Spain in the late 1950s is the setting for this imaginative historian's new book that like her others, speaks to a wide audience. A wealthy young man is visiting Madrid with his parents and while he is there he tries to capture the beauty and hidden brutality he sees with his camera lens. He falls for a housekeeper at the hotel and she, along with a couple of other Americans show him the less glamorous side of Franco ruled Spain. Hard-hitting and humanistic, Ruta Sepetys gives us the lush setting of Madrid and its embattled ethnic groups and juxtaposes it with American wealth, privilege and naivete. Adults, young adults, and older kids will fall for this beautiful story of a country brought to its knees by a dictator.
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The author is a very successful NPR correspondent who went to a great NYC prep school on scholarship and a great university and her father and uncle went to jail for helping launder money for the Cali drug cartel. Aarti Namdev Shahani gives us the ultimate immigrant experience from adjusting to a new country as a child and the difficulties her parents faced looking for work and trying to make a better life for their family to how it all backfired. She also provides us with a touching portrait of her father both his strengths and weaknesses. I was especially moved by the conversation she later had with the judge who convicted her father. Touching and truthful - this is one story of an American family who fought for the right to be a part of this country and to make a better life for themselves.
Naomi dubbed "the Child Finder" is back but this time she is focused on finding only one person, her sister, who was left behind when Naomi escaped her tormentor years ago. While searching for her sister on the Portland streets she meets a girl who is too young to have dealt with the pain she has and living on the streets but is there nevertheless. Celia has had it bad and Naomi can't help but be worried for her since many of the street urchins have gone missing. These characters feel very real and that is because Rene Denfeld writes about a world she knows intimately and it shows. A streetwise private detective with a gift of finding people, a heart of gold and a lightning punch - Naomi is everyone's hero.
Another heroic tale from the author who gave us THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ. Cilka had the misfortune of being held in not one but two deadly prison camps. She survived Auschwitz only to be branded a collaborator and thrown into a Siberian prison camp for a 15-year sentence. Her quick mind and open heart kept her and that of many of her fellow prisoners alive when countless others did not. It is a truly special story and a great tribute to a real person who showed incredible bravery and compassion in a world that held little.
The most unique setting for a library - Hell. Claire is the Librarian for the unwritten books that are housed in Hell and usually, it is a fairly quiet job repairing and sorting but now one of the books has a character that has escaped and with the help of a muse (library assistant) and a demon, Claire needs to grab Hero and get him back. This chase leads to a misunderstanding between Heaven and Hell and will have angels, demons and various other sorts chasing Claire and her merry band of misfits to some unusual locations. This is a wonderfully imaginative story centered around all the things we love - books, libraries and misunderstood book characters. The first of what looks to be a thoroughly entertaining fantasy series.
Christopher has had too much trauma in his young life - his dad is dead and mom's latest boyfriend is an abusive creep which is how he and his mom ended up in this little out of the way town. Instead of life calming down, Christopher gets more agitated and becomes driven to sneak out at night building his treehouse and doing anything else the "nice man" tells him to do. Mom doesn't really know how to help Christopher and is becoming more and more alarmed at the whole conversations her son is having with a plastic bag (his imaginary friend). This is pure horror - good people dealing with stuff way over their heads and involving children. Classic battle of good and evil and a must for fans of Stephen King, Joe Hill, and other horror writers. If I could have read this 700 plus page novel with my fingers covering my eyes I would have.
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