Still Life by Loise Penny

 When 76-year-old Jane Neal is found dead in the woods outside of her small Canadian village, Inspector Armand Gamache is called in to investigate. The town is full of colorful characters who all seem to have loved Jane, a retired school teacher and budding artist.  At first Gamache and his rookie assistant, Nichole, wonder if the death was the result of a bow-hunting accident, but eventually circumstances suggest there was malicious intent involved.  Which of Jane's ardent friends was also her killer?

This is an older book and the first in a 18-book series featuring Inspector Gamache.  Gamache is an Agatha Christie like character; a mild-mannered observer of human nature with decades of experience in dealing with homicide. His assistant is an interesting foil, young, impatient and hot-headed.  Penny does a pretty good job of setting up clues, red herrings, and multiple possible culprits.  She is also good a creating a whole village of well-rounded and interesting characters.  I look forward to reading more from this author. (2012, 481 p.)

Game Changer by Tommy Greenwald

 Teddy Youngblood is 13 years old and in a coma.  He was injured during a summer football camp run by the high school for incoming freshmen.  At first everyone believes it was just an accident, the unfortunate result of regular football play.  As classmates and teammates get together to hold a vigil in support of Teddy's family rumors begin to circulate that something else, something more insidious, was going on.

This is an interesting book in many ways.  The story is told in texts, blog posts, transcripts of counseling sessions, and the dialog between visitors in Teddy's hospital room while he is in a coma. It reminded me of Nothing But the Truth by Avi, but reflecting modern communication methods.  The book is clearly a way of approaching the question of the morality of football as a sport in light of recent findings about traumatic brain injuries.  Greenwall argues both sides of the controversy through different characters.  Teddy's mother is anti-football while his father and the coach are pro. When questions about hazing come up, there is a similar split.  Some characters call it "team building" while others see is as repulsive. Greenwall does an admirable job of staying neutral and leaving judgement to the reader. This would be a great book for a junior high class or a family with kids involved with football to read and discuss.  I am not sure how many kids would pick it up on their own. (2021, 204 p) 

First Boy by Gary Schmidt

 Cooper lives on a dairy farm with his grandfather.  He never knew his parents and his grandmother passed away several months ago.  Then, one morning, his grandfather doesn't get up to milk the cows.  Cooper finds that he has died peacefully in his sleep.  Now 15-year-old Cooper is all alone with nothing but his cows to keep him company.  He vows to keep up on the farm, but soon his grades and his performance on track team start to slip.  His heroic effort to keep things going catches the attention of a smarmy political figure who tries to recruit Cooper to be the poster boy for his campaign.  When Cooper refuses, bad things start happening on the farm.  A man shows up claiming to know Cooper's real parents, but Cooper isn't tempted by his promises of a cushy life in the lap of luxury.  All he really wants is to take care of his cows.

 Gary Schmidt has written some of my favorite all-time middle grade books.  This one is also pretty good, but I didn't like it as much as Schmidt's later books,  OK for Now or Pay Attention, Carter Jones. Schmidt is really good at writing about kids working through tough situations with the support of caring adults.  I think that is what makes his books so appealing to me.  In this book I loved Cooper's single minded attachment to his farm, and this quirky but supportive neighbors.  I also liked the fact that (spoiler alert) the author left the real identity of his parents ambiguous in the end.  It wasn't about a kid finding his parents, it was about a kid finding "family."  I think the reason that it didn't have the emotional impact of the other two later books is that the storyline was so improbable.  I didn't feel like I was reading about the life of a real person; like any town would have kids going through what Cooper was going through.  That's was what made OK for Now and Pay Attention, Carter Jones so touching. (224 p. 2007)

The Orphan Keeper (adapted for young audiences) by Camron Wright

 Chellamuthu lives in a poor village in India. His mother is strict and there is never enough food, but he faces his challenges with energy, intelligence and exuberance.  Then one day he is betrayed by some older boys and sold to kidnapers. His family, especially his mother, searches for him for weeks, and Chellamuthu tries to find a way to escape, but before he can, he is adopted by an American family.  He doesn't speak English, and everything is strange, but his new parents are kind and eventually he starts to forget about his life and family in India.  Sixteen years later a chance meeting reconnects him with his Indian heritage, and he begins to seek for the family he lost. 

