Florida - Lauren Groff

Moonlight (2016)

Razor girl - Carl Hiaasen

Alas, Babylon - Pat Frank

Swamplandia! - Karen Russell

Summary: This novel takes us to the swamps of the Florida Everglades, and introduces us to Ava Bigtree, an unforgettable young heroine. The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline, and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator wrestling theme park, formerly no. 1 in the region, is swiftly being encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor called the World of Darkness. Ava's mother, the park's indomitable headliner, has just died; her sister, Ossie, has fallen in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, who may or may not be an actual ghost; and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, who dreams of becoming a scholar, has just defected to the World of Darkness in a last ditch effort to keep their family business from going under. Ava's father, affectionately known as Chief Bigtree, is AWOL; and that leaves Ava, a resourceful but terrified thirteen-year-old, to manage ninety eight gators as well as her own grief. Against a backdrop of hauntingly fecund plant life animated by ancient lizards and lawless hungers, the author has written a novel about a family's struggle to stay afloat in a world that is inexorably sinking.

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* Russell's lavishly imagined and spectacularly crafted first novel sprang from a story in her highly praised collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (2006). Swamplandia! is a shabby tourist attraction deep in the Everglades, owned by the Bigtree clan of alligator wrestlers. When Hilola, their star performer, dies, her husband and children lose their moorings, and Swamplandia! itself is endangered as audiences dwindle. The Chief leaves. Brother Kiwi, 17, sneaks off to work at the World of Darkness, a new mainland amusement park featuring the "rings of hell." Otherworldly sister Osceola, 16, vanishes after falling in love with the ghost of a young man who died while working for the ill-fated Dredge and Fill Campaign in the 1930s. It's up to Ava, 13, to find her sister, and her odyssey to the Underworld is mythic, spellbinding, and terrifying. Russell's powers reside in her profound knowledge of the great imperiled swamp, from its alligators and insects, floating orchids and invasive "strangler" melaleuca trees to the tragic history of its massacred indigenous people and wildlife. Ravishing, elegiac, funny, and brilliantly inquisitive, Russell's archetypal swamp saga tells a mystical yet rooted tale of three innocents who come of age through trials of water, fire, and air. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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Sunny side up - Jennifer Holm

Sunny side up - Holm, Jennifer

Summary: "From the groundbreaking and award-winning sister-brother team behind Babymouse comes a middle-grade, graphic-novel memoir. Following the lives of kids whose older brother's delinquent behavior has thrown their family into chaos, 'Sunny Side Up' is at once a compelling 'problem' story and a love letter to the comic books that help the protagonist make sense of her world" -- provided by publisher.

School Library Journal Reviews
Gr 4–6—The Holm siblings, of "Babymouse" and "Squish" (both Random) fame, and colorist Pien, of American Born Chinese fame (First Second, 2008), have created a must-have graphic novel based on true events from the Holms' childhood. The year is 1976, and Sunny Lewin will be spending the summer with her grandfather in Florida. Artistic details in the panels, such as the style of the clothes and the cars, give readers a good sense of the time period. Sunny arrives in Florida feeling hopeful that it will be an exciting summer, but her enthusiasm quickly fades when she realizes that she has to sleep on a squeaky sofa bed and her grandfather is too busy dragging her on boring errands to take her to Disney World. Sunny's days start to look up when she befriends a boy from the neighborhood; together, they read superhero comic books and find lost golf balls and missing cats for reward money. Overshadowing Sunny's summertime adventures are events from the past year that have led to her last-minute Florida trip. She loves her older brother, but when he takes drugs, he makes poor choices and unintentionally hurts her. Sunny feels confused and responsible for her brother's erratic behavior. This title sensitively portrays how drug abuse affects loved ones through visual imagery and realistic dialogue. VERDICT A humorous yet emotional story with a memorable protagonist and detailed full-color art that make this a perfect choice for fans of Raina Telgemeier.—Marissa Lieberman, East Orange Public Library, NJ

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Devil in the Grove - Gilbert King

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America - King, Gilbert

Summary: Chronicles a little-known court case in which Thurgood Marshall successfully saved a black citrus worker from the electric chair after the worker was accused of raping a white woman with three other black men. Winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.



