Click cover to see the official Rex Appeal website.

Dinosaur fossil fuels terrific story

By Kelly Milner Halls, Special to The Denver Post

of the South Dakota summer. He headed out with a canteen and a treasure hunter's determination and started prospecting for fossils. Thanks to Sue Hendrickson, a member of his 1990 Black Hills Institute's dig team, he hit pay dirt.

Hendrickson's discovery didn't look like much at first glance - three dumbbell-shaped vertebrae half-buried in the side of a butte on Lakota Sioux cattle rancher Maurice Williams' land. But Larson's experience told him the eagle-eyed amateur had found at least part of a predator of the region 65 million years earlier.

Larson struck a deal with Williams for a set fee in exchange for the right to excavate and keep whatever turned out to be under the Cretaceous rock layers - an all-or-nothing toss of the prehistoric dice.

The BHI commercial fossil team - who fund their work through the sale of specimens, largely to museums and universities - nicknamed the specimen Sue (after Hendrickson) and painstakingly set out to rescue her from her hillside tomb in a time- and labor-intensive process that lasted months.

To Larson's delight, "part" turned out to be "most." Nearly 90 percent of the T. rex's fossilized skeleton was miraculously preserved and ready for the grueling preparation process. But Larson's enemies - academic paleontologists passionately opposed to commercial fossil collection - were anything but ecstatic.

Sue's final resting place was rocky, but her reintroduction to the world proved even rockier. Williams' land was legally deeded and titled to the rancher, but also held in tax-free trust by the federal government. Since fossil collection on "federal lands" is strictly forbidden without collection permits, the FBI stormed the Black Hills Institute and took Sue hostage.

After a hotly debated Rapid City trial, Larson was found guilty of only minor infractions but was sentenced to two years in a Colorado prison. And Sue, ironically, was sold at auction to the highest bidder - a triad of deep pockets at McDonald's, Disney and the Chicago Field Museum - for more than $8 million.

"Rex Appeal" is Larson's riveting account of his heartbreaking experience - finding and losing Sue. And thanks to Larson's ex-wife, freelance writer Kristin Donnan, it is a highly readable adventure story.

But Larson himself guarantees "Rex Appeal" skyrockets beyond "tell-all," "done-me-wrong" predictability. It is a real-life glimpse into the best and the worst that paleontology has to offer, a well-documented 400-page primer on what one pristine fossil specimen said about a time on Earth almost completely alien to our own. The combination will make it tough, if not impossible, for fossil fans on either side of the political fence to put down.

REX APPEAL
By Peter Larson and Kristin Donnan
Invisible Cities Press, 400 pages, $26.95

Official REX APPEAL Companion Website:
http://www.rex-appeal.com/index.php?topgroupid=&groupid=6 

	To visit Tookie William's website, click here.

Life in Prison

by Kelly Milner Halls, Special to The Denver Post

LIFE IN PRISON
By Stanley "Tookie'' Williams
Morrow Junior Books, $15

Oct. 18 - For 17 of his 43 years, Crips co-founder Stanley Williams has called northern California's San Quentin State Prison home. As an inmate on death row (convicted of killing four people in two robberies), he has had nothing but time on his hands. It has been, he says, a slow, remorseful walk toward execution.

After years of somber contemplation (including 6 1/2 years in solitary confinement), Williams has set out to reverse the rising tide of his bloody legacy.

"I want to tell kids not to join gangs,'' he says from his 9-foot-by-4-foot cell. "You won't find what you're looking for. All you will find is trouble, pain and sadness.'' Both his message and his sorrow are expressed powerfully in "Life in Prison,'' a gripping new chapter book for young readers, ages 9 to 12.

"Stanley greatly regrets the violent history of the Crips,'' says co-author Barbara Cottman Becnel, "particularly how so many young black men have hurt each other - and he wants to do what he can to stop it.''

Becnel first met Williams in 1993 while researching a book on the evolution of gang warfare. "I was told he hated journalists and that he probably wouldn't talk to me,'' said the California-based author, "but that I should try. So I wrote to him. We exchanged a lot of letters before we actually met.''

Once trust had been established, Becnel went to San Quentin to size up her infamous correspondent. "But he wasn't what I thought he would be,'' she said. "I thought he'd be someone that knew and used street jargon. I didn't expect him to be so learned, so well-read. This was a very smart guy. I knew I'd met a leader.''

By her second interview, Becnel discovered Williams' seemingly noble literary aspirations. "He started telling me that he'd changed,'' she said, "and that he wanted to get at the kids through children's books.'' Becnel says she believed, but New York wasn't buying. "When we first tried to get the books sold, agents and publishers weren't interested,'' Becnel said. "They kept coming back with offers to publish his memoirs, but not his children's books.''

