King County Library System - Library Talk. - May 2009

Saffron Adams is a typical teenager.  Her parents are incredibly annoying, she can't stand her idiot brother and high school seems to be nothing more than an exercise in uninspired mediocrity.  Saffron is just biding her time until graduation, that glorious moment when she will be free to pursue her real interests instead of following her parents' wishes.  The only thing that keeps her sane until then are her elaborate fantasies of maiming and killing her family in all manner of ways. 

If that doesn't last bit doesn't sound quite like a normal teenager, it could be because Saffron Adams is not exactly Saffron Adams.  She is, in fact, a pirate, and a rather deadly one at that. Three hundred years ago, Emer Morrisey was sailing around the Caribbean, stealing treasure from trade ships bound for Europe and making a rather nice living at it, but an unfortunate incident with a tiresome Frenchman and his first mate leaves her murdered, but also cursed to live the lives of 100 dogs, memories intact, before being born again as a human.  Finally free, and slightly wiser in canine ways, Saffron is headed back to Jamaica to claim her treasure buried three hundred years before.  Now, if only she knew exactly where it was...

I believe that the ability and aptitude to sew skips a generation--at least that is very true in my family. My mom can sew anything and make it look as though it was purchased ready-made in a store, and often she does it better. Me, not so much. Pinning patterns and managing fabric are about as likely for me as flying.

So, what possessed me to pick up a book about a seamstress, a book full of sewing insights and the song of Singer? Nell Presser, that's who. Or should I say Nell Plat? Or should I say Madame Annelle?

The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard by Erin McGraw is the story of a girl married young in turn-of-the-20th-century Kansas. A girl with more on her mind and heart than milking cows and cutting thistles from the garden, Nell loves to sew and longs for the glamor and adventure that a 1900's prairie town cannot provide. By sewing for the local ladies, she saves enough money for train fare and lands in southern California during the birth of the film industry.

Nell (aka Madame Annelle) becomes a sensation and builds a new life, but old lives have a way of catching up to you as Nell discovers. Based on the life of her grandmother, McGraw creates a character that is compelling even when she does things you don't agree with and complex even in the most humble settings.

An amazing page turner, even for someone like me who knows nothing about the art and lure of needle and thread.

Finally, you can now save lists of books, DVDs, or any library materials to your library account!  We have been waiting a long time for this feature, and we are very pleased to be able to offer it to you.

While searching the catalog, click on the Add to Book Bag button associated with all items you are interested in, and you will be saving a list only for the duration of the time you search the catalog.  To keep the list permanently, you will need to save it to your account.  When you are ready view this list, click the yellow and white View Book Bag button near the top of the page.

While looking at the list of items in your Book Bag, click on the Save To My List icon.
 

After clicking on Save To My List, you will need to log in to your account if you are not already logged in.  If you do not want all of the items on the list saved to your list, place a  checkmark in the Select box for the items you want.  Select a list or choose Create a new list. For a new list, you can give the list a name and there is space for a small description of the list.  Finally, click Submit.

When you are logged into My Account, you will be able to see your lists when you click the My Lists icon.  From there, you can add to your list, delete items, and place holds from your list.

First, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a really cool dictionary. It's huge (many many volumes long), but that isn't the only reason it's great when you can't find a world in smaller dictionaries. Most dictionaries are of current usage: they'll give a definition of a word that is pretty much how it is used today. The OED is a historical dictionary, covering the current AND outdated meanings of words, with the context they were in at the time in the form of quoted historical text. Why is this good? For those times you are reading an old book and need to know what a word meant back then! It's also updated on a regular basis, so it gets the new words much faster than you'd usually buy a brand-new dictionary.

Second, having the OED available in an online form makes it even more useful. Not only do you save the shelf space all of those books would take up and have access to it after the library is closed, you can search it in ways you never could with the paper-and-ink format. Would you like to find out what words were first spotted in the wild in a particular year? Search for "first cited date." Want to find out what words were first spotted in writing by a particular author or in a particular book? "First cited author" and "First cited work" will do that. You can work your way to just the right word by searching for terms in the definition. How about all words derived from a particular language? You essentially have a full set of dictionary power tools.

And the best feature of all, the "Lost for Words?" button that will give you a random dictionary entry!

Kate Atkinson's novel When Will There Be Good News? has one of the most brutal and frightening beginnings that I've read. A mother and her three small children are picnicking in the country when a man attacks with a carving knife. Six-year-old Joanna escapes into a tall wheat field, but she is the only survivor.

Thirty years later Joanna, a successful doctor and the mother of a little boy, is told her family's killer is being released from prison. A few days later Joanna and her son disappear. This is one of many gripping plot lines, including a train crash and a case of missing identity. But Atkinson's real subject is loss. Is it truly possible to get over losing someone you love? Will a person give in to their loss, or will they struggle to move forward?

Before reading When Will There Be Good News? you might want to reread its title. Amid murders and train wrecks you could ask yourself the same question. But Atkinson focuses on survivors and the good they create in their lives rather than the evil created by her villains. It's a literary page-turner and a book whose survivors are as interesting as the events that surround them.

Which of these is not an instructional book for dummies?

A. Carpet Design for Dummies
B. Running a Bed & Breakfast for Dummies
C. Archaeology for Dummies
D. Happiness for Dummies
(answer after the break)

Interred With Their Bones is a mystery thriller about a missing (for real) Shakespearean play, named Cardenio and a search for a missing letter that could prove that William Shakespeare was the real author of all things Shakespeare.
Kate Stanley, a Shakespearean scholar now stage director is staging Hamlet at the Globe in London.  She receives a visit from her former mentor, (they parted acrimoniously three years earlier) and Roz gives her a box with a secret and then Roz dies.  Then the Globe Theater catches on fire--whew it only has minor damage, but it was burned on Tuesday, the June 29th just like the original Globe burned down on Tuesday, the 29th of June in 1613. The secret in the box sets Kate on a whirlwind tour of England, the American Southwest, and Spain in search of the missing play.

