An Innocent Abroad

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald (Sourcebooks Landmark trade paperback, 19 January 2016).

After some years of correspondence, Sara Lindqvist travels from her home in Sweden to visit her elderly pen pal Amy Harris in Broken Wheel, Iowa.  

Unfortunately, not only does no one realize that Sara is coming, she arrives just in time for Amy's funeral.  Sara, of course, feels lost and disoriented, but the inhabitants of the tiny town seem to take it for granted that Sara will stay, using Amy's house as a base until she figures out what to do.

Since Sara really has nothing to return home to, since the bookstore where she worked had closed, she decides that she'll stay for the month she'd planned to spend with Amy.  

She slowly gets to know the townspeople, who take her under their collective wing, making sure she has enough food and providing someone to drive her wherever she needs to go.

After Sara discovers the treasure-trove of books in Amy's house, she decides to open a bookstore in a vacant storefront that Amy owned on Main Street.  Never mind that her visa doesn't allow her to have a job, or that the residents of Broken Wheel never understood Amy's passion for books; Sara believes that sharing the love of literature will be her way of paying them back for their kindness.

As word of the crazy-Swedish-woman-who-opened-a-bookstore in the dying town of Broken Wheel spreads, and tourist traffic in Broken Wheel slowly increases.

Bivald's book has been compared to Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road and Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, but I think that the only similarities are that they all include a bookstore and a bookseller who shares a love of literature.  

And, perhaps, a story that begs to be read in one sitting.






FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to the publisher for the Advance Reading Copy of this book.

Teen Tuesday

Conversion by Katherine Howe (G.P. Putnam's Son's Books for Young Readers hardcover, 1 July 2014).

In 1692, in Salem Village (now Danvers), Massachusetts, a young girl began to act strangely.  It didn't take long for the convulsions, tics and other bizarre actions to affect other girls in the village. Since doctors were able to pinpoint no physical cause, the symptoms were attributed to witchcraft.  During the course of about a year, nearly 200 residents of the Village were accused of  being practicing witches, and 19 were put to death.

Late in 2012, in Le Roy, New York, high school students began reporting unexplainable symptoms including Tourette's-like verbal tics, seizures, and other physical tics.  There were many theories as to what caused these problems, including environmental pollution (Erin Brockovich was even called in) conversion disorder, and PANDAS.

Katherine Howe has taken these two similar incidents, woven them together and created the riveting novel that is Conversion.

Senior year at the prestigious (fictional) St. Joan's Academy is tough.  As well as keeping up their grades, there are college applications, graduation (the battle for the valedictorian position is hard-fought) and extracurriculars.

Clara Rutherford, school "royalty", begins twitching in the middle of class.  Soon other students are convulsing, losing hair, and coughing violently.  Again, physicians and psychologists are stumped.  The students, faculty, and parents are in turmoil.  Blame is being passed around and around.

Howe alternates chapters of the present-day story with a similar one set in Salem Village in the Seventeenth Century.  The parallels are striking.

The conclusion of the historical story is predictable; that of the Twenty-first Century is unexpected.
Prepare to be enthralled, and provoked into investigating the true stories that inspired Katherine Howe.



FTC Full Disclosure:  I borrowed this book from my local library.

Teen Thursday

Infinite Sky by C.J. Flood (Atheneum Books for Young Readers hardcover, 20 May 2014).

It was bad enough three months earlier, when Iris' mother left to find herself, but her absence is even more evident now that school is out.  Sure, she calls once a week, but neither Iris' dad nor her brother Sam want to talk to her.  The house is a mess, and there's never any food around.

When Dad isn't working, he's at the pub.  Sam's found a new group of friends with motorcycles and shaved heads.  And a family of Travelers set up camp in the paddock near the house.  Even though they're there illegally, the police don't want to move them along, because they'll just set up somewhere else they shouldn't.

Iris takes to watching them from her dad's bedroom window.  They have a boy who appears to be around her age, and eventually Iris meets him.  His name is Trick (short for Patrick) and they develop a friendship, walking and talking in the cornfield where they can't be seen.

The summer flows along.  Iris' father becomes more and more annoyed with the gypsies, and Sam is out till all hours, getting into trouble.  Something bad is bound to happen, but when it does, it's worse than she could possibly have imagined.

During just a few weeks, the lives of Iris and her family are completely changed in this engrossing and bittersweet story.   It's a quick read (more so because it's difficult to put down), but the feelings that ensue will remain for some time.



FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to the publisher for the Advance Reading Copy.