quick reference. A sophisticated, persuasive argument that “Made in America” means a stronger America.
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THE RISE OF THE NONES AND THE DECLINE OF DENOMINATIONAL CHRISTIANITY The Case for Reasoned Reform in the Christian Church
void—but at a heavy price. Benoit is handsome, mysterious and secretive. The attraction is instant, and the two begin an intense affair steamy enough to satisfy romance-genre die-hards. When the possessive Benoit reveals that he’s a werecat and claims Jacks as his own by turning him, Jacks’ fate is sealed. The novella follows Jacks as he accepts and navigates his new life. In this slim, fast-paced tale, Peters builds interest by seamlessly moving the narrative from past to present. The flashbacks fill in the missing pieces while putting readers right in the middle of Jacks’ current struggles. It’s fantasy fiction certainly, but the emotiondriven narrative is achingly human. Adrift, Jacks finds a home in Benoit, but instead of feeling complete, he struggles with Benoit’s urge to dominate him. Jacks’ struggle with identity and independence make him a sympathetic, nuanced character. Although engaging and balanced, the storyline could use more development. The climax arrives quickly, and though it’s the first in a series, more time spent on developing other characters and extending the plot would improve this installment. Nevertheless, readers will be left wanting more. An innovative take on the shape-shifter genre; this first offering in a gay fantasy series should garner a large following.
Miller, Charles R. Manuscript (110 pp.)
In his debut, Miller identifies how modern attitudes in organized Christianity can turn off potential parishioners. The author has had an on-again, off-again relationship with organized religion. In his young adulthood, he referred to himself as a “none,” since, although he still had faith, he didn’t feel at home in the Pentecostal Church. He couldn’t reconcile the teachings of the church with what he knew to be truth. Later, he discovered he enjoyed the connection of active worship and returned, although he still disagreed with certain teachings and practices. The author uses his personal history, detailed in the introduction, to identify what he sees as bothersome themes in organized Christianity and evaluates them in historical context. In an engaging scholarly essay, he draws on writings by Christian leaders from the years 100 to 1000; during that era, the Bible took official form, and church leaders calmly debated the tenets of the religion as they shaped it. Miller argues that many of Christianity’s most controversial positions are modern creations that wouldn’t have found support earlier in Christianity’s history. Early church leaders rejected an all-or-nothing view of the Bible, he asserts, and might have contested notions that the Bible must be taken literally, that Scripture trumps science, and that homosexuals and minorities are lesser humans. This personable, well-written book stands out for its numerous historical references. Despite its compelling style and well-reasoned arguments, however, it likely won’t win over readers who have opposing viewpoints. An intriguing, wide-ranging essay on some of the most contentious issues in modern Christianity.
SHADOWS OF TIME— PROBABLE OUTCOME Reinemann, Joseph J. CreateSpace (716 pp.) $24.00 paper | $5.95 e-book May 10, 2013 978-1-4839-5839-2
An impromptu trip turns into a sobering look into the future for John Roley and Tim Jackson, the hapless heroes of Reinemann’s ongoing series about time travelers given responsibilities and powers they barely understand. Relatively fresh off the adventures of the first book, John, Tim and ISAC-9, their sentient computer partner, are working on retrofitting an experimental aircraft to be a time ship, but the repair and engineering work needed is far too much for two men and a computer, despite them being powerful Guardians who possess the legendary Amulets of Time. Between the need for extra help and the attention of a young med student John is falling for, Tim and John end up bringing three more people aboard the time ship, now christened the Wells. A surprise visit from a business rival causes the heroes to take the Wells on a short jaunt, but a malfunction drops them in the year 3000, in a world where humans have been almost driven extinct by a race of synthetic people—people originally created by one of the interns brought aboard by Tim and John. Faced with a world they inadvertently created, and split up by warring forces, John and Tim must figure out how to save their new friends while avoiding a grisly end in the ongoing battle between humans and synthetics. As befitting the second book in a series, Reinemann is able to dispense with much of the setup and jump right into the action; however, even readers who haven’t read the first book will be able to roll
WERECAT The Rearing
Peters, Andrew J. Vagabondage Press LLC. (71 pp.) $2.99 e-book | May 27, 2013 In Peters’ first installment of a planned fantasy series, a newly turned shapeshifter strives to maintain his humanity while satisfying the demands of his creator and lover. Growing up in small-town Pennsylvania, Jackson, aka Jacks, often felt lonely. Coming out as gay to his parents only made matters worse, and while he finds friends in college, his sense of loneliness never quite fades. During spring break of his senior year, he meets a man who fills the |
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Interviews & Profiles
Susan Wittig Albert
