Love Is Loud

Juvenile Nonfiction 

     "Cheeks BURNING from the heat of HUMILIATION, now you feel the sting of segregation.

     Your friends tell you it's always been this way.

     They say to go along to get along.

     But you won't follow rules if the rules are wrong."

     Diane Neil Wallace's words and Bryan Collier's vibrant illustrations introduce young readers to a shero of the Civil Rights Era in a poetic style they will find quite appealing in Love Is Loud.

     Diane Nash was born in Chicago in 1938 to parents determined not to raise her in the South where they had grown up.  In her early years segregation was not a major factor in her life.

     All that changed when she moved to Tennessee to attend Fisk University.  At a fair she saw signs for white and "colored" bathrooms.  Her friends felt that this evil wasn't going to change.  It would be best to not rock the boat.  But she hadn't been brought up to acquiesce to evil.

     Complicating her life, racism wasn't the only challenge Nash faced.  The Black males who led the Civil Rights Movement kept girl and women activists behind the scenes, not allowing them to speak publicly.

     But Nash found ways to lead resistance and fight wrongs.  And this well crafted volume brings her work and legacy to life for younger readers.  It's a great acquisition for school and public libraries.

On a purrrsonal note, this morning the people who had slept 😴 💤 over at Wilson Center sat around talking and eating Sonja's good pancakes.  I had an epiphany.  I'd toyed for quite awhile with the idea of reading my short first chapter of my memoir/manifesto to a group who would answer one question:  would this want you to read 📚 more?  I'm specifically targeting it to a younger adult demographic, the people more willing to rock the boat rather than settle for tepid incrementalism.  I'd actually chosen representative groups and then chickened out.  But this group made me feel safe enough to be vulnerable this way.  They listened and loved it.  At the end of Imogen, Obviously Albertalli had shared this thought:  What does it mean to belong to a community, or several?  It means you have a real treasure.  I could tell that I already belong in that community which gave me the security to take that leap of faith.  (Jules)

I was waiting for her and now she is home.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to Sonja for cooking for a hungry crowd and to the group for validating my writing.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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Imogen, Obviously

YA fiction 

     Knowing your sexual orientation can be tricky for anyone.  Many adults are trying to figure this out or denying that they're questioning.  Imagine what it must be like to be questioning for the first time in your life when you're about to make one of the biggest, potentially scariest transitions of your teens.  Becky Albertalli gives readers a picture in Imogen, Obviously.

     Imogen is a dedicated ally.  Her two best friends, Gretchen, a fellow high school senior, and Lili, a college first year student, and her little sister, Edith, are at least semi confidently out.  And Imogen is a member in good standing of her school Pride Alliance group.

     But Imogen is sure of one thing.  She's totally straight.

     Lili has been repeatedly invited Imogen to visit her on campus.  Finally she accepts her invitation to spend three days there.  She sees that Lili is part of a close knit LGBTQ group, an accepting group she quickly feels like a part of.  But she also learns that she's part of a lie Lili has told.  Lili had come out just before starting college.  Afraid that her new friends will judge her she'd created a gay back story in which Imogen is her ex girlfriend.

     Imogen willing goes along with the story.  She even adds her own details to it, even as she worries that they may conflict with the narrative Lili has created.

     "Because that's the thing.  I'm not just straight--I'm hopelessly, blindingly, obviously straight."

     Or maybe not.  When Imogen meets Lili's classmate, Tessa, she begins to experience new feelings, ones she's always assumed that she'd get for a guy.

     Could she possibly be bisexual?

     Does she have a chance of winning Tessa's ❤️ 💙 💜 💖 💗 💘?

     You'll really enjoy reading the book 📖 to find out.  It's one of the most delightful and thought provoking YA romances I've so far encountered.

On a purrrsonal note, last night was one of the most wonderful nights 🌙 ✨️ of my year so far.  It was a drag show at my beloved Wilson Center where I married Eugene almost 34 years ago.  There were three other performers beside me.  First we were a panel, answering some really thought provoking questions about drag and issues surrounding it.  Then there was the show itself.  I did Fame (my standby) and Only The Good Die Young (for the first time). We had a very enthusiastic audience. Then there was a potluck dinner.  Toward the end someone put out a lot of dress up clothes.  We were enthusiastically dressing ourselves and giving each other suggestions.  My favorite was a gold cape and an ornate mask that looked like it belonged in a museum.  When we were all dressed up we did a less formal drag show.  I did Greased Lightning from Grease.  After a movie (with plenty of snacks) we pulled out the sleeping 😴 bags and hit the sack.  More later.  (Jules)

I missed her.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to all participants who made drag magic together.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

     

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Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet

YA fiction 

     The title of Laekan Zea Kemp's Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet could not have been better chosen.  It reminds readers that both can be present in life at the same time because people are complicated and life is complicated.

     Let me digress with an example from my life.  In May 2019 my beloved ❤️ tuxedo cat 🐈 😻 🐈‍⬛️ companion, Joey, was diagnosed with lung cancer.  Surgery wasn't a possibility.  But if I placed an ointment in his ear every night he'd regain his appetite and have weeks or even months of good quality life.  I was able to give him a whole summer, even managing to snag a turkey for a Thanksgiving in July.  I spent just about every moment I could with him--just the two of us loving ❤️ 😍 💖 ❣️ 💕 💘 each other.  For me it was bittersweet because I loved having this extra time with him but knew it would end.  He didn't get worse until two days before the end.  I was with him when his soul left his body.  

     Some parts of the book are like that.  

     "I love my father's restaurant.  Even though his owner's smile I can see that he's grown to hate it.  And even more he hates me being there, following in his footsteps...My friends.  My home.  That's what it is to me.  Everything."

     Pen is determined to spend her working life in her family's restaurant, Nacho's Tacos or to open a next door pastry shop.  She lives to cook food that delights the senses and nourishes the body and soul.  She's created most of the menu items.  But her parents want better for her, better meaning college and professional career.  When they find out she hasn't been going to classes her father fires her.  Her mother tells her that if she wants to live at home she has to go to school...

     ...as if that's going to happen.

     "Once, I was so fed up I tried contacting an immigration lawyer instead.  But three installments later, the guy was $800 richer and I was still at square one.  I went to his office one day to confront him only to discover that he'd disappeared."

