New Book Madness

Our school has received a grant for new books this year and I feel as though I have been ordering books in my sleep. Some of the books I'm sharing this week are new and ordered with grant money.

Fiction

This book is not new and it was not bought with grant money, but I just finished reading it for the second time and I like it so much I had to share :)

Slam by Nick Hornby

Sam is a startlingly ordinary 15-year-old boy who loves to skate (that's skateboarding, no ice involved). He never considered doing anything else with his free time except skating and worshiping Tony Hawk (he speaks to Sam through a poster in his bedroom). But then he is blindsided: his girlfriend gets pregnant! He thinks about running away, he turns off his mobile phone and tries to have one last normal birthday. Tony Hawk is not pleased. Is it really Tony who is "whizzing" Sam into the future for glimpses of what is to come? With or without Tony's help, Sam shares with his audience the facts about his very eventful couple of years. We know exactly how Sam feels—even when he feels differently from the beginning of a sentence to the end—and it feels just right: a vertiginous mix of anger, confusion, insight, humor, and love.

Nonfiction

This book is a grant book as well as being fabulous.

China: Land of Dragons and Emperors by Adeline Yen Mah

This novel-sized work of nonfiction tricks the reading into thinking they are reading a novel. Crammed full of action, romance, betrayal, and irony, this entertaining account of the entirety of Chinese history is sure to captivate readers of all ages. They layout of the book, with chapters broken into small sections, sidebars, and other distractions help to keep interest and make the book flow. Clearly, Mah is telling stories that she knows well, and she doesn't skimp on the vivid details, which can be gory, tragic, romantic, and yes even amusing. A must read for students studying China or anyone who wants a good nonfiction read with loads of information as well as incredible readability.

Adult Pick

We have this book for our library, but I am recommending it as my adult pick because it is a memoir of a very troubled time.

First they killed my father: A daughter of Cambodia remembers by Loung Ung

I am quoting from Publisher's Weekly (I have not finished this book): "In 1975, Ung, now the national spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World, was the five-year-old child of a large, affluent family living in Phnom Penh, the cosmopolitan Cambodian capital. As extraordinarily well-educated Chinese-Cambodians, with the father a government agent, her family was in great danger when the Khmer Rouge took over the country and throughout Pol Pot's barbaric regime. Her parents' strength and her father's knowledge of Khmer Rouge ideology enabled the family to survive together for a while, posing as illiterate peasants, moving first between villages, and then from one work camp to another. The father was honest with the children, explaining dangers and how to avoid them, and this, along with clear sight, intelligence and the pragmatism of a young child, helped Ung to survive the war. Her restrained, unsentimental account of the four years she spent surviving the regime before escaping with a brother to Thailand and eventually the United States is astonishing--not just because of the tragedies, but also because of the immense love for her family that Ung holds onto, no matter how she is brutalized. She describes the physical devastation she is surrounded by but always returns to her memories and hopes for those she loves. Her joyful memories of life in Phnom Penh are close even as she is being trained as a child soldier, and as, one after another, both parents and two of her six siblings are murdered in the camps. Skillfully constructed, this account also stands as an eyewitness history of the period, because as a child Ung was so aware of her surroundings, and because as an adult writer she adds details to clarify the family's moves and separations."