Posted in Staff Picks

Staff Picks

Read it! Loved it! Teen Titles For Everyone.

Brenda's blog about the Youth Media Awards from a couple weeks ago got me thinking about the best books for teens that I read in 2016.

Love books!
​I use the Youth Media Awards to help me gage how I am doing with my reading....and by that standard, I did not do very well this year.

True confession: I read ONLY ONE book for teens that appeared on the list of winners chosen by my fellow librarians and literature experts.

Continue Reading "Read it! Loved it! Teen Titles For Everyone."

Staff Picks

The David Bowie Book Club

It's hard to believe that it's already been one year since David Bowie left this world. His contributions to the world of popular music are incalculable, to say nothing of his impact as a style icon. But among the various larger-than-life personas that Bowie assumed throughout his career (Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke, Jareth the Goblin King), you can add one more: bibliophile.

David Bowie for America's libraries
It's true - the Starman himself was a regular bookworm, just like us! When Vanity Fair asked Bowie to complete the famous Proust Questionnaire in 1998, his answer to the first question, "What is your idea of perfect happiness?" was succinct: "Reading." And to prove this point, in 2013 he compiled and published on his official website a list of his 100 favorite books, along with the suggestion that dedicated fans could start a Bowie Book Club. His choices were unsurprisingly eclectic, ranging from poetry to sociology to comic books, and spanning the 8th century BC (Homer's The Iliad) up through 2008 (Susan Jacoby's The Age Of American Unreason).

Although several of the titles that he chose are no longer in print, plenty of these books are available to be checked out at DPPL today. Any one of the six books listed below would be a fine introduction to a proverbial Bowie Book Club, as they all deal with themes and topics central to some of Bowie's finest music. (And if you're unfamiliar with the man's work, the recent double-CD compilation Nothing Has Changed is a fine primer.)

To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party

To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party

By Skila Brown

The journey west by wagon train promises to be long and arduous for nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Graves and her parents and eight siblings. Yet she is hopeful about their new life in California: freedom from the demands of family, maybe some romance, better opportunities for all. But when winter comes early to the Sierra Nevada and their group gets a late start, the Graves family, traveling alongside the Donner and Reed parties, must endure one of the most harrowing and storied journeys in American history. Amid the pain of loss and the constant threat of death from starvation or cold, Mary Ann's is a narrative, told beautifully in verse, of a girl learning what it means to be part of a family, to make sacrifices for those we love, and above all to persevere.

The Great American Whatever

The Great American Whatever

By Tim Federle

The Great American Whatever begins six months after Quinn’s sister’s death. Six months after his sister died in a car accident immediately after replying to a text he sent her. Quinn has barely left his room since her death and can’t bring himself to look at his sister’s last text. When his best friend finally convinces him to leave the house to tag along to a party, Quinn meets a handsome college student named Amir. Quinn is enamored and Amir likes him back.  It’s not true love, but it’s enough to make Quinn realize that the possibility of romance can assuage grief. He begins to come back to life while still struggling with loss, coping with coming out to his family and friends, and learning almost everyone has secrets they keep.

Lily and Dunkin

Lily and Dunkin

By Donna Gephart

When we meet Lily and Dunkin they are both a couple of days away from the first day of 8th grade. Dunkin is the new kid in town. It is unclear what trauma he has left behind, but it is clear that he is earnest and likeable and doing his best to make a fresh start. Lily was born Timothy, but has always identified as a female. Lily is out to her immediate family and her best friend and would love to establish her new identity at the start of the school year. Lily and Dunkin meet bond immediately, but middle school dynamics get in the way of true friendship until they both realize how much the other one needs them.

My Lady Jane

My Lady Jane

By Cynthia Hand

Edward is the King of England. He's also dying, which is inconvenient, as he's only sixteen and he'd rather be planning his first kiss than who will inherit his crown. Jane, Edward's cousin, is far more interested in books than romance. Unfortunately, Edward has arranged to marry her off to Gifford to secure the line of succession. And Gifford is, well, a horse. That is, he becomes a chestnut steed every morning, but wakes as a man at dusk, with a mouthful of hay. Very undignified. The plot thickens as the three are drawn into a dangerous conspiracy, and have to engage in some conspiring of their own. But can they pull off their plan before it's off with their heads?
 

Exit, Pursued by a Bear

Exit, Pursued by a Bear

By E.K. Johnston

At cheerleading camp, Hermione is drugged and raped, but she is not sure whether it was one of her teammates or a boy on another team--and in the aftermath she has to deal with the rumors in her small Ontario town, the often awkward reaction of her classmates, the rejection of her boyfriend, the discovery that her best friend, Polly, is gay, and above all the need to remember what happened so that the guilty boy can be brought to justice.
 