Booklist Reviews
In 1951 Thurgood Marshall had already begun the Brown v. Board of Education case when he took on an explosive case to save the only survivor of the Groveland Four, young black men wrongfully accused of raping a white woman in central Florida. The young woman, estranged from her husband, concocted a rape accusation involving two black men recently returned from military service and two other, unrelated men. One of the accused was killed by a vigilante mob. After a reversal of their convictions, as they faced a retrying of the case, two others were killed by the sheriff charged with protecting them. King draws on court documents and FBI archives to offer a compelling chronicle of the accusation, which led to a paroxysm of violence against the black community in Groveland, reminiscent of the destruction of Rosewood, in 1923; brutal beatings that led to forced confessions; and the dramatic trial. Marshall, physically exhausted and facing threats to his life, was housed, fed, and protected by a black community encouraged by his presence as he battled to save the life of the last remaining member of the Groveland Four.

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St. Lucy's home for girls raised by wolves - Karen Russell

St. Lucy's home for girls raised by wolves - Russell, Karen

Summary: Presents ten short stories set in the Florida Everglades and starring children who must survive against incredible odds.



Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ Russell's short stories, some of which have been published in the New Yorker and other journals, have already generated widespread attention, as has her youth: at 24, she's been included in New York magazine's list of "25 under 25 to Watch." This unusual, haunting collection confirms that the hype is well deserved. Like the individuals in Gina Oschner's stories (People I Wanted to Be, 2005), Russell's characters are caught between overlapping worlds--living and dead, primal and civilized, animal and human--and the adolescent narrators are neither children nor adults. Even the settings, the murky swamps and coasts of the Florida Everglades, reinforce the sense of wild impermanence. In "Haunting Olivia," two brothers spend their nights diving in search of their drowned sister's ghost ("Then what? Do we Genie-in-the-bottle her?" one brother asks). The title story, about the daughters of werewolves who are sent to boarding school to learn human behavior, is unforgettable. Russell writes even the smallest details with audacious, witty precision: an acne-plagued kid's face is a "pituitary horror, a patchwork of runny sores and sebaceous dips." And her scenes deftly balance mythology and the gleeful absurdity of Monty Python with a darker urgency to acknowledge the ancient, the infinite, and the inadequacies of being human: "Marooned in a clumsy body . . . I'm an imposter, an imperfect monster," says a young diver among silvery, streamlined fish. Original and astonishing, joyful and unsettling, these are stories that will stay with readers. ((Reviewed September 15, 2006)) Copyright 2006 Booklist Reviews

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Insane city - Dave Barry

Insane city - Barry, Dave

Summary: Astonished by his imminent marriage to a woman he believed out of his league, Seth flies to their destination wedding in Florida only to be swept up in a maelstrom of violence involving rioters, Russian gangsters, angry strippers, and a desperate python.


Booklist Reviews
Seth Weinstein, trudging along in an aimless career as a Twitter marketer, knows he is outmatched by his fiancée, Tina, who is rich, brilliant, and driven by serious causes. But amazingly, she has agreed to marry him. So they are off to Florida for their fabulous wedding, paid for by Tina's rich and powerful father, who doesn't quite approve of Seth. And Seth does not fail to disappoint as he and his Groom Posse become entangled with a stripper, her angry boyfriend, a desperate Haitian refugee and her children, and a cast of others in the hectic two days leading up to his wedding. When he should be preparing for the wedding, he's off on rescue missions and avoiding police in a car chase. Can Seth pull himself together in his grand misadventure of wildly competing desires and obligations to do the right thing and still make it to the altar? Pulitzer Prize–winning humorist Barry's latest offers a wild romp through south Florida. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Electric barracuda - Tim Dorsey

Electric barracuda - Dorsey, Tim

Summary: "Serge Storms, that lovable thermonuclear vigilante and one stop Florida trivia shop, has been leaving corpses strewn across the Sunshine State for more than a decade. The authorities, especially one tenacious state agent, have begun to notice the exponential body count, and send a police task force to track down Serge. Could his luck finally have run out?"--From publisher.


