Features archive | BookPage

by Becky Ohlsen

The unifying theme for the latest batch of comics and graphic novels is the blending of two worlds that are usually thought of as separate: fiction and reality, artists and material, families and their ancestors.

Confronting the truth
Even before you peek inside, it’s clear that The Unwritten is an unusual book. The extremely cool cover, by Yuko Shimizo, shows someone reaching or falling out of a cloud of tangled words in the sky, through a blank distance and into an open book. Simple but wild, it also turns out to be a perfect reflection of the story. Volume 1 collects the first five issues of the ongoing series, a labyrinthine metafictional tale about the art and power of storytelling. The art is beautiful if not earth-shattering, but the plot takes serious risks—and is deeply rewarding. It hinges on Tom Taylor, the son of a man who wrote a Harry Potter/Books of Magic-type series of books, the star of which was named Tommy Taylor. The series ended without its final volume, on a cliffhanger, and fans are still rabid. Tom’s dad is long gone, but the younger Taylor still makes the comic-convention circuit, signing autographs and trying to maintain the boundary between his own personality and that of the fictional hero based on him. Mostly he succeeds. But when a probing question at one convention raises public suspicions about Tom’s real origins, the line between fiction and real life blurs. Add to that a creepy mansion, a mad vampire, a couple of possible femmes fatales, a hit man whose glove dissolves objects into words, a winged cat and Rudyard Kipling, and—well, we can’t wait for Volume 2.

Chabon’s Escapist comes to life
Like The Unwritten, The Escapists is about the joy of storytelling and the often insubstantial membrane that separates the fictional world from the physical one. Inspired by Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, it features a collaboration of artists bringing to life Brian K. Vaughan’s story of three youngsters who buy the rights to a long-dead comic book character, the Escapist, and attempt to revive him. The blend of styles works perfectly to move the story between the real world and the comic-within-the-comic, which naturally move along parallel tracks. The dark, large-paneled, painterly pages of the new Escapist book are simply gorgeous, and the interplay between the two worlds in the book is not only entertaining but also makes some sharp observations about the origins of inspiration, life’s impact on art and vice-versa, and the difficulty of recognizing which “reality” is more important. There’s also a charming introduction by Chabon.

One town, two worlds
Positioned for young readers, but with a richness of ideas and atmosphere that adults will equally enjoy, Mercury, the latest from Hope Larson (Chiggers), spans two worlds: a farm community in Nova Scotia in 1859, and the same setting 150 years later. In the first, Josey Fraser falls for the mysterious stranger Asa Curry, who turns up on her family’s doorstep with a proposition. While stealing Josey’s heart, he persuades her father to help him dig for gold on the family’s land, a project that leads eventually to disaster. A century and a half down the road, in the same spot, teenage Tara Fraser is struggling to work her way back into public school life after her family’s house, where she was home-schooled, burns down. The two stories converge when Tara comes across a necklace with a strange power to pull her toward history and a kind of multigenerational redemption. Larson’s spare line drawings are great at evoking movement and emotion—family tensions around a dinner table, for instance—and they lend themselves nicely to her touches of the supernatural.

A peek at the creative process

Anyone interested in how comics end up looking the way they do will be fascinated by Rough Justice, a behind-the-pages study of the work of Alex Ross, the legendary artist behind the Kingdom Come epic as well as various famous character re-imaginings. Through the pencil and ink sketches that eventually become Ross’ characteristically gorgeous paintings, you can see the artist experimenting with his characters, their expressions, costumes, postures and even the lines on their faces, all in the service of the larger story. How many crinkles should the Kingdom Come Superman have beneath his eyes? How much gray in the temples will look right? There are also proposals for new looks for reinvented characters, such as one story idea in which a disabled Batgirl spends some time in the Lazarus Pit and comes out healed but much darker. For fans, witnessing the artist/writer’s creative process at its very beginning is a treat, and it doesn’t hurt that the art looks incredible even in these embryonic stages.

Becky Ohlsen is a freelance writer in Portland, Oregon.

Confronting the truth
Even before you peek inside, it’s clear that…

Children's & YA, Middle Grade, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book Middle Grade

Kids make a difference on Earth Day

Feature by Eliza Borné

by Eliza Borné

April 22, 2010, is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, and there is no time like the present to be an environmental advocate. To teach children about the consequences their actions have on plants and animals—and how small changes can help Mother Nature—picture books provide important lessons, simple instructions and fun illustrations.

Veteran author and illustrator Todd Parr (Reading Makes You Feel Good) gives children concrete reasons to care for the planet in The EARTH Book, a colorful first-person story. No task is too small; even the little things can “make a BIG difference.” For example, “I take the school bus and ride my bike because . . . I love the stars and I want the air to be clear so I can see them sparkle.” In passages such as these, Parr demonstrates the relationship between our choices and the environment: recycling equals a cleaner planet, using less bath water means helping the fish, bringing reusable bags to the market can conserve trees. The bright and blocky illustrations convey the diversity of life on earth, from carrots in the ground to big blue whales. Simple text delivers a powerful message, so early readers can discover—on their own—ways to commemorate Earth Day.

Save the animals, or they’ll be gone
Frances Barry celebrates the grandness of our endangered species—and how we can help them survive—in Let’s Save the Animals. The paper collage, lift-the-flap illustrations are a delight, and children will be entranced by the forest of the orangutan, the sea of the dolphin and the meadow of the butterfly. That joy will be sobered by the small-print facts on every page, such as one stating, “Amur tigers live in the forests of eastern Russia, which are being cut down.” The book’s final words pack a punch, stating that if we don’t save the animals, they will be “gone forever.” This message is echoed by a clever visual trick: One side of the flap shows silhouettes of endangered animals, but the opposite side of the flap is blank, showing a vast nothingness. The story ends on a positive note, however, explaining simple actions children can take to protect and save animals, from visiting a wildlife sanctuary to recycling paper.

“Cooking” for Mother Nature
Compost Stew is a rhyming how-to book on the importance of composting, the simple act of turning kitchen and yard waste into nutrient-rich soil. Mary McKenna Siddals’ energetic text shows how fun and easy it can be to turn “apple cores, bananas, bruised, coffee grounds with filters, used” into something “dark and crumbly, rich and sweet.” Ashley Wolff provides collage-style illustrations that portray a bustling and happy neighborhood where everyone is eager to help. Upon finishing this book, readers are bound to want to get in on the action, asking their parents about starting a compost heap. And Siddals ensures that their curiosity does not end with her book; she provides resources for aspiring composters, such as a web address with further instructions. The final page in the book is a “Chef’s Note”—or information on what (and what not) to put in a compost. (“Earth? Yes! Meaty? No! Synthetic? Stop! Natural? Go!”) This Earth Day, why not make a resolution to throw fruit peels, dryer lint and more in a compost instead of the trash can?

