02 March 2009

What's on My Desk March 2009


Echorium Sequence: Song Quest by Katherine Roberts. YA Fantasy Fiction. DONE.
This fast-paced YA fantasy book delivers with an original plot, but elements that we all recognize in a fantasy book - a team effort to achieve a goal, young people discovering their talents, and good conquering evil.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. Adult Fiction. DONE.
Some people said to recommend this to readers who liked the DaVinci Code, but I haven't read the DaVinci Code, so I don't know about this. I guess that both deal with a mystery that lasts through generations. A book conservator is asked to analyse a rare illuminated Jewish sacred book.
Here is a library quote (The whole book has stuff about books and archives, but not so much libraries per se).:
From that discussion we moved on to museum politics in general and from there to spicier shop talk: sex in the stacks, a.k.a. the love lives of librarians. And that pretty much was the whole conversation for the rest of the evening.


My Big Girl Potty by Joanna Cole and Maxie Chambliss. Children's Nonfiction, ages 2-4.
The title pretty much tells you what it is about. This is straightforward.
Twenty-Six Princessses by Dave Horowitz Children's Fiction, preschool. DONE.
The author leads us through the alphabet with 26 girls with names starting with A-Z. It is goofy. It is lighthearted. The princesses are playful and misbehaving.
It Could Still Be a Robot by Allen Fowler. Children's nonfiction. Grades 1-3. DONE.
I am not certain why the author was cryptic in his title. This is a well-written book that explains how robots are used today (industry, surgery, space, etc.) with some guesses about how they will be used in the future. I read this to a 5 year old who was wondering if robots would attack her house at night. I explained that there were war plane robots, but I doubted that any would attack Ohio in the near future. The author has included pictures of some famous robots such as Data from Star Trek and the Mars Rover. I checked out a few other robot books and a video from the library but they were not as well written, had lame illustrations, and were not age appropriate for a 5 year old.