BOTW: two ghost stories

My weekly book reviews are now a separate series of posts.  Look for the label Books of the Week (BOTW) to see them all.   

Jane Yolen spoke at the Literary Tastes breakfast at the ALA Annual Conference.  Her new volume of poetry is Kaddish: Before the Holocaust and After.  She explained that the poems are a new iteration of her family story. She grew up as a cultural Jew, not strongly religious, but the knowledge of the relatives who died in the Holocaust and those who survived it was always-present.  She said that that experience was the basis of her juvenile novel The Devil's Arithmetic.   I promptly put the book on hold and it was ready for me to pick up at the library when I got home. 

Hannah is tired of hearing family stories told and told again. She slips out of the room after the Seder meal and finds herself transported back to a Polish shtetl in 1939.  Introduced as "the cousin from Lublin," she realizes that these are her relatives -- and she knows what is going to happen to Polish Jews.  It's a ghost story with tragedy and triumph, and Hannah returns to the present with a new appreciation for her family.

Jane Yolen signing a copy of Kaddish for me. 

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Debut novelist Ramona Emerson was one of the speakers at the Gala Author Tea at the 2022 ALA Annual Conference. Her publisher, Soho, consistently comes out with good mysteries.

Since she was a child Rita Todacheene has been visited by ghosts. Sometimes they comforted her and sometimes they upset her to the concern of her Navajo grandmother. Even the reservation healer could not make the ghosts stay away. Years later Rita is a police forensic photographer who takes pictures at accident and crime scenes. The ghosts of the crime victims come to her and point out evidence that often turns out to be key to investigations. Finally a grisly car crash and a related multiple slaying bring a ghost who will not stop until Rita finds all the evidence for a crooked cop and a massive drug ring.

I'm not a big fan of paranormal fiction but I admired Rita's tenacity and cheered for her success.