More Weight: A Salem Story by Ben Wickey

In More Weight, artist and writer Ben Wickey tells a story of the terrible year of 1692, where neighbors suddenly turned on each other and innocent people were killed by the state simply because they were convicted of witchcraft. Shifting through time, we follow the Salem Witch Trials through the eyes of Giles Corey, and, to a lesser extent, his wife Martha. In spring of 1692, Giles attends one of the first trials and is taken in by the claims of the young women, swayed by their actions, and basically gets swept up into the whole thing. When Martha dismisses the whole thing as lies and superstition, Giles begins to wonder if she could be a witch, and ultimately brings an accusation of witchcraft against her to those leading the trials, who then arrest her. But Giles himself isn't exempt from the hysteria, and is eventually accused and arrested himself. Interwoven into the story of the Coreys are interludes set not quite 200 years later, as Nathanial Hawthorne escorts Henry Wadsworth Longfellow through Salem. Hawthorne, a native of Salem, had his own connections to the trials through an ancestor, John Hathorne, who was one of the judges. The two writers discuss Salem, the state of post-Civil War America, their writing, and their own losses as they wander the city under the guise of Hawthorne helping Longfellow in researching the trials for a play in verse on Giles Corey that Longfellow is writing. Bracketing the whole thing is Wickey's musings about modern-day Salem as the city gradually fills with tourists ready to celebrate Halloween in a place synonymous with witches and all things spooky, before diving deep through the post-witch trial history of Salem, Massachusetts, and the United States as a whole.

This is the kind of graphic novel that really showcases the versatility of the comics format, and the pure artistry that goes into telling stories in this way. Wickey gives each time period of the story its own art style and set of colors, making it easy to distinguish which part of the story you're getting next. The trials are done in black and white, with the figures more simply drawn, reminiscent of linocut printing. Hawthorne and Longfellow's story includes color, though everything is a little muddy, like an old postcard, and the characters look more like the engravings that would have been done for newspapers and magazines of that time period. The modern day parts are clearly more in line with Wickey's personal style of drawing, and feature saturated, almost jewel-toned colors.

What really drew me in was the story and the depth of research that went into it. Many of us have probably learned something about the Salem Witch Trials in history class, but how many of us can actually say that we understand the full history of the Salem Witch Trials? I know I didn't know much beyond the basics: young girls began acting strangely, accusing others, mainly women, of witchcraft, and many of those accused were convicted and killed. The fuller story is, of course, much more nuanced than that, and Wickey goes to great lengths to include all of that historical detail, using primary sources, information from experts, and much more to craft this story. This is very evident in the portion of the book near the end where he moves the story away from 1692 and lays out everything that happened afterwards. Instead of just focusing on certain details as they relate to the trials, or only giving a partial timeline, he crafts a comprehensive history that moves through 300+ years to bring us to the present day. There is some editorializing - part of that comprehensive history does critique how not much effort was made to stop people from linking witches to Salem and using it for tourism, and he also dismisses some of the theories that have been proposed to explain why the accusers acted the way they did. But I think what really struck me is the subtle argument he makes as he lays out this post-witch trial history, which is that when we don't fully examine our actions, when we don't take steps to understand what happened and why it happened, it leaves space for people to paper over things, forget who was harmed, and allow misinformation in. Wickey makes it clear that once the trials were over and everyone involved began to realize what they had just done, limited efforts were made to apologize and correct the injustice that was done. In fact, it wasn't until 2022 that the last victim was formally exonerated.

This was one of my favorite books that I read in 2025, and I highly recommend it. If you're looking for books to read that tie into America 250, or are into history in general, definitely pick this one up.

Take a Breath, Big Red Monster! By Ed Emberley

A fun companion book to the bestselling classic Go Away, Big Green Monster shows kids how to calm down with more than ten interactive peek-a-boo pages.  Strategies include taking deep breaths, closing your eyes and imagining a cooling rain.  With very colorful pages, kids preschool through school age will love this book and may ask you to read it over and over again.

-Julie B.

Winter Storm Reads: Our Winter Monster by Dennis Mahoney & Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

Since the winter storm is keeping us indoors another day, I thought I'd share two books about snow I've read this month. 

Published a year ago this week, Our Winter Monster by Dennis Mahoney is about a couple whose relationship is on the rocks being terrorized by a swirling mass of snow. Really! 

The story alternates between Brian and Holly present and Brian and Holly a year ago before a traumatic, bloody event that left them both, separately and together, changed. In the present narrative, they take a spontaneous vacation to a ski village but are derailed en route by a snow storm that has the power to yank someone out through a car window.  

