Forever autumn

Forever autumn / Mark Morris; read by Will Thorp. – [Bath] : BBC Audiobooks, 2008.
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(Doctor Who)
ISBN: 9781405646918 (sound recording : OverDrive Audio Book)

1. Doctor Who (Fictitious character) – Fiction. 2. Halloween -- New England -- Fiction. 3. Human-alien encounters--Fiction. 4. Science fiction.

823.914

Somewhere in New England there’s a very old and strange tree, the tree that gave the town of Blackwood Falls its name. When three boys dig up an old and musty book near the base of the tree it begins a Halloween like none the town has ever experienced, or would ever want to experience. What better time and place for a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey and his companion to visit? When the eyes of all the cats take on a strange glow and even the rubber Halloween decorations take on a life of their own, is it magic or just advanced alien technology? Only the Doctor knows.

Will Thorp reads this pleasantly creepy, but not-too-frightening tale at a properly almost breathless pace, as he drags us through the underground lair of the ancient and now awakened aliens or through the eerie greenish fog suffusing the town.

SnowGlobe 7

SnowGlobe 7 / Mike Tucker.— [London] : BBC; Random House Publishing Group, 2008.
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ISBN: 9781407023915 (electronic bk. : Adobe Reader)
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At head of title: Doctor Who
(Doctor Who)

1. Doctor Who (Fictitious character) -- Fiction. 2. Electronic books. 3. Global warming -- Fiction. 4. Horror fiction. 5. Human-alien encounters--Fiction. 6. Radio and television novels. 7. Science fiction.

823.914

The Doctor promised Martha Jones a relaxing holiday at the beach in Arabia, “Late twenty-first century. Best Beach of the Century in Bartholomew's Planetary Gazetteer and Time Traveler's Guide,” he brags, but when they open the door of the TARDIS they’re hit with an icy blast of wind and a vista of ice and snow.

Actually they’re not too far from their intended destination in space-time. The TARDIS has re-materialized in Dubai, but right in the middle of one of the huge SnowGlobes, giant domes designed to preserve parts of the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets as a hedge against the climactic effects of global warming. But scooped up with the ice was the slumbering form of an alien menace lying dormant since the last ice age. But now it’s awake and very, very hungry.

Tucker has captured the fast pace of the current television series with this action-adventure science fiction horror tale of world domination. Who will win the epic struggle? On one side are the humans, the second generation Terrans the “mottled green-blue” Flisk, a service robot, and one Time Lord versus the Grappa, flesh-eating, plague-breathing, telepathic giant hairy spiders from the other side of the galaxy.

Knucklehead : tall tales & mostly true stories about growing up Scieszka

Knucklehead : tall tales & mostly true stories about growing up Scieszka / featuring Jon Scieszka.—
New York : Viking, c2008.
106 p. : ill., map, music, ports. ; 27 cm.
Audience: 8 up
Includes index
ISBN: 9780670011063 (hardcover)

1. Authors, American -- 20th century -- Family relationships. 2. Brothers. 3. Scieszka, Jon – Biography -- Childhood and youth.

813.54

Knucklehead is the autobiography of the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature told in thirty-eight short tales of growing up with five brothers in Flint, Michigan, going to Catholic school, and learning why it’s to your advantage to be the one telling the story. Including helpful skills learned in Cub Scouts, jokes, and what to do when the cat gets sick from eating the pecan log roll on the car trip to Florida.

The astonishing adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

The astonishing adventures of Fanboy & Goth Girl / by Barry Lyga.— Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006
311 p. ; 22 cm.
ISBN: 9780618723928

1. Comic book fans -- Fiction. 2. Comic books and teenagers – Fiction. 3. Goth culture (Subculture) -- Fiction. 4. Graphic novels -- Authorship -- Fiction. 5. High schools – Fiction. 6. Interpersonal relations – Fiction. 7. Self-perception – Fiction.

813.6

Life in is rough for Don at South Brook High. He may be smart, but he knows he’s “the town geek.” He’s lived in rural South Brook for nine years with his mother and “the step-fascist,” and he has ½ a friend, Carl. Like Don, Carl is a big comic book fan, but he’s also—and Don can’t figure out why—a member of the Lacrosse, Basketball, and Football teams with “the Jock Jerks.” These are guys who push Don around. He has a terrible lust for Dina Jurgens the “Senior Goddess,” but he knows he’s beneath her notice. He’s made “the List” of all the people he wants to disappear into oblivion. He stays up late at night wishing for a new computer and drawing and writing his own graphic novel. He spends the day at school trying not to be noticed.

