2009 Picks by
the Midwest Booksellers Association
In December we promote the Midwest Booksellers catalog – packed with loads of great books! Many of the selections in the catalog have been Midwest Connections Picks. If you have not received a copy of the catalog, let us know, we’d love to send you one!
Every catalog includes a coupon for 10% off any one book listed in the catalog!
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February | March | April | May | June | July
| August | September | October | November
The Chain Letter of the Soul: New and Selected Poems
by Bill Holm
$26.95
Musician. Curmudgeon. Trailblazer. Prairie Populist. Teacher. World traveler. Cultural critic. Humanitarian. Scholar. Skeptic. Insightful humorist. Charismatic speaker. Firebrand. Seer. Bill Holm was never afraid to say what was on his mind, and the readers of his more than a dozen books are all the better for it.
Collecting the best and the newest poems from Bill Holm’s oeuvre, The Chain Letter of the Soul paints a portrait of a man of great heart, broad vision, and startling prescience. Fans will recognize many of their favorites, and new readers will be introduced to an enduring voice of American literature.
In 2008, the McKnight Foundation granted Bill Holm the eleventh annual McKnight Distinguished Artist Award, and in his artist statement he provided the phrase for the title of this new and selected volume of poems: "For it is life we want. We want the world, the whole beautiful world, alive—and we alive in it. That is the actual god we long for and seek, yet we have already found it, if we open our senses, our whole bodies, thus our souls. That is why I have written and intend to continue until someone among you takes up the happy work of keeping the chain letter of the soul moving along into whatever future will come." Ultimately, in recording the individual observations of later life in this context, Holm confounds mortality by honoring a sense of an organic system that extends beyond birth and death.
Seldom Seen: A Journey into the Great Plains
by Patrick Dobson
$29.95
In May 1995, with nothing but a backpack and a vague sense of disquiet, Patrick Dobson left his home and a steady if deadening job in Kansas City, Missouri. Over the next two and a half months he made his way to Helena, Montana, letting chance encounters guide him to a deeper sense of who he was and where he was going. His chronicle of this journey charts his experiences with the seldom-seen people of the small towns, the far-flung outposts, and the Great Plains that make up “our America.”
Beginning as a seeker, Dobson becomes a faithful recorder of other people’s search for contentment, introducing us to a firefighter with a farm at the end of the world, a fiery Christian conservative, a man sharing a van with a crowd of cats, a former circus carny who’s found the secret to living life, and a homeless Native American offering a special and enduring gift. Ridden out of a hostile Kansas town, sniffed by bears, confronted by bison and recalcitrant moose, Dobson cannot help but see how land, sky, weather, and a world of circumstances influence people. Against the majestic sweep of the open plains and endless horizon, his story is one of hope and desperation, richness and simplicity—a portrait of who we are in the heartland of America.
Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients
by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois
$27.99
From the authors of the groundbreaking, hugely popular Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day comes a new cookbook filled with quick and easy recipes for healthy bread.
The method is still quick and simple, producing professional-quality results with each warm, fragrant, hearty loaf. In just five minutes a day of active preparation time, you can create delectable, healthy treats such as 100% Whole Wheat Bread, Whole Grain Garlic Knots with Olive Oil and Parsley, Black-and-White Braided Pumpernickel and Rye Loaf, Black Pepper Focaccia, Pumpkin Pie Brioche, Chocolate Tangerine Bars, and a variety of gluten-free breads. About a dozen of the recipes are 100% whole grain.
Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day will show you that there is time enough for home-baked bread, and that it can be part of a healthy diet. Calling all bread lovers: Whether you are looking for more whole grains, watching your weight, trying to reduce your cholesterol, or just care about what goes into your body, this book is a must-have. Visit HealthyBreadInFive.com for more information.
October Picks
Hollowing out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America by Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas
$26.95
In Hollowing Out the Middle, Carr and Kefalas link the troubling exodus from America’s small towns to the ways young people’s paths are shaped by the adults who surround them as they grow up. They describe a selecting and sorting process in which some of a town’s young are positioned to leave for higher education and lives beyond their rural roots, while others are sidelined, destined to become hourly wage earners in their hometown’s struggling economy. They underscore how this process, long practiced and rarely questioned, is contributing to an out-migration epidemic that is slowly destroying America’s heartland.
