QUARTERLY FALL 2019 | VOL. 62 NO. 4

Collecting, Preserving, and Celebrating Ohio Literature Fall 2019 | 1 Contents QUARTERLY FALL 2019

FEATURES BOARD OF TRUSTEES EX-OFFICIO Fran DeWine, Columbus 4 2019 Ohioana Awards ELECTED 10 Excerpt from "In the Beginning, Bada President: Daniel Shuey, Westerville Vice-President: John Sullivan, Plain City Secretary: Bryan Loar, Columbus Bing" by David Grandouiller Treasurer: Jay Yurkiw, Columbus

2019 Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant Winner Gillian Berchowitz, Athens Rudine Sims Bishop, Columbus 11 A Mile-and-a-Half of Lines: Helen F. Bolte, Columbus Katie Brandt, Columbus Celebrating Thurber's Art Lisa Evans, Johnstown Ellen McDevitt-Stredney, Columbus Mary Heather Munger, Perrysburg BOOK REVIEWS Louise Musser, Delaware Claudia Plumley, Dublin Cynthia Puckett, Columbus David Siders, Cincinnati 15 Nonfiction Geoffrey Smith, Columbus Yolanda Danyi Szuch, Perrysburg 20 Fiction Jacquelyn L. Vaughan, Dublin

22 Middle Grade & Children’s APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR OF OHIO Carl Denbow, Ph.D., Athens Carol Garner, Mount Vernon H.C. "Buck" Niehoff, Cincinnati BOOKS AND EVENTS Brian M. Perera, Upper Arlington

TRUSTEES EMERITUS 24 Book List Francis Ott Allen, Cincinnati Ann Bowers, Bowling Green 33 Coming Soon Christina Butler, Ph.D., Columbus James Hughes, Ph.D., Dayton Robert Webner, Columbus

OHIOANA STAFF Executive Director...... David Weaver Office Manager...... Kathryn Powers Library Specialist...... Courtney Brown Program Coordinator...... Morgan Peters Editor...... Leslie Birdwell Shortlidge Co-Editor...... Stephanie Michaels

The Ohioana Quarterly (ISSN 0030-1248) is currently published four times a year by the Ohioana Library Association, 274 East First Avenue, Suite 300, Columbus, Ohio 43201. Individual subscriptions to the Ohioana Quarterly are available through membership in the Association; $35 of membership dues pays the required subscription. Single copy $6.50. U.S. postage paid at Columbus, Ohio. Send address changes to Ohioana Quarterly, 274 E. First Ave., Suite 300, Columbus, Ohio, 43201. Copyright © 2019 by the Ohioana Library Association. All rights reserved. Printed by PXPOHIO.

2 | Ohioana Quarterly From the Director

Dear Friends,

Autumn is here… my favorite season, and one that is especially wonderful to experience in Ohio with its gorgeous burst of color in every part of the state. Autumn is also the season for many terrific music, art, theater, and literary events in Ohio.

One of those events is the presentation of the annual Ohioana Awards, which we’ll do again at the Ohio Statehouse on October 17. As you can see from our cover story, our 2019 award winners represent a truly stellar list of books and authors. In addition to the book awards, we’ll present the thirtieth Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant, a competitive prize that goes to an Ohio writer age thirty or younger who has not yet published a book. This year's recipient is David Grandouiller of Jamestown. David’s prize- winning story appears here, and we think you’ll agree that he is a definitely a writer with a promising future.

Even though we’ve been talking about it for nearly a year, October officially marks the ninetieth anniversary of Ohioana’s founding by First Lady Martha Kinney Cooper. And another milestone worth celebrating – with this issue of the Ohioana Quarterly, it is now five years since we introduced the publication for the first time in a full-color magazine format. We were thrilled with the enthusiastic response, and we are still delighted every time we hear from a reader who tells us how much they enjoy the Quarterly.

With this issue, we also wrap up our year-long salute to humorist James Thurber. An exciting new exhibition of Thurber’s drawings at the Columbus Museum of Art and a beautiful companion book by Michael J. Rosen remind us that James Thurber was one of America’s true literary giants.

And if autumn is my favorite season, then I also have to say that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Here at Ohioana, we are feeling very thankful for what has been a memorable ninetieth anniversary year. So many people have played a part in Ohioana’s story, and we owe each of these special ON THE COVER This issue's cover, designed by people a debt of gratitude. YOU are one of those people. Thank you. Kathryn Powers, features images of the 2019 Ohioana Award- winning books. To learn more about this year's award winners, see the article on the next page. David Weaver Executive Director

Fall 2019 | 3 2019 Ohioana Awards

The Ohioana Book Awards were established in 1942 to “Nuanced, sharp, and beautifully written, Sadness Is recognize excellence in writing by Ohioans and about a White Bird manages, with seeming effortlessness, Ohio and are the second oldest state literary prizes to find something fresh and surprising and poignant in the nation. Each year juried awards are given to in the classic coming-of-age, love-triangle narrative, outstanding books in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, something starker, more heartbreaking: something new.” poetry, juvenile literature, middle grade and young adult — Michael Chabon literature, and books about Ohio or an Ohioan. A seventh award, the Reader’s Choice Award, is selected by readers In this lyrical and searing debut novel written by a rising across the state in an online poll. literary star and MacDowell Fellow, a young man is preparing to serve in the Israeli army while also trying to reconcile his close relationship to two Palestinian siblings with his deeply ingrained loyalties to family Fiction and country. Powerful, important, and timely, Sadness Is a White Bird explores one man’s attempts to find a place for himself, discovering in the process a beautiful, against-the-odds love that flickers like a candle in the darkness of a never-ending conflict.

Nonfiction

Moriel Rothman-Zecher, Sadness Is a White Bird, Atria Books. Moriel Rothman-Zecher is an Israeli-American novelist and poet. He is a 2018 National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and received a 2017 MacDowell Colony Fellowship for Literature. His writing has been published in the New York Times, the Paris Review’s “The Daily,” Haaretz, and elsewhere. He lives in Yellow David Giffels, Furnishing Eternity, Scribner. Springs, Ohio, with his wife, Kayla, and daughter, Nahar. David Giffels is the author of The Hard Way on Purpose: Sadness Is a White Bird is his debut novel. Essays and Dispatches from the Rust Belt, nominated

4 | Ohioana Quarterly for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art a B.A. from the University of Toledo and continued his of the Essay, the memoir All the Way Home, winner of poetry studies at NYU and as a Cave Canem fellow. the Ohioana Book Award, and Furnishing Eternity. His His poems have appeared in such publications as the writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, American Poetry Review, the New Yorker, and Tin the Atlantic.com, Parade, the Wall Street Journal, House. He lives with his wife and son in Columbus, Esquire.com, Grantland.com, Redbook, and many other where he teaches in the M.F.A. program at the Ohio publications. He also was a writer for the MTV series State University. Beavis and Butt-Head. He is an associate professor of English at the University of Akron, where he teaches “Though not an explicitly political volume, Pardon My creative nonfiction in the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Heart posits a way of looking at the world that calls Arts Program. to mind the wise, weathered perspectives of Yehuda Amichai and Pablo Neruda: these are poems in which the “Tender, witty and, like the woodworking it describes, integrity of one’s personal sphere feels like a necessary painstakingly and subtly wrought, Furnishing Eternity refuge from, and an antidote to, the toxic swill of the continues Giffels’ unlikely literary career as the bard of world at large…. Plain-spoken but never plain, Jackson’s Akron, Ohio.... Only a very skilled engineer of a writer collection confirms the arrival of a thrilling new voice in can transform the fits and starts, the fitted corners and American poetry, one whose writing, on page after page, sudden gouges of the assembly process into a kind of has the fullness and glow of a jubilee.” — New York Times page-turning drama” (New York Times Book Review). With a compelling blend of narrative, musicality, and David Giffels grew up fascinated by his father’s dusty, imagery, Jackson’s poems span a multitude of scenes, tool-strewn workshop and the countless creations it landscapes, and sensations. Pardon My Heart examines inspired. So when he enlisted his eighty-one-year-old intimacy, memory, grief, and festivity while seeking dad to help him build his own casket, he thought of it out new, reflective sectors within emotion and culture. mostly as an opportunity to sharpen his woodworking By means of concise portraiture and sonic vibrancy, skills and to spend time together. But the unexpected Jackson’s poems ultimately express the urgency and deaths of his mother and, a year later, his best friend, pliability of the human soul. coupled with the dawning realization that his father wouldn’t be around forever for such offbeat adventures— and neither would he—led to a harsh confrontation with Juvenile Literature mortality and loss.

Poetry

Jacqueline Woodson, The Day You Begin (illus. by Rafael Lopez), Nancy Paulsen Books. Jacqueline Woodson is the is the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and received Marcus Jackson, Pardon My Heart, TriQuarterly/ the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award and the Northwestern University Press. 2018 Children's Literature Legacy Award. She is the Marcus Jackson was born in Toledo, Ohio. He earned 2014 National Book Award winner for her New York

Fall 2019 | 5 Times-bestselling memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, Middle Grade/Young Adult Literature which was also a recipient of the Ohioana Book Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, the NAACP Image Award and a Sibert Honor. She received the Jane Addams Children's Book Award and is a four- time Newbery Honor winner, a three-time National Book Award finalist, and a two-time Coretta Scott King Award winner. Her books include The Other Side, Each Kindness, Coming On Home Soon, Feathers, Show Way, After Tupac and D Foster, and Miracle's Boys. She received the Margaret A. Edwards and the Ohioana Alice Louise Wood Memorial Awards for lifetime achievement for her contributions to young adult literature. Ellen Klages, Out of Left Field, Viking Books for “Woodson’s poetic lines give power to each child’s Young Readers. experience…. López paints the book’s array of children Ellen Klages is the author of two acclaimed historical as students in the same classroom; patterns and colors novels: The Green Glass Sea, which won the Scott O'Dell on the children’s clothing and the growing things around Award and the New Mexico Book Award; and White them fill the spreads with life. Woodson’s gentle, lilting Sands, Red Menace, which won the California and New story and López’s artistry create a stirring portrait of Mexico Book awards. Her story "Basement Magic" won a the courage it takes to be oneself.”— Publishers Weekly Nebula Award, and "Wakulla Springs," co-authored with (starred review) Andy Duncan, was nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, and won the World Fantasy Award for There are many reasons to feel different. Maybe it’s how Best Novella. She is a graduate of Second City's Improv you look or talk, or where you’re from; maybe it’s what program, and has a degree in philosophy from the you eat, or something just as random. It’s not easy to take University of Michigan, which has led to many odd jobs those first steps into a place where nobody really knows that begin with the letter P (proofreader, photographer, you yet, but somehow you do it. painter, pinball arcade manager). She lives in San Francisco in a house full of strange and wondrous things. Jacqueline Woodson’s lyrical text and Rafael López’s dazzling art reminds us that we all feel like outsiders “There are writers with unique voices and important sometimes — and how brave it is that we go forth anyway. things to say about people of all kinds and shapes and And that sometimes, when we reach out and begin to minds. Ellen Klages is one of those writers. Ignore her share our stories, others will be happy to meet at your peril.”—Neil Gaiman, author of Newbery Award us halfway. winner The Graveyard Book

Every boy in the neighborhood knows Katy Gordon is their best pitcher, even though she’s a girl. But when she tries out for Little League, it’s a whole different story. Girls are not eligible, period. It is a boy’s game and always has been. It’s not fair, and Katy’s going to fight back. Inspired by what she’s learning about civil rights in school, she sets out to prove that she’s not the only girl who plays baseball. With the help of friendly librarians and some tenacious research skills, Katy discovers the forgotten history of female ball players. Why does no one know about them? Where are they now? And how can one ten-year-old change people’s minds about what girls can do?

6 | Ohioana Quarterly About Ohio or an Ohioan of poor, segregated East High School in Columbus, Ohio, did something no team from one school had ever done before: they won the state basketball and baseball championships in the same year. They defeated bigger, richer, whiter teams across the state and along the way brought blacks and whites together, eased a painful racial divide throughout the state, and overcame extraordinary obstacles on their road to success.

