Espejo, Roman. Policing the Internet.

Espejo, Roman.  Policing the Internet.    Cengage/Greenhaven  2012  122p        $34.45  978-0-7377-5591-6  series: At Issue.      secondary  VG-BNS

Twelve articles and essays by informed writers with varying opinions on the subject of internet censorship and cyber-crime have been assembled to enable a reader to form an educated opinion. The book includes directions to many high-quality resources for further research.  Covering an issue of particular interest and relevance to the youth of today, this volume in the At Issue series takes a close look at the issues raised by proponents of internet regulation, as well as the arguments of those who oppose the imposition of external governance on the internet.  Some of the issues that are dealt with include identity theft, pornography, cyber-terrorism, and especially cyber bullying.  Readers are strongly encouraged to form their own opinions while keeping an open mind to the opinions of others.  They are also encouraged to seek more information on their own.  Each issue is examined with at least one representative article from each side, which has been selected for its accessibility to readers of various levels.  The articles are neither too technical nor too simplistic, holding a reader’s interest without losing them.  At the beginning of each article there is an abstract of sorts, intended to draw readers’ attention to the key points of the article.  The end of the book has a fine list of organizations to contact as well as a full bibliography.  This is a book that will encourage informed debate among readers, and it achieves the difficult feat of presenting truly balanced viewpoints, so that even those who feel very strongly about a particular issue will have no difficulty in grasping the point of view espoused by an opponent.      The At Issue series is intended to provide a diverse sampling of facts and opinions on a wide variety of individual social issues.

Computer crimes-Prevention, Internet-Law and legislation, Internet-Social aspects                                             -- Bethany Geleskie

Watkins, Christine. Is Selling Body Parts Ethical?

Watkins, Christine.  Is Selling Body Parts Ethical?   Cengage/Greenhaven  2013  116p     $34.45  978-0-7377-6190-0  series: At Issue. Secondary  VG-BNS

     

Ten articles and essays by informed writers with varying opinions on the subject of legal and illegal organ donation have been assembled to enable a reader to form an educated opinion.  The book includes directions to many high-quality resources for further research.  Seemingly a straightforward question, Is Selling Body Parts Ethical? actually provides a thorough evaluation of the world of organ donation, both in its idealized form and in the seedy underbelly of black-market organ sales and harvesting.  Many of the articles published in this book discuss the inherent inequalities in the organ-donor-and-recipient system and the exploitation of poverty-stricken donors who rarely receive after-care or any noticeable benefits in the reimbursement they receive for their body parts, if they are reimbursed at all.  It is basically a bleak picture of the industry that the articles paint, but there are also examples of organ sales and donations done ethically and well, as in Iran.  There are also suggestions for revamping the system in the United States and elsewhere, so that recipients will receive organs after a shorter wait, and those who give up their organs will receive better care and treatment, so the book is not entirely depressing.  It is definitely enlightening in a way that will gratify many types of readers, and it will spark lively debate of the sort that the abortion issue dredges up, but on a less over-done topic, which will be a relief to teachers and debate moderators.  The list of organizations to contact for more information is well-selected and balanced, and the abstracts written by editor Watkins are spot on.   

The At Issue series is intended to provide a diverse sampling of facts and opinions on a wide variety of individual social issues.    

Organ donation-Moral and ethical aspects        --Bethany Geleskie

Banks, Kate. The Magician’s Apprentice.

