August 01, 2014: Volume LXXXII, No 15

Featuring 399 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction and Children's & Teen

KIRKUS VOL. LXXXII, NO.

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REVIEWS

CHILDREN'S & TEEN

The Book with No Pictures

by B.J. Novak A witty, metafictive read-aloud takes grown-ups into a giddy wormhole of silliness. p. 126

INDIE Indie authors Alexandra Koumoundouros and Valerie Aiello try to keep it real. p. 156

on the cover

Hampton Sides resurrects a story that once riveted people around the world with In the Kingdom of Ice. p. 60

NONFICTION

Thirteen Days in September

by Lawrence Wright The Pulitzer Prize–winning author reconstructs and reflects on “one of the great diplomatic triumphs of the twentieth century” and the men who made it happen. p. 77

FICTION

The Secret Place

by Tana French Another masterful visit with the Dublin Murder Squad p. 29

from the editor’s desk:

A Lifetime of Work, for One Work of Art B Y C la i b orne

Smi t h

Photo courtesy Michael Thad Carter

Thinking about the books that stand out this month, the one that rises to the top isn’t a book. Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, a film that was shot over 12 years and follows a boy named Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from the ages of 5 to 18, has all the elements we associate with thoughtful fiction and narrative nonfiction. Rather than shoot the film over several months and use different actors to portray Mason as he grows, Linklater shot the film for Claiborne Smith a total of 49 days during those 12 years; he and producer Cathleen Sutherland managed to reconvene the crew and cast (including Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke, who play Mason’s parents) at regular intervals.

Watching the characters of Boyhood grow and change before your eyes makes their lives and the struggles they experience (divorce, alcoholism, all the oddities of adolescence) particularly intimate. Boyhood is as emotionally layered as the best written narratives; it feels like reading a good novel or deeply human nonfiction book, like Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family (2003), an unflinching, empathetic story about a poor Bronx family that absorbed 11 years of the author’s life in immersion reporting.

Usually, calling a film “literary” is shorthand for saying it’s leaden and dense, not at all cinematic, but Linklater, who once wanted to make a biopic about Tolstoy, doesn’t seem to mind the association. “I always had that personality—I think it’s a writer’s sensibility—where you’re there but not there,” he recently told the New Yorker. “I had to make a peace with myself.

It’s like, well, you’re not in the moment. But just by contemplating it, by searching for the depth of the moment, that is itself an experience.” Boyhood is an odd masterpiece; odd because the extraordinary circumstances of how it was made threaten to become a bigger story than the story the film tells (a friend recently posted the following on Facebook: “This status update was written over a period of 12 years”). Maybe every real masterpiece has as intriguing a back story as the work itself; if the weird story about how the book (or movie) was made gets you to pay attention to it, so be it.

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 in Chief C laiborne S mith csmith@kirkus.com Managing/Nonfiction Editor E R I C L I E B E T R AU eliebetrau@kirkus.com Fiction Editor L aurie M uchnick lmuchnick@kirkus.com Children’s & Teen Editor VICKY SMITH vsmith@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 Assistant Editor CHELSEA LANGFORD clangford@kirkus.com Copy Editor BETSY JUDKINS Director of Kirkus Editorial JIM SPIVEY jspivey@kirkus.com Director of Technology E R I K S M A RT T esmartt@kirkus.com Marketing Communications Director SARAH KALINA skalina@kirkus.com Marketing Associate A rden Piacen z a apiacenza@kirkus.com Advertising/Client Promotions A nna C oo p er acooper@kirkus.com

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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 editor’s note.................................................................................... 6 Amy Bloom’s lucky Characters...............................................14 Mystery..............................................................................................27 Science Fiction & Fantasy.......................................................... 35 Romance............................................................................................ 37

nonfiction Index to Starred Reviews..........................................................39 REVIEWS..............................................................................................39 editor’s note.................................................................................. 40 Watergate: The Gift That Keeps on Giving.........................54 ON the cover: Hampton Sides................................................. 60

children’s & teen Index to Starred Reviews......................................................... 79 REVIEWS............................................................................................. 80 editor’s note.................................................................................. 80 G. NERI’s GAMES...............................................................................96 halloween roundup................................................................. 141 interactive e-books..................................................................146 shelf space....................................................................................148

indie Index to Starred Reviews........................................................ 149 REVIEWS............................................................................................ 149

Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet deliver a whimsical and brilliant picture-book biography of Peter Mark Roget. Read the review on p. 89.

editor’s note..................................................................................150 Two Indie Writers Try to Keep It Real................................ 156 Appreciations: Remembering James Baldwin................. 167

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on the web w w w. k i r k u s . c o m

Photo courtesy Beowulf Sheehan

Vanessa Manko never thought she would write a novel. Growing up in suburban Connecticut, the debut author trained in ballet and danced professionally with a company before deciding to attend college. “I was at that age, 19 or 20, figuring out what I wanted my life to be,” says Manko. “I desperately wanted my education and felt that window was closing.” She decided to study English at the University of Connecticut and went on to receive a master’s from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she focused on dance history and performance studies. Often throughout her master’s program, she found herself writing fiction in secret, stealing away from her other writing to work on short stories. We starred her novel The Invention of Exile in the June 1 issue and ask her more about the book at kirkus.com this month.

Check out these highlights from Kirkus’ online coverage at www.kirkus.com 9 Photo courtesy Joshua Schwimmer

Two years ago, when novelist and journalist Euny Hong was commissioned to write an article about her childhood in Korea, little did she know it would launch her on a rich exploration of “Hallyu,” the widespread exportation of South Korean pop culture.

The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture is a very funny book that combines Hong’s remembrances of growing up in the poor and fragmented postwar state with her sharp observations on the cultural shift that is changing the world. It’s Hong’s voice, a funny, smart, often conflicted and witty combination of personal essay and observational journalism, that makes the book stand out. And yes, Psy gets a mention or two. Look for our interview with Hong this month at kirkus.com.

9 And be sure to check out our Indie publishing series, featuring some of today’s most intriguing self-published authors. 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.

After 10 years of work, three best-selling and critically acclaimed novels, and nearly 1,000 pages, Lev Grossman’s groundbreaking Magicians trilogy has drawn to a close with the August publication of The Magician’s Land. “I started the first book in 2004,” Grossman says. “I really do feel a lot of pride and a sense of accomplishment.

This is the best thing I’ve done in my life.

Well, other than my kids.” When Grossman embarked on his trilogy, American culture was changing its dismissive view of the fantasy genre. “There was a period in the 1980s and 1990s when the dominant pop culture was all sci-fi. I mean Star Wars, Star Trek, The X-Files, The Matrix,” Grossman says. “Then the pendulum swung the other way and people were interested in fantasy.”

Check out our interview with Grossman on the site in August.

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fiction THE BARTER

These titles earned the Kirkus Star:

Adcock, Siobhan Dutton (320 pp.) $26.95 | Sep. 4, 2014 978-0-525-95422-4

THE MINIATURIST by Jessie Burton..................................................... 7 One kick by Chelsea Cain................................................................... 8 THE LOTUS AND THE STORM by Lan Cao......................................... 8 WOLF IN WHITE VAN by John Darnielle..........................................10 THE BULLY OF ORDER by Brian Hart..............................................16 THE HOUR OF LEAD by Bruce Holbert.............................................16 NEVERHOME by Laird Hunt.............................................................17 THE CHILDREN ACT by Ian McEwan...............................................18 FIVES AND TWENTY-FIVES by Michael Pitre.................................21 BARRACUDA by Christos Tsiolkas.....................................................24 LISETTE’S LIST by Susan Vreeland.....................................................24 THE PAYING GUESTS by Sarah Waters.............................................25 THE SECRET PLACE by Tana French.................................................29 THE MAGICIAN’S LAND by Lev Grossman......................................35 LOCK IN by John Scalzi.......................................................................36 THE SECRET PLACE

French, Tana Viking (464 pp.) $27.95 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-0-670-02632-6

A ghost, hungry for a love she was too proud to seize, haunts a young mother.

Adcock’s (Hipster Haiku, 2006, etc.) debut novel skillfully interweaves the stories of Bridget and Rebecca, two women a century apart bound by the sacrifices inherent to marriage and motherhood. In 1902, Rebecca marries John Hirschfelder, willingly leaving her city home for a hard life as a farm wife. But her wedding night leaves her cold, and her anger at her own inability to embrace her marriage begins to fester. Soon enough, John’s passivity and her barely concealed fury lead to fits of passion. Rebecca’s mother had died shortly after childbirth, so Frau, Rebecca’s father’s cousin, helped raise her. Of the many stories Frau told her, the one of her mother’s bartering an hour of life for her daughter’s happiness troubles Rebecca the most. She wonders what she might sacrifice for her own child. One hundred years later, in the same Texas farmhouse, Bridget sits in the wee hours with her 10-month-old daughter, Julie. Giving up her job to be a full-time mother, at least for a while, seems like a good idea, but she’s always so tired, which makes her fly off the handle at everything Mark does wrong. Of course she’d sacrifice her own life for her daughter, but what if Julie died? As Bridget considers this alarming possibility, the very air shifts, and the musty, earthy smell of the small stream running through their property rises. A ghost struggles to shape itself, looming over Bridget and Julie. In the days to come, Bridget scrambles to appease the ghost and save her family from its peculiar hunger. The metaphor of the barter, however, seems awkwardly imposed and too simple for the complex frustrations of women then and now.

A tale of troubled souls far too easily resolved.

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Moms Behaving Badly Let’s talk about chick lit. I’ll begin by stipulating that I don’t like the term, which is generally used these days to dismiss a wide range of writing by women, but it can be useful when considering the evolution of a certain strain of sharp, funny, popular women’s fiction. When Helen Fielding burst on to the scene almost 20 years ago with Bridget Jones’s Diary, the genre she sparked featured young women looking for love, generally with a sense of humor. The books’ knowing tones and satirical edges proved so popular that they started spreading, and the genre morphed to include books about jobs (The Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada) and then the combination of work and parenthood (I Don’t Know How She Does It).

When a journalist sees three examples of anything, it’s a trend, and I’ve noticed a trend that feels like a direct descendant of those early chick-lit books (though I still don’t like the term): Let’s call them “Moms Behaving Badly” books. The first was the biting Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, about a Seattle woman sent around the bend by many things but primarily the self-righteous mothers at her daughter’s touchy-feely private school. Then last year came Gill Hornby’s The Hive, about a group of mothers at a private school outside London who spend their time obsessing about who’s going to be invited to serve on the fundraising committee—so they can get closer to their local queen bee, conveniently named Bea. (Hornby’s brother is Nick Hornby, whose early novels were dubbed “lad lit” in a brief stab at equal opportunity branding.)

Now Liane Moriarty has joined the fray with her delightful Big Little Lies, about a group of mothers who meet at kindergarten orientation at Pirriwee Public in Australia. (Three continents, three groups of parents, same bad behavior.) We know from the beginning that someone dies suspiciously at the school’s fundraiser, and the book counts down the months and weeks leading up to the big night, focusing on a trio of mothers who each has something to hide.

If grouping these books under a silly label brings them more attention—and encourages more people to read them—then label away.

–Laurie Muchnick Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor at Kirkus Reviews.

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THE SEARCH FOR HEINRICH SCHLÖGEL

Baillie, Martha Tin House (352 pp.) $15.95 paper | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-935639-90-0

An emotionally distant expat travels into the wilds of Canada, where he disappears into a rift in time.

This Canadian slice of magical realism by Baillie (The Incident Report, 2009, etc.) is largely about the search for meaning among the vestigial fragments of an unremarkable life. The story is told by an unnamed narrator who’s meticulously reconstructing the travels of one Heinrich Schlögel, a young German wanderer whose only affections are for his polyglot sister, Inge. We first meet Heinrich in his youth, bicycling through Germany and indulging his fascination with animals. When Inge gives him the diaries of Samuel Hearne, a real-life British explorer who navigated across Northern Canada to the Arctic Ocean, Heinrich becomes determined to repeat the exercise. But on the advice of a new friend, he heads instead to the remote interior of Baffin Island, where his doubts threaten to overtake him.

“I should have followed Hearne’s route, gone to the Western Arctic,” he thinks. “But Hearne’s path would still not have been my own path. How am I to find a route of my own?” In a surreal twist, Schlögel sets out on his journey in 1980 and thinks he’s spent only two weeks in the wilderness. Arriving back in civilization, though, he’s startled to find that 30 years have passed. His mother is dead, and his father denies that he is who he says he is, so Heinrich has only his sister to help him navigate this odd mix of the old world and the new. The novel is beautifully composed and walks a fine line between Heinrich’s internal debates and the narrator’s possibly unreliable obsession with his fate. However, it doesn’t end as much as stop, so readers looking for a satisfying sense of closure may be left wanting.

A poetic journey into mystery that asks hazy questions about time, culture and one’s sense of self.

BEYOND THE PALE MOTEL

Block, Francesca Lia St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $24.99 | $11.99 e-book | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-250-03312-3 978-1-250-03311-6 e-book Sober for nearly 12 years, Catt and her best friend, Bree, have created perfect lives for themselves in Los Angeles. But sobriety, like perfection, is a fragile thing.

They style hair at the ominously named Head Hunter, work out at the Body Farm and maintain their blog, Love Monster, which comments on all the things that make a sober

life tolerable. And together, they manage to care for Bree’s son, since her “Baby Daddy” usually has better things to do. When murdered and mutilated women’s bodies start turning up, the entire community goes on high alert. All the victims are model beautiful—and bear a disturbing resemblance to Bree—and each has lost her legs or arms. When Catt’s husband, Dash, leaves her to start a family with another woman, her personal life begins spiraling down. Although she ought to be locking her doors and avoiding strangers, she joins an online dating service and falls into bed with nearly every man she meets. Who can she really trust?

Big Bob, the creepy owner of the Body Farm? Scott, her workout buddy, who seems to be paler every time she seems him? Dash’s brother, Cyan, the sexy but remote photographer? Her reckless behavior threatens not only her sobriety, but also the careful life she’s constructed. Block (Love in the Time of Global Warming, 2013, etc.) again examines the interstices of addiction and sexuality and the limits of what a woman will do for those she loves. Aiming for a haunting eroticism, she instead achieves a numbing sense of dread, as the reader wonders not what the serial killer will do next but how Catt will degrade herself further. Even the final

showdown between Catt and the killer is marred by exposition, which defuses much of the tension.

Instead of erotic noir, a grim study of failed sobriety.

THE MINIATURIST

Burton, Jessie Ecco/HarperCollins (416 pp.) $26.99 | Aug. 26, 2014 978-0-06-230681-4 A talented new writer of historical fiction evokes 17th-century Amsterdam, the opulent but dangerous Dutch capital, where an innocent young wife must navigate the intrigues of her new household.

“Every woman is the architect of her own fortune,” reads 18-year-old Nella Oortman in a message that will gather meaning like a rolling stone as this novel progresses. It comes from the peculiarly knowledgeable artisan

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who is creating miniature objects for a dollhouse-sized version of her new home, which Nella received as a wedding gift. Hastily married to a wealthy older merchant, Johannes Brandt, after her father’s death left her provincial family struggling, Nella arrives alone in Amsterdam, readying herself for her unknown husband’s demands. Instead, she finds herself sleeping by herself, ignored by Johannes and dismissed by his brusque sister, Marin, who rules the house and influences the business, too.

Distracted by the wedding present, Nella commissions a miniaturist to supply tiny items of furniture; but these exquisite objects and their accompanying messages soon begin to bear a chilly, even prophetic relationship to people and things—suggesting their maker knows more about the family and its business than is possible or safe. In a debut that evokes Old Master interiors and landscapes, British actress Burton depicts a flourishing society built on water and trade, where women struggle to be part of the world. Her empathetic heroine, Nella, endures loneliness and confusion until a sequence of domestic shocks forces her to grow up very quickly. Finally obliged to become that architect of her own fortune, Nella acts to break the miniaturist’s spell and save everything she holds dear.

With its oblique storytelling, crescendo of female empowerment and wrenching ending, this novel establishes Burton as a fresh and impressive voice; book groups in particular will relish it. (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

ONE KICK

Cain, Chelsea Simon & Schuster (384 pp.) $25.99 | Aug. 19, 2014 978-1-4767-4978-5 Abducted by a child pornography ring when she was 6 and held captive for five years, Kick Lannigan, 21, has turned herself into a lean, mean fighting machine. When a boy named Adam is reported missing, she springs into action to save him.

The first book in a new series by Cain captures the age of the Amber Alert with hard-edged insight. All these years removed from her ordeal, Kick is the most viewed subject on porn sites.

Still struggling with psychological baggage, she’s dedicated herself to martial arts and marksmanship (she packs a Glock).

She also is working at perfecting skills her abductor taught her, including picking locks. When the mysterious John Bishop, a wealthy former gun dealer working with the FBI, drops into Kick’s life and demands that she go with him to the site of the latest abduction, she fiercely resists. But she slowly learns to trust him. Except for her tech-geek friend James, with whom she was held captive, she doesn’t care about anyone else. Her mother, who wrote a best-seller about her daughter’s abduction, is still milking the story as an expert on TV. With Bishop, a taciturn stud with his own painful secrets (and a private plane and helicopter at his disposal), Kick returns to places she was held as “Beth.” Her unnerving confrontation with her abductor 8

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exposes a horribly complicated relationship. Distinguished by a wealth of details about how child porn rings operate, this is a gripping thriller in which Kick must apply everything she’s learned, and things she’s forgotten, to survive again.

An unsettling, near-perfect effort by Cain (Let Me Go, 2013, etc.) that leaves you eagerly awaiting the next installment.

THE LOTUS AND THE STORM

Cao, Lan Viking (400 pp.) $27.95 | Aug. 14, 2014 978-0-670-01692-1 Written with acute psychological insight and poetic flair, this deeply moving novel illuminates the ravages of war as experienced by a South Vietnamese family.

In a rewarding follow-up to her wellreceived debut, Monkey Bridge (1997), the author returns to the conflict that shaped her own destiny before she was airlifted from her native Saigon to live in Virginia. Here, she shows what happens to a family of four—a South Vietnamese airborne commander, his beautiful wife and their two young daughters—as the war challenges loyalties with betrayals. The story is narrated by two characters: Mai, the younger daughter, who recalls her girlhood as the war intensified from her current home in Virginia; and Minh, her father, who’s living with Mai and with his memories of what transpired in Vietnam 40 years earlier. “Saigon still wraps itself around me and squeezes me with sudden force,” he explains, though the traumatic effects on Mai prove stronger and even stranger. What’s plain from the setup, with its alternating voices, is that only half of this family will be telling the story, a story in which what happened to the other two proves crucial. The novel’s most complex figure is Quý, Mai’s mother and Minh’s wife, from whom the reader never hears but whose depth of character reveals itself through the perspectives of others. She made a sacrifice by marrying a man considered below her, and she continued to make sacrifices, some of which seemed like betrayals, to protect the lives of those she loved, including her Viet Cong brother as well as her husband. Mai can’t really comprehend through a child’s eyes what’s happening with her family and how threatened their future is, though she intuitively senses that something is wrong. Even Minh doesn’t realize until decades later what really happened, and the revelations will surprise the reader as well.

A novel that humanizes the war in a way that body counts and political analyses never will.

THE WOLF

Carcaterra, Lorenzo Ballantine (320 pp.) $25.00 | Jul. 29, 2014 978-0-345-48394-2 After a terrorist attack on a plane kills his wife and two daughters, mob superboss Vincent “The Wolf ” Marelli unleashes a plot against terrorist networks with the support of crime syndicates from around the globe.

Thirty-two-year-old Vincent’s most formidable partner is the strikingly beautiful and lethal Angela “The Strega” Jannetti, heir to the throne of the Italian Camorra syndicate in Naples.

The two were like kissing cousins as teenagers, when Vincent spent time in Italy. His most feared opponent is the unhinged Islamic terrorist Raza. The Wolf is also opposed by the terroristfunding Russian mob, led by Vladimir “The Impaler” Kostolov, and Mexico’s evil drug lords. Vincent may be as coldblooded a

killer as anyone, but he’s a devoted family man. He envisions having his revenge and then leading a normal life with his young son, Jack. Finding out who killed the rest of his family, however, proves more difficult than he anticipated. While the notion of a United Nations of gangsters has a certain Avengers-like appeal, anyone looking for the slightest bit of complexity or subtlety will be disappointed. It’s not enough for Carcaterra (Midnight Angels, 2010, etc.) to say the Camorra is “one of the most vicious criminal outfits in the world” and that Angela killed a dozen rival mob bosses by putting rat poison in their dinners. He also has to describe her as “powerful and deadly” and “the most vicious gangster in Italy and one of the most powerful in Europe.” And, oh yes, “she had a dark and sinister side.”

Things blow up early and often in Carcaterra’s new thriller, but it’s too simple-minded to be much fun.

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“...when his partner reminds Reacher that there’s no death penalty in Britain, he replies, ‘There is now,’ with the sort of catchphrase bravado one might expect from Dirty Harry.” from personal

PERSONAL

Child, Lee Delacorte (416 pp.) $28.00 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-0-8041-7874-7 Despite plenty of page-turning propulsion, this is one of the lesser novels in the series.

Now that Jack Reacher has become a film franchise, it seems that he—or maybe his author (Never Go Back, 2013, etc.)—is spreading himself a little thin. The 19th novel featuring the former MP–turned–Zen do-gooder—dubbed “Sherlock Homeless” by one of his old Army officers—once again starts with him drifting with nothing more than the clothes on his back—no cellphone or bank account, no plans, no destination, no history that’s apparent to anyone he encounters.

Yet, through a stretch of plotting coincidence, he finds himself pulled into his military past and then thrust into an international conspiracy involving a sniper—or are there more than one?—and an assassination plot. He also inevitably finds himself paired with a possible romantic interest, the improbably named Casey Nice (“Nice by name, nice by nature”), about whom he muses, “Was there a finer place to be, than where those jeans were?” The plot quickly (in a Reacher novel, everything happens quickly) complicates itself like a chess match, as it turns out that only four snipers in the world have the capability of making the shot, each of a different nationality, each with his own country’s authorities pursuing him. One of them is a man Reacher sent to prison 16 years earlier and who has, conveniently enough, just been released. After a close call in Paris, our hero and Ms. Nice travel to London, where a gathering of global leaders will provide a convenient target (whomever the target turns out to be). At one point, when his partner reminds Reacher that there’s no death penalty in Britain, he replies, “There is now,” with the sort of catchphrase bravado one might expect from Dirty Harry. Since Reacher has never been much of a team player or an organization man, the plot really shifts into high gear when he cuts himself loose and does what he does best.

Every Reacher novel delivers a jolt to the nervous system, but this lacks some of the stylistic flair that truly distinguishes Child.

THE MOUNTAINTOP SCHOOL FOR DOGS And Other Second Chances Cooney, Ellen Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (304 pp.) $24.00 | Aug. 5, 2014 978-0-544-23615-8

Dogs and humans save each other in this sentimental novel by Cooney (Thanksgiving, 2013, etc.).

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After her first love and graduate school career fall victim to a cocaine habit, and after a stint in rehab from which she emerges sober but alone, Evie finds herself applying for and getting accepted into a program at the Sanctuary. Occupying a former ski resort at the top of a small mountain, the Sanctuary houses and rehabilitates rescued dogs and occasionally trains a human in the art of training these dogs. Cooney is very specific about the dogs themselves and the cruel situations they’ve endured, but she paints the Sanctuary in such broad strokes that it feels like a dream. Tonally, this matches the largely hands-off training program, run by a group of interchangeable nuns, and it keeps the focus on Evie, who embraces self-teaching. Doing constant research on her laptop with just a handful of leads from the nuns, she creates an extensive (and eventually tiresome) dictionary of dog-related terms that serves her well when she begins to interact with the rescue dogs. Like her abused canine charges, Evie is clever, evasive, defiant and rebellious, and though she has no previous animal training experience, she turns out to be a natural. Additional entries to the dictionary throughout the book reveal more heavy-handed details about the perils dogs face in the world but also allow glimpses into Evie’s interior. Despite all this, her empathy for the dogs feels slightly implausible. More subtle and rewarding are a few scenes from the viewpoint of Mrs. Auberchon, the outwardly bitter woman who runs the inn at the mountain’s base.

If as much attention was given to context as to Evie and the dogs, this would be a strong novel. As is, it’s slight.

WOLF IN WHITE VAN

Darnielle, John Farrar, Straus and Giroux (208 pp.) $25.00 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-0-374-29208-9

A man badly disfigured in a gun accident ponders gaming, heavy metal, family, love and the crazed emotions that tend to surround our obsessions.

As the singer-songwriter of the band the Mountain Goats, Darnielle specializes in impressionistic, highly literate lyrics delivered in a stark, declamatory voice.

Much the same is true of Sean Phillips, the narrator of Darnielle’s second novel, who has been largely housebound since his accident at 17 and is prone to imaginative flights of fancy. (Similarly, Darnielle’s first novel was a consideration of the Black Sabbath album “Master of Reality” as told by an institutionalized teenage boy.) We know early on that Sean makes a modest income as the inventor of Trace Italian, a role-playing game conducted through the mail about a post-apocalyptic America; and we know that he was implicated in the death of a woman who obsessively played the game with her boyfriend. The novel shifts back and forth in time as Sean recalls a geeky boyhood of Conan the Barbarian novels, metal albums, and other swordsand-sorcery fare; its tension comes from Darnielle’s careful

and strategic withholding of the details behind the woman’s death and Sean’s disfigurement. In the meantime, the mazelike paths of Trace Italian serve as a metaphor for the difficulty (if not impossibility) of finding closure, and they also reveal Sean’s ingenuity and wit. The book’s title refers to a diabolical subliminal message on a metal record, a topic Sean is particularly interested in. (The novel seems partly inspired by a teenager’s failed suicide attempt in 1985 that led to reconstructive facial surgeries and a lawsuit against the band Judas Priest.) Sean is a consistently generous and sympathetic hero, and if the novel’s closing pages substitute ambiguity for plainspokenness, they highlight the book’s theme of finding things worth living for within physical and psychological despair.

A pop culture–infused novel that thoughtfully and nonjudgmentally considers the dark side of nerddom.

ARK STORM

Davies, Linda Forge (448 pp.) $25.99 | Aug. 19, 2014 978-0-7653-3673-6 A plausible and stormy eco-thriller that might presage future events.

Meteorologist Gwen Boudain conducts billionaire-funded research on a phenomenon called an ARk storm, in which “atmospheric rivers” dump massive amounts of rain on California. (ARk means Atmospheric River 1000.) Meanwhile, a wealthy Arab schemes to use Gwen’s knowledge to unleash a catastrophic storm on America’s West Coast— jihad by weather. A storm is coming, that is beyond doubt, but Gwen’s discoveries in the wrong hands will make it far worse. So Gwen teams up with ex-SEAL Dan Jacobsen to learn who the bad guys are and stop them if possible. Nonmisogynist readers are going to like Gwen and her cohort, Dan. She is seriously hot,

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smart, tough—and deadly when necessary. Dan is all of those but is perhaps the lesser of two equals. Never once does Gwen go limp and cry, “Save me, Dan!” In fact, to Dan “she look[s] like a warrior princess” as she bench-presses weights. Oh, and she’s a first-class surfer, which is amply demonstrated in exciting fashion. Sexual tension builds between the two without ever drifting into the tawdry. They are both good and likable characters whom readers will happily root for. The plot is solid, never straining credulity. The tale’s only negative is the verbosity—one may wonder if, like Dickens, Davies is being paid by the word. The moisture content in one of the atmospheric rivers is equal to that of 14 Mississippis, she writes. OK, that’s impressive. We get it, so don’t tell us a half dozen times or more. And get a wheelbarrow to cart away a few loads of adverbs.

All in all, though, an exciting and enjoyable book. Read it, and be glad it’s only fiction. (Agent: Matthew Carlini)

THE WILDS

Elliott, Julia Tin House (288 pp.) $15.95 paper | Oct. 14, 2014 978-1-935639-92-3 Robots may search for love, but there’s nothing wilder than human nature in this genre-bending short story collection from debut writer Elliott.

Elliott (English and Women and Gender Studies/Univ. of South Carolina) takes the definition of “wild” and runs with it in stories which leap from Southern gothic to dystopian science fiction and sometimes blend both together. A robot with silicone lips explores permutations of love; an Alzheimer’s patient regains her memory in a futuristic nursing home; and a woman goes on a Neanderthal retreat to lose weight. Sharp and funny, the stories are dark satires on the fad diets and self-absorption of modern life. Elliott shines when it comes to worldbuilding; her details are so dense and vivid the sticky heat of the deep South rises off the page, blending with the hipster neurosis of one of her Zen-crazed protagonists. She cartwheels from the sublime—“the sky in pink turmoil”—to the grotesque—“hormones spiked his blood...and fed the zits that festered on his sullen face”—but prefers to spend most of her time on the grotesque. At times it’s hard to follow the lush twisting vines of Elliott’s plots because they’re so entangled in the worlds she creates. But no matter: Even if the stories end abruptly, without enough of a road map to let you know where you are and why you’re there, there’s always a delicate image or an emotional jolt that leaves you wanting more.

This book will take you to places you never dreamed of going and aren’t quite sure you want to stay, but you won’t regret the journey.

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BITTER GREENS

Forsyth, Kate Dunne/St. Martin’s (496 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | Sep. 23, 2014 978-1-250-04753-3 978-1-4668-4783-5 e-book Forsyth blends fact and fiction in a novel that combines the story of a young woman with long hair who’s been locked in a tower with the tale of the real-life Frenchwoman who wrote the story we

know as “Rapunzel.”

After King Louis XIV banishes his cousin Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force to a convent in 1697, she has a hard time getting used to a life of austerity and isolation in the French countryside. She misses the excitement and luxury of the daring, robust court life she once led and yearns for the young husband for whom she renounced her religion. An elderly nun takes Charlotte-Rose under her wing and, as they tend the nunnery’s garden, relates the story of Margherita, a young Venetian girl imprisoned in a remote tower by an evil sorceress. The witch, La Strega Bella, weaves tresses into the girl’s fiery mane and regularly uses her long locks to climb the tower in order to bring Margherita food and extract droplets of her blood. The magical tales of the girl and the sorceress unfold in segments around CharlotteRose’s first-person account of her tenuous positions as a ward of the court, a Huguenot and a headstrong female who sometimes risks the king’s wrath to pursue her own interests or help others.

Her story serves as a balance between Margherita’s innocence as she secretly explores the tower and makes a ghastly discovery and La Strega Bella’s shadowy actions, which feed her obsession for maintaining eternal youth. Each of the three finds love, but the outcomes of their relationships differ. Despite many lusty encounters that add little substance to the tale, Forsyth undertakes an ambitious plot and, with a creative presentation, makes it work. She convincingly conveys a fairy tale-like quality in her writing and peppers the narrative with historical detail and some interesting twists that neatly tie together the strands of the story.

This unconventional spin on a children’s classic is a captivating read and unquestionably aimed toward adults.

ARCTIC SUMMER

Galgut, Damon Europa Editions (352 pp.) $17.00 paper | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-60945-234-6 In this novel based on the life of E.M. Forster, Galgut (In a Strange Room, 2010, etc.) focuses on the novelist’s visits to India, his time in Egypt and his homoerotic yearnings.

The opening sets the tone. Morgan, as he is known, is on a vessel steaming toward India in 1912.

A British army officer tells him of his many sexual conquests

of Indian men and boys; Morgan finds this titillating. He’s a timid mama’s boy, a closeted gay man, still a virgin at 33.

His four published novels have examined heterosexual relationships; his gay novel, Maurice, will be published posthumously. Yet Morgan has known romance. In England some years before, he became friends with Masood, an aristocratic young Muslim Indian. While Masood gently rejected Morgan’s advances, the friendship blossomed. “Friendship is your Empire, Morgan,” declared the anti-imperialist Indian.

Aside from his reunion with Masood, his first visit to India introduces Morgan to its religious and caste divisions and its frequently obnoxious British rulers; it also sows the first seeds of A Passage to India, written years later. Another opportunity to travel arises in 1915. The Great War is underway. Morgan works for the Red Cross in Alexandria, visiting hospitalized soldiers. He finally has his first sexual experience, fellating a soldier on a secluded beach: “this was the realest moment of his life.” Even if we accept that, Galgut’s focus on Morgan’s sexual needs is reductive. You wouldn’t know, apart from passing references (Lytton Strachey, the

Woolfs), that he was a Bloomsbury figure himself. Another romance catches fire in Alexandria. Mohammed is a humble tram conductor; like Masood, he isn’t gay, but he indulges Morgan’s needs to an extent while cherishing their friendship. Most of this has been documented in four biographies, as Galgut acknowledges.

Forster remains elusive in this unbalanced account.

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INTERVIEWS & PROFILES

Amy Bloom

Unconventional, fully human characters bring Bloom’s depiction of WWII America to life

By Megan Labrise

Photo courtesy Deborah Feingold

“Not all luck is good luck,” says Amy Bloom, author of the New York Times best-seller Away. Readers anticipating blue skies based on her latest title, Lucky Us, should consider it a caveat instead.

“My wish was not to write a novel in which the good are rewarded and the bad are punished. My goal was to tell a story about these lives, these characters as I come to see and know them,” she says. “Not everybody recovers, and not everybody gets a second or third chance—we love that idea, I love that idea, but it’s not the case.”

Doesn’t Eva Logan know it. By the time she’s 12, circa 1939, life is awfully complicated. “My father’s wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us,” Bloom writes, by way of introduction.

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Mother unceremoniously leaves Eva in the care of Eva’s con-man father, Edgar Acton, who changes her surname so he can introduce her as his orphaned niece. As if that’s not enough to handle, Eva is parked across the hall from a heretofore unknown half sister, Iris. Personalitywise, they’re night and day: Iris is pretty, poised and ambitious, with laser sights set on Hollywood stardom. Eva is more of a polymath, the studious sort.

“Iris saw only what mattered to Iris, but she really paid attention, like a pilot watching for the flashing lights of the landing strip below, her attention the only thing that stood between her and a terrible crash,” Bloom writes. “She said that I was more like someone with a crazy radio inside of me, and half the time the radio said things worth knowing and half the time it said things like, ‘Crops fail in Mississippi.’ ” Nevertheless, they flee Ohio together. In California, the sisters seem to be on the come up: Iris dazzles the MGM execs and keeps winning bigger parts— until she’s caught kissing America’s Sweetheart Rose Sawyer and blackballed for homosexuality. A sympathetic makeup artist named Francisco Diego offers a fresh start in New York City just as their bad penny of a father turns up at their door.

This unlikely quartet embarks on a cross-country drive. While there’s plenty of action along the way, Lucky Us is a decidedly character-driven affair. “It’s people that I’m most interested in,” says Bloom. “When they take their trip across America it’s not the wheat fields and the sparrows that I write about—it’s more like the hot doughnuts and the weak coffee. You want to serve the story and see the characters. You want these people to be as full and alive and filled with intent and confusion and pleasure and grief as human beings. The goal is to have

them be human beings, not just pieces on a chess board of the writer’s design.”

Their personalities may be timeless, but the era deeply colors their triumphs and woes. Set across the Flying ’40s, Lucky Us ranges from the United States to Germany to England as World War II brews and explodes. “It was a hell of a time. The fissures that led to cracking open our world socially, culturally—you can see the roots of it all during the war,” says Bloom, who consumed countless books and songs of the era as preparation for writing. “When you’ve set your book in another period, in order for it not to be just ornamental, you have to soak the fabric in it, so to speak. It’s not that you want to look up slang terms so people will sound as if they’re from the ’40s. You want to live in the ’40s.” A big music lover, she chose songs written prior to 1949 as chapter titles: from “Dream a Little Dream of Me” and “Every Day’s a Holiday” to “You’re Not the Only Oyster in the Stew” and British propaganda march “Hitler Has Only Got One Ball.”

“It’s what people did: listened to the radio, went to clubs, sang and danced at home. [Music] was the major form of socializing and entertainment for the majority of people in the country,” says Bloom, who’s a jazz fan.

That love is embodied in character Clara Williams, a ringer for Lena Horne, both vocally and visually, whom Edgar meets and falls in love with in a New York nightclub. With a little resume fudging, he’s styled himself into a British butler for a wealthy Italian family, the Torellis; Iris is the governess. Eva finds work at Francisco’s sisters’ salon and eventually becomes a storefront psychic, reading tarot for the curler crowd. It’s beginning to resemble a pleasant life when Iris, obsessed with the Torellis’ comely cook, Reenie Heitmann, drops a dime on her competition, Gus, the affable mechanic Reenie married. He’s subsequently sent to an internment camp for Americans of German descent.

Bloom discovered the dark fact of German-American internment in her preparatory reading. “I had no idea that we interned 11,000 Germans in this country—not soldiers, but prisoners of war, people who lived in this country, many of whom had arrived here as small children. Eleven thousand people is not a small number, and the fact that it was approved by Truman to detain Germans after the end of the war, just to keep an eye on them…is extraordinary. Those first-person accounts were very interesting to me,

and then the stories of people who ‘self-deported’ to Germany and were then bombed by America—it was hard not to be drawn into that story,” says Bloom.

The farther away Gus is driven, the more active a narrator he becomes. Lucky Us is told through epistolary exchanges and close third-person accounts that present each character’s distinct voice in turn. For their differences, they are equally compelling—and they may be seen as sharing one important trait. As Clara acknowledges to Eva, “some people bounced back from a train wreck and some people couldn’t get over a bee sting,” Bloom writes. The Actons and company are nothing if not resilient.

Megan Labrise is a freelance writer and columnist based in New York.

Lucky Us received a starred review in the June 1, 2014, issue of Kirkus Reviews.

Lucky Us Bloom, Amy Random House (256 pp.) $26.00 | Jul. 29, 2014 978-0-804191-34-0 |

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“...Hart writes of greed and ambition and of fathers and sons who have “gone beyond forgiveness and entered a foreign and evil land.” from the bully of order

THE GODDESS OF SMALL VICTORIES

Grannec, Yannick Other Press (472 pp.) $26.95 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-59051-636-2

Art and math mingle in Grannec’s debut historical novel, which hinges on the life of logician Kurt Gödel.

In 1980, a Princeton student named Anna receives a difficult task: to befriend Gödel’s cantankerous widow, Adele, and convince her to donate her late husband’s papers to the university archives. Grannec alternates between this plotline and Adele’s narration of her life with the tortured Gödel, a genius whose quirks—reluctances to eat or leave his home or publish his work—eventually mutated into impairments. The boldness of Adele—a former dancer and, to many on the Princeton faculty, a philistine—contrasts with the reservation of Anna and Gödel in each of the respective timelines.

For a while, this creates powerful thematic unity—especially in the early chapters, which focus on twin seductions: Adele’s of Gödel in late 1920s Vienna and Anna’s of Adele more than 50 years later. The novel’s middle stretch feels more diffuse, however, the intellectual material drifting away from the emotional material. It seems that Grannec has set out to write one of those sweeping literary works that balances the historical with the personal. As such, she gives us World War II, McCarthyism, the Kennedy assassination, etc., populating her narrative with guest appearances from the likes of Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein. Yet her settings and characters feel like shadows—mere glimpses of history. While the female protagonists, Adele and Anna, are fascinating and threedimensional, Grannec often makes them passive in both action and thought; the former is understandable, though the latter— especially during the novel’s long dinner parties, where dialogue takes over and interiority gets left behind—is questionable. Grannec never finds a convincing emotional counterweight to the dense mathematics and philosophy discussed throughout.

An intellectually challenging, though occasionally lopsided, deconstruction of the notion of “the great man.”

THE BULLY OF ORDER

Hart, Brian Harper/HarperCollins (400 pp.) $25.99 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-0-06-229774-7 From the great rain-drenched woods of America’s northwest, Hart (Then Came the Evening, 2009) offers a Hobbesian saga—men and women against nature, and themselves, in struggles solitary and poor, nasty and brutish.

The 20th century is nigh. Jacob Ellstrom, doctor’s bag and beautiful wife, Nell, in hand, washes up at Harbor, a coastal settlement north of Portland, a place so rich in timber as to draw “ax-wielding 16

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maniacs hacking at the world.” Nell gives birth to a son, Duncan, but Jacob’s soon found to be a fraud rather than a trained physician, and he wreaks vengeance on Nell. One beating is near fatal. With help, Nell fakes her death and flees. Jacob, fearing the noose, heads to the woods. Abandoned young Duncan grows up admiring Bellhouse and Tartan, part-time union organizers and full-time thieves. He also loves Teresa, a rich mill owner’s daughter. That romance ends a decade later when Duncan murders Teresa’s father and, like his own father, takes to the woods rather than face justice. Hart’s sense of place—terrain, weather, frontier people—is brilliant, every scene an homage to Robert Altman’s epic McCabe and Mrs. Miller. It’s a tale of robber barons, “clean, covetous and mean,” and millworkers, lumberjacks and feral toughs, “the maimed and the mutinous, low-graders, the sick-brained...like shavings of metal stuck to a greasy magnet.”

The story is told from different points of view: Duncan, Jacob, Nell, Tartan and Native Americans “amazed at the ferocity of the whites.”

There are dazzling characterizations like Matius, Jacob’s psychopathic brother, and Kozmin, an immigrant hermit who weaves in an allegorical tale of Tarakanov, a Russian long-ago marooned in Alaska.

In short, declarative sentences building into a dense, deep and illuminating narrative, Hart writes of greed and ambition and of fathers and sons who have “gone beyond forgiveness and entered a foreign and evil land.”

Think the brutal realities of McCarthy’s Blood Meridian set among the primeval forests of the Pacific Northwest frontier.

THE FURIES

Haynes, Natalie St. Martin’s (304 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | Aug. 26, 2014 978-1-250-04800-4 978-1-4668-4830-6 e-book An inexperienced, grieving teacher discovers the monster lurking within one of her seemingly innocent charges.

Since her fiance, Luke, unexpectedly died, Alex Morris has lost interest in her work as a sought-after theatrical director. Now she simply wants to get out of London, to get away from everything that reminds her of Luke. So when her former drama teacher, Robert, offers her a temporary teaching position in Edinburgh, she jumps at the opportunity. A last chance for children who either cannot or will not function well at other institutions, the school is housed in a creepy Gothic structure, and Alex’s classroom is, of course, in the basement, the architectural equivalent of the school’s repressed psyche, complete with musty smells, bad lighting, and surly, emotionally disturbed students: scrappy Ricky; dark, lumbering Jono; petite, neat Carly; beautiful, hostile Annika; and deaf, eager Mel. Debut novelist (and former comedian) Haynes deftly captures the anxiety that is characteristic of a novice teacher’s mind, as well as the snarkiness of the teenage students. Rather dubiously reasoning that drama therapy could help them exorcise their darker fears, Alex decides to teach Greek tragedies to her young charges. She encourages them to keep journals reflecting upon the disturbed characters,

and she can’t help but answer their increasingly probing questions about her own troubled past. Soon enough, the plays, riddled with guilt and vengeance, inspire one of her students to follow Alex on her days off, hoping to discover her secrets. Like a Greek tragedy, the tale drives inexorably toward a calamitous revelation—a revelation rather heavily foreshadowed by the title and the students’ syllabus.

Sharply drawn characters, damaged and raw, enrich the psychological dimensions of this angst-filled mystery.

THE HOUR OF LEAD

Holbert, Bruce Counterpoint (400 pp.) $25.00 | Jul. 15, 2014 978-1-61902-292-8

Holbert’s (Lonesome Animals, 2012) second novel is a tale of the American West as faithful to the legends as McCarthy’s Border Trilogy.

Holbert’s work rings out with the hard, clean truths of love and loyalty, family and friendship, all flowering from thickets of poetic language, some simple (“work was praying the same prayer everyday”), some gut-wrenching (“When he finally took the baby from her and held her bloody stillness in his hands, he wept”). Matt and Luke Lawson are twins, born to the rich land and open skies of eastern Washington. In 1918, as they journey home from school one day, they’re trapped in an epic blizzard; their father leaves the farmhouse to search for them. Of the three, only Matt survives. Everything else that unfolds is set in motion by that tragedy. Matt’s mother turns inward. Still a young teen, Matt runs the farm while obsessively searching for his father’s body; he’s accompanied by Wendy, a storekeeper’s daughter, to whom he feels devotion. But Matt’s also angry, frustrated and simmering with violence. He’s the quintessential Western hero—taciturn and strong as iron with an unbreachable moral center. Rejected by Wendy, he abandons his mother and the farm; guilt-ridden Wendy moves to the farm to help. In this superb allegorical tale, Matt wanders through bar fights and ranch work and then settles in with Roland Jarms, a dissolute but good-hearted gambler. There, adrift in his great odyssey, Matt stays, and during his exile, he re-forms himself—“I believe I’m safe for people now”—before returning to Wendy bearing a motherless child he’s named Angel. From the great flat land where “[w]ind gusted from the north and geese sliced ahead of it through the sky,” Holbert’s powerful work echoes the romance of America’s Western experience.

A masterpiece. (This review was first published in the BEA/ ALA 2014 issue.)

AN ITALIAN WIFE

Hood, Ann Norton (272 pp.) $25.95 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-0-393-24166-2

A century in the life of an extended Italian-American family.

Hood’s collection of linked stories begins in a small Italian village with Josephine, just 14. Suddenly married by family arrangement to pig-nosed, portly Vincenzo Rimaldi, she suffers a rude wedding night, but when Vincenzo leaves for America, she reverts back to childhood for nine more years, running barefoot in the Campanian hills— until her husband sends for her (“Salute”). Vincenzo works in a mill, and Josephine, a toil-worn housewife in an Italian Rhode Island neighborhood, bears seven children. The last of these is Valentina, the product of an all-too-brief interlude with a blond iceman. Telling Vincenzo the baby died in the hospital, Josephine gives Valentina up for adoption but never stops searching for her (“The Summer of Ice”). Sex and sexual mores are a major throughline. Josephine’s son Carmine, shellshocked in World War I, finds peace only by masturbating to memories of a young Russian war widow he met in Coney Island (“Coney Island Dreams”). Lovely Josephine and her daughter Elisabetta, who wants to be a scientist, are preyed upon by the handsome parish priest, Father Leone, who partially atones by doing favors for the family, such as arranging the above adoption (“War Prayers”). Grandchild Francesca is both repelled and charmed when the community sends their meager riches to Mussolini.

Her ticket out of Little Italy could be a blond boy in a fast car (“Dear Mussolini”). Later, we see her, a World War II widow, striving for social acceptance in a mostly Protestant subdivision, which, paradoxically, she achieves only by becoming the neighborhood homewrecker (“Husbands”). In the ’70s, great-grandchild Aida longs to lead a Rat Pack lifestyle in Las Vegas like her cousin Cammie (“Crooning with Dino”) and later escapes to San Francisco (“The Boy on the Bus”). Spot-on pop-culture references telegraph time and place. A few stories are marred by overly gimmicky endings, but the last two, about missed connections, are freighted with pathos.

A soulful and multilayered book from this accomplished author. (Author tour to Philadelphia, New York, Providence and Boston)

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“Hunt keeps the pace brisk and inserts some new feminist twists into the genre of the Civil War odyssey.” from neverhome

NEVERHOME

Hunt, Laird Little, Brown (224 pp.) $26.00 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-316-97013-4 A novel that takes us there and back again, “there” being the Civil War and back again, a farm in Indiana.

Constance “Ash” Thompson and her husband, Bartholomew, are a young couple with a farm, though their roles are a bit inverted, for Ash is fearless and a crack shot while Bartholomew has bad vision and is much more timid. Ash feels strongly about supporting the Union cause, but one of them has to stay home and tend the crops and animals, so Ash enlists and passes for a male soldier. She narrates her adventures crisply and matter-of-factly as she goes through her slapdash basic training and soon finds herself at the Battle of Antietam. She becomes expert in carrying off her role as a man, spitting and cursing with the boys but also showing herself invaluable as a marksman (even when this only involves foraging for squirrels to make a stew). Eventually, Ash is betrayed by someone she thought she could trust, and she finds the battle is not the most difficult challenge she faces, for rumor has it that a “whore from Chattanooga” has been dressing up as a man and infiltrating Union lines. When she persuades an officer that she’s neither a whore nor a spy, she’s incarcerated in an asylum, for it’s concluded that lunacy is the only other possible cause for her cross-dressing.

After suffering abundant humiliations at the hands of a female “keeper,” Ash cleverly (and ironically) escapes by switching clothes with a Union guard. By this time, she’s determined to get home to Bartholomew—and she does—only to find that some local thugs have taken over the farm. Of course, she vows vengeance, though this revenge is exacted in a way that leads to tragedy. While comparisons to Cold Mountain are inevitable, Ash’s journey has its own integrity.

Hunt keeps the pace brisk and inserts some new feminist twists into the genre of the Civil War odyssey. (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

THE HOUSE WE GREW UP IN

Jewell, Lisa Atria (400 pp.) $24.00 | Aug. 12, 2014 978-1-4767-0299-5

Both witty and deeply moving, Jewell’s latest tale of a fractured family spans 30 years of Easter Sundays.

The Bird family lives a postcardworthy life in the Cotswolds. Their garden cottage is filled with bric-a-brac and children’s drawings; father Colin is thoughtful; the two girls, Meg and Beth, and twin boys Rory and Rhys are clever, kind and muddy. And then there’s mother Lorelei, the center of 18

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their bohemian universe, whose beauty and love of beautiful things hide darker obsessions that turn everything about their life into an unfathomable mess. The novel begins in 2011 as a grown Meg enters her childhood home. Lorelei has died of starvation, and Meg is down from London to sort things out.

The house is impenetrable, filled with towers of newspapers, useless baubles and piles of ceaseless hoarding. It didn’t used to be that way—Meg remembers a bright childhood, in particular Easter Sundays in which an extended clan gathered for egg hunts and Lorelei’s brand of childlike magic. And then one Easter when Meg is 20, they find Rhys hanging from the rafters of his room. His suicide sinks everyone: Golden Rory runs off to a Spanish commune (and continues to run, until one day he ends up in a Thai prison); sensible Meg abandons her family for the new one she makes with Bill; Beth begins an illicit affair with Bill; and Lorelei forces Colin out so her new lover, Vicky, can move in. As Meg sorts through the rubbish, we are privy to Lorelei’s last correspondence to Jim, an Internet boyfriend to whom she confesses all her lonely secrets. Though Jewell’s novels masquerade as breezy, they are unpredictable and emotionally complex.

Jewell, a wry observer of human folly, delivers with this latest tale of loneliness and the lure of beautiful things.

10:04

Lerner, Ben Farrar, Straus and Giroux (240 pp.) $25.00 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-0-86547-810-7 An acclaimed but modest-selling novelist (not unlike the author himself) muses semiautobiographically on time, life and art.

“Proprioception”: The narrator of Lerner’s knotty second novel returns often to that word. It refers to the sense of where one’s own body is in relation to things, a signature theme for an author who’s determined to pinpoint exactly where he is emotionally and philosophically. As the novel opens, our hero has earned a hefty advance for his second book on the strength of his debut and a New Yorker story. This echoes Lerner’s real life, in which his first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station (2011), was a critical hit; the New Yorker story included in this novel did indeed appear in the magazine. What to make of such selfreferentiality? More than you’d expect. Lerner blurs the lines between fact and fiction not out of self-indulgence but as a way to capture experience that emphasizes detail over narrative structure. That can pack both an emotional and an intellectual punch. Watching Christian Marclay’s art film The Clock (from which the book derives its title), Lerner is free to consider the distinctions between real time and imaginary time.

Writing about his dead-ended attempt to make a novel out of fake letters between well-known writers, he plays with real and invented identities. There’s plenty of dry wit in 10:04 and some laugh-out-loud moments too (as when he’s asked to deliver a sperm sample on behalf of a friend eager to have a child). But as

in his first novel, Lerner’s chief tone is somber; Topic A remains whether his ambition will fully connect with his art. At times he seems to strain to make scraps of experience (a residency in Texas; prepping for Superstorm Sandy; a shift at a Brooklyn grocery co-op) relevant to his themes, but few novelists are working so hard to make experience grist for the mill.

Provocative and thoughtful, if at times wooly and interior. (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

THE CHILDREN ACT

McEwan, Ian Nan A. Talese/Doubleday (240 pp.) $25.00 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-385-53970-8

In the late summer of 2012, a British judge faces a complex case while dealing with her husband’s infidelity in this thoughtful, well-wrought novel.

Fiona Maye, at 59, has just learned of an awful crack in her marriage when she must rule on the opposing medical and religious interests surrounding a 17-yearold boy who will likely die without blood transfusions. The cancer patient, weeks shy of the age when he could speak for himself, has embraced his parents’ deep faith as Jehovah’s Witnesses and their abhorrence of letting what the Bible deems a pollutant enter his body. The scenes before the bench and at the boy’s hospital bedside are taut and intelligent, like the best courtroom dramas. The ruling produces two intriguing twists that, among other things, suggest a telling allusion to James Joyce’s 17-year-old Michael Furey in “The Dead.” Meanwhile, McEwan (Sweet Tooth, 2012, etc.), in a rich character study that begs for a James Ivory film, shows Fiona reckoning with the doubt, depression and temporary triumphs of the betrayed— like an almost Elizabethan digression on changing the locks of their flat—not to mention guilt at stressing over her career and forgoing children. As Fiona thinks of a case: “All this sorrow had common themes, there was a human sameness to it, but it continued to fascinate her.” Also running through the book is a musical theme, literal and verbal, in which Fiona escapes the legal world and “the subdued drama of her half-life with Jack” to play solo and in duets.

McEwan, always a smart, engaging writer, here takes more than one familiar situation and creates at every turn something new and emotionally rewarding in a way he hasn’t done so well since On Chesil Beach (2007).

THE SHIP OF BRIDES

Moyes, Jojo Penguin (464 pp.) $16.00 paper | Oct. 28, 2014 978-0-14-312647-8 Australian brides form friendships as they make their way to England aboard an aircraft carrier in this novel, originally published in Britain in 2005, from Moyes (Silver Bay, 2014, etc.).

After World War II ends, more than 600 Australian brides are traveling to join their husbands in England. But the Victoria is no luxury liner—it’s an aircraft carrier, and it’s also full of naval officers. The novel follows four roommates (a pregnant farm girl, a social striver, a loudmouthed teenager and a quiet nurse) as well as some of the ship’s men as secrets are revealed and true friendships are slowly formed over the six-week voyage, but not every woman is lucky enough to get a happy ending. The troubles the characters face are not always due to marrying faraway men during wartime; their problems are often caused by the lofty expectations and limited roles forced on women in the 1940s, and this well-researched novel shines a light on women’s postwar lives. In this world, men are able to have full lives and consequence-free extramarital dalliances, but even the intimation of an affair is enough to ruin a bride’s life. Although focusing on so many characters could easily have become overwhelming, Moyes masterfully balances their stories. The book drags in parts, and the largely unnecessary frame story is easily forgotten, but those are small complaints. Moyes creates characters full of warmth and heart, and readers will find themselves swept up in this quiet, emotional story.

Moyes’ fans won’t be disappointed with this altogether pleasant voyage.

ISLAND OF A THOUSAND MIRRORS

Munaweera, Nayomi St. Martin’s (256 pp.) $24.99 | $10.67 e-book | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-250-04393-1 978-1-4668-4227-4 e-book The Sri Lankan civil war’s traumatic effect on the island nation’s people—and one family in particular—is the subject of this verdantly atmospheric first novel.

After a graphic post-coital prologue, Sri Lanka born California resident Munaweera begins her family saga in 1948, when the British leave their former colony Ceylon, where the Tamil majority is looked down on by the lighter-skinned Sinhala ruling class. Nishan and his twin sister, Mala—children of an ambitious Sinhala teacher and a laid-back doctor of uncertain bloodlines—leave their coastal village to attend university in Colombo. Free spirit Mala falls in love with another student |

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“...British journalist Naughtie offers a double-twisting spy drama worthy of his countryman le Carré.” from the madness of july

and marries without traditional arranged nuptials. Nishan, an engineer, is deemed acceptable to marry aristocratic Visaka, the daughter of an Oxford-educated Sinhala judge, only because the judge’s expenditures while renovating his home shortly before his death have left his family financially strapped. Visaka’s mother has recently had to rent out the upstairs of her house, and Nishan does not know that Visaka marries him while pining for Ravan, one of her mother’s Tamil tenants. Ravan and his new wife live upstairs while Nishan and Visaka move in downstairs, where they raise daughters Yasodhara and Luxshmi.

Yasodhara’s closest playmate and soul mate is Ravan’s son Shiva.

The children live there in innocent bliss until 1983, when Mala’s husband is brutally murdered by an angry mob during increasing Tamil-Sinhala unrest. Nishan and Visaka react by moving to America, where their daughters soon assimilate. But after a college relationship ends badly, Yasodhara allows her parents to pick a husband for her. As Yasodhara’s marriage falls apart, successful artist Luxshmi returns to Sri Lanka to teach children wounded in the war. Meanwhile, in northern Sri Lanka, a young Timor girl is drawn into the intensifying civil war until her life’s destiny crosses those of Luxshmi and Yasodhara.

Compared to the expressive, deeply felt chapters about Yasodhara’s family, Munaweera’s depiction of war-torn Sri Lanka, though harrowing, seems rushed and journalistic, more reported than experienced.

THE MADNESS OF JULY

Naughtie, James Overlook (400 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 2, 2014 978-1-4683-0961-4

In his fiction debut, British journalist Naughtie offers a double-twisting spy drama worthy of his countryman le Carré.

It’s an unseasonably warm July in the 1970s. The USSR lurks malevolently.

Politicians need a vacation, but Will Flemyng, a minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, faces two dilemmas: An American espionage agent is discovered dead in a House of Commons storeroom; and Flemyng’s older brother, Mungo, has uncovered evidence that their beloved mother had a long-term affair with an American. Once a spy, upand-comer Flemyng is on the list of possible candidates for the U.S. ambassadorship. The first choice drowned his chance in Courvoisier. There’s another problem. A prominent U.S. senator’s wife has accused someone on the nominee list of raping her years ago. Naughtie lays down an extraordinarily complex narrative, including another thread involving the U.S.’s discovery that someone on its side has been feeding London secret information. It seems even friends have conflicting interests. In this narrative labyrinth, every page seems to chronicle encounters where one character or another schemes to uncover or hide evidence, all the deviousness pronounced in the right accent.

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you’d expect to find in their stiff-upper-lip, class-strangled political environment, yet in their travails, they become sympathetic. There’s more: A sometimes-estranged third Flemyng brother who chose to take American citizenship has been dispatched to London to help sort out the mess. Naughtie has a gift for colorful phrases—“a winding crocodile of taxis”—and a worldly, perhaps rightfully jaundiced view of the political world he’s covered as a journalist—“The more you concentrate on behaving sensibly in politics—rationally—doing the right thing, moving up, the more the rules of the game are bound to make you behave irrationally.”

An intertwined exploration of love and family loyalty, political ambition and international intrigue.

ONE OF US

O’Dell, Tawni Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (304 pp.) $25.00 | Aug. 19, 2014 978-1-4767-5587-8 Danny Doyle became a forensic psychologist in hopes of understanding why his mother murdered his baby sister, Molly. But probing the criminal mind may also prove helpful in solving a new murder.

O’Dell (Fragile Beasts, 2010, etc.) returns to the forgotten towns of Western Pennsylvania in her latest psychological thriller. A bookish, bullied child, Danny, who goes by Sheridan professionally, grew up in the impoverished town of Lost Creek.

Founded upon the backs of Irish immigrants who mined coal for the rich boss, Walker Dawes, it’s a town with a troubled past.

The residents are haunted by the legend of the Nellie O’Neills, 10 miners who violently rebelled and were hanged for their audacity. Danny’s great-great-grandfather was one of those rebels. Saddled with an abusive father and a mentally ill mother, Danny was protected and practically raised by his maternal grandfather, the gruff Tommy. Now a polished professional living in Philadelphia, he devotes his money to Armani suits and his attention to serial killers. He doesn’t want to cure the criminals he studies so much as understand them. Prompted by Tommy’s bout with pneumonia and his mother’s release from her latest psychiatric facility, Danny has come home just in time to help Rafe Malloy, his childhood mentor and Lost Creek’s sole detective, investigate the death of Simon Husk, whose body was found at the foot of the infamous gallows. Scarlet Dawes, the great-great-granddaughter of the man who sentenced the rebels to death, has also come home. Posh boarding schools and a glamorous lifestyle in Paris mark her as an outsider, but she cautions her alcoholic mother that she won’t leave until she discovers the truth behind a blackmailer’s note. Soon she’s crossing paths with Danny, and their mysteries begin to overlap.

Personal demons, childhood traumas and class warfare add up to a gritty tale of vengeance.

BURNT TONGUES

SHERWOOD NATION

Palahniuk, Chuck; Thomas, Richard; Widmyer, Dennis—Eds. Medallion Press (310 pp.) $14.95 paper | Aug. 12, 2014 978-1-60542-734-8 Twenty stories of embattled brothers and twisted sisters hand-selected by Palahniuk and two comrades from his online community The Cult.

Transgressive fiction is a much broader label than many readers realize, encompassing everything from Hubert Selby Jr.’s gritty Last Exit to Brooklyn to Alissa Nutting’s much-debated Tampa. Palahniuk (Doomed, 2013, etc.) is arguably the most capable modern practitioner of the style and certainly its most visible champion.

“We return to troubling films and books because they don’t pander to us—their style and subject matter challenge, but to embrace them is to win something worth having for the rest of our lives,” he proclaims. “The difficult, the new and novel establish their own authority.” That said, these creative endeavors remain mostly male and uniquely grotesque, inhabiting their own peculiar orbit in the universe of American lit. Many are about self-harm, resembling some of the stories—like the infamous nausea-inducing “Guts,” for example—from Palahniuk’s Haunted (2005). In Neil Krolicki’s “Live This Down,” a clique of teenage girls find themselves humiliated after a botched suicide attempt. There’s also the disgruntled retail clerk in Richard Lemmer’s “Ingredients,” scarred inside and out after a dare goes wrong. Other stories, including Matt Egan’s “A Vodka Kind of Girl” and Brandon Tietz’s “Dietary,” explore the fear and loathing between women and body image. Almost always there’s a tendency to examine the dichotomy between the damage we do to our bodies and the strange secrecy of our inner monologues.

That’s certainly true in Phil Jourdan’s “Mind and Soldier,” about a disabled vet, and Keith Buie’s “The Routine,” recounting the sins of an overworked graveyard shift pharmacist. Some stories are subtle, like Chris Lewis Carter’s “Charlie,” recounting the cycle of animal abuse. Others are not—see the casual zoophilia of Brien Piechos’ “Heavier Petting” and the collection’s closer, “Zombie Whorehouse” by Daniel W. Broallt. No, it’s not a metaphor.

Dark, subversive and disquieting fiction for readers ready to go all the way down.

Parzybok, Benjamin Small Beer Press (400 pp.) $16.00 paper | $9.95 e-book Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-61873-086-2 978-1-61873-087-9 e-book In the midst of a slow apocalypse, a defiant young organizer takes up arms against her local government and empowers her community to take care of itself.

This second novel by Parzybok (Couch, 2008) employs a thoughtful—and surprisingly realistic—approach to offering commentary on separatist movements. We open in a nearfuture Portland, Oregon, where a long drought has emptied the Columbia River and left the city cut off from America. Far from descending into a Mad Max frenzy of mutants and violence, the city continues much as it was, with bookstores and coffee shops and local politics holding sway over its citizens. But there’s just not enough water to go around. It makes quite a stir when young barista Renee Gorski pulls off the brazen heist of a government water truck. Assuring her boyfriend, Zach, that things won’t get out of hand, she adopts the moniker the press bestows upon her: Maid Marian. Together with her “Green Rangers,” she carves out a block of neighborhoods with about 50,000 citizens and declares “Sherwood Nation” to be a sovereign state.

The mechanics of the coup are interesting, and while there are some nods to Occupy and other protests against inequality— “A system that criminalizes a whistleblower is wanting in introspection,” Renee tells a reporter—Parzybok takes a rational and well-measured approach to depicting a community uprising.

Keeping Portland weird with a well-written tale of an American insurgency.

FIVES AND TWENTY-FIVES

Pitre, Michael Bloomsbury (384 pp.) $27.00 | Aug. 26, 2014 978-1-62040-754-7 The corrosive psychological effects— and the dark humor—of modern conflict are hauntingly captured in Iraq War veteran Pitre’s powerfully understated debut.

Named after a procedure by which Marine convoys maintain the proper distance from a possible roadside bomb, the novel moves in oddly unsettling rhythms between present-day New Orleans, where members of a bombdefusing unit uneasily reunite, and Iraq, where they had to contend not only with lethal potholes and a nebulous enemy, but also Blackwater-like contractors who couldn’t care less about their well-beings. At the heart of the novel is a gangsta rap–loving, increasingly vocal Iraqi translator nicknamed Dodge, who goes |

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to work for the Americans even as his father and brother plot to kill them—not because they hate them but as a way of hastening their exits from the country. Pitre, who served two tours in Iraq, uses his superior powers of observation and empathy to maximum effect; he knows he doesn’t have to overdramatize sudden deaths and betrayals and PTSD. And though Dodge’s ongoing study of Huckleberry Finn provides metaphoric weight, Pitre plays down his literary aims in favor of a straightforward, even-keeled narrative. Among the many memorable scenes is one in which Lt. Pete Donovan, his nerves already stretched to the max, upbraids a callow young private security officer in an air-conditioned Suburban for exposing his heat-stricken men to a leaking stockpile of toxic chemicals. The story is told from the alternating perspectives of Donovan; his drug-addicted fellow Marine, Doc; and Dodge. Though the narrative voices of Donovan and Doc sometimes blend together, and the scenes on the homefront, where Donovan gets a job with a money management firm, are a bit undercooked, those are minor flaws in a book in which everything rings so unshakably true.

A war novel with a voice all its own, this will stand as one of the definitive renderings of the Iraq experience.

(This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

CLOSE CALL

Rimington, Stella Bloomsbury (352 pp.) $27.00 | Aug. 12, 2014 978-1-62040-616-8 In her eighth world-class headache, Liz Carlyle and the rest of MI5 (The Geneva Trap, 2012, etc.) tangle with a ring that deals weapons to the worst kind of people.

As you may have noticed from recent headlines, the Arab Spring didn’t exactly square everything away in the Middle East—certainly not in Liz’s corner of the world. Andy Bokus, head of the CIA in London, delivers the unhappy news that despite the arms embargo to Yemen, someone his agency has code named “Pigot” is smuggling arms there through England, ultimately placing them in the eager hands of jihadis. Even worse, the best intelligence identifies Pigot as Antoine Milraud, a disgraced French ex-intelligence officer whose sense of tradecraft and contacts around the world make him doubly dangerous. Andy’s former deputy, Miles Brookhaven, is patiently extracting information from “Donation,” Yemeni Trade Minister Jamaal Baakrime, but Donation’s leads, slow to come under ideal conditions, grind to a halt when his son is killed. So the best hope for Liz and her French and American counterparts is to stay on Milraud’s tail even though their elusive target is equally slow to incriminate himself or anyone else. Can it get any worse? Indeed it can. The longer Liz stays on the case, the more convinced she becomes that James McManus, Deputy Head of Special Branch in Greater Manchester, is in cahoots with unsavory club owner Lester Jackson, who’s expanding his interests from drugs and prostitution to the arms trade. Liz’s fling with James McManus, 22

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who befriended and bedded her when she was seconded long ago to the Merseyside Police, didn’t end well, but she never imagined he’d cross this line. The concatenation of evil threatens not only the new world order, but Liz’s nearest and dearest.

Like most of Rimington’s books, this one is conscientious and unspectacular, with little suggestion of significant moral or psychological depths. Her biggest talent lies in her uncanny knack for choosing the hot-button issues to hang her stories on.

THE REMARKABLE COURTSHIP OF GENERAL TOM THUMB

Rinaldi, Nicholas Scribner (352 pp.) $26.00 | Aug. 12, 2014 978-1-4767-2732-5

Fast-paced and brightly colored, Rinaldi’s novel is a portrait of Civil War America told from the perspective of the nation’s smallest “military” hero.

The man whom the circus impresario P.T. Barnum decorated with a martial title and named Tom Thumb remained less than 25 inches high until his teens and never grew much taller than 35 inches. This novel traces his early life working with Barnum and his marriage to 32-inchtall Lavinia Warren. We follow the couple on their honeymoon, beginning with a reception in Lincoln’s White House and continuing across the war-torn United States and Canada. A cast of thousands, daring escapes, sweeping vistas: Rinaldi does his idea justice with swift pacing and spectacle. Less pleasingly, the hero and heroine are two-dimensional commentators on the history through which they live, and knowledgeable readers will be frustrated by historical inaccuracies, most of which seems slapdash rather than purposeful. In an unfortunate shortcut, Rinaldi gives us black characters speaking in dialect, as Tom Thumb likely would have had he written a memoir, but he doesn’t earn it; he pays scant attention to the diversity of white speech in the 19th century, and indeed, his white characters carry on in nearly 21st-century style. Perhaps, given the forward rush of this novel, it was hoped that such things would speed by too quickly to be noted.

For the most part, the reading experience does produce the flashy pleasure of a Barnum act, with cardboard sets and blarney unapologetically on display.

IN THE RED

Shapiro, Elena Mauli Little, Brown (304 pp.) $25.00 | $12.99 e-book | Sep. 16, 2014 978-0-316-40536-2 978-0-31640535-5 e-book A Stanford freshman finds herself drawn into an Eastern European immigrant underworld in this erotically charged second novel from Shapiro (13, rue Thérèse, 2011).

Brought to America from a Romanian orphanage when she was 5, Irina has always felt isolated from her peers and her loving but clueless adoptive parents. Days after moving into her college dorm—where she’s already aware she will not fit in socially—she meets Andrei, who immediately recognizes her as a fellow Romanian. He’s older, but she’s drawn to his sinister sense of irony, potential for cruelty and occasional flashes of vulnerability. They become lovers, and she begins spending most of her time with him and his two associates, crude fellow Romanian Drago and former Russian soldier Vasilii, who at first seems more refined than the others. Although Andrei calls himself a capitalist entrepreneur, Irina knows the men’s enterprises, like a chop shop for stolen cars, are shady at best. She travels with the men to Las Vegas, where Vasilii marries the strikingly beautiful Elena, who has been sent to him from Russia. Life turns darker. The girls are made to attend a disturbing stage show that includes live sex. Drago informs Irina that he’s offered Andrei $10,000 to fuck her. Andrei gives her a fake passport and bank account, then sends her to buy expensive clothing and jewelry she wears once—to make love with Andrei— before it disappears. Irina becomes increasingly aware that Vasilii is the one in charge and that perhaps he is a truly evil man. The story of Irina’s life with Andrei is interspersed with bits of Romanian history and the dark, twisted Romanian folk tales Andrei tells.

Also scattered throughout are scenes from Irina’s future life as a lonely bank teller after Andrei casts her out of his world.

The limpid prose quickly persuades the reader to a trust not unlike Irina’s in Andrei—and like Andrei, Shapiro’s novel is at first enticing, then ambiguous and ultimately coldhearted.

THE FUTURE FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE

Sherl, Gregory Algonquin (368 pp.) $14.95 paper | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-61620-369-6 Sherl’s debut novel wonders what would happen if we could see the future— at least where relationships are concerned.

In Baltimore, doctors—called “envisionists”—have found a way to show people willing to spend the time (and having adequate insurance coverage) what their future with any one person will be like. Evelyn

Shriner, a 25-year-old librarian, is a firm believer in envisioning; she may even be addicted to it. She breaks up with her current boyfriend after seeing their future—not awful but not great either— and becomes obsessed with finding her ideal mate. Godfrey Burkes is skeptical of envisioning as a process, but he goes because Madge, his almost fiancee, makes it a condition of their engagement. Godfrey and Evelyn meet in the waiting room, and the rest, with a few twists, is more or less history. The novel has the feel of an indie rom-com: boy meets girl, etc. The dialogue, while clever, is not especially realistic or emotionally resonant, and quirky clothing (mitten clips, a vintage 1976 bicentennial bikini) abounds. But the book does reveal some absurd truths about relationships in a society fully geared toward self-improvement and couples therapy, such as Madge’s constant insistence that she and Godfrey work to fix their relationship while Godfrey isn’t sure it’s actually broken.

Both Evelyn and Godfrey are shadowed by elements of their parents’ lives that leave them questioning their own identities, but the severity of their struggle gets a bit lost among the witty exchanges and eccentric minor characters.

An entertaining and well-meaning novel, but by the end, we’re wishing everyone in it would just grow up already.

THE HEIST

Silva, Daniel Harper/HarperCollins (464 pp.) $27.99 | Jul. 15, 2014 978-0-06-232005-6 Stalwart Israeli agent Gabriel Allon goes in pursuit of stolen art and uncovers billions of dollars purloined by the Butcher of Damascus in this latest by master spycrafter Silva (The English Girl, 2013, etc.).

Allon—part-time art restorer, full-time agent for “the Office,” Israel’s supersecret spy shop—is working on a Venice restoration project and awaiting the birth of twins with his wife, Chiara. Silva’s setup won’t confuse new readers. As a bonus, he incorporates a precis on classic art, particularly Caravaggio. Soon appears Gen. Ferrari, a policeman tracking art thefts.

Ferrari’s a solidly Silva character, not above extorting Allon. A former English diplomat named Bradshaw has been murdered at his Lake Como villa. Ferrari threatens to pin the killing on Allon’s friend Isherwood, the art dealer who discovered the body, unless Allon finds the real killer. Rumor has it that Bradshaw, actually a cashiered spy, may have been in possession of Caravaggio’s priceless “Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence,” missing for decades. Sketching complicated logistics and technical details about nefarious art dealings, Silva finagles the left-turn plot twist that makes him a best-seller: Allon discovers stolen art is being used to hide money for Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator. Allon steals Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” to lure the Butcher’s buyer. Next, Allon heads home to Israel, where Office teammates join the fray, complicated by a few “internecine battles.” There’s growing resentment over Allon being slotted as the next Office chief. With stolen art spotted and the source of |

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the buying spree laid to the Alawite rulers, art geeks take a back seat to computer nerds as the team descends on a private bank in Linz, Austria, to pry loose the Butcher’s billions. In erudition, action and temperament, Silva has made Allon the modern-day covert warrior extraordinaire.

With “a fallen British spy, a one-eyed Italian policeman, a master art thief, [and] a professional assassin from the island of Corsica,” Allon’s 14th caper is a fun read.

THE STORY OF LAND AND SEA

Smith, Katy Simpson Harper/HarperCollins (256 pp.) $26.99 | Aug. 26, 2014 978-0-06-233594-4

An unvarnished tale of seafaring, slavery and new beginnings set in postRevolutionary North Carolina.

In her debut novel, Smith takes liberties with linear narrative and employs ever shifting points of view but still doesn’t quite manage to imbue her stoic characters with inner lives. As the Revolution trickles to an end, the seaside town of Beaufort is in decline as its once-thriving harbor empties and its young men seek opportunity elsewhere. Aging widower Asa, who owns a turpentine plantation, maintains a prickly detente with his son-in-law, John, a former pirate who ran away to sea with Asa’s only daughter, Helen, who later died giving birth to a daughter, Tabitha. When Tabitha contracts yellow fever at age 10, John thinks, in desperation, that a sea voyage will restore her health. His hopes dashed, John returns to Beaufort to bury Tabitha alongside Helen. The scene shifts to earlier, happier times: Helen and John, a penniless sailor–turned-soldier, meet at a regimental tea and quietly fall in love. While John is off fighting the British, Helen expertly runs the turpentine enterprise while Asa pursues political ambitions. John and Helen reunite after she escapes captivity aboard a British ship. (All potential for swashbuckling romance is studiously ignored.) Meanwhile, Asa’s slaves play out their own scenarios of parenthood and loss. Moll, a companion to Helen since both were 10, is married against her will. Her firstborn son, Davy, is her only consolation.

When Davy and John set out for the frontier, motherly love compels Moll to take a suicidal risk. Though Smith’s homespun prose conveys a sense of the period without undo artifice, this is more a diorama of archetypes than a fully-fleshed drama.

A bleak, unsentimental but ultimately static evocation of early American lives. (Author appearances in Asheville, Chapel Hill, Jackson, Nashville, New Orleans and Oxford, Mississippi)

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YOU’LL ENJOY IT WHEN YOU GET THERE The Selected Stories of Elizabeth Taylor Taylor, Elizabeth New York Review Books (400 pp.) $16.95 paper | $10.99 e-book Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-59017-727-3 978-1-59017-743-3 e-book

A newly selected volume of short fiction by a much-admired but not widely known English writer showcases her subtle insights.

Taylor’s (1912-1975) reputation has ebbed and flowed in both her native England and in the U.S., where recent reissues of two of her 11 novels, Angel and A Game of Hide and Seek, have helped return her to the public eye. This book of 29 stories, edited and introduced by Drabble, reflects the breadth of her creative life as well as her nuanced grasp of human interactions. The tales are often located in a finely detailed, middle-class domestic setting where the tone and minutiae are very English: gardens, glasses of sherry, village pubs, marmalade, class differences, Austen-ish wit. Frequently noting the weather, the seasons, flora and fauna, Taylor considers, usually from a female perspective, questions of marriage, isolation, love and aging. The collection opens with a novella, Hester Lilly, which charts the strains imposed on an established marriage by the arrival of the husband’s young cousin. This theme of individuals struggling within an existing relationship recurs often, as in “Gravement Endommagé,” a glimpse of a couple that has survived wartime separation but is not at peace together. The title story, one of several featuring younger women outgrowing their youth, captures the exquisite discomfort of a daughter deputizing for her mother at a formal dinner. Among the most memorable is “The Letter-Writers,” a model of unarticulated intensity in which two long-term correspondents come together for the first time and fear their “eyes might meet and they would see in one another’s nakedness and total loss.”

Sensitive souls are scrutinized with delicate English understatement.

LOVE ME BACK

Tierce, Merritt Doubleday (224 pp.) $23.95 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-385-53807-7 An emotionally barren waitress hustles her way through life, dulled by sex, drugs and self-inflicted burns.

This brutal, darkly poetic debut novel earned Tierce, a recent Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate, a Rona Jaffe award and inclusion in the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35.” It’s a flawed thing of beauty, as terribly uncomfortable to

“A tough, unsparing, closely observed and decidedly R-rated look at the many challenges and disappointments that life brings....” from barracuda

read as it is often brilliant. The tale jumps around in time and tone, feeling much like a series of short stories that have been stitched together to form a whole. When we first meet Marie in “Put Your Back Into It,” she describes four doctors she met at a catering event, three of whom she sleeps with. From there, we get her story in fits and starts: She gets married far too young to the teenage boy who fathers the little girl she’s not ready to take care of. The guy splits when she gives him an STD she caught sleeping around. To survive, she becomes a professional waitress, sleekly navigating the nuances of the restaurant floor while simultaneously taking bumps of coke and suffering the cock-and-bull machismo of the kitchen. As we follow her from Chili’s and The Olive Garden through classier cafes and finally to “The Restaurant,” a high-end Dallas steakhouse, we get stories of corrupt managers, kitchen hustlers, back-stabbing waiters and dim bussers, all sharply portrayed. If there’s a significant hurdle to believability, it’s Marie’s reckless, self-destructive sex life. We already know she’s a cutter, but the number of people she submits to is shocking, often letting men double-team her in walk-ins, pickup trucks and back rooms. “It pays to hustle, it pays to bend over,” she advises. “You keep your standards high and your work strong but these are necessary for success; you keep your dignity separate, somewhere else, attached to different things.”

The cold and honest confessions of a damaged young woman who lives to serve. (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

the complexities of sexuality, so torn up about events that he can’t bring himself to enter the water. Dan’s struggle to resolve the too-abundant conflicts that beset him, including hinted-at legal trouble, makes us sorry to see the once-golden boy stumble and fall. Still, he finds redemption of a kind in his homeland, which remains welcoming even though Dan/Danny has only an untutored, reflexive appreciation for its moderate politics; at the end, as Tsiolkas has one accidentally wise character note, “[w]e’re lucky here, Danny, this country just sails on, impervious to the shit that the rest of the world is drowning in. Jesus, no wonder any bastard who gets on a boat wants to come here.”

A tough, unsparing, closely observed and decidedly R-rated look at the many challenges and disappointments that life brings, told against settings that American readers will find at once familiar and exotic. (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

LISETTE’S LIST

Vreeland, Susan Random House (416 pp.) $27.00 | Aug. 26, 2014 978-1-4000-6817-3 Une jolie Parisienne in Provence during the turbulent World War II years comes to understand love and great art to the core of her being.

In a sweeping historical novel set in Vichy, France, Lisette Roux, a 20-yearold bride who longs for “window-shopping, cabaret hopping, gallery gazing,” grudgingly moves out of Paris to the rural south to take care of her new husband André’s aging grandfather in 1937. “How are we going to survive in a town without a gallery?” she asks in dismay. But Pascal is not your ordinary grandpère: An ochre miner–turned–pigment salesman, he befriended young, unappreciated painters and amassed a collection of Cézanne, Pissarro and Picasso paintings. After Pascal dies, the loving couple is cast out of an Edenic existence following the German invasion of France. André enlists to fight the Nazis and meets a tragic end midway through the book. Lisette’s short stay in Provence stretches out more than a decade, prolonged by the war and her determined attempt to find Pascal’s pictures, which André hid for safekeeping before going to war. Lisette’s sensibility deepens as she grows closer to former prisoner of war Maxime Legrand, André’s fellow soldier and best friend. Marc and Bella Chagall, hiding in Provence because they are Jewish, show up for a brief but blazing cameo appearance. Vreeland, who has proven in earlier art-themed best-sellers that she has an exquisite eye for detail, is enormously talented at establishing the important societal role of art, particularly relevant here as the Nazis both steal and burn it. While her prose can get a bit fluffy (“apricot trees blossoming with pinkish-white petals like flakes of the moon”) and the book wraps up a tad too tidily, her deeply researched novel is mesmerizing.

Merveilleux. Vreeland’s passionate writing is as good as a private showing at the Louvre.

BARRACUDA

Tsiolkas, Christos Hogarth/Crown (384 pp.) $26.00 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-8041-3842-0 Australian novelist Tsiolkas (The Slap, 2008, etc.) serves up a bracing poolside critique of Antipodean mores.