What I enjoyed even more than the adventure in this mystery (and there is plenty of it) were the explanations of the many theories of who the real author of arguably the world's greatest plays was.  Jennifer Lee Carrell,  the author placed these theories into the story smoothly, they gave clues to the next place the heroine had to get to--in a way like a literary scavenger hunt, each clue building upon the previous one.  Ms Carrell, has a PhD in English and American literature and she has written an article for the Smithsonian Magazine, "How the Bard Won the West."   She even wove her article into the story, it was fascinating!

At first glance you might think, ohhh, another da Vinci Code wannabe.  Not so!  Interred With Their Bones is a fast-paced literary treasure hunt, with facts and fiction woven together so that everything seems plausible.  Check this out for yourself and let me know who you think wrote Hamlet.

 

Is it time to pick a fiction book to pair with your students' study of other countries and cultures? If you'd like to see what books are available, here are the steps to take.

• Start at the library's catalog.
• Select Search by... Subject keywords.
• Enter the country you are looking for and the word fiction in the center box.
• Select Limit to... Children's Materials (for Elementary level) or Teen Materials (for Middle School, Junior High, or High School levels) or Book (for all levels, including Adult).
• Click Go.

When you click on a title in the list, you can see how long the book is, a brief description, and how many copies the library system has. Click on the "Reviews and More" button and then click "Reviews" to see book reviews for this book. Some of these reviews will have an age or grade level recommendation.

And of course the library's staff is happy to recommend their own favorites!

It's tough landing a job in today's tough economy, especially for teens who might be competing with adults for the same position.  That is why the Lake Hills Library will be hosting a job search/résumé writing workshop designed specifically for teens to help them gain a competitive edge and land that job.  Teen receive assistance in tapping the "hidden job" market and they will also receive professional advice on how to make their résumé stand out. 

Registration is required.  Please call us at 425-747-3350 or visit us online to register.

Date: 6/8/2009
Start Time: 4:00 PM
End Time: 5:30 PM.
Library: Lake Hills Library
Location: Meeting Room
Registration Ends: 6/6/2009 at 11:55 PM
Contact Number: 425.747.3350
Presenter: Paul Abodeely

Full service ConsumerReports.org is now available through KCLS. Use it in our libraries or from anywhere you've got web access - all you need is your KCLS library card. 

Darwin's Children is Greg Bear's masterful sequel to his Nebula Award-winning science fiction novel, Darwin's Radio. If anything, it outdoes it's esteemed predecessor through it's perfect blend of intriguing speculation, character development, and social commentary.

The novel begins 11 years after the events of the Darwin's Radio. Thousands of the "virus children," the new kind of humans born of Homo Sapiens parents, are interned in schools across the U.S. which are in fact concentration camps designed to separate the hated children from a hysterical general populous. In this atmophere of government-sanctioned fear and loathing, scientists Mitch Rafelson, Kay Lang Rafelson and their Homo Sapiens Novus daughter Stella Nova, are living off-the-grid in Virginia. Stella's parents are desperately trying to protect their teenage daughter from capture by bounty hunters and imprisonment or worse in one of the camps. Stella, however, craves the company of her own kind and this impels her to run away, regardless of the consequences. Meanwhile, "virus hunter" Christopher Dicken finds himself quarantined in one of the schools in Ohio along with hundreds of virus children, most of whom are dying of a mysterious disease that is afflicting these new-and-improved humans across the country. Dicken must find the cause of the disease before frightened government forces and civilian populations decide to "sterilize" the site by killing all of the inhabitants.

All in all, I found Darwin's Children to have more action than Darwin's Radio, which at times felt a little bogged down with scientific detail. This helps the plot move along at a brisk pace, though there is still a great deal of technical jargon, debate, and hypothesizing. This is not a criticism, though. By repeatedly demonstrating his familiarity and understanding of complex scientific theories and their possible or even probable outcomes, Greg Bear creates a story that you realize could actually happen in the real world, and this is both compelling and terrifying.

Whether or not you buy into the "virus theory of evolution," the author's depiction of humanity's reaction to these new children is completely believable and terribly ominous. The description of the schools reminded me very much of descriptions of government-run Indian Schools from the late-19th and early-20th century. Those schools, likethe schools in this novel, were attempts by the majority to create conformity among the children of a feared and hated minority, thereby stamping out their sense of identity and rendering them impotent. It didn't work in real-life and it doesn't work in this novel, either, though it did create great suffering and resentment amongst both the children and their beleaguered parents. This in turn creates a backlash. Art imitates life.

You may find you appreciate Darwin's Children more if you read Darwin's Radio first. So much of this book is an extention of the developments of its predecessor that you might be confused if you pick it up cold. But by all means, pick it up, for Darwin's Children is science fiction at it's best. Check it out!

Memorial Day honors servicemen and servicewomen who have died during our nation's wars.   Jim Sheeler (Rocky Mountain News) won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for his story "Final Salute", and last year published this excellent book by the same title.

It's a tough read, emotionally, but I hope it someday makes a national or regional "everyone reads" list, and is required reading in civics classes.  Sheeler won the confidence of many families during his reporting on the Iraq/Afghanistan war dead, and was allowed to be present during some of these most private moments.

He was also allowed access to U.S. Marine Major Steve Beck, whose job entailed notifying the family of their loss, and providing assistance as needed.  Sheeler could have wandered into politics but does not.  Nor does he flinch from difficult moments.  He provides the respectful "bearing witness" that opens a small window onto scenes of great importance, ones that few would want to imagine.

