Vermont women writers have been hard at work this past year. Their concerns range from making your seven-year-old laugh to exposing intrigues in the non-profit world. To choose the perfect book for each person on your gift list, check out what local bookstore owners and librarians around the state are saying about these 14 published gems:
Adult Fiction
Julia Alvarez (Weybridge), Saving the World (Algonquin Books; 363 pp). “I’m a big fan of Julia’s, and this is a really interesting and eloquent book,” says Barbara Morrow, co-owner of the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center. “She wove two stories together that fit”—one about a writer living in Vermont and her conservationist husband, involved in sustainable non-profit work in the Dominican Republic, and another about an 1803 expedition to bring a small pox vaccine from Spain to the New World by ship—“and she went back and forth, doing a great job of keeping your interest.” (see Vermont Woman, May 2006 for an expanded review).
Ruth Porter (Adamant), The Simple Life (Bar Nothing Books; 427 pp). Not all Vermont writers idealize our state—remember that Shirley Jackson wrote The Lottery while living in North Bennington—and Porter joins the fray with an ironic title and a frank look at the lives of seedy, small-town characters in doublewides on back roads in the Green Mountains. Nothing that would ever appear on the cover of Vermont Life—but its editor, Tom Slayton, had this to say of the novel: “A deeply engaging rural tragedy. Anyone who is interested in the future of rural New England should read it.”
Sarah Stewart Taylor (Hartland), Still As Death (St. Martin’s Minotaur; 320 pp). This is the fourth installment in Taylor’s startlingly original mystery series, featuring a woman academic specializing in funerary arts with a talent for solving murder cases. Kelly Larson, owner of Shiretown Books in Woodstock, says, “She lives up to her reputation as a great mystery writer in this one. I have to read books from all categories [for my job], and I have to say, she’s a pleasure.” (see Vermont Woman, April 2006 for more about the author).
Sarah Strohmeyer (Middlesex), The Cinderella Pact (Dutton Adult Books; 304 pp). Nationally loved for her Bubbles mystery series, about a hairdresser-turned-sleuth, Strohmeyer’s latest takes a different track with the story of three women friends who hold each other to a strict diet, at first for fun. Fran Plewak, President of Friends of the Library at Warren Public Library, said after an author reading, “She was great—very funny, very cutting-edge with things that affect everyday women. Her first book made fun of Barbie dolls. She’s just very insightful about some of the frustrations that women commonly have.”
Adult Non-Fiction
Alison Bechdel (Burlington), Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Houghton Mifflin; 240 pp). An autobiographical story about Bechdel’s childhood relationship with her closeted father told in graphic novel form (for adults). Says Linda Ramsdell at the Galaxy Bookshop in Hardwick, “It has stayed vividly with me in the months since I read it, but this is not just because of the graphics. The emotion and feeling of the book are just as distinct as the illustrations; the narrative force of the story makes this book stand out as well. I had resisted reading graphic novels, and I thank Bechdel for providing such a great experience, and for her powerful story so creatively told.”
Linda Faillace (Warren), Mad Sheep: The True Story Behind the USDA’s War on a Family Farm (Chelsea Green; 324 pp). Called “Kafkaesque” by one reviewer, this Warren sheep farmer tells how the government shut down their family farm in order to protect the beef industry from rumors of mad cow disease. “It’s such a compelling story, and I remember when the actual thing happened,” says Fran Plewak at the Warren Public Library. 
“It was just such a frustrating, heartbreaking situation, but she actually ends up very positive in the book, because the incident caused the community to unite around her and they made lifelong friendships. It’s reality, about some terrible things that happened in the name of our government. You certainly don’t have to be local to enjoy it.”
Sharon Lamb and Lynn Mikel Brown, Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers’ Schemes (St. Martin’s Press; 336 pp). See review in this issue of Vermont Woman, page 24.
Vivian Moore (Sharon), Paddy: A Ruffed Grouse Chooses Our Farm (Full Circle Stories; 139 pp). In the vein of Pat Wakefield and Larry Carrara’s non-fiction account of the lovesick moose that courted their cow Jessica for a few months in 1987, Moore has written a memorable account of a ruffed grouse who made Moore’s farm his home from 2003 until he disappeared in April of this year. “It’s a small paperback with great photos of the bird,” says Rachel Clark, at Baxter Memorial Library in Sharon, of this “adorable” story for all ages. Copies are available at the Sharon Trading Post and at Dandelion Acres in Bethel; out-of-towners can contact Moore herself to purchase a copy (802-763-7081).
Children & Young Adults
Elizabeth Bluemle (Charlotte), My Father the Dog (Candlewick Press; 32 pp). Written by the co-owner of the Flying Pig Bookstore in Charlotte, this picture book is “a charming look at how this little girl’s father is really like a dog. Very playful and funny,” says Bluemle’s associate at the Flying Pig, co-owner Josie Leavitt.
Eileen Christelow (Putney), Letters From a Desperate Dog (Clarion Books; 32 pp). Clearly, Vermont writers love their dogs. This oversized picture book features the dog Emma, who tries hard to please her human, George, by following the advice of a doggy advice columnist in the Weekly Bone. But nothing goes quite right, a common feature of this experienced children’s writer’s many books.
Johanna Hurwitz (Wilmington), The Unsigned Valentine (Harper Collins; 176 pp; illus. Mary Azarian). This is the third in Hurwitz’s trilogy for young adults featuring 15-year-old Emma Meade. Emma’s time and place are Jericho, Vermont in 1911, and who better to comment on such a book than Anne McKinstry Micou, author of A Guide to Fiction Set in Vermont ? “This novel gently evokes Emma’s aspirations to marry, live on a farm, and raise a family, and her feelings as she falls in love with her brother’s friend, Cole Berry. Her mettle is tested during a terrible storm and flood, Cole saves her life, and her grateful parents agree to their marrying in two years if they are still so inclined. As the Vermont saying goes, ‘You have to have a summer and a winter together before you know each other.’”
Katherine Paterson (Barre), Bread and Roses, Too (Clarion Books; 275 pp). “It’s fantastic; everything Katherine touches is gold,” says Natacha Liuzzi, the children’s book buyer for The Book Rack and Children’s Pages in Essex Junction. “It’s about the strike of 1912 in Lawrence, MA. Things got really ugly, so they farmed the kids out, and 35 came to Barre, VT to stay with the granite workers.” The story is split between two protagonists, a “basically homeless” boy and a girl who just wants to continue going to school. “Imagine what it’s like to be pulled from school and sent to another state,” Liuzzi says, thinking of the book’s 8-15-year-old readers (see Vermont Woman, October 2006 for an expanded review).
Leda Schubert (Plainfield), Ballet of the Elephants (Roaring Brook Press; 34 pp). “Gorgeous,” says Josie Leavitt, co-owner of the Flying Pig Bookstore in Charlotte. “It’s really interesting story for a picture book, about how George Balanchine choreographed a ballet for elephants. She takes the factual story and makes it really lively.”
Tanya Lee Stone (South Burlington), A Bad Boy Can Be Good For a Girl (Wendy Lamb Books; 240 pp). “This book is told in poetry, which is very cool,” says The Book Rack’s owner-manager Elaine Sopchak. “It’s about three different girls who all fall for the same boy—and he’s a ladies’ man, a real Romeo who sleeps with two of the three girls. In the end, they have their revenge on him in a very creative way, and they all end up stronger for the experience. Definitely for the over 14 crowd.”