     Xander was abandoned by his mother when he was very young.  Then his father sent him to America to live with his grandfather.  For years he's been trying to track down his father, to find out why he was abandoned.  Being undocumented adds precarity to his life.  He's yearning to find a place where he belongs.  When he starts to work at Nacho's Tacos, which is a community sanctuary as well as or maybe more than a place of business.

     "'Is J. P. a criminal?'

     Lucas shrugs.  'What else do you call someone who uses blackmail and intimidation to extort people out of their hard-earned money?  But apparently he can do whatever he wants...'"

     A low life with connections is trying to take down the community's small businesses and gentrify the neighborhood.  Sort of like urban renewal but with even less ethics.  He has his eyes on Nacho's Tacos.

     Readers who enjoy complex story lines and equally complicated characters will really enjoy this fine book and hate to come to the last page.  This is Kemp's debut YA novel.  Let's hope she's working on another.

On a purrrsonal note, I hope that someday I can meet Kemp.  I think we'd really hit it off for three reasons:

1)  In her acknowledgements she speaks of the importance of providing students of color with POC characters.  I think she'd like my labor of love blog the heart, soul, and mission of which is diversity and inclusivity.  Spreading the word is one of my favorite hobbies.

2)  She is a big fan of teens.  "Because they are incredible.  Because they are steadfast in their convictions.  They're passionate.  They're courageous.  They are everything we should strive to be."

Ditto.  It's why I'm putting off dining 🍽 until August to volunteer with Upward Bound.  And it's why I'm working my ass off (5 years down, 1 to go) to get my higher education degree.  So I can spend the rest of my life working with and surrounded by teens and young adults.

3)  We've both worked (in my case am still working) in food service.  I'm really close to my dining friends.  And when my first book is published they'll make it into the acknowledgements.

Jules Hathaway 

     

     

     

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Sadie

YA chiller 

"Mary Beth Foster:  The week before she left, Sadie got really quiet, like she was thinking about doing something stupid, and I told her whatever she was thinking...don't.  I said to her, 'Don't you do it.'  But by that point, I couldn't reach her about much of anything.

     Still I never imagined this."

     Sadie, protagonist of Courtney Summers's Sadie, was born into about as bad a situation as an infant can arrive in.  Her mother wasn't willing or even able to take on responsibility for another life.  Heck, she couldn't even run her own.

     "Well, Claire was trouble and there was no reason for it.  Some kids are just born...bad.  She started drinking when she was twelve.  At fifteen, she was into pot, cocaine.  By eighteen, heroin."

     Sadie had no father in the traditional sense of the word.  If anything Claire's string of live ins made her life more precarious.  Her grandmother had died a few months before she was born.  The only stable adult in Sadie's life was Mary Beth Foster who ran the trailer park she lived in.

     Rejected by her mother and shunned by her classmates for her stutter, Sadie was a lonely child until her sister, Mattie, was born.  

"Mary Beth Foster:  Isn't it something?  Sadie loved Mattie with her whole heart and that love for Mattie gave her a purpose.  Sadie made it her life's work looking after her sister.  Young as she was she knew Claire wouldn't do it right."

     When Mattie was only thirteen she was brutally murdered.  Sadie, sure that the killer was one of Claire's loser lovers, has decided that he'll pay for the life he took with his own.  Armed with a switchblade, she's venturing into society's perilous underbelly.

     Only one person notices and cares immensely.  Mary Beth Foster has decided that she "can't take another dead girl."  She reaches out to the media.  Now West McCrae is tracking Sadie down.

     Alternating its protagonist's quest for vengeance and her potential rescuer's podcast, Sadie maintains an expertly crafted aura of suspense, keeping the engaged reader caught between fear and hope.  It's perfect for thriller lovers in its prime demographic and way beyond.

On a purrrsonal note, yesterday I put out two more bins of clothes in the Upward Bound summer clothes room.  I was wondering where I'd be able to locate clothes hangers.  Who on campus would have some?  I remembered the bookstore sells clothes.  I was prepared to pay but they gave me a bunch for free.  Today was day 3 of ultrasound practice.  It seems 😕 to be working a little.  I got ready for tomorrow's drag show.  I baked oatmeal cookies 🍪 😋 🤗 for the pot luck and packed them and my drag outfits in an overnight bag.  (Jules)

She will be a star.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to the people who are organizing the show.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone

Imposter Syndrome and other confessions of Alejandra Kim

YA fiction 

     I think many of us have experienced or are experiencing imposter syndrome:  the feeling of not really being qualified to be somewhere, the fear of being exposed.  When I started graduate school it took me awhile to internalize my program's mantra:  if you're here you belong here.  Patricia Park's Imposter Syndrome and other confessions of Alexandra Kim, inspired by her own struggles with it, shows readers that this feeling of not really belonging can start very early in life.  

     Alejandra's Korean grandparents had been trying to immigrate to the United States but had been diverted to Argentina.  It was her parents who completed the journey.  Now she commutes between two different worlds: her pricey private school that prides itself on diversity and inclusion and her neighborhood where nobody bothers with "political correctness."

     Ironically school is where Alejandra experiences a life changing microaggression.  A famous author, Jonathan Brooks James, has been hired to teach her writing class.  When he sees her name on the attendance sheet he quips, "Talk about multi-culti.  You'll have no trouble getting into college."

     "Oh, no, he didn't.

     Wait, did he?

     My cheeks are on fire.

     But he says it in that off-the-cuff, snarky hipster Am I rite? way which makes me feel uncool if I don't laugh along.

     So I laugh along."

     Alejandra decides it's no big deal, especially where in the larger world people are experiencing much worse suffering than microaggressions.  Her affluent, white best friend, Laurel, disagrees.

     "'Ally, that was such a microaggression!' Laurel fumes.'  'It's like asking an African American man if he's good at basketball, or a Chinese American if they live in Chinatown.'"

      She starts a petition to have Brooks fired.  He ends up quitting rather than go to mandated sensitivity training.  Alejandra is not a happy camper.

     "'Laurel,' I say, 'the guy lost his job.  Over your petition.'  As awkward as things were beginning to get in JBJ's class, I could have just ridden it out for the rest of the year.  We could have learned to uncomfortably coexist.'"

     Then things get worse.  There's a diversity assembly where

     "Then, to my horror and humiliation and holy-shit-I-can't-believe-she's-actually-going-there, Laurel tells the whole audience about what JBJ said to me in class.

