Page 59 - Sonoma County Gazette Oct. 2019

By Diane McCurdy
Blue lives in a tree house. Harmony is his best friend. She is sassy and more adventurous than he is. She has a flaky mother who is a Grateful Dead groupie and drug addict who only drops in occasionally to check on her.
This sort of abstract explanation only whets Blue’s determination to find out his bloodline as he yearns for a sense of identity. This search provides a suspenseful theme carried throughout the book.
The rest of the family consists of a surfer, a Vietnam war deserter, and a midwife. They have neither electricity nor plumbing. They grow their own food and have a couple of nanny goats. Everyone is either a sister/mother or a brother/father.
However, not all is idyllic in this paradise. Truth triumphs eventually but there are no harsh recriminations.
Forgiveness is at the heart of the story.
The author, lives on the central California coast but chose to set her novel closer to us in Freestone! The characters often times need to go into town for supplies, into Sebastopol and Santa Rosa.
Harmony and Blue like to scamper and hike the hills and dunes of Bodega Bay. The author chose this area because of its reputation as a sanctuary for progressive thinking and because it has become the last resting place for many wilted flower children.
Elwood was a massage therapist and a single mother when she went back to college and became aware of many people who suffer through dialysis because they have failing kidneys. She was actually motivated to donate one of her own to a veritable stranger. At first she kept this ultimate gift quiet but then she decided to write about it probably because she thought it might inspire others. That book is called Lost in Transplantation, great title!
Elwood is also available as a motivational speaker. She did a book talk for Clover Blue at Copperfields in Sebastopol in August. I am so sorry I missed it because if she speaks the way she writes it would have been captivating.
Clover Blue
Some writers just have the knack. It’s not just intelligence or talent. Some very profound authors are interminably dull. Eldonna Edwards is the type of scribe who draws one in. Her characters become flesh and blood.
Clover Blue is twelve years old. We first meet him when he is more or less reluctantly called in to witness a baby being born. The birth is taking place in a tee-pee. The delivery itself arouses Blue’s curiosity about the circumstances surrounding his own birth. He wonders which member of the Saffron Freedom Community
HIGHLIGHTS at our Libraries - sonomalibrary.org
NEW Educational Citizenship Collection
Are you interested learning about American citizenship?
“New American Collection” serves those interested in citizenship, civics and naturalization, primarily the immigrant population of Sonoma County.
The Library’s
The purpose of the New American Collection is to empower community members by providing easily browsable, multilingual, multimedia materials in support of acquiring citizenship and learning English.
“The County of Sonoma continues our commitment to be a safe and inclusive community,” said Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Chair David Rabbitt. “We applaud the library’s efforts to put together the New American Collection aimed at informing all of our residents about civics and paths to citizenship.”
By including these resources in one collection, the library will work to provide anyone interested with relevant information to help them gain and secure civil rights and participate more fully in their communities. Nationwide, slightly more than half of immigrants are non-citizens. Native- born citizens may also benefit from the collection by learning about their rights and privileges as citizens, especially those with friends, family, or coworkers who are non-citizens.
The New American Collection includes materials in English,
Spanish and other world languages. Materials include books, CDs, DVDs and more. Resources will be circulating and/or freely given away. Example titles include: “U.S. Immigration Made Easy,” “How to Get a Green Card” and “Fiancé & Marriage Visas.”
To learn more about the New American Collection, visit your local library branch. The New American Collection is free and available to all. Materials can be checked out with a Sonoma County Library card, which is available to all county residents, regardless of immigration status. For more information on how to sign up for a library card, visit any Sonoma County Library branch in person or go to sonomalibrary.org.
is his mother. When he asks the charismatic but creepy leader of the group, Goji, he tells him only that he was adopted. It was not a legal adoption but a “love adoption”.
SEARCH Diane McCurdy on our website for DVD/Film and BOOK Reviews: www.SonomaCountyGazette.com
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