Jackson County Public Library: Hot Titles

Library Journal Tolle follows up his successful The Power of Now-it's sold two million copies worldwide since 1997-with a plea to reject egotistic ways for a new form of consciousness. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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New York Times Bestsellers

Shadows In Flight

by Orson Scott Card

Publishers Weekly Card's fifth novel narrated by Julian "Bean" Delphiki (after Shadow of the Giant) mingles transcendent strangeness and didacticism. On a spaceship cut off from the rest of civilization, Julian is raising his three remarkable children, doomed to die young by the engineered genes that also make them inhumanly brilliant. Triplets Cincinnatus, Carlotta, and Ender (named for Bean's old classmate) are only six years old and already smarter than nearly any adult, but just as emotionally immature as any children. Bean tries setting them up as an incestuously reproducing super-race who will be parents at age eight and dead at 22, but when an unidentified alien ship appears, the children eagerly embrace a less depressing way to prove themselves. Bean's endless lectures make him appear a mouthpiece for the author; his children's snarky resentment of being talked down to will similarly ring true for readers. Agent: Barbara Bova Literary Agency. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal Julian "Bean" Delphiki, a friend of the legendary Ender Wiggin (Ender's Game) from the Battle School during the war against the alien Formics, has left Earth along with his three children to spend the remainder of their artificially short lives among the stars. Bean and his children all have Anton Syndrome, a condition defined by hyper-intelligence and gigantism that results in a life span of under 25 years. Hoping to use their knowledge to discover a cure for their condition, the space travelers encounter an alien ship that may contain a surprising answer to their problem. Picking up where Shadow of the Giant leaves off, Card deals with the repercussions of bioengineering for the human species. VERDICT Card's graceful story-telling gives this narrative the feel of a parable or a futuristic myth; it is bound to please the author's fan base and readers who enjoyed the first book. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Publishers Weekly

Gideon’s Corpse

by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Publishers Weekly Fans of Preston and Child's bestselling Aloysius Pendergast novels (Relic, etc.) may want to take a pass on the unremarkable second Gideon Crew thriller (after 2011's Gideon's Sword), whose lead could be cut-and-pasted into any number of books by less gifted genre writers. A rare medical disorder has left Crew, a private contractor for the shadowy Effective Engineering Solutions, with just 11 months to live, but he can't resist an opportunity to defuse a hostage situation in Queens. The hostage-taker, Reed Chalker, had worked with Crew at Los Alamos, and the FBI hopes Crew can calm Chalker, who believes the government is beaming rays into his head. The resolution of the standoff leads to fears that Chalker provided a weapons-grade nuclear core to Islamic terrorists. The unexciting action sequences that follow, including a duel with chain saws, fall well short of the authors' usual high standard. Agent: Eric Simonoff at William Morris Endeavor. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal In the duo's second apocalyptic thriller (after Gideon's Sword), Gideon Crew scrambles to find Reed Chandler, a Los Alamos colleague who recently converted to Islamic extremism and was poisoned with massive amounts of gamma rays from a stolen nuclear bomb. The FBI soon learns that the jihadists plan to detonate the nuke in Washington, DC, in ten days and that an unknown collaborator framed Crew as the mastermind behind the scheme. Crew leads a bizarre chase from New York to the Southwest to find the actual perpetrator, while the FBI searches for Crew as well as the missing device. VERDICT The scattered plot twists, the exaggerated story line, and the misdirected chase scenes resemble a zany cops-and-robbers farce. As with their earlier title, the authors' high standards have fallen short in this series.-Jerry P. Miller, Cambridge, MA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Caldecott Medal Winners

Black and White

by David Macaulay

Book list Gr. 2-6, younger for reading aloud. See Focus, p.1546.

Publishers Weekly At first glance, this is a collection of four unrelated stories, each occupying a quarter of every two-page spread, and each a slight enough tale to seem barely worth a book--a boy on a train, parents in a funny mood, a convict's escape and a late commuter train. The magic of Black and White comes not from each story, however, but from the mysterious interactions between them that creates a fifth story. Several motifs linking the tales are immediately apparent, such as trains--real and toy--and newspapers. A second or third reading reveals suggestions of the title theme: Holstein cows, prison uniform stripes. Eventually, the stories begin to merge into a surrealistic tale spanning several levels of reality, e.g.: Are characters in one story traveling on the toy train in another? Answers are never provided--this is not a mystery or puzzle book. Instead, Black and White challenges the reader to use text and pictures in unexpected ways. Although the novelty will wear off quickly for adults, no other writer for adults or children explores this unusual territory the way Macaulay does. All ages. (Apr.)

