Geneva Public Library

Cindy: I’ve just finished a major kitchen remodel project and it seems that during this time my literary tastes leaned toward books that featured FOOD. I was eating lots of salads and crock pot meals in real life, but in my book world, I was a gourmand. Relish: My Life in the Kitchen (First Second 2013) is a four star example. Author/illustrator Lucy Knisley is the daughter of foodies and has become one herself, albeit a foodie with a McDonald’s french fry addiction. This graphic novel biography of her life with food is published as an adult book but with its coming of age story combined with the college and career exploration it certainly has cross-over appeal to high school students.

After an introduction and an illustrated recipe for spiced tea, the first real panel of the story shoes a baby Lucy sitting on a kitchen counter between a big pot and a crock of utensils, and she is munching on a round of Brie. “I was a child raised by foodies.” And away we go. From making salad dressing with her father every night for dinner to her penchant for dessert, the chronological stories take Lucy from Manhattan restaurant heaven to the rural upstate New York farming with fresh ingredients (and a boring change for a city kid), to a trip to Mexico which marked her passage from childhood to adolescence and art school in Chicago, and more. The brightly illustrated panels are great fun and the conversational, informal narration moves quickly. Each chapter is followed by an illustrated recipe, my favorite has to be the Huevos Rancheros, which features an exploded diagram of the finished product.

When Lucy gets to Chicago and discovers the nirvana that is the Fox & Obel gourmet market I was right with her. I discovered this fabulous place only a few years ago and on my first trip through I took photos of the fromagerie, charcuterie, chocolate shop, bakery and more. I was in love. We have nothing like this in West Michigan and now I never make a trip to Chicago without a stop at Fox & Obel. I loved looking at Lucy’s cartoon rendering of her discovery of this haven for foodies. With the number of teens watching Food TV and the culinary programs in some high schools, this will be popular with many young gourmands and chefs. But non-foodies may get sucked into the joy of cooking after reading this engaging look at the fun to be had with food that doesn’t come in a paper sack at a drive-through window.

Lynn:  Like Cindy, I ate this book up!  I loved Lucy’s exploration of foods and while I share her father’s revulsion for Big Macs and boxed mac and cheese, I still bonded with her in the way food was a part of every experience she had from travel to teen rebellion.  Lucy’s relationships with life and food have something for everyone in fact.  I laughed so much over her obsession with the croissants she and her roommate discovered in Venice because I have the same visceral reaction to the glories of REAL french bread and the totally unique odor and taste of the french breakfast coffee with steamed milk that defined breakfast for me during our time in France.

Many young people will appreciate Lucy’s tales of time with her divorced parents and quite a few more will share her discovery of “forbidden” foods like cereal with marshmallows at her friend’s house!  I loved the bright expressive illustrations that convey a terrific sense of personality and then there are the recipes!  Teens who already cook will find some enticing ones here and teens who don’t may be lured in to try.

This is a delight and should be shared widely — foodies and non-foodies alike will find lots to savor.

Visit Shelf-Employed today where you’ll find a whole smorgasbord of Nonfiction Monday blog posts.

Cindy: I’ve been waiting for Unthinkable (Dial Sept., 2013) for a couple of reasons. First, I liked Impossible (2008), an interesting blend of faerie and edgy teen novel based on the Scarborough Fair folk song,  a lot. In that book Lucy is raped on prom night and becomes pregnant and discovers that she is one in a long line of women in her family under a curse. To break it and spare her daughter the same fate, she must complete three impossible tasks. None of the women before her has been successful. Spoiler: she succeeds. We know this of course, but the journey there keeps the pages turning.

In the new book, Unthinkable, Lucy and her extended family are visited by Fenella, the first of the Scarborough girls to be cursed centuries ago. Fenella has been trapped in the faerie realm and strikes a bargain with the Faerie Queen to win her freedom (it is her wish to be allowed to die…she does not wish immortality). Her tasks? They are different from Lucy’s three tasks that called for impossible creation. No, Fenella must complete three acts of destruction and they must be enacted on her family. The first is to destroy their safety. Dealing with faeries and striking bargains is dangerous stuff. Fenella has her work cut out for her. As in the first book, there is a nice blend of fantasy and realistic fiction and the reader can’t help but attempt to predict and worry over the tasks and how they can be satisfied without unthinkable destruction to the family members she loves.

