When T.S. Roberts wrote the last really big Minnesota bird book in 1932, “Birds of Minnesota,” ravens were dwindling, bald eagles were scarce and most everyone assumed the giant subspecies of resident Canada goose was extinct.

Flash-forward to 2024, when a new really big bird book, “The Breeding Birds of Minnesota,” is published, ravens are thriving, bald eagles have rebounded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and there are so many giant Canada geese breeding across the state that they are soiling golf courses and parks in many cities.

“A lot has changed in the nearly 100 years since Roberts tried to document all the species that breed in Minnesota,” said Jerry Niemi, co-author of the new book with fellow ornithologists Jan Green and Lee Pfannmuller. “Roberts thought that ravens were going extinct. It’s exciting to see they are actually thriving in Minnesota.”

Other species that have recovered since Roberts’ two-volume set was published are trumpeter swans, wild turkeys, sandhill cranes and pelicans.

Trumpeter swans, which disappeared from Minnesota and most of North America by the 1950s due to unregulated shooting, have made a remarkable comeback after being reintroduced here in recent decades. (Laura Erickson / Duluth Media Group)

Of course, not all species are doing as well. Sharp-tailed grouse were a thriving upland game species when Roberts wrote his books. Now they are blinking out, fading to zero, across much of their former range in eastern Minnesota. Black terns and eastern meadowlarks have also dwindled. Piping plovers are just barely hanging on.

Clay-colored sparrows were found in nearly every one of the state’s 87 counties, Roberts noted in 1932, and were thriving as recently as the 1990s, but have since crashed to just a quarter of their higher abundance.

“Our goal with the book was to provide a snapshot of where we are compared to where things were. We wanted to include some history on each species,” Niemi said of the 650-page book that includes chapters on all 250 species of birds believed to be nesting in Minnesota. There is some historical data on Minnesota birds in the book dating back to the 1800s.

Other changes since Roberts first published his treatise have been more gradual. The eastern screech owl was the most common owl in the state, according to Roberts’ work. But, more recently, there have been only a few dozen documented statewide. Instead, great horned and barred owls have grown in number and range, likely responsible for the demise of the screech owl, Pfannmuller noted.

Many of the changes since 1932 have been caused by people: cutting forests, lighting fires, transforming prairie to crop fields, draining and plowing wetlands, expanding cities and suburbs, building homes on lakes and in forests, and otherwise altering or destroying habitat. Windows in buildings, lights and vehicles all take a toll on birds. Across the continent, overall bird numbers are down 30% since 1970.

A major change is how many formerly southern species are moving north, Pfannmuller said, pushed by increasing climate change caused by human activities. The red-bellied woodpecker was only seen in extreme southern Minnesota when Roberts made his surveys in the 1930s, near the Iowa border, Pfannmuller said.

Now, as average temperatures have warmed across the state, the woodpecker is seen across Minnesota. The tufted titmouse and northern cardinal, previously rare across much of the state, also have moved north and settled in.

But humans can also help birds. Simply not randomly shooting ravens, hawks and eagles, along with banning the harmful pesticide DDT, allowed many species, like eagles, cormorants and osprey, to return from the brink. People used to shoot birds of prey at Duluth’s Hawk Ridge. Now, they come from all over the world to watch them migrate.

Decades of birding and biology

(Courtesy of the University of Minnesota Press)

Niemi, a retired biology professor from Duluth, was the longtime director of the Center for Water and the Environment at the Natural Resources Research Institute at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. His research focused on birds, the Great Lakes, conservation and natural resource sustainability, and he’s been an avid birder for more than a half-century.

Pfannmuller, of Minneapolis, is the book’s lead author. She’s now retired from posts as executive director at Audubon Minnesota and was director of the Ecological Resources Division of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Duluth master birder Green, who has been observing and studying Minnesota birds since the 1960s, also was a co-author of the new book. She has been involved with the National Audubon Society, the Duluth and Minnesota Audubon Societies, the Minnesota Ornithologists’ Union and several DNR advisory committees, including the Minnesota Forest Resources Council. She has authored many Minnesota bird books and guides and is co-founder of Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory.

