Baby Bobcat Goes to School
By Merry S. Lewis
Picture Rocks Publishing ($22)
Captivating illustrations highlight this charming picture book about bobcat cubs learning the business of being bobcats. Mama teaches them to climb trees, hide and hunt, find water (including in neighborhood birdbaths) and have fun.
Tucson author Merry Lewis spent 40 years as an educator. Her husband, Lou, transferred his love for the desert to canvas after his retirement.
Vicki Ann Duraine
Desert Sonorous: Stories by Sean Bernard
University of Massachusetts Press ($19.95)
Teenage boys run past saguaros and exhaustion through the white-hot desert while their enigmatic coach spews insult and disillusionment. Space aliens enjoy the Southwest flavor of tacos, margaritas and basketball while working as volunteers at an RV resort. Three aging University of Arizona frat buddies convene in Las Vegas to cheer on the Cats. An EMT canβt save a drunken old man gut-shot and dying on his trailer floor, but reaches out to his beautiful and emotionally wounded daughter.
In his debut collection, Tucson native Bernard delivers quirky journeys through the social and environmental landscape of the Old Pueblo.
Vicki Ann Duraine
Two Six Shooters Beat Four Aces: Stories of a Young Arizona
By Barbara Marriott
TwoDot ($16.95)
Drawing from interviews recorded for the Arizona portion of the Federal Writersβ Project β a branch of Franklin Rooseveltβs Works Progress Administration β Marriott penned a fast ride through Arizonaβs wild frontier. This slim nonfiction volume is entertaining and sure to delight readers new to Arizona, though these stories may be a well-traveled trail for some Western enthusiasts.
Marriott is the author of 12 books, many set in the Old West.
Vicki Ann Duraine
Family Quilt: Inspiring Reflections
By Val Porretto
Amethyst Moon Publishing ($7.99)
Employing the motif of a cozy, comfortingly familiar patchwork quilt that βcaptures the eye and the heart,β Val Porretto reflects on families β the ties that bind, the threads that hold together distinctly different pieces, the patches that are tattered and old and those that are satiny soft when you hold them against your cheek. In this tiny bijou of a book, Porretto illustrates how, in many ways, a treasured heirloom may also be symbolic of the family that holds it dear. Born in St. Johnβs, Newfoundland, Porretto now makes her home in Tucson.
Helene Woodhams
Principal: A Personal History
Caroline Tompkins
Sunflower Lexical ($14.95)
When a national publication suggested to elementary school principal Caroline Tompkins that she write 1,000 words on the subject of a principalβs day, she replied that 1,000 words wouldnβt begin to cover it. Moreover, the time frame was too limiting: There arenβt enough hours in one day for the events, crises, victories and failures that compete for a principalβs attention. So instead, Tompkins produced an intriguing volume that interweaves a typical principalβs day with the story of her 30 years in teaching, 15 of them as principal in two Tucson elementary schools.
Tompkins, who attended UA as an undergraduate and earned a doctorate in education from Harvard, retired at age 54 β not because being a principal wasnβt worth doing, but because the current state of education (more punitive than supportive) β had rendered the job unrecognizable. Readers will understand, from this well-articulated and eye-opening account, the daily challenges faced by front-line teachers and administrators dealing with the demands of an increasingly convoluted educational bureaucracy. Heaven and earth must be moved regularly in order to carve out time in which learning can happen. As a principal, Tompkins observes, her days were an endless stream of hard choices: βfix or move forward, fix or move forward β¦ staring down the urgent when it [was] not important.β
Along the way, she copes with crumbling facilities, kids with complex mental and emotional needs and teachers at the end of their rope, all the while wondering just when it was that βpublic education stopped being everyoneβs favorite democratic institution.β
This volume is not simply the well-told story of a dedicated professionalβs career; rather, it should be required reading for any citizen with concerns about the direction of public education.
Helene Woodhams
Do
Γ
a Isidora, Peruvian Short Stories and Poetry of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Dorila Marting
Xlibris ($23.99)
Former newspaper correspondent and teacher Dorila A. Marting has released three previously published titles β a novel, a selection of short stories and a poetry collection β in an omnibus edition.
Marting was born in Peru, and her works are informed by the culture and landscape of her native land. DoΓ±a Isidora, the eponymous protagonist of Martingβs novel, comes of age in 19th-century Pomabamba, a small town in the Andes;. Headstrong and resistant to her parentsβ guidance, her mistakes are many and costly, but her will to succeed is strong. Peruvian Short Stories pays tribute to the storytelling tradition in which Marting was raised, and includes creation stories, fables, Quechuan mythology and morality tales. With Poetry of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, the author celebrates in verse β some English, some Spanish and some Quechan β her former world, her experience as an immigrant and her new life in Arizona, with the emphasis on nature, landscape and beloved family members. Marting, who wrote for both the Arizona Republic and the Arizona Daily Sun before becoming a teacher, lives in Tucson.
Helene Woodhams
