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Apr 28, 2010

Movie Night!

Tomorrow night, join Wallace and Gromit as they try to solve "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit"! The funniest pest control team ever takes on the largest rabbit ever (not quite) seen. It's eating all the vegetables being grown for the vegetable contest and people are upset. Laugh yourself silly with Wallace and Gromit, the best claymation heroes to hit the big screen!
Popcorn, as always, is free :)

Thursday, April 29th, at 6pm in the meeting room.

Apr 27, 2010

new fiction

To each of the men and women in The Last Time I Saw You, this reunion means something different—a last opportunity to say something long left unsaid, an escape from the bleaker realities of everyday life, a means to save a marriage on the rocks, or an opportunity to bond with a slightly estranged daughter, if only over what her mother should wear.
As the onetime classmates meet up over the course of a weekend, they discover things that will irrevocably affect the rest of their lives. For newly divorced Dorothy Shauman, the reunion brings with it the possibility of finally attracting the attention of the class heartthrob, Pete Decker. For the ever self-reliant, ever left-out Mary Alice Mayhew, it’s a chance to reexamine a painful past. For Lester Heseenpfeffer, a veterinarian and widower, it is the hope of talking shop with a fellow vet—or at least that’s what he tells himself. For Candy Armstrong, the class beauty, it’s the hope of finding friendship before it is too late.
As Dorothy, Mary Alice, Lester, Candy, and the other classmates converge for the reunion dinner, four decades melt away: Desires and personalities from their youth reemerge, and new discoveries are made. For so much has happened to them all. And so much can still happen.
In this beautiful novel, Elizabeth Berg deftly weaves together stories of roads taken and not taken, choices made and opportunities missed, and thepossibilities of second chances.


Four unforgettable characters beckon you into this spellbinding new novel from the author of last year's explosive New York Times best seller The Senator's Wife. First among them is Wilhelmina--Billy--Gertz, small as a child, fiercely independent, powerfully committed to her work as a playwright. The novel centers around her play, The Lake Shore Limited, about the terrorist bombing of that train--and about a man waiting to hear the fate of his estranged wife who is traveling on it. How Billy comes to write the play out of her own painful conflicts and ambivalence, how it is then created anew by the actors and the director, how the performance itself touches and changes the other characters' lives--these form the vital core of a story that drives the novel compulsively forward.There's not a wasted word in this tour de force about the dislocations wrought in our lives by accidents of fate and time, and about how we try to make peace with whom we...

Sixteen-year-old Katya Spivak is out for a walk on the gracious streets of Bayhead Harbor with her two summer babysitting charges when she’s approached by silver-haired, elegant Marcus Kidder. At first his interest in her seems harmless, even pleasant; like his name, a sort of gentle joke. His beautiful home, the children’s books he’s written, his classical music, the marvelous art in his study, his lavish presents to her — Mr. Kidder’s life couldn’t be more different from Katya’s drab working-class existence back home in South Jersey, or more enticing. But by degrees, almost imperceptibly, something changes, and posing for Mr. Kidder’s new painting isn’t the lighthearted endeavor it once was. What does he really want from her? And how far will he go to get it?
In the tradition of Oates’s classic story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" A Fair Maiden is an unsettling, ambiguous tale of desire and control.


Library Journal
Set at a remote military base in the Iraqi desert, this debut novel unsparingly portrays the experience of fighting in the Iraq War. Private Toby Durrant is on a routine mission when his convoy gets ambushed. After the shooting has stopped, Durrant briefly leaves his vehicle to get sick. This seemingly minor infraction draws him into a complex conspiracy that involves the base's senior officers, an Iraqi translator, and many of his fellow soldiers. Zimmerman is particularly effective at developing his characters and portraying the intense relationships that can develop between soldiers in wartime, but the plot becomes increasingly convoluted and improbable as it nears resolution. VERDICT Combining elements of the suspense and military combat genres, this novel has considerable strengths but is ultimately marred by a disappointing and somewhat incoherent ending. Still, there may be interest, especially with male readers, as novels about the current war are few and far between.—Douglas Southard, CRA International, Boston

Apr 21, 2010

Things To Do!

Thursday, April 22nd at 3:30--Earth Day Party! Let's celebrate mud, mud puddles, trees, dandelions, animals, beaches, waves...oh, everything, I guess! Happy Earth Day :) We're going to have coloring sheets and idea booklets, worm-and-dirt treats and we're going to watch "Fern Gully". You're invited!

Wondering what to do during April Vacation Week?

Monday, April 26th 1-5pm—Craft Buffet
No patterns, no rules, no particular thing you're supposed to end up. Craft supplies will be out on the table and your imagination is the only guide. Be creative, be messy, have fun!