One day trying to get out of gym as early as possible he purposely doesn’t dodge in dodge ball so he can stand on the sidelines. Unfortunately, so does big, dumb and mean Mitchell Frampton. He gets out of the game early so he can punch Don in the shoulder repeatedly when the coaches aren’t watching, which is often. That night, much to his surprise Don gets an IM from an unknown sender, Promethea387. Her question is, “Why do you let him hit you?”

Intrigued by Promethea387, he agrees to meet her after school. Her name is Kyra, and she’s the palest thinnest black-clad chain smoker he’s ever met. She asks some very uncomfortably probing questions, and only calls him Fanboy. They do have some things in common. They’re both sophomores. They both have learners’ permits. But Kyra doesn’t mind driving without an accompanying adult or driving fast. And Kyra doesn’t just wish that someone with an annoying bumper sticker would just disappear. She tries to ram the offending vehicle. It’s the start of a rough ride for Fanboy and Goth Girl.

Lyga, a “recovering comic book geek,” himself has perfectly captured teen angst and isolation turbocharged it into a frighteningly funny and fast-paced novel. Don’s rocky relationship with Kyra, a girl with some decidedly self-destructive tendencies, shocks him out of his self-imposed isolation and into situations where he gets some helpful advice from an unexpected muse.

The Wisedom Jesus

The wisdom Jesus : transforming heart and mind : a new perspective on Christ and his message / Cynthia Bourgeault.— Boston : Shambhala, 2008.

x, 223 p. ; 21 cm.

Contents: The teachings of Jesus -- Jesus as a recognition event -- Jesus in context -- The kingdom of heaven is within you -- The path of Metanoia -- A gospel of Thomas sampler -- Kenosis : the path of self-emptying love -- Jesus as Tantric master -- The mysteries of Jesus -- The incarnation -- The passion -- Crucifixion and its aftermath -- The great Easter fast -- Christian wisdom practices -- Centering prayer meditation -- Lectio divina -- Chanting and psalmody -- Welcoming -- Eucharist.

Bibliography: p. [211]-216

Includes index

ISBN: 9781590305805

1. Jesus Christ. 2. Wisdom -- Religious aspects -- Christianity.

232

Wisdom is not what you believe about Jesus or even what know about him. Wisdom is when you encounter him, recognize him, and enter the mind of Christ.

Bourgeault, an Episcopal priest, goes through familiar canonical gospel material, the beatitudes and hard parables, and the “Gnostic” gospel of Thomas to explicate how Jesus asks us to free ourselves from our primitive selfish nature and by emptying the self make room for the divine. It is the path of kenosis, the path of self-emptying love.

“The word metanoia, usually translated as “repentance,” literally means to go “beyond the mind” or into the larger mind.” It means to escape from the orbit of the egoic operating system, which by virtue of its own internal hardwiring is always going to see the world in terms of polarized opposites, and move instead into that nondual knowingness of heart which can see and live from the perspective of wholeness. This is the central message of Jesus. This is what the Kingdom of Heaven is all about.” (page 41)

From this point of view she recounts the significance of his incarnation, passion, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, and then succinctly describes the Christian wisdom practices of contemplative prayer, Lectio divina (Bible reading), psalm chanting, welcoming or embracing the world, and Eucharist.

The Penderwicks on Gardam Street

The Penderwicks on Gardam Street / Jeanne Birdsall.— New York : Knopf, 2008.

308 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.

Sequel to: The Penderwicks

ISBN: 9780375840906

1. Massachusetts -- Fiction. 2. Single-parent families -- Fiction. 3. Sisters -- Fiction. 4. Dating (Social customs) -- Fiction.

813.6

The four Penderwick sisters have a problem. They feel their formerly beloved Aunt Claire is pushing a program of remarriage for their widowed father. This can only mean one thing for them: a stepmother. And everyone knows that stepmothers come in only two varieties; they’re either wicked or evil. It’s time for a secret Save-Daddy Plan. Fix him up with some really horrible dates and then he won’t be interested in marriage. But it’s hard to concentrate on the plan when you also have to deal with new next-door neighbors, boys running football drills through your yard, homework—I mean, who would want to write a play about the Aztecs—Sixth Grade Performance Night and soccer games.

Birdsall writes in the tradition of Beverly Cleary and Eleanor Estes. The pleasure of this realistic family story comes from the characters of the siblings, their friends and neighbors and the trials of growing up and finding your place in the world and with the other people in it, even when one of them is an annoying neighborhood boy.