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Basket Case
by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN 044661193X (0-446-61193-X)
Softcover, Grand Central Pub

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Book summary:
Take one dead rock & roll star, his Courtney Love-type widow, the mysterious deaths of his former bandmates, and the lost tracks of a comeback album. Stir in Jack Tagger, a middle-aged investigative reporter obsessed with death since his banishment to the obit desk; a fetching young editor with a yen for our hero; and a boss looking for a reason to fire him. Put them in the hands of a master like Carl Hiaasen, who adds his trademark flourishes (who else would use a frozen lizard as a weapon?) to a creaky plot like this one, and the result is a winner. Florida is full of caper writers with journalistic credentials, and plenty of them have a deft hand with quirky characters, but no one in the genre is better than Hiaasen. --Jane Adams [via]
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Because of Winn-Dixie
by Kate DiCamillo

ISBN 0763616052 (0-7636-1605-2)
Softcover, Candlewick Pr

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Book summary:
Because of Winn-Dixie, a big, ugly, happy dog, 10-year-old Opal learns 10 things about her long-gone mother from her preacher father. Because of Winn-Dixie, Opal makes new friends among the somewhat unusual residents of her new hometown, Naomi, Florida. Because of Winn-Dixie, Opal begins to find her place in the world and let go of some of the sadness left by her mother's abandonment seven years earlier.
With her newly adopted, goofy pooch at her side, Opal explores her bittersweet world and learns to listen to other people's lives. This warm and winning book hosts an unforgettable cast of characters, including a librarian who fought off a bear with a copy of War and Peace, an ex-con pet-store clerk who plays sweet music to his animal charges, and the neighborhood "witch," a nearly blind woman who sees with her heart. Part Frankie (The Member of the Wedding), part Scout (To Kill a Mockingbird), Opal brings her own unique and wonderful voice to a story of friendship, loneliness, and acceptance. Opal's down-home charm and dead-on honesty will earn her friends and fans far beyond the confines of Naomi, Florida. (Ages 9 and older) --Emilie Coulter [via]
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Big Trouble
by Dave Barry

ISBN 0425178102 (0-425-17810-2)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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Book summary:
Dave Barry, the only newsman to win a Pulitzer for exemplary use of words like booger, will please humor and crime-fiction fans alike with this racy debut novel. The scene is Miami. In ritzy Coconut Grove, the teen son of Eliot, a newsman turned adman, sneaks up to spritz a cute girl with a Squirtmaster 9000 to win a high school game called Killer. Meanwhile, two hit men sneak up to kill the girl's abusive stepdad, Arthur. Arthur cheated his bosses at corrupt Penultimate, Inc., which equipped a Florida jail with automatic garage-opener gates that accidentally freed prisoners in a lightning storm.
Farcical confusion ensues, witnessed by a saintly bum named Puggy, camped in a tree in Arthur's yard. Puggy works at the Jolly Jackal Bar & Grill, which has no grill and actually sells guns and bombs to an offshoot of the Crips and Bloods called the Cruds, and to Penultimate (which plans to conquer Cuba). But when dim thugs Eddie and Snake rob the Jolly Jackal and Arthur tells them it's a Russian mob front selling bombs, the proprietor snorts, "Bombs, pfft! No bombs! Is bar."
Can Snake and Eddie spirit a suitcase nuke through Miami, "where most motorists obeyed the traffic and customs of their individual countries of origin"? Can Eliot and cop Monica Rodriguez save the day? And how do the 300-pound hallucinogenic Enemy Toad, the 13-foot-long python Daphne, highway goats, and the Denture Adventure seniors' theme park fit in? Everything fits perfectly, including a few dark passages new to Barry's work. But one warning: if you read this book while drinking milk, at some point it will spurt out of your nostrils. --Tim Appelo [via]
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Bright Orange for the Shroud
by John D. MacDonald

ISBN 0449224449 (0-449-22444-9)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

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More editions of Bright Orange for the Shroud:
- Bright Orange for the Shroud: ISBN 0449224449 (0-449-22444-9)
  Softcover, Ballantine Books
Cross Creek
by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