Readers' Choice

Wil Haygood, Tigerland, Knopf. Wil Haygood is currently visiting distinguished professor in the department of media, journalism, and film at Miami University of Ohio. For nearly three decades he was a journalist, serving as a national and foreign correspondent at the Boston Globe, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and then at the Washington Post. He is the author of The Butler: A Witness to History; Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America; Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson; In Black and Rachel Wiley, Nothing Is Okay, Button Poetry. White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr.; Two on the River; Rachel Wiley is a performer, poet, feminist, and fat King of the Cats: The Life and Times of Adam Clayton positive activist from Columbus, Ohio. Rachel has Powell Jr.; and The Haygoods of Columbus: A Family represented Columbus at multiple National Poetry Slam Memoir. The Butler was later adapted into the critically Competitions and was a finalist twice in 2011. She is on acclaimed film starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah staff at Writing Wrongs Poetry Slam and the co-host/ co-founder of the Columbus Queer Open Mic. She has Winfrey. The winner of two prior Ohioana Book Awards, toured nationally, performing at slam venues, colleges, Haygood has received a John Simon Guggenheim and festivals. Her work has appeared on Upworthy, Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a National Huffington Post, Militant Baker, and Everyday Feminism. Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, and the 2017 Patrick Henry Fellowship Literary Award for his Nothing Is Okay is the second full-length poetry research for Tigerland. He lives in Washington, D.C. collection by Rachel Wiley, whose work simultaneously deconstructs the lies that we were taught about our “Dynamic, multidimensional, and heart-revving…. As bodies and our beings, and builds new ways of viewing in all his avidly read books, Haygood sets the stories of ourselves. As she delves into queerness, feminism, fascinating individuals within the context of freshly fatness, dating, and race, Wiley molds these topics into a reclaimed and vigorously recounted African American critique of culture and a celebration of self. A fat positive history as he masterfully brings a high school and its activist, Wiley’s work soars and challenges the bounds of bodies and hearts, and the ways we carry them. community to life. This laugh-and-cry tale of rollicking and wrenching drama… is electric with tension and conviction, and incandescent with unity and hope.” — Booklist (starred review)

Against the backdrop of one of the most tumultuous periods in recent American history, as riots and demonstrations spread across the nation, the Tigers

Fall 2019 | 7 Congratulations also to the 2019 Ohioana Book Award Finalists! Our nominees’ books have appeared on numerous bestseller lists, and the writers have won many prestigious literary awards. All have made an impact on the literary life of Ohio, and we are proud to support their work.

FICTION Brad Felver. The Dogs of Detroit: Stories Jeffrey Ford. Ahab's Return: or, The Last Voyage Stephen Markley. Ohio: A Novel Curtis Sittenfeld. You Think It, I'll Say It: Stories Thirty Umrigar. The Secrets Between Us

NONFICTION Wil Haygood. I, Too, Sing America: The Harlem Renaissance at 100 Stephen Kuusisto. Have Dog, Will Travel Beth Macy. Dopesick Susan Orlean. The Library Book

ABOUT OHIO OR AN OHIOAN Jane Congdon. How the “Wild” Effect Turned Me into a Hiker at 69 William Hazelgrove. Wright Brothers, Wrong Story Lawrence P. Jackson. Chester B. Himes: A Biography Julia Van Haaften. Berenice Abbott: A Life in Photography

POETRY Anne Barngrover. Brazen Creature Roy Bentley. Walking with Eve in the Loved City Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Oceanic

JUVENILE LITERATURE Marcy Campbell, Illus. by Corinna Luyken. Adrian Simcox Does NOT Have a Horse Denise Fleming. This is the Nest That Robin Built Carole Miller Genshaft. Aminah's World Oge, Mora. Thank You, Omu!

MIDDLE GRADE & YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE David Arnold. The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik Sharon M. Draper. Blended Michelle Houts. Count the Wings: The Life and Art of Charley Harper Jacqueline Woodson. Harbor Me

8 | Ohioana Quarterly The Ohioana Library Association thanks the following sponsors for their generous support of the 2019 Ohioana Awards:

Award Sponsors

Event Sponsors

Event Co-Sponsors

Media Support & In-Kind Contributions

Fall 2019 | 9 Excerpt from “In the Beginning, Bada Bing” by David Grandouiller, 2019 Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant Winner

Nathan Schwartz crosses town in a 1990 Crown Vic “not a day” of his freshman year sober. Before that, every Wednesday, parks in the gravel lot on the slope he hates high school in Portage County, Ohio, where of Fountain Street. He’s already laughing. Bada’s on he moved with his parents and sisters from an Amish Fountain: Bada Bing, a local pizzeria with beer on tap. neighborhood in Nappanee, Indiana. Before that, the These nights, it’s packed with the college crowd from Amish community stops shunning his family. Before Wittenberg — Springfield, Ohio’s liberal arts university. that, Nathan and his family leave the Amish and are Witt Wednesday’s dollar pizza, dollar PBR. shunned. Before that, he gets in fistfights with other Amish boys in somebody’s barn on Sunday afternoons. Bada’s a smoking pipe: all the noise stuffed in the front. He’s the black sheep among his relatives. He’s one of a Nathan walks in to high decibels of live, raucous grunge few Amish kids attending public school. Before that, his by the bay window, an impossible sonic threshold. Boys parents teach him to question all authorities. Before that, with scaly green faces and long snouts wear salmon polo he’s conceived out of wedlock. shirts and form tight packs around a limited number of tables and yell to be heard. TVs play East-Coast hockey. And even before that, before Nathan’s less-than- Nathan takes the narrow channel out of this noise bowl, immaculate conception in his dad’s basement bedroom, past the bar, the pizza ovens, the bathrooms, out onto the where a Schwartz and a future Schwartz are being so back deck. quiet—sshh—so quiet under the collective Amish ear: before that, he’s at Bada, always there, always there. The deck is its own petri dish. Illegitimate Christian kids working loose from under the collar of a Baptist school So am I. I write about Nathan to avoid writing about mix with the metalheads in a dadrock band mix with myself. I want to say he’s overcompensating for the the chain-smoking off-duty bartenders mix with the constraints and the judgment of the narrow religious ex-Amish college student who’s got something to prove community he grew up in, but that would be foolish. It’s (that’s Nathan). more complicated than that. And “narrow” is a relative term. And he’s not the only one finding his communion Nathan tends bar, too, but when he’s not, he’s throwing at Bada on this Wednesday night. A few steps across up over the railing because he just shotgunned a beer the pressure-treated lumber there’s a deeply uncertain when his stomach was already full of various kinds of Christian kid with something to prove (that’s me). alcohol. Now he turns back to our little circle of friends, five or six people who don’t actually know him at all and insists on shotgunning another beer to make up for that one, even after we say, no, don’t worry about it, take it easy, man. It’s a matter of pride. The Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant, named for He’s a skinny guy with a pale face and wispy, blonde hair. Ohioana's second director Everyone likes him. Some people like him because he’s and established by his always laughing, some because he’s comfortable around family, is a competitive anyone. Some don’t know why they like him, but they do. prize for an Ohio writer age Somebody introduces him to me as “the coke guy,” and he thirty or younger who has laughs nervously. No no no no. I’m not the coke guy. I do a not yet published a book. lot of coke. He nods vigorously. But I’m not the coke guy. This year's recipient is is David Grandouiller. Born Nathan’s a junior at Wittenberg. Before that, he’s a in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, sophomore. Before that, he’s arrested in his hometown and raised in Jamestown, Ohio, David is a 2017 graduate on four charges, all drug related. Before that, he spends of Cedarville College. He writes essays and is currently in his third year as an M.F.A. candidate in creative writing at Ohio State University.

10 | Ohioana Quarterly A Mile-and-a-Half of Lines:

Celebrating Thurber's Art by David Weaver

As any reader of the Ohioana Quarterly must know by Working with Rosen on the exhibition is the museum's now, 2019 marks the 125th anniversary of the birth curator-at-large, Carole Genshaft, who earlier this year of humorist and cartoonist James Thurber. We have was an Ohioana Award finalist for Aminah's World, a been delighted to be an official partner in the year-long book for children about another renowned Columbus celebration, with a special section in each of this year's artist, Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson. issues devoted to Thurber's life and legacy. The exhibition at the museum opened in August and Many wonderful events have taken place, and now, will continue through March. It's expected to draw the grandest of them all, the Columbus Museum of Art thousands of visitors from Ohio and around the country. presents A Mile and a What does Rosen hope Half of Lines: The Art the visitors to the of James Thurber. It's a exhibition will learn from special exhibition of the Thurber's drawings? humorist's celebrated drawings; showcasing his “[I hope they] come work for the New Yorker, away from this exhibit his illustrations for his realizing that almost own and others’ books, singlehandedly–single- including children’s line-edly—Thurber books, and ad campaigns. shifted the possibilities of the drawn line not After a childhood only in cartooning but accident left Thurber in American art. His blind in one eye, his other pre-intentional and eye began to deteriorate spontaneous lines often as he got older. The Columbus Museum of Art Exhibition. Photo by Michael J. Rosen. preceded any idea he had exhibition includes about the subject or the examples of this later text and revealed a way work and the magnifying gadget that allowed him to of creating humor by improvising and problem-solving, continue working. Sections of the exhibition include rather than simply neatly executing a punch line. That “Signs of the Times” (prohibition, the Great Depression, accounts for the enduring nature of his work: he didn’t and the Lost Generation); “The Bestiary in Me” (the decide, conclude, or tell. He simply left us in the middle animal kingdom); and “Columbustown.” of unresolved things.”

Guest curator for the exhibition is Michael J. Rosen, who Please visit www.columbusmuseum.org for more has also written a companion book. A four-time Ohioana information about A Mile and a Half of Lines: Award-winning writer, illustrator, and editor, Rosen The Art of James Thurber. has collaborated with the Thurber Estate and written about the works of James Thurber for almost forty years. The founding literary director of Thurber House, Rosen recently started a new website, www.jamesthurber.org.

Fall 2019 | 11 Book Review hung its own exhibition of Thurber material, “Thurber’s Rosen, Michael J., with contributions from Ian Frazier, Columbus.” As Jolie Braun, curator of modern literature Seymour Chwast, Liza Donnelly, Michael Maslin, and and manuscripts at OSU’s library, states, their Thurber Rosemary Thurber. A Mile and a Half of Lines: The Art exhibition “explores his lifelong relationship with of James Thurber. Trillium/OSU Press (Columbus, OH) the city.” 2019. HC $39.96. As well, Columbus’ three main literary organizations —Thurber House, the Ohioana Library, and the Aldus Society — are celebrating Thurber in 2019. This truly is Thurber’s year in his hometown, a year-long, city- wide celebration.

In collaboration with the Columbus Museum of Art’s exhibition, the Ohio State University Press has just published a magnificent collection of Thurber’s art, which shares its title with the museum’s exhibition, A Mile and a Half of Lines: The Art of James Thurber. His writings have long been acknowledged to be among the best of American humor. There’s even a national Thurber Prize for American Humor, and now author/ illustrator Michael J. Rosen, himself a Columbus treasure, has prepared this outstanding compendium of Thurber’s witty drawings.

Rosen is the founding literary director of Thurber House and has edited six volumes of Thurber’s works, so who better to assemble this valuable volume of Thurber’s art?

The title comes from Thurber himself, who wrote, “If all the lines of what I’ve drawn were straightened out, they would reach a mile and a half. I drew just for relaxation, between writing.”

Thurber drew prolifically, and not just for the New Yorker. In this tome, we find many other comical efforts 2019 is the Year of Thurber! by Thurber, including a series of advertisements for Bug- a-Boo, an insect repellant for the Vacuum Oil Company. James Thurber, born in Columbus, Ohio, 125 years He also drew for the books of others. ago, was destined to become one of the country’s most celebrated and beloved humorists, especially, but not The production values of this oversized book are exclusively, for the New Yorker magazine. remarkable. Clearly the publisher invested a great deal of time and effort in this labor of love, which I suspect During this anniversary year, his work is being should (and will) grace many homes during this coming celebrated extensively around Columbustown. The holiday season. Unlike many coffee table books received Columbus Museum of Art has mounted an important as gifts, this hefty title will be picked up and enjoyed exhibition of Thurber’s art — “the first major exhibit of again and again, with the reader turning to someone Thurber’s art,” according to author Michael J. Rosen — in the room, or one’s dog, pointing to one of Thurber’s on loan from the Ohio State University Libraries’ Rare illustrated witticisms, saying, “Check this one out!” Books and Manuscripts Library. That library has also

12 | Ohioana Quarterly The book is grouped around his cartoons’ themes: “The Some of the other cartoons in the book are also Lost Generation,” “War and Peace,” “The Machine seeing the stain of print for the first time, drawn from Age,” “The Speakeasy and Prohibition,” “Gangsters,” that fabulous collection in OSU’s Rare Books and “Nudism,” and one of his classic categories, “Men, Manuscripts archives — a feather in both the Press’s and Women, and the Troubles Between.” Rosen’s cap.

Rosemary Thurber, the humorist’s daughter, writes Thurber himself is oft-quoted, sometimes at length, about her father’s men vs. women cartoons, “The key as he comments on his drawings, which adds much word for me in all this — for both his men and his women authenticity to the book. So we have Thurber’s own text, — is ‘baffled.’ They’re startled. They’re confused.” Rosen’s commentary, Rosemary Thurber’s thoughts, as well as a number of other noted participants in the Rosen also features the theme “The Masculine presentation of American culture who are quoted Approach,” a favorite of throughout, adding richness Thurber’s, and gives us a long to the reader’s experience. list of twenty variations on this general topic, writing, For example, Rosemary and “clearly the subject either Stephen Vincent Benét note pleased or plagued Thurber that “His style of drawing to no end.” is completely his own. An unsigned Thurber is as To know Thurber’s work at unmistakable as an all is to know that he loved unsigned kangaroo.” to draw dogs, derived from his own love of the critters. Michael Shaw, also a This focus is the subject of an cartoonist for the New entire chapter in A Mile and Yorker, was quoted by Rosen, a Half of Lines. Rosen writes, commenting on Thurber’s “Whether the ‘unregistered’ drawings in an article for the hybrid, ‘the Thurber Dog,’ or Columbus Dispatch, “As more a seal, penguin, bird, or any than a number of people have number of other real — or said, ‘It’s about the think, not in his books for children, the ink.’” imagined — creatures, each James Thurber, Barking Seal offers a soundness in an Time magazine featured unsound world.” Adam Gopnik, himself a longtime Thurber on its cover in July, 1951, and in the related New Yorker contributor, wrote of the Thurber dogs, article, T.S. Eliot’s comments illustrate why a revival of “Thurber’s theme is that a dog’s life is spent, as a man’s Thurber’s art works so well: “His writing and also his life should be, doing pointless things that have the illustrations are capable of surviving the immediate solemnity of inner purpose.” environment and time out of which they spring.”

