On the Grid (nonfiction)

Look around your house, apartment, or dorm on this Fun Friday.
Do you know the exact route that water takes to get to your faucet?
Where does it all go when you flush?
How do phone signals follow your cellphone as you travel?
What are all those lines up on your utility poles?

Scott Huler, the 2011 Piedmont Laureate for Creative Non-Fiction, wondered about all that, too. His curiosity about the many infrastructure systems that keep our towns and cities running became this interesting and easy-reading book.

Travel around Huler's hometown as you educate yourself about the grids and services that keep our level of civilization...civilized. (and watch what you flush!)
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Book info: On the Grid: A Plot of Land, An Average Neighborhood, and the Systems that Make Our World Work / Scott Huler. Rodale Books, 2010 (paperback 2011). [author's website] [publisher site] [author interview]

Recommendation: What's under those manhole covers? Why are there so many different wires on the utility poles? How do cities get drinking water to every faucet?

Looking around his home in Raleigh, North Carolina, Scott Huler decided to trace all the service grids that bring safe drinking water and reliable electricity, take away unwanted stormwater and wastes, provide communication and entertainment and transportation.

Investigating one system at a time, Huler discusses land surveying, the water cycle (raincloud to river to raincloud), drinking water delivery and wastewater treatment, roads for vehicles and pedestrians, electricity generation and transmission, landline and cellular telephone services, cable and internet, garbage and recycling, and mass transit.

It takes lots of engineers, planning, technicians, and maintenance to keep these essential infrastructure services going. This raises questions about supply and demand, capacity and upgrades, and how everything gets paid for.

An interesting book that will have readers looking appreciatively at the services and utilities they use every day - and being more careful about what goes into their wastewater and stormwater systems!
(Looked intriguing, so I bought it - I was right!)

Wonderland (fiction)

How much of the past stains our future forever?
Can having one friend make up for the scorn of everyone else?
Why does Stella leave Jude alone so often?

Jude feels like a nothing, an outcast, a scholarship kid at the snooty private high school in her teeny British town. No one would believe that she has an audition at a London drama academy...

When her best friend Stella returns, then Jude can escape this fishbowl where everyone knows your past. Stella's got to come back, doesn't she?

A gripping World Wednesday story for readers who won't shy away from Stella's reckless behavior or Jude's struggle to escape her depression.
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Book info: Wonderland / Joanna Nadin. Candlewick, 2011. [author's website] [publisher site] [fan-created book trailer]

Recommendation: Stella is so much cooler than Jude, always showing up in her life just when Jude despairs of escaping her small British coastal town, the cliques at her high school, the woeful expression on her widowed dad’s face.

Jude just couldn’t get through this summer - tourists asking directions at their shop, the popular kids ignoring her at the beach, little brother Alfie’s incessant questions - without Stella’s flippant remarks, crazy fashion sense, and disdain for what people think about her. Stella had better not do one of her disappearing acts this time, though.

And the secret, in Jude’s pocket, the audition invitation from a London theater school… acting is all that she wants to do, just like her Mum, her beautiful, talented, dead mother.

As Stella’s choices get more reckless, Jude is pulled along on crazy adventures all summer. The audition goes by in a blur, the popular crowd is out to get them both, and Jude’s dad can’t quite let her go. If she had to, could Jude leave town alone? Would Stella stay with her always?

Deep secrets and worries with long memories fill this story for very mature readers, which begins with a car going off a cliff toward the sea…
(One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

You Just Can't Help It! (nonfiction)

From the "oohh!" to the "ewww!!!" on Fun Friday, we're taking an off-beat (but very well-researched) look at curious and confusing aspects of human behavior.

If you've ever wondered whether birth order really makes a difference in how people behave as adults or how colors affect our moods, you'll love perusing this lively book from Canadian author Szpirglas, whose previous titles include Gross Universe (more ewww) and They Did What?! (more oohh).

You'll understand yourself, your friends, and your family better after learning that You Just Can't Help It, plus some fun animal behavior facts and unusual scientific research studies, too.

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Book info: You Just Can't Help It! Your Guide to the Wild and Wacky World of Human Behavior / Jeff Szpirglas; illustrated by Josh Holinaty. Maple Tree Press, 2011. [author's info] [publisher's site]

Recommendation: Ingredients of human tears? Ten million shades of color? Birth order and cattle egrets? Dive into the world of senses, emotions, communication, and human interaction.

