Posted in Fiction, Kids 5-12, Uncategorized

Look Ahead to a New Series

It’s that time of year when we can take a moment to look back on our experiences of the past year and look forward to what’s to come in the new year. I decided to take a look back on what our young readers checked out the most this past year. Books from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series were the top six circulating titles from our children’s fiction collection. This series has maintained its popularity for over a decade now! The series follows a boy named Greg as he records his humorous experiences with middle school in his journal. Comical illustrations accompany his daily journal entries in this series that now includes 15 books. For fans of this series who may be looking for a new-to-you series for the new year, I’ve created a list for you all to check out below. I’ve included our catalog summaries of the first book of the series with each recommendation. Be sure to click the links below to request your copy through our catalog!

The 13-Story Treehouse by Andy Griffiths

“Who wouldn’t want to live in a treehouse? Especially a 13-story treehouse that has a bowling alley, a see-through swimming pool, a tank full of sharks, a library full of comics, a secret underground laboratory, a games room, self-making beds, vines you can swing on, a vegetable vaporizer and a marshmallow machine that follows you around and automatically shoots your favorite flavored marshmallows into your mouth whenever it discerns you’re hungry. Life would be perfect for Andy and Terry if it wasn’t for the fact that they have to write their next book, which is almost impossible because there are just so many distractions, including thirteen flying cats, giant bananas, mermaids, a sea monsters pretending to be mermaids, enormous gorillas, and dangerous burp gas-bubblegum bubbles!” Take a look at the rest of The Treehouse series here.

Continue reading “Look Ahead to a New Series”
Posted in Adult, Fiction

New Year, New Books

According to the New York Times list of best selling books, some likely suspect heavy hitters top the list for 2020 including James Patterson and Ernest Cline. While I totally understand the comfort of a favorite author, why not ring in the New Year with some new authors? Below, I listed three best-selling books or authors of the year and their lesser-known read-alike counterparts.

Did you like Ready Player Two (2020) by Ernest Cline? Try Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (2015) by David Wong. 

Ernest Cline hit the big time in 2011 with his massively popular Ready Player One. You read it. I read it. The neighbor kid read it. It was a satisfying, if vacuous bit of distracting fun, and while I haven’t read the sequel, I suspect RP2 is much the same. Where RP1 was heavy on pop-culture references and 1980s nostalgia, David Wong is all about the future, baby! In Futuristic Violence, protagonist Zoey Ashe unexpectedly inherits billions from her estranged father. She and her cat Stench Machine are then forced to contend with a city full of jacked up monster men out to live-stream her demise. I’ve been a fan of Wong since his days as editor-in-chief over at Cracked, and his genre fiction does not disappoint. How funny is this book? Two words: burrito drone. On the other side of the funny coin is some truly gut-churning (futuristic) violence, so a big heads-up to you on that. 

Continue reading “New Year, New Books”
Posted in Adult, Film

Staying In With Bottle Films

If you haven’t heard the term “bottle film” before, it refers to a movie that is set entirely within one, generally spatially limited, location. It’s not hard to imagine how the experience of 2020, with people being asked to stay home as much as possible as well as limit their interactions with others, could bring this topic to mind. Why is it satisfying to sit between your own four walls and watch someone else stare at theirs? I’m not sure, but I do think there’s a sense of connection now with films like this – so here are a few to try.

Rear Window

How could I not start with this Hitchcock classic? Jimmy Stewart plays a photographer who is confined to his apartment after breaking his leg. This movie is from 1954; there’s not a whole lot for him to do while stuck at home besides look out his window and watch what his neighbors are up to. He becomes convinced that he’s witnessed the coverup of a crime, and the boredom and claustrophobia of the atmosphere make for a wonderfully tense thriller.

Continue reading “Staying In With Bottle Films”
Posted in DIY & How To, Nonfiction

Making Christmas

The holiday season is revving up, admittedly a bit different than in previous years. Favorite traditions may not be possible this year and, gift budgets may be tight, so why not considering making ornaments for your tree or others. I found a few relevant books, and I’ve included their descriptions from their publishers.

Christmas Ornaments: A Collection of 25 Projects to Make and Cherish by Carolyn Vosburg Hall

“Author Carolyn Vosburg Hall presents 25 projects for beautiful and decorative ornaments to adorn Christmas trees and the home for the holiday season. Each project includes detailed, step-by-step instructions, as well as colorful photographs. The ornaments can be made using common craft supplies such as polymer clay, paper, embroidery floss, beads, and glue, and are suitable for all skill levels.”

Continue reading “Making Christmas”
Posted in Adult, Uncategorized

Close but no Cigar, COVID

My housemate arrived home one day to say that “a coworker came to work and announced his wife tested positive for COVID and then he wouldn’t leave the building.” Well. Isn’t that some marvelous news. I have been wearing a mask in public. I have been keeping socially distanced from friends and family. I have been foregoing things I love in the interest of my health and the health of the public, so it was with great dismay that I found myself needing to isolate despite taking every measure to stay safe. Here’s what I learned from that experience:

The Pandemic was not built for people without an automobile

Continue reading “Close but no Cigar, COVID”
Posted in Fiction, Kids 0-5, Kids 5-12, Nonfiction, Uncategorized

How Are You Feeling?