ISBN 0684818795 (0-684-81879-5)
Softcover, Scribner

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Book summary:
Originally published in 1942, Cross Creek has become a classic in modern American literature. For the millions of readers raised on The Yearling, here is the story of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's experiences in the remote Florida hamlet of Cross Creek, where she lived for thirteen years. From the daily labors of managing a seventy-two-acre orange grove to bouts with runaway pigs and a succession of unruly farmhands, Rawlings describes her life at the Creek with humor and spirit. Her tireless determination to overcome the challenges of her adopted home in the Florida backcountry, her deep-rooted love of the earth, and her genius for character and description result in a most delightful and heartwarming memoir. [via]
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Darker Than Amber
by John D. MacDonald

ISBN 0449224465 (0-449-22446-5)
Softcover, Gold Medal

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More editions of Darker Than Amber:
- Darker Than Amber: ISBN 0816140081 (0-8161-4008-1)
  Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
- Darker Than Amber: ISBN 0449224465 (0-449-22446-5)
  Softcover, Gold Medal
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A Death in China
by Carl Hiaasen, William D. Montalbano

ISBN 0375700676 (0-375-70067-6)
Softcover, Vintage Books

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Book summary:
An American investigating his mentor's murder finds himself ensnared in a web of lies and treachery in China, where even tomorrow's weather is a state secret. From a nightmarish interrogation to assassination by cobra, A Death in China takes readers on a trip with no rest stops through a world of claustrophobic mistrust and terrifying danger. [via]
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- A Death in China: ISBN 0375700676 (0-375-70067-6)
  Softcover, Vintage Books
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The Deep Blue Good-By
by John D. MacDonald

ISBN 0449223833 (0-449-22383-3)
Softcover, Gold Medal

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Book summary:
Travis McGee is a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. Hes also a knight-errant whos wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out, and his rule is simple: Hell help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half. The Travis McGee novels are among the finest works of fiction ever penned by an American author. Jonathan Kellerman McGee isnt particularly strapped for cash, but how can anyone say no to Cathy, a sweet backwoods girl whos been tortured repeatedly by her manipulative ex-boyfriend Junior Allen? What Travis isnt anticipating is just how many women Junior has torn apart and left in his wake. Enter Juniors latest victim, Lois Atkinson. Frail and broken, Lois can barely get out of bed when Travis finds her, let alone keep herself alive. But Travis turns into Mother McGee, giving Lois new life as he looks for the ruthless man who steals womens spirits and livelihoods. But he cant guess how violent his quest is soon to become. Hell learn the hard way that there must be casualties in this game of cat and mouse. John D. MacDonald is a shining example for all of us in the field. Talk about the best. Mary Higgins Clark [via]
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Double Whammy
by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN 0446352764 (0-446-35276-4)
Softcover, Grand Central Pub

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Book summary:
R.J. Decker, star tenant of the local trailer park and neophyte private eye is fishing for a killer. Thanks to a sportsman's scam that's anything but sportsmanlike, there's a body floating in Coon Bog, Florida -- and a lot that's rotten in the murky waters of big-stakes, large-mouth bass tournaments. Here Decker will team up with a half-blind, half-mad hermit with an appetite for road kill; dare to kiss his ex-wife while she's in bed with her new husband; and face deadly TV evangelists, dangerously seductive women, and a pistol-toting redneck with a pit bull on his arm. And here his own life becomes part of the stakes. For while the "double whammy" is the lure, first prize is for the most ingenious murder. [via]
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Flush
by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN 0375821821 (0-375-82182-1)
Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books

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Book summary:
Bestselling novelist Carl Hiaasen is back with another hysterical mystery adventure for young readers, set in the Florida Keys.

You know it's going to be a rough summer when you spend Father's Day visiting your dad in the local lockup.

Noah's dad is sure that the owner of the Coral Queen casino boat is flushing raw sewage into the harborwhich has made taking a dip at the local beach like swimming in a toilet. He can't prove it though, and so he decides that sinking the boat will make an effective statement. Right. The boat is pumped out and back in business within days and Noah's dad is stuck in the clink.

