Whitcomb, Laura. The Fetch.

Whitcomb, Laura. The Fetch.
Houghton Mifflin/Clarion/Graphia/Kingfisher 2009 378 17.00 9780618891313 hs

Calder is a fetch. His job is to fetch souls when they are ready to depart their body. He has done his job for centuries until the day he saw her. Then his passage into the world of the living crossed all boundaries causing all kinds of havoc for the living and the dead. Calder is a fetch. His job is to fetch souls when they are ready to depart their body. He has done his job for centuries until the day he saw her. Then his passage into the world of the living crossed all boundaries causing all kinds of havoc for the living and the dead.

Calder has been a fetch for so long he hardly remembers who he was but sometimes he feels like something is missing or there is something he should remember. Then on one of his fetches he encounters a young boy on the edge of life and death. That is when he see her and on that day he breaks the first rule and convinces the pained soul to stay. The second encounter occurs when the same boy of the past is now older and again on the edge of death. Calder decides to again break the rule and take pity on the young mother. There is something about the young mother that has Calder entranced but throughout both encounters their is another child that takes notice. Ana of the bright eyes and precocious personality sees him. It is not possible no one should be able to see him but she does.

The third encounter brings Calder, Ana and Alexis now teenagers into a collision course of such magnitude that the world order in the heavens is rocked. The young adults Ana and Alexis are the children of the Czar Nicholas and the body Calder now inhabits is Rasputins. MD

An incredible fictional supernatural love story that will keep you wondering. MD.

Tortured Noble: the Story of Leo Tolstoy

Heims, Neil. Tortured Noble: the Story of Leo Tolstoy.
Morgan Reynolds, 2007. 144p. $27.95
978-1-5993-5066-0
World Writer's series

For students looking to connect an author’s life with his fictional characters, Heims presents the personal struggles of Tolstoy. From his gambling and sense of self-loathing to his gentry lifestyle as an owner of an estate and considerable acreage, Tolstoy used every personal experience to better understand and portray his fictional characters. The social and political viewpoints that appear in Tolstoy’s writings come from his noble heritage laced with a desire to understand and work with the peasants on his estate. His desire to provide education to children, especially peasants, was a constant in his life. The activities he engaged in, including dressing as a peasant to determine reactions to them and their lifestyle and his desire to lead a life of ascetic purity, allowed him to write with authenticity about the thoughts and feelings of all manner of people.
Students will gain an understanding of the forces that drove Tolstoy and see the connection between Tolstoy’s beliefs and his novels. A timeline, index, footnotes, and bibliography make the information in this book easily accessible to the student researcher. Photographs, paintings, and primary source material are interspersed within the text. Fascinating reading about a giant among authors. LMN