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.

Three Cups of Tea

Three cups of tea: one man's mission to fight terrorism and build nations-- one school at a time / Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin; read by Patrick Lawlor.— [Old Saybrook] : Tantor Media, 2006.

11 sound discs (ca. 13.5 hr.) ; digital ; 4 3/4 in.

ISBN: 1400102510

Compact discs

Unabridged edition

1. Girls' schools -- Pakistan. 2. Girls' schools -- Afghanistan. 3. Humanitarian assistance, American -- Pakistan. 4. Humanitarian assistance, American -- Afghanistan.

371.822

Following an unsuccessful attempt to scale K2, the world’s second highest peak, a dispirited and disoriented mountaineer got lost during his decent. After a night alone in the Karakoram of northern Pakistan Greg Mortenson was found by a local guide and put on the right path down towards human habitation, but he lost his way again and arrived exhausted in the small village of Korphe in Baltistan the remote and beautiful area of north-east Pakistan where he was taken in by the inhabitants and nursed back to health.

Shocked when he found the village children scratching arithmetic problems in the ground, because they could not afford a school or a teacher he vowed to return and build them a school. Back in the United States he worked a nurse and hand typed hundreds of fundraising requests, before the local copy shop owner, a Pakistani, offered to teach him word processing. Eventually he caught the attention of irascible silicon chip developer Jean Hoerni, who funded the Korphe school on the condition that Mortenson send him a picture when it was done. So successful was the school that Hoerni started the Central Asia Institute to carry on the work of school building, and appointed Mortenson its director.

In addition to its hopeful message of education, especially educating girls, in this remote part of the world, it’s an exciting tale of mountaineering, political maneuvering to squelch a fatwa, kidnapping and blazing machinegun battles between rival opium smugglers. Lawlor does an admirable job of giving voice to the excitement. Tantor Media is also to be commended for adding end of the disc announcements in another voice—a great help to listeners who are simultaneously maneuvering motor vehicles.

Paradise

Paradise / by Toni Morrison; performed by Lynne Thigpen.— Prince Frederick: Recorded Books, p1999.

12 sound discs (14 hrs.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.

ISBN: 0788737287

1. African Americans -- Oklahoma -- Fiction. 2. City and town life – Fiction. 3. Oklahoma – Fiction.

After the end of the Second World War, the returning veterans of Hope, Oklahoma decide to take their families and move together. They plan to start a new town, and leave behind the failures of the dustbowl, just as their forefathers had trekked from Mississippi and Louisiana to leave behind slavery and start a new life as freedmen. Burned deep in their memory and the memory of their children is the bitter rejection that they faced along the way. Rejection because of the darkness of their skin, all the more bitter because it came from other newly liberated African Americans of a lighter complexion.

In the new town of Ruby the veterans and their families built a prosperous, if isolated, town on the bedrock of family, church and community. So why three decades later were their children questioning and rejecting these values? Where had this contagion entered their peaceful utopia?

A few miles up the road was the Convent. It wasn’t really a convent, it was a former school for American Indian children run by nuns, but the last nun had died their years ago, and the Indian children had left years before that. Now there was only an odd assortment of women living in the old building, women who had drifted there because they didn’t fit in. They were fleeing unhappy and abusive relationships, and they ending up just a few miles outside of Ruby.

Sometimes a resident of Ruby, needing to escape the strictures of small town life, would end up coming to the Convent. Could the Convent be the source of the contagion? A few men from Ruby think so, and they plan to do something about it.

Morrison’s probes the tensions between men and women, order and freedom, personal reputation and reality, between races, and between generations. Her fluid prose—matched by Thigpen’s smooth mellow narration—does not shy away from harsh scenes of physical and emotional brutality, nor does it fail to portray the redemptive love of friendship and compassion. This is a rich and brilliant book; it is a literary masterpiece.

Science fiction classics

Science fiction classics / Radio Spirits.— Cedar Knolls, NJ : Radio Spirits, 2004.

10 sound discs (10 hrs.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet (32 p. : ill. ports. ; 12 cm.)

(Legends of Radio)

Contents: Dimension X (6-24-50): Destination Moon / Robert A. Heinlein -- Dimension X (6-17-51): Pebble In The Sky / Isaac Asimov -- Lux Radio Theatre (1-4-54): The Day The Earth Stood Still / Harry Bates -- Shadow (2-29-48): The Man Who Was Death / Alfred Bester -- Dimension X (05-13-50): Almost Human / Robert Bloch -- X-Minus One (2-5-56): There Will Come Soft Rains ; Zero Hour / Ray Bradbury -- Quiet Please (11-07-48): Adam And The Darkest Day / Wyllis Cooper -- X-Minus One (3-7-56): Gun For Dinosaur / L. Sprague De Camp -- X-Minus One (10-10-56): Colony / Philip K. Dick -- Exploring tomorrow (1958): Speak no more / Gordon R. Dickson -- CBS Radio Workshop (7-21-57): Green hills of earth / Robert A. Heinlein -- X-Minus One (3-28-56): Pail of air / Fritz Leiber -- Lights Out (2-16-43): Oxychloride X / Arch Oboler -- X-Minus One (3-6-57): Seventh victim / Robert Sheckley -- Exploring Tomorrow (3-58): No way out / Robert Silverberg -- X-Minus One (2-22-56): Junkyard / Clifford D. Simak -- X-Minus One (7-3-56): Mr. Costello, Hero / Theodore Sturgeon -- Lux Radio Theatre (2-8-55): War of the worlds / H.G. Wells – Science fiction classics (booklet) / by Anthony Tollin.

ISBN: 1570196966

1. Science fiction radio programs—United States.

791.4475

This is an impressive compilation of American science fiction radio programs from the 1950s. Three of them, “Destination Moon,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” and The War of the Worlds,” are adaptations of the motion pictures of the same title and vintage, but of most of them are adaptations of the stories of prominent authors of the time: Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Alfred Bester, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, L. Sprague De Camp, Philip K. Dick, Gordon R. Dickson, Fritz Leiber, Clifford D. Simak, Robert Silverberg, and Theodore Sturgeon. There are also a few written originally for radio. An excellent accompanying booklet explains the emergence of the genre and then a program-by-program profile of the authors, with their portraits and a cast list.