Scat ...on CD

by Carl Hiaasen read by Ed Asner

Having Ed Asner narrating is a bit like hearing a great tall tale told by a favorite grandfather. His gruffness of tone and quirky interpretations of Hiaason’s usual band of over the top odd balls makes for a ruckus read. Sticking with his reoccurring theme of environmental exploitation of Florida’s remaining wilderness, this story starts off with the disappearance of a much feared and despised biology teacher on a field trip to Black Vine Swamp. Together three students become unlikely sleuths trying to unravel this mystery that has at its heart one Florida’s most endangered species. Hiaason knows better than anyone writing since Edward Abby how to mix serious content with laugh out loud humor and Mr. Asner delivers it all with rib tickling hilarity

Star of Kazan

_The Star of Kazan_ by Eva Ibbotson
The Star of Kazan is a gorgeous dream of a novel. It tells the story of Annika, a foundling raised by two women, Ellie and Sigrid, who are servants in the wealthy household of three eccentric sibling professors in Vienna. She spends her time in school or helping Ellie in the kitchen, running errands for the professors and playing with her friends, Stefan and Pauline.
Her love for Vienna runs deep and Ibbotson’s descriptions of the city are moving and passionate.
Annika’s life is turned upside down when her long lost aristocratic mother appears on their doorstep. While she had always dreamt of her mother coming for her, she had not thought ahead to what it would mean and how her circumstances would change. Her mother takes her home to the crumbling family estate in Germany, where Annika befriends a servant boy named Zed, who helps to solve the mystery behind her new family’s sudden appearance in her life.
The characters that bustle about Annika's neighborhood in Vienna are so wonderfully drawn and fully rounded that you are as sad to leave a Annika. By the end of the novel, Ibbotson has created such a sense of longing for it's beauty, serenity (and pastry) that you are ready to immigrate to Austria immediately. The Star of Kazan is a wonderful tale of love, family and belonging that has taken its rightful place in my list of favorites.

Karen Keyte who is the manager of our Falmouth store loved this book so much she wrote the following review

Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side
by Beth Fantaskey (ages 12 & up)
Harcourt, Inc.
Twilight fans rejoice! Jessica’s Guide is an atmospheric and satisfying romance, full of conflict and passion - one of those books you dive into and don’t resurface from until you’ve read the final page.
Jessica Packwood is really looking forward to her “once-in-a-lifetime senior year in high school. Then HE shows up. Jess knows right away that something is seriously off about handsome Romanian exchange student Lucius Vladescu. As soon as she talks to him, she knows what it is - he’s crazy, for sure.
Lucius claims that he is a vampire, for God’s sake, a Vampire Prince to be exact, and that she is the Vampire Princess betrothed to him since infancy. He’s obviously delusional, as well as ridiculous, absurd, arrogant and very, very hot. No wait, forget about that last part - he’s very, very unbalanced.
If all that is true, then how does Lucius know her birth name, Antanasia Dragomir, given to her in a remote East European village by her long dead parents? And why aren’t her adoptive parents surprised by his arrival or his tale?

Karen then sent this message to Beth Fantaskey asking her to tell us a little bit more...

One of my favorite new books for teens this spring is Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, a fresh and fabulous look at the world of vampires. I liked it so much that I actually sent an e-mail off to the author, Beth Fantaskey, to thank her for writing such a wonderful book. Through the course of our e-conversation, Beth volunteered to write a guest blog and I, of course, said "Yes, yes, please!" So, here it is

Beth Fantaskey's Guest Blog:


Our parents. We love them. They make us crazy. We (think we) know everything about them. Yet they are also complete mysteries. (Seriously - why do they seem intent embarrassing us? Even those of us in our forties?) There's just something about that relationship - mother/child, father/child - that really intrigues me. This has become especially true since I became a mom, myself, by adopting two girls from China. Along with learning to be a parent in my own right, I am keenly aware that my kids have another mother, too, somewhere on the other side of the globe. Anther mother who maybe loves the, as much as I do, and perhaps misses them more than I can imagine. Sometimes, I even feel guilty for enjoying my kids so much. My happiness means that two women, far away, are missing out, probably because of circumstances beyond their control, which compelled each of them to wrap a baby in a blanket, leave the child on a doorstep, and slip away unnoticed. The other day, my 5-year-old, Paige, wondered alound, "Do you think my tummy mom kissed me goodbye?" Of course, I'd bet my life that she did - but the truth is, we'll never know. Questions and answers like that lodge in your heart and your mind. A lot of people ask me, "What was the inspiration for /Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side/?" Honestly, inspiration came from a lot of places. But the fact that Jessica is adopted and knows nothing about her birth parents definitely springs from that aspect of my personal life. My children are already wondering what their parents were like, and as they grow older, I imagine their curiosity will strengthen. And I wonder, too. I thinks my girls are special - so by extension, I imagine that their birth parents must also be special. I wonder... Does one have Paige's powerful imagination? Does one share Julia's weird addiction to fried eggs? In /Jessica's Guide/, Jess has /super/ special birth parents... but not special in the way that she'd perhaps hoped. Jess has to come to grips with who she is, by nature of her birth. The process is painful, but ultimately rewarding, and Jess forges a strong bond with her birth mom, even beyond the grave. Chances are, my kids' birth parents will never read my book in rural China. And if they do, they won't know that the woman who adopted their babies wrote it. Yet, in a weird way, by allowing Jess to connect so strongly to /her/ birth mom, and by acknowledging the Dragomir's tremendous sacrifice in giving Jess away, I hope that I did something small to honor my own children's biological parents. It's kind of a way of saying, "I'm grateful, and would share them with you, if I could..." I wish I could give my daughters' birth parents more, in exchange for the gift they've given me."

Princess Ben
by Catherine Gilbert Murdock (ages 13 & up)
Houghton Mifflin Company
Although she is the presumptive heir to the throne in the tiny kingdom of Montagne, Princess Benevolence is not much of a princess. Sheltered by her mother and father, Ben is spoiled, rough-mannered and childish. He days are filled with little more than gorging herself on her mother’s cooking, getting into scrapes with her friends in the village, and reading from her vast collection of fairy tales. 
Ben’s life is dramatically changed in a single afternoon, however, when her uncle, King Ferdinand and her mother are both killed in an ambush. Ben’s father is missing and presumed dead, so it falls to Ferdinand’s widow, the icy and excruciatingly correct Queen Sophia, to rule the kingdom as regent and prepare Ben for her own future reign.
Scared and alone, Ben resists every attempt to turn her into a proper princess. As the weeks go by, her life becomes increasingly desolate. When all hope seems lost, Ben discovers a secret, magic room in the castle that will change her life, and her country’s future, forever.

The Year of Secret Assignments
by Jaclyn Moriarty (ages 13 & up)
Scholastic, Inc.
Emily, Lydia and Cassie, best friends since primary school, are students at Ashbury High, a private school in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. In an effort (some might say misguided) to improve relations between Ashbury and nearby, public Brookfield High, the girls English teacher has initiated a pen-friend program between Year 10 (sophomore) students in the two school. The girls are not amused.
After some initial misunderstandings, though, Lyd and Em are quite pleased with their pen-friends, Seb and Charlie. They each strike up a friendship with the boys they are writing to and there might even be some romantic leanings. Cassie, on the other hand, is having a very different experience. Matthew, the boy assigned to write to her, is insulting, hateful and threatening.
When Lyd and Em find out what Matthew has been doing to Cassie, they plot a campaign of discovery and revenge, recruiting Seb and Charlie to their cause. Of course, things don’t go quite they way they plan and soon Brookfield and Ashbury are in an all out war.
This is one of those madcap tales of misunderstanding, missed communication and (in Emily’s case) seriously misused vocabulary words. Think a modern The Importance of Being Earnest set Down Under. The entire story is told through a series of letters, diary notes, e-mails and schools announcements and Moriarty handles both the humor and the occasional serious moment with a sure hand.

