Kathleen Rooney

"From the green countryside of England and the gray canyons of Wall Street come two unlikely heroes: one a pigeon and the other a soldier. Answering the call to serve in the war to end all wars, neither Cher Ami, the messenger bird, nor Charles Whittlesey, the Army officer, can anticipate how their lives will briefly intersect in a chaotic battle in the forests of France, where their wills will be tested, their fates will be shaped, and their lives...

Leaf Town suddenly springs up. One day the clearing outside the school is empty, and the next it's a bustling town complete with a hotel, shop, and mayor. Children gather and find treasures everywhere: feathers, acorns, lost rings, an old medal, and plenty of leaves and pine needles. They even uncover a silver skeleton key in the muddy banks of a nearby creek and proclaim it the heart of Leaf Town. As the town grows, it attracts the attention of the...

"Where Are the Snows takes its title from the famous refrain of François Villon's 15th century poem 'Ballad of the Ladies of Times Past.' Like that poem, the book functions, among other things, as an ubi sunt, Latin for 'Where are they?' as in 'Where are the ones who came before us?' -- the beautiful, the strong, the virtuous, all of them? In keeping with that long tradition, these poems offer a way to think about life's transience, its beauty, its...

Fiction. The house is haunted but nobody's home. Only us chickens, standing still as sculpture while Loulou, the immortal Pomeranian, & Georgette, Magritte's guardian angel, take us on a tour of the asylum. The rooms in Kathleen Rooney's THE LISTENING ROOM are always listening, always watching. The walls have ears. The tears have eyes. Sometimes the screams are silent. Sometimes the silence is deafening. Stark & hard-edged as the paintings themselves,...