In the Days of the Vaqueros: America's First True Cowboys by Russell Freedman

Oh American History class, how I do shake my head when I look back on you. I love American history (I ended up teaching it for five years to soldiers at one point) and yet I have never been able to shake my frustration at how one-sided our study of history is. Yes, yes, yes - the victors write the story but what has driven me nuts about history textbooks and teachers my whole life is all the stories that have nothing to do with winning or losing that get left out anyway. Case in point: cowboys. I grew up on John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, Gunsmoke and The Rifleman. And Wild Wild West, The Big Valley, Wanted: Dead or Alive (Steve McQueen!!!!)

I've got a dog named "Hondo", people. I thought Louis L'Amour was everyone's idea of leisure reading in junior high.

The problem with all this western wonderfulness (and it is all wonderful) is that the heroes were Caucasian thus providing us all with yet another skewed version of our nation's past. Russell Freedman (the great Russell Freedman) makes an attempt at setting yet one more record straight with his outstanding In the Days of the Vaqueros. In this amply illustrated volume readers learn about the cowboys in Spanish Mexico who were there when American settlers first showed up. Cowboys took "their clothing, saddles and lingo from the vaqueros". You could even argue that cowboys took their image as well. But the vaqueros were first and there is a solid record testifying to their achievements. They just didn't make it into the books (or tv shows) and so, like a lot of other great American stories, we have forgotten they every existed.

Can I say again how much I love Russell Freedman?

THE YEAR WE DISAPPEARED by Cylin Busby and John Busby

If you like your stories to have closure, or even poetic justice, don't expect it out of this one. It's gritty, it's frightening, it's messy—and it's true. And just like real life, not everything gets tied up in a neat bow in the end.

The Year We Disappeared: A Father-Daughter Memoir is a true story. In 1979, Massachusetts police officer John Busby was brutally shot while starting his shift, losing much of his lower jaw. He survived, but his life and the lives of his family members were irrevocably altered. The story is told in alternating first-person chapters from the point of view of John Busby and his daughter Cylin, who was nine years old at the time of the shooting.

It's not an easy story to read. First, John does not pull any punches in his description of the horrific shooting or his long, painful recovery.

The Secret Journeys of Jack London by Christopher Golden & Tim Lebbon

Are you ready to take a journey into the wild?

Bestselling authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon have teamed up to create THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON. Jack certainly lived a wild life, which inspired Golden & Lebbon to create this new book series based on his real-life travels. They've taken his true stories and his fiction and mixed in urban legends and myths of the time. While THE SECRET JOURNEYS series is fiction, not biography, the books are extremely well-researched, and spooky elements add another level of intrigue to the richly detailed stories.

But don't just take my word for it -- check out the awesome reviews in VOYA (5Q 4P) and Booklist ("Golden and Lebbon's gamble is peppering their story with the fantastic and the supernatural, and it pays off in this gung-ho series starter...Golden and Lebbon write with gritty assurance. Best of all, this first chapter kicks the door wide open for almost anything in book two.") Also, 20th Century Fox has acquired the film rights to the series, and don't you want to read the books before the movie comes out?

The first book, THE WILD, is now available. (Get it from IndieBound!) When seventeen-year-old Jack London travels to Alaska to join the Klondike Gold Rush, the path he treads is not at all what he expected. Along the way, he encounters kidnappers, traders, traitors, and a mysterious wolf. Jack must face the wild head-on in order to survive.

I had the pleasure of setting up and kicking off the blog tour for THE WILD. Drop by all of the stops on the tour to learn more about the authors, the illustrators, the Gold Rush, urban legends, and, of course, Jack London.

* Little Willow interviews the authors at Bildungsroman
* Tim Lebbon blogs at Lectitans with Kiba Rika
* Kim Baccellia interviews the authors for Si, Se Puede! and reviews the book for Young Adults Book Central (YABC blog)
* Discover the secrets behind the creation of the book's cover with Melissa Walker, author of Small Town Sinners and readergirlz diva
* The authors chat with Justin, another GLW poster, at Little Shop of Stories
* The authors swing by Rebecca's Book Blog
* Martha Brockenbrough picks the brains of Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon...and considers what Jack London may have said
* Martha Brockenbrough interviews Jordan Brown
* Martha reveals The Evolution of a Monster
* Golden and Lebbon visit Brian Keene, author and journalist

Want to help spread the word about this action-packed new series? Download the electronic press kit for THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON.

2012 Update: Check out my review of The Secret Journeys of Jack London, Book Two: The Sea Wolves.

Pick-Up Game edited by Marc Aronson and Charles R. Smith Jr.

It's not just basketball games that go down at The Cage, the fenced-in court on West 4th Street in New York City. In Pick-Up Game: A Full Day of Full Court, nine short stories introduce a handful of players and spectators there on one July day.