The other reason I love this book? A few years ago I won a Friends of YALSA fundraiser silent auction to get my name used in a Nancy Werlin book. This is that book. It was great fun to hit page 65 and to meet Walker Dobrez. Turns out he is the romantic lead, a hunky young apprentice veterinarian who drives a red pick up truck.  I fared better than the co-winner of the bidding war. Priscille Dando bid to have her daughter immortalized in Nancy’s book as well and Nancy gallantly agreed to let us both donate to Friends of YALSA and she’d use both names. Later in the book you can meet Dando the donkey! Nancy promised to use our names in the book, but she didn’t promise we could pick the character! I think there’s a bit of fairie in Ms. Werlin as well. Oh, and the cat…wait until you meet the cat! You’ll have to wait until September to purchase this, but fans of Impossible will want to read this companion novel and those new to Werlin’s fairie world can start here and work their way back.

Lynn:  Not only is The Mighty Lalouche (Schwartz & Wade 2013) a terrific underdog-makes-good story, it is a SHORT underdog-makes-good story.  Even better!  Kids are often the underdog and here’s a the story of a hero that will win the hearts of all, big and small.

In Paris there lived a small postman named Lalouche with his pet finch Genevieve.  He was small and bony but he was also strong and fast and he loved being a postman.  Then one day Lalouche went to work and learned that he was being replaced by a fleet of electric autocars!  Sacre Bleu’!  What to do?  Voilà – there on a poster was the answer!  The Bastille Boxing Club was seeking sparring partners and Lalouche stepped up.  The manager laughed, the boxers laughed but, quelle surprise, Lalouche was too nimble, too fast and too strong!  He beat them all from the Anaconda to Old Shatterhand, and Lalouche never lost a match.  But Lalouche missed being a mailman and when his old boss called and begged him to return, he happily traded in his boxing gloves for his old uniform.

The text is wonderful to read aloud as it flows with the rhythmic sense of the French language and is peppered with French vocabulary that is a delight to say and is easily understood.   (In case of confusion there is a short glossary on the title page.)  An Author’s Note explains La Boxe Francaise, the style of boxing in France that allowed the use of the feet and favored agility and speed over strength.

Sophie Blackall’s illustrations are a marvel and I absolutely adore them but I have to leave something for Cindy to write about so I’ll leave that to her.  I DO want to mention the extraordinary attention to design detail that even began with the review copy packaging!  It arrived wrapped in heavy brown paper, stamped with the word “Paris” and a picture of the Eiffel Tower.  A tiny envelope was attached and a larger one, complete with a thick red wax seal and cancelled French stamp.  Inside was a postcard with a drawing of Lalouche carrying a 3-dimensional letter and a wonderful description of how the book came to be and her artistic process from Sophie Blackall.  I can’t bring myself to throw any of it away and am treasuring it all.  I think when I take this to share with a class, I’ll wrap it all up again and make opening the package part of the fun.

Cindy: I saw the packaging that Lynn’s copy arrived in and it was a treat. I glanced at the info but she hasn’t released her grip on any of it (quelle surprise!) so I had to go looking online for information about Blackall’s illustrations. One year at BEA she had a chance meeting with Olshan and mentioned that she is a fan of  vintage boxing cards. A book idea was born. She felt the need to go to Paris to research the illustrations. Terrible. Oh, my. Check this out:

Back in the studio, I fell headlong into research. But when it came to making the first sketches, I found the images to be frustratingly two dimensional. I wanted to feel you could step into Lalouche?s world. I also wanted to try something I?d never done before, and with a perverse desire to complicate things, I decided to make the book in tatebanko, Japanese paper dioramas. I drew, painted, and cut out thousands of tiny pieces of paper to make Parisian streets and boxing-ring crowds and Lalouche?s cozy apartment. Often I sneezed and lost a bunch and had to start all over again.

You don’t want to miss her blog entry for the making of The Mighty LaLouche. The process is worth looking at and reading about. You really need to get your hands on this book to appreciate it fully. Visit your local bookstore NOW or perhaps order one and have your mailman bring it to your door.

