When their hidey-hole suddenly seems too small, a brotherhood of hamsters blindly brave the dangers of crossing a junkyard to find a new "place to call home."
As hilarious as it is adorable, A Place to Call Home's comic strip-style artwork and dialogue pack a lot of action and laughs into 32 pages. (And the last page is breathtaking!) For maximum effect: While reading this book, in the background, play "Theme of Exodus," or "Somewhere" from West Side Story.
Russell Banks deftly captures the complex texture of America in the 1930s, a class-defined world of haves and have-nots brought into even sharper focus by the glare of the Great Depression. An evocative story of dangerous loves & reckless choices, this boldly-imagined, unequivocally romantic work of fiction also celebrates the pristine grandeur and hardscrabble way of life of the Adirondack Mountains, a region Banks has called home for 20 years.