It’s the little things that count
We Are What We Do is a global movement to change the world one step at a time, based on the equation “small actions x lots of people = big change.” With 31 Ways to Change the World, the organization took suggestions from 4,386 children and compiled a list of earth-changing habits and activities, from “Don’t sing in the shower” (because shorter showers mean less wasted water) to “Stand up for something.” The book, which is intended for a middle-grade audience, is filled with cartoons, scribbles and photographs and has the feel of scrapbook. And it’s not all serious. Some tips, like “Talk trash to your parents,” are sure to leave kids in giggles (and energized to make a difference). The last tip in the book should be the most inspiring; readers are invited to fill in the blank with their own invented action to change the world, emphasizing the fact that saving the planet can start with you.

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

Dear old Daddy

Feature by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

In my house, it seems, daddies can do no wrong—especially in the eyes of my 11-year-old twin daughters. (The same cannot always be said for dear old mom!) In honor of Father’s Day, here are four new picture books that salute proud papas everywhere.

Young children will enjoy the gentle rhymes of Sherry North’s Because I Am Your Daddy, illustrated by Marcellus Hall. This follow-up to Because You Are My Baby begins: “If I were a pilot, I would fly you to your school. / Your friends would all look up and say, ‘Your daddy is so cool!’ ”

The rhymes continue with the father voicing many “If I were” thoughts about being a baseball player, paleontologist, park ranger, movie director and all sorts of exciting professions. With each imagined activity, daddy, daughter and her dolly have an exciting adventure. This poem of mutual admiration ends with: “And if I were a wizard, I would make your dreams come true. / Because I am your daddy, I would do anything for you.”

Daddy/daughter bedtime reading doesn’t get any cozier. The text is accompanied by Hall’s fun and stylishly retro watercolors. His airline pilot and robot look like they could have come from the 1960s, while his use of color is lovely, especially in a northern sky night scene.

What's in a name
Acclaimed children’s author Jane Yolen wrote the delightful tribute My Father Knows the Names of Things in honor of her late husband, David Stemple. The encyclopedic dad in this book knows the names of many wonderful things, including mosses, insects, fish, cows, stars, cats and candies.

Stéphane Jorisch’s illustrations (watercolor, gouache, pen and ink) are whimsically delightful, making the father/child explorations great fun. The explorers wade through hugely tall sunflowers, head for the clouds in a biplane and explore the planets from an amusement park ride. Everything is fun and full of expression in Jorisch’s world—even a row of colorful birds in a cage.

Standing tall
Daddy Devotion is also alive and well in My Father is Taller Than a Tree, by another award-winning children’s author, Joseph Bruchac. This rhyming text features a variety of boys with their dads: old, young, white, black, Hispanic, Asian and even a blind dad. Wendy Anderson Halperin’s pastel illustrations show fathers and their sons enjoying splendid times together—playing the piano, walking on the beach, reading, playing chess, painting a doghouse. These tender scenes conclude with a panorama of sons and their dads, and this lovely line: “When I grow up and have a kid / we’ll do all the things that Dad and I did.”

Saluting stepfathers, too
Finally, blended families will adore Dad and Pop: An Ode to Fathers and Stepfathers. Writer Kelly Bennett celebrates how both a father and a stepfather can be equally fun and loving in very different ways. For instance, both father and stepfather bike (one on a bicycle, one on a motorcycle) and both love music (one goes for the symphony while the other rocks out). Paul Meisel’s colorful, energetic illustrations show dads with their daughters enjoying all sorts of entertaining outings together.

Young children…

Fiction, Memoir, Nonfiction, Women's Fiction

Nonfiction Fiction Women's Fiction Memoir

Selections for the sultry season

Feature by the editors of BookPage

by the editors of BookPage

Reading in the summertime has a different pace. Life slows down as the weather heats up, leaving readers with more time to savor a special book. Whether you’re heading to the beach, cooling off in the mountains or simply relaxing at home, add one of these recommendations to your summer reading list.

A MASTER OF APPALACHIAN FICTION
Author Sharyn McCrumb has forged a successful career by dipping her pen into the inkwell of Appalachian culture and conveying the region’s stories to the rest of the world. A resident of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains herself, McCrumb has the unique ability to paint mythic portraits from the past and present of the people who call this region home.

Her latest offering, The Devil Amongst the Lawyers, skewers folks who distort the truth, notably big-city journalists who have arrived in 1930s rural Virginia to cover a murder trial. The case makes headlines only because it contains sensational elements sure to sell papers: A beautiful, educated young teacher is on trial for killing her coal-miner father.

McCrumb introduces two veteran journalists, Rose Hanelon and Henry Jernigan, as well as their accompanying photographer Shade Baker, as the vultures that promptly descend upon Wise County as soon as the accused, Erma Morton, is booked for the crime. Instead of communicating the facts, these three will relay whatever headlines are most likely to increase the paper’s circulation. In Rose’s own words: “What you emphasized and what you omitted told the viewers what they ought to think of the subject.”

There is one honest, fledgling writer in the ranks of gawkers as the court case unfolds. Newbie reporter Carl Jenkins struggles with separating fact from opinion as he tries to make a name for himself.

Readers may recognize Jenkins’ young cousin, mountain psychic Nora Bonesteel—introduced in McCrumb’s beloved Appalachian Ballad books—who arrives at Carl’s urging to help forecast the trial’s outcome.

McCrumb demonstrates her usual mastery of historical detail and pointed description of place in The Devil Amongst the Lawyers, a finely spun tale where neither guilt nor innocence is evident until the final page is turned.

—Lizza Connor Bowen

A LOVABLE HEROINE FROM ISAACS
Does anyone create more likeable characters than best-selling author Susan Isaacs?

I thought my favorite Isaacs heroine was a toss-up between feisty Amy Lincoln, the investigative reporter in Any Place I Hang My Hat, and suburban amateur detective Judith Singer of Compromising Positions and Long Time No See. But now, after reading Isaacs’ latest, As Husbands Go, there’s a new contender.

Susie B. Anthony Rabinowitz Gersten lives on Long Island with her four-year-old triplets and husband Jonah, a successful plastic surgeon, doting father and devoted husband—which makes it kind of strange when he turns up murdered in the apartment of Manhattan call girl Dorinda Dillon, stabbed in the chest with a pair of scissors.

Anxious to solve the high-profile case, detectives quickly determine that Dorinda is the culprit. She’s arrested and charged, but Susie can’t shake the feeling that everyone—police, prosecutors, her own family—is missing some piece of the puzzle. To make matters worse, her high-society mother-in-law has suddenly become Susie’s biggest critic, accusing her of pressuring Jonah to work too hard to maintain their comfortable lifestyle. And neighbors are gleefully (but not subtly) whispering about this unexpected turn of events for what seemed like the perfect family.

