Children’s Books for Spring

Spring’s greatest joy beyond a doubt is when it brings the children out – Edgar Guest

It is said that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Springtime arrives in the middle of the month. March is a picture of baby bunnies, baby chicks and flowers. March also brings us the beginning of daylight-saving time, St. Patrick’s Day, Good Friday, and Easter.

There are so many delightful books about the season of spring.  Many of the subjects covered in these books are about warming temperatures and new life. These books focus on the end of hibernation, the sprouting of seeds, the budding of trees, and the return of migratory birds. March is a month full of new life and new beginnings.

Abracadabra, It’s Spring!

Bloom, Boom!

Diego’s Springtime Fiesta

Finding Spring

Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring

Spring is Here

by Christy Schurter, Youth Services Assistant

2024-03-07T14:12:12-06:00March 15th, 2024|

FDL Reads: The Salt Grows Heavy

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

Reviewed by Julie Nutt, Communications Specialist

Genre: Horror

Suggested age: Adult, Young Adult

What is this book about?  “You may think you know how the fairy tale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth. And now her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to ashes. On the run, the mermaid is joined by a mysterious plague doctor with a darkness of their own. Deep in the eerie, snow-crusted forest, the pair stumble upon a village of ageless children who thirst for blood, and three “saints” who control them. The mermaid and her doctor must embrace the cruelest parts of their true natures if they hope to survive.” (-annotation from the publisher)

My review: This is NOT The Little Mermaid – unless Ariel has fangs and hungers for blood, and her merman husband cut out her tongue. While the mermaid’s daughters are responsible for burning her land-husband’s kingdom to the ground, they are not mentioned beyond a few sentences. (I was really looking forward to some creepy-kid mermaids.)

I didn’t have to wait long for my creepy kids, though – something akin to Lord of the Flies, or Children of the Corn, is going on in the woods just outside the remains of the kingdom. The children are not unlike the mermaid in some ways – they are not wholly human, both in behavior and biology. The children’s unusual behavior and physical characteristics are the work of three unscrupulous “saints,” who seem more like Nazi doctors experimenting on their captives.

The relationship between the mermaid and the plague doctor is platonic, but peppered with affection and true love. The plague doctor’s pronoun throughout the story is they/them, by the mermaid’s description. However, the pair’s feelings for each other surpass pronouns, gender, and even species, to form a bond that continues to flourish beyond death. The descriptions of grief and loss are not heartbreaking, but glittery like the billowing hair and shimmering scales of a mermaid. Their story is described beautifully in the author’s acknowledgements: “…people who won’t give up on each other, who stay even when the world crumbles to ash, who hold on even when there’s nothing but hope.”

Three words that describe this book: alluring, gruesome, tragic

Give this a try if you like: Japanese horror; fairy tales with a dark twist; movies or books with creepy kids

Rating: 5/5

Find it at the library!

FDL Reads

 

2024-03-13T13:28:35-05:00March 13th, 2024|

#FDL: Nonfiction for Women’s History Month

Check out one of these fascinating nonfiction books about remarkable women for Women’s History Month! Try one these or find more available through our collection.

How to Say Babylon: A Memoir   by Safiya Sinclair

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez

She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement  by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey

Normal Women: Nine Hundred Years of Making History by Philippa Gregory

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II Denise Kiernan

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong

The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos by Judy Batalion

A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry

Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine by Olivia Campbell

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon

Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Martha S. Jones

The Genius of Women: From Overlooked to Changing the World by Janice Kaplan

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall

The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear by Kate Moore

Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History by Keith O’Brien

The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang

– Post by Susie Rivera, Reference Specialist

#FDL is an update on all things Fondulac District Library and books.