Scenes we also need to remember and honor.

The Bellevue Jazz Festival is back! And one of the highlights of this year's festival is the appearance of the Mingus Big Band. Charles Mingus was one of the most creative, wide-ranging and tempestuous of jazz bassists and composers, and although he is now long gone, his band lives on.

Mingus' own groups, often called "Jazz Workshops" could be cacophonously bluesy or the hardest swinging of the avant-garde and his influence and impact only gets larger every year.

The Mingus Big Band is one of those rare 'ghost bands' which seems to have absorbed all the crucial lessons from its late leader and should rock the house on Saturday, May 23.  

Still want more? Check out all the Mingus music you can listen to via our newly expanded database, Music Online.

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

A. When Bad Things Happen to Good Knitters: an Emergency Survival Guide
B. Not Tonight Darling, I'm Knitting!
C. Stitch 'n Bitch: the Knitter's Handbook
D. From Thread to Rope: Knitting Big and Little
E. Domiknitrix: Whip Your Knitting Into Shape
(answer after the break)

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.  Never was this truth more plain than during the recent attacks at Netherfield Park, in which a household of eighteen was slaughtered and consumed by a hoarde of the living dead."

And so begins a very warped retelling of the Jane Austin classic entitled, appropriately enough, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now With Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem.  In this version, however, the sleepy village of Meryton has been overrun by a mysterious plague that turns the normally quiet and well-mannered dead into flesh-eating zombies of the most unpleasant sort.  Thankfully, due to the forward thinking of their father, the Bennett sisters are highly trained killers.  Having studied with Shaolin Masters and skilled at slaying zombies in a variety of ways, they are now the primary protectors of Meryton.  Elizabeth, in particular, likes nothing more than a sharp blade for taking out the "unmentionables" during a sporting good fight.

While purists may scoff and take offense at such sacrilege, those willing to loosen up and have a little fun with their classics will delight in seeing Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy join forces to fight the never-ending onslaught of the undead.  Never read the original Pride and Prejudice?  No problem!  With almost all the original text intact in the zombiefied version, now you have!   Well, sort of...

Local author Indu Sundaresan was born in India and has a talent for bringing her vibrant homeland to life in the pages of her books.  In her third novel, The Splendor of Silence, she also brings to life two vibrant characters in the backdrop of World War II.

Army captain Sam Hawthorne travels to the Indian state of Rudrakot to discover the fate of his missing brother, Mike.  Wounded in the fighting in Burma, he is emotionally and physically weary and he's harboring a secret.  In a whirlwind of intrigue and romance he meets and falls in love with Mila, the daughter of a local politician, who is inconveniently engaged to a prince.  Beautiful and spirited, Mila brings Sam back to life as the world begins to explode around them.

Sudaresan has the ability to weave history into her narrative as well as to make the details of everyday life lyrical.    There is a humorous scene in which Sam throws a giant lizard over a wall and a chilling scene in which he is attacked by a python in a swimming pool.  There is blatant racism and sensual beauty.  There is tragic loss and a moment of homecoming.

The novel starts when Sam's daughter, Olivia, opens a truck of artifacts sent by an unknown benefactor from India.   It is told in a semi-flashback style as this caring voice tells her the story of her parents' love for each other and the circumstances of life in Rudrakot under British rule.

If you enjoy political intrigue in exotic locales with a bit of passion thrown in, I suggest you listen to The Splendor of Silence.

My favorite trick with the library's ProQuest database is that I can search by author for articles: do a search for your favorite essayist, like David Sedaris or Sarah Vowell and there's no need to wait as anxiously for their next anthology!

Dick Francis has written 41 mysteries and I have read and loved every single one!  My favorite this week is Wild Horses, a story of a film director making a movie loosely based on an unsolved murder that happened twenty-four years ago.  Apparently not all the people involved want that murder to be made into a film.  Thomas Lyon has assured everyone that he is making fiction and the names, motives, and even what really happened has been changed.  That doesn't reassure someone--threats appear and an attempted murder and then, well you are just going to have to read Wild Horses.

There are several things that make Dick Francis a must read for me.  His heroes are good decent men who worry that they are doing the right thing, when they pursue a problem. They fear that the answers might be worse than the unanswered questions. Thomas wonders about uncovering the murderer and disrupting all the lives that have already been affected by it. 

Although I went through a"horsey phase" as a young girl I am not horse crazy now, but I do enjoy reading about them.  Dick Francis, since he was a jockey, has horses in every book.  In Wild Horses, the murder happened in a racing stable, and of course, Thomas's movie is being filmed at a stable and at the races.  However even people who are not fond of horses can enjoy Francis's books; any "horse talk" is easily explained as the story gallops along.  But his books aren't just about horses.  Wild Horses is about movie-making and uncovering secrets.

Overall Dick Francis writes a good story.  You care about the hero and his friends and family and there is always a rousing horse race to cheer.  So find one of his books, start with Wild Horses, and on your mark. Ready. Set. Read!

A Rather Lovely Inheritance by C. A. Belmond

When Penny Nichols is summoned from her interesting but exhausting research work on made-for-TV movies about heroines from history she has no idea the what amazing adventures await her.  It is actually her parents who are summoned for the reading of her great-aunt Penelope's (her namesake) will, but her parents are too ill to travel.  So off Penny jets to London to meet with her lawyer cousin Jeremy and the other relatives. Several surprises await her there: her cousin is dishy; her great-aunt Penelope leaves her a legacy; some of her relatives are not happy about their share of the estate and there is another will - this one for the French portion of the estate and she receives a gift from that also - the contents of the garage which includes an antique Dragonetta automobile.  Sounds like a great story, you say?  Well it is and what I have told you barely scratches the surface! There's theft, nasty relatives, red herrings, travel through France, Italy and England, mysterious connections to people who everyone thinks are blood relatives, but aren't.  In other words, a grand read!

