For Richer, For Danger, by Lisa Bork

Jolene Parker, sports car dealer and loving mother, is forced to investigate when foster daughter Noelle’s birth mother turns out to have given a false name—the name of a dead teenager.  In the course of solving a couple of murders, Jolene expertly juggles babysitting arrangements and business crises.  The author gives us humor and suspense, and delightfully memorable characters in genuine Finger Lakes settings.  This is the second book in her Broken Vows mystery series, after For Better, For Murder.

Bork will attend the Local Authors’ Book Fair, Come Home for the Holidays, at the Fairport Public Library on December 4, 2010.

Baby Ballerinas, by Karen Tran

The author, a Certified Professional Photographer, has produced a loving meditation on preschoolers and dance.  The grace of ballet combines with the (different) grace of babyhood here, all seen through the eyes of love.  As the Fairport-East Rochester Post says, “Each page brings a softness that has come to characterize Tran’s sometimes surreal, always sentimental style.”

Meet Karen at the Local Authors’ Book Fair, Come Home for the Holidays, at the Fairport Public Library on December 4, 2010.

Back Roads of the Finger Lakes: A Journalist’s Sketchbook, by Mark Holdren

Indian Legends, historical essays, meditations on the scenery of the Finger Lakes.  This volume offers a wonderful sense of place.  Here you will find  the origin of Canandaigua Lake’s Ring of Fire, the ghost deer of Seneca Lake, fishing lore, the history of Naples village, the history of Wagner Winery, and much more.  Each chapter is illustrated with a pen and ink drawing.  The author is a feature writer for the Canandaigua Daily Messenger, where some of the essays originally appeared.

You can meet Holdren at the Local Authors’ Book Fair, Come Home for the Holidays, at the Fairport Public Library on December 4, 2010.

Art Therapy with Students at Risk: Fostering Resilience and Growth through Self-Expression

Written for art therapists, this title by Stella A. Stepney is of interest to art teachers and parents who would like to help young people express themselves more freely.  At-Risk students are not the only young people who may feel “lost in the system” and find it hard to verbalize their challenges and worries.   Children experiencing the death of a family member, or caught in the turmoil of divorce, may also find it hard to verbalize but easier to find self-expression through art.

As well as attending the Festive Book Signing on December 4, Ms Stepney, art therapist and educator, will present an art activity at 3:00 PM for children from 7 to 11 years of age.   Young people and their parents are invited to attend.

2034: Writing Rochester’s Futures

What will Rochester be like in 2034, the bicentennial of that city’s founding?  Members of the Rochester Speculative Literature Association* have provided 18 short stories on the theme of our future.

Fairport’s Craig DeLancey sees a future that is in some ways just like the present:  Mothers worrying about their teens, whether they will improve their grades and get into college, what they are doing down cellar after school, whether to break up an unpromising twosome.  The young people never appear in the story, but listening to the mothers, the reader knows these boys are much more aware and productive than their parents suppose.    The kids are alright.

Other entries range from the cynical to the amusing, contributors range from Nancy Kress with 4 Nebulas and a  Hugo Award to university professors and new voices.

Oh, and don’t miss the Zombies:  Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass.

And you thought you knew Rochester!

 

*  Writers include Nancy Kress, Eric Scoles, Ben Chapman, Dana Paxson, Rory Gillett, Adele Ciccaglione, Sally Caves, Gary A Mitchell, Lyndsay Ely, Kim Gellett, Craig DeLancey, L S Gathmann, Jamie Gilman Kress, Tom Moran, Nick DiChario, Steven Donner, Steve Carper, and Alicia Doty Henn.  Alicia Doty Henn will attend the Local Authors’ Book Fair, Come Home for the Holidays, at the Fairport Public Library on December 4, 2010.

 

Balancing Act

Once upon a time there was Mouse Paint, the story of 3 white mice who found that red feet dancing through a yellow puddle make orange footprints.  In Kennelly Park, outside the Fairport Public Library windows, a statue of the three mice greets children who come for summer concerts at the bandstand beside the Canal.

Now, new this year, comes Balancing Act, in which two little brown mice create a makeshift seesaw and find ways to adapt and re-balance despite the arrival of more and more friends.

This is a story to read to a small child, stopping to delight in the speckles on a salamander.  It is also a book that tempts the reader to find a stick to balance over a stone.  The words are few, but the pictures are rich.  Is it math?  Is it science?  Is it fiction?  Never mind.  It is a story to love.

