Back to Books

Week of :

March 17, 2008

The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian (Author)
From Publishers Weekly
Readers will be startled to learn early on that the heroine of this engrossing puzzle, 26-year-old Laurel Estabrook, was born in West Egg. Wait a minute, wasn't West Egg where Jay Gatsby lived? Laurel works in a Burlington, Vt., homeless shelter and is trying to overcome mental and physical scars incurred from a brutal assault some six years earlier. After being given a portfolio of photographs taken by a recently deceased resident of the shelter, Bobbie Crocker, she becomes obsessed with questions surrounding what appears to be a picture of herself shot on the day of her attack. Laurel's already fragile mental state begins to unravel as she follows Bobbie's life from his rich-kid childhood on Long Island to homelessness in Vermont. The Gatsby references form the basis of the mystery, compelling readers to try to imagine how this fictional backdrop relates to the novel's "reality." It's a high-wire act for bestseller Bohjalian (Midwives), and while the climactic explanation may be a letdown for some, he generally pulls off a tricky and intriguing premise. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

March 3, 2008

Harmless by by Dana Reinhardt

Review:
From School Library Journal
Freshmen Anna and Emma have been best friends since third grade. When Emma meets Mariah during rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet and becomes friendly with her, Anna grows jealous. Mariah, who is dating a senior from another school, invites them to a sleepover at her boyfriend's house while his parents are away and things change for the three of them after that night. When the girls make up a story about their whereabouts and are caught in the aftermath, the lies grow into something bigger than any of them could have imagined. The unfolding of the truth is believable and told from the girls' alternating points of view. Anna enjoys the newfound attention and rationalizes that maybe the lie wasn't so bad, even as things spiral out of control. Emma, who drank at the party and had sex for the first time, opens up slowly to a counselor. At the end of the book, Mariah is still coming to terms with her actions and regrets, noting how something can appear one way one day and be different the next. Unpredictability and suspense will keep readers turning the pages and questioning their own sensibilities. They will appreciate how well the characters are developed, and how seemingly simple lies can have far-reaching and devastating consequences.—Kelly Czarnecki, Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg, NC
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Feb. 25, 2008--

Title: The Rest of Her Life

Author: Laura Moriarty

Book review:

From Booklist
Moriarty, author of The Center of Everything (2003), limns the aftermath of a family tragedy. Kara Churchill, 18, is driving with a friend and talking on her phone when she blows through a stop sign and strikes a classmate, killing her instantly. Kara retreats into herself, baffling and upsetting her mother, Leigh, who can't find a way to reach her. Leigh's own mother abandoned Leigh at age 16 when she abruptly took off for California to live her own life, and Leigh's sister has moved from one bad relationship to another, so there are reasons Leigh has difficulties relating to her privileged, popular daughter. Moriarty avoids the twists readers expect—an outraged community and a lurid trial—to focus instead on the internal workings of the Churchill family and their shock and grief in the days following the girl's death. Leigh in particular wonders how her daughter will move on beyond the accident that will haunt her for the remainder of her days. Powerful, original, and utterly absorbing, Moriarty's novel will stay with the reader long after the final page is turned.

Feb. 18, 2008--

Extras by Scott Westerfeld

Summary from Amazon:

Playing on every teen’s passionate desire to look as good as everybody else, Scott Westerfeld (Midnighters) projects a future world in which a compulsory operation at sixteen wipes out physical differences and makes everyone pretty by conforming to an ideal standard of beauty. The "New Pretties" are then free to play and party, while the younger "Uglies" look on enviously and spend the time before their own transformations in plotting mischievous tricks against their elders. Tally Youngblood is one of the most daring of the Uglies, and her imaginative tricks have gotten her in trouble with the menacing department of Special Circumstances. She has yearned to be pretty, but since her best friend Shay ran away to the rumored rebel settlement of recalcitrant Uglies called The Smoke, Tally has been troubled. The authorities give her an impossible choice: either she follows Shay’s cryptic directions to The Smoke with the purpose of betraying the rebels, or she will never be allowed to become pretty. Hoping to rescue Shay, Tally sets off on the dangerous journey as a spy. But after finally reaching The Smoke she has a change of heart when her new lover David reveals to her the sinister secret behind becoming pretty. The fast-moving story is enlivened by many action sequences in the style of videogames, using intriguing inventions like hoverboards that use the rider’s skateboard skills to skim through the air, and bungee jackets that make wild downward plunges survivable -- and fun. Behind all the commotion is the disturbing vision of our own society -- the Rusties -- visible only in rusting ruins after a virus destroyed all petroleum. Teens will be entranced, and the cliffhanger ending will leave them gasping for the sequel. (Ages 12 and up) --Patty Campbell

