In the Stacks

Yellow labels on the spines of books on the adult fiction shelves show they’re meant for teen readers or young adult (YA), with more intricate and mature plots than chapter books but with themes aimed at young adults. Scan for them on the shelves, look them up in our computer catalogue, or use these titles as a starting point.

The Shadow Speaker, by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu. This latest offering from the author of “Zarah the Windseeker” has created a spell-binding world of spirits, life, and possibility. It is 2070, and the post-war Earth that fourteen year-old Ejii lives in continues to change as aftershocks from the Peace Bombs roil through the world. Created to bring harmony to the world by causing enough mutations that no one could take sides, the Peace Bombs had unplanned effects, the latest of which is a joining of disparate worlds hostile to each other. Now, Ejii, who is a mutant of a type known as a shadow speaker, has been told by the shadows that she must leave her home to prevent a war. Set in the Sahara, this novel uses the cultures and religions of the area as a base to build on in creating a wonderfully intricate new world.

Looking for JJ, by Anne Cassidy. When Alice was ten, her best friend died. Was killed. Murdered. By Jennifer Jones. What could make one child kill another? And what happens to child murderers? But the question on everyone’s mind at the moment is: where is she now? And is she safe to be around? Alice knows. She’s worked hard to put her past behind her, but it sure wasn’t easy. Alice has a home, a boyfriend, a job, and a future, all of which could fall apart at any moment if anyone finds out who she really is. And then, out of the blue, a reporter appears and everything depends on who can make the best and fastest deal. Can Alice save her new life, or will someone else make the deal that sends her running again?

Defect, by Will Weaver. David’s the weird kid you try to avoid at school, the one with the mashed-up face, hearing aids, bad acne and a bad attitude. He’d be fine if the school bully would leave him alone, but Kael didn’t and now the practical joke David played on Kael and his friends has gotten him transferred to an alternative school. No one hides anything much at Oak Leaf Alternative: his new friend Cheetah talks freely about her grand mal seizures and other kids in school are just as up front about what brought them to Oak Leaf. But David isn’t ready to share the fact that he isn’t really “defective,” he’s “enhanced” – something not even his foster parents and his girlfriend, Cheetah, know. Suddenly, his secret is out and he is given a chance at a “normal” life – but is normal what he wants?

Lizard People, by Charlie Price. What happens when your mom won’t take her meds and goes off the deep end in the school office and claims the secretary is one of the feared Lizard People? When your dad can’t take it anymore and leaves? When you make a friend at the hospital who claims to be from another planet? Ben is a high school junior when he’s left to deal with his mom’s mental illness by himself. He meets Marco in the hospital lobby, and even though Marco seems sane, he confirms that the Lizard People don’t like the color red, just as Ben’s mom says. It leaves Ben with some hard thinking. Is there is a planet of lizard people that both Marco and Ben’s mom have been to? Or is Marco mentally ill, like his mom? Or maybe Ben’s the one who is ill – he knows it runs in families. This fast-moving story will keep readers guessing and the answer won’t be anything you expect.

Master storyteller Jim Weiss recently visited the Juneau Public Library and presented some amazing classic stories for all ages.   If you missed it, check out JPL Podcasts where very soon you will be able to listen/download two stories from his Downtown Library performance.  Not familiar with Jim Weiss? Get a taste of his storytelling by listening to one of his many recordings owned by the libraries.

For information about our upcoming programs, or to place a hold on any of our material, please visit us at www.juneau.org/library or call us at 586-5249.

In the Stacks

We’re constantly adding new fiction for adult readers in every genre, from Westerns and Science Fiction to Romances and Mysteries. Here are a few that caught my eye this week.

Pandemonium, by Daryl Gregory. Since the Fifties, a plague of demons has infested this alternate Earth, temporarily taking over humans to use for their own mostly inscrutable ends before abandoning their hosts, hours or days later, sometimes even longer, as in Del Pierce’s case. As a five-year old, he was infected by one of the many named demons, the Hellion, and spent weeks sedated in the hospital and months strapped into his bed at home when not carefully supervised. One day, the Hellion releases its grip and Del is back to being a kid again. Now an adult, Del is discovering that the Hellion may never really have left… Rich language and solid characters make this inventive novel a compelling and exciting read.

The Good Thief’s Guide to Paris, by Chris Ewan. By his own admission, Charlie Howard is a poor decision-maker. For a bestselling writer, which he is, that’s not necessarily bad, but for a professional thief, which he also is, it can be the kiss of death. While trying to unstick a plot point, he’s hired to break into an apartment by the owner so Bruno can see how it’s done. Bad decision… The very next day, Charlie is hired by another man to break into the same apartment to steal a painting – but the painting isn’t there to be stolen. When Charlie returns from the aborted job, he finds the apartment owner’s body (and it isn’t Bruno) in his apartment. He knows he’s never been in bigger trouble. To top things off, his agent, Victoria, has arrived to meet with him face to face, and what upsets her isn’t that Charlie is hiding out in a hotel while he tracks down a murderer (or at least keeps from being fingered), or that he’s getting nowhere with his latest novel, but that he looks nothing at all like his author photo. Fans of Lawrence Block and Janet Evanovich are likely to be sucked right into Charlie’s world.

