Cover Art

This book's cover grabbed my attention, which is what all good book jackets should do. Never mind that old saying, never judge a book by its cover, we all do it, it is human nature. This particular book is aimed at teenagers and has some cool features that should attract them, including a see-through insert and a pink banner reading "Rest in Popularity". I hope the book lives up to its cool cover.

Ghost Girl by Tonya Hurley.

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

And if I should die before I awake,

I pray the popular attend my wake.

Charlotte Usher feels practically invisible at school, and then one day she really is invisible. Even worse: she's dead. And all because she choked on a gummy bear. But being dead doesn't stop Charlotte from wanting to be popular; it just makes her more creative about achieving her goal.

If you thought high school was a matter of life or death, wait till you see just how true that is. In this satirical, yet heartfelt novel, Hurley explores the invisibility we all feel at some times and the lengths we'll go to be seen.

Listen Up!

The New Hampshire State Library has ordered even more downloadable audiobooks.These are MP3 titles so you should be able to play them on an iPod or Mac as well as the usual MP3 players and PCs.

Title	Author
The Battle for the Rhine 1944	Neillands, Robin
A Brief History of Time	Hawking, Stephen W.
Windchill	Anderson, Melvin
The Anteater of Death	Webb, Betty
The Eiger Sanction	Trevanian
Firewall	Mankell, Henning
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County	Baker, Tiffany
The Onion Girl	Lint, Charles de
The Price of Silence	Wilhelm, Kate
The Secret Adversary	Christie, Agatha
Seven Kinds of Death	Wilhelm, Kate
The Stabbing in the Stables	Brett, Simon
Without Warning	Birmingham, John
The Amateur	Littell, Robert
The Copenhagen Connection	Peters, Elizabeth
Crimson City	Maverick, Liz
Crocodile on the Sandbank	Peters, Elizabeth
Death in Paradise	Parker, Robert B.
Double Play	Parker, Robert B.
In the Courts of the Crimson Kings	Stirling, S. M.
The Mummy Case	Peters, Elizabeth
The Sacred Book of the Werewolf	Pelevin, Victor
The Scarletti Curse	Feehan, Christine
A Taste of Crimson	Liu, Marjorie M.
The Women	Boyle, T. C.

"Marvelous Marionettes" Visit the Library

During school vacation week, "Dan Grady and his Marvelous Marionettes" performed their magic at the library to the delight of over 180 children, teens, caregivers, parents and grandparents. His fast paced string production, choreographed to lively music, was enjoyed by all.

The marionnettes we met, Conway Kitty, the three clowns, the leprechaun, Eanad Edarg, Fred & Ginny, the rabbit on roller skates, and Humphrey Dumpty, were all designed and crafted by Dan. Thank you, Dan, for a puppet-wonderful show!

2009 Indies Choice Book Award Winners

From the American Booksellers Association:

The new Indies Choice Book Awards reflect the spirit of independent bookstores nationwide through new categories and a broader range of winners and honor books.

The 2009 Indies Choice Book Award winners, chosen by the owners and staff at ABA member stores during more than four weeks of voting, are:
Best Indie Buzz Book (Fiction): The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (The Dial Press)

Best Conversation Starter (Nonfiction): The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell (Riverhead)

Best Author Discovery: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski (Ecco)

Best Indie Young Adult Buzz Book (Fiction): The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman

Best New Picture Book: Bats at the Library, by Brian Lies (Houghton Mifflin)

Most Engaging Author: Sherman Alexie

"On behalf of independent booksellers across the country, we're proud to announce the first Indies Choice Book Award winners," said ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz. "Each perfectly represents the array of unique and thought-provoking titles championed by ABA members. We look forward to saluting the winning authors and illustrators at a very festive Celebration of Bookselling Luncheon at BEA."

Five Indies Choice Book Awards honor recipients were also named in each category:
Best Indie Buzz Book (Fiction) Honor Books
City of Thieves, by David Benioff (Viking)
The Given Day, by Dennis Lehane (Morrow)
Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill (Pantheon)
People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks (Viking)
Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri (Knopf)

Best Conversation Starter (Nonfiction) Honor Books
American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon, by Steven Rinella (Spiegel & Grau)
The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins (Knopf)
Hurry Down Sunshine: A Memoir, by Michael Greenberg (Other Press)
A Voyage Long and Strange: On the Trail of Vikings, Conquistadors, Lost Colonists, and
Other Adventurers in Early America, by Tony Horwitz (Holt)
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami (Knopf)

Best Author Discovery (Debut) Honor Books
Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith (Grand Central)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson (Knopf)
Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan (Algonquin)
The Story of Forgetting, by Stefan Merrill Block (Random House)
White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga (Free Press)

Best Indie Young Adult Buzz Honor Book (Fiction)
Graceling, by Kristin Cashore (HMH)
Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow (Tor)
My Most Excellent Year, by Steve Kluger (Dial)
Savvy, by Ingrid Law (Dial)

