Read & Reel Archives
January 2007
Adult -- Recommended by Ginny Schlachter, Adult Services
Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood by Adrienne Martini
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"My family has a grand tradition. After a woman gives birth, she goes mad. I thought that I would be the one to escape. Given my spectacular failure, my hope is now that my daughter will be the one."
So begins the heartfelt story by Adrienne Martini entitled "Hillbilly Gothic: a memoir of madness and motherhood". The author speaks of the isolating pain she feels dealing with her family's mental illness. Her own bout with post-partum depression is horrifying and yet hopeful. The misery she feels is thankfully laced with black comedic remarks which make her sad commentary bearable. Martini's story reveals the contradictions of many women suffering with hidden mental illness while still respecting the generations of women gone before her.
December 2006
Adult -- Recommended by Linda Burns, Adult Services
You're Not You by Michelle Wildgen
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Bec, University of Wisconsin college student, doesn't know what she wants from life. She's not sure about her major and she's involved in an affair with a married professor. In an attempt to find herself, Bec answers a want ad seeking a caregiver, and is hired by Kate, a wealthy, cultivated woman in her mid thirties who is in the advanced stages of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Their relationship develops into one of surprising intimacy as Bec becomes indispensable to all aspects of Kate's life.
November 2006
Adult -- Recommended by Nasreen Moolji, Adult Services
Personal Brilliance: Mastering the everyday habits that create a life time of success by Jim Canterucci
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Personal Brilliance shows the reader how to master every day habits that create a lifetime of success. It discusses awareness, curiosity, focus and initiative as catalysts to enhance personal brilliance that will be the cornerstones of ones journey through life. This book includes very good quotations as well as simple exercises to practice at the end of each chapter.
Youth -- Recommended by Steve Browne, Youth Services
Tomatoes, Potatoes, Corn, and Beans: How the Foods of the Americas Changed Eating Around the World by Sylvia Johnson
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(Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1997, 138 pages)
Recommended for ages 10 through 15
The world was an exciting place in the 16th and 17th centuries because it was a time of discovery --not just of land and of
gold, but also of food. Johnson tells about the four foods in the title and also includes peppers, peanuts, pineapples, avocados, vanilla, and chocolate. Of all the them, pineapples were most impressive,described as a delectable blend of melons and peaches.Tomatoes weren't as popular, however,because people considered them acidic, salty, even poisonous!It's hard to imagine now -- could there possibly have been a time when everyone didn’t enjoy covering French fries in ketchup? Or spreading peanut butter on a slice of bread? Or stuffing their face with a handful of corn chips?
October 2006
Adult -- Recommended by Anne Shaughnessy, Adult Services
Lighting The Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America by Karenna Gore Schiff
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Each of us has a light to shine in the world. In Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America journalist and lawyer Karenna Gore Schiff brings to life nine American women who have done just that. Some of them, like Mother Jones, are well-known but most are less familiar. Passionate and determined, they tackled major social issues during a time when women were not welcome in the public arena. By revealing these women’s stories Gore Schiff encourages us to shine our own lights on the path to a more just and compassionate world.
September 2006
Adult -- Recommended by Donna Szwed, Adult Services
Camp by Michael Eisner
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CAMP is a biography by Michael Eisner. He was the president of Paramount Pictures and CEO for the
Disney Corporation for 20 years. Once he was asked a question, "Of all the educational institutions you
went to when you were younger, which one had the greatest influence on you?" His answer was---- the same
Vermont summer camp that his grandfather and father attended before him. Over the years he sent his three
sons and children from the inner city of Los Angles to learn the life lessons he learned at Keewaydin Camp.
I think you will enjoy reading CAMP by Michael Eisner.
August 2006
Adult -- Recommended by Jo Robinson, Adult Services
Twelve Sharp (Audiobook) by Janet Evanovich read by Lorelei King
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She’s back!! Janet Evanovich’s ditzy bounty hunter Stephanie Plum strikes again in Twelve Sharp. For a new take on the much-loved series, try “reading” it on cassette or CD. Listen as Lula, Grandma Mazur, Ranger and Joe—as well as a few new characters—are brought to life by the amazing narration of actress Lorelei King. You won’t want your road trip to end!
Youth -- Recommended by Julie DiGuiseppe, Youth Services
Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan
(Scholastic Press, 2004, 246 pages)
Recommended for ages 9 -12
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One evening, everything Naomi has known with Gram and her little brother begins to unravel. Naomi's mother wants to kidnap her. Gram is willing to go to the end of the earth to save Naomi, but will that be enough? A quiet life in Lemon Tree, California, becomes a runaway journey to find an estranged father in exotic Oaxaca, Mexico.
July 2006
Adult -- Recommended by Donna Culhane, Adult Services
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
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This is the story of Barack Obama’s unique childhood as the son of a white mother
from Kansas and black father from Kenya and his search to find his place in
American society. Humorous, uncomfortable and honest, it is both an insider’s and
outsider’s view of a world in which color and historystill influence individual identity.
Youth -- Recommended by Erin Emerick, Youth Services
Ice Drift by Theodore Taylor
(Harcourt, Inc., 2005, 224 pages)
Recommended for ages 9 -12
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The year is 1868, and Inuit brothers Alika and Sulu are hunting for seals on an ice floe attached to their island in the Arctic. Suddenly the ice starts to shake, they hear a loud crack, and their floe breaks off. They begin drifting southward, away from their home and family, toward dangerously warmer climates where the ice will begin melting out from under them. The boys must struggle for survival amid the harsh climate, the possibility of starvation, and threats of polar bear attacks, while maintaining hope that they will be rescued.
June 2006
Youth -- Recommended by Rose Hittie, Youth Services
Children of the Lamp by M.T. Anderson
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On Career Day, ordinary, twelve-year-old Lily discovers that her clueless dad works for an evil genius who plans on taking over the world by using enormous, mind-controlled, extremely irritable, laser-eye-beamed whales walking on factory-produced stilts. Now it’s up to Lily and her kooky friends to stop these dangerous whales on stilts before all of humanity is wiped out!
May 2006
Youth -- Recommended by Jennifer Greene, Youth Outreach Librarian
Whales on Stilts! by M.T. Anderson
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On Career Day, ordinary, twelve-year-old Lily discovers that herclueless dad works for an evil genius who plans on taking over the world by using enormous, mind-controlled, extremely irritable, laser-eye-beamed whales walking on factory-produced stilts. Now it’s up to Lily and her kooky friends to stop these dangerous whales on stilts before all of humanity is wiped out!
Adult -- Recommended by Isabelle Flemming, Adult Services
The Last Man Who Knew Everything by Andrew Robinson
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Alternately determining how the eye accommodates in vision, to being the first to translate the Rosetta stone and explain light as a wave, early nineteenth-century physician Thomas Young proved to be a man of extraordinary talents. He wrote 63 authoritative articles for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 6th edition, in topics ranging from carpentry to chromatics, from Egypt, to tides and bridges. Author Robinson describes Young’s accomplishments and the outside events that influenced him, in this entertaining book.
April 2006
Adult -- Recommended by Julie Collins, Adult Services
The Joy of Digital Photography by Jeff Wignall
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The popularity of digital photography has been phenomenal in the past few years. The Joy of Photography by Jeff Wignall is a comprehensive guide to navigating the world of digital imaging. Included are chapters covering: equipment purchasing; camera settings; file formats; elements of design; lighting considerations; people and nature shots; image enhancements and image editing software programs.A great resource for the beginner as well as the experienced photographer, one can find great tips and inspiring ideas for creating unique digital images.
Youth -- Recommended by Mary Ann Sibrava, Youth Librarian
The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall
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Recommended for grades 3-7 (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, 204 pages)
The four high-spirited Penderwick girls, ages four throughtwelve,are off on a summer vacation they will never forget. The cozy cottage their father rented is located on a grand and sprawling estate in the mountains of New York, with acres to discover and explore. Best of all is meeting Jeffrey, whose mother owns the grand estate. He's the perfect partnerto share in the girls' rollicking adventures, even though his snobby mother is not pleasedwith all thefree-spirited antics.You, however, will love the fun and will be glad you met The Penderwicks.
March 2006
Youth -- Recommended by Mary Ann Sibrava, Youth Services
Lowji Discovers America by Candace Fleming
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Recommended for grades 3-5
Nine-year-old Lowji has just moved from Bombay, India, to Hamlet, Illinois. At first, he finds America to be a "bummer," but after convincing his landlady to buy a cat, a dog, and two goats and learning he has a mysterious friend, Lowji discovers that his new life may have a silver lining.
February 2006
Adult -- Recommended by Frances Mitilineos, Adult Services
Memory Book by Howard Engel
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Imagine memory loss complicated by the inability to read! This challenge is faced by private detective Benny Cooperman who struggles to reconstruct his life and his last investigation and by author Howard Engel who wrote Memory Book after a debilitating stroke. Cooperman and Engel suffer from alexia sine agraphia; they can write but not read. This unique mystery novel is fascinating on two levels, the description of Benny’s slow recovery from a head injury and the solution of his last investigation.
January 2006
Adult -- Recommended by Dale Heath, Adult Services
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
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In Quicksilver, the first book in the three part Baroque Cycle, science fiction author Neal Stephenson turns his attention to the late 17th century and the Age of Enlightenment. The story weaves together the lives of three distinct characters: a puritan, a vagabond, and a spy, as their lives intersect with each other and with such real historical figures as Sir Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin and King Louis XIV. This dense novel mixes science, history and political intrigue into an epic that spans centuries and continents.
Youth -- Recommended by Steven Browne, Youth Services
House: Showing How People Have Lived Throughout History with Examples Drawn from the Lives of Legendary Men and Women by Albert Lorenz (Harry N. Abrams Publisher, 1998, 48 pages) Recommended for grades 4-6
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History doesn't have to be just about dates, names, politics and war. It can also be about regular people, what they wore, ate, or as in House, about where they lived. Take the igloo, for example. Perfect shelter for centuries in the treeless tundra, it still can be built in less than hour and can hold a fire to warm and protect everyone. And, talk about recycling--when the family is ready to move on, they just leave this house to crumble and melt! Here is an intriguing book that might make you look at your own house in a very different way.
December 2005
Adult -- Recommended by Joyce Brantner, Adult Services
A Real Boy: A True Story of Autism, Early Intervention, and Recovery by Christina Adams
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When Christina Adam’s son, Jonah, was diagnosed with autism at two and half, she was told that time was of the essence. Early, intensive intervention was what Jonah needed in order for him to have the best outcome. In her book, A Real Boy, Adams tells of their family’s journey from diagnosis, through behavioral, speech and physical therapy, drug treatment, and diet change, to an amazing recovery.
Youth -- Recommended by Erin Emerick, Youth Services
The Ravenmaster's Secret: Escape from the Tower of London by Elvira Woodruff
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Eleven-year-old Forrest Harper lives at the Tower of London, where he has a responsibility and a talent for helping his father, the Ravenmaster, care for the Tower's famous ravens. When dangerous Scottish rebels are imprisoned, Forrest hopes to finally prove his courage, but is disappointed when his duty is to tend to the daughter of one of the rebels. As the days pass, Forrest begins to admire and respect Maddy, and he becomes faced witha horrifying choice. Should he risk his own life by helping her escape, or should he obey the King's law and allow his innocent friend to be executed?
November 2005
Adult -- Recommended by Larry D'Urso, Adult Services
Easier Than You Think Because Life Doesn't Have To Be So Hard by Richard Carson
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From the author of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff comes a little tome of wisdom on life and how to deal with the hard stuff. Carson's simple down-to-earth advice on changing negative attitudes and behaviors to more positive approaches to difficulties and life overall resonates well in these stressful times. His goal is happiness and how to achieve it by encouraging the reader to take responsibility for oneself and then providing guidance with simple and practical techniques on how to see life in a positive light. The author cheers us on in an upbeat and smooth flowing writing style that makes the book not only informative but also enjoyable. His approach is truly easier than one would think.
Youth -- Recommended by Erin Emerick, Youth Services
The Ravenmaster's Secret: Escape from the Tower of London by Elvira Woodruff
click to request the book from our catalog
Eleven-year-old Forrest Harper lives at the Tower of London, where he has a responsibility and a talent for helping his father, the Ravenmaster, care for the Tower's famous ravens. When dangerous Scottish rebels are imprisoned, Forrest hopes to finally prove his courage, but is disappointed when his duty is to tend to the daughter of one of the rebels. As the days pass, Forrest begins to admire and respect Maddy, and he becomes faced with a horrifying choice. Should he risk his own life by helping her escape, or should he obey the King's law and allow his innocent friend to be executed?
October 2005
Adult -- Recommended by Barb Bisbee, Adult Services
Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach
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Tulip Fever is a wonderfully descriptive novel by Deborah Moggach, featuring 17th century Amsterdam, the scenery, the people and one of its most valuable commodities, tulip bulbs. The story revolves around Sophia, a young, beautiful woman who marries Cornelius, a much older, wealthy man to escape poverty and to help her family. Her life is rather drab and boring until her husband decides to have their portrait painted for posterity. A poor, young, handsome and exciting artist, Jan von Loos, comes into Sophia’s life and changes it forever. When Sophia’s servant Maria also needs help, they think up a scheme together. Tension builds as they try to acquire a great deal of money to complete their extravagant plan. The story comes to a surprising conclusion as the characters risk everything to achieve their dream.
Youth -- Recommended by Rose Hittie, Youth Services
Safari Journal: the Adventures in Africa of Carey Monroe
by Hudson Talbott (Harcourt , 2003, 66 pages)
Recommended for Grades 3-6
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Join twelve-year-old Carey on the adventure of a lifetime as he searches for the "Big Five," must-see animals in the wilds of Africa. Along the way, you will see funny illustrations, actual photographs and cool facts about the people and animals of Africa and even learn some words in Swahili. Will Carey survive in the wilds of Africa and who is the mysterious man who keeps popping up in Carey's travels?
September 2005
Youth -- Recommended by Julie DiGuiseppe, Youth Services
Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko
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Twelve-year-old Moose moves to Alcatraz in 1935 so his father can work as a prison guard and his younger, autistic sister Natalie can attend a special school in San Francisco. It is a time when the federal prison is home to notorious criminals like gangster Al Capone. Depressed about having to leave his friends and winning baseball team behind, Moose finds little to be happy about on Alcatraz. He never sees his dad, who is always working, and Natalie's condition--her tantrums and constant needs--demand all of his mother's attention. Things look up for Moose when he befriends the irresistible Piper, the warden's daughter, who has a knack for getting Moose into embarrassing but harmless trouble. Helped by Piper, Moose eventually comes to terms with his new situation.
August 2005
Adult -- Recommended by Rose Allen, Adult Services
Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
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Imagine a time in the distant past when airships ruled the skies. The luxury zeppelin, Aurora, is heavier than the Eiffel Tower, bigger than the Titanic, yet lighter than air. When the crew spots a rogue hot-air balloon, they encounter a semiconscious pilot who rambles on about sighting some mysterious flying creatures that resemble cats and silver panthers. After learning the contents of the balloon flight log, what was thought to be the delirium of a seriously ill man, propels Matt, a teen cabin boy, on a quest to prove that the story is true.
July 2005
Adult -- Recommended by Valerie Lorens, Adult Services
The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett
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Saint Elizabeth's is a safe haven for unwed mothers in the 1960's. But Rose Clinton seeks solace in the Kentucky home for different reasons: to escape a marriage to a man she does not love and a life that fails to provide meaning. As the birth of her child draws near, she cannot follow through with the abandonment. What follows is an examination of how her choices distance her, and complicate the lives of those who love and care for her. Told from three characters' perspectives, the reader discovers Rose's motive and need for freedom. A beautifully written debut novel, fans of Patchett will find this story staying with them long after the last page is read.
Youth -- Recommended by Mary Ann Sibrava, Youth Services
Tadpole by Ruth White
Recommended for grades 4-8
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Ten-year-old Carolina Collins and her three older sisters are pleased as possums to find cousin Tad on their doorstep for a surprise visit in the summer of 1955. The truth is, he has run away to escape the cruel treatment of an abusive uncle. The girls, their mother, and their entire Appalachian community do their best to help and protect him. At the same time, he guides them all in some important life lessons about self-esteem, respect and a spirit of kindness.
June 2005
Adult -- Recommended by Donna Szwed, Adult Services
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
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The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall takes place in Botswana, in the southern part of Africa.
This is the story of Maa Precious Ramatswe, the only child of a widower. He wants her to be independent, so he advises her to sell the farm and go into business. She decides to start a detective agency because in her own words “a woman sees more than a man”.
The author has a fresh simple way of telling a tale. His love of Africa is evident in
the stories.
May 2005
Adult -- Recommended by Linda Burns, Adult Services
Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan
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While working in the Australian medical community, Dr. Marlo Morgan is summoned to visit an ancient aboriginal tribe and, to her surprise, join them on a 1400-mile, 4-month “walkabout” through the Australian Outback. In this fictional account of her mystical journey, Morgan shares her experiences as well as the wisdom and philosophy of a 50,000-year-culture. A fascinating book with a powerful message.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Adult Services
Midnight (1939)
Starring Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche and John Barrymore
Written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, from a story by Franz Schulz and Edwin Justus Mayer
Directed by Mitchell Leisen
MIDNIGHT is-as its trailer will insistently remind you-a variation on the Cinderella narrative: Eve, an American showgirl (Claudette Colbert) arrives in Paris flat broke, but soon enough a benefactor (John Barrymore) provides her with the accouterments of wealth in order to win over the charming playboy Jacques (Francis Lederer). There are a couple of complications, though-Jacques is a gigolo with an undue influence over Barrymore's wife (Mary Astor), and Eve has already won the heart of Tibor, an equally impoverished cab driver (Don Ameche). Will Eve land her playboy, or will Tibor's efforts to find her again throw a monkey wrench into her imposture? Heading up an excellent cast, Colbert is wonderful here, lending Eve a refreshingly cynical-even mercenary-edge which never diminishes her likable verve. But it's the film's dialogue (supplied by the classic screenwriting team of Wilder and Brackett) which sparkles and shines the most, sustaining the momentum as the plot propels into (literally) lunatic territory. Acting as a welcome alternative to gracelessly manufactured contemporary romantic comedies, MIDNIGHT is something of a lost gem, easily standing beside the likes of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT and MY MAN GODFREY as a screwball classic of the studio era.
Youth -- Recommended by Erin Emerick, Youth Services
Shredderman: Secret Identity by Wendelin Van Draanen (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2004, 138 pages) Recommended for grades 3-6
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He's small. He's brainy. He loves computers. He's... a superhero? Meet Nolan Byrd, a quirky fifth-grader whose frustration with the school bully unleashes his inner superhero, known as Shredderman. Inspired by his teacher's remarks on a math quiz, and by an assignment that allows the use of technology, Nolan and his secret identity expose the evil doings of Alvin "Bubba" Bixby over the Internet. Shredderman applies his powers of intelligence, sneakiness, and sense of humor to settle the score between the underdogs and the bully. On his mission for justice, what will Nolan uncover about himself?
April 2005
Adult -- Recommended by Ginny Schlachter, Adult Services
Whiskey Sour by J.A. Konrath
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Jacqueline Daniels (nicknamed Jack), a Chicago homicide lieutenant, is called to investigate a gruesome murder with a note from the “Gingerbread man”stapled to the body. The killer taunts the police again within the week with a second brutal killing of another young woman. Working with her partner, the binge eating Detective Herb Benedict, Jack is placed in charge of the investigation. Two FBI agents are also assigned and their computer profiling and bumbling suggestions about the serial killer are laughable.
