Book Talk

Valverde's Gold: In Search of the Last Great Inca Treasure by Mark Honigsbaum

Ever since the conquest of the Inca empire, tales of hidden Inca gold have tempted all manner of treasure seekers to risk their lives in Ecuador's forbidding Llanganati mountains.  Most people think it's just a fool's errand, even though scholarship points to the fact that there really is likely a gold hoard stashed somewhere.

Mark Honigsbaum is not a treasure hunter - in fact, he is a scholar/journalist who previously wrote a history of malaria.  Or rather, he wasn't a treasure hunter until he happened upon documents long forgotten in the UK Royal Botanic Gardens archive.  The guide and map he uncovered seemed to fill an important gap in existing clues about gold hidden after the murder of the Inca king Atahualpa.

Honigsbaum was hooked, and the game afoot, complete with a Swiss German gun runner, a former Ecuadorian track star, the requisite native guide who seems to know more than he lets on, and lots of miserable trekking through shrouded icy windswept bogs.

Jane Freeman doesn't remember how she  ended up splayed across a rosebush like a horror movie Cinderella. But it's definitely her in the police picture, looking pretty, but dead. Fortunately, she's not. Dead, that is. And she's not very pretty right now, either, since things have bruised and swollen. She can't remember anything from the night before, not the party, and not the hit and run. Her mom and the doctor keep saying it was an accident, but Jane has a feeling it wasn't. Friends visit, and what they tell her doesn't add up, somehow. With only flashes of memory, she can't sort truth from lie. Why is her friendship ring on a different hand? Who was she arguing with? Why did she just sit in the street while the headlights raced toward her? Where was her boyfriend? Jane begins to question what friendship and love mean to her, and what she's been thinking is "wonderful," may not be, after all. Is she going crazy, imagining threatening phone calls? Or is there a killer waiting to finish the job... Read Rosebush to find out.

A Dog is a Dog by Stephen Shaskan

 

A dog is a dog is a dog unless.... he's a cat.  A cat is a cat is a cat unless... he's a squid.  A squid is a squid is a squid unless... he's a moose. 

Do you get it?  This hilarious book by Stephen Shaskan is sure to appeal to preschoolers who love putting random things together or for just anyone who has a sense of humor. 

 

All new letters from a nut by Ted L. Nancy

So many have been talking about how our U.S. postal service is going bankrupt -- here's one man's attempt to forestall that. 

Earwig and the Witch
by Diana Wynne Jones

Most orphans in children's stories want to get adopted, right? Well, not young Earwig, resident of St. Morwald's Home for Children. She knows just how to get everyone there to do what she wants, so why would she want a new home? Luckily, she has mastered the art of looking unappealing to potential foster parents, and everything is under control. Or so she thinks. But one day, a witchy-looking woman and Mandrake, a sinister man whose hair looks suspiciously like horns, show up at the orphanage. Earwig is just the child they are looking for, and she finds herself swept away to be "an extra pair of hands."

In her dirty, unwelcoming new home, Earwig finds herself cleaning up messes, preparing smelly potion ingredients for a witch, and avoiding the Mandrake at all costs. Luckily, she is crafty and resourceful, and with the help of a magic book and a talking cat, she soon finds a daring way to put herself back in charge.

There are so many great fantasy books for older children, but it can be tricky to find high-quality fantasy for younger grades. This early chapter book is just the thing for imaginative readers who grew up on fairy tales. The chapters are short, the plot clips right along, and the cartoonish illustrations add humor to an already-funny story. With such a strong and quirky female character, it is a great alternative to the sparkly princess fairy books that seem to be everywhere. Highly recommended for grades 1-4.

Librarians are always on the lookout for read-alikes.   Read-alikes are books that are similar to another, more popular or more famous book.   We can suggest read-alikes when the more popular book is checked out.  Recently I listened to The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom and it reminded me of another book I listened to that you've probably heard of, The Help.  Does that make it a listen-alike?

The productions were similar because each one uses multiple readers to portray the various characters narrating the story.  The stories are similar because they are both set in the South and each portrays a time when racism was much more openly accepted than it is today.

At the end of the 1780's Lavinia comes to the United States on a ship from Ireland, but tragically, her parents die on the voyage.  At the docking, the ship captain, who is also a plantation owner, takes Lavinia in as a bond servant to pay off her passage. 

When they arrive at Tall Oaks, seven year old Lavinia is given to the slaves who work the plantation as an extra hand.  She meets Mama Mae who runs the big house, the twins Fanny and Beattie who become like her sisters, and Belle who manages the kitchen house and they all become her adopted family.

 
She grows to love them and yet as she gets older, it becomes more and more apparent that she will always be different from them because she is white.