The Christopher Killer
by Alane Ferguson (ages 13 & up)
Speak, an imprint of The Penguin Group 
If Nancy Drew’s father had been a county coroner, instead of a lawyer, she probably would have turned out a lot like Cameryn Mahoney. Cameryn lives in the tiny mountain town of Silverton, Colorado with her grandmother and her dad, the aforementioned county coroner. A straight-A student with a love of logic and reason, Cammie has always been fascinated with the science of death. A senior in high school, she plans to be a forensic pathologist one day and has already devoted a great deal of time and effort to studying the subject.
Book learning is all well and good, but it’s no substitute for actual experience. When she finally convinces her father to hire her as the assistant to the coroner, Cammie is thrilled. It only takes two cases for Cammie’s elation to turn into something quite different. The second case Cammie attends turns out to be someone she knew well. To make matters worse, it appears her friend is the latest victim of the serial murderer known as the Christopher Killer. Cammie is determined to use the tools of forensic science to bring her friend’s killer to justice, but first she has to avoid becoming the killer’s next victim.

Deadline
by Chris Crutcher (ages 15 & up)
Greenwillow, an imprint of Harper Collins 
Ben Wolfe is preparing to get the most out of his senior year before going forth to set the world on fire when he gets the news: he’s dying.  Without treatment, he has a year at best.  Even with treatment, his chance’s are not good. Because he’s already 18, Ben can keep this shattering news to himself. Against his doctor’s wishes, Ben decides to forego treatment and live as normal a life as possible, for as long as possible.
The thing is, nothing is really normal anymore. Freed from worrying about the future, unconcerned about humiliating himself, Ben does things he never would have done if he wasn’t dying. He goes out for football. He finally gets up the nerve to talk to Dallas Suzuki. He torments his government teacher and generally questions everything.
Before long though, Ben regrets his decision to keep his illness a secret. He’s worried about the people he’ll leave behind - his brother, his parents, his coach, Dallas. Not telling them starts to feel like lying and he wonders if knowing the truth now would make things easier for them after he’s gone.
This is probably Chris Crutcher’s most brilliant book - and that’s saying something. Told in Ben’s voice, Deadline is honest and real, both heartwarming and heartbreaking.

Bonechiller by Graham Mcnamee

For Danny Quinn and his father, Harvest Cove is just another stop along the road. The Quinns have been on the run for a couple of years now and each town along the way is smaller and more remote than the last. The problem is, they’re trying to outrun a memory.
Ever since Danny’s mother died, he and his father have lived in a self-enforced emotional void. They try not to talk about her, try to avoid even thinking about her. It works for a while, then they move on. They arrive in Harvest Cove, in the outer reaches of Ontario, in late fall and all too soon it’s bitter winter.
In this tiny town, Danny makes an unlikely trio of friends: the brothers Slater, psychotic Pike and nervous Howie; and fierce Ashley Animkee - army brats all who know what it feels like to be constantly moving. Even though Danny feels shattered by his mother’s death (“It’s like trying to glue a grenade back together after it’s gone off. There’s too many sharp and twisted little pieces.”), he does find moments of peace in this little town. At least, he does before the beast comes.
Walking home after a wild night out with his friends, Danny encounters something huge, menacing and completely inexplicable. The beast knocks him into a ditch and stings him with its tongue. When Danny comes around, he convinces himself that he slipped and fell into the ditch, that the blow to his head caused him to imagine things.
The comforting explanation unravels when Danny finds a track in the snow. Then Howie has his own terrifying encounter with the beast. Soon, both of the boys are changing. If they don’t figure out what the beast is and how to kill it, they could be lost forever.

