Review of Once Upon an Alphabet, by Oliver Jeffers

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

once_upon_an_alphabet_largeOnce Upon an Alphabet

Short Stories for All the Letters

by Oliver Jeffers

Philomel Books, 2014.
Starred Review

Oliver Jeffers’ books are quirky, offbeat, and, to certain people like me, utterly hilarious.

This is not a traditional alphabet book. As it says on the first page:

If words make up stories, and letters make up words, then stories are made of letters.

In this menagerie we have stories, made of words, made for all the letters.

The stories are all very short – with a title page, a two-page spread, and then a last page, all decorated with Oliver Jeffers’ loopy drawings, done large.

The stories possess that bizarre logic that makes me laugh. Many are tragic. Many seem pointless. And many show characters from a previous story. Taken together, they’ve got Oliver Jeffers’ unique charm.

I’ll include a couple of stories to give you the idea:

H

Half a House

Helen lived in half a house.
The other half had fallen into
the sea during a hurricane
a year and a half ago.

Being lazy, and not owning
a hammer, she hadn’t quite
got around to fixing it yet.
Which was fine . . .

. . . until the horrible day she
rolled out the wrong side of bed.

On this page we see Helen, open-mouthed, falling into the sea.

Another favorite, for which I’m afraid I can’t even begin to describe the drawings:

M

Made of Matter

Mary is made of matter.
So is her mother.
And her mother’s moose.

In fact, matter makes up everything
from magnets and maps to
mountains and mattresses.

Mary discovered all of this
the marvelous day she got sucked
through a microscope and
became the size of a molecule.

It’s a minor miracle that
they all made it back out
of the microscope at their
normal size again.

A few are done in rhyme:

R

Robots Don’t Like Rain Clouds

Robots don’t like rain clouds
So they steal them from the sky.

From everywhere and anywhere
That’s why it’s been so dry.

I’m sure you have been wondering,
What’s with all this dust?

Well, robots don’t like getting wet.
They don’t do well with rust.

I’ve already decided I want to booktalk this book next summer to the younger elementary school grades. I feel confident that just reading a few of the stories, and showing the large, dramatic pictures, will attract many readers, who will enjoy being in on the joke.

oliverjeffers.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/once_upon_an_alphabet.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson

Children's Nonfiction Review, Poetry, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

brown_girl_dreaming_largeBrown Girl Dreaming

by Jacqueline Woodson

Nancy Paulsen Books (Penguin), 2014. 337 pages.
Starred Review
2014 National Book Award winner for Young People’s Literature
2014 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #2, Children’s Nonfiction
2014 Cybils Finalist, Poetry

Brown Girl Dreaming is a memoir in verse. It’s lovely, and I hope children will find it in the nonfiction shelves of our library.

Jacqueline Woodson writes evocatively of her childhood, in Ohio, then South Carolina, then New York City. She wanted to be a writer even when she was a child, and catches that dream. She writes about being a Jehovah’s Witness, and about her family, about her best friend (who is still her best friend), and about how South Carolina and New York City were so different from each other.

I like the way each poem tells about a particular incident, but taken together they give a picture of her life. They are also told in different styles, focusing on different things – family, places, growing, writing.

There’s a series of haiku sprinkled throughout, all titled “how to listen.” Here is “how to listen #9”:

Under the back porch
there’s an alone place I go
writing all I’ve heard.

I’ll include some poems I enjoyed.

a girl named jack

Good enough name for me, my father said
the day I was born.
Don’t see why
she can’t have it, too.

But the women said no.
My mother first.
Then each aunt, pulling my pink blanket back
patting the crop of thick curls
tugging at my new toes
touching my cheeks.

We won’t have a girl named Jack, my mother said.

And my father’s sisters whispered,
A boy named Jack was bad enough.
But only so my mother could hear.
Name a girl Jack, my father said,
and she can’t help but grow up strong.
Raise her right, my father said,
and she’ll make that name her own.
Name a girl Jack
and people will look at her twice, my father said.