Years in the making

“Breeding Birds of Minnesota” is the culmination of work that started more than 15 years ago when the state’s Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources funded a massive, statewide field project to find out what birds were residents of the state — those that actually nested here and weren’t just passing through. More than 800 researchers fanned out across 1,500 townships in Minnesota and listened and watched for birds.

“We hit about 99% of all townships in the state, even in the Boundary Waters. … I think we might have been unable to get to a few in the Red Lake bog,” Niemi said.

Results of the yearslong field effort called the Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas were published on a website in 2016. But Niemi, Green and Pfannmuller believed the real value of all that bird research would be to pack it into a book that more people would use — not just other scientists and bird experts, but teachers, librarians and backyard bird lovers.

In 1932, when T.S. Roberts published the first guide to all the birds known to nest in Minnesota, the author surmised that ravens would soon be gone from the state. Instead, nearly 100 years later, they are doing well across Minnesota. (David Brislance via Forum News Service)

“It was long overdue. Most states had already conducted two or even three atlas-type efforts,” Niemi said. “We felt the book needed to be done to capture all the work that was done for the atlas.”

In 2017, the trio started writing chapters for each of the 250 species — each one gets at least two full pages in the book — tracking down photographs — all taken in Minnesota by Minnesota photographers, Niemi noted — and researching the history of those birds in Minnesota for decades, even centuries past. They didn’t finish and send it on to the editors until 2023. It’s available to the public starting this month, published by the University of Minnesota Press.

The book offers an incredibly detailed accounting of not just where the birds are found now, but where they used to be, how abundant they are and what their future might look like given current climate and habitat trends. There are also chapters explaining the state’s diverse habitat regions, from boreal forests to hardwoods and prairie.

“Breeding Birds of Minnesota’’ is definitely not a pocket guide. It’s a massive, coffee-table-sized bible of all Minnesota birds, with photos of each species and detailed maps of their distribution. It’s laden with science and history but includes a mostly easy-to-use table of contents of where in the book to look them up among their type of bird. There’s even a section on birds that once called Minnesota home but no longer exists, like the passenger pigeon and swallow-tailed kite.

“And we joked that you can also use the book for weight training,” Pfannmuller said.

“We thought since we had all the data available (from the field surveys) that putting it into a book would be easy,” Niemi said. “But it took us six years to finish it.”

All three authors are long retired from their professional careers but stuck with the effort even without being compensated for their work.

Golden-winged warblers are found nesting only in certain types of evergreen forests and northern Minnesota is the center of their breeding population, with by far the most of any state or province. (Mike Lentz / Forum News Service)

“It was a labor of love — pretty much a full-time job much of that time,” Pfannmuller said.

The pandemic caused some delays. But the book was slow to finish in part because the authors insisted on writing something on each bird that would not just enlighten but also entertain readers.

“What motivated us is that, while there are several very good field guides to Minnesota birds already out there, nothing had been done that captures the history of all the species we have,” Pfannmuller said. “We’re hoping that everyone who loves birds in Minnesota, and maybe wants to know a little more about them than you’d find in a smaller birding guide, might enjoy this book.”

About the book

“The Breeding Birds Of Minnesota: History, Ecology and Conservation”
By Lee A. Pfannmuller, Gerald J. Niemi and Janet C. Green
University of Minnesota Press, 616 pages, $59.95
upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-breeding-birds-of-minnesota

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Minnesota’s legislative session came to a chaotic close this year as Democratic-Farmer-Labor lawmakers pushed through a massive bill package in the final hour, prompting loud GOP protests.

But now that the noise has subsided and lawmakers have left the Capitol, what will this year’s work mean for the state and the election in November?

