Online Story Time. Barnes and Noble has filmed Online Storytime featuring beloved children's books read by the authors. Including books by Tomie dePaola, Chris Van Allsberg, Judith Viorst, Jan Brett, Ian Falconer, Maurice Sendak, Jane O'Conner, and Jon Scieszka. They add a new title each month. Visit http://www.barnesandnoble.com/storytime/

You can visit the archives at http://media.barnesandnoble.com/index.jsp?fr_chl=14c8ca491be89555b6ae619f97fac9bd90c871c5.

The Adult Book Club will meet Wed. Feb. 2 and discuss the book The Guernsey literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. You are welcome to join the discussion.

 

Peggy begins Feb. Story Time with stories about Valentine's Day. Join her every Tuesday at 10:30. Also, a reminder, we have an open Story Period anytime on Sat.'s that you want to drop by.

NEW MATERIALS

Adult

American Assassin  by Vince Flynn 
Product Description

Before he was considered a CIA superagent, before he was thought of as a terrorist’s worst nightmare, and before he was both loathed and admired by the politicians on Capitol Hill, Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world . . . and then tragedy struck.
Two decades of cutthroat, partisan politics has left the CIA and the country in an increasingly vulnerable position. Cold War veteran and CIA Operations Director Thomas Stansfield knows he must prepare his people for the next war. The rise of Islamic terrorism is coming, and it needs to be met abroad before it reaches America’s shores. Stansfield directs his protÉgÉe, Irene Kennedy, and his old Cold War colleague, Stan Hurley, to form a new group of clandestine operatives who will work outside the normal chain of command—men who do not exist.
What type of man is willing to kill for his country without putting on a uniform? Kennedy finds him in the wake of the Pan Am Lockerbie terrorist attack. As action-packed, fast-paced, and brutally realistic as it gets, Flynn’s latest page-turner shows readers how it all began.

The Vaults  by Toby Ball 
Product Description

In a dystopian 1930s America, a chilling series of events leads three men down a path to uncover their city's darkest secret.
At the height of the most corrupt administration in the City’s history, a mysterious duplicate file is discovered deep within the Vaults---a cavernous hall containing all of the municipal criminal justice records of the last seventy years. From here, the story follows: Arthur Puskis, the Vault’s sole, hermit-like archivist with an almost mystical faith in a system to which he has devoted his life; Frank Frings, a high-profile investigative journalist with a self-medicating reefer habit; and Ethan Poole, a socialist private eye with a penchant for blackmail.
All three men will undertake their own investigations into the dark past and uncertain future of the City---calling into question whether their most basic beliefs can be maintained in a climate of overwhelming corruption and conspiracy

The Network  by Jason Elliot 
From Booklist

This intriguing first novel takes another look at the world of espionage in Afghanistan. A travel writer with firsthand knowledge of the area, Elliot effectively combines action and landscape in a thriller set prior to 9/11. Anthony Taverner, a recent recruit to MI6, the British Secret Service, is sent to Afghanistan to destroy several Stinger missiles before al-Qaeda can get its hands on them. With the help of a veteran and friend, Taverner undergoes extensive training to prepare himself for the deadly mission and the forbidding terrain. He quickly learns that the success of the mission will depend on cunning as well as conditioning: secrets abound in the spy world, and nothing is what it seems. The Afghan setting is vividly rendered, but the slow pace of the story will make it a hard sell for readers expecting something in the Vince Flynn or Brad Thor vein. For those wanting a realistic look behind the news, however, Elliot delivers the goods.

Picture Books

Time to Say Please by Mo Willems 
From School Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 3–This painless introduction to good manners is sure to produce a generation of more civilized beings. With tongue firmly in cheek, Willems uses an army of mice and a cast of multicultural children to cover the basics of polite conversation: please, excuse me, sorry, and thank you. The tiny rodents are responsible for maneuvering the colorful text bubbles (and parachutes, arrows, signs, hot-air balloons, sails, wrecking balls, etc.). Framing the words in creative ways against expansive white backgrounds reinforces their importance while providing a boost to beginning readers. The examples speak directly to a young child's experience, thereby inspiring the motivation to try the author's suggestions: If you ever really want something–the illustration shows an entranced girl eyeing a cookie jar–...don't just grab it! Go ask a big person and please say ˜please'! Other relevant situations follow as the mice instruct and cajole the youngsters on the art of approaching adults while remaining sincere. A certain pigeon makes a cameo appearance, and a simple board game decorates the endpapers.