For no good reason but to ask if her parents
were crazy, my mother said.

And back and forth it went until I was Jackie
and my father left the hospital mad.

My mother said to my aunts,
Hand me that pen, wrote
Jacqueline where it asked for a name.
Jacqueline, just in case someone thought to drop the ie.

Jacqueline, just in case
I grew up and wanted something a little bit longer
and further away from
Jack.

Here’s a story about her sister:

the reader

When we can’t find my sister, we know
she is under the kitchen table, a book in her hand,
a glass of milk and a small bowl of peanuts beside her.

We know we can call Odella’s name out loud,
slap the table hard with our hands,
dance around it singing
“She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain”
so many times the song makes us sick
and the circling makes us dizzy
and still
my sister will do nothing more
than slowly turn the page.

Later, there’s more about her sister:

gifted

Everyone knows my sister
is brilliant. The letters come home folded neatly
inside official-looking envelopes that my sister proudly
hands over to my mother.
Odella has achieved
Odella has excelled at
Odella has been recommended to
Odella’s outstanding performance in

She is gifted
we are told.
And I imagine presents surrounding her.

I am not gifted. When I read, the words twist
twirl across the page.
When they settle, it is too late.
The class has already moved on.

I want to catch words one day. I want to hold them
then blow gently,
watch them float
right out of my hands.

This one’s a nice family poem:

harvest time

When Daddy’s garden is ready
it is filled with words that make me laugh when I say them –
pole beans and tomatoes, okra and corn
sweet peas and sugar snaps,
lettuce and squash.

Who could have imagined

so much color that the ground disappears
and we are left
walking through an autumn’s worth
of crazy words
that beneath the magic
of my grandmother’s hands

become

side dishes.

And perhaps my favorite is about Jacqueline deciding she’s going to be a writer:

when i tell my family

When I tell my family
I want to be a writer, they smile and say,
We see you in the backyard with your writing.
They say,
We hear you making up all those stories.
And,
We used to write poems.
And,
It’s a good hobby, we see how quiet it keeps you.
They say,
But maybe you should be a teacher,
a lawyer,
do hair . . .

I’ll think about it, I say.

And maybe all of us know

this is just another one of my
stories.

The whole book gives a flavor of love and family and a girl listening to the world around her. Indeed, it’s the story of a brown girl dreaming.

jacquelinewoodson.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/brown_girl_dreaming.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Castle Behind Thorns, by Merrie Haskell

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

castle_behind_thorns_largeThe Castle Behind Thorns

by Merrie Haskell

Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins), 2014. 327 pages.
Starred Review
2014 Cybils Finalist, Speculative Fiction for Elementary & Middle Grades
2014 Sonderbooks Stand-out, #2 Children’s Fiction

I loved this book. It begins with Sand (Alexandre) waking up in a fireplace. He has no memory of how he got there, or even of falling asleep.

In the room beyond, everything was broken.

Every single thing.

The mantel lay in two disjointed pieces on the cracked hearth. Mixed with the mantel’s splinters lay the shattered crest of a great family, their gilded phoenix and silvered swan once entwined, now separated and dismembered.

The enormous wooden tables throughout the room sagged and slumped like beasts fallen to the hunt. Every bench around the tables lay sideways and in pieces. Each cup and bowl was shattered or smashed. All the tablecloths and tapestries puddled in scraps on the floor or hung in tatters, and even the wood and kindling for the fireplace had been reduced to slivers….

Now he knew where he had awakened.

He was inside the Sundered Castle.

Every morning of his life, Sand had stepped out the front door of his house and ignored this broken castle across the valley. Everyone in the village ignored it. It was unreachable. Only the castle’s towers were visible above an enveloping thorny hedge, a raspberry bramble of astonishing proportion that had grown up around the ruin after the abandonment. Of course, no one picked raspberries from the hedge.

