Six Picks : Books About Books

April 13, 2015March 17, 2015 / Louise / Leave a comment

For book lovers, nothing beats a good book. Except, maybe, a good book about books! Bibliophiles rejoice, here are 6 great novels that celebrate the written word and those who treasure it.

1. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. In a world where you can actually get lost (literally) in literature, Thursday Next, a notorious Special Operative in literary detection, races against time to stop the world’s Third Most Wanted criminal from kidnapping characters, including Jane Eyre, from works of literature, forcing her to dive into the pages of a novel to stop literary homicide.

2. The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble. The Reading Group follows the trials and tribulations of a group of women who meet regularly to read and discuss books. Over the course of a year, each of these women become intertwined, both in the books they read and within each other’s lives.

3. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. Meggie, 12, lives a quiet life alone with her father, a bookbinder. But her father has a deep secret–he possesses an extraordinary magical power – he can “read” fictional characters to life. Trouble begins when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service.

4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Living with a foster family in Germany during World War II, a young girl struggles to survive her day-to-day trials through stealing anything she can get her hands on, but when she discovers the beauty of literature, she realizes that she has been blessed with a gift that must be shared with others, including the Jewish man hiding in the basement.

5. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. A boy named Daniel selects a novel from a library of rare books, enjoying it so much that he searches for the rest of the author’s works, only to discover that someone is destroying every book the author has ever written.

6. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. After a layoff during the Great Recession sidelines his tech career, Clay Jannon takes a job at the titular bookstore in San Francisco, and soon realizes that the establishment is a facade for a strange secret.

On Our Shelves: Great New Books for Children and Teens

April 10, 2015April 9, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

Every week I spend my off desk hours of work getting new books ready to go on our shelves in the children and teen areas of the library. Along the way I find ones I need to read, favorite authors I did not expect more from quite yet, and many great surprises. I know not everyone loves children’s or young adult literature, or has that same attachment to favorites (old and new) that I do, but for fellow fans and those looking to share recommendations with others I thought it was time to gather up another list of new books from this section of the library that I am excited about adding to our collection.

This is far from all of the great new selections, so feel free to come on in and browse our displays of new materials!

Children’s Fiction

Al istair Grim’s Odditorium by Gregory Funaro

The Courage of Cat Campbell by Natasha Lowe

Magic Tree House Super Edition #1: Danger in the Darkest Hour by Mary Pope Osborne and Sal Murdocca

I Survived #11: I Survived the Great Chicago Fire, 1871 by Lauren Tarshis

The Only Game by Mike Lupica

Young Adult Fiction

The Ruby Circle (Bloodlines) by Richelle Mead

Fairest: Levana’s Story (The Lunar Chronicles) by Marissa Meyer

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

When by Victoria Laurie

Embassy Row #1: All Fall Down by Ally Carter

Frostfire (The Kanin Chronicles) by Amanda Hocking

Woven by Michael Jensen and David Powers King

Firefight (The Reckoners) by Brandon Sanderson

Playlist for the Dead by Michelle Falkoff

As always, there are many more great books entering the collection every day. Swing by the children’s and teen areas and browse the displays of new materials for even more!

Did You Know That April is Lawn and Garden Month?

April 6, 2015March 17, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

Now that spring is under way you might be thinking about taking care of your lawn and garden. With April being National Lawn and Garden Month I know I am starting to gather my seeds to start indoors and planning just what I want to do in my yard this year. Whether a landscaping change is in your near future, you are plotting your garden, or you are just preparing for regular mowing, it is a perfect time to get the reading resources you need to do it right.

1. The Lawn & Garden Owner’s Manual: What to do and When to Do It by Lewis and Nancy Hill

2. The Organic Lawn Care Manual: a Natural, Low-Maintenance System for a Beautiful, Safe Lawn by Paul Tukey

3. The Complete Compost Gardening Guide: Banner Batches, Grow Heaps, Comforter Compost, and Other Amazing Techniques for Saving Time and Money, and Producing the Most Flavorful, Nutritious Vegetables Ever by Barbara Pleasant & Deborah L. Martin

4. All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space! by Mel Bartholomew

5. Decoding Gardening Advice: the Science Behind the 100 Most Common Recommendations by Jeff Gillman & Meleah Maynard

6. The Lawn Bible: How to Keep it Green, Groomed, and Growing Every Season of the Year by David R. Mellor

7. Lawn Gone!: Low-Maintenance, Sustainable, Attractive Alternatives for Your Yard by Pam Penick

8. Solar Gardening: Growing Vegetables Year-Round the American Intensive Way by Leandre Poisson and Gretchen Vogel Poisson

9. The National Wildlife Federation’s Guide to Gardening for Wildlife: How to Create a Beautiful Backyard Habitat for Birds, Butterflies, and Other Wildlife by Craig Tufts and Peter Loewer

10. Gardening in Miniature: Create Your own Tiny Living World by Janit Calvo

This just scratches the surface for great lawn and garden books in our library. Some more of the best or most unique books I would recommend on the subject include: Vegetable Gardening the Colonial Williamsburg Way: 18th-Century Methods for Today’s Organic Gardeners by Wesley Greene, 1,001 Ingenious Gardening Ideas: New, Fun, and Fabulous Tips That Will Change the Way you Garden-Forever! edited by Deborah L. Martin, Rodale’s Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening edited by Fern Marshall Bradley, Barbara W. Ellis, and Ellen Phillips, Gardening Without a Garden by Gay Search, Water Gardening Basics by Helen Nash & Marilyn M. Cook, Taylor’s Master Guide to Gardening, Heirloom Vegetable Gardening: a Master Gardener’s Guide to Planting, Growing, Seed Saving, and Cultural History. by William Woys Weaver, and Lawn Care for Dummies by Lance Walheim & the editors of the National Gardening Association.

