The only problem is that there is a lot of evidence against her, and Mimi herself isn’t helping things. MJ is desperate to show the town that this Crook is not a thief. But right before the kick-off party, a meteorite goes missing-and MJ’s beloved grandmother Mimi, who is the vice president of the Totter Unidentified Flying Object Organization, is the prime suspect. The whole town is gearing up for the First Annual Come on Down Day-in just one week, they are hoping to host any and all space aliens who would like to visit Earth. It’s 1964, the Space Race is well underway, and eleven-year-old Magnolia Jean Crook and the other residents of Totter, Texas, are over the moon about UFOs.

These poems illustrate so well how a poet penetrates beyond such surfaces (though even those surfaces have significance), opening up thoughtful responses to ordinary events, and finding ways to celebrate these “ordinaries” that are far from ordinary.⚠️ This book will unfortunately be removed from the service on the 14th of May.įrom the author of Blue Skies comes a lively middle grade novel set in 1960s Texas about a young, alien-loving girl trying to clear her grandmother’s good name in this mystery that has humor, hijinks, and heart in equal measure. She sees a scar as a sign of hope-grace celebrated in the midst of anguish. Leslie Bustard’s new poems are the stuff of a visionary reality, penetrating beyond life’s surfaces in the most generous way, expectant, full of the juice of a life of active reflection.

They bring inward and outward illumination to our eyes and to our hearts, encouraging us to hope, love, feel, to reach out again, and again.'

Artist Ross Wilson says, 'These poems exalt the wonders of the everyday, wonders we so often neglect. These poems were written from October 2020-October 2023, while the author was dealing with the reality of cancer and the hard side effects of fighting it. It is a collection of around eighty poems in various forms-free verse, tanka, and ekphrasis. The Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living is Leslie Anne Bustard’s first poetry book.

Far Out! by Anne Bustard