Adult Reader Advisory & More

Wonderland Creek
by Lynn Austin

This book drew my attention because it’s about a girl that has been working in a library in Illinois during the Great Depression. Her boyfriend breaks up with her, pointing out that she doesn’t live in the real world. She does tend to live through the stories she reads. After she is then let go from the library due to cutbacks she has hears of a small town library in Eastern Kentucky that has requested donated books. With her life falling apart, she decides she needs a change and decides to deliver the books herself. She enters into a world very unlike her own. It is a very small town, hit hard by coal mines shutting down. Books are delivered by horseback to families living in poverty. She gets thrown into the lives of these people, so unlike anything she has known in real life. She becomes aware that life doesn’t have to be lived through the stories she reads; real life can be just as dangerous, hard, and also rewarding as what she has read in a book.

This book is well written and shows what life in rural Kentucky was like during the Depression. It was interesting for us to see what the character learned and experienced about real life in this time period.

I enjoyed the read! Rated 4 stars Review by Mary McGarrah

The Medallion by Cathy Gohlke

One of my favorite recent books is Secrets She Kept by Cathy Gohlke.  When I saw she had another book coming out, The Medallion, I was interested to try it. The story takes place during WWII in Poland.  As the book begins we meet a couple getting married, and when he presents her with a medallion with the Tree of Life she vows to wear it forever.

We then meet an English lady who is married to a Polish fighter pilot. In Warsaw, we follow her life and the hardships she goes through on her own through the war. People come into her life, and lives and circumstances begin to intertwine as the terrible hardships of war continue. How people endured the horrendous events that took place is more than can be imagined. We continue to follow these families through the war and after.

As the story continues after the war, we see how the Tree of Life medallion brings together lives searching for answers.

This was well written, portraying well the hardships people had to endure to stay alive during a terrible time in history, and the goodness in people that helped others make it through.

Review by Mary McGarrah