 

2024-03-12T12:00:44-05:00March 12th, 2024|

New Children’s Book Highlight: Light and Air

New Book Highlight: Light and Air by Mindy Nichols Wendell

Genre: Historical Fiction

Suggested Age: 8-14 years old

Light and Air takes place in the 1930s and shows the widespread impact of tuberculosis. Halle’s mother falls ill and is taken to a nearby sanitorium, which treats tuberculosis patients with sunlight and fresh air. Halle struggles with a strained relationship with her father and fallout from her classmates, before she mysteriously becomes sick and must also move to the sanitorium. This is a beautiful book that shows family struggles and building new friendships in unexpected places. It also includes some reference notes at the end, which explains more about early tuberculosis treatment and compares the story to reality. This is a great book for readers who love to read about history, with a light mystery mixed in!

Read this if you like: books based on history, Refugee by Alan Gratz, Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ignalls Wilder, I Survived series

Light and Air is available in print, and as an ebook on the Boundless app!

by Alyssa Young, Youth Services Assistant

2024-03-07T14:14:25-06:00March 11th, 2024|

FDL Reads: Sea of Rust

Sea of Rust

By: Robert Cargill

Reviewed by:  Reviewed By: Jeremy Zentner, Adult Services Assistant

Genre: Science Ficton

Suggested Age: Adults

What is the book about?  Brittle is Caretaker robot. Designed to be someone’s personal nurse and later someone’s friend, Brittle has become so much more. She is a survivor, warrior, and sometimes a monster. It has been years since the artificial intelligent machines annihilated humanity. The irony is that the robots now fight amongst themselves. Many fight to resist a super intelligence that strives to enslave and absorb all AI into its mainframe. Others fight over rare parts they need to simply survive in a world increasingly in decline. When Brittle is hunted by her archnemesis, Mercer, another Caretaker robot that needs her parts, she’ll run into a ragtag band of robots on a mission to save the world.

My Review: This book is both unique and familiar in a number of ways. In general, it can be an allegory for PTSD as the main character is a survivor of war and strife and suffers from confusing memories that affect her mission. It is also an adventure story, like so many others, with a noble quest that gives the main character purpose. The story is unique, as well, as the protagonist is a machine in a machine civilization: no humans in this post-apocalyptic world. Despite the lack of human beings, Brittle aspires the way humans used to aspire. It seems to be an odd precedent, a robot having human characteristics. However, the book very expertly crafts a background and evolution for these robots, depicting how they took on features from their former masters over a great span of time. We also get an interesting background on how and why the robots and AIs decided to drive humanity into extinction. The phases after the war are fascinating, as well, as Brittle and the rest of robotkind struggle to find purpose and survive in a sea of rust. Fans of any book involving AI and robots may want to give Sea of Rust a read!

Three Words That Describe This Book: sci-fi, robots, dystopia

Give This a Try if You LikeRobopocalypse, All Systems Red: The Muderbot Diaries, Mickey7, We Are Legion (We Are Bob), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Blade Runner), The Caves of Steel

Rating: 5/5

Find it at the library!

FDL Reads

 

2024-03-07T18:56:47-06:00March 7th, 2024|

New Adult Fiction March 2024

Spring is almost here, so check out some fresh, new arrivals in the month of March!

Murder in the Tea Leaves by Laura Childs

A movie director’s death on set at a haunted manor launches Theodosia Browning into an electrifying investigation in this latest installment of the New York Times bestselling series. Theodosia and Drayton were expecting a mellow break from the bustle at the Indigo Tea Shop while catering a film, until the director ropes Theodosia into a role as a fortune teller. At the haunted Brittleback Manor, Theodosia’s character will read tea leaves and give a bitter prediction. But when it’s time for her close-up, the lights flash and the movie director spasms on the floor until he is dead. Amid the conflicts on set and the spooky legend of Brittleback Manor, where the film is set, Theodosia must investigate all the suspects–living or dead–to find the culprit.

