Review by New York Times Review
WASHINGTON BLACK, by Esi Edugyan. (Knopf, $26.95.) This eloquent novel, Edugyan's third, is a daring work of empathy and imagination, featuring a Barbados slave boy in the 1830s who flees barbaric cruelty in a hot-air balloon and embarks on a life of adventure that is wondrous, melancholy and strange. CAN YOU TOLERATE THIS? By Ashleigh Young. (Riverhead, $26.) The New Zealand poet and essayist writes many sly ars poeticas in her collection - a lovely, profound debut that spins metaphors of its own creation and the segmented identity of the essayist, that self-regarding self. BIG GAME: The NFL in Dangerous Times, by Mark Leibovich. (Penguin Press, $28.) A gossipy, insightful and wickedly entertaining journey through professional football's sausage factory. Reading this sparkling narrative, one gets the sense that the league will survive on the magnetism of the sport it so clumsily represents. THE REAL LOLITA: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World, by Sarah Weinman. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $27.99.) Writing "Lolita," Nabokov drew on the real-life story of a girl held captive for two years by a pedophile. Weinman tracks down her history to complicate our view of the novel widely seen as Nabokov's masterpiece. THE SCHOOLHOUSE GATE: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind, by Justin Driver. (Pantheon, $35.) This meticulous history examines rulings on free speech, integration and corporal punishment to argue that schools are our most significant arenas of constitutional conflict. TICKER: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart, by Mimi Swartz. (Crown, $27.) The long, arduous effort to invent and then perfect a machine that could stand in for the human heart offers Swartz a scandalous story filled with feuding doctors willing to stretch ethical boundaries to make great achievements. UNDERBUG: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology, by Lisa Margonelli. (Scientific American/ Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) Margonelli, who believes termites are underappreciated, makes her case via the researchers who study them - especially their ability to build the insect equivalent of a skyscraper. HARBOR ME, by Jacqueline Woodson. (Nancy Paulsen/Penguin, $17.99; ages 10 and up.) In this compassionate novel, a perceptive teacher requires six struggling middle school students to spend one class period a week together, just talking. LOUISIANA'S WAY HOME, by Kate DiCamillo. (Candlewick, $16.99; ages 10 and up.) Louisiana Elefante, first introduced as a minor character in DiCamillo's "Raymie Nightingale," hits the road with her grandmother, nurturing practical optimism despite hardship. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 30, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Last seen in Raymie Nightingale? (2016), Louisiana Elefante, daughter of dead trapeze artists and prone to fainting, is awakened in the middle of the night by her grandmother, who orders her into the car. Granny has been told in a vision that they have a date with destiny, an opportunity to reverse the family curse, but they must immediately hit the road. Once over the Florida border into Georgia, Granny's aching teeth become an emergency. Louisiana, 12, is forced to get behind the wheel and locate a dentist in the small town of Richford. Once there, she finds a friend, but loses both her bearings and her history when family secrets are disclosed, whereupon she discovers she has more moxie in her small body than she thought possible. DiCamillo, in an unusual turn for her, tells Louisiana's story in first person, bringing the reader close to what's in the girl's head and heart including pure anger at the disruption of her life. The writing is terse, with short paragraphs and even shorter sentences. DiCamillo offers a master class in how to tell and shape a story once all fat has been cut away. Though set in the mid-1970s, there's a fairy-tale quality to this, with heroes, helpers, villains, and one princess looking for a home. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: DiCamillo's done it all except write a sequel before. A 10-city author tour and coordinated global release are planned.--Ilene Cooper Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Horn Book Review
Morriss malleable voice provides rich characterization for DiCamillos precocious, resilient protagonist Louisiana (introduced in Raymie Nightingale, rev. 3/16); Louisianas new friend Burke Allen; and adult characters such as her eccentric Granny, a cantankerous motel manager, and a minister. Themes of dishonesty and belonging permeate the story, set mainly in 1970s Georgia. Throughout, Morris carefully modulates a Southern drawl, allowing it to recede during the main narrative text and thickening it to various degrees for characters dialogue. And her melancholic reading of the novels ending perfectly captures the tales bittersweet nature. megan dowd lambert March/April 2019 p 108(c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
