LULA DEAN'S LITTLE LIBRARY of BANNED BOOKS: A NOVEL (audiobook) by Kirsten Miller

Published in 2024 by HarperAudio.

Performed by January LaVoy.

Duration: 10 hours, 13 minutes.

Unabridged.

Synopsis

Troy, Georgia is, on the surface, an idyllic small town. But, the book banners have gotten active and removed a whole list of books from the school libraries and the public library. 

The school board president, Beverly Underwood, was surprised at the arrival of this committee of book banners and how they manipulated social media to scare the town led by the local lady curmudgeon, Lula Dean. As a compromise, the school board president agrees to store all of the disputed books in her basement until things can get sorted out.

Meanwhile, Lula Dean has set up one of those "little free library" boxes in her front yard with alternative books that she considers wholesome. It features titles like The Art of the Deal, Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and "Lost Cause" histories of the Civil War that she purchased at a Goodwill store in a nearby store in the bargain section. 

The trouble begins when Underwood's daughter steals the banned books from the basement and switches the dust jackets on the banned books with the dust jackets on the books from Lula Dean's little free library. She puts the banned books back in the little free library but Lula Dean is none the wiser because she has never read any of the banned books nor has she read any of the books she is offering the town. 

When the town starts taking books from the little free library they are surprised and delighted at the books they really get to read. They are also surprised at the changes these books bring to the town.

My Review

This is a fun book to read. It has its serious moments and sometimes profound moments, but it mostly reads like a fun novel. I was reminded of Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels. 

The reader, January LaVoy, was excellent. She created many, many unique voices and they sounded authentic. She is very talented.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.  It can be found on Amazon.com here: Lula Deans Little Library of Banned Books.

THE TOY CAR: A SHORT STORY (kindle) by Rose Tremain

Published in 2025 by Amazon Original Stories.

The Toy Car is a coming-of-age story of Petros, an attractive 17 year old boy who lives on a sunny Greek tourist island. His life is mapped out for him - his father owns a popular taxi service and eventually he will inherit the business. 

It's a good life by most standards. 

But, his English mother is worried that Petros hasn't seen enough of the world so she convinces his father to send him off to live with her sister and her husband in London for a year abroad.

Petros brings along a toy version of his father's taxi, which is where we get the name of the story.

Up to this point, the story is pretty good.

When Petros arrives in London, his aunt and uncle seem very surprised about everything about him. They have not prepared for his arrival. Everything about the very existence of Petros confounds them.

I have no idea why they are acting this way, but it makes for a very poor experience for Petros. He spirals out of control with homesickness and bad experiences with girls and, eventually, he runs home.

What are the lessons learned in this coming-of-age story? 

Don't try new things?

London's weather is bad compared to the weather of a Greek island?

Better to be a taxi driver than to meet a girl in England?

Who knows what the point was supposed to be - all I know is that this book failed to deliver one except for the four I mentioned above.

I rate this story 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Toy Car: A Short Story by Rose Tremain.

WE LIVE HERE: DETROIT EVICTION DEFENSE and the BATTLE for HOUSING JUSTICE (graphic novel) by Jeffrey Wilson and Bambi Kramer

Published in 2024 by Seven Stories Press.

The 2008 Financial Crisis and the Great Recession that followed led to a myriad number of local problems all over the United States. In some places, major projects slowed or stopped. In others, manufacturing came almost to a halt. In others, there were so many subprime mortgages issued in that area that the housing market practically collapsed.

Detroit is famously home to tons of auto-related factories and they all slowed dramatically. It was so bad during the Great Recession that the American auto industry had to be bailed out by the federal government. Those job losses left the Detroit economy in a shambles.

On top of that, Detroit was one of the places with simply too many subprime mortgages. It wouldn't have been a problem if Detroit's economy didn't have any hiccups. The problem is that the Great Recession was much, much more than a hiccup - it was like a financial bomb went off in the city.

This graphic novel details the financial troubles that Detroit faced and how many of the subprime loan programs worked, including government supports that simply dried up when the property tax started to dry up. All of these led to an eviction of foreclosure crisis that snowballed across the city.

The best part of the book are the stories of neighbors banding together to prevent foreclosures. They literally blocked streets and called banks day and night urging them to negotiate with their mortgage customers. This should have been a no-brainer - the banks already had a glut of homes in the same neighborhoods. When too many homes are for sale, the prices are driven down so low that the banks may never get their money back. 

I do like the idea behind this book - using the graphic novel format to preserve local history. It was a lot more interesting than reading an article about the topic. It was quite effective in telling the story of neighbors that defended their homes because, as the title says, "We live here!"

I did have one complaint - the simple pencil illustrations are fine, but some of the characters look the same and it was hard to tell whose story we were reading about.

I rate this graphic novel 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WE LIVE HERE: DETROIT EVICTION DEFENSE and the BATTLE for HOUSING JUSTICE by Jeffrey Wilson and Bambi Kramer.