What’s Your Sound, Hound the Hound?
Whenever a new picture book by Mo Willems is published, I can’t wait to get my hands on it. Why? Because I know I will love it!
Willems is the author of over thirty picture books – many of which he also illustrated. He is perhaps best known for his hugely successful “Knuffle Bunny” series – but his “Pigeon” and “Elephant and Piggy” series are also extremely popular, as are his standalone titles.
Willems released nine new books in 2010, and, while I loved each one, my absolute favorite was What’s Your Sound, Hound the Hound. It features Cat asking other animals what kind of noise they make. So, of course, Dog goes “woof,” Cow goes “moo,” etc. But what does Bunny say?!
The text in What’s Your Sound, Hound the Hound is very simple, and much of the story’s charm comes from the wonderfully expressive illustrations. Little chick looks so very proud when he “peeps” and poor Bunny looks stunned and devastated when he realizes he has no sound. And I couldn’t help but smile at how Cat is portrayed – she reminds me of a preschooler – a bundle of energy and full of endless questions!
What’s Your Sound, Hound the Hound is a perfect book for beginning readers. It also makes a great read aloud. I’m looking forward to sharing it with my preschool storytime group soon!
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Posted by Julie @ Nanaimo Wellington
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
Here is the story of Mama Borthwick Cheney, the woman who had a love affair with the architect Frank Lloyd Wright at the beginning of his career in the 1900s. Blending fact and fiction, the author spent years researching Mama’s life to portray her beyond the scandalous newspaper stories of the time.
They fell deeply in love and Mama struggled to choose between her roles of mother, wife, lover and intellectual. Defying tradition, they both risked the loss of family and Wright the scorn in the field of architecture.
It was a love that lasted many years and the conclusion was so traumatic that it seems unbelievable, until you realize that this novel is grounded in fact.
Horan brings Mama to life and creates a compelling story in doing so. It would be a great read for a book club and it will have any reader looking further into Wright’s life and his work which is still so respected today.
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Posted by Barbara @ Parksville
The Book Thief
If you’re over the age of 14, you might not have heard of The Book Thief. It’s been classed as “young adult” in both libraries and bookstores, which is a shame, as it is a beautifully written book that is as compelling to adults as it is to children.
A simple plot summary – set in a village outside Munich during World War II, Death narrates the story of young Liesel Meminger – foretells a grim story. And it is grim. But it’s also full of love. Liesel’s foster parents, Hans and Rosa, do the best they can for her while the bombs drop around them and life gets increasingly harder. Liesel has some happy moments with Hans though, especially when he plays his accordion. The books that Liesel steals are priceless treasures to her in a world that has little meaning.
The writing is beautifully lyrical – a counterpoint to the setting and events of the novel – and fitting for a book that celebrates words and language.
I heard about this book from a friend. Take my recommendation. Read it. And pass it along.
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Submitted by Lynne M. @ Gabriola branch
Sandman Slim
Recommending this book is kind of like recommending anchovies on a pizza; I know some people will love it, and others, not so much. However, for those with the taste for it, this book will satisfy. Truly satisfy.
This book tells the story of a man who fought his way out of hell in order to take vengeance on the people/demons/supernatural beings who murdered his girlfriend. It is sort of fantastical mystery writing with a thriller twist.
But that doesn’t matter. From the first sentence, this story is a profane, white knuckle ride through the underbelly of America. It is iconoclastic. It is irreverent. It is profane, in the best sense of the word. And, most surprising of all to me, it was really funny. Once you commit yourself, this book carries you along like a sandblasting roller coaster through a supernova. This is garage punk writing; it is not always pretty, but the throbbing energy underneath keeps you reading. There is real joy in the way Richard Kadrey writes. And the joy is infectious.
The sequel just came out, and by all accounts it is as good if not better than this title. But read this one first. If you like pizza that bites back, this book may just be what you are looking for.
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Posted by Anthony M. @ Nanaimo Harbourfront
Out of Shadows
Set in Zimbabwe in the 1980s, just after the war for independence. A young English boy, Robert Jacklin, struggles to adjust to life in a new school, in a new country on a new continent. Jason Wallace’s powerful debut novel raises complex questions about idealism, bullying, race and the need to belong. Wallace skillfully juxtaposes the violence of the boys boarding school with the violence of Zimbabwe during Mugabe’s first years of power. Moral dilemmas abound!