Tuesday, April 27th 1-3pm: Wii For All!
Yup, just what it sounds like! We have lots of Wii games, four controllers and wheels and a big screen to watch everyone else play. Come out and play :) Oh yes, snacks are included.

Thursday, April 29th 6pm: Movie Time: Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit!
Laugh yourself silly with Wallace and Gromit--the best claymation creatures to hit the big screen! Free popcorn.

Friday, April 30th 1-5pm: Arbor Day Celebration
Be a treehugger, at least for one day! Ok, if that doesn't sound like fun, how about pounding leaves with a mallet? We're going to make leaf prints! Bring your own WHITE t-shirt if you want, or you can use the material we have here--make pretty and unique leaf prints on fabric you can use for whatever you want. Oh yes, and we're having leaf cookies too :)

Apr 16, 2010

new graphic novels, comics and manga




In a distant future where sentient humanoid robots pass for human, someone or some thing is out to destroy the seven great robots of the world. Europol’s top detective Gesicht is assigned to investigate these mysterious robot serial murders—the only catch is that he himself is one of the seven targets.



Apr 13, 2010

new music



































































new movies






























Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the sixteen-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her "power" to sense dead bodies—or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes the dead leave behind in the world . . . and the imprints that attach to their killers.
Violet has never considered her strange talent to be a gift; it mostly just led her to find dead birds her cat left for her. But now that a serial killer is terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he's claimed haunt her daily, Violet realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.
Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved by her hope that Jay's intentions are much more than friendly. But even as she's falling intensely in love, Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering a killer . . . and becoming his prey herself.


When Wayland North brings rain to a region that's been dry for over ten years, he's promised anything he'd like as a reward. He chooses the village elder's daughter, sixteen-year-old Sydelle Mirabel, who is a skilled weaver and has an unusual knack for repairing his magical cloaks. Though Sydelle has dreamt of escaping her home, she's hurt that her parents relinquish her so freely and finds herself awed and afraid of the slightly ragtag wizard who is unlike any of the men of magic in the tales she's heard. Still, she is drawn to this mysterious man who is fiercely protective of her and so reluctant to share his own past.
The pair rushes toward the capital, intent to stop an imminent war, pursued by Reuel Dorwan (a dark wizard who has taken a keen interest in Sydelle) and plagued by unusually wild weather. But the sudden earthquakes and freak snowstorms may not be a coincidence. As Sydelle discovers North's dark secret and the reason for his interest in her and learns to master her own mysterious power, it becomes increasingly clear that the fate of the kingdom rests in her fingertips. She will either be a savior, weaving together the frayed bonds between Saldorra and Auster, or the disastrous force that destroys both kingdoms forever.

My name is Chloe Saunders. I'm fifteen, and I would love to be normal.
But normal is one thing I'm not.
For one thing, I'm having these feelings for a certain antisocial werewolf and his sweet-tempered brother—who just happens to be a sorcerer—but, between you and me, I'm leaning toward the werewolf.
Not normal.
My friends and I are also on the run from an evil corporation that wants to get rid of us—permanently.
Definitely not normal.
And finally, I'm a genetically altered necro-mancer who can raise the dead, rotting corpses and all, without even trying.
As far away from normal as it gets.


Veronica Severance feels cut off from the world. Forced to move from the city to rural Oregon with her parents, she is haunted by loneliness and by the chilling sounds of the Santiam, the river that runs through her backyard.Through the fog of isolation, Ronnie finds herself becoming close with Karen, a young girl who she babysits. But when she discovers Karen's body on the banks of the Santiam, the victim of a supposed accident, Ronnie feels compelled to uncover the truth.As she becomes increasingly obsessed with solving Karen's death, Ronnie is led deeper and deeper into the woods surrounding the river and to the dark secret hidden within its midst.The River is a darkly atmospheric story of murder, isolation, obsession and dark secrets that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page.



Kendra, fifteen, hasn't felt safe since she began to recall devastating memories of childhood sexual abuse, especially because she still can't remember the most important detail-- her abuser's identity. Frightened, Kendra believes someone is always watching and following her, leaving menacing messages only she understands. If she lets her guard down even for a minute, it could cost Kendra her life. To relieve the pressure, Kendra cuts; aside from her brilliantly expressive artwork, it's her only way of coping. Since her own mother is too self-absorbed to hear her cries for help, Kendra finds support in others instead: from her therapist and her art teacher, from Sandy, the close family friend who encourages her artwork, and from Meghan, the classmate who's becoming a friend and maybe more. But the truth about Kendra's abuse is just waiting to explode, with startling unforeseen consequences. Scars is the unforgettable story of one girl's frightening path to the truth




