Recent Reads

This is a great book.

Two young slaves, thirteen-year-old Isabel and her sister Ruth, are sold to Loyalists at the beginning of the American Revolution and Isabel is willing to align herself with anyone who can secure her freedom.

These books are also good.

When her older sister elopes with a rodeo cowboy, 12-year-old Alice Winston is left as the lone support to help her father, Joe, on the family’s failing horse ranch. Joe's preoccupied with the ranch’s wealthy clients and Alice’s mother suffers from depression and refuses to leave her bedroom, so Alice finds comfort in nightly telephone calls to her English teacher, Mr. Delmar, telling him the stories she wishes were true about her life. It's a lovely coming of age story, but be prepared for a quite bit of strong language.

Marjane Satrapi recounts her Iranian childhood during the Islamic Revolution in a graphic novel that makes a difficult historical event personal and accessible.

Marcelo loves the school he attends for students with disabilities, but his father, Arturo, believes Marcelo is ready to attend a public high school. When Marcelo protests, he and Arturo make a deal—Marcelo will work in the mailroom at Arturo’s law firm over the summer and if Marcelo follows all the rules of the “real world” and successfully completes his job, he'll be allowed to choose the school he attends. Marcelo's narration is reminiscent of the protagonist in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, but the story's very different, with Marcelo confronting difficult emotions and ethical dilemmas. I thought about this book for days after I read it. Again, quite a lot of strong language.

Toward the end of WWII, Olivia Dunne leaves her graduate studies to marry a farmer in rural Colorado, a man she meets the day of their arranged marriage. Lonely and unable to help on the farm, Olivia befriends two Japanese-American sisters who live at a nearby internment camp, but while she welcomes the friendship of the sisters, Olivia resists developing a relationship with her new husband, viewing the marriage only as a solution to a problem. There's not a lot of action in this story, but the character development of the husband and wife is really well done and moving. And I don't even have to warn you about strong language in this one, because it's nice and clean.