7.26.15   Writer gets creative in Texas alphabet book

Writer Maria Kernahan and artist Michael Schafbuch have teamed up to produce a new, very colorful alphabet book, T is for Texas (Dry Climate Studios, $19.95 hardcover). The book explores some different topics than most Texas alphabet books.

For example, B is for Brands, with eighteen brands shown. D is for dancing, which is illustrated by several pair of colorful boots. E is for Enchanted Rock, K for king-sized, illustrated by thirteen other states that fit inside the shape of Texas. The author got pretty creative when it came to X and Z — with X being for roadrunner tracks in the shape of an X, and Z for the zig-zag of the Rio Grande through Big Bend.

Children should be attracted to the large, bright illustrations and the rhyming, easy-to-read  text.

World War II novel: Swift by College Station author Robert A. Shearer is a short, fast-paced historical novel set in Texas in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, $15 paperback).

“The attack on Pearl Harbor changed the lives of millions of Americans,” Shearer writes. He was three, living with his parents in Dallas, when the war broke out. Soon they were in a small town, where Shearer’s mother said they couldn’t leave their apartment for three weeks. “This is a historical account of how murder, mayhem, morbid racism, mental illness, and mobilization for war changed our lives. Some of the details are fictional, and all of the names of original characters have been changed, so the story is historical fiction, a murder mystery, a chronicle of a case of military justice, and a case study in mental disturbance,” Shearer says. Read more at www.tamupress.com.

Series completed: Abilene novelist Lynn Vadney completes her five-book “The Compound Series” of post-apocalyptic adventure novels with the publication of The Stone Is Turned (Desert Willow Publishing).

The series began with two novels, Sinking Sand and Not the Least Bit Sorry, set two and a half years after massive terrorists’ attacks virtually destroy society.

“The series has been about our nation in crisis,” writes Vadney. “May our leaders, in whatever capacity, remain fearless and dedicated.” The Stone Is Turned covers the period from May to December, three years after the attacks, Vadney notes, and “law and order is gaining a toehold in one small Texas town.”

For more on the series, go to desertwillowpublishingonline.com.

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Glenn Dromgoole is co-author of 101 Essential Texas Books.

Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.