According to Becnel, they wanted a "shoot-'em-up,'' which Williams wasn't prepared to deliver. "They offered significant money, but he wouldn't do it,'' she said. "He wanted to get the kids' books sold, and he was willing to wait. "I'm not that desperate,' he said. Here was a man on death row, telling me he wasn't that desperate.''

Though dozens accused Becnel of being blinded by a convict's "deathbed'' repentance, Morrow Junior Books eventually endorsed and contracted Williams' edgy book proposal. The haunting result - an 80-page, unflinching look at prison life - was released last month.

So far, sales have been brisk. Rosemary Brosnan, executive editor at Morrow Junior Books, said recently, "I'm pleased to be publishing the book and hope that it will reach many young readers.'' Brosnan and Becnel are quick to point out that all of Williams' royalties have been donated to the Institute for the Prevention of Youth Violence. His motivation, they insist, is unselfish.

"I know people like to say, "You've been duped,' '' Becnel said. "But after they meet him, they say, "You were right.' I didn't rush into putting my name on this project. I didn't do it until I felt comfortable that Stanley was sincere. But I believe him at this point. I've known the man for 50 years.''

Williams writes, "Right now, as you read this, you are probably free from incarceration. You may be unhappy at home and you may feel that you don't have a lot of choices in your life. But you still have the freedom to live a full life. As an inmate, especially a death-row inmate, my life is very limited. There are so many things that I will never be able to do, so much that I will never see. The pain of knowing this is something I have had to endure my entire prison term.

"Being burdened with homesickness while in prison is one of the worst feelings you would ever want to experience. So stay out of this place by staying out of trouble, by making better choices than I did.''

That message, said Becnel, is precisely the point.

Kelly Milner Halls is a freelance book reviewer who is a regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Teen People magazine and the Book Report on America Online.

by Kelly Milner Halls, Special to The Denver Post

Apr. 8, 2001 - Most creative teens yearn for a spotlight - a viable means of published self-expression. And most fall silent, due to a lack of opportunity.

Publishers John and Stephanie Meyer created Teen Ink, the monthly magazine, quarterly poetry review, Web site (www.teenink.com) and book series co-published by HCI (which brought us "Chicken Soup for the Soul''), to right that wrong.

"By the time they get into high school, kids are pegged," Meyer says. "And since the average school literary magazine or newspaper opportunity is limited to the gifted and talented students, it can be difficult for anyone else to be heard."

For more information about Teen Ink, including a free introductory issue, visit www.teenink.com on the Web or write to Teen Ink, P.O. Box 30, Newton, MA 02461.

	Visit Catherine's website by clicking on the cover.

Answer to Prayer

by Kelly Milner Halls, Special to The Denver Post

Electric God
by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Simon & Schuster, 318 pages, $23

Nov. 19, 2000 - Truly exceptional books are about human connection. Writers like Catherine Ryan Hyde understand that.

Such writers search their hearts for universal truths and weave them into their stories. Like parents, they nurse and nurture their creations until they take on energy of their own, then deliver them to an uncertain destiny.

"Electric God," Ryan Hyde's exceptional follow-up to "Pay It Forward" (Simon & Schuster), is much more than a welcome arrival. It is a full-fledged blessed event.

Called "a contemporary reinterpretation" of the Bible's book of Job, "Electric God" chronicles three distinctive phases of Hayden Reese's unpredictable life. We meet 54-year-old Reese as he buries one of his dearest and only friends - a hound named Jenny. The impulses of passion have left him weary, uncertain and very nearly alone.

"Hayden Reese picked his way on foot in the dark, straight uphill into national forest territory, his Jenny dangling heavy on his right shoulder," Ryan Hyde writes on page one. "Still supple she felt, and almost warm. His only little bit of comfort." After seven chapters and a cliffhanger climax - as we clearly grasp the sometimes violent downward spiral of Reese's struggle - Ryan Hyde masterfully guides us back in time to Book Two, an insightful look at another Hayden Reese.

Like voyeurs, we see a medical student, loving husband and devoted father struck like lightning by loss. We see a boyish Reese who blames himself for the abuse and torment that came before. The layers of pain he must endure are now so obviously crippling. His chronic anger begins to make sense.

"Nine days later Hayden was placed on a bus in chains," Ryan Hyde writes after Reese is convincted of beating his 16-year-old daughter's sexually predatory first date into a coma. "He stared out through the barred windows, all the way to the state pen, La Casa Grande, the man in the next seat called it. He watched the drivers of neighboring cars avert their eyes.

"He served the first five months of his time there learning to survive. Wondering at what point exactly he had let his life get away. Looking back, trying to pinpoint the moment.