Best New Picture Book Honor Books
Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken, by Kate DiCamillo; illustrated by Harry Bliss
(HarperCollins)
Monkey and Me, by Emily Gravett (Simon & Schuster)
The Pout Pout Fish, by Deborah Diesen; illustrated by Dan Hanna (FSG)
Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, by Mem Fox; illustrated by Helen Oxenbury
(Harcourt)
Wave, by Suzi Lee (Chronicle)

Most Engaging Author Honor Recipients
Michael Chabon
Ann Patchett
Jon Scieszka
David Sedaris
Terry Tempest Williams

Winners and honor books are all titles appearing on the 2008 Indie Next Lists, which launched last July, and on the Book Sense Picks Lists from the first half of the year. Most Engaging Author honorees are being recognized for being engaging at in-store appearances, as well as for having a strong sense of the importance of independent booksellers to their communities at large.

Most Challenged Books of 2008

From the American Library Association:

For a third consecutive year, Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell's award-winning "And Tango Makes Three," a children's book about two male penguins caring for an orphaned egg, tops the American Library Association's (ALA) Top Ten list of the Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2008.

Four books are new to the list: "Bless Me, Ultima," by Rudolfo Anaya; "Uncle Bobby's Wedding," by Sarah S. Brannen; "The Kite Runner," by Khaled Hosseini; and "Flashcards of My Life," by Charise Mericle Harper.

Alvin Schwartz's "Scary Stories" series returns after being dropped from the list in 2007.
"Books, magazines, and other reading materials should reflect the diverse views and the rich multicultural tapestry of our Nation," said Deborah Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. "While not every book is right for each reader, every reader has the right to choose reading materials for themselves and their families and should be able to find those materials in libraries, classrooms, and bookstores. Our goal is to protect one of our most precious fundamental rights - our freedom to read."

For nearly 20 years, the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has collected reports on book challenges. A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school, requesting that materials be removed or restricted because of content or appropriateness. In 2008, OIF received 513 reports on efforts to remove or restrict materials from school curricula and library bookshelves.

Though OIF receives reports of challenges in public libraries, schools, and school libraries from a variety of sources, a majority of challenges go unreported. OIF estimates that its statistics reflect only 20-25% of the challenges that actually occur.

The ALA's Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2008 reflect a range of themes, and consist of the following titles:
1. "And Tango Makes Three," by Justin Richardson/Peter ParnellReasons: Anti-Ethnic, Anti-Family, Homosexuality, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group
2. "His Dark Materials Trilogy" (Series), Philip PullmanReasons: Political Viewpoint, Religious Viewpoint, Violence
3. "TTYL"; "TTFN"; "L8R, G8R" (Series), Lauren MyracleReasons: Offensive Language, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group
4. "Scary Stories" (Series), Alvin SchwartzReasons: Occult/Satanism, Religious Viewpoint, Violence
5. "Bless Me, Ultima," by Rudolfo AnayaReasons: Occult/Satanism, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Sexually Explicit, Violence
6. "The Perks of Being A Wallflower," by Stephen ChboskyReasons: Drugs, Homosexuality, Nudity, Offensive Language, Sexually Explicit, Suicide, Unsuited to Age Group
7. "Gossip Girl" (Series), by Cecily von ZiegesarReasons: Offensive Language, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group
8. "Uncle Bobby's Wedding," by Sarah S. BrannenReasons: Homosexuality, Unsuited to Age Group
9. "The Kite Runner," by Khaled HosseiniReasons: Offensive Language, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group
10. "Flashcards of My Life," by Charise Mericle Harper Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group

Curled Up With a Few Good Books

In 2007 the National Endowment for the Arts released their findings of a study they conducted called To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence. The results had some pretty depressing statistics concerning teens. Here is a small sampling of their findings:

Americans are reading less - teens and young adults read less often and for shorter amounts of time compared with other age groups and with Americans of previous years.
Less than one-third of 13-year-olds are daily readers, a 14 percent decline from 20 years earlier. Among 17-year-olds, the percentage of non-readers doubled over a 20-year period, from nine percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004.1
On average, Americans ages 15 to 24 spend almost two hours a day watching TV, and only seven minutes of their daily leisure time on reading.

See what I mean--pretty depressing. That's why, when I came across the young girl pictured to your left with a large stack of books to keep her busy during school vacation, I just had to take a picture. I wish that I saw more of this, but I will take what I can get!

Pulitzer Prize in Literature Announced

The Pulitzer Prize winners were announced this afternoon at 3:00. Here is the list in literature (how many have you read?):

Fiction - Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Random House)
Drama - Ruined by Lynn Nottage
History - The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed (W.W. Norton & Company)
Biography - American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham (Random House)
Poetry - The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin (Copper Canyon Press)
General Nonfiction - Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon (Doubleday)

Silver Donated to the Library

Barbara and Henry Wing were antiquing recently when they came across this old silver spoon with the Dover Public Library etched into the bowl. They kindly purchased it and donated it to the Library. None of the Librarians has heard anything about commemorative spoons being made of the Library. We are intrigued with this treasure. Does anyone else have a Library spoon?