Out of Shadows is marketed as a Young Adult novel but this well-written, compelling story is one that adults should pick up too. This book will stimulate lots of thought and discussion. A great choice for book clubs. For more information about author Jason Wallace (definitely a talent to watch!) visit his official website www.jwallace.co.uk
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Posted by Virginia @ Sidney/ North Saanich
We go through a lot to educate and train ourselves for a vocation; most of us devote energy to caring for our relationships. So now please ask yourself what you are doing to prepare for the possibility of a sane and gentle death.
This quote is near the end of the first chapter of Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death by Joan Halifax, a Zen Buddhist roshi and anthropologist who has lectured at many medical schools on death and dying. It summarizes the purpose of this book which is for people who are dying as well as for those caregiving. As Halifax points out early in the book, we’re all dying and she doesn’t differentiate much between where an individual is in the spectrum between life and death.
This is not simply a book on death and dying similar to those by Ira Byock who wrote the foreword. The terms and concepts from Tibetan Buddhism are discussed throughout and each of the 19 chapters ends in a meditation.
This book probably appeals most to people who are already familiar with Tibetan Buddhism. It may also be of interest to those who’ve read other works on death and dying. As an introduction to either, I think the emotionally-charged topic might be a distraction. Still, there is a lot of wisdom in the book. Halifax gives the three tenets that guide her work with the dying: not-knowing, bearing witness, and compassionate action. Much of the book is an examination of these three concepts.
She describes being with the dying as a type of meditation: “Giving care, I learned, also enjoins us to be still, let go, listen, and be open to the unknown.” Early in the book, the author describes meeting an old lama who was anticipating his death. He said he “felt like a child who was returning to his mother.” Such appealing ideas balance graphic meditations on decay and detailed descriptions of how to prepare a body after death.
To her credit, Halifax doesn’t simply mention these ideas but really digs into what it means for us to give up the fear we have of death and our desire to control it. It’s not light reading, emotionally or spiritually. Still, she makes a strong case for it being valuable.
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submitted by Monica F. @ Cowichan
As Good As Gold
As Good As Gold: 1 woman 9 Sports 10 countries and a 2-year Quest to Make the Summer Olympics follows professional triathlete and journalist Kathryn Bertine as she attempts to make an Olympic team in time for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
In 2006 Kathryn Bertine was at a professional and personal low point when the editors of ESPN the Magazine offer her a job – to make any Olympic team in time for the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and chronicle her journey in the magazine. The result is an insightful look into the life of a wannabe Olympian and the pursuit of athlete dreams at any cost. In her quest to become an Olympian, Bertine attempts nine sports including triathlon, modern pentathlon, team handball, track cycling, road cycling, rowing , open water swimming, race-walking and thanks to a snide comment made by her editors, luge.
Throughout her journey Bertine reflects on the challenges facing female athletes, including lack of respect from mainstream American media, underfunding of obscure Olympic sports, the “yogafication” of sports bras and body ideals that privilege skinny over fit. As Good As Gold is an inspiring and honest memoir about the challenges, humiliation and triumphs of pursuing athletic dreams over the age of 30 and believing that difficult goals are “do-able” despite the odds.
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Submitted by Colleen @ Port Alberni Branch
Let the Great World Spin
I’ve requested this book by Colum McCann a couple of times over the last year and have not been able to get to it for one reason or the other. Finally, it appeared again on my pile of summer reading and am I glad it did – this is a wonderful book and at the top of my list for 2010.
How to explain it though? This gloriously written novel about New York starts with a stunning five-page set piece about Philippe Petit’s tightrope walk between the uncompleted Twin Towers in August of 1974. From there we are introduced to a web of characters who live in the city below, some of them intersecting in surprising ways. Each character is written in great detail and with such heart. I fell in love with Corrigan the Irish monk, and Claire, the Park Avenue mother of a Vietnam vet/computer expert, and Tillie, a 38-year-old hooker in the Bronx, and all the people in their lives. Even secondary characters are given precise portraits.
