Staff Picks: Books
Staff-recommended reading from the
KPL catalog.
Is it art or is it graffiti? Is being in the “in” crowd worth fighting for? Can a high school girl just choose to disappear into the background, or is standing up for your friends worth the humiliation and pain of being thrust into the spotlight? These issues and much more surround the story of Kate and her best friends Lan and Eli in this new teen book by debut author Mara Purnhagen.
I have to admit, I’m partial. Mara is my daughter and worked here at the Kalamazoo Public Library for 4 years in high school. It was here that she learned to love reading and here that her spirit was nurtured. But I think you will find that this is a quick and fun read—with a good story plot to boot. Still and all - the best part of the story is discovering gorillas in the high school, on the town square, outside the coffee shop, all over the state? …. Enjoy!
Book
Tagged
9780373210077
Author Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one day: she realized she could be happier than she currently was. To remedy this, she embarked on a year-long “happiness project,” devoting herself to researching happiness and forming resolutions to actively pursuit it. Rubin identified eleven areas in her life (such as marriage, energy, work, etc.) that she felt were vital to her happiness; beginning in January, she allocated one month to each topic and made resolutions to increase her happiness surrounding that topic. The month of December was then dedicated to managing a year’s worth of resolutions and reflecting on her personal happiness.
In the process of becoming happier, Rubin began a blog chronicling her journey and garnered a book deal. I first heard about her book The Happiness Project Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun on her blog at Slate.com. The idea of meditating on happiness and actively appreciating the good things in life seemed like a worthy cause, so I gave her book a try. I’ll admit the reading about Rubin’s resolutions and thoughts on happiness instantly perked me up and made me think about the ways I could pursue a more thoughtful, cheerful life. By the end of book I found the monthly compounding of Rubin’s resolutions overwhelming: her happiness project took work—so much work that I was exhausted just reading about it!
Despite the overwhelming number of resolutions the author made, the book is a good read for anyone interested in the nature of happiness and how to bring more of it into life. I also recommend Rubin’s website, The Happiness Project Toolbox; it’s an excellent resource for establishing your own happiness project.
book
the happiness project
9780061583254
With the healthcare debate raging, I decided to check out T. R. Reid's book The Healing of America: a Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. Mr. Reid has some pain in his shoulder and decides to travel the world to see what kind of medical care he gets. Although he does make a stop in India, most of the countries he chooses to visit have some kind of national health care system that covers all of its citizens. He finds that these countries have all found different ways to administer their national health care systems with varied combinations of public and private providers. He gives a short history of how they developed their models and the successes and drawbacks of their systems. This is a great, accessible resource to get you thinking about the issue of health care in our country and help you decide where you stand.
Book
The Healing of America
9781594202346
This book is not only important because it is a penetrating critique of higher education in America, but because, when it was published in 1988, many people read it; it's a historical phenomenon; whether positive or negative, it struck a cord.
With its ambiguity, lack of clear argumentation, interesting and constant digressions, and deepness of thought, I sincerely struggled and disagreed, and agreed, and hated, and loved this book. Which makes me think: isn't that the beauty of a book?--that we can agree and disagree, understand and misunderstand, throw away and keep some or all of its' parts?
Bloom basically thinks that the American university, under the influence of some German thinkers (Nietzsche, Freud), has lost its' philosophical grounding, and has reduced itself to thinking there is no truth, that morals are relative, and so on. And from the rubble of this Nihilism emerges a student population that doesn't see the point of education, doesn't think seriously, and doesn't discuss things like what it means to live a good life, or be a good human, or have a good government. In a word, Bloom thinks the philosophers have left the building.
What I truly took away from this roller-coaster discussion--of ancient philosophy, the Founding Fathers, the sixties, and what it all has to do with the university--is that, somewhere along the way, we may have lost the sense that human knowledge is a unified whole (or even the sense that there is such a thing called knowledge!). We have forgotten that the great thinkers of our past--Kepler, Newton, Einstein, Jefferson, Locke--all considered there to be branches of knowledge that fit together in a coherent and meaningful way; they were part of a grand project, which is why they knew so much about other areas of knowledge. Have our college students lost this sense of unity?
Book
The Closing of the American Mind
0671479903
I had never heard of the Vel d’Hiv roundup of Jews in France on July 16 and 17, 1942, by the French police. This story has long been buried in the history of the holocaust. It was a source of great embarrassment to the French government and rarely taught in history lessons. Sarah’s Key tells the tale through the eyes of both a young girl caught up in the roundup, and a reporter 60 years later uncovering the story only to find it has personal ramifications for her family. What is especially riveting is how the author weaves the story around a key—a tragic key that locked a little boy away in a closet, while his sister, Sarah, who locked him away to keep him safe and hidden, is sent to the camps—not just for the few hours she suspected, but for many months until she escapes.
I really enjoyed this book. It was hard to put down, and I am planning on choosing it for an Oshtemo Book Group read in 2011.
Book
Sarah’s Key
9780312370831
Here in libraryland we often talk about the impact that Google has had on our world. The conversations often lead to discussions of not only the change Google has brought to library use, but also its broader worldwide cultural impact. So reading Ken Auletta’s new book Googled: The End of the World as We Know It was both insightful and troubling; giving me a much more nuanced understanding of the Google story but simultaneously raising many questions concerning Google's intentions with its multi-faceted global scope and whether or not a multi-billion dollar global business juggernaut can indeed, as Google’s tagline goes, "not be evil". Best-selling author and journalist Auletta does a great job summarizing the Google story, including informative profiles of its two wunderkind founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, but only hints at the current battle of the titans that has the Silicon Valley and the media all a twitter.