     It was bad enough that JBJ had to say it in front of the whole class.  Now Laurel repeats his words to the entire school."

     Alejandra's home life is not exactly a bed of roses.  Her father has recently died in an accident that may not have been an accident.  She and her widowed mom, who works unpredictable hours as a home health aid, are rarely in the house at the same time.  When this happens they clash.

     She will have to soon reveal a secret that will probably make her mother go ballistic.  She's applying to her long term dream school, a prestigious liberal arts college in Maine.  Her father had been the one to encourage her to dream big.  Her mother has told her that she will not attend a college outside of New York.

     Imposter Syndrome and other confessions of Alejandra Kim is a highly relatable and engaging read for anyone, teen or adult, who has ever struggled to figure out where they belong.

On a purrrsonal note, I made it to two hours today.  I let myself have pop tarts.  I'm giving up on sugar cutting just for the duration of my ultrasound prep as a motivation to stick with it.  It's a grey on and off rainy 🌧 day.  So I probably won't know if community garden is on until the very last minute.  It's lucky I have an amazing cat companion to keep me on an even keel emotion wise.  (Jules)

I knew what I was doing when I chose her.  We needed each other.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to our very supportive family and friends ❤️ 😀 😊 💜 💙.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

   

     

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I really like the way this cover has every detail of the tree in sharp focus while the background is blurry.

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The Missing Season

YA chiller 

"Traditional children's rhyme, Hancock County, Maine

Mumbler, Mumbler, in your bed,

Mumbler, Mumbler, take your head,

Eat your nose, gobble your toes,

And bury you where the milkweed grows."

     Clara, protagonist of Gillian French's The Missing Season, is once again the new kid in school.  Her father works for a construction company that sends him from job to job.  This time he'll be helping to demolish the shut down mill that had probably been the source of most of the town's jobs...

     ...and to top that off she's starting her new school a month late, already behind.

     In her previous schools she'd been pretty isolated, longing for close friends.  Much to her surprise, Bree and Sage befriend her and introduce her to their crew...

     ...which includes a mysterious skater boy, Kincaid, who is sort of an oral historian among his peers.  He tells her about a boy, Ricky, who twenty years previously had gone with his friends to the railroad bridge to smash 🎃s.  His surviving friends said they'd heard an unseen entity under the bridge mumbling.

     "'Next time anybody saw Ricky, he was red guacamole.'  Kincaid pauses, smiling faintly, but he's not really seeing me now.  'Ever since,Mumbler's been around.  Takes a bad kid every few years, always in October.  Grown-ups have some bullshit excuse for what happened to the, but we know."

     Clara thinks that the local kids are giving her a snow job, sure that she'll fall for it.  But there are other stories of other kids.  

     "'Only explanation, right?  Hit-and-run.  She lost it somewhere between Randall Road and Wright way.'  When I look blank, Landon gestures.  'Her head.'"

     As it gets closer and closer to Halloween Clara is not so sure that the Mumbler narrative is a scare the new kid in town prank.  Mysterious things begin to happen.  Then one night Clara and her peers stuff stolen jack-o-lanterns with candy offerings and place them on the railing of the unused train bridge next to the dismal swamp in which the Mumbler is rumored to reside.  One girl never makes it home.  Her 🎃 is the only one knocked off the railing...

     ...until Clara's pumpkin follows.

     This will be a great Halloween read...

     ...if you can wait that long.

On a purrrsonal note, next Monday I have to go to the hospital whose name I will not write for a kidney ultrasound that I don't want and probably don't need.  An amazing number of procedures today are blatant attempts to get as much money as possible from patients and insurance providers.  I'd say there's a 95% chance this test and my August appointment to hear my urologist interpret it fall into this category.  But there's also an 100% chance that my friends who are less read 📚 up on the sorry state of American medicine, including my bestie, would have a fit.  So even though I have a legal right to just say no as long as I put it in writing, I don't have the energy to fight my nearest and dearest.  Anyway the morning of the ultrasound I have to drink a huge amount of liquid and hold it in my battered by three pregnancies bladder.  They say 1 1/2 hours.  I say 2 to allow for practically inevitable delays.  Anyway I decided to spend this week practicing to build my bladder capacity.  I made an hour and fifty-five minutes.  Towards the end I couldn't concentrate enough for computer solitaire.  (Jules)

People doctors sound worse than vetinarians.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out to the friend who will give me a ride so I won't have to walk to the bus stop and ride a bumpy bus with a full bladder.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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I got these lovely ornaments for free at a yard sale.  They will look so lovely 😍 on the Christmas tree 🎄 🌲 this year.

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Isn't this the cutest little Build A Bear Workshop critter?  I just paid $5 which went to helping a local historical society with building upkeep.  Money 💰 well spent and such a bargain!

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The Life And (Medieval) Times of Kate Sweeney

YA fiction 

     "Tonight's Friday, and the Red Knight, my older brother, Chris, is running late.  Again.

     'Please, please, please, please let me fight.'  I pace across Len's tiny office, my skirts swishing.  I know all the moves, and I've been practicing.  For years.'

     Kit, protagonist of Jamie Pacton's The Life And (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweeny, works at a very unusual chain restaurant.  It attempts to recreate Medieval times for diners.  Twice daily tournaments bring in the crowds.  Of course the knights and pages (knights in training) can only be guys.  The highest role girls and women can aspire to is serving wench.

     One night 🌙 when Chris can't fight Kit takes his place.  She's plenty ready and ends up winning.  She could have gotten away with it.  You can't tell who's who under a full out suit of armor.  But she chooses to remove her helmet and shout, "I AM NO MAN."

     Of course the guys at corporate headquarters go ballistic.  Nobody's going to change their beloved medieval hierarchy.  Manager Len goes all out to curb the insurrection on his turf.  He has potential loss of jobs to hold over Kit and Chris's heads.  This is no small thing.  A few years ago their father had fled, taking their college funds.  At best they barely get by on their and their mom's wages.  Now they're seriously behind on mortgage payments and in danger of losing their home.

     But Kit has become determined to change the chauvinistic rules.  Other would be knight serving wenches have joined her quest.  And her crusade is going viral on the Internet and drawing in crowds in real life.