In her first indie venture, the veteran writer takes on a literary legend’s hidden life By Sarah Rettger Susan Wittig Albert is no newcomer to publishing. With several best-selling mystery series to her name, including The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter, The Darling Dahlias, and China Bayles, Albert has made a career in stories. But there was one story she could not convince any publisher to take on. “This book has had several lives,” Albert says of her first self-published novel, A Wilder Rose. Her research into Rose Wilder Lane’s work on her mother Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books began more than two decades ago. The book tells Lane’s story largely in flashbacks, as she fills in an eager young protégée on the family obligations that brought her world-traveling days to an end and brought her back to her parents’ Missouri farm for much of the 1930s. Lane tries to maintain her own writing career and separate herself from her occasionally demanding mother; she even draws on her love of homebuilding to set her parents up in a second house on the property when her royalty checks come in. But as Lane’s rewritten versions of Wilder’s tales of her pioneer childhood become best-sellers, her own writing, friendships and independence yield to the world of the Little House books. This mother-daughter conflict does not dominate the book, though, and Albert also captures Lane’s own personality, particularly her dedicated libertarianism, the driving force behind her own impassioned writing about contemporary farmers’ lives and her opposition to all government intervention. The book leaves the reader with a full picture of Lane as a journalist, novelist, businesswoman and caretaker whose life was 148
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as compelling and dramatic as the stories she rewrote for her mother. Albert originally planned to write a creative nonfiction book about Lane’s role in developing her mother’s iconic series, but her agent, Kerry Sparks of Levine Greenberg, found no takers when she submitted the manuscript to editors. The rejections fell into two categories: “They thought that the size of the potential audience for this was small,” Albert says—there had been several academic works written about Lane but nothing for a general audience—or else there was interest but from publishers who wanted a different version of the story, one that maintained the legend of Missouri housewife Wilder as the primary author of the books. “I always thought we put books out to make people think,” Albert says, but she found little support when she decided to challenge one of the deeply held literary myths of the 20th century. As the rejections piled up, Albert collected the editorial feedback she received and incorporated it as she rewrote the narrative, this time as a novel. Although she considered submitting the manuscript again, several questions of timing convinced Albert that self-publishing was the right path for her book. First, there was the time she had already put into the project. “I really want this story out there,” Albert notes. Second, the South Dakota State Historical Society Press announced its plans to publish an annotated edition of Pioneer Girl, Wilder’s memoir manuscript that served as the basis for the Little House books, and Albert wanted her book to appear at the same time. (Publication was scheduled for this summer, but in February, the press announced that the book would be delayed.) |
Finally, Levine Greenberg launched a program designed to support its authors across publishing platforms, and Sparks was open to self-publishing. “Kerry said, ‘OK, how do you want to publish this?’ ” Albert says, and the process began. She decided to make the book available across platforms and distributors in order to reach both individual and institutional customers. Paperback and e-book versions will be available through Amazon’s CreateSpace, while Ingram’s Lightning Source will produce a hardcover version that Albert hopes libraries will add to their collections via distributor Baker & Taylor. “Because my work has been in libraries all over the country,” she says, she hopes libraries will be interested in acquiring A Wilder Rose as well, so accommodating that market was essential. With production decisions made, Albert is now focusing her efforts on marketing and promotion. She is already adept at connecting directly to her readers, something she has done since the days when All About Thyme, her China Bayles newsletter, was printed and mailed four times a year to fellow herb enthusiasts. Today, the weekly newsletter is online, and Albert maintains an active social media presence and a blog, Lifescapes. A Wilder Rose also has its own website, where a reader companion will be available for download, offering a window into Albert’s considerable research. “It’s the facts that document my fiction,” she says. Other aspects of marketing have been more of a learning experience. For instance, her publishers had always taken care of securing blurbs for her previous books. “Self-publishers really have to put some thought into that,” Albert says. But enthusiastic endorsements have not been hard to come by: Little House scholars, including William Holtz and Anita Clair Fellman, are fans, and Kirkus gave the book a starred review, calling it “pitch-perfect....Albert has written a nuanced, moving and resonant novel about fraught motherdaughter relationships, family obligation, and the ways we both inherit and reject the values of our parents.” Albert has also reached out to online reviewers, sending copies of the book to selected book bloggers and making the book available on NetGalley, where she has seen reviewers’ enthusiasm spread: As NetGalley reviewers post their comments on GoodReads, Albert has noticed A Wilder Rose on a steadily growing number of the website’s to-be-read lists.
