Summer Reading Resources

Wow, summer is nearly here!  I would like to thank all of you for following the blog this school year and provide you with some reading resources for the summer months.  The Peck Library will be closed, but I would encourage everyone to explore your local public libraries this summer.  In addition to books, nearly all public libraries offer special summer programing.  Theater/puppet shows, book clubs, movie nights, classes in art and writing, crafts and storytimes, and special art exhibits are all part of summer public library programing, and available for free.  Below is a list of links to local county library systems to visit for more information.  I have also posted my updated summer reading lists on the right side bar of this blog.  In addition to reading suggestions for K-8 children, I have provided lists for young adults and adults in response to requests from parents.

Enjoy your summer, and I look forward to sharing with all of you some of the great books I read this summer!

Links to local public library systems:

Morris County
Somerset County
Bergen County
Passaic and Essex Counties
Hunterdon County
Sussex County
Union County
Warren County

Middlesex: A Novel

I will admit that I was hesitant to pick up this story, given its rather sensitive subject matter.  However, I loved Jeffery Eugenides' other book The Virgin Suicides, so I decided to give it a try.  There is no doubt about it, Eugenides is a brilliant story teller.  The opening line of the book gives you a taste of where this story is going:

"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license...records my first name simply as Cal."

This book is much more then just the story of a hermaphrodite.  This sweeping story details a medical mystery, the immigrant experience, the race riots of the 1960s, family histories, in addition to how we continue to struggle with the definition of gender.  Many may find this book upsetting or disturbing, but I think it well worth the time to read.

From Publishers Weekly

As the Age of the Genome begins to dawn, we will, perhaps, expect our fictional protagonists to know as much about the chemical details of their ancestry as Victorian heroes knew about their estates. If so, Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides) is ahead of the game. His beautifully written novel begins: "Specialized readers may have come across me in Dr. Peter Luce's study, 'Gender Identity in 5-Alpha-Reductase Pseudohermaphrodites.' " The "me" of that sentence, "Cal" Stephanides, narrates his story of sexual shifts with exemplary tact, beginning with his immigrant grandparents, Desdemona and Lefty. On board the ship taking them from war-torn Turkey to America, they married-but they were brother and sister. Eugenides spends the book's first half recreating, with a fine-grained density, the Detroit of the 1920s and '30s where the immigrants settled: Ford car factories and the tiny, incipient sect of Black Muslims. Then comes Cal's story, which is necessarily interwoven with his parents' upward social trajectory. Milton, his father, takes an insurance windfall and parlays it into a fast-food hotdog empire. Meanwhile, Tessie, his wife, gives birth to a son and then a daughter-or at least, what seems to be a female baby. Genetics meets medical incompetence meets history, and Callie is left to think of her "crocus" as simply unusually long-until she reaches the age of 14. Eugenides, like Rick Moody, has an extraordinary sensitivity to the mores of our leafier suburbs, and Cal's gender confusion is blended with the story of her first love, Milton's growing political resentments and the general shedding of ethnic habits. Perhaps the most wonderful thing about this book is Eugenides's ability to feel his way into the girl, Callie, and the man, Cal. It's difficult to imagine any serious male writer of earlier eras so effortlessly transcending the stereotypes of gender. This is one determinedly literary novel that should also appeal to a large, general audience.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Reading Resource Highlight

I have had lots of requests for book suggestions for children, and other resources on inspiring your children to read more.  This month I would like to highlight Reading Rockets.  This great website is offered by PBS and provides a great variety of suggested books to read, information about authors for children, helping struggling readers, and links to more great information.  Visit them today!

For more links to great reading resources, see the side bar on the right side of this blog!

Orphan Train: A Novel

I finally had a chance to read the latest book from Christina Kline, Orphan Train (author of Bird in Hand). This is the story of an unusual friendship between a teenager, Molly, in the foster care system and Vivian, an older woman, who was an orphan herself.  A large portion of the book is told in flash back form, as Vivian shares her experiences as a child when she loses her family and is forced onto an orphan train.   While the narrative sometimes feels a little forced to me, it doesn't decrease the overall emotional impact of the story.  It certainly inspired me to learn more about the orphan trains, and what happened to some of the children during this time period.  Take time to read this great book!

From Booklist:
A long journey from home and the struggle to find it again form the heart of the intertwined stories that make up this moving novel. Foster teen Molly is performing community-service work for elderly widow Vivian, and as they go through Vivian’s cluttered attic, they discover that their lives have much in common. When Vivian was a girl, she was taken to a new life on an orphan train. These trains carried children to adoptive families for 75 years, from the mid-nineteenth century to the start of the Great Depression. Novelist Kline (Bird in Hand, 2009) brings Vivian’s hardscrabble existence in ­Depression-era Minnesota to stunning life. Molly’s present-day story in Maine seems to pale in comparison, but as we listen to the two characters talk, we find grace and power in both of these seemingly disparate lives. Although the girls are vulnerable, left to the whims of strangers, they show courage and resourcefulness. Kline illuminates a largely hidden chapter of American history, while portraying the coming-of-age of two resilient young women. --Bridget Thoreson  

And the winner is...

It is awards season!  As Hollywood celebrates its biggest starts, the American Library Association is highlighting the best books of the year.  If your children are looking for the next "great book" to read check out the winners below!

