Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Friday Fiction: Jane Smiley

--by Hanje Richards
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Jane Smiley is a novelist and essayist. Her novel A Thousand Acres won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992, and her novel The All True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton won the 1999 Spur Award for Best Novel of the West. Her novel Horse Heaven was short-listed for the Orange Prize in 2002. In 2001, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and she received the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature in 2006.
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Age of Grief - Five stories and a novella. In “The Pleasure of Her Company,” a lonely, single woman befriends the married couple next door, hoping to learn the secret of their happiness. In “Long Distance,” a man finds himself relieved of the obligation to continue an affair that is no longer compelling to him, only to be waylaid by the guilt he feels at his easy escape. And in the incandescently wise and moving title novella, a dentist, aware that his wife has fallen in love with someone else, must comfort her when she is spurned, while maintaining the secret of his own complicated sorrow.
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All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton - Historical novel set in the 1850s. Lidie is hard to scare. She is a tall, plain girl who rides and shoots and speaks her mind, and whose straightforward ways paradoxically amount to a kind of glamour. We see her at twenty, making a good marriage — to Thomas Newton, a steady, sweet-tempered Yankee who passes through her hometown on a dangerous mission. He belongs to a group of rashly brave New England abolitionists who dedicate themselves to settling the Kansas Territory with like-minded folk to ensure its entering the Union as a Free State. Lidie packs up and goes with him. And the novel races alongside them into the Territory, into the maelstrom of "Bloody Kansas," where slaveholding Missourians constantly and viciously clash with Free Staters, where wandering youths kill you as soon as look at you — where Lidie becomes even more fervently abolitionist than her husband as the young couple again and again barely escape entrapment in webs of atrocity on both sides of the Great Question.
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And when, suddenly, cold-blooded murder invades her own intimate circle, Lidie doesn't falter. She cuts off her hair, disguises herself as a boy, and rides into Missouri in search of the killers — a woman in a fiercely male world, an abolitionist spy in slave territory. On the run, her life threatened, her wits sharpened, she takes on yet another identity — and, in the very midst of her masquerade, discovers herself.
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At Paradise Gate - While seventy-seven-year-old Ike Robison is dying in his bedroom upstairs, his wife defends the citadel of their marriage against an ill-considered, albeit loving, invasion by their three middle-aged daughters and their twenty-three-year-old granddaughter.
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Duplicate Keys - Alice Ellis is a Midwestern refugee living in Manhattan. Still recovering from a painful divorce, she depends on the companionship and camaraderie of a tightly knit circle of friends. At the center of this circle is a rock band struggling to navigate New York’s erratic music scene, and an apartment/practice space with approximately fifty key-holders. One sunny day, Alice enters the apartment and finds two of the band members shot dead. As the double-murder sends waves of shock through their lives, this group of friends begins to unravel, and dangerous secrets are revealed one by one. When Alice begins to notice things amiss in her own apartment, the tension breaks out as it occurs to her that she is not the only person with a key, and she may not get a chance to change the locks..
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Good Faith - Forthright, likable Joe Stratford is the kind of local businessman everybody trusts, for good reason. But it’s 1982, and even in Joe’s small town, values are in upheaval: not just property values, either. Enter Marcus Burns, a would-be master of the universe whose years with the IRS have taught him which rules are meant to be broken. Before long, he and Joe are new best friends — and partners in an investment venture so complex that no one may ever understand it.
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Greenlanders - Set in the fourteenth century in Europe’s most farflung outpost, a land of glittering fjords, blasting winds, sun-warmed meadows, and high, dark mountains, The Greenlanders is the story of one family — proud landowner Asgeir Gunnarsson; his daughter Margret, whose willful independence leads her into passionate adultery and exile; and his son Gunnar, whose quest for knowledge is at the compelling center of this unforgettable book. Jane Smiley takes us into this world of farmers, priests, and lawspeakers, of hunts and feasts and long-standing feuds, and by an act of literary magic, makes a remote time, place, and people not only real but dear to us.
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Horse Heaven - The strange, compelling, sparkling, and mysterious universe of horse racing that has fascinated generations of punters and robber barons, horse-lovers and wits is taken on in this novel which is a tapestry of joy and love, chicanery, folly, greed, and derring-do.
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The cast of characters includes Rosalind Maybrick, wife of a billionaire owner; twenty-year-old Tiffany Morse, stuck in her job at Wal-Mart; Farley, a good trainer in a bad slump; Buddy, a ruthless trainer who can't seem to lose even though he knows that his personal salvation depends upon it; Roberto, an apprentice jockey who has "the hands" but is growing too big for his dream career; Elizabeth, the sixty-two-year-old theorist of sex and animal communication — all are woven together by the horses that pass among them.
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Moo - Nestled in the heart of the Midwest, amid cow pastures and waving fields of grain, lies Moo University, a distinguished institution devoted to the art and science of agriculture. Here, among an atmosphere rife with devious plots, mischievous intrigue, lusty liaisons, and academic one-upmanship, Chairman X of the Horticulture Department harbors a secret fantasy to kill the dean; Mrs. Walker, the provost's right hand and campus information queen, knows where all the bodies are buried; Timothy Nonahan, associate professor of English, advocates eavesdropping for his creative writing assignments; and Bob Carlson, a sophomore, feeds and maintains his only friend: a hog named Earl Butz..
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Thousand Acres - A successful Iowa farmer decides to divide his farm among his three daughters. When the youngest objects, she is cut out of his will. This sets off a chain of events that brings dark truths to light and explodes long-suppressed emotions. An ambitious reimagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear cast upon a typical American community in the late 20th century, A Thousand Acres takes on themes of truth, justice, love, and pride, and reveals the beautiful yet treacherous topography of humanity.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Friday Fiction: James Ellroy