On a purrrsonal note, I think I've figured out how to solve a problem that's plagued me for decades.  A couple of years I tasked myself with cutting down on sodium to avoid ❤️ disease and high blood pressure.  Easy peasy.  Most sodium is in foods I have minimal interest in.  Sugar is a whole different matter.  Every time I've tried to cut down I've felt deprived.  This time I decided to make it like a budget.  In the morning I start with my sugar budget.  I decide how I will spend it.  And when I spend it, no more til the next day.  If I spend it early there's the next day to look forward to.  I'll let you know how it goes.  (Jules)

What is it with people and sugar?  (Tobago)

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The Good Girls

YA mystery 

     "But that is why you wanted to talk to me, right?  Because I'm the person most likely to know something?  Because I'm the person most likely to have something to do with it?"

     Claude is the "bad girl", the trouble maker, the one with an arrest record, the one not afraid to speak her mind.  Of course when a classmate disappears she's the first one the police question.

     "And good girl Avery acquiesces, because that's what her kind of girl does.  And she knows her friends trust her--but what sort of trust will it be when the rumors swing her way?"

     Avery is the head cheerleader, the one who stifles her feelings to maintain peace.  She'd gone out of her way to help Emma, who was always a beat off, learn the cheer routines better while privately feeling that Emma wasn't really committed and was only using cheering to beef up her college applications.

     "Gwen's breathing like she's ready to charge.  'You can't be serious.'

     'We'll ground you if we have to,' Mrs. Sayer says.

     'For going to school?  Jeez, Mom, I'm not Lizzy.'"

     Gwen is the girl from a neighborhood one step down from the trailer park.  Her life consists of maintaining a high GPA and an impressive array of extracurricular activities.  She's in the running for a prestigious scholarship that would be her ticket to a better life.  Her only real competition is Emma whose controlling police chief father has decided that there's no need for Emma to go to college when she can work in their small town for the rest of her life.

     Oh, yeah, Gwen and Emma have one another connection.  Gwen's older sister, Lizzy, is dead.  People chalk that up to drugs and booze.  But Emma has suddenly started claiming that Lizzy was murdered.

     The plot of Claire Eliza Barrlett's Good Girls centers around a night at Anna's Run, a dangerous river turn supposedly haunted by the spirits of girls falsely accused of witchcraft.  So what happened?  Did high school rivalries of animosities go horribly wrong?  Could something even more sinister be going on?  Do other horrors lie in wait?

On a purrrsonal note, the weekend was much less of a wash out than the meteorologist predicted it would be.  Saturday after a delicious breakfast at Governors Eugene and I went to camp.  On the way we stopped at yard sales and a flea market.  I was able to spend the afternoon and part of the evening reading on the porch.  It didn't really start raining until we were watching a night movie.  Or actually Eugene was watching and I was half asleep from all that fresh air and my adult beverage.  The rain 🌧 had cleared up by the time we woke up.  Most of today has been blue skies 💙 and 🌞 shine.  I hope you had a great weekend.  (Jules)

They are home again so I am happy.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to Eugene.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

     

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Raising Lazarus

     "This book grew out of my 2018 book Dopesick.  It sprang from the gut-wrenching stories I heard and the tough questions I was asked by hundreds of readers who reached out to me at presentations I gave and via my social media accounts."

     Beth Macy's Dopesick took readers into a world I'm sure most of us privileged and motivated enough to read the book found horrifying.  It's a world of people getting hooked not from street pushers but from prescriptions written by respected white coated professionals, the doctors wined and dined by the Sackler family's Purdue.  We got to know the victims, the heart broken family members who lost loved ones, and the people working valiantly to save the precious lives.

     With Raising Lazarus Macy takes us back to these communities where addiction and death rates, in the wake of the pandemic, continue to skyrocket.  Again we meet those trapped in addiction, the loved ones grieving the loss of sons and daughters, and the warriors delivering hope to homes, parking lots, and trap houses.  She describes some of the roadblocks standing in the way of change.

     One is the sheer overwhelming poverty of the region.  Many people with substance use disorders (Macy tells us not to say addicts) don't have the basics most of take for granted:  shelter, food, and access to Healthcare.  They also exist in a larger context of community poverty and lack of opportunity in places where the factories that previously provided decent livings had pulled out with nothing taking their place.

     Another is the cruel stigma surrounding substance abuse.  We learn about woman whose beloved son's struggles didn't elicit the sympathy, empathy, visits, and casseroles showered on a family whose child battled cancer.  Even those addicted through the complicity of big pharma and the medical professionals' complicity are seen as criminals rather than people grappling with chronic medical conditions...

     ...fragile people often forced to go through agonizing withdrawal in jails rather than offered medically appropriate treatments.

     Every now and we get glimpses of how the best legal talent money can buy shields the Sacklers from ever facing the consequences of their evil.

     If you want to really understand this twentieth century tragedy and maybe be part of the solution you'll find both Dopesick and Raising Lazarus to be must reads.

Jules Hathaway 

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All These Bodies

YA chiller 

     You probably haven't heard of the Andy Griffith Show which ran from 1960-68.  It was a then nostalgic sitcom set in an oh gee whiz innocent small town, a reprieve from the realities of war, rebellion, and changing sexual mores.  The main characters were the sheriff, his wide eyed, wholesome son, and the inept cousin who is his deputy.

     If the Andy Griffith Show and Stephen King's Salem's Lot had a love child it would be Kendare Blake's All These Bodies.

    "The night that the Carlsons were killed I was over at my best friend, Percy's place.  It was a warmish night for September and we'd gone out to their falling down barn so Percy's could grab a smoke without catching a glare from his stepmom, Jeannie.

     The year is 1958.  Michael is the son of the sheriff of Black Deer Falls, Minnesota.  He has a vague ambition towards being a journalist.  But his only connection to the field is his job delivering the Black Deer Falls Star.  Its editor, Matt McBride, is his mentor.

     In neighboring states all hell is breaking loose.  A bizarre murder spree is going on.  Corpses are found totally drained of blood.  Some victims seem not to have put up a fight.  No trace is found of the killer or killers.  Of course nothing like that could happen in good old Black Deer Falls,Minnesota...

     ...until it does.  A couple and their high school son, Steve, are discovered dead, every drop of blood drained out of them.  Only there's a major difference from the other murders.  A dazed teenage girl covered in blood, Marie Catherine Hale, is in the house with the corpses.  She's taken to the town jail.

     Everyone wants to know her story.  A Nebraska district attorney wants to make sure she gets the death penalty.  A lot of law enforcement people, sure a girl couldn't commit such gruesome murders, are anxious to track down her accomplices before they strike again.  Townspeople want to be the first in the know.