Besides just reminding them constantly to cite sources in their research, I like to show students where cited sources show up in "real life," not just academic life. One of the places you can show them is in the library databases: they all have some way to automatically generate a citation for the article you are looking at. Besides making the citation process easier, it also shows that this information is important to the majority of readers.

Impossible by Nancy Werlin

Getting raped on prom night and finding out she's pregnant soon after should be enough stress for any teenage girl, but Lucy Scarborough also has to contend with the fact that she's the victim of a family curse. Of course Lucy is used to living with stress and disappointment because she's known all her life that her birth mother is crazy and worries constantly that her mother will appear and humiliate Lucy in front of her friends. Fortunately she's been raised by two loving foster parents, Leo and Soledad. Her next door neighbor, Zach, has also been a supportive, loving friend.

When Zach discovers her mother's teenage diary Lucy learns that her mother's madness is actually part of a curse that happens to the women in her family at age eighteen. They become pregnant and soon after go crazy. To break the curse of the Elfin Knight, who's punishing them for their ancestor Fenella's refusal to be the Elfin King's true love, she has to perform three difficult tasks set forth in the ballad Scarborough Fair before the baby is born or otherwise she'll go crazy herself. With Zach's assistance, which includes marrying her, and her foster parent's support Lucy may find a way to make the "impossible" possible and find true love.

It's confirmed: I am not a beatnik. If ever there was any doubt in my mind about that (there wasn't, really), then my personal response to On The Road by Jack Kerouac dispelled it. Indeed, you'll learn alot about yourself by reading this book.

On The Road, first published in 1957, was Kerouac's second novel and it became a holy text for the Beats, the young, creative American counterculture that predated the hippie movement by more than ten years. Some famous names came out of that movement: Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, and William S. Burroughs, among others. And many of them are represented in On The Road, albeit anonymously. The novel is a thinly-veiled account of actual events that occurred in the late 1940s. What events are we talking about, here? Crazy madness, mostly, all framed within a series of road trips that Kerouac, portrayed here as Sal Paradise, took with wildman Dean Moriarty, a fictional representation of Kerouac's friend and fellow-writer, Neal Cassady. Sal, who lives with his aunt in New Jersey, idolizes Dean, who embodies a "free-spirited" approach to life that Sal, who is nominally more stable,  wishes to emulate. As a result, Sal and Dean, along with numerous other friends and acquaintances, regularly pick up stakes and hit the road for places like, Denver, San Francisco, New Orleans, and Mexico in order to experience life to its fullest. Along the way they find highs and lows in the form of drink and drugs, deep friendships and fleeting relationships, family ties and accidental children, arrests and narrow escapes, emotional bliss and emotional wreckage.

In short, the novel is a glorification of the bohemian lifestyle and, to its credit, it presents this lifestyle in a compelling way. Jack Kerouac was a gifted writer that had a way with language. His was a language of the street (circa 1948) mixed with the sensibilities of a poetic craftsman: "...the car was swaying as Dean and I both swayed to the rhythm and the IT of our final excited joy in talking and living to the blank tranced end of all innumerable riotous angelic particulars that had been lurking in our souls all our lives." Whatever your reaction might be to the events depicted in the story, it is hard not to be drawn in by the sheer beauty of the prose. It is not an accident that On The Road is shelved in the "Classics" sections of KCLS libraries.

I won't lie to you: my age (47) and life-history make it difficult for me to relate to the attitudes and choices of the main characters in this book, all of whom were very young at the time. Yet I'm glad that I read On The Road and will probably read more of Kerouac's work, especially The Dharma Bums. On The Road is a window into a significant American movement that produced some influential (and revered) American literature and spawned the counterculture of the 1960s which, in turn, has deeply affected today's mainstream culture.

So in a way we're all beatniks. 

African American Song provides streaming music from 16,000 historical tracks in African American musical traditions.  Because the music streams and is not downloadable, the interface is very easy to use.

Find music by your favorite artist, a particular instrument, a genre, or a time period.  The folks from African American Song have also created great themed playlists such as Washboard Bands, Blues Sirens, and Boogie-Woogie. 

While most of this database's content is music, there is helpful text.  Scans of original liner notes accompany many tracks, and themed playlists offer a short history of the theme.

Take a look, and listen to same great American roots music while you work on your computer!

Yukio Mishima's novel The Sound of Waves takes place on the small Japanese fishing island of Uta-Jima. The island is so small that when Shinji first glimpsed Hatsue moving boats on the beach at twilight he knew she was from somewhere else. The boy stopped and studied her face without saying a word. She continued looking out to sea, though her eyes narrowed. Later Shinji would blush at his own rudeness.

Shinji is a fisherman and poor, and Hatsue recently returned from another island where she trained to be a pearl diver. Hatsue is also the daughter of Uta-Jima's wealthiest businessman, and her father intends her to marry Yasuo, a rich but corrupted young man. Shinji and Hatsue fall in love, but they must contend with her father and Yasuo as well as the jealousies and gossip of their neighbors.

The Sound of Waves values the earnestness of rural Japanese life over the sophistication of the Western world. Mishima's two heroes are innocent, but they also share a straight-forward good sense. His writing is simple, spare and beautiful. Mishima turns what might be cliché in another writer's hands into a gorgeous story about humility.

