I really hope that most of you have memberships at your local public libraries. I don't know about your libraries, but my local public library charges $12 a year for membership. That's a dollar a month. Not too much to ask, if you ask me.

And a membership doesn't just mean reading fiction and nonfiction. With my library membership, I can borrow DVDs, music and magazines. My library card entitles me to one hour of free Internet access on one of the library's computers everyday so if I'm shopping somewhere and I just have to check my e-mail, I just need to pop into the nearest library.

But the thing I've really been appreciating lately is the access to the many (around 100) databases my library has bought licenses for. What kind of databases? Well…

• Novelist — A Readers' Advisory database for fiction (my favorite one)
• Press Display (my second favorite… you can read current, same-day newspapers from around the world. The newspaper displays like high-quality scanned copies of the actual paper on your screen with links to the articles you can zoom in and out of to read easily. And these aren't just Canadian newspapers, but papers from all around the world.)
• What Do I Read Next? — Another Readers' Advisory database
• Wilson's Catalogue and Book Review
• OneFile (a searchable database of newspaper and magazine articles)
• Opposing Viewpoints (for people ready to debate the issues)
• Full access to various online encyclopedias (have you checked out how much a hard copy of Brittanica costs lately? Hundreds of dollars. Hundreds!)
• All kinds of science and medical databases (so you can research your symptoms like a doctor)
• Automotive databases (for those times when your car breaks down and you think you can fix it yourself, this one will save the day. Or at the very least show you how complicated it would be to try and convinces you to take the car in to the mechanic).
• And many more on top of these…

Have you taken a look at your library's website and seen just how much you can do with your membership? Have you actually accessed any of the databases available to you through your library? Writers will love the access to information literally at their fingertips. Readers will have fun getting suggestions for the next book they want to read. Parents can help their kids with homework assignments. I get all this for $12 a year (well, okay, I work at the library, so I get it for free, but if I didn't work there, it would be $12 a year).

So I'm curious… How much is membership at your local libraries? Does your library offer databases like these?

The library I work at, and many other libraries around the world, have been asked to nominate a book for this award. The criteria for the nomination: the book had to be published in 2005 and is one that would be considered a MUST READ.
I took a look at the nominations that are coming in so far from around the world. So far, there are a few books that I’m seeing multiple nominations for from many countries instead of a strong showing in one (it would seem that countries like to nominate their own authors. For example, Canada is really pushing Miriam Toews’ A Complicated Kindness, and Australia is gung ho with Andrew McGahan’s The White Earth). These books seem to be the most popular around the world:

• Colm Toibin’s The Master
• David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas
• Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

If librarians around the world agree on these few titles over the thousands of others they could have picked, then surely they must be worthwhile reads. Whip out your library cards and put some holds on these books, readers!

Starry Safari — A) Linda Ashman I) Jeff Mack

Follow a little girl as she goes through the safari and meets all the animals. I like this story because it has new animals in it, and most children’s stories with animals in them tend to be set on the farm. Good for learning some new animal sounds, too.

Riley and Rose in the Picture – Susanna Gretz.

This book is too cute. Riley is a dog and Rose is a cat. They’re stuck inside on a rainy day and they can’t agree on anything except that they won’t fight with each other. They decide to make some drawings together. While Riley draws regular shapes, Rose turns them into something else entirely. This is a great story to help teach children about different shapes and how you can see ordinary things in different ways.

Sink or Swim – A) Valerie Coulman I) Roge’

It’s summertime and Ralphie and Morris (two cows) are getting very hot. They see a family of ducks on a pond and think that they must be cool in the water. So they decide they should go swimming. But cows don’t swim. “Not yet they don’t!” A good story about sticking to what you want to do and making it happen even when everyone says you can’t do it.

Sunny Boy! The Life and Times of a Tortoise – A) Candace Fleming I) Anne Wilsdorf

Based in part on a true events, this is a story about a tortoise named Sunny Boy that outlives all his quiet, peace-loving owners. With the death of each owner, Sunny Boy is passed down to a nephew. When he outlives more than a few men, he’s passed over to a different sort of owner. This one isn’t quiet and peace-loving. This one is a daredevil and Sunny Boy is going to join him on his escapades! When his owner decides to plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel, Sunny Boy is afraid to find out he’s going along for the ride! The interesting thing is that this story was based on the true story about a man named George Stathakis who actually did just that in 1930 with his pet turtle. He didn’t survive, but the tortoise did. I also found this story about a 255-year-old tortoise that died recently. In the words of Nemo… whoooooooa!