The Dart League King, by Keith Lee Morris. Though unassuming in its premise, this story of the few hours before two dart players meet for the title of Dart League King turns into an often-dark meditation on small-town life. Russell Harmon is defending his title against former professional dart player-turned-gas-station-owner Brice Habersham, but his distractions at the game include his hair-triggered drug dealer (who may be ready to force Russ to pay up on his debt) and his former girlfriend (who arrives on the arm of Russ’s teammate Tristan). Brice has his own problems, beginning with the fact that he’s not really a gas station owner at all, but an undercover DEA agent. Tristan’s mind is still consumed with a years-old drowning, and Kelly is yearning for someone to rescue her from Garnet Lake’s small town claustrophobia, and by the end of the evening, lives have changed.

Death: a life, by George Pendle. Readers who thought Gaiman and Pratchett’s “Good Omens” showcased Pratchett’s humor at the expense of Gaiman’s disturbing darkness ought to give this a try. Written as an autobiography, this raucous and irreverent spoof is not for the faint of heart or stomach. Death, the child of an incestuous relationship between Satan and Sin, goes about his duties releasing the souls of deceased deer, radishes, and humans off into the eternal darkness. He tells all, revealing the names of the Four Horsemen’s horses, confessing his unhealthy addiction to Life (especially the Life embodied in one suicidal Sumerian woman), and outlining his time in rehab. Droll drawings sprinkled throughout are captioned amusingly: for instance, “a druidic barbicue”; and “dachshunds, the reason there are no fairies in the world”. This is a laugh-out-loud addition to the realm of humorous fantasy.

Memorial Day is this Monday, May 25th, and the Downtown and Douglas Libraries will be closed. The Mendenhall Valley Library will be open regular hours. For information about our upcoming programs, or to place a hold on any of our material, please visit us at www.juneau.org/library or call us at 586-5249.

In The Stacks

In celebration of National Poetry Month, today’s column highlights works of poetry new to the Juneau Public Libraries.  And if you’ve already got a poem niggling at you, try using Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry, which contains over 50,000 poems available in full-text representing a wealth of supplemental information with over 1,100 commentaries, over 500 biographies, and definitions for 200 poetic terms, to find it.   Head over to JPL Podcasts to hear an audio sampling of some master poets at work.

Behind My Eyes by Li-Young Lee. Lee is the Keynote Speaker at this summer’s Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference in Homer.  Behind My Eyes, Lee’s fourth critically acclaimed collection, explores identity through family, memory, exile, loss, and questionable virtue.  Lee’s humor is at times subtle, at times sharp as his insight into the unforgettable magic of childhood: “Whenever I talk, my wife falls asleep./ So, now, when she can’t sleep, I talk./ It’s like magic”.  The reader falls into the boring husband’s engrossing conversation with his sleeping wife debating the positioning of lovers in the physical and romantic world; “It isn’t that lovers always speak together in a house by the sea/ or a room/ with shadows of leaves and branches/ on the walls and ceiling/…It’s that such spaces emerge/ out of the listening/ their speaking to each other engenders.”  His style is entirely his own, alternating between narrative quatrains and unrhymed couplets often in the form of lines of dialog or image speak reminiscent of Paz.  It washes over you, leaving you in that blissful moment between sleeping and waking, “What do the past lives of the color blue have to do/ with the fate of words and the future of wishing?”

Seven Notebooks: Poems, by Campbell McGrath. McGrath’s latest collection explores agriculture, civilization, language, luxury and the cosmos.  Ranging in form from haiku to panoramic, in-flight prose observations, McGrath’s verse is rich in texture, historical reflection and careful attention to the unnatural order of human existence invading nature’s myriad disorder.  Set in the agricultural remnants of south Florida, “vanishing order endangered as the legendary panther,” McGrath’s Florida is an Eden-like backdrop full of bloom and rot.   Images linger, in particular from “Time”, an ode to our futile efforts to elude time described as “the match strike / of consciousness enacting its doomed insurgency / against the dark mountain’.  Or the “Ode to a can of Schaefer beer”, which artfully extracts marketing text from the label of a discarded can, “it wears its heart on its sleeve / like a poem / laid out like a poem / with weak line endings and questionable / closure” and leaving on your tongue the distinct flavor of cheep beer, “Thin, rice-sweet, tasting of metal / and crisp water”.

One Secret Thing: Poems, by Sharon Olds. From intense portraits of war taken from unusual perspectives, to judgment and eventual forgiveness of family and their indoctrination, Olds’ latest collection rings out with lyrical precision and energy (light and dark).  Much of the work feels inspired by old photographs, almost an exercise in giving voice to the voiceless, those whose lives were skirted or entirely re-routed by war.   In “Free Shoes” evacuated children prepare to receive new shiny shoes while the old ones are disposed of, the shoes analogous to their new lives away from the war, “This life that has been given them like a task!  This life, this / black bright narrow unbroken-in shoe”.  If you value family, but also value speaking critically about family, you’ll enjoy this collection.  There are some very controversial poems worth checking out, in particular, “Last Words, Death Row, Circa 2030”.