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

A. Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter
B. Quilts In My Cubicle
C. Play the Blues and Save Your Soul: Changing Your Life Through Music Performance
D. Extraordinary Psychic: Proven Techniques to Master Your Natural Psychic Abilities
E. Diaper Free: the Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene
(answer after the break)

One of the reasons for my lifelong fascination with France is that everything sounds so much nicer when it's said in French.  Case in point--crème brûlée.  It's only baked custard with melted sugar on top, right?  But just the name conjures up the richness of vanilla and cream, with that sharp flavor of caramel.  I can almost taste it.  Not surprising, then, that I devoured (figuratively) Crème Brûlée: More Than 50 Decadent Recipes, by Dominique & Cindy Duby. 

This is the kind of cookbook that is fun to look at even if you don't try any of the recipes.  There is a photo of every crème brûlée variation, from Classic Vanilla, to modern White Chocolate & Green Tea, to savory Mushroom, Bacon & Gruyère.  They are gorgeous, with garnishes of spun sugar, fruit, nuts, and herbs.  Almond-Roasted Apple Brûlée and Spiced Bread Pudding Brûlée are reminiscent of home-style comfort food.  And while Peanut Butter Brûlée might cause the traditionalist to cringe, for me it somehow brought back memories of searching Paris for that elusive staple of the American college student. 

It's not just a pretty book, though.  It will inspire both the novice and the experienced cook.  There is information on ingredients, equipment, and basic technique, but there are also sections on pairing crème brûlée with wine and developing your own variations of the dish.  The only difficulty with Crème Brûlée is deciding which recipe to try first.  Bon appétit!

I can't remember when I first heard about Orangette, the foodie blog written by Molly Wizenberg, but ever since I started reading it, I've been hooked.  I'm not usually drawn into personal blogs written by people I've never actually met, but there's something about this one that's different.  It's wordy by blog stardards, yet I'm never bored and am constantly looking forward to her next update.  Wizenberg writes primarily about her life and cooking, two things which are bound together in an inseparable way; one always seems to be influencing the other.  She is generous enough to share recipes with her readers (along with charmingly retro Polaroid photos, usually of the final results) and I can confirm that the Broccoli Soup with Lemon-Chive Cream is a winner.   Her writing and recipes on the blog share the same qualities:  homey and cozily familiar, yet sharp, interesting and contemporary.

This style is mirrored in her new book A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table.  Loosely gathered in chronological order, each mini-chapter centers around an important event in Wizenberg's life in which food and cooking were central elements: spending an evening with her parents roasting tomatoes during a particularly prolific summer in the garden, the French-Style Yogurt Cake with Lemon that led her to true love, or the eggs she made for her father when he was ill with cancer.  Her book is a poignant memoir of grief, but it is also filled with romance, wonderful memories and the importance of home and cooking for those you love.

I was out last weekend (no, that's not me there), hopeful that at least some lower elevation trails would be open, but there's still a fair bit of snow out there.

Still, it's a good time for a quick reminder to trail-folk that KCLS has maps.

Many branches stock Green Trails maps (Fairwood and Shoreline check out their maps), and Bellevue and Kent also stock USGS topographic maps for all of Washington State.

Happy trails!

 

 

Thief with No Shadow by Emily Gee

Melke is a wraith, born with the ability to turn invisible. Wraiths are reviled, thought to be thieves and deceivers. Melke has always hidden her powers and avoided using them. But then her brother is captured by fire salamanders, cruel, magical creatures, who are not fooled by her powers. They want a necklace in return for her brother. This necklace is hidden away on a nearby farm. Using her powers, Melke slips into the house and steals the necklace, little guessing what ramifications that act will have.

The necklace is the key to breaking a curse on the sal Vere family. Bastian sal Vere hoped to use the recently recovered necklace to save his sister's life and restore his family fortunes. Bastian has a magical ability of his own, the power to speak with animals. With the help of his dog, Endal, he tracks Melke to the salamander's lair. Too late to prevent the salamanders from claiming the necklace, he demands that Melke retrieve it from them before the next equinox when his sister's life is forfiet. In return, he will save her injured brother's life (the salmanders didn't promise to return him unharmed). Melke agrees, although she has no idea how to accomplish the task.

This stand-alone novel presents an interesting world and characters. Melke and Bastian are equally proud and desparate. In Bastian, that combination sometimes results in cruelty and blindness. In Melke, it more often turns inward, cutting her off from others and provoking her into rash actions. The tension between these two characters propels the story along. Bastian's sister, Liana, and Melke's brother, Hantje, are nice foils for the sharp-edged protaganists. In a genre rife with never-ending series and complex world-building, this dark, romantic fantasy is refreshingly straightforward and simple. Fans of Anne Bishop, Maria Snyder or Ann Aguirre might enjoy this tale.

Have you ever wondered what your pet was thinking?  You're sitting on your couch and there is your cat, looking at you as though it has something terribly important to tell you, if only you would listen.   And just what would a cat say if it could talk?   For that matter, what is a horse thinking about as it stands in the pasture?  And your goldfish, does it harbor deep, dark secrets?

In The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, our narrator is Enzo.  Enzo is a philosopher.  Enzo is a pragmatist.  Enzo is a dog and he's definitely got something to say.

The aptly named Denny Swift is an up-and-coming race car driver and Enzo is his faithful pet.  Enzo shares the story of being picked from a box of puppies on a farm in Eastern Washington and how Denny lived the metaphor of life being like a race on a rainy track.  Enzo narrates the courtship of Denny and Eve, even though he doesn't totally understand it at first, and how he appoints himself playmate and protector of their daughter Zoe.

Through racing triumphs and untimely death, Enzo paints a portrait of Denny and how he uses his driving skills to meet life's challenges head-on.  This is a story about love in many forms:  love within families, love for one's calling in life, and love for creatures both lesser and greater than oneself.  Enzo admires Denny's integrity and his determination to win custody of his daughter.   But mostly, he just loves Denny for being a man who doesn't mind when his old dog wets the floor and for releasing him to run and jump in the cosmic field when it is time.

