Check this out, at the library this week
On Tuesday, Dec. 31, the Library will have Babytime at 10:30 a.m. and Family Storytime at 5:30 p.m. The library will be closed on Wednesday, Jan. 1 for the New Year holiday. We will reopen on Wednesday, Jan. 2 at 9 a.m. Code Club will resume Thursday, Jan. 2 and regular Storytime will resume Wednesday, Jan. 8. Happy New Year from all of us at the library, wishing everyone a wonderful 2020.
This week's reviews include fiction and western titles.
Emma London never thought she had anything in common with her grandmother Genevieve London in “Life and Other Inconveniences” (LP F HIG K) by Kristan Higgins.
The regal old woman came from wealthy and the bluest-blood New England stock, but that didn't protect her from life's cruelest blows: the disappearance of Genevieve's young son, followed by the premature death of her husband. But Genevieve rose from those ashes of grief and built a fashion empire that was respected the world over, even when it meant neglecting her other son. When Emma's own mother died, her father abandoned her on his mother's doorstep. Genevieve took Emma in and reluctantly raised her until Emma got pregnant her senior year of high school. Genevieve kicked her out with nothing but the clothes on her back, but Emma took with her the most important London possession: the strength not just to survive but to thrive. Indeed, Emma has built a wonderful life for herself and her teenage daughter, Riley. So what is Emma to do when Genevieve does the one thing Emma never expected of her and, after not speaking to her for nearly two decades, calls and asks for help?
It is Sept. 1940, a year into the war in “The Long Flight Home” (LP F HLA A) by Alan Hlad.
As German bombs fall on Britain, fears grow of an impending invasion. Enemy fighter planes blacken the sky around the home of Susan Shepherd and her grandfather, Bertie. Susan has found comfort in raising homing pigeons with Bertie, and her favorite bird, Duchess, shares a special bond with Susan and an unusual curiosity about the human world. Thousands of miles away in Buxton, Maine, a young crop-duster pilot named Ollie Evans has decided to travel to Britain to join the Royal Air Force. His quest brings him to the National Pigeon Service, where Susan is involved in a new, covert assignment to airdrop hundreds of homing pigeons in German-occupied France. Those that make the journey home to England can convey crucial information on German troop movements and help reclaim the skies from the Luftwaffe. When Ollie's plane is downed behind enemy lines, Duchess's devotion and her singular sense of duty will become an unexpected lifeline, relaying messages between Susan and Ollie as war rages on and proving, at last, that hope is never truly lost.
Most of the Texas ranches had suffered badly while the men were away fighting the war in “Pepper Tree Rider” (LP W CUR J) by Jack Curtis. Now the war was over and the former soldiers were beginning to return home to reunite with their families and salvage what they could of their homesteads. No one was more anxious than nine-year-old Danny Hamilton, who spent day after day perched in his favorite tree, scanning the horizon for signs of his father. His mother, Elizabeth, had held the Lazy H together as well as she could, with only Danny, an elderly vaquero, and her sickly brother to help her. For years no one had enough men to organize roundups; all the ranches had been letting their cattle use the open range. Whatever was between her ranch and the river was Lazy H's, anything on the other side of the river, up to the rimrock, was Drum Bigger's. The only way Elizabeth had been able to pay the interest on the mortgage while Harry was away was by signing over hundreds of cows each year to Joab Vibor's bank. If Harry doesn't come home soon, there will be nothing left.
Twenty-five-year-old Ben Hawthorne is kidnapped by men wearing hoods in “Hot Metal” (LP W SOP S) by S.I. Soper. After spending an unknown number of days caged, chained, and tortured by men wearing hoods in the darkness of a root cellar who insist he robbed a bank and killed several women, Ben is rescued by four men. But who are these men and why were they looking for him, the son of Eli and Cora Hawthorne, born on a ranch outside of Nacogdoches, Texas, orphaned at the age of ten when his parents were killed by Comanches, and then taken by the Comanches who gave him his Indian name, Newcomer. When Ben learns that his “rescuers” are in fact bounty hunters who believe he is the son of a rancher named Locklin, he doesn't understand. Matters become even more puzzling when he is taken to the home of Locklin and the big-time rancher recognizes him as his missing son of five years, Seth. Things continue to confuse Ben when he is shown a picture of Seth and it is like looking in a mirror. Hawthorne knows who he is, but everyone he meets believes he is Seth, including Seth's sister and Caitlin Black, the spitfire who was Seth's childhood friend, who is ready to go to war with Larch Locklin over access to water.
“For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice.” T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Library's hours are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; the computer room closes at 5:30 p.m. and Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; the computer room closes at 6:30 p.m. You may reach us at 432-264-2260 and our fax number is 432-264-2263. Our website is http://howard-county.ploud.net. Visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/howardcolibrary.