New Books and Materials

 

February, 2007

 

Voices by Ursula K. LeGuin (F LE)  This book is a haunting and gripping coming-of-age story set against a backdrop of violence, intolerance and magic.

 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (F ZUS)  “It’s just a small story really, about, among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter, and quite a lot of thievery.  It is an unforgettable novel about the ability of books to feed the soul.

 

Firebirds Rising: An Anthology of Original Science Fiction and Fantasy (SC FIR)  This book gathers together 16 original stories by some of today’s finest writers of fantasy and science fiction. It isn’t just recommended, it’s practically essential reading for people who love this genre.

 

Incantation by Alice Hoffman (F HOF) This book takes a fiercely direct look at one of history’s darkest episodes (The Spanish Inquisition), yet uncovers a tales of human dignity and illuminates it with hope.  Magical and spellbinding…Painful and exquisitely beautiful.

 

Defining Dulcie by Paul Acampora (F ACA)  Quirky, uplifting, and written in a beautiful spare prose, this book is about the connections we make, the resilience of the human spirit and the absurdities that keep life interesting.  When sixteen-year-old Dulcie’s father dies, her mother makes a decision to move them to California, Where Dulcie makes an equally radical decision to steal her dad’s old truck and head back home.

 

The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin (F WER)  A thought-provoking exploration of self-reliance and the nature of evil, and a heart-wrenching portrait of a family in crisis.  Seventeen-year-old Matthew recounts his attempts, starting at a young age, to free himself and his sisters from the grip of their emotionally and physically abusive mother.

 

The Killer’s Tears by Anne-Laure Bondoux (F BON) A young boy, Paolo, and the man who murdered his parents, Angel, gradually become like father and son as they live and work together on the remote Chilean farm where Paolo was born.  This is a magnificent exploration of innocence, guilt and the redemptive power of love.

A Summer of Kings by Han Nolan (F NOL)  Over the course of the smmer of 1963, fourteen-year-old Esther Young discovers the passion within her when eighteen-year-old King-Roy Johnson, accused of murdering a white man in Alabama, comes to live with her family.

 

Solstice Wood by Paticia A. McKillip (F McK)  This is a tale of the tangled lives we mere mortals lead when we turn our eyes from the beauty and mystery that lie just outside of the everyday.

 

Inexcusable by Chris Lynch (F LYN)  High School senior and football player Keir sets out to enjoy himself on graduation night, but when he attempts to comfort a friend a friend whose date left her stranded, things go terribly wrong.

 

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel (F OPP)  Matt, a young cabin boy aboard and airship, and Kate, a wealthy young girl traveling with her chaperone, team up to search for the existence of mysterious winged creatures reportedly living hundreds of feet above the Earth’s surface.  A thoroughly satisfying tale.  Good old fashion adventure with an alternate-reality twist.

 

Deogratias: Tale of Rwanda by Alexis Stassen (741.5 STA)  A Graphic Novel  With great skill and understanding this book takes us back anf forth in time, showing only the before and after the Rwandan genocide and inexorably revealing the grip of madness and horror on one young boy and his country.

 

Poison by Chris Wooding (F WOO)  In a novel almost unparalleled for density and invention, each scene of danger sings with tension. Lovers of adventure, horror, and suspense will enjoy this book.

 

Mom’s Cancer by Brian Fies (741.5 FIE)  This ia a graphic novel about one family’s struggle with metastatic lung cancer.  Honest, unflinching, and sometimes humorous, it is a look at the practical and emotional effect that serious illness can have on patients and their families.  In the end, it is a story of hope – uniquely told in words and illustrations.

 

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (F LYN)  High-octane fantasy.  Here there are titled nobles, elaborate schemes, multiple disguises, and the horrible fates enough for any piece of Shakespeare, but all laid out in a finely imagined otherworld.  A great swashbuckling yarn of a novel.

 

The Amethyst Road by Louise Spiegler (F SPI)  Having fled the city of Oestia after attacking an official, sixteen-year-old Serena – an outcast as well as a mixed-race child of a Gorgio father and Yulang mother – seeks to reunite her family and regain her honor.  This unique tale of self-discovery employs a mixture of gritty reality and richly drawn elements and will captivate readers of contemporary fiction as well as fantasy fans.

 

Dead Connection by Charlie Price (F PRI)  A Loner who communes with the dead in the town cemetery hears the voice of a murdered cheerleader and tries to convince the adults that he knows what happened to her.  A smart, funny, very clever page-turner that is unique and fun to read.

 

Alphabet of Dreams by Susan Fletcher (F FLE)  Fourteen-year-old Mitra, of royal Persian lineage, and her five-year-old brother Babak, whose dreams foretell the future, flee for their lives in the company of the magus Melchoir and two other Zoroastrian priest, traveling through Persia as they follow star signs leading to a newly-born king in Bethlehem. This is a spellbinding saga filled with the color of the caravansaries and the heat of the desert, a tale that reimagines the wonder and spirit of a lost age.

 

Hard Hit by Ann Turner (F TUR)  A rising high school baseball star faces his most difficult challenge when his father is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  The author takes on a tough subject through honest, luminous poetry and shows us how to survive when life hits us hard.

