Nothing but the Tooth

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Today is National Tooth Fairy Day.  Being a high school library, we don’t have any books about the Tooth Fairy but we do have a few with the word “teeth” in the title:

• Sharp teeth by Toby Barlow (FIC Barlow) – Anthony, a kindhearted dogcatcher in Los Angeles, finds himself caught between his heart and his job when he falls in love with a female werewolf who has abandoned a pack of lycanthropes intent on dominating the city.
• The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan (FIC Ryan) – Through twists and turns of fate, orphaned Mary seeks knowledge of life, love, and especially what lies beyond her walled village and the surrounding forest, where dwell the Unconsecrated, aggressive flesh-eating people who were once dead.
• Hen’s teeth and horse’s toes by Steven Jay Gould (575 Gou)
• Three plays: Our town, The skin of our teeth, The matchmaker by Thornton Wilder (812.52 W67)

Once Upon a Time …

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Tomorrow is Tell a Fairy Tale Day.  If you rather read a fairy tale than tell one, try one of these re-tellings of those familiar stories:

• At midnight by Jennifer Baker (FIC Baker) – A novel based on Cinderella.
• Beauty: a retelling of the story of Beauty and the beast by Robin McKinley (398.2 McK) – Beauty grows to love the Beast at whose castle she is compelled to stay and through her love releases him from the spell which had turned him from a handsome prince into an ugly beast.
• Bound by Donna Jo Napoli (FIC Napoli) – In a novel based on Chinese Cinderella tales, fourteen-year-old stepchild Xing-Xing endures a life of neglect and servitude, as her stepmother cruelly mutilates her own child’s feet so that she alone might marry well
• Briar Rose by Jane Yolen (FIC Yolen) – Rebecca searches for Briar Rose’s castle in the sleeping woods and finds the secret of her grandmother’s past rooted in Poland and the Holocaust.
• Cloaked by Alex Flinn (FIC Flinn) – Seventeen-year-old Johnny is approached at his family’s struggling shoe repair shop in a Miami, Florida, hotel by Alorian Princess Victoriana, who asks him to find her brother who was turned into a frog.
• Confessions of an ugly stepsister by Gregory Maguire (FIC Maguire) – A retelling of Cinderella set in 18th century Holland
• A curse dark as gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce (FIC Bunce) – Upon the death of her father, seventeen-year-old Charlotte struggles to keep the family’s woolen mill running in the face of an overwhelming mortgage and what the local villagers believe is a curse, but when a man capable of spinning straw into gold appears on the scene she must decide if his help is worth the price.
• Ella enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (FIC Levine) – In this novel based on the story of Cinderella, Ella struggles against the childhood curse that forces her to obey any order given to her.
• The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman (FIC Shulman) – New York high school student Elizabeth gets an after-school job as a page at the “New-York Circulating Material Repository,” and when she gains coveted access to its Grimm Collection of magical objects, she and the other pages are drawn into a series of frightening adventures involving mythical creatures and stolen goods.
• Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix (FIC Haddix) – In this continuation of the Cinderella story, fifteen-year-old Ella finds that accepting Prince Charming’s proposal ensnares her in a suffocating tangle of palace rules and royal etiquette, so she plots to escape.
• A kiss in time by Alex Flinn (FIC Flinn) – Sixteen-year-old Princess Talia persuades seventeen-year-old Jack, the modern-day American who kissed her awake after a 300-year sleep, to take her to his Miami home, where she hopes to win his love before the witch who cursed her can spirit her away.
• The rose and the beast: fairy tales retold by Francesca Lia Block (FIC Block) – Nine classic fairy tales set in modern, magical landscapes and retold with a twist.
• Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce (FIC Pearce) – After a Fenris, or werewolf, killed their grandmother and almost killed them, sisters Scarlett and Rosie March devote themselves to hunting and killing the beasts that prey on teenaged girls, learning how to lure them with red cloaks and occasionally using the help of their old friend, Silas, the woodsman’s son.
  

