Congratulations to Graham Strother!! for identifying Dirk Pitt as the answer to our "Name the Fictional Character" contest. Identify our next fictional character and win your free slice of pizza.

Wednesday May 19. The Morehead City Women's Club will host a Tea Party to celebrate their 90th anniversary. They would love for you join the party.

Adult Book Club: Meets Wed. May 4 at 3 pm. "Secrets of Eden" by Chris Bohjalian will be discussed. This will be the last meeting until Sept.

Come By in the next couple of weeks and wish Peggy well as she makes plans to return to Vermont to spend the summer months in the cool Vermont mountains.
 

NEW MATERIALS

Adult

The School of Night  by Louis Bayard
From Booklist

Bayard is known for his historical mysteries and here he adds a different element to the mix by combining a plot set in the Elizabethan era with a modern-day story. It seems disgraced scholar Henry Cavendish’s good friend, Alonzo Wax, a man of large appetites, has stolen a letter from ruthless antiquities collector Bernard Styles, who desperately wants it back. The letter purportedly contains a treasure map connected to the School of Night, a secretive intellectual club whose members included unheralded genius Thomas Harriot as well as Sir Walter Raleigh, who were well aware that discussing certain subjects in public could cost them their lives. As Henry tracks down the missing letter, Bayard intersperses the story of Harriot’s great love affair with his beautiful servant turned scientific colleague, Margaret. Although not quite as gripping as The Black Tower (2008), Bayard’s latest is considerably more humorous in tone as he interweaves the antic comedy of the modern-day caper with the tragic and affecting love story of the past.

The Free World  by David Bezmozgis 
From Publishers Weekly

Bezmozgis follows his well-received Natasha and Other Stories with a meticulous study of the capricious spaces between historical certainties. First, there's the gap that allows the Krasnansky family to flee Soviet Latvia in the late 1970s for the edge of Rome, where a population of Jewish refugees contemplate their chances of emigrating to Canada, America, or Australia while awaiting news of Israel's peace with Egypt amid widespread anti-Zionism. Then there's the generational gap between the Krasnansky patriarch, unreconstructed Communist Samuil, who only reluctantly leaves the bloc he fought and sacrificed for, and his somewhat profligate sons, Alec and Karl, keen to snatch up the opportunities—sexual, financial, and criminal—that the West affords. And finally there is the growing distance between Alec and his wife, Polina, who is fleeing an ex-husband and a scandalous abortion. Bezmozgis displays an evenhanded verisimilitude in dealing with a wide variety of cold war attitudes, and though the unremitting seriousness of his tone makes for some slow patches, the book remains an assured, complex social novel whose relevance will be obvious to any reader genuinely curious about recent history, the limits of love, and the unexpected burdens that attend the arrival of freedom.

Ancestors of Avalon  by Diana L. Paxson 
Product Description

Marion Zimmer Bradley's beloved Avalon saga continues with the dramatic story of the ancestors of Avalon, from their life on the doomed island of Atlantis to their escape to the mist-shrouded isle of Britain. Woven into this extraordinary tale are the journeys of two powerful women whose destinies will shape the fate of the new line of descendants.




The Second Son  by Jonathan Rabb 
From Publishers Weekly

Set in 1936, Rabb's gripping conclusion to his Berlin noir trilogy featuring Chief Insp. Nikolai Hoffner (after Rosa and Shadow and Light) finds the 62-year-old Hoffner forced into retirement because the Nazis have discovered that his late mother was Jewish. Meanwhile, Hoffner's filmmaker second son, Georg, has left his wife and son in Berlin to travel to Barcelona, where the People's Olympics, games intended to protest the spectacle of Hitler's Olympics, are scheduled to take place. But the outbreak of civil war in Spain ensures that these alternative games never happen. Letters that Georg pens to his wife describing the conflicting factions—well-organized Fascists on the right, a motley array of socialists and anarchists on the left—will resonate with admirers of George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. After Georg goes missing, Hoffner embarks on a dangerous and perhaps quixotic search to bring his son safely home. Fans of Alan Furst and Philip Kerr will be rewarded.

The Midnight Show Murders  by Al Roker 
From Publishers Weekly

TV weatherman Roker and crime veteran Lochte's fast-paced, exciting sequel to The Morning Show Murders takes Roker's alter ego, Billy Blessing, a TV personality on a Today-like show in Manhattan, to Los Angeles. Billy's network bosses have tapped him to be the first weekly guest announcer of a new show, O'Day at Night, hosted by Irish comedian Des O'Day. When a bomb explosion blows an important cast member to bits on the set of O'Day at Night, Billy once again turns sleuth. The case awakens unpleasant memories of the beginning of Billy's career as a cook in L.A. when he unsuccessfully tried to undermine the alibi of Roger Charbonnet, an arrogant but well-connected young chef suspected of killing Tiffany Arden, a failed starlet turned restaurant bookkeeper. A cop who remembers the Arden murder thinks Roger may have been responsible for the bombing. Wry humor lifts this above most celebrity-written fiction.