--by Hanje Richards
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James Ellroy (nee Lee Earle Ellroy) was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His mother was a nurse and his father, when he did work, was an accountant, among other things.

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When his parents divorced in 1954, his mother got custody and moved to El Monte (a low income area in L.A). His mother was murdered there in 1958. James Ellroy's attempt to solve this still-unsolved murder was the subject of his 1996 nonfiction work My Dark Places. After his mother's death, he moved in with his father.
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When he turned eighteen, he was back on the streets again. He lived in parks and Goodwill bins. He broke into the homes of girls he liked and stole their underwear. He drank, experimented with drugs, and read hundreds of crime novels. He discovered Benzedrex, a sinus inhaler. Instead of inhaling it, he would swallow it to get a speed high.
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The Benzedex drove him to near schizophrenia and the alcohol was destroying his health. He suffered from pneumonia twice and developed what his doctor called "post-alcohol brain syndrome." Fearing for his sanity, he joined AA and got sober. He earned steady money as a golf caddy and began to mentally formulate a mystery plot. At the age of thirty, he wrote and sold his first novel.
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American Tabloid - Dark and gritty. Ellroy has constructed a period piece that encapsulates the Kennedy-Bay of Pigs era where he follows the trail of some rogue FBI agents. He doesn't paint a flattering picture and gets away with writing about actual people. Hoover, the "Mob," Sinatra, JFK's trysts, it's all there. And if his portrayal of history isn't on the money, it might be close.
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James Ellroy's trademark nothing-spared rendering of reality, blistering language, and relentless narrative pace are here in electrifying abundance, put to work in a novel as shocking and daring as anything he's written: a secret history that zeroes in on a time still shrouded in secrets and blows it wide open.
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Blood on the Moon - Detective Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins can’t stand music, or any loud sounds. He’s got a beautiful wife, but he can’t get enough of other women. And instead of bedtime stories, he regales his daughters with bloody crime stories. He’s a thinking man’s cop with a dark past and an obsessive drive to hunt down monsters who prey on the innocent. Now, there’s something haunting him. He sees a connection in a series of increasingly gruesome murders of women committed over a period of twenty years. To solve the case, Hopkins will dump all the rules and risk his career to make the final link and get the killer.
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Cold Six-Thousand - On November 22, 1963 three men converge in Dallas. Their job: to clean up the JFK hit’s loose ends and inconvenient witnesses. They are Wayne Tedrow, Jr., a Las Vegas cop with family ties to the lunatic right; Ward J. Littell, a defrocked FBI man turned underworld mouthpiece; and Pete Bondurant, a dope-runner and hit-man who serves as the mob’s emissary to the anti-Castro underground.
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It goes bad from there. For the next five years, these night-riders run a whirlwind of plots and counter-plots: Howard Hughes’s takeover of Vegas, J. Edgar Hoover’s war against the civil rights movement, the heroin trade in Vietnam, and the murders of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy…
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L.A. Confidential - It's about three tortured souls in the 1950s L.A.P.D.: Ed Exley, the clean-cut cop who lives shivering in the shadow of his dad, a legendary cop in the same department; Jack Vincennes, a cop who advises a Police Squad-like TV show and busts movie stars for payoffs from sleazy Hush-Hush magazine; and Bud White, a detective haunted by the sight of his dad murdering his mom.
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L.A. Confidential holds enough plots for two or three books: the cops chase stolen gangland heroin through a landscape littered with not-always-innocent corpses while succumbing to sexy sirens who have been surgically resculpted to resemble movie stars; a vile developer – based on Walt Disney – schemes to make big bucks off Moochie Mouse; and the cops compete with the crooks to see who can be more corrupt and violent.
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L.A. Noir - A single-volume edition of three of the novels featuring Detective Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins of Los Angeles. The first involves the apparently random killings of 20 women, the second a multiple murder committed with a pre-Civil-War revolver, and the third a conspiracy of police corruption. (Includes Blood on the Moon, Because the Night, and Suicide Hill)
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My Dark Places: An L.A. Crime Memoir - In 1958, Jean Ellroy was murdered, her body dumped on a roadway in a seedy L.A. suburb. Her killer was never found, and the police dismissed her as a casualty of a cheap Saturday night. James Ellroy was ten when his mother died, and he spent the next 36 years running from her ghost and attempting to exorcize it through crime fiction. In 1994, Ellroy quit running. He went back to L.A., to find out the truth about his mother – and himself.
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In My Dark Places, our most uncompromising crime writer tells what happened when he teamed up with a brilliant homicide cop to investigate a murder that everyone else had forgotten – and reclaim the mother he had despised, desired, but never dared to love. What ensues is a epic of loss, fixation, and redemption, a memoir that is also a history of the American way of violence.
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White Jazz - Los Angeles, 1958. Killings, beatings, bribes, shakedowns – it's standard procedure for Lieutenant Dave Klein, LAPD. He's a slumlord, a bagman, an enforcer – a power in his own small corner of hell. Then the Feds announce a full-out investigation into local police corruption, and everything goes haywire.
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Klein's been hung out as bait, "a bad cop to draw the heat," and the heat's coming from all sides: from local politicians, from LAPD brass, from racketeers and drug kingpins – all of them hell-bent on keeping their own secrets hidden. For Klein, "forty-two and going on dead," it's dues time. Klein tells his own story – his voice clipped, sharp, often as brutal as the events he's describing – taking us with him on a journey through a world shaped by monstrous ambition, avarice, and perversion. It's a world he created, but now he'll do anything to get out of it alive.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Jack Prelutsky