Feb. 4, 2008--Winner--Amanda Weickert

Someone knows my name

Author: Lawrence Hill

Abducted from Africa as a child and enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata Diallo thinks only of freedom and of the knowledge she needs to get home. Sold to an indigo trader who recognizes her intelligence, Aminata is torn from her husband and child and thrown into the chaos of the Revolutionary War. In Manhattan, Aminata helps pen the Book of Negroes, a list of blacks rewarded for service to the king with safe passage to Nova Scotia. There Aminata finds a life of hardship and stinging prejudice. When the British abolitionists come looking for "adventurers" to create a new colony in Sierra Leone, Aminata assists in moving 1,200 Nova Scotians to Africa and aiding the abolitionist cause by revealing the realities of slavery to the British public. This captivating story of one woman's remarkable experience spans six decades and three continents and brings to life a crucial chapter in world history.

January 28, 2008--

Finn by Jon Clinch

Review:
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School—Embarking from a scene in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Clinch has written a debut novel of harrowing intensity. When Jim and Huck find a dead man in a house floating down the Mississippi, the room with the body is filled with mysterious oddities: a wooden leg, two black masks, crude scrawlings over the walls, etc. Huck does not know that the corpse, shot in the back, is his father. Clinch meticulously fills in the backstory of Finn (or "Pap Finn," as Twain usually referred to him). He uses the details of the floating-house scene, and much of Twain's plotting, characters, and themes, to create a story at once intricately entwined with Huckleberry Finn and separate from that novel in tone and focus. The author makes no attempt to duplicate Twain's humor and satire. Instead, he sets his sights on humanity's immense capacity for evil. While Huck's innate good heart won the battle against his society-produced conscience, allowing him to help the runaway slave, Finn has neither the heart nor conscience to aid anyone. Clinch's book contains many surprises: Huck is a mulatto; the extremely racist Finn fancies black women; Finn's father (Judge Finn) is the wealthiest and most respected citizen in town and yet, in significant ways, more evil than his son. Many fans of Twain's masterpiece will want to read Clinch's inspired interpretation of Pap, but some might find it too gruesome, and too void of hope. In any event, Clinch offers a wealth of material for AP English and college-level papers.—Robert Saunderson, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

January 21, 2008--Winner Kellie Lanzillotta

The Luxe by Anna Godbersen

From Publishers Weekly
With a quote from The Age of Innocence as an epigraph and an enthusiastic blurb from the creator of Gossip Girl on its back cover, this lavishly produced debut makes no secret of its twin influences. The story opens in 1899 with the funeral of Elizabeth Holland, a well-bred beauty said to have plunged to her death in the Hudson River. The narrative then travels back several weeks, tracing the relationships and events that have led to the somber assembly. This tangled web includes not one but two sets of star-crossed lovers; an upstairs/downstairs romance; a scheming social climber; a bitter servant girl; and oodles of money, all set in a Edith Wharton via Hollywood vision of Old New York. The dialogue has its clunky moments, and the plot twist that drives the tale is telegraphed from the very start, but readers caught up in the fancy dress intrigue are unlikely to mind much: it’s all part of the dishy fun. Needless to say, the ending paves the way for at least one sequel. Ages 14-up.