Drawing on over a hundred interviews with young Iowans spread over fifteen states, Carr and Kefalas follow the trajectories of college-bound “Achievers”; working-class “Stayers,” trapped in a dying agro-industrial economy; “Seekers,” who
join the military as a way out; and “Returners,” who eventually circle back to their hometowns. They talk to graduates from the University of Iowa who head for cities and high paying jobs; to those who made it through high school, but are stuck making $15 dollars an hour building ambulances and assembling microprocessors; to high school dropouts who put eggs in cartons or slaughter hogs at the meat processing plant, and to enlisted soldiers who joined the military for a number of reasons, from the signing bonus and medical coverage to the promise of a college education.
Noting that it is critical for Americans to understand the importance of investing in rural communities, Carr and Kefalas go on to examine the range of solutions that governors and senators from Maine to Montana have put forth in trying to lure twenty-somethings back home, including tax cuts and credits, loan forgiveness and free land programs, and focusing on “the three Ts”—talent, technology, and tolerance—in building a more vibrant cultural scene. Iowa’s “brain-gain” campaign, they report, has included invitations to attend lavish cocktail parties with the governor and ads promoting the state as more than just “hogs, acres of corn, and old people.”
The Sky Begins at Your Feet
by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
$19.95
A memoir on cancer, community, and coming home to the body.
Stray Affections
by Charlene Ann Baumbich
$13.99
Stray Affections is an original trade paperback by Charlene Ann Baumbich, the popular bestselling author of the Dearest Dorothy books
Heaven to Betsy/Betsy in Spite of Herself
Betsy was a Junior
Betsy and Joe
Betsy and the Great World/Betsy’s Wedding
by Maud Hart Lovelace
$14.99 each
Front and Center
by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
$16
In this hilarious and moving conclusion to the Dairy Queen trilogy, D.J. Schwenk returns to her small-town high school – only to find herself the focus of far too much attention. From an old friend now hot for romance, to college recruiters and rabid local hoops fans, to Brian Nelson . . . How will shy, quiet D.J. handle things now that she’s front and center?
*Get a signed copy at Beagle Books!
September Picks
Seasons on Henry's Farm: A Year of Food and Life on an Organic Farm
by Terra Brockman
$25
For fans of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Michael Pollan’s books, and Deborah Madison’s eating local cookbooks, this is a must-read!
From Henry’s Farm website henrysfarm.com: The Seasons on Henry’s Farm tells the story of our family and our life on the farm in the form of a year-long memoir–with recipes–that takes readers through each of 52 seasons of life on the farm.
Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen
by Joe Drape
$25
In the fall of 2008, the football team in Smith Center, Kansas – population: 1,931 – embarked on a quest for its fifth undefeated season, its fifth state championship, and a new state record for consecutive victories. But to do so, the Redmen faced a potentially destabilizing transition: the greatest senior class in school history had graduated, and their longtime coach, Roger Barta, was contemplating retirement.
Lights on a Ground of Darkness:
An Evocation of a Place and Time
by Ted Kooser
$10.95
Like the yellow, pink, and blue irises that had been transplanted from house to house over the years, the stories of poet Ted Kooser’s family had been handed down until, as his mother lay ill and dying, he felt an urgency to write them down. With a poet’s eye for detail, Kooser captures the beauty of the landscape and the vibrancy of his mother’s Iowa family, the Mosers, in precise, evocative language.
The center of the family’s love is Kooser’s uncle,
Elvy, a victim of cerebral palsy. Elvy’s joys are fishing, playing pinochle, and drinking soda from the ice chest at his father’s roadside Standard Oil station. Kooser’s grandparents, their kin, and the activities and pleasures of this extended family spin out and around the armature of Elvy’s blessed life.
Kooser has said that writing this book was the most important work he has ever undertaken because it was his attempt to keep these beloved people alive against the relentless erosion of time.
Twisted Tree
by Kent Meyers
$24
Hayley Jo Zimmerman is gone. Taken. And the people of small-town Twisted Tree must come to terms with this terrible event—their loss, their place in it, and the secrets they all carry.
