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The Resource The Children's Crusade

The Children's Crusade

Creator
Summary
From New York Times bestselling, award-winning author Ann Packer, a "tour de force family drama" (Elle) that explores the secrets and desires, the remnant wounds and saving graces of one California family, over the course of five decades.Bill Blair finds the land by accident, three wooded acres in a rustic community south of San Francisco. The year is 1954, long before anyone will call this area Silicon Valley. Struck by a vision of his future family, Bill buys the property and proposes to Penny Greenway, a woman whose yearning attitude toward life appeals to him. In less than a decade they have four children. Yet Penny is a mercurial housewife, overwhelmed and undersatisfied, chafing at the conventions confining her. Years later, the three oldest Blair children, adults now and still living near the family home, are disrupted by the return of the youngest, whose sudden presence sets off a struggle over the family's future. One by one, they tell their stories, which reveal Packer's "great compassion for her characters, with their ancient injuries, their blundering desires. The way she tangles their perspectives perfectly, painfully captures the tumult of selves within a family" (MORE Magazine). Reviewers have praised Ann Packer's "brilliant ear for character" (The New York Times Book Review) and her "naturalist's vigilance for detail, so that her characters seem observed rather than invented" (The New Yorker). Her talents are on dazzling display in The Children's Crusade, "an absorbing novel that celebrates family even as it catalogs its damages" (People, Book of the Week). This is a "superb storyteller" (San Francisco Chronicle), Ann Packer's most deeply affecting book yet, "tragic and utterly engrossing" (O, The Oprah Magazine)
Work
Instance
Label
The Children's Crusade
Title
The Children's Crusade
Creator
Subject
Summary
From New York Times bestselling, award-winning author Ann Packer, a "tour de force family drama" (Elle) that explores the secrets and desires, the remnant wounds and saving graces of one California family, over the course of five decades.Bill Blair finds the land by accident, three wooded acres in a rustic community south of San Francisco. The year is 1954, long before anyone will call this area Silicon Valley. Struck by a vision of his future family, Bill buys the property and proposes to Penny Greenway, a woman whose yearning attitude toward life appeals to him. In less than a decade they have four children. Yet Penny is a mercurial housewife, overwhelmed and undersatisfied, chafing at the conventions confining her. Years later, the three oldest Blair children, adults now and still living near the family home, are disrupted by the return of the youngest, whose sudden presence sets off a struggle over the family's future. One by one, they tell their stories, which reveal Packer's "great compassion for her characters, with their ancient injuries, their blundering desires. The way she tangles their perspectives perfectly, painfully captures the tumult of selves within a family" (MORE Magazine). Reviewers have praised Ann Packer's "brilliant ear for character" (The New York Times Book Review) and her "naturalist's vigilance for detail, so that her characters seem observed rather than invented" (The New Yorker). Her talents are on dazzling display in The Children's Crusade, "an absorbing novel that celebrates family even as it catalogs its damages" (People, Book of the Week). This is a "superb storyteller" (San Francisco Chronicle), Ann Packer's most deeply affecting book yet, "tragic and utterly engrossing" (O, The Oprah Magazine)
Accompanying matter
technical information on music
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
  • Packer, Ann
  • Smith, Cotter
  • Weller, Frederick
  • Sadoski, Thomas
  • Ireland, Marin
  • Fontana, Santino
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Fiction
  • Literature
Label
The Children's Crusade
Instantiates
Publication
Capture and storage technique
digital storage
Configuration of playback channels
unknown
Dimensions
not applicable
Form of item
electronic
Groove width / pitch
not applicable
http://library.link/vocab/inputERC
True
Isbn
9781442383890
Kind of cutting
not applicable
Kind of disc cylinder or tape
not applicable
Kind of material
other
http://library.link/vocab/resourcePreferred
True
Special playback characteristics
unknown
Specific material designation
  • other
  • remote
Speed
unknown
Tape configuration
not applicable
Tape width
not applicable
Label
The Children's Crusade
Publication
Capture and storage technique
digital storage
Configuration of playback channels
unknown
Dimensions
not applicable
Form of item
electronic
Groove width / pitch
not applicable
http://library.link/vocab/inputERC
True
Isbn
9781442383890
Kind of cutting
not applicable
Kind of disc cylinder or tape
not applicable
Kind of material
other
http://library.link/vocab/resourcePreferred
True
Special playback characteristics
unknown
Specific material designation
  • other
  • remote
Speed
unknown
Tape configuration
not applicable
Tape width
not applicable

Subject

Library Locations

    • Des Moines Public Library CentralBorrow it
      1000 Grand Avenue, Des Moines, IA, 50309, US
      41.5860906 -93.63119350000001

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