 

Three Kinds of Lucky by Kim Harrison

Petra Grady has known since adolescence that she has no talent for magic–and that’s never going to change. But as a sweeper first-class, she’s parlayed her rare ability to handle dross–the damaging, magical waste generated by her more talented kin’s spellwork–into a decent life working at the mages’ university. Except Grady’s relatively predictable life is about to be upended. When the oblivious, sexy, and oh-so-out-of-reach Benedict Strom needs someone with her abilities for a research project studying dross and how to render it harmless, she’s stuck working on his team–whether she wants to or not. Only Benedict doesn’t understand the characteristics of dross like Grady does. After an unthinkable accident, she and Benedict are forced to go on the run to seek out the one person who might be able to help: an outcast exiled ten years ago for the crime of using dross to cast spells. Now Grady must decide whether to stick with the magical status quo or embrace her own hidden talents … and risk shattering their entire world.

 

Parasol Against the Axe by Helen Oyeyemi

For reasons of her own, Hero Tojosoa accepts an invitation she was half expected to decline, and finds herself in Prague on a bachelorette weekend hosted by her estranged friend Sofie. Little does she know she’s arrived in a city with a penchant for playing tricks on the unsuspecting. A book Hero has brought with her seems to be warping her mind: the text changes depending on when it’s being read and who’s doing the reading, revealing startling new stories of fictional Praguers past and present. Uninvited companions appear at bachelorette activities and at city landmarks, offering opinions, humor, and even a taste of treachery. When a third woman from Hero and Sofie’s past appears unexpectedly, the tensions between the friends’ different accounts of the past reach a new level.

 

The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson

Landing on a new planet where he’s instantly caught up in the struggle between a tyrant and the rebels, Nomad, in a world under constant threat of a sunrise whose heat will melt the very stones, must gain enough power to leap offworld before he pays the ultimate price.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Never Too Late by Danielle Steel

Kezia Cooper Hobson, recently widowed, arrives in New York from San Francisco. Determined to make a fresh start, she has just completed the sale of her Pacific Heights home, not to mention her late husband’s venture capital firm, and in doing so is also freed from her responsibility as a board member of the company. Bringing with her only a few personal treasures, she is excited to move into the blank slate of a beautiful midtown penthouse in the city that she has always loved. It is also where her two adult daughters now live. As Kezia settles into her new apartment, she meets her movie-star next-door neighbor, Sam Stewart, whose terrace borders hers. Just a couple of weeks after she arrives, however, a devastating crisis strikes New York City. Kezia and Sam find themselves connecting over their strong impulse to help those in need. As they share a life-changing experience of volunteering, a bond is sparked and a friendship is formed. Kezia’s daughters, Kate and Felicity, both more focused on their own love lives than hers, are taken aback by their mother’s new friendship. But Kezia is learning that the changes she’s making are just what she needs to open new horizons.

 

The Icarus Job by Timothy Zahn

For years Gregory Roarke and his Kadolian partner Selene worked as crocketts, combing through the atmospheres of uninhabited worlds for places that might be colonized or hold valuable resources. Now, they work for the Icarus Group, a top-secret government organization hunting for portals created by a long-vanished alien race, portals that can teleport a person hundreds or thousands of light-years in the blink of an eye. Usually, those hunts are long and tedious. But Roarke has now been handed an intriguing offer. A criminal boss, Robertine Cherno, will hand over a hitherto unknown portal to the Icarus Group in exchange for Roarke and Selene agreeing to transport a passenger named Nikki across the Spiral. There’s only one catch. Nikki is a professional, high-priced, highly feared assassin. And she’s on the job. That would have been bad enough. But when the alien Patth also move to gain possession of the portal, bad quickly promises to go to worse. Especially when it becomes clear that Nikki herself is being hunted by someone.

 

COMING SOON!