January 7, 2008--Winner is Sam Jones

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Hardcover)
by Sherman Alexie (Author)

From Booklist
Arnold Spirit, a goofy-looking dork with a decent jumpshot, spends his time lamenting life on the Spokane Indian reservation, drawing cartoons (which accompany, and often provide more insight than, the narrative), and, along with his aptly named pal Rowdy, laughing those laughs over anything and nothing that affix best friends so intricately together. When a teacher pleads with Arnold to want more, to escape the hopelessness of the rez, Arnold switches to a rich white school and immediately becomes as much an outcast in his own community as he is a curiosity in his new one. He weathers the typical teenage indignations and triumphs like a champ but soon faces far more trying ordeals as his home life begins to crumble and decay amidst the suffocating mire of alcoholism on the reservation. Alexie's humor and prose are easygoing and well suited to his young audience, and he doesn't pull many punches as he levels his eye at stereotypes both warranted and inapt. A few of the plotlines fade to gray by the end, but this ultimately affirms the incredible power of best friends to hurt and heal in equal measure. Younger teens looking for the strength to lift themselves out of rough situations would do well to start here. Chipman, Ian

January 1, 2008--Winner is Stephanie Porter
Ray in Reverse by Daniel Wallace

Amazon.com
Ray in Reverse is such an exceptionally winning novel from start to finish (or would that be finish to start?) that one can almost forgive its opening chapter. The shtick: Ray's in heaven, and he's joined a group called Last Words, where the members... well, you guessed it, rehash the last things they said on Earth. As it turns out, the dead make for fierce critics, and when they criticize his offering (the incomplete phrase "I wish--"), Ray storms out in a huff.
Not so funny, actually, but what follows is--funny, as well as heartbreaking and all too real. From the second chapter onward, Ray relives the most prominent episodes of his life in reverse order, starting with his fatal cancer and working his way back. Here is Ray losing hair, growing wings, and trying to make his final amends; Ray building his son a tree house and getting drunk there every night; Ray with amnesia; Ray stealing the good-luck penny from his dead grandfather's pocket. The book ends with Ray's last act of true innocence, at age 10: "He was simply doing the right thing, and doing the right thing came to him as naturally as breathing. How could he have known that this was a talent that would be lost over time?" Ray's is an ordinary life, with an ordinary mixture of good intentions and bad judgment, but it's also one in which extraordinary things happen. In Big Fish, his first novel, Daniel Wallace proved himself a master at mapping precisely the point where the mythic and the quotidian meet. With its gentle humor and pitch-perfect prose, Ray in Reverse is exactly the right kind of fairy tale for our unmagical times. --Mary Park


December 17, 2007--Winner is Marilyn Petry

Kudzu Christmas: Twelve Mysterious Tales (Hardcover)
by Jim Gilbert (Editor), Gail Waller (Editor), Daniel Wallace (Illustrator), Julia Spencer-Fleming

Long-held family secrets are revealed over Christmas dinner… a crazy uncle has a visitation from sweet-talking angels… a baby disappears from a neighborhood nativity tableau… a woman stakes out a diner for her lover’s killer… a world traveler finds a unique gift in an exotic locale… a vampire sleuth returns home for the holidays… For the twelve days of Christmas, River City Publishing gives to you twelve mysterious stories, and all with a distinct, regional twang. Crafted in the workshops of some of today’s best Southern writers, these original tales—ranging from the humorous to the thrilling to the downright eerie—are guaranteed to stave off any long winter’s nap, no matter how cozy your seat by the fireside.

December 10, 2007---Winner is Margie Powell

Ana's story: A journey of hope

Author: Bush, Jenna

Ana's life is a collection of bits and pieces of her past. Infected with HIV at birth, she's unaware of many details of her early childhood and barely remembers her mother. Living with her strict grandmother, she learns how to keep secrets – secrets about her infection and about the abuse she endures at home. But after Ana falls in love and becomes pregnant at seventeen, she begins a journey of hope – a journey of protecting herself and others. She is living with HIV, not dying from it.

Jenna Bush tells of Ana's struggle to break free from the cycle of abuse, silence, and illness with passion and eloquence. But this is not just Ana's story. It is also the story of many children around the world who are marginalized, neglected and mistreated

December 3, 2007--Winner is Ms. Wiley

William Shakespeare's Macbeth (Graphic Novel)
illustrated by Von

Book Description
Shakespeare has been called the greatest writer in the English language—but his language and settings can seem remote and forbidding. Welcome to Black Dog’s Graphic Shakespeare Library, where each play comes to life in a new way, panel after illustrated panel.

