King County Library System - Library Talk. - March 2009

The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan

Michale Pollan has taken four fundamental human desires: sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control and shows how we have interacted with plants over thousands of years in the fulfillment of these desires.  In Pollan's fascinating look at four plants he asks the question "Are we choosing the plant, or is the plant choosing us?"  You may be surprised by the answer.  Four plants: apples (sweetness), tulips (beauty), marijuana (intoxication) and potatoes (control) are each examined in their own section with anecdotes, history and research woven in.  For instance, in the section about apples Pollan examines the role of Johnny Appleseed in the spread of apples across the country.  Apples (which historically have had a bad rap with the whole Eve thing) were planted by Appleseed not for eating, but for making scrumpy, a type of low alcohol cider.  People drank scrumpy instead of water as most water was unfit for drinking.  And here we have been thinking of Johnny Appleseed as some kind of evangelizing gardener!  Pollan also describes how the Red Delicious apple was accidentally discovered and why apple trees can't be grown from seed and remain true to the parent tree.  Pollan is an engaging writer and asks us to consider how when we change the world around us, it changes us.  Other titles by Pollan worth reading are In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, A Place of My Own: the Education of an Amateur Builder and Second Nature: A Gardener's Education. 

April is National Poetry Month and to help set the proper tone for this annual celebration of

words I would like to share some of my favorite laugh-out-loud poetry books.  Poems that make me laugh are the ones that are really close to my heart (and funny bone). 

Author and editor Bruce Lansky is an avid collector (and writer) of children's literature including some of my absolute favorite collections of poetry.  Check out Kids Pick the Funniest Poems:  Poems to Make Kids Laugh.  It includes poems by Jack Prelutsky (My Mother Says I'm Sickening), Shel Silverstein (Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out), and Judith Viorst (Learning) to name just a few!  Bruce also includes some of his own poems for good measure.  All of them are worth a laugh out loud... even if people are watching you.

He has collections of poetry about a variety of topics that are all worth a look.  No More Homework!  No More Tests!  Kids' Favorite, Funny School Poems and Happy Birthday to Me:  Kids Pick the Funniest Birthday Poems.  He's even got something for the sports fans out

there with I Hope I Don't Strike Out!  And Other Funny Sports Poems.

Bruce Lansky has also developed one of the best poetry websites around with Gigglepoetry.com.  There are fill-in-the-blank poems, writing workshops, contests, original poetry by kids and much more.  It is colorful and inviting and definitely something to use in the classroom whenever poetry is the topic of the day.  Check out some poetry books, get inspired and then jump onto Gigglepoetry.com and see where it takes you!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if a publisher can make money from a certain category of book, it must continue to publish said category. It's the genre that won't die!  Jane Austen knock-offs, spin-offs, and even rip-offs.  Seems like there's one coming out every month. Don't get me wrong.  I LOVE Jane Austen and I've read lots of the modern recreations and reincarnations and liked many of them.  Then, there were a few so awful I couldn't finish them...  So, I picked up Shannon Hale's little book Austenland, ready to devour it or drop it.

Austenland opens with Jane, a modern girl with a crush on Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy (I can SO relate!), receives a really cool gift from her aunt:  Two weeks at Pembrook Park, an English estate that offers Regency era vacations.  Jane will spend the time dressing, talking, and acting like a lady right out of Pride and Prejudice and she'll hopefully quash her obsession with the fictional hero and get on with her life.

Each chapter opens with a funny description of one of Jane's ex-boyfriends and you can see right away that it won't take much of a guy to improve upon her experience.  So even though Jane plays along with the whole house party romance thing with a bit of chagrin, her fellow visitors live and breathe the verisimilitude of this Jane Austen theme park.  With characters that would fit right into a real Austen novel, other than the rather wicked gardener who lets Jane watch college basketball on his TV, the book does its job of keeping you turning the pages and hoping that one of the gentlemen will turn out to be Jane's own real life Mr. Darcy.

Most people are surprised to learn that you need a Masters of Information and Library Science to work as a Librarian and that not everyone who works in the library is a Librarian.  There are kinds of library workers - Librarians, Library Assistants, and Library Pages.  And there are three types of Librarians - Adult Reference, Young Adult, and Children's.  

It is often assumed that if you love books you'll love working in a library.  But most of what we do in the library is related to customer service. 

What exactly do we do?

Contrary to popular belief, librarians don't get to read on the job.  Librarians do anything and everything.   We are ready to answer any question that comes our way and be quick on our feet.  We know that not everything can be found with Google. 

A typical work day includes helping library customers set up an email account, write a resume, track down where to cash a check from a bank that no longer exists, call a tow truck for a stalled vehicle in the parking lot, make an immigration appointment, look up how to buy a baby stroller (not found in Consumer Reports), find a newspaper article about a couple who died after being hit by a tree without using the word tree in the search, reunite lost children with their parents, break up fist fights, identify the initials and Masonic-like symbols found on a sword bought at a thrift store, and figure out how to get the sales records of a sale on Craigslist that may be stolen music LPs.  And the list goes on. 

These examples are just from the past two days!  Some questions are so hard to answer that we send them on to the experts at the Bellevue Regional Library.  This link gives you many ways to talk to a librarian.

Library staff have even written books about working in the library. I have mixed feelings about these books, but they do give you an idea of what it is like to work in a library.  Working in the library is rarely dull!

• Quiet, please : dispatches from a public librarian by Scott Douglas
• The library diaries by Ann Miketa
• Free for all : oddballs, geeks, and gangstas in the public library by Don Borchert

When I told one friend that I was going to blog about A Town Like Alice, she said, "It's one of my favorite books." When I mentioned this to another friend, she said, "I HAD to read it in high school."  Then (same day in fact) I was glancing through a book called 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, and felt pretty depressed because I have only read about 50 of 'em.  Then on page 519, what did I see?  A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute!  It was a sign!   Sooooo....  

It is a difficult book to describe; it is a romance between an English woman and an Australian.  It is a World War II novel about English women as prisoners of war with no prison camp to be in and an Australian prisoner of war who is tortured because he stole soap and chickens from the Japanese for these wandering women.  It is also a Cinderella story of Willstown in the Australian Outback.  Jean Paget, a former prisoner of war and an English secretary, is the Fairy Godmother to this nothing little town. She has an inheritance and she is going to turn Willstown into something, with greengrocers, jobs to keep the girls in town (so the local cowboys or ringers as they are called, will have someone to marry and then they will stay on the cattle stations), and a swimming pool, just like Alice Springs.

I am crazy about this book because I love fixer-up stories, whether they are about Cinderella, old houses or in this case - a town.  I also love to read women in jeopardy stories and being a prisoner of war is a pretty big jeopardy.  But most of all - I love romances... How many guys do you know would risk death to steal a chicken and soap for a gal he met on the way from one prison camp to another?  There is so much to like, but I'd better stop before I give anymore away.  Oh, another friend read this book before she took a trip to Australia and she said it added to her enjoyment of her visit.  Soooo...three friends and I encourage you to read A Town Like Alice.

 

Life or honor--which would you choose?  This question is at the heart of Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade by Diana Gabaldon.  In 1758, with the Seven Years' War in full swing, questions of honor often are questions of life or death.  Lord John Grey knows this well, as a soldier, the brother of a duke, and a gay man.  Nearing 30, John has worked for 17 years to overcome the stigma of his father's supposed suicide and presumed connection to the Jacobites.  His family honor has been somewhat restored, but new facts come to light when pages of his father's long-lost journal begin to surface.  John must decide whether finding out more about the journal is worth the danger to his family and his father's reputation.  At the same time, John's new relationship--already risky in a time when homosexuality is punishable by death--makes him face the question of life or honor in a whole new way.

As a fan of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, I confess that I was reluctant to read the books that feature Lord John Grey.  In the Outlander books, we view Lord John through the eyes of the main characters, Claire and Jamie Fraser, and neither of them sees him in a particularly positive light.  One day I was desperate for an audiobook, so I checked out Lord John and the Hand of Devils, and I was hooked.  I sped through Lord John and the Private Matter, before finishing with Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade. Although I had enjoyed the first two books in audio versions, I initially tried reading Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade in print.  Sadly, my own imagination lacked the ability to render the characters with the skill of narrator Jeff Woodman, so I went back to audio.

