BROTHERS ON THREE
Abe Streep
In April 2018, an article appeared in the New York Times Magazine titled “What the Arlee Warriors Were Playing For.” It was written by Abe Streep ’04, who had gone to Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana to research and write a story about a basketball team and its winning streak. But the story was about much more than a talented group of teenagers—it was also about a reservation reeling from a spate of suicides over the past year. Following the basketball team gave people something to cheer about, something other than grief to bring them together. Brothers on Three is the book version of the Arlee Warriors story and it follows in particular two of the basketball players, along with their teammates, families, and coaches. Deeply reported and beautifully written, their stories show the courage, strength, and humility these adolescents possess as they strive for success on the basketball court, playing not only for the team but for an entire community.
A GLINT OF LIGHT
Fredric Hildebrand
After a long career as a physician, Fredric Hildebrand ’81 has turned to writing poetry, with his short collections, Northern Portrait and A Glint of Light, being published last year. Living and writing in Wisconsin, he writes in Northern Portrait about the small-town America of yesteryear, complete with diners, drive-in theaters, Saturday night baseball, and Memorial Day parades. In A Glint of Light, his spare and graceful words bring alive the senses to sounds, tastes, and detailed sights like the “…fallen fence, chained gate, faded farmhouse.” His poems evoke emotions around death, loss, and loneliness, but then uplift you with birdsong, pinpricks of starlight, the joy of a dog by your side. Carefully crafted, each poem is rich in detail and feeling.
NUCLEAR CHOICES FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Richard Wolfson and Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress
Subtitled A Citizen’s Guide, this book may be the first to be published jointly by a scholar at Middlebury College—Rich Wolfson, professor emeritus of physics and environmental science—and a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies—Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, scientist in residence at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Nuclear Choices for the Twenty-First Century takes a comprehensive look at today’s nuclear issues and attempts to answer, in a simple, clear, and engaging style, the myriad of questions that people today may have about those issues. Nuclear technology is a part of life in the modern world, and the coauthors have undertaken the task of explaining its uses and its dangers so citizens can make informed decisions about the impact it will have on their lives.
ALL ARE WELCOME
Liz Parker
In her darkly funny debut novel, Liz Parker ’07 tells the story of a destination lesbian wedding that goes awry. Tiny McAllister and Caroline Schell head to Bermuda to celebrate their marriage with their families and friends. But mayhem is embedded in the guest list, from Tiny’s WASPish parents and brother to friends who come bearing past secrets, and the weekend progresses in ways no one could have predicted. With chapters varying between different viewpoints of characters, the reader learns what each person is hiding and dealing with and can watch as the narrative unfolds through their eyes. Part drama and part comedy, Parker’s story is well told in a sharply observed manner as she brings her complex characters to life and lets them behave in ways true to their natures, creating chaos and finding redemption.
HERO MODE
E.J. Kavounas
E.J. Kavounas ’90 is one of the producers of the PG family comedy, Hero Mode, which was released June 4 in theaters and June 11 on digital. The story takes place in the world of video game development and the plot centers around the fate of Playfield Games, a company that Kate Mayfield began with her late husband. The video game company is on the brink of bankruptcy and Kate is close to selling to a behemoth rival company if her designers can’t come up with a blockbuster game. She decides to put her son Chris, a teenage coding genius, in charge of creating the video game to save the company and gives him 30 days to complete it before an upcoming gaming convention. Chris, with the help of two friends, takes to the challenge, which sets up the race-against-the-clock, little-engine-that-could type of plot that children will love to see succeed.
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