Seventh daughter of a seventh son and seventh daughter,
named for her birth-day, according to the traditional rhyme,
Sunday is accustomed to odd things in the Wood,
so a talking frog is rather expected.
But there’s nothing everyday about falling in love with him.
You’ll nod your head as you recognize the many fairy tales found in the early chapters of Enchanted, from the shape of the Woodcutter family home to the fate of sister Tuesday of the red shoes.
But there’s more to this tale than just homage to nursery rhymes and fairy tales, as Sunday strives to find her own way in the world rather than what’s been previously written, Rumbold tries to undo the actions of his impetuous younger days, and the King has his own sinister agenda.
Enchanted was just published on May 8, 2012, so look for it at your local independent bookstore or library now. Kontis tells us that book two is in the works, giving readers a preview with a short story featuring one of its key characters, Ashes-in-the-Wind.
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Book info: Enchanted (The Woodcutter, book 1) / Alethea Kontis. Harcourt, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Book Talk: A talking frog, a cow traded for beans that grow a sky-high beanstalk, a house shaped like a shoe – for Sunday, it’s just life as usual in the Wood. But when her friend Grumble disappears and the King seeks a new wife, old tales of evil spells are remembered, and Sunday tries to change what has been foretold.
The ten Woodcutter siblings are children no more, although adopted Trix looks just as he did at age 12, thanks to his fairy blood. Ever since oldest brother Jack Jr. disappeared while in the King’s service, their family has stayed well away from the Arrilard palace, its sole prince, and its rumored curses.
Meeting Grumble by the fairy well was certainly more interesting than doing her chores, doubly so because the frog liked to listen to her stories, appreciative in his praise. Of course, any talking frog in the Wood must have been human first, so Sunday hopes that someday Grumble will tell her how he became cursed into frog form. She’d have to be careful about writing down his tale, as anything that she wrote had a strong chance of coming true, but he left the well without even saying goodbye.
Released from the froggy spell suddenly, Prince Rumbold finds himself in the palace, weak and confused. Who are his friends and who is against him? Why does he hear spirit voices in the palace night asking for death? What was the name of the girl who kissed him beside the well? His cold and regal father does allow Rumbold to invite all the eligible women of the kingdom to a grand ball at the palace, staying in his tower throne room to invoke magic for himself alone.
Will Rumbold find Sunday among all the people at the ball?
Will Sunday recognize Rumbold out of his froggy skin?
Will the Prince or the King choose a bride at the ball?
This bright-and-dark story about family, loyalty, and love in an Enchanted land reminds us that even the simplest fairy tales and nursery rhymes can carry the power of mighty words. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls, by Julie Schumacher (book review) – literature, swimming pool, awkwardness
Summer in the suburbs.
If you can get away, you’re gone…
these four girls are stuck in the sweltering, sticky heat
and in a book club together – with their mothers!
Mother-daughter book clubs can be a great opportunity for discussions, intellectual sharing, and true personal growth. But not this one, with its highly incompatible members, brought together solely by the AP English reading list and the moms recognizing one another from yoga class.
Lots of zany antics (usually instigated by CeeCee) between their encounter with each book (interesting insights there). The 19th century works are in the public domain, so you can read them online free; you can find print copies of all the books that Jill, Wallis, CeeCee, Adrienne and their moms discuss at your local library or independent bookstore of course.
“The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Gilman. Free download at Project Gutenberg.
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. Read online free at Project Gutenberg.
The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin. Author’s website with some excerpts.
The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros. Author interview on its 25th anniversary.
The Awakening, by Kate Chopin. Read online free at UNC Library of Southern Literature.
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Book info: The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls / Julie Schumacher. Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher website]
My Book Talk: One slip on the stairs, and her summer plans for adventure turn into a knee brace, rehab exercises, and required reading for senior English class. Adrienne couldn’t know that summer would also include midnight escapes, unlicensed drivers, epic chaos, and a dead body in the town swimming pool!