Compassion and truth are the soul of Enzo and as a reader you really hope that he gets his wish to come back in his next life as a creature with thumbs.   Would that we could all be as wise as Enzo in relating someone else's story. 

A while back I read Blood Music by Greg Bear, a highly-respected writer of "hard SF," which is basically science fiction that is especially heavy on the science quotient. I found that book so intriguing that I wanted to try another of Bear's works and consequently chose Darwin's Radio, his best selling Nebula Award winner from 1999. Once again, I was not disappointed. Darwin's Radio is a gripping novel that balances well-researched (and therefore highly plausible) speculation, an engaging and sometimes shocking plot, and believable interactions amongst several well-defined characters. In short, this book has it all.

Darwin's Radio is a novel about evolution...specifically, the next stage in human evolution. It interweaves and ultimately brings together the stories of three main characters: Mitch Rafelson, a highly principled but somewhat reckless archaeologist; Christopher Dicken, a government scientist that tracks dangerous viruses; and Kaye Lang, a molecular biologist whose prediction that human DNA has embedded within it ancient diseases seems to be coming true. The book opens with two distinct story lines. Mitch, along with a couple of unethical comrades, discovers a 15,000-year-old family, consisting of a Neaderthal couple along with an apparently modern human baby, frozen in the Italian Alps. In the meantime, Kaye and Christopher separately investigate a 5-year-old mass murder in the Republic of Georgia in which the victims are pregnant women with deformed fetuses. Shortly after these mysterious and seemingly unrelated events, people all over the world become afflicted with Herod's Flu, an illness that is typified by unexpected pregnancies that end in the miscarriage of deformed fetuses. 

 Pacific Northwest Wildflowers by Damian Fagan and Wayside Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest by Dee Strickler. 

I'm sure you have had the experience of walking on a path, a meadow or in the woods and wondered "What is that plant?"  Well wonder no more!  These two guides give the walker and observer a excellent entry into the world of wildflowers.  Each title features color plates, latin names, description, range and habitat.  Pacific Northwest Wildflowers also features a separate line indicating the time of year the plant is in bloom.  Several other reasons I enjoy this book so much is the comments from the author for each flower, how the flowers are arranged in color grouping for easy identification, helpful introduction and a How To Use This Guide section.  Wayside Wildflowers has a very useful Visual Guide to Families and Genera that makes finding flowers much easier by breaking down the number of petals, special types of flowerheads and shrubs and small  trees.  This time of year is prime for flower watching so get out, learn those flowers and amaze your friends and family with your amazing knowledge!

Corinna Chapman walked away from her banker's life and her pretentious, chauvinistic husband to do what she really loved. Baking. She opened a bakery with a little shop attached, where she bakes to her heart's delight and enjoys watching her customers smell the wonderful aromas of freshly baked goodies. Normally her only problem is she has to get out of bed at four am.

In Earthly Delights, the first book in this series, Corinna saves a young drug addict's life, hires another as her assistant, (Jason has a flair for making muffins), receives hate mail calling her the whore of Babylon, and discovers a murderer. And while all this is going on she continues to bake and describe the luscious breads and pastries.

In the second book Heavenly Pleasures, Corinna saves a young woman from a kidnapping marriage, discovers who is ruining the chocolates in the store next door and saves a neighbor from some really bad guys. Again, she continues to bake and describe the foods so beautifully, I swear the baking aroma was coming right off the pages! Mmmm--mmmmm.

The author Kerry Greenwood writes lovely descriptions of everything, the building where Corinna lives, her clothes, (in one of the books she dresses up as a dominatrix) and of course all the food. Each book has a couple of recipes in the back, but I think you could make some of the muffins from just reading the story. I hunger for the third book, Devil's Food to arrive (bad pun intended).

Alaska is one of the few states I have never visited, so before sitting down with The Call of the Wild, the KCLS selection for The Big Read, I immersed myself in two beautiful books by Art Wolfe.  Alaska Wild: Celebrating Our Natural Heritage features photographs of Alaskan wildlife and landscapes grouped by geographic area.  I always get a thrill out of seeing bald eagles, so the image of the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, located in the southeastern part of the state, caught my eye.  Even in the small format of the book, the power of these regal birds is evident.  The interior of the state is vast, but Wolfe includes photos of even the smallest details, like the bright orange agaric fungus in Denali National Park and Preserve.  The more typical Alaskan icons, like icebergs and moose, are also well-represented. 

Wolves features photos by Art Wolfe and Chris Weston and is a perfect companion to The Call of the Wild.  The photos are stunning and made me feel like a part of the pack.  Weston's text provides detailed information about one of nature's most misunderstood creatures. One of the most shocking images is a map showing the past and present ranges of wolves around the world.  While only 5% of the historical range of the wolf in Washington state is still occupied, 95% of the traditional range in Alaska remains active wolf territory. 

Wolves have a fascinating and complex social structure, and this book provides ample details accompanied by pictures that capture the relationships and actions very effectively.  There are also plenty of adorable wolf pup photos! 

Whether you have already read The Call of the Wild or have just learned about The Big Read, these two titles will transport you to Alaska from the first photo.