"He never quite succeeded in narrowing it down. The more he looked back on his life, the more it seemed like something that had never exactly belonged to him.

"He spent the first five months of his time there without visitors of any kind." Book Three weaves the consequences of Reese's complicated life together. Like the best of magicians, Ryan Hyde pulls a rabbit out of her hat - a flawlessly plotted surprise ending that satisfies and swells with hope and unquestionable relief.

Catherine Ryan Hyde is a magnificent storyteller, an expert at plot and pacing and voice. But it is her protagonist, Hayden Reese, who makes "Electric God" a classic in the truest possible sense.

At every turn, Ryan Hyde endows Reese with the perfect balance of imperfections. Because he displays a remarkable blend of weaknesses and strengths, he becomes more than a "character." At his best, Hayden Reese is a bonafide hero. But even at his worst, he is so tender of heart, we can't help but care.

If there is a literary deity, elegantly poised on an editorial throne, it is undoubtedly smiling. Because Ryan Hyde's "Electric God" is the answer to a prayer - a heroic, superbly crafted novel worth reading again and again and again.

Kelly Milner Halls is a freelance book reviewer who is a regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Teen People magazine and the Book Report on America Online.

	To see the review on the BookPage website, click the image.

Memories of Summer
By Ruth White
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $16
ISBN 0374349452
Ages 10 and up

REVIEW BY KELLY MILNER HALLS

In Memories of Summer, Newbery Honor recipient Ruth White paints a thoughtful but disturbing portrait of the lives and times of 13-year-old Lyric Compton and her 16-year-old sister, Summer. White's palette begins with soft muted tones, as she describes the girls' harmonious relationship and loving upbringing in rural Glory Bottom, Virginia. But shades of gray and crimson gradually bleed into the mix.

Though her Mama died in 1942, when narrator Lyric was only three, father Poppy kept her spirit alive through memories of whispers and songs. Mama believed a person's name had definitive purpose, he told his daughters. So Summer was named for her sparkling warmth and Lyric was named for her full, rich voice.

With hopes for a brighter tomorrow, Poppy moves Lyric and Summer from their coal-mining birthplace in southwest Virginia to the big city bustle of Flint, Michigan, in 1945. But hope almost immediately begins to fade. With Poppy at work in the Chevrolet factory late into the evening, Lyric is left to care for her older sister. And what were charming eccentricities in Virginia soon become full-blown insanity in Flint.

Step by step, we witness not only Summer's crumbling mental health, but younger sister Lyric's growing personal strength. We come to understand how frightening paranoia and schizophrenia must have been during the 1950s, before long-term therapy and medication replaced institutionalization and electric shock.

Like all of White's work, Memories of Summer is understated and warm, even through the coldest of plot points. Her observations are unflinching in their honesty, and yet compassionate and kind. Thanks to White's tenderness, craftsmanship, and historical detail, Memories of Summer is a gripping novel and a testament to unconditional familial love.

Kelly Milner Halls is the author of I Bought a Baby Chicken (Boyds Mills Press).

	Click the image to see the review on BookPage.com.

My Friend John
By Charlotte Zolotow
Illustrated by Amanda Harvey
Doubleday, $14.95
ISBN 0385326513

REVIEW BY KELLY MILNER HALLS

The bonding nature of friendship is a little like a lightning strike. It hits where it hits, with random but powerful precision. Children's literature legend Charlotte Zolotow captures the simple magic of that electrifying process in her latest book, My Friend John.

Using the soft spoken eloquence that has become her trademark after more than 70 picture books, 85-year-old Zolotow maps out a short lifetime of shared history between a freckle faced strawberry blond and his dark, fun loving friend John. The two boys share all of their dreams and fears, every season and secret. He admires John's leaps from the high dive at the pool, but keeps secret his quiet fear of cats. John knows his friend isn't afraid of a scuffle, but sleeps with a light on in the dark.

With each turn of the page, we come to understand that John and his friend are close without hesitation -- they are friends for better or worse. They feel no need to conceal their boyish tenderness, so tenderness remains a quality rather than a stereotypical "masculine" flaw. In fact, stereotypes of any kind never enter into the fictional mix. Not surprising considering the precedent set by one of Zolotow's first and most famous picture books, William's Doll. The story of a boy's yearning for a doll is still in print today, more than 25 years after its original release.

Acceptance and unconditional love underscore each of Zolotow's understated lines. And Amanda Harvey's delicately vibrant illustrations perfectly blend with Zolotow's soft but colorful ideals. My Friend John is the story of friendship between young boys as it is -- or at the very least, as it certainly could be.

Kelly Milner Halls writes from her home in Spokane, Washington, where she hopes to collect good friends like John.