Demon Copperhead

 Fiction by Barbara Kingsolver

https://www.audible.com

I have never read David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, but supposedly this is a modern retelling. It's not necessary to know Dickens to understand this book, however. The idea that systemic poverty negatively affects children is not new, although Dickens did more to shine a light on it than anyone before him I think. Unfortunately, as Ms. Kingsolver, points out, it's a problem that has yet to be solved.  

Demon Copperhead is a nickname for a boy named Damon who lives with a single mom in Appalachia. He is born into poverty and lives through foster care, neglect, and worse. 

I really loved the characters in this story. The narrator was amazing as well.

I also read by this author: Unsheltered

The Good Wife of Bath

 Fiction by Karen Brooks

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

If you studied Geoffrey Chaucer in school, you have heard of the Wife of Bath, a character in his 14th century work The Canterbury Tales. This is an imaginative telling of that woman’s life, fleshing out the details from the small amount of information Chaucer gives us in his story. 

It’s an interesting book that helps you see history as it affected real people. It’s not quite as vivid as a Philippa Gregory novel, but still pretty good. 

The Great Alone

Fiction by Kristin Hannah

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Leni is thirteen years old when her unstable father decides to uproot the family once again, this time to move to the wilds of Alaska. It's both a wonderful and a terrible thing for her, and of course it changes her life completely.

This is an amazing story and a vivid portrait of life in the Alaskan bush. Having lived in Alaska myself, albeit (thankfully) in the civilized part, I can relate to the crushing darkness of winter and the manic exuberance of summer pictured here. It's an awful place, and a beautiful place.

This was a really really good book!!

I also read recently by this author: The Nightingale

The Language of Flowers

Fiction by Vanessa Diffenbaugh.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

Really good book, about a foster child who "ages out" of the system.

It kind of put me in mind of some of the Oprah book club selections from about ten years ago.

You know, when Ms. Winfrey was into stories of downtrodden kids, such as White Olenader or Ellen Foster.


The Language of Flowers has a lot of hope though, unlike some other books of this type.

I would recommend this one.