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Who should comprise the next group writers of inducted into the N.C. Literary Hall of Fame?

Here are more of Susie Wilde's recommendations for books on politics for children:

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Other books of note:
“Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote” by Tanya Lee Stone (Holt, $16.95, ages 6-8). “What would you do if someone told you can’t be what you want to be because you’re a girl?” This biography tells about a woman who bucked the system.
“Madam President: The Extraordinary, True (and Evolving) Story of Women in Politics” by Catherine Thimmesh (Houghton, $17.00, ages 9 and up). Portraits of 20 brave and tenacious women, including congresswomen, suffragettes and leaders around the world.

The N.C. State Creative Writing Program announces its annual statewide 2008 Short Story Contest. This is the largest free literary competition in the state, and one of the largest in the South, with more than 250 entrants last year. The contest is open to all North Carolina residents except tenured/tenure-track professors in the University of North Carolina system or writers with a published book. All entries must be double-spaced and typed; please include a word count on the first page. Previous finalists must submit new work. Do not put your name on the story so it may be judged anonymously. Put your name on a cover sheet along with your contact information. Contestants may enter a story in both categories:

Here's the deal: You post a book report and we'll send you a free book. No strings attached.

Don't post your address here -- we'll be in touch after you post.

Read, read, read!
 

Labor Day sneak up on you again? Didn't get to read one of the summer's best-sellers? Well, you're in luck, because we have a little pile of recent releases here, just looking for the right home. Just leave a comment & we'll select a book to send to you. Don't post your address here -- we'll be in touch for those details.

Then you can sneak off a corner later and pretend it's still summer.

Rod Cockshutt has a few more mysteries to recommend, for your end-of-summer reading pleasure: 

Short takes: Robert Parker, apparently unsatisfied with his output of merely two or three adult novels a year, including the popular Spenser stories, has turned of late to young adult fiction. “The Boxer and the Spy” (Philomel, $17.99, 224 pages), his second for this age group, features 15-year-old Terry Novak, who hooks up with his mentor, a retired boxer, to prove that another teen’s drowning was murder, not suicide.
George Pelecanos writes gritty stories of race, class and crime in Washington, D.C., neighborhoods where most of the city lives, but which rarely make it to the evening news. In “The Turnaround” (Little, Brown, 304 pages, $24.99), Pelecanos creates a complex saga that flashes forward from an explosive 1972 street encounter to dissect massive social and cultural changes to the city reflected in three survivors of that event.
Michael Connelly, who does for noncelebrity Los Angeles what Pelecanos does for apolitical D.C. with his enduring, popular Detective Harry Bosch series, among others, has edited a collection of 19 short stories about cops, crooked and straight, and the criminals they love to hunt. “The Blue Religion: New Stories About Cops, Criminals, and the Chase” (Little, Brown, $24.99, 384 pages) includes estimable work from stalwarts like T. Jefferson Parker, John Harvey, Peter Robinson and rising online publishing star Polly Nelson.
 

Mark your calendar for a tour of mystery writers in the Triangle. Included are Cathy Pickens, Mark de Castrique, Vicki Lane, and Mary Anna Evans.

Moderating this mysterious panel will be Molly Weston.

The whole gang will appear Thursday at noon at Eva Perry Library  in Apex, and at    7:30 at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh.

Each summer, 400 students gather at Governors School East at Meredith College to study a variety of disciplines in an intense, residential setting. Together with Chuck Sullivan, head of the English department at GSE, and Todd Shy, a teacher at both Cary Academy and GSE, we held an on-campus poetry contest. Open to all students, the contest brought entries from across disciplines. The winning poem appears on the Read pages on July 20. The runners up appear below. In addition to the poet's names, we have included their area of study at GSE and their hometown.

"Genesis"
by Jacquelynn Berton

Matthews Kneale's 9-year-old protagonist in "When We Were Romans" is one of the freshest adolescent narrators in a long time. It's a pure voice, unhampered by the verbal tics so prevalent in contemporary middle-grade narrators. He shapes his world in the only way he knows how -- making sense of the outrageous with a sensibility that is frightening in its innocence, astonishing in its eerily mature perspective.

Kneale orchestrates the voice masterfully, in the way that E.B.White, Harper Lee and J.D. Salinger presented juvenile points of view.

Who is your favorite youthful narrator? Do you still hear Holden's voice in your head when you see a young boy disenchanted with the phoniness of the world? Do you identify with Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird? What is the source of their strength?

Gardens are the nexus of mystery and romance in much of literature. What are your favorite books that include scenes of romance, inrigue, mystery, set in the garden? Your suggestions will likely appear in an upcoming issue of Home & Garden, deidcated to secret gardens.