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When I got my first car, I couldn't wait to take a road trip of my own. I'd spent plenty of time in the "wayback" of the family station wagon as a kid attempting to read while my Dad switched the radio back and forth from baseball broadcasts to classical music stations. Now I'd be in the driver's seat and could choose what to listen to and when and where to stop for a rest break! The road atlas was my guide as I set off on my own from Chicago to visit my brother in Pennsylvania.

When Ruth and her family set off in the early 1950s on a road trip from Chicago to Alabama, they needed something in addition to a road map to guide their trip. They needed "The Green Book." "The Green Book," author Calvin Alexander Ramsey explains in his picturebook Ruth and the Green Book was developed in 1936 by a postman named Victor H. Green to help black people who were traveling. The book listed by city all the restaurants, hotels, gas stations and businesses that would serve African Americans during the era of "Jim Crow" laws when many establishments, especially in the South, refused to admit blacks.

Kids , History, Picture Book
February 10, 2011

After receiving recommendations from a number of friends for the TV show The Big Bang Theory, I decided it was finally time to check it out.

Sights and Sounds, Think Library
February 7, 2011
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Lafayette and the American Revolution by Russell Freedman tells the fascinating story of a young man who helped our nation gain its independence in the Revolutionary War. Orphaned at twelve, Gilbert de Motier, marquis de Lafayette was one of the wealthiest young aristocrats in France. Married at sixteen, he was already a father by the age of nineteen when he left France to aid the American revolutionaries in their struggle to win freedom from the British king.

Kids , History
February 3, 2011
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Want to know how to fend off a shark, cross piranha-infested waters, or escape from quicksand? Do you know how to find water in the desert, escape from a crocodile, or survive when you're stranded on an iceberg? The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook [Extreme] Junior Edition tells you how to survive these and many other dangers.

Kids , Nonfiction
January 28, 2011
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Where does Hollywood get many of their ideas? Comic books? Yes. TV shows from the 1970s? *Sigh* - yes. But also from books! Real books! This year's Academy Award nominations were announced this week, including 5 films for Best Adapted Screen Play - 4 of which are based on books. The fifth film, Toy Story 3 is based on a original treatment of the first movie (or something).

If you liked these movies - you might try the original too! I know I am adding several of these to my to-read list.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston
This memoir is the basis for Danny Boyle's film 127 Hours and tells the amazing true story of a hiker who had to make a terrible decision after being trapped and injured alone in the desert for over five days. As a sometimes solo hiker, I am intrigued by this story. Both movie and book are on my list.

Reviews, Think Library , Award Winner
January 27, 2011
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What an incredibly moving testament to women's friendship. Two Boston area writers who met at a reading but only came to know each other when they were raising puppies at the same time and their dog trainer suggested that they would hit it off.

Caroline was a rower and essayist; Gail, a swimmer and book critic. Both were determined, competitive, tough, and shy. One of Gail's friends nicknamed her "the gregarious hermit." Caroline's dog was a shepherd mix. Gail finally adopted the pristine white samoyed she had always longed for. Caroline stayed in the Cambridge area where she had grown up, while Gail had left her beloved high-country Texas although she still pined for it.

Reviews, Think Library , Relationships, Biography & Memoir
January 25, 2011
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Life is hard enough without the added pressures of the truly horrific and ugly things that people can do to one another. Without straying into the politics of race and class in Zimbabwe Africa, this documentary follows a white farmer from Zimbabwe as he continues his court battle to keep is land after Robert Mugabe, the president, changes the Zimbabwe constitution and starts a new land redistribution program.

Think Library, Sights and Sounds
January 24, 2011

Knock knock.

Who's there?
Interrupting Cow!
Interrupting Cow wh-
MOOOO!
David Ezra Stein knows another version of one of my favorite knock-knock jokes. His is about an interrupting chicken instead of a cow! That joke inspired this delightful, funny picture book about a little red chicken being read to by her Papa. Will she ever let him finish a story the way it's written? The action takes place in a house and bedroom every bit as cozy as those in Goodnight Moon. Stein both wrote and illustrated Interrupting Chicken, a 2011 Caldecott Honor Book,
Kids , Animals
January 21, 2011
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Frank McCourt had this to say about this National Book Award winner, "trust me, this is the sort of book that you will take off your shelf over and over again as the years go along. It's a story of the early 1970s, but it's also the story of our present times. And it is, in many ways, a story of a moment of lasting redemption even in the face of all the evidence....I didn't want to stop turning the pages. I'm really not sure what McCann will do after this, but this is a great New York book, not just for New Yorkers but for anyone who walks any sort of tightrope at all. And yes, it doesn't surprise me that it takes an Irishman to capture the heart of the city." This novel captures the spirit of America in a time of transition, promise, and soon-to-be-ended innocence.

