"H" Authors -- Home, Hearth, and Heartbeat

Author's note: A couple of years ago, my library system added blog posts to our website. Many of the posts were short collections of book reviews, often following a theme. I tried writing a few of these, but never felt like I could keep up with the thought-provoking themes of my librarian colleagues. It was a good challenge, a growth opportunity, and I was honored to have been selected to write for our site. After a few successes, and several wadded-up-and-thrown-in-the-trashcan failures, I realized that what I needed was my old writing partner to get me going again. Enter Polo! 

All of the books reviewed here are available as downloadable audiobooks.

Polo in "active sleeping" mode, ears cocked to listen to book

The Word is Murder

Anthony Horowitz

Anthony Horowitz, creator and contributor to many BBC television series (including Foyle’s War) and the popular Alex Rider books for young adult readers, also writes fiction for adults. Imagine that! Mr. Horowitz inserts himself into this story, supposedly observing former police detective Daniel Hawthorne as he works to unravel a suspected murder case. Horowitz cannot keep his fingers out of the pie, though, and he becomes enmeshed in the story. The narrator of the audiobook is amazing, bringing a radio drama presentation to his narration, and I’ll be looking for more audiobooks featuring Rory Kinnear.

Polo’s take: “I like accents when they’re easy to understand, like these. Hawthorne has a hard edge. Horowitz is nicer, believable but sometimes a little clumsy. Good woof!”

The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens

Brooke Hauser

Nonfiction stories of immigrant and refugee teens in a New York City high school and at home. Although we live in one of the most diverse communities in the nation, this is no New York City. We could relate to the students’ histories, though, because refugees are refugees, and their varied backstories have common threads of navigating life despite upheaval, relocation, poverty, and strong cultural identity. The staff at the International High School at Prospect Heights is diverse, quirky, and all-in dedicated to the students who come through their doors. For many of the teens, earning a high school diploma seems a dream – yet the staff do all they can to urge the students to aim for college, to be able to help their families in bigger and better ways over the long haul.

Polo’s response: “I wish I could smell the foods these people eat. The students and their families all sound very interesting… but the dad who comes to cook spicy Chinese dinner for his daughter could be my best new friend!”

A Deadly Grind

Victoria Hamilton

First in the series, “Vintage Kitchen Mysteries.” Antique shopping can be fun, except when it turns deadly. Avid collector Jaymie Leighton has her eye on a 1920’s Hoosier-brand kitchen cabinet, but after she brings it home she finds that someone else wanted it, too, and will do anything to get at it. Murder and lurking villains ensue, while Jaymie works on cleaning up her treasure and stumbles on an unexpected piece of history that is much more valuable than her beloved cabinet. The descriptions of the cabinet brought back memories of a metal cabinet that my parents had in their beach cabin. It was a heavy two-piece thing, too tall to be assembled, so the bottom part lived beside our sink while the top part held dishes and canned goods next to the stove. It was useful at the beach because its construction kept the mice out better than any wood cabinets could.

Polo’s feedback: “I like kitchens. There’s lots of make-fooding there, you know. And this story had food. This story also has a dog, but it’s small and not my kind of DOG. I could have helped a lot more. Still, a woof for this one.”

Spy Secrets That Can Save Your Life

Jason Hanson

Scary at first, but practical “keep your head on a swivel” reminders and suggestions. Polo regularly assures me (barking at the top of his lungs at any crunch of gravel on the street) that he is keeping me safe from everything. That’s great, when I’m at home, but I do leave the house to go to work, shop, or dine out. For these situations, I appreciate being prompted to pay attention to my surroundings, to people who might be watching me a little too closely, and to anything that seems a little “off.” If I am confronted by someone with ill intent, the author impressed on me that I do not have to follow normal social custom in response. Move! Step forward or step aside, look them in the eye or look around for help, but do NOT freeze. Good to know.

Polo’s thoughts: “If I had more language, I would tell you these things. If I am with you, watch my body language. But I don’t ride in car, and I don’t go to the library, so listen to this book again to keep it fresh. Although, if you’d take me to restaurants, I could learn to like car rides.”

