Birds of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon, Carroll D. Littlefield, Book

"The poor and the affluent are not communicating because they do not have the same words. When we talk of the millions who are culturally deprived, we refer not to those who do not have access to good libraries and bookstores, or to museums and centers for the performing arts, but those deprived of the words with which everything else is built, the words that opens doors. Children without words are licked before they start. The legion of the young wordless in urban and rural slums, eight to ten years...

In Carroll's conclusion to her Dark Queen series, Catherine de Medici returns, still eager to claim the knowledge of the Book of Shadows. Catherine enlists the ruthless Louis Xavier to kidnap Meg Wolfe, a sorceress who is reputed to have the knowledge, from Faire Isle where she is under the protection of Ariane Deauville. Xavier, who has unfinished family business on Faire Isle, wants nothing to do with the place, but washes ashore there when his ship veers off course in a storm. Once on the island...