 

Eva Underground by Dandi Daley Mckall (F MAC)  In 1978, a high school senior is forced by her widowed father to move from their comfortable Chicago suburb to help with an underground education movement in communist Poland.  In this moving coming-of-age love story the author takes us to a real time and place that has rarely been explored and introduces us to a character whose story will resonate with readers long after the last page is turned.

 

Ask Me No Questions by Marina Budhos (F BUD) Fourteen-year-old Nadira, her sister, and their parentsleave Bangladesh for New York City, but the expiration of their visas and the events of September 11, 2001, bring frustration, sorrow and terror for the whole family.  This is a searing portrait of contemporary America in the days of terrorism, orange alerts, and the Patriot Act, and a moving and important story about something most people take for granted – citizenship and acceptance in their country.

 

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green (F GRE)  Having been recently dumped for the nineteenth time by a girl named Katherine, recent high school graduate and former child prodigy Colin sets off on a road trip with  his best friend to try to find some new direction in life.  Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to a surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing yourself.

 

Marly’s Ghost by David Levithan (F LEV) The spirit of Ben’s girlfriend, Marly,  returns with three other ghosts to haunt him with a painful journey through Valentine’s Day past, present and future. 

 

Store-Bought Baby by Sandra Belton (F BEL) The death of Leah’s older brother, and her parents’ reactions to the tragedy, raise questions for Leah about the meaning of family and about her place in her own. 

 

Rebound by Bob Krech (F KRE)  Determined to make the varsity basketball team , seventeen-year-old Ray finds his efforts to play both hindered and helped by an atmosphere of racism in his town.

 

Letters To A Young Brother by Hill Harper (170.84 HAR)  Through a series of letters written from a brother-to-brother perspective the author addresses many of the tough issues young men are facing today, everything from school, money, and careers, to family life, girls, and achieving goals.  This book is a straight-talking guide that finally confronts the important issues that shape every young man’s life

 

Rash by Pete Hautman (F HAU) In a future society that decided it would “rather be safe than free” sixteen-year-old Bo’s anger control problems land him in a tundra jail where he survives with the help of his running skills and an artificial intelligence program named Bork.  A darkly comic mystery/adventure

 

Wolf Boy by Evan Kuhlman (F KUH)  This book is absolutely beguiling.  Rarely is the pain of losing someone expressed with such directness, energy and humor.  Stephen Harrelson is one of the most engaging adolescents to grace the pages of American fiction in a very long time.  The novel offers inventive twists on the story of a boy trying to save his own world.  Interspersed throughout the pages of this imaginative and compelling novel is a unique graphic novel that is cleverly drawn.

 

Chasing The Jaguar by Michele Dominguez Greene (F GRE)  After having unsettling dream about the kidnapped daughter of her mother’s employer, fifteen-year-old Martika learns that she is a descendant of a long line of curanderas – Mayan medicine women with special powers.

 

Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox (F KNO) This is a dazzlingly rich and original novel, bursting with beauty, danger, politics, and intrigue.  In a world where select people can enter the Place and find dreams of every kind to share with others for a fee, a fifteen-year-old girl is training to be a dreamhunter when her father disappears, leaving her to carry on his mysterious mission.

 

Dough Boy by Peter Marino (F MAR)  Overweight fifteen-year-old Tristan, who lives happily with his divorced mother and her boyfriend, Frank, suddenly finds that he must deal with intensified criticism about his weight and other aspects of his life when Frank’s popular but troubled, nutrition-obsessed daughter moves in.

 

Pucker by Melanie Gideon (F GID)  In shimmering prose this novel takes the readers from the lonely places of a boy’s soul to a miraculous world of infinite possibility and frightening temptation.

 

Bad Kitty by Michele Jaffe (F JAF)  While vacationing in Las Vegas with her family, seventeen-year-old Jasmine stumbles upon a murder mystery that she attempts to solve with the help of her friends, recently arrived from California.

 

Leaving Jetty Road by Rebecca Burton (F BUR)  New boyfriends, worries about final exams and the future, and a possible eating disorder transform best friends Nat, Lise, and Sofia during their last year at a private high school in South Australia.

 

The Foreshadowing by Marcus Sedgwick (F SED)  Having been able to know when someone is going to die, Alexandra poses as a nurse to go to France during World War I to locate her brother and to try to save him from the fate she has forseen for him.  A gripping and haunting story.  An original combination of historical fiction and the supernatural.

 

Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta (F MAR)  Sixteen-year-old Francesca could use her outspoken mother’s help with the problems of being one of a handful of girls at a parochial school that has just turned coed, but her mother has suddenly become severely depressed. 

 

The Wrong Hands by Nigel Richardson (F RIC)  Sharp and knowing and funny in a grown-up way.  The events unfold compulsively.  Delicious comic dialogue and smart contemporary satire.  Hugely entertaining.  Fourteen-year-old Graham Sinclair, born with mysterious hands and a strange secret, finds his life further complicated.

 

Drwaing a Blank Or How I Tried to Solve a Mystery, End a Feud, and Land The Girl of My Dreams by Daniel Ehrenhaft (F HER)  A Quirky, Funny Lopsided Mystery with a loveable hero, a superhot Heroine, and a slick comic backdrop.  Carlton Dunne IV, an outcast boarding school student with a secret identity as a graphic novelist, teams up with a beautiful Scottish girl who yearns to be an American police officer to resolve an ancient feud and rescue Carlton’s kidnapped father.