From January 2012

My own fascination with China began when I read the Good Earth in high school and has continued more recently with Anchee Min's work, so I had to read this latest novel! Author Min has crafted a fanciful, yet believable world for Pearl Buck through the voice of an imagined Chinese woman named Willow. Forming a spiritual and emotional bond as children, the two girls continue an deepen their friendship while a changing China swirls around them (the Boxer Rebellion, civil war, and Mao's rule). Eventually separation and jealousies test their relationship many times but the bond endures even beyond death. Min is a gifted and lyrical writer who has created an unforgettable cross-cultural story. - Reviewed by Janet

The loss of his beloved grandfather (under strange circumstances)sends 16-year-old Jacob to an isolated island off the coast of Wales, about which Grandpa Partman told many weird tales. What Jacob finds in the ruins of a bombed-out orphanage and in a trunkful of wonderfully peculiar photographs is...but wait...what's that noise? Delightfully creepy! - Reviewed by Melinda

Imagine New York City in the 1890s: horses, wagons, carriages, liverymen, the Vanderbilts, the Astors...Now imagine you were only 32 inches tall: that is the world of Mecy Lavinia "Vinnie" Bump, a proportionate dwarf married to General Tom Thumb/Charles Stratton, a performer for P.T. Barnum since he was five years old. What a life! - Reviewed by Melinda