Human behavior can be accurately predicted in some areas – body language of liars, organization of army ants, gesturing while talking – while it’s variable in others – most annoying sound or what makes someone laugh.

Find answers to puzzlers like “why can’t you tickle yourself?” and “why do stores play music?” while you learn about your senses. Learn how to detect fake happiness and true fear, as well as the one hand gesture that means the same thing in almost every culture (and it’s not the one you’d expect).

What facial muscle helps your nose avoid stinky stuff? Why do we use “um” and “uh” and “like” when we speak? Why do crowded elevators make us nervous? And what about that whole birth order thing, anyway?

Canadian author Szpirglas helps you understand more about why you, your friends, your pets, and other creatures act the way that they do with this funny and factual book of wacky information and cool experiments. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Belladonna (fiction)

World Wednesday takes us to Cornwall in the 18th century, where the war between Britain and France is a backdrop to the drama of a young woman separated from her last friend.

Ling must find her white circus horse before it's too late.
Thomas must find a profession after eye problems shut him out of school.
Both must stay clear of the "crimpermen" who would send Thomas off to war and the constables who would send Ling to the hangman.

Noted artist George Stubbs' lifelike paintings of horses inspired the setting for this captivating novel in which Stubbs himself plays a major role.

Author Mary Finn says that this young groom with noble horse reminds her of Thomas, while Ling's jockey disguise looked like the outfit worn by Gimcrack's rider in another famous Stubbs painting which recently sold for a record price.

Enjoy this priceless story of friendship at your local library or independent bookstore.
**kmm

Book info: Belladonna / Mary Finn. Candlewick Press, 2011. [author interview] [publisher site]

Recommendation: Beautiful circus horse Belladonna has been sold away, and her acrobat-rider is desperate to find her. Thomas has abandoned school after months of trying to make sense of letters and words, returning to work in his father’s wheelmaking shop, sketching maps and animals in his spare moments.

Rambling the paths near his village, he discovers the young French rider seeking the horse butcher rumored to have bought Belladonna. Even though England and France are at war in 1757, Thomas decides to help Ling search for her beloved mare, entranced by her stories of their circus performances, leaping and dancing through the air.

It turns out that Stubbs the horse butcher is really an artist studying horses’ bodies and beauty for his paintings. Belladonna did not stay with Stubbs, but has been passed on to a nobleman’s stables. The artist offers Thomas work as his assistant, detailing horse anatomy and improving his drawing skills. Ling’s impatience to find Belladonna grows as winter sets in and Stubbs cannot remove the mare from her new home.

Will Ling try to rescue Belladonna by herself? Will English soldiers find the young French girl, even if she stays hidden in the countryside? Can Thomas settle down to a village wheelmaker’s life after learning about art and beauty and dreams from Stubbs and Ling?

Charming Ling and tall Thomas are clever young people, trying to get past war-fueled suspicions and struggles in this lyrical novel that takes us to the time and place where the real artist George Stubbs drew and painted horses with precision and affection. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Time to wander (reflective)

Technology seems mighty essential to us these days, but sometimes unplugging is the right thing to do.

The internet access that I hoped to have during our travels through the American West began to vanish as the mountains grew higher and the distances between towns grew longer.

Yellowstone National Park was wonderful, as we watched Old Faithful and other geysers erupt, hiked to waterfalls, and celebrated the forest's recovery from the huge wildfires of 1988. Elk? yep. Bison? in abundance! but no online access as we camped above quiet Lewis Lake.

Relaxing and enjoying the scenery will be the norm for a while as we travel places that Kelsa went (will go?) in Trickster's Girl, through the lava-strewn wild country of Craters of the Moon National Monument, just down the road from the 50 (yes, fifty) nuclear reactors of the Idaho National Laboratories...

So it's on to Seattle for the Kidlitcon bloggers' convention this weekend, with Scott Westerfeld as keynoter (yay!), then time to tour the Oregon coast (hmm... where Maddie will chafe under the restrictions of DigitalSchool in the future of Awaken) and amazing national parks in several states (hello, Redwoods! hi, Crater Lake! nice to see you, Bryce Canyon!).