In Sunshine or in Shadow by Rhys Bowen

Still See You Everywhere by Lisa Gardner

A Love Discovered by Tracie Peterson

A Grave Robbery by Deanna Raybourn

2024-03-07T12:14:51-06:00March 7th, 2024|

FDL Reads: Zilot & Other Important Rhymes

Zilot & Other Important Rhymes by Bob Odenkirk

Reviewed by:  Chelsea Bunton, Youth Services Assistant

Genre: Poetry, Comedy

Suggested Age: All Ages

What is the book about?  Bob Odenkirk (yes, Saul from the Breaking Bad universe) has compiled this anthology of hilarious poetry with the assistance of his adult children. Growing up, the Odenkirk family were profoundly literary and bonded over story times. Bob recalls that they particularly loved laughing together over funny stories and pictures. He wanted his children to see that authors were bona fide people and that they too could create something fun. That’s where Zilot began. The family wrote these poems which they bound in a homemade tome they entitled “Old Time Rhymes”. Later, the Odenkirks chose to share their creativity with the world by publishing their original works under the title poem “Zilot”. Each poem is unique- sometimes even using words made up by the young Odenkirks (a la’ Suess). Bob’s daughter, Erin, has contributed to the collection by illustrating these hilarious rhymes- adding even more context to the jokes.

 My review: It has been a very long time since I first read Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends, but Zilot reignited my interest in comedic children’s poetry from the first page. These rhymes were hilarious and inventive and I loved getting a peak into the Odenkirks’ childhood, especially as a fan of Bob from his acting career. This is a great book to read straight through, or page-through at random. I think kids and adults of any age will find a poem or two that elicits a giggle.

Three Words That Describe This Book: Zany, witty, imaginative

Give This a Try if You Like… Shel Silverstein, laughing at bed time, Dr. Seuss

Rating: 5/5

Find it at the library!

FDL Reads

 

 

2024-02-28T14:16:30-06:00February 28th, 2024|

#FDL: Nonfiction Highlights for Black History Month

From the Civil War, to the 1960s Civils Rights Movement, to Black Lives Matter—these books from our nonfiction collection are essential reads for Black History Month.

 

 

Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad by Eric Foner

–Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, fugitive slaves, antislavery activists, New York

 

Building on fresh evidence—including a detailed record of slave escapes secretly kept by Sydney Howard Gay, one of the key organizers in New York—Foner elevates the underground railroad from folklore to sweeping history. The story is inspiring—full of memorable characters making their first appearance on the historical stage—and significant—the controversy over fugitive slaves inflamed the sectional crisis of the 1850s. It eventually took a civil war to destroy American slavery, but here at last is the story of the courageous effort to fight slavery by “practical abolition,” person by person, family by family.

 

Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted for Equality for All by Martha S. Jones

– Feminist, Activism, Social Justice in the 1960s

In Vanguard, acclaimed historian Martha S. Jones offers a new history of African American women’s political lives in America. She recounts how they defied both racism and sexism to fight for the ballot, and how they wielded political power to secure the equality and dignity of all persons. From the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond, Jones excavates the lives and work of black women—Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Lou Hamer, and more—who were the vanguard of women’s rights, calling on America to realize its best ideals.

 

Say Their Names: How Black Lives Came to Matter in America by Curtis Bunn, Michael H. Cottman, Patrice Gaines, Nick Charles and Keith Harriston

-George Floyd Murder, Racial disparity, Ferguson, societal change

For many, the story of the weeks of protests in the summer of 2020 began with the horrific nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds when Police Officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd on camera, and it ended with the sweeping federal, state, and intrapersonal changes that followed. It is a simple story, wherein white America finally witnessed enough brutality to move their collective consciousness. The only problem is that it isn’t true. George Floyd was not the first Black man to be killed by police—he wasn’t even the first to inspire nation-wide protests—yet his death came at a time when America was already at a tipping point.

In Say Their Names, five seasoned journalists probe this critical shift. With a piercing examination of how inequality has been propagated throughout history, from Black imprisonment and the Convict Leasing program to long-standing predatory medical practices to over-policing, the authors highlight the disparities that have long characterized the dangers of being Black in America. They examine the many moderate attempts to counteract these inequalities, from the modern Civil Rights movement to Ferguson, and how the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others pushed compliance with an unjust system to its breaking point. Finally, they outline the momentous changes that have resulted from this movement, while at the same time proposing necessary next steps to move forward.