Sand explores the castle. Everything in it is broken. Even loaves of bread, books, and items of clothing are ripped in half.

Nothing was whole here, nothing at all. Not a spoon, not a toothpick, not a bed, not a door. No room had been exempted from the destructive force that had overtaken the castle.

Nothing in the castle has rotted, though, and it is oddly free of any signs of life – no animals, birds, or even mold.

Sand goes looking for the treasury, but instead finds the crypt, and a broken tomb.

The body that had once dwelled inside the fragmented tomb must have been ejected by the same force that had rent earth and stone throughout the castle. Scraps of a shroud littered the floor. It was strange, like some great outside force had tried to free the body. But to what end? To just let it lie in a heap on a dirt floor?

The body hunched in a haphazard pile of withered skin. Like one of the apples in the kitchen, Sand thought disjointedly, altogether horrified. His candlelight should have been steady in the still air below the earth, but it trembled with his shaking hand. Even the quivering light showed the details too well.

The corpse had been a girl. Her clothes were, perhaps, the only thing in the entire castle that were not ripped or town; they were fine fabrics, deep saffron velvets and russet silks that had not faded with age.

And the corpse was whole as well, though clearly the body’s bones were broken beneath its powdery, dried-out skin. The neck was tilted at an odd angle, and the arms and legs were bent horribly akimbo….

He shouldn’t leave her like that. He should put something to rights in this broken place, and she deserved it; she had been a person once. . . .

With his duty done, he fled up the stairs into the sunlight. He was ready to leave. He’d seen enough, maybe too much, and he wanted nothing more from this place. Its treasures could stay hidden. Its secrets could remain undiscovered. He had to get out. This place hadn’t suffered from some earthquake. Something else had happened here. Something that cut leather, ripped apples in half, and tore apart cast iron kettles. Something that broke bread and tossed bodies from tombs.

Naturally, Sand tries to get out. But the thorny hedge has a life of its own, and one thorn prick gives him a fever.

All that happens in just the first chapter.

As the book goes on, Sand figures out how to live in the castle. The old food can be salvaged, and he finds a way to get water from the well, even though the bucket is broken. He finds a stuffed falcon with a broken leg, splints the leg and begins carrying the falcon with him, to have a face to talk to.

In the smithy, even the anvil is in two pieces. But Sand is a smith by calling, having learned from his grandfather, and half an anvil is better than no anvil at all. He begins systematically mending things.

But his mending works better than it should. His unskilled efforts perfectly restore things. And then the falcon comes back to life. Readers will not be surprised at what else does.

But there’s still the problem of the curse on the castle. And the thorns have them trapped inside. I like the interaction as the two children slowly figure out how to break the curse. And figure out how to deal with the outside world if they do get out.

It’s also refreshing to have a boy in a book whose father wants to send him to the University – but he wants to be a blacksmith. I’ve heard the opposite story often. Sand is smart enough to go to the University, but his heart is in the craft of blacksmithing.

The author also beautifully works in a message about forgiveness. She’s not preachy, and it’s seamlessly and naturally built into the story, but I loved that part. I also loved that she didn’t present the idea that forgiveness can be achieved in an instant, but that just beginning to forgive has a magic of its own.

This is a fairy-tale-like story, but with nothing so simple as “true love’s kiss” to break the spell. The two main characters are middle-school-aged kids, and they go about the business of surviving and breaking the spell with kid-sized determination. They start out with some bickering, but learn to get along, bridge their differences, and become friends. This story completely charmed me.

merriehaskell.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/castle_behind_thorns.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Oops! One more Stand-out!

Stand-outs 0

It happened again! Because of some failures in record-keeping (and a couple of computer deaths this year), I inadvertently left a wonderful book off of my Stand-outs list. Fortunately, I haven’t chosen an arbitrary number for each list, so I will just add this book in. A few books will go down in rank, but they are still on the list.