Meanwhile Jack’s personal life is on a downhill course. She has chronic insomnia. Her live-in boyfriend leaves her and her credit cards are maxed out with late night home shopping buying.. With media coverage of the crimes intensifying, the “Gingerbread man” targets Jack as his next victim and a cat and mouse game insues. The comic relief provided by some of the characters is necessary to ease the tension of the horrific grisly crimes.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Adult Services
Vampire's Kiss (1989)
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Starring Nicolas Cage, Maria Conchita Alonso and Jennifer Beals
Written by Joseph Minion
Directed by Robert Bierman
Nicholas Cage eats a real cockroach. To the extent to which it's remembered today, VAMPIRE'S KISS is probably best known for this bravura piece of improvisation, characteristic of Cage's outrageous go-for-broke performance. It's a role he dives into with the kind of lunatic overcommitment Ben Stiller has aspired to his entire career, a masterpiece of barely controlled over-the-top instability. He plays Peter Loew, a pretentious Manhattan literary agent and quintessential callow yuppie. Peter is already a monster of sorts--an alienated womanizer and the world's worst boss this side of THE OFFICE--but when one of his one-night stands takes a nibble at his neck, he begins to believe he's turning into a vampire. But is he really? Avoiding sunlight and terrorizing his secretary even more than usual is just the start of a personal disintegration which escalates dramatically and treads a complicated line between darkly hilarious and chilling. This challengingly dynamic tone baffled late-80s audiences who hadn't yet been exposed to the quirky likes of a Charlie Kaufman script, and the film has since been relegated to the status of love-it-or-hate-it cult flick. Not quite a psychological thriller and not quite a black comedy, VAMPIRE'S KISS is a one-of-a-kind film which mines strange, queasy laughs from a narrative that might even be considered tragic.
Youth -- Recommended by Steve Browne, Youth Services
George Washington, Spymaster: How the Americans Outspied the British and Won the Revolutionary War
by Thomas B. Allen (National Geographic Society, 2004, 184 pages)
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Recommended for grades 5 and up
During the Revolutionary War, General George Washington had to use the stealthiest of means to fight the British. At the time, Britain was the most powerful nation in the world while the Americans were farmers, blacksmiths, lawyers, doctors, housewives - - regular people with little or no military training. This war wasn't won with military might but with clever thinking and espionage. Secret messages were hidden inside balls of yarn, quill pens, buttons, and metal pills. Sometimes Washington allowed the messages to be found by the British only to have the message be a mixture of truth and lies. Sometimes he even deceived his own troops in order to trick the British, who were also spying on him. There are stories of invisible ink, hidden messages, secret codes and patterns, much like the hidden messages in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. You will find this a well-documented and fun-to-read book about one of the most important times in the United States' history.
March 2005
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Adult Services
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
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Starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro
Written by Terry Gilliam, Tony Grisoni, Tod Davies and Alex Cox,
from the book by Hunter S. Thompson
Directed by Terry Gilliam
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS is a quintessentially unadaptable book: the shamblingly episodic and brutally substance-laden misadventures of Raoul Duke and his lawyer Dr. Gonzo (the print alter egos of the late Hunter Thompson and his friend Oscar Acosta) as they travel to Las Vegas ostensibly to cover a motorcycle race. However, writer/director Terry Gilliam specializes in iconoclastic visionaries, and his film version somehow manages to capture the queasy psychedelic flavor of the book alongside its aggressive social critique. It's a hopeless mess as a lucid narrative-but it was never meant to be one, and it works anyway on the backs of Johnny Depp (no stranger to eccentric roles himself) and Benicio Del Toro in the leading roles. Mainstream Hollywood seems to have reduced the act of portraying real-life individuals to mere caricature, content with a set of cosmetic mannerisms, but Depp channels the razorblade desperation which is the essence of Thompson. A hallucinatory, borderline incoherent road trip which operates as a savage indictment of American culture may not sound especially ripe for a cinematic adaptation, but Gilliam's FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS is a singular and unforgettable film.
Adult -- Recommended by Jo Robinson, Adult Services
The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty (AF MCLARTY, R.)
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A series of tragic events sends dazed, 40-something, self-proclaimed loser Smithson Ide on an epic cross-country bike journey. Can Smithy get his life back on track propelled only by "the memory of running"?
Talk about your strange twists of fate. Author Ron McLarty has been writing all his life and had the rejection slips to prove it. Making his living as a character actor (Law and Order, Sex and the City) and recording numerous audiobooks (including a number of Danielle Steel titles), McLarty had given up on ever getting published. Steel urged him to take the unusual path of recording The Memory of Running as an audio book even though it had been rejected in print form. Recovering from an accident, Stephen King listened to the book and, in an article, proclaimed it "the best novel you won't read this year". That comment touched off a bidding war for the print and movie rights, and, no doubt, we'll be seeing more of McLarty's work.
Buy book from Barnes and Noble Affiliate Bookstore to benefit the Foundation
Youth -- Recommended by Steve Browne, Youth Services
George Washington, Spymaster: How the Americans Outspied the British and Won the Revolutionary War
by Thomas B. Allen (National Geographic Society, 2004, 184 pages)
click to request the book from our catalog
Recommended for grades 5 and up
During the Revolutionary War, General George Washington had to use the stealthiest of means to fight the British. At the time, Britain was the most powerful nation in the world while the Americans were farmers, blacksmiths, lawyers, doctors, housewives - - regular people with little or no military training. This war wasn't won with military might but with clever thinking and espionage. Secret messages were hidden inside balls of yarn, quill pens, buttons, and metal pills. Sometimes Washington allowed the messages to be found by the British only to have the message be a mixture of truth and lies. Sometimes he even deceived his own troops in order to trick the British, who were also spying on him. There are stories of invisible ink, hidden messages, secret codes and patterns, much like the hidden messages in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. You will find this a well-documented and fun-to-read book about one of the most important times in the United States' history.
February 2005
Adult -- Recommended by Tracy Pahls, Adult Services
Good Harbor by Anita Diamant
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Anita Diamant, author of the Red Tent, has once again written a truthful novel dedicated to the importance and relevance of female friendships. Good Harbor is a beautifully written tale of two women in desperate need of friendship. Kathleen is stricken with breast cancer at the age of fifty-nine. As a devoted wife and mother, Joyce feels her family growing increasingly independent. Although in different stages in life, these women forge an unexpected friendship that encourages and strengthens them during difficult times.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Services
Choose Me (1984) Starring Genevieve Bujold, Keith Carradine and
Lesley Ann Warren - Written and directed by Alan Rudolph
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A more traditional film noir deals with duplicity and the darkness of the human soul--but CHOOSE ME, set in the hazy neon shadows of an insomniac Los Angeles, evokes many of the trappings of noir in the service of a story about deceptions of the heart. It's a film populated exclusively with liars: bar owner Eve (Lesley Ann Warren) has constructed a hard-as-nails persona for herself, barely concealing the insecurity and fear of loneliness belied by her allure; Nancy (Genevieve Bujold) works as "Dr. Love," a relationship-expert radio call-in host, but outside of the studio she's hopelessly fragile and terrified by men; and Mickey (Keith Carradine)-a former mental patient who claims to have been (among other things) a poet, a spy and an award-winning photographer-is either the most pathological fabulist of them all, or the only truly honest one in the bunch. As a series of Teddy Pendergrass songs act as a kind of Greek chorus, these characters alternate between attracting, repelling and (sometimes inadvertently) deceiving one another; their various layers of falsehood are stripped away, and their own fears about love are laid bare. Writer/director Alan Rudolph's unpredictable rhythms have never been more effective than in this smartly intriguing tale of sexual politics and romantic anxiety.
January 2005
Adult -- Recommended by Pam Nelson, Information Services
The Fractal Murders by Mark Cohen
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Pepper Keane, former Marine Judge Advocate General, or “JAG,” turned private eye, makes his starring appearance in this new series written by former JAG Mark Cohen. From Hawaii to Harvard, Pepper propels the reader into the technology of fractals, fractional changes of symmetry currently used in computer applications, that promises possibilities so stunning that someone steps beyond decency to manipulate the stock market with lethal results.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Services
The Storm Riders (1998) Starring Sonny Chiba, Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng
Written by Manfred Wong, from the comic by Ma Wing Shing
Directed by Andrew Lau
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It's long been an article of faith among cinephiles that Hong Kong's action films consistently outclass their domestic counterparts for inventiveness and sheer kinetic dynamism; nowhere is this more apparent in than in wuxia films--the Chinese genre of kung-fu fantasy--replete with mystical weapons and gravity-defying "wire-fu." While filmmakers like Ang Lee (CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON) and Zhang Yimou (HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS) have grafted a lovely aesthetic onto this genre and repackaged it for international art-house consumption, pictures like THE STORM RIDERS offer less meditative though nonetheless stunning pleasures. Adapted from Ma Wing Shing's sprawling manhua (Chinese comic), the picture follows two young men, Cloud (Aaron Kwok) and Wind (Ekin Cheng), each possessed of superhuman fighting skills, who are forcibly apprenticed to a ruthless master (Sonny Chiba) following the murder of their parents. Cloud and Wind encounter an enormous cast of fellow warriors and navigate a number of dense soap-opera subplots before turning upon their nemesis for a dazzling climax of effects-laden combat. It's all about as "art-y" as STAR WARS, but THE STORM RIDERS offers enough hypnotic visuals and virtuosic fight sequences for even the most jaded action fan.
December 2004
Adult -- Recommended by Beth McQuie, Fiction/AV
Sammy's Hill by Kristin Gore
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This is a hilarious tale of the life of a Congressional staffer on Washington D.C.'s Capitol Hill, replete with romance and political intrigue. Twenty-six year old Samantha Joyce ("Sammy") is intelligent, idealistic, quirky and witty. She falls for a charming speech-writer, who is not what he appears. Sammy tries to sort out her love life, copes with politics and deception, and gets caught up in the heart of a frenzied presidential campaign suffering various amusing mishaps along the way. This debut novel by the daughter of Al Gore is written with an insider's knowledge of Washington. It is a fast and funny read, sure to keep you entertained.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Services
After Hours (1985) Starring Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette and Verna Bloom
Written by Joseph Minion
Directed by Martin Scorsese
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Office drone Paul (Griffin Dunne) leaves the sterile confines of his Manhattan apartment for a rendezvous with Marcy (Rosanna Arquette)-and stepping out the door is more or less exactly when things start to wrong for him in AFTER HOURS, director Martin Scorsese's most criminally overlooked film. A slightly surreal series of causes and effects leave Paul stranded in a late-night SoHo which has been transformed into a kind of Kafkaesque hell; as he is waidlaid by a series of treacherous blondes, paranoia mounts and Paul's nerves become strained to darkly comic effect. Balancing deadpan quirk with cosmic persecution effectively is no small task, but the film delivers--thanks in part to a neurotically restless camera which never slackens the pace for an instant. AFTER HOURS is a comedy that's black like a pot of strong coffee.
November 2004
Adult -- Recommended by Dale Heath, Reference Services
Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
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In this installment of the popular Discworld series, a band of untrained misfits goes to war to defend the backward country of Borogravia. The story's heroine, Polly Perks (masquerading as a young lad to find her brother) joins an unusual regiment whose ranks include a vampire, a zombie, and a troll. As the ragtag group is rushed off to the front, they quickly discover that they have more in common with each other than they originally thought. Fast paced and unusual, Monstrous Regiment will have you laughing out loud from start to finish.
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Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Services
Safe (1995) Starring Julianne Moore, Peter Friedman and James LeGros
Written and directed by Todd Haynes
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A horror movie cleverly cross-dressed as the likes of a made-for-Lifetime disease-of-the-week movie, SAFE features Julianne Moore in an astonishing career-defining performance. She portrays Carol White, a suburban Californian homemaker whose emotional, intellectual and economic isolation from the world around her is underlined when she becomes "allergic to the 20th century." Her diagnosis with environmental illness erases her anemic former identity-and this is the precise moment a more conventional film would transform into a feel-good narrative of self-actualization, but writer/director Todd Haynes has a more ambiguous agenda in mind. The support community Carol gives herself over to isn't quite the salvation its warm and fuzzy character might suggest, and Carol's new identity as victim becomes complicated as well. Smart, subtly satirical and frequently creepy, SAFE challenges ideas of illness and wellness in a fascinating manner.
Youth -- Recommended by Mary Ann Sibrava, Youth Librarian
Minn and Jake
by Janet S. Wong(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003, 146 pages)
Recommended for grades 3 - 5
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Have you ever felt like this--that all you want is a real, honest-to-goodness best friend, but you just don't know how to make it happen? That's how it is for Minn and that's how it is for the new kid Jake. At first, they seem unlikely to become friends at all because they are so different from one another. Minn is the tallest girl in the whole school, loves to climb, catch lizards and worms. Jake is shorter than short, a city boy and not a big fan of nature and crawly critters. They are both quirky and clever, however, and after a rocky start, find they are a great match as best friends, after all.
October 2004
Adult -- Recommended by Larry D'Urso, Fiction/AV Department
Pompeii by Robert Harris
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In the year A.D. 79, young engineer Marcus Attilius Primus is appointed by the emperor to the position of aquarius of the massive Aqua Augusta Aqueduct that provides water to the Roman towns around the Bay of Naples. The aqueduct has ceased to flow beyond Pompeii and his predecessor has mysteriously disappeared. Making the repairs and solving the mystery leads to intrigue, adventure, a bit of romance and an erupting Mount Vesuvius. Harris is an excellent storyteller who weaves an engaging fictional plot with rich historic detail, engineering knowhow and geologic facts. Life in the ancient world is vividly displayed and the characters keenly developed. Pompeii is a must read for those who enjoy historical fiction or who want a good story.
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Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Services
Dead Alive (1992)
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Starring Timothy Balme, Diana Penalver and Elizabeth Moody
Written by Stephen Sinclair, Frances Walsh and Peter Jackson
Directed by Peter Jackson
Welcome to Zombie 101: Jacques Tourneur made the most aesthetically beautiful zombie picture (I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE); George Romero made the most frightening and thoughtful ones (NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and DAWN OF THE DEAD, respectively); 28 DAYS LATER and 2004's remade DAWN OF THE DEAD are about neck-and-neck for the fastest, and it's entirely possible that SHAUN OF THE DEAD might be the funniest. But unquestionably, Peter Jackson's DEAD ALIVE reigns undisputed as the messiest zombie movie ever made. A gleefully over-the-top blend of relentless gore, black comedy and Oedipal hysteria, DEAD ALIVE gets fully underway once our hero Lionel's overbearing mother ends up on the receiving end of the bite of the evil Sumatran "rat monkey". Soon she's snacking on the neighbors, who rapidly zombify in turn-and then things escalate (watch for the lawnmower). Making RE-ANIMATOR seem practically ponderous by comparison, DEAD ALIVE threatens to render the rest of its genre irrelevant with its manic inventiveness, Pythonesque tongue-in-cheek tone, and inexplicable cheerfulness.
September 2004
Adult -- Recommended by Julie Collins, Adult Services
The Complete Gardener by Monty Don
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At 440 pages, this guide to organic gardening packs a wealth of information about all aspects of the successful home garden. Included are chapters devoted to planning, construction, planting, composting and maintenance of vegetable, fruit, flower and decorative plant gardens. Although the authors' garden (from which all the examples and photographs are drawn) is located in England, the information provided is so straightforward and comprehensive that it can be applied to a variety of gardening situations, including gardens in northwest Illinois.
August 2004
Adult -- Recommended by Linda Burns, Adult Services
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
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Christopher Boone is an autistic 15-year-old math genius who discovers that his neighbor's poodle, Wellington, has been killed with a garden fork. Christopher decides that, like his idol Sherlock Holmes, he's going to find the killer. He is encouraged by a social worker at his school to write a book about his investigations. The result is this original and moving first-time novel by Mark Haddon.
July 2004
Adult -- Recommended by Barb Bisbee, Adult Services
The Sight of the Stars by Belva Plain
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In Belva Plain's new book, "Sight of the Stars", we meet Adam Arnring. In 1907 Adam turns 19 yrs. old and decides to leave his family in New Jersey to find his fortune out west. He takes his first step toward achieving this goal and finds himself in Chattahoochee, Texas where he obtains a job in a small, run-down department store. Adam quickly takes charge and makes quite a success with his creative ideas. As the years go by, Adam works hard and meets and falls in love with Emma. World War I starts as Adam and Emma marry. Tragedy strikes with repercussions that affect the family throughout the years. The "Sight of the Stars" tell us what may happen when we try to capture our dreams and the decisions that can change lives forever.
June 2004
Adult -- Recommended by Joyce Brantner, Information Services
The Swallows of Kabul
Translated by John Cullen
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The Swallows of Kabul is a fiercely written account of life under a fascist theocracy. Set in Kabul under the rule of the Taliban, the story follows the lives of two couples. The narrative tells how the lives of these four people are woven together by their extreme circumstances and helps us understand what it’s like to live without personal freedom, choice and sometimes hope, in a land ravaged by war and religious fanaticism. The Swallows of Kabul is a timely and thought provoking book.
May 2004
Adult -- Recommended by Rose Allen, Adult Services
In The Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship, Essex
by Nathaniel Philbrick
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At age fourteen, Thomas Nickerson's ultimate goal of becoming a cabin
boy on a Nantucket whaleship had finally become a reality. Fifteen months later, the unthinkable happened. This engaging story, which inspired the climactic scene in Herman Melville's Moby Dick, offers a detailed account of the 1820 voyage of the Whaleship Essex which was attacked by a sperm whale. It is a captivating read that offers a window into the heart of the human spirit under extreme duress.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Adult Services
The Wrong Guy
Starring Dave Foley, David Anthony Higgins and Jennifer Tilly
Written by Dave Foley, David Anthony Higgins and Jay Kogen
Directed by David Steinberg
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Nelson Hibbert (Dave Foley) is a ludicrously inept executive who is justifiably passed over for promotion-but makes the mistake of responding by publicly threatening his boss, who promptly turns up murdered. Unaware that the police know he's innocent, Nelson panics and goes on the lam in this likable comedy, which effectively mines goofy laughs out the territory of Hitchcock and THE FUGITIVE. Like most film comedies developed by sketch comics, the gags can be occasionally hit-or-miss-although it isn't any more scattershot than the likes of the Zucker/Abraham/Zucker (AIRPLANE!, THE NAKED GUN) flicks. THE WRONG GUY comes as a welcome reminder that a comedy doesn't have to be gross or insulting to be pleasingly stupid.
Youth -- Recommended by Mary Ann Sibrava, Youth Librarian
Surviving the Applewhites
by Stephanie S. Tolan
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(Harper Collins, 2002, 216 pages)
Recommended for Grades 5-7
Jake Semple, a budding juvenile delinquent, has been kicked out of every school he's ever attended. Now he's got just one last chance. He is sent away to be home schooled at the Applewhite family's Creative Academy, an outrageously free-wheeling kind of place where he where he discovers some talents and interests he never knew he had.