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Love (or hate) gardening and want to get some kids involved? Well then don’t forget to check in the children’s room for: Kids’ Container Gardening: Year-Round Projects for Inside and Out by Cindy Krezel, Gardening with Children by Monika Hannemann and others, Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children by Sharon Lovejoy, It’s Our Garden: from Seeds to Harvest in a School Garden by George Ancona, How Does Your Garden Grow?: Great Gardening for Green-Fingered Kids by Clare Matthews, or Gardening Projects for Kids: 101 Ways to Get Kids Outside, Dirty, and Having Fun by Whitney Cohen and John Fisher.

Celebrating the Onset of Spring With Children

March 19, 2015February 24, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

March 20th is the official first day of Spring, and many of us are more than ready to enjoy the season. It might be a little to early to get out and seriously garden but it is not too early to talk about the season with our kids, grandchildren, students, and so on. So, here are some wonderful easy nonfiction and picture books to share with our younger readers about the wonders of Spring.

Spring by Ron Hirschi

And Then it’s Spring by Julie Fogliano

Spring is Here! by Will Hillenbrand

How Robin Saved Spring by Debbie Ouellet

Sun Above and Blooms Below: a Springtime of Opposites by Felicia Sanzari Chernesky

Hooray for Spring! by Kazuo Iwamura

Everything Spring by Jill Esbaum

Spring Things by Bob Raczka

Let’s Look at Spring by Sarah L. Schuette

The Spring Equinox: Celebrating the Greening of the Earth by Ellen Jackson

What Happens in Spring? by Sara L. Latta

Spring Goes Squish!: a Vibrant Volume of Vociferous Vernal Verse by Marty Kelley

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For even more spring seasonal selections you might want to check out; Spring: an Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schnur, The Twelve Days of Springtime: a School Counting Book by Deborah Lee Rose, My Spring Robin by Anne Rockwell, Crafts to Make in the Spring by Kathy Ross, How Do You Know it’s Spring? by Allan Fowler, The Busy Spring by Carl Emerson, It’s Spring! by Samantha Berger and Pamela Chanko, When Spring Comes by Robert Maass, What Blossoms in Spring? by Jenna Lee, A to Z of Spring by Tracy Nelson Maurer, A New Beginning: Celebrating the Spring Equinox by Wendy Pfeffer.

Realistic Fiction for Middle Grade Readers

March 10, 2015February 17, 2015 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

School assignments, curiosity, parents, friends, and more could urge children to pick up a book in a different genre than they would normally read. Sometimes this makes recommending a book difficult, because they do not know which book or books they might like and could be willing to dismiss any given title without much thought. Since realistic fiction is not my genre of choice (I prefer fantasy and other types of escapism in my reading), I scoured Goodreads lists, school library lists, and more to find the most recommended books in the realistic fiction genre that are best suited for middle grade readers. Here are some of the most mentioned books on these lists.

1. Firegirl by Tony Abbott
A middle school boy’s life is changed when Jessica, a girl disfigured by burns, starts attending his Catholic school while receiving treatment at a local hospital.

2. Under the Egg by Laura Marx Fitzgerald
Her grandfather’s dying words lead 13-year-old Theodora Tenpenny to a valuable, hidden painting she fears may be stolen, but it is her search for answers in her Greenwich Village neighborhood that brings a real treasure.

3. Emma Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree by Lauren Tarshis
A quirky and utterly logical seventh-grade girl named Emma-Jean Lazarus discovers some interesting results when she gets involved in the messy everyday problems of her peers.

4. Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman
One by one, a number of people of varying ages and backgrounds transform a trash-filled inner-city lot into a productive and beautiful garden, and in doing so, the gardeners are themselves transformed

5. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
Weighed down by guilt, Joel searches for the courage to tell the truth about the disappearance–and apparent drowning–of his best friend Tony while the boys are playing near the treacherous, and forbidden, Vermillion River

6. Half a Chance by Cynthia Lord
Lucy, with her mother and her photographer father, has just moved to a small rural community in New Hampshire, and with her new friend Nate she plans to spend the summer taking photos for a contest, but pictures sometimes reveal more than people are willing to see.

7. The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata
Just when 12-year-old Summer thinks nothing else can possibly go wrong in a year filled with bad luck, an emergency takes her parents to Japan, leaving Summer to care for her little brother while helping her grandmother cook and do laundry for the harvest workers.

8. The View from Saturday by E.L. KonigsburgFour students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who chooses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition.

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Here are a few more books to chose from, including some very popular books that you might have already heard great things about; Dog Lost by Ingrid Lee, Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord, Paperboy by Vince Vawter, Paint the Wind by Pam Muñoz Ryan, See You At Harry’s by Jo Knowles, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin, The Broken Bike Boy and the Queen of 33rd Street by Sharon G. Flake, Warp Speed by Lisa Yee, Frindle by Andrew Clements, Rhyme Schemer by K.A. Holt,Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead, Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy, Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary, Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere by Julie T. Lamana, Wonder by R.J. Palacio, One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt, Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, or The Not-Just-Anybody Family by Betsy Byars.