With her usual keen eye for detail and humor, Isaacs takes a hard look at the sometimes impenetrable, often absurd social politics of upscale New York. Susie is a winning heroine: wry, smart and self-deprecating. Fast-paced and immensely satisfying, As Husbands Go is a novel about a woman trying to prove that her charmed life was no fairy tale, and in the process learning a lot about herself.

—Amy Scribner

ANOTHER BINCHY WORTH WATCHING
If nice guys always finish last, then David, the hero of Chris Binchy’s American debut, Five Days Apart, is doomed from the start. Sweet and unassuming, he has navigated his college social life by hiding behind his gregarious friend, Alex, an immature heartbreaker who never seems to take anything seriously. Then, at a party just before graduation, David is struck by a woman in a way he never has been before, and he turns to Alex for romantic help. But Alex is as smooth as David is awkward, so he inevitably moves in on Camille himself, leaving David devastated.

David graduates from college and outwardly does everything he should—he gets a job in a bank, earns praise from his superiors and becomes a grown-up. But he can’t forget Camille, and eschews any attempt to get over her or meet anyone else. Meanwhile, Alex and Camille have moved in together, though Alex is sputtering through his stalled college career and can’t seem to make any real commitment either to her or to himself. David isolates himself, from the world and particularly from Alex, and the demise of their lifelong friendship and David’s staggering loneliness is detailed with particular insight.

Binchy—a bestseller in Ireland and the nephew of beloved author Maeve Binchy—tackles the age-old issues of love, friendship, loneliness and ambition with a surprisingly nuanced hand. There are some flaws here—the story is so simple and timeless that it doesn’t always feel completely fresh, and David’s total social paralysis undermines his narrative sympathy at times. But where Binchy excels is his subtle commentary on this new generation, clearly stunted by an unparalleled amount of choice. The ways in which David and Alex treat their freedom—and friendship—is fascinating, far beyond their conflict with Camille, and their dilemma makes this perceptive debut stand out from America’s lackluster lad lit scene.

—Rebecca Shapiro

A LIGHT, DREAMY READ
Francesca, Louise Shaffer’s heroine in Looking for a Love Story, won the publishing jackpot. Yesterday she was an unheard-of writer. Today she is a best-selling author. Now the publisher is panting for a sequel, but when Francesca fires up her laptop, she is met with radio silence. For months. And as that sound of silence becomes all-consuming, her very handsome husband moves out (or on). The only thing sticking by her side is her dutiful dog, Annie, and the few extra pounds inertia brings to someone frozen in fear of failure.

And it is Annie who jumpstarts this tale. After all, a dog that lives in a Manhattan condo must be walked. And fed. So income must come from somewhere, even if the dog’s owner has writer’s block.

After several ill-fated attempts, Francesca finally lands a freelance writing assignment with “Chicky,” an old woman who wants to tell the story of her 1920s vaudevillian forebears. To Francesca, it sounds a bit lame, but a job is a job. Then for some inexplicable reason the characters start to get into Francesca’s blood. Words flow effortlessly onto the page. But Chicky holds a mighty big secret that sets the stage for life lessons that will smack Francesca right between the eyes and, to her delight, squelch that radio silence.

A story all tied up in a pretty bow? No, but you’ll find several real love stories from the past and present smoothly braided together in this light, dreamy read.

—Dee Ann Grand

AN ESSAY COLLECTION WORTH SHARING
No one would call Sloane Crosley’s first essay collection, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, juvenile, but her second effort, How Did You Get This Number, is decidedly more grown-up. It matures, say, from a fabric scrunchie to a sleek hair clasp without losing any of the can-you-believe-this-is-actually-happening-to-me moments. Crosley, who lives in New York City and is developing her first book as an HBO series, writes like your enviably witty, completely chic friend who also swears like a sailor when relaying a story.

Crosley begins her essays with captivating leads, the first sentences telling stories of their own. In “Light Pollution,” a small anecdote flourishes and crescendos, taking the reader from an Alaskan car-trip musing to a baby bear’s shocking mercy killing. “An Abbreviated Catalog of Tongues” details her family’s escapades with pets—from a stingray named Herb to a blind bichon frise to a series of birds that died mysterious deaths. And finally, the collection’s title comes from “Off the Back of a Truck,” in which Crosley has a perfect working relationship with a dishonest furniture store worker and a not-so-perfect relationship with a handsome writer named Ben.

Crosley writes like a student of literature, figuring out along the way which techniques work, which words are funny and how seemingly separate storylines parallel. She seems to unravel the morals to her own stories aloud, while the reader almost embarrassingly listens in. Her stories are joyful and nostalgic, but above all, they are really funny. Her new essay collection, like the last one, should be taken on trains and planes, read on the beach, shared and enjoyed. Crosley is going to be around for awhile; best to get on board now and say you knew her back when she bought furniture off the black market and played charades with Portuguese circus clowns in Lisbon.

—Katie Lewis

ANOTHER HIT FROM WEINER
Jennifer Weiner's Fly Away Home opens with a scandal: a philandering senator caught with a much-younger mistress. But after the familiar headlines fade, a broken family flounders in their wake.

Weiner creates realistic characters in the senator’s wife, Sylvie, and daughters Lizzie and Diana, all central to this story of unraveling and rebuilding relationships. Sylvie, who has long abandoned her personal ambitions to buoy her husband’s political aspirations, faces her newfound independence with a mix of joy and trepidation. She finally has the opportunity to pursue interests like cooking, dating and mothering the daughters she overlooked while trying to be the perfect politician’s wife, but she finds that freedom isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.

Meanwhile, Lizzie and Diana are dealing with their own set of problems: Lizzie, a recovering addict, tries to prove to her family that she’s not a lifetime screw-up. However, she gets herself into a predicament that could grease the hinges for a relapse. Diana, a successful doctor, wife and mother, struggles to maintain a pristine exterior while her own loveless marriage deteriorates.

While the subject matter is heavy, Fly Away Home isn’t a downer. Weiner’s light touch, especially evident in Diana’s sarcastic dialogue as well as with the amusing Selma, Sylvie’s Jewish, feminist mother who never lacks an opinion, makes this a quick and engaging summer read.

—Lizza Connor Bowen

FOR THE MUSIC GEEK IN ALL OF US
In 1995, Nick Hornby gave a gift to music geeks everywhere with High Fidelity, a charming novel with a hero who somehow knew all the same obscure B-sides that they did. In 2007, music journalist Rob Sheffield picked up where Hornby left off with his heartbreaking memoir, Love is a Mix Tape, about, in equal parts, Nirvana and the crippling loss of his young wife, Renee. Now Sheffield is back with the same encyclopedic knowledge of pop music and touching, resonant prose in Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, this time tackling two profoundly painful topics—adolescence and the 1980s.