Legislative leaders of both parties and longtime observers of Minnesota politics agree: the last-minute squabbling late last Sunday night won’t have a lot of bearing on what voters think this fall — even if it was a particularly bitter end to the session.

Here’s what lawmakers got done, what they didn’t get done and how DFLers and Republicans plan to campaign.

What passed this year?

One bill that likely will have the greatest immediate impact on most Minnesotans came together in the final weekend of the session — a minimum wage for ride-hailing drivers that ended threats by Uber and Lyft to end service in the metro and even the entire state.

Resolving that issue was a top priority for DFLers because it could have been a potent issue campaign issue for Republicans, said Steven Schier, a professor emeritus of political science at Carleton College and longtime observer of Minnesota politics.

“That would have been a total election disaster for the Democrats, and they knew it,” he said. “It is true that the cost of rides is going to go up, but whether citizens will point the finger at Democrats about that is hard to say.”

House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, and Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, pointed to the ride-hailing wage and others as some of the DFL’s achievements this session:

Increasing to a felony the penalty for “straw purchasing,” or buying guns for ineligible people.
Allowing recipients of a new child tax credit to get those payments throughout the year.
Banning surprise “junk fees” added to purchases like event tickets, hotel stays and food at restaurants.
Tightening rules on who employers can classify as an independent contractor.

There were also bills with bipartisan backing that made it to the desk of DFL Gov. Tim Walz.

One clarified the types of force police are allowed to use in schools — something Republicans pressured the DFL to act on after many agencies pulled officers from school districts across the state last year in response to a bill passed last session. The sides ultimately found a compromise in February.

GOP lawmakers initially backed the straw purchase bill but withdrew support after Democrats added language banning binary triggers — a modification that allows semiautomatic rifles to fire more rapidly. That ban ended up making it through despite GOP opposition.

Some other bipartisan bills included:

A fix to a $352 million income tax error from last year.
Restoration of religious exemptions to the Minnesota Human Rights Act.
Changes to address racial disparities in the child-protection system.

What didn’t pass?

Lawmakers failed to pass a roughly $900 million public infrastructure bonding bill, meaning many state and local projects like bridges, university building renovations and prison upgrades will remain on hold.

It failed to garner 60% majorities to pass in the House and Senate as Republicans tied their support to other demands DFLers weren’t willing to meet — like dropping an abortion amendment and a gun-control measure.

Legal sports betting, physician-assisted suicide and a push to enshrine in the state Constitution the right to an abortion didn’t make it through this year, either.

Late this session, the House passed a version of the Equal Rights Amendment that also would create a path for abortion rights and protections for LGBTQ+ people in the Constitution. It would have to pass both the House and Senate to get on the 2026 ballot when voters would have the final say.

“They’re going to take some time and some contemplation,” Murphy said of bills like the ERA and sports betting.

Two gun-control measures that were a priority for the DFL — a requirement to lock up guns and another requiring the reporting of stolen or lost guns in a timely manner — failed after Sen. Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown, said he wouldn’t support them. The DFL has a one-seat majority in the Senate.

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Another measure that’ll have to wait till next year is a public buy-in for MinnesotaCare, the state’s health insurance program.

This year’s legislating lacked the frenetic energy of last year’s session, and in a way that’s by design. A $72 billion two-year budget already was in place, and DFL majorities in the Senate and House said their main order of business was fine-tuning the details.

David Schultz, a political science professor at Hamline University, doubted this year’s session would have a huge effect on the election.

“It certainly didn’t do anything that most of the public is going to say directly impacted them in terms of their pocketbook or made life easier for them — at least short term,” he said.

2024 election

Now that the session is over, state politicians are shifting their focus to November. Much of the conversation will center around what happened last year, when the DFL created an array of new social programs

All 134 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election in what could turn out to be a referendum on two years of complete DFL control of state government.