Antarctic Antics  by Judy Sierra 
Amazon.com Review

Judy Sierra, author of the well-loved picture books Counting Crocodiles and The House That Drac Built, delights young readers again, this time paying poetic tribute to the distinguished-yet-waddling emperor penguin of icy Antarctica. Comical, cartoonish paintings by accomplished illustrators (and penguin lovers) Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey combined with Sierra's lively poems will have your favorite kids giggling and, perhaps, wanting a pet baby penguin of their own! Youngsters will dive, swim, and glide through playful poems such as "My Father's Feet," which begins: "To keep myself up on the ice,/I find my father's feet are nice./I snuggle in his belly fluff,/And that's how I stay warm enough." "Penguin's Swim" starts, "Ten little penguins all in a line--/One jumps in and now there are nine./Nine little penguins, how they hesitate--/One tumbles in and now there are eight." Sierra's poems are based on the lives and habits of emperor penguins, so your kids will learn about life in the Antarctic from a penguin's perspective

Corkscrew Counts  by Donna Jo Napoli and Richard Tcher 
From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 2—Twelve children gather together to celebrate Corkscrew the pig's birthday, but they have trouble deciding what games to play. Every time they form teams and begin an activity that will work for all 12 youngsters, Corkscrew and another guest, a lively parrot, interrupt, throwing off the even sides and taking over the action. The final game, Ultimate Frisbee, needs two groups of seven players, so the animals are accepted as teammates and the party ends on a happy note. The endearing creatures add humor and interest to a rather mundane story that seems contrived to use multiplication in the forming of the teams. The inclusion of simple math problems (1 x 12 = 12; 2 x 6 = 12; etc.) doesn't add to the text. While the birthday party theme and the pets may attract readers, the most appealing part of the book is the charming watercolors that show an engaging cast of neighborhood children, messy party decorations, the pig dressed up in bows, and the parrot causing chaos.

Juvenile

The Last Olympian  by Rick Riordan 
Product Description

All year the half-bloods have been preparing for battle against the Titans, knowing the odds of victory are grim. Kronos’s army is stronger than ever, and with every god and half-blood he recruits, the evil Titan’s power only grows. While the Olympians struggle to contain the rampaging monster Typhon, Kronos begins his advance on New York City, where Mount Olympus stands virtually unguarded.  Now it’s up to Percy Jackson and an army of young demigods to stop the Lord of Time.
In this momentous final book in the New York Times best-selling series, the long-awaited prophecy surrounding Percy’s sixteenth birthday unfolds. And as the battle for Western civilization rages on the streets of Manhattan, Percy faces a terrifying suspicion that he may be fighting against his own fate.

Young Adult

if i stay  by Gayle Forman 
From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The last normal moment that Mia, a talented cellist, can remember is being in the car with her family. Then she is standing outside her body beside their mangled Buick and her parents' corpses, watching herself and her little brother being tended by paramedics. As she ponders her state (Am I dead? I actually have to ask myself this), Mia is whisked away to a hospital, where, her body in a coma, she reflects on the past and tries to decide whether to fight to live. Via Mia's thoughts and flashbacks, Forman (Sisters in Sanity) expertly explores the teenager's life, her passion for classical music and her strong relationships with her family, friends and boyfriend, Adam. Mia's singular perspective (which will recall Alice Sebold's adult novel, The Lovely Bones) also allows for powerful portraits of her friends and family as they cope: Please don't die. If you die, there's going to be one of those cheesy Princess Diana memorials at school, prays Mia's friend Kim. I know you'd hate that kind of thing. Intensely moving, the novel will force readers to take stock of their lives and the people and things that make them worth living. Ages 14–up.

DVD

Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey, Jr. 
Amazon.com

Guy Ritchie (Snatch, RocknRolla) attempts to reinvent one of the world's most iconic literary figures as an action hero in this brawny, visually arresting period adventure. Robert Downey Jr. is an intriguing choice for the Great Detective, and if he occasionally murmurs his lines a pitch or two out of hearing range, his trademark bristling energy and off-kilter humor do much to sell Ritchie's notion of Holmes. Jude Law is equally well-equipped as a more active Dr. Watson--he's closer to Robert Duvall's vigorous portrayal in The Seven Per-Cent Solution than to Nigel Bruce--and together, they make for an engaging team. Too bad the plot they're thrust into is such a mess--a bustling and disorganized flurry of martial arts, black magic, and overwhelming set pieces centered around Mark Strong's Crowley-esque cult leader (no Professor Moriarty, he), who returns from the grave to exact revenge. Downey and Law's amped-up Holmes and Watson are built for the challenge of riding this roller coaster with the audience; however, Rachel McAdams as Holmes's love interest, Irene Adler (here a markedly different character than the one in Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Scandal in Bohemia"), and Kelly Reilly as Mary Morstan, the future Mrs. Watson, are cast to the wind in the wake of Ritchie's hurricane pace. One can imagine this not sitting well with ardent Sherlockians; all others may find this Sherlock Holmes marvelous if calorie-free popcorn entertainment, with the CGI rendering of Victorian-era London particularly appealing eye candy.