Reviews, Think Library , Library Events
January 18, 2011
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I wasn't sure what to expect when I first put Scott Pilgrim vs. the World in my DVD player. It was not even close to what I got. For those who are not familiar with the plot Scott Pilgrim [Michael Cera], the bass player in a small band, has fallen for the new "cool girl" in town, Ramona Flowers [Mary Elizabeth Winstead]. In order to date her he must first defeat her seven "evil exes".

Sights and Sounds, Think Library , Coming of Age, Fantasy
January 17, 2011
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So many wonderful books received awards from the American Library Association earlier this week. You can view the complete list of ALA's Youth Media Awards online. But I wanted to give a big HURRAH! to one of my favorite author/illustrators who received special recognition from ALA for his body of work: Tomie dePaola. DePaola received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, "honoring an author or illustrator, published in the United States, whose books have made a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children."

There are so many reasons to love Tomie: his sense of humor, his appreciation of a child's perspective, his beautiful artwork, his versatility. He writes, he illustrates. He works with both fiction and nonfiction, folktales and nursery rhymes, bible stories and poetry. I think I became particularly fond of Tomie when I discovered he shares my Irish/Italian heritage - which he describes in his autobiography 26 Fairmount Avenue, a 2000 Newbery Honor winner.

Kids , Award Winner
January 13, 2011
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Amy Bloom, who used to be a practicing psychotherapist, has won many awards for her short stories. Her latest collection Where the God of Love Hangs Out examines love in many aspects. Bloom shows how it's possible to fall for an older man with a beer belly who suffers from gout and a life-threatening heart condition. The book features two sets of interrelated stories, the first about two couples--close, long-term friends--whose lives are broken apart and rearranged in new and unconventional ways. The second set of stories explores the lives of a jazz musician's widow and her young adult son, Lionel. These four stories reveal how grief makes some people emotionally vulnerable and susceptible to poor life choices.

Reviews, Think Library , Read, Relationships, Short Stories
January 12, 2011
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Well, it doesn't generate quite the excitement that Oscar night might bring. And we won't be wearing our sleeveless ball gowns to the library on Monday (at least I won't be!)... Nevertheless, we are eagerly anticipating the announcement on Monday, January 10, of the American Library Association's Youth Media Awards for 2011.

These awards include the esteemed Newbery Medal, awarded for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children in the past year, and the Caldecott Medal which recognizes the most distinguished American picture book for children. See the ALA's Youth Media Awards for a complete listing of the different types of literature honored annually.

Kids , Award Winner
January 7, 2011
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I will come right out and say that I do not like superheroes (movie or print) and I didn't read comic books as a kid, so I am not naturally drawn to the graphic novel format. Because I'm kind of a nerd, what I do like is big fat novels and dusty historical nonfiction. So color me surprised when recently I've been enjoying more graphic novels. Last night as I finished Mercury by Hope Larson I began to wonder and hope that the reason went beyond the fact that I can read one in a single sitting -- though that is very satisfying too! My rationale is that I've been craving something different. I have read enough fiction to be somewhat bored with a traditional storyline. I want to think while I read -- to be engaged! And picking up some graphic novels has been the way to do that recently. I've tried to compile a list of graphic novels for the hesitant -- for anyone who thought that they weren't interested. Give one a try, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Think Library, Reviews , Graphic Novels & Manga, Read
January 4, 2011

Fifty years ago, it fell to a little girl named Ruby to be the first black person to attend William Frantz Public School in New Orleans, Louisiana. It's normal now for people of all skin colors to go to school together, but sadly, in 1960, there were still many ignorant people who thought that white-skinned people were better than others and should not have to share their schools. Even after federal courts ordered that public schools be integrated, some states, including Louisiana, objected. It was a dangerous time for African Americans in the United States, especially in the south. Some of the white people who believed black people should remain separate from white people did hateful or even violent things.

Kids , History
December 16, 2010