Ann Warren Turner

What a difference 52 years can make! Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, is an old favorite of mine, but its pre-Women's Liberation Movement depiction of Hatshepsut is hardly sympathetic. Here the female Pharaoh is shown in a more positive light.

Maia, like Mara, can read and write. Unlike Mara, she's not a slave. She's merely treated as a servant by her maternal uncle, a priest of Amun, and his wife. Her solace is her brother, Seti. Seti, who is going to school to become a show more scribe, is Maia's teacher. Luckily, she's quick to learn.

Maia accidentally discovers a crime being committed by a priest. Her public revelation of that crime wins her the friendship of a woman who lost one of her daughters, Nesty, and the enmity of the priests of Amun.

Paneb, one of those priests, wants to hide the crime. Paneb has the gall to tell Maia that she's a ...'traitor, bringer of dishonor to the sacred temples and their glorious priests'. The fool doesn't realize that he is the true traitor and that attempting to hide the crime one of the priests committed brings much greater dishonor to the temples and priesthood.

Maia displays courage despite her fears, more courage than I have. She needs every bit of bravery she can summon because Paneb is a vindictive enemy.

The historical note about Hatshepsut and ancient Egypt was interesting, although I doubt that the slaves would have agreed with Ms. Turner's opinion about what kind of place Egypt was to have lived in. show less

Borne along by a powerful flood of water one stormy night, a homeless marmalade cat finds herself deposited in front of a dark building (a library!), where she finds shelter in a box left on the front steps. In the morning she is discovered by Lisa and Rochelle, the two librarians, and is quickly adopted as the library's cat. But although she now has a comfortable, safe home, Pumpkin Cat - so named because of her color, and because of the autumn season in which she was found - longs for show more something else: a companion. The children who come to the library for story-hour provide plenty of affection, but Pumpkin Cat is still lonely during the dark, quiet nights. And then, the day after Halloween, another box is discovered in front of the library...

A heartwarming story of a homeless feline who finds her place in the world, and also gains a surrogate child/companion, Pumpkin Cat has everything needed - an adorable feline heroine! the library as ultimate place of refuge! an autumn setting, with Halloween playing a role! a poignant story with a happy ending! - to make it a success in my book. Suitable as a sweet (rather than scary) Halloween tale, and as an "orphaned animal finds home" story, it pairs an engaging story with cute-as-a-button illustrations. I found myself, while reading, itching to pet Pumpkin Cat! Does anything else really need to be said?!? show less

Presented as a grandmother telling her granddaughter the story of her life, this book gives us a peek at the lifeways of the Navajo while also presenting the truth of the suffering they endured from the political decisions made in distant Washington DC. Of course, Sarah Nita has no idea of the reasons why the Army was rounding up her people, nor why they were made to walk for months in mid-winter. We read her thoughts, her attention to her younger sister, her knowledge of how to survive when show more they walked on their own to find relatives, her yearning for her mother, the care given the two girls by another Navajo family, how supportive of each other the walkers were.
The writing was a pleasure to read. Simple sentences carrying profound thoughts, revealing important events in our country's history.
I read this aloud to my blind son and he remembers and talks about Sarah Nita and her dog Silver Cloud.
black & white photos at the end of the book show us Navajo of that era and the landscape where they lived. show less

Unfolding in a series of exquisite narrative poems, Learning to Swim is a haunting story about a tragic summer in a young girl's life. With startling power, it juxtaposes the beautiful summer Annie is supposed to have -- picking blueberries with her mother, playing with her brothers, learning to swim with her father -- with the terrible secret she is forced to harbor. For under the pretense of reading to her, an older boy in the neighborhood is molesting her. Joy Stuart.