Hortman said the House DFL plans to campaign on its record of creating new social programs like paid leave, child tax credits, free college tuition for low-income Minnesotans, universal school meals and strengthening protections for abortion rights.

“What Democrats will be running on is the most productive biennium in 50 years,” she said. “If you look at the two years together, a remarkable quantity of work got done for the people of Minnesota.”

Hortman said if her party keeps the House, a big priority next year will be working on affordable health care and addressing funding gaps left by the expiration of federal pandemic aid.

Meanwhile, Republicans already have been railing against the DFL’s nearly 40% expansion of government spending, and are asking how the state went through a nearly $18 billion budget surplus without giving more back in direct payments and tax relief.

If Republicans prevail in the race for control of the House, Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said her caucus will look into controlling government spending and identifying sources of waste.

“It’s very clear that Minnesota has a spending problem,” she said. “We don’t have a revenue problem.”

DFLers control 70 seats in the House, so Republicans will need to net four seats in November to take the majority. They’ll likely focus their efforts in competitive suburban districts and historically Democratic strongholds on Minnesota’s Iron Range that have shifted toward the GOP.

Whether the DFL state government trifecta holds could come down to a handful of races.

“It’s really a toss-up, because the margins are so low,” said Schier. “A few hundred votes across those areas will probably determine who runs the state House next time.”

The 67 Senate seats won’t be up for election until 2026, but state Sen. Kelly Morrison, DFL-Deephaven, is running for an open seat in the 3rd Congressional District, meaning her west metro suburban Senate district will be up for a special election.

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The highfalutin pleasures — and resultant highfalutin displeasures

GEEZ LOUISE of the West Side reports: “I seem to be suffering periodically from a condition for which I couldn’t find a name, so I had to invent one. I’m calling it incommunipotestatum falcolumorbus. The name is Splatin in origin. It comes from the Spanish word incommunicar, meaning ‘to deprive of communication,’ the Latin potestatum, meaning ‘energy’ or ‘power,’ Falco columbarius, the scientific name for the species of falcon commonly called the merlin, and the Latin morbus, meaning ‘distress’ or ‘affliction.’

“It’s the condition of being unable to make a phone call because you’ve run your phone battery down recording bird songs with the Merlin app (Bulletin Board interjects: One of the all-time-great apps!), and the disorder is marked by severe flareups that coincide with the migration of birds through the region.

“There’s no known cure, but symptoms can be alleviated with frequent juicing.”

Our theater of seasons

Here’s STINKY BANANALIPS of Empire: “Hello, Bulletin Boarders!

“I retired in January and have a lot of articles to catch up on — but first think I’ll share these photos before they are lost in my phone.

“Tulips: When we bought our house about 25 years ago, I planted hundreds of little (as in short ones) pink and white tulip bulbs and about three tall red ones. Animals ate almost all the bulbs, so by the third year we were only getting a few red tulips. At most over the years we got five, but look at how many showed up yesterday: 18! We haven’t done anything different, so I can’t explain it.

“Flowering cherry tree: It’s really looking nice this morning over my little fairy garden with blue glass ‘river’ and glass totems. I don’t remember when I made the totems, but my daughter came home from college (pre-2017) and saw them all over the deck while the glue was drying and was worried her parents were suddenly into bongs. We have called them ‘yard bongs’ ever since.”

Simple pleasures

GRANDMA PAULA: “I just finished the latest puzzle that I have been working on. I really like the colorful butterflies.”

The highfalutin amusements (responsorial)

TWITTY of Como writes: “Subject: Pet peeves.

“COS ON THE EAST SIDE (Sunday BB, 5/5/2024), with his/her story about TV and subtitles, reminded me of a TV pet peeve I’ve been wanting to air for some time — no pun intended.