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

A. The Fairest Fowl: Portraits of America's Championship Chickens
B. My Life With Llamas: What I Learned When I Took a Year Away from Wall Street to Be a Rancher
C. When Your Rabbit Needs Special Care: Traditional and Alternative Healing Methods
D. Trafficking in Sheep: a Memoir--From Off-Broadway, New York to Blue Island, Nova Scotia
(answer after the break)

The President's Daughter by Ellen Emerson White

Sixteen-year-old Meg Powers knows politics. Her mother, Katherine Vaughn Powers is a prominent senator from Massachusetts, after all. But nothing can prepare Meg for life after mother runs for the Presidency-- and wins. Their entire family is forced under the microscope and flaws are bound to show. Meg can see them herself. Her mother, while beautiful, smart and talented, is also ambitious and not always emotionally or physically available to her family. Her father, now the first First Gentleman, is protective and defensive of the family and his new position. Steven, her middle brother, chafes under their new restrictions and Neal, her youngest brother, is really too young to understand the significance of their new life. Meg is no saint either. She is just as smart as her mother, just as defensive as her father and probably too sarcastic for her own good.

Life in the White House is not without perks, of course. Preston, her father's new press secretary, is probably the coolest guy Meg has ever met. The rest of the staff is pretty nice too. But constant surveillance, Secret Service bodyguards, and political machinations can take their toll on any family. And going to a new school as the President's daughter isn't all that fun either, especially when you can't tell if the cute guy in your class is interested in you or your status as First Daughter.

The President's Daughter is the first book in a quartet of stories. The victorious election is just the first step for the Powers family and Meg, in particular, will be forever altered by her mother's presidency. Beyond domestic squabbles, the family faces assassination attempts, terrorist threats and worse. Meg, who is more like her mother than she wants to admit, is an engaging character, tough and yet vulnerable, forthright and yet often in denial. As she enters adulthood, she begins to evaluate the adults around her and sometimes they come up short. The interactions between the characters and the stresses they face are thoughtfully and poignantly written. Although written for teens, the problems Meg faces, both emotional and physical, are universal. Meg seeks to find her own way in a world where much is demanded and even more is expected of her.

The sequels are: White House Autumn, Long Live the Queen, and Long May She Reign 

Searching for a job can be a challenging experience. KCLS has great resources to help you in your quest for a job. You will find a collection of these online and print materials on our website in the Searching for a job section of our Look to Your Library guide.

KCLS databases offer a helping hand for career exploration and resume creation. The Resume Builder database allows you to create impressive resumes and coverletters . You just need your library card and an email address to get started. There are many other career-related databases that are also accessible from the KCLS website. Also, Worksource of Seattle-King County lists resources for job-hunters and can connect you to one-on-one help.

We have many exciting programs happening this week for job seekers, please check out our Look to Your Library events

Tips for applying for jobs online:

• Most of your job searching interactions online will require an email address. If you don't have one yet, there are many places to get a free email account. For example, you can create a free email account with Gmail or Yahoo. KCLS offers computer classes on Email if you need more help.
• You can speed up your online application process by entering your work history, education, and refences information into a word processor and saving the file. Once you have this information, you can copy and paste it into online job applications without having to retype. Using the copy and paste feature saves you a lot of time. Need help learning how to copy and paste? You can sign up for a computer class or ask a librarian.
• It's also a great idea to email your resume and cover letter to yourself. Then you can access them online from wherever you are without worrying about a lost disk or flash drive.

When times get tough, look to your library for information, ideas and inspiration. Find much more at Look To Your Library......especially now!

Being laid off is a stressful experience that most of us would rather not have to prepare for.  Fortunately, KCLS has a variety of resources that can help.  You will find a collection of these online and print materials on our website in the Just Laid Off? section of our Look to Your Library guide. 

The first step is often to apply for unemployment benefits.  The Washington State Employment Security Department website has a step-by-step guide to help you through this process. Looking for a new job is usually the next step, and Worksource of Seattle-King County has many resources for job-hunters.  If you are a veteran, you may be eligible for special services related to finding a new job.

Part of the stress of job loss is the uncertainty of how to adjust to a reduced income.  The University of Minnesota Extension has prepared a helpful publication that deals with both the emotional and financial issues related to income loss.  The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provides an online guide to avoiding foreclosure. 

Our Just Laid Off? page also has links to some online resources that are accessible through the KCLS website.

Naturally, the library has many books to help you manage the loss of your job, including Suddenly Unemployed: Encouraging & Practical Steps for Finding a Job or Career Match: Connecting Who You are with What You'll Love to Do.  Search our online catalog or check out the ready-to-view searches on the Just Laid Off? page for inspiration.   

When times get tough, look to your library for information, ideas and inspiration. Find much more at Look To Your Library......especially now!

Read.Flip.Win. 2009 is coming up, so get your cameras and computers ready! This year the program will begin June 1 and run until July 31. You get TWO months to create your videos and you can submit as many videos as want!

PRIZES: This year, the two grand prizes will be HD Flip video cameras. The two categories are Video Book Review (think movie critic) and Video Book Trailer (think movie trailer). Runner's up will also get Flip camera's - just not the HD version.

RULES: The rules are simple. Videos should be 3 minutes or less. Video Book Reviews should focus on content. Video Book Trailer should focus on creativity. All videos should be submitted on time (no later than July 31), within time limit (the 3 minute rule), and via the KCLS online submission form. To see winners and runner's up from last year check out the RFW 2008 webpage.

As submissions come in we will post them on our website http://www.kcls.org/teens/rfw/ where you will be able to watch other entries.

For more information, contact your local Teen Librarian!

Five Skies, a haunting novel by author Ron Carlson, is a character study of three traumatized but inarticulate men and the way in which their mutual bonding helps to heal their respective wounds.

Darwin Gallegos, an elderly contractor in southern Idaho, hires two drifters for a summertime gig building a stunt ramp at the edge of a lonely canyon. Arthur Key, the older of the two drifters, is a strong-and-silent type with a background in engineering. Ronnie Panelli, Arthur's partner and apprentice, is a 19-year-old punk with a background in theft and juvenile detention. Each of these men are reeling from recent tragedies: Ronnie's shattered home life has led him to juvenile delinquency; Darwin lost his wife in a freak airplane accident and consequently left his longtime job as foreman on the ranch where they are currently building the motorcycle ramp; and Arthur is tortured by guilt arising from his affair with his now-deceased brother's wife. All of these men have fled and their flight has brought them to the near-empty high desert and canyon country of the American West.