--by Hanje Richards
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Although Jack Prelutsky claims to have hated poetry when he was younger, he is the author of more than 50 poetry collections. He has also compiled numerous children's anthologies comprising poems of others and, in 2006, the Poetry Foundation named him the inaugural winner of the Children’s Poet Laureate award.
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When asked what else he likes to do, Prelutsky said, “I enjoy photography, carpentry, and creating games, collages and "found object" sculpture. Lately, I've been teaching myself to draw and create multimedia on the computer. I also collect art, children's poetry books, and frog miniatures. I studied classical music as a young man and still attend the opera and symphony whenever I get the chance. I also love to eat out!”
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Beneath a Blue Umbrella - Gaily illustrated rhymes that trip lightly on the tongue. Interspersed among such silly characters as Anna Banana, Upside-down Roy or Jennifer Juniper are poems about animals, including a melon-swallowing hippo, a bobolink that marries a frog, and Patter Pitter Caterpillar. With characteristic style and slapdash verve, Prelutsky's verses celebrate creatures across the country, from the Iowa farmer who is plagued by crows to the puppies who steal pretzels in Philadelphia.
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The Gargoyle On the Roof - In this picture book for older readers, Jack Prelutsky and Peter Sis take on the realm of the spooky, with poems about werewolves, vampires, trolls, gremlins, and other nightmarish creatures. Prelutsky achieves a masterful range in tone here. He evokes the traditional attributes of the monsters but gives children insight into what it would be like to be a monster. This book is a beautifully executed blend of the macabre and the silly.
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Hooray for Diffendoofer Day - Started by Seuss, finished by Jack Prelutsky, and splendiferously illustrated by Lane Smith. Big - 56 pages - and bursting with energy, here is a joyous ode to individuality, starring an unsinkable teacher named Miss Bonkers and quirky little Diffendoofer School, which must prove it has taught its students how to think - or have them sent to dreary Flobbertown. Included is an introduction by Dr. Seuss' longtime editor explaining how the book came to be and reproducing Dr. Seuss' 1989 original pencil sketches and hand-printed notes for the book - a true find for all Seuss collectors. In this book, Prelutsky and Lane Smith pay homage to Dr. Seuss in their own distinctive ways. The result is the union of three one-of-a-kind voices in a brand-new, completely original book that is greater than the sum of its parts.
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If Not for the Cat - Seventeen haiku composed by master poet Jack Prelutsky and illustrated by renowned artist Ted Rand ask you to think about seventeen favorite residents of the animal kingdom in a new way. On these glorious and colorful pages you will meet a mouse, a skunk, a beaver, a hummingbird, ants, bald eagles, jellyfish, and many others. Who is who? The answer is right in front of you. But how can you tell? Think and wonder and look and puzzle it out!
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It’s Raining Pigs and Noodles -
..........It's raining pigs and noodles,
..........it's pouring frogs and hats,
..........chrysanthemums and poodles,
..........bananas, brooms, and cats.
The master of mischievous rhyme, Jack Prelutsky, and his partner in crime, James Stevenson, have whipped up a storm of more than one hundred hilarious poems and zany drawings. Grab your umbrella - and make sure it's a big one!
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It’s Thanksgiving - It's time for turkey! The parade is about to start. The pumpkin pie is in the oven. The whole family is gathered around the table. And everybody wants to pull the wishbone! From Children's Poet Laureate Jack Prelutsky comes a scrumptious helping of twelve Thanksgiving poems to enjoy every day of the year!
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Me I Am - Three very different children reveal their individual personalities in a series of visual mini-adventures. Readers meet a mischievous tomboy who would rather roller-skate than wear a frilly dress, an inquisitive nature-loving boy, and an artistic ballerina who puts her own spin on Swan Lake. Finally, in a wild and funny climax, the three collide only to discover a world full of unique and special MEs. With exuberant art and verse, this empowering celebration of individuality and diversity is just right for any young child discovering his or her own self and the fun of being ME!
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New Kid on the Block - Open this book to any page to begin your exploration. Here are poems about things that you may never have thought about before. You'll be introduced to jellyfish stew, a bouncing mouse, a ridiculous dog, and a boneless chicken. You'll learn why you shouldn't argue with a shark, eat a dinosaur, or have an alligator for a pet. You'll meet the world's worst singer and the greatest video game player in history. You'll even find an invitation to a dragon's birthday party... Your friends are invited, too!
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Something Big Has Been Here - A poetry collection to tickle your funny bone, this book features more than 100 original poems and black-and-white drawings from the best-selling team of Jack Prelutsky and James Stevenson. Here are four ferocious tigers, a meat loaf that defies an ax, five flying hot dogs-and many, many more people, animals, and things that are destined to become a part of the lives of everyone who loves to laugh.
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Tyrannosaurus Was a Beast: Dinosaur Poems - Fourteen different dinosaurs are featured in this book of poems by Jack Prelutsky.
....Tyrannosaurus was a Beast
....that had no friends, to say the least.
....It ruled the ancient out-of-doors,
....And slaughtered other dinosaurs.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Gerald McDermott

