Leprechaun in Late Winter by Mary Pope Osborne

Age Range: 7-12 Lexile: 500L

“Leprechaun in Late Winter” by Mary Pope Osborne, is #43 in the Magic Treehouse series. In this story, the main characters Jack and his sister Annie are whisked away from their tree house in Frog Creek woods to Galway, Ireland. They are on a third Merlin mission to “help a creative person give their special gifts to the world”.

The person Jack and Annie help in Gallway is Miss Augusta (a real person in history officially named Isabella Augusta Persse who later became, as an adult, Lady Gregory, the wife of a knight named Sir William Henry Gregory). Miss Augusta’s special gift is her love of stories and her ability to remember the exact speech or dialect of the storytellers.

Later in her life, as Lady Gregory, she became known for the folklore she collected from the Irish. She was also a good friend of Ireland’s most famous poet, William Butler Yeats and together, in the year 1904, they founded Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, which is the national theater of Ireland.

I enjoyed this story. It was short but well written. It presented information on Lady Augusta and the fairies or, as they call them in Ireland, si (pronounced shee), in a fun way. There is also a Magic Treehouse Research Guide, you can read, with more information on the subject, called “Leprechauns and Irish Folklore”. This guide, also in our library system, is written by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce.

Submitted by Karin

Giving Up the Ghost by Sheri Sinykin

Lexile Level: 600

Age Level: 10-14

“Giving Up The Ghost”, written by Sheri Sinykin and published by Peachtree Publishing in 2007, is about a thirteen-year-old girl named Davia who travels with her parents to Louisiana to help great-aunt Mari who is in the process of dying from cancer. Mari lives at Belle Foret, an old plantation home that has been passed down in the family for generations. From the first that Davia arrives there, she thinks the place feels scary. It turns out that there is a ghost named Emilie, a French Creole girl, who is haunting it and that great-aunt Mari can speak with her. Then Davia also finds out that she too can see and speak with Emilie, eventually be-friending her. Meanwhile, even though her great-aunt Mari is sharp-spoken, Davia is becoming close with her as they work together in figuring out how to release Emilie’s ghost from “Belle Foret” before Mari dies. Besides all of this, Davia is also working through the fear of her mother’s cancer returning. This book is a 2009-2010 Young Hoosier winner for grades 6-8. It is basically an emotional novel about overcoming fear. Written in an easy to read manner, I think it is a great engaging story that gives the reader a lot to think about.

Submitted by Karin

Covet By J. R. Ward

Reading Level: Adult
(4 out of 5)

So I have been a little obsessed lately with J. R. Ward. It's probably due to the fact that I read her latest book in two days and the next one won't be out until next year. Then it dawned on me that she did have another series of books that I could read. When the Fallen Angels Series came out I wasn't sure if I would like them, but since I needed a Ward fix I gave it a shot. It was very silly of me to think I wouldn't like these books. Very, very silly of me. What I really liked was that some of the characters are from the Brotherhood books.

Jim Heron is a guy just trying to live his life when he dies. He wakes up to four British guys that tell him that the fate of the world rests on him. That his mission is to save seven souls from the seven deadly sins. Failure is not an option. Jim's first soul to save is Vin diPietro. Vin has surrendered himself to his business until he meets Jim and a woman who questions his destiny. The woman is Marie-Terese which if you follow the Brotherhood series you will recognize her from those books. Trez is in this book also. I'm looking forward to reading book two called Crave and the third book Envy comes out September 6.

River Marked by Patricia Briggs

Reading Level: Adult
(4 out of 5)

River Marked finds Mercy getting married and going on her honeymoon with Adam. Where would a coyote and a werewolf go on a honeymoon, camping of course. But they are not roughing it by any means having borrowed a camper from Uncle Mike and the showers at the campground are nicer than any campground I have been to. But if you follow the Mercy books you know that trouble always seems to find Mercy. Being on her honeymoon is no exception. Lurking in the water is a monster of epic proportions. It is going to take Mercy and some friends to stop the monster in it's tracks. This was another great read by Ms. Briggs. I'm sad that she stated that she will only be writing one book a year now instead of two. Next year a new Alpha and Omega book will come out in January and the year after another Mercy book. I can't wait.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris

I have read several collections by David Sedaris, and this is by far the most unique. His usual fare is hysterical portraits drawn of family members and other human misfits he has run across in his life's journey. But in this bestiary, these misfits are animals, who unfortunately are seem to share some of the same virtues and vices as their more evolved brethren, humans.