Braveheart starring Mel Gibson 
Amazon.com essential video

A stupendous historical saga, Braveheart won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for star Mel Gibson. He plays William Wallace, a 13th-century Scottish commoner who unites the various clans against a cruel English King, Edward the Longshanks (Patrick McGoohan). The scenes of hand-to-hand combat are brutally violent, but they never glorify the bloodshed. There is such enormous scope to this story that it works on a smaller, more personal scale as well, essaying love and loss, patriotism and passion. Extremely moving, it reveals Gibson as a multitalented performer and remarkable director with an eye for detail and an understanding of human emotion. (His first directorial effort was 1993's Man Without a Face.) The film is nearly three hours long and includes several plot tangents, yet is never dull. This movie resonates long after you have seen it, both for its visual beauty and for its powerful story.

A little about Connelly's "The Reversal" since most reviews seem to agree that "this is one of Connelly's most suspenseful and involving legal thrillers in years. It has incisive and realistic dialogue, compelling courtroom scenes, well-drawn characters, and a carefully constructed plot. Fascinating details about surveillance, trial strategy, forensics, and police procedure add to the book's verisimilitude. The only false note is that when Mickey is on the scene, he is the first-person narrator, but otherwise, Connelly writes in the third person. This is slightly jarring; Connelly might have been better off sticking to the third person throughout, especially since Haller, McPherson, and Bosch all share the spotlight. Another familiar face is FBI profiler Rachel Walling, who makes a strong cameo appearance."

New Materials

Adult

Crescent Dawn  by Clive Cussler 
From Booklist

Cussler’s umpteenth installment in the 40-year run of Dirk Pitt chronicles, now written with his son, the eponymous Dirk Cussler, has become as formulaic a franchise as the James Bond movies. In fact, Pitt is a Bond of the seas with similar exotic locales, scenery-chewing villains, over-the-top technology, and bodacious babes served with a bucket of testosterone—“shaken not stirred.” But with formula fiction, as with theme restaurants, it’s fun, and you always know what you’re getting. Cussler, the Cheesecake Factory of adventure writers, doesn’t disappoint in his latest, in which the bizarre cargo carried by a Roman galley in 327 CE and the mysterious explosion of a British battleship in 1916 have tremendous ramifications on the current political climate of the Middle East. Brother-and-sister baddies Ozden and Maria Celik aim to resurrect the Ottoman Empire, to which they lay claim as the allegedly last surviving royal heirs, by fomenting a fundamentalist uprising in Turkey and the surrounding Middle Eastern countries. But they’ll succeed only if they can keep Dirk Pitt and his NUMA (National Underwater and Marine Agency) team from discovering what was being transported in that ancient galley.

The Outlaws  by W. E. B. Griffin 
From Booklist

Charlie Castillo is going through a bit of a professional shake-up. His top-secret government unit, the mildly named Office of Organizational Analysis, has been disbanded. Charlie and his team have been expelled from government. And the new president (taking over after the former president dropped dead unexpectedly) is distinctly antagonistic toward Charlie and the work he did for the government (something about all those bodies he left behind). It seems like Charlie is down and out, but when several kilograms of Congo-X—a very nasty, fatal bioweapon that Charlie supposedly destroyed—show up in the U.S., Castillo and his former colleagues race to find out who sent the stuff and what they intend to do with the rest of it. Oh, and the Russians are after Charlie; so is the American government but for (mostly) different reasons. Some action-hungry readers might find the book a bit dialogue-heavy, but fans of Griffin’s military thrillers will be eager to have a go at his latest.

Post Card Killers  by James Patterson

Paris is stunning in the summer.NYPD detective Jacob Kanon is on a tour of Europe's most gorgeous cities. But the sights aren't what draw him--he sees each museum, each cathedral, and each cafe through the eyes of his daughter's killer.
Kanon's daughter, Kimmy, and her boyfriend were murdered while on vacation in Rome. Since then, young couples in Paris, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, and Stockholm have been found dead. Little connects the murders, other than a postcard to the local newspaper that precedes each new victim.
Now Kanon teams up with the Swedish reporter, Dessie Larsson, who has just received a postcard in Stockholm--and they think they know where the next victims will be. With relentless logic and unstoppable action, The Postcard Killers may be James Patterson's most vivid and compelling thriller yet. 