Macbeth is a story of kingship, honor, and bloody revenge. Graphic Shakespeare brings all of the action to vivid life while retaining every word of the original plays. Macbeth is illustrated in full color by Von, an up-and-coming London artist, and includes a synopsis of the play, and an illustrated character list. It’s a marvelous way to experience Shakespeare for the first time—or the tenth—and is sure to be attractive to students and theatre fans alike

NOvember 26, 2007--Winner is Alex Droba

Life on the Refrigerator Door
by Alice Kuipers

Claire and her mother are running out of time, but they don't know it. Not yet. Claire is wrapped up with the difficulties of her bourgeoning adulthood -- boys, school, friends, identity; Claire's mother, a single mom, is rushed off her feet both at work and at home. They rarely find themselves in the same room at the same time, and it often seems that the only thing they can count on are notes to each other on the refrigerator door. When home is threatened by a crisis, their relationship experiences a momentous change. Forced to reevaluate the delicate balance between their personal lives and their bond as mother and daughter, Claire and her mother find new love and devotion for one another deeper than anything they had ever imagined.

Heartfelt, touching, and unforgettable, Life on the Refrigerator Door is a glimpse into the lives of mothers and daughters everywhere. In this deeply touching novel told through a series of notes written from a loving mother and her devoted fifteen-year-old daughter, debut author Alice Kuipers deftly captures the impenetrable fabric that connects mothers and daughters throughout the world. Moving and rich with emotion, Life on the Refrigerator Door delivers universal lessons about love in a wonderfully simple and poignant narrative

November 19, 2007--Ms. Turner

Title: A year in the life of William Shakespeare, 1599 by James Shapiro

Instead of relying on the meagre evidence about Shakespeare's personal life, Shapiro's biography examines how public events left their mark on the four plays-"Henry V," "Julius Caesar," "As You Like It," and "Hamlet"-that Shakespeare wrote during 1599, the year in which the thirty-five-year-old playwright "went from being an exceptionally talented writer to one of the greatest who ever lived." The approach proves illuminating for the overtly political plays. Lines in "Henry V" allude to a rebellion in Ireland that Elizabeth I had recently sent the Earl of Essex to suppress. Chapters on "As You Like It" and "Hamlet" revert to more conventional textual analysis, interlarded with biographical speculations and digressions; for instance, Rosalind's journey to Arden may derive from Shakespeare's annual trip to Stratford to see his wife and daughters, and the "limbs with travel tired" of the twenty-seventh sonnet perhaps reflect the poor condition of English highways.

November 12, 2007--Winner is Sr. Elizabeth

Title: The Mitfords by Charlotte Mosley

From Publishers Weekly

The six notorious and passionately opinionated daughters of the second Baron Redesdale knew many key figures of the 20th century, from Hitler and Churchill to Evelyn Waugh and Lucian Freud. The sisters wrote some 12,000 letters to each other over a span of 80 years—the last was a fax sent in 2003 by 83-year-old Deborah to the dying 93-year-old Diana—and 5% are included here. The turbulent years before and during WWII produced the most noteworthy correspondence: Jessica scandalized her family by running away with her Communist cousin, and Diana divorced a Guinness heir to marry British fascist leader Oswald Mosley. Anti-Semitic Unity gushes like a schoolgirl over Hitler and tells Jessica that she wouldn't hesitate to kill Jessica's Communist husband for Nazism—but in the meanwhile she hopes they can be friends. Nancy writes cheerily to the imprisoned Diana after secretly testifying against her during the war. In later years, Jessica irritated her sisters from her home in America and broke completely with Diana over political differences. Peppered with colorful nicknames, filled with love, encouragement, jealousy and gossip, and written primarily to amuse the recipients, the letters testify to the bonds of sisterhood. Diana's daughter-in-law has diligently edited the mammoth correspondence, although readers will need to fill in the gaps with Mitford biographies and memoirs. B&w illus. (Nov. 6)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

November 5, 2007--Winner is Dr. Jones

Title: Forsaken Afghan Women by Lana Slezic

Book Description
In March 2004, when award-winning photographer Lana Šlezic began an assignment in Afghanistan, she never dreamed she would stay for two years. At the time she believed that since the ousting of the suffocating Taliban in 2001, Afghan women and girls were living under considerably less oppressive conditions. She soon discovered that life for Afghan women was not as she expected and felt compelled to stay and document their story. With the help of a young female Afghan as her friend and translator, Lana photographed women all over the country. Over endless cups of tea in sitting rooms from city to village, Lana learned that Afghan women are still living in a harrowingly oppressive society where forced marriage, domestic violence, honor killings, and an unpalatable lack of freedom still exist. Even today many are not allowed to leave their homes or go to school, and the burka remains a common sight on the dusty streets of the war-torn country. Forsaken: Afghan Women is a collection of photographs and vignettes that document Lana’s journey over the two-year period during which she lived and worked in Afghanistan.