The trope of athletic contest as coming-of-age backdrop is an old one, though more seen in film than literature since the days of The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner. Tsiolkas’ latest takes an athletically gifted young man—Danny here, Dan there, Barracuda everywhere, thanks to his habit of churning up the water and devouring his opponents—across two decades. As we find him at first, Danny, a working-class scholarship student, is on the loutish side, swimming for a school that he calls “Cunts College,” a place for the rich and privileged and not the likes of him. Only dimly self-aware, Danny flourishes under the tutelage of a Hungarian-born mentor who had coached the team “to first in every school sports meet of the last seven years.” The fact of Coach Torma’s foreignness is important, because everyone in Australia, it seems, is from someplace else, and immigration and exile underlie the Greek-descended author’s story. In time, Danny, now a grown-up Dan, will be someplace else, too, for though he is Olympic material, he fails to live up to his promise for reasons that move the story along, taking him to far-off Glasgow and into |

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“An exquisitely tuned exploration of class in post-Edwardian Britain—with really hot sex.” from the paying guests

THE PAYING GUESTS

Waters, Sarah Riverhead (560 pp.) $28.95 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-59463-311-9

An exquisitely tuned exploration of class in post-Edwardian Britain—with really hot sex.

It’s 1922, and Frances Wray lives with her mother in a big house in a genteel South London neighborhood. Her two brothers were killed in the war and her father died soon after, leaving behind a shocking mess of debt. The solution: renting out rooms to Leonard and Lilian Barber, members of the newly emerging “clerk class,” the kind of people the Wrays would normally never mix with but who now share their home. Tension is high from the first paragraph, as Frances waits for the new lodgers to move in: “She and her mother had spent the morning watching the clock, unable to relax.” The first half of the book slowly builds the suspense as Frances falls for the beautiful and passionate Lilian, and teases at the question of whether she will declare her love; when she does, the tension grows even thicker, as the two bump into each other all over the house and try to find time alone for those vivid sex scenes. The second half, as in an Ian McEwan novel, explores the aftermath of a shocking act of violence. Waters is a master of pacing, and her metaphorlaced prose is a delight; when Frances and Lilian go on a picnic, “the eggs [give] up their shells as if shrugging off cumbersome coats”—just like the women. As life-and-death questions are answered, new ones come up, and until the last page, the reader will have no idea what’s going to happen.

Waters keeps getting better, if that’s even possible after the sheer perfection of her earlier novels. (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

RIDE AWAY HOME

Wells, William Permanent Press (192 pp.) $28.00 | Aug. 22, 2014 978-1-57962-359-3 Revenge and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

Wells’ debut novel, which follows a tax attorney adrift in the wake of his daughter’s disappearance, veers uneasily between a soul-searching tale of selfdiscovery in the Mitch Albom mode, a Kerouac-ian road story and a traditional crime thriller, never quite satisfying on any front. This is largely due to the fact that Wells’ protagonist is essentially a cipher; ex-lawyer and grieving father Jack Tanner narrates his own story without revealing anything resembling a personality or sensibility. He’s a comfortable, complacent, middle-age man whose life has been upended by tragedy, and while it’s easy to feel sympathy for his situation, it’s impossible to 26

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invest much interest in the man himself as he blandly describes his not-quite adventure impulsively buying a motorcycle to ride cross-country in search of his missing daughter’s ex-boyfriend, who may know more about the girl’s fate than he revealed during the police investigation. Along the way, Tanner suffers a minor accident, inadvisably picks up a comely young hitchhiker (Wells is oddly fixated on the attractiveness of nearly every female his hero encounters), falls in with a most unusual biker gang and, in the novel’s most serious misstep, drifts into leaden magical realism as he teams up with what may or may not be the ghost of Ernest Hemingway. By this point, the resolution of Tanner’s quest has lost any sense of urgency, and indeed, the book just sort of dribbles away into a mawkishly hopeful sigh of a conclusion.

Low-key and inoffensive to a fault, this thriller, like its hero, was born to be mild.

ON BITTERSWEET PLACE

Wineberg, Ronna Relegation Books (270 pp.) $13.95 paper | Sep. 16, 2014 978-0-9847648-1-5

A portrait of immigrant life in 1920s Chicago, focused on a Jewish girl’s coming-of-age, yields mixed results in short story writer Wineberg’s (Second Language, 2005) first novel.

Life in America for young, artistically inclined Lena Czernitski proves terribly difficult after her family flees violence in 1922 Russia, where her grandfather was murdered at the dinner table and people on the street chanted, “Peace, land and bread. Kill Jews and save Russia.” Arriving in Chicago at age 10, Lena writes lists of her fears, worrying at first about her safety and never learning English, evolving over six years to despair that she’ll never be happy again. Wineberg heaps endless tsuris, or troubles as the family calls them in Yiddish, upon Lena, her older brother, Simon, and her parents. A new hardship arises in almost every early chapter, including a lecherous relative, the death of a child, an anti-Semitic schoolteacher who threatens to fail Lena and mysterious strife between her hardworking parents. There are strong scenes of Lena in conversation with her father, who supports her talent for drawing but whose goodness is in constant question. Lena’s disgust with her mother’s pessimism, grief and need to keep secrets drives her to take risks to find happiness, and she does, dating a boy named Max and declaring that as an artist, “I wanted to rip open the world.” But Wineberg has Lena tell her story in the moment rather than in retrospect, devoting too little to Lena’s thoughts and reflections on her life. Weighed down in key moments by clichéd language, the book becomes an unfortunate series of repetitive scenes rather than a unified whole.

This promising first novel stumbles too often for its young narrator to come fully to life.

m ys t e r y

THE RECKONING

Airth, Rennie Viking (368 pp.) $26.95 | Aug. 14, 2014 978-0-670-78568-1

THE MARCO EFFECT

Adler-Olsen, Jussi Translated by Aitken, Martin Dutton (496 pp.) $27.95 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-525-95402-6

John Madden comes out of retirement in post-World War II Britain to help solve a case from his past.

Hikers enjoying the countryside near the Sussex town of Lewes see a slightly built man in a red sweater approach Oswald Gibson as he’s enjoying a peaceful day of fishing. But no one sees when Gibson is ordered to kneel and is shot execution style, and no one sees the killer leave. Chief Inspector Detective Billy Styles orders a thorough investigation and police search, but the murderer seems to have vanished. Besides noting similarities between Gibson’s death and that of a doctor in Aberdeen, Styles finds a letter Gibson was writing to Scotland Yard to inquire about the whereabouts of John Madden, the former detective who taught Styles his trade. Madden doesn’t recognize Gibson from the photographs the murdered man’s brother shows him, and the only clue so far is that Gibson and the Scottish doctor were both shot with identical bullets, German-made with iron cores. The execution of a third man confirms the killer’s pattern of visiting the victims in advance, apparently to establish their identities before delivering the coup de grace. Then an entry in Gibson’s diary gives Madden the link he needs to the killer and to his own past: a tragic incident he tried and failed to prevent during World War I. Now he realizes he’s in search of someone skilled at deception and disguise and who won’t stop until all the parties involved pay for a long-ago injustice. Although the exposition, interspersed with scenes from Madden’s domestic life, is leisurely, momentum builds to a satisfying ending.

Madden’s fourth case (The Dead of Winter, 2009, etc.) maintains Airth’s reputation for carefully constructed, highly detailed plots. Although the hero doesn’t dominate the present-day action, his past involvement adds an emotional element to his determination to end the killings.

A Danish banking scam whose tentacles extend to Cameroon spells trouble for Department Q’s Carl Mørck and a young boy who gets caught in the crossfire.

It’s true: The coverup is always worse than the original problem. If only William Stark hadn’t gotten suspicious about the ostensibly gibberish text message a Bantu development officer sent from Cameroon just before he vanished, René E. Eriksen, his boss at the Evaluation Department for Developmental Assistance, wouldn’t have had to send him off to Africa to investigate or assented to a shadowy banker’s order to have him murdered on his return. And if only Marco Jameson, a teenage beggar hiding from his uncle Zola, who planned to have him maimed to increase his daily take, hadn’t taken refuge in Stark’s grave, Zola wouldn’t be sending his young corps fanning out all over Copenhagen to find the boy before he can lead the police to the body Zola buried himself. Now Marco is frantically on the run. Eriksen and his old schoolmate and coconspirator, banker Teis Snap, are headed for a major falling-out.

And Carl, who’d be perfectly happy investigating the houseboat fire that claimed the life of Minna Virklund, wouldn’t have been sucked into a series of coverup murders that threaten to go on forever. These are already tough times for Carl. His girlfriend, psychologist Mona Ibsen, heads off his marriage proposal by breaking up with him; Marcus Jacobsen, the generally supportive head of Copenhagen Homicide, has abruptly retired; and the new acting head, deputy commissioner Lars Bjørn, has saddled Carl with Gordon Taylor, a rookie still in law school, to ride herd on Department Q’s expenses, ruin Carl’s interrogations and report every minor infraction back to his patron. So all parties concerned can expect major drama.

If a scene works, Adler-Olsen never minds reprising it two or three times with minor variations. The result is a tale as big and sprawling as Carl’s first four cases (The Purity of Vengeance, 2013, etc.) but more diffuse, more like a TV miniseries than a feature film.

COUNTDOWN

Cooper, Susan Rogers Severn House (208 pp.) $28.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-7278-8395-7 Prophesy County, Oklahoma, has a sudden spate of dangerous cases.

Sheriff Milt Kovak (Dark Waters, 2013, etc.) isn’t surprised to hear that Darrell Blanton has shot and killed his wife. The Blantons are none too smart— maybe because they always marry their cousins—and often in trouble. Milt has no trouble arresting Darrell, but things go south in a hurry when Darrell’s mother, Eunice, her son Earl, |

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and her daughter Marge take over the suite at the Longbranch Inn, where Milt’s wife, psychiatrist Jean McDonnell, is hosting a bachelorette party, and threaten to kill the guests unless Darrell’s released. Their demand poses even bigger problems for Milt than you might expect. The hostages include Jean’s visitor Paula Carmichael, a college roommate she hasn’t seen for years.

Paula was a brilliant, beautiful, promiscuous party animal who became a cardiac surgeon. Now she looks haggard, drinks too much and is unpleasantly snarky. An even more dire complication is that Darrell’s just been found dead in his cell, whether from natural or homicidal causes. Just to add to the excitement, a monster tornado nearly destroys the nearby town where Milt and Jean’s son is visiting his aunt. After Earl shoots Paula dead, Jean, who’d been annoyed with her old roommate’s attitude, resolves to find out what changed her life. The sleuthing duo have a lot to accomplish and not much time to find the answers.

Milt’s adventures often feature interesting characters and twisty plots. This one, though, crams in so much activity that the impact of any one storyline is lost.

DAY OF VENGEANCE

Dams, Jeanne M. Severn House (224 pp.) $28.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-7278-8397-1

The Church of England has a major public relations problem when a candidate for bishop is murdered.

The sleuthing duo of Dorothy Martin and Alan Nesbitt (Shadows of Death, 2014, etc.) become involved because Alan is on the committee charged with selecting the new bishop of their much-loved Sherebury Cathedral. Dorothy is an expat American with a talent for solving puzzles, her husband an exchief constable who finds himself on the list of suspects. The murdered man, archconservative Dean Brading, went through the customary vetting process, but when Dorothy and Alan start to dig deeper into his past, some decidedly insalubrious facts come to light. Because the three remaining candidates share an obvious motive, both the police and Dorothy and Alan visit them, all trying to catch a hint that any of them might want the job badly enough to kill. Their least favorite candidate, the Rev. Mr. Lovelace, is a charismatic speaker who leaves the real work of his post to his assistants. His lifestyle makes Dorothy and Alan suspicious enough to send their friend Walter to be part of his entourage as an undercover volunteer. Walter promptly vanishes. So does Lovelace, who surfaces only in death, a possible suicide. The couple’s visits to the other two candidates reveal them as more promising bishops but less likely murderers.

Although there is much debate in the church over candidates from such different ends of the ideological spectrum, Dorothy makes a breakthrough when she recalls Hercule Poirot’s advice about seeking motives in the victim’s personal life.

Anglophile Dams adds another comfortable cozy to her collection of paeans to all things British.

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ENEMIES AT HOME

Davis, Lindsey Minotaur (336 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | Jul. 15, 2014 978-1-250-02377-3 978-1-250-02378-0 e-book In first-century Rome, the latest case for Flavia Albia—the daughter of veteran investigator Marcus Didius Falco who’s followed him into the family business (The Ides of April, 2013)—threatens to send her into an early retirement.

Flavia’s attraction to aedile Tiberius Faustus, with whom she’s recently worked on a case, clouds her judgment. When Faustus needs an independent detective to solve a bafflingly brutal crime that’s sent ripples of fear through the city, Flavia heedlessly takes on the job. Middle-age newlyweds Valerius Aviola and Mucia Lucilia have been murdered in their bed during their second night as man and wife. Although there’s clear evidence of burglary, their many slaves are automatically presumed to be guilty accomplices until proven innocent. A mass exodus of the suspects and the hasty cleaning of the murder scene put Flavia two steps behind at the very outset of her probe. Nevertheless, she sets about systematically questioning every member of the Aviola household who hasn’t fled. The fear, however, runs in both directions, as slaves vastly outnumber free citizens.

Tracing stolen items helps Flavia’s investigation gain traction but places her in physical danger. Faustus’ reappearance as a sidekick enlivens the story considerably, and things really get interesting when Flavia consults her shrewd uncles, both quick to offer advice and to call her out on her recklessness and her little deceits. Flavia’s slow-moving second mystery is a solidly plotted traditional whodunit with some nice historical touches.

As the heroine become more fully fleshed, her challenges become more and more interesting.

GUILTY PARTIES

Edwards, Martin–Ed. Severn House (256 pp.) $28.95 | Aug. 1, 2014 978-0-7278-8387-2 This year’s collection of two dozen new stories by members of the Crime Writers’ Association (Guilty Consciences, 2012, etc.) shows just how far familiar recipes will take the contributors—and when they need to go the extra mile.

Take the familiar tale of the murderer passing on a criminal legacy to a more-or-less unsuspecting accomplice. Ricki Thomas and L.C. Tyler both develop this story generationally; Laura Wilson, making her crook and his legatee about the same age, finds something deeper in it. Bernie Crosthwaite, Kate Ellis and Peter Lovesey all avail themselves of a famous cliché indelibly associated with Agatha Christie, but Lovesey’s sly tale of murder in a

“Everyone is this meticulously crafted novel might be playing—or being played by—everyone else.” from the secret place

THE SECRET PLACE

monastery is the most successful of the three for reasons that have nothing to do with the cliché. Carol Anne Davis, Jane Finnis, Kate Rhodes, Yvonne Eve Walus and Paul Freeman all tackle the demanding form of the short-short story—Freeman’s Chaucerian pastiche is written in verse, Finnis’ entry is only two pages— and all but Freeman’s pack quite a punch. As their titles indicate, Phil Lovesey’s “The Last Guilty Party,” Ragnar Jónasson’s “Party of Two” and Paul Johnston’s “All Yesterday’s Parties” use a series of reunions to dramatize the disastrous declines of their characters; Lovesey and Jónasson produce highly finished anecdotes, Johnston, in the best story here, a fable so drastically compressed that it moves off to entirely more original territory. Originality also seems to be a matter of degree (the third degree, presumably) rather than a got-it-or-doesn’t quality in the contributions

by John Harvey, Christopher Fowler, Frances Brody, N.J. Cooper, Judith Cutler, Christine Poulson, Chris Simms, C.L. Taylor, Aline Templeton and editor Edwards.

Though Johnston’s story is the standout, the others are never less than professional and surprisingly varied, even when they’re working the very same conventions.

French, Tana Viking (464 pp.) $27.95 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-0-670-02632-6

A hint of the supernatural spices the latest from a mystery master as two detectives try to probe the secrets teenage girls keep—and the lies they tell— after murder at a posh boarding school.

The Dublin novelist (Broken Harbor, 2012, etc.) has few peers in her combination of literary stylishness and intricate, clockwork plotting. Here, French challenges herself and her readers with a narrative strategy that finds chapters alternating between two different time frames and points of view. One strand concerns four girls at exclusive St. Kilda’s who are so close they vow they won’t even have boyfriends. Four other girls from the school are their archrivals, more conventional and socially active. The novel pits the girls against each other almost as two gangs, with the plot pivoting on the death of a rich boy from a nearby school who had been sneaking out to see at least two of the girls. The second strand features the two detectives who spend a long day and night at the school, many months after the unsolved murder. Narrating these chapters is Stephen, a detective assigned to cold cases, who receives an unexpected visit from one of the girls, Holly, a daughter of one of Stephen’s colleagues on the force, who brings a postcard she’d found on a bulletin board known as “The Secret Place” that says “I know who killed him.” The ambitious Stephen, who has a history with both the girl and her father, brings the postcard to Conway, a hard-bitten female detective whose case this had been. The chapters narrated by Stephen concern their day of interrogation and investigation at the school, while the alternating ones from the girls’ perspectives cover the school year leading up to the murder and its aftermath. Beyond the murder mystery, which leaves the reader in suspense throughout, the novel explores the mysteries of friendship, loyalty and betrayal, not only among adolescents, but within the police force as well.

Everyone is this meticulously crafted novel might be playing—or being played by—everyone else. (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

OF MERLOT AND MURDER

Folger, Joni Midnight Ink/Llewellyn (288 pp.) $14.99 paper | Sep. 8, 2014 978-0-7387-4076-8

A family of Texas vintners has murder on their minds.

The Becketts of River Bend Winery are getting ready for the Lost Pines Food and Wine Festival. Unfortunately, their booth is directly across from that of Divia Larson of Third Coast Winery. Divia’s husband was the high school sweetheart of Grandma Abigail Beckett, but Divia’s a back-stabber who has nothing nice to say about anyone. Elise Beckett should have learned her lesson about sleuthing when she was almost killed investigating her uncle’s murder (Grapes of Death, 2013). But when Divia’s found poisoned in her motel room, Elise and her family spring into action to protect their grandmother, the last person known to have seen her alive.

On some level, Elise knows that her boyfriend, Deputy Jackson Landry, would never seriously suspect her grandmother of murder. Even so, her curiosity just won’t allow her to let Jax do his job on his own. After all, there are plenty of good suspects, starting with Divia’s husband, Garrett, and Toby, her son from a former marriage, who may have been cooking the Third Coast books. And Monique Toussaint, whose relationship with her brother-in-law Philippe certainly looks suspicious, accused Divia of having an affair with her husband, Alain. Ignoring her near-death experience and Jackson’s stern warnings, Elise ropes in her brother and sister, along with her best friend, to help her search for clues to the real killer.

A light, pleasant case of murder with a little romance, a bit of wine lore and a mystery that won’t tax either your brain or your blood pressure. |

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BRAINQUAKE

Fuller, Samuel Hard Case Crime (320 pp.) $12.95 paper | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-78116-819-6 A bagman with recurring brain seizures falls in love with a Mafia widow and flees with organized crime money.

Fuller (The Dark Page, 2007, etc.) was an iconoclastic movie director whose work influenced film legends like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. This book, discovered after his death in 1997, offers classic noir fiction filled with shadowy underworld dealings and an antihero immersed in criminal culture. Although he was born with a mysterious brain condition that causes uncontrollable seizures, Paul Page follows all the rules of his job as bagman in his gangland dealings. He survives attempted hijackings, he’s always on time with his deliveries, and he never thinks about doublecrossing his boss. Things change when Paul falls for Michelle, a mysterious and beautiful woman who becomes a widow before his eyes. Michelle’s husband is killed over an unpaid debt, and it seems that Paul can offer the two things that will save her from a similar fate: physical protection and quick cash. When he’s told to deliver $10 million, he must decide between allegiance to the only job he’s ever known and following the woman he loves. When Paul takes off with the cash, an elite hit man disguised as a priest is put on his trail. As his characters make a series of shifting alliances, Fuller creates the kind of converging narratives and memorable personalities that will seem familiar to any Tarantino fan.

A hard-boiled story filled with quick dialogue and rich archetypal characters.

NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR

Gannon, Joe Minotaur (320 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-250-04802-8 978-1-4668-4831-3 e-book Journalist/teacher Gannon’s first novel takes readers back to 1986, when Nicaragua is torn by civil war, American intervention, mass executions and the odd serial killer.

Ajax Montoya has played many roles: a follower of Horacio de la Vega Cárdenas (“El Maestro”), a fighter with the revolutionaries, an accomplice to a political assassination, a captain in the Polícía Sandanista, a student of the thesaurus, a heavy drinker, and most recently, the man who failed to bring Fortunado Gavilan, who killed his girlfriend, alive through a standoff with the police. But Ajax and his new partner, Lt. Gladys Darío, have never been called on to solve a series of killings as brutal and apparently indiscriminate as they face now. Not that anyone is advertising their similarities. The 30

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only links between the recent stabbing of Enrique Cuadra, apparently during a robbery, and the shooting of Jorge Salazar five years earlier by State Security agents are a face in a telltale photo and a dream Cuadra’s widow Doña Gloria describes to Cuadra’s cousin, Epimenio Putoy, of her husband’s return. The deaths of a pair of lowlife informants confirm Ajax’s suspicions but do nothing to direct them toward the guilty party. And his unsought affair with Amelia Peck, the red-haired aide to a green Ohio Senator who’s visiting Nicaragua in search of information that would justify further American support for the Contras, plunges him into danger without clarifying the mystery. In a country that buries countless victims of violence every month, what are the odds that Ajax will find the murderous needle in the haystack?

Considering its level of mayhem, it’s remarkable that so few mystery writers have drawn on Nicaragua as a fictional setting. So Gannon’s dank, dense, tangled debut is doubly welcome.

THE LAZARUS CURSE

Harris, Tessa Kensington (304 pp.) $15.00 paper | Jul. 29, 2014 978-0-7582-9337-4

An American physician in post– Revolutionary War England takes on a potent drug, a baffling murder and a determined rival.

When the headless body of botanical artist Matthew Bartlett is found tied to a pier in the Thames, anatomist Dr. Thomas Silkstone knows he’s in for a hard time. Not only does he want to solve the murder, but he’s also lost the last key member of a doomed expedition to Jamaica. Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, has asked Silkstone to catalog the flora and fauna collected by the two doctors who headed the expedition.

It appears they were in search of a plant, the branched calalue bush, that would greatly benefit the medical community. But both doctors died of yellow fever, and Bartlett, who brought the ship home with the results of the expedition, was also entrusted with a detailed journal that’s gone missing. So has the one surviving sample of the calalue, which is a component in the African folk religion of Obeah. The plant can reportedly induce a deathlike state and is rumored to have an antidote that will bring patients back from the dead. However, it leaves them in a compliant state, perfect for use—and misuse—by military agents and West Indies planters who are allowed to bring their slaves to England, where slavery has been banned.

When Jeremiah Taylor, a slave who overhears a conversation about another sinister effect of the drug, runs away and finds shelter with Silkstone, the Philadelphia-born doctor takes up Jeremiah’s cause with a pair of abolitionists. At the same time, Silkstone hopes for a reunion with Lady Lydia Farrell, the woman he loves but can’t marry because of a court order, without realizing that she’s in danger from a powerful enemy who can separate the couple indefinitely.

SUMMER OF THE DEAD

Harris (The Devil’s Breath, 2013, etc.) successfully balances history, homicide, science, sorcery and social justice in his idealistic hero’s fourth case. The only disappointment is a maddeningly inconclusive ending.

Keller, Julia Minotaur (400 pp.) $25.99 | $12.99 e-book | Aug. 26, 2014 978-1-250-04473-0 978-1-4668-4318-9 e-book

BITTER CROSSING

Even though her life seems to be spiraling out of control, Bell Elkins still has to care for her family members and do her job as a West Virginia county prosecutor.

Bell’s sister, Shirley, has finally been released from prison after serving a long sentence for killing their father before he got around to molesting Bell. Unfortunately, Shirley, who’s living with Bell, has been overwhelmed by alcohol-fueled attacks of rage against Bell, who’s eagerly awaiting the arrival of her daughter, Carla, for the summer. Bell is furious when her exhusband arranges for Carla to spend the summer as an intern in London and has trouble controlling her rage when a man who’s molesting his stepchildren is freed because none of them will testify. Bell’s hometown of Acker’s Gap is dirt-poor and beset by drug and alcohol use and high unemployment. When two people are brutally murdered, Bell and Sheriff Nick Fogelsong have little to go on. The big draw for the summer is the arrival of former governor Riley Jessup, a native son who’s donating an MRI machine to the new hospital. After growing up poor, he went into politics and made a fortune, but all his money can’t save his beloved, sickly grandson. In the meantime, Lindy Crabtree can barely cope with the deterioration of her father, a former coal miner who’s slowly losing his mind. Lindy, who loves to read, works nights at a gas station. To soothe her unstable father, she’s fixed the cellar of their decrepit house to resemble a coal mine. While Lindy worries that her father may be the killer, Bell traces a telltale business card to a company owned by Jessup but is stonewalled by the politician.

In her powerfully written third appearance, Bell (Bitter River, 2013, etc.) emerges as a compelling heroine with an especially vexing mystery to solve.

Keeley, D.A. Midnight Ink/Llewellyn (432 pp.) $14.99 paper | Aug. 8, 2014 978-0-7387-4068-3 A border agent tries to break up a smuggling ring in this series debut.

U.S. Border Patrol agent Peyton Cote knew what she was getting into when she asked for a transfer from Texas back to her hometown of Garrett, Maine. The tiny border town is in Aroostook County, which has a landmass as great as Connecticut and Rhode Island combined and two chief sources of income: potatoes and trees. Its highly forested border with New Brunswick makes it an ideal port of entry for smugglers, and Peyton is poised to make a drug bust from a tip she got from a high school classmate. She’s astonished when the sack she finds in a potato field contains not primo marijuana but a baby. As a single mother, she’s glad she saved the infant, but she’s frustrated about the drug bust that didn’t go down. Her informant steers her toward her high school history teacher, a University of Maine professor and a Boston lawyer who are working together for what they insist is a good purpose. Peyton has her suspicions, however, as she does about her brotherin-law and the possibility of a turncoat agent on the job. Her ex-husband’s hope of getting back together with her, attentions from other single men in Garrett, the disappearance of the rescued baby, two shootings and the obligatory moose incident add to the complications in Peyton’s attempts to do her job and rebuild a life in her hometown. Though Peyton’s far from the warmth of Texas, her diligence, courage and fortitude—qualities she developed in a region where winter begins in October and seems to last forever—serve her well in her personal and professional challenges.

Despite a few lapses in style and continuity, Keeley (This One Day, as K.A. Delaney, 2014, etc.) writes convincingly about New England and the rugged people who call it home.

THE GOOD KNOW NOTHING

Kuhlken, Ken Poisoned Pen (250 pp.) $24.95 | $14.95 paper | $6.99 e-book $22.95 Lg. Prt. | Aug. 5, 2014 978-1-4642-0286-5 978-1-4642-0288-9 paper 978-1-4642-0289-6 e-book 978-1-4642-0287-2 Lg. Prt. A parade of historical characters comes under investigation when an LAPD detective and his sister try to solve a mystery about their father.

Detective Tom Hickey had quite a dramatic life before he became a cop. After his father, Charlie, vanished—leaving Tom and his younger sister, Florence, with an abusive mother—Tom |

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ran away with Florence when he was only 16. After a couple of other careers, he’s working under a corrupt police chief in 1936 Los Angeles. Tom has his wrangles with his boss, but he goes even further off course when Bud Gallagher, Tom’s last link to his father, brings him a manuscript Charlie wrote that another author published under his own name. Reading the manuscript gives Tom new insight into his father and new hope that he’s still alive. He’s determined to find out, even if it means jeopardizing his marriage, leaving his young daughter, running away from the law he swore to uphold and risking his own life. A bumpy meeting with Harry Longabaugh, aka the Sundance Kid, reveals that Charlie had been on a quest to find out the fate of the author Ambrose Bierce after he displeased the all-powerful William Randolph Hearst. The closer Tom and Florence get to Charlie’s connection to Hearst, the more they require help from Florence’s spiritual leader, evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson.

But the final answer to their questions about their father lies much closer to home in a tale that zigzags through time and across the country.

Kuhlken (The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles, 2010, etc.) overreaches by creating parallel investigations a generation apart and larding this middle-period Hickey family saga with real-life celebrities. It’s hard for the central character to hold his own against all that stellar competition.

THE STONE WIFE

Lovesey, Peter Soho Crime (368 pp.) $26.95 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-61695-393-5

Murderous holdup men end the bidding at a staid auction house and turn the proceedings over to Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond of the Bath CID. Lot 129, an enormous limestone carving of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, has languished in obscurity for hundreds of years. Its 15 minutes of fame arrive when three masked gunmen interrupt Morton’s auctioneer Denis Duggart and shoot a bidder who tries to stop them from wheeling it away. Fueled by his wealthy wife Monica’s purse, professor John Gildersleeve (medieval English literature/Reading Univ.) had already bid well past Morton’s estimate of the price the carving would bring. Now his death raises many questions. Was his murder premeditated? Who hired the holdup men, and why were they so interested in the stone wife? And, since this is the U.K. and not the gun-happy U.S., who supplied them with arms? Assuming that the answer to that last question is notorious Bristol gun supplier Nathan Hazael, Diamond asks for a volunteer to go undercover and infiltrate Hazael’s inner circle. Recently promoted DS Ingeborg Smith, rising to the occasion, comes up with such a novel scheme—posing as a journalist looking to publicize the career of rising pop star Lee Li, who’s taken on Hazael as manager and bedmate—that she runs away with the book. As Diamond and his crew (Cop to Corpse, 2012, etc.) beat the bushes for suspects 32

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(dry-eyed Monica? Bernie Wefers, the violent ex-husband she cheated on with Gildersleeve? Dr. Archie Poke, the Reading colleague Gildersleeve barred from further advancement?), Ingeborg, acting on one hunch after another, gets herself deeper and deeper into trouble. But not as much trouble as DC Paul Gilbert, the rookie who takes it upon himself to investigate her sudden disappearance.

Dogged police work, nasty revelations about respectable citizens, dollops of suspense, Chaucerian tidbits—all the pleasures you expect from much-honored Lovesey are here, but this time without a strong center to pull them all together. The result is Diamond in the rough.

A LITTLE NIGHT MURDER

Martin, Nancy Obsidian (384 pp.) $24.95 | Aug. 5, 2014 978-0-451-41527-1

A reporter whiles away the final days of her pregnancy juggling beaux and solving murders.

Nora Blackbird (Little Black Book of Murder, 2013, etc.) is feeling the heat on her aging Bucks County farm as she counts down the days until the arrival of Baby Girl Abruzzo, the first child she expects this summer. The second should arrive closer to fall courtesy of her nephew Rawlins, whose brief but torrid affair with an older woman left her with an unwanted bun in her irresponsible oven. To avoid the swelter, Nora hangs out poolside with her friend Lexie Paine as Lexie avoids the reporters who’ve stalked her since her recent release from prison. Next door to Lexie’s mansion, Fred Fusby pounds the piano as Boom Boom Tuttle, widow of legendary Broadway composer Toodles Tuttle, rehearses for her comeback in a recently discovered extravaganza penned by her late husband. The cast has barely taken a break when Boom Boom’s middle-age daughter, Jenny, is found dead in her room. Nora’s boss, Gus Hardwicke, editor of the Philadelphia Intelligencer, wants her to exploit her ties to the Tuttles to get the scoop on Jenny’s death. He also wants her to rat out her friend Lexie to the Intelligencer’s crime reporter.

Mostly, though, he wants to get into her pants, undeterred by her burgeoning belly. Nora, who’s planning to marry Baby Girl’s dad, mobster Michael Abruzzo, is both repelled and fascinated

by Gus’ ardor but makes intermittent attempts to find Jenny’s killer for the sake of her job.

Martin’s insistence on casting Nora in the dual roles of Earth Mother and Love Goddess deep-sixes any hope of a decent mystery.

THE LEWIS MAN

husbands (one she married twice) and some genuine remorse for the way she treated Paul. She’s even more surprised to find out the institute is owned by James Grant-Worthington, a molecular biologist for whose company her third husband, Charlie Reidermann, is negotiating in a protective buyout. More shocking still is Grant-Worthington’s sudden death. His companion, Celeste Fuertes, the institute director, seems sincere in her grief, but Tink is still suspicious of her. Charlie, who’s come west with Tink’s stepson so they can watch the endurance race, has his own doubts about whether Grant-Worthington died from natural causes, and Tink wonders what Paul’s business connection is to the institute. A second will that only Celeste knew about, a former employee of the institute who goes on a shooting spree and perils evenly distributed among the leading characters crowd some of them right off the stage and into oblivion.

What’s left is a plot that depends on several implausible coincidences, two superstupid goons and one Unitarian.

A plethora of flashbacks and shifts in point of view added to an uneven tone undercut Menino’s second attempt to make us love the thrice-divorced heroine (Murder, She Rode, 2013) who sits prettily on a horse and a pile of money.

May, Peter Quercus (435 pp.) $26.99 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-62365-819-9

The second installment in May’s Lewis trilogy finds Fin Macleod (The Blackhouse, 2011) without a job or wife but with another brooding case set on the outermost island of the Outer Hebrides.

Even before his slide into dementia placed him beyond the reach of any official interrogation, Tormod Macdonald had assured his daughter, Marsaili, that he was an only child. So how can it be that DNA tests on the anonymous corpse recovered from a peat bog mark the dead man as a relative of Tormod’s? The police aren’t interested in a 50-yearold killing, but Marsaili can’t help wanting to know more about this unknown connection of her father’s. And since Fin, her years-ago lover, has just quit both his marriage and the police force and camped out on Lewis Island to make his long-dead parents’ cottage habitable once more, he’s on hand to make inquiries. Braided into the tale of his discoveries is a series of flashbacks to the events leading up to the murder. This backand-forth rhythm is one of the most durable and frequently irritating clichés of the genre, but May (Blowback, 2011, etc.) miraculously freshens it by recounting the past from Macdonald’s point of view. Giving a voice to the demented figure at the center of the mystery accelerates the gradual pace of the revelations, gives Macdonald’s unwilling, and largely unwitting, return to his early days a powerful poignancy, and allows him from time to time to leap ahead of the trained investigator working the same dark field.

Despite some well-judged surprises, the mystery isn’t all that mysterious. But you’ll keep turning the pages anyway—not to learn whodunit, but to find out what’s going to happen to the present-day characters so deeply, fatally rooted in the past.

ROSE GOLD

Mosley, Walter Doubleday (304 pp.) $25.95 | Sep. 23, 2014 978-0-385-53597-7 Easy Rawlins, who once spanned years between volumes, takes his third case of 1967. Or rather, his third batch of cases.

What are the odds that the LAPD would not only press Easy (Little Green, 2013, etc.) to take a job, but offer to pay him for it? But that’s exactly what Roger Frisk, special assistant to the chief of police, does. If Easy will look for international weapons manufacturer Foster Goldsmith’s daughter, Rosemary, who’s gone missing from UC Santa Barbara, Frisk will pay him $6,000, with a bonus of $2,500 if he actually finds her. Smelling a rat but agreeing to take the case, Easy soon realizes the police are much less interested in Rosemary than in retired boxer Battling Bob Mantle, the companion who may have kidnapped her. Easy is quickly up to his neck in other LAPD officers, FBI agents and State Department officials, united only in their demand that he drop the case on security grounds. In the course of his investigations, Easy incurs numerous debts that he can pay off only by working other jobs. His trusted police contact, Detective Melvin Suggs, wants Easy to find Mary Donovan, who passed counterfeit money and stole Suggs’ heart. His ex-lover EttaMae Alexander’s white friend Alana Altman wants Easy to find her boy Alton, who she suspects may have been kidnapped by her late husband’s African-American relatives.

Local crime lord Art Sugar suggests that Easy pass everything he learns about Bob Mantle on to him first. You have to feel bad for underemployed UCLA MBA Percy Bidwell, who insists that Easy introduce him to investment banker Jason Middleton but

A DISTANCE TO DEATH

Menino, Holly Minotaur (304 pp.) $25.99 | Aug. 12, 2014 978-1-250-04649-9

Equestrienne Tink Elledge is back to juggle husbands and solve murders in the Sierra Nevada.

In pursuit of a runaway horse near Truckee, California, Tink runs smack into the Institute for Biology and Higher Mind and a fast-talking PR man. With him is someone who looks vaguely familiar. Not until he visits the ranch where Tink is lodging while she trains for the Tevis Cup does she realize the stranger is Paul Savage, her first husband of 30 years ago.

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“With the help of friends and chocolate croissants and the protection of the village’s massive pines, Gamache is healing.” from the long way home

doesn’t have anything to trade for the favor.

Along the way to the untidy resolution, the most quotable of all contemporary detectives (“I knew I was in trouble because I was being told a fairy tale by a cop”) stirs up enough trouble for scene after memorable scene. Mosley may not write great endings, but it’s hard to top his middles.

THE COUNTERFEIT LADY

Parker, Kate Berkley Prime Crime (320 pp.) $15.00 | Aug. 5, 2014 978-0-425-26661-8

A bookseller in Victorian London leads a sub rosa life as a sleuth.

Georgia Fenchurch is a member of the Archivist Society, a secret group of investigators with varied skills and backgrounds. Having already helped crack one case (The Vanishing Thief, 2013), she’d dearly love to solve a far more important mystery: the murder of her parents. While she’s waiting for a lead in this case of a lifetime, murder continues to stalk the eminent Victorians. A woman named Clara Gattenger, who’s the cousin of Georgia’s friend Lady Phyllida Monthalf, has been killed in her own home. The blueprints for an important new battleship designed by her husband, Kenneth, have disappeared, and he’s been arrested for his wife’s murder.

The Duke of Blackford, who’s aiding the government, enlists the help of the society. Lady Phyllida, who’s painfully shy, is willing to endure a return to society life to avenge Clara and prove Kenneth innocent. Georgia agrees to pose as her widowed relative Georgina Monthalf, recently returned from abroad.

Accordingly, Lady Phyllida and Georgia set up house, complete with new wardrobes so they can travel in the upper-class circles of the suspects, who range from rival shipbuilding companies to society ladies. The duke and Georgia, already intensely attracted to each other, easily set up a flirtation as they try to prise secrets out of a German baron they suspect of arranging the theft of the blueprints. During a house party in the country attended by the whole group, another murder raises the stakes.

A decorous period background, a plucky heroine, a darkly handsome romantic hero and enough suspects to keep you guessing.

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THE LONG WAY HOME

Penny, Louise Minotaur (384 pp.) $27.99 | $14.99 e-book | Aug. 26, 2014 978-1-250-02206-6 978-1-250-02207-3 e-book Armand Gamache, former chief inspector of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, is settling into retirement in the idyllic village of Three Pines—but Gamache understands better than most that danger never strays far from home.

With the help of friends and chocolate croissants and the protection of the village’s massive pines, Gamache is healing.

His hands don’t shake as they used to; you might just mistake him and his wife, Reine-Marie, for an ordinary middle-age couple oblivious to the world’s horrors. But Gamache still grapples with a “sin-sick soul”—he can’t forget what lurks just beyond his shelter of trees. It’s his good friend Clara Morrow who breaks his fragile state of peace when she asks for help: Peter, Clara’s husband, is missing. After a year of separation, Peter was scheduled to return home; Clara needs to know why he didn’t.

This means going out there, where the truth awaits—but are Clara and Gamache ready for the darkness they might encounter? The usual cast of characters is here: observant bookseller Myrna; Gamache’s second in command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir; even the bitter old poet, Ruth, is willing to lend a hand to find Peter, an artist who’s lost his way. The search takes them across Quebec to the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, toward another sin-sick soul, one fighting to claw his way out of jealousy’s grasp.

Penny develops the story behind Peter’s disappearance at a slow, masterful pace, revealing each layer of the mystery alongside an introspective glance at Gamache and his comrades, who can all sympathize with Peter’s search for purpose. The emotional depth accessed here is both a wonder and a joy to uncover; if only the different legs of Peter’s physical journey were connected as thoughtfully as his emotional one.

Gamache’s 10th outing (How the Light Gets In, 2013, etc.) culminates in one breathless encounter, and readers may feel they weren’t prepared for this story to end. The residents of Three Pines will be back, no doubt, as they’ll have new wounds to mend.

SHROUD OF EVIL

something considerably grittier, an adaptation of the dark novel The Hard Fold. That’s got to count as a pleasant surprise—to Lauren, at least, if not to Mary Ann’s trying stage mother, Vera. The problem is Mary Ann herself, who follows Lauren from Bracker’s big party to the nearby home of silent star Roland Neale and gets herself slightly murdered. Only slightly, because she turns up again next day with no sign of having been shot in the face and carried away by Epic security chief Mack Pace and Detective Costello of the LAPD. In fact, there’s no sign that anyone was killed at Neale’s that night. Lauren and her beau, private eye Peter Winslow, realize in retrospect that someone else was shot and someone’s gone to considerable trouble to cover it up.

But who was the victim, and how can Lauren and Peter possibly pick out the killer from a cast whose every member is hiding nasty secrets that will take multiple denouements to unpack?

Chatty, detailed and slow-moving, though replete with incident. The conscientious plot complications are consistently overshadowed by revelations about life under the studio system.

Rowson, Pauline Severn House (224 pp.) $28.95 | Aug. 1, 2014 978-0-7278-8411-4 DI Andy Horton (Undercurrent, 2013, etc.) continues to complicate his job at the Portsmouth CID by probing his mother’s long-ago disappearance.

Horton’s ticked off when his boss, DCI Lorraine Bliss, assigns him a missing person case. He figures private investigator Jasper Kenton has just gone off on his own, maybe with a lady friend, maybe with a client’s money, and the only reason Bliss has her frosty knickers in a knot is that she’s BFFs with Kenton’s business partner, Eunice Swallows. Horton’s perfectly plausible theory is scotched when Kenton’s body turns up near the Isle of Wight’s Northwood Abbey on a spot of beach owned by Lord Richard Eames, a political powerhouse who surely had some idea why Jennifer Horton vanished many years ago, leaving 10-year-old Andy behind. Eames admits knowing Jennifer at the London School of Economics but refuses to talk about his connection with the radical student group she may have belonged to. Horton can barely hide his distrust of Eames, who uses his connections to limit the scope of the Kenton investigation. Then Horton puts his job in peril by concealing his own encounter with beachcomber Wyndham Lomas on Eames’ property the day before Kenton’s death. Instead, he focuses on Kenton’s dealings with his clients, especially Thelma Veerman, who hired him to keep tabs on her husband, Brett, an ophthalmic surgeon with quite a female following. Horton also looks into Kenton’s strained relationship with his sister and his peculiar purchase of a boat right before his death. But all roads keep leading back to Eames, the man he most and least wants to investigate.

Here’s hoping Horton gets the goods on Eames soon so that Rowson can go back to the procedural puzzlers she does so well.

science fiction and fantasy THE MAGICIAN’S LAND

Grossman, Lev Viking (416 pp.) $27.95 | Aug. 5, 2014 978-0-670-01567-2

Deeply satisfying finale to the bestselling fantasy trilogy (The Magicians, 2009; The Magician King, 2011).

After being dethroned and exiled from the magical kingdom of Fillory for helping his friend Julia become a demigoddess, Quentin returns to Earth to teach at his alma mater, Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy. But when his student Plum stumbles across the school’s resident malevolent demon, which Quentin refuses to kill because it was once his lover Alice, they’re both thrown out and forced to take a risky freelance magic job. This involves stealing a suitcase that once belonged to Plum’s great-grandfather Rupert, one of the five Chatwin siblings whose adventures in Fillory were the subject of best-selling books Plum thinks are fictional—until she opens the suitcase to find Rupert’s memoirs. They fill in some blanks about what really happened to the Chatwins in Fillory and provide clues that will help Quentin’s old comrades Eliot and Janet, still ruling over Fillory, who have been warned by the ram-god Ember that the land is slowly dying. As in the previous novels, Grossman captures the magic of fantasy books cherished in youth

NO BROKEN HEARTS

York, Sheila Five Star (356 pp.) $25.95 | Sep. 24, 2014 978-1-4328-2914-8

It’s the 1940s, and screenwriter Lauren Atwill is loaned out to a studio that’s just a tad apprehensive that where she goes, violent death follows (Death in Her Face, 2012, etc.).

It’s been such a long time since Lauren’s had a screen credit that she probably shouldn’t complain about being loaned to the misnamed minor Epic Pictures. Studio head Ben Bracker is both cordial and surprisingly accessible, and instead of assigning Lauren to the latest “co-ed romp” for Mary Ann McDowell, he plans to cast the Epic starlet in |

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and repurposes it to decidedly adult ends. He slyly alludes to the Harry Potter series and owes a clear debt to J.K. Rowling’s great action scenes, though his characters’ magical battles have a bravura all their own. But his deepest engagement remains with C.S. Lewis, as Narnia is the obvious prototype for Fillory; the philosophical conclusion Grossman draws from his land’s narrowly averted apocalypse is the exact opposite of that offered in Lewis’ overbearing Christian allegory. Human emotions and desires balance unearthly powers, especially in the drama of Alice’s painful return. A beautiful scene in Fillory’s Drowned Garden reconnects Quentin with the innocent, dreaming boy he once was yet affirms the value of the chastened grown-up he has become.

The essence of being a magician, as Quentin learns to define it, could easily serve as a thumbnail description of Grossman’s art: “the power to enchant the world.” (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

THE WITCH WITH NO NAME

Harrison, Kim Harper Voyager (480 pp.) $26.99 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-06-195795-6

In the 13th and final volume of Harrison’s The Hollows series, Cincinnati demon Rachel Morgan fights fiercely for everyone’s happy ending even if she can’t entirely believe in her own.

A few months after the events of The Undead Pool (2013), Rachel and Trent remain deeply infatuated with one another, their bliss tainted by Rachel’s guilt that their association led to Trent’s loss of standing with his people, the elves, and her conviction that their relationship can’t last. Rachel’s own connection to the elves and to elven magic has estranged her from the demons. Despite those obstacles, Rachel is determined to reconcile the two races, divided by millennia of enmity. Her efforts are further stymied by powerhungry elven cleric Landon, who’s goading the undead vampire master Rynn Cormel to step up the search for his long-lost soul, no matter who or what the process harms. There are several moments when the reader will want to give Rachel a good shake and say, “Trent’s not going to leave you, you idiot!” And Rachel’s unwavering belief that everyone must see the light and get along seems implausible at best. But Rachel’s neuroses have always been at the core of these books, along with her unshakable integrity and faith in the face of seemingly impossible obstacles, so why should this conclusion be any different? The resolution of Rachel’s and her friends’ woes might seem over-the-top idyllic, but Harrison’s devoted fan base would expect no less.

This is a glorious burst of high-pitched melodrama, epitomizing both the protagonist and her series.

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LOCK IN

Scalzi, John Tor (320 pp.) $24.99 | Aug. 26, 2014 978-0-7653-7586-5 In the near future, a meningitislike disease has killed millions and left a small percentage of survivors “locked in”—fully conscious, but unable to move any part of their bodies.

Government-funded research has allowed the locked-in Haden’s syndrome survivors to flourish in a virtual environment, and to interact with the real world via humanoid robots known as “threeps.” They can also use the bodies of a small group of Haden survivors known as “Integrators,” who have found that they can allow their bodies to be controlled by others. Right before a major rally by Haden activists to protest a law cutting support for survivors, a series of murders and the bombing of a major pharmaceutical company suggest that someone has developed the ability to take over Integrators’ bodies against their will. Rookie FBI agent and Haden survivor Chris Vance and Vance’s new partner, troubled former Integrator Leslie Vann, must find the culprit before an even more devastating act is committed. There’s only one real suspect from the get-go, so most of the mystery lies in determining his motives and finding the evidence to make an arrest before his plan can be fulfilled; but the novel—which contains plenty of action, great character development, vivid and believable worldbuilding and a thought-provoking examination of disability culture and politics—is definitely worth the ride.

This SF thriller provides yet more evidence that Scalzi (The Human Division, 2013, etc.) is a master at creating appealing commercial fiction. (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

ECHOPRAXIA

Watts, Peter Tor (384 pp.) $24.99 | $11.99 e-book | Aug. 26, 2014 978-0-7653-2802-1 978-1-4229-4806-7 e-book A paranoid tale that would make Philip K. Dick proud, told in a literary style that should seduce readers who don’t typically enjoy science fiction.

A companion to Watts’ Blindsight (2006), the book opens with a hyperintelligent vampire brought back from extinction by scientists in the 22nd century. She escapes her captors to hunt a reclusive hivelike sect of scientist-monks living in the Oregon desert. Caught up in the conflict is Daniel Brüks, a field biologist in a world that has largely moved beyond the old methods of science, who is on sabbatical in the desert—where he intends to hide from a mass murder committed using his research. In escaping the threats lurking

Readers will be thrilled with Foster’s new sexy batch of fight club heroes and the women who love them. (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

in the desert, Brüks finds himself on a spaceship full of posthumans—along with the vampire. When the ship encounters an alien intelligence, Brüks guides us through the twisting plot to a funny, grim conclusion. Watts’ nihilistic meditation on evolution and adaptation is by turns disturbing and gorgeous, with a biologist’s understanding of nature’s indifference. If at times it’s hard to separate what is part of the vampire’s or monks’ plans and what is simply horrifying catastrophe, that also feels thematically appropriate.

This scientifically literate thriller’s tight prose and plot create an existential uneasiness that lingers long after the book’s end.

LOVE LETTERS

Macomber, Debbie Ballantine (288 pp.) $26.00 | Aug. 12, 2014 978-0-553-39113-8 The sounds of bickering permeate the walls of a bed-and-breakfast in the latest installment of the best-selling author’s Rose Harbor series.

Jo Marie Rose was newly widowed and looking for a fresh start when she founded the Rose Harbor Inn in the Pacific Northwest town of Cedar Cove. Two years later, she’s still in mourning after receiving her soldier husband’s last letter, which he had written years ago in the event of his death. Her relationship with her dud of a handyman, Mark Taylor, has all the signs of going nowhere—he doesn’t open up about himself, and Jo Marie’s strained conversations with him as she tries to win him over with homemade cookies are painful to read—until she puts it together that he may be hiding a troubled past. Jo Marie’s guests are in even more awkward predicaments—Maggie and Roy Porter are trying to rekindle their romance after problems with infidelity, and young Ellie Reynolds has escaped from her overbearing mother to try to connect with a guy she met on a dating site. While the married couple tries to fill uncomfortable silences with false cheer, Ellie’s excitement turns to horror when her date catfishes her with an ulterior motive for meeting her. The fights that ensue are so bitter that each time the door opens on one couple, it’s a relief to leave the other behind. But hope surfaces in old letters in which Roy reveals his devotion to Maggie, Jo Marie’s husband shares his hopes for her future without him, and a game-changing revelation about Ellie’s past sheds new light on a complicated relationship.

Hurt feelings are mended in believable and unexpectedly uplifting ways, and a cliffhanger ending for Jo Marie begs for a swift resolution in the next book.

r om a n c e NO LIMITS

Foster, Lori Harlequin (384 pp.) $7.99 paper | Aug. 26, 2014 978-0-373-77904-8 Rising mixed martial arts star Cannon Colter comes home to Warfield, Ohio, to learn he’s the recipient of an inheritance that ties him to a local business and to Yvette Sweeny, the girl he never forgot.

Cannon Colter is a hero, in the ring and in his lower-middle-class neighborhood in (fictional) Warfield. Years ago, he took a stand against some unsavory characters—“[His mom’s] insistence on staying put was Cannon’s number one reason for learning to fight...determined to protect his mother and his sister”—which ultimately led to his career.

But before he started fighting professionally, he helped save the life of an area pawnshop owner and his granddaughter, Yvette, when they were targeted by a violent gang of criminals. Yvette left for California soon after, but Cannon’s never forgotten the pretty girl he grew up with and whose life hung in the balance during those tense hours. Now her grandfather has left a deathbed request that Cannon help Yvette overcome her bad memories and move back to Ohio, where she has returned to settle her grandfather’s estate. Cannon reluctantly agrees, torn between wanting Yvette and not wanting to take advantage of her vulnerability. Meanwhile, Yvette is disgusted by her perceived inability to make Cannon see her as anything but a victim. The situation goes from bad to worse when a stalking ex-boyfriend begins to harass her and some shadowy enemy seems to want to drive her out of town. Yvette’s bid to be seen as a strong, independent woman occasionally has her coming across somewhere between annoying and stupid, a rare character blip for this popular author. Nonetheless, the sexual tension is electric. Foster’s new series revolves around Cannon’s gym and his MMA friends but links seamlessly to her popular Love Undercover titles. |

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NOT QUITE A WIFE

THE DEVIL IN DENIM

Putney, Mary Jo Zebra/Kensington (352 pp.) $7.99 paper | Aug. 26, 2014 978-1-4201-2716-4

Scott, Melanie St. Martin’s (352 pp.) $7.99 paper | Aug. 26, 2014 978-1-250-04042-8

An estranged couple is brought together by fate and tries to make a go of it again, but the tensions that drove them apart still exist, and unbeknownst to them, they have a shadowy, malevolent enemy, too.

Ten years ago, James, Lord Kirkland, and Laurel Herbert tumbled into love and marriage with lightning speed, but things fell apart in one violent moment before their first anniversary. Leaving her aristocratic husband also created a rift with her parents, and with nowhere else to go, Laurel moved in with her brother, Daniel. Together, the siblings used the allowance James granted her to fund Daniel’s medical education, then opened a clinic and a shelter for women and children in a poor Bristol neighborhood. Now, fate will intercede when James is in Bristol on business and, weakened by a bout of malaria, is set upon by thieves. Bloody and unconscious, he’s brought to the clinic, where Laurel treats him—and can’t quite bring herself to stop him when, in a dreamlike hallucination, he reaches out to her sexually. The next day, Laurel lets him leave, oblivious to their lovemaking, but must revisit the situation when she learns she’s pregnant. James is unwilling to abandon his child, and the two reconcile. Working on old grievances, misunderstandings and secret yearnings, they begin to believe in their love again; however, just as happiness is in sight, Laurel is attacked by a new enemy made when she stood up for a vulnerable victim, and James must turn to his closest friends to save the brave, principled wife he knows he can’t live without. Putney continues her Lost Lords series with two passionate lovers who are convinced love can’t save the day; she then forces them to mine their own vulnerabilities before they can truly be happy with each other.

Elegant and tender; a compelling sweep of romance and adventure with a gratifying undertone of social justice elements.

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Maggie Jameson is devastated when her father sells his major league baseball team and is shocked when she and the new owner fall for each other.

All of her life, Maggie has been the New York Saints’ biggest fan and unofficial mascot. As daughter of the team’s owner, she practically grew up on the field and couldn’t wait for the day when she would help her father run the team. So when he’s forced to sell for financial reasons, and fails to tell her until it’s a done deal, Maggie is furious and feels betrayed.

Alex Winters, the new owner, claims to have the best interests of the Saints at heart, and he convinces Maggie he needs her help to rally the fans behind the new management—especially since the sale still needs the approval of the other league owners. Despite her resentment, Maggie puts on a good face for the Saints, and as Maggie and Alex muster support for the team and the sale, they also give in to their blazing attraction. Things begin to come apart though when Texas oilman Will Sutter makes a rival bid for the team, offering Maggie the CEO job if he succeeds. With the team’s future hanging in the balance, Maggie and Alex have to navigate tricky professional choices that also impact their personal relationship. For the first time in his life, Alex is looking at spending his life with a woman, if only he can convince her that his interest is sincere and he’s on her team—no matter what. Sexy, well-written, layered and engaging.

Emotional intensity and dynamic conflict combined with a lively setting make this baseball-themed romance a hit.

nonfiction ELVIS AND GINGER Elvis Presley’s Fiancée and Last Love Finally Tells Her Story

These titles earned the Kirkus Star: LAW OF THE JUNGLE by Paul M. Barrett.......................................40

Alden, Ginger Berkley (400 pp.) $26.95 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-0425266335

HATE CRIMES IN CYBERSPACE by Danielle Keats Citron.............45 FOUNDERS AS FATHERS by Lorri Glover.......................................50 LIFE LINCOLN by Allen C. Guelzo.....................................................52

The King’s final fiancee breaks her long silence.

Presley fans hoping for some scenes with sizzle will need to reread 50 Shades of Grey instead. Here, there are a few chaste kisses, and the first time the couple actually engaged in any sexual contact, Alden reaches into her well-used bag of clichés and emerges with, “I felt chills as he touched me. Was this it? Were we finally going to make love? I was aroused but anxious, barely able to breathe.” The author’s account is resolutely chronological, beginning with her father’s encounters with Presley in the U.S. Army (encounters not involved in his daughter’s later relationship) and moving forward to the King’s demise on Aug. 16, 1977, when she found him toppled over on the bathroom floor—the author does not go into much detail regarding his death. A couple of decades younger that Presley, Alden was swooped into the Presleys’ odd life at Graceland. Soon, he was showering her (and, eventually, her family, too) with gifts: jewels, cars, furs and some promises he didn’t live to execute. (An unfulfilled promise to pay off her mother’s mortgage was an issue that ended up in court.) Alden also writes about his weird and ugly sides, but always with (remembered) affection. He hit her once (apologized), discharged firearms at a TV and telephone (apologized), hurled a dish of ice cream at the wall when she mentioned calories (apologized), and pouted and waxed passive-aggressive when he didn’t get exactly what he wanted. The author’s many descriptions of Elvis’ fascination with numerology and conspiracy theories make him appear—unintentionally, it’s clear— as something of a dim bulb despite his bright talent. After the King’s death, the others gradually elbowed Alden away, and he did not mention her in his will.

A rosy aura glows throughout this misty memoir of love and loss.

THE SHORT AND TRAGIC LIFE OF ROBERT PEACE

by Jeff Hobbs........................................................................................57 WHAT STAYS IN VEGAS by Adam Tanner........................................73 DEEP DOWN DARK by Héctor Tobar................................................73 FATHER AND SON by Marcos Giralt Torrente..................................73 THE AMERICAN VICE PRESIDENCY by Jules Witcover.................77 THIRTEEN DAYS IN SEPTEMBER by Lawrence Wright..................77

DEEP DOWN DARK The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle that Set Them Free

Tobar, Héctor Farrar, Straus and Giroux (320 pp.) $26.00 Oct. 7, 2014 978-0-374-28060-4

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A Book About Art, To Be Read and Reread DEATH TO THE INFIDELS Radical Islam’s War Against the Jews

You’ve seen them on the shelves of your local bookstore or through your preferred online vendor: standout book covers from such acclaimed authors as Stieg Larsson, Robert Reich, Judy Budnitz, Steven Millhauser, Max Hastings, Jung Chang and Martin Amis. Add to the mix fresh interpretations of classics from the likes of Plato, Kafka, Nabokov, Joyce and Foucault, and you have one of the most respected cover designers working today: Knopf associate art director Peter Mendelsund.

Since we could barely read, we have been told not to judge a book by its cover (solid advice), and cover designers and art directors, despite their importance to the book-buying process, often labor in relative anonymity. For years, Mendelsund has been producing eye-catching images that grab readers’ attention and often persuade them to purchase a certain book. For my money, the less-is-more approach is the best, and Mendelsund’s subtle but iconic designs always capture just the right tone for each book he designs. (For examples, visit mendelsund.blogspot.com.)

In his new book, What We See When We Read, which Kirkus called a “brilliant amalgam of philosophy, psychology, literary theory and visual art,” the author produces a kaleidoscopic, immersive experience that successfully combines text, graphics, illustrations, cover images and more into a cohesive whole. It’s a book to be read, reread, shown to perspective graphic designers and shared with anyone who would appreciate a “quirky, fresh and altogether delightful meditation on the miraculous act of reading.”

Bard, Mitchell Palgrave Macmillan (288 pp.) $27.00 | Sep. 23, 2014 978-1-137-27907-1

Photo George Baier IV

A well-documented, unabashedly pro-Israeli examination of Muslim anti-Semitism.

Bard (The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance that Undermines America’s Interests in the Middle East, 2010, etc.) dives right into the conflict between Muslims and Jews, refusing to back down in any way while stating his arguments.

The author presents a comprehensive case regarding the Muslim world’s overt hatred toward Jews and, especially, Israel. His case is, however, far from balanced, which may turn off readers looking for a dispassionate exploration of the topic. Bard provides a detailed history of the modern conflict between Muslims and Jews, including a thorough discussion of the Zionist movement, creation of Israel and demographic changes among Arabs in the Middle East. He goes on to discuss the political realities facing Arab states, especially in light of the Arab Spring and its aftermath. Bard asserts that the West was naïve to believe the Arab Spring would bring democracy to the Arab world and that in fact, it only served as cover for the advancement of militant Islam.

Bard is especially critical of President Barack Obama, whom he consistently describes as looking weak in terms of foreign policy.

The author discusses the role of Jerusalem as well as past, unsuccessful attempts to bring peace to the Middle East. A chapter on “global jihad” points to worldwide anti-Semitism and the growth in influence of Muslims around the world, especially in Europe.

Bard does not give serious attention to any arguments against Israel and mocks openness to Islam as misguided and dangerous (“The West does not even recognize that it is sowing the seeds for its own possible destruction”).

For readers not put off by a one-sided approach, Bard’s unapologetic study provides worthwhile historic background and ample anecdotal examples (often bullet pointed for clarity) of violence against Jews.

LAW OF THE JUNGLE The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who’d Stop at Nothing to Win It Barrett, Paul M. Crown (272 pp.) $26.00 | Sep. 23, 2014 978-0-7704-3634-6

—Eric Liebetrau Eric Liebetrau is the nonfiction and managing editor at Kirkus Reviews.

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Here’s a twist: the almost unbelievable tale of a human rights attorney every bit as conscienceless as the multinational he was suing. |

“Imagine a true-life, courtroom version of Heart of Darkness.” from law of the jungle

Filed in 1993 against Texaco, later acquired by Chevron, on behalf of the powerless Ecuadorian Indians of the Oriente, the Aguinda lawsuit sought recovery for a jungle region devastated by environmental depredations and health hazards resulting from decades of oil drilling. How Steven Donziger, barely two years out of law school, a man who had never filed even a single civil suit, became the lead attorney in a case against America’s third-largest corporation makes for an interesting story. How over 20 years he strategized, maneuvering the case through courtrooms in Ecuador and New York, how he rallied Hollywood stars, music industry celebrities, independent filmmakers and environmental activists to the cause, attracting favorable news coverage from prestigious outlets like 60 Minutes and the New York Times, how he secured a $19 billion judgment—all this makes the story even more compelling. When Chevron countersued Donziger, however, and demonstrated that the young firebrand’s victory depended on fraud, witness tampering, intimidation of judges and an orgy of spoliation, well, that story becomes irresistible. Bloomberg Businessweek assistant managing editor Barrett (Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun, 2012, etc.) has been reporting this saga for years, and his familiarity with all the players, his understanding of the issues and his cool assessment of the damage inflicted by this protracted legal battle show on every page. While Donziger, his allies and methods take a beating, Barrett doesn’t let Chevron or the hardball tactics of its high-powered attorneys off the hook. Many lawyers, experts and consultants have grown rich off of Aguinda; some attorneys and their firms have been wrecked. Meanwhile, the toxic waste in the Oriente has gone untreated, the natives uncompensated.

The legal fight goes on.

Imagine a true-life, courtroom version of Heart of Darkness.

savory farm-fresh meals. The author divides the book into five seasonal sections (she was at the farm during two springs), each followed by tantalizing recipes Bilow cooked for the farm crew or just Ian—e.g., mint and yogurt-marinated chicken, honey butter and blistered tomato gratin. The story flits from one meal to the next, since for Bilow, it all comes down to the food.

“I understood that while sometimes farmers could cultivate a real sense of appreciation and adoration for a homemade meal, it was just as often eaten in a rush,” she writes. “I supposed…that was just one more difference between real farmers and myself.

To my mind, the whole point of it all was the meal.” Aside from the food, the other main narrative thread is the author’s love affair with Ian. Bilow brings sensuality to every scene, with rich descriptions of food and farm life, from washing freshly laid eggs to rendering lard.

The book is not a page-turner, as Bilow offers readers a slow-cooked story, with tenderness and intermingled flavors enriched over time.

THE CALL OF THE FARM An Unexpected Year of Getting Dirty, Home Cooking, and Finding Myself Bilow, Rochelle The Experiment (272 pp.) $15.95 paper | Sep. 23, 2014 978-1-61519-214-4

Bon Appetit writer Bilow chronicles her time on an organic farm, adding to her resume as a food writer and classi-

cally trained chef.

As the author drifted through freelance writing work that never paid enough, she set her intentions for change. An assignment to write about a Community Supported Agricultural operation sparked more than her interest, and she began to spend days laboring there. Layer in her muscular, handsome fellow farmer, Ian, and it seemed her quest for change was complete.

Bilow spent more than a year living on the farm, eventually running the CSA and marketing operations. Her descriptions of mundane tasks and the hard work of farm living are sobering and well-wrought, punctuated by brilliant descriptions of |

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“A warm, emotionally intimate memoir.” from the prince of los cocuyos

BREAKING IN The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice

THE PRINCE OF LOS COCUYOS A Miami Childhood Blanco, Richard Ecco/HarperCollins (288 pp.) $25.99 | Sep. 30, 2014 978-0-06-231376-8

Biskupic, Joan Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (288 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-0-374-29874-6

An award-winning poet’s memoir of growing up in Miami as the gay son of Cuban immigrants.

Revolution changed Cuba forever.

Yet Blanco’s (For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey, 2013, etc.) family seemed determined to hang on to whatever they could of the lives they knew before Fidel Castro’s takeover. Once the family settled in Miami, his parents went to work at an uncle’s bodega and ate only Cuban food. Meanwhile, Blanco dreamed of becoming like his gringo school friends who ate “Pop-Tarts, Ritz Crackers and Cool Whip.” He tried to introduce his family to American customs like Thanksgiving, only to see those traditions transformed into something with a distinctly Cuban twist. At the same time, Blanco was still fascinated by the country his family had left behind. Not only did they re-create it through the food they sold and ate, but also through the garden that his grandfather planted with the loquat, papaya and avocado trees that reminded them of their “lost [Cuban] paradise.” Born in Madrid just before his family left Spain for the United States, the author soon realized that he existed in a world that was neither completely Cuban nor American: He was “a little from everywhere.”

The homosexual desires that surfaced during adolescence and which he kept hidden from his family only added to his feelings of separateness. As a cure for his love of “unmanly” things like his paint-by-number sets and his cousin’s Easy-Bake Oven, Blanco’s homophobic grandmother sent him to work at the bodega. In this space of working-class machismo, Blanco came into contact with a closeted Cuban homosexual who told him about the forbidden affair he had with another man before fleeing to the U.S. Their friendship started the author on the journey toward accepting not only his own gayness, but also the “ghosts of Cuba” that haunted him.

A warm, emotionally intimate memoir.

A former Supreme Court correspondent for the Washington Post and current legal affairs editor for Reuters charts the spectacular career of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor—from the Bronx to the nation’s highest court.

Biskupic—who has written biographies of justices Scalia and O’Connor—combines scholarly rigor with a bit of human admiration in this cleareyed account of how someone advances a judicial career in 21st-century America. She periodically reminds us that Sotomayor came from a rough background, that she graduated summa cum laude from Princeton (after a slow start, she realized how behind she was) and that she excelled at Yale Law School. But the author also comments continually on Sotomayor’s networking—the vast array of supporters whom she has summoned at various stages of her career to propel her advancement, perhaps most successfully when newly elected President Barack Obama was making his first appointment to the Supreme Court (David Souter was retiring). To add a bit of a sharp edge, Biskupic quotes the opponents of Sotomayor, including Harvard Law School’s Laurence Tribe; twice, the author quotes Tribe’s letter to Obama declaring that Sotomayor is “not nearly as smart as she seems to think she is.” Biskupic also highlights Sotomayor’s vivacious personality—everything from her nail polish to her love life to her disconcerting ways in the court. The author focuses on some of Sotomayor’s cases (and comments) at various stages, including her controversial “wise Latina” remark and her impassioned defenses of affirmative action, a policy she often credits for her own successful career. We also learn about her work habits (assiduous) and her diabetes (under control). Most of all, however, we see in sharp relief the principal role that politics plays in court appointments.

A balanced but also admiring portrait of a Latina, a jurist and a trailblazer.

ITALIAN VENICE A History

Bosworth, R.J.B. Yale Univ. (352 pp.) $40.00 | Sep. 30, 2014 978-0-300-19387-9 Since the Risorgimento, Venice has faced many challenges, including an economy reliant on tourism and a population that rejects change. Bosworth (Senior Research Fellow/Jesus Coll., Oxford; Whispering City: Rome and Its Histories, 2011, etc.) shows a city lacking the vibrancy of Renaissance times.

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The author understands Venetians’ longing for the republic dissolved by Napoleon and their fight against modernism.

The struggle to return to the glory days of Dalmatian rule and position as a global trading center is a significant part of their psyche. The decision in 1866 to join the unification of Italy in the Risorgimento only made them part of a country; they would always be Venetian first. Proponents of the idea of com’era e dov’era (as it was and where it was) fight tooth and nail against modernism. Despite efforts from men like Giussepe Volpi and Giuseppe Giuriati, attempts to broaden Venice’s economy have been blocked by bureaucracy, dirty politics and disinterest. The Mestre and Maghera, where factories were built in attempts at industrialization to create employment outside of the tourist industry, were only slightly successful.

Those intimately familiar with Venice will find the journey illuminating, while others may be searching for a map. Bosworth is meticulous in his approach, but readers without background knowledge about the city may get lost as the author cycles through a variety of place names without adequate explanation of the geography. The author calls Venice an

ordinary city plagued by bad housing and recurrent unemployment; the threat of flooding and the city’s crumbling architecture are also significant pieces of the puzzle.

For students of Italian history, a thorough portrait of the many attempts in the last 300 years to prevent the death of Venice and to survive foreign rule, wars and horrendous poverty.

THE STORY OF PAIN From Prayer to Painkillers

Bourke, Joanna Oxford Univ. (416 pp.) $34.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-19-968942-2

A scholarly treatise on how pain and those who suffer from it have been regarded over the past three centuries in the Western world.

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Bourke (History/Birkbeck Coll., Univ. of London; What It Means to Be Human: Historical Reflections from the 1800s to the Present, 2011, etc.) claims that pain should not be considered an objective entity but rather as a unique part of a person’s being.

As such, there is always a context, history or cultural milieu that colors the individual’s unique experience. That setting is her focus as she plumbs the literature and includes copious quotes from philosophers and practitioners, preachers and patients.

It is infuriating to read that the Christian position was that pain was punishment for original sin (plus others you accrued) and that you had better grin and bear it if you hoped for a better hereafter. Or how about the phrenologists’ discovery of a “destruction” bump, which gave them the power to amputate mercilessly rather than show any hesitancy born of compassion in the pre-anesthetic days? Attitudes changed with the advent of ether and chloroform in the 1840s, but what about class, education or gender? Women were considered more sensitive and emotional, while the lower classes and blacks were considered inferior and less sensitive to pain (a great comfort to slave owners). It was not until the 1960s that medical practice came around to recognizing that newborns and infants could feel pain. To be sure, there were always voices raised against conventional beliefs, and there have been critical advances in the neuroscience of pain. Bourke charts this progress, but the truth remains: Medical education on pain is severely deficient, and race and gender issues continue to prevail. Patients themselves can be their own worst enemies, fearing addiction or condemnation as a complainer.

Bourke has done a fine job of detailing the story of pain and the folly it reveals. Sadly, the folly has not gone away.

of the relationship between risk and opportunity and a commitment to excellence in service. Branson introduces us to many of the people who influenced his business methods—e.g., Freddie Laker, who pioneered cheap, no-frills trans-Atlantic passenger flights. Branson writes that Laker helped him outmaneuver British Airways and provided “another piece of guidance that would change my approach to business forever, and with it, the way we set about taking Virgin brand down hundreds of new and diverse global alleyways.” Laker also provided the essence of Branson’s public relations mantra when he told him, “get your arse out there. Be visible, take risks, get creative, make yourself heard and take the fight to them before they bring it to you.” Of course, the PR initiative wouldn’t mean much without the company’s brandwide commitment to excellence in service, highlighted by the examples of such startups as Virgin Hotels. Branson takes no prisoners when discussing recruitment, training and empowerment of his employees, as well as how leadership standards are set.

Mostly entertaining autobiography beats out the usual business textbook approach.

THE VICTORY WITH NO NAME The Native American Defeat of the First American Army Calloway, Colin G. Oxford Univ. (224 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 3, 2014 978-0-19-938799-1

History of the 1791 Battle of the Wabash, a largely forgotten clash that proved to be “the biggest victory Native Americans ever won and proportionately the biggest military disaster the United States ever suffered.”

At the time, official documents about the battle only made excuses for the army’s loss. Calloway (Native American Studies/ Dartmouth Coll.; Pen and Ink Witchcraft: Treaties and Treaty Making in American Indian History, 2013, etc.) concisely recounts this short-lived halt to America’s westward expansion at the Maumee River. The Wabash Confederacy included not only many Native American tribes, but also traders and agents intent on preserving their homes. Penned in on the north, south and east, America was ready to move west, but it was already occupied by Native Americans. The English had ceded all land north of the Ohio River to the tribes, but Americans felt no need to honor that agreement and gradually encroached. The first few settlers were acceptable, but wealthy land speculators were looking to make their fortunes. Gen. Arthur St. Clair was sent to clear the area— if not by diplomacy then by total war. Pushed too far as villages and crops were burned, the tribes united in an effort to halt the encroachment. Now a coordinated army with a battle plan, their hit-and-run tactics easily routed the undisciplined Americans.

The Founding Fathers’ fear of a standing army left St. Clair with a force of only a few hundred old men, substitutes and young boys with little or no training. In addition to this poorly led army, graft and shoddy provisioning foretold a loss—all true, but the simple fact is that the Confederation fought a better battle.

THE VIRGIN WAY Everything I Know About Leadership

Branson, Richard Portfolio (352 pp.) $29.95 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-59184-737-3

Virgin Group founder Branson (Screw Business As Usual, 2011, etc.) reveals the methods that have helped him build his unconventional multibillion-dollar business empire.

A prolific and outrageously successful promoter of himself and his myriad businesses, the author provides a rollicking romp through Virgin’s fun-loving, iconoclastic approach to building a business and reputation. Underneath the April Fool’s jokes (one of which earned Branson a cooling-off period in a London police station) and the deftness of the humor with which the author recounts his battles against much larger and well-established opponents (e.g., British Airways, Qantas and British Telephone) lies a much more brass-knuckled story. Beginning with Virgin Records, Branson has simply given customers a product and service they wanted—in that case, beanbag cushions and coffee in a record store. The author presents both a well-calibrated sense 44

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The author ably explains the winner’s side of this battle—a herculean task since the Native Americans had no written records.

messages containing scurrilous lies and graphically detailed threats to rape and murder them. Their efforts to stop or punish these activities were frustrated by the posters’ anonymity, indifference on the part of law enforcement and legal loopholes protecting the websites hosting the attacks. Central to their predicaments is a widespread attitude that considers the Internet a lawless playground with no effect on the real world and that belittles the concerns of women and minorities facing a torrent of mindless hate when they attempt to use the Internet to advance their interests and careers. Citron compares this to the dismissive attitudes about sexual harassment in the workplace and domestic violence prevalent 40 years ago, and she argues that driving this vicious behavior from the Internet should be a major 21st-century civil rights initiative. The author has given careful thought to how the standards of civilized conduct expected everywhere else in our culture can be brought to bear on the Internet consistent with First Amendment concerns and without damaging the Internet’s capacity for robust debate, activism and innovation. Along with proposals for reducing the social acceptability of Internet abuse, Citron

HATE CRIMES IN CYBERSPACE

Citron, Danielle Keats Harvard Univ. (310 pp.) $29.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-674-36829-3 An impassioned call for equal rights for women on the Internet.

In her debut, Citron (Law/Univ. of Maryland) introduces three women and describes how their personal, educational and professional prospects were wantonly destroyed by cybermobs attacking them through posts on social networking sites and emails sent to prospective schools and employers,

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“A newspaperman’s sharp focus and beveled prose lend emotional power to this debate.” from can israel survive?

MAKING CONFLICT WORK Harnessing the Power of Disagreement

offers well-considered and modest changes to communications law and judicial procedure that could go a long way toward opening the Internet to safer and wider use by currently victimized groups. Her suggestion that anonymity online should be treated as a privilege that can be lost by violations of a site’s terms of service is particularly constructive.

Frightening and infuriating, this demand for legal accountability for Internet barbarism deserves widespread exposure and serious consideration.

Coleman, Peter T.; Ferguson, Robert Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (304 pp.) $26.00 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-0-544-14839-0 A practical guide intended to aid in the alleviation of everyday workplace conflicts.

Coleman (Director/Columbia Univ.

Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution; The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts, 2011, etc.) and executive coach Ferguson base their discussion of conflict on research studies of power relations and how these are shaped not just by specific issues, but also by personalities. “Conflict is not an inherently bad thing,” they write. “It is a natural, fundamental, and pervasive part of life.” They draw primarily from more than 15 years of research work in the lab at Columbia, research that has been tested around the world in workplace studies, international conflict resolution and international trade negotiations. The authors aim to enable those in conflict to contribute productively to solutions by making “conflict work for you, not against you.” The authors developed a spectrum of mindsets that they associate with certain uses of power. While the authors define the extremes as dominance at one end and what they call “strategic appeasement” at the other (they offer “Zen Master” NBA basketball coach Phil Jackson as an example), they stress constructive solutions. For each of their different power levels, Coleman and Ferguson provide a series of tactical approaches drawn from conflict case studies in which they have been involved. They provide self- and organizational-assessment questionnaires for each, along with the reasons for using the proposed method and mistakes to avoid.

They argue that even though “talking about power differences openly is still taboo in most places in society,” their strategic approach can improve productivity by tackling conflict at any level. The authors also discuss the history of the field of conflict management.

A useful guide to developing capabilities for dealing with many sorts of conflict. Good reading for human resource managers.

CAN ISRAEL SURVIVE?

Cohen, Richard Simon & Schuster (336 pp.) $26.00 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-4165-7568-9

A great admirer of Israel’s self-realization sees inherent contradiction and impending disaster.

Washington Post columnist Cohen walks readers through Israel’s history of enormous accomplishment and unlikely creation and concludes that its survival is tenuous. Emerging as “the product of history’s most murderous century,” Israel was an “honest mistake,” Cohen wrote in a 2006 column—by which he meant that its creation was not a fault but a naïve dream to think that it would be accepted nestled among hostile neighbors resentful of its success and bent on its destruction.

Cohen looks at some of the essential facts propelling Israel’s creation: The “crushing affliction” of being a Jew that founder Theodor Herzl wrote about in 1880s Vienna would not go away by converting; instead, it culminated in relentless anti-Semitism and pogroms and underscored his dictum that the greater the concentration of Jews, the more anti-Semitism. While the Holocaust provided the powerful impetus for the creation of Israel, Cohen reminds us of the anti-Jewish fever that occurred before and after—e.g., in America, where his own ancestors migrated from Poland in the early 1920s. Ironically, considering the forces against Israel, even militant Jewish leaders like Ze’ev Jabotinsky, father of what became the right-wing Likud party, did not advocate for “ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinians; instead, a defensive strategy Jabotinsky called an “iron wall” was erected, all hinging, presciently, on “the Arabs’ relationship to Zionism.” Moreover, considering its hostile ethnic minority, displacement of the imperiled Mizrahi community (Jews in Arab lands), growing numbers of ultraorthodox and global indifference (in the United States, “more than half of all Jews marry a non-Jew”), Israel “has run out of purpose.”

A newspaperman’s sharp focus and beveled prose lend emotional power to this debate.

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HAPPINESS Ten Years of n+1

Edmundson (English/Univ. of Virginia; Why Teach?: In Defense of a Real Education, 2013, etc.) arranges each chapter in similar fashion. Each has a theme (courage, manliness, faith, etc.) that he introduces with football memories and expands with later-life examples. Throughout, the author acknowledges the dangers of the game—though for a more incisive discussion of that aspect of the game, see Steve Almond’s Against Football— and he is far too complex a thinker to simply repeat the mantras of coaches and unthinking fans (“Football builds character!”).

Moreover, he adorns his text with allusions to writers and literary works. Melville, Joyce, Homer (there is a lot about The Iliad here), Emerson, Ellison, Hemingway, Dickey—these and others form his offensive line. Edmundson also employs references to popular culture (Johnny Carson is on special teams), and there are lots of engaging stories about high school. He begins with boyhood memories of watching football on TV with his father, who made a great ritual of Sundays spent watching his beloved New York Giants—though he had a great fondness, as well, for Jim Brown and Y.A. Tittle. Edmundson writes about how he was sort of disconnected when he decided to give the game a whirl and surprised himself with his assiduousness and determination. He is appealingly self-deprecating throughout and quite certain that it was on the gridiron that he learned and developed his adult virtues. Although he does have a few gratuitous (and unconvincing) comments about women (how do they become virtuous?), he does not have much to say about how non–football-playing young men develop their courage, character, manliness, loyalty and so on.

A provocative thesis bolstered by amusing and instructive anecdotes—but there is a flaw in the defensive line.

Editors of n+1 Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (416 pp.) $16.00 paper | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-86547-822-0

The editors of the feisty literary journal celebrate their 10th anniversary with a collection.

“Happiness” is one “Intellectual Situation” that the editors identify, along with the death of literary theory, the relationship of hype to aesthetics, and the impact of Gchats on such apparently anachronistic behaviors as talking and listening. The trivialization of happiness, though, does not function as a unifying theme for essays that consider an assortment of contemporary issues, including climate change, parenthood, pornography and, not surprisingly, money. Mark Greif, one of the magazine’s founders, proposes a formula to end inequality that’s even more radical than Thomas Picketty’s: Cap everyone’s income at $100,000, add a tax bracket of 100 percent “to cut off individual income at a fixed ceiling,” and bestow on every citizen $10,000 per year “in recognition of being an adult in the United States.” Greif believes money should never be an incentive to work; it “would be the greatest single triumph of human emancipation” if bankers and star athletes abandoned jobs they were doing for the money, freeing them to “be high school teachers, social workers, general practitioners, stay-at-home parents, or criminals and layabouts.” Keith Gessen laments the difficulty of earning a living as a writer, forcing most into day jobs. He wound up teaching creative writing, which he first considered a sham but then came to enjoy: “I even began to feel, in a way I’d never felt as a student, that the old saw about how you can’t teach writing was possibly untrue.” Several essays focus on literature: Diana Abbott reflects on writing about J.M. Coetzee; Elif Batuman recalls a particularly surreal conference on Isaac Babel; Marco Roth laments the transformation of “the novel of consciousness or the psychological or confessional novel” into the neurological novel, in which the self is reduced to neurochemistry.

Sometimes-angry, always intelligent, deeply earnest, n+1, protesting against the glib, the slick and the trendy, is well-represented by this articulate collection.

