Book Review: The Nightingale (WW2, France, two sisters)

The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah* (St. Martin's Griffin, 2015, 608pp, $17.99) Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year. Major motion picture with Dakota and Elle Fanning. Also in Large Print**

"Oh, no! Not another humungously long book" - at more than 600 pages (I'm used to 200-pagers), I groaned, but started it on a Friday. By Sunday, I had finished it. And I will read it again. And again.

Another Heart-Stopping Novel by Kristin Hannah

How does she do it? It must be magic: an incredible story, well-told. 

I have read a lot about World War II but Kristin Hannah not only tells the reader what it was like to live during that uneven upheaval, she shows the reader: you are there, experiencing everything but wish it were not so.

Again, we have two sisters and a family torn apart by death, the aftermath of one war, and daily life during another war with the sisters as different as night and day. Fighting, both realistically fighting to live and, figuratively, fighting to save others. Finding love in those times of trial and tribulation, and pain and unfairness. And finally, the reader identifying with both sisters, who have chosen different routes, different roles to play but each one just right for her own character and personality.

Powerful

It is France beginning in 1938 and going through 1945. And it is Oregon in 1995. One sister struggles to save her family and friends who are Jewish while the other, a mere teenager, fights in the Resistance. Each one not knowing what the other is doing (for their own good) and then Father compounds the situation.

Although some might consider Nightingale to be a good candidate for a DVD or television movie, I suggest a series. And though several of the action sub-plots are unsurprising (guessable in advance, predictable), nonetheless, the book is one that you will carry around with you, hoping to sneak in a few pages while standing in line or waiting at a red light even: you are so enthralled with both the plots and the characters that they seem like friends who you can't wait to get back to.

The Nightingale is considered Hannah's best novel and is the best selling. Read it!

*Also by Kristin Hannah: Magic Hour

Firefly Lane

The Women

**Try reading Large Print books: you can read them in bed at night with low light!

Book Review: Three Wild Dogs (and the truth)

Three Wild Dogs (and the truth), by Markus Zusak (Harper Collins, 2024, $27.99, 223pp HB) Read a sample here and listen to a sample here.

By the incredible Australian best-selling author* of The Book Thief,

Love in Times of Chaos

Three Wild Dogs is not exactly about three wild dogs, but they were all rescues and rather boisterous and extroverted and difficult if that can be said for a dog. Or maybe they were rather wild but not feral, having come from a 'group home' (dog shelter).

As I was reading I wished I could see what the dogs looked like because in my mind's eye it was hard to picture them (especially the colorful Reuben), when, lo and behold I chanced upon two groups of pages with photos of the dogs and their humans! The author's two children have a lovely unique relationship with the dogs and vice versa: Reuben, a large rambunctious canine, deliberatively walks perfectly when walked by daughter Kitty but  pulls when the author walks him. Nobody trained Reuben to do that.

A very unusual nonfiction book (with expletives on occasion left in) written by an established fiction author, Wild Dogs will have you bonded near the end where the denouement is revealed. You will understand the love a man has for a dog (or two or three).

The worst thing about a dog is his shorter life span, compared to his human. Perhaps that is why dogs live in the present. 

I loved the foreshadowing and foreboding that Zusak includes and, thank goodness, sometimes the anticipation of unfortunate events did not seem all that critical to me. At times, this is the story of regular family pets - but at other times, I could just strangle the author as he could just strangle his dog for running away or starting a fight. I quietly thought to myself that I wished he had found a positive reinforcement trains for his dogs. Life would be less chaotic but also less full of  forgiveness and love for the unbridled behavior of the dogs.

*The Book Thief is also a 2013 movie (trailer) 

and #1 New York Times bestseller and Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Century.

Book Review: Growing Home (children's, unusual friendships)

Growing Home, by Beth Ferry (Simon & Schuster, 2025, $17.99, 272pp HB, ages 7-9, grades 1-4), a Barnes and Noble Children's Book of the Year for 2025 and co-illustrated by brothers Terry and Eric Fan

Even today, in October 2026, when you wander through a Barnes and Noble store,  you will be inundated with the front cover of Growing Home and rightly so. We finally were able to review a copy and were we ever glad we did!

For middle-schoolers, it can be a long book of 71 chapters! But the chapters are short so a young girl or boy can take these animal and plant friends along and sneak in a chapter or two on the sly. Parents will get the characters a bit mixed up what with the human names for them, with the exception of the ivy plant named Ivy. We have a  grumpy goldfish Toasty, a traveling spider Arthur, Ollie the violet (misnamed however, it is obvious) and some nefarious humans, along with an 8-sided fish tank, a marvelous bird cage and a break-in.

The story will remind you of Mary Poppins with the adventures in the possible setting of London. Each character has a slight superpower but has to discover it and they don't start out as friends but learn along the way to use their powers for the 'good of the order.'

