YA novels:

WALKING ON GLASS, by Alma Fullerton. Paperback original, gift. Free verse about a young man facing an agonizing decision--literally one of life or death. I would have liked at least a little about the aftermath of his decision, but I think it's an indication of the book's power that I wanted more.

JUMP THE CRACKS, by Stacy DeKeyser. Paperback original, gift. Full disclosure: I read this novel in manuscript quite a while ago. My comment at the time was that I thought the story was terrific, but the ending didn't quite work. (The author now tells me that what I said was, she had written a YA novel with a middle-grade ending. I don't remember saying that, but it sounds clever, don't it?) I did not read another version after that, until now...and I confess to some trepidation when I got near the end.

I needn't have had any doubts. The ending now fits the story *perfectly.* NAILED IT. Teen kidnaps toddler...or does she?

Two picture books for grownups (library):

THE WALL, by Peter Sis. Memoir of the author's youth in Communist Czechoslavakia; and THE TREE OF LIFE (also by Sis), a biography of Darwin.

Part picture books, part graphic novels, more than either. Simply brilliant. I'd read anything--e-mail spam, those cards that fall out of magazines--if Sis wrote and illustrated it.

Food and travel (library):

TALKING WITH MY MOUTH FULL, by Bonny Wolf. Essays by an NPR food commentator. Easygoing, completely readable style by someone whom you *know* is in a real kitchen (not a designer one) cooking for a real family. If you love Laurie Colwin's work and yearn for more (alas, never to be), try this title.

OAXACA JOURNAL, by Oliver Sacks. What a mind! Author travels to Mexico with a group of amateur botanists to study the plethora of *ferns* in Oaxaca. But of course you get way more than ferns--history, politics, all kinds of fascinating science. The way this guy writes, by the time I finished, I was ready to book a trip to go study ferns myself!

Adult mysteries (library):

SELF'S DECEPTION, by Bernhard Schlink, and THE PRINCESS OF BURUNDI, by Kjell Erickson. Both okay. Good enough to finish, not good enough to rave about.

Finally, I was privileged this month to read the first-pass galleys of a new novel coming out in the fall by one of my FAVORITEST authors: Kevin Crossley-Holland. Won't say much about it now, since that would only be frustrating, but goshallgollygeewillikers--WHAT A TREAT!!

Happy reading and writing!