--by Hanje Richards
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Gerald McDermott is an award-winning filmmaker, children’s book author & illustrator, anf expert on mythology. His work often combines bright colors and styles with ancient imagery. His picture books encompass folktales and cultures from all around the world.
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Some of them include:.
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Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti - In this traditional tale from West Africa, Anansi, the Spider, sets out on a long journey. Threatened by Fish and Falcon, he is saved from terrible fates by his sons. But which of his six sons should he reward? The color, splendid design montage, and authentic African language rhythms forge a new direction in picture books for children. (Caldecott Honor Book; Lewis Carroll Shelf Award).
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Arrow To the Sun: A Pueblo Indian Tale - An expression of the universal myth of the hero-quest, this beautiful story also portrays the Indian reverence for the source of life: the Solar Fire. Vibrant full-color illustrations capture the boldness and color of Pueblo art. Also available in a Spanish language edition: Flecha al Sol. (Caldecott Medal)
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Coyote: A Trickster Tale From the American Southwest - Wherever Coyote goes, you can be sure he’ll find trouble. Now he wants to sing, dance, and fly like the crows, so he begs them to teach him how. The crows agree but soon tire of Coyote’s bragging and boasting. They decide to teach the great trickster a lesson. This time, Coyote has found real trouble!
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Raven: A Trickster Tale From the Pacific Northwest - Raven, the trickster, wants to give people the gift of light. But can he find out where Sky Chief keeps it? And if he does, will he be able to escape without being discovered? His dream seems impossible, but if anyone can find a way to bring light to the world, wise and clever Raven can! (Caldecott Honor and Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Award)
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Stonecutter: A Japanese Folk Tale - Story about the consequences of a Japanese stonecutter's foolish longing for power.
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Tim O’Toole and the Wee Folk: An Irish Tale - Tim O'Toole is so poor that his neighbors avoid him, fearing his bad luck will rub off on them. His fortune seems made, though, when he spies a band of the wee folk and demands a part of their treasure. Given a goose that lays golden eggs, Tim is unable to refrain from boasting to the greedy McGoons, who substitute their own goose for Tim's. The same thing happens to Tim's next gift, but a third gift, a hat that produces ten little men armed with tiny clubs, solves the problem.
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Zomo the Rabbit: A Trickster Tale From West Africa - Zomo the rabbit, a trickster from West Africa, wants wisdom. But he must accomplish three apparently impossible tasks before Sky God will give him what he wants. Is he clever enough to do as Sky God asks? He must get the scales of Big Fish, the milk of Wild Cow, and the tooth of Leopard. He does all these things and in the end the Sky God rewards him with wisdom, and warns that next time he sees his victims, he had better run fast.

