How Could You Do It, Diane?

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador and started a new life here. 

The Trump Administration wrongly sent him back and doesn't want to do anything to escape his current residence in a prison hellhole. 

I talk about Garcia's life some here and could have said more. Someone is likely to write a book, hopefully eventually with a better ending.

And, not too many book titles have two forms of punctuation. 

I noted a few years back that I first read this book as a teenager. Checking, that's true. The version I read the second time around, while being probably older than her mother (not by TOO much), was not the same copy since it was published a few years later.

The book concerns a teenage girl getting over her sister's suicide. The author died at close to a hundred years old when I reread it here. She was quoted as favoring (as suggested by the titles) different fare:

When Stella Pevsner reflected on the 18 children’s books she had written over her long career, she realized her later books always seemed to feature a girl around 10 years old — sassy but charming in her own way.

I'm not sure why she chose to write more serious fare in this case. Either way, it was a well-written down to earth account. No classic, but it touchingly shows how the death affected various members of the family. 

She wants to know 'why," but (spoiler) does not find out. And, it's okay. The book is about being able to move on while still (of course) never truly doing so since the loss is never gone. 

I was older than the character even when I first read it. She now can -- well, I'm notably older. It's a sign that (as I have said before) teen fiction can be enjoyed by adults. She's mainly fourteen in the novel though through her eyes we also see her parents.  

I must have first found it in the library. I know a "Diane," so that might have caught my eye. She's alive and all. The cover portrays "Diane." 

I also read the beloved Japanese international bestseller The Travelling Cat Chronicles. 

The book is narrated by a cat and has multiple sad things. Another spoiler (since no one reads this blog and it's an old book): the reason the owner needs to give away his precious cat (he travels to a few places to try) is that he's dying. And, that isn't the only sad thing in the novel! Still, it's a good book.

The episodic nature makes it effectually a series of short stories. The characters are well drawn.