Banks, Kate.        The Magician’s Apprentice.           Macmillan/Farrar Strauss            213p $16.99        978-0-374-34716-1         2012      secondary            VG-BN                      Fantasy                                   

Baz takes on many roles when he is apprenticed, first to a weaver and then to a magician.  He learns both crafts, but truly experiences his best apprenticeship when he learns what is important in life.  “Poetry in prose” is the apt description of this thought-provoking and insightful story.  Kate Banks has taken her own point of view about what is important in life and put it to words through her characters, Baz and a magician and a plethora of lesser characters they meet on their journey together.   They all influence Baz’s journey to self-realization.  Baz first begins his journey by leaving home to become apprenticed to a master rug weaver.  His two brothers have already left home to meet their own destinies, and Baz knows he must go.  Along his journey, he meets cruelty and compassion, confusion and clarity, and finally, peace and harmony.  After he is sold to a magician for the price of a sword, he travels dessert and mountain, meets people who help him learn life’s most important lessons and eventually works his way back home to his family, which he never spiritually left.  The author seems to be saying that all elements of life are interconnected, all chance meetings are deliberate in the whole scheme of things, and peace and knowledge can be attained just by opening our eyes to our life journey, to nature and to trials and tribulations along the way.  Banks has created a masterpiece for readers who can think, readers who are open to change, and readers who seek a certain peace to carry with them upon completing this book.  Her writing style can easily be compared to that of any author who has tried to show humankind the interconnected quality of life.  However, her characters are believable, her plot is creative, and her multiple life lessons are sure to soothe the souls of all who venture inside her pages.  Younger children will not profit as much from their reading as teenagers who have pondered their role in life, but messages abound for both teenagers and adults.  Once immersed in the book, the reader participates with Baz as he makes his journey.

Philosophy–Fiction, Fantasy                                                                                                            --Martha Squaresky

 

Despeyroux, Denise. The Big Book of Vampires.

Despeyroux, Denise.        The Big Book of Vampires.            Tundra Books   112p  $17.95       978-1-77049-371-1  2012             secondary            VG-BN        Story collection                 

                 

This is a collection of vampire lore from around the world.  As indicated by the eye-catching die-cut cover depicting a baleful pair of red eyes staring through the silhouette of a bat, Despeyroux (”Dark Graphic Tales by Edgar Allan Poe,” and “The Big Book of Fairies”) has an affinity for gathering anthologies of arresting short stories with great appeal to secondary readers.  The Big Book of Vampires is no exception.

Gathered here are nine engaging adaptations (six to eight pages each) of outstanding terror/vampire stories representing authors from the 19th century.  In addition to familiar tales, such as Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,”  Despeyroux offers less familiar selections, such as Tolstoy’s “The Family of the Vurdalak,” Hoffmann’s “Vampirism”(thought to be the first tale where the vampire is of the nobility, and female!), as well as “Vampire’s Honor,” from The Thousand and One Nights.  The stories span the globe, and stretch the reader’s perception of the vampire genre and its origins.

Evocative and eerily disturbing illustrations by Fernando Falcone embellish the volume’s lavish layout and atmospheric palette.  Falcone’s thin, misty figures carry the story when the text is too abbreviated (for example, Polidori’s “The Vampire”).

The prose, even though it has been adapted from the original 19th-century manuscripts, is more Anne Rice than Stephenie Meyer in the telling.  Though they may find it a little daunting, teens fascinated by vampires will enjoy this intriguing volume.     

Vampires--Literary collections                                                                                                                                           --Hilary Welliver

 

Stout, Glenn. Able to Play: Overcoming Physical Challenges.

Stout, Glenn.  Able to Play: Overcoming Physical Challenges.  Houghton Mifflin/Sandpiper  88p   $5.99      978-0-547-41733-2   secondary  Series: Good Sports (Sandpiper)  E-BNS      

Never patronizing, Able to Play shares the inspiring stories of four baseball players:  Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown, Ron Santo, Jim Abbott, and Curtis Pride.  Each faces physical challenges that, with determination and guts, they didn't just overcome, they excelled.  This book is a game-changing celebration of overcoming odds that will appeal to sports fans while simultaneously providing material for research. Fans of Matt Christopher, Dan Gutman, and Mike Lupica will be quick to pick up this volume.

