Library Talk.

I haven't read all the Obama books for children, but I've seen a fair number come through the library.   I thought I would post my favorite and my least favorite.  Please send your comments!

Our Enduring Spirit: President Barak Obama's First Words to America illustrated by Greg Ruth is, in my opinion, the best I've seen so far.  Our Enduring Spirit is an abridged version of Obama's inaugural address (the full text of the address is in the back of the book).  I like this book because it presents Obama in his own words. It allows children to interpret Barak Obama for themselves without putting adult significance on then man. The illustrations by Greg Ruth are also wonderfully done, adding meaning to the text without overpowering it.

My least favorite Obama book isn't really about Obama at all, but about Bo, the Obama family dog.  First dog by J. Patrick Lewis and Beth Zappitello is entirely awful.  In this book, a Portuguese water dog travels the world "looking for the perfect place to live." After travelling the world, he finally finds himself at the White House door. Not only is this book full of really terrible stereotypes ofthe people and places he visits, it has an un-original ending that will make you groan out loud. 

Let me know your favorite and least favorite Obama books.  Comment here!

Love You Hate You Miss You is the newest book from Elizabeth Scott. 

Amy was the only one to survive the car crash. She was the one who made them leave the party. She was the one who told Julia to drive. Amy feels responsible for killing her best friend.

Amy and Julia were inseparable. Julia was one of those amazing people. She had the best attitude, the coolest outfits and knew of all the great parties. They were a perfectly matched team and no one will ever be able to replace her.

Amy's parents made her go to rehab to deal with her alcohol problems. Her perfect parents are trying to be loving and encouraging, but Amy is frustrated by their attentive support.

Surviving high school without Julia is going to be impossible. Everyone knows about her drinking problems and what she did to her best friend.

How can you apologize to someone when they're no longer here?

Which of these Kennedy stories isn't real?

A. Bobby and Jackie: a Love Story
B. Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived: Virtual JFK
C. Dead Kennedys: How Martyrdom Changed Politics
D. Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years

Puget Sound is home to more than its fair share of great writers -- Sherman Alexie, Tom Robbins, Ivan Doig, to name a few. But Washington's best current novelist, in my opinion, hails from the sunny side of our state. Spokane resident Jess Walter is one of the funniest writers alive! If you don't believe me, then read his latest book, Financial Lives of the Poets. Don't let the slightly misleading title fool you.

The book's main character, Matthew Prior, is an ex-newspaper journalist suffering through a midlife meltdown brought on by the bursting housing bubble. Matt's internet startup business that dispenses financial wisdom in the form of free verse poetry is in shambles (go figure!); his over-leveraged house is weeks from foreclosure; and his wife is on the verge of an affair with an old high school sweetheart who "friended" her on facebook. Who can blame him for taking a drag on a potent marijuana joint offered up to him by the teenage misfits he encounters on a midnight milk run to the local 7-Eleven. When he finds himself making repeated midnight "milk runs" to the 7-Eleven in search of stress relief, Matt and his 7-Eleven buddies hatch a plan that just might save him from "financial ebola." If it doesn't land him in jail first.

Financial Lives of the Poets is biting satire about the choices we make in a world filled with unchecked consumerism, online addiction, and potent BC Bud. Time Magazine calls it "the funniest way-we-live-now book of the year." Jess Walter's writing style has been compared to other well-known humorists like Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and Carl Hiaasen. This is his most accessible and entertaining novel to date. 

Whodathunk?  I mean, my mom was a birder for years, and those folks aren't usually your cage match types.  But every year, a number of competitive birders strain just about everything - their budgets, eyes, sleep cycles, health, relationships - to come out on top in the number of bird species sighted in North America in a single year.

This is another one of those subjects I had no interest in until a good book smacked me across the noggin (hurray for good books, and good authors).

Every year there is a Big Year, but there has never been a Big Year like 1998's epic battle between three very (very) different birders.  Mark Obmascik channels Howard Cosell as he narrates The Big Year:  A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession.

In one corner, a New Jersey roofing contractor.  In another, a corporate executive; and in the third, a nuclear power plant software engineer (all men - is it always guys who are this crazy?).  Obmascik follows the three on their wacky, sometimes hilarious sometimes tragic galavants around North America.  Like any good competition, it's neck and neck (and neck) the whole way.  I think readers of Bill Bryson will really enjoy this book, and I need to credit a co-worker for lobbing this one my way.

I was just reading an article in Booklinks about Jonah Winter when I noticed not one but two of his books displayed on the new book display at the Woodinville Library. Coincidence?  I think not!

Jonah Winter got into writting books for children through his mother, award winning illustrator and author, Jeanette Winter. He's done some fabulous collaborations with her but has also written some fine books on his own. 

I first became aware of him as an author with the book The 39 apartments of Ludwig van Beethoven.  This is wonderfully funny (mostly) true tribute to Beethoven. I read it to a first grade class and they thought it was hilarious! and we have the added bonus of a (sort-of) biography that introduces kids to a world past.

Jonah Winter's two new books are also outstanding.  The Fabulous Feud of Gilbert and Sullivan presents a snapshot into the famous light opera creators.  The illustrations are delightful. The story, just a snapshot into the friendship between the two, is something kids will relate to.  Factual stories prove more interesting than fiction. 

