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“Murder Among Friends” by Candace Fleming

May 9, 2022 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

In a 1924 wealthy neighborhood of Chicago, Nathan Leopold, 19, and Richard Loeb, 18, randomly murdered Bobbie Franks, 14, to show they could execute the perfect crime. In “Murder Among Friends” (Anne Schwartz Books 2022) the award-winning nonfiction author Candace Fleming tells of the family lives of each perpetrator as well as that of the victim in Kenwood, saving the details of the crime to be woven into the description of the arrest and trial in which the renowned Clarence Darrow served as the defendants’ lawyer.

Nathan Leopold, a brilliant scholar and a misfit, earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago at the age of seventeen and was preparing to study law at Harvard University when he committed the crime. He considered himself a superman, superior to others, and therefore wasn’t restricted by rules or laws. Called “Baby” by family and close friends, he shot and stuffed songbirds throughout the city as a hobby. Nathan, a gay man living at a time when homosexuality was illegal, was in love with Richard.

Richard, also a good student, was a handsome lady’s man who also graduated early, from the University of Michigan. As a pastime he “shadowed” random people around town, delighting in his secret world. He considered himself a master criminal and convinced Nathan to commit a murder with him in exchange for sexual favors. Richard craved attention.

Their complex and supposedly air-tight murder plan involved ransom, although neither young man needed the money. But first, they had to find a victim. Bobby, from a wealthy family, a neighbor of the Leopolds and second cousin to Loeb, was walking home from school. The teens abducted him in their car, killed him, then sent a ransom note to the Franks family.

The murderers who were apprehended early on, felt no anxiety and no remorse. Richard, who wanted credit and attention for his plan, ultimately confessed. The sentence would almost certainly be hanging.

Lawyer Clarence Darrow who often defended pro bono cases was hired by the Leopold and Loeb families. Darrow had unlimited funds to call in psychiatrists at a time when practitioners were still called alienists. Psychiatry was a new science being developed by Freud Jung, and others. At the time of the trial, a criminal might be saved by a plea of insanity, but the two teenaged criminals were deemed sane.

What the brilliant Darrow wanted was ground-breaking—to show that the boys were mentally deficient, although not insane. Nine pages of primary sources cite the psychiatry records of the boys’ examiners. Here we find out more about Nathan being raised by an adoring but abusive nanny, rather than by his family. Loeb was neglected by his uber-wealthy parents. Surely a jury would convict these entitled arrogant boys. Better to convince one judge than a group of twelve. So Darrow had the boys change their not-guilty plea to guilty to avoid a trial by jury.

Gruesome as the story is, I found this meticulously researched and well-written cross over (to adult readers) to be a valuable insight into the history of law and a page turner. Check it out.

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning books: Lift As You Climb; Josephine; Loving vs Virginia; and Struttin’ With Some Barbecue all signed and for sale at Jane Addams bookstore. Books forthcoming about women’s suffrage, Martha Graham, and Ella Fitzgerald. talesforallages.com

“I Must Betray You” by Ruta Sepetys

April 17, 2022 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

Ruta Sepetys’s novels are young adult books that “crossover” as adult books. Such is “I Must Betray You” (Philomel 2022) set on 1989 Romania, when it existed under the totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena.

Cristian Florescu, 17, lives with his family in Bucharest where the Communist Party has the legal right to see everything anyone owns at any time. All apartment balconies must remain empty for clear viewing by authorities. The powerful “Reporters” are the only citizens who can afford black Dacias, the only Romanian-made car. One of these Reporters lives well in every apartment building. Romanians’ houses are bugged, but where? In the light fixtures? A huge percentage of the people are informers. Even within families, you don’t know if you’re safe. So you whisper.

You live in fear. And austerity. The citizens are told that the fields are lush with crops. That turns out to be a lie. But any crops that are grown are exported to pay government debt. The Romanian people eat rough bread or gruel. Kent cigarettes are used as currency to procure illegal services, such as medicine for Bunu, Cristian’s grandfather who is dying of leukemia. The electricity is turned off randomly and frequently. Bunu says, “This never knowing, it weakens us…It’s a form of control. They know exactly what they’re doing.”

The family members take turns standing in line to buy whatever food is available—a dented, expired can of beans, a potato the size of a lime.

Cici, Cristian’s sister, says, ‘beware of your friend Luca, who is eager and asks too many questions.’ Cristian is ordered into the office of the Securiate, the brutal secret service. They’ve framed him, said he owned American stamps. Now if he wants meds for outspoken Bunu, he’ll have to inform. But who set him up? Luca? Cristian has been in love with Luca’s sister, Liliana for ages, but maybe she’s the informer. Luca has rigged a car battery to generate light so they can all do homework. Is this suspicious? Everyone is suspicious of everyone else.

Cristian who speaks English is assigned to investigate Dan Van Dorn, son of an American diplomat. Cristian has access because his mother quietly obediently cleans the luxurious Van Dorn household. Their “refrigerator had enough food to feed a Romanian for an entire year.” Cristian watches pirated American movies and wonders if Americans really live like that.