April 2004
Adult -- Recommended by Michele Khan, Adult Services
The Pleasure of my Company
by Steve Martin
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"The Pleasure of my Company" by Steve Martin is a humorous story told through the eyes of Daniel Pecan Cambridge, a 33 year old man with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Daniel is a very intelligent and charming man but he is a prisoner to his compulsions, for example, he can only cross the street where two opposing driveways line up and all his light bulbs in his house must equal 1125 watts. To help pass time on boring days he spends a lot of time looking out his apartment window daydreaming about a romance with the real estate agent from across the street. Everything changes for Daniel when one day he saves Clarissa's son Teddy from an abusive father and invites Clarissa and Teddy to stay with him. Steve Martin's subtle humor in this book as well as his gift to make all the characters very real is what makes this book a hit.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Adult Services
The Kingdom (1994)
Starring Ernst-Hugo Järegård, Kirsten Rolffes and Holger Juul Hansen
Written by Tomas Gíslason, Lars von Trier and Niels Vørsel
Directed by Morten Arnfred and Lars von Trier
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If you enjoy the current Stephen King TV series KINGDOM HOSPITAL, you might want to check out the original Danish television miniseries on which it's based. The short description is "ER meets TWIN PEAKS," but that doesn't quite do this alternately satiric and creepy work justice. The series kicks off as more or less a standard medical comedy-drama, with a number of conflicts among hospital staff instigated by an arrogant expatriate Swedish neurosurgeon. Things begin to get a bit weird when a malingering patient makes psychic contact with a dead girl haunting the hospital, and a mysteriously driverless ambulance starts to make the rounds. A missing head, a spectral dog, and a surprise inspection from the Ministry of Health all build toward a climax so bizarre and audacious that you'll be glad you watched nearly five hours of subtitled Danish-and you'll find yourself wishing that the sequel miniseries would get a U.S. video release.
Youth -- Recommended by Beth Corrigan, Youth Outreach Librarian
Saving Grace
by Priscilla Cummings
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(Dutton, 2003, 240 pages)
Recommended for Grades 4-7
It's 1932, and things go from bad to worse for the poverty-stricken McFarland family. Twelve-year-old Grace and her two brothers are sent to live in a children's shelter, while her out-of-work father looks for a job, and her mother prepares for the arrival of another baby. Grace is invited to spend the holidays with the wealthy Hammond family, where she is treated like a daughter and surrounded by luxury. Grace feels guilty about enjoying herself while the rest of her family struggles to survive, and is forced to make a difficult decision when the Hammonds offer to adopt her. Should she return to a life of poverty and struggle, or remain with Hammond's in their comfortable, happy home?
March 2004
Adult -- Recommended by Gwen M. LaCosse, Information Services
The Teammates
by David Halberstam
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The late, great baseball slugger Ted Williams dubbed them “my guys.” Dominic DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky and Williams forged a professional and personal bond that lasted long after their playing days on the 1940s teams of the Boston Red Sox. David Halberstam touchingly reveals the depth of this bond in The Teammates. Williams supplied the glue that kept the four baseball standouts together. Halberstam, a gifted storyteller, writes of Williams: “He might not, the other three teammates knew, be the easiest man in the world to deal with. He always did what he wanted and never did anything he did not. But to no small degree he was the one who had kept them friends; they stayed close because he willed them to stay close.”
You do not have to be a serious baseball fan to truly appreciate this story of four uniquely talented men who cherish their sport and each other. However, thanks to Halberstam’s fine eye for detail and ability to interweave the past and present so well, The Teammates just might make you view baseball -- and male friendship -- in a different light. In October 2001, when the four former teammates are in their eighties, DiMaggio orchestrates a road trip from Massachusetts to Florida to visit a dying Williams one last time. Joining him are Pesky and another friend. Doerr, regrettably, has to stay behind to care for his ailing wife. Halberstam shows why it is only fitting that Williams, who remains as controversial in death as he was in life, had called DiMaggio, Doerr and Pesky “my guys.”
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Adult Services
The Long Goodbye (1973)
Starring Elliott Gould, Nina Van Pallandt and Sterling Hayden
Written by Leigh Brackett, from the novel by Raymond Chandler
Directed by Robert Altman
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While Raymond Chandler's archetypal hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe has been depicted in films over the years by any number of actors--from Dick Powell to James Caan--the definitive celluloid Marlowe has always been Humphrey Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP. Bogart made the character an icon, an indelible encapsulation not only of studio era detective pictures, but of the Hollywood screen hero in general. So when maverick director Robert Altman cast Elliot Gould in the role in his adaptation of Chandler's final Marlowe novel THE LONG GOODBYE, it served notice that Altman would be reinventing-or perhaps more accurately, subverting-the entire genre of film noir. The result is a strange, fascinating lost classic which replaces the stark urban noir aesthetic with the sunlit pastels of 70s southern California beaches (gloriously shot by Vilmos Zsigmond), and Bogart's sharp and sardonic iconic Marlowe with Gould's mumbling, likably disheveled portrayal. Likewise, the rambling two-pronged plot of Chandler's novel (Marlowe seeks a missing writer and helps a friend accused of murder) is rendered even more labyrinthine-and borderline irrelevant-within Altman's loose, improvisational tone. Rewarding details abound, though, including multiple background versions of John Williams' catchy theme (listen for the flamenco one) and a cameo by a very young current governor of California. Chandler purists may balk-especially at the film's surprising conclusion-but THE LONG GOODBYE is a fresh, funny take on an enduring character and a classic film genre.
Youth -- Recommended by Marcia Lyons, Preschool Liaison
A View From Saturday (1996)
Recommended for grades 3-7
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It was a surprise to a lot of people when Mrs. Olinski's team won the sixth-grade Academic Bowl contest at Epiphany Middle School. It was an even bigger surprise when they beat the seventh grade AND the eighth grade, too! And when they went on to even greater victories, everyone began to ask: How did it happen?
February 2004
Adult -- Recommended by Valerie Lorens, Adult Services
Lucia, Lucia
By Andriana Trigiani
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
When Kit Zanetti accepts an invitation to tea with her elegant elderly neighbor, more than just an afternoon of friendly conversation ensues. Aunt Lu, as she is known at the beginning of the story, takes Kit down memory lane as she reflects upon her life as Lucia Sartori of New York's Greenwich Village in the 1950s.
The only daughter of the neighborhood grocer Antonio, she is a talented couture seamstress in the trendy B. Altman Department store. At 25, her spunk and ambitions stretch beyond the traditions big Italian families embraced in that era (marrying, having babies and tending to the home). When her long-time fiance from the neighborhood, baker Dante DiMartino and his family voice those same expectations, Lucia breaks the engagement to carve out her dreams in the fashion world.
Enter mysterious and debonair John Talbot, who captures Lucia's heart with expensive gifts and promises of a whirlwind life hobnobbing with high society. Does she forsake her intuition and her father's suspicions of Talbot under the guise of love? What happens next sets Lucia on a path where she must choose between loyalty to her family or staying true to herself.
Andrea Trigiani captures the essence of Italian ethnicity by peppering the story with familiar cultural phrases and even some authentic recipies. Whatever your heritage though, you will be enchanted by the universal appeal of family and tradition, and perhaps yearn for that which is sometimes missing from the fast paced lives we lead in the 21st Century.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Adult Services
Two for the Road (1967)
Starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney
Written by Frederic Raphael and directed by Stanley Donen
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Starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney
For a Hollywood love story about a marriage on the rocks, TWO FOR THE ROAD is quite structurally complex: throughout the film, the story seamlessly cuts back and forth across four different time periods. These sometimes abrupt shifts follow Joanna and Mark Wallace (Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney) as their relationship develops during four road trips through the south of France spanning a twelve-year period. Frederic Raphael's clever script uses this device to place the banter of early courtship alongside the pointed barbs of a troubled later marriage, and what emerges is a refreshingly complex portrait of how both people and relationships can change over time. Supported by Raphael's incisive dialogue and a novel editing scheme, Stanley Donen's surehanded direction reveals an engaging chemistry between Hepburn and Finney in moments both comedic and dramatic.
January 2004
Adult -- Recommended by Nancy Ashbrook, Adult Services
Leadership: Sopranos Style
by Debbie Himsel
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Tony solves difficult problems, communicates complex issues clearly, and creates innovative business concepts. An outstanding new employee in your company? No, Tony is T Soprano, a fictional character on the hit HBO series, The Sopranos, and a "remarkably effective, emphathetic boss" says author Debbie Himsel in her new book, Leadership: Sopranos Style.
Consider Tony's charisma and how he employs it with Dale Carnegie-like verve to win friends and influence people; or his strategic brilliance as he diversifies his business, selectively taking risks that pay off in one new profit center after another. Companies today need leaders who can build and maintain relationships with diverse groups of people. Tony creates strong relationships both within and outside of his organization by being an active listener, clear communicator, and not afraid to express his emotions. And lastly, Tony gets results. And in today's organizations, we need leaders who know how to get things done, cut through the red tape, and find innovative solutions to complex problems.
Leadership: Sopranos Style forces us to think about leadership in new ways. It takes us out of our comfort zone, with many tongue-in-cheek examples, and provokes us to consider alternative perspectives. A humorous, on-target book on leadership change, Leadership: Sopranos Style is my pick for a must-read in 2004.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Adult Services
Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989)
Starring Matti Pellonpaa, Sakke Jarvenpaa and Jim Jarmusch
Written and directed by Aki Kaurismaki
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The Leningrad Cowboys-a Slavic folk band tagged as "the worst rock 'n' roll band in the world" and immediately distinguishable by their bizarre "unicorn" hairdos-travel to America in search of fame and success, accompanied by their tyrannical manager and pursued by the village idiot (who wants to give them a large fish). That's about as far as plot goes in this absurdist deadpan comedy, an episodic shaggy-dog road trip which slyly satirizes Americana, the immigrant experience and the Soviet political system all in one funnily fell swoop. It's an ironically distant, bone-dry comedy reminiscent of the work of director Jim Jarmusch (who has a brief cameo here), the kind of film where the matter-of-fact intertitle "They beat him badly" can be rendered laugh-out-loud funny. Deliberately paced and ostensibly in Finnish (though actually mostly in English), LENINGRAD COWBOYS GO AMERICA isn't really for everyone-but if you have a taste for the comedy of the strange, it's a picture well worth watching.
Youth -- Recommended by Marsha Whiteside, Youth Library Assistant
Stormbreaker (1989)
by Anthony Horowitz
(Puffin Books, 2002, 192 pages.) Recommended for grades 5-9
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
They told him his uncle died in a car accident. But fourteen-year-old Alex knows that's a lie, and the bullet holes in his uncle's windshield confirm his suspicions. Nothing could prepare Alex for the news that the uncle he thought he knew was really a spy for MI6-Britain's top secret intelligence agency. Recruited to find his uncle's killers and complete his final mission, Alex suddenly finds himself caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse.
December 2003
Adult -- Recommended by Jo Robinson, Adult Services
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
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In his book, Into Thin Air, author Jon Krakauer took us to the extreme limits of human endurance as he chronicled a tragic expedition up Mt. Everest.
In his latest work, under the banner of heaven, Krakauer gives us a fascinating look at another extreme in 1984, Don and Ron Lafferty murdered the wife and infant daughter of their younger brother Allen. But this is not just a true-crime story. The two brothers, who are members of a fundamentalist Mormon Group, claimed they committed the killings following a direct revelation from God.
While the mainstream Mormon Church does not sanction these fundamentalist groups, their influence in parts of the country is astounding. Krakauer takes us into these isolated communities and gives us a view of these zealots who still take “plural wives” and rule the lives of their followers with an iron hand.
In providing historical background, Krakauer traces the history of the Mormon Church, which is on its way to becoming the third largest church in the world. It is a fascinating look at America’s only home grown religion. As far as religions go, the church of the Latter Day Saints is relatively young and actual written records and historical documents are available.
So whether you like a juicy true-crime story, an amazing historical account, or a look at a part of America you never dreamed existed, you won’t be able to put down “Under The Banner Of Heaven.”
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Adult Services
The Virgin Suicides by
Starring James Woods, Kathleen Turner and Kirsten Dunst
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Written and directed by Sophia Coppola, from the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides
THE VIRGIN SUICIDES is a mystery film-not the kind where a culprit is identified or a solution is posed, but a mystery nonetheless. The question revolves around the Lisbon sisters, five lovely blonde girls living in a well-to-do Detroit suburb in the mid-70s. All five commit suicide--the "why", as so often, is never truly known--but possibly a greater mystery is the one the neighborhood boys ponder, as adolescent boys typically come to ponder the unknowable nature of adolescent girls: who are the Lisbon sisters? The question lingers throughout this haunting film of nostalgia and loss, a remarkably effective adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides' novel. An ethereal score by French pop duo Air and a particularly fine performance from James Woods as the girls' unraveling father further set the mood in this excellent directorial debut from Sophia Coppola, who most recently made the outstanding LOST IN TRANSLATION.
Youth -- Recommended by Mary Smith, Youth Programming Librarian
The Thief Lord by
Cornelia Caroline Funke (Scholastic, 2003, 349 pages)
Recommended for grades 5 - 9
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Bo and Prosper are orphans who have run away to Venice to avoid being adopted by their aunt. There they join a group of child thieves led by the mysterious Thief Lord. The Thief Lord and his gang have just been offered their most challenging job yet-- to steal an old wing that looks like it may have once belonged to a wooden angel. As the children begin their plans to steal the wing, things begin to go terribly wrong. Will they still be able to steal the wing and if they do, what will happen next?
November 2003
Adult -- Recommended by Donna Szwed, Adult Services
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
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Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America was written by Erik Larson and published in February 2003. The title gives a good synopsis of the book. There are many stories interwoven to give the reader a fascinating history lesson of the era. The "Devil", Dr. Herman Mudget, or better known by one of his aliases as Holmes, was a charming mass murderer. "The White City" refers to the white painted buildings of the very successful 1893 World’s Fair, which was held just 22 years after the great Chicago fire. It set the standard by which future fairs were measured. There was so much neat information about famous people and events in this interesting tale of murder and mayhem that you’ll want to read it for yourself … or listen to it on CD or cassette.
Youth -- Recommended by Steve Browne, Youth Services Librarian
Rome: In Spectacular Cross Section by
by Stephen Biesty and Andrew Solway (Scholastic, 2003, 32pp.)
Recommended for grades 4 - 8
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Stephen Biesty is back, illustrating the world of Ancient Rome. The large double-page spreads lead us through a day in the life of a boy and his father. We get to explore, inside and out, the Temple of Jupiter, the Coliseum, a festival, the chariot races, the baths, a wealthy home of a senator, and a tenement building for average citizens. This book will appeal to anyone who likes history and likes to think about what life was like for the people who lived before us. It's a pleasure to pour over these busy pictures. You'll see familiar sights, like nurses tending babies, people waiting for dinner, children feeding cats, someone being shoved into a pool. These small things remind you how little people have changed in two thousand years. But there's plenty that reveals how we have very little in common with the Romans, such as the lack of privacy, a slave economy, and the bloody, brutal, terrible games people delighted in at the Coliseum. Fun, captivating and enlightening, Stephen Biesty proves why he is one of the best of the cross-section illustrators.
October 2003
Adult -- Recommended by Dale Heath, Adult Services
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Set in the near future, The Speed of Dark is told from the point of view of Lou Arrendale, a young, highly functional autistic person. The story follows Lou as he falls in love, learns how to fence, has his tires slashed and is pressured by his employer to participate in an experimental procedure to reverse his autism. Ultimately, the book is a fascinating peek inside the mind of an autistic person, and an interesting examination of what it means to be "normal".
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Adult Services
Seconds (1966)
Starring Rock Hudson, John Randolph and Murray Hamilton
Written by Lewis John Carlino
Directed by John Frankenheimer
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John Frankenheimer's overlooked 1966 feature SECONDS opens on a protracted portrait of the crushing emptiness of American suburbia, a bleak depiction possibly unequaled by any of the numerous similar takes on the theme which followed in later decades. The film's subject is a middle-aged businessman initially played by John Randolph-"initially" because Randolph is approached by a shadowy organization who offer him a second chance at life with a new, surgically-altered identity played by Rock Hudson (in a surprisingly effective departure from his typical roles of the time). He is freed of his considerable responsibilities and social restrictions (most visibly during an awkwardly extended bacchanal sequence), but true happiness continues to elude Hudson, setting the stage for the picture's harrowing conclusion. Thanks in part to James Wong Howe's expressionistic cinematography, there's a pervasive atmosphere of genuine creepiness throughout SECONDS akin to many of the better TWILIGHT ZONE episodes. The film was rejected by 60s audiences as overly downbeat and cerebral-but it now enjoys its own second chance on video.
Youth -- Recommended by Pam Handlin, Elementary School Liaison
Time Stops for No Mouse: A Hermux Tantamoq Adventure by Michael Hoeye (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2002, 250 pages.)
Recommended for grades 5 -9.
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Get ready to be immediately transported into a beautifully descriptive fantasy world! Hermux Tantamoq is a quiet mouse who owns a watchmaking shop. When Linka Perflinger, a jaunty adventurer and aviatrix, brings a watch into his shop to be repaired and then disappears, Hermux is caught up in a world of dangerous intrigue and a search for the fountain of youth while trying to find out what happened to Linka.
September 2003
Adult -- Recommended by Tracy Pahls, Readers' Advisor
Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
We human beings spend enormous amounts of effort, attempting to predict and identify the precursors of a traumatic event. In his seventh novel, Hey Nostradamus!, Douglass Coupland ponders the possibilities of what it means to be victimized by such a devastating occurrence, concluding that such tragedies can do no less than permanently alter our existence. Coupland explores his theme from the perspective of four individuals, each distinctively affected by a tragic high school shooting. Cheryl, is an atypical seventeen-year-old victim who is married and pregnant when she is tragically killed. Jason is Cheryl's husband, left behind to mature into adulthood alone. Heather, the girlfriend of the now thirty-something Jason and Reg, Jason's close-minded, fundamentalist father round out the cast. Coupland achieves a level of intimacy through his in-depth exploration of each personality, and leaves the reader highly invested in the outcome. Although at times a bit difficult to follow, Hey Nostradamus is (ironically) unpredictable and keeps the reader guessing as to what will happen next.
Youth -- Recommended by Mary Ann Sibrava, Youth Services Librarian
No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman (Hyperion Books for Children, 2000, 180 pp.)
Recommended for grades 5 - 8
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Wallace, eighth grade football hero, is paying the price for his honest, yet scathing, review of a Old Shep, My Pal. In his mind, it's just another lame book about a dog that dies in the end. Forced to abandon the football team, he must now spend detention watching rehearsals for the school's stage production of that very same, oh-so-boring "classic." In spite of himself, he becomes involved in the production and makes some outrageous--but always honest--suggestions that result in an off-beat and hugely popular stage extravaganza.
August 2003
Adult -- Recommended by Joyce Brantner, Readers' Advisor
Flashback by Nevada Barr
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
In Barr's latest Anna Pigeon mystery, we find Anna, a curmudgeonly, charming forest ranger doing temporary duty at little known Dry Tortugas National Park, 70 miles off Key West in the Gulf of Mexico. She takes up her post on Garden Key, home to Fort Jefferson, a notorious Union prison during the Civil War. Fearing Anna's peculiar occupation and current isolated location will do her in, Anna's sister Molly sends her a box of old family memorabilia. Included in the box are piles of letters written by their great-great aunt, who coincidentally had been living at Fort Jefferson during the Civil War. The letters are at once fascinating and chilling, and give her a glimpse into the hard life of that time. Anna has her own drama to deal with, though, as a ranger goes missing, a boat explodes in nearby water, and she nearly drowns while investigating. On top of this, she is beginning to doubt her own sanity. Has she seen a ghost from the past, or is something else afoot? Anna begins to unravel an eerie connection between the current turmoil and past troubles documented in the letters. Fans of this National Park ranger will enjoy this double-layered story with its remarkable setting. And if you are a new reader, like me, you have a real treat in store!