Contest Winners Announced!

Our first Peeps Show Contest was very successful. We were pleased to receive 81 entries; many more than we dreamed of getting! We were astonished by the creativity and ability of the Peeps artists. It was extremely difficult to pick a winner for each division.

Winner of the Adult Division is Michele Albion with Peeps Fair.
Winner of the Teen Division is Jackie Mazzone with The Other Boleyn Peep.


Winner of the Kids Division is Mayson Smith with Sponge Bob's Easter Egg Hunt.

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all the artists who participated. We hope to see you again next year!

Peeps Show Contest Honorable Mentions

We had 69 entries in the Kids Division of the Peeps Show Contest.They were so impressive that just one winner was not sufficient. We felt that we needed to award Honorable Mentions to some outstanding Peeps dioramas. They are as follows:

Miracle on Ice by Garrett Swan.









Goodnight Moon by Zoe Albion.









Power to the Peeple by Mary Provencal-Fogarty.









King Arthur by Chloe Knierim.









Tennis Peeps by Noah Albion.

The President & the Queen Visiting the Library!

President Obama, the Queen, Lincoln, Uncle Sam, and other notable figures, are currently perched atop our magazine shelves in the addition of the library. This is part of the Dover High School art show currently on display at the library. The show includes drawings, paintings, sculpture, photography, jewelry and pottery. There are some amazing works to be seen, and you have until April 30th to come and take a look.

7th Annual Poetry Contest Deadline Fast Approaching

The deadline for the 7th Annual Poetry Contest is this coming Monday, April 13th--so get those poems in before it's too late! The contest is for kids in grades k-12. Visit our website at http://www.dover.lib.nh.us/ for more information. Here is last year's winner in the 3rd and 4th grade category.

Autumn Tree

A bold, beautiful eagle
finds a place to rest on a bare tree branch.
The orange evening sky surrounds her mossy trunk.
She only can dream of the warm days of summer.
No longer can she feel the sun beating down on her.
All she can feel is her branches
Swaying in the freezing wind.
Her colorful leaves are yet to be blown away.

Where Are the Teen Peeps?

We are starting to get some wonderful entries in the Adult Division of the Peeps Show contest but we are desperate for some Teen entries. So far only one Teen has an entry. I know you teens are really creative, I have seen the art display from the High School, so let's see what happens when you set your creativity loose upon the peeps! You still have two days to enter.

The Night Villa

The Night Villa by Carol Goodman
Classics professor Sophie Chase is drawn against her better judgment to the isle of Capri to participate in the excavation of the Night Villa, which was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius. She hopes to find a journal written by the young slave girl she wrote her thesis on who was embroiled in a fight for her freedom in the Roman Courts.

The sultry atmosphere of Capri was so beautiful described I felt I had escaped from New Hampshire’s harsh spring weather. I couldn’t wait to get back to the book to find out what new twist had developed amongst the devious crew of characters; the software millionaire, the brilliant, beautiful yet insecure student, the worldly professor who is Sophie’s former lover, and the ex-husband who had disappeared into the mysterious Pythagoras Cult. All this and secret pagan rites too. You will find this literary thriller difficult to put down.

We Need Some Adult Peeps!

You still have time to enter The Peeps Show Contest. The Kids division (through age 12) is getting good participation, but the Teen division (ages 13-17) and Adult division (age 18 and up) is extremely sparse. You could win a $25 gift Target card simply by creating a peeps diorama in a shoe box! How easy it that? You have through April 10th to get your entries in.

Keep on Truckin'

I just read in the New York Times that R. Crumb is coming out with a comic-strip retelling of the Book of Genesis. Whoa--this is the Keep on Truckin' guy! Should be interesting and strange. It is not coming out until October so I'm sorry to get you all excited months in advance.

"In the footsteps of the master… "
A voyage back 400 years to discover Galileo’s 1st recorded telescopic observations in 1609

A Lecture and Slide Show by
John S. Gianforte of the Blue Sky Observatory at UNH
in hononr of the International Year of Astronomy


Tuesday, April 14
7pm
Library Lecture Hall

Libraries to Start Lending Money

"In its latest bid to kick-start the nation’s ailing economy, the government has announced that public libraries will extend their current range of services to include the lending of money. From today, customers borrowing books will also be able to take out financial loans for a period of three weeks, though it may be possible to renew the terms of these agreements provided no other customer is waiting to borrow the cash."

Want to know more? Read this fantastic article by Newsbiscuit or else you may be "fixed with a chastening stare by the beady-eyed old lady on the checkout desk."

Oh, yes, happy April 1st.