THE BIRTH OF THE PILL How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution

Eig, Jonathan Norton (416 pp.) $27.95 | Oct. 13, 2014 978-0-393-07372-0

Former Wall Street Journal reporter Eig (Get Capone: The Secret Plot that Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster, 2010, etc.) recounts the origin story of the oral contraceptive— “the pill”—as a scientific answer to a cultural conundrum: how to have sex without pregnancy.

Margaret Sanger (1879-1996), a wily, independent feminist and sex educator who kept her own apartment after marrying oil tycoon James Noah Slee in 1922, was a lifelong advocate for giving women the ability to enjoy sex without the worry of pregnancy. Eig opens in 1950 with Sanger, “an old woman who loved sex,” looking to science for a contraceptive that women could control (unlike the condom) and that was extremely effective (unlike the diaphragm). She sought out Gregory Pincus (19031967), a former Harvard University biologist denied tenure and pilloried in the press as a “Victor Frankenstein” for his efforts to

WHY FOOTBALL MATTERS My Education in the Game

Edmundson, Mark Penguin Press (240 pp.) $26.95 | Sep. 8, 2014 978-1-59420-575-0

The author of Why Read? (2004) and other works of cultural criticism returns with a memoir/treatise about those personal virtues he traces back to his years playing high school football. |

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mate rabbits in a petri dish, experiments that were the forerunners to in vitro fertilization. With starter funding from Sanger, Pincus developed a hormone treatment for rabbits and rats that prevented ovulation, and Sanger enlisted philanthropist and suffragist Katharine McCormick (1875-1967) to fund Pincus’ development of a similar hormone treatment to do the same for women. Gynecologist John Rock (1890-1984), the fourth “crusader,” teamed with Pincus on his research; by the mid-1950s, they developed a working trial of what is now universally known as “the pill.” Throughout the book, Eig displays a readable, contemporary style as he chronicles a similar clash of scientific and social progress as Thomas Maier’s Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Master and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love (2009).

A well-paced, page-turning popular history featuring a lively, character-driven blend of scientific discovery and gender politics.

adding nothing new to her historical portrait, they have nevertheless demonstrated the extraordinary “staying power of Western legends” in public consciousness.

For lovers of the Wild West and its colorful history. (61 b/w illustrations)

UNRETIREMENT How Baby Boomers Are Changing the Way We Think About Work, Community, and the Good Life Farrell, Chris Bloomsbury (256 pp.) $26.00 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-62040-157-6

Bloomberg Businessweek contributing economics editor Farrell (The New Frugality: How to Consume Less, Save More and Live Better, 2009, etc.) debunks fear-ridden arguments about the graying of America leading to demographic catastrophes that will overwhelm Social Security.

Retirement is a relatively new phenomenon, writes the author, and it is subject to rapid change. The elimination of a mandatory retirement age in 1986 and the accompanying redefinition of pension programs and reform of Social Security altered the rules in ways that are now feeding through on a larger scale, as “ten thousand boomers are turning sixty-five every day, a pace that will continue until 2030.” Farrell contends that longer working lives, increasing productivity and the transformation of employment—from more physical to more educationally qualified—will demolish the cases of those who want to gut the safety-net programs on which more than 60 percent of Americans depend. To support his argument, the author refers to studies from the Rand Corporation, the Urban Institute and other organizations. “Fundamentally, Social Security is sound,” he writes, “although it needs some tweaks to shore up its finances for the long haul.” Farrell also shares the Urban Institute’s view that longer working lives and higher participation rates for older workers will result in cumulative savings for Medicare over the next 30 years. An unabashed proponent of preserving Social Security without cuts, he discusses when benefits should be taken and how they should be used in seniors’ financial planning. Farrell’s discussions with experts from academia, finance and research foundations offer support for the view that there will be employment available to those who want it. The author showcases many progressive programs and introduces individuals from different walks of life who are contributing.

A valuable contribution to an ongoing debate, with arguments and resources for specialists and general readers.

THE LIFE AND LEGENDS OF CALAMITY JANE

Etulain, Richard W. Univ. of Oklahoma (416 pp.) $24.95 | Sep. 25, 2014 978-0-8061-4632-4

The former director of the Center for the American West at the University of New Mexico offers a biographical study of Calamity Jane and the narratives that have shaped perceptions of her

remarkable life.

Born Martha Canary to a family of Missouri farmers in 1856, Calamity Jane is one of the great romantic figures of the Old West. Countless newspaper and historical accounts about her exist, but as Etulain (Lincoln and Oregon Country Politics in the Civil War Era, 2013, etc.) points out, much of that information is inaccurate. What is known for certain is that by the time Calamity turned 11, both parents were dead. How she, an illiterate girl on her own, managed to survive and care for her younger siblings remains a mystery. Evidence points to Calamity’s having adopted male clothing and manners, including a fondness for smoking and drinking. After almost a decade of living a transient’s life, she landed in Deadwood, South Dakota, where she became a celebrated associate of the legendary Wild Bill Hickok as well as a favorite topic of both journalists and dime-store novelists. Some accounts state that she also sold sex to survive and that during her brief time with Hickok, she became the legendary gunman’s lover and the mother of his child. Etulain, however, never advances these claims due to lack of conclusive evidence. Instead, he focuses on what can be verified, such as the fact that Calamity gave birth to a daughter long after her association with Hickok and that, while she lived with a number of men, only one ever became her husband. Etulain also spends considerable time looking at the many interpretations—novelistic, filmic and theatrical—that have sprung up about Calamity in the century since her death in 1903. While 48

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INSURRECTIONS OF THE MIND 100 Years of Politics and Culture in America

FINDING YOUR ROOTS The Official Companion to the PBS Series

Foer, Franklin–Ed. Perennial/HarperCollins (608 pp.) $27.99 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-0-06-234040-5

Gates Jr., Henry Louis Univ. of North Carolina (344 pp.) $30.00 | Sep. 15, 2014 978-1-4696-1800-5

What is liberalism? One magazine has grappled with that question for a century.

In 1914, the New Republic was founded by a group of well-heeled, well-educated progressives eager for political and social change. “The magazine,” writes its current editor, Foer (How Football Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, 2004, etc.), “was born wearing an idealistic face. It soon gathered all the enthusiasm for reform and gave it coherence, and intellectual heft.” This collection amply testifies to that intellectual heft: Writers include Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, George Orwell, W.H. Auden, Reinhold Niebuhr, Andrew Sullivan and Irving Howe, arguing against “the ludicrousness of political correctness.” Organized by decade, the essays ring in on urgent issues: In 1917, for example, philosopher John Dewey argued against “isolated national sovereignty,” reflecting the views of the magazine’s hawkish editor, Willard Straight, and many liberals who believed war “would stir new feelings of community and connectedness.” The 1920s featured essays by Margaret Sanger (“The Birth Control Raid”), John Maynard Keynes on Soviet Russia; and Bruce Bliven on liberals’ despair over the Sacco and Vanzetti case. In the 1930s, Edmund Wilson reported on the effects of the Depression. At the time, under the desultory editorship of Michael Straight, the magazine “despised” Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. In the 1940s, Lewis Mumford lambasted the “weakness and confusion and self-betrayal of liberalism.” Liberals, he wrote, by opposing America’s entry into the second war raging in Europe, “no longer act as if justice mattered, as if the truth mattered, as if right mattered, as if humanity as a whole were any concern of theirs: the truth is they no longer dare to act.” Nearly 40 years later, Daniel Moynihan, considering “The Liberals’ Dilemma,” quoted Renata Adler: “Sanity…is the most profound moral option of our time.”

As this rich anthology shows, the debate over the meaning, viability and political effectiveness of liberalism continues—and not only in the pages of the New Republic.

The latest from redoubtable historian Gates (African-American Research/ Harvard Univ.; Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History, 15132008, 2011, etc.) is not, despite the title, about finding your roots.

A companion text to the popular PBS series, and following his similar Faces of America (2010), it’s about finding the roots of 25 American notables of diverse ethnicity.

From Branford Marsalis to Wanda Sykes, Sanjay Gupta to Harry Connick Jr., Cory Booker to Barbara Walters, the histories are uniformly told. The author introduces the subject of each inquiry with a concise biography and some apt words from the honoree. There follows the parade of progenitors discovered through oral history and documents like immigration records, realty transactions and census rolls. Experts were often enlisted. Finally, DNA was used to trace genealogy, sometimes back to the Ice Age. It appears that Martha Stewart is descended from craftspeople, and through the veins of Robert Downey Jr. flows a bit of Jewish blood. As many readers will suspect, climbing the family trees of these famous figures proves that many of us are related—perhaps not even six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon (his ancestry goes back to Edward I, and Brad Pitt is Bacon’s 13th cousin twice removed). Throughout these family tapestries are a variety of common threads—e.g., poverty, name changes and mistreatment. Integral to the nation’s history are the sorry annals of slavery as narrated by Gates in the African-Americans’ case studies. Their stories are particularly moving. Unfortunately, the TV format proves static on the printed page. Despite the persecuted emigrants, the tycoons, the slave masters and all the other colorful ancestral characters populating Gates’ passionate research, the individual tales rarely spring to life.

Other subjects in the collection include Rick Warren, Condoleezza Rice, John Legend and Adrian Grenier.

Primarily of interest to avid genealogy buffs.

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“A sensitive, intelligent and heartfelt examination of the processes of aging and dying.” from being mortal

BEING MORTAL Medicine and What Matters in the End

Glover (The Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America, 2008, etc.) explores the family lives of five remarkable Virginia planter-patriarchs who helped shaped the rebellion against England, commanded the Continental Army and led the early continental governments. At a time when fatherhood entailed responsibility for the well-being of their communities, their relatives and the social order, these dutiful gentry fathers ran their plantations, mastered their slaves and served in political office. Writing with authority, she traces the often overlooked private lives of elite men who preferred the joys of plantation life (“our own Vine and our own fig tree”) but deemed their revolutionary cause “a parental obligation.” These Virginians were Thomas Jefferson, who, like the others, inherited racial power as well as land, money and family ties; griefstricken widower George Mason, who took care of the “lesser sort” through public service; Patrick Henry, who kept his insane wife in a basement storage room; James Madison, who struggled with a stepson’s drunkenness and gambling; and George Washington, who chose fathering a country over domestic life. Drawing on primary sources, Glover describes their rarefied lives of leisure and wealth and shows the many ways in which their political actions affected their domestic lives, and vice versa. The war prompted “a revolution in family values,” with fathers unable to exert their usual influence over a younger generation of declining virtue and morality. It also gave rise to a 19th-century world in which talent and achievement began to supersede the old hereditary power. For all that, women were still denied full civic participation (Jefferson’s granddaughter could not attend his University of Virginia), and slaves, deemed a critical part of these gentry families, remained slaves.

Well-written and immensely rewarding, this important book will appeal to both scholars and general readers.

Gawande, Atul Metropolitan/Henry Holt (304 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-0-8050-9515-9

A prominent surgeon and journalist takes a cleareyed look at aging and death in 21st-century America.

Modern medicine can perform miracles, but it is also only concerned with preserving life rather than dealing with end-of-life issues. Drawing on his experiences observing and helping terminally ill patients, Gawande (The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, 2009, etc.) offers a timely account of how modern Americans cope with decline and mortality. He points out that dying in America is a lonely, complex business. Before 1945, people could count on spending their last days at home. Now, most die in institutional settings, usually after trying every medical procedure possible to head off the inevitable. Quality of life is often sacrificed, in part because doctors lack the ability to help patients negotiate a bewildering array of medical and nonmedical options. Many, like Gawande’s mother-in-law, Alice, find that they must take residence in senior housing or assisted care facilities due to the fact that no other reasonable options exist.

But even the most well-run of these “homes” are problematic because they can only offer sterile institutional settings that restrict independence and can cause psychological distress.

Moving in with adult children is also difficult due to the tensions and conflicts that inevitably arise. Yet the current system shows signs of reform. Rather than simply inform patients about their options or tell them what to do, some doctors, including the author, are choosing to offer the guidance that helps patients make their own decisions regarding treatment options and outcomes. By confronting the reality rather than pretending it can be beaten and understanding that “there are times where the cost of pushing exceeds its value,” the medical establishment can offer the kind of compassion that allows for more humane ways to die. As Gawande reminds readers, “endings matter.”

A sensitive, intelligent and heartfelt examination of the processes of aging and dying.

BLUES ALL DAY LONG The Jimmy Rogers Story Goins, Wayne Everett Univ. of Illinois (416 pp.) $29.00 paper | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-252-08017-3 978-0-252-09649-5 e-book

Biography of blues guitarist Jimmy Rogers (1924-1997), who “created a truly enduring sound that has made a direct impact on every generation that followed.”

Without his association with Muddy Waters, Rogers might be just a musical footnote, an artist whose one hit, “Walking by Myself,” enjoyed minimal commercial success. However, as Goins (Director of Jazz/Kansas State Univ.; Emotional Response to Music: Pat Metheny’s Secret Story, 2001) reiterates throughout, Muddy Waters might not have been Muddy Waters without Rogers, whose guitar was integral to perhaps the finest band in the history of Chicago blues. As much as mercurial harmonica master Little Walter or, later, piano stylist Otis Spann, Rogers was integral to the development and popularity of Muddy’s music, complementing the raw Southern sound of the frontman’s vocals and slide

FOUNDERS AS FATHERS The Private Lives and Politics of the American Revolutionaries

Glover, Lorri Yale Univ. (344 pp.) $30.00 | Sep. 30, 2014 978-0-300-17860-9

A superb new perspective on America’s Founding Fathers.

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Goldsworthy questions why Augustus has slipped off of many historians’ lists of great leaders, which include Julius Caesar, Alexander, Hannibal and Hadrian. He provides plenty of reasons why he should be at the top of those lists.

guitar. Of the sound that the two guitarists developed together, the author writes, their “relationship…was somewhere between two ballet dancers and two heavyweight boxers. They could sling each other around the room and never lose faith in one’s ability to catch the other. They could throw hard jabs at each other yet never catch a blow to the body.” Goins never lapses into academic impenetrability, and he demonstrates an impressive passion and ear for the music. Particularly lively are his illumination of the bustling Maxwell Street scene and his analysis of the 1970s blues revival in Austin, Texas, and along the coasts, which brought Rogers out of early musical retirement to attain a popularity beyond anything he’d experienced before—as well as financial success, including royalties from the likes of Eric Clapton recording his songs. However, the book could use some judicious cutting and editing, since it seems to include everything that anyone ever said in print about Rogers, as well as the name of every musician, club owner and tour promoter with whom he worked.

For blues aficionados, Goins provides a wealth of information on one of the underacknowledged masters of the Chicago sound. (31 photos)

MIDNIGHT IN SIBERIA A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia Greene, David Norton (320 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 20, 2014 978-0-393-23995-9

A former Russia correspondent for NPR ends his gig by taking a train across Siberia, generating new experiences and remembering earlier ones.

Greene, who’s still with NPR as a host with Morning Edition, debuts with a journey that is personal and emotional, both actual and metaphorical. He begins by explaining his history with Russia: He and his significant other, Rose, moved there in 2009; the inability to speak or understand Russian remained an issue for both of them—but one they were able to surmount with the aid of Sergei, a translator who became one of the author’s best friends. During his journey of thousands of miles (Rose was with him only temporarily), Greene tells us about the hassles of traveling (security agents shadowing them), the explicit and tacit rules for behavior on trains, the charms of traveling third class (as circumstance occasionally forced them to do), and the people they encountered—both on the train and in the communities where they stopped. Greene had met some during other reporting excursions; others were strangers who shared rail compartments, managed hotels and drove public transportation. But traveling also provided Greene an opportunity to recall important experiences throughout his life. He recalls an intense conversation about hockey, a visit to a Holocaust memorial and a series of low points in his journalism career.

In addition, the author offers quite a few quotations from other travelers and from Russian writers—Chekhov appears more than once. He also speculates continually about the Russian character: What do they really think about Vladimir Putin?

Why does there seem to be lingering nostalgia for Stalin? How do they manage to deal with the almost Kafkaesque aspects of the Russian bureaucracy?

Glowing in its profound affection for the Russian people, an affection Greene convinces readers to share.

AUGUSTUS First Emperor of Rome

Goldsworthy, Adrian Yale Univ. (640 pp.) $35.00 | Aug. 26, 2014 978-0-300-17872-2

Historian Goldsworthy (Caesar: Life of a Colossus, 2008, etc.) obviously has ancient Rome in his bones, and his biography of Augustus is also a solid chronicle of Rome and its development.

Born Gaius Octavius, the great-nephew and adopted son and heir of the murdered Julius Caesar, Augustus emerged triumphant from the subsequent brandings, proscriptions and power struggles and was elected as the youngest consul ever. It seems everyone had his own army after Caesar’s death, and Caesar was shrewd enough to realize he needed to rely on talented men like Agrippa to defeat his enemies and take his place during his repeated attacks of ill health. It was also Agrippa who built the new infrastructures in Rome and throughout the empire. In fact, during much of Augustus’ reign, Agrippa did the work and happily let Augustus take all the credit. The author, who consults on documentaries for the BBC, National Geographic and other outlets, recounts the civilizing of Rome and makes sense of the political structure, as well as the strong reliance on family in politics and society. In Augustus’ 40-plus years of power, the empire expanded without the need for war—the reputation of Rome was sufficient to scare off any potential enemies.

Augustus and Agrippa instituted new regulations for the army, trimmed the size of the senate, changed taxation, founded the police and fire services, and built roads, aqueducts and bridges.

Augustus also made sure to visit each of the provinces. Instituting the beginning of 250 years of peace and stability, he was lauded by Horace, Virgil and countless others. |

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CITY OF RIVALS Restoring the Glorious Mess of American Democracy

LIFE LINCOLN An Intimate Portrait Guelzo, Allen C. LIFE Books (192 pp.) $40.00 | Oct. 14, 2014 978-1-61893-072-9

Grumet, Jason Lyons Press (288 pp.) $25.95 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-7627-9158-3

Commemorating the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s death, LIFE editors have produced an astonishing volume of

The founder of the Bipartisan Policy Center bemoans political gridlock in Washington, D.C., and suggests common-sense changes.

Grumet started the center in 2007 after lining up two Republican senators and two Democratic senators as his bigname supporters. Two of those senators, Bob Dole and Tom Daschle, wrote forewords for the book. Grumet, the former director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, fervently believes that the massive divide between the two major political parties in the United States can be bridged, and he has been able to marshal effective reform in the areas of immigration law, health insurance and budgetary debates. The author notes that there never really was a golden age of party politics, but as late as the 1990s, philosophically divergent politicians tended to agree that they desired greatness for the country and so eventually compromised enough on the details of legislation. Much of the compromising occurred, Grumet writes, because members of Congress took time to become acquainted personally. Individuals who know each other well, even when acting as sincere policymaking enemies, will gather informally to discuss legislation compromises. Many of today’s policymakers have become so driven to constantly raise campaign money that socializing becomes expendable. As a result, members of Congress meeting in committees or debating in the chambers tend not to know each other well, making it simpler to demonize the opponent and dampening the spirit of compromise— sometimes permanently. Grumet suggests, for example, that members of Congress travel together on fact-finding missions, rather than just political junkets meant primarily to impress constituents back home. A superficial devotion to Congressional ethics has gone too far, Grumet writes, replacing useful factfinding groups with stay-at-home members who do not reach across political party boundaries to piece together a coherent legislative agenda.

An optimistic yet realistic call for reform in the interest of repairing what is broken in Washington.

images and essays.

Drawing on historical archives, libraries and the collection of Keya Morgan, a foremost collector of Lincoln photographs, the editors have selected 250 images, many never before published. Distinguished Civil War historian Guelzo (Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, 2013, etc.) contributes an authoritative seven-part biographical essay chronicling Lincoln’s birth in a “miserable habitation” in Kentucky; his years as a postmaster, shopkeeper and surveyor in Illinois; his four terms in the Whig minority of the Illinois state legislature; his apprenticeship as a lawyer; marriage to Mary Ann Todd; the loss of three of their four sons, and his wife’s “growing unhingement.” Yet he rallied forcefully in speeches and debates. As his rival Stephen A. Douglas remarked, “I’ve met him at the bar, I’ve met him on the stump, and I want to say to you, my friend, that he’s a hard man to get up against.” Central to this volume are 130 portraits from Morgan’s vast collection, including the earliest known image, a daguerreotype made in 1846 by a pioneering photographer; a Mathew Brady carte de visite used in Lincoln’s presidential campaign; and many more Brady images, some made just after Lincoln’s inauguration, others in 1864. Also included is a moving introduction by cultural historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. and a variety of contributions of 272 words (the number in the Gettysburg Address) reflecting on Lincoln’s legacy—among the respondents are Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Lech Walesa, Ken Burns, Billy Collins, high school students and soldiers serving on the U.S.S. Lincoln.

One idea recurs: “[W]e can be better than we have been,” as Steven Spielberg puts it; we can “be uplifted and galvanized by this suffering man who was a steadfast optimist in the name of freedom and equality.” That sentiment infuses and inspires this stunning portrait.

REBEL YELL The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson Gwynne, S.C. Scribner (640 pp.) $30.00 | Oct. 21, 2014 978-1-4516-7328-9

Wide-ranging biography of the largerthan-life Confederate leader, a “sobersided, regulation-bound general” who emerges as an ever stranger figure with the passage of years.

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“An emancipating exhibition from uprising artisans of Syria.” from syria speaks

Texas-based journalist and historian Gwynne, having documented the free-riding Comanches of the plains (Empire of the Summer Moon, 2010), turns to another famed cavalry culture: namely, that of the residents of the valley of Virginia at the time that sectional divisions broke into open civil war. Few cavalrymen were as farsighted and successful as Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson (1824-1863), who carried a preternatural seriousness and piety with him at all times. As Gwynne writes, Jackson imagined as he was washing that he was cleansing himself in the blood of Christ and while dressing, might “pray to be cloaked in the Savior’s righteousness.” Jackson’s relentless Christianity did not halt him in the least from assuming the role of avenging angel Robert E. Lee’s right-hand man, whose death before Gettysburg deflated the Army of Northern Virginia and marked the beginning of the end of the Southern cause. By the author’s account, Jackson was a caring yet hard, nearly tyrannical leader who pushed his men to the limit yet placed himself in every danger he subjected them to. He also habitually denied himself creature comforts in an effort to remain pure, though, as Gwynne points out, sometimes his explanations were less pious than all that. He did not partake of intoxicating drinks, he told a junior officer, “because I like the taste of them, and when I discovered that to be the case I made up my mind at once to do without them altogether.”

A satisfying biography though less exhaustive in its approach than Robert Krick’s Conquering the Valley (1996) and somewhat less fluent than James Robertson’s Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend (1997). (This review first appeared in the BEA/ALA issue.)

notes that the military effectively handed off PMSC oversight to the State Department to support claims of a drawdown in both countries, while both the Bush and Obama administrations have similarly allowed these companies free reign. Indeed, to support the Iraq withdrawal, Obama “had made possible an expansion in the number of [PMSCs].” As Hagedorn observes throughout, the slick, humorless principals she interviews clearly prefer being seen as indispensable professionals rather than as mercenaries. The author effectively digs beneath the PMSCs’ corporate spin to unearth numerous examples of fiscal waste, incompetence and inappropriate uses of force. In an increasingly pessimistic narrative, Hagedorn concludes that PMSCs have managed to become inextricable from the national security state and that despite movement into domestic police training and border security, “PMSCs remained nearly invisible to the American public.”

A brisk, disturbing account that adds to the sense that liberties taken in the war on terror have created long-term liabilities for American society.

SYRIA SPEAKS Art and Cultures from the Frontline

Halasa, Malu; Omareen, Zaher; Mahfoud, Nawara—Eds. Saqi Books (328 pp.) $18.95 paper | Oct. 7, 2014 978-0-86356-787-2

An emancipating exhibition from uprising artisans of Syria.

Assessing the value of art and culture in Western Asia amid “such untold bloodshed,” editors and Syrian journalists Halasa, Omareen and Mahfoud collect striking works of literary, photographic and hand-drawn self-expression from more than 50 talented, passionate contributors, both new and established. The opening photomontage honors victims of the 1982 Hama massacre and is followed by Samar Yazbek’s searingly haunting journey through northern Syria, a devastated countryside “made of earth, blood, and fire, where explosions never ceased.” Animator Sulafa Hijazi’s brutally explicit “cycle of violence” artwork represents her history living in violent, revolutionary-era Syria, as do defected illustrator Khalil Younes’ ink-on-paper creations. The written compositions are permeated with violence, bloodshed and familial sorrow, but also hope and resilience within a culture struggling to regain some semblance of citizenship. Amassed here is a dramatic tapestry of poster art, cartoons, inspired poetry, digital and cellphone video stills of bombed neighborhoods riskily posted to social media, and the anonymously produced finger-puppet play series “Top Goon.” Syrian artistic culture has emerged as the ultimate weapon against the country’s despotism, but these works also reflect a complicated revolution with fatal consequences: Graffitists like those featured in the book can be killed if caught stenciling city walls with radical countergovernmental street art—though they have devised a “secret toolkit for

THE INVISIBLE SOLDIERS How America Outsourced Our Security

Hagedorn, Ann Simon & Schuster (352 pp.) $28.00 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-4165-9880-0

A critique of the United States’ fateful turn toward private military and security contractors as a consequence of the Iraq War. Former Wall Street Journal writer Hagedorn (Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919, 2007, etc.) deftly handles a complex and sometimes-grisly topic, beginning with the first “friendly fire” incident involving contractors firing on U.S. troops.

“The quest to privatize defense and security has empowered companies that are now moving beyond their roles in Iraq and Afghanistan,” writes the author. She portrays this trend as worrisome on many levels, emphasizing that these firms lack transparency, civic accountability and a motivation to see conflicts reach an end. Some of the firms she examines are well-known in this context, like the British Aegis and the notorious Blackwater, now known as Academi. The author discusses the Nisour Square shooting in which Blackwater contractors killed 17 Iraqi civilians, raising rare criticism of their presence. Hagedorn |

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INTERVIEWS & PROFILES

Richard Nixon

Those pesky tapes keep telling stories

By Scott Porch Some of the tapes became publicly available during the Watergate investigation, and Nixon fought for nearly two decades after his resignation to prevent the release of the remaining tapes. After his death in 1994, the National Archives released the first new batch in 1996 and have continued to release tapes through the most recent batch in 2013. The National Archives has released nearly 2,700 hours of tape; roughly 800 additional hours remain classified, and many of those hours will be declassified over time.

9 John Dean said he was surprised to learn when he started researching The Nixon Defense that so few of the Nixon tapes pertaining to Watergate—even the tapes that had been available for a while—had actually been transcribed.

“I was there, and things happened around me, and I didn’t know what happened behind closed doors,” Dean said. “I thought the tapes that had already been transcribed would answer that.”

Rather than rely on those incomplete transcripts, Dean began the arduous task of transcribing hours and hours of Watergate-related conversations from the Nixon tapes. Dean said he and his research assistants transcribed more than 1,000 conversations over the last several years.

“I’ve estimated roughly about 4 million words,” Dean said. “It’s huge. I [transcribed] about 250 conversations. My lead transcriber, who is getting her Ph.D. in archival science, did 500 transcripts, and my other grad students did about another 250.”

Dean’s new book is a narrative account of the Watergate affair. He said he hasn’t decided yet whether or how

Historians say the process of assessing a president often takes a few decades, but in the case of Richard Nixon’s presidency, it’s going to take a bit longer.

Forty years since his resignation on Aug. 9, 1974, new scholarship about Nixon’s White House continues to shape historians’ views of his presidency. What’s driving the reassessment is the steady stream of tapes of Oval Office conversations that the National Archives has been releasing over the last two decades.

“Those tapes are the gift that keep on giving,” says John W. Dean, the White House counsel during the Watergate era.

Dean’s new book, The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It, is one of three new titles that make extensive use of recently revealed Nixon tapes, including 340 hours of conversations that the National Archives made available last year. Douglas Brinkley and Luke Nichter’s The Nixon Tapes: 1971-1972 shows Nixon deeply enmeshed in foreign policy discussions. Ken Hughes’ Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate finds the roots of Nixon’s problems in a little-known covert break-in that actually preceded Watergate.

Taken together, these detailed examinations paint Nixon as a maximalist, more complex version of the historical Nixon—more paranoid and conniving, more involved in Watergate and more involved in foreign affairs.

Midway through his first term, Nixon installed a secret audio recording system that picked up nearly every telephone conversation and meeting in the Oval Office for two and a half years. Aside from the Secret Service agents who maintained the recording system, only three White House aides even knew it existed until former Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield made the bombshell revelation on July 16, 1973, in his testimony before the Senate Watergate committee.

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“I think he thought he could do like Winston Churchill did on The Second World War,” Brinkley said of Churchill’s six-volume history of World War II. “He admired Churchill’s books so much, and he thought he could do a multiple-volume history about the Cold War and the grand realignment he was overseeing.”

As the vice of the Watergate investigation begins to tighten around his presidency, we see a Richard Nixon ripped from his assumptions that the opening of China would be his legacy and that the hundreds of hours taped from his Oval Office would be the source material. Though not on his own terms and much later than he thought, that broader assessment of Nixon’s presidency is fully in motion.

to make his transcripts available but that historians and researchers have already been calling to inquire.

9 Ken Hughes of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, a research center on the American presidency, has spent the last 14 years studying and writing about Oval Office recordings made by presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. The most revealing recordings by far, Hughes said, have been those made by Nixon.

“This is almost like having a time machine,” Hughes says. “You get to actually hear what really happened during this incredibly eventful 30-month period—not only in the Nixon administration, but in American history.”

Hughes’ Chasing Shadows argues that the Watergate coverup was partly to protect discussions on the Nixon tapes of the burglary of the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank, which Nixon had ordered in 1971 to look for political dirt related to the Vietnam War. The e-book version of Chasing Shadows includes links to audio from the Nixon tapes.

Hughes says listening to hundreds of chronological hours of Nixon’s Oval Office conversations has been an often astonishing education.

“There’s the president discussing a salute to agriculture with poster children and things like that,” Hughes says, “but he’s also coming up with a strategy for extricating the U.S. from the Vietnam War and learning bits and pieces about how China is responding to the diplomatic opening. It’s really fascinating to listen to these things develop in real time.”

9 Historians Douglas Brinkley and Luke Nichter’s The Nixon Tapes: 1971-1972 will be a primary resource for a generation of scholarship on Nixon’s foreign policy efforts. The book documents conversations about the winding down of the Vietnam War, negotiations with the Soviet Union over nuclear nonproliferation and the beginning of diplomatic relations with China.

Brinkley says Nixon installed the taping system in 1971—two years into his presidency—partly because he saw himself as a foreign policy president and wanted to spend the years after his presidency documenting those accomplishments.

Scott Porch is an attorney and writer in Savannah, Georgia.

He writes frequently about books for Kirkus Reviews, the Daily Beast, and Salon.com, and he is writing a book about social upheaval in the 1960s and ’70s.

Books discussed in this article: The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It

Dean, John W. 978-0-670-02536-7 The Nixon Defense received a starred review in the July 15, 2014, issue.

The Nixon Tapes

Brinkley, Douglas; Nichter, Luke 978-0-544-27415-0 Kirkus’ review of The Nixon Tapes will be available on our site after the embargo date.

Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate

Hughes, Ken 978-0-813-93663-5 Kirkus’ review of Chasing Shadows will be available on our site after the embargo date.

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HERBIE HANCOCK Possibilities

spray-painting quickly and surreptitiously.” Unfurling from the formerly closed fist of tyrannical oppression, these pieces are emblematic of a repressed culture’s innovative activism, courageously echoing the editors’ belief that “creativity is not only a way of surviving the violence, but of challenging it.”

An English Pen Award winner, this anthology forms a rich, creatively diverse motif sublimely representative of a country and its people awash in strife and insurgency.

Hancock, Herbie with Dickey, Lisa Viking (352 pp.) $29.95 | Oct. 28, 2014 978-0-670-01471-2 One of the most innovative and admired jazz musicians of his generation reminisces about his career.

Born in 1940, Hancock grew up in South Side Chicago, the second son of Southerners who came North during the Depression. His parents were of modest means, but when he began playing a neighbor’s piano, they bought a secondhand instrument for him. He quickly showed talent, winning a competition to play a Mozart concerto with the Chicago Symphony at age 11. In high school, Hancock began to play jazz, copying records of the popular pianists of the day. He went to Grinnell College to study engineering; music was too precarious a trade. But after nearly flunking out, he switched to music. A couple of years later, he was gigging in Chicago. Trumpeter Donald Byrd took Hancock under his wing and brought him to New York as a member of his band. Opportunities followed: record sessions, steady work with other bands and a hit record. But the big break was a call from Miles Davis, whose quintet Hancock joined in 1963. This historic band, with Wayne Shorter on sax and Tony Williams on drums, stayed together for five years, and Hancock’s stories of those years are the best in the book. Along the way, he married, traveled the world and began to play electric piano—the first step into a new musical world. After leaving Davis, he began to explore funk, fusion and even hip-hop.

He began writing film music, eventually moving to Los Angeles.

He also discovered Buddhism, which became a major source of inspiration. Major awards marked his later years, which on the whole highlight a tale of success and fulfillment. The only real low point is an involvement with crack cocaine, which he admits to for the first time in these pages.

A warm, inspiring book by a man who seems to have little ego despite a career spent near the peak of his art.

Recommended reading for jazz aficionados.

BAD PAPER Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld

Halpern, Jake Farrar, Straus and Giroux (256 pp.) $25.00 | Oct. 14, 2014 978-0-374-10823-6 An investigation of the bottom-feeding underworld of debt collecting and its disreputable cast of rip-off artists.

As journalist and novelist Halpern (Dormia, 2009, etc.) discovered, the world of debt collection is every bit as scummy (and possibly scummier) as its reputation has always suggested. “Some thirty-five million consumers—roughly 14% of all Americans—are currently being hounded over at least one loan,” he writes. The author delivers a tale of two kinds of lowlifes and their collaboration in a lowest-common-denominator business that makes Wall Street look meek and ethical. Halpern begins with a focus on former banker Aaron Siegel, who moved back to his financially downtrodden hometown of Buffalo, N.Y., rounded up $14 million from chummy investors and opened his own private equity fund specializing in debt collection. After being ripped off by his own shady employees, who stole a huge portfolio of debt out from under his nose and started their own rogue agency, Siegel decided to employ the help of ex-bank robber Brandon Wilson to help strong-arm the debt collection competition into submission. Halpern tracks not only Siegel and Wilson’s quixotic quest for the stolen debt, but also the ugly, everyday inner workings of the business as a whole, much of which is based in crime-ridden, economically destitute Buffalo. The predominantly unethical practice of buying, selling and collecting debt is carried out by just the sort of societal outcasts you’d expect— usually, ex-cons or other desperate, otherwise unemployable screw-ups fill the business’s ranks. Halpern’s story of the debt collection world is also a dramatic rise-and-fall tale that traces the anything-goes heyday of debt collecting businesses in the unregulated early 2000s and how it has changed with the consequential recent Obama-era crackdowns on the shadier practices in the field. As we see in the book, these new regulations make it much harder for miscreants like Siegel and Wilson to survive.

Halpern brings unexpected literary heft to the world of debt collection. (This review first appeared in the BEA/ALA issue.)

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JOAN OF ARC A Life Transfigured Harrison, Kathryn Doubleday (400 pp.) $28.95 | Oct. 28, 2014 978-0-385-53120-7

The versatile Harrison (Enchantments, 2012, etc.)—novelist, biographer, memoirist and true-crime writer—becomes the most recent in a long list of authors to tell the story of the unusual warrior.

Born in 1412 and executed just 19 years later, French peasant Joan of Arc began listening to the voices of angels at age 14 (“hers alone, a rapturous secret”). She did not suspect at first, |

“Ambitious, moving tale of an inner-city Newark kid who made it to Yale yet succumbed to old demons and economic realities.” from the short and tragic life of robert peace

nor did anybody else, that those angels wanted her to undertake a seemingly impossible task: to lead an army of Frenchmen into battle against the mighty enemy forces from across the channel in England. The tale of Joan of Arc has been told countless times, so why revisit it, especially when hard evidence is lacking? For starters, Harrison’s editor suggested the topic. At that point, the author decided 21st century readers required a new narrative of a life so improbable and heroic. Harrison knew, of course, about the daunting list of previous interpreters, including William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Bertolt Brecht and Mark Twain. She wisely examines some of those previous interpretations, finding some of the speculation and historicism plausible but some of it wanting. Harrison examines Joan as a sexual being as well as a warrior and perhaps a schizophrenic. The sexuality angle becomes especially provocative when Harrison discusses how God may have favored Joan due to the virginity she advertised so boldly. The author recounts the battle scenes in sometimes-excruciating detail and gives plenty of space to her arrest, trial and execution. She also provides a chronology.

The vivid stories of Joan’s remarkable life never died completely, leading to her canonization as a saint in 1920.

Harrison joins the psychobiography school of life writing, doing so with memorable writing and an energetic approach.

of personal bias caused, in part, by “unconscious instincts, dopamine levels, and pheromone trails.” While the author is skeptical of “rationalist excesses” such as social engineering and utopias, he believes that anti-rationalism threatens public life.

Heath’s primary focus is politics, where he sees conservatives privileging intuition and liberals, rationality. To counter the “hazardous dynamic” that perpetuates irrationality in American society, Heath proposes a “Slow Politics Manifesto”—the civic version of the Slow Food Manifesto—which calls for slowing down, engaging in “quiet, rational deliberation,” “cultivating intelligence rather than demeaning it, building on experience rather than going with our gut feelings.”

Heath’s call for a second Enlightenment seems a rather sedate—although rational—response to his impassioned critique of the current political climate.

THE SHORT AND TRAGIC LIFE OF ROBERT PEACE A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League But Did Not Survive Hobbs, Jeff Scribner (416 pp.) $27.00 | Sep. 23, 2014 978-1-4767-3190-2

ENLIGHTENMENT 2.0 Restoring Sanity to Our Politics, Our Economy, and Our Lives

Ambitious, moving tale of an innercity Newark kid who made it to Yale yet succumbed to old demons and economic realities.

Novelist Hobbs (The Tourists, 2007) combines memoir, sociological analysis and urban narrative elements, producing a perceptive page-turner regarding the life of his eponymous protagonist, also his college roommate. Peace’s mother was fiercely independent, working nonstop in hospital kitchens to help aging parents keep their house. His father, a charming hustler, was attentive to Robert until his conviction on questionable evidence in a double murder. Mrs. Peace pushed her bright son toward parochial school, the best course for survival in Newark, already notorious for economic struggles and crime.

Compulsively studious, Robert thrived there—a banker alumnus offered to pay his college tuition—and also at Yale. Hobbs contrasts his personal relationship with Robert with a cutting critique of university life, for the privileged and less so, capturing the absurd remove that “model minority” and working-class students experience. At Yale, Peace both performed high-end lab work in his medical major and discreetly dealt marijuana, enhancing his campus popularity, even as he held himself apart: “Rob was incredibly skilled in not showing how he felt [and] at concealing who he was and who he wanted to be.” After graduation, Peace drifted, as did many of his peers: Hobbs notes that even for their privileged classmates, professional success seemingly necessitated brutal hours and deep debt. But Peace drifted back into the Newark drug trade; in 2011, he was murdered by some of the city’s increasingly merciless gangsters due to his involvement in high-grade cannabis production. Hobbs

Heath, Joseph Harper/HarperCollins (336 pp.) $28.99 | Sep. 23, 2014 978-0-06-234289-8

A philosopher analyzes contemporary political discourse and offers a plan for change.

Heath (Philosophy/Univ. of Toronto; Economics without Illusion: Debunking the Myths of Modern Capitalism, 2009, etc.) rails against what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness,” the belief in a claim that “feels true, even though it may not, strictly speaking be true.” Noting a “growing abuse of appeals to emotions…in lieu of arguments based on reason, evidence, or even fact,” the author gives abundant examples of the shortcomings of intuition as a basis of decision-making. He acknowledges that rational thought is more difficult than intuitive response, linked as it is “to working memory and general intelligence.” The rapidity of intuitive thinking yields quick gratification and often results in “belief persistence”: People tend to look for evidence to support already held beliefs and ignore evidence that might be contradictory. Intuition, he maintains, “is incapable of selfcorrection….It solves problems, but it cannot think about how it goes about solving problems.” The nonrational parts of our brains are unable to follow a complex argument, think strategically or address problems that require collective action. Heath cites many authors who claim that reasoning can never be free |

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PACKING UP Further Adventures of a Trailing Spouse

manages the ambiguities of what could be a grim tale by meticulously constructing environmental verisimilitude and unpacking the rituals of hardscrabble parochial schools, Yale secret societies, urban political machinations and Newark drug gangs.

An urgent report on the state of American aspirations and a haunting dispatch from forsaken streets.

Keenan, Brigid Bloomsbury (320 pp.) $23.00 | Sep. 30, 2014 978-1-4088-4690-2

THE BIBLE’S CUTTING ROOM FLOOR The Holy Scriptures Missing from Your Bible

A British memoirist continues the engaging story she began in her bestselling book, Diplomatic Baggage (2005), about her late-midlife experiences as the wife of a career diplomat.

When the peripatetic Keenan and her husband, AW, returned to Europe from Kazakhstan, each felt like “a lost sock in the laundromat of life.” As AW trekked back and forth between his post in Brussels and the couple’s home in London awaiting word on what would be his next, and final, assignment abroad, the author learned that she had breast cancer. Meanwhile, their two grown daughters were entering new phases in their lives as wives and mothers. Between her surgery, planning for one daughter’s wedding and awaiting the arrival of another’s baby, Keenan felt like “a maypole with [her] ribbons being tugged by [her] family in all directions.” But she survived the changes and learned to cherish the grandchildren who had first seemed like “interruptions to normal life.” Her husband’s new posting to Azerbaijan—a beautiful but ruined country where “the word for ‘corruption’ and ‘gratitude’ [were] the same”—brought new challenges.

There, she coped with the occasional pangs of jealousy over AW’s gorgeous young assistants and frequent but amused frustrations with a Russian housekeeper who seemed determined to drive Keenan mad with her bizarre antics. A holiday at a Sri Lankan spa intended to restore peace and health turned into an unintended ordeal that left the author even more frazzled than when she started. Even retirement seemed an adventure—until she began to realize the implications it had for her and her husband’s identities and daily routines. It was then that she realized her life hadn’t been so much about seeing the world as about the inner journeys those travels had set her upon.

Intimate, funny and keenly observed.

Hoffman, Joel M. Dunne/St. Martin’s (272 pp.) $25.99 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-250-04796-0 978-1-4668-4826-9 e-book

Translator and Jerusalem Post contributor Hoffman (And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible’s Original Meaning, 2010) explains biblical stories by revealing lost passages, making them more understandable and plausible to modern readers.

The author’s knowledge of ancient languages shows early on, and he demonstrates how easily words can be mistranslated and entire meanings altered. Furthermore, a translator might alter a passage to make it more politically appropriate or relevant to the times. As Hoffman notes, there are anywhere from 33 to 78 books that could have been included in the Bible (“The Bible you usually read is an abridged version…culled from a much larger selection of holy scriptures when new realities forced religions leaders to discard some of their most cherished and sacred books”). All of them ask timeless questions and offer different insightful answers about good and evil and the human condition. The author explores the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2,000-year-old documents discovered in a cave by goatherds in 1947; the Septuagint, a translation from Hebrew to Greek ordered by Ptolemy II in the third century B.C.; and the A.D. first century writings of the Jewish historian Josephus. Hoffman examines not only where they agree and where they vary from our modern Bible, but also the wealth of material that was left out. This is where the author shines as he explains that the Tower of Babel was built to protect against another great flood and gives the truth about Herod and Pilate. During the upheavals of the first century, many groups struggled to make sense of the changing times, and Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism are among those systems of belief that endured.

A wonderful book to confirm the beliefs of the faithful, to strengthen those whose faith begs for more information and to enlighten those who reject the stories of the Bible as mere fiction.

THE BUS ON JAFFA ROAD A Story of Middle East Terrorism and the Search for Justice Kelly, Mike Lyons Press (320 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-0-7627-8037-2

A spiral of horror and reckoning emerges from the death of a young American couple in a terrorist bombing in Israel.

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“A novelist and freelance journalist relates her experiences, both grim and gratifying, as an English teacher in a small North Korean university.” from without you, there is no us

By the mid-1990s, suicide bombs detonated by Palestinian terrorists and sponsored by Iran’s jihadist organizations had begun to erode the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and Palestine—indeed, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin lost his life to a Jewish fundamentalist for even attempting to make peace. In this investigation, journalist Kelly (Fresh Jersey: Stories from an Altered State, 2000, etc.) traces the ramifications from several of those ominous early bombings—e.g., the deaths on targeted Israeli buses of Americans Alisa Flatow, in 1995, and Sara Duker and Matthew Eisenfeld in 1996. Oddly, Flatow and Duker had attended the same high school; their bereft parents became friends and worked together toward landmark lawsuits intended by the Clinton administration to hold the terrorist powers accountable: in this case, Iran. The author fleshes out the victims’ lives as aspiring students and young people full of promise. Sadly, the victims were simply caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, as the assassin explained to the author (also to 60 Minutes), who visited him in prison well after the tragedy: “The target was the Israeli occupation,” he insisted. Kelly looks at the motivations of the suicide bombers, but he narrates mostly from the Israeli point of view. The bulk of the work follows the lawsuits filed by the victims’ families, encouraged by President Bill Clinton’s passage of several anti-terrorism measures; though they won many millions of dollars against Iran, they would see only a fraction of it. The author works the personal and political angles for a deeply intertwined look at the horrendous standoff that comprises today’s Israeli-Palestinian reality.

Solid reporting from a deeply committed journalist.

scale, making it easier to teach music. The pope enthusiastically endorsed his system, and it caught on throughout Western Europe. But Guido made no attempt to notate rhythms, leaving subsequent scholars to guess at a key component of how chant was sung. A couple of centuries later, masters Leoninus and Perotinus hit on the idea of changing the shape of the notes to show how long to hold them. Their system, codified in the next century, became (with additional adjustments as styles changed) the core of our modern musical notation. With over 100 illustrations from original manuscripts, Kelly makes the story clear enough for nonmusicians to follow, and the book includes a CD to let readers hear how many of the examples actually sound.

Charmingly written, with plenty of interesting historical tidbits—recommended for anyone interested in early music.

WITHOUT YOU, THERE IS NO US My Time With the Sons of North Korea’s Elite

Kim, Suki Crown (272 pp.) $24.00 | Oct. 14, 2014 978-0-307-72065-8

A novelist and freelance journalist relates her experiences, both grim and gratifying, as an English teacher in a small North Korean university.

Kim (The Interpreter, 2003) was undercover, teaching with a group of devout Christians bent on conversions, a group she managed to deceive successfully, her more liberal views emerging most patently during a debate about showing a Harry Potter film to her classes. She also deceived her North Korean hosts, privately keeping a journal—which, feeling paranoid, she stored on multiple flash drives concealed in her room and on her person. But her deception allows her to tell a most enlightening tale about the North Korean darkness. The author spent her childhood in South Korea and immigrated to the United States when she was 13. Although she shared the Korean language with her students, as an English teacher, she (and her superiors) insisted on English-only with them, and it’s not until the end that—at their request—she addressed them in Korean. Kim keeps our focus on a number of issues: the abject poverty of people she sees outside the school; the absolute devotion of the North Korean media to Kim Jong-il (whose death in 2011 frames Kim’s story); the feelings of paranoia she experienced; her periodic bouts of depression about being in such an intellectually and otherwise stale environment; the ignorance of her students (most were very bright) about history, geography, technology and cultural differences; and the inability to acquire all but the most basic consumer goods. But she also repeatedly reports her deep affection for the young men she taught (there were no female students) and her profound worries about their futures. A few minor quibbles: She occasionally slides into cliché (“weak in the knees”)

CAPTURING MUSIC The Story of Notation Kelly, Thomas Forrest Norton (256 pp.) $45.00 | Nov. 3, 2014 978-0-393-06496-4

A comprehensive account of one of the key inventions in music history: a method for writing down a composition so someone could learn it without hearing it performed.

Kelly (Music/Harvard Univ.; Music Then and Now, 2012, etc.) assumes neither familiarity with medieval music nor the ability to read music. Instead, he focuses on the conceptual breakthroughs that led a few medieval musicians and scribes to devise a way to make it easier to teach novices the extensive body of music that filled the church year. The very idea required something of an intellectual leap; after all, music cannot be seen, and when a song is over, it lives only in memory. Still, over several centuries, a system of marks, or neumes, was developed to record Gregorian chant. At first, the system was rather inexact; the neumes recorded the general shape of the melody but not the exact pitches. The key invention came in the early 11th century, when an Italian monk named Guido drew a set of parallel lines—the ancestor of the staff—to define the pitch that each neume represented. Guido also named each note of the |

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INTERVIEWS & PROFILES

Hampton Sides

A story that once riveted people around the world had fallen into obscurity—until now

By Gregory McNamee barked on in the summer of 1879, exploring the far reaches of the Arctic Ocean in a quest for the fabled ice-free passage while getting a better geographical command of the little-known region. For various reasons having to do both with human failings and the harsh environments into which the Jeanette traveled, the mission soon encountered difficulties, each challenge more wearying than the last.

To say more about that would be to throw spoilers into Sides’ lucid, well-paced narrative, but suffice it to note that not everyone returned to American shores.

During the time the expedition plied the Arctic, newspapers were reporting on DeLong’s progress and, when the news stopped coming in, agitating for the government to mount a rescue mission. John Muir, the famed conservationist, wrote about it, having himself traveled into the Arctic, while In the Lena Delta, a memoir by the Jeanette’s engineer, George Wallace Melville, sold briskly on its release in 1885.

Famed in its time, the story of the Jeanette is wellknown today mostly to nautical historians and to few others. Indeed, Sides—an accomplished journalist and an alumnus of Outside magazine, the incubator of adventure writers such as Jon Krakauer and Michael Paterniti—says that he stumbled on it quite by accident while researching another story. “I was doing a piece for National Geographic,” he says, “and was in Oslo looking at Fritjof Nansen’s ship, Fram. In the museum where it’s mothballed, there was a little placard that mentioned the Jeanette, saying that Fram sailed along the same route. I’d never heard of it, although it was a huge story in its day. I tucked a note away about it. I soon came back to that note, and when I read more about the Jeanette, I realized that I had a story that I’d long been searching for—an American counterpart to Shackleton.

Photo courtesy Sergey Gorshkov

If you were ever to decide to go seek your fortune—or the fabled Northwest Passage or the North Pole—on the forbidding Arctic Ocean, you could do much worse than to have George Washington DeLong as your captain. He was meticulous, scholarly and attentive to the tiniest detail concerning the ship he commanded, the Jeanette. He planned, then double-checked his plans. He was careful about the safety of his crew. What’s more, he packed a mean larder, with one storeroom “filled to the ceiling with barrels of brandy, porter, ale, sherry, whiskey, rum, and cases of Budweiser beer.”

So writes veteran outdoor-adventure writer Hampton Sides in his new book In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeanette, recounting the arduous journey DeLong and crew em60

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“I have a case of historical attention deficit disorder,” Sides adds. “I didn’t want to do World War II stories forever, didn’t want to do another Western,” referring to his books Ghost Soldiers and Blood and Thunder, respectively. “I like moving around in different eras and different genres of narrative nonfiction.

Those books are about expeditions of men across terribly difficult terrain, with a lot of marching involved.

This one is the biggest march of all, across 1,000 miles of Arctic ice, sure—but the important thing is that they’re all stories, things worth following to the end, things that involve movement and landscapes that become characters.”

Add to all that “human character that becomes revealed through extreme situations,” as Sides puts it, and you’ve got the makings of a thumping good yarn.

That’s certainly the case with the story of the Jeanette, and Sides delivers a vigorous tale of adventure that is unlikely to send any reader rushing to visit the Arctic in search of DeLong and Nansen—certainly not in winter, anyway, when the conditions they faced were unbelievably brutal.

Sides himself traveled throughout the far north to follow in DeLong’s footsteps, but in summer, when, he recalls, “I was nearly eaten up by mosquitoes.”

The trip took him into northernmost Siberia, in the Lena River delta, and out into the Arctic Ocean to Wrangel Island—an undertaking that was fortunately well-timed, for he says, “it probably wouldn’t be possible now, considering the tension between the United States and Russia.” Indeed, some of the points in DeLong’s geography, such as the aptly named America Mountain, are restricted today, while a few others, as Sides ruefully discovered after traveling in bush planes, kayaks, snowmobiles and other contrivances, were simply too remote to get to.

DeLong’s experience, fraught with misadventure though it was, offers leadership lessons. He was both intrepid and careful, solicitous of his crew but sure of the rightness of his ways. His men, in return, were loyal to the expedition and their commander, even though they knew full well that they were sailing in harm’s way.

“If I were to fault DeLong, it was that he was such a disciplinarian that he grew inflexible as a leader,” Sides says. “It’s understandable: He was aware of the possibility of mutiny, given what had happened on prior expeditions. He wasn’t quite adaptable enough, and he probably should have shucked some of that

by-the-book Navy discipline. Still, although he sometimes had disagreements with them, he listened to people. He especially listened to the Inuit, the people who lived in the places through which he was traveling, in a time when most European and American explorers were pretty contemptuous of native people.

He had a good team that was hamstrung by some bad choices they all made along the way, but they made it to open water. It was just bad luck that things turned out as they did.”

George Washington DeLong, that unlucky man, is remembered today mostly in nautical circles, especially at the U.S. Naval Academy and elsewhere in the Navy, which named two ships after him. A statue in his honor stands in Philadelphia, while his grave and those of four of his crew members are still kept clean in a Bronx cemetery. A story that once riveted people around the world had fallen into obscurity—until now.

Gregory McNamee is a contributing editor at Kirkus Reviews.

In the Kingdom of Ice received a starred review in the June 1, 2014, issue of Kirkus Reviews.

In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeanette Sides, Hampton Doubleday (480 pp.) $28.95 | Aug. 5, 2014 978-0-385-53537-3 |

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“A wild, well-told tale.” from empire of sin

ECHOES OF HEARTSOUNDS A Memoir

and records perhaps too many student comments praising her teaching skills.

Directs the lights of emotion and intelligence on a country where ignorance is far from bliss.

Lear, Martha Weinman Open Road Media (127 pp.) $9.99 paper | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-4976-4615-5 978-1-4976-4611-7 e-book

EMPIRE OF SIN A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

The author’s journey “from the emotional storms…of widowhood to the astonishment of finding new love in my senior years, and on to the sudden cardiac crisis…that forced me, finally, to confront a past that I had never put wholly to rest.”

After Lear’s (Where Did I Leave My Glasses?: The What, When, and Why of Normal Memory Loss, 2008, etc.) first husband died from a series of heart attacks, she detailed her struggle in her first book, the acclaimed Heartsounds (1980). What she didn’t anticipate was that almost 30 years later, she would also experience a heart attack and wind up in the exact same hospital, in the same cardiac unit, with the same doctor, no less, as her husband. Lear provides rich, poignant details of her own attack, as well as her travels through the medical establishment from one test to another. The ghosts of those moments spent with her first husband in those same hospital hallways continually haunted her, and Lear leaned heavily on the past to help her cope with the often bewildering moments of the present. Her second husband was always by her side to assist in any way he could, and a host of nurses and doctors also helped out, attempting to understand why she had the attack and then contracted a serious staph infection, which caused her leg to become unbearably painful and unusable. However, as any patient knows, there is only so much a spouse, doctor or nurse can do, as sickness of any kind is a solitary journey. Lear maneuvers through the weeks she spent in the hospital with the adroitness of someone who’s been down this road before.

A bittersweet mingling of previous life-changing events and present-moment illness by a skillful author.

Krist, Gary Crown (368 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 28, 2014 978-0-7704-3706-0

A colorful account of reform efforts to eradicate sin, corruption and violence in early-20th-century New Orleans.

In this richly detailed narrative, Krist (City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster that Gave Birth to Modern Chicago, 2012, etc.) describes a three-decade battle that pitted an AngloAmerican elite against the forces of vice in a swiftly changing Crescent City. After the Civil War, New Orleans hoped to downplay its worldly reputation and attract Northern investors, but crime and immorality flourished. “The social evil is rampant in our midst,” wrote one newspaper. By the late 1890s, the “better element” wanted to drive vice out of respectable neighborhoods entirely. Enter alderman Sidney Story, who proposed the 18-block tolerated vice district soon known as Storyville, which harbored 230 brothels as well as dance halls featuring so-called “coon music,” or jazz, by Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong and other musicians.

Much of Krist’s story focuses on denizens of the notorious district, including businessman and Storyville “mayor” Tom Anderson, demimonde “queen” Josie Arlington, and a cast of legendary madams, dancers, gamblers, prostitutes and underworld figures. Drawing on newspaper accounts and court testimony, the author offers vivid accounts of mob violence against Italians and blacks, notably the brutal vigilante lynchings of 11 Italians after the assassination of police chief David C. Hennessy. The members of the mob were hailed as heroes of efforts to clean up the city. By 1918, Jim Crow reigned, Storyville was closed, and jazz was under attack. In the 1930s, having forced vice underground, the city found itself trying to re-create its wicked old reputation to lure tourists. Krist’s lively book is only marred by an overlong section devoted to a series of axe murders that plagued the city.

A wild, well-told tale. (23 b/w photos)

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BEATLENESS How the Beatles and Their Fans Remade the World

Leonard, Candy Arcade (312 pp.) $24.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-62872-417-2

Sociological study of first-generation Beatles fans and how the Fab Four shaped ordinary Americans’ lives over a six-year period.

Sociologist and baby boomer Leonard manages to find a new angle of approach to the study of the Beatles. Her book is the latest testament to the seemingly infinite possibilities for commercial exploitation of the lads from Liverpool in the literary marketplace. However, instead of an opportunistic music critic |

spouting off on the Beatles’ multiform wonderfulness, here we get a cross section of the first generation of Beatles fans adding their own long-overdue opinions to this seemingly endless pop-cultural conversation. Although the book does have some of the unfortunate trappings of an average academic research project, Leonard mostly steers clear of convoluted classroom language and deluges of distracting footnotes to fashion an intermittently enlightening historical-cultural narrative of how the Beatles helped change America’s youth culture forever. The book is divided into chapters that cover a number of different important eras in Beatles history, beginning with the author’s pre-Beatlemania historical perspective on how “the events of the Kennedy sixties gave birth to a new sensibility, a new consciousness, at odds with the conformity and stifling constraint of the era.” The most engaging aspects of the book are not so much about the Beatles’ music widening an already expanding generation gap with their attitudes, hairstyles, clothes and sophisticated pop tunes; the value of the book hinges more on intergenerational comparisons and contrasts of how “Beatleness” affected members of the youth demographic, especially when it comes to differing gender perspectives on the Beatles’ music. Leonard also provides a helpful overall sense of how the average American Beatles fan not only accommodated the lightning-speed stylistic shifts in the band’s music from 1964 to 1970, but how these changes affected the decisions they made in their own personal lives.

A welcome—though by no means essential—sociocultural study for the Beatlemaniac bookworm. (9 b/w and 8 color photos)

urine. Other mandatory activities in this phony ritualistic ascent to brotherhood included wading in a pool of human excrement, games of blackout-drunk beer pong and even the chance to snort cocaine while listening to Eric Clapton’s song about cocaine.

Eventually, his flirtation with the drug got him in trouble with the cops. Lohse’s writing is passable but also peppered with annoying frat slang (he frequently employs the term “boot” as a verb meaning “to vomit”) and awkward metaphors and similes (“Summer was long gone, though—it had faded out like washed out salmon pink shorts”). The author’s story might be more sympathetic had he not eventually decided to haze pledges himself before ratting on his “bros” to Rolling Stone.

A readable exposé that feels like an article-length topic overstretched into a book.

COMMANDER WILL CUSHING Daredevil Hero of the Civil War

Malanowski, Jamie Norton (288 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 6, 2014 978-0-393-24089-4

Malanowski (The Coup, 2007, etc.) revives the legend of an “immortal” Civil War hero, now nearly forgotten.

“Habits of study: irregular. General conduct: bad. Aptitude for Naval Service: not good. Not recommended for continuance at the Academy.” So wrote the superintendent of Annapolis about William Barker Cushing (1842-1874) upon expelling him from the academy a month before the outbreak of the Civil War. Eventually, Cushing talked his way back into the Navy with a rank of acting master’s mate, and four years later, he was a 22-year-old lieutenant commander nationally famous for astonishing exploits in which he showed a fighting spirit, creativity and determination rare in any military service.

The most noteworthy of these was taking on the massive Confederate ironclad Albemarle in an open-picket boat and sinking her by personally guiding a mine under her hull and detonating it while under constant small-arms fire, an achievement for which he was voted the Thanks of Congress. His daring leadership of amphibious commando raids has caused him to be viewed as a precursor to the Navy SEALs. The author recognizes, however, that Cushing’s reckless impatience for bold action, often bordering on insubordination, made him both an outstanding warrior and a difficult officer to manage. Indeed, Malanowski engages in brief speculation that Cushing’s heroism may have been genius but may also have been rooted in a personality disorder. This is popular history for general readers, served up in bite-sized chapters of just a few pages each. The author presents Cushing’s life story in a casual style, enthusiastically describing his adventures unrestrained by a historian’s professional reserve.

With no pretensions to original scholarship, this is an enjoyable “retelling of an exciting story about a remarkable individual whose name had begun to fade.”

(8 pages of illustrations)

CONFESSIONS OF AN IVY LEAGUE FRAT BOY A Memoir Lohse, Andrew Dunne/St. Martin’s (304 pp.) $25.99 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-250-03367-3 978-1-250-00368-0 e-book

In this nonfiction debut, New Jerseyite and former frat brother Lohse blows the whistle on the distasteful hazing practices he witnessed during his tumultuous time at prestigious Ivy League institution Dartmouth College.

The author comes off like your average middle-class, allAmerican lad, with good grades and a fair amount of potential in life after leading his high school’s Model United Nations and graduating with honors. Even so, to live the Ivy League dream, he was reduced to getting his Dartmouth-educated grandfather to help him in his quest to be “reconsidered” by the admissions officers. Being insecure and desperate for acceptance, Lohse figured the easiest thing to do would be to join the most notorious fraternity on campus. Little did he know that his stint as a Sigma Alpha Epsilon pledge would nearly ruin his life. The author soon found himself in a socially poisonous environment in which he was forced to guzzle vinegar, Mad Dog 20/20 and even cups of |

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“The author’s solid research into the connections of these curiously varied men and women makes this a wonderful story of one of the world’s odd little cultural cliques.” from rebel souls

JONI MITCHELL In Her Own Words

Clapp’s attitude sprang from his experiences in Paris’ Latin Quarter, where he met the true bohemians who formed the basis of La Vie de Bohème. They sat in Café Momus discussing, rather than producing, their art and drinking strong coffee and stronger alcohol. Mostly, they had no money, no prospects, multiple romances and lots of talk. Ultimately, these circumstances brought Clapp back to the saloon on the corner of Broadway and Bleeker Street to interact with the fascinating crowd he met there night after night. Though Whitman was often there, he was not always with Clapp’s crowd. He also spent time with new friends in the larger room, where one’s sexuality was not a matter of discussion. Many of the figures in Martin’s entertaining cultural history failed miserably, and many died young. Some like actor Edwin Booth (brother to John Wilkes) and humor writer Artemus Ward, left their marks, while others faded away. As they spread across America and the Atlantic, they met writers as diverse as Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. Clapp vigorously promoted Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and gave Twain his first national break in the Saturday Press. Martin truly opens up the characters of these creative, sensitive men, examining their lives before the Civil War and the ways in which they reacted to it.

The author’s solid research into the connections of these curiously varied men and women makes this a wonderful story of one of the world’s odd little cultural cliques. (16 pages of b/w photos. This review first appeared in the BEA/ALA issue.)

Marom, Malka ECW Press (344 pp.) $29.95 | Oct. 9, 2014 978-1-7704-1132-6

Three deep-running interviews with singer-songwriter Mitchell, by singer-journalist Marom.

Conducted in 1973, 1979 and 2012, these are more conversations than interviews; Mitchell picks up Marom’s questions and turns them about as she fashions an answer. She is as candid here as she is sometimes cryptic in her lyrics: revelatory, nervy, emotionally and existentially raw. She doesn’t belabor her romantic relationships (as Rolling Stone was fond of doing) but fills in blanks about her younger days, alone and pregnant and destitute in Toronto, strumming her way to the big stage via a ukulele and weeks of practice. Mitchell is happier, it seems, talking about Nietzsche, Jung and the I Ching or summoning what it is like to be uniquely alive on stage: “One of the things I have had to battle is an almost euphoric feeling….You’re up there alone and receiving all this mass adoration, and you’re liking it.” She bluntly shatters her fantasy-princess stereotype and speaks, without ornament, about a variety of issues. She blazes contempt for the ignorance of our species, speaks up for the role of depression in her art, and considers the discomfiture of affluence and the meaning of work. About her career arc?

Q: “What was actually the turning point?” A: “Turning point? I don’t see it as a turning point. I see it as a long, very slow gradual spectrum….” In a later interview, she rejects the onstage sublimity she once discerned. “I was never addicted to applause....The measure for me was the art itself.” But at any moment she can dive into the miracle of making music: “The great things nearly always come on the edge of an error. What comes after the error is spectacular.”

The gifted, adventurous musician talks as brilliantly as she writes and sings. (18 paintings; 26 photos, 4-color throughout.

This review first appeared in the BEA/ALA issue.)

THE AMAZONS Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World

Mayor, Adrienne Princeton Univ. (504 pp.) $29.95 | Sep. 21, 2014 978-0-691-14720-8

An encyclopedic study of the barbarian warrior women of Western Asia, revealing how new archaeological discoveries uphold the long-held myths and legends.

The famed female archers on horseback from the lands the ancient Greeks called Scythia appeared throughout Greek and Roman legend. Mayor (Classics and History of Science/Stanford Univ.; The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy, 2009, etc.) tailors her scholarly work to lay readers, providing a fascinating exploration into the factual identity underpinning the fanciful legends surrounding these wondrous Amazons. Members of nomadic cultures who inhabited the arid steppes in the regions above the Black Sea, Caucasus Mountains and Caspian Sea—extending from Thrace to Mongolia—the Amazons were raised in an egalitarian, horse-centered society in which the girls became “battle-hardened warriors who prized independence and repelled all would-be conquerors.” Though they left no written record, the archaeological discoveries in grave sites reveal their violent lifestyles: Clad in trousers and other clothing similar to that worn by men, they were buried with their horses, battle gear and children. Many of them died from combat injuries, and their

REBEL SOULS Walt Whitman and America’s First Bohemians

Martin, Justin Da Capo/Perseus (352 pp.) $27.99 | Oct. 2, 2014 978-0-306-82226-1

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is only the best known of Martin’s (Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted, 2011, etc.) gallery of the 19th-century bohemians who haunted Pfaff ’s Saloon in New York City.

The leader of this boisterous set was Henry Clapp (18141875), an irreverent moral relativist who thrilled in playing off his coterie of writers and artists for the best put-downs and bons mots.

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THE DOG STAYS IN THE PICTURE Life Lessons from a Rescued Greyhound

corpses showed tattoos and bowed legs from horse riding. While there are known “Nart” sagas, such as a recent one translated from the Circassian language about a leader of nomadic women warriors, the best known stories are from the early Greeks—e.g., Homer and Herodotus, who first recorded the deeds of these “equals of men,” the allies of the Trojans led by Queen Penthesilea, who eventually battled Achilles and lost. Other famous Amazons included Queen Hippolyta, who was killed by Heracles to attain her Golden Girdle, thus setting off for the Athenians a terrible war with the Amazons.

Mayor clears away much of the man-hating myths around these redoubtable warriors.

Thanks to Mayor’s scholarship, these fearsome fighters are attaining their historical respectability.

Morse, Susan Open Road Integrated Media (219 pp.) $16.99 paper | Sep. 29, 2014 978-1-4976-4393-2

One woman’s story of facing domestic changes in midlife with the assistance of an anxious dog.

As Morse (The Habit, 2011) prepared for her daughter and sons to head off to college, she looked forward to having time to write, visit with friends and spend time with her actor husband, who often spent months at a time away on set—“Life after children was going to be magic.” Then the author fell in love with a rescue greyhound, a retired racing dog, and all her well-laid plans went out the window. With humor and earnestness, Morse describes the two-plus years it took her to adjust to having a needy dog in the house, a dog that followed her everywhere and was distrustful of her husband and two sons for much of that time. Using the dog, named Lilly, as a reference point, Morse meanders through her past and present, sharing anecdotes about when her children were little, moments with her husband prior to kids, her anxiety over flying and her interactions with her Orthodox Christian mother. She reflects on how her husband broke down after he dropped one son off at college, the elaborate genealogy search she conducted on her family’s ancestors, and her stress-filled days when she contracted Lyme disease. Lilly is the backdrop for all of these scenes and many more, and she even has her own voice at times, which might throw readers off a bit, but her viewpoint adds an interesting effect to the overall storyline. Lilly served as the anchor that unknowingly helped keep Morse on an even keel as she navigated and transitioned through the emotionally rocky waters of becoming an empty nester.

A low-key and authentic memoir.

VILLAGE OF SECRETS Defying the Nazis in Vichy France

Moorehead, Caroline Harper/HarperCollins (368 pp.) $27.99 | Oct. 14, 2014 978-0-06-220247-5

Moorehead (A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France, 2011) recounts the story of a small area in eastern France where opposition to the Nazis succeeded for years.

In and around the small village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in the mountains of Ardèche, the residents were led in their “remarkable adventure in imagination and cooperation” by one man in particular, Pastor Andre Trocmé. If not for the pastor, his family and his fellow citizens in the surrounding parishes, so many could never have been hidden and saved. They were descendants of the Huguenots whose history of modesty and silence enabled them to keep a secret and to keep to themselves.

As Trocmé delivered his fiery sermons, he also instigated the nonviolent resistance to the oppressors. The remarkable part of this story is how many people were involved in saving not only Jews or French, but anyone on the Nazi’s list of “terrorists.”

The pastors, the farmers who took in refugees, the forgers who created ration books and passports, and the passeurs who guided people through the mountains—all were aided by the mayor and the prefect, who looked the other way and even warned of danger. Even when 170 convalescing German soldiers were sent to the village, not a word was spread about their arrival. This is a wonderful story of the people of more than 20 communes who saved more refugees, proportionately, than anywhere else in France. Hundreds were hidden and saved, and many thousands passed through. It’s proof that the smallest gestures can often make the biggest difference. While celebrating the courage and sacrifice involved, the author also examines the often contentious dynamics behind the history and its legacy.

Moorehead’s knowledge of the people, the area and the history make this one of the most engrossing survival stories of World War II.

THE PROMISE OF PARTY IN A POLARIZED AGE

Muirhead, Russell Harvard Univ. (296 pp.) $35.00 | Aug. 4, 2014 978-0-674-04683-2

A professor who studies political parties makes the case for the value of partisanship in American politics.

While it’s true that “[t]here seems no escape from the vitriolic partisanship enveloping American politics,” Muirhead (Democracy and Politics/Dartmouth Coll.; Just Work, 2004) combats the negative connotations of partisanship in the United States. Although he treasures his friends who agree with him on vital issues decided by legislatures, presidents and judges, the author also values his |

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friends who disagree with him. Their thinking, he writes, provokes him to marshal his arguments and stimulate his mind to consider alternatives. To Muirhead, political disagreements should be resolved through dialogue and active discussion whenever practical. In this philosophical but clearly written book, the author examines how party loyalists can reach common ground, providing ample real-world examples of successful bipartisanship—Muirhead offers former Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming as models of positive partisanship. The author also explores the legislature of Nebraska, the only unicameral legislature in the U.S., which, though not an entirely compelling example, at least offers a glimpse of the possibility of nonpartisanship in this country. “Aside from Nebraska,” writes Muirhead, “most exceptions to the partisan rule consist of tiny island states with populations under 10,000.” While the author understands that the goal of “better partisanship” will not be easy to achieve—especially given the failed promise of Barack Obama to become a post-partisan president, as well as the equally failed promise of George W. Bush to become a uniter rather than a divider as president—he provides a jumping-off point for further discussion and experimentation.

A useful introduction to a new brand of electoral politics.

escaped her captors, she witnessed and was subjected to many horrors in her time at multiple camps. Though the sisters’ adventures aren’t exactly edge-of-the-seat suspense tales, they paint a realistic picture of life as a spy: lonely and filled with constant fear. Ottaway is a gifted storyteller, rarely losing momentum and skillfully weaving family strife, SOE bureaucratic problems and on-the-ground Resistance work into a cohesive narrative.

She draws attention to issues within the SOE administration but also goes to great lengths to show how their agents fought tirelessly for the cause. The author does not provide much background on the war, leaving some readers out of the loop on certain points, but even this snag won’t lessen enjoyment of the book.

A compelling story sure to please history buffs and novices alike. (10 b/w photos)

BY THE BOOK Writers on Literature and the Literary Life from the New York Times Book Review Paul, Pamela–Ed. Henry Holt (304 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 28, 2014 978-1-62779-145-8

A COOL AND LONELY COURAGE The Untold Story of Sister Spies in Occupied France

A hit-or-miss collection of Q-and-As, posed mostly to writers in the New York Times Book Review’s “By the Book” page.

Current Book Review editor Paul’s introduction is somewhat pretentious: “The idea was to simulate a conversation over books, but one that took place at a more exalted level than the average water cooler chat.” Well, Q-and-A sessions are hardly “conversations,” and some of the questions—e.g., “What are your reading habits? Paper or electronic? Do you take notes? Do you snack?”—aren’t even worthy of the snack machine, let alone the water cooler. Inevitably, there is a good amount of solipsism: When asked, “What was the last book that made you cry?”

Richard Ford replies, “My own book Canada.” Some answers are wacky. “What book is on your night stand now?” John Irving: “I don’t read in bed, ever. As for the main character in my novel In One Person, Billy Abbott is a bisexual man; Billy would prefer having sex with a man or a woman to reading in bed.” Some are stuck in a rut. “What book is on your night stand?” Sylvia Nasar: “Two biographies of Frances Trollope.” “Last truly great book you read?” “The Widow Barnaby, by Frances Trollope.”

“Book you wish you could write?” “I’d love to write biographies of Frances Trollope.” However, there are some choice tidbits, too. “Being a native German-speaker, Hayek strings together railroad sentences ending in train wreck verbs,” deadpans P.J. O’Rourke. Donna Tartt wants to have a dinner date with Albert Camus: “That trench coat! That cigarette! I think my French is good enough. We’d have a great time.” Still, for the most part, clinkers outweigh the gems. Lee Child and Arnold Schwarzenegger want Barack Obama to read Churchill; Colin Powell wrote for money; and Rachel Kushner avoids “books that seem to conservatively follow stale formulas.” There’s a tip to

Ottaway, Susan Little, Brown (336 pp.) $27.00 | $12.99 e-book $25.98 Audiobook Sep. 30, 2014 978-0-316-32698-8 978-0-316-32697-1 e-book 978-1-47898-122-0 Audiobook

Ottaway (The Wind Beneath My Wings: John Hutchinson Concorde Pilot, 2013, etc.) returns to the familiar territory of British agents in World War II France.

Born in England but raised mostly in France, Eileen and Jacqueline Nearne dedicated themselves to the Allied war effort after Germany’s invasion forced them from their family home.

With excellent language skills and knowledge of the country, first Jacqueline and then Eileen were trained by England’s Special Operations Executive to work with the Resistance in France. Jacqueline worked for more than a year as a courier before returning to England for rest and recuperation. Though she took new training courses in preparation for an expanded role in the Resistance, she was not sent back to France until the country was liberated. Shortly after Jacqueline’s departure, Eileen (referred to throughout the book by her nickname, Didi) was arrested. Though she managed to convince her interrogators that she wasn’t a spy, she was still imprisoned in Paris. Ten days before Allied troops reached the city, she was removed to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Though Didi eventually 66

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“Far less scandalous than ‘rock drummer writes book’ might suggest but far more interesting, too.” from far and near

SCANDALS OF CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD Sex, Deviance, and Drama from the Golden Age of American Cinema

remember. Other contributors include Jhumpa Lahiri, Curtis Sittenfeld, Jonathan Lethem and E.L. Doctorow, among many other luminaries.

Better scanned on the website.

Petersen, Anne Helen Plume (304 pp.) $16.00 paper | Sep. 30, 2014 978-0-14-218067-9

FAR AND NEAR On Days Like These

Peart, Neil ECW Press (312 pp.) $29.95 | Oct. 14, 2014 978-1-77041-257-6

The early days of Hollywood stars, gossip and damage control.

Blogger and first-time author Petersen (Film and Media Studies/Whitman Coll.) revisits several of Hollywood’s wellknown celebrity scandals and tells how the movie studios manufactured both stars’ images and the public’s desires. She opens with the obvious truism that a star’s “actions, behavior, or lifestyle choices are never de facto scandalous; rather, they become scandalous when they violate the status quo in some way”—which is true for everyone. The author follows with an examination of the old-school “studio system,” which created actors’ names and biographies, as well as a host of “management strategies” (i.e., coverups) for actors’ off-screen improprieties that entertainment publicists still use today to protect their investments—though the public at midcentury was far more gullible and easily manipulated. After this slow start, Petersen keenly analyzes the roles celebrities played—and still play—in our lives. She examines how the public allows “stars to take on our personal anxieties and shun[s] them when they fail to embody them in ways that please us.” Chapters serve as case studies exploring and supporting the book’s dual themes: that stars’ images are “pliable…to our whims, hopes and fears” (particularly about class, female desire and gender roles) and how actresses were often presented and celebrated for appealing to men’s sexual desires, then castigated for their brazen, unconventional behavior. In sections recounting the careers of stars who flamed out disastrously, including Dorothy Dandridge and Montgomery Clift, she incisively remarks on, especially, how Judy Garland’s life—her studio controlled not only her public persona, but her romantic relationships and even her physical size during her teen years—“suggested hope and despair in equal measures,” served up for the public’s consumption. Not merely a rehash of salacious old Hollywood gossip, Petersen revivifies flattened images of Hollywood icons, including Fatty Arbuckle, Mae West, Humphrey Bogart and Marlon Brando, among others.

Wide-ranging and surprisingly thoughtful.

Recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and Rush lyricist/drummer extraordinaire returns with another collection of essays about life on the road, the pleasures (and perils) of the journey and lessons learned along the way.

In continuing to chronicle his unique way of getting to “work”—that is, motorcycling between concert venues while his band mates, or the “Guys at Work,” travel by more conventional means—Peart (Far and Away: A Prize Every Time, 2011, etc.) serves up both a chronological and thematic sequel to his last collection. Originally published on the author’s website, these essays are very much intended for a core audience of Rush/Peart fans, though references to the band’s music and performances are less prevalent than might be assumed. Instead, the focus is on roads less traveled—primarily physically but also metaphorically—and the challenges and benefits of pursuing such paths, whether on a motorcycle or intellectually. As the author is fond of saying, “The best roads are the ones no one travels unless they live on them,” and he makes it his business to seek them out whether he’s traveling through the American Southwest, Canada or Eastern Europe. With the assistance of his riding companions/longtime friends/security detail, Michael and Brutus, Peart peppers the text with a series of photos that frequently show him riding off on his two-wheeled steed into parts un(der)explored. The author’s flair for mixing in local color, historical anecdotes and personal philosophy keeps pages turning even when the formulaic nature of the entries becomes repetitive. His sense of humor, by turns sophomoric and sophisticated, may induce occasional groans, but it’s a small price to pay to experience the sheer joy Peart takes in life and his passion for sharing it with others.

Far less scandalous than “rock drummer writes book” might suggest but far more interesting, too.

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ANOTHER MAN’S WAR The Story of a Burma Boy in Britain’s Forgotten Army

create a new image. Dynamic, vivacious, determined, peaceful and loving are just a few descriptors that could be applied to these women who have devoted their lives to God and to some of the most difficult causes in America. Sister Simone spent weeks at a time on a bus traveling across the country to protest the Republican budget that would have denied health care to the poor; Sister Megan, 82, broke into a high-security nuclear facility to protest nuclear weapons and warfare; Sister Jeannine risked the wrath of the Catholic Church to bring religious teachings to gay and lesbian Catholics. Other nuns work on saving women and children from the massive sex-trafficking market both in the U.S. and around the world. Another sister brings hope to women in prison, provides a home for their children until they’re released, and continues to support the ex-cons after prison by giving them a home, food, clothing and an education. Piazza questioned each woman’s motives and decision to become a nun, and many responded that they felt it as a deep calling at a young age and was the right thing to do, despite the challenges of being a nun in today’s world. The women use prayer, meditation, exercise and a good diet to help them fight the negativity and stress they encounter on a regular basis, even from the church they belong to and devote their lives to supporting. Reading these stories may not convert anyone, but they should challenge plenty of stereotypes.

Entertaining essays on the inspiring work various sisters are accomplishing in the world.

Phillips, Barnaby Oneworld Publications (320 pp.) $27.99 | Oct. 14, 2014 978-1-78074-522-0

One Nigerian soldier’s poignant history highlights the enormous and little-known contribution of West African troops in the British Army during World War II. The colliding forces of racism, colonialism and nationalism came to play in the extraordinary journey of Isaac Fadoyebo (1925-2012), from the Yoruba village of Emure-Ile. In 1942, the young man enlisted in the Royal West African Frontier Force; he served in a medical unit in the depths of the Burmese jungle and managed to survive the war after his unit was decimated

by Japanese attack in 1944. British author Phillips, a senior correspondent for Al Jazeera English, came across Fadoyebo’s obscure published account at London’s Imperial War Museum and recognized its significance as one of only a few from the point of view of the African participants. Why would a Nigerian youth enlist in the colonial army to fight a war that was anathema to himself and his enslaved people? With little desire to stay and work the family farm and not enough money for advanced schooling, Fadoyebo swallowed the recruiter’s propaganda pitch, which promised a rich return of British justice, pay and the prospect of a good job after the war. At the time, Nigeria was a “model” British protectorate, and the people were considered cheerful and dependable, with an “instinctive respect for position and authority.” As a medical orderly, Fadoyebo had to infiltrate the perilous Arakan mountain region to check the invading Japanese; he was gravely wounded in the leg after the attack and left for dead in the jungle. Thanks largely to the care of a kindly Muslim villager, Fadoyebo made it through, returning to his village a rare and triumphant survivor to face the next step in gaining his country’s independence from Britain.

A remarkable story about a war during which thousands followed Fadoyebo’s example and fought valiantly for, and with little recognition from, the British Empire.

THE PRICE OF THIRST Global Water Inequality and the Coming Chaos

Piper, Karen Univ. of Minnesota (296 pp.) $26.95 | Sep. 15, 2014 978-0-8166-9542-3

Piper (English and Geography/Univ. of Missouri; Left in the Dust: How Race and Politics Created a Human and Environmental Tragedy in L.A., 2006, etc.) introduces us to a brave new world in which drought is a prime business opportunity.

