The Big Skinny by Carol Lay

Reading Level: Adult Graphic Novel
(4 out of 5)

I thought I had seen every type of weight loss book known to man but I was wrong!  The Big Skinny How I Changed My Fattitude by Carol Lay is a graphic novel weight loss guide memoir.  I have to say it was fun to read.  She even provides some fun recipes at the end of the book.  If you have ever struggled with your weight you can relate to this book and laugh out loud.  Her thoughts have been your thoughts and her struggles have been your struggles.  It is really fun to read someone's memoirs picture by picture!

Reference Book Review: A to Zoo by Carolyn Lima and Rebecca Thomas

How did I not know about this resource when I was a Children's librarian? Awesome resource for finding picture books. In the early 80's John and Carolyn Lima had a vision to create a reference book to provide better subject access to picture books for children. A to Zoo was created. A to Zoo has 13,755 titles cataloged under 1,215 subjects. Start with your ABC's and and end with Zoo's.

Animal books-check
Growing up-check
Flowers-check
Weather-check

and so much more.

There is also a bibliographic guide, title index, and an illustrator index.

Great resource for librarian, teachers, and parents.

Reference Book Review: American Eras

American Eras Early American Civilizations and Exploration to 1600 is a very interesting book. This book consists of eleven chapters. Each chapter is broken down into the following categories: Chronology, Overview, Topics in the News, Headline Makers, and Publications.

Chronology is a time line of important events to 1600, Overview gives you information about the topic, Topics in the News breaks it down by year, Headline Makers highlights a couple prominent people of that era, and then Publications lists related reading material.

Reference Book Review: Encyclopedia of the American Civil War

Encyclopedia of the American Civil War is a five volume set. It consists of more than 1,600 essays that describe and explain a myriad of aspects that cover the coming of the war, its conduct, and its consequences in a political, military, and social context. It also provides biographical essays on major and minor military, political, diplomatic, and cultural figures. These essays describe more than sixty major engagements as well as important skirmishes. They have also tried to cover broad areas such as strategy and tactics, social trends, and technological innovations. Articles are in alphabetical order.

Volume I A-C
Volume II D-I
Volume III J-Q
Volume IV R-Z
Volume V List of Documents, Source Documents, Appendices, Chronology of the American Civil War, Glossary, Bibliography, and Index

You can find a list of entries at the beginning of the book.

Civil War buffs should check this encyclopedia out.

Reference Book Review: The Encyclopedia of the Ancient World

The Encyclopedia of the Ancient World is a three volume set that presents a survey of the cultures and civilizations of the world from prehistory through about 700 C.E. It predominately provides coverage of the ancient Greeks and Romans but also examines the civilizations, cultures, traditions, monuments and artifacts, significant wars and battles, and important personages of Europe (outside Greece and Rome), Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania. This three volume set also provides descriptions of important documents of antiquity, definitions, and overviews of general topics that provide cross-cultural views of the ancient world. There are 1, 195 articles that consist of 26 overviews and 1, 169 alphabetically arranged encyclopedic articles that range from 250-word biographies of important figures such as Marc Antony and Xunzi to 2,500 word essays on major subjects such as Imperial Rome and Classical Greece.

The time span covered ranges from prehistory to 700 C. E. There is a Contents, Publisher's Note, list of Contributors, a Key to Pronunciation, Maps index, and a Complete List of Contents for all three volumes. If you are studying ancient civilizations or needing to do a report you might want to take a look at these.

Reference Book Review: Reading Rants by Jennifer Hubert

I was actually inspired to start the Book Nook because of the Reading Rants website. http://www.readingrants.org/ I go there pretty religiously to see what Ms. Hubert has read. Her reviews of the books really make you want to read them. I only get upset when the book sounds really good and it's not been published yet. Her book is pretty cool too.

Reading Rants covers 100 books divided among ten topics, with ten titles for each topic. Bibliographic information is provided for each title followed by six categories: The Story, The Message, Who's it For?, Why it Rocks, Hook it Up With, and Read More about It.

The Story summarizes the full story, including the ending. Expect spoilers!

The Message includes the prominent themes.

Who's It For? tells you grade level recommendations and if there is strong language, sexual situations, or violent scenes.

Why It Rocks explains why Ms. Hubert choose to include the title in her book.

Hook It Up gives similar titles to recommend.

Read More About It lists where the book was reviewed in professional journals.

Make sure you check out her website. It really does rock!

The Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes

Here is an interesting set of encyclopedias I came across in our reference area. It seems that at least once a year we get school age kids looking for books on Native American tribes and this would be a helpful resource.

This four volume set presents historical, cultural, and current information on nearly 400 Native groups within 13 geographic regions. This is a four volume set organized by tribal groups. Volume I covers the Northeast, Southeast, and Caribbean tribal groups. Volume II covers the Great Basin, Southwest, and Middle America tribal groups. Volume III covers the Arctic, the Subarctic, the Great Plains, and the Plateau tribal groups. Volume IV covers the Pacific Northwest, California, and the Pacific Islands tribal groups.

Each volume includes maps that indicate historical origins of tribal groups as well as locations of contemporary state and federal reservations.

The essays are arranged alphabetically within regional clusters. The essays are broken down into the following information: introduction, history, religion, language, buildings, subsistence, clothing and adornment, healing practices, customs, oral literature, current tribal issues, and bibliography and further reading.

