Andy @ Redmond Archive.

Kirby Larson is the talented writer from Kenmore WA who wrote the Newbery Honor book, Hattie Big Sky. She also co-authored the picture book, The Two Bobbies, about a cat and dog in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Her latest picture book, Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine, and a Miracle, was also co-written with two other people, Mary Nethery and Brian Dennis.

Nubs tells the tale of the close bond that develops between a U.S. Marine in Iraq, Brian Dennis, and the stray dog he befriends while stationed at a remote fort along the Syrian border, Nubs. When Dennis' mobile unit is reassigned to a different location 70 miles away, Nubs secretly follows him across the snowy desert.

While Nubs' trek across the desert is remarkable, it's a testament to dogs everywhere that tales like this get reported more than one would think. Canine loyalty isn't usually matched by human loyalty, however. In this case, it is Major Dennis' dedication to Nubs and his determined effort to get the dog out of Iraq that makes the story so unique.

Feel good stories for kids are rarely done with such realism and directness. It all feels very genuine, from the less-than-perfect photographs to the matter-of-fact text. The book will appeal to animal lovers of all ages (but especially kids!) Meet Kirby Larson and find out what went into the making of this engaging book at Literary Lions on March 6th at the Bellevue Library.

The Thoreau You Don't Know: What the Prophet of Environmentalism Really Meant  will have a lot of appeal to folks who are interested in sustainability, the environmental movement, and the history of nature writing. It will also appeal to lovers of nonfiction who enjoy being entertained and educated as they read. Robert Sullivan is a terrific writer I just recently discovered. His writing style and curiosity with the world around him puts him in a league with other great nonfiction writers like Timothy Egan. He is also the author of  Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants  and Cross Country: Fifteen Years and Ninety Thousand Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America.  

In his latest book, The Thoreau You Dont Know, Sullivan attempts to dispel some of the common stereotypes that people have about Henry Thoreau, the eccentric genius responsible for Walden and Civil Disobedience. Sullivan makes a convincing argument that the general notion of Thoreau as a nature loving hermit has been wrong, and if we put his life into context with the kind of society that existed in the first half of the nineteenth century we would see a completely different kind of Thoreau, one who was sociable (to a fault perhaps,) opportunistic, and very much ahead of his time.  The book includes many humorous anecdotes about Thoreau, including the now well known story about how he carried his Walden Pond laundry to his mother's house to get washed. Seems he had something in common with lots of guys, afterall.

If reading about the environment and sustainability is your thing, the Redmond library hosts a monthly book discussion. Here is an excellent list of the titles they've discussed over the years: Sustainable Futures Book Group

Told primarily through the eyes of the 16 year-old mentally ill protagonist, Will Heller, Lowboy is a novel that will stick in your mind long after it has been read. "Lowboy" is the nickname given to Will Heller by a fellow patient at Bellavista Hospital, a mental health facility where Will has spent 18 months getting "treatment" for paranoid schizophrenia.

The novel opens with Will on a New York City subway train having just escaped from his Bellavista guardians, "Skull and Bones," as he likes to call them. He is on a single minded mission to do one thing -- to cool his heating body down by several degrees, which in turn will cool the earth down, thus preventing a global catastrophe. To cool his body down he needs the help of his only friend, Emily, with whom he is in love. To find Emily he must navigate through the land mine of humanity that exists within the tunnels of the subway system. But he is running out of time. Time is also ticking for Will's beautiful and enigmatic mother, Violet, and the missing persons detective who has been assigned the task of working with her to find Will before he self destructs. Detective Ali Lateef will discover in due time that Violet is no ordinary mother, and that this is no ordinary missing persons case.

John Wray has written a novel that feels true and wise, and most readers will come away changed by this amazing portrait of mental illness. For more on the author, and to read an excerpt of the novel, see: A Delusional Odyssey Through New York's Tunnels

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

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

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

Here is a beautifully written baseball book that might appeal to sports non-fans. Of course, baseball fans will love it that much more.