We also get chapters from the village sheriff's perspective. Up until recently, Kendra felt confident and content, but then her girlfriend left her, two tourists went missing, and now she feels like a failure, stranded in an interior blizzard. 

Kendra, Brian, and Holly will encounter an unexplainable phenomenon before the night is through. 

This is an enjoyable, non-literary, old-fashioned horror story: It is a fun read that is also about the ways we avoid dealing with traumatic events; it isn't a book about TRAUMA dressed in the loose-fitting garb of a "horror" story. It's well-written but not in a way that distracts from the plot. It's got a sizeable cast of characters and they don't all make it, but at the heart of it is Brian and Holly: Will they survive, and if so, will their relationship make it? 

And now for something completely different! The other wintery book I read was Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata, translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker. Originally published in three parts over the course of ten years, the final version emerged as a whole in 1947. Snow Country is a melancholy winter poem in short novel form, frank and unromantic. 

"Snow country" refers to the mountainous region on the western coast of Japan known for its heavy snowfall, where pleasure-seekers go to ski, enjoy the hot springs, drink sake, and enjoy the company of geishas. Over the course of three visits to a hot spring resort in a remote mountain village, a married Tokyo idler (Shimamura) becomes intimate with a young geisha, Komako. There is no pretense that theirs will be a lasting love affair. Hot spring geishas aren't known for being particularly well-trained in music, dance, or song. 

The writing is absorbing, occasionally transcendently beautiful, lovely and sad. So much reflection on "wasted effort:" beauty and talent existing in a snowbound, uncultured village. When Shimamura is with Komako, he is reminded of his own futile enjoyments (hiking mountains; an intended self-published book on ballet, an art he's never seen nor wants to). In snow country, it is clear that time just passes, with nothing to show for us having been there but perhaps a series of diaries read over only by their writer, or a fine cotton cloth that will long outlive its anonymous creator. 

I hope everyone is safe and warm, cozy with their pets or other loved ones. 

-Michael G. 

Frills and Thrills by Louise Barnes Gallagher

Sometimes, there are treasures to be found on the free books cart at the entrance to the Ferguson Public Library.

One such treasure was a vintage book called Frills and Thrills by Louise Barnes Gallagher. It's the story of a young woman who matures from creating doll clothes as a child to designing and sewing her own much-admired clothes for college life, modeling at fashion shows, and eventually creating elegant designs for a high fashion couture house. This charming book, published in 1940, is based on the real-life experience of its author.

Not only did Louise Barnes Gallagher in reality design sought-after clothes from the 1920s through the end of the '40s, she also wrote good stories that followed her own personal trajectory while changing enough of it to create characters with interesting dilemmas and developments in the context of compelling historical fiction.  

In Frills and Thrills, we tag along with young Mary Bray beginning in her college years and moving into professional life as she grows in sewing and design skill as well as confidence and competence. We learn how the world of women's fashion design, production, and promotion operates. The story of Mary's professional development is fleshed out by her personal life, which has its share of ups, downs, disappointments, personal sorrows and joys, while unexpected opportunities and influential mentors help her establish professional footing. She's an earnest young woman who - despite hardships in early adulthood - seems to live a charmed life, the latter aspect giving the book much of its compelling readability. A few period-type illustrations add to the appeal of this book.   

More than merely an enjoyable reading experience though, I discovered this book is part of a series of "career books" written as novels for teenage girls and young women. The collection was published by Dodd, Mead and Company between the 1930s and '60s.   

I was hooked enough by the story of this young designer to search and find what I could about this author and this series of books. That led to a few surprises, though it was unsurprising to learn that the series was created to expose girls and young women to the day-to-day activities of a variety of occupations and professions. There are the expected ones for the time period during which they were produced: nursing, teaching, nutrition, home economy, social work and library work, for instance. There were also novels to introduce readers to fields a girl might not have considered, such as police work, X-ray technician, radio interviewer, physician, "sky librarian," "mountain nurse," "sky nurse" - and many more.

I found myself wishing I had known of these books when I was in high school, as by the early 1970s there were few obvious professional role models for girls in my middle class world, following a nationwide cultural campaign waged after World War II that persisted into the 1960s, designed initially to push women out of jobs and to generally discourage professional aspirations by emphasizing the primary importance for women of family creation and homemaking. Men returning from that war needed their jobs back, after all. This campaign - waged in newspapers and national magazines - set the women's movement back significantly during the mid-20th century. It was aimed at my mother's generation and was largely successful, at least for middle- and upper-class women, leaving their daughters with a limited view of occupational possibilities. Our role models then were teachers, nurses and secretaries. These jobs were typically thought of as ones to occupy only until starting a family. That was the era when child rearing, homemaking and personal beauty enhancement were the chief focus of women's magazines. In Catholic communities there was another female role model of course: nun. 