Will You Carry Me? — A) Heleen van Rossum I) Peter van Harmelen

Thomas is too tired to walk home, so he asks his mom to carry him, but she’s too tired to carry him so she invents new ways to get them home. This is another good story that you can use to get your kids moving along with the actions of the book. Interesting illustrative style.

Most film adaptations don’t live up to the novels they are based on, but this movie is different: it actually is on par with the novel, and I thought the novel was good. I remember thinking as I read it that it packed in a lot of emotion for such a short book, and the movie captures that well.

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams play the main characters of Noah and Allie, with James Garner and Gena Rowlands playing them in their later years. The casting was good. Ryan Gosling is particular was great at capturing the intensity of Noah’s characer: from his first infatuation with Allie, to the passion with which he loves her, the misery he feels when they’re separated, and the frustration he experiences when she comes back but can’t promise to stay with him; his performance is intense and believable.

I’ve never been much of a Rachel McAdams fan, but after seeing this movie, I started thinking about the casting and who else could have starred in the role, and I came to the conclusion that no one else could have played her part better. She plays the rich, spoiled girl very well, and then she evolves into someone struggling with the inner turmoil she feels in having to choose between what is expected from someone in her position in life and all that she can have from staying in it, and her love for a poor man who can’t provide her with the material things she’s used to having but can love her better than anyone else could.

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Igor, The Bird Who Couldn’t Sing – Satoshi Kitamura

Kitamura has a distinctive illustrative style. When you see one one of his books, you know it’s one of his books. This is a cute story about Igor traveling the world to find a secluded place to sing because no one likes the way he sounds.

Bee-Bim-Bop! A) Linda Sue Park I) Ho Baek Lee

Bee-bim-bop is a popular Korean dish, and this is a nice cultural story about a Korean girl and her mother going to the store together to buy ingredients and then cook them together at home. It has nice rhyming.

Dancing Matilda A) Sarah Hager I) Kelly Murphy

Matilda is a kangaroo who likes to dance all the time. This would be a fun story to read to little kids while getting them to dance along with her.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear (A Traditional Rhyme) – Timothy Bush

The illustrations are beautiful watercolors, and looking at them just makes you happy. This is an excellent story to read aloud to kids while having them do what Teddy Bear does. There’s even a chart at the end of the book to teach you what moves to do along with Teddy Bear. If anything, it’s fun exercise for the kids and the reader.

What Bear Likes Best A) Alison Ritchie I) Dubravka Kolanovic

Bear likes to do all sorts of things, but sometimes he bothers other animals in the forest when he does them. Adorable illustrations full of bright colors. Makes me wish I could illustrate.

Gregory Maguire’s sequel to Wicked was not as good, but it’s still an interesting story. The son in the title is a boy named Liir, though it is important to note that it is not made clear throughout either of the books whether or not he really is the son of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West.

The story opens with the discovery of Liir’s body laying in an open grassfield in the middle of the night. Nearly every bone in his body is completely broken, but he is still breathing. He is taken to a mauntery nearby to be cared for by the maunts and a young girl named Candle. The maunts wonder if he was attacked by the same brutal forces that had been attacking others in recent weeks and forced most of rural Oz to go into hiding for fear of their lives. As Liir lays there unconscious, we delve into the memories of his past.

Through the memories, we watch Liir grow from the fourteen year old boy at the time of Elphaba’s murder into a man who struggles to find his purpose in life. His story starts right after Dorothy’s dissolving of Elphaba in the tower at Kiamo Ko. All of a sudden, Liir has no one left in his life, except Chistery, the witch’s Snow Monkey, and Nanny, the senile old woman that barely remembers what year it is, let alone his name. Worried that he’ll be alone, he decides to begin searching for his possible half-sister, Nor, who had been taken prisoner by the Wizard’s army a short time earlier along with her mother and the rest of her family when soldiers invaded Kiamo Ko in an attempt to get the witch, who had, unbeknownst to them, flown away earlier for family business. (more…)

Heather over at A High and Hidden Place invited people to do this meme. There’s some reading-related questions in it, so I thought I would.

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Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner? — A) John Kelly I) Cathy Tincknell

A pig and his goose wife are invited to come for dinner at the mansion at the top of the hill and stay for a weekend by someone named Mr Hunter. This turns into a mystery tale about just who this Mr. Hunter is and why he’s invited them to his house. Very fun book with awesome illustrations that reveal part of the mystery as each page is turned.

An Undone Fairy Tale — A) Ian Lendler I) Whitney Martin

This was just plain FUN! The premise: the reader is reading faster than the illustrator can illustrate the book, so the story has to change its visuals and storyline to accomodate. It is just too much fun.