new biographies

Considered to be "as monumental -- and enigmatic -- a legend as American sport has ever seen" (Sports Illustrated), Willie Mays is arguably the greatest player in baseball history, still revered for the passion he brought to the game. He began as a teenager in the Negro Leagues, became a cult hero in New York, and was the headliner in Major League Baseball's bold expansion to California. With 3,283 hits, 660 home runs, and 338 stolen bases, he was a blend of power, speed, and stylistic bravado that enraptured fans for more than two decades. Now, in the first biography authorized by and written with the cooperation of Willie Mays, James Hirsch reveals the man behind the player.
Willie is perhaps best known for "The Catch" -- his breathtaking over-the-shoulder grab in the 1954 World Series. But he was a transcendent figure who received standing ovations in enemy stadiums and who, during the turbulent civil rights era, urged understanding and reconciliation. More than his records, his legacy is defined by the pure joy that he brought to fans and the loving memories that have been passed to future generations so they might know the magic and beauty of the game. With meticulous research, and drawing on interviews with Mays himself as well as with close friends, family, and teammates, Hirsch presents a complex portrait of one of America's most significant cultural icons.

new nonfiction

This is the story of a small group of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s fabled 502nd Infantry Regiment—a unit known as “the Black Heart Brigade.” Deployed in late 2005 to Iraq’s so-called Triangle of Death, a veritable meat grinder just south of Baghdad, the Black Hearts found themselves in arguably the country’s most dangerous location at its most dangerous time. Hit by near-daily mortars, gunfire, and roadside bomb attacks, suffering from a particularly heavy death toll, and enduring a chronic breakdown in leadership, members of one Black Heart platoon—1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion—descended, over their year-long tour of duty, into a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse, and brutality.Four 1st Platoon soldiers would perpetrate one of the most heinous war crimes U.S. forces have committed during the Iraq War—the rape of a fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl and the cold-blooded execution of her and her family. Three other 1st Platoon soldiers would be overrun at a remote outpost—one killed immediately and two taken from the scene, their mutilated corpses found days later booby-trapped with explosives.Black Hearts is an unflinching account of the epic, tragic deployment of 1st Platoon. Drawing on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with Black Heart soldiers and first-hand reporting from the Triangle of Death, Black Hearts is a timeless story about men in combat and the fragility of character in the savage crucible of warfare. But it is also a timely warning of new dangers emerging in the way American soldiers are led on the battlefields of the twenty-firstcentury
Everyone knows that baseball is a game of intricate regulations, but it turns out to be even more complicated than we realize. What truly governs the Major League game is a set of unwritten rules, some of which are openly discussed (don’t steal a base with a big lead late in the game), and some of which only a minority of players are even aware of (don’t cross between the catcher and the pitcher on the way to the batter’s box). In The Baseball Codes, old-timers and all-time greats share their insights into the game’s most hallowed—and least known—traditions. For the learned and the casual baseball fan alike, the result is illuminating and thoroughly entertaining. At the heart of this book are incredible and often hilarious stories involving national heroes (like Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays) and notorious headhunters (like Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale) in a century-long series of confrontations over respect, honor, and the soul of the game. With The Baseball Codes, we see for the first time the game as it’s actually played, through the eyes of the players on the field. With rollicking stories from the past and new perspectives on baseball’s informal rulebook, The Baseball Codes is a must for every fan.

Bestselling author A. E. Hotchner's intimate account of his 52-year friendship with his pal Paul Newman.A. E. Hotchner first met Paul Newman in 1956 when the then relatively unknown actor assumed the lead role in Hotchner's first television play, based on an Ernest Hemingway story. The project elevated both men from relative obscurity to recognition, and began a close and trusting friendship that lasted until Newman's death in 2008.In A Friendship, Hotchner presents a complicated, unpredictable, fun-loving, talented man, and takes the reader along on their adventures. The pair traveled extensively, skippered a succession of bizarre boats, confounded the business world, scored triumphs on the stage, and sustained their friendship through good times and bad. Most notably, they started Newman's Own as a prank and watched it morph into a major enterprise that has given its $260 million in profit to charities including the Hole in the Wall Camps...