• Spindle’s end by Robin McKinley (FIC McKinley) – The infant princess Briar Rose is cursed on her name day by Pernicia, an evil fairy, and then whisked away by a young fairy to be raised in a remote part of a magical country, unaware of her real identity and hidden from Pernicia’s vengeful powers.
• Spinners by Donna Jo Napoli (FIC Napoli) – Elaborates on the events recounted in the fairy tale, “Rumpelstiltskin,” in which a strange little man helps a miller’s daughter spin straw into gold for the king on the condition that she will give him her first-born child.
• Toads and diamonds by Heather Tomlinson (FIC Tomlinson) – A retelling of the Perrault fairy tale set in pre-colonial India, in which two stepsisters receive gifts from a goddess and each walks her own path to find her gift’s purpose, discovering romance along the way.
• A wolf at the door: and other retold fairy tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (FIC Wolf) – Presents thirteen short fantasy stories based on classic fairy tales, written by a variety of authors including Jane Yolen, Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, and others.

That’s Sick!

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Today is National Tortilla Chip Day but that’s not really very exciting (unless you own a company that makes tortilla chips).  I’m feeling a little under the weather today, which could just be allergies or could signal the beginning of a cold.  So today’s topic will be viruses and other things that make us sick.

We can start with The invisible enemy: a natural history of viruses by Dorothy H. Crawford (616 Cra), which “traces the natural history of viruses and addresses controversial subjects related to viruses,” or A field guide to the invisible by Wayne Biddle (500 Bid) which “provides information about the germs, viruses, microbes, odors, miniscule bugs, gases and rays, and other invisible perils that plague human beings.”

If you’re wondering why we get sick in the first place, try Survival of the sickest: a medical maverick discovers why we need disease by Sharon Moalem with Jonathan Prince (616.042 Moa).  This book “explores evolutionary history for answers to why certain diseases exist, discussing the effects of environmental factors such as climate, food, and drink on the genes of human ancestors thousands and hundreds of years ago, and examines connections between genetic inheritance and who gets which diseases. Topics include: aging, anemia, cancer, childbirth, cholesterol, climate change, diabetes, DNA, evolution, fetal development, genes, genomes, hypertension, immune system, malaria, mutations, obesity, obsessive-compulsive disorders, pregnancy, stem cells, viruses, and much more.”

If you just want to get the beejeezus scared out of you (and feel grateful that you just have an ordinary cold virus), read The hot zone by Richard Preston (614.57 Pre) which “tells the dramatic story of U.S. Army scientists and soldiers who worked to stop the outbreak of a deadly and extremely contagious virus in 1989.”  This is the scariest book I’ve ever read, all about the ebola virus.  Believe me, next to this horrible disease, the nastiest cold is like a day at the beach!

Related Articles

• Your inner viruses: the trickle becomes the flood (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
• What’s the difference between viruses and bacteria? (mirror.co.uk)

The Sport of “Love”

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Today is Tennis Day.  Nobody seems to know why, but every sport deserves its own day, don’t you think?

If you don’t like to play tennis, you can at least read about it.  MoHi has tennis books for every taste: nonfiction, fiction and even graphic novels!

Arthur Ashe: a biography by Richard Steins (921 Ashe) – A biography of the tennis champion.

The complete idiot’s guide to tennis by Trish Faulkner (796.342 Fau) – An introduction to tennis that includes an overview of the basic rules and skills needed to play tennis, step-by-step instructions for improving serves, backhands, and forehands, professional tips on becoming a better player, and photographs that demonstrate how to perform the proper moves.

Richard “Pancho” Gonzalez, tennis champion by Doreen Gonzales (921 Gonzalez) – Details the life and career of the Mexican American who became a success as a tennis champion, examining his dedication as a player and a competitor.

Skeleton key by Anthony Horowitz (FIC Horowitz) – Reluctant teenage-spy Alex Rider, on a routine mission at the Wimbledon tennis championships, gets caught up in Chinese gangs, illegal nuclear weapons, and the suspect plans of his Russian host, General Sarov.

The prince of tennis by Takeshi Konomi (GN FIC Konomi), vol. 1-5 – Twelve-year-old Ryoma Echizen inherited his talent for tennis from his father, whose career was ended when he injured himself during a match, and now Ryoma is determined to be the best tennis player in the world.

A(nother) Day That Will Live in Infamy

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I usually don’t backtrack and cover holidays or events that happened on days the library isn’t open, but this past Saturday marked the anniversary of something very significant in California (and United States) history that I think we really need to remember.

On February 19, 1942 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which called for the internment of Japanese Americans living on the west coast.  Whether they were American-born citizens or naturalized, all people of Japanese descent were removed from their homes and sent to detention camps throughout the West.  One of the most famous of these camps is Manzanar, on the east side of the Sierra Nevada in the Owens Valley. 

