Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas: Being a Jane Austen Mystery by Stephanie Barron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jane and family set out for a holiday visit to a neighboring manor and become embroiled in mystery when a courier, bearing a peace treaty, is found dead after spending the night. Barron is adept at capturing Austen's voice and her characters hold true to Austen's descriptions in journals and letters. From wry to guardedly romantic, Jane is an entertaining narrator to the lifestyles-of-the-gentry and the various intrigues and mysteries.

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Now You Tell Me! 12 Actors Give the Best Advice They Never Got: Making a Living; Making a Life by Sheridan Scott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A great collection of first-person essays that give insight into the careers of 12 actors: their training, their side jobs, how they prepare, their lucky breaks or years of honing their craft. Some chapters feature nuggets of wisdom while others are more superficial. Nevertheless, an interesting title for library collections or as a gift to budding actors.

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Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Maisie Dobbs looks into the murders of two women from India working in London. The experience leads Maisie to close her agency and undertake her own journey, "leaving everything most loved," to process her life experiences and explore if marriage will be in her future. ....Please come back to us soon!!!

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Deep in the Sahara by Kelly Cunnane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A young girl's longing to dress in a malafa like her sister, mother, grandma, and other West African Muslim ladies will resonate with young readers. This simple story explains the malafa as a garment connoting beauty, mystery, tradition, and faith. The front endpapers echo the flowered pattern of mother's malafa and the back endpapers show the blue garment of the young girl.

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Chicago Bound by Sean Vogel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jake is off to Chicago for a music workshop and encounters a mystery surrounding his mother's research into a Mary Cassatt painting that hung in the Women's Exposition during the Columbian Exposition. A clever tale that mixes a tale of school and friendship with adventure and mystery. The second in a series.

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Tesla's Attic by Neal Shusterman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An intriguing beginning for a new trilogy. After a disastrous fire that claimed the life of his mother, Nick moves to Colorado Springs with his father and brother into an old decrepit house that belonged to a great aunt. In the attic Nick finds lots of junk and broken objects that, strangely, sell like hotcakes at his yard sale. There is adventure, danger, and humor as Nick and his new friends discover the strange properties the attic objects possess and try to reclaim them before they do damage.

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I am woefully behind on posts.  Once the holidays are over I hope to be better ... New Year's resolution!

Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste by Luke Barr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Barr recreates the separate events in the lives of M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard and others that lead to a turning point in American attitudes toward French cuisine. Culling information from letters, publications, and diaries of Fisher and others, Barr, Fisher's great-nephew, creates a narrative that is informative and dramatic. A great selection for foodies who savor the history of cuisine.

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TAP THE MAGIC TREE by Christie Matheson

Coming from Greenwillow this fall:

Icing on the Cake: The Cupcake Club by Sheryl Berk
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As the girls of the "Peace, Love and Cupcakes Club" return for more adventures, Jenna's mother is engaged to Leo and planning a Las Vegas wedding. Jenna is not sure about this, but her mother wants the club to come to Las Vegas and create a cupcake tower for the wedding. As can be suspected, not all goes well. They help an Elvis impersonator celebrate by making a peanut butter and banana cake for the 250 people in his audience. Then, several near disasters threaten the cupcake tower. This is a series that 2nd through 4th graders will relish because the characters are endearing and the recipes for the Cupcake Club's creations are appended.

Thanks go out to Sourcebooks for the review copy!

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Fear in the Sunlight by Nicola Upson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Josephine Tey is celebrating her 40th birthday with friends in the village of Portmerion in the summer of 1936. Alfred Hitchcock is also there, scouting film locations and seeking script rights for Tey's A Shilling for Candles. As a practical joke, Hitchcock has cooked up a fake murder to observe the reactions of his dinner guests. Slight problem --- three bodies turn up dead before the weekend is over. As a long time fan of Josephine Tey, I was delighted to run into this series that features her as a character.

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Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was eager to read this historical fiction novel because I have long held an affinity for the Jazz Age and a particular interest in the Fitzgeralds. While previous works have cast Zelda in the role of airhead-selfish-unstable-party girl, Fowler sees her as a lively girl whose curiosity and talents did not mesh with the demure role of women prescribed during her time. Recommended to fans of The Paris Wife or the film, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS [2011].

My particular interest in Zelda developed when I did an author study in college on F. Scott Fitzgerald and, after my research, wrote my paper with a "woman-behind-the-man" thesis. Needless to say, it did not receive a warm welcome. FSF was brilliant but insecure, and being married to him would have driven anyone crazy [being married to Hemingway would have made ME commit suicide]. Ms. Fowler, thank you for exposing Zelda as the talented, inquisitive woman she was --- caught in the wrong decade.

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The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook: Dine like Draper and Drink like Sterling: Recipes to Satisfy a Mad Men Appetite by Judy Gelman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This is a fun companion for fans of the television series. Gelman links food and drink recipes to scenes from the TV episodes as well as anecdotes about the dishes, cocktails, and restaurants that made them famous. View all my reviews

Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This may well be a Newbery Medal contender in 2013. Vanderpool captures the nuances of character as she describes the friendship that develops between Jack and Early Auden, and tracks their adventures as they set out on a river journey that becomes a "quest."

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Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sheinkin is truly adept at crafting research into an engaging narrative. Even though I know the history here, I became caught up in his narrative as if it were a suspense novel. 'Will the Norweigans be able to blow up the heavy water plant?' 'Will the weather really break so they can perform the Trinity test?'

This is certainly a contender for the Newbery Medal, as well as the Seibert and a few others.

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Unspoken by Henry Cole

Unspoken: A Story From the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Henry Cole's wordless picture book about a young girl who chooses to aid a runaway slave hiding in her barn, is distinguished not only for the depth of emotions captured by his graphite drawings, but also for the range of discussion each panel evokes. In the end notes Cole provides additional context to the historical and geographical setting of his story. A Caldecott Medal contender in my book!

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Hokey Pokey: the dance, the treat, the place

Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

How often have you thought, "Kids. They live in a world of their own." Jerry Spinelli has captured this world: Hokey Pokey where toddlers turn into kids who are free to play and explore all day long ... until, one day you wake up and things are different.

Spinelli's "hokey pokey" world is inventive, well-crafted, and populated with a neighborhood of kids we can all relate to ... both best pals and bullies. It is in the dream-sequences of 'night' that I lose my way. Then again, maybe I'm trying to make sense of something I "used to" understand!

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The Gershwins and Me: A Personal History in Twelve Songs by Michael Feinstein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Feinstein has crafted a fascinating look into the lives and work of George and Ira Gershwin using twelve of their songs as a backdrop. Woven into the narrative are Feinstein's personal insights from his years as an assistant to Ira Gershwin and vast research into American popular song. Although I read this from an advance reader copy, so I did not have a chance to view the illustrations of Gershwin documents and memorbilia that will be included in the final book, this looks to be an important book that music fans and libraries will want to add to their collections.

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Some Halloween fun!