Tons of New Books in the YA Dept.!!!!

You know that I'm always excited when we receive our shipment of new books in the Young Adult Dept...so I have been super excited this month! We were extremely fortunate to be the recipient of a Shelby County Quality of Life Grant that enabled us to expand our Children and Young Adult collections. What this means for you is that we were able to complete popular series in our collection and add titles that you've been requesting! (As you can tell, I'm really excited about this growth). We've been adding titles all month and still have quite a few making their way to the shelves...

Just a few new titles that you may want to check out...

Morganville Vampires Series by Rachel Caine
Cirque du Freak Series by Darren Shan
Demonata Series by Darren Shan
Nannies Series by Melody Mayer
Au Pairs Series by Melissa de la Cruz
Wonderous Strange Series by Lesley Livingston
Dark Guardian Series by Rachel Hawthorne
Christie Miller Series by Robin Jones Gunn
Katie Weldon Series by Robin Jones Gunn

... and lots of other great books!

Book Review - Intertwined by Gena Showalter

I'm one of those people that can't really sleep when I stay in a hotel, so I always take a stack of books to keep me company. Last week, I was in Huntsville for the ALLA (Alabama Library Association) Convention - which was awesome - and was able to read a couple of books that I thoroughly enjoyed.
I had previously been unfamiliar with Gena Showalter's work, which includes both adult and young adult audiences and is well know for her action packed paranormal romances. I have to say that I am now a fan after reading Intertwined. The book was such a treat! This book starts with a bang as you immediately meet one of the central characters, sixteen year old Aden Stone, and the other souls living in his head as he has inadvertently entered a cemetery. Which is a major "Oops" due to his ability to raise the dead by simply being around them. I felt a connection with each of the characters that truly made me care about what happened to each one and how each will resolve their problems. This book is the first in a series and the second, Unraveled, will be hitting the shelves August 31st! For more information visit Gena Showalter's website.

From School Library Journal:
Grade 8 Up—Aden Stone is not your typical 16-year-old. Since birth he has had four souls trapped within him that possess special powers: the ability to time travel, raise the dead, possess a body, and predict the future. As a result, he has spent his whole life in and out of mental institutions diagnosed as a violent schizophrenic. Now able to control the voices in his head, Aden has moved to Crossroads, OK, to live in a halfway house for delinquent boys. His goal in life is to find a means to free these souls and at last be at peace. When he meets Mary Ann Gray, she miraculously acts as a neutralizer, and for the first time in his life, he truly feels normal. The two become fast friends, establishing a sibling-type bond. Little do they realize that when they first met, their connection sent a power surge throughout the world drawing every paranormal creature from fairies to vampires to Crossroads on a quest for power. To complicate matters, Aden becomes romantically involved with a vampire princess and Mary Ann with her werewolf bodyguard. Together the teens must figure out a way to protect themselves, and all of humanity. This fast-paced, action-driven plot has many unexpected twists and turns. Well written, with a unique story line and strong characters, Intertwined is fresh and original at a time when there is an overload of paranormal romances on the market.—Donna Rosenblum, Floral Park Memorial High School, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Our book-club book this month was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. We read it as part of the Alabama Reads campaign to encourage literacy and library usage in the state of Alabama. Some of the members had read it before and others had not. We all found ourselves loving the book. The storytelling is marvelous (I know for those of you already familiar you’re thinking “Duh!”) and the characters are endearing and who doesn’t love a bad-boy with a heart of gold. I’m even contemplating naming my 3rd child Sawyer.

It’s a book full of adventure, friendship, imagination, truth and lies and told in 3rd person from a child’s view of the world. My favorite quote comes from the scene in which Tom traded his way, through savvy manipulations, to get the free bible but didn’t know any scripture verses when asked to recite. The book concludes this vignette with the following: “Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of the scene.” Love it!
Huckleberry Finn being described as the “juvenile pariah of the Village”, “cordially hated and dreaded by all the mother of St. Petersburg and secretly admired by their children”, and “idle and lawless and vulgar and bad”. Whew, those are some harsh statements.

I hope all families read it. For children the language may seem awkward and of course, dated, but they’ll enjoy the hijinks of the kids and the adventure. Gotta go now and start Huckleberry Finn:)

Michelyn

The Creepiest Children's Book Ever

I've worked in libraries for quite awhile now and thought I'd seen every funny title, outdated cover art, but no...I had not. Follow this link: Creepy Children books

michelyn

Libraries come in all sizes

This made me smile. So next time I'm in Somerset...
World's smallest library

Book Review: Winter Garden by Kristin Hanna

I had several patrons tell me that this was a must read. They kept saying how great it was, so I had to read it. Well let me tell you I was not disappointed. From the very first page I loved this family even though they did not get along and were not close. After the death of the two sisters' father, the mother starts telling a story. Through this story you will be transported to WWII Leningrad. Kristin Hannah makes the place and the people come to life. You will feel like you know each one of these characters. You will feel all of the pain and eventually all of the joy. Check our catalog to reserve a copy.

Dee

Cooking with Kids

Before the weekend I checked out Paula Deen's Cookbook for the Lunch-Box Set from the library. I have plenty of "kid" cookbooks, but those still require me to read off the ingredients and a lot of them make food into happy faces or other objects and this has never impressed my kids. A vegetable is still a vegetable.

The thing I loved about this book were the pictures of the ingredients. This one thing made it more fun and easy for my 4 year old to find the items in the pantry that we needed and then we started cooking. The book is divided up into events that one might have over a school year-a sleepover, a boke sale, lunch, family cooking night etc. The one we chose was under Lunch. We made a Cheeseburger Casserole. We got all the ingredients and pans out first and then I instructed him from there.

Here's a pick of the finished product. It was yummy and definitely a comfort food.



Here's a link to the catalog to check this book out.

Michelyn