The Reversal  by Michael Connelly 
From Booklist

*Starred Review* Connelly may be our most versatile crime writer. His Harry Bosch series has taken the hard-boiled cop novel to a new level of complexity, both in its portrayal of the hero’s inner life and in Connelly’s ability to intertwine landscape and meaning. His Mickey Haller novels, on the other hand, starring the maverick lawyer who uses his Lincoln Town Car as an office, are testaments to the sublime architecture of plot. With the crime novel now commonly rubbing elbows with literary fiction, it sometimes seems that pure story has become a forgotten stepchild. In his Haller novels, Connelly reminds us how satisfying it can be to follow the path of a well-constructed plot. So it is here, in the third Haller novel, which finds the antiestablishment attorney accepting an unlikely offer: a one-time gig as a prosecutor, retrying a case in which a killer’s 24-year-old conviction has been overturned on the basis of DNA. Taking second chair will be Haller’s ex-wife, the formidable Maggie, with Harry Bosch (identified in The Brass Verdict, 2008, as Haller’s half brother) serving as special investigator. The table is set for a straightforward legal thriller, albeit one starring three superbly multidimensional characters. And, yet, Connelly bobs and weaves around all our expectations. There is suspense, of course, and there are plenty of surprises, both in the courtroom and outside of it, but this is a plot that won’t be pigeonholed. Reading this book is like watching a master craftsman, slowly and carefully, brick by brick, build something that holds together exquisitely, form and function in perfect alignment.

Young Adult

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants  by Ann Brashares 
From Publishers Weekly

A pair of jeans purchased at a thrift store is the unlikely bond that keeps four best friends emotionally connected during the first summer that they spend physically apart. This clever (if initially hokey-sounding) premise sets the course for four intertwined, compelling coming-of-age stories. Carmen doesn't think much of the pants she buys for $3.49, until she and her pals discover their magical quality. The jeans which fit each girl perfectly despite their very different body types serve as a surrogate friend for Tibby, Carmen, Lena and Bridget as they wrestle with new issues of first love, jealousy, fear and sadness in the months before their junior year of high school. Each girl has a turn with the pants, then sends them on to the next person in the rotation; by summer's end, when the friends are reunited, the jeans will be the symbol of what the girls have experienced. Goethals sounds every bit the teenager here, but her sometimes halting reading never quite captures the crackle of Brashares's writing style. In Goethals's command, the author's snappy asides and retorts occasionally sound cumbersome rather than humorous or biting, as they were intended. Many teen girls will likely take these shortcomings in stride and get lost in a story that speaks to them. Ages 12-up.

Juvenile

The Popularity Papers  by Amy Ignatow 
From School Library Journal

Grade 4–6—Fifth-graders Lydia and Julie, best friends, decide to observe "the popular girls" at their school in preparation for junior high. Julie, who lives with her two dads, loves to draw, and Lydia, who lives with her mom and sister, loves to sing. In this Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Abrams, 2007) for girls, the story is told entirely in full-color drawings and in each girl's individual handwriting as they pass their notebook back and forth to record their observations. Of course, things don't go as planned—though the girls' quest for popularity leads them to new hobbies and new friends, it also challenges their own friendship. This entertaining look at the social hierarchy of preteens and the challenges of growing up will entice even the most reluctant readers.

Easy Readers

Groundhog Day  by Gail Gibbons 
From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 4—A look at some fascinating facts about this red-letter day, presented in Gibbons's signature style. Readers will learn about the traditions that led to the big celebration now held each year on February 2nd in Punxsutawney, PA. The author includes tidbits about the groundhog's diet, habitat, burrows, newborns/kits and looks at past cultures that depended on hibernating animals to help them determine the arrival of spring. Today's "belief" that there will be six more weeks of winter if a groundhog sees his shadow is explained in terms that are perfect for children's level of understanding. Pair this informative and entertaining title with one of the many fictional picture books available on this subject for a fun and fact-filled lesson.

Internet Access: We provide 5 computers for internet access along with access to other applications such as Resume Maker, Word, Excel, Word Database, and Power Point. Wi Fi is also available throughtout the building.

Tuesday Morning Story Hour: Having fun with numbers will be the theme for the New Year as Peggy reads about numbers in nature, in sequence, and in our food. Books include Count! by Denise Fleming, Eyelike Numbers by PlayBac, and 17 Things I'm Not Allowed To Do Anymore by Jenny Offill. Join Peggy each Tuesday @10. Saturdays are open storytime. Drop by and let Peggy read to you and your child. Peggy says, "Winter Saturdays can be an activity challenge, so children's movies will also be available to watch".

NEW MATERIALS

ADULT

The Lock Artist  by Steve Hamilton 
Amazon.com Review 

Amazon Best Books of the Month, January 2010: Mike Smith is a "boxman." He can open any safe, padlock, or locked door without a combination or a key--a talent that lands him in prison at the age of eighteen. He spends his time writing down the story of his life because that's the only way he can share it. He hasn't spoken in ten years. Not a single word since the tragic day he became known as the "Miracle Boy." Mike is one of those unreliable narrators you can't help rooting for--a traumatized soul fighting his way back from the brink--and the mystery of his silence will have you blazing through pages. A smart, inventive thriller, The Lock Artist is packed with a standout cast of characters, plus enough safe-cracking trade secrets to tempt you to dig up that old combination lock and test your newfound knowledge.