It might be a while before I can get new books posted here, but never fear! BooksYALove has lots of outstanding books beyond the bestsellers coming your way!
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Hereafter (fiction)

Mysterious Monday lingers on, bringing you an unusual story of ghostly Amelia, seemingly anchored to the river after her death.

So many ghost stories and legends are told in the Ouachita Mountains of southeast Oklahoma, from Jesse James' missing million dollars hidden near possibly haunted Robbers Cave to the notorious Belle Starr.

Are there truly ghost seekers like Joshua's grandmother? We've heard of love that lasts even beyond death, but can a dead spirit and a living person fall in love?

Enjoy this eerie debut novel and cheer for Joshua and Amelia as she tries to recapture memories of her life and her death while being pulled by evil forces beyond the river.
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Book info: Hereafter / Tara Hudson. Harper Teen, 2011. [author's website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

Recommendation: Amelia races through the dark river waters to save a young man from drowning…even though she’s already dead. She doesn’t know how she died or where or even when, but she does know that she must save him from dying into her dreary hazy world.

No one on High Bridge Road saw her rescue Joshua, not his high school buddies, not the rescue squad from their small Oklahoma town – no one ever sees her wandering near the “haunted bridge.” Amelia wonders why she could lift his head above the water when she can’t carry other real things.

When Joshua returns to the scene of his accident and recognizes her as his rescuer, Amelia is startled into speaking – and he hears her, too! As they spend more time together, Amelia begins to remember tiny fragments of her life, always returning to the river. Joshua is charmed by her, and she revels in his company.

But a malignant force in the river is pulling at her – dead Eli claims that she must always stay at the river, that she must lure others to their death at the High Bridge, that she must become his and his alone.

Did Amelia really cause Joshua’s car to go into the river? Can she find out enough about her life to discover the truth about her own death? Is Eli right about her destiny as part of the haunted High Bridge’s future?

This mysterious love story from first-time author Tara Hudson brings a new twist to the ghost stories of Oklahoma’s wilderness forests.

Torrent (fiction)

Welcome to World Wednesday as we return to 14th century Tuscany with the third volume of The River of Time series, being released tomorrow.

Battles a-horseback and on foot.
Treachery and loyalty.
Faith and hope, gained and lost.
And, oh, you will so want to be with Gabi and Lia again as they time-travel to be with those they love!

Please be sure to read Waterfall (#1) and Cascade (#2) first so that you get the full backstory of how two bored American teen sisters become the She-Wolves of Siena and inextricably entwined with the people and destiny of Castello Forelli. Swashbuckling gal heroes - my favorite kind!
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Book info: Torrent / Lisa T. Bergren. David C. Cook, 2011. [author's website] [publisher site]

Recommendation: Traveling back in time, the Betarrini family hopes that they're not too late to save their friends in 14th century Tuscany. Bringing Dad with them is an unexpected blessing, but being separated from Marcello is causing Gabi such anguish and pain!

Once again, Gabi and Lia exit the ancient Etruscan tomb into a battle zone - this time they may have the upper hand as the Forellis have left weapons hidden for them. Ah, Castello Forelli has been rebuilt, but over it fly the flags of the treacherous Lord Paratore who started the border wars! Traveling the backways by night, the Betarrinis hope to find safety and information in the city.

How happy the people of Siena are to see that the battling Ladies Betarrini have returned to them from their mysterious travels! How delighted handsome young knight Marcello is to have Gabi back in his arms! How wonderful to see that his election to The Nine is benefiting the people of the region through Marcello's able decisionmaking.

But how sad the sisters are to discover that Fortino Forelli is a captive of Lord Paratore, being tortured despite all offers of ransom from his brother.

Can the She-Wolves of Siena help rescue the lord of Castello Forelli while keeping Gabi safe from Paratore's bitter desire for revenge? Is Lord Greco still a double-agent for Siena, or has he decided that Florence will win the war? Will the Betarrini family stay in the 1300s, knowing that the Black Plague is coming - or will Gabi be taken away from Marcello forever?

Swordplay, expert archery, the rough road to Rome, narrow escapes, and the power of true love - you won't want to miss this thrilling sequel to Waterfall and Cascade!
Review copy courtesy of the publisher.