 While the first two Lord John books were good fun, with ample historical detail, lively characters, and good mysteries, the third has a more serious tone.  Lord John's struggle to live with integrity makes me want to re-read the entire Outlander series in light of my new understanding of his character.  Perhaps I will have time to do that before the next Outlander volume, An Echo in the Bone, comes out on September 22. (It isn't in the library catalog yet, but will be there well in advance of the publication date.)  Watch for a release party for An Echo in the Bone at Bellevue Regional Library in September, and in the meantime, enjoy the adventures of Lord John Grey in one of several audiobook formats.

This is the third installment in our celebration of the new Sasquatch Nominee list for 2010 and one of my favorite books.  I have about 6 favorites but that doesn't make this favorite any less special!

Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little by Peggy Gifford is about the wonderfully quirky Moxy Maxwell and all that she goes through to avoid reading Stuart Little over her summer vacation before 4th grade.  She tries everything to keep from reading it like planting a peach orchard which doesn't turn out well.  She decides that their untrainable dog must be trained immediately or she has to clean her room (actually a really big deal) or go swimming or invent something the world has never seen and on and on.  The odd thing is that Moxy loves to read.  But somehow being assigned to read something over summer break makes her all procrastinatey.  The book is never far from her side the entire summer, in her backpack, under the leg of the coffee table, in her lap, on the car seat.  It's just the reading it part that is causing the problem.  But the end of August is fast approaching and Moxy knows she's just going to have to get down to business... at the very last possible second.

Moxy reminds me of Clementine and Judy Moody in her quirkiness and hysterical way of dealing with life.  Anyone who has ever put off doing a homework assignment will definitely understand Moxy's struggle especially those in grades 3 - 5.  There are black and white photographs throughout the entire book taken by her twin brother (really they are by Valorie Fisher) that capture some of the wildest and funniest moments of the summer.  Happily Moxy continues her adventures as this series grows both in popularity and in books!  Check out the sequel Moxy Maxwell does not Love Writing Thank-you Notes. 

The thing that makes poetry so great for kids is that it's usually short, making it accessible to readers of all sizes and shapes.  There's something for everyone in poetry.  There's a poem for every reader. 

I just had a fabulous book of Children's Poetry come across my desk here at the library: The Bill Martin Jr. Big Book of Poetry edited by Bill Martin Jr., with Michael Sampson with a foreword by Eric Carle and a afterword by Steven Kellogg.

If the names Bill Martin Jr. (author of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?), Eric Carle (author of the Hungry Caterpillar) and Steven Kellogg (author of the Pinkerton series), don't ring any bells than maybe some of the poets will be familiar (Carl Sandburg, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Frost)

The Bill Martin Jr Big Book of Poetry is just what you need to kick off National Poetry Month.

Join us at the Covington Library on April 11th for the latest installment of TechConnect.

Travels With Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck is a marvelous account of a road trip that he took at age 58 with his elderly poodle Charley in late 1960. He undertook the trip for a number of reasons, two of which predominate. First of all, he wanted to "discover America" (or perhaps "rediscover America") by actually seeing and experiencing it up close in a way that he had not for many, many years. Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, he wanted to prove to himself that, at his relatively advanced age (for 1960), he could actually achieve his goal of completing such a monumental undertaking. As he so eloquently put it, "I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby." John Steinbeck was a lion that wanted to make sure he could still roar. Boy, did he ever.

Steinbeck's Travels With Charley took him from Long Island to Maine, then across New England, the Midwest, and the upper Great Plains states, through Montana and on to Seattle, south via the redwoods to his hometown of Salinas, California, then across the Mohave Desert, the southwestern states, Texas, New Orleans, and north through the East Coast states and back to New York...where he got lost. But then, he got lost a lot on this trip and as such was able to see much that he otherwise might have missed. In all, his trip took the entire autumn of 1960 and he drove at least 10,000 miles. He did his best to travel backroads, though at times he of necessity drove along the relatively new interstate highways. The book is an episodic account of the places he saw (Niagara Falls, The Badlands, the Redwood forests, the wide open Southwest) and the people he met, most notably a band of French-Canadian migrant farm workers in Maine, an itinerant actor at a roadside stop in the Midwest, and the notorious "Cheerleaders" (southern belles that daily spewed venom at a little black girl as she arrived at her newly-integrated school in New Orleans).

As with most of Steinbeck's work, the language is a key selling point of this work. He can really turn a phrase without sounding self-consciously "literary." There is also plenty of humor, courtesy of Charley and a good supply of social lubricant, and a fair amount of humility as he discovers that what is seen depends entirely on who is seeing it. Some fairly weighty themes, such as rampant urbanization and the homogenizing of America through radio and TV, are explored without making the book seem ponderous. More than anything, the joy and freedom associated with travel come through loud and clear.

I can hardly wait to plan my next road trip. Read Travels With Charley and most likely the same thing will happen to you.

This is our second in a series of entries on the new Sasquatch Award Nominees for 2010.  Just to give you a little taste of what to expect and some cool background tidbits as a bonus.

Brendan Buckley is a scientist, a rock hound, and a blue belt in Tae Kwon Do.  You know, just an ordinary kid.  He keeps track of his many scientific discoveries in a top secret notebook along with a long list of unanswered questions.  He's big into figuring things out and you can't do that without asking questions!  He believes he's an ordinary kid living an ordinary life until he steps right into the middle of a family mystery that just keeps adding questions to his ever growing list.  After awhile Brendan begins to wonder if he'd have been better off keeping his questions to himself.

Brendan Buckley's Universe is a first novel for kids by Sundee T. Frazier and she does a pretty good job her first time out!  There are heavy questions being asked about race, family, and loyalty but she keeps adding in things that make you laugh while you work through the tough stuff.  Brendan is such a likeable, interesting kid that you will find yourself rooting for him through the whole story.

This book won the American Library Association's Coretta Scott King Award which honors African-American authors and illustrators who create outstanding books for children and young adults.  Sundee Frazier won for New Talent.  Brendan Buckley's Universe is funny, it's challenging and it has definite kid appeal particularly for those in 4th - 6th grade. 

The new Sasquatch Award Nominees for 2010 have been announced and it's never too soon to dive in and start reading.  But before you take that dive you might like a little background   on what this award is all about.  The Sasquatch Award is the Washington Library Media Association (WLMA) award for chapter books, grades 3-6 and was begun in 1999.  Teachers, librarians and students can all nominate books for consideration.  The committee then reads all the nominated books (somewhere between 80 and 100 titles or more) and discusses each title to decide which 12 or so books will be on the final list.  The new 2010 list is made up of books with a 2007 - 2008 copyright date.  If you are craving more Sasquatch Award knowledge visit the website.  You'll find lists of past winners, the current list, background information, bookmarks and more.

And now (drum roll please) I'm pleased to present the 2010 Sasquatch Award Nominees!

The Return of the Killer Cat  by:  Anne Fine

Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything In It  by:  Sundee Frazier

Moxy Maxwell Does Not  Love Stuart Little  by:  Peggy Gifford

Deep and Dark and  Dangerous  by:  Mary Downing Hahn

Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat  by:  Lynne Jonell

Skulduggery Pleasant  by:  Derek Landy

Heat  by:  Mike Lupica

Ten Ways to Make My Sister Disappear  by:  Norma Fox Mazer

The Mutiny on the Bounty  by:  Patrick O'Brien

How to Steal a Dog  by:  Barbara O'Connor

Lawn Boy  by:  Gary Paulsen

Yellow Star  by:  Jennifer Roy

I will spend time in my next few entries introducing each title individually starting with Return of the Killer Cat.  Stay tuned!