Growing up a nerdy Catholic boy in a Boston suburb, Sheffield turned to music for the same reasons as everyone else: to fit in, and to be able to talk to girls. He doesn’t really achieve either goal, as a hilariously awkward conversation with one potential conquest attests—she assures him that while he is sadly destined to remain a geek for life, thus giving him no chance with her, one day he will meet “others like him.” It’s an oddly poignant moment, and pinpoints what’s so special about Sheffield’s writing—sheer recognition, for anyone who has ever felt a little bit different.

Amid Sheffield’s adolescent angst, too, is incredible, almost stream-of-consciousness commentary on 1980s music, from total one-hit wonders to the phenomena of David Bowie, Boy George and, of course, Duran Duran. The minutiae of his musical mantras can feel overwrought at times, overwhelming the seemingly effortless charm of his childhood stories, from an idyllic summer job as an ice-cream man to his awe for and helplessness in the face of three younger sisters. But fans will appreciate his total nerddom and value his impressive knowledge of and, above all, raw emotional response to music.

—Rebecca Shapiro

American History

American History

The American Revolution revisited

Feature by Edward Morris

by Edward Morris

America’s Revolutionary War is so encrusted in myth and preconceptions that there always seems room for another angle. Three new histories take only sidelong glances at the war itself, instead examining such aspects as motivation, political maneuvering and the significant people who never achieved the status of “Founding Fathers.”

FROM THE GROUND UP
T.H. Breen’s American Insurgents, American Patriots argues that without the anti-royalist groundswell that occurred throughout the colonies following Parliament’s passage of the Coercive Acts in 1774, the men now acknowledged as our Founding Fathers would have constituted no more than a debating society. The Coercive Acts were Britain’s tough response to the Boston Tea Party. In showing its willingness to punish the people of Boston indiscriminately, Britain simultaneously revealed the danger it posed to the freedoms of all colonials. Responding to that perceived danger, towns and villages from New Hampshire to Georgia began forming militias and “committees of safety” to resist imperial heavy-handedness. They used newspapers and pamphlets to advance their arguments and keep abreast of each other’s activities. Their collective pressure, Breen notes, made the First Continental Congress, which convened in Philadelphia in September 1774, far more radical in its outlook than it otherwise would have been. These local resistance units were manned by volunteers in the months leading up to the war; but as other histories have shown, volunteerism waned dangerously as the war progressed. Filled with anecdotes about citizen hyperactivity, Breen’s book is a valuable addition to Revolutionary War scholarship.

OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE
Jack Rakove’s Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America delineates the political realities Americans faced from just before the war began until the ascent of George Washington to the presidency. He does so by chronicling the political evolution and interactions of dozens of activists, among them the firebrands John and Samuel Adams; the moderates John Dickinson, Robert Morris, James Duane and John Jay; Washington as a military leader; Tom Paine as the supreme propagandist; George Mason as a constitutional theorist; and Henry and John Laurens as ambivalent anti-slavers. In the post-war period, Rakove dissects the uneven contributions of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison (“the greatest lawgiver of modernity”) and Alexander Hamilton. While Rakove’s research traverses well-worn territory, he presents an excellent overview of intricate Revolutionary politics and the role personality played in shaping them.

TRUTHS AND MYTHS
William Hogeland’s Declaration takes the reader inside the nine weeks of wheeling and dealing—May 1 to July 4, 1776—that culminated in the passage and signing of what is now called the Declaration of Independence. (Originally, it had no title.) Although America was fully embroiled in war at that time, sentiments still ran high in some of the colonies—particularly in Pennsylvania, where the Second Continental Congress was meeting—to reach a resolution with England that did not involve actual separation from the mother country. Hogeland describes how Samuel Adams and his faction, which burned for independence, conspired successfully with working-class radicals to turn Pennsylvania around. The author also shreds some myths about the Declaration, noting, for example, that it isn’t a legal document but an explanatory one; that it didn’t flow fully formed from Thomas Jefferson’s pen but was picked apart by other delegates before it was agreed on; and that it was not signed by the delegates on the day of passage (July 2, not July 4) but over a period of six months. Declaration is immensely readable and entertaining—almost like being there.

Audio, Fiction, Literature

Fiction Audio Literature

A seminal novel turns 50

Feature by Lacey Galbraith

by Lacey Galbraith

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is more than a literary classic; it’s a 50-year testament to the ways a well-told story can inspire readers and impact a culture.

Oprah Winfrey has called it America’s “national novel,” and Tom Brokaw remembers the “electrifying effect” it had on the country the year it debuted. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961, and in 1962 a movie adaptation garnered three Academy Awards (having been nominated for eight). Today, this treasured gem has sold more than 30 million copies.

To Kill a Mockingbird was first published in the summer of 1960 when its author, Nelle Harper Lee, was 35 years old. Living in a cold-water flat in New York City’s Yorkville neighborhood, she had been supporting herself with a series of odd jobs, from sales clerk in a bookstore to ticket agent for Eastern Airlines. For years, her ambition had been to become a writer. Her childhood friend Truman Capote (who appears in the book as the character Dill) had done it, but for Lee, any future literary success was contingent upon her ability to carve out time in the evenings after work to write.

Those close to Lee, like best friends Joy and Michael Martin Brown, believed in her though, and on Christmas Day, 1956, they presented Lee with an envelope. Inside was a note reading, “You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.” Free to devote herself full time to her writing, Lee produced a bestseller.

To honor Lee’s achievement and celebrate the novel’s 50 years of enduring popularity, publisher HarperCollins is organizing events across the country—from readings to live re-enactments—and publishing several new editions of the classic. There’s an elegance to the To Kill a Mockingbird slipcased edition, while the 50th-anniversary hardcover is especially lovely with its vintage reproduction of the original book jacket. Also available is a mass market paperback.

Paying tribute to the novel’s lasting legacy is Mary McDonagh Murphy’s Scout, Atticus & Boo, a collection of 26 interviews with mostly well-known Americans reflecting on how the book has touched their lives. Included are Anna Quindlen, Jon Meacham, Allan Gurganus, Mary Badham (the actress who played Scout in the movie) and even Lee’s sister, Alice Lee.

Gaining a million more readers every year, To Kill a Mockingbird’s enduring success can be traced both to the novel’s subjects—Scout’s coming-of-age, the trial of Tom Robinson—and to Lee’s storytelling. The book tackles the injustice of racism, takes a stand for what is right, yet thankfully lacks any tone of self-righteousness or high-minded piety. Lee’s characters are wonderfully crafted, so vivid and alive. Her prose is beautifully languid, her descriptions sharp-eyed and her humor smart.

Harper Lee accomplished something great with To Kill a Mockingbird, and with every passing decade, another generation of readers is wholly, and completely, captivated by its magic.

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is more than a literary classic; it’s a 50-year testament to the ways a well-told story can inspire readers and impact a culture.