The gradual diminishment of clean fresh water is not latebreaking news, but the scarfing up of what remains by private concerns is fast approaching a maybe-too-late moment, writes the author in this piece of tack-sharp reportage. Piper outlines a scenario in which “a small number of multinational corporations are banking on the fact that the world is entering a global water crisis….And now they are mining our water, quietly gaining control over our water supplies, with the help of national governments and institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.” Lest readers feel that the author is being hyperbolic, she provides firsthand evidence and plenty of footnotes to back up even the most minor act of water pilfering. Piper diligently charts the gathering of fresh water into fewer and fewer hands, providing such examples as massive drought in California, the damming and diverting of the Ganges River in India, the corruptions and snafus of post-Mubarak

IF NUNS RULED THE WORLD Ten Sisters on a Mission

Piazza, Jo Open Road Integrated Media (192 pp.) $12.99 paper | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-4976-0190-1 978-1-4532-8764-4 e-book

How a group of sisters is making changes in the world.

If the word nun brings to mind an elderly woman in a black habit, Wall Street Journal contributor Piazza’s (Love Rehab: A Novel in Twelve Steps, 2013, etc.) essays on the ten sisters she interviewed will definitely 68

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“A hard-hitting study that will surely resonate with ongoing attempts to regenerate the GOP.” from to make men free

TO MAKE MEN FREE A History of the Republican Party

Egypt and post-Apartheid South Africa, the draining of fossil water and the overextraction of other once-replenishable water sources, and the classic arm-twisting of the IMF, which withheld American relief money to South Africa unless they kept wages stagnant, removed trade barriers and cut government services. The author also offers a handful of immediate actions that can be taken (including recognition and revival of indigenous water-knowledge systems) and ends on a somewhat positive note: “public pushback against water privatization has worked and companies are now in retreat”—but this story has many chapters to go.

Piper’s report makes for anxious yet informative reading.

Richardson, Heather Cox Basic (416 pp.) $29.99 | Sep. 23, 2014 978-0-465-02431-5

A new history of the Republican Party as a relentless pull by big-business interests has cast it farther and farther from its noble founding principles.

How did the party of Abraham Lincoln—dedicated to checking the spread of Southern “Slave Power” in the West and to expanding the vision of freedom and opportunity among the larger pool of poor and newly emancipated—become the party of the rich and entitled? Richardson (History/Boston Coll.; Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre, 2010, etc.) makes a bold, pertinent argument that the Republican Party has always been beset by contradictions within its core as a result of the founding tension between the belief in equality of opportunity and the protection of property. She focuses on three presidents who have been true to the original Republican cause—Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower—and three periods following progressive legislation eras that saw a reactionary swerve back to pro-business policies and a resulting economic crash: 1893, 1929 and 2008. The party emerged in reaction to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, threatening to spread slave power into what Northerners hoped would be a West open to “poor but hardworking, ambitious young men.” Harkening back to Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, the Republican Party embraced “the first principles of republican government” and broke with “schemes of aristocracy,” namely the concentration of wealth among the upper few. Lincoln’s assassination, followed by Andrew Johnson’s undercutting of Reconstruction, saw the beginning of the reactionary turn back to obstructionism and narrow business interests. Richardson systematically delineates how the “trickle down” economic approach never worked, yet was continually pushed by rogue elements of the party.

A hard-hitting study that will surely resonate with ongoing attempts to regenerate the GOP.

LEAVING THE PINK HOUSE

Randolph, Ladette Univ. of Iowa (216 pp.) $18.00 paper | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-60938-274-2

How the author, in making a new home, renewed her faith in family, friends and love.

On Sept. 12, 2001, Ploughshares editor in chief Randolph (Writing, Literature, and Publishing/Emerson Coll.; A Sandhills Ballad, 2009, etc.) and her husband made an offer on a house so derelict that it needed to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Although making any life-altering decisions seemed both risky and frivolous, Randolph felt that living in the country might afford them some safety: They would have a well, enough land to grow food and room to shelter their families. “These strange survivalist thoughts surprised me,” she writes, “but in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center, thinking logically was perhaps not anyone’s first concern.” Randolph had not wanted to sell the family’s house in Lincoln, Nebraska, that she and her husband had lovingly restored—and painted pink. But his longing to live in the country finally persuaded her. In this gently told narrative, the author weaves together a month-by-month diary of their arduous renovations with a memoir of the many houses in which she grew up on the Nebraska plains, a brief first marriage that ended tragically and her difficult second marriage.

She painfully extricated herself from that relationship, fighting for custody of her children, and liberated herself, also, from her family’s fundamentalist religion. “Despite feeling less burdened now that I’ve laid my faith aside,” she admits, “I’ll confess I feel life is less magical, less intensely personal, too. While I had faith, I felt I was the center of a meaningful drama, part of the vital fight over my soul.” Rebuilding her house, though, grounded her in unexpected ways: Fearful of change, she discovered that “stability is a state of mind as much as it is a state of being.” Rather than regret her loss of religion, she rediscovered her belief “in its most important tenets: love, forgiveness, mercy.”

A tender memoir notable for its modest voice and delicate prose.

ANGRY OPTIMIST The Life and Times of Jon Stewart Rogak, Lisa Dunne/St. Martin’s (288 pp.) $25.99 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-250-01444-3

A prolific biographer (Stephen King and Colbert are among her subjects) returns with a good-news/bad-news account of the career of the host of the Daily Show. |

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Rogak’s endnotes (One Big Happy Family: Heartwarming Stories of Animals Caring for One Another, 2013, etc.) indicate that virtually all of her many quotations come from previously published sources (she does mention a few phone interviews, though not with Stewart himself), so there’s kind of a highly competent term-paper feel throughout her breezy narrative.

She begins by calling Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz in 1962) “a bundle of walking contradictions”—the principal one being the contrast between his very popular public self and his intensely private life. Those who know Stewart only in his current capacity will be surprised to learn about his chops as a high school trumpet player and his talent in soccer (he played for the College of William and Mary). Readers won’t be surprised to learn that he was a joker throughout his life; he was named the senior with the best sense of humor in his high school. Rogak follows his early struggles to become a professional comedian (his first appearance was less than auspicious) and his steady rise through the ranks of his competition (which included Ray Romano, Chris Rock and Louis C.K.), his early experiences on TV, his near misses for prestigious jobs, his arrival in 1999 at the Daily Show and its ensuing steady success. In the early chapters, the author is highly flattering; later, she quotes some tough things about Stewart from former employees who talk about the harsh work environment, Stewart’s temper and his failures to include many women on the staff. She also rehashes his media battles with Crossfire and Mad Money and mentions those who have left his show to succeed elsewhere (Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert). Rogak unearths just a bit about his personal life—a quiet, happy marriage and fatherhood.

In the forest of quotations, Stewart still often eludes his pursuer.

can take. It is the ultimate trial-and-error experience.” Along the way, Ryan levies praise on giants like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, weighs in on the Michael Jordan versus LeBron James debate, and shares his memories of provocative coaches like Red Auerbach, Bob Knight and Chuck Daly. The author provides a solid mix of candid, respectful and honest assessments, with much of his trademark humor added in. Despite being known for his basketball lore, Ryan is also something of a multi-instrumentalist, offering thoughtful reflections on football, baseball, Olympic hockey and even the Great American Songbook. “I love sports and I want people to know it,” he writes. “I’d like to think the word people most associate with me is ‘enthusiasm.’ Give me a good game and I’ll be happy; as a fan I may regret the outcome, but as a journalist, I’ll appreciate the drama.”

A terrific memoir with lessons for young journalists, sports fans and anyone who shares the love of the games.

(This review first appeared in the BEA/ALA issue.)

CARBON SHOCK A Tale of Risk and Calculus on the Front Lines of a Disrupted Global Economy Schapiro, Mark Chelsea Green (240 pp.) $26.00 | Sep. 15, 2014 978-1-60358-557-6

Environmental journalist Schapiro (Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power, 2007) investigates the costs of our greenhouse-gas binge from new economic angles and new axes of geopolitical power.

“We can no longer rely on past events to predict future probabilities,” writes the author. “The ground is shifting beneath our feet.” Schapiro explores the many costs of climate change: heat waves, lower rainfall in dry areas, torrential rain in wet areas, floods, refugees, public health impacts as diseases once limited to the tropics move north and south. “Follow all those many circuits of production, follow the trails of greenhouse gasses rising into the atmosphere, and you will ultimately land upon each of us,” he writes, “making our choices about what we consume and from where.” This is not breaking new ground, but Schapiro is particularly sharp in pointing to the elephant in the room, and not just because it is producing a great deal of methane. The costs of climate change are borne by the commons in the form of such practices as federally guaranteed insurance coverage, but most egregiously, the “emitters of greenhouses gases get a free ride [in the U.S.]....This is known as asymmetric risk, a fine term of the financial arts that means that the public bears the risks while fossil fuels users earn the profits.” Schapiro covers a good number of projects to cut down on emissions (such as buying forests to sequester carbon dioxide, then selling that use to polluters), though we will all have to pay for pulling in the greenhouse reins, especially through the use of taxes as punitive disincentives to fossil fuel abuse and as a way to fund research into alternative energy sources.

SCRIBE My Journey as a Sportswriter

Ryan, Bob Bloomsbury (288 pp.) $27.00 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-1-62040-506-2

The classic American sportswriter reflects on a half-century of covering the games we play.

Boston Globe mainstay Ryan (The Best of Sport: Classic Writing from the Golden Era of Sports, 2005, etc.) is one of this country’s finest writers, period, fashioning wit, drama and sincerity into a wealth of stories about all kinds of sports until he went into semiretirement in 2012. Here, he recounts the arc of his career, shares advice from the golden age of old-school journalism and pens terrific anecdotes about some of basketball’s larger-than-life figures. He admits readily that his career was something of an accident, from his first internship at the Globe to inheriting the sports desk at the age of 23. “I was confident I could write a decent basketball story,” he writes. “But covering a team is something entirely different than writing about a sport. There is no manual. I’ve never discovered a course anyone 70

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“Daring, the author amply shows in this spirited life story, defines her.” from daring

DARING My Passages: A Memoir

In this finely tuned study, Schapiro has some good news: Even the most fitful international negotiations admit that greenhouse gases come with a cost that must be paid.

Sheehy, Gail Morrow/HarperCollins (496 pp.) $29.99 | $24.99 Audiobook | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-06-229169-1 978-0-06-229171-4 e-book 978-0-06-234406-9 Lg. Prt. 978-0-06-230920-4 Audiobook

ELSA SCHIAPARELLI A Biography Secrest, Meryle Knopf (400 pp.) $35.00 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-0-307-70159-6

A journalist recounts her risks, fears and triumphs.

Author of 16 books, Vanity Fair contributing editor Sheehy (Passages in Caregiving, 2010, etc.) has made a career out of examining life stages. Passages (1976) stayed on the New York Times’ best-seller list for three years, followed by Silent Passage (1993), New Passages (1995) and Understanding Men’s Passages (1999).

Passages in Caregiving was motivated by the last illness of her husband, publisher Clay Felker; now, she reflects on her own transitions in a brisk, gossipy narrative complete with handsome hero (Felker), villain (Rupert Murdoch), nail-biting adventures (Bloody Sunday, for one), scores of celebrities (including interview subjects Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Bobby Kennedy and Anwar Sadat) and famous friends (Gloria Steinem, Tom Wolfe and David Frost). Like Wolfe, Sheehy is a practitioner of New Journalism. “We treated the protagonists of nonfiction stories like characters in a novel,” writes Sheehy. “What was their motivation?...What was it like living inside their reality?”

The author reprises her own reality in three parts: the Pygmalion Years, when she was a young, ambitious journalist trying to establish her reputation and overcome editors’ prejudices about women writers, whom they commonly assigned to stories about food and style; the Passages Years, when she was a star writer for, among many other venues, Felker’s New York magazine, Helen Gurley Brown’s Cosmopolitan and Tina Brown’s Vanity Fair; and the Bonus Years, focused on Felker’s cancer and Sheehy’s gradual recovery from alcohol abuse and depression following his death. After Passages, Sheehy felt she had to “justify” that success with “an academic-level study.” The result was Pathfinders (1981), about people who risked “choosing the less-traveled path.” Raising a daughter on her own, adopting a Cambodian girl after visiting a refugee camp and helping to found the Women’s Refugee Commission to advocate for survivors of genocide are among many reasons—aside from her career choices—why Sheehy, too, is one of those audacious pathfinders.

Daring, the author amply shows in this spirited life story, defines her.

The life of a flamboyant couturière.

Italian-born designer Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) was a fashion star in Paris from 1927 until she closed her atelier in 1954. Known for clothes with “a daredevil swagger,” she favored bold colors, thickly padded shoulders and surrealist motifs, many inspired by Salvador Dali: a hat shaped like a shoe; a diaphanous evening dress screen printed with a gigantic lobster; a jacket whose pockets featured glistening red lips. Her contributions to mainstream fashion included the jacket dress, the wrap dress and visible zippers.

Schiap, as she was known, was an egocentric exhibitionist who became a dress designer “by accident; it seemed an easy way to earn money.” And earn money she did, with businesses in Paris, London and New York that included perfumes, jewelry, and extensive clothing and accessory manufacturers. According to her daughter, she was a “mad socializer. Mummy got dressed up every night for her umpteen dinner parties, leaving me with a nanny.” Schiap needed to be always on the move, to be seen at every party and theater opening and to travel extensively. Surrounded by the rich and famous, she seemed, nevertheless, to crave affection. A friend described her as “a bit of a bulldog, setting up barriers so one did not dare approach her.” Prolific biographer Secrest (Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject, 2007, etc.) faced the barrier of finding few primary sources: virtually no letters, no diary and a memoir written in the third person that Secrest calls “an example of an evasiveness that was almost automatic, pages of superfluous description of minor events and irrelevant anecdotes” in which Schiap made only “cryptic references” to her marriage and daughter. A granddaughter refused to cooperate with the author, as well, and her friends were dead.

Secrest ably chronicles Schiap’s career and social life, mining others’ memoirs and reflections to fashion a colorful portrait of her “famously difficult” subject—but Schiap keeps the secrets of her heart.

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SOLDIER OF CHANGE From the Closet to the Forefront of the Gay Rights Movement

YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyoncé Stanley, Bob Norton (640 pp.) $29.95 | Jul. 14, 2014 978-0-393-24269-0

Snyder-Hill, Stephen Potomac Books (192 pp.) $22.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-61234-697-7

Exhaustive, exhausting history of pop music.

Like so many popular histories that aim for comprehensiveness, this plodding assemblage staggers under its own weight. Even though he claims that “this book is not meant to be an encyclopedia,” in trying to tell the story of pop, music journalist, DJ and Saint Etienne founding keyboard player Stanley gets so swamped in name-checking every band and song title that he loses the plot and characters. Instead of focusing at some intelligent length on key figures, genres, trends or shifts in tastes, he is more concerned with touching on everything than doing justice to anything. He’s all about connecting the dots, usually patching them together with well-worn anecdotes or conventional wisdom.

The book’s real juice is in Stanley’s scattered opinions, which range from the unusual to the obnoxious. His Brit-skewed viewpoint offers less-than-reverential takes on the Clash and Elvis Costello and stirring defenses of The Monkees, Sex Pistols and Abba, and he delivers a cogent and interesting history of the Bee Gees. Among his many questionable judgments: that “New Morning” (1970) is possibly Bob Dylan’s best album or that Bob Marley’s music was as “musically simplified as the Bay City Rollers.” Stanley, however, does score the occasional apt phrase: Joy Division was “modern pop viewed through night vision goggles—grimy and murky.” Abba’s hits “sound like a music box carved from ice.” The author also writes of the Smiths’ “bedsit bookishness” and Belle and Sebastian’s “librarian chic,” and he correctly notes that “indie” has now “stretched out to become a meaningless catchall term.” Unfortunately, all these scattered perceptions fly by in a hazy, numbing blur as Stanley hits the pedal on this breakneck trip through the past 60 years, and his tone becomes increasingly grating.

Like the print version of an endless, time-filling BBC series—even the most interested readers will likely do a lot of fast-forwarding.

A memoir from the U.S. Army soldier booed at the Republican presidential primary debate of 2011 for asking about upholding the rights of gay and

lesbian soldiers.

Snyder-Hill (formerly Steve Hill) is a gay man who was deployed twice to Iraq: first, as a 20-year-old member of the active Army in 1991, when the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was in full swing; and 20 years later, as a reservist when DADT was just getting repealed. In his relentlessly forthright memoir, the Ohio native sifts through the long, emotionally arduous journey to that moment in 2011 when he allowed his identity to be used publicly in his question to Rick Santorum, knowing the “fallout” that surely would follow among his Army peers and superiors and even risking his benefits and retirement. Ultimately, however, the author decided that he could not continue to lie about such a significant part of his identity. He writes poignantly of that “darkness” inside him that he did not understand while growing up in his small Ohio town. Not able to connect romantically with girls—though he knew that his parents expected it of him—Snyder-Hill was severely closeted throughout his teens, often undergoing torments of self-loathing without understanding why. At the end of his first deployment in Iraq, nearly hit by friendly fire, he swore to himself that if he lived, he would start living life for himself.

At Ohio State University, he gradually came out to friends and family. Redeployment as a reservist meant having to hide again, especially the fact of his love and marriage to partner Josh Snyder. The author effectively underscores the damage and suspicions that DADT caused and reveals the heartening and often surprisingly support he received from all directions.

How one man’s resolve gave courage to others and how he turned his public outing into an important surge of activism.

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“An electrifying, empathetic work of journalism that makes a four-year-old story feel fresh.” from deep down dark

WHAT STAYS IN VEGAS The World of Personal Data—Lifeblood of Big Business—and the End of Privacy As We Know It

DEEP DOWN DARK The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle that Set Them Free

Tanner, Adam PublicAffairs (336 pp.) $27.99 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-61039-418-5

Tobar, Héctor Farrar, Straus and Giroux (320 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-0-374-28060-4

Since the 1990s, the avalanche of personal information we voluntarily reveal and which computers easily harvest has endlessly intrigued observers, the latest being Tanner, a fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. The author delivers the obligatory announcement that “big data” means the death of privacy, but not before backing it with plenty of entertaining evidence.

Tanner illustrates his arguments with a traditional, vivid example from the business and entertainment world: Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Gamblers happily sign up for Caesars’ loyalty programs, which track their play (these days, nobody puts an actual coin into a slot machine) and deliver a steady stream of discounts, complimentary meals and rooms, and even free chips, all carefully targeted to encourage return visits. Tanner weaves this example into a gripping account of the modern direct-marketing industry, formerly reliant on the phone book to deluge us with junk mail. Although less lionized than the founders of Facebook, Google or Twitter, countless other entrepreneurial computer nerds have founded scores of enterprises devoted to assembling, packaging and reselling data from government, school, police, hospital, insurance and commercial records. Businesses are addicted, mostly due to the fact that only a minority of consumers objects to giving up any possibility of remaining anonymous. Merely knowing a zip code, gender and birthdate provides enough information to identify nearly 90 percent of the population. Tanner emphasizes that no one expected privacy until mass urbanization began 200 hundred years ago; in fact, the Constitution doesn’t even directly address it. The author also warns against the vast possibilities for abuse and provides a chapter on countering it.

In this fascinating look at the dazzling if suffocating domain of digital information gathering, Tanner concludes that it is returning us to a world of farms and villages, where intimate details of everyone’s lives were public knowledge.

The mind-boggling story of 33 Chilean miners trapped 2,000 feet under-

ground for 10 weeks.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and novelist Tobar (The Barbarian Nurseries, 2011, etc.) spins a gripping narrative, taut to the point of explosion, of the 2010 story that made international headlines for weeks. He doesn’t rush a complex story with many strands: the men below and their cacophony of woes, the families above, the political maneuvering of the Chilean state, the tightfisted mine owners and the company of rescuers. The locale featured “harsh, waterless surroundings [that] serve as a laboratory for studying the possibility of life on other planets,” and the mine itself was a sweltering jackstraw of tunnels, some nearing 100 years in age and ripe for disaster, the rock groaning and hissing as the great tectonic plates collided deep below. Tobar’s depiction of the cave-in is cinematic: The ceiling and floor became “undulating waves of stone,” then the lights went out as colossal wedges of rock collapsed to seal the exits. The author fully invests readers in the men’s plight by portraying the crushing realization of the dire circumstances, individual acts of decency and pettiness, and moments of sublimity and madness. He also devotes sympathetic attention to the gathering tent city of relatives who refused to leave, certainly not until the bodies were recovered. When the first bore hole punched through, suddenly, “the devil is present in the mine, taking form in all the greed, the misunderstanding, the envy, and the betrayals between the men.” Ultimately, once the miners made it out alive, via a frightening escape vehicle, life was good—until all the other stuff that surfaced along with the miners began to bring many of them down.

An electrifying, empathetic work of journalism that makes a four-year-old story feel fresh. (This review first appeared in the BEA/ALA issue.)

FATHER AND SON A Lifetime

Torrente, Marcos Giralt Translated by Wimmer, Natasha Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (176 pp.) $23.00 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-374-27771-0

A provocative memoir about coming to terms with not only the life and death of the author’s father, but also with writing about it as honestly as possible. |

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A prizewinning novelist in his native Spain, Torrente (The End of Love, 2013, etc.) has drawn from his own life in his fiction, and he admits that he used his writing as a “weapon” against the father who left his mother for another woman and whose contact with his son was infrequent for decades. “Triangulation, concealment, exaggeration, cross-contamination….The fact is that I used my father,” he writes. “The substance of the book grew out of our deepest misunderstandings.” However, he continues, “[f]iction, even when it’s inspired by reality, obeys its own rules. It alters reality by pursuing different ends than those of fidelity to the truth.” This, then, is a book about discovery, of new rules, of a different, more authentic voice than the one in the fiction. It’s also a book about how the relationship between father and son came full circle, with the former’s failing health and the latter assuming the role of primary caretaker. And it’s a book about the creative process—the father was a painter who experienced shifts in critical reception as his son’s career was on the rise—about blood ties and competition, and inevitably about the contemplation of one’s own mortality. “The dead leave sadness and not a few questions behind them,” writes Torrente. “They oblige us to contemplate our own death, and, at the same time, the futility of life, but in the face of the inarguable reality that everything comes to an end, that there’s no redemption, that what wasn’t done can no longer be done, our understanding fails us.” Unsentimental and unflinching, the book is also about a son’s love for his father and about the time lost to tension and estrangement that he wishes he had back.

A short memoir that moves readers on multiple levels.

wild terrain “where profound questions are given a violent and inexorable response,” a realm bereft of reason where generation after generation of soldiers have marched to oblivion or lasting anguish. Why did a man of such sensitivity and clarity of perception feel compelled to fight in Iraq, even when he knew it made no sense? Turner doesn’t know, and he dismisses each of the motivations as delusions. But, marinated in the martial ethic of his father, the author joined the infantry, prepared to be low, cold and reptilian and to live with fear.

It was poetry that offered succor, yet Turner, in this arresting memoir, still cannot quite answer his overriding question: How does anyone leave behind a war, its deep reservoirs of trauma and ruined worlds, and somehow waltz into the rest of his life?

JOHN MARSHALL The Chief Justice Who Saved the Nation Unger, Harlow Giles Da Capo/Perseus (368 pp.) $27.99 | Oct. 1, 2014 978-0-306-82220-9

A cradle-to-grave biography of the U.S. Supreme Court’s longest-serving chief justice.

Independent scholar Unger (John Quincy Adams, 2012, etc.) treats the influential John Marshall (17551835) as a hero. He was a distinguished officer and an effective state leader in Virginia before studying law and being appointed to the Supreme Court at the beginning of the 19th century. Marshall would serve as chief justice for 35 years (a record tenure), establish the legitimacy of the Supreme Court and write decisions that solidified the primacy of the federal government over often resentful state governments. During Marshall’s tenure on the court, the justices handed down nearly 1,200 rulings; Marshall served as the lead writer for more than 500 of those. His opinion in Marbury v. Madison (1803) set a precedent, never enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, that the Supreme Court possessed the power to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional.

Since the court employed no police force, concern arose that its unpopular rulings would be ignored or would at least be unenforceable. Through his authoritative demeanor and easy way with his colleagues and others, Marshall exuded credibility, which in turn encouraged U.S. presidents to send federal troops if needed to enforce rulings. Unger chooses to present all aspects of Marshall’s life, including his military heroism and his extraordinary devotion to a chronically ill wife and their children. As a result, Marshall’s Supreme Court appointment does not occur until halfway through the biography. Though the narrative sometimes veers toward hagiography, it is well-researched, and the author is skilled at portraying the characters and viewpoints of Marshall’s political friends and foes. Thomas Jefferson comes across as a stubborn, politically motivated and sometimes hypocritical man, and Unger employs the Marshall-Jefferson enmity effectively, adding tension to the narrative.

MY LIFE AS A FOREIGN COUNTRY A Memoir Turner, Brian Norton (240 pp.) $23.95 | Sep. 15, 2014 978-0-393-24501-1

In his surpassingly sad and disquieting memoir, poet Turner (Phantom Noise, 2010, etc.) has rendered an unusual anomaly: cogent delirium.

Some have said a poet should join astronauts in space so we could know what it’s really like. In Turner, we have sent a poet to war, and we are much closer to knowing its kaleidoscopic face; as profound sympathy washes over the reader, so does the war’s horror. Alternately stark and surreal, Turner’s chronicle is a textured confluence of the ages, connected by classic verse, history and arresting metaphor. He surveys a landscape of ghosts from all of humanity’s wars, wraiths who walk the streets and battlefields and rise like mist from the rivers. Throughout, he is haunted by moral ambiguities. On the ground, or in dreams hovering above the fray, Turner has the acuity to see through others’ eyes: a bomb maker, quietly assembling “Death’s cold and metallic invitation”; an Iraqi doctor surveying the carnage; a child kissing her father’s cheek; a Turkish cook, dying.

The author locates the intoxication and pathology of war in a 74

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BLACK PROPHETIC FIRE

A vigorous account of an influential American life. (25 pages of b/w photos)

West, Cornel with Buschendorf, Christa Beacon (248 pp.) $26.95 | $26.95 e-book | Oct. 7, 2014 978-0-8070-0352-7 978-0-8070-0353-4 e-book

THE NEWS SORORITY Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric, Christiane Amanpour—and the (Ongoing, Imperfect, Complicated) Triumph of Women in TV News

Keeping the social conscience burning through six different models of African-American leadership.

Spurred by the election of the first black president and the subsequent eruption of the Occupy Wall Street movement, accomplished, outspoken African-American scholar West (Pro+Agonist: The Art of Opposition, 2012, etc.) and fellow academic Buschendorf held several conversations between the summer of 2009 and January 2013 about the ongoing relevance of historic black figures. Moving from Frederick Douglass back to Ida B. Wells, the authors treat the towering and often uneven legacy of leaders who spoke out against injustice and even, like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, died for their beliefs. West has long advocated for the importance of the “organic intellectual,” one not afraid to come down from the ivory tower and mess with “grass-roots folk,” and he admires in these six figures their relentless truth-speaking and ability to inspire others to action. Indeed, Malcolm X’s parrhesia, or “fearless speech,” in expressing black rage is West’s ideal. Similarly, he admires a critic such as Wells, born a slave, who exposed in her investigative newspaper reporting the lynching going on in the South in the 1880s when others wouldn’t touch the subject; or the galvanizing grass-roots leadership of Ella Baker, who resisted the charismatic style of King in favor of hands-on mobilizing and teaching and thus was a catalytic model for the Occupy movement.

West bemoans the “deodoriz[ing]” of these radical figures—e.g., shying away from W.E.B. Du Bois’ communist sympathies and the turn toward complicity with the white mainstream. The concluding section, “Last Words on the Black Prophetic Tradition in the Age of Obama,” however, is lacking, as West aims his vitriol against the “cowardly capitulation of Black leadership to Obama’s neoliberal policies,” without a chance for vigorous rebuttal.

Lively, heated, fighting words—self-serious but never dull.

Weller, Sheila Penguin Press (496 pp.) $29.95 | Sep. 30, 2014 978-1-59420-427-2

The long, lonely, unlovely scramble to making it to the top in TV news.

As she did in her fluid multitiered biography Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon—and the Journey of Generation (2008), Vanity Fair contributor Weller takes apart feminist icons of her generation—those who came of age in the 1960s and ’70s—to see how they work and how they made it to prime time. Here, concentrating on the three women of corporate TV news who are still at their peaks—Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric and Christiane Amanpour (the author ignores Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill)—Weller finds in their examples bracing tales of tenacity against a bastion of sexism during a time when established newscasters like Harry Reasoner believed women simply did not belong on the air.

The passage of Title IX in June 1972 compelled the networks to hire a certain percentage of women or face discrimination lawsuits, and hence Leslie Stahl and Connie Chung got their starts, paving the way for others. At NBC’s Today Show, Couric would benefit from the battle-scarred promotions of predecessors Barbara Walters and Jane Pauley. Sawyer, curiously, languished for four years after Watergate aiding the disgraced President Richard Nixon in writing his autobiography; thus, the brainy, “mysterious,” hardworking reporter had to overcome a stigma when she first came aboard CBS News in 1978.

Amanpour, born in London to an Iranian family, became a tireless, well-respected crusading international correspondent for CNN; she was especially instrumental in bringing the Bosnian catastrophe to American attention. Amanpour also had to overcome bias toward women in the field, as well as with regard to her English accent. Weller is most admiring of Amanpour’s gutsiness, rather hardest on “America’s sweetheart” Couric, and clearly smitten with Sawyer.

Inspiring bios of today’s professional heroines.

THE GETAWAY CAR A Donald Westlake Nonfiction Miscellany

Westlake, Donald E. Univ. of Chicago (256 pp.) $18.00 paper | Sep. 24, 2014 978-0-226-12181-9

Assorted selections from a beloved crime writer.

Westlake (1933-2008), who wrote under his own name and a handful of pseudonyms, was an award-winning writer of crime, mystery and detective novels; short stories; screenplays; and one children’s book. University |

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of Chicago Press promotions director Stahl thinks this collection of Westlake’s nonfiction will please his fans; it’s likely these sharp, disarmingly funny pieces will also create new ones. The editor includes a wide range of writing: interviews, letters, introductions to Westlake’s and others’ work, and even recipes. “May’s Famous Tuna Casserole” appeared in the cookbook A Taste of Murder. May is the “faithful companion” of Westlake’s famous protagonist John Dortmunder, “whose joys are few and travails many.” Another of his culinary joys, apparently, was sautéed sloth. One of the best essays is “Living With a Mystery Writer,” by Westlake’s wife, Abby Adams: “Living with one man is difficult enough; living with a group can be nerve-wracking. I have lived with the consortium which calls itself Donald Westlake for five years now, and I still can’t always be sure, when I get up in the morning, which of the mob I’ll have my coffee with.” Will it be the gloomy Tucker Coe, the professional hack Timothy Culver, the morose, exacting Richard Stark, the author of Westlake’s 24 Parker novels, or Westlake himself: modest, unpretentious and fun-loving. In “The Hard-Boiled Dicks,” Westlake considers the evolution and popularity of the detective story, the most appropriate term, he said, for the genre that included mysteries, suspense, crime and police procedurals. Crime, he thought, was essential to a storyteller: With society, the individual and a crime, “you have all the multiple possibilities of drama, plus all the multiple possibilities of free will; that is, life.”

Westlake kept a list of possible book titles, the last of which was Read Me. It would have been just the right one for this bright, witty book.

they are complementary. Wilson’s last word is that if the analytic power of the one can be joined with the creative power of the other, “human existence will rise to an infinitely more productive and interesting meaning.” Perhaps the human species will even take up the cause of biodiversity, on which its very existence depends. For readers wondering where religion fits into this, the author notes that throughout prehistory and most of history, people required religion to explain natural phenomena and provide cohesion to the tribe. Conceding that there is strong evidence from neuroscience that a religious instinct does exist, Wilson asserts that the instinctual force of tribalism is far stronger.

A little book with a big message, bound to produce discussion among scientists and discomfort in devout churchgoers.

WHAT I KNOW FOR SURE

Winfrey, Oprah Flatiron View Books (240 pp.) $24.99 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-250-05405-0

A compilation of advice from the Queen of All Media.

After writing a column for 14 years titled “What I Know For Sure” for O, The Oprah Winfrey Magazine, Winfrey brings together the highlights into one giftready collection. Grouped into themes like Joy, Resilience, Connection, Gratitude, Possibility, Awe, Clarity and Power, each short essay is the distilled thought of a woman who has taken the time to contemplate her life’s journey thus far. Whether she is discussing traveling across the country with her good friend, Gayle, the life she shares with her dogs or building a fire in the fireplace, Winfrey takes each moment and finds the good in it, takes pride in having lived it and embraces the message she’s received from that particular time. Through her actions and her words, she shows readers how she’s turned potentially negative moments into life-enhancing experiences, how she’s found bliss in simple pleasures like a perfectly ripe peach, and how she’s overcome social anxiety to become part of a bigger community. She discusses the yo-yo dieting, exercise and calorie counting she endured for almost two decades as she tried to modify her physical body into something it was not meant to be, and how one day she decided she needed to be grateful for each and every body part: “This is the body you’ve been given—love what you’ve got.” Since all of the sections are brief and many of the essays are only a couple paragraphs long—and many members of the target audience will have already read them in the magazine—they are best digested in short segments in order to absorb Winfrey’s positive and joyful but repetitive message.

The book also features a new introduction by the author.

Honest messages from one of America’s best known women.

THE MEANING OF HUMAN EXISTENCE

Wilson, Edward O. Liveright/Norton (192 pp.) $23.95 | Oct. 6, 2014 978-0-87140-100-7

An exploration of what it means to be human by the noted sociobiologist and naturalist, twice the winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

According to Wilson (A Window on Eternity: Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, 2014, etc.), our species was created not by a supernatural intelligence but by chance and necessity out of millions of species in Earth’s biosphere. No destiny or purpose is assigned to us, and no afterlife awaits us. The meaning of human existence, writes the author, lies in “the epic of the species, begun in biological evolution and prehistory, passed into recorded history, and urgently now, day by day, faster and faster into the indefinite future.” Social intelligence, enhanced by natural selection for social action, made us what we are today. Our most vital possession is not science but the humanities. The humanities, writes Wilson, describe the human condition and address in detail all the ways that human beings relate to one another and to the environment. Science takes a larger view: the general principles of the human condition and why the species exists and where it fits in the universe.

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“A unique moment in history superbly captured.

Yet another triumph for Wright.” from thirteen days in september

THE AMERICAN VICE PRESIDENCY From Irrelevance to Power

THIRTEEN DAYS IN SEPTEMBER Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David

Witcover, Jules Smithsonian Books (576 pp.) $34.95 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-1-58834-471-7

Wright, Lawrence Knopf (368 pp.) $27.95 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-0-385-35203-1

A veteran journalist who has published copiously about the vice presidency offers an exhaustive survey.

Syndicated politics columnist Witcover (Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption, 2010, etc.) relates the saga of all 47 vice presidents of the United States, from John Adams to Joe Biden. Although biographical information is abundant for each man, the author emphasizes the political context of each vice presidency, showing how each vice president became the nominee, whether each worked well in tandem with the president, and what happened to each when the four-year term expired.

Only readers who have studied the White House in depth are likely to recognize names such as William R. King, Garret A. Hobart and Charles Curtis. Witcover explains why most vice presidents, despite impressive accomplishments before election, served their terms in near obscurity. The inattention of the Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives and the courts regarding sensible selection and succession procedures seems shocking when understood within the historical timeline Witcover presents. At first, the vice president was the runner-up in the election for president, meaning incompatible rivals might be thrown together. Later, tradition dictated the president and the vice president be from the same political party, but the line of succession remained unclear. In one of the most surprising chapters, Witcover examines the confusion in the mind of Thomas R. Marshall during the extended, mostly undisclosed incapacity of President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson’s wife and the medical staff refused to keep Marshall in the loop, despite the strong possibility that Marshall would become president. Not until 1967, with the adoption of the 25th Amendment, did the procedure for filling a vacant presidency become completely clear. That amendment became operative only six years later, when the disgraced Richard Nixon chose Gerald Ford as the new president. In a final chapter, Witcover looks back on the evolution of the vice presidency to surmise that it now can probably be considered an “assistant presidency” rather than a do-nothing sinecure.

Extremely impressive research informs this valuable book of American history. (50 b/w photos. This review first appeared in the BEA/ALA issue.)

A Pulitzer Prize-winning author reconstructs and reflects on “one of the great diplomatic triumphs of the twentieth century” and the men who made it happen.

Even though the contemplated regional framework for peace collapsed, the 1978 agreement forged at Camp David between Israel and Egypt has held, a remarkable achievement in the tortured history of the Middle East, “where antique grudges never lose their stranglehold on the societies in their grip.” New Yorker staff writer Wright (Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, 2013, etc.) presents a dayby-day account of the tense negotiations, artfully mixing in modern and ancient history, biblical allusions, portraits of the principals—Jimmy Carter, Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat— and thumbnail sketches of key participants: Americans Cyrus Vance and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Israelis Moshe Dayan and Ezer Weizman, and Egyptians Mohamed Ibrahim Kamel and Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The author examines all the forces that shaped these historic talks: the isolation imposed by the presidential retreat high in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains; the divisions within the Egyptian and Israeli delegations; the almost unprecedented nature of detailed negotiations conducted not by subordinates but by the heads of state; the hazardous political stakes for each leader and the powerful role played by their deeply held religious beliefs; the critical part played by President Jimmy Carter, who moved adroitly from facilitator to catalyst to secure an agreement. Throughout, telling detail abounds: Rosalynn Carter spontaneously suggesting to her husband that the intransigents should come to the beautiful and peaceful Camp David to revive stalled talks; Begin startling his hosts on a brief outing to the Gettysburg battlefield by reciting Lincoln’s entire address from memory; Carter dramatically accusing Sadat of betrayal and, at one point, thinking to himself that Begin was a “psycho”; Israel’s fiercest warrior, Dayan, by then going blind, bloodying his nose by walking into a tree; Begin bursting into tears as Carter presents him with conference photos inscribed to each of the prime minister’s grandchildren.

A unique moment in history superbly captured. Yet another triumph for Wright.

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ROUGH COUNTRY How Texas Became America’s Most Powerful Bible-Belt State

RACE UNMASKED Biology and Race in the Twentieth Century

Yudell, Michael Columbia Univ. (304 pp.) $40.00 | $39.99 e-book | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-231-16874-8 978-0-231-53799-5 e-book

Wuthnow, Robert Princeton Univ. (662 pp.) $39.50 | Aug. 24, 2014 978-0-691-15989-8

A distinguished Princeton social sciences professor studies the fraught intersection of race, religion and ethnicity in Texas since Reconstruction.

Long considered the “buckle” of the Bible Belt, Texas has a history that is unique but that also speaks to the religious, racial and political dynamics “that have decidedly shaped America.” In this brilliantly detailed book, Wuthnow (Red State Religion: Faith and Politics in America’s Heartland, 2011, etc.) draws on newspapers, eyewitness accounts and archival material as well as sociological theory, showing how notions of self and other emerged through institution-building practices that helped define Texan (and ultimately, national) identity. In the beginning, the Texas frontier challenged settlers with “droughts, floods, weatherborne illnesses” and hostile natives. To survive, frontiersmen erected churches and schools that were themselves built on narratives that featured “heroes and villains about whom stories [could be] told and who serve[d] as positive or negative role models for future generations.” But these predominantly white organizations were impacted by complex, often contradictory attitudes toward race (a legacy of slavery), ethnicity (a legacy of Mexican domination) and, later, gender and sexual orientation. The Christian fundamentalism that emerged in the 1920s revealed the essentially conservative nature of religion and culture in Texas. Forty years later, it also became a major political force that helped determine the outcome of presidential elections and played major roles in debates on abortion and same-sex marriage. By the turn of the century, the evangelical Protestantism that had come to dominate the Texas religious scene promulgated “compassionate conservatism,” an ideology most notably espoused by George W. Bush. Promoting private, faith-based charitable institutions—many of which receive government funding—at the national level may be laudable. But as Wuthnow suggests, doing so may also give rise to ideas that reinforce the various forms of inequality that continue to beleaguer Texas, the South and American society as a whole.

Impeccably researched but likely too dense for general readers. (23 halftones)

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A history of the concept of race in American scientific thought.

Yudell (Public Health/Drexel Univ.; co-editor: The Genomic Revolution: Unveiling the Unity of Life, 2002) traces how the concept of race evolved from the eugenicists of the early 20th century to present-day geneticists. He argues that the biologic concept of race originated with eugenic theories of race difference, was integrated into modern biologic thought by evolutionary biologists in the 1930s and ’40s, and continues to generate controversy as a classification tool.

In examining the history of racial science, Yudell looks at the work of specific scientists and institutions, among them the eugenicist Charles Davenport and the National Research Council in the 1920s and ’30s, evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky, population geneticist L.C. Dunn, anthropologist Ashley Montagu and UNESCO in the 1940s and ’50s. The author’s account of the controversy aroused by Carleton Coon’s The Origin of Races (1962) makes especially interesting reading, as do his discussions of the pseudoscientific work of Alfred Jensen and William Shockley and the clash between sociobiologist E.O. Wilson and evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin in the 1970s. In the final chapter, “Race in the Genomic Age,” Yudell tackles the impact of the genomic revolution on the biological race concept. Scientists who use the race concept in genomic research claim that technological improvements allow them to examine human diversity unhampered by social prejudice. Social and natural scientists argue that the race concept is a flawed, inaccurate way to measure human diversity inseparable from social prejudice. Genome scientists say that the race concept is not accurate but is a useful proxy in clinical settings.

J. Craig Venter, who wrote the foreword, opines that instead of relying on an individual’s appearance or self-identified ethnicity, looking directly at his genomic sequence is the best way to personalize medicine. The controversy continues.

A challenging, well-researched work that clearly shows the interconnectedness of scientific and social thought.

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children’s & teen These titles earned the Kirkus Star:

AMBASSADOR by William Alexander..............................................82 SAM AND DAVE DIG A HOLE by Mac Barnett; illus. by Jon Klassen..............................................................................83 THE WITCH’S BOY by Kelly Barnhill................................................83 CIRCLE, SQUARE, MOOSE by Kelly Bingham; illus. by Paul O. Zelinsky.....................................................................85 I’M A DIRTY DINOSAUR by Janeen Brian; illus. by Ann James.......89 NIGHT SKY by Suzanne Brockmann; Melanie Brockmann...............89 THE RIGHT WORD by Jen Bryant; illus. by Melissa Sweet...............89 DRAW! by Raúl Colón.........................................................................93 THE SWALLOW by Charis Cotter......................................................93 RAFA WAS MY ROBOT by Alexandra Dellevoet; illus. by Ken Turner..............................................................................98 NEST by Esther Ehrlich.................................................................... 101 CAST AWAY ON THE LETTER A by Fred....................................... 103 HANSEL AND GRETEL by Neil Gaiman; illus. by Lorenzo Mattotti................................................................. 104 RITES OF PASSAGE by Joy N. Hensley........................................... 108 GIRL DEFECTIVE by Simmone Howell........................................... 110 ANIMAL SCHOOL by Michelle Lord; illus. by Michael Garland.. 116 MR. FRANK by Irene Luxbacher..................................................... 117 WHEN AUNT MATTIE GOT HER WINGS by Petra Mathers......... 120 FIREBUG by Lish McBride.............................................................. 120 DAPPLED ANNIE AND THE TIGRISH by Mary McCallum; illus. by Annie Hayward................................................................... 121 PERFECTLY GOOD WHITE BOY by Carrie Mesrobian.................. 124

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WATER ROLLS, WATER RISES / EL AGUA RUEDA, EL AGUA SUBE by Pat Mora; illus. by Meilo So; trans. by Pat Mora; Adriana Domínguez........................................................................................ 125 HELLO, I’M JOHNNY CASH by G. Neri; illus. by A.G. Ford........ 126 THE BOOK WITH NO PICTURES by B.J. Novak........................... 126 THE FLAT RABBIT by Bárdur Oskarsson; trans. by Marita Thomsen................................................................. 127 STORIES OF MY LIFE by Katherine Paterson................................. 128 TOMBOY by Liz Prince..................................................................... 129 GABI, A GIRL IN PIECES by Isabel Quintero................................. 130 JACKABY by William Ritter........................................................... 131 THREE LITTLE PEAS by Marine Rivoal......................................... 131 BEN FRANKLIN’S BIG SPLASH by Barb Rosenstock; illus. by S.D. Schindler...................................................................... 132 TRUE STORIES by Jon Scieszka....................................................... 133 KID SHERIFF AND THE TERRIBLE TOADS by Bob Shea; illus. by Lane Smith.......................................................................... 133 100 SIDEWAYS MILES by Andrew Smith...................................... 135 SWAY by Kat Spears......................................................................... 135 MIX IT UP by Hervé Tullet............................................................... 138 PACK OF DORKS by Beth Vrabel..................................................... 139 BLUE ON BLUE by Dianne White; illus. by Beth Kromnes............ 140 THE MONSTERATOR by Keith Graves........................................... 142 BOW-WOW’S NIGHTMARE NEIGHBORS by Mark Newgarden; Megan Montague Cash..................................................................... 144 GARY’S PLACE by Rick Walton; illus. by Will Terry; dev. by Giggle Desk........................................................................... 146

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Making Readers, One at a Time THE SECRET SKY A Novel of Forbidden Love in Afghanistan

Photo by Lucy Weaver

I am, I most devoutly hope, a long way from biological grandmotherhood. That didn’t stop me from acting the proud grandma with the friends and colleagues I talked with at the American Library Association’s recent conference. “Look,” I said, thrusting out my phone with the picture of the weary papa, newborn daughter splayed out on his chest, reading aloud to her from The Wizard of Oz. Sure, it was an adorable picture, guaranteed to elicit “Aww”s from my audience of fellow librarians and book lovers. But if that babe wasn’t my granddaughter, why was I making such a big deal?

It’s because that bearded man was once a little boy, a rising first-grader when I met him as an avid reader almost 20 years ago, searching for and selecting books with owlish solemnity. He was in the library all the time, plugging away at his summer reading with a sort of joyous diligence.

When school started, he still came in, with his teachers or with his mom, and then by himself as he grew older.

When he was 10, he confessed years later, he stole Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story because he loved it so much. (His mother discovered the felony and made him return it.) When he was 15 or 16, he was a core member of a group of students we took to Boston to address ALA’s Best Books for Young Adults committee. His remark that a certain book ought to “come with a fork so you can stab yourself to stay awake” drew laughs and attention from an editor, who quoted him in an article in the Horn Book magazine, much to our glee.

And now he’s a grown-up and one of Kirkus’ newest reviewers. He’s also, of course, father of young Astrid. It’s almost like being a grandma. Congratulations, John; here’s to your new reader.

—Vicky Smith

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Photo by Melissa Shannon

Vicky Smith is the children’s & teen editor at Kirkus Reviews.

Abawi, Atia Philomel (304 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-0-399-16078-3

At its heart, this gripping debut by an Afghan-American journalist is a simple love story, but in today’s Afghanistan—riven by culture clashes, scarred by decades of war—nothing is simple.

Fatima’s tiny village is isolated from city amenities but not from war. Its Pashtun and Hazara families have endured heartbreaking losses and, amid crushing poverty, hold tight to what remains. The elderly woman teaching her to read recalls freer times, but Fatima, who’s Hazara and barely past puberty, faces a drastically limited future—her mother wants her married. When Fatima’s childhood Pashtun friend, Samiullah, returns from his madrassa, their mutual attraction grows. But even chaste meetings violate strict cultural edicts; transgressions can have lethal consequences. Their discovery by Sami’s cousin Rashid, embittered by jealousy and family tragedy, sets in motion events that change their lives, and those of their families and village, forever. All characters are Afghans, political attributions vague or neutral (the Taliban’s criticized but not vilified). Abawi reserves condemnation for the violent, twisted opportunists who take advantage of chaos. Juxtaposed with horrific events, the tone and stylistic conventions of lighter teen fare occasionally feel jarring. First-person, present-tense narration confines the story to the here and now, yet that immediacy brings closer this ancient, complicated country bound to ours.

Riveting plot, sympathetic characters and straightforward narration studded with vivid, authentic detail: a top choice. (author’s note, glossary) (Fiction. 12 & up)

I REMEMBER BEIRUT

Abirached, Zeina Illus. by Abirached, Zeina Graphic Universe (96 pp.) $9.95 paper | $29.27 PLB | Oct. 1, 2014 978-1-4677-4458-4 978-1-4677-3822-4 PLB Abirached, who grew up in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war, shares childhood memories in this unconventional graphic memoir.

Born in 1981, Abirached grew up surrounded by the realities of war: Her family’s home was close to the demarcation line between East and West Beirut. In her earlier graphic memoir, A Game for Swallows (2012), she focused on a single evening when she and her brother anxiously awaited their parents’ return.

In this follow-up, Abirached takes inspiration from French

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“Adler does not shy away from the less-attractive aspects of Roosevelt’s presidency.” from colonel theodore roosevelt

experimental writer and filmmaker Georges Perec and forgoes a traditional narrative structure in favor of a catalog of childhood memories, almost all beginning with “I remember.” Her memories juxtapose mundane details, such as the “tchic” sound that cassette tapes made when shaken and the three layers that made up old Kit Kat wrappers, with haunting reminders of wartime, such as her brother’s shrapnel collection and the bullet holes in the family car. The black-and-white illustrations and inventive layouts ably convey the contrasts of the text. Abirached does not use tones or shading, but her ornate patterns soften the stark contrasts created by her bold lines and her frequent use of black to fill negative space. Taken together, her many memories create a distinct sense of time, place and emotion.

Meandering and experimental but surprisingly evocative. (Graphic memoir. 12 & up)

A SIMPLE CASE OF ANGELS

Adderson, Caroline Groundwood (176 pp.) $16.95 | $9.95 paper | $14.95 e-book Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-55498-428-2 978-1-55498-429-9 paper 978-1-55498-430-5 e-book Since June Bug, Nicola’s new dog, gets into way too much trouble, lately the girl’s been worried that her pet will

be sent away.

Are June Bug’s issues related to whatever is causing recent gloom around town? The playground at school seems to be tilting out of balance, Nicola’s grade-five teacher has become remarkably cranky, no one has put up Christmas lights, Nicola’s older brother is totally focused on an angels-vs.-demons computer game, and the elderly patients at Shady Oaks are living in dismal conditions. Even June Bug’s clever tricks (Nicola hopes that doing good deeds at the home can redeem her pet) can’t do much to improve this last problem. Although Nicola isn’t initially too happy about becoming friends with classmate Lindsay, it’s the latter’s discovery—that angels could be everywhere—that inspires Nicola’s idea that people must do the hard work of creating goodness, thus guiding the pair to some surprising revelations. Characters are gloriously quirky: Lindsay is obsessed with brides (with good reason); Shady Oaks resident Mr. Milton speaks in mysterious metaphors that turn out to be quotes from a more famous Milton; Nicola navigates concepts of hell and goodness, looking for reasonable answers to ponderous questions.

Though paranormal explanations are only gently hinted at, the angelic twist at the conclusion is satisfyingly appropriate and more about human goodness than evangelizing—entirely in keeping with the book. (Fiction.

9-12)

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COLONEL THEODORE ROOSEVELT Adler, David A. Holiday House (144 pp.) $18.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-8234-2950-9

An absorbing portrait of an iconic president known as much for his adventurous nature as his robust political life.

Presidential biographies present a challenge in that many of the facts are familiar, and Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, was such a colorful character that he continues to be an attractive subject for young readers. As indicated by his title, acclaimed biographer Adler focuses on Roosevelt the adventurer, documenting how a determined Roosevelt grew from a sickly, bookish child to an energetic young man devoted to politics. His exploits in the wild and as a Rough Rider share page space with his personal challenges and stories of his lively family. Adler does not shy away from the less-attractive aspects of Roosevelt’s presidency. Much has been made of his dinner with the African-American leader Booker T. Washington. “But he did not support easier access for blacks to the voting booth. He did not appoint a great number of blacks to federal jobs. And in 1906 he seemed to cross the line and support unequal treatment of blacks” with the Brownsville Affair.

In addition to an engaging narrative, this volume is replete with illustrations: photographs, political cartoons of the period, even drawings done by Roosevelt himself. Adler’s research is supported by a detailed timeline, source notes, bibliography, picture credits and index.

A valuable addition to the presidential-biography shelf.

(Biography. 10-14)

THE SQUIRTING DONUTS

Adler, David A. Illus. by Adler, David A. Sourcebooks Jabberwocky (112 pp.) $4.99 paper | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-4022-8728-2 Series: Danny’s Doodles, 2 What could have turned mean Mrs. Cakel nice?

Ten-year-old Danny’s fourth-grade teacher has rules about everything, and her favorite word is “No.” No mumbling. No slouching. No passing notes. No eating in class. Danny’s unconventional friend, Calvin Waffle, is always getting into trouble. Then Mrs. Cakel suddenly turns nice.

The boys decide to investigate (Calvin says his father’s a spy, so he knows “lots of spy tricks”). When they find their teacher’s house, they discover “lost dog” posters all over the neighborhood, and when they call the number on the posters, Mrs. Cakel answers. The friends decide to find the dog, get the reward and return Mrs. Cakel to normal. Meanwhile, Calvin’s scattered mother gets a new job, and Danny’s father loses his. With all

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“Physics lovers will enjoy this clever series opener— but so will those who enjoy comedy, politics, diplomacy or strange-looking aliens.” from ambassador

these changes, will the boys still make the right choices? Though it starts with a head-scratcher—why would the boys and their friends want the mean Mrs. Cakel back?—Adler’s second tale of doodle-loving Danny features real kid characters with real kid perspectives on the adult world. Danny’s actual doodles feel a bit of an afterthought or a gimmicky grab at the younger fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but this quirky tale of genuine friendship is still worth a look.

Not up to the standards set by Adler’s Cam Jansen but an enjoyable light read. (Mystery. 7-9)

AMBASSADOR

Alexander, William McElderry (240 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 23, 2014 978-1-4424-9764-1 978-1-4424-9766-5 e-book An interstellar embassy, alien assassins, galactic mass extinctions: These are Gabe’s small problems.

Gabriel Fuentes is looking at a summer of nothing but babysitting his toddler siblings at home in Minneapolis, so he’s pleasantly surprised when an animate purple blob arrives in his bedroom, asking him to be the ambassador for Earth. The Envoy looks like a giant purple eyeball, eats baking soda and grows a pseudopod mouth whenever it needs to speak, but its mission is a serious one: Earth is without any representation in the galaxy, and 11-year-old peacemaker Gabe is perfect for the job. The Envoy quantum-entangles all of Gabe’s particles to enable virtual communication with the other ambassadors (in a process peppered with snarky, science-inflected humor from Gabe). But no sooner has Gabe begun his ambassadorial duties than real life intrudes in all its ugliness. While Gabe is American-born, the same is not true for his archaeologist mother or chef father— and their immigration paperwork is not in order. The turn to the devastatingly serious, handled with grace and empathy, may hit some readers like a sucker punch after the humorous opening, despite its foreshadowing. Even though his family has troubles, Gabe can’t ignore his extraterrestrial obligations, if only because somebody from space is trying to kill him. It will take all of Gabe’s diplomatic skills to find the assassin, save himself and deliver a perfect setup for Book 2.

Physics lovers will enjoy this clever series opener—but so will those who enjoy comedy, politics, diplomacy or strange-looking aliens. (Science fiction. 11-13) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

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TRIAL BY FIRE

Angelini, Josephine Feiwel & Friends (384 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-250-05088-5 Series: Worldwalker Trilogy, 1 Once meek and tormented by debilitating allergies, a girl is transported to an alternate universe and becomes a staggeringly powerful witch.

Lily Proctor leads a painful life in Salem, Massachusetts, stricken with seizures and responsible for the care of her schizophrenic mother. When her best friend and unrequited love, Tristan, betrays her at a party, Lily finds herself listening to a mysterious voice inside her head that offers a way out. Suddenly, she appears in an unfamiliar version of her town and is greeted as the Lady of Salem. It appears that Lillian, an alternative version of Lily, summoned her from this other Salem. Realizing she can’t trust her doppelganger, Lily flees, stumbling into Rowan, a man once harmed by the true Lady of Salem. Desperate to get back home, Lily unwittingly becomes embroiled in the struggles of new friends. In this Salem, Lily’s fevers give her power. She’s a crucible—able to change heat into force. But to what end will she harness that power? Angelini begins with a trite setup in present time but quickly subverts tropes once Lily arrives in the alternative Salem. Lillian makes for a mostly absent villain, leaving the bulk of the tension to Lily and Rowan. Readers will be swept into the inner workings of crucibles and witches and left eager for more.

A clichéd start gives way to a richly drawn world of keenly devised magic. (Paranormal romance. 14 & up)

THE FAIRY-TALE MATCHMAKER

Baker, E.D. Bloomsbury (352 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-1-61963-140-3 Series: Fairy-Tale Matchmaker, 1 In this new middle-grade series from princess aficionado Baker (A Question of Magic, 2013, etc.), a dissatisfied tooth fairy wants to make a difference in a

fairy-tale world.

Cory hates her tooth-fairy job. She believes her true calling is to help people. Swiping teeth from a child’s pillow just won’t cut it. Against her tooth-fairy mother’s wishes, she quits the Tooth Fairy Guild, an unthinkable move since this job is a lifetime commitment. After a falling-out with her mother, Cory goes to live with sweet Uncle Micah, her pet woodchuck, Noodles in tow. She begins each day answering help wanted ads. Her odd jobs range from babysitting Humpty Dumpty to ridding Marjorie Muffet’s house of pesky spiders. Meanwhile, Marjorie

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and other friends ask Cory to set them up on dates, but Cory’s not convinced she has a knack for that. While it’s fun to see the fairyland characters make appearances, Cory’s jobs feel somewhat arbitrary and take up a good portion of the book. Readers may start to wonder when the matchmaking will begin, as the title suggests—a longueur possibly explained by the fact that this kicks off a series. Cory’s journey becomes most interesting, near the end of the book, when she searches for an estranged family member and discovers a life-changing secret.

Those in it for the long haul, particularly loyal fans of Baker’s other books, will appreciate this lighthearted search for one’s true self. (Fantasy. 8-12)

SAM AND DAVE DIG A HOLE Barnett, Mac Illus. by Klassen, Jon Candlewick (40 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 14, 2014 978-0-7636-6229-5

When Sam and Dave dig a hole, readers get “something spectacular.”

The boys, on the other hand, do not.

Their quest to find the spectacular brings them painfully and humorously close to buried jewels as they spade their way into the ground, accompanied by an intrepid canine companion.

Readers occupy a superior position as cross-section illustrations reveal those jewels buried just out of the shovels’ reach. Each time they near one, the increasingly grubby boys maddeningly change course. On they dig, tunneling in different directions, and each effort reveals (to readers) yet larger jewels evading them. Exhausted, they fall asleep, but the dog digs after a bone it senses below. In an unexpected turn, the ground gives way to nothingness, and the trio falls through empty space “until they landed in the soft dirt.” At first glance, it seems they’ve ended up where they began: A small tree stands on the recto, and a house with a porch is on the verso, as before. But careful readers will notice that the tree here bears pears, while the tree at the story’s start had apples. Other differing details (a weathervane duck instead of a chicken; a blue flower instead of a red one; a blue cat collar instead of a red) suggest that they’ve unwittingly fallen into another dimension.

Poor Sam and Dave. Lucky readers. (Picture book. 4-8)

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THE WITCH’S BOY

Barnhill, Kelly Algonquin (368 pp.) $16.95 | $16.95 e-book | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-61620-351-1 978-1-61620-433-4 e-book Nine enormous boulders are awakened from their long sleep by the actions of a seemingly powerless boy and the daughter of the Bandit King.

Since his identical twin’s death and his own near-drowning, Ned has spoken with a stutter, and villagers believe that “the wrong boy” survived. Ned doesn’t know that his mother, Sister Witch, in desperation, used the magic she holds and protects to join his brother’s soul to his, despite the fact that “[i]t was a dangerous thing, her magic. With consequences.” Áine, meanwhile, is growing up with a father whose behavior increasingly worries her, especially the way he fondles a pendant he’s begun wearing and the fact that he has been bringing home a frightening group of bandits. In fact, the Bandit King is after Sister Witch’s magic, and when she leaves town, he tries to force Ned to surrender it to him. Instead, Ned takes the magic upon himself, at a cost of great physical pain as the words burn into him and the magic keeps talking to him, and he is kidnapped. Barnhill skillfully interweaves the stories of Ned, Áine, Sister Witch and the stones, along with an intriguing group of secondary characters. The third-person narration switches perspective smoothly, and it’s all related in a precise, flowing prose that easily places readers into the fantastic setting and catches them up in the story.

The classic fantasy elements are all there, richly reimagined, with a vivid setting, a page-turning adventure of a plot, and compelling, timeless themes. (Fantasy. 10-15) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

MAGIC IN THE MIX

Barrows, Annie Bloomsbury (288 pp.) $16.99 | $13.99 e-book | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-61963-482-4 978-1-61963-483-1 e-book The time-traveling adventures of Molly and Miri Gill continue, with even higher stakes.

Molly and Miri are the only members of their family who know Molly was not always Miri’s twin. In The Magic Half (2008), Miri saved Molly from a life of abuse in 1935, bringing Molly to Miri’s own time and family, where, according to Molly’s magically knowledgeable grandmother, she was supposed to be born. Now both Molly and Miri possess double sets of memories: Each remembers her life before they were twins as well as her life as a twin.

This bothers Molly, and when their magic house sends them back to 1918, she is sure it is to prevent her birth mother from

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having her—thereby preventing her mother’s death—but they are returned to the present abruptly. When they try to go back to 1918, they end up in the American Civil War, and when their twin brothers later unwittingly travel through time—in Civil War re-enactment dress, no less—and are taken prisoner, it will take the girls’ combined wit, courage and cleverness to save their brothers from certain death and use magic to “[set] things right.” Barrows examines many of the previously unanswered, difficult questions of time travel but does not answer all mysteries, paving the way for a possible third book.

If another adventure is to come, readers will hope it won’t take another six years to arrive. (Fantasy. 8-12)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MADAME CHAPEAU Beaty, Andrea Illus. by Roberts, David Abrams (32 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-4197-1219-7

The world’s most elegant milliner loses her birthday bonnet, and the whole city rushes to help.

“In a three-story house with a shop down below / lived the world’s finest hatmaker, Madame Chapeau.” Madame Chapeau spends her days making hats for everyone, but her evenings are very lonely. However, each year on her birthday, she carefully unpacks a special hat to wear out to dinner to a fancy restaurant (the brilliantly named Chez Snooty-Patoot).

But this year, a crow steals her hat! A baker, a policeman, a cowboy and many others offer their own, very particular, caps to replace it, but Madame Chapeau can’t take a hat away from its perfect owner. “She knew that each hat—with its feathers or fur— / was made for someone who was simply not her.”

Luckily, a small tot with lots of fuzzy yarn saves the day. With a text that can only be described as jaunty (and masterful in its inventive settings on the page), Beaty carries the bounces and lilts to the very last page. Roberts’ colorful, exaggerated hats (many of which are modeled on real designs) whimsically adorn the multicultural Parisian public. An appended artist’s note describes Roberts’ inspirations.

The underlying suggestion that no one is as alone as they believe is lovely enough, but the fun of reading this aloud elevates it even more. (Picture book. 4-7)

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STANLEY THE BUILDER Bee, William Illus. by Bee, William Peachtree (32 pp.) $14.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-56145-801-1 Series: Stanley

In Bee’s new series, Stanley the hamster explores jobs.

Stanley the builder builds his mouse friend Myrtle a new house, first using an orange bulldozer to clear the site, then digging the foundation with a yellow digger. Charlie (another mouse, or possibly a rat) helps pour the cement (neither machine name nor color is mentioned—a sorry inconsistency), and the two rodents use teamwork to set and level the bricks. A green crane lifts the roof beams. Shingles, windows and paint complete the house, and supper, a bath and bedtime round out what unrealistically appears to be a single day. In Stanley’s Garage, the tan-and-white hamster owns a garage and spends the day helping his friends—pumping gas, fixing a flat, adding water to an overheated radiator, and towing and fixing a car—his day ending again with supper, a bath and bedtime.

Bee’s digital illustrations are the real stars here. Against a white background, thick black lines contain the vibrant colors of the simple shapes and characters, making them pop off the pages and both focusing attention and making it easy for little ones to spot familiar items. Stanley and his fellow rodents are adorable, their dot eyes and line mouths expressing emotion, though without much nuance.

Nonetheless, little listeners are sure to come back to Stanley over and over, as he explores jobs and uses equipment sure to pique their interest. (Picture book. 2-6) (Stanley’s Garage: 978-1-56145-804-2)

SURVIVAL COLONY 9

Bellin, Joshua David McElderry (336 pp.) $18.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 23, 2014 978-1-4814-0354-2 978-1-4814-0356-6 e-book An amnesiac struggles to make sense of his place in a war-ravaged world where small bands of human survivors scramble to stay one step ahead of a menacing, body-snatching threat.

In Bellin’s debut, after human wars devastate the population, a new threat emerges. The mysterious Skaldi—no one knows what exactly they are or where they came from—possess and feed on people. Querry’s the son of a “survival colony” leader, but an accident involving a Skaldi attack six months prior left him with complete amnesia. Despite his heritage, he’s an outsider in Survival Colony Nine—but not so much so that he doesn’t see the mutiny brewing, especially when its leadership turns erratic, ignoring caution and attempting to set up a relatively permanent encampment. Numerous plot twists—including one in

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“It is a great joy to watch Bingham and Zelinsky...once more let Moose loose to naughtily and enthusiastically disrupt reading.” from circle, square, moose

particular that relies on a believability-stretching conspiracy— slowly cast loyalties into doubt and reveal the true urgency of Querry’s need to remember what happened six months ago.

Querry’s memory loss allows for exposition to smoothly unfold.

With each description, the Skaldi menace becomes more vivid and horrifying—especially because it’s so hard for characters to tell if someone they know has become possessed. The ending doesn’t explain everything, but it is action-packed and completes Querry’s emotional arc.

Readers won’t want to face the terrifying Skaldi, but they’ll enjoy reading about them. (Post-apocalyptic adventure.

13-18)

THOSE MAGNIFICENT SHEEP IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES Bently, Peter Illus. by Roberts, David Andersen Press USA (32 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-4677-4935-0

A passel of sheep, who vaguely resemble characters from the titular movie, are quietly grazing on the hillside when they are startled by a loud noise overhead.

Their curiosity piqued, they skip to the hilltop and spy an air race about to begin, complete with men in goggles and a brass band. The sheep can’t resist the urge to check out a bright yellow airplane standing nearby. One thing leads to another, and soon, the eight sheep find themselves squished into the tiny cockpit, soaring above the fields, swerving, swooping and looping with gay abandon. Their wild aerial journey takes them on fantastical, if somewhat stereotyped, adventures all over the world.

They can-can in France, flamenco in Spain, encounter a Yeti in Tibet, are (politically incorrectly) offered mutton curry in India and are threatened by crocs in Florida. Suddenly homesick, the errant sheep fly home and are grazing on their familiar hillside before the chap who owns the plane can guess the identity of the “thieves in white sweaters” who stole it. This lighthearted romp, full of jokey references to an almost 50-year-old movie, will amuse young readers who are not bothered by logistical improbability. The seamless melding of Bently’s catchy British doggerel with Roberts’ elegant colored-pencil-and-watercolor illustrations makes this an attractive choice.

Just pure, wooly-headed fun. (Picture book. 3-6)

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ZAC AND MIA

Betts, A.J. HMH Books (304 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-0-544-33164-8 Desperate to reconnect with the outside world, teen bone marrow recipient Zac’s very precise mind is distracted by the arrival of new cancer patient Mia in the 4-by-5-meter room next to his.

A single rock track plays on repeat next door (“The newbie’s gone Gaga. The girl’s got cancer and bad taste?”) until Zac pounds on the wall, and a tense bond begins to form. Zac, now “99.9 percent someone else,” is a model patient with extended family support back home on an Australian farm. He tracks cancer deaths with grim dedication: “I don’t want them to die, but they make my odds look better. I have to believe in the math.” Mia—not a Gaga fan after all, it’s just parent repellent—tells her high school friends she’s just on vacation, rejects her mother and lets anger threaten her treatment. Surrounded by the uncertainty of illness, Zac works from “logic and math,” while Mia’s decisions are “whipped up by emotion and impulse and I want, I want.” Taking its cue from the title, the first-person account starts with Zac’s voice, alternates between Zac and Mia in the middle, then seamlessly switches to Mia for the finale, with snappy dialogue throughout. A brief epilogue provides satisfying and realistic closure.

Above average in this burgeoning subgenre; it’s the healing powers of friendship, love and family that make this funny-yet-philosophical tale of brutal teen illness stand out. (Fiction. 14 & up) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

CIRCLE, SQUARE, MOOSE

Bingham, Kelly Illus. by Zelinsky, Paul O. Greenwillow/HarperCollins (48 pp.) $17.99 | $18.89 PLB | Sep. 23, 2014 978-0-06-229003-8 978-0-06-229004-5 PLB Moose is back! Hooray—unless you are a book about circles and squares.

The simple concept book starts off well enough with a button representing a circle and a sandwich representing a square. And then mischief and mayhem erupt as Moose takes an enormous bite out of the sandwich. Admonitions from the book follow, and then it attempts to continue with a wedge of cheese and a slice of pie to illustrate triangles. Alas, Moose interrupts again, presenting a cat with triangular ears. Leave the book, they are told. More Moose antics ensue with rectangles and diamonds. The book grows ever more frantic, and fortunately Zebra arrives to salvage the exercise. Or does he? Zebra appears hopelessly tangled in ribbon (a curve) when Moose steps in to save the day with a circle

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“Collaborators Black and Clare describe an intoxicating underground setting and give their mostly male characters refreshingly nuanced friendships.” from the iron trial

that becomes a hole through which they escape the book. Moose then presents his friend with the last shape, a star. It is a great joy to watch Bingham and Zelinsky, who brilliantly collaborated on Z Is for Moose (2012), once more let Moose loose to naughtily and enthusiastically disrupt reading. Bingham’s text is both straightforward and filled with humorous speech bubbles. Zelinsky digitally manipulates his palette of bright colors to fill the pages with sly clues, fast-paced action, expressive typefaces and animals with winning personalities. Are further books in Moose’s future?

Hilarious fun. (Picture book. 4-6)

FAD MANIA! A History of American Crazes Bix, Cynthia Overbeck Twenty-First Century/Lerner (64 pp.) $34.60 PLB | Oct. 1, 2014 978-1-4677-1034-3 PLB

A look back at some of the crazes— such an apt word—that swept the United States over the last century.

To every time and season, there has been a fad or two. For a very long time, it was the upper crust who determined the mood and spirit of fads, but with the rise in wages and the shortening of the work week, fads became great engines of whoopee. Bix’s accompanying narrative to the archival photos is a straightforward affair, because the fads speak for themselves: dance marathons, sitting on flagpoles (for—why not?—21 days), swallowing goldfish (live—eww), pogo sticks and hula hoops, packing telephone booths with college students, 3-D movies, and on and on. Fads fade, though a mighty few have become institutions: yo-yos, Frisbees, rock-’n’-roll, and, alas, chain letters. What lifts Bix’s work to a higher level is the way she sets the fads against realities that made escape into unbridled tomfoolery an act of sanity: the Great Depression, two world wars and those that followed, including the Iraq War, assassinations, Columbine and the Oklahoma City bombing. These are scattered throughout the text as elements in timelines, along with moon landings, the Lone Ranger and Bugs Bunny.

Current record for phone-booth stuffing? Twentyfive—until inspired readers find the last remaining one to try for 26. (Nonfiction. 11-18)

THE IRON TRIAL

Black, Holly; Clare, Cassandra Scholastic (304 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-545-52225-0 978-0-545-52227-4 e-book Series: Magisterium, 1 Book 1 in the five-book fantasy series introduces the Magisterium, a training school for young mages that is located in underground caverns in Virginia.

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Admittance is by invitational tryouts. Twelve-year-old Callum Hunt has mage potential, but his father, Alastair—a mage and a graduate of the Magisterium—tells his son to deliberately fail. He has brought Callum up to believe that the Magisterium is evil and he must never attend. But Callum, small, skinny and partially lame from a serious leg injury incurred when he was an infant, is picked anyway, and this kickoff entry details Callum’s first year of training under Master Rufus. Harry Potter similarities pop up repeatedly, from the magic-training-school premise to Callum’s fellow apprentices and soon-to-be best friends, Tamara and Aaron, and these similarities are distracting at first. But then the twist occurs, and it is a doozy. By the book’s end, readers will be chomping at the bit to get into the sequel.

Collaborators Black and Clare describe an intoxicating underground setting and give their mostly male characters refreshingly nuanced friendships. The third-person narration, filtered through Callum’s delightfully insecure-and-overcompensatingwith-snarky-bravado perspective, carries a tone that will likely have readers chortling in recognition.

A promising beginning to a complex exploration of good and evil, as well as friendship’s loyalty. (Fantasy. 9-13)

MORTAL GODS

Blake, Kendare Tor (352 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 14, 2014 978-0-7653-3444-2 Series: Goddess War, 2 This second installment of the Goddess War series continues the modernday battles originally fought centuries ago, pitting god against god even as all of the Olympians appear to be dying.

Athena, at the center of the rebel faction, still fights off the owl feathers that sprout in her lungs, constantly threatening to choke her. She remains teamed up with her brother Hermes, who’s wasting away from a too-high metabolism, and mortal characters from Troy now reincarnated as teenagers. Athena sees Cassandra, who can kill gods with her touch, as one of the two major weapons she has against the other divine faction, which primarily comprises Aphrodite, Ares and Hera, thought killed in the first book but found still living. Athena and Odysseus travel to find Achilles, Athena’s second weapon. Athena’s errands and an interesting side trip into Hades add action, but much of the book churns with constant repartee among the characters, their suspicions of one another and their constant training bouts. The prose, both narrative and dialogue, is characteristically witty, but there’s an undeniable feel of second-volume sag to the story. When readers finally reach Olympia for a final battle, the suspense picks up. The underlying concept that finds dying gods at war with one another is still intriguing, but readers may become impatient for more back story.

The series still intrigues, but it needs tightening.

(Paranormal suspense. 14-18)

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GIRL ON A WIRE

Bond, Gwenda Skyscape (360 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 14, 2014 978-1-4778-4782-4 Family secrets and sinister superstitions threaten 16-year-old wire walker Jules Maroni’s chance at a big break.

Jules doesn’t understand why her family lets some old rivalry with the Flying Garcias keep them from the glamorous Cirque American. Something bad happened between Jules’ grandmother and the legendary trapeze artists when Nan was young, but now the Amazing Maronis have a chance—possibly the last—to leave obscurity and gain the recognition their talent deserves! When the Maronis finally join the Cirque American, Jules is dismayed that everyone in this new circus seems to hold the same grudge as Nan. Worse, the dreamy boy she meets is none other than Remy Garcia, scion of her family’s archrivals.

Jules is determined to gain the admiration of her fellow performers, so she performs a series of increasingly dangerous wire acts.

While Jules’ perspective of her daredevilry is not in the slightest bit frightening, the narration is nonetheless heart-stopping; readers might find themselves checking their own footing. A mysterious stalker leaves Jules a series of increasingly disturbing artifacts—a flower, a peacock feather, a circus trunk—and Nan is convinced the objects are cursed, leaving Jules and Remy determined to get to the bottom of their grandparents’ possibly mystical rivalry. When tragedy inevitably strikes, the impact is blunted, as the secondary characters (or Jules’ feelings for them) are little more than the barest sketches.

The mystery is tense and nerve-wracking, and the acrobatics are gorgeously hair-raising; they will help readers get past thinly developed characters and setting. (Thriller.

13-15)

WINTERKILL

Boorman, Kate A. Amulet/Abrams (336 pp.) $17.95 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-4197-1235-7 A young woman comes of age in an isolated community with stifling codes of conduct.

Emmeline, not quite 16, lives in a settlement of 600-odd people huddled in hungry solitude in the frozen north.

With her birthday approaching, Emmeline isn’t looking forward to her coming-of-age, when leering Brother Stockham of the settlement’s leadership will begin to court her in earnest.

Disabled, suffering from chronic pain, prone to self-harm and Stained by the Wayward actions of her long-dead grandma’am, Emmeline should be grateful for Brother Stockham’s attentions, but she prefers Kane, a quiet, handsome boy her own age. |

Perhaps her dreams will lead her to the Lost People and win her the respect she needs to choose her own partner. This slightly magical alternate history features the Canadian prairie as an unpeopled wilderness save for this mix of Francophones, Anglophones, and trilingual mixed-race Métis who speak French, English and First People’s languages such as Cree and M’ikmaq.

Worldbuilding suffers despite its potential. Nonsensically, after five generations, the settlement’s people haven’t managed to form a mutually intelligible pidgin, and the language groups don’t mix (except when they do) and don’t understand one another’s languages (but seem to have no problem doing so).

In the end, choppy prose and the present tense make this moody, dreamlike tale of a special girl in a religious dystopia read just like all the others. (Fantasy. 13-15)

A BOOK IS A BOOK Bornholdt, Jenny Illus. by Wilkins, Sarah Gecko Press (40 pp.) $14.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-877579-92-9

This whimsical ode to the codex is an endorsement both of reading and of what has been coined the “thingyness” of books—and it avoids the fatal, superior tone that concludes Lane Smith’s similarly themed, otherwise-ingenious It’s a Book.

The opening double-page spread sets a humorous tone: Hats, human heads and a pair of rabbit ears reveal readers behind a long, bleeding-off-the-page line of colorful, many-sized, open books. The recto bears the simple sentence, “A book is to read.”

The next page hastens to explain that “[a] book is paper,” lest anyone should consider other options. Even a page devoted to clandestine bedroom reading ignores possible advantages of e-books. Later, a fanciful, double-page spread advises people to use books in order to traverse “your room without touching the floor”: A pajama-clad girl flees alligators as she hops from book to book. (“You should only use your biggest, worst books for this game.”) Pronouncements range from obvious to funny to downright bizarre, all accompanied by stylized, lighthearted ink-and-watercolor artwork. The one disappointment in the art is a lack of cultural diversity in the numerous people and in the settings—only a few of these avid readers appear to be anything other than Caucasian; this partly diminishes the text’s theme of books as universally beloved objects.

The diminutive size—approximately 5 inches by 7 inches—negates group use but makes this perfect for a child on a lap or as a stocking stuffer for older bibliophiles.

(Picture book. 4-9) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

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BAD MAGIC

Bosch, Pseudonymous Illus. by Ford, Gilbert Little, Brown (384 pp.) $17.00 | $9.99 e-book | Sep. 16, 2014 978-0-316-32038-2 978-0-316-32040-5 e-book Very little is as it seems at a survival camp for “troubled” teens in this trilogy opener.

Still deeply upset nearly two years after the disappearance of his stage-magician older brother, Clay writes “Magic sucks!” in a notebook after turning in a blank paper on Shakespeare’s Tempest. He’s astounded to find the sentiment painted on a wall at school the next day—with his signature. The resultant fallout lands him on a remote Pacific island, where he encounters peers named Leira (spell it backward) and Mira, a grotesque puppet dubbed “Caliban” and a llama with a sign on its neck reading “Hola. Cómo se llama?

Yo me llamo Como C. Llama.” He also discovers not one but two libraries of rare books—one stocked with oddly behaving grimoires. After climbing a live volcano and sliding back down on a board, he discovers (as he had been suspecting for some time) that it’s all been a setup—further developments to come.

“Bosch,” a confirmed Lemony Snicket bandwagoneer, repeatedly interrupts with authorial rants, pleas and footnotes. The Shakespearean parallels aren’t particularly integral to the plot, and the twists, Como’s sign apart, are more inscrutable than clever. The book comes complete with multiple appendices and Ford’s illustrations (not seen for review).

Clay is Everykid enough (“almost handsome, in a driedsnot-on-his-sleeve sort of way”) to keep readers hanging around to see what happens to him next. (Fantasy. 12-14) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

MADDI’S FRIDGE

Brandt, Lois Illus. by Vogel, Vin Flashlight Press (32 pp.) $17.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-9362612-9-1 Hungry after playing in the park, Sofia opens the fridge in Maddi’s apartment and finds only a carton of milk inside. Maddi explains that her mom doesn’t have enough money for much else. Sofia is surprised but promises to keep her friend’s secret.

Sofia is troubled. Her family’s fridge is filled to the brim with food. Even their dog gets treats each night as the family sits down to dinner. She decides to help Maddi but discovers the hard way that some foods, such as fish and eggs, do not travel well in a backpack. After several days, knowing her friend is going hungry is too much to bear, and Sofia decides to tell her mom Maddi’s secret. Speaking up releases Sofia from her burden of secrecy. The adults respond appropriately to the 88

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challenge, allowing Sofia and Maddi to go back to being kids.

Though undeniably purposive, this title is notable. The bright, friendly illustrations soften the topic while still conveying the characters’ difficult feelings, such as worry and embarrassment.

Gentle, age-appropriate humor releases the tension, keeping readers engaged as Sofia discovers how to best help her friend.

A note at the end offers suggestions for helping others in need.

A thoughtful and well-executed look at the challenge of childhood hunger. (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-8)

MADAME MARTINE Brannen, Sarah S. Illus. by Brannen, Sarah S. Whitman (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-8075-4905-6

Adopting a stray dog inspires a routine-bound woman to take a new view of the world.

Madame Martine follows a strict schedule: Each day she takes the same walk wearing the same coat, shopping at the same stores. And even though she lives near the Eiffel Tower, she’s never climbed it. “Eh. It’s a tourist thing,” says Martine.

One day she discovers a wet, dirty dog in a bush, and after determining he’s a stray, she takes him home. She gives him a bath and names him Max, and he promptly falls contentedly asleep on her bed. Then one Saturday, on their routine walk near the tower, a squirrel dashes by, and Max takes chase, pulling the leash from Martine’s hand. Max continues running but heads up the stairs of the tower, forcing Martine to hastily buy a ticket to catch him. Vertiginous views of the tower’s skeleton emphasize its height. When they reach the second level, Max slips into the elevator, and Martine follows. The doors open at the top to a spectacular two-page spread of Paris at twilight, with Martine and Max in the foreground. After that, Martine and Max resume their daily routines but with a twist: They always try something new on Saturday. The exquisitely rendered watercolor illustrations are full of charm and expression, becoming more colorful and saturated as Martine’s heart gets fuller.

