Pages and Stages at the Library!

UNH's theatre troupe, Mask and Dagger, will be bringing Pages and Stages to the library this week! We spent the first two weeks at Seabrook Elementary, now we're moving into the library.

Mask & Dagger’s Storytelling Outreach Program consists of enthusiastic and family-friendly students with a passion for sharing literature with youth. Our storytellers incorporate the use of songs, props, puppets, hands-on participation and creative role play to bring stories to life for children (and parents) of all ages!

Wednesdays, Mar. 24 and 31 at 4pm in the Meeting Room.

new teen books

Three years ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. It's gotten her into a few scrapes. Her non-gifted mother has been as supportive as possible, consulting Sophie's estranged father-an elusive European warlock-only when necessary. But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, it's her dad who decides her punishment: exile to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.By the end of her first day among fellow freak-teens, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire on campus. Worse, Sophie soon learns that a mysterious predator has been attacking students, and her only friend is the number-one suspect.As a series of blood-curdling mysteries starts to converge, Sophie prepares for the biggest threat of all: an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her.

Things have taken a darker turn for the half-human teenager with an appetite for blood. Joss, a vampire slayer and Vlad’s former friend, has moved back to Bathory. A mysterious and powerful new vampire, Dorian, appears with a shocking secret and an overwhelming desire to drink Vlad’s blood. And Vlad’s arch enemy, D’Ablo, has a sinister plan to eliminate Vlad once and for all. With death threatening from every angle, Vlad will have to use every ounce of his skill and training to survive, but nothing can prepare him for what awaits him in the end.

Bianca will risk everything to be with Lucas.
After escaping from Evernight Academy, the vampire boarding school where they met, Bianca and Lucas take refuge with Black Cross, a fanatical group of vampire hunters. Bianca must hide her supernatural heritage or risk certain death at their hands. But when Black Cross captures her friend—the vampire Balthazar—hiding is no longer an option.
Soon, Bianca and Lucas are on the run again, pursued not only by Black Cross, but by the powerful leaders of Evernight. Yet no matter how far they travel, Bianca can't escape her destiny.
Bianca has always believed their love could survive anything . . . but can it survive what's to come?

Max and the Flock are flying high over Africa, but this time they're not alone. A sky full of cargo planes accompanies the team as they bring much-needed aid to the continent's poverty stricken regions. Among the volunteers is the mission's benefactor–the mysterious billionaire, Dr. Hans Gunther-Hagen. Max is intrigued by his generosity, but there's also something about him–and his intense scrutiny of the Flock–that makes her nervous.
But Dr. Hans isn't the only puzzling thing about their trip. The Flock also receives a cryptic message from a young girl, who tells them, "The sky will fall." Max and the Flock are ready to return home, still unable to make sense of her statement. But the surprises don't end with their departure, and something unbelievably momentous shakes up the Flock–pushing Max and Fang closer than ever. Will the team be able to stick together through the chaos?

On the run . . .
Elena Gilbert's love, the vampire Stefan Salvatore, has been captured and imprisoned by demonic spirits who are wreaking havoc in Fell's Church. While her friends Bonnie and Meredith explore the evil that has taken over their town, Elena goes in search of Stefan.
In order to find him, she entrusts her life to Stefan's brother, Damon Salvatore, the handsome but deadly vampire who wants Elena, body and soul. Along with her childhood friend Matt, they set out for the slums of the Dark Dimension, where Stefan is being held captive. It is rumored to be a world where vampires and demons roam free, but humans must live enslaved to their supernatural masters. . . .
Elena will stop at nothing to free Stefan. Yet with each passing day the tension between Elena and Damon grows, and she is faced with a terrible decision: Which brother does she really want?
Back in Fell's Church, Bonnie and Meredith have made some dire discoveries. They hastily try to follow Elena and warn her -- only to be caught up in Elena's most dangerous adventure yet.