Oprah Winfrey has called it America’s “national novel,” and Tom Brokaw remembers the “electrifying effect” it…

Summer selections from top novelists

Feature by Tom Robinson

by Tom Robinson

In this feature exclusive to BookPage.com, authors are asked a question about the craft of writing to give readers an insight into how their favorite writers think and work. For this author forum, BookPage brought together Sandra Brown, Carla Buckley and Michael Palmer to ask: What's on your summer reading list?

SANDRA BROWN
I've been saving a couple of books for the season. I loved Chris Bohjalian's Skeletons at the Feast, so I bought Secrets of Eden. [see our reviews of Bohjalian's books] It's been in my stack of to-be-read books for several weeks. I'm savoring the anticipation. He writes lyrically and tells a captivating story. That's tough to do. Sometimes you get one of those qualities at the sacrifice of the other. Bohjalian, however, tells an action-packed and emotionally-gripping story in language that often reads like poetry.

I also look forward to reading John Sanford's newest Lucas Davenport novel, Storm Prey. I've read them all, but you could hardly call Lucas an old standby! He's as far from familiar and comfy as the far side of the moon. He always surprises. I fluctuate between wanting to smack him with my fist, or with my lips! I never tire of this fascinating character or of the intricate plots that Sanford—with excellent storytelling ability—plunges him into.

Internationally best-selling author Sandra Brown will publish Smash Cut on July 20 and Tough Customer on August 10. Read an excerpt here.

CARLA BUCKLEY
This summer, I’ll be digging into research as I begin my next novel. As a non-scientist writing about scientific threats, this will involve a lot of nonfiction reading. In between, however, there will be a number of long road trips and for those, I’ll be taking along Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. I’ve heard fantastic things about all three, and I’m eager to see for myself how Larsson managed to keep the tension going strong throughout the trilogy [our reviews of Larsson's books]. I’m also planning to read Anna Quindlen’s Every Last One, which several readers have recommended to me [see our review], and Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay which I hear is exceptional.

Carla Buckley's debut novel, The Things That Keep Us Here, is now available from Delacorte.

MICHAEL PALMER
When my first book, The Sisterhood, came out, a number of well-knowns gave it blurbs. I vowed then that if whatever I had to say ever mattered, I would never say no to a new writer if I could help it. Little did I know. I now get anywhere from three to 10 ARCs or manuscripts a month. I am a slow reader under the best of circumstances, and with a book-a-year contract, the need to exercise, and a part-time medical career, I am always scrambling for time to read non-blurb books, and inevitably falling asleep at night with one of them open on my chest. I try to have one pleasure read going at all times, and especially when I go on any kind of vacation. Right now, The Help [read our interview] is on the bedside table because I want to experience what has moved so many others. I also have a Lee Child (he's my favorite) ready and waiting, along with the Stieg Larsson trilogy. If I get five blurb books plus those titles read by the end of the summer, I will be one happy and fulfilled dude.

Michael Palmer has been publishing suspenseful medical thrillers since 1982. His latest bestseller is The Last Surgeon (St. Martin's).

—

Tom Robinson is an author publicist and media consultant working with authors across the country. Visit his website.

May 2010 Author Forum
June 2009 Author Forum
July 2009 Author Forum
August 2009 Author Forum
September 2009 Author Forum
October 2009 Author Forum

Recipe: Red Beans and Rice Salad with Tabasco Vinaigrette

Feature by Sybil Pratt

by Sybil Pratt

Burgers are America's favorite food, so featuring a burger–whether it's beef, buffalo, lamb or swordfish—as the centerpiece of a party is a foolproof idea for entertaining. But burgers alone, a party does not make. You need sides and starters and something sweet. Burger Parties: Featuring Winning Recipes form Sutter Home Winery's Build a Better Burger® Contest serves up main event recipes, plus all the extra fixin's for sixteen summer gatherings—and some of the extras are worthy of their own place in the culinary sun.

Serves 6

Vinaigrette:
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Creole mustard
2 teaspoons Tabasco pepper sauce
11/2 teaspoons minced or pressed garlic
1 teaspoon kosher or coarse sea salt
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 (15-ounce) cans small red beans, drained and rinsed
3 cups cooked long-grain white rice, at room temperature
1/2 cup diced (1/4 inch) red bell pepper
1/2 cup diced (1/4 inch) green bell pepper
1/2 cup diced (1/4 inch) celery
1/2 cup very thinly sliced green onions, including green tops
1/4 cup diced (1/4 inch) carrot
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

To make the vinaigrette, combine the vinegar, mustard, pepper sauce, garlic, and salt in a small bowl and whisk to blend well. Add the oil and whisk until emulsified. Taste and add more pepper sauce and salt, if desired.

Shortly before serving, combine the beans, rice, bell peppers, celery, green onions, carrot, and parsley in a large bowl. Add the vinaigrette and toss to coat.

To serve, transfer the salad to a serving platter or bowl.

Reprinted with permission from Burger Parties: Recipes from Sutter Home Winery’s Build a Better Burger Contest by James McNair and Jeffrey Starr, copyright © 2010. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House, Inc.

Burgers are America's favorite food, so featuring a burger--whether it's beef, buffalo, lamb or swordfish—as the centerpiece of a party is a foolproof idea for entertaining. But burgers alone, a party does not make. You need sides and starters and something sweet. Burger Parties: Featuring Winning…

Recipe: Cherry Tomatoes with Créme Fraîche & Chives

Feature by Sybil Pratt

by Sybil Pratt

No one has to tell a good Italian cook about simplicity or seasonality; it’s in their DNA, and Mario Batali has made it his mission to spread that Italian culinary credo. With 14 restaurants, eight cookbooks and TV appearances galore, the exuberant, larger-than-life Molto Mario is the current champion of La Cucina Italiana. Now he’s added a “proplanet resolve” to his message, “greening” his restaurants and reminding us of the social cost of our food decisions. Not pushy and hardly a vegetarian, Mario suggests that meals made up of a few vegetarian antipasti, maybe a sampling of salumi, a salad, pizza or pasta, some good cheese and a delectable dolce are sumptuously simple. In other words, you don’t need a “meat and potatoes” main course. And in Molto Gusto: Easy Italian Cooking, Mario offers the Italian classics that have made Otto Enoteca Pizzeria, his Manhattan palazzo of pizza and pasta, so resoundingly successful. Seasonally orchestrated, super-low in animal protein, these are the go-to recipes for creating your own incredibly inviting “pro-planet” meals. Try Spring Peas with Mint, Penne with Walnut Pesto, Pizza with Funghi and Taleggio, Tricolore Salad, Ricotta Gelato—nobody will ask, “where’s the beef?”

Serves 6

12 ounces ripe cherry, grape, or pear tomatoes, halved
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
Maldon or other flaky sea salt
6 tablespoons crème fraîche
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
Fresh chive sticks for garnish

Put the tomatoes in a serving bowl and add the vinegar, tossing to coat. Season with salt, and let marinade for 10 minutes, tossing occasionally.