 

 
Yes, the new Sasquatch Award Nominee list is out even as this year's list races toward the final voting on April 1st.  To get the ball rolling for the new list I am going to introduce a title every few days starting with The Return of the Killer Cat by Anne Fine.  You may know Anne Fine as the author of Alias Madame Doubtfire which became the movie Mrs Doubtfire with Robin Williams.  If you didn't know... now you do! 

Tuffy is thrilled when he hears that his family is going on vacation.  He has happy visions of a whole week without having to put up with being petted and fussed over by his owner.  But things don't turn out so well for poor tough guy Tuffy when the Vicar (or Mr. Fussbudget as Tuffy calls him) comes to cat sit.  There are so many rules and so little time to break them all.  Tuffy and the Vicar pretty much drive each other crazy.  The result is a funny odd couple story that will appeal to 3rd - 5th graders. 

This story is enhanced by the artwork of Steve Cox who captures the wry humor perfectly in his line drawings.  The reading level is appropriate to high 2nd grade readers as well as 3rd - 5th graders.  The humor will be most appreciated by the higher level readers.  As a light, easy read it will be able to reach a broad audience.

Which of these is not a book about Proust and the brain available from the King County Library System?

A. Proust Was a Neuroscientist
B. Proust and the Squid: the Story and Science of the Reading Brain
C. Proust and the Knife: the Philosophy of a Neurosurgeon

(answer after the break)

Friday was the first day of Spring, and what better way to celebrate than by going to one of Seattle's excellent public gardens, arboreta, or conservatories!

Seattle Parks and Recreation manage many beautiful gardens including the Washington Park Arboretum, Volunteer Park Conservatory, and the Woodland Park Zoo's gardens. 

Read up on these gardens in KCLS Libraries!
     Washington Arboretum
     Woodland Park Zoo gardens
     Washington garden guidebooks

If you are a gardener yourself, you may want to visit the Center for Urban Horticulture (don't miss their library!), the UW Medicinal Herb Garden, or a local nursery.

Have you ever read a book that you thought was absolutely fantastic and wanted to share it with everyone, but the minute you tried to explain it words totally failed you?  That's what happened to me when I read cartoonist Lynda Barry's latest book, What It Is.  It's gorgeous, inspiring and surprising.  It also defies any attempt at classification.  You could say this is a memoir and writer's guide, but that would be far too simple.  It is both of those things, but it is also an examination of art and human nature, the "formless thing" that drives us to create and shapes that which we make and share with the world. 

Visually, this book is complex and intricate and it can take a very long time to read each page simply because there is so much to look at.  Barry's illustrations are whimsical and chock-full of hidden delights and tiny treasures, but they are not without a darker side.  Tiny ghost-like creatures hover around the margins and many of the drawings and collages are unsettling and often quite haunting.  Like much of Barry's work, What It Is is layered and messy, punctuated by bright spots of clarity and humor - sort of like life itself.

Don't worry about what it is.  Just read it and enjoy it.

In Richard Russo's novel The Risk Pool Ned Hall describes his childhood with his father, Sam, and here's the first thing he tells us: "My father, unlike so many of the men he served with, knew just what he wanted to do when the war was over. He wanted to drink and whore and play the horses." So it's no surprise that Sam Hall was a reluctant parent. On the night Ned was born Sam's father-in-law found Sam at a poker game, pointed a gun at his head and told him to visit the hospital. Sam finished the poker hand with a gun in his ear, visited his new son, and more or less disappeared from his young family for the next decade.

When Ned was twelve his mother became unable to care for him, and he went to live with his father in the same small Upstate New York town where he'd grown up. But living with his father was like living in a different world, one of bars and gambling, poverty and petty crime. This all sounds bleak, and it was, but the characters managed to keep afloat with occasional construction jobs, loans from friends, and a lot of jokes at their friends' expense.

Richard Russo has an ear for the way guys talk and an understanding of how they relate. Ned and Sam have no idea what to do with each other; Sam often looks at his son and just says, "Well?". But over time their relationship grows. The Risk Pool is a funny and low-key book, but it's also unexpectedly moving, and its characters are unforgettable.

The Pacific Northwest Library Association has announced the nominees for next year's Young Reader's Choice Award. Check out these great books today!!

JUNIOR
The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg Heffley's Journal by Jeff Kinney
Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis 
Igraine the Brave by Cornelia Funke
Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Marley: a Dog Like No Other by John Grogan 
Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
No Talking by Andrew Clements

 

INTERMEDIATE
Alchemyst: Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
Zen And The Art Of Faking It by Jordan Sonnenblick
Peak by Roland Smith
Plain Janes by Cecil Castelucci
Schooled by Gordon Korman
The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex 
Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landry

You might think that you should use our advanced search page to do complex searching, but I use it most often to simplify a search.  Let me explain.

One unfortunate limitation to the catalog is that you cannot limit just to adult books.  If you are searching on a common topic (ie bears), you often have to weed through a flood of kids books to find the adult ones.

Advanced searching offers a dropdown menu where you can choose the operator "And not", which effectively is the same as using a limiting feature.  Since most children's materials are classified in the catalog as "Juvenile", you can remove them by typing in your search term(s) in the first search box (ie bears), choosing "And not" from the menu, and typing in "juvenile" in the second search box.  You could even "And not" a second time and type in "fiction" in the third box, if you wanted to limit out the novels.

Are you taking college prep tests soon? Or know someone who is? Take a look at Testing & Education Reference Center. You have pre-paid access if you have a library card! Not only does it contain lots of electronic books on test prep (that often have a long waiting list at the library), there are online timed tests to get you used to performing well under pressure. And once you're done with college, there are career prep tests and grad school tests, too. 

Honest Pretzels: And 64 Other Amazing Recipes for Cooks Ages 8 and Up by Mollie Katzen.

Who could resist that title?!  This is a perfect cookbook for adults and children to share together.  Even the introduction is hilarious...but also educational!  In these last cold days of late winter/early spring a little cooking together is good for everyone.  It's good for so many reasons: family closeness is probably the first thing we think about, but cooking, especially with such an inviting title as Honest Pretzels, gets children using all those great early learning skills without even thinking about it: sequencing, reading comprehension, communication, organization, hand/eye coordination, awareness of ethnic foodways, not to mention math and science.  And the best part? You can eat the results!  Other titles by Mollie Katzen perfect for family sharing are Pretend Soup and Other Real Recipes: A Cookbook for Preschoolers and Up and Salad People and More Real Recipes: A New Cookbook for Preschoolers and Up.  Mollie Katzen was one of the original members of the Moosewood Collective so you might enjoy some of her other cookbooks. 

Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden

After the Christmas holiday, Australian teenager Ellie and six of her friends decide to camp in the bush for a long weekend. They hope to find their way into Hell, a hidden valley where a legendary hermit once lived. Hell's not an easy place to find though- you can see it from Tailor's Stitch, but you have to descend a series of cliffs known as Satan's Steps to reach it. Ellie is surprised and delighted when they actually discover the trail into Hell. They spend a lazy week in the valley, only disturbed one night as an endless series of planes fly overhead. They assume the planes are just part of the Commemoration Day celebrations going on back in town, but when the emerge from the valley, they quickly discover the truth. Their country has been invaded, their families and friends are locked up in the fairgrounds and they are alone. Ellie knows they could disappear into Hell and stay safe, but what about everyone else? Slowly, the come to the realization that they must fight if they hope to see their family and homes again.

John Marsden's Tomorrow Series is a fast-paced action adventure. For some readers (Gen-Xers, especially) it will immediately bring to mind Red Dawn, the Cold War teens-turned-resistance-fighters movie where Solviets invade the U.S. With seven books and three post-war sequels, this series offers more character development than any movie can provide. Ellie is a fierce heroine, often vulnerable and conflicted, but ultimately tough and tenacious as well. Her friends, especially her best mate Homer and her crush Lee, are just as driven and just as flawed. As they transform themselves from average teenagers into guerilla fighters, they also learn that nothing, even their fight for survival, is black and white.

The series continues with The Dead of Night, A Killing Frost, Darkness Be My Friend, Burning for Revenge, The Night is for Hunting, The Other Side of Dawn, While I Live, Incurable and Circle of Flight. The audiobooks are well worth a listen too!