After World War II ended, the Japanese Americans were released from these camps but many of them had lost their homes and property.  This is an extreme example of racial profiling, but we still face this problem today, as many of our seniors are learning while doing their English IV research papers on the topic.

To learn more about this dark chapter in our state’s (and nation’s) history, try these books:

• Japanese Amercian internment camps ed. by William Dudley (940.5317 Jap)
• Life in a Japanese American internment camp by Diane Yancey (940.53 Yan)
• I am an American: a true story of the Japanese internment by Jerry Stanley (940.5315 Sta)
• Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston (920 H843)

If you prefer fiction, try one of these:

• Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata (FIC Kadohata) – After twelve-year-old Sumiko and her Japanese-American family are relocated from their flower farm in southern California to an internment camp on a Mojave Indian reservation in Arizona, she helps her family and neighbors, becomes friends with a local Indian boy, and tries to hold on to her dream of owning a flower shop.
• My friend the enemy by J. B. Cheaney (FIC Cheaney) – In 1943 Oregon, eleven-year-old Hazel befriends a fifteen-year-old Japanese-American orphan boy she discovers hiding from internment on her neighbor’s farm.
• Under the blood-red sun by Graham Salisbury (FIC Salisbury) – Tomikazu Nakaji’s biggest concerns are baseball, homework, and a local bully, until life with his Japanese family in Hawaii changes drastically after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

 

Related Articles

• California Marks the First Fred Korematsu Day (time.com)
• A Brief History of Internment Camps in America (time.com)

So Many Books, So Little Time

I like having a job where I am surrounded by books, but sometimes it feels more like a curse … maybe out of some twisted fairy tale where the girl wishes for books and ends up buried alive in them.  For an avid reader like myself, it’s almost torture to see all these wonderful books eight hours a day and not be able to read ALL of them.

Just today, I processed several books that I want to read:

• Beatle meets Destiny by Gabrielle Williams, which is about a kid named John Lennon (whom everyone calls Beatle) who meets a girl named Destiny McCartney … sounds perfect, but he already has a wonderful girlfriend who also happens to be his twin sister’s BFF.  It sounds funny and light (so many young adult books are, well, dark) and I’m a Beatles fan, so it’s going on my list of “Books That I Want to Read If I Ever Find the Time.”
• InterWorld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves – I love Neil Gaiman’s novels and short stories (I haven’t tried the graphic novels yet) and this story of a boy who finds out he can travel between dimensions intrigues me. 
• Spinning out by David Stahler, Jr. – this is an ARC (advance reading copy) we got from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program; it won’t be published until June.  It’s about two boys who try out for the school musical, “Man of La Mancha” as a joke and end up getting the lead roles.  But one of them, Stewart, starts acting strangely and become obsessed with his part.  It’s up to his friend Frenchy to figure out how to help him. 

And then there are the Junior Library Guild books that we got yesterday, which include a new stand alone novel from Lisa McMann, who wrote the Wake trilogy; Matched by Ally Condie, which I have been seeing everywhere on book lists and advertisements; a new Hex Hall novel; and another moden fairy tale from Alex Flinn, the author of Beastly, which was just made into a movie.

Add to this the books on the ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults list I’m trying to work my way through (so far I’ve read 10 and have started an 11th) and you can see why I’m calling this post “So Many Books, So Little Time!” 

In case you’re interested, the 10 Best Fiction for Young Adults books I’ve read (all available here at MoHi) are:

Ship-breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (winner of the 2011 Printz Award)

Fat Cat by Robin Brande

The maze runner by James Dashner

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Please ignore Vera Dietz by A. S. King (a Printz Award honor book)

Half brother by Kenneth Oppel

As easy as faling off the face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins

Sort like a rock star by Matthew Quick

The last summer of the Death Warriors by Francisco X. Stork

and the one I’m reading right now is The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman.

Readers’ Choice Awards

Nominate a book for the new YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) Readers’ Choice Award!  This BRAND NEW award is all about what YOU (the readers) like to read.  Anyone can nominate a book in each of the seven categories:

• Horror/Thriller
• Mystery/Crime
• Nonfiction
• Realistic Fiction
• Romance
• Science Fiction/Fantasy
• Steampunk (this year’s “wild card” category; this will change from year to year)

To nominate your favorite book(s), just go to the Readers’ Choice Award website and have a copy of the book handy.  You’ll need the following info: book title, author’s name, publisher (and imprint if there is one), copyright date, price and 13 digit ISBN.  If you need any help finding this information, don’t hesitate to come by the library and ask me or one of the other library staff for help –  it’s our job!