Thurber commented on his famous dog, “Although at Algonquin Roundtable regular Dorothy Parker wrote first he was a device for balance, I gradually worked him the introduction to Thurber’s first published collection in as a sound creature in a crazy world.” of drawings, The Seal in the Bedroom and Other Predicaments (1932). That intro is reproduced here, He drew thirty-two illustrations of dogs for How to and includes a line that is appropriate to this year’s Raise a Dog in the City and Suburbs (1938) by James R. exhibitions and book: “It is none too soon that Mr. Kinney and Ann Honeycutt. Three of those rarely seen Thurber’s drawings have been assembled in one space.” illustrations are featured in the book. Yet Rosen writes that Thurber “did not aspire to be a ‘fine artist’....The art of writing, however, Thurber took

Fall 2019 | 13 very seriously.” Thurber once wrote, “I can do only one trying to refocus on your surroundings, which appear thing, even passably, and that is to make words and space nothing like the world Thurber has drawn. You’ve been between punctuation points.” Thurber-ized.

Drawing was, for Thurber, “like smoking cigarettes or The handsome, large-format book was designed by clinking ice cubes in a glass, something one did while Sara Thurber Sauers, Thurber’s granddaughter, who is waiting for or even while doing other things.” a graphic artist, having obviously inherited an artistic sensibility from her famous grandfather. This book on This collection is addictive, rather like a clump of the art of James Thurber is itself a work of art. grapes. When you open a bag of potato chips, you know that an open bag is an empty bag. But with grapes, you think you’ll eat a few as a nutritious snack, but end up George Cowmeadow Bauman loves books, traveling, and pulling all the grapes off their stems, unaware of the vintage travel books. He was the longtime co-owner of the process. Once you start looking — though Rosen’s text is Acorn Bookshop in the Grandview Heights neighborhood entertaining and educational — you get caught up in the of Columbus. drawings of what is a bound exhibition of Thurber’s art, and you’re a done dog. The evening is shot; you’ve missed All drawings by James Thurber are copyright © by the time to take your pills, call your child, and the dog has Rosemary A. Thurber. Reprinted by permission of been whining for an hour to get out and is now looking Rosemary A. Thurber and the Barbara Hogenson guilty. Your eyes rise from the pages of illustrations, Agency, Inc.

James Thurber, American Male Tied Up in Typewriter Ribbon

14 | Ohioana Quarterly Book Reviews

NONFICTION in fantasy places like Metropolis and Gotham. They all resided in New York City — real people with real Batchelor, Bob. Stan Lee: The Man Behind problems living in a real city. What seems obvious today was unheard of in the 1960s comic book world, and it Marvel. started a revolution in both publishing and American Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, MD) 2017. HC $25.95. culture that sixty years later is still going strong. With the addition of the Marvel movies based on these Stan Lee has become synonymous over the past decade characters (and often Lee’s classic storylines), one could with phrases like the King of say stronger than ever. Comic Books and King of the Nerds, but he wasn’t always Batchelor explores the ups and downs (and downs the kindly grandfather figure and downs) of Lee’s life, decade by decade, from his appearing in nearly every Marvel childhood into his nineties. In it, he draws the picture movie. Batchelor delves into the of a man determined to always keep working, driven by full life of a man who changed pop a fertile imagination and the fear of unemployment. culture forever. Like the characters he created, his is a flawed life, but a very human one nonetheless. And that drive to Beginning with his birth and create, even in his final years, is never diminished; he upbringing in New York City, we was constantly writing and creating for a multitude of see the hard scrabble days of the companies on a myriad of platforms — print, the web, Depression that would form his world view. His father’s television, movies, live appearances, YouTube, video repeated unemployment would plague his family, crush games, etc. Batchelor shows us a man who could have their home life, and in many ways haunt Stanley Lieber been crushed repeatedly throughout his life, but by (Stan Lee) for the rest of his life. A man with a seemingly sheer determination and an unflagging drive to create, unending imagination, he would write in the army, and rises again and again to the top of his field, changing at the same time write for comic books back home, and ideas and culture in the process. still be told by his commanding officer that he needed to slow down his output. Luckily, later in civilian life, he REVIEWED BY MICHAEL BRADSHAW, POET, WRITER, SUPREME COURT OF OHIO LAW LIBRARIAN, AND CHAIR OF THE OHIO would meet Jack “King” Kirby, a man who drew comics LIBRARY SUPPORT STAFF INSTITUTE at an astounding pace, perhaps the only person able to keep up with the young Stan Lee. Ewing, Tom. Bill Monroe: The Life and Over at DC Comics, individuals were creating Music of the Blue Grass Man. characters — Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster with University of Illinois Press (Champaign, IL) 2018. HC Superman, Bob Kane and Bill Finger with Batman, $34.95. and William Moulton Marston and Harry G. Peter with Wonder Woman. At Marvel Comics, Stan Lee and Bill Monroe (1911 – 1996) is a Jack Kirby created an entire universe of characters, towering figure in country music including the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Spider-Man, history. His career as a composer, Iron Man, the Hulk, and many, many more. At one point, performer, and bandleader played the count was well over 3,000 characters in all. a central role in the development of bluegrass as a distinct form Influenced by his upbringing, Lee’s creations would not of country music. Musician and be invincible men of unwavering character. Instead, writer Tom Ewing, a native of they were flawed individuals, struggling with their own Columbus, Ohio, has written personal problems and misgivings. They also didn’t live

Fall 2019 | 15 BOOK REVIEWS | NONFICTION

an important book about him, Bill Monroe: The Life Another early influence on Monroe’s music came and Music of the Blue Grass Man. In it, Ewing traces from Arnold Shultz, an African American fiddler and Monroe’s family history and then writes with authority guitarist from Ohio County, Kentucky. Shultz also about the Blue Grass Man’s early musical development played fiddle for area barn dances, and his guitar style in his hometown of Rosine, Kentucky, as well as his later influenced other Kentucky musicians, including lifelong career in music. Merle Travis, who was celebrated for his fingerpicking guitar style, featuring the thumb picking a distinctive Bluegrass is played by small combos that typically rhythm on the bass strings. Years later, Monroe feature acoustic instruments, including the guitar, remembered that as a thirteen-year-old he played guitar banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and stand-up bass. Singing is to accompany Shultz’s fiddling at a dance. also distinctive in bluegrass songs, with a lead singer who at times is backed by two or three harmony singers, Each of these musicians — his mother, his Uncle Pen, including a high tenor. Because of the fast tempo of and Arnold Shultz, influenced Bill’s approach to singing the music, Alan Lomax, a traditional music scholar and mandolin playing. As for his playing the mandolin, and record producer, wrote in a famous 1960 article Bill took up the instrument at the behest of his brothers, for Esquire magazine that bluegrass “is folk music in who were already playing the fiddle or guitar. Ewing overdrive, with a silvery, rippling, pinging sound.” quotes folklorist Ralph Rinzler, who knew Monroe and helped him get bookings at folk festivals in the 1960s. Bluegrass has historical roots in Appalachian areas of Rinzler wrote that Bill was given his first mandolin by Southern states, including Kentucky, West Virginia, his mother: “[He then] resolved at the age of thirteen, Virginia, and North Carolina. Appalachia has many to play the mandolin in a way that nobody else had ever people of Scots-Irish descent; their ancestors began played it and to play his music cleaner and better than moving into these mountainous areas in the early 1700s, anyone” (p. 31). bringing with them traditional ballads and dance tunes that are the precursors of bluegrass. Indeed, some Monroe’s mandolin style attracted widespread bluegrass songs are versions of the older ballads, such as public attention in the mid-1930s, when he played “Bury Me Beneath the Weeping Willow” and “The Girl and recorded with his brother Charlie. Billed as with the Blue Velvet Band,” which can be traced back to the Monroe Brothers, the songs featured their duet the British Isles. Both songs were recorded by Monroe. singing, with Charlie often taking the lead and Bill singing a harmony tenor above his brother’s vocal. The Monroe came from a musical family. From an early age, instrumentation featured Charlie on acoustic guitar Bill remembered his mother combining music-making and Bill on mandolin. Notably, Bill’s mandolin style was with her housework. She sometimes paused from her based on lively fiddle tunes with rapid notes played at chores and as Bill remembered: “She would go by the a remarkably fast tempo. Bill Monroe was the original bed where she left her fiddle and pick it up and play a master of bluegrass mandolin and his reputation as a number, you know, an old-time fiddle number, and it virtuoso began with Charlie during their three years was just wonderful” (p .9). Another major influence for together as the Monroe Brothers. Bill was his Uncle Pendleton Vandiver, an accomplished fiddler who played for barn dances in and around Even more central to the emergence of bluegrass Rosine. Bill and his older brothers, Harry, Speed, John, music was Bill’s band, the Blue Grass Boys, which he Birch, and Charlie, all learned to play the fiddle or the began in the spring of 1939 at the age of twenty-seven. guitar from their Uncle Pen, as he was known. Later in Ewing notes in his book that Monroe began to sing his life, Monroe immortalized Pendleton Vandiver in lead on some songs, such as “Footprints in the Snow” one of his best-known and loved songs, “Uncle Pen,” and Jimmie Rodgers’ “Mule Skinner Blues,” which his which includes the chorus: band eventually recorded and continued to perform for many years. In October of that year, the Blue Grass Late in the evening about sundown Boys appeared for the first time on the Grand Ole Opry High on the hill above the town in Nashville. Monroe sang and played “Mule Skinner Uncle Pen played the fiddle, Lordy how it would ring Blues” with an aplomb that featured a falsetto yodel. At You could hear it talk, you could hear it sing. the end of the number he received a standing ovation

16 | Ohioana Quarterly BOOK REVIEWS | NONFICTION

from the audience and a permanent place thereafter as managed to get the Wright Flyer an Opry performer. airborne for all of sixty feet, a partial success, as he wrote to Monroe changed the lineup of the Blue Grass Boys his father, Bishop Wright, that often, partly in his search for side musicians who could evening. The plane was damaged recreate the arrangements he heard in his head. In and would require some repairs. 1946, he formed the band that is often referred to as the Although technically Wilbur classic bluegrass group, with Lester Flatt singing lead had flown first, there was no and playing guitar, Monroe on mandolin, Chubby Wise photographic record of his having on fiddle, Howard Watts on bass, and the twenty-one- done so. year-old Earl Scruggs on banjo. Scruggs in particular caused an immediate sensation with audiences because Three days later, it was Orville’s of his dramatic three-string picking style and intricate turn. Wilbur placed a camera close by and instructed improvisation that complemented Monroe’s mandolin an associate to snap a picture as the machine rose off perfectly. Flatt and Scruggs went on to form their own its track. That picture created the illusion that Orville band in 1948 as the Foggy Mountain Boys, and they was first and helped to perpetuate the myth that he and gained popularity that rivaled that of Monroe’s band. Wilbur were equally responsible for their creation. Indeed, Flatt and Scruggs became even more widely known than their mentor when, in the early 1960s, According to Hazelgrove, nothing could be further from they recorded “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” which was the truth. Wilbur was seventeen and an exceptional used as the theme song for the hit television series, The student possibly headed to Yale, when a jealous Beverly Hillbillies. neighbor named Oliver Haugh, later electrocuted for murder, attacked Wilbur during an ice hockey match. Ewing has meticulously researched Bill Monroe and He broke Wilbur’s jaw and shattered some of his teeth. brings an informed perspective to his subject, since he During his convalescence, Wilbur tended to his dying played in Monroe’s bluegrass band for ten years (1986- mother and fell into a deep depression that lasted three 1996) and appeared on Monroe’s last three albums years. That was when he began grappling with the as a guitarist and lead singer. Ewing’s reminiscence complexities of human flight. of visiting Monroe during his last illness is a telling story of his respect and reverence for the Father of Wilbur was the first to understand that pitch, roll, and Bluegrass. Today, the music Monroe developed with his yaw were essential to getting a plane in the air. Samuel P. musicians is more popular than it has ever been, with Langley, the director of the Smithsonian, spent $50,000 large summer festivals and fans and bluegrass bands of the government’s money on an aerodrome that failed throughout the United States and in many foreign repeatedly, landing in the Potomac River like a brick. countries. Rosine has become a Mecca for bluegrass In contrast, Wilbur realized that control, rather than acolytes from around the globe to visit: the town now power, was what would lift his machine into the sky. has a Bill Monroe Museum and a street named for Many years later, after Wilbur was long dead, Orville Uncle Pen. engaged in a protracted legal and propaganda war with REVIEWED BY JACK SHORTLIDGE, WRITER AND RETIRED PUB- Langley and his supporters that stalled the American LIC FOLKLORIST, COLUMBUS, OHIO aviation industry for many years to come. These struggles over who owned which patents and where the Hazelgrove, William. Wright Brothers, original Wright Flyer ought to be housed have been well Wrong Story: How Wilbur Wright Solved documented elsewhere. the Problem of Manned Flight. This book, however, finally gives Wilbur the credit he Prometheus Books (Amherst, NY) 2018. HC $24.00. deserves. Hazelgrove has combed the correspondence between the brothers and their family and between On December 14, 1903, Wilbur Wright flipped a coin in Wilbur and other leading engineers and aviation the air to see whether he or his brother Orville would specialists of the time to provide a birds-eye view of fly in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Wilbur won and