Although early critical and popular reaction has been largely positive, Albert is prepared for her detractors as well: “I’m expecting some push back from the Laura industry,” she says. “I’m expecting some people to say, ‘Oh, she’s trashed Laura.’ ” But readers who are open to learning the real history of the Little House books will find not a hatchet job but the story of a professional writer who spent her life balancing her own work with the juggernaut she helped her mother create, as well the ebb of the pioneer generation, the nature of family and houses of all sorts. (Particularly astute readers will notice several mentions of Kirkus Reviews founder Virginia Kirkus, who was one of Wilder’s early editors.) For Albert, writing A Wilder Rose was a special opportunity. “To a writer, a story like this comes along only once in a lifetime,” she says. But although Albert wants readers to understand how much Lane’s story matters to her, she is not turning her back on writing mysteries. “I don’t want to diminish that work,” she says, and fans can look forward to plenty of upcoming volumes in her ongoing series. As for continuing to publish her own work, that remains a possibility. Albert is working to regain the rights to some of her early books, and she looks forward to bringing them back into print in the future. Sarah Rettger is a writer and bookseller in Massachusetts. A Wilder Rose was reviewed in the Aug. 15 issue of Kirkus Reviews.
A Wilder Rose Albert, Susan Wittig Persevero Press (288 pp.) $24.99 | Oct. 1, 2013 978-0-9892035-1-7
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with the story, as Reinemann quickly and clearly establishes his characters’ voices and basic traits. Fortunately, he understands how to fold pertinent background details into the flow without resorting to infodumps. Despite the dark subject matter in the later pages as well as the philosophical implications the book touches on regarding the travelers’ responsibilities in creating this war-torn future, Reinemann clearly intends John and Tim’s adventures to be light in tone, with plenty of snappy dialogue. During a few stretches, the tone of John and Tim’s adventures clashes with the events of the book—including when a lethal robotic soldier truncates his identity until all that remains is his model number, HIRC-947—but for the most part, Reinemann manages to keep the balance. Even when the tone and subject matter are at odds, the story moves at a steady pace without jettisoning reader interest. Strong characters, ready wit and an excellent sense of plotting enliven Reinemann’s propulsive tale, which never flags in its 700-plus pages.
not harder. However, Rohr also has a solid understanding of basic biblical Greek, and this knowledge not only deepens his insights, but also lends him additional credibility. A discerning new take on Revelation that opens up the confounding text.
IF YOU WERE ME AND LIVED IN... FRANCE...
Roman, Carole P. CreateSpace (26 pp.) $9.99 paper | $0.99 e-book | May 2, 2013 978-1481032001 Roman’s (Captain No Beard: Strangers on the High Seas, 2013, etc.) latest children’s book offers an introduction to French culture that highlights similarities in the lives of American and French children. This second book in the author’s If You Were Me and Lived in… series focuses on France and its history, culture and language. The book is geared toward elementary school age children, and, as such, explores French life through a child’s eyes. Each page addresses the reader as “you,” aiming to create a connection between the reader and the narrator, a French child. The book begins with a map of France, pointing out its location in Western Europe, and then gives readers a tour of the country. Kids learn why Paris is called the “City of Light,” what they would call their parents in French, and what the French word for “school” is. The narrator also asks questions such as, “If your parents bought bread in a boulangerie, they would pay in euros. What else do you think they would have in a boulangerie?”— an ideal jumping-off point for a classroom unit on France. The book also covers French food, sports, holidays, toys and other aspects of the culture and helps American kids make comparisons and connections by, for example, likening hazelnut spread to peanut butter. Roman is also the author of the charming Captain No Beard series, and her approachable writing style succeeds here as well. Although the book’s premise is simple, the author ably explains cultural similarities and differences, and the colorful illustrations help keep things light. The book also includes a pronunciation guide to help kids sound out French names and nouns. A book that engagingly helps young Americans see what they share in common with French children.
THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST—COMFORT OR CONFUSION? Rohr, L. Ralph Westbow Press (488 pp.) $49.95 paper | $9.99 e-book Nov. 13, 2012 978-1-4497-6764-8
Rohr presents an accessible, chapterby-chapter explication of the fascinating symbols that fill the Bible’s most challenging book. D.H. Lawrence famously said, “When we read Revelation, we feel at once there are meanings behind meanings.” Suffice it to say, this difficult book admits to many possible readings. According to Rohr, it’s a shame recent readers often think Revelation has just one: The end of the world is coming, and Revelation tells how it’s going to happen. Rohr calls this the “millennial” interpretation, and while it has many supporters, he thinks it causes only “eschatological confusion.” To help alleviate this confusion—and restore the book’s true message of Christian comfort—Rohr offers a new take that characterizes it first and foremost as a complex grouping of symbols. He gets his cue from the Greek word semaino, which appears in the first verse; roughly, semaino means “to give a sign,” and Rohr argues that “Revelation is an unveiling of Jesus Christ by means of symbols.” His book, then, is a refreshingly open-minded effort to figure out what that “unveiling” means. And from the heft of his tome, readers will recognize that this is no small task. To do so, Rohr mainly relies on the original text itself, as much of his project is devoted to careful readings of passages from Revelation. However, the author also relies on the rest of the Bible, and he’s eager to fall back on other scriptural texts to explain particularly difficult images. Rohr describes himself as a sort of enthusiastic amateur scholar, but his lack of formal training is a strength; his tone is unpretentious and his style simple and straightforward. Throughout, it’s clear that he wants to make Revelation easier, 150
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“Although sometimes a bit pedantic, this book holds great treasures, such as the tale of a 19th-century ‘souvenir’: an Apache necklace made of human fingers.” from collecting tribal art
COLLECTING TRIBAL ART How Kwakiutl Masks and Easter Island Lizard Men Became Art
THE EBAY CODE The eBay Detective Book 2 Salter, Charles A. Tate Publishing (216 pp.) $13.99 paper | $7.99 e-book Mar. 12, 2013 978-1-62510-803-6
Rubel, Paula G.; Rosman, Abraham Infinity Publishing (204 pp.) $15.95 paper | $4.95 e-book Dec. 28, 2012 978-0-7414-8059-0
In Maj. Brad Stout’s return, he must foil a radiological threat against the president mere hours before his wedding. Part of Brad’s job at Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute is monitoring eBay for anyone selling radioactive material. The Army major believes he’s uncovered an online sale written in code that offers a potentially lethal item related to a 1961 nuclear incident in Idaho. There’s also an allusion in the code to the president’s upcoming visit to Camp David. Brad desperately attempts to warn the president about the scheme, and he’s also in serious danger of missing his wedding to his pregnant fiancee, Mary Lou. Though short, the second book in Salter’s (The eBay Plot, 2012) series packs a mean punch. In addition to the nuclear threat and pending nuptials, Brad is attacked by dirty-bomb terrorists—he’d thwarted their plans in his last adventure—seeking a World War II–era diary they believe he possesses. Brad also travels to Germany when a loved one is kidnapped, and he meets his odd, insular Cajun future in-laws. The novel can sometimes read like Salter was trying to squeeze in as many genres as he could: action, espionage, drama, a detective story, comedy with Mary Lou’s Ma and her nearly incomprehensible Cajun dialect, and even romance, as Brad and Mary Lou’s intimacy is in ample supply. Fortunately, though, the story isn’t convoluted, and there’s always some elbow room in the narrative. The best scenes deal with the bonding between Brad and his father-to-be: Brad calls him Dad and contrasts him with his own father, a cold, violent man. The two men work together in tracking down the highest bidder for the dubious eBay auction. But at the core of the story are Brad’s fear and excitement about his future marriage and impending fatherhood. For instance, despite having just survived an attack, he’s worried he’ll incur his fiancee’s Cajun wrath if he’s late picking up her father from the airport. Tellingly, the countdown, which begins about halfway through the novel, counts down not to the threat against the president but to the wedding day. A broad, satisfying thriller that’s as invigorating as it is charming.