Isn’t it bad enough that Adrienne has to miss her long-planned canoe trek with best friend Liz this summer? Now her mom has gotten them into a mother-daughter book club in their dead-end boring suburb. Honestly, just because the moms take yoga class together doesn’t guarantee a compatible group for literature discussions…
Popular and pretty CeeCee is high school society-plus (her trip to France cancelled because she totaled another car), Jill works at the swimming pool snack stand, and Wallis is… Wallis – in their grade, but younger, recently moved to West New Hope with her mom (who is writing a scholarly philosophy book). The girls groan about having to write an essay over their summer reading. Such a strange bunch of characters in this book club, especially when you factor in the mothers, including Wallis’s mom, whom no one has ever met and who never comes to the mother-daughter book club meetings.
Meeting at Jill’s house to discuss “The Yellow Wallpaper” short story, the group chooses four books from the Advanced Placement reading list: Frankenstein, The Left Hand of Darkness, The House on Mango Street, and The Awakening. The girls see each other often at the pool (where else is there to go in their town in the summer?) and finally decide that “The Unbearable Book Club” describes this weird summer thing with the moms exactly.
CeeCee decides that Adrienne needs to get out of the house more, so she shows up at midnight for a road trip, and that’s just the beginning of the craziness. The summer heat rises, Adrienne’s mom has few answers for her questions about the father she’s never known, Wallis repeatedly appears for book club without her mother, then zips back to the woods where they live.
Is Adrienne going to let CeeCee run her summer?
Will Adrienne’s knee ever heal?
Does Wallis really have a mother?
What’s it like to play mini-golf at midnight in the rain?
Each chapter is headed by a literary term with Adrienne’s witty definition, as the girls’ discussions of each book underscore the tensions and dreams in their own lives. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
Silverhorse, by Lene Kaaberbøl (fiction) – guest post recommendation by Rachel Ward
Wild hellhorses,
A headstrong young girl,
Women lead society, men travel as they can.
Guest reviewer Rachel Ward brings us an exciting book about a chilling future on Blogathon2012’s Guest Post Day.
Silverhorse is the first book in the Katriona series, one of several written by Danish author Kaaberbøl, whose four-volume Shamer Chronicles fantasy series is published by Henry Holt Books in the USA.
Check WorldCat to find a library near you to check out Silverhorse or check your favorite bookseller for a copy of this London-published novel. Its sequel, Midnight, has also been translated into English, but book 3 remains in Danish only. Perhaps reader demand will interest a US publisher in getting the entire Katriona series back in print.
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Book info: Silverhorse / Lene Kaaberbøl. Macmillan (London), 2007. [author’s website in Danish] [author’s biography from Gale Biographies of Children’s Authors]
Rachel’s Recommendation *:
Silverhorse by Lene Kaaberbøl is set in a post-apocalyptic world where nobody is allowed to own the land, but it is passed down from mother to daughter. Women are the rulers with a duty to care for the land, and men lead an itinerant life. The main character is 12-year-old Kat, daughter of Tess, the maestra of Crowfoot Inn. Kat has a fiery temper and fights constantly with her stepfather.
In the end, Tess has no choice but to send Kat away, despite it being very unusual for a girl to travel in this society. After a disastrous apprenticeship to a dyer, she ends up at the academy for Bredinari, who ride the strange and dangerous hellhorses – wild nightmares crossed with sturdy mountain horses – and serve justice and law in the land of Breda. Here, Kat has to learn to control her temper so she can master the weapons and horses she will need to handle. Events come to a head when she gets caught up in power politics beyond her control or understanding, and finds herself fighting for survival.
The plot rattles along at a good pace and Kat is an engaging and sympathetic, if flawed, character. Her struggles with both authority figures and bullies her own age are all too recognisable and the book also tackles the reverse-sexism of her world, snobbery, loyalty, betrayal and true friendship.
Kaaberbøl’s writing is truly fantastic, in every sense of the word. This is an excellent and compelling fantasy story, translated from the Danish by the author herself – being able to write as well in another language as she can in her own is a skill of which I am frankly in awe!
*This review was originally posted on A Discount Ticket to Everywhere on Saturday 12th May, 2012.
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| Rachel Ward – guest blogger |
Since gaining her MA in Literary Translation in 2002, Rachel Ward has been working in Norwich, United Kingdom, as a freelance literary translator from German and French to English. She specialises in children’s and young adult literature as well as crime novels, fantasy and other contemporary fiction.
