Bloomwood fans rejoice!

Becky is back… this September!

I know you all already have this one on your lists but I figured I’d pop in and let you know how much I’m enjoying Sophie Kinsella’s latest Becky adventure, Mini Shopaholic. Here’s a little teaser for you: Minnie, the bundle of joy who made her appearance at the end of Shopaholic & Baby is now a terrible two. And her favorite word, of course… “MINE!”

Becky and Luke are still living with Becky’s Mum and Dad and a very timely financial crisis has struck the nation and threatened to put the brakes on Becky’s little habit…

Once again, I wish I were Sophie Kinsella. It must be so fun to write these books.

-Marie

The rest of the gang is away at BEA so I thought I’d say a quick “hello” and share with you a great book I’ve recently read.

Lisa Grunwald’s new novel, The Irresistible Henry House began with a barebottomed baby.  Says Grunwald of coming across Joan’s photo: “I clicked on the photograph and read that he had been a “practice baby,” an infant supplied by a local orphanage to Cornell’s home economics ‘practice house,’ where college students learned home-making, complete with a live baby…” Turns out the first baby in the Cornell University program was Joan Domecon (for Domestic Economics) who lived in the practice house for one year in 1919.

What must it have been like for these babies? And who did they turn out to be?  These types of questions inspired Henry House, the title character who has had a way with the ladies his entire life. (I could practically see the dough eyes and gorgeous smile myself.) Brought into a university “practice house” at just a few months old, he is placed in the care of Martha Gaines, a no-nonsense expert who has been doing this for a long time thankyouverymuch. In the hey day of Dr. Spock and his childcare revolution, Martha struggles with her own maternal instincts while instructing her students not to spoil the baby. Eventually Henry becomes the one practice baby to stay.

The reader follows Henry through his odd childhood and into an adolescence filled with grim realizations and burning questions. Grunwald accurately captures the inner turmoil of resentment mixed with love and forges ahead as Henry attempts to reconcile his own complicated identity. Add to this a background that involves Disney’s California, a very Sixties New York, and the Beatles’ London and the result is a delightful mixture of fact and fiction, character and place. Grunwald seems to have hit a topical gold mine (I wanted to Google “practice baby” late into the night!) and fleshed it out with just the right amount of  psychology, history, and narrative. Bravo!

If you do not yet have this on your shelves you must get it! Be sure to point your patrons in the direction of the baby photo in the back. You’re sure to hook a few that way!

-Marie

A couple of readers recently commented (thanks!) on my review of the new memoir, I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced. Since this book has sparked conversation and contemplation, I thought I’d share this recent op-ed piece in The New York Times  by Pulitzer-Prize winner Nicholas D. Kristof whose book, Half the Sky, is a Random House, Inc. bestseller.

Feel free to comment and let me know what you think! I’d love to discuss.

-Marie

On the Trekkie scale, I probably average about a 4 out of 10.  I don’t have a costume and only recently, finally, saw all of the original movies. But I’m a fan nonetheless. I loved the J.J. Abrams movie last summer and am thrilled to see that Library Journal gave a stellar review of Star Trek: The Art of the Film from Titan Books!

“Director J.J. Abrams bold—and smart—reimagining of the dying Star Trek franchise was a pleasant surprise to both critics and especially rabid fans, whose phasers were set on kill if he mistreated their baby. He didn’t. Both Abrams and the screenwriters handled the material with the utmost seriousness and respect it deserved, creating a thrilling sci-fi action adventure revealing the iconic characters’ beginnings. This tie-in volume sports text by NY Times best selling author Vaz (an old friend to sci-fi film fans), and a ton of concept art, screen grabs, and behind-the-scenes shots covering all aspects of the film’s technical production. Chapters cover the creation of the assorted alien species, ships (the Enterprise, of course, gets more than 20 pages of coverage), props, uniforms, poster art, and more. Publisher Titan does Art of books right and this is no exception, the photos and illustrations are outstanding and what fans really want. Just loads of coolness for Trek heads, who’ll be crazy for this book. Grab it.”—Mike Rogers, LJX/LJ

This past weekend Erica, our RHAcademic co-worker Lani, and I flew to Atlanta for the National Council for Social Studies conference. Aside from the great perks of traveling (my personal fave is not having to make my own bed!) one wonderful thing about conferences is that it gives me a chance to discover or rediscover books that somehow missed my radar. This was the case with I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.

I picked up a galley copy of this slim book as I was drawn to the  image of a beautiful little girl on the cover. Then I noticed the title. 10 years old and divorced?! I was immediately intrigued. Nujood, a Yemeni girl, had no record of the exact date or year of her birth but it was around age ten that she was married, without her consent, to a man three times her senior. She endured life as a wife, forbidden to play or do other childlike things, until one day she decided to get out. She slipped away to a courthouse where she asked to see a judge and demanded a divorce. Her request was granted and Nujood became the first child bride in Yemen to divorce her husband, setting precendence for so many others. 

She writes, “I am a simple village girl whose family had to move to the capital, and I have always obeyed the orders of the men in my family. Since forever, I have learned to say yes to everything. Today, I have decided to say no.” Nujood’s story is written in her voice and its childlike simplicity is exactly what makes it so powerful. Actions are alluded to, feelings are described, and the reader experiences it all with Nujood, from her family struggles to tasting “bizza” and “bebsi” for the first time.

While reading, I often found myself imagining what it would have been like to read this book as a young adult. It is a perfect addition to your Young Adult collection, great for parent/teen reading groups and school assignments. I have no doubt readers of all ages will be inspired and humbled by Nujood’s experience.  

I am Nujood will be published in March 2010. Be sure to add it to your lists!  