The outside world has no idea how Romanians live. Ceaușescu has convinced world leaders of his benevolence, as he starves, imprisons, and kills his people. Secretly Romanians call him Draculescu, but in public, they must call him Our Good Father.

Cristian decides to act to change their circumstances. “How could we expect others to feel our pain or hear our cries for help when all we could do was whisper.”

When the city of Timisoara rebels against the government, Ceaușescu speaks in Bucharest’s University Square. All hell breaks loose. Rebellion! Many die but around Christmas 1989 Romania frees itself from Ceaușescu’s rule.

This well researched book set in historic Romania, which borders Ukraine, is a timely story set in an Eastern Bloc country—and a page turner.

“Concrete Rose” by Angie Thomas

March 27, 2022 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

By the author of the bestselling novel The Hate U Give (Balzer & Bray 2017), Angie Thomas, comes a prequel, Concrete Rose (Balzer & Bray 2021). It begins with Maverick, a Black seventeen-year-old, who has pretty much everything under control. He has a fly girlfriend, Lisa, who attends a different and elite school. He’s slinging dope in Garden Hills with the support of his older cousin Dre. On the rough side, his father, the former head of the King Lord gang, is serving time in prison while his mother has taken on two jobs to support her family.

Everything is fine until Mav learns he’s the father of a three-month-old baby—and the mother isn’t his girlfriend. Mav meets the baby, ready to help with the responsibility of parenting and the teenage mother splits, abandoning the baby. Mav takes care of the child under the guidance of his magnificent mother who insists that Mav does the real parenting, while she helps where she can.

Mav takes a job at the local grocery store, trying to follow the responsible path. Lisa couldn’t be angrier at him, of course, his having made a baby while they were in a relationship. Mav is trying to do the right thing, trying to support his son, Seven, but you sure can make a lot more money slinging dope, so he returns to that, successfully hiding it from his mother. And he’s still part of the street gang. And Lisa won’t accept that.

Tragedy strikes. Dre, his cousin and mentor, is killed in the hood. As is the way of the street, Mav must seek revenge. He thinks he knows who the murderer is, but he has to be sure. In a moment of weakness and within their despair, Mav and Lisa have unprotected sex and, yep, a few months later he discovers he’s going to be a father again. No way is Lisa going to make a family with a gang member. She’s too smart for that.

Mav is a loveable guy, trying to do the right thing as a parent to Seven, is flunking out of high school, his girlfriend hardly talks to him. Things are bad. The grocery store owner has Mav working the store as well as his garden. Mav is learning about gardening—both vegetable and flower—and is trying so hard to parent. And to convince Lisa that they and the babies could be a loving family.

Having read award winning The Hate U Give (known by its acronym THUG) so long ago I didn’t know how these characters played into the original. That is to say, this book works as a stand-alone. You don’t have to have read THUG, but you’ll want to. Growing up in the hood where gangs are multigenerational, where the little ones become the young ones who become the grown ones—it’s awfully difficult to break out of the culture. And Thomas shows it so well, with so much heart. Check these books out.

“Huda F Are You?” by Huda Fahmy

March 6, 2022 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

“Huda F Are You?” by Huda Fahmy (Dial 2021) is a graphic novel “dedicated to my mom (who wants everyone to know she hates the title).” This book is funny, insightful, and heart-warming from beginning to end. It is autobiographical but not strictly an autobiography.

Huda is a hijab-wearing (hijabi) Muslim American who is having an identity crisis, as most teenagers do. At her old school her identity was the hijabi girl. The family moves to Dearborn, Michigan where many girls are “the hijabi girl.” Is she a hijabi fashionista or athlete or gamer? Well, she’s not any of those things. Who is she?

Huda has four sisters and her mother changes up the pairs by reassigning their bedrooms periodically—which all the sisters find excruciating, but Mom wants them all to bond. Huda characterizes each sister with a perfectly simple yet profound drawing and labels them, “The sporty one, the smart one (Huda), the popular girl, the mysterious one (dotted outline and a question mark for a face), the funny one. Yep! They basically birthed a girl band.” Later she has the five sisters striding over a crosswalk, a doppelganger of the Beatles “Abbey Road” album cover.

We learn a lot of Muslim culture—at least the Fahmy family’s culture. Higher education is obligatory, loans are taboo making scholarships a necessity. Expectations and pressure are high. Classmates and teachers mispronounce Huda’s name (Honda, Hydra, Hubba…) throughout the story. Insults to Muslims are rampant, “goat-lover” “boater” “’cuz you came fresh off the boat.” Sometimes the insults arrive out of ignorance, maybe, such as, “I love how hairy your hands are.” “Must be like having a cat you can pet whenever you want.” Huda says, “Yes, it is exactly like that, Yay me.”—with the picture of her face saying something quite different.

Fahmy draws Huda with little Hudas sitting on her shoulder from time to time who voice some of Huda’s opposing thoughts. Or she draws herself as a cubist Picasso when she says “I didn’t fit in at my old school . . . So why should I expect to fit in here?” A universal student quandary.