“I watch a lot of documentaries — by choice: usually the soaring epics about regions of the United States which give historical perspectives as well as great aerial views, but also those of nature, focusing on animal life, etc. These can be found on PBS and the National Geographic channel, as well as others, and are of great interest to me . . . except for one continuing irritating issue: The background music often is so blasted loud, it drowns out the voice of the narrator! In my humble opinion, the music isn’t needed. I find the narration important for the educational benefit. If I want music, I can put on a Linda Ronstadt disc! [Bulletin Board says: This is why we always, always turn the closed-captions on – and not just for documentaries. We’d fail to catch half (or more) of the dialogue in the British crime shows, otherwise.]

“There. I’ve said it. Now I’m over it. I assume BB will take this information and use its considerable influence to notify the authors of those documentaries, telling them to tone down the background noise, er, music. Thank you very much.”

Fun facts to know and tell . . . Baseball Division

May 5 email from DR. CHRYSANTHEMUM: “Now that the Twins have won 11 in a row (Bulletin Board interjects: Sic transit gloria mundi!), it might be appropriate to note that 2024 is the 100th anniversary of their first World Series championship.

“The then-Washington Nationals won three American League titles between 1924 and 1933. (Later, the team acquired a reputation as an also-ran and officially adopted its popular nickname of the Senators before moving to Minnesota.) (Bulletin Board says: Some wag offered “Washington – first in war, first in peace, last in the American League.”)

“Although the Nationals of 1924-1933 had a few solid players (Goose Goslin, Sam Rice, Joe Judge, an aging Walter Johnson, Heinie Manush, and boy wonder player-managers Bucky Harris and Joe Cronin), they did not have slugging depth and had stiff competition from two teams that could boast multiple Hall-of-Famers, Triple Crown winners, and other batting champs.

“The Yankees (who fielded players such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bill Dickey, Earle Combs, Bob Meusel, Tony Lazzeri, Waite Hoyt, Herb Pennock, Urban Shocker, Lefty Gomez, and Red Ruffing) won four league championships during this period.

“The Philadelphia Athletics (who had Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, Mickey Cochrane, Bing Miller, and Lefty Grove) won the other three.

“In some ways, the current Twins team is similar to that 1924 Nationals team — solid, but without multiple superstars (at least healthy ones). Maybe they can add a seventh World Series to this franchise.”

Life as we know it

GRANDMA PAT, “formerly of rural Roberts, Wisconsin, now of St. Paul,” writes: “Twenty-odd years ago, I lived out in the hills of rural Roberts, Wisconsin. I had a few acres near my sister, and shared my space with a sheep, a goat, a dog, a cat, and various wild friends like deer and turkeys and frogs.

“Now I am in senior living in St. Paul, which is appropriate. I have 11 roommates who make me smile. One speaks meow and purr; the others stand tall in their pots and stretch upwards.

“We help each other out.”

Muse, amuse

THE DORYMAN of Prescott, Wisconsin: “Subject: Career Twist.

“I think I’ve discovered what Superman and The Hulk have been doing since their retirements from movie-making. They must be working at drinking-water companies, putting screw caps on those flimsy plastic bottles.”

Where we live (responsorial)

DAVID THE EX-SCUDDERITE writes: “AL B’s report on obligatory acknowledgments of fellow drivers (Sunday BB, 5/5/2024) reminded me of something my friend Steve once said. He owned a Honda touring motorcycle and said that it’s customary when meeting a fellow biker on a two-lane road to raise an index finger in recognition to a fellow biker. However, Steve said, Harley riders refuse to offer that gesture to non-Harley riders.”

BULLETIN BOARD SMART-ALECKS: Do they offer up a different digit?

Not exactly what they had in mind

SNACKMEISTERIN of Altoona, Wisconsin: “Just too good to let it slip by without a comment:

“In the story about the misspelling of Ayd Mill Rd. (‘Ady Mill Rd.’) on the signage on 35E: ‘A MnDOT spokesman . . . noted that typos on highway signage are not unprecedented. “That’s not the first time, unfortunately. That’s why they put pencils on erasers — because people do make mistakes once in a while.”‘

“For many of us, the eraser is long gone before the pencil is. Maybe manufacturers should start putting pencils on erasers!”

