Memoir

Here are the 2017 Nutmeg Nominees!

/ Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

NUTMEG-LOGOThe Nutmeg Children’s Book Award is the “Children’s Choice” Award for Connecticut. The goal of the committee is to encourage children in grades two through twelve to read quality literature. Here is a listing of the nominees, divided by the four grade based categories. The library has purchased and cataloged multiple copies of each book. There might be a waiting list for the book(s) you are interested in most, but if you place a hold on the item we will contact you when it is your turn.

The links that I have included for each title are for searches that include all formats of the material that we own, including the print copy, audiobooks, and digital formats. How many have you already read? Are there any that you loved, hated, or are surprised by?

High School (Grades 9-12)
Mosquitoland by David Arnold
The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen
Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta
A Death-Struck Year by Makiia Lucier
How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero
Jackaby by William Ritter
Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
Sway by Kat Spears

Teen (Grades 7-8)
The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier
Turn Left at the Cow by Lisa Bullard
The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare
Swagger by Carl Deuker
Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks
Sure Signs of Crazy by Karen Harrington
The Mark of the Dragonfly by Jaleigh Johnson
Far Far Away by Tom McNeal
Endangered by Eliot Schrefer
A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman

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Intermediate (Grades 4-6)
Gaby, Lost and Found by Angela Cervantes
Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky by Sandra Dallas
Space Case by Stuart Gibbs
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein
Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson
Masterminds by Gordon Korman
The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher by Dana Alison Levy
A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd
The Boundless by Kenneth Oppel
Eddie Red Undercover: Mystery on Museum Mile by Marcia Wells

Elementary (Grades 2-4)
Mr. Ferris and His Wheel by Kathryn Gibbs Davis & Gilbert Ford
Phineas L. MacGuire Gets Cooking by Frances O’Roark Dowell & Preston McDaniels
Skateboard Party (The Carver Chronicles) by Karen English & Laura Freeman
Queen of the Diamond: The Lizzie Murphy Story by Emily Arnold McCully
Grandma in Blue with Red Hat by Scott Menchin & Harry Bliss
Ranger in Time: Rescue on the Oregon Trail by Kate Messner
One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia by Miranda Paul & Elizabeth Zunon
Quinny and Hopper by Adriana Brad Schanen & Greg Swearingen
Winter Bees and Other Poems of the Cold by Joyce Sidman and Rick Allen
Star Stuff: Carl Sagan and the Mysteries of the Cosmos by Stephanie Roth Sisson
Hana Hashimoto, Sixth VIolin by Chieri Uegaki & Qin Leng
In a Village By the Sea by Muon Van & April Chu
Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invincible by Ursula Vernon
Lulu’s Mysterious Mission by Judith Viorst & Kevin Cornell
Hilo: The Boy Who Crashed to Earth by Judd Winick

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Who do you think will win?

Grandmothers

/ Linda / Leave a comment

grandmother

Brotherly love

Brotherly love

I’m fairly new at being a grandmother and I’m enjoying every minute.  I am filled with love and joy every time I see my grandsons.

Grandmothers have a pivotal role in everyone’s lives.  Here are some books that feature grandmothers.

 

 

dont sing at the tableDon’t Sing at the Table: life lessons from my grandmothers – Adriana Trigiani – A humorous book culled from the advice of the author’s two grandmothers offers answers to the seminal questions in a woman’s life, from getting married to saving money, from nurturing the soul to keeping calm in a crisis, from raising children to finding private comfort.

yes chefYes, Chef – Marcus Samulsson – The “Top Chef: Masters” winner and proprietor of Harlem’s Red Rooster journey began in his grandmother’s humble kitchen. He traces his Ethiopian birth, upbringing by an adoptive family in Sweden, and rise to a fame as a New York chef, sharing personal insights into his challenges as a black man in a deeply prejudiced industry.

burnt mountainBurnt Mountain – Anne Rivers Siddons- Thayer Wentworth marries an Irish professor and moves into her deceased grandmother’s house in Atlanta a short distance away from the summer camp she attended as a child, where she begins to question whether her husband is the man she thought she knew.