"The incongruity between where we want to live and where Nature supplies the water to sustain our lives is the root fact of existence in the West, the one simple fact of life in the West that is more important than any other."

Despite an ever-growing population and periodic summertime water shortages, we have it way easy here in King County. But if you live in California, Arizona, or one of the other southwestern states that gets the majority of its water from the Colorado River, water is in short supply and the immediate future, not just the distant future, looks pretty grim. Dead Pool: Lake Powell, Global Warming, and the Future of Water in the West by James Lawrence Powell gives a compelling account (and stinging indictment) of the history of water usage in the Southwest, the effects of global warming on the already over-allocated Colorado River (which in most years doesn't even reach its delta), and the probable outcome of a continuation of consumption patterns in places like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and southern California. And what is that consumption pattern? As the author puts it, "Regardless of the state of the Colorado River today, every city, county and state in the West plans to consume more water. In defiance of logic and limits, the driest states have become the fastest growing."

Dead Pool is rich with historical information, mathematical and statistical analyses (complete with tables and graphs), and comprehensively stated arguments and conclusions. And yet, though it might be considered somewhat dense by some readers, it is a very engaging read. Indeed, the section that deals with the rivalry between dam-crazy Bureau of Reclamation chief Floyd Dominy and the fiery Sierra Club executive director David Brower is a downright page-turner. There are a number of interesting illustrations and 22 pages of notes in the back. In all, this is a highly persuasive (and more than a little alarming) book written by a well-informed expert.

So why should we care? I mean, they're down there and we're up here, right? Well, I'll leave you with the following prediction for Phoenix in the frighteningly-near future: "Businesses and family begin to abandon Phoenix, creating a Grapes of Wrath-like exodus in reverse. Long lines of vehicles clog the freeways, heading east toward the Mississippi and north towards Oregon and Washington." That's us. As James Lawrence Powell so eloquently points out, this is everyone's problem. 

 

No cabe duda que nos encontramos en tiempos dificiles: los trabajos son escazos, los sueldos han bajado, precios siguen subiendo, y nada es gratis. Un lugar donde todo es GRATIS es en su biblioteca publica. El Sistema de Bibliotecas de King County (KCLS), con mas de 40 sucursales, le brinda acceso al Internet GRATIS, donde usted puede construir e imprimir su curriculum, buscar trabajo o hacienda en línea, y mucho mas. Tambien encontrara libros, revistas, DVD's, y CD's en Español. Cuanto cuesta pregunta usted? Absolutamente nada! Todos nuestros servicios y uso de materiales son gratis, solo necesita su tarjeta bibliotecaria. No tiene una tarjeta bibliotecaria? Obtenga una tarjeta GRATIS, simplemente visite su sucursal mas cercana y presente un tipo de identificación y un comprobante de domicilio...es todo lo que se necesita.

No doubt we are living in hard times: employment is scarce, wages are down, prices are up, and nothing is free. One place though, where you will find FREE service is at your local public library. The King County Library System with over 40 branches offers FREE access to the Internet, where you can build and print your résumé, look for a job or housing, and much more! You all also find a great selection of books, DVD's, and CD's. How much does it cost you ask? Nothing! All our services and use of materials is FREE, all you need is a library card. You don't have a library card? Get one FREE by visiting your nearest branch. You will need a valid ID and proof of address...that's it!

Necesita construir o mejorar su curriculum?

Consulte estos libros y recursos en su Biblioteca Publica de KCLS :

Larousse Redacte su curriculum en inglés fácil / por = Marie-Claude Roland y Martha Mast-Grand
650.142 ROL SPANISH

200 Modelos de Curriculum / por Martha Alicia Alles
650.14 ALL SPANISH

Como escribir un curriculum vitae en inglés que tenga exito / por Marcia Seidletz
808.06665 SEI SPANISH

Busca información sobre ayuda con su vivienda o hipoteca?

Visite el Departamento de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano de Los Estados Unidos,
Programa de Capacidad de Pago y Estabilidad para Proprietarios de Vivienda.

Busca Trabajo?

Visite los siguientes sitios:

Worksource - El sitio official del Estado de Washington para servicios de empleo en línea.

Craiglist - Sitio gratis con anuncios de empleo

NWjobs - del Seattle Times

(Image: Creative Commons License)

Prolific Christian author Francine Rivers has penned several popular book series, but my favorite of them all is Mark of the Lion.   A Voice in the Wind is the first book of the trilogy and not only does it set the stage for the other two novels, it is also strong enough to stand on its own.  But be warned, once you finish A Voice in the Wind, you will want to have An Echo in the Darkness and As Sure as the Dawn close by.

The story is set in the Roman Empire and begins with the fall of Jerusalem.   A young woman named Hadassah is the lone survivor in her family and is taken as a slave.  She ends up in the Valerian household, in which brother and sister Marcus and Julia are partaking in many of the excesses for which Rome was known, much to the dismay of their conservative father.  While in the Valerian home, Hadassah attempts to share her faith in Christ, but feels that she is, as the title suggests, just a voice in the wind. 

We also meet the Atretes, another captive from Germany who is thrown into the Gladiator ring.  Magnetic and at times barbaric, he is a troubled hero who longs for home. 
One of the things Rivers does well in her writing is to deliver the message of the Word while still telling a compelling story.  The juxtaposition of the depravity of Rome with the purity of Hadassah's faith, especially in the face of her many adversities, is pretty startling and Rivers does not shy away from showing what was ugly about the Roman Empire.

This is a satisfying read for Christians looking for a story of tested and triumphant faith and for anyone who enjoys the work of a great storyteller.

Emilia is the "other woman" -- a young lawyer who had an affair with a married man in her firm and is now his second wife. Her husband Jack is her soulmate, but along with him came William, a five year-old stepson still very resentful at the breakup of his family. Emilia must entertain William every Wednesday afternoon.

Emilia's relationship with this precocious preschooler is the heart of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman. William lives to get under Emilia's skin and his angry mother makes life even more difficult, insisting that she accommodate William's non-existent food allergies. Just where do you find lactose-free pattiserie-quality cupcakes?

William is almost too much for Emilia to bear, especially after the sudden death of her own infant daughter. Yet somehow, she finds the emotional reserves to face her grief and forge a relationship with the five-year-old from hell.

Ayelet Waldman incited the wrath of Oprah watchers everywhere when she authored an op-ed piece in the New York Times, declaring that she loved her husband (prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon) more than her children. This book is no less provocative, daring the reader to sympathize with a woman who literally cannot stand her stepson. Yet, it is through Emilia's honest and humorous voice that we discover the depths of love that can come to exist in the modern, mishmashed family.

Love her or hate her, Waldman has created an utterly memorable character in Emilia -- a woman who learns her life is not so impossible after all.

 

It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since Laurie Halse Anderson's groundbreaking book about date rape, Speak, was published.  I remember reading it the first time, staying up way too late.  I couldn't put the book down until I turned the last page because I was so concerned about Melinda, I had to know how things turned out or I wouldn't be able to sleep.

So you can guess how excited I was to read Anderson's latest book, Wintergirls.  The novel begins with Lia learning that her former best friend, Cassie, has just been found dead - alone - in a hotel room outside of town.  Cassie called Lia 33 times the night she died, but Lia didn't pick up.  Now Cassie's ghost is haunting Lia, and her visits are becoming more and more frequent.  But there's more than just Cassie's ghost haunting Lia.  She's been hospitalized before to treat her anorexia, and her guilt over Cassie's death causes her self-destructive behaviors to accelerate.  As Lia's weight plummets, her parents, step-mother, and therapist all seem powerless to help.  Wintergirls is a gripping tale of one girl's struggle with body image. 

Laurie Halse Anderson will be visiting the Ballard Public Library in Seattle on March 24th to discuss Wintergirls.  To learn more about the inspiration for the book, check out this interview with the author on YouTube. 