Mordecai Brown lost a finger, Ron Santo had debilitating diabetes, Jim Abbott had only one arm, and Curtis Pride had a hearing disability.  Stout offers an unvarnished portrayal of the trials these players faced as the result of their disabilities.  These challenges range from people staring to people assuming that they wouldn't be able to perform as well as able-bodied players. 

Kudos to the parents who raised these men with a "can do" attitude.  Readers will find the focus on successes rather than weakness or failure, and may come to realize that people with disabilities can still become contributing members of society, with compassion, support, and determination.         

n  Hilary Welliver 

Nardo, Don. Medieval Europe.

Nardo, Don. Medieval Europe. Morgan Reynolds  126p  $28.95      978-1-59935-172-8       secondary   Series: World History      Good       

This is an accessible history of the unique time in Europe between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance.  With liberal use of primary-source documents, the author has written a very usable, appropriately illustrated book for research.  Side bars can be found throughout the book, highlighting information relevant to the adjacent text, such as "Spain’s visionary monarchs" (page 48) and "Attempts to regulate sanitation" (page 82).  Primary-source illustrations include a 15th-century miniature (page 25) and a hand-colored woodcut of the seal of the Merchant Guild of Gloucester, England, circa 1200 (page 55).  The book concludes with a timeline, list of resources, bibliography (print and web), glossary, and index.  

This series, which consists of eight titles, is very informative and will find use in secondary libraries where students conduct research about the periods covered by these books.                          --Lynn Fisher

Schrieber, Joe. Au Revoir Crazy European Chick.

Schrieber, Joe.  Au Revoir Crazy European Chick.  HoughtonMifflin/Clarion/Graphia/Kingfisher,

2011.   190p.   $16.99.  ISBN 978-0-547-57738-8     hs (Grades 9-12)  Mystery/Detective            VG-BN

Perry is interning at a law firm at his father’s insistence in order to nab a college recommendation.  But Perry prefers to jam with his band and is bummed when his parents insist he take a quiet, unattractive foreign exchange student, Gobi, to the prom instead of performing with his band.  When students at the prom insult Gobi, Perry punches the worst offender.  As Gobi emerges from the free-for-all, she suddenly turns into a sleek beauty pulling Perry toward his father’s Jaguar and insisting he drive to NYC.  Along the way, Perry realizes Gobi has targeted five individuals believed to be responsible for her sister’s death.  Even Perry’s family is not safe from Gobi.  Armed with many weapons, Gobi has an ability to deftly deflect attention when guns blaze and bombs go off, while holding Perry hostage and insisting he be her “get away” man.  Perry becomes less naive as the killings continue, and he learns to stand up for his interests.  

Suspend your disbelief and rocket along on prom night in a five-stop tour of death.   This story has nonstop action with a hint of humor.  A creative ending signals continued adventures for Perry and Gobi in the future.  Quirky chapter titles that are based on typical college essay questions foretell the upcoming action and provoke laughter.  The book cover is a map of NYC that spotlights the target sites so readers can keep up with the mayhem in the story.  It's too bad that the book jacket may turn off male readers, as this is really a great guy read.  Schrieber’s first YA novel is a tour de force that will appeal to all YA readers.            Subject: Assassins -- Fiction                          Lois McNicol

Mills, Rob. Charlie’s Key.

Mills, Rob.     Charlie’s Key.  Orca, 2011.  254p.   $9.95.  ISBN 978-1-55469-872-1       secondary

Realistic Fiction                      E-BN  

Charlie’s father dies and Charlie is left with a legacy of secrets, a dysfunctional family and a key to a safety deposit box that his recently paroled, very dangerous uncle wants.  In Charlie, Rob Mills has created a nearly perfect, enigmatic character.  Charlie is naïve yet worldly.  He is compassionate and vulnerable, yet resilient and resourceful.  At first, Charlie is completely unaware of his family history -- specifically, that his uncle and father, the Sykes brothers, are orphans who turned bad, so bad that Uncle Nick was imprisoned for murder, a fact that Charlie’s dad has kept from him.  When Charlie’s dad dies in a moose accident, (the moose hits their car), he hands Charlie a key, and where does Charlie hide it during his recuperation?  In a Bible! 