Young Adult

Between Shades of Gray  by Ruta Sepetys 
Product Description

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life theyÕve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under StalinÕs orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulouslyÑand at great riskÑdocumenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her fatherÕs prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives.

Juvenile

Voyage of Slaves: A Tale from the Castaways of the Flying Dutchman  by Brian Jacques 
Product Description

Adrift in the Mediterranean Sea, Ben falls captive to a band of slave traders and their leader Al Misurata. With his faithful dog, Ned, at his side, he must plot escape as the ship of scoundrels sails up the Libyan coastline toward Italy. Will they survive the treacherous journey in the clutches of ruthless enemies?





The Great Turkey Walk  by Kathleen Karn 
From School Library Journal

Grade 4-8?Fusing plot elements and modes of characterization (or appropriate near-stereotypes) from the tall tale, the comic novel, the melodrama, and the more literary Bildungsroman, The Great Turkey Walk is a charmer, from the immediate hook of its first chapter to its perfectly satisfying conclusion. The year is 1860, and "pea-brained" Simon Green, a brawny 15 year old, is "graduated" from school after his fourth year of third grade. Wondering what to do next, he seizes upon the complaint of a local turkey farmer: that birds worth $5 in turkey-starved boomtown Denver are worth only 25 cents in Missouri. With the financial assistance of his beloved former teacher (and new business sponsor), who risks her life savings to help him, Simon buys 1000 birds. A few more minor loans?a wagon, feed corn, four mules?and the partnership of a washed-up mule driver are all he needs to begin the 800-mile trek to Denver. Along the way, Simon matures from a good-hearted and sensible (if not booksmart) boy to a good-hearted, sensible, and potentially wealthy young man, and mule driver Bidwell Peece recovers his dignity. Joined en route by a runaway slave and the sole survivor of a homesteading family, Simon gains his first true friend and the girlfriend who may someday become his wife. Full of good humor and page-turning quest-style events, the story smacks of legend and archetype without seeming self-important, and it genuinely amuses readers rather that smugly proclaiming its wit.

Science Fair  by Dave Barry 
From School Library Journal

Grade 5–8—When Grdankl the Strong, president of the small, but extremely unhappy country of Krpshtskan, declares war on the United States, no one is safe. Its agents are en route to Hubble Middle School where an operative has been working for several years to create award-winning science-fair projects for underachieving children and their overinvolved parents. This is the year that the top projects will be designed to work in concert to bring down the United States in one enormous, electromagnetic pulse strike. All that is standing in the way of this diabolical plan are three students, a science store operator, a handful of bumbling FBI agents, and a giant Weinermobile. Barry and Ridley have created a wild story of danger, espionage, stinky cheese, exploding vats of Coca-Cola, and one floating frog. This nonstop, action-packed novel will appeal to every kid who has ever had to do a science-fair project.

The Last Apprentice: Rage of the Fallen  by Joseph Delaney 
Product Description

Thomas Ward has served as the Spook's apprentice for three years. He has battled boggarts, witches, demons, and even the devil himself. Tom has enemies: The Fiend stalks him, waiting for a moment of weakness. The terrifying Morrigan, goddess of witches, warned him never to step foot on her homeland, Ireland.

But now war has consumed their own country, and Tom, his friend Alice, and the Spook must flee to Ireland. The dark rages strongly there. No one can be trusted. Can Tom defeat the creatures that hunt him most fiercely?

Picture Books

Meadowlands  by Thomas F. Yezerski 
Review

“Thomas Yezerski's pleasingly presented history of this "flat, wet place in New Jersey" helps all of us see the workings of an estuary, spongy ground where a freshwater river meets the ocean tides.” –Chicago Tribune“Judicious ink and watercolor illustrations pair with tender prose …Yezerski paints a vivid history of the place where the Hackensack River meets Newark Bay, and where the Lenni Lenape lived for thousands of years…The healthy commingling of urban and natural worlds in the final spreads makes this portrait especially poignant.” –Starred, Publishers Weekly
"Although readers who know the Meadowlands personally will have a special interest in the topic, the idea of fostering and protecting plant and animal habitats in urban environments can resonate with a broad audience." –Starred, School Library Journal

Koala Lou  by Mem Fox 
From Publishers Weekly

Fox's two new books join Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge as perfect examples of why the Australian writer has become one of today's top authors of children's books. Koala Lou is loved by everyone, but it is her mother who loves her most of all. She often tells her daughter, "Koala Lou, I DO love you." As the family grows and her mother gets busier, Koala Lou yearns to hear those words again. She sets out to win the Bush Olympics as a way to gain her mother's attention. Lofts's colored-pencil drawings portray the Australian flora and fauna beautifully, including a few of the more exotic species.