October 29, 2007--Winner is ??

Title: Frankenstein (Audio Book)

Author: Mary Shelley

AUD She

October 22, 2007--winner is ?

956.9405 ZENATTI

Title: When I was a soldier : a memoir

Edition: 1st U.S. ed. Author: Zenatti, Valérie, In this compelling memoir, Zenatti, first among her group of friends to be called for compulsory military service, chronicles two years of growing up in the Israeli army between 1988 and 1990. With teen self-absorption, she describes the end of her high school years, her initial excitement with the uniform and gun, and grueling training. At first overwrought and pretentious, her voice matures as she continues her course, suffers an anxiety attack, and is posted to a security listening post. As Zenatti grows away from her old friends and a former boyfriend, she becomes more aware and open to the ideas, interests, and needs of others–even, eventually, to the Palestinians who share her country. It is true, as adults told her, "The army changes everything." Although immersed in the country and the experience at the time, Zenatti retains her outsider perspective. French by origin, she and her family emigrated to Beersheva when she was 13, where she learned Hebrew. Her love of language shines through, and the translation, though undeniably British, is smooth. Journal entries in italics are interspersed with the present-tense narrative. This is a fascinating glimpse of a different part of the world and a different kind of experience. Older readers, facing the end of high school themselves, will be drawn to this description of the interim between childhood and adulthood that is a universal Israeli experience.–Kathleen Isaacs, formerly at Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC

October 15, 2007--winner is Amanda Weickert

Title: Fire From the Rock

Author: Sharon Draper

FIC DRA

In 1957, Sylvia Patterson's life--that of a normal African American teenager--is disrupted by the impending integration of Little Rock's Central High when she is selected to be one of the first black students to attend the previously all white school.

October 8, 2007--Winner is Erica Howard

Call Number: AUD ROW

Title: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Author:

Rowling, J. K.

Publisher: New York Listening Library

Publication Date: 2007

Physical Description: 17 CD's

If you enjoyed the Harry Potter series, or never read it and want to know what it's about, jump in and listen to the book narrated by Jim Dale. It's a special treat. And, with Fall Break approaching maybe just what you need.

October 1, 2007--Winner is Amanda Weickert
FIC PUL

Title: The golden compass: his dark materials, book I

Author:

Pullman, Philip

Soon to be a movie!

From Amazon:
Some books improve with age--the age of the reader, that is. Such is certainly the case with Philip Pullman's heroic, at times heart-wrenching novel, The Golden Compass, a story ostensibly for children but one perhaps even better appreciated by adults. The protagonist of this complex fantasy is young Lyra Belacqua, a precocious orphan growing up within the precincts of Oxford University. But it quickly becomes clear that Lyra's Oxford is not precisely like our own--nor is her world. For one thing, people there each have a personal dæmon, the manifestation of their soul in animal form. For another, hers is a universe in which science, theology, and magic are closely allied:

As for what experimental theology was, Lyra had no more idea than the urchins. She had formed the notion that it was concerned with magic, with the movements of the stars and planets, with tiny particles of matter, but that was guesswork, really. Probably the stars had dæmons just as humans did, and experimental theology involved talking to them.