Combine the crème fraîche and oil in a medium bowl and whisk until the cream just holds a soft shape.

Garnish the tomatoes with dollops of the crème fraîche, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with chives, and serve.

Recipe courtesy of Molto Gusto (Ecco 2010).

Cookbooks

Cookbooks

Recipe: Watermelon Margaritas

Feature by Sybil Pratt

by Sybil Pratt

A celebration of the best that the Tex-Mex tradition offers, The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook, illustrated with 75 archival and new photographs, takes you on a tour of famous Tex-Mex restaurants, taco trucks, cook-offs and tailgating extravaganzas, and has all the recipes you'll need to make these spicy treasures in your own backyard. No Tex-Mex fiesta could start without a Margarita, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a more welcoming summer cocktail than this super-seasonal, rosy-pink Watermelon version. If you can't find "watermelon liquor," no problema—just add little more tequila!

Serves 4

Thanks to Gramercy Tavern manager Nick Mautone for the frozen watermelon ice cube idea.

1/2 small watermelon
8 ounces Simple Syrup
4 ounces freshly squeezed lemon juice
4 ounces freshly squeezed lime juice
12 ounces gold tequila
8 ounces watermelon liqueur
12 mint leaves

Cut the watermelon into 1-inch cubes, removing the seeds as you go. Place the cubes in a colander set inside a bowl. Stir the cubes gently to extract juice without breaking up the cubes. You should have at least 8 ounces of juice. Put the watermelon cubes on a tray and freeze until solid—about an hour.

Mix the syrup, lemon juice, and lime juice with the watermelon juice. To serve, divide the frozen cubes among 4 glasses. Add the tequila, then the liqueur, and then the juice mixture and stir. Garnish with the mint leaves.

Recipe from The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook; Broadway Books.

Education, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Education

Helping your kid make the grade

Feature by Stephanie Gerber

by Stephanie Gerber

As students gear up for school, here are four picks to help parents make the most of their child’s education, from preschool to college.

THE RIGHT START
The subtitle of Jenifer Wana’s preschool primer says it all: “The Ultimate Guide to Finding, Getting Into, and Preparing for Nursery School.” Type A moms everywhere can breathe a sigh of relief because How To Choose the Best Preschool for Your Child will save you loads of time navigating essays, interviews, applications and recommendation letters. Beginning at least a year before your child starts school, Wana offers organizational tips for researching, visiting and enrolling in preschool. This process might seem straightforward—your little tyke is only three after all—but the to-do’s are daunting.

Wana helps you determine what’s most important to you and your child in choosing the right preschool (location and cost are biggies for most families). To help you narrow down the options, she includes helpful overviews of different preschool types (Montessori, play-based, Waldorf and others) and comprehensive instructions on researching and evaluating schools.

Wana provides lots of questions that will make you look smart to the discerning admissions officer and even offers acceptably pushy tips on getting off the waiting list. Once little Susie is accepted to the perfect school, a countdown will get the whole family ready for the big day.

KINDGERGARTEN SUCCESS
Regardless of whether they attend public or private school, most children will be given some sort of IQ test by the age of five. Author Karen Quinn has written a comprehensive guide to this secret world in Testing for Kindergarten. It’s a process foreign to most parents, and these early test scores don’t even correlate well to later success. However, the tests have enormous impact on whether a child will get into a competitive private kindergarten or a free public gifted program.

Quinn turned herself into an expert on the topic after her son Sam was faced with developmental delays caused by hearing problems. At age three, he scored in the 37th percentile. After Quinn’s intervention, he scored in the 94th.

Testing for Kindergarten shows how every parent can improve their child’s abilities and scores. First, Quinn explains the most common IQ tests and the seven abilities they measure. Then she helps parents refocus the way they interact with their child to start sneaking learning into everyday life. Daily Life Lessons are easy ideas, like what to do while setting the table, and there are loads of games and activities.

Quinn keeps the overload factor down by focusing on the most important things you can start on day one (dialogic reading, talking to your child constantly). Don’t miss this empowering guide.

SINCERE SLACKERS
As most parents know, boys are different from girls when it comes to organization, time management and study skills. Author Ana Homayoun outlines her specially designed organizational system for preteen and teenage boys in That Crumpled Paper Was Due Last Week. This professional tutor says boys’ struggles in school are rarely due to difficulties with the class material. Instead, disorganization is the root cause.

To get boys back on track, Homayoun outlines a practical plan that focuses on building skills rather than just improving grades. She identifies five factors that add up to chronic disorganization: trouble with multi-tasking, over-involved parents, technology distractions, sleep deprivation and fear of making wrong choices. Parents play a key role in implementing change, starting by identifying their son’s dis-organizational style (the overscheduled procrastinator or the sincere slacker) and helping their sons set three academic and three personal goals.

The specific to-do’s are geared for maximum efficiency. Prepare an organized binder for each class. Don’t do homework in the bedroom; instead try the dining room table. Turn off the music, and put away the cell phone and computer. A five-week strategy for implementing the straightforward advice helps parents and boys see results fast.

COLLEGE BOUND
From the author of the bestseller The Naked Roommate comes The Happiest Kid on Campus, a practical parents’ guide to helping your child get the most out of the emotional and tumultuous college years.

Author Harlan Cohen writes with a wise, funny point of view. He’s young enough to understand kids these days and help parents avoid major eye-rolling on touchy subjects like sex, drugs and alcohol. Pretty much any topic that parents are embarrassed to talk about with their kids is covered with sensitivity and common-sense advice.

Cohen also helps tech-illiterate parents navigate the muddy waters of texting, Twitter and Facebook. He says email is out of date, so if you do want to keep in touch, learn to text. But limit it to twice a week.

Cohen has plenty of advice on practical matters, including handling orientation, packing, move-in day and the basics of financial aid and, of course, dealing with difficult roommates. This handy guide will help parents survive the first few months until your child finds his place on campus.

As students gear up for school, here are four picks to help parents make the most of their child’s education, from preschool to college.

THE RIGHT START
The subtitle of Jenifer Wana’s preschool primer says it all: “The Ultimate Guide to Finding, Getting Into, and…

Parenting

Parenting

Building skills for life

Feature by Rebecca Steinitz

by Rebecca Steinitz

At the start of the 21st century, parents are understandably worried about how to help children navigate a world characterized by economic uncertainty and academic pressure, cyber-distractions and omnipresent media. These books offer advice for every stage of the parenting journey.

In recent years, scientists and psychologists have gained dramatic new insights into the brains and behavior of babies and young children. Among other things, they have discovered that babies are aware of language, numbers and feelings at just a few months old, and that the executive functions of the brain, which help us organize our lives and behavior, are critical to achievement. Ellen Galinsky draws upon these insights in Mind in the Making, an overview of the seven “learning skills”—like “Focus and Self Control” and “Critical Thinking”—that, she argues, help children succeed in life.