Robert D. San Souci

--by Hanje Richards

Author of both adult and children's books, Robert D. San Souci (pronounced "San-Soo-see") is highly regarded for his adaptations of folk tales from around the world, including Europe, Asia, the British Isles, and the Americas. His work features female and male heroes from many different places and ethnicities, with a particular emphasis on strong female protagonists.

Some of the awards and honors that San Souci has been awarded include:

IRA/CBC, 1987, for Short and Shivery: Thirty Chilling Tales; Irma Simonton Black Book Award, Bank Street College of Education, 1989, American Library Association (ALA) Notable Book citation, 1989, and state readers' awards from Tennessee, Colorado, Nebraska, Virginia, and Georgia, all for The Talking Eggs; Aesop Award, Children's Folklore Section, American Folklore Society, 1993, for Cut from the Same Cloth; Caldecott Honor Book, 1996, for The Faithful Friend (illustrated by Brian Pinkney).


About his books, San Souci says, "I especially love retelling old folktales and fairy tales, since they give me a chance to tell in my own words some of the stories that were my favorites when I was growing up — and which have remained popular with audiences for hundreds or even thousands of years. I have retold stories from Mexico, Canada, England, France, Russia, Japan, Brazil - more places than I can recall. And I have told stories from all across this country: Massachusetts to California, Alaska to Hawaii. I love these old stories, because they are wonderful, colorful, always exciting tales — and they also have lots of “food for thought” in them. You can enjoy the story as simply a great story, but you'll come away from them with ideas about how to live as a better person. And, I hope, you'll also come away with a better appreciation of what it is like to live in another part of the world or maybe at a very different time in history."

You can learn more about Robert D. San Souci at his website.

Christmas Ark (Daniel San Souci & Robert D. San Souci) - It's Christmas Eve and Sarah and Elizabeth, who are sailing to join their father in San Francisco, are worried that Santa will not be able to find them. But he appears and takes them on a tour of Christmas celebrations around the world, until the girls discover the celebration they'd most like to belong at is the one where their family awaits them.


Cinderella Skeleton (Robert D. San Souci; illustrated by David Catrow) - Meet Cinderella Skeleton, as sweetly foul as only a ghoul can be. Poor Cinderella has no one to help her hang the cobwebs and arrange dead flowers – certainly not her evil stepsisters. But the Halloween Ball is just around the corner… Will Cinderella find happiness at last?

Cut From the Same Cloth: American Women of Myth, Legend and Tall Tales ( Robert D. San Souci; illustrated by Brian Pinkney) - Arranged geographically from northeast to west (including Alaska and Hawaii), these 15 tales of clever, strong- willed, or larger-than-life women represent several cultures – Anglo-, Native-, African-, and Mexican-American. Introductory remarks discuss locale or culture or note parallels in world folklore.

The Faithful Friend (Robert D. San Souci; illustrated by Brian Pinkney) - On the lush tropical island of Martinique live Clement and Hippolyte, two inseparable friends. When Clement falls in love with the beautiful Pauline, Hippolyte agrees to join his best friend on his journey to propose marriage. But when Pauline accepts Clement's proposal, it enrages her uncle Monsieur Zabocat – reputed to be a quimboiseur, a wizard. To prevent the wedding, the old wizard lures Hippolyte into a deadly trap, forcing him to choose between his friend's safety and his own.

Feathertop: Based on the Tale by Nathanial Hawthorne (Robert D. San Souci; illustrated by Daniel San Souci) - Long ago in New England, a powerful witch made a scarecrow from a collection of old scraps. The witch was so pleased with her creation that she decided to bring it to life. With a puff of magic smoke, the scarecrow was transformed into a handsome young man and christened Feathertop. The mischievous witch then sent Feathertop off to woo the beautiful Polly Gookin, and soon Feathertop and Polly were deeply in love. But Feathertop was, after all, merely a patchwork of sticks and witchcraft. Only the magic of love could make him truly human.