In this brilliantly written novel, one girl’s story unfolds through the stories of those who knew her. Among them, a supermarket clerk recalls an encounter with a disturbingly thin Hayley Jo. An ex-priest remembers baptizing Hayley Jo and seeing her with her best friend, Laura, whose mother the priest once loved. And Laura berates herself for all the running they did, how it fed her friend’s addiction, and how there were so many secrets she didn’t see. And so, Hayley Jo’s absence recasts the lives of others and connects them, her death rooting itself into the community in astonishingly violent and tender ways.
Moose on the Loose
by Kathy-jo Wargin
What would you do with a moose on the loose? Would you chase him, or race him, or stand up to face him? What would you do with a moose on the loose? What would you do with a moose in your yard? Or in your house? How about in your room? Or in your tub? Would you give him two boats? Would you see if he floats? What would you do?
Colorful, comic artwork highlights the hilarity that ensues when wildlife wanders indoors. Can boy best beast? By story's end, young readers will know exactly what to do when a moose goes on the loose!
August picks
Fifth Floor
by Michael Harvey
$14.95
Private detective Michael Kelly returns in a lightning-paced, intricately woven mystery. When Kelly is hired by an old girlfriend to tail her abusive husband, he expects trouble of a domestic rather than a historical nature. Life, however, is not so simple.
The trail leads to a dead body in an abandoned
house on Chicago’s North Side and then to places Kelly would rather not go: specifically, City Hall’s fabled fifth floor, where the mayor is feeling the heat. Kelly becomes embroiled in a scam that stretches from current politics back to the night Chicago burned to the ground. Along the way, he finds himself framed for murder, before finally facing a killer bent on rewriting history.
While I’m Falling
by Laura Moriarty
Jen says: One of the most attractive things to me in a book is authentic voice. I don’t need a lot of action or description of the landscape, but I do need to believe the characters I’m reading. Moriarty nailed it twice for me in While I’m Falling with two different characters: Veronica, a junior in college and her mother, Natalie. I found myself thinking, Yes, yes, yes! in recognition of these characters’ thoughts and actions (good and bad). For a book about growing up on the inside, whether you’re 20-something or 40-something, read While I’m Falling.
In While I’m Falling, Laura Moriarty presents a compelling depiction of how one young woman’s life changes when her family breaks up for good.
Ever since her parents announced that they’re getting divorced, Veronica has been falling. Hard. A junior in college, she has fallen in love. She has fallen behind in her difficult coursework. She hates her job as counselor at the dorm, and she longs for the home that no longer exists. When an attempt to escape the pressure, combined with bad luck, lands her in a terrifying situation, a shaken Veronica calls her mother for help-only to find her former foundation too preoccupied to offer any assistance at all.
But Veronica only gets to feel hurt for so long. Her mother shows up at the dorm with a surprising request-and with the elderly family dog in tow. Boyfriend complications ensue, along with her father’s sudden interest in dating. Veronica soon finds herself with a new set of problems, and new questions about love and independence.
Darkly humorous, beautifully written, and filled with crystalline observations about how families fall apart, While I’m Falling takes a deep look at the relationship between a daughter and a mother when one is trying to grow up and the other is trying to stay afloat.
Missing Mark
by Julie Kramer
Jen says: Does the name Julie Kramer ring a bell? Kramer won the 2009 Minnesota Book Award in the genre category for her first book, Stalking Susan, now in paperback.
When Riley Spartz sees a want ad reading “Wedding Dress for Sale: Never Worn,” her news instincts tell her the back-story might make an intriguing television sweeps piece.
The groom, Mark, last seen at the rehearsal dinner, never showed up for the wedding, humiliating his bride, Madeline-and her high-strung, high-society mother-in front of 300 guests. His own mother, eager to spare him further embarrassment, waited weeks before filing a missing-person report, and then learned how difficult it is to get police, or the media, interested in missing men.
Now Riley is up against a boss who thinks finding a famed missing fish will net the station higher ratings, a meth cartel trying to assassinate a K-9 dog because of his powerful nose for drugs, and a neighbor who holds perpetual garage sales that attract traffic at odd hours.
When her missing-person case leads to a murder investigation, Riley discovers a startling motive for Mark’s disappearance-and a TV exclusive guaranteed to win the ratings…if she lives to report it.
For young adults:
Shiver
by Maggie Stiefvater
Grace has spent years watching the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf-her wolf-watches back. He feels deeply familiar but she doesn’t know why.
