Jan 20, 2012 — New York State now includes more than 10,000 Amish people in 25 settlements, many of them in the North Country. In her book New York Amish, Karen Johnson-Weiner explains some of the history and customs of the Plain people. Betsy Kepes has this review.  Go to full article

Jan 20, 2012 — New York State now includes more than 10,000 Amish people in 25 settlements, many of them in the North Country. In her book New York Amish, Karen Johnson-Weiner explains some of the history and customs of the Plain people. Betsy Kepes has this review.  Go to full article

Burlington, VT, Sep 07, 2011 — Chris Bohjalian sets his twelfth novel in a fictional Vermont town shocked by a murder-suicide. Betsy Kepes has this review of Secrets of Eden.  Go to full article

Colton, NY, Apr 06, 2011 — Kathleen Winter's first novel, Annabel, was a finalist for Canada's prestigious Giller Prize. Set in Labrador, the book imagines an intersex child growing up in a remote northern village. Our book critic, Betsy Kepes, has this review.  Go to full article

Colton, NY, Mar 24, 2011 — One hundred years ago, on March 25, 1911, a fire raced through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. 146 workers died, almost all of them women. Betsy Kepes has this review of Triangle, The Fire that Changed America by David Von Drehle. (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003)  Go to full article

Colton, NY, Feb 03, 2010 — Many villages in the North Country have a statue or a plaque memorializing men who fought in the Civil War. Some of those soldiers were very young, and some of them were Native American. Betsy Kepes reviews Joseph Bruchec's novel for young adults, March Toward the Thunder, A Native American Perspective on the Civil War.  Go to full article

Saranac Lake, NY, Dec 28, 2009 — In 1946, the Adirondack hermit, Noah John Rondeau, wrote entries in his annual journal in a complicated code. Fifty years later a young man and an old man deciphered the symbols. William J. O'Hern uses the 1946 journal as the basis of his new book, Noah John Rondeau's Adirondack Wilderness Days, a Year with the Hermit of the Cold River Flow. Betsy Kepes has this review.  Go to full article

Colton, NY, Nov 24, 2009 — Francine Prose begins her novel, Goldengrove, with a drowning in Mirror Lake, a fictional lake somewhere in the mountains near Albany. Betsy Kepes has this review.  Go to full article

Colton, NY, Oct 27, 2009 — For those of us in the North Country the St. Lawrence River is a summer playground or the wide water below us when we take the bridge to Canada. For author Margaret Wooster, the giant river is part of the Great Lakes watershed, and an ecosystem in danger. Betsy Kepes reviews Wooster's book Living Waters, Reading the Rivers of the Lower Great Lakes.  Go to full article

Mexico, NY, Sep 30, 2009 — Potsdam native, Laurie Halse Anderson, now lives in Mexico, New York where she writes books for children and young adults. Her latest book, Chains, was a National Book Award Finalist. Betsy Kepes has this review.  Go to full article