If you haven't yet read Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, this year's One Book One Community selection, copies are now available for purchase in the library's Friendshop.  The Friends are selling the paperback edition, published just for East Lansing's OBOC event, at the wholesale price.  Pick one up soon while supplies last. 

Once you've finished the book make sure to attend some of the many events being held around town to celebrate this year's title. 

ELPL also has Behind the Beautiful Forevers available in the following formats:  print, eBook, eAudio, audiobook, and Lit Kit.

Looking for used books?  Check out the Friends Facebook page.  They list great used books available for purchase at the library.

As the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches and our community prepares to engage in One Book, One Community events, I would like to recommend a middle-grade fiction novel,Ninth Ward, by Jewell Parker Rhodes.  Ninth Ward is the first middle grade novel written by Rhodes, an award winning author of adult fiction. It is also the first middle grade novel written about Hurricane Katrina.

12-year-old orphan Lanesha lives in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans with 82-year-old Mama Ya-Ya, her caretaker. The story begins on Lanesha's birthday, a few days before Hurrican Katrina hits in 2005.  Lanesha is teased by her peers at school because she talks to ghosts, but she is a strong and independent character and so the teasing doesn't bother her. Mama Ya-Ya has the feeling something bad is going to happen soon, but she doesn't know what it is until she and Lanesha hear the news announced on the TV. What happens next is a tale of  a struggle for survival in what was to be the tragic aftermath of catastrophic flooding in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans after Hurrican Katrina passed through.

This amazing tale has already received a Parents' Choice Gold Award and is the latest pick for Al Roker's Book Club.

The 2010 One Book, One Community selection is Zeitoun by Dave Eggers.

This year's One Book, One Community focuses on "The Soloist," a New York Times best seller, written by Steve Lopez, award-winning journalist and Los Angeles columnist.  The book was also made into a recently released, feature film starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr.

"The Soloist" is the true story of Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez's fascination with Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a Julliard trained musician who is homeless and playing Beethoven on a two-string violin in a noisy traffic tunnel.