Ever wonder what could possibly live miles under the surface of the sea?  What kinds of mysterious creatures could survive with no light and under immense pressure from all that water?  Recent advances in underwater photography now make it possible for our human eyes to finally get a glimpse of those strange and wondrous creatures lurking far below the surface.

The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss  contains a series of essays describing what little scientists know about the deep sea but, let's be honest here, this book is all about the pictures. Most of these creatures are fresh discoveries, so each turn of the page reveals an entirely new (and increasingly bizarre) life form.  The photography in this book is nothing short of astounding.  Lush red sea fans and albino crayfish are set against the jet black backgrounds of the dark sea.  Demon-like creatures with dangerous lures lurk in the dark as they seek their next meal.  And everyone's favorite:  the tiny dumbo octopus that looks more like a cartoon character than anything else.  These images are mysterious, sometimes vibrant and lively, sometimes absolutely chilling, but always gorgeous. 

Are you stressed about the SAT?  Worried about the WASL?  Here's some news that may calm your fears: KCLS has partnered with the online tutoring company Brainfuse to offer a service that will help you prepare for either test.  Students can take online practice tests and receive their results instantly.  In addition, they can receive help on a particular subject or skill by chatting with a qualified tutor.  Students can view their past tutoring sessions and test results any time they visit the site.  Tutors are available from 1:00 pm to 10:00 pm every day of the week, and tests can be taken anytime.  Just remember to have your library card number handy when you login.

And if you're looking for face-to-face help, don't forget that KCLS has Study Zone and SAT programs available at many branches.  Here's a list of libraries offering SAT classes this spring:

Which of these is not a book about a quest available from the King County Library System?

A. Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes In All Fifty States
B. Paperless: One Company's Doomed Quest to Go All Electronic
C. Normal at Any Cost: Tall Girls, Short Boys, and the Medical Industry's Quest to Manipulate Height
D. Pitch Perfect: the Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory
E. A Supremely Bad Idea: Three Mad Birders and Their Quest To See It All

(answer after the break)

Librarians from all over Washington state attended an Early Learning Symposium at the Pierce County Library Processing and Administration Center in Tacoma.  The event was sponsored by the Foundation for Early Learning who is facilitating a partnership called the Early Learning Public Library Partnership.  I was one of those librarians lucky enough to attend this worthwhile event and returned with a renewed spirit and a wealth of information to help serve King County kids better.

One workshop I attended was all about a fantastic national organization called Reach Out and Read which is dedicated to getting books into the hands of children through their healthcare providers. The books are free to the families and presented to the children as part of their regular doctor visits.  Check out their website for more information. 

Of particular interest to parents is a wonderful one-sheet brochure called "Developmental Milestones of Early Literacy" which explains where babies through preschool-age children should be developmentally in regards to Early Literacy and what parents can do at each stage.  It is also available in Spanish and Chinese and is free to print from the Reach Out and Read website.  

For more information on Early Literacy, King County Library System offers a wealth of information too in our efforts to help kids get Ready To Read!   

As I have mentioned to my friends at least a million times, or so, they say---Georgette Heyer is one of my favorite authors.  I love her romances and I am crazy about her mysteries too.  If you like Agatha Christie I bet you will like Georgette Heyer.  The mysteries take place among the British gentry and have all kinds of characters.  There is usually an ingénue, the sardonic hero or antihero, the ditzy dame or in this story, the well meaning but extremely ineffective peace-maker, and then there are the puzzled police, who efficiently solve the crime.  Oh yes, the victim, you are always secretly glad that he was the one murdered.  In Envious Casca, Nathaniel Herriard, our victim, was an ornery scrooge-like old man, who complained of his lumbago when he was annoyed.   He liked to argue and get everyone upset, or rather he didn't care if anyone was upset, he was right and that was that.

Joseph Herriard had invited all the family to Lexham Manor to celebrate Christmas. Nathaniel wasn't at all happy about his brother's doings, but Joseph had gone on and on about having a real family Christmas, so Nathaniel was persuaded even though he believed Christmas to be a time of quarrels, between those who were thrown together by an accident of blood.  Nathaniel was correct; the gathering was very volatile, with everyone quarreling with Nathaniel and to a lesser extent with each other. (Everyone except Joseph he was trying to soothe everyone's feelings, with his platitudes and his tut-tut-tuts, which actually incited more arguing.)   And then Nathaniel was found dead in his locked bedroom.  Who could have done it?  His business partner, who had a few reverses; his nephew who would be inheriting everything; his brother the dithering do-gooder who may have reached the end of his mindless optimism; or his niece Paula who was passionate about a play that her uncle would not support financially; or was it one of the servants?

Georgette Heyer writes a witty story with sparkling dialogue and a very clever premise. Her characters are funny, even the ornery ones.  I thoroughly enjoyed Envious Casca and I am hoping you will too.

When I help students who are doing a research project, after I find out the topic, I ask if they have any limitations on what format the information can be in. Many teachers require that a certain number of books and magazines are used. Some forbid using encyclopedias and web sites. Assignment rules on web sites can lead to some confusion about a very useful set of resources from the library: online databases.

While they may initially look like any other web site, since they are accessed through a web browser, the contents are much more like books. In fact, most of the databases that the library subscribes to contain only information from books. I will often show some database information to a student and point out that the source citation has the title of a book in it! That's one of the reasons that I like databases so much: I can have the equivalent of three extra reference sections all stored somewhere else.

Maybe someday a teacher will require using two databases for each research paper!

When Roddy Doyle published The Commitments in 1987, being Irish seemed straightforward. The word "Ireland" conjured up images of green, rolling, and sparsely populated hills; wooly sheep; and pints of Guinness. To these images, The Commitments added unemployed youth, liberal use of profanity, and a few more pints of Guinness. In the past couple of decades, economic and political changes have brought about considerable change in Ireland, and Roddy Doyle has given us a peek in his newest book, The Deportees and Other Stories.

The new Ireland is one of the wealthiest countries in Europe, and as a result, people from less wealthy parts of the world want to live there. According to Doyle's introduction, ten percent of the population of Ireland was born elsewhere--an interesting situation for a country that has experienced a net population loss more than once. With this influx of newcomers, what does it now mean to be Irish? Doyle explores this question from varying points of view in eight stories that were originally published as serials in Metro Eireann, a multicultural newspaper started by two journalists originally from Nigeria.

The common characteristic in all the stories is the interaction between someone born in Ireland and someone who has come to live there. Among these are an Irish father who confronts his own racism when his daughter brings a Nigerian man home for dinner, a government worker looking for a way to test for Irishness, and a young man who goes to New York to search for the African-American grandfather he's only heard stories about. The stories are sometimes funny, sometimes sad, always thought-provoking, and, perhaps, uniquely Irish.

Twelve districts surround the powerful Capitol in the futuristic society of the Panem. Every year, each district sacrifices two of its youth, chosen by lottery, to play in the Hunger Games. In these games, the chosen participants, or tributes, must fight to the death in a staged arena to claim victory for their district. Much like a reality television show, the spectators place bets on the winners and support their local tributes. When the lottery draws Prim's name from District 12, her older sister Katniss immediately volunteers to protect her and take her place.

Katniss is paired up with Peeta, her classmate from childhood, and together they must fight against the other 22 tributes for their lives. Katniss is known to be a survivor. Ever since her father's untimely death, she has worked to support her family, using her hunting and gathering skills to feed her family. But can she outsmart her competitors and bring valor and honor to her district?

I loved all the twists and turns in this story. The drama of reality television keeps the suspense level high and the gladiator fight scenes escalated my heart rate. The survival mechanisms Katniss and Peeta used will surprise you, and the hidden love story will enthrall you.

The Hunger Games is the first book in a new series by Suzanne Collins, the same author who brought us Gregor the Overlander and the Underland Chronicles.

I recently read about a unique bookstore, Daunt Books in London: a travel bookstore for people who like to read. They organize the books in their store by country, with travel guides next to novels and nonfiction about that country all grouped together. If you like that idea, try a few search strategies to make your own set of books. First, pick your country. Then search the library catalog for the country name with these words added: Guidebooks, Description and Travel, History, and Fiction.

