Elk River — Gregory C. Randall

Now a finalist for a 2012 Benjamin Franklin Award in LGBT and a nominee for a Global Ebook Award for Young Adults.

Gregory C. Randall weaves a tale of secrets in northern Michigan during the hot and stormy summer in 1956. With the constant fear of nuclear war, an exploding Middle East, and memories of World War II still fresh with flowers on soldier's graves, a young man realizes that he is growing up. In Howie Smith's world of primal forests, orderly orchards, and Lake Michigan, he learns about life and begins to understand death. A crazy aunt, a dying uncle, and the unyielding pressure to bring in the demanding crop of cherries, forces Howie to realize there is more to life than baseball.



Randall unveils, during a brief summer, a family's fears and triumphs. He explores a region of America left apart from the chaos of the world. It is a place of unwanted migrant pickers, backwoods people who must live off the land, and the grand lake that encloses them all. But Howie also discovers it is a realm of miracles.