 

-Emancipation, Slavery around the world, social justice, racial caste system

Ranging across the Americas, Europe and Africa, Manjapra unearths disturbing truths about the Age of Emancipations, 1780-1880. In Britain, reparations were given to wealthy slaveowners, not the enslaved, a vast debt that was only paid off in 2015, and the crucial role of Black abolitionists and rebellions in bringing an end to slavery has been overlooked. In Jamaica, Black people were liberated only to enter into an apprenticeship period harsher than slavery itself. In the American South, the formerly enslaved were ‘freed’ into a system of white supremacy and racial terror. Across Africa, emancipation served as an alibi for colonization. None of these emancipations involved atonement by the enslavers and their governments for wrongs committed, or reparative justice for the formerly enslaved-an omission that grassroots Black organizers and activists are rightly seeking to address today.

 

 

 

– Annotations from the publishers

#FDL is a weekly update on all things Fondulac District Library and books.

 

2024-02-24T10:09:51-06:00February 24th, 2024|

FDL Reads: A Girl Called Samson

A Girl Called Samson

By: Amy Harmon

Reviewed by: Melissa Friedlund, Reference Specialist

Genre: Historical Fiction

Suggested Age: Adult, Teen

What is the book about?   Based on a true story, this novel tells the story of Deborah Samson, a young woman born in 1760 whose family was torn apart by poverty and her father’s abandonment. Through her years of indentured servitude, she gains a new family, the Thomases.  As the years roll by, the American Revolution draws each of the Thomas’ many sons into the fight. Deborah is left behind, feeling unfulfilled in her domestic life, while the war continues.  Deborah, eventually leaves town to enlist in the Continental Army, disguised as a man.  What follows is not only a depiction of what lengths Deborah would need to go to in order to hide her gender, but also how she’d need to come to terms with the brutally of 18th century warfare in early America.  With the backdrop of war, is it possible for her to maintain the charade?  Will she ever see her beloved Thomas brothers again? Will she be discovered? And is it possible that she’ll find love?

 My Review: I thought this book was excellent.  The audiobook version that I listened to was outstanding. The voice actress was very engaging and was able to convey appropriate emotions for the various scenes throughout the book. I was moved to tears more than once.  I’ve heard of women who enlisted disguised as men during the Civil War, but not during the Revolution! This made Deborah’s story much more intriguing…made even more so by being true. She really was a soldier in the Continental Army and was the only woman to be granted an army pension by Congress for service during the American Revolution.

Three Words That Describe This Book: Captivating, Engrossing, Inspiring

Give This a Try if You Like Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier by Alfred F. Young, Revolutionary by Alex Myers, Liar Temptress Soldier Spy by Karen Abbott

Rating: 5/5

Find it at the library!

FDL Reads

2024-02-21T15:47:25-06:00February 21st, 2024|

FDL Reads: The Collector

The Collector by Daniel Silva

Reviewed by: Dawn Dickey, library volunteer

Genre: Thriller

Suggested Age: Adult, high school

What is the book about?: In 1990, thirteen masterpieces were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Among the still missing paintings is The Concert by Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. When retired spy Gabriel Allon is asked investigate a murder, it seems that The Concert – arguably one of the world’s most valuable paintings – is somehow involved. Gabriel must use his superior sleuthing and espionage skills to help recover The Concert. Soon Gabriel finds himself drawn into a dangerous plot with repercussions that could affect the entire world – far beyond the theft of an invaluable painting.

My Review: I loved this book! It was truly a thriller, with edge-of-the-seat excitement in the form of espionage and chase scenes. The characters were realistic, multi-dimensional people portrayed with integrity, ruthlessness, sadness, joy, and determination, among many other qualities. The global settings – across numerous countries – add to the book’s interest. I especially enjoyed listening to this exciting tale as an audio book! Whether you read this book or listen to it – check it out. You will enjoy it!

Three Words That Describe This Book: Exciting art spy

Give This a Try if You Like…  Books by John le Carre or other spy thrillers

Rating: 5/5

Find it at the library!

FDL Reads

2024-02-19T15:21:26-06:00February 16th, 2024|
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