On the radio

Recently I was invited to fill in for a regular guest on KCUR's Walt Bodine Show as one of the Book Doctors. I've been trying to get on this show for years and a good friend at the library where I work did some of his PR magic and found me a spot (shout out to HF). I was only able to do two shows. I thought I was okay the first time, but did very well the second time. Listen for yourselves.

On the March 12 show I talked up Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill; Relative Danger by Charles Benoit; and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo.

On the May 17 show I waxed poetic about Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas (one of my favorite authors); Acceptance by Susan Coll; Still Water Saints by Alex Espinoza (a first novel with lyrical writing) and commented on a caller's recent read, Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult (another favorite).

Listen. Read. Send comments. Either to me or the authors. We love feedback.

Heartland on the Homefront

Sandra Dallas is one of the best kept literary secrets in the Midwest. Her books cleverly disguise themselves as historical women's fiction but then pack a wallop at the end to jolt even the most jaded reader.

Dallas' strengths are her realistic and likeable characters, their unique observations about their sometimes ordinary and sometimes extreme situations, and her deft mixture of easy pacing with page-turning pockets of action.

One of my favorite books of all time is The Persian Pickle Club. It's a Midwest historical mystery and I defy anyone to know "whodunit" before the last page of the book (TomA says he figured it out and his theory works for me. But he's a literary genius, so he doesn't get to play in the same sandbox as all us lesser reader-mortals.:))

Dallas' latest novel, Tallgrass, is set in a time period she has not yet explored, but in a place she knows and loves well, wartime Eastern Colorado. Rennie Stroud is the youngest child in her family, living happily on her parents' sugar beet farm during World War II. Her brother has enlisted in the service; her sister has moved to Denver, and an internment camp for Japanese-American citizens has been constructed next to her father's farm. The townspeople are suspicious, frightened and prejudiced, but Rennie's father exhibits tolerance and wisdom beyond his years and the time period. Everyone is living warily, yet peacefully, until the violent murder of a young girl on another farm bordering the camp.

Fans of Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson will find something to enjoy in this novel.

This book was discussed on The Walt Bodine Show 's Book Doctors program May 17, 2007. KCUR 89.3