She blogs on reading and translation at http://adiscounttickettoeverywhere.blogspot.com/and is on Twitter as @FwdTranslations. Her most recent translations, the Nea Fox books by Amelia Ellis, are available as e-books from Amazon and www.neafox.com.
Teen Boat, by Dave Roman & John Green (book review) – high school & high seas hijinx
Fitting in at high school is rarely easy,
but when you start breaking out (with barnacles),
and the cute new girl asks you to demonstrate your skills,
of course Teen Boat will transform into a small yacht,
right there in the high school hallway!
Ignatz Award winners Dave Roman (writer – you remember his 2011 Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity graphic novel) and John Green (illustrator) have finally published their popular webcomic in a full-color hardcover edition, including over 30 pages of new story. Don’t miss the “how we did it” section in the back of the book, detailing the creative team’s writing and illustrating process.
Just published this week, if you don’t find Teen Boat! at your local library or independent bookstore yet, be sure to ask for it!
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Book info: Teen Boat! / written by Dave Roman, illustrated by John Green. Clarion Books, 2012. [Dave Roman’s website] [John Green’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Book Talk: Sure, every high school guy has some worries, but not every guy can transform into Teen Boat! When cute foreign exchange student Niña Pinta Santa Maria arrives, TB wants to impress her, so he agrees to help Harry by becoming a yacht for his party. TB’s longtime pal Joey (the girl next door) warns him that the big jock is only using him for some shady scheme, but the infatuated young man/boat doesn’t listen.
Offshore gambling, the Totally Pirates (seeking the legendary Tiene Bōt), and an iceberg attack make Harry’s party more memorable than TB would have liked. After-school detention, emergency rescue, student elections, and a part-time job all become adventures when Teen Boat is involved. Just imagine what the Yacht Club field trip to Venice, Italy, is like with this crew!
Will Teen Boat ever get over his paralyzing fear of entering a “land vessel” long enough to get his driver’s license?
Will he ever find the girl or boat or girl/boat who will love him?
Will the pirates ever stop chasing after him?
“The angst of being a teen – the thrill of being a boat” jumps off the pages of this graphic novel in vivid color, with new pages extending the webcomic storyline and an informative appendix that shows the step-by-step collaborative process that Roman and Green used in creating this sharply clever graphic novel. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
Calli, by Jessica Lee Anderson (fiction) – foster sister or rotten apple?
Her boyfriend Dub is sweet,her moms are loving and supportive,
best friend Delia helps her keep away the blues,
so Calli thinks that having a foster little sister would just make things even better…
kissing Dub in the school hall,
spreading lies about Calli,
alienating her friends and stealing Calli’s things.
Now Calli wants to undo her wish for a foster sister and would turn back time in a heartbeat – but everyone knows that time only runs forward.
Jessica Lee Anderson brings us another highly readable story about a teen facing unusual challenges (see my no-spoiler recommendation of her Border Crossing here) and surviving, in spite of it all. Look for this 2011 book at your local library or independent bookstore.
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Book info: Calli / Jessica Lee Anderson. Milkweed Editions, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Recommendation: Trudging home in the coastal Louisiana heat, Calli wonders why she ever wished for a foster sister. Everyone in the high school knows that Calli saw her own boyfriend Dub liplocked with Cherish, guesses he decided that he wanted action instead of affection.
Mom and Liz weren’t sure that they’d be certified as a foster family, but they’re such good parents that Calli never had a doubt (much better parents than her father who returned to France when she was born and never looked back). They’d requested young children, but consented to an emergency placement for “a teenager at risk.”
Whatever weird thing happened with Cherish’s family to get her into foster care, the ninth grader isn’t letting it stop her from hanging around with upperclassmen, wearing tighter shirts than Calli, more makeup than Calli, trying to get Calli to do her homework. The girls bicker constantly at home (thank goodness they don’t share a bedroom), which makes Mom’s lupus flare up. Verbal spats get physical, and now the whole family is at risk.
Cherish steals from Calli, alienates her friends at school – is there anything that Cherish won’t try to take away from her?
Is Dub lost to Calli forever?