The Call

The Call

By Peadar Ó Guilin

For the last twenty-five years every teenager in Ireland has been subject to "the call" which takes them away to the land of the Sídhe, where they are hunted for twenty four hours (though only three minutes pass in this world)--handicapped by her twisted legs, Nessa Doherty knows that very few return alive, but she is determined to be one of them.

Ghost

Ghost

By Jason Reynolds

Ghost. Lu. Patina. Sunny. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team--a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics if they can get their acts together. They all have a lot to lose, but they also have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves.

Still Life with Tornado

Still Life with Tornado

By A.S. King

Sixteen-year-old Sarah can't draw. This is a problem, because as long as she can remember, she has "done the art." She thinks she's having an existential crisis. And she might be right; she does keep running into past and future versions of herself as she wanders the urban ruins of Philadelphia. Or maybe she's finally waking up to the tornado that is her family, the tornado that six years ago sent her once-beloved older brother flying across the country for a reason she can't quite recall.

Salt to the Sea

Salt to the Sea

By Ruta Sepetys

World War II is drawing to a close in East Prussia and thousands of refugees are on a desperate trek toward freedom, many with something to hide. Among them are Joana, Emilia, and Florian, whose paths converge en route to the ship that promises salvation, the Wilhelm Gustloff. Forced by circumstance to unite, the three find their strength, courage, and trust in each other tested with each step closer to safety.

The Serpent King

The Serpent King

By Jeff Zentner

The son of a Pentecostal preacher faces his personal demons as he and his two outcast friends try to make it through their senior year of high school in rural Forrestville, Tennessee without letting the small-town culture destroy their creative spirits and sense of self.

Washington: A Life
by Ron Chernow

Washington: a life

by Ron Chernow

Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer

Washington's Crossing

by David Hackett Fischer

1776 by David McCullough

1776

by David McCullough

George Washington DVD mini-series

George Washington

(1984 TV miniseries)

"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess. Anthony Burgess's violent, dystopian vision had a profound influence on Bowie, as did Stanley Kubrick's iconic film adaptation of the book. According to Bowie, "the inset photographs of the inside sleeve for Ziggy owed a lot to the Malcolm McDowell look from the poster," and Burgess's invented language of Nadsat (a mixture of Russian words and English slang) crops up in both the classic Ziggy Stardust single "Suffragette City" and one of Bowie's final songs, "Girl Loves Me" from Blackstar.

"Vile Bodies" by Evelyn Waugh. Evelyn Waugh's second novel made an impression on Bowie as he read it during his first American tour. He described the book as "[dealing] with London in the period just before a massive, imaginary war. People were frivolous, decadent and silly, and suddenly they were plunged into this horrendous holocaust. They were totally out of place, still thinking about champagne and parties and dressing up. Somehow it seemed to me that they were like people today." This insight provided the inspiration for the title track of 1973's Aladdin Sane.

"1984" by George Orwell. Another dystopian classic, 1984 remains a chilling warning on the dangers of totalitarianism, even as many of the book's concepts such as Big Brother, the Thought Police and doublethink have passed into common parlance. The book served as the inspiration for a never-realized musical with bespoke songs contributed by Bowie. When Sonia Orwell (George's widow) denied permission to the producers, three of the tunes written for the project ("We Are The Dead," "Big Brother" and "1984") appeared on his 1974 record Diamond Dogs.

"A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. Bowie was fascinated by the many dualities of the United States. As far back as his response to his first American fan letter in 1967, he was musing about the realism of film portrayals of America being broadcast in England, and this dichotomy later became a theme in such songs as "Young Americans," "This Is Not America" and "I'm Afraid Of Americans." So it isn't surprising that he recommended Howard Zinn's exhaustive and controversial account of American history, which offers a perspective that differs considerably from traditional textbooks by giving marginalized and oppressed voices a primary role in the narrative.

"Mystery Train" by Greil Marcus. Subtitled "Images of America in Rock 'N' Roll Music," Marcus's 1975 tome collects six essays reflecting upon the impact of six seminal musicans on American culture at large. The concluding essay, "Presliad," remains one of most insightful writings about Elvis Presley, who David Bowie once called "a major hero of mine ... I was probably stupid enough to believe that having the same birthday as him actually meant something."

"The Waste Land" by T. S. Eliot. Although Bowie demurred when William S. Burroughs called his writing "very reminiscent of The Waste Land" during a 1973 meeting, Eliot's style, which features allusions to both high-brow and low-brow past texts and abrupt shifts of tone, sets a direct precedent for such genre-bending albums as Hunky Dory. Eliot once famously wrote that "immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different." You would be hard pressed to find a rock musician that embodies this description of a "good poet" better than David Bowie.