Enchanting. (Picture book. 4-7) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

FRANK

Brecon, Connah Illus. by Brecon, Connah Running Press Kids (32 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 30, 2014 978-0-7624-5423-5 This helpful little bear is such a good Samaritan that he’s always late for school.

Frank looks jaunty in his jeans and puffy down vest. He’s a happy young bear, but he’s easily distracted. He arrives for his first day of school after all the other children have gone home. Whether

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“It is nearly impossible to look at without reading aloud, chanting aloud and even tapping and stamping and sliding: extreme joyousness.” from i’m a dirty dinosaur

it’s helping to rescue a frightened kitten stuck in a tree or stopping to bust some moves in a dance-off, he can’t bear to keep going on his way. As the days go by, things get progressively a little better. By the fourth day, he arrives before lunch, during snack time—but not before having stopped to investigate “a shrieking squeak” and “a terrible stink.” Just outside the school, there was a big green ogre bullying a family of rabbits. Frank’s rescue of the bunnies results in his arriving covered in that terrible stink. On the fifth day, Frank arrives mere seconds after the bell rings. But school stops abruptly when a giant zombie lizard king breathes fire just outside the classroom window. Everyone else wants to flee, but Frank manages to make friends with the lizard. After that, he is never late again…maybe. The impish illustrations have great quirky appeal, but the story lacks even an inner logic—children will get hung up in the chronology, if nothing else—and has a murky message.

Zany but forgettable. (Picture book. 4-7)

I’M A DIRTY DINOSAUR Brian, Janeen Illus. by James, Ann Kane/Miller (22 pp.) $11.99 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-61067-296-2

This Australian import cries out for toddler participation, with parts for everyone.

The little dinosaur—an outline sketch of a creature drawn with multicolored pencil—rejoices in total mudlusciousness with a vigorous chant. “I’m a dirty dinosaur / with a dirty face. // I never have a wash / I just shake about the place.” The winsome background to the dinosaur’s antics is painted with watercolor and smeared and splattered with actual mud. Opposite, in bold print with each letter a different color, is the refrain: “SHAKE, SHAKE, / SHAKE, SHAKE, / SHAKE ABOUT / THE PLACE!” The dinosaur goes on to mention a “dirty tum,” which it taps like a drum: “TAP, TAP,” etc. There is also stamping about the street with dirty feet and sliding that dirty tail “like a snail.” At the end, in deep realization of its yuckiness, the dinosaur decides to go to the swamp and “GIVE MYSELF A WASH!” Birds, flowers, dragonflies and a frog or two accompany the protagonist, who walks (dances, really) on two legs and sports little stegosauruslike spine plates and a belly button.

It is nearly impossible to look at without reading aloud, chanting aloud and even tapping and stamping and sliding: extreme joyousness. (Picture book. 4-7)

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NIGHT SKY

Brockmann, Suzanne; Brockmann, Melanie Sourcebooks Fire (496 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-1-4926-0144-9 Series: Dangerous Destiny, 1 Best-selling author Brockmann teams up with daughter Melanie to launch an exciting new series for teens interested in being more than just “normal.”

Skylar’s mother has always urged her to fit in, and Sky has always complied, even while chafing at the restrictions. But when Sasha, a little girl she babysits, is kidnapped, Sky can’t just stand by anymore. With her bestie Calvin by her side, she starts to push the boundaries of her circumscribed life, and she finds that the bizarre surrounds her—and that she is not so “normal” herself. Newfound abilities to smell emotions, to run faster than a fine-tuned athlete and to react to danger with strength as well as speed are just some of the changes happening to her.

When she meets Dana, she realizes she’s a Greater-Than, as are Dana and Sasha. Sasha has been taken by criminals who want her blood to make the hottest new drug on the market, Destiny. Sky, Calvin, Dana and Dana’s mysterious friend Milo take to the streets in a quest where time is running out. With a little something for everyone and a hip sense of humor, dialogue and teen angst, this is a gripping page-turner from first to last. Particularly nice is the full integration of wheelchair-bound Calvin, who is far more than his disability.

The start of something that can only be described as “greater-than.” (Paranormal suspense. 14 & up)

THE RIGHT WORD Roget and His Thesaurus Bryant, Jen Illus. by Sweet, Melissa Eerdmans (42 pp.) $17.50 | Sep. 15, 2014 978-0-8028-5385-1

After award-winning collaborations about poet William Carlos Williams and artist Horace Pippin, Bryant and Sweet return to investigate the life of Peter Mark Roget.

Born in London in 1779, Roget was plagued by lifelong setbacks. His father died early; his mother was unstable. Frequent moves and pronounced shyness engendered solace in books.

Partial to classifying his knowledge and experiences, Peter composed his first book of lists by age 8. Inspired by the taxonomy of Swedish physician and botanist Linnaeus, teenage Peter studied medicine in Scotland, eventually establishing a practice in London, and he worked on a book of word classifications, completing it in 1805 for his own reference. Roget lectured, invented (the slide rule and the pocket chess set) and, inspired

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“All the elements of good storytelling—plot, characters, vocabulary and more—are included….” from how to bake a book

by the publication of several contemporary, inferior books of lists, returned to his own. His Thesaurus, published in 1852 and nurtured by his descendants, has never gone out of print. Bryant’s prose is bright and well-tuned for young readers. She goes gently, omitting Roget’s darkest traumas, such as witnessing his uncle’s suicide. Sweet tops herself—again!—visually reflecting Roget’s wide range as a thinker and product of the Enlightenment. Injecting her watercolor palette with shots of teal, scarlet and fuchsia, Sweet embeds vintage bits (ledger paper, type drawers, botanical illustrations and more), creating a teeming, contemplative, playfully celebratory opus.

In a word: marvelous! (chronology, author’s and illustrator’s notes, selected bibliography, suggested reading, quotation sources, photograph of manuscript page) (Picture book/biography. 6-10) (This review was first published in the BEA/ ALA 2014 issue.)

HOW TO BAKE A BOOK

Burfoot, Ella Illus. by Burfoot, Ella Sourcebooks Jabberwocky (32 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-1-4926-0651-2 Clever text and mixed-media artwork use the procedure of baking a cake as an obvious, comical metaphor for the process of creating a book.

The cartoonlike girl, whose blonde hair sports barrettes made of alphabet letters and punctuation marks, narrates in little rhymes that dance across the pages. “I am going to bake a book!” proclaims the verso in bold lettering between a rack of dangling utensils, flashcards and paper dolls above and a colorful clutter of art, writing and baking accessories below.

On the recto, the girl’s face stares intently but happily above a mixing bowl that holds scraps of childlike artwork and bits of scribbled-on notebook paper. Her small hands grasp two sides of an enormous egg that apparently let loose the scraps. Curving above and parallel to the arc of the girl’s chair is written “I’ll break some ideas into a cup. / I’ll beat them, whisk them, mix them up.” All the elements of good storytelling—plot, characters, vocabulary and more—are included in subsequent pages bursting with color and excitement. The rhyme, rhythm and intricate artwork will keep the youngest readers interested, while beginning readers will understand the humor and enjoy searching for extra words inside the artwork.

As the trend of picture books praising the codex continues, few will match the light tone, originality and quirkiness of this one. (Picture book. 2-7)

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THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MUSK OX Cabatingan, Erin Illus. by Myers, Matthew Neal Porter/Roaring Brook (40 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 30, 2014 978-1-59643-799-9

The wisecracking musk ox and buttoned-up zebra take off to travel the world.

These pals (last seen in Musk Ox Counts, 2013) have a half-fond, halfirritated, very entertaining relationship. When the zebra finds their globe shattered and his companion utterly ignorant of geography, he whisks them off on a tour of continents, lecturing all the way—while the musk ox quips. Some of the humor is genuinely rib-tickling, in particular their banter. Also funny are the musk ox bestride a camel, penguins toppling hilariously in Antarctic wind gusts, and various “Hysterical Marker” signs with attitude (“In 1911, the South Pole was discovered by 5 men and 16 dogs. Guess who took the credit?”). Other jokes fall flat, such as the musk ox’s pickup-artist lines: Zebra introduces some animals “called gnus,” and musk ox says, “Well, I just want to call them. Hello, ladies! Is it hot out here or is it me?” Jazzy information (Antarctica’s a desert!) tussles with artistic license (Bactrian camels erroneously show up in Africa). The portrayals of the continents employ a lazy reductiveness: Africa’s all nature and animals, while Europe has the Eiffel Tower—and humans.

Target-age readers are too young to unpack this problematic implication. Myers’ paintings are visually bold, truly funny and richly colored.

Great art and (some) fabulous humor, but the geographical implications requiring correction make this a difficult choice. (Picture book. 5-8)

THUNDER

Calhoun, Bonnie S. Revell (320 pp.) $16.99 | $16.99 e-book | Oct. 7, 2014 978-0-8007-2376-7 978-1-4412-2053-0 e-book Series: Stone Braide Chronicles, 1 In search of her father, Selah takes a treacherous journey through the hardscrabble landscape of post-nuclear disaster.

Since the Time of Sorrows, the remaining population has returned to subsistence living, as most food sources are contaminated and the infrastructure has crumbled. Also since that time, Landers, inscrutable figures marked by a wing tattoo, periodically wash up on shore, babbling of a “final Kingdom,” to be hunted for bounty by the remnants of humanity. On her 18th birthday, shortly after finding a Lander, the Lander mark appears on Selah’s chest, indicating that she’s a half-breed. No longer safe, she leaves her Borough seeking her father and the protected fortress of the Mountain.

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She falls into fitful love with her gorgeous Lander companion, Bodhi, who teaches her about her new telepathic powers.

Meanwhile, technology has advanced tenfold at the Mountain.

Two scientists battle for dominion, while one is experimenting on Landers, using their DNA to find immortality. There are as many subplots to this novel as hydrogen bonds on a double helix, and the story is snarled by its own twists and clunky with contradictions. The romance is eye-rolling. The series’ only hope is that the plot pursues its one fresh idea: What exactly are the Landers?

A sci-fi mishmash set in a dystopian world where a kind of human/angel hybrid will probably save mankind. (Science fiction. 15-18)

THE TROUBLES OF JOHNNY CANNON

Campbell, Isaiah Simon & Schuster (304 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | Oct. 14, 2014 978-1-4814-0003-9 978-1-4814-0005-3 e-book It’s 1961 in Cullman, Alabama, and Johnny Cannon has more troubles than any “almost-thirteen-year-old” ought to have.

Johnny is living an extraordinary life for an Alabama country boy. He’s good at hunting, though not so good at school, and he’s an engaging raconteur. In this overstuffed debut, Johnny is friends with African-American preacher’s kid Willie Parkins and actually pitches for Willie’s otherwise all-black baseball team, risking the attention of the Ku Klux Klan. Johnny also accidentally cuts off Martha Macker’s ponytail, pursues a lame moneymaking scheme that ignites racial strife, almost perishes in a tornado and wrecks his father’s truck. And that’s only the first part of Johnny’s saga. When his father builds a military-style radio station in their shed—it turns out he’s involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion—the story becomes a series of madcap and increasingly implausible events (think Dead End in Norvelt on steroids). He encounters Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, pilots an airplane to make an escape, confronts the Klan, lies to a CIA agent and launches himself like Superman off of his roof. Less would have been more here, as Johnny and Willie are well-drawn characters to care about, and Cullman’s a large-enough world for them to live out their stories.

Over-the-top fun for readers who can overlook the implausibilities. (Historical action. 9-14)

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A NIGHT AT THE ZOO Caple, Kathy Illus. by Caple, Kathy Holiday House (24 pp.) $14.95 | Sep. 15, 2014 978-0-8234-3044-4 Series: I Like to Read

One boy, one dad, one cellphone and one ill-timed nap add up to one crazy trip to the zoo.

Ever wonder what happens after hours at the zoo? When Mom calls Pop and Sam at the end of their zoo outing, they decide to eat one last container of popcorn on the bench. The popcorn has a soporific effect, and both father and son fall into a deep sleep, missing the closing announcement. The animals parade out, wearing party hats of all sorts, and are drawn to the cellphone resting next to Pop. Once the monkey gets his hands on it, he starts taking pictures. The night guard discovers the napping father and son, the animals are startled, and the phone is temporarily lost. Telling a story with very limited vocabulary, short sentences and one-, two- and three-syllable words is a challenge, but Caple’s amusing, full-color ink-and-watercolor illustrations of animals gone wild extend the simple text and deepen the story. Very new readers will find success here, and adults will chuckle along with the silly situations shown in the pictures.

Teachers can use this to jump-start youngsters’ imaginations— what might happen after dark in other common places?

Young animal lovers will find much to laugh at here.

(Early reader. 3-6)

SEALED WITH A LIE

Carlton, Kat Simon & Schuster (256 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-4814-0052-7 978-1-4814-0054-1 e-book This second installment in a new espionage-action series for girls (Two Lies and a Spy, 2013) provides suspenseful entertainment, although Kari Andrews is no Alex Rider.

The story begins in Paris, where 16-year-old Kari studies at Generation Interpol, training to become a spy like her parents, who turned traitors and abandoned their family in the previous book. Although Kari has real talent in martial arts, it’s difficult to imagine a character less suited to the spy trade. She’s uninterested in and unable to learn languages or the technical aspects of her chosen profession. Throughout the book, Kari shows herself to be a walking bundle of rampant emotions. She can’t control herself even in the most dangerous situations, and her emotional outbursts threaten the success of her mission over and over. Fortunately, handsome Evan keeps her in line, though with some difficulty, by reminding Kari that her little brother Charlie’s life could be lost if she doesn’t calm down. Shadowy enemies have kidnapped the 7-year-old genius, threatening to

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“...Cerra does a good job of re-creating the combination of fear, confusion, patriotism, prejudice and community spirit the [9/11] attack engendered, and readers should identify with Jake’s plight.” from just a drop of water

dismember and then kill him if Kari doesn’t spring a thief from jail. She teams up with Evan and two other friends in a caper that takes the group across Europe and involves a nifty break-in to a highly secure company headquarters.

Solid action, high stakes and a likable heroine keep the pages turning. (Thriller. 14-18)

THE BOY ON THE PAGE Carnavas, Peter Illus. by Carnavas, Peter Kane/Miller (32 pp.) $11.99 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-61067-245-0

A picture-book allegory about life and, to some extent, love.

It is undeniably adorable, with a winsome protagonist, sweet animals, and great but not aggressive production (lovely paper and a light-catching glaze). Less a meditation on metafictional existence than a stand-in story for an existential quest (why am I here?), the tale of this “boy” is actually fairly low-key: “One quiet morning, a small boy landed on the page.” Though a little nonplussed, the boy quickly finds himself exploring the limits of his world. His animal companions—a friendly pig and a small yellow bird—stick with him as he experiences art, music and adventure. Later, he grows a beard, still looking endearingly like his young self despite facial hair, and becomes a partner and a father. Near the book’s end—the pages’ end—the elusive, universal “why” has him leaping into the unknown—whether disconcertingly or boldly will depend on individual readers or listeners: “Looking for answers, he tried something he had never tried before. / Jumping off the page… // …waiting for him there was every…person he had ever loved.” The boy, now clearly a grown and elderly man, is both enlightened and reassured. Will the young readers and listeners feel the same way?

The impressive kindness of the art has its own power and could make it work—the ambiguity inherent in this sort of question does not guarantee success. (Picture book.

4-8) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

JUST A DROP OF WATER Cerra, Kerry O’Malley Sky Pony Press (320 pp.) $14.95 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-62914-613-3

The tragedy of 9/11 forces a 13-yearold Florida boy who has always lived with a comfortable, straightforward code of conduct to explore the issues of loyalty, patriotism and fair play.

In this tale that should be just the supplemental material middle-grade history teachers are looking for, Cerra presents three cross-country teammates: a Christian Everykid, a Muslim whose father had a routine business interaction with one of the 92

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terrorists, and a Jewish boy whose Navy officer father died during the attack. The story is narrated by Jake Green, the Christian boy, who is best friends with Sameed “Sam” Madina, a child of Saudi Arabian descent from a nonobservant Muslim family.

Prejudice rears its ugly head directly after the attack: Sam is assailed by a bigoted classmate, and Jake rushes to his defense, striking Sam’s attacker. Later, Jake is shocked to discover that he’s not supported by his coach, many of his classmates and his parents, particularly his emotionally distraught mother, whose old psychological wounds have been reopened by the event.

Sam too has changed, particularly after his father comes under suspicion, leaving Jake confused and alone. Although the tale is didactic and slow in spots, Cerra does a good job of re-creating the combination of fear, confusion, patriotism, prejudice and community spirit the attack engendered, and readers should identify with Jake’s plight.

A perceptive exploration of an event its audience already sees as history. (Historical fiction. 10-14)

OH MY, OH NO!

Charrier, Lisa Illus. by Domergue, Agnès Translated by Rodarmor, William Running Press Kids (32 pp.) $15.95 | Sep. 23, 2014 978-0-7624-5409-9 A little girl’s attempts to emulate Mommy are mostly messy.

She helps Mommy clean the floor and creates a flood. There is a whirlwind of flour all over the kitchen when she tries to make a cake. Thinking it will make Mommy happy, she paints all over the wall and neatly spreads toilet paper all over the bathroom. Mommy wears makeup and jewelry, so our little lady tries it also. But every escapade ends with Mommy’s “Oh my, oh no!” when faced with the disastrous results. The little girl comes to the conclusion that her mother doesn’t make sense. After all, Mommy tells the child that coffee is yucky, even as she drinks it herself. Maybe it’s because she’s too tall and doesn’t see things from a small child’s perspective, or maybe she doesn’t have time to think. Charrier allows the little one to express her bafflement, speaking directly to readers in a tone that is a mix of innocence and exasperation. The intrepid narrator is appealing and funny, but the point of the book just doesn’t come clear. When all is abruptly forgiven with smiles and hugs and Mommy suddenly understands, readers may be left confused as to what all the fuss was about. Domergue’s sprightly illustrations employ some humorous details that nicely enhance the action.

Amusing but flawed. (Picture book. 3-6)

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DRAW!

Colón, Raúl Illus. by Colón, Raúl Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-4424-9492-3 978-1-4424-9493-0 e-book A wordless picture book celebrates the power of art and imagination.

A little boy reads about Africa and then creates his own adventures with his pencils and paints. Wordless books require readers to slow down and read the pictures, and careful children will see beyond the main storyline by looking at the whole illustration. Why is the boy in bed and not outside? The inhaler and bottle of medicine on the side table are hints. But binoculars and an umbrella on the other side of the table tell them that he is not always bedridden. As he draws, he falls deeply into the rich world of his imaginary Africa. First he draws an elephant, and then he rides away on it. He paints zebras, has a sandwich for lunch, records a giraffe stampede and shares one of his many other sandwiches with the gorillas. After a hair-raising encounter with an aggressive rhino, the little artist shares his pencils and food with other primates, who return the favor and sketch him. Colón’s signature scratched-watercolor technique adds richness and emotion to this warm story, but it’s the framing scenes at beginning and end that really sparkle here. Simple line-and-color washes put the young man at the center of the story and help readers identify with him.

Young artists, reach for your sketchbooks. (Picture book.

4-8) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

OLGA THE CLOUD

Costa, Nicoletta Illus. by Costa, Nicoletta Translated by Maccarone, Grace Holiday House (32 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-8234-3213-4 A cloud’s gotta do what a cloud’s gotta do.

Happy Olga just drifts through the sky with a smile on her face as she observes all the sights around and below her. Wanting to rest (and maybe “make a little rain”), she looks around for a suitable location. The moon does not want her. A cat scares her. A mother hen shoos her off. A woman hanging laundry to dry angrily tells her to leave; she doesn’t want any rain on her clean clothing! Finally, Olga receives sage advice from a bird and joins other clouds to do what clouds in company do—“make a big wonderful rain.” It is a happy ending with a moral reminiscent of Leo Lionni’s classic Swimmy. There is strength and purpose in numbers. Costa is Italian, and this title, smoothly translated, is a lovely little tale. The art, rendered in India ink, acrylic paint and pastel, is delicate and appealing. The palette is |

a lovely assortment of blues for the sky and the water. Animals, trees and happy-faced clouds are all outlined in fine black lines.

A beguiling ode to gentle rain. (Picture book. 3-6)

THE SWALLOW A Ghost Story

Cotter, Charis Tundra (320 pp.) $19.99 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-77049-591-3 Spooky tension, friendship and compassion permeate this exquisitely plotted middle-grade ghost story.

Polly wants to see ghosts, and Rose can’t stop seeing them. When the two 12-year-olds first meet, hearing each other through the adjoining wall in the attics of their adjacent row houses, Polly is convinced Rose is a ghost— until they meet in person, and even then she’s not sure. Rose certainly looks ghostly, with her pale face, shadowed eyes, and dark, wild hair, and Polly’s twin brothers, Matthew and Mark, are concerned enough to warn Polly away from Rose, afraid she will steal Polly’s soul. But the girls continue their secret friendship, trying to uncover the mystery of Rose’s aunt Winnifred, who, they discover, died at 13 and who, they think, is haunting Rose’s attic. As related in first-person narration that switches from Polly to Rose and back again, even within chapters, the story structure weaves its way in and out—riveting and tumbling with tension but never obvious, leaving readers wondering if anything is really as it seems. The protagonists are both spooky and delightfully down-to-earth, and readers will seesaw between chills and snorts of laughter. When Cotter delivers the final twist, it is a denouement that becomes a springboard for greater revelations that lead to even greater reader satisfaction.

Middle-grade storytelling at its very best—extraordinary. (Fantasy. 9-13)

LIES IN THE DUST A Tale of Remorse from the Salem Witch Trials Crane, Jakob Illus. by Decker, Timothy Islandport Press (128 pp.) $14.95 paper | Sep. 30, 2014 978-1-939017-33-8

In 1706, 14 years after the infamous Salem witch trials, accuser Ann Putnam Jr. publicly apologized for her role; from that documentary evidence, Crane and Decker spin an airy, atmospheric graphic-novel examination of a legacy of guilt.

After the briefest of introductions, the book opens on a tormented Ann Putnam in 1706. Both her parents having died seven years earlier, she has been de facto parent to her nine siblings; shockingly, she does not miss either of them. Through

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visions and flashbacks, readers get a sense of the role Ann’s parents played in her crime, exploiting their 12-year-old daughter to take the land of the accused. Her fictional recollections of her victims are interleaved with abbreviated transcripts from the trials and expressed in even, formal language. All is illustrated with Decker’s fine-lined drawings that evoke both the surreal details of the accusations and the pastoral Colonial setting. His characters’ faces have just the merest hint of individuality, which is fitting for a tale of communal guilt but also has the effect of keeping Ann something of a visual cipher. More impressionistic than expository, this treatment, which closes with the text of Ann’s apology, is no substitute for a thoroughgoing narrative history, but its attempt to understand the effects of the trials on one of its villains is provocative, to say the least.

Haunting. (afterword) (Graphic historical fiction. 12-18)

THE CASE OF THE WEIRD BLUE CHICKEN The Next Misadventure

Cronin, Doreen Illus. by Cornell, Kevin Atheneum (112 pp.) $12.99 | $9.99 e-book | Sep. 30, 2014 978-1-4424-9679-8 978-1-4424-9681-1 e-book Series: Chicken Squad, 2 Chickens Dirt, Sugar, Poppy and Sweetie are back!

These chickens profess to solve all sorts of mysteries, but soon it becomes evident that they are more likely just to stir up trouble. Luckily, retired search-and-rescue pooch J.J. Tully is keeping an eye on all things chicken. In this outing, a blue jay (or weird blue chicken, if you are on the Chicken Squad) reads the squad’s flier and comes for help. Someone has taken the jay’s house, and the little bird wants it back. After a hilarious crossexamination, Dirt and Sugar realize that brother Poppy is the thief. But why—and how—did little Poppy move the wooden house? The plot thickens when a squirrel shows up, complaining of stolen acorns and requesting a hammer. These mysteries sort themselves out in a typically comic manner, with Sweetie, the littlest chicken, relegated to an old shoe, playing a critical role.

Cornell’s frequent black-and-white art turns up the volume on the humor and helps new chapter-book readers keep up with the plot. Tully makes a brief appearance at the beginning and end, taking all the credit. Everyone learns a lesson: The blue jay learns the difference between inches and feet, the squad learns to listen to Sweetie, and the squirrel learns to eat fruit.

New readers have a terrific new series to laugh over.

(Mystery. 6-9)

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TRANSGENDER LIVES Complex Stories, Complex Voices

Cronn-Mills, Kirstin Twenty-First Century/Lerner (88 pp.) $34.60 PLB | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-7613-9022-0 PLB An outsiders’ guide to the experiences of transgender individuals.

Portraying a marginalized group for the consumption of the majority is always a dicey proposition, and Cronn-Mills’ (whose Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, 2012, won a 2014 Stonewall Award) effort here illustrates many of the pitfalls.

Short, third-person narrative portraits of transgender individuals—all adults and all but one apparently white—are interleaved with dry, overgeneralized informational segments about identities, health care, and historical and cross-cultural examples of gender nonconformity. Despite the title’s promise of complexity, the portraits are too brief to give anything more than an impression of their subjects, and stories focus heavily on coming out and physical transition. Similarly, informational chapters give readers little to hold onto. A typically uninformative sentence begins, “Terms for individuals who have flexible gender identities may include…” and then goes on to list 10 terms without attempting to explain or contextualize any of them. Entries in an erratically selected “Who’s Who” unnecessarily and inappropriately include transgender public figures’ birth names, and accounts of violence against transgender people are slotted jarringly among neutral or positive informational segments.

Susan Kuklin’s Beyond Magenta (2014), which documents the lives of transgender teens in their own words, is a superior title in every way. (timeline, glossary, notes, bibliography, further information, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)

DEATH COMING UP THE HILL Crowe, Chris HMH Books (208 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-0-544-30215-0

Seventeen-year-old Ashe Douglas records the events of 1968 in a novel in haiku.

Ashe was born on May 17, 1951, and is a senior in high school during the year he decides to describe in haiku, liking the tidiness of the three-line, 17-syllable form. The year is 1968, when more soldiers died in the Vietnam War than in any other year. Ashe decides not only to write haiku, but to dedicate a syllable to each soldier killed—976 haiku equals 16,592 syllables equals the number of soldiers killed in 1968. An entire story “contained by a syllable count.” Not only is that asking a lot of its diminutive form, but so much happened in 1968: the war, race riots, the assassinations of Martin

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“The illustrations are sublime in their restraint and fearless use of ample white space….” from naptime

Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, let alone Ashe’s family life, which resembles a war zone. Haiku stanzas just can’t contain it all, being ill equipped for the depth or context necessary for a rich historical novel. But what transcends contrivance and gimmickry is Ashe’s voice, and haiku are well-suited to carry that. With newspaper headlines, death tolls, and overwhelming world, national and domestic events in the background, one boy’s clear and earnest voice records his life: “I’ll / write what needs to be / remembered and leave it to / you to fill in the gaps.”

A memorable / and innovative story / of one wrenching year. (historical note, author’s note) (Historical fiction/poetry.

12-16)

THE FIRES OF CALDERON

Cummings, Lindsay Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (352 pp.) $16.99 | $9.99 e-book | Oct. 1, 2014 978-0-06-227518-9 978-0-06-227520-2 e-book Series: Balance Keepers, 1 Eleven-year-old Albert Flynn is faced with a summer sorting mail in the deadletter office, but a mysterious delivery promises an adventure beyond his wild-

est imagination.

When Albert’s father sends him into the forest to deliver a letter, he has no idea that he will wind up enlisted in a secret society deep within the Earth. Albert and fellow enlistees Birdie and Leroy find themselves in training to become Balance Keepers, guardians of the underworld realms. The three select tokens that promise ordinary powers, but they soon realize that even the abilities to swim like a fish or think like a supercomputer are not enough to prepare them for the dangerous tasks ahead.

However, unless they can learn to master their talents and work as a team, the whole world might be in danger. While Albert is a likable hero, the formulaic plot and copycat characters point to this debut’s major flaw: It’s little more than a mashup of other familiar series. Uninspired dialogue, failed attempts at humor and a landslide of inconsistencies contribute to the overall problem. Even gruesome monsters and a seemingly impossible quest fail to energize this lackluster adventure.

Unsuccessful both in concept and construct. (Fantasy.

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THE WRENCHIES

Dalrymple, Farel Illus. by Dalrymple, Farel First Second (304 pp.) $19.99 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-59643-421-9 Children must fight a complicated evil in this dark, disturbing sci-fi tale.

While out playing one fateful day, brothers Sherwood and Orson stumble upon a horrible and mysterious cave. Inside, the boys encounter a demon that will forever alter the paths of their lives. In a parallel universe, a motley crew called the Wrenchies band together in a violent, futuristic wasteland trying to survive numerous foes, especially the Shadowsmen. In yet another place/time, a comics-loving misfit named Hollis (who takes to running about in a scarlet superhero costume) finds himself immersed—literally—in the pages of an enigmatic, purloined comic. These three tales twine together in a somewhat confusing fashion, full of reaching sci-fi leaps into other times and dimensions, creating a brain-aching nonlinear plot. Couple this with a handful of epilogues and an esoteric “fotogloctica” that kind of but not really wraps things up, and expect readers’ brains to be smoking. Dalrymple’s art is impeccable, capturing the horrors of demons that routinely spear eyeballs and great swarms of parasitic insects that can crawl into ears and need to be killed by swords and/or knives; it’s beautiful, dreamy and nightmarishly violent. Think of this as an insidiously macabre Coraline-esque tale meets Charles Burns.

Morbid and discomfiting; not for the faint of heart, but what a ride for those who go with the flow. (Graphic science fiction. 15 & up) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

NAPTIME

de Moüy, Iris Illus. by de Moüy, Iris Translated by Tanaka, Shelley Groundwood (28 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 14, 2014 978-1-55498-487-9 A little girl persuades a menagerie of animals to take a nap.

Simple, bold, painted pictures of wild animals include handlettered, full-caps declarations of their individual statements resisting naps. “I’M TOO BIG TO HAVE A NAP” declares an elephant whose form breaks the confines of the page. “HA, HA, HA. A NAP? WHAT A JOKE!” laughs a hyena. Other animals assert themselves, too, until the little girl from the jacket art confronts them all and gets them to close first one eye and then another, “AND THAT’S ALL THERE IS TO IT!” she says, smiling with pride as every animal falls asleep in a veritable peaceable-kingdom tableau. The illustrations are sublime in their restraint and fearless use of ample white space, and they adopt a style that’s reminiscent of Suzy Lee’s pictures, especially

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INTERVIEWS & PROFILES

G. Neri

The insightful writer tells a story that moves beyond sensational headlines

By Mai Tran

Photo courtesy Michael Lionstar

Storytellers, I believe, write not because they can, but because they must. G. Neri talks about his latest novel, Knockout Games, with such a humbling sense of authority, as if the characters themselves hold the keys to the novel while their creator deserves no praise for its brilliance.

A filmmaker-turned-novelist, Neri has already established a name for himself in the eyes of young readers. He was a 2011 Coretta Scott King honoree for his graphic novel, Yummy; Ghetto Cowboy, his middle-grade novel, received the 2012 Horace Mann Upstanders Children’s Book Award. He’s also a two-time American Library Association Notable Book Honoree. His books are full of chess fanatics, urban cowboys, Floridian smugglers and Chicagoan gangsters.

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Neri’s latest is drenched in the horror of violence in which he is so well-versed, but it also touches on the beauty of young love. The first glimpse of Erica, the novel’s redheaded misfit, occurs as she’s leaving for St. Louis after her parents’ messy divorce. An oddball with bright red curls who always becomes a vulnerable target for bullies, Erica learns to live her life through the screen, making videos with her home camera. When Kalvin, the 18-year-old leader of the TKO Club, starts paying some interest in Erica and her filming talent, the 15-year-old girl suddenly gets dragged into the underworld of inner-city boxing clubs, where she is asked to film and eventually participate in the horrendous “games” of knocking out complete strangers with one single punch.

Despite its overarching concerns about human apathy in our computercentric society, Knockout Games is first and foremost the story of an outsider. Even though Erica is Neri’s first female protagonist, she feels extremely relatable. Like any typical teenage girl, she worries more about her plump figure and her noticeable ginger curls than the fact that her family has broken apart because of her father’s infidelity. “The fact that she was a girl was just surface detail,” Neri says. “I just wanted to make her a real person with real emotions, and that part wasn’t hard.”

Neri knows what adolescents are like, whether it’s their ability to block out the consequences of their actions or their hunger for approval and acceptance in their communities. “A lot of these kids, they’re not from the strongest family structure, so the crew becomes their more immediate family,” Neri says. “To prove yourself to whoever that’s running this crew is a big thing, and to get acceptance from the other kids in the crew is very important, so

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that they belong to something.” He also doesn’t forget to show readers the innocent side of these children, who simply see all this as a game. “It wasn’t a gang thing; they weren’t robbing people—it was like a social dare,” Neri says. “And in fact, if you did that and were able to knock out this complete stranger, you kind of became the big man in school.”

It would be a mistake to assume this book should be read as yet another racial plaint. “Every single article talking about these situations going on is really just black vs. white,” Neri says. “To me, that’s far too easy. I don’t want people to be able to write it off, to say, ‘Well, that’s them.’ ” The novel succeeds where media coverage of knockouts has failed: Knockout Games holds people accountable on all sides. His character Destiny, the queen bee of Truman High, grows uncomfortably from a bully to a best friend as the story progresses. Readers will also have a hard time dissing the socalled antagonist Kalvin, aka the Knockout King, who is misguided by an abusive and alcoholic father and grows up with a survival mentality of bully or be bullied (or in Knockout terms, “those who don’t play, get played.”)

The author finds it difficult to answer the question of how he identifies himself with his characters.

“All my characters are kind of outsiders,” Neri says after a long pause. “They’re trying to figure out their place in the world, how they fit, and basically nobody is helping them, and they’ve got to figure it out on their own—by hitting your head to the wall one too many times until you find a hole in the wall that lets you through, that allows you to break through and find yourself.”

Neri’s books cater to a rather reluctant underground audience of young urban boys. Most of the sales go to public schools and libraries, where students who have possibly never finished a book are introduced to them, he says. “You can’t put Jane Austen or Shakespeare in front of a lot of these kids,” he points out. “The social and cultural gap is just too far—too distant for them to even begin to recognize that.” The author’s only hope is to plant a seed in young readers’ minds. “You have to talk about these things in an honest way to show the story without being preachy or moralistic about the whole thing,” Neri says. “By allowing them to experience it from beginning to end, the book tries to figure out past |

the headlines to understand why people get sucked into it, what’s actually happening, what’s the fun part that draws people in, but also what are the tragic implications and ramifications of doing something like this.”

Mai Tran is a rising junior at Bennington College studying literature and social sciences. She is currently interning at Kirkus Reviews, Random House and PEN American Center.

Knockout Games received a starred review in the July 1, 2014, issue of Kirkus Reviews.

Knockout Games Neri, G. Carolrhoda Lab (304 pp.) $17.95 | Aug. 1, 2014 978-1-4677-3269-7

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in their depictions of the little girl. Perhaps the only thing that could make this title even stronger would be enhanced focus on her character, as readers might wonder why she is the one in charge of these animals and their naptime. Still, so authoritative is she, they might just try closing one eye and then the other to see if that really is all there is to it.

A lovely, if wakeful, bedtime book from France. (Picture book. 2-5)

A NEW DARKNESS

Delaney, Joseph Greenwillow/HarperCollins (352 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | Sep. 2, 2014 978-0-06-233453-4 978-0-06-233455-8 e-book Newly minted spook Tom Ward takes on a surprising new apprentice and investigates a gathering storm in the first installment in this Last Apprentice sequel series.

A mysterious evil is abducting and slaughtering residents of Chipenden. Tom is joined by Jenny, a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter who dreams of becoming a spook and wields some unique powers of her own. The witch assassin Grimalkin returns, and the trio investigates the assailant and the dark purpose it serves. Filling his tale to the brim with creepy creatures and cultural exposition, Delaney does his best to establish this new series as a newb-friendly continuation of the Last Apprentice universe. He succeeds, but the deep dive into back story gets in the way of the action at times. The narrative moves forward in fits and starts, constantly interrupted by awkward paragraphs explaining who relates to whom and what the history between them is. Fans may enjoy the shoutouts, but new readers will just want to get on with the exploits at hand. The adventure itself is serviceable, but it feels like a long preamble for bigger things to come. To make matters worse, a smart, shocking narrative decision late in the book is undercut by the novel’s final sentence, a pivot that may well provoke groans rather than curiosity.

Promising but questionably formed. (Grimalkin’s notes, glossary) (Fantasy. 10-14)

RAFA WAS MY ROBOT

Dellevoet, Alexandra Illus. by Turner, Ken Annick Press (32 pp.) $19.95 | $9.95 paper | Sep. 15, 2014 978-1-55451-679-7 978-1-55451-678-0 paper What’s a little boy to do when he loses his best friend?

Industrious Jacob, who looks to be about 6, builds his colorful robot, Rafa, “out of scraps and a whole lot of love.” Rafa, who’s about twice the size of Jacob, resembles a big cereal box, with vacuum-cleaner-hose arms, banded metallic legs and a big 98

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glassy red ball on top of his head that has electric current surging through it. They go everywhere together: to swim lessons, school, Paris, Stockholm and even to a galaxy far, far away. One day, Rafa’s not feeling so hot, so Jacob takes him to a doctor, who says he’s “running out of juice.” Jacob amasses a mountain of juice boxes, but the doctor explains that it’s a battery Rafa needs, a very special one. Jacob travels the world in search of it but returns disconsolate and empty-handed. At least he’s there to hold Rafa’s hand when he dies. Wondering how he’ll get by without his friend, Jacob builds a rock monument surrounded by flowers that he can visit every day and makes a pillow that looks like Rafa. “I’ll meet you tonight. In my dreams.” The quirky charm of Dellevoet’s tale and, especially, Turner’s colorfully emotive cartoons seem very true to a child’s imagination.

Dellevoet delivers her valuable message about grief with an effectively light touch.

Just lovely. (Picture book. 3-6)

TAKING FLIGHT From War Orphan to Star Ballerina

DePrince, Michaela; DePrince, Elaine Knopf (256 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | $19.99 PLB Oct. 14, 2014 978-0-385-75511-5 978-0-385-75513-9 e-book 978-0-385-75512-2 PLB Dancing becomes a dream fulfilled.

She is born Mabinty Bangura in Sierra Leone during the Harmattan, a season of Saharan winds. Despite her vitiligo, a skin condition causing spotting, her parents love and nurture her. In 1991, civil war destroys that life, as “debil” (rebel + devil) soldiers bring destruction and the deaths of her parents. A white couple from America adopts her from an orphanage, and Mabinty, now Michaela, leaves starvation and atrocities behind—but not the nightmares. A magazine cover of a ballerina gives her a dream of dancing on stage in tutus and toe shoes, and her American family encourages that dream with classes and attendance at performances. Unfortunately, American racism also becomes part of her life in shopping malls and at ballet schools. With incredible perseverance, family support and talent, Michaela succeeds: She is now dancing with the Dutch National Ballet.

She has been a media star and was one of six dancers featured in the 2012 documentary First Position. Readers will find her life story gripping whether or not they are dance fans. The dialogue is fictionalized, but the heart of the journey resonates in this mother/daughter collaboration.

A revealing and absorbing journey through dance classes and competitions to success. (Memoir. 13-18)

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“Over-the-top situations stitched together by hilarious chapter titles and exaggerated black-and-white illustrations keep the pages turning….” froms jack and the wild life

PRESS PLAY

Devine, Eric Running Press Teens (368 pp.) $9.95 paper | Oct. 28, 2014 978-0-7624-5512-6 An intense cult surrounding an allstate high school lacrosse team is slowly exposed by the school’s largest student.

Under the guidance of his best friend, Quinn, Greg “Dun the Ton” Dunsmore has been slowly chipping away at his 352-pound body with intense workouts in the school’s weight room. One day, Greg and Quinn mistakenly discover the lacrosse team’s hazing rituals, led by team captain Alva and head coach/school principal Mr. Callaghan. Greg, a budding film student, slowly captures various hazing incidents on film and, with the help of fellow fattie Ollie and fellow filmie Ella, creates a documentary with the purpose of taking the lacrosse team down. The book is structured like a conspiracy thriller, but the problem here is a bit obvious: Readers know from the outset that Callaghan is the head of the snake. Coupling this knowledge with repetitive scenes of Greg capturing footage and deciding it isn’t enough evidence, which leads to capturing more footage, makes for a real drag. Like Greg, this book could stand to lose some excess weight. There’s simply not enough story here. Making matters worse, the filmmaking teens are presented as types rather than actual characters, with their bullies so cartoonishly drawn that their problems have the level of complexity of an after-school special.

Too long, too simple. (Fiction. 12-16)

JACK AND THE WILD LIFE Doan, Lisa Illus. by Stevanovic, Ivica Darby Creek (144 pp.) $17.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-4677-1077-0 Series: Berenson Schemes, 2

Jack’s parents’ get-rich-quick scheme goes awry. Again.

The last time the Berensons launched a plan, son Jack ended up stranded in the Caribbean (Jack the Castaway, 2014). This time, they profess to have learned their lesson and are trying to take a page from their worrier son’s book and pay attention to planning and safety.

After losing their jobs and being evicted, they have a brilliant idea: launching a tourism startup in Kenya, in which people will pay to come and live like the Maasai. The Berensons are even planning ahead: They will not take risks, and they will not lose their son. Jack has his doubts. Of course, his parents cannot so easily change their ways, and Jack ends up in a tree, trapped by badgers and other critters with nothing but his wits and his friend Diana’s stuffed monkey, Mack. Jack’s ingenuity, fueled with a dash of frustration and anger at his hapless parents, is |

amazing. Not only does Jack create a hammock out of duct tape, but he hatches a dangerous plot that saves the stuffed monkey.

Over-the-top situations stitched together by hilarious chapter titles and exaggerated black-and-white illustrations keep the pages turning for young adventurers.

Mayhem, adventure and unexpected situations will leave readers wanting more from Jack. (Adventure. 8-12)

MALALA YOUSAFZAI Shot by the Taliban, Still Fighting for Equal Education Doeden, Matt Lerner (48 pp.) $26.60 PLB | Oct. 1, 2014 978-1-4677-4907-7 PLB

A cursory introduction to the Pakistani teenager who earned international attention (and a Nobel Peace Prize nomination) after surviving a Taliban gunman’s assassination attempt.

Doeden draws largely from Yousafzai’s 2013 autobiography and a handful of news reports to craft his account. He explains how she, as the eldest daughter of a dedicated founder of girls schools in Pakistan and co-author (at the age of 11) of a personal blog sponsored by the BBC Urdu, became a public face for Muslim girls’ education—and therefore a Taliban target. Silenced only temporarily by a bullet to the head in 2012, she has gone on not only to become an even more vocal advocate for equal (not to say any) education, but to challenge President Barack Obama face to face about the use of military drones in her country. It’s a straightforward account geared to those who aren’t ready to tackle longer, richer resources. Most of the cramped color photos, and all of the unhelpful pull quotes, serve to fill space more than anything else.

A portrait of a courageous and admirable young voice for change—but no substitute for the book that is its major source. (map, endnotes, bibliography) (Biography. 10-12)

DINO TREASURES

Donald, Rhonda Lucas Illus. by Morrison, Cathy Arbordale (32 pp.) $17.95 | $9.95 paper | Sep. 10, 2014 978-1-62855-450-2 978-1-62855-458-8 paper The author of Dino Tracks (2013) adopts a broader purview, introducing in verse 13 things we can infer about dinosaurs from fossil and other evidence.

The paleontology is better than the poetry. Singable, theoretically, to the tune of “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” each two-stanza entry takes on a single subject: “So what’s with all the feathers?

Could the dinos fly? / Maybe they helped keep a dino warm and dry. / Or they might have helped to show off to a mate. / That’s the way a peacock tries to get a date!” Donald also describes the

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“Once again, Edge’s deft use of gothic elements ensures maximum chills and suspense….” from shadows of the silver screen

fossilized contents of “Dino Poop” and dino stomachs (“What’s For Dinner”), preserved hints about skin and coloration, sounds possibly produced by the hollow crests of duck-billed species and like topics. The poems, arranged in no apparent order, end with a mention of modern birds—followed by expansive notes (in prose) and a page of study questions. Morrison adds both helpful visual detail and plenty of action with facing views of crumpled fossils and reconstructed prehistoric scenes featuring toothy predators and heavily armored plant eaters in loud, mottled colors.

Donald is no Douglas Florian (Dinothesaurus, 2009), but even rabid young dino fans will come away with a clearer sense of what fossil clues tell us. (bibliography) (Informational picture book. 7-9)

MIKIS AND THE DONKEY Dumon Tak, Bibi Illus. by Hopman, Philip Translated by Watkinson, Laura Eerdmans (89 pp.) $13.00 | Oct. 6, 2014 978-0-8028-5430-8

Inspired by a visit to a donkey sanctuary on the island of Corfu, this Dutch import offers a glimpse of a far-off land and a gentle lesson on caring for animals.

From his first meeting with his grandfather’s new donkey, Mikis feels a sense of connection. Fascinated, he spends as much time as possible with the animal, and when he’s given the opportunity to name her, he takes his time and even allows the donkey to have a vote of sorts. When not busy in school, the boy watches over Tsaki (as she is eventually called), urging his grandfather to treat her kindly, not to overburden her and to provide a comfortable stable. Slight subplots, more implied than fleshedout, feature his teacher’s romance with a motorcycle-riding boyfriend and Mikis’ own affection for a classmate, Elena. Tsaki’s occasionally stubborn personality adds some mild humor, but for the most part, the text is low-key and straightforward. Hopman’s scratchy black-and-white illustrations provide context, showing a scrubby landscape, small houses crowded along the shore or the spreading tree in the center of town where the old men gather to talk. Characterization and action are downplayed in favor of mood and setting, making this a book that will need some work to connect with readers.

Those children who do connect with Dumon Tak’s sweet, quiet tale are likely to find it will resonate deeply.

(Fiction. 8-10)

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SHADOWS OF THE SILVER SCREEN

Edge, Christopher Whitman (256 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-8075-7319-8 Series: Penelope Tredwell, 2 In this sequel to Twelve Minutes to Midnight (2014), young author/publisher Penelope Tredwell becomes ensnared in a devious scheme to turn one of her thrillers into a motion picture.

Orphan heiress of the Penny Dreadful, 13-year-old Penelope has successfully transformed the magazine into a “bestselling sensation” with her serialized “tales of terror.” When sleazy moviemaker Edward Gold approaches her hoping to make a film of her The Daughter of Darkness, Penelope’s wary until she falls under the spell of Gold’s Véritéscope, a new sort of movie camera that can both record and project sound as well as images. En route to filming at remote Eversholt Manor, Penelope discovers Gold’s really using her story to expose the true story of dastardly Lord Eversholt, who caused the death of his daughter, Amelia, years ago. When Penelope begins seeing Amelia’s ghost, she realizes the Véritéscope can capture the ethereal forms of the deceased and restore them to life. With her own life fading and Amelia’s returning, Penelope must stop Gold. Once again, Edge’s deft use of gothic elements ensures maximum chills and suspense as Penelope and pals race to outwit Gold and his contraption in a dramatic conclusion.

The spunky heroine is a captivating one, as is her deliciously sensational adventure. (Historical mystery. 8-12)

UNNATURAL SELECTIONS Edwards, Wallace Illus. by Edwards, Wallace Orca (32 pp.) $19.95 | Oct. 1, 2014 978-1-4598-0555-2

A gallery of chimerical critters that Darwin himself would be hard put to justify.

Edwards catches the exuberant “Whalephant” in midbreach, water streaming from its flapping ears as well as its flukes and a broad grin behind its trunk and tusks. He places the sinuous “Cowaconda” (“when her head is near, her body’s yond-a”) in a verdant meadow alongside a Koalarus, a Dorse and a Swox (as well as a fully ordinary Holstein that stands under a tree in whose branches an anaconda twines).

The Tyrabbosaurus Rex sits on a stool, waiting for his meal (“He loves when his tasty carrots / are delivered by friendly parrots”), its toothy, reptilian head bedecked with long white ears sitting atop a fuzzy white body. With these and other lovingly detailed portmanteau creations, Edwards (Mixed Beasts, 2005) takes nature past its outer limits to hilarious effect. Made up of easily recognizable, if notably unlikely, parts that are rendered with

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crisp, colorful precision, each of the 12 animals poses proudly in (more or less) natural settings. The odd, smaller Frogtopus or Snailagator hides in the weeds for sharper-eyed viewers to spot.

The comment attached to the seven-animal Skip serves for all: “A wondrous beast / to say the least.”

An imaginary zoo that will set readers to chortling. (key to smaller creatures) (Picture book. 6-8)

NEST

Ehrlich, Esther Wendy Lamb/Random (336 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 e-book | $19.99 PLB Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-385-38607-4 978-0-385-38609-8 e-book 978-0-385-38608-1 PLB A little girl’s world disintegrates after her mother’s illness and severe depression result in family tragedy.

Nicknamed “Chirp” because she loves bird-watching in her native Cape Cod, 11-year-old Naomi’s devoted to her freespirited mother, who’s always been a dancer. Unfortunately, her mother’s inability to cope with a multiple sclerosis diagnosis leads to her hospitalization for depression. Ironically, Chirp’s hyperanalytical psychiatrist father seems clueless about what’s happening emotionally to his family, while her older sister blames him for sending her mother away. Meanwhile, Chirp quietly withdraws, finding comfort in her birds and the unlikely companionship of her neighbor and classmate, Joey, whose own family has “significant issues.” When her mother returns and commits suicide, Chirp’s shocked, bereft and in deep denial, until Joey helps her find her way. Chirp’s first-person account of how she and her family react to the events leading to her mother’s funeral presents a nuanced chronicle of loss. Ehrlich’s ability to get inside Chirp’s head, to create beautifully rounded characters and to flesh out details of life for this Jewish family in 1972 Cape Cod adds to the overall realism. Frequent textual references to wild birds and relevant children’s books provide interesting depth.

A poignant, insightful story of family crisis and the healing power of friendship. (Historical fiction. 8-12) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

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BLACKFIN SKY

Ellis, Kat Running Press (304 pp.) $9.95 paper | Sep. 2, 2014 978-0-7624-5401-3 If Sky didn’t die like everyone says, then where has she been for the last three months?

Blackfin has always been a small, odd town. Even so, its residents still wonder how Skylar returned when everyone knows she fell off the pier and drowned on her 16th birthday.

They even saw her corpse pulled from the water and later buried. No one wonders more, however, than Sky herself, especially since she recalls a different version of the events. Fans of Lisa McMann and Gail Giles will welcome this debut thriller that immediately grabs readers with an intriguing premise. When Sky’s parents seem reluctant to answer her questions, she seeks help from some unusual sources: her boyfriend, whom she may or may not have kissed the night she “died”; her mechanic father’s apprentice, who’s also the town’s only newcomer in years; the old gypsy woman in the woods; and even her own home, known as the Blood House as it was once a butcher shop…and possibly more. As Sky slowly discovers her family’s and town’s mysteries, she also realizes her own remarkable gift.

Perhaps so too does a villain, drawn to her power for his own evil intentions. The plot-driven ending is less effective than the atmospheric beginning and suspenseful buildup of events, but by then, readers are already hooked.

Overall, a satisfying thriller. (Supernatural thriller. 13-18) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

THE BADGER KNIGHT

Erskine, Kathryn Scholastic (352 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Aug. 26, 2014 978-0-545-46442-0 978-0-545-66293-2 e-book Erskine uses the strife of medieval England as a backdrop to explore differences, puberty and the divided loyalties of war.

Narrator Adrian, almost 13, dreams of being an archer and an apprentice to his father, a master bowyer. However, his sickliness and pallor (he suffers from albinism) are too great for his kind but overprotective father to see beyond. While his friend Hugh is preparing to battle the “pagan Scots,” Adrian is scribing recipes, fighting Bessie the ox (oddly, a female) and dodging the barbs of his inaptly named Good Aunt. He brandishes his own slightly bitter wit with droll chapter headings such as “In Which I Write Recipes While Hugh Handles Bessie (and Bess).” Adrian—called Badger for the dirt he smears under his eyes to improve his weak eyesight—sets out to find Hugh and prove himself in battle. His journey into

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Scotland yields such historical tidbits as the existence of spectacles and the Romans’ invention of flushing latrines, which keep the past relevant. Adrian, too, is a typical boy who plays pranks and swears, though exclamations like “Ockham’s razor!” lose their novelty after a few too many repetitions. War is also a constant, and Adrian matures quickly upon witnessing its horrors and unexpected kindnesses.

The moral is common, but the unusual setting highlights the message that people aren’t so different from one another; fans of Karen Cushman will enjoy this. (glossary, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-13)

THE MAGIC BOX

Falcone, L.M. Illus. by Smith, Kim Kids Can (88 pp.) $12.95 | $6.95 paper | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-77138-153-6 978-1-77138-017-1 paper Series: The Ghost and Max Monroe, 1 A ghostly (but not scary) new chapter-book mystery series kicks off.

Due to his father’s extensive travel, 10-year-old Max is sent to live with his beloved grandpa Harry.

Soon he discovers his uncle Larry is living there, too—only he died quite a while ago and is now a ghost! When he was alive, Uncle Larry aspired to be a famous detective but never solved one case. Just as Max is taking this all in, the phone rings: An old friend of Larry’s is on the line, looking for help in solving a case of a missing girl who disappeared in the middle of her birthday party. Max and Larry take on the case with comic results. Larry is as bumbling now as he was in life, but Max can rely on what he has learned from the mystery books he loves.

Together they search for clues and create a list of suspects. Is it the sullen older sister or the grumpy clown that makes balloon animals or the sassy neighbor? Falcone keeps readers guessing and pages turning with humorous dialogue and a quickly paced plot. The chapters, already short, are subdivided into scenes for ease of reading. For those wanting to test their observation skills, a “Spot the Difference” pair of illustrations is at the back of the book.

Young investigators will appreciate this accessible mystery, and they’ll look forward to the next title, The Missing Zucchini (2014). (Mystery. 6-10)

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MADDY WEST AND THE TONGUE TAKER

Falkner, Brian Capstone Young Readers (256 pp.) $12.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-62370-084-3 As a “talker of tongues,” 9-year-old Maddy West has the astonishing and enviable ability to speak and read any language.

While most people are simply amazed by her ability, there are those who would like to exploit her talent. When professor Coateloch, a linguist, asks Maddy to translate ancient scrolls in an island monastery on the Black Sea, her parents see dollar signs rather than danger signs.

Maddy soon finds that the professor’s interest in her ability is far from academic. Thankfully, Maddy is as adept at making friends as she is at communicating. Along with her ninjalike neighbor, Kazuki, Maddy gains the help of Bulgarian wrestler Dimitar the Giant and his crafty monkey, Mr. Chester.

And Maddy will need all the help she can get if she is going to defeat the professor (aka the Chocolate Witch) and thwart her plans for world domination. While Maddy’s magical ability is impressive, she really shines in her normal human moments of compassion, forgiveness and acceptance. A river of cockroaches, a wild car ride and age-appropriate humor all come together in this magical adventure. Unfortunately, the rushed ending fails to address some of the deeper emotional issues.

On balance, warm and magical. (Fantasy. 8-12)

GO, SHAPES, GO!

Fleming, Denise Illus. by Fleming, Denise Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Oct. 7, 2014 978-1-4424-8240-1 978-1-4424-8241-8 e-book Fleming’s signature pulp-painted backgrounds set the stage for a performance featuring an assemblage of shapes; created from patterned handmade papers, the forms are choreographed in their activity by a madcap mouse on wheels.

“Slide, SQUARE, and start the show!” he cries, zooming around the double-page spreads. The labeled shapes, from “small ovals” to “thin rectangles,” cross each gutter from verso to recto as the pages turn, until the contours of a creature are discernable.

Children will enjoy predicting at various points in the narrative; a monkey would be the correct guess for the first animal. Motion lines drawn with pastels combine with expressive verbs, rhyming couplets and playful phrases to animate the narrative: “Bibbity bop!” Although Fleming presents a veritable smorgasbord of early learning (shapes, colors, directions and concepts), there is also a dramatic arc with tension and humor. When the mouse careens into the loosely placed papers, they scatter and re-form– into a cat! The denouement is a bit untidy, leaving readers with

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“In a market teeming with graphic-fantasy tales, this offering is remarkably imaginative and refreshingly different.” from cast away on the letter a

inquiring minds questioning what happens to the feline, after a page turn reveals a new monkey made with different paper, but they will feel relief that all’s well that ends well.

The title will surely inspire children to create and deconstruct their own geometric dramas. (Picture book. 2-6)

CAST AWAY ON THE LETTER A A Philemon Adventure Fred Illus. by Fred Translated by Kutner, Richard TOON/Candlewick (48 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-935179-63-4

A charming French import first published in 1972 and now translated into English for the first time about a boy who falls down a well and finds himself in a strange, whimsical world.

Philemon, a teenage boy, lives on a farm in France with his father. Ordered to their well to draw some water, Philemon finds a mysterious bottle—and then another—floating in its depths.

He soon finds himself down the well and in a curious new world (much like Alice with the rabbit hole), with centaurs, unicorns, trees that grow bottles, and electric lights that grow on the beach and lure ships to their doom. He learns that he is stuck on a map, specifically on the capital letter A that begins the label “Atlantic Ocean”; as that letter A would be visible only on a printed map, he’s in a place “that doesn’t exist, [where] anything can exist.”

Philemon must then puzzle out how to find his way back home in a world where anything is possible. In a market teeming with graphic-fantasy tales, this offering is remarkably imaginative and refreshingly different. Bright colors emblazon each page, with some spreads so vibrant they almost hurt to look at, and many of the architectural shapes pleasingly recall Dr. Seuss.

Not since Carroll’s Alice has there been such a marvelous and incredible adventure. (visual glossary, index, maps) (Graphic fantasy. 7-12)

THE ORPHAN AND THE MOUSE Freeman, Martha Illus. by McPhail, David Holiday House (224 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 1, 2014 978-0-8234-3167-0

A kindhearted orphan girl and a clever mouse join forces to expose an illegal baby-selling operation in a Philadelphia orphanage.

Since her mother’s death in a fire that disfigured her own hand and arm, 11-year-old Caro McKay’s lived at Cherry Street Home for Children, where she’s known as a “responsible, sweettempered child” and a favorite of enigmatic headmistress Mrs. |

George. No one realizes there’s a thriving mouse colony at Cherry Street Home until Mrs. George’s cat, Gallico, catches Mary Mouse covertly trying to steal commemorative stamps the mice use as artwork. When Caro rescues Mary, they bond.

Alerted to the presence of mice, Mrs. George threatens to call an exterminator, triggering the colony’s mass exodus. Left behind, Mary’s joined by Andrew, an adventurous mouse who can read. Inspired by their literary hero, Stuart Little, Mary and Andrew discover Mrs. George runs a baby-selling racket, while Caro’s become suspicious about a missing baby. The staccato pace alternates between Mary and Andrew’s daring exploits and Caro’s harrowing efforts to thwart Mrs. George. Period detail about orphanages in 1949 adds historical depth, while atmospheric black-and-white illustrations highlight dramatic scenes.

Along with Gallico, surely an homage to the author of The Abandoned, there are other children’s-literature cameos readers will enjoy picking out.

An original, rousing mouse adventure in the tradition of Stuart Little. (Fantasy. 8-12)

EMMA AND THE BLUE GENIE Funke, Cornelia Illus. by Meyer, Kerstin Translated by Latsch, Oliver Random House (96 pp.) $9.99 | $12.99 PLB | Oct. 14, 2014 978-0-385-37540-5 978-0-385-37542-9 PLB

Emma and her dog, Tristan, steal down to the moonlit sea for some quiet time and find a mysterious bottle bobbing on the waves; inside, of course, is a genie.

Karim can’t grant wishes; he’s the one who needs help. Evil genie Sahim stole his nose ring, source of his power, and imprisoned him in the bottle. Emma, Tristan and Karim head via flying carpet for Barakash, where Sahim now rules, to recover the nose ring and free the city’s caliph and citizens. Meyer’s whimsical art is packed with quirky details and expressive humor (the supercilious dromedary’s a delight), neatly enhancing Funke’s droll humor. First published in Germany in 2002, this entertaining tale has plenty of charm, but it will have an uncomfortable aftertaste for some. This Disney-fied Arabian Nights territory draws from the well of Western popular culture, where normal is fair and cute, exotic is dark and comically alien, and color’s a reliable indicator for good and evil. The flying carpet and palace are beautiful; the caliph’s grandmother is “a big woman with a beard and blue patterns on her face.” With tight word counts, restrictive vocabulary and language parameters, chapter books rely on their audience to fill in details from shared cultural assumptions. In an increasingly diverse society, notions of what is normal and what is exotic to readers call for frequent reassessment.

Training wheels for Funke’s future fans. (Fantasy. 7-9)

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“It would be easy for readers to believe that Mattotti drew these pictures while listening to a storyteller by firelight, as if he grabbed a piece of charcoal straight out of the ashes….” from hansel & gretel

HANSEL & GRETEL

Gaiman, Neil Illus. by Mattotti, Lorenzo TOON/Candlewick (56 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 1, 2014 978-1-9351-7962-7 If this isn’t the definitive edition of “Hansel and Gretel,” it’s absolutely necessary.

It would be easy for readers to believe that Mattotti drew these pictures while listening to a storyteller by firelight, as if he grabbed a piece of charcoal straight out of the ashes, because he needed to draw the characters right away. The truth may be even more amazing. The pictures were inspired by a Metropolitan Opera production of the Humperdinck favorite, and the thick patches of ink contain five different colors, though the effect is of enveloping blackness. The swirling lines look as though they might start moving if seen at just the right moment. The pictures have inspired Gaiman to write some of his most beautiful sentences, direct and horrifying: “If you do not eat,” says the woodcutter’s wife, “then you will not be able to swing an axe. And if you cannot cut down a tree, or haul the wood into the town, then we all starve and die.”

The wordless double-page spreads alternate with text-filled spreads, with lines set generously apart and framed by delicate flowers. A deluxe version, about half again as big, features a diecut cover but is otherwise equally, spectacularly understated.

The Grimm version is as frightening as a bedtime story gets, but this version will scare people in new ways, and some of those people may need to start drawing right away. (historical notes) (Picture book/fairy tale. 7-12)

ZOMBURBIA

Gallardo, Adam Kteen (368 pp.) $9.95 paper | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-61773-098-6 Unlike the classic zombie-apocalypse scenario, humanity here hasn’t been completely devastated—in suburbia, life has adapted.

Post-zombie outbreak, people live behind gates or fences, students take a yearly health and hygiene class on the zombie virus, and firearms are commonplace in backpacks and cars. Courtney’s determined to escape the suburbs and attend college in New York—the government hopes the city will be habitable again—but her father will only pay for her college if she goes in-state. To fund her dream, she works at a local burger joint—and sells Vitamin Z (an illegal drug made from zombie brains). Then jock Brandon falls for her, crossing clique lines. Courtney vacillates between her old friends and Brandon’s popular world while hiding her drug dealing. Courtney’s smart and ambitious, and she makes terrible decisions. Comics author Gallardo nails her voice—likable 104

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yet self-absorbed. This rough world lends itself to drug dealing, partying, guns-blazing action sequences and unvarnished language, but it occasionally enables the characters’ emotional detachment, resulting in weak motivations for their actions.

There’s an additional mystery about some smarter, faster zombies—seemingly left for the sequel despite heavy hints that make the answer seem obvious. Aside from that, the interpersonal drama strikes a comfortable balance with undead action.

More brains than your average zombie novel…and more entrails as well! (Horror. 14 & up)

FLARE

George, Kallie Illus. by Côté, Geneviève Simply Read (44 pp.) $12.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-927018-50-7 Series: Tiny Tails A little phoenix gets in touch with his feelings.

When Flare is born in a burst of flame, he, like all phoenixes, doesn’t have parents. But Cloud, Wind and Sun watch over him, and he’s a scrappy fellow who teaches himself how to fish and fly. When things go wrong, he sings a little song: “I am tough. / I am strong. / I do not cry.” Sun, Wind and Cloud worry that Flare is perhaps a bit too tough for his own good and decide to coax him toward greater sensitivity. First Cloud models crying by raining, and then Wind wails and howls. Instead of being inspired to soften up a bit and shed some tears of his own, Flare is repelled. Then Sun shines a path through the forest, leading Flare to a baby bird that has fallen from its nest and hurt its wing. The little bird cries in pain, and empathy finally moves Flare to tears as well. In a happy twist, the little phoenix’s tears magically heal the baby bird. While perhaps a bit heavy-handed (must Flare cry if he’s really doing OK?), the text is accessible. Throughout, Côté’s lively illustrations reinforce meaning from one brief chapter to the next, loose lines and broad swathes of color communicating energy and fun.

A sweetly fantastic addition to the early-reader shelf.

(Early reader. 6-8)

BY DAY, BY NIGHT Gibson, Amy Illus. by So, Meilo Boyds Mills (32 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 1, 2014 978-1-59078-991-9

Designed as a fundraiser for The Global Orphan Project, and dedicated to “the millions of children who find themselves alone,” this book tells the story of a typical day for children all over the world, from getting up to going to bed.

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Globalism is the continued theme as So’s lively penciland-watercolor vignettes show children from many countries engaged in typical activities: waking, washing, dressing, eating and greeting. Different customs and approaches to life’s many activities are skillfully depicted. Different ways of carrying an infant are illustrated; an Asian girl reads a book while riding a buffalo through a rice paddy; barefoot boys kick around a soccer ball in a South American city; a tiny African boy is gently held by his grandfather. Children are shown enjoying the changing seasons, from an African rainstorm to skating in Central Park.

In spite of all the different ways children are brought up, they have in common the love of companions and their own hopes, dreams and curiosity. Delightfully free and imaginative, So’s illustrations convey the global message in great depth, accompanied by Gibson’s simple rhyming text. The challenge of depicting children from many different cultures without resorting to obvious stereotyping is successfully met.

This unusual picture book will spark many questions from young children about the customs and lifestyles of their peers all over the globe. (Picture book. 5-8)

STARRY NIGHT

Gillies, Isabel Farrar, Straus and Giroux (336 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-0-374-30675-5 An actor and memoirist’s debut novel for teens explores the exhilaration—and heartbreak—of passionate first love.

Fifteen-year-old Wren attends a lifechanging party at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (her father is its director), where she connects with her older brother’s new friend, the charismatic, talented musician Nolan. Though they’ve just met, the two feel a magical connection and slip away to another dance party with Nolan’s friends, ruining Wren’s borrowed designer gown and upsetting Wren’s parents, who promptly ground her.

Smitten Wren persists in seeing Nolan, despite her parents’ wishes. Gillies captures the impulsive nature of teen love and its consequences along with nicely detailed secondary characters (little sister Dinah’s a cutie with her own cooking show; Wren’s parents draw sympathy with their real-time reactions to Wren’s relationship). Authentically depicted mother-daughter clashes allow readers to empathize with besotted Wren and outraged Nan—especially when Wren abruptly abandons long-cherished dreams of attending an art program in France to be near Nolan.

Occasionally, amateurish moments disrupt (some dialogue sounds stilted; some transitions are announced at chapter beginnings). Still, readers willing to overlook such moments will find themselves engaged by Wren and her headlong dash into love; the lack of tidy happy endings underscores the grittily real feeling of the story’s emotional affairs.

An imperfect but authentic look at teen love and betrayal that will entertain and touch readers. (Fiction.

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MESSENGER OF FEAR

Grant, Michael Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (272 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 23, 2014 978-0-06-220740-1 978-0-06-220742-5 e-book Sixteen-year-old Mara thinks she might be dead when she wakes up in a mist and finds herself with a strange boy dressed in black and displaying frightening supernatural powers.

Neither Mara nor readers will understand what’s going on until the final pages of this interesting paranormal mystery, but readers, at least, can have plenty of fun speculating about it. The boy, the titular Messenger of Fear, tells Mara that she is not dead but that she has become his apprentice—apparently by her own choice. Her response is emotional when Messenger shows her the suicide of a high school girl named Samantha. As part of her training, the Messenger then demonstrates his task when they follow a couple that commits a wrong, giving them the option of winning a gruesome game or facing their worst fears. Later, Mara will begin to understand what that choice means when she witnesses a boy being burned at the stake, a scene described in gruesome detail. But the story keeps returning to Samantha, and Mara begins to anticipate the punishment of the girl who knowingly bullied Samantha, literally, to death. Grant only slowly unveils the reason Mara is with the Messenger, building tension and atmosphere expertly for maximum impact. Readers will find that in the end, it all comes together extremely well.

An unusual and intriguing puzzle of a book. (Paranormal suspense. 14 & up)

FIRST TEAM

Green, Tim Harper/HarperCollins (336 pp.) $16.99 | $9.99 e-book | Sep. 30, 2014 978-0-06-220875-0 978-0-06-220877-4 e-book In this sequel to New Kid (2014), Brock discovers real life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Brock is thrilled when his father announces that it’s time for them to settle into a normal life, one in which they don’t have to move every few months to escape his father’s murderous enemies.

But real life turns out to have plenty of problems, too. Brock’s natural ability to throw a ball gains him attention from the junior varsity football coach, but the socioeconomic politics of the town dictate that the quarterback positions go to wealthy kids who are related to the coaches. And what about the bad feelings he’s been getting about different people in town and the strange cars that look like they could be following him?

Are his dad’s enemies really fooled? NFL player–turned-author Green delivers a fast-paced, compelling tale that middle-grade

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readers will find entertaining. The story sometimes feels too convenient for the sake of a tidy plot, and Brock’s character occasionally seems a little flat, but readers will probably be caught up in the timeless dramas of boy meets girl and boy wants to play football.

An exciting continuation of Brock’s adventures on and off the field. (Fiction. 10-13)

THE PRINCESS AND THE FOAL Gregg, Stacy Philomel (272 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 4, 2014 978-0-399-16887-1

An energizing middle-grade tale inspired by true events.

Real-life princess Haya Bint Al Hussein is only 3 when her mother, Queen Alia of Jordan, is killed in a helicopter crash. Grief and a nasty governess (who adds fabulous tension to the story) subsume the princess until her father, King Hussein, gives her a 3-day-old orphaned foal from his stables for her sixth birthday. Haya and the foal, whom she names Bree—short for Bint Al-Reeh, or “Daughter of the Wind”—go on to compete, six years later, in Jordan’s prestigious King’s Cup. The present-tense, third-person narrative (except for two first-person epistolary segments) rivets readers as they learn about the inside world of a 12-year-old-to-be Jordanian princess—that and the horsey element would, by themselves, guarantee an audience. But Gregg goes much further, showing readers a strong-willed but compassionate girl who understands that her royal blood is not about privilege but about caring for others and who discovers her own inner strength in her determination to follow her dream of competing (lessons that stretch far beyond the royal set). It’s also a refreshingly active story— Haya is riding and leaping and playing outdoors (when she’s not grounded) on nearly every page.

Empowering and vigorous, this is a story sure to please princess fans, horse fans and, yes, even tomboys. (Fiction.

9-13)

PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN The Brothers Grimm Adapted by Renate Raecke Illus. by Zwerger, Lisbeth Translated by Bell, Anthea Minedition (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-988-8240-82-1

This strange and unsettling tale is made all the stranger and more unsettling by Zwerger’s spare, isolated figures in their pale interiors and landscapes, not to mention the rats that populate many of the versos until they are dispatched.

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The Grimms provide a precise date, June 26, 1284, for the tale, as the reteller Raecke notes in her afterword. It unfurls with chilling specificity. Rats have overrun the town of Hamelin, and the townspeople promise much gold to the stranger with the parti-colored coat if he will rid the town of them. He does, by playing “a tune that had never been heard before,” which sends all the rats to the river Weser. But the townspeople renege on their promise, and the piper comes back dressed like a hunter and plays another unknown tune—and all the Hamelin children who can walk follow him and disappear, and the piper with them. Zwerger’s haunting images and the mystery of the story itself make for a powerful telling. What does it mean and with whom will it resonate? Older children might be captivated by the idea of following a stranger’s music (and the importance of keeping your word); younger children might be intrigued by the rats and their departure.

This lovely and penetratingly creepy version of the familiar tale will linger long with readers. (Picture book/fairy tale. 5-9)

DEPTH OF FIELD

Guertin, Chantel ECW Press (208 pp.) $9.95 paper | Aug. 12, 2014 978-1-77041-183-8 Series: Pippa Greene, 2 Competition winner Pippa is spending two weeks in New York City at a prestigious photography camp run by art college Tisch.

Though she’s had an entrancing date with romantic boyfriend Dylan, Pippa’s conflicted since he’s asked her not to contact him while she’s away. Then Ben turns up at Tisch; he stole photos from her in The Rule of Thirds (2013) and submitted them to the competition as his own. Pippa wants to hate him, but circumstances keep throwing them together, rekindling the sparks she felt before he betrayed her. Her mentor, the highly unreliable photographer David Westerly, provides guidance, but it’s his past connection to her deceased father and her mother that intrigues the 16-year-old. Paying more attention to that than to her Tisch work leads to a stunning and unwelcome discovery. The conclusion leaves many hanging threads. Pippa’s developing relationship with Ben, the uncertainty of Dylan’s intentions and the critical discovery about David’s connection to her parents—a secret her mother’s inexplicably kept even knowing Pippa would be in contact with David—all serve to set up another outing. Pippa’s voice, as she describes a severe hangover or her assessment of David, is amusingly honest.

Frothy yet engaging romance with a snapshot of the photography world to add color. (Fiction. 12-18)

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“Brendan—droll and desperate, uncertain yet inflexibly judgmental—is immensely appealing, and strong secondary characters...are standouts.” from where i belong

REVEALED

Haddix, Margaret Peterson Simon & Schuster (448 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-4169-8986-8 978-1-4424-2286-5 e-book Series: Missing, 7 This apparently final installment of the Missing series plunges Jonah into a quandary: The villains Gary and Hodge have begun their master plan to steal all the children from history and sell them in the future, with the help of Charles Lindbergh.

The action kicks off when Charles Lindbergh snatches Jonah’s sister, Katherine, from their living room. Time agent JB takes Jonah and family friend Angela to a “time hollow” where they can monitor events, but soon they find themselves clinging to the outside of Lindbergh’s plane as he flies across the Atlantic in 1927. They escape and begin an investigation of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping in 1932, eventually learning how Gary and Hodge have drawn the aviator into their scheme. The safety of time itself depends on Lindbergh’s and Jonah’s choices—and JB, Angela and Jonah’s parents have all been “un-aged” into 13-yearolds. Jonah finds himself dragged to and fro in time, always fearful that he will destroy its flow. Haddix bogs the narrative down with explanations of the workings of time travel, and the story lacks the usual repartee between Jonah and Katherine, un-aged back to infancy. Still, if readers can unravel the mechanisms of time well enough to understand the ins and outs of the story, they finally will learn who Jonah really is.

This long and intricate conclusion should satisfy fans, but it’s not likely to win new ones. (Paranormal suspense. 8-12)

WHERE I BELONG Hahn, Mary Downing Clarion (240 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-0-544-23020-0

The prospect of flunking doesn’t bother Brendan; given what he’s heard about middle school, repeating sixth grade seems the safer choice.

A bright kid and talented artist, Brendan’s thoroughly disengaged—and very good at it, too. Dreamily sketching the Green Man he’s read about in a book of British myths, he tunes out teachers, school bullies, and his elderly, Oprah-addicted foster mother, Mrs. Clancy. The only person Brendan can depend on is Brendan, and soon, a mishap involving a vicious gang leader’s motorcycle forces him farther down the path of self-reliance. Fleeing into the woods, Brendan stumbles into a forest clearing that surrounds a tall tree. The wilderness and the treehouse he builds there become his refuge; the mysterious elderly man who’s been observing him just might be the Green Man. Meanwhile, Mrs. |

Clancy—not about to let Brendan flunk on her watch—enrolls him in summer school, where he’s surprised to find a sympathetic teacher and makes a friend. Unfortunately, after he’s witnessed their robbery of a jewelry store, his enemies stick close as well. Brendan’s one survival strategy (trust no one) looks less and less viable—even to him. If the plot offers few surprises, the characters more than sustain readers’ interest: Brendan— droll and desperate, uncertain yet inflexibly judgmental—is immensely appealing, and strong secondary characters (Mrs. Clancy especially) are standouts.

Another solid outing from veteran Hahn. (Fiction. 9-12)

A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT

Hall, Sandy Swoon Reads/Macmillan (272 pp.) $9.99 paper | Aug. 26, 2014 978-1-250-06145-4 Hall’s debut is the inaugural release from Swoon Reads, a crowdsourced imprint of Macmillan.

Lea likes Gabe, and Gabe likes Lea, and everyone, including their matchmaking creative-writing professor, a bench on the green and a campus squirrel, wants them to be together. Sounds like a simple love story, but with 14 points of view, it’s anything but. Rather than a little something different, readers are handed a confusing train wreck populated by one-dimensional characters and indistinguishable voices (save the acorn-loving squirrel). Although the narrator of each section is clearly marked, change from one viewpoint to the next knocks readers clear off the page, and disappointingly, none of the dozen-plus voices are those of the would-be lovebirds. Gabe is pathologically shy, but he comes off as pathetically broody, and Lea’s wishy-washy attitude toward him is frustrating. The inclusion of several gay characters and the casual mention of Lea’s Chinese heritage feel forced, and the normalizing use of the phrase “skank queen” to describe the girl her friends view as Lea’s competition for Gabe’s affection is unpleasant. It’s not clear who the intended audience is, as the story is more playground drama than collegiate romance. Readers who live for fun and quirky love stories won’t find one here.

A little something puerile, amateurish and flat.

(Romance. 15-19)

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“Judicious placement of the spare text and enlarged, attention-getting onomatopoetic words...add drama, while fanciful pen, ink and watercolor illustrations create a whimsical world of cartoonlike creatures.” from julia’s house for lost creatures

JULIA’S HOUSE FOR LOST CREATURES

a squirrel, the hunters have plainly learned nothing from their experience...but young readers might.

Sure to “net” young audiences, who will definitely root for the birds. (Picture book. 5-7)

Hatke, Ben Illus. by Hatke, Ben First Second (40 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-59643-866-8

JULIUS & THE WATCHMAKER

When a little girl opens her house to “lost creatures,” chaos reigns until she sets rules for harmonious coexistence.

Julia and her house arrive by tortoiseback to the seashore, where she decides it’s too quiet and makes a sign advertising “Julia’s House for Lost Creatures.” She’s quickly inundated with “lost and homeless creatures” asking for towels and soap, tea and toast. The creatures soon take over, spilling things, neglecting to clean up and playing loud music. Distraught, Julia orders everyone to “STOP!” and makes another sign dividing chores among her new housemates. With order restored, all is well until the house makes disturbing noises, prompting resourceful Julia to create a final sign recruiting a handyman. Judicious placement of the spare text and enlarged, attention-getting onomatopoetic words like “whoosh,” “scritch scratch,” “boom” and “creak” add drama, while fanciful pen, ink and watercolor illustrations create a whimsical world of cartoonlike creatures. Julia’s all practicality in her kerchief, apron and pink high-top sneakers, while her ramshackle house atop the giant tortoise is the picture of cozy comfort until the invading troll, dragon, mermaid and companions trigger a rumpus reminiscent of Sendak’s Wild Things. Hatke steps from graphic novels (Zita the Spacegirl) to the picture-book format with aplomb, blending tropes from both worlds for a sweetly weird domestic adventure.

Readers will want to move right in. (Picture book. 4-7)

SHH! WE HAVE A PLAN Haughton, Chris Illus. by Haughton, Chris Candlewick (40 pp.) $15.99 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-7636-7293-5

Hehir, Tim Text (352 pp.) $9.95 paper | Oct. 1, 2014 978-1-922079-73-2 978-1-922148-58-2 Audiobook

Hehir’s steampunk-inspired debut novel is an adventure through time and space.

In 1837 London, 14-year-old Julius Caesar Higgins spends his days dodging the local bully and helping at his grandfather’s rare-books shop.

When a shady gentleman named Jack Springheel arrives looking for a mysterious diary, Julius runs away and makes a deal with him: self-defense lessons and a place to hide in exchange for the apparently long-lost diary of John Harrison, the 17th-century clockmaker and inventor of the chronometer. Harrison’s diary contains operating instructions for his third prototype, a timetravel device Springheel stole from its guardian, poet Percy Shelley. Seeing Springheel’s villainy, Julius teams up with professor Fox of the mysterious Guild of Watchmakers to stop him from using the device to take over a parallel world populated by repulsive but innovative creatures called Grackacks and exploiting Grackack technology to alter reality forever. Contemporary language (“gyp,” “Chinaman,” “oriental”) and the addition of historical figures, folklore and events lend an air of authenticity to the Victorian setting. The time-travel aspect can be a bit confusing, and readers may find themselves revisiting passages, but ultimately, they will be too wrapped up in the action to care.

An epilogue hints at a second book.

Good, lively fun. (author’s note, glossary) (Fantasy. 12-15)

RITES OF PASSAGE

A peace-waging parable, presented with wry minimalism à la Jon Klassen or

Tomi Ungerer.

Carrying nets, three hunters creep up on a sleeping bird in a dark forest, but thanks to their own clumsiness, they repeatedly manage to get in one another’s way as the bird slips off.

Meanwhile, despite their frantic shushing, a smaller, fourth figure waves and calls out “hello birdie,” offering bread. Soon, an entire flock has gathered around number four’s feet–a flock that proceeds to turn and chase the hunters away. The text runs to just a few words per page, but it neatly serves to crank up the suspense: “ready one / ready two / ready three. // GO!” Haughton (Oh No, George!, 2012) uses a palette of deep blues and purples for his simple forest scenes; this causes the hunters’ googly eyes to stand out comically and also makes the fuchsia, red and orange birds easy to spot and follow. Last seen creeping up on 108

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Hensley, Joy N. HarperTeen (416 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-06-229519-4 978-0-06-229521-7 e-book The absorbing story of the first girl to join a fictional military high school.

Sam comes from a thoroughly military family, her father a legendary colonel who has raised all his kids as though they were in boot camp. Sam faces worse than that when she enters the Denmark Military Academy on a dare. Her fellow “recruits” don’t want her there and remain determined to make her quit, and her squad leader, Cpl. Matthews, has apparently taken it upon himself to force her out. Even her own brother,

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the cadet colonel of the school, tells her to leave. Sam keeps up with most of the boys in their obstacle courses, marches and calisthenics, but when Matthews becomes increasingly abusive, as tough as she is, Sam struggles to hang on. Sam finds allies, especially in her drill sergeant, to whom she feels an enormous attraction. When she learns that a secret society lies behind the attacks against her, she fears for her life. Hensley keeps the tension high as she leads readers to anticipate the next attack on Sam. The narrative flows along terrifically as Sam courageously battles to make it even while the forces against her increase. The characters stand out as individual and real; readers will cheer Sam on throughout.