last bus toLast Bus to Wisdom – Ivan Doig – Rejected by his domineering great aunt during the summer of 1951, imaginative eleven-year-old Donal travels back to his ailing grandmother’s home accompanied by his German great uncle while experiencing haphazard adventures along the way.

probable futureThe Probable Future – Alice Hoffman – Struggling to cope with her unwanted ability to see the future, Stella must confront her legacy when her father is jailed, wrongly accused of homicide, and Stella joins forces with her grandmother and mother to uncover the truth.

my grandmother askedMy Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry – Fredrik Backman – Seven-year-old Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters, sending the girl on a journey that brings to life the world of her grandmother’s fairy tales.

last lessons of summerLast Lessons of Summer – Margaret Maron – Inheriting her family’s business, Amy Stedman reflects on her marriage to a man who loves her only for her money, her mother’s apparent suicide, her grandmother’s unsolved murder, and the possibility that she may be targeted next.

forgottenThe Forgotten Garden – Kate Morton – Abandoned on a 1913 voyage to Australia, Nell is raised by a dock master and his wife who do not tell her until she grows up that she is not their child, a situation that causes her to return to England and eventually hand down her quest for answers to her granddaughter.

mrs. sinclairMrs. Sinclair’s Suitcase – Louise Walters – A lonely bookstore clerk discovers a hidden letter that reveals her grandmother’s struggles with singlehood, a whirlwind affair during World War II, and the fateful choices that shaped decades of their family life.

 

irresistibleThe Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe – Mary Simes –  When New Yorker Ellen Branford travels to rural Maine to fulfill her dying grandmother’s last wish by delivering a long-overdue apology letter, Ellen’s near-drowning forces her to stay longer than she had planned.

 

 

 

 

The Oscars of Audiobooks – the Audie Awards

/ Louise / Leave a comment

I am a big audiobook fan, and I’m not the only one! Audiobooks sales are booming. In fact, audiobooks are the fastest-growing segment in publishing . Much of this surge in popularity can be related to the increasing popularity of the digital download,  though most audiobooks are available in both cd and digital formats. The production quality of audiobooks has also increased dramatically in recent years, with accomplished performers bringing their talents to the audiobook realm. Not surprisingly, publishers are producing more and more audiobooks – look how the publication of audiobooks has grown:

Capture1Recently, the Audio Publishers Association released their finalists for the 2016 Audie Awards. Once a smallish gathering of industry insiders, the Audies have taken on a lot more prestige these days. You might call them the Oscars of the audiobook world! There are a total of 135 audiobooks in 25 categories competing for awards this year, and the winners will be announced at the annual Audies Gala on May 11. We own many of the nominated titles, here are some in the most popular categories:

imageBest Female Narrator:

imageBest Male Narrator:

imageNarration by Author:

Mystery:

imageFiction:

imageNon-Fiction:

You can see the list of finalists in all categories, and even hear short sound clips, here.

 

Author Pat Conroy, 1945-2016

/ cheshirelib / 3 Comments

Award-winning author Pat Conroy passed away on March 4, at age 70. We profiled him in 2013, and thought today would be a good time to revisit that post:

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pat

Pat Conroy is a New York Times best selling author who has written several acclaimed novels and memoirs.  Two of his novels, The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini were made into Oscar nominated films.

Pat published his first book, The Boo, while attending Citadel Military Academy in Charleston, South Carolina.  He became a teacher, but was fired for his unconventional teaching practices.  Pat never taught again, but published a memoir, The Water is Wide, exposing the racism and appalling conditions at the school.

The Great Santini, was published in 1976, and chronicles the author’s childhood and his ambivalent love for his violent and abusive father.  In 1980, The Lords of Discipline was published exposing The Citadel’s harsh military discipline and racism.  Prince of Tides was published in 1986, followed by Beach Music in 1995.  While on tour for this book, members of The Citadel’s basketball team came back into his life.  This inspired him to write My Losing Season.  His next novel, South of Broad, is a love letter to the city of Charleston.  This was followed by The Pat Conroy Cookbook and finally, My Reading Life in 2010.

