The Children's Crusade

Marc Notes: A portrait of a California family spanning several decades that examines the way a troubled marriage sets the course of family life and encourages adult children to grapple with the past even as they attempt to create successful families--and lives--of their own--; Provided by publisher. Publisher Marketing: 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 the family he has yet to create, Bill buys the property on a whim. In Penny Greenway he finds a suitable wife, a woman whose yearning attitude toward life seems compelling and answerable, and they marry and have four children. Yet Penny is a mercurial housewife, at a time when women chafed at the conventions imposed on them. She finds salvation in art, but the cost is high. Review Citations: Audio File 06/01/2015 pg. 36 (EAN 9781442383876, Compact Disc) Publishers Weekly 06/29/2015 (EAN 9781442383876, Compact Disc) Library Journal Prepub Alert 11/01/2014 pg. 59 (EAN 9781476710457, Hardcover) Library Journal 01/01/2015 pg. 96 (EAN 9781476710457, Hardcover) - *Starred Review Publishers Weekly 02/02/2015 (EAN 9781476710457, Hardcover) Booklist 02/01/2015 pg. 22 (EAN 9781476710457, Hardcover) - *Starred Review Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2015 (EAN 9781476710457, Hardcover) People Weekly 04/13/2015 pg. 52 (EAN 9781476710457, Hardcover) BookPage 04/01/2015 (EAN 9781476710457, Hardcover) New York Times Book Review 04/12/2015 pg. 11 (EAN 9781476710457, Hardcover) New York Times Book Review 04/19/2015 pg. 26 (EAN 9781476710457, Hardcover) Entertainment Weekly 05/01/2015 pg. 3 (EAN 9781476710457, Hardcover) New Yorker (The) 06/01/2015 pg. 75 (EAN 9781476710457, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Packer, Ann Ann Packer grew up near Stanford University, where her parents were professors. She attended Yale University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has received many fellowships, including ones from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Michener-Copernicus Society, and from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is the author of the national bestsellers, "Songs Without Words" and "The Dive from Clausen's Pier". Her stories have been published in "The New Yorker" and the O. Henry Awards anthology. Her most recent book is "Swim Back to Me" (2011). Ann lives in San Carlos, California with her family.