More Short and Shivery: Thirty Terrifying Tales (Robert D. San Souci; illustrated by Katherine Coville) - Thirty hair-raising stories from around the world fill this spooky collection with delicious shivers and spine-tingling chills. Sit down and meet "The Vampire Cat," "The Draug" and "The Rolling Head"; or take a stroll with "The Thing in the Woods." You'll find favorites such as "The Golden Arm," and startling new stories such as "Knock...Knock...Knock," vividly told with plenty of ghastly details and spooky endings. There's something here for everyone who likes a good shudder... but be prepared for goose bumps!

The Red Heels (Robert D. San Souci; illustrated by Gary Kelley) - An original tale based on a colonial New England legend. A traveling cobbler, Jonathan Dowse, comes to the home of Rebecca Wyse. She asks him to make new shoes for her, using the fancy red heels of an old pair that belonged to her mother and grandmother. Jonathan feels fear, for red heels are the sign of a witch. Spying on Rebecca that night, he finds ``her secret delight'' – she dances on the moonlit pond. She sees him, and he dances, too; it becomes their nightly habit. The next autumn, Rebecca appears and asks him to attach new shoes, suitable for a ``goodwife,'' to the red heels, for she can no longer dance without him. She ends up with two pairs – “One sturdy enough for the day's work; one airy enough for the night” – and Jonathan has also made a dancing pair for himself. The couple wed, and flourish, and, occasionally, dance.

Sukey and the Mermaid (Robert D. San Souci; illustrated by Jerry Pinkney) - Sukey's new step-pa is a mean, bossy man. Every day Sukey wakes at dawn to work in the garden. All her step-pa ever does is watch her and yell if she so much as stops to fan herself. Sukey's ma calls him Mister Jones. Sukey prefers the name "Mister Hard-Times."
So, one day, Sukey runs away to her secret place by the ocean. There, she calls up Mama Jo, a beautiful mermaid. Mama Jo's got a surprise for Sukey; a magical kingdom beneath the sea without time or pain. But it's also without people. Is it really better than the world above?

The Talking Eggs: A Folktale From the American South (Robert D. San Souci; illustrated by Jerry Pinkney) - In this adaptation of a Creole folktale, Blanche is kind, loving and patient, but her older sister Rose takes after their mean, sneaky mother. One day, Blanche befriends a hideous old "aunty" on a path near her home and is rewarded with magic eggs. Of course, Rose and the girls' mother are beside themselves with envy, and Rose sets out to snag some eggs of her own. But greedy Rose's cruel nature gets her into trouble. She torments the old lady, grabs the wrong eggs, and ends up "angry, sore and stung."

Monday, June 07, 2010

Friday Fiction: Luanne Rice

--by Hanje Richards

Luanne Rice is the New York Times bestselling author who has inspired the devotion of readers everywhere with her moving novels of love and family. Rice began her writing career in 1985 with her debut novel Angels All Over Town. Since then, she has written more than twenty-six novels including such bestsellers as What Matters Most, The Edge of Winter, Summer of Roses, Beach Girls, Dance With Me, and The Secret Hour.

Rice's talent emerged at a very young age, as she published her first poem in the Hartford Courant at the age of 11. Her first short story was published in American Girl Magazine when she was 15.

Rice worked at many odd jobs, including being a cook and maid for an exalted Rhode Island family and fishing on a scallop boat during winter storms. These life experiences not only cultivated the author's love and talent for writing, but shaped the common backdrops in her novels of family and relationships on the Eastern seaboard.

Rice resides in New York City and on the Connecticut shoreline, in the house where she spent her childhood summers.

Angels All Over Town - Una Cavan doesn’t believe in ghosts. But ghosts seem to believe in her. At least, her father’s ghost does, walking into and out of her life as casually as if he were entering and exiting a room. Una has always believed the Cavan women had the power of witches and, from the beaches of Connecticut to the bustle of New York City, they’ve shared the special unbreakable bond of sisters. No man has been able to come between them… until Lily marries the “perfect” man and begins to drift away and Margo gets engaged. With another failed relationship behind her, and a thriving career as an actress ahead of her, Una wonders if she’s destined to be alone – or if there isn’t something more, something magical that life has in store for her. Then an unexpected encounter gives her the answer she’s been seeking…

Beach Girls - With Beach Girls, Luanne Rice returns to the place that she was born to write about – the Connecticut shore – to tell a story about a family of women whose lives encompass three generations, their histories intertwined with that of the mystic coastal town that has forever bound them to one another.


