"Take a Child Outside" is a whole week (September 24-30) devoted to enjoying all things outdoors with children.  So show nature to your children and get them moving, whether by taking a hike, just visiting a local park to look for all the kinds of trees we live among, or collecting pictures of the bugs that live in your own back yard.  When you visit the library, check out our display for more inspirational ideas.

Apocalypse Now.  Most all of us have had someone blithely say "Well, it's not the end of the world" when we've shared a personal woe.  But, what if it were the end of the world?  What if something so drastic occured that the world as we know it no longer existed?  What would life be like then?  This display of dystopian novels is sure to catch your attention and get you wondering.

Hurricane Katrina was the cataclysmic force that did destroy the world of New Orleans and its citizens in 2005.  Out of the maelstrom, Dave Eggers penned Zeitoun, the heartrending book at the center of this year's One Book One Community programs and activities in East Lansing and at MSU.  After reading this powerful telling of how one family endured the consequences of Katrina, learn even more about Katrina by visiting this display of other available materials.

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.

Take a look at some of the new books available in September.

Adam & Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund
And Thereby Hangs a Tale by Jeffrey Archer
Bad Blood by John Sandford

Attention Dog Lovers! National Dog Day is being celebrated August 26th, but you can enjoy great dog stories all month long. Check out the list of titles available at the library.

Books and DVDs:

I must admit it - I'm addicted to the Fox television show, "So You Think You Can Dance."  Every week I sit in my comfortable stuffed chair and snack on junk food while beautiful, athletic, and talented young dancers perform.  I've never been interested in dance before, so I think producer/judge Nigel Lythgoe must be doing a good job.  Recently, he announced National Dance Day, a time for everyone to "get up and move."  Always thinking, if not moving, the lightbulb went off!  Our library has dance movies and books.  I can celebrate Dance Day by doing my favorite thing - reading or watching a movie.  It's not what Nigel had in mind, but it works for me!  You might also enjoy the following DVD's or books:

Saturday Night Fever
Hairspray
Michael Jackson's This Is It
Dirty Dancing
Mad Hot Ballroom

• Broadway, The Golden Years
• The Dancer Within: intimate conversations with great dancers
• Master's of Movement: portraits of America's great choreographers

If you're a Diary of a Wimpy Kid fan, you probably know the DVD was released August 3.  To place a hold on one of the library's copies, click here.  Just a reminder, our DVDs cost $1.50 for a one-week rental. The sequel, based on the second book, Rodrick Rules, is scheduled to be released March 25, 2011.

                                                               
Diary of a Wimpky Kid 5 is scheduled to hit the streets Novemeber 9 with a 5 million book first-print run.  It's the largest print run for the series to date!  The cover and title, The Ugly Truth, were revealed on July 29. Be one of the first kids to read it by placing a hold here.          
 

Here's a great website for parents looking for books for their children, info on why reading is so important, the best books to read aloud, and more. It's authored by Jim Trelease, an expert on literacy for children.

Here's the link: http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/. Also, you may want to check out his book, The Read Aloud Handbook. Enjoy!

Come to the library and sharpen the joys of summer!

In July, our display spotlight is on "Beach Reads" -- books that are enthralling, mesmerizing, funny, moving, thrilling, cryptic, charming, riveting, jocular  ... well, you get the picture!

And, your "Road Trip" this summer gets the spotlight in another display.  You'll find more than you'll ever need to get the most fun out of your next jaunty excursion!

Some people just seem inherently cool.  Stacy Peralta is one of  those people.  He was an original surfing/skateboarding Z-Boy in the ‘70s and helped paved the way for skateboarding superstar Tony Hawk. 

Today Peralta is busy making noteworthy documentaries.  His current film, Crips and Bloods: Made in America, presents interviews with current and former Los Angeles gang members and draws a connection between modern problems and social injustices of the past.

And, if you have even the slightest interest in surfing you should definitely check out the visually awesome Riding Giants about big wave surfing and Dogtown and Z-Boys which documents the rise of skateboarding and its impact on youth culture.  Peralta also wrote the screenplay for the popular Heath Ledger film Lords of Dogtown.  

There are three important things you need to know about Justin Cronin's new epic novel, The Passage.

First: You'll want to cancel any appointments, meetings, and commitments you had planned for this week.  Trust me, they are no longer important.  Once you start reading this book you won't be able to put it down.  Cronin does a masterful job of quickly building tension and then maintaining it over the entire span of the novel.  Reading The Passage feels like reading Stephen King at the height of his game (fellow lovers of The Stand, this book is for you!), which is probably why King wrote a rave review for the dust jacket.  Just like with King’s novels I was afraid to keep reading, lest one of my favorite characters get killed or infected with the terrifying virus that plagues Cronin’s tale.  But the story was so compelling that I was afraid to stop reading!  I had to know what happened next so I kept reading, and reading, long into the night.  Which brings us to the important question of sleep.  Sleep no longer matters. 

Fiction located in the fiction section under author's last name.
Mystery located in the mystery section under author's last name.

Elizabeth Adler (Fiction)

Maeve Binchy (Fiction)

Sandra Brown (Fiction)

Catherine Coulter (Fiction)

Since childhood, I've had a fascination with times of warfare and the people who live in them ... the French Revolution, the Civil War, both World Wars.  Through the years, I've read many memorable books on and around the topic, from The Warriors: reflections on men in battle, by J. Glenn Gray, to The Great War and Modern Memory, by Paul Fussell (both of which I highly recommend).

It's no surprise, then, that my eye alighted upon "Beyond Fear: Great Combat Memoirs of the 20th Century," an article in the current issue of Military History.  The editors draw attention to 9 memoirs that demonstrate the spirit, strength, pain, and raw courage that have enabled the best to survive the worst, from World War I through Vietnam.

For a truly compelling reading experience, try a book from the list:

With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa, by E. B. Sledge.
Quartered Safe Out Here: a recollection of the war in Burma, by George MacDonald Fraser.
The Coldest War: a memoir of Korea, by James Brady.
A Rumor of War, by Philip Caputo.
We Were Soldiers Once...and Young:  Ia Drang, the battle that changed the war in Vietnam, by Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway.

As we celebrate Father's Day on Sunday, June 20, 2010 ... here are some great recent books that remind us of the importance of fathers in our lives ... no matter how old we get.

The Council of Dads : my daughters, my illness, and the men who could be me, by Bruce S. Feiler.

Father Fiction : chapters from a fatherless childhood, by Donald Miller.

Not My Boy! : a father, a son, and one family's journey with autism, by Rodney Peete.

My Father, the Captain : my life with Jacques Cousteau, by Jean-Michel Cousteau.

Losing My Cool : how a father's love and 15,000 books beat hip-hop culture, by Thomas Chatterton Williams.

No Wonder My Parents Drank : tales from a stand-up dad, by Jay Mohr.

 

Let your eye enjoy the color and your ear the soothing sound.  Jazz, birds, and non-fiction books are featured this month in library displays.

Summer Solstice Jazz Festival fills the streets of downtown East Lansing on June 18-20, 2010.  Sounds sure to get your body and soul movin' will fill the air.  Get ready when you next visit the library and check out the display featuring jazz books and recordings.

Waking in the morning to the chitters, coos, and trills of all those birds pulls our hearts and minds into the promise of each new day.  Celebrate birds of all feathers by stopping by the birdwatching display the next time you stop in the library.  You can even catch a information-filled preview on the web at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the American Birding Association.

Summer is always the time to break out of your reading rut.  Take a look at our display of what can only be called "Fetching Non-Fiction."  Pick up a book that strikes your fancy -- and keep your horizons expanding!