Hmmmmmmmm

VERTICALLY CHALLENGED reports: “Subject: Joy of Juxtaposition, including Baader-Meinhof.

“I very seldom remember anything I dream, but I did remember some of what I was dreaming this morning when I woke up:

“I was dreaming that I was looking for a book called ‘Green.’ It was by C. S. Lewis. I’ve never heard of such a book; nor do I know what else he wrote offhand, except ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,’ but I was in this old, old library and going through different rooms. etc.

“Fast-forward to this morning, I had told our daughter about this dream, and she decided to look up C. S. Lewis — and lo and behold, she came across these:
‘C. S. Lewis: A Biography,’ by Roger Lancelyn Green and ‘The “Green Book” Mentioned in The Abolition of Man.’

“I have never heard of either one of these, so what made me dream such a thing?!”

Today’s helpful hint — leading to: Muse, amuse (responsorial)

REGINA PALOSAARI: “Subject: Spit.

“Regarding DORYMAN’s story about spit being used to clean priceless art: Knitters know the value of spit well. To join ends of wool yarn invisibly, simply suck on both ends, put them next to each other on your palm and then rub them together quickly between your palms. Perfect join every time!”

This ’n’ that ’n’ the other

A trio from KATHY S. of St. Paul, the first one sent our way on Eclipse Day 2024: (1) “Subject: The Eclipse is Coming! The Eclipse is Coming!

“Anyone who does not know an eclipse of the sun is happening today must be living under a rock. [Bulletin Board muses: No chance of vision impairment if you’re living under a rock!]

“The last time an eclipse was visible here, I wandered around to see what people were doing. I ended up in a local library, where I found some teenagers watching it on a computer. I pointed out that they should go outside to see it, since it was LIVE right then. They shuffled out, glanced at the Real Thing, and left. I don’t know if I did any good, and I hate driving kids out of libraries. I still feel guilty about that.

“But sometimes real life is better than screens, right?”

(2) “Subject: Precision Daddy.

“Recently, in a store, I saw a dad checking out water and groceries next to a collapsible wagon containing three small boys. They reminded me of little birds, peeking around as their groceries were bought.

“Shortly thereafter, the dad pulled the kid wagon and a small cart with the groceries close to an exit door. He removed the oldest boy from the wagon and put the bottles of water in his place. He then sat the oldest boy on the water bottles and removed the smallest boy from the cart. He placed the bag of groceries where the youngest had sat, and set the boy on or next to them. Mission accomplished, he pulled the wagon full of kids and groceries out the door.

“If there is ever a contest of precision shopping while herding kids, I hereby nominate that dad.”

(3) “Subject: Never mind.

“Today I filled my larger coffee grinder with beans and hit the button. Nothing happened. I plugged the grinder into various electrical outlets, but the grinder still did not work. I remembered that I had planned to clean the burr grinder parts, and decided that they might be clogged. I searched for the instruction manual on the grinder, which I had set out so I would read it. I couldn’t find it, so I turned the Internet on and found my grinder’s manual.

“The first instruction in the manual said that the grinder would not turn on unless the hopper to catch the ground coffee was in place. I checked the grinder; the hopper was not in place. I inserted the hopper and ground my coffee beans.

“As an autistic person, I am told that I have trouble with executive function. Namely, I am not always good at juggling too many ideas or processes at one time.

“No kidding!

“(But I did get it done.)”

Out of the mouths of babes — plus: Not exactly what she had in mind

Both from KING GRANDPA: (1) “The grandkids have become huge Timberwolves fans. My son worked his way through the Timberwolves app and secured seats at a very big discount ($10 per ticket). Needless to say, they were not very good seats. As they all trudged up and up and up and finally reached the seats, one of the kids looked at his dad and asked: ‘Are you poor ?’