Bikeman: An epic Poem, by Thomas F. Flynn. This collection inspired by 9/11 will leave you squirming, which, depending on your tastes, is either the mark of great poetry or difficult subject matter.  Flynn accurately captures the awkwardness of the subject, “I am witness to this and embarrassed./ I am an intruder on the most private moment/ of her life: her death”.   An award winning television writer/producer, Flynn makes his first foray into poetry in order to document the very personal, yet universal aftermath of the World Trade Towers’ collapse.  Through observations both passive and judgmental, the verse shines when turned upon the arc which the lives of those affected by great loss will travel, “He, a banker from India on a temporary work visa/ is praying for the wife and son/…His widow,/ without a visa, will be deported,/ leaving her New Jersey home for India,/ where she becomes an outcast/ with her fatherless American-born/ baseball-loving blue-jean wearing son”.  The introduction describes the narrator as one who “did not live through it” but “just did not die” alluding to the survivor’s guilt fueling the narrative. Plow through this one in one sitting to avoid 9/11 overload and you’ll walk away with a new perspective on loss and survival.

“Coraline” is coming back to Juneau this week – check the schedule at the Gold Town Nickelodeon for showtimes, and at our blog, for presentation and puppet workshop times and more.

In The Stacks: Bruce Coville coming to JPL

Author Alert! Popular kids author and audiobook producer Bruce Coville will be visiting Juneau April 4th–  last time he was here, he played to a packed house! Reacquaint yourself with his spooky, funny, and classic stories, or remind yourself that you’re never too old to be read a story with Coville’s audiobook company, Full Cast Audio and its wide range of tales.

Here are a few new titles to whet your appetites.

If you like scary stories, take a look at, Oddest of All,  a collection of short but eerie stories for chapter book readers. Coville starts by introducing the Lyrans, an alien race which visits a future Earth much worse off than we are so far, giving everyone over the age of nine a vote for the course of humanity’s future. Not scary, you say? How about the story of a boy whose Halloween mask molds itself to his face – in fact, becomes his face? But there’s more… just keep reading!

Or do you prefer adventure stories? Try the latest in the Unicorn Chronicles series, Dark Whispers,  in which Cara Hunter’s life gets more complicated. Having left Earth for the land of the unicorns, called Luster, in Into the Land of the Unicorns, and then found her way back home in Song of the Wanderer,  Cara is a seasoned traveler. In this third book, she’s hoping to unravel the mystery of an ancient war between the unicorns and another race. Entertwined with her story is that of her father, who’s on a quest of his own in Luster.

Try a classic or two, rewritten with Coville’s inimitable skill at highlighting the best parts of a story while keeping the rhythm and flavor of the original. Pick up the picture book, Hans Brinker and meet a boy with a caring heart, quick mind, and loving family, and, incidentally, fast feet.

Or try one of Coville’s Shakespeare adaptations – the tragedy of Hamlet, perhaps, with its many moody, shadowed illustrations and lovely language; or, the wacky comedy of Twelfth Night with its mistaken identities, romance, swordplay, and a great practical joke. Reading these is almost as good as seeing Shakespeare performed.

Those who like listening to audiobooks will find Full Cast Audio productions enchanting, from their outstanding cast of readers to their choices of family-friendly choices (to paraphrase Coville: intelligent adults and intelligent children can enjoy listening together without embarrassment). Try Skybreaker, by Kenneth Oppel, a 2009 Audie Award finalist, which follows the adventures of Matt Cruse (from Airborn). Now a student pilot at a prestigious flight academy, Matt is part of the crew that spots a legendary lost airship far above them during a storm. When the rest of the crew is struck with altitude sickness Matt is the only one left who knows the coordinates of the ghost ship, and is offered a spot on a treasure-hunting airship. After fighting off pirates and testing the limits of their experimental ship, the treasure-hunters are rewarded with the sight of the ghost-ship – bearing a different treasure than they’d ever imagined.

For a twisted fairy-tale, listen to Gail Carson Levine’s, Fairest, another Audie finalist, about an ugly girl with a beautiful singing voice whose talents for throwing her voice and imitating others get her noticed by the queen. First thrilled to be part of the court, then horrified to find that the queen plans to use her to manipulate others in unscrupulous ways, Aza is trapped in the deal she made by her love for her family. How she finds her way out of her snare and This is truly a remarkable book to listen to – not only is the story wonderful, but Coville has set the book’s lyrics to music composed just for this audiobook, enhancing the feeling of really being in Aza’s world.

Join us this Saturday at 7 pm at the Downtown Library for dramatic historical presentations in honor of Seward’s Day by Haines storyteller John Venables. (And also in honor of Seward’s Day, the Downtown and Douglas libraries will be closed on Monday, March 30th. The Mendenhall Valley Library will be open regular hours.) There’s lots more information about all these programs on our website, www.juneau.org/library! Check us out!