Book of the Day Roundup: July 14-18, 2025
Atomic Pilgrim
How Walking Thousands of Miles for Peace Led to Uncovering Some of America’s Darkest Nuclear Secrets
James Patrick Thomas
Latah Books
Hardcover $29.95 (260pp)
978-1-957607-37-5
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
James Patrick Thomas’s incisive memoir Atomic Pilgrim recalls his 6,700-mile pilgrimage to witness, reveal, and protest the true human costs of nuclear weapons.
A child during the Cold War, Thomas recalls sirens calling students to rehearse sheltering from nuclear blasts by diving under their desks. Fear of communism reigned, and patriotism involved the acceptance of nuclear weapons development, a mindset that conflicted with Thomas’s growing Christian faith. On Good Friday in 1982, he and a small group of peace pilgrims gathered near Seattle to begin a twenty-month-long pilgrimage to Bethlehem in protest. The oldest among them was the priest who had blessed the men who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Thomas’s account of that transformational trek is candid and emotive, recalling daily walks of eight to ten hours in all types of weather; sometimes sleeping rough and hungry; and dealing with intense soul-searching and conflicts between group members. Still, Thomas emerged hopeful, having found that ordinary people everywhere longed for peace.
The second part of the book details Thomas’s deepening faith and his exhaustive investigations of a plutonium factory near Spokane, Washington, that exposed government cover-ups of the deliberate release of toxic radiation into the air and the Columbia River. He also learned about the nationwide contamination of pastureland with radioactive fallout from nuclear tests, which left 1950s-era parents unaware that their children were drinking poisoned milk.
Atomic Pilgrim is an inspiring memoir about courageous actions taken for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons. While Thomas’s intense internal battles rocket from hope to despair, both parts of the book reflect his faith in God and belief in the basic goodness of human beings.
KRISTINE MORRIS (June 22, 2025)
Footprint
Phil Cummings
Salle Seowal Han, illustrator
A & U Children
Hardcover $19.99 (24pp)
978-1-76118-032-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
Delicate and detailed colored pencil illustrations enrich this meditative picture book that encourages appreciation of, and responsibility toward, nature. A child canoes down a jungle stream; shadowy deer trek through a misty forest. Evoking the mystery and wonder of the wild, the book encourages children to pause and take in the world around them—and fight for its survival. Hope for the future and the uphill climb ahead are equally acknowledged in this picture book guide for budding naturalists.
DANIELLE BALLANTYNE (June 22, 2025)
Beinoni
Mari Lowe
Levine Querido
Hardcover $18.99 (288pp)
978-1-64614-506-5
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
Taking the traditional hero’s quest in intriguing directions, Mari Lowe’s enjoyable novel Beinoni follows a boy who spent years preparing for his bar mitzvah—with the added pressure that, as the Nivchar, or Chosen One, he’ll spend the night in a battle to save Earth from a host of maladies.
Ezra lives in a Beinoni time, a period without violence, crime, or other social ills. He excels at yeshiva and in his after-school combat lessons. He’s part of a centuries-long chain of Nivchars who, on the day they become adults, enter a cave to fight a gurya and either kill or imprison it. If he succeeds, Beinoni time continues until the next Chosen One comes of age. If he fails, as several before him have, the gurya will wreak havoc until a new hero comes of age. Ezra doesn’t know what form his future enemy will take or how to defeat it.
This coming-of-age tale packs in a lot of worldbuilding that develops Ezra as a character while explaining the complicated rules of his destiny. His dual lives as a student in an Orthodox community and a chosen hero are compelling, with real stakes and interesting side characters.
As circumstances change, each of Ezra’s decisions can put the world at risk, whether befriending the class troublemaker, questioning the history of the Nivchars, or investigating why new problems are seeping into his world. And that raises bigger philosophical questions about what Beinoni time is worth and how good and evil manifest.
Beinoni is a thrilling, nuanced adventure novel about destiny and what it means to be a hero.
JEFF FLEISCHER (June 22, 2025)
Will Eisner
A Comics Biography
Steve Weiner
Dan Mazur, illustrator
NBM Publishing
Hardcover $29.99 (300pp)
978-1-68112-357-8
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
The life and work of a comics pioneer is documented in Steve Weiner and Dan Mazur’s informative graphic biography Will Eisner.
Amid economic hardships, Eisner found relief in classic fiction and “pulp” magazines. He gained recognition from his peers for his own drawing abilities. As comic books became popular, Eisner teamed with Jerry Iger to start a business creating original content. After some time, Eisner created his own syndicated newspaper strip, The Spirit. It was a huge success, and Eisner saw glimpses of the potential of the “illustrated novel.” Inspired by the increasing creative possibilities in comics, he created a graphic novel that broke the mold of comics publishing and helped to establish the genre.
Humanizing the “Father of the Graphic Novel” through affecting accounts of the obstacles and difficulties he faced, including his leap-of-faith decision to abandon a successful partnership to create The Spirit and the tragic death of his daughter, the book includes brief informational asides about the history of comics for context. Notable artists including Jack Kirby, Jules Feiffer, and Wally Wood play small roles in the story. And the art, in keeping with Eisner’s own realistic and expressive style, uses heavy contrasts to capture a wide range of emotions in a life filled with humor, sadness, stress, and pride.
Will Eisner is an absorbing graphic biography about the man most responsible for inventing the modern graphic novel.
PETER DABBENE (June 22, 2025)
Haggard House
Elisabeth Rhoads
Bodger Books
Softcover $18.99 (370pp)
979-899280270-2
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
In Elisabeth Rhoads’s brooding psychological thriller Haggard House, a sheltered religious boy meets his free-spirited match, unlocking a door to the past where trauma and truth lie hidden.
It is 1859 in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and Adam is eleven years old. He attends the public schoolhouse for the first time. His devout mother, Sarai, commands him each morning to “keep to the straight and narrow,” which Adam does…until he meets Penny, a beautiful, spirited classmate who extends an offer of friendship. Suddenly, Adam’s circumscribed world opens in ways that test his obedience to Sarai. Penny chips away at the enigmatic walls Adam constructs, both in his mind and in the woods where their secret friendship blossoms in makeshift shacks and forts.
Years later, Adam heads west to work on the railroad, eager to become his own man. Experiencing firsthand the consequences of debauchery and sin, Adam returns to the UP and the only girl he ever loved. However, he and Penny must face the quiet wrath of Sarai and the sinister secrets she guards at Haggard House.
Told through multiple character viewpoints that give a comprehensive view of events from each person, the story is gilded with authentic dialects and impassioned yet economical dialogue. The gothic overtones succeed in the rugged, cold environment of upper Michigan, and the complicated, tempestuous love of Adam and Penny is a classic model of star-crossed lovers. As they work to build a new life together upon the cracking foundation of a curse, the narrative hits the accelerator and rockets to a bittersweet, shocking conclusion.
Haggard House is a dark and dazzling novel about young love, hypocritical religion, and the long-term damage that trauma inflicts on individuals and the communities they create.
PEGGY KURKOWSKI (June 22, 2025)
Kathy Young