A Cruel Ever After  by Ellen Hart 
From Publishers Weekly

At the start of Hart's delightful 18th mystery starring Minneapolis restaurateur Jane Lawless (after 2009's The Mirror and the Mask), Jane's charismatic ex-husband and antiquities dealer, Chester "Chess" Garrity, wakes up one morning with a hangover outside the house of Melvin Dial, an art collector to whom he'd offered to sell a valuable Iraqi artifact, the Winged Bull of Nimrud, the night before. After finding Dial dead of a knife wound inside the house, Chess flees. When he returns to the crime scene with fellow dealer Irina Nelson, he discovers the body gone and a note clearly addressed to him demanding ,000 in small bills along with incriminating photos. Arrested for Dial's murder, Chess must turn to Jane, who has more than enough on her plate already, for help. Buttressed by distinctive characters and a splendid Minnesota setting, the well-constructed plot builds to a satisfying conclusion.

CHILDREN

The Enchanted Sled  by Jan Wahl and Monique Felix 
From School Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 2–Although Wahl's poem seems to be about a winter excursion, Felix abandons visual references to snow after the first spread. Instead, viewers are whisked away to balmy imaginary lands where a girl is transformed into a puffed-up toad, a mermaid, a queen, a gypsy asleep in camp, and other incarnations. Tendrils of her long, orange hair wind through the soft-focus landscapes. Her pale skin and languid poses add to her remoteness in this self-consciously artsy volume. For a winter book that employs artistic creativity to foster multiple readings, turn to Lynne Rae Perkins's Snow Music (HarperCollins, 2003). Hope Vestergaard's Hello, Snow! (Farrar, 2004) offers a much better choice if you need a straightforward, rhymed romp. Unfortunately for Wahl, the illustrations in Sled don't give his words much traction.

Cottonball Colin  by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross 
Product Description

Award-winning duo Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross team up again for this delightful book about growing up and letting go.
Colin is the smallest of his ten brothers and sisters, and oh, how his mother worries about him! She won't let him run and play. She insists that Colin sit quietly indoors -- until Grandma has a clever idea: wrapping him up tight in cotton.
Sweet, humorous illustrations of Colin's adventures in the big, wide world will charm readers of all ages.

Open Story Hour: If you happen to be in the Webb Library area on a Saturday and you want to have Peggy read you and your youngster a story, then by all means stop by anytime between 10 am and 3:30 pm.

More "Writes Like". Who writes like your favorite author? Remember back in Oct. when we first took on this topic. Here are a few additional sites. Visit the following:
Google docs. 
Book Recommendations for Jodi Picoult Fans
If you like The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson
http://www.wcl.govt.nz/popular/fictionwriters.html


New Materials

Adult

The Sherlockian  by Graham Moore  
Amazon.com Review 

Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2010: The Sherlockian begins with Arthur Conan Doyle pondering the best way to kill off the character that brought him fame, fortune, and the angst of a writer desperate to be remembered for more than "a few morbid yarns." We then skip more than a hundred years into the future, to meet Harold White, a Sherlock Holmes devotee attending an annual celebration of hundreds of Sherlockian societies. When both Conan Doyle and White face grisly murders, Graham Moore's delightful debut novel really takes off, bouncing merrily between these two characters and time periods. Replete with winking cameos and Holmes-worthy twists, The Sherlockian is an inspired historical suspense novel that will captivate Holmes fans and anyone who loves a good twisty, clever mystery.

Rescue  by Anita Shreve 

From Booklist
Paramedic Pete Webster is worried sick about his daughter, Rowan, a high-school senior whom he has raised single-handedly ever since she was two. Rowan has adopted very untypical behavior, ignoring her studies and drinking heavily. It brings back bad memories of his ex-wife, Sheila. He pulled her from a car wreck while on the job and soon fell madly in love with her both for her beauty and her irreverent sense of humor. When she became pregnant, he married her though he was only 21. They were very happy until Sheila began drinking all day, every day. Now Pete is worried that their daughter believes she is doomed to repeat her mother’s mistakes; he decides to contact Sheila, whom he has not seen or heard from for 16 years. The prolific Shreve brings her customary care to this thoroughly absorbing, perfectly paced domestic drama.

The Athena Project by Brad Thor 

Product Description
The world’s most elite counter-terrorism unit has just taken its game to an entirely new level. And not a moment too soon . . .From behind the rows of razor wire, a new breed of counterterrorism operator has emerged.
Just as skilled, just as fearsome, and just as deadly as their colleagues, Delta Force’s newest members have only one thing setting them apart—their gender. Part of a top-secret, all-female program codenamed The Athena Project, four of Delta’s best and brightest women are about to undertake one of the nation’s deadliest assignments.
When a terrorist attack in Rome kills more than twenty Americans, Athena Team members Gretchen Casey, Julie Ericsson, Megan Rhodes, and Alex Cooper are tasked with hunting down the Venetian arms dealer responsible for providing the explosives. But there is more to the story than anyone knows.