Rubel and Rosman (The Tapestry of Culture, 2009) explain the history, psychology and economics of “the unruly passion” of collecting tribal art. Collecting can be an obsession, an investment, or an emotional pull. But mostly, the authors assert, it’s “a game.” It has winners, losers and rules, and its main goals are hunting and acquiring. More specifically, fine-art collecting is like politics, where wealth begets power and reputation. The authors, both research associates from the American Museum of Natural History’s department of anthropology, write that collecting tribal art “goes back more than 6 centuries.” During the Age of Exploration, Portuguese and Dutch sailors returned from overseas with goods made by so-called “savages.” These “artificial curiosities” so thrilled the Europeans that African and Oceanic societies began to make objects to appeal directly to European sensibilities. The authors provide tales of collectors, from the Medicis to the modern-day de Menils, and case studies that examine the unique ecosystem of collectors, dealers, auctions and museums. They also investigate those who collect for commercial purposes and those “guided by rules of taste, connoisseurship and aesthetics.” Using extensive research, the authors highlight seminal moments in tribal art history—such as how “primitive art” collecting by Pablo Picasso and others led to the creation of modernism and how photographer Alfred Stieglitz used ethnographic objects. They also show how the civil rights movement of the 1960s led to a greater appreciation for the cultural significance of the “exotic.” Although Rubel and Rosman concentrate on tribal-art collecting, their book also examines collecting in general and what separates it from “mere acquisitiveness.” Although sometimes a bit pedantic, this book holds great treasures, such as the tale of a 19th-century “souvenir”: an Apache necklace made of human fingers. A comprehensive treatise for collectors who regularly struggle between rationality and passion.
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THE JERICHO DECEPTION
Consortium, Cassandra and the other Agricoles attend school only until age 10, work in the Blissful Woods, and are forbidden to speak of the past—especially the books, the old world and the attempted uprising that took place when Cassandra was 4. Uncle Solon takes a special interest in Cassandra, though, and breaks these rules to teach her to write. Despite this, when the Agricole children are tested for a special Consortium school, it’s her best friend Rachel, not Cassandra, who’s chosen. Cassandra could be content to work with her family, preparing for the sugaring “Depiction” of the snowy maple trees, but a visit to the weather station reveals that Cassandra’s internal compass can also control the wind. Shortly after, Cassandra is visited by men on horseback who want to see her compass in action for themselves. When Cassandra shares the interaction with her family, Uncle Soron explains that the horsemen are the Liber Voy, the mix of Agricole and Technostian rebels behind the uprising years ago. They come forward to explain how Cassandra’s gift could help them win the rebellion, though not before the Consortium intervenes. Cassandra’s parents abruptly flee Blissful Woods, leaving a note for Cassandra to meet them at the Colony, the main Consortium sector. Something is amiss in the request, but Cassandra goes with a band of young Agricole girls auditioning for a Moulin Rouge Depiction at the Colony. Once there, though, the girls are led not to an audition but to prostitution. Cassandra’s anger unleashes the wind, and she soon finds Rachel in the Colony. No one appears to be who they say they are, and Cassandra must choose between the greed and power that tempt her or the Liber Voy who say she could save them all. Engrossing from the start, the plot moves at a good clip, though dialogue, which can often sound rote and redundant, rules most of the story. Thankfully, that changes when Cassandra embraces her power and finds her voice. The narration lacks the detailed beauty of dystopian novels like The Giver (1993), but the story is nonetheless clear and heartfelt. Readers may wish for a deeper portrait of Cassandra, especially since compassionate, humorous Uncle Solon is so well-developed. Meanwhile, Cassandra seems to be what the people around her want her to be; fierce Katniss Everdeen she is not. A sharp story with not one false note, rendered with eerie tones and a revealing commentary on money, power and loyalty.
