Blog Post
Crimson Hero
by joy k
Crimson Hero is the story of Nobara, a talented teen volleyball player. She dreams about winning the interhigh volleyball championship, but her new high school has just disbanded the girls’ varsity team, citing a lack of interest. Can Nobara put together a team good enough to win--and avoid being distracted by the boys’ team’s star rookies? Put a hold on volume 1 to find out!
Blog Post
One Streetcar at least still exists
by Maxine
Today, December 3, is the 60th anniversary of Tennessee William's play, A Streetcar Named Desire. The play opened on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on this day in 1947. Jessica Tandy played Blanche Du Bois and newcomer Marlon Brando played Stanley. Streetcar was as successful as his previous play, The Glass Menagerie. It ran for two years and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Brando was an overnight sensation and the play's first performance received a twenty minute standing ovation.
Blog Post
History Bits - After Pearl Harbor
by ryanikoglu
Miss Breed was the first Children's Librarian in San Diego Public Library. Dear Miss Breed is the story of "quiet acts of courage" following The bombing of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. "Her children" were American citizens of Japanese ancestry. As families were sent away to internment camps, Miss Breed handed them penny postcards printed with her return address. She sent books, letters, paper dolls, and small packages of "treasure" to the children in Poston Camp III. Her acts touched the lives of dozens of children for the rest of their lives. Her letters are lost, but she saved the children's letters. They and tell this Hero story !
Blog Post
Snowflakes, snowflakes, everywhere!
by manz
Sure, they’re in the air, but they’re also in books and films right here at the library. Local artist Thomas L. Clark, aka Dr. Snowflake, makes the loveliest snowflakes! Check out his books to see intricate examples of the magic you can create with just paper and scissors: The Tree in the Garden, A Twinkling on the Roof, and Of Gifts and Days, among others. He also has a video with demonstrations.
For instructions there’s Paper Snowflakes For All Ages, and for the science oriented there’s Snowflakes, Sugar and Salt: Crystals Up Close and Snowflake Bentley (also on dvd), the story of a scientist who photographed snowflakes to study their formation. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Blog Post
A St. Paul girl
by Maxine
Patricia Hampl is a master of the memoir. Her latest, The Florist's Daughter traces her life growing up in in what she calls "old" St. Paul, Minnesota. Her Czech father is the florist of the title, one from whom she drew artistic inspiration because he was an artist with flowers. But it was her well-read Irish mother who was also a natural storyteller who gave Hampl a model for the literary life. Hampl's tribute to them attests to the need for beauty and purpose in one's life. You can listen to an interview with Hampl about her memoir on the Diane Rehm Show.
Blog Post
Grand Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy
by RiponGood
I love a good classic. If you've read any of my other blogs, you've probably guessed that already. Here's another great series by the Grand Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Andre Norton. As a matter of fact, I just started reading Lords of Thunder, the second book in the Beast Master Series. If you'd like to read the series, start with Beast Master's Planet, which contains both Beast Master & Lord of Thunder. The third story is Beast Master's Ark followed by Beast Master Circus, and lastly Beast Master's Quest.
Blog Post
Knuffle Bunny Schmuffle Bunny
by Sarah T
Good news! Mo Willems’ 2007 Carnegie Medal winner, Knuffle Bunny, is coming out on DVD. The word on the street is that it has a jazzy soundtrack, has some narration by Calista Flockhart and Mo Willems himself, and, most importantly, does the picture book proud. It’s not too often that you see a children’s DVD that skips all the bells and whistles and stays true to the original story.
So while you get yourself on the hold list for Knuffle Bunny, check out the rest of the Scholastic Video Collection which adapts award-winning children’s picture books including stories such as William Steig’s Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Doreen Cronin’s Click, Clack, Moo Cows that Type, and Kevin Henkes’ Chrysanthemum and Owen.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction First #92
by muffy
I have been saving this for a leisurely read and I was not disappointed.
Princeton professor Sophie Gee's lively, highly literate debut Scandal of the Season* provides the backstory to Alexander Pope’s famous poem "The Rape of the Lock".
1711, London. The anti-Catholic sentiments and secretive Jacobite plots to overthrow the Protestant queen makes for an uneasy social season. Pope’s growing literary reputation allows him entry into high society where he watches with interest the courtship and secret affair between beautiful Arabella Fermor and Robert, Lord Petre.
When Robert is forced to offer marriage to a wealthier heiress, Arabella’s disappointment and humiliation brings on the scandalous event that inspires the famous poem and launches Pope's career.
“Delightfully gossipy, psychologically insightful and historically fascinating”, this novel is "sprinkled with literary cameos, ...crackling verbal one-upmanship and crude double entendres...". For readers of Mary Balogh and regency romance.
* = Starred Review
Blog Post
New Fiction on the New York Times Best Sellers List (12/2/07)
by Mazie
James Patterson is back for the seventh or eighth time this year with Double Cross. How does he do it? The only other new book is Confessor by Terry Goodkind. This is the eleventh and last book in the Sword of Truth series.
The whole list can be viewed online by clicking here.
Off the List, I highly recommend this past year's winner of the Costa (formerly the Whitbread) Award. Last weekend just as the arctic winds started blowing here, I finished Tenderness of Wolves which is set on the frozen Canadian frontier . This first novel by Stef Penney is an enthralling blend of historical fiction wrapped around a mysterious murder. The complications of love in its various guises only add to the suspenseful hunt for the killer.
Blog Post
Kolla & Brock: Great Police Procedurals
by Van
Sergeant Kathy Kolla and Detective Chief Inspector David Brock of Scotland Yard are the backbone of a fantastic police procedural series set in London and the surrounding area. Barry Maitland’s stories are nuanced, detailed, and fascinating. Plots can involve you with Marx and his descendants, stamp collecting, shopping malls, Jamaican immigrants, or Islamic terrorism. Kolla and Brock have strong investigative skills and are committed to discovering and uncovering the truth, despite administrative or political impediments. I have three more to go. It is a comfort to know that if I am struggling to make headway in How to Read the Bible or Hunger’s Bride that I have an involving good read as a break.
Read them all and read them in order:
The Marx Sisters
The Malcontenta
The Chalon Heads
Silvermeadow
Babel
The Verge Practice
No Trace
Spider Trap