Will Cherish’s willful behavior keep Mom and Liz from ever having a young foster child to care for and love?
Is Calli going to stay “plain old Calli” with braces forever?
An insightful look at less-traditional family life from the author of Border Crossing, this novel takes readers into that humid South Louisiana spring semester when Calli’s life changes for the worse, for the better, maybe for always.
Ask Elizabeth, by Elizabeth Berkley (book review) – advice on love, life, friends
Gather up 30,000 teen girls in small group workshops all over the country.
Give each one a journal where she can write any question about relationships, worries, fears, dreams.
Throw all the anonymous questions into a pile and start discussing them.
Talk together. And talk some more. Bring in some advice from experts, but mainly allow the young women in each group to help one another deal with things.
Lay out everything – the good, the sad, the difficult – and share it with others to help them learn and hope and grow strong in this widely available book.
Elizabeth gives advice that matters, like action plans for learning to accept your imperfections, helping a friend who is hurting, and getting to a peaceful place when you and parents argue.
The book discusses the positive signs that you’re in a good romantic relationship, the healing steps for dealing with grief, and ways to discover your life-dream and keep growing as a person.
You’ll be glad that Ask Elizabeth is a nice, flexy paperback as it’s jammed in backpacks, passed from locker to locker, and shared again and again with friends. The Ask-Elizabeth website continues the conversations begun in the book.
Yes, this is the Elizabeth who starred in Saved by the Bell as a teen actress and has gone on to act in movies and television as an adult. Her passion for helping young women grow up with accurate answers and encouragement led her to start the nonprofit Ask-Elizabeth project in 2006.
Do you have any questions for Ask Elizabeth?
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Book info: Ask Elizabeth: Real Answers to Everything You Secretly Wanted to Ask About Love, Friends, Your Body…and Life in General / Elizabeth Berkley. G.P. Putnam’s Sons/ Penguin, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Book Talk: Every teen girl has questions about love, life, and herself – but who can you turn to for honest advice? It’s time to “Ask Elizabeth” and get answers you can trust.
How do you know if you have a real friend that cares about you?”
My parents are getting a divorce and I don’t know what to do…”
How do you get a guy (or gal) to know that you’re alive?”
My parents treat me like a baby! How do I get them to give me more freedom?”
“How do I know if I’m just in a bad mood or if I’m depressed?”
Drawing on the opinions shared by young women in her popular workshops and sharing straightforward information from health and relationship experts, former teen star Elizabeth Berkley presents real questions from teen girls with helpful and realistic answers that aren’t just one-size-fits-all.
The book looks like Elizabeth’s scrapbook, with handwritten notes from teens stuck onto pages with colored duct tape, her typewritten answers, and many photos, found objects, and heartfelt stories connecting all the chapters
Readers can dip into just the chapter that deals with an immediate need for answers or read through Ask Elizabeth from cover to cover as they meet high schoolers from many different situations who share their dreams, concerns, fears, and encouragement to help other teens grow into strong women. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
The Springsweet, by Saundra Mitchell (fiction) – visions on the high plains
Dowsing.
Divining for water.
Rhabdomancy.
Water-witching.
Whatever the name, being able to show just where to drill a water well is an enviable talent in arid places, but not without its consequences. Who could imagine that West Glory’s “springsweet” would be a young lady escaping back-East gossip by moving to the Oklahoma Territory’s vast plains?
And Zora could scarcely have dreamed that her train trip West would bring her to a sodhouse, a nearby all-black town that reminds her of home, a barn-raising, and two unlikely suitors?
While you can read this just-published book on its own, you’ll get a fuller picture of Zora’s life and gifts by reading The Vespertine (my recommendation) first. Just can’t wait for the promised third book to see where Zora’s talent takes her!
So, do you think that dowsing really works?
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Book info: The Springsweet / Saundra Mitchell. Harcourt, 2012. [author’s website] [book website] [publisher site] [book trailer]
My Recommendation: Ever-separated from her fiancé and her cousin, Zora decides to escape the strictures of Baltimore society by heading West. How can she face friends who don’t understand her continued mourning, family members who expect her to settle for a normal life after losing Amelia’s visions and Thomas’ healing touch?