The Newbery Medal Winner (children's literature)

It begins, as the best superhero stories do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences. The squirrel never saw the vacuum cleaner coming, but self-described cynic Flora Belle Buckman, who has read every issue of the comic book Terrible Things Can Happen to You!, is the just the right person to step in and save him. What neither can predict is that Ulysses (the squirrel) has been born anew, with powers of strength, flight, and misspelled poetry — and that Flora will be changed too, as she discovers the possibility of hope and the promise of a capacious heart. From #1 New York Times best-selling author Kate DiCamillo comes a laugh-out-loud story filled with eccentric, endearing characters and featuring an exciting new format — a novel interspersed with comic-style graphic sequences and full-page illustrations, all rendered in black-and-white by up-and-coming artist K. G. Campbell. (from the publisher)

The Caldecott Winner (illustrations)

It is the summer of 1869, and trains, crews, and family are traveling together, riding America's brand-new transcontinental railroad. These pages come alive with the details of the trip and the sounds, speed, and strength of the mighty locomotives; the work that keeps them moving; and the thrill of travel from plains to mountain to ocean.

Come hear the hiss of the steam, feel the heat of the engine, watch the landscape race by. Come ride the rails, come cross the young country! (from the publisher)

The Printz Award (Young adult)

Seven stories of passion and love separated by centuries but mysteriously intertwined—this is a tale of horror and beauty, tenderness and sacrifice.
An archaeologist who unearths a mysterious artifact, an airman who finds himself far from home, a painter, a ghost, a vampire, and a Viking: the seven stories in this compelling novel all take place on the remote Scandinavian island of Blessed where a curiously powerful plant that resembles a dragon grows. What binds these stories together? What secrets lurk beneath the surface of this idyllic countryside? And what might be powerful enough to break the cycle of midwinterblood? From award-winning author Marcus Sedgwick comes a book about passion and preservation and ultimately an exploration of the bounds of love.
 
 
 

Language of Flowers

This book was passed along to me this summer by my mom, who thought I would like it.  I had a lot of reading to do at the time, and set it aside until this December when I picked it up over the break to read.  I am sorry that it took me so long!  Vanessa Diffenbaugh has written a wonderful debut novel.  The story opens with Victoria turning 18, and "graduating" out of the foster care system.  Her childhood has been filled with failed foster homes, and she is left to live on the streets.  However, she did have one positive foster care experience that left her with a deep knowledge of the Victorian meaning behind each type of flower.  She is given a chance by a local florist, and a second chance at making a life for herself.  Diffenbaugh does a great job of treading the waters between heartbreak and hope, and it leaves you rooting for Victoria.  Enjoy!

From the publisher:

A mesmerizing, moving, and elegantly written debut novel,The Language of Flowers beautifully weaves past and present, creating a vivid portrait of an unforgettable woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own troubled past.

The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful in communicating grief, mistrust, and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings.

Now eighteen and emancipated from the system, Victoria has nowhere to go and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. Soon a local florist discovers her talents, and Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But a mysterious vendor at the flower market has her questioning what’s been missing in her life, and when she’s forced to confront a painful secret from her past, she must decide whether it’s worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness.

Ocean at the End of the Lane and Frozen in Time

November and December seemed to fly by, and I realized that I did not post my book reviews for those months!  I have decided to copy and paste them into this post, and I will continue with a new review in February.  Enjoy!

The Ocean at the End of the Lane
I should say up front that I LOVE Neil Gaiman.  To me he is a master storyteller.  There are not many authors that can write for children (Chu's Day a picture book, and he is a Newberry award winner for The Graveyard Book), and adults (Anansi Boys).  The Ocean at the End of the Lane continues his legacy of great writing.  It is part fairy tale, part fantasy, part mystery, and all entertaining.  Neil Gaiman's work always contains an element of "creepy" and there are several places where you will find your skin crawl a little, but the storytelling is nothing short of amazing.  Enjoy this wonderful little novel.
From the Publisher:
A major new work from "a writer to make readers rejoice" (Minneapolis Star Tribune)—a moving story of memory, magic, and survival
Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.
A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.

Frozen in time: an epic story of survival and a modern quest for lost heroes of World War II
I read a lot of nonfiction.  I find it interesting, but not often as "gripping" as fiction work.  This is an exception to that.  This book I would consider to be a masterful work of narrative nonfiction.  If you are a history buff, and love a great adventure story, this is the book for you.  I had never heard of these plane crashes until I read this book, and I had a great time looking up more information about it as I went along.  Mitchell Zuckoff also wrote Lost in Shangra-La and I am hoping we will hear more World War II stories from him soon!

From the Publisher:
On November 5, 1942, a U.S. cargo plane on a routine flight slammed into the Greenland ice cap. Four days later, a B-17 on the search-and-rescue mission became lost in a blinding storm and also crashed. Miraculously, all nine men on the B-17 survived. The U.S. military launched a second daring rescue operation, but the Grumman Duck amphibious plane sent to find the men flew into a severe storm and vanished.
In this thrilling adventure, Mitchell Zuckoff offers a spellbinding account of these harrowing disasters and the fate of the survivors and their would-be saviors. Frozen in Time places us at the center of a group of valiant airmen fighting to stay alive through 148 days of a brutal Arctic winter by sheltering from subzero temperatures and vicious blizzards in the tail section of the broken B-17 until an expedition headed by famed Arctic explorer Bernt Balchen attempts to bring them to safety.
But that is only part of the story that unfolds in Frozen in Time. In present-day Greenland, Zuckoff joins the U.S. Coast Guard and North South Polar—a company led by the indefatigable dreamer Lou Sapienza, who worked for years to solve the mystery of the Duck's last flight—on a dangerous expedition to recover the remains of the lost plane's crew.
Drawing on intensive research and Zuckoff 's firsthand account of the dramatic 2012 expedition, Frozen in Time is a breathtaking blend of mystery, adventure, heroism, and survival. It is also a poignant reminder of the sacrifices of our military personnel and their families—and a tribute to the important, perilous, and often-overlooked work of the U.S. Coast Guard.