Heads You Lose

I stumbled upon Lisa Lutz a few years ago when I read the first of her Spellman Files– and what a stumble that was!  She writes a fun, white-bread kind of mystery where her quirky characters drive the development of the plot as much as the actually case they are trying to solve.  

And she has done it again in Heads You Lose, a collaborative effort with her former romantic partner, David Hayward.  This tag-team novel is interspersed with comments by the authors about the direction (or lack thereof ) of the plot line and characters.  The writing is laugh-out-loud funny… and leaves you want for more!

-Penny

Moon over Manifest

I’ve just finished reading the latest Newbery winner: Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool.  This excellent and readable novel toggles back and forth between the years 1918 and 1936.  It relates the stories of Abilene Tucker and her father, Gideon and how Abilene learns more about her father’s life as a young man in Manifest, Kansas during World War I.  Times are tough in 1936 when Abilene is twelve. Gideon is a good man, but also a drifter and a con man, using his wits to survive very tough times.  He and his daughter struggle to survive during the Depression so in the summer of 1936 he sends her off to the town and people he knows best.  She meets up with those who knew him best and since he never talked to Abilene about his growing up years, so she longs to find a connection to him through the people she meets in Manifest.

The quirky but believable characters are wonderfully fleshed out.  They are so well described that you would recognize them if they walked up to you and said “hi”.  The storyline is well-plotted and well-told.  Vanderpool presents the characters’ stories in such a way that you find out just a little about them each time as if the author is slowly unwinding their lives for view.  This would appeal to both boys and girls – it takes historical fiction, adventure and mystery and rolls them all up into one wonderful yarn.  It would make a wonderful family read-aloud. I highly recommend it.

-Janet M

Made in Dagenham (DVD)

Made in Dagenham (a BBC production)

It’s 1968 in Dagenham, Great Britian and the 157 female workers at the Ford automobile plant have been forced into a decision to strike for fair wages.  What begins as a desire to have their jobs classified as “skilled” rather than “unskilled”, with corresponding compensation, transpires into a fight for equal pay for equal work. 

Rooting for the underdog has never felt so good!

-Penny