Small, Jeffrey West Hills Press (432 pp.) $15.95 paper | $9.99 e-book Apr. 30, 2013 978-1-933512-44-0
Small’s (The Breath of God, 2011, etc.) latest novel expertly blends cutting-edge neurology and religious identity in a kinetic, engrossing thriller. In a crowded lab at Yale University, Dr. Ethan Lightman and his research team work on a machine that can induce mystical experiences in experimental subjects using noninvasive methods. Lightman’s research is rooted in his longtime struggle with his own mystical childhood experiences, which have long haunted him. Despite promising initial results, his project is struggling to stay afloat, until a mysterious agency swoops in with bounteous funding. Soon, the project makes significant progress, thanks in part to the contributions of grad student Rachel Riley. But Lightman and his colleagues soon discover that some of their research backers have sinister motivations and plan to misuse Lightman’s work for their own ends. Soon, kidnapping, murder and other crimes ensue. Small ably weaves his many plot threads together; he never lets the story drag, and he never allows his major characters to languish. He also manages to get across a number of complicated concepts—from magnetic induction to neurophysiology to neartrance states—without bogging down the story. At all times, he gives readers a clear idea of where the action is, who the characters are, what they’re doing and why, despite a hugely ambitious narrative than spans continents. Readers will appreciate the author’s consistent clarity of thought, which they’ll find in abundance here. There are a few flaws, however, such as a tendency toward pedestrian dialogue, particularly between Lightman and his faculty mentor. There’s also an occasional odd emphasis on a secondary protagonist, a Jordanian doctor. However, these minor issues pale in comparison to the story’s many strengths. A must-read for thriller fans, featuring well-defined characters and thought-provoking concepts.
COMPASS
St. Marie, Sylvie Amazon Digital Services (173 pp.) $1.99 e-book | Apr. 15, 2013 A 14-year-old girl’s supernatural talent sparks winds of change in this dystopian YA novel. For as long as she can remember, Cassandra has always known where north is. She lives in Sector 17 with her uncle and parents, all of whom are Agricoles who work at Blissful Woods, a deep forest theme park where they “depict” the seasons for the visiting Technostians. In a world carefully controlled by the Daisy 152
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LOOPHOLES OF REAL ESTATE Secrets of Successful Real Estate Investing
ILLUMINATING GRACIE
Temple, Lisa C. CreateSpace (312 pp.) $15.99 paper | $7.99 e-book | Jun. 8, 2013 978-1-4802-5717-7
Sutton, Garrett RDA Press, LLC. (352 pp.) $15.16 paper | Aug. 6, 2013 978-1-937832-22-3
In Temple’s debut YA fantasy novel, a young woman contends with angels, battles demons, and learns to love herself and others. When 17-year-old Grace Bennett arrives at a mysterious mansion, she doesn’t realize that the course of her life is about to change dramatically. The shrewish Mrs. B. and her companion, Willem, offer her summer employment as Mrs. B’s assistant. The new job saves her from working for her “goody-two-shoes” brother and “holier-than-thou” sister-in-law, so Grace happily accepts— despite the fact that two elderly strangers mysteriously seem to know everything about her. It soon becomes clear that Grace relies on sarcasm and reckless behavior to push people away and mask her own insecurities; she also displays compulsive behaviors, such as obsessive counting and checking rituals, to calm herself. In spite of her quirks, though, she’s a likable character, and in her better moments, her sarcasm turns into creative wit. During her new job, she meets Merc, a bewitching young man, and Locke, who claims to be Willem’s grandson. She soon realizes that her new acquaintances are far more than meets the eye and that she needs to learn to trust them. She soon risks losing herself in a literal battle between angels and demons—and each of her new companions will play a crucial role in helping her set things right. As Temple shows Grace begin to mature, she satisfyingly allows her to keep enough of her edge to keep her from becoming a flavorless heroine; Grace’s realistic spiritual improvement is neither immediate nor complete. The author also makes sure that the other characters are equally dynamic. The angels, for example, don’t always behave angelically, often demonstrating arrogance and other faults, and the demons aren’t always as wicked as readers might expect. A well-paced fantasy story of redemption and self-improvement.
Investing in real estate is as easy as understanding the tax code and personalinjury law, according to this informative but daunting primer, part of the Rich
Dad Advisors series. Sutton (Run Your Own Corporation, 2012, etc.), an attorney, expert in business law and one of real estate–investment guru Robert T. Kiyosaki’s stable of Rich Dad Advisors, offers clever, if complicated, new ploys to grow and safeguard a fortune. He begins with a motivational sketch of the cash-flow investment doctrine popularized in Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad—buy rental properties with borrowed money; rake in cash from tenants; leverage the equity to buy new properties; repeat until rich—but focuses on the labyrinthine “loopholes” that make the formula tenable. The first kind involves subtle tax dodges that add greatly to the profitability of property investments—everything from “cost segregation” depreciation to “passive loss” allowances to the “1031 exchange.” The flip side of amassing real estate wealth, the author continues, is protecting it against lawsuits, especially those filed by tenants. Sutton therefore explores another suite of legal loopholes for sheltering assets from court judgments, including insurance, limited liability corporations that distance owners from their wealth, and the tactic of loading properties with debt so they are less tempting targets for plaintiffs. There is plenty of arcane tax, legal and corporatestructuring lore here, but Sutton explains it in admirably lucid, straightforward prose supplemented with entertaining fictional case studies, including a picaresque involving an alpaca ranch, a moonshine still and whiplash payouts. Readers will learn a lot from the book, though not quite enough to master the subject; Sutton stresses that a team of expert “advisors”—a lawyer, broker, accountant, insurer, property manager—is indispensable for guiding investors profitably through the legal/financial minefield. The book cuts against the grain of Kiyosaki’s cashflow populism, his credo that real estate investment, not earned income, is the little guy’s road to riches. Here, the investor is the almost vestigial figurehead for the army of business-service professionals who do the legwork. Still, novice investors will find it an excellent road map for getting started. Readers looking for easy money may be discouraged by Sutton’s demonstration of just how complex real estate money can be, but others will find helpful guidelines, tips and tricks presented in a clear, engaging style.
PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR: SUB ROSA IN A NUT SHELL Thompson, Wade H. Xlibris (76 pp.) $24.99 | $15.99 paper | $3.99 e-book Jan. 25, 2013 978-1-4797-8159-1
Thomson’s debut work of nonfiction—part memoir, part guidebook— provides “the nitty-gritty of worker’s compensation insurance investigations.” The author, a licensed private investigator, worked primarily for the Insurance Company of Southern California on suspected insurance fraud cases. His beat spanned from Modesto |
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“[A] thoughtful, thorough investigation into what has gone wrong in the child-parent-family dynamic.” from parent power
to Capistrano. His tools were both traditional gumshoe and high-tech, the essential components of what’s known in his industry as “sub rosa,” or covert, surveillance. Over a decadeslong career, which Thomson admits was low paying and “often humdrum,” the author recounts covering wrongful death assignments and scoping out cheating spouses. Sometimes, worker’s compensation insurance cases had their own unique and interesting twists; Thomson shares a memorable one in the short chapter “The Woman with Two Claims.” He examines the advances in surveillance equipment since the 1980s but notes that nothing works better than patience, a featureless car with good fuel economy and the ability to make quick U-turns, and old-fashioned note taking. Aside from being crucial to fact-finding, investigative notes serve as the raw material for requisite written reports. The author’s experiences as a process server helped him learn how to keep dogs at bay and navigate large apartment complexes. Thomson shares many small tips, some obvious, some subtle, on the legalities regarding privacy, as well as the importance of notifying local police of stakeouts and how to control the unprofessional and distracting “jiggle” that can mar clandestine camerawork. To identify the right person at an address, he suggests a unique method of mailing a large, bright envelope or a teddy bear, anything innocuous but easily spotted from afar, to establish the intended “claimant.” At times, Thomson’s writing reads as a dry surveillance report, but when he wanders into the shaky area of “pretext” and expresses his thoughts on running red lights or relieving oneself on stakeout, the peculiarity of his voice can be engaging. Educational, entertaining; intended for starter detectives but ideal for anyone interested in the minutia of modern investigative work.
throughout, and some mix-ups will make children snicker: “ ‘May I wash in the toilet?’ Thomas asked with a twinkle. / ‘Heavens, no!’ Miss Cue squealed. ‘Toilets are only for tinkle!’ ” Adults, however, may squirm at the bathroom humor and, in spots, at the irregular rhythm and forced rhyme. But when the Scottish pupils take over, the rhyme snaps to attention: “The trunk is the boot, while a boot is a welly. / A wallet’s a purse and a TV’s a telly. / Now really, Miss Cue! Enough of this blether! / It’s time you learn Scottish. We’ll do it together!” The story then switches to Miss Queue’s class in Seattle—and the page numbers start over from 1. The reader, now armed with definitions from the first “book” (including the fact that diapers are called “nappies” in Scotland), can understand Miss Queue’s dilemmas. “John let loose a yawn and asked for a nappy. / The thought of him skipping the loo made Miss Queue quite unhappy! / Politely she said, ‘This school hasn’t a shower. / Please go to the toilet before messing your trousers.’ ” Again, her students come to the rescue: “Please just say bathroom—not toilet or loo.” Younger elementary school students will enjoy this book’s mostly clever wordplay while broadening their worldview.