Book
Googled: The End of the World as we Know It
9781594202353
Nancy Pearl used the term “meta-picture book” to describe Melanie Watt’s Chester, and its sequel, in which the title character is actively involved in the subversion of the book itself. Another book by Watt sells itself, its title proclaiming Have I Got a Book for You! Maybe it’s a Canadian thing? Polly Horvath lives there now. In her chapter book The Pepins and their Problems, a great book for third graders and up or read aloud, Horvath asks for and presents suggestions from her readers (sent to her via telepathy) as to what her characters should do to solve their various (and hilarious) problems. Lots of books refer back to themselves to have fun.
Check out Emily Gravett’s Wolves as well as Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears, both triumphs of book design and winners of the Kate Greenaway award. As in David Wiesner’s masterful The Three Pigs, in which the wolf blows the pig right out of the story (just the beginning of a wild turn of events), the books themselves are apparently affected by the events unfolding within them as we read them.
In his review of Do Not Open this Book!, Bruce Handy asks, “Do kids really want to explore the artificiality of the fictive narrative? Probably not,” he answers, “unless there are good jokes.” Yep, good jokes-and how about suspense?
Here are two modern read aloud picture book classics. In Go Away Big Green Monster, the reader (or the read-to) causes a monster to appear and then to disappear with the turning of the pages. Get ready for your child to say, "Read it again!" The Monster at the End of this Book, Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover is a favorite because it was read to me when I was a little guy. And I’m not the only one. Lots of adults have fond memories of this book. In an effort to prevent us from having to deal with the monster at the end of the book, Grover implored us, "Please do not turn the page!". Of course, we did turn the page and there sat Grover, in a pile of bricks and dust, observing, “Did you know that you are very strong?” Now that was fun. Read it again!
Book
The Monster at the End of this Book
037582913X
Not long ago, I was sitting on the couch reading my Sunday morning newspaper and having a cup of coffee (which I look forward to ALL week) while my husband was flipping through the TV channels. He is an avid reader as well so he enjoys checking out the channels where authors do book talks. He stopped to listen to Byron Pitts speak about his book Step Out on Nothing: How Faith and Family Helped Me Conquer Life’s Challenges. Pitts is a chief national correspondent for CBS News and a contributing correspondent for 60 Minutes so he is a very familiar face on the news tv circuit. I was immediately drawn in to Pitts book talk and had to then check out his book.
Pitts had some major challenges to overcome growing up in Baltimore as he explains in his book. He had a terribly debilitating stutter and was functionally illiterate. While these were huge obstacles to overcome, what makes Pitts book compelling is the story of the key people who took the time and effort to encourage and work with him-the people who literally stepped on nothing to reach him. They told his mother in elementary that he was illiterate so his mother and coach worked tirelessly with him through elementary and high school. He struggled with vocabulary and spelling so his roommate in college worked with him every day. He even had a college professor label him a failure and literally told him to drop out of college but another professor believed in him and helped him find the tools to succeed.
Two things stand out about this book to make it a winner. One, a few people in this young man’s life saw a child in need of some help and stepped up to give it to him, and he gives tribute to them. Two, this young man worked tirelessly and continuously to overcome his challenges and become a success. Pitt’s book is a success in my opinion because he acknowledges that on one hand we all have great challenges in our lives that can be overcome while on the other hand we all have opportunities to step out on nothing and make a difference to someone else. This is an encouraging uplifting story for those late winter blahs.
Books
Step Out On Nothing: How Faith and Family Helped Me Conquer Life's Challenges
9780312577667
Recently, I was shelf-reading in the juvenile fiction collection in the Central Library’s Children’s Room when I happened across two books by Paul Shipton. Both had the word “pig” in their titles, and I think that one word is what grabbed my attention.
Book the first, The Pig Scrolls by Gryllus the Pig is a translation of an ancient Greek manuscript written by Gryllus, a talking pig who was once a man, and which opens the door to book the second, The Pig Who Saved the World by Gryllus the Pig, equally as entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny as the first. Did I mention that Gryllus can talk? And recite limericks? “There once was a merry young Spartan. But trouble he always was startin’. The friends that he had, Said the smell was so bad, Because he just couldn’t stop______” (Book the first, The Pig Scrolls, p. 33)
Do you remember your Greek mythology? Do you know who Odysseus was? Did you ever think Greek myths were boring? Well! You certainly won’t when you pick up these two titles and read about a Greek myth turned upside down. Couple the usual gods and goddesses with monsters, transformed humans, humor and danger and you have a pair of winning stories that will appeal to all ages from grade 3 to adult. Great read-aloud choices, too.
Book
The Pig Who Saved the World by Gryllus the Pig
0763634468
Anne Tyler is one of my “Book My Favorites” authors. It’s always a treat to get her new book shortly after it is published.
Noah’s Compass is a continuation of her quirky characters in a Baltimore setting. Liam Pennywell is a man of “unexceptional talents, plain demeanor, modest means, and curtailed ambition.” He has had two failed marriages and has an emotionally detached relationship with his grown daughters and second ex-wife.
Liam is attacked in his new apartment on his first night there and has no memory of the experience. As he searches to recover those few lost hours, he is lead into an examination of his rather disappointing life and into an unlikely new relationship with Eunice, a socially inept woman half his age, who is a “rememberer.”
Trust me—the book is better than it sounds from this brief description. It is typical Anne Tyler style with no solutions as to why people are they way they are and a main character who will be in a different place by the end of the book, but who will have grown along the way.
Book
Noah’s Compass
9780307272409