Mrs. Walsh will read her new book aloud to an audience of children at the Local Authors’ Book Fair on December 4, 2010.

Three Bags Full

Three Bags Full: a Sheep Detective Story, by Leonie Swann, is a mystery with a new kind of detective–an entire herd of sheep. When George, their shepherd, is found dead, the flock undertakes an investigation. The leader is Miss Maple, recognized as the smartest, because she asks the best questions. The rest of the sheep assist by keeping obbo (one long-sighted elder with a youngster to keep him awake), following suspects (who would mistrust a sheep?), eavesdropping at windows, etc.

The author, a German scholar, has found ways to incorporate the elements of a detective story, even the final scene where all the suspects are gathered and the detective reveals what really happened. You do have to learn one new word: “sheepy.”  None of the flock are the least bit sheepish.  Indeed, in their sheepy way, they have a lot of insight into human activities.

Oh, and what made this particular flock so smart? George read to them every day, explaining the hard parts as he went along.

A war story from Poland

The Zookeeper’s Wife; a War Story, by Diane Ackerman, has been the subject of many a book club conversation.  Even though there is absolutely no gore, there is suspense, and some readers find it uncomfortable going.

Antonina Zabinski was a young wife with a preschooler just old enough to count the trees in the back yard when World War II broke out.  Her husband was Director of the Warsaw Zoo, and she was accustomed to helping with the young or sick animals, raising baby rabbits or lynxes with equal aplomb.  She and her husband started by helping friends, then friends of friends, and wound up working with the Polish Resistance group to help anyone they could.  After the larger zoo animals had been killed and the more valuable taken to Germany, they turned the zoo into a fox farm in order to keep their underground railroad functioning.  All during the war, Antonina kept diaries, and this book is based on them and on the first-hand reports of other Poles.

The reader, of course, is aware all along that the Nazis are vanquished only to leave the Russians in their stead, a fact Antonina could not know as she wrote her daily accounts.

Though it is firmly based in fact, this reads like a novel, complete with touches of humor, music, suspense and heroism.

Depression-Era Readaloud

Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression, by Mildred Armstrong Kalish.

This unsentimental memoir–the title gives a good precis–by a retired English Professor makes a good readaloud.  There’s plenty of summer fun, winter fun, and hard work recollected in tranquility.  Delicious-sounding recipes appear frequently, with all the high-calorie ingredients farm families had at hand and needed to support their labor-intensive days.  The style is unstudied, seemingly honed by frequent retelling, rather than reminiscent of the academic setting.

Although Kalish’s memories are of the 1930′s, many of her stories could almost have found their place in the books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Rural life changed slowly, until relatively recently.

This would be a good book to read aloud to an older friend or relative, one that would spark memories and family discussions.

Another side of a familiar author

Lisa See, the author of book club favorite Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, is also a writer of mystery stories.

The Interior, set in contemporary China, alternates between Beijing and the rural, isolated village of Da Sui. The detectives are American attorney David Stark and Chinese policewoman–and “Red Princess”–Liu Hulan.

This is present-day, globalized China, where foreign business and Chinese culture, traditional village hardships, and Red Chinese history combine with the human motives found in other mysteries.

The specifics of the plot involve a toy company with poor working conditions and top-notch political connections, a peasant who hopes to amass a lot of land (as his ancestors did), the labyrinthine functioning of Chinese politics, and old-fashioned American capitalism.

The author allows each of her detectives some triumphs, but she does not allow one culture to outshine the other.

The novel is part of a series, but is an enjoyable solo read all the same.

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat who Touched the World, by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter

This one takes me back to my early years as director of a village library. When Myron speaks of parking her car in an empty lot and being first in the building every morning, I remember. I was there. When she speaks of how small changes matter, or how quickly word gets around in a small town, or about her experiences with the Library Board and the City Council, I remember. I was there.

I liked Myron’s brief words about the function and value of libraries. Gratifying to me, of course, since I’ve put my life into the same project. And brief enough, I think, for the general public, who support their own libraries but may not want to become library specialists.

I have to admit, though, that I sometimes found the balance between Dewey’s biography (and hijinks) and Vicki’s biography (and difficulties) and Spencer’s history (and challenges) difficult.

I can’t wait to see what my book group (a non-library group, this time) thinks about the book.