Looking for Your Next Book

  Like thousands of other readers, I thought that this seemed an appropriate year (2020) to read Daniel Defoe's classic, A Journal of the Plague Year . This is an unusual book as it's part fiction, part historical reflection.  In today's parlance we might call this "historical fiction" but many scholars today still can't agree on how to classify this book. It is 1665 and we follow one man, "H.F.," as he explores the devastating bubonic plague, also know as the Black Death, and its effects on families and communities throughout London. Defoe does a remarkable job at making this personal and bringing the reader right to the door of plague victims and neighbors of victims - those living in fear of catching the plague. We meet a wide arrange of people, giving us a snapshot of all the different fears and reactions during this dark experience. Defoe wrote the book in 1722, likely based on actual journal accounts, such as that of Samuel Pepys, but his narra...

  Boston in the 1800's. Sisters Tabby and Alice are on the run as they've just escaped their cruel, abusive aunt and uncle. They choose to split up so that they can reduce the likelihood of being found and Alice leaves Tabby to hide out in a cemetery for awhile.  There, Tabby meets Eli, an old caretaker at the cemetery. The two develop a respectful bond and Eli comes to think of Tabby as a daughter and likewise, Tabby thinks of Eli as the father she didn't have and she helps him with his caretaking and grave-digging work. Tabby meets Caleb who is at the cemetery to bury his father. He finds her beautiful but he's engaged and Tabby doesn't want to encourage him despite her own feelings. They remain good friends and they will need one another's help  when each is in danger. Tabby discovers that she can communicate with the dead - an ability that may prove useful as a secret organization is currently robbing graves in order to experiment on the bodies. But her abil...

  How do you write a Christmas story for children that isn't really a Christmas story? Write about reindeer, a little girl, and a country that we often think of as being in a perpetual Christmas look - Norway. Lotta is a little girl who is traveling to Norway to spend time with her grandparents and her great-grandmother. Lotta makes a special connection with her great-grandmother (her Oldemor) and loves to hear the stories of Oldemor when she was younger and a reindeer herder. Through dreams and desire, Lotta finds herself in one of Oldemor's stories when Lotta and a cousin are responsible for a mother reindeer (Flower) and her calf (Karl). When the reindeer get separated from the herd, Lotta must find them, protect them from all sorts of danger, including wolves, and get them safely back to the herd. This is a sweet story and it has just the right amount of excitement and danger to be exciting to a young reader/listener. Author Holly Webb brings in some magic by weaving  in s...

  I almost missed reading books by Gary Paulsen. His books came out well after I would have been interested in reading his kind of adventure stories, and my children had interests in other themes and genres. Fortunately there was a teacher or two who required my children (and their classmates) to read Hatchet - and I often tried to read what they were reading (if I wasn't already familiar with the book) so that we could talk about.  I enjoyed it and quickly read many of his other books. Which of course brings me now to this, Paulsen's narrative autobiography. This is one of the most unusual biographies I've ever read.  It does not read like a biography. It does not read like a memoir.  This reads exactly like one of Paulsen's adventure tales.  This means a couple of different things. First, this means that the book will be easily read and devoured and enjoyed by the same audience that reads Paulsen's novels This younger audience is already familiar with how he ...

  Liobhan is an eighteen-year-old singer and whistle player.  She is highly skilled and such skill runs in the family as her brother, Brocc, has a meltingly beautiful singing voice and unusually adept skills on the harp. But Liobhan wants more than the life of a performing artist. She wants to be a warrior. She and Brocc train on Swan Island with an elite band of warriors and there they receive a special assignment that is suited specifically to their talents.   A rare harp has gone missing.  It is a symbol of ancient kingship and if it is not played during the coronation ceremony for the new king, the people will not accept his rule as legitimate. Liobhan and Brocc will go undercover as musicians to perform at the ceremony while they try to find what happened to the harp.  They will find more than they bargained for and Liobhan will find that 'good' and 'bad' aren't as cut and dry as she thought and she will have to make some hard decisions in order to fol...

  Padawan Reath Silas has a lot to learn, and he'd really prefer to stay at the Jedi temple on Coruscant to keep studying, but as a padawan, he's at the mercy of the Jedi and they've determined that he has to visit an un-(or under-)developed area farther out. But the trip goes awry when a galactic-wide disaster knocks the ship out of hyperdrive and Reath and his his traveling companions seek refuge on an abandoned space station but soon find themselves in the center of some serious action. The High Republic is a glorious era, but a new enemy threatens the peace. This middle-grade reader is an exciting foray into the 'new' world of the High Republic.  The book works quite well on a couple of different levels. First, it is a really nice introduction to this High Republic era. Disney is doing well to keep the franchise alive and staying current to attract new readers. But I think this is even more successful purely as an adventure story.  Author Claudia Gray has captur...

  Let's be honest.  If you are thinking of buying this book, it's because you are already a big Star Trek fan (or at least a Picard/Next Gen fan).  You are probably interested in buying it because you are a Trek/Picard fan, or you're thinking of it as a gift for a Trek fan. In any case, a review is not likely to sway you one way or the other. This book is filled with quotes, spoken by Captain Jean-Luc Picard in any of his television or film appearances.  Well ... not filled with quotes exactly. More like - there is a smattering of quotes within.  Sometimes there may be two quotes on a page.  But that almost makes up for the pages of photos rather than quotes. At best this is a coffee-table type of book.  It's something you leave out so that guests know you're a Star Trek fan and that they can thumb through while you're getting drinks or chips. At less than best, it's a bathroom reader.  Something that you won't get too involved in and that yo...