Her parents tell her, “You’re going to be a lawyer.” But what does Huda want? “I fake interest in whatever other people are talking about.” Can she base a whole personality on being smart? Getting 100s. Huda is depressed at home so her mother thinks she’s on drugs. She’s not.

Jon, a smart boy, says he likes her art. So she tells Jon she likes him. He says, I’m not your type. One teacher is clearly Islamaphobic. Her mother tries to support her at a meeting with the principal, but Huda retracts her accusations of the prejudiced teacher and breaks her mother’s heart. Picture: Huda crushing a human heart in her hand. But the principal must be insightful because suddenly the Islamaphobic teacher is giving Huda deserved As. Huda and her mother reconcile and more. Her mother is a support and “Huda F Is Gonna Be Fine.” I loved this enlightening and universal story.

“In the Wild Light” by Jeff Zentner

February 13, 2022 By Patricia Hruby Powell 1 Comment

In a small Appalachian town, Cash has lost his mother to the opioid crisis. His best friend, Delaney, has a mother who appears to be losing the opioid battle. She has no concern for her daughter. But the two teens have met at a Narateen meeting and became immediate friends in Jeff Zentner’s “In the Wild Light” (Crown 2021).

Thank heavens for Cash’s grandparents, Papaw and Mamaw who love them both. Delaney is no ordinary girl. She is being pursued by the press for having discovered a mold in a cave that acts as a powerful penicillin. She credits Cash as being co-discoverer, but he knows he only paddled her into the cave in his canoe. He loves the backwoods. And he loves his grandparents. Unfortunately, Papaw has emphysema and is being kept alive with an oxygen tank. Mamaw is manager of a Caesar’s Pizza and brings home a pizza every night for their dinner. These people are living hand to mouth.

Delaney is offered a scholarship to an expensive STEM high school, Middleford, in Connecticut, but how can she go alone? It’s too intimidating. Even in Sawyer, Tennessee, she’s a misfit. This ivy league prep school would be impossible. But she gets a scholarship offer for herself and for Cash as her co-discoverer. But how can Cash leave his failing Papaw?

Papaw and Mamaw urge Cash to go to the Connecticut school, as do his aunts Betsy and Mitzi. They want a better life for their orphaned boy. He’s done fine at school in Tennessee but he knows he’s not up to ivy league standards. Delaney, however, is a genius and this is her chance. It takes a lot of chapters to get the two out of Tennessee, but the reader knows it will happen. And yep, it’s rough at Middleford, socially. Delaney excels and the teens find two empathetic friends and Cash finds poetry.

His poetry teacher, who also happens to be from Appalachia, tells him, “Every hurt, every sorrow, every scar has brought you here. Poetry lets us turn pain into fire by which to warm ourselves. Go build a fire.”

Writing poetry, which is brand new to him, helps Cash through the agonizing events of his young life and gives him a direction. As do Alex and Vi, their new friends. This is a story of sweet new love, overcoming devastating hardship, grief, and finding self and family.

“The Great Godden” by Meg Rosoff

January 23, 2022 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

The latest novel by Meg Rosoff is “The Great Godden” (Candlewick 2021) about a family and friends summering together on England’s seaside. The teenaged narrator observes acutely—the loving parents; an older beautiful sister, Mattie, who is “in love with her own life”; a younger sister, Tam, who lives at the local horse stables; younger brother, Alex, who studies bats and other wildlife; and a theatrical cousin and her fiancé next door. To this summer mix comes the Godden boys, transplanted from Los Angeles and dropped off by their failing movie star mother.

Hugo is surly and the older Kit Godden seems to Mattie to be a golden god. Our narrator says, “What annoys me most is that it takes no effort to be born beautiful, no hard work, no mental agility, no strength of character. Just dumb luck. And it’s a universal currency, often mistaken for moral superiority.” He is describing both sister Mattie and Kit.

Kit Godden first bestows his attentions on Mattie who is head over heels in love with him. Eventually Kit turns his attention and sexual prowess on the narrator who is of undisclosed gender. This confuses our teenaged narrator.

Kit says, “‘You think I’m a player.’” Our narrator says, “‘I don’t know what you are,’ I said, which was true, ‘and I don’t care.’ Which was not.” The author’s subtlety and spot-on depiction of characters is admirable, to put it lightly.

The brothers, Hugo and Kit, detest each other. In fact, Hugo rarely speaks to anyone. But eventually the narrator and Hugo develop an understanding and through him we learn a bit more about brothers’ relationship. As we discover more about Kit, we begin to appreciate Hugo more. So does our narrator, who says, “Kit’s version of natural was a carefully constructed illusion. I was learning a lot this summer, most of it stuff I didn’t want to know.”

Our narrator confronts Kit about his intentions, almost begins crying in humiliation, then says, “Part of me knew he would take advantage of a genuine emotion to advance his game, and part of me just wanted him so badly that by the time we kissed I had no thought of asking him to stop.” Anyone who feels they have been manipulated in love or in any other realm of living will admire the character/author’s insights.

Kit is getting his talons into just about everyone on the island. And still the ending is a surprise. I highly recommend you read Meg Rosoff’s books. She is perhaps the most insightful, sophisticated young adult author around. And this book is short—small and just less than 200 pages.