The irony is that where Charlie is going, there is nothing but self-reliance and luck.  During his stay at the Hollow, an institution for dysfunctional children who have been sentenced for a crime, he must survive, which he does with the help of Frankie, a fellow “inmate” who looks out for him.  While at the Hollow, Charlie meets Clare, a drug addict who is in a neighboring facility for girls who need rehabilitation.  Clare is the friend who shares newspaper clippings about the Sykes brothers with Charlie.  Conflicts abound, and the emotions are powerful.  We can feel Charlie’s powerful despair because it is so profound.  Just when we think Charlie might have a chance to escape his past, Uncle Nick shows up, and whenever Charlie manages to elude him, Uncle Nick reappears.  He is streetwise, crafty, devious and just plain mean.  It’s uncanny. 

The best chase scene occurs when Charlie attends his father’s memorial service and manages to escape Nick.  Nick follows him, uses Clare’s addiction to gain information, and finds Charlie over and over again.  The most harrowing experience is when Charlie eludes Uncle Nick by escaping into the foggy night, fleeing through bogs and mist only to fall off a cliff and dropping painfully to a landing that saves him from the rocks and ocean waves below.  In exchange for help, he promises to give the key to Nick.  The falling action is equally intriguing, and when the reader reaches the end, he or she will find it to be shocking and emotional.  Readers will want a sequel, needless to say, in order to discover the next chapter in Charlie’s life.  Mills combines contemporary topics like child abuse with a writing style that is full of local color and dialect to give us an excellent book that is well worth the journey.

Martha Squaresky

Landalf, Helen. Flyaway.

Landalf, Helen.         Flyaway.         Harcourt Brace/Houghton Mifflin(Macmillan),  2011.  167p

$16.99.            ISBN 978-0-547-51973-9       secondary        Realistic Fiction          VG     

Stevie learns about relationships and self-worth in this novel about a mother-daughter relationship that is threatened by Mom’s drug abuse.  With collection agencies calling daily and a frequently absent mother (June) who goes out dancing and does crystal meth nightly, fifteen-year-old Stevie is forced to make choices that children should not have to make.  The biggest burden on Stevie?  It is up to her to decide whether to insist that June stay in rehab or encourage her to return home.  Since Stevie craves a “normal” relationship with her mother, she accepts June's return from rehab, despite the many challenges she knows they will face.  Mother and daughter share a strong bond that is fueled by their need for each other, and that bond is shaken when June begins to use again.  This book is all about relationships.  The other important one is between Stevie and Aunt Mindy, which is contentious, especially when Mindy continues to share her negative views about June on a daily basis.  Loyal to her mother, Stevie is torn between her growing appreciation of the stability and encouragement that Mindy offers and the love that she has for her mother.  Another relationship is the one between Stevie and Alan, a dropout who now works rehabilitating wild birds.  It is with Alan that Stevie learns how to care for wild birds, and she learns to care for Alan as well.  Although she learns about love from both Mindy and Alan, she learns self-esteem from her tutor, a man who finds common ground with Stevie in her drawings and builds a relationship with her based on mutual respect.  The strengths of the novel are a believable story and a wonderful writing style.  The use of the present tense brings the action alive, and the character development is authentic.  One suggestion to this beginning author might be to make the connection between the birds and June a bit less obvious.  Whenever Stevie finds a damaged bird, the bird seems to symbolize Stevie’s mother.  Most readers can make the connection themselves without this much prompting.   Otherwise, this first novel by Helen Landalf is strong in its enduring theme about who is the real mother to a child, and young readers are going to enjoy Stevie’s journey. 

Martha Squaresky

Van Allsberg, Chris. The Chronicles of Harris Burdick.

