The Mississippi Book Festival’s Facebook post on August 20th read – “Happy Book Festival Recovery Day” to all who observe. I am guessing a number of people observed who didn’t even see the post. I know that I did!

Place has always been key in Kimberly Willis Holt’s middle grade novels. The Hurricane Girls is no exception. The newest edition to her collection takes place in New Orleans and draws from her own experience living there during one of her father’s military assignments.

The questioner had no idea! We were anticipating together Mississippi’s biggest lawn party scheduled for this Saturday, August 19. I mentioned that I had attended all eight of them except last year when I had Covid, even the ones during the pandemic that became virtual. She asked, “When you went to the first one, did you have any idea that you would ever be a panelist?”

Star Crossed, by Heather Dune Macadam & Simon Worrall is a true and well-researched book, using personal letters and writings, documentary evidence, and long personal interviews with the subject’s sister Michelle. The book starts almost frivolously with a mixture of Romeo and Juliet, combined with a soap opera, mingled with a bohemian art group in Paris in 1941.

In a happy coincidence, since I was planning a blog about dragonflies, the biologist on Creature Comforts from the August 10 Mississippi Public Radio podcast discussed them. I listened as I walked as he shared fascination with these insects. I related to his comment that they were very hard to photograph.

Ray Anthony Shepard introduces his book, A Long Time Coming, to the reader as “five story-poems . . . anchored in historical facts.” In beautiful verse, he tells the story of race through vignettes of the lives of six people who moved America closer to its ideal of freedom and justice for all.

Last week I got an email from the University Press of Mississippi (UPM) with a caution not to share their bargain information until August 7. That’s today – a great day to get a head start on your Christmas presents – especially for teachers and lovers of children’s literature or a treat for yourself!

“Avoid clichés like the plague.” I don’t remember when I first heard this writing advice, which you might notice is also a cliché. It goes so far back in my memory, I’m guessing it was from a high school English teacher. I had a couple of really good ones. Either Mrs. Bounds or Mrs. Olsen might have been the ones who impressed me with the saying early on.

The memoir, Pulling the Chariot of the Sun, by Shane McCrae, takes a journey through the life of a child who was kidnapped by his grandparents when he was three years old. His mother was white, his father was black, and his grandparents were steeped in prejudice. They took him to Texas in an effort to hide his blackness from him.

Anna gave a semi-apology for West with Giraffes, my Mother’s Day gift book, saying she hadn’t read it yet, but it had been recommended by readers she trusted. I had to smile a bit, remembering the days when I pre-read the books I passed along or gifted to her. We have come to know each other’s tastes and seldom miss the mark any more.

I borrow a phrase from Robert Frost today to issue an invitation. The invitation is for a celebration at 10:30 on August 28th at the Peck House on the western edge of the University of Southern Mississippi campus.

If you love a cozy mystery housed in a historical fiction tale set in England, I have a recommendation for you. Murder at a London Finishing School by Jessica Elliott takes her readers back to the end of World War I with the hovering threat of another war.

A recent news item I saw made sense, and I think will not call for a lot of disagreement – certainly not from me.  Baguettes are now cultural heritage!

Sometimes suspension of disbelief is as important in a realistic novel as in fantasy. One Summer in Savannah by Terah Shelton Harris is such a recently released book. The first line in the book sets the scene, “It’s difficult to pinpoint the moment I started loving my daughter.”

I have mentioned on this blog before that when our oldest son married we got a bonus of twin granddaughters that came with the package. Our first adventure with them presaged personalities that are definitely not identical.

In his newest novel, Be Mine, Richard Ford writes what sounds like a memoir as Frank Bascombe recounts a car trip with his son Paul. At 47, Paul has been diagnosed with ALS, called “Al’s” in their surprisingly light conversation. Seventy-four-year-old Frank has become the caretaker, though he is frequently interrupted with advice by phone from Paul’s sister Clarice who differs with her father’s decisions.

The first road trip for Peter, as he publicized Becoming Ezra Jack Keats with me, held both glitches and connections. My sister Beth arranged for events near her new home in Atlanta and invited our other two sisters, Gwyn and Ruth, to join us. There would be a signing at Read It Again Book Store, a visit with residents in her new digs, and a meeting with her book club that had chosen my book for their June read.

To be honest, I have never been homeless – just hometown-less. I grew up the daughter of a country preacher and then married a guy who spent a career in the military. When someone asks about where I come from, my first reaction is usually to stutter. A decision we made more than two decades ago has changed that.

The seasoning of magical realism begins in the first chapter of Wishing Season by Anica Mrose Rissi as Lily gets off the school bus ten minutes past the usual time. Her body language when she waves at no friends and braces herself as she heads to her front door is observed and commented on by two watchful birds. One says she’ll be all right; the second one wonders.

Got my bag, got my reservation
Spent each dime I could afford
Like a child in wild anticipation
Long to hear that, “All aboard!"

To be honest, though I am borrowing some lyrics from the old Doris Day song, “Sentimental Journey,” the idea is only a partial fit. I’ll start with that part.