Now Noah is determined to succeed where his dad failed. He will prove that the Coral Queen is dumping illegally . . . somehow. His allies may not add up to muchhis sister Abbey, an unreformed childhood biter; Lice Peeking, a greedy sot with poor hygiene; Shelly, a bartender and a woman scorned; and a mysterious piratebut Noah's got a plan to flush this crook out into the open. A plan that should sink the crooked little casino, once and for all.

From the Hardcover edition. [via]
More editions of Flush:
- Flush: ISBN 0375921826 (0-375-92182-6)
  Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books
- Flush: ISBN 0375821821 (0-375-82182-1)
  Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books
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Hoot: Library Edition
by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN 0375829164 (0-375-82916-4)
Softcover, Random House Childrens Books

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Book summary:
Hoot, Carl Hiaasen's debut novel for younger readers is a very special treat indeed. The writing is exceptionally good, and the characters extremely quirky and well realised. It's incredibly readable despite a story premise that is not sparklingly original. But no matter, there's an engaging "feel-good" vibe running through the whole book.
The setting, as with Hiaasen's crime thrillers for adults such as Basket Case and Sick Puppy, is sunny Florida and the heat, swamps, dust and pancakes all contribute to the authentic atmosphere of the book. His favourite environmental theme is here too, as is the thoroughly watertight plotting. There's an engaging mystery set up on the very first page and it builds nicely with more twists and turns as the story unfolds--all of them reassuringly tied up come the final pages.
Roy Eberhardt's story begins when he is being mashed up against the window of the school bus by bully Dana Matherson. He spots an athletic bare-footed boy running away from the bus and wonders where he is going. Further investigations, after he has unwisely smashed Dana's nose in to get away from him, leads Roy into the middle of a battle between a green-minded local runaway and the proposed opening of a pancake restaurant. The development threatens the habitat of a burrowing-owl colony and it's an issue that several people in the community have differing views upon--not all of them legal.
Roy carries the story very well indeed. He's likable and persistent in the face of unexpected and challenging adventure, despite his modest size. The cause he chooses to support is eminently worthy--he weighs up the strength of his beliefs with the necessity to slightly bend the law. This is a good story with some great writing--a winning combination. (For readers aged 10 and over.) --John McLay [via]
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Killing Mister Watson
by Peter Matthiessen

ISBN 1860464173 (1-86046-417-3)
Softcover, Harvill Pr

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Book summary:
Drawn from fragments of historical fact, Matthiessen's masterpiece brilliantly depicts the fortunes and misfortunes of Edgar J. Watson, a real-life entrepreneur and outlaw who appeared in the lawless Florida Everglades around the turn of the century. [via]
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Lucky You
by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN 0446604658 (0-446-60465-8)
Softcover, Grand Central Pub

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Book summary:
A Florida woman wins millions in the lottery only to have her ticket stolen. [via]
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Native Tongue
by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN 1568953445 (1-56895-344-5)
Softcover, Wheeler Pub Inc

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Now reissued--one of the most beloved novels by the "New York Times" bestselling author in which dedicated, if somewhat demented, environmentalists battle sleazy real estate developers in the Florida Keys. [via]
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Nature Girl
by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN 0307262995 (0-307-26299-5)
Hardcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
Honey Santanaimpassioned, willful, possibly bipolar, self-proclaimed queen of lost causeshas a scheme to help rid the world of irresponsibility, indifference, and dinnertime sales calls. Shes taking rude, gullible Relentless, Inc., telemarketer Boyd Shreave and his less-than-enthusiastic mistress, Eugeniethe fifteen-minute-famous girlfriend of a tabloid murdererinto the wilderness of Floridas Ten Thousand Islands for a gentle lesson in civility. What she doesnt know is that shes being followed by her Honey-obsessed former employer, Piejack (whose mismatched fingers are proof that sexual harassment in the workplace is a bad idea). And he doesnt know hes being followed by Honeys still-smitten former drug-running ex-husband, Perry, and their wise-and-protective-way-beyond-his-years twelve-year-old-son, Fry. And when they all pull up on Dismal Key, they dont know theyre intruding on Sammy Tigertail, a half whitehalf Seminole failed alligator wrestler, trying like hell to be a hermit despite the Florida State coed whos dying to be his hostage . . .