Yet somehow - concurrently - these richly instructive counterculture books got written and published...and then went out of fashion. 

I found another surprise in my search for more of these vintage titles: they are nearly impossible to find! The Library of Congress has them, as do a number of university libraries. But I could not find them in our library catalogue, and they are scarce in the used book market, and pricey! Searching from a long list of titles in this series, I found very few available among several used book websites including ThriftBooks, Better World Books, AbeBooks, eBay, and Amazon. Ginger Lee, War Nurse by Dorothy Deming for example, is offered on one bookseller's site for $125. Another title in the series was listed for $200. Many of the titles I couldn't find for sale anywhere. Apparently they have become coveted collectors' items that quickly get snatched up.

Finally, in Frills and Thrills I learned a fun fact about my home town that surprised me: St Louis was once an important player in the world of fashion. During the earlier part of the last century the nation's most successful clothing designers gathered regularly at our city's upscale hotels to show the new seasonal styles to buyers from America's major department stores. Chapter 15 of this book is titled St. Louis Preview; it's where the story's protagonist makes some significant career progress.  

Louise Barnes Gallagher wrote two sequels to Frills and Thrills. I looked - in vain - for them in library catalogs and on used booksellers' websites. I would like to read more about fictional Mary Bray and where her charmed life took her. My fruitless search told me I'm not the only one who loved this book and keeps it in their book collection. 

- Marianne W.

How to Hide a Lion by Helen Stephens

Delightful story of a lion who comes to town to buy a hat. The mean townspeople are afraid of the lion and chase him away. He hides in a little girl’s play house and soon makes friends with the little girl named Iris. Will she be able to keep the lion hidden from her parents and the townspeople?  Will the lion stop two burglars and change the mind of the townspeople? Readers will be sure to fall in love with Iris and the lion.

-Julie B.

Black Misery by Langston Hughes

That stark moment when a child sees that the world is always going to be different for them than it is for others in their world. It's a moment when a Black child begins to recognize white privilege. In those cruel moments, children understand: the world is telling you that you'd better start learning the limitations of your place in it. In Black Misery, Langston Hughes captured such moments with a hefty emotional punch using very few words on each page.

"Misery is when you find out your bosom buddy can go in the swimming pool but you can't." An illustration shows a child standing outside the pool fence, looking dispiritedly at a pool full of white children playing in the water. Each page illustrates a different such moment in the experience of a child. 

This was the last book Hughes wrote not long before his death in 1967. In an introduction, the Reverend Jesse Jackson wrote a few of his own childhood moments of misery in the context of race-coded times. Some of the circumstances described in this book have since been outlawed. Public swimming pools are no longer exclusive, public education and public transportation no longer segregated. Yet we can't satisfy ourselves with a belief that discrimination and its attendant pain and discouragement no longer exist simply because laws have changed. The stubborn economic and social realities of American life ensure that moments like these are still experienced by minority children in the US. The ugliness remains; only the contexts have changed.

A few years ago, a brainy, unfailingly polite, open-hearted and academically excellent 6-year-old I worked with in a tutoring center confided sadly to me one day that "the white girls" at his school had told him he couldn't play with them because he was "mean." This was a ridiculously inaccurate description of him, and this big-hearted child was baffled very painfully by this social slight. Stark moments like this in children's lives undoubtedly happen all around us, largely unnoticed except to those on the receiving end of such careless cruelty. It's a different version of the Black misery than what Hughes and Jackson and their respective generations experienced, but no less real and perhaps no less frequent.    

This short, beautifully illustrated gem of a book delivers a powerful emotional impact, enabling us to see things we ordinarily don't about the spirit-diminishing effects of the racism that still permeates American life. 

-Marianne W.   

The Secret of Ventriloquism by Jon Padgett

 

As I am looking through my book journal for 2025 and reflecting on my favorite reads, I realized I neglected to share another of my favorites from the year: The Secret of Ventriloquism by Jon Padgett. 

This was my second read in 2025 about ventriloquism and insanity (the first being Magic by William Goldman). R.L. Stine's Night of the Living Dummy did something to my psyche, so I am drawn to stories about malevolent ventriloquist dummies. I found this while browsing a book shop in Maine. The cover is arresting: A black-and-white illustration of a ventriloquist dummy with insectile legs where a torso should be. 

