A LIVING CASTLE!

In Jessica Day George's book Tuesdays at the Castle, Princess Celie lives with her parents, the king and queen, and her brothers and sister at Castle Glower, which adds rooms or stairways or secret passageways most every Tuesday. When the king and queen are ambushed while traveling, Celie, the Castle's favorite royal, is determined to use her secret knowledge of the Castle's never-ending twists and turns to protect her home and family from the foreign rulers who want to take over until her parents can return. Danger, excitement, and some magic follow Celie and all of her efforts.

This book is another of the Caudill 2015 nominees and will be ready for checkout soon.

TALK ABOUT SICK!

A new nonfiction book takes you into the history if infectious diseases. In Pandemic Survival, It's Why You're Alive by Ann Love and Jane Drake, you learn about viruses, bacteria, and parasites and how they affect the human body. You learn some of the weird cures that have been tried. You learn about the beliefs concerning diseases in the past and how long it took for people to accept what scientists learned about diseases, how to cure them, and how to prevent and control them. While some parts of this book are gross, especially when describing symptoms, you will become fascinated by this history of disease that reaches back to ancient Greece and Rome and comes forward to today. 

You can find this book in the Blogged Books display area on top of the Fiction Section.

CAUDILL NOMINEES 2015

The last of my summer reading and the first of my new school year reading are the 2015 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award nominees for 2015. It looks like another great group of nominated titles. The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook by Joanne Rocklin tells the story of Oona, her younger brother Fred, and Zook (short for Zucchini) their cat. Zook is at the vet's and very sick. To help calm Fred's fears that Zook will never come home from the vet's, Oona develops stories about Zook's first four lives, saying that Zook is currently in his fifth live out of nine total. Oona learned her storytelling skills (she calls them whoppers) from her dad who died when Fred was a baby. Her stories also help her deal with the fact that her mom has a boyfriend. This funny and sad animal story is also a sad and funny people story.

This book will be available for checkout by the end of September. Watch the New Books shelf for it.

MORE SUMMER READING

Yes, I have a few more of my summer reading books this week. One is a book already in the IMC collection and the other is new and still getting ready for the shelf.

The older book is Paranormalcy by Kiersten White, a book I have been wanting to read. Evie lives with and works for the ALCA (American Paranormal Containment Agency) because she has the ability to see through the glamour of creatures like vampires and shape-shifters. Her job is to track down these creatures and contain them in a way so that they cannot harm humans. Life is treating pretty well until Lend, a shape-shifter, sneaks into Agency headquarters. Evie finds herself falling for Lend which becomes a big problem when headquarters come under attack by unknown paranormals. Can Evie save her friends at headquarters and be with boy she really likes?

The Darkest Path by Jeff Hirsch is a dystopian story set in a future United States that is torn by civil war. Part of the country wants to maintain the social and political system we have today, the other part follows the Glorious Path, one man's vision of how the country should be. Into this armed conflict come Cal and his younger brother James. Cal does not like the direction the Glorious Path is taking to win the war and wants to take James, escape, and return to their home in the traditional US. But James agrees with the Glorious Path and stays. Cal is now on his own as he tries to avoid the armies of both sides and find his way home.

Lastly, I wanted to read The Giver by Lois Lowry again before I went to see the movie version. I'm very glad I did! Some things in the movie were the same as the book and some details were different. I even heard dialog in the movie that came right out of the book. I loved the visual representation of Jonas's city in the movie. Some other movie items I wasn't sure why they were changed from the book. Still, I think the movie and the book are great and should both be enjoyed.