The book is:

Once Upon an Alphabet, by Oliver Jeffers

I’m putting it at slot #5 in the Picture Books list.

I’ll correct the blog post below and eventually correct the main website page for the 2014 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

One of these years, I won’t need to make any corrections!

Announcing the 2014 Sonderbooks Stand-outs!

Stand-outs 0

Logo_4x4_gold_encircled_seal

Happy New Year!

I always wait until the year is completely over to decide my favorite books of the year — I always hope to squeeze in a few more books read.

New Year’s Day is also when the Cybils Finalists are announced. This past year I served on the panel to choose the Finalists in Speculative Fiction for Elementary and Middle Grades. The Cybils Finalists are distinctive in that each panel tries to create a balanced list with literary excellence and child appeal. Our hope is that something on the list will appeal to every reader in our target age range. To come up with such a list, we discuss the books and weigh the other opinions in the panel.

Sonderbooks Stand-outs are not like that. These are simply my favorite books from my year of reading. I don’t attempt to evaluate “literary excellence” or which books are most worthy of an award. I don’t count books reread, but other than that I don’t worry about publication year. If I read it in 2014, it’s eligible. These are the books that stood out in my mind after a year of reading, ranked according to how much I personally enjoyed them.

Of course, all the books are highly recommended. Refer to the review to find out more.

As I’m first posting this, I don’t have reviews posted yet of every book on the list. I hope to rectify that soon and catch up on posting all the reviews I’ve written this year. (And I’ve promised myself that if I haven’t caught up by the end of January, I’ll just post the reviews on the blog and not on the main site.) Tonight I don’t yet have the 2014 Stand-outs page on my main site, but that will also follow soon.

Without further ado, here are the 2014 Sonderbooks Stand-outs:

winter_horses_large

Children’s Fiction:
1. The Winter Horses, by Philip Kerr
2. The Castle Behind Thorns, by Merrie Haskell
3. Greenglass House, by Kate Milford
4. The Whispering Skull, by Jonathan Stroud
5. The Night Gardener, by Jonathan Auxier
6. The Interrupted Tale, by Maryrose Wood
7. Jinx’s Magic, by Sage Blackwood
8. The Great Greene Heist, by Varian Johnson
9. Lulu and the Rabbit Next Door, by Hilary McKay
10. Constable & Toop, by Gareth P. Jones
11. The Swallow, by Charis Cotter

mortal_heart_large

Teen Fiction:
1. Mortal Heart, by Robin LaFevers
2. Impossible, by Nancy Werlin
3. All the Truth That’s In Me, by Julie Berry
4. The Caller, by Juliet Marillier
5. Unthinkable, by Nancy Werlin
6. The Shadow Hero, by Gene Luen Yang & Sonny Liew
7. Chasing Power, by Sarah Beth Durst
8. Extraordinary, by Nancy Werlin

you_should_have_known_large

Fiction for Adults:
1. You Should Have Known, by Jean Hanff Korelitz
2. Chestnut Street, by Maeve Binchy
3. The Queen of the Tearling, by Erika Johansen
4. The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, by Gabrielle Zevin
5. Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, by Maria Semple

tiny_beautiful_things_large

Nonfiction:
1. Tiny Beautiful Things, by Cheryl Strayed
2. Her Gates Will Never Be Shut, by Bradley Jersak
3. Daring Greatly, by Brené Brown
4. Trees Up Close, by Nancy Ross Hugo and Robert Llewellyn
5. How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk, by John van Epp
6. Quiet, by Susan Cain
7. Ken Libbrecht’s Field Guide to Snowflakes, by Ken Libbrecht
8. Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing, by Megan Smolenyak
9. Call the Midwife, by Jennifer Worth
10. The Periodic Table: A Visual Guide to the Elements, by Paul Parsons

