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If you read literary fiction, you might want to pick up "The Quiet Girl." Danish author Peter Hoeg's first novel, "Smilla's Sense of Snow," is one of my all-time favorites. All his novels since then have sounded rather weird, and this one also fits that bill. Reading it is...
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I just finished reading "The Gifted Gabaldon Sisters" by Lorraine Lopez. The Gabaldon family consists of four sisters, a brother, and a widowed father. The sisters and brother are all named after movie stars - Bette Davis Gabaldon; Sopia Loren Gabaldon; Cary Grant Gabaldon; etc. The story follows...
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If you missed our American Girls book discussion yesterday, you missed some historical Christmas treats. We enjoyed Addy's Sweet Potato Pudding, and Samantha's gingerbread. Peanut butter sandwiches represented Kit's depression-era fare, and an authentic family recipe captured the flavor of...
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Being a self-proclaimed sci-fi geek, I love the Terminator movies. With three theatrical movies, and a fourth coming in 2009 ( Terminator Salvation , starring Christian Bale!), Fox decided to capitalize on the series' success with a spin-off television series. Season 1 of Terminator: The Sarah Connor...
Posted to
Movies Blog
by
professor.knowsitall@evpl
on
12-05-2008
Filed under:
Filed under: dvd, action, blu-ray, reviews, tv shows, fiction, hit men, movies, firefly/serenity, science fiction, arnold schwarzenegger, terminator, johnny cash
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Most years I try to pick out and read at least one Christmas novel during the holidays. I thought I would share some of the titles I've enjoyed in years past. Some of the novels I've read are fairly traditional. I've never been a fan of Charles Dickens, but A Christmas Carol really is worth...
Posted to
Books Blog
by
Shh_ImReading@evpl
on
12-01-2008
Filed under:
Filed under: fiction, Terry Pratchett, Christmas, holiday, Charles Dickens, Maeve Binchy, Dave Barry, Elizabeth Burg, Christopher Moore, David Baldacci, Stewart ONan
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LIzzie is very excited when her cousin Rosanna, a year older than her, moves to Gettysburg to live with Rosanna's sister. Lizzie's father and her twin brother have enlisted in the Union army, even though her twin, Luke, is only old enough to be a drummer. The two girls become best friends, and...
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...You'll love An American Girl Christmas at McCollough Branch this Thursday, December 4, at 3:30 pm. Mothers and daughters (and Grandmothers!) are invited to share the stories of American Girls Addy, Samantha, Kit and Molly. We'll also be enjoying some historical holiday treats!
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People are talking about tough times economically, and many fear it will get worse. For an idea of what it really means to be poor, try reading Ruth White's Little Audrey. White writes in the forward that the story of four little girls and their parents living in a West Virginia coal mining camp...
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Fourteen-year-old Amy had just completed a babysitting course, but as Peg Kehret wrote in the first paragraph of Stolen Children , "it did not cover what to do if two thugs with a gun showed up. She had to figure that out by herself." As you can tell from the title, Amy and her 3-year-old charge...
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Every year, David's mother bakes a honey cake for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year celebration. Eating honey cake symbolizes the hope that the new year will be sweet. David's sister Rachel expresses the opinion of all Denmark in 1943: "A sweet year would be a year without Nazis."...
Posted to
Kids Blog
by
mrsweasley@evpl
on
11-21-2008
Filed under:
Filed under: fiction, reviews, history, wartime escape, Nazis, World War II, Germany, Jews, Denmark, cake, Joan Betty Stuchner, Rosh Hashanah, authors and illustrators
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With Thanksgiving on the way, it's a good time to consider the definition of a Pilgrim. Molly's Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen does just that. When Molly explains to her mother what her teacher told her about why the Pilgrims came to America, Molly's mother thinks it describes why their family...
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Miss Stretchberry loves poetry, and makes it part of her classroom every day. In Love That Dog , we meet Jack, who thinks poetry isn't for boys, and that he can't understand it. The story is told through Jack's poetry assignments. As the year unfolds, he finds that poems do have something...
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Dave was normally a pretty noisy 5th-grader. In fact, maybe he was a loudmouth. But after reading about Gandhi, and how for many years he spent one day a week not talking at all, Dave thought it was worth finding out what it would be like to keep silent. After about a half day of trying silence on his...
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I have never knitted and rarely do I crochet. So, when I first heard about The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs, I dismissed it as just another of the trendy knitting-themed novels to hit the shelves since yarn crafts started making their big comeback. I just wasn't interested in reading...
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Redbelt , written & directed by David Mamet, is not your typical martial arts movie...it has very few action scenes. In fact, calling it a "martial arts movie" is a bit belittling, as it is first and foremost a drama. While it started extremely slowly, I ended up getting drawn in and loving...
Posted to
Movies Blog
by
professor.knowsitall@evpl
on
11-10-2008
Filed under:
Filed under: action, suspense, reviews, fiction, trailers, good and evil, romance, thrillers, box-office flops, drama, firefly/serenity, tim allen, david mamet, chiwetel ejiofor