Sam has lived two lives. In the cold winter months, he is a wolf, keeping the silent company of his pack and keeping careful watch over the girl he loves. And then, for a short time each year when the weather is warm enough, he is human, never daring to talk to Grace… until now.
For Grace and Sam, love has always been kept at a distance. But now it cannot be denied. Sam must fight to stay human-and Grace must fight to keep him-even if it means taking on the scars of the past, the fragility of the present, and the impossibility of the future.
For Kids 5-6 years old:
Corn
by Gail Gibbons
$6.95
This very colorful book gives a fun history of corn. The simple text will keep kids engaged until the end of the book.
The Longest Night
by Marion Dane Bauer,
illustrated by Ted Lewin $17.95
Jen says: A beautiful, wonderful book!
The snow lies deep. All through the forest, animals long for dawn’s warmth on the longest night of the year. Strong and clever creatures boast that only they can bring back the sun. But the wind knows better. It will take a tiny and gentle creature to summon a new day. (Holiday House).
"What I hope children will take away from this book is hope itself, the understanding that the least of us can 'bring back the sun,' however ordinary our songs may seem."—Marion Dane Bauer
"I'd like readers to experience a sense of the solitude, mystery, and beauty of the night woods, and the usually unseen creatures who leave their tracks in the snow." —Ted Lewin
July Picks
Note: These are all paperbacks!
Also, I usually include a review of each book, but there are quite a few books on the list, so I’ll list the title, author, genre, & price. For more info on a specific title, visit midwestbooksellers.org/category/midwest-connections.
Stalking Susan
by Julie Kramer
$7.99 – mystery
Red Knife
by William Kent Krueger
$15 – mystery
*Krueger will be visiting Beagle Books this fall!
A Prayer for the Dying
by Stewart O'Nan
$14 – historical fiction
So Brave, Young, and Handsome
by Leif Enger
$14 – fiction
*Don’t forget Leif Enger’s signing at Beagle on July 18th at 12:30!
River of Heaven
by Lee Martin
$14 - fiction
Driftless
by David Rhodes
$16 – fiction
The Moonflower Vine
by Jetta Carleton
$14.99 – fiction
Charlatan
by Pope Brock
$14.95 – biography
*This is Jen’s favorite non-fiction read!
June Picks
Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town
by Nick Reding
Oelwein, Iowa is like thousand of other small towns across the county. It has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy and an out-migration of people. If this wasn't enough to deal with, an incredibly cheap, long-lasting, and highly addictive drug has come to town, touching virtually everyone's lives. Journalist Nick Reding reported this story over a period of four years, and he brings us into the heart of the town through an ensemble cast of intimately drawn characters, including: Clay Hallburg, the town doctor, who fights meth even as he struggles with his own alcoholism; Nathan Lein, the town prosecutor, whose case load is filled almost exclusively with meth-related crime, and Jeff Rohrick, who is still trying to kick a meth habit after four years.
Methland is a portrait of a community under siege, of the lives the drug has devastated, and of the heroes who continue to fight the war. It will appeal to readers of David Sheff's bestselling Beautiful Boy, and serve as inspiration for those who believe in the power of everyday people to change their world for the better.
A Prayer for the Dying
by Stewart O’Nan
Set in Friendship, Wisconsin, just after the Civil War, A Prayer for the Dying tells of a horrible epidemic that is suddenly and gruesomely killing the town's residents and setting off a terrifying paranoia. Jacob Hansen, Friendship's sheriff, undertaker, and pastor, is soon overwhelmed by the fear and anguish around him, and his sanity begins to fray. Dark, poetic, and chilling, A Prayer for the Dying examines the effect of madness and violence on the morality of a once-decent man.
Nico & Lola: Kindness Shared Between a Boy and a Dog
by Meggan Hill,
Photographs by Susan M. Graunke
I couldn’t resist sharing this review by 7-1/2 year old Madeline: “My favorite part of the story is when Nico hugged Lola good-bye. He was going to miss her after his Aunt Sue picked-up Lola after her vacation. I really liked all of the pictures a lot. The best picture is of Nico and Lola walking with neighbor friends in the park. I enjoyed reading this book because it was full of nice things and friends. “Nico & Lola” … is a good book about how to treat animals in your care. I learned how to show caring and kindness to animals. You should always give your dog water on a warm day after running a lot.