The Girl Who Threw Butterflies tells the story of eighth grader, only-child Mollie Williams and her attempt to play on her school's all-boys baseball team. Mollie has recently lost her father in a single-car accident, an "accident" she suspects might have been a suicide. Mollie shares a love for playing baseball with her late father, and possesses a "secret weapon" taught to her by him. Mollie can throw the impossibly difficult knuckleball pitch, sometimes called the "butterfly ball."

Best friend and budding feminist Celia convinces her to try out for the team, and motivates Mollie with true tales of women who have competed against professional male players, including the tale of Jackie Mitchell, who struck out Babe Ruth in the 1930s: "None of that All-American Girls thing with Madonna and Geena Davis," Celia tells her. While supremely self-aware Mollie struggles to keep the memories of her father alive, her mother undermines the effort by trying to eliminate all household traces of him, including items that Mollie treasures, such as her father's old baseball mitt.

Here lies the true conflict at the center of the story, that between Mollie and her mother:"Things had gone missing... it was a gradual, invisible, but profound disappearance, like erosion. The surface of the earth being transformed. But this was worse, really--it was intentional. It was thievery." Excellent inner dialogue captures Mollie's insightful views about her mother, and about her own life, in general. If it sounds too heavy, it's not. The book provides plenty of sports action, school humor, and baseball lore.

Another baseball themed book that may appeal to sports non-fans is Bette Lord's In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. This one tilts towards historical fiction. If anyone knows of other books featuring girls playing baseball feel free to post a comment.

Life in the suburbs rarely seems so funny as Richard Thompson would have you believe in his amazing and relatively new comic-strip, Cul de Sac. Thompson's strip about a loveable family of four, the Otterloops, is centered primarily around preschool aged Alice and her friends from the Blisshaven Preschool Academy. Alice's world is replete with all the things you would expect from a strip about the burbs: the econobox cars, the mega-marts, the mandatory soccer practices, and even the occasional visit to the neighborhood library. If you're thinking Family Circus then you've got it wrong. Thompson's humor has a satiric quality that will make you think while you're laughing, not unlike Calvin and Hobbes.  

Discovering Cul de Sac in my library made me wonder about other great new comics I've been ignoring.  I decided to scour the shelves and ask around. I discovered two strips worth noting here, Lio and Pearls Before Swine. Mark Tatulli's comic strip, Lio, is an ode to the imaginative powers of 7and 8 year-old kids everywhere, but especially those with a soft spot for monsters and nature. Stephan Pastis'  award winning Pearls Before Swine has been in syndication for seven years. Pearls Before Swine follows the off-beat and often irreverent antics of Rat, Pig, Zebra, Goat, and the Fraternity of Crocodiles (my favorite.) 

Do you have a favorite new comic strip that wasn't mentioned? Let us know by replying to this post. You don't? Then head over to the library to catch up on what you've been missing.

World Vital Records (WVR) is the name of a new online service that functions much like the popular Ancestry Library Edition. It is a collection of hundreds of genealogical databases, large and small, that beginning researchers can search in one fell swoop. Unlike Ancestry Library Edition, WVR offers KCLS patrons the convenience of being able to search from home.

Experienced researchers can limit their searches to individual databases for more precise results. The best way to do this is to click on "record types" and to "browse" by category You will be surprised to find many unique resources available in categories such as immigration, newspapers, military, and census. Many of the larger collections found in WVR - the U.K. Census, and two popular newspaper databases (Newspaper Archives to 1923 and Small Town Papers,) for example - are fully indexed and searchable. The U.S. Federal Census collection contains only partial records for many states and is not indexed. However, fully indexed U.S. census information is available through Ancestry Library Edition, which is available inside any KCLS library branch.

A nice feature of online services like World Vital Records and Ancestry Library Edition is the fact that they are constantly growing, adding new databases every month. Check out WVR's free online newsletter to find out about recent database additions and changes to the service. When it comes to genealogy, nothing ever stays the same for too long!