Full disclosure: My paternal grandmother worked for a tiny post office in Collins, NY after retiring from teaching. We spent decades mailing letters back and forth to each other and she always sent me commemorative stamps so I would have pretty stamps to use. I had sealing wax (still do), piles of stickers, and drawers of stationery. Every New Year’s I renew my pledge to write more letters. They are so much better than email. I miss my grandmother fiercely, but her love of letter writing will never leave me. I challenge our Bookends readers to write a letter, decorate the envelope, and send it off this week, s’il vous plaît. Think of how many people we could cheer with some fun mail if everyone did this! C’est magnifique! Leave us a comment here if you send a letter out. It would cheer me. Oh, and let me know if you want my address. My mailbox is lonely.

Cindy: I think I am a Top 10 Fan of  Sports Illustrated Kids books. You may remember a previous post we did for the book All Access and if not, check out that one too. This book, Full Count: Top 10 Lists of Everything in Baseball (Time Home Entertainment 2012) focuses specifically on baseball and will be a popular book to add to that well worn 796.357 section (for those of you who still use Dewey).

The fun starts as kids get their hands on the large cover with raised stitches on the baseball and continues inside to vibrant page layouts and action packed photography that illustrate each top ten category. Some of the categories are expected, Like Top 10 “leadoff hitters,” “unbreakable records,” or “legendary home runs.” Others will inspire debate among avid fans: Top 10 “World Series moments,” “rivalries,” or “baseball movies.” Field of Dreams and A League of Their Own, of course. But The Sandlot? Discuss amongst yourselves.

Some of the Top 10 lists are only for the truly fanatic. Top 10 Facial Hair? And yet that double page spread is fun to read and full of interesting information about the rather strange looking facial hair choices. #8 is Bobby Jenks who on Mother’s Day 2008 dyed his blond goatee pink to support breast cancer awareness. It looks like he is sporting cotton candy on his chin. But, good for him.

Of course there is a spread of Top 10 Scandals…must we Chicago White Sox fans be forever reminded of the Black Sox Scandal? It ranks #1 with #2 Steroid Era and #3 Pete Rose’s gambling leading off. You’ll have to grab the book to discover the rest.

And when you do you’ll also find Top 10 nicknames, managers, minor league team names (the Savannah Sand Gnats????), announcers, oddest deliveries, most intimidating, ballparks, and ugly uniforms.

And, no top ten of baseball is complete without a list of Top 10 Yogi-isms. Yogi Berra…kids today need to know Yogi Berra.

“I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous.”

“It’s tough to make predictions — especially about the future.”

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

“You can observe a lot just by watching.”

Coming in October 2013 is The Top 10 of Everything in Sports. I’ll be watching for that too. Meanwhile, it’s still not baseball season at my house. The Blackhawks are in the Stanley Cup finals this week against the Boston Bruins. Go Hawks!!!

This is the perfect summer fun reading book, but there are plenty of ways to teach with it in the fall as the World Series approaches.

Common Core Connections:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.1 Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1?3 above.)

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.8 Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources; assess the credibility of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and providing basic bibliographic information for sources.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of three pages in a single sitting.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.6.4 Present claims and findings, sequencing ideas logically and using pertinent descriptions, facts, and details to accentuate main ideas or themes; use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.6.5 Include multimedia components (e.g., graphics, images, music, sound) and visual displays in presentations to clarify information.

After reading a few of the Top Ten lists in this book aloud to students, have them create their own Top 10 list on a subject of their choice, sports being only one option. Have students research facts to support each item on their lists and then gather illustrations or photographs to add to their writing. Have them use computers to design a document with an introduction to the list top, ten short paragraphs to support the choices integrated with the illustrations. Have students share their lists in a multimedia presentation.

 Nonfiction Monday is available at Practically Paradise today. Visit and learn about other excellent nonfiction titles for children and teens.

Lynn:  One of the challenges about reviewing a book like The Different Girl (Penguin/Dutton 2013) is in not spoiling the experience for everyone else!  The X-factor really isn’t difficult to figure out but, for me at least, a lot of the interest of the book came from spotting the clues and thinking about each new piece to the puzzle as I moved along.  There is so much that Dahlquist doesn’t ever tell us but I think that works really well with central exploration of what IS intelligence, how do we define that and other spoiler-revealing issues I don’t want to mention.  As a whole this is a book that I think teens will love and that will lead to fabulous discussions.

Here’s the plain-as-possible summary:  Four young girls and two adults live on an other-wise uninhabited island.  The narrator, Veronika, describes the routines of her days and tells us about the 3 other girls, distinguishing them by the color of their hair.  They wake up, they go about chores and school, they take walks and follow instructions from the two adults, Irene and Robbert.  Then a 5th girl washes up on the beach after a storm and is found by Veronika.  May is different and her arrival is the catalyst for all that follows.