boy_and_jaguar_large

Children’s Nonfiction:
1. A Boy and a Jaguar, by Alan Rabinowitz, illustrated by Cátia Chen
2. Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson
3. Winter Bees and Other Poems of the Cold, by Joyce Sidman & Rick Allen
4. The Scraps Book, by Lois Ehlert
5. The Great American Dust Bowl, by Don Brown
6. Mysterious Patterns: Finding Fractals in Nature, by Sarah C. Campbell
7. A Little Book of Sloth, by Lucy Cooke

anna_and_solomon_large

Picture Books:
1. Anna and Solomon, by Elaine Snyder, pictures by Harry Bliss
2. The Princess in Black, by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale, illustrated by LeUyen Pham
3. A Dance Like Starlight, by Kristy Dempsey, illustrated by Floyd Cooper
4. Winter Is Coming, by Tony Johnston, illustrated by Jim LaMarche
5. Once Upon an Alphabet, by Oliver Jeffers
6. The Most Magnificent Thing, by Ashley Spires
7. Anna Carries Water, by Olive Senior, illustrations by Laura James
8. Waiting Is Not Easy! by Mo Willems
9. Grandfather Gandhi, by Arun Gandhi and Bethany Hegedus, illustrated by Evan Turk
10. The Pigeon Needs a Bath! by Mo Willems
11. Two Speckled Eggs, by Jennifer K. Mann

Now it’s your turn. Which were your favorite books you read in 2014? Are any of them the same as mine? What did I miss?

Stand-out Author: Holly Black

Stand-outs 0

I’m doing a series on Stand-out Authors — Authors whose books are 2013 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, but are not making their first appearances on my lists.

Holly Black, like three other authors, has her fourth Sonderbooks Stand-out this year.

I’ve read many of her books, and they aren’t always my favorites. This year was her first children’s book (as opposed to YA) that made my list. I wasn’t the only one who loved it, as Doll Bones was also a Newbery Honor Book this year. It’s an atmospheric quest story about three kids growing out of childhood while they lay to rest human bones embedded in a doll.

My other favorites were from the Curseworkers series, with White Cat appearing in 2010, and then again in 2011 in audiobook form. The second book, Red Glove also made an appearance in 2011. These books involve an alternate reality where certain people have the ability to curse others simply by touching them. Cassel has to decide whether to use his powers for good or for evil, for his family or for the government — and which of those is good and which evil.

Holly Black is someone with lots of imagination and a knack of telling a suspenseful story. Check out her books!

Stand-out Authors: Laini Taylor

Stand-outs 0

I’m doing a series on Stand-out Authors — Authors whose books are 2013 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, but are not making their first appearances on my lists.

Laini Taylor is another who has a Sonderbooks Stand-out for the fourth time this year.

I first read her books in 2009. The first one I read was Dreamdark: Blackbringer, which I thought was excellent, and gave a starred review. Then I read its sequel, Silksinger, and was completely blown away. Silksinger was #6 in Fantasy Teen Fiction on the 2009 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

The same year, I read Lips Touch: Three Times, an innovative collection of three highly original stories. That book was #8 in Fantasy Teen Fiction the same year.

Laini Taylor began a new series in 2011, which is consistently excellent. The first book, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, was #2 in Teen Fiction, Fantasy on my 2011 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, with an amazing story about a devil in love with an angel.

And I read the second book in the series this past year, and wasn’t a bit surprised when it was also a Stand-out. Days of Blood and Starlight was #7 in Teen Fiction on my 2013 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, continuing the dramatic story.

What I noticed about Laini Taylor’s books right from the start is she has the resonance of folklore themes — but not your traditional western folklore. There are twists to these fairies, angels, and demons. She has a whole new perspective, and her imagination stands out. I have no doubt whatsoever that her books will continue to appear on my Stand-outs lists for many years to come.

Stand-out Author: Diana Peterfreund

Stand-outs 0

I’m featuring authors whose books were 2013 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, and it was not their first appearance as a Stand-out.