Rather than allowing seventeen-year-old Zora to marry a widower and raise his children in some log cabin, her mother arranges for her to stay with Aunt Birdie and little Louella at their homestead in the Oklahoma Territory. Rattling westward by train and coach, Zora is jolted when bandits rob the stage just a few miles from her destination, smashing the luggage, and taking the locket that Thomas gave her.
Stranded by the highwaymen in a sudden thunderstorm, Zora trudges along the muddy wagon road toward West Glory and is rescued from a night alone on the prairie by Emerson Birch. Beside his rugged cabin in his lush garden, somehow Zora knows that his well is dug in the wrong place and can see silvery shimmers in the evening darkness that tell her where he should dig for water.
Aunt Birdie welcomes her the next morning, but is openly hostile to Emerson who jumped the gun to claim his land. Life is hard for the two young women and toddler Louella in the tiny sod house, hauling water from a distant well, making soap, trying to keep their crops alive in the dry plains winds.
When dandy Theo de la Croix arrives in West Glory to teach school, Zora wonders if he’d followed her from Baltimore. One kiss at a dance couldn’t mean that much… could it? Courted by Theo, yet drawn by Emerson’s vibrant connection to the land, she begins to finds pieces of joy in the midst of her mourning.
Her gift for seeing where the earth’s secret waters hide is precious in this dry land, so she hires out as a “springsweet” to tell folks where to dig wells. Not all visions are happy ones, and soon Zora must decide whether to tell unwelcome news or to hide her talents.
But how else can the little family get enough money to get through the bitter winter ahead? Should Zora accept Theo’s offer of marriage, or sneak away to see Emerson, or just run back home to a pampered life in Baltimore?
This companion volume to The Vespertine follows Amelia’s cousin Zora as she discovers her own psychic gifts and must decide whether she can truly live with the consequences that those visions may bring. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
Happy Blog Birthday to me! (reflective)
Wow – BooksYALove is a year old today!
Nearly 200 no-spoiler book recommendations posted,
Multiple blog challenges completed,
Now it’s time for the 2012 version of WordCount Blogathon, the challenge that got me finally started in blogging and the community that kept me going the whole year ’round.
I write the recommendations on BooksYALove for readers who seek something a bit different, who want to read interesting books that aren’t just the usual bestsellers piled in stacks at the front of the bookstore or screaming from ads. And no spoilers – ever! If you want to know the exact ending of a book or whodunit or who winds up with whom, you’ll need to read reviews somewhere else.
Young adult books are not only for teenagers, of course, as today’s YA authors skillfully navigate their characters through the perils of love and loss, identity and community, dreams and disasters that folks of all ages share. While some YA books are brief reads, others go well over 400 pages in hardback. If you like historical fiction or mysteries or paranormal intrigue or science fiction, you’ll find great YA books to enjoy.
So here’s a toast to authors and to readers – may we share many memories together through young adult books for many years to come!
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Birthday cake clipart courtesy of http://www.webweaver.nu/clipart/birthday.shtml. Photograph of reader statue (c)Katy Manck 2011.
Y for Letters from Yellowstone, by Diane Smith (fiction)
Hidden in alpine valleys are tiny treasures.
Alex intends to find them, to sketch them, to preserve them.
Who knows what wonders are waiting in Yellowstone?
It’s a man’s world in science in the 1890s, but Alexandria Bartram doesn’t care. Her family is sure that she will go into medicine, but her heart is all for botany. Studying Lewisia flowers brought back from the wilderness of Yellowstone makes her eager to see them in their native habitat, so she requests a place on the summer field study team there. If Dr. Merriam thinks that A.E. Bartram is a man, then he’s the one that’s short-sighted.
Like the tough and tender Lewisia itself, Alex finds a way to survive and thrive under harsh conditions, an able researcher and methodical scientist, with an eye for all the beauties of this great national park.
Historical fiction which helps readers see the past more clearly can also help us preserve what’s important for our future. When we visited Yellowstone this summer, I could see areas which Alex would immediately recognize and others which tourism had irrevocably changed.
Yes, the copyright date of 2000 is correct; this charming book is still in print, so check for it at your local library or independent bookstore.
