Click on the links to be taken directly to the title’s record in our library catalogue.

Irma Voth by Miriam Toews. Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg. Jar City, Silence of the Grave, The Draining Lake, Arctic Chill, and Hypothermia by Iceland’s Arnuldur Indridason. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. Snow Angels by James Thompson (takes place in Turku, a Finnish city we visited in 2010). Neil Flambe and the Marco Polo Murders by Kevin Sylvester. The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrub. Diary of Anne Frank (read it to prepare to see the Broadway play Compulsion starring Mandy Patinkin). The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. A Secret Kept by Tatiana de Rosnay. The Tiger by John Vaillant. Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy: The Hunger Games; Mockingjay; Catching Fire (loved them!). Robin Stevenson’s Youth Fiction titles: A Thousand Shades of Blue; Out of Order; In the Woods; Inferno; and Outback (It had been a real privilege to host Robin at the Ingersoll Library during Canadian Children’s Book Week. She is still in touch with some of the young people who attended her workshops). The Year of Eating Dangerously by Tom Parker Bowles. American Pastoral by Philip Roth. Hand Me Down World by Lloyd Jones. Blue Light Project by Timothy Taylor. Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell. Growing Up Jung: coming of age as the son of two shrinks by Micah Toub. Dream When You’re Feeling Blue and Once Upon a Time, There Was You by Elizabeth Berg. Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee. Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay. The Trade Mission by Andrew Pyper.  Consumption by Kevin Patterson. Divergent by Veronica Roth. Sanctuary Line by Jane Urquhart (not much buzz around this book, but it deserved it.) The Recruit by Robert Muchamore. The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag and A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley (I so enjoy these Flavia deLuce mysteries — just bought the newest). So Much for That by Lionel Shriver (great read). Moon Over Marrakech by Nazneen Sheikh (should have put it down after 50 pages, but wanted to read about Marrakech, having vacationed there a couple of years ago). Nemesis, and The Snowman by Jo Nesbo (can’t wait for his new Harry Hole mystery to come out this March). Blueeyedboy by Joanne Harris. Toast: the story of a boy’s hunger by Nigel Slater (fantastic). Deadly Slipper: a novel of death in the Dordogne by Michelle Wan (pretty vapid, but again, a place I’d visited so was curious). Moby Duck: the true story of 28,800 bath toys lost at sea by Donovan Hohn. The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais. The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell. Left Neglected by Lisa Genova. A World Elsewhere by Wayne Johnston (beautiful). Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us by Daniel H. Pink. You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik (couldn’t resist that title). Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch. The Remains of War by Pauline Kok-Schurgers (Pauline did an author visit at the Innerkip Library). Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. The Perfect Order of Things by David Gilmour. Three Seconds by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom (wow!). Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul by David Adams Richards. The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje. Ice Moon by Jan Costin Wagner (another atmospheric Finnish mystery). Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. The Help by Kathryn Stockett (the only e-book I’ve yet read). In the Kitchen by Monica Ali.

So many books….    -LM

That cast my mind back to the years in the 60s and early 70s when it would be a tradition to sit down on Sunday nights after dinner to watch “The Wonderful World of Disney” (followed by The Lawrence Welk Show, if we were at our grandparents’).  Our contemporaries may remember the many movies featuring Dean Jones, Hayley Mills, Fred MacMurray, and a teenaged Kurt Russell, to name but a few.

My niece stayed overnight at our place two weeks ago, and we watched the library’s new dvd of “The Gnomemobile”, starring Walter Brennan and the kids from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (and from Mary Poppins, I believe — those kids must have been the “it-kids” of the 60s).  I vaguely remembered watching The Gnomemobile 40 or so years ago, and while the film was cute and nostalgic for me, it was also somewhat dated. My niece enjoyed it, to my delight.

OCL has purchased quite a number of these older Disney movies, available for one week loan. Us Baby Boomers may enjoy them for nostalgic reasons, and, I think our children (or grandchildren) will get a kick out of them too. The way they’re flying off the library shelves already, they seem to have been a good investment.

Check them out!

Examples include: The Aristocats; Absent-Minded Professor/Son of Flubber; Apple Dumpling Gang; The Love Bug; Monkeys, Go Home!; Snowball Express; That Darn Cat; The Ugly Dachshund; In Search of the Castaways; Now You See Him, Now You Don’t; and The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit.