 -Marie

Forget Facebook… I’m addicted to GoodReads. I love getting the e-mail notifications that a friend of mine is now reading this book or has finished (and rated/reviewed) that book. Silly I know, but it is fun. I recently became “friends” with a nice fellow Californian named Amy who is also entrenched in the library world. I’d noticed she was reading a galley copy of Alice I Have Been, a novel that tells the story of the real Alice of Wonderland fame. Three of us in RH Library have read and loved this book so I was happy to see it in the hands of someone else. Well, Amy just posted a great review on her blog that I thought I’d share.

Also, keep your eyes peeled for our forthcoming edition of the Random Revelations newsletter. Alice is front and center in a new feature and has also been selected for a Staff Pick. We’re tellin’ ya, it’s good!

-Marie

Have you reviewed a Random House book on your blog lately? Let us know and we just might feature you here!

Are you addicted to GoodReads too? Follow or Friend RHLibrary or RHMarie (me!)

The Dayton Metro Library blog, Dayton’s Best Bets, recently reviewed The Night Counter by Alia Yunis.  Our many thanks to Kristen @ the Main Library for giving kudos to this in-house favorite!

-Erica

Christine Porschet, SLMS of the high school library in the Marcus Whitman Central School District in Rushville, NY, writes of Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief:

Liesel is a girl obsessed with language and who isn’t scared of anything. Narrated by Death and beautifully written, The Book Thief is about Liesel, a scrappy girl in an increasingly troubled world. Set during the Holocaust, it shows the compassionate and the dark side of ordinary people in a war zone. The New York Times review called it “life changing,” and I agree. It gives you a new perspective on life, and this is a book that you can’t just read once.

 

And Jonathan Porschet, of the Geneva Middle School in Geneva, NY chose to write about another new classic for young people, Lawn Boy by Gary Paulson:

I don’t know when I have enjoyed a book more than Gary Paulsen’s Lawn Boy. With an eclectic assortment of offbeat characters in the background, the protagonist, known only as Lawn Boy, is clever, industrious, and incredibly lucky. The book is sweet, funny and exciting. I have read it aloud to small groups and recommended it to dozens of students. All who read it enjoy it. A great quick read, Lawn Boy is great for readers as young as third or fourth grade and still fun for middle school readers and beyond. A survival novel it is not, but Paulsen does not disappoint devotees of Hatchet and his other hugely popular survival novels. Read Lawn Boy!

This review of The Story of Forgetting comes from Marie Cloutier of the Gopen Family Library in Brookline, MA. She can also be read at bostonbibliophile.com. We’ve got a couple more coming. Send in yours to library@randomhouse.com if you’d like to see it here!

The Story of Forgetting is a show-stopper of a first novel. Based in part on his own family’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, author Stefan Merrill Block tells the story in two voices- that of Abel, an elderly recluse, and Seth, a lonely teenager. Abel lives by himself in High Plains, Texas, on a slowly diminishing homestead being encroached upon by McMansions and modernity. Seth lives in the Austin area, a somewhat nerdy boy and something of a loner as well. What binds them is a rare (and fictional) variant of Alzheimer’s, which has claimed Seth’s mother and several members of Abel’s family, including his brother Paul. They also share knowledge of a fairytale world called Isidora, where everyone forgets everything.

Seth and Abel are searching—for information, for survival, and, unbeknownst to them, for each other. The narrative unfolds gradually and alternates between the two. Their voices are engaging and distinctive. Abel speaks in a slow, almost literary cadence—a highly intelligent man with a crippling deformity, he spends much of his time with only his immediate family and his books. Seth’s casual, light tone is characteristic of the moody, flippant teenager struggling with his mother’s illness and his secretive, shame-laced family. Also very intelligent, Seth embarks on a solo project to find out all he can about the disease, and then his tone becomes sort of naively academic. He’s obviously out of his depth jumping into amateur neuroscience, but he’s sincere, and he doesn’t know what else to do.

Actually both have secrets and shames that both sadden and fuel them. It’s these secrets— tragedies, really—that give the book so much weight and feeling. The writing is beautiful—very literary in flavor, it’s a book to read slowly, and savor. The fairy tales of Isidora, interspersed throughout the narrative, are sweet and tragic, and symbolic of the pain binding Abel and Seth. Pain—the pain of watching loved ones deteriorate, and the pain of losing love to circumstance and convention—echoes through the book, and makes The Story of Forgetting, a beautiful, accomplished work, impossible to forget.

Kitty Burns Florey’s latest, Script and Scribble, recently got a wonderful write-up in the Washington Post. Florey is probably most well known for her previous book, Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog, which concerns the lost art of diagramming sentences, and her much-circulated article in Slate about Sarah Palin’s “sentences.” And here she is again with another “lost art of…” title about handwriting.

Handwriting?

Yes, handwriting. Something I haven’t thought about since 1993. (My mother, though, did ask me last year for left-handed calligraphy pens. She couldn’t find them in Phoenix.) Florey’s Script and Scribble is a charming introduction to a subject of surprising depth and complexity. Says the Washington Post:

 “Because she’s witty and often endearingly autobiographical (she includes illustrations from her third-grade writing workbook), the reader is happy to follow her into any byway of penmanship.”

As it turns out, several very famous contemporary authors still use a pen and paper for first drafts–Joyce Carol Oates, Toni Morrison, J.K. Rowling, and even the prolific and enduring Stephen King. Imagine the awesome callouses you’d have…

Anyway, from a child who prefered Office Depot to Toys ‘R’ Us: check out this quirky history of handwriting. Just don’t let your patrons practice in the margins.  (We practiced in the office. We’re surprisingly not bad, although it did take us 3 mins/sentence. My D’s aren’t up to par.)

-David