Friday, December 30, 2011

Fallen Grace



Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper
Teen Zone New Fiction Main Level - HOOPER


This story takes place in 1860s London. Grace and her sister Lily are very poor, living in a boarding house in the slums. They sell watercress to make enough to pay their rent and buy something to eat. They are orphans, just trying to stay out of the workhouse and survive on their own. Grace is 15 and her sister is 17. Grace takes care of Lily, though, who is mentally challenged. Lily is constantly taken advantage of by swindlers on the streets.

Grace has her own challenges - having been taken advantage of by a man when they lived in an orphanage, she has given birth to a stillborn baby. It is indirectly through that horrible experience that Grace and Lily find employment with the Unwins, who own a funeral business. It must be the answer to their prayers! Food, lodging, steady work, and a (small) salary each and every week! What they don’t know is that Mr. Unwin saw an ad in the newspaper looking for Lily, who stands to inherit a lot of money from their deceased father (who left for the Americas before he even knew Grace was expected by their mother). He thinks that if he can adopt Lily as his own, he can claim the inheritance on her behalf.

This is a fantastic book! I love historical fiction, and this is top-notch. The characters are interesting and their plight is emotional. It has the perfect balance of description and dialogue, so it is a fast read. Highly recommended!


Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Hanukkah for Wee Ones

My favorite Hanukkah book for years has been Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins. I’ll happily pull it out and read it to whoever wants to listen every year. As I noted in my review, though, it’s really too wordy for very young children. This year, I was challenged to find a Hanukkah book that would appeal to two-year-olds. Here are a few I found that look good:

Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah Illustrated by Olga and Aleksey Ivanov.
Youth Holiday – Lower Level – IVA

The lyrics to the classic Hanukkah song are paired here with appealingly bright acrylic paintings featuring a modern family – grandparents, parents, two children, and a dog. The tune is written out on the first page, so those unfamiliar with (or rusty on) the song can still learn it. It’s bright, bouncy and short while covering the basics of Hanukkah – perfect for young children.

Hooray for Hanukkah by Fran Manushkin. Illustrated by Carolyn Croll.
Youth Holiday – Lower Level – MAN

Here, a menorah tells about growing brighter and brighter on each of the eight nights of Hanukkah, and what its family does to celebrate each night. While still fairly brief, this one has a sentence or two on each page, and so has room to get a little more into the holiday. The pictures show a large and happy early twentieth-century family, done in what looks to my untrained eye like watercolor with colored pencil.

Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah by Susan L. Roth
Youth Holiday – Lower Level – R

It’s the same classic Hanukkah song, and the music is still included. This smaller format book is illustrated with paper and fabric collage featuring a family of mice. This version has a sweet and clearly handmade look.

Hanukkah: A Counting Book by Emily Sper
Youth Holiday - Lower Level - SPE

This is a counting book - from one to eight, obviously - with the names of the numbers written out in English, Hebrew masculine, Hebrew feminine, and Yiddish. All of the non-English words have American phonetic pronunciation written out as well as the words being written in Hebrew letters. After the shames candle is introduced, the counting proceeds with an appropriate number of Hanukkah-related objects, from one menorah to four dreidels, six heroes, and eight nights, on one page. The facing page is all black, with the numbers in the different language and cutouts of that number of candles, so that they show up brightly against the blackness . The combination of all these elements makes for a sleek, attractive book.



Friday, December 16, 2011

Twelve Deaths of Christmas




Twelve Deaths of Christmas by Marian Babson
Adult Mysteries-Main Level - BABSON



There is a certain chill in the air this holiday season with Marian Babson’s Twelve Deaths of Christmas. The story takes place in a London boarding house filled with a wide assortment of lodgers. There is a retired Major, a foreign student from the Middle East, an American, and several others. But something is not right with one of these seemingly normal characters. One of them has taken their dislike of the constant rushing nature of the holiday too far and has lashed out fatally toward those viewed as deserving punishment. This madman, or women, is on the loose in London. The killer has been able to make his or her crimes appear to be unrelated or even accidents but Detective Knowles is not fooled. He knows that this fiend will keep striking and will get more brazen with each murder. His investigation leads him closer and closer to the boarding house where the occupants inside are preparing a Christmas feast while unaware that one of them plans for this holiday to be everyone’s last. The story is a quick read at less than two hundred pages and the reader is actually clued into the murder’s thoughts in certain chapters which helps build some tension. In all, the book would be a perfect light read for those with a little down time during the hectic holiday season.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Dreams of Joy


Dreams of Joy by Lisa See
CD Book Shelves - Main Level - SEE


Dreams of Joy by Lisa See
Adult New Book Display - Main Level - SEE


I listened to the audio version of this book, which was fantastic! The reader, Janet Song, was amazing. She captured the emotions of the characters perfectly.

This is the sequel to Shanghai Girls. It picks up with Pearl's daughter Joy, who grew up in Los Angeles, but fled to communist China to help them with the "Great Leap Forward" under Mao Zedong. She had idealist visions of communism, and was a quite disillusioned by what was actually happening when she got there. The book does not sugar-coat the famine, the violence toward village workers, or the scandalous government dealings. Joy made a few life-changing decisions that she had to find a way out of, risking death.

I loved Shanghai Girls and this book was great too. It is not for the faint of heart because it tells it as it really happened, fictionalized in a way that tears at our heart strings. We get to know the characters - some we despise and some we love - and it makes for an emotional reading experience. Highly recommended, but read Shanghai Girls first!

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Ready Player One

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Read by Wil Wheaton.
CD Book Shelves – Main Level - CLINE

It’s a dark, dystopian future. The Recession never ended, and the ongoing energy crisis has ended the era of easy travel. Most people are unemployed, living in large stacks of trailers just outside the city. Life in the real world is so grim that the vast majority of people spend all their time logged into the Oasis, an immersive on-line alternate reality. Getting on to the Oasis and its main planet are free; it sustains itself and a large portion of the overall economy by charging for on-line goods and travel to its millions of other planets. The Oasis was imagined and designed by a hard-core socially impaired geek by the name of James Halliday. When he dies without heirs, he sends out to all the millions of Oasis users an invitation to participate in a treasure hunt for three keys leading to the location of an Easter egg hidden in the game. Our hero is one Wade Watts, an orphan living in the trailer stacks who is attending his senior year of high school in the Oasis. He’s named his avatar Parzival after the Arthurian grail-seeker and is determined to find the egg himself. In addition to all the time he spends in the Oasis, he’s devoted himself to mastering the 1980s arcade, computer and role-playing games, movies and movies that were formative during Halliday’s teen years. Geek children of the 1980s, this book is for you. There are multiple clues and puzzles which you might be able to figure out before Wade if you are familiar with the right movie or game, and even if you don’t, the trip down memory lane is exciting, filled with giant robots, planets of Zork and Blade Runner, D&D brought to life, Rush, and an entire Joss Whedon galaxy. Parzival eventually owns both a DeLorian and a Firefly class space ship.

Even if the 80s weren’t your era, the plot of the book keeps on moving. Wade may be just one of millions of gunters (as the egg hunters come to be known), but we know from the beginning that he’s the first one to find the first key. His rivals include his best friend H and the zaftig and beautiful (at least on-line) if reclusive Art3mis, but the real enemy is the giant corporation IOI. They have an army of corporate warriors bent on finding the egg to give ownership of the Oasis to IOI, so that they can then start charging monthly fees and adding more advertising to the Oasis. Can our poor, self-educated hero find the egg or help his friends get there before the evil corporation takes over the current refuge of the poor? Wil Wheaton, geek extraordinaire, gives a pitch-perfect narration here. Though this features a teen narrator, it is aimed at adults. There’s a little sexual reference (no actual sex) and some violence, mostly in the game. The language is pretty foul throughout. This is one of my very favorite books this year, and I urge fellow geeks to seek it out right now.



Wednesday, December 7, 2011

The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry



The Manual of Detection

Adult Mysteries
BERRY

“The Manual of Detection” is a great mystery for the reader looking for something a little… different. This is a mystery written in a place that is always raining and it is always being investigated by Detectives at The Agency. “The Manual of Detection” is the book given to our lead, Charles Unwin, when he is unexpectedly promoted from Clerk to Detective. Unwin is given little to go off of and must follow the cases he has prepared from the files of his Detective, Travis Sivart. Sivart has myteriously vanished and Unwin is starting to see that Sivart's famously solved cases might not be so....solved. There are the cases—The Oldest Murdered Man, The Man Who Stole November 12th—and the mysterious people surrounding them that Unwin must learn as much as he can about before time runs out and Sivart is never found. Fans of Kafka, Chesterton, Fforde and others will delight in this magical mystery.


Saturday, December 3, 2011

The Aviary



The Aviary by Kathleen O’Dell
Youth New Book Shelves - Lower Level – O’DELL


“Together always to the last,
Our love shall hold each other fast.
Delivered from the frost and foam,
None shall fly ‘til all come home.”

The above poem plays an important role in the unique and heartwarming mystery, The Aviary by Kathleen O’Dell.

Young 11-year-old Clara Dooley lives at the turn of the 20th century with her mother, Harriet and the housekeeper, Ruby in the old and haunting Glendoveer Mansion in Lockhaven, Maine. The three women live in the mansion with the matriarch of the Glendoveer family, sickly yet kind Cenelia Glendoveer. While Clara loves her mother, Ruby, and even Mrs. Glendoveer, she is frustrated with her life. Nobody from the neighborhood ever visits, and there are frightening birds that Mrs. Glendoveer adores living in the backyard aviary. Inquisitive Clara wishes she could go to school and play with the other children in Lockhaven. Unfortunately, she has an unspecified heart condition which causes her mother to be very overprotective. Thus, young Clara’s only true outlet is reading.

One day, while Clara is looking out the window, a young girl from the neighborhood waves to her. This girl, Daphne Aspinal, is the one person who wants to be friends with Clara. However, how can Clara be friends with someone when she isn’t even allowed to leave her home? Soon after this event, the birds in the aviary start to repeat the name “Elliot.” Who is Elliot? Clara soon finds out the answer to this question which starts her on a quest to unravel the truth of the Glendoveer family mystery.

The Aviary, written by Kathleen O’Dell, is an extremely fascinating middle grade novel. The mystery of the Glendoveer family is richly told with riveting details. Clara is a strong and sweet heroine, her friendship with Daphne is precious, and the story of the Glendoveer family is touching and engrossing. The Aviary is getting buzz as a Newbery contender for 2012, and I would recommend it to those of all ages who enjoy well-written and extraordinary youth literature!



Friday, December 2, 2011

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World
by Michael Lewis


Adult Nonfiction 330.905 L


Michael Lewis begins his new tale of economic despair by reflecting on his previous work, The Big Short, and the man he left out of that book, Kyle Bass. Kyle, like the investors Mr. Lewis chronicled in The Big Short, foresaw our 2008 economic crisis and made a fortune off of it. Lewis, in retrospect seeing how right Mr. Bass was, heads back to Dallas to ask ‘What’s next?’ His answer, that countries around the world will go bankrupt and default on their debt, sends Michael Lewis to Europe as he tries to find out why this is happening.


He begins in Iceland and finds that a country whose economy was once centered on fishing has transformed into a nation whose economic goals focused on acquiring as many foreign assets as possible. When those assets lost value, Iceland went bankrupt. He travels to Ireland to find a nation that decided to make financing real estate projects ridiculously easy. This of course led to overvalued assets, a huge bubble and eventual crash (Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?).


Lewis then makes his way to the current Ground Zero of national economic failure, Greece. It turns out that Greeks really enjoy it when their government hands out as much money to them as they can. The problem with that is a population averse to paying for any of this reckless government spending. The violation of tax law is so rampant in Greece, it is essentially ingrained into the culture. This leads him to Germany, who is now essentially in charge of fixing Europe. They aren’t innocent in this whole mess, having provided the financing for many of the failed investments across Europe.


The author finally heads back to the U.S. and details the municipalities, particularly in California, that are starting to go bankrupt. The biggest reason for these financial shortcomings? Outsized pension obligations. The author tries to end on a positive note by saying that all of these problems are solvable. While this may be true, it is unlikely that the necessary sacrifices will be made and our problems will continue to be pushed off for future generations to handle. This can only happen for so long, so the question becomes: Where does it end?