-LM

The treatment of the Dutch by the Japanese during WWII has been largely unknown until now, and remains unacknowledged by the Japanese government. Pauline was the oldest of four children, but a mere 9 years old at the time of their incarceration. Their father (along with all Dutch men and boys 12 and older) had been separated from his family, and was sent to work on the railroad being built from Burma to the coast.  Their mother and the children lived, for the next 4 years, in a series of camps, enduring unthinkable deprivations and witnessing numerous illnesses and deaths of those around them.

Chillingly ironic, the Imperial Army had ordered that all Dutch prisoners be executed in late August, 1945. If not for the A-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took so many innocent Japanese lives and ended the war, Pauline and all the others would have died.

The Remains of War is a book well worth reading, and one that will stay with you for some time.

-LM

Watch the video clip featuring author J. K. Rowling.

To participate fully in the summer’s fun, children should register in person for the Splash! Celebrate Summer reading program at their nearest County Library branch.

Check out the Calendar of free summer events.  A wide variety of musicians and entertainers will be visiting, offering  diverse programs such as cartooning, ventriloquism, fossils, live reptiles, Mad Science, primordial percussion, and much more.

Hurry — don’t miss any of the fun!

-LM

Ron Brown’s Top 100 Unusual Things to See in Ontario

Of local interest, the death mask of Thomas Cook, adorning the doorway of the former Oxford County Gaol in Woodstock, is included in the 100.

Mark Harris’ Waterfalls of Ontario, 2nd edition, offers stunning photographs of waterfalls, from small to Niagara, across this province. I would like to have a copy of the book in my car so as not to miss an opportunity to wander off the route a ways, camera in hand, to rest awhile beside a natural feature that never ceases to captivate.  

-LM

Restoule Falls

The Canadian Library Association recently provided information on how to help the rebuilding efforts:

Donations of new or nearly new books (no more than two years old) can be shipped to Peace Library System headquarters where they will be catalogued, processed and stored until a temporary library opens in Slave Lake. Please ship prepaid to:

Peace Library System
8301 – 110 Street
Grande Prairie, AB T8W 6T2
ATTN: Books for Slave Lake Library

Cash donations can be made by going to the library’s web page at www.slavelakelibrary.ab.ca and clicking on the “Make a Donation” link.

The Slave Lake Library and Peace Library System thank all who make a contribution to rebuilding the library.

For additional information, please contact Carol Downing, Assistant Director, at cdowning@peacelibrarysystem.ab.ca.

-LM

Afterward, children stood patiently in line for Ronald’s autograph on their take-away activity sheets. All visitors entering the library couldn’t help but hear the ruckus, nor could they miss Ronald — the red and yellow outfit and size 29 shoes don’t help him blend into the background!

Many thanks to McDonald’s, and to Sherry of the Ingersoll restaurant, who sponsored the event. It put alot of smiles on alot of faces.

-LM

author Robin Stevenson

I have been reading some of Robin’s novels recently: A Thousand Shades of Blue; Outback; Out of Order; and In the Woods.  Outback and Out of Order are both Orca Soundings publications — quick reads perfect for the reluctant reader — but even though the novels run just over 100 pages, the plots and characterization grabbed my interest and held it. In such a short amount of space, Robin has produced rounded characters who seem real, who I come to care about, and stories that grip the heart and are thoroughly believable.  The social issues dealt with — adoption, teen pregnancy, bullying, self-esteem and body image — are treated sincerely and from the teen’s perspective, without heavy-handedness.

These works are little treasures, and I’m looking forward to meeting Robin.

-LM

Of course, we toured the Reference Library of NYC Public Library — the grand building with the library lions standing guard.

Two books come readily to mind — Library Lion, by  Michelle Knudsen,  and Julie Cummins’ and Roxie Munro’s The Inside-Outside Book of Libraries.

I am fortunate to have been able to purchase one of Roxie Munro‘s oil paintings of New York City streetscapes at the Simie Maryles Gallery in Provincetown.  I am a big fan of Munro’s work, loving her almost comic book style – I half expect to see Spiderman swing across the canvas! Speaking of Spiderman (!), if you are lucky enough to find yourself in NYC, go see Broadway’s “Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark”.  Quite a spectacle, and tons of fun.

Do check out Munro’s children’s books. We have 5 of her titles, including the popular Mazeways: A to Z.                                                                            -LM

One of Munro's NYC series of oil paintings