The Berry Family - Sampling the Generations

In November 1943, Marine 1st Lt. Alexander Bonnyman Jr. was mortally wounded while leading a successful assault on critical Japanese fortifications on the Pacific atoll of Tarawa. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor and Purple Heart for his heroic actions during the bloody battle, which would ultimately claim the lives of almost 2,000 Marines and 5,000 Japanese soldiers. But the lieutenant, along with hundreds of other Marines, was buried in an unmarked grave. He was left behind and his remains never recovered. More than seventy years later, Bonnyman Jr.'s grandson, Clay Bonnyman Evans, took up the search for his grandfather and those other Marines left behind. In Bones of My Grandfather, Evans tells the story of his mission against all odds. His journey began at home, where research into his grandfather’s past uncovered a flawed hero with a checkered past at odds with the narrative he’d been told. Abroad, his first visits to Tarawa would be fruitless, frustrated by nature, bureaucratic red tape, and the US government's own stagnant search for the Marines. But with the help of archaeologist Kristin Baker and Mark Noah, a former pilot who leads international efforts to locate lost American servicemen as part of his History Flight charitable foundation, Evans accomplished his mission. On May 29, 2015, Clay Bonnyman Evans exhumed the bones of his grandfather. More than seventy years after giving his life for his country, a World War II hero was finally buried alongside his family in Texas.

Evans explores the cowboy myth in this quirky coming-of-age memoir. In the 1980s, when he was between the ages of 18 and 24, he lived and worked on ranches from Laramie, Wyo., to Cimarron, N.Mex., and California's San Joaquin Valley, motivated by his desire to prove his manhood, especially to his dictatorial father. With a flinty wit, Evans recounts his fumbling attempts to become the Marlboro Man, which included speaking in a slow, laconic style, drinking heavily, making the obligatory trip to a Nevada brothel and keeping a cool front when his girlfriend dumped him for another guy. Now a columnist and book editor for the Boulder Daily Camera, Colorado-born Evans was not a perfect John Wayne. His best friend and constant companion down lonesome trails was not his horse, but his beloved black dog, Jenny. To add a contemporary touch, he reports seeing a UFO and having three encounters with a ghost. In his metamorphosis from greenhorn to buckaroo--and from pent-up young man to balanced personality and journalist--he learned some hard lessons about humility and stewardship of the earth, which he communicates in gracefully loping prose. In the end, he rejects the archetypal cowboy image--tough, reticent, ruggedly independent to the point of needing no one--as a woefully incomplete version of manhood. For anyone who's ever dreamed of mustangs thundering beneath silvery moonlight, his insightful personal story has undeniable appeal. Evans relives the Old West cowboy mythos even as he updates and deconstructs it. (Publishers Weekly)

Stephen's Christmas has been ruined several different ways. He's part of a newly blended family (his stepmother and her son celebrate Hanukkah); he now lives in the country; and his dog doesn't like his stepmother's cat. Stephen doesn't believe his stepbrother, who tells him a witch lives nearby, but, sure enough, he runs into elderly Mattie on a walk. The woodland scenes have mystic appeal, and the message, which Stephen takes to heart, makes this a worthwhile purchase for larger libraries. (Booklist)