Pioneer Library System

In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb by Lorie Hill
March roars in like a lion
So fierce,
The wind so cold,
It seems to pierce.
The month rolls on
And Spring draws near,
And March goes out
Like a lamb so dear

According to the OSU extension office, the origin of the poem and saying is the night sky's constellations At the beginning of the month the lion, Leo, is in the sky and at the end of the month, Aries, the ram, is visible. Many people also associate the saying with the weather, which can be pretty harsh like a lion in March. In case you don't want to go out in the weather or want to enjoy a good book when the weather gets more lamb-like, check out some of these staff reviewed books. There are stories of cows, dogs, and even sheep mixed in with mystery and suspenseful adventure.

Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Staff Reviewer: Jenny Stenis, Center for Reader's Services

When DJ isn't in school she is milking the cows, baling and hauling hay and mucking out the barn.  DJ's father owns a dairy farm, while he coaches the high school football team, but when he has to have his hip replaced, DJ takes over the farm chores while her brother becomes the high school baseball star.  DJ's older brothers were both star high school football players that earned scholarships to major universities.  DJ knows a lot about hard work and football and when the coach (a close family friend) from the next town over wants her to teach his star quarterback all she knows she really baulks.  But she does it.  But she also falls in love with him and playing football.  This is a really fun coming-of-age story for upper middle and high school readers.  If you like this title you might also like There's a Girl in My Hammerlock by Jerry Spinelli.  This book is on the 2009 Young Adult Sequoyah Master List

Dog On It: a Chet and Bernie Mystery by Spencer Quinn
Staff Reviewer: Diane Burrough, Shawnee Public Library

Anyone who loves dogs and mysteries will get a kick out of this book.  Bernie is a recently divorced, down on his luck private detective.  Chet, an intelligent but easily distracted dog, is Bernie's partner and tells the story.  Bernie is hired to find a teenage girl who may or may not be missing.  The reader will probably have the cased solved well before Bernie does, but it is getting there that is the reward.  The antics of Chet, a mutt who flunked our of K-9 school but found a better life with Bernie, and his commentary on both humans and dogs is the real heart of the book.  Chet is very serious about his role as Bernie's partner but sometimes he is compelled to stop his pursuit of a suspect to take a quick nap or grab a stray potato chip he finds on the floor.  The first in a new series, you can get it and the sequel Thereby Hangs a Tail at your hometown library.

Martha Doesn't Say Sorry by Samantha Berger, illustrated by Bruce Whatley
Staff Reviewer: Alice Fielding, Pioneer Service Center

Depending on your philosophy of child rearing, you may or may not like this book.  It's a charmingly drawn story of a little girl otter who has a lot of good traits, but sometimes does things that are "not so nice."  I was a little taken aback that her parent first gave her a time-out, then refused to interact with her, as punishment for her refusal to apologize.  I'm not sure that gets the right lesson across - are we saying you should try to help people feel better when you accidentally hurt them , or are we saying that we should go through the motions of treating each other well only so we can get what we want?  The ending, too, was a little odd, seeming to imply that it's okay to be mean to other people as long as you apologize afterward.  On the other hand, I could be wrong, maybe the lesson about apologizing comes out just fine and I'm just over thinking it, and I do like the "swallowing your pride and doing the right thing" message.  Also, my four-year-old absolutely loved this book and requested that it be read to her every single night for the entire three weeks we had it out of the library. For that alone, four stars!

A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
Staff Reviewer: Susan Gregory, Pioneer Library System

The Italians saved over 43,000 Jews from the Nazi Holocaust by hiding them in plain sight.  Roman Catholic priests and nuns, prosperous merchants, impoverished peasants and members of the nobility drew Jewish families into their homes and churches and either hid them behind closed doors or presented them to the Germans as Italian Catholics.  A thread of grace appeared for both the hunted and the hunters in this beautifully written story, grace that saved some lives and transformed others.

One of the Jewish refugees that poured into Italy in 1943 seeking safety was 14-year-old Claudette Blum.  Accompanied by her ailing father, naive Claudette was poorly prepared to survive the brutal climb over the Alps into northern Italy and would have perished if not for the kindness of a young Calabrian soldier named Santino and the safe haven provided by an impoverished villager named Tercilla.  By the end of the war, Claudette will have known utter deprivation and hunger.  She will have learned to load a machine gun and kill a man in less than sixty seconds.  She will also have know love and grace due to the extraordinary generosity of people like double spy and confirmed alcoholic Renzio Leoni and his unrequited love and wife of the local rabbi, Mirella.  Claudette's life will have been saved by the medical services of a Nazi deserter, Dr. Werner Schramm, who finds grace by joining the Italian guerrillas and serving the Resistance.Most of all, she will have survived the Holocaust because of the courageous acts of people like Don Osvaldo Tomitz, who spent the war hiding Jewish children in a series of convents despite the risk of torture.

This extraordinary book was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize when it was published in 2005.  Mary Doria Russell, a scholar trained as a paleontologist, is a wonderful writer who is able to build tension and fascination into an era that other novelists have covered many times before.  In the WWII story, she has accomplished the unusual: she's successfully peopled a lesser-known corner of the war with fascinating characters and the pacing of a thriller to produce a book that's impossible to put down.

Heart of a Shepherd by Rosanne Parry
Staff Reviewer: Mary Lea Wallace

With his four older brothers grown and gone, "Brother," already a capable young rancher, learns to shoulder a lot more responsibility when his soldier dad is ordered to serve two years in Iraq. The boy, his beloved grandpa and grandma, and an old sheepherder are left to keep the ranch running and defend it from the forces of nature. While his dad is protecting his men from enemy fire in Iraq, the boy and his grandpa defy death to save their sheep from deadly range wildfires. "Brother" learns to trust his shepherd's heart and finds a way to dance with the forces of life and death in his future life's work.

This is a true-to-life setting for modern ranch life, peopled with authentic, heart warming characters facing life's toughest challenges and accepting their destinies with dignity and honor.

Simple Genius by David Baldacci
Staff Reviewer: Galyn Hembree, Pioneer Library System

I just finished reading David Baldacci's Simple Genius which is the third in The King and Maxwell series.  Even though this is one of  a series, anyone could pick it up and go with it without having read the first two - even though I like it well enough to go pick up the first two.

The two main characters are former Secret Service agents turned private investigators, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell.  Michelle opens the novel kicking butt in a bar fight with an unsuspecting, yet major, tough guy.  Basically, she has a death wish that haunts her throughout the novel's high-intensity suspense and action.  As a result of the bar fight, Michelle ends up in the psych ward with Sean taking on a daunting investigation as a means to foot the bill for her recklessness and much needed mental health care.

Michelle decides to check herself out of the hospital just when Sean is way deep in multiple layers of disinformation and danger in the murder of a scientist inside the CIA's razor-wire fence.  Her psychiatrist follows her and becomes embroiled in the classified codes, personal demons, centuries-old secret treasures, and danger surrounding these two PIs.

It's a fast paced, surprise filled tale complete with double agents, kidnappings, unbreakable codes, shoot outs, buried treasure and buried family secrets.  Nice - especially when one is snowed in and hungry for some excitement!