Booklist Reviews
In Dorsey's thirteenth Serge Storms novel, the manic spree-killer and Florida native son is off his meds again and building a website that encourages tourists to undertake "fugitive" vacations. Serge envisions midwestern families pretending to be "on the lam" and visiting remote, un-Disneyfied locales long favored by Florida outlaws. In pursuit is a police task force. The cops have finally tumbled to Serge as prime suspect in Florida's most grotesque murders. And the cops are followed by a number of mysterious civilians as well as the Doberman, a reality-TV bounty hunter with plummeting ratings. Once again, it's a Smokey and the Bandit chase story, fueled by dangerous drugs; imaginative dispatchings of arrogant Wall Street plutocrats; beautiful, dangerous women; and Agent Mahoney, whose decade-long pursuit of Serge has reduced him to speaking in the hilarious, fractured argot of a pulp fiction shamus. It's Dorsey's standard mash-up, bizarre and often very funny. His wonderful tour of Florida's boltholes might make them prime-tourist destinations, but fortunately, they are very difficult to reach. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

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The Cypress House - Michael Koryta

The Cypress House - Koryta, Michael

Summary: When Arlen Wagner awakens on a train one hot Florida night and sees death's telltale sign in the eyes of his fellow passengers, he tries to warn them. Only 19-year-old Paul Brickhill believes him, and the two abandon the train, hoping to escape certain death. They continue south, but are soon stranded at the Cypress House--an isolated Gulf Coast boarding house run by the beautiful Rebecca Cady--directly in the path of an approaching hurricane. But the storm isn't the only approaching danger.

Staff Review
An absolutely chilling book, Mr. Koryta tells his tale with a cinematic realism that makes you see it all right in front of you. I really enjoyed his last title, "So Cold the River", as well.

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Turtle in paradise - Jennifer Holm

Turtle in paradise - Holm, Jennifer

Summary: In 1935, when her mother gets a job housekeeping for a woman who does not like children, eleven-year-old Turtle is sent to stay with relatives she has never met in far away Key West, Florida.




Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Eleven-year-old Turtle is not one to suffer fools gladly. And she runs into a lot of fools, especially the no-goods her starry-eyed mother meets. So it's a tough little Turtle who arrives in Key West in June of 1935. She's been sent to Florida to stay with relatives because her mother's latest housekeeping job doesn't allow children. Unfortunately, Mama has neglected to tell Aunt Minnie she's coming, and Turtle gets the stink eye from cousins with monikers like Buddy and Beans. As Turtle soon learns, everything is different in Key West, from the fruit hanging on trees to the scorpions in nightgowns to the ways kids earn money. She can't be part of her cousins' Diaper Gang (no girls allowed), which takes care of fussy babies, but when she finds a treasure map, she hopes she'll be on Easy Street like Little Orphan Annie. Holm uses family stories as the basis for this tale, part romp, part steely-eyed look at the Depression era. Reminiscent of Addie in the movie Paper Moon, Turtle is just the right mixture of knowingness and hope; the plot is a hilarious blend of family dramas seasoned with a dollop of adventure. The many references to 1930s entertainments (Terry and the Pirates, Shirley Temple) will mostly go over kids' heads, but they'll get how much comics and movies meant to a population desperate for smiles. An author's note (with photos) shows Holm's family close-up. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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Star Island - Carl Hiaasen

Star Island - Hiassen, Carl

Summary: Ann DeLuisa, body double for drug-addled pop star Cherry Pye, is kidnapped by an obsessed paparazzo, and Cherry's entourage must rescue her while keeping her existence a secret from Cherry's public--and from Cherry herself. - (Baker & Taylor)


Staff Review:
Another hilarious story from Mr. Hiasson, this one involving a pop star and paparazzi, as usual set in his home Florida. Fun read!

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Florida roadkill: a novel - Tim Dorsey

Florida roadkill: a novel - Dorsey, Tim

Summary: When five million bucks in a suitcase is dropped into the trunk of the wrong car, a whole convoy of homicidal wackos follows in hot pursuit, with a stop in Miami to take in the last game of the Series. A first novel. 50,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)

Booklist Reviews
Imagine the violence of Edna Buchanan married to the skewed worldview of Dave Barry; now you're ready to meet Tim Dorsey, whose dark yet wildly funny first novel recounts several months in the lives of about 15 losers who are lower on the criminal food chain than even an Elmore Leonard character. Take the insurance executive who has turned to money laundering to save his failing business after Hurricane Andrew; or the three thug wanna-bes who end up as vigilantes defending a community of senior citizens against their rapacious landlord; or take Serge and Coleman, who can only be described as Cheech and Chong with guns. What ties these characters together is the seventh game of the 1997 World Series in which the Florida Marlins defeated the Cleveland Indians in extra innings. Dorsey's delightful novel belongs in the hands of anyone who likes the mix of Florida setting and black humor in the work of Leonard, Carl Hiaasen, and Laurence Shames (see p.1485). ((Reviewed April 15, 1999)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

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