You wouldn't know it by looking at the 2008 Seattle Mariners, but when a baseball team spends a lot of money they're supposed to win a lot of games. So how does a team like the Oakland A's, one of baseball's poorest clubs, consistently win more games than their wealthier competition? In his book Moneyball: the Art of Winning an Unfair Game Michael Lewis introduces us to some unorthodox and undervalued executives and ballplayers teaching their opponents lessons on and off the field.

It was midnight on December 20, 2001, and an injured, apparently washed up backup catcher named Scott Hatteberg had just been released by the Colorado Rockies. Twenty-eight major league teams had no interest in Hatteberg, but at 12:01 AM an Oakland executive named Paul DePodesta called the unemployed catcher's agent. Not only did the A's want to sign Hatteberg, they wanted him to play first base, a new position for him and one typically occupied by the best hitters in the game. Hatteberg went on to play an important role in the A's 2002 American League West championship.

The Oakland A's thrive because they identify undervalued talents. But value is a moving target, and what's undervalued today is overvalued tomorrow. Some of Oakland's highest ranking decision makers have business backgrounds with little or no baseball experience, something that didn't sit well initially with some of the A's other executives. They're paid to crunch numbers and find inefficiencies in the baseball market. Today the term "moneyball" has entered the everyday sports lexicon, and statistical analysis shares a prominent role with more traditional scouting methods in most successful front offices. Baseball is a business with millions of dollars riding on its wins and losses; it was only a matter of time before the rest of the sports world sat up and took notice of the Oakland A's.

KCLS needs your artistic talent, creativity and imagination!   We want you to create the next new library card!

 

Winners will be announced May 29, 2009.

There are three levels of competition:

• Elementary, Grades 3 and up
• Middle School/Junior High
• High School

Entries may be submitted from April 1 to April 30, 2009.

Submissions become the property of KCLS and will not be returned.
No late entries will be accepted.
Submissions may be in any medium: photography, crayon, marker, pen and ink, etc. All photos and illustrations must be original works and free of copyright restrictions.

Digital submissions will be accepted in PDF or JPG formats beginning April 1, at www.kcls.org/librarycardcontest/, or at any library on CD or DVD with an entry form and a printout of the submission. Contestants may submit as many entries as they wish.

Winners will be selected by a panel of children's and teen librarians and other KCLS staff.

Each winner receives a $100.00 gift card to Barnes and Noble-funded by the King County Library System Foundation. 

So, start getting creative with your design skills and submit your entry beginning April 1!

When you hear the words "embroidery" or "crochet," do you picture little old ladies hunched over their needles producing all manner of hideous objects made of garish, scratchy acrylic yarn?  Well, you can just banish that dusty old image right now.  The last few years has brought a whole new wave of people doing traditional arts and crafts along with a heavy dose of DIY (do-it-yourself) mentality.  Along with that DIY aesthetic have come some quality guides to help you create and embellish everything from clothes to just about every household object you can think of.  As a serious crafter myself, I've read and tried patterns from many of the recent books, and these are a few of my favorites:

The New Crewel: Exquisite Designs in Contemporary Embroidery is a great example of the new DIY guides.  This book contains 30 modern embroidery designs and 15 different projects that are based on traditional needlework, yet are not the least bit old-fashioned. Shaughnessy has a great eye for the clean lines and bright colors of modern design.  The book gives some basic instruction for different stitches and the projects are suitable for beginners and experts alike. Instructions for each project are broken down into easy to follow steps and, best of all, many of the projects are small and quick to complete!

Knitprovisation: 70 Imaginative Projects Mixing Old With New is another book filled with hip, inspiring projects.  Swedish author Cilla Ramnek's Scandinavian design background blends nicely with modern aesthetics, and her projects are very funky.  Most of the "patterns" in this book lack specific instructions and serve more as inspiration than anything.  Instead, Ramnek offers some creative launching points and challenges the reader to make their own unique items by embellishing recycled sweaters and other textiles with knitting, crochet and embroidery.  The results are stunning and endlessly imaginative.  These colorful and eccentric pieces that may not work for everyone, but they speak loud and clear to the DIY mentality.

If sewing is more up your alley, you might try Denyse Schmidt Quilts: 30 Colorful Quilt and Patchwork Projects.  While many of the quilting patterns in here are steeped in tradition, Schmidt mixes old and new by bringing in modern colors and contemporary fabrics.  She also includes a number of patterns for smaller projects like cards, aprons, and small household items.  This book is geared towards those with little or no sewing background and Schmidt's careful and detailed instructions will walk even the most sewing-challenged crafter through each step of the project.

Sebastian and Belladonna by Anne Bishop

Ephemera is a fractured world. Once shaped by the Guides of the Heart, evil touched it, in the form of the Eater of Worlds. The Guides broke the world to imprison the Eater. Now only Landscapers can shape an individual realm. Bridges, another type of magic user, can connect these pieces. When an ignorant apprentice Landscaper frees the Eater all of Ephemeral is endangered again.

Sebastian introduces our titular character, a young man accustomed to haunting the darker corners of Ephemera. Sebastian is an incubus and unwelcome in most of the lighter realms. While he feeds off of human dreams and desires, he isn't a killer, despite the legends to the contrary. He's really only half incubus and he confines his hunting to the Den, the twilight realm where he lives. The Den is seedy and tattered at the edges (imagine a night carnival or popular clubbing district), but mostly a harmless place for humans to indulge in a bit of sin. A string of murders and some strange dreams clue Sebastian in to the fact that something is wrong with Ephemera. With the arrival of Lynnea, an innocent young woman fleeing danger, Sebastian realizes that he must discover the root of this encroaching evil if he hopes to keep Lynnea and the Den safe.

Belladonna takes up the second part of the tale. Glorianna Belladonna, Sebastian's cousin, is the strongest Landscaper of her age, but she dabbled in dark powers when she was young. The Landscapers walled her up in her Garden (the magical space Landscapers use to shape Ephemera), a punishment meant to last for eternity, but Glorianna escaped and has roamed Ephemera ever since. With the Eater on the move, Glorianna uses all her powers, both Light and Dark, to hunt him. Alone, her powers won't be enough. While tracking the Eater, she meets Michael, a man who has visited her dreams. Michael has secret knowledge of his own and with his help, she may yet defeat the Eater of Worlds.

Anne Bishop creates excellent characters and moody, sensual settings. It's best not to dwell too much on the details, but instead let yourself be swept up in the tale. These are twilight realms where dark and light, good and evil blur into a sort of misty haze. Ultimately, that hazy quality is part of Bishop's appeal. The world-building is there, just unconventional, subtle and delicate. Her characters are more straightforward, lost souls seeking redemption through love and sacrifice. Overall, the Landscapes of Ephemera series offers a lovely mixture of magic, adventure and romance.

Those familiar with her other books should keep in mind that these are a bit lighter than her trademark Black Jewels series, despite the vile Eater of Worlds. (Note: the Black Jewels series, also known as the Realms of the Blood series, is worth checking out if you like your fantasy and romance dark.)

Which of these is NOT a book about the art of maintenance available from the King County Library System?

A. Zen and the Art of Temple Maintenance: Monastery Living in Rural America
B. Girl Seeks Bliss: Zen and the Art of Modern Life Maintenance
C. Zinn & the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance
D. Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance: Reflections on Keeping Chickens

(answer after the break)

I'm recommending a book about not looking old and it doesn't bother me. Very much. OK. A little. I can remember when it was alright for me to wear a skirt above my knees, for crying out loud!

How about you? Remember looking in the mirror and seeing that first little line around your eyes? Well, so does Charla Krupp, author of How Not to Look Old: Fast and Effortless Ways to Look 10 Years Younger, 10 Pounds Lighter, 10 Times Better. She totally understands our youth-obsessed culture and she wrote this book for all women who are no longer 20. Her main goal is to show that any woman, no matter what her age, can look fabulous, wrinkles and all.
In chapters than cover hair, makeup, wardrobe, nails, and even teeth, Krupp shows examples of what ages you (too-dark hair and grey roots) and what makes you look great (strategic highlights). She gives you general shopping tips for each area as well as lists of great stores and salons around the country. She shows you how to pick the right dress, the right jeans, and even the right lingerie so that you look great, not like your are desperately trying to be younger than you are.