For example, the animals in the title story are dating, and the chipmunk's family doesn't like it. She feels when the squirrel asks her whether she likes jazz, that she must answer in the affirmative, even though she doesn't know what it means. When she asks her family, although they don't know that jazz is a type of music, they are also suspicious of the squirrel for bringing it up. As a result of their ignorance, the chipmunk breaks up with the squirrel, but spends the remainder of her life trying to find out the meaning of jazz, and creating her own fantasies, both good and bad, about what it could be.

When I started reading the book, I didn't like it as much as Sedaris' other stories. However, it was a quick and easy read - I probably finished it in under 2 hours, and got several good chuckles and some interesting life lessons out of it. As always, Sedaris is often that strange combination of touching and salacious, but his clever, easy to read style and gift for description are still brilliant. It's always a pleasure to pick up one of his books, and I can't wait till I finish them all.

Submitted by Gerti

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

Although the librarian when I returned this book seemed skeptical about its merits, and although it took me all of 6 weeks to read, I can say that now that I've finished reading it, it was brilliant and exhausting all at once! It was fascinating to hear the stories behind all the elements, much like the enjoyment I felt watching the PBS series on the history of a Cold. With the television program, I had no idea that it was so hard to design a working thermometer, something we now take for granted. With this, I didn't know it was so challenging to fill in all those little squares on the Periodic Table!

Kean has a unique gift as a writer. He can write a story about Chemistry, my least favorite subject in high school, and make me read for over 350 pages, including all the foot notes! From Tycho Brahe to Linus Pauling, Kean has the ability to humanize scientists, to make them not only geniuses of the first order, but also incredibly fragile and fallible human beings. I feel much richer for having read this book, although it isn't something for the late-night reader who doesn't know much about the topic. Certain topics, like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, are best when handled when the brain is fresh and receptive to new concepts. A fascinating but difficult journey through the history of the Periodic Table that I'm glad I took. Fans of "The Big Bang" will enjoy this as well, because it has the same balance of humor and knowledge.

Submitted by Gerti

Uncle Tungsten: memories of a chemical boyhood by Oliver Sacks

This is the second book I've read this spring on the subject of chemistry, and although it isn't as easy to read as Sam Kean's accessible history of the periodic table, "Disappearing Spoon," Oliver Sack's endearing autobiographical stories make the whole book worth the effort.

Although like Kean's book, it also took me all of 6 weeks to read, I can say that now that I've finished reading it, "Uncle Tungsten" was brilliant and exhausting all at once! It was fascinating to hear the stories behind all the elements, and even more fascinating to hear the story of how the brilliant neurologist first discovered each element, and his subsequent experiments with them. Although these childhood stories make me feel like a bad parent, since he was already up to his neck in chemical experiments before he even became a teenager, the book does show how his passion for chemistry was fostered by his parents and various aunts and uncles, which is a great lesson for all parents on how to raise a brilliant child.

Besides being a story of a child enamored of science, the book also details the heartbreak Oliver Sacks felt when he was removed from his family home during the blitz in London, and his difficulties in returning to "normal" life and relationships after the war. Like Dickens, he details some of the horrors experienced by British schoolboys, and while this is only a subplot to the story of the elements, it provides the emotional punch to keep the reader interested in the life of this boy. What I find more fascinating, however, is Sacks ability to recall his experiences and experiments, while those of us with lesser minds have a hard enough time recalling where we've left our car keys.

In summary, a book that should be read by everyone interested in science, whatever age, by a brilliant author. I can't wait to read some of his other books.

Submitted by Gerti