Veronika’s voice has an odd and interesting cadence and at first I felt a bit off-balance because of it but I quickly settled in couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.  Thought-provoking and unsettling, this is a different book indeed.  And  – what a terrific book to use for a teen book club!  The discussion would be unstoppable.

Lynn:  Batter Up!  Baseball season is underway and to add to the fun for young fans, we have two wonderful new picture books.  Leading off is You Never Heard of Willie Mays?! (Random/Schwartz & Wade 2013) by Jonah Winter.  This is a book in motion from the dynamic cover to the exuberant text that seems to bounce right out off the pages.  The tone is one enthusiastic hero-worshiping fan to another and what a story it is.  Mays was one of the greatest players ever so this is a story that should be told.  Admired as much for his sheer talent and skill as for his never-quit attitude, Mays literally played till he dropped.  In a time when black players had just been allowed into the majors, Mays changed attitudes toward black players across the nation.

Widener’s terrific illustrations done in acrylic on chipboard have a feel of newsreel stop-action, capturing pivotal moments just as they happen.  There is a wonderful sense of the time too with much shown subtly to the careful viewer.  I love the action scenes like that first home run shot or Mays on the ground following The Throw, his eyes still intent on the trajectory of the ball.  But my favorite scenes may be the Birmingham Black Barons team bus riding through the night or the small black boy copying the stance of Joltin’ Joe, the poster in the background.  Across the page, two water fountains, labeled Whites and Colored with the unspoken emphasis of their condition – one cleaned and maintained and one ignored.

Winter’s text has a you-are-there excitement that, teamed with Widener’s illustrations, results in a total winner.  There is so much to talk about like transcripts of radio broadcasts, statistics, historical information, and a glossary that I could go into extra innings.  But Cindy is on deck.

Cindy: Baseball? Is it baseball season? It is all Stanley Cup playoffs at my Blackhawk-loving household. I’m trying to read baseball books while listening to my husband yell at the hockey refs. I sure miss college basketball season. I did manage to focus my attention on Miracle Mud: Lena Blackburne and the Secret Mud That Changed Baseball by David A. Kelly (Millbrook 2013). The eye-catching cover illustration by Oliver Dominguez with a closeup of a pitcher’s hand holding a baseball dripping with mud got my attention. Mud? Who knew? Well, true baseball fans probably know that that Major League Baseball teams use a baseball rubbing mud before each game, but even the hardcore fans will learn something about the history of this practice by reading Kelly’s picture book.

Lena Blackburne wanted to be a professional baseball player, but he just wasn’t good enough. He became a baseball coach and when an umpire complained to him about the soggy baseballs (in the early 1900s new balls were soaked in dirty water to get rid of the shine) but it was difficult to use soggy balls. A trip home to an old fishing hole provided a solution: ooey, gooey, gritty mud. He took some of the mud with him and tested it on the balls. It took off the shine, but wiped away without discoloring the balls and they weren’t soft. Blackburne became a mud farmer, collecting the mud from his secret spot and selling it to other teams.

An author’s note gives lots of other details. Lena started selling his mud in 1938 but originally only sold it to American League teams (he had played for the Chicago White Sox and remained a fan of their league). Rule 3.01 (c) of the MLB rules requires that umpires check the balls before each game to make sure they are regulation and are “properly rubbed so that the gloss is removed.” Kelly reports that about 72 balls are rubbed with Blackburne’s mud before each game today. The business has been willed and handed down through families since Blackburne retired and the July harvesting is still done at the secret location.

Common Core Connection

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.6.7 Integrate information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue.

It would be great to read this book aloud and then have students examine some of Kelly’s resources and compare them. He states in the online document available at Lerner Books’ Miracle Mud resource page that he started his search on the Internet, including sites like Wikipedia, but that to write the story he wanted the best sources possible and then he lists the places: online, print, and specialized libraries that he used in his research. Perhaps a teacher’s middle school classes could be challenged to compete against each other to find the widest variety of valid resources? The book does not have a source notes page or bibliography, which will require the students to do the legwork with the Lerner doc as a guide for places to try.

Visit Jean Little Library for other Nonfiction Monday reviews.