"I will go."
Rather than follow her family's restrictive rules, centaur Brighid chose to set out on her own to make friends and form relationships with humans as well as centaurs.
Now she's facing her toughest challenge yet. While helping guide home a grieving human—Cuchulainn, her friend Elphame's brother—Brighid finds herself beginning to care for him. An emotion forbidden by her clan.
To add to her troubles, the Great Goddess has awoken the power of the Shaman within Brighid—the first centaur so blessed in ages. And just as she's torn between taking up a power she never expected and a love she's afraid to admit to, Brighid receives a vision of a tragedy that might destroy everyone she's ever cared about….

I was marked from birth as belonging to the Goddess Epona--but that didn't make my life easy. Because of my "blessings," I was set apart, worshipped, unable to make real connections with others. Then came the Feeling, and with it a glimpse of my destiny. It led me to the MacCallen castle of legend, deserted since the terrible Fomorian war.
I followed the wordless call to breathe new life into a place long dead, but I didn't realize there were dark remnants of the war lingering in the nearby forest--victims and survivors who remained hidden. Others marked as different, powerful. Feared.
My choice was now twofold. I could keep to the happiness and safety of my newfound home, or I could choose a path that led to something more terrible, more dangerous, more thrilling than anything I'd ever expected.
And in that future I might never be alone again. . .

Pat and Misty

I'm very sorry to announce that Pat and Misty won't be joining us again for a while. Circumstances beyond her control have forced Pat into a schedule that doesn't allow her to bring Misty to the library. If that schedule changes, they will be back. In the meantime, Paws 4 Reading will continue with Aspen.

St. Patrick's Day

On Wednesday, March 17th, there has been a slight change of plans: Instead of Pages and Stages, we will have Craft and Cake!
At 3:30, we'll be making shamrock mice (which you can turn into fridge magnets if you like) and then enjoying a cake, generously given to us by That's Very Fun!

Oh, and don't forget to wear green; you know what happens if you don't... ;)-

Story Times!

Story Times will begin March 16th at the Seabrook Library and will continue through April. The following sessions are scheduled:

Tuesday, 10:30am. 1-2 year olds, Toddlers Story Time.
Wednesday, 3:00pm. 4-6 year olds, Runners Story Time.
Thursday, 11:00am. 2-3 year olds, Walkers with Parents Story Time.
Thursday, 2:00pm. 2-4 year olds, Walkers Story Time.
Friday, 11:00am. 3-4 year olds, Independent Walkers Story Time.

Each Story Time is different:
The Toddlers group will have mostly songs and fingerplays or rhymes, with a very simple book, maybe two. Then the little ones will play while the grown-ups have coffee and tea and a little time to socialize.
The Walkers with Parents Story Time is slightly more advanced, with some songs and fingerplays, but we’ll also introduce picture books and ask a few simple questions. Instead of play time, this group will make a small craft at the end.
Please note a new Story Time has been added! The afternoon Walkers session will accommodate a slightly wider age range and follow the same format as the Walkers with Parents Story Time.
Independent Walkers will follow the same format, but they will come in on their own while their parents have a chance to select their own library materials. The Runners group will have a couple songs or fingerplays, but most of the time will be spent reading and talking about the stories while their parents have a chance to select their own materials. They will also have a craft at the end.

There will be a different theme each week, from favorites to Earth Day, etc. Our space is limited, so please call to sign up—these limits exist not only because of space but also so that each child will have the best Story Time experience possible.
Please note that a Story Time has been added due to heavily increased attendance—please respect this effort by signing up for a Story Time and attending that Story Time consistently.

Call 474-2044 and ask for Lisa to sign up. You can also e-mail lmichaud@sealib.org.

new nonfiction

With over 280 incredibly delicious flavorful 5-ingredient, 150 minute recipes at your fingertips, you'll discover how simple it is to serve a healthful home-cooked meal on a busy weeknight. Our Test Kitchens experts have paired easy side dishes and desserts with superfast entrées to create over 160 mouthwatering menus.Organized by easy-to-use food categories, including Soups, Sandwiches, Salads, Meatless Main Dishes, Fish and Shellfish, Meats, and Poultry, Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast offers recipes that are great for you and taste great, too!With short ingredient lists, straightforward procedures, fresh ingredients, and delicious results, the recipes and meals in this cookbook will be the most requested, often-repeated solutions in your weeknight repertoire.


