What a fun mystery!!! I have never read any P.D. James and this novel received a lot of great reviews as a summer beach read. I was definitely riveted and did not want to put it down but sleep always won out because I read this right before going to bed.

Here is a review from the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/aug/30/fiction1

I do not feel very confident about writing reviews for adult novels. Actually, I’m not very confident about writing reviews..so I’ll leave this one to the experts. But I will say that it is definitely worth reading :)

Book 1 of the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness is an incredible space adventure. A couple of things I associated with it while reading – the Firefly series (hello, Nathan Fillion) because of the space cowboys feel and the Disney movie, “Up”, because the dog “talks” and in one seen, a giant bird, like Kevin, briefly makes an appearance.
Todd Hewitt, is turning 13. He’s finally going to be a man. In Prentisstown, 13 is the year boys transition to manhood. The thing is, Todd, is the last boy in Prentisstown. There are no women. The other thing about Prentisstown is that you can hear everyone’s thoughts, or noise, including the animals. For the past couple of months, Todd, has pretty much been alone, well, he does have a dog, Manchee, who he never wanted. Men do not talk to boys in Prentisstown. Why that is Todd does not know. He just accepts it because that is how it has always been.
One day Todd is wandering around the swamps, the only place a person can get away from the noise, when he stumbles upon a weird patch of silence. Silence does not exist…or does it? This “silence” will lead to the destruction of all that Todd knows about Prentisstown and the New World.
This book moves very quickly. It also brings up questions of what would happen if you could not block out all the information that is constantly floating out at you, or how do you keep a hold of your own identity, and also how far would you go to protect your self? There is some violence so I would say this is for middle school and high school. Also, the only drawback is that this is NOT a stand alone book. You will have to read Book 2 to find out what happens next – The Ask and the Answer will be out in Sept. 2009.

Calogero is running. Running to get help. Running to get away. His uncle, Giuseppe, just shot Dr. Hodge, who was beating his Uncle Carlo with a pistol. This is bad. This is the worse thing that can happen. Uncle Francesco told them all to not cause trouble because of what happened in New Orleans. But how long can someone sit and take the hate, take the ignorance, take the lies? Calogero runs and runs.

The story of the Italian immigrant experience in the south is not something I have been exposed to. The things we usually read about are the Italian immigrants who settled in New York. We watch movies like the Godfather and television shows like the Sopranos but do we ever learn about the ones who settled in the South? Do we learn about the Sicilians who were farmers and not part of the mafia? Not really. Here is a fictional story about the Sicilian experience in the South, specifically Tallulah, Louisiana. Based on real life events, Donna Jo Napoli creates a believable novel about the bigotry, alienation, friendships, and lives of 6 of those immigrants.

The whites tolerate their presence until they start losing money, the blacks are wary but eventually open up their homes to them, and they are away from most of the other Sicilians in the area. Calogero and his family do not understand why they cannot serve the blacks and do not understand the animosity of the whites. They are just trying to live their lives but it seems that in 1899, confrontations could not be avoided when a group hates your people so much and believes you are lower than a dog.

“Alligator Bayou” is a very powerful novel. It introduced a story that we rarely hear about and lets us not forget that ignorance, prejudice and bigotry can lead to violent ends.

If you are interested in more about the Italians in the Southern states, Napoli has a good afterword that has some links to articles she read and other information about resources she used.

Originally published in 2007, “Burn My Heart” by Beverley Naidoo (http://www.beverleynaidoo.com/index2.html) is a story about cultures clashing and friendships tested because of prejudice and hate. Set in Kenya in the 1950s, the story follows two boys, Mugo and Mathew. Mugo is a Kikuyu teen, who works in the kitchen of a British settler. His family has worked for the Grayson family since they “settled” the land, a land under Kirinyaga mountain. Mathew Grayson is the British family’s son, who grew up with Mugo, who does not understand the tensions brewing around him and struggles to grasp what it means for his friendship with Mugo.

Both stories are interlaced together showing how one’s actions can be the consequences of another. Naidoo talks about the rise of the Mau Mau, a movement that rose out of the need for the Kikuyu to take back their land and fight for their civil rights, and how the British government dealt with the uprising only exacerbated the racial tensions between the settlers and the people they stole the land from.

I never knew about “the Emergency” or the Mau Mau movement and it is important to see how and remember how movements in other countries parallel those in the United States. The lives and struggles of the two boys, though fictional, are very believable and Naidoo expresses their conflict between how they view each other and how society wants them to view each other. This does not have a happy sugar-coated ending and is at times intense for an elementary school reader. It is definitely geared towards middle schoolers.