Need
by Carrie Jones (ages 12 & up)
Bloomsbury USA  
Zara White collects fears the way other people collect baseball cards or state quarters. She memorizes the names of obscure phobias and repeats them to herself, the better to ward off her own fears. “It’s a lot easier to understand things once you name them,” Zara thinks. “It’s mostly the unknown that freaks me out.”
Once an avid runner and a passionate supporter of Amnesty International, Zara’s world changed dramatically with the death of her father (“My stepdad, really. I call him my dad. He was my dad. He raised me.”) After a couple of months of watching Zara stumble through life like a zombie, her mother has decided to pack the high school junior off to Maine to live with her grandmother, ostensibly to "get her spunk back."
Almost immediately, Zara notices a several strange things about the tiny town of Bedford: it's very cold, colder than you’d expect; the boys all seem to be taller than average; almost all of the students at her new school are fast runners; and, oh yeah, it may be infested with pixies.
Just to be clear, we're not talking the Tinkerbell kind of pixie here. We're talking pixies that use glamours to disguise themselves as humans so that they can use local teens to feed their terrible needs.  
Luckily for Zara, her new friends Issie, Devyn and Nick (as well as her grandmother, Betty) are made of stern stuff.  She’s going to need all the help she can get when the evil lurking in the Maine woods comes calling for her.

Cabinet of Wonders : The kronos chronicles Bk 1

Petra Kronos lives a simple, if somewhat less than ordinary, life in the Bohemian village of Okno. Following the death of her mother when she was but a few days old, Petra was raised by her father Mikal, an extraordinarily talented metal worker with a real gift for magic. Petra spends her time with her best friend, Tomik, whose father is the village glass maker, and with her mechanical spider Astrophile, one of Mikal Kronos’ more astounding creations.
Mikal has been invited to Prague to design a clock for Prince Rodolfo, but when he returns, he is not cloaked in glory. Instead, Rodolfo has ordered the designer of his beautiful clock blinded and has stolen Mikal’s eyes so that he might complete the clock himelf, activating a weapon that will make both the Prince and the nation of Bohemia incredibly powerful.
Petra is both terrified and enraged by what Prince Rodolfo has done to her father. With Tomik’s aid, she devises a plan to travel to Prague and retrieve her father’s eyes. Once in the capitol city, Petra and Astrophil befriend Neel, a Romany pickpocket who agrees to help Petra with her plan.
Set in a magic-laden 16th century, The Cabinet of Wonders is filled with fascinating characters, wondrous sights and dangerous intrigues. Thankfully, Ms. Rutkoski is already hard at work on a sequel to this charming and entertaining tale.

News Flash!
River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams
Wins Caldecott Honor!
The Randolf Caldecott Medal is awarded for the most distinguished American picture book for children.

Melissa Sweet Talks about being chosen by the New York Time's as having one of the best illustrated books of 2008

This is Melissa's second book nominated for the New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year award. When I asked her if it ever gets old she says"Not Hardly!"
We love Melissa...unequivocally...she is the very nicest person you'd ever want to meet and despite her many years in publishing and all her awards is infinitely patient with the children who come to see her and never, ever talks down to them. You can fairly see them blossom before your eyes as she listens intently to their questions, and does her best to answer.
And if all that wasn't enough, she's incredibly talented, producing some of the most beautiful art work you'll ever see.
Here we see her illustrate the everyday things of
William Carlos Williams life, report cards, lists, birds he saw and wrote about, all of which is very appropriate for the man whose real job was being a doctor and who wrote his poetry about the "pictures in his mind"

Scott Nash at Books

Scott Nash dropped by the store in Nov. to sign some books and tell us what he's been working on lately.
While he was here Scott was gracious enough to let me record an interview him and tell us a little bit about his lifelong love for Flat Stanley. It's always fun to hear about the effect children' s books had on future authors and illustrators.
Maine is very lucky to have such a great selection and variety of author's and illustrators, and Scott is one of the best. All his beautiful art is bursting with color and emotion and exuberance and we can't wait to see what he'll bring us next.

