Swing into Spring!
Try these great reads over spring break… |
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 F H623 h Hiaasen, Carl. Hoot .
Roy Eberhardt has just moved to Florida, and although friends are scarce, he has already found two bullies. As Dana Matherson pummels him on the way to school, Roy sees a dirty, barefoot boy running away from the school bus and is curious to learn his identity. However, Beatrice Leep, the only person who knows about the barefoot boy, makes it evident that she is not about to let this happen. Meanwhile, someone has been pulling pranks at the future home of Mother Paula's Pancake House, and Officer Delinko and the Foreman Curly need to find out who it is before they both lose their jobs. A Newbery Honor Book. |
 F M478n McLaughlin, Emma & Kraus, Nicole. The Nanny Diaries .
“Nan” is a graduate student at NYU and decides to support herself by working as a nanny, a job that should easily fit around her courses, right? Wrong! Working for over-privileged Mr. And Mrs. X becomes an all-consuming nightmare, complete with matching Teletubby costume. Nan's duties include more than watching deliberately nap-deprived Grayer, the X's four-year old. She is asked to do ridiculous errands for both the X's and Mr. X's mistress, act as a child psychologist, work long unscheduled hours, and perform other feats not included in her job description, all for extremely erratic pay and no appreciation.
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 F B873m Brooks, Kevin. Martyn Pig .
Martyn Pig has a miserable life. How could things get any worse!? His mother left him and his father was an abusive alcoholic, before Martyn accidentally killed him that is, and now he will have to go to live with his dreadful aunt. Or maybe he won't if he can hide the body and fool his aunt into thinking his father is ill with the help of his secret crush Alex. Things seem to be looking up for Martyn, and he even finds a letter informing his father of a substantial inheritance. Then Martyn's life takes another turn for the worse in this dark comedy full of plot twists and suspense.
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 F S411a Schwarz, Christina. All is Vanity: a Novel .
Margaret has decided to take a year off from being a teacher at a private school in New York City to write the great American novel. The idea sounded a lot easier before she actually tried it, and Margaret finds herself doing a lot of things that don't involve writing her novel, including painting her apartment, hanging out in the library, cleaning, and emailing Letty, her best friend since childhood. In reading the hilarious accounts of one-upmanship that constitutes Letty's life in L.A., Margaret finds her novel in the flesh. However, in order finish her work, Margaret pushes Letty further and further into debt, increasing the drama in her novel and Letty's betrayal.
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 F H632b Hidier, Tanuja Desai. Born Confused .
Indian-American teen Dimple Lala has spent her life in New Jersey trying to fit in. Too American for Indians, too Indian for Americans, she was even born “confused”, feet first, causing her mother twelve hours labor. Now the culture she has been trying to deny has become cool. Even her blond-haired, blue-eyed friend Gwyn has started sporting a bindi! Gwyn has also taken a liking to the boy Dimple's parents picked for her as a future mate. Dimple agrees to make Gwyn into a suitable match and help her win the boy, but soon finds that she may want to embrace this suitable choice herself. |
 F P359d Pearl, Matthew. The Dante Club .
In this literary thriller, 19 th century poets and Harvard professors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and publisher J.T. Fields are producing America's first translation of Dante's Divine Comedy . However, some at Harvard believe that introducing old foreign superstitions will corrupt American minds and fight to keep the work in obscurity. They seem to be right when a series of murders mimicking the punishments of Hell in Dante's Inferno begins. In order to stop the murders and preserve Dante's literary future in America, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes unites with Nicholas Rey, the first black police officer in Boston, to catch the criminal.
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 PB DOK . Dokey, Cameron. The Storyteller's Daughter .
In this retelling of the Arabian Nights story, Cameron Dokey manages to blend the language and tradition of fairytales with a strong female character and modern sensibilities. After he finds his first wife plotting his death with her lover, King Shahrayar hardens his heart and vows to take a new wife every full moon for one night and behead her in the morning. Shahrazad, the blind daughter of the vizier and a foreign storyteller, is the first to volunteer for the throne, convinced that she can end the wife's curse and the king's sentence, but she must use her storytelling skills to buy her time.
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 F C325e Carter, Stephen L. The Emperor of Ocean Park .
Declared one of the best books of 2002 by Publisher's Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the New York Times and the Today Show, this novel mixes keen social observation with suspense in one man's search for justice. When a conservative, controversial, African-American Supreme Court Judge dies, his conspiracy theorist daughter believes foul play is involved. After the bishop who performs the funeral and a private investigator are found dead, the judge's son decides to investigate. However, he is not sure if he wants to know the unsavory secrets of his father's life.
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 F M818s Moon, Elizabeth. The Speed of Dark .
In the early twenty-first century, Lou Arrendale struggles with the ruthless workplace of the future. He is an autistic bio-informatics specialist who has a gift for pattern analysis and an ability to function well in both "normal" and "autistic" worlds. When a new boss is hired and believes that Lou and his co-workers are a liability, he threatens to replace them unless they undergo an experimental new procedure to cure autism. Reminiscent of Flowers for Algernon, Forrest Gump, and Rainman , this novel explores what it means to be “normal”.
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 F M398p Mason, Daniel. The Piano Tuner .
Edgar Drake is a tuner of rare pianos who lives a quiet life in nineteenth-century London. However, his peace is interrupted when the introspective man is commissioned by the British War Office in 1886 to travel to hostile Burma to repair a rare Erard grand piano vital to the Crown's strategic interests. Surgeon-Major Anthony Carroll has been using the piano's music to foster peace between local warlords much to the chagrin of warmongering officers. Once there, Drake falls in love with Burma and his trip extends much longer than initially expected as he aids Carroll's political agenda.
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 F S654l Smith, Lee. The Last Girls .
The story of how college pals who grew up in an era when they were still called "girls" have negotiated life as women. Harriet Holding is a hesitant teacher who has never married (she can't explain why, even to herself). Courtney Gray struggles to escape her Southern Living lifestyle. Catherine Wilson, a sculptor, is suffocating in her happy third marriage. Anna Todd is a world-famous romance novelist escaping her own tragedies through her fiction. And finally there is Baby, the girl they come to bury, along with their memories of her rebellions and betrayals. |
  PB HOP Hopkins, Cathy. Mates, Dates, and Inflatable Bras .
For all you Georgia Nicolson fans, meet fourteen-year-old Lucy Lovering. When Lucy's teacher assigns the class a project about themselves, Lucy is not optimistic. Her parents are hippie health-food addicts and her boy-magnet friends Nesta and Izzie both look sixteen while she seems stuck in a twelve-year-old body! When Lucy spots the hottie of her dreams, she decides to go for it, but could her Mr. Right be closer and less hunky than she had imagined? If you like this book, don't forget to check out the sequel Mates, Dates, and Cosmic Kisses !
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