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| (It's still small — but it's mighty.) |
| The Thread's Must-Read |
| "Meddling Kids" by Edgar Cantero Buy this book I’m going to assume that you have watched at least one episode of “Scooby-Doo,” or at least remember what that 1970s cartoon was peddling. Every week, a ragtag young group of friends and their easily-spooked-yet-somehow-verbal Great Dane found themselves swept up in a new mystery, in a haunted house or a haunted swamp or a haunted riverboat. By the end of every episode, they would have unmasked the culprit — it was always a real, flesh-and-blood human culprit, masquerading in a costume — and all would be right with the world again. Until next week. It wasn’t a format original to “Scooby-Doo.” Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and the Boxcar Children were all solving mysteries that somehow only amateur detectives could puzzle out long before Scooby was even a puppy. But now Edgar Cantero has taken the well-worn story line and given it a modern, adult makeover with plenty of nostalgia and new scares. “Meddling Kids” shows us what would have happened if the Scooby gang had grown up and faced the harsh realities of life after prodigy crime-solving. The book is one giant smirk of a novel. It goes dark, into both the corners of the mind and the depths of an abandoned house. The house in question sits on a wooded island near the town where the group spent their summers as kids. And though they haven’t spoken in years, there’s one last mystery lurking that refuses to be ignored. Cantero puts pop culture and brutal truths in a blender for a quick and twisted read. (And it just came out in paperback!) -Tracy Mumford |
| This Week on The Thread |
| Poetry is making a big comeback in the U.S. The National Endowment for the Arts announced that "as a share of the total U.S. adult population, this poetry readership is the highest on record over a 15-year period." More |
| Short stories are "food for the soul and for the mind" "Days of Awe" by A.M. Homes Buy this book A.M. Homes' first story collection in 15 years is called "Days of Awe," and it covers everything from a chat room for bird lovers, to a summit on genocide, to a superstore where someone's abandoned a baby. More |
| How a black detective infiltrated the KKK "Black Klansman" by Ron Stallworth Buy this book In "Black Klansman," Ron Stallworth writes about an undercover investigation in which he — an African-American police detective — convinced the Ku Klux Klan that he was one of them. More |
| Somali refugee Abdi Nor Iftin: "I am here to make America great" "Call Me American" by Abdi Nor Iftin Buy this book Bak in Somalia, Abdi Nor Iftin was nicknamed "Abdi the American," and his love of this country put him in danger — but then he got a visa to come here. More |
| The connections between deep cover and the closet "Vera Kelly" by Rosalie Knecht Buy this book The personal is most definitely political in Rosalie Knecht's crisp, lively and subversive novel about a queer woman who discovers her early life in the closet makes her well-suited for espionage. More |
| A (cute) lesson in how "you can be different — and yet still be friends" "Bear's Scare" by Jacob Grant Buy this book Bookseller Julie Poling just fell in love with a new picture book about a bear and an unexpected house guest. More |
| A skillfully drawn family saga "A Place for Us" by Fatima Farheen Mirza Buy this book Fatima Farheen Mirza's first novel follows an Indian-American Muslim family — at its best, a happy family, but torn by tensions between a father and son who keep missing opportunities to connect. More |
| Listen: An interview with Tracy K. Smith, U.S. poet laureate Since getting the laureate job in 2017, Tracy K. Smith has been on a mission to take her poetry on the road, visiting rural areas where most writers aren't expected to go. More |
| The stress of a shepherd's life, and other Somali stories "The Lion's Binding Oath and Other Stories" by Ahmed Ismail Yusuf Buy this book Minnesota writer Ahmed Ismail Yusuf hopes the tales in his book will promote understanding about his Somali homeland. More |
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