Have you ever called in an anonymous tip to the police? If you read The Monsters We Make by Kali White, you would be calling in every slow vehicle that drives by your house, anyone who ever offered your kid candy, and any house with an attic or basement. I’m not sure my kids will ever be let out of the house again after reading it. Sammy and Crystal Cox are siblings growing up in the 1980s. They live with their Mom who works two jobs and is a bit clueless. Crystal has a vision disability where she is legally blind but she writes for the school yearbook and newspaper. Following the disappearances of two paperboys from their small Midwestern town, Crystal decides it’s the perfect story to win a writing contest for a scholarship. Officer Dale Goodkind is the detective on the case who is haunted by his past. This book is gut-wrenching! We are given two possible men who are the potential monsters kidnapping the boys. Sammy and Crystal know things no one else does. They are both amazing characters. The end has me freaked out. Then I go to research the author and find out the story is based on the real disappearances of Johnny Gosch, Eugene Martin, and Marc Allen. The boys disappeared from Des Moines, Iowa between 1982 and 1986. Knowing this really happened has me even more freaked out!! I’m now going to read Kali White’s The Good Divide and The Space Between. She is supposed to have another book coming out, but I’m not sure when it is going to be released.
If you are looking for an indigenous author to support in November, then This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger has a great historical fiction read for you. Krueger is a member of the Anishinaabe ( Ojibwe ) tribe. This dialogue between a bit so likable character Jack and the teen narrator Odie will give you a good idea of the story. “Ask me, God’s right here. In the dirt, the rain, the sky, the trees, the apples, the stars in the cottonwoods. In you and me, too. It’s all connected and it’s all God. Sure this is hard work, but it’s good work because it’s a part of what connects us to this land, Buck. This beautiful, tender land.” Jack in Chapter 20. Odie then replies with his theory about how “God is a tornado.” which refers back to when a tornado killed a loving teacher, Mrs. Frost. The book was originally published in 2019 and is great as an audiobook coming in at 14 hours and 19 minutes on regular speed versus 464 pages of hard copy. ...
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