Dani's Story

Dani's Story is a heartbreaking story of a little girl that went through enormous neglect to come full circle and triumph to a wonderful new family. When 6 year old Dani was removed from her birth mother's home in 2005 she was not toilet trained, could not speak and walked on her tip toes. With the love and patience and perseverence of Bernie and Diane Lierow. They adopted her in 2007 and transformed her once dark and small world to one filled with love, patience and Hello Kitty. I cried and cheered for every little milestone made in this child's life and thought that God does make an incredible change in people's lives. This book is a must read!

Dust & Decay

The second book to Rot& Ruin is just as amazing as the first. Dust & Decay by Jonathan Maberry picks up with the kids training for their road trip to follow the jet plane. Their trip gets off to a rocky start when they discover that their old friends, Brother Davis, Sister Sarah and Sister Shanti are missing. They also meet up with a new shady character by the name of Preacher Jack. There are also some weird happenings in the Ruin. Some zombies are moving quite a bit faster than usual and they are swarming. Animals are turning up long distances from where they should be and the strangest thing of all is that some people are not re-animating after death. They have also heard rumours that Gameland is back up and running. Again this is a fast paced wonderful book. I hope that you will take the time to read the first book Rot& Ruin. I can't wait for the conclusion. Please hurry Mr. Maberry!

Drummer Girl by Karen Bass

We all want to fit in, be part of the group, and be accepted for who we are. Sid is no exception to this: as an extraordinarily talented drummer, she lives her life doing what she loves. However, Sid yearns for the opportunity to be the drummer for a local band and when she is asked to change one small thing about herself to make that opportunity happen, she drops her reservations and tries.

In some books, when the plain girl gets a makeover, the whole world changes: boys suddenly notice that she is beautiful and want to be with her, the mean girls at school suddenly realize they were wrong to bully her and the job that rejected her suddenly cannot do enough to bring her into the fold. For Sid, when she makes herself over to better fit the image of what the hottest band in high school, The Fourth Down (TFD), wants, things do indeed change for her: a dear friend is lost, unwanted sexual attention is gained and disappointment is earned from one of her mentors.

I love YA fiction (and read it almost exclusively) because it leaps into difficult subjects without hesitation and challenges with the topic without a lot of flowery fuss. Sid deals with being thought of as being gay to being the object of sexual harassment and an assault and does so in a very realistic manner. Sid is an incredibly likable character, as are all the characters in this book. They have faults, they have feelings, they have misunderstandings and tragedies and throughout the entire book, I like them all from her workaholic father to her goofy love interest Brad as well as her friends and school guidance counsellor.

Ultimately, Sid learns a lesson or two and Karen Bass makes sure it happens without being preachy. It is evident that Bass knows and understands young people and I look forward to reading more of her books!

On order at the Stettler Public Library. Place a hold on it today!

The Salt Lake Loonie: and other stories every sports fan should know by Brett Matlock and Jesse Matlock

I love sports in all forms: I play, watch and follow sports whenever time will allow it. Sometimes my schedule works around when the next Oiler or Stampeder game is televised. Needless to say, sports are an obsession to me. So when I find a sports book that interests me and is entertaining, I must tell everyone about it. That is the case with The Salt Lake Loonie.

Written by brothers Brett and Jesse Matlock, this book tells readers about sporting stories throughout the ages. From the ancient Olympics in Greece to the loonie at centre ice at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, the Matlocks tell entertaining, inspiring and tragic sporting stories from all over the world. Did you know that there is no film footage of Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 point game on March 2, 1962 in one of the NBA’s highest scoring games? Or that Tony Hawk became a professional skateboarder at the tender age of 14?

Including stories about the woman who won the Boston Marathon by taking a shortcut, the tragic 1955 Le Mans endurance race that killed over 80 people when a pit stop went catastrophically wrong and Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope, there is something in this book for everyone to gasp at in awe or shake their collective heads over. The only downside to the book is that there are no pictures but the stories are short and entertaining and I would recommend this book to anyone especially teenage boys.

Stay tuned - this book will be in our catalogue soon!

Sold by Patricia McCormick

Lakshmi is a thirteen year old girl living with her small, poor family in Nepal. They struggle to survive, but Lakshmi enjoys her life, dreaming of the boy she is promised to, and going to school.

After a particularly devastating monsoon wipes out the family's crops, Lakshmi's stepfather insists that she leave home and work in the city to support the family. Instead of being taken to the city to work as a maid, Lakshmi is sold into prostitution in India.

Watch the book trailer.

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Teens, if you think you're too young to garden, please think again! Then go get this book!

Since reading The Secret Garden as a child, I have had a playful interest in gardening. Not once have I taken gardening seriously, never have I amended soil or checked its pH. I subscribe to the school of “let’s see what happens” and have often been quite pleased with the results.

I recognize that a lot of science has gone into gardening and those who use the science actually have beautiful gardens. But who can plod through testing the soil, having the latest gadget and learning the Latin names for plants? I cannot. Gardening to me is about having my hands in the soil, taking risks and hopefully ending up with some carrots at the end.

It is that attitude that I found in “No Guff Vegetable Gardening: Garden Coaches Chat”: the attitude of play, the attitude that this is not all serious, the attitude that there may be more than one right answer. Gardening coaches Donna Balzer and Steven Biggs bring you along for the ride as they expose the “guff” (the nonsense) and share gardening fun with the reader.

Between them, Balzer and Biggs have years of gardening experience but they don’t necessarily agree on everything. Dare I say there are gender differences in gardening? There are also differences in geography: Balzer gardens in Calgary and Biggs in Toronto but both have gardened across Canada.

No Guff Vegetable Gardening is such an appealing book: it is full of colour, illustrations, photographs and no end of humour. Every page is an expression of the excitement the authors obviously feel about gardening. When it arrived in the library, we were all immediately enthralled and even the non-gardeners among us wanted to read the book! And of course I recommend it to you, too. Yes, I realize it is nearing end of the season, but admit it: this is when you start planning for next year!

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Pilot & Huxley by Dan McGuiness

Pilot & Huxley are two boys whose adventures are chronicled in (so far) three hilarious graphic novels by Dan McGuiness. Huxley is the smart, uptight one. Pilot is the goofy, absent-minded one. Together they form a duo who can stop aliens from taking over the world, travel to other dimensions, and beat entire video games.

Just be prepared to laugh your butt off.

Check out these two cool dudes at their website by clicking here.