Sunday, October 31, 2010

Nuts

Nuts / by Kacy Cook.-- New York : Marshall Cavendish, 2010.
155 p. ; 22 cm.
ISBN: 9780761456520

1. Families -- Fiction. 2. Honesty – Fiction. 3. Ohio -- Fiction. 4. Pets -- Fiction. 5. Squirrels – Fiction. 6. Wildlife rescue -- Fiction.

813.6

Nell and her brothers find a tiny baby squirrel beneath a tree in their yard. They chase off the neighbors’ cat and bring it inside to keep it safe. Nell goes online to see how to care for infant squirrels. She finds a web site with a link that reads, “If you find an orphaned squirrel” but she’s unhappy to read what it says, “At the top of the page was a notice in a red box: If you find a baby squirrel on the ground and there is no sign of the mother after two hours, or if the baby is injured, take it to a licensed wildlife rehabilitator. A veterinarian can help in locating one.” Nell is very disappointed; she really, really wants to keep it as a pet. What can she do?

This realistic animal story is full of interesting information about wildlife rescue and gray squirrels. It also poses a number of ethical questions about the relationships between humans and animals and about honesty among humans.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Harold's Tail

Harold's tail / written and illustrated by John Bemelmans Marciano. -- New York : Viking, c2003.
130 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
ISBN: 9780670036608

1. New York (N.Y.) – Fiction. 2. Rats – Fiction. 3. Squirrels – Fiction.

Harold’s tale starts in Strauss Park and then moves to Riverside Park and eventually all about Manhattan. Harold’s travels starts with a scheming rat named Sidney, who tricks Harold into shaving his tail. Sidney glues it on to his tail and moves in to Harold’s home in Strauss Park. And Harold finds himself homeless. With a bare un-bushy tail everyone takes Harold for a rat!

Harold’s plight and his trans-species culture shock turns into a multicultural experience when, having been rejected by both humans and his fellow squirrels, he’s taken in by a more magnanimous pack of rats and is taught the nocturnal art of garbage can foraging. Marciano tells a delightful tale with well defined lively characters.

Peace Like a River

Peace like a river / by Leif Enger ; read by Edward Holland.-- Newport Beach : Books on Tape, p2001.
11 sound discs (12 hr., 31 min.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
Unabridged, library edition
Compact discs
ISBN: 0736685294

1. Bildungsromans. 2. Christian fiction. 3. Domestic fiction. 4. Faith – Fiction. 5. Fugitives from justice – Fiction. 6. Minnesota – Fiction. 7. Miracles—Fiction. 8. North Dakota – Fiction.

813.6

The night before the jury is about to render a verdict on his case Davey Land breaks out of jail and escapes. He shot two intruders who broke in and threatened his family, but when it comes out in the trial that he has provoked them, things look bad for Davey. His father Jeremiah, his asthmatic younger brother Reuben and his sister Swede, a nine-year-old author of heroic cowboy verse, take out on what they hope is his trail into the Badlands of the Dakotas.

Told by eleven-year-old Reuben, their journey and its cause and aftermath, becomes a determined struggle between faith and prayer and human selfishness, between comfort and privation, between deception and truth, and between images of hellish landscape and heavenly visions. It is also a tale abounding in miracles.

Savvy

Savvy / by Ingrid Law.—Complementary Teacher's edition. – New York : Puffin ; Boston. : Walton Media, c2010.
342, [38], 14 p. : ill. ; 19 cm.
"Includes almost 50 pages of bonus teaching materials, discussion questions, a special Q&A with Ingrid Law, notes from the 2009 Newbery Committee, and a sneak peak at Scumble, the next Savvy adventure!"

1. Fantasy fiction. 2. Kansas – Fiction. 3. Nebraska – Fiction. 4. Superheroes – Fiction.

813.6

Mibs Beaumont—Mibs is the nickname her baby sister gave her; her full first name is Mississippi—is looking forward with anxious anticipation to her thirteenth birthday. It’s only two days away and it’s the usual age when the members of her family first manifest their savvy. When her older brother Fish turned thirteen he caused a hurricane. Her “Great-aunt Jules…could step back twenty minutes in time every time she sneezed…second cousin Olive…could melt ice with a single red-hot stare,” and her brother Rocket could create an enormous amount of electricity.

But Mibs’s birthday suspense is crushed by a horrible highway accident. Suddenly, her father, a man without any savvy, is in a coma in the far away Salina Hope Hospital. When Rocket and her mother drive off to be with him Mibs and the rest of her large family are stranded with the preacher’s family, and Mibs knows that she just has to get to Salina and she will do anything to get there.