The Right Hand

Derek Haas

Spy thriller, black ops, car chases and hiding and explosions and murder… with so many twists and turns that you can only guess at the identity of the villain. The fast pace and action of this story count, for me, as aerobic exercise because of the heart-pounding effect. CIA agent Austin Clay is assigned to find and protect a young Hungarian woman who may have stumbled onto a deadly secret. Hit men are out to get her, there’s a mole in the CIA, the main characters are far from home and safety. Yikes! The scenes play like a movie in your mind, enhancing the effect of the drama.

Polo’s feedback: “Scary! Exciting! Kept raising the fur on the back of my neck!”

Photo Day on Campus

I spent the day at a major Division I university and found some of my favorite things...

cool architecture

pretty forsythia

a railroad hero

(I know I *should* rotate him, but it is April Fools Day, so he stays.)

hungry academics

earthquake retrofits

and a familiar face


I'd tell you more, but I'm preparing for another photo shoot this weekend. Gotta launder my batteries and charge my socks.

First Football Game of the Season!

That's the press box atop the home side of our local stadium. See the rainbow? Only those of us on the visitor side got to enjoy it. It had been raining a good part of the afternoon, but shortly before game time we saw this and then it stopped raining. Yeah!

I appreciate rainless football games only because I keep the score book. When it rains, the paper gets wet and I can't write on it. Therefore, when the weather's wet, I have to go up in the stands or in the press box. There are some very nice people up there, but I miss the sidelines. Sometimes I get distracted by watching the nice people instead of focusing on the game. Bad, very bad.

Tonight's game was a blowout. It felt weird to be there, since the teachers' strike has delayed the start of school. The home team's band director was conspicuously absent, but the band played on. The coaches were all there, because they're on extra-duty contracts unrelated to the dispute.

It'll be nice to get everyone back in school, but I hope there's a little meaning to that rainbow. I'm hoping for a happy ending so we can have a good beginning.

In Case of Eruption -- RUN!

It started raining -- a very steady drizzle -- an hour before this weekend's football game. Bummer. That meant I had to keep the book dry, and could not wander the sidelines but had to sit in the stands. The good news? The stadium announcer (more about him another time) and his spotter were mostly accurate in announcing yardages and lines of scrimmage, so I had a good back-up if I couldn't judge the placement. The other good thing was that I got to sit with the coaches' wives, and didn't have to hear parents' criticisms.

Further good news was that I got material for a blog post.


I spoke with a staff member of an elementary school. A good part of her afternoon was spent conducting a lahar drill. In the event of a volcanic eruption of Mount Rainier, there's a good chance that tons and tons of mud and water and ash and mud will come streaming down the valleys around the mountain. Her school is in a valley, so at least twice a year they need to practice taking all the kids to higher ground. Quickly. Every one of them. If there's a lahar alert, the estimate is 30 minutes before that school building is history. Wow.

This situation is rather unusual, and perhaps where you live the students don't have these drills. A few weeks ago, a Red Cross trainer mentioned that Washington State has the potential for more types of disasters than any other state. Alrighty then. I'm quite pleased to live on a hill, where we don't have to run from lahars but only run from the people running from them.

As I was searching for photos of evacuation-route road signs, I found one that is hinged. That would seem to indicate that there's an "off season" for eruptions, when they can fold up the warning sign and let folks live their lives. Huh. If we ever have to move off this hill, I would consider living in that neighborhood.

Visitor Facilities

I've had to think long and hard about this post. Originally, it was going to be a rant about extremely sub-par stadium facilities. The largest school classification in the state ought to have indoor plumbing on the visitors' side of the football field, don'tcha think?

But then I reconsidered. This school district is next door to the one in which I grew up, and it's less suburban and more semi-rural. Read, lower property values. It's also bordered by not one but TWO military bases, which means there's a lot of transition of population. I don't know what their voting records are, but my guess would be that this district doesn't have a lot of money. Would I want to make indoor plumbing for the off-side of the football field a high priority? Nah. And at least there were three Honey Buckets for us to use.

On our way home from the game, we were fortunate enough to squeak into the drive-through at Krispy Kreme less than one minute before closing. Thanks to this good timing, the whole family had happy tastebuds for two days. Yeah!