Lynn:  How’s this for, ahem, a killer premise?  A young woman returns home after years away to discover that her mother lies buried within a wrought-iron cage.  Try resisting that, I dare you!  Salerni’s creepy premise is just the beginning of a terrifically compelling mystery and The Caged Graves (Clarion 2013) is the perfect book to wind up our celebration of  Booklist’s Mystery Month.

Seventeen-year-old Verity Boone was sent away as a baby to be raised by her aunt  after the death of her mother.  It is now 1867 and Verity is returning from the bustling town of Worcester MA to the small farming town of Catawissa, Pennsylvania.  She is excited to be coming home and to meet Nate, her future husband.  Their marriage is an arranged one but Verity is content as Nate  has been wooing her with sweet romantic letters and seems ideal.  But things turn sour quickly as Verity’s father seems distant and uninterested in her, Nate awkward and quiet, is nothing like his letters, her cousin seems to hate her and the ladies of the town make nasty but puzzling remarks.  And then there is the shocking discovery of the two graves of her mother and her aunt.  Everyone seems to have a different story and the reasons range from grave robbers to witchcraft to a missing Revolutionary War treasure.

Verity sets out to discover the truth using her mother’s diaries, modern science, plenty of deductive logic and sheer persistence.  Her efforts bring a charming young doctor into  her life, uncover long-held secrets, turn the town upside down and put Verity into desperate danger.  Salerni skillfully crafts a page-turner of story that is as much fascinating historical fiction and supernatural thriller as it is mystery.  A charming romance adds a thoroughly unexpected twist to the tale as well.

In an author’s note Salerni relates that the book is based on her discovery of two actual caged graves in Catawissa, PA as well as other fascinating historical background.  Totally unique and highly entertaining, this is a book that will please a wide audience – especially those looking for something just a little bit different.  And maybe, just maybe, it will inspire a little research!  Why ARE those real Catawissa graves in cages anyway????

Cindy: Start humming Harry Chapin‘s theme song to yourself while you read today’s post, “All my life’s a circle…” A package with two arcs arrived this week and it brought tears to my eyes. One of our past students and eager reader of our advance reader copies is now working for a publisher and as Marketing and Publicity Manager, sent us her first arcs from Diversion Books.

Here’s the backstory: Once upon a time there was a bright 6th grade girl who joined my after school creative writing club in the mid 1990s. She wrote fun stories and when Lynn and I started a book club she was the first to sign up. She changed her hair color every month, but her interest in teen literature never waivered. She was a voracious reader (still is) and was a founding member of our BBYA teen club when I started to serve on YALSA’s BBYA Committee in 2001. She made her mother bring her to ALA in Atlanta, camping along the way, so she could speak to the BBYA Committee in the teen session. After graduating from college, she moved to New York, yet another Michigander who really belonged in NYC. She started a YA Lit blog, Bookish Blather, got a job with The American Book Company as a sales rep and stays in touch.

I can’t tell you how it moved me to open the box to find arcs that Angela Craft sent to us to share with our students. The covers are great, the stories sound fun, but the full circle moment really got to me.

Diversion Books is an eBook publishing company marketing original and backlist titles and here’s what their website says about our own Angela (I’m off to find some tissues):

Angela Craft, Marketing & Publicity Manager

Angela Craft first started working with books while still in high school, initiating an internship program with the middle school library. Since then, she has built a career based on her love of books, first as an independent book review blogger at Bookish Blather, and following that as a sales representative at American Book Company. As an active blogger and social media user, Angela is fully immersed in internet culture, especially as it relates to book lovers and the larger publishing industry, and she is excited to use her expertise in the medium to build awareness for Diversion Books and its authors.

Lynn:  Every teacher or librarian knows the tear-inducing emotion of running into a former student, now grown and independent, who says, “Thank you, you changed the direction of my life.”  There is NOTHING like it and it makes up for all the times we repaired torn pages, pulled candy wrappers from book shelves or winced as a teen announced that reading was boring.  To watch one of our book club kids grow up to send us arcs has had me smiling for days.  These will be high on my to-do read stack for certain!  Cheers to Angela and all the other wonderful young book lovers now making their marks in the world.

Lynn:  So, I’m a mad fan of this duo – Fogliano and Stead!  It started last year with And Then It’s Spring which I loved with a passion and gave to every child I know.  I was lucky to get the galley for If You Want to See a Whale (Roaring Brook/Neal Porter 2013)  at Midwinter, read it immediately and have been waiting impatiently since then to write about it.