Dead Like You  by Peter James 

From Publishers Weekly
Det. Supt. Roy Grace and his major crimes team discover disturbing similarities between two Brighton rapes in the thrilling sixth entry in James's popular U.K. crime series (Dead Simple, etc.). In particular, the rapist used the women's shoes to violate his victims. In 1997, a similar series of rapes occurred in Brighton, committed by someone known only as the "Shoe Man." The Shoe Man had five confirmed victims, but Grace always suspected that 22-year-old Rachael Ryan, who disappeared soon after the rapes ceased in 1997, was the Shoe Man's only murder victim. Grace's failure to find Rachael's body has haunted him since. James ably shifts between the present-day investigation, with its numerous suspects, who all appear guilty of something, and the earlier inquiry.

Young Adult

The Tenth Power  by Kate Constable 

From School Library Journal
Grade 6 Up–In the final installment of this trilogy, Calwyn, who once had several of the nine singing magic powers (called chantments), has lost all of her extraordinary gifts. Bitterly, she returns to Antaris with hopes of recuperation, but instead finds that a number of the chanters have been affected with a deadly snow-sickness. Entrusted by the dying high priestess with knowledge of a wheel that contains the tenth power to heal the world, Calwyn sets out with her companions to track down Samis, a wicked sorcerer whom she had believed was dead, and wrest from him the missing half of the wheel. On her perilous journey, she discovers a long-lost relative, delves deeper into the conflicted relationship with her chanter friend Darrow, and discovers new gifts that lead her reluctantly toward her destiny as the Singer of All Songs.

Invisible Things by Jenny Davidson 

From School Library Journal
Gr 8 Up–Set in 1939 Denmark, this story uses the same alternative history device as Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan (S & S, 2009), but it doesn't work here. Instead, the book is a confusing mishmash of characters with the history and science not fully explored. It is a novel more of explanation than action. Sixteen-year-old Sophie, an orphan living at a scientific facility operated by Niels Bohr, has been smuggled out of Scotland for her own safety. She's hoping to speak to Alfred Nobel about the death of her parents. After a gas and pellet attack at Bohr's birthday party and the subsequent invasion of Denmark, Sophie, her friend Mikael (undergoing some strange personality changes due to the gas), and a few of the scientists from the institute evacuate to Sweden where they stay in the same boarding house as Mikael's brother. After a rather surreal meeting with Nobel, during which she finds out that her father had successfully designed the atomic bomb, she gets confirmation that she is Nobel's granddaughter and heir. She is sent on a long journey to negotiate plans for the weapon, and to rescue Mikael, who has been hypnotized into following Elsa Blix, a weapons dealer and also an illegitimate child of Nobel's who only wants recognition of her paternity. Few readers will stick with Invisible Things to its unsatisfying and rather sudden conclusion.

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver 

From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up—Samantha Kingston has worked her way up the popularity ladder; now a senior, she and her three best friends rule their school. On Cupid Day, Sam expects to receive Valentine roses, to party with her friends, and to finally (maybe) have sex with her equally popular boyfriend. The last thing she expects is that she will die, but in the final moments of her life, as she hears "a horrible, screeching sound—metal on metal, glass shattering, a car folding in two," everything turns to nothing. Only, it is not the end for Sam. She wakes up to start the same day over again, and again; in fact, she relives it seven times. At first, being dead has its advantages, as she realizes that nothing worse can happen to her. She first conducts herself with reckless abandon, seducing her math teacher and smoking marijuana. It is difficult to feel pity for Sam; she is snobbish, obnoxious, a cheater, and just plain mean. However, her gradual and complete transformation is so convincing that when she finally puts others before herself in order to save another life, it is moving and cathartic.

First Readers 

Mouse Noses On Toast  by Daren King 

Product Description
When Paul Mouse overhears a customer in a restaurant ordering mouse noses on toast, he assumes it must be a joke. Mouse noses on toast is a myth, isn’t it? But when the waiter asks if that would be with or without whiskers, Paul knows it’s no joke. So begins a laugh-out-loud funny ride involving mouse activists and cheese addicts. Along with his friends— Sandra the Christmas tree ornament, Rowley Barker Hobbs, a shaggy sheepdog, and the Tinby, a sort of monster, Paul Mouse, who’s sadly allergic to cheese, campaigns to bring an end to this disgusting human eating habit. This inviting chapter book will keep young readers giggling.