Galinsky references her own experiences, brief parenting anecdotes and the research and opinions of experts as she first details the importance of each “essential life skill” and then provides suggestions for how parents can stimulate that skill. The suggestions are as specific as games to play and questions to ask, and as broad as reducing parental stress. While Mind in the Making offers much food for thought, its breadth can be overwhelming; just trying to follow the 19 suggestions for promoting focus could drive a parent to distraction.

HELPING CHILDREN LEARN
Like Galinsky, Jane Healy focuses on the brain; while Galinsky addresses the basic skills that underlie success in all aspects of life, Healy—an educational psychologist, teacher and brain expert—specifically tackles learning problems, and her approach is both more focused and more comprehensive. In Different Learners, she makes a persuasive case for attending carefully to both genetic and environmental causes of learning problems.

While learning problems often originate in the brain, Healy argues that they can be dramatically exacerbated by a child’s “home, school, community, and culture.” Carefully laying out the workings of the brain, along with the causes and consequences of different kinds of learning issues, she argues that paying close attention to a child’s specific needs and making changes in their environment and behavior can make medication unnecessary.

Healy is persuasive, thoughtful and, above all, sympathetic to the challenges and fears parents face, providing many useful tips and strategies for how they can help their children.

GETTING IT RIGHT FOR GIRLS
In Girls on the Edge, Dr. Leonard Sax, author of Boys Adrift, now turns his attention to the opposite sex. Sax believes that contemporary culture, with its focus on appearance and performing for others, is preventing girls from developing an “authentic sense of self.” In the first part of the book, he targets early sexualization, the Internet and environmental toxins as primary causes of this absence, and obsessions (from anorexia and alcohol abuse to perfectionism) as one of its signal manifestations.

Sax, a strong public advocate for single-sex education, believes that boys and girls are innately different and should be taught and coached in different ways. In the book’s second half, he outlines some of these differences and offers advice on how to help girls flourish.

Some of Sax’s suggestions are common sense: limiting and supervising computer time, making sure your daughter gets enough sleep, being a “Just Right” parent (“firm but not rigid, loving but not permissive”) instead of “Too Hard” or “Too Soft.” His focus on gender difference and single-sex environments may be more controversial, but will ring true for some parents.

ONE MOTHER’S TEENAGER
While Sax takes a big-picture look at today’s teenage girls, in My Teenage Werewolf, author and mom Lauren Kessler focuses on one girl: her preteen daughter, Lizzie, with whom she increasingly finds herself “completely immersed in mutual hostility.” Seeking to understand Lizzie, and to prevent the semi-estrangement that characterized her post-adolescent relationship with her own mother, Kessler sets out to explore the world of contemporary teenagers.

She begins with research, learning about strategies for communicating with teens, the hormonal and brain changes that make teenagers so erratic and impulsive, and the stresses they face today. She joins Lizzie at school, camp and wrestling practice, becoming a “cultural anthropologist” of “the world of the twenty-first-century teen girl.”

In the two years she spends immersed in Lizzie’s life, Kessler discovers that her daughter is not a raging, sulking beast determined to make her mother’s life miserable, but a strong, thoughtful individual. Acknowledging Lizzie’s autonomy, and letting go of her own need to control her daughter, Kessler finds her way to the mother-daughter relationship she seeks—a relationship that was really there all along.

In recent years, scientists and…

Fiction, Mystery, Women's Fiction

Fiction Women's Fiction Mystery

Dazzling debut authors

Feature by BookPage staff

by BookPage staff

With more and more new writers getting published each month, it’s sometimes daunting to decide which newly minted authors to add to your reading list. From historical novels to literary fiction to mysteries that will keep you up all night, here’s a look at the best debut fiction of the season.

SUSPENSEFUL FAMILY DRAMA

The basic plot of The Swimming Pool sounds like a soap opera: A devoted wife and mother of two is murdered. Shortly after, her husband—a suspect—dies in a car accident. Seven years later, the son of the dead couple has a steamy affair. His lover? The woman who was his late father’s mistress.

Under Holly LeCraw’s spell, what could have been pure pulp is instead a passionate and suspenseful family drama and murder mystery, set during the sultry summertime of Cape Cod. LeCraw skillfully alternates between past and present, allowing the reader to observe Marcella Atkinson’s affair with Cecil McClatchey; the consequences it has on both her family and his; and her later relationship with Jed, Cecil’s son.

The aftermath of betrayal and the cost of passion loom large in the story’s background. Did Marcella and Cecil’s affair cause the death of Cecil’s wife, Betsy? Was Marcella’s temporary happiness with Cecil worth disrupting the lives of her family? Is it possible to find happiness after horrific events?

Although LeCraw’s descriptive prose is sensual and worth savoring, readers will whip through The Swimming Pool, eager to find out what really happened on the night of Betsy’s murder. At the novel’s conclusion, they’ll relish the fact that LeCraw is a debut author—how thrilling it is to anticipate what she’ll come up with next.

—Eliza Borné

BEHIND THE FREAK SHOW

To the modern thrill-seeker, the main event of P.T. Barnum’s Circus may be the strangely trained animals or death-defying stunts. The original circus, however, began with a much humbler lineup, as “A Museum of Curiosities” in New York City in the mid-1800s.

In The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno, readers get an inside peek at the lives behind the freak show, home to skeleton men, oversized beasts and bearded women. But the performers in Barnum’s sideshow are real people, complete with genuine struggles, emotions, ambitions and love lives. The story’s protagonist, Fortuno, or “Barthy,” is one such multifaceted character.

After meeting a new addition to the cast, Mrs. Iell Adams, Barthy’s tiny world is widened by his own curiosity. Intrigued by her alluring look, he begins to question his own “talent,” asking himself for the first time if he has chosen his life or if it has chosen him.

Trudging through his doubt, he follows the impulses of his newfound feelings, sometimes to his own detriment, and often leaving others in the wake of his decisions. Beginning as a troubled soul who rarely stopped to dwell on the past or realize the implications of the present, Barthy emerges transformed by the twists and turns of his true self-discovery.

Bryson’s writing invites readers directly onto the showroom floor with her apt descriptions of the culture surrounding the Museum life. She’s done her digging—and it’s clear in her detailed portrait of the complexities and conflicts of a life behind glass. This is an apropos end-of-summer pick for the historian and/or the endlessly curious. Whether or not they’re familiar with Barnum and his enterprise, readers will find much to appreciate in this story about the life-transforming power of love.

—Cory Bordonaro

THE DEPTHS OF LIFE AND DEATH

One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease is the tangling of the fibers used for sending and receiving neural messages, particularly in the regions of the brain associated with memory. As one of the leading researchers into the biological prevention of Alzheimer’s, Victor Aaron can identify all the signs of the disease with textbook precision, but it is only upon losing his wife in a car accident that he truly begins to understand the fickle and fleeting nature of memory.