Good Morning China  by Hu Yong Yi 
Product Description

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF CHINA.  Playing, exercising, resting under a lotus tree: the things happening in an ordinary park on an ordinary morning.

Early morning, and a community is coming to life.  Children are playing, an artist is painting, people are exercising and meditating.  Each page in this lovely picure book presents a snap-shot, and a final foldout spread collects them all to give a panorama of daily life in China.  Hu yong Yi's paintings are saturated with color and rich in life and feeling.

Videos

Barbie Fairytopia 

Product Description

Barbie stars as Elina in her first-ever Fairytopia movie. Come join Elina and discover a magical new land filled with fairies, flowers, and enchanting experiences! Just through the rainbow, in the world of Fairytopia, lives Elina, a beautiful flower fairy who longs to have wings! Her home is a large flower in the Magic Meadow where she lives with Bibble, a quirky but loveable puffball. One day Elina wakes to find that her flower home is sick, and that her fairy friends can’t fly! She summons the courage to help and embarks on a fantastic journey to find Azura, a fairy guardian she thinks can solve the problem. What Elina doesn’t know is that the evil Laverna has caused the flying sickness as part of her plan to take power from the Enchantress, ruler of Fairytopia! Elina’s journey, on the back of a giant and beautiful butterfly named Hue, takes her to strange and beautiful places. She meets new people who test her courage and teach her the value of true friendship. But can a young, wingless fairy save all of Fairytopia?

Kangaroo Jack 
Amazon.com

Kids will be drawn to Kangaroo Jack because of the playful antics of a computer-generated kangaroo; however, they'll probably be bored stiff as they endure the absurd and over-elaborate plot. Charlie (the charmless Jerry O'Connell) and his best friend Louis (the reasonably amusing Anthony Anderson) run afoul of Charlie's mob boss stepfather. He insists that they deliver $50,000 to a mystery man in the Australian outback--or else. Along the way, these two dimwits put Louis's bright red jacket (which happens to contain the money) on a kangaroo they think they've accidentally killed, which awakens and bounds off. Belabored and nonsensical chases follow, along with the usual realizations about the importance of friendship, etc. Kangaroo Jack has a lot more sexual innuendo and violence than you'd expect, none of which is either funny or thrilling. Christopher Walken and Estella Warren get through their supporting roles largely unscathed.

Monsters vs Aliens 
Amazon.com

Monsters don't exist, right? If they did, they'd be locked up in some secret government location so the general population wouldn't know of their existence. But what if monsters do exist... and they aren't evil, or even particularly scary? What if they're funny... and smart... and what if they might just be the key to man's survival? When a meteorite crashes in California on Susan Murphy's (Reese Witherspoon) wedding day, Susan is struck by a dose of otherworldly quantonium, her bridal glow becomes decidedly green, and she suddenly swells to a gargantuan 49 feet-11 inches tall. The Feds swoop in and whisk her away from husband-to-be Derek (Paul Rudd) to a government concealment agency where they dub her Ginormica and leave her to bemoan her losses and spend the rest of her days with strange creatures like B.O.B., the brainless blob (Seth Rogen), mad professor Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), the half-fish and half-ape Missing Link (Will Arnett), and the overly huge and strangely silent grub Insectosaurus. Next, Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson), ruler of an alien civilization, sends a huge robot to attack Modesto, Calif., to recover the quantonium released by the fallen meteorite. Under the ineffective leadership of President Hathaway (Stephen Colbert), the government embraces General W. R. Monger's (Kiefer Sutherland) suggestion to pit the imprisoned monsters against the robot in exchange for their freedom.

Veggie Tales: Moe and the Big Exit 

Product Description

You’ve heard the story of Moses but have you heard it told as a Western?! Meet Moe, a good-natured cowboy living high on the hog out in Dodgeball City, while his kinfolk work their fingers to the bone digging the Grand Canyon. Upset by how his family is treated, Moe stands up to the zucchini mayor and sends him up the river. Well as you might reckon a heap of trouble comes to town. Can Moe help free his people and flee Dodgeball once and fer all? Includes a hilarious silly song - A Mess Down in Egypt - starring everyone’s favorite boy band - Boyz in the Sink!