Understanding and communicating feelings can be challenging for young children. They don’t always have the words to express the feelings they are experiencing. You can help them learn how to express themselves by modeling appropriate ways to express your own feelings, describing how and why people feel the way they do in certain situations, and complimenting children when they use their words to describe their feelings. Reading picture books about characters going through different feelings, and discussing them is a fun way to help children to understand their own feelings as they relate to the characters. You can point to the characters’ facial expressions and ask what they are likely feeling and why, as well as ask the child if they have ever felt that way before. Learning to recognize and manage feelings is an important skill for children to learn. It will help them to build strong relationships and guide them in making good choices for themselves. There are many children’s books with characters experiencing different feelings. I have some recommendations below that are available from our children’s library.

How Are You Peeling?: Foods with Moods by Saxton Freymann

This is a really fun book that uses fruits and vegetables with faces carved into them as delightful illustrations. Each face has a different facial expression to go along with simple rhyming text that covers many different feelings and asks the reader how they feel in different situations. Have your child answer the rhyming prompts, and have them look at the facial expressions of the characters and try to describe what they think the characters are feeling.

Continue reading “How Are You Feeling?”
Posted in Adult, Nonfiction, Uncategorized

Warm Curry for Cold Nights

We’ve been having some nice weather recently – but as we all know, it’s inevitable that the nights are going to start getting colder and colder. And what is better on a cold night than a warm curry? Here are some cookbooks that should help no matter what type of curry is your favorite!

Complete Curry Cookbook by Byron Ayanoglu

When people hear “curry,” some people think of India, some of Thailand – but there are a lot of different curries from around the world. And that’s the subtitle: 250 recipes from around the world! So if you’re looking to expand your tastes in curries, this would be an excellent choice.

Continue reading “Warm Curry for Cold Nights”
Posted in Adult, Horror, Uncategorized

Horror Novels in Lieu of Halloween

This year has been a torment. I don’t need to list all the reasons why, but my number one reason this month is missing out on all the Halloween festivities. The 31st falls on a Saturday AND lasts for 25 hours thanks to Daylight Savings. Like, we get it. No fun allowed in 2020, please stop driving the point home. Since we can’t cavort with our fellow ghouls and ghosts like nature intended, I’m going to stay home and read like the big, boring, health-conscious person this year has forced me to become. Now, please do not take that statement the wrong way. Reading is my favorite respite from reality and I don’t know where my mental health would be without the comfort of checking out five thousand library books to keep me company. Since parties are off the table for me (and everyone else I surely do hope), I’m going to keep things spooky and within the spirit of America’s Best Holiday (patent pending) by reading my favorite horror novels. Below I listed four of my recent favorites. 

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2020)

Continue reading “Horror Novels in Lieu of Halloween”
Posted in Film, Games, Horror, Science Fiction

Spooky Scary

It’s finally October! Start carving your pumpkins. Pick up a bag of your favorite candy. And put something scary on the TV because there’s not much else to do with the pandemic still going on. Like last year, I’ve written up a list of a few of my favorite horror movies.

Crowley

Crowley is not a good movie. It’s one of those movies that’s so bad it’s good. The premise itself is fairly outrageous, a guy using virtual reality gets possessed by the ghost of Aleister Crowley via the internet. The actors chew up the scenery. Crowley’s antics lean more towards raunchy than evil. The music is the one genuinely good part since it’s handled by Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden.

Continue reading “Spooky Scary”
Posted in Fiction, Horror, Kids 5-12, Uncategorized

Chills in the Air

October is my favorite month of the year. I love the chill in the air and the spooky vibes that come along with Halloween. It’s the perfect time of year to curl up under a cozy blanket with a scary story! There are many horror stories written for middle grade readers ranging from the mildly creepy to downright terrifying! I have some recommendations below that can be found in our children’s collection. Click on the titles that interest you to request your copy straight from our catalog.

The Dollhouse Murders by Betty Ren Wright

Ease young readers into horror stories with this ghostly murder mystery! 12 year-old Amy has an extended visit with her aunt who is cleaning out her deceased great-grandparents’ home. Their deaths happened many years before Amy was born and have always been a mystery to her. The mystery begins to unravel when she uncovers a beautiful dollhouse modeled after their house, stashed away in the attic. The dolls in the dollhouse seem to move on their own. Are they trying to tell her something? Any mention of the dollhouse or the great-grandparents upsets her aunt, so Amy has to do her own research to uncover what really happened to her family years ago. This story has a low level of supernatural creepiness that pairs well with its fascinating family mystery.

Continue reading “Chills in the Air”