Ron Carlson's lyrical prose sensitively portrays the manner in which these sad and angry men gradually let down their defences and become friends. This is quite a feat because none of these men talk all that much. Like the classic Gary Cooper paradigm of the American male, they are largely non-verbal. What they do is come together in the shared effort and common goal of building something. Indeed, the procedural nature of Five Skies made me wonder whether Carlson is himself a carpenter. It is this shared effort that helps them overcome their taciturn natures, get past their grief and reconnect with the world.

Setting is crucial to this story. The author lovingly depicts the austere country of southern Idaho. The wind, the smell of sage, the frequent appearance of wildlife, the fractured nature of the volcanic rock, and the steely river two thousand feet below the canyon rim create a sense of remoteness that allows the characters the space in which to heal themselves. Landscape definitely functions as a major character in this novel.

I have to admit that I am still trying to make sense of the ending of the book; it was not what I expected. All the same, I found Five Skies to be a moving story and an especially good choice for male readers. Check it out!

How in the world do you find just the right person to contact in the kinds of companies you want to work for or sell to?  And how do you research your competition if you want to open a small business?  Reference USA to the rescue!   This is KCLS' most frequently used database and has been for more than five years now.  It is THE goldmine for connecting with companies, getting names and info for sales leads and generating mailing lists.  The library has paid your subscription to this valuable database for you! 

The initial screens can seem intimidating - you'll see that you can choose from a number of options and searches.  As with a lot of things on the computer, let's ignore most of it and just concentrate on what we need.  Today we'll walk through a common question librarians get asked about.  Say you're a salesman (or looking for a job!) and want to identify mom-and-pop hair salons in the Bellevue, WA area.  You need to target a specific industry, business size and geography and the Yellow Pages just doesn't give you enough tools to do this - but take heart!  It's easy with Reference USA.

KCLS is not just about books, databases, magazines, music, and movies.Our collection offers many ways to learn a new skill, perfect an old skill, learn a new language, cook healthy, get in great shape, fix your car, grow your own food, and more. We have tools to help you enrich and improve your life in many ways. We offer classes, programs, and entertainment aplenty. Here's five free and fabulous things at the library that just might surprise you:

1. Computers:

We have state-of-the-art  computers with Microsoft Office software for you to create letters, presentations, resumes, email, or just surf the internet and print it all out at no charge. Need to learn how to use the computer or brush up on skills for your resume? We offer free classes every month to get you started or keep you going. We also have free wireless access.We also have a TechLab bus that will bring free computer classes to you if you are unable to come into the library and it is wheelchair accessible. It is a state of the art bus equipped with eight workstation; there is a minimum requirement of six registrants.

When I heard that The Big Read this year is tied in with the anniversary of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Expo of 1909, I immediately thought of a book I often recommend to reluctant readers called Jason's Gold by Will Hobbs.

When the Alaska gold rush fever bites him, 15-year old Jason heads north after his two older brothers who've already been bitten.  With our generation's 20-20 hindsight, we know what a difficult journey this would be, but Jason is blissful in his exuberant ignorance and hurries off to make his fortune.

On his trek he encounters some colorful characters and saves an abused dog who becomes his companion.  He also, in a clever plot addition, meets a young Jack London who clearly sees Jason's dog as the model for a dog named Buck in a little book

he will eventually write called The Call of the Wild.  A frozen winter cabin, food scarcity, a trip down the icy Yukon River, and a beautiful girl are thrown in for good measure.

This book is a nice combination of historical fiction as well as thrilling survival tale.  Written for 5th-8th graders, it appeals to readers who want a quick-moving story and those who like reading stories about the past.  Check out this and other great stories as part of this year's Big Read!

I was intrigued by this serious looking chapter book by Rosemary Wells (perhaps best known for her Max and Ruby series) about Abraham Lincoln. A small chapter book about the family life of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln and His Boys, is a quiet book based on a 200 word essay fragment by Willie Lincoln, the president's son.

The background surrounding the three short stories is serious, yet the text is light despite heavy times. We see political campaigns, the Civil War, and family struggles including death, the disability of a child and mental illness through the eyes of young Willie and then young Tad. Despite the potential to have these issues weigh the book down, I never felt overwhelmed. Maybe it was the warmth in characterizations and comforting text and illustrations.

Despite all that happens, the family comes together with strength and dignity to support a great leader and a great nation.

Well worth a read. Recommended for grades 2 - 6. Especially recommended for kids who are following the current media surrounding the Obamas and presidential family life.

The African American Experience database is an excellent resource for students needing primary documents and resources. There are audio and text slave narratives, quotations, speeches, legal cases, laws, historic essays, letters, timelines and 2500 images.

Browse by 18 Topic Guides such as Culture, Immigrations, Sports, or Women.  Classroom Resources for teachers include 88 lesson plans.  For students, link to the Greenwood Press Skills Center where Research Tutors can help you get started, and Wizards lead you through the process of writing your paper.

Take a moment to explore today!

The Origami Master written by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer, illustrated by Aki Sogabe

A featured title of The Big Read, The Origami Master tells the tale of a master origami creator in the isolated mountains of Japan.  As he creates his small works of art he is watched closely by a warbler, who, in the dead of night, folds his own beautiful origrami works of art.  Discovering the warbler to the creator of the small wonders, he is not content to let the warbler be, but instead captures him in order to discover his skill.  What transpires in a wonderful story of realization for the master.  A simply told tale, one best shared with a child in the lap.