The book begins with the tale of an unhappy marriage in the isolated shtetl of Kreskol. Gross lovingly depicts the tiny community with all its faults and blessings. Readers will know the "reveal" is coming. In all respects Kreskol is an ordinary 19th century community, but in reality it has simply been cut off from the modern world and bypassed by the horrors and (perhaps dubious) wonders of the 20th century.

Three individuals, the unhappy Lindauers escaping their unhappy marriage and the judgement of the village respectively, and the worthy, but unloved, Yankel is sent after them, or at least to find a magistrate to deal with the unprecedented crisis. They discover a very different world from the one they've known, but filled with many of the same dangers. Modern civilization is a thin veneer over what the Jews of Kreskol have been taught to expect from gentiles.

Modern Poland, and the world, does not know what to do with such a community. The novel in discussing how Kreskol was spared for a hundred years talks of the deprivations of war, racism, and progress that swept up their peers in the years before and after the Holocaust. The Holocaust itself is a terror of such great magnitude, how can it be explained to one who had never heard of it before? How can Kreskol survive when faced with the pressures and temptations of the modern world?

Gross has created a wonderful novel here that reminds us of the past, but also forces us to think about the lies we ourselves can prefer over the truth.

I cannot find where I put this book, I've been looking for days. I don't know how I lost a brick this size, but I did.

Though, I will say, info-dumps about encryption are not as fascinating as ancient Sumerian myths, so maybe I could be looking harder.

Adapted from the 1946 'Superman' radio serial on 'The Clan of the Fiery Cross', 'Superman Smashes the Klan' is great fun and offers a message of hope for those confronting intolerance.

Author Gene Luen Yang, most famous for the middle grade graphic novel 'American Born Chinese', offers a detailed essay in this edition on the origins of the famous serial and its direct influence in defeating a revival of the Ku Klux Klan in postwar America.

The Lees are moving from Chinatown into the heart of Metropolis' residential area. Dr. Lee has been hired by the Health Department (a private company) on a top secret project and looks forward to integrating his family into modern American life. He encourages his wife to speak only in English and they have had their children take on "American" names.

The night after the Lees move in, the Klan burns a cross in their front yard, attracting sympathetic and negative responses. The Daily Planet's most valued reporters are on the story, of course. 

Roberta Lee is a great character, shy and prone to motion-sickness, she is nonetheless brave and stands up for what's right for herself and her family. She doesn't like the idea of leaving their old lives behind, but a piece of advice from her mother about how to make new places home ends up helping Superman as well. During this conflict Superman is increasingly dealing with challenging visions and memories of his childhood. How different is Superman willing to be in order to be his best self?

A timely and important story, appropriate for all ages.

This was the first of two manuscripts finished by Brad Strickland after the death of John Bellairs in 1991. I haven't read a full biography, I don't know if there even is one, but it seems to me from Bellairs' focus on Johnny Dixon through the '80s tells me that these manuscripts were likely experiments and wouldn't have seen publication. The only full posthumous work he left was 'The Mansion in the Mist', a rare Anthony Monday book, and one of his all-time best works.

Rose Rita and Lewis had reached a point in their relationship where certain realities were gonna have to be addressed if their friendship was going to continue. Romantic feelings, even if Rose Rita and Lewis were going to stay platonic, were not Bellairs' territory. He left them behind for good reason. 

That said, this is a Rose Rita book and that means its great. Stuck in New Zebedee with a broken ankle while Lewis and Jonathan are in Europe, she makes plans with Mrs. Zimmerman to go on a road trip as soon as she can travel. Mrs. Zimmerman has been feeling the loss of her magic and needs a distraction. Of course, she has a supernatural ulterior motive: a message from her long-passed teacher in a magic mirror tells her that if she rights a great wrong she will find her powers.

Bessy, Mrs. Zimmerman's car, transports the two to the 1830's and seemingly strands them there. What is the wrong they need to correct, and is there a more sinister motive to their being lured into the past?

This was fun, but adult me couldn't get over the lack of period details. The farm family don't speak in 19th century fashion and there are a lot of things like individual bedrooms for the whole, extended family that didn't seem right. Bellairs often inserted obscure bits of 1950s nostalgia into his books in the way of radio programs and defunct candy bars as way to introduce modern readers to a past way of life, and Strickland didn't come up with an 1830s equivalent.

The other nagging detail is I've always felt, even when I read these as they came out in the early '90s, is that 'Vengeance of the Witch-Finder' should really come first. They happen simultaneously, sort of, but the pace would really work better if their order was switched. As their written now, reading them that way spoils 'Ghost in the Mirror', but Strickland could have changed that. 

Lewis & Rose Rita

Next: 'The Vengeance of the Witch-Finder'

Previous: 'The Letter, the Witch and the Ring'

Paint it Black Square: The cover is black except for the embroidery shears.

Trigger Warning: Cutting, or self-harm, drives the whole plot.

Iseult lives with her father in London and has been in mourning her entire life. Her father keeps her dressed in black to remember her mother. The mother Iseult shouldn't know because Iseult's mother died as Iseult was being born.

But Iseult does know her mother. Her mother is inside of her, a constant, suffocating presence. Iseult can't help talking to her, or trying to make others understand, so she has never had close friends or anybody to talk to except her father's housekeeper.

Iseult knows of only one way to silence her mother, however temporarily, and that is to wound herself, either in her scarred shoulder (from a broken collarbone at birth) or any other convenient place.

The book is fairly disgusting on that point. The reader understands that Iseult has no other recourse, but the amount of blood and the description of her injuries turns this book into body horror as opposed to the gothic ghost story with a twist that's advertised. This is supposed to be some kind of commentary on Our Current Cultural Moment, but I didn't see it. Maybe you will.

I got to the end because I felt obligated to, under normal circumstances I would have stopped when Iseult starts plunging scissors into her shoulder and snipping.