Sugar and Ice  by Kate Messner 

From School Library Journal
Gr 5-7–Claire Boucher is a busy seventh grader. She not only balances school with the responsibilities of work on her family farm, especially now that the maple sap is running, but also coaches young skaters at the nearby skating school. On the day that this delightful novel opens, she is rushing to get ready for the annual Maple Show. While she's aware that a famous Russian skating coach will be scouting, she is not hopeful that he's there for her. Competition terrifies her. But she lands her double toe loop and is offered a scholarship to the summer program at Lake Placid. But how can Claire ask her already busy parents to make the hour and a half drive three days a week? Does she really want to compete? Is she squandering her incredible talent if she chooses not to accept the offer? Messner has a flair for depicting engaging characters who are imperfect without being quirky. The dialogue between classmates and siblings is realistic, and the intergenerational or extended family relationships are interesting.

Picture Books

Piglet and Granny  by Margaret Wild 

From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 1—In this creative team's third collaboration, irrepressible Piglet looks forward to a visit from Granny. Even though she is "soft and squishy," Granny always has "such good ideas for things to do." Waiting by the gate, the youngster becomes impatient. To pass the time she practices some of the tricks her grandmother taught her. Her farmyard friends admire Piglet's ability to balance on the stone wall, chase butterflies, and do somersaults. As they praise her, they also provide reassurance that Granny will no doubt be there soon. And she is. King's bucolic watercolor-and-ink illustrations enliven Wild's sweet but repetitive narrative. In a gentle palette of pastel shades he deftly captures the special relationship between the two characters.

Miss Brooks Loves Books  by Barbara Bottner 

Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, March 2010: If ever there were a perfect picture book for those so-called "reluctant readers" this is it. Miss Brooks Loves Books (And I Don't) tells the story of Missy, a little girl who rejects just about every story that comes her way. She complains that "They're too kissy. Too pink. And too silly." The tireless librarian Miss Brooks is not about to give up, nor is Missy's mom. When Missy realizes she'd like to read about warts, Mom comes through with an inspired choice that sets this picky reader on the path to book bliss. Leave it to the pros--author Barbara Bottner and illustrator Michael Emberley to hit the funny bone with this clever and quirky new read.

Ernest the Moose Who Doesn't Fit  by Catherine Rayner 

From School Library Journal
PreS-Gr 1–Ernest tries his darnedest to fit on the pages of this book. With the help of his chipmunk friend, he attempts to “shimmy, shift, and shuffle in forward” and “squidge, squodge, and squeeze in backward.” Nothing works; all of him just won't fit. Then chipmunk has an idea; fetching masking tape and paper, she and Ernest cobble together a gatefold for the last page. Now, the moose “fits in perfectly.” The graph-paper pattern on heavy stock is the perfect background against which loose, textured line drawings humorously depict the predicament of the gangly Ernest and his furry friend. The amusing extension, cleverly constructed from a hodgepodge of gaily patterned “paper” stuck together with much tape, makes for a delightful resolution.

Story Hour will begin the New Year on Jan. 4 with the calendar as the theme. Also, since 2011 has been designated "The Year of the Turtle" by PARC (Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation) that will become the overall theme for the year.

The Adult Book Club will meet on Jan. 5 to discuss the book "The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb.

New Materials

Adult

Distant Hours by Kate Morgan 

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. A letter posted in 1941 finally reaches its destination in 1992 with powerful repercussions for Edie Burchill, a London book editor, in this enthralling romantic thriller from Australian author Morton (The Forgotten Garden). At crumbling Milderhurst Castle live elderly twins Persephone and Seraphina and their younger half-sister, Juniper, the three eccentric spinster daughters of the late Raymond Blythe, author of The True History of the Mud Man, a children's classic Edie adores. Juniper addressed the letter to Meredith, Edie's mother, then a young teen evacuated to Milderhurst during the Blitz. Edie, who's later invited to write an introduction to a reprint of Raymond's masterpiece, visits the seedily alluring castle in search of answers. Why was her mother so shattered by the contents of a letter sent 51 years earlier? And what happened to soldier Thomas Cavill, Juniper's long-missing fiancé and Meredith's former teacher? Despite the many competing narratives, the answers will stun readers.

Indulgence in Death by J.D. Robb 

From Publishers Weekly

Lt. Eve Dallas of the New York Police and Security Department returns home from a long overdue Irish vacation to a string of bizarre murders in Robb's thrilling 32nd future cop novel (after Fantasy in Death). The crossbow killing of chauffeur Jamal Houston in his limo in a La Guardia parking lot is followed by the death of high-rent prostitute Ava Crampton, found at Coney Island's House of Horrors stabbed with a bayonet. Other victims include Luc Delaflote, a celebrity chef who's harpooned, and Adrianne Jonas, "a facilitator for the rich" strangled with a handmade bullwhip. Eve, assisted by her trustworthy sidekicks, Det. Delia Peabody and husband Roarke, uncovers a wicked game that grows increasingly macabre.

