Some biographies

While doing inventory, I found Sean Piccoli's 1997 biography of the Grateful Dead, which had never been checked out. Since I knew nothing about that band, it was interesting reading, but the book is out of print. Also never checked out but tremendously informative was Beverly Gherman's 2000 Norman Rockwell: Storyteller with a Brush. Quick and well-illustrated, it would make a great basis for a biography report. I'll have to push it next year.

Picky Reader is a huge fan of Jacqueline Wilson, so whenever we find a book of hers we'll pick it up. How a British edition of Diamond Girls came to be at Half Price Books I'll never know, but I'm glad it was. Sad, sad, sad in the way that Wilson's books (like Cathy Cassidy's) tend to be, it was the story of a single mother of four girls, all of whom had different fathers. When the mother gets an opportunity to move from a council flat to a council house, she takes it, since she is due to have her fifth child, a boy, very soon. Moving into the decrepit house is a comedy of errors, and the family is helped greatly by Bruce, a friend of the youngest's father. There is a subplot of a neighbor girl in a privately owned house with a "perfect" mother (who is actually mentally unstable and abusive) that is a bit over the top, but the book is a riveting read. Great for girls who can't get enough problem novels, if you can locate a copy.