The novel explores the complex and contradictory territories of love, family, and friendship. Rice's sensuous prose and unforgettably rich and textured characters guide us toward a truth that lies within and sometimes beyond our dreams – an enduring strength that we all must embrace to find our way home and into the hearts of those we cherish most.

Blue Moon - During a season of emotional and financial upheavals within the Keating clan, the Medieroses' marriage becomes strained in ways that make Billy wonder whether Cass is more devoted to her family that to him. Then Billy adds to the stress by leaving his father-in-law's fleet and buying his own boat. His rebellion sets up the book's unexpected final episode, an electrifying disaster at sea that puts all of the characters back in touch with their deepest loyalties and passions.

Cloud Nine - Sarah Talbot surely thought she'd never live to see another birthday. But against all odds, she beat the disease that threatened to take her life and she reopened her bedding shop, Cloud Nine. It is a new beginning for Sarah – a fresh start at life that few are given.

Her first adventure comes during a special birthday present from her friends: a ride over upstate New York in a small chartered plane. From there, she views the spectacular autumn foliage. Yet, as so often happens when one takes chances, the unexpected occurs. For it is on this flight that she meets Will Burke, a former Navy pilot whose strength and confidence attract Sarah as much as the vulnerability he tries hard to conceal.

These two fellow travelers find in each other a kindred spirit and a bond that will give them the courage to confront the past and have faith in the future... no matter how uncertain.

Dance With Me - Jane Porter left the apple orchards of rural Twin Rivers, Rhode Island, years ago, fleeing memories that could tear two families apart. Now, she has been unexpectedly drawn home to her mother and only sister. Dylan Chadwick has come back, too, shedding the steely exterior he wore as a Federal agent in order to follow in the footsteps of his apple-farming father and forget the life he once lived. Amid this landscape of loss and renewal, a haunting story of converging lives, small-town secrets – and the magical sway of unexpected miracles – unfolds. Deeply moving and richly told, this novel explores emotional connections at their very core, with keen insights into the lives of mothers and daughters, sisters and lovers.
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Edge of Winter - Neve Halloran and her daughter share a fierce love for the austere beauty of Rhode Island’s South County. Now, with Mickey a teenager and Neve’s last hope for happiness with her daughter’s loving but unstable father gone, both will struggle to make a new life amid the windswept landscape that sustains them.
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Mickey moves toward womanhood in the company of a lonely boy who shares her instinctive way with the creatures of the coast. And Neve finds herself drawn to a man who has devoted his life to the sanctuary, but who is unable to share the pain of a recent loss – or reconnect with the father who still bears the scars of World War II.As winter gives way to spring, and spring to summer, a secret emerges that has lain buried in the depths just offshore for decades, a secret that will galvanize the small seaside community.

Follow the Stars Home - Being a good mother is never simple: each day brings new choices and challenges. For Dianne Robbins, being a devoted single mother has resulted in her greatest joy and her darkest hours. Weeks before her daughter was born, she and her husband, Tim McIntosh, received the news every parent fears. Tim had not reckoned on their child being anything less than perfect, and abruptly fled to a solitary existence on the sea, leaving Dianne with a newborn almost alone.
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It was Tim's brother, Alan, the town pediatrician, who stood by Dianne and her exceptional daughter. Throughout years of waiting, watching, and caring, Alan hid his love for his brother's wife. But one of the many hard choices Dianne has made is to close her heart toward any man, especially one named McIntosh. It will take a very special twelve-year-old to remind them all that love comes in many forms and can be received with as much grace as it is given.

Geometry of Sisters - The storm off Mackinac Island that engulfed Maura Shaw’s husband and elder daughter, Carrie, also swept away the illusion of her life as the perfect midwestern wife and mother. Now, after years away, Maura has returned to Rhode Island to teach English at the fabled Newport Academy and to seek a new beginning. Newport has never failed to infuse Maura with a sense of mystery and hope, but ever since the accident, her younger daughter, fourteen-year-old Beck, has retreated into the safe, predictable world of mathematics. Without Carrie, Beck has lost half of herself – the half that would have fit into the elite private school she and her brother, Travis, will attend. The half that made things right. Sixteen-year-old Travis is also struggling to adjust –juggling a long-distance first love and an attraction to a girl with a wicked sparkle in her eye. And for Maura, ghosts linger here – an unresolved breach with her own beloved sister and a long-ago secret that may now have the power to set her free.

Home Fires - Anne Davis has returned to the house where she grew up, trading a seemingly charmed life jetting between her Manhattan penthouse and France for a harsh winter on a wind-whipped New England island. Her marriage has crumbled in the wake of a tragic accident that took the life of her four-year-old daughter. Now, she has returned to the home on Salt Whistle Road, the home that has always meant shelter, security, family, love. And one snowy night, when she awakens to a fire that roars through the old house, Anne escapes – yet runs back into the blaze to save something so precious that it’s worth risking her life for.