Throughout her life, Alexandra Penney's worst fear was becoming a bag lady. Even as she worked several jobs while raising a son as a single mother, wrote a multimillion-dollar bestselling advice book, and became editor in chief of Self magazine, she was haunted by the image of herself alone, bankrupt, and living on the street. She even went to therapy in an attempt to alleviate the nagging in her mind that told her that all she had worked for could crumble.
And then, one day, that's exactly what happened. Alexandra Penney had taken a friend's advice and invested nearly everything she had ever earned with Bernie Madoff. So one day she was successful and wealthy; the next she had almost nothing. Suddenly, at an age when many Americans retire, Penney saw her worst nightmares coming true.
Entertaining and inspiring, The Bag Lady Papers chronicles Penney's struggle to cope with the devastating financial and emotional fallout of being cheated out of her life...

A secret buried for centuriesThrust onto Egypt's most powerful throne at the age of nine, King Tut's reign was fiercely debated from the outset. Behind the palace's veil of prosperity, bitter rivalries and jealousy flourished among the Boy King's most trusted advisors, and after only nine years, King Tut suddenly perished, his name purged from Egyptian history. To this day, his death remains shrouded in controversy. The keys to an unsolved mysteryEnchanted by the ruler's tragic story and hoping to unlock the answers to the 3,000 year-old mystery, Howard Carter made it his life's mission to uncover the pharaoh's hidden tomb. He began his search in 1907, but encountered countless setbacks and dead-ends before he finally, uncovered the long-lost crypt. The clues point to murderNow, in The Murder of King Tut, James Patterson and Martin Dugard dig through stacks of evidence—X-rays, Carter's files, forensic clues, and stories told through the ages—to arrive at their own account of King Tut's life and death. The result is an exhilarating true crime tale of intrigue, passion, and betrayal that casts fresh light on the oldest mystery of all.

The underside of modern American politics -- raw ambition, manipulation, and deception -- are revealed in detail by Andrew Young's riveting account of a presidential hopeful's meteoric rise and scandalous fall. Like a non-fiction version of All the King's Men, The Politician offers a truly disturbing, even shocking perspective on the risks taken and tactics employed by a man determined to rule the most powerful nation on earth. Idealistic and ambitious, Andrew Young volunteered for the John Edwards campaign for Senate in 1998 and quickly became the candidate's right hand man. As the senator became a national star, Young's responsibilities grew. For a decade he was this politician's confidant and he was assured he was 'like family." In time, however, Young was drawn into a series of questionable assignments that culminated with Edwards asking him to help conceal the Senator's ongoing adultery. Days before the 2008 presidential primaries began, Young gained international notoriety when he told the world that he was the father of a child being carried by a woman named Rielle Hunter, who was actually the senator's mistress. While Young began a life on the run, hiding from the press with his family and alleged mistress, John Edwards continued to pursue the presidency and then the Vice Presidency in the future Obama administration.Young had been the senator's closest aide and most trusted friend. He believed that John Edwards could be a great president, and was assured throughout the cover-up that his boss and friend would ultimately step forward to both tell the truth and protect his aide's career. Neither promise was kept. Not only a moving personal account of Andrew Young'spolitical education, THE POLITICIAN offers a look at the trajectory which made John Edwards the ideal Democratic candidate for president, and the hubris which brought him down, leaving his career, his marriage, and his dreams in ashes.


