In the beginning...

...there were The Flyaways, a family who traveled in their miraculous flying machine having daring adventures with Goldilocks and Cinderella. The first in the 3-book series by Alice Dale Hardy was published by Grosset and Dunlap in 1925 and copies are almost extinct. Few people remember Ma and Pa, Tommy and Susie Flyaway now.

I became acquainted with them on my grandfather's lap, my dear Grandpa Baker who read and read and read to me every evening for as many years as I can remember. I would hold my breath as each chapter ending neared, hoping he would not stop. I would keep begging for "just one more" chapter until his voice got so hoarse I would have to run to his room to get his throat lozenges.

Over the years we covered all of Uncle Wiggly and Honey Bunch, the Bobbsey Twins, the Five Little Peppers, the Wind in the Willow series, some of them more than once. He read to me until long after I could read everything for myself, until I was into Beverly Gray, Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. I was safe and happy snuggled up on the couch with him and that feeling has never left me. I still read and read and read, and it still makes me feel safe and happy.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Another Sheldon Russell

HOUSE RULES by Jodi Picoult
An 18-year-old with Asperger’s syndrome is arrested for murder. For those like me who are unfamiliar with AS this story is an enlightening introduction to it. Told chapter by chapter from the viewpoints of Jacob, Emma his mother, Theo his brother, Oliver his lawyer and Richard the detective, it is a skillful and interesting portrait. It also leaves you hanging until the last page.

THE YARD DOG by Sheldon Russell
This is a follow up (actually a previous) book to The Insane Train. I really liked Hook and his colorful companions. There is a new girlfriend and a likeable moonshiner in this one involving the grisly train murder of a friend. Hook investigates the nearby camp housing German prisoners of war for the answers.

GONE by Mo Hayder
A car jacking becomes an abduction when police realize that the young girl sitting in the back seat has been targeted, and it turns out that she is not the first. Detective Jack Caffery and police diver Flea Marley are working to solve this series of deadly crimes, while Flea is trying to protect secrets of her own.

CUT by Cathy Glass
True tale of a young British couple with their first foster child, a thirteen-year-old with desperate problems.

THE SENTRY by Robert Crais
This was an excellent book. Joe Pike and Elvis Costello are one of the best working teams in the crime world. Their friendship is extraordinary and I get a kick out of the idea that Pike is invincible. In this one he loses his guarded heart to a con artist in the middle of a multimillion dollar drug scheme.
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