Camilla Chameleon — A) Colleen Snyder I) Pascale Constantin

When Camilla’s mom was pregnant with her, she ate a lot of chameleon soup. When Camilla is born, she has chameleon qualities! A cute story about how being different can make you stand out even if you happen to be a chameleon.

Old Mr. Mackle Hackle — A)Gunnar Macken I) Irana Shepherd

Old Mr. Mackle Hackle has a hen that won’t cackle, so he goes to great lengths to get her to cackle instead of other noises like chirping or talking. Eventually, he gets what he wants, but in a whole different way.

Knuffle Bunny, A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems

Little baby Trixie and her toy Knuffle Bunny go for a walk with her dad to the laundromat. They have fun putting in the laundry and spending time together, but on the walk home, Trixie notices that her Knuffle Bunny isn’t with them. She gets very upset and tries to go back to the laundromat, but her dad can’t understand what she’s saying or why because she can’t speak yet. The illustrations are fantastic, with colorful drawn characters superimposed over real-life pictures. Fantastic book visually and a cute story.

Sophie and the Sea Monster
Author: Don Gilmor
Illustrator: Michael Martchenko

This is the story about a little girl named Sophie who worries about everything: What holds the moon up? What keeps it from falling on my house and killing everyone? What if there’s monsters under the bed? One day she discovers there is a monster under the bed, a little sea monster that’s even more scared and worried than she is. They become friends and together they learn to overcome their worries.

Please Bury Me In the Library
Author: Patrick Lewis
Illustrator: Kyle M. Stone

For book lovers everywhere! It’s a great book of poetry in many forms that pay homage to books. As example: the title poem:

“Please bury me in the library,
in the clean, well-lighted stacks,
of Novels, History, Poetry,
Right next to the Paperbacks,

Where the Kids’ books dance
With True Romance
And the Dictionary dozes.
Please bury me in the library
With a dozen long-stemmed proses.

Way back by a rack of Magazines,
I won’t be sad too often,
If they bury me in the library,
With Bookworms in my coffin.”

Pink Magic

Author: Donna Jo Napoli
Illustrator: Chad Cameron

It’s Eva’s birthday and she’s getting cards in the mail from family and friends wishing her a happy birthday and much love. Eva’s little brother Nick is envious of the great mail she’s been getting and wishes he could have some too, and not just any letters, but great, pink letters. Eva decides to blow out her birthday candles with the wish that Nick could get pink letters. The next day the mailman shows up with something pink for Nick, and the day after that, another pink thing arrives, and so on with the pink things getting more outrageous and amazing. Cute story. I like the nice relationship the siblings have and that the little boy’s favorite color is pink.

Honey, Honey…Lion! by Jan Brett

A bird named Honeyguide helps Badger find some honey to eat, but Badger is so happy to eat the honey that doesn’t think to thank Honeyguide or reward her in any way. The next day, Honeyguide tells badger she’ll help him find some honey again, but this time she’s got a surprise up her sleeve. This was a disturbing story about retribution that I wasn’t too keen on. In fact, I didn’t really like it at all.

At my last book club’s meeting, we had a short discussion about cover art and how the choosing of what goes on the cover is very important because it can often make or break the sale of the book. Which is true, because unless you’re an author with a good following already, an attractive cover can be the crucial factor in making a person stop and pick the book up in a book store or at the library. And obviously, if they aren’t picking it up, they aren’t buying it. So it was interesting timing to see that a few days later, Jenny Crusie posted an article on her blog about cover art and her theories about how they are chosen. This is something I’ve had thoughts about myself, and have mentioned in a few of my posts (specifically for Crusie’s Crazy for You and for Kate Fenton’s Vanity and Vexation). It’s an interesting read.

Unless the book I’m reading is highly-anticipated, or it explodes with action or interesting events right off the first page, it can sometimes take me a while to get into a book properly, and this is one of those books that took me a while to get into. Initially, the reason I was slowed down with it was the language. It’s been a while since I have read such an obviously British book. The experience was almost like watching a fast-talking British film: it takes a few seconds to adjust to the language and the manner of speaking before you can really understand what’s going on. So it took me a few attempts to get into this book because the language was a little different than what I’m used to, but once I finally gave it a good chance, I really started to enjoy it and read it within a few hours.

The story is a modern-day retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, except the roles are reversed. Instead of Mr. Darcy, we have Mary Dance, a successful, high-powered film director. And instead of Elizabeth Bennett, we have Nick Bevan, a poor and struggling writer. Nick lives in a small English village which has been taken over by Mary’s crew as they film an adaption of what else? Pride and Prejudice. (more…)