This set was published in 1998. While the current information on a tribe will most likely be different the historical information will be the same. The historical maps are useful as well.

Encyclopedia of Extreame Sports by Kelly Boyer Sagert

Extreme sport enthusiasts are fearless. You would have to be to fling yourself off of a cliff, jump out of a perfectly good airplane, water ski barefoot, or do twisted jumps in the air and land on your snow board. I'll stick to watching and let the professionals do the crazy tricks. It's way to extreme for a wuss like me. I applaud those people for what they can do because it is Amazing to watch and a little scary because I hold my breath the whole time until they land safely and I know they haven't broken their necks. This encyclopedia is really cool. It is full of extreme sport information not only about the different sports but also about the people doing them.

Are you a fan of Shaun White? He's in here.
Love Wake Boarding? That's in here too along with Kite Surfing, Adventure Racing, Lava Sledding (I'll pass, Thank You) and those are just to name a few.

How the book is broken down: Alphabetical List of Entries, Guide to Related Topics, Introduction, Acknowledgments, Timeline of Extreme Sports, Body of Information, and Index.

I recommend reading the introduction because it talks about the difference between extreme and traditional sports, it gives a history, reasons for popularity, the future of extreme sports, and gives you an overview of the encyclopedia. Really interesting book.

You can find it on the New Reference Book shelf.

Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia

Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia was first published in the late 1960's in Germany under the editorship of zoologist Bernhard Gryzimek. Years later Gale and the American Zoo and Aquarium Association worked together to completely revise and update the series for the first time in 30 years. Gale expanded the 13 volume set to 17 volumes, had new color paintings commissioned, and made the set easier to use.

This 17 volume set is organized by taxonomy. Taxonomy is the science in which various organisms are discovered, identified, described, named, classified, and catalogued. They start with the simplest life forms, the lower metazoans and lesser deuterostomes, in volume one, and then the series progresses through the more complex classes of animals, culminating with the mammals, in volumes 12-16 (pg x).

Grzimek's features 3,000 color photos that help enhance understanding.

If you need information on animal life take a look at these very informative books.

VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever 2010

I bet you didn't know that we let hounds in the library, well VideoHounds that is. The VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever 2010 is the complete guide to movies on VHS, DVD, and HI-Def formats. According to the library journal, "It simply doesn't get any better than this(From the front cover)".

On the inside of the front cover is The Rating Scale: One Dog's Opinion. The scale goes from Woof! (No Bones) to Four Bones. No Bones says that watching your neighbor's vacation videos might be less painful. May be redeemed by stretches of unintentional amusement. Four Bones says masterful cinematic expression. Flawless or nearly so. Will want to recommend to complete strangers on the street.

How is the VideoHound put together? First you have the introduction. Then there is a section on how to use VideoHound. This comes in handy for first time users. Then the rest of this over 2000 plus page book is broken down into categories: Alternate Titles Index, Videos A-Z, Category Index, Kibbles and Series Index, Awards Index, Cast Index, Director Index, Writer Index, Cinematographer Index, Composer Index, Video Sources Guide, and Web Site Guide.

So the biggest section is the videos A-Z section. "Each VideoHound review contains up to 19 items, ranging from title, to the review, to cast listings, to awards received. the information in these reviews is designed to help you choose a video you'll like, increase your enjoyment of a movie as you watch (especially by answering that nagging question of "What else have I seen that guy in"), and increase your knowledge of movie trivia (xii, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever)."

You may not agree with the rating scale on some of your favorite movies but this book has a lot of movies in it ranging from the well known to the obscure. It is a fun book to flip through.

Check out their website: http://www.movieretriever.com/

The Natural Pharmacy Edited by Alan R. Gaby M.D.

Someone slap my hand for the confession I am about to make. I, Lacey Klemm reference librarian, am not aware of every reference book we have in the library. Ouch that hurt! But my goal this year is to get to know the reference collection better. I know the ones I use on a regular basis very well but like this book, The Natural Pharmacy, I didn't even know we had it. After taking a look through it I'm glad I know about it now. It's a very informative book.

Before you read futher here is an important disclaimer: It is important to realize that this book is provided for information or educational purposes only and should be used in consultation with a healthcare professional knowledgeable in natural medicine. Information is this book is not meant to replace any medical information supplied by a doctor or pharmacist (pg. xxii).

The Natural Pharmacy is a complete A-Z reference to natural treatments for common health conditions, vitamins, herbs, minerals, diet, and lifestyle. It features a very handy section called How to Use This Book. Just what I need to help me navigate. The book is broken into three sections, Health Concerns, Nutritional Supplements, and Herbs.

Health concerns has entries on athletic performance, diverticular disease, hay fever, hives, stress, and much more. Basically each entry has information about what it is, what the symptoms are, medical treatments, dietary changes that may be helpful, nutritional supplements that may be helpful, herbs that may be helpful, and holistic approaches that may be helpful.

In the nutritional supplements section you will find information about specific vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and other nutrients. Each nutrient entry includes information about where it is found, health concerns for which the nutrient might be supportive, suggested dosage ranges, and possible side effects or interactions.

The herb entries give you information on the botanical name, common name, parts used and where it is grown, historical or traditional use, active constituents, how much is usually taken, and if there are any side effects or interactions.

There is a contents section and an index section for easy look up.