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The Alarming Letters from Scottsdale by Warner Law
Brother by James Fredericks
Bubbles Betrothed by Sarah Strohmeyer
Bunny Modern by David Bowman
Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille by Steven Brust
A Day With My Dad by Lance Waite
Dirt: An American Campaign by Mark LaFlamme
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50/50 by Dean Karnazes
Game Widow by Wendy Kays
Gateway by Frederik Pohl
How the Day Runs Down by John Langan
If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond
Jim the Boy by Tony Earley
Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore
Margarettown by Garbrielle Zevin
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Memphis: Objects, Furniture & Patterns by Richard Horn
The Minutemen's Witch by Charles Coleman Finlay
The New Writer's Handbook by Ted Kooser
One Crossed Out by Fanny Howe
The Once and Future Celt by Bill Watkins
Peter Hatches and Egg by Louise Bienvenu-Brialmont
Raindrop Plop! by
Ripley Under Water by Patricia Highsmith
A Skeptical Spirit by Albert E. Cowdrey
Smash Trash by Laura Driscoll
Sunsets and Shooting Stars by Rick Seidel
The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
Uh-oh, Calico! by Karma Wilson
We Come Not to Praise Washington by Charles Coleman Finlay
Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Ann Schwartz
Zodiac by Neal Stephenson

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Book 3
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Jim the Boy: 12/08/08

Jim the Boy by Tony Earley opens on Jim's tenth birthday. He's at a crossroads in his life, feeling the urge to take on greater responsibilities and the uncertainty that comes with growing up.

Jim is growing up during the Great Depression in Aliceville, North Carolina. Aliceville and he have odd histories. Aliceville is named for a little girl who died and Jim is named for a father who died before he was born.

Like my own family during the Depression, Jim and his mother live with her brothers. The three uncles take the role of his missing father. Though unconventional, they are a tightly knit family.

As Jim grows he begins to question his roots and wants to know more about his father's family, the one thing his mother and uncles seem determined to protect him from. So much of the novel focuses on Jim's internal tug of war between his current life on a small farm with a mother and three bachelor uncles and the life that might have been if his father had lived.

Jim the Boy is a novel that can be savored. It can be read slowly. The chapters work as vignettes. Everything that happens to Jim could just as easily be set against a modern setting.

This year Earley has a sequel to the novel that follows Jim as a seventeen year old. It's called The Blue Star and I'd like to read it sometime.

Comments (2)


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Comment #1: Tuesday, December, 9, 2008 at 19:46:32

Kindledude

There's an award for you at "I am very pleased" ! Thanks. "



Comment #2: Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 15:23:23

Pussreboots

Thank you!



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