Absolutely compelling. (Fiction. 14-18)

RANDOM KINDNESS AND SENSELESS ACTS OF BEAUTY Herbert, Anne; Pavel, Margaret Paloma Illus. by Oda, Mayumi New Village Press (40 pp.) $15.95 | Sep. 30, 2014 978-1-61332-015-0

Twenty years after its original issue, this expanded version of Herbert’s pervasive catchphrase gets a fresh go-round with newly colored illustrations.

The titular phrase is embedded in a free-verse argument that goes like this: The world is stuck in a cycle of “senseless violence” because “[a]nything we do randomly / and frequently / Starts to make its own sense.” But the power we have already retaken (did we but realize it) from our “confused” leaders allows us to engage at will in senseless acts that affirm life rather than destroy it, helping to “make new earth grow / beneath our feet.” In a valiant effort to make all of this approachable for children, Oda, inspired by a renowned 12th-century Japanese scroll, offers brushy ink-and-watercolor depictions of cats, frogs and other creatures. They either attack one another with guns and missiles beneath gouts of flame or frolic together in idyllic natural settings. The art was likewise created on a scroll, and in codex format, the transition between images is sometimes unsettlingly abrupt.

The big idea is worth pondering, but it’s presented in such abstract terms that younger readers may struggle to grasp it. (foreword by Desmond Tutu). (Picture book. 8-10, adult)

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TEENY LITTLE GRIEF MACHINES

High, Linda Oatman Saddleback Educational Publishing (252 pp.) $9.95 paper | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-62250-883-9 An outcast at school and within her own family, “Lexi / (rhymes with sexy) / Mcleen, sixteen,” articulates a life of desperation and determination in this verse novel.

The format keeps readers moving quickly through familiar teen-literature motifs (pot smoking, critical classmates and family, first crushes and their “intoxicating / fumes from / across the room”). But beyond the standard challenges, Lexi’s firstperson account is like a run-on sentence of personal sadness: alcoholic dad in jail; overwhelmed, critical, anorexic and bipolar stepmother; autistic half brother; infant half sister claimed by crib death one year earlier. During a health-class project, traumatized Lexi—recalling the lost sister—paints her “Almost-Real Baby” girl doll blue because “Pink stinks. / It makes me think too much.” Mental health intervention, a supportive librarian and meeting the right guy all help pull Lexi back from the brink.

With varying verse structures and styles, High uses typeface changes and word placement to magnify the message, with varying degrees of effectiveness. At its best, it ranges from the cleverly contemporary (“Zelda’s a walking, talking Google search.

Yahoo!”) to the credibly evocative (“I like / to open my / window / this time / of the year. / / It smells / like a painting / by Norman Rockwell”).

So swiftly do the pages turn, however, the story may stay with readers, but the poetry probably won’t. (Verse fiction. 12-18)

TALES OF BUNJITSU BUNNY Himmelman, John Illus. by Himmelman, John Henry Holt (128 pp.) $13.99 | Oct. 14, 2014 978-0-8050-9970-6

Martial arts high jinks with Bunjitsu Bunny.

Isabel can hit harder, kick higher and throw classmates farther than anyone else. That’s why they call her Bunjitsu Bunny. Some of her classmates at Teacher’s bunjitsu school are scared of her. Isabel tries not to hurt other creatures, though.

She says, “Bunjitsu is not just about kicking, hitting, and throwing….It is about finding ways to NOT kick, hit, and throw.”

When Bunjitsu Bunny and her fellow students are confronted with a locked classroom door, her classmates try using every bunjitsu move to break it down. They only hurt themselves.

Isabel gets in through the window and lets her classmates in

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through the door. When Jackrabbit challenges her to a fight, she avoids violence (and losing) by not fighting him. But when she has scary nightmares, she can’t sleep. Teacher asks where those nightmares live, and Isabel points to her head. Teacher says the nightmares should be scared living in Bunjitsu Bunny’s head; that does the trick. Himmelman simplifies his picturebook style with calligraphic black lines and delivers a series of Zen lessons touched with gentle humor. Some of the tales will require discussion, but all are easy reading.

Nonviolence (mostly), the bunjitsu way. (Fantasy. 6-9)

THE LONELY

Hogarth, Ainslie Flux (312 pp.) $9.99 paper | Sep. 8, 2014 978-0-7387-4133-8 This debut novel chronicles a disturbed teen girl’s descent into madness.

Easter has Problems (of the capital P variety). First, there is The Lonely, which she inherited from The Mother.

Then there is The Terrible Thing, which leaves her “just a bleeding ornament” crushed beneath a boulder in The Woods at the novel’s onset, waiting for The Something Coming. Her sister, Julia, is the most vocal of an assortment of strange family members that readers meet as Easter bounces through time in her often unreliable narration. Alternating between her present in The Woods (complete with cigarette-smoking, hamburger-eating squirrels) and flashbacks of the troubling, hallucination-filled events of her past, Easter is obviously a victim of undiagnosed mental illness and parents ill-equipped to handle her problems. By the time help is sought, Easter may be too far gone to recover. Beautiful prose masks plot holes, and the dark humor often falls flat.

Teens may lack the incentive to finish, although the grossness factor may keep the attention of a few. Adults (who may be the most apt audience for the book) could be left with the feeling that Hogarth was simply trying too hard to write a strangely great tale that is less great and too strange.

An initially promising psychological thriller that ultimately fails to deliver. (Thriller. 14 & up)

GIRL DEFECTIVE

Howell, Simmone Atheneum (320 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-4424-9760-3 978-1-4424-9762-7 e-book Skylark Martin lives above her family’s vintage vinyl shop that—like its merchandise—is an endangered species in their re-gentrified, forward-looking Melbourne suburb.

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In the five years since Mum left to “follow her art” in Japan, Dad’s kept the shop going, drinking homebrew and mourning the past (musical and otherwise). Sky, 15, and Gully, 10, aka Agent Seagull Martin, who wears a pig-snout mask 24/7 and views the world as a crime scene waiting to be investigated, hold down the fort. Sky harbors no illusions about their dreary status quo—Dad’s drinking, Gully’s issues, her own social stasis—but she does have dreams, recently ignited by a new friend, the beautiful, wild and fearless Nancy. Other agents of change include Eve, Dad’s old flame, and Luke, the shop’s attractive, moody new hire. Drawn, mothlike, to Nancy’s flame, Sky’s dreams are haunted by Luke’s sister, whose similarly wild lifestyle led to tragedy. The family business grounds Sky. Its used records and cassettes, like time capsules, store music that evokes the past’s rich emotional complexity for the Martins and their quirky customers, while the eternal present and frantic quest for the next big thing hold no appeal.

Funny, observant, a relentless critic of the world’s (and her own) flaws, Sky is original, thoroughly authentic and great company, decorating her astute, irreverent commentary with vivid Aussie references; chasing these down should provide foreign readers with hours of online fun.

(Fiction. 14 & up) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

HOW BIG IS 43 QUINTILLION? Huggins-Cooper, Lynn QEB Publishing (80 pp.) $14.99 paper | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-60992-628-1 Series: Beyond Rubik’s Cube

An effort at making sense of big numbers, with digressions into the history and various fields of mathematics.

Really big numbers are, for the most part, either vexing or comical, meaningless or all about effect. Huggins-Cooper’s hinge is Rubik’s Cube, the plastic puzzle that has frustrated gazillions. “The numbers start to get really big when you look at all the different ways the cubes can be arranged. And that’s when you will discover just how big 43 quintillion is.” The brief forays into the history of math and mathematicians are straightforward; readers “discover” something about zero, place value and the decimal system, Pythagoras, Al Khwarizmi and Fibonacci, endlessness and absence. The speed of light comes into focus, and the Ishango Bone, possibly the first evidence of counting (on a baboon’s leg, at that), is a hoot of a mystery. But other attempts at revelation fall short: “Think about 1,000,000 miles—that’s almost the distance to the moon and back, two times,” while the accompanying artwork depicts more than two times. “The ‘golden ratio’ is a special number” is too airy by half, and the relationship of the radius to the circumference, Pi, is again trumped by its illustration, which appears to show a 1-yard radius producing a circumference of 3.14 yards.

The busyness of the endeavor turns it into a turkey shoot, where luck—more than skill—is the likelier factor in making a point. (Nonfiction. 9-13)

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“...this values-driven pitch is well out of the strike zone.” from the contract

THE CONTRACT

Jeter, Derek with Mantell, Paul Jeter/Simon & Schuster (160 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 23, 2014 978-1-4814-2312-0 For his eponymous imprint, the New York Yankees star leads off with a selfreferential tale of Little League triumphs.

In the first of a projected 10 episodes based on the same number of “Life Lessons” espoused by the lead author’s Turn 2 Foundation, third-grader Derek turns in an essay announcing that his dream is to play shortstop for the New York Yankees (No. 1 on the Turn 2 list: “Set your goals high”). His parents take him seriously enough not only to present him with a “contract” that promises rewards for behaviors like working hard and avoiding alcohol and drugs, but also to put a flea in the ear of his teacher after she gives him a B-minus on the essay for being unrealistic. Derek then goes on to pull up his math grade. He also proceeds to pull off brilliant plays for his new Little League team despite finding himself stuck at second base while the coach’s son makes multiple bad decisions at shortstop and, worse, publicly puts down other team members. Jeter serves as his own best example of the chosen theme’s theoretical validity, but as he never acknowledges that making the majors (in any sport) requires uncommon physical talent as well as ambition and determination, this values-driven pitch is well out of the strike zone.

Plenty of baseball action, but the paint-by-numbers plot is just a vehicle for equally standard-issue advice. (foundation ad and curriculum guide, not seen). (Fiction. 7-9)

SEQUOIA

Johnston, Tony Illus. by Minor, Wendell Neal Porter/Roaring Brook (40 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 23, 2014 978-1-59643-727-2 A giant sequoia experiences the world around “him” in Johnston’s romantic, image-laden, anthropomorphic rendering of the life experiences of the largest tree on the planet.

This sequoia “feels,” “waits,” “counts,” “gazes,” “tells”— all verbs attributed to Sequoiadendron giganteum. The author describes large and small events that occur: Birds and beasts visit and shelter, weather changes, forest fires rage, seasons turn.

It is all very poetic and expresses the author’s subjective understanding of the sequoia. Fortunately, facts about the great trees are nicely summarized in endnotes. Minor’s gouache watercolors convey the action and present a more realistic picture of the theme. He shows the tree, the changing seasons, the sky, the animals and birds that live in the tree’s branches, roots, environs. Occasionally he demands a 90-degree turn of the book, so readers can see a (relatively) tiny bear dwarfed by the towering |

tree. His paintings give the words life, although the animals are not identified: Is that a ground squirrel or a chipmunk? a crow or a raven? and what species is the owl flying in the moonlight?

Perhaps it does not matter, since this is impressionistic free verse, lines often breaking with no apparent poetic need, rather than natural history.

Minor’s paintings are glorious; the textual conceit is a little overdone. (Picture book. 3-7)

THE CATEGORICAL UNIVERSE OF CANDICE PHEE Jonsberg, Barry Chronicle (248 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-4521-3351-5

Twenty-six chapters, one for each letter of the alphabet, chronicle Candice’s efforts to fix her family, her friend—and

even her fish.

Candice Phee’s family is a mess. Her baby sister is dead, her mom has had a double mastectomy and is depressed, and her father has quarreled with Rich Uncle Brian. Others in the 12-year-old’s life also need help, from her teacher, who has a lazy eye, to her only friend, Douglas Benson from Another Dimension, who is convinced that his parents are facsimiles. Even her pet, Earth-Pig Fish, is religiously confused. Candice, who likes everyone although she knows no one likes her, is somewhere on the autism spectrum (her pencils and pens cannot touch) and is literal to a fault, painfully honest and on a mission to make everyone happy. Award-winning Australian author Jonsburg captures quirky, irrepressible Candice’s voice in this first-person narrative that is as touching as it is funny. The humor stems from both Candice’s rigid literalness and her well-intentioned but often bungled efforts to fix things.

Once readers are past the book’s uninviting title, they’ll find it impossible not to root for Candice in her valiant and endearing quest to mitigate the sadness of those around her. (Fiction 10-14)

A BEAN, A STALK AND A BOY NAMED JACK Joyce, William Illus. by Joyce, William; Callicutt, Kenny Atheneum (56 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Oct. 7, 2014 978-1-4424-7349-2 978-1-4424-7350-8 e-book

Moonbot Studios collaborators Joyce and Callicutt royally fracture the familiar folk tale in this high-concept romp.

A cheeky narration, played for laughs, introduces a “smallish kid with the smallish name of Jack” in a drought-stricken kingdom. When the king, dirty as anyone, demands his subjects cry enough tears to wash his “stinky” pinky toe, the embarrassed

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“Karas’ gouache-and-pencil art has a friendly, intimate quality.” from as an oak tree grows

young princess implores the “local old wizard guy” to “PAHLEEZE, do something magical.” The wizard reads, thinks, draws, does some math and magic—and zaps a bean (who’s then able to verbalize its own planting instructions) off to Jack. The resultant vine’s so thick it dominates a double-page spread.

Jack, climbing with Bean (now a pod—no botany lesson here), encounters a “smallish giant kid named Don” taking a leisurely bath. When bath and visit end, Jack returns via tub drain. Joyce and Callicutt’s accomplished multimedia visuals show ensuing waterfalls (which render the king’s pinky “unstinky”) and rainfall, lubricating the kingdom once more. The pictures are both epic (see the tub’s prodigious plumbing) and infused with minutiae: A talismanic redheaded bird accompanies Jack throughout.

Bean’s word balloons are leaf-shaped; Jack’s, like his shepherd’s staff. In some sly concluding business, Jack invites the princess (“you can call me Jill”) up the hill to fetch water for thirsty Bean.

“The End…sorta.”

Engrossing illustrations and quirky humor, hitched to Joyce’s renown, will earn this its audience. (Picture book. 4-8)

ALEF IS FOR ABBA

Kafka, Rebecca Illus. by Basaluzzo, Constanza Kar-Ben (24 pp.) $17.95 | $7.95 paper | $6.95 e-book Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-4677-2156-1 978-1-4677-2157-8 paper 978-1-4677-4667-0 e-book Writing an ABC book has its challenges, as the end of the book may involve a xylophone, yogurt and a zebra; Kafka’s story is refreshingly unarbitrary.

Fortunately, the author had to work with only one letter of the alphabet, the Hebrew letter Alef. The book presents two back-to-back stories about a father and a mother, Abba and Ima in Hebrew, both of which begin with Alef, as do all the Hebrew words that follow. (Each word appears three times: in Hebrew characters, Romanized Hebrew and English.) Each story follows the family from morning till night. The one focusing on Ima begins with light (or) shining through the window and ends with a big meal (aruchah) after dark. Even the odder word choices are appropriate and can be strangely moving. Nose (af) shows up when the mother rubs noses with her son at bedtime. And happiness (osher) is represented by toys strewn all over the floor and the furniture. After children read about Abba (or Ima), they then flip the book over for the other story. The word choices mostly avoid stereotypes, but it’s too bad that only Abba gets to leave the house; Ima is busy cooking. Basaluzzo’s brightly colored illustrations are charming without being sentimental.

How fortuitous that the last three words all start with Alef; they are: “Ani ohev otchah! I love you!” (Picture book. 2-6)

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AS AN OAK TREE GROWS Karas, G. Brian Illus. by Karas, G. Brian Nancy Paulsen Books (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 11, 2014 978-0-399-25233-4

From acorn to huge tree, an oak provides the focal point for this clear and simple look at over two centuries of change in a single landscape.

A small boy plants an acorn in summer, close to a wigwam, high above a wide river. Though readers will guess that the tall ships that appear in the river by autumn don’t belong to the same people whose canoe crosses toward shore in the first pages, Karas avoids editorializing. In the next pages, “The boy grew up and moved away. Farmers now lived here.” The perspective stays: the growing tree, the river below, hills rolling away to the horizon. But seasons change, the occupants of the house on the land are different on each spread, and the landscape transforms by human hands through agriculture and construction.

Karas’ gouache-and-pencil art has a friendly, intimate quality. A timeline grows along the bottom of the page, beginning when the tree sprouts in 1775 and indicating the passage of time at a rate of 25 years per spread. The tree is brought down by a storm in 2000—here the narrative changes from past tense to a “you are there” present tense.

Young readers may be charmed to realize that the tree sprout near the old oak’s stump could by now be a sapling.

This will invite repeat visits. (Informational picture book. 4-8)

WHO R U REALLY? Kelly, Margo Merit Press (240 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 18, 2014 978-1-4405-7276-0

A naïve 14-year-old longing for a first romance believes she has found it with an online stranger.

Thea’s longtime friendship with Janie is one of the only things that makes ninth grade tolerable, especially after an embarrassing video makes the rounds. Hungry for connection, she eagerly embraces the online game “Skadi,” where she creates an identity and is befriended by “Kitsuneshin,” who claims to be 19 and living in Georgia. Janie tries to tell Thea that Kit flirts with another girl when she’s offline, but Thea is unwilling to believe it.

Her conversations with Kit are light and flirty (“Kitsuneshin: I’ll miss u. *tucks u into bed*”), and Thea knows better than to give him her cellphone number or her location...at first. Despite her mother’s repeated warnings and vigilance, Thea’s entanglement with Kit becomes her focus, as he persuades her that he loves her, hinting that he might attempt suicide without her. Thea’s mistakes, while frustrating to encounter, are frighteningly plausible, and the relationships among characters are well–fleshed out, especially between mother and daughter.

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Kelly’s first novel is a suspenseful page-turner with multiple suspects, a little bit of romance, and a strong but not overbearing message. (Thriller. 12-16)

THE CIRCUS GOES TO SEA Klise, Kate Illus. by Klise, M. Sarah Algonquin (144 pp.) $15.95 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-61620-365-8 Series: Three-Ring Rascals, 3

In the third installment of the endearing Three-Ring Rascals chapter books, Sir Sidney’s circus brings cruiseship entertainment to a new level, and Brambles’ heart grows as large as an ocean.

Sir Sidney continues to work with his manager, Barnabas Brambles, on being kind. Bert and Gert, the circus mice, see a long road ahead, but little do they know a sea change is coming.

A letter from a Miss LaPasta arrives, inviting the circus aboard a cruise ship—all except Brambles! Miss LaPasta has “heard he’s the meanest man alive.” With that, Sir Sidney determines they will go, with Brambles. It’s only after they embark that they discover that Miss LaPasta is a lonely child who did not tell her mother, Capt. LaPasta, about the invitation. Worse, Sir Sidney is laid low by seasickness, while Brambles becomes lovesick for the captain. And although the ensemble thrills the passengers with their antics and acts, the unhappy captain sees ruin and disaster. Then they hit an iceberg! The adventures are captured in text that fully integrates art and speech bubbles, geography lessons are gratis, and the climax is marked by a meatball version of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.” All’s well that ends with wedding bells.

With this series, youngsters will find reading smooth sailing and look forward to future escapades. Next up: The circus tours Europe! (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 7-10)

EVIL LIBRARIAN Knudsen, Michelle Candlewick (352 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-7636-6038-3

The spirit of Buffy is alive and kicking in this bloody debut for teens from an author better known for her children’s books (The Princess of Trelian, 2012, etc.).

Cyn is a backstage genius with an unrequited crush of epic proportions on popular, talented Ryan, the sort of boy who seems to move “in slow motion like some stupid sequence in a bad summer movie.”

She’s got a best friend, she enjoys a healthy relationship with her own carnal desires, and she’s snarky and smart and generally the kind of heroine everyone wants. Which is handy, since the |

hot new librarian is a demon in search of souls to suck as well as a child bride—and he’s got his sights set on Cyn’s best friend.

Luckily, Cyn has a sort of natural demon immunity. And, it turns out, she’s got support from Ryan, so she takes on the evil librarian—and then the demonic new principal and a host of other demons, too. Bloodshed and creepy rituals abound, but the horror is always campy and carefully undercut by the entirely realistic, slightly silly nonprogression of Cyn and Ryan’s romance (when they finally kiss, it’s cathartic for all). Snappily narrated, tightly plotted and generally just right.

Forget paranormal romance; this horror-humor-romance pastiche is where those in search of hot nonhumans should set their sights. (Humorous horror. 13 & up) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

TO THIS DAY

Koyczan, Shane Annick Press (72 pp.) $19.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-55451-639-1 One poet and 30 artists’ rallying cry against bullying.

Award-winning Canadian spokenword artist Koyczan finally sets on the page a poem whose animated video has created a YouTube sensation. Posted in February 2013, Koyczan’s video of the same name has generated nearly 13 million hits, challenging kids everywhere to reflect on themselves and their treatment of others. As in the video, which involved the collaboration of 86 animators and motion artists, this setting of the first-person free verse poem includes grippingly evocative spreads by 30 artists. In the introductory note outlining the work’s genesis, Koyczan includes a number of sobering facts about bullying, smartly points to the damage resulting from bullying behavior—from being ignored entirely to becoming the brunt of unwanted negative attention—and finally charges readers: “Remember that the world will never hear you if you choose to say nothing.” In the poem, the speaker describes the detrimental long-term effects bullying can have on one’s self-image: “[W] e grew up believing no one / would ever fall in love with us / that we’d be lonely forever.” Artistic styles are wildly varied, but each spread packs a punch, modulating emotionally with the poem.

Anti-bullying resources are appended.

Powerful on a number of levels, Koyczan’s timeless work proves at once confrontational and healing. (Poetry. 10 & up) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

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KISS OF BROKEN GLASS

Kuderick, Madeleine HarperTeen (224 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-06-230656-2 978-0-06-230658-6 e-book Told in finely tuned free verse, this story about self-injury portrays an unusual root cause for cutting: peer pressure.

“So here’s the thing about being Baker Acted,” opens narrator Kenna, referring to a real-life Florida law called the Baker Act, which allows for involuntary psychiatric institutionalization for up to 72 hours. Kenna’s sent straight there when a friend catches her cutting herself in the school bathroom. Kenna’s steamed, because the girl who told on her is a cutter too, as is their whole social circle. Girls compare scars and slits, sharing tips for hiding pins and stealing blades. In what Kenna calls the Sisters of the Broken Glass, girls crowd around at lunch, “looking at my cuts, rubbing my shoulders, / dabbing me with I-feel-so-bad-for-you ointment.” Kenna has no single, specific inner trauma, only various (valid) unhappinesses; she feels like “just a copycutter. / A follower who did it to fit in. / And now I can’t stop.” Now she finds her scars “[p]retty as pink pearls” and craves the adrenaline: Cutting’s “like energy / moving through my body / in waves. // Rushing. / Cleansing.” Despite hipster references (John Green, Tony Hawk, Tumblr, Twitter), the simple characterizations could have made for a generic problem novel, but Kuderick’s keen diction and free-verse technique shine.

Readers will devour this exposure of anorexia’s cultural cousin. (author’s note, resources) (Verse fiction. 14-16)

PENNYROYAL ACADEMY Larson, M.A. Putnam (320 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-0-399-16324-1

Larson weaves a patchwork mix of trite and truly excellent ideas into this chronicle of a young fugitive’s first year at princess school.

Having neither name nor past and first met racing through an enchanted forest clad only in spider webs, “Cadet Eleven” (Evie for short) finds herself enrolled in a school for combat princesses after rescuing hunky prince Remington from a witch’s cage. Under the tutelage of a tiny but fierce Fairy Drillsergeant and other faculty, she learns how to fight witches with “Courage, Compassion, Kindness, and Discipline,” along with ball-gown tailoring and other princessly skills. Meanwhile Remington and the other young men (except for one, who enrolls with the princesses because he was raised as the designated girl in a family of 22 boys) are in the school’s other wing training to be dragonkilling knights. Romance ensues, as do sharp conflicts when Evie, whose past is illuminated bit by bit in arbitrarily timed 114

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visions and revelations, turns out to have been lovingly raised, though not by humans. By the end, Evie has won her way past tests and rivalries, fought several witches (scary ones, too), and caught hints of both her human parentage and a promising destiny among such warrior greats as Cinderella and Snow White.

Flashes of inspiration light up a protagonist with plenty of spine, a plot too dependent on set pieces and a colorful but quickly sketched supporting cast. A sequel-worthy debut nonetheless. (Fantasy. 11-13)

PIG AND SMALL Latimer, Alex Illus. by Latimer, Alex Peachtree (32 pp.) $15.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-56145-797-7

Can a pig and a bug become friends, or will the matter of size get in their way?

Pig’s nose has never squeaked before, but one morning, it does nothing but. It squeaks when he eats, when he feeds the pigeons and when he takes a bath. He can’t find an answer in the big medical book, so he inspects his snout himself. What he finds is a squeaky bug who seems to want to be friends. Pig’s agreeable. He gets out his tandem bicycle, but when they ride, he feels he does most of the work. Bug makes Pig a cake to apologize—but Pig eats it in one bite without even remarking on the decorations. Their vastly different sizes get in the way of everything they try to do, so they go their separate ways….Then Pig sees an ad for a movie and realizes there are a ton of things the two can do together. They enjoy the movie, a museum, the aquarium and the zoo. There are still things they don’t enjoy doing together (like playing catch), but mostly they don’t even notice the difference in their sizes any more. South African author-illustrator Latimer isn’t quite as successful here as in Lion vs. Rabbit (2013) and other previous, slightly skewed outings. Here the absurdity may induce a smile—but not a laugh.

It’s a fine message, but it lacks a certain pizzazz. (Picture book. 4-8) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

WINTERSPELL

Legrand, Claire Simon & Schuster (464 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 30, 2014 978-1-4424-6598-5 A Nutcracker retelling includes a Victorian mob princess/warrior heroine, an alternate New York City, steampunk faeries and an epic multigenerational battle.

Seventeen-year-old Clara is the daughter of New York’s mayor—which is to say her father is the poor dupe that organized crime has mounted as figurehead leader. Heartless Patricia Plum and depraved Dr. Victor

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“Using plentiful white space, black pencil and red highlights (other colors are present but muted), Light creates breezy, witty illustrations that recall Hilary Knight….” from louise loves art

are the real leaders, with the city at their mercy. When Dr. Victor isn’t committing vile tortures on the bodies of imprisoned waifs, he’s sexually harassing Clara, who’s afraid to fight back. She could fight back, however, because Clara’s Godfather has spent his life training her to become the kind of fighter one only sees in computer games, with a tear-away gown hiding her many knives. These skills will serve her well when she’s thrust into the fairyland Cane, accompanied by sexy prince Nicholas, who until recently was a statue: a sinister, repulsively marked statue she’d always found fascinating and more recently erotic. In Cane, the humans (who once tortured faeries for fun) have been defeated by the equally sadistic and sexually threatening faeries, who force all humans to become drug addicts. Perhaps Clara can help, or maybe she’ll succumb to the homoerotic advances of the evil queen.

An overbusy mishmash. (Fantasy. 15-17)

LOUISE LOVES ART

Light, Kelly Illus. by Light, Kelly Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-06-224817-6 A fresh and bright sibling tale.

“I love art!” declares Louise. She’s splayed on the floor, her face smushed blissfully into pages of her own drawings.

Her medium is plain pencil, and she’s prolific. “To be a great artist, you have to notice everything. / Every line…every curve….

Wait—hold that pose! I will capture your cat-ness!” Her supple, sinuous black cat willingly strikes various poses, one mimicking Rodin’s The Thinker. There’s nary an adult, but Louise and her cat aren’t alone: Her little brother’s right there, worshipping her. As Louise finishes her pièce de résistance and trots to the kitchen to prepare an exhibition at the Gallery du Fridge, little bro repeatedly bids for her attention. “Not now, Art,” she temporizes—revealing for the first time the title’s double meaning—so Art putters happily behind. With Louise distracted, he uses her art to make into his own. There’s an eruption, of course, but Louise soon sees that Art’s art is all homage. Using plentiful white space, black pencil and red highlights (other colors are present but muted), Light creates breezy, witty illustrations that recall Hilary Knight’s pictures for Kay Thompson’s Eloise, especially on spreads showing one character in many positions.

A recurring red double-circle—Louise’s glasses, Art’s drawing of Louise’s glasses and a scissors handle—makes a delightful visual theme to follow.

Cheerfully art-ful. (Picture book. 3-6)

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WHAT THERE IS BEFORE THERE IS ANYTHING THERE A Scary Story Liniers Illus. by Liniers Translated by Amado, Elisa Groundwood (24 pp.) $18.95 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-55498-385-8

A lad is tormented by existential boojums every night in this comically eerie variation on a common bedtime trope.

No sooner do his parents bid him sweet dreams and switch off the light than the ceiling becomes “a black hole…black and infinite”—through which float small creatures of diverse shape who stand around his bed and stare at him fixedly. At last, the arrival of a slit-eyed blot that reaches out with twiggy tentacles and whispers, “I am what there is before there is anything there,” sends him pelting toward the parental bedroom. “It’s just your imagination,” soothes his mother, oblivious to the creature that floats into view on the last page. Liniers depicts the grown-ups from neck down to create a child-level perspective, but his doteyed, angst-ridden protagonist could be any age. Heavily crosshatched shadows and nighttime visitors with mildly grotesque features add appropriately spooky notes. Snuggling between parents (“But this is the last time”) banishes those boogeymen, right? Wrong.

The book is brilliant in its confirmation of an essential truth of childhood, but that doesn’t make it any less unsettling, though possibly more for adult readers than for children. (Picture book. 6-8)

TABULA RASA

Lippert-Martin, Kristen Egmont USA (352 pp.) $16.99 | $16.99 e-book | Sep. 23, 2014 978-1-60684-518-9 978-1-60684-519-6 e-book After her memories are surgically erased, one teenage girl fights to recover her identity during a brutal attack on the hospital she’s trapped in.

At a mysterious medical center tucked among snow-covered mountains, Sarah receives the tabula rasa treatment, or removal of all past memories, for severe PTSD. Orderlies hint that patients are either “victims” or “perpetrators.”

Though Sarah remembers nothing of her past, including her appearance, she suspects she falls into the latter category. When a power outage interrupts her surgery, a figure in the darkness slips her three pills and instructions. Soon, the center is thrown into chaos as soldiers suddenly attack, and Sarah flees her room, taking up with a teenage hacker sent to retrieve information. As Sarah’s memories return in uncontrollable bursts, she pieces together her parents’ twisted fate and her role in an attempt to bring down a corporate empire, all while avoiding rampant gunfire and falling

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“Children will build their visual skills by noticing how the dark skies predict events to come and how the paintings of the lonely scarecrow evoke empathy.” from otis and the scarecrow

perilously in love. The action ramps up quickly and never slows, creating a thriller with made-for-movies imagery. Lippert-Martin attempts to draw Sarah as a tough-as-nails heroine, but a hokey love story undermines her gumption. The back story that should be a rewarding reveal instead reads as an excuse for the cartoonish villain’s rampage.

A hard-hitting thriller that misses the mark when it comes to emotional impact. (Thriller. 12-18)

THE SEASONS OF LITTLE WOLF

for action and looking for a loophole; studious, obedient Rick prefers his adventure in video games. But they share a dislike for bullying schoolmate Vesuvia Piffle, the “super-secret” CEO of the Condo Corp., who’s determined to build a continent of her own where plastic will rule. The Lanes’ quest for the formula, which takes them into the Winterpole headquarters near their Swiss home, far north to a seastead in the Arctic Ocean, and down to ocean depths, is told in third person from their alternating points of view. Two sequels are promised for 2015.

Fast-paced action, cool inventions and remarkable robots combine for an auspicious opener. (Adventure. 8-12)

London, Jonathan Illus. by Van Zyle, Jon WestWinds Press (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-941821-06-0

OTIS AND THE SCARECROW

The creators of The Eyes of Grey Wolf (1993) bring the same close intimacy to this sequel—a chronicle of a cub’s eventful first year.

Thanks to the illustrations’ low angle of view, readers practically become members of the pack. Little Wolf and his three littermates are born in spring, bumble out of the cozy den for playtime in the warm months of summer, and then in autumn, join parents Gray Wolf and White Wolf on a hazardous first hunt. London likewise invites children to think of the wolves as practically human: Little Wolf and his sibs “chow down” by nipping Gray Wolf ’s muzzle after he returns from a hunt. (London leaves the exact mechanism of delivery ambiguous, which may cause readers to believe that Gray Wolf has just carried a mouthful of meat home to the cubs.) The cubs also play “tugof-war” and “hide-and seek” until things get too wild and White Wolf imposes a “wolf ’s time-out.” Still, for all the attentive parenting, close family ties and social nature on display here, the wolves are not anthropomorphized.

Respectful and informative, with dashes of humor and drama. (afterword) (Informational picture book. 6-8)

THE 8TH CONTINENT London, Matt Razorbill/Penguin (224 pp.) $12.99 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-59514-754-7

An eco-conscious series of adventures begins, promising worldbuilding on a continental scale and an integrated website.

When their brilliant, activist father is placed under house arrest by Winterpole, the international police agency, preteens Evie and Rick Lane take on the challenge of finding the missing half of a formula that will convert the Great Pacific Garbage Patch into an eighth continent where they will be free of Winterpole’s regulations and where birds and animals can find sanctuary.

At 10 and 11, Evie and Rick are opposites: Evie is always ready 116

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Long, Loren Illus. by Long, Loren Philomel (40 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-399-16396-8

Otis the retro tractor is back in the fifth installment of the popular series.

The farmer brought the scarecrow to the cornfield in late summer, and Otis is excited about a new friend. But when Otis chuffs over to meet the new friend, the scarecrow’s sour face leaves Otis cold. The other farm animals stop by, but they are met with the same sullen reception. They return to the farm, playing games to enjoy the passing of summer into autumn.

They have a grand time together, but the scarecrow remains alone on the hill, with that same stern expression on his face.

One day, with the winds howling and a stiff, cold rain pelting the scarecrow, Otis makes a decision. He chuffs up to the scarecrow and sits down next to him. The others watch from afar but soon join Otis. The whole crew plays the quiet game with their new friend, who, of course, wins. Teachers will see the connection between the lonely scarecrow and the outsider in the classroom and will be able to find many uses for this volume in the curriculum. Children will build their visual skills by noticing how the dark skies predict events to come and how the paintings of the lonely scarecrow evoke empathy.

Fans will enjoy this more cerebral Otis and might build a little empathy along the way. (Picture book. 4-8)

ANIMAL SCHOOL What Class Are You? Lord, Michelle Illus. by Garland, Michael Holiday House (32 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-8234-3045-1

“Elephants to pygmy wrasses, / vertebrates are grouped by classes.”

Lord’s rhyming verse explores those different vertebrate classes (reptiles, fish, mammals, birds, amphibians) in language that is understandable, sometimes humorous and even elegant

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at times; always, it highlights the basic characteristics that mark the animals of each class and gives some facts about a few species. “Every noise / a reptile hears / through covered holes, / not floppy ears.” “Daddy sea horse / swims so slow; / in his brood pouch / babies grow.” Other verses describe how the animals are born, whether they are coldblooded or warmblooded, whether they have skin, scales or fur, and what adaptations they enjoy.

“Hollow bones help / eagles fly. / Feathers take them / through the sky.” Garland’s “digi-woodcut” illustrations are a highlight.

His realistic animals share shadings and habitats with the natural world, while the look of the art is rustic and scratchy. The colors are particularly vivid; one undersea page about fish has the look of batik, while a group of wolves in a snowy scene uses just grays, browns and white. Backmatter includes a chart of characteristics, examples and exceptions; an afterword (“Invertebrates / are spineless things— / lobster, spider, / bugs with wings!”); bibliography; and websites.

Both beautiful and educational. (Informational picture book/poetry. 6-10)

BACKWARDS MOON Losure, Mary Holiday House (144 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 15, 2014 978-0-8234-3160-1

Losure has chosen a popular topic— witches—for her first work of fiction.

Nettle and Bracken, two young witches, are the main characters. The apparently orphaned cousins discover the human world when a magical disaster rends the veil that protects their valley. Tricked into searching for a solution (and a treasured magical artifact) by a renegade member of their coven, the two discover more than they bargained for on their journey. A friendly farmer and an oddly engaging talking raccoon offer assistance and some humor, while a pair of slightly befuddled elderly ladies winds up playing an unexpectedly bittersweet role in the adventure. Overall, however, the human characters, like the girls’ fellow witches, are sketchily drawn and fail to generate much interest. The format also poses some challenges, as fantasy fans have come to expect a bit more action and drama than they’ll find in the straightforward storyline, while chapter-book readers could feel overwhelmed by the relatively lengthy text, lack of illustration and sophisticated vocabulary. The somewhat open-ended conclusion could likewise cause confusion or frustration.

Ultimately less than the sum of its parts, this earnest effort may disappoint rather than enchant. (Fantasy. 8-10)

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FANTASY LEAGUE Lupica, Mike Philomel (304 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-0-399-25607-3

Wish fulfillment is the order of the day in Lupica’s latest.

Charlie “The Brain” Gaines has an uncanny knack with fantasy-football leagues. Though he lacks the skill to be a standout player on the field, when it comes to his favorite game, no one is a better strategist. No one. Including the professionals. So when Charlie’s best friend and football buddy, Anna, introduces him to her grandfather Joe Warren, Charlie can’t help sharing a bit of insight. You see, Joe Warren happens to own the local football team, the L.A. Bulldogs, and the Bulldogs happen to have a crummy record, and that means they happen to crave advice, even if it comes from a mediocre middle school football player. Lupica plays the “what if ” game to posit the notion of a brilliant football mind trapped inside a youthful body. The ploy falls decidedly short, as Charlie’s level of football understanding and insight render him something of a savant. Charlie is far more at ease with football jargon than most middle-grade readers could hope to be.

Lacking the intensity of a sustained drive or the urgency of a fourth-and-long play, the story offers more the feeling of trailing an opponent and deciding to sit on the ball until halftime. (Fiction. 10-14)

MR. FRANK

Luxbacher, Irene Illus. by Luxbacher, Irene Groundwood (32 pp.) $16.95 | $14.95 e-book | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-55498-435-0 978-1-55498-436-7 e-book Outstanding mixed-media collages and a thoughtful text create a distinctive book that rises far above most tributes to grandparental love.

“Mr. Frank was a tailor,” proclaims the first page, in bold, unambiguous lettering. The image is of an older man, humbly clothed in a baseball cap and a fuzzy sweater with elbow patches. He smiles slightly as he prepares to unlock his workshop door. In the next pages, readers learn that today, “Mr. Frank received an order for an outfit that made all the others seem rather dull.” The double-page spreads that follow are perfect examples of artwork extending text, as each decade of Mr. Frank’s long career reveals the fashions he helped to create and promulgate—always in the context of how much more wonderful Mr. Frank’s newest creation must be. From army uniforms to miniskirts to tutus, readers get a taste of past fashions, as this outfit must be “more stylish than the suits he made over fifty years ago” and “more playful than the dresses and skirts

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he hemmed forty-some-odd years ago.” In fact, the project Mr. Frank works on so lovingly today is “perfect…there was nothing else he wanted to do.” The entirely wordless climax hints that the book may be turning maudlin, until the turn of the page reveals a humorous and heartwarming denouement.

It’s a perfect ending to a perfect book. (Picture book. 3-7)

HEIR OF FIRE

Maas, Sarah J. Bloomsbury (576 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-61963-065-9 Series: Throne of Glass, 3 Magic, painful truths and dangerous military escalations characterize this series continuation.

Celaena Sardothien’s in Wendlyn, ordered by the villainous king of Adarlan to assassinate Wendlyn’s royals, or he’ll execute her ex and the family of her dead best friend, Nehemia. Celaena—the presumed-dead rightful queen of the conquered Terrasen— plans on finding a way to destroy the king of Adarlan’s sources of power, in fulfillment of a vow made on Nehemia’s grave.

Celaena seeks out the Fae Queen Maeve for information; cunning Maeve refuses until Celaena proves herself (with the help of a prickly, elite warrior Fae trainer) by embracing her hated demi-Fae heritage and magic. Celaena, grieving, goes through dark emotional times and must confront her scarred psyche in order to return to the unapologetically awesome heroine readers know and love. Meanwhile, there’s a lot going on: A witch deals with clan politics (Adarlan’s king makes them his wyvern-riding airborne cavalry), Chaol attempts to protect Dorian from his own magic, a healer falls for Dorian and more. The jumps from narrative to narrative initially detract from the story’s momentum, but multiple perspectives on Adarlan’s grotesque schemes and tactics eventually pay off. Despite the slow beginning, tension snowballs into devastating twists and an absolutely riveting ending. Maas’ usual hallmarks—an epic fantasy setting and the little-exploited truth that platonic relationships can be more intense and compelling than romantic—are present in force.

Will leave readers ravenous for more. (Fantasy. 14 & up)

SALLY RIDE Life On A Mission: The RealLife Story Macy, Sue Aladdin (160 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-4424-8854-0 978-1-4424-8856-4 e-book

A fast-moving, straightforward and up-to-date biography of the first American woman astronaut.

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Arranged chronologically, the 10 chapters are narrated with appealing energy, interspersed quotations humanizing the book’s subject. From a tennis championship in high school through a Ph.D. in physics to her flight into space, Ride was a dedicated model of achievement, scientific and otherwise. Macy provides detailed descriptions of her training and the many hurdles involved in selection as an astronaut, and she answers the basic questions about everyday functions in space (eating, washing, toileting, etc.). Boxed insets here and there add side information and context. Macy makes it clear that Ride’s career did not end with her groundbreaking flight, celebrating her activism in the fields of science and women’s rights. Privacy was of utmost importance to Ride, but the glare of publicity made it difficult to maintain. There were two issues that she managed to keep from the public until her last days: She had pancreatic cancer, and she was gay. The introduction addresses both up front.

The extensive backmatter provides scholarly data, while the writing imparts the drive and character of this famous woman.

Macy’s slim, empathetic account makes readers see the woman behind the achievement. (author’s note, timeline, further reading and viewing, bibliography, source notes, index, endnotes) (Biography. 9-14) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

HATCH, LITTLE EGG Manceau, Édouard Illus. by Manceau, Édouard Translated by Li, Karen Owlkids Books (32 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 15, 2014 978-1-77147-077-3

Pig lovers will be utterly confused by this book.

The story begins with a traffic jam. Manceau has carefully drawn an entire street full of deer on motorcycles and other animals in cars and trucks. Some of them have cameras. All of them are shouting, “The little bird is hatching!” Everyone gathers around a small, yellow-orange egg, whose shell has begun to crack. They begin to count: “One, two, three….” This is where the story gets odd. The egg pops open and out comes a bright Crayola-pink pig. The odd part is that all the animals begin to walk away in disappointment. They say, “Who does that pig think he is?” This is puzzling, because a pig hatching out of an egg seems much more exciting than a baby bird. (Fans of Olivia and Charlotte’s Web might argue that a baby pig is the cutest thing in the world.) The last page is even more puzzling. The pig turns out to be a baby bird in a clever disguise. Apparently, he really hates paparazzi. Surrealists will rejoice. Other readers might be frustrated by the book’s “dog bites man” logic.

But even skeptics may be won over by the pictures. A pig really might be the cutest thing in the world—even if it’s a bird in disguise. (Picture book. 3-7)

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“[A] folk tale–like story characterized by sophisticated vocabulary and beautifully patterned artwork….” from a pair of twins

A PAIR OF TWINS

finally arrives. The various threads—primarily the importance of belief and ritual and the struggle between love and duty—come to satisfying, even emotional closings.

Medieval fantasy with a strong female lead and a definitive ending: That’s enough to keep plenty of readers happy. (map) (Historical fantasy. 13 & up)

Mandana, Kavitha Illus. by Surendranath, Nayantara Karadi Tales (32 pp.) $11.95 paper | Aug. 12, 2014 978-8-181-90302-0 This Indian import touts both cultural heritage and women’s rights.

Born just a few minutes apart, a 3 1/2kilo girl named Sundari and a 500-kilo elephant calf named Lakshmi are raised as “twins.” Their fathers hold important positions in the king’s service: Sundari’s father is the chief mahout, or elephant trainer, and Lakshmi’s father, Drona, is the majestic bull that leads the Dussehra procession in Mysore. Sundari dreams of becoming a mahout like her father, but as a female, she is expected to become a palace dancer. In this folk tale–like story characterized by sophisticated vocabulary and beautifully patterned artwork, the Indian girl secretly practices being a mahout with her beloved elephant. When Drona becomes too ill to carry the howdah on his back and lead the procession and his sons are considered “disappointingly ordinary,” Sundari dares to recommend Lakshmi to take the old elephant’s place. And when a respected elder notes that Lakshmi hasn’t been trained to carry the howdah, he faces wrath from both Lakshmi’s father and the Raja when he suggests Sundari for the job. A creative queen intervenes, devising a plan to turn Sundari into the first female mahout. While some Indian terms can be gleaned from textual clues, adult intervention may be needed for Western readers.

An attractive and important read, particularly in light of current events in India. (Picture book. 6-9)

THE CALLER

Marillier, Juliet Knopf (480 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | $20.99 PLB Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-375-86956-3 978-0-375-98368-9 e-book 978-0-375-96956-0 PLB Series: Shadowfell, 3 The third and final entry in the Shadowfell trilogy delivers exactly what readers want without feeling either easy or obvious.

After the tragic events toward the end of the second volume, the rebels have regrouped. Neryn, the rebel whose magical skill allows the humans and Good Folk to work together to defeat cruel King Keldec, has only months to complete her training. But her plans are derailed by the appearance of a second Caller, one working for Keldec, and by a storm that nearly destroys one of the four Guardians whose magic permeates Alban and whose training Neryn must undergo. Despite Neryn’s tendency to restate things frequently in her narration, a tic that deeply slowed the second volume, this entry keeps pace, in part because Neryn has grown into a more proactive figure and in part because the final battle |

MADE FOR YOU

Marr, Melissa Harper/HarperCollins (368 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 16, 2014 978-0-06-201119-0 978-0-06-230998-3 e-book In a small backwater town where social standing is everything, 17-year-old Eva discovers being the favorite can be terrifying.

Eva’s family is wealthy and influential, so it’s big news when she’s the victim of a hit-and-run that leaves her severely injured and deeply scarred.

While recovering in the hospital, sweet-tempered Eva discovers her new and horrifying ability: When people touch her, she can foresee their deaths. When one of her friends is murdered and left with a message carved in her flesh, it’s clear the killer wants Eva. The book is broken up by chapters in voices other than Eva’s, the most absorbing of which is Judge, a sexually twisted religious zealot obsessed with Eva, who believes he’s communicating with her through the flowers he leaves on his victims. Readers know he’s the killer but not who he is among Eva’s acquaintances. Lifelong friend Nate makes Eva’s heart flutter. He stays handsomely by her side throughout the mounting terror. As the death toll increases, Eva, meek no more, uses her visions in an attempt to stop the murderer’s elaborate plan to possess her. Marr, who generally explores supernatural themes, here pens a tightly choreographed spinechiller with an intriguing view into the mind of a psychopath.

This riveting whodunit delivers a bouquet of teen romance, paranormal and thriller. (Paranormal thriller/romance.

15-20)

ALICE WATERS AND THE TRIP TO DELICIOUS Martin, Jacqueline Briggs Illus. by Choi, Hayelin Readers to Eaters (32 pp.) $18.95 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-9836615-6-6

Alice Waters, restaurateur and founder of the school garden-to-table program the Edible Schoolyard, is feted in this

lively biography.

Lines of black text are laid out over colorful double-page spreads that, through skilled use of Adobe Photoshop, have a pleasing resemblance to woodblock prints. In fact, the art greatly enhances the text, with its varied multitude of cheerful

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“[Herbie’s] innocent perspective allows even the very young to grasp complex concepts.” from when aunt mattie got her wings

people growing, preparing and enjoying food, as well as the use of different framing techniques and vantage points. The book begins with a double-page spread showing, apparently, an oversize Waters serving salad to a happy group of multicultural children. The text, arranged in a quasi-free-verse form, reads: “Some people want new red shoes. / Some want to sing on stage / or play basketball. / … / [Chef Alice Waters,] She wants / the hungry kids, the happy kids, / the tall kids, the short kids / to have a delicious lunch—every day.” The text becomes less patronizing and more interesting as it progresses, chronicling the life of one contemporary foodie who has worked to make a difference in children’s nutritional lives. A tendency toward textual insipidity is mitigated by the artwork’s humor and details, as well as by several informative sidebars.

An obvious choice in communities that have active Edible Schoolyards, it may spark some interest in communities that do not—yet. (afterword, author’s note, bibliography, resources) (Picture book/biography. 4-8)

TAKEN

Massey, David Chicken House/Scholastic (288 pp.) $18.99 | Aug. 26, 2014 978-0-545-66128-7 What’s meant to be a symbolic round-the-world sail goes horribly off course when the yacht and its teenage crew, four disabled British veterans of the Middle East conflict and two ablebodied assistants, is boarded off Tanzania by members of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Present-tense narrator Rio, a Brit of Jamaican and Sikh descent, is one of the assistants. A potential Olympic sailor, she blunders into a psychodynamic she doesn’t fully understand, particularly the tension between charismatic Ash, who walks on two prosthetic legs, and his gorgeous girlfriend, the other assistant. But they are not on the boat for long. Led by the brutal (fictional) second-in-command to Joseph Kony himself, a band of mostly child soldiers manhandles the teens across Tanzania and into the Congolese jungle. Rio and Ash’s instant attraction fuels a puerile, almost embarrassing romantic subplot that stretches out along the bitter miles. Devoutly religious diabetic Izzy provides both tension—what happens when the insulin runs out?—and conscience, counseling the others to love their child captors. A creepy, witch-doctor–like LRA flunky seems painfully gratuitous, there to provide an extra fillip of exoticism—as though the machete-wielding children, including the dead-eyed girl Rio calls the Empty Child, aren’t horror enough.

Contrivances and coincidences further undermine the tale.

Despite this book’s currency, Allan Stratton’s Chanda’s War (2008) remains a far better fictional treatment of the tragedy of child soldiers. (Adventure. 14-16)

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WHEN AUNT MATTIE GOT HER WINGS

Mathers, Petra Illus. by Mathers, Petra Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-4814-1044-1 978-1-4814-1045-8 e-book Lottie the hen must say goodbye to her beloved aunt Mattie in this gentle story about loss, grief and friendship.

When the hospital calls to say Aunt Mattie is getting weak, Lottie journeys to see her. On the long bus ride, happy memories surface—of shared picnics and jokes, and of Mattie herself, a bird full of humor and gusto, who found her calling as a nurse.

But now Aunt Mattie is 99, ready to fly to the great beyond.

For hours, Lottie sits with her aunt at the hospital. Descriptive details (the sound of Aunt Mattie’s breathing, the way she looks in the hospital bed, the feeling of day turning to night) are simply captured; yet in doing so, Mathers brings meaning to the clinical and unfamiliar. Here, these moments are precious and valuable. Throughout the tale, Lottie’s friend Herbie is a comforting presence. His innocent perspective allows even the very young to grasp complex concepts. As he drives Mattie to the bus station, meets her at the hospital and shares in her heartache, it’s clear his friendship and support make this difficult time bearable for Lottie. Together, the two scatter Aunt Mattie’s ashes in the ocean, so she’ll “always be near...mixed in with sand and sea.” Watercolor illustrations, painted in mostly square panels and organized like an old newspaper comic strip, are earnest and appealing.

Lucid and insightful, Mathers presents death and grief as natural processes with compassion and great care. (Picture book. 3-7)

FIREBUG

McBride, Lish Henry Holt (336 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 23, 2014 978-0-8050-9862-4 An indentured magical assassin just wants a little peace with her chosen family.

Firebug Ava, who can set fires with her mind, has been on the run her whole life. When Ava’s firebug mother became pregnant, she did the unthinkable and fled from the supernatural mob, raising Ava on the road for years, always in hiding. But nobody escapes the Coterie alive, and Ava’s mom was no exception. Orphaned, Ava lives with her mother’s human childhood sweetheart in rural Maine. She’s allowed to stay in Maine only on the condition of her loyalty to Venus, the Coterie’s bloodthirsty vampire leader. Along with her two best friends, also unwilling Coterie employees, Ava’s an unpaid assassin. Ava, Ezra, a werefox, and Lock, a handsome dryad, are Venus’ enforcers, putting down any supernaturals

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THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING LION

foolish enough to challenge Venus’ power. As long as Ava does the bloody work, she and her loved ones are left alone—but what happens when Venus demands something Ava simply won’t do? Ava’s exhausted despair, her love for her found family and her coldly practical choices are pre-existing conditions, and the moral decisions she makes are surprisingly nuanced.

Deeply enmeshed with a magical world and its impossible choices before readers ever meet her, Ava and her wholly believable despair are a refreshing change from the endless parade of naïve heroines found elsewhere. (Fantasy.

14-16)

ATTACK OF THE GIANT ROBOT CHICKENS McCall, Alex Kelpies (208 pp.) $9.95 paper | Sep. 1, 2014 978-178250-008-7

Robot chicken apocalypse...no one saw that coming!

Scottish 12-year-old Jesse’s older brother was obsessed with apocalyptic possibilities ranging from asteroids to zombies, but when the end did come, it took the form of gigantic robotic chickens that captured all the adults. Eight months into the feathery end of the world, the survivors live in isolated groups throughout the city of Aberdeen. The girl known as the Ambassador goes from group to group, trying to get them to work together. Jesse’s defense mechanism—telling really bad chicken jokes—does not make him popular with his fellow survivors, but group boss Noah trusts him. When the Ambassador arrives with information that might help them take down the oppressive poultry, Noah sends Jesse with her. The two don’t get along at first, but after a run-in with a chicken-worshiping cult and the metal overlords themselves, they form a plan. Can it succeed against laser-eyed, explosive-egg–laying robo-chickens?

McCall’s debut won publication with the Kelpies Prize, which seeks new Scottish fiction for young readers. The totally foolish premise is made believable through strong writing and realistic characters. The swift pace and at-times goofy action sequences will charm readers who like their action with a few laughs.

Kids saving themselves from the egg-pocalypse: priceless. (Post-apocalyptic adventure. 8-12)

McCall Smith, Alexander Illus. by McIntosh, Iain Anchor (96 pp.) $6.99 paper | Oct. 21, 2014 978-0-8041-7327-8 Series: Precious Ramotswe Mystery, 3 Young Precious Ramotswe again shows why she eventually grows up to be the founder of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detec-

tive Agency.

Aunty Bee has invited Precious to visit her in the beautiful Okavango Delta. The little detective arrives at Eagle Island Camp to discover that a film company is making a movie there.

Precious makes friends with Khumo, and together they follow the crew. The star of the movie is a trained lion named Teddy, and soon Khumo and Precious find themselves part of the film crew by making animal noises to prompt Teddy to act. But though Teddy is a trained lion, the allure of the bush proves too tempting, and he disappears. The owners fret over the loss, and everyone is worried about his ability to survive in the bush. Precious’ powers of observation, spectacular guineafowl impression and sense of doing the right thing come to the rescue again. McIntosh’s detailed, black-and-white illustrations add an old-fashioned air to the story. The straightforward plot, easy vocabulary and compelling setting make this a perfect step up from early chapter books. That McCall Smith brings a great sense of fun to his prose heightens the appeal: Precious’ guineafowl impression sounds “a bit like the noise a hen makes, only it was a bit more…well, spotted.”

Precious’ keen sense of right and wrong will inspire readers; her powers of observation may inspire budding detectives. (Mystery. 7-11)

DAPPLED ANNIE AND THE TIGRISH McCallum, Mary Illus. by Hayward, Annie Gecko Press (138 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-877579-95-0

In this exceptional debut novel for middle graders, Annie’s quest to retrieve a blown-away birds’ nest becomes more magical, dangerous and urgent than she

ever anticipated.

This magical adventure is set on the coast of New Zealand, where Annie lives with her mother, little brother and father— a lighthouse keeper whose unexpected absence has just begun to concern his family. The story begins on the cusp of Annie’s 10th birthday, when Annie’s usual visit to her unusual friends— a row of hedges—turns into a grand adventure that has hints of The Neverending Story and A Wrinkle in Time. By the time her |

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birthday has arrived, Annie has learned that being “dappled” is a good thing, and she has proven to herself that she is capable of good decision-making and heroic bravery. Elements of magical realism fold beautifully into the story, as do the moments when Annie is testing a young person’s version of situational ethics.

The warm family relationships add to the story’s charm: “On one hand, her brother was loud and sticky and annoying, but on the other hand, he knew interesting things about animals and snuggled up when she read to him.” Nature facts mingle easily with the supernatural, and gentle humor is omnipresent.

Both cinematic and pleasingly literary, this will keep readers entranced. (Fantasy. 7-11)

LITTLE AUTHOR IN THE BIG WOODS A Biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder

McDonough, Yona Zeldis Illus. by Thermes, Jennifer Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt (144 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-0-8050-9542-5 This condensation of the long, peripatetic life of Laura Ingalls Wilder will intrigue fans of the Little House series.

After scant pages of prologue and the early life of Wilder’s mother, the text begins a straightforward chronology with a mind-numbing parade of temporary homes, hardships and triumphs, and many, many descriptions of building construction. (No wonder Ma always seemed so tired.) Those who have read the Little House series will recognize names, places and incidents that went straight from Wilder’s memory into her novels—more so than most works of fiction, as the text notes. (Readers will eventually learn the reason: Wilder initially expected to publish an autobiography for adults). Quotes from Wilder are interspersed with facts about her life, and a few facts are noted as different from her fiction. Ironically, the text sometimes reads like a lifeless summary of episodes that sparkle in the novels. However, there is a noteworthy emphasis on literacy—especially for girls—and on the values of three generations of “strong, smart women.” Also, the biography extends Wilder’s life far beyond the chronological boundaries of her books and into her writing career, relationship with daughter Rose and final years. The illustrations are lovely pencil drawings that pay homage to Garth Williams’ work while maintaining originality.

Less mesmerizing than Wilder’s prose but similar in its simple sentences that convey big ideas. (author’s note, epilogue, craft project, recipes, list of books by Wilder, glossary, further reading) (Biography. 8-12)

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BEAR HUG

McEwen, Katharine Illus. by McEwen, Katharine Templar/Candlewick (32 pp.) $15.99 | Sep. 23, 2014 978-0-7636-6630-9 A childlike version of a bear’s life story.

Recognizing that winter is coming, a young bear prepares, just as he learned to do from his parents. He makes a warm bed in his cave, catches fish and finds berries to eat, and finds a companion for the long winter’s sleep. They wake up in the spring to another season and a cub to teach in turn. This sweet story of Mama and Papa raising their child together is, sadly, directly contrary to the facts of brown bear life. Brown bears are usually solitary. Like nearly 30 percent of the children in this country, bear cubs are raised by a single parent. Male and female parents share neither winter dens nor parenting duties. McEwen has illustrated her idyllic depiction of family life with appealing earth-toned collages. The bears’ natural world includes stylized trees and snowflakes, a “shivery river” filled with “fat silvery fish,” and grand birds. At one point, the family perches on a bee tree from which one parent pulls a ribbon of honey. Some illustrations are full-bleed, sometimes extending across a spread, while others spill out of a background frame. The gentle text, set in a very thin serif type, is sometimes difficult to distinguish from the textured background.

Romantic and attractive but ultimately unsatisfying.

(Picture book. 2-4) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

FIGHTER

McGill, Leslie Saddleback Educational Publishing (140 pp.) $9.95 paper | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-62250-705-4 Series: Cap Central, 1 Easily angered Jair picks a fight with outsider Zander in a compassionate and efficiently told tale.

Berated by his father and responsible for his two younger siblings, Jair takes comfort in the fact that pretty, popular Keisha has just chatted with him online. When Zander, a new kid from LA, shows up at school wearing aqua and purple clothing and immediately gains Keisha’s attention, Jair decides Zander needs “to be taught a lesson.” The story is told from both teens’ perspectives, and in Zander’s chapters, readers see a different story: The son of an Air Force colonel and a mother deployed to Afghanistan, Zander has moved repeatedly from place to place, is constantly picked on for being a new kid and has developed fighting skills to keep the bullies away. Trying to turn over a new leaf, Zander tries his hardest to refuse to fight Jair; when Jair corners him, however, Zander wins their fight, and Jair leaves humiliated. Complicated and timely topics, from cyberbullying to

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“A compelling contemporary thriller for readers who don’t mind waiting for Volume 2.” from get even

homophobia, are treated carefully here. Jair’s decision to seek out a gun to prove his toughness feels at once believable and dangerous, but this is no scare-’em-straight story. Instead, the tension between Jair and Zander resolves in a way that feels true to their characters and avoids both melodrama and triteness.

Simple and powerful. (Fiction. 12-16)

IN A HANDFUL OF DUST

McGinnis, Mindy Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | Sep. 23, 2014 978-0-06-219853-2 978-0-06-219855-6 e-book Ten years after Not a Drop to Drink (2013), the orphan Lynn rescued is a teenager forced to set out on a dangerous, cross-country journey.

Protagonist Lucy, Lynn’s adopted daughter, and the expanded community have flourished in the hard-won peace. Their serenity’s forever ruptured when a polio outbreak ravages their population, killing and crippling indiscriminately. The disease’s spread is charted to identify the source, and Lucy’s love interest is identified as the most likely, an unknowing asymptomatic carrier who now faces exile (and crippling guilt). There’s a miniscule chance it could be Lucy though, so she must leave as well. Due to a sticky situation involving an unstable, paranoid woman, as well as the mother-child bond, Lynn accompanies Lucy on a dangerous trip to California, where it’s rumored there are desalination plants and electricity.

The two encounter multiple people of various moral standards and threat levels, nature’s obstacles and, of course, the water shortage that destroyed civilization. Throughout it all, Lucy clings to her optimism, especially the hope that she can rescue her love interest. Ultimately, the novel is concerned with the differences between staying alive and living—with Lynn and Lucy, and their rich dynamic, representing both sides. Tension’s maintained by constant, subtle foreshadowing (rather than transparent cliffhangers), and the characters rarely feel safe enough for readers to relax.

Hard to put down. (Adventure. 13 & up)

GET EVEN

McNeil, Gretchen Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (400 pp.) $9.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Sep. 16, 2014 978-0-06-226085-7 978-0-06-226086-4 e-book Series: Don’t Get Mad, 1 A new series aiming at the Pretty Little Liars sweet spot kicks off.

Bullies run rampant at prep school Bishop DuMaine, ignored by principal Father Uberti. That is, until a group called Don’t Get Mad begins giving the worst |

offenders their just deserts. No one knows who is in DGM— no one would suspect it’s four very different girls with no apparent ties of friendship. Student body vice president Kitty initially brought together actress Olivia, invisible Margot and rebellious Bree after a freshman year class project, and since then, they’ve successfully neutralized some of the worst offenders at Bishop DuMaine. But then their latest target ends up dead—holding evidence that implicates DGM in his death. With the sadistic Coach Creed and the ’Maine Men, a “school-sanctioned goon squad,” determined to reveal DGM’s members, the team’s bonds begin to fray, especially when they begin receiving anonymous photos that hint at the girls’ secrets. Will they be able to discover the murderer’s identity without revealing their own? That question is regrettably left unanswered. Although some characters are well-rounded— Kitty and Margot and some minor characters—others are less successful. Bree’s rebelliousness exists only to exist, it seems.

The plot slowly and inexorably increases the tension, only for the cliffhanger to act as an unwanted pin in the balloon.

A compelling contemporary thriller for readers who don’t mind waiting for Volume 2. (Suspense. 12-16)

THOMAS JEFFERSON President and Philosopher Meacham, Jon Crown (238 pp.) $19.99 | $22.99 PLB | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-385-38749-1 978-0-385-38750-7 PLB

In this adaptation for young readers of his Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (2012), Meacham overviews Jefferson’s life, times and ideas.

The subtitle suggests a focus on Jefferson’s political philosophy and two-term presidency, but Meacham instead attempts to touch upon all aspects of his full and rich life. Less than a quarter of the text covers Jefferson’s eight years as president. His republican political philosophy is discussed and contrasted with Federalism, but there is no discussion of the philosophers and ideas that influenced his thinking, nor is there mention of Jefferson’s thoughts on religion, radical and controversial for their time.

Meacham devotes considerable attention to Jefferson’s conflicting views about slavery. Despite being a lifelong slave owner and father of children by his enslaved mistress, Sally Hemings, Jefferson considered slavery immoral and doomed as a continuing institution. Meacham suggests Jefferson’s unwillingness to confront the problem of slavery politically was his greatest failure as a statesman. “When it came to slavery,” Meacham writes, “Jefferson, always curious and eager to explore new ideas, did what he almost never did: he gave up.”

Choosing to cover every aspect of Jefferson’s life without exploring any particular part in depth makes this an engaging, informative introduction but does not make it stand out among many others that do the same. (extensive backmatter, not seen for review) (Biography. 10-16)

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“Intensely introspective first-person narration suits Sean’s stoic character very well.” from perfectly good white boy

PERFECTLY GOOD WHITE BOY

Mesrobian, Carrie Carolrhoda Lab (304 pp.) $17.95 | Oct. 1, 2014 978-1-4677-3480-6 An honest, insightful novel about a young man’s final year in high school and his eventual decision, which he initially conceals from his family, to join the Marines.

At the outset, Sean spends a lot of time ducking the chiding of his overbearing older brother and cursing the crappy rental he and his mom have lived in since she left his alcoholic father. When he manages to hook up with superhot Hallie the summer before she leaves for college, he thinks his luck may finally be changing. However, as he navigates his way through an emotionally trying senior year, it turns out instead to be his friend and co-worker, Neecie, whom he just may be falling for. Intensely introspective first-person narration suits Sean’s stoic character very well. His thoughts are often both subversively smart and hilarious—particularly in their treatment of the subtext of communication across gender.

When Hallie worries that he’s upset that she doesn’t want to have sex at first, he thinks, incredulously: “Was she kidding? We were almost naked. My hands were on her tits. She was giving me a handjob. Why would I be mad?”

Engaging, perceptive, witty and at times gut-wrenchingly sad—this is an extraordinary addition to fiction for teens and adults alike. (Fiction. 14 & up)

THE GIRLS OF GETTYSBURG Miller, Bobbi Holiday House (160 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 15, 2014 978-0-8234-3163-2

Miller explores the harrowing and bloody days of the Battle of Gettysburg through the eyes of three girls.

Annie Gordon has run away from home and disguised herself as a boy to enlist in the Portsmouth Rifles of the Ninth Virginia Army. Her inexperience earns her the nickname “strawfoot,” yet she proves to be a worthy soldier with her level head and marksmanship. In Gettsyburg, a local merchant’s daughter, Tillie Pierce, assumes she can watch the war like a parade but is pressed into service as a nurse. The third point of view is the most compelling, provided by Grace Bryan, the fictionalized daughter of another historical figure, freed black peach farmer Abraham Bryan. Grace’s story provides the most suspense, as she is cut off from her family when the soldiers enter the city. The horrors of war are appropriately smoothed for young readers, although there is violence and death. While humanizing this well-covered piece of American history, the three disparate views cannot encompass its breadth and come 124

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off as generic soldier, nurse and freed black slave trying to cover the female Civil War experience. The historical minor figures (Mary McAllister, another Gettysburg shopkeeper, and Bryan) glint with bright specificity, leaving readers yearning for more. An author’s note gives insight into Miller’s sources and process.

This is an introduction more than anything else, as it nibbles on the edges of a feast. (Historical fiction. 10-12)

I KNOW AN OLD LADY WHO SWALLOWED A FLY Mills, Alan Illus. by PisHier The Secret Mountain (44 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-2-924217-23-8

A dozen children’s songs by a famous Canadian singer-songwriter are here rendered for modern listeners in lively, cheerful arrangements and with illustrated lyrics that invite singing along.

Beyond the familiar title song, this collection features alphabet and counting songs, as well as nursery songs introducing months of the year, travel destinations and musical instruments. PisHier (Pierre Girard) offers illustrations featuring round-headed humans and stylized animals on backgrounds of bright, off-spectrum colors. These are energetic but not as sophisticated as those done by Abner Graboff for two of these pieces in the 1960s. The title song is pictured in its entirety, occupying nine double-page spreads. Each animal appears on the left-hand page and then again opposite, inside the old lady’s guitar-shaped stomach. Others are far more compressed, with lyrics paired to just one or perhaps two illustrations. There are some missteps. Though the words in “Sailing Over the Sea” say the seven sailors are bearded and unshaven, six of the seven depicted have no facial hair. The lyrics for “The Hungry Goat” extend over two spreads. Among the scenes shown on the first is the goat tied to the railroad track; this doesn’t happen in the lyrics until after the page turn. Emilie Clepper and Thomas Hellman perform the songs with attractive close harmony and an interesting variety of instrumental backup.

The illustrations are amusing, but the real reason to purchase the book is for the accompanying CD. (Songbook/ picture book. 3-6)

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MARY The Summoning Monahan, Hillary Hyperion (256 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-4231-8519-2 Series: Bloody Mary, 1

Four friends face the dire consequences of summoning the infamous Bloody Mary.

Over April vacation spent in Solomon’s Folly, Massachusetts, Shauna’s best friend, Jess, learned how to properly summon Bloody Mary from her great-aunt Dell. Armed with a letter written by Mary Worth, a 19th-century resident of the little town, Jess convinces Shauna and their two friends to attempt to summon the ghost. To Jess’ delight, the ritual works perfectly: Mary’s decrepit hand scratches behind the mirror through a thick fog. Underwhelmed with the first sighting, Jess persuades her friends to try again, and this time, Mary is ready: She climbs right through the mirror, raking her nails down Shauna’s back. Suddenly the girls are faced with the threat that Mary might appear in any shiny surface, and Shauna discovers that the unrelenting, bloodthirsty ghost follows her every move. Monahan’s depiction of the initial summoning is chilling, but each new appearance of Bloody Mary reads as more and more hackneyed, swiftly veering into B-movie territory. A satisfying twist strengthens the ending, but the lack of character development makes it difficult to feel anything for the girls.

The highest intrigue lies in the snippets of Bloody Mary’s origin story, which is woefully underused. It’s unclear where the series may go from here.

An urban legend too light on either gore or camp to be any fun. (Horror. 14-18)

WATER ROLLS, WATER RISES / EL AGUA RUEDA, EL AGUA SUBE

Mora, Pat Illus. by So, Meilo Translated by Mora, Pat; Domínguez, Adriana Children’s Book Press (32 pp.) $17.95 | Oct. 1, 2014 978-0-89239-325-1 Evocative watercolor images and graceful short poems in Spanish and English celebrate water in all its forms and around the world.

What appears at first to be a simple expression of the myriad forms of water—from waves to clouds, fog and frost and in lazy marshes, churning rivers, breaking waves and more—becomes a trip around the world as readers come to realize that the locations and people shown are just as wide-ranging. A picture key at the end identifies the location for each illustration. The cover images, the front inspired by Victoria Falls in southern Africa |

and the back, a geyser in Iceland, set the stage for the variety inside. Mora’s deceptively simple three-line poems are full of imagery, too. “In the murmur of marsh wind, / water slumbers on moss, / whispers soft songs far under frog feet.” (In Spanish: “En el viento susurrante de los pantanos, / el agua duerme sobre el musgo, / murmura suaves canciones bajo patitas de ranas.”)

Watercolors are the perfect accompaniment to this pleasing collection, and So’s mastery of her medium is evident in the wide range of her illustrations, some with lines and detail, others with bold brush strokes or delicate shading. She concludes with an image of our watery world and its dry moon from space, an important reminder.

A lovely bilingual addition to the “sense of wonder” shelf. (Picture book. 4-9)

PEACH GIRL

Nakamura, Raymond Illus. by Bender, Rebecca Pajama Press (32 pp.) $19.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-927485-58-3 Can peach dumplings save the world?

In this picture-book adaptation of the popular Japanese folk tales about Momotaro (usually translated as Peach Boy), a little girl springs out of a large peach found by “a farmer and her husband” outside their door. The girl soon is dressed in clothes made out of the peach skin by the farmer. The husband creates a helmet and shield from the peach pit. The girl declares that everything is “Peachy” and that her mission is “to make the world a better place.” She immediately sets off to find an ogre who is reputed to eat small children. Armed with only her wits, her courage and some delicious peach dumplings cooked by the farmer, she meets a monkey, a dog and a pheasant who, lured by the dumplings, accompany her on her quest. After they sail to the ogre’s island, the animals are too scared to approach its palace, but Momoko has no fear. She offers the Shrek-like ogre some dumplings, and they share them over tea. He even says “Peachy” when Momoko offers to come back with her parents. The acrylic paintings feature a winsome girl, three friendly animals and a jolly green giant whose friendliness belies the tales told of him.

Despite its somewhat arbitrary use of American slang of an earlier decade, this story has a satisfying ring and a tasty ending.

A winningly good-natured version of a familiar favorite. (Picture book/folk tale. 5-8)

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ORANGUTAN HOUDINI

Neme, Laurel Illus. by Kelleher, Kathie Bunker Hill (32 pp.) $16.95 | $12.95 e-book | Sep. 17, 2014 978-1-59373-153-3 978-1-59373-176-2 e-book Orangutan Fu Manchu makes a monkey out of his zookeepers.

Twelve-year-old orangutan Fu Manchu lives with his family group in a zoo enclosure. After obtaining a length of wire, he figures out how to pick the lock on the door. He lets his family out, and they climb the trees above the elephant corral to enjoy the sun and the leaves. Their afternoon siesta doesn’t last long. Jerry, the head zookeeper, blames his staff for leaving the door unlocked and then returns Fu and his family to the enclosure. The next nice day, they escape again. Jerry and his staff double-check the locks, but Fu has his secret piece of wire. He can escape whenever he wants to, and he does. Jerry continues to blame his staff until they band together and catch Fu using something to pick the lock. But what is it? They can’t find anything he might have used in his pen…until Jerry spies a glint of metal in Fu’s mouth. Neme’s debut for children is based on a true story and a real ape, though she says in an author’s note that some details are speculation—not the least of which are Fu’s thoughts and motivations. Kelleher’s watercolors are realistic enough with a few cartoon touches: A panicked chipmunk and pigeon observe Fu’s initial escape.

An interesting exploration of animal intelligence for budding zoologists, so long as they take the anthropomorphization with a grain of salt. (Picture book. 5-8)

HELLO, I’M JOHNNY CASH

Neri, G. Illus. by Ford, A.G. Candlewick (40 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-0-7636-6245-5 Before he was Johnny Cash, he was J.R., a country boy who lived a hard, farming life and loved music.

This illustrated biography of the “Man in Black” uses poetry to chronicle pivotal moments in his life, from boyhood to stardom. Each poem borrows its title from one of Cash’s songs.

Most document J.R.’s early life and the role of music in it: memorizing songs from the radio to entertain the neighbors, keeping his family’s spirits high as they pick cotton under the hot sun, and immersion in the gospel standards at church. Music helps J.R. get through the tough times, such as the death of his older brother, and allows him to dream of a life beyond the farm. The final poems summarize J.R.’s entrée into the music industry and his transformation into Johnny Cash. The narrative is wellresearched, age-appropriate and beautifully expressive. The 126

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exquisite oil illustrations capture the setting and the emotion of each poem, allowing readers to feel as if they are there with J.R. as he works the harsh Arkansas fields or in the audience as Johnny whips the crowd into a frenzy plucking out his tunes on the guitar.

An exceptional portrait of one of the most recognizable musicians of all time. (author’s note, timeline, discography, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 7-10)

THE BOOK WITH NO PICTURES Novak, B.J. Dial (48 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 30, 2014 978-0-8037-4171-3

This book may not have pictures, but it’s sure to inspire lots of conversations— and laughs.

Television writer, actor and comedian Novak delivers a rare find, indeed: a very good celebrity picture book. It doesn’t even seem fair to call it such, since it has nothing to do with his Emmy Award-winning writing for The Office or the fame his broader career has afforded him. The jacket flap even eschews a glossy photo, instead saying “B.J. has brown hair and blue eyes,” in order to keep with the book’s central conceit. What this book does have is text, and it’s presented through artful typography that visually conveys its changing tone to guide oral readings.

Furthermore, the text implies (or rather, demands) a shared reading transaction, in which an adult is compelled to read the text aloud, no matter how “COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS” it is. Employing direct address, it pleads with the implied child listener to allow him or her to stop reading. Nonsense words, silly words to be sung and even a smattering of potty talk for good measure all coalesce in riotous read-aloud fare. Although the closing pages beg the implied child reader to “please please please please / please / choose a book with pictures” for subsequent reading, it’s likely that this request will be ignored.

A riotously fresh take on breaking the fourth wall.

(Picture book. 3-8)

THE VAULT OF DREAMERS O’Brien, Caragh M. Roaring Brook (432 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-59643-938-2

Strange things are afoot at an elite school for artistic geniuses that is also the setting for a reality television show.

On the day of the cuts, the 100 new sophomores at the Forge School will be reduced to 50, based on each student’s popularity with the Forge Show’s audience. Aspiring filmmaker Rosie needs the Forge School, as she hails from the “poorest

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“The artist’s pencil, pen and watercolor illustrations are raw and spare. Done in a faded, pastel palette, they thoughtfully convey different perspectives….” from the flat rabbit

zip code in the country,” where she’s “on the pre-prison track.”

Unfortunately for her, though, Rosie ranks in the 90s with only hours to garner the popularity to make the huge jump into the top 50 to stay, but as someone who would rather be behind cameras than in front of them, Rosie’s not a natural. Luckily for her, a chance run-in with a handsome, Welsh-accented teenager employed by the school revitalizes her campaign to stay.

But what happens when the cameras are turned off—at night, while the students get their compulsory, dreamless 12 hours of sleep—gives Rosie real cause to worry. Either students are being taken for mysterious purposes in their sleep and returned without ever knowing what’s happened, or Rosie’s having a mental breakdown. The cameras and jockeying for position add an interesting dynamic to cerebral Rosie’s friendships, though the worldbuilding’s occasionally unclear. O’Brien (Promised, 2013, etc.) gracefully tackles class issues without slowing her mystery.

The sudden cliffhanger will polarize readers.

A fast, satisfying psychological thriller. (Thriller. 12 & up)

I WANNA GO HOME Orloff, Karen Kaufman Illus. by Catrow, David Putnam (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 25, 2014 978-0-399-25407-9

A child’s skepticism takes a header when a vacation with Grandma and Grandpa proves more wild than mild.

After getting his iguana (I Wanna Iguana, 2004) and failing to successfully petition for his own space (I Wanna New Room, 2010), Alex returns for a third time, and now the situation’s truly dire. His parents are taking off for Bora Bora, which means he and his siblings are slated to stay with their grandparents for the duration. Broccoli lasagna and the absence of both video games and computers are bound to lead to a terrible time. In his initial, desperate letters and emails written to his vacationing parents, Alex pleads with them to return ASAP. Yet soon, Alex is singing a different tune, as he discovers square dancing, bingo, stickball and other wonderful aspects of old-folk living. Turns out that two weeks just isn’t enough time. The epistolary picture book is hardly a new genre, but it can prove a difficult one.

Orloff handles the format as well as the subject with grace and aplomb. Alex’s gradual acceptance of his doting ancestors plays out believably, pairing beautifully with Catrow’s controlled craziness. The pencils, watercolors and inks find the funny in almost every single spread.

A clever conceit ably rendered; this is bound to prove popular with loving grandparents and caustic kids alike.

(Picture book. 4-7)

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THE FLAT RABBIT

Oskarsson, Bárdur Illus. by Oskarsson, Bárdur Trans. by Thomsen, Marita Owlkids Books (40 pp.) $17.95 | Sep. 15, 2014 978-1-77147-059-9 Upon seeing a flattened rabbit on the road, a dog and rat try to honor her in this secular story about compassion and respect.

Walking along, a dog notices something; a rat stops, too. As they stare at a carcass in the street, a halting, awkward conversation ensues. Together, the dog and rat contemplate the rabbit’s existence—and what to do for her now. With a plan in place, the two gently peel the rabbit off the road and bring her to the dog’s house, where they work all night long. In the morning, they reveal a kite, with the rabbit attached. After much effort, the kite is airborne, and as it soars, they wonder if the rabbit is enjoying herself. Not sure of the answer, they let go, and the kite flies aloft, up and over the city. The artist’s pencil, pen and watercolor illustrations are raw and spare. Done in a faded, pastel palette, they thoughtfully convey different perspectives from both the visual and narrative standpoints. Although they depict a gruesome subject (roadkill), there’s nothing grotesque about the images. Spot illustrations on the left-side pages give context to the animals’ environment or foreshadow events to come. Oskarsson offers a pleasing vision of the afterlife, as the dog and rat try to give the rabbit a gift—an experience it didn’t have during its lifetime.

As perfectly, honestly childlike in its approach as Margaret Wise Brown and Remy Charlip’s classic The Dead Bird, this title should provoke both thought and discussion. (Picture book. 4-7)

LAST-BUT-NOT-LEAST LOLA AND THE WILD CHICKEN Pakkala, Christine Illus. by Hoppe, Paul Boyds Mills (216 pp.) $15.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-59078-983-4 Series: Last-But-Not-Least Lola, 2

Lola is back in another tale of school and rocky friendship (Last-But-Not-Least Lola Going Green, 2013).

Lola Zuckerman is still in the second grade with Mrs. D., the teacher who refers to her students as brands of candy (“she luh-huvs candy”) and insists (for reasons unexplained to readers) on calling her class in alphabetical order. Amanda Anderson is always first, and Lola is always last. This drives Lola mad, especially since Amanda is her (sometimes) best friend, and Lola would like her all to herself. Lola’s parents are out of town, and her grandmother is taking care of her and her brother Jack.

Grandma loves her “bubelahs,” but she’s not much of a cook, which adds to Lola’s general misery. When new kid Savannah

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“Not shaped as a memoir with a cohesive narrative, the stories read more as valentines to family, friends and readers.” from stories of my life

also befriends Amanda, Lola reaches her boiling point. Jealousy is a standard theme for school stories, but Lola’s never-ending episodes become tiresome. She makes herself so unlikable that the inevitable happy ending is hard to believe. From Lola to the teacher to the visiting grandmother, each character is more caricature than real person. Hoppe’s emotionally honest, frequent black-and-white drawings hold the narrative together well, adding interest when the plot falls.

While it’s nice to have a Jewish chapter-book protagonist, so far Lola is mostly Clementine-lite. (Fiction. 7-11)

STORIES OF MY LIFE Paterson, Katherine Dial (320 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 16, 2014 978-0-8037-4043-3

The noted writer offers both stories about her life and insights into where her book ideas came from.

