“A Catalog Of Burnt Objects”

Shana Youngdahl writes that “my hometown of Paradise, California, was obliterated in a matter of hours by the Camp Fire…. I wanted to honor my town. I also wanted to raise awareness about the realities of climate change.” Her new YA novel, told by Caprice (Cappi) Alexander, on the cusp of turning 18, does that, and more, in a story not just about a fire, but one of “family, community, and first love.”

“A Catalog Of Burnt Objects” ($19.99 in hardcover from Dial Books; also for Amazon Kindle) imagines Sierra, a kind of “twin town” to Paradise, “one whose disaster I witnessed from afar, and one whose disaster I lived through, navigating alongside my characters.” Youngdahl (shanayoungdahl.com) was in Maine at the time, and now lives with her family in Missouri where she teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at Lindenwood University.

Cappi and her family welcome back brother Beckett from a four-month stint in rehab. Beck is a kind of “agent of chaos” for Cappi. Yet she sees his loneliness: “Twenty-one, his own best friend unable to even blink a hello.” (Beck had escaped from a truck accident; Mason was on months-long life support at UC Davis Medical.)

Caprice knows loneliness, too; only her Gramps really understands her. He’s living alone, his wife in a care facility in town.

Caprice is working on coding an app to attract folks to Sierra. Her bestie, Alicia, is helping. Enter a young man named River, and Beck is not the only one to see the sparks. “Cappi’s full-on love-zombied, and she just met him,” says Alicia.

The chapters count down, 8 weeks before, 5 weeks before, four hours before. Smoke. Then the conflagration which comes midway in the story. In desperate efforts to escape, Cappi and Beck make a fateful life-and-death decision that haunts the novel. For Cappi, it’s all “if, then.” If, if, if something had been different.

Youngdahl’s description of the aftermath—with “cards” detailing burned remains from the various characters, like a Talking Heads LP, house plants or a piano—are searingly real. So much uncertainty in the days after. 

Can there be a better future? Can one imagine “maybe”?

“Katharine: Annals Of An Immigrant Family 1866-1964”

Chicoan Dave Schlichting traces the lives of his maternal great grandparents, Katharine Deininger and Gottlieb Hinderer, in a compelling narrative that is a model of historical retrieval. Replete with period photographs, genealogical charts, census documents, timelines, maps and meticulous references (with GPS locations), the research never overshadows the stories. 

“Katharine: Annals Of An Immigrant Family 1866-1964” ($25 in large-size paperback from Chico’s Memoir Books) has two parts. The first is dedicated to family beginnings in the “old country” (southwestern Germany), the passage to America aboard the steamer Havel, time in Michigan and Iowa, and their Minnesota arrival in 1898.

The historical account in Part I gives way to family stories in Part II, drawing on interviews with family over five years beginning in 2000. Presentation of the stories is not haphazard; various family units each receive a carefully researched chapter. 

Though readers may not know this family, the historical background throughout the book, giving context to how one group of families lived in bygone times, brings to life Katharine’s legacy. Katharine and Gottlieb were married in Iowa early in 1862 and had seven children. 

In a tribute to Katharine, Schlichting writes that she “found employment working as a domestic for the Hinderer family in Brend, Germany. She soon began a relationship with the Hinderer’s oldest son Gottlieb. In time, their relationship resulted in Katharine’s pregnancy. By itself, this was not uncommon. The norm for couples was to live with either of their parents, have children, and then formally marry once the young man was earning a sufficient income to support his young family.”

Katharine was no wallflower. “When action was required, she took the lead. She tolerated neither fools nor villains.” Through two World Wars and a Great Depression she and her family survived through “resilience” and hard work (especially on the Hinderers’ farm in Minnesota) and the “strength of character” she instilled.

They faced many challenges but there were also lighter moments; the book concludes with an Appendix of family recipes, including Katharine’s Wax Bean Pickles, Spaetzle, and Pfeffer Nuesse (Pepper Nut) Cookies.

The book is a window into the lives of “ordinary” people--who are far from ordinary.

“The Last Commando”

Retired Butte College administrator, West Point grad and retired Army officer Les Jauron writes his novels, he says, “to make people think.” The Chicoan’s latest, “The Last Commando” ($15.99 in paperback from Books.by, tinyurl.com/35f4xxer, also available in e-book format) is alternative history ripped from today’s headlines.

The time is close to the present in our own world. Populist U.S. President and land developer Ronald Richland (known as Ron Rich) yearns to be a dictator. Narcissistic and corrupt, the catch phrase that wins him election is “America Up, Government Down, Jesus In, and Illegals Out.”