Krupp is that friend who will say, "You're my friend, so I'm not letting you wear that shade of lipstick ever again!" She's the store clerk who says, "Here's the best pair of jeans for your body type." She is the celebrity watcher who isn't afraid to point out, "Katie Couric looks better at 50 than she did at 30!"

Krupp tells you what is too young, what is too old, and what it just right and she does it in a fun, informative and readable style. She'll help you adopt a look that looks great and, more importantly, feels great.

Do you own an MP3 player?  How about a gaming system?  Do you watch dvds?  Or have a MySpace or Facebook page?  I'll bet you answered yes to a least one of the above.  This week is Teen Tech Week, and libraries are celebrating the many ways people use technology.  For example, did you know that you can download books, audiobooks, music and videos for free?  You don't even need to own an MP3 player; KCLS has preloaded players you can check out.  If you're into gaming, many libraries offer regular gaming days where you can play PS2, xBox, and Wii games against other teens.  Check out the link on our Teen Zone page for dates.  If you're a movie buff (or a couch potato), you can  browse our dvd collection and place holds without even leaving home.  And you can keep up with library stuff by finding us on MySpace.  So Press Play @ the Library today.  And if you want to have a say in next year's theme for Teen Tech Week, click here for the Young Adult Library Services Association's survey.

The King County Library System (KCLS) serves people in King County, but not Seattle: Seattle has their own library system, Seattle Public Library (SPL, did you know they have a blog, too?). I like to describe KCLS as being a doughnut around the tasty jelly center of Seattle. There is a (technical term ahead!) reciprocal borrowing agreement between the two library systems. If you live in the KCLS service area, you can get a card with SPL and vice versa. BUT! In the last few years, the KCLS card for Seattle residents has a limit: it can't place holds. If you want to know the boring financial reason, read the footnote.*

But what if you work near a King County library? Sorry, it's all based on where you live, not where you work. All of this is why teachers who teach outside Seattle but live in Seattle can't place holds, even if they need the library items for classroom use. We recommend having your students place holds individually for what they need, which they can do in the classroom using the online library catalog.


*The two library systems are paid for in different ways: SPL is part of the city budget, while KCLS is an independent taxing district, like a water district: you pay as a part of your property tax. If your property tax (or that of your landlord) has a payment to KCLS on it, you are the library system's "customer," and get full benefits. SPL's customers are the ones who pay taxes to Seattle. Once upon a time, SPL customers and KCLS customers used the other library system's resources just about equally. But in recent years, SPL customers used KCLS resources more than KCLS customers used SPL resources: in that case, the agreement required a cash payment from SPL to KCLS to cover the resources. SPL's budget couldn't cover it, but the libraries didn't want to cut off a great agreement. They both agreed that not allowing holds would cover the difference. 

 

Have you ever been working on a country or state report and not had everything you needed to complete it or maybe just wanted a good place to start?  King County Library's database, Culturegrams, may be just the tool you need.  To reach it from any computer you begin by typing in www.kcls.org, then click on the link to "Databases" at the top left of the page.  Scroll to the Subject List and choose "Countries and States".  From there you can pick "Culturegrams".  If you're not at a King County Library you'll have to enter your card number at this point to get access to this database.

Once you've entered the database you'll find a wide range of options.  You can either link directly to the country information or you can also link to information on the 50 states and each of the 13 Canadian Provinces.  In addition there's a kid's version to make it easier for younger kids who are working on reports.

Not only will you find information under the typical categories of Land and Climate, Population, and History, etc., but Culturegrams also includes unique information on lifestyle, holidays, and daily life.  Other special features of Culturegrams are five recipes for each country, color flag images and flag outlines, sound files providing natonal anthems and country name pronunciation, and state bird sound files

For teachers there are also suggested activities and a list of national curriculum standards met by CultureGrams.  Students and teachers can create their own data tables and graphs to do comparisons between countries which may be a valueable teaching tool.  Be sure to take advantage of this online source that at one time you had to go into the library to use.

Don't Lick the Dog: Making Friends with Dogs by Wendy Wahman

Believe it or not, some children (and perhaps even some adults!) are tempted to approach unfamiliar dogs with exuberance and little caution.  With an engaging, rhyming text and vibrantly colorful illustrations Wendy Wahman guides children (and adults) through the basics of greeting and interacting with dogs.  As a dog owner myself I appreciate the guidance she offers to the untutored; I think I might carry a copy around to share with families I meet on my walks!  To learn more about Wendy, a Bellevue resident, and her new book read the article by Cecelia Goodnow in the Seattle P-I on March 5, 2008.  Wendy will be reading from and signing copies of her book on April 28th at 7 pm at the Secret Garden Bookshop, and May 9th at 11 am at the Ravenna Third Place Books.  A book launch party will be held on May 2nd at 7 pm at Parkplace Books.  The public is invited and  therapy dogs will be available for hands-on interaction.  While at Parkplace Books be sure to visit the temporary location of the Kirkland Library within the bookstore.  Click here for a trailer of the book. 

The Living was the first book chosen by my Reading Group in 1994.  I have never forgotten my reaction to and love of this book.  I recommend it to people frequently, (at least several times a year).  I have insisted that everyone in my family read it too.  I decided to revisit The Living after oh so many years to see if it still resonates with me.  It does!

Annie Dillard is a Pulitzer Prize winning author for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which is a book of essays on natural history.  The Living is a novel of the pioneer generation, starting in 1855 and ending in 1893.  It takes place in the Pacific Northwest, in Whatcom County.  Ms.Dillard lived in the area for five years researching and writing this novel. She even lived on an island without electricity and running water, so she felt she could be reasonably authentic on doing chores in the 19th century.  What struck me was the description of the setting and especially the trees - sometimes I felt they were characters too.   Oh course all the characters, and there are lots of them, are memorable also.  Three men and their families are at the center of this story of coming west and turning forests into cities.

There are so many vignettes that have stuck with me over the years; for example what white men think of Native American women and what Native American men think of white women.  I'm not going to tell you here!  Another is a young woman who coddles and carries an evergreen seedling from the East coast to plant in her new garden and she tosses it overboard as she views the dark solid wall of trees on the shores of Puget Sound.

In an 1992 interview, Ms Dillard said this book "essentially addresses our problems today, Americans have optimism that we are going to be rich and then everything collapses and people are back drinking their cow's milk and having no income at all".  Boy, things never change do they?  The Living is a wonderful book filled with good people and good people being bad and a history of the changing landscape of Puget Sound.  Enjoy.

Libraries are traditionally brick and mortar places filled with books, but KCLS also has almost 20,000 books, audio books, movies, music and podcasts available online!  Most of these can be downloaded to your computer or mobile device.  You can find out more about these on our Downloads page.

Finding these items in our catalog is a breeze!  The KCLS catalog will now allow you to limit your search to Download, Player, Ebook, Online, or Podcast.

Ever notice that one book leads to another?

A while back I read Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski. The core idea of this novel reminded me of a book I knew of but had never read, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I decided it was time to read Heart of Darkness but I had other things I needed to read first. A little while later, I read Silas Marner by George Eliot, which was published in 1861. I thoroughly enjoyed that book and, because I had become acclimated to its somewhat antiquated prose style, I decided it was finally time to read Joseph Conrad. And was I ever glad I did, for Heart of Darkness is one of the most powerful, eloquent, and ultimately disturbing books that I've ever read.

The book, published in 1902, is an account of a voyage of a river-boat captain, Mr. Marlow, who travels up a mighty central African river in search of the mysterious Mr. Kurtz, a fabulously successful agent for their employer, The Company. Kurtz has become consumed with his lust for ivory and power and becomes a god-like figure, autocratic and cruel, to the African natives surrounding his station, deep in the African wilderness. Following a long and arduous journey up the river, Marlow finally confronts Kurtz and in so doing comes to an understanding of the "heart of darkness" at the core of their joint venture.