Last Kiss - For nearly a year after the tragedy that claimed her teenage son, Charlie, Sheridan Rosslare has lived a quiet life on Hubbard’s Point, tucked away in the beach house where they spent their happiest days. But Charlie’s girlfriend, Nell Kilvert, is determined to find out what really happened on the night none of them will ever forget. She summons the one man she believes can uncover the truth – Gavin Dawson, who long ago thought he would always be at Sheridan’s side. Now, his boat sits anchored within sight of the window of the woman he once loved – and still loves. Both of them had believed in the power of love and forgiveness, connection and reconnection, to work magic.

Secret Hour - Beneath his careful and controlled demeanor, attorney John O’Rourke is a man whose life is in turmoil. Since the death of his wife, he has been juggling the rigors of a controversial capital murder case and the demands of raising two children. Eleven-year-old Maggie’s crooked bangs and rumpled clothes eloquently reproach John’s earnest but haphazard attempts at mothering. Teddy, John’s stalwart fourteen-year-old, has quietly assumed responsibilities far too weighty for his young shoulders, as he longs for the way things used to be and tries to ignore the hostility that has swirled around his family since his father took on the defense of a killer whose crimes have rocked Connecticut. A brick through the window one autumn morning signals a dangerous new level of hatred.
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But a quieter event also takes place that day. A woman arrives on the O’Rourke doorstep to find a household on the brink of chaos but brimming with love – and, she hopes, answers. Kate Harris is searching for the key to her own mystery. Six months ago, her younger sister fled far from their beloved home following a devastating confrontation. After mailing a single postcard from the New England shore, Willa Harris vanished. With only a postmark to go on, Kate takes a leave of absence from her job as a marine biologist to come to the seaside Willa adored – and discovers the one man who may be able to help her.

Summer Light - May Taylor works as a wedding planner, passing on the timeless traditions of her grandmother and mother. The Taylor women have always believed in the presence of magic in everyday life – especially the simple magic of true love and family. Yet May’s own faith in true love was shattered when she was abandoned by the father of her child. Still, she finds joy in raising her daughter Kylie, a very special five-year-old who sees and hears things that others cannot...
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Martin Cartier is a professional hockey player and sports legend. His father, a champion, taught him to play to win – at all costs. Now Martin’s success veils a core of heartache, rage, and isolation. Yet Kylie glimpses the transcendent role Martin will play in May’s life and her own – unless his past tears their blossoming love apart. Then only Kylie will see the way home, and only May will be able to lead them there, if she can believe in magic once more.

Summer of Roses - Their lives were a tapestry woven together by love and loss, tragedy and hope. On the windswept coast of Nova Scotia, Lily and her eight-year-old daughter, Rose, are struggling to embrace a new life even as Lily tries to let go of painful memories of the past. Among the lives that will touch theirs are those of Liam Neill, a dedicated teacher living in self-imposed isolation; Maeve Jameson, mourning the loss of a granddaughter she devoted her life to protecting; and Mark Murphy, a dogged police detective obsessed with a woman who vanished years ago – who may or may not have found what he seeks in a tiny, out-of-the-way maritime village.
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During this eventful summer of roses, the paths – and fates – of these unforgettable characters will intersect in ways that none of them could ever expect and shape a future none of them could possibly foresee. For each of them, it will be a time of renewal and transformation that will circle inevitably to a past left behind, a mystery unsolved, and a love reclaimed.

What Matters Most - Sister Bernadette Ignatius has returned to Ireland in the company of Tom Kelly to search for the past – and the son – they left behind. For it was here that these two long-ago lovers spent a season of magic before Bernadette’s calling led her to a vocation as Mother Superior at Star of the Sea Academy on the sea-tossed Connecticut shore. For Tom, Bernadette’s choice meant giving up his fortune and taking the job as caretaker at Star of the Sea, where he could be close to the woman he could no longer have but whom he never stopped loving. And while one miracle drew them apart, another is about to bring them together again.
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For somewhere in Dublin, a young man named Seamus Sullivan is also on a search, dreaming of being reunited with his own first love, the only “family” he’s ever known. They’d been inseparable growing up together at St. Augustine’s Children’s Home, until Kathleen Murphy’s parents claimed her and she vanished across the sea to America. Now, in a Newport mansion, that very girl, grown to womanhood, works as a maid and waits with a faith that defies all reason for the miracle that will bring back the only boy she’s ever loved.