In Rosecrans Baldwin’s You Lost Me There, Victor has memorialized his marriage as picture-perfect, but when he stumbles upon his wife’s private reflections on their relationship, recorded for their therapist, he begins to realize just how incompatible his own perceptions of the relationship are relative to his wife’s. As he delves deeper into Sarah’s recollections, Victor finds himself increasingly overcome with grief as he struggles to reconcile his memories of their grand romance. With the dawning understanding that “you never know what lurks beneath people, even when they’re perfect on paper,” Victor finds he must mourn Sarah all over again.

Unrestrained yet elegant, You Lost Me There is a powerful meditation on the all-consuming nature of grief and the power of memory as both redeemer and destroyer. A novel of contradictions, it plumbs the depths of life and death, sense and sentimentality, youth and maturity—all while tackling the big quandary of how we can hold on to the past while moving forward. This is a novel for which all the romantic intellectuals of the world will rejoice, as Baldwin proves there can be such a thing as a cerebral author who writes with his heart.

—Stephenie Harrison

SECRETS OF A SCOTTISH TOWN

The post-WWII town featured in A.D. Scott’s enjoyable novel is not a happy place. The weather in this Scottish Highlands village is often dismal and the people are hidebound, which leads too often to downtrodden women, mistreated children and a reflexive distrust of strangers. Then a little boy dies. At first it’s assumed that his death was accidental, but the town is gripped by horror as it’s revealed that the child was murdered. Who could have done such a thing?

The crime is of special interest to the staff of the Highland Gazette: Joanne, the typist, married to a brute who beats both her and their children; Rob, the charming cub reporter; McAllister, the editor-in-chief; and McLeod, “the subeditor and all-around fusspot know-it-all.” As the mystery of the boy’s death grows more tangled and frustrating, it’s McAllister who finds a possible clue to solving the crime in a secret trauma he’s been nursing for years.

Scott shows us that many in the town have secrets. Some are trivial, like the secrets children keep to stay out of trouble. But some are monstrous. Scott not only captures the townsfolk’s insularity and way of speaking, but writes beautifully about the natural world that surrounds them.

Written with humor, compassion and a fine sense of tragedy, A Small Death in the Great Glen is the first in a series by this promising new author.

—Arlene McKanic

THE MULTICULTURAL EXPERIENCE

Shoko was eight years old when American bombs fell on Nagasaki; she and her family experienced the repercussions from that day throughout their lives. Her younger brother Taro grew up hating all Americans, so when Shoko decides to try to “better” herself by marrying an American GI, Taro vows he will never speak to her again.

After relocating to the States with her new husband, Shoko struggles to become an American. She is aided by a book given to her by her mother when she left Japan, How to Be an American Housewife, but still finds it difficult to fit in. Margaret Dilloway, whose own mother was Japanese, writes perceptively about the neighbors who never visit, the classmates of Shoko’s daughter, Sue, who laugh about her mother’s accent, and PTA meetings where Shoko is painfully out of place.

Years later, in San Diego, Shoko has a weak heart, and knows she may die before she has the necessary operation to repair it. She longs to visit Japan once again and reconcile with Taro—“the only one who knew me, the real Shoko.” She asks Sue (now a divorced mother of precocious 12-year-old Helena) to go to Japan in her place—to try and find her uncle Taro. Sue agrees to go, Helena in tow; their journey becomes a revelation, in a myriad of ways. Sue learns things about her mother’s culture she had never heard of, finds cousins she never knew she had and comes to realize how much her Japanese roots really mean to her—and to Helena.

In this emotionally rich debut, Dilloway delves into all familial relationships: mother-daughter, father-son, husband-wife and sister-brother—each one both complicated and enriched by the added ingredient of the multicultural experience. Readers will easily relate to her touching, often humorous story of the way unbreakable family ties can stretch over decades, and from one generation to another.

—Deb Donovan

A ROAD TRIP WORTH THE RIDE

Bill Warrington, a cantankerous old man with Alzheimer’s disease, believes he has one last shot at something. But as the story unfolds, we see that every character has one last chance to drop the baggage from their angry past. All that is a bit iffy, however, since the key to bringing about a happy ending depends on a crusty grandfather on the brink of forgetting what he was trying to achieve in the first place.

Enter Bill’s granddaughter, April, a typical teenager looking for any chance to escape her tightly wound mother. And escape she does after yet another argument at home followed by a bit of luck. As it happens, Bill is ready to hit the road for one last hurrah in his ancient Impala.

In April’s eyes, this road trip’s purpose is to fulfill her dream of making it to California to become a rock star. But Bill has a secret or two. His plans for this trip are to reunite his feuding sons and his domineering daughter, April’s mother. But as the odometer miles add up, it becomes clear to April that Bill may not be able to pull off this shenanigan with his mental stamina fading faster every day. And how is a 15-year-old, alone and far from home, supposed to handle this deteriorating geezer while helping him achieve a highly unlikely reconciliation?

Bill Warrington’s Last Chance turns out to be quite a ride for all the characters involved—and it proves that taking a chance may not turn out exactly as you had planned, but it’s darn worth a try.

—Dee Ann Grand

A BUOYANT BEACH READ WITH HEART

Susanna Daniel’s Stiltsville is rooted in a community of stilt houses towering above Biscayne Bay, Florida, where the author spent much of her childhood. Daniel masterfully evokes the sticky Miami heat and refreshing ocean breezes, but there is so much more to these pages than fetching seaside images. Daniel’s characters are emotionally complex and so believable that Stiltsville almost reads as a memoir rather than a work of fiction.

The book’s beating heart is Frances Ellerby, whom readers follow on a moving journey that hits all the milestones: marriage, parenthood, trying illness, burial of loved ones and the highs and lows in between. Frances shares the spotlight with her attorney husband Dennis, only daughter Margo and son-in-law—with whom she chaffs—Stuart. On the periphery are Dennis’ parents and sister, characters that aid in relaying a story of unwavering familial support and friendship.

Daniel strikes a perfect balance of wit, weakness and tenderness in Stiltsville. As Frances raises a daughter, contemplates infidelity and cares for an ailing husband, her values are challenged and ultimately defined. It is not as light as other beach reads on the market, but Stiltsville emerges wonderfully buoyant.

—Lizza Connor Bowen

All Features

When worlds collide

Kids make a difference on Earth Day

Dear old Daddy

Selections for the sultry season

The American Revolution revisited

A seminal novel turns 50

Summer selections from top novelists

Recipe: Red Beans and Rice Salad with Tabasco Vinaigrette

Recipe: Cherry Tomatoes with Créme Fraîche & Chives

Recipe: Watermelon Margaritas

Helping your kid make the grade

Building skills for life

Dazzling debut authors

Sign Up

Trending Features

Company

Subscriptions