Fall 2019 | 17 BOOK REVIEWS | NONFICTION

what it felt like to be at the center of this epoch- on the rise to homes on what used to be the outer edges defining maelstrom. of the city, surrounded by trees and farmland. The buildings, streets, and former farms of the city are as That Orville, an astute businessman, remained on an important as the people. equal footing with his older brother is due to several factors: he lived thirty-six years longer than Wilbur; In fact, Hunter has brought every possible Thurber the Wrights were a neurotically close-knit family character back to life for us in this detailed book. Not who tended to see outsiders as enemies and to think content with the known highlights, the author has dug of themselves as “we,” not “I”; and Orville curated into the old stories and walked the old sidewalks to every aspect of Fred Kelly’s authorized biography that tell us exactly everything that can be known about the asserted the two brothers were full collaborators. The Fishers (Thurber’s mother’s family) and the far-flung book was considered the last word on the Wrights relatives in Sugar Grove in the Hocking Hills. The for decades after its publication. Wright Brothers, most poignant and moving tributes in this book are the Wrong Story does an excellent job of correcting the detailed descriptions of Thurber’s parents, Charles inaccuracies of Kelly’s biography and individualizing and Mary Agnes, known as “Mame.” Hunter shines in the brothers, who have been interchangeable in the unearthing the neglected origin stories. popular imagination for too long. “Charles L. Thurber lives on today mostly as the straight REVIEWED BY TERRI PAUL, COLUMBUS WRITER AND PAST man/dupe of his son’s humorous short stories,” writers WINNER OF THE OHIOANA BOOK AWARD IN FICTION Hunter. “James repeatedly casts his father as a poor sap who is flummoxed by man and machine, a kind-hearted Hunter, Bob, with a preface by Joe soul who is unwittingly victimized by the people, Blundo. Thurberville. objects, and events surrounding him.” Trillium/OSU Press (Columbus, OH) 2017. HC $29.95. But Bob Hunter’s dedicated research and writing shows Everyone knows James Thurber’s a man of idealism who was committed to public service. Columbus. Joe Blundo, in the Never financially successful but always able to support introduction to Thurberville, his family, Charles supported two Ohio governors as quotes Columbus native and a staff aid, clerked for politicians, was secretary to the playwright Donald Ogden Stewart mayor of Columbus, and even ran for office himself. He from the 1950s: “When I first came was not a failure. In fact, conjectures Hunter, “the world to live in London, I was amazed at might even see him as a stunning success.” the number of Englishmen who Mame, Thurber’s mother, was born into a more said, ‘Oh, yes, Columbus, of course, prosperous family than her husband, and her father I know it very well, from Thurber’s never took to Charles. “Mame” Fisher Thurber was the books, you know.’” funny one, the one who never let a little modesty get in And if you live in Columbus or have only visited or never the way of a good prank. Had her circumstances been visited and read some the celebrated stories, then you different (or her parents less watchful), she might have are just like those Englishmen in the 1950s who “know made a career as a comedienne on the vaudeville stage, it very well.” And you’re going to get to know it better soaking up applause with guffaw-inducing pratfalls. with Bob Hunter’s generous and detailed book. “Mame’s embellishment of stores became familiar to all who knew her, so much that no one really knew how The first thing you need to do is get a map so that you much of what she said was true.” Like mother, like son … can keep track — as much as anyone can — of the many REVIEWED BY LESLIE SHORTLIDGE, COLUMBUS RESIDENT AND places that the young Jamie Thurber and his family EDITOR OF THE OHIOANA QUARTERLY lived. There were a lot. The current Thurber House at 77 Jefferson is address among several, most the them long gone. With Hunter as your guide, you can follow one trail through the history of Columbus, from old neighborhoods that went on the decline and are now

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Johnston, Christopher. Shattering As a result, “[h]er rape kit sat gathering dust and time… Silences: Strategies to Prevent Sexual and the police and the prosecutor’s office let the case die [f]or twenty years.” Fortunately, for Shondreka Lloyd, Assault, Heal Survivors, and Bring she managed to go on with her life, in spite of the almost Assailants to Justice. constant memory of her rapist. In the interim a lot Skyhorse Publishing (New York: NY) 2018. HC $24.95. changed for the better.

Rape is forever. As a survivor, Space will not permit a more thorough overview of I read Christopher Johnston’s Shattering Silences, but the next sixteen chapters seminal work through both the carefully chronicle the progress, challenges, and lens of victim and socio-cultural breakthroughs in sexual assault rape kit collection, critic. Typically, I’m a fan of health care and law enforcement education and short titles, but with the lack of attitudes, thanks in large part to people on the front solution-based information about lines, beginning with Kristi Mouncey and the Cleveland the issue of sexual assault — in Rape Crisis Center. spite of its long term, devastating impact on hundreds of thousands In a chapter filled with important acronyms like VOCA of women — this is the perfect (Victims of Crime) and State Victim Assistance Act title for his book. In it, Johnston (SVAA), which provided Mouncey and the CRCC with carefully takes the reader through the history of dealing major grants resulting in the opening of a second and with sexual assault in Cleveland, Ohio, and nationally, much needed CRCC office in Westlake, Mouncey noted, including evidence collection, survivor experiences, law “We…answer[ed] a number of phone calls that [went] enforcement response, and most importantly, the key something like this ‘I need help. Our office is downtown’. people behind the scenes in Cleveland and throughout And then we hear ‘click.’” Thanks to Mouncey, her staff, the country, making a marked difference for the better and countless numbers of volunteers, the CRCC is “one in the way women survivors are treated. of the five cornerstone rape crisis centers in the country, along with Boston, Washington, Pittsburgh, Following Johnston’s introduction, the book begins and San Francisco.” with the story of Shondreka Lloyd, who was drugged and raped at a friend’s house in Cleveland at fourteen Working tirelessly for rape victims, Mouncey led the when she was still a virgin. Johnston’s description of the first new training workshops for the Cuyahoga County assault, based upon his interview with the survivor, is Sexual Assault Kit Task Force in 2017 as part of an vivid and chilling, ongoing commitment to teaching all parties involved the principles of “patient centered” trauma-informed including what the rapist said when she tried to scream care. Such principles included an overview of the for help, “If you holler out that window, I’m gonna kill latest research on how best to treat survivors of sexual you,” before punching the young girl in the face, his assault beginning with automatically believing the rape after-the-assault apology reminding me of what was victim, training of Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners said to me decades ago. (SANE) compassionate collection and protection of the evidence, and pursuing prosecution whenever possible. Unfortunately, when an ambulance took Shondreka to the hospital, no one believed her, not even her own There are too many heroes and sheroes featured in this mother. Like too many survivors in, according to comprehensive look at all aspects of sexual assault to Johnston, “the bad old days” before a concerted effort to name here, but Cleveland Police Commander James develop and implement a plan for change, Shondreka’s McPike stands out because of his commitment to experience of being blamed and shamed as the victim, making a difference when he became sergeant in charge of suffering the invasive, insensitive administering of of the Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Unit of the Cleveland a rape kit, punctuated by a mother who subsequently Police Department in 2011. His first move was to change refused to let her participate in the case, was the the language used to describe a sexual assault survivor common way of handling sexual assault cases. and her or his description of what happened.

Fall 2019 | 19 BOOK REVIEWS | NONFICTION & FICTION

Two other individuals are also notable for their efforts: discontent. You’ll keep reaching for sugary foods and Elizabeth Booth an R.N., for her tireless efforts to train candies as you delve into Lethal Licorice. Beware the empathetic sexual assault nurse examiners (SANE), sugar high! and Mike Pistorino, consultant and child rape survivor, who travels the country telling his story in the hopes of Amanda Flower, as always, writes an exciting cozy putting all people who rape “little kids” behind bars. mystery, full of Amish culture, small town Ohio, and a variety of interesting characters. I'd say charming Shattering Silences is a must read for anyone interested characters, but some are downright nasty. in understanding all key aspects of sexual assault. REVIEWED BY MIRIAM KAHN, LIBRARIAN, COLUMBUS, OHIO Like all good books, it ends with hope in an Epilogue that details the paradigm shift in sexual assault that occurred in 2017, as well as the fact that more work is Kachuba, John B. Dark Entry. needed. As Commander McPike shares, “Everything Hellbender Books (Mechanicsburg, PA) 2018. PB $14.95. complicates the investigation…. We want the absolute truth. The reality is our criminal justice system, I don’t With Dark Entry, Ohioan John think, is very kind to victims at all.” Kachuba, best known for his nonfiction paranormal books Thanks to Mouncey, McPike, Booth, Pistorino, and and his speaking engagements at countless others, patient-centered sexual assault numerous universities, libraries, support is changing the system, one survivor at a time. and conferences, makes his debut in the fiction world of supernatural REVIEWED BY MARY E. WEEMS, PH.D., WRITER, POET, AND CLEVELAND RESIDENT horror. Set in northwestern Connecticut, the tale opens in 1868 in Dudleytown, where the charcoal FICTION burners who work in the forest become victims of an ancient curse. A century later, the place is a ghost town. Only Flower, Amanda. Lethal Licorice: An one family still maintains a residence in the old forest, Amish Candy Shop Mystery #2. and it is to that house that Sandy Lawrence comes to Kensington Books (New York, NY) 2018. PB $7.99. escape domestic abuse at the hands of her boyfriend.

What do murder, candy, and a The novel is peopled with numerous characters, each missing polka-dot pig have to do with a distinctive voice and story to tell. Each chapter with one another? That's what of the novel introduces us to these voices: Sandy; Leslie, Lethal Licorice is all about. Bailey Sandy’s friend and owner of the house in the woods; King, chocolatier and confectioner, the ghostly “presence” in the forest; Kevin, the abusive takes her grandfather's place in the boyfriend; Nathan, a handyman of sorts who becomes a Amish Confectionery Competition romantic interest; and the lights that coalesce into the in Harvest (in the heart of Ohio's sachem of the original curse. These shifting points of Holmes County Amish country). view add to the eerie quality of the tale itself. Readers It's stiff competition as Bailey is must pay attention to these shifts as the plot unfolds. the only non-Amish person making Kachuba is adept at blending his nonfiction skills with candy using Amish methods only. the fictional narrative, infusing the story with historical She's up for the test. When Josephine Weaver is found tidbits regarding the setting, the 1868 inhabitants, and dead inside the church's organ, there's foul play afoot. the local legends surrounding the strange series of To top it off, her friend Janet Brody's pet pig is missing. deaths over the years. This background prepares for As Bailey and Deputy Sheriff Aiden Brody search the introduction of journal entries from Leslie’s father, for the killer and the pig, they learn more than they who conducted research on the mysterious curse before ever expected to about Amish culture, strictures, and ending his own life with a shotgun. The discovery of the