Will Honey be able to make a mensch of a greedhead? Will Fry be able to protect her from Piejackand herself? Will Sammy achieve his true Seminole self? Will Eugenie ever get to the beach? Will the Everglades survive the wild humans? All the answers are revealed in the delectably outrageous mayhem that propels this novel to its Hiaasen-of-the-highest-order climax. [via]
More editions of Nature Girl:
- Nature Girl: ISBN 0739326260 (0-7393-2626-0)
  Hardcover, Random House Large Print
- Nature Girl: ISBN 0307262995 (0-307-26299-5)
  Hardcover, Random House Inc
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One Fearful Yellow Eye
by John D. MacDonald

ISBN 0449224589 (0-449-22458-9)
Softcover, Fawcett Books

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Book summary:
"To diggers a thousand yeasrs from now...the works of John D. MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of Tutankhamen."

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

How to you extort $600,000 from a dying man? Someone had done it very quietly and skilfully to the husband of Travis McGee's ex-girlfriend. McGee flies to Chicago to help untangle the mess and discovers that although Dr. Fortner Geis had led an exemplary life, there were those who'd take advantage of one "indiscretion" and bring down the whole family. McGee also discovers he likes a few members of the family far too much to let that happen.... [via]
More editions of One Fearful Yellow Eye:
- One Fearful Yellow Eye: ISBN 0449224589 (0-449-22458-9)
  Softcover, Fawcett Books
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The Orchid Thief
by Susan Orlean

ISBN 044900371X (0-449-00371-X)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

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Book summary:
Orchidelirium is the name the Victorians gave to the flower madness that is for botanical collectors the equivalent of gold fever. Wealthy orchid fanatics of that era sent explorers (heavily armed, more to protect themselves against other orchid seekers than against hostile natives or wild animals) to unmapped territories in search of new varieties of Cattleya and Paphiopedilum. As knowledge of the family Orchidaceae grew to encompass the currently more than 60,000 species and over 100,000 hybrids, orchidelirium might have been expected to go the way of Dutch tulip mania. Yet, as journalist Susan Orlean found out, there still exists a vein of orchid madness strong enough to inspire larceny among collectors.
The Orchid Thief centers on south Florida and John Laroche, a quixotic, charismatic schemer once convicted of attempting to take endangered orchids from the Fakahatchee swamp, a state preserve. Laroche, a horticultural consultant who once ran an extensive nursery for the Seminole tribe, dreams of making a fortune for the Seminoles and himself by cloning the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii. Laroche sums up the obsession that drives him and so many others:
I really have to watch myself, especially around plants. Even now, just being here, I still get that collector feeling. You know what I mean. I'll see something and then suddenly I get that feeling. It's like I can't just have something--I have to have it and learn about it and grow it and sell it and master it and have a million of it.
Even Orlean--so leery of orchid fever that she immediately gives away any plant that's pressed upon her by the growers in Laroche's circle--develops a desire to see a ghost orchid blooming and makes several ultimately unsuccessful treks into the Fakahatchee. Filled with Palm Beach socialites, Native Americans, English peers, smugglers, and naturalists as improbably colorful as the tropical blossoms that inspire them, this is a lyrical, funny, addictively entertaining read. --Barrie Trinkle [via]
More editions of The Orchid Thief:
- The Orchid Thief: ISBN 0613280091 (0-613-28009-1)
  Hardcover, Bt Bound
- The Orchid Thief: ISBN 044900371X (0-449-00371-X)
  Softcover, Ballantine Books
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The Orchid Thief : A True Story of Beauty and Obsession
by Susan Orlean

ISBN 0679447393 (0-679-44739-3)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group