– Madeline McElroy, age 7 ½
Julia Gillian (and the Quest for Joy)
by Alison McGhee
A new school year has started for Julia Gillian, and so far, it’s not going very well. Her best friend, Bonwit Keller, doesn’t seem to want to be best friends anymore. Learning to play the trumpet, once Julia Gillian’s hearts’ desire, is much more difficult than it looks. And the school has hired an interim lunch monitor, the all-too-strict Mr. Wintz. As Julia Gillian’s music teacher would say, “Where is the joy?” Thankfully, Julia Gillian soon learns that sharing problems is often the only way to solve them. Life is only as complicated - or as joyful - as we want it to be.
Note from Jen: If you haven’t read the first Julia Gillian, get moving! Julia is a WONDERFUL character. The first book, Julia Gillian (and the art of knowing) is now available in paperback for $6.99.
May Picks
Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting
by Michael Perry
Newly installed with his wife and young daughter in a rickety Wisconsin farmhouse with thirty-seven acres of overgrown farmland, a handful of chickens on order, a pig pen to build, and a baby due to be born in the upstairs bedroom (“The first time my wife proposed this, I laughed in a Hahaha! Good one! sort of way…”), Mike plumbs his unorthodox farm family and obscure fundamentalist Christian sect upbringing for clues to navigating the present.
He moves easily between rural reflection (”The hills are a green divan buttoned with clusters of bloom.”) and roughneck humor (”Today a dog bit me grievously upon the ass…I was wrestling a pig at the time.”), while telling a story that speaks directly to a growing number of Americans who are wondering if the future might be best addressed with a backyard full of chickens.
The Great Perhaps
by Joe Meno
The sky is falling for the Caspers of Chicago, a family of cowards: for Jonathan, a paleontologist, searching in vain for a prehistoric giant squid; for his wife, Madeline, an animal behaviorist with a failing experiment; for their daughter, Amelia, a disappointed teenage revolutionary; for her younger sister, Thisbe, on a frustrated search for God; and for grandfather Henry, who wants to disappear, limiting himself to thirteen words a day, then twelve, then eleven, until he will speak no more.
Each fears uncertainty and the possibilities that accompany it. When Jonathan and Madeline suddenly decide to separate, this nuclear family is split, each member forced to confront his or her own cowardice, finally coming to appreciate the cloudiness of the modern age. With wit and humor, The Great Perhaps presents a revealing look at anxiety, ambiguity, and the need for complicated answers to complex questions.
Beyond Walden: The Hidden Hstory of America’s Kettle Lakes and Ponds
by Robert M. Thorson
Lakes are a beloved part of the American landscape, and kettles are the most common type, spanning the northern part of the country from New England to the High Plains. Kettle lakes
are depressions formed by meltdown of glacial ice and filled with freshwater. Unlike other kinds of lakes that have significant inlet or outlet streams, kettle lakes are natural wells tapping the groundwater table.
A source of joyful relaxation and recreation for generations, kettle lakes also have historical and cultural significance. Within a few years of the 1836 publication of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature, a pivotal book combining nature with spirituality and religion, Henry David Thoreau had permanently linked Walden Pond-America’s most famous kettle lake-to the Transcendentalist movement.
Each kettle lake tells a story, and in Robert Thorson’s hands their collective saga-and the threats to their health-give us crucial insight into the dangers facing our vulnerable freshwater ecosystem.
The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women & a Forty-Year Friendship
by Jeffrey Zaslow
Meet the Ames Girls: eleven childhood friends who formed a special bond growing up in Ames, Iowa. As young women, they moved to eight different states, yet managed to maintain an enduring friendship that would carry them through college and careers, marriage and motherhood, dating and divorce, a child’s illness and the mysterious death of one member of their group. Capturing their remarkable story, The Girls from Ames is a testament to the deep bonds of women as they experience life’s joys and
challenges— and the power of friendship to triumph over heartbreak and unexpected tragedy.
The girls, now in their forties, have a lifetime of memories in common, some evocative of their generation and some that will resonate with any woman who has ever had a friend. Photograph by photograph, recollection by recollection, occasionally with tears and often with great laughter, their sweeping and moving story is shared by Jeffrey Zaslow, Wall Street Journal columnist, as he attempts to define the matchless bonds of female friendship. It demonstrates how close female relationships can shape every aspect of women’s lives - their sense of themselves, their choice of men, their need for validation, their relationships with their mothers, their dreams for their daughters - and reveals how such friendships thrive, rewarding those who have committed to them.