Books must have been published between November 1, 2010 and October 31, 2011 to be eligible for this year’s award.  Nominations close on October 31, 2011.

I Never Could Get the Hang of Thursdays

It’s Thursday, and I’m feeling a bit like Arthur Dent right now (hence the title of this post).  So, here are some random thoughts for a Thursday:

** Jacob and I had a great time at Incoming Freshman Parent Night last night.  As you can see, he even made a new friend from the Science Department!

** Today is Random Acts of Kindness Day.  So go out and do something kind for someone. 

** One of my favorite authors is Jasper Fforde, who writes the Thursday Next series, which begins with The Eyre affair (FIC Fforde).  If you like British humor and books, give it a try.  Trust me, you’ll like it!

** Today is the birthday of both Michael Jordan (48)  AND Paris Hilton (30).  Who’d have thought?

** The word Thursday comes from the Old English thunresdaeg or “Thunor’s Day” which in turn comes from the Old Norse thorsdagr or “Thor’s Day.”  In the Romance languages that are derived from Latin (like Spanish and French) the name of this day comes from jovis dies or “Jove’s Day” (Jove is another name for the god Jupiter).  So in Spanish it is jueves and in French jeudi.  No matter what language you’re using, you are invoking the name of a pagan god of thunder when you name this day.  Pretty cool, huh?

“I must admit, I was born at an early age.”

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Today is Do a Grouch a Favor Day, but there aren’t many grouches around MoHi, thank goodness!  I tried doing a keyword search for “grouch” to see if we have any books about grouches but all I got was a message asking if I meant “groucho,” which gave me an old book on the Marx Brothers.  Obviously, it was referring to Groucho Marx who, coincidentally, is quoted on one of our new bookmarks:

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.  Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

Which leads me in a roundabout way to today’s topic: books about dogs.

The book I’m reading right now (or trying to read during SSR — I keep getting interrupted!) is Sorta like a rock star by Matthew Quick (FIC Quick), which features the wonderfully named dog Bobby Big Boy, aka BBB, Triple B and B3. 

The story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (FIC Wroblewski) is an Oprah’s Book Club pick about a mute boy who lives on a farm that breeds a unique type of dog, and who heads off into the forest with three young dogs after his father dies, because he suspects his uncle has something to do with it.

Stray by Stacey Goldblatt (FIC Goldblatt) tells the story of Natalie, whose mother is a dogs-only veterinarian, and how she test the limits of the short leash her mom keeps her on when a handsome older boy comes to visit. (I actually went to high school with the author of this one, although we didn’t really know each other well).

The curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon (FIC Haddon) is an engaging story about an autistic boy who sets out to solve the mystery of who killed the neighbor’s dog and ends up finding out secrets about his own mother.

If you want nonfiction information about dogs, go straight to 636.7 and browse the shelves.  That’s where all the dog care, dog training and dog breed books are.  More of a cat person?  Just keep going to 636.8 and learn all about our feline friends.

And Yet It Still Moves

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Today is the birthday of Galileo Galilei, the 17th century scientist who stood up to the Roman Inquisition by maintaining that the Earth moves around the sun, not the other way around.  Although Galileo wasn’t the first to come up with this theory (Copernicus is credited with this milestone), he was one of the first scientists to insist on the truth of observation and measurement rather than just faith.  He was more interested in how something happened than why, which sets him apart from earlier “natural philosophers.”  Galileo was certain that his observations were correct and wasn’t going to let anyone convince him otherwise without good solid proof.

Besides all this, he invented the Galileo thermometer. You’ve seen one before: it’s on the counter in the Textbook Room!

You can read more about Galileo at the website linked above, or in these books:

• Two-fisted science by Jim Ottaviani (GN 509.2 Two) – True stories about scientists such as Newton, Galileo, Bohr, and Heisenberg, presented in graphic format and illustrated by well-known artists.
• Galieo Galilei: inventor, astronomer and rebel by Michael White (921 Galileo) – Describes the life and work of the scientist who was persecuted by the Inquisition for his views of the universe

For more information on astronomy in general, visit the 520′s section in nonfiction for books about the solar system, the Milky Way, cosmology, astrophysics and other wonders of the universe.

P.S. What does the title of this post mean?  Read about Galileo to find out!