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Book summary:
Orchidelirium is the name the Victorians gave to the flower madness that is for botanical collectors the equivalent of gold fever. Wealthy orchid fanatics of that era sent explorers (heavily armed, more to protect themselves against other orchid seekers than against hostile natives or wild animals) to unmapped territories in search of new varieties of Cattleya and Paphiopedilum. As knowledge of the family Orchidaceae grew to encompass the currently more than 60,000 species and over 100,000 hybrids, orchidelirium might have been expected to go the way of Dutch tulip mania. Yet, as journalist Susan Orlean found out, there still exists a vein of orchid madness strong enough to inspire larceny among collectors.
The Orchid Thief centers on south Florida and John Laroche, a quixotic, charismatic schemer once convicted of attempting to take endangered orchids from the Fakahatchee swamp, a state preserve. Laroche, a horticultural consultant who once ran an extensive nursery for the Seminole tribe, dreams of making a fortune for the Seminoles and himself by cloning the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii. Laroche sums up the obsession that drives him and so many others:
I really have to watch myself, especially around plants. Even now, just being here, I still get that collector feeling. You know what I mean. I'll see something and then suddenly I get that feeling. It's like I can't just have something--I have to have it and learn about it and grow it and sell it and master it and have a million of it.
Even Orlean--so leery of orchid fever that she immediately gives away any plant that's pressed upon her by the growers in Laroche's circle--develops a desire to see a ghost orchid blooming and makes several ultimately unsuccessful treks into the Fakahatchee. Filled with Palm Beach socialites, Native Americans, English peers, smugglers, and naturalists as improbably colorful as the tropical blossoms that inspire them, this is a lyrical, funny, addictively entertaining read. --Barrie Trinkle [via]
More editions of The Orchid Thief : A True Story of Beauty and Obsession:
- The Orchid Thief : A True Story of Beauty and Obsession: ISBN 0679447393 (0-679-44739-3)
  Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
Sick Puppy
by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN 1568958692 (1-56895-869-2)
Hardcover, Wheeler Pub Inc

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Book summary:
Carl Hiaasen's characters ride and flail on little verbal hurricanes, and his literary storm shows no signs of dying down. Sick Puppy shares Dave Barry's giddy gift for finding humor in South Florida horrors, and a bit of Elmore Leonard's genius for pitch-perfect dialogue spouted smartly by criminals who are dumb as stumps. The title of Hiaasen's eighth novel could apply to most of its characters, but it chiefly refers to an ebullient Labrador retriever named Boodle and the millionaire eco-terrorist Twilly Spree. Let's just say that Twilly has a singular affliction: poor anger management in the face of environmental irresponsibility. When he spots Boodle's owner, Palmer Stoat, tossing litter from a car, Twilly goes to Stoat's home and removes the glass eyeballs from the animals that the bloated lobbyist had shot and mounted on his walls. Boodle gulps down the eyeballs, sustaining no small amount of digestive difficulties.
Soon Boodle and Stoat's wife, Desie, are fugitives from Florida's nature despoilers (who include the Governor, a "gladhanding maggot," the amusingly slimy Stoat, the human bulldozer Krimmler, the cocaine-importer-turned-developer Clapley, and the hit man Mr. Gash, who's fond of sex with multiple beach bimbos in iguana-skin sex harnesses to the tunes of The World's Most Blood Curdling Emergency Calls). Desie, who has a knack for calamitous romance, is smitten with Twilly, but urges him not to kill any litterbugs or pelican molesters: "Jail would not be good for this relationship." What keeps pure farce at bay in a novel that romps with the abandon of a scent-crazed Labrador is the otherwise charming Twilly's creepy edge of implacable fanaticism. And what redeems the funny/ugly violence from cliché is its colorful bad guys (they're as iridescent as oil slicks), Hiaasen's excellent wit, and the music of his prose. To evoke a drunk asleep on the beach, he adds a pungent detail: "a gleaming stellate dollop of seagull shit decorated his forehead."
Hiaasen is not unflawed. His original eco-terrorist character, ex-Florida governor Clinton "Skink" Tyree, seems like an interloper from the earlier books. But Hiaasen's the master of madcap ensembles (which is partly why the star-vehicle film of his fine book Strip Tease flopped). And even when you can see a chase scene's denouement coming for a beachfront mile, each paragraph packs descriptive delights to keep you going at breakneck pace. --Tim Appelo [via]
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Skin Tight
by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN 0446611514 (0-446-61151-4)
Softcover, Grand Central Pub

