The Superior Express -

A Cup of Dust, by Susie Finkbeiner, is an adult fiction novel of the Dust Bowl, found at Nelson Library.

Here is a brief summary. Where you come from does not define you…Ten-year-old Pearl Spence is a daydreamer, playing make-believe to escape life in 1935 during Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl. The Spences have their share of misfortune, but as the sheriff’s family, they have more than most in this dry, desolate place. the town turns to them when there’s a crisis or a need—and during these desperate times, there are plenty of both, even if half the town stands empty as people have packed up and moved away.

Pearl is proud of her loving, strong family, though she often wearies of tracking down her mentally impaired older sister or wrestling with her grandmother’s unshakable belief in a God whom Pearl just isn’t sure she likes.

Then a mysterious man bent on revenge tramps into her town of Red River. Eddie is dangerous and he seems fixated on Pearl. When he reveals why he’s there and shares a shocking secret involving the whole town, dust won’t be the only thing darkening Pearl’s world.

While the tone is suspenseful and often to the point, the subtle humor of Pearl’s voice keeps A Cup of Dust from becoming heavy-handed. Finkbeiner deftly paints a story of a family unit coming together despite fractures of distress threatening to pull them apart.

A Cup of Dust is book one in a three-book series titled the “Pearl Spence Series.” Book two, A Trail of Crumbs: A Novel of the Great Depression, and Book three, A Song of Home: A Novel of the Swing Era, can also be checked out at the Nelson Library.

Another book, Rescue, by Jennifer A Nielsen, can be found in Nelson Library’s juvenile fiction section.

A World War II story of espionage and intrigue, as one girl races to save her father and aid the French resistance.

Six hundred, fifty-seven days ago, Meg Kenyon’s father left their home in France to fight for the Allies in World War II, and that was the last time Meg saw him. Recently, she heard he was being held prisoner by the Nazis, a terrible sentence from which Meg fears he’ll never return. All she has left of him are the codes he placed in a jar for her to decipher, an affectionate game they shared. But the codes are running low, and soon there’ll be nothing left of Papa for Meg to hold on to.

Suddenly, an impossible chance to save her father falls into Meg’s lap. After following a trail of blood in the snow, Meggie finds an injured British spy hiding in her grandmother’s barn. Captain Stewart tells her that a family of German refugees must be guided across Nazi-occupied France to neutral Spain, whereupon one of them has promised to free Meg’s father. Captain Stewart was meant to take that family on their journey, but too injured to complete the task himself, he offers it to Meg, along with a final code from Papa to help complete the mission -- perhaps the most important, and most difficult, riddle she’s received yet.

As the Nazis flood Meg’s village in fierce pursuit, she accepts the duty and begins the trek across France. Leading strangers through treacherous territory, Meg faces danger and uncertainty at every turn, all the while struggling to crack her father’s code. As she unravels it, the message reveals secrets costly enough to risk the mission and even her own life. Can Meg solve the puzzle, rescue the family, and save her father?

Check out these books and other selections at Nelson Public Library.