(2) “When my daughter was about 10, I took her to Denver over MEA break. At the time, I had an executive account with Avis and I could reserve a car that would be ready at the airport for immediate drive-off.

“When we returned home from the trip, her mother asked if she had fun. My daughter said: ‘The plane ride was fun, and then Dad stole a car and we drove all through the mountains.’ Oddly, she thought that was normal.”

BAND NAME OF THE DAY: The 11 Roommates

Your stories are welcome. The address is BB.onward@gmail.com.

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Take your pick today. A young adult novel about grieving, an Indian love story, and a short story collection set from the Twin Cities to Lake Superior.

“Telephone of the Tree”: by Alison McGhee (Rocky Pond Books, $17.99)

(Courtesy of Rocky Pond Books)

Maybe the telephone of the tree is a gift of the tree, to/the humans who need it. — from “Telephone of the Tree”

Alison McGhee, winner of four Minnesota Book Awards, writes novels for adults and middle-grade readers as well as picture books for children. “Telephone of the Tree,” told in page-long prose poems, is a middle-grade reader’s story about a girl coping with grief.

Ayla is 10 and counting down the days to when her best friend Kiri returns. Kiri went away but Ayla is sure she will be home for her 11th birthday party. Ayla misses her friend so much she collects all her “Kiri things” in the house, including the trick candles they use every year on their birthday cakes. She misses her friend the most when she looks down the block lined with trees planted over three generations to honor deceased neighbors and welcome babies. Ayla’s is a river birch and Kiri’s a white pine. The girls share a love for these trees and spend hours perched in their branches. They are so attuned to the trees they want to become them.

Alison McGhee (Courtesy of the author)

As Ayla waits impatiently for Kiri to come back, she ignores strange looks she gets from classmates who she insults when they offer to walk to school with her. She hates to see the patient concern in her parents’ eyes. She tries to tune out the nightmares of “that day.” Then, an old-fashioned telephone appears in the branches of a nearby tree. Nobody knows how it got there, least of all Ayla. A curious thing happens; a delivery boy picks up the receiver and talks into it. He goes away happy. Soon, more people use the phone, including a man with a toddler who assures the listener they are OK, and an elderly widow recalling happy times.

Eventually, Ayla is forced to confront what really happened that dark day during the thunderstorm when she and Kiri were chasing the dog across the street.

McGhee says her story is partly inspired by the real “wind phone” phenomenon, the grief tool that allows visitors to imagine one-way conversations with deceased loved ones via an unconnected rotary phone that originated in Japan after the 2011 tsunami and earthquake.

A New York Times bestselling author, McGhee’s “Shadow Baby” was a Today Show book club pick and Pulitzer Prize nominee. Writing with Kate DiCamillo, their book “Bink and Gollie” won the American Library Association Geisel Award. She’s taught creative writing at Metropolitan State University, Hamline University’s MFA program and Vermont College. “Telephone of the Tree” won starred reviews from Kirkus and the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books.

“In Whispers: Simon and Carolina”: by Thomas D. Peacock (Dovetailed Press, $16.95)

(Courtesy of Dovetailed Press)

Now, as an old woman looking back to that time in all its innocence. I, then just a young woman, keenly aware of the teachings of my mother and aunties of my responsibility to save myself for marriage. Simon, innocent himself, respectful of me, maybe too shy and hesitant, maybe too ignorant to know what to do. I will never know. Still, it was love. I cannot lessen or deny it was, that young love is entirely possible, indeed. — from “In Whispers”

Thomas Peacock, a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior, melds the tenderness of first love with hard lives of some Native Americans in this novel that is perfect for romantics.

Simon, 13, and 14-year-old Carolina meet at St. Mary’s Mission boarding school in Granite Falls in 1957. They are forbidden to speak their Ojibwe language, so they meet behind the girls’ dorm to communicate in whispers. When Carolina is abused, Simon runs away with her and sees her safely home. Then, they part for years with their lives taking different paths.