I'm calling Charles R. Smith the point guard in Pick-Up Game, since it's his photographs and poems that lead in to the stories that comprise the book. Told in different voices, from different perspectives, each story picks up where the previous story leaves off. As co-editor Marc Aronson writes in the Afterword, "We chose the setting and the date and gave each author a time slot. Each author knew who was on the court because we didn't let an author write a new story until the previous one was done. Each writer came on the court knowing who was playing, who had won, but ready to tell his or her own story." (p. 164)

Nothing by Janne Teller

Sometimes reading a book can be like sticking a wet finger into an electrical outlet. Some books – not many, but some – have the power to zap you across the room. And not necessarily from great writing or characters, but from the sheer boldness of the story or the scope of the subject matter. The amazing novel Push by Sapphire is like that. Nothing is also an electrical outlet book; it shocks you and blows your synapses into overdrive. Is it a good book? Yes. It is a great book? Probably not. Is it worth reading? Absolutely.

Nothing is not for the faint at heart or perhaps for some who take their religion seriously. This book, like my previously reviewed book, the brilliant, Tales of the Madman Underground, will just about never set foot into a classroom. I’m sure it will at some point, and when that happens the censors will come crawling (and clawing) from every direction. The fact that a school or parents would try to ban it is even more reason to read it.

Christopher Rowe Interview

As I mentioned in my review of the novel Sandstorm last Thursday, author Christopher Rowe is a friend. He's also one of the most interesting guys I know when it comes to talking about books, especially fantasy and science fiction. His knowledge is deep and broad, and if you ever have a chance to go hear him read, he's fantastic. After conducting the interview, though, I realized I never knew just how much thought he as an author has put into figuring out what the books he read as a teen still mean to him and for him today.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend

Way before I went through my own angsty teen phase, and long before I had ever even heard of a guy named Holden Caulfield, I was absolutely devoted to another teenage wonder. He is the namesake of the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾.

Living in lower-middle class England in the early 1980’s, Adrian is a curious guy just trying to figure out what do with his life. Adrian doesn’t want to be a punk like his friend Nigel, he doesn’t want any more spots on his face, and he definitely doesn’t want to take up drinking after hearing the disgusting noises he heard his parents make downstairs on New Years Eve. He thinks that he wants to be an intellectual, but he’s still not quite sure what that requires…possibly some poetry.

Adios, Nirvana by Conrad Wesselhoeft

Does it count as required reading if you assign a book to yourself? Even if it doesn't, I would still have to read Conrad Wesselhoeft's Adios, Nirvana.

There's the guitar-o'-fire cover that alone would compel some of us to give it a read, and there's the main character's bond with his buddies -- his "thicks" -- that leaps right out at you from the novel's very first lines ("Hey, man, get down!" "Dude, don't be an idiot!"). But for me, there's more to it than that.

When you think Dark do you think Dark Beer?

I've mentioned in a prior blog entry how much I enjoy the work of Tim Powers (if Pirates of the Caribbean 4 is any good, it will be because the based some of it on his excellent On Stranger Tides). One of my favorite of his books is Drawing of the Dark... which is a terrific blend of beer and Arthurian lore and magic. Yes, I said beer

The Floating Islands by Rachel Neumeier

In The Floating Islands Trei‘s world is falling apart. His home is destroyed in a natural disaster, leaving him without a family and grieving the loss of his talented sister. After an Aunt and Uncle closer to home decides not to take him in, he leaves on a long journey to Milendri, one of The Floating Islands.

As his ship approaches the exotic lands, Trei is astonished by The Floating Islands and the dragon magic that keeps them hovering above the ocean. When he sees the kajurai glide over his ship, he desires more than anything to become one of the men who fly through the sky with wings made of feathers.

Once there, he attempts to settle in with his Uncle Serfei and Aunt Edona and cousin Araene, who acts cold towards him at the beginning. Eventually they bond, as Trei leaves for a chance to become a kajurai and Araene secretly stumbles upon a society of magicians and her own magical powers.

Loyalties are strained as Trei begins training to be a kajurai. Rumors of war between Trei’s birth place and his new home become reality and The Floating Islands are not prepared to withhold the powerful attacking navy. Araene and Trei become integral parts in whether the islands can survive.

I love fantasy books with a clear sense of place and history, with J.R.R. Tolkien being the obvious master. Neumeier creates a vivid and unique world, which I would put on a level of some of my favorites like Sharon Shinn, Kristin Cashore and Shannon Hale. At times the plot builds very slowly, but this is a good, exciting fantasy.

Fans of book like Incarceron by Catherine Fisher and Monster Blood Tattoo by D.M. Cornish will enjoy The Floating Islands.