"This shit would be really interesting if we weren't in the middle of it."-Barack Obama, September 2008 In 2008, the presidential election became blockbuster entertainment. Everyone was watching as the race for the White House unfolded like something from the realm of fiction. The meteoric rise and historic triumph of Barack Obama. The shocking fall of the House of Clinton-and the improbable resurrection of Hillary as Obama's partner and America's face to the world. The mercurial performance of John McCain and the mesmerizing emergence of Sarah Palin. But despite the wall-to-wall media coverage of this spellbinding drama, remarkably little of the real story behind the headlines has yet been told. In Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, two of the country's leading political reporters, use their unrivaled access to pull back the curtain on the Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Palin campaigns. How did Obama convince himself that, despite the thinness of his résumé, he could somehow beat the odds to become the nation's first African American president? How did the tumultuous relationship between the Clintons shape-and warp-Hillary's supposedly unstoppable bid? What was behind her husband's furious outbursts and devastating political miscalculations? Why did McCain make the novice governor of Alaska his running mate? And was Palin merely painfully out of her depth-or troubled in more serious ways? Game Change answers those questions and more, laying bare the secret history of the 2008 campaign. Heilemann and Halperin take us inside the Obama machine, where staffers referred to the candidate as "Black Jesus." They unearth the quiet conspiracyin the U.S. Senate to prod Obama into the race, driven in part by the fears of senior Democrats that Bill Clinton's personal life might cripple Hillary's presidential prospects. They expose the twisted tale of John Edwards's affair with Rielle Hunter, the truth behind the downfall of Rudy Giuliani, and the doubts of those responsible for vetting Palin about her readiness for the Republican ticket-along with the McCain campaign staff's worries about her fitness for office. And they reveal how, in an emotional late-night phone call, Obama succeeded in wooing Clinton, despite her staunch resistance, to become his secretary of state. Based on hundreds of interviews with the people who lived the story, Game Change is a reportorial tour de force that reads like a fast-paced novel. Character driven and dialogue rich, replete with extravagantly detailed scenes, this is the occasionally shocking, often hilarious, ultimately definitive account of the campaign of a lifetime.

In Crossing Over—the book—John brings his readers with him on the extraordinary journey that has been his life since his New York Times bestseller One Last Time was published in 1998. In the style of his TV show and personal appearances—poignant, funny, and remarkably candid—John deals head-on with the controversial issues he has confronted on his voyage as a psychic medium. Readers might be surprised to learn that it hasn't always been smooth sailing. On the way to becoming an internationally celebrated medium, John has had to learn his own lessons about the meaning of his work and about the motivations of some of the people he has met on his path.

new fiction

DON DELILLO HAS BEEN "WEIRDLY PROPHETIC about twenty-first-century America" (The New York Times Book Review). In his earlier novels, he has written about conspiracy theory, the Cold War and global terrorism. Now, in Point Omega, he looks into the mind and heart of a "defense intellectual," one of the men involved in the management of the country's war machine.
Richard Elster was a scholar — an outsider — when he was called to a meeting with government war planners, asked to apply "ideas and principles to such matters as troop deployment and counterinsurgency."
We see Elster at the end of his service. He has retreated to the desert, "somewhere south of nowhere," in search of space and geologic time. There he is joined by a filmmaker, Jim Finley, intent on documenting his experience. Finley wants to persuade Elster to make a one-take film, Elster its single character — "Just a man and a wall."
Weeks later, Elster's daughter Jessica visits — an "otherworldly" woman from New York, who dramatically alters the dynamic of the story. The three of them talk, train their binoculars on the landscape and build an odd, tender intimacy, something like a family. Then a devastating event throws everything into question.
In this compact and powerful novel, it is finally a lingering human mystery that haunts the landscape of desert and mind.


On a dusty highway just north of the United States/Mexico border, a man named Mike Finnegan is struck by a fast-moving vehicle and flung into the desert. Miraculously, he survives and winds up in a hospital in the tiny border town of Buenavista, seemingly in full possession of his faculties — including the eerie ability to understand events happening well outside the view from his hospital bed.Charlie Hood joins a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms task force patrolling the “iron river,” where illegal guns flow from United States dealers to the Mexican drug business. Hood is part of a stakeout team when a federal officer’s bullet kills an innocent boy. The boy happens to be the son of Benjamin Armenta, head of the Gulf Cartel and one of the most violent men in the world. Armenta’s thirst for vengeance even in routine business matters is well known. His hired killers are credited with many of the murders and beheadings of the fifteen thousand people who have died in the cartel wars along the border in recent years. Hood and ATF brace themselves for brute vengeance.As this unthinkable violence leaks from Mexico into the United States, and as Finnegan’s predictive powers become even stranger and stronger, Charlie Hood works to understand the mysterious forces fighting for control of this tiny border town, forces that may have the power to slow the iron river — and to save the ATF men he has come to think of as his brothers.