From the moment these two legendary players took the court on opposing sides, they engaged in a fierce physical and psychological battle. In Celtic green was Larry Bird, the hick from French Lick with laser-beam focus, relentless determination, and a deadly jump shot, a player who demanded excellence from everyone around him. Magic Johnson was Mr. Showtime, a magnetic personality with all the right moves. Young, indomitable, he was a pied piper in purple and gold. Their uncommonly competitive relationship came to symbolize the most thrilling rivalry in the NBA—East vs. West, physical vs. finesse, old school vs. Showtime, even white vs. black. Each pushed the other to greatness, and together Bird and Johnson collected eight NBA Championships and six MVP awards, helping to save a floundering NBA. At the start they were bitter rivals, but along the way they became lifelong friends.With intimate detail, When the Game Was Ours reveals for the first time the inner workings of two players dead set on besting each other. From the heady days of trading championships to the darker days of injury and illness, we come to understand Larry’s obsessive devotion to winning and how his demons drove him on the court. We hear him talk with candor about playing through chronic pain. In Magic we see a star struggle with the sting of defeat, not just as a player but as a team leader. When he learns he has contracted HIV we hear in his own words how that devastating news affected his relationships in basketball and beyond. But always, we see both these men prevail.


"Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important." —Barbara KingsolverTwenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth.That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defend—think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions it will take to transform our energy systems. But the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer.Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back—on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change—fundamental change—is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.




From the Publisher
When John D’Agata helps his mother move to Las Vegas one summer, he begins to follow a story about the federal government’s plan to store high-level nuclear waste at a place called Yucca Mountain, a desert range near the city of Las Vegas. Bearing witness to the parade of scientific, cultural, and political facts that give shape to Yucca’s story, D’Agata keeps the six tenets of reporting in mind—Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How—arranging his own investigation around each vital question.Yet as the contradictions inherent in Yucca’s story are revealed, D’Agata’s investigation turns inevitably personal. He finds himself investigating the death of a teenager who jumps off the tower of the Stratosphere Hotel, a boy whom D’Agata believes he spoke with before his suicide.Here is the work of a penetrating thinker whose startling portrait of a mountain in the desert compels a reexamination of the future of human life.





A brilliant account—character-rich and darkly humorous—of how the U.S. economy was driven over the cliff.



















































The All-in-One Resource for Infrastructure Jobs, Green Careers, Reliable Blue-Collar Work, and More!



Blue Collar and Proud of It gives you the information you need to pursue a stable, enjoyable, well-paying job—one that makes a difference every day in your community. Whether you're just out of high school, have been a victim of downsizing, or are looking for a new direction, Lamacchia explains all the options, outlines the necessary training, and delivers true stories of people who have made their own way in the blue-collar world. Discover a wealth of opportunities, including:
• carpentry • machinery • roofing • electricians • truck drivers • green construction • Broadband technicians • welding • ironworkers • solar panel installation • water conservation








Deborah Blum, writing with the high style and skill for suspense that is characteristic of the very best mystery fiction, shares the untold story of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. In The Poisoner's Handbook Blum draws from highly original research to track the fascinating, perilous days when a pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime.



















The average person will have at least three career changes and ten different jobs by age thirty-eight. In this era of downsizing and outsourcing, you can never be sure your job will still exist in five years- or five weeks. So you'd better think of your career as a perpetual job search. That demands a passion for lifetime learning and the skills for relentless and effective networking.
Mackay shows you how to be at your best when things are at their worst. His hard-hitting topics include:
- beating rejection before it beats you - warning signals that you might be losing your job - acing interviews - negotiating the job you want not the job they offer - taking advantage of the way bosses make hiring decisions - blending the latest contact tools with old-fashioned face-to-face networking
Uplifting, amusing, and jam-packed with proven tips, Use Your Head toGet Your Foot in the Door will guide you through the toughest job market in decades. It's also the definitive A-to-Z career resource for the rest of your life.



No matter how sophisticated or wealthy or broke or enlightened you are, how you eat tells all.
If you suffer about your relationship with food — you eat too much or too little, think about what you will eat constantly or try not to think about it at all — you can be free. Just look down at your plate. The answers are there. Don't run. Look. Because when we welcome what we most want to avoid, we contact the part of ourselves that is fresh and alive. We touch the life we truly want and evoke divinity itself.

Apr 1, 2010

Great Stone Face Party with Sarah Prineas











Fourth, fifth and sixth graders are invited to the Great Stone Face Party with Sarah Prineas! Each year, 25 books are nominated for the statewide Great Stone Face Award and only 4-6th graders are allowed to make the final choice. So we'll have snacks and treats, vote for the best and worst books and visit with one of the GSF nominee authors--Sarah Prineas. Her book, "The Magic Thief" is on at least four other state awards lists, it is a National Council of Teachers of English Notable Book and it is a Cybil Awards finalist! Not only that, it's great fun to read and there's more--it's the first of a series. Ms. Prineas will join us via Skype, so she and the kids will be able to see and talk to each other, ask questions, discuss her book and its sequel and get a feel for what it's like to be an author.

Friday, April 16th at 3:30.