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Newbery Medal Winners

Bud, Not Buddy

by Christopher Paul Curtis

Publishers Weekly As in his Newbery Honor-winning debut, The Watsons Go to BirminghamÄ1963, Curtis draws on a remarkable and disarming mix of comedy and pathos, this time to describe the travails and adventures of a 10-year-old African-American orphan in Depression-era Michigan. Bud is fed up with the cruel treatment he has received at various foster homes, and after being locked up for the night in a shed with a swarm of angry hornets, he decides to run away. His goal: to reach the man heÄon the flimsiest of evidenceÄbelieves to be his father, jazz musician Herman E. Calloway. Relying on his own ingenuity and good luck, Bud makes it to Grand Rapids, where his "father" owns a club. Calloway, who is much older and grouchier than Bud imagined, is none too thrilled to meet a boy claiming to be his long-lost son. It is the other members of his bandÄSteady Eddie, Mr. Jimmy, Doug the Thug, Doo-Doo Bug Cross, Dirty Deed Breed and motherly Miss ThomasÄwho make Bud feel like he has finally arrived home. While the grim conditions of the times and the harshness of Bud's circumstances are authentically depicted, Curtis shines on them an aura of hope and optimism. And even when he sets up a daunting scenario, he makes readers laughÄfor example, mopping floors for the rejecting Calloway, Bud pretends the mop is "that underwater boat in the book Momma read to me, Twenty Thousand Leaks Under the Sea." Bud's journey, punctuated by Dickensian twists in plot and enlivened by a host of memorable personalities, will keep readers engrossed from first page to last. Ages 9-12. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal Gr 4-7-Motherless Bud shares his amusingly astute rules of life as he hits the road to find the jazz musician he believes is his father. A medley of characters brings Depression-era Michigan to life. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Book list Gr. 4^-6. Bud, 10, is on the run from the orphanage and from yet another mean foster family. His mother died when he was 6, and he wants to find his father. Set in Michigan during the Great Depression, this is an Oliver Twist kind of foundling story, but it's told with affectionate comedy, like the first part of Curtis' The Watsons Go to Birmingham (1995). On his journey, Bud finds danger and violence (most of it treated as farce), but more often, he finds kindness--in the food line, in the library, in the Hooverville squatter camp, on the road--until he discovers who he is and where he belongs. Told in the boy's naive, desperate voice, with lots of examples of his survival tactics ("Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar out of Yourself"), this will make a great read-aloud. Curtis says in an afterword that some of the characters are based on real people, including his own grandfathers, so it's not surprising that the rich blend of tall tale, slapstick, sorrow, and sweetness has the wry, teasing warmth of family folklore. --Hazel Rochman

School Library Journal Gr 4-7-When 10-year-old Bud Caldwell runs away from his new foster home, he realizes he has nowhere to go but to search for the father he has never known: a legendary jazz musician advertised on some old posters his deceased mother had kept. A friendly stranger picks him up on the road in the middle of the night and deposits him in Grand Rapids, MI, with Herman E. Calloway and his jazz band, but the man Bud was convinced was his father turns out to be old, cold, and cantankerous. Luckily, the band members are more welcoming; they take him in, put him to work, and begin to teach him to play an instrument. In a Victorian ending, Bud uses the rocks he has treasured from his childhood to prove his surprising relationship with Mr. Calloway. The lively humor contrasts with the grim details of the Depression-era setting and the particular difficulties faced by African Americans at that time. Bud is a plucky, engaging protagonist. Other characters are exaggerations: the good ones (the librarian and Pullman car porter who help him on his journey and the band members who embrace him) are totally open and supportive, while the villainous foster family finds particularly imaginative ways to torture their charge. However, readers will be so caught up in the adventure that they won't mind. Curtis has given a fresh, new look to a traditional orphan-finds-a-home story that would be a crackerjack read-aloud.-Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

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