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Wet Hot American Summer(2001) Starring Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce and Michael Showalter
Written by Michael Showalter and David Wain
Directed by David Wain
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
As WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER opens on the final day at Camp Firewood in 1981, you might find yourself momentarily thinking you're watching some sort of MEATBALLS-derived teen comedy of that era. But SUMMER is actually a wickedly smart parody of late-70s/early-80s teen flicks. That might sound like fairly narrow comedic ground to some-and indeed, viewers born before about 1962 should consider themselves duly warned that it might be a bit too postmodern for all sensibilities-but SUMMER has no trouble finding laughs, from irony-drenched displays of period fashions to sly send-ups of teen-pic cliches (notably a hilariously vague spoof of training montages). Gags is this episodic romp range from character bits (Paul Rudd's hysterically sullen teen lothario; Christopher Meloni's perverse cook) to complete silliness (an impending Skylab crash). WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER might tackle an age that really doesn't require revisiting, but fans of sly alternative comedy like MR. SHOW will laugh their tails off.
July 2003
Adult -- Recommended by Frances Mitilineos, Reader Services
Southampton Row by Anne Perry
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Southampton Row is a perfect mystery for summer reading. One of a series of Victorian mysteries featuring Thomas Pitt and his wife, Charlotte, this novel revolves around Pitt’s investigation of the death of a medium while fighting the mysterious and deadly Inner Circle, a cabal of highly placed politicians who will stop at nothing to achieve their own ends. Pitt is a working class policeman who has risen through the ranks through personal merit and honesty. His wife, Charlotte, is an independent-minded woman of more gentile background, who is unable to resist meddling in Pitt’s cases. Like Perry’s other novels, Southampton Row provides interesting glimpses of the British Empire and of Britain’s class-structure and political system. While providing a good story with secondary themes of socially inappropriate romances and the belief in spiritualism, Southampton Row also says something worthwhile about grief and loss, and religion and its failings. This series began with The Cater Street Hangman.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Librarian
24 Hour Party People (2002)
Starring Steve Coogan, Sean Harris and Andy Serkis
Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Directed by Michael Winterbottom
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Like any number of films "based on a true story," the docu-comedy 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE frequently exaggerates, distorts, fabricates and otherwise obfuscates the historical truth of its subject matter. The difference is, this picture does so openly, amusingly, and with a cheerful wink to its audience. More or less tracing a lineage of the Manchester music scene from the seminal first Sex Pistols concert in 1976 through to the Happy Mondays and early-90s rave culture, the film attaches this tour to the tale of Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan)-an overeducated, slightly unreliable television host turned recording mogul, and given to playful asides to the audience. Wilson's first turning point takes place when he takes over management of Joy Division (later New Order), and as he meets with first failure, then success, and then failure again, his smarmy and clever wit gives the film its signature flavor. While those possessing at least a passing familiarity with this period of British music are likely to get more out of the film than others, 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE still has plenty of smart, subversive fun to offer everyone else.
June 2003
Adult -- Recommended by Julie Collins, Government Documents Librarian
Matisse Picasso by Anne Baldassari, Kirk Varnedoe, Elizabeth Cowling
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
The catalog for a major international exhibition, Matisse Picasso, is a study of the often tumultuous relationship between the artists who were contemporaries, rivals and mutual admirers. This exhibition and catalog was a collaborative effort between the Tate Modern in London, the Musee Picasso and Musee National d’Art Moderne in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. From the time Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso crossed paths in 1906 at Gertrude Stein’s Paris apartment, they recognized that each had met their true equal. This book chronicles the amazing parallels evident in each respective body of work until the death of Matisse in 1954 and the influence that Matisse’s work had on Picasso’s in the years thereafter. It is said that one or the other of them spoke these words: "We must talk to each other as much as we can. When one of us dies, there will be some things that the other will never be able to talk of with anyone else." Therein lies the main theme of this book about the complex dialogue between two of the greatest artists, and some say the most significant, of the 20th century.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Donnie Darko (2001)
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone and Drew Barrymore
Written and directed by Richard Kelly
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
There's a moment not long into DONNIE DARKO when the title character-a "troubled," possibly schizophrenic, teenager-is told by his new girlfriend, "You're weird." She quickly adds, "No, that's a compliment." Now that we've entered the summer blockbuster season, when most pictures in theaters demonstrate a distressing similarity, that same compliment could be extended to the film DONNIE DARKO: it is weird, in a singular and compelling fashion. It's Halloween 1988, and Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a plagued by visitations from a giant scary rabbit named Frank-but what do Frank's apocalyptic predictions really mean? Decoding this narrative puzzle is only part of the film's appeal; along the way, the picture touches upon an intoxicating melange of film genres. Is it a psychological horror film? A retro-80s high school comedy? Science fiction? Social satire? Doomed teen romance? DONNIE DARKO entertains in all these ways, but defies classification as a whole. Funny yet tragic (and with great special effects to boot), DONNIE DARKO is a fascinating chimera, one of the most memorably original works of the recent cinema.
Youth -- Recommended by Beth Corrigan, Youth Outreach Librarian
Great Books for Babies and Toddlers: More than 500 Recommended Books for Your Child's First Three Years by Kathleen Odean, (Ballantine Books, 2003; 337 pages).
Recommended for parents and others who work with young children.
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Kathleen Odean has compiled a list of over 500 top-notch titles suitable for reading to children up to age 3, including nursery rhymes, fingerplays, songs and picture-story books. In addition to interesting and informative book descriptions, a guide with specific information for selecting books for babies, one-year-olds and two-year-olds is included. Useful tips for reading aloud to young children and activities to complement the recommended books round out this excellent resource.
Make the time you spend reading with your child even more special by choosing one of the wonderful books from this current and comprehensive resource.
May 2003
Adult -- Recommended by Linda Burns, Readers' Advisory/Reference Librarian
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
In his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Hours, Michael Cunningham pays homage to Virginia Woolf, using her life and work, Mrs. Dalloway, to tell the story of two contemporary women who are struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair. The lives of these two women, Laura, a reluctant mother and housewife of the 1940’s; and Clarissa, a 1990’s editor and caretaker of her best friend, an AIDS patient, converge with Virginia Woolf’s in an unexpected and heart-breaking way. You won’t want to miss reading this passionate and deeply moving novel that has also recently won the 2002 Academy Award for Best adapted screenplay and the Golden Globe award for best drama motion picture.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Starring Miriam Hopkins, Herbert Marshall and Kay Francis
Written by Grover Jones and Samson Raphaelson, from the play by Aladar Laszlo Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Sexy. Witty. Graceful. Sophisticated. They called it the "Lubitsch touch"--the trademark style of Ernst Lubitch, the supreme visual storyteller of Hollywood's early sound era. Mere words fail to capture the effortless elegance and charm to which the term refers, but fortunately, we can provide an illustration: TROUBLE IN PARADISE, Lubitsch's masterwork of romantic comedy. Gaston (Herbert Marshall) is a debonair crook; Lily (Miriam Hopkins), a glamorous thief. The larcenous couple become embroiled in a scheme to steal a fortune from a gorgeous perfume magnate (Kay Francis), but what happens when Gaston begins to fall for her? The chemistry between Marshall and Francis fairly leaps off the screen, and the dialogue bubbles like champagne, but the true joy of the picture is that the characters act like genuine adults (it's an awfully racy picture, albeit obliquely so). The film kicked off an entire genre of witty romances like IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT and Lubitsch's own THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, but TROUBLE IN PARADISE remains the divinely delightful granddaddy of them all.
Youth -- Recommended by Steven Browne, Youth Services Librarian
Lives of the Artists: Masterpieces, Messes (and What the Neighbors Thought) by Kathleen Krull (Harcourt Brace, 1995, 96 pages) Recommended for grade 5 - 8
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Kathleen Krull has written a charming, amusing and informative collection of mini-biographies. Not only do you get to learn about famous art and artists, but you also get ladles of gossip. Which artist preferred his adoring fans to his family? (Answer: Picasso.) Which artist updated the Mona Lisa with a mustache and goatee? (Answer: Duchamp.) Who wrote his notes backwards to keep people from reading them? (Answer: Leonardo Da Vinci). Which very famous Mexican artist was so tall and wide that he couldn't find underwear to fit him so his wife made them out of bright pink cotton, and who was that artist who lived in a blue house connected to his pink house by a bridge? (Answer: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, his wife). Most people have an interesting life, but some lives are fascinating, and these artists' lives are spellbinding.
April 2003
Adult -- Recommended by Ginny Schlachter, Interlibrary Loan Coordinator
The Big Dig by Linda Barnes
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
After a four year hiatus, author Linda Barnes brings back six foot plus tall private investigator, Carlotta Carlyle. Carlyle goes undercover as a construction company secretary investigating possible corruption on the multibillion dollar tunnel project in Boston. While working on this assignment from a former cop friend, she also moonlights on another case. She's trying to locate a missing woman for a wealthy client whom she meets at a local dog grooming company. Meanwhile on the construction case, a workman falls to his death - maybe pushed? Carlyle ties the two cases together with a big celebration planned at Faneuil Hall, a marketplace and meeting hall and part of the well traveled "Freedom Trail" in Boston. Is Carlyle in over her head? "The Big Dig" is the ninth in a series of mysteries about this former cop and cab driver turned PI. I recommend you read them all.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Librarian
The Limey (1999)
Starring Terence Stamp, Lesley Ann Warren and Peter Fonda
Written by Lem Dobbs and Directed by Steven Soderbergh
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Let's establish right off the bat that THE LIMEY is more than it seems. On the surface, it's a hard-boiled tale of revenge-aging Cockney ex-con Wilson (Terence Stamp) comes to L.A. to look into his estranged daughter's death, a trail which leads to an influential record producer (Peter Fonda)-and the picture functions nicely as such, propelled by the power and urgency of Stamp's performance. But this intensity is offset by the film's magnificent editing, which eschews a linear narrative for the prismatic quality of a memory. This strategy (which director Steven Soderbergh has used less extensively elsewhere, notably in OUT OF SIGHT) not only grants the film a meditative tone of poignance, but it also harkens back to the late-60s period when the avant-garde techniques of the French New Wave were beginning to invigorate American films. This same era is evoked by the use of Stamp and Fonda, both trading on their past screen roles and overtly commenting on the mythology of the 60s. Distinctive and fascinating, THE LIMEY is one of those rare works where style can be considered part and parcel of its substance.
Youth -- Recommended by Mary Smith, Youth Programming Coordinator
Janitor's Boy by Andrew Clements (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2000, 140 pages)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
It was the perfect crime. All Jack needed to make it happen was several packs of watermelon-flavored Bublicious. He researched it carefully to determine which type of gum was the stickiest and the smelliest, and then he set his trap. One janitor was going to be very angry when he discovered the mess.
March 2003
Adult -- Recommended by Anne Shaughnessy, Reference Librarian History/Genealogy
The Death of a Stranger by Anne Perry
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
In London of the 1860s Hester and William Monk are an unusual couple. Hester is a nurse who runs a clinic for injured or ill prostitutes. Monk, her husband, is a private investigator who conducts inquiries discreetly and thoroughly. In Anne Perry's new novel Death of a Stranger both Hester and William become involved when the body of a prominent businessman, Nolan Baltimore, is found in a brothel. Hester is asked to find the man's killer while Monk tries to determine if Baltimore's railway company engaged in fraud. Perry brings the sights, smells, and sounds of London and Liverpool to life as she relates the activities of Hester and Monk. She also carefully explores Monk's distress as he begins to recover from seven years of amnesia. He is afraid to learn the truth about the past because he senses that he was once involved in something dark. If you like atmospheric mysteries with well-developed characters, try Death of a Stranger by Anne Perry.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Librarian
The President's Analyst (1967)
Starring James Coburn, Godfrey Cambridge and Severn Darden
Written and directed by Theodore J. Flicker
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Dr. Sidney Schaefer (James Coburn) is a swingin' 60's shrink recruited to be the President's personal psychoanalyst, meaning he hears top security-risk secrets on a daily basis. When the pressure gets to be too much, Sidney simply takes off--which is when this raucous espionage farce/social satire kicks into high gear. Now he's on the run not only from foreign governments who want the information in his head, but also the murderous domestic agents of the "FBR" who consider him expendable. Along the way, the picture takes some satirical potshots that have aged surprisingly well, at targets ranging from suburban paranoia to the dire machinations of The Phone Company. The material is wildly funny enough, but Coburn is a complete riot: his cool-dad deadpan is fractured by a manic smile that's sometimes just a little too wide. Hilarious and unpredictable, THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST is a lost comedy classic of the sixties.
Youth -- Recommended by Mary Ann Sibrava, Youth Services Librarian
Crossing Jordan by Adrian Fogelin (Peachtree, 2000, 120 pages Recommended for grades 5-8)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Twelve-year-old Cassie just can't believe her good fortune. A new family moves next door to them in a changing neighborhood in Tallahassee, Florida, and they have a girl just her age - Jemmie. Not only that, they both love to run. They become best friends instantly, meeting every morning to train and race. It happens that Cassie is white and Jemmie is African American. Although this poses no problem for the two of them, they do have to keep their friendship a secret from their parents who carry some long-held prejudices. A family emergency forces these stubborn adults to take a hard look at their attitudes, while Cassie and Jemmie end up providing the model for team work, tolerance, and true friendship.
February 2003
Adult -- Recommended by Rose Allen, Young Adult Librarian
Keeping the Faith: Stories of Love, Courage, Healing and Hope from Black America by Tavis Smiley Doubleday 2002
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Tavis Smiley, commentator and host of National Public Radio’s The Tavis Smiley Show, offers a series of his own reflections on the power of unconditional love as he walked through his own private struggles. He includes a collection of inspiring vignettes by famous and ordinary individuals who have learned vital lessons that have sustained them during their seasons of intense challenge. Arranged thematically, each essay offers a window into the soul, and captures the essence of that inner strength of family heritage, friendship, inspiration and hope that has sustained African Americans from generation to generation.
January 2003
Adult -- Recommended by Linda Burns, Readers' Advisor Librarian Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
At some point, everyone experiences change in their lives. How one perceives change will determine whether it is viewed as a blessing or a curse. In the book Who Moved My Cheese, Spencer Johnson tells us that change can be viewed as a blessing if we understand the nature of cheese and the role it plays in our lives. Four little beings, two mice named Sniff and Scurry, and two little people-beings named Hem and Haw, who are as small as mice but who look and act a lot like people today, all live in a maze. Their lives and belief systems are built around cheese that they’ve found. Using this parable, the author demonstrates how we have to be alert to changes in the cheese and be prepared to look for new sources of cheese when the cheese we have runs out. This simple story simply reminds us that things change whether we like it or not. How we deal with that change is what matters.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Don't Look Now (1973)
Starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Written by Allan Scott and Chris Bryant, from the story by Daphne Du Maurier
Directed by Nicolas Roeg
Where does horror lie? Is it in monsters and viscera, or is it in the unsettling certainty that tragedy waits just beyond the limits of your senses? If you'd agree with the latter, then you're likely to appreciate Nick Roeg's occult masterpiece, DON'T LOOK NOW. John and Laura Baxter (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) have moved to Venice, still grieving following the death of their young daughter. But Laura encounters two elderly sisters who suggest that the dead still linger. Brilliantly edited with dreamlike fragmentation, the picture is permeated by an atmosphere of cutting grey dread, rife with symbolically charged imagery. Sutherland and Christie–reportedly a couple themselves during shooting–deliver richly organic performances tinged with a powerful sense of loss. As grief builds into dire apprehension, DON'T LOOK NOW rewards viewers who venture into its disturbing and intricate web.
Youth -- Recommended by Beth Corrigan, Youth Outreach Librarian
Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
by Candace Fleming ((Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2002, 32 pages)
Recommended for ages 3 - 7.
Mr. McGreely has decided it's time to plant the vegetable garden he's always dreamed of having. His very own crop of lettuce, peas and tomatoes -- Yummy! It turns out that he's not the only one excited about eating fresh, delicious vegetables. Three hungry bunnies watch and wait for the veggies to grow -- and, one night, Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! The bunnies gnaw and nibble their way through the garden over and over again in spite of Mr. McGreely's desperate attempts to keep them out.
This story, which reads like a good folktale, is sure to become a family favorite. Playful language and lively illustrations will captivate children, and might even get them to eat their vegetables!
December 2002
Adult -- Recommended by Larry D'Urso, Head of Adult Services
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Why not read a classic for the holiday season and what greater classic than Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol? Renew your acquantance with the grouchy, self-centered, miserly Ebenezer Scrooge and how he learned the true meaning of the season. The book is a bit of a ghost story, coming-of-age story, romance and saga all rolled into one. It's an uplifting tale with a moral that is as pertinent today as it was when first published in 1843. Reading this book is a great way to get into the spirit of the holidays.
Youth -- Recommended by Marsha Whiteside, Youth Librarian Assistant
Dealing with Dragons
by Patricia Wrede (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1990, 212 pages)
Recommended for grades 5 - 9.
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Princess Cimorene is a bit different from others in Linderwall. First of all, she is convinced that she is the only being with a brain in her head, and she is sick and tired of doing the "proper" things expected of princesses, like etiquette and embroidery. Her tastes run more to fencing, Latin, cooking, economics, juggling, sorcery and horseback riding. On top of not being allowed to do all these things, her parents just betrothed her to a rather boring prince. So Cimorene decides to run away and find a job as a dragon's princess. It takes some convincing, but the dragon Kazul finally does take her on, and, as they become friends, they team up to save the mostly kind dragons from a wicked plot hatched by the local wizards. Here's a funny and fanciful tale of adventure, and it's a wonderful introduction to Patricia Wrede's entire dragon series.
November 2002
Adult -- Recommended by Nancy Ashbrook, Reference Librarian, Adult Services
Start with No : the Negotiating Tools That the Pros Don't Want You to Know by Jim Camp (Crown Business, 2002, 260 pages)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Right from the start, Jim Camp's negotiation manual Start With No, begins with a bang. He debunks the myth of win-win negotiation and introduces you to a system of decision-based negotiation that anyone can use. Whether it's negotiating the purchase of a new home, a million dollar business deal, or where to take the kids for dinner, everyone will benefit from the tools highlighted here. Start with No details time-tested strategies that can be used immediately, and with practice, can improve your negotiating skills. Techniques such as defining a mission and purpose, controlling your own neediness to "close the deal", inviting your adversary to say no, and setting goals related to your behavior, not the desired results, can lead to a successful conclusion in any situation. Camp's book has been called contrary, and rightly so. But Jim gives plenty of entertaining anecdotes, both personal and business, to back up his engaging, and winning, style of power negotiation.
Youth -- Recommended by Mary Smith, Youth Librarian
Great-Grandpa's in the Litter Box
(from the Zack Files Series)
by Dan Greenburg (Grosset & Dunlap, 1996, 59 pages)
Recommended for grades 2 - 5.
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Imagine that your Dad has finally agreed to let you have a cat. You are at the local animal shelter about to select the perfect kitten by yourself, when you hear, "Pssst! Young man! Hello, little boy! Over here!" Unbelievably, you find yourself talking to a scruffy old gray tomcat who claims to be your reincarnated great grandfather Julius! He insists that you take him home because, after all, family is family. Plus, he is awfully bossy once you get him there. He turns up his nose at cat food and threatens to use the sofa for a litter box if you don't bring him his herring in sour cream instead. Then he finds out that you are visiting your Grandma Leah, his daughter, in Chicago, and insists on coming along. How in the world are you going to explain to your grandmother that her father is now your pet cat? And that is only the beginning of your troubles!