Excellent and I am glad that it is finally published for the United States market.

This is the first book by Avi I have ever read. I know! Unbelievable and how can I work in the Children’s Library at BPL?!? Well, I do and better late than never.

This is also the last book of the Poppy series and I have to say it is a wonderful read. I do not want to give anything away…Poppy is coming out of a deep depression and discovers that there is more still in life even though she is an old deer mouse. It is funny but also deals with real issues, like death. There is also a little bit of commentary about global warming but I am not sure little kids will get that. Fun and we also are introduced to a new mouse, Spruce, who like his grandmother Poppy, is an adventure seeker. who knows, that maybe the new series?

A great ending to a wonderful tale that I never read. Definitely good as part of the series and also stand alone. I love that! Also Ereth, the crotchety old curmudgeon of a porcupine is probably one of my new favorite characters. He’s very entertaining with his forest cursing.

Book 2 of the “Inkheart” series does not disappoint. Cornelia Funke returns to bring us a tale centered in the “Inkworld.” Dustfinger has been searching for another reader and he finds him in a strange man called Orpheus, or “Cheeseface” as Farid call him. Dustfinger and Farid are double-crossed by Orpheus and Farid has only one option, to get to the Inkworld to be with Dustfinger. In order to do that, he must find Meggie.

Full of sword and fire fights, Funke brings the Inkworld to life. Vivid passages describing the world and it’s folks as well as giving the reader an “inside” look at the characters of “Inkheart.” Excellent read. Now, I will have to pick up “Inkdeath” the final installment of the series!

I wonder if they will make this as a movie as well. I finally watched “Inkheart” last month at my brother’s house and it was pretty fun.

This book deserves awards and I hope it wins for YALSA’s “Best Books for Young Adults” this year or next year. Actually, I hope it wins most of the awards out there for teen/ya books. Yes, it is THAT good!

“You can’t be the rock and the river” Stick says to Sam. Sam Childs is a son of Civil Rights leader, Roland Child, and younger brother, to Stick, who at 17 decides to join the emerging Black Panther party in Chicago, Illinois. Roland Childs represents the “old way” of thinking (pacifism) and protesting for civil rights, while Stick is the new way. Sam is caught in-between wanting to be both “the rock and the river.”

The novel starts off with Sam at another rally. You can feel his apathy. He is young, he has always gone to these things but does he really understand why? At one point, Sam thinks, “I was tired of marking, of protesting. Of leaning my back against a wall and expecting the wall to move. I wanted to rest.” He knows it is important but as you go along further in the story, you can see that he does not fully grasp the importance of what his father is doing and later, what his older brother is doing.

Kekla Magoon vivid writing brings out the tension between a son struggling to find his own way in a time of intense transition at home and the world at large. She does not sugar-coat anything and there is some graphic violence. It is very powerful and ties how both movements goals were the same but the approaches were different and how a kid can figure out the right thing to do and come to his own no matter how angry, frustrated, sad and torn he feels.

This is for middle schoolers and high schoolers. You could use it in a history class. Also use it with Christopher Paul Curtis’ “The Watsons Go to Burmingham.” I cannot rave enough about this book. Excellent. Fantastic. Worthy of any school and public library collection. I seriously better see some of those award stickers on this book!

After watching Ken Robinson’s TED lecture, I had to read his books. This is the first one I have read and it is fascinating, informative and again talks about balancing art and science, emotion and intellect. Robinson’s focus is a movement towards creativity. There is an imbalance and it must be corrected before we all fall behind. If you like Daniel Pink, you will enjoy this read.

More thoughts on this later.

Leigh Hunter was in love. Love that was so intense all he wanted to do was take care of the girl, Maia Morland. It has been 4 years since he last saw her and now there she is at a cocktail party standing before him.

The novel goes through recollections of those months he fell in love with Maia and how it ends to 4 years later at the cocktail party. Maia is strange. She is not conventionally pretty but something about her pulls Leigh to her. He wants to protect her. He wants to fix her.

However, in fixing her, he ends up destroying her and what they had. Sad, intense and at times graphic, this shows how doing things for love can sometimes break things.

I think, if you like Laurie Halse Anderson, you might like this. It is definitely milder than Speak or Wintergirls.

There was a video on youTube that was going around about a lion named Christian, who a year after being set free in Africa was reunited with his former owners. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVNTdWbVBgc
Anthony “Ace” Bourke and John Rendall found Christian in Harrod’s. If you watched the video, you get the gist of the story. It is a very uplifting and wonderful example of people and the animals they love. If you or your kids would like to know a bit more about the story, this is a great fast year. The original book was published in 1971 and is called “A Lion called Christian.”