     "Tell the truth and shame the devil.  I always thought that would be easy.  But what do you do when the truth that you're faced with also happens to be impossible?"

     Amazingly Michael is the only one Marie will talk to.  At first he's sure that it's a major step in the right direction career wise.  

     "After it was over I could attend any journalism program that I wanted, and the college would probably pay for it.  Not bad for a kid from Nowhere, Minnesota."

     Only the interviews he conducts don't live up to his expectations.  Instead of the solid who, what, when, where, and how he's looking for he keeps hearing stories centered around blood drinking.

     So exactly what is going on? Can a teenage boy who has come to care to care about his interview subject get at the truth before the adults, some with less than pure motives, take over?

     There's only one way to find out.

On a purrrsonal note, it looks like the sunny 🌞 weather we've been enjoying will give way to some rain.  Just in time for the weekend.  Eugene says we'll probably go to camp, maybe even go out for breakfast.  It's a good thing I went to the library today.  I have plenty of books 📚 to pack.  (Jules)

I'll watch the house 🏠 while they're away.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to the librarians who keep me well supplied with great books 📚. 

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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A Most Tolerant Little Town

Adult nonfiction 

     "Though I'd grown up just a few counties away, I had never heard of Clinton High School before that September.  That didn't surprise Clinton's then mayor, Winfred 'Little Wimp' Shoopman.  What had happened there in 1956 'was swept under the rug for fifty years," he told me.  'History, if it was a pie, they were taking a bite out of it every year by not talking about it.  Eventually, the pie was going to be eat up and no more story."

     Fortunately it didn't come to that.  Rachel Louise Martin, author of A Most Tolerant Little Town, started the research that would culminate in the book in 2005.  Her mission was to do an oral history of what was basically the South's first court mandated school desegregation.  It had been requested by a group working to create a small community museum.

     "What happened in this little town between 1956 and 1958 wasn't a small story at the time.  People around the world followed as twelve Black students braved mobs and beatings and bombings for the right to attend high school in their own county.  The Associated Press, Reuters, Life, Time, America's three television networks, even the BBC and the London Daily Sketch, all stationed journalists there.  Pioneering documentarian Edward R. Murrow filmed two award winning specials about the school.  Evangelist Billy Graham hosted a crusade in the school's gymnasium, urging repentance, healing, and reconciliation."

     Martin uses really well chosen details to make the events of over half a century ago come to life for contemporary readers.  She brings in enough back story to clarify but not so much it would overwhelm the narrative.  She includes the characters' thoughts and feelings to show them as complex individuals with strengths and flaws.  

     When I read the book I wasn't surprised by the vehemence of hatred and willingness to do whatever it takes to make the despised other go away.  I was in Boston in the 70s when bussing was mandated to integrate schools.  I saw red faced whites screaming at and throwing rocks at bus loads of terrified little Black children.  

     What surprised me was how close in attitudes both sides in the controversy were.  It wasn't people who were for segregation vs those for integration.  Nearly all the whites preferred segregation, many even seeing it as God's will.  It was for the most part the law and order crowd enforcing a mandate they didn't really care for versus those striving to somehow, legally or otherwise, overturn the mandate.  

     Martin acknowledges that she isn't presenting a narrative with easy to identify heroes and villains.

     "What happened in Clinton is messier than that.  It's a tale of how apathy enables hatefulness.  It's a story of how discord can balloon into violence.  It's an account of how doing the wrong thing gave some people unprecedented power and opportunity.  It's a record of how doing the right thing can leave some individuals permanently scarred, physically and mentally.  It's a chronicle of how a small Southern town can explode, and then a whole entire country can forget."

On a purrrsonal note, I heard some really exciting news last night.  Orono Public Library had put in for government funds to expand our size and increase our offerings to the community.  Along with two other libraries we've made it to the last stage:  Senate and House approval.  I'm cautiously optimistic.  Since 2009 when we moved from the high school to a stand alone location we've added an outdoor garden and amphitheater.  As someone who has volunteered since literally the day the doors opened I very much want to see us achieve our full potential.  (Jules)

Libraries are good.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to our dynamic library director, Laurie Carpenter, her talented crew of librarians, my fellow volunteers, and the patrons who are our raison d'etre.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

     

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Look at all that closet space!

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Here's another angle.  Note the lovely 😍 view through window.

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This is a view of our lovely 😍 clothes room in the dorm, called the swap shop, from the door.

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As I Descended

YA chiller 

"The ouija board was Lily's idea.

     Maria warned her not to go through with it, but Lily didn't listen.  She went onto EBay while Maria was at soccer practice and bought the prettiest board she could find."

     After you finish reading Robin Talley's As I Descended I think you'll agree with Maria.  Lily should not have bought the board.  But then again if not for her lapse in judgment you wouldn't have the chance to devour a classic in the be glad that you didn't go to a pricey private school subgenre.

     Acheron Academy has two elements that, when mixed together, practically guarantee all hell breaking loose.  One is its history.  It goes back to plantation slavery days.  In fact the academy dorm was the plantation owner's manor house.  Through the decades a lot of people have perished under tragic and gruesome circumstances and stayed on as ghosts.  It you could calculate the dead to living ratio it would be pretty damn impressive.

     If the dead constitute one source of peril the living make up the other.  We're talking about teenagers making the turbulent transition from child to adult in an insular and intense community.  Delilah is the campus alpha student.  Every award, honor, and leadership position goes to her.  Lily and Maria have decided that enough is enough already.  They plan to end her reign...

     ...no matter what it takes to achieve this goal.

     One night, Lily, Maria, and their friend, Brandon, accompanied by the two dorm 🐈 😻 🐈‍⬛️, use the board to conduct a seance.  The room temperature drops.  There are mysterious noises.  The cats 🐈 😻 🐈‍⬛️ behave strangely.  The planchet starts spelling out cryptic messages.  

     The seance abruptly ends when a huge chandelier falls from the ceiling, shattering on impact.  In the ensuing chaos the teens forget to do one crucial thing--send any unleashed spirits back where they came from.  It isn't long before things begin to happen and life at Acheron begins to spiral perilously downward.

     If you're a true, hard core chiller affecianado you'll take to As I Descended like Tobago takes to prime quality nip.