Demonstrations rise around the country; Rich waits for an excuse to order martial law. He is easily manipulated in an extraordinary plot by a contingent of moneyed Nazis sequestered in a bunker, “established at the direction of Heinrich Himmler at the end of World War II,” located in Nueva Germania “in a remote part of rural Paraguay.”

It's about to happen: An audacious plot to strike violently at the heart of America and to mount a “false flag” operation to convince Americans that a resurgent leftist Antifa is to blame. With Ron Rich’s complicity, the Fourth Reich would be established.

Enter Chris Cadwalader, a Duke University history professor, and his fourth wife, Stephanie Lee, a novelist with a doctorate in Religion (though not very religious herself). During research in Israel, the two learn of the bunker’s existence. A man named Wolfgang Becker has declared himself the new Führer; his acolyte, someone calling himself Herr Adolph. An unsavory bunch with vast wealth enabling them to buy just about any weapon, or person.

Chris, Stephanie and a small group of friends recognize that the bunker must be infiltrated. So Chris and an associate, the gorgeous and gay Gabriella Stern, are chosen as faux husband and wife (with Stephanie’s consent) and supplied with comprehensive backstories.

As the frightful Nazi plan unreels, Jauron’s description of the machinations are chillingly real, a deadly combination of sex, religion, politics, money. An author’s note warns readers “how current technology can be used to manipulate public opinion”--and politicos. “Character matters,” he writes. Near the end, the unimaginable seems inevitable. Can America survive “modern technologies and self-serving politicians”?

“The Goddess & The Pig”

Travel writer Karen Gilden, born in Chico, attending public school in Willows, lived for a time in southern France. During “a walk in the Val de Dagne, a magical place hidden in far southwest France,” just after her granddaughter was born, a curious little story suddenly made itself known. For a writer of non-fiction, that, she writes me, was a surprise.

“The Goddess & The Pig” (in Amazon Kindle format, independently published) is the story of Boris the Boar, “not a boring bore—not one who talks and talks without saying anything….” Boris “lived in a pen in back of monsieur and madame’s house, in a quiet little village beside a stream.”

That hadn’t always been his home. “He didn’t remember being found in the woods as a tiny piglet” and being “given to madame to raise and butcher (for monsieur thought boar meat tasted very, very good.)” But years pass, and madame becomes attached to Boris, pampering him until, one day, she leaves for a time to visit her sister. And monsieur can hardly wait to delight her with boar sausage when she returns.

Boris escapes and later meets up with a charming young girl who calls him “Pig.” “You are in my home,” she tells him. “I am Diana, goddess of the hunt and the hunted; so named by the Romans who long ago built a temple on this hill.” Her goddess-powers are much reduced, though, because few wild animals are left in the woods. Yet she promises to help Pig.

But, Boris asks, doesn’t she help people like monsieur? Yes, she says, “For hunters must eat. But the hunted must live as well. To keep everything in balance was my job. Now, there is only disarray.”

To restore order, Diana must help Boris find a proper family. With rabbits? Not a match. Badgers? No. Then monsieur appears in the woods, with a rifle, and Boris and Diana have, one might say, an arrow escape. Boris resolves to live by himself. “But everyone needs a family,” Diana tells him.

And it will be so in this charming tale of a wise goddess and a Pig who finds his true home.

“Feel, Don’t Flee: A Therapist’s Guide To Facing Your Emotions”

Hayley Kaplan graduated from Chico State with a Masters in Social Work. A licensed Clinical Social Worker practicing in North Carolina, Kaplan invites readers into a series of (fictional) client-therapist sessions that highlight “typical emotional patterns and challenges many people face,” mostly by not facing them.

“Feel, Don’t Flee: A Therapist’s Guide To Facing Your Emotions” ($14.99 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle) offers insightful chapters on “forbidden feelings” (anger, pleasure, fear); “inconvenient feelings” (grief, exhaustion, anxiety); and “unbearable feelings” (remorse, loneliness, betrayal).

“A forbidden feeling,” she writes, “refers to any emotion we suppress because we believe it’s ‘bad’ or shameful.” So “when we attempt to push anger away or bottle it up, we only intensify its impact…. Rather than viewing anger as an emotion to avoid or suppress, it is more helpful to see it as a tool for awareness and self-advocacy.”

Each chapter begins with the therapist’s conversation with a client, followed by a list of misconceptions about the emotion (like “anger emerges out of nowhere”), with examples from the conversation, key takeaways, and “actionable practices.” Since the book is not intended to offer medical advice, the recommended practices often include mindfulness and self-compassion with the caution that professional therapy may be in order.