In a volume that could just as easily have been titled Becoming Katherine Paterson, the award-winning author offers personal stories of special interest to “the people I care about, a lot of whom are the readers of my books.” Katherine Womeldorf was born in China, in 1932, to American Christian missionaries.

China was to be her home for most of her childhood, and she grew up in a time of political unrest, warfare and famine. She writes of her life as a missionary, education in American schools and her teaching career, and she tells stories of her parents, her marriage to a Presbyterian minister, becoming a mother and adopting two of her four children. Along the way, she shows how her novels were informed by the people she met and events she experienced. Not shaped as a memoir with a cohesive narrative, the stories read more as valentines to family, friends and readers. Though she almost didn’t become a writer for fear of adding “another mediocre writer to the world,” Paterson has won two Newbery Medals and two National Book Awards, among other honors. Despite the accolades, her voice is chatty and engaged, with not a hint of literary hauteur.

Paterson’s legions of fans, young and old, will welcome this peek into her life and process. (timeline, family tree) (Memoir.14 & up)

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ISLA AND THE HAPPILY EVER AFTER Perkins, Stephanie Dutton (352 pp.) $17.99 | Aug. 14, 2014 978-0-525-42563-2

Engaging teen characters with pageturning love lives offer ample vicarious pleasures.

Petite, red-haired Isla (that’s “eye-la”) has had a hopeless crush on introverted artist Josh since their first year at the School of America in Paris.

Their chance meeting before senior year catalyzes a wish-cometrue relationship that threatens Isla’s unusual friendship with best friend Kurt and makes her question her identity and future.

Perkins’ characters are quirky and three-dimensional, and their sometimes-startling actions make them seem even more real: Isla and Kurt routinely share a bed; Josh depicts losing his virginity in his graphic novel; Isla and Josh enjoy a steamy weekend trip to Barcelona. They’re discovered, and Josh is expelled, but love persists despite distance and restricted phone privileges. In fact, their greatest threat comes from within—Perkins accurately depicts the kind of thinking that helps lovers invent their own problems: Isla’s insecurities (why should Josh love her when she doesn’t have a driving passion or vision of her future?) threaten the relationship (“I have to destroy what’s left of my heart before he can do it for me”). The titular “happily-everafter” is as predictable as it is sweet, featuring fan-pleasing cameos of characters from Perkins’ two companion books.

A satisfying dose of first love’s physical and emotional thrall. (Fiction. 14 & up)

STRONGER THAN YOU KNOW Perry, Jolene Whitman (256 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-8075-3155-6

A teen’s first steps toward recovery are here sensitively portrayed.

Given her history, Joy’s name “is sort of a lesson in irony.” After suffering years of neglect and physical abuse at the hands of her mother—including sexual abuse at the hands of one of her mother’s boyfriends—Joy breaks free and is placed under the care of her aunt and uncle.

But it’s just the beginning of Joy’s journey: She’s scared of her uncle and other men, she suffers panic attacks and nightmares, and she struggles both to talk to anyone and to eat a full meal.

Thanks to assignments from her therapist, Joy slowly makes progress, becoming friends with the charming Justin and wild Daisy, forming relationships with her family, and even learning kung fu. But realistically, there are setbacks, too—mostly minor, but she handles them until a much worse one occurs: Joy is told she must testify against her mother in person. Has Joy’s

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“journey of self-discovery” made her strong enough to face this?

Perry deftly avoids the problem-novel label thanks to complex characters and a well-structured plot. Joy’s story is very affecting, and her voice is suitably self-effacing without being ostentatious; most readers will be engrossed.

For those not quite ready for Ellen Hopkins, this novel is a good choice. (Fiction. 14-16)

PIRATES AREN’T AFRAID OF THE DARK! Powell-Tuck, Maudie Illus. by Edgson, Alison Tiger Tales (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-58925-165-6

Pirates may not fear the dark, but how do they feel about fairy-obsessed little siblings?

Jack’s entirely pleased when Mommy allows him to camp out in the backyard in his tent for the first time. Everything would be perfect if it weren’t for his annoying little sister, Lily, who insists on following him everywhere. When pirate-loving Jack informs fairy-loving Lily that no fairies are allowed in his tent, little does he realize that when the lights go out and you are all alone, sometimes even a little sister might be a comfort.

Fortunately, she soon arrives decked out in full pirate-fairy gear, and later, so does Mommy, with cookies, cocoa and a nightlight.

Edgson renders her furry bear heroes all fuzz and twinkling black eyes. There isn’t a sharp edge in sight, the wittiest element being the skull-and-crossbones endpapers with their one pink, witty aberration. As for the writing itself, the story will fit seamlessly into the annoying-little-sibling genre; the campingin-the-backyard motif is a nice twist. Nonetheless, this is just picture-book comfort food for the toddler set.

Sweet and sugary and not much else. (Picture book. 2-6)

TOMBOY A Graphic Memoir

Prince, Liz Illus. by Prince, Liz Zest Books (256 pp.) $15.99 paper | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-936976-55-3 Prince explores what it means to be a tomboy in a magnificently evocative graphic memoir.

From the age of 2, Liz knows she hates dresses. As a child, she wears boys clothes and plays with boys. However, as she enters her teen years, things change. Still wishing to dress like a boy and disdainful of all things girly— including the inevitable biology of puberty—she stays true to herself and her identity, but not without struggling to fit into a teenage society that neatly compartmentalizes how boys and |

girls should act. Liz’s troubles are magnified as she navigates the ways of the heart, falling for boys who often pass her over for girls who are more feminine. As she stumbles and bumbles her way to friends who will accept her, she pulls readers along that oh-so-tough and bumpy road of adolescence. Simple, line-based art provides a perfect complement to her keen narration, giving this an indie, intimate feel and leaving readers feeling like they really know her. Liz’s story, captured with wry humor and a deft, visceral eye, is a must-read for fans who fell for Raina Telgemeier’s work in middle school.

Spectacular; a book to make anyone think seriously about society’s preordained gender roles (Graphic memoir. 14 & up)

THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY MUTTON Proimos, James Illus. by Proimos, James HMH Books (160 pp.) $12.99 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-0-544-32404-6

Johnny Mutton, he’s so him!

Before there was Babymouse or the Wimpy Kid, before Dragonbreath or Big Nate, there was a baby sheep on (human) Momma Mutton’s front step. Johnny Mutton is a sheep raised as a boy and has as distinctive a personality as could be imagined. When his whole class dresses for Halloween as either pirates or witches, Johnny Mutton arrives dressed as a runny nose. Good thing his best friend, Gloria Crust, comes dressed as a giant box of tissues. When Johnny Mutton’s ever loving Momma decides her son needs to learn some manners (he wears his napkin on his head and says “pronto” instead of “please” when asking for the peas), she sends him to Ms. Bottoms. He drives Ms. Bottoms to distraction, but at home, just for his mother, he becomes the picture of decorum. Momma Mutton wins a staring contest with a well-timed toot (yes, that kind of toot). And so on.

General hilarity follows in his trotter-steps. Proimos here collects his three previously published Johnny Mutton titles and adds a short new comic and a foolish interview to complete the adventures of his enthusiastic, idiosyncratic ovine hero.

The full-color graphic panels are stagy and cartoony and silly in just the right way.

Fifteen graphic stories collected in one tight package for a new generation of fans. (Graphic collection. 6-10)

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GABI, A GIRL IN PIECES

Quintero, Isabel Cinco Puntos (378 pp.) $17.95 | $11.95 paper | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-935955-94-8 978-1-935955-95-5 paper Struggles with body image, teen pregnancy, drug addiction, rape, coming out, first love and death are all experiences that touch Gabi’s life in some way during her senior year, and she processes her raw and honest feelings in her journal as these events unfold.

Gabi’s family life is unbalanced. Her father is a drug addict who comes in and out of her life sporadically. Her mother tries desperately to keep her tethered to the values of her traditional Mexican heritage. Gabi’s weight, her desire to go away to college and her blossoming sexuality are all at odds with what she feels are expected from her as a young Mexican-American woman. The teen is deeply bonded with her two best friends, Cindy and Sebastian, who each struggle themselves with the tension between sexuality and culture. Through poetry, Gabi finds her voice and develops the confidence to be true to herself. With this first novel, Quintero excels at presenting a life that is simultaneously messy and hopeful. Readers won’t soon forget Gabi, a young woman coming into her own in the face of intense pressure from her family, culture and society to fit someone else’s idea of what it means to be a “good” girl.

A fresh, authentic and honest exploration of contemporary Latina identity. (Fiction. 14 & up)

FULL STEAM AHEAD! Reynolds, Peter H. Illus. by Reynolds, Paul A. Charlesbridge (48 pp.) $12.95 | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-58089-675-7 Series: Sydney & Simon, 1

Twin mice solve a problem using STEAM—science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics—in this series opener.

When a heat wave threatens to kill the window-box flowers the twins need for their much-anticipated Art in Bloom show, they have to both figure out why their third-story window won’t open (the water cycle is to blame) and how to get water to the thirsty flowers (an invention of Archimedes’ is the answer).

Luckily, several dei ex machina lead the twins to some people who can help them spark some ideas. Sydney and Simon, the offspring of an inventor mother and poet father, are steeped in the arts and sciences that will help them in “thinkering” about their problem and finding a solution. Sydney expresses herself through drawing, using her spiral-bound Wonder Journal to jot down ideas, record hypotheses and draw what she observes.

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Simon’s Wonder Journal is on a tablet, allowing him to take pictures, record video and sound, and combine all these into something new. Sydney and Simon are solid, though perhaps idealized, models for those aspiring to STEAM careers—though in this chapter book, readers accustomed to STEM programs will be struck by the emphasis on the arts piece. (STEM to STEAM is a Rhode Island School of Design initiative to add the arts and design to STEM). Ink-and-watercolor-wash illustrations complement the text.

Inspiration for young scientists, artists and inventors. (glossary, author and illustrator’s note) (Fiction. 7-10) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

THE JUNKYARD BOT Richards, C.J. Illus. by Fujita, Goro HMH Books (192 pp.) $13.99 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-0-544-33936-1 Series: Robots Rule, 1

A mildly techy science-fiction series makes its debut.

When Jackbot, 11-year-old George Gearing’s rather clunky companion robot, is accidently run over by a car in which professor Droid’s daughter is a passenger, George’s access to the professor’s laboratory allows him to try out his new programming ideas for the repair. Jackbot acquires independent intelligence but is immediately stolen, and George and Anne Droid must dodge various murderous intelligent machines as they track down the missing robot. Terabyte Heights is a company town dominated by TinkerTech Enterprises. Everybody seems to own at least one robot, and character names are in keeping with the theme (Principal Qwerty runs the school; a policeman is Officer Dongle).

Most of the robots are either stereotypically tinny and lumbering or inventively silly and menacing; specific allusions to challenges of software, hardware and programming are notably few.

This first in the series has the narrative simplicity and pacing of a movie companion. A scattering of lively illustrations look like animation cels and add visual interest and cinematic feel to the undemanding, action-packed, occasionally comical narrative. Though immediate threats are resolved and an evil genius thwarted, the mystery of George’s parents’ long-ago deaths and the nature of “Project Mercury” are left for future development and explanation.

Young robot enthusiasts will surely be amused. (Science fiction. 8-11)

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“This book can only be fully appreciated by lingering on each spread, and the minimal text encourages such close looking.” from three little peas

JACKABY

Ritter, William Algonquin (288 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-61620-353-5 A Sherlock Holmes–style adventure featuring the egotistical and eccentric R.F. Jackaby and his bewildered but invaluable assistant, Abigail Rook.

Inspired by her father’s paleontological expeditions and frustrated by her mother’s expectations of femininity, Abigail arrives in the New England city of New Fiddleham with a suitcase of inappropriate attire and a need for money. She finds employment with the oddball supernatural investigator Jackaby, whose previous assistants have met unfortunate or fowl ends (literally). Aiding Jackaby, flirting with the secretive Detective Charlie Cane, and trying to avoid the wrath of Chief Inspector Marlowe and Commissioner Swift, Abigail discovers that the world is stranger and more dangerous than she ever imagined. Although Abigail is not a seer like Jackaby, able to pierce the glamour of New Fiddleham’s fairy-tale and folklore inhabitants, she learns that to “see the ordinary is extraordinary indeed.” Abigail’s attention to the everyday serves as a foil to Jackaby’s paranormal perception and makes her a refreshingly realistic and agreeable heroine.

Secondary characters—including Jackaby’s house—are equally enchanting and well-drawn. Ritter’s debut skillfully blends science with the supernatural and balances whimsy with violence.

The smartly paced plot wraps up neatly, but the rich world of this debut demands sequels.

A magical mystery tour de force with a high body count and a list of unusual suspects. (Paranormal. 12-18) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

THREE LITTLE PEAS

Rivoal, Marine Illus. by Rivoal, Marine Translated by Bedrick, Claudia Zoe Enchanted Lion Books (48 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 3, 2014 978-1-59270-155-1 Evocative details make this simple story a quiet delight.

Two peas “pop out” of their pods to “get some air” and end up having a little adventure in the garden. Fleeing from wouldbe predators, they find a safe place under the ground to hide.

Of course, being peas, they end up sprouting into pea plants that create new peas, one of which sets out at the end of the story on its own adventure, thereby continuing the circle of nature. Rivoal’s soft black-and-white etchings (the only color is the green of the peas) render a dreamlike, stylized depiction of vegetation that harkens back to the jungle paintings of fellow French artist Henri Rousseau. This book can only be fully appreciated by lingering on each spread, and the minimal text encourages such close looking. Flora and fauna are detailed |

with loving care and humor—a carrot with glasses, an expressive turnip and a cat hidden until the mischievous peas point it out are all waiting to be discovered by readers. Depictions of treasures lost (a ring, a key and a toy truck, among others) in the soil enhance the story’s theme of the mystery and magic of the world and the wonder of seeing it through new eyes.

A spot of exquisite rest in an overstimulated world.

(Picture book. 2-5)

THE BODIES WE WEAR

Roberts, Jeyn Knopf (368 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | $20.99 PLB Sep. 23, 2014 978-0-385-75412-5 978-0-385-75411-8 e-book 978-0-385-75410-1 PLB Faye, forced to become a drug addict at 11, now craves revenge against the men who first fed her Heam.

Heam, or Heaven’s Dream functionally kills its users, allowing them a glimpse of what appears to be heaven. When drug dealers seeking to punish Faye’s father force-fed the drug to Faye and her friend Christian, Faye saw a hellish vision instead.

Her chest covered in the red web of scars that mark survivors of a Heam overdose, Faye has spent the past several years becoming a skilled fighter in hopes of murdering the men she holds responsible for her downfall. Faye meets three people—a young Heam user, the sister of a missing Heam addict and a mysterious boy who pops up every time Faye follows her targets—and she begins to question whether revenge is truly the right course of action. The worldbuilding can be one-note: Readers learn a lot about Heam addiction and discrimination against Heam users, but no other drugs or stigmas seem to exist. Faye’s experience of addiction is also unconvincing. She tells readers that she craves the drug, but only rarely is there evidence of this. Faye’s relationships, however, romantic and otherwise, are compellingly drawn, and the plot is fast-moving and well-structured.

Not perfectly constructed, but Faye’s strong yet flawed character is worth getting to know. (Faye’s training schedule, watchwords, playlist) (Fiction. 14-18)

CHIK CHAK SHABBAT Rockliff, Mara Illus. by Brooker, Kyrsten Candlewick (32 pp.) $15.99 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-7636-5528-0

Neighbors join together to celebrate a holiday.

Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, brings a wonderful aroma to an urban apartment house. All the neighbors stop their activities and happily sniff the air as one door

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“The finely detailed ink-and-watercolor illustrations, varying type sizes and colors, and clever page design effectively and delightfully depict this significant American scientist.” from ben franklin’s big splash

opens and everyone enters to feast on cholent. And what makes this dish so delicious? An Italian neighbor says tomatoes. Barley, says the Korean neighbor. Potatoes, says the family from India.

No, it is beans, says the Spanish family. Goldie, a contemporary hostess, explains that cholent is a dish that her grandmother served on Shabbat, and that is what makes it taste special.

Then, one Saturday, there is no wafting aroma, because Goldie is sick. Things go awry until the neighbors troop up the stairs with Indian potato curry, Korean barley tea, Italian pizza, and Spanish beans and rice. Goldie is happy because she can share a Shabbat meal. A recipe for vegetarian cholent is appended, but it’s too bad there is no note about the origins of the dish, a slow-cooked stew prepared before Shabbat when lighting a fire is not permitted. Also, “chik chak,” Hebrew for “quickly,” can be inferred but is not translated. Brooker’s oil paint and collage art presents a richly textured assortment of folk and apartments.

A warm, cozy and loving depiction of shared culinary traditions around an inviting table. (Picture book. 3-6)

THE FOREVER FLOWER

Rosen, Michael J. Illus. by Danowski, Sonja Creative Editions/Creative Company (32 pp.) $18.99 | Aug. 19, 2014 978-1-56846-273-8 Graceful writing and rich, mixedmedia illustrations deliver a poignant story of longing, belonging and recognizing the gifts of the present.

A young rose-cheeked grouse is reluctant to migrate to warmer climates for the winter. Despite others’ warnings that she should come with them, she delays and fashions a bag in which to store seeds and her favorite red Forever Flower blossoms. Alas, the bag weighs her down, and she falls into icy waters. Luckily a spaniel playing fetch swims by, and she clings to it and is saved. The spaniel belongs to a young woman, and the grouse ends up in their home, where the woman plants the Forever Flower seeds. When seedlings sprout, they give the grouse hope that her grouse friends will return, and she longs for them and the coming springtime. At the story’s heart is the message that although we might wish for things to come or long for things that have passed, there are delights to be found in the present—like parties attended by snowmen, a picnic on an unseasonably warm day or the snuggly warmth of a dog. When the other grouse do return, along with the first Forever Flowers of the season, the young grouse is torn—should she remain with her new friends or leave with those who’ve returned?

A lyrical, lovely tale. (Picture book. 4-8)

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BEN FRANKLIN’S BIG SPLASH

Rosenstock, Barb Illus. by Schindler, S.D. Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills (32 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-62091-446-5 Is another picture book about Ben Franklin really needed?

The answer is yes, as unlike many of its predecessors, this one takes a fresh approach by focusing on a single childhood fascination—swimming. As a boy, Ben was unusual in that he loved to swim at a time when it was thought that swimming caused sickness. Ben’s frustration was that he could not swim like a fish, and true to his nature, he searched for a solution, one that would enable him to swim like a fish. He first made swim fins out of wood and string (they looked like a painter’s palettes), then swim sandals. Emphatic, alliterative verbs accentuate both his enthusiasm and his methodical nature: “Ben SPRINTED straight to the river, STOOD on the bank, STRIPPED OFF his clothes, STRAPPED his feet into the sandals, STUCK his thumbs back in the swim fins, SPREAD his arms wide, STOMPED his feet, and SPLASHED IN.” This first discovery would lead to bigger and better scientific creations. The finely detailed ink-and-watercolor illustrations, varying type sizes and colors, and clever page design effectively and delightfully depict this significant American scientist. (Schindler deftly keeps Ben’s privates underwater.) While the subtitle claims the book is “mostly true,” the backmatter provides solid information.

As inventive as Ben himself, this presentation is awash with delight and definitely makes a big splash. (author’s note, timeline, sources, source notes) (Picture book/biography.

6-9) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

HOOK’S REVENGE

Schulz, Heidi Illus. by Hendrix, John Disney-Hyperion (304 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-4231-9867-3 The daughter of a famous pirate hopes to sail the high seas, but first she must survive finishing school.

Twelve-year-old Jocelyn Hook prefers sword fighting, bawdy sea shanties and spitting over embroidery, hygiene and ladylike decorum.

But then, as the daughter of one of the most feared pirates ever, Capt. Hook, her proclivity for dangerous, raucous behavior is to be expected. Quick thinking and her new friend, Roger, make finishing school bearable. But when Roger disappears and the headmistress reveals her big plan for sealing Jocelyn’s position in high society, everything falls apart. Jocelyn’s life takes an unexpected turn when Edgar Allan, a giant messenger raven, arrives bearing a letter from her father. She must travel to Neverland,

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acquire a ship and crew, and avenge her father’s death by killing the crocodile. The world of Peter Pan, Mr. Smee and the lost boys is turned on its head with Jocelyn’s arrival. Unfortunately, this potentially exciting treatment of the familiar tale is forced and uneven. While Jocelyn is spunky, flawed and endearing, the supporting characters are flat and uninteresting. However, there are bright spots. Jocelyn uses her wit and manners to defeat bloodthirsty cannibals, angry fairies and her own fears.

An incompletely satisfying return to Neverland. (Fantasy.

8-12) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

TRUE STORIES

Scieszka, Jon–Ed. Walden Pond Press/ HarperCollins (272 pp.) $16.99 | $6.99 paper | Sep. 16, 2014 978-0-06-196382-7 978-0-06-196381-0 paper Series: Guys Read, 5 A stellar lineup of nonfiction writers offers true stories, which, like the previous volumes in the Guys Read series, are written to appeal especially to boys.

Steve Sheinkin leads off with a survival tale, as Capt. James Riley and his crew are shipwrecked off the coast of West Africa in the summer of 1815 and survive the Sahara desert by drinking their own urine and eating their peeling, sunburned skin.

Enslaved, they are eventually saved by Muslim traders, and Riley joins the anti-slavery movement upon his return to the United States. Sy Montgomery writes a beautiful ode to the rain forest of French Guiana and profiles tarantulas and Sam Marshall, a scientist who studies them and who is featured in Montgomery’s The Tarantula Scientist (2004). Jim Murphy delivers an unsettling history of dental horrors from 6,500 years ago to the present day (or at least his second visit to the dentist); Candace Fleming profiles Jumbo, the world’s largest elephant; Elizabeth Partridge writes about Alan Lomax and Muddy Waters; and T. Edward Nickens is almost killed canoeing frigid Alaskan waters.

The stories—prose, poetry and a graphic story—are full of action and lively, sometimes-gross details that make their subjects come alive.

An unusually strong volume—a smorgasbord for young nonfiction readers (both boys and girls) and a good pick for the classroom. (Short stories. 8-14) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

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COMPLETE NOTHING

Scott, Kieran Simon & Schuster (320 pp.) $18.99 | $9.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Sep. 30, 2014 978-1-4424-7721-6 978-1-4424-7720-9 paper 978-1-4424-7722-3 e-book Series: True Love, 2 This second installment of the True Love series finds Eros, a goddess in this series, setting out to make her second true love match after being drained of her powers by Zeus.

Calling herself “True,” Eros lives with her mother, Aphrodite, in a little town in New York, both having been banished to Earth until Eros can make three matches without her golden arrows. In this outing, she spots her own true love, Orion, as a new student in her high school—but he has no memory of her at all. Distracted, she almost misses her chance to reunite longtime pair Peter and Claudia, after Peter, upset by the changes graduation and college will bring, suddenly breaks it off. True strategizes with Claudia, but a ruse to make Peter jealous backfires when Claudia starts to fall for the hot new guy True sets her up with. Worse, it seems that some gods jealous of Eros might find their ways to Earth. Scott keeps the tone light, focusing much more on comedy than mythology, with the exception of a subplot concerning Hephaestus. She has good fun with her concept, with True still unable to fit in with contemporary teens but unconcerned about that problem.

It’s another light romp through high school romance, with an exotic paranormal twist. (Paranormal romance. 12-18)

KID SHERIFF AND THE TERRIBLE TOADS

Shea, Bob Illus. by Smith, Lane Roaring Brook (32 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-1-59643-975-7

A young sheriff comes riding high—atop a tortoise—toward the troubled, “cumin-scented” town of Drywater Gulch. Just give him a minute.

How to get the Toads—not the four-legged kind, but three lawless brothers saddled with a silly name and a yen to “steal your gold, kiss your cattle, and insult your chili”—into the hoosegow?

Avowed dino-expert Ryan knows just the ploy: blame the big hole blasted into the bank on T. Rex and the stagecoach robbery on Velociraptors. The cattle-kissin’? Why, Triceratops, of course. Annoyed to no end at not getting proper credit for their crimes (“Why I smooched them beefy lips my own self!”), the Toads rudely occupy the clink: “HA! You can blow them dinersores out your nose Sheriff, this here jail is full up of real bonafide criminals!” “Hooray!” cheer the townsfolk. Sheriff Ryan just saddles up his reptilian steed and rides off into the

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sunset…over the next three days. The hulking Toads cut properly brutish figures in Smith’s angular, sand-and-brown Wild West scenes, while their pint-sized nemesis sports the requisite white chaps and a huge white hat.

A crowd-pleasin’ knee-slapper that’ll have ’em rolling in the aisles, yessirree. (Picture book. 5-8)

GOD LOVES HAIR

Shraya, Vivek Illus. by Neufeld, Juliana Arsenal Pulp Press (92 pp.) $18.95 paper | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-55152-543-3 A young boy grapples with his self-image and budding homosexuality.

In his debut novella, the Toronto-based Shraya explores growing up gay and religious through the character of a nameless Indo-Canadian boy who from childhood on is somewhat female-identified. The protagonist is born with “a full head of jet-black hair,” coming to sport “one long, thin ponytail” as he waits until age 2 for his first haircut, receiving compliments all the while for being a “cute baby girl.” Thus begins the boy’s fluid—at times troubling—experience with gender, which Shraya cleverly encapsulates in the boy’s experience of developing body hair alongside others in his life. His younger brother buzzes some of his off; his father demonstrates how to shave his mustache; Vicky Macker, the cool girl, wants to dye his hair red, like hers; and his mother, with whom he most closely identifies, zealously plucks her eyebrows. Throughout this brief bildungsroman, the boy negotiates his way through Canadian and Indian cultures, learning differing roles played by the sexes and often feeling comforted and occasionally frightened by the strength of his Hindu faith. Neufeld’s mixed-media illustrations pair well with the scenes they depict, capturing the essence of being young with their multilayered texture and comic book– like immediacy.

Running the emotional spectrum from shame to pleasure and acceptance, Shraya offers a refreshing window into the intimate struggles of youth. (Fiction. 12 & up)

SHARE!

Simmons, Anthea Illus. by Birkett, Georgie Sterling (24 pp.) $9.95 | Oct. 7, 2014 978-1-4549-1403-7 Rhyming text from a little girl delivers an idealized vision of big sisterhood.

Sometimes her mother prompts her to share with her baby brother, and she does, but she’s understandably displeased by how he treats her favorite things. Nevertheless, she goodnaturedly continues sharing; she even starts offering him some of her waffles and her drink, soon realizing that the baby can’t 134

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chew waffles and just makes a mess when he tries to drink from a cup. The siblings end up happily sharing a bath and then a snuggle in bed with their mom, resulting in a picture book that fails to deliver much of a story and instead provides an idealized glimpse of a day in the life of young children. Why does sister just go along with baby’s wishes? Readers don’t know. Flat, cartoonish art in bright colors reveals the sister’s subtly changing feelings throughout, but there’s little detail to help determine how and why her feelings, if not her actions, change from one interaction to the next. By day’s end, instead of feeling tuckered out and grouchy, the siblings are simply happy to snuggle with each other and their mom. While perhaps a nice vision, this risks seeming more like parental wish-fulfillment than typical early-childhood sibling dynamics.

Not much to share or sink one’s teeth into here. (Picture book. 2-4)

I’M GONNA CLIMB A MOUNTAIN IN MY PATENT LEATHER SHOES Singer, Marilyn Illus. by Avril, Lynne Abrams (40 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-4197-0336-2

A little girl takes all her feminine favorites on a camping trip.

Peppy Sadie, who has impossibly big red hair, narrates her adventure in bouncy iambic verse. “Today we’re going camping,” she declares, and lickety-split she starts packing. She’ll absolutely need her pink ballet costume, her patent leather shoes and her tiara, for starters. Even though Sadie’s decked out in frills, she can still help pitch the pup tent and help with other chores, like gathering huckleberries. Things go a bit amiss when a chipmunk makes off with the purple party bag that Sadie was using to gather the berries, and her white gloves get dirty. But no matter; Sadie’s imagination takes over. As she climbs the mountain in those patent leather shoes, she pictures herself capturing Bigfoot with her seven strings of pearls and swimming in the river in her flowered underwear. (She forgot her bathing suit.)

That night, with only the campfire to illuminate them, Sadie pretends to protect the family from Bigfoot, played by her brother with a growl and a frown. Singer’s story crackles with humor and attitude, its driving rhythms making it an infectious read-aloud. Avril’s busy illustrations, using pastel chalk over a pencil outline, display a range of bright colors and have a slightly dreamy cast, as if they came right out of Sadie’s head.

So can a girl rough it in ruffles? Silly question. (Picture book. 4-7)

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“Spears develops Jesse’s character so thoroughly readers will believe they know him.” from sway

LOVERS & HATERS

Slater, Calvin Dafina/Kensington (240 pp.) $9.95 paper | $8.99 e-book | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-61773-132-7 978-1-61773-133-4 e-book Series: Coleman High, 1 A gritty yet heartwarming debut for teens chronicles the coming-of-age of 16-year-old Xavier Hunter, who navigates new love amid the challenges of drugs, gangs and other woes in inner-city Detroit.

Xavier’s general compassion and particular interest in the attractive Samantha become readers’ entryway into a teenage underworld where conflict meets him at every corner. His path to a solution will affect not only his own future, but the futures of those he cares about the most. Using a voice that comes directly from young Detroiters, Slater (a pseudonym) mixes in the humor of the dozens, the African-American oral tradition in which two competitors go head to head in a competition of good-natured insults, to color his characters with authenticity.

The novel digs deep into the lore of the Detroit inner city to offer an abrasive narrative populated by many stereotypes and one-dimensional clichés; these throw Xavier’s determination to go in a new direction in sharp relief. Slater presents tough situations that lack strong context, which, combined with the stereotypes, may serve to reinforce rather than break down unwarranted assumptions.

Readers who bring to the novel an understanding of the circumstances impoverished inner-city life can beget will find inspiration in Xavier’s story. (Fiction. 14-18)

100 SIDEWAYS MILES

Smith, Andrew Simon & Schuster (288 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-4424-4495-9 978-1-4424-4497-3 e-book A wickedly witty and offbeat novel involving (among many other things) best friends, first love, classroom behavior outrageous enough to bring about a teacher’s aneurysm and a stunningly described shadow-puppet show.

Sixteen-year-old Finn Easton has his share of struggles. A bizarre childhood accident killed his mother and left him epileptic. Further, he has spent much of his life living down public assumptions, as his father penned a controversial, well-known science-fiction novel that featured a protagonist also named Finn. However, none of this stops him and his larger-thanlife best friend, Cade Hernandez, from participating in wildly funny misdeeds. These include leading a chant of “Oldfucker!

Oldfucker!” to welcome the governor, who is cursed with the phonetically similar name Altvatter, at a school assembly and |

participating in perhaps the most hilarious condom-buying scene ever imagined. Yet the story also offers nuance and depth, including but not limited to Finn’s headlong, sweetly real stumble into love with a girl named Julia, vivid descriptions of Southern California canyon country, Finn’s touchingly honest, kind relationship with his dad, and his fascinating habit of viewing time in terms of miles rather than minutes.

All of this and so many more exquisite details make this a breathtaking read. (Fiction. 14 & up) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

SWAY

Spears, Kat St. Martin’s Griffin (320 pp.) $18.99 | $9.99 e-book | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-250-05143-1 978-1-4668-5219-8 e-book Everybody knows Jesse, aka “Sway.”

For the right price or a later favor, Jesse will get you want you want, but he’ll also acquire power over you.

He sells drugs and fake IDs, acquires kegs for parties and might even be able to persuade a girl to date a guy. Since his mother’s suicide over a year ago, Jesse hasn’t bothered with his own emotions. But when he meets the beautiful and almost saintly Bridget, he begins to realize that he might actually have some feelings after all. He gets to know her in order to advise bully Ken on how to get a date with her, making Jesse something of a “fucked-up Cyrano de Bergerac,” as he himself notes. Along the way, he teams up with Bridget’s little brother, Pete, who has cerebral palsy, introducing the boy to his world of schemes. Even as he grows fonder of Bridget, he still doesn’t believe he could have a real romance with her, or with anyone. Spears develops Jesse’s character so thoroughly readers will believe they know him.

Despite his illegality and immorality, he remains sympathetic, revealing his hidden emotions as he forms real friendships with Pete and with an elderly man he meets while spying on Bridget.

A compelling debut told with swagger and real depth.

(Fiction. 14-18)

MAX AND THE WON’T GO TO BED SHOW Sperring, Mark Illus. by Warburton, Sarah Scholastic (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 30, 2014 978-0-545-70822-7

“Please put your hands together for…

MAX THE MAGNIFICENT!” Vaudevillian hyperbole abounds as young magician Max attempts to achieve the impossible—he plans to avoid going to sleep! Star-spangled, whimsical and circus-bright illustrations show the young conjurer as he performs a multitude of tricks,

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“The author’s instinct for creative kills remains strong despite a 15-plus-year absence from the series.” from party games

from making milk slowly disappear (eating his bedtime snack) and taming a savage beast (trying to get his dog to sit and stay) to pulling a rabbit from under his bed (gathering his stuffed animals up for the night). But wait, there’s more! “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we strongly advise you NEVER to try this at home… / Max asks for ten—yes, TEN!—bedtime stories. / (His mom says she’ll read two.)” As much fun to read as it is to listen to, this going-to-sleep book hits on all of the necessary bedtime rituals (including tooth brushing) and will provide enjoyment and satisfaction for all concerned; the spot-on ballyhoo is bound to provoke snorts and giggles, while the nicely controlled pace eventually slows to allow all young listeners to gradually hunker down for a good night’s rest.

A fun-filled revamp of the bedtime genre and a humorous choice for the not-quite-sleepy set. (Picture book. 3-6)

KID PRESIDENTS True Tales of Childhood from America’s Presidents Stabler, David Illus. by Horner, Doogie Quirk Books (224 pp.) $13.95 | Oct. 28, 2014 978-1-59474-731-1

Stories from their child and teen years reveal that U.S. presidents were kids like any others­—with hobbies and families and escapades both amusing and alarming.

Robert Schnakenberg, author of Secret Lives of Great Authors (illustrated by Mario Zucca, 2008) and similar titles for adults, uses a pseudonym for this entertaining collection of presidential trivia. Embellishing the story of Washington and the cherry tree with a fire-breathing dinosaur, he points out that that ofttold anecdote is fantasy. Instead, he offers 16 “true tales” organized into three sections, along with additional factoids about games and pranks, early jobs and mishaps, as well as teachers’ comments about our nation’s leaders. He rounds out his collection with a final surprising fact about each of the 44 presidents (Cleveland gets two for his two nonconsecutive terms). With examples that include Grant’s early horsemanship, Obama’s travails as a new boy in Jakarta, Indonesia, and the nearsighted Reagan’s butterfly collection, the author presents engaging vignettes of these men as boys. Horner’s full-color cartoons add to the humor. For young readers wanting to know more about individual presidents, the author provides suggested titles. Troublingly, though, there is no indication of the author’s sources, either in the book or on the publisher’s website. These tales are pleasingly told, but readers cannot know where the facts end and embellishment begins. Young readers deserve to know that, too.

Lively but not reliable. (index) (Collective biography. 9-13)

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JENNY & LORENZO Steiner, Toni Illus. by Tharlet, Eve Minedition (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-988-8240-76-0

A spunky little mouse befriends a big cat in this European import.

Jenny the mouse has an undeniable zest for life. Even her mother’s stories about a cat named Lorenzo the Red whose favorite meal is “mouse on toast” don’t scare her. Her parents delight in their daughter’s curious nature until it leads her to seek out Lorenzo.

They don’t forbid her to go, but her mother warns her to be careful. This permissiveness, along with rhyming, singsong text and lighthearted watercolor illustrations, reassures readers that this won’t be a tragic tale. Other animals do try to warn Jenny as well, but she soldiers on. When she does encounter him, Lorenzo initially lives up to his fearsome reputation and says she’s “the purrrr-fect little sweet.” But instead of being frightened, the intrepid rodent is so excited to see him that she bursts out laughing and sings, jumps and somersaults in her joy.

This surprising behavior disarms Lorenzo, and he laughs, too.

Throughout, Tharlet’s art outshines the text, which is rather twee in its descriptions of both Jenny’s nature (“she always faced her fears and followed her curiosity”) and her new friendship (“They share dreams of hot chocolate with buttered toast and jam, and skies filled with big colorful balloons”).

An uneven story about an unlikely friendship. (Picture book. 3-5)

PARTY GAMES

Stine, R.L. St. Martin’s Griffin (288 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 30, 2014 978-1-250-05161-5 Series: Fear Street The teens of Shadyside are in for more scares now that Stine has returned to his beloved franchise.

Rachel Martin’s got a big-time crush on Brendan Fear. She’s incredibly excited to be invited along with the cool kids to Brendan’s birthday party on Fear Island, so much so that she’s willing to ignore an ominous dead animal in her bed and the warnings of her best friend. Of course, once the party starts and the guests start to drop like flies in gruesome ways, Rachel’s only concern is getting off the island in one piece. The author’s instinct for creative kills remains strong despite a 15-plus-year absence from the series. There isn’t a lot to chew on when it comes to character or theme, although it’s hard to imagine anyone looking for such a thing in a Fear Street novel. These books are designed to be a pleasant diversion as well as fodder for nightmares, and in that aspect, the author doesn’t disappoint. The only frustration

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is the lack of a supernatural element to the string of murders.

Ghosts and zombies are the author’s strength, not masked killers and kidnappers. The frights make up for this misstep but only by a little.

More of the same—yet here, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. (Horror. 12-16) (This review was first published in the BEA/ ALA 2014 issue.)

MR TWEED’S GOOD DEEDS Stoten, Jim Illus. by Stoten, Jim Flying Eye Books (48 pp.) $19.95 | Oct. 14, 2014 978-1-909263-35-2

A dapper gent on his daily walk discovers that helping community members find lost items bears its own rewards.

Mr Tweed (this import retains its British spelling), a mustachioed dog in pinstripe trousers and a stovepipe hat half his height, successively assists citizens of many species looking for a lost kite in the park, two kittens in a garden, three pet mice at the library and more. For each good deed, there’s a doublepage spread that frames the problem, depicts the lost items and cheerfully enlists readers to turn the page and aid the search.

Those ensuing page turns yield teeming tableaux chock-a-block with lush scenery and wacky details in opaque carnival hues of orange, blue, purple and green. The town pool, harboring professor Ribbet’s four escaped goldfish, roils with inflatable toys and swimmers from ducks to rabbits (with humans a represented minority). Penultimately, Mr Tweed helps find Pingle Penguin’s nine balloons, released mistakenly at the town fair.

Ready to head home, he’s invited by Pete Weasel to “a huge street party” where all the folks he’s helped are waiting to fête him with 10 presents (strewn throughout the scene, of course).

Stoten’s whimsical, stylized pictures recall erstwhile graphic design influencers Seymour Chwast and Peter Max. While less intricate than the scenes in Martin Handford’s Where’s Waldo series, these hilarious, communityspirited panoramas will reward repeat scrutiny. Great fun.

(Picture book. 3-7)

IF YOU WERE A DOG

Swenson, Jamie A. Illus. by Raschka, Chris Farrar, Straus and Giroux (40 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 30, 2014 978-0-374-33530-4 Addressing both a winsome girl character and child readers, Swenson invites kids to speculate what sort of dog, cat, fish, bird, bug, frog and dinosaur they might want to be.

She provides plenty of inventive images to get young imaginations flowing. “If you were a frog, / would you be a / gianthopper, / ribbety-racer, / mighty jumper, / dragonfly-chaser, / |

lily-pad-bumper, / croaking-ballooner, / summer-night-crooner / sort of frog? // Would you spring and zing / and hop all day? / BOING, BOING, RIBBET! / Some frogs do.” Raschka’s pictures, in a palette of cool blue-green and warm orange-brown, playfully depict each animal’s antics against rectangular watercolor washes. His creatures, simply composed of thick contours and blobs of color, nonetheless capture signature distinctions, such as a “yarn-tangling” cat’s mesmerized eyes and the businesslike mien of a “trout-snatching” bird in flight. For the dinosaurs, he supplies a warty-looking T. Rex and a blue-striped tree-chomping herbivore, wild-eyed and slurpy-tongued. Swenson dials it down in the final pages, conspiratorially acknowledging that, while kids can’t be any of those animals, they can move and sound like them—for a while. Then, “You can… // GIGGLE, GIGGLE, GIGGLE! / like a kid! // And that is the very best / sort of thing to be.”

Swenson’s rhythmic cadences coupled with Raschka’s wry, upbeat illustrations yield a title that’s a cheery pickerupper. (Picture book. 3-6)

LIES WE TELL OURSELVES Talley, Robin Harlequin Teen (384 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 1, 2014 978-0-373-21133-3

A coming-of-age story about desegregation that also tackles sexual identity.

High school senior Sarah Dunbar is one of 10 black students who will be the first to integrate an all-white school in Virginia in 1959. Set in a fictional town, the novel mirrors many incidents that occurred in Virginia and other Southern states during desegregation, including Virginia’s “Massive Resistance” movement, which closed all-white schools rather than allow integration of African-American students. Sarah’s first day of school, which takes up a significant portion of the book, becomes a piercing look at the courage it takes to endure outbursts of “nigger bitch” and other forms of extreme hatred, violence, racism and sexism. Quietly promoting these attacks through editorials (since her father is editor of the local newspaper) is Linda Hairston, who blames “colored people” for all the disruptions in the school year. When the two teens are assigned to work on a class project together, they learn about their respective struggles and surprisingly develop feelings for each other. Alternating firstperson narration shows how Sarah questions her “unnatural” sexual orientation in a time without gay and lesbian role models or accessible information and how Linda questions her own options for exiting an abusive home.

As the young women gain confidence and independence, they arrive at a hopeful ending with a future that’s inclusive in more ways than one. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 13-18)

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FORCING THE ACE

The story’s ostensibly about being open and accepting, but really, it’s mostly just about a pig hiding from a teacher.

(Picture book. 3-6)

Thomas, Erin Orca (144 pp.) $9.95 paper | Sep. 1, 2014 978-1-4598-0645-0 A young magician learns that it is better to have the crowd in his pocket than any number of competition trophies on the mantle.

Alex Eisen is failing school, finding it so hard to read he uses a ruler to help track the words; his disdainful surgeon father doesn’t give a fig about— indeed, discourages—Alex’s passion for stage magic. But there is a new kid in school, Zoe O’Neill, who is also into magic. He is attracted—and competitive. He has an opportunity to work with Zoe under the tutelage of mysterious and sagacious magician great Jack Spader—the Jack of Spades—but Alex tries to sabotage the team in order to impress Jack. Jack eventually gets the two in sync, especially after a preparatory gig in a children’s hospital, where Alex comes to appreciate it is better to entertain than impress any competition judge. (Alex’s father, who conducts his surgery there, also learns a thing or two.) All gets neatly tied up at the end: Zoe and Alex connect, the magic dazzles, Alex tackles schooling like an old pro simply by applying himself. None of this will particularly surprise readers, because Thomas broadcasts her intentions so clearly throughout.

Even the novice magician knows that broadcasting will take the wind out of any magic routine, and since a “good routine tells a story,” so too with this book. (Fiction. 11-14)

THERE’S A PIG IN MY CLASS! Thydell, Johanna Illus. by Ramel, Charlotte Translated by Martens, Helle Holiday House (32 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 1, 2014 978-0-8234-3168-7

DOJO DAYCARE

Tougas, Chris Illus. by Tougas, Chris Owlkids Books (32 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 15, 2014 978-1-77147-057-5 Ninja training begins early, but before any power moves are taught, young ones must first learn to control their emotions—practical advice for any 3-year-old.

The morning starts swiftly, as families drop down from nothing but thin air—an appropriate entrance for ninjas. The children bow, and all seems well, until “KABOOM! KAPOW!” Little feet and fists kick up clouds of dust as the ninjas push and pull and fight over toys. Master claps his hands and yells, “QUIET!” He pleads, “It is time for you to all reflect / On honor, kindness, and respect.” (Delightfully, Master sounds an awful lot like Miss Clavell.) Order is restored…until the lunch gong is rung. “KABOOM! KAPOW!” Udon goes flying. Chaos ensues yet again at storytime. The weary Master slumps in defeat. But he may have imparted more wisdom than he thought, as suddenly, one little ninja steps up to stop the riot. Tougas’ blackclad tots are alert and ready to pounce—and when they do, it’s a flurry of action. The rhyming text does well to keep up. Added details of one poor, masked teddy bear’s increasingly mangled state and a particularly gassy ninja are fun to spot.

Day care is full of covert purposes, ninja or not; this rollicking read-aloud will fit right in. (Picture book. 3-6) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

MIX IT UP

Tullet, Hervé Illus. by Tullet, Hervé Chronicle (56 pp.) $15.99 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-4521-3735-3

A pig longs to join in the fun of school, but he needs the students’ help

to sneak inside.

When a pig trots onto their schoolyard, the children aren’t fazed a bit. They simply dress him up in a shirt and pants and bring him to class. After all, in school, everyone is included!

With such a clever disguise (wink, wink), the teacher doesn’t notice her new porcine pupil at all. Pig makes it through circle time, recess, lunchtime and naptime. But when he accidentally gets his shirt wet and the teacher tries to help him change his clothes, the pot-bellied ploy is up. This one-note Swedish import stumbles a bit in pacing (the climactic water scene is oddly disjointed), but young readers always enjoy a little adult deception. Ramel paints a wide range of multiethnic schoolchildren, and the background scenes repay examination. A small artistic quibble: The deliberate use of narrowed eyes tends to make the kids look conniving and angry.

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Who’s ready to dip their fingers in the paint?

The primary-colored dots from Press Here (2011) are back, but while last time they focused predominantly on motion, this time they plunge headlong into color mixing. It starts with a gray dot in the middle of a glossy white page, which the reader turns into a host of colored dots by following direct, friendly instructions. After some play, three large splotches appear: red, blue, yellow. “With one finger take a little bit of the blue… / and just touch the yellow. Rub it… gently….” The result isn’t overexplained—the narrator simply says, “See?”—and, best of all, that new green blob looks exactly the way a real-life, finger-mixed result of that particular blue and yellow would look. Unmixed yellow and blue even peek out from under its edges. While the

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“Viorst totally understands how little boys think and react and keeps Alexander fresh and appealing.” from alexander , who’s trying his best to be the best boy ever

participatory nature may recall an app, nothing feels digital here; in fact, Tullet’s paintings show paint texture so lusciously it’s hard to remember that these are dry illustrations. Shaking the book, tilting the book sideways and closing the book “so the colors squish together” yield more color-mixing results, all temptingly textured like real paint. Fingerprints and spatters enhance the casual, welcoming vibe. As with Press Here, one-onone reading will best serve the invited participation.

Have the real paints handy. (Picture book. 3-6)

THE MISSING PIECES OF ME Van Leeuwen, Jean Two Lions (240 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-4778-4729-9

Hurt by her overworked mother’s insistence that she’s a bad girl, 10-year-old Weezie tries her best to prove her wrong.

Fixing meals and babysitting her half siblings isn’t enough to make up for breaking Gramma Emmeline’s teapot.

Weezie misses her deceased grandmother’s love and the way she called her by her full name, Grace Louise. Now she constantly gets in trouble and has to spend weekends at home alone in the trailer park while whiny Ruth Ann and Jackson get Momma’s attention. The only bright light in her life is the recognition her teacher gives her for her artistic talent, which goes unnoticed by Momma. Weezie knows who Ruth Ann’s father was, and Jackson’s daddy comes around often, but she doesn’t even know her own father’s name. She starts lying about him at school, making herself even more miserable. In desperation, she sets out on a search of her own, with surprising results. Weezie’s earnest attempts to find her father without her mother’s cooperation and her persistent efforts to be a better person are touchingly revealed through her candid narration. Strong secondary characters round out the portrayal of small-town life in Oklahoma, including Weezie’s investigative partner, her friend Calvin, who is “a little slow in his thinking” but never judges Weezie for what she does.

This tightly written chapter book has just the right amount of pathos for middle-grade readers. (Fiction. 8-12)

ALEXANDER, WHO’S TRYING HIS BEST TO BE THE BEST BOY EVER Viorst, Judith Illus. by Monés, Isidre Atheneum (40 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-4814-2353-3 978-1-4814-2354-0 e-book

Alexander eats an entire box of doughnuts and hides the empty box in almost plain sight. |

Alexander, of the beloved Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good, Very Bad Day (1972), is back, and he’s as clueless as ever, with grandiose plans that always seem to end in disaster. He must now face the consequences of his latest escapade. He’s banned from playing video games or watching TV, and he’s left out of a family outing. He hates consequences. To avoid further punishments, he announces that he will never get in trouble again and that he will be good forever. Although he keeps getting great ideas, he manages, barely, to hold on and keep his promise. Of course this cannot go on for long, and his attempts at exemplary behavior are doomed as he careens from one hilarious mess to another and finally gives in to temptation.

Alexander narrates his own tale of woe in an illogical, impish and delightful stream of consciousness. Although in his case, it is more apt to be unconsciousness. Viorst totally understands how little boys think and react and keeps Alexander fresh and appealing. Monés’ fine-lined, black-and-white illustrations pay homage to Ray Cruz’s style from the original work, but they have their own liveliness and charm.

Welcome back, Alexander. (Picture book. 4-9)

PACK OF DORKS

Vrabel, Beth Sky Pony Press (240 pp.) $15.95 | $9.99 e-book | Oct. 7, 2014 978-1-62914-623-2 978-1-63220-222-2 e-book Debut author Vrabel takes three knotty, seemingly disparate problems— bullying, the plight of wolves and coping with disability—and with tact and grace knits them into an engrossing whole of despair and redemption.

Popular fourth-grader Lucy and her best friend, Becky, kiss Tom and Henry behind the shed during recess as their class looks on, Lucy’s brief, reluctant peck paling against Becky’s smoldering “suction cup” smooch. When Lucy gets home, her mother’s in labor; Molly is born later that day with Down syndrome. Back at school on Tuesday, everything has changed. Now disingenuous Becky is with Tom, and Lucy’s being shunned by most of the class. Only then does she begin to understand life as an outsider and take a closer look at other bullying victims, each nicely depicted, both negative and positive characteristics colorfully drawn. Assigned to do a project about wolves with fellow victim Sam, Lucy gradually becomes friends with him, and they discover fascinating truths about wolf packs that give them insight into the behavior of their classmates. Simultaneously, Lucy and her parents slowly, believably come to grips with Molly’s uncertain future. Useful tips for dealing with bullying are neatly incorporated into the tale but with a refreshing lack of didacticism.

Lucy’s perfectly feisty narration, the emotionally resonant situations and the importance of the topic all elevate this effort well above the pack. (Fiction. 8-12)

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“Words land on readers’ ears with the pleasing, plodding patter of raindrops.” from blue on blue

WALKING HOME

Walters, Eric Doubleday Canada/Random House Canada (208 pp.) $9.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Sep. 16, 2014 978-0-38568-157-5 978-0-385-68158-2 e-book Thirteen-year-old Muchoki, his mother and his little sister live in a refugee camp after fleeing the intertribal bloodshed in their Kenyan hometown of Eldoret that took the life of their Kikuyu father.

When their mother succumbs to malaria, Muchoki decides to set out on foot with 7-year-old Jata to reach their mother’s relatives in Kambaland, a journey of over 200 kilometers. Canadian author Walters turns his firsthand knowledge of Kenya into rather standard, message-laden but adventuresome fare.

On their journey, the children find individuals willing to help and who act out of kindness both in cities and in the wild.

There’s the requisite encounter with a lion and another with a Maasai warrior who defies the stereotype that Muchoki grew up with. Adults of a variety of tribes reinforce the idea that killing is always wrong, allowing Muchoki to grow beyond his urge to avenge his father’s death. Unfortunately, nowhere does the author use a date to tie the story to actual events, a shortcoming for a first-person account based on the very real recent unrest in Kenya. Nonetheless, this is a solid story of hope prevailing over despair.

With its dependable truisms—variations on “the longest journey starts with a single step”—and its comforting message of the strength of family, this story should resonate with North American middle-grade readers. (Adventure. 9-13)

DEAD ZONE

Wells, Robison HarperTeen (384 pp.) $17.99 | $9.99 e-book | Sep. 30, 2014 978-0-06-227502-8 978-0-06-227504-2 e-book Series: Blackout, 2

youngsters. Zasha and Fyodor have trained their whole lives for this, and Zasha in particular isn’t about to let anything—or anyone—get in their way. Amid the action, Wells raises deep questions.

As Aubrey struggles to understand why killing enemy soldiers isn’t murder, Jack and their platoon mates (other “lambdas” like themselves) struggle to understand why the burden of warfare is being thrust on their young shoulders. Jack and Aubrey wrestle with these issues and more as the story races to a satisfying conclusion.

This thoughtful, considered action-adventure will have readers pondering even after they’ve closed the book. (Science fiction. 13-16)

BLUE ON BLUE

White, Dianne Illus. by Krommes, Beth Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (48 pp.) $17.99 | $10.99 e-book | Sep. 2, 2014 978-1-4424-1267-5 978-1-4424-5687-7 e-book A thunderstorm interrupts a young girl and her farm family’s daily routine, until finally the drips stop dropping for some muddy fun before bedtime.

Succinct rhymes, measured and musical, trace the arc of the day, from morning to moontime, with astonishing restraint, grace and fluidity. Words land on readers’ ears with the pleasing, plodding patter of raindrops. Unexpected word choices endow simple poetry with remarkable inflections: “Gray on gray. Dark and glooming. / Black on black. Storm is looming”; “Pounding, hounding, noisy-sounding. / Dripping, dropping. Never stopping.” Doublepage illustrations, enriched by copious crosshatches and confident linework, bring the farm’s kitchen, pastures, barnyard and stable into almost three-dimensional focus. Rounded shapes soften each scene, instilling the pictures with bosomy warmth that surfaces everywhere: as a hat, a bucket, a dandelion, a steppingstone, an umbrella, the sun. A radiant sun, beaming with bars of light clear to the horizon, serves as a perfect visual for this idyllic song for the agricultural family—one that’s weathered many storms.

Folk-art-inspired illustrations, astonishing in both their technical accomplishment and their heart, harmonize beautifully with lyrical language. (Picture book. 2-6)

Picking up where Blackout (2013) left off, Wells continues to look at the impact of terrorism and the morality of war.

The United States is under attack, with Russia landing troops in the Pacific Northwest and saboteurs striking without warning. Aubrey and Jack have been recruited into the military, and after just a few weeks of basic training, they are forced into the field on their first mission. With Aubrey’s ability to become invisible and Jack’s to read minds, they hope they can find the secret weapon deployed against them: an electromagneticpulse device that knocks out all electrical functions with no warning, wreaking havoc. Little do they know the secret weapon is just like them—a pair of teens infected with an enhancement virus as 140

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LUG, DAWN OF THE ICE AGE Zeltser, Dave Egmont USA (192 pp.) $15.99 | $15.99 e-book | Sep. 9, 2014 978-1-60684-513-4 978-1-60684-514-1 e-book

A Stone Age comedy features a caveboy guilty of “uncavemanlike behavior.”

The summary exile that Lug earns by failing to capture a “jungle llama” to ride in an upcoming headstone match turns out to be a blessing in disguise, as it leads to a meeting with Hamela— a member of the rival Boar Rider clan who has turned from the customary all-dodo diet to vegetarianism. She in turn introduces him to Woolly, an errant young mammoth atop whom he goes on to lead his headstone team to victory. Lug lands in further hot water when his forbidden cave paintings are discovered—but following the arrival of snow, a pride of saber tooth tigers and more mammoths, he manages to convince at least some of his simpleminded people that big changes are coming. By the end, he even has them using fire (“storm light”). The animals all talk (except the dodos), and Lug’s frog-licking proto-hippie sidekick leads a notably rock-headed supporting cast. Happily, characters speak in complete sentences and with standard syntax, and the banter is nicely snappy. Preliminary sketches indicate that suitably primitive art will accompany the story.

Fred Flintstone would feel right at home in this lightas-pumice comedy. (Fantasy. 9-11) (This review was first published in the BEA/ALA 2014 issue.)

halloween roundup MONSTER PARTY! Bach, Annie Illus. by Bach, Annie Sterling (24 pp.) $9.95 | Aug. 5, 2014 978-1-4549-1051-0

(or not): Another invitation has arrived, and the creature’s frown disappears: “Monster glee. / Monster yippee! / Monster marks RSVP.” Unfortunately, the rhyming text fails to encourage participation and lacks the unfailing rhythm that would make it a good read-aloud choice. Bach’s monsters are more cuddly than scary, which may add some appeal for younger readers.

Pass on this party unless tame titles for the preschool set are needed. (Picture book. 3-5)

READY, STEADY, GHOST! Baguley, Elizabeth Illus. by Lindsay, Marion Disney-Hyperion (32 pp.) $16.99 | Aug. 5, 2014 978-1-4231-8039-5

Gilbert watches the big ghosts float off to be-spook dark, creepy forests and towering castles, but he decides to find a homey, cozy house to haunt instead.

The first lights he sees in the darkness are not windows but a “gobble-me wolf ” that, luckily, doesn’t see Gilbert but goes on its way. A path shining in the darkness turns out to be a “squeezeme snake,” and curling smoke from a chimney is actually a “sizzle-me dragon.” Poor Gilbert ends up in a big castle despite himself, where he is so ineffectual that a dog chases him up the stairs…where he finds a tiny, (miraculously) populated castle on a table in the attic that’s exactly the right size for him. While children will appreciate Gilbert’s Goldilocks-like desire for the “just right,” the story is a chain of anticlimactic, often illogical plot points related in wordplay that borders on twee. Lindsay’s mixed-media illustrations employ what looks to be tissue paper for ghosts and wisps of fog against a forest of sharply outlined trees and branches. Gilbert is shaped like an upside-down teardrop that floats through the mildly threatening landscape. Even quite young children will wonder at his denseness in mistaking gleaming yellow eyes, an obviously scaled serpent and smoky breath that emanates from ground level for windows, a path and chimney smoke.

A cotton-candy puff of a story: sweet but entirely insubstantial. (Picture book. 3-5)

NOT VERY SCARY

Monsters attending parties are a popular picture-book topic; this circular tale adds one more to the shelf.

A friendly young monster receives a party invitation: “Monster invited. / Monster delighted. / Monster squeals, ‘SO EXCITED!’ ” The pastel-blue monster’s antics should elicit a few giggles, as when he primps in front of the bathroom mirror in his underwear or when he gets ready to chomp on a bugcovered pizza. Games are played, food is eaten, a food fight is begun, gifts are opened—and a temper tantrum erupts when it is time to say goodbye. The monster’s dad is a master distracter and redirects his son’s attention to checking the mail. Surprise |

Brendler, Carol Illus. by Pizzoli, Greg Farrar, Straus and Giroux (40 pp.) $12.99 | Aug. 12, 2014 978-0-374-35547-0 Monster Melly is invited to her cousin Malberta’s house “on the scariest night of all.” On her way, she notices she is being followed. Why? More importantly: by what?

Melly looks pleasant enough for a young monster, with her striped horns and fanged smile. What surprise could her cousin have in store for her? She has no time to think about that, as one “coal-black cat with an itchy-twitchy tail” seems to be stalking

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her. Melly tells herself bravely it is “Not the least bit scary.” The following spreads reveal an increasing number of spooky characters following her. “[T]wo skittish skeletons” and “three wheezy witches” join the procession in turn, until “ten vexing vultures” round out the silly and not-so-scary group of creepy characters.

But by the time Melly rings Malberta’s doorbell, her teeth are chattering with fear. Her three-eyed cousin opens the door to welcome her to a surprise party. But the true surprise is that all the other guests are right behind her! Brendler’s cumulative tale uses silly rhymes and humorous descriptions to make this counting adventure one that invites participation. Geisel winner Pizzoli (The Watermelon Seed, 2013) chooses a muted palette of oranges, browns, greens and purples to allow the whites—on Melly’s horns, cheerful ghosts and friendly skeletons—to glow.

A terrific Halloween title to share with those readers who prefer giggles to shivers. (Picture book. 4-8)

PETAL AND POPPY AND THE SPOOKY HALLOWEEN! Clough, Lisa Illus. by Briant, Ed HMH Books (32 pp.) $12.99 | $3.99 paper | Aug. 26, 2014 978-0-544-33602-5 978-0-544-33603-2 paper Series: Petal and Poppy

Good friends Petal and Poppy alternate fears during Halloween night in their third series adventure.

Costumed as a horned, red, furry monster, rhino Poppy sneaks up on unsuspecting Petal to scare her. The incident leaves elephant Petal spooked and resistant to wearing a scary costume like her buddy. Poppy coaxes her into joining in, and Petal decides to dress up like a butterfly. Sharing a bicycle while on their way to a Halloween party, Petal is easily frightened by the costumed characters they encounter. Brave Poppy reminds Petal, “Do not be a scaredy-cat. They are only costumes.” A sudden crash leaves the pair stranded in front of a spooky house. Poppy is sure someone inside can help, but upon entering, Poppy’s nerve begins to weaken. (Petal remains outside.) While Poppy wanders inside, becoming increasingly frightened, a real ghost floats out to greet Petal. Thinking it is just a costume, Petal asks the creature for help fixing their bike. Clough’s use of repeated phrases will help build confidence in emergent readers, while Briant’s paneled cartoon illustrations ably show the swift and slightly comic role reversal. All ends well as creatures in costumes along with the real ghost gather at the Halloween party.

Although this husband and wife team put forth a good effort, the characters have only mild appeal when compared to the likes of Elephant and Piggie or Frog and Toad.

(Graphic early reader. 4-8)

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LADYBUG GIRL AND THE DRESS-UP DILEMMA Davis, Jacky Illus. by Soman, David Dial (40 pp.) $17.99 | Aug. 19, 2014 978-0-8037-3584-2 Series: Ladybug Girl

Ladybug Girl Lulu is sure what she’ll wear for Halloween until a comment from her brother makes her question her decision.

Once her brother has planted the seed of doubt, Lulu’s usual confidence is shaken. Should she change her mind and try something different from Ladybug Girl? With trusty dog Bingo at her side, Lulu gets to work. Conversational text and deftly created illustrations in ink and watercolor convey Lulu’s determination to find the right costume. As a robot she cannot fit through the door, and as a silent-movie star she will not be able to ask for candy. No one seems to appreciate her hybrid vampire/panda get-up. Lulu still is undecided as her family leaves to go apple picking. She imagines several other dress-up possibilities, but none seems right. A chance encounter with a younger girl who is lost in a corn maze spurs Lulu into action as Ladybug Girl. Whipping off her coat to reveal her costume, Lulu (with some help from Bingo) soon spots a popcorn trail Maya has unwittingly left behind. The three follow it. Soon, Maya and her mother are reunited, and it is clear what costume Lulu will choose. Was there any real doubt?

Readers and their parents will appreciate how Lulu works through her dilemma on her own. Not only is this an entertaining story, but it’s also a good conversation starter about being true to oneself. (Picture book. 4-7)

THE MONSTERATOR

Graves, Keith Illus. by Graves, Keith Neal Porter/Roaring Brook (40 pp.) $17.99 | Aug. 12, 2014 978-1-59643-855-2 A been-there-done-that just-try-toimpress-me boy gets his wish to “be something screamingly scary. / Something fanged and foul and terribly hairy!”

“Master Edgar Dreadbury found Halloween a bore.” He’s not interested in costumes—he seeks transformation. A mysterious machine called the MONSTERATOR—a cross between a sideshow amusement and a steampunk invention—beckons.

After much rumbling, clanging and hissing, the machine disgorges Edgar, now a fearsome roaring monster. With horns, grimacing purple face, orange brows and green reptilian hands, feet and tail, he is a frightening sight—and he loves it. Although he tries to find the machine after Halloween to reverse the transformation, he is unsuccessful. Happily, he soon grows “fond of his freakish new features” and to “[relish] his role as a monstrous creature.” Graves dares here to explore a child’s dark

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“Although Halloween rhyming counting books abound, this stands out, with a text that begs to be read aloud and cartoony digital illustrations that add goofy appeal.” from at the old haunted house

side, and the result is a refreshingly original yet wondrously creepy tale. Superb for reading aloud, the story also poses topics for discussion. Why does he want to frighten everyone so much? Should you be careful about what you wish for? Readers throughout the book are rewarded with moody gray scenes punctuated with bright hues to draw focus to the machine or the monster, greatly enhancing this page-turner. Though it’s already eerily impressive with its elegant design, an added treat is a paper version of a monsterator with a flippable split-page novelty element at the book’s end.

A true, monstrous success! (Picture book. 5-9)

SPOOKY SEASON

Haas, Jessie Illus. by Friend, Alison Candlewick (56 pp.) $14.99 | Aug. 26, 2014 978-0-7636-6450-3 Series: Bramble and Maggie, 3 Transitioning readers enamored with horses will be happy to immerse themselves in the third title of the Bramble and Maggie series, in which Maggie and her horse learn to cope with real and imagined fears.

In each of the three chapters, Bramble spooks at the various sights and particular sounds of autumn. First Bramble is made uneasy by the new scarecrow in a neighbor’s yard. But Maggie coaxes her equine friend to take a closer look. Who knew something a bit scary could be so tasty! The next chapter finds Bramble reacting to falling acorns. As she goes one way, Maggie goes the other way…and falls. Maggie wants to call it a day, but Bramble knows that “riders always got back on. That made them feel much better. Bramble stood very still….She waited.”

Finally it is Halloween, and the two friends need to decide how to dress up. But now the lanes are full of scary-looking creatures.

Each of the pair must find her courage so that the other will not be afraid. Haas keeps descriptive language succinct while integrating entertaining dialogue. Friend’s gouache illustrations ably depict Bramble’s expressions of alarm and stubborn persistence, humorously extending the text.

This well-crafted horse story explores the themes of friendship and facing fears for those getting ready to move on from early readers. (Early reader. 5-8)

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A HALLOWEEN SCARE IN OHIO

James, Eric Illus. by La Ray, Marina Sourcebooks Jabberwocky (32 pp.) $9.99 | Aug. 1, 2014 978-1-4926-0624-6 Unless readers are familiar with cities and towns in Ohio, the conceit falls flat in this arbitrary, rhyming tale of what happened one Halloween.

A boy recounts his fantastical Halloween adventures in rhyming couplets that occasionally work in a name or two from the Buckeye State. “The creepies were crawly, the crazies were crazed, / The zombies from Athens had eyes that were glazed. / The ogres from Dayton were ugly as sin, / With big bulging noses and warts on their chin.” Although the text scans relatively well, the illustrations do little to add to the story. The type has a jittery aspect that changes size and boldness yet does not consistently add valuable emphasis. Even when the slim plot takes a turn—the narrator is awarded the prize for “The Best Costume in Ohio”—the story lacks overall appeal. One of 25 titles meant to provide localized Halloween fun, it is only barely passable in that niche. Other locales include California, the Carolinas, Chicago, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New England, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. All of Canada is encompassed in another, and there is a generic A Halloween Scare in My House for everyone else.

Pass on this bland offering unless you are desperate for a Halloween book that mentions places near you. (Picture book. 4-7) (A Halloween Scare in My House: 978-1-4926-0612-3)

AT THE OLD HAUNTED HOUSE Ketteman, Helen Illus. by Wragg, Nate Two Lions (32 pp.) $16.99 | Aug. 12, 2014 978-1-4778-4769-5

A Halloween book that rides on the rhythms of “Over in the Meadow.”

Although Halloween rhyming counting books abound, this stands out, with a text that begs to be read aloud and cartoony digital illustrations that add goofy appeal. A girl and two boys set off on Halloween night to go trick-or-treating. As the children leave the cozy, warm glow of their street, readers see a haunted house on a hill, with gravestones dotting the front yard. Climbing the twisty path to the dark estate takes time, so the story turns to the antics inside the house. “At the old haunted house in a room with no sun / lived a warty green witch and her wee witch one. ‘SPELL!’ cried the witch. ‘POOF!’ cried the one. / And they both practiced spells in the room with no sun.” The actions of the scary creatures within may seem odd, but the rhyme must go on: Cats scratch,

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“Each page turn features another visually rich diorama....” from i am a witch’s cat

goblins dust, monsters stir, and mummies mix. Eventually the three kids reach the front door and are invited in for stew, cake and brew. At first shocked by the gruesome fare, the children recover quickly and get caught up in partying with the slightly spooky but friendly menagerie.

A good choice to share with wriggly listeners, who will soon be joining in. (Picture book. 4-6)

M IS FOR MONSTER A Fantastic Creatures Alphabet Lewis, J. Patrick Illus. by Kelley, Gerald Sleeping Bear Press (32 pp.) $16.99 | Aug. 1, 2014 978-1-58536-818-1

Need an introduction to many of the creepy creatures of legends and fantasy books? Look no further—this alphabet book of monsters provides the need-to-know information.

Letter by letter, former U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate Lewis announces each creature, describing it with a brief stanza. “K is for Kraken // Of all the legends of the sea, / sailors and fishermen agree / (if they lived to tell my tale!), / I could wrestle shark or whale.” Supplementing this are a few paragraphs that provide succinct information including the monster’s origins, cultural significance and other amusing facts. Kelley’s paintings are often darkly evocative and sometimes funny, rounding out the presentation. From the ubiquitous dragon, Frankenstein (both the monster and the doctor) and werewolf to the lesser-known quetzalcoatl, roc and Xing Tian (a headless giant of Chinese legend), readers will come away with a greater appreciation for the wide range of monsters—be they of the air, water or mountain—that have spooked humans for years.

Readers who delve into this title will find their interests piqued; they’ll be ready to move on to other works that explore these menacing fantastical beings more fully.

(Informational picture book/poetry. 6-10)

THE SWEETEST WITCH AROUND

McGhee, Alison Illus. by Bliss, Harry Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) $15.99 | $10.99 e-book | Aug. 5, 2014 978-1-4424-78336 978-1-4424-7838-1 e-book

ways,” but at the sight and then taste of candy, Witchling’s reaction is “yum” instead of the prescribed “yuck.” At first the older sister is proud of the little one’s bravery, but readers will see that all Witchling’s developed is a sweet tooth. Parents can relate!

Misadventures follow as Witchling takes off on a broom to participate in Halloween trick-or-treating. Bliss infuses humor into his watercolor-and-ink scenes by including an anxious yellow cat who interjects “Holy catnip” and “Holy whiskers” in thought bubbles. When Witchling ends up with an overflowing, tooheavy hat full of candy, her older sister swoops in. But the extra weight is too much for the broom, and Witchling must dump out her great haul to the delight of the humans below. Although well-intentioned and not without charming moments, the book lacks a punch in the ending. The older witch is proud of her sister, but it is unclear for what. Taking off on her own?

The contrast between the sister’s understanding and depicted reality is not enough to maintain this 32-page joke. (Picture book. 4-7)

I AM A WITCH’S CAT

Muncaster, Harriet Illus. by Muncaster, Harriet Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.) $15.99 | Jul. 22, 2014 978-0-06-222914-4 A spunky girl who dresses up as a black cat is sure her mother is really a witch. Turn the pages to see if this is true.

Muncaster focuses her debut picture book on the daily activities that this mother and daughter enjoy together. The heroine scampers across the pages in her feline finery and justifies her belief. “I know my mom is a witch because she keeps lots of strange potion bottles in the bathroom that I am NOT allowed to touch.” Readers are treated to a page that is a photograph of sculptural miniatures, cut-paper objects and carefully placed fabric and beads. The three-dimensional quality of the scene translates convincingly to the flat page. Young readers will not see potions, however. The items are just shampoo, soap and perfume bottles. Each page turn features another visually rich diorama: the grocery-store aisle, the checkout counter, the garden and the kitchen. Although her mother seems to “grow magical herbs,” cackles with her friends and magically makes her feel better whenever she hurts herself, kids will wisely recognize that this imaginative cat is mistaken—right? On Friday nights, mom gets a babysitter to stay with her beloved cat-girl.

And what does mom do with her night out? Hmm. This heartwarming look at the close bond between mother and daughter stands out for its clever twist and stunningly detailed artwork. (Picture book. 4-7)

In the companion title to A Very Brave Witch (2006), the gutsy, green-skinned girl hopes to teach her little sister to be courageous as well.

McGhee positions the older, unnamed witch girl as narrator, reacting to events with a rather smug superiority. She wants Witchling to “study the humans and learn their mysterious 144

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BOW-WOW’S NIGHTMARE NEIGHBORS

Newgarden, Mark; Cash, Megan Montague Illus. by Newgarden, Mark; Cash, Megan Montague Neal Porter/Roaring Brook (64 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 16, 2014 978-1-59643-640-4 Bow-Wow is back (Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug, 2007), here in pursuit of mischievous ghost cats that reside next door.

The story begins with Bow-Wow sleeping soundly on his cozy teal dog bed, but a trio of bright white felines arrive on the scene. While one bites his tail, the others take his bed, leaving the poor dog to recover from the shock of what happened. Of course, he follows his attackers across the street to a gloomy estate. Here is where the real antics occur. First the pup trips on a loose floorboard that leads to a fall headfirst down a chute. When he lands, he discovers a seemingly haunted picture with moving eyes. Escaping other tail-biting cats, he searches through room after room for his bed. Each time he sees a bit of teal he is disappointed. A dress, a burglar’s bag and a toilet seat cover are found—and unexpected silly surprises result.

Throughout the quest, readers will glimpse dozens of white cats shape-shifting to better hide from or attack the dog. In this completely wordless picture book, Newgarden and Cash cue readers with various techniques taken from comics. In some scenes, a series of smaller frames builds to a dramatic turn of events, and page turns are never predictable.

Concept and execution could not be better. Readers of all ages are the winners the moment they open this book.

(Picture book. 5-10)

LULU AND THE WITCH BABY O’Connor, Jane Illus. by Sinclair, Bella Harper/HarperCollins (48 pp.) $16.99 | $3.99 paper | Jul. 22, 2014 978-0-06-230517-6 978-0-06-230516-9 paper

Newly independent readers with younger siblings will be sympathetic with Lulu Witch’s frustrations concerning Witch Baby and amused when her remedial potion and spell deliver unexpected results.

With Witch Baby around, Lulu does not get the attention she once did. Witch Baby gets all the presents, Mama Witch has no time to watch Lulu fly on her broom, and Daddy Witch is too busy to fix Lulu’s dollhouse. Everyone is focused on Witch Baby even when she does bad things. When Mama Witch asks Lulu to watch the baby while she runs an errand, Lulu sees her chance, finding a recipe for a magic brew to make her little sister disappear. At first the potion does not seem to work, but then Witch Baby is nowhere to be found. Lulu’s initial moment of |

triumph is quickly replaced by worry, then remorse. What will happen when Mama comes home? This reissue of O’Connor’s classic tale (originally illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully in 1986) has new illustrations by Sinclair with a retro feel, charming with comic details. Industrious mice scurry about many of the pages, worms crawl out of an overturned cauldron, and Mama Witch knits with freshly spun spider silk.

Share this well-designed story with those grappling with sibling issues or with a small group come October.

Truly, it is a good title to pick up anytime. (Early reader. 4-8)

DOG AND BEAR Tricks and Treats

Seeger, Laura Vaccaro Illus. by Seeger, Laura Vaccaro Neal Porter/Roaring Brook (32 pp.) $14.99 | Aug. 12, 2014 978-1-59643-632-9 Series: Dog and Bear Dog and Bear return just in time for Halloween.

Halloween is coming, and the duo goes to find costumes.

Dog is hilarious as a mustard-topped hot dog, while Bear has selected a superhero outfit. In the dressing room, Bear spots his reflection in the mirror but mistakenly thinks it is another bear that looks exactly like him. When Bear invites Dog to investigate, they come to the same wrong conclusion. The second chapter finds Dog and Bear at home on Halloween night. The doorbell rings again and again, and each time Dog enthusiastically answers the door. When the visitors ask “Trick or treat,” Dog answers, “Treat, of course” and then takes the candy. (His accumulating pile is awe-inspiring.) In the final chapter, the pals are out trick-or-treating. At the house they approach, a person dressed as a ghost answers the door. The ghost refuses to give them any treats, as they are not properly costumed. But the trick is on him, because Dog and Bear are certainly dressed up— as each other! All the elements that have made these series titles such a hit are here: a generous trim size, brightly colored illustrations executed with acrylics and ink against generous white space and easy-to-read, dialogue-driven text. It’s equally appealing as a read-aloud for the preschool set or as a well-formatted reader for children practicing their new skills.

Seeger’s tricks are readers’ treats. (Early reader/picture book. 4-7)

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“Prime real estate in iPad-app world: a simple story that’s well-told, cleverly illustrated and efficiently supported by a little nugget of real discovery at the end.” from gary ’s place

SHIVERY SHADES OF HALLOWEEN

paint, glazes and stains on wood shine with gentle charm and lend appealing texture to the various natural scenes.

Remember to share this at harvest and Halloween time for a fresh and wonderfully tame autumn tale. (Picture book.

4-7)

Siddals, Mary McKenna Illus. by Pickering, Jimmy Random House (32 pp.) $12.99 | $15.99 PLB | Aug. 26, 2014 978-0-385-36999-2 978-0-375-97181-5 PLB Anyone who thought the colors of Halloween were limited to orange and black is obviously mistaken.

“What color is Halloween?” is the question posed to readers when they open this book. The clue is in the brightly hued letters in the word “color.” Each double-page spread features a new color paired with pithy rhyming verse that dramatically describes it. “Halloween is green. // Eerie glow, / Evil grin, / Vile brew, / Clammy skin.” Before the text moves on to the next shade, a nonsensical rhyming phrase sums it up: “Slimy-grimy, queasy-peasy, snotty-rotty / Tinge of green.” Siddals is consistent with the structure, frequently creating chuckle-inducing combinations, while Pickering employs his cinematic talents to make the cast of characters friendly and appealing in a Pixar-like way for young readers. The concept title closes with an impressive spell—the result of taking the last line of each spread and listing them together. “Blaze of orange, / Stain of red, / Blot of black, / Smudge of brown, / Glint of yellow, / Wash of blue, / Shroud of gray, / Wisp of white, / Blotch of purple, / Tinge of green— // Shivery shades of HALLOWEEN!” A bright new addition to the Halloween shelves. (Picture book. 4-8)

LITTLE BOO

Wunderli, Stephen Illus. by Zeltner, Tim Henry Holt (32 pp.) $16.99 | Aug. 12, 2014 978-0-8050-9708-5 From the moment of planting, a little seed wishes for the ability to be truly frightening.

It is fall, and a small pumpkin seed smiles from the garden.

As the season passes, it attempts to scare whatever comes near it with a “Boo.” Try though the seed might, neither leaf, grub nor snowflake is impressed. But the wind is reassuring: “It’s not time for scaring….Not yet. Be patient. You’ll be scary soon enough.” With those wise words, the wind then blows “soil over the seed to keep him from the cold.” Spring arrives, and the seed awakens. Reaching for the sun, he is now a little sprout with attitude. Curly tendrils make him look a little fierce, but an old boot, shovel and watering can pay him no mind. The growth continues as he adds more leaves, blooms with orange flowers and produces small green fruit. Only when he has matured into a large pumpkin and transformed into a jack-o’-lantern does his “BOO!” get him his wished-for results. Wunderli’s new take on the life cycle of a seed works well as a metaphor for a young child’s desire to grow. Zeltner’s lush illustrations created with 146

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interactive e-books GARY’S PLACE

Walton, Rick Illus. by Terry, Will Giggle Desk $2.99 | Dec. 19, 2013 1.3; Jan. 29, 2014 Gary the gopher thinks his parents’ hole is too crowded, so when they give him permission to dig an underground home of his own, terra firma presents no limits.

He digs one hole, and then, needing furniture to fill it, he excavates a workroom in which to build furniture. He digs another hole and then another: a kitchen, a bath, a game room, a guest room, a home theater with a separate movie snack room, a gym in which to work off the movie snacks and finally a steamy hot-tub room in which to soak his tired muscles from all that digging! He enjoys what he builds, but he still isn’t satisfied. Until one day, on one last dig, his swimming pool doesn’t quite work out, and Gary learns that sometimes less is more.

Bolstered by a compelling narrator (Gary’s dad sounds like he’s from New Jersey) and spot-on sound effects, the animation shines here. Don’t miss Gary building furniture, wiggling his toes in his bubble bath, hitting the treadmill in his gym or the great flood that flushes Gary, a fish and Gary’s eclectic collection back to the surface. The simple, highlighted text makes this a solid primer for pre-readers.

Prime real estate in iPad-app world: a simple story that’s well-told, cleverly illustrated and efficiently supported by a little nugget of real discovery at the end. (Requires iOS 6 and above.) (iPad storybook app. 4-8)

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LITTLE LAMB IN AMSTERDAM Wilson, Joshua Illus. by Wilson, Donna Joshua Wilson $4.99 | May 14, 2014 1.0.1; May 26, 2014

might enjoy exploring the wordless interactive app Human Body (TinyBop, 2013).

Combine the magic of Ms. Frizzle’s bus with realistic 3-D digital imagery to get a sense of what it’s like to manipulate the images in this dynamic app. (Requires iOS 7 and above.) (iPad informational app. 8-12)

This launch of the Wilsons’ Tiny Tourists app series is an excellent first step to the world.

Here is a little slice of the Netherlands, with enough to give a taste of what more lies ahead of any traveler who cares to make the trip, presented in either English or Dutch. There is a page of history that touches on the ruling family and Dutch colonialism and little “fun facts” in a pop-up strip at the bottom— about canals, tulips, windmills and so on. These do not intrude uninvited upon the storyline of Little Lamb’s bike ride from her van Gogh–esque farm to Amsterdam. The interaction with the application is kept to a minimum; what’s there is sweet and unpredictable (touch a cloud, and it may scud; touch another cloud, and it may vaporize). The artwork of the 25 panels has sophisticated, childlike line and color that avoid busyness. The emphasis is on the windmills, tulips, wooden shoes, Dutch tiles (used as a jigsaw puzzle), houseboats and an atmospheric canal at night fronted by old gabled houses. And Little Lamb’s bicycle squeaks most adorably.

Worth its weight in florins, guilders or even Euros. (iPad storybook app. 3-7)

MY INCREDIBLE BODY Zybright Zybright $6.99 | Apr. 17, 2014 1.1.00; Apr. 17, 2014

Interactive features grab young readers’ attention, encouraging them to manipulate images, exploring the ways different systems fit together in the human body.