On a purrrsonal note, today I got to arrange the clothes I'd sorted out in the dorm room for the Upward Bound summer ☀️ program.  We have a great room with big windows.  It also makes a difference that we didn't lug all the clothes down and that I got the room set up before the students arrived.  I am so excited for the program to begin!!!  (Jules)

So how about some good quality nip for the 🐈😻🐈‍⬛️?  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to the crew getting everything ready for the students.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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This Is Not A Ghost Story

YA fiction 

     "'That's why it was such a stroke of luck that you came knocking, asking for the job.  A student such as yourself, matriculating at such a fine institution'--he smiles warily--'Of course, none of the sensational hogwash matters to you.'"

     How about a stroke of poor judgment on both sides?  A college professor is running 🏃‍♂️ off to join his wife on vacation after giving a total stranger the keys to the ancestral manse without even googling her.  She's agreeing to spend the summer solo in a house 🏠 in the woods that's the subject of rumors.  I bet you can think of at least a few things that can go wrong.

     Daffodil, narrator of Andrea Portis's This Is Not A Ghost Story, is starting the summer between high school graduation and the beginning of college.  In fact she's on her way to the school when she realizes that she needs a job to cover room and board at what she hopes will be her future alma mater.  She gets off the bus 🚌 in a small town and goes around knocking on doors 🚪 and asking about jobs, not a winning strategy, but a desperate one.  She's decided that her only two options are starting school 🏫 and getting run over by a vehicle.  She's determined not to return to Nebraska.

     Hints that the house is not a run of the mill abode show up early on.  Her first night solo she senses the presence of a malevolent entity watching her.  But when the feeling passes she tells herself that what she'd experienced was an impossibility, a figment of her imagination while realizing:

     "This is what you would tell yourself if you had a job that you couldn't leave and had to be here, in this place, by yourself, for the rest of the summer.

     This is what you'd have to tell yourself."

     Only this telling gets harder as the summer ☀️ progresses.  Items inexplicably move themselves.  At night 🌙 Daffodil hears scratching sounds like those of a very large animal trying to get in the house.  Daylight reveals enormous claw marks.  A chatty, eccentric friend of the professor arrives alive, well, and garulous...

     ...the night 🌙 after Daffodil killed her in self defense.

     So exactly what is going on in the creepy old 🏚?  Can you figure it out before the last page?

On a purrrsonal note, yesterday in the garden, even though things are still drying out from all the rain we've 🌧 had recently, we had perfect weather.  We did a lot of weeding and were able to harvest lettuce, spinach 😋, and turnips.  The children were enthusiastically tending to their garden.  It was such a lovely 😍 evening.  (Jules)

They should grow some cat 🐈 😻 🐈‍⬛️ grass.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to all our gardeners.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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I love ❤️ this book cover.  Take a moment to look for the small figures embedded in the large picture 📸.

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The People's Hospital

     I think that most of you, my readers, would agree with the people I've talked to: health care in our country is a nightmare.  We spend more money than any other country.  Logic would have us thriving.  Instead, on a lot of measures like moms and babies surviving childbirth we're at the same level as impoverished nations.  It's also inequitable with people leading diminished lives or dying for the crime of not having insurance or huge amounts of wealth to cover out of pocket costs.  I think we can agree that something has to be done.

     I'm pretty sure that many of you would greet my recommendation of a book explaining all the things that go wrong and what must be done with the joy of high school students receiving summer reading lists.  But bear with me.  Ricardo Nuila's The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine is THE book that explains the issue in very understandable language and organization...

     ...and holds reader interest while doing so.  It's because of the format.  It's as suspenseful as the mysteries I review.  The heart and soul of the book around which all else revolves is the stories of very real people whose narratives intermingle throughout the volume.  You get to really know and care about them.  You may very well find one you can identify with.  Since I almost died after childbirth I really felt for Ebonie, a mother to be with a high risk pregnancy.  Wanting to know if she and her baby survive was one of the reasons I stuck with the book.

     The discussion of each fault with the system follows organically from a complication in the life of one of the patients.  When we read about the travails of Christian who bounced from medical facility to medical facility, even out of the country, desperate to get relief from disabling knee pain, Nuila says:

     "What this tells us is that without trusted doctors to guide them, patients are left rudderless in an ocean of high-tech remedies.  Science is a language, one that can be difficult to understand.  Doctors should serve as sciences translator.  But for those without good private insurance, and therefore without consistent access to a doctor with whom they can build trust, this important role isn't always valued: doctors are reimbursed for the services they perform, not the advice they give."

     I have a primary care provider in a practice that welcomes people who are insured through Medicare.  In the Bangor area we have two hospitals: a huge one that is a subsidiary of a system where stockholder profit comes first (which I'll call Goliath) and a small independent one (David).  When I had a subcutaneous cyst I wanted removed she knew what I didn't--that David had better sanitation which means lower chances of acquiring an infection.

     Nuila tells us a lot that's wrong with the American "health-care" system.  But he speaks from a perspective of optimism.  The hospital in which he has worked for more than a decade, Ben Taub, is a county hospital--the place that takes in the people other hospitals want nothing to do with such as the uninsured and the undocumented.  It's the place where doctors think outside the box to help patients take care of medical and other needs.  It's a place where patients are considered and treated as human beings.  He believes that this hospital has a lot to teach us about better ways of providing health care.

     I recommend this book to all people who are seriously concerned about the state of medical care in America and eager to see change.  I consider it a must acquire for public and higher education libraries.  I've just asked my library to order it.  I'd ask people well enough to afford to do so to gift a copy to a library that can't afford it.

On a purrrsonal note, if Nuila ever gets as far (from Texas) as Penobscot County, Maine I would love to introduce him to our David hospital.  I spent four days their right after spring semester with a kidney stone and an infection that resisted at least two antibiotics.  I was treated like a human being who mattered immensely by everyone from the doctors and nurses to the techs and dieticians.  The only time anyone asked about ways of paying was when we did the admissions paperwork.  My care was determined by what I needed and wanted.  For instance, when I had to go to the Goliath to have a stent put in (Because of the infection, removal at that time was not an option) and asked to be sent there long enough for the operation and brought back instead of transferred they made that happen.  In determining when I could leave they factored in the large amount of family and community support I had available.  Then a couple of days after I returned home I received a call from a woman who told me that based on my family's income she could help me get 70% of my bill for that hospital removed.  All I had to do was submit several documents.  She walked me through every step of the process.  When she told me we had succeeded she was so happy and excited.  I felt like I'd won the lottery.  