So are you picturing Martin Sheen as Marlow and Marlon Brando as Kurtz? That's because Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece, Apocalypse Now, was based on Heart of Darkness, though the movie was set in Vietnam in 1970, rather than central Africa in 1890. While Apocalyse Now, unlike Heart of Darkness, has an anti-war message, the essence of both works is the same: they are strongly anti-imperialist morality tales which illustrate the profoundly uncivilized darkness that overtakes the civilized when they leave the bounds of "civilization."

Perhaps the most appealing part of this book is Conrad's poetic use of language. I'll leave you with a couple of examples. Concerning the nature of colonialism: "They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force--nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.  They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what could be got." And what makes this possible? "The mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future."

Heart of Darkness is a fabulous book full of universal ideas that are as relevant today as they were a hundred years ago, five thousand years ago, or five thousand years from now. Do yourself a favor and check it out!

If you're fond of droll literary references and wearing your monocle, poke around murder investigations, and go by the name Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey, you'd better be one great amateur detective or so wealthy people forgive you. Luckily for Lord Peter and millions of Dorothy Sayers fans he's a fine sleuth, filthy rich, and one of the more enjoyable detectives in literature.

In Sayers' Clouds of Witness Lord Peter's older brother Gerald, the Duke of Denver, has stepped in it again, this time being arrested for murdering his brother-in-law-to-be at the Wimseys' Yorkshire shooting lodge. The unfortunate would-be-brother-in-law is found in his slippers and smoking jacket, lying dead among the chrysanthemums. Soon Lord Peter is chatting with guests, searching the park grounds for footprints, and haunting the moors to prove Gerald is innocent. He's surrounded by his trusty servant Bunter, Inspector Parker, his sister Lady Mary, and so many suspects you wonder if the victim might have been killed twice.

Though I enjoyed the attempt, I didn't crack the case in Clouds of Witness. I'm no Lord Wimsey, but in my defense Sayers' mysteries always include intricate plots that lead in every direction. In addition to tight plots, the Wimsey casebook is so full of memorable characters and great writing that we can read these stories many times and still enjoy them.

Which of these is not a real guide to survival available from the King County Library System?

A. Beyond Ramen: Stocking Your Pantry for Disaster Survival
B. The Storm Gourmet: a Guide to Creating Extraordinary Meals Without Electricity
C. Apocalypse Chow!: How to Eat Well When the Power Goes Out
D. The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead

(answer after the break)

After the Oscars I got really excited about watching classic movies and I thought about how the library is a great place to become a movie buff. By searching the library catalog and placing holds you can get your hands on some really great films, many films you won't find at some local movie rental places.

If you're interested in film, and wondering where to go to expand your film knowledge, or if you are deciding what to watch next, here are some books that help get you started:

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

The A list: the National Society of Film Critics' 100 Essential Films

Leonard Maltin's 2009 Movie Guide
This is a really thick book with very small print, and yes, you can get a lot of the information on IMDB (Internet Movie Database), but it's really fun to flip through and it's amazing the amount of information they fit into one little entry.

The Young Adult Library Services Association puts out an annual list called Fabulous Films for Young Adults. Some of my favorites on the 2009 list are Spirited Away, Invisible Children, and Whale Rider.

If you're a teacher, you may have a great assignment that you have really broken in, one that involves some great, time-tested books. But your students come back from the library saying that the library doesn't have that book any more, or that there is a long waiting list for only a few copies. Even summer reading lists and Accelerated Reader lists can have books on them that the King County Library System just doesn't have any more. Why?

When a book first comes out, KCLS buys enough copies to cover demand. If it's a blockbuster, lots of copies, if it's a hidden gem, maybe fewer. And the total number will go down over the years, mostly because the books wear out or get lost. And if a book is not checked out for several years, it will sometimes be discarded to make room for newer and more popular books. So by the time a book is ten or twenty years old (unless it's a classic that gets republished on a regular basis), the library may only have a few copies left, not enough to meet the need of a whole classroom, or none at all.

On the plus side, our librarians are happy to recommend new books that might fit your curriculum needs. But if you need to have a reliable supply of a particular book over many years, you may have to rely on your school's library. 

Graceling by Kirstin Cashore

Lady Katsa is a Graceling, one of the few people born with a special, magical talent. Gracelings are marked by their multicolored eyes (Katsa has one green eye and one blue eye). A person can have any kind of Grace, from dancing to baking to fighting, but Katsa's Grace is for killing. Her uncle, a corrupt king, isn't above using her talents for his own purposes. Katsa, now seventeen, developed her power at a young age, but despite her youth, her uncle makes her his enforcer. Katsa tries to balance the evil she commits in his name with good acts, even forming a secret council of advisers to help her decide where her talents are most needed. On one of these missions, she meets Prince Po, who has a powerful Grace of his own. Po is determined to learn Katsa's secrets and hopes that together they may be able to check the rising corruption in the Seven Kingdoms and find its secret source.

The details of this world a bit hazy from time to time, but the concept of the Gracelings is fresh and fun. The heroes are enjoyable too. Katsa is a classic adventure hero, which is somewhat unexpected since she's a girl. She's a loner and a killer, with only a thin streak of decency to redeem her. She trusts few people and likes even fewer (mainly just her cousin, Raffin), so Po has his work cut out for him gaining her trust. Luckily, he's the optimist to her pragmatist and just as stubborn as Katsa. The plot bounces between action and politics at breakneck speed. This is a fantasy novel for readers who love authors like Tamora Pierce or Mercedes Lackey. A prequel is due out next fall.

I just picked up a great new non-fiction picture book for kids: Gone Fishing: Ocean Life by the Numbers by David McLimans.  This is a brilliant follow up to his Caldecott Award winning book Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet.

In this beautiful, three color book, McLimans takes animals from the ocean and turns them into numbers.  It's striking and wonderful. 

"The harsh drudgery of the Kalinin milkmaids' days did not ennoble them. Nasty scenes were frequent; they often accused each other of theft and diluting the milk, screamed obscenities at one another, and when those insults were not effective, hoisted their skirts and mooned their antagonists."
Daily Life In The Soviet Union  > Rural Life  > MILKMAIDS AND OTHER FEMALE FARMWORKERS
By Katherine B. Eaton

Most history books focus on the big names and big events: battles and treaties, inventors and inventions, explorers and discoveries. But there is another genre of history books: the ones that focus on the daily lives of ordinary people. The Daily Life Through History database collects the contents of a huge list of these books. You can browse each title like an ebook or search by subject across the whole collection. From the Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians to the Encyclopedia of Hair, almost any aspect of life from almost any place and time are covered. This is an excellent resource for students doing reports, writers looking for historically accurate detail, and for the ordinary curious person (like me!). 

Rare book specialist Hanna Heath gets the assignment of a lifetime when she is asked to do the conservation on the Sarajevo Haggadah, a 15th century Hebrew manuscript. The job takes her to war-torn Bosnia where she discovers some interesting artifacts in the ancient pages: a fragment of insect wing, a single white cat hair, salt crystals, and wine stains.

As Geraldine Brooks' novel People of the Book unfolds, the reader follows the Haggadah to World War II Bosnia, to Vienna just after the turn of the 17th century, to Spain in the rule of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, and to 1480 Seville to the very birth of the document.

This literary journey is interspersed with Hanna's personal narrative.  After being estranged for many years from her neurosurgeon mother, Hanna contacts her for an opinion about a friend's comatose child.  She also discovers the identity of her father and leaves her beloved profession in disgrace.  And she falls in love.

If you liked The da Vinci Code with its historical twists and literary intrigue, you will find similarities in this novel.  If you like books with well-developed characters and compelling storylines, you will find those in this fascinating book.

Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize for March and her talent is just as evident here.  Pick up People of the Book and you won't be disappointed.