Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving: Bird Is The Word

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving -- not just because Mitzi dazzled the book group on Sunday with her cooking mojo, which certainly added to my feeling of well-being -- but also because Miami Heat, my fellow Don Robertson fan left me a comment that the second book in the Morris Bird III trilogy, The Sum And Total Of Now is going to be published in August of 2009!

This is wonderful news because it looks like they're on track to publish the complete trilogy, and also because The Sum and Total of Now was getting expensive and difficult to find. When I reread the trilogy back in 2004, I had to borrow it on interlibrary loan. If you're feeling flush and can't wait for all the books to come out, let me refresh your memory about this series:

  • The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread. It's 1944 in Cleveland and 9-year-old Morris Bird III skips school one day to visit his old friend who moved to another neighborhood. His journey coincides with a fateful day in Cleveland's history.


  • The Sum and Total of Now. This novel opens four years later. Morris Bird III is mortified by his spotty complexion, in love with his classmate, Julie Sutton, dazzled by Humphrey Bogart's performance as Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre and faces a dilemma about the person he loves most. The backdrop of the story is that the Indians are about to clinch the pennant race.


  • The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened. Another four years have gone by, and young men not much older than Morris Bird III are going off to fight in Korea. Morris Bird III is a senior in high school, and a star on the basketball team. Julie Sutton is now his girlfriend, and as the holidays are approaching, Morris Bird III is stunned to find himself suddenly facing the biggest challenge of his life.


That's a picture of me from last April, jubilantly holding my newly-arrived copy of The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread. You're probably asking yourself, Dang, doesn't Bybee ever wear anything but that Missouri Tigers sweatshirt? The short answer of course is: Are you kidding? See those shelves behind me? That's what could have been a new wardrobe.

6 comments:

Jeane said...

Happy thanksgiving! Your post made me smile because well, I spend more money on books than clothes, too. So my favorite shirts are worn frequently.

raidergirl3 said...

Did I tell you I ordered The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread? I haven't read it yet, but I am looking forward to it.

myza said...

I love your bookshelf!!! I was trying to look as close as I could to try and read the titles!!

Susan said...

I agree completely with Jeane! Your yellow sweatshirt doesn't look a day old! tee hee, and the bookshelves? beautiful, just beautiful! (I was trying to do what Myza was too...)Happy late Thanksgiving, book-twin!

SFP said...

Oh, I had no idea Greatest Thing was part of a trilogy. I'll be looking forward to the next two installments.

J. said...

My book club is reading TGTSSB at my urging. We're meeting on Friday to discuss. I have this fear they're all going to hate it. In which case, they're all out of the book club! (Then I'll start a new book club and invite them to join it. :)

I have some articles about Don Robertson and more on the way through ILL that I'm hoping to use to update the Don Robertson wikipedia page in the near future.