January 2010 Staff Book Reviews

Last Updated on Monday, 04 January 2010 11:04

Frequently Asked Questions - Reader Services

A new year is here and so are new book reviews by the Pioneer Library System staff. We have books for those who want to read more, read about other cultures, read to their children, or just a suggestion for a good book.

The weather is still cold and a warm comfy chair is an inviting place to read a beautiful children's book, a funny story, or a suspenseful mystery from the library.

Color Farm and Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert and Lemons Are Not Red by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Staff Reviewer: Valerie Kimble, Center for Children's Services
Genre: Children's Fiction

Lois Ehlert and Laura Vaccaro Seeger use die cut pages very effectively to challenge children's visual literacy, and create an interactive reading experience, in these colorful and appealing picture books.

In Color Zoo and Color Farm, Ehlert creates animals from a series of highly-colored cut outs.  As the pages of the book are turned, the new layer changes the previous cutout into a new animal.  This is a brilliant use of negative space to make art.  Children can't wait for you to turn the page to guess the next animal.  Laura Vaccaro Seeger plays with die cuts to introduce color in Lemons Are Not Red.  Seeger uses verbal negatives to cue the children into responding with the correct answer. These are not the most current works of these gifted author/illustrators, but they are some of my favorites.  Check them out to share with the little ones who visit your house during the winter season, and sneak visual literacy practice and dialogic reading into your personal story time.

 Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gail Parkin
Staff Reviewer: Susan Gregory, Pioneer Library System
Genre: Adult Fiction

Angel Tunzaraga lives in Kigali, Rwanda, and she bakes cakes.  Not plain white "ugly" cakes, but cakes that are properly colorful, cakes that are red and blue and green and orange, rose and violet, cakes that shine and shout.  Her cakes have been in the shapes of airplanes and computers, the Tanzanian flag and fair castles, dump trucks and rose beds.  Her cakes have welcomed long-lost families home, celebrated divorces, bid farewell to diplomats and proclaimed the birthdays of countless children.

Angel lives with her professor husband and their orphaned grandchildren in a compound of other expatriates who have come to Rwanda for the same reason: to try to bring order to a country still reeling from the genocide of the 1990's.  Angel is both a chef and mother confessor to her customers.  Over many cups of spicy tea, they share the terror of their past lives and their dreams for the future with her.  Angel slowly comes to terms with her own personal tragedies over time, as she counsels one neighbor after another, and finds a measure of peace.

This book is a little gem.  Full of humor and love, it's a wonderful first novel by a new and talented South African author.  Gil Parkin has managed to write a book that not only acknowledges the hell of Rwanda genocide and the contemporary scourge of AIDs but the very real hope for a bright Rwandan future.

The Private Patient by P.D. James
Staff Reviewer: Brenda Johnson, Moore Public Library
Genre: Adult Mystery

When Rhoda Gradwyn was a child, her drunken father cut her face with a broken bottle during an argument.  She keeps the scar until her father's death.  Then, her successful career as an investigative journalist makes if financially possible for her to hire one of London's best plastic surgeons to remove the scar forever.  This decision is her death sentence.

Gradwyn is murdered the night after her surgery in the private recovery facility Dr. Chandler-Powell has set up in his British manor house.  Scotland Yard detective Adam Dalgliesh and his team are called in to solve this high-profile murder.  They have an intriguing list of suspects, including members of a family accused of concealing their dead father in a freezer for ten days to ensure their inheritance.  Another suspect is a young woman sent to prison as a child for killing her sister in a jealous rage.  The suspects are many and conveniently contained with the Cheverell Manor estate as the employees and staff.
The murderer could have been a victim of one of Gradwyn's unflinching magazine articles or someone out to destroy the career of the surgeon.  The plot becomes more complicated when a second murder victim is found locked in a freezer.

If you enjoy classic British mysteries with interesting characters and smart but sensitive detectives, you can't beat P.D. James for writing a compelling book with a satisfying ending.  For those who have read Jame's other Dalgliesh murder mysteries, you may be concerned that there are hints that this is his last mystery.  He seems ready to marry and leave tangled relationships and untimely deaths behind. The Private Patient is available in regular print, large print and compact disc.

 Nice to Come Home To by Rebecca Flowers
Staff Reviewer: Julie Kreft, Moore Public Library
Genre: Adult Fiction

For Pru, the five year plan has stretched into eleven years.  However, she still is not prepared for her life to completely fall apart.  At thirty-six, getting laid off from her job is not part of the plan.  Neither is being dumped by her boyfriend.  It doesn't matter to Pru that both boyfriend and job were mediocre at best.  Pru is solid and dependable and appreciates the  known more than the exciting.  It is the worst sort of nightmare for Pru to find her carefully orchestrated life adrift.

Jobless and single, she becomes a fixture at the local coffee shop where newly-divorced proprietor, Hohn, provides miserable company.  Over many cups of coffee, Pru and John compare their sad stories, cry in their mugs, and increasingly find humor in their horror.

When her sister Patsy and her two-year old niece seem headed for a relationship disaster, Pru's meddling provides the perfect distraction from her own stalled life.  In true sister fashion, Pru and Patsy are clear on the others mistakes, but a bit muddy on their own.  As they each attempt to "fix" the other, their relationship is tested and strengthened.  Together, the women discover the importance of family and flexibility.

The plan is gone, but it is replaced with new and unexpected opportunities as Pru falls into a career that she never would have expected.  As the novel unfolds, Pru rediscovers family, friendship, and even a true calling rather than just a job.  But, can she also find love?

This is a warm and engaging novel filled with lovably flawed characters and more than a few surprises. 

The Seven Keys of Balabad by Paul Haven, illustrated by Mark Zug
Staff Reviewer: Mary Lea Wallace
Genre: Children's Fiction

A young Indiana Jones character meets the local version of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys in this near-Eastern story of anciant mystery, intrigue, and greed. Set in a country much like modern Afghanistan, the mystery of the seven ancient iron keys, and the fabulous treasure they guard, changes the lives of a boy from New York City, a young heir to a royal fortune, and a warrior's daring daughter. Will the three friends survive to save the treasure of Balabad from their powerful enemies? Suspense will keep the pages turning as readers follow the fates of the young detectives.

The author is an Associated Press reporter who has lived in and covered the region for years.