20 | Ohioana Quarterly BOOK REVIEWS | FICTION

written accounts forces Sandy to consider the possibility Cabin Resorts, is murdered, Sister that the ghostly presence she senses in the woods Louise (Lou) LaSalle is certain actually exists: that 1) the Advent retreat for the Congregation of St. Hermione of “There she was, alone in the woods, reading a journal Ephesus will fall apart, and 2) she about spooky happenings in Dudleytown after must solve the mystery of Autumn’s hearing a ghost story from Nathan. Is it any wonder death and restore the reputation of she would jump at the slightest sound….Or that she her congregation. She’s certain her would feel cold in a house on a mountain shaded fellow nun, Sister Marianna, didn’t by trees, or that shadow and light could surprise kill Autumn, but then which of the her with optical tricks? Ghosts? That explanation numerous suspects did? Was it her seemed unlikely, far-fetched. Maybe…” (p. 67). business partner Rita, her sister As the tension mounts, Sandy receives an unexpected January, her accountant Gary, or the businessman/ visitor. Kevin has tracked her down and threatens investor Montgomery Crane? Perhaps it was Sister her, then disappears into the night. When his body is Marianne, the least likely suspect. discovered deep among the trees, Sandy and her friend With the help of her nephew, Chris LaSalle, and intrepid are forced to admit the existence of paranormal forces. newspaper reporter, Shari Henson, the trio follows the “Maybe somewhere along the line, somewhere clues. And there are lots of clues. Of course, they bump between here and there — wherever there is — some heads with the local sheriff’s deputies Fran Cole and Ted of us get lost, get off the bus one stop short of our Tate, causing lots of ruffled feathers and a lot of tension. destination. Maybe that’s what a ghost is…” (p. 131). This cozy is lots of fun. There are a good number of false Kachuba mines this theme of the afterlife as well as leads, a lot of suspects, and a few subplots. You'll enjoy the topic of domestic abuse. In a number of scenes, he Peril and Prayer and yearn for more. Good thing number examines the reasons why a person might not report three in the series is already in the works. such abuse. As the story behind the abuse emerges, the REVIEWED BY MIRIAM KAHN, LIBRARIAN, COLUMBUS, OHIO reader is presented with a thoughtful exploration of Sandy’s circumstances, as well as psychological insight Ramspeck, Doug. The Owl That Carries into the experience. Us Away. The placement of the story in the forests of Connecticut BkMk Press/University of Missouri-Kansas City (Kansas City, sounds a distinct echo of Nathaniel Hawthorne and MO) 2018. PB $15.95. Stephen King in the narrative. The spooky old trees, the unexpected outcroppings of rock, hidden pits, Winner of the G. S. Chandra Prize and dilapidated cabins… oh, my! Readers who enjoy for Short Fiction, The Owl That suspenseful tales that deal with the supernatural will Carries Us Away is a collection enjoy Dark Entry’s tension-filled atmosphere and plot. of twenty-nine short stories that introduce us to characters REVIEWED BY JANET E. IRVIN, AUTHOR OF THE DARK END OF THE RAINBOW, THE RULES OF THE GAME, AND THE STRANGE and images at once familiar and DISAPPEARANCE OF ROSE STONE frightening. From the title story where a boy treasures a possum skull only to have it destroyed by a Matthews, Olivia. Peril & Prayer: A Sister bully to the final episode where a boy kills a crow and then attempts Lou Mystery. to revive it, the reader enters a Kensington Books (New York, NY) 2018. PB $7.99. world where the death of a parent or the abandonment of a lover unleashes unexpected emotion, intense inner When Autumn Tassler, the owner of the Briar Coast reflection, and yet arrested reactions. Reviewer Michael

Fall 2019 | 21 BOOK REVIEWS | FICTION, MIDDLE GRADE & CHILDREN’S

Griffith called Doug Ramspeck’s collection “a sad, dark, what is coming in his future, except for the days ahead, terrific book.” I agree with his assessment, except I find it their geography. He will be as old someday as the boy sad, dark, and terrifying. and girl, will know whatever mysteries they know, will understand or not understand” (p. 49). Frequently, Ramspeck’s emotionally challenged protagonists are unnamed, or referred to as Father, Imbued with poetry, hemmed in by the mysterious, Mother, the boy, she. They drift through their lives like these stories lie uneasy in our minds, their sad, lonely, ghosts, forced against their will to face head on the forgotten men and women carrying on as best they can calamities that visit them. Wary and uneasy, they skirt in a world at once familiar yet unknowable. Ramspeck, the blood in the snow, the clothes in the closet, searching the author of six books of poetry, debuts his fiction with for answers that may never come. In “Old Man,” an these enigmatic stories of loss, strife, and perseverance. unnamed widower spends his mornings reading the REVIEWED BY JANET E. IRVIN, AUTHOR OF THE DARK END OF newspaper and his evenings drinking on a bench in the THE RAINBOW, THE RULES OF THE GAME, AND THE STRANGE backyard. Ramspeck writes, “He thought of this stage DISAPPEARANCE OF ROSE STONE of life as like living all alone on a great hill overlooking a bustling village” (p. 113). Removed from the action, the old man can do nothing but observe until loud music MIDDLE GRADE & CHILDREN’S from the neighbors’ forces him to take action. Even as he contemplates the intrusion of the group next door, he feels separate and alone: “Growing old meant the sun Klages, Ellen. Out of Left Field. receded farther away into the sky” (p. 114). Viking Books for Young Readers (New York, NY) 2018. HC $16.99. If one is familiar with Ramspeck’s poetry, it is easy to recognize his poems’ recurring images in these stories: At the age of nine, Katy Gordon is crows, snow, abusive fathers, distant mothers, boys already on her way to becoming a who spend long stretches of the day exploring the fields pro baseball player. She’s the best and rivers, unexpected passages into the bizarre. In pitcher in her neighborhood and is “Messenger,” the boys who figure in the story are not happy to spend summers playing named initially. The tale begins outdoors. ball with the boys who live on her street. When Katy is scouted to join “Here is the place, as quiet as a whisper. It is old here Little League, she is over the moon at the far edge — until she discovers that girls are of the woods where the fence lies down. It has fallen not eligible to join the team. From mostly in one spot, there, Katy sets out on a mission to where the brothers cross on their way into the open prove that girls deserve the same field and school” (p. 39). opportunities to play as boys and discovers that women This is a world that “keeps its own counsel.” One day have a rich but overlooked history in the sport. as the boys walk to school, they observe a neighbor girl Katy’s story takes place in San Francisco during the having sex. Despite the rigid structure of their lives — school year of 1957-1958, a tumultuous period of “The boys exist in the seam of the world, in the narrow scientific and social change in the United States. The slip where there has to be silence, where nothing else novel explores gender equality in sports, while also is possible.” (p. 42) — they sneak out to find her house focusing on prevalent topics of the time such as racism, and continue their clandestine peeping. Now, they are Japanese internment, and the launch of the first Russian named, acquiring substance and drawing us closer to and American satellites. These issues and ideas are their fascination with the girl and her partner. When the weaved thoughtfully into the narrative, presented boyfriend catches Seth and Jay watching, he pursues as a part of Katy’s everyday life rather than a history the boys until they elude him. Now, excluded from lesson for the reader. Katy herself is an intelligent and more sightings and bitter at the loss, Jay “…cannot see positive heroine, willing to stand up against authority for

22 | Ohioana Quarterly BOOK REVIEWS | MIDDLE GRADE & CHILDREN’S

what she knows is right by using her research skills to bound for Cowan, as the son, Bramwell, can look forward construct a convincing argument for her point. She also to his father’s undivided attention and being schooled uses the help of supportive librarians, teachers, and her at home. But prospects change at the railroad station — delightfully independent mother and sisters. Pioneering where so many good things can begin for stories based in female baseball players from the early 1900s appear, England that involve motherless children. acting as Katy’s guides and role models, reminding her that her passion and efforts cannot be erased. From the moment the train arrives, it is obvious that things are not even close to normal: a strange man made Though Katy’s story takes place in the 1950s, the of magazines is causing chaos on the platform, and the subjects that Out of Left Field covers are still relevant train’s engine is made of wicker. And the ticket takers today. The history presented in the story is accessible are two of their own wooden soldiers, Crashy and Bravey. and fascinating — especially the true stories of female These worthies, by the way, are based on the actual athletes and their often-unfair treatment. Readers at a wooden soldiers of the Brontë children. With buttons as middle grade level and above will enjoy following Katy cash paying for bright lemons as tickets, all four siblings and her friends in their efforts to make the world better. are on their way into the heart of the Napoleonic Wars as it rages in the imaginary land of Glass Town. REVIEWED BY MORGAN PETERS, PROGRAM COORDINATOR, OHIOANA LIBRARY The dialogue is witty and inventive. The Wonderland- esque creatures of Glass Town challenge the Brontës Valente, Catherynne M. The Glass at every turn, which forces the children to be adept and Town Game. nimble and to choose sides in the war over grog, the life- Margaret K, McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schus- giving elixir that could bring back their mother and older ter Children’s Publishing Division (New York, NY ) 2017. sisters if they can just smuggle it back into England. HC $17.99. Valente’s experience in the horror and fantasy genres In the pages of her delightful and energetic middle-grade comes to the fore with a skeletal Bonaparte (not called reader, The Glass Town Game, author Catherynne M. “Boney” for nothing) and death on the battlefield as well Valente brings the astonishing Brontë siblings to life for as the Vivisectionist’s Garden on the grounds of a posh the kind of adventure they deserve. For just this once, country home. A suitcase dubbed Bestminster has both the miseries of poverty, ill health, and a constrained life sentience and a marvelous ability to become a hot air have no victory over this fiercely balloon or a grand house. The author’s deft and beguiling talented family. imagination spins out endless scenes of conflict and delirium as the children enter the fray. There are Charlotte, Emily, and Anne were of promises and betrayals, fantastical balls, Lord Byron course the famous Brontë sisters (sort of), a young Queen Victoria (again, sort of), and who wrote, respectively, Jane Eyre, danger. And, alas, Bramwell is not entirely to be trusted. Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. As children, they Fans of C. S. Lewis’s Narnia will see echoes of the joined with their brother Bramwell weaselly Eustace from Voyage of the Dawn Treader to create elaborate worlds of and Digory’s choice in The Magician’s Nephew. fantasy that featured their twelve Valente makes these tropes entirely her own. Highly wooden soldiers. recommended for children who love wild and imaginative fantasy.

The Brontës in this book share that same love of fantasy REVIEWED BY LESLIE BIRDWELL SHORTLIDGE, COLUMBUS — but they are facing the beginning of the new school RESIDENT AND EDITOR OF THE OHIOANA QUARTERLY year, a more dismal prospect than the modern reader might understand: two older Brontë sisters are already dead as the book begins, having died after enduring the unhealthy living conditions of the grim Cowan Bridge Boarding School. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne are all

Fall 2019 | 23 Book List

The following books were added to Brown, Sherrod. Desk 88: Eight teach English in South Korea. The Ohioana’s collection between June Progressive Senators Who Waygook Book follows Matthew as and August, 2019. Look for them at Changed America. Farrar, Straus, he navigates living, working, and your local library or bookstore! and Giroux (New York, NY) 2019. traveling in the Land of the ARC $28.00. Morning Calm. Since his election to the U.S. NONFICTION Senate in 2006, Ohio’s Sherrod Farrell, Shawn Patrick. Heart and Brown has sat on the Senate floor Darkness: Scary Adventures and at a mahogany desk with a proud Abdurraqib, Hanif. Go Ahead in the Evolution of Disney’s Dark history. In Desk 88, he tells the . Theme Park Press (New York, the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Rides story of eight of the Senators who NY) 2017. PB $17.95. Quest. University of Texas Press (Austin, TX) 2019. PB $16.95. were there before him. Despite The dark rides in Disney theme The first chronicle of A Tribe their flaws and frequent setbacks, parks have delighted — and Called Quest — the visionary, each made a decisive contribution sometimes terrified — millions award-winning group whose to the creation of a more just of people. The history of these jazz-influenced records and socially- America. They range from Hugo attractions is a fascinating story conscious lyrics revolutionized rap Black, who helped to lift millions of of creativity, engineering, and pop in the early 1990s, and again after American workers out of poverty, culture, and it's told here for the the 2016 election, when We Got It to Robert F. Kennedy, whose eyes first time. From their primitive from Here…Thank You 4 Your Service were opened by an undernourished beginnings in the 1800s, to their arrived when fans needed it most. Mississippi child and who then perfection by the Disney Imagineers, spent the rest of his life afflicting dark rides are an ingenious way to the comfortable. Brown revives tell a visually exciting story to guests Axelrod, David. The Eclipse I Call forgotten figures such as Idaho’s who “travel” through the action, Father: Essays on Absence. Oregon State University Press (Corvallis, Glen Taylor, a singing cowboy who scene by scene, aboard vehicles OR) 2019. PB $21.95. taught himself economics and stood ranging from boats to (Doom) In The Eclipse I Call Father: Essays up to segregationists, and offers new buggies. Farrell also explores notable on Absence, David Axelrod recalls a insights into George McGovern, dark rides not in a Disney park, the balmy night in May 1970 when he who fought to feed the poor around many that have gone into the gloom, vowed to allow no one and nothing the world even amid personal and and some hints of what's to come. he loves to pass from this life without political calamities. He also writes praise, even if it meant praising the about Herbert Lehman of New York, Kaufman, Kenn. A Season on the most bewildering losses. In each Al Gore Sr. of Tennessee, Theodore Wind: Inside the World of Spring of these fourteen essays Axelrod Francis Green of Rhode Island, and Migration. Houghton Mifflin delivers on that vow as he ranges William Proxmire of Wisconsin. Harcourt (New York, NY) 2019. across topics as diverse as marriage, HC $26.00. Japanese poetry, Craftsman design, Caracciolo, Matthew. The Waygook Every spring, billions of birds old English riddles, trains, the Book: A Foreigner’s Guide to South sweep north, driven by ancient Great Depression, and the effects Korea. Monday Creek Publishing instincts to return to their breeding of climate change — accretions of (Buchtel, OH) 2018. PB $14.99. grounds. This vast parade often absence that haunt the writer and It’s Chicago in 2012, and Matthew goes unnoticed, except in a few will likewise haunt readers. has three jobs, two degrees, and places where these small travelers one relentless itch to return home concentrate in large numbers. to Ohio. Rather than drive 317 One such place is along Lake Erie miles east to Columbus, he and in northwestern Ohio. Now climate his wife travel 6600 miles west to change threatens to disrupt patterns

