Book Picks

Here are two more new titles for bedtime: My Dad is Big and Strong, But . . . : a Bed Time Story by Coralie Saudo and Bedtime for Monsters by Ed Vere.  Both are charming with a funny twist at the end.  You have to check them out.  Because they are both brand new to San Jose Public Libraries, you will find them on our new picture book display pyramids.

Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine is about Caitlyn, a girl who has been identified as having Asperger's Syndrome.  Caitlyn's condition seems to be somewhat more severe and closer to moderate autism, however. 

Identified as odd by her peers, Caitlyn's problems escalate upon the death of her brother.  Caitlyn's brother had been acting as a behavioral aide for her and helped her to analyze different social situations.  Social situations that may seem clear-cut to others are a maze for Caitlyn.

Caitlyn is mystified by how she "should be" experiencing the tragedy and by how her father is coping with the death.  Meanwhile, the general community is coming to terms with the tragedy in relation to her brother's death.  How can everybody find peace?  How can Caitlyn find her own peace?  Read this National Book Award winner to find out!

True (...Sort of) (AR 6.0, Level 3.4) by Katherine Hannigan, the author of Ida B, is about an unconventional character who doesn't know why she seems to get everyone angry.  Misunderstood, everyone keeps putting Delly down.  Finally, she decides that she will act out!

Brud is a terrible basketball player.  The problem is that he loves basketball!  How can he ever become good at the sport that he loves?

Then Ferris moves to town.  Delly befriends her because she does not speak; Ferris does not criticize her.  Brud befriends her because Ferris is an amazing basketball player and teacher.

If you are a person who doesn't quite fit in at school, you may find a friend in True (...Sort of).  Though Ferris has her issues, she accepts her two new friends when no one else will help them.  And what is friendship if not for acceptance?  Enjoy this great book!

Moon Over Manifest, by Clare Vanderpool, is the story of a young twelve year old, Abilene, who is sent to live with her father's friend in Manifest, a small lazy town in Kansas.  She feels abandoned by the father she loves and is at loss for why he would do this.  She only knows that her father had changed after her sickness, when she had an accident and her leg became infected.  So, now, alone, in Manifest, the town where her father considers home, Abilene is trying to sort our her father's past and his identity and her own destiny.  Through the course of a summer, she discovers Manifest's history, her father's history, and her own place in Manifest's destiny.

A Newberry Award Winner for 2011, Moon Over Manifest is, in my opinion, a simply wonderful book, but I would not recommend it for everyone, because its narrative is sophisticated and complex with three threads which the author skillfully weaves to reveal a narrative which is a colorful depiction of life in small town Kansas.  This book is a book for a good reader, probably a girl, and for someone around 6th or 7th grade because the main character is young, but the scope of the story is big and the narrative complex.