Chris Van Dusen

We love the exuberance that Chris brings with him to his store visits.
You can just tell from the extraordinary care Chris takes to make each
of his illustrations and stories full of joy and bubbling over with enthusiasm that he's going to be a great guy with a fabulous sense of humor. Chris takes endless time with the kids that come to see him, drawing them pictures, talking to them about what it's like to be an artist. People come in for months afterwards and tell me how much they enjoyed meeting him. It's easy to see why Candlewick chose the wonderful Teddy Roosevelt for Chris to illustrate in their fabulous new Our White House book, it's a match made in heaven.

Great New Young Adult Science Fiction reviewed by Karen Keyte

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness   Candlewick Books • for readers 14 & Up  Todd Hewitt is the last boy in Prentisstown, the last settlement left on New World.  Twenty years ago, a group of religious pilgrims arrived on New World, hoping to start over on this lush green planet, far away from the crowds, confusion, overwhelming hatred and ever-advancing technology that they believed was eating Old World alive.  They sought a return to simpler times, this small group of like-minded believers alone on this new planet.  But, they were not alone.  Soon after landing, the humans encountered an indigenous race which they dubbed ‘Spackle.’  Though the humans tried to live peacefully with the Spackle, the aliens would have none of it.  A war quickly erupted and the Spackle used terrifying germs as their weapons.  One such germ gave all the power of speech to all of the animals.  Annoying, but not threatening.  Then the Spackle released the Noise germ.  All of the women and half of the men were killed.  Though the Spackle were utterly destroyed, Prentisstown was the only settlement to survive.  It harbors only men and boys, each able to hear the constant Noise of each other’s every thought.  Now Todd is the only boy who has yet to grow to manhood and in one short month he will be a man, and there will be no boys left at all.  That is the history of New World as Todd knows it and he has never had reason to doubt it.  Now, however, it seems that most of that history may have been little more than lies.  One day, while out picking swamp apples with his faithful dog Manchee, Todd encounters a truly frightening thing - a hole in the Noise.  That can only mean one thing, a creature who has no Noise, only quiet.  A girl, in fact.  When he returns home and tells the two men who have raised him about what he didn’t hear, Todd sets in motion a chain of events that leaves him running from the only home he has ever known, and running for his life. 

Mark Moulton at Books Etc

As part of our Children's Month celebrations in Nov. we asked Mark to come by the store for a signing and reading from his wonderful new book Reindeer Christmas. Destined to become a family favorite this is a story of sharing and caring and the true meaning of Christmas. When a family goes out one snowy December evening to deliver treats to their woodland friends they find a sick reindeer and decide to nurse him back to health. Filled throughout with luminous illustrations from long time co creator Karen Hillard Good, this is a beautiful book with a great message.

Kevin Hawkes at Books Etc.

One of my very,very favorite picture books. A book that speaks to me as much with the pictures as it does with the text. This story of a lonely lion's adoration for his local library will mirror many people's own great fondness for the libraries and books they grew up with. Told with lots of heart and gentle humor, this tale of a big, cuddly feline and the staff and patrons who adopt him is made more memorable with fabulous illustrations by Kevin Hawkes. The combination move this book into the realms of such classics as Peter Rabbit or Winnie the Pooh. Books you simply can't imagine looking any other way. Playful, evocative and filled with a sweet beauty, this book conveys, as Kevin himself says, all the comfort one feels surrounded by your old friends on the bookshelves.

Sarah Thomson at Books Etc.

This review has been submitted by the Falmouth Books Etc Manager Karen Keyte.