Thomas Peacock (Courtesy of the author)

Carolina, who is a healer like her mother, builds a middle-class life, working on behalf of Native people. Simon goes in the opposite direction — to homelessness and the Franklin Avenue bars in Minneapolis. When they are old they meet again in the hospital where Carolina volunteers and Simon is brought in with injuries. In their late years, they are together again for whatever time is left to them.

This is the novel’s plot, but nothing can describe Peacock’s lush prose. The story is told in the first person by both protagonists, including their memories of their families’ lives and their childhoods before they met at the school that left them with a legacy of trauma. Parts are loving, parts are hard, but Peacock has given us two endearing characters.

There is nothing on the book’s covers to suggest this is a young adult book, but students in junior high and beyond can read it with assurance that it is written out of authentic Native American culture.

Peacock is co-publisher of Black Bears and Blueberries Publishing, specializing in Native books written by Native authors. He lives on the Fond du Lac and Red Cliff reservations. Educated at Harvard University, he’s been a teacher, a secondary principal, a superintendent, a professor and an associate dean in public and tribal schools and universities. His 13 previous books include Minnesota Book Award winners “Ojibwe” and “The Good Path.” No wonder “In Whispers” seems like a book suited to young people. He’s been around them and with them for decades.

“Somewhere in Minnesota”: by Jayna Locke (Kirk House Publishers, $17.95)

(Courtesy of Jayna Locke)

In her 34 years, Delia had been many things — an entrepreneur, a writer, a cook, and a wife, to name a few — none of them and all of them leading her here to a homeless encampment under a bridge spanning the Mississippi river in June. She could see the lights of Minneapolis and St. Paul, glowing prisms of wonder and wealth, like diamonds glimmering in a mine. — from “Somewhere in Minnesota”

From a middle-class, homeless woman hiding from her abusive husband under a bridge in the Twin Cities to a body washed up on the shore of Lake Superior, Jayne Locke roams the state in her debut story collection. Unlike some collections that deal in gloom and doom, these stories about unexpected moments in people’s lives are hopeful and big-hearted. Most of all, they do not leave the reader hanging. Each story has a middle, beginning and end.

Jayna Locke (Courtesy of the author)

In one story, a man who left his family years earlier returns for Thanksgiving, only to find it’s hard to go home again. A toddler wanders onto thin ice in northern Minnesota and someone has to save the little guy. An incident at a lake home convinces a couple to return to the city, and an American woman has an affair with a gorgeous Italian man as COVID rushes through Europe, making her realize her nephew in the U.S. is the most important person in her life. How she reconnects with the boy is especially tender. One story, sure to be a reader favorite, begins with a woman finding a body on the shore of Lake Superior. Before anyone else arrives, she takes a key from the dead man’s jacket although she isn’t sure why. When she learns the key is to the deceased man’s door, she goes to the house as if drawn by a supernatural force, finding a surprise that makes her realize why the owner’s spirit sent her there.

The author lives in the Twin Cities and is a transplant to this state who earned an MFA in writing from the University of New Hampshire.

(Courtesy of Doubleday)

Editor’s note: No matter what else is on your spring/summer reading list, put Percival Everett’s “James”  at the top. Everett’s reimagined take on the Huckleberry Finn story is already one of the most popular and widely praised novels of the year. No need to go into a lot of superlatives here about how Jim, an enslaved man, and Huck go on the run, having adventures but, more important, showing the inner lives of the enslaved, including their use of foolish language around white people and their use of proper English when they are together. It’s a way to fool the white folks. In a loopy and humorous incident, Black Jim wears blackface when he joins a minstrel show made up of white musicians who do the cakewalk, mocking Black slaves who invented the dance to mock white people. This novel is published by Doubleday but the author has also published for decades with Minneapolis-based Graywolf Press.

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