In an era where slavery was common practice and the races were deeply divided, this tender story of family and loyalty will draw you in and make you indignant on behalf of many of the characters.  The author successfully combines suspense and tragedy with love and friendship in an unforgettable story.

One thing I've noticed in my many years as a librarian is that people love survival stories.  The enduring popularity of titles like Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer or Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing make it clear that people can't get enough stories about the doomed fates of people crazy enough to do things like climb Mt. Everest or cross Antarctica.  In general terms, we understand that the ones who didn't survive perished because their bodies were pushed too far, but did you ever stop to wonder just what, exactly, what happening during those final moments before they died?  Last Breath: Cautionary Tales from the Limits of Human Endurance is a macabre but utterly fascinating book that examines the physiological and psychological things a person experiences as they push themselves to, and beyond, the absolute brink of what the human body can handle.

Author Peter Stark has a long history of adventure travel and journalistic sports writing, creating a perfect foundation for the collection of stories that illustrate what happens to the mind and body as they experience hypothermia, drowning, or heatstroke, to name just a few.  The chapters read like a short stories, but woven into each is a scientific narrative explaining what is happening to the mind and body as the odds of survival grow increasingly small.  The scenarios are realistic and believable, and it's far too easy to imagine yourself as one of the main characters:  a cross-country skier finds himself making a series of increasingly poor choices that become even more erratic as his temperature drops; a climber survives a fall, only to succumb to internal injuries; a snowboarder does everything he can to keep from panicking after being buried in an avalanche.  While not everyone survives in this book, some do - just barely.  The difference between them?  Sometimes it's knowledge and preparedness, but sometimes it's just plain luck.
 

"Uh-Oh, here comes trouble!"  It's right there on the front cover of this picture book by Cahterine Rayner called Solomon Crocodile.  And he is trouble... and a pest and a nuisance.  Finally, after much rowdiness, Solomon sadly realizes that no one wants to play with him.  Bummer.  Then he meets his glorious match and the swamp rocks with their troublesome ways. 

This is a beautifully illustrated (think splashy color) simple story of friendship that will make your young crocs laugh and possibly do some mud stomping right along with Solomon.  This is a rowdy read perfect for children who like to join in the action.

Pale Gray for Guilt by John D. MacDonald

Travis McGee called himself a salvage expert. He would recover things that could never be recovered by any other means, and he would take half.  He took his retirement in increments.  When he had money he retired and when he was out he took jobs.  He lives on his boat the Busted Flush in Fort Lauderdale Florida.  But sometimes he salvages people's lives.  In Pale Gray For Guilt, McGee is after the people who killed an old friend, Tush Bannon.  Tush was a retired pro football player working to build a small marina and lodge to support his wife and three children.  Someone, somewhere was doing their best to destroy his dream, not to mention the ecosystem.  MacDonald frequently used his character McGee to give voice to his disdain to the people destroying the Florida ecosystem.  McGee's musing as I reread this 1968 story are still relevant today, scary isn't it, what haven't we learned?

John D. MacDonald was considered the very best of the best of private eye fiction authors.  He started in the pulps, where he wrote hundreds of stories, under many pseudonyms, because sometimes the whole magazine was nothing but his stories!  When he started the Travis McGee series he wasn't sure that he wanted to be tied down to one character, but he wrote three books, one right after the other and decided that he liked his character and could continue.  MacDonald didn't want to number the 21 Travis McGee books, because he didn't want to force the reader to read in any order, so all his Travis McGee stories have a color in the title and somewhere in the story you will find the title phrase.   He won all the major mystery/ thriller awards.  Many writers of today acknowledge his influence on their writing.  If you like a rip roaring adventure with some environmentalism  thrown in, not to mention beautiful smart and a few dumb women that he helps or hurts (just the bad ones) along the way, you certainly will enjoy Travis McGee in Pale Gray for Guilt and it will probably hook you to read the other twenty novels.

Free-Range Chicken Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard by Jessi Bloom (Author), Kate Baldwin (Photographer)

Chickens in the garden would seem to be an experiment fraught with danger for your baby bok choy but Jessi Bloom shows how chickens and gardens can form a symbiotic relationship. The book is filled with solid research and information written in an engaging style. And it has great pictures. It's a terrific book if you have chickens and fun to browse even if you are chickenless.

A few of the topics discussed are: incorporating chickens into your garden, keeping your plants safe, keeping your chickens safe, choosing the right plants, sample garden plans and my favorite, chicken training and acclimation. There are pictures of high class chicken coops as well as coops for chickens of more modest means. The author conducted interviews with chicken gardeners throughout the country to get their take on the problems they have faced and the solutions they have discovered.

Bloom is an award-winning garden designer and owner of N.W. Bloom Ecological Landscapes.