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Book summary:
Somebody wants Mick Stranahan dead. Mick is sure of this, because he just had to dispatch a pistol-packing intruder with the help of a stuffed marlin head. But who would want to hurt a former Florida state investigator? The answer is plenty of people-as Stranahan soon finds himself acquainted with a litter of nefarious players, including a hit man whose skin problems could fill a comprehensive (if bizarre) medical textbook, a lawyer of questionable repute who advertises on billboards, and a TV show host whose taste for sensationalism is exceeded only by his vanity. The whole thing gets downright harrowing for the ex-cop in one of Hiaasen's most breathtaking, madcap romps ever-where even a plastic surgeon with extremely shaky hands waits to wring Stranahan's neck. [via]
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Skinny Dip
by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN 1587248271 (1-58724-827-1)
Hardcover, Wheeler Pub Inc

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Book summary:
Charles "Chaz" Perrone fancies himself a take-charge kind of guy. So when this "biologist by default" suspects that his curvaceous wife, Joey, has stumbled onto a profitable pollution scam he's running on behalf of Florida agribusiness mogul Red Hammernut, he sets out right away to solve the problem--by heaving Joey off the deck of a luxury cruise liner and into the Atlantic Ocean, far from Key West. But--whoops!--Joey, a former swimming champ, doesn't drown. Instead, as Carl Hiaasen tells in his 10th adult novel, Skinny Dip, she makes her way back to shore, thanks both to a wayward bale of Jamaican marijuana and lonerish ex-cop Mick Stranahan (Skin Tight, 1989), and then launches a bogus blackmail campaign that's guaranteed to drive her lazy, libidinous hubby into a self-protective frenzy.
You've got to hand it to Hiaasen: He's perfected a formula for crisply written, satirical crime fiction that makes the best use of imaginatively repulsive villains, as well as less thoroughly venal scoundrels and victims who ultimately overcome their antagonists, all while stumping for the preservation of Florida's environment, particularly the Everglades. In Skinny Dip, we find Chaz (who'd rather be golfing than puttering around the "hot, buggy, funky-smelling and treacherous" reaches of nature) falsifying water samples to help Hammernut turn the 'Glades into "Gods septic tank." That scheme, though, is endangered not just by Joey's sudden disappearance, but by the suspicions of a python-loving police detective and Chaz's own outstanding inability to tame his Viagra-enhanced tumescence. Even by assigning Chaz a baby-sitter--the hulking, hirsute, and painkiller-addicted Tool--Hammernut can't keep his pet biologist out of trouble. As Joey and Stranahan unfold their revenge plot, and Tool's conscience grows in competition with Chaz's ego, the reader can only marvel at the extent of the train wreck ahead.
As much fun as Hiaasen has delivering Chaz his climactic comeuppance, what's missing from Skinny Dip is a more complex, more credible development of Mick Stranahan's character and the relationship he builds with the much younger Joey Perrone. Like Erin Grant, from Strip Tease, Joey has far more going for her than her bra-cup size; but "hero" Stranahan is of far less interest here than any of his fellow players. --J. Kingston Pierce [via]
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Stormy Weather
by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN 1568952767 (1-56895-276-7)
Hardcover, Wheeler Pub Inc

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Book summary:
A hilarious new novel of greed and corruption from the bestselling author of "Strip Tease". The story focuses on southern Florida at the height of the tourist season, when a ferocious hurricane hits--luring con artists, carpetbaggers, and would-be saviors like hyenas to the lion's kill. "Hiaasen himself is a one-man force of nature". [via]
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Strawberry Girl
by Lois Lenski