On a more serious note, Peaceful Heroes is a tribute to 14 people who risked their lives to help others and make the world a better place.  These range from people you're heard of (Jesus of Nazareth, and Martin Luther King Jr) and some that you may not have (Paul Rusesabagina and Marla Ruzucka).  It's remarkably well written, in language kids will understand without being watered down or over dramatized.

Some of you have probably heard about the new HBO series, "True Blood".  If you have tried watching it and found it a bit too graphic, you will have a blast reading the series that it is based  upon:  The Sookie Stackhouse Novels by Charlaine Harris.  It is often described as a Southern Vampire Mystery  Series, but I found them to be a combination of mystery, fantasy, romance and absudity (and not nearly as graphic as "True Blood").

Normally, I am not drawn to vampire stories, but these are just absolutely fun to read.  Sookie narrates her adventures as a barmaid and telepath when she becomes involved with vampires who have recently "come out of the coffin".  She tells her story with a sunny outlook, Southern manners, and a sense of humor. 

The stories get more and more wonderfully crazy, but these light reads are so entertaining, I couldn't read them fast enough.  I don't want to say much more about the plot, because of the surprising twists and turns it takes,  and the very interesting characters that become a part of Sookie's  life.

If True Blood has piqued your interest (or you are a big fan), try the first book in the series, Dead Until Dark.  I bet you will have to read the entire series to find out what happens to Sookie Stackhouse, a character you will wish you could meet.

The Longest Night by Marion Dane Bauer and illustrated by Ted Lewin exactly fits my mood today.  With sunrise today at 7:18AM and sunset at 4:30PM, I'm feeling the short days and long nights. 

This book has the look and feel of a long northwest night.  Each of the animals, in turn, tries to bring back the sun. But only when the chickadee sings her little song, does the sun return. 

Pair this one with Raven a Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest by Gerald McDemott. 

I can be a real snob. I hate to admit that, but it's the truth; my first instinct is to look down my nose at things that are "popular" (reality TV, Facebook, Star Wars movies, and the like). This attitude has carried over into my reading life as well. Case in point: Stephen King. He might very well qualify as the world's most popular author and yet until very recently I'd never read a word he'd written. Thankfully, I'm aware that my sometimes uppity nature gets in the way and I take steps to work around it. With that in mind, I'm happy to report that I just finished 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King and I'll tell you something that you already know: this guy can write!

Ben Mears, a successful author, returns to the quiet little New England town of Jerusalem's Lot ('Salem's Lot, for short) in order to work on a new novel and hopefully lay some childhood demons to rest. He soon meets and becomes involved with local beauty Susan Norton, much to the disapproval of her mother and her former boyfriend, Floyd Tibbets. Meanwhile, the Marsten House, the dilapidated but imposing structure that that keeps an eery watch over the town, is after many years reoccupied by a pair of eccentric antique dealers, the urbane Mr. Straker and the unseen Mr. Barlow. Suddenly, strange things start to happen. Dogs are impaled on cemetery fences, people become severely ill and then quickly die, and other people...living and dead...disappear outright. Soon it becomes evident to Ben, Susan and a small group of comrades that vampires are in their midst and that the new residents of Marsten House are somehow at the center of the increasingly sinister happenings in the rapidly dwindling town of  'Salem's Lot.

I was surprised how much I liked Stephen King's writing style. The prose is stylish without being contrived or self-consciously hip. The plot unfolds fast enough to keep one's interest but not so fast that we don't get to know the characters; indeed, I was impressed with the level of character-development in this book. As for the horror quotient, I was told by a Stephen King aficionado that this book is tame in comparison to some of his other work (such as Pet Sematary, a book that is now on my list). And its true that 'Salem's Lot is rarely bloody or graphically violent. But that doesn't mean that it's not scary. "Ominous" and "foreboding" are words that well-describe this book; you get this gradually escalating sense of doom as the events unfold and that, I believe, is what makes this book really creepy.

Long story short: I thoroughly enjoyed 'Salem's Lot and look forward to my next excursion into Stephen King's psyche. I hope you check him out, too. 

But I still hate reality TV...  

Imagine the obliteration of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, Olympic National Park, North Cascades National Park, Mount Rainier National Park, Mount St. Helens National Monument, and then some.

1910's worst wildfire in U.S. history was not just a tragic loss, but an event that galvanized citizen support for forest conservation.  Timothy Egan, National Book Award winner, chronicles the events leading to the fire, the heroic and tragic stories from those few horrific days, and the nation's response in The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America. 

Although Roosevelt is listed in the subtitle, Gifford Pinchot and, indirectly, John Muir, were the driving forces behind the development of the National Forest system, and Egan spends the first portion of the book summarizing this backdrop.  Pushed through by the force of Roosevelt's will, the expansion of the National Forests was vehemently opposed by some of the most powerful senators in Congress.  Backed by timber, mining, and grazing lobbies, Congress effectively gutted Forest Service funding.  Idealistic young rangers lived a meager existence in towns that made Deadwood look like a kindergarten, desperately trying to control illegal logging and mining in an ocean of graft and hostility.

When hurricane force winds hit thousands of small fires during a summer of no rain, a handful of these poorly equipped rangers (the legendary Ed Pulaski among them) walked into a maelstrom.  Egan, again, marvelously captures a landmark natural event that changed the West.

[ see Timothy Egan at the Redmond Library:  December 3, 7pm ]