Now I’m looking at authors who have Sonderbooks Stand-outs for the fourth time in 2013. One of those, Diana Peterfreund, has had every book of hers I read be listed as a Sonderbooks Stand-out, and what’s more, twice her books have been #1 in Teen Fiction.

Her first book, Rampant, was #1 in Teen Fiction in 2009 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, and this year she did it again with Across a Star-Swept Sea.

Last year, For Darkness Shows the Stars was #2 in Teen Fiction in 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, and her #5 showing in 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs with Ascendant was a very low showing by Diana Peterfreund’s standards.

I hope she will have many more books forthcoming. I have a feeling she doesn’t know how to write a book I don’t love.

Stand-out Author: Steven Stosny

Stand-outs 0

I’m doing a series on Stand-out Authors, looking at authors with books among my 2013 Sonderbooks Stand-outs who have had books on previous years’ lists.

Steven Stosny is tied for second place with five books that are Sonderbooks Stand-outs. His contribution this year, Living and Loving After Betrayal: How to Heal from Emotional Abuse, Deceit, Infidelity, and Chronic Resentment was #1 in Nonfiction.

The first book I read by Steven Stosny was also #1 in Nonfiction (Personal Growth) on the 2006 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. 2006 was the year my life completely fell apart, and his book You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore was one of the most helpful books I read the whole year.

In 2007, I was reading every Steven Stosny book I could get my hands on, and three more made the 2007 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. However, 2007 was the year I was getting my Master’s in Library and Information Science, and I didn’t ever get those books reviewed. But the other three Sonderbooks Stand-outs were:

#1 in Nonfiction, Relationships: How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It, written with Patricia Love

#2 in Nonfiction, Personal Growth: The Manual of the Core Value Workshop
I got to go to Steven Stosny’s Relationship Boot Camp, and this manual holds much of the information.

And finally, #6 in Nonfiction, Personal Growth: The Powerful Self
All of his books are so affirming, and this one emphasizes that aspect of healing.

You can see why I think of Steven Stosny’s books as a huge part of my healing process! They are all highly recommended.

2013 Stand-out Authors: Maeve Binchy

Stand-outs 0

I’m featuring Stand-out Authors: Authors who appeared previously on my Sonderbooks Stand-outs and are back for 2013.

Two authors appeared for the fifth time this year. But one of those makes me sad, because this will presumably be her last appearance. Maeve Binchy died in 2012, so her 2013 Sonderbooks Stand-out, A Week in Winter, which was #5 in Fiction, is her last book. (Though there are a few I missed, so maybe she can still be on the list posthumously.)

A lot more of Maeve Binchy’s books are my favorites than just five, but I began reading her work before I ever started writing Sonderbooks. In fact, she first showed up on the list in my second year of doing them, 2002, with the book Quentins, which was #2 in Fiction for Grown-ups. Quentins tells about the proprietors of a restaurant in Dublin, and I love that it’s mentioned in almost all her later books.

She consistently continues to appear every few years. In 2004, it was Nights of Rain and Stars, which was #1 in Literary Fiction. In this book, a group of tourists witness a tragedy in Greece, and they form a bond. We learn what’s going on with each person. I also love that some of these characters are referred to in later books. Maeve Binchy’s books are like big family gatherings. You don’t have to know the earlier references, but there’s extra richness if you do.

I think I skipped a couple books there, because the next Maeve Binchy Stand-out is #4 in Fiction in 2009, Heart and Soul. This book features people who work in a heart clinic in Dublin. Again, she gets us inside the heads and hearts of a wide variety of people.

Finally (before this year), we have #2 in Other Fiction in 2011, Minding Frankie. Minding Frankie is about a little girl whose mother dies, and the community of people who come together to care for her.

Community. Getting inside people’s heads and hearts. Maeve Binchy’s books get under my skin every time. She is sadly missed already.