Book Review: Cat Heaven (OT) (children's book)

 Cat Heaven, by Cynthia Rylant (Blue Sky Press, 1997, 40pp HB, preschool - 3, ages 3+, $12.39)

Cat Heaven is almost a companion book to Dog Heaven,

which came first. Both are now classics by Newbery medalist author, illustrator and librarian Cynthia Rylant because many families with dogs also have cats.

Often, over ten years or so, the child outlives the dog, a sad situation that requires time and empathy to recover from. Cat Heaven is a lovely book to be read over and over again as it comforts your child. Child-sized (big) and crayon colorful, imagining Cat Heaven will spark old memories all over again and begin conversations.

When cats go to heaven, an angel cat welcomes them at the yellow front door with a kiss and a bowl of milk. And tuna and salmon and sardines and little pink fish, with a soft angel cat lap just right for napping.

Rhyming all over the page and sometimes in circles brings smiles to little faces as they are tucked in for the night, to dream of their favorite pet enjoying his new life. And seeing him again sometime.

And God ". . . walks in His garden with a good black book and a kitty asleep on his head."

Book Review: Dog Heaven (children's book)

Dog Heaven by Cynthia Rylant (Blue Sky Press, 1995, ages 3+, $16.99, 40pp HB, preschool - grade 2) 

A Classic for Children (and you, too!)

Most children have a pet at one time or other and many of those pets are dogs. Often, over ten years or so, the child outlives the dog - a sad situation that requires time and empathy to recover from. Dog Heaven can help your child. It is a lovely book to be read over and over.

Child-sized (big) and crayon colorful, Dog Heaven is written in rhyme that may not be apparent at first glance, and in words and pictures that children can relate to so easily: pictures of a different-looking God, angel children, cloud beds, angel dogs, and a dog bowl for every dog with his name on it.

The pictures appear with words superimposed and the illustrations are as if a child drew them so your child will identify closely with them and designate their favorite pages - perhaps the page with dog treats in different shapes (cat biscuits and squirrel biscuits) or the pages with plentiful fields to run in or geese to tease.

Author Cynthia Rylant is also the illustrator, a librarian, and the author of more books for children, including the Henry and Mudge books!

In Dog Heaven, every dog is always a Good Dog.

Book Review: The Women (military nurses in the Vietnam Conflict)

The Women, by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin's  Press, 2024, 480pp HB, $30), a Goodreads Choice Award winner; Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times and USA Today number one bestseller; and recognized by Barnes and Noble, Amazon, NPR, and Audible

A saga usually spans generations of an influential family during turbulent times but author Kristin Hannah manages to create sagas that cover only a decade or so in her books (Firefly Lane,

Magic Hour 

and 18 others) yet leaves the reader exhausted emotionally nevertheless. She creates depth as well as breadth in her novels that are breathtaking in their realism and optimism and inspiration yet are so much more than 'chick-flicks' in word form.

With a front cover reminiscent of the Broadway play "Miss Saigon," 

The Women encompasses a truly believable story amidst the turmoil of the 60s and ventures into the 70s and beyond. If you were alive and kicking during that time, you will remember the protest songs and folk songs mentioned and the political  headlines that not only brought the country together but also divided us politically.

The Script: "Women are Heroes, too."

Frankie (Frances to her mother) was raised to believe military service was an honor and a duty, but only for men. Her brother was a Navy pilot, so Frankie, a nurse, joined the Army almost on a whim. The men she met in Vietnam and the nurses she bonded with (for life) and the homecoming that so many vets experienced serve as the background for this long but fast-reading novel (short paragraphs help as well).

The Best?

Touted as one of the best of the Hannah novels, The Women has won several literary awards and will serve as a book club selection for many years to come. Now, this reviewer is on to read The Nightingale, a Book of the Month selection!

Book Review: Wildlife Anatomy (OT)

Wildlife Anatomy: The Curious Lives & Features of Wild Animals Around the World, by Julia Rothman (Storey, $18.99, 2023, 208pp PB)

What a wonderful incredible book - to keep and refer to, often! But you can't read it in one sitting because there is too much to digest: more than 200 pages of delightful drawings and scientific information* so the built-in bookmarks come in handy.

With six chapters including "Have you Herd?" and "Social Networks" as well as "Built From the Ground Up." Most are self-explanatory but "Built From the Ground Up" may not be: it is about dens, underground tunnels, nests, and of course dams built by nature's engineer, the beaver. Some nests are rebuilt every day! Mud is a common component as well.

Colorful illustrations crowd every page as the reader follows up the phylogenetic tree with digressions along the way and a bit too many unusual animals for me - we would never run into them and with only a sentence or two about each one, the author doesn't nearly do them justice.

Having said that, Wildlife is a good review for a former zoology major or for a high-school student who can't get enough of animals: perhaps he or she is trying to decide their favorite one. If so, Rothman's book will help. And now I am going to look up the author's work on oceans and maybe a sticker book or activity book or. . . . 

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*life span, courtship rituals, size of 'litters,' and yes, anatomy (anatomy of the hoof on p. 94 and of a giraffe, flamingo, armadillo, camel, owl, tarantula, . . . .oh, how I wish the author had included an index!