A great shout goes out to my David and all the other David hospital that serve as true public servants and rays of hope in a truly bleak landscape.

Jules Hathaway 

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I'm The Girl

YA chiller 

     Aspera is a perfectly manicured Never Never Land for adults...

     ...only the most wealthy and influential of course.  They come not to party or network, but to have their desires met...

     ...discretely of course.

     Before she was fired and died from cancer Katy Avis had been a housekeeper at the resort.  From her vantage point she'd seen its darker side.  She'd tried desperately to keep her only daughter, Georgia, from trying to become an Aspera girl.  She'd constantly reminded her that, "It's more important to know who you are than who you think you're meant to be."

     Georgia, 16, narrator of Courtney Summers's I'm The Girl, however, is a dreamer and a schemer.  She resents the shabby neighborhood she and her older brother live in and the precariousness of their financial situation.  She knows she's meant for better, better being Aspera.

     One day, trying to get to Aspera with a picture 📸 that she believes will prove her hire worthy, Georgia is clipped by a van.  When she regains consciousness her bike is gone.  She continues on foot, only to make a gruesome discovery: the body of 13-year-old Ashley Jones, the deputy sheriff's daughter.

     After coming home from the hospital Georgia gets two visitors.  Nora, Ashley's older sister, wants her to help locate the rapist and killer who took her sibling away.  Cleo, the wife of the man who owns Aspera seems eager to make Georgia's dream come true.

     Of course these two aspects of Georgia's new life are unrelated...

     ...or are they?...

     ...Maybe the secluded resort has some dark and dangerous secrets...

     ...Maybe Georgia's dead mother was right...

     ...Can you untangle this twisty chiller before the answers are revealed?

On a purrrsonal note, I'm getting a new unusual reading 📚 time.  Eugene feeds Tobago on weekdays when he gets up at 4 to go to work.  I do on weekends and holidays so he can sleep 😴 in.  Now and then Tobago wakes up a little early and starts meowing.  If I go in the studio she follows me.  That way Eugene gets to sleep 😴.  I refuse to feed her early.  So I read 📚 for about a half hour or so until Eugene gets up or it's time for me to feed her.  Then I can go back and sleep 😴 in until 6 or even a little later.  (Jules)

Why do people need so much sleep?  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to the best little cat in the world who is precious ❤️ if not perfect!

Jules Hathaway 

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You Were Never Here

YA chiller 

     "When bad things did happen, they certainly didn't happen to boys like Riley; they didn't happen to boys who shone so bright the whole town waited to see what their futures held."

     Cat, narrator of Kathleen Peacock's You Were Never Here, is not a happy camper.  Because of an incident she was involved in her father has put her on a bus to the small, well past its prime Canadian town, Montgomery Falls, that her ancestors founded.  She's going to spend the summer in the custody of her Aunt Jet at the old home place.  She'd much rather be in New York.

     Arriving in town, Cat sees a missing poster for her former boy next door best friend, Riley.  He'd vanished without a trace three months earlier.  Some people like the police think he's run off like so many teenage boys.  Maybe he isn't as perfect as people think.  Maybe he's in some kind of trouble.  His grief stricken mother claims that she hears him at night.  Some people, including his older brother, Noah, think there's something more sinister behind his disappearance.  

     "Imagine you're eleven years old.  You know there's something wrong with you.  Really really wrong.  You know you're seeing things that aren't there.  But it's not all the time.  Only ever as long as you touch someone else."

     Odd psychic talents run in Cat's blood line.  Hers appeared just months before her twelfth birthday, back when she and Riley still were chums, before she and her dad left for New York.  When she touches someone Cat catches vivid glimpses of what they most covet or most dread, accompanied by severe migraines.  

     Because of this gift/curse Noah asks Cat to help him.  Privately he's just about given up on seeing Riley alive.  But he keeps on searching.  He believes that if Cat touches enough people she'll get some new clues.

     This isn't something Cat really wants to do.  She suspects that Canada 🇨🇦 may have some laws against running 🏃‍♀️ around touching random people.  But one night as she and some new friends cross a railroad trestle she sees a body in the river.  Rachel is barely alive.  Her arms are covered in ritualistic looking gashes.  When she eventually wakes up she can't remember a thing.

     Maybe her assault and Riley's Disappearance are connected.

     Maybe the same person is responsible for both.

     Maybe it's only a matter of time before that person strikes again.

     Maybe it's time for Cat to harness her gift/curse before that happens.

On a purrrsonal note, today is Juneteenth.  I am very glad that it's finally recognized nationally.  I am also really pissed off that companies are already commercializing a deeply meaningful occasion.  (Jules)

A great big shout out goes out to all our readers who are celebrating Juneteenth today.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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Here's a close up.

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This was my favorite 😍 place we went.  Three floors of anything you can imagine.

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The Disappearance of Sloane Sullivan

YA chiller 

     Imagine you're in a witness security program.  You lost your parents when you were quite young.  You move very frequently.  You're never allowed to have close friends or normal growing up experiences.  And every move requires a totally different identity.

     I don't know about you.  But that doesn't seem like a life to me.

     That's the only life Sloane knows.  She's been nineteen different people in nearly six years.  Even blending in, following the rules, and not letting anyone get too close, she and Mark, the marshal who fills in for her deceased parents, have often had to leave rapidly at the faintest hint of danger.

     This may be about to change.  Sloane is starting a new high school.  Mark has promised her that if she goes through the nine weeks before graduation and gets accepted to college she'll be free of the program, free of the constant hiding, free to be Sloane Sullivan for the rest of her life.

     Only the first day she sees Jason,her best friend from her pre witness security days.  She knows she should tell Mark.  But they had to move once because she saw a former neighbor.  She doesn't want to lose her chance for freedom and a normal life.

     But that's only the first of a series of risky decisions that culminate in a freshly slain body in her house and Mark gone.  If a twisty, suspenseful crime narrative where it can be hard to tell the trustworthy from the anything but is your idea of a good time you don't want to miss out on The Disappearance of Sloane Sullivan.