April Picks
Laura Rider’s Masterpiece
by Jane Hamilton
Laura and Charlie Rider have been married for twelve years. Together they’ve run the Prairie Wind Farm nursery in picturesque Wisconsin, where they share a passion for gardening, which overshadowed Laura’s physical passion for Charlie long ago. Still, there are mostly happy lives - as long as Charlie can continue his simple life of working the land and Laura can keep reading novels while privately writing her own.
Jenna Faroli is the host of a popular radio show and is “the single most famous person in the town of Dover,” in Laura’s eyes. When Jenna happens to cross Charlie’s path one day and they begin an e-mail correspondence, how can Laura resist using Charlie to try out her new writing skills and converse with her hero? Together, Laura and Charlie craft florid, strangely intimate messages that entice Jenna in an unexpected way. Things quickly spin out of control as the lines between Laura’s words and Charlie’s feelings are blurred and complicated, and Jenna has a profound effect on the couple that transforms all three of them in the end.
A Reliable Wife
by Robert Goolrick
Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for “a reliable wife.” But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she’s not the “simple, honest woman” that Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious, haunted by a terrible past and motivated by greed. Her plan is simple: she will win this man’s devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on, though, is that Truitt - a passionate man with his own dark secrets -has plans of his own for his new wife. Isolated on a remote estate and imprisoned by relentless snow, the story of Ralph and Catherine unfolds in unimaginable ways.
The Moonflower Vine
by Jetta Carleton
A Sally favorite! *
On a farm in western Missouri during the first half of the twentieth century, Matthew and Callie Soames create a life for themselves and raise four headstrong daughters. Jessica will break their hearts. Leonie will fall in love with the wrong man. Mary Jo will escape to New York. And
wild child Mathy’s fate will be the family’s greatest tragedy. Over the decades, they will love, deceive, comfort, and forgive each other - and ultimately, they will come to cherish all the more fiercely the bonds of love that hold the family together.
*The Moonflower Vine was originally published in 1962. The author died in 1999, Moonflower Vine is her only published work.
Westhope: Life as a Former Farm Boy
by Dean Hulse
Hulse recalls his idyllic childhood and adolescence in a small town that will look and feel familiar to many and movingly describes his failed attempt to carry on the family farm. Like many of his generation, Hulse discovers that the way of life he grew up with, one led by his parents and his grandparents before them, is threatened with extinction. Through a loosely chronological series of highly personal essays, Hulse delivers a strong critique of the destructive, shortsighted agricultural practices and economic policies that have led to rural depopulation throughout the Great Plains.
Safer: A Novel of Suspense
by Sean Doolittle
For Paul Callaway and his wife, Sara, moving from the East Coast to a quiet midwestern town was a major adjustment. But right from the start, Paul has tried to fit in. He’s played golf with the guys. He’s even joined the Neighborhood Patrol, grabbing a flashlight and a walkie-talkie to make these neatly tended streets even safer. Then Paul makes one mistake—and now they want him gone. But nothing could have prepared Paul and Sara for the quarrel that has erupted between Paul and a neighbor—the self-appointed leader of the Neighborhood Patrol. Or for the next outrage, as police arrest Paul for a sordid crime he didn’t commit. Suddenly Paul’s life, university career, and marriage are at risk, as he finds himself locked in a desperate fight with an angry man, a dark conspiracy, and a secret that began with a child’s disappearance ten years before.
