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Archives for February 2011

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Pat Conroy

by Jane Wangersky February 28th, 2011 | Authors
At the beginning of The Great Santini, a nearsighted girl watching for her father's plane asks her brother if he sees anything. He says:
"I see fourteen passenger pigeons, a squadron of Messerschmidts. Over there I see Jesus Christ rising from the dead. Mary being assumed into heaven. I see a horde of Mongols, Babe Ruth taking a s***, and a partridge in a pear tree."
"I mean, do you see anything interesting?" Mary Anne answered unemotionally.

And we're off on a Pat Conroy story, full of impossible but wildly entertaining dialogue plus reflections on family, sports, the military, the American South,
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Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie

by Chang Song February 23rd, 2011 | Fiction, Young Adults
While many people put tremendous effort into promoting and helping to make African American Heritage month great, other heritage months don’t seemed to get the same amount of attention. For example, Native American Heritage Month is in November, but not a lot of people know that actually exists. One of the books that could ignite people’s interest towards Native American Heritage, especially young teenagers, is Indian Killer.

Indian Killer is written by Sherman Alexie. Alexie is a Spokane Native American and  one of the most talented writers of his time. He is an established novelist, short story writer, poet, filmmaker
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Shel Silverstein

by Louise February 21st, 2011 | Authors, Children's, Fiction
Many readers are familiar with The Giving Tree, a story about a relationship between a young boy and a tree that the boy befriends. What readers might not know is that Shel Silverstein, who wrote this illustrated children's book, originally had a great deal of trouble trying to get the story published. Many publishers loved the story, but thought it was too short, or too sad, and thought it would not fare well on the market because it fell somewhere in between adult and children's literature. Finally, Silverstein met Ursula Nordstrom, editor at Harper Children's Books, who agreed to
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Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters, by Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger with Jeffrey Zaslow

by Jane Wangersky February 14th, 2011 | Nonfiction
On January 15th, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 was hit by a flock of Canada geese which flew straight into its engines. Both engines lost power, and the plane made an emergency landing in the Hudson River. All 155 people on board were safely evacuated and rescued, as the story made the news all over the country.

The flight's captain, Chesley Sullenberger, became an instant celebrity. In this memoir, he gives not only a second-by-second account of the landing, but his insights into how his entire life up to that day had prepared him for such an emergency.

Sullenberger had been
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Tomie dePaola’s Strega Nona

by Louise February 9th, 2011 | Authors, Children's
Since 1954, the American Library Association has awarded the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal to an author or illustrator of children's books that occupy an important place in American literature. Since 2001, the medal has been awarded every two years. This year's recipient was Tomie dePaola.

Tomie dePaola is the author of over 200 children's books. His most well known books are Newbery Honor book 26 Fairmount Avenue and my personal favorite, the Caldecott Honor-winning Strega Nona.

In Italian, "strega" means witch while "nonna" means grandma; we can learn a bit about the main character before we even begin the book. Strega
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