PARENT POWER The Key to America’s Prosperity
Westman, Jack C. CreateSpace (262 pp.) $12.00 paper | $5.99 e-book May 22, 2013 978-1-4823-8196-2 Westman, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, questions what rights children have over their own care. As a nation, are we denying children their basic rights of humanity by favoring their parents’ rights over their own? Westman examines such controversial questions and considers how certain standards of parenthood should be upheld. In a thoughtful, thorough investigation into what has gone wrong in the child-parent-family dynamic, Westman focuses on our cultural, societal and political systems. One of the main problems, he says, is “juvenile ageism,” or our failure to consider children as full citizens in need of and deserving of parents who are qualified to manage their care. Equally problematic, he says, is that parenthood isn’t treated as a career—a damaging, ultimately counterproductive problem, he says, since many parents do not have the emotional, financial and logistical support necessary to take care of their children. “This decline in family wellbeing,”
TEACHER TRADE!
Warmouth, Jennie M.; Ayerza, Gabriel J. Illus. by Sato, Aya T. CreateSpace (66 pp.) $14.95 paper | Jun. 7, 2013 978-1-4792-1045-9 In this debut children’s picture book, American and Scottish teachers trade classes and find that the English language isn’t the same everywhere—and hilarious misunderstandings ensue. Author Warmouth, a Seattle teacher who switched classrooms with a teacher in Edinburgh, Scotland, under a Fulbright exchange program, here presents two rhyming books in one. First, she tells the story of an American teacher, Miss Cue, who runs into unexpected problems when she takes over Miss Queue’s class in Scotland: “Let’s start out with spelling—so easy you’ll pass! / Please take out your notebooks and erasers dear class.” The students are mystified until one suggests that she means them to take out their “jotters and rubbers,” and Miss Cue is soon alarmed when they apparently misspell every word on the test; the illustration shows one pupil’s paper with words such as “colour,” “centre,” “practise” and “grey” crossed out and “corrected.” The cartoony art clarifies the situations 154
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This Issue’s Contributors # Kent Armstrong • Katherine Barrett • Sarah J Bridgins • Amy Cavanaugh • Donna ConawayMorrissey • Nancy Day • Tom Eubanks • Courtney Gillette • Laura B. Kennelly • Janet Krenn • Isaac Larson • Carey London • Caitlynn Lowe • Ashley Nelson • Brandon Nolta • Heather O’Neill • Joshua T. Pederson • Sarah Rettger • Megan Roth • Ken Salikof • Barry Silverstein • Sarah Smith
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Westman writes, “deprives us of parents who are able to develop the characters and wellbeing of our young people…our nation’s greatest natural resource.” This isn’t only an issue of children’s rights, though, but a larger social concern, since these children ultimately grow into adults who will either contribute positively to society or perpetuate cycles of abuse and neglect. Westman deftly takes on assumptions about parenthood and child care— for example, the idea that a genetic connection is an automatic basis for a parent to have custody of their child even if that parent is too young and/or incompetent to handle the responsibility. In that vein, Westman makes a solid argument that, as a society, we need to be more proactive in helping both parents and children. One of his more controversial proposals is the idea that minors, people with mental health problems and/or anyone currently incarcerated should go through a certification process to make sure they are competent to take on the responsibility of parenthood. This burden isn’t punitive, Westman argues, but an effort to provide support and guidance to help parents create healthy, sustainable and safe family structures. Shatters some preconceived notions of parenthood and presents a solution-oriented response to strengthening the family.
K i rk us M e di a L L C # President M A RC W I N K E L M A N Chief Operating Officer M E G L A B O R D E KU E H N Chief Financial Officer J ames H ull SVP, Marketing M ike H ejny SVP, Online Paul H offman # Copyright 2013 by Kirkus Media LLC. KIRKUS REVIEWS (ISSN 1948-7428) is published semimonthly by Kirkus Media LLC, 6411 Burleson Road, Austin, TX 78744. Subscription prices are: Digital & Print Subscription (U.S.) - 12 Months ($199.00) Digital & Print Subscription (International) - 12 Months ($229.00) Digital Only Subscription - 12 Months ($169.00) Single copy: $25.00. All other rates on request. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Kirkus Reviews, PO Box 3601, Northbrook, IL 60065-3601. Periodicals Postage Paid at Austin, TX 78710 and at additional mailing offices.
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Introducing the NEW Idiot’s Guides! As Easy As It Gets
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