For an avid reader of a wide-ranging assortment of books, a good whodunit serves a role similar to an appetizer compared to an entrée reading of literary fiction or nonfiction, but who doesn’t love a good treat now and then?
Four disparate characters populate Cara Wall’s debut novel, The Dearly Beloved, as co-equal protagonists. In the prologue, Charles Barrett has died after forty years ministering together with James MacNally.
Susan Orlean, an author I admire, passes along a piece of advice she received from a writer she admires in the July/August issue of Writer’s Digest. (I’ve found the writing community a congenial one in this way as they encourage and advise one another.)
Sleepovers don’t always come with a theme, but with two boys and two new picture books featuring green dinosaur pancakes that come to life at the hands of a magical grandmother, a theme happened.
When the University of Southern Mississippi OLLI group embarked on a two-hour tour of the Mississippi gulf coast aboard the Betsy Ann, comparisons to Gilligan’s Island ensued.
Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo opens her debut novel with twelve-year-old Ruby watching the people in her life disappear. Her father is gone, and now her mother gets handcuffed and placed in the back of a police cruiser.
Some historical events leave that “I remember where I was” kind of feeling. The Sunday morning newspaper and several news shows and documentaries are bringing reminders of one of those occasions this week as they focus on the first moon walk.
Sophie Blackall, Caldecott Award winner for Hello, Lighthouse, already had the crowd for the 2019 Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival in the palm of her hand as she spoke, even before she had her assistants unroll the scroll across the stage.
I contend that there is much more in a name than Shakespeare recognizes. A rose just might not entice one as well if it were called an onion. Kimberly Willis Holt stirred a memory just by the name she chose for a character in her latest book.
Buzz, Sting, Biteby Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson, professor at Norwegian University of Life Sciences near Oslo and scientific advisor to the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, may sound like a title for children or young adults.
People often said to me during those years with two under two that I would one day wish for that time to come back. Funny stories aside, I have never made such an irrational wish!
Three women, with only loose connections in the beginning, take turns narrating their stories that eventually will draw them together in Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera, just published on June 11.
Boring is the first word I think of for an annual routine check at the dermatologist. Of course, other words – precautionary, necessary, waiting – come to mind as well. I