Not that Lyra spends much time worrying about it; what she likes best is "clambering over the College roofs with Roger the kitchen boy who was her particular friend, to spit plum stones on the heads of passing Scholars or to hoot like owls outside a window where a tutorial was going on, or racing through the narrow streets, or stealing apples from the market, or waging war." But Lyra's carefree existence changes forever when she and her dæmon, Pantalaimon, first prevent an assassination attempt against her uncle, the powerful Lord Asriel, and then overhear a secret discussion about a mysterious entity known as Dust. Soon she and Pan are swept up in a dangerous game involving

September 24, 2007--Winner is Sara Lanham

FIC HOS

Title: A thousand splendid suns

Author: Hosseini, Khaled

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Afghan-American novelist Hosseini follows up his bestselling The Kite Runner with another searing epic of Afghanistan in turmoil. The story covers three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny through the lives of two women. Mariam is the scorned illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman, forced at age 15 into marrying the 40-year-old Rasheed, who grows increasingly brutal as she fails to produce a child. Eighteen later, Rasheed takes another wife, 14-year-old Laila, a smart and spirited girl whose only other options, after her parents are killed by rocket fire, are prostitution or starvation. Against a backdrop of unending war, Mariam and Laila become allies in an asymmetrical battle with Rasheed, whose violent misogyny—"There was no cursing, no screaming, no pleading, no surprised yelps, only the systematic business of beating and being beaten"—is endorsed by custom and law. Hosseini gives a forceful but nuanced portrait of a patriarchal despotism where women are agonizingly dependent on fathers, husbands and especially sons, the bearing of male children being their sole path to social status. His tale is a powerful, harrowing depiction of Afghanistan, but also a lyrical evocation of the lives and enduring hopes of its resilient characters. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

September 17, 2007--Merilyn Petry

Title: The invention of Hugo Cabret: a novel in pictures and words

Author:

Selznick, Brian

Letter from the author:

A Letter from Brian Selznick

Dear readers, When I was a kid, two of my favorite books were by an amazing man named Remy Charlip. Fortunately and Thirteen fascinated me in part because, in both books, the very act of turning the pages plays a pivotal role in telling the story. Each turn reveals something new in a way that builds on the image on the previous page. Now that I’m an illustrator myself, I’ve often thought about this dramatic storytelling device and all of its creative possibilities. My new book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, is a 550 page novel in words and pictures. But unlike most novels, the images in my new book don't just illustrate the story; they help tell it. I've used the lessons I learned from Remy Charlip and other masters of the picture book to create something that is not a exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things. I began thinking about this book ten years ago after seeing some of the magical films of Georges Méliès, the father of science-fiction movies. But it wasn’t until I read a book called Edison's Eve: The Quest for Mechanical Life by Gaby Woods that my story began to come into focus. I discovered that Méliès had a collection of mechanical, wind-up figures (called automata) that were donated to a museum, but which were later destroyed and thrown away. Instantly, I imagined a boy discovering these broken, rusty machines in the garbage, stealing one and attempting to fix it. At that moment, Hugo Cabret was born. A few years ago, I had the honor of meeting Remy Charlip, and I'm proud to say that we've become friends. Last December he was asking me what I was working on, and as I was describing this book to him, I realized that Remy looks exactly like Georges Méliès. I excitedly asked him to pose as the character in my book, and fortunately, he said yes. So every time you see Méliès in The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the person you are really looking at is my dear friend Remy Charlip, who continues to inspire everyone who has the great pleasure of knowing him or seeing his work. Paris in the 1930's, a thief, a broken machine, a strange girl, a mean old man, and the secrets that tie them all together... Welcome to The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Yours, Brian Selznick

September 10, 2007--Kim Foster--Congrats!

FIC MEY

Title: Eclipse Twilight, Book Three

Author: Meyer, Stephanie

The much awaited book 3 of the trilogy!

Summary: Readers captivated by Twilight and New Moon will eagerly devour Eclipse, the much anticipated third book in Stephenie Meyer's riveting vampire love saga. As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob --- knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. But which is which?

September 3, 2007--Winner--Emma Breyer (print)

WE HAVE 2 COPIES--one is in print and one is an audio book

Title: Digging to America: a novel

Author:

