New Releases by Susan Manzke

This collection of columns is from the very first two years on Sunnybook Farm, owned by Susan and Bob Manzke. For the last forty years, Susan has written about family antics on their farm. We start this collection with the birth of their third child, Russell. Along with big brother, Robby, sister, Becky (Rebecca), Mom and Dad, we read about life on a real Wisconsin farm.

Words in My Pocket is Susan Manzke''s weekly column. This book is 1988 and 1989. Life on Sunnybook farm has it''s ups and downs. Susan shares the many happy times, but sad days, too.

Gwenn Nichols is a young, attractive real estate agent who has been unlucky in love. Though always a loyal friend and generous to a fault when it comes to men, she often tends to be suspicious and wary. Randal Cochran is a theater director who has achieved a remarkable degree of success early in his career. And with his overwhelming good looks and arrogant magnetism, Randal is one of Wisconsin''s most eligible bachelors. This unlikely couple meet at an audition for a local amateur production that Randal is directing. But the fire ignited in Gwenn''s heart is quickly cooled, as wealthy and gorgeous JoJo Adams begins her relentless campaign to land Randal. Gwenn and JoJo win significant parts in the play, and Gwenn watches with amusement as Randal''s rejection of JoJo''s advances only spurs the flirtatious woman to even greater excesses of affection. Yet, over the course of the rehearsals, Gwenn finds she must fight her own fierce attraction to this handsome man, despite his irritating self-assurance. Then, suddenly, Randal becomes extremely attentive to Gwenn. Obviously, there is something that this independent, sensible woman has that Randal, a man noted for getting what he wants, must possess. Gwenn knows he will go to any lengths-including romance-to get it . . . but will she still be able to keep her head while her heart is under siege?

Ten-year-old Charlie Petkus isn''t surprised to get scratchy wool underwear from Aunt Mutzi for Christmas 1932, but he is surprised that her gift package includes a diary. To his dismay, his Lithuanian-immigrant mother thinks a diary is the perfect present. "You man of family, Casimir," she says. "You learn to write the English like good American." Charlie wants more than anything to make Mama proud. But he''s not sure education is the way to manhood, especially since he doesn''t like school. With the Great Depression on, Charlie thinks it would be much manlier to quit the 4th grade and go to work like his friend Ray. From Christmas 1932 to Christmas 1933, Charlie finds plenty of fun and adventure in his ethnic neighborhood. He discovers that sledding on a car hood results in embarrassment and a very snowy bottom. He finds that a "dead" pheasant that isn''t quite as dead as he thought can make a big mess in a Ford Model B. He learns that if you take a job harvesting onions before school, you get your feet filthy on just the day they make you take your shoes off to be weighed and measured-but you also earn a whole dime for your work. By night, Charlie writes in his diary to make Mama proud. But by day, he watches Ray, who now dresses like a man, smokes like a man, and earns a man''s wage. Charlie wonders why his mama and sisters should live on cabbage soup and the occasional package of broken cookies while "the man of the family" sits in school writing a poem called "Spring is Here." The decision Charlie makes next will determine the course of his life and his understanding of what it really means to be a man.

"This journal-style collection of Susan Manzke''s words from 1984-1985 is filled with humor, hard work, and determination in overcoming every obstacle to live a creative and fulfilling life."--Back cover.

"This collection is edited from my first three years of columns, 1980-1983. A little editing was done with children''s ages to accomplish this, but otherwise the accounts are what appeared in the Farmer''s Friend, the Wisconsin State Farmer and the Times-Press.