Check out Leeane's selections in this new booktalk booklist in the archives on BookGuide at the following link:
by Dan Yaccarino (jP Yaccarino)
This brand-new children’s picture book felt like a throwback to my own childhood. The artistic style of this one captured the tone and feel of a book published in the late 1960s or early 1970s. This is “dystopian fiction” for children.
in City Under the City, Bix is a child in a futuristic city where the humans are all helped and watched by a collection of floating giant eyes…who provide all that the human beings need, but discourage individuality and actual “thinking”. Bix is a precocious and stubborn little kid, who resists the conformity that the Eyes impress upon everyone else.
When a friendly mouse shows Bix the way to a hole to escape the “perfect” city they live him, Bix follows, and discovers an amazing old city hidden beneath the surface of the modern high-tech futuristic reality everyone else simply accepts. There, he discovers a massive collection of pre-Eye books in a library and learns to think clearly on his own.
For a simple children’s story, this is actually a template for resisting authoritarianism and dogma, as Bix brings his new-found knowledge back to his family and launches as a resistance movement against the all-seeing Eyes. I enjoyed this on all the levels it was presented, but especially the cute artistic style, that reminded me of watching The Jetsons as a kid.
( official Dan Yaccarino web site )
Recommended
by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff
Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that
page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog
individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the
reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!
The Reading List
by Sara Nisha Adams (Compact Disc Adams)
I work in a library, where assemble reading lists for customers on a regular basis. So, when I stumbled across this audiobook, with the title The Reading List, how could I pass it up? It turns out to have been one of the best “by chance” check-outs from the library that I’ve made in quite a while.
At its core, this is the story of two specific individuals, living in the Wembley district of West London. But it’s also the story of the network of friends and relatives both of them have, and the relationships they have with each other. Mukesh Patel is a widower, who’s basically disconnected himself from much of life following the death of his beloved wife, Naina. The other central character is Aleisha, a teenager preparing to go to college, who is working a summer temp job at the local library branch, while helping her 20-something brother help care for their mentally ill mother, who lives with them in their modest flat.
AND…this is the story of a mysterious reading list, that keeps popping up in unexpected places, and having an impact on those who find it. Handwritten, it states:
“Just in case you need it: To Kill a Mockingbird, Rebecca, The Kite Runner, Life of Pi, Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, Beloved, A Suitable Boy.”
Mukesh, never a reader before, finds an old long-overdue library book of his wife’s under their bed — “The Time Traveler’s Wife”, and forces himself to read it, to connect to his lost spouse (who was an avid reader). Wanting to use books as a way to connect to his book-loving granddaughter, Mukesh visits the Harrow Road Library, to return the book and find something else to read. There he crosses paths with Aleisha, not much a reader herself. But when Mukesh asks for recommendations, and Aleisha comes across one of the mysterious reading lists, so decides to read the eight titles on the list and subsequently recommend them to Mukesh…creating opportunities for them to talk and make a personal connection.
The Reading List was an absolute treasure. The three audiobook narrators, Tara Divina, Sagar Arya and Paul Panting, bring a large cast of characters fully to life. I found myself completely invested in these characters’ lives, and was quite verklempt at some of the highly emotional moments Aleisha and Mukesh both experience. Highly recommended — truly one of the most engaging novels I’ve read in the past few years!
(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Beloved by Toni Morrison or A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth.)
( publisher’s official The Reading List web page ) | ( official Sarah Nisha Adams Twitter feed )
Recommended
by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Services
Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff
Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that
page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog
individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the
reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!
In 2008, over 1600 participants in the Adult Summer Reading Program had the opportunity to submit the titles of the books they had read during the summer months, with brief comments about the books, on slips that were then placed into drawings at the end of the summer for Adult Summer Reading Program prizes. In 2009, we want to encourage you to be even more interactive with us.
The wait is over!What have you read recently that you just could put down, and why?
Posts
All Comments