This collection of short stories started off as creepy but "fine" until suddenly, in a story with a self-aware pedestrian style, something unlocked in me and this felt like a sinister puzzle box, every story demanding a re-read after finishing a new one, so that it is a book that could be infinitely read; immersed in, studied, driven mad by. Most of them linger in the realm of the uncanny, and they reward a slow, careful read. 

This experience is an argument for buying weird self-published books you've never heard of! It was the perfect thing to read while I was in high altitude for a horror film festival in October, feeling increasingly paranoid and jumpy. I bought a copy for the library, so hopefully I can find myself another convert to the cult-like appeal of Jon Padgett's Secret. 

-Michael G. 

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

 

Since my mom taught me to read, we have swapped book recommendations, but over the past few years we've formed a structured book club of two. We've read War and Peace, Don Quixote, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Lord of the Rings, each over the course of a year. This year I asked to read Charles Dickens, since as a creative writing/English lit major I consider it an embarrassment that I've never read any of his work. I mean, I love The Muppet's Christmas Carol, but it isn't quite the same thing, is it? 

I chose David Copperfield for three reasons: 

1) It's over 800 pages, close to our meaty goal of 1000 pages. 

2) There was a copy taking up significant space on my bookshelf, right next to similarly untouched Bleak House. 

3) Virginia Woolf's blurb is on the cover calling it "The most perfect of all the Dickens novels." 

I went in prepared to be a little bored. The vague sense I had of Dickens was that he was long-winded, needlessly wordy ("He got paid by the word!" people holler, as if that is deterrent rather than impressive), and moralistic. I also wondered if his books were all about miserable orphan boys who make good through steadfast kindness and surprise rich relations. 

Well, David is at one point a fairly miserable orphan boy and he does make good with the help of a rich relation and his own diligence. But! I was not bored and there were only about two chapters I skimmed because they were so weepy. Occasionally it seemed Dickens popped through the veil of fiction, either through clumsy structure (a scene observed through eaves dropping that tests the limits of human understanding; a character's running commentary cringingly meant to bring humor to melodrama), whiplash character changes, or the semi-frequent interruptions of plot to state some sort of thesis on being hard-working and productive. 

Overall, I was impressed with just how continually entertained I was by the storytelling. The characters are so delightfully drawn, I feel like I will carry them with me much longer than I do others. His aunt Betsey was our hero: At one point I texted my mom: "Janet! Donkeys!" and I imagine that will be a phrase we can call to each other through the years. His villains were delicious: the writhing, unctuous Uriah Heep; steely Miss Murdstone; and my favorite, the fantastically bitter Rosa Dartle. Let me just take a moment for Rosa Dartle. Take this first description of her: 

She was a little dilapidated – like a house – with having been so long to let; yet had, as I have said, an appearance of good looks. Her thinness seemed to be the effect of some wasting fire within her, which found a vent in her gaunt eyes.

When she dispenses with her halting manner of speech and lets forth with the full vent of that "wasting fire within her," I could not put the book down. It was so vicious, so intense, so full of emotion and fury. 

I'm satisfied with my first Dickens experience and at some point will pick up another. Probably Great Expectations, because there's a lady called Haversham I'm looking forward to meeting. 

-Michael G.

Oathbound by Tracy Deonn

 

The book continues where the second left off, following Bree as she continues with the shadow king in her pursuit of power. This book, however, takes an interesting turn with the style of writing. Deonn moves from the consistent first-person perspective of the first two books, to a more fractured, multiple perspective take. We see the perspectives of William, Bree, Nick, and Mariah to name a few. Eventually, all the experiences meet up and converge back with Bree. 

The spin of this book is part of Bree's deal with the demon king for power has sacrificed her ability to remember the identities of those she loves most. This sets the premise for the whole books. It is a journey of what it means to love someone, to feel such emotion for people you can't even remember, and to actively so do, even when its hard. 

I found the book does a really good job of providing action, romance, and even a bit of mystery. It's awesome seeing all the people eventually come together to support Bree. It really goes to show the power of community and it makes me wonder in what ways I can better practice the art of loving.

The book set itself up for another follow-up! If you haven't already, please give this series a read and share your thoughts!

- Leo H.

I Live in a Tree Trunk by Meg Fleming; illustrated by Brandon James Scott

 

This is a cute book exploring animal homes. Students will delight in guessing the animals that peer out of their dwellings, such as a gopher’s mound, a sea otter’s bay, an owl’s nest, etc.... Some animals, like birds and gorillas, share the same name for their dwelling (nest)! Among the animals featured in this book are: farm dwellers (sheep, donkey, horse, llama, chicken, pig, goat), tree dwellers (monkey, sloth, koala, snake), and den dwellers (porcupine, raccoon, fox, skunk, opossum).  For ages 4-8.

