As a children’s librarian, it’s uncommon that I recommend a book about a teenage runaway to parents looking for a book about relationship-building. But author Jennifer Mathieu has written an uncommon book. I just can’t recommend it highly enough.
In Laura Lippman's latest mystery, Wilde Lake, Luisa Brant is the newly-elected state's attorney for Howard County, Maryland, and she has some big shoes to fill. Her father held the position and was greatly admired (to the extent that any politician can be) during much of her childhood, and Luisa has just beaten out her mentor for the role in a hotly-contested election.
This isn’t Hogwarts or Narnia, exactly. It’s more like a dark reflection of those popular magical fantasy novels. In the first season of The Magicians, based on
Arlin Buyert is a local poet who was born and raised on an Iowa farm near Sioux Center where he graduated from high school. Arlin was formally educated at Macalester College and The University of Minnesota and worked as an admissions officer at Macalester before entering the Navy in 1966. Arlin was a Naval aviator, corporate executive, cattle rancher and is now retired and lives in Leawood, Kansas with his wife Kristen Kvam. Arlin has facilitated the poetry program at Lansing Prison for the past four years.
Many of you have heard of Marie Kondo and about her KonMari method of organizing your home, so you may already know that you’ve gone about it wrong. It isn’t that you need to improve your systems for storing and arranging stuff. It’s that you need to throw your things away. If they don’t bring you joy, yes, joy, they have no place in your life. Old paperwork – joyless – chuck it. Extra buttons – joyless and useless (according to Kondo!). Toss ’em. Clothes you don’t wear – allow them to illuminate your abhorrence of them. Then say goodbye.
The first time I read this I thought that it was much too wild for my taste. After spending the next year flipping through it every time it came through the library it was obvious that I was in love with this crazy book so I reread it and now we're besties.
This is a very interesting, hard-to-pin-down film. It's a Persian-language, American-produced and filmed, black-and-white vampire flick. The title itself, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, invokes our culturally-ingrained sense of danger at the concept of a woman being alone on the streets after dark. In this instance, since she's a vampire, it's the nameless girl of the title who is the danger lurking in the shadows.
Endgame, with Rico Rodriquez from Modern Family, is a make-you-feel-good movie inspired by true events. This independent film was shot in only nineteen days, and the children could work, at most, six hours per day. Other actors include Efron Ramiez, who played Pedro in
The Choices We Make is a beautifully written, powerful, heart-shattering story about friendship and motherhood. Hannah and Kate have been as close as sisters since they met in fifth grade. Hannah cannot help but feel envious of Kate's family, complete with two little girls. Meanwhile, after six years of trying every method she and her husband can endure, Hannah has just found out that she is unable to get pregnant.
Let me begin this recommendation with a caveat: you probably need to be at least a little bit interested in knitting to enjoy Knitlandia. Or have an interest in traveling . . . to knitting related destinations.
