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NEW MATERIALS
Adult
The Butterfly Cabinet by Bernie McGill
Product Description
Vivid, mysterious and unforgettable,
The Butterfly Cabinet is Bernie McGill’s engrossing portrayal of the dark history that intertwines two lives. Inspired by a true story of the death of the daughter of an aristocratic Irish family at the end of the nineteenth century, McGill powerfully tells this tale of two women whose lives will become upended by a newly told secret.
The events begin when Maddie McGlade, a former nanny now in her nineties, receives a letter from the last of her charges and realizes that the time has come to unburden herself of a secret she has kept for over seventy years: what really happened on the last day in the life of Charlotte Ormond, the four-year-old only daughter of the big house where Maddie was employed as a young woman. It is to Charlotte’s would-be niece, Anna—pregnant with her first—that Maddie will tell her story as she nears the end of her life in a lonely nursing home in Northern Ireland.
The book unfolds in chapters that alternate between Maddie’s story and the prison diaries of Charlotte’s mother, Harriet, who had been held responsible for her daughter’s death. As Maddie confesses the truth to Anna, she unravels the Ormonds’ complex family history, and also details her own life, marked by poverty, fear, sacrifice and lies. In stark contrast to Maddie is the misunderstood, haughty and yet surprisingly lyrical voice of Harriet’s prison diaries, which Maddie has kept hidden for decades. Motherhood came no more easily to Harriet than did her role as mistress of a far-flung Irish estate. Proud and uncompromising, she is passionate about riding horses and collecting butterflies to store in her prized cabinet. When her only daughter, Charlotte, dies, allegedly as the result of Harriet’s punitive actions, the community is quick to condemn her and send her to prison for the killing. Unwilling to stoop to defend herself and too absorbed in her own world of strict rules and repressed desires, she accepts the cruel destiny that is beyond her control even as, paradoxically, it sets her free.
The result of this unusual duet is a haunting novel full of frightening silences and sorrowful absences that build toward the unexpected, chilling truth.
Light From A Distant Star by Mary McGarry Morris
Product Description
Light from a Distant Star is a gripping coming-of-age story with a brutal murder at its heart and a heroine as unforgettable as Harper Lee’s "Scout."
It is early summer and Nellie Peck is on the cusp of adolescence – gangly, awkward, full of questions, but keenly observant and wiser than many of the adults in her life. The person she most admires is her father, Benjamin, a man of great integrity. His family’s century old hardware store is failing and Nellie’s mother has
had to go back to work. Nellie’s older half-sister has launched a disturbing search for her birth father. Often saddled through the long, hot days with her timid younger brother, Henry, Nellie is determined to toughen him up. And herself as well.
Three strangers enter Nellie’s protected life. Brooding Max Devaney is an ex-con who works in her surly grandfather’s junkyard. Reckless Bucky Saltonstall has just arrived from New York City to live with his elderly grandparents. And pretty Dolly Bedelia is a young stripper who rents the family’s small, rear apartment and becomes the titillating focus of Nellie’s eavesdropping.
When violence erupts in the lovely Peck house, the prime suspect seems obvious. Nellie knows who the real murderer is, but is soon silenced by fear and the threat of scandal. The truth, as she sees it, is shocking and unthinkable, and with everyone’s eyes riveted on her in the courtroom, Nellie finds herself seized with doubt.
No one will listen. No one believes her, and a man’s life hangs in the balance. A stunning evocation of innocence lost,
Light from a Distant Star stands as an incredibly moving and powerful novel from one of America's finest writers.
Juvenile
Jellies: The Life of Jellyfish by Twig C. George
From School Library Journal
Grade 2-4-Gorgeous full-color underwater photos and a simple, readable text provide a fascinating introduction to some little-known and often unheralded marine organisms. Less detailed than Elizabeth Gowell's equally spectacular Sea Jellies (Watts, 1993; o.p.), George's informative narrative presents these gelatinous wanderers as mindless entities mostly at the mercy of tides and currents, opportunistic in their encounters with other marine food sources, and astonishing in their wide variety. For detailed data on reproduction or nematocysts, students will need to consult Gowell's title, but for novices meeting these insubstantial, fluid invertebrates for the first time, this colorful, attractive book will entice and inform.
Dolphin by Mymi Doinet
Product Description
The book tells the tale of a young male dolphin who is woken from his dreams by the cries of a female in distress. He discovers that she is caught in coral and is being menaced by a white shark. With the help of the other dolphins, a blue whale, and a school of hungry parrot-fish, the female is rescued. Leaving the furious shark, the dolphins celebrate her escape.
Throughout the story and following it are fascinating facts about the lives of dolphins and their marine cousins. Also included is a game page that will delight young naturalists.
This wonderful nature book with its inviting illustrations is both fun and educational, and children will want to own all the books in the series.
Abe's Honest Words: The Life of Abraham Lincoln by Doreen Rappaport
From School Library Journal
Starred Review. Grade 3–6—Written in prose as elegant and spare as that of its subject, this distinguished book takes readers from Abe's backwoods boyhood in Kentucky to his first harrowing witnessing of slavery
in New Orleans, on to the Illinois legislature and the presidency. Each half-page of generously spaced text appears against a white background. Rappaport's carefully chosen words are both accessible and effective: "The war dragged on./Lincoln grew sadder and sadder/as more men died." Until, "The South finally surrendered./The job of healing the nation began./But Lincoln was not there to help./An assassin's bullet ended his life." Corresponding quotes from Lincoln appear in italics, e.g., "
The moment came when I felt that slavery must die that the nation might live!" Handsome, larger-than-life paintings fill the remaining page and a half of each spread with powerful images—of Abe as a strong, lanky youth with a book or oar in hand, then later as a lawyer with unkempt hair, feather pen, and midnight candles burning. Readers see the somber, resigned faces of slaves—young and old—first in chains, then picking cotton under a blazing sun, and later the proud faces of an all-black regiment of the Union Army. From Lincoln's striking countenance on the cover—scruffy dark hair tinged with gray, big ears, bright eyes, and benevolent face, lined with worry and age—to the end, this is one Lincoln book that all libraries will want to have
An Island Scrapbook: Dawn To Dusk On A Barrier Island by Virginia Wright-Frierson
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 3?Another splendid picture book by the author and illustrator of A Desert Scrapbook (S
& S, 1996), this time focusing on a North Carolina barrier island. Perfectly suited to being read aloud, the first-person narrative describes what Wright-Frierson and her young daughter observe during a September day spent exploring the island where they spend the summer. Torn-out notebook pages containing snippets of information; sketches and paintings of plants and wildlife; and photolike pictures alternate with scenes of the mother and daughter walking on the beach, lunching on the dock, and gazing out at the open ocean. The accurately rendered, muted watercolors and pencil drawings on glossy paper present a vivid portrait of island ecology and convey the author's keen sense of observation. The combination of text and artwork gives readers an appealing picture of barrier island plant and animal life, both on the dunes and in the maritime forest. A carefully detailed look at a unique ecosystem, sensitively described and beautifully rendered.
Do Whales Have Belly Buttons? by Melvin and Gilda Berger
No reviews available.
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