Object of Beauty by Steve Martin 

From Publishers Weekly

Martin compresses the wild and crazy end of the millennium and finds in this piercing novel a sardonic morality tale. Lacey Yeager is an ambitious young art dealer who uses everything at her disposal to advance in the world of the high-end art trade in New York City. After cutting her teeth at Sotheby's, she manipulates her way up through Barton Talley's gallery of "Very Expensive Paintings," sleeping with patrons, and dodging and indulging in questionable deals, possible felonies, and general skeeviness until she opens her own gallery in Chelsea. Narrated by Lacey's journalist friend, Daniel Franks, whose droll voice is a remarkable stand-in for Martin's own, the world is ordered and knowable, blindly barreling onward until 9/11. And while Lacey and the art she peddles survive, the wealth and prestige garnered by greed do not. Martin (an art collector himself) is an astute miniaturist as he exposes the sound and fury of the rarified Manhattan art world.

Easy Readers

Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken by Kate DiCamillo and Harry Bliss 

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. PreSchool-Grade 2—A picture book in four chapters in which a thrill-seeking chicken repeatedly leaves the warm security of her henhouse seeking excitement. She is captured by hungry pirates, survives a sinking ship, joins the circus, narrowly escapes a lion, is caged with other chickens, picks the lock with her beak, and liberates her fellow captives. Back home in her barnyard, Louise enthralls her sister chickens with the story of her grand exploits, until all fall asleep tucked safely in their henhouse, having felt the vicarious frisson of adventure. In the nicely patterned telling, DiCamillo ends each of Louise's escapades with an old hen asking her where she has been. "Oh, here and there," is Louise's casual answer. Each new chapter begins with the bold brooder still eager to embark anew. Bliss's illustrations depict the settings of Louise's capers in vague antique worlds with various backdrops and in various eras. On every spread, Louise's bright white feathers and brilliant red cockscomb will stand out and draw the eyes of young readers.

Ginger and Petunia by Patricia Polacco 

From School Library Journal Grade 2–4

Ginger is an eccentric pianist with plenty of money, fame, and accomplished young students to whom she listens raptly each day. She also has a closet full of flashy clothes ("'You are what you wear,' she always says") and plenty of makeup that she applies liberally. As if that's not enough to make her a bit unusual, Ginger has a pig named Petunia. She adores her pet so much that the porker's rather elaborate house is under the staircase and her every whim is catered to, including a fabulous outdoor mud hole with a gazebo over it. ("'My Petunia does so love her mud soaks,' Ginger always says.") But when the pampered pet is accidentally left to fend for herself for a few days, the fun really begins. She fills in for Ginger, attending openings and parties, wearing Ginger's clothes and makeup; the fact that no one notices is hilarious. Polacco's illustrations are filled with movement and humor. The dance sequence with the governor ("Petunia grabbed his ankles and swung him round and round and up into the huge vat of chocolate mousse") is worth the price of the book.

Chin Yu Min and the Ginger Cat by Jennifer Armstrong 

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-4-- Chin Yu Min, a haughty and frivolous rich woman in a fictitious Old China, must mend her ways when her husband dies and her money runs out. She meets a ginger cat who fishes so well with his tail that she recoups some of her fortunes from selling his catches. When he disappears, Chin Yu Min is so distraught that she humbles herself enough to ask her neighbors for help; when the cat is found, she invites them to dinner. Despite a rather abrupt volte-face, this is an amusing story that is told with gusto in mellifluous prose. The exaggerated melodramatics of Chin Yu Min offset her vicissitudes with comic effect and successfully soften the implied moral. The illustrations, in watercolor and pastels, accentuate the entertaining theatricality of the text. Colors are rich, yet applied with subtlety. Composition is dramatic, and perspective is employed strikingly. The eponymous cat is properly anthropomorphized without losing his felinity.

The Forest by Claire A. Nivola  

From School Library Journal

K Up-A little mouse lives safely and comfortably in his cozy house in his familiar village, but he is haunted by his fear of the forest-"that dark and unknown place at the farthest edge of my little world." One day, realizing that this fear has become so intense that he has no choice but to confront it, he leaves hearth and home and enters the forest. Frightened by a shadow, he runs, trips and falls, and lies still on the ground hoping to avoid discovery. As he lies there, he slowly becomes aware of the beauty and sweetness surrounding him-moss as soft as feathers, sunlight raining down, a butterfly hovering nearby "like a guardian angel." When he turns over and looks up, he realizes that "The sky was bigger than the forest, bigger even than my fear had been, bigger than everything." He is finally able to begin his journey home with "the sweet murmuring world of the forest filling me."