The tightrope walker appears several times throughout the novel, either through his own voice or the reactions of others to his performance. McCann experiments with narrative styles, bringing each character on stage to tell us about their lives in their distinct voices. They also inform us about the other characters – for example, we never hear directly from Corrigan himself but we feel we really know him from the words of his brother, Ciarian, his lover, Adelita, and the hookers he helps, Tillie and Jazzlyn.
McCann is a transplanted Irishman who lives in New York with his wife and family – perhaps this is a love letter to his adopted home? It’s a sprawling, ambitious, energetic examination of New York in the early 1970′s. As Frank McCourt commented in a review, noted on the back cover of the book, “What is McCann going to do after this blockbuster groundbreaking, heartbreaking symphony of a novel?”
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Submitted by Lynne M. @ Gabriola Branch
Brutal Telling
Need a good read for the summer days? Why not pick up a mystery? A library customer introduced me to Canadian author Louise Penny several months ago and I have now enjoyed three of the five titles starring Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec. All are set in the delightful small Quebec village of Three Pines and I did not have a problem reading them out of order. The latest, Brutal Telling, opens with a fearful story-telling in the woods at night and had me on edge just waiting for something ominous and dreadful to happen.
We move on to the discovery of a body in the local bistro and the arrival of Inspector Gamache and his team of detectives who work at getting to the truth, no matter what the consequences. They delve into priceless antiques and valued antiquities, mingled with poetry, art and humour as the local inhabitants of Three Pines go about their daily lives. Meet the artists, the food gourmets and the local poet with her unusual pet duck who offers moments of humour. How the crime was committed, the where and the why takes us on a journey into the past and even a visit to Haida Gwaii. For Penny, the personalities, emotions and past history of her characters are important and we get to know more and more about the regular inhabitants and what might have provided a motivation for murder.
In the end, the murder appears solved but we are left with a bit of doubt, or perhaps it is only the doubt of those who are closest to the accused, and as in real life, we do not always want to know that we do not know people as much as we thought we did. We realize that what we first assumed, was not all that it seemed.
Brutal Telling won the Agatha Award for Best Mystery novel for 2009 and it is an award that the author has now won for three years in a row. For those who like Penny and enjoy the comfort of characters they get to know over time, there is a sixth novel to be published in September this year. Sit back, relax and enjoy the characters and setting of Three Pines.
Click here to find titles by author Louise Penny in the library.
Submitted by Barbara K. @ Parksville Library
Lit: a Memoir
Lit: a Memoir by Mary Karr is not just another “bad girl gone good” memoir. True, it chronicles the author’s descent into alcoholism and near-suicide, her hard-won recovery and reluctant discovery of a surprising faith. The difference is the unflinching honesty, clear-eyed dark sense of humour and strong descriptive language that leaves the reader feeling like you have personally lived through this incredible story.
Mary Karr is a poet and literature professor who has published two previous memoirs describing her bizarre Texas childhood and adolescence . “Lit” begins with the author as a young adult and follows her through marriage, motherhood, single parenting, and the beginnings of her successful writing career. When her childhood demons and uncontrolled drinking endanger her family and her life, she is dragged reluctantly through many stages of recovery and just as many setbacks. Her final acceptance of a luminous faith allows her to develop a healing relationship with her past and her difficult and unpredictable mother.
The emotional intensity of this journey is leavened by her black humour and her honesty about her motives and inspirations. For example, “I’d like to say I didn’t have a revelation on Christmas Eve in a homeless shelter. If it seems predictable and unlikely, try it before you’re snide about it.” On her search for a church while single-parenting, “Still, if Dev loses the bow to his school-owned bass the night before a concert or needs his basketball hoop set to regulation height the night before his birthday party, it falls to me. And I won’t say the venal thought doesn’t flit through me that church folk look like they might have wrenches and lawn mowers to loan.”
This is a book for those who have struggled, those who have or have not recovered, and everyone who wants to celebrate the victory of spirit over despair.
Submitted by Elaine J., Campbell River Branch.
