On the Shelf

Header Right Social

FacebookInstagramYoutubeMeetupOn the Shelf Blog

Header Right Search

Sue

Words to Make a Friend

by Leave a Comment

Words to Make a Friend
By Donna Jo Napoli and Illustrated by Naoko Stoop
Format: Picture Book
Who’s it for: Kids

Words to Make a Friend is a story in Japanese and English.

On a snowy day one little girl who just moved in watches another girl playing in the snow. She finds her snow gear and gets dressed up warm to go outside too.

“Hello,” says her new friend. “Konnichiwa,” she says and they both smile. “Lets play!” “Asobou!” From that point on, the girls take turns saying words and practicing each other’s words. They encounter a woodpecker, Peck peck. Kotso kotso. A roly-poly or botteri. Otherwise known as a snowman, and lots more. They spend the afternoon making snow creations and naming them, each in their own language. It’s fun! Soon they go in for some treats and crafting.
These two don’t find the language barrier a problem. They are new friends!

Find Words to Make a Friend in the catalog!

 

 

In Order to Live

by Leave a Comment

In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park with Maryanne Vollers
Format: Book and Audio Book
Who It’s for: Adults, Young Adults

Life in North Korea was brutal.  People in North Korea under the the country’s dictator Kim Jong Il endured a regime that was repressive and subjects its citizens to rigid controls.

Yeonmi Park was born in Hyesan, North Korea in 1993. Her family was a close-knit family where her father took the risk of trading on the black market in order to have enough to provide for them. Eventually he was imprisoned and branded as a criminal and sent to a prison camp. In order to escape her famine struck childhood with fear that her family would most likely die, she and her mother fled and were smuggled across the border into China where they became victims of human trafficker’s and were sold into slavery. She was thirteen years old.

This is her story about her escape from North Korea and the devastating details and horrors she endured both physically and psychologically before finally making it to South Korea and freedom.

Yeonmi Park’s inspiring memoir is a remarkable and horrific personal account of her journey, while fleeing a country whose inhabitants live in starvation, hardships and suffering. Today she is a human rights activist and author who is determined to bring attention to the oppression in her home country.

Find In Order to Live in the catalog!

 

A Spindle Splintered

by Leave a Comment

A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow
Format: Book
Who It’s for:  Adults

“Sleeping Beauty is the worst fairy tale, pretty much any way you slice it.” According to Zinnia Gray. It’s her twenty first birthday and  most likely she will not have any more birthdays. Zinnia has a rare condition that no one, who was ever diagnosed with it, has ever lived past 21. On her twenty first birthday, her best friend Charm surprises her with a party, where she surprisingly, indeed has a spinning wheel. But when Zinnia touches it and pricks her finger…she actually does find herself falling through some sort of time warp of worlds along with other sleeping beauties. When she stops falling past a thousand other girls reaching for the spindles point, she hears one say, “help!” That’s when she stops falling. Zinnia looks up to see her, this ridiculously beautiful princess who says to her “from whence have you come?” At which point she passes out.
Zinnia is definitely  not in the same world where she was.
Fairytales as we know them are challenged through this narrative of a classic story and a multi-universe, time traveling event with a very different ending.

Find A Spindle Splintered in the catalog!

If You Were an Elephant

by Leave a Comment

If You Were an Elephant by Leslie Staub
Format: Picture Book
Who it’s for: Kids

If you were an elephant, you could turn the page with your trunk. You could use your tent size ears to fan yourself. You could eat all day long and munch on whole bushes, branches and leaves. And you could drink gallons of water and spray it all over like a fountain, while taking a swim. Elephants in the savannah are the biggest animals who live on land. With thick as tree trunk legs and feet as flat as pancakes. You could roam wild places in your herd, with your mom, grandma and lots of cousins.

Did you know that adult elephants only need about two hours of sleep a day?  They sleep standing up. But they can only dream if they sleep lying down.

In this picture book about elephants, you will learn tons of facts all about a day in the life a young African bush elephants.

Find If You Were an Elephant in the catalog!

 

In Cold Blood

by Leave a Comment

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Format: Digital Audio and CD
Who’s it for: Adults

In Cold Blood is a non-fiction novel detailing the four 1959 murders of the Clutter family in their home. The tragic event took place in Holcomb, Kansas in the early morning hours of November 15, 1959.

It took authorities six weeks find and arrest the felons.

Capote and his good friend and writer Harper Lee traveled to Holcomb to interview the town, residents and investigators of the case.

It took Capote six years of detailed, extensive research to write the book describing the lives of the murderers and the victim’s.

The murderers were two ex-convicts who had been recently paroled from the Kansas State Penitentiary. Richard Eugene “Dick” Hickock and Perry Edward Smith. They robbed and murdered Herb, his wife Bonnie, his son Keyon and daughter Nancy.

The novel chronicles the lives of the murderers, family and surrounding community members, providing an in depth look at what they were thinking and feeling.

Hickcock and Smith spent five years on death row and were finally executed by hanging on April 14, 1965. The jury only deliberated for 45 minutes before finding them both guilty.

Find In Cold Blood in the catalog.

Something’s Wrong!

by Leave a Comment

Something’s Wrong! by Jory John
Format: Picture Book
Who its’s for: Preschool-2nd grade

Have you ever had an off day? You just feel like something is not quite right? But you can’t put your finger on it. Well Bear feels just that way. He’s done all the normal things a bear does to start his day. But something is different… So Bear sets out to find his friend Anders, a hare, who he knows will be honest with him and help him figure it out. “Oh Anders!” says Bear. “Oh hey Jeff, how’s your….. uh, day….um….how’s your…let’s see…” Anders is a bit stumped. Should Anders tell his friend that he’s wearing underwear? Over his fur??
This story is about a Bear named Jeff, some forest friends, a hare named Anders, good friends and underwear!

Find Something’s Wrong! in the catalog.