24 | Ohioana Quarterly BOOK LIST | NONFICTION & ABOUT OHIO/OHIOAN

of migration and the delicate Burgoyne, a British army officer, Madagascar through India and balance between birds, seasons, dramatist, and politician who sat Bangladesh to Indonesia. It’s an and habitats. But wind farms in the House of Commons from unpredictable journey on battered — popular as green energy sources — 1761 to 1792. He first saw action buses, bush taxis, auto-rickshaws, can be disastrous for birds if built in during the Seven Years' War when and crowded ferries. Much like its the wrong places. This is an urgent he participated in several battles, predecessor, Mould’s Postcards study of the complex issues that most notably during the Portugal from Stanland, Monsoon Postcards affect bird migration. Campaign of 1762. offers witty and insightful glimpses into countries linked by history, Latimer, Sandi. The Bills Keep McCoy, David B. A Short History of trade, migration, religion, and a Coming, the Grass Keeps Growing: Hilton Head Island, 3rd Edition. colonial legacy. It explores how they Survivor of a Suicide Gets on with Spare Change Press (Massillon, OH) confront the challenges of climate Life. iUniverse (Bloomington, IN) 2018. PB $9.99. change, urban growth, economic 2017. PB $10.99. The third edition of McCoy’s concise development, land, water and Sandi Latimer’s life changed forever history of Hilton Head Island. natural resources, and national and the day she returned home after her ethnic identity. volunteer work to find her husband McCrary, Micah. Island in the dead of a self-inflicted gunshot City. University of Nebraska Press Vanasco, Jeannie. Things We Didn’t wound. In this book she shares her (Lincoln, NE) 2018. PB $17.95. Talk About When I Was a Girl. Tin story. Having no immediate family What forges the unique human House Books (Portland, OR) 2019. to rely on, she had to learn to cope personality? Micah McCrary, ARC $24.95. by herself. taking his genetic inheritance Jeannie Vanasco has had the same as immutable, considers the role nightmare since she was a teenager. McCoy, David B. An American’s geography has played in shaping She startles awake, saying his name. Guide to Understanding the who he is. It is always about him: one of her Troubles of Northern Ireland. closest high school friends, a boy Spare Change Press (Massillon, OH) McGregor, Tanny. Ink & Ideas: named Mark. A boy who raped 2013. PB $8.99. Sketchnotes for Engagement, her. When her nightmares worsen, Historian David McCoy’s short Comprehension, and Thinking. Jeannie decides — after fourteen guide to the late twentieth-century Heinemann (Portsmouth, NH) 2019. years of silence — to reach out to conflict in Northern Ireland. PB $28.75. Mark. He agrees to talk on the record A different kind of thinking and meet in person. “It’s the least McCoy, David B. The Average happens with pen in hand. With I can do,” he says. Exacting and Family’s Multi-Disaster sketchnoting, the one who holds courageous, Things We Didn’t Talk Preparedness Manual. Spare the pen holds the power. Only the About When I Was a Girl is part Change Press (Massillon, OH) 2017. thinker decides what appears on the memoir, part true crime record, and PB $9.99. page, and how. Open up a window part testament to the strength of McCoy, who holds certificates from into your students’ brilliant minds female friendships — a recounting FEMA and the Columbia Regional and watch their thinking become and reckoning that will inspire us to Learning Center for personal visible as they sketchnote their ask harder questions and interrogate emergency preparedness, presents way to deeper understanding and our biases. a short guide on a variety of disaster new ideas. scenarios and what to do when they strike. Mould, David H. Monsoon Postcards: Indian Ocean Journeys. McCoy, David B. General John Ohio University Press (Athens, OH) Burgoyne: Soldier, Statesman, 2019. HC $27.95. Playwright. Spare Change Press In Monsoon Postcards, journalist (Massillon, OH) 2017. PB $8.99. David H. Mould, notebook in hand, Biography of General John traverses the Indian Ocean — from

Fall 2019 | 25 BOOK LIST | ABOUT OHIO/OHIOAN

ABOUT OHIO/OHIOAN Their bold experiment thrived called it “one of the biggest of all and continued through three football upsets.” generations; the Zoar Separatists Crowl, Thomas. Opdycke’s Tigers are considered one of the longest- Herbert, Jeffrey G. Index of in the Civil War: A History of the lasting communal groups in U.S. Hamilton County, Ohio, Reported 125th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. history. Though the society dissolved Court Records 1880-1884. McFarland & Company (Jefferson, in 1898, today its site is a significant Hamilton County Genealogical NC) 2019. PB $45. historical attraction. Society (Cincinnati, OH) 2019. Organized in the fall of 1862, the PB $26.00. 125th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Grunenwald, Jill. Reading Behind This index contains the names was commanded by the aggressive Bars: A True Story of Literature, of individuals in more than and ambitious Colonel Emerson Law, and Life as a Prison 16,600 court cases reported in the Opdycke, a citizen-soldier with no Librarian. Skyhorse Publishing Cincinnati Enquirer between 1880 military experience who rose to (New York, NY) 2019. HC $25.99. and 1884. brevet major general. Impressed In December 2008, Jill Grunenwald by the heroic charge of an untested graduated with her master’s degree McLean, Genetta. Dixie Selden: regiment, Union General Thomas in library science, ready to start An American Impressionist from Wood labeled them “Opdycke’s living her dream of becoming a Cincinnati, 1868-1935. Cincinnati Tigers.” Drawing on both primary librarian. But the economy had Art Galleries (Cincinnati, OH) 2001. sources and recent scholarship, this a different idea. As the Great PB $28.00. is the first full-length history of the Recession reared its ugly head, jobs Dixie Selden (1868-1935) was an regiment in more than 120 years. were scarce. After some searching, American Impressionist painter however, Jill was lucky enough to from Cincinnati. This catalogue Davies, Kathleen. Sacred Groves: snag one of the few librarian gigs from an exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Or, How a Cemetery Saved My left in her home state of Ohio. The Galleries has ninety-six illustrations, Soul. Bink Books (Fairfield, CA) catch? The job was behind bars many in color. 2019. PB $16.95. as the prison librarian at a men’s In the not-so-sacred Groves of minimum-security prison. Over O’Brien, Erin, and Bob Perkoski. Academe, where female colleagues the course of a little less than Rust Belt Burlesque: The Softer can be less than supportive and male two years, Jill came to see past Side of a Heavy Metal Town. colleagues downright intimidating the bleak surroundings and the Swallow Press (Athens, Ohio) 2019. and even devious, Kathleen Davies orange jumpsuits and recognize the PB $24.95. felt intense pressure to prove herself humanity of the men stuck behind Rust Belt Burlesque traces the as an English professor. But in the bars. They were just like every other history of burlesque in Cleveland beautiful local cemetery, she found library patron — people who simply from the mid-1800s to the present a truly sacred landscape that offered wanted to read, to be educated and day, while also telling the story of not only relief but inspiration. to be entertained through the Bella Sin, a Mexican immigrant who written word. largely drove Northeast Ohio’s neo- Fernandez, Kathleen M. Zoar: burlesque comeback. The historical The Story of an Intentional Harris, John M. Redemption in ’64: center of Cleveland burlesque was Community. Kent State University The Champion Cleveland Browns. the iconic Roxy Theater on East Press (Kent, OH) 2019. HC $29.95. Black Squirrel Books (Kent, OH) Ninth Street. Here, in its twentieth- In 1817, a group of German religious 2018. PB $20.95. century heyday, famed dancers like dissenters immigrated to Ohio. The Cleveland Browns set the Blaze Starr and comics like Red Less than two years later, in order standard by which all professional Skelton and Abbott and Costello to keep their distinctive religion football teams were measured in entertained both regulars and and its adherents together, they the 1940s and ’50s, but when they celebrity guests. formed a communal society (eine won the National Football League güter gemeinschaft or “community championship in 1964 it came as of goods”), where all shared equally. a surprise. Sports Illustrated

26 | Ohioana Quarterly BOOK LIST | ABOUT OHIO/OHIOAN & FICTION

Prufer, Jason. Small Town, Big Steele-Gouch, Janice Daulbaugh. sister, proprietor of the island’s luxe Music: The Outsized Influence of We Called It the Home: Vignettes country house hotel, famous for Kent, Ohio on the History of Rock and Memories from My 13 Years its connection with Bonnie Prince and Roll. Kent State University in the Ohio Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Charlie. Kate has hardly unpacked Press (Kent, OH) 2019. HC $29.95. Orphans’ Home. Orange Frazer when a body is found, murdered Relying on oral histories, hundreds Press (Wilmington, OH) 2019. in a re-enactment of an infamous of rare photographs, and original PB $19.95. unsolved murder described in the music reviews, this book explores At just five years old, Janice novel — and the only clue to the the countercultural fringes of Kent, Dalbaugh, along with her three killer’s identity lies in a curiously Ohio, over four decades. From the siblings, was sent to the Ohio embellished antique casket. formation of Joe Walsh’s first band, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphans’ the Measles, and the creation of Home in Xenia, Ohio. Her touching Black, Lisa. Let Justice Descend: DEVO in Kent State University’s and at times incredibly difficult A Gardiner and Renner Thriller. art department to original journey began the day she left her Kensington Books (New York, NY) performances of Pink Floyd’s Dark grandmother’s house and ended the 2019. ARC $26.00. Side of the Moon and serendipitous day she graduated high school from Three days before a key election, U.S. collaborations like Emmylou Harris the home. Senator Dian Cragin is electrocuted and Good Company in the Water on her own doorstep — a shocking Street Saloon, the influence of Kent’s Watkins, Steve, and Dick Maloney. twist in an already brutal political music scene has been powerful. Classic Bengals: The 50 Greatest race. Cragin’s chief of staff is quick Games in Cincinnati Bengals to blame rival Joey Green, a city Rosen, Michael J. A Mile and a Half History. Black Squirrel Books (Kent, development director who’s had his of Lines: The Art of James Thurber. OH) 2018. PB $19.95. hand in every till in town for more Trillium/OSU Press (Columbus, In Classic Bengals, authors Steve than twenty years. Maggie and Jack OH) 2019. HC $49.95. Watkins and Dick Maloney tell the have their own theories, especially The first book to assemble the stories of the fifty greatest games after discovering a fortune in the range of James Thurber’s art, from in Bengals history — along with the senator’s safe. But as they follow decades of cartoons that established stories behind the games. the money through the treacherous the New Yorker to illustrations landscape of Cleveland politics, they for advertisements, children’s find many more millions in play — books, and other’s books. This book FICTION and many suspects. includes previously unpublished art. Blaskovits, A. A. Magic for Unlucky Berry, Connie. A Dream of Death: A Skinner, Daniel, and Berkeley Franz, Girls. SFWP (Santa Fe, NM) 2017. Kate Hamilton Mystery. Crooked eds. Not Far from Me: Stories of PB $14.95. Lane (New York, NY) 2019. Opioids and Ohio. Trillium/OSU The fourteen fantastical stories HC $26.99. Press (Columbus, OH) 2019. in Magic for Unlucky Girls take Autumn has come and gone on PB $14.95. the familiar tropes of fairy tales Scotland’s Isle of Glenroth, and the More and more Americans find and twist them into new and islanders gather for the Tartan Ball, themselves in some way touched surprising shapes. These unlucky the annual end-of-tourist-season by the opioid epidemic. But while girls, struggling against a society gala. Spirits are high. A recently many have observed the effects of that all too often oppresses them, published novel about island history the crisis, Not Far from Me is the are forced to navigate strange has brought hordes of tourists to the first book on this public health worlds as they try to survive. From small Hebridean resort community. emergency composed entirely of carnivorous husbands to a bath of On the guest list is American first-person accounts. lemons to whirling basements that antiques dealer Kate Hamilton. Kate drive people mad, these stories are returns reluctantly to the island about the demons that lurk in the where her husband died, determined corners and the women who refuse to repair her relationship with his