Mudville
by Kurtis Scaletta
From April through October, Jen and Sally follow Twins baseball. After the World Series is finished in October, we sigh with satisfaction –we have drunk deep once more from the baseball chalice. Then comes the holiday marathon beginning with Halloween and ending with New Year’s. Following that, we get baseball teasers: spring training (which of course takes place in January), glimpses of the next year’s team in the Sports pages of the newspapers and brief mentions in the sports report on the news. And then- We wait. And wait. And……….wait. We become like children, “Is it April yet? Is it April yet? Is it April yet? How many more days until April?” A lot of people have complained that the baseball season is now six months long. Sally and Jen are not these people. So what to do? READ MUDVILLE! Mudville is the nickname of Moundville. Twenty-two years ago it started raining in Moundville during a baseball game between Moundville and Sinister Bend (what a great name for a rival). That means it’s been raining for 12-year-old Roy McGuire’s entire life. The baseball field has been washed out (even the bleachers are gone). Roy lives with his dad and their cat Yogi. Roy’s mom is a flight attendant with a drinking problem who has abandoned the family. Roy comes home one day to discover another boy in the house: Sturgis. Then it quits raining. Not wasting any time, Roy puts together a baseball team with Sturgis as his star pitcher. The boys weather through adolescent struggles of friendship, family, and teamwork. This is a very satisfying read. I recommend this for baseball fans aged 10-110. If you’re not a baseball fan, but know a young baseball fan, this book is a great introduction to the sport, nicely nestled in a good story.
The Dragonfly Secret: A Story of Boundless Love
by Clea & John Adams
The Dragonfly Secret (ages 8 to adult) tells the story of a chance encounter between a boy and a dragonfly. The reader journeys through a beautiful garden with the dragonfly in search of the boy’s secret. In the end the secret is revealed, gently reminding us that memories of a loved one are forever.
The Dragonfly Door
by Clea & John Adams
The Dragonfly Door (ages 5 to 9) explores the transformation of a water nymph into a beautiful dragonfly. This story about friendship, loss, and change will be enjoyed by all children and can be a powerful tool in helping children experiencing grief. Tips from a child psychologist for using this book will be available on the Midwest Booksellers Association website. Loss is universal and does not discriminate. Because of this, we all share a common bond. Sometimes finding the right words to comfort a child, a friend, a spouse or other grieving relative can be difficult. We think you will find both books inspirational and worth recommending to children and adults alike.
February picks
The Rose Variations
by Marisha Chamberlain
The Rose Variations is the story of twenty-five-year-old Rose MacGregor who, in 1975, moves from Philadelphia to St. Paul, Minnesota, where she knows no one and has nothing but a few books, her cello and a temporary professorship at a Midwestern college. She is convinced nevertheless that an exciting future as a composer lies ahead of her. Determined to remain independent and not to let any romantic relationships tie her down, she struggles to figure out what exactly would make her happy, getting mixed up along the way with many short-lived love affairs, a bearded lesbian cellist, and her wayward pregnant younger sister.
Irreplaceable
by Stephen Lovely
One windy April afternoon, a young woman bicycles alone along a stretch of Iowa highway. She’s pedaling hard, hurrying to get home in time for dinner…
Alex is a cerebral thirty-year-old archaeologist married to the woman of his dreams--a beautiful, ambitious botanist named Isabel. When Isabel, an organ donor, is killed by a reckless driver, Alex reluctantly consents to donate her heart.
Janet Corcoran is a young, headstrong mother of two, an art teacher at an inner-city school in Chicago. Sick with heart disease, she is on the waiting list for a transplant, but her chances are slim. She watches the Weather Channel, secretly praying for foul weather and car accidents, a miracle. The day Isabel dies, she gets her wish.
Flash forward a year. Janet sends Alex a long letter. She’d like to learn something about the woman who saved her life. Alex isn’t interested in talking to the recipient of his dead wife’s heart. Since Isabel’s accident, he’s become grief-stricken and bewildered. His closest companion is his mother-in-law, Bernice. They spend their nights reminiscing about Isabel and hiding out from the world. Meanwhile, a local blues musician named Jasper, the man responsible for Isabel’s death, attempts to atone for his misdeed. Jasper is devastated by the knowledge that he destroyed a life but attracted to the idea that he was partially responsible for saving
another life--Janet’s. He sees her as his ultimate salvation.
The Turtle Catcher
by Nicole Helget
In a rural Minnesota town of German immigrants during the tumultuous days of World War I, The Turtle Catcher brings together two misfits from warring clans. Liesel, the one girl in the upstanding family of Richter boys, harbors a secret about her body that thwarts all hope for a normal life. Her closest friend is Lester, the “slow” boy in the raffish Sutter family and a gentle, kind soul who spends his days trapping turtles in the lake. Yearning for human touch in the wake of her parents’ deaths, Liesel turns to her only friend--leading her brother, just returned from the war, to an act that will haunt not only both families but the entire town.
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