Helpful perspectives abound. If a person feels that self-care is selfish, a “forbidden pleasure,” Kaplan notes that “Self-care isn’t about ‘me first’ but ‘me too.’ Practicing self-care allows us to recharge so that we can continue caring for others effectively.”

“A crucial aspect of managing anxiety is understanding the difference between what is within our control and what is within our influence” (where “we can take purposeful actions without needing to have everything figured out”).

Those who have been betrayed can feel that they are defined by betrayal. But, Kaplan notes, “Betrayal is an experience, not an identity…. You are not the betrayal; you are someone who has experienced hurt and is actively working to heal, grow, and reclaim your strength.”

The bottom line is that “Instead of viewing emotions as obstacles to avoid, we can see them as vital guides—temporary, instructive, and pointing us toward greater self-awareness.”

“When Sounds Collide: A Novel”

Paradise novelist M. Day Hampton wrote a fictionalized account of former Paradise Mayor Howard Johnson’s life in “Behind Picketwire.” In the early 1950s young protagonist Red Johnson meets an old man named Custis living in the Napa Valley. Custis directs Red and his mom to a safe place, a little town called Paradise.

Hampton (mdayhampton.com) was intrigued by Custis and began crafting his back story, a prequel to “Behind Picketwire.” Now, 147,000 words later, his life and longings are on full display in a magnificent, eloquent, and heart-pounding story called “When Sounds Collide: A Novel” ($23.95 in paperback from River Grove Books; also for Amazon Kindle).

Stretching from the late 1800s to 1953, the novel begins in North Carolina. It is a perilous time for a brilliant young Black boy named Custis, who angers local punks when he accidentally reveals he can read. “His mind could have belonged to a poet, a teacher, an author, or a scientist, but his heart was only ten years old.”

Beaten and left for dead in the woods, his house—and his mother—destroyed in arson, he is saved by young white girl, Sarah Tennison, living at a nearby ranch. Sarah had not spoken since her mother died from cancer, blaming her father and Doc Lyman; but now she gives voice as she seeks help, and over years an unbreakable bond forms between Sarah and Custis, “a Black man forbidden to marry outside of his race.”

Though sheltered and encouraged at the ranch, Custis, desperate to develop his idea of using sound waves to look inside the human body, heads to New York. Through the machinations of three unlikely friends, he passes as a man from Greece to enter the physics lab at Centennial University, “which still would not allow a Black man to obtain a degree.”

The book is a complex story of love and regret, and deep loss, and yet what shines in these pages are truly good and kind people, even in the midst of devastation. This goodness is a kind of “silent sound” which “has been here all this time.” 

The story will draw you in and will not let you go.

“Pacific Coast Bird Finder: Identifying Common Birds Along The Pacific Coast”

For the beginning bird-watcher, storied Chico ornithologist Roger Lederer has just the ticket. It’s a little, staple-bound 64-page booklet called “Pacific Coast Bird Finder: Identifying Common Birds Along The Pacific Coast” ($7.95 from Nature Study Guild Publishers). 

With black-and-white drawings by Jacquelyn Giuffré and Carol Burr, the guide “will help you to identify sixty-three of the most common species” in California, parts of Oregon and Washington, and Canada and Mexico.

Lederer notes that “because there are about 500 species of birds in the Pacific Coast area, bird-watching could become overwhelming. But you have to start somewhere, and a simple book like this is a good choice.” Though birds appear in “taxonomic order, beginning with grebes and ending with songbirds” (and there’s a common-name index at the end), the real joy comes in leafing through the pages to find just the right identification.

Each page features a “sketch of the bird and gives its common and scientific names; body length … and wingspread; some identifying features such as eye stripes, wing bars, tail pattern, and behavior; and icons that indicate its usual habitat.” Here and there little boxes call out items of interest, noting, for example, that “there is no biological difference between pigeons and doves” which, “unlike other birds, can drink water by sucking with their head down.”

The American Robin is “perhaps the best-known American bird.” “Young robins,” Lederer writes, “hatch in about 10 days. After another 10 days they will jump from the nest, even though they can’t fly. Parents will take care of juveniles on the ground until their feathers grow enough to allow them to fly. People mistakenly think baby robins have fallen from their nest and need help. They don’t.”

From the Black Tern to Anna’s Hummingbird, from the Ruby-crowned Kinglet to the Dark-eyed Junco, from California Quail to Steller’s Jay, familiar birds flock in the guide, letting young bird-watchers know that one good tern deserves another.

Lederer has also published a companion guide, in the same format and from the same publisher, called “Bird Finder: Identifying Common Birds Of Eastern North America,” with sketches by Roger Franke and Carl Burr.