Here are some of Don's favorite books:
This delightful book follows Mouse through the year as he watches the changing seasons and comes across many other friendly creatures who live in the wood.
After a frightening skirmish with a large black cat leaves Clara dangerously ill, her mother takes her to stay with her Aunt Isa, who Clara learns is a witch. With Isa’s help, Clara begins to learn enough magic to, hopefully, protect her from a strange nemesis who seeks to capture her.
The King of the Copper Mountains, first published in the Netherlands in 1965, is a collection of short stories, each one not too long – just right in length - told by an animal of the Copper Mountains in hopes of keeping the king’s heart ticking until a cure for his illness arrives. The King of the Copper Mountains is a lot of fun.
It’s OK, Slow Lizard is a sweet book that makes me happy and makes people I love happy. Whether one identifies with Slow Lizard or not, visiting Lizard and friends in this book is time well spent.
The Chosen is a classic coming of age story about two Jewish teens in 1940's Brooklyn. The Push for an independent Jewish state after World War II creates tension between the Zionists and the Hasidic Jews, and Reuven and Danny find themselves drawn together by friendship as they are pulled apart by their beliefs and their fathers' expectations. From their first meeting on opposing baseball teams to attending the same Jewish high school, in preparation for university or life as rabbis, the relationship of these two intelligent boys set against their cultural moment makes for a wonderful novel.
Don - March 2023
On Fragile Waves is a beautiful immigration story told with grace and strength. An Afghan family, using the encouragement and distraction of storytelling, makes a series of journeys hoping to find a new life in Australia. Yu’s prose carries readers along with the family through hope and heartbreak.
Imagine you are a professional magician today, and while you are performing a trick someone is Googling your name and trick so that he can tell everyone you are trying to entertain how you did it. This is just one of the many, many areas of magic Joshua Jay covers in this thoroughly enjoyable book. From the magical greats to how people perceive magic and why they enjoy it to how magic adapts to the times, readers with any degree of interest in magic will be thoroughly entertained.
Koh embarks on the magical journey of language through telling her story by juxtaposing it with, and gaining inspiration from, her mother’s letters. Koh includes an image of each letter and provides her own translation from Korean into English. This relationship to the letters adds to the intimacy of the memoir.
After attending the dying Queen Elizabeth I, Frances returns home to her family home, content with the management of the estate and, especially, collecting herbs and creating healing remedies. Against her wishes she is summoned to the court of James I where she will be an attendant of the King’s daughter. Frances’s reputation for healing proceeds her, and she soon finds herself under suspicion in the King’s campaign to rid the kingdom of witches.
Historian Tracy Borman is a natural storyteller, creating historical fiction that is both believable and compelling.
This is the story of a girl on the day before her 13th birthday who must search for her mother in a strange, comical, and worrisome land. She meets many dear and dangerous characters in her search and must find ways through the obstacles of a world that at first make little sense. Rat Rule 79 is a coming of age story and a story about feeling the weight of change.
Taking the form of a letter to visitors to our planet, If You Come to Earth is a beautiful book on diversity that shows how life on our planet can fill us with joy and wonder, make us happy and sad, and, even in our uniqueness, make us deeply connected.