On a purrrsonal note, another rainy 🌧 day.  Eugene and I went for a ride.  We stopped at flea markets large and small.  I actually managed to buy Eugene's anniversary gift 🎁 😍 without him noticing.  I got a good price on a couple of cool jackets.  (Jules)

He's my adopted dad.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to Eugene.  Best wishes to all our readers who are celebrating 🍾 today.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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Sorry for the poor quality of the photo.  The plastic covers libraries put on books 📚 make them challenging to photograph 📸 under certain lighting conditions.

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Poverty By America

Adult nonfiction 

     "Why is there so much poverty in America?  I wrote this book because I needed an answer to that question.  For most of my adult life, I have researched and reported on poverty.  I have lived in very poor neighborhoods, spent time with people living in poverty around the country, pored over statistical studies and government reports, listened to and learned from community organizers and union reps, drafted public policy, read up on the history of the welfare state and city planning and American racism, and taught courses on inequality at two universities.  But even after all that, I still felt that I lacked a fundamental theory of the problem, a clear and convincing case as to why there is so much hardship in this land of abundance."

     Why indeed, in the richest nation in the world do are so many people forced to subsist under levels of poverty we associate with much less developed countries?  I'm sure most of us have pondered this question.  Luckily Mathew Desmond has put his serious drive and academic experience behind seeking the answer, resulting in Poverty By America.

     If Desmond's name sounds familiar awhile back we read his Pulitzer Prize winning Evicted:  Poverty and Profit in the American City.  

     Not surprisingly, in a nation sipping on the Kool-aid of the meritocracy myth and the just world theory, many people blame the poor.  If they weren't so lazy and unmotivated, if they made better decisions...  Many blame politicians...the other party of course.  Still others see it as a tragedy we don't have the resources to solve.

     Desmond checks none of the above on that multiple choice.  

     "To understand the causes of poverty, we must look beyond the poor.  Those of us living lives of privilege and plenty must examine ourselves.  Are we--the secure, the insured, the housed, the college educated, the protected, the lucky--connected to all this needless suffering?  This book is my attempt to answer that question, addressed to that 'we.'  Which makes this a book about poverty that is not just about the poor.  Instead, it's a book about how the other other half lives, about how some lives are made small so that others may grow."

     Some lives are made small so that others may grow.  I have never before seen this relationship summed up so perfectly.  What jumped to my mind was how Upward Bound, a program that helps extremely motivated and hard working first generation and low income high school students get help to get admitted to and succeed in college is having its funds cut while politicians are striving to make permanent the huge tax cuts given to the wealthiest and most powerful.  I bet if you try you can come up with a similar juxtaposition that really angers you.

     Desmond explains ways in which the poor are prevented from rising not because they make poor choices, but because they have no better choices.  He reminds us that despite the stereotype of the poor Black recipient, most welfare payments go to whites at or near the top of the wealth pyramid.  But the most important part of the book is the part of the book where he discusses personal responsibility on the part of the haves.  The resources do exist to end the scourge of poverty.  It's up to us to make sure they're diverted into this direction.

     In the end we'll also be helping ourselves.  Right before his epilogue Desmond asks us to ponder the following questions:

     "How many artists and poets has poverty denied us?  How many diplomats and visionaries?  How many nurses and engineers and scientists?  Think of how many more of us would be empowered to thrive if we tore down the walls, how much more vibrant and forward-moving our country would be."

     This very important book needs to be in all public and college and university libraries.

On a purrrsonal note, Eugene and I had our plans to spend the weekend at camp 🏕 undone by Mother Nature.  We're in the middle of a rainy 🌧 spell.  We did go out for breakfast and a ride.  We stopped in a town's local hardware store.  I really miss the one that used to be in Orono.  I think that patronizing the local stores that pay decent wages and offer dignified jobs rather than the exploitative big box ogres fits in with Desmond's vision.  (Jules)

Rain, rain, go away.  

Let the birdies come out and play.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to Desmond for his commitment to getting at the truth and sharing it with the rest of us.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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The person at the extreme right is a very happy 😊 😃 librarian.  I hope you enjoyed these pictures from the end of the school year children's concert.

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Well, who would pass up the chance to dazzle the public by wearing such an awesome costume?  And of course it gave me the responsibility to show how yummy 😋 the ice cream 🍦 was by eating plenty.  As always, I'm the shorter one in the picture.

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People weren't the only ones enjoying the festivities.

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As you can see the concert was quite well attended.  It's an annual event that the community really looks forward to.

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Well this is the ice cream truck and part of the line of people eager 😁 awaiting their sweet 😋 treats.

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Nobody Knows Bu You

YA thriller 

     "It must be cold on the dock now.  Probably windy and frigid, like it is here today.  That seems appropriate on the one hand and strange to imagine on the other.  In my ❤️ it's endless summer there.  A place we can never return to but that would always welcome us back.  I guess the leaves are gone too.  And any last trace of his blood."

     Kayla, narrator of Anica Mrose Rissi's Nobody Knows But You, and camp bunkmate, Lanie are inseparable from the start.  Lanier brings out the daringness in rule following Kayla.

     "I feel like before you I wasn't even fully myself.  I was a larva.  A plain, unremarkable caterpillar that, in you presence, changed into a beauuuuuuuutiful butterfly.  It's like you saw the very best version of me, and by seeing it, you helped me become it." 

     The girls break rules together, sneak outside their cabin together, make up inside jokes together.  They're seemingly a world unto themselves until Jackson enters the picture.  Even though he treats Lainie horribly (in Kayla's opinion) she falls for him hard, willing to excuse any neglect or meanness on his part.  Kayla is frustrated that Lainie can't see that she deserves a lot better.  She also is feeling deserted, afraid that she's losing her best friend.

     Camp ends early.  Jackson's body is found floating in the lake.

     "You know what's strange?  How completely fucking normal this week has been.  You are on trial for Jackson's murder and I have been going to school like normal."

     Thr bulk of the text consists of letters Kayla writes (but never sends) to Lainie over a period of three months.  News stories and interviews with with counselors and fellow campers are also included.

     Nobody Knows But You is a perfect book for the active reader who tries to deduce what really happened before the last page.

On a purrrsonal note, today on campus we had a flag raising for Juneteenth.  It was followed by a real feast catered my Moe's Barbeque.  We had pork, chicken, cornbread, macaroni and cheese, and baked beans--all topped off with two kinds of pudding.  I ate enough 😋 in that meal to happily 😊 skip supper and warm up leftovers for Eugene.  (Jules)

It was a very nice day.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to the fine 🙂 folks who make Moe's Barbeque something special 😀.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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