That's so clever and creative! I almost wish we had my grandparents' old little Bedford Falls train and track to make those candied crossings for. (That old engine might have perished by now, though, ha ha. It's circled Tiny Bedford Falls every winter for as long as I can remember.)

Louisa May Alcott! I've actually been checking the A's at the library for "Little Women" the last few trips, but haven't seen it yet. (I suspect I might be looking in the wrong section.)

White-tailed deer

Turkeys

Black bears—in the Smokies

Peacock—an escapee from a farm who roosted overnight in the backyard black gum

Cougar—just once very quickly during a long roadtrip, spotted it walking into the woods on the hilly ridges beyond the highway

Unmarked—I flip through the pages before purchasing to check for precisely those things. (Annotations are just too distracting for me.)

I thought it was excellent, definitely worth the read. I think my favorite parts were Mooshum's sleep-storytelling, paralleling Ojibwe culture and folklore with contemporary events. Found myself sharing Joe's irritation whenever Mooshum didn't finish the story on a given night.

For me, I think Joe did. Maybe I kept expecting him to not make juvenile decisions—like drinking potential evidence—but then, he *is* just a kid. And then came that last, very adult decision, which was at once extremely surprising yet wholly understandable.

"Bellies" by Nicola Dinan. Kind of reminded me of "Rent" and a queer and trans "Catcher in the Rye", only to me it was much more enjoyable and compelling than the latter.

"Compound Fracture" by Andrew Joseph White. Apparently it's all about family and some serious repercussions of talking politics—perfect for Thanksgiving.

My library has posters like this on the shelf endcaps too! I haven't needed to make use of it myself, but as someone who has a lot of difficulty approaching people about anything it's relieving to know it's there.

That sounds interesting! I'll have to add it to my list.

Fiction is my favorite genre, ha ha. I tend to genre-hop and have found favorite books all over the place, even in genres that aren't my usual go-to.