-Julie B. 

Poems & Prayers by Matthew McConaughey

 

In his new book Poems & Prayers, the actor Matthew McConaughey offers up some intimate thoughts in both prose and verse, divided into themed sections. I found this work to be a mixed bag. Some of the poems seem contrived, while others are beautiful, simple, and insightful. The pages of prose often make for thoughtful reading. Overall, the book cries out for the guidance of a sharp editor. 

In some poems the wordplay is quite clever, while in others it's overwrought. In a poem called "Daymares" - about small, almost unnoticeable daily habits we have that wound those close to us - McConaughey remixes a common expression in the line, "the pets that we peeve." This made me laugh; after all, who hasn't left a beloved pet feeling that way? This is McConaughey at his most witty.   

There's also wordplay that reads more like word salad: "I take a scroll down the Rolodex of my memory's lane." You really have to work to wrap your mind around this awkward line. It sounds to me - who spent several years in an earlier career creating and evaluating therapeutic programs for nursing home residents - very much like something a person with dementia might say.

Some poems are so packed with metaphor and cryptic symbolism that the meaning is lost on me. The poems "Fallen Leaves" and "The Mess I Made" are examples. Removing a few stanzas would make these poems more polished and coherent. A poem called "Capably Able" is full of clever rhymes and imagery, but there is so much going on in it that I can't make sense of the whole.

Then there are the prayers, most of them written in verse form. McConaughey expresses a traditional Christian religiosity, in which he offers prayers to a father figure, examining his own flaws and asking forgiveness and redemption. These felt a bit exhibitionist to me, yet his discussion of why we pray is perceptive. 

What I found much more interesting in both his prose and his poetry is the expression of another kind of spirituality he has but never labels as such: a distinct sense of the yin and yang in the operations of the universe. In a reflection on page 75 he wrote: "Consequences go both ways. With every decision, choice, action, there will be a give with the take, a credit with the debit...something good and something bad." On another page: "If you make a profit in one place, you're gonna get a debt in another."

Elsewhere, a yin/yang sensibility is expressed by an entire poem called "Back to the Future," every line a reference to complementary opposites. On another page is an untitled, elegant little poem about doers and dreamers; they have opposing qualities and the world needs both types of people. McConaughey's book highlights his belief in and practice of Christianity while not overtly acknowledging this more intuitive side of his view of life.  

McConaughey's prose feels less forced, and in places is just as lyrical as his best poems here while summing up some worthy insights. He believes in the necessity of difficulties in life in order to mature. He believes in post traumatic growth for those willing to take a hard and critical look at themselves. He is big on personal accountability.  

Crown Publishing slipped up with this publication, though; the book needs tighter editing. There are grammatical errors throughout - apostrophes where they shouldn't be, and redundancy of both words and thoughts within single sentences in several places, as well as excess in some of the poems. Correcting these errors and trimming away some of the confusing lyricism would result in a more polished book.  

- Marianne W. 

Exiles by Andrew Pyper (writing as Mason Coile)

 

"I read this in 24 hours," was part of the recommendation I received from a library visitor the other day. Mason Coile's other horror novel about artificial intelligence (W1LL1AM) has been on my list for a few months, but her enthusiasm about Exiles pushed this to the front of the list. 

The plot is simple and terrifying: Astronauts aboard a space shuttle to Mars wake up from deep sleep to learn that something is wrong at their destination. The robots sent ahead of them to build the colony are not responding. But the astronauts' one directive is to continue the mission, so that is what they do as everything continues to go sideways. 

It is a suspenseful, exciting, short novel (just 200 pages). The pace never slackens: It is one thing after another.  Stories set in space are claustrophobic and this is almost unbearably so. Quickly, this book became not just about space and isolation but also about sexism, artificial intelligence, our fragile, brief life. Pyper was a writer who really had a grasp on storytelling and it is a pleasure to read. 

-Michael G. 

Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star ill. by Jerry Pinkney

This is a beautiful rendition of the beloved children’s song “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star”  illustrated by Caldecott Medal winner Jerry Pinkney. In this story, a curious chipmunk leaves her nest to explore the world around her.  Along the way, she discovers a star-like image in a twirling white seed pod, the blossoms of a tree, a spider's web, and the glow of fireflies.  As the day closes the chipmunk climbs into a robin’s nest and later into a sail boat in a dreamlike quest to reach the stars.  Eventually she returns to her home on the back of a white swan.

-Julie B.