Van Allsberg, Chris.            The Chronicles of Harris Burdick.            HoughtonMifflin/Clarion/Graphia/

Kingfisher, 2011.  221p.  $24.99.  ISBN 978-0-547-54810-4            secondary        Fantasy           E-BN  

Twenty-five years ago, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, a collection of fourteen intriguing illustrations, each accompanied by a title and a caption, was published.  The premise of that volume was that fictional author/illustrator Harris Burdick had wandered into a publisher’s office and showed an editor the contents of his portfolio. Burdick told a wondrous tale for each picture and left the portfolio with the publisher, promising to return with the manuscripts.  But Burdick was never seen again, supposedly the publisher decided to publish the drawings without stories, and the result was the slender volume that has inspired countless creative writing assignments for generations of students across the globe.
Defining the audience for Mysteries of Harris Burdick was challenging, despite the picture-book format. Chronicles faces a similar challenge.  It will appeal to Mysteries fans of all ages, but it is clearly not intended for the usual picture-book crowd.  Fourteen top-notch YA writers have penned fresh stories inspired by the Mysteries illustrations and the clues provided by the titles and captions.  Like most short-story anthologies, the collection is uneven, but fans of these A-list authors will select this volume in order to read new material by their favorite(s) and may linger to read the rest as well.  The speculative fiction provides a springboard for spirited discussion.  The all-star author line-up guarantees that nearly every reader will find a story that appeals to him or her.
The writers contributing to Chronicles include Stephen King, Lois Lowry, Sherman Alexie, Jules Feiffer, Louis Sachar, Linda Sue Park, Walter Dean Myers, Cory Doctorow, M. T. Anderson, Tabitha King, Gregory MacGuire, Jon Sciezka, Kate DiCamillo, and Chris Van Allsburg.  Those who skip introductions will miss a humorously paranoid tale by Lemony Snicket, which provides newcomers (those unfamiliar with Harris Burdick) with the back-story.  Each short story will find a devoted readership, even though not every story will appeal to each reader.  Of note are “Under the Rug,” by Jon Sciezka, “Missing in Venice,” by Gregory Macguire, “Another Place, Another Time,” by Cory Doctorow, and “Mr. Linden’s Library” by Walter Dean Myers.  The short stories are memorable and appealing.  Many of them resonate long after the reader has turned the last page.  And of course, the illustrations continue to be curiously strange and intriguing.      Subjects: 1. Children's stories, American.  2.  Short stories.       Hilary Welliver

Smilow, Rick. Culinary Careers

Smilow, Rick Culinary Careers
Potter Craft see Random 2010 360p 16.99
978-0-307-45320-4 ms/hs E-BN
A wealth of career information related to careers in the culinary arts. Find the skills and traits needed, the schooling required, the opportunities available in this expanding career field that needs writers, photographers, chefs, business managers. Grades 7+.
Smilow’s credentials as President and CEO of the Culinary Institute of America, one of the premier schools in the field of culinary education, give weight to the vast amount of information found inside this book. Interviews with people working in the diverse careers related to food as well as summaries of the top culinary schools make this resource a first choice for students who are interested in pursuing a career in the food industry or a person who is seeking a career change. The book stresses the need to have a passion for food as well as a strong desire for continued education whether of an academic nature or just experimentation with new ideas and recipes. Students are exposed to the traditional careers of cooks and chefs as well as the related careers of restaurant management, nutritionist, developer of a unique line of food products, food photography, catering, editing a food magazine, or owning a winery. Charts throughout the book pull together information presented in text form. An index provides easy access to various career choices. Questions in interviews reveal the insights into the business of providing customers with an outstanding experience as well as the personality traits needed to become successful. This book is a must have for career collections in all types of libraries. Strongly recommended for the career collections of any type of library. The interviews offer first hand information on the personality traits needed to be successful, the salary, and typical day in the life of many different jobs in the food industry. Grades 7+. McNicol,Lois
Careers in Culinary Arts