Fall 2019 | 27 BOOK LIST | FICTION & POETRY Book List to submit to them, instead fighting student at UC Berkeley — inspired of cash for a simple surveillance job, back — sometimes with their wit, by the real kingpin of protests in Sidney sees a chance to finally put sometimes with their beauty, and those days — takes Patti under the broken pieces of his life back sometimes with shotguns in the his wing and grooms her for the together. But once the job turns dead of night. stereotypical role of hippie campus deadly, he'll have to sort through a protester. “Hell No, We Won’t Go!” mountain of clues to solve this case Chiaverini, Jennifer. Resistance echoes her true feelings about the — and confront his own demons in Women. William Morrow (New Vietnam War during her college the process. York, NY) 2019. HC $26.99. years. But after three assassinations After Wisconsin graduate student and the Kent State shootings, Welsh-Huggins, Andrew. Fatal Mildred Fish marries brilliant Patti wears down and eventually Judgment. Swallow Press (Athens, German economist Arvid Harnack, admits her revulsion of the protests OH) 2019. HC $26.95. she accompanies him to his German themselves. What she doesn’t know Judge Laura Porter fiercely guarded homeland, where a promising is that her past relationships with her privacy, and never more so future awaits. In the thriving conspiratorial figures involved in than during her long-running — intellectual culture of 1930s Berlin, the Kennedy assassination are about and long in the past — affair with the newlyweds create a rich new to catch up with her in a life-and- disgraced quarterback-turned- life filled with love, friendships, and death situation. private investigator Andy Hayes. rewarding work — but the rise of Now she’s missing, disappeared a malevolent new political faction Harper, Karen. The Queen’s Secret: just hours after she calls Andy inexorably changes their fate. A Novel of England’s World War II out of the blue explaining she’s in Queen. William Morrow (New York, trouble and needs his help. A trail of Doench, Meredith. Deadeye. Bold NY) 2020. ARC $26.95. clues leads Andy to a Central Ohio Strokes Books (Valley Falls, NY) 1939. As the wife of the King swamp whose future lies in the 2019. PB $18.95. George VI and the mother of the judge’s hands as she weighs a lawsuit Special Agent Luce Hansen’s future queen, Elizabeth—“the pitting environmentalists against Thanksgiving vacation with her new queen mother”—shows a warm, developers. In partnership with a lover, forensic pathologist Harper smiling face to the world. But it’s no cop on her own quest for justice, Bennett, is cut short when she’s surprise that Hitler himself calls Hayes rushes to find the judge, and tasked with recapturing Deadeye, her the “Most Dangerous Woman in the truth, before it’s too late. a vicious serial predator who Europe.” For behind that soft voice has escaped custody. The timing and kindly demeanor is a will of couldn’t be worse, especially when steel. Elizabeth holds many powerful POETRY Bennett seems to be struggling with cards; she’s also hiding damaging the realities of Hansen’s work and secrets about her past and her Andrle, Fred. Rocking in the Cradle questioning whether she’s willing provenance that could prove to be of the Moment: Haiku, Senryu, to risk building a life with a woman her undoing. and Small Poems. XOXOX Press who puts work first, even when the (Gambier, OH) 2019. PB $14.00. job puts her in the line of fire. Norgard, R. J. Trophy Kill: A Sidney An assembly of small poems — Reed Novel. Bird Dog Publishing groupings in haiku and senryu Everman, Ellen. Bell Bottoms to (Huron, OH) 2019. PB $16. form, with variations — voiced Gucci. Acclaim Press (Morley, MO) Private investigator Sidney Reed with a gentle passion, alert and 2019. HC $24.95. hasn't been the same since the tragic keen, and rooted in the goodness Bell Bottoms to Gucci drops readers death of his wife, Molly. Sharing life provides. Fred Andrle is a radio into the year 1964 when the first a rundown apartment above an legend in Central Ohio, having protests of that era are born — Anchorage, Alaska, coffee shop with hosted a popular talk show on campus takeovers, billy-clubbing, a cat named Priscilla, he dulls his WOSU, NPR Columbus, for twenty students being dragged into police bitter memories with cheap beer and years. Fred has been writing poems vans, etc. Patti’s boyfriend, David, a sarcasm. When he's offered a bundle all those years and has published

28 | Ohioana Quarterly BOOK LIST | POETRY & CHILDREN’S

several collections and poet-artist you read this book, for you will Traveling Stanzas pairs poems with collaborations. He continues now have traveled to the depths and the striking graphic designs. with this delightful run of small heights of the human heart.” poems, paired up in twos, threes, and fours. Murphy, Patricia Colleen. Bully CHILDREN’S Love. Press 53 (Winston-Salem, NC) Cariello, Matthew M., and Ambra 2019. PB $14.95. Carville, James, and Patricia C. Meda. A Boat That Can Carry Two. Murphy’s latest collection of poetry McKissack. Illus. by David Catrow. Bordighera Press (New York, NY) is the winner of the Press 53 Award Lu and the Swamp Ghost. Anne 2011. PB $10.00. for Poetry and a Tom Lombardo Schwartz/Atheneum Books for Bilingual (English and Italian) Poetry Selection. Young Readers (New York, NY) edition of the Bordighera Poetry 2004. HC $17.99. Prize-winning collection of Phillips, W. Louis. More Hill Mama always said, “You’re never sonnets representing an elegy for a Country Poetry. W. Louis Phillips poor if you have a loving family lost sister as well as the reality of (Logan, OH) 2015. PB $10.00. and one good friend.” Well, Lu has a living daughter. More poetry from the creator of Hill a family but no friend — so maybe Country Poetry (2001). she is just a little poor. One day this Cariello, Matthew M. Talk. all changes down on the Louisiana Bordighera Press (New York, NY) Riley, James Alan. Broken Bayou — when Lu comes face-to- 2019. PB $10.00. Frequencies: A Book of Poems. face with a real, live swamp ghost. The newest collection by Cariello Shadelandhouse Modern Press has won the Lauria/Frasca Poetry (Lexington, KY) 2019. PB $16.50. Edwards, Pamela Duncan. Illus. by Prize, which promotes the poetry of Broken Frequencies confronts the Daniel Kirk. While the World Is the Italian diaspora in English. disconnect between the present Sleeping. Orchard Books (New York, and the past in our personal lives. NY) 2010. HC $16.99. Demaree, Darren C. Emily as Each poem is a search for meaning Take a flight across the meadows, Sometimes the Forest Wants the in an otherwise random sequence of forests, lakes, and rivers with only Fire: Emily Poems 2006-2018. events that lean always toward the the moonlight to guide the way. Harpoon Books (Columbus, OH) relationships that lend significance See what the deer, fish, foxes, and 2019. PB $16.00. to our lives, the connections between porcupines do — while the world This eleventh collection by Darren those we love and those we have lost, is sleeping. C. Demaree collects twelve years of and the many possible futures each poems written for his wife, Emily. moment implies. Hillenbrand, Will. Mighty Reader and the Big Freeze. Holiday House Hughes, Betsy. Forest Bathing: Wick Poetry Center. Speak a (New York, NY) 2019. HC $18.99. Shinrin-Yoku. Antrim House Powerful Magic: Ten Years of the It’s Hugo’s first day of school, and (Bloomfield, CT) 2019. PB $19.00. Traveling Stanzas Poetry Project. the shy beagle pup is eager to make David Lee Garrison writes that in Black Squirrel Books (Kent, OH) friends. But when the teacher asks Forest Bathing: Shinrin-Yoku, “the 2019. HC $29.95. his new buddy Barkley to read an sonnets of Betsy Hughes take us This book, featuring a representative unfamiliar book, the young dog all over the world, from antiquity collection of Traveling Stanzas freezes. Only Mighty Reader can to now, from the horrors of mass poetry illustrations, celebrates save the day by giving Barkley shootings to the serenity of a forest. the tenth anniversary of this some tricks to get through the new These journeys offer, in the elegant award-winning community arts story, and the confidence to put on sweep of her verses, a captivating project. Launched in 2009 as a a performance that will impress new vision of our environment collaboration between Kent State everyone — even a visiting author. and ourselves. You will never look University’s Wick Poetry Center and at things in the same way or feel Professor Valora Renicker’s visual the same way about your life once communication design students,

Fall 2019 | 29 BOOK LIST | CHILDREN’S, YOUNG ADULT & MIDDLE GRADE

Hillenbrand, Will. Santa’s Story. and other creatures lurk within the essential questions, links to Two Lions (New York, NY) 2019. pages of Bigfoot is Missing! Are they online primary sources, and real- HC $17.99. animals yet undiscovered? Are they life connections. Santa is ready to leave on Christmas figments of imagination? Only eerie Eve, but he can’t find the reindeer whispers and sinister rumors give us anywhere. Dasher is busy dashing, hints at the truth. YOUNG ADULT & Donner is dozing, and Cupid MIDDLE GRADE is crooning. It isn’t until Santa Rappaport, Doreen. Illus. by C.F. remembers their annual tradition — Payne. To Dare Mighty Things: The reading a Christmas story together Life of Theodore Roosevelt. Disney/ Buckley, Michael. Nerds 2: M Is for — that the reindeer are ready to go. Hyperion (New York, NY) 2013. Mama’s Boy. Amulet Books (New HC $17.99. York, NY) 2010. HC $14.95. Hoefler, Kate. Illus. by Sarah President Theodore Roosevelt is A group of unpopular fifth graders Jacoby. Rabbit and the Motorbike. known as “the man with a plan,” runs a spy network from inside their Chronicle Books (San Francisco, the “rough rider.” His figure stands school. With the help of cutting-edge CA) 2019. HC $17.99. tall in American history, his legacy science, they transform their nerdy Rabbit isn't sure he'll ever be brave stretching him to larger-than-life qualities into incredible abilities! enough to go on an adventure. He's proportions. But before his rise to a homebody who lives in a quiet fame, he was just "Teedie," a boy Buckley, Michael. Nerds 4: The field of wheat he dreams of leaving with ambitious dreams to change Villain Virus. Amulet Books (New every night. His world is enlarged the world and the conviction to see York, NY) 2012. HC $15.95. by his friend Dog and Dog's tales of his stupendous imaginings brought A former NERDS team member motorbike adventures. But one day, to fruition. named Gerdie (code name Mathlete) Dog is gone, and with him, go the has invented a powerful device that stories Rabbit loves so much. Does Rylant, Cynthia. Illus. by S.D. she's using to loot alternate realities. Rabbit dare to pick up the motorbike Schindler. Children of Christmas: Her goal? Plastic surgery and a spot and live his own story? Stories for the Season. Orchard on a competitive cheerleading squad. Books (New York, NY) 1987. Houts, Michelle. Illus. by Deb HC $20.00. Buckley, Michael. Nerds 5: Attack Hoeffner. Silent Swoop: An Owl, Six short stories of Christmas for of the Bullies. Amulet Books (New An Egg, and a Warm Shirt Pocket. young readers. York, NY) 2013. HC $15.95. Dawn Publications (Nevada City, The grand finale to the bestselling CA) 2019. ARC $16.95. Van Vleet, Carmella. Illus. by Tom series Attack of the Bullies stars An owl swoops down to lay her egg in Casteel. Robotics! With 25 Science Ruby Peet, a.k.a Agent Pufferfish, the a coal yard — a dangerous spot for a Projects for Kids. Nomad Press team captain with super nanobyte- fragile egg! Rescued by Walter, a bird (White River Junction, VT) 2019. enhanced allergies. expert with a big heart and warm PB $14.95. shirt pocket, the egg miraculously Robotics! includes twenty-five Butler, Dori Hillestad. Illus. by hatches and is aptly named Coal. science-minded activities to engage Jeremy Tugeau. The Buddy Files: Thus begins the tender story of budding scientists, engineers, The Case of the Fire Alarm. Albert rescue, rehabilitation, and most of mathematicians, and artists and to Whitman & Company (Chicago, IL) all, friendship. help answer the questions, “What 2010. HC $14.99. exactly is a robot and where do they Buddy is starting his work as Lewis, J. Patrick, and Kenn Nesbitt. come from?” Robotics! is part of a set a therapy dog at Four Lakes Illus. by Minalima. Bigfoot Is of two Explore Technology books that Elementary School, where Connor Missing! Chronicle Books (San introduce young digital natives to attends and Mom is the principal. Francisco, CA) 2015. HC $17.99. the history, science, and engineering But on his very first day, he Bigfoot, the Mongolian Death Worm, of the tech world in which we live, accidentally knocks down a little kid the Loch Ness Monster — these using hands-on STEM activities, on the playground.

