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Fancy Nancy’s Favorite Fancy Words ($12.99)
by Jane O’Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser is a unique vocabulary building alphabet book. Anyone who has read the previous
books in this series knows that Fancy Nancy loves all things fancy – be they
all items (a fancy word for things) French, glittery gems, or cavorting canines. Little ones will eagerly soak up the enormous
fancy words that Nancy introduces in her inimitable style, with flair, panache and humor.
Little Hoot (12.99) is by Amy Krouse Rosenthal,
with illustrations by Jen Corace. They turn the bedtime battle on its head, just as they did the eat-your-vegetables dilemma
in last year's surprise hit, Little Pea. Little Owl just wants to go to bed early, like all his
friends. But Mama and Papa Owl insist that he stay up all night and play...that's what owls do. Pre-schoolers and their parents
will chuckle over the familiar antics and complaints shown under a new light.
THE
WILLOUGHBYS (16.00) by Lois Lowry pays homage to those old-fashioned tales of bright, resourceful orphans who always
manage to land on their feet, no matter what life throws at them. Tim, Barnaby A, Barnaby B (identical twins with identical
names) and Jane feel they should probably be orphans…like the characters in the old-fashioned books they read. Drawing on several tales all literate readers will recognize, they come up with a diabolical
plot to turn themselves into ’worthy and deserving orphans.’ Unbeknownst to them, their impatient, irascible father
and indolent, ill-tempered mother are hatching their own despicable plan, inspired by that famous tale, HANSEL
AND GRETEL, to rid themselves of the children. A la Lemony Snicket,
the intelligent, winsome orphans will win the day in this intelligent, hilarious parody of those
preachy tales of the past.
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Searching for Paradise in Parker, PA (22.00) by Kris Radish
is a hoot! After 28 years of marriage, Addy Lipton has had it!
Her husband, Lucky, has a garage full of junk she calls the Kingdom of Krap and she’s “this close” to ramming her car right through it.
She can barely remember what she ever saw in him anyway and everything about him makes her angry. Then he comes home with two tickets to Costa Rica which he won by working overtime to make more sales than
any of his fellow workers and Addy thinks maybe ten days in paradise might be just what their marriage
needs. Only, while loading the car, Lucky fractures his back and now she has
to put up with him parked indefinitely on her couch. Things go from bad to worse
as she and her sister and their friends ultimately pit the women of Parker against the men of same. Separation, counseling (both professional and do-it-yourself from friends), even a lawyer with divorce
papers and ultimately what you might call all-out war between the sexes—and the plot rolls on! It’s laugh-out-loud funny with a strong flavor of soul searching thrown in for good measure. It’s a hoot!
The Translator (23.00) by Daoud Hari
(as told to Dennis Michael Burke and Megan McKenna) is a powerful condemnation of the genocide continuing for the last five
years in the Darfur region of the Sudan. Hari saw
his village attacked, his family decimated and dispersed. He escaped and helped others escape to Chad where
they lived in a refugee settlement. When he realized his high school education in languages was helpful
in translating for American and British reporters he offered to take them into Darfur even though
he knew it could mean capture and execution. Again and again he risked his life to help others tell the
world what the Sudanese government was doing to the tribes they wanted to rid themselves of. Finally he
was captured along with the driver and a reporter from National Geographic. Prison, torture and endless
interrogation were followed by an almost miraculous release brokered by the governor of New Mexico. The
writing is simple and direct and the facts demand your involvement if only in prayer.
The Cure for Modern Life (24.95) by Lisa Tucker is a romance with meat on the bones.
Mathew and Amelia were once in love and planning to raise a family together.
And then they graduated from the college they were attending together and entered the job market. Amelia’s trust fund allowed her to take a position that took the moral high ground without paying
all that much. Mathew, on the other hand, had grown up in poverty and worked
double time to get through school. He took a job with a pharmaceutical company
that relied on PR hype and “connections” to sell their drugs that might not be all that effective and could possibly
be harmful. Amelia’s job in medical ethics pits her against her former
boyfriend whom she now sees as a heartless opportunist. Enter a homeless boy
and his little sister who attach themselves to Mathew when he is in a “weakened” state and stay on to give Mathew
the appearance of a family man to impress his former lover. Into this mix add
another classmate of Mathew and Amelia who is now a driven pharmaceutical researcher.
The attachment of the children to first Mathew and then Amelia brings out characteristics neither were
aware of in their frantic devotion to the “modern life.” Sweet. And a behind the scenes look at the pharmaceutical culture.
Dan Brown, move over! Geraldine Brooks has done the deep historical research
novel as good or better. People
of the Book ($25.95) is the story of an ancient book, the “Sarajevo Haggadah,”
one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. Hannah
Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of this most treasured
book. She discovers a series of tiny artifacts within the binding—an insect
wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair and she begins to unlock the mysterious journey that brought the book
to Bosnia in the 1990’s. Each time history seemed to be overwhelming its precarious existence some unlikely hero has rescued it…from
the Serbian shelling of Bosnia…from the Nazis…from the anti-Semitism of Viennese hedonistic salons…from the
Inquisition in Venice…from the enforced exile in Barcelona of the scribe who wrote it. And in 1480 the reason
for the magnificent illustrations is discovered in Seville. At each stage of the investigation, Hannah has to
question her own expertise and her growing love for the man who drew her into this mysterious quest. It’s a blockbuster!
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