ISBN 0064405850 (0-06-440585-0)
Softcover, Trophy Pr

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Book summary:
Birdie Boyer was a Florida Cracker. She belonged to a large "strawberry family," who lived on a flatwoods farm in the lake section of the state. They raised strawberries for a living.
Through all the hazards of the uncertain crop -- battling against dry weather and grass fires, the roving hogs and cattle of their neighbors -- Birdie dreamed of an education that would include playing the organ. In the end she won not only the title of "strawberry girl," but book learning as well.
This is a story full of enterprise and fun and tire excitement of real life in this interesting part of America.
Lois Lenski has used again her gift for catching the flavor and drama of life in a remote corner of America. It is the second of a series of regional stories through which she promises to introduce other fascinating and little-known backgrounds to boys and girls. This story will take a place beside her popular Louisiana story Bayou Suzette in the affection of readers.
The eighty-four illustrations are distinguished for their action and fascinating detail. They add greatly to this true picture of Florida life at a time when old Florida ways were changing to new.
Winner, 1946 Newbery Medal
Notable Children's Books of 1945 (ALA) [via]
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Strip Tease
by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN 0446600660 (0-446-60066-0)
Softcover, Grand Central Pub

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A smart topless dancer and a cool but clueless cop join forces to trap a dirty congressman, aided by one of the funniest cast of characters ever collected in a suspense novel. [via]
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Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston, Gates, Henry Louis (AFT), Edwidge Danticat

ISBN 0060838671 (0-06-083867-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
At the height of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston was the preeminent black woman writer in the United States. She was a sometime-collaborator with Langston Hughes and a fierce rival of Richard Wright. Her stories appeared in major magazines, she consulted on Hollywood screenplays, and she penned four novels, an autobiography, countless essays, and two books on black mythology. Yet by the late 1950s, Hurston was living in obscurity, working as a maid in a Florida hotel. She died in 1960 in a Welfare home, was buried in an unmarked grave, and quickly faded from literary consciousness until 1975 when Alice Walker almost single-handedly revived interest in her work.
Of Hurston's fiction, Their Eyes Were Watching God is arguably the best-known and perhaps the most controversial. The novel follows the fortunes of Janie Crawford, a woman living in the black town of Eaton, Florida. Hurston sets up her characters and her locale in the first chapter, which, along with the last, acts as a framing device for the story of Janie's life. Unlike Wright and Ralph Ellison, Hurston does not write explicitly about black people in the context of a white world--a fact that earned her scathing criticism from the social realists--but she doesn't ignore the impact of black-white relations either:
It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment.
One person the citizens of Eaton are inclined to judge is Janie Crawford, who has married three men and been tried for the murder of one of them. Janie feels no compulsion to justify herself to the town, but she does explain herself to her friend, Phoeby, with the implicit understanding that Phoeby can "tell 'em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat's just de same as me 'cause mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf."
Hurston's use of dialect enraged other African American writers such as Wright, who accused her of pandering to white readers by giving them the black stereotypes they expected. Decades later, however, outrage has been replaced by admiration for her depictions of black life, and especially the lives of black women. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston breathes humanity into both her men and women, and allows them to speak in their own voices. --Alix Wilber [via]
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Tourist Season
by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN 0446343455 (0-446-34345-5)
Softcover, Grand Central Pub

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The only trace of the first victim was his Shriner's fez washed up on the Miami beach. The second victim, the head of the city's chamber of commerce, was found dead with a toy rubber alligator lodged in his throat. And that was just the beginning... Now Brian Keyes, reporter turned private eye, must move from muckraking to rooting out murder, in a caper that will mix football players, politicians, and police with a group of fanatics and a very hungry crocodile. [via]
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The Yearling
by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

ISBN 0689846231 (0-689-84623-1)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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RELIVE THE WONDER OF A CHILDHOOD FAVORITE THAT HAS BEEN CAPTURING THE HEARTS OF READERS FOR MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY.
An instant bestseller when it was released in 1938, this Pulitzer Prize winner has been read and loved by school-age children across the nation for more than fifty years. In this classic story of the Baxter family and their wild, hard, and satisfying life in remote central Florida, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings has written one of the great novels of our times. A rich and varied tale -- tender in its understanding of boyhood, crowded with the excitement of the backwoods hunt, with vivid descriptions of the primitive, beautiful hammock country, written with humor and earthy philosophy -- The Yearling is a novel for readers of all ages. Its glowing picture of a life refreshingly removed from modern patterns of living is universal in its revelation of simple courageous people and the beliefs they must live by.
This edition, complete with a new introduction by author Ivan Doig, will be cherished for years to come and will make a welcome addition to any booklover's shelf. [via]
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