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His latest book is The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and Son.  Pat Conroy’s father, Donald Patrick Conroy, was a towering figure in his son’s life.  The Marine Corps fighter pilot was often brutal, cruel, and violent.   As the oldest of seven children who were dragged from military base to military base across the South, Pat bore witJacket.aspxness to the toll his father’s behavior took on his siblings, and especially on his mother, Peg. She was Pat’s lifeline to a better world—that of books and culture. But eventually, despite repeated confrontations with his father, Pat managed to claw his way toward a life he could have only imagined as a child.
   Pat’s great success as a writer has always been intimately linked with the exploration of his family history. While the publication of The Great Santini brought Pat much acclaim, the rift it caused with his father brought even more attention. Their long-simmering conflict burst into the open, fracturing an already battered family. But as Pat tenderly chronicles here, even the oldest of wounds can heal. In the final years of Don Conroy’s life, he and his son reached a rapprochement of sorts. Quite unexpectedly, the Santini who had freely doled out physical abuse to his wife and children refocused his ire on those who had turned on Pat over the years. He defended his son’s honor.
The Death of Santini is at once a heart-wrenching account of personal and family struggle and a poignant lesson in how the ties of blood can both strangle and offer succor. It is an act of reckoning, an exorcism of demons, but one whose ultimate conclusion is that love can soften even the meanest of men, lending significance to one of the most-often quoted lines from Pat’s bestselling novel The Prince of Tides: “In families there are no crimes beyond forgiveness.”

To watch an interview between ABC newsman Charlie Gibson and Pat Conroy, click here.

Realistic Fiction Offers Young Adults Insight into Tough Situations

/ Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

Watching the news seems to have become more depressing and disheartening than ever. Things are happening that most adults are having trouble fully understanding and coping with on a daily basis. I think our young adults are especially having trouble not only understanding the events we see on the news, but trying to reconcile their still forming personal views with the world around them and the views of those with whom they have the most contact. I think it is important for parents and teachers to stand up for and with the next generation and help them understand and cope with current events and the violence, injustice, and conflicts that seem all too common today.

Here are some novels for young adults that offer multiple points of view and insights into some of the hardest situations our young people are facing in the real world today. Some of the topics handled by these books include school shootings, suicide, drug abuse, racism, and rape. None of these are light, feel-good reads, and not all of them are tough1new. However, one or more of them might help a teen or adult have more understanding of the problems that I wish were completely unthinkable rather than news headlines or tabloid sensations.

Violent Ends: a Novel in Seventeen Points of View
In a one-of-a-kind collaboration, 17 of the most recognized YA writers come together to share the viewpoints of a group of tough2students who are affected by a school shooting.

All American Boys by Jason Reynolds
When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best tough4friend. Told through Rashad and Quinn’s alternating viewpoints.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Melinda Sordino finds herself an outcast at her high school for calling the cops on an end of summer party, and, although she finds comfort in her art class, she still holds a terrible secret.

toughtLittle Peach by Peg Kern
Hospitalized in Brooklyn, New York, fourteen-year-old Michelle recalls being raised in Philadelphia by a loving grandfather and drug-addicted mother before running away and getting lured into prostitution.

Hate List by Jennifer Brown
tough3After her boyfriend goes on a shooting rampage at school, Valerie is implicated because of her involvement in writing the list of names and so now must come to terms with what has happened, her feelings for the boy she once loved, and the part she played that resulted in such tragic events.

The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin
Seventeen-year-old Matthew recounts his attempts, starting at a tough6young age, to free himself and his sisters from the grip of their emotionally and physically abusive mother.

tough5There are many books that do a fantastic job of taking extremely difficult subjects and making the characters dealing with them realistic tough7and relatable for readers. More realistic fiction of these tough topics that I would recommend include;  Hold Still by Nina Labour, Out of Nowhere by Maria Padian, My Book of Life by Angel by Martine Levitt, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, Diamonds in the Shadow by Caroline B. Cooney, Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A. S. King, We Were Here by Matt de la Peña, What Happens Next by Colleen Clayton, Beneath a Meth Moon by Jacqueline Woodson, The Beast or Monster by Walter Dean Myers, By The Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead by Julie Ann Peters, Tricks by Ellen Hopkins, Ana’s Story: a Journey of Hope by Jenna Bush, and Go Ask Alice by Anonymous.