Mysterious appearance!

The winter Bloombury Review mysteriously appeared on my desk this morning.  Thank you to my benevolent gift giver!  Inside I found two YA graphic novels I instantly put on reserve at the library: How to Understand Israel in 60 days or Less by Sarah Glidden and How I made it to Eighteen, A Mostly True Story by Tracey White.
 

Having once been an elementary librarian, I also discovered some marvelous picture books I added to my reserve list: A Bag in the Wind by Ted Kooser, The Boy in the Garden by Allen Say, Spork by Kyo Maclear, and Mirror by Jeannie Baker.  Can't wait to read them all!

 Not a fork or a spoon, but a lonely mixture of both... but  not for long!

NEW Books to browse and borrow...

Both of these books have received star-studded reviews !

  Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel 

For thirteen years , Ben Tomlin was an only child.  But all that changes when his mother brings home Zan-an eight-day-old chimpanzee. Ben's father, a renowned behavioral scientist, has uprooted the family to pursue his latest research project: a high-profile experiment to determine whether chimpanzees can acquire advanced language skills.  Ben reluctantly agrees to treat him like a little brother relieved that now he's not the only one his father is going to scrutinize. Half Brother isn't just a story about a boy and a chimp.  It's about the way families are made, the way humanity is judged, the way easy choices become hard ones, and how you can't always do right by the people and animals you love.

  Countdown by Deborah Wiles  (Book 1 of Sixties Trilogy)

It's 1962 and all Franny Chapman wants is some peace.  But that's hard to get when her best friend is feuding with her, her sister has disappeared, and her uncle is fighting an old war in his head.  Her saintly younger brother is no help, and the cute boy across the street only complicates things.  Worst of all, everyone is walking around just waiting for a bomb to fall.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS-YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE

Mrs. Edelstein got me started reading these and I was happy to discover I'd already read several.  What about you?  Have you read any?  I've put an asterisk by the titles in MMS's library. 

 1996: *Parrot In the Oven: Mi Vida by Victor Martinez

Manny relates his coming of age experiences as a member of a poor Mexican American family in which the alcoholic father only adds to everyone's struggle.

 1997: *Dancing on the Edge by Han Nolan

A young girl from a dysfunctional family creates for herself an alternative world which nearly results in her death but which ultimately leads her to reality.

 1998: *Holes by Louis Sachar

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

 1999: *When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt

During the summer of 1971 in a small Texas town, thirteen-year-old Toby and his best friend Cal meet the star of a sideshow act, 600-pound Zachary, the fattest boy in the world.

 2000: *Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan

When thirteen-year-old Koly enters into an ill-fated arranged marriage, she must either suffer a destiny dictated by India's tradition or find the courage to oppose it.

 2001: *True Believer by Virginia Euwer Wolff

Living in the inner city amidst guns and poverty, fifteen-year-old LaVaughn learns from old and new friends, and inspiring mentors, that life is what you make it--an occasion to rise to.

 2002: *The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

In a future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status as the young clone of El Patrón, the 142-year-old leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled between Mexico and the
United States.

 2003: *The Canning Season by Polly Horvath

Thirteen-year-old Ratchet spends a summer in Maine with her eccentric great-aunts Tilly and Penpen, hearing strange stories from the past and encountering a variety of unusual and colorful characters.  
 2004: Godless by Pete Hautman
When sixteen-year-old Jason Bock and his friends create their own religion to worship the town's water tower, what started out as a joke begins to take on a power of its own.

 2005: The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall

While vacationing with their widowed father in the Berkshire Mountains, four lovable sisters, ages four through twelve, share adventures with a local boy, much to the dismay of his snobbish mother.
 2006: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson
Various diaries, letters, and other manuscripts chronicle the experiences of Octavian, a young African American, from birth to age sixteen, as he is brought up as part of a science experiment in the years leading up to and during the Revolutionary War.

 2007: *The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Native American is the school mascot.

 2008: What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

In 1947, with her jovial stepfather Joe back from the war and family life returning to normal, teenage Evie, smitten by the handsome young ex-GI who seems to have a secret hold on Joe, finds herself caught in a complicated web of lies whose devastating outcome change her life
and that of her family forever.

 2009: Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose

In Montgomery, AL, in March 1955, 15-year-old Colvin refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. She was arrested, and although she received some help from local civil rights leaders, they decided that the sometimes-volatile teen was not suitable to be the public face of a mass protest. Later that year, Rosa Parks sparked the famous bus boycott. Colvin was left with a police record and soon faced the additional problems of an unwed pregnancy and expulsion from school. In spite of those troubles, she consented to be named as a plaintiff in the court case that eventually integrated Montgomery's buses.

 2010: *Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine

Ten-year-old Caitlin, who has Asperger's Syndrome, struggles to understand emotions, show empathy, and make friends at school, while at home she seeks closure by working on a project with her father.