Our youth volunteer, Rebecca, recommends the book Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer (YA Bauer) to both boys and girls who are 9 years old or older.
                                                            

The book is about a girl named Hope who lives with her aunt in Brooklyn, NY.  Her aunt is the cook for an amazing restaurant until the restaurant is robbed.  Then they move to the farming community of Mulhoney, Wisconsin where the aunt is the chef at the only restaurant in town.  It takes a while for Hope to warm up to the community; but when she does, she meets some great people.  There is even a happy ending thrown in. 

Rebecca recommended this book for Mrs. Doyle's, the governor's wife, "Read On Wisconsin" program when she met her at the State Capitol.  Look for it on the reading list for next year.

I enjoyed Gray Matter by Gary Braver because it was an exciting mystery and because it also made you think about what is really important. 

Rachel Whitman lives in a nice house in a well-to-do Boston suburb.  Her 6-year-old son Dylan is sweet, good looking and loves to sing.  It seems that all should be going well for the Whitman family.  But Dylan has some learning disabilities which Rachel and her husband find hard to accept.   She is surrounded by parents who will do anything to improve the lives of their children.  Rachel learns of a secret and very expensive experimental medical procedure that claims to turn slow children into geniuses.  Should she and her husband sacrifcie their fortune on this risky prosedure for the sake of their son's happiness?  What really is happiness after all?

• NPR's "Librarian Nany Pearl Picks Summer's Best Books" (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105259115)
• On Point with Tom Ashbrook (http:www.onpointradio.org/2009/06/summer-reads-09)
• New York Times Book Review (http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2009/05/30/books/review/index.html)
• Even Oprah (http://www.oprah.com/package/oprahsbookclub/readinglists/pkgsummerreading/200907-omag-summer-reading-lists)

We don't sit down at the kitchen table with friends and relatives like we used to.  Kitchen Table Wisdom; Stories That Heal  (610 R386) by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. makes us realize how much we may have missed.  The book is divided into little conversations with a very insightful woman and physician - each "story" just a couple of pages long to help us "digest" it thoughtfully.  She shares her experiences both as a patient and as a doctor in a way that shows great care and hope.  It feels like a therapy session - for free!

Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Wherever You Go, There You Are writes of Remen's book, "A book of stunning radiance, authenticity, and power.  I laughed and cried my way through it, from beginning to end... Come share in this extraordinary outpouring of human wisdom Dr. Remen reveals to us in the mirror of her own boundless heart.  Don't let an opportunity like this go by."
 

How can you resist a title like The Last Book in the Universe, a Young Adult science fiction novel by Rodman Philbrick?                                                                                        

                              

The first few sentences set the time and the tone:  "If you're reading this, it must be a thousand years from now.  Because nobody around here reads anymore.  Why bother, when you can just probe it?  Put all the images and excitement right inside your brain and let it rip."  Frightening, isn't it?  In this time in the future, not many even remember books anymore.  There were books in the "backtimes" before the Big Shake when everything was supposedly perfect.  But not anymore.  This is the story of a young boy whose seizures prevent him from probing, an old man who keeps writing his story even though there is nobody to read it and a little orphan boy who hardly has the words for a voice.  Together they share the courage to survive. 

I found it interesting that as this new year began, the author wrote, "If you can afford to keep buying books, great, but don't let financial problems keep you from fueling your imagination. Check out your local library. Join a book group - share your opinions and thoughts with fellow book lovers. Stories have an amazing power to lift the human spirit and see us through hard times. And whatever the next year has in store for us, KEEP READING! "

This is the day children's librarians wait for.  All year we are trying to figure out which books will win the honors.  A committee of librarians pour through all the year's entries and determine their favorites.  Then at the Mid-Winter American Library Association gathering they all meet in secret to make their final choice.  Finally - today - an announcement is made.

And the winners are...

The Newbery Award for the most distinguished contribution to children's literature:
     The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (YA Gaiman, also in CD audiobook) - Nobody Owens is a normal boy, except that he has been raised by ghosts and other denizens of the graveyard.

Newbery Honor Books:
     The Underneath by Kathi Appelt (J Appelt) - An old hound that has been chained up at his hateful owner's run-down shack, and two kittens born underneath the house, endure separation, danger, and many other tribulations in their quest to be reunited and free.
     The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle (J811.54 M296S) -  Cuba has fought three wars for independence, and still she is not free. This history in verse creates a lyrical portrait of Cuba.
     After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson (YA Woodson) -  In the New York City borough of Queens in 1996, three girls bond over their shared love of Tupac Shakur's music, as together they try to make sense of the unpredictable world in which they live.

  Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book:
     The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson, illustrated by Beth Krommes (PIC Swanson) -  Illustrations and easy-to-read text explore the light that makes a house in the night a home filled with light.

Caldecott Honor Books:
     A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever by Marla Frazee (PIC Frazee) -  Friends James and Eamon enjoy a wonderful week at the home of Eamon's grandparents during summer vacation.
     How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz (PIC Shulevitz) - As he spends hours studying his father's world map, a young boy escapes the hunger and misery of refugee life. Based on the author's childhood in Kazakhstan, where he lived as a Polish refugee during World War II.
     A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams by Jen Bryant, illustrated by Melissa Sweet - This picture book biography of William Carlos Williams traces childhood events that lead him to become a doctor and a poet.

Michael L. Printz Award  for excellence in literature written for young adults:
     Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchella (YA Marchella) - Abandoned by her drug-addicted mother at the age of eleven, high school student Taylor Markham struggles with her identity and family history at a boarding school in Australia.

 Printz Honor Books:
     The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II, The Kingdom of the Waves by M. T. Anderson (YA Anderson) - After escaping a death sentence in the summer of 1775, Octavian and his tutor find shelter but no safe harbor in British-occupied Boston and, persuaded by Lord Dunmore's proclamation offering freedom to slaves who join his counterrevolutionary Royal Ethiopian Regiment, Octavian and his friends soon find themselves engaged in naval raids on the Virginia coastline as the Revolutionary War breaks out in full force.
     The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart (YA Lockhart) 
     Nation by Terry Pratchett (YA Pratchett) - After a devastating tsunami destroys all that they have ever known, Mau, an island boy, and Daphne, an aristocratic English girl, together with a small band of refugees, set about rebuilding their community and all the things that are important in their lives.
     Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan - A young woman who has endured unspeakable cruelties is magically granted a safe haven apart from the real world and allowed to raise her two daughters in this alternate reality, until the barrier between her world and the real one begins to break down.

It will be interesting to hear what you think.  Let us know.

 

1. It's fun.
2. It builds vocabulary.
3. It stimulates the imagination.
4. It increases the chance of later academic success.
5. It teaches empathy and understanding of other viewpoints.
6. It entertains; it stimulates; and it lights up the senses (and it's not TV).
7. Books are portable and infinitely useful.
8. Reading is an introduction to our culture and our world.
9. It teaches, period.
10. It's fun!