This has the same rich sparseness of their first book.  I know, that sounds like a contradiction of terms but it is not.  Both the line drawings and the text are deceptively simple at first glance but reveal imaginative treasures with a closer look.    Lots of white space, Fogliano’s  exquisitely chosen words and  Stead’s airy illustrations unite to create a sense of the wonders around us if we just take the time to look.

“If you want to see a whale

you will need a window

and an ocean

and time for waiting

and time for looking

and time for wondering “is that a whale?”

There is much to tempt the small boy and the dog away from looking only for a whale and that is not a bad thing.  Persistence is rewarded at the end in a heart-swelling reveal but this is truly a celebration of the splendid wealth available to all who take the time to look and to wonder.  Can you think of a better book to get us all ready for summer?  Here’s wishing all of you some unscheduled days to just enjoy the journey.

Cindy: It’s a beautiful day here in west Michigan, if cool, and my husband is putting in the dock. I’ve just rowed our row boat down the bayou we live on and I was grumpy about having to come inside to get my part of the blog post done. But now? NOW? I need to find a dog and head back out in the row boat to spend the rest of the afternoon looking for a whale. Fogliano’s story was just what I was in the mood to read and Stead’s illustrations are charming. I’m a fan of wood block art and this whole book just makes me smile.  I’m sure to get distracted, like the boy in the book, and take my eyes off the water to look at cloud shapes and smell the flowers but I’ve got a three day weekend stretching ahead and surely there’s time to find a whale in that…it can’t hurt to try.

Cindy: If Annie Oakley had to solve her sister’s mysterious disappearance…you’d have One Came Home (Random/Knopf 2013) and one of the best books I’ve read so far this year. 13-year-old Georgia is a whiz with a rifle and is helpful in her family’s general store in Placid, Wisconsin. The book opens with this intriguing passage:

So it comes to this, I remember thinking on Wednesday, June 7, `1871. The date sticks in my mind because it was the day of my sister’s first funeral and I knew it wasn’t her last–which is why I left.

Georgia’s older sister had left town with some pigeoners and when the Sheriff went after them he returned with the mutilated body of a red haired girl wearing the remains of Agatha’s blue-green ball gown. Everyone else is resigned to Agatha’s unexpected death, but not Georgia. She is not willing to accept the unidentifiable body as that of her sister and she makes plans to go on her own search. Georgia attempts to rent a horse from her sister’s old beau, Billy McCabe but he alters her plans and provides a mule and himself as a search partner. She is not thrilled with either.

If you like your mysteries with some historical basis you can’t beat the amazing story of the huge 1871  nesting of the passenger pigeon that would be extinct by 1914. Add in confrontations with wild cougars, counterfeiters, and a girl with deadly aim with a rifle and a mystery to solve and you won’t be bored.

One of my favorite parts of the novel is Georgia’s consultation of the very real The Prairie Traveler: A Hand-Book for Overland Expeditions (written by Randolph B. Marcy, a captain of the U.S. Army). She consults it for packing for her trip but also takes it with her and uses it to answer the many questions she has on her journey to learn her sister’s fate.

Even faced with a cougar she hopes the book will help her.

I know what you’re thinking–I thought it too. It was hardly the time for flipping through an index! Is it under “catamount,” “lion,” or “painter”?

HA! I love a gal who thinks about an index even in times of crisis. Georgia, I will miss you.

Lynn:  I LOVE mysteries set in different places and times!  Not only do I get a great puzzle to unravel but I get to travel, at least in my mind, to somewhere or some when new.  Like Cindy, I am crazy about this book.  Georgia’s voice carries the story:  funny, brash, naive, endearing and she is a force of nature!  But – I just couldn’t get enough of all the fascinating elements woven into the setting.  I had NO idea about the passenger pigeon nesting although we spent 17 years in Dubuque, right on the southwest corner of the state.  I could easily imagine a counterfeiter’s press tucked into one of the caves though.

This is a wonderful romp with a plot that has more twists and turns than a western Wisconsin highway and the characters are all just as picturesque.  Cindy mentioned the mule and I have to say that Long Ears was a real favorite of mine.  My only quibble with this wonderful book was in believing that Georgia’s family would really let her set off on this journey but, hey, that is a small thing and I did note that Georgie is a force of nature!  This would make a terrific classroom read-aloud that would keep both boys and girls glued to their seats!  Not to be missed.