This multilayered informational experience explores eight systems: the nervous, digestive, respiratory, skeletal, urinary, sensory, muscular and cardiovascular systems. It combines audio, visual and interactive elements to engage readers, as they watch videos, learn about specific organs and structures, and take animated “rocket tours” through medically accurate 3-D models. Within each section there is an icon representing the whole body; tapping it allows young readers to add and take away different systems, virtually “dissecting” the body as they peel away layers. Narrated tours and videos provide accessible, friendly introductions to each system. Outstanding illustrations, excellent narration and relatively simple text keep readers engaged throughout. Navigation would be improved by a table of contents accessible from each page, icon labels and soundeffect setting controls. For a more detailed digital exploration, see DK’s multitouch enhanced iBook, The Human Body, which has more text and fewer interactive elements. Younger readers |

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Sh e l f Spa c e In this month’s Shelf Space, Kirkus talks with Chris Morrow, co-owner of Northshire Bookstores, family-owned, independent bookstores located in Manchester Center, Vermont, and Saratoga Springs, New York. The company was founded in 1976.

What are Northshire Bookstores famous for?

We are famous for the immersive experience of a good bookstore—combining ambiance, selection and service to give our guests a unique experience—and the owner’s charm, good looks and erudition.

If Northshire Bookstores were a religion, what would be your icons and tenets?

We would be AgnostioBuddhistBibliotarians. We pray to the gods of stories and aspire to the perfection of putting the right book in the right hands at the right time. We try to be present and kind. We have clearly taken vows of poverty in the name of the higher good.

Which was your favorite all-time event and why?

Neil Gaiman—because it was the biggest, it was for a great book, his fans are so passionate, it was in Saratoga Springs before we even opened, and we had the best question ever: “What do you keep in your hair?”

Can you give us two or three highlights of Northshire’s history?

I consider the highlights to be those moments when we looked at the business and asked ourselves, “Do we move forward and expand and take on more risk, or do we hunker down and/or contract?” In 1985, we chose to buy a building and expand the store; in 2003, we built a big addition onto the store and doubled its size; and in 2013, we opened a second store in Saratoga Springs. All of these moves involved overcoming fear, taking on debt and really tapping into the core reasons we are in this crazy business in the first place—to make the magic of art, information and entertainment available in a way that is uplifting and rooted in community.

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What is your favorite spot or section of the store?

The kids’ section because it is so much fun to see children get excited about books, to see their imaginations run wild. About a third of both our stores are devoted to children—we believe strongly in the power of getting kids to be lifelong readers.

According to the American Booksellers Association, indie bookstores have increased their numbers in the past five years. What gives your bookstore and indies in general their staying power?

Well, I think we offer something valuable. As retail, and business in general, becomes more corporate and homogenous, people look for environments and experiences that are unique, enriching and curated. Independent bookstores serve that need.

We are also very firmly rooted in our communities in ways corporate and online stores cannot be, and people appreciate that aspect of who we are.

What are some of the bookstore’s top handsells?

Of all time? We have been blessed to have some truly amazing booksellers here over the years. These three titles stand out because they show the passion someone can bring to the bookstore and the impact they can have: Washington’s Crossing by David Hackett Fischer (1,685 sold); Ursula, Under by Ingrid Hill (1,596 sold); and Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo (1,501 sold). These were almost all sold one on one, bookseller to guest, in a conversation.

Chris Morrow runs the Northshire Bookstores in Manchester Center, Vermont, and Saratoga Springs, New York. He received a B.A. in environmental studies from Oberlin College and an M.S. in natural resources from the University of Michigan. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand and a trainer of Peace Corps volunteers in Nepal. Chris has been involved in the bookstore full-time since 1998. He lives with his wife, two children, many sheep and chickens, and too many house pets in Weston, Vermont.

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indie Nothing But The Truth So Help Me God 73 Women on Life’s Transitions

These titles earned the Kirkus Star: Masters’ Mysterium by R.R. Reynolds.................................... 163

A Band of Women Nothing But The Truth, LLC (310 pp.) $15.95 paper | $4.99 e-book | May 3, 2014 978-0-9883754-6-8

Something Greater than Artifice by Mike Speegle.......... 165

Something Greater than Artifice

Speegle, Mike &yet (478 pp.) $4.95 e-book Apr. 20, 2014

Nelson and Batey curate superior snippets of women’s creative nonfiction.

In this follow-up to Nothing But the Truth So Help Me God: 51 Women Reveal the Power of Positive Female Connection (2012), members of the online community A Band of Women share anecdotes of dealing with life’s inevitable transitions. Divided into six overlapping sections, these three- to five-page essays range in topic from the harrowing (divorce and alcoholism) to the uplifting (learning to swim at 40; expecting twins after infertility treatment). In the collection’s opener, “Love You Hard,” one of the strongest and most affecting pieces, Abby Maslin talks about her husband’s traumatic brain injury: “Life Part II is all about relearning the basics,” she writes. Heather Kristin’s tale of finding her father homeless on the streets of New York City recalls Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle (2005), while Kelly Corrigan and Christine Beirne offer accounts of approaching breast cancer with grace and humor.

Some authors mistakenly attempt to cover too much ground— fitting a whole life’s misadventures into a few pages—whereas the most successful zoom in on a specific moment but still draw larger lessons. For example, Vanessa Hua reconnects with her Chinese heritage when she cares for her Parkinson’s-afflicted father, and a semester spent in Israel teaches Abby Ellin that “there are no geographical cures.” Likewise, an ordinary shopping trip reminds Leslie Lagerstrom of the complications of raising a transgender child, and 9/11 widow Christie Coombs plunges back into grief when she receives a call identifying her husband’s elbow. More ruthless editing could eliminate redundant or corny material (one too many empty nest meditations, plus some Chicken Soup for the Soul–style sentimentality), but on the whole, this is a wonderful introduction to contemporary autobiographical writing. Mini-bios reveal that many of these essays are from memoirs in progress or by writers with blogs or magazine columns. Every reader will discover experiences that resonate and new authors to love.

Though repetitive or clichéd in places, this collection’s standouts far outweigh its missteps.

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Diversity in Self-Publishing IndieReader, a blog on self-publishing, recently wrote about an article by Daniel José Older about diversity, or the lack of it, in the primarily white world of legacy publishing. His BuzzFeed.com article “Diversity Is Not Enough: Race, Power, Publishing” prompted IndieReader to ask me how much diversity there is in self-publishing, and I want to share my response with our readers: Kirkus Indie reviewed thousands of books in 2013, and, while we don’t have the data to compare the representation of minorities within self-publishing to traditional publishing, we were happy to see exciting, varied work from, to give a partial list, African-American, Asian-American, international, Latina, LGBT, Muslim and women writers.

Indie editors chose dozens of these titles for the Kirkus Best Indie Books of 2013 list, including Mary Sisney’s A Redlight Woman Who Knows How to Sing the Blues, a hilarious account of a black woman’s career in white-dominated academia; Liz Castro’s What’s Up with Catalonia?, a collection of articles that advocated for Catalan independence; Pakistani-born British author Nadeem Aslam’s portrayal of the war in Afghanistan in The Blind Man’s Garden; Johnny Townsend’s The Mormon Victorian Society, a novel about gay Mormons trying to reconcile their orientation with their faith; and Qasim Rashid’s The Wrong Kind Of Muslim, which Kirkus described as a “harrowing yet hopeful story of modern-day religious persecution.”

I think the wide-ranging diversity is, in part, what energizes self-publishing as well as the Kirkus Indie editors.

We’d love to see more in 2014.

– Karen Schechner Karen Schechner is the senior Indie editor at Kirkus Reviews.

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Be Strong, Be Tough, be Smart Alfredano, Donato; Star, Giada CreateSpace (124 pp.) $12.25 paper | $9.99 e-book Apr. 26, 2014 978-1-4954-0439-9

A father’s guide to raising an autistic child.

In this debut—part memoir, part self-help manual—Alfredano chronicles his parenting journey. When his son Denny was first diagnosed with autism in the mid-1980s, there wasn’t very much information available about the disorder, so Alfredano became adept at dealing with his son intuitively. Early on, he found a successful approach: turn Denny’s “defenses” into resources. Like many autistic children, Denny relished routines, so Alfredano tried to make them work to their advantage. For example, Denny loved nature, so one of the author’s first breakthroughs was to regularly take his son for a walk, pointing out the exact same landmarks each time. Learning these individual patterns was crucial to his son’s success, but raising an autistic child wasn’t easy, and the author is honest about the patience and fortitude that was required. Denny went on to do remarkably well academically, even earning a doctorate, but his father is realistic about his son’s limitations: “Denny had triumphed over essentially all of his autistic behaviors and excelled communicatively,” he writes.

“And yet at twenty-five years old, he still seemed to have no genuine interest in dating, in nurturing long-term friendships or relationships, or in going out to social gatherings.” A long, final chapter by Denny’s sister, Giada Star, is welcome, as it adds a unique, personal element and provides a very different take on Denny. There are moments when Alfredano’s tone is a bit preachy, as when he repeatedly reminds readers that their children should be their first priority. However, his overall approach is highly engaging and sympathetic. As he shares his story, he’s very open about his own failings, such as focusing too much on Denny’s interests at the expense of other academic topics. His conclusion—that Denny’s success must be taken in stride—gives the book a very human touch.

A thoughtful, helpful memoir about the challenges and pleasures of living with an autistic child.

The Company You Keep Leading and Managing in the Era of Shareholder Value Anonymous CreateSpace (106 pp.) $9.95 paper | $9.99 e-book May 13, 2014 978-1-4960-1396-5

A concise handbook to executive leadership that challenges prevailing wisdom.

The anonymous author, a retired business executive, begins by pitting this work against the deluge of executive management manuals that have recently flooded the market: “Simply stated, I’ve decided that I don’t believe a good bit of what these gurus have written.” The author writes that the more popular management theories are insufficiently grounded in empirical research and real executive experience, leading to impractical counsel. This book offers a celebration of executive pragmatism, consistently recommending that readers replace airy generalities and indeterminate theories with hard metrics and specifics. Much of it is devoted to immediately actionable advice useful to any businessman; for example, the author advises that each company department should clarify its objectives and quantify its progress toward them. However, the most enthralling sections go beyond such advice and diagnose companies’ underlying maladies. At one point, the author offers an approach to avoiding superfluous meetings, including the delicious suggestion that some executives intentionally overschedule themselves to demonstrate their busyness and indispensability. The author also provides a rollicking takedown of grand attempts to rewrite a company’s “culture.” The book is speckled with lively, refreshingly irreverent observations: “The conference room is neither a locker room nor a foxhole, and executives who confuse themselves about that always look silly—the obligatory cheers and applause notwithstanding.” The core message is that unthinking attachment to idealized notions can frustrate attempts to achieve good things. Instead, the author recommends, people should “embrace less than optimal solutions to keep everyone committed, and to develop talent.”

A book of wryly humorous business insights filled with practical guidance.

A Bullet to Dream Of Bartley, Christopher Peach Publishing (298 pp.) $12.99 paper | $5.99 e-book May 6, 2014 978-1-78036-236-6

In Bartley’s (Unto the Daughters of Men, 2014, etc.) sixth historical noir, bank robber Ross Duncan tries to find a killer in Kansas City, Missouri, amid the fraying underworld peace.

In 1934, in an idyllic farmhouse outside of Kansas City, Duncan and friends discuss the finer points of guns, eat a home-cooked meal made by one man’s wife and then execute a gangster tied up under a tree. Skilled in guns and robbery, they may be hard men, but Duncan and company—including his partners Gordon and Gnennett, late of the Polish military—are in town to solve the murder of an old friend. Unfortunately, though Boss Tom Pendergast may still be nominally in charge of Kansas City, with the recent Kansas City Massacre and the assassination of Pendergast’s underworld lieutenant John Lazia, Kansas City has been thrown into disarray. So when Duncan agrees to help a mysterious Valencian singer named Rachel Hernando with her gangster problems and is suddenly getting shot at on the street, it’s unclear who is gunning for Duncan and why. Bartley confidently continues the Duncan series with classic noir touches—as with Bogart’s turn as Marlowe, Duncan seems to get a lot of information from helpful women—and a poetically crisp delivery: When Rachel demurs from Duncan’s compliment of “tough” by saying that she just hides it well, Duncan notes, “That’s what being tough means.” While Bartley writes an entertaining mystery-thriller, there’s also an interesting underlying theme about the loyalty of men: Pendergast’s world is falling apart because it lacks the loyalty that Duncan and his friends have for each other—the loyalty that drives Duncan to seek his own brand of justice. In order to make this historical world—especially the criminal landscape—clear to the reader, Duncan sometimes delivers informative asides on, for instance, the Kansas City Massacre or the Jacobean revival house they’re holed up in; while these asides are fluidly and usually clearly written, readers may wonder at the breadth of Duncan’s information.

Another strong book about Duncan’s attempts to do the right thing in an uncertain world.

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“...a revealing, immersive look at death through a child’s eyes....” from teapots, buttons, memi and me

Teapots, Buttons, Memi and Me Bauer, Lisa Rose CreateSpace (60 pp.) $6.99 paper | $4.99 e-book Mar. 21, 2014 978-1-4952-0276-6

In this middle-grade novel, 12-yearold Sophia heads to the shore with her family only to find that things are different than they were before.

When Sophia arrives at her grandparents’ beach cottage for the first weekend of summer, as she does every year, she is excited but nervous: Would this summer be just like all the others? Memi has passed away, and this is the first time that she will have a beach retreat alone with Poppy. Her first afternoon at the cottage, Poppy gives Sophia trinkets from Memi—a china teapot, a calico apron, a handful of sea glass—and she is lost in the memory of her grandmother and what these little pieces meant to her. That night, when she sees Poppy laughing and talking with Tessie, Memi’s best friend, she is shocked: How could they forget about Memi so quickly? Why is Poppy smiling with another woman? Sophia would never forget about Memi. She and her summer friend, Thomas, talk about it, and Sophia continues to not only remember Memi, but to stay angry at Poppy. As Sophia’s weekend progresses, she must learn that honoring Memi and moving on are very much the same. Bauer’s touching debut may be enjoyed by all ages. While the prose is simple (but not too simple!) for younger readers, adult eyes will not tire of its rhythm, expressive language and descriptions of the seashore. Its pacing is also excellent—a difficult feat in a short book, but Bauer skillfully holds interest with a balance of journey and realization. Notes by Memi, included in the book, add a personal angle to Sophia’s grief. The work is a revealing, immersive look at death through a child’s eyes: It is easy, for a child, to think that moving on is forgetting about a person who has passed on. Adults know that this is not so.

Will resonate with kids who have lost grandparents or other family members.

Mixed Blessings A Guide to Multicultural and Multiethnic Relationships Berlin, Rhoda; Cannon, Harriet Mixed Blessings LLC (210 pp.) $19.95 paper | $9.99 e-book Nov. 20, 2013 978-0-9895229-0-8

Is love really all you need?

This book mines the complexity of romantic relationships that are a union of cultures as well as individuals, offering guidance and applied examples.Berlin and Cannon are marriage and family therapists who wrote this book, their first, as a reflection of issues that 152

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continually arose during their counseling sessions. “We’ve had countless conversations about how multiculturalism affects us and our clients,” writes Berlin. “We train other professionals on this topic, too, so it feels natural to extend these conversations into book form.” The guide, which Berlin explains was “written from the gut,” begins with the authors’ own stories of their multicultural backgrounds and comprises three main sections: an introduction to the terms and concepts that will be used, including collectivist versus individualist paradigms, acculturation, ethnocentricity and code switching; fictionalized first-person narratives of twelve different couples that offer illustrations of these concepts; and a resource section with a glossary, worksheets and suggested reading list. The material is enlightening, effectively outlining how varied cultural perspectives affect worldviews. The authors argue that many of us aren’t aware of how our cultural responses may differ from those of our loved ones, inspiring aha moments from readers who may not even think of their primary relationship as a multicultural one. The writing is intelligent but not academic, ensuring that the book will be as accessible to clients as to therapists, and some of the narratives are riveting. Particularly poignant is the story of Angie, from Chicago, and Francois, from Haiti. Angie grappled with life as a strong and modern woman in a traditionally patriarchal culture; Francois, with being black in America without being African-American. Berlin and Cannon rely heavily on these personal anecdotes, and they form the bulk of the book, reflecting their assertion that they are “clinicians, not researchers.” This statement may serve, too, as a disclaimer for those who might question some of their definitions: Some readers, for instance, may raise an eyebrow at the idea of individualist cultures being more dependent on governmental structure than collectivist ones. But, ideologically pure or not, their concepts ring true through the examples, giving readers much to think about and apply to their own real-world experiences.

Required reading for anyone who counsels or is part of a multicultural relationship.

The Artificial Intelligence Revolution Will Artificial Intelligence Serve Us Or Replace Us? Del Monte, Louis A. Louis A. Del Monte (210 pp.) $14.95 paper | $4.95 e-book Apr. 17, 2014 978-0-9881718-2-4

Blending hard science and sci-fi, physicist Del Monte (How to Time Travel, 2013, etc.) warns of the implications of strong artificial intelligence machines.

AI is hardly some far-off invention. We are surrounded by smart technology, from phones to bombs; medical innovations are already turning us into human-machine cyborgs; and computing performance doubles every 18 months. At this rate, as scientists such as Ray Kurzweil have predicted, 2029 may mark

the tipping point, or singularity, when machines surpass humans in intelligence. Del Monte offers an accessible history and a realistic future trajectory of SAMs. Automata were imagined by ancient Egyptians and Greeks, and Frankenstein’s monster is but one early example of literature’s preoccupation with intelligent artificial beings, a trend that also included Isaac Asimov’s robot fiction. In 1956, a Dartmouth conference made AI a valid academic subject, soon funded by the Department of Defense.

Although machines lack empathy and cannot solve problems based on experiential learning, “affective computing” attempts to teach computers to recognize human emotion through both subjective (gestures and facial features) and objective (blood flow and skin conductivity) means. Still, questions remain: Will SAMs ever exhibit self-awareness? If so, should they be considered a distinct life form with “machine rights” similar to human rights? Del Monte presents three likely scenarios for the future ethics of human-machine interaction: In the worst case, SAMs will exterminate humanity; in the best case, humans will continue to control machines via computers; in the third scenario, somewhere in between those two extremes, humans and cyborgs will cooperate—and possibly intermarry. The book’s well-structured arguments, glossary and lucid prose make it perfectly suited to laymen. Del Monte’s doommongering can seem overblown in places, though: “Time is short because the singularity is approaching with the stealth and agility of a leopard stalking a lamb.” He also tends to repeat his purpose for writing—i.e., “I am ringing the alarm in this book”—and unnecessarily recapitulates his conclusions after each chapter. Moreover, long quotes from other authors overcrowd the author’s own analysis.

A clearly argued—if sometimes overstated—prophecy about the rise of robots and cyborgs.

BRIGHT LINES A Life in Search of the Beautiful Ordinary Devin, Jane CreateSpace (348 pp.) $12.99 paper | $3.99 e-book May 3, 2014 978-1-4949-7410-7

Devin (Elephant Girl, 2011) offers a story of a kindhearted man who struggles throughout his life with the weaknesses and selfishness of others.

This picaresque tale follows Easton McNeil, a short, babyfaced man who’s missing half his left leg. Readers first meet him as a child, bouncing between foster homes after he was taken from his parents due to their addictions and criminal pursuits.

Easton overcomes a series of early setbacks, including the loss of his leg, before he graduates college and purchases a small home with money he made by selling a website he created. He strikes up a friendship with a neighborhood girl named Liberty whose family struggles parallel his own. Easton, who has an unexpectedly strong paternal instinct, becomes a kind of surrogate father

to the girl even though her manipulative mother tries to poison their relationship. Later, Easton works for a well-known radio shock jock, takes an extended, meandering road trip from coast to coast, and begins his first true romance in his late 30s.

The plot is episodic to a fault, but readers will remain engaged thanks to Devin’s deft characterizations. She displays a remarkable knack for developing pathos in even minor characters— and Easton’s curiosity and wanderlust bring him into contact with many. Easton himself proves to be more complex and less saccharine-sweet than he initially appears. The novel’s greatest accomplishment, however, is the way it balances sentimentality with misanthropy: Most of the characters prove to be duplicitous, base and almost unbearably selfish, but Devin’s approach doesn’t wallow in their faults, instead focusing on small, potent moments of connection and redemption. At times, the novel risks becoming overly sentimental, particularly during the late romance, but it never does so thanks to the author’s refusal to take the story down obvious paths. She develops characters that readers will care about and places them in a fantastical story that feels entirely real and possible.

A strong first novel from an author with potential.

The Conspiracies of Dreams

Didner, Sandra Biber Inkwater Press (210 pp.) $12.95 paper | $2.99 e-book Jun. 18, 2012 978-1-59299-784-8 The millennia-old rift between Arabs and Israelis serves as the backdrop for this witty, gentle story of an Egyptian spy and an Israeli woman.

Ishmael al Mohammed’s official duties become complicated when he falls in love with the woman he’s been ordered to follow. When the suave, English-educated Ishmael meets the graceful Rebecca Silverman during a casting call, he doesn’t know what to expect. Eventually, he attempts to fake an Israeli heritage in order to woo her, and an intense romance blooms.

Faced with the vicissitudes of war—including the violent deaths of friends and family members—the two part ways, leaving unrequited emotions and questions in their wakes. After years of separation and silence, chance offers them a bittersweet reunion, as Ishmael helps a disoriented Rebecca flee the scene of a suicide bombing. This story, spread out over decades, effectively sketches the thoughts and trials of all its characters and provides insights into the social, historical and psychological forces that shape their lives. It also skillfully weaves a fabric of multiple voices; its narrators include beings as supernatural as Diana, the Goddess of the Moon, and as worldly as David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister. Didner’s creative, and surprisingly felicitous, use of history not only includes these personas, but also verbatim quotations from meetings pertaining to the Protocol of Sevres, a pact formed between the United Kingdom, Israel and France in 1956. Although nationalism, race |

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and religion fracture the characters’ relationships, a common thread of sympathy, spurred by tragedy, redeems their suffering and offers the prospect of hope.

A serious, imaginative work of moral fiction and a thoughtful portrayal of lives touched by ongoing conflict.

The Cutting Room Dudley, Stewart Manuscript Jul. 1, 2014

In Dudley’s debut novel, a film-festival volunteer chauffeurs, advises and connects with a Hollywood star–turned– documentary filmmaker.

Jeff Whittaker, a lately unemployed 56-year-old man, used to advise the Ottawan government and corporate bigwigs in communications strategy. Now cobbling together freelance opportunities, Whittaker agrees to volunteer for a Canadian documentary film festival. He’s tapped to drive around 56-year-old Hollywood actress Margaret Torrance, who’s lately been getting few new roles. After she makes a few missteps dealing with questions about her controversial documentary Red Carpet (about sexism in the movie industry), she takes Whittaker up on his offer of help. Both have emotional baggage, and Whittaker hides a secret that could push Torrance away—yet they also share an undeniable attraction. As they come under the harsh glare of the media spotlight, they face challenges in trusting each other. In this talky, thoughtful novel, Dudley offers a grown-up romance between two people who share a love for doing good work. Drawing on his own background in the film and video industry, he anchors Whittaker and Torrance’s growing relationship in practical details of screenings, dinner parties and interviews. Whittaker is an interesting departure from the macho hero, as he’s an introvert who champions Torrance despite his dislike of confrontation.

Given her history, Torrance’s attraction to Whittaker’s gentleness makes sense: “It’s not just that you know what to say… it’s that you understand. I never thought empathy could be so sexy.” All the talking, navel-gazing and epiphanies, however, bog down the story somewhat; during a romantic evening, for example, the two main characters sometimes sound more like seminar attendees than soon-to-be lovers. Luckily, Stewart also provides welcome humor and self-awareness: When Whittaker quotes a Latin phrase, corruptio optimi pessima, and translates it (“The corruption of what is best is the worst tragedy”), Torrance says what readers may be thinking: “How romantic.” Whittaker then comes back with: “Then there’s corruptio optimi pajama, which means, ‘You look hot in my pajamas.’ ” A thoughtful exploration of honor, trust and middleage romance.

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THE MISANTHROPES The True and Accurate Account of a Fictional History Dulack, Tom CreateSpace (296 pp.) $14.95 paper | $6.99 e-book Mar. 14, 2014 978-1-4927-5897-6

A novel written in screenplay format about the fall and redemption of a cantankerous college professor.

Tom Bowman has a unique approach to teaching. He believes in bringing the classics to life, even if that means occasionally badgering or otherwise intimidating his undergraduates at Long Island University, a college in an ethnically mixed neighborhood of Brooklyn in the 1970s. In fact, Bowman’s passion is what gets him into trouble. In an attempt to imbue Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” with some graspable drama for his students, Bowman snips a lock of hair from a frightened student. The unconventional move lands him in hot water; instead of defending himself at a department meeting drawn in broad farcical strokes, Bowman chooses instead to tender his resignation. It’s the beginning of a sea change for Bowman, one that soon finds him sleeping with one of his former students. While Bowman’s fall is rather standard, Dulack (In Love with Shakespeare, 2001, etc.) reserves most of the high jinks for the second act: Bowman’s redemption. The twists and turns delight, and a happy ending feels all but assured. Dulack’s main conceit here is that literature has suffered under the mollifying dominance of film, a medium he defines as lacking “continuing life.” Somehow, this is supposed to justify the decision to present this novel as a screenplay, but despite some clever rhetorical gymnastics in the author’s preface—“Suddenly, ironically, it seemed that films of all unlikely things might ultimately be the salvation of literary writing in the 21st century”—Dulack’s claim fails to convince. Still, Dulack is an old hand at playwriting, though he insists on stark divisions between the related forms, and his expertise shines here in terms of pacing and character development. Readers will feel in good hands when it comes to the principal cast, less so when it comes to the supporting characters.

An unconventional novel tailor-made for its unconventional protagonist.

“Formaro emphasizes the value of family and true friendship (as well as the devotion of a good dog) in healing a broken heart.” from the broken heart diet

COLLECTIVE MARKS

Feldman, Nancy N. CreateSpace (404 pp.) $16.95 paper | $9.99 e-book Apr. 1, 2014 978-1-4793-1843-8 Learning to train horses in the precise, artful discipline of dressage, a troubled teenage boy gains self-understanding.

When Michael Ross, who has just aged out of foster care, hears his social worker’s suggestion that he work for a horse trainer, he agrees despite the lack of pay; already in trouble with the law, he has few options. It soon becomes clear that Michael—resentful, balky and unaware of his limitations—needs more training than the horses. He yearns to ride with accomplished ease but struggles to understand distant, sarcastic dressage trainer Erik Sarmento.

Sarmento grew up with an abusive father and is now a hard, isolated man devoid of sentiment, but as a teacher, he applies a precise toughness; fellow apprentice Peter explains to Michael, “Me, he tries to make me lose my temper, because he knows damned well it’s hard for me to do it. He makes you control yours because that’s what’s hardest for you.” With difficulties and setbacks, Michael begins to understand that training is about understanding and changing one’s own nature, not the horse’s. In her debut novel, Feldman—a trainer and rider for more than 60 years and also a psychiatric social worker—makes excellent use of her background to anchor this psychologically astute coming-of-age story in the equestrian world. Sarmento’s training philosophy, which echoes that of the great horseman William Steinkraus, purports that horses are, of course, much stronger and faster than humans, but are, despite their strength, yielding and forgiving. This view, the reader discovers through fascinating scenes of dressage training, is much more complicated, demanding and deeply satisfying than Michael’s self-serving fantasies of power over horses. Seeing Michael come to this understanding is quietly thrilling.

Honest, tough-minded and beautiful.

RUN YOUR BODY LIKE A BUSINESS A Business Approach for a Better Health Strategy Foard, Jay CVFPublishing Inc (232 pp.) $13.95 paper | $7.99 e-book Mar. 26, 2014 978-0-9898743-0-4

This unique guide is cleverly constructed to explain the operation and health of the human body in business terms.

Instead of offering the typical prescription for healthy eating, exercise and stress reduction, as so many books do, debut author Foard compares the body to a large corporation. He chose to explain it this way as he was diagnosed with a chronic,

irreversible health condition, and he wanted to use his knowledge of biology, combined with his experience as a business consultant, to learn as much as possible about how the body works so he could possibly beat the disease. Using the metaphor of the body as a business, Foard ingeniously describes the body’s various functions: “Within our body are the standard systems we find in any business.” The digestive tract becomes a “disassembly plant,” the immune system is the body’s “security,” and the intestines and colon are a “delicate nutrient extraction system.” The author covers how to take control and become “the CEO of our Body.” Foard criticizes the “Western diet,” noting that “consumers today are willing to compromise health for convenience.” He recommends reducing reliance on processed foods, cooking at home and avoiding artificial ingredients, and he includes a discussion of probiotics, cautioning that “we have to be careful of the marketing messages when making buying decisions based on buzzwords.” The guide proposes a “Strategic Framework for Health,” which highlights the need to be proactive about the health of the body. Readers may find some of his recommendations extreme; for example, he advocates doing a “decomposition analysis”—analyzing the nutritional content of every food consumed over a period of time. Still, he bases much of his advice on research that he scrupulously documents.

Comprehensive, cogent and smartly packaged; should have great appeal to those with a real interest in better body management.

The Broken Heart Diet Formaro, Tom Tramonto Press (296 pp.) $16.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Jun. 1, 2014 978-0-9842593-1-1

With paranormal elements, Formaro’s (co-author Alfonso, the Christmas Pumpkin, 2009) debut romance is told from the unusual point of view of the spurned male.

Dante Palermo is on top of the world.

Vacationing in Las Vegas, he’s about to propose to his girlfriend, Abby, in the town where they met. When they return to San Francisco, he’ll sign the papers to open his first restaurant in North Beach. But things don’t go as planned. First, Abby breaks up with him before he can pop the question. Then, after returning brokenhearted to San Francisco, he learns that his prospective business partner has fled the country ahead of investigations by the FBI. With the help of friends Bird, Charly, business partner John Sierra and whiskey, Dante stays afloat—just barely. His new restaurant, Pane Rubato, hovers on the brink of success, seemingly sabotaged by John’s now-widow and his own ennui. For every step forward, Dante takes two back. His true savior turns out to be his beloved grandmother Nonna Isabella. She may have died years ago, but her ghost still pays him late night visits when his despair overwhelms him. Her counsel, cooking and assurances that he can now cure broken hearts not only bring him success, but help him discover his true love. Dante’s vulnerability will make readers |

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Interviews & Profiles

Alexandra Koumoundouros & Valerie Aiello Keeping it real is harder than it seems

By Nick A. Zaino III Photo courtesy Aiello & Koumoundouros

(L-R) Valerie Aiello and Alexandra Koumoundouros

Many indie authors dream of turning their small businesses into lucrative cottage industries. In that respect, Alexandra Koumoundouros and Valerie Aiello are no different. They’d like for their musicminded self-help workbook, No One Gives a Shit About Your Band, to make the New York Times bestseller list, to be on everyone’s coffee table and to launch a successful series of No One Gives a Shit About… books. And they are taking a uniquely challenging road to get there.

Koumoundouros and Aiello published the book themselves, under their This Town Press imprint, and never thought about hiring an agent or a publicist. And they take an extreme hands-on approach to distribution, reaching out to individual stores by email and often in person. “We want to do it all ourselves, and we want to walk into stores, the stores that we want the book in, and we want to show them the book and talk to them,” says Koumoundouros. “Every store we’ve walked into, first they see the cover, they start laughing, they flip through the 156

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pages, they think it’s hilarious, they read a couple of pages, and the next thing you know, they’re taking the book in.”

The book takes musicians through a series of worksheets and informational sections to help them treat the project as a small business. It asks them to set goals large and small—release an album this year, use Twitter and Facebook five times a week, and play a gig a week, for example. It’s a fitting place to start for the authors, who met in 2004 when they both started work at a small record company in Los Angeles, Aiello as a graphic designer and Koumoundouros as a bookkeeper. They clicked immediately, eventually working on projects for the label and thinking they would create their own venture someday. They thought that might be a record label, but instead, they wound up creating This Town Press, which sells their books and line of T-shirts, and yes, their website includes a submission form for bands to be on their label.

At press time, the book was in four stores in Los Angeles and six in Austin (where the pair live), with plans to spread to Seattle, Portland, Chicago and New York. The authors have been reaching out to friends in other cities to find the best nonbookstore locations at which to sell the book. “You can be like, ‘Hey, help me out, you know this city, how could I get into this city?’ Being smart with what you have,” says Koumoundouros. The pair decided to byline the book as “anonymous” rather than with their own names because “that was part of the comedy, part of the bigger scheme of the joke” of writing “190 pages of comedy self-help.” If no one is going to give a shit about your band, why should they give a shit who wrote the book about it?

At a time when the industry has already adapted to e-books, Koumoundouros and Aiello are focusing

on hard copies. The book is available digitally, but it is a workbook, after all. And to its creators, the book felt like it had to be something that could be picked up and seen and also given to others. “We kind of know that this is probably more a gift from a girlfriend or a mom, and bands might secretly go and buy it, but they’ll never admit that they need it,” says Aiello. “It kind of felt like more of a physical copy than a download.”

There are things the authors could have done to make it easier on themselves—established bookhawking methods that could have been followed.

But none of that sat well with what they wanted to accomplish. “We don’t want to hire the book marketing agency that knows how to sell a best-seller,” says Aiello. “We don’t care about being in bookstores, necessarily. That’s great and really supercool, but we want to be in record stores and instrumentselling stores, just different places like a Hot Topic or an Urban Outfitters. We want to reach a different audience than somebody who’s going in the ‘selfhelp’ section.”

“We think we can still be successful and kind of reinvent a new way,” adds Koumoundouros. “Not necessarily change the wheel, just make it cooler.”

They don’t want to be in huge retailers that might make them change their book title or their dark sense of humor, so they are working on smaller, hipper places. That might limit how quickly they can grow, but it preserves the spirit of their product and its mission. “It may not be the fast track to millions, and that’s OK, but what it does is it keeps the concept intact,” says Koumoundouros. “It keeps the brand intact and what we’re trying to accomplish intact. We want to maintain some integrity in what we’re doing. Not only do we stand behind the advice we’re giving, but we’re standing behind the comedy, too. And we’re standing behind the title, No One Gives a Shit About Your Band. It means something, and we don’t want to sacrifice that just to be on the shelves at Wal-Mart.”

That should help when it comes time to sell the other books in the series. They expect to release their next title, No One Gives a Shit About Your Small Business, sometime in August and have six more ideas in the pipeline. And they are working on all of this while learning how to sell the first book. “We’re trying to do things that are going to happen in sequence

with the book,” says Koumoundouros. “There’s going to be offshoot projects, so we’re trying to work on all of them at the same time while we’re trying to get this book to be a New York Times best-seller.”

They follow all of their own non–band-specific advice to promote their book and approach the operation in much the same way they would counsel their readers to organize their music careers, as a small business. “We are selling this book like it was a band, because that’s all we know,” says Aiello. “We have the same growing pains that a band might have, where we’re trying to create all these creative products and market them at the same time.”

“Yeah, we’re totally following our own advice and working on it,” adds Koumoundouros, “because no one’s going to give a shit about our book if we don’t give a shit about it.”

Nick A. Zaino III is a freelance writer based in Boston covering the arts for Kirkus Reviews, The Boston Globe, BDCWire.com, TheSpitTake.com and other publications.

No One Gives a Shit About Your Band Anonymous This Town Press (194 pp.) $29.99 | Jan. 1, 2014 978-0-991338-80-1

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“[Irish’s] diction is unpretentious but never simplistic, and her voice is a clarion call.” from the impressions / expressions of the lion queen

ache for him, although there are instances when his boneheaded behavior incites a different response. The unique point of view elevates this novel; many readers of romance will be accustomed to cursing the male character, not sympathizing with him. However, the novel is far more than a romance, as it chronicles Dante’s business struggles and the meteoric rise that feels empty to him.

Formaro emphasizes the value of family and true friendship (as well as the devotion of a good dog) in healing a broken heart. The only times the novel falters are in its moments of slapstick; the climactic scene in Rome also suffers from the ridiculous scheming of Dante and his relatives to arrange a meeting with what could be true love.

A memorable, gratifying glimpse into the life of a romantic restaurateur.

Reichold Street

Herron, Ronald L. CreateSpace (292 pp.) $12.99 paper | $3.99 e-book Mar. 28, 2012 978-1-4751-0623-7 A loosely woven series of coming-ofage tales set in 1960s America.

In this collection, Herron (One Way Street, 2014, etc.) tackles big themes: mental illness, war, loyalty, abuse, friendship and family. Readers might easily get lost in such broad terrain, but Herron keeps them tethered by a unifying question: How are memories constrained by perspective? In his foreword, Herron describes the book as both anthology and novel; chapters share characters and settings but offer original details and points of view. The first is in small-town America, 1962. Paul, a teenager, watches a new family move into the house across from his on Reichold Street, and he confronts Albert, who looks like a bully, for the first time. Over the next few years, Albert’s stepfather, Carl, terrorizes his family and the neighborhood with drunken abuse as Paul tries to help and Albert rebels. Readers learn to hate Carl while losing hope for Albert. Subsequent chapters, told by Carl, Albert, their family members and other kids on Reichold Street, add layers to these events. Carl’s chapter, seen through his confusion, medication and booze, offers a frightening yet compassionate view of mental illness and its stigma, especially in the ’60s. These opening chapters are the strongest in the collection; the characters are bold, the plot twists surprising, and the point—that we never fully know a person or his or her story—heartbreakingly clear. The middle sections, related by minor characters, add little to the overall narrative; some read as filler, although one, told by a Reichold Street kid lured by organized crime, makes a fine stand-alone story. Toward the end of the book, Herron returns to Albert, his two tours in Vietnam and the pall of that war over American youth. Through flashbacks to Reichold Street, readers further witness Carl’s lifelong, devastating influence on Albert; an additional chapter from Carl’s perspective would nicely round out the book.

Skillfully written and emotionally charged.

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The Impressions / Expressions of the Lion Queen Irish, Sylvia H. AuthorHouseUK (120 pp.) $20.36 paper | Nov. 2, 2011 978-1-4567-8721-9

The moving self-portrait of a young artist coming into her own, both spiritually and poetically.

Irish was born in the British West Indies but came of age in London. Like the many strangers in strange lands before her, Irish often found the immigrant’s experience challenging. English schooling felt foreign, and maturity didn’t necessarily bring with it certainty as to what her future would hold. But all that changed in her 20s, when two new influences began to give shape to her life: First, the religion of Rastafarianism—taught to her by two new friends—offered a spiritual foundation, and then poetry gave her a voice. The present volume features many poems written during this period; thus, it is a record of Irish’s development that demonstrates the poet’s growth both as an author and as a young woman. As Irish admits, Rastafari informs much of her verse, and the faith provides a key to understanding some of her project. Though Rastafarians don’t have a single creed, many believe that much of the world is like Egypt before the Exodus or Babylon during the chosen people’s exile; Rastas often see evil and feel compelled to condemn it.

Irish, too, voices her frustration at the ills that wrack society. In “Brain Deficiency 11,” she excoriates rappers for their “derogative” lyrics, fast-food restaurants for their worthless food, technology for drawing children away from the wonders of the real world: “We have got serious issues in this our community,” she concludes. But as many other Rastas do, she takes solace from the belief that God dwells inside her. In “Falsehood,” she writes, “You cannot stop the God in me.” Even Irish’s pseudonym, the Lion Queen, comes from her faith; the lion is a key symbol in Rastafari. Yet if much of the content of Irish’s verse derives from the religion she loves, her style is truly her own. She stacks short lines one on top of the next, building sturdy poetry that may well stand the test of time. Her diction is unpretentious but never simplistic, and her voice is a clarion call.

Listen to the lioness roar.

The Bitter Sweet Philosophies Jart, KK Illus. by Fedaeff, Nick CreateSpace (116 pp.) $29.99 paper | $9.99 e-book May 17, 2014 978-1-4993-0092-5

A series of illustrations interpreted and captioned by a collective of writers.

In this debut picture book, Fedaeff ’s illustrations are accompanied by a series of captions written by the writers’ collective KK Jart. The book’s introduction explains the philosophy behind the book’s structure: “A picture is worth a thousand words—but each Fedaeff painting contains a thousand stories.” The stories suggested by KK Jart are amusing, pathetic, thought-provoking, sentimental or cringe-inducing, in some cases all at once. For instance, one image shows three figures on a podium, and the accompanying texts range from “Inge was delighted with her Philosophy mark and felt no guilt that she had cheated by looking into the soul of little Albert Rider next to her” to “Pinocchio’s nose grew perilously close to the inflatable girl. One more lie and she’d pop. The medal was his.”

Some of the text is likely to go over the heads of young readers (“Edgar was disqualified from the ‘Best Simulation of The Scream’ competition for covering his eyes” or “He wondered if she did indeed gyre and gimble in the wabe”), but “No-one sang about life on the rough side of the tracks quite as well as Miss Twinkle’s Bonny Daycare Sextet” and “It was a little teapot short and stout. There was a handle, there was a spout.

And it matched her dress” will likely resonate. The artwork and text are closely intertwined, and Fedaeff ’s color illustrations are simple, with a cartoonish style enhanced by a limited but appealing palette. While the book’s humor isn’t for everyone, and the more sardonic aspects of KK Jart’s interpretations may limit the book’s appeal to some of the youngest picture-book readers, others will delight in following the authors’ leads and using the images as inspiration for their own storytelling forays.

A whimsical compendium of illustrations and stories that will appeal to imaginative readers.

Preserved for the End of Time New Uncovered Ezekiel Prophecies About Christ’s Return Kevas, A.A.; Walker, W. I. CreateSpace (254 pp.) $18.95 paper | Jan. 21, 2014 978-1-4839-4971-0

A revelatory new examination of the book of Ezekiel.

In this rather stunning debut of biblical scholarship, Kevas and Walker take up the famously problematic book of Ezekiel and rigorously examine it using several energetic new methods.

Their book is essentially a heavily annotated, ground-clearing new translation of Ezekiel in which the authors painstakingly lay out their exegetical methods. They assert that the notorious difficulty of the text, which most readers are familiar with via the King James translation, is mostly the result of mistranslation and linguistic inaccuracy. To correct these factors, they attempt to pinpoint the exact meaning of each word in the text as it’s found in such ancient versions as the Dead Sea Scrolls (in their translation, virtually every word is underscored and given a reference number, aka a concordance number, to verify the translation from Hebrew or Greek). Kevas and Walker do this for the sake of transparency, and they buttress their translation with exhaustive annotation that draws on a formidable range of documentary material—not only the available Jewish sources, but also such material as the Quran and the Sibylline Oracles. Their goals are twofold: first, to demonstrate that Ezekiel has been drastically mistranslated over the centuries; and second, that as a result, Ezekiel has been fundamentally misunderstood for the last 2,600 years. In the course of their new translation, Kevas and Walker claim to have uncovered not only new nuances in the text, but something far more ambitious: an entire shadow-book hidden in plain sight, a series of detailed prophecies that predict such things as airplanes, modern technology and developments in Middle Eastern history as well as a carefully imagined set of predictions involving Jesus Christ returning to Earth as the Messiah in our own times. “It seemed apparent to us,” they write, “that God would have wanted the generation that these prophecies describe to understand the warnings.” Readers may balk at the book’s conclusions about those hidden prophecies, but along the way, they’ll be thrilled by the thinking on display.

An exciting, thought-provoking new reading of a famously complex biblical text.

Serenade

Kiebel, Emily Sparkpress (358 pp.) $15.00 paper | Jul. 15, 2014 978-1-940716-04-6 In Kiebel’s debut YA novel, a talented young singer learns that her gift is part of an astonishing family lineage.

Lorelei Clark is an aspiring singer attending a prestigious conservatory. Her decision to leave her home in Colorado to study music in Maine caused a rift with her mother, Cassandra, but she’s retained the love and support of her father, Andy.

Tragedy strikes Lorelei’s family when Andy is hit by a car and killed while on a trip to visit Lorelei. While her father lies dying, Lorelei is overcome with an urge to sing to him. Following her father’s funeral, she receives a letter from Helen Deleaux, a great aunt on her mother’s side of the family. Helen invites Lorelei to spend time at her home in Chatham, Massachusetts, where she meets Helen’s niece, Calliope Deleaux, and a distant cousin named Deidre Malone. The visit goes well until |

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the night Lorelei wakes up and sees the three women emerge from a fog hovering over the sea, singing in unison. When Lorelei asks Helen to explain what she saw, Helen tells her that all three women are sirens, mythological women who sing to sailors, luring them to their deaths. As Lorelei explores her gift, she faces a challenge that puts her life in danger. Kiebel’s fantasy boasts an intriguing premise and irresistible setting bolstered by an appealing heroine and well-drawn supporting characters.

The use of music is especially effective. From the pieces Lorelei sings at the conservatory to the songs the sirens sing to the dying sailors, the music helps establish a solid tone that Kiebel maintains throughout the narrative. In addition to Lorelei, the sirens are intriguing and dynamic characters, especially Calliope, whose secret past with Lorelei’s mother could affect Lorelei’s future. The settings, just as important as the music, come alive in clever ways, including an exciting chase scene through the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore, Maryland.

Fast-paced with a vivid setting and strong focus on music, Kiebel’s novel will appeal to YA readers looking for a well-developed romantic fantasy.

I CAN SEE YOU

Landry, Joss Book Beatles LLC (380 pp.) $15.99 paper | $4.49 e-book Apr. 23, 2014 978-0-9960441-9-6 A young girl’s paranormal gift—or is it a curse?—of sight makes her the target of a murderous madman in Landry’s (Mirror Deep, 2012) shadowy thriller.

Ten-year-old Emma inherited psychic powers from her paternal grandmother, Dottie, including the ability to see into the past and future and have out-of-body experiences. But the craft is a source of shame for her hotheaded father, who has made Emma suppress her skills and speak of them to no one. Her talents don’t stay secret for long, though.

When Emma unintentionally sees a serial killer of young girls and reveals herself to him, she becomes his next intended victim.

Suspecting something amiss, teacher Christina Tyler contacts her ex-boyfriend, detective Hank Apple, and Emma reluctantly begins to help him on the dangerous case. Landry’s characters are beautifully written, full of subtleties and complications.

Emma in particular is superbly drawn—stoic, clever, yet still a child who will curl up with a teddy bear for comfort. Even when overwhelmed by fear, she displays an unassuming strength that makes her seem much older than her years. In fact, her maturity often surpasses that of the squabbling adults around her, especially her disappointing parents; her volatile father and bland mother largely remain unsympathetic even as they attempt to make up for the many years of not supporting their daughter.

Emma’s aunt and maternal grandmother step up as dependable advocates for Emma, as do Christina and Hank, but all four are still flawed in their own ways. Christina and Hank find that their feelings for each other are rekindled as they fight to protect 160

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Emma’s secret while hunting down the crazed murderer. But go-getter Hank struggles with work-life balance and emotional vulnerability, and bighearted Christina has trouble forgetting a past infidelity, so theirs is a deliciously clumsy stumble toward a relationship. The stakes are high in this dark novel, but the story never feels overdone thanks to Landry’s nimble balancing act between supernatural mystery and stirring character drama.

A gripping, disturbing tale about the importance of love, acceptance and letting kids be kids.

How Do I Keep My Employees Motivated?

The Practice of EmpathyBased Management Langelett, George River Grove Books (230 pp.) $17.95 paper | $7.99 e-book May 13, 2014 978-1-938416-73-6

Langelett’s debut explores a new theory of management designed to motivate today’s highly skilled employees.

Management theory has generally focused on motivating employees through intellectual, reason-based methods. As Langelett points out, human beings are emotional creatures at the deepest level, so any management theory that doesn’t tackle the emotional side of human nature is inherently flawed.

Only when they’re in a safe, positive work environment can employees function at top efficiency, Langelett says. His empathy-based management approach focuses on providing such an environment by meeting employees’ emotional needs. He starts by explaining empathy—building it on “an understanding of what the person is experiencing and of the underlying problem, or why the person behaves a certain way”—and why it’s important, particularly from a corporate standpoint. He then describes how managers can use empathy to create that positive work environment. Next, he talks about how to resolve employee crises and lists common empathetic practices, along with practices that managers should avoid. Finally, Langelett describes how an empathetic manager might behave during a typical day and lays out step-by-step approaches for coping with common workplace scenarios. He includes some sample conversations that a manager and employee might share, giving specific examples of how to deploy empathetic tactics in common situations. Indeed, Langelett is quite helpful in explaining exactly how his theory can be carried out in practice. It’s also clear that the empathetic management style offers unparalleled opportunities for forging strong relationships between managers and those who directly report to them. However, one significant issue—which Langelett himself brings up—is that it’s easy for an empathetic manager to appear weak thanks to a “soft” style. Langelett does provide some advice for handling manipulative employees to keep them from taking advantage of the empathetic approach and offers a brief example of how to explain the benefits of the management style to superiors, but

“...there’s an intimacy and tenderness in [Maslin’s] treatment of his characters that keeps his sweeping narrative from abandoning its concern with its heroes’ humanity.” from uncle sol’s women

The Street of Good Fortune

he doesn’t talk at all about how to interact with other managers on roughly the same level—which can be a real problem, because such managers are often in direct competition with each other for resources and promotions. They might, then, be quick to attack another manager whom they perceive as weak.

An intriguing, surprisingly practical management theory that’s a good fit for the modern workplace.

Bewilderment of Boys Luddy, Karon Backbone Books (236 pp.) $14.99 paper | $5.99 e-book Apr. 24, 2014 978-0-9915518-0-4

This sequel to Luddy’s debut novel (Spelldown, 2008) continues the story of a young woman dealing with family, first love and the urge to escape her small South Carolina hometown in the

early 1970s.

Seventeen-year-old Karlene Bridges can’t wait to get out of Red Clover. Her high school career is almost over, and she has a good shot at scholarships at several colleges, including Smith, the alma mater of her mentor and confidante, Mrs. Harrison. Unfortunately, Mrs. Harrison and her family are about to leave town. She’s not the only one leaving: Karlene’s love interest, Billy Ray Jenkins, is off serving in the Navy, and her other male friend, Spencer Randall, who she notices is looking mighty handsome lately, was just drafted. In fact, all the other boys in Red Clover are about to go off to Vietnam or have already died there. Karlene’s only respite from her loneliness lies in the idea of getting out of Red Clover. As a girl bordering on adulthood, she explores the ideas of sex and sexuality while following a deeply feminist philosophy. She’s happy that her older sister is experiencing her first pregnancy, but privately she thinks, “[y]ou’d think Gloria Jean was incubating the New Messiah, the way she and Mama go on about it.” And although her friends, such as Spencer’s sister, Lucinda, eagerly delve into romantic encounters, Karlene realizes the importance of protecting herself from an early or unplanned pregnancy; she takes to heart Mrs. Harrison’s admonition that “making love is dangerous for a woman, more so than for a man.” References to popular music, films and events of the time help illustrate the story’s themes, although younger readers may not immediately recognize them all. Luddy’s quick-witted, perceptive dialogue (“Sometimes lyrics brood in my heart. Sometimes they pop into my brain, but this one started in my epidermis”) breathes life into Karlene’s precocious personality. Anyone who’s experienced the restlessness of young adulthood will identify with Karlene’s yearning to leave her small town behind. However, Red Clover also seems to be the kind of place to which Karlene will happily return someday. Fans of Luddy’s first novel will be glad to have that opportunity here.

A charmingly perceptive follow-up that should appeal to both teenagers and adults.

Manteghi, Maryam Forefront Media Group (210 pp.) $12.99 paper | $6.99 e-book Apr. 7, 2014 978-0-615-97071-4 In Manteghi’s memoir, she reflects with compassion and humor on her year spent as a 34-year-old battling breast cancer, interspersing memories of her childhood as an Iranian in Canada and her pre-cancer years in Bosnia.

Manteghi, unlike many of her peers, didn’t spend her early 30s planning the perfect domestic family life. Having immigrated to Canada from Iran as a young child, Manteghi never felt wholly in sync with her Toronto home or Canadian peers.

After graduating from law school, Manteghi pursued adventure abroad as an activist in Bosnia. There, she found a home as she developed deep connections with the people, philanthropic interests and a romantic relationship. Her breast cancer diagnosis ended all of that. Manteghi returned to Toronto, spending a year in chemotherapy. With humor, she examines her experience, stating that she had replaced her idolization of Christiane Amanpour with Kylie Minogue as she channeled the “KylieChemo look.” In more serious moments, she realized that the family life she’d assumed would happen might not. The experience changed her. The narrative is initially a little confusing; the chronology isn’t linear, and the reader may wonder why Manteghi was in Bosnia, for example. For the reader not wellversed in Bosnian or Iranian history, a brief introduction of the countries’ histories would have been helpful. As the narrative progresses, however, the reader becomes more familiar with Manteghi’s personal history, and the nonlinearity of the stories becomes easier to follow. Manteghi’s choosing among career ambition, romance and family may be particularly interesting for other young people faced with similar decisions.

Manteghi weaves together her diverse international life experiences to create an insightful, lively self-portrait.

Uncle Sol’s Women Maslin, Simeon J. CreateSpace (454 pp.) $15.95 paper | $9.99 e-book Apr. 16, 2014 978-1-4953-2536-6

A sprawling novel about family, faith and fortune that offers a fresh look at the lives of American Jews in the middle of the last century.

Leo Tolstoy, in Anna Karenina, famously said that while happy families are all alike, unhappy families are unhappy in their own ways. It’s hard to call the Forshtayns at the center of Maslin’s (…And Turn It Again, 2008, etc.) ambitious |

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new effort unhappy, but they certainly are unique. In 1904, members of that family are forced to flee Vilnius, Lithuania, in the midst of deadly pogroms, moving to the United States to start life afresh. The book then follows multiple generations as a momentous new American century dawns. This decades-spanning novel reads a bit like family sagas such as Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks (1901) or John Galsworthy’s The Forsyte Saga (1922), as it traces one clan’s changing fortunes over the course of many years, including those of the titular Sol. Yet the narrative eventually settles on the story of Sol’s favored nephew, Justin—later called Jacob—and tracks his academic and romantic maturation from New England to Illinois and back again. The story follows his progress through Harvard and the University of Chicago and his deepening love for a French-Canadian woman named Marie. Like Chaim Potok and Philip Roth before him, Maslin—himself a rabbi—focuses on the lives of 20th-century American Jews. But Maslin’s approach shares more with Potok’s than Roth’s; his style is true and earnest, and although he lacks Roth’s trademark sardonic wit, he has Potok’s eye for domestic detail. His book is fueled by human relationships, and there’s an intimacy and tenderness in his treatment of his characters that keeps his sweeping narrative from abandoning its concern with its heroes’ humanity. Furthermore, the novel is not only culturally, but religiously Jewish, as Maslin’s rabbinic training allows him to explore not only Judaism’s traditions, but also its scriptures and sacred spaces. His engagement with Judaism’s spiritual pith—and with the temptations that may draw one away from it—serves as the book’s sturdy backbone.

A dense exploration of the familial ties that bind one Jewish family.

OUT OF ARKLOW A Life of Change

O’Neill, Danny AuthorHouseUK (230 pp.) $30.51 | $18.24 paper | $3.99 e-book Mar. 28, 2014 978-1-4918-9595-5 Debut memoirist O’Neill went off to sea, did not look back and has a footlocker full of tales to tell.

O’Neill signed on as a cabin boy on a general purpose fishing boat in 1950 at the age of 13. For well over a half century as a merchant mariner, he worked on more than 80 different ships, from fishing boats to huge oil tankers, sailing the world and rising through the ranks.

“Hither and yon” hardly covers it, as he would be ordered from a North Sea port to the Arabian Gulf, to India, to Taiwan and then to Brazil, New Orleans, Hong Kong and elsewhere, a shuttling described with a casual aplomb that may leave landlubbers agape. And the itinerary could always change since ships chase cargo. He was forever changing jobs, signing on with this or that company to keep out of a rut and learn new skills. Some of the companies were good, others shady corner-cutters. Sometimes, he found himself stranded in some god-awful corner of the 162

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world when the company went under. He describes: the technique used to break a few whisky bottles as they are being loaded and let the contents leak into one’s billycan; what it was like to have jellyfish parts rain down on you, an experience much worse than poison ivy; delivering jet fuel to Saigon in a jumbo tanker during the Vietnam War, “accompanied by warships and fast armed launches while helicopters kept watch overhead”; and a disastrous attempt, in his own sailboat, to navigate the Grand Canal from Dublin to the River Shannon. His next jaunt, he surmises, will be “a comparatively quieter trip, to the upper reaches of the Amazon.” O’Neill is a competent writer, though no stylist. Almost every chapter begins “Then I signed on with...” and all but drowns us in detail—the ship’s registry, tonnage, engines and so forth. At times, he seems to see his audience as other merchant mariners, so a glossary of unfamiliar terms (“ro-ro,” “coamings,” “fidley”) would be welcome.

An engrossing, detailed read about a working life at sea.

TRUE STORIES TOO People and Places from My Past

Picano, Felice Chelsea Station Editions (278 pp.) $20.00 paper | $2.99 e-book Jun. 19, 2014 978-1-937627-15-7 Picano expands on the autobiographical essays of his previous book, True Stories (2011).

In this sequel, Picano reflects on family, relationships and the various cities of his past, most notably New York, where he was active in the pre- and post-Stonewall gay community of lower Manhattan. There, he took part in “ad-hoc vigilante protection squads” for gay men, enjoyed a bourgeoning literary community and frequented the seediest bars of Greenwich Village. Picano also examines in depth his relationship with his older brother, Bob. Like Picano, Bob was gay, but unlike Picano, he was struggling financially, addicted to drugs and most likely HIV-positive. In light of this, Picano revisits the tension in his early family life and his father’s “plan for feudalizing his sons” as well as his mother’s favoring the older boy above all else. These tensions forced Picano to eventually run away from home—he “led the exodus out of Queens and into Manhattan”—and perhaps to his becoming the more successful brother. This sense of success shows in Picano’s prose, as his narration can be melodramatic and boastful. He casually name-drops literary superstars such as Michel Foucault or hints at the celebrities he might have kissed in dark restaurants. He also lists the glamorous places he’s visited and the fabulous apartments he’s inhabited. But Picano keeps his stories from feeling too overindulgent through brief, carefully reconstructed moments that expertly reveal character and complex dynamics. The bittersweet last words of his soul mate or the whole of the collection’s best piece, “The ‘Nick’ Diaries,” in which his brief journal entries relate a confusing pseudo-romance with a straight man in LA—it’s in these

“Readers might find themselves putting off the last three chapters to savor them as a special treat.” from well met in cyprus

moments that Picano’s stories become the most engaging. His writing is most moving when he’s reflecting on AIDS and HIV, a theme that connects each story and has affected so many people in his life. “When I first moved to L.A.,” he writes, “people here, eager or pleased to know me, always asked why I had moved so relatively late in life. ‘Everyone died,’ I told them.”

An intensely personal collection centered on the survivor of a fascinating, chaotic time.

WELL MET IN CYPRUS

Qazi, Javaid Niyogi Books (376 pp.) $8.38 | $4.99 e-book | Jan. 1, 2011 978-8189738747 This deceptive novel begins as an idyllic romance, then gears down and races to a gripping conclusion.

With a title that alludes to Othello and Desdemona, Qazi’s (Berlin Danse Macabre, 2013, etc.) novel tells the story of Robert, an American professor whose best years (and two marriages) are behind him, and Anara, a Kazakh woman half his age. They fall in love, and soon after, Robert gets yet another one-year teaching job, this time at a university in Kyrenia, a Turkish-controlled part of Cyprus. Anara comes to join him, and they make a home, almost a bower, in Karmi, a village halfway up the mountain overlooking Kyrenia. This is the idyllic part: Readers are introduced to secondary characters, among them Cardiff, the alcoholic but wise British colleague; Yulie, a young Greek woman who has strong hidden feelings for Robert; Erkan Bey, who is more than just a plumber; and other well-rounded background characters.

But then there are the shady characters, principally Vitaly, a porcine, oily Russian casino owner. The plot turns on a simple fact: Anara’s visa is only for 60 days. Vitaly hires Anara to work in his casino and promises that the visa issue will no longer be a problem. All of a sudden, Vitaly has tricked Anara into working—for just one night, or so he says—at his other casino in the Greek sector. The rest of the book, where Qazi ramps up the story, concerns Robert’s desperate attempt to get Anara back.

The story is told from Robert’s point of view, so readers get to know this man who just might have a second chance at life.

The other characters are well-drawn, too, and Cyprus—beautiful, laid-back, exotic—is a character in its own right. The narrative makes no major missteps, though in places, the prose, if not purple, may be a bit mauve. Qazi, an experienced writer, is very good at his craft, and the pacing is really a wonder. Readers might find themselves putting off the last three chapters to savor them as a special treat.

A gripping, well-written story worth diving into.

Masters’ Mysterium Wisconsin Dells

Reynolds, R.R. Masters’ Mysterium Press (334 pp.) $14.95 paper | $2.99 e-book Feb. 14, 2013 978-0-9886797-0-2 This extraordinary work of paranormal fantasy—a debut, no less—revolves largely around the morally bankrupt owner of a museum of oddities who attempts to reinvigorate his flagging business by capturing the Hodag, a legendary creature believed to inhabit the woodlands of northern Wisconsin.

The Rev. Jay Masters is a scumbag. A former faith healer, he currently owns Masters’ Mysterium—“a collection of every oddity, rumor, hearsay, improbable event, and conundrum created by nature or man”—a failing business in Wisconsin Dells that’s being overshadowed by nearby amusement and water parks. With few options left, he hires three hillbilly hunters to go into northern Wisconsin and trap a mysterious beast that has been rumored to be killing unwary travelers. But when two of the hunters end up ripped apart, the sole survivor ranting about aliens and monsters, Masters decides to visit the remote town of Creekside himself. There, he meets the town’s strange residents, including his 21-year-old daughter, Trudy, a waitress at the unfortunately named Cluck and Grunt restaurant; she’s not exactly happy to meet him for the first time. The mythical beast turns out to be a demon, and Masters and his daughter soon become entangled in a supernatural war between seraphic beings and the forces of evil. But this isn’t run-of-the-mill paranormal fantasy with angels. The characters are extremely well-developed, the narrative is intelligent and at times highly humorous, the storyline is original and engaging, and the religious aspects are decidedly understated. The first installment of a series, this is paranormal fantasy done right: a unique, relentlessly entertaining page-turner that will appeal to a wide range of readers. Fortunately, there’s more to come.

One of the best paranormal fantasy releases of this year—a self-publishing benchmark.

The Illustrated Courtroom 50 Years of Court Art

Russell, Sue; Williams, Elizabeth CUNY Journalism Press (248 pp.) $9.99 e-book | Apr. 11, 2014 A new approach to understanding the criminal justice system through the eyes of courtroom artists.

The drawings and paintings that make up this collection, compiled by debut author Williams and Russell (Lethal Intent, 2013), are the work of courtroom artists, the only people able to capture images in the many courtrooms where video and |

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photography aren’t permitted. Striking images accompany artists’ reminiscences of the trials they have covered. Many of the cases are explored in detail, and some are well-known—the O.J. Simpson trial, Iran-Contra, Martha Stewart’s insider trading.

The collection also includes stories of memorable attorneys and defendants, along with representative images. The anecdotes shared by the artists range from the unexpected—e.g., an undercover detective attempted to bribe an artist to destroy a drawing that might reveal his identity—to the absurd—Judge John Sirica threatened to expel anyone chewing gum in his courtroom—to the touching, particularly the depictions and descriptions of witnesses delivering their testimonies through tears. The images included in this collection demonstrate that a charcoal or pen-and-ink drawing, while dependent on an artist’s style and unable to match the precision of a photograph, can be more effective in conveying the mood of a courtroom, as in a Howard Brodie sketch of the scene at the opening of the Watergate trial. A Bill Robles drawing of Patty Hearst’s father writing a $500,000 bail check tells a story in itself. When Aggie Kenny describes her experience covering the organized crime trials of the 1980s—“Few defendants interact with artists or really seem to care what we are doing. But I always sensed that mafia guys understood the process and saw it as part of the business”—it’s clear that courtroom artists provide an essential, often overlooked perspective on the justice system, one that is a crucial part of understanding the legal history of the United States.

This Issue’s Contributors # Adult Maude Adjarian • Mark Athitakis • Joseph Barbato • Adam benShea • Amy Boaz • Jeffrey Burke • Lee E. Cart • Dave DeChristopher • Kathleen Devereaux • Bobbi Dumas • Daniel Dyer • Lisa Elliott Gro Flatebo • Peter Franck • Bob Garber • Sean Gibson • Devon Glenn • Amy Goldschlager • Shalene Gupta • Peter Heck • April Holder • Matt Jakubowski • Robert M. Knight • Christina M. Kratzner Chelsea Langford • Louise Leetch • Peter Lewis • Elsbeth Lindner • Elizabeth Lopatto • Georgia Lowe • Janet Matthews • Don McLeese • Gregory McNamee • Clayton Moore • Laurie Muchnick Liza Nelson • Mike Newirth • John Noffsinger • Mike Oppenheim • Jim Piechota • William E. Pike Scott Porch • Gary Presley • Benjamin Rybeck • Andrea Sachs • Lloyd Sachs • Leslie Safford • Bob Sanchez • Michael Sandlin • Bethany Schneider • William P. Shumaker • Rosanne Simeone • Linda Simon • Elaine Sioufi • Arthur Smith • Wendy Smith • Margot E. Spangenberg • Andria Spencer • Bill Thompson • Claire Trazenfeld • Steve Weinberg • Rodney Welch • Chris White • Joan Wilentz Kerry Winfrey Children’s & Teen Alison Anholt-White • Elizabeth Bird • Louise Brueggemann • Connie Burns • Timothy Capehart Ann Childs • Julie Cummins • GraceAnne A. DeCandido • Dave DeChristopher • Elise DeGuiseppi Lisa Dennis • Andi Diehn • Brooke Faulkner • Laurel Gardner • Judith Gire • Ruth I. Gordon • Faye Grearson • Jessie C. Grearson • Melinda Greenblatt • F. Lee Hall • Heather L. Hepler • Megan Honig Julie Hubble • Shelley Huntington • Kathleen T. Isaacs • Betsy Judkins • Deborah Kaplan • Joy Kim Robin Fogle Kurz • Megan Dowd Lambert • Angela Leeper • Susan Dove Lempke • Peter Lewis Lori Low • Wendy Lukehart • Meredith Madyda • Joan Malewitz • Jeanne McDermott • Kathie Meizner • Daniel Meyer • Lisa Moore • R. Moore • Deb Paulson • John Edward Peters • Susan Pine Melissa Rabey • Rebecca Rabinowitz • Kristy Raffensberger • Nancy Thalia Reynolds • Melissa Riddle Chalos • Amy Robinson • Lesli Rodgers • Christopher R. Rogers • Erika Rohrbach • Leslie L. Rounds Mindy Schanback • Katie Scherrer • Mary Ann Scheuer • Dean Schneider • Hillary Foote Schwartz • Stephanie Seales • John W. Shannon • Karyn N. Silverman • Robin Smith • Edward T. Sullivan Jennifer Sweeney • Deborah D. Taylor • Bette Wendell-Branco • Kimberly Whitmer • S.D. Winston Monica Wyatt • Melissa Yurechko Indie Paul Allen • Katherine Barrett • Benjamin Blattberg • Claire Bushey • Stephanie Cerra • Wendy Connick • Ian Correa • Lindsay Denninger • Steve Donoghue • Lauren L. Finch • Jameson Fitzpatrick Rebecca Foster • Shannon Gallagher • Susan J.E. Illis • Kelly Karivalis • Ivan Kenneally • Andrew D. King • Dan Lopez • Mandy Malone • Ingrid Mellor • Rhett Morgan • Ashley Nelson • Joshua T. Pederson • Judy Quinn • Sarah Rettger • Jessica Skwire Routhier • Jerome Shea • Barry Silverstein

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Reveals one fascinating aspect of the legal system, informing the reader while demonstrating the value of artistic interpretation.

NANNY A Memoir of Love and Secrets Salz, Nancy Richard Books (166 pp.) $14.00 paper | $7.45 e-book May 28, 2014 978-0-9960207-0-1

A probing, heartfelt memoir about the true meaning of family.

Salz, a journalist, pays tribute to the governess who raised her and offered a blueprint of compassion within a withholding, sometimes cruel family. Elizabeth Cecilia Hanna, or “Miss Hanna,” began working in the Salzs’ Upper East Side townhouse in 1940, just before the author’s birth, joining the servant and cook also employed by the upper-middle-class Jewish family. An orphan with no family—and only one friend—Miss Hanna became young Salz’s only solace and companion. Though Salz’s older brother struggled with behavioral problems, her parents preferred his company; even her success in school couldn’t win the affection of her exacting, mean-spirited father. Salz’s mother, Betty, a former teen model and indisputable beauty, provided the perfect foil for middle-aged Miss Hanna’s disregard for appearances. Though Betty didn’t have much maternal instinct herself—she forced Salz to swim with Miss Hanna at a public beach instead of at the beach club because of her daughter’s large birthmark—her resentment of Salz’s devotion to her governess was apparent. “How can you love that ugly woman?” she routinely asked her daughter. This memoir is, in part it seems, an act of contrition: In her senior year of high school, Salz neglected to visit Miss Hanna while she was dying of cancer; she never got to say goodbye. It’s also an act of witness, uncovering the shadowy details of Miss Hanna’s origins and the painful family secrets in her own past. As Salz recalls her New York City childhood with Miss Hanna by her side, midcentury New York comes to life through her vivid descriptions; a chapter about her early love of Broadway musicals is particularly poignant. Though the book lacks a strong narrative arc, its greatest strengths are Salz’s self-awareness and her insight into the issues of class that often separate domestic caretakers from their charges.

This moving remembrance proves the importance of kindness in a child’s life and the redemptive power of carrying on our loved ones’ legacies.

Could You Be Startin’ From Somewhere Else?

Sketches From Buffalo and Beyond Shurgot, Michael W. CreateSpace (144 pp.) $12.00 paper | Apr. 15, 2014 978-1-4952-4890-0

A retired humanities professor looks back on his upbringing in working-class Buffalo, New York, during the 1950s.

Shurgot (North American Players of Shakespeare, 2007, etc.) writes that he has “sketched here the childhood that for many years I chose not so much to forget as to ignore.” The city he describes feels at once completely familiar and utterly foreign.

His Buffalo is one of coal men and rag men, of steel-toe Red Wing boots, of winter ice chopped from Lake Erie to cool the city’s iceboxes, and neighbors in summertime sitting on their porches listening to the broadcast of a baseball game. He is the oldest son of an energetic Irish mother, drawn with verve and affection, and a taciturn Ukrainian father who threatened to inscribe his wife’s tombstone with the words, “She detested peace and quiet.” There’s not much conflict in these chapters, which discretely detail stories involving things from Catholicism to water skiing; nevertheless, Shurgot gamely explores the misdemeanors that exist in any family. They mostly stem from a somewhat withholding father who brushes off his children’s bids for attention, hurting them more than he probably realizes.

Thinking back to the way his father often classed each home repair project as “a one-man job,” Shurgot “vowed that I would never utter that phrase to my children.” His two sisters received even less attention, and Shurgot draws a line from that mild neglect to one’s teenage pregnancy. He’s conscious in retrospect not only of that subtly different treatment, but also of Buffalo’s broader racial segregation, which meant he saw no black people except at minor league Buffalo Bisons games. But this retrospection also constitutes the book’s most frustrating flaw: Many of the stories are told from a distance of years, uncolored by the immediacy of sensory detail as he narrates the experiences rather than re-creates them. Still, the nostalgic detail and Shurgot’s own honesty hit home. When, decades later at a Seattle party, the author mentions he’s from Buffalo, a well-heeled wag responds, “I’m so sorry.” “I’m not,” he huffs; readers won’t be, either.

An enjoyable memoir of life upstate.

Something Greater than Artifice Speegle, Mike &yet (478 pp.) $4.95 e-book | Apr. 20, 2014

In Speegle’s (Pen and Platen, 2011) novel set in a fantastic future world, technologically enhanced craftsmen face a deadly new threat.

As the story opens, a young man named Gregor loses his home, his best friend and very nearly his life in the hinterlands at the fringe of the Tech Republic. He and his friend Anatoly are skilled “Artificers” who use small, handheld computers to tap into a “Feed” of neutral matter, which they electronically resequence to create things to suit their needs.

But their skills don’t protect them when they’re attacked

by Frontmen—soulless, interchangeable minions of an alldevouring malevolence called SILOS. Gregor’s life is only saved thanks to the appearance of a woman named Ros, who hails from another dystopian enclave: the musicians’ haven called State of Play. Ros uses technology and her considerable fighting skills to rescue Gregor and take him on her quest to fight SILOS by enlisting the aid of yet another enclave, the Writers’ Bloc. There, the people prize the written word above all else, and a text called the Book may hold the key to victory.

Along the way, Gregor and Ros squabble (at one point, he sarcastically calls her “Ros the Unnecessarily Taciturn”), but she gradually fills him in on the perilous state of the world outside the Tech Republic, her own past and training in the State, and the rise of the evil quagmire of SILOS. The author conveys

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“Williams...brings plenty of colorful brushwork to her narrative, setting forth another fine-art puzzle while expanding upon characters and subplots introduced in her debut.” from fatal impressions

most of this information in prolonged flashback segments, which he handles with a great deal of skill. The technology in Speegle’s world has morphed and sharpened into something akin to magic, and the Tech Republic, in particular, is impeccably imagined. He also makes the various sects’ worldviews believably distinct. Overall, his crafting of his characters is sensitive and, at times, winningly funny.

A hugely entertaining techno-magic adventure novel.

FATAL IMPRESSIONS Coleman and Dinah Greene Mystery No. 2 Williams, Reba White The Story Plant (300 pp.) $13.95 paper | $9.99 e-book Apr. 22, 2014 978-1-61188-131-8

Williams’ (Restrike, 2013) Southerngal cousins contend with a murder charge in this second in a series of Manhattanbased art-world mysteries.

After their amateur sleuthing in Restrike, cousins Coleman and Dinah Greene have gotten back to their regular interests.

Coleman, the publisher of ArtSmart magazine, is excited to have acquired a home-decor magazine, thanks to funding from her recently discovered half brother. Dinah, seeking to make her Midtown art gallery profitable, is happy to have landed a contract to buy and hang art at the Manhattan office of management consultants Davidson, Douglas, Danbury & Weeks.

That office turns out to be an awful place, however, with hostile, weird staff and hints that some of its existing art collection has gone missing. When DDD&W’s head of human resources, the lookalike sister of the nasty in-house art curator, is discovered dead, Dinah is accused of the crime. The cousins, along with their friends, family and co-workers, swing into action to defend Dinah and unravel DDD&W’s many mysteries. Williams, an art historian and print collector, once again brings plenty of colorful brushwork to her narrative, setting forth another fine-art puzzle while expanding upon characters and subplots introduced in her debut. This snowballing of detail is largely entertaining, although at times it causes fast-moving narrative shifts; Coleman, for example, rather abruptly dumps a love interest that had seemed so promising in the first book and embarks on two new flirtations, perhaps due to commitment issues born of her shadowy North Carolina past. Such tidbits are ultimately tantalizing, however, whetting readers’ appetites for Williams’ next installation of art-focused adventures.

An engaging continuation of Williams’ chick-lit– meets-mystery series.

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BEFORE THE FALL

Zoglman, Joan M. CreateSpace (198 pp.) $9.99 paper | Mar. 25, 2014 978-1-4947-1531-1 In Zoglman’s debut novel, a young woman reluctantly returns to her small Indiana hometown to clean out her dead parents’ farmhouse only to find herself caught up in a whirlwind romance with the man who broke her heart 13 years earlier.

Despite her desperate efforts to forget, Toni Smythe can’t deal with the painful memories from her past. However, when her parents pass away, she’s forced to move back to her Indiana hometown to sell the property that has been in her family since the 1800s. That week, Trent, Toni’s ex-boyfriend from high school—the man who, before breaking her heart, impregnated her out of wedlock with a child who died right after birth— drives to the farmhouse with many unanswered questions to ask her. Though they don’t know it yet, the two of them were told separate stories as to why the other left, Toni believing Trent didn’t want anything to do with her once he joined the National Guard, and Trent believing Toni had become pregnant with another man’s baby and left town. Now, refusing to repair any relationships from her past, Toni only wants to cut every tie she has with her hometown. As she sorts through family heirlooms and unearths different memories of her family’s heritage, she becomes conflicted about leaving. Matters complicate further as Trent diligently strives to rekindle their lost romance, with Toni realizing that her longing for him will not disappear. The novel’s pacing is fantastic, building tension and page-turning suspense with each chapter. Characterization is shown, not told, with subtle descriptions: “[Toni] grinned as she took a swallow of ice-cold milk and wiped her mouth on the back of her dirty flannel shirtsleeve, and then she grimaced at the coarseness of the action.” The connection between Toni and Trent feels real, and their restrained passion for each other is palpable. Zoglman consistently surprises with riveting plot twists and indulgent, passionate love scenes. The novel becomes much deeper than straightforward romance, with family pride, class issues and deep-rooted secrets fueling the drama as the two lovers try to sort out their complicated past.

An absorbing, expertly crafted novel highly recommended for anyone who enjoys a passionate love story.

Appreciations: Remembering James Baldwin B Y G RE G OR Y M C NAMEE

Photo courtesy Sedat Pakay 1964

Born 90 years ago, on Aug. 2, 1924, James Baldwin grew up triply removed from society—thrice marginalized, as the current term has it. First, he was black in a nation that even today has no idea how to deal with its racist past and present. Second, he was a lover of books, reading and writing in a culture mistrustful of the intellect. Third, he was gay. All these facts gave him no end of torment, but he dealt with them bravely all the same, writing, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”

The Harlem of Baldwin’s birth was the intellectual and artistic hub of what would rightly be called a renaissance. By the time he came of age, that flourishing had faded. The oldest of nine children in a churchly family, he broke with faith and kin early, moving to Greenwich Village a step ahead of the Beats. There, he worked hard on the essays and books for which he would become known in the 1950s. When Go Tell It on the Mountain, his debut novel, appeared, he was 29, bursting with energy and promise. In the next 10 years, he followed up with books of social criticism—Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name, and The Fire Next Time—that gave white readers a firsthand look at the injustices black people endured daily.

Baldwin followed another less-known avenue, taking himself to France and a society that was famously friendly to black intellectuals and artists. While in Europe, he wrote the novel that made his sexual orientation plain, Giovanni’s Room (1956), a pioneering book that ironically began his alienation from the black liberation movement that was rising at home. Baldwin was a vigorous participant in the civil rights movement, but Eldridge Cleaver declared that by virtue of his identification as a gay man, he had declared a “total hatred of blacks.” Just so, that identification led organizers, conservative in such matters, to remove Baldwin from the roster of speakers at the March on Washington.

Baldwin kept on writing and agitating for civil rights both for African-Americans and for the gay community. His efforts continued to the end of his life, and even though his last major book, If Beale Street Could Talk (1974), was tinged with sorrow, anger and bitterness, he remained convinced that the struggle would end in victory.

There’s thus still more irony in the fact that Baldwin, a staple of the modern writing curriculum when I was in high school in the 1970s, is now fast losing his place there, absent from the Common Core. The reason? Because in a supposedly post-racial society, any discussion of race is a source of discomfort.

It’s supposed to be. James Baldwin made sure that it was. His absence is intolerable, for his books, instruments of liberation, remain immediate in connecting us with pain, heartbreak and all the people who have ever been alive.

Gregory McNamee is a contributing editor at Kirkus Reviews. |

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RANDOM RECOMMENDS Staff Favorites from Krista

Recommends

Haruki Murakami Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage: A Novel Years ago I was given a great gift when I was introduced to Murakami. His new novel again displays his fierce ability to imagine the intensely complex and beautiful relationships that form between people. Here he gives us the remarkable story of Tsukuru Tazaki, a young man haunted by a great loss; of dreams and nightmares that have unintended consequences for the world around us; and of a journey into the past that is necessary to mend the present.

It is a story of love, friendship, and heartbreak for the ages.

978-0-385-35210-9 | $25.95 | 250,000 Knopf | HC | August 978-0-385-68183-4 | $29.95C Bond Street Books | HC E 978-0-385-35211-6 ] CD: 978-0-804-16675-1 ] AD: 978-0-804-16676-8

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Elizabeth Kiem Hider, Seeker, Secret Keeper This thrilling follow-up to Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy picks up Marina Dukovskaya’s story in the present day, as told by a fellow dancer in danger: her 17-year-old daughter, Lana.

Prima ballerina Lana Dukovskaya leaves Moscow for New York, both as star of the latest Bolshoi tour and as chief suspect in a brutal attack on her rival—a crime that conveniently secured her a coveted solo spot. As she claims her break-out moment in America, Lana must defend her family’s honor, navigate an unlikely romance, and put her faith in strangers, while avoiding traps at every turn.

978-1-61695-412-3 | $17.99/$17.99C 40,000 | Soho Teen | HC | September E 978-1-61695-413-0

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Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve.

Moving back and forth in time— from the actor’s early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains—this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people.

An enthralling read.

978-0-385-35330-4 | $24.95 | 50,000 Knopf | HC | September E 978-0-385-35331-1 ] CD: 978-0-553-54558-6 ] AD: 978-0-553-39798-7

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Kara Cooney The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt As a huge fan of Stacy Schiff’s biography, Cleopatra, and Michelle Moran’s historical fiction novels, Nefertiti, Cleopatra’s Daughter, and The Heretic Queen it wasn’t long before The Woman Who Would Be King rose to the top of my TBR pile. Here is a compelling biography of the longest-reigning female pharaoh in Ancient Egypt and the story of her audacious rise to power in a man’s world. Cooney explores the ingenious machinations by which Hatshepsut claimed and maintained that power for over fifteen years. Although she has long fascinated academics, this is the first narrative to appeal to a general audience.

978-0-307-95676-7 | $28.00/$34.00C 40,000 | Crown | HC | October E 978-0-307-95678-1 ] CD: 978-0-804-12836-0 ] AD: 978-0-804-12837-7

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Elizabeth Recommends

Jodi Picoult Leaving Time: A Novel Jodi Picoult is known for her nuanced characters, riveting plots, and impeccable research, and Leaving Time delivers on all fronts. Alice Metcalf is a talented scientist studying grief among elephants at a New England sanctuary. But after a tragic accident, she suddenly disappears. Ten years later, her now teenage daughter, Jenna, is determined to find out what happened. The mystery surrounding Alice’s disappearance will draw you in, but the amazing details about elephants will keep you reading. Perfect for book clubs and YA readers.

978-0-345-54492-6 | $28.00 | 500,000 Ballantine Books | HC | October 978-0-345-81335-0 | $30.00C Random House Canada | HC E 978-0-345-54493-3 ] CD: 978-0-804-12903-9 ] AD: 978-0-804-14765-1