30 | Ohioana Quarterly BOOK LIST | YOUNG ADULT & MIDDLE GRADE

Chima, Cinda Williams. The The library! She loves to go there decision she makes. Everything is Dragon Heir. Disney/Hyperion (Los and read about space. She knows exactly how she always wanted it to Angeles, CA) 2008. HC $17.99. there are rules at the library, but be — how can she leave it all behind The covenant that was meant to sometimes they are not so easy to next year? In her head, she knows keep the wizard wars at bay has been follow. The library is Carl’s favorite there is so much more to experience stolen, and Trinity must prepare place, too. And he loves to read about after high school. But in her heart, is for attack. All are doing their part — dinosaurs. When Lottie and Carl it so terrible to want everything to Seph is monitoring the Weirwalls; meet, they become fast friends. Now stay the same forever? Jack and Ellen are training their Lottie reads about dinosaurs, and ghostly army; even Anaweir Will Carl loves space! Miller, Brandon Marie. Robert E. and Fitch are setting booby traps Lee: The Man, The Soldier, The around the town's perimeter. But to Landers, Melissa. Blastaway. Myth. Calkins Creek (Honesdale, Jason Haley, it seems like everyone Disney/Hyperion (Los Angeles, CA) PA) 2019. HC $19.95. wants to keep him out of the action. 2019. ARC $16.99. Who exactly was Robert E. Lee, the He may not be the most powerful Kyler Centaurus isn’t your typical famous Confederate general? Lee wizard in Trinity, but he's prepared runaway. All he wanted was a quick was a son, a soldier, a father, and a to fight for his friends. Without any trip to the legendary Fasti Sun husband, but he is also a myth and significant power of his own, what Festival. Who wouldn’t want to see an icon — both reviled and revered can Jason possibly do to help the new stars being born? Kyler’s entire as a symbol of the segregated South. people he cares about — and to prove family! They couldn’t care less Lee served for thirty-five years in the his mettle? about wonders of science. When an U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but accidental launch sequence ends when the Civil War broke out, Lee Curry, Jane Louise. What the with Kyler hurtling through space resigned this commission and fought Dickens! Margaret K. McElderry on the family cruiser, the thrill of for the South. Noted history writer Books (New York, NY) 1991. freedom is cut short by two space Brandon Marie Miller unravels how HC $5.99. pirates determined to steal his ship. Lee came to this decision, and how, In 1842, eleven-year-old twins, Luckily, Kyler runs into Fig, a savvy after the war, stripped of citizenship whose father runs a boat on the young Wanderer who makes a living and home, Lee struggled to rebuild Juniata Canal in Pennsylvania, learn by blowing up asteroids. She could his life. of a Harrisburg bookseller's plan really use a ride to Earth, and Kyler to steal Charles Dickens's newly could really use a hand with the Pilkey, Dav. Captain Underpants finished novel while Dickens himself pirates. But when Kyler learns the and the Terrifying Return of Tippy is touring the U.S. truth about Fig’s mission, the two Tinkletrousers: The Ninth Epic must put aside their differences Novel. Scholastic (New York, NY) Hamilton, Virginia. Plain City. Blue long enough to stop a threat of 2012. HC $9.99. Sky Press (New York, NY) 1993. astronomical proportions racing When we last saw George and HC $15.99. toward Earth. Harold, they were headed to jail for Plain City is a small town with big the rest of their lives. What could secrets... and everyone is keeping Lord, Emery. The Map from Here to be worse? How about being pulled them from Buhlaire. It's hard to There. Bloomsbury (New York, NY) from prison by a time-traveling find answers when your parents 2020. ARC $17.99. tyrant named Tippy Tinkletrousers! aren't around. It's senior year, and Paige Hancock Now the boys are taking a trip is finally living her best life. She back in time to the carefree days Johnson, Angela. Illus. by Scott M. has a fun summer job, great friends, of kindergarten, when the scariest Fischer. Lottie Paris and the Best and a super charming boyfriend thing they had to face was not evil Place. Simon & Schuster Books who totally gets her. But senior year mad scientists or alien cafeteria for Young Readers (New York, NY) also means big decisions. Weighing ladies but a sixth-grade bully named 2013. HC $16.99. “the rest of her life,” Paige feels Kipper Krupp, the nephew of their Lottie Paris has a favorite place. her anxiety begin to pervade every clueless school principal. And

Fall 2019 | 31 because George and Harold don’t children, to an unwitting date with a — made famous in the Newbery invent Captain Underpants until vampire, to a crush on a boy who just Medal-winning Roll of Thunder, they’re in fourth grade, the clever might be a werewolf, no scary stone Hear My Cry — concludes in a long- kindergarteners are on their own. is left unturned. awaited and deeply fulfilling story. In her tenth book, Mildred Taylor Scillian, Devin. Illus. by Tim Bowers. Stine, R. L. Goosebumps Wanted: completes her sweeping saga about Back Roads, Country Toads. The Haunted Mask. Scholastic the Logan family of Mississippi, Sleeping Bear Press (Ann Arbor, MI) (New York, NY) 2012. HC $15.99. which is also the story of the civil 2019. HC $16.99. From horror master R. L. Stine rights movement in twentieth- When country toads, Hank and come two new chilling stories in century America. Cassie Logan, Buckeroo, hear some folks talking one spooky standalone: Lu-Ann first introduced to readers in Song about going “fly fishing,” they know Franklin usually loves Halloween. of the Trees and Roll of Thunder, they have to tag along. What could be Not this year. Her best friend, Devin Hear My Cry, is a young woman better than fishing for flies? So they O'Bannon, is going away for the now, searching for her place in the stow away in a picnic basket and week. And she has to go to a boring world, a journey that takes her from prepare for the feast of their lives. party where nothing exciting could Toledo to California, to law school But what will happen when they ever happen. But when Lu-Ann in Boston, and ultimately home to realize fly fishing isn't exactly what comes face-to-face with the Haunted Mississippi to participate in voter they expected? This knee-slapping Mask, major trouble lies ahead. registration in the 1960s. She is story is from Devin Scillian and Tim Devin O'Bannon didn't want to leave witness to the historic events of the Bowers, the same team that brought his best friend Lu-Ann Franklin century: the Great Migration north; you Memoirs of a Goldfish and the behind on Halloween. He didn't ask the rise of the civil rights movement, rest of the hysterical Memoirs series. to go on this trip. And that was before preceded and precipitated by the he heard the strange scratching on racist society of America; and the Stamper, Phil. The Gravity of Us. his windows and saw the shadows often violent confrontations that Bloomsbury (New York, NY) 2020. moving around in the fields. brought about change. ARC $17.99. Something is out there and it doesn't As a successful social media seem to want Devin around! journalist with half a million followers, seventeen-year-old Cal is Stine, R. L. Illus. by Kelly and used to sharing his life online. But Nichole Matthews. Just Beyond: when his pilot father is selected for The Scare School. Kaboom! (Los a highly publicized NASA mission Angeles, CA) 2019. ARC $9.99. to Mars, Cal and his family relocate Middle school feels like the worst from Brooklyn to Houston and are place imaginable, but for Jess, thrust into a media circus. Josh, and Marco, their school may actually be the worst place in this Stine, R. L., ed. Fear: 13 Stories world... or any other! After a chance of Suspense and Horror. Dutton encounter with a deadly creature Children’s Books (New York, NY) stalking the school halls, these three 2010. HC $16.99. unsuspecting students are whisked In this collection of thirteen away to a horrifying realm beyond fabulously chilling stories from the school boiler room where they thirteen true masters of suspense, must unravel a terrifying mystery. including five New York Times bestsellers and a number of Edgar Taylor, Mildred D. All the Days Past, Award nominees, all edited by none All the Days to Come. Viking (New other than R. L. Stine, nothing is York, NY) 2020. ARC $18.99. what it seems. From cannibalistic The story of the Logan family

32 | Ohioana Quarterly Coming Soon

A Mile and a Half of Lines: Celebration of Learning: Thurber House Evenings The Art of James Thurber Candice Millard with Authors: Scott Woods Now through March 15, 2020 November 1, 2019 November 19, 2019 Columbus Museum of Art, 7:15 – 11 p.m. 7:30 – 9 p.m. Columbus, Ohio Columbus Metropolitan Library’s Main Columbus Museum of Art, Library, Columbus, Ohio Columbus, Ohio A special exhibition curated by Michael J. Rosen that showcases the drawings The Columbus Metropolitan Library Thurber House presents nationally of the Columbus native and beloved Foundation's largest annual fund- renowned poet Scott Woods, a humorist. For more information, visit raiser, this year features award-winning Columbus Foundation Spirit of www.columbusmuseum.org. (including the Ohioana Book Award) Columbus Award recipient and and New York Times best-selling author Columbus Alive's first-ever “Face Candice Millard. For more information, of Columbus” in a reading and contact col@columbuslibrary. discussion from his collection, Urban Ohioana Awards org or visit https://foundation. Contemporary History Month: Poems. October 17, 2019 columbuslibrary.org/celebration-of- For information and tickets, visit 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. learning. www.thurberhouse.org. Ohio Statehouse Atrium, Columbus

Join us as we celebrate the winners of the 2019 Ohioana Book Awards. The Buckeye Book Fair Ohioana Book Club event begins at 6 p.m. with a reception November 2, 2019 November 20, 2019 followed by the awards presentations 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. and book signing. Tickets go on sale in Fisher Auditorium, Wooster, Ohio Ohioana Library, Columbus, Ohio September. For more information, visit www.ohioana.org. The thirty-second annual book fair is a The book for November is the great chance to get a jump on holiday Ohioana Award-winning Furnishing shopping, with more than 100 authors Eternity by David Giffels. If you would and illustrators. For more information, like to attend, please e-mail us at Books by the Banks visit www.buckeyebookfair.com. [email protected]. October 26, 2019 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Duke Energy Convention Center, Brews + Prose at Market Cincinnati, Ohio Garden Brewery November 12, 2019 This day-long festival, which is free 7 – 9 p.m. and open to the public, features Market Garden Brewery, national, regional, and local authors Cleveland, Ohio and illustrators; book signings; panel discussions; and activities for the entire The monthly series continues with family. For more information, visit Ohioana Award-winning novelist Mary http://booksbythebanks.org. Doria Russell reading from her new Do you have a literary event you'd release, The Women of the Copper like to list in the next edition of Country. For more information, visit the Ohioana Quarterly? Contact us http://www.brewsandprose.com/. at [email protected].

Fall 2019 | 33 Thank You!

The Ohioana Library wouldn’t be the unique organization it is without our many generous supporters. Listed below are those who have given from June 1, 2019, through August 31, 2019. Special thanks to Governor Mike DeWine and the Ohio General Assembly for the state's ongoing support.

$10,000 and above Lynn Elfner Christine Knisely Greater Columbus Arts Council Charlie LeBoeuf Carol Logsdon Joseph Link Peter Olesen Lund $5,000 – 9,999 Monday Creek Publishing Ellen McDevitt-Stredney Capitol Square Foundation Phil Richardson Beverly McDonald Ohio Humanities Elizabeth Salt John Miller Wednesday Book Club Martha Moody $2,500 – 4,999 Robin Yocum Pilot Club of Columbus The Columbus Foundation Tod & Kim Powers Nationwide Children’s Hospital $50 – 99 Marie & Michael Rehmar Ohio Arts Council Michael Babin & Kit Kilen Ed & Barbara Seeberger Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease George Bauman Janet Shailer Jinny Berten Martha Shaw $1,000 – 2,499 John Bittel Leslie Shortlidge James & Patricia Appold Matthew Brennan Susan Spallino Helen Bolte Kathleen Burgess Tricia Springstubb Crabbe, Brown & James Kathleen Cadmus Brian Stettner Tom E. Dailey Foundation Beth Rigel Daugherty Vicki Stoddard Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP Bill Evans Mary Van Tassel Yolanda Danyi Szuch Lisa Evans Bostwick & Linda Wyman Robert Flanagan $500 – 999 Betty Goodridge $25 – 49 Gillian Berchowitz H. Drewry Gores Margaret Blevins Alan & Joy Gough Katherine Brandt $250 – 499 Robert Greer Jr. Fred & Jerri Lawrence Ruth Deacon Carol Guzzo Gretchen Mote Deborah Urton Daniel Hall OCTELA David & Aina Weaver Warren Harding III Janet Rether Brett Harper Patricia Sargeant-Matthews $100 – 249 Karen Harper Dora Sterling Ann Bowers Toni Harper Shirley Bowser D. J. Hildebrandt In Honor of Barbara Whitaker Shirley Brooks-Jones Lesa Holstine Lisa Hedrick Mary Citino Eugenia Hoster Anthony Doerr Brad Hughes

34 | Ohioana Quarterly Why I Support Ohioana

Every October since 1929, members of the Ohioana Library have elected the individuals who serve on our Board of Trustees. These volunteer leaders from around the state generously give their time and talents to support Ohioana's mission. At our 90th annual meeting this October, one of the new trustees elected was Daniel Best, a writer and attorney from Columbus. We asked Daniel to share with us why he supports Ohioana.

My number one passion is books. Be it reading, writing, listening, I write stories and consume books of all types.

The major reason I want to join Ohioana is because I want other youths who look like me to know that they can take part in the book world beyond just consuming them; I want them to know that they can write their stories—that their voices not only matter, they are valued in society. I am a writer and I want to show them that they can be, too.

That's why I support Ohioana, and why I am excited to join its board of trustees.

Daniel Best Ohioana Board Member

Yes, I want to support Ohio literature by making my tax-deductible contribution to Ohioana in the amount of:

( ) $1,000 ( ) $500 ( ) $250 ( ) $100 ( ) $50 ( ) Other: $______

______( ) My check payable to Ohioana is enclosed. Name ( ) Please charge my: ______( ) Visa ( ) Mastercard ( ) Discover ( ) Amex Address ______City, State, Zip Card # ______Email/Telephone Expiration date CVV

Please send your donation with this form to Ohioana Library Association, 274 E. First Ave., Suite 300, Columbus, OH 43201. You may also make your gift online at www.ohioana.org. All donors of $50 or more receive a print subscription to the Ohioana Quarterly, invitations to Ohioana events, and Ohioana's e-Newsletter. Questions? Call 614-466-3831 or email us at [email protected].

Fall 2019 | 35 NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID Ohioana Library Association COLUMBUS, OH 274 E. First Avenue PERMIT NO. 1069 Suite 300 Columbus, OH 43201

www.ohioana.org

CALLING Author applications for the 2020 Ohioana Book Festival are now open! Visit OHIO www.ohioana.org for more information and a AUTHORS! downloadable application form.