This book is based on a true story, though many of the details are fictionalized.  I was surprised to learn that is it published by Shadow Mountain and that it was written by a Utah author.  I loved the detail about Chellamuthu's life in India and the emotions and experiences of Chellamuthu when he first arrived in America feel very authentic.  I was horrified to think that this probably not an isolated incident.  I have had several friends did foreign adoptions.  Were all of the kids really orphans, or part of a human trafficking business?  This would be a great book club title because it raises a lot of ethical questions.  Of course it was terrible that Chellamuthu was kidnapped and taken from his family, but his dad was rather abusive, and he really did have many more opportunities in America.  This is the young reader's version, so I imagine the harsher realities of his life are left out.  Am I a wimp to think that I am totally fine with that? (2022, 288 p)

Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

Pherus is the misshapen grandson of two powerful lords. One of them, Erondites, hates the Eugenides, King of Attolia, and wants to undermine his efforts to become High King. When Eugenides asks Erondites to send his heir to be one of his honored attendants at the palace, Erondites sends Pherus believing that Eugenides will send him back and ask for a different attendant. Instead, Eugenides accepts Pherus and protects him from the unkindness of the other attendants even though he believes that his mind is as weak as his body. Pherus has always pretended to be an idiot in front of strangers, but he is intelligent and an astute observer. People feel free to speak their secrets in his presence, and he comes to understand the inner workings of the court better than anyone.  When the Medes threaten to conquer the smaller Attolia and its allies, Pherus must choose whether he wants safety in the home where he grew up, or glorious danger by declaring danger by returning the loyalty his king has shown to him. 

This is the sixth and final story in The Thief series. This series has a very complicated plot and because it has been about 10 years since I read the first one, I had forgotten a lot of the backstory.  I should have re-read them all before reading this one, but I was too impatient.  Despite being lost a lot of the time, I really enjoyed Ms Turner's whit. She is so cleaver with her characters, her dialog and her plotting.  As with her other books, there are a few scenes that are utter gems! I am currently teaching a writer's group of upper grade school age children. Next week I am supposed to teach them about creating strong, interesting characters.  No one is better than Ms Turner in making endearingly flawed characters. I also think she did a satisfying job of gathering up and giving a satisfying ending to all the subplots from the series.  So, hurray for her.  I don't know how many people still read this series, but they should. (480 p. 2020)

The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin

 Two women, connected by the printed word, make their way through WWII.  One, Ava, is an American librarian, sent to Lisbon to collect information from underground publications that are smuggled over the border from occupied France. The other, Elaine, is in the middle of the French resistance, publishing the radical papers opposing the Nazi's. As one after another of Elaine's friends are captured and imprisoned, she bravely works the printing press and delivers the circulars. Ava, meanwhile, feels guilty when she sees the refugees flood across the border, walking skeletons who have endured unspeakable horrors.  When something happens that spurs Elaine to include a code asking for help in one of her newspapers, Ava is the one that decodes it with the help of a handsome British operative. Together they all work to try to help a Jewish woman and her son escape France. 

Here is another sweeping WWII historical fiction.  It is well written with heartrending descriptions of the horrible conditions in Nazi occupied France. Both women start out as tentative, but are forced to become courageous and bold in order to survive.  The book also underscores the fragility of life, as almost all of Elaine's companions parish before the Allied liberation of France. I didn't think this book was as meticulously researched as some others I have read, but I think people who liked Salt to the Sea, and The Woman of No Importance would enjoy this one as well. (2022, 400 p)

Flights of Fancy by Jen Turano

 Isadora is a wealthy heiress living in New York.  When a duke from England arrives, Isadora's mother thinks he will be a perfect match; his title plus her money.  The Duke behaves badly the first time he meets Isadora, and later her friends find out he has a very unsavory past.  They help her escape from the match her mother is still trying to instigate, by sending her away to the wilds of Pittsburg. With an assumed name, she hopes to find a job as a housekeeper until the Duke looses interest in her.  The only problem is that she doesn't know the first thing about being a housekeeper.  She is hired by Ian MacKenzie to work in a large farm estate belonging to his beloved foster parents only because he has pressing business in town and she is the only candidate for the job.  Her first attempts to cook and iron have disastrous results, but she keeps trying and gradually insinuates herself into the community and into Ian's heart.

As you can tell, I was ready for a break and needed something light to read.  I hadn't tried Jen Turano before.  It was an interesting book in that her writing style is pretty bad, but her story line was cute enough, and there were enough funny scenes, I decided to look past the really very stilted dialog and cookie cutter characters. I knew I was hooked when Izzy, her face swollen with poison ivy rash, gets "treed" on a chair by an indignant chicken. This is not the first Christian historical romance I have read that has terrible dialog. What I wonder is how they get published.  Aren't there better writers out there willing to write in this genre?  Maybe this style actually appeals to a certain demographic, like old ladies that wish Lawrence Welk was still on TV.  It really makes me want to try to write one of my own, but with decent dialog. (2019, 368)