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Book info: Letters From Yellowstone / Diane Smith. Penguin, 2000. [author’s website] [publisher site]
My Recommendation: Alexandria wants to study mountain plants in their natural setting, so she signs on with a Yellowstone research team. But it’s 1898, and the lead scientist thinks that Dr. A.E. Bartram is a man.
Dr. Merriam is quite startled to find that his new colleague arriving from Cornell is female – how will a young woman endure the hardships of rough camp life, he worries. Railroads have just reached the borders of America’s largest national park, so most travel is by wagon and on horseback. Alex has no concerns and is ready for adventure; when a respectable widow arrives on a bicycle tour and remains with the group as an amateur photographer, her chaperonage satisfies everyone.
Each member of the expedition has a different view of its purpose: Alex wants to catalog every variation of the Lewisia plant, Dr. Merriam needs to secure specimens of many plants and animals for the new Smithsonian Institution in the nation’s capital, Dr. Rutherford thinks he can teach a raven to talk as he studies Yellowstone’s avian life, and their wagon driver wants to stay far, far away from Alex and other females.
The story of the summer’s successes and failures is told through letters and telegrams.
Dr. Rutherford is trying to convince the president of his Montana college to expand the botany department, Dr. Merriam reminds the Smithsonian Institution of their promises to fund the expedition and quietly complains to his mother about the problems that beset them at every turn, Alex relates her discoveries to fellow researchers back East, glorying in Yellowstone’s amazing landscapes of geysers and alpine meadows.
Will Dr. Merriam get the full-time position at the Smithsonian? Will Native American conflicts prevent the team from completing their mission? Can Alex continue her field research when summer is over, or will she be stranded in a college classroom forever?
With summer snows and campsites ranging from woeful to wonderful, this novel takes readers back to an age of discoveries, when the idea of wilderness preservation was still new. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
X for the unknown – You Are My Only, by Beth Kephart (fiction)
Every mother’s nightmare.
Her baby kidnapped!
Every teen girl knows that her mother really doesn’t understand her.
That’s just the way it is – rules that don’t make sense,
being grounded for no good reason.
We know that the stories of Emmy as a young mother and Sophie as a teen several years later must be connected somehow – author Beth Kephart as much as tells readers this from the start of the book.
But how the connection was made and how it falls apart, that’s the real story, conveyed by the distinctive voices of Emmy in the mental hospital and Sophie in yet another rental house, longing to be with Joey in the world outside.
Published in fall 2011, You Are My Only should be available at your local library or independent bookstore now – don’t miss it!
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Book info: You Are My Only / Beth Kephart. Laura Geringer Books / Egmont USA, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]
My Recommendation: Someone stole tiny Baby from her swing, leaving Emmy to face her husband’s wrath, the unbelief of the police, the dark of the mental hospital. Fourteen years later, Sophie and her mom move often, the teen homeschooled and alone, the mother overworked and burdened, always looking to stay ahead of the “No Good” as they find what others have left behind in the rental houses, but never talk about her past.
Then a boy spots Sophie in her upstairs window. Shouldn’t he be at school right now? She would never dare to be near the windows when people were nearby – Mom would be so angry, and the No Good might find them. A young man, Joey, who wants to teach her to throw a baseball, to make cookies with his aunts, to listen as he reads Willa Cather to them to make up for the journeys they can no longer travel together.
Emmy and her vibrant, jangling roommate Autumn have been thinking for years of how they would leave the mental hospital and its moaners and shouters and squeaky linoleum halls. Does anyone on the Outside still remember that they are there? When a message arrives from Arlen, who helped Emmy escape from her abusive husband after Baby was stolen, they know that it’s time to fly.
Sophie wants answers. Joey knows how he was orphaned by a car wreck, knows how he arrived at the home of his aunt Cloris and her sweetheart Helen, knows how they are dealing with Aunt Helen’s failing health. Sophie thinks that answers might be hidden in the boxes marked “personal” that they move unopened from house to house, so she creeps into the basement when Mom is at work.
Mysteries and histories, Cather and cookies, Archimedean solids and wisps of perhaps… alternating chapters told by Emmy and by Sophie weave their stories into a net to catch memories and maybe even the truth. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.