Airman by Eoin Colfer •  • ages 11 & Up
I’m as big a fan of the Artemis Fowl series as the next person, but I have to admit, my favorite Eoin Colfer novel is not a part of that series. If you are a fan of Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo or Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, you are guaranteed to love the story of Conor Broekhart.  In fact, this book easily stands with those classics as one of the best adventure stories ever written.
It would not be going too far to say that Conor Broekhart was destined to fly.  Indeed, Conor was born flying.  He came into this world in the basket of a hot air balloon at the 1878 Paris World’s Fair.  Conor spent his childhood with his adoring parents - scientist Catherine and soldier Declan - on the sovereign Kingdom of the Saltee Islands off the southeast coast of Ireland.  A friend to Princess Isabella, Conor’s boyhood was idyllic.  His days were filled with his adventures with the princess and with his study of the science of flight, guided by the eccentric royal tutor, Victor Vigny.
 Conor’s happy existence is abruptly shattered at age 14, when he witnesses an act of treason against King Nicholas.  Conor acts to disrupt the plot and seals his own fate.  The evil Marshall Bonvilain uses Conor to cover his own involvement and has the boy thrown into the hellish prison on Little Saltee Island.
 On Little Saltee, Conor’s odds of survival sink catastrophically low.  The prisoners are treated abysmally and are forced to mine Little Saltee’s diamonds under the most inhuman conditions.  Conor dreams of one thing: escape.  But the only way off Little Saltee is to fly, so Conor must use his admirable intellect and ingenuity to design the world’s first flying machine and make his escape.
 Airman is a gripping tale of loyalty and betrayal, heroism and villainy, dishonor and redemption complete with royalty, villainous criminals, swordplay, poisons and the beginning of manned flight -  a brilliantly told page-turning adventure that charms from beginning to end.

My Pick for Best Picture Book of 2008

It's easy to see why Publisher's Weekly gave Brian Lies's latest book a starred review and Martha Stewart named it one of her "good things". This is the the kind of picture book librarians & children's booksellers wait their whole lives to be able to put into peoples hands.

Steeped in classic children's book references with everything from the Velveteen Rab'bat' to the incredibly cute Hob'bat' hole showing up at the library read aloud, there's so much to see and talk about in this fabulous book that you sort of forget that he not only wrote all the text... he painted all the amazing pictures! I'm also happy to say that he's been to our store twice now and he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met. Every bit as wonderful as anything you'll find by Chris VanAllsburg or David Wiesner, this is my choice for Best Children's Picture Book of the Year.

ADC3d

A perfect little gem of paper engineering, this is an art book as much for adults as kids. The cleverest concept in a pop-up
book I've seen in years.

Jon Scieszka reads Stinky Cheese Man at a recent appearance at Books Etc Falmouth.

Hunger Games

The young adult book I'm recommending more than any other these days is Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Many young readers may be familiar with Suzanne's Gregor the Overlander series, a gentle fantasy more for a middle grade (ages 9-13) audience. Hunger Games is definitely more mature. Unfortunately this is one of those books that doesn't sound all that great when you tell people what it's about. I had the same reaction myself, its a future America that has become a military dictatorship controlled by a capital which seems to be around Denver somewhere. The rest of the country has been reduced to just 12 outlying districts who tried to throw off their yoke and were crashed. Now to keep them well and truly under their thumb's, they demand a tribute each year of 2 teenagers from each district.
These teenagers are summarily paraded out to a tv audience to be "sponsored" by a jaded and bloodthirsty public and dumped into an arena to fight to the death. Yeah I know it sounds awful. It's not. It's fabulous.
Everyone I've given it to loved it. My husband, my neighbor, the guy that cuts my hair, my son's girlfriend and every single staff member here at Books Etc. Heck Stephen King gave it a 2 page write up in Entertainment Weekly. Take my word for it, these are characters you will fall in love with and care deeply about. I can't remember feeling such a strong emotional attachment to characters in an action/sci-fic story since I read Ender's Game years ago.
I had the great pleasure of meeting Suzanne at the New England Booksellers Conference a few weeks ago and hearing her speak. It turns out her dad was a teacher at West Point and she grew up steeped in military history. (the 1st drive-in movie she got taken to was Paton & as a big treat for her 12th birthday he took her to Waterloo) So she's got the chops!
This book is high tension, pulse pounding adventure that keeps you white knuckled right up till the very end, but great action writing a side, it's the feelings you have for these kids that haunts you long after you set the book down.
Suzanne Collins Talks About Her Inspiration