At Princeton University, a famed geneticist dies inside a biohazard lab. In Rome, a Vatican archaeologist is found dead in St. Peter's Basilica. In Africa, a U.S. senator's son is slain outside a Red Cross camp. The three murders on three continents bear a horrifying connection: all the victims are marked by a Druidic pagan cross burned into their flesh.
The bizarre murders thrust Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma Force into a race against time to solve a riddle going back centuries, to a ghastly crime against humanity hidden within a cryptic medieval codex.
Aided by two women from his past--one his ex-lover, the other his new partner--Gray must piece together the horrifying truth. But the revelations come at a high cost, and to save the future, Gray will have to sacrifice one of the women at his side.
That alone might not be enough, as the true path to salvation is revealed in a dark prophecy of doom...

Four famed ’60s radicals are gunned down at long range by a sniper. Under enormous media scrutiny, the FBI quickly concludes that Marine war hero Carl Hitchcock, whose ninety-three kills were considered the leading body count tally among American marksman in Vietnam, was the shooter. But as the Bureau, led by Special Agent Nick Memphis, bears down, Hitchcock commits suicide. In closing out the investigation, Nick discovers a case made in heaven: everything fits, from timeline, ballistics, and forensics to motive, means, and opportunity. Maybe it’s a little too perfect.Nick asks his friend, the retired Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger, to examine the data. Using a skill set no other man on earth possesses, Swagger soon discovers unseen anomalies and gradually begins to unravel a sophisticated conspiracy—one that would require the highest level of warcraft by the most superb special operations professionals.Swagger soon closes in, and those responsible will stop at nothing to take him out. But these heavily armed men make the mistake of thinking they are hunting Bob, when he is, in fact, hunting them. And when Swagger and the last of his antagonists finally face each other, reenacting a classic ritual of arms, it is clear that at times there’s nothing more necessary than a good man with a gun and the guts to use it.

On the eve of Marcus Cicero's inauguration as consul of Rome, the grisly death of a boy sends ripples of fear through a city already wracked by civil unrest, crime, and debauchery of every kind. Felled by a hammer, his throat slit and his organs removed, the young slave appears to have been offered as a human sacrifice, forbidden as an abomination in the Roman Republic. For Cicero, the ill forebodings of this hideous murder only increase his frustrations and the dangers he already faces as Rome's leader: elected by the people but despised by the heads of the two rival camps, the patricians and populists.
Caught in a political shell game that leaves him forever putting out fires only to have them ignite elsewhere, Cicero plays both for the future of the republic and his very life. There is a plot to assassinate Cicero, abetted by a rising young star of the Roman senate named Gaius Julius Caesar — and it will take all the embattled consul's wit, strength, and force of will to stop it and keep Rome from becoming a dictatorship.
In this second novel of his Roman trilogy, following the bestselling Imperium, Robert Harris once again weaves a compelling and historically accurate tale of intrigue told in the wise and compassionate voice of Cicero's slave and private secretary, Tiro. In the manner of I, Claudius, Harris vividly evokes ancient Rome and its politics for today's readers, documenting a world not unlike our own — where the impulse toward dominance competes with the risk of overreach, where high-minded ideals can be a liability, and where someone is always waiting in the wings for a chance to set the world on fire.

In this heartfelt and incisive new novel, Danielle Steel celebrates the virtues of unconventional beauty while exploring deeply resonant issues of weight, self-image, sisterhood, and family. A chubby little girl with blond hair, blue eyes, and ordinary looks, Victoria Dawson has always felt out of place in her family, especially in body-conscious L.A. Her father, Jim, is tall and slender, and her mother, Christina, is a fine-boned, dark-haired beauty. Both are self-centered, outspoken, and disappointed by their daughter’s looks. When Victoria is six, she sees a photograph of Queen Victoria, and her father has always said she looks just like her. After the birth of Victoria’s perfect younger sister, Gracie, her father liked to refer to his firstborn as “our tester cake.” With Gracie, everyone agreed that Jim and Christina got it right.