October 2002
Adult -- Recommended by Michele Khan, Patron Assistant, Adult Services
Bones by Jan Burke
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Judy Sayres is missing. The police have not been helpful so daughter Gillian Sayres asks crime reporter Irene Kelly to help her find her mother. Irene hits a dead end in the investigation. Several years pass when suddenly there is a huge development in the case. Serial killer Nicholas Parrish agrees, as part of a plea bargain to get out of the death penalty, to show the police where he buried Judy Sayres. So, Irene Kelly, accompaning a group of forensic scientists , police officers, and Mr. Parrish head into the mountains. With what starts out being a normal investigation ends up being a roller coaster ride of "hunter" stalking the "hunted". This book is a definite page turner with a lot of twists and turns. If you enjoy James Patterson or Patricia Cornwell, you will surely enjoy Jan Burke.
Youth -- Recommended by Marcia Lyons, Preschool Outreach Liaison
The Man Who Loved Clowns
by June Rae Wood (G.P. Putnam's Sons,1992, 224 pages)
Recommended for grades 4 - 6
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Thirteen-year-old Delrita just wanted to be left alone. Her family was new to Tangle Nook and she was certain that life would be a whole lot easier if she didn't have close friends. She doesn't have any brothers or sisters but her thirty-five year old Uncle Punky lives with them. And Uncle Punky is different -- he has Down's syndrome. He would always have the mind of a little boy and has always been there as a lovable playmate for Delrita. But other children have made fun of him with names like " dummy" or "weirdo," and some have even been afraid of him. Delrita thought the only way to protect him now was to keep him a secret. Then, when something terrible happens, life is changed forever. Uncle Punky's world expands and Delrita learns what friendship is all about.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Fury
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney
Written by Bartlett Cormack and Fritz Lang
Directed by Fritz Lang
Some say that the people who become angriest at mankind are those who expect the most from it; that might well be true of director Fritz Lang. Lang was one of the greatest filmmakers in Germany, counting METROPOLIS and M among his accomplishments. However, Lang fled his homeland when the Nazis took power, and FURY is the first picture he made after arriving in America. FURY is an angry film, one which pulls no punches in bitterly exploring the worst of which humanity is capable–although the picture's underlying humanism is also unmistakable. Spencer Tracy plays Joe Wilson, a cheerful straight-shooter on his way to marry his fiancé (Sylvia Sidney). As Joe drives to meet her, though, he's waylaid by a small-town deputy who mistakes him for a kidnapper. While Joe waits in jail to prove his innocence, a chain of gossip, boredom and suspicion converge to transform the town's residents into an angry mob; they lay siege to the jail, setting it ablaze with Joe inside. Lang doesn't take any easy shortcuts: he humanizes the mob participants without shying away from fully depicting the inhuman acts they commit. Powerful and incisive, FURY is a passionate film informed by both bleak cynicism and an uncommon morality.
September 2002
Adult -- Recommended by Jo Robinson, Patron Assistant, Adult Services
The Lord of Baseball by Harold Parrott (Praeger Publishers, New York, 1976;Reissued Longstreet Press, Atlanta, 2001.)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Sometimes, the more things change, the more they remain the same. The Lords of Baseball by Harold Parrott seems to back up that old proverb. Parrott's book, first published in 1976, takes a look behind the scenes of the business operations of major league baseball.
Parrott worked as a sportswriter before becoming the road secretary and publicist for a number of baseball teams beginning with the Brooklyn Dodgers. From this front-row seat, Parrott gives an insider's view of such historic events as Jackie Robinson's major league debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers and the cataclysmic move of the beloved "Bums" from Brooklyn to L.A.
Today's baseball honchos have nothing on the likes of Walter O'Malley, Charlie Finley, Buzzy Bavasi, Branch Rickey and Larry MacPhail. Parrott's sons felt the time was right to re-release the book with its emphasis on front-office shenanighans. Parrott himself always blamed Dodger owner Walter O'Malley for the failure of the original issue to reach best seller status, saying O'Malley had purchased 14,000 of the 15,000 copies–enough to keep most people from getting the book but not enough to warrant a second run.
But you can count on your Mt. Prospect Library to come through with a clutch hit. We have one of the original versions! So, if you've got a lot of time on your hands because neither the Cubs nor the White Sox appear headed for the World Series, The Lords of Baseball is the perfect book to fill the void while we all wait 'til next year.
Youth -- Recommended by Brian Conway, Elementary School Outreach Liaison
Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man
by Wendelin Van Draanen (Knopf, 1998, 172 pages)
Recommended for grades 4 - 8.
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Halloween night is supposed to be spooky and mysterious, but for Sammy Keyes, an above-average seventh-grade girl who's just out to play a little "ring and run" on the creepiest house in town, Halloween night becomes more mysterious, and more dangerous, than usual.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Librarian
In The Mood For Love (2000)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Starring Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung
Written and directed by Wong Kar-Wai
Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan are next-door neighbors; his wife is having an affair with her husband. Frequently left alone by their unfaithful spouses, the two develop a bond with hovers tentatively–agonizingly–on the brink of courtship. This abstracted romance, played out in the tiniest of gestures, makes up the core of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE. The film's hypnotic sequences of stylized repetitions, rife with sublimated sexuality in their lush colors and rhythmic tempo, bear out both the loneliness of the cuckolded spouses and the unspoken longing they share. Heartbreaking, masterfully restrained performances by Hong Kong film icons Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung as the doomed almost-lovers add an elegiac emotional depth to this almost impossibly beautiful film.
August 2002
Adult -- Recommended by Gwen M. LaCosse, Patron Assistant, Adult Services
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus (St. Martin's Press, 2002, 306 pages)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
One can't help but wonder what Mary Poppins would think of The Nanny Diaries, the bestseller by former nannies Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. These first-time novelists have clearly demonstrated a flair for both the weighty and the humorous. Their heroine, university student Nan, takes on the nannyship of an active 4-year-old, an experience that comes to give new meaning to overworked and underpaid. Nan becomes inadvertently ensnared in the strange, suspicious world of the Manhattan upper crust. Her charge, Grayer, clamoring for more than a morsel of attention and affection from his exceedingly busy parents, also has become caught in this web. His laughter and tears touch Nan, who is wise beyond her years. Ever cognizant of a mounting tension between herself and Grayer's controlling, corrective mother, Nan nonetheless hangs in there with her job as surrogate mom out of a deep attachment to and concern for this little boy of big bucks. Yes, one can't help but wonder what Mary Poppins would think about the injustice of it all.
Youth -- Recommended by Mary Ann Sibrava, Youth Librarian
A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park (Clarion Books, 2001, 152 pages) Recommended for grades 5-9
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Life is full of choices for all young people, and so it is for twelve-year-old Tree Ear, an orphan boy in medieval Korea. In all, his honorable character shines through. Rather than beg, he forages for food for himself and the elderly Crane Man who has cared for him since infancy. He earns the trust and respect of master potter Min as he works hard to pay off a debt. And he gratefully accepts an apprenticeship which enables him to learn the secrets of the celadon pottery which he yearns to create for himself. A Newbery Award winner, this is a gentle and engaging story of a youngster's journey toward self-discovery.
Video -- Recommended by John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Starring John Cameron Mitchell
If you're looking for something a little different than the typical summer spate of sci-fi action-comedy blockbusters, than you can't get much more different than HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, cinematic history's first international transexual glam-rock musical. Based on the stage musical by former Chicagoan John Cameron Mitchell, the picture follows German expatriate Hedwig (Mitchell) and her hilariously unpopular band The Angry Inch (so named for Hedwig's semi-botched sex-change operation) on their cross-country tour playing a chain of cut-rate family seafood restaurants. In flashbacks interspersed with the musical numbers, we learn the secrets of Hedwig's past--including her past relationship with Tommy Gnosis, a Marilyn Manson-esque shock-rocker who broke Hedwig's heart and stole her songs. It all sounds like it's swimming in irony, but the remarkable thing about HEDWIG is how much genuine heart and passion Mitchell brings to the performance. Just past the jokes and the outstanding musical sequences (the songs, written by Mitchell and Stephen Trask, are a fabulous fusion of glam-rock energy and show-tune expressiveness) is a film about pain, love, and just what identity means.
July 2002
Adult -- Recommended by Ginny Schlachter, Inter Library Loan Coordinator
Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife by Peggy Vincent (Simon and Schuster, 2002, 336pp.)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
First time author, Peggy Vincent worked many years as a delivery room nurse before entering into private practice as a midwife. In "Baby Catcher : Chronicles of a Modern Midwife" Vincent details vivid pictures of at home delivery experiences with mothers, fathers, friends and siblings, and also relates the experience of her third child's at home birth. Each birth is told with love, warmth and sometimes sorrow but always celebrates the unforgettable experience of natural childbirth.
Youth -- Recommended by Steve Browne, Youth Librarian
What You Never Knew About Fingers, Forks, and Chopsticks by Patricia Lauber (Simon and Schuster, 1999, 32 pages)
Recommended for grades 3 - 6
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Perhaps you never gave it much thought, but our eating utensils have an interesting--and sometimes humorous--history. The oldest way to pick up food is with our fingers. In the Stone Age, they ate only with their fingers and with crude knives made out of sharp pieces of flint. Centuries rolled on and someone finally developed the spoon out of shells or bones. As another few thousand years passed, the knife and spoon improved bit, but still no fork. A Medieval dinner table would be decked out with spoons and soup bowls (one for every two people), one drinking glass for the whole table to share, but no plates and no forks. Rather than plates, people ate off of slices of stale bread. And the fork? Not yet. The people of the Middle Ages weren't barbarians, however. They had their rules and manners, too, like "Eat with only three fingers, not all five," and, "Don't put your face into the food." It wasn't until a mere 500 years ago that Europeans started using forks rather than the points of knives to bring food to their lips. Once people had developed the basic set of silverware, however, there was no stopping western civilization. By the middle of the 19th century, our silverware specialization went out of control with salad forks, salad spoons, soup spoons, condiment spoons, desert spoons, pickle forks, fruit forks, fruit knives, marrow scoops, and oyster forks, just to name a few!
June 2002
Adult -- Recommended by: Julie Collins, Reference Librarian
Atonement by Ian McEwan
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Appearing on the New York Times bestseller list shortly after publication, the new novel, Atonement, by Ian Mc Ewan is an engrossing tale of the Tallis family that spans the decades between pre world war II England and up to the end of the 20th century. Briony, the youngest member of the well-to-do family, is a 13 year-old aspiring writer, and our first introduction to the Tallis' The novel opens on a beautiful hot summer day in 1935 and it is the events of this day that change the lives of the family forever. The impact of the 13-year old's erroneous assumptions and mendacity on that fateful day is chronicled from the perspective of her older sister Cecilia, Robbie Turner, the housekeeper's son and Cecilia's childhood friend, as well as from Briony's. Atonement is a well-constructed novel demonstrating how some untruths spoken on a glorious summer day can have effects lasting a lifetime.
Video -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Belly of an Architect (1987)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Starring Brian Dennehy
Written and directed by Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway is almost the quintessential "art" director: not only are his pictures marked by a painterly eye for exquisite screen compositions, but his chosen subject matter nearly always concerns itself with the fine arts and their corruption through patronage. Greenaway's detractors often assert that his work is too oblique and cerebral; however, in BELLY OF AN ARCHITECT, these qualities comfortably exist beside a dramatic character study. In perhaps his greatest screen performance, Brian Dennehy brings to life Stourley Kracklite, a Chicago architect overseeing a Roman exhibition of the obscure architect Boullee's work. Kracklite's preoccupation with Boullee is rivaled only by his obsession with his own debilitating stomach pains, which he likens to the poisoning of the emperor Augustus. As his wife's (Chloe Webb) attentions begin to wander and his control over the Boullee exhibition is threatened, Kracklite witnesses the gradual disintegration of his life. Dennehy's powerful acting and a series of compelling visual symmetries are memorable contributions to this tale of personal decay and artistic creation.
Youth -- Recommended by Mary Smith, Youth Librarian
Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen (Knopf, 2001, 212 pages)
Recommended for grades 6 - 9
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Eighth-graders Bryce and Juli both get a say in this funny "he-said, she-said" story about friendships and relationships. Bryce first meets Juli when they are in 2nd grade and for her, it's love at first sight. For Bryce, however, it's more like hide-and-seek time. He locks himself in the bathroom and refuses to come out until she leaves. As they get older, Juli's crush continues to grow. But by 5th grade, Bryce has had enough and tries over and over to deflect her romantic attentions--always to no avail. Until, finally, two years later, a certain incident involving eggs turns everything they feel about each other completely upside-down.
May 2002
Adult -- Recommended by: Rose Allen, Young Adult Librarian
Undercurrents by Will Davis Roberts (Atheneum Books) Recommended for Young Readers
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
What more could possibly go wrong in the life of a fourteen-year-old? Nikki has recently lost her mother to cancer and her older sister, Bonnie, will soon leave for college. As she walks slowly through her grief, her father announces his plans to remarry. Not only is Crystal a talented artist and one of his clients but she is only a few years older than Bonnie. Nikki grows to understand her father's desire to be happy and attempts to accept Crystal, yet she senses that there is something mysterious about her stepmother's past that has not been revealed to the family. Why does Crystal initially resist the plan to vacation at her childhood home -- a mansion on the northern coast of California complete with its own private beach? After they arrive, why does Crystal insist on disguising her appearance each time that she leaves the house? A suspenseful read that explores the theme of the blended family dynamic and one teenager's quest to come to terms with the issues of grief, loss and acceptance.
Video -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
Starring Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell and Ann Sothern
Written by Vera Caspary and Joseph L. Mankiewicz, from the novel
by John Klempner
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Addie Ross, the alpha female of a small suburban community, has run off with the husband of one of her three best friends: Deborah (Jeanne Crain), Rita (Ann Sothern) and Lora Mae (Linda Darnell). But which one is it? Has Deborah's blue-blooded husband Brad (Jeffrey Lynn) tired of her farm-girl roots? Or has Rita's schoolteacher spouse (Kirk Douglas) become fed up with her being the real breadwinner of the household? Or has golddigging Lora Mae's coarse businessman hubby Porter (Paul Douglas) left her for another one of his employees? It may sound like a soap opera gimmick, but a first-class cast (featuring another show-stealing supporting turn by the great Thelma Ritter) and a razor-sharp script (Mankiewicz's dialogue is a clear precursor to the barbs caustic enough to melt steel which he provided the following year in ALL ABOUT EVE) make the picture a classic. Skating the fringes of poignancy and black humor with ease, A LETTER TO THREE WIVES has aged with remarkable grace: from the smaller moments like Douglas' scathing diatribe against radio melodrama (a biting bit of criticism which could be applied to any of today's popular media) to the larger, timeless theme of marital turmoil, this novel drama is still tremendously entertaining.
Youth -- Recommended by: Sarah Wyatt, Youth Library Assistant
Skeleton Man by Joseph Bruchac (HarperCollins 2001)
Recommended for grades 4 - 7
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Have you ever heard the Native American legend about a skeleton monster? He was a lazy man who refused to help with any of the work in the village. One day when he was waiting as others in the tribe brought back food from the hunt, he burned his finger. When he put it into his mouth to cool it, he thought it tasted so good that he ate off all the flesh! And he continued cooking and eating his body until all that was left was a skeleton. Then he ate all his relatives one by one as they returned--everyone, that is, except his niece. Molly 's parents had told her many such stories as she was growing up, but then they suddenly and mysteriously vanished. Now her great uncle, whom she has never met or even heard of, has come to take care of her. He is so thin that he almost doesn't look human and Molly is not sure he really is her uncle. She is frightened--can she trust this stranger who locks her in her room every night, or has the skeleton legend come to life? A gripping tale of suspense
April 2002
Recommended by: Larry D'Urso Head of Adult Services
Blood on the Moon: the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
by Edward Steers
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Blood on the Moon discusses the people and events that surround the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Although this is a scholarly work, it reads like a novel. The story unfolds as the planning and execution of the assassination and the effort to find the murderers are portrayed. This is followed by the investigation, trial and the aftermath, all of which are described and discussed in detail. The lives of the conspirators are also described as are the factors that influenced and brought them to their deadly decision. This book attempts to answer such questions as: Were Doctor Mudd and Mary Surratt really involved with the conspiracy?, and: How was it that John Wilkes Booth was able to escape Washington so easily the night of the assassination?. This account of Lincoln's assassination will appeal to history buffs and devotees of true crime.
Video -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Two-lane blacktop (1971)
Starring James Taylor, Dennis Wilson and Warren Oates
Written by Rudy Wurlitzer and Will Corry
Directed by Monte Hellman
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
The late-60s/early-70s cycle of "existential road movies" yielded a number of interesting films like EASY RIDER, VANISHING POINT, and ELEKTRA GLIDE IN BLUE, but perhaps the most overlooked was Monte Hellman's minimalist masterpiece, TWO-LANE BLACKTOP. "The Driver" and "The Mechanic" (musicians James Taylor and Dennis Wilson, respectively), have simplified their lives to the point where they exist almost as extensions of the '55 Chevy they race from town to town. Along the way, they encounter a hitchhiker (Laurie Bird) who changes the dynamic between them, and a middle-aged man who wants to race them across the country. The great Warren Oates gives one of his most impressive performances as this challenger ("GTO"), a compulsive liar who nervously reinvents himself with each new character he encounters. The race between GTO and the two younger men is more or less beside the point, though: the real story can be found in the tiny, mundane details which speak volumes in this fascinating allegory
Youth -- Recommended by : Rose Allen, Young Adult Librarian
Turnabout by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Simon & Schuster, 2000, 223 pages) Recommended for grades 6 -10
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Have you ever thought about what it might be like to grow younger each year instead of a year older? Two teens have that opportunity in this science fiction adventure. Eighty years before, Melly and Anny Beth were actually 100 and 103 years old and agreed to be participants in a top-secret, controlled experiment to study the de-aging process. Now that they are teenagers again, something has gone wrong, and someone outside of the project knows about them and is stalking them. Their only solution--to run away from the project and try to and find a family to adopt them before they are too young to take care of themselves. A compelling read for anyone who wants to explore the topic of questionable medical ethics.
March 2002
Adult -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
The Cheese Monkeys
by Chip Kidd (Simon & Schuster, 2001)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Chip Kidd is best known in the publishing world as a superstar book designer, creating striking jackets for books like JURASSIC PARK. But Kidd's skills extend beyond just designing books, as evidenced by his debut novel, THE CHEESE MONKEYS. Set in 1957, THE CHEESE MONKEYS follows Kidd's narrator as he + enters a nameless state college as an art major. His underwhelming initial college experience–along with the very typeface of the book--become transformed when he encounters two people: the free-spirited, acid-tongued, bon mot-dispensing fellow student Himillsy Dodd; and their unpredictable, equally acid-tongued Graphic Design instructor Winter Sorbeck. With the introduction of Sorbeck, this witty satire of college becomes both a fascinating treatise on the art of graphic design and a intriguing coming-of-age tale. Despite their improbable names, these vivid characters help make THE CHEESE MONKEYS a memorable read and an impressive first novel.
Video -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Starring Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet
Written by Frances Walsh and Peter Jackson
Directed by Peter Jackson
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Before his adaptation of THE LORD OF THE RINGS and its multiple Oscar nominations, Peter Jackson's main claim to fame was making pictures about zombie mothers and foul-mouthed puppets. That all changed with 1994's HEAVENLY CREATURES, which took Jackson's visual inventiveness and combined it with a powerful and disturbing story. Based on an actual New Zealand murder case in 1952 involving future novelist Anne Perry, the picture deals with the tragic friendship between two adolescent girls (Melanie Lynskey and–making her screen debut–Kate Winslet). Jackson's imaginative realization of the fantasy world the pair share is deftly juxtaposed against the dark reality of their lives, as opposition to the closeness of their relationship leads inexorably to madness and death. Touching and haunting in equal measures, HEAVENLY CREATURES is a strongly crafted examination of a doomed bond and an unthinkable crime.
Youth -- Recommended by : Mary Ann Sibrava, Youth Librarian
Bo & Mzzz Mad
by Sid Fleischman (Greenwillow Books, 2001, 103 pages) Recommended for grades 4-8
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Twelve-year-old Bo Gamage, newly orphaned, accepts an invitation to stay with his only relatives despite a generations-old feud that has kept the Gamage and the Martinka branches of the family far, far apart. When he arrives in the tiniest of towns, smack dab in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert, things do indeed get off to a rather rocky start. His sharp-tongued cousin Madeline – or "Mzzz Mad" as she prefers – irritates him no end and his Grampa Charlie Martinka is cantankerous and suspicious. Even Aunt Juna, though pleasant enough, seems to have invited him on false pretenses. Just when he decides he's had enough and tries to take off back to the city, the whole bunch of them gets caught up in a very real and dangerous mystery about lost mines, thievery, mistaken identities, and the strength of family ties. Hang on for a great ride with this one! It's a quick read with a fast past, colorful characters and exciting plot twists.
February 2002
Adult -- Recommended by: Carrie Bissey, Adult Services
October Suite
by Maxine Clair
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
When we first meet October Brown, in Kansas in 1950, she is heading for a big mistake. A newly minted African-American teacher, October is living on her own for the first time and falls in love with a married man who returns to his wife after October realizes that she is pregnant. She decides to have the baby, but becomes deeply depressed after her son's birth and impulsively gives him away to her sister and brother-in-law, who desperately want children. As October recovers and matures, she realizes the gravity of her decision but struggles to go on with her life while longing for her son and clashing with her sister over the secret they all keep from the boy. October's story is enriched by period details and well-developed characters who act with realistic compassion and cruelty. An absorbing look at a woman coming to terms with her past and shaping a better future.
Video -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Brief Encounter (1946)
Starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard
Written by Noel Coward
Directed by David Lean
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
The plot of BRIEF ENCOUNTER is a simple one, perhaps deceptively so: a suburban housewife (Celia Johnson) has a chance meeting with a doctor (Trevor Howard) at a train station, in the course of their weekly routines. Yet, the affair which gradually ensues from that meeting–and the somewhat reluctant rendezvous which follow–reveals this picture as one of the most heartbreakingly romantic films ever made. Laura (Johnson) and Alec's (Howard) fragile, tentative romance is restrained by equal parts British middle-class repression and devotion to their respective spouses: the affair develops in the smallest nuances, anchored in a realistic context provided by a director (David Lean) better known for sweeping epics like LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. But it is this everyday tone which is BRIEF ENCOUNTER's greatest strength, elevating it beyond melodrama and rendering the couple's emotions touchingly believable. Subtle and poignant, BRIEF ENCOUNTER more than justifies its status as a classic of romantic cinema.
January 2002
Adult -- Recommended by: Anne Shaughnessy, Adult Services
The Thief Taker
by T. F. Banks (Delacorte Press, 2001)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
In London of the early 19th century, before there was Scotland Yard, there was Bow Street and its Runners. These "thief-takers" acted as the city's detectives and policemen. In T. F. Banks' new novel, The Thief Taker, we learn about one such Runner, Henry Morton. Morton isn't your average Runner: he dresses as a gentleman, reads the words of Byron, and possesses a certain charm matched by a strong sense of decency. But he's no stranger to the gritty streets of London. It is on these streets that his freedom and his life are threatened as he investigates the murder of a young gentleman. If you like the atmospheric history and mystery of Anne Perry's novels, try The Thief Taker by T. F. Banks; you may be charmed by its detective as well.
Video -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
One, Two, Three (1961)
Starring James Cagney, Horst Buchholz and Pamela Tiffin
Written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond
Directed by Billy Wilder
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
How hilariously breakneck-paced is ONE, TWO, THREE? It makes HIS GIRL FRIDAY look like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. James Cagney gives the fast-talking comic performance of a lifetime as C.R. MacNamara, head of Coca-Cola's West German bottling plant. MacNamara's long-desired promotion depends on one thing: keeping an eye on his boss' teenage daughter (Pamela Tiffin) as she vacations in Berlin. Naturally, she evades MacNamara's chaperoning and in short order becomes involved with a ne'er-do-well East German Communist (Horst Buchholz). MacNamara has to resolve this situation or kiss his corporate ambitions goodbye, but the scenario becomes ever more frantically complicated by the minute. Comic master Billy Wilder's famously sharp-tongued dialogue has never been as fast or as funny as in this raucous farce of Cold War capitalism.
December 2001
Adult -- Recommended by: Gwen M. LaCosse, Patron Assistant, Adult Services
Ice Bound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole
by Dr. Jerri Nielsen with Maryanne Vollers (Hyperion, 2001)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Why would anyone willingly go to Antarctica, specifically the South Pole, a land of unimaginable cold and isolation, to work as a medical doctor? American Jerri Nielsen wasn't just any physician. Fueled by a longtime appetite for adventure, insatiable curiosity and a need for a major change of scenery, Nielsen took on the South Pole in late 1998. The sole medical doctor at the research station, she found her adventure. Nielsen made friends, establishing tight bonds within a community of dedicated and colorful colleagues. There were intriguing scientific matters as well. 1999 brought Nielsen a life-altering challenge, a diagnosis of breast cancer. It tested her mettle as a physician and as a human being. Ultimately, Dr. Jerri Nielsen was rescued from the South Pole. Ice Bound is her story.
Video -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Bottle Rocket (1996)
Starring Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson and Robert Musgrave
Written by Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson
Directed by Wes Anderson
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Prior to making one of the best films of the 1990s (RUSHMORE), Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson introduced their blend of sweet-tempered humanism and low-key comedy with BOTTLE ROCKET. Ostensibly a heist flick (complete with a very misleading video-box depiction of gunplay), BOTTLE ROCKET is in actuality an exceptionally laid-back tale of adolescent camaraderie and small ambitions. Fresh from a stay in a mental hospital, Anthony (Luke Wilson) is recruited by his reality-challenged friend Dignan (Owen Wilson) in an absurd plan to become master criminals. However, after another friend (Robert Musgrave) becomes involved, the trio's schemes begin to disintegrate into aimlessness. Affable performances from the now-ubiquitous Wilson brothers turn BOTTLE ROCKET's gently ambling pace and charming comedic quirks into a picture one can't help but like.
Youth -- Recommended by: Sarah Wyatt, Youth Library Assistant
Owen Foote, Money Man
by Stephanie Greene (Clarion Books, 2000, 88 pages)
Recommended for grades 2-4
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Here is another in the easy-to-read chapter book series about our hero, Owen. He has been a Strongman, a Soccer Star and a Frontiersman, and now he returns as Owen Foote, Money Man -- or at least he'd like to be a Money Man. In order to buy the necessities of plastic vomit, whoopee cushions and fake doggy droppings, Owen needs money really fast. However, his parents actually expect him to work for it -- clean his room, unload the dishwasher, pick up dirty laundry, feed the dog and everything! Never at a loss for ideas, Owen and his best friend, Joseph, try scheme after scheme, some with disastrous and amusing results. Meet Owen today and get in on the fun!
November 2001
Adult -- Recommended by: Larry D'Urso, Head of Adult Services
Nothing like it in the world: the men who build the transcontinental railroad, 1863-1869
by Stephen Ambrose (Simon and Schuster, 2000)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
This book is a balanced and interesting account of the building of the first transcontinental railroad. While written for the general reader, it is authoritative and well researched using both primary and secondary sources. The book discusses the great accomplishment of constructing a 2000 mile railroad over the prairie, deserts and mountains using the technology of the mid Nineteenth Century. It also describes the people, both the company managers and the laborers in the field, and how they worked, lived and accomplished this task (both the ethical means and the not so ethical). History buffs, railroad enthusiasts and readers of popular nonfiction will enjoy this book.
Video -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Starring Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Susan Harrison
Written by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets, from the novel by Ernest Lehman
Directed by Alexander Mackendrick
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Right from the start, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS has plenty going for it: gorgeously stark black-and-white cinematography delineating a debased Manhattan of endless nightclubs; a crackling jazz score by Elmer Bernstein rife with jumpy energy; muscular dialogue in a memorably hard-boiled style. Add to this mix two intensely powerful performances by Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, and you've got a masterful ode to blackhearted American ambition. Lancaster plays J.J. Hunsecker, a newspaper columnist (reportedly based on Walter Winchell) with enough power and influence to place movie stars and senators alike at his feet. Curtis is his sycophant, Sydney Falco–a struggling press agent with hardly two scruples to rub together. Hunsecker isn't happy about his sister's romance with a jazz musician, and he wants Falco to break up the pair. Since Falco's livelihood stands or falls on Hunsecker's say-so, he doesn't have much choice–but doing so will do more than just get his hands dirty. SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS has a pervasive atmosphere of bleak cynicism which retains its compelling impact decades later.
Youth -- Recommended by: Steve Browne, Youth Services Reference Specialist
The Fanatic's Ecstatic Aromatic Guide to Onions, Garlic, Shallots and Leeks
by Marilyn Singer (Prentice-Hall, 1981, 262 pages)
Recommended for grades 5 and up
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Suffering from a cold? An earache? An upset stomach? The plague? Then you need to know what's in this book. This is a book about alliums, members of the plant family that includes onions, garlic, leeks, chives and shallots. You'll find out everything you'd ever want to know about alliums including folklore, poetry, jokes, scientific facts and recipes for savory dishes. Find out what's good for what ails you, why onions make you cry and how garlic keeps away vampires.
October 2001
Adult -- Recommended by: Rose Allen, Adult Services
Eva
by Peter Dickinson (Bantam Doubleday Dell Books, 1988)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Eva awakens in a hospital from a coma following a terrible accident. She knows that her parents and doctors are keeping something from her, and they will not allow her to look in a mirror. What drastic measures were taken to keep Eva alive? This entertaining yet thought-provoking book is sure to please both teenagers and adults.
Video -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
The Beguiled (1971)
Starring Clint Eastwood, Geraldine Page and Elizabeth Hartman
Written by John B. Sherry and Grimes Grice, from the novel by Thomas Cullinan
Directed by Don Siegel
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
After successful collaborations on COOGAN'S BLUFF and TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA–and before striking box-office gold with DIRTY HARRY–Clint Eastwood and director Don Siegel reteamed to make this tense gothic melodrama. Set near the end of the Civil War, THE BEGUILED tells the story of a Union soldier (Eastwood) wounded in Southern territory, who finds refuge in a girls' school. Faced with the threat of being turned over to Confederate authorities, Eastwood must curry the favor of the school's headmistress (Geraldine Page) and her students. It soon becomes clear, though, that he's playing with fire; psychological tensions mount in the hothouse atmosphere, slowly bringing an undercurrent of menace to the surface. Dreamily shot and garnished with fine performances (particularly Eastwood's amoral manipulations), THE BEGUILED is almost certain to surprise you.
Youth -- Recommended by: Marsha Whiteside, Youth Program Assistant
King of Shadows
by Susan Cooper (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 1999, 186 pages)
Recommended for grades 5 through 8
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Nat Field is thrilled at his good fortune! As part of an exclusive all-boy acting group, he gets to travel to London to perform in Shakepeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in the rebuilt Globe Theater. However, not feeling well after a day of rehearsal, he falls asleep, then mysteriously wakes up in the 16th century at the original Globe. Now he experiences the world of Shakespeare first hand, and he even has the opportunity to know and help this great man, his idol, in person. Check out this book for a lively and touching time-travel adventure into history.
September 2001
Adult -- Recommended by: Linda Burns, Readers' Advisory Librarian
Julie and Romeo
by Jeanne Ray (Crown Publishing, 2000)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Inspired by Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, this novel is the comic and contemporary love story of Romeo Cacciamani and Julie Roseman, both adults and rival florists in Boston. Although they are intensely attracted to each other, their families have been feuding for years. When Romeo's mother, Julie's ex-husband and their cast of children begin to hatefully intervene, Romeo and Julie must decide whether or not they should follow their hearts. First time novelist, Jeanne Ray, has written a delightful and touching story that celebrates the timeless nature of romance.
Video -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
City Hunter (1992)
Starring Jackie
Written and directed by Jing Wong
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Jackie Chan is at his absolute silliest in this live-action adaptation of a popular Japanese manga and anime. Chan plays Ryu Saeba, a private eye nicknamed City Hunter who is hired by a publishing magnate to find his missing daughter. The trail leads from Hong Kong to a cruise ship about to be hijacked by a gang of criminals, but what could easily become another tiresome rehash of DIE HARD is redeemed by the energetic and cartoonish tone of the picture. Anything goes in CITY HUNTER, from the perpetually-hungry Chan hallucinating a girl as a hamburger, to an odd parallel of the Bruce Lee/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar fight from GAME OF DEATH as the film plays on a movie screen, to a frankly bizarre sequence wherein several combatants are transformed into characters from a "Street Fighter" video game. The gags are certainly lowbrow and occasionally merely childish–but with the exception of a perplexing musical number called "Gala Gala Happy", the missteps pale in comparison to the frenetic fun which enlivens CITY HUNTER.
Youth -- Recommended by: Sarah Wyatt, Library Assistant, Elementary Outreach
Regarding the Fountain: A Tale, in Letters, of Liars and Leaks
by Kate Klise (Avon Books, 1998, 138 pages)
Recommended for grades 4 through 6
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Dry Creek, Missouri, used to be called Spring Creek until 30 years ago when the spring dried up. In that same year Dry Creek Middle School was built. Now, 30 years later, the school needs a new water fountain and a series of letters, memos, articles and faxes--regarding the fountain--exposes the mystery behind Dry Creek. An intriguing tale filled with fanciful illustrations and clue-filled correspondence.
August 2001
Adult -- Recommended by: Alice Tucker, Adult Services
The Last Jew
by Noah Gordon (St. Martin's Press, 2000)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
It is the year 1492 in Spain and the Inquisition is in full force. Yonah Toledano, 15 years old and son of a prominent silversmith, witnesses the murders of his father and brother.. Yonah is a fugitive on a meandering journey through Spain. His journey is gripping as he outwits the sinister Inquisitors in his vendetta to find those responsible. His life on the run is both intriguing and fascinating. You will not be disappointed in the historical and literary excellence of Noah Gordon. This international best selling author is a master in his craft. His trilogy, The Physician, The Shaman and Matters of Choice are other award winning books.
Video -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Girls of Rochefort) (1967)
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Francoise Dorleac, and Gene Kelly
Written and directed by Jacques Demy
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Possibly one of the most gorgeous motion pictures ever made, THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT–Jacques Demy's follow-up to THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG–takes the conventional musical off the studio set and envigorates it with colorful, sunlit location shooting. Twin sisters (Catherine Deneuve and her real-life sister, Francoise Dorleac) dream of finding their ideal loves and leaving their small town of Rochefort. The arrival of a musical fair and an American composer (Gene Kelly) initiates a series of intricate missed romantic connections among several characters, with all the obstacles and revelations involved buoyed by Michel Legrand's infectious songs. Vibrant, occasionally silly, and about as charming a film as you're ever likely to see, THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT seems to capture the very essence of springtime.
July 2001
Adult -- Recommended by: Frances Mitilineos, Adult Services
Passage
by Connie Willis (Bantam Books, 2001)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
"Passage," by Connie Willis is an absorbing and thought-provoking work which combines the characteristics of a medical thriller, reminiscent of Robin Cook, with humor and traces of both sci-fi and time-travel. The story involves medical research on Near Death Experience but also weaves the dangers faced by Emergency Room workers, the trials of Alzheimer's Disease for patients and caretakers, the heartbreak of children with life-threatening medical problems, and, surprisingly, lots of detail on the sinking of the Titanic into a story of love and sacrifice. This novel, which is hard to put down, will leave you wondering about the endurance of love and the nature of life after death.
Video -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Hard Eight (1996)
Starring Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly and Gwyneth Paltrow
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
P.T. Anderson's Boogie Nights and Magnolia were bravura pieces of filmmaking, notable for their sprawling casts of talented actors, resonant use of music, and Scorsese-esque hyperkinetic camera work. But underlying these flashy qualities were a surehanded direction of actors and an almost preternatual gift for dramatic dialogue–strengths which are prominently on display in Anderson's first feature, Hard Eight. Philip Baker Hall delivers an impressively multilayered performance as Sydney, an aging professional gambler who takes down-on-his-luck loser John (John C. Reilly) under his wing, for enigmatic reasons. John's involvement with an equally wounded waitress (Gwyneth Paltrow) and a shady casino worker (Samuel L. Jackson) introduce a noir element to the film, but this plot is ultimately secondary to the more nuanced story of the oddly paternal relationship between Sydney and John. This compelling character study is another overlooked gem.
Youth -- Recommended by: Brian Conway, Library Assistant/Child Care Outreach
A Dinosaur Named Sue: The Story of the Colossal Fossil
by Pat Relf (Scholastic, 2001, 64 pages)
Recommended for grades 3 - 8
No bones about it, kids really dig dinosaurs! Right here in our own backyard, we have one of the most famous dinosaurs in the world, the Tyrannosaurus rex known as Sue. In this nonfiction book by Pat Relf, who wrote many books in the Magic School Bus series, Sue's amazing story is told, from the discovery of her virtually complete skeleton in the hills of South Dakota to the historic fossil's popular display at the Field Museum here in Chicago. With amazing color photos and simple text showing the careful process of excavating, moving, cleaning, and assembling the massive skeleton, this is a compelling true story for younger and older readers alike. For dinosaur fans and aspiring fossil hunters, A Dinosaur Named Sue is a fantastic find!
June 2001
Adult -- Recommended by: Larry D'Urso, Head of Adult Services
How To Work a Room: a Guide To Successfully Managing the Mingling.
by Susan RoAne (Warner Books, 1989)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
This is a great book for those individuals who find themselves in business or social situations that require a lot of schmoozing but feel uncomfortable with the experience of doing it. The author provides a lot of useful and practical information on how to start a conversation and keep it going (and when and how to stop), improving networking skills, overcoming shyness and discomfort, etc. Its fast pace and easy reading style make the book a good choice for those individuals on the go with limited time. This book is must reading for those who frequent business receptions, charity fundraisers or any gathering where one needs to "work the room". Other books by the same author are: The Secrets of Savvy Networking and What Do I Say Next?.
Video -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Champagne for Caesar (1950)
Starring Ronald Colman, Celeste Holm and Vincent Price
Written by Hans Jacoby and Fred Brady
Directed by Richard Whorf
Chances are, you've never heard of Champagne for Caesar–and that's a shame, because this riotously funny spoof on prime-time game shows is probably even more on-target now than when it was first released (on a very limited basis) in 1950. Ronald Colman (Lost Horizon, The Prisoner of Zenda) plays an unemployed genius who seeks a job at Vincent Price's soap company. When Price scorns his considerable intellect, Colman appears on the quiz show the company sponsors with the intent of winning enough money to bankrupt Price. The screwball dialogue is right up there with anything Preston Sturges could have written, and Price is jaw-droppingly hilarious as he grows ever more desperate and histrionic.
May 2001
Adult -- Recommended by: Julie Collins, Reference Librarian
Julia's Kitchen Wisdom: essential techniques and recipes from a lifetime of cooking.
by Julia Child
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
The title of the latest cooking manual from Julia Child is a good description of this well-organized and comprehensive reference to basic and not-so basic cooking techniques. Only 127 pages long, useful and instructive tips and recipes are packed into each page. Arranged by type of food, i.e. soups, salad, vegetables, meat, etc and then by technique within that chapter. One can take a "master" recipe, which is followed by several variations, and adapt it to the ingredients at hand. A truly unique and valuable resource, it will surely become a classic.
Youth -- Recommended by: Beth Corrigan, Outreach Librarian
Tops & Bottoms
by Janet Stevens (Harcourt Brace, 1995, 32 pages)
Recommended for preschool -- grade 2
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
In order to feed his hungry family, clever Hare makes a deal with his rich and lazy neighbor Bear. He and his family will work in Bear's large garden to grow food and then they'll split the crops in half. Bear even gets to pick which half he wants -- tops or bottoms. Bear agrees, but soon realizes that conniving Hare still has gotten the best of him. This is a great trickster tale, complete with lively, full-color illustrations covering the entire page from top to bottom.
April 2001
Adult -- Recommended by: Rose Allen, Young Adult Librarian
The Last book in the Universe
by Rodman Philbrick (The Blue Sky Press, 2000)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
The most recent novel for teens by award winning author, Rodman Philbrick evolved from a short story that had previously been published in a collection. This engaging read illuminates a future world where no one reads and books are all but forgotten. Spaz, the teen protagonist, aligns himself with a gang in order to survive. It is only after meeting his intended victim, Ryter, that Spaz discovers that he must choose between illusion and denial. As he confronts his suppressed feelings, he learns that only unconditional love for family, and respect for a senior mentor will serve to ultimately challenge him to use his talents as he embarks on a journey to change the terrifying world in which he lives.
Youth -- Recommended by: Marcia Lyons, Preschool Outreach Liaison
Dovey Coe
by Frances O'Roark Dowell (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2000, 181 pages)
Recommended for grades 4-7
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Strong-willed and outspoken, Dovey Coe is one to protect her kin. Most folks think her older brother Amos is slow because he's deaf, but Dovey knows better -- she taught him to read! And she's prouder than anything of her older sister Caroline who dreams of heading to college in the fall. But trouble brews that summer when Parnell Caraway, unwelcome though he is, starts spending time at the Coe's house to court Caroline. Dovey finds herself in a very serious fix as she is accused of killing Parnell, and during the trial she learns much about family loyalty, friendship and herself.
March 2001
Adult -- Recommended by: Larry D'Urso, Head of Adult Services
Bud, Not Buddy
by Chrisopher Paul Curtis (Delacorte, 1999)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Riding the Rails (videorecording)
WGBH Boston, 1997
Bud, Not Buddy, a novel by Christopher Paul Curtis, is a story of a courageous and determined 10 year old boy. His mother dies and Bud lives in an orphanage and a series of foster homes. From clues left by his mom, Bud believes his father to be alive and so he runs away and sets off in search of his dad. On the way, he encounters people and events that help and hinder him but, nothing can stop him in his quest. The setting for the story is Michigan during the Great Depression of the 1930s. A portion of this book vividly illustrates the life of homeless, unemployed people living in "Hoovervilles" and hopping freight trains to other towns in search of jobs. For those interested in learning more about this time in our history, the documentary video Riding the Rails tells the story of the 250,000 teenagers who left their homes and hopped freight trains in search of a way out of poverty. This is a moving and powerful story of courage in the face of desperation and of the struggle to survive.
Youth -- Recommended by: Carol Leeson, Head of Youth Services
Silverwing
by Kenneth Oppel (Simon and Schuster, 1997, 217 pages)
Recommended for ages 10 - 12
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Their summer roost destroyed, the silverwing bat colony relocates to the safety of their winter hibernation grounds, and the yearling Shade becomes separated during the move. As he searches for home, Shade encounters, among other things, a brightwing bat with a strange metal band on her forearm, a large South American bat who feeds on other bats and a colony of banded bats who believe they will be transformed into humans.
February 2001
Adult -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Reference Librarian
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
by Cris Ware (Pantheon, 2000)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Chris Ware's astonishingly dense (and exquisitely designed) graphic novel relates the reunion of lonely nobody Jimmy Corrigan and his estranged father, punctuated by the parallel tale of an earlier generation of father-son Corrigans at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Emotionally powerful in its depiction of everyday cruelty and heartbreaking alienation, Jimmy Corrigan deftly balances its often claustrophobic tone with rich historical detail and surreal interludes into Jimmy's dreamlife. If you're unfamiliar with the medium of graphic storytelling, this moving examination of the hope and despair of family relationships will open your eyes.
Youth -- Recommended by: Sarah Wyatt, Elementary Outreach
Nory Ryan's Song
by Patricia Reilly Gif (Delacorte Press, 2000, 148 pages)
Recommended for grades 4-6
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
During the Great Hunger of 1845-1852, more than a million people in Ireland died of starvation and illness. Inspired by the experiences of her own great-grandparents, Giff tells the story of Nory Ryan, a young girl living in Ireland in 1845. When a terrible blight strikes the potato crop it means no money and no food, and it becomes Nory's responsibility to keep her family from starving.
January 2001
Adult -- Recommended by: Carrie Bissey, Adult Services
Being Dead
by Jim Crace (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
One of Salon.com's "Best Books of 2000," this novel begins as a married couple is murdered on a beach. But it is not a murder mystery--it is an examination of love and life and death. Fascinating, intense, and somewhat gruesome chapters describe the physical deterioration of the bodies of the couple as they lie undiscovered for a week. Alternating chapters tell us about the small decisions that the couple made on what would ultimately be the last day of their lives, the story of how they met and fell in love, and the reactions of their rebellious daughter as she deals with her parents' disappearance and death. A unique and surprising book that will draw you in, make you care deeply about the characters, and make you rethink your own assumptions about love and death.
Youth -- Recommended by: Katherine Orals, Library Assistant
A Big Cheese for the White House: The True Tale of a Tremendous Cheddar
by Candace Fleming (DK Publishing, 1999, 32 pages)
Recommended for grades K-4
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
An almost-true tale of how the citizens of Cheshire, Massachusetts, with an idea from Elder John Leland, decide to send a really big cheese to President Thomas Jefferson. Can they do it? Can they collect all the milk, press the curds, and transport that 1,235-pound cheese to Washington, D.C.? Lively drawings bring this humorous picture book to life.
December 2000
Adult -- Recommended by: Anne Shaughnessy, Adult Services
Sisters of Cain
by Miriam Grace Monfredo (Berkley Publishing Group, 2000)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Washington City in 1862 was a dirty, confusing town embroiled in a bitter feud known to us as the Civil War. Union and Confederate sympathizers worked here and in nearby Virginia and Maryland to further their respective causes. In Sisters of Cain Miriam Grace Monfredo tells us about this behind-the-lines tale through the characters of sisters Bronwen and Kathryn Llyr. Bronwen is a volunteer spy with the Treasury Department while Kathryn is a nurse for the Union Army. Each faces numerous dangerous challenges as she confronts Rebel spys, arrogant doctors, double agents, and wily politicians. As she has in her numerous books featuring Glynis Tryon, Kathryn and Bronwen's aunt, Monfredo places the reader directly into the action, bringing to life fictional and historical individuals whose emotions become as immediate and memorable as our own.
Youth -- Recommended by: Sarah Wyatt, elementary Outreach
Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio
by Peg Kehret (Albert Whitman & Company, 1996, 179 pages)
Recommended for grades 4-6
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
This is the true and moving story of the author's own battle with polio when she was 12 years old. Back in 1949, polio had no cure and many people were left paralyzed by this devastating disease. Subjected to torturous therapies and separated from her family, Peg still manages to keep her positive attitude and even makes new friends who are "like soldiers in a war together and the enemy is polio."
November 2000
Adult -- Recommended by: Frances Mitilineos, Adult Services
My Century
by Günther Grass (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1999)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Günter Grass' contribution to the millenium is My Century, a collection of one hundred stories - one for each year - forming a narrative of the 20th century. Each story has a different narrative but together the stories tell of the technical advancement, political events, social changes and cultural developments which shaped the last century. From a German soldier in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, through the depression years of the 1930's, to the social upheaval of a reunited Germany, Grass' thought-provoking vignettes grasp and hold the reader's interest.
Youth -- Recommended by: Steve Browne, Youth Librarian/Technology Coordinator
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Books of Wonder, 1992, 342 pages)
Recommended for ages 11 and up
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
"Suddenly my eyes caught the glint of a light. At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then it lengthened until it became a yellow line, and then, without warning, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared..." What is Sherlock to make of this eerie scene--does he have a clue? Latch on to this heart-pounding tale, "The Red-Headed League," just one of a dozen masterful detective stories in this very first collection of Doyle's mind-boggling mysteries.
October 2000
Adult -- Recommended by: Carla Peterson, Adult Services
Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest
by Wayne Muller (Bantam Books, 1999)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Sabbath is an insightful read; an antidote to busy minds and lives. The author encourages the reader with stories, poems, and practices to restore the rhythm between work and rest. Recommended for anyone searching to create Sabbath space in their life.
Youth -- Recommended by: Mary Ann Sibrava, Youth Reference Librarian
My Monster Mama Loves Me So
by Laura Leuck (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1999, 24 pages)
Recommended for ages 3-5
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Does Monster Mama love her little one? You bet she does--with tweaks and tickles and big hairy hugs! IIlustrated with a bit of a ghoulish flair, this warm and funny story will surely bring out the giggles and snuggles at bedtime.
September 2000
Adult -- Recommended by: Rosemary Groenwald, Readers' Advisory Librarian
River King
by Alice Hoffman (Putnam Publishing Group, 2000)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Alice Hoffman's latest novel is set in a private school located in a small New England town. For more than a century the town has been divided, separating those individuals born and bred in the village from those individuals who attend the prestigious Haddan School. The author uses strong lyrical prose to spin a web of love and heartbreak and transcendence as she explores the theme of whom one chooses to love and who loves in return.
Youth -- Recommended by: Sarah Wyatt, Library Assistant, Elementary Outreach
Lives of the Presidents: Fame, Shame (and What the Neighbors Thought)
by Kathleen Krull (Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998, 96 pages)
Recommended for grades 4 through 8
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
With the Presidential election just around the corner, here's an entertaining history book that uses juicy bits of gossip and humor to reveal the human side of United States' presidents. Find out which president was nicknamed "Sleeping Beauty," who was the first to go up in an airplane, and who had the most children. Kathleen Krull's Lives of . . . series also covers athletes, musicians, artists, and writers, so there's something for everyone!
August 2000
Adult -- Recommended by: Linda Burns, Readers' Advisory Librarian
Half a Heart
by Rosellen Brown (Farrar, Straus & Grioux, Inc., 2000)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
While teaching at a Mississippi university in the 1960's, Miriam Vener becomes involved in a relationship with an African-American teacher that results in the birth of her daughter, Ronnee. Circumstances force Miriam to leave Ronnee with her father. Even though Miriam moves on to a new life in a wealthy, Jewish, Houston suburb, she can't forget Ronnee. Miriam initiates a search and is finally reunited with her daughter eighteen years later. Brown creates a beautiful story involving race and privilege, identity and belonging, public and private ideals, and a mother's undying love for her child.
Youth -- Recommended by: Marcia B. Lyons, Library Assistant, Preschool Outreach
The Trolls
by Polly Horvath (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1999, 136 pages)
Recommended for grades 3 through 6
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
While their parents are in Paris, Melissa, Amanda, and their brother Pee Wee remain in the care of their ever-so-odd Aunt Sally. It turns out --- she is a great storyteller who fascinates the kids with wild family tales. There is Great Uncle Louis, for example, who stopped by for a visit and stayed for six years! And then there is Mrs. Gunderson, the dog. Believe it or not, even trolls pop up in the family history and they change lives forever. Get to know this unusual family and let each new story wrap you in its warmth and humor.
July 2000
Adult -- Recommended by: Alice Tucker, Adult Services
The Dress Lodger
by Sheri Holman (Grove/Atlantic Inc., 2000)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
If you enjoy Dickensian, 19th century historical fiction, you will enjoy the dark, sinister world of industrial England --- surgeons seeking cadavers, prostitutes, serial murders, and the fright of the cholera epidemic. The plot will remain with you for several days. Great read!
Youth -- Recommended by: Carol Leeson, Head of Youth Services
The Beasties
by Willaim Sleator (Dutton Children's Books, 1997, 198 pages)
Recommended for ages 10-14
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
When fifteen-year-old Doug is warned by friends to stay out of the woods near his new home, he doesn't take it seriously at first. Athough ,eventually, he cannot deny the evidence that something weird is going on. New neighbors are mysteriously missing parts of their bodies. And there are the unusual "gifts" that he and his sister find in the woods. Then, when his sister finds a hidden entrance to a strange underground tunnel system, Doug is torn between protecting her and steering clear of all trouble. Sleator creates another great tale of creepy suspense here...Are there really "monsters" in the woods? And, if so, are they the beasties or are they the humans?
June 2000
Adult -- Recommended by: Larry D'Urso, Head of Adult Services
Chronicle of the Roman Emperors: the Reign-By-Reign Record of the Rulers of Imperial Rome
by Chris Scarre (London, Thames and Hudson, 1995)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
This biographical historical account of the rulers of ancient Rome is a fascinating read. The work arranges the rulers in chronological order and highlights the personal and historical events of each showing the interrelationships and flow of events. The book is beautifully illustrated with maps, drawings, genealogies, tables and photographs which enhance the text. Other titles in the series include: Clayton, Peter, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames and Hudson, 1994; Warnes, David, Chronicle of the Russian Tsars, Thames and Hudson, 1999.
May 2000
Adult -- Recommended by: Julie Collins, Reference Librarian
A Man in Full
by Tom Wolfe (MacMurray & Beck, 1999)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
This novel revolves around a contemporary Icarus, Charlie Croker, Atlanta real estate magnate and conglomerate king. His crumbling empire provides the backdrop for inter-weaving plots and subplots peopled with numerous engaging characters to create an amusing and sometimes hilarious tale of a truly modern fall from grace.
Youth -- Recommended by: Tina Martin, Youth Librarian/Program Coordinator
The Grannyman
by Judith Byron Schachner (Dutton Children's Books, 1999, 30 pages)
Recommended for grades 3 and up
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
A much loved but aging cat named Simon, feeling old and useless, decides one night that the end is near. As he lies down in a favorite chair to take his last breath, he feels a soft thump on his tummy and opens his eyes to a small kitten. His caring family, having sensed his dilemma, gives him a new kitten to raise. Suddenly, Simon has a purpose! Enhanced by the expressive illustrations, this endearing story of a family's love for their pet will appeal to animal lovers of all ages.
April 2000
Adult -- Recommended by: Gwen M. LaCosse, patron assistant
3 Dollars
by Elliot Perlman (MacMurray & Beck, 1999)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Much lies beyond Eddie Harnovey's control by age 38: family illnesses; job-related craziness; money troubles; rotting bathroom tiles. However, Australian author Elliot Perlman has endowed Eddie, the central character in his debut novel, 3 Dollars, with a wry sense of humor to address the maze of modern-day overload.
Youth -- Recommended by: Katherine Orals, Reference Librarian
Anna of Byzantium
by Tracy Barrett (Delacorte Press, 1999, 209 pages)
Recommended for grades 6 and up
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Anna Comnena is born to be a princess and successor to the Byzantine Empire. The birth of a baby brother changes her future and Anna must now fight for her birthright. Based on a real historical figure of the 11th century, this story is full of mystery and intrigue.
March 2000
Adult -- Recommended by: Ginny Schlachter, Adult Services
The Saving Graces
by Patricia Gaffney (HarperCollins, 1999)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
The four women in this emotional novel have been getting together for dinners for over 10 years in their Washington D.C. homes. With each chapter told by one of the women, the story makes you laugh with their joy and cry with their pain as they cope with powerful issues of breast cancer, a controlling husband and others.
Youth -- Recommended by: Aileen Henaughan, Library Assistant, Child Care Outreach
Who Are You?
by Joan Lowery Nixon (Delacorte Press, 1999, 184 pages)
Recommended for grades 6 and up
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Sixteen-year-old Kristi, an aspiring artist, is arguing with her parents when the doorbell rings. It's the police with news about a man named Douglas Merson who has been shot in his home. This information means nothing to them until they learn that he has been keeping a secret file on Kristi for years. Who is this man? What does he want with Kristi? A suspenseful mystery that you won't want to put down!
February 2000
Adult -- Recommended by: Kathy Murray, Reference Librarian
Lavender Lies: A China Bayles Mystery
by Susan Wittig Albert (Berkley Prime Crime, 1999)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Lavender Lies is the eighth China Bayles mystery set in the small Texas town of Pecan Springs. Lawyer turned herbalist, China Bayles has only six days to finish the wedding preparations for her marriage to Mike McQuaid, Acting Police Chief. The murder of a greedy local real estate developer and Hurricane Josephine, fast approaching the Texas coast, threaten the upcoming nuptials. If you enjoy eccentric characters and small town charm, with some herbal lore and recipes woven in, you will enjoy this latest China Bayles mystery. If this is your first taste of Susan Wittig Albert, you will want to start with the first book of this series, Thyme of Death.
Youth -- Recommended by: Steve Browne, Youth Services Librarian
Stranger with My Face
by Lois Duncan
(Dell, 1981, 235 pages)
Recommended for grades 6 - 9
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
First, Laurie gets the creepy sensation that someone is spying on her. Then her boyfriend breaks up with her, claiming to have seen her with another boy. Next, two of her friends avoid her because they say she was rude to them. Yet Laurie knows she was not the one doing any of these things. Are her friends plotting against her? Is she going crazy? Her worst fears are soon realized -- and surpassed -- in this tale of suspense and the supernatural.
January 2000
Adult -- Recommended by: Rose Allen, Adult Services
Ohio Angels
by Harriet Scott Chessman
(Permanent Press, 1999, ISBN 1579620205)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
A small midwestern town provides the setting for this powerful story. Hallie, a disillusioned artist, returns home to care for her mother who has refused to leave her bed. As she struggles to understand her mother's choice, she is reunited with her childhood friend, Rose, a former Ph.D. candidate and now the mother of two. As Hallie and Rose embark on an elusive journey to find answers to hidden family secrets, each discovers that it is only in confronting their past will they be able to come to terms with the grief, loss and disappointment that has overshadowed their very existence. A compelling story and an enjoyable read.
Youth -- Recommended by: Beth Corrigan, Youth Outreach Librarian
Among the Hidden
by Margaret Peterson Haddix
(Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 1998, 153p)
Recommended for grades 4-7
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Twelve-year-old Luke is the third child in a society that allows only two children per family. While his family goes off to work and school, he spends his days alone in an attic room hiding from the Population Police. One day, while peeking out his window, he sees a girl in a neighboring house where he knows two boys already live, and he decides to sneak out to meet her. Jen has Internet connections with many other "shadow children," and is planning a big rally to allow third children to become members of society. Luke must decide if he wants to risk his life by participating in the rally or live the rest of his life in hiding. A gripping page-turner!
December 1999
Adult -- Recommended by: Melanie Haug, Young Adult Librarian
Hadrian's Walls
by Robert Draper
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
A stunning debut, yet disturbing story of imprisonment taking place both behind walls and within the relationship of two friends. The setting is Shepardsville, an East Texas town, where every inhabitant is either an inmate or a prison employee. The novel depicts a morally bankrupt warden, Sonny, pitted against his childhood friend, Hadrian, an escaped and subsequently pardoned prison inmate. Interesting characters, inspiring plot, and a good read.
Youth -- Recommended by: Sarah Wyatt, Library Assistant/Elementary School Outreach
The Lonely Scarecrow
by Tim Preston
Illustrated by Maggie Kneen
(Dutton Children's Books, 1999, 24 pages)
Recommended for ages 3-8
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Behind the scarecrow's scary face lies a kindly heart, but all the animals are frightened of him. That is, until a heavy snowfall transforms him into a jolly snowman. Then find out what happens when the snow melts! Beautiful, texturized illustrations add to the enjoyment of this book.
November 1999
Adult -- Recommended by: John McInnes, Adult Services
Big Trouble
by Dave Barry (Putnam, 1999)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Humor columnist Dave Barry reinvents himself as a novelist so effortlessly, you'd think he was grown in a vat from Carl Hiassen's fingernail clippings. And as Barry himself admits, he's staking a claim on the "Bunch of South Florida Wackos genre" exemplified by the likes of Hiassen and Elmore Leonard. Recounting this very funny and breakneck-paced first novel's plot would spoil the fun, but you should know that it involves mob hitmen, a "Squirtmaster 9000", corporate embezzlement, international arms merchants, a cynical former journalist, a tree-dwelling homeless man, a pair of extremely dimwitted criminals with an atomic device, and a large hallucinogenic toad. This is a fast, consistently enjoyable read.
Youth -- Recommended by: Marcia Lyons, Library Assistant/Preschool Outreach
Walk Two Moons
by Sharon Creech (HarperCollins, 1994 280p)
Recommended for grades 4-6
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Salamanca (Sal) Tree Hiddle and her eccentric grandparents travel cross-country to retrace her missing mother's steps. Along the way she recounts the story of her friend Phoebe Winterbottom, her disappearing mother, and a lunatic. A poignant tale within a tale.
October 1999
Adult -- Recommended by: Carrie Bissey, Readers' Advisory Librarian
Guppies for Tea
by Marika Cobbold (Transworld Publishers Limited, 1995)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Amelia Lindsay has her share of problems -- a failing relationship, an obsessive mother, and a nagging desire to do something different with her life. But when her grandmother begins to decline into senility and is placed in a nursing home against her will, Amelia refuses to watch the old woman suffer. In this touching, often hilarious British novel, Amelia and her grandmother take on nurses, skeptical relatives, and more in their fight to regain control over their lives.
Youth -- Recommended by: Mary Ann Sibrava, Youth Reference Librarian/Collection Specialist
The Great Frog Race and Other Poems
by Kristine O'Connell George (Clarion Books, 1997 40p)
Pictures by Kate Kiesler
Recommended for ages 5-9
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Polliwogs, plowed fields, dragonflies, and more... Treasured images of a stay in the country sparkle in this illustrated collection of short poems. Here's a wonderful book for older children to read alone or for families to share together.
September 1999
Adult -- Recommended by: Todd McFatridge, Adult Services
Get a Life
by William Shatner with Chris Kreski (Pocket Books, 1999)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Star Trek fans will be pleased to learn in Shatner's latest book that he no longer looks scornfully at Trekkers as a bunch of nerds who need to "get a life." After the "death" of Captain Kirk in 1994 he started to actually enjoy attending Star Trek conventions for the very first time. In hilarious detail he describes what really goes on at these conventions and pokes good-natured fun at himself, his co-stars and his many quirky fans. And in a surprising revelation he admits that in real life the courageous Captain Kirk hates to fly! This book is a treat for Trekkers of all life forms.
Youth -- Recommended by: Carol Leeson, Head of Youth Services
Fire: Friend or Foe
by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent (Clarion Books, 1998 80p)
Photographs by William Munoz
Recommended for ages 9-11
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
You already know how dangerous fires can be to human civilization. But did you know that forests and wildlife actually NEED fires? It's true! This book takes a close look at the important part that fire plays in the delicate balance of nature. It's illustrated with beautiful full- color photographs, too.
August 1999
Adult -- Recommended by: Anne Shaughnessy, Adult Services
Death at Rottingdean
by Robin Paige (Berkley Prime Crime, 1999)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Fifth in a series of Victorian mysteries by husband-wife team, Bill and Susan Wittig Albert, this character-driven historical novel features another husband-wife team, Charles and Kate Sheridan. Charles is an English aristocrat and inventor, interested in new crime-solving techniques, especially photography, and Kate, an Irish-American who inherited an estate in England, is also known as Beryl Bardwell, a famous mystery writer. Together Charles and Kate tackle a mystery involving smuggling and murder in the Sussex coastal village of Rottingdean in 1897. Paige's extensive historical research brings to life both fictional and real characters, such as Rudyard Kipling and the Prince of Wales. This novel is highly recommended as are all the books in the series.
Youth -- Recommended by: Tina Martin, Youth Librarian, Program Coordinator
Pete's a Pizza
by William Steig (HaperCollins, 1998 32p)
Recommended for ages 3 - 6
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
The rainy weather causes his baseball game to be cancelled and Pete is in a bad mood. His mom and dad think of a creative way to cheer him up and the giggles begin. An imaginative and humorous story about family love.
July 1999
Adult -- Recommended by: Frances Mitilineos, Adult Services
Circle of Stones
by Anna Lee Waldo (St. Martin's Press, 1999, 432pp.)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Anna Lee Waldo's "Circle of Stones" begins a series of historical novels based on the Welsh legend of Madoc ap Owain who, with a company of druids, sailed to the new world in the 12th century to escape religious persecution. "Circle of Stones" is the first person narrative of Brenda, mother of Madoc and mistress of the ruling Prince of Gwynedd, who is caught in the religious and political conflicts that rocked medieval Wales.
Youth -- Recommended by: Katherine Orals, Youth Services
Lily's Crossing
by Patricia Reily Giff (Delacorte Press, 1997 180p)
For youth, grades 4-7
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Lily goes to Rockaway Beach in the summer of 1944 to stay with her grandmother. She is looking forward to having a wonderful summer but things change. Her father goes to France to fight, and she meets, and is intrigued with, a young refugee from Hungary. Together they form a special friendship and share dangerous secrets.
June 1999
Adult -- Recommended by: Carla Peterson, Adult Services
Chocolat
by Joanne Harris (Penguin Group, 1999, 242pp.)
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Vianne Rocher and her young daughter, Anouk, have just arrived in the town of Lansquenet. Hoping to trade their gypsy ways for a permanent home, Vianne opens a chocolate shop. Your mouth will water as you read the descriptions of her chocolate creations. Vianne upsets the status quo in the village and also faces down the Black Man of her nightmares. An enchanting story by a French/English author.
Youth -- Recommended by: Aileen Henaughan, Youth Services Child Care Outreach Liaison
Nicky and the Big, Bad Wolves
by Valeri Gorbachev (North-South Books, 1998 32p.)
For youth, ages 3-5
click to purchase from MPPL Foundation Bookstore
Nobody likes to have nightmares! When Nicky wakes up screaming that one hundred wolves are chasing him, Mom comes to the rescue. She knows just how to calm her frightened bunny and get rid of those imaginary wolves once and for all. A comforting bedtime story.
May 1999
Adult -- Recommended by: Rosemary Groenwald, Readers' Advisory Librarian
Sleeping Arrangements
by Laura Cunningham (Knopf, 1989, 195pp.)
Laura Cunningham was eight years old when her mother died, leaving her an orphan. "Sleeping Arrangements" is her memoir of being raised by two Jewish uncles in New York City in the 1950s. A librarian and a private investigator, her two uncles are "O.B.'s," family shorthand for "old bachelors," who do their best to create a family life, albeit a non-traditional one, for their precocious niece. To the outside world, the three of them appear to be an odd lot.
Youth-- Recommended by: Steven Browne, Youth Services Technology Cooridnator
Raptor
by Paul Zindel (Hyperion Books for Children, 1998 170p.)
For youth, grades 5-7
Lost mine shafts. Dinosaur eggs. Sharp, jagged fangs and claws. Raptors! Zach and his friend Uta are trapped in a struggle for survival against a herd of vicious prehistoric eating machines.
April 1999
Adult -- Recommended by: Linda Burns, Readers' Advisory Librarian
While I Was Gone
by Sue Miller (Knopf, 1999 266 pp.)
Joey Becker is 52, a successful veterinarian, mother to three children, and married to a loving husband. Then one day, Eli Mayhew, one of her housemates back in the 1960s, reappears in her life. He stirs up memories from their past, particularly the very brutal memory of the murder of one of their housemates. Joey finds herself attracted to Eli, and a rendezvous with him threatens to ruin her happy marriage. Sue Miller once again writes a beautiful story with vivid description and wonderful characterization.
Youth -- Recommended by: Beth Corrigan, Youth Outreach Librarian
Ella Enchanted
by Gail Carson Levine (HarperCollins, 1997 240p.)
For youth, grades 4-7
What would you do if you were forced to obey every command given to you, no matter what the consequences? Ella of Frell is in just such a dilemma as the result of the "gift" of obedience bestowed upon her at birth by a fairy. In this fresh version of Cinderella, complete with ogres, fairies and a little bit of romance, spunky and smart Ella seeks to free herself of the spell and become the person she wants to be.
March 1999
Adult-- Recommended by: Alice Tucker, Adult Services
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
by Rebecca Wells (HarperCollins, 1996, 356 pp.)
This sequel to "Little Altars Everywhere," is a story of four women growing up and growing old in a small town in Louisiana. Their lives are eccentric, funny, outrageous, and thought-provoking. Flashbacks reveal the mother/daughter relationship of Vivi (Ya-Ya) and her forty-year-old daughter Siddalee, a successful career woman about to marry. Revelations about her mother's past help Siddalee to understand who she herself is now. The warmth of the relationship of the four Ya-Yas endears them to the reader and demonstrates how deep friendships heal.
Youth -- Recommended by: Michelle Vonderhaar, Outreach Liaison
Sophy and Auntie Pearl
by Jeanne Titherington (Greenwillow Books, 1995, 24 pages)
For youth, ages 3-5
Little Sophy and her Auntie Pearl share a secret adventure using a skill that only they possess. Share this heart-warming fantasy and let your imagination soar!
February 1999
Adult -- Recommended by: Larry D'Urso, Head of Adult Services
Cod: a biography of the fish that changed the world.
by Mark Kurlansky (Penguin, 1997)
This book is a 600 year history of the cod fish and the role that it played in the economy, society and history of the north Atlantic. It's a fascinating account of how this fish rose in popularity as a staple food of Europe and how this resulted in decisions of exploration, colonization and nation building. Interesting facts about the fish, fishing and the cod trade are described in detail. The book also includes many cod fish recipies of historical, national and ethnic significance. Anyone interested in either history or cookery will find this book to be enjoyable reading.
Youth -- Recommended by: Marcia Lyons, Preschool Liaison
Shadow Spinner
by Susan Fletcher (Atheneum Books, 1998, 219 pages)
For youth, ages 11-14
Shahrazad, the legendary queen who told stories for 1001 nights, is desperate for new stories. Her bloodthirsty husband is the Sultan, and he will kill her in the morning if she doesn't tell a tale he hasn't heard. When Marjan, a 13-year-old crippled girl, joins the Sultan's harem, she gathers for Shahrazad the stories which will save the queen's life.
January 1999
Adult -- Recommended by: Sharon L. Grieger, Collection Development Librarian
A Widow for One Year
by John Irving (Random House, 1998, 537 pp.)
The memory of two teenaged brothers, killed in an automobile accident, permeates the lives of all the major characters in this complex tale. Famous novelist, Ruth Cole, sister of the dead boys, on a book tour abroad, visits the Byzantine red light district of Amsterdam to research her next novel and finds more than she bargained for. A mysterious, sad, and satisfying read.
Youth -- Recommended by: Mary Ann Sibrava, Library Assistant for Youth Services
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Retold by Robert Holden (Houghton Mifflin, 1998, 32 pages)
For youth, ages 4-9
Is it your imagination, or do the townsfolk of Hamelin look--and act--a little like rats themselves in this picture book version? It's the same timeless tale of a town overrun with rats, this time with a slightly eerie look.
December 1998
Adult -- Recommended by: Sharon L. Grieger, Collection Development Librarian
The Extra Man
by Jonathan Ames (Scribner, 333 pp.)
Fancying himself a stylish, though improvident, "young gentleman," Louis Ives finds himself sharing an apartment in New York City with Henry Harrison, a handsome, much older man, who lives on his charm, escorting rich old ladies to social affairs and, annually, to Florida. The callow Louis experiments with transvestism and other offbeat sexual practices, so be forewarned! The real story, though, is in the comedy of a relationship between a truly odd couple of men that is both poignant and heartwarming.
Youth -- Recommended by: Mary Ann Sibrava, Library Assistant for Youth Services
Mud
by Mary Lyn Ray (Harcourt Brace & Company, 1996, 32 pages)
For youth, ages 2 -5
What comes with a little springtime warm-up? Mud, mud,magnificent mud! Little ones will enjoy this stick-pokin',toe-squishin', melty, muddy romp.
November 1998
Adult -- Recommended by: Sharon L. Grieger, Collection Development Librarian
The Evolution of Jane
by Cathleen Schine (Houghton Mifflin, 210 pp.)
Recently divorced, Jane Barlow is surprised to find her dearest former friend, her third cousin Martha, is to be the nature guide when she joins an expedition to the Galapagos Islands. Martha had dropped Jane very suddenly in their late teens, for unknown reasons. Jane recalls Darwin's evolution theories and his visit to Galapagos while she ponders the evolution of friendship and of her own family. A fun read!
Youth -- Recommended by: Mary Ann Sibrava, Library Assistant for Youth Services
The Puddle
by David McPhail (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1998, 32 pages)
For youth, ages 2 -5
What could be more fun than a rainy day puddle? A young boy and his imaginary animal friends enjoy some playful and watery adventures. A great cuddle-up story!
October 1998
Adult -- Recommended by: Sharon L. Grieger, Collection Development Librarian
Blind Date
by Frances Fyfield (Viking, 264 pp.)
Why it took me this long to discover Frances Fyfield, I'll never know! If her recent "Blind Date" is typical, Fyfield has all the requisite characteristics of my perfect mystery writer. The protagonist, Elizabeth Kennedy, a former police detective, is recovering from a vicious acid attack and coping with the murder of her sister Emma. Elizabeth's apartment in a decrepit bell tower adjoining a London church sets the stage, and a dubious dating service adds to the shivery mood of this very suspenseful mystery.
Youth -- Recommended by: Mary Ann Sibrava, Library Assistant for Youth Services
The Krazees
by Sam Swope (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997, 32 pages)
For youth, ages 3 - 6
What's a kid to do? It's another plipple-plopple rainy day and you get the razzle-frazzle Krazees in your head. Hang on for a silly romp through this very funny picture book.
September 1998
Adult -- Recommended by: Sharon L. Grieger, Collection Development Librarian
Dream Children
by A.N. Wilson (W.W. Norton & Co., 218 pp.)
Philosopher Oliver Gold disrupts and dismays a household of women with whom he lodges when he decides to marry. How will landlady Janet, former student Catherine and her lesbian lover Michal, and Michal's young daughter, Bobs, live without him? Even Lotte, the Austrian housekeeper, and Margot, their neighbor, are forlorn. What is Oliver's secret?
Youth-- Recommended by: Mary Ann Sibrava, Library Assistant for Youth Services
Heat Wave
by Helen Ketteman (Walker and Company, 1998, 32 pages)
Recommended for ages 5-8
Talk about hot--it was *SO* hot that summer that the cornfields exploded into mounds of popcorn! A clever Kansas farmgirl saves the day with some mighty quick thinking in this funny modern tall tale.
August 1998
Adult -- Recommended by: Sharon L. Grieger, Collection Development Librarian
Final Vinyl Days and Other Stories
by Jill McCorkle (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 212 pp.)
Poignant tales awash with nostalgia and sprinkled with the author's trademark wit recapture seemingly long lost memories for the reader. One story, "Life Prerecorded," is a jewel amidst a small collection of gems, and Jill McCorkle should be declared a national treasure.
Youth -- Recommended by: Mary Ann Sibrava, Library Assistant for Youth Services
Junebug
by Alice Mead (Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1995, 102 pages)
Recommended for ages 9-11
How can a young boy escape the everyday dangers of life in the city housing projects? Reeve McClain--known to everyone as Junebug--puts a plan into action on his 10th birthday in hopes of making his big dreams come true.
July 1998
Adult -- Recommended by: Sharon L. Grieger, Collection Development Librarian
The All-true Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton
by Jane Smiley (Alfred A. Knopf, 452 pp.)
An adventurous novel set during the Border War and guerrilla skirmishes that highlighted the opening of the Kansas Territory. Lidie, a spirited young Illinois woman shared with her abolitionist husband the hope that Kansas would join the Union as a Free State. A page-turner!
Youth -- Recommended by: Mary Ann Sibrava, Library Assistant for Youth Services
Poppy
by Avi (Orchard Books, 1995, 147 pages)
Recommended for ages 7-10
Poppy, a young and spirited deer mouse, faces her share of danger every day. But the perils may be too great when she takes on Mr. Ocax, the evil owl who rules Poppy's family through fear.
June 1998
Adult-- Recommended by: Sharon L. Grieger, Collection Development Librarian
The Short History of a Prince
by Jane Hamilton (Random House, 349 pages)
This evocative coming of age of Walter McCloud is related in chapters alternating between the early 1970s and the mid-1990s. We meet Walter at 15 as he realizes his homosexuality while coping with his brother Daniel's illness and death. His acceptance of himself is hard-earned and prolonged. Told with empathy and wit.
Youth -- Recommended by: Mary Ann Sibrava, Library Assistant for Youth Services
Bad, Badder, Baddest
by Cynthia Voigt (Scholastic, 266 pages)
Recommended for ages 9-12
Best friends, and still a little out of step with other sixth graders, Mikey and Margalo return to face some thorny issues in this sequel to Bad Girls. A humorous and touching story.
May 1998
Adult -- Recommended by: Sharon L. Grieger, Collection Development Librarian
Amazing Grace: a Vocabulary of Faith
by Kathleen Norris (Riverhead Books, 384 pages)
In chapters entitled "eschatology," "mystic," "trinity," and the like, the author meditates on the sometimes scary language of Christianity. After a long absence from church, Norris returns to her Presbyterian roots and also finds fresh insights during retreats at a Benedictine monastery. A fascinating account of a contemporary spiritual quest.
Youth -- Recommended by: Mary Ann Sibrava, Library Assistant for Youth Services
Smoky Mountain Rose: An Appalachian Cinderella
by Alan Schroeder (Dial Books, 1997, 32 pages)
Recommended for ages 5-9
Tarnation, what a tale! Just like that Cinderella gal you heard of, purty little Rose high-tails it to a fancy dress shindig in Tarbelly Creek and makes her dreams come true.