Tyler, Anne

FIC TYL or AUD Tyl

Publisher: New York Alfred A. Knopf

Publication Date: 2006

When Bitsy and Brad Donaldson and Sami and Ziba Yazdan both adopt Korean infant girls, their chance encounter at the Baltimore airport the day their daughters arrive marks the start of a long, intense if sometimes awkward friendship. Sami's mother, Maryam Yazdan, who carefully preserves her exotic "outsiderness" despite having emigrated from Iran almost 40 years earlier, is frequently perplexed by her son and daughter-in-law's ongoing relationship with the loud, opinionated, unapologetically American Donaldsons. When Bitsy's recently widowed father, Dave, endearingly falls in love with Maryam, she must come to terms with what it means to be part of a culture and a country. Stretching from the babies' arrival in 1997 until 2004, the novel is punctuated by each year's Arrival Party, a tradition manufactured and comically upheld by Bitsy; the annual festivities gradually reveal the families' evolving connections. Though the novel's perspective shifts among characters, Maryam is at the narrative and emotional heart of the touching, humorous story, as she reluctantly realizes that there may be a place in her heart for new friends, new loves and her new country after all. (Publisher's Weekly)

August 27, 2007--winner--Mrs. Priest--Congrats!

Title: The untelling

Author: Jones, Tayari

Call Number: FIC JON

Summary:
When nine-year-old Ariadne Jackson loses her father and baby sister in an auto accident, her life in a black middle-class Atlanta neighborhood changes forever. Her eccentric mother grows more erratic, locking Aria and her surviving sister, Hermione, out of the house on Halloween or serving them raw chicken as a punishment for bad behavior. These little cruelties push Hermione to distance herself from the family, leaving Ariadne to fend for herself. Years later, at 25, Aria believes she has surmounted the traumas of her youth, until she thinks she is pregnant but instead finds that she is infertile. Her life becomes layered with lies and half-truths as she fears she will lose the promise of family and a normal life. It is the untelling of these tales that leads her finally to accept the odd turns a life may take. Teens will appreciate Ariadne's dilemma as she wrestles first with the implications of a child out-of-wedlock and then the more difficult truth that she will never bear her own children. They will also understand how she must unravel the untruths she has told, just as her namesake in Greek mythology unrolled a length of string to rescue her lover from a deadly maze.

April 16, 2007--winner--?

Tallulah Falls

Call Number: FIC FLE

Author: Fletcher, Christine (Aunt of Sara, '07)

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Publication Date: 2006

Physical Description: hardback, 372 pages

Link to Print Review
Link to audio review

March 19, 2007--winner--?

Call Number: FIC TAN

Title: The joy luck club.

Author: Tan, Amy.

Publisher: Great Britain : Minerva,

Publication Date: 1989, 1994.

Physical Description: 288 : Paper back.

This book is the 2007 "On the Same Page" book selected by the Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County -- What is "on the same page?"

Link to Print Review
Link to Audio Review

Contribute your thoughts and opinions about the Joy Luck Club on PLCH's blog.

March 12, 2007--winner--Amanda Weickart

Call Number: 158.1 BYR

Title: The secret

Author: Byrne, Rhonda

Publisher: New York Atria Books

Publication Date: 2006

Physical Description: 199 pps

Link to Print Review
Link to Audio Review

March 5, 2007--winner--Jessica Waddle & Rachel Ahrnsen (2 copies)

Call Number: FIC DRA

Title: Copper sun /Edition: 1st ed.

Author: Draper, Sharon M.

Publisher: New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers,

Publication Date: c2006.

Physical Description: 302 p. ; 24 cm.

Link to Print Review
Link to Audio Review

Feb. 23, 2007--winner--Megan Zink & Sr. Elizabeth (2 copies)

Call Number: FIC SEB

Title: The lovely bones a novel

Author: Sebold, Alice Publisher: New York Little, Brown, and companyPublication Date: 2002

Link to audio book review

Link to print book review

Feb 19, 2007--Winner--Amanda Weickert ('09)

Call Number: FIC MCC
Title: Sold Author: McCormick, Patricia Publisher: New York Hyperion Publication Date: 2006
Physical Description: 263 pps
Link to audio book review
Link to print book review

Feb 12, 2007--Winner--Dr. Jones

Call Number: 323.09 KAL Title: Women of the civil rights movement
Author: Kallen, Stuart A.
Publisher: Farmington Hills, MI Lucent Books
Publication Date: 2006
Physical Description: 112 pps
Link to audio book review

Feb 5, 2007--Winner--Ms. Penick

Call Number: 323.11 FRE
Title: Freedom walkers: the story of the Montgomery bus boycott
Author: Freeman, Russell
Publisher: New York Holiday House
Publication Date: 2006
Physical Description: 114 ppsLink to audio book review