Is A Higher Call overrated?

A Higher Call made The Diane Rehm Show and CNN, among many, many other (flattering) reviews. Can it possibly live up to its hype?


If you've read it, please weigh in with a comment or squawk at me. 

Let's Go to Guernsey and Read about Reading

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, By Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer (c) 2008

First a (long overdue) confession: I am not a member of a book club.

If I were, surely I would have read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society last year, when it was published. As it is, my ex-mother-in-law recommended the book after I passed along Yes, My Darling Daughter.

(Aside: Yes, my ex-mother-in-law. Divorce or no, there love of books goes on.)

The novel is comprised entirely of a series of letters and telegrams - no dialog, description, or any other prose - sent from the narrator, who is also an author, to her publisher, her dear friend Sophie (sister of the publisher) and to a handful of endearing folks (and one infuriating old biddy), all residents of Guernsey.

The setting is London and Guernsey, an island protectorate of England situated near the coast of France, as the cleanup is beginning following WWII.

How the author gets in touch with the residents of Guernsey and how the titular society came to be unfolds so sweetly I don't dare ruin it for you. And that is only the first few pages. Read it, dear reader. Read it.

Need more prodding? The authors' word selection is superb and the book hinges on the sheer joy of reading. Now, off to the library with you!

Historical Fiction Worth Reading?

In my formative years, I could count on one hand the number of "historical fiction" titles I deemed worth reading. Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series (totaling eleven? or twelve? books) and The Witch of Blackbird Pond made the list because they didn't seem like history lessons; they simply told great stories.

As I've typed before, I have enjoyed every page of Team of Rivals but *sigh* I'm still turning its pages.

Browsing the stacks in the library's teen section recently, I picked up The Girls They Left Behind and was hooked on the first page. The historical fiction in a diary format introduced me to the main character, code name Natalie (because "My real name is not fit to print"), who gave me a glimpse of what it was like to be a 17-year-old girl in Toronto in 1943.

What was it like? Well, teenagers are teenagers: Beryl/Natalie has crushes (and kisses!), fusses with her hair, is quite delighted to leave school for a high-paying job, and loves/hates her eight-year-old brother. But as a teenager on the home front in WWII, she also hates watching (just watching) most of her male friends go off to war; at the same time, she's embarrassed to be seen with Carl, who is of age but unable to enlist because he's deaf in one ear. She also hides to trade ration coupons (it's illegal!), hates the blackouts, and struggles with the emotions letters from the front - and worse, telegrams - bring.

Author Bernice Thurman Hunter died (in 2002) before she completed the book; her daughter, Heather Anne Hunter, finished the job. And well. From now on, any kid who tells me they don't like historical fiction will get one more recommendation...