Then came the phone call, while Dan was on vacation with Abby, announcing that his capable, marathon-running father had been diagnosed with something called ALS.ĪLS stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. His mother had had 'terminal' cancer well managed for nearly 15 years.

His family-mom, dad and four siblings-wasn't perfect, but they were happy, loving and shared a strong if quirky sense of humor, based on fart jokes and four-letter words. A self-described spoiled white kid with money, he grew up in Salt Lake City and then graduated from UC Berkeley, and was busy enjoying his first real job in Los Angeles and his first real girlfriend, Abby. But she perseveres! - Marilyn Dahl and Karin Snelson, Shelf Awarenessĭan Marshall's life was pretty heavy on privilege. and, as a vampire, she won't be able to see herself in the mirror. To succeed in ballet she'll need a night class, for starters. In Night Animals (Viking/Penguin), a clever charmer by Gianna Marino, the skunk, possum, wolf and bear are all terrified of night animals, until the bat points out, 'But you ARE night animals.'Ī little vampire girl and wannabe ballerina tries to resist her impulse to turn into a bat in Vampirina Ballerina, a girly-goth picture book by Anne Marie Pace, illustrated by LeUyen Pham(Disney-Hyperion).

Tarturo, a collector of rare butterflies, who becomes the unconventional bat's friend for life. Fortunately, he lands in the tulip garden of Dr. Unfortunately, when he flies out into the sunlight, he is shot down from the sky by frightened onlookers. Rufus the bat loves colors so much he paints his feet violet and his ears pink.

Tomi Ungerer's unusual picture book, Rufus: The Bat Who Loved Colors (just reissued by Phaidon), has been flapping around winning hearts since it was first published in 1961. Many people would have run screaming from the cave, but Tuttle was captivated, as readers of this book will be as he explains his fascination. Tuttle has just written The Secret Lives of Bats: My Adventures with the World's Most Misunderstood Mammals (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26), which begins with his first bat cave exploration as a teenager, when dozens of gray bats landed on him, seeking places to hide. There are more than 1,300 species of bats worldwide they range from cute to strange to scary they aid farming by eating insects, thus reducing the need for pesticides they pollinate plants and, according to Merlin Tuttle, founder of Bat Conservation International, they are gentle, cuddly creatures with off-the-charts intelligence and sophistication. October is, no surprise, official Bat Appreciation Month.

Home is Burning by Dan Marshall