Gregory Maguire, whose Wicked (1995), is enjoying a second life as a big-budget Broadway Musical will release its much-anticipated sequel Son of a Witch on Sept. 29th.
The story picks up where Dorothy did in Elphaba Thropp, the Wicked Witch of the West and brought about spectacular changes in the Land of Oz – not all of them pleasant. A caravan leader stumbled upon a badly hurt young man, Liir, who might be the dead witch’s rumored secreted son. The ensuing tale is one of great drama, eccentric characters and object lessons.

Leap back 100 years with Brown Angels:an Album of Pictures and Verse. The book displays sepia-tone photos of African-American children from the turn-of-the-century, in companion with poetry by Walter Dean Myers. Bring the timeline forward to today and read So Much about an exciting birthday within an extended family and Yo! Yes?, the first conversation of a budding new friendship.

Mississippi is an Ojibwe word meaning “Great River.” Monday on the Mississippi makes you feel you're in a boat flowing down the river through the states from the Minnesota source to the Louisiana mouth. Steamboat! the Story of Captain Blanche Leathers is a biography of the first female steamboat captain. Blanche married Bowling Leathers, captain of the Natchez, the fastest and grandest steamboat on the Mississippi. Blanche joined her husband in the pilot house and was taught everything he knew. In 1894 she passed the difficult exam and became a “Steamboatman”.

Put mystery and science together and you get a cool thing called forensic science. If you are a big fan of the television show CSI (Crime Scene Investigation), then you know what I'm talking about. Check out our graphic novel collection based on the series, CSI and CSI Miami.

If you are in to hands on science, check out our CSI program on October 1st. There are still spots open for the 1pm program. Just call the Youth Department desk at 327-8301.

The value of a library is the ideas it holds and shares. It is Banned Books Week season, and The Librarian Of Basra is the true story, told in a picture book, of a brave Librarian in Iraq, Alia Muhammad Baker, who saved the contents of her library during war.

Biographer Ron Powers was featured on the Diane Rehm show Thursday September 22, 2005, and presented what he calls an "interpretive portraiture" of American humorist, essayist and novelist Mark Twain. Powers makes the case that Twain became the representative figure of his times. Twain's work and life continues to fascinate us even in these modern times.

Fantasy and romance enter the list this week.

At #5 is High Druid of Shannara: Straken by Terry Brooks. In the final volume of this trilogy the hero Pen Ohmsford is on a quest for save his aunt from exile.

At #6 is Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell. For fans wishing there were new episodes of "Sex and the City", the show's creator treats us to this story of three women trying to juggle their personal and professional lives.

Ever wonder what it would be like to live with an owl? Written and illustrated by veteran animal rehabilitators, Adopted by an Owl: the True Story of Jackson the Owl by Robbyn Smith van Frankenhuyzen reveals the trials and joys of raising a great horned owl. Stolen from his nest and rejected by his owner, Jackson is driven to a farm and becomes an integral part of the family. It’s amazing to read of Jackson’s interactions with “Nick” (also the illustrator), his healing process, and his eventual decision to stay on the farm. What’s more, the story takes place in Michigan. A wonderful book to share for all ages. Illustrated by Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen.

Myla Goldberg, who gave us the "perfect" Bee Season returns with a historical novel set in South Boston during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic.
Irish working-class Lydia Kilkenny married the frail, well-to-do Henry Wickett who promptly quitted his medical studies to develop a health-giving elixir (the eponymous Remedy). Historical events such as America's entry into World War I and the Flu provide the catalysts that drive the plot but it is Goldberg’s skill as a novelist that stitches together the various pieces of a structurally complex novel, creating smooth, durable, barely-there seams that makes Wickett’s Remedy “sorrowful, humorous, tender (and) utterly satisfies” . ~ Starred Review , Library Journal.

The University of Michigan Press has just released Grit, Noise and Revolution: The Birth of Detroit Rock 'n' Roll, by David A. Carson. This 320-page book examines music made in Detroit after World War II, focusing on the "Detroit Rock" sound of the mid 1960s through the early 1970s. Carson devotes plenty of text to the influence of nearby Ann Arbor, including local favorites Bob Seger and Iggy Pop, as well as Commander Cody, John Sinclair, Ted Nugent and Grand Funk Railroad.