Vorab-RezensentenJane Smiley

Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley debuts her first series for children with The Georges and the Jewels. Abby Lovitt is a sensitive 13-year-old who finds comfort in the horses on her family’s ranch. But when she’s tasked with training Ornery George, Abby finds her resolve tested by the temperamental steed. (Fiction/Ages 10 and up) “[A] quiet, psychologically attuned youth debut.”—Booklist A Pulitzer Prize winner makes her debut for young readers. Abby Lovitt has been riding horses for as long as she can remember, but Daddy hasn’t let her name a single one. He calls all their geldings George and their mares Jewel and warns her not to get attached. The horses are there on the ranch to be sold, plain and simple. But with all the stress at school (the Big Four—Linda, Mary A., Mary N., Joan—have turned against her) and home (nothing feels right with her brother, Danny, gone), Abby can’t help but seek comfort in the Georges and the Jewels, who greet her every day with soft nickers. Except for one: the horse who won’t meet her gaze, the horse who bucks her off, the horse Daddy insists she ride and train. Abby knows not to cross her father, but she knows, too, that she can’t get back on Ornery George. And suddenly the horses seem like no refuge at all. From Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley comes an emotionally charged and action-filled novel for young readers, set in the vibrant landscape of 1960s California horse country.

Margaret Mayfield is nearly an old maid at twenty-seven when she marries Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early. He’s the most famous man their Missouri town has ever produced: a naval officer and an astronomer - a genius who, according to the local paper, has changed the universe. Margaret’s mother calls the match ‘a piece of luck’. Yet Andrew confounds Margaret’s expectations from the moment their train leaves for his naval base in San Francisco, and soon she realizes that his devotion to science leaves little room for anything, or anyone, else. She stands by him through tragedies both personal and those they share with the nation. But as World War II approaches, Andrew’s obsessions take a darker turn, forcing Margaret to reconsider